The natives here are of small stature. They are black-haired and have bright, sparkling eyes. They are all of a mixture of either the French or Spanish with the negro. There is a large population of French and Portuguese, the pure Spanish being but little more than one-sixth of the entire population. The natives are a bright, intelligent class. There are few public schools, education being given to children at their homes by traveling teachers and governesses. There are but few Protestants or Protestant churches, the Catholic being the prevailing religion, and their churches being much more magnificent than any you have at home. The priests constitute the ruling force among the people. Children run naked until they are six years old. Every one wears white linen clothing and most, of the people go bare-footed. The men wear straw hats and the women go with their heads uncovered. There are not a few English and Americans here, and they scrupulously maintain the Anglo-American costumes. News does not reach us for ten days or more after you read it in the newspapers in the States. We are just reading the Indianapolis papers of July 31 and August 1, and the news is perfectly fresh to us. The marriage rite here is a very loose affair. A man may have one or two families, as he may elect. One of these may include the progeny of a wife of his own class and the other by a negro woman or half-breed. All he has to do is to pay the prescribed duty.
There are no bad fevers here, but small-pox sometimes is prevalent in certain localities, although they have not had the scourge for three years. Leprosy, elephantiasis and diseases arising from a bad condition of the blood prevail to some extent. Ruins of sugar mills and plantations abound on every side, once great money-producing establishments, but destroyed by Spanish avarice and the American tariff. Cattle-raising, fruit-growing, coffee, and rice culture furnish the principal money-making vocations in Porto Rico. There are no railroads that amount to anything. The wagon roads are all military roads and the freighting is carried on with pack mules and bull-carts. The latter are of the clumsiest character, the yoke resting on the horns of the animals instead of upon their necks, as in the old farm districts in the United States. They carry from two to three tons or more at a load. The horses and mules are small, but willing and patient animals. The natives are sharp traders and boys of from six to ten years of age can drive close bargains. One of our American dollars will purchase exactly twice as much as a Spanish dollar. The one particularly cheap product is the cigars. "Smokes" of a good quality sell for one cent each. Bananas and lemons are cheap, and of the latter fruit we partake plentifully. Cocoanuts sell for five cents each; milk, five cents; bread, twenty cents, and sugar, four cents. These prices are on a basis of the Spanish money.
This letter was written by one of the soldiers of the Sixteenth infantry, five captains of which led the particular charge in which this regiment participated:
July 24, 1898.
We are in bivouac near our trenches, within half a mile ofSantiago. The fighting is all over and we are just waiting forsomething to happen. The latest newspaper we have seen was that ofJuly 3, so you see I write like a person of the past generation.
We have had a hot time. The Spanish got drunk and put up a pretty good fight. At least I have heard they were all drunk in the battle of the 1st. I don't know whether it is true or not, but I do know that they did not run as quickly as we wished them to do.
We left camp on the 1st about daybreak, but we did not know we were going into battle. We got into the jungle, after marching for a while, and then heard firing, apparently all around us. Then our men began to fall, and we realized we were in it. We kept struggling through the dense underbrush, first to the right, then to the left, and then to the front, as fast as we could find openings. Everything was confusion. Orders could not be given or obeyed. Companies, battalions, regiments and brigades were all jumbled up.
We did not fire, for we could not see ten feet in any direction on account of the dense thickets in the jungle. Finally I found myself with my company and part of the regiment in a trail or road by a broad, open field, across which, about 700 yards on a steep bluff, were the Spaniards, strongly entrenched.
We opened fire and kept it up for a while, but the road rapidly filled up with our soldiers, and it became too crowded to do anything. There was a six-strand barbed-wire fence along the hedge between the road and the open. All at once we began to try to tear it down and get at the enemy. Captain Leven C. Alien, Captain W. C. McFarland, Captain Charles Noble, Captain George Palmer and Captain William Lassiter were close together with their companies (all of the Sixteenth infantry). I was in the front, just behind my captain. Officers and men dashed savagely at the fence, tore it down and leaped into the open field, the captains calling to their companies to "come on!" "Now we have a chance at them! Come on!"
