The record-union., 1899-01-15

swered, Monet" For explanation
was invited to walk through the COM
pany streets. Every tent had from
two to four PROSTATE men rolled in
blankets, their faces the picture of deep
and prolonged suffering, due, as was
stated, to general debility and fever
Every regiment had sad story of sick
in quarters, not varying, relatively,
from the following statement taken YER
batim at the headquarters Of the Sec
ond Massachusetts,:
Went to Cuba, 935 strong; effectives
on paper at Montauk, 500; fit for duty
30. Came north on the Mobile; over
400 sick all the way from Santiago;
left 81 sick Of yellow fever in Cuba
under care of an officer, a surgeon and
ten men, besides about 20 sick in San
tiago hospitals. Have put in Montauk
hospital so sick and suffered in all so
deaths. Colonel Clark thinks that $50
men will be disabled for life from hard
ships, fever and wounds
For the sick in quarters at Camp Wi
koff there was no Government medicine
and no aid up to September 1st. Coarse
field rations formed the staple diet until
they got into the hospital. Half the du-
ty men were too weak to- walk from the
wharf to Camp Detention. One trans
port came to the offing flying flag of
distress and signaled: Men starving.
Send food On the 2Sth of August out
of ID fever applicants for the general
hospital, II, having a temperature of
JOG, were sent back to the regiments.
Colonel Forwood said that his hospital
~r.1 lxy fI,s ,s..1 rs
normal capacity, and 1O6 was not a
high temperature.
There were positively no medicines
for the camp sick in the Government
supplies. I saw acquisitions reiterating
demands that had been repeated daily
many times, and heard official state
ments made to cover a whole division,
while Colonel Forwood admitted as
much for the entire camp. knowledge
OF this lack of medicine reached Cen
eral Wheeler late on August 9th, and
on the 2Sth there was council of sur
geons lasting five hours. At this council
it transpired that there were 5000 sick
soldiers in the camp out of about 1900
men, including those who had not been
in Cuba; also that there was no medi-
cine except for the 1000 actually in
hospital General Wheeler took the
matter in hand, cutting red tape and
wiring rush orders for medicine, as
well as outfits for division hospitals to
receive the overflow at the general hos
pital.
BY the way General Wheeler was
the man for the hour at Camp Wikoff,
as Shafter had been in the crisis at
Santiago. Wheeler is marvellous,
tireless and self sacrificing worker. pa
tient yet ,uncompromising, courteous
yet persistent, with but one weakness,
if weakness it was. His heart was al
ways open to individual distress. Pos
sibly the many did not suffer because
of his attention to the few.
On the 9TH Of September, after brief
absence, returned to camp to find the
evil remedied in part. Still there were
not nurses enough for delirfous and un-
conscious cases and no adequate cook
ing arrangements for men on diet. On
the whole however, the health of the
men improved greatly by September
10th. The trip north, with change of
air. the hope inspired by the thought
that the heroes of Santiago were not
to be left to die, the fruit and vegetables
supplied by public generosity and by
the Goyernment-above all, the milk
ration, ordered by Secretary Alger on
August 25th-had raised the physical
tone so that the men could help them
selves. All in all, then, Camp Wlkon
was a promised land for Skaters
stricken army. Relief from famine ana
from fever came none too soon, but 1t
came through the timely removal OF the
corps from the worlds worst fever pest
hole, Santiago de Cuba.
GEORGE L. KILMER.