So hard was it
for our peace-loving people to understand the real meaning of war that
it was not until the brave lads and earnest men were actually marching
to the steamer which was to carry them thousands of miles to meet danger
and death, that many quite realized the sorrowful fact. Men cheered the
regiment as it passed, but the sobs of the women sometimes nearly
drowned the hurrahs. Said one officer, "It was heartrending. If we had
let ourselves go, we would have cried our way to the dock." But in the
war the record of the California troops was one that gave new honor to
their state.
Annexation of Hawaii
"The Hawaiian Islands," said Walt Whitman, in the Overland Monthly, "are
not a group. They are a string of rare and precious pearls in the
sapphire center of the great American seas. Some day we shall gather up
the pretty string of pearls and throw it merrily about the neck of the
beautiful woman who has her handsome head on the outside of the big
American Dollar, and they will be called the beautiful American
Islands."
In 1893 the native queen of the islands was deposed by a revolution
conducted in a great measure by Americans living in Hawaii.
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