Chapter II: Foreword: ❦ (1)

That the Naval Division is worthy of a history in enduring form is undeniable: that it is worthy of a historian of more philosophy and patience is also undeniable. But if the principle is correct that “any weather is better than none,” as Mark Twain, who once produced a treatise on navigation which he called “Following the Equator,” summarized his opinion of the elements, then it may be correct to allege that this history is better than no attempt. From newspaper files which have long lain in unhallowed dust, from scrap-books long undisturbed, from orders and records and literature which has received no generic name and from the lips of survivors of a glorious but ancient day the historian has drawn the facts which follow. The research work has been difficult and a task of no mean proportion, as well, and the work of arrangement and assimilation has not been inconsiderable, and there is reasonable excuse for any errors which may appear in the printed result. For these the historian begs indulgence. He desires to add that the task has been a pleasant one in spite of the difficulty and that his only regret is that a history-more adequate is not the result.

In any case the trail has been blazed, or, to use a more appropriate metaphor, the channel has been buoyed for him who is destined to produce a suitable volume when the Second Division shall have arrived at its twenty-fifth anniversary. That the command may continue to prosper and that it may ever be as efficient and successful as in its most honorable days is the earnest wish of its chronicler.

Thanks are expressed to Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Charles L. Hogan and Quartermaster Palmer (the division librarian) of the actives and to Victor F. Morgan, historian of the Veteran Association, for aid given in the collating of material for this little volume. Thanks are also given to Captain Louis F. Middlebrook and Mr. Fred E. Bosworth.

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, June 28, 1911.

CAPTAIN LOUIS F. MIDDLEBROOK

THE FOUNDER OF THE DIVISION
]

BEFORE THE LAUNCHING

❦

In the early nineties the so-called, and perhaps miscalled movement for “Naval Reserves” came into Connecticut. In 1893 it gathered shape in New Haven and on the petition of Edward G. Buckland and forty-four others. General Edward E. Bradley of New Haven, adjutant-general under Governor Luzon B. Morris, issued an order for the formation of the First Division, Naval Militia, C. N. G. In November of that year a division was organized, a month pregnant with meaning in the annals of the naval establishment of Connecticut, for it marked the institution of a branch destined to endure and to be a just cause of pride to the state of Hull, Gideon Welles and Foote.

The formation of the First Division followed barely two years after that of the First Naval Battalion in New York state. Massachusetts had preceded the Empire State by more than fifteen months, and Rhode Island by about a year, and when the command in New Haven organized, the states which boasted naval militia organizations were Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Pennsylvania and Illinois. The total strength of the naval militia in these states was about 2,100 officers and enlisted men.

It was in March, 1890, that the first command of the kind appeared in Massachusetts, and in the following May that the Naval Battalion, Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, pioneer among “Naval Reserve” organizations in the United States, was organized. From that germ has grown a system which now includes naval militia bodies in twenty-three states and has on the rosters between seven thousand and eight thousand officers and enlisted men; and has recorded several times that number of alumni who are in part trained for the country’s hour of need on salt water.

Interesting stories about the First Division of New Haven came to the ears of many lovers of salt water in Hartford. Stories they were of the splendid success of that crack command, the good times which the fun lovers of the company enjoyed, the good fellowship shown, the capacity for hard technical work and the growing esteem in which it was held both by the adjutant-general’s office and the Navy Department at Washington. And so it was that a little knot of similar spirits in Hartford was formed, men with fondness for yachting on the Sound or with patriotic pride in the Navy who gravitated together after a nucleus had been developed.

The proposition for a naval company was received with a diversity of opinion. One military man of ripe experience raked it fore and aft in print, but in after years he discovered the error of his range finder and became a firm friend of the command in fair weather and foul. His memory long remained green with the company.

❦

THE LAUNCHING

❦

It is recorded that most of the originators of this movement were employees of the Pope Manufacturing Company or were members of the Hartford Canoe Club, and that some were luminaries in a social body known to fame as The Bachelors, but this last declaration is disputed. It was on March 14, 1896, that an application to Governor O. Vincent Coffin of Middletown, Commander-in-chief of the Connecticut National Guard, for the establishing of another division was drafted. The paper was guardedly circulated by Louis F. Middlebrook, then a member of the Brigade Signal Corps, to whom in large measure the credit of the subsequent birth of the command is due. On April 11 the application was presented to His Excellency together with details as to the cost of equipment, armory quarters and like matters. Just eighteen days later the governor’s consent was signified in an order which Adjutant-General Charles P. Graham issued for the formation of the Second Division, Naval Battalion, Connecticut National Guard. That date is entered in the division’s log as its natal day.

On the evening of May 12, Commander Edward V. Reynolds of the battalion and officers from the division in New Haven materialized in the even then ancient armory on Elm Street, never before that night used for any naval object. A division was formed and officers were elected as follows:

Lieutenant, Felton Parker.

Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Lyman B. Perkins.

Ensigns, Louis F. Middlebrook and Robert H. C. Kelton.

Mr. Parker was a graduate of Annapolis, who had left the Navy at the reduction in 1882, and was at the time in the employ of the Pope Manufacturing Company in the patent department. Mr. Perkins had graduated in 1881 from Annapolis as a cadet engineer. He was a general agent for the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company. Mr. Middlebrook was in the same company’s employ and possessed large executive ability. Mr. Kelton was a mechanical engineer in the employ of the Hartford Rubber Works. He had been a member of Division C of the First Naval Battalion of Massachusetts.

