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Plattsburg, Tuesday, September 12.

Dear Mother:—

Today we have had something new. We have so far been drilling in close order formation, so called because we always maintain our front and rear ranks together as such. This order has two purposes, one for parade and review, the other for quickest marching to any given place. But for fighting, which after all is our real purpose, the close order must be discarded in favor of extended order, which you will understand better if I call it skirmish line formation. Here front and rear rank form in one long line, in order not to do damage to each other in firing.

Our drill field at the camp distinctly has its drawbacks. Across part of it are open drainage ditches; and another part, where no ditches are, is a slippery bog after any rain. Drilling on such a field distracts you between the natural desire to pick your footing, and the officers’ constant command to keep your eyes up. We are told that the city of Plattsburg is very generous in providing this ground, and doubtless it was to begin with; yet I wonder if after two very prosperous seasons, due to our presence and our visitors’, the city couldn’t afford to put a few hundred dollars (it would cost no more) into finishing draining the field with tile, and filling the ditches in. That would give us good dry ground and firm footing.

At any rate, it was a relief to be marched this morning to the military post, to practice our new formations on its great smooth field. The parade-ground is a wide level space by the edge of the lake, and on the inner side is a long row of the married officers’ houses, all exactly alike, yet with shrubs and vines not unhomelike. I saw three children at one place, two at another, plus two nursemaids; but as a whole the houses look deserted, as they are. For all our regiments of this department are on the Mexican border, and while papa is away it is natural for mamma to take the babies to visit grandpa, if indeed she doesn’t go to the border too. As a consequence of this absence of the infantry regiments, we are ministered to here by some companies of coast artillery, which are useless to the government in this crisis, and so are unwillingly serving here as cooks, waiters, and equipment orderlies. Our officers are scraped up from everywhere, the captain of my company even coming from Panama. Unless they can persuade themselves that there is to be no more fighting in Mexico, they must hate to settle down here as mere missionaries of the preparedness movement.

Well, we were taken onto the field, and were given our first dose of skirmish drill. The captain explained how the squad should do the expanding movement on which the whole is based. “Being at a halt,” as the regulations are fond of saying, the corporal takes position three paces in front of his Number Two man, extends his arms as a signal or gives his order, and the men at a run take given positions on a line with him. A corporal and his squad being ordered to illustrate this for the benefit of the rest of us, the corporal forgot to stand fast, and so away the eight of them went, heading directly for the lake, the captain watching them with amusement, the rest of us snickering. Over the edge of the bluff they went, we heard crashes in the bushes, and presently, when the rest of us were beginning our demonstration, we saw the sheepish return of our lost squad. No one in our company will ever now forget that when we begin our deployment at a halt, we advance those three paces and no more.

You see now the real value of the corporal. He is of use in close order formation, yet there, with a little drill, the company could get along without him. But in extended order he is in independent command of the squad, takes his orders from his superior, translates them according to circumstances, and separately leads his little bunch of men to the place where they are to deploy. Moreover, since his problem varies according as we are marching or at a halt, in line or in column, and according as we are to guide centre, right, or left, the corporal needs (we proved it today) to have a cool head and a firm hold of his men. In one case we go forward, in another we march to one side before deploying, in still another we make a letter S, going backward and then forward again. There was a wonderful confusion this morning, with all of us greenhorns trying to learn this new work. Moreover, since we are volunteers, and men of intelligence, and by this time pretty well acquainted, every man of us thought he understood everything, and was bursting to tell the others how it should be done.

And then began to appear which of our corporals were corporals indeed. Some squads were little Babels, each man uttering forth his voice, with the poor squad-leader either vainly trying to make himself heard, or silently trying to make his own ideas square with the contradictions of the other seven. Other squads may have been repressed volcanoes, but still they were repressed, with the corporal making his mistakes in his own way, but learning by blundering how the thing should be done. As for Squad 8, Knudsen was guarding the corporal’s peace of mind. Once when Bannister had mistaken the order, and I burst out with a whispered “Too far!” Knudsen snapped at me, “No speaking to the corporal!” Now since once or twice he had given advice, that was a touch too much; but I caught a significant twinkle in Corder’s eye, and held my peace. I shan’t soon forget the puzzled expression on Bannister’s round, honest face when he found himself many yards out of the way, and his involuntary “Whoa!” Then Knudsen quietly took charge of us, and led us where we belonged.

