The
President further directed that General Shafter should sail as indicated
by him with not less than ten thousand men. Then followed an interchange
of messages, more or less personal in their nature, between the generals
and the Washington contingent. Finally all was over and the line was cut
off. The whole conversation lasted about fifty minutes, but the
beginning of new history was started in that time and the curtain was
going up on the grand drama of war. All the time this was going on I
could hear faintly his strains of '_Auf Wiedersehn_,' together with the
merry jest of the officers and the light laughter of the women. Brave
men, braver women--soon their laughter was turned to tears and many of
the officers who went out of the Tampa Bay hotel on that warm June night
are now sleeping their last sleep, having given up their lives that
their country's honor might live. The train carrying the headquarters to
Port Tampa left at five o'clock in the morning. There was very little
sleep that night and the next morning the big hotel was well nigh
deserted. And all this time the destination of the fleet was unknown to
all but those high in rank and myself.
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