The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-07-24
HARDSHIPs AT GUANTANAMO.
Corporal Glass, Who Was I'm the
Fight, Tells His Experience.

From the Philadelphia Times.
Among the visitors at League Island
navy yard yesterday was one who little
over three months before had been sent
to the South to become one of the first
invaders of Cuba. He is Corpl. william
Glass of the Marine Corps, and so chang
ed is he by the hardships of his brief
but terrible campaign that his old friends
didn't recognize him at first Corpl.
Glass took part In the preliminary ekirm-
ish ion the shores of Guantanamo bay, but
a wound In the right hand from his own
gun, caused by fall sent him to the hos
pital tent. 1t Is what happened after that
that forms the most interesting part of
the corporals story Here It is in his
own words:
when ] went back 10 the hospital tent
! found Surgeon Gibbs outside, He dress
ed my wound and was just about going
back TO the tent when the Spanlards
made a particularly desperate attack and
some one called out that they had forced
their way through the lines. The sur
geon and l started TO retreat. and he was
but few feet In front of me when bull
let struck him square In the head and he
fell dead. We slept in trenches there, and
wien lay dQWH tldl might pullGu hit
surgeons body over alongside me. Had
Il been left where II was it would have
been terribly defaced by morning by the
many insects which prey upon both sleep
ing and dead men.
ITO protect ourselves from these when
asleep we always stretched a silk hand
kerchief over our faces, for the bugs
seemed 70 abhor silk. That night could
obtain only one such handkerchief. and
In order to project DR.. Gibbs body lay
down close by 1t and placed the handker-
chief over both our heads. ! never stop
ped to think that / was sleeping alongside
a corpse, and / tell you ! enjoyed that
sleep.
l'You can't imagine what we men down
there suffered he went on. Eve were
surrounded by the Spauiards. who, con-
cealed by palm leaves tied around them,
kept popping away at us. They used
smokeless powder, and 1t was next to i'm
possible TO locate them. The best we
could do was to fire away at any palms
which appeared to be moving, and some
times we were rewarded by hearing a yell
and seeing n Spaniard leap up into the
air and fall back dead or previously
wounded. At night we were better Off,
for then we could locate them by the flash
Of their guns.
Then, too.we were nearly crazy for wa
ter Our rations Of hard tack and salt
horse made us naturally very thirsty,
and the supply Of water being brought
from the ships was far too little to satisfy
us. A terrible experience was when, af-
ter a tiresome march into the country, we
came across a spring, but were compelled
to stand by and see the officers destroy II.
They were afraid to let the men drink
the water for fear II was poisoned.
"And then the insects were terrible.
There were tarantulas, SCORPIONS and /
Ill thing
crawled. One particular insect which we
called sand crab was most feared. Woe
beude the sleeping man who gave one Of
these a chance to bite him. Several of
our men suffered severely in this way.
After three days fighting there were,
suppose, 400 and more dead Spanlards ly
ing around. Through these we Witnessed
the strangest sight we had ever seen. One
afternoon we noticed that the sun appear
ed to become suddenly dim, and looking
up we found that 1t was obscured by what
seemed to be a cloud.
1.-THE blackness moved rapidly. and IN a
few minutes we saw that 1t was really an
immense flock Of buzzards. Within TWEEN
ty-four hours the greater part of the dead
bodies had been picked clean. 50 well did
the birds work that, walking along, YOU
could pick UP a skeleton by the belt--all
that remained Of the soldiers uniform
and shake the dry bones so that they
would rattle. Sergt. Smith fell the first
day, but not for several days we're We
able TO recover his body. Twice we made
the attempt, but each time were driven
back by the 5panards Then we sent
out a party of Cubans. and, strange to
say, they were not molested. They found
poor Charles body IN a terrible condi-
ton"
Corpl. Glass wife and family live here
and he Is back on sick leave.