United States or Central African Republic ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
After roll call and checking up of the list of names, the boys were all marched over to the quartermaster's depot to be fitted for uniforms. Probably the most impressive moment of the morning to the boys was the ceremony of swearing them into service -when they took the oath of allegiance to their country.
Something of the unreadiness of the army, every reflecting soldier in the ranks comprehended, when he saw within the precincts of his own brigades the hap hazard conduct of the quartermaster's and staff departments. Some regiments had raw flour dealt them for rations and no bake-ovens to turn it into bread; some regiments had abundance of bread, but no coffee or meat rations.
It shrieked and howled, and the quarters rattled and quivered. Bill remembered the Swallow and his dad's car, both standing at the back door. He rose and went to his mother's room. He found her curled up in a little ball on her quartermaster's cot, looking out of the window. "Come in, Billy," she said as she saw him at the door. "You are missing a great sight."
Immediately after Captain Ten Eyck moved out, and by orders of Colonel Carrington issued at the same time as the orders detailing that officer to join Colonel Fetterman, the quartermaster's employees, convalescents, and all others in the garrison, were armed and provided with ammunition, and held in readiness to re-enforce the troops fighting, or defend the garrison.
I decided that my uniform and saddle would be furnished me from the quartermaster's department of Garcia's army, for in my ignorance I supposed I was entering on a campaign conducted after the methods of European armies. We left the levees of New Orleans early in the morning, and for the remainder of the day steamed slowly down the Mississippi River.
The whole regular army, consisting of seven regiments of cavalry, twenty-two regiments of infantry, and fourteen batteries of artillery, had been mobilized and transported to the Gulf coast; the quartermaster's department had, under charter, twenty-seven steamers, with a carrying capacity of about twenty thousand men; immense quantities of food and munitions of war had been bought and sent to Tampa, and there seemed to be no good reason why General Shafter's command should not embark for Cuba, if necessary, at twenty-four hours' notice.
The steward shouted from the hospital porch that Eagle Wing, the prisoner patient, had escaped through the rear window, despite its height above the sloping ground. A little ladder, borrowed from the quartermaster's corral, was found a moment later.
"Other men might ask that question, but not the backwoods boy who had learned navigation on the waters of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal. He pushed to the mouth of the river, and there took possession of the Sandy Valley, a small steamer in the quartermaster's service. Loading her with supplies, he set about starting up the river, but the captain of the boat declared the thing was impossible.
Terence wrote an acknowledgment of the receipt of the general's order, and handed it to the orderly who had brought it. A bugler at once sounded the field-officers' call. "We are to march at once," he said, when Herrara, Bull, and Macwitty arrived. "Let the tents be struck, and handed over to the quartermaster's department. See that the men have four days' biscuit in their haversacks.
At all events he danced with her again and again and watched her jealously when she danced with others. At last towards eleven o'clock Leonard suddenly appeared at the door of the dancing-room, holding an open letter in his hand, and beckoned to his comrade. "I'll have to trouble you to come with me to the quartermaster's storehouse," said he. "There is a chest there that must be opened to-night."
Word Of The Day