The times., 1898-12-11

supposed-no civilized power would enter
upon an aggressive war. much less upon
campaign in which we had the advan-
tage of choosing both our own time and
the field of operations, the outrageous
treatment which the wounded suffered
and the barbarous scenes which We were
called upon to witness upon this and the
following days would never have occurred.
THE wounded men were brought down
from the firing line in every conceivable
and makeshift way. Some were car led
lying limp, like clay. in wet blanket.
which now and then would tear, throw
ing the wounded upon the ground
Others came pick-a-back upon the lcul-
ders of their comrades. Very few. in
deed. came in the stretchers espec al y
intended for this purpose, for, notwi h.
standing their lightness and varied u IL
ity. in the terribly trying march up
from the sea, the officers had been una
BILE to prevent the soldiers from aband-
oning the great majority of them. So
very thin was our firing line, and so
loath were the officers to spare rifles
from ii when the attack was exp ctel
at any moment, that not a few of the
wounded. and many with very se,i5u
wounds, were compelled to hobb.e down
quite alone and unassisted from the
front, reaching the dressing station often
in state of complete exhaustion / saw
several amusing instances during the day,
showing how far a wounded man can
hobbie to get out of the zone Of fire.
The whistling bullets approaching the
lair where they lay wounded often proved
an almost miraculous tonic to their relax
ed energies. ! saw one man who was Sc
riously wounded. indeed. and who / ad
been unable, or had thought he was
III faA H..
preceding hours. gee up and walk resO-
lutely for two miles, straight away.
when a shrapnel shell burst over the
bush under which he was enjoying shell
ter from the sun. but not from the bull
let's
'.ln an army ambulance each man has
his own berth or section, very much af-
ter the plan of our sleeping cars. These
berths rise tier above tier and row after
row. Travelling in one is not the acme
of comfort. still it is the best that C vii
ization can do for men engaged in the
savage game of war. At least, they
cannot be overcrowded, each man has his
allotted place, and no one can encroach
upon it. But we now had in use only
three ambulances. and the army wagon.
our substitute offered no such safe
guard against overcrowding. The wagons
were, of course, large and roomy. but
there were no sections or compartments,
nothing for the poor, jostled pat ent to
hang on to, as the springless vehicle
jolted over the rugged road; and the sid
ing and flooring of the wagons We
rough and splintered by the weight of
the heavy barrels. the cartridge boxes
and the other heavy freight that they
had carried this very day. In conse-
quence. many a wounded man was taken
out covered with splinters. which had
penetrated deep into his flesh infiictirg e
uncomfortable. and in some instances Sc
rious wounds.
THE way in which the human freight
was loaded into the great barn-like wa
gons left nothing to be desired Where
the wounded had brought blankets with
them, these were tucked about them TO
break as far as possible the jolting of the
unbending axles; and. at least for the
first part of the evening and before It
was suspected how very heavy our losses
had been, an effort was made TO give
each man all the room that his condition
required. Those who We're weak as not
to be able to sit up were allotted plenty
of room to lie down in, and those who
could sit up and lean against the board
ing of the wagons were given, it seemed
ample elbow and knee room in which to
stretch out their weary limbs when
cramped-
I'm this plight, which at the moment did
not seem too horrible, we saw the wagon
train of wounded start out upon the Jour-
ney of about four miles to the hospital,
which many man now dead would have
survived had the journey been made with
more suitable transportation and under
more civilized circumstances The trail
leading back to Siboney, for such it is,
though set down upon the Spanish maps
as roy al road, was washed out in many
places by the tropical rains that were
now falling, and in others was so over
grown with weeds that it scarcely de-
served to be dignified even with the name
of trail. Certainly in many places 1t was
very obscure. There We're four creeks to
be crossed between the front and the
division hospital, and these creeks the
crops of engineers had failed to bridge,
though they made repeated, but most un-
successful, attempts to do so.
Had the building of these bridges been
left for half a day to detail of Michigan
lumbermen. who Were we'll represented
in the Michigan regiments, or to few
frontiersmen of the regulars. the bridges
would have been built and good bridges
too; but of course this was against all
precedent prescribed by red tape. From
| now on, the engineer officers kept building
| bridges on paper, and the engineer sol
| dierS kept trying to realize these scientific
| monstrosities in wood. But the only one
| of those attempted that came at all near
| completion, / saw fall down under its own
| weight. Every gun that was drawn
| through these creeks stuck in the mud at
| the bottom, and all traffic over the road
had to be suspended for hours at a time
while battalion of men waded into the
water and became thoroughly chilled in
| drawing the gun out. And when. as was
| so often the case. the bottom of the fords
| was covered with great gigantic boulders,
| the magnificent artillery norses were
lamed and deeply cut about the shoulders
| by their iron collars drawn tight by the
sudden jolts of these enforced halts. But
thoroughly discreditable as were these in
cidents they were as nothing in compari-
son with the suffering which these little
unbridged creeks, over which an athletic
man could almost spring, entailed upon
| the sick and wounded who were jolted
down the percipitous banks and up again
| in the numbering army wagons.
| The army wagons were perfectly bare
| and empty. Upon neither the side-board.
| ing nor the flooring were there divisions
| or erossbars by which a passenger could
retain his position when the wagons tilted
| forward or backward and from one side
| to the other, as they did every fifty PAGES
| owing to the inequalities of the rugged
| road This was terrible enough. because
| of the most acute suffering it caused the
wounded, but It was much worse wher
| the wagons, driven blindly in the dark.
| ness over an almost unexplored trail
| plunged forward down the banks of the
| stream, and after many a delay. caused
| by the baking of the mules and the
| heavy mire were driven at a gallop uI
the other side.
1
| dressing station, where we waited and
| filled our dry canteens with water, that