At early dawn the battery arose, and, after a quick breakfast, resumed
the march. Some half-mile farther on they passed a battery of light
artillery which had preceded them on the road by some nine hours, and
which had camped at this point awaiting forage. At Siboney the
detachment stopped to look after the detail from the 13th Infantry,
which had not yet reported. The detachment commander sought out the
regimental adjutant, who referred him to the regimental commander, Col.
Worth. This colonel was at first reluctant to allow the men to go, but,
on being informed of the necessity for them, and after inquiring about
the orders on the subject, he directed the detail to report
immediately. All the members of this detail reported at once, except
Corp. Rose, who had been left by his company commander on board ship.
The road from Siboney to the front was not known. There was no one in
camp who even knew its general direction. Application was therefore
made to Gen. Castillo, who was in command of a body of Cubans at
Siboney, for a guide. After a great deal of gesticulation, much excited
talk between the general and members of his staff, and numerous
messengers had been dispatched hither and thither upon this important
and very difficult business, a Cuban officer was sent with instructions
to furnish a guide who could conduct the detachment to Gen. Wheeler’s
headquarters at the front. In the course of some twenty minutes, a
dirty slouchy, swarthy, lousy-looking vagabond was pointed out as the
desired guide, and was said to know every by-path and trail between
Siboney and Santiago. He was told to go with the detachment to Gen.
Wheeler’s headquarters and then return, and the detachment commander
started for his command followed by his sable guide. Passing through a
group of these brave Cuban heroes, he lost sight of his redoubtable
guide for an instant, and has never since found that gentleman.
It would be just as well to add a description of the patriotic Cuban as
he was found by the Gatling Gun Detachment during their campaign in
behalf of Cuban independence, in the name of humanity; and this
description, it is thought, tallies with the experience of all officers
in the expedition.
The valiant Cuban! He strikes you first by his color. It ranges from
chocolate yellow through all the shades to deepest black with kinky
hair; but you never by any chance see a white Cuban, except the fat,
sleek, well-groomed, superbly mounted ones in “khaki,” who loaf around
headquarters with high-ranking shoulder-straps. These are all imported
from the United States. They comprise the few wealthy ones of Spanish
descent, who are renegade to their own nativity, and are appealing to
the good people of the United States to establish them in their status
of master of peons without any overlord who can exact his tithes for
the privilege.
San Juan Hill.
The next thing you notice is the furtive look of the thief. No one has
ever yet had a chance to look one of these chocolate-colored Cubans
straight in the eye. They sneak along. Their gait has in it something
of that of the Apache, the same soft moccasined tread, noiseless and
always stealthy. Your impressions as to their honesty can be instantly
confirmed. Leave anything loose, from a heavy winter overcoat, which no
one could possibly use in Cuba, to—oh well, anything—and any Cuban in
sight will take great pleasure in dispelling any false impressions that
honesty is a native virtue.
Next you notice that he is dirty. His wife does sometimes make a faint
attempt at personal cleanliness; this is evident, because in one bright
instance a white dress was seen on a native woman, that had been washed
sometime in her history. But as to his lordship, the proud male citizen
of Cuba libre, you would utterly and bitterly insult him by the
intimation that a man of his dignity ought ever to bathe, put on clean
clothes, or even wash his hands. He is not merely dirty, he is filthy.
He is infested with things that crawl and creep, often visibly, over
his half-naked body, and he is so accustomed to it that he does not
even scratch.
Next you observe the intense pride of this Cuban libre. It is
manifested the very first time you suggest anything like manual
labor—he is incapable of any other—even for such purposes as camp
sanitation, carrying rations, or for any other purpose. His manly chest
swells with pride and he exclaims in accents of wounded dignity, “Yo
soy soldado!” Still his pride does not by any chance get him knowingly
under fire. At El Poso some of him did get under fire from artillery,
accidentally, and it took a strong provost guard to keep him there. If
he ever got under fire again there was no officer on the firing-line
who knew it.
He is a treacherous, lying cowardly, thieving, worthless, half-breed
mongrel; born of a mongrel spawn of Europe, crossed upon the fetiches
of darkest Africa and aboriginal America. He is no more capable of
self-government than the Hottentots that roam the wilds of Africa or
the Bushmen of Australia. He can not be trusted like the Indian, will
not work like a negro, and will not fight like a Spaniard; but he will
lie like a Castilian with polished suavity, and he will stab you in the
dark or in the back with all the dexterity of a renegade graduate of
Carlisle.
