These comprised a hard fighting aggregation under a cool and daring fighter.  The two first-class battleships were not equaled in fighting power by anything in the Spanish navy, and the New York was one of the best fighting ships of her kind in the world.

Commodore Winfield Scott Schley and the fighters of his flying squadron were gathered at Hampton Roads, impatient for orders from Washington to face the foe.  Far away in Pacific waters Commodore Dewey was cabled the command to hold himself in readiness to proceed to Manila, and the good ship Oregon, under command of Captain Clarke, was steaming her way around Cape Horn to join the fleet in Cuban waters.

In the army equal activity was shown.

The camp at Chickamauga.

Chickamauga Park, near Chattanooga, Tenn., was the point of concentration for the regular troops which were gathered for the war with Spain.  It was the initial camp where the mobilization took place, and from which soldiers and supplies were dispatched to seacoast towns within easy striking distance of Cuba.  When orders went out from army headquarters at Washington for the movement of the regulars to Chickamauga a thrill of soldierly pride swelled the breast of every man who wore Uncle Sam’s blue uniform, and there was a hasty dash for the new camp.  There is nothing an army man, officer or private, dislikes so much as inactivity.  Fighting, especially against a foreign foe, suits him better than dawdling away his time in idleness, and word to “get to the front” is always welcome.

For nearly three weeks troops poured into Chickamauga on every train.  They came from all parts of the country, and from every regiment and branch of the service.  There were “dough-boys” and cavalry-men, engineers and artillerymen; some regiments were there in force, others were represented by detachments only.  There were companies and parts of companies, squadrons and parts of squadrons, batteries and parts of batteries.  It was a bringing together of Uncle Sam’s soldier boys from all conceivable sections of the country.  They came from posts in California and Texas, from Wyoming and Maine, from Colorado and Minnesota.  In time of peace the regular army is badly scattered.  It is seldom that an entire regiment is stationed at one post, the companies being distributed over a wide area of territory.  A mobilization, therefore, like that at Chickamauga, tended to consolidate and put new life into commands which had been badly dismembered by the exigencies of the service.  Old comrades were brought together and there was a sort of general reunion and glorification.  Men who had been doing police duty near big cities met those who had been watching Indians on the plains, or chasing greaser bandits on the border line.  They exchanged stories and prepared for the stern realities of war with a vigor which boded ill for the foe they were to face.