banner

Home | Quotations | Newspaper Articles | Special Features | Links | Search


The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, September 1, 1864

RINCON SCHOOL MILITIA

Before disbanding for a fort night's furlough, the boys connected with Rincon School had a grand dress parade, yesterday. They are classed into regular military companies, and officered as follows, by boys chosen from their own ranks: Company A, Captain John Welch; B, Captain John Warren; C, Captain Henry Tucker; D, Captain William Thompson; E, Captain Robinson; F, Captain Charles Redman; G, Captain Cyrus Myers; H, Captain Henry Tabor. Companies I and J have no regularly elected officers, we are told. The drummers of the regiment are two youngsters named Douglas Williams and John Seaborn, and their talent for making a noise amounts almost to inspiration. Both are first class drummers. The Rincon boys have been carefully drilled in military exercises for a year, now, and have acquired a proficiency which is astonishing. They go through with the most elaborate manoeuvres with out hesitating and without making a mistake; to execute every order promptly and perfectly has become second nature to them, and requires no more reflection than it does to a practised boarder to go to dinner when he hears the gong ring. The word "drill" is the proper one - those boys' legs and arms have been drilled into a comprehension of those orders so that they execute them mechanically, even though the restless mind may be thinking of anything else in the world at the moment. Professor Robinson has been the military instructor of the Rincon Regiment for several months past. The School exercises, earlier in the day, were very interesting, and consisted of dialogues, declamations, vocal and instrumental music, calisthenics, etc. "The Humors of the Draft," a sort of comedy, illustrative of the shifts to which unwarlike patriots are put in order to compass exemption, was well played by a number of the School boys, and was received with shouts of laughter. Douglas Williams played, on his drum, a solo which would have been a happy accompaniment to one of our choicest earth quakes. A young girl sang that lugubrious ditty, "Wrap the Flag around me, Boys," and the extraordinary purity and sweetness of her voice actually made pleasant music of it, impossible as such a thing might seem to any one acquainted with that marvellous piece of composition. The Principal, Mr. Pelton's, heir, an American sovereign of eight Summers and no Winters at all, since his life has been passed here where it has pleased the Almighty to omit that season, gave a recitation in French, and one in German; and from the touching pathos and expression which he threw into the latter, and the liquid richness of his accent, we are satisfied the subject was a noble one and wrought in beautiful language, but we could not testify unqualifiedly, in this respect, without access to a translation. The Rincon School was mustered out of service, yesterday evening, for the term of two weeks.

Return to Call index

banner

Quotations | Newspaper Articles | Special Features | Links | Search