Havana
“We reached Havana February 9, five weeks ago, and in all the newness of a strange country, with oriental customs, commenced our work.”
The above entry I find in my diary. In speaking of conditions as found, let me pray that no word shall be taken as a criticism upon any person or people. Dreadful as these conditions were, and rife as hunger, starvation and death were on every hand, we were constantly amazed at the continued charities as manifested in the cities, and small, poor villages of a people so over-run with numbers, want and woe for months, running into years; with all business, all remuneration, all income stopped, killed as dead as the poor, stark forms around them, it was wonderful that they still kept up their organizations, municipal and religious, and gave not of their abundance, but of their penury; that still a little ration of food went out to the dens of woe. That the wardrobe was again and again parceled out; that the famishing mother divided her little morsel with another mother’s hungry child; that two men sat down to one crust, and that the Spanish soldier shared, as often seen, the loaf—his own half ration—with the eager-eyed skeleton reconcentrado, watching him as he ate. In another instance the recognition might have been less kind it is true, for war is war, and all humanity are not humane.
The work was commenced in earnest. I still turn the pages of the diary, which says: “We were called on deck to look at Morro Castle, which, grim and dark in the bright morning sunlight, skirts the bay like a frowning ogre.”
We were met at the dock and driven to Hotel Inglaterra, where letters of welcome awaited us. After paying our official respects, our first business was to meet the committees appointed for the distribution of food. We found them pleasant gentlemen. We were notified of the arrival of the steamship “Vigilancia,” with fifty tons of supplies, sent by the New York Committee; took carriage and drove to the dock. It was a glad sight to see her anchors dropping down into the soil of that starved spot of the earth. We boarded her, met the gentlemanly officers, and saw the goods being put on the lighters. This was the largest quantity of supplies that had yet arrived by any one steamship. In returning to land, we threaded our way through the transports and yachts—among the latter the “New York Journal,” that had just taken Julian Hawthorne across from Key West—and grandest of all, the polished, shining battleship “Maine.” She towered above them like a monarch, or rather like an elegant visitor whom all the household felt bound to respect. On landing, we resumed our carriage and drove to Los Fosos, a large, long building filled with reconcentrados,—over four hundred women and children in the most pitiable condition possible for human beings to be in, and live; and they did not live, for the death record counted them out a dozen or more every twenty-four hours, and the grim, terrible pile of rude black coffins that confronted one at the very doorway, told to each famishing applicant on her entrance what her exit was likely to be.
We went from room to room, each filled to repletion—not a dozen beds in all. Some of the inmates could walk, as many could not,—lying on the floors in their filth—some mere skeletons; others swollen out of all human shape. Death-pallid mothers, lying with glazing eyes, and a famishing babe clutching at a milkless breast. Let me attempt no further description. The massacres of Armenia seemed merciful in comparison.
We went our rounds, and sought the open air; drove to another building of like character, but in a little better condition—one hundred and fifty-six inmates. These persons had been recommended by someone, who paid a little for each, and thus kept them from daily starvation. From here to the third building (the Casino), of about an equal number, still a little better off.
From here to the fourth building (La Yocabo)—two hundred and fifty persons, the best of the reconcentrados. The sisters of charity had recently taken hold of these, and cleanliness and order commenced to appear. The children had books, were being taught, and rooms were fitted out for some kind of industrial training. This place seemed like heaven in comparison.
From here to the fifth building, a distributing house, where American rations were given out on Sundays to great crowds of people who thronged the streets.
This finished, we drove to our warehouse, the San Jose, where our supplies were stored. Here was what remained of the several shipments which had preceeded us, the result of the tireless and well directed efforts of the New York Committee, only so recently established, and so new in its work. Possibly three hundred tons of flour, meal, rice, potatoes, canned meat, fruit, bacon, lard, condensed and malted milk, quinine, some of which had come by the first shipment, showing how difficult the distribution had been found to be; and it was not strange that a “warehouse man” had been asked for by the Consul General. Surely Mr. Elwell had not a sinecure.
Somehow the report got abroad that we had brought money for distribution, and a thousand people thronged the hotel.
