Guarding the Border: The Military Memoirs of the Ward Schrantz, 1912-1917

Texas City

at Texas City, Texas, on this February 28, 1913, everything was activity. The sidings were crowded with the trains of eight regiments, some just arriving. Some almost unloaded. Scores of escort wagons slushed through the mud, their splattered mule teams straining every muscle. Everywhere was seeming confusion, and displeasure at the weather which had turned rainy and the camping ground which under the circumstances seemed little better than a swamp. North of town on this flat, treeless, grassy plain, pyramidal tents were already beginning to rise. Soon ours joined them, our officers frowning at the ground, permitting gaps in the line so as to avoid as many low spots as possible and take full advantage of occasional mounds. The 2nd Division, the only division assembled at that time, was of the old triangular type which preceded the “square” type of World War I days. There were three infantry brigades which by the paper organization of the day were supposed to have three regiments each.1 In fact one brigade—the Fifth, which was concentrating at Galveston across the bay, had four regiments, the 4th, 7th, 19th, and 28th. This brigade was soon to be commanded by Brig. Gen. Frederick Funston though I have the impression that at first Col. Daniel Cornman of the 7th Infantry was in command. On the Texas City side was the Fourth brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. Hunter Ligget consisting of the 23d, 26th, and 27th Infantry regiments, and our own brigade, the Sixth, commanded by Brig. Gen. Clarence R. Edwards, which included the 11th, 18th, and 22d.2 There was 5 Texas City Texas City 61 also the 6th Cavalry, the 4th Field Artillery—a regiment of mountain guns—and some odds and ends—a battalion of engineers, a field hospital , an ambulance company, a signal corps company, a bakery unit and an airplane squadron. Regiments probably ran about 800 men each and the total strength of the division on June 30 after a considerable number of recruits were received is listed as being 517 officers and 10,770 men. Major General William H. Carter, a medal-of-honor man from Indianfighting days, was in command.3 He was quoted in the Texas State Topics as saying: “This is the largest concentration of a single command of regulars in the history of the army.” It is possible, however, that he was misquoted. The so-called “maneuver division” at San Antonio in 1911 had an aggregate strength of 12,598 at one time, and the command that Major General William R. Shafter took to Cuba for the Santiago campaign of 1898 aggregated 16,887 of whom fewer than 3,000 were volunteers. However it certainly was one of the three largest concentrations of regular army troops in American history up to that time and those of us who were included therein, took considerable pride in being members of such a force, supposing that very soon we would be on our way to Mexico. As for the armament of the day, the infantryman’s weapons [were] the 1903 Springfield rifle and bayonet, except that each regiment had a regimental detachment of two Benet Mercier machine guns carried on pack mules. The cavalry, of course, had rifle, pistols, and sabers—the slightly-curved 1906 model—and I think two Benet-Merciers on pack horses. The artillery was armed with 2.95 [inch] pack howitzers.4 The expectation of immediate war did not last long. When President Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated on March 4 it became quite clear that he had no ideas of intervention, and the soldiery at Texas City settled down dejectedly in the mud while the high command pondered a better-drained camp site. The camp site matter was a somewhat serious one in the Sixth brigade at least. Probably someone had made some sort of preliminary reconnaissance before we were assigned to the ground on which we had pitched our tents, but rather obviously that reconnaissance had been made at some time in dry weather. Now it was raining more or less continuously and there was no drainage. Ditching the tents did no good. 62 Chapter 5 Diking was more appropriate but rain at night usually overflowed the dikes. In my tent we fastened our weapons and equipment onto the central tent pole and kept all else on our cots. At night we tied our shoes up onto the cots to keep them...