THE SANTIAGO CAMPAIGN (_Concluded_)
IV. The wrecking of the army by disease after the decisive battle of
July 1-2.
The army under command of General Shafter left Tampa on the fourteenth
day of June, and arrived off the Cuban coast near Santiago on the 20th
of the same month. Disembarkation began at Daiquiri on the 22d, and
ended at Siboney on the 24th. On the morning of June 25 the whole army
was ashore, and was then in a state of almost perfect health and
efficiency. One week later the soldiers at the front began to sicken
with malarial and other fevers, and two weeks later, according to
General Shafter's report, "sickness was increasing very rapidly, and the
weakness of the troops was becoming so apparent that I was anxious to
bring the siege to an end." On July 21, less than four weeks after the
army landed, Colonel Roosevelt told me that not more than one quarter of
his men were fit for duty, and that when they moved five miles up into
the hills, a few days before, fifty per cent. of the entire command fell
out of the ranks from exhaustion. On July 22 a prominent surgeon
attached to the field-hospital of the First Division stated to me that
at least five thousand men in the Fifth Army-Corps were then ill with
fever, and that there were more than one thousand sick in General Kent's
division alone. On August 3 eight general officers in Shafter's command
signed a round-robin in which they declared that the army had been so
disabled by malarial fevers that it had lost its efficiency; that it was
too weak to move back into the hills; that the epidemic of yellow fever
which was sure to occur would probably destroy it, and that if it were
not moved North at once it "must perish." At that time, according to
General Shafter's telegram of August 8 to the War Department,
"seventy-five per cent. of the command had been ill with a very
weakening malarial fever, which leaves every man too much broken down to
be of any use." In the short space of forty days, therefore, an army of
sixteen thousand men had lost three fourths of its efficiency, and had
been reduced to a condition so low that, in the opinion of eight general
officers, it must inevitably "perish" unless immediately sent back to
the United States. Early in August, after a stay in Cuba of only six
weeks, the Fifth Army-Corps began to move northward, and before
September 1 the whole command was in camp at Montauk Point, Long Island.
Of the eighteen thousand men who composed it, five thousand were very
ill, or soon became very ill, and were sent to the general hospital;
while five thousand more, who were less seriously sick, were treated in
their tents.[15] Eight thousand men out of eighteen thousand were
nominally well, but had been so enfeebled by the hardships and
privations of the campaign that they were no longer fit for active Cuban
service, and, in the opinion of General Miles, hardly one of them was in
sound health.[16] I think it is not an exaggeration to describe this
state of affairs as "the wrecking of the army by disease." It is my
purpose in the present chapter to inquire whether such wrecking of the
army was inevitable, and if not, why it was allowed to happen.
A review of the history of campaigns in tropical countries seems to show
that Northern armies in such regions have always suffered more from
disease than from battle; but it does not by any means show that the
virtual destruction of a Northern army by disease in a tropical country
is inevitable _now_. When the British army under the Earl of Albemarle
landed on the Cuban coast and attacked Havana in 1762, it lost nearly
one half its efficiency, as a result of sickness, in about four weeks;
but at that time the fact that nine tenths of all tropical diseases are
caused by microscopic germs, and are therefore preventable, was not
known. The progress made in sanitary science in the present century
renders unnecessary and inexcusable in 1898 a rate of sickness and
mortality that was perhaps inevitable in 1762. Northern soldiers, if
properly equipped and cared for, can live and maintain their health now
under conditions which would have been absolutely and inevitably fatal
to them a century ago.