We found among our supplies large quantities of flour, and the people had no way of cooking it. There are no ovens in these oriental countries except those of the baker. Consequently only he could make bread of flour. We found a baker with whom we arranged to take our flour and return bread in its place at a fair percentage.
“The Consul General has named a desire to have an orphanage created, and asked of me to find a building, and establish such an institution. I commence a search among the apparently suitable buildings of the town, but regretting always that I have not his knowledge of the city and its belongings. Up to this time the search, although vigilant, has been fruitless. Still there are only three days of it all since our arrival, and to-morrow will be Sunday.”
This hopeful entry ended the first half week of life in Cuban relief. Up to this moment no American food had ever entered Los Fosos, as the institution was under Spanish military and municipal direction. How to get our distributors into proper and peaceful aid there, if not into control, was a politic question.
The diary continues: “That Sunday morning, fine, clear and warm, brought three matters of interest to our attention:
“First. An interview with a householder concerning the orphanage—unsuccessful.
“Second. The visiting of all the various points, some nine in number, where American food would be distributed for the coming week to the waiting thousands and—
“Third. A bull fight.”
One would feel something of the same dread in attempting to describe these gathering moving masses of starving humanity as in picturing the “still life” of Los Fosos. The children of three and four years old often could not walk and the mother was too weak to carry the burden, and they fell in a heap among the crowd.
The food was distributed by tickets, suited to the family and put up in paper bags, for few had any vessel to get it in.
At the first place of distribution there were 1000 fed; at the second, 1300; at the third, 2200, and so on—some larger, some less. At one of the larger distributions, when about half served, it was announced that there was no more food and the people were directed to disperse. We inquired the cause and were told there were no more American supplies in Havana—that they had been so informed. We could not persuade them that they had been misinformed, that there was plenty of food in the warehouse, but we did succeed in having the disappointed, hungry hundreds called back and told to come again next day and get their food. We never knew how the mistake occurred, but were more than ever convinced that some systematic work must be instituted among the constantly arriving supplies at the warehouse. The task had all along been too great. The next morning took us with proper assistants to San Jose, when a systematic inventory of stock as per each shipment was instituted. At 3.30 p.m. our work was interrupted. A cordial invitation from Captain Sigsbee to visit the “Maine” that afternoon had been received. His launch courteously came for us; his officers received us; his crew, strong, ruddy and bright, went through their drill for our entertainment, and the lunch at those polished tables, off glittering china and cut glass, with the social guests around, will remain ever in my memory as a vision of the “Last Supper.”
The next day took us again to the warehouse. I cannot refrain from taking the liberty of mentioning my most distinguished volunteer assistant, General Ross, a general in our Civil War and the uncle of Commissioner Ross, of Washington, D.C. Being in Havana on a passing tour, and perceiving the need, he volunteered freely to do the work which he had once commanded his under officers to direct their private soldiers to do. It was most intelligent help.
While passing quickly among the rows of barrels, with dress pinned back, a letter of introduction from the Consul-General was handed to me by a manly, polished-mannered gentleman, on whose playful features there mingled a look of amused surprise, with a tinge of well-covered roguishness and complacency, that bespoke the cultured man of the world. The note, addressed to my hotel, said that the Consul took pleasure in introducing to me Mr. William Willard Howard, of New York. Although never having met we were by no means strangers. He had worked on the Eastern fields of Armenia in the hard province of Van, while I was in Constantinople, and our expeditions in the great centre districts of Harpoot and Diarbeker. He evidently felt that the surroundings were a little rough and unexpected for a first meeting, but collecting himself, at once rallied me with the grand opportunity I was affording him for a sensational letter to the States, with a cartoon of the president of the American National Red Cross in a Cuban warehouse, with dress pinned back, “opening boxes.” He admitted that the latter stroke of the picture was a little stretch of imagination, but he hoped it might realize, as he really wanted it for his cartoon. After a few moments of pleasant badinage he left, under pretext of not hindering me in my favorite occupation of “opening boxes.”
