A HISTORY
of the
SECOND DIVISION NAVAL MILITIA
CONNECTICUT NATIONAL GUARD
_By_
DANIEL D. BIDWELL
Hartford, Conn.
1911
Copyrighted 1911
By
DANIEL D. BIDWELL
The Smith-Linsley Company
Hartford, Conn.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dedicated
to
All Friends
of the
Naval Militia
Connecticut National Guard
SLIGHTLY ADAPTED
“Here’s to the land that gave us birth,
Here’s to her smiling skies,
Here’s to her Tars, the best on earth,
Here’s to the flag she flies.”
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PAGE
Before the Launching 1890 to 1896 11
The Launching 1896 13
THE LOG
❦
Course 1, The Cincinnati 1896 16
Course 2, The Maine 1897 18
Course 3, The War 1898 21
Course 4, The Prairie 1899 25
“Dewey Day” September 30, 1899 26
Course 5, The Prairie Again 1900 32
Course 6, Camp Newton 1901 34
Course 7, The Panther 1902 38
Course 8, At Niantic 1903 42
Course 9, The Hartford 1904 46
Course 10, The Columbia 1905 51
Course 11, The Minneapolis 1906 55
Course 12, Again the Prairie 1907 58
Course 13, And Again the Prairie 1908 62
Course 14, The Machias 1909 65
Course 15, The Louisiana 1910 66
❦
(For the Future to Reveal)
Course 16, 1911
Course 17, 1912
Course 18, 1913
Course 19, 1914
Course 20, 1915
❦
Appendix A 68
Appendix B 70
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
❦
PAGE
Frontispiece—First Commanding Officer of the Division, Lieutenant
Felton Parker
Captain Louis F. Middlebrook 10
Division Boat Race in Boston Harbor 24
Lieutenant-Commander Lyman Root 26
Camp Parker 36
Boat Crew at Charles Island 41
Furling Sail on the U. S. S. Hartford 46
Lieutenant Howard J. Bloomer 49
Lieutenant-Commander Robert D. Chapin 53
Lieutenant Carroll C. Beach 56
Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Charles L. Hogan 59
Ensign Frank H. Burns 65
Lieutenant William G. Hinckley 67
Tailpiece, Division Pin 76
JACOB’S LADDER
❦
Founding of the Division April 29, 1896
Duty on the U. S. S. Maine July 10–16, 1897
War Company Mustered In June 15, 1898
“Dewey Day” Parade September 30, 1899
First Battalion Field Day May 23, 1900
Salute to the New Century January 1, 1901
Personal Escort of President Roosevelt in Yale
Bi-Centennial Parade October 16, 1901
First Annual Indoor Meet February 21, 1902
Camp Parker Dedicated July 4, 1902
In Army and Navy Maneuvers, August 30 to September 6, 1902
Beat Champions in Eleven-Inning Game of Indoor
Baseball March 11, 1903
Duty at Camp Reynolds August 22–29, 1903
Re-stocking of the Library November 18, 1903
Elfrida in Hartford Waters June 19–25, 1904
On the U. S. S. Hartford September 6–13, 1904
Indoor Baseball Champions for Season 1904–1905
Hampton Roads August 1–6, 1907
In Bridge Parade October 8, 1908
Wall-Scaling Champions April 29, 1909
First Memorial Sunday June 13, 1909
Off Bermuda July 26–29, 1910
FIRST COMMANDING OFFICER
[Illustration:
LIEUTENANT FELTON PARKER
]
FOREWORD
❦
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.
[Illustration:
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
[Illustration:
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”
❦
[Illustration:
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.
[Illustration:
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.
[Illustration:
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.