“Those colored folk who could afford it journeyed to the stand in closed automobiles.  Gorgeously gowned women alighted with great dignity beneath the admiring gaze of their humbler brethren.  Taxies brought up those whose fortunes, perhaps, were not of such amplitude.  Hansoms and hacks conveyed still others, and one party came in a plumber’s wagon, its women members all bundled up in shawls and blankets against the cold, but grinning delightedly as the whole stand applauded.

     “Children by the thousands lined the east side of the avenue—­Boy
     Scouts and uniformed kids and little girls with their school books
     under their arms, and they sang to the great delight of the crowd.

“Just why it was that when Governor Smith and former Governor Whitman and Acting Mayor Moran and the other reviewers appeared behind a cavalcade of mounted policemen, the youngsters struck up that army classic, “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning,” no one could tell, but it gave the reviewers and the crowd a laugh.

“With the state and city officials were the members of the Board of Aldermen, the Board of Estimate, Major Gen. Thomas J. Barry, Vice Admiral Albert Gleaves, Secretary of State, Francis Hugo; Rodman Wannamaker and—­in a green hat and big fur coat—­William Randolph Hearst.  Secretary Baker of the War Department was unable to attend, but he did the next best thing and sent his colored assistant, Emmett J. Scott.

“The reviewers arrived at 11:30 and had a good long wait, for at that time the paraders had not yet left 23rd Street.  But what with the singing, and the general atmosphere of joyousness about the stand, there was enough to occupy everyone’s time.

“There was one feature which took the eye pleasingly—­the number of babies which proud mothers held aloft, fat pickaninnies, mostly in white, and surrounded by adoring relatives.  These were to see (and be seen by) their daddies for the first time.  Laughingly, the other day, Col.  Bill Hayward spoke of ‘our boys’ posthumous children,’ and said he thought there were quite a few of them.

     “‘Some of our boys had to go away pretty quickly,’ he reminisced. 
     ‘Some of them were only married about twenty minutes or so.’

     “‘O Colonel!’ said the modest Major Little on that occasion.

     “‘Well, maybe it was a trifle longer than twenty minutes,’ admitted
     Bill.  But anyhow, there was the regiment’s posthumous children in
     the stand.

“It was 11:26 when the old 15th stepped away from 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue.  They looked the part of the fighting men they were.  At an exact angle over their right shoulders were their long-bayonetted rifles.  Around their waists were belts of cartridges.  On their heads were their ‘tin hats,’ the steel helmets that saved many a life, as was attested