he non-commissioned officers. Each troop
commander was regarded as responsible for his own non-commissioned
officers, and Wood or myself simply dropped in to superintend, just as
we did with the manual of arms. In the officers' school Captain Capron
was the special instructor, and a most admirable one he was.

The heat, the steaming discomfort, and the confinement, together
with the forced inaction, were very irksome; but everyone made the
best of it, and there was little or no grumbling even among the men.
All, from the highest to the lowest, were bent upon perfecting
themselves according to their slender opportunities. Every book of
tactics in the regiment was in use from morning until night, and the
officers and non-commissioned officers were always studying the
problems presented at the schools. About the only amusement was
bathing over the side, in which we indulged both in the morning and
evening. Many of the men from the Far West had never seen the ocean.
One of them who knew how to swim was much interested in finding that
the ocean water was not drinkable. Another, who had never in his life
before seen any water more extensive than the headstream of the Rio
Grande, met with an accident later in the voyage; that is, his hat
blew away while we were in mid-ocean, and I heard him explaining the
accident to a friend in the following words: "Oh-o-h, Jim! Ma hat blew
into the creek!" So we lay for nearly a week, the vessels swinging
around on their anchor chains, while the hot water of the bay flowed
to and fro around them and the sun burned overhead.

At last, on the evening of June 13th, we received the welcome order
to start. Ship after ship weighed anchor and went slowly ahead under
half-steam for the distant mouth of the harbor, the bands playing, the
flags flying, the rigging black with the clustered soldiers, cheering
and shouting to those left behind on the quay and to their fellows on
the other ships. The channel was very tortuous; and we anchored before
we had gone far down it, after coming within an ace of a bad collision
with another transport. The next morning we were all again under way,
and in the afternoon the great fleet steamed southeast until Tampa
Light sank in the distance.

For the next six days we sailed steadily southward and eastward
through the wonderful sapphire seas of the West Indies. The thirty odd
transports moved in long parallel lines, while ahead and behind and on
their flanks the g