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23 August, we were assembled in the company street and Sands read to us a telegram from the War Department, granting commissions to (I believe) 120 men. Ten or twelve still remaining in the battery were left out, through some of these were kept for the second training camp which began shortly after. The first ended- The battery had one major, Bacon; four captains , whose names, except Poague, I do not remember; twelve first lieutenants, including Thompson and Morton Adams; the rest of us shavetails, in which group my name was twenty- first , immediately following Charlie Price- Two of three days remained, the camp ending its work August fifteenth Shortly after the commissioned list was read and posted a further order reached Sands, requiring him to assign [[strikeout]] twenty [[/strikeout]] [[insert]] fifteen [[/insert]] men for immediate orders to France. He assembled us, read the order, and asked all those who wished to be on the list to step forward- The whole battery except a dozen or so, applied- Sands made some critical remarks about those who did not offer to go, and dismissed the company- In the afternoon I went to see Sands at his quarters. He was lying on his cot in his tent as I entered and did not get up. I saluted stood at attention and said that I wished to make a special request to be out on the list for duty overseas- He asked me if I felt that I deserved special consideration. I replied that I did not; but that possibly some of those who had volunteered in the morning had done so simply because they did not wish