This parenthetical designation was designed to mark the distinction between National Guard regiments and other regiments in the Volunteer Army of the United States and thus to preserve the integrity of our State organizations.

On May 13, 1898, provisional and special commissions were issued by the Governor of Maryland, as required by the United States, to the officers of the Fifth and First Regiments. The Fifth Regiment was mustered in into the United States service by Lieutenant Ellwood W. Evans, 8th U. S. Cavalry, on May 14, 1898, with 985 officers and men, and the two battalions of the First Regiment were mustered in by him on May 17, 1898, with 651 officers and men. The Fifth soon after departed for Chickamauga, and the First for Fort Monroe.

Provision had been made by the United States that each National Guard regiment might have one Army Officer as a Field Officer. This was a wise provision. Captain Walter L. Finley, 9th U. S. Cavalry, who had been in Maryland by assignment of the War Department for several years, whose ability as an officer was well known, and whose high standing in this Department as a man of integrity, courage and honor was understood and approved by officers and men of the Maryland National Guard, was recommended for the position of Major in the First Regiment, and Lieutenant Ellwood W. Evans, the mustering. officer above mentioned, who had been military instructor at St. John's College for several years and who was also most favorably and popularly known among Maryland officers and men as a competent officer and a gentleman above reproach, was selected for the Fifth Regiment. It was subsequently made known that the Fifth preferred to enter the United States service with its own officers alone. After information was received from the War Department that the First Regiment would be assigned to garrison duty, for a time at least, and that Captain Finley's regiment, the 9th Cavalry, was ordered to the front, Captain Finley held it to be his duty to join his regiment and resume the command of his own Troop. As Lieutenant Evans' regiment was not assigned for duty at the front he consented to go with the First Regiment as a more certain means of seeing active service in the end, and the officers of that regiment readily accepted him as one of their majors. His services to this regiment were invaluable.

The announced purpose to permit these regiments to select and retain, as far as practicable, such of their own officers as were not rejected by the examining surgeons was consistently followed in commissioning officers at Pimlico. No other course would have been just to those who were making the sacrifices many of them made, and any other course would have been in violation of the rights of these organizations as National Guard organizations.

The Staff appointments were, in every case, made by the

Commanding Officers of the respective regiments, and commissions were issued accordingly.

At

In the subsequent commissioning of officers of the Fifth Regiment, of which there were only five, to fill vacancies, commissions were issued on the recommendation of the Commanding Officer. In the subsequent reorganization of the First Regiment, after the second call for troops, the Adjutant General and Major General Commanding did suggest the names of several officers at the request and with the approval of the Commanding Officer of the regiment; a privilege accorded, as was believed, not merely by virtue of his office but as the former regimental commander. no time and in no case, except in that of Lieutenant Evans above mentioned, was any man, not a member of the organization, commissioned, although the "pressure" to induce departure from this rule almost amounted to persecution in some instances. There was, as was to have been expected, much disappointment at the failure of some to enter the service, but no influences or motives other than consideration for the welfare of these organizations and the good of the service operated upon this Department either in this or in any other matter.

On the second call for troops and the proclamation of the Governor thereupon on June 8, 1898, orders were issued and steps were taken for the organization of the Battaltion of the Fourth Regiment which promptly responded to the call to become, for the time, a part of the First Regiment. When the loyalty of officers and men to their own organization is considered, loyalty even to their company designation, too much praise cannot be given the officers and men of the Fourth for being willing to thus leave their own regiment and assume another company designation. This Battalion was mustered in by Captain William J. Nicholson, 7th United States Cavalry, at Baltimore, on June 29, 1898, and soon thereafter left for Fort Monroe to join the First.

On this second call for troops officers from each of the Fifth and First Regiments were sent back to Maryland with orders to report to these Headquarters for blanks and instructions and to proceed with the work of recruiting so that the strength of each company should be increased to one hundred and six enlisted men. The completion of this recruitment made each of said regiments, after the addition to the First Regiment of the battalion of the Fourth above mentioned, a three-battalion, twelve-company regiment, with an aggregate in each of thirteen hundred and thirty-three officers and men; thus making, as stated in the roster herewith, a total of twenty-six hundred and sixty-six infantry, besides the four hundred and fifty-six from the First Naval Battalion for the naval service-a grand total of thirty-one hundred and twenty-two. There was also a number of enlistments from Maryland in a so-called "immune" regiment, with which the State authorities had nothing to do.

By virtue of the special commission to the Adjutant General from the Governor authority was given me by the War Department to visit, from time to time as might be deemed expedient, the First Regiment upon matters relating to its discipline, further organization, etc. In pursuance of this authority three visits were paid the regiment at Fort Monroe and two at Camp Meade, the last visit to Camp Meade being in November, 1898, shortly before its departure for its winter quarters in Augusta, Georgia. The second visit to Fort Monroe was to complete the organization of the regiment. This was practically accomplished on July 7, 1898, although one officer was not mustered in until July 15.

After the departure of our troops for the war it was urged in certain quarters, from good motives for the most part, that another regiment should be organized for the protection of the State, as the Legislature had appropriated an abundance of money for the purpose. The position taken at these Headquarters in reference to this matter was that Troop "A," after the increase in its authorized strength to one hundred enlisted men, the remnant of the Fourth Regiment, the First Separate Company and the "Veteran Corps' would be sufficient for ordinary purposes, especially as our proximity to Washington, where there was then a number of troops, would afford us opportunity to secure aid in case of serious riot or internal disturbance. In fact, Troop "A" was practically "on waiting orders." It was further held that the expenditure of about thirty thousand dollars, which would have been required to fully equip the proposed regiment, would not be justified under all the circumstances and with a due regard to the welfare of the State. Some of the States did organize new regiments.