The companies, or so much of them as heard the call, sprang into the field, the men following the five brave captains, and away we went in a terrible and most desperate charge. The bullets hailed upon us, but when the old Sixteenth gets its "mad up" there is no use trying to stop it. We had about two hundred men with us, five captains in the front line. But soon others began to follow us, and the field was full of soldiers, all moving to the front, firing as they went. We saw the enemy jump and run just before we reached the foot of the steep slope leading up to the crest. Then one of our batteries began firing over our heads, and when we got near the top the shells began striking the ground between us and the crest, but we did not stop. On we went, climbing on our hands and knees, when suddenly there arose a great shout down on the plain behind us, "Come back! Come back!" The trumpets sounded "recall," and our men, who had followed their captains so bravely, hesitated, stopped and began drifting back down the slope.
In vain our brave leaders swore at the loud-mouthed skulkers below. They had suddenly become fearful for our safety—they were afraid we would be hit by our own shells. We settled reluctantly back near the foot of the slope.
Captain Allen told his men to lie down and get their breath. Then he called our attention to Captain McFarland, who was with some men about thirty yards to our right and up on the slope. He was waving his hat and the shells were bursting around him.
Captain Allen called out to us: "Look at Captain McFarland and E company! Who of C company will go with me to the top of the hill in spite of danger?" We who were near him sprang to our feet and up we went.
But Captain McFarland had been wounded and his men were going down. Our little group became too small for a further attack. "Come back! Come back!" was shouted from below. Captain Allen stood alone for a minute and then we went back to the foot of the slope and waited until our battery stopped firing. Then we all went forward again, and the Sixteenth infantry colors passed up to the works and were planted there.
The color-bearer was shot, but Corporal Van Horn took the flag and carried it forward. Hundreds of officers and soldiers of other regiments came across the field while we were waiting, and they went up with us. And now they all claim that they were in that charge. We men and those five captains I have named know who were in it, and that our captains began it without orders, and we are entitled to all the credit.
The fight was led by captains, and no one else of higher rank had anything to do with it. Our colonel and major now say that they did not see the charge, and therefore can make no recommendations for distinguished gallantry. Well, it is proposed to fight it out and to have our claims heard.
The position we took was San Juan and was the key to the Spanish position. We have heard that there were 3,000 Spaniards in the works. I do not know what the loss was. I know that as I jumped over their trench I noticed that it was level full of dead and dying Spanish soldiers. It was a terrible sight. We had more fighting that afternoon, and that night we moved forward, and the Sixteenth entrenched 475 yards from the main works. We held this under heavy infantry fire and a terrible enfilade artillery fire all day of the 2d and 3d, while our right wing was swinging around to envelop the city.
On the 10th we were moved to the right wing and I think it was intended for us to make an assault on the city and wind up the business. We could have done it in fine shape, and all were anxious for a chance.
Our artillery got into place on the 11th at 4 pm, and we opened up along the whole line and soon silenced every gun and rifle they had.
Next morning at daylight we resumed our work and the Spanish weakened. They did not wait for the assault—the jig was up.
Nearly half the command is sick. We have only short rations of hard bread, bacon and coffee. We have no shelter except dog tents, and they are no good in such a climate as this. We have no vegetables, and of course we will all be sick. We are living miserably. There are thousands of supplies of all sorts in the harbor and on the landing, but they are not sent to us. The army is in a disabled condition for want of food and shelter. A box of hardtack and a piece of fat bacon thrown on the ground has been considered enough for the soldiers and officers who are in the trenches. Somebody will hear from this. Our government intends its soldiers to be well treated, but our supply department here in the field lack experience. Day before yesterday Clara Barton sent each company twenty-five pounds of corn meal and seventeen pounds of rice. It was a blessing, I tell you. We all got a spoonful of mush, and it was the best thing I ever tasted in my life.
