The news of the victory of Santiago was
celebrated by the troops in gorgeous style. Regiment followed regiment in wild acclaim, cheers after cheers resounded from the throats of the thirty thousand soldiers who were anxiously awaiting their call to the front. Bonfires of tar barrels were kept burning all night, and the excitement of the camp was intense.
The cavalry was ordered to Newport News to await the arrival of the transports; but, unlike the Sixth Massachusetts, that was stoned in Baltimore at the outbreak of the rebellion, our greetings in the South were exceptionally friendly. At Richmond bouquets of flowers were scattered in profusion among the soldiers, and many a fair maiden left the station with a pair of cross sabers pinned to her shirtwaist.
Our camp at Newport News was on sandy soil on the banks of the James River, which afforded excellent bathing and fishing. Here the cavalry received their khaki uniforms, which were the first issued to United States troops and had the appearance of an officer’s regimentals. As a consequence it was a common sight to see a “doughboy” saluting a trooper as he
strolled through the city. A member of a Kentucky regiment was heard to remark: “That Pennsylvania cavalry is hot stuff; they are all officers.”
A few days after pitching camp, something happened; it is an occasion when a soldier possesses that air of complacency which invariably pervades the atmosphere. It is when the “ghost walks” (pay day) that the soldier is not only happy, but has a keen desire for making every one with whom he comes in contact happy. As a dispenser of pleasure, when he has “the necessary,” his speed brooks no competition, and all others look like “pikers” compared with “the man behind the gun.”
In 1898 Barton’s Theatre and Concert Hall was a nightly scene of revelry, by cavalry, artillery, and infantry, and from a spectator’s point of view it was hard to decide which was of more interest, the scenes in front or in rear of the footlights. Songs that reached a soldier’s heart were sung by dashing “prima donnas from the cottonfields of Dixie,” the soldiers joining in the chorus. After the “ghost had walked” this particular concert hall fell into the hands of
the boys, among whom was found talent far surpassing anything behind the footlights. The soubrettes of the ballet dance mingled with the boys, and these scenes were equivalent to the “Can Can” of the famous “Red Mill” of Paris, or a Creole “Bal Masque” during a New Orleans “Mardi Gras.”
As the orchestra struck up the music to “For he is only a Soldier Boy,” a dashing southern beauty, in military costume, would saunter to the footlights, accompanied by a chorus of lesser lights, whose evolutions, combined with their singing, were extremely pretty and inspiring to the soldiers. This sketch brought forth deafening applause, dying out only as a trooper announced that he would endeavor to recite “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” or perhaps “Tam O’Shanter,” while another would volunteer to inflict us with “Casey at the Bat” or “The Face upon the Bar-room Floor,” to the mournful strains from the dirge of Imogen, a sure harbinger for the dispensers of “sangaree” to get busy and take orders. Another song, and the dance was on once more and continued until the “dog watch”
of the night, when the soldiers realized that at reveille every man must be in ranks to answer to the call of his name or suffer the alternative, a berth in the “brig.”