The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-11
Lest We Forget,

a reader oil HE L VINO hopes JnaJ
the President on mature reflection will
call a halt on the execution Of his order
dismissing in dishonor, and with for
fixture of the right to civil employment
by the Government, the battalion of the
Twenty-fifth Infantry some Of whose
members committed murder and may
hem at Brownsville, pleads in behalf of
the regiment that at Siboney during the
Cuban campaign it volunteered to face
the scourge of yellow fever under con
ditions that made the disease more to
be dreaded than Mauser bullets"
In this he is mistaken; il was another
negro regiment, the Twenty-fourth In
fantry, that was ordered to fever stricken
Siboney after the assault on San Juan
Hill, in which il lost three officers and
ten men and had four officers and sew
enty-one men wounded. The story of
it's heroism in the fever camp has been
told by an officer as modest as he is
brave, Major ALFRED c. MARLEY, now
commanding the Thirteenth Infantry
at Manila, but it is buried in the report
to the War Department made in 1898
by the Major-General commanding the
army.
On July 10, the first day it could leave
it's intrenchments on the hill, General
ToRAL having at last capitulated, the
Twenty-fOurth was ordered at 4 o'clock
in the afternoon to proceed to the base
hospital, and at $50 it began the march
of fourteen miles down the trail, arriving
at Siboney during the night with n COM
plement of fifteen officers and 456 men.
Sixty-five nurses were needed for the
pest camp, in addition to seventy nurses
and attendants for the hospital proper.
Captain A. A. AUGUR of Company II
called for volunteers for the pest camp,
after explaining the risks of the service.
Fifteen gallant fellows said Major
MARLEY, responded from his com
pany, and this fine example soon pro-
duced more than were needed for all
purposes"
But they were all needed, every man
of them, before the pestilence had run
its course and the camp was broken up.
We Quote from Major MARKLEY's re-
port:
" 49, the end Of July yellow fever had overrun
all the hospitals. including a new one established
In a large railroad shed. All was pest camp; even
separation OF cases was impossible. All wards
had Il. Surgeons, nurses and hospital stewards
were now among the patients; and so II continued
TO about August 20. when determined steps were
taken to break up the place. or this regiment
Captain DODGE had died; two officers we're eX-
pected TO die; three were dangerously III, and Ave
more or less so. Out OF sixteen present ten were In
hospital. three sick. but doing well: sick and well
living mostly within a radius of nifty feet. Officers
kept up when they should have gone Into hOsplta l..
making II worse for them when they did give UP.
Not a jar occurred. The officers OF this rcGim cnt
we're a unit. as usual. OF the sixty five men sent
as nurses to the pest camp July ia most had sue
cumbed. their places being nlled by others. When
these went down. the gaps were flled. and the same
was the case In all the hospitals and the whole camp
the whole time"
The record Of that black regiment in
the pit of horror called Siboney tran
sends in heroism anything done by any
charging soldier on the bullet swept
and sunlit field Of San Juan, with the
inspiring colors streaming in the wind.
Out of 456 enlisted men only t~wenty-four
escaped sickness. The sick often went
on duty with the well. No mar faltered,
none made excuses. They nursed the
sick, they dug graves, they buried the
dead, men Of the Twenty-fourth among
them. On August s the heroic medical
officer in charge. the even tempered,
slnguine, interchangeable Ia GARDE. vino
never seemed TO sleep, broke down and
was attacked with the fever. His loss
was Of the sort to breed Panic, bat he
sane rOr,itudc and devotion were shown
b. al ranks 10 thn end. The faithful
MARLEY payr this tribute 70 the mon
OF his command:
4. l. a no-lbla IA. thl. ia tI'sc tory days NJ,
cen n nurmpr was heard FRO n n soldier NJ the
THr nty fourth lnfhntry Nr O'ccr either. Thouga
discipline was enforced vita strctncss. not an IN.
fraction worth noticing occurred. Thcse men gro
usually sGhi hearted az ,o'sily merry In camp In
q pleasant way, hut tbI,,S As silent, no smuse.
et N4I ANE Nsp4