a good many pounds of supplies. Before we had recovered from our
surprise, the incident was closed by the future President of the United
States slinging the big sack over his shoulders, striding off, and out
of sight through the jungle.
The gruel still remained the staple, but malted milk, chocolate, rice,
and tea had come in, and little by little various things were added by
which our _menage_ quite resembled a hotel. The wounded were still being
taken away by ambulance and wagon, assorted and picked over like fruit.
Those who would bear transportation were taken away, the others left
where they were. By the third day our patients seemed strong enough that
we might risk giving them food as solid as rice, and the great kettles
were filled with that, cooked soft, mixed with condensed and malted
milk. The number of wounded grew less day by day, and better care could
be taken of them.
At Siboney, the great needs of the hour were met by the little band of
surgeons and nurses, working night and day. The following is from a
letter in the Times-Herald, now Record-Herald, of Chicago, by Miss Janet
Jennings, who volunteered her service in the hospital. One gets from
this simple, direct picture, a better appreciation of that heroism which
lives after excitement, which survives the rush and shouting of assault,
which is sustained without comradeship:
"SIBONEY, _July 8, 1898_.
"Above hospital tents Red Cross flags are flying, and here is the real
life--the suffering and heroism. Everybody who can do even so little as
carry a cup of water lends willing hands to help the wounded. Most of
the wounded are from the first day's engagement, when the infantry was
ordered to lead the attack on Santiago, instead of using the artillery.
"And it all came at once--a quick blow--with little or no preparation
to meet it. I mentioned in a former letter the lack of preparation on
the part of the army to care for the sick. There was then almost
nothing--no cots, bedding or proper food, for less than one hundred sick
men.
"Two days later, when the wounded came in, the needs of the hour were
overwhelming. The situation can not be described. Thousands of our men
had been hurried to the front to fight. It was well understood that it
would be a hard fight. The dead would need only burial, but the wounded
would need care. And yet, with the exception of a limited number of
stretchers, a medicine-chest and a few bandages, no preparation had been
made--neither cots nor food--practically no hospital supplies.
"It is not strange that surgeons were desperate and nurses distressed.
The force of each was wholly inadequate. The exact number of wounded may
never be known. But the estimate at this time is about 1,000
wounded--some 1,500 killed and wounded.
"Wounded men who made their way down on foot eight miles over the rough,
hilly road will never know just how their strength held out. Others were
brought down in army wagons by the load, as few ambulances were at
hand. Fortunately, there were some tents here that had been used by
troops before going to the front. Under these hay was spread and covered
with blankets, and the improvised hospital was ready. One tent was taken
for operating-tables, and the work of surgeons and nurses began. They
worked night and day for forty-eight hours, with only brief intervals
for coffee and hard-tack.
"Wounded men had to wait for hours before bullets could be extracted and
wounds dressed. But there was no word of complaint--only silent, patient
suffering, borne with a courage that was sublime. As the wounded
continued to come in, tent-room gave out, and hay with blankets were
placed outside, and to these 'beds' the less severely wounded were
assigned. It was evident that the medical department of the army had
failed absolutely to send hospital supplies, or by this time they would
have been landed. As it was, the surgeons turned to the Red Cross ship
'State of Texas' for help, and the supplies originally intended for the
starving Cubans were sent ashore for our wounded.
"Miss Barton had been urged and advised to wait until the army opened
and made the way safe to land supplies for reconcentrados and refugees.
But she had foreseen the situation to a certain degree and followed the
army as quickly as possible--to wait for the emergency, rather than have
the emergency wait for her. The 'State of Texas' was here a week before
the attack on Santiago.