In April last there was an interesting and instructive discussion of
this subject, or of a subject very closely connected with this, at a
meeting held in the rooms of the Royal Geographical Society, London, and
attended by many of the best-known authorities on tropical pathology in
Great Britain. Most of the gentlemen who took part in the debate were of
opinion that there is no reason whatever why the white man should not be
able to adapt himself to the new conditions of life in the tropics, and
protect himself against the diseases that prevail in those regions. The
popular belief that the white man cannot successfully colonize the
tropics is disproved by the fact that he has done so. It is undoubtedly
true that many Northerners who go to equatorial regions contract disease
there and die; but in the majority of such cases the man is the victim
of his obstinate unwillingness to change his habits in respect to
eating, drinking, and clothing, and to conform his life to the new
conditions.
The chief diseases, both acute and chronic, of tropical
countries--those which formerly caused such ravages among the white
settlers, and gave rise to the prevalent theory that Europeans can live
only in the temperate zone--are all microbic in origin, and consequently
in great measure preventable. We cannot expect, of course, to see them
absolutely wiped out of existence; but their sting may be extracted by
means of an improved public and private hygiene and other prophylactic
measures. A comparison of the healthfulness of the West India Islands
under enlightened British rule with that of the two under Spanish
misrule shows what can be done by sanitation to convert a pest-hole into
a paradise. Indeed, as Dr. L. Sambon, in opening the discussion, well
said, sanitation within the last few decades has wrought wonderful
changes in all tropical countries as regards health conditions, and the
changes in some places have been so great that regions once considered
most deadly are now even recommended as health resorts.
Dr. Patrick Manson, than whom there is no greater authority on the
pathology of equatorial regions, began his remarks with the confession
that in former years, under the influence of early training, he shared
in the pessimistic opinions then current about tropical colonization by
the white races. In recent years, however, his views on this subject had
undergone a complete revolution--a revolution that began with the
establishment of the germ theory of disease. He now firmly believed in
the possibility of tropical colonization by the white races. Heat and
moisture, he contended, are not, in themselves, the direct cause of any
important tropical disease. The direct causes of ninety-nine per cent,
of these diseases are germs, and to kill the germs is simply a matter of
knowledge and the application of that knowledge--that is to say,
sanitary science and sanitation.[17]
The fact that ninety-nine per cent. or more of the diseases that
prevail in the tropics are caused by germs was known, of course, to the
surgeon-general of our army, and ought to have been known to General
Shafter and the Secretary of War. It was, therefore, their duty,
collectively and individually, to protect our soldiers in Cuba, not only
by informing them of the best means of escaping the dangers threatened
by these micro-organisms, but also by furnishing them with every
safeguard that science and experience could suggest in the shape of
proper food, dress, equipment, and medical supplies. The rules and
precautions which it is necessary to observe in order to escape the
attacks of micro-organisms and maintain health in the tropics were well
known at the time when the invasion of Cuba was planned, and had been
published, long before the army left Tampa, in hundreds of periodicals
throughout the country. Cuban physicians and surgeons, Americans who had
campaigned with Gomez and Garcia, and travelers who, like Hornaday, had
spent many years in tropical forests and jungles, all agreed that if our
soldiers were to keep well in Cuba they should drink boiled water, they
should avoid sleeping on the ground, they should have adequate
protection from rain and dew at night, and they should be able to change
their clothing, or at least their underwear, when wet.[18] By observing
these very simple precautions Dr. Hornaday maintained his health
throughout five years of almost constant travel and exploration in the
woods and jungles of Cuba, South America, India, the Malay Archipelago,
and Borneo. If our soldiers went to Cuba, or marched from Siboney to
Santiago, without the equipment required for the observance of these
precautions, it was not the result of necessary ignorance on the part of
their superiors. As the Philadelphia "Medical Journal" said, ten days
before the army sailed: "The climate and sanitary--or rather
unsanitary--conditions of Cuba have been much discussed, and it is well
known what our troops will have to contend against in that island." The
"Army and Navy Journal," about the same time, pointed out the grave
danger to be apprehended from contaminated drinking-water, and said:
"The government should provide itself with heating and distilling
apparatus on an adequate scale. Sterilized water is cheaper than
hospitals and an army of nurses, to say nothing of the crippling of the
service that sickness brings." In an article entitled "Special Sanitary
Instructions for the Guidance of Troops Serving in Tropical Countries,"
published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" for May,
Dr. R. S. Woodson described fully the adverse sanitary conditions
peculiar to Cuba, and called especial attention to the danger of
drinking impure water and sleeping on the ground. Finally, the highest
medical officers of our army, including the surgeon-general, the chief
surgeon of the Fifth Army-Corps, and Dr. John Guiteras, published
instructions and suggestions for the maintenance of the health of our
soldiers in the field, in which attention was again called to the danger
of drinking unboiled water and sleeping in wet clothing on the
ground.[19]
In spite of all these orders, instructions, and suggestions, and in
defiance of the advice and warnings of all competent authorities,
General Shafter's army sailed from Tampa without its reserve medical
supplies and ambulance corps, and, having landed on the Cuban coast,
marched into the interior without wall-tents, without hammocks, without
a change of clothing, and without a single utensil larger than a
coffee-cup in which to boil water.
