El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1898-09-01
AL6ER TO DEpEW.
The Secretary OF War Tells OF The
Work OF His Department.

Work OF His Department.
Chauncey M. Depew received the
following letter from the secretary of
| war and consented to its pu blica ton.
| 1t was written in reply to a request for
| information.
My Dear Mr.. Depew: The great
pressure of business has up now to pre-
| vented me from sending to you the
statement you were kind enough to
| ask for, as to what bad been accom-
plished in the way Of Quitting the ar
my for the field. the conduct of cam
paign, etc. Also, the chiefs of divi-
| sions have been too much driven with
| work to compilesthe data required.
| One not in the midst of the work can
| hardly realize what an undertaking it
| Is to call 125, 900 men into the field at
| one time, coming from all the states,
| and to have them mustered and gath
| cred in camps on 80 short notice, and
this, too, when we had scarcely any
camp outfit for their accommodation,
| all having to be provided for by the
war department
AS you know, when the war was de-
clared there was no equipment what.
ever for the volunteers in store. This
was successfully accomplished, with
very few accidents, as q matter of re-
cord. Subsequent calls, including the
regular army (which numbered about
q, 200 men when war was declared),
made total of 26S 500 men. To ac-
| complish all In SO short time has
| been q great work.
Thus from the homes of 2l6, 600 vol
| unteers has been constant and great
anxiety as to what might happen to
the soldiers, and hundreds of in
quiries. made by letters and kilograms,
have been received every day concern
ing individual soldiers. The feeling
on the part of these individuals that
the war department is responsible for
the care of their men Individually has
naturally aroused sympathy in case of
sickness and death, and has created
much sorrow.
| Every effort has been from the be-
| ginning to furnish every camp with all
appliances asked for, but, of course,
the commanding officers in the field
are the ones who have direct charge of
| these men. For instance, one army
corps commander Gen. Fitzhugh Lee.
ED. has division orders and enforces
them, respecting sanitary affairs, and
he has today but q fraction over two
per cent on the sick list. Others have
not been successful and the conse-
Iquence is that typhoid and other fevers
have been bred and spread to q
considerable extent. One regiment in
Il
who enforces sanitary rules in his reg
iment, obliging the men to boil all the
water they drink, keeping the camp
clean, and the result is that there are
less than 10 sick, and the camp, too. is
In as unfsvOrable place as any in the
command. Others more favorsbly sit
uated have ten times that number on
the sick list One of the regiments OF
the last CALI, not yet moved from its
state. sends bitter complaints oftyphoid
fever.
Concerning the Santiago campaign,
when the ships left Tampa they had on
board three months provisions and an
abundance of hospital supplies They
had lighters to unload with at point OF
ldebarkation. These lighters were lost
| in severe storms on the way. AS soon
as we were notified of the fact. two
lows OF lighters were sent from Mobile
and New Orleans, which were also
IOvertaken by storms and lost. The
navy supplied us with lighters and one
of those was wrecked. The army dis
iembarked, getting off a portion of its
supplies and medical stores and i'm
mediately marched to the front to fight
the Spaniards. The great difficulty of
landing supplies subsequently was be-
cause of the wind, which sprang up
Ievery morning at ten and made a high
surf, rendering almost impossible the
use of small boats, with one lighter
which was all they had left for this
purpose.
OF the packers who were EMPLOYED
81 per cent soon fell sick, and heavy
rains falling every day, the roads if
they could be called such) became i'm
passable for vehicles. Pack animals
had to be employed to carry food to
the army, being extended to the right
around Santiago, which9incressed the
distanceifrOm the coast every day and
made the task more difficult.
When yellow fever broke out and
the fever list increased into the thou
sands, it was for a time supposed that
it was principally yellow fever. The
bringing of troops north at once after
the surrender, under such conditions
would have been certain death to a
vast number, but. upon inquiry. it was
ascertsined that very few of these
cases, comparatively, were yellow
fever. when it WIS at once decided
to bring the army home as speedily as
possible.
To give you little idea of the work
that has been done | append the fol
flowing:
The work of the adjutsnt general 8
department has been to muster and
Io-der to their stations to be precise,
I2l6, 400 volunteers and "A, 800 for tn e
Irregular army-this, with a reduced
81 az