"While surgeons and nurses were probing for bullets and dressing wounds,
a force of men on the Red Cross ship worked half the night getting out
cots and blankets, food and bandages, and at daylight next morning the
supplies were landed, taking advantage of the smooth sea between four
and nine o'clock, as later in the day the high surf makes it extremely
difficult for landings. There were six tables in the operating-tent and
eight surgeons. In twenty-four hours the surgeons had operated upon and
dressed the wounds of 475 men. Four Red Cross sisters, trained nurses,
assisted the surgeons. They were Sister Bettina, wife of Dr. Lesser,
surgeon-in-chief of the Red Cross; Sister Minna, Sister Isabel, and
Sister Blanche. Their knowledge of surgery, skill, and nerve were a
revelation to the army surgeons. These young women, all under thirty,
went from one operating-table to another, and, whatever was the nature
of the wound or complication, proved equal to the emergency.
"In the Red Cross Hospital, across the way, Sister Anna was in charge
of the sick men, turned over to the Red Cross two days before, when army
surgeons with troops were all ordered to the front. With 475 wounded men
to feed there was not a camp-kettle to be found in which gruel could be
prepared, coffee made or anything cooked, not a kettle of any sort to be
furnished by the army. The whole camp outfit at Tampa in the way of
cooking utensils must have been left behind.
"But there was an overruling Providence when the 'State of Texas' was
loaded for Cuba. So far everything needed has been found in the hold of
this old ship, which deserves to have and will have a credit page in the
history of the war in Cuba. There were kettles, charcoal braziers, and
cooking utensils carried over to the Red Cross Hospital. To prepare
gruel, rice, coffee, and various other proper and palatable dishes for
forty or fifty sick men by the slow process of a charcoal brazier,
tea-kettle, and boiler is by no means easy cooking. But to prepare food
for 475 wounded men, some of whom had had nothing to eat for twenty-four
hours, cooking over a little charcoal pot is something that one must
take a 'hand in' to fully appreciate.
"There was the feeling as if one were dazed and unnatural to hear
American soldiers, men from comfortable homes, literally begging for
'just a spoonful of gruel.' The charcoal pot burned night and day,
gallons of gruel were made and quantities of rice cooked until the
greatest stress had passed. It was no time to stand on trained service,
and everybody, man or woman, was ready to lend a hand.
"A striking feature of the first day's engagement was the number of men
wounded in the head, arm, and upper part of the body. Some of these
cases, the most serious, were taken into the Red Cross Hospital, where
they received the most skilful and gentle nursing.
"Two days' steady strain began to show on the Sisters.
"The strain had been the greater because there were no facilities for
anything like a regular meal short of the ship, reached by a long, hard
tramp in the sand, then a row over the tossing waves. But nobody thought
of meals. The one thing was to feed and nurse the 500 wounded and sick
men. Human endurance, however, has its limit, and unless the Sisters
could get a little rest they would give out. I went on duty for
twenty-four hours, at night, with the assistance of one man, taking care
of forty patients, fever, measles, and dysentery cases, and half a dozen
badly wounded men. Among the latter was Captain Mills, of the First
Cavalry, and William Clark, a colored private in the Twenty-fifth
Infantry, regulars. They were brought over from the hospital tents and
placed on cots out on the little porch, where there was just room to
pass between the cots.
"Their wounds were very similar--in the head--and of such a character as
to require cool applications to the eyes constantly. Ice was scarce and
worth its weight in gold, for the lives of these men as well as others
depended chiefly on cool applications to the eyes, with as uniform
temperature as possible. We had one small piece of ice, carefully
wrapped in a blanket. There never was a small piece of ice that went so
far. If I were to tell the truth about it nobody would believe me.
"Never in my whole life, I think, have I wished for anything so much as
I wished for plenty of ice that night. It was applied by chipping in
small bits, laid in thin, dry cotton cloth, folded over in just the
right size and flat, to place across the eyes and forehead, enough of it
to be cold, but not heavy, on the wounds.
"The ears of the sick are strangely acute. Whenever the sick men heard
the sound of chipping ice they begged for ice-water; even the smallest
bit of ice in a cup of water was begged with an eagerness that was
pitiful. I felt conscience-smitten. But it was a question of saving the
eyes of the wounded men, and there was no other way. To make the ice
last till morning I stealthily chipped it off so the sick men would not
hear the sound.
