288 GENERAL SHAITER AND HIS STAFF.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MUSTERING OF THE ARMIES.

BEFORE following any further the course of the naval operations in the West Indian seas,it will be well to turn for awhile to the military preparations which were to progress in the United States. We have seen that at the outbreak of the war the regular army at the disposal of the Washington Government consisted of only some 27,000 men, and these were scattered in peace stations in small detachments, some in the great cities of the North, others in the Western States and on the Mexican border. For purposes of military administration the United States had been divided into a number of large districts, known as "departments," and just before the war a new- district, known as the " Department of the South," had been organised, to include the States along the Gulf of Mexico and the southern part of the Atlantic seaboard. It was placed under the direction of General Graham, who, till then, had been in command of the regular troops in Texas.

The army for the invasion of Cuba was to be assembled and organised in this new dwtæjoN General Graham established his headquarters at Atlanta,one of the most important railwaycentres of the South, and two great camps wereordered to be at once prepared at Tampa in Florida and Chickamauga in Tennesse. Tampa was to be the camp where the regulars would be concentrated, and reinforced by the new regiments to be obtained for war service from the militia and volunteers. Chickamauga was to be the great training ground for the latter. They would be sent on to Tampa as soon as they were prepared for active service, and from Tampa the army of liberation would sail to invade Cuba. Other subsidiary training camps were formed in various parts of the States, the most important of these being at Llempstead, inLongIsland, nearNew York.

The President had, as soon as war was declared, ordered a first levy of 100,000 men to reinforce the regular army. The men were to be obtained partly by new enlistments— for which purpose recruiting offices were opened inall the great cities— partly by calling out the militia or volunteers for active service. This last was to be the chief source of supply. But