The enlisted men were forty in number. Their names follow:

Alden, H. W. Baxter, G. S. Beale, G. W. Bevins, V. L. Bissell, H. G. Bosworth, F. E. Burnett, A. E. Burnham, P. D.[1] Caswell, L. S. Cheney, T. S.[1] Cochran, L. B. Crowell, E. H. Cuntz, H. F. Fairfield, E. J. Field, E. B. Field, F. E. Gilbert, E. R. Harlow, M. P. Heymann, H. B. Hunt, B. A. Ingalls, F. C. Larkum, H. H. Larkum, W. N. Maxim, H. P. Miller, G. P. Miller, H. I. Morgan, J. H. Morrell, D. S. Newell, J. L. Northam, R. C. Osgood, W. J. Rice, C. D. Root, Lyman Stevens, H. Walsh, J. G. Wightman, A. H. Williams, C. C. Wilson, L. B. Winslow, F. G. Woodward, C. S.

Footnote 1:

Deceased.

The division was the armory’s baby and the sailor uniform and the sailor drill were observed with the greatest of kindly interest; and, by the way, that interest survives to this day.

By the middle of June the company was in fairish shape in regard to uniform and equipment, but was shy of flat caps. On the evening of June 24 the first petty officers were appointed, the selections being awaited with the keenest curiosity. The appointees were:

First Class—Boatswain’s Mate, Daniel S. Morrell; Gunner’s Mate, Louis B. Wilson.

Second Class—Boatswain’s Mate, Edward H. Crowell; Gunner’s Mate, Walter L. Meek; Quartermasters, Thomas S. Cheney and Edwin R. Gilbert.

Third Class—Gunner’s Mate, Charles D. Rice; Coxswains, Robert C. Northam, Frank H. Peltier and Herman F. Cuntz, and Bugler Herbert G. Bissell.

On the same June evening, orders were read to stand by for the division’s first cruise. That duty was on the U. S. S. Cincinnati, a protected cruiser.

❦

COURSE ONE
❦
THE CINCINNATI

At 6:45 Saturday morning, July 11, the division to the number of forty-six entrained for New Haven and by 8 o’clock was on board the Cincinnati, as she lay off the breakwater. An hour later the cruiser weighed anchor and headed down the Sound, landing the divisions of the battalion on Gardiner’s Island, where they went into camp. Till late Sunday evening it was hard work and plenty of it, but the mettle of the division was shown in the test. Part of Sunday evening was spent in “hustling ice,” as one member expressed it in a letter. Near by were naval militiamen from Rhode Island and New York.

Monday morning found the division embarking for the Cincinnati, on which instruction was given during the day in gun, fire and collision drills. For the great majority of the men it was their first real experience in work on a warship, and the novelty and excitement were fascinating. The following day there was drill in pulling boats with the new coxswains on their mettle.

A couple of days more of life in camp and on the Cincinnati with good weather did much towards starting the men toward man-o’-war form, or so some of them began to think. Tanned faces, pipes and plug tobacco came into full evidence. For some it was, perhaps, a picnic in the open salt air, but an outing in which discipline was strictly preserved and much practical information was acquired.

Thursday morning reveille was sounded at Camp McAdoo at 5 o’clock and simultaneously rain began to fall. After mess the battalion struck the tents, turned to on camp gear and transferred nine boatloads from the island to the Cincinnati. Most of the men were in water to their waists. Between the fresh and the salt they were not incompletely drenched, but their hearts were gay and when the boats were hove up they tailed on the falls with a will.

In New Haven there was a short street parade and when, in the Meadow Street Armory, the First Division boys saluted and cheered the Second, the tour of duty was pronounced to be a glorious success. On the station platform in Hartford on the arrival of the Second Division that evening was a motley of fathers and mothers, kid brothers, best girls and other landlubbers, all eager to welcome the home-faring tin tars. The men fell in on the platform and gave this highly original cheer:

“Hi, ye-ke, hi! Ree, Ree, Ree!
Naval Battalion, C. N. G.
Second Division.”

This may sound at this distant day like a rather slender battle cry, but the boys of the division ranked it with the “Brek-e-Ke-Kex” of the Yale Gridiron.

The historian admits giving undue prominence to that tour of duty, but begs indulgence on the ground that it was the division’s first service on salt water.

❦

COURSE TWO
❦
THE MAINE

In a few months the division was carefully recruited and when the drill season started it was little effort for jack o’ the dust to report a tidy sum in the treasury. The division parlor was artistically decorated. Along the frieze was painted a stretch of blue water of dipsy hue on which was developed some of the most startling advances in shipbuilding. A craft of the time of Hiero, a Roman galley, a Viking ship, a French frigate of the sixteenth century, a warship of Revolutionary days, one of the time of Hull and then the battleship Indiana were pictured. In a way the series traced the development of sea power.

The months of that drill season wore by pleasantly, the boys at work mainly at infantry, for somehow in those days the real province of naval militiamen was not clearly lined out, but with a bit of single-stick work and some signalling, and when the end of the season arrived most of the men were well acquainted with the work which had been laid out.