"At midnight a surgeon came over from his tent ward with a little piece
of ice not larger than his hand. I do not know his name, but it does not
matter, it is inscribed above. 'This is all we can spare,' he said.
'Take it. You must keep those wounds cool at all hazards. I have another
case very like these--a man wounded in the head. I want to bring him
over here, where he will be sure of exactly the same nursing. His life
depends on the care he gets in the next twenty-four hours. Have you a
vacant cot?'
"There was not a vacant cot, but we could make room for one on the porch
if he could find the cot. He thought he could, and went back, taking the
precious piece of ice that he really needed more than we did. In the
course of a half hour the surgeon returned to say it was impossible to
get a cot anywhere, and the wounded man must be left where he was in the
tent, at least until morning.
"And so it went on through the long night--the patient suffering of the
sick men, the heroism of the wounded, all fearing to give any trouble,
desiring not to do so, find grateful for the smallest attention.
"The courage that faces death on the battlefield or calmly awaits it in
the hospital is not a courage of race or color. Two of the bravest men I
ever saw were here, almost side by side on the little porch--Captain
Mills and Private Clark--one white, the other black. They were wounded
almost at the same time, and in the same way. The patient suffering and
heroism of the black soldier was fully equal to that of the Anglo-Saxon.
It was quite the same, the gentleness and appreciation. They were a
study, these men so widely apart in life, but here strangely close and
alike on the common ground of duty and sacrifice. They received
precisely the same care; each fed like a child, for with their bandaged
eyes they were as helpless as blind men. When the ice pads were renewed
on Captain Mills's eyes the same change was made on Private Clark's
eyes. There was no difference in their beds or food. Neither uttered a
word of complaint. The nearest to a regret expressed by Captain Mills
was a heavy sigh, followed by the words: 'Oh, we were not ready. Our
army was not prepared.'
"Of himself he talked cheerfully, strong, and hopeful. 'I think I shall
go home with the sight of one eye,' he said. That was all.
"In the early part of the night he was restless, his brain was active,
cool, and brave as he might be. The moonlight was very bright, a flood
of silver, seen only in the tropics. Hoping to divert him I said: 'The
moonlight is too bright, captain. I will put up a paper screen so you
can get to sleep.'
"He realized at once the absurdity and the ludicrous side, and with an
amused smile replied: 'But you know I can't see the moonlight.'
"I said it was time to get more ice for his head and half stumbled
across the porch, blinded by tears. When told who his nearest neighbor
was, Captain Mills expressed great sympathy for Private Clark and paid a
high tribute to the bravery of the colored troops and their faithful
performance of duty.
"Private Clark talked but little. He would lie apparently asleep until
the pain in his head became unbearable. Then he would try to sit up,
always careful to keep the ice-pad on his eyes over the bandage.
"'What can I do for you, Clark?' I would ask, anxious to relieve his
pain.
"'Nothing, thank you,' he would answer. 'It's very nice and comfortable
here. But it's only the misery in my head--the misery is awful.'
"Poor fellow! there was never a moan, merely a little sigh now and
then, but always that wonderful patience that seemed to me not without a
touch of divine philosophy, complete acceptance.
"I have mentioned these two men, not as exceptional in bravery, but to
illustrate the rule of heroism, and because they were among the patients
under my immediate care that night. It was a strange night picture--a
picture that could never be dimmed by time but live through all the
years of one's life.
"After midnight a restful atmosphere pervaded the hospital and the
blessing of sleep fell upon the suffering men, one by one. In the little
interval of repose I dropped into an old chair on the porch, looked away
to the beautiful mountains sharply outlined in the moonlight, and the
sea like waves of silver, the camp on the shore; near by thirty or forty
horses standing motionless. Then the hospital tents, with now and then
the flickering light of a candle; in the background the cliffs, with
here and there a Spanish blockhouse. Over all the tragedy of life and
death, the pain and sorrow, there was the stillness of a peaceful
night--a stillness broken only by the sound of the surf brought back on
the cool breeze, the cool, refreshing breeze, for which we all thanked
God."
