A History of the Second Division Naval Militia Connecticut National GuardBidwell, Daniel Doane
History
A History of the Second Division Naval Militia Connecticut National Guard
Bidwell, Daniel Doane
Connecticut. Militia
During the march the men had a coveted opportunity to view the one-armed
corps commander at close range. Much of the time the old hero was
obliged to ride with his bridle rein in his teeth and with his chapeau
in his hand in response to the frantic waves of applause which greeted
him. The occupants of the closely packed stands along the line of march
rose in wildly cheering masses as they caught sight of the grizzled
veteran and the men of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Down Riverside Drive and for four miles in the heart of the city the
battalion marched with fixed bayonets. It paraded between solid masses
of cheering citizens and almost solid walls of flags and decorations. At
every halt the men were refreshed with fruit, coffee or drinkables,
sandwiches and salads or cigars, and presented with flowers and
souvenirs. At one halt on aristocratic Fifth Avenue a shower of silk
college sofa cushions came down from window seats and a Princeton
cushion was impaled on the historian’s bayonet.
At the conclusion of the parade many of the division repaired to
restaurants near Madison Square and Union Square. Dozens of them found,
when they stepped to the cashiers’ coops to liquidate, that unknown
civilians had obtained their checks and paid the bills. A man in a
sailor uniform in New York City that September afternoon found it no
easy task to spend money. Nothing was too good for the bluejackets.
It is to be recorded that Lieutenant Cuntz, Gunner’s Mate Huntington,
Coxswain Chapin and Seamen Noble and Nutter preceded the battalion to
New York. When the Shinnecock failed to appear, they annexed three stray
regulars from the U. S. S. Texas, and assumed an advanced place in the
column. In one of the spectators’ stands certain individuals conceived
the notion that the eight were Hobson and the Merrimac survivors. In a
few moments the word was passed over the stand and the crowd was on its
feet in a wild burst of applause.
While Dewey Day experiences were still being talked over, arrangements
were quietly made for a presentation to the first commanding officer,
Mr. Parker, who was lured to Turnerbund Hall to receive from the command
a gold watch with chain and fob, the chain in the semblance of a
stud-link ship’s cable and the fob a division pin mounted on a locket.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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