People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1898-08-11
From Robert Lamme.

render. Ii is one OF the most interest
ing letters received from Santiago.
Robert was one OF two regular soldiers
T who cut the Spanish barb wires at
Santiago TO allow one OF the generals
10 pass through. During one OF the
. flights he aud another fellow were
: ahead OF the whole army, general and
all. The letter in part Is as follows:
You may wonder why l am writing
on the back of your letter, but it is
: simply because have mother paper.
AT present | AN sitting doubled up
In a trench, about four feet wide and
+ fifty feet long covered with a half shell
: ter, while the rain pours down IN little
rivuletS about me. Talk about rain
| never knew what it was before |
, came to Cuba. Last night it poured
: all night long, and such pouring l
never witnessed before. | was lucky
, enough to look out for myself, and
stretched a shelter half across the
trench before l went to sleep, aud by
exercising much precautiOn, aud by
holding my blanket in my lap ~ keep
, it out of the water, came out as dry
as could be this morning. You should
have seen most Of the boys They
slept out in the rain and got q COM
plete soaking.
! We are now intrenched within
about fifteen hundred yards of Santi-
ago. The Spanish trenches are just
10 front Of US, and in fact so close we
could almost throw stones at each
other.
For several days truce was de-
clared and we just did nothing. Then
day before yesterday General Shafter
ordered an unconditional surrender
by 3 o'clock. This town was not sur
rendered, so at o'clock we commenced
firing on them. Next morning about
noon another truce was raised and We
have done nothing since.
Well, l have been in real battle
and on the firing line every day since.
The day before the battle we were
awakened at o'clock, got breakfast,
and about sunrise we marched out
with pick and shovel to fix the roads.
} At Bpm. We returned, cooked supper
and at Q o'clock we struck camp and
started out over a mountain so high
that thought we never would get to
the top. We marched till o'clock
and then lay down and slept till 4:45
am, when we got breakfast and
moved on again, We stopped for diu.
ner, then on we moved. About
O'Clock we stepped in sunken road
> to rest, and then set out again. The
bullets were singing merrily over our
heads, but on we went nearer and
nearer. We ran along the full length
! OF the driRg line, gained the shelter
OF a small stream and stopped to rest;
then runoing up the bed of the creek
for short distance we cut through
the weeds and made a charge across a
, corn fed for hill. There was per.
! feet shower Of lead about NE. The corn
S was being cut of all around US.
Twice two of US were clear ahead OF
l the whole army, generalssnd all.
/ helped cut fence for the general
to 70 through. We gained the pro.
! lection OF a hill and commenced pour.
ing hot lead into the dons. The bull
: lets whizzed and jumped over our
| heads. Twice they came so close /
I could feel the heat on ny face as they
) passed. A bullet passed through our
, lieutenant's hat just back of me. One
OF our boys was killed and two wound.
ed. Our battalion commander had
just asked permission to make a
charge, when on turning around he
received bullet in the neck. Finally
we drove the Spanis-ds from their
position and took aboVt fifty prisoners.
i You have no idea Of a battle. The
noise was so great that ] had to FIJI
my ears with cotton.
From here we marched a couple of
miles, cooked supper aud at Q O'Clock
started on the march again and kept
it up till two o'clock 10 the morning,
I when we stopped on side hill and lay
down to be awakened eext morning by
bullets singing over our heads. Here
, we stayed until about noon when We
: commenced crawling out around the
} brow Of a hill; we were uadsr fire
most OF the way. We stopped In an
old road and here Observation-Disclosures.
There we stayed four or five days,
then one morning moved out and at
night threw up our present intrench-
ment about five hundred yards from
the Spaniards. We can look right
| down on them and we kill lots Of
them. The loss is reported: Spanish,
1900; American, loo.
For two days we lived 90 raw pork,