The story of the U.S.S. "Yosemite" in 1898, compiled from available records by Joseph S. Stringham.

THE U. S. S. "YOSEMITE"

A Detroit newspaper published the following:
Detroit turns out this morning to strew your path with flowers
and fill your ears with plaudits, because you represent prophecies
fulfilled, expectations realized and pride justified. Old and young
and rich and poor are here to welcome you, bands are playing and
flags are flying because the confidence reposed in you was not misplaced.
With all their worship of audacity and enterprise there is no
quality before which Americans bow down in honest admiration as
they do before clear grit. It doesn't matter so much whether the
grit manifests itself in standing calmly to work under the fire of the
enemy or in cheerfully accepting the substitution of hardtack and
salt horse for the accustomed spring broilers and lobster a la Newberg. The grit that pulls a man out of bed four hours earlier than he
is used to rising, sets him to polishing brasses, instead of his finger
nails, and to scrubbing decks instead of smoking a matutinal cigarette; the grit which sets him to coaling ship with the same cheerful
vigor with which he rushes the business of a director's meeting-in
short the grit that made you bear the hard and disagreeable lot of
common sailors, as much as the grit that made you bear yourselves
at San Juan as befits men reared to the best traditions of the American Navy, is appreciated here at home by those who knew you before
the war began, and who, better than others, can realize the sacrifices
you made.
There are men in the crowds along the sidewalks who used to call
you the Champagne Preserves; but they're swinging their hats as
though they meant it today. They're just as glad to see you as you
are to be here. There may be women waving their handkerchiefs
from the windows who used to turn up their noses at you because
a certain social exclusiveness had shut out their husbands and
sweethearts from your organization; but there is something suspiciously moist about their eyes as you come swinging up the street.
WE're all glad to see you, and we especially rejoice because your
ranks haven't been thinned by death and disease, as have those of
some of the regiments that marched away to the war after you had
gone.
We all think a little more of ourselves today because of the things
that you, who were our friends and our brothers, have done since
the first of May. The flag means a little more to us, the Republic is
a little closer to our hearts, a little more of a personal thing than it
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