The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-02-05
CUTE TRICK.
Of the Wellingtons
In Cuba.
A SHARP EXCHANGE.
How They Fed the 2nd
Regiment Boys.

Among the many incidents of the
Cuban war, there are a few bearing on
the Second Massachusetts regiment,
and some of the Worcester boys in par
ticular, that have not yet found their
way into the public prints.
Their stay in Sevilla territory, just
prior to the battle of Ell Caney, on July
l, brought out all the characteristics
that attach to Yankee thrift and served
them in good stead at time when they
more than at any other period of their
lives.
The story was told to The Spy man
by soldier who served in the Seventh
United States infantry, and who was
all through the camp life and fighting
around Santiago
AT Sevilla the Seventh went into
camp only short distance from the
camp of the Second Massachusetts,
and during the first few days rations
were running short all over Sevilla.
Even the regular forces, with all the
care and caution that time and expe-
rience had taught them, were begin
ming to become alarmed. Hard tack
We're treasured as though they were
gold dollars and salt horse was at a
premium all over camp.
The Lazarus-like operations of the
commissary down at Siboney brought
both the regulars and volunteers to the
conclusion that the only way by which
they could ever hope to get square
meal again was to capture Santiago,
win or die, and make a daring and
desperate charge on the Cafe Venus
and the Santiago Cafe.
Just when things were looking at their
worst. so far as the food question was
concerned some Of the Massachusetts
men came wandering into the camp of
the Seventh. They carried a worried,
nervous look; but they were game to
the backbone, and said never a word.
But they did look longingly at the hard
tack the regulars were putting out of
sight at times, and gradually it became
noised about in the Seventh that those
young fellows from Massachusetts
must be hungry.
But the regulars, hardened, philo-
sophical soldiers that they were,
thought no more about it. Why should
they? They might be good and hun
CRY themselves in a few days, and they
reasoned that they would be fools to
worry about other men. War is war,
and let them look to themselves.
And, indeed, they had troubles
enough of their own, did the regulars.
1t was true that they had some rations
on hand; but they were out of tobacco,
and there was no way of getting any.
What could be worse than that?
Somehow those Massachusetts Yam
KEGS learned about it, and that, too,
Just as their last days rations had been
consumed. Now it so happened that in
the general shuttle of things, on that
fearful march from Siboney to Sevilla
territory, nearly every soldier in the
Fifth Corps had thrown away all but
his rations and his gun, and there was
a lot of good tobacco lost in the throw.
But the Bay State boys had held to
their plugs like a monkey to a copper
and they made it known over in the
camp of the Seventh. If there is any
thing regular loves it's his tobacco.
The conditions changed and it became
case Of You love me and I'll love
you" But the hungry boys from west
ern Massachusetts changed their faces
for a time. They didn't appear to be
hungry any more, and they walked
around the camp of the regulars with
just such a smile as one will see in the
marts and market places of New Eng
land
On the evening of the first days
famine in the Second a group of young
soldiers with H Co., I'd Mass" stamped
on their hats, came up on the lines OF
the Seventh. 1t was a small delegation
from the Wellington Rifles. They had
called with few of their comrades to
pay their respeots-to the hardened reg
ulars and to mention incidentally that
they would exchange tobacco for hard
tack and salt horse upon conditions
that had been decided upon by COM
lnittee of the regiment.
They would give chew of tobacco
or pipeful for FIVE hard tack or tive
slices of salt horse"
1t was the hardest deal and toughest
circumstance that the regulars had
ever run up against. But it was the
real thing; they saw that in a minute.
and in less than that time, they were
drawn up on either side of the line.
making the exchange. One called ii
robbery; the other said it was a
good thing; and the game went on
to fine finish for the Second Massa-
chusettS
The men from Worcester and their
comrades fed a regiment that day on
the proceeds of three or four pack
ages of cut plug that their Yankee
thrift had taught them to hold on to
when every ounce seemed a burden in
itself; and long afterward wounded
regulars lying in hospital, talking over
the battle that so marked the mettle
and good fighting qualities of the Mas
sachusetts boys who were on the with
them at El Caney, said 1.-THE Span
iards weren't a circumstance to the
youngsters we met that day on the line
at Sevilla territory"