The times., 1898-07-26
vALoR OF THE ROUGH RIDERS
One of Them Tells of Their Heroic
Work

the tropics before" said Mason Mitchell,
the actor and Rough Rider. who came
home wounded on Tuesday from San
tiago, on the gunboat Newport. Il have
roughed 1t all over the world he said to
n reporter of the New York Evening
Sun, "and have been through the hard
ships of the rebellions in Canada, but
the mos. horrible experience of my whole
life was that eight-mile march from Bal
quiri to Siboney the day that the
Rough Riders first set foot in Cuba l
have never been so utterly worn out
after doing so little ac.ual work and 1
never want to be again.
I'VE had been fourteen days on the
transports, anyway, waiting for those
phantom Spanish ships 10 get away from
Tampa, when we landed and you may
imagine we were not in the best of trim
then. AS soon as we were all on shore
we started on the march, carrying our
luggage. We wore the linen uniforms
but nothing in that climate would keep
a man up. AS soon as we left the shore
we lost all the wind that there was
there, and for those eight miles follow
ed a trail little 100 wide for one man,
but not quite wide enough for two. The
sun was the hottest have ever seen, and
in the dense growth OF trees. vines and
bushes which met over our heads and
kept the air out, but not the heat, we
simply had to gasp for breath while the
strength left our bodies. Many drop
ped by the way because they could not
walk another step. The heat there goes
straight to your BRAIN and no man can
stand much of it, not even Spaniard.
Before we had gone half of the dis
tance 10 per cent of our men had fallen.
and our surgeon asked Col. Wood to let
US rest. The men who fell were not all
city men, Fellows from Wyoming and
Nebraska, cow-punchers and broncho-
busters, gave up, too, and a good many
of them were never heard from. Those
of Us who reached Siboney at o'clock
that night, after six hours march, made
no attempt to so into regular camp, or
even to eat supper. We just threw our
selves down on the ground with our bag
gage and slept, physically incapable of
doing anything else. To make our mis-
cry complete in every sense. heavy rain
came at about midnight and drenched US
all clear through.
Not once in my recollection of the
events that ! went through did the bugle
sound We knew that the enemy was not
far away. we knew that they might be
in the brush not ten rods away, and TO
have made any unnecessary noise would
have been almost as good as suicide. 80
the next morning before daybreak the or
der was given To break camp and march
by shaking each man until he awOke and
giving him the order IN an undertone.
Still exhausted, for a week of sleep would
not have more than set Us up again after
that first march, and still soaking wet,
we started out for Santiago
we were in a valley when we started,
but made at once for trail running near
the top OF a ridge called La Quisina, sew
eral hundred feet high, which, with seV-
eral others parallel to 1t, extended In the
direction of Santiago. BY a similar trail
near the top of the ridge TO our right
several companies of negro troopers Of
the Eighth and Tenth United States Cav
airy marched in scout formation, as We
did. We had an idea about where the
Spaniards were and depended upon Cuban
scouts 10 warn US, but they ala not do 1t.
At about $50 o'clock in the morning We
met a volley from the enemy. who BE
Il
the one to the right, beyond the negro
troops, and the negro soldiers were un-
der a cross fire. That is how Capt. Ca
prom and Hamilton Fish were killed.
I'VE received no order to drop our lug
gage; in fact, we had no time to do IL,
so we just unsiung our carbines and
fought. 1t took Us some few minutes to
locate the Spaniards, but we kept press
ing forward and when We began picking
them out. they got to moving about and
we could see them. We were clearly az
disadvantage because they were hid
den. and had smokeless powder We had
the modern powder. but we were in the
open. Our first guess was good because
a yell every now and then told us that
We were killing the Spaniards, and be-
fore very long we could see them as they
retreated in excellent order, carrying their
wounded with them. II was not until
they were out of range that they ceased
firing Then we stopped too but we
were not able to give pursuit. We were
payed out to begin with and the in
tense excitement and the exartion OF the
fight did US up completely. Besides. the
cactus growth was impenetrable. The
Spaniards left forty dead. and we cap
tured only one prisoner. That showed
how well the Spaniards fought. Had we
been in condition we could have killed
many more Of them. because we caught
their tactics of brush fighting after the
first fatal volley and outdid them. but
they got out of range, and that was all
there was TO 1t. for We could not follow.
We We're on high ground there. and
we went into camp then. as there was no
danger of the Spaniards coming back.
AS a matter of precaution, however, we
put out our men on picket duty and for
IN, and ~s,l
from our first dip into campaigning.
1.-THE country we marched through the
whole way from the coast TO Santiago
was mountainous. Although in general
appearance it appeared to be wild and
uncultivated, every now and then we
passed or marched through what had
once been cleared land. The ruins of
houses and sugar mills. fast disappear
ing under the dense growth of vines and
weeds, were common sights.
Broken timbers and bits of shingled
roofs cropped out even among trees.
showing that forests were growing where
plantations had once been, and not so
very long ago, either. 1t could not be
otherwise, for that country has been
fought over so much that nothing per-
manent could remain. The ten years
war broke out in the province of San
tiago de Cuba, right on the line of our
march, and for the whole of the ten
years there were battles in the vicinity
almost every day. From our camp we
could see the tops of the ridges on either
side of us, but for the whole of the six
days that we stayed there we did not
see a single human being besides our
men and our one Spanish prisoner.
THE sun in Cuba is hot in the middle of
the day, as everybody knows but TO my
astonishment l found that it is nearly as
hot the minute that it comes UP as az