roops from severe climates to
mild ones and _vice versa_, that equal justice might be done all) had
repeatedly overlooked the 25th Infantry; or had only ordered it from
Minnesota to the Dakotas and Montana, in the same military department,
and in a climate more severe for troops to serve in than any in the
United States. This gallant regiment of colored soldiers served
eighteen years in that climate, where, in winter, which lasts five
months or more, the temperature falls as low as 55 degrees below
zero, and in summer rises to over 100 degrees in the shade and where
mosquitos rival the Jersey breed.

Before Congress had reached a conclusion as to what should be done in
the Maine disaster, an order had been issued at headquarters of the
army directing the removal of the regiment to the department of the
South, one of the then recently organized departments.

At the time when the press of the country was urging a declaration of
war, and when Minister Woodford, at Madrid, was exhausting all the
arts of peace, in order that the United States might get prepared for
war, the men of the 25th Infantry were sitting around red-hot stoves,
in their comfortable quarters in Montana, discussing the doings of
Congress, impatient for a move against Spain. After great excitement
and what we looked upon as a long delay, a telegraphic order came. Not
for us to leave for the Department of the South, but to go to that
lonely sun-parched sandy island Dry Tortugas. In the face of the fact
that the order was for us to go to that isolated spot, where rebel
prisoners were carried and turned lose during the war of the
rebellion, being left there without guard, there being absolutely no
means of escape, and where it would have been necessary for our safety
to have kept Sampson's fleet in sight, the men received the news with
gladness and cheered as the order was read to them. The destination
was changed to Key West, Florida, then to Chickamauga Park, Georgia.
It seemed that the war department did not know what to do with the
soldiers at first.

Early Sunday morning, April 10, 1898, Easter Sunday, amidst tears of
lovers and others endeared by long acquaintance and kindness, and the
enthusiastic cheers of friends and well-wishers, the start was made
for Cuba.

It is a fact worthy of note that Easter services in all the churches
in Missoula, Montana, a town of over ten thousand inhabitants, was
postponed the morning of the departure of the 25th