Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1901-05-04
SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1901
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H/ ~ -
FIGHTING IN HOT CLIMATES.
Virginia I'm the eos Was as Oppres-
sively Warm the Philip
pines To-day.

When our Oregon regiment started
Tor Manila there were gloomy predic-
lions among fairly intelligent men
that a good many of "our boys" would
find their graves in the Philippines.
This prediction was founded upon the
popular impression that a white man
rould not do military service in Luz
non without soon breaking down from
disease incident to the climate. We
did not expect that "our boys" would
see much fighting, but we were full of
gloomy apprehension that the climate
would prove fatal TO many of them.
The Oregon regiment was in service
over a year; il saw a good deal of fight
ing, experienced good deal of hard
ship, 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 serv-
Ice was largely limited to Virginia,
Kentucky and Tennessee. Our APP
Prehension was due to our ignorance,
for the small death rate of the Eng
hsh army in the hottest parts of In
Ola of recent years ought to have con-
Sinced us that white man can do
military service in Luzon as safely as
he can in Virginia, Tennessee or Ken
lucky, and probably quite as comfort
ably, as our northern troops did who
endured three months of summer heat
lathe Vicksburg and Port Hudson cam
Paigns of 1863.
8 The great critical fighting cam
paigns of the rivil war were made in
hot weather in Virginia. and they
werc made by soldiers who wore the
same heavy uniform winter and sum-
mer that had been furnished our little
regular army OF 10000 men for years
before the war. The uniform coat,
the soldiers blouse, the heavy black
dress hat, the fatigue cap, the flannel
shirt of those days of 1s61-'65 were not
framed for hot weather. The soldier
of 1S61-'o5 carried Springfield muzzle-
loader; he carried 100 rounds of cart
ridges in his cartridge box, and his
pockets; he carried rubber blanket,
his portion of the dog tent" his
wooden blanket and overcoat. His gun
and bayonet weighed "a pounds. He
rarried a canteen of water, and
haversack, not seldom burdened with
three days rations.
= luIs was the OutnJ OF the northern
born and bred soldier that marched
and fought in summer heat in Louis
lana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee,
kentucky and Virginia. The heat was
undoubtedly as severe in Virginia in
June and July, 1863, when the march
was made to Gettysburg, as it is in
Luzon, and the heat in the "Peninsular
sAmpaign" of 1864 was so severe in
June and July that at Harrison's Land
Ing, Va, the first week of July, 1852,
the thermometer stood at 90 degrees
in the shade at seven a. IN. It was
80 hot that the men sitting quietly In
their tents perspired so freely that
water dropped constantly from their
faces t. the ground.
Under this kind of heat the great
campaigns of Grant were waged in
Virginia. Many of the forced summer
marches of the Army of the Potomac,
like that of the Sixth corps to Gettys-
burg, were made under a fiercer heat
than we have seen recorded in Luzon
The service of our Oregon regiment
In LuZon has affirmed the fact, Stated
by Lord Roberts in his Campaigns in
India" that with decent self-restraint.
good discipline and sanitary care, a
white man can do military service in
the tropics at loss of less than IT