Although the wreck on the Brownsville yesterday was an unfortunate affair it served a good purpose in that it gave the 600 Minnesota troops en route Brownsville their first day off since they left home five days ago.
Besides two troops of regular National Guard volunteers, the battalion under Major Leach had along Company “F,” composed of 171 University of Minnesota students and six officers under Capt. W. F. Rhinow, the whole constituting the Minnesota Second Battalion First Field Artillery, carrying 12 3-inch field pieces.
Many of the boys expressed themselves as delighted with Bay City and took their enforced stop of several hours as an opportunity to attend church and entertain themselves in diverse other ways.
Their chief amusement seemed to center about the county court house democratic donkey and the republican alligator held captive at the Confederate monument fountain by the Daughters of the Confederacy.
The merchants turned all their supplies of watermelons over to City Marshal J.A. McNeal, who distributed them to the troops while the hospitable homes of the city took as many soldier boys as they could to the mid-day meal, showing the boys from the far away North some of the South’s much-famed hospitality.
Because of such consideration and attention the boys were constantly giving their college yell for Bay City and left here with an impression of our town that will not soon be erased.
It was fully demonstrated to the inhabitants of Bay City that the boys of Battery F, Minnesota, have justly earned their sobriquet of “The Musical” when they invaded this city Sunday morning filling the town with such a riot of song, music and yells as it has never been the pleasure of hearing before.
Battery F is composed entirely of students from the University of Minnesota and if we may judge from the hundred and ninety three specimens who took the city by storm Sunday, Minnesota is no place for a grouch.
The Matagorda County Tribune, July 28, 1916