If we could only get our rations, just the regular ration and ourtents, we would be willing to take our chances with the climate.There will be enough go by the board, even if we get our supplies.The soldiers have fought bravely and won the victory.
Keep out of the war. Whole armies will be lost by disease and mismanagement. If we stay here under the present layout not one in four will ever see the United States again. We could not go into another campaign now, and unless matters improve very much we may as well be counted out for the summer.
Sergeant Thomas C. Boone of company K, Second regiment, wrote a thrilling letter. Mr. Boone's letter in part says:
I have not told you of my accidents before while in Cuba, because I did not care to arouse the anxiety of my friends at home, and, although I have been unable to walk for some time, still I did not consider my condition as serious as the surgeons here claim it to be. I will tell you how I got hurt. It was a streak of continuous bad luck. On the 1st of July I went up in the balloon on the battlefield at 7 am, and the balloon was being moved all over the field when shot to pieces eighty yards from the Spanish line at 1 p.m. We thought our height, together with their bad marksmanship, afforded us protection. We were badly mistaken.
At least 200 bullets and four shrapnel shots went through the inflated bag, allowing the gas to escape, and we came down with a rush, striking the top of a tree alongside of a creek, throwing us out. In falling I was caught in the abdomen by a point of the anchor of the balloon, was suspended for a moment—it seemed a lifetime—then dropped into the creek, with the water up to my shoulders. I was badly bruised and shaken up, but, owing to the excitement of the time, I did not notice the pain.
Three of our detachment were killed and four wounded out of twenty-one men, which shows that we were in a pretty warm place. Well, I did not go to the hospital about my injury until July 14, and I was then so weak I could scarcely walk. The surgeons at the field hospital placed me in an old army wagon without springs at 9 o'clock one night to be taken to another hospital seven miles away, over the worst road in the world, without doubt. We had gone about half a mile when the wagon turned completely over, the wagon body catching my neck under its side and the corner of a box striking me in the abdomen.
I was unconscious for two hours. My neck is still very sore. When I regained consciousness I was placed in the wagon, but the bumping over ruts and rocks fairly drove me mad, and I said I could not stand it. I was told that I could walk, which I did. The wagon went on. I reached the hospital at 7 o'clock the next morning after a night of agony. At this hospital I was told that I was injured internally and that they could do nothing for me, that I would have to go to the United States for an operation, and here I am.
I hope to be in Springfield soon, but I am as weak as a child and cannot walk fifty yards. On top of my accidents I had a case of bilious fever and was shoved into the yellow fever hospital for several days. Bilious fever is a nasty thing, although not dangerous. There are thousands of cases of it in our Cuban army. It arises, I believe, from sleeping on the rain-soaked ground and in wet clothing night after night. There was not a day while I was in Cuba, with the exception of time spent in the hospital, that I was not soaked through from rain. Mosquitoes at night and flies during day make life unbearable here. They are a thousand times worse than any I ever saw. I am bitten from head to foot. They bite clear through the clothing.
When Captain Capron was killed at the battle of La Quasima Lieutenant Thomas became the commander of the troop. He was on the point of leading the fierce charge against the Spaniards when shot down by a Mauser bullet passing through his right leg below the knee. He gives the following interesting account of his personal experience and observations:
Our trip from the point of landing to Siboney, a distance of about eleven miles, took about three hours, and was over a trail that was very muddy in parts and crossed a number of streams. Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt on this trip had his mount, but as we were not mounted he walked over the trail with us, leading his horse along. That was a simple act, but it indicated a feeling of comradeship he had for the members of the regiment and it touched a tender place in the men's hearts.
Lawton's command had gone over this trail before us and the Spaniards had retreated so that we did not get a glimpse of the Spaniards on that march. A few men who had been ill on shipboard with measles, and had recovered only a short time before, were still weak and had to drop out of the line, but they reached Siboney a little while after the main body of our regiment got there. We got to Siboney on the evening of June 23, and with our shelter tents were very comfortable until the next morning, although it rained.
