It was on the 29th of April, 1898, that the call for troops came to Springfield. On the 23d President McKinley had issued the first call for troops and six days later Gov. Wolcott designated Col. E. P. Clark of the Second as one of the six commanding officers to raise a regiment of volunteers for the United States service. It was provided that members of the militia were to be given the preference in enlistments to the volunteer regiments, the residue being made up by enlistment of other citizens. The Second was ordered to report at the state camp ground at South Framingham on May 3 for muster into the United States service. April 29th fell on Friday and May 3 on Tuesday of the following week so that there was not any too much time in which to enlist men for the companies and get everything in readiness for service. But what time there was on hand was so well utilized that promptly at the hour ordered on the morning of May 3d the three Springfield companies were at the armory with full ranks and fully equipped, all the state property and equipage not needed packed up and ready for shipment to the state arsenal.
Every officer of the three companies and fully 70 per cent. of the men who had been in their ranks in the militia service was on hand. Capt. John J. Leonard of G, a veteran in the militia, was at the head of his company and with him his two lieutenants, T. A. Sweeney and E. J. Leyden. Capt. Henry McDonald of B company, a veteran both of the regular army and the militia, and his lieutenants, William L. Young and Harry J. Vesper were on hand promptly and so was Capt. W. S. Warriner and Lieutenants P. C. Powers and Harry H. Parkhurst of K company. All three companies were proud of their officers and they had every reason to be.
And here a little digression. No effort of any kind was made to transfer as absolute unities the companies of militia into companies of United States Volunteers. It can truthfully be said that no man was asked to go to South Framingham by the officers. On the contrary Col. Clark and the company officers were all careful to impress upon the men of the militia that their volunteering into the service of the United States was purely a voluntary and personal matter with them. There were dozens of instances in which the officers realized that the sacrifice was such as some of their men should not make. There were men with families dependent upon them or so otherwise circumstanced that it was best for them not to go and these men were talked to candidly and kindly and dissuaded from putting their names on the enlistment rolls. It was a volunteer movement purely and simply and the Second was in the highest sense of the word a volunteer regiment.
Long before the orders for mobilization at South Framingham were issued preparations had been made to the end that Massachusetts might be ready to respond to the first call for troops from the national government. Early in April Gov. Wolcott had constituted some of the officers of the state militia as his advisory board in matters relating to the part Massachusetts would take in the war. On April 20, Col. Clark of the Second and some of his field and staff officers were called to Boston in consultation with the governor and on the 24th Gov. Wolcott in his capacity of commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces of the state issued an order calling upon the militia to hold themselves in readiness for duty within 24 hours.
[CHAPTER II.]
WHICH TELLS ABOUT THE CALLING OUT OF H COMPANY, NAVAL BRIGADE.
MEANWHILE, and while the infantry were getting in readiness, Springfield had already sent some of her sons on duty. The naval arm of the service was in a far more advanced state of preparation than was the army and it was the general opinion that of necessity the war would be one in which the navy would take the most prominent part, leaving but little for the land forces to do except garrison duty. Springfield had taken great pride in her company of the Massachusetts naval brigade since its organization and expected great things of it in the event of its being called upon for duty.