Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1898-08-26
A Letter From The 10th.

San Francisco Cal. Aug 20, 1893.
Mr.. Lee Champe,
DEAR FRIEND
| received your letter of the 10th ult.
to-day. | was glad to hear from you
and find that you are still alive and
kicking,
do not believe that have written to
you since we moved our camp to Preside
so will tell you how we are fixed" and
how we get along. We expected an i'm
provcment on Camp Merritt, but not so
great one as it has proved tobe. Camp
Merriam is beautiful place. TIL.
ground is as hard as baked clay, and our
regimental parade ground is just fine.
None of your knee deep sand for us now.
Our company streets are hard and
smooth. Our tents are hoored and we
have straw mattresses to sleep on, SO
you see we are quite comfortable now.
as they were al Camp Merritt, "our
boys" don't mind them near so much as
they did there They have more life in
them now, and everything goes along
smoother than it did. Perhaps you
think that Camp Merriam and Camp
Merritt are long ways apart? Well,
they are not 1t is only about mile
and a half from one to the other We
thought that Camp Merriam would be
more foggy than Camp Merritt, but we
were mistaken in that, too. There is
hill covered with dense growth of trees
and evergreens on the south and west Of
US, which breaks the ocean breeze and
causes the fog to rise and pass over our
camp, SO we have much more sunshine
here than we had there. On the whole
we are in about as good place as we
could ask for, at present. Preside
grounds are about one and one half
miles wide, north and south, and two
miles long, east and west. 1t is nearly
bounded on the east an south by stone
wall about SIX feet high and on the west
bv the ocean, and north bv the bay. In
this enclosure you can find anything
from beautiful flower garden to the
jungles of Africa. You can see level
parade ground, a canon like that of the
Colorado river ~ or mountain peak
like Pixies Peak, without moving out of
your tracks. At places there are dense
growths of gum trees, eyergreens, and
various other kinds of trees of which
do not know the name, Then you will
find a nice little valley with grass grow
ing in it. Then you will find another
hill, which is quite sandy and on which
there are only shrubs about six feet high
weeds. thisthes, etc This is Preside, or
part of it at least. "The Barracks" are
Just a little ways west of our camp, but
| | will describe them some other time,
have tried to give YOU some idea OF
the Preside grounds. You will have no
trouble to prcccive that we can have "all
kinds" of drills, here. We can drill on
our level parade grounds, or we can drill
in the jungles of Africa, in the beautiful
valley of the Sacramento or the rocky
heights of the Sierra Nevadas ~, and we
don't have to go far to do it either.
| When we want to put up fancy drill
we manueyer On our parade ground.
When we want to show our lighting |
qualities we take to the brush! We call
them .'battle exercises" and guess its a !
pretty good name, for we are all thor.
ouphlv exercised" by the time we get
back. At the start we march grandly
ont and down the road in brilliant reli-
mental array. Then we skirmish
through the valley, charge up the hill