It was on the battleship Maine that the yearly lessons afloat were learned. The battleship Texas had been assigned for the duty, but it became necessary to dry dock her for repairs, and her sister ship took her place. Ensign Louis F. Middlebrook with Boatswain’s Mate Crowell, Quartermaster Wightman, Coxswains Osgood and Meek and Seamen Doran, Mather, J. Morgan Wells, Gilbert and Baxter constituted the baggage detail, which sailed from the steamboat landing at 7:30 on the morning of Saturday, July 17, on the tug J. Warren Coulston for Fisher’s Island.

The detail pitched camp on rising ground in the rear of the Hotel Munnatawket, not far from the site of the battalion’s camp some five years later.

The Maine lay at anchor in Fisher’s Island Sound. The remainder of the division went by rail to New Haven on the following Monday morning and sailed for the island on the steamer Richard Law. The two divisions with the engineer branch and the staff made the battalion nearly 140 strong.

Captain Sigsbee was in command of the ship, the same officer who was in command when the tragedy in the harbor of Havana happened seven months later. His face became familiar to most of our men, as did also that of Lieutenant Wainwright, executive officer at the time of the explosion, and when that tragedy came the horror had a personal as well as a patriotic interest for many members of the Second Division, who remembered by name and face many a man in the ship’s complement.

Most of the work was at Camp Long or in small boats, but not a little was on the ship, where gun drill was among the most interesting of the branches. A lecture on the Whitehead torpedo was a feature of the curriculum.

One afternoon during the tour of duty on the Maine, the signal squads of the First and the Second Divisions met in a contest for a trophy cup and the squad from the Second won. The winning team included Quartermasters Cheney and Wightman and Seamen Bosworth and V. Morgan.

It is interesting to hark back to the Maine days and to record that a racing cutter crew was evolved and that it received some, if not much, instruction and encouragement from men on the Maine. Out of the mist of that week it is recorded that this crew was made up of these oarsmen: First, Seaman Baxter; Second, Quartermaster Wightman; Third, Coxswain Osgood; Fourth, Seaman Wells; Fifth, Gunner’s Mate Root; Sixth, Seaman Havens; Seventh, Seaman Gilbert; Eighth, Boatswain’s Mate Morrell; Ninth, Coxswain Northam; Tenth, Seaman Ingalls; Eleventh, Gunner’s Mate Cuntz, and Twelfth, Seaman J. Morgan. Without experience the crew contested with the crack twelve of the New Haven Division and was beaten only by three-quarters of a boat length.

The Hartford Division returned on the tugs Coulston and Mabel, arriving at the steamboat landing in the early evening.

❦

COURSE THREE
❦
THE WAR

Barely was the next drill season well inaugurated when the Maine sailed for Havana, and then came the terrible disaster in which many of the division’s shipmates were hurled into eternity, and next the preparation for the approaching conflict with Spain. In April, the First Regiment marched away, the division remaining eager for the coming call. Each drill evening the men put heart, energy and sustained attention into the work. Drills took place on the park in the presence of citizens who paid their tributes of respect to the sailor blue. Each member was urged to train physically, as well as to learn the drills. Seamanship, signalling and such boat work as could be taught were the backbone of the instruction.

Finally the call came and over ninety per cent. of the division volunteered at roll call to enlist in the United States Navy for the entire conflict. On June 6, the division paraded in heavy marching order up Main Street and by Trumbull and Asylum Streets to the railroad station, escorted by posts of the Grand Army and by veteran and active military commands, and entrained for the State Military Rendezvous in Niantic.

On June 15, Commander Field, U. S. N., mustered in the command thenceforward known as the “war company.” Following are the names and the ages with ratings obtained before the mustering out and with the names of the ships on which each individual mainly served:

Henry S. Baldwin, G. M., 1st class, 24 Seminole
Arthur W. Barber, Landsman, 25 Minnesota
George S. Baxter, Coxswain, 22 Wyandotte
Robert C. Beers, Landsman, 26 Catskill
Howard Berry, Ordinary Seaman, 20 Wyandotte
Henry W. Bigelow, Seaman, 30 Minnesota
Herbert G. Bissell, Ordinary Seaman, 24 Minnesota
Fred G. Blakeslee, Seaman, 30 Minnesota
Fred E. Bosworth, Quartermaster, 23 Minnesota
Arthur L. Brewer, Seaman, 21 Minnesota
George Brinley, Seaman, 26 Wyandotte
John H. P. Brinley, Seaman, 23 Wyandotte
Henry R. Buck, Seaman, 22 East Boston
Joseph F. Burke, Landsman, 22 Wyandotte
Archibald L. Case, Seaman, 23 Minnesota
Henry B. Case, Landsman, 19 Minnesota
Robert D. Chapin, Seaman, 22 Minnesota
Murray H. Coggeshall, Q. M., 1st Class, 25 Wyandotte
George F. Colby, Landsman, 21 Wyandotte
Arthur S. Cutting, Landsman, 20 Minnesota
Hermann F. Cuntz, Ensign Lr. S. N., 26 Sylvia
Stanley K. Dimock, Seaman, 20 Seminole
Edward J. Doran, Ship’s Apothecary, 24 Minnesota
Henry W. Drury, Seaman, 22 Minnesota
Francis E. Field, Seaman, 25 Minnesota
George C. Forrest, O. M., 3d Class, 29 Wyandotte
George Foster, Coal Passer, 23 Wyandotte
Paul Franke, Landsman, 24 Minnesota
Burton L. Gabrielle, Ordinary Seaman, 20 Minnesota
Christopher M. Gallup, Fireman, 22 East Boston
William A. Geer, Landsman, 27 Minnesota
Frank W. Gillette, Ordinary Seaman, 23 Wyandotte
William Goulet, Landsman, 22 Minnesota
James J. Hawley, Q. M., 2d Class, 27 Seminole
George A. Holcomb, Ord. Seaman, 22 Seminole
Richard J. Holmes, Ordinary Seaman, 25 Minnesota
Charles A. Huntington, Chief G. M., 25 Wyandotte
William M. Hurd, Seaman, 23 Minnesota
Edward Q. Jackson, Ord. Seaman, 23 Minnesota
Lorenzo W. Kenyon, Seaman, 20 Minnesota
Frank R. Keyes, Chief Quartermaster, 21 Wyandotte
Frank E. Kowalsky, Coal Passer, 21 Seminole
Arthur P. LeFever, Landsman, 19 Minnesota
Michael C. Long, G. M., 2d Class, 28 Wyandotte
Oliver W. Malm, Seaman, 25 Minnesota
George R. Martin, Ord. Seaman, 19 Minnesota
Ralph W. McCreary, B. M., 1st Class, 22 Wyandotte
J. Ward McManus, Seaman, 23 Minnesota
Louis F. Middlebrook, Ens’n, U. S. N., 32 Enquirer
Guy P. Miller, Seaman, 23 Minnesota
Hugh I. Miller, Seaman, 25 Minnesota
James H. Morgan, Q. M., 1st Class, 23 Seminole
Victor F. Morgan, Seaman, 18 Minnesota
Shiras Morris, Coxswain, 23 Wyandotte
Linwood K. Moses, Landsman, 20 Minnesota
Carl C. Nielson, Wardroom Steward, 25 Seminole
Edward J. Noble, Ordinary Seaman, 23 Minnesota
Edwin T. Northam, Seaman, 23 Minnesota
Robert C. Northam, G. M., 2d Class, 25 Minnesota
Harry Y. Nutter, Seaman, 26 Minnesota
Lauriston F. L. Pynchon, Seaman, 26 Minnesota
Judson B. Root, Ordinary Seaman, 22 Minnesota
Harrison Sanford, Ordinary Seaman, 21 Wyandotte
Charles C. Saunders, Seaman, 22 Minnesota
Felton Parker, Lieutenant, U. S. N., 38 Huntress
Lyman Root, Ensign, U. S. N., 29 Elfrida
Otto M. Schwerdtfeger, Landsman, 22 Minnesota
Albert W. Scoville, Jr., Seaman, 21 East Boston
Lester H. Scoville, Ordinary Seaman, 20 East Boston
William H. Scrivener, Seaman, 21 Minnesota
Frederic A. Seaver, Landsman, 34 Minnesota
Freeman P. Seymour, Ord. Seaman, 34 Minnesota
Forrest Shepherd, Seaman, 28 Wyandotte
Herbert E. Storrs, Seaman, 19 East Boston
Morton C. Talcott, Landsman, 20 Minnesota
George H. Tinkham, Landsman, 22 Wyandotte
William C. Tregoning, Seaman, 22 Seminole
John F. Twardoks, Landsman, 21 Minnesota
Jonathan K. Uhler, Seaman, 24 Minnesota
James D. Wells, Seaman, 23 Minnesota
Richard B. Wells, Coxswain, 29 Seminole
Alanson H. Wightman, Q. M., 1st Cl., 26 Seminole
George E. Wilcox, Ord. Seaman, 21 Minnesota
Louis B. Wilson, B. M., 1st Class, 26 Seminole
Frank L. Young, Cabin Steward, 19 Wyandotte

DIVISION BOAT RACE IN BOSTON HARBOR
]

From Niantic the division went to the receiving ship Minnesota at the Congress Street slip in the Charlestown Navy Yard. At one time and another officers were detailed and men were drafted to vessels of the “Mosquito fleet,” and these were scattered all the way down the coast to Key West and the Havana Blockade, Ensign Cuntz on the Sylvia having the good fortune to see the Morro.

COURSE FOUR
❦
THE PRAIRIE

Following the excitement of the war summer came a reaction. The membership dropped nearly to the danger point. For a time it was a long and hard beat to windward, a trying fight with wind, wave and tide. Like every command from Connecticut which served in the war with Spain, the division found many of its best members returning to civilian ranks, and that to replace them either numerically or in quality required time and activity. But new blood—or what might be called a saline infusion—came, and before the snows melted the division had weathered the worst.

It was the Prairie which was the division’s floating home on the cruise taken in the following August. On the 16th the battalion sailed from New Haven harbor. Two days later the ship was off Gloucester, home of daring fishermen, and the next day she was in Bar Harbor. On the 21st she put out to sea. She passed outside Nantucket Shoals Lightship and opportunity was given to the men for target practice with great guns at sea, after sub-caliber coming full service charges. On their return members of the division spun exciting yarns concerning diluted saltpeter, embalmed horsehide, hammock ladders and raids on the officers’ refrigerator.