“This is going to be interesting,” whispered Corder to me. “Remember what I told you.”

In the afternoon, among other drill work, we were taught how to make our packs. The strangely shaped piece of webbing which I once tried to describe to you, with all its straps and hooks, is a haversack worked out by a commission headed by a Major Stewart, who evolved this Stewart pack, the lightest by many pounds of any army pack in the world. Now give attention. On the ground you spread your poncho, rubber side downward. On it you lay your shelter-half and fold it till it too is an oblong, smaller than the poncho. Next you fold one blanket thrice and lay it with its stripe lengthwise of the poncho. Lay on it your tent-pegs, rope, bacon box and condiment can, a change of underclothes, your soap and razor, tooth-brush and towel. Lap over it the edges of the poncho and the shelter-half. Now roll this from the blanket end, packing tightly; and when you approach the end of the poncho, fold eight inches of it toward you, and into this pocket work the roll. Thus you have made a tight waterproof sausage, firmly enough packed to be thrown about without coming open. The first stage of making your pack is now finished.

The roll is now, by means only to be learned by actual doing, to be strapped to the haversack, which also carries the bayonet and, in its big pocket, the meat-can, knife, fork, and spoon. The pack is next, by its complicated straps, attached to the belt, and the whole is put on like a vest, the arms through its broad straps. These should be so tightened that the top of the pack comes well above the level of the shoulders, so that the straps will not drag and cut. The belt is buckled in front, but should be loose enough to hang over the hips. Thus the whole weight of the pack and belt is carried by the shoulders, which are braced back as by the old-fashioned shoulder brace, leaving the chest free for expansion, and carrying no weight.

The pack weighs about eighteen pounds, the belt (with full canteen and cartridge pockets) another eight, the rifle nine. Thirty-five pounds, for light marching order, is much less than any other army than ours is blessed with. And this outfit is to be, as our captain grimly remarked today, our constant companions. Oh my poor back!

I know it will be hard to read this letter, my hand shakes so. This is because all this morning I carried my rifle “at trail,” which means that I gripped it a foot from the muzzle and carried it with the butt just off the ground, the butt constantly exercising a heavy leverage on the wrist. Naturally I am lame.

Your letters come daily, which saves me much anguish. At each distribution of the mail there is much quiet disappointment, which later is very likely to express itself in the tent. Said Reardon today, the silent man of the squad, “I’m going to write a letter home that will raise hell.” Bannister, whose wife had missed a day, remarked gravely, “I’ll have to say something to her.” And Pickle came into the tent mad, savagely remarking, “If I don’t get a letter next mail, I’m going home.” Luckily it came.

But yet the men don’t always sympathize with each other. Clay was bitterly complaining of his luck. Said Knudsen, “But man, you can’t expect an answer to your letter yet. It had to go to Maryland.” Then Bannister, taking his mind from his own disappointment, added, “And great Scott! look at the letter you writ. It was so long that she would need three whole days to read it in, before she could begin her answer. And as to your writing such an amount to your mother—!” “It was only eight pages,” said handsome Clay, blushing. Bannister had no mercy. “Only eight pages? Man, it was a young novel! To your mother? Your grandmother, more likely.” Clay was silenced.

Our fourth blankets are served out, and we sleep very snug. Food is the same, wholesome but not delicate. David and Pickle, having each a sweet tooth, buy rather freely outside, and David occasionally slips away for a hotel meal. As a consequence, they sometimes need doctoring. The rest of the squad, whether from economy or on principle, stick to the daily mess and are well. Love from

Dick.