Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-04-07
FOR THE PHILIPPINES.
Two Companies of Engineers to Leave
April IS.

washington, April 6.-TWO COM
panies of the engineers battalion that
has been under instruction at the
Washington barracks during the last
two years will start for the Philippines
April Is. The rest will follow. This
battalion will take the place of the
battalion of engineers that is now in
the Philippines. 1t will probably be
the best equipped organization of the
kind that has ever gone from it's school
of instruction to active duty.
Major Curtis Med. Townsend, corps
of engineers who recently arrived from
Rock Island, ILL.,, will command Com
panieS | and K, who will leave first.
He will devote the next two weeks to
drilling his command and fitting it out
for the tour of service in the Philip
pines, so as to have it ready to sail
from San Francisco May /.
The battalion represents the high
est development in training that it is
possible to give a force of engineers
who are to be in readiness to carry on
their work while under fire. The men
of the four companies of engineers
have been trained in all sorts of skilled
trades that are likely to be of service
in connection with the operations of
an army. Two years ago they were
nearly all new men. OF the four COM
panies there were but thirty four "old
soldiers" The old soldiers are not men
old in years but merely those who have
previously seen service in the army
Only thirty-four of the four companies
had ever known any military service.
But the recruits being young men of
good physique and generally of rath-
er more than fair education were prom
Using material with which to make up
an engineer corps.
They found in their life at the Wash
ington barracks a sufficiently diversi-
fled routine to inspire interest and to
call out their best efforts. They We're
drilled like ordinary soldiers and in adj
dition to that training they were in
Structed in different trades Some of
them have been taught. carpentering,
some brick laying, bridge building,
photography and great variety of
useful knowledge that is necessary for
an efficient corps of engineers who are
to go into a hostile country and be
ready to construct public works needed
for military purposes or to demolish
others that it is desired to get rid Of
They have been instructed in map
making and in the arts of the scout, so
that when it is desired by the COM
manding officer to obtain from his own
men accurate information concerning
the country through which he is to lead
his army they will be able to supply
the want
The instruction of this battalion has
been largely under Major Blacks corps
of engineers, who will go down to the
isthum with the canal commission. In
his place as commanding officer there
has been ordered Major Burr.
The grounds of the war college are
now in the course of extensive i'm
provements. When they are completed
the engineer battalion will have very
much better quarters in which the
work of instruction can be carried on.
They will be provided with new and
commodious barracks with every mod
ern facility for caring for a body of
men and other branches of the war
college will also be there. 1t is there
that the postgraduate school will be
located for officers who have been
graduated from the Military Academy
The northern part of the grounds has
been cleared of nearly every building
that stood there and the work of re-
claiming the swampy land between the
grounds and the James Creek canal is
going on. Capt SeWell of the corps of