There were not enough arms and other necessaries to go round, and there was keen rivalry among the intelligent and zealous commanders of the volunteer organizations as to who should get first choice.

Wood's experience was what enabled us to equip ourselves in short order.

There was another cavalry organization whose commander was at the War Department about this time, and we had been eyeing him with much alertness as a rival.

One day I asked him what his plans were about arming and drilling his troops, who were of precisely the type of our own men.

He answered that he expected "to give each of the boys two revolvers and a lariat, and then just turn them loose." I reported the conversation to Wood, with the remark that we might feel ourselves safe from rivalry in that quarter; and safe we were.
In trying to get the equipment I met with checks and rebuffs, and in return was the cause of worry and concern to various bureau chiefs who were unquestionably estimable men in their private and domestic relations, and who doubtless had been good officers thirty years before, but who were as unfit for modern war as if they were so many smooth-bores.