The question naturally arises, Why? If everybody, without exception, who
knows the climate of Cuba warns you that your soldiers must not sleep on
the ground, in wet clothing, why not provide them with hammocks,
rain-sheets, and extra underwear? If your own surgeon-general and the
chief surgeon of your own corps advise you officially that the drinking
of unboiled water will almost certainly cause disease, why not supply
your men with camp-kettles? I can think of only three possible answers
to these questions. Either (1) the War Department did not furnish
General Shafter with these articles, or with adequate transportation for
them; or (2) General Shafter did not believe in microbes and the germ
theory of disease, and regarded the suggestions of medical and other
experts as foolish and nonsensical; or (3) the commanding general
expected to capture Santiago before his troops should be put _hors de
combat_ by disease, and did not care particularly what happened to them
afterward. If there be any other explanation of the officially admitted
facts, it does not at this moment occur to me.
Some of the defenders of the War Department and of General Shafter seek
to convey the idea, by implication at least, that the wrecking of our
army was inevitable--that it was a sort of divine visitation, which
could not have been averted, and for which no one, except the Creator of
microbes and the Cuban climate, was responsible. But this theory accords
neither with the facts nor with General Shafter's explanation of them.
In his telegram of August 8 to President McKinley, he does not say,
"What put my command in its present condition was a visitation of God";
he says: "What put my command in its present condition was the twenty
days of the campaign when they had nothing but meat [fat bacon], bread,
and coffee, without change of clothes, and without any shelter
whatever." From this admission of the commanding general it is clear
that the wrecking of the army was not due primarily to uncontrollable
climatic conditions, but rather to lack of foresight, mismanagement, and
inefficiency. This conclusion is supported and greatly strengthened by
the record of another body of men, in a different branch of the service,
which spent more time in Cuba than the Fifth Army-Corps spent there,
which was subjected to nearly all the local and climatic influences that
are said to have wrecked the latter, but which, nevertheless, escaped
disease and came back to the United States in perfect health. I refer to
the battalion of marines under command of Colonel Huntington. This small
naval contingent landed on the western shore of Guantanamo Bay on June
10--two weeks before the Fifth Army-Corps finished disembarkation at
Daiquiri and Siboney. It was almost immediately attacked by a superior
force of Spanish regulars, and was so harassed, night and day, by the
fire of the latter that some of its officers slept only two hours out of
one hundred and fifteen. As soon as it had obtained a foothold it went
into camp on a slight elevation in the midst of an almost impenetrable
jungle, surrounded itself with defensive trenches, and there lived, for
a period of ten weeks, exposed to the same sun, rain, and malaria that
played havoc with the troops of General Shafter. On the sixth day of
August, after eight weeks on Cuban soil and in a tropical climate, its
condition, as reported by Admiral Sampson, was as follows: "The marine
battalion is in excellent health. Sick-list two and one half per cent.
