‘Special Orders No. 22 - The camp of all the divisional infantry troops at the Presidio will be designated and known as “Camp Merriam.” By order of BRIGADIER-GENERAL MILLER.’

Camp Merritt will cease to exist as soon as the Kansas and Tennessee regiments join the Iowans at Camp Merriam and the other troops now there embark upon the Scandia and Arizona. In Camp Miller are all the artillery at the Presidio and two small detachments of cavalry.” The August 3, 1898 San Francisco Examiner reports that the camp of all the expeditionary troops at the Presidio is now “officially” known as Camp Merriam.

The streets are macadamized with broken stone; the whole tract of probably one hundred and twenty-five acres is fenced off in enclosures of five acres each, one of which is intended for the occupation of a regiment. There is city water at the end of each company street, with ample accommodations made for water closets and sinks. The six inches of loose sand topping the site of our camp offers some impediment to the movement of the troops inside. It has, however, this advantage, from a sanitary point of view of being healthful and dry.

There being no room for drill inside, the companies are taken out into the streets, while the battalions repair to the side of the Presidio hill where daily exercises are given in battle formation and skirmish drills.

On the arrival of the Third Battalion, on the evening of the 20th, the camp was complete, and, with its regular, well-ordered streets and tents, presented a neat and military appearance. During the weeks and the days following, the little square plats lying on both sides of the northeast corner section which has been assigned to us as the first regiment on the ground, began to fill with the incoming regiments from the other states.”

“The New Yorkers struck tents quietly, and about 10 o’clock began their silent march over the hill and through the Presidio barracks to the bay shore. In column of fours the line of 1300 men stretched out for nearly a mile. With their arrival at Camp Miller, the Presidio drill ground became a military settlement of 2280 volunteers in five groups of tents scattered over a plain where, two months ago, were encamped the First California, Sixth and Seventh California, and the Fourteenth United States Infantry and the Second Oregon Volunteers, a total at that time of about 4000. It is an orderly, cleanly camp of accurately aligned new tents on hard ground. 

The heavy artillery, located nearest the entrance gate, consists of one Los Angeles and one San Francisco battery of 175 men and four officers each, under command of Major Rice. Next on the field come 104 recruits for the Utah Light Artillery, Lieutenant Wedgewood nominally in command, but really quite ill in the Lane Hospital with typhoid pneumonia. A little further west is the Wyoming Light Artillery, consisting of three officers and 122 men, a command which hereafter will take its orders from Colonel Barber of the New York Regiment and which will receive from the East within ten days six of the finest field rifles furnished by the War Department. The New Yorkers occupy a large part of the center of the field, and are a conspicuous settlement in conical tents. Beyond them is the third battalion of the Second Regiment of United States Volunteer Engineers, 350 men and ten officers in the best aligned tents that have been seen on the drill ground.” This article seems to be the first time the camp at the Presidio is referred to as Camp Miller.

‘Special Orders No. 22 - The camp of all the divisional infantry troops at the Presidio will be designated and known as “Camp Merriam.” By order of BRIGADIER-GENERAL MILLER.’

Camp Merritt will cease to exist as soon as the Kansas and Tennessee regiments join the Iowans at Camp Merriam and the other troops now there embark upon the Scandia and Arizona. In Camp Miller are all the artillery at the Presidio and two small detachments of cavalry.” Thus, the distinction between the two Presidio camps was by type of unit and not location.