Providence has reserved a fairer future for this noble country than to
be possessed by this horde of tatterdemalions. Under the impetus of
American energy and capital, governed by a firm military hand with even
justice, it will blossom as the rose; and, in the course of three or
four generations, even the Cuban may be brought to appreciate the
virtues of cleanliness, temperance, industry, and honesty.
Our good roads ended at Siboney, and from there on to Gen. Wheeler’s
headquarters was some of the worst road ever traveled. Part of it lay
through deep valleys, where the sun was visible scarcely more than an
hour at noontime, and the wet, fetid soil was tramped into a muck of
malarial slime under foot of the mules and men. The jungle became
ranker, the Spanish bayonets longer and their barbs sharper in these
low bottom jangles. The larger undergrowth closed in more sharply on
the trail, and its boughs overhung so much in some places that it
became necessary to cut them away with axes in order to pass.
These guns were the first wheeled vehicles that had ever disturbed the
solitude of this portion of Cuba. The chocolate-colored natives of Cuba
sneak; the white native of Cuba, when he travels at all, goes on
horseback. He very seldom travels in Cuba at all, because he is not
often there. Consequently the roads in Cuba, as a rule, are merely
small paths sufficient for the native to walk along, and they carry the
machete in order to open a path if necessary. These low places in the
valleys were full of miasmatic odors, yellow fever, agues, and all the
ills that usually pertain to the West Indian climate.
At other places the road ran along the tops of the foot-hills from one
to two hundred feet higher than the bottom of these valleys. Here the
country was much more open. The path was usually wide enough for the
guns to move with comparative ease. Sometimes one wagon could pass
another easily. These parts of the road were usually more or less
strewn with boulders. The road was rarely level and frequently the
upland parts were washed out. Sometimes it was only the boulder-clad
bottom of a ravine; again the water would have washed out the gully on
one side so deep as to threaten overturning the guns. The portions of
the road between the valleys and the top of these foot-hills were the
worst places the detachment had to pass. These ascents and descents
were nearly always steep. While not at all difficult for the man upon
horseback or for the man on foot, they were frequently almost too steep
for draft, and they were always washed out. In places it was necessary
to stop and fill up these washouts by shoveling earth and stone into
the places before the detachment could pass.
Cuban Soldiers as They Were.
On one of these occasions, while heaving rock to fill up a bad washout,
Priv. Jones was stung by a scorpion. Jones did not know what had bitten
him, and described it as a little black thing about as long as his
finger. Fortunately there was a small supply of whisky with the
detachment, and this remedy was applied to Jones internally. Some
soldier in the detachment suggested that a quid of tobacco externally
would be beneficial, so this also was done. It was not a dressing
favorable to an aseptic condition of the wound, perhaps, nor was there
anything in the quid of tobacco calculated to withdraw the poison or
neutralize its effects, so the doctors may characterize this as a very
foolish proceeding; but country people skilled in simples and herb
remedies might tell some of these ultra scientific surgeons that the
application of a quid of tobacco or of a leaf of tobacco to the sting
of a wasp or the bite of a spider, or even the sting of a scorpion, is
nearly always attended by beneficial results. In fact, when Jones was
stung there was a surgeon, a medical officer, who turned up even before
Jones was treated with the whisky cure, and, upon receiving Jones’
explanation that he had been heaving rock and had been bitten on the
end of the finger by a little black thing, and after hearing the
remarks of the men that it was very probably a scorpion sting, this
medical officer very sagely diagnosed the accident to that effect, but
was unable to prescribe any remedy because he had not brought along his
emergency case. This medical officer, with his two attendant hospital
satellites, had left both litter and emergency case upon the transport.
The ordinary line officer or soldier who is somewhat accustomed to
carrying weights and does not require a hospital drill to teach him to
carry a wounded comrade a few yards, looks with a certain degree of
envy upon the possession of a hospital litter with its convenient
straps for weight-carrying, and would consider this a very convenient
means for carrying a pack. This litter is designed to enable two men,
hospital attendants or band men, to pick up a wounded soldier weighing
some 160 or 180 pounds and carry him from fifty yards to a mile if
necessary, to a dressing-station or hospital shack. The medical
field-case No. 1 weighs about sixty pounds filled, and field-case No. 2
weighs about forty pounds. These two cases contain all the medicines
necessary to run a division hospital; the case of emergency instruments
does not weigh above ten or twelve pounds, and would not be a burden
for a child to carry. It is therefore difficult for the small-minded
officer of the line to see why the Medical Department was unable to
have these medicines up at the front. They had the same means of
locomotion provided for the other soldiers, by Nature, and they had,
moreover, no particular necessity for all rushing to the extreme front.