Later on, as will be remembered, Miss Jennings went North--a volunteer
nurse on the transport Seneca. The brave men whose lives hung in the
balance that night--with little hope that, if life were spared, they
would ever see again--recovered, but each with the loss of an eye. After
a long furlough Private Clark returned to his regiment. Captain Mills,
now General Mills, is the Superintendent of the West Point Military
Academy.
Three times in the first week I went over those terrible roads from the
front to Siboney and return. Arriving at Siboney late one night, there
was no way I could get on board the State of Texas and I was obliged to
remain on shore. The Postmaster insisted that I occupy a room in the
building used for a post-office. Such a courtesy could not be refused,
and against all feeling of acquiescence, and with a dread as if there
were something wrong about it, I allowed myself to be helped out of the
wagon and entered the house. The Postmaster sat down and talked with me
a little while. I thought he seemed ill. I had never met him before, but
my heart went out in sympathy for him. I feared I was taking his room,
although he did not admit it.
I was shown into a room where there was a cot, a table, and a candle
without a stick, burning upon the table. The men went outside and laid
down upon the steps for the night. I laid down upon the cot, but it was
impossible for me to remain there. Something constantly warned me to
leave it. I got up, went to the door, looked out upon the night and
darkness, and waited for the gray of the morning. I went out and stood
upon the beach beside the sea and waited more and more, until finally
some of the men appeared, and I went with them down to the water.
Six days later they told me that the rightful occupant of the cot--the
Postmaster, who had seemed so ill--had died of a fever raging here that
they called "yellow fever." I had occupied his cot. I wonder who it was
that so continually warned me that night to keep away from that room,
away from the cot, away from all connected with it? "Yellow fever" was
not then talked of. Did some one tell me? I do not know--but something
told me.
The negotiations between General Shafter and the Spanish army at
Santiago were going on. The flag of truce, that threatened every day to
come down, still floated. The Spanish soldiers had been led by their
officers to believe that every man who surrendered--and the people as
well--would be butchered whenever the city should fall and the American
troops should come in. But when General Shafter commenced to send back
convoys of captured Spanish officers, their wounds dressed, and
carefully placed on stretchers, borne under flags of truce to the
Spanish lines at Santiago, and set down at the feet of General Toral,
and when in astonishment that officer learned the object of the flag of
truce and sent companies of his soldiers to form in line and present
arms, while the cortege of wounded were borne through by American
troops, a lesson was learned that went far toward the surrender of that
city.
I happen to know that it was not without some very natural home
criticism that General Shafter persisted in his course in the face of
the time-honored custom of "hostages." One can readily understand that
the voluntary giving up of prisoners--officers at that--in view of an
impending battle, might seem in the light of old-time army usages a
waste, to characterize it by no harder term. It is possible that none of
the officers in that field had ever read the Articles of the Treaty of
Geneva, or fully recalled that the treaty had become a law, or that
their commander was acting in full accord with its wise and humane
principles.
By this time the main talk of the camp was "yellow fever." It was soon
discovered by the medical authorities that, from there having been at
first one case of fever, there were now one hundred and sixteen, and
that a fever camp would probably be made there, and the wounded gotten
away. It was advisable then that we return to our ship and attempt, as
far as possible, to hold that free from contagion. I was earnestly
solicited to do this, in view of what was expected of our ship, and of
what was expected of us, that we not only protect ourselves but our
cargo and ship from all contamination and even suspicion.
I faithfully promised to do so, and again called for an army wagon,
leaving all supplies that were useful for the men in camp--sending to El
Caney what was most needed there--and taking only our personal effects,
started for Siboney. In less than twenty minutes the rain was pouring on
us and for two hours it fell as if from buckets. The water was from a
foot and a half to two feet deep in the road as we passed along. At one
time our wagon careened, the mules were held up, and we waited to see
whether it should go over or could be brought out, the water a few
inches only from the top of the lower side. It was scarcely possible for
us to stir, hemmed in as we were, but the men from the other wagons
sprang to our wheels, hanging in the air on the upper side, and we were
simply saved by an inch.