It is to be chronicled that thirteen states were represented in naval militia cruises on the Prairie in 1899 and that Connecticut took third rank among them; also that the Hartford division won first place among the three divisions from Connecticut, Bridgeport having organized the Third Division.

“DEWEY DAY”
❦

LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER LYMAN ROOT
]

Probably the most memorable occasion in the history of the command was September 30, 1899, “Dewey Day,” the day of the giant procession in New York City in honor of the fine old hero of Manila Bay. When the organizations to represent this state were selected, it was the Naval Battalion which headed the list of honor. The First Regiment was not upon the list, but with honorable patriotism officers of the regiment who had served in Camp Alger requested of Lieutenant Lyman Root, Lieutenant Parker’s successor, permission to wear the sailor blue and carry Springfields in the division ranks. Men who had served in distant years in the wooden navy and men who had fought under Dyer in Manila Bay and Wainwright in the combat with the Furor and the Pluton and had returned to Hartford, also asked and received the same permission.

With four officers and 112 men the division swung out from the armory on the evening of the 29th and amid red fire and with a band blaring at the front paraded to the railroad station, envied by infantrymen who could not obtain opportunity to march in the mammoth procession. At 11 o’clock the company marched into the Second Regiment Armory in New Haven, stacked arms and was dismissed for a midnight lunch, at which the men stowed away steaming coffee and ham sandwiches and received strict orders not to leave the building. Then they made living pillows of one another and slumbered innocently on benches in the gallery till some wee, sma’ hour or other in the morning, when the Second Regiment crashed out with “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and summoned them back to the world of consciousness and sin. At 3 o’clock they fell in and marched out into a hospitable rain punctuated by milkmen and policemen. Three-quarters of an hour later they boarded the side-wheeler Shinnecock. At 4 o’clock the steamer got under way and the men began to look forward to a night of rest. One man slept on his arm under a table in the dining saloon piled six feet high with camp chairs. Another was lost to the world under the break of the pilot house. Still another slept on unbaled hay for the field officers of the Second Regiment. Some slumbered in gangways and some on the paddle boxes. The mathematical boys of the division demonstrated the problem that it was possible to sleep anywhere in space.

Somewhere in the head of the Sound the Shinnecock fell on an evil time. A bushing on a feathering paddle blade in the starboard wheel misbehaved and a bar buckled and for three hours she drifted while engineers made repairs. Finally an emergency landing was made in a convenient coal yard in Port Morris and the battalion trotted at double time for two miles over Harlem cobblestones, arriving just in time to fall in ahead of General Oliver O. Howard and the Grand Army Division.

During the march the men had a coveted opportunity to view the one-armed corps commander at close range. Much of the time the old hero was obliged to ride with his bridle rein in his teeth and with his chapeau in his hand in response to the frantic waves of applause which greeted him. The occupants of the closely packed stands along the line of march rose in wildly cheering masses as they caught sight of the grizzled veteran and the men of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Down Riverside Drive and for four miles in the heart of the city the battalion marched with fixed bayonets. It paraded between solid masses of cheering citizens and almost solid walls of flags and decorations. At every halt the men were refreshed with fruit, coffee or drinkables, sandwiches and salads or cigars, and presented with flowers and souvenirs. At one halt on aristocratic Fifth Avenue a shower of silk college sofa cushions came down from window seats and a Princeton cushion was impaled on the historian’s bayonet.

At the conclusion of the parade many of the division repaired to restaurants near Madison Square and Union Square. Dozens of them found, when they stepped to the cashiers’ coops to liquidate, that unknown civilians had obtained their checks and paid the bills. A man in a sailor uniform in New York City that September afternoon found it no easy task to spend money. Nothing was too good for the bluejackets.

It is to be recorded that Lieutenant Cuntz, Gunner’s Mate Huntington, Coxswain Chapin and Seamen Noble and Nutter preceded the battalion to New York. When the Shinnecock failed to appear, they annexed three stray regulars from the U. S. S. Texas, and assumed an advanced place in the column. In one of the spectators’ stands certain individuals conceived the notion that the eight were Hobson and the Merrimac survivors. In a few moments the word was passed over the stand and the crowd was on its feet in a wild burst of applause.

While Dewey Day experiences were still being talked over, arrangements were quietly made for a presentation to the first commanding officer, Mr. Parker, who was lured to Turnerbund Hall to receive from the command a gold watch with chain and fob, the chain in the semblance of a stud-link ship’s cable and the fob a division pin mounted on a locket.

