The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-06-12
DECORATION DAY in CUBA
BY HENRY HARRISON LEWIS.

The removal of the soldier dead from
Porto Rico and Cuba during the past
few months has served to make vacant
a great majority of the graves in those
islands, but the transports, despite their
frequent trips, have not taken all
| There are still enough down there to
| make the celebration of May 80, 1899, a
| celebration unparalleled in our history.
| There are men-soldiers who have
| fought other foes on those pestilential
| shores than the Spanish-who nave a
claim to the honor and reverence OF
| their countrymen. The earth upon their
| graves is newly-turned, and about them
the silent colony growS-augmented day
| by day by the stricken ones from the
| hospitals.
The action of the United States gov
eminent in transferring TO their own
land those who fell in its service is I'M
precedented. And it is a source of won
| der TO the Cuban natives. These latter
have seen great transports loaded with
| the dead sail away from their Island
many times since the first of the year,
and they marvel at a nation which is
willing and eager to spend money and
time in moving those whose usefulness
| is past.
And they marvel still more at the
spirit which will prompt the American
soldiers on Memorial day to deck with
flowers and flags mounds of earth, and
weep at the memory of comrades gone
to the last call.
In the vicinity of Havana and other
large cities the day will be carefully OBJ
served The great grave in which the
boys of the Maine lie side by side, and
those smaller ones filed since that
eventful week in March, 1895. will come
in for the due share. but in no part OF
the island will the day be one of such
tender ceremony and Importance as in
the vicinity of Santiago.
Back ot that city the battlefield
stretches for miles. 1t extends coast
wise in the direction of Daiquiri, and
away to the mountains on the FL Caney
road. 1t was fought over inch by inch,
sprinkled as with a summer shower by
the blood of the combatants, and then
sown with the graves OF those VINO
fell. Little care was possible under the
circumstances, and where men dropped
they were buried. Some were enshroud-
ed in the canvass of their shelter tents,
but the majority had as their covering
only their uniforms and the clods OF
mother earth.
Where the Dead Lie.
There was no orderly arrangement, no
rows and aisles and plots and sec
cinity and the haphaZard use of the
Spanish and American trenches On the
Santiago battlefield, after the cessation
of hostility, the density of the graves
served as an undeniable evidence of the
mortality at that particular point. At
the foot and on the slope OF San Juan
hill they were sown as thicklv as ten
ants in the Gods acre of a populouS
civ.
BY permission of the American gov
eminent. disinterring has been carried
on in a more or less desultOry fashion
since last September. Despite the fact
that disturbance of graves in semi
tropical countries Ike Cuba is strictly
forbidden within five years from date or
burial, friends and undertakers tiocked
to the Santiago battlefield, armed with
permits from the war department at
Washington, and removed number of
bodies.
1t was only through the strenuous
efforts of General Leonard Wood that
yellow fever victims were left undis-
turbed In one case an undertaken
from a Maine town insisted on disln-
terring an officer who had died of yell
low fever and he yielded only to- force.
The hasty method of burial followed
during the excitement after the siege
naturally led TO wrong identification IN
many cases. When convenient. bot
tie containing a paper bearing the
name. regiment and company of the
deceased. was buried with him. Rude
boards. upon which were painted SIM
liar information, were planted at the
heads of the mounds, but, despite these
precautions. the identity of the soldier
often remained problematical.
When a delegation of Spanish Off
Gals revisited Santiago for the purpose
of removing the remains of the brave
defender of FL Caney. General vora
Rey, they experienced great difficulty
in finding the grave. They were led by
a Cuban guide to a mound in the vi
cinity of the blockhouse, but, on open
ing. the grave disclosed to view the
bones of an army mule. 1t was Il de-
spicable slur and insult cast upon the
memory of a gallant warrior by ma
tives. whose sense of refinement is
notably absent.
In strong contrast to this is the pa
thetic sympathy felt by the living SOL
diers around Santiago for their COM
rades in the trenches. There are very
few graves on the battlefield that have
not been the object of tender care
Decoration day has lasted many long
months in that part of Cuba.
A Bit of Individual Decoration.
This sympathy has been manifested |
in strange ways, and in unexpected |