Sistersville oil review. [volume] (Sistersville, W. Va.) 1896-1901, 1898-09-07

mustered out contained ABOUT o.
per cent. of the entire regiment.
The petition was sent to the colo
mel ofthe regiment, Hamilton, OF
Chillicoshe, Ohio, and from that
time the trouble for the privates
commenced. The colonel after re-
ceiving the petition called in the
officers of the regiment and asked
them what they desired to do,
whether they wanted to remain in
the service or return home. To a
man the officers were in favor OF
remaining in the service, and to
this attribute the most Of the IN
human treatment the men received.
Some of the officers in the regiment
in which served were men who
in private life never earned over
$40 to $50 a month, and the lowest
commissioned officer in the service
did not get less than S116, the pay
allowed second lieutenant.
The next morning after Colonel
Hamilton got hold of the petition
which the men had signed, asking
that the regiment be mustered out,
the privates were lined up and
their officers talked to them for a
while, urging them to reconsider
the matter and remain in the SER
vice. The officers told the men
that they should rot have signed
the petition and that every man
who had signed it was a COWARD
AND NOT A SOLDIER IN ANY SENSE
OF THE WORD. The privates did
not like to be called towards after
having enlisted on the first call and
having held themselves in readl-
ness to 60 to the front and make
targets of themselves for the bullets
of the Spaniards, and from this
time forward there was Ill feelings
between the privates and officers
and of course as is usually the case,
the privates got the worst of it.
II notice there has been some
talk about the action of Capt. West,
of New Matamoras, the captain of
the company 1 was in. Some of the
people are inclined to believe that
he did not say anything disrespect-
full to the men, and did not call
them towards. He is the man who
did call the men of his company
towards, and it was him whom |
heard say these things. While our
regiment was in Columbus there
was little incident occurred, which,
at the time, did not attract any at
tention, for the reason that the
men were all excited and worked
up over the war, but when the mat
ter referred to came up a short
time ago the incident came to the
minds of the men who had noticed
it with suddenness and vividness.
When the men were lined up at the
Ohio capital waiting to be muster,
ed in, and just before the colonel
who did the mastering in, came
along, Capt. West lined his mer
up, and after talking to them
short time, told them that the first
man who stepped ont of the lines
when the colonel had asked if there
were any who did not desire to go,
he would shoot them.
shortly after the petition had
been presented to the colonel of the
regiment, and I will say right here
the petition never went to the war
department, The ncn commenced
writing communications to their
different home papers, roasting
their officers for the way they had
been treated. Finally all the men
were lined up one morning by the
order of the colonel, and after
severe talking to they were told to
vote on whether they desired to
stay in the service or be mustered
out, with the result that about 50
per cent. of the men voted to return
home. Just to show you how
things were engineered by the off
GERS, that report went in to the war
department stating that "a per
cent of the men in the regiment
had voted to stay. Ofthe company
in which served there were about
twenty.seven men who voted to
stay in; in some of the other com.
panies the ratio was even less.
There is only one other thing
which can be said about the officers
and that is that during all the time
we were in camp at Camp Alger it
was a positive shame the amount of
immortality that could be noticed.
One high officer in Our regiment
had his wife at the camp for week