Daniel Doane Bidwell

“ THE MACHIAS So near is the history drawing to the present that merely a bare outline is given here of the next two years. The cruise of the summer of 1909 was on the Machias and took the division to quaint old Provincetown. The Pilgrims’ Tower and the swimming linger in the men’s memory. ”

“ A veteran of the Civil War, a seasoned sailor, a loyal Hartford man who took pride in his townspeople, the Admiral had richly merited the division’s high esteem. His strong, yet kindly face the men missed and mourned.
In the autumn an order came for a parade in New Haven, and when the personal escort for President Roosevelt was selected, it was found to be the Naval Battalion; and when the parade started it was found that the senior division, the Second, was next to the President’s carriage. ”

“ Like every command from Connecticut which served in the war with Spain, the division found many of its best members returning to civilian ranks, and that to replace them either numerically or in quality required time and activity. But new blood—or what might be called a saline infusion—came, and before the snows melted the division had weathered the worst.
It was the Prairie which was the division’s floating home on the cruise taken in the following August. On the 16th the battalion sailed from New Haven harbor. ”

“ One minute prior to midnight December 31, two gun crews unlimbered in the rear of the City Hall and on the dot of midnight, the opening of the new century, Gunner’s Mate Chapin fired the first shot in a salute of twenty-one guns, a welcome to the newborn heir of time.
Century No. Twenty’s first gift to the division was an indoor baseball team. The sport was new to the armory and it jumped (or slid) into instant favor. The 33first game was with a team from Company A and to the astonishment of everybody and most of all themselves the sailors won, by a score of 17 to 12. ”

“ Let go topgallant halliards, man topsail clew lines, veer and stopper cables. It was a novelty to nearly all of the division, bringing back the old days of heave and haul. The regulars were husky men with legs like barrels and arms like blacksmiths’, nearly every one raw material for a football player or anchor of a tug-of-war team. ”

“ In April, the First Regiment marched away, the division remaining eager for the coming call. Each drill evening the men put heart, energy and sustained attention into the work. Drills took place on the park in the presence of citizens who paid their tributes of respect to the sailor blue. Each member was urged to train physically, as well as to learn the drills. Seamanship, signalling and such boat work as could be taught were the backbone of the instruction. ”

“ With four officers and 112 men the division swung out from the armory on the evening of the 29th and amid red fire and with a band blaring at the front paraded to the railroad station, envied by infantrymen who could not obtain opportunity to march in the mammoth procession. At 11 o’clock the company marched into the Second Regiment Armory in New Haven, stacked arms and was dismissed for a midnight lunch, at which the men stowed away steaming coffee and ham sandwiches and received strict orders not to leave the building. ”

“ THE LOUISIANA The cruise of 1910 was on the battleship Louisiana and it carried the division around the Island of Bermuda. April 29 the division’s crackerjack wall-scaling team won the world’s championship, in the Twenty-third Regiment Armory in Brooklyn, N. Y., over three competing teams.
The Fourth Division
Naval Militia Connecticut National Guard Soon after the forming of the First Division an engineer force was outlined and then established and this in time became known as an engineer division. The organizing of the Second Division had its influence on the so-called engineer division. ”

“ And so it was that a little knot of similar spirits in Hartford was formed, men with fondness for yachting on the Sound or with patriotic pride in the Navy who gravitated together after a nucleus had been developed. ”

“ From newspaper files which have long lain in unhallowed dust, from scrap-books long undisturbed, from orders and records and literature which has received no generic name and from the lips of survivors of a glorious but ancient day the historian has drawn the facts which follow. ”

“ The division boarded the ship in New London harbor. In the course of the service the Panther steamed as far east as Menemsha Bight and as far west as New London, the object of the maneuvers being to test in a practical way the defenses of the eastern entrance of Long Island Sound. At sundown of a Saturday the most powerful fleet to that time assembled in those waters was riding to anchor in the bight, awaiting the passage of the hours before midnight ’ere beginning maneuvers against the string of forts and signal stations scattered all the way from Woods Hole around to Montauk. ”

“ At the conclusion of the parade many of the division repaired to restaurants near Madison Square and Union Square. Dozens of them found, when they stepped to the cashiers’ coops to liquidate, that unknown civilians had obtained their checks and paid the bills. A man in a sailor uniform in New York City that September afternoon found it no easy task to spend money. Nothing was too good for the bluejackets.
It is to be recorded that Lieutenant Cuntz, Gunner’s Mate Huntington, Coxswain Chapin and Seamen Noble and Nutter preceded the battalion to New York. ”

“ Thursday morning reveille was sounded at Camp McAdoo at 5 o’clock and simultaneously rain began to 17fall. After mess the battalion struck the tents, turned to on camp gear and transferred nine boatloads from the island to the Cincinnati. Most of the men were in water to their waists. Between the fresh and the salt they were not incompletely drenched, but their hearts were gay and when the boats were hove up they tailed on the falls with a will. ”

“ For these the historian begs indulgence. He desires to add that the task has been a pleasant one in spite of the difficulty and that his only regret is that a history-more adequate is not the result.
In any case the trail has been blazed, or, to use a more appropriate metaphor, the channel has been buoyed for him who is destined to produce a suitable volume when the Second Division shall have arrived at its twenty-fifth anniversary. ”

