Page:Address of J. Wilson Gibbes at the Home-Coming Banquet of Citadel Alumni (1924).djvu/11



What do you think of getting up at 6 o'clock, with the thermometer at 14 degrees, going into a courtyard where three sea gales concentrate their forces, and standing there without overcoats, hand down and eyes front, for several minutes? We have to be present at ten other roll-calls—one of them at 5:30 P. M., lasting about eight minutes. The last one is at 10 o'clock, and half an hour later I inspect the rooms in my company and see that all lights are out and everybody in bed.

This week I am orderly of my room and have to make a fire every morning, bring water from a distance of 175 feet, go down three flights of stairs for coal, sweep out the room, etc.

It is bitterly cold outside. I can hear the wind whistling with terrific force throughout the galleries. It is now 8 o'clock and I dread going to tattoo. Mr. White issued extra covering yesterday and I got almost a wagon-load. I slept under four comforts and two double horse-blankets last night. With the poet Thompson, I say: "Come, gentle Spring! etheral Mildness! come."

In the eighties much time and attention were given to the drill, and it was more showy than now. The cadence was used and the entire company were trained to snap their guns into place as one man. We considered Sergeant J. T. Coleman of '86, who afterwards served as assistant professor at the Citadel for several years, the best drilled man who ever handled a gun. We proudly sent him to the New Orleans Exposition in 1885, and he came back winner of the gold medal over West Point's representative. There's "Cap" right over there!

Touching the military side (if you will pardon another personal letter), I quote from another one of my letters home, concerning the trip of the Citadel corps to the Chatham Artillery celebration in Savannah:

Military Dude Factory, May 11, 1886.

We left the Dude Factory (as Farmer Tillman has been pleased to call our abode) last Tuesday and were escorted from the Savannah depot by the Washington Light Infantry, of Charleston, you may be sure. At Camp Washington we pitched camp. The tents were 10 x 12, with board floors. There were five of us in