Following an advance of four miles in such manner the “enemy” was located behind the crest of a steep and high hill. The order for a charge was given and with a yell the men sprinted forward under a heavy shower of fireworks. Ensign Northam was the first up San Juan Hill and it was reported that the historian was the last to reach the summit.
At this juncture the heavens opened and rain came down in buckets. After a quarter of an hour in the downpour the battalion started on the return of four miles. The hike was at route step. At the beach the oarsmen had a stiff pull against wind and tide in boats loaded to the gunwales. But the young salts were in fine spirits and when the order came to “shift to anything dry” it was received as a joke.
The chief boatswain’s mate of the Panther was C. K. Claussen, the Claussen who accompanied Hobson on the Merrimac and was confined in the Spanish prison near Santiago.
At the end of the week, when the Panther left the squadron, her course lay between the Olympia, Dewey’s flagship in the Battle of Manila Bay, and the Brooklyn, Schley’s in the capture of Cervera. To each was given a salute with the bugle and the lining of the rail. The Brooklyn’s band rendered a patriotic air.
In the following fall the division took up target practice in real earnest and at a special shoot in the South Meadow Chief Gunner’s Mate Herbert E. Wiley won the first place. Barely was this function over when it was decided to produce a comic opera and “The Mikado” was selected. This was presented in Parsons’, so well that critics agreed that the division could sing as correctly as it could sail.
In the winter the division tried its fortune again at indoor baseball, with varying results. On one occasion it played an exciting game with Company A, won the game, lost it and won it again, just clearing a lee shore by a score of 19 to 18. On another it defeated the champions of the armory in an eleven-inning contest.
The second annual indoor meet demonstrated that the series had arrived to stay, a fact which each February proves again.
To extend its activities the division sent a picked gun crew on an inland cruise to New Britain to give an exhibition drill.
The field day was spent at Charles Island. To still further extend its activities the division crossed afoot from the island at low tide to the mainland.