More of the tang of salt air and of the romance of the ocean came one evening in the next drill season when the division mustered in the parlor to listen to a talk by Professor Henry Ferguson of Trinity College, an honorary member, who told a thrilling tale of shipwreck in the mid-Pacific. Professor Ferguson recited the story of the Hornet, a clipper which sailed from New York in 1866 for San Francisco. When the ship was several hundred miles off the Galapagos fire obliged the crew to take to the three boats, which were provisioned for ten days. It was decided to head for the north, to keep in the track of San Francisco vessels. Merchantmen in those days adhered to Maury’s sailing directions and it was reasoned that chances would be better in the sea highway than in attempting to reach land. By day the heat was nearly intolerable. Nights were treacherous as they induced squalls of the vindictively sudden nature peculiar to those Equatorial waters. Day after day wore by with an unbroken horizon. Finally the boats crawled up into the trade winds. It was decided to separate the boats to increase the chance of finding aid. For twenty-five days the sailors had fought wind, sun, and water and now they were in danger of fighting starvation, the ten days’ provisions, which had been distributed into one-third allowances, being nearly exhausted. The remaining provisions were in turn re-divided, but were gone in a fortnight. The men surviving sought nourishment in the chewing of leather and moist clothing. On the point of utter exhaustion they made a landfall, which proved to be Hawaii, and were rescued by a crew from a coasting station. They had spent forty-three days in an open boat and had traveled nearly three thousand miles.

More of the romance of the sea came to the division when the story of a “war member,” William Hurd, and the schooner Intrepid was told. Less than a month after Professor Ferguson’s lecture, Hurd cleared in New York with his little auxiliary as a trader to carry trinkets, tin jewelry, Yankee notions, canned soups, linens and whatnot to Baranquila and to acquire cocoanuts and rubber on the Mosquito Coast and islands nearby. His auxiliary was sixty-one feet on the water line and eighteen feet beam and thirty-five gross tonnage, or twenty-eight net. She had a powerful gasoline motor. After she cleared, Colombian insurrectionists captured Baranquila and Hurd’s friends in the division began to wonder what would happen to their former shipmate if an insurrecto officer ranged alongside with more of an appetite for grindstones, canned soups and tin jewelry than for international law. But Hurd was able to take care of himself. He prospered as a trader, made a bushel of money, spent it and finally returned.

At the annual banquet of 1900, Admiral Bunce, U.S.N., retired, was a guest and in his speech pointed out that foreign intelligence officers knew full well that seven-tenths of the arms and ammunition made for the government came from Connecticut. In response to a toast another speaker, Francis B. Allen, said:

“It was one of your honorary members, our distinguished Admiral
Bunce, who, while in command of the North Atlantic Squadron just
prior to the Spanish War, brought not only the fleet but each
individual ship to such a degree of excellence in squadron
evolutions and gun drills that he enabled his successors to acquit
themselves so creditably that Sunday morning outside Santiago Bay
when Cervera’s squadron tried to escape that the result afforded us
the greatest Fourth of July celebration since Vicksburg
surrendered.”

A month later Ensign Middlebrook launched the Veteran Association down well-greased ways, and on May 23 the battalion had its first field day, assembling at Savin Rock. It was reserved for Gunner’s Mate Chapin to make known to Hartford a new method of celebrating the Fourth of July. He navigated a picked gun crew at the close of the midwatch from the armory to the City Hall and at sunrise pumped out a salute of twenty-one shots from the lean throat of a Hotchkiss one-pounder. Irate sleepers admitted that Chapin’s method was convincing. They were justly incensed when he marched the crew under the Asylum Street bridge and fired a like salute, and still more so when he took it to the Park Terrace and discharged a fourteen-shot salute. Chapin proposed to fire a salute in Wethersfield, but ammunition ran low.

❦

COURSE FIVE
❦
THE PRAIRIE AGAIN

That summer’s cruise was on the Prairie and led to Penobscot Bay. The division sent in a whaleboat crew to race against one from the First Division on that water, and its crew defeated that from the Elm City by a quarter of a length, one of the New Haven officers marveling at this result and asserting that it was a mystery of the deep. It also captured two other boat races.

Later in the summer camping parties spent week-ends in Paradise, the narrow strip between Bodkin Rock and the river a short distance below Middletown. The division’s steamboat and the pulling boats which had come a season or two before were in popular favor. They gave silent lessons to the boys in boat engine work and in the stowing of dunnage, thereby adding variety to the oarsmen’s drill of the early spring.

December 22, Lieutenant Parker died at his home in South Lancaster, Mass. mourned by all who knew him. A patriotic officer, a loyal friend, he had won the affection of the command.

One minute prior to midnight December 31, two gun crews unlimbered in the rear of the City Hall and on the dot of midnight, the opening of the new century, Gunner’s Mate Chapin fired the first shot in a salute of twenty-one guns, a welcome to the newborn heir of time.

Century No. Twenty’s first gift to the division was an indoor baseball team. The sport was new to the armory and it jumped (or slid) into instant favor. The first game was with a team from Company A and to the astonishment of everybody and most of all themselves the sailors won, by a score of 17 to 12. They contended with a hurricane of batting in the second inning and dragged anchor, but they weathered the storm and won with an inning to spare. One of the division advocated a diamond of this kind:

Home plate on the forecastle near the foremast, for baseline the starboard foremast shrouds and for first base the foretop; along main topmast stay to second base, the main top-masthead; down main topmast rigging to third base, the main top; then down the mainstay and on to the point of beginning. None of the other teams would play on that diamond.

In a sham battle held in the armory in Governor McLean’s honor the division had a conspicuous part and in the spring the battalion had its field day in the South Meadow. Governor McLean had appointed Mr. Middlebrook to be naval aide on his staff, with the rank of captain, the highest rank which any member has obtained in the Connecticut naval militia, later naval-aides having the rank of lieutenant-commanders.

