The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-06-14
THE SEVENTH AT HARD WORK
N RAIN AND MUD TILL YESTER-
Day, but ALWAYS CHEERFUL.
,lcn Know How to FOrtify Their Tents
Against weather and How to Keep
Wcll-Thc Two seventh Regiments, One
I'm Familiar Gray and One in Khaki

Against weather anu HOW 10 heep
Wcl-The Two seventh Regiments. One
In Familiar Gray and One In Khaki.
PrEKsKlLL, June 1s.-Twelve times the
Seventh Regiment has been in camp here
IN Peekskll since 1883, and old timers, who
have seen and know, advance the opinion
that the present Seventh Regiment is the
best Seventh Regiment that ever mustered
on the State camp grounds, Col. Appleton
himself will admit as much II you fairly
eorner him with the question, and so will
Lieut.. Col. Kipp. And what these two
officers don't know about the Seventh, past
and present. Ia negligible quantity Col.
Appletons name is as much Identified with
the regiment az the regiment ia identified
with the civic life Of New York. AS for
Lieut. Col. Kipp, this is his forty eighth
year Of continuous service with the Gray
Ja'kets.- during all which time he has
never missed roll call.
What the knowing ones mean when they
say that this Is the best Seventh Regiment
!. that il is the most thorough and business
ike in its soldierly work. The new regu-
lations have got something to do with that
The old days when the week in the Peeks-
hill camp was a week Of pcnicking, with lust
enough soldier work and just enough camp
discipline thrown in to put an edge on the
fun side Of camp life-those days Of balls,
ormeals in the mess hall served by n caterer,
md Of board floors for the tents-they are
gone The National Guard is now fast
booming in fact what it always was in
theory-a reserve wing Of the United States
Army.
In way the change has made two Seventh
Regiments for U.s. There Ia the old Seventh
in its gray jacket and white trousers. dear
to past and present generations OF New
Workers., with it's superb alinement and clock
like precision Of movement In the city streets
That Seventh is still with us, and il to re-
main-triul, as ever. inspiring as ever In
the snap and brilliance Of It's marching
evolutions. But there is nov another
seventh RegimSent as %elia seventh nn, IN
save in camp. A fine old mud and mire
walow this khaki Seventh has had OF it
here up to to-day. There is not so much as
plank on the men q tent floors. 1t was
on the hare bosom Of mother terra herse II
for the men In the ranks and it would have
been the same for Col. Appleton and Lieut.
Col. Kpp IL the men would have stood for
It, which they wouldn't They put floors
down In the tents of these veteran officers
"unbeknownst, and they have remained
there accepted under protest,
Lieut. Col. .Npp's tent floor was like
raft on duck pond up to yesterday. But
this morning, when the splendid food Of
June sunshine inundated the camp ground
In place Of the steady deluge of water Lieut.
Col Kipp took down the sign of NO Fishing
on These Premises" which had hung on his
front door tent pole and started in as
landsman. Even the mud had all but
vanished by noon. To be sure water main
broke up above somewhere later in the day
and the camp was again awash, but the sun
came out laughing after it and the weather
eoemnly pledged itself, on scroll OF blue
sky reaching clear across the Hudson, to
be good.
As for the men, twelve OF them in tent
win rubber blankets and straw stuffed
bags under them, it's been ditch or drown
with them from the start. 1t looks like
hardship when you see the men forced to
conditions. 1t isn't as though they had
experience at 1t two or three times year.
Il, only comes once in two years. Mean
time the men have been leading the lives
of the we'll to do in the city. They came
out OF offices. stores and banking houses
still soft from the winters internment.
1t certainly does look like hardship.
theoretically every mothers son of them
ought to be sneezing and snuffling around
with hard colds or bronchitis and with
friends and relatives foresee when they
get glimpse OF the way Of life here in the
nasty weather that has been pretty steadily
on top ever since the regiment arrived.
That's the way !. ought to be-theoretically.
Practically it's another story. There
has not been sneeze or shuttle heard in
the camp. The regiment has its own
hospital corps, and a very efficient and
well equipped corps it is But it might as
we'll he anywhere else for all need there Is
details somebody to report for hospital
treatment, it looks as though the physicians
and the nurses were in for week Of
time purely squandered.
To be sure there has been one funeral,
and very solemn and impressive cere-
mony It was. That was when detach-
ment from Company, under the chap
laincy of .Sergt. De Mile, performed the
obsequies last evening over three smoked
herring. the last OF a string OF fourteen
Lieut. Col. Kipp's fishing preserve. Chap
lain De Mile, while conducting the ser
vices, kept wary eye out for the enemy
through pair Of field glasses made Of a
and there was afterward an impressive
funeral cort &c through the company
street.
This whole ceremony was Interpreted
As a deliberate jeer at the medical staff
az was the detachment OF fifteen men who
marched up to one OF the officers tents,
before which the doctors were seated, and
az the word Of command presented and
ate slices of watermelon with that precision
and accuracy OF drill which characterize
all that the Seventh does.
-Therell be something doing at last for
the doctors" said Col. Appleton, when he
heard OF the performance
But there wasn't. Not only do the men
refuse to give the doctors the remotest
excuse for operating on them. but they
even decline to be depressed by the drenching
rains or the mud or the all pervading
CLEANLINESS OF things. This theoretical
hardship is acting amazingly like an actual
tonic-a tonic physical and tonic mental
and moral.
Dripping damp and sogginess, for instance
were all pervading when the superb band
Of the Seventh gave its concert in front
Of Col Appeton's tent last evening, but
II the atmosphere had been crisp with the
most exhilarating October brew Of weather
the impromptu ballet corps dances up and
down the company streets could not have
been carried off with more dash and vigor.
With the outcoming OF the sun this morn
ing there were symptoms visible on the
grounds OF an evolution from the dull but
hnsinesslike khaki into the regiments
bright and handsome gray and " hite plum
age SO pleasantly familiar to all New York
ers., The guard mounts were turned out
In the old regimental uniform, and fine
drenching these fine feathers got in the