“ Seas broke high over the weather rail to fly across the engine room skylight. The officers on the bridge and the quartermaster on watch were soon soaked to the skin in spite of oilskins and pea coats. It was a fierce night and the brave little ship had a nervy tussle with the gale. At 3 o’clock in the morning the Elfrida put into Huntington Bay and dropped anchor, finding that five large steamers were there riding out the night, among them the Tremont of the Joy Line, and the Shinnecock. Stormbound sailing craft were also in the bay. ”

“ The rescuing boat crew found the women hysterical and with life preservers adjusted. The men from the Elfrida cleared away the wreckage.
Early in the fall the division entertained members of H Company, Naval Brigade, M. V. M., of Springfield, at Camp Parker with an old-time shore clambake. The camp had become increasingly popular and for a number of years nearly every Saturday or Sunday afternoon in midsummer attracted division men to the place, and in “whites” the boys kept busy making things snug in the galley or policing the grounds or taking a spin in a pulling boat below. ”

“ Massachusetts had preceded the Empire State by more than fifteen months, and Rhode Island by about a year, and when the command in New Haven organized, the states which boasted naval militia organizations were Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Pennsylvania and Illinois. The total strength of the naval militia in these states was about 2,100 officers and enlisted men. ”

“ Skylarking such as this varied the serious work of the drill season. Although the membership of the command from time to time changed to some extent, the majority of the men had been in the division for years and were fairly proficient in seamanship as well as in the ordinary armory routine, and it must not be imagined that their fun interfered with their nautical work.
The diversity of the fun is proved when allusion is made to a game between the division’s new basketball team and the Boston Bloomer Girls’. ”

“ In the nine years he had been in the division he had ascended the ladder, round by round, as seaman, coxswain, gunner’s mate, second and first class, and boatswain’s mate, first class. He had served on about every brand of standing committee which the organization had utilized. ”

“ He witnessed hammock and dunnage bag inspection, a “ceremony” which our men loved as cordially as the devil loves holy water. He saw, also, Underwood typewriters in the paymaster’s office and rejoiced at the use of a Hartford product.
In the fall information came that the Elfrida was to leave Connecticut waters and that the unarmored gunboat Machias was to take her place as the battalion’s practice ship. The new ship was built in Bath, Me., in 1892. She is of steel, has two masts. ”

“ THE HARTFORD
FURLING SAIL ON THE U. S. S. HARTFORD
The yearly cruise of 1904 was on Farragut langsyne flagship, the Hartford, relic of the battle of Mobile Bay. It was as interesting as any which the division has ever taken, barring, perhaps, that on the Panther. When station billets were issued even the old hands volleyed questions at their running mates of the regular crew. Here is the start of a typical station billet:
That was easy enough, even for a rooky. But what do you know about this?
EVOLUTION.
Loosing sail. ”

“ Still he had men who were fairly proficient when the battalion had its annual tour of duty, at Camp Newton on Fisher’s Island. Tent life was varied by considerable work in pulling boats. It was expected that a cutter race would be rowed between the Hartford racing crew and a crew picked from the New Haven and Bridgeport Division, but the latter did not materialize. That spectators might not be disappointed, two crews were selected from the Hartford oarsmen, Lieutenant Lyman Root acting as coxswain for one and Assistant Surgeon Carroll C. Beach for the other. ”

“ The First Regiment was not upon the list, but with honorable patriotism officers of the regiment who had served in Camp Alger requested of 27Lieutenant Lyman Root, Lieutenant Parker’s successor, permission to wear the sailor blue and carry Springfields in the division ranks. Men who had served in distant years in the wooden navy and men who had fought under Dyer in Manila Bay and Wainwright in the combat with the Furor and the Pluton and had returned to Hartford, also asked and received the same permission. ”

“ But if the principle is correct that “any weather is better than none,” as Mark Twain, who once produced a treatise on navigation which he called “Following the Equator,” summarized his opinion of the elements, then it may be correct to allege that this history is better than no attempt. ”

“ From that germ has grown a system which now includes naval militia bodies 12in twenty-three states and has on the rosters between seven thousand and eight thousand officers and enlisted men; and has recorded several times that number of alumni who are in part trained for the country’s hour of need on salt water.
Interesting stories about the First Division of New Haven came to the ears of many lovers of salt water in Hartford. ”

“ Most of the work was at Camp Long or in small boats, but not a little was on the ship, where gun drill was among the most interesting of the branches. A lecture on the Whitehead torpedo was a feature of the curriculum.
One afternoon during the tour of duty on the Maine, the signal squads of the First and the Second Divisions met in a contest for a trophy cup and the squad from the Second won. The winning team included Quartermasters Cheney and Wightman and Seamen Bosworth and V. Morgan. ”

“ In time the branch as a separate organization seemed to lapse, although its importance was increasing.
In January, 1908, an artificer division was called for, in an order from the adjutant-general’s office, to have a maximum enlisted strength of forty, and Chief Engineer William G. Hinckley was placed in command. Commander Cornwell directed Mr. Hinckley and Assistant Engineer Osborne A. Day to enlist and organize the division. ”

“ It is interesting to hark back to the Maine days and to record that a racing cutter crew was evolved and that it received some, if not much, instruction and encouragement from men on the Maine. Out of the mist of that 20week it is recorded that this crew was made up of these oarsmen: First, Seaman Baxter ”

“ Skylights were closed, all glims were doused and current was turned on for small electric lamps in a hemlock, which had been decorated with marlinspikes, rope yarns, and cornucopias. Lieutenant (Junior Grade) James A. Evans, rigged gaily as Santa Claus, served out gifts from the break of the quarter deck, assisted by Boatswain’s Mates Perkins and Wyllie and Gunner’s Mate Dickerman. Mr. ”