Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-03-26
IN Mass Formation Regiment
After Regiment Is Played
Past Reviewing Stand by
It's Band ..'f

Months from now, when the dis
patches from France may be fraught
in every line with news momentous to
the friends of the Eighty-second divi-
sion, there will live in the hearts of
every man, woman and child who went
to Camp Gordon Friday a brave and
vivid picture and he will be glad that
he was there and saw it
Under a hot blue sky a rolling stretch
of turf, peeled bare as though it had
been skinned with a knife; fringe Of
roofs against the distant horizon; and
from north TO south. almost as far as
the eye can see. masses and masses
of troops, their flags futtering, their
bayonets flashing in the sunshine like
sheaveS of steel. In front a long brown
COLUMN swings by, up and over the
hill at the Gouble-quick; while close at
hand in the open, the band breaks from
Dixie" into My Ola kentucky Home"
1t was a review such as most Of
those in the crowd had never seen be-
fore, and such, perhaps, as they will
never see again; and it was a crowd
worldly of the spectacle that brought
them forth. Five thousand? Ten thou
sand? Ii was impossible TO estimate
the number, so densely piled were the
people along nearly half a mile of hill
eide.
Long before o'clock, when the re-
view began, the exodus started from
ATLANTA to the camp. People had come
from all over Georgia for the event.
many offices and stores shut up shop,
everybody went to the review. BY
noon steady stream Of vehicles flow
ed out Peachtree road-automobiles,
Jitney busses, street cars jammed until
the very wheels groaned.
Lake q GaLa EAOLday
Ito was like some gaia holiday, a
Thanksgiving foot ball game with thou
sands bound for the field. Only the
touch Of fall was absent and in it's place
was spring rioting over the blue hills.
Blossom time it was, with dogwood
whitening in the woods, green lawns
running down to the dusty road and
peach trees and apple trees in bud all
along the way.
a mile or more from the camp he
long Line of motor cars humping il along
came down to a crawl. Military police
were stationed at every crossroads, han.
ding the traffic in a way laudabIa to a
degree. Here and there a car would stat
IN rut or an engine would come to d
dead stup. Out piled the Passengers tC
gaze envlously at other cars-roadsters
flivYers, MISUNDERSTANDING around
the wreck and plunging on through the
dust ami the sunshine. 1t was a regular
! tour.
Bad as the roads were, the automo.
| bilsts Es it all over the street car pas
sengers. The trolley traffic would have
! taxed any sort of system; with only q
! single track it's a wonder that people
! riding street cars got to the camp al
| all. Wherever was a switch there were
as many as Eve and six cars banked
/ up for a long wait with every cal
crammed ] Ike a sardine can.
If the crowd has seemed great on the
road to the camp, il became enormous
when the visitor hove into sight Of the
pine buildings that marked his goal
Here. in the rear of the Liberty theater
an acre or more of ground was covered
with a shoal of automobiles. More
. cars were parked along adjacent road
! ways, and the passengers, alighting
! Joined the swarm of pedestrians making
toward the drill field.
B Camp Gordon's parade ground is bis
and broad and long, but it is no ball
room floor, just a hump of the red ole
hills of Georgia cleared of underbrusr
and trees and tramped into clay so hare
that in dry weather, it is like brick Il
/ is not smooth and even, but slopes dowr
from n ridge on one side and IN to z
jor lifted his baton and brought i
ridge on the other, with shallow bitches
here and there cutting the surface an,
more hills sloping away at either end
About half a mile long and several hun