The First Day's March
_Disposition of our column_--_The road to Sabana Grande_--_The
infantrymen's burden_--_Wayside hospitality_--_Hard tack and
repartee_--_Into camp and under blankets_--_Arrival of Macomb's troop_--_A
smoke-talk._
[Illustration: Plaza Principal, Mayaguez. Town Hall in background.]
The disposition and arrangement of our forces on the first day's march can
best be shown by the following document:--
HEADQUARTERS INDEPENDENT BRIGADE (REGULARS), CAMP AT YAUCO, PUERTO RICO,
Aug. 8, 1898.
GENERAL ORDERS No. 13.
This command will move out on the road to Sabana Grande at ten o'clock
tomorrow morning. It will observe the following rules and order of march:--
1. Macomb's troop of cavalry will act as a screen, and will march about two
miles in advance of the point of the advance-guard. The extent of the front
to be covered by, and the disposition of the cavalry, will depend upon
the nature of the country, and will be left to the judgment of the troop
commander. He will communicate freely by means of orderlies with the
commander of the advance-guard, who will at once transmit all messages to
the commanding general. Three mounted orderlies to be furnished by the
troop, will march with the advance-guard.
2. Two companies of infantry, one platoon of artillery, and two Gatling
guns will constitute the advance-guard. A pioneer detachment, consisting of
one non-commissioned officer and eight men, to be carefully selected from
the advance-guard, will march with the reserve, and will be under the
direction of the engineer officer of the brigade. The requisite tools
will be carried on a cart. Upon arriving in camp, the advance-guard will
immediately establish the outpost.
3. The main body will consist of nine companies of infantry, one battery
and two platoons of artillery, and two Gatling guns.
4. The trains following the main body will be under the direction of the
brigade quartermaster, and their order of march will be:--
Hospital train.
Ammunition column.
Supply and baggage wagons.
The rear-guard will be composed of one company of infantry. A detachment
from it will protect exposed flanks of the train. If horses can be procured
for them, the commanders of the advance and rear guards will be mounted.
The above disposition for each day's march will be conformed to, unless
otherwise ordered.
By command of Brigadier-General Schwan.
GROTE HUTCHESON, _Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General._
[Illustration: Spanish Prisoners who were brought from Las Marias to
Mayaguez.]
As Captain Macomb's cavalry had not arrived at the hour appointed for our
start, we set off without him. And in fact there was little need of his
services on that day, our march being through a section of the island
already cleared of Spanish troops, and exceedingly slow and wearisome,
besides.
The route from Yauco to Sabana Grande lies for some two miles along the
level and creditable road leading to Guanica, suddenly going off at right
angles just beyond a picturesque sugar-mill into as uneven, crooked, and
hilly a highway as can well be imagined.
I cannot tell you in adequate language just how the tropical sun punishes
the unacclimated Northerner, especially if he be a foot-soldier tramping
along in a blinding dust, parched of throat, empty of belly, and loaded
down with a pack that would make a quartermaster's mule to fake the
glanders. If you have been there, it needs no words of mine to galvanize
your memory; and, if you have not, you cannot understand. This matter of
the soldier's pack and what to do with it became a subject of serious
consideration during the recent war, in both Cuba and Puerto Rico. On the
march, in the charge or pursuit or retreat, it is a senseless, clogging,
spirit-shackling incubus, a rank absurdity, and an utter impossibility. As
a result, after three days of active campaign the infantryman is seen gayly
stalking along with no burden save his rifle, ammunition-belt, and a wisp
of gray blanket, which seems to me to be a fatuous and footless condition
of affairs that might well be quickly remedied for the benefit of all
concerned.
[Illustration: Plaza Principal, Mayaguez. A Public Celebration of the New
Flag's Advent, under the Auspices of the Local School-teachers and their
Pupils.]
As we passed the occasional little hacienda, set in its grove of cocoanut
palms or orange-trees, dusky and wrinkled women came forth from the doors,
bearing upon their heads huge jars, from which we filled our ever-parched
canteens with cool, sweet water. They also brought us mangoes and other
native fruits, and queer cigars of most abominable flavor. Because we were
forbidden to eat of the fruit, we stuffed ourselves with it, and looked for
more. From time to time a weary or sick soldier would lay himself down by
the roadside, to be picked up later on by an ambulance; but, as the day
wore on, the intervals of rest grew longer and more frequent. We had but
one opportunity to water the sweating horses of the artillery, and then it
was a painful matter of buckets. We munched hard-tack for our noonday meal,
and made merry over it, talking of the day when we should go home and feast
on beans and beefsteak and countless other things of which the heathen
wot not. We were intensely voluble or silent by turns, and invented new
nicknames for each other, which were so apt, spite of being touched with
bitterness, that they stuck forevermore. And never, so far as I can
remember, did any one mention the "Maine" or Cuba Libre.
At last, shortly after sunset, we descended a long, steep hillside, and
went into camp in the valley of the Rio Grande, just without the gates of a
small town, uninteresting in character, and Sabana Grande by name. We had
marched only twelve miles, but were hungry, limp, and ugly. So, having
crammed down a hasty supper of nothing in particular, we made short shift
of absent tents, and, pulling our blankets to our chins, lay face upward
to the stars that made us homesick, and slept the sleep of tired little
children.
I was wakened in the middle of the night by a distant jangle of sabres and
rattle of hooves. Seeing our officer of the day, Lieutenant R.E. Callan,
standing not far away and looming gigantic against the sky, I asked him the
meaning of the noise; and he replied that it was Captain Macomb's troop
of cavalry just coming in. I lit my pipe and talked for a while with the
lieutenant of other things than war--Maude Adams and John Drew, football,
ambition, and books--till finally he went away to make his rounds. My pipe
went out, and I dreamed of stranger happenings than my longest thoughts
could fashion in the glare of day. And, when I woke again, reveille was
soaring from post to post.
[Illustration: The Plaza of San German on Market-day.]