The San Francisco call., 1898-09-04
Boys of the First Thrive on the Campaign Hardships in the
 Philippines.
But Two Members of the Regiment Invalided, While Those From Other States
 Suffer Greatly.

ditionS and the regimental health, thanks to the good sense and good physique of the boys themselves and to the really excellent hospital corps we have, Is something little less than marvellous. To understand how excel lent it is one has merely to draw a comparison between the California volunteers and any one of the other regiments attached to the expedition. ] Take the Colorado regiment. for in stance, which, is camped just behind us, and whose hardships are identical with ours, only not so long endured either ashore or afioat It has already sent home 125 disabled men and the second expedition, of which it was part, had four deaths to report on it's arrival here. The boys from San Francisco sent but two of their comrades home. One was accidentally hurt, while the other suf- fers from, a hereditary weakness. They have no deaths to report as yet, and, please God, will have none other than those made glorious by the lurid halo of battle.
 The weather is intensely wet and that together with the terrible heat makes the humidity something frightful. But the tents are dry and most of the boys have made them doubly so by building platforms of bamboo under them. The
 men are young, vigorous and full of enthusiasm, so I feel certain that the | ravageS from disease will not be what
 was anticipated and all will go well with the First California Volunteers if
 their colonel will only insist on the
 band learning to play something that sounds more like music and less like a Chinese orchestra.
 The second battalion moved over here on the 18th (two or three days after the first, under Major Boxton). All day long the boys toiled unloading boxes and bales, wading through the water, car | rying arms, accoutermentS and proviS- | ions, working like dray horses with cook chests, ammunition and baggage of all sorts. And when at night the last tent had been pitched and the last | package accounted for and laid away in it's proper place, blankets werespread and tired soldiery quickly sunk to rest. The camp was as quiet as a bivouac of the dead. The watchful sentinel, hid among the foliage of his post, gave no sign of his wakeful pres ence; no light threw it's bright ray across the whole white expanse of tents, silhouetted into a weird ghostli- ness by the pale moonlight. All was dark and peaceful and quiet. An ene- my slumbered.
 Suddenly shot rang out on the still
 ness. Then another and another.
 Then a whole volley and then the heavens seemed to split asunder, as the deep tones of cannon lent their thun- l der to the unexpected turmoil.
 Bugles sounded the call to arms.
 There was a sudden awakening, a
 wild scramble for arms and cartridge belts, a hurried pulling on of shoes (the only really necessary article of apparel
 in such crisis): men rushed half awakened from the tents, in which but moment before they had been lying | peacefully, dreaming of home and kin dred far across the seas, and making their way to the proper place, hurriedly 1 fell into ranks. A Spanish shell, mount ed high into the heavens and bursting, l descended in a shower of fire. It burst l just one minute and thirty seconds af- ter the first call to arms and it's light l shone down on every man of the First California Volunteer Regiment, stand | ing in his proper place in the ranks. fully accoutered for battle and calmly
 awaiting the conflict, which seemed certainty. What regular regiment will make better showing than that?
 Tell the people of San Francisco to dismiss the phrase "tin soldiers from
 their vocabulary. If they could have seen the different companies take up
 their positions, deploying in perfect order, notwithstanding the darkness, the brush and the surprise: if they could have witnessed the confident ad- vance of the cloud of skirmishers 1 thrown out in the advance; if they could l have seen the boys in the support
 throw themselves on the grass and catch a cat-nap while awaiting as they l thought desperate hand-to-hand con- | f1ict: If they could have seen the officers l calmly awaiting information and have 1 heard them delivering whispered orders in voices as steady as when on parade 1 in the Presidio-if, I say, the people at | home could have seen all this under the dark tropical Philippine sky, illu- minated by bursting shell and rent by I crashing musketry, they would never again say anything about tin soldiers,
 and would understand why a man is 1 proud to be member of such regi- ment.
 | It was not an actual surprise, but an engagement between the insurgents and Spanish at the trenches. which was