Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1898-09-02
CUBAN HORRORS.
Somebody Must Pay Penalty of
Suffering.
Lieut.. Col. Shumwsy oC I'D Massa chu-
sets Regiment Tells the story. lille
Was CIviI War Veteran from south
IOudouderry

Lieut.. Col. Shumway of the Second
Massachusetts regiment is i'll at his home
in Worcester. He contracted a severe
cold while at Camp Wkoff, and is now
suffering from congestion of tue lungs.
Col. SUBWAY has been up and down
several times, but his rugged constitution
always asserted itself, and he was never
away from duty more than a day or two
at time.
Lieut.. Col. Shumway we to the front
in the civil war from South Londonderry.
tie saw more fighting, probably, than any
other Worcester man in Cuba but he es.
capped without scratch.
The colonel was twice wounded in the
civil war. He fought through the strug-
giles of Petersburg, Gettysburg, Antietam
and many other memorable battles of the
four years he was at the front, but he says
he never saw men suffer in those days as
they have in Cuba.
To criticise his superiors now would
mean court martial, he says, but some day
the story of Cuba will be told and lsome
one will suffer for it.
All the men who have died in that
place and since they left there, except
those who were killed in battle, he says,
were murdered
hey we're half starved and neglected
when they were i'll, and the day is coming
when someone will have to answer for it,
For ~ days the soldiers were on diet Of
bareback and bacon, and although many
of them could not eat it because their
stomachs turned against such food, moth
ing else was given them, and they were
carried away 10 the hospitals TO die.
For an army of %, 900 men there were
u ambulances in Cuba, and one of them
broke down. The others did what ser
vice they could, but that was very little.
When a man was taken i'll on the Skin
mish line or distance from the division
hospitals, he was carried back TO the hos
pitfalls by a detail of six men through
swamps and brush. The sick man gen
orally died, and the six who had borne
him to the hospital were placed i'll the hos
pital to fight the fevers their half-staived
bodies received on the journey That
went on from day to day, Col. Shumway
says, and in time the whole army would
have died.
The hospitals were so crowded that the
men were often allowed TO remain without
a covering in the heavy rains for ~ hours
without medical att -ntion, and when the
doctors got around to them they were past
recovery. He has seen - sick men lying
together in the rain for "a hours.
1T was queer war, all through said
the colonel, "ahd what | have told you
gives au idea of the condition of things,
but | am an officer in the service Of the
United States, and | cannot place the
blame Oh any one. Time will tell who is
10 blame aud there will be day when We
will be able 10 give our opinions and not
risk court martial.
The Worcester boys suffered terribly
he continued, but they have borne up
bravely under it and have made record
for themselves that will 90 down into his
tory
Lieut.. Col. Sbumway was in the thick
of the fight al FL Caney and san Juan,
and many times bullets whstled about his
head, but none of them grazed him. He
seemed to bear a charmed life.
The Worcester companies he said.
'were not on the firing line at FL Caney or
San Juan, but it was not their fault. They
were where the Spanish bullets could
reach them, and those who saw them say
there were not any Drawer soldiers in Cuba
The Second regiment all started to march
to FL Caney, and when We reached point
in the road men were at work planting a
battery to command a stone fort in he
town. Seven Of the companies got by,
and then the general halted the other five
companies, which composed Major Harry
Fairbanks's battalion and one Company OF
the Second battalion. We went right into
the fight, and were on the skirmish line all
the time.
"Our powder made lot of smoke and
we lost many Of our men, but We did not
stop firing, as some have reported. 1t is
wonder that all of our men were not kill
ed, as every time we fired the SpaRiards
saw where We were and shot into our
midst. For every shot we fired II were
hurled among us, but We kept blazing
away at the dons. Two companies of the
"a were ordered to support the 22d regu-
lars, which were using smokeless powder
and was told after the battle that they
were asked to stop firing because of the
smoke they were making. We were order
ed to move on to San Juan before we had
time to bury our dead.
"We lost 81 killed and wounded in the
FL Caney fight, and if We had had all our
companies in it our loss would have been
larger than any of the other regiments.
at was nasty fight and one that should
not have been undertaken without artil-
lery. We had only one battery and it had
to shoot two miles and half.
THE Spaniards fought well at FL Caney,
but the loss of that battle broke their
hearts and they did nothing in the way Of
hearty resistance after that. If they had
held out at Santiago We never could have
captured the place in the world, as it was
surrounded by a network of barbed wire,
forts and trenches that our army could
never have passed. The Spanards said
after the surrender they were not used to
such fighting as We gave them.
"'You Americans do not fight fair one
of the officers told me, because you shoot
and keep moving forward. The Cubans,'
he explained, used to fire and then run "
Lieut. Col. Shumway says the fight at
San Juan did not amount TO much as the
| Spaniards had lost heart. He does not
think much of the Cubans, and as evidence
of their usefulness, he tells of their fail
uIe to hold the pass leading from FL Caney
to prevent the escape of the Spaniards, as
they had agreed. They did not show up at
the pass at all, and the Spaniards ran I'M
moested and left everything behind them.
At Santiago, the colonel says, the
American troops we're working most of
the time within few hundred feet of the
Spanish lines, digging trenches, and the
Spaniards did not offer to fire shot
! One of them told him afterward: "You
Americana soldiers have what you call a
gall and we did not fire at you"
The Spaniards were amazed, Col.
Shumway says, by the boldness of the