We were up at 4 o'clock, had breakfast at 6, and then, on the morning of June 24th started from Siboney across a high hill leading to La Quasina, where the regiment had its first fight. The battle lasted two hours and forty minutes, though to those who took part in it it appeared a very much shorter time. As we were advancing we were constantly expecting a fire from the Spaniards. We were not ambushed at all.
After we had gone about two miles on that trail we came across the body of a Cuban, and after that we kept an especially sharp lookout. Troop L formed the advance guard, and we had skirmishers out ahead of us and to both the right and left. The skirmishers ahead of us were about 250 yards from the main body of our men, and it was one of these advanced skirmishers who discovered the Spaniards. Thomas E. Isbell, a Cherokee from Vinita, I. T., was the one to make the discovery of the Spanish force. He fired the first shot in that battle and dropped a Spaniard. Isbell was wounded seven times and then managed to walk back to the field hospital, two and a half or three miles away, to get his wounds dressed.
As soon as we learned that the Spanish were in advance of us we deployed the men six feet apart, advancing into the firing line. The Spaniards had some machine guns ahead of us, and our men received the full force of this fire. There was also firing from the right and the left. We were at this time upon the knoll of a hill, the Spaniards being about us at lower elevations. Before Isbell discovered the Spaniards a blockhouse had been seen, and we knew what was ahead of us.
It was probably half or three-quarters of an hour after the firing began that Captain Capron was killed, and perhaps twenty minutes after that I was struck as we were about to make a charge. Our men had been instructed to save their ammunition and not shoot unless they saw something to shoot at. Our men and the Tenth infantry afterwards buried about 100 Spaniards, and great numbers of their killed and wounded among them were carried to the rear, so that the fire on our side must have been pretty accurate.
When asked to relate some of the scenes taking place about him before he was struck, he replied:
One of the worst things I saw was a man shot while loading his gun. The Spanish Mauser bullet struck the magazine of his carbine, and going through the magazine the bullet was split, a part of it going through his scalp and a part through his neck. This was Private Whitney, and from his neck down he was a mass of blood. He was taken back of the firing line, and had recovered before we left Siboney and was again back in the ranks.
Captain Capron showed great pluck on the field of battle, and refused to leave even when he was mortally wounded. We were at that moment deploying and lying down. He was struck in the left shoulder, the ball coming out of his abdomen. He lived one hour and fifteen minutes after being shot. He was taken back to the field hospital by some of our men. About twenty minutes after that a Mauser ball struck me in the leg.
When asked what the sensation was at the time of being wounded he replied:
My leg felt as if it had been struck by some heavy body. It felt paralyzed, and then I fell to the ground. There was no great pain experienced at the time, but fifteen minutes later the pain was very great.
A very touching incident happened during the fight. Captain McClintock was struck in the left leg, two Mauser bullets entering his leg just above the ankle. A private who had been sick for some days, seeing Captain McClintock lying on the field, crawled up to him, and lying beside the captain between the latter and the firing line, said: "Never mind, Captain, I am between you and the firing line. They can't hurt you now."
Ed Culver, a Cherokee Indian, showed himself particularly brave during the fight. He was alongside of Hamilton Fish when the latter was shot. When Fish was hit he said: "I am wounded." Culver called back: "And I am killed."
Culver was shot through the left lung, the ball coming out of the muscles of the back. He believed he was dying, but said if he was to die he would do the Spaniards as much damage as possible before leaving this world. He continued to fire, and sent forty-five bullets at the enemy before being taken away. At first, after receiving his wound, he was in a dazed condition, but after he recovered somewhat he shot straight.
Hamilton Fish died a few minutes after receiving his wound. I passed him just after he was shot, and directed some of the skirmishers where to move. He thought I was speaking to him, and, raising himself on his elbow, said: "I am wounded; I am wounded!" and died a few minutes after that.
We thought at first that the Spaniards were using explosive bullets, but we found they were merely brass-covered bullets.
