New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-06-21
Guardsmen Taught by Reg
ulars How Field Batteries
Should Be Handled.
RED GUIDON SONG
AT END OF DAY
Caissons and Limbers in Action
Practice Will Make Camp Busy
Place for Students.

~-~NN
The timber and rolling eaisson. cam
The ciank Of the collar, the rumple OF gun
As we follow the red Suidon'
Hold the last word to the bitter end,
proDouncing Il Guide Dom; and II
tnrre are any broken wina%tt tenors
around the campfire let them add TO the
horrors of war. For the artillery song is
one Of the first things you VIII learn
when you go to the regular field arullery
instruction camp here, where militia
artillery officers from all over the Eastern
states are learning from Major Summerau
and his stan the art of violently injecting
pieces OF metal into the human anatomy
from afar.
And this is the reason of the camp
the afar part OF it-for almost any one
can point q gun right at something
few feet away and make doubtful the
law Of chemistry that nothing can De
completely destroyed. But IT taxes some
teaching TO show a man how to 90 'he
same thing from a great distance Ana
not alone from a distance must IL De
done. but from behind friendly NIL
that makes 1t sweet for you and sour lor
the other fellow, whom you cannot see
but whom YOU must search out by maine
mates
At first view the camp is tumble OF
sounds, smells and sights.
Batteries strain along through DUST
clouds. artillerymen dash hither ana yoh'
groups Of militia officers with their reg
Mar army instructors stand with field
glasses glued on distant targets; and ever
and again curt voices cry. STEADY! Com
,nence firing" over everything hangs
thin veil of dust mingled with the smell
OF oil, leather, horses and powder
New York in School.
Officers from New York's two regiments
of field artillery make up almost half the
school. although there are officers from
Indiana Michigan, Georgia, Virginia.
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachu-
setts Rhode Island and Connecticut. OF
the ninety present forty are from New
York. OF the hundred non-commlssloned
officers hfty-two are New York artillery
men.
All students are divided into twelve
classes and rotate to different instructors
from day to day, getting in fourteen days
what they should take six weeks to
learn.
Before they leave here the officers will
have learned many things valuable IN
war. They will know that projectile
fred directly from the muzzle of the field
piece and bursting at the muzzle spreads
like a fan and sends hail Of bullets
ahead for 500 yards, and that before this
near. or muzzle, burst nothing human
can survive Beside 1t the machine gun
is a toy.
They will know how to hide the gun
behind a hill and compute by the r
minus t. method just the proper dehec-
lion and range by which to reach the
enemys position.
They will learn what should be done
with the battery on the march and ap-
nroaching the enemy. Besides this, the
other subjects on which they will have a
few brief moments of mental agitation
are simulated fire with smoke bombs,
sub-calibre practice, equitation, hippology'
sketching maps, attack on moving targets
and the blackboard method Of conduct OF
fire.
Tobyhanna is on a tableland 1000
feet high II is hot by day and bitter
cold by night. For Atty square miles
about the town the land Ia desolate, MAX
ing an ideal place for shrapnel firing.
The ground is perhaps the worst for ar
tillery work in the country, being com
posed OF swamp and rock. Army officers
say there is no spot in the Philippines
or Mexico where II would be harder to
move artillery.
~ laguAng
be applied to any place where artillery
may have to go.
Half a mile back from camp is Toby
hanna, with it's ancient hotel, that now
reaps a nightly harvest from thirsty SOL
diers.
An Honest Place.
Tobyhanna is an honest place.
O'Rourke, who runs the hotel, advised
r. Tribune reporter that it was safe to
leave anything about. Why said
O'Rourke, "you can leave can of bait on
your front porch all night in the fishing
season and find il in the morning" This
seemed to be the supreme test.
When the militia officers arrived in
camp looking like tailors' models one
dusty regular, gazing sorrowfully on his
soiled kshh and scuffed boots, remarked
soulfully to the world in general: well,
they look pretty now. but wait till ten
days of this camp gets through with
them"
The militiamen do look pretty They
give their orders with snap-perhaps too
much of il, for the regulars are touchy
on authority from militiamen. man
would have to be blind not to see the I'm
conscious stiffening of the regular when
under command OF the citizen officers.
You'd ought TO hear him." said reg
ular derisively to group OF approving
comrades, as q New York officer galloped
away after a battery that he had sent
into action. 'Cannoneers and drivers
prepare to mount, he says. when it ought
70 be the other way"
And yet Major Summerall said the first
night Of camp I'VE are all one organiZa-
tion now" and prepared to prove IT, He
laid out a programme which he called "a
few simple operations" They may be for
him, but no militia officer needs sleeping
powders when the days work is done.
II is busy time for class in field
artillery going through the whole days
programme. The shells cost N2 apiece, 80
that one battalion volley can eat up $lA
worth Of powder and steel in about a
thousandth of a second.