On the contrary, they had from the 23d of June, when the landing began,
at Baiquiri, until the 1st of July, to accomplish a distance of less
than twenty miles; and it would seem reasonable that they might have
had their medicine-cases up where they were needed by that time.
These gentlemen pose as the most learned, expert, scientific, highly
trained body of medical men in the world. They are undoubtedly as well
trained, as highly educated, and as thoroughly proficient as the
medical officers of any army in the world. A summons of an ordinary
practitioner would bring with him his saddle-bags of medicines; no
physician in the city would pretend to answer even an ambulance call
without having a few simple remedies—in other words, an emergency case;
but it was an exception, and a very rare exception at that, to find a
medical officer who took the trouble to carry anything upon his
aristocratic back on that march to the front.
A conversation overheard between two medical officers on board a
transport just before landing may serve to partially explain the state
of affairs. Said surgeon No. 1 to surgeon No. 2, “We are going to land
this morning; are you going to carry your field-case?” To which surgeon
No. 2 indignantly replied, “No, I’m not a pack-mule!” Surgeon No. 1
again inquired, “Are you going to make your hospital men carry it?” To
which surgeon No. 2 replied, “No; my men are not beasts of burden.”
Both of these medical officers went ashore; one of them had his field
case carried; the other did not. Both of them were up at the
firing-line, both did good service in rendering first aid. Both of them
worked heroically, both seemed deeply touched by the suffering they
were compelled to witness, and both contracted the climatic fever. But
in the absence of medicines the role of the surgeon can be taken by the
private soldier who has been instructed in first aid to the injured;
for in the absence of medical cases and surgical instruments the
first-aid packet is the only available source of relief, and these
first-aid packets were carried by the private soldier, not by the
Medical Department.
Wagon Train.
A little less “theory,” a little less “science,” a little less tendency
to dwell on the “officer” part of the business, with a little more
devotion to the duty of relieving suffering humanity—in short, a little
less insistence upon “rank,” would have vastly improved the medical
service of the United States Army in the field at this time.
These remarks do not apply to the heroes like Ebert, Thorpe, Brewer,
Kennedy, Warren, and a few others, who fearlessly exposed their lives
upon the very firing-line. These men are the very “salt of the earth.”
The escape of even a “frazzle” of the 5th Corps was due to their
superhuman energy and exertions. They did much to redeem the good name
of their corps and to alleviate suffering.
But Priv. Jones recovered from the sting of the scorpion. In fact,
soldiers were heard to exclaim that they would be glad to find a
scorpion when they saw the character of the remedy applied in Jones’
case.
The detachment left Siboney about 10 o’clock in the morning and tramped
steadily along the road up hill and down until 12; then, upon finding a
convenient place, it halted for dinner. The mules were unharnessed,
coffee prepared, and, just as the detachment was about to begin this
noonday meal, two of the peripatetic newspaper fraternity joined, _en
route_ to the rear. The ubiquitous correspondent had for the first time
discovered the Gatling Gun Detachment, and they thought it was
Artillery.
One of these gentlemen was a long, slim, frayed-out specimen of
humanity, with a wearied and expressive droop of the shoulders; the
other was a short, stout, florid, rotund individual, and his “too, too
solid flesh” was in the very visible act of melting. The newspaper
gentlemen were invited to participate in the noonday meal, and, with
some gentle urging, consented. It was only after the meal was over that
it was learned that this was the first square meal these men had had in
over forty-eight hours. They had been with Gen. Wheeler at La Guasimas,
had rejoined Wheeler after reporting that fight, in hopes of making
another “scoop,” and were now on their way to Siboney, hoping to buy
some provisions. Poor devils! They had worked for a “scoop” at La
Guasimas; they had gone up on the firing-line and had sent back
authentic accounts of that little skirmish; but they did not make the
“scoop.” The “scoop” was made by newspaper men who had remained on
board the transports, and who took the excited account of a member of
the command who had come back delirious with excitement, crazed with
fear, trembling as though he had a congestive chill—who, in fact, had
come back faster than he had gone to the front, and in his excited
condition had told the story of an ambuscade; that Wheeler, Wood, and
Roosevelt were all dead; that the enemy was as thick as the barbs on
the Spanish bayonet; and that he, only he, had escaped to tell the
tale. This was the account of the battle that got back to the
newspapers in the form of a “scoop,” and it was nothing more nor less
than the excited imagination of the only coward who at that time or
ever afterwards was a member of the famous Rough Riders. He was
consequently returned to civil life prematurely.