A detailed description of the Santiago fight is told by theGloucester crew, which was first to sight Cervera's fleet as itsteamed out of the harbor on the morning of Sunday, July 3. EnsignSawyer's letter reads:
Last evening we went into Guantanamo and saw the camp where our marines had so gallantly held their own. The Marblehead, with McCalla, was there, also the New York, the Iowa and that hero of the battle, the Oregon. The Gloucester also was there.
The greatest desire naturally possessed us to hear the details of the wonderful battle in which the Cape Verde fleet was destroyed. The Gloucester's story, though we had but a few moments, was most interesting so far as we have heard. She was lying closest to the entrance, and had just finished Sunday morning inspection when the lookout hailed: "They're coming out!"
Instantly all eyes were directed on the familiar harbor mouth, and they could hardly believe their eyes to see those magnificent ships standing out in broad daylight. The Maria Teresa, Vizcaya, Oquendo and Colon swung to the windward, and not a shot was fired at the Gloucester. Evidently she was too small to waste shell on, or else all eyes were on the larger vessels. Following those grand ships came the destroyers Pluton and Furor, which have been so much dreaded. The Gloucester immediately stood for them full speed and opened fire, the Pluton and Furor firing rapidly, but not striking. The Gloucester finally got in between them and rained shell upon them from her rapid-fire guns. The Iowa also let go her battery, and one of her large shells literally tore the stern out of the Furor. The Gloucester simply overwhelmed the Pluton with her shells, and a white flag was shown, whereupon Lieutenant Wood went over as quickly as possible to save the lives of the crew. She was a perfect hell on board. On fire below, one engine was still going, and there were only eight men not killed. He put these in the boat, tried to go below to save the vessel if possible, but could not on account of the fire. The boat shoved off to transfer the men to his vessel, when the Pluton blew up with a terrible explosion and sank. The boat was just a few feet clear when the magazine or boilers exploded.
Meantime the armored cruisers of the enemy stood to the west and were engaged by the Brooklyn, Oregon, Texas, Indiana and Iowa. The Maria Teresa and Oquendo were run ashore, burning fiercely, five and one-half or six miles west of the harbor. The Vizcaya and Colon engaged in a running fight with the Oregon, Texas and Brooklyn, but the first was practically destroyed and run ashore thirty-four miles west, and the latter surrendered sixty miles west of Santiago.
It was a terrible battle, and our escape from terrible loss is nothing short of miraculous. The Spaniards were really fighting four ships against five, and the superiority of the Americans was due more to their skill than material. If the Americans had manned Cervera's fleet the victory would have been ours just the same.
The Massachusetts and Newark were at Guantanamo coaling. The New York had gone five miles farther to the east than her usual station to allow the admiral to communicate with Shafter. The Oregon distinguished herself by overhauling and passing the Brooklyn and forced the Colon's surrender. We have not yet seen any of the fellows on the vessels that took part in the pursuit.
Our heavy work now commences in landing troops. The First Illinois, under Colonel Turner, is among our convoy, and if the boys fight the way they cheer there will be no question of the result.
President McKinley appointed William K. Day, Secretary of State; George Gray, United States Senator from Delaware; Cushman K. Davis, United States Senator from Minnesota; William P. Frye, United States Senator from Maine, and Whitelaw Reid, formerly United States Minister to France, to represent the United States at the Paris conference. The Spanish commissioners being Senor Montero Rios, President; Leon Castillo, representing the political side; Senor Villarrutia, diplomacy; Senor Montero the judicial, and General Cerero the military.
The United States commissioners do not have to be confirmed by theSenate, as is usually the case with presidential appointments.
Nearly a quarter of a million soldiers again resume civil life—a nation of fighters when called upon to protect the Stars and Stripes, yet as kind and considerate as a brother when strife ceases. Many of our brave soldiers left our shores never to return—some were killed in battle; some were stricken down with fever; others who were at the front and saw Old Glory proudly afloat over the once helpless and downtrodden subjects of Spain started homeward but failed to reach their loved ones through disease contracted while performing their duties on the field of battle. Such is War. The whole nation will cherish the memory of the dead and ever extend gratitude to those who safely returned.