Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-10-06
FIGHTING IN HOT CLIMATES.
Virginia In the COS as Oppressive as
the Philippines Today.

From the Portland Oregonan. .,
When our Oregon regiment started for
Manila there were gloomy predictions
among fairly intelligent men that a good
many of ''our beys' would find their
graves in the Philippines. This predic-
ton founded upon the popular i'm
preston that a white man could not do
military service in LuZon without soon
breaking down from disease incident to the
climate. We did not expect that 'our
boys" would see much fighting, but we
We're full of gloomy apprehension that the
climate would prove fatal to many of
them. The Oregon regiment was In serv-
ice over a year; it a good deal of
fighting, experienced a good good deal of
hardship, and yet the percentage of loss
| by disease is very small compared with
losses by disease in the Union army in
1s61-65, even when the military service was
largely limited to Virginia, Kentucky and
Tennessee. Our apprehension was due to
our ignorance. for the small death rate of
the English army in the hottest parts of
india Of recent years ought to have con-
WINGED US that white man can do military
service in LuZOn as safely as he can In Nir-
ginia, Tennessee or Kentucky, and prob
ably quite as comfortably as our northern
troops did who endured three months of
summer heat in the Nicksburg and Port
Hudson campaigns of 1868.
The great critical fighting campaigns of
the civil war were made in hot weather in
Virginia and they were made by soldiers
who wore the same heavy uniform winter
and summer that had been furnished our
little regular army of 100G0 men for years
before the war The uniform coat, the sol
dicr's blouse. the heavy black dress hat, the
fatigue cap, the flannel shirt of those days
of 1916: were not framed for hot wealth
er The soldier of ls61-G5 carried Spring
Ii he carried 100
of cartridges in his cartridge box and his
pockets he carried a rubber blanket, his
portion of the dog tent" his wooden blan-
ket and overcoat. His gun and bayonet
weighed fourteen pounds. He carried a
canteen of water, and a haversack. not sell
dom burdened with three days raticns,
This was the outfit of the northern born
and bred soldier that marched and fought
in summer heats in Louisiana Mississippi
Alabama, Tennessee. Kentucky and Virgin
ia. The heat was undoubtedly as severe
in Virginia in June and July, 1853, when the
march was made to Gettysburg, as it is in
LuZon, and the heat in the "Peninsuar
campaign of 1862 severe in June
and July that at Harrison's Landing, Va,
the first week of July, 1852. the thermome-
ter stood at so degrees in the shade at {
am 1t was SO hot that the men sitting
quietly in their tents perspired freely
that water dropped constantly from their
faces to the ground
Under this kind of heat the great cam
paigns of Grant were waged in Virginia.
Many of the forced summer marches of the
Army of the Potomac. like that Of the 9th
Corps to Gettysburg, Were made under a
fiercer heat than we have seen recorded in
LuZon. The service of cur Oregon regiment
in Luzon has affirmed the fact, stated by
Lord Roberts In his Campaigns in India"
that with decent self-restraint. good dis
cipline and sanitary care white man can
do military service lin the tropics at loss
of less than seventeen in the thousand
which is less than the annual death rate in
the healthieSt cities of the east.
OF course, in making the comparison be-
tween the losses of the tropics and the tenn
perate zone, in which was included the
fighting region of the war for the Union,
we must allow for the fact that our Oregon
regiment suffered from none of the hard
ships incident to the winter of Virginia
which is more severe in point of snow and
cold than western Green or washington
cold from November TO April, and in
Meade's Mine Run campaign of November
1868, the weather was so cold that men
were frozen to death on picket. The death
sickness, as compared with that of our
civil war. especially when our army was
held inactive by Mcclellan from the middle
of May to the middle OF June in the Chick
ahominy swamps and this health was
maintained in a climate that as early as
April 1 is described as far worse than any
thing ever experienced in Arizona.
The campaign Of our Oregon regiment in
Luzon has proved beyond a doubt that a
white man, whether he is soldier or civilian,
who takes decent care of his health as to
as If he had never left San Francisco The
mortality from disease in the war for the
| Union was great. but it was not greater
among the northern-bred troops than it was
among the southern-bred troops. We learn
| ed this fact from the statistics of our civil
| war. and the Manila campaign has con-
| firmed the conclusion that, other things be-
| ing equal, white man can make war en-
ND p1yv -
| where any other kind and color Of man
| can '1ive and move and have his being"