Newport Barracks, Opposite Cincinnati

There are now at this “Recruiting Station” about one hundred and sixty men - a smaller number than usual.  It is not generally known that this is the best point in the United States for obtaining Recruits, yet such is the case.  Governor's Island, in New York City, is the next best point, but the men obtained there do not, as a general thing, make as good soldier material as those enlisted here. ; the reason, we suppose, to be this - the stock of men gathered in New York are “in the main” somewhat injured by a badly regulated city-life, while those recruited here are mostly men from the country, who go into the ranks of the Army for the adventure of the thing, and are generally of sound and hardy constitutions.  More men were enlisted here, into the army proper, during the Mexican war than at any other point.

Cincinnati Gazette, January 22, 1850