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 Infantry, and the
whole town turned out to bid us farewell. Never before were soldiers
more encouraged to go to war than we. Being the first regiment to
move, from the west, the papers had informed the people of our route.
At every station there was a throng of people who cheered as we
passed. Everywhere the Stars and Stripes could be seen. Everybody had
caught the war fever. We arrived at Chickamauga Park about April 15,