Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-10-08
CAVALRY GOSSIP.
Stories of Interest Being Told. by Returned
Troopers and Which Are Being
Eagerly Listened To.

erS stood at the street corner last even
ing talking over their camp experiences.
Il understand chimed in an outsider,
that Captain Muller has seen regular
army service Should rather say he
had was the prompt reply from one of
the boys. Fritz served his five years
in the regular army, the 9Th cavalry; in
which he al a non-commissioned Off
Ger, inc saw a whole lot of service on
the plains back in the eighties, when he
had more than one bout with the REQ
skins. He vas mustered out in 'SS, l
believe. and the knowledge of cavalry
tactics and administration he gained in
his five years made him the best soldier
among the captains of our regiment.
Colonel Roosevelt found just occasion
to compliment 'Unser Fritz more than
once for his ability in handling his
men,"
What sort of a captain was Wood
bury Kane, of troop X, the New York
polo player and tally-ho coach MANI
was asked. Kane was a mighty good
fellow" was the prompt answer. He
had a great big heart in him and he was
generous to the boys. No man need
have suffered from want of tobacco
| while he was within reach. His sister
| sent him a whole raft of the weed to
Cuba, and it went off like smoke. At
| Montauk Point the boys had plenty Of
the weed. which was furnished by the
American Tobacco Company"
when will Coleman be home?' was
another question asked.
Coleman was promoted from his Sec
ond l~ieutenancy in Z troop to be quar-
termaster of the regiment. and he has to
| remain behind in Washington straight
| ening out the regiments papers. and a
| lively time he is having Of 1t. I would
not take his job for money. There's L
troop, whose captain, Buckley ONiell,
was killed. The papers of that troop got
all mixed up, and to get them straight
was enough to puzzle a Philadelphia
lawyer. The men neglected to fill ou
the blanks furnished them, and now
there is a peck Of trouble. No, I don't
envy Coleman his job. The papers of F
troop were the only troop papers that
We're right up to the mark. There was
no difficulty in Strengthening Il u pa
pers with the War department"
The conversation here drifted IN tc
other topics connected with camp life
and several Of the boys related their
%perience in breaking the horses, when
one Of the troopers gave a sort Of a
smoker as he remarked that the horses
were really never broken in. Eyes," in
terrupted an outsider, "but they seemed
to have learned the bugle call all right
ooh, any horse that is half a horse will
learn bugle calls, and any horse that has
once got any idea of them will never for.
get. When the horses were fired off the
transports into the sea off Baiquiri and
started to swim out to sea. the instant
a bugler gave the stable call from the
beach they turned right around toward
where the bugler was standing and
came ashore. Horses will follow a bu-
gle call at any time"
Some one here called up, by a way OF
variety, the stories that some of the
newspapers had told about the regiment
and n question was asked as to the
story from q New York paper that a
troop Of the Rough Riders had been de-
tailed to round up q drunken crowd OF
colored cavalrymen, and that the
westerners had incidentally killed halt
a dozen of the roisterers. This raised
something Of a laugh among the group
and one of them said: 'There was nc
truth in it at all. Some soldiers had
been down in the non-spirituelle part Of
Tampa. and in the course Of their aes-
thetic adventures had burned down q
maison de joie. But they were taken
care of without any trouble, and nc
shooting was done"
One experience the boys had with a
reporter while at San Antonio was en-
livening and interesting. An Express re.
porter with more assumption than sens
attempted to pass the sentry line, an6
was stopped. Well, he was going
through anyhow, and he didn't care a
tinker's continental. either, for the sen
try or any other dog-goned trooper. Sc
his reportorial nibs essayed to pass the
lines, and the sentry nabbed him. Well
when that reporter came to his senses
he was pointing for the Express Office
with a segregated bosom in his panta-
looms, his shirt collar was a lamented
piece of ~bric-a-brac, and his cravat was
among the things that were. The young
man learned a valuable lesson, but all
the same he had it in for the boys, and
shot off his quill at them at every oppor-
tunity. He got after the boys on the oc-
casion Of a band concert given on the
plaza. Bandmaster Carl Beck gave a
concert complimentary to the Rough
Riders and had several Of the boys fire
off blank cartridges during a descriptive
piece called the Cavalry Charge" OF
course the shooting made considerable
of a racket, and this Express reporter
seized the occasion to write the troop
ers up as toughs and as engaged in acts
of rowdyism for doing what the band
master had requested them to do. This
version was sent off by enterprising
correspondents, and the further off the
accounts were sent, the worse they
grew. 1t was also reported in some of
the eastern papers that on the way from
San Antonio to Tampa the men stole
everything they could lay their hands
on. This was entirely untrue, for every
thing the men took they paid for, and
there was no trouble.