The Florence tribune., 1898-08-20
FROM SANTIAGO.
Personal Observations in the Ranks by a
 Prescott Rough Rider.

|
 From the Jonrnal-Miner.l
 Through the kindness of Robert Brow of Preseott,s the following is published from Tom Laird
 SANTIAGO, CUBA, July 10.
 FRIEND BoB: :--I promised to write you whenever I could find time, and will do so to-day. As you have heard we took Santiago, but at roll call to- day there are but twenty-two of com pany of Arizona to answer. The rest are either dead, wounded or sick with fever. We have been in the rife pits | since July l, and with rain falling | every day, not to mention the crack of | the Spanish rife and the bursting of | she'll, you can not appreciate the hor- TOTS of war and the life of common private. You and I have knocked | around in the west enough to know how to take care of ourselves, but it would not avail us much here in view l of the rainy weather and hard tack and black coffee. aud other things that face us. l suppose you would like to hear something about the Rough Riders and their charge in the last battle. must tell you that it was an Arizona boy, ] e eorge Truman) who was first on the
 hill with Colonel Roosevelt, followed 1 by three other Rough Riders and few i negroes of the Tenth cavalry a good
 seeond. One of our boys got the Dago's l eoloTs, but lost them. Not one of our l boys ever turned his face from the ene- ] ny, but all fought like the devil. I will
 not speak of our first battle on June z4s when we were ambushed, only to
 tell you that brave Major Brodie stood
 up and waving his haud said: "Give
 them h-l, boys, and go after them In-
 dian style" Major Brodie was onto
 his job, so we all took to the brush bike convey of quail, and in two hours
 and twenty minutes we had them on
 the run.
 After this they fed us up for the big slaughter on the lst of July. We were placed in front of the enemy 2SOO yards away and it must have tickled the 3 Spaniards to see so fine target. Our 3 batteries had been firing ten minutes s and we were enjoying the sport when {. along came shell looking for Rough Riders, followed by tornados of them. They seemed to say, "Where are you Where are youp and then came a crash. We lost many and we were or dered to lie down in the grass and be- hind bushes. They were pouring so much lead into us and killing us like dogs that guess the boys thought like me- | that we might as well die in trying to a capture the hill ahead as to lie down and be shot to pieces. So with a vel 2 we started without any command from our officers. The officers soon lost com. : mand over us and then the Ninth and ! Tenth colored cavalry also broke away ' AASAA shSih OAhSoio bO HoAp ub Out, Hn we were in bad fix. These colored soldiers came on like pack of blood 9 hounds and in one hour we took the ? hill and drove the Spaniards out. All the weapons we had were our carbines t and it kept us busy in throwing dead 3 Spaniards out the trenches after we 3 captured them. All of the Spaniards ] killed were hit in the head or breast. 3 This victory gave us the key to Santia- go. An English officer who witnessed 5 our work said that his people would 7 not believe it when he told them that l we took the rife pits with only our : carbines.
 Q Bob, had lot of "pot shooting''
 that day. The hours flew by like min $ ntes, and after we captured the pit s the hours seemed like days. We had l to fight them for two and half days more.
 Pate, the gambler whom you will re- member, was shot through the right
 lung, but will recover.
 Rex Hall, of Bisbee, was shot all to pieces by shell. A braver boy never
 lived. Your friend,