The fleet surgeon reports that they are in better condition for service
in this climate than they were when they arrived South in June. I do not
think it necessary to send them North."[20] Almost exactly at the same
time when this report was made, General Shafter was telegraphing the War
Department that seventy-five per cent. of his command had been disabled
by fever, and eight general officers of the Fifth Army-Corps were
signing a round-robin in which they declared that if the army were not
immediately moved North it "must perish."
Late in August it was decided that the marines should return to the
United States, notwithstanding their satisfactory state of health, and
on the 26th of that month they reached Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with
only two men sick. They had been gone a little more than eleven weeks,
ten of which they had spent in Cuba, and in that time had not lost a
single man from disease, and had never had a higher sick-rate than two
and one half per cent.
In view of this record, as compared with that of any regiment in General
Shafter's command, we are forced to inquire: What is the reason for the
difference? Why should a battalion of marines be able to live ten weeks
in Cuba, without the loss of a single man from disease, and with a
sick-rate of only two and one half per cent., while so hardy and tough a
body of men as the Rough Riders, under substantially the same climatic
conditions, had become so reduced in four weeks that seventy-five per
cent. of them were unfit for duty, and fifty per cent. of them fell out
of the ranks from exhaustion in a march of five miles?
The only answer I can find to these questions is that the marines had
suitable equipment and intelligent care, while the soldiers of General
Shafter's command had neither. When the marines landed in Guantanamo
Bay, every tent and building that the Spaniards had occupied was
immediately destroyed by fire, to remove any possible danger of
infection with yellow fever. When General Shafter landed at Siboney, he
not only disregarded the recommendation of his chief surgeon to burn the
buildings there, but allowed them to be occupied as offices and
hospitals, without even so much as attempting to clean or disinfect
them. Yellow fever made its appearance in less than two weeks. The
marines at Guantanamo were supplied promptly with light canvas uniforms
suitable for a tropical climate, while the soldiers of General Shafter's
army sweltered through the campaign in the heavy clothing that they had
worn in Idaho or Montana, and then, just before they started North, were
furnished with thin suits to keep them cool at Montauk Point in the
fall. The marines drank only water that had been boiled or sterilized,
while the men of General Shafter's command drank out of brooks into
which the heavy afternoon showers were constantly washing fecal and
other decaying organic matter from the banks. The marines were well
protected from rain and dew, while the regulars of the Fifth Army-Corps
were drenched to the skin almost every day, and slept at night on the
water-soaked ground. The marines received the full navy ration, while
the soldiers had only hardtack and fat bacon, and not always enough of
that. Finally, the marines had surgeons enough to take proper care of
the sick, and medicines enough to give them, while General Shafter,
after leaving his reserve medical supplies and ambulance corps at Tampa,
telegraphs the adjutant-general on August 3 that "there has never been
sufficient medical attendance or medicines for the daily wants of the
command." In short, the marines observed the laws of health, and lived
in Cuba according to the dictates of modern sanitary science, while the
soldiers, through no fault of their own, were forced to violate almost
every known law of health, and to live as if there were no such thing as
sanitary science in existence.
Governor Tanner, General Grosvenor, and Secretary Alger may declare that
the wrecking of the army by disease was inevitable, that Northern
soldiers cannot maintain their health in the tropics, and that "when
troops come home sick and worn, it is a part of war"; but, in view of
the record made at Guantanamo Bay, we may say to them, seriously and
respectfully, rather than flippantly: "Tell that to the marines!"
