The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-04-13
CAMPAIGN.
Members of College
Club Listen to
Bright Talk.
IN SHAF TER'S ARMY.
A War Correspondent Tells
of His Life as
a. Soldier

Mr.. G. B. M. Houston spoke before
the College Club yesterday afternoon
on his experience as a newspaper COR
respondent with Shafter in the Cuban
campaign.
In opening, he alluded to the very
great trust repUsed by the government
in newspapers and newspaper cores
pondents, and he knew of no better IL
lustration than the Spanish-American
war. The privileges granted and the
confidence reposed in the correspond
ents had never once been abused. Much
as they labored for information, they
labored more for the safety and honor
of the country.
Mr.. Houston Joined the army at
Tampa because the issuance of mill
tary passes .had reached a limit, ana
there was no other alternative for him
if he wished to go into Cuba with the
first invaders. His was not an lsola-
ted case. There were scores of the best
and brightest correspondents in the
country to be found in the ranks, and
the straits that they found themselves
in at times in their efforts to cover
assignments" and the strategy they
We're obliged to resort 70 to get their
copy to the United States, were almost
inconceiVable.
1t was Mr. Houstons fortune to be
among the first to land at Baiquiri on
the arrival of the transports, June ~.
He gave a detailed description of the
march from that point to Sevilla ter
ritory and Of the Impressions obtained
by the American soldiers from their
Cuban allies, 1t was not an altogether
pleasant picture.
In speaking of the camp life at Sc
villa, he said the one dominating
thought of everyone in his brigade was
hope to capture the city of Santiago
before the dawn of July and celebrate
Independence day within it's limits.
Mr.. Houston stated that was the ex-
pressed hope of Gen. Calixto Garcia in
an interview he had with him just prior
to the battle of Ell Caney; that the Gu
bans, too, might learn to understand
the meaning of the day.
He reclted the story of the Ell Caney
fight ana of the bravery of James
Creelman, who, like his colleague, Mr.
Marshall of the New York Journal
was shot in action. Then came the
long, weary and in many cases the last
ride of the wounded soldiers over the
rough roads to the division hospital and
to dear old Clara Barton. He declared
her to be the idol Of the American SOL
der
Mr.. Houston told of his experiences
and emotions during the Is days ne
lay in hospital at Siboney, Cuba, Of the
incidents of the Hobson exchange. of
the arrival of Mrs. John A. Porter, wife
of the secretary of the president, ana
her corps of nurses. He look exception
to the statements of Surgeon General
Sternberg, who was so opposed TO the
idea of women serving as nurses in the
army, and declared that had it not
been for those ladies, many sick or
wounded soldier who reached the hos
pital of the United States, would to-
day be sleeping under the soil on the
Santiago hillsides. Then came the re-
turn trip on the City Of Washington
back to Fort Monroe and home.
At Fort Monroe it was through the
self-sacritlce of a college girl that he
was nursed back to life and health.
That same college girl, Reu-
bena Hyde Walworth, grad
uate of Vassar, after the wound
ed men at Monroe became con
valescent, found her way to pest-rid-
den Montauk, and was the first woman
to enter the detention camp and the
only one tc work in the contagious
hospital, and she finally laid down her
young and brilliant life battling with
the fever from which she had saved
others. She was buried at Saratoga
with military honors, but she was only
one of many college girls whose self
sacrifice and devotion to the country
in that war, challenged and will always
challenge the admiration Of the world