The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1900-10-12
FILLED WITH LOOT.
Soldiers Tents Present an In
teresting Spectacle.--A
Slaughter.

New York, Oct. 9.-Mrs. L. z. Eldred,
of 1926 Twentieth street, has received q
letter from her son, Frederic L. Eldred,
Of troop C, Sixth United States cavalry.
in which he relates some Of the interest
ing details of United States soldiers
life in Cuba. The letter was written on
August 25, from Yang Tsun, China,
where Private Eldred's troop was then
stationed.
Lots Of things have happened since
I wrote my last letter." says he. "In
the first place, we had fight last Sum-
day; not such a fight as I was in at
| Santiago, but still 1t was pretty warm
for about three hours, and we killed
about 300. The report is that we killed
300 and wounded 65. Not SO bad, was II?
We had four men wounded and a lot
of horses killed and wounded.
I'VE started out before breakfast, and
at about o'clock the enemy fired on us
from ambush, wounding one man. We
, then dismounted and deployed ami
| charged through a sugar cane field,
driving them away from three field
! pieces. After we got into the open
ground we found that the Boxers had
formed a firing line about 1000 yards
off.
1--WE were ordered to mount prepara-
, tory to a charge, bat the bullets came so
thick that we had to dismount and lie
down. They then started to advance.
,, and we let them get within 1000 yards
and then we held them there and they
could get neither forward nor back. We
then charged them and they broke and
ran like lot of sheep. After that 1t was
nothing but slaughter. We burned three
villages and came home.
"The climate of this country is almost
, the same as in Colorado, and in the
morning, before get my eyes open,
can almost imagine that I'm on Twen-
tieth street in Detroit. Most of these
places around here look as II a cyclone
had struck them. We have all kinds of
expensive furniture in our tents, and
every town on the route is looted.
IT have seen more horrible sights here
than ever saw in my life, before. Dead
Cinnamon, by the hundred, scattered all
over the ground and floating down
the river. We are not allowed to drink
any water here, unless 1t is we'll boil
, ed, and are allowed to eat no fruit and
little Of anything.
zone Of the hardships of war is right
, here under our noses SO to speak. In
one house here are two women, and
right at the door are their two hus-
bands, dead. The women will accept no
food and are simply starving themselves
to death.
"There is one thing that want to tell
you, and that Is that I'm afraid that
have killed two men. One I fired at
was 1900 yards off, and there is some
doubt about him, but he fell and did
not get UP again. The other one I don't
believe I could have missed, for he was
| only about so yards or less from me.
couldn't say for sure that 1t was me,
but when fired he fell and did not get
up again. I saw him afterward and
he was dead all right. Shot through
the heart.
"If he had gotten close enough to me
| with that spear Of his, and as there were
three Of them together. they would
have taken me prisoner and tortured me
| to death, so you see 1t was either them
or me. They captured one Japanese
soldier and tore his finger nails and
toe nails out, nailed him to a cross, cut
strips of his scalp off and did other
things that I would not mention here.
Besides him there were three of his
comrades who had been SO tortured that
they died. Do you wonder that we take
| no chances? BY the way, the other
'Chink' was killed by another man."