Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1898-07-29
TRAMP OFT ne WOUNDED.
All Who Could Walk Had to
Drag Themselves to the Sea.
DUB MEN BORE IT LIKE HEROES.

DUB MEN BORE 1T LIKE HEROES.
Scenes Along the Path where tho stricken
Soldiers Flooded In the Moonlight To-
ward S;boney-Pure Grit and No Com.
plants - The Weakened Men Were
Marks For Spanish sharpshooters In
the Trees.
The New York Suns correspondent,
writing under the date of July from
Siboney, Cuba, describes the scenes
along the path where our wounded SOL
diers plodded toward the hospital at
Siboney as follows:
Darkness had covered the first great
battlefield = of the Spanish American
war. The dead lay all about, unminded
in the press to alleviate the wants Of
the wounded. Sorrow was everywhere,
not because of defeat or disaster, for
American valor had driven the enemy
from their intrenchments in the face of
a fire that might we'll have shattered
the ranks Of veteran soldiers, but be-
cause to these farmer boys, these me-
chanics, clerks, lawyers, dudes and
millionaires, bred to the ways of peace,
the shedding of so much blood seemed a
terrible thing, in palliation of which a
righteous war for righteous cause was
all but unjust. They were not used to
war, with it's bloody trail of shattered
flesh and broken bones. It was all too
horrible when robbed Of it's glamour by
stern reality, and so, despite the VIC
tory Of the day and the glory they had
won, our soldiers were crushed and
broken hearted by the loss that had
been entailed.
And it was terrible, pitiful sight
that night. Wounded were everywhere,
silently suffering. The shrieks and
groans of which writers Of other battle.
fields have been wont to make SO much
were missing. Men pierced through and
through with Mauser bullets lay in the
long grass Of the fields where they had
fallen or under the knife of the surgeon
in the improvised hospitals without a
murmur or a moan. They bore it like
heroes, but the agony was all there.
And those who saw it knew it, The
pallid faces. contorted with suffering,
told the story as plainly as though the
pain were shrieked from thousand
tnroats and made it all the nobler.
What a journey it was that night
from the firing line along the hill Of
San Juan, where our soldiers lay on
their rifles, down the long, winding,
muddy road to Siboney, where is the
army's base! Here is the hospital to
which all the wounded must come
eventually if they be spared, and to-
ward it, from the crack of the first rifle
on this morning Of the opening struggle
until the night merged into another
day, those not too badly crippled drag
ged their MANNED and shattered selves
in hope Of aid. The field hospitals were
overrun. The ambulances were crammed
with men who could not walk Supply
and ammunition wagons had been called
into service, but still they were not suf-
fcient, and so poor luckless devils with
broken arms, with bullets through their
chests their thighs, their legs, crept
slowly in with patience that was
marvellous.
From San Juan hill to Siboney the
circuitous road made necessary by the
mud and the mountains covers dis
lance Of about eight miles. Formerly it
was scarcely more than a mountain
trail, sound enough under foot, but the
traffic Of the great army wagons has
cut it all to pieces, and made it in the
lower places all but impossible, espe-
cially in the rainy season, now on. It
is not pleasant course to travel at best,
but suppose circumstances had brought
you to take it this battle night. The
moon is up, and in the. open it's silvery
light clearly marks out your way. You
start just at the base of that hill up
which the Seventy-first New York
charged SO gallantly in the afternoon.
Never mind the dead. Siboney must be
reached before midnight, and the way
is long. The road is level here and
mainly in the open, so you push along
quite rapidly. Before and behind and
around you are the wounded plodding
onward. Some of them speak to you.
"How far is it to Siboney?" asks one
young fellow, with his left arm in q
sling.
"Eight miles" you tell him.
''Thank God I have two good legs"
he answers and keeps on.
But he has lost blood, and is weak.
You pass him. Others are around. One
big soldier is doubled over. making his
way painfully.
"How far is it to Siboney?" he asks,
and you answer.
I'm never get there tonight, but I'll
try" he says, and on he limps.
Still you are in the open. The trees
along the roadside are short. The sun
has had chance at the roadbed, and it
is fairly dry. The walking is easy. By
and by you reach a ford over little
stream. Here is the ''bloody angle"
The dead are all about. The wounded
are clustered by the water. They are fe-
verish. They lap it up gratefully, talk
ing meanwhile of the day.
eve gave them hi, didn't we?''
said wounded volunteer to DassinR