But like other things, this cleared away. We came into Siboney about
three o'clock, in a bright glare of sunshine, to find the town entirely
burned--all buildings gone or smoking--and a "yellow fever" hospital
established a mile and a half out from Siboney.
All effort was made to hold our ship free from suspicion. The process of
reasoning leading to the conclusion that a solid cargo, packed in tight
boxes in the hold of a ship, anchored at sea, could become infected in
a day from the land or a passing individual, is indeed an intricate
process. But we had some experience in this direction. Captain McCalla,
in his repeated humane attempts to feed the refugees around Guantanamo,
had called again for a hundred thousand rations, saying that if we could
bring them to him soon he could get them to the starving people in the
woods. We lost no time, but got the food out and started with it in the
night. On reaching Guantanamo we were met some distance out, called to,
and asked if any one on our ship had been on shore at Siboney within
four days; if so, our supplies could not be received. We took them away,
leaving the starving to perish.
The constantly recurring news of the surrender of Santiago was so well
established that we drew anchor, came up to the flag-ship, and sent the
following letter to Admiral Sampson:
"State of Texas,
"_July 16, 1898_.
"ADMIRAL SAMPSON, Commanding U. S. Fleet off
Santiago, Flag-Ship New York.
"Admiral: It is not necessary for me to explain to you my errand, nor
its necessity; both your good head and heart divine it more clearly
than any words of mine can represent.
"I send this to you by one of our men who can tell all you wish to know.
Mr. John Elwell has resided and done mercantile and shipping business in
Santiago for the last seven years; is favorably known to all its people;
has in his possession the keys of the best warehouses and residences in
the city, to which he is given welcome by the owners. He is the person
appointed four months ago to help distribute this food, and did so with
me until the blockade. There seems to be nothing in the way of getting
our twelve hundred tons of food into a Santiago warehouse and giving it
intelligently to the thousands who _need_ and _own_ it. I have twenty
good helpers with me. The New York committee is urging the discharge of
the State of Texas, which has been raised in price to four hundred
dollars a day.
"If there is still more explanation needed, I pray you, Admiral, let me
see you.
"Respectfuly and cordially,
"CLARA BARTON."
These were anxious days. While the world outside was making up war
history, we thought of little beyond the terrible needs about us; if
Santiago had any people left, they must be in sore distress; and El
Caney, with its thirty thousand homeless, perishing sufferers, how could
they be reached?
On that Sunday morning, never to be forgotten, the Spanish fleet came
out of Santiago Harbor, to meet death and capture. That afternoon
Lieutenant Capehart, of the flag-ship, came on board with the courteous
reply of Admiral Sampson, that if we would come alongside the New York
he would put a pilot on board. This was done, and we moved on through
waters we had never traversed; past Morro Castle, long, low, silent, and
grim; past the wrecks of the Spanish ships on the right; past the
Merrimac in the channel. We began to realize that we were alone, of all
the ships about the harbor there were none with us. The stillness of the
Sabbath was over all. The gulls sailed and flapped and dipped about us.
The lowering summer sun shot long golden rays athwart the green hills on
either side and tinged the water calm and still. The silence grew
oppressive as we glided along with scarce a ripple. We saw on the right
as the only moving thing, a long, slim yacht dart out from among the
bushes and steal its way up half-hidden in the shadows. Suddenly it was
overtaken by either message or messenger, and like a collared hound
glided back as if it had never been.
Leaning on the rail, half lost in reverie over the strange, quiet beauty
of the scene, the thought suddenly burst upon me--are we really going
into Santiago, and alone? Are we not to be run out, and wait aside, and
salute with dipping colors, while the great battle-ships come up with
music and banners and lead the way?