and cucumbers and corn, to say nothing
of the wonderful orchards of apples and pears, and not forgetting the
wild vegetation of sweet potatoes.

The peaceful, pastoral life in the heart of Maryland, however, was
destined to be disturbed. A vast American army was needed and the vast
army, then in the process of organization, needed an abode for
training. Battery D and the 311th Field Artillery was organized on
paper soon after the call for 678,000 selected service men was decided
upon. The personnel of the new organization was being determined by
the selective service boards. Officers to command the organization
were under intensive instruction at Fort Niagara, New York. All that
was needed to bring the organization into official military being was
a point of concentration.

The task of locating sites for the sixteen army cantonments, decreed
to birth throughout the United States, presented many difficulties.
What could be more natural, however, than the fertile farm lands of
Anne Arundel county, almost within shadow of the National Capital, to
be selected as the site of a cantonment to be named after General
George Gordon Meade?

Territory in the immediate vicinity of Admiral and Disney was the
ideal selection: ideal because the territory is only eighteen miles
from Baltimore, the metropolis of the South; one hundred miles from
Philadelphia, the principal city of the State which was to furnish
most of the recruits; and twenty-two miles from Washington, the
Capital of the Nation.

Situated between the heart of the South and the heart of the Nation,
Camp Meade is easily accessible by rail. Ease of access through
mail-line facilities, was a necessity for transportation of building
materials and supplies before and during construction. The same
facilities furnished the transportation for the large bodies of troops
that were sent to and from the camp; also assured the cantonment its
daily supply of rations.

Admiral Junction furnished adequate railroad yard for the camp.
The Baltimore and Ohio railroad station is at Disney, about one-half
mile west of Admiral; while the Pennsylvania Railroad junction on the
main line between Baltimore and Washington is at Odenton, about one
and one-half miles east of Admiral. Naval Academy Junction is near
Odenton and is the changing point on the electric line between the two
chief cities. The magic-like upbuild of the cantonment, moreover, was
the signal for the extension of the elec