The Red Tiles From Its Roof Still
Litter The Ground.
These tiles and the names cut in the bark of the
trees determine absolutely the site of one-half of the camp, but the
other half, where stood Tiffany's quick-firing gun and Parker's
Gatling, has been almost obliterated.
The tree under which Colonel
pitched his tent I could not discover, and the trenches in which he
used to sit with his officers and with the officers from the
regiments of the regular army are now levelled to make a kitchen-
garden. Sometimes the ex-President is said to have too generously
given office and promotion to the friends he made in Cuba. These men
he met in the trenches were then not necessarily his friends. To-day
they are not necessarily his friends. They are the men the free life
of the rifle-pits enabled him to know and to understand as the
settled relations of home life and peace would never have permitted.
At that time none of them guessed that the "amateur colonel," to whom
they talked freely as to a comrade, would be their Commander-in-
Chief. They did not suspect that he would become even the next
Governor of New York, certainly not that in a few years he would be
the President of the United States. So they showed themselves to him
frankly, unconsciously. They criticised, argued, disagreed, and he
became familiar with the views, character, and worth of each, and
remembered. The seeds planted in those half-obliterated trenches
have borne greater results than ever will the kitchen-garden.
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