[Transcript of Letter from Chester W. Nimitz to William Nimitz, October 3, 1902] Page: 1 of 2

                                
October 3th [sic] 1902
Dear Father:-
No doubt you think that I got lost or something on that order, or that I have forgotten to write.
Well, the reason for my not writing earlier is that I have been on the jump ever since I got here.
When I left San Antonio for Houston, Mrs. CM Mason and Mrs. Dr. Mason met me at the
station. The next morning Mrs. Mason and I went out street car riding and we enjoyed ourselves
very
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much. That afternoon it was very damp so we spent the time in talking. They certainly treated me
fine in Houston and I only hope that some day I can return it. I left Houston that night, and as I
got on the car I bumped into Ben Johnson from Austin, he was on his way back to the Academy
also. Our train was four hours late at New Orleans, so we missed our connections and spent eight
hours their [sic] waiting for the next train.
At Chattanooga, I missed connections again on account of the trains being late so I spent ten
weary hours there. It happened to be a Sunday and everything was dead. While I was there, I
went up on Lookout Mt. and also out to Chickamauga battlefield. There we were joined by
Ownby and Taylor, one a second classman and other a first classman. As it was, we arrived at
Annapolis only a few hours before the time of reporting. Eklund from
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California was a day or so late, and Maxson from Nevada has not shown up at all.
It was certainly hard to buckle down to hard study that very night but that was the case. Our
lesson in spherical trigonometry was something fierce, and besides that we had hard, long,
lessons in other subjects. Besides the lessons, we have to drill every spare minute. You see, they
are trying to whip the battalion in shape for the G.A.R. Parade in
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Washington next Thursday. The Battalion of Midshipmen will attend this parade. Of course there
will be lots of marching to do, but thank the Lord, we will not have funeral marches to go by (as
in the case of Sampson's funeral). There are now about 150 new fourth classmen here, some of
them bilgers from upper classes. Some of them I knew and there were two Texans there. I went
over and offered my assistance to them in case of need.

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Their names are Madden and Bean.
About two thirds of the instructors here are new officers. They seem (so far) to be very nice
toward the Midshipmen.
Lacy came in just a few minutes ago and we had a little talk. He had enjoyed his leave very
much. You can imagine how hard it was to keep our minds on our books after a month's leave.
Here's a joke on me.