The record of the marine battalion, taken in connection with General
Shafter's admission that his command was disabled by "twenty days of
bread, meat, and coffee, without change of clothes, and without any
shelter whatever," seems to show conclusively that the epidemic of
disease which wrecked the army was the direct result of improper and
insufficient food, inadequate equipment, and utter neglect of all the
rules prescribed by sanitary science for the maintenance of health in
tropical regions. The questions then recur, Why did not the army have
such food, clothes, and equipment as would have made obedience to the
laws of health possible? Why should they have been directed by their
chief surgeon to boil all drinking-water, to avoid sleeping on the
ground, and to change their clothing when wet, if it was not the
intention to give them camp-kettles in which to boil the water, hammocks
in which to sleep, and clothing enough for a change? The American
people, certainly, are both able and willing to pay for the proper
support and equipment of their army. If it had cost five million
dollars, or ten million dollars, to supply every company in General
Shafter's command with hammocks, waterproof rain-sheets, extra clothing,
and camp-kettles, the money would have been appropriated and paid
without a grumble or a murmur. We are not a stingy people, nor even an
economical people, when the question is one of caring for the men that
we send into the field to fight for us. If, then, the financial
resources of the War Department were unlimited, and if it had supreme
power, why could it not properly equip and feed a comparatively small
invading force of only sixteen or eighteen thousand men? Were the
difficulties insuperable? Certainly not! It is safe, I think, to say
that there were a thousand business firms in the United States which,
for a suitable consideration, would have undertaken to keep General
Shafter's army supplied, at every step of its progress from Siboney to
Santiago, with hammocks, waterproof tents, extra clothing, camp-kettles,
and full rations of food. The trouble was not lack of money or lack of
facilities at home; it was lack of foresight, of system, and of
administrative ability in the field.
Lieutenant Parker of the Thirteenth Infantry has pointed out the fact
that the army was not properly equipped and fed "even after the
surrender [of Santiago] had placed unlimited wharfage at our disposal
within two and a half miles of the camps over excellent roads."[21] A
week or ten days after the surrender, officers were coming into Santiago
on horseback and carrying out to the camps over the pommels of their
saddles heavy hospital tents for which they could get no other
transportation and of which their men were in urgent need. As late as
August 13--nearly a month after the surrender--the soldiers of the Ninth
Massachusetts were still sleeping on the ground in dog-kennel tents,
toasting their bacon on the ends of sticks, and making coffee in old
tomato-cans, although at that very time there were hundreds of large
wall-tents piled up in front of the army storehouse on the Santiago
water-front and hundreds of tons of supplies, of all sorts, in the
storehouses and on the piers.
The state of affairs in the hospitals was not much better than it had
been a month before. In a signed letter dated "Santiago, August 12," Dr.
James S. Kennedy, first assistant surgeon of the Second Division
hospital, declared that there was "an utter lack of suitable medicines
with which to combat disease. There has been so much diarrhea,
dysentery, and fever, and no medicine at all to combat them, that men
have actually died for want of it. Four days after my reporting here
there was not a single medicine in the entire hospital for the first
two diseases, and nothing but quinine for the fever. Yesterday, August
11, a certain regiment left its encampment to go on board ship for the
North, and ten hours afterward a private who had been left behind
started back to his former encampment to sleep, no private soldiers
being allowed in Santiago after dark. On reaching his camp he found ten
men abandoned--no medicines, no food, no nurses or physicians--simply
abandoned to starvation or suicide."
If these statements are not true, Dr. Kennedy should be brought to trial
by court martial for conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline,
if not conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, in publicly making
injurious charges that have no foundation in fact. If they are true,
they furnish another proof that the lack of medical supplies and medical
attention in the army was due to official negligence and inefficiency.
In June and July it might have been urged with some show of plausibility
that a sudden and unexpected emergency, in the shape of a wide-spread
epidemic of fever, had taken the army by surprise and found it
unprepared; but with the coast of the United States only four or five
days distant, with uninterrupted telegraphic communication, and with
good landing facilities in a safe and sheltered harbor, there was no
excuse for a lack of medicines and hospital supplies on August 12--seven
weeks after the army landed and four weeks after it entered the city of
Santiago.
