aptain; he was a good officer, and was soon promoted
to major of the 23d Regiment, and commanded it for several months. He
was then promoted to a lieutenant-colonel and assigned to duty with the
Third Infantry, then in the Philippines. After he set out to join his
new regiment I never saw him again. He was the first captain I served
under.

Soldiers who served under good officers were fortunate, but if they had
bad ones they were soon in trouble and had a hard service. A son of
Lieutenant-Colonel Goodale, who was a lieutenant, was placed in command
of Company "A." He, like his father, was a good officer, and soon won
the confidence and esteem of his company.

After the declaration of war between the United States and Spain, the
23d Regiment was recruited to its full quota of one hundred men for each
of twelve companies. Four new companies had to be formed, which were
called, at first, skeleton companies, because they only had a few men
transferred to them from the old ones.

Non-commissioned officers were transferred to the new companies and
placed in charge of the recruits, to drill and prepare them for duty.

Drilling recruits is hard work, and all the officers avoided it as much
as possible. From the 20th of April to the 24th of May we had nothing
but drill.

When Admiral Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay, orders
were sent to the 23d Regiment to proceed at once to San Francisco. It
will be remembered that we had gone to New Orleans under orders
directing our regiment to Cuba, but everything had changed so suddenly
that we were ordered to San Francisco to be in readiness to go to the
Philippines.

The orders from the War Department were received by Colonel French on
the night of the 23d of May.

The following day everything was put in readiness for leaving for San
Francisco, but to hasten preparations all our tents were struck at 4
o'clock in the evening. Soon afterwards it commenced raining for the
first time during our stay at New Orleans. Our tents were down and we
had no place to shelter and pass the night. We were ready to leave next
morning. I never saw so many wet soldiers before. I was on guard and saw
two hundred men or more go into stables that were near our camp. We were
camping in the race track of the city fair grounds, which were
surrounded by a great many stables. This was rough fare, and I could not
say whether the men slept or killed mosquitoes. One thing I know beyond
question: