An ambition of many years is about to be realized. The Infantry is soon to have a home of its own-your home-in Washington City. This home will be the future center of the increasing activities of your Association.

Your Executive Council and officers have had before them through the passing years the vision of such a domicile and headquarters, and doubtless could have accomplished the object long ago had they been willing to appeal to the membership for funds to construct the building. But your officers believed that by economies in administration, and careful balancing of income and outgo, the required money could be raised without individual appeals. This theory delayed the construction, but the foresight of those in control has been proven true, and your new home is now under construction.

The site selected is on the east side of 17th Street about two blocks north of the Army and Navy Club, so that it is easily accessible to the members of the Association either resident or visiting in Washington. Directly across the street from us is rising the new Walker Hotel, to be one of the largest hostelries in the Capitol City, so that certain features of the social life of the city will be immediately at our door, and as business is rapidly moving in this direction we will soon be surrounded by fine stores and offices, with consequent enhancement in values of land.

A word or two about the building itself. It will occupy a frontage of 40 feet, and have an elvation at this time of three stories only, though the foundations, walls, and piers are designed for an ultimate extension to six stories as our needs expand, and we are able to finance the enlargements. The facade is classic in design, showing traces of the Greek and Italian Rennaissance, but without sacrifice of light and utility for its purpose as an office building. The building itself is of poured concrete with a front of Indiana limestone. The lower floor is given over to two shops which we shall lease to high class stores, as a means of revenue to the Association. For the time being the entire second floor and part of the third will be devoted to our own business. The administrative offices will face the street, but extending backward from them will be a good sized assembly hall where the members can meet for social and business intercourse. This room will have a large fireplace in the Italian style, and with comfortable chairs about should make a cheerful and pleasant spot for our members to spend a passing hour as time affords.

Adjoining the Assembly Hall is the work room of the Book Department, and in these quarters will be located the various mechanical aids that facilitate our activities, addressing machines, multigraphs and so on.

A section of the third floor will be given over to our engraving department, which is rapidly assuming large proportions. Here our own expert engravers in copper and steel will ply their profession, while in adjoining rooms, plate presses and stamping machines will turn out their finished products in the way of visiting cards, wedding invitations, embossed stationery, and so forth.

As our activities increase we will have more to say, but for the present we will only repeat that an ambition of many years is about to be realized. We and you will soon have a home of our own.

Interesting Old Records

Capt. Stuart R. Carswell, Infantry

OME recent research work in the Old Records Division of the Adjutant General's Office brought to light many interesting old papers and records of the period of 17971808. These give a very interesting light on the Army of those days, when the posts were small, few and far between. From a study of these old records one can readily imagine the conditions in which the Army had to live, the lack of amusements, little society, and constant facing of hardships and privations. The lot of the Army officer and his wife was certainly anything but a bed of roses in those days, when most of our very small Army was stationed on the Indian and Spanish frontiers.

camp.

During this period General James Wilkinson was the commander-in-chief of the Army, and as he was constantly on the move the headquarters of the Army was wherever he happened to Wilkinson was generally very careful to stay out of Washington, for at this period he was constantly intriguing with the French and Spanish Governors in Louisiana, and was connected with the Aaron Burr conspiracy. Wilkinson undoubtedly for some years encouraged the French and Spanish in the belief that he would help to form a new republic in the Mississippi Valley. All of the original correspondence

(in English, French and Spanish) is on file in the Old Records Division and is very interesting reading. In July, 1796, Wilkinson writing to Governor Gayosa de Semos in Louisiana, says: "For the love of God do not mention my name in your letters. Washington already has a deep suspicion of me, and Wayne is in Ohio trying to get evidence on me"; and goes on to say: "When you send more money, pray conceal it in hogheads of sugar and cotton bales."

Yet in spite of Wilkinson's connection with Burr, he was doublefaced enough to issue a general order dated at New Orleans in 1807 congratulating the Army on Burr's arrest near Mobile. General Wilkinson's Order Book from 1797-1808 is a very mine of information about conditions in the old post-Revolutionary War Army. One of his first general orders, May 22, 1797, allows four women to a company to do the washing and mending for the men, and they are to draw rations for doing such work. In the next sentence he orders officers to discontinue the practice of keeping mistresses, as "it is a disgraceful practice and one that gives rise to much discord."

