The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1899-02-03
by it and come home with it or die.
intend to keep my word.


by it and come home with it OF die. I
intend to keep my word"
When I went into the camp Of the
Tenth cavalry at Camp Wikoff, afriend
in the First cavalry permitted me to
use his name to place me on sure foot
ing with Adjutant Barnum of the
Tenth, who, my friend said, could tell
me a good story. There seemed nothing
in a name to me just then, for I was
looking for heroism solely. Lieutenant
Barnum gave me an account Of the
fighting of his men and told Of many
instances Of bravery on the part Of the
negroes. but said that there were GER
tain particulars that could best be told
by others, because he himself had been
wounded the morning Of July Q and
was not on the field after that.
When pressed to tell of his wound,
the lieutenant continued: 81 was hit In
the hip by a Mauser, and as / lay there
waiting for the stretcher / thought of
the coincidence that SO years before to
a day my father lay on the field at NAL
vern Hill, Va, unconscious, and it was
then believed wounded to death"
"Then you are the son of our favorite
Grand Army comrade, General Henry
A. Barnum."
eyes, but how do you know that?"
because every Grand Army man,
certainly every New York soldier,
knows that Henry A. Barnum was shot
through the body while leading a brill
liant charge at Malvern Hill and was
counted among the dead, and that he
carried that wound unhealed as long as
he lived. I'll make a story of this. Are
you the generals namesake?' said I,
thinking of young Anderson s analogous
case.
"No, / am Malvern Hill Barnum."
No need to say further as to why he
became a soldier and no need for won
der on my part that in every lineament
he showed that he'd rather have found
a grave in Cuba than not have been at
San Juan hill on the anniversary day of
his fathers gallant charge in 1869.
Although reticent about his "
deeds Lieutenant Barnum was loud in
the praise of others. He gave me the
names of all the negroes who had won
honors at Santiago, told me about the
officers killed and wounded, and took it
upon himself to secure the photograph
of the son of Colonel Baldwin of the
Tenth, the gallant little fellow who by
a clever ruse got his chance to uphold
the family honor in battle. The boy,
Theodore A. Baldwin, Jr., was at school
and his parents refused to allow him to
enlist and break upschool plans. 1t was
compromised on his passing the vaca-
ton days with his father in Cuba. The
boy assumed the full measure of his per-
NIT and insisted upon sticking with the
regiment when it lined up along San
Juan creek, on July 1. He was with
out weapons and in civilian costume.
When the line reached the barbed wire
fence, he saw the negroes grapple the
posts to overthrow them and put his
slender arms to the work. Soon a negro
soldier fell dead by his side and aloaded
Krag-Jorgensen lay at his feet without
a hand to bear it against the Spaniards
on the hill. He seized it and went up
the slope in the very front line of the
! ucSIO66. w u6u lu1S I6dCA0u Gu0 0dIS Va
President Mckinley, he sent a commits
sion to Theodore A. Baldwin, Jr., and
the boy was in the army in spite of
parental prohibition.
The father Of young Capron. the hero
Of Las Guasimas, was not a veteran
fighter of the civil war, but he en-
braced the profession Of soldier in the
midst Of that conflict. Graduating at
West Point in 1857, he went to the
plains and saw enough warfare to bring
It is well known that he was the son Of
a battery hero of the Florida and Mex
lean wars.
The third Allyn Capron entered the
army as a private and worked his way
up through all the noncommissioned
grades to a lieutenancy, and when the
rough riders took the field asked to &c
along in command of Troop K. He was
in the first line when the rough riders
charged at Las Guasimas. and fell as
the soldier loves to fall, if fall he must,
killed in action,
With his back to the field and his feet to the foe
Among the regulars in Lawton's di.
vision I saw Captain Wood and his two
sons. all survivors and heroes of b
Caney. Then I went to the camp of the
, Second Massachusetts volunteers, tt
meet with a fraternal welcome by Ma
jor Whipple, a veteran of my old corp:
in the Army Of the Potomac. We
snapped notes. and the major gave un'
stinted praise to the young soldiers Of
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