SOME SUPERFICIAL GLANCES disfigured the land here. It was all open, cultivated and fenced; with substantial barns and houses dotting it here and there. North and south from the camp and in plain sight of Corps Head quarters ran the Pennsylvania railroad system. This great high way with its never ceasing line of puffing, grimy engines and loaded cars seemed to typify Northern energy and push as much as the old mill at Alger typified Southern sluggishness. Over at Headquarters was another and a more striking evidence that " the old things had passed away "—the headquarters guard, the colored battalion of the gth Ohio, commanded by Major Young, the only living colored graduate of West Point. Young was a Lieutenant in the regular service, on duty as Military instructor at Wilberforce University, at the opening of the war. When the colored gth Ohio battalion was formed President Mc- Kinley commissioned him its Major. No better specimen. of the colored race could be found anywhere. Pine looking, brilliantly educated, and a thorough gentlemen and soldier at all times, he succeeded in moulding out of untrained raw recruits one of the finest organizations in the service. Physically his officers were decidedly the best looking and most soldierly set in camp. The visitor to Camp Meade who was bound to see everything had a long walk before him. Prom the river back in an almost continuous line for three miles stretched regiments, signal detach ments and hospitals. Past these in a never ending stream ran all sorts and conditions of people on curiosity bent. The hospitals seemed to have an especial attraction for them and the surgeons and nurses were kept busy answering questions. Another point of attraction, especially for the ladies, was the company kitchen. Thrifty, cleanly housewives would stand and gaze, open mouthed at the queer mixtures which big knuckled, grimy handed cooks threw into little lakes of grease, sizziling over some logs of wood. One old lady stopped for a full fire minutes watching a greasy gentlemen cut biscuit from a lump of dough with an old bottle top and then exclaimed with amazement: " Why he does it just like I do it," as though there were some secret biscuit making process'known only to the Army. Hard tack was distributed in much the same way that tracts are distributed at a Salvation Army meeting and if you wanted to do the proper thing you asked the donor to write his name, rank, company and regiment on it and took it honie to hang with a red, white and blue ribbon on the wall.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers