Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1916-11-17
CHAPTER XIII.
A Nation In Arms.

6ACob 6lOdpo Vi thO tCht"
makers must have been busy dur
ing the last months. He came in sight of
regiments of men, almost all In uni
form-the uniform makers must have
been busy. There were men every
where-men cleaning camp, men dig
ging trenches, men drilling with rifles,
men working at transport trains, men
with field guns and cavalrymen riding
by in troops. Now he came to a little
section of regimental encampments,
where he saw, besides the regimental
colors and the company guidons,
square flags of crimson here, blue
there, orange and black beyond, with
yellow and blue next.
These colors brought him strangely
a new thrill and Jingle. He knew
what they were before he asked his
escort.
THAT? oh, that was the Harvard
regiment, made up Of Harvard boys
from the west, who enlisted together.
The Massachusetts men, of course, are
about Boston. The Yale regiments
next, and Princeton and Michigan.
-" All the state universities have
their regiments or battaions. I'm a
Wisconsin man myself. - You
are from Illinois? Well, there are your
fellows, then. They've just been Off
on a hike"
Jim gazed down the road where a
long, winding column of infantry was
returning from route march, marching
at ease and headed by a band, which
was playing while the soldiers sang a
tune which stirred Ashby at that mo-
ment more than any other tune in the
world could have.
Jim heard the words and knew now
they were being altered just a little:
Were loyal to you. Illinoisi
We're here to make stand
'Gainst the foe of our land,
And we'll show you have sand, nlinois!"
An hour after reporting he was en-
rolled in the Sixtieth Illinois regiment.
Having seen active service, he was
made second lieutenant with a platoon
of fifty friends and classmates under
his command.
So the new American regiments
drilled and marched and dug trenches
and trained and drilled again behind
their positions across the upper Hud-
son while the regents regiments
moved, almost unopposed, into New
England. Here and there citizens
tried to improvise resistance; but
where they did, they saw their towns
shelled, their homes burned, then they
roa16 Grsp- ea,Io6c A. fhn comm tira0
others Of the enemy's columns con-
tinued through New Jersey and into
Maryland, while the regents ships
ravaged the coast from Maine to
Florida and even about the Gulf. The
newly conscripted millions from the
central states were drilling in camps
in Ohio, in Indiana and in Illinois to
be ready to reinforce the army of up
per New York.
Texas and Arizona and New Mexico
maintained 10000 men as a border
guard along the Mexican frontier; the
rest of their recruits went farther
west-instead of east-to the camps
along the Pacific coast, where the men
Of California, Oregon, Washington,
Idaho, Nevada and Utah were await
ing the coming of the o%rientals.
For the Philippines already were
lost; the Hawaiians now were an
oriental naval base. There was nc
American feet for the oriental feet
to clear away before the transports
could land troops IN the California
coast.
There was no new or strange cause
of war between the United States and
the east; the orient simply had chosen
the hour when the United States was
helpless to further its plans and pur-
poses.
The chief of staff-he had known
for some days both of the approach
Of the orientals and the preparation
for the regents advance up the Hud-
son-issued orders at first for a re-
treat from the positions in New York,
but before the retreat was under way
Stone was obliged to change his order
or throw the country into complete
chaos.
The nation-the nation with its cap
ital and it's chief cities of the Atlantic
seaboard already in ruins and with all
the coast in the possession Of the in
vader, with millions of its people
homeless, hopeless paupers-the nation,
threatened now with disaster on the
other coast, would not endure more
without fighting.
Defeat was certain, Stone knew. The
army In northern New York was not
yet ready; the machine shops and
steel works and foundries of the Mis-
sissippi valley were working day and
night to supply cannon, machine guns,
rifles, shells, cartridges, uniforms, the
thousand and n munitions demanded
by the monster army, but the guns and
shells were only beginning to reach the
front Defeat was certain, but If defeat
might be turned into retreat without
complete disaster 1t would be better