Defenders of General Shafter and the War Department try to excuse the
wrecking of the army by saying that "the invasion of Cuba was not a
pleasure excursion," that "war is not strictly a hygienic business,"
that "the outcry about sickness and neglect is largely sensational and
for the manufacture of political effect," and that the general criticism
of the management of the campaign is "a concerted effort to hide the
glories of our magnificent triumph under alleged faults and shortcomings
in its conduct"; but these excuses and counter-charges do not break the
force of the essential and officially admitted fact that our army landed
on the Cuban coast on June 24 in a high state of health and efficiency,
and in less than six weeks had not only lost seventy-five per cent. of
its effective strength, but had been reduced by disease to a condition
so low that, in the opinion of eight of its general officers, it "must
perish" unless immediately sent back to the United States. Secretary
Alger declares that management which produces these results "is war";
but I should rather describe it as incapacity for war. If we do not
learn a lesson from the Santiago campaign--if we continue to equip,
feed, and manage our armies in the field as we equipped, fed, and
managed the Fifth Army-Corps in Cuba--our newly acquired tropical
possessions will cost us more in pensions than they will ever produce in
revenue.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Referring to the ten thousand men spoken of in the secretary's
telegram of May 27.
[2] Report of General Miles ("Army and Navy Register," November 12, p.
311). General Shafter reported to the Secretary of War, September 13,
that he sailed from Tampa with 815 officers and 16,072 men. General
Miles is probably right.
[3] I spell this word as it is spelled by the officers of the
Spanish-American Iron Company, who say that "Baiquiri" is erroneous.
[4] I never heard this village called _El_ Caney by any Spaniard or any
resident of Santiago. Mr. Ramsden, British consul for many years at the
latter place, always refers to it in his diary as "Caney," without the
definite article, and this was the name given it by every one in
Santiago with whom I talked. The use of "El" in connection with Pozo
seems to be correct, as Mr. Ramsden invariably calls it, in English,
"_the_ Pozo."
[5]The point where the _Merrimac_ was sunk was not the point selected by
Lieutenant Hobson, who aimed to sink her farther out, and more nearly in
the position reached by the _Reina Mercedes_, but was prevented from
doing so, as described in his article in "The Century" for January,
1899.--EDITOR.
[6] I use the word "bastion" in a very loose, untechnical way to
designate projecting parts or semi-detached wings of the main building.
I doubt whether the castle contains anything that would be called a
bastion by a military engineer; but I cannot think of any other word to
describe the cubical masses of masonry that are joined to the main work
only on one side.
[7] I neglected to ascertain the dimensions of this roof or gun-platform
by pacing it, and the estimates given above are from memory.
[8] "A fair match for numbers."
[9] "The last argument of kings." Words engraved or cast on French
cannon by order of Louis XIV.
[10] Evidently an error; it should be Philip V
[11] Telegram of General Shafter to the President, August 8.
[12] Report to the surgeon-general from Santiago, July 28.
[13] Report of Dr. Edward L. Munson to the surgeon-general, dated July
29.
[14] Statement furnished to the press by General Miles, September 8,
1898.
[15] Statement of General Wheeler, New York "Sun," September 3.
[16] New York "Sun," September 21.
[17] "British Medical Journal" of April 30, 1898, quoted in the "Journal
of the Military Service Institution."
[18] "Health Hints for Cuba," by William T. Hornaday, director of the
New York Zooelogical Society; New York "Sun," May 22, 1898.
[19] Circular of the surgeon-general, dated April 25, 1898; Memorandum
of Instructions to Soldiers, by Lieutenant-Colonel B. F. Pope, chief
surgeon of the Fifth Army-Corps; and General Order No. 8, Fifth
Army-Corps, Tampa, June 2, 1898.
[20] Telegram to Secretary Long, dated "Playa, Cuba, August 6, 1898."
[21] "Some Lessons of the War from an Officer's Standpoint," by
Lieutenant John H. Parker; "Review of Reviews," October, 1898.