Our regrets at his going are lessened by two considerations. The first is that we feel he will get his stars by reason of the change and it will make us glad for him and proud for ourselves to see one of our Colonels made a General. The other is the news that his successor is to be Frank R. McCoy, of General Headquarters. He was not a Colonel on the General Staff when we crossed his path first, but Captain McCoy of the 3rd Cavalry, stationed at Mission, Texas. I did not meet him down there, but heard a whole lot about him—all good—from Colonel Haskell, and from Colonel Gordon Johnston of the 12th New York, who had been a captain with McCoy in the 3rd Cavalry. About the time we got to Mission he was made Chief of Staff to General Parker at Brownsville. Later I read of his going to Mexico as military attaché with our new Ambassador, Mr. Fletcher, and then that General Pershing had reached out after him there to bring him over here with the A. E. F. In the more remote past he has been Aide de Camp to General Woods, Military Aide at the White House under President Roosevelt, and on special duty for the government on various semi-diplomatic missions. If this list of employments had any tendency to make me wonder how much of a soldier he was, it would have vanished quickly after one look at his left breast which is adorned with five service bars. They say in the army that McCoy has done all kinds of duty that an officer can be called upon to do, but has never missed a fight—a good omen for the “Fighting Sixty-Ninth.” He is a man of good height, of spare athletic figure, with a lean strongly formed face, nose Roman and dominating, brows capacious, eyes and mouth that can be humorous, quizzical or stern, as I learned by watching him, in the first five minutes. He has dignity of bearing, charm of manner and an alert and wide-ranging intelligence that embraces men, books, art, nature. If he only thinks as well of us as we are going to think of him I prophesy that he will have this regiment in the hollow of his hand to do what he likes with it. Everything helps. “_McCoy_, is it? Well, he has a good name anyway,” said one of the “boys from home.” Colonel McCoy came to us in the lines, the P. C. being at Reherrey. The _popotte_ (mess) occupied two low-ceiled rooms in a three-room cottage. We sat close together on benches at a long plank table, but it was a jolly company. To give the new Colonel a taste of his Regiment I told him a monologue by one of our men that I had overheard the evening before. There are a couple of benches right in front of my billet, in the narrow space between the dung-heap and the window, and there is always a lot of soldiers around there in their free time. They know I am inside the open window, but pay no attention to my presence—a real compliment.