On the Road Home: An American Story

Chapter 1 "I am proud I am of an age and in this thing" The fifteen thousand men of Merritt's force assembled in rapid fashion in San Francisco during May and June 1898. Both the American government and the city were unprepared for America's first overseas war, but enthusiasm and patriotic fervor helped to fill the obvious gaps in logistics . The expeditionary force camped at the Presidio, over looking Golden Gate Bay. The Spanish, who had claimed sovereignty over California a hundred years earlier, first built the garrison. The place had seen little improvement over the years since the United States won the Southwest from Mexico. Winds constantly blew dust and dirt across the hillsides and regimental and company streets turned to quagmire in the rains. None of that affected Private Patrick Henry (P.H.) Frank's enthusiasm. There in a tent set up by the YMCA, P.H. wrote letters to his family in Groveton, Texas, and spent "lots of time reading the papers and the good book," before departing for the Philippines. The news of his departure for the orient was apperently difficult for his family to accept. "I am sorrow you are taking it so hard about me going to the Philippines. It is better than going to Cuba. Of course it is a long way to go but it is a healthy country and we will not be very likely to have any fighting to do there for they are already captured, " he wrote. Private Frank, like most Americans including President McKinley, knew little of the Philippines. P.H. reasurred his anxious family, "We will receive $31.40 before we leave...we have good clothes and blankets and we will not have to buy anything for the trip or while we are gone," and noted, "They have religious services every night. I attend regular." Private Frank was exempt from the onerous duty of drilling. The 23rd's veteran officers were busy orginizing into companies the thousands of ill-equiped poorly trained volunteers streaming in from all over the country and instructing them in the rudiments of soldiering. With time on his hands, P.H. wandered from his camp in the block west of the Minnesota volunteers and south of the Pennsylvanians and noted, "Soldiers are the only people here now. Everything is free to soldiers." The Christian Endeavourers and the Ladies' Red Cross had large tents by the camp that P.H. entered. It was in the YMCA tent that he wrote his letters home. Also near his company billet was a row of saloons with enticing names such as The Regulars Home, The U.S. Army Exchange, and The Maine providing a cheap brand of stimulant which probably allowed no one to forget it. P.H. Frank stood in the midst of that assemblage and heard the jingle of cash registers presaging future events. P.H. Frank spent a sleepless night in an unceasingly stirring encampment that broke to a misty California coast the early morning of Tuesday, June 14, 1898. He gathered for coffee with his fellow soldiers around smoggy charcoal fires long before buglers by the dozens sounded reveille up and down the rows of regimental billets. "Boots and Saddles" sounded, troops fell in, a woman's auxilliary handed out fortifying food baskets, and a several-mile march to the docks began. Regimental bands blasted patriotic melodies. Cheers and appplause roared up and down the roads, and the admiring crowds joined in singing "Dixie." P.H. and the troops marched six abreast, their officers on horseback. Pretty girls waved white hankerchiefs and showered kisses from a distance. In the bay, signals passed between the side-wheelers and tugs. Barges moved rapidly to unload privisioning. Sailors in the rigging sported red stripes and blue poke dots on their seaman's blouses and hats. Pennants and bunting decorated the boats of yacheters tipping and dipping around the periphery, their decks filled with hundreds of sightseers. Frederic Remington set up his easel and painted the scene. It was lunchtime attested by the savory smell of frying steak and onions blowing over the water when Private Frank and his comrades pased the transports Zealandia, Senator and China and boarded the Colon. The regimental band, seranading the men as they ate, drowned out the clatter of innumerable cups and tins. The playing of "Hot Time in the Old Time Tonight" brought P.H. and his comrades to their feet cheering and set them half-wild for a moment. The ship was jam packed with just under 700 soldiers of his regiment, plus the 18th Regiment, Battery A of the Utah Volunteers, personal gear, supplies. In addition, there were sixteen head of cattle slated for slaughter during the voyage, and butchered meat stored in the ship's refrigerator, a new technology. To these sights and sounds, the Colon, together with her sister ships, the Zealandia and Senator, slipped away from the docks and moved into the bay. It was not a bright day. It was a gray day. A bank of fog soon obscured outlines of the transport ships from from the eyes of the of the observers, but neither observers nor nor departing troops appeared to be downcast. Tardy soldiers arrived and took to rowboats. No one wanted to miss the grand adventure. Then the ships cannon discharged. The booming echoed. There was one last faint shout growing smaller in the offing, faintly resounding off the whispy white shrouded escarpment of the Golden Gates. Private Patrick Henry Frank said good-bye to the low profile of San Francisco. Forty eight years later, P.H. Frank would once again pass into that bay. This time he would sail under a bridge spanning those hills of the Golden Gates and would be burried in a national cemetery located on the same ground upon which he encamped those days if May and June, 1898. But for now, Private Frank and America savored the moment his transport pulled out of San Francisco for the orient, with no realistic notion of the difficulties that lay ahead. At that moment, he and his country were seeking their manifest destiny further west than his ancestors and America had ever moved.