[40] thirteen fellows occupied it. The cots had not come when we got there, so there were thirteen mattresses on the floor, with pillows towards the walls. While I was there Nag Hunter threw a somersault on his mattress and stuck the heels of his boots through the plastering at the head of his bed. Books had to be piled high to keep these marks from Capt. Buchanan during his daily inspection. Franklin Buchanan, he who afterward commanded the Merrimac in the first day's fight in Hampton Roads, was sent to organize the school in its new condition. Buchanan was one of the tartars of the service and the way he slammed us about in those early days of the naval Academy was a caution. It took but a small offense to bring about the carrying out of the terminating clause of most of the rules for the government of the school, ‘he shall be dropped from the rolls and restored to his freedom.’ There was quite a weeding out process going on, and while much simply mischievous conduct only brought a heavy bullyragging, as we used to call it, upon offenders, anything that smacked of ungentlemanly conduct infallibly caused one to be restored to his friends. One Sunday afternoon I was in St. John's Church in the gallery. In a pew below I saw Captain Buchanan. In the midst of the service one Peter W., a large and remarkably handsome fellow, came into the gallery in his midshipman's jacket, a suit service fatigue uniform. Peter was very drunk and would not keep still; he would wander about and once he gave a kind of warhoop. For such conduct we did not think old Buck, as we called him, could wait for the next day to run him out of town. The next morning all the delinquents were assembled at 9 o'clock at the captain's office. I was one of them, I remember, but my offense was the not expressing myself with sufficient clearness in an official letter I had sent through him. After an awful nagging from the eagle-eyed, eagle-nosed martinet, I fell back and he said, ‘Mr. W.’ Poor Peter! How he looked as he stepped forward. He was seedy and disheveled from his spree of the day before, and knowing that he was going to be dismissed, he was a sight to behold. ‘Mr. W.,’ was hissed
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Richmond, VA. 1909.
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