The newspaper correspondent in Cuba was of a distinguished type. You
recognized him immediately. He was utterly fearless; he delighted in
getting up on the firing-line—that is, a few of him did. Among these
few might be mentioned Marshall, and Davis, and Remington, and
Marcotte, and King, and some half-dozen others; but there was another
type of newspaper correspondent in Cuba, who hung around from two miles
and a half to three miles in rear of the firing-line, and never by any
possibility got closer to the enemy than that. The members of this
guild of the newspaper fraternity were necessarily nearer the cable
office than their more daring comrades; in fact, there were a few who
were known to have been eight or nine miles nearer to the cable office
during battles, and those correspondents were the ones who made the
great “scoop” in the New York papers, by which a regiment that laid
down and skulked in the woods, or ran wildly to the rear, was made to
do all the fighting on the first day of July. This latter class of
journalists were a menace to the army, a disgrace to their profession,
and a blot upon humanity. Even the Cubans were ashamed of them.
The detachment resumed the march at half past 1, and encountered some
very difficult road, difficult because it needed repairs. The most
difficult places were the ascents and descents of the hills, and in
nearly every case fifteen or twenty minutes’ careful investigation was
able to discover a means of getting around the worst places in the
road. When it was not practicable to go around, J. Shiffer and his
three fellow-teamsters would take a twist of their hands in the manes
of their long-eared chargers, and apparently lift them down, or up, as
the case might be, always landing on their feet and always safely. It
was merely a question of good driving and will to go through. The worst
places were repaired by the detachment before these reckless attempts
at precipice-scaling were made. At one place there was a detachment of
the 24th Infantry engaged in an alleged effort to repair the road. They
did not seem to work with much vim. Chaplain Springer, having in the
morning exhorted them to repentance and a better life and to doing good
works unto their brethren, the enemy, was engaged at this point in the
afternoon, it being Sunday, in a practical demonstration of what he
considered good works. In other words, the chaplain, whose religious
enthusiasm no one doubts, was engaged in heaving rocks with his own
hands to show these colored soldiers how they ought to make good road,
and he was doing “good works.”
It is but a just tribute to Chaplains Springer and Swift, of the
Regulars, to say that they were conspicuous in the hour of danger at
the point of greatest peril. In the fearless discharge of their holy
office, they faced all the dangers of battle; nor did they neglect the
care of the body while ministering to the spiritual needs of the
soldiers. Springer, for example, collected wood and made coffee for all
on the firing-line, within 400 yards of the block-house at El Caney;
and Swift was equally conspicuous in relieving suffering, binding up
wounds, and caring for the sick. There were probably others equally as
daring; but the author knows of the deeds of these men, and desires to
pay a tribute of respect to them. Chaplains of this stamp are always
listened to with respectful attention when they express their views of
the true course of life to obtain a blessed hereafter. They were in
very sharp contrast to the long-visaged clerical gentlemen who were so
much in evidence at Tampa, and who never got within 500 miles of
danger.
The detachment safely passed all the bad places and obstacles in the
road, arriving at Gen. Wheeler’s headquarters about half past 4
o’clock, and reported. It was assigned a position between the advance
outposts and directed to dispose of its guns in such a manner as to
sweep the hills on which these outposts were placed. High hills to the
right at a distance of about 2000 yards were supposed to be infested by
the enemy, and a blockhouse which stood out against the sky-line was
thought to contain a Spanish detachment. A high hill to the left at a
distance of about 1000 yards had not yet been explored, and it was
thought probable that some of the enemy was concealed on this hill
also. The detachment commander was directed to report, after posting
his battery, in which duty he was assisted by Col. Dorst, to Gen.
Chaffee, who had charge of the outposts. The General inquired what the
battery consisted of, and upon being informed that “It consists of four
Gatling guns, posted so as to command the neighboring hills,” remarked
in a very contemptuous manner, “You can’t command anything.” Gen.
Chaffee subsequently had reason to revise his opinion, if not to regret
the expression of it.