Martin Meaney, Captain of Company M, was a Sergeant of Company G when we were in Texas. I wanted Colonel Haskell to make him a Second Lieutenant, but Martin hadn’t left the County Clare soon enough to satisfy the technicality of having his final citizen papers. He could fight for the United States, but he could not be an officer. He came of age as a citizen during the summer and went to Plattsburg, and the people in charge there made him not a Second Lieutenant but a Captain. Colonel Haskell, who is Adjutant at Camp Upton, found the chance to send him back to us as a Captain, and we were very glad to get him. For we know Martin Meaney; and everyone who knows Martin Meaney likes him and trusts him. He is a fine, manly upstanding young Irishman devoted to high ideals, practical and efficient withal. Granted the justice of my cause there is no man in the world I would so much rely on to stick to me to the end as Martin Meaney. It makes us all feel better to have him along with us in our adventure of war. The vacancy in the Machine Gun Company was filled by the appointment of Captain Kenneth Seibert, an old guardsman of the Iowa National Guard. He has the position of Johnny-come-lately with us yet, but he knows the game and he will be a veteran of ours by the time we get to our first battle. His whole organization is practically new, but he is very keen about it, and is an excellent manager, so we feel that he will soon have it in shape. Captain John Mangan of the Supply Company is the salt of the earth. I like Jack Mangan so much that I always talk that way about him, and incidentally I waste his time and mine by holding him for a chat whenever we meet. He came to us before we went to the Border. His friends were in another regiment, but all that was nice and Irish about him made him want to be with the 69th. He is a Columbia man and a contractor. Colonel Haskell got his eye on him, when, as a Second Lieutenant, he was put in charge of a detail of offenders who had to do some special work. Under Mangan their work was not mere pottering around. They did things. While we were on the big hike Mangan was left behind with a detail of cripples to build mess shacks. They were built, created is a better word, but we were doomed never to use them, as we got orders during the hike to proceed to another station. I said to Haskell: “Don’t forget to compliment Lieutenant Mangan on his work, for he has done wonders, and it looks now to have been all in vain.” Haskell answered with assumed grimness: “Lieutenant Mangan will not be Lieutenant Mangan long.” He was Captain Mangan, R. S. O. (Regimental Supply Officer) as soon as the formalities could be arranged; and in a short time he was the best supply officer on the Border, as his training as a contractor gave him experience in handling men and materials.