COURSE SEVENTHE PANTHER
In some respects the yearly cruise which started several weeks later was among the most memorable adventures of the division; and when some of the old hands are spinning yarns about what they did when they were young, they like to hark back to the “sham war” and a certain hike across Montauk Point. The most extensive land and sea maneuvers in many years were arranged in Washington for a force of several thousand of the army and for practically all of the fine North Atlantic squadron of that year, of which Admiral Higginson, the captain of the Massachusetts in the Spanish war, was in command.
It was on the auxiliary cruiser Panther that the battalion served. The division boarded the ship in New London harbor. In the course of the service the Panther steamed as far east as Menemsha Bight and as far west as New London, the object of the maneuvers being to test in a practical way the defenses of the eastern entrance of Long Island Sound. At sundown of a Saturday the most powerful fleet to that time assembled in those waters was riding to anchor in the bight, awaiting the passage of the hours before midnight ’ere beginning maneuvers against the string of forts and signal stations scattered all the way from Woods Hole around to Montauk. As night shut down, the signal lamps began their Ardois work. At midnight hoarse orders came from the Panther’s bridge and the rattle of the steam winch and the heavy clank of the cable in the hawse pipe announced that the ship was getting under way.
Sunday found the ship off Block Island and Monday evening found her heading north. Just as the watch off duty was beginning to snore peacefully, the bugle sounded the call for general quarters. In a moment the gun deck lights were switched on and ladders and hatches were choked with men piling to their stations. Masters-at-arms were unceremoniously rousting out rookies from their hammocks. In barely more time that it has taken to write this paragraph the guns were cast loose, ammunition was provided and the big naval bulldog was in fighting trim.
One afternoon the battalion had boat drill. Cutters were lowered and with boat guns working and the landing party armed with rifles there was a pretty bit of excitement. A day later the heavy guns belched at a signal station ashore, which crumbled to theoretic dust. Then the naval militiamen were mustered at division quarters and a day’s ration was issued to each man, a two-pound tin of canned beef to each pair of men and five or ten hard tack (or ship biscuit) to each man and a canteen full of water or coffee, as the man elected. The call came for arm and away boats. With a Colt automatic in the bow of each cutter the party landed, going into extended order, while a detail took possession of the telegraph and the telephone station.
The long line of blue swarmed over a strip of sand and a bit of swale to a knoll. Then began two hours’ hard work. Through wire grass and sand grass, through bushes and brush, across swamp and swale, by farmhouses and barns, alongside lily ponds, the bending blue line advanced, officers pointing the way with swords and squad leaders attempting to keep the files at eight pace intervals.
Following an advance of four miles in such manner the “enemy” was located behind the crest of a steep and high hill. The order for a charge was given and with ayell the men sprinted forward under a heavy shower of fireworks. Ensign Northam was the first up San Juan Hill and it was reported that the historian was the last to reach the summit.
At this juncture the heavens opened and rain came down in buckets. After a quarter of an hour in the downpour the battalion started on the return of four miles. The hike was at route step. At the beach the oarsmen had a stiff pull against wind and tide in boats loaded to the gunwales. But the young salts were in fine spirits and when the order came to “shift to anything dry” it was received as a joke.
The chief boatswain’s mate of the Panther was C. K. Claussen, the Claussen who accompanied Hobson on the Merrimac and was confined in the Spanish prison near Santiago.
At the end of the week, when the Panther left the squadron, her course lay between the Olympia, Dewey’s flagship in the Battle of Manila Bay, and the Brooklyn, Schley’s in the capture of Cervera. To each was given a salute with the bugle and the lining of the rail. The Brooklyn’s band rendered a patriotic air.
In the following fall the division took up target practice in real earnest and at a special shoot in the South Meadow Chief Gunner’s Mate Herbert E. Wiley won the first place. Barely was this function over when it was decided to produce a comic opera and “The Mikado” was selected. This was presented in Parsons’, so well that critics agreed that the division could sing as correctly as it could sail.
In the winter the division tried its fortune again at indoor baseball, with varying results. On one occasion it played an exciting game with Company A, won the game, lost it and won it again, just clearing a lee shore by a score of 19 to 18. On another it defeated the champions of the armory in an eleven-inning contest.
The second annual indoor meet demonstrated that the series had arrived to stay, a fact which each February proves again.
To extend its activities the division sent a picked gun crew on an inland cruise to New Britain to give an exhibition drill.
BOAT CREW AT CHARLES ISLAND
BOAT CREW AT CHARLES ISLAND
BOAT CREW AT CHARLES ISLAND
The field day was spent at Charles Island. To still further extend its activities the division crossed afoot from the island at low tide to the mainland.