❦

COURSE SIX
❦
TO CAMP NEWTON

The third anniversary of the mustering in of the battalion at Niantic was observed by an outing at Woodmont, followed by a week-end cruise on the Elfrida, the converted yacht once owned by W. Seward Webb and purchased by the government at the breaking out of the war with Spain. At a banquet in the Pembroke Hotel at Woodmont, General Edward E. Bradley, adjutant-general when the First Division organized, and Senator Joseph R. Hawley were speakers.

Master-at-Arms Murphy trained a volunteer racing cutter crew at intervals in the course of the summer, bitterly lamenting that he never had the same men two evenings running. Still he had men who were fairly proficient when the battalion had its annual tour of duty, at Camp Newton on Fisher’s Island. Tent life was varied by considerable work in pulling boats. It was expected that a cutter race would be rowed between the Hartford racing crew and a crew picked from the New Haven and Bridgeport Division, but the latter did not materialize. That spectators might not be disappointed, two crews were selected from the Hartford oarsmen, Lieutenant Lyman Root acting as coxswain for one and Assistant Surgeon Carroll C. Beach for the other. Mr. Root’s crew was inspired by the presence of Dick, the division’s mascot, a corpulent bulldog with a blue flat cap cocked rakishly over one ear. With one hand on the tiller and the other on the dog’s collar, Mr. Root incited his crew and won by a half-length in a course of half a mile.

For most of the six days rain came down in buckets. The camp work was a practical lesson to the men of the division. That they returned healthy, well disciplined, and contented, as well as much more familiar with duty either afloat or ashore, demonstrated the learning capacity of the men and the value of the camp.

On the return the Elfrida cast off, outside Saybrook Light, a tow consisting of the steam whaleboat and the division’s cutter, its barge and its pulling whaleboat. The “whaler” with the pulling boat in tow started up the river, but a squall descended and gave work to all hands. The crews landed in Essex in torrents, and after making the boats snug for the night, turned in at a sail loft near the landing.

In the autumn the division sustained another severe affliction in the death of its first honorary member, a firm friend in fair weather and foul, Admiral Francis M. Bunce, an officer whom it had been a rare privilege to honor. A veteran of the Civil War, a seasoned sailor, a loyal Hartford man who took pride in his townspeople, the Admiral had richly merited the division’s high esteem. His strong, yet kindly face the men missed and mourned.

In the autumn an order came for a parade in New Haven, and when the personal escort for President Roosevelt was selected, it was found to be the Naval Battalion; and when the parade started it was found that the senior division, the Second, was next to the President’s carriage.

Wall-scaling had a conspicuous part in the drill of the winter, and in the spring small boat work and volunteer work on the Elfrida, the battalion’s practice vessel, were attractions for those most interested in the command. The Elfrida played her part well in the duty of the spring field day of 1902, when the battalion rendezvoused in Bridgeport.

CAMP PARKER
]

In June of that year a proposition to establish a summer camp took shape and at a meeting a subscription paper was opened and $200 was pledged in about fifteen minutes. A site was selected on the east bank of the river in South Glastonbury and nearly opposite Two Piers. Volunteers cleared the land of brush, assisted in driving a well, hauled lumber and materials up the steep ascent of 115 feet, aided the carpenters, and helped to furnish and arrange camp. They sought and obtained practical experience in cooking and camp life. It was decided to name the camp after the first commander of the division; and to this day the building is known as Camp Parker. The spot was formally dedicated July 4th with speeches and an open-air dinner, at which the building committee in due and ancient form turned the institution over to the division. The house was equipped with hammocks and many a rooky has there learned how to pass a sailor’s night. Many a pleasant Sunday afternoon in midsummer has lured men of the division to the cool piazza with its noble view for many miles in three directions, south, west and north.

❦

COURSE SEVEN
❦
THE 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 a yell 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
]

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.

❦

COURSE EIGHT
❦
AT NIANTIC

Amphibious is the word to apply to the division’s tour of duty that summer. The steam whaleboat, by this time christened “Tillie Hadley,” by her fireman, Gunner’s Mate Arnold, started down the river August 21, 1903, with the three pulling boats in tow, carrying nearly a quarter of the division. The following day the remainder boarded the Elfrida in New Haven harbor, and she with the First Division’s small boats in tow steamed to Crescent Bay. A detail from each division spent eight days afloat and the rest divided their time between Camp Reynolds at the state military rendezvous at Niantic and boat drills in Crescent Bay. The boat work was popular, so much so that in a few days most of the oarsmen were approaching man-o’-war form.

At the end of the duty a storm came along which gave work to militia, the seafaring population and landlubbers. In the New York _Herald_ of the next day it was printed: “Old seafaring men down that way say that they never saw the Sound rougher than it was that night.” A sailboat was washed ashore at White Beach, two small sailing vessels dragged anchor near Niantic, a sloop was wrecked to the southwest of the Crescent Beach landing and a large three-masted schooner dragged anchor.

The Elfrida steamed out of the bay as the storm was breaking, on her way to Sandy Hook and the yacht races with Governor Chamberlain on board. The sou’wester rose into a gale. Seas broke high over the weather rail to fly across the engine room skylight. The officers on the bridge and the quartermaster on watch were soon soaked to the skin in spite of oilskins and pea coats. It was a fierce night and the brave little ship had a nervy tussle with the gale. At 3 o’clock in the morning the Elfrida put into Huntington Bay and dropped anchor, finding that five large steamers were there riding out the night, among them the Tremont of the Joy Line, and the Shinnecock. Stormbound sailing craft were also in the bay.