Early in August, upon the receipt of a letter from the Commanding Officer of the Fifth Regiment, then at Tampa, urging that the regiment be sent to Puerto Rico as its last opportunity to see active service, I proceeded to Washington. The result of several visits and numerous telegrams was that, while the regiment was about to be assigned to General Schwann's Brigade of Regulars, it was finally brigaded with the 2nd Georgia and the Ist Florida, under General Hudson, for service in Puerto Rico. At the same time the 1st Regiment was added to General Wade's Provisional Division for service in Puerto Rico, thus assigning all of Maryland's troops for active service as a recognition, as was stated at the War Department, of Maryland's efficient efforts to furnish well-equipped troops for the war. General Miles' telegram that no more troops were needed in Puerto Rico prevented these contemplated movements.

On Thursday, August 11, 1898, the Governor called my attention by telephone to an account in one of the daily papers in Baltimore of serious illness and dissatisfaction in the 5th Regiment at Tampa. He further called attention

to letters received by him from persons in Baltimore. Not one word of complaint from any officer or man had reached these Headquarters, except the very natural request of the Commanding Officer, above referred to, that the regiment should be assigned to duty in Puerto Rico. It was known that the regiment was one of only eight of the large number at Chickamauga which was deemed fit in material and equipment for immediate service. The State had even furnished our troops with ammunition. It was known the regiment was under orders for Santiago in the very beginning and that embarking had, at one time, been commenced at Port Tampa. It was supposed that matters were not altogether comfortable at Tampa, but no official notification of actual conditions there had been received.

However, after further talk with the Governor it was determined that a visit should be paid to Tampa. Having obtained from the Adjutant-General of the army, by virtue of the special commission from the Governor filed at the War Department as aforesaid, a strong letter to the Commanding Officer of the Fourth Army Corps, which, among other things, stated the purpose of the trip to be "to inquire into the health and general condition of the 5th Maryland U. S. Volunteer Infantry, based upon rumors which the bearer believed to be largely sensational," departure was made from Baltimore on Saturday afternoon, August 13, 1898. Tampa was reached on Sunday night. That neither officers nor men of the regiment, used for weeks to their own appearance and surroundings, worn with waiting, wasted, in many cases, by fever and disease developing and multiplying day by day, could understand how the situation affected one who had been one of them, and who had seen them depart from Pimlico three months before in health and vigor, is not a matter of surprise. Had I been vested with the authority I should, then and there, have ordered the regiment home.

Orders had been issued to remove the regiment, with other troops at Tampa, to Huntsville, Alabama; but a rumor prevailed that it might be ordered to Fernandina, still within the "fever belt." I therefore left Tampa for Jacksonville on Tuesday night, August 16, having heard much of censorship at Tampa, and on the morning following wired the Adjutant General of the Army from the latter place as follows: "To my surprise nothing sensational in those rumors. The patient and uncomplaining endurance of officers and men amounts to heroism. I earnestly hope the exodus from Tampa to Huntsville will be speedily accomplished."

On my arrival at Huntsville, by way of Chickamauga where valuable information as to army conditions generally was obtained, General Coppinger, Commanding the Fourth Army Corps, and his officers extended every facility for the work in hand, gave full information, offered the choice of camping ground for the Fifth, and agreed fully, with the entire

concurrence of the Chief Surgeon of the Corps, that it would be advisable, under all the circumstances, to remove not only such of the soldiers of the regiment as were already ill and able to be moved, but more particularly those who were in that depressed state bordering on illness. Arrangements were therefore made soon after the arrival of the regiment at Huntsville on the Sun-. day morning following for hospital trains, and two trains transporting nearly two hundred of these invalids were dispatched. in the ensuing ten days.

General Riggs received these invalids on arrival of the trains in Baltimore, and the worst cases were removed to hospitals by special direction of the Governor. The Surgeon General of the Army afterwards paid about $4,000 on account of the hospital claims, relieving to this extent the obligation assumed by the State.

Shortly after the arrival of the regiment at Huntsville the Governor of Maryland, at the solicitation of friends of the regiment in Baltimore and in accordance with the wishes of a very large majority of the members of the regiment, wired that he had secured from the War Department an order for the mustering out of the Fifth Regiment. The regiment remained at Huntsville over two weeks, reported at Baltimore early in September and was mustered out on October 22, 1898.

About twenty members of the Fifth Regiment died from disease contracted in the service, including that very popular and well-beloved officer, Lieutenant-Colonel William D. Robinson.

The war career of the First Regiment was uneventful. This regiment, like the Fifth, did what was required of it. It performed garrison duty at Fort Monroe; left for Camp Meade, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in September; left Camp Meade for winter quarters at Augusta, Georgia, in the late fall, and was there mustered out on February 28, 1899. Eight men were reported to have died in the First Regiment.

That neither regiment saw more active duty was not, I am persuaded, the fault of either organization. As a prominent army officer said: "There was not enough war to go around." Whatever may have been the shortcomings of any department of the government, very few persons have any conception of the "pressure" brought to bear by Senators, Representatives and others in high places to accomplish special purposes. It is but just, however, to these "servants of the people" to say that the "pressure" upon them frequently comes from the people they, represent. It has been alleged that this "pressure" was largely the cause of the assignment to duty of certain regiments in the late war. However this may be, the particular matters that should not be lost sight of are the prompt response to the call of duty by Maryland troops, the sacrifices made by these loyal officers and men, the unreserved offer of themselves to their country for whatever the fate of war might bring.