The next day I was detained at home by an accumulation of clerical work and heavy mails to be gotten off (I had as yet no clerk), but on the return of the men at night they reported a marvelous day’s work. That Mr. Howard had come early in the morning, thrown off his coat, and, calling for a box opener, had opened boxes all day. They had never seen a better day’s work. A messenger was immediately dispatched to his hotel, inviting Mr. Howard to come and dine with us. From that time on, during his stay, he continued to dine with us. We compared methods of relief work with the experiences we had gained, and when we separated it was with the feeling on my part that any work of relief would be a gainer that could enlist men of such views, experience and capacity as Mr. Howard in its ranks.
The heavy clerical work of that fifteenth day of February held not only myself but Mr. Elwell as well, busy at our writing tables until late at night. The house had grown still; the noises on the streets were dying away, when suddenly the table shook from under our hands, the great glass door opening onto the veranda, facing the sea, flew open; everything in the room was in motion or out of place—the deafening roar of such a burst of thunder as perhaps one never heard before, and off to the right, out over the bay, the air was filled with a blaze of light, and this in turn filled with black specks like huge spectres flying in all directions. Then it faded away. The bells rang; the whistles blew, and voices in the street were heard for a moment; then all was quiet again. I supposed it to be the bursting of some mammoth mortar, or explosion of some magazine. A few hours later came the terrible news of the “Maine.”
Mr. Elwell was early among the wreckage, and returned to give me news.
The diary goes on. “She is destroyed. There is no room for comment, only who is lost, who has escaped, and what can be done for them? They tell us that most of the officers were dining out, and thus saved; that Captain Sigsbee is saved. It is thought that 250 men are lost, that one hundred are wounded, but still living, some in hospital, some on small boats as picked up. The Chief Engineer, a quiet, resolute man, and the second officer met me as I passed out of the hotel for the hospital. The latter stopped me saying, ‘Miss Barton, do you remember you told me on board the “Maine” that the Red Cross was at our service; for whenever anything took place with that ship, either in naval action or otherwise, someone would be hurt; that she was not of a structure to take misfortune lightly?’ I recalled the conversation and the impression which led to it,—such strength would never go out easily.
“We proceeded to the Spanish hospital San Ambrosia, to find thirty to forty wounded—bruised, cut, burned; they had been crushed by timbers, cut by iron, scorched by fire, and blown sometimes high in the air, sometimes driven down through the red hot furnace room and out into the water, senseless, to be picked up by some boat and gotten ashore. Their wounds are all over them—heads and faces terribly cut, internal wounds, arms, legs, feet and hands burned to the live flesh. The hair and beards are singed, showing that the burns were from fire and not steam; besides further evidence shows that the burns are where the parts were uncovered. If burned by steam, the clothing would have held the steam and burned all the deeper. As it is, it protected from the heat and the fire and saved their limbs, whilst the faces, hands, and arms are terribly burned. Both men and officers are very reticent in regard to the cause, but all declare it could not have been the result of an internal explosion. That the boilers were at the two ends of the ship, and these were the places from which all escaped, who did escape. The trouble was evidently from the center of the ship, where no explosive machinery was located.
“I thought to take the names as I passed among them, and drawing near to the first in the long line, I asked his name. He gave it with his address; then peering out from among the bandages and cotton about his breast and face, he looked earnestly at me and asked: ‘Isn’t this Miss Barton?‘ ‘Yes.’ ‘I thought it must be. I knew you were here, and thought you would come to us. I am so thankful for us all.’
“I asked if he wanted anything. ‘Yes. There is a lady to whom I was to be married. The time is up. She will be frantic if she hears of this accident and nothing more. Could you telegraph her?’ ‘Certainly!’ The dispatch went at once: ‘Wounded, but saved.’ Alas, it was only for a little; two days later, and it was all over.
“I passed on from one to another, till twelve had been spoken to and the names taken. There were only two of the number who did not recognize me. Their expressions of grateful thanks, spoken under such conditions, were too much. I passed the pencil to another hand and stepped aside.”
I am glad to say that every kindness was extended to them. Miss Mary Wilberforce had been at once installed as nurse, and faithful work she performed. The Spanish hospital attendants were tireless in their attentions. Still, there was boundless room for luxuries and comforts, delicate foods, grapes, oranges, wines, cordials, anything that could soothe or interest; and no opportunity was lost, nor cost nor pains spared, and when