Soon after the hook went down it was found to be dragging, then the ship was taken farther inshore and both starboard and port anchors were let drop, with a good length of cable.

Later a distress sign was sighted on a yacht out in the open water. A volunteer boat crew pulled out and found the vessel to be the schooner Rosina, from New Haven, owned by an amateur who had a sailing master, three women and a cook on board. The owner seasick, the sailing master called the cook for a moment to the wheel, while he stepped down into the cabin for a chart. The cook lost his head and, while in the wind, the schooner’s main-topmast snapped and her fore-topsail carried away. The rescuing boat crew found the women hysterical and with life preservers adjusted. The men from the Elfrida cleared away the wreckage.

Early in the fall the division entertained members of H Company, Naval Brigade, M. V. M., of Springfield, at Camp Parker with an old-time shore clambake. The camp had become increasingly popular and for a number of years nearly every Saturday or Sunday afternoon in midsummer attracted division men to the place, and in “whites” the boys kept busy making things snug in the galley or policing the grounds or taking a spin in a pulling boat below.

November 18 brought an extraordinary spectacle—a book bee. At our bell in the first watch, Librarian Palmer and Jack-o’-the-Shelf McDonald broke out their accessioning system and the smoking lamp was lighted. The books given made a startling list. Tolstoy’s “Resurrection” was found sandwiched between “Alice in Wonderland” and a volume of Lighthouse Reports. General Miles, Kipling, Morgan Robertson and Roosevelt were popular authors. This is history, not romance. An entertainment followed the book bee. Clog dancing on the foc’s’le head, nautical songs, selections on cordage and dead eyes by a banjo quintet and a sword dance by Coxswain Watson made up the backbone of the evening. It was seven bells when the rejoicing ceased and the merrymakers heaved out of the armory, all on soundings and under easy canvas, except the supposed contributor of “Resurrection,” who scudded away under a double-reefed fore-topsail.

The indoor meet of the next February sustained the division’s reputation. By this time the annual mid-winter tourney had become known all over Connecticut. The referees in the series have included such gentlemen as President Luther of Trinity College and Former Lieutenant-Governor Lake.

A month later the division was entertained by H Company of Springfield in the Highland Hotel in that city, where the company was observing its eleventh anniversary.

In June (June 19, 1904) the Elfrida came over Saybrook Bar with Lieutenant Lyman Root in command. She was navigated up the river by members of the division and came to anchor opposite the foot of Ferry Street. Three days later, a brilliant reception was given on board her to Governor Chamberlain. She was dressed fore and aft and from water’s edge to water’s edge. In the illumination 248 Japanese lanterns were included. Many military officers were present in full dress uniform.

The following morning the division paraded to the foot of Ferry Street, embarking and escorting the governor and Former Governor Morgan G. Bulkeley, an honorary member of the division, to East Haddam, there to attend the dedication of a monument to Major-General Joseph Spencer of Revolutionary War fame.

Three days later a hard-working and loyal graduate of the division, Ensign William G. Hinckley, assistant engineer, received his commission as lieutenant and chief engineer. Efficient, loyal and popular, Mr. Hinckley received numerous congratulations of his well-earned promotion.

The range of the division’s energy is proved when it is chronicled that July 27, the clubhouse committee carried out a moonlight sail down the river. It was considerately promulgated in the committee’s circular: “State exact number of ladies you intend bringing. Chaperons will be in attendance.”

❦

COURSE NINE
❦
THE HARTFORD

FURLING SAIL ON THE U. S. S. HARTFORD
]

The yearly cruise of 1904 was on Farragut langsyne flagship, the Hartford, relic of the battle of Mobile Bay. It was as interesting as any which the division has ever taken, barring, perhaps, that on the Panther. When station billets were issued even the old hands volleyed questions at their running mates of the regular crew. Here is the start of a typical station billet:

Form No. 10.—Bur. Navigation.

Watch No. 126 U. S. S. Hartford.
Name, Rate, Cox.
Div. 2d. Gun, No. 8, 5–inch.
Armed boat, 3d cutter. Running boat, 3d cutter. Abandon ship,
3d cutter.
Fire quarters, close ports, No. 8 5–inch gun.

That was easy enough, even for a rooky. But what do you know about this?

EVOLUTION.

Loosing sail.
Furling sail.
Up and down topgallant and royal yards.
Up and down topgallant masts.
Making sail and getting underway.
Tacking and wearing.
Reef topsails.
Shorten sail and come to anchor.

STATIONS AND DUTIES.

Loose topgallant sail.
Furl topgallant sail.
Topmast crosstrees to rig upper topgallant yardarm, etc.
Topmast crosstrees, reeve and unreeve mast rope, fid and
unfid, etc.
Loose topgallant sail, then on deck to halliards.
Overhaul foresheet and shorten in, man maintop bowlines,
main and fore tacks.
Man topsail bunt lines, then halliards.
Let go topgallant halliards, man topsail clew lines, veer
and stopper cables.