Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 177, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1916 — TORRID HEAT OF TEXAS DROPS MEN [ARTICLE]

TORRID HEAT OF TEXAS DROPS MEN

600 Troopers of the Illinois First Brigade Fall Before Rays of Broiling Sun. (Between 600 and 700 men of the First Brigade Illinois Infantry, were bowled from the line Monday on the hike to Ten Mile hill. Regular army officers declared it was the worst movement of unopposed troops they ever witnessed. Gen. Fumsttou used the wtond “ghastly” in describing the maneuver.

Almost every bush between Gamp Wilson and Ten Mile hill was doing umbrella service for exhausted militiamen. Twenty-three groups were counted which ware engaged in holding down men, crazed and delirious with heat, in a hurried automobile trip over the route. The hospital corps was insufficient to care for all the men who fell out and whole squads of the Chicago boys were without attention for hours. The Red Cross jitney, organized by Mens. Clegg, did effective service more than the hospital corps could possibly, render. She had two truck loads of ice and two city water sprinklers rushed out to the relief of the Illinois men. iMany aspects of the march had the look of an impossible moving picture. Men struck with heat would spin around as if struck with a bullet, and then drop full length. Usually the column would move on and leave the Straggler to drag himself to the side of the road. The rear guard of the seventh regiment picked up 19 men of the First, which oLst most heavily. The men said their own baggage wagons and ambulances had passed them and shouted (the information that they were instructed to-“let the stragglers pant.”

Entire squads fell out during the march, and as one officer stated “the only thing that prevented mutiny wa3 that I let them go without a kick.” Officers of the First Regiment are accused of trying to make a record. Capt. Charles L. Wagner with Company C, -set a 140 cadence, 140 Steps a minute, at the outset, to carry out -the First’s boast that they would be in the camp ait 11 o’clock. -Gapt. Wagner’s company gained fifty minutes on the rest of the column and incidentally lost 60 per cent of its men. The normal rate for drill marching is 120 cadence, at the rate of 3.4 miles an hour. Army regulations, however, fix the maximum rate for road marching at 2.75 miles per hour, and this for seasoned regulars.