In examining these records one is struck with the large number of officers tried by court-martial, especially in the Regiment of Artillerists and Engineers. There were few officers in those days who were not tried or placed in arrest at one time or another, mostly on trifling or trumped-up charges, and in these charges, spite and a desire for

revenge evidently played a leading
part. Among the enlisted men the de-
sertion rate was very high. It was gen-
erally punished by a trifling fine, re-
duction and a hundred lashes on the
bare back, sometimes with a wired cat.
Repeated desertion sometimes brought
the death penalty. Mutinous and dis-
respectful language was generally
punished by fifty lashes on the bare
back. Prison sentences were rare, due
probably to a lack of proper places of
confinement and the great difficulty of
sending prisoners great distances
through the wilderness.

On June 12, 1797, Wilkinson issued
It
his famous "Cropping Order."
was an order forbidding officers from
planting and improving cornfields and
farming for a profit, for

It causes a neglect of duty, relaxes
discipline and is a disgrace to the serv-
ice. The national bounty is expended
not to improve the agricultural arts,

but to instruct men in the use of arms; the hoe and the plough must be laid aside, and every moment of professional duty devoted to instruct and to train men in the glorious science of war. It is for this noble purpose gentlemen receive the pay and subsistence of their country, and their honor is pledged for the performance. The spirit of cropping is almost everywhere to be seen, disgraceful to those who indulge in it; no less exceptional is the practice of collecting and breeding cattle in large quantities.

An interesting court-martial order was the one reviewing the case of Capt. James Sterret, of the Regiment of Artillerists. It is dated Fort Adams (Tenn.), November 29, 1801. Lieut. Colonel Gaither was the commanding officer and preferred the charges:

Charge 1. Disobedience of orders in not returning two pieces of ordnance to the fort on the 10th of June.

Charge 2. Neglect of duty in leaving

two pieces of ordnance outside the post
until a late hour without a guard.

Findings of the court:

That Capt. James Sterret is not guilty of the charges above exhibited against him, that they are futile and frivolous and utterly unsupported and appear to have originated not from a wish to promote discipline, or a regard to the public service, but from a want of due consideration or a desire to persecute, and does therefore acquit him with honor.

General Wilkinson's comment follows:

What a state is here offered to the

authority of a military commander! What a singular prejudgment! What an unexampled disqualification to sit in judgment on the offending colonel do the members of the court voluntarily give! The general approves the sentence of the court so far as it concerns

the prisoner, but he highly disapproves the invective which it has ventured to level at the officer who constituted it. If we admit that a courtmartial is invested with the power to stigmatize or to vilify characters not immediately subject to its authority or bound by its decisions, we shall open the doors of sedition and licentiousness, from whence unfledged subalterns may with impunity slander the oldest and ablest officers in the Army. What a spectacle would be presented-Liberty tweaking Justice by the nose, and the baby beating its nurse.

G. O.

Headquarters, New Orleans, December 24, 1803. It is with great surprise and mortification that the General has learnt that in violation of his express orders the important post of St. Louis was last evening found without an officer, and that many of the men were in such a state of brutal intoxication as to incapacitate them for service, at a moment, too, when appearances justified the belief that the national interests and their own honor were at hazard. What a contrast do we behold! The Militia at their posts and in order; the Regulars abandoned by their officers, drunk and in disorder. A suitable in

quiry will therefore take place, and should the service be again disgraced by a repetition of such scenes, he solemnly assures both officers and men that he will confine them to quarters.

A rather famous court-martial took strongly the difference of the old courtplace shortly after this and brings out martial system and our own present system. It was the trial of Colonel Thomas Butler, of the 2d Infantry. The court was composed of one colonel, two lieutenant colonels, one major, eight captains and two lieutenants. General Wilkinson's general order dated New Orleans, February 1, 1804, reviews the case. Colonel Butler was charged with: Disobeying the general order 30 April, 1801 (cutting off the cues of soldiers); 2d, disobeying orders to proToward the end of December, 1803, Nashville, but instead took a military ceed to Fort Adams (Tenn.) from near

the American forces took over the possession of New Orleans from the mixed French and Spanish garrison. Apparently the night after our entry our troops did not behave as they should have, for three days after their entry General Wilkinson issued the following order, which speaks for itself:

detachment with him as escort and went to Pittsburgh and was absent without leave for nine months, and then calmly returned to his post. The General in reviewing the case says:

It would seem that this court, deluded by artifice and beguiled by the ingenious sophistry of the colonel's de

The Backbone of the Invasion of the Ruhr

As is always the case, the Infantry is depended upon to perform most of the tasks of the invading army. This shows one of the Infantry columns marching through the streets of Mulheim