This is the history of that detachment.




CHAPTER II.

INCEPTION.

From the 26th of April until the 6th of June, Tampa and Port Tampa
were the military centers of greatest interest in the United States.
Troops were rushed into these places on special trains and camped on
available sites, pending the organization of a proposed expedition
to--somewhere. Supplies of every description came pouring in on long
trains of express and freight cars; mounted officers and orderlies
ploughed their rushing way through great heaps and dunes of
ever-shifting sand, leaving behind them stifling clouds of
scintillating particles, which filtered through every conceivable
crevice and made the effort to breathe a suffocating nightmare. Over
all the tumultuous scene a torrid sun beat down from a cloudless sky,
while its scorching rays, reflected from the fierce sand under foot,
produced a heat so intolerable that even the tropical vegetation
looked withered and dying. In this climate officers and men, gathered
mostly from Northern posts, were to "acclimate" themselves for a
tropical campaign--somewhere.

[Illustration: Skirmish Drill at Tampa.]

They never encountered as deadly a heat, nor a more pernicious
climate, in Cuba nor in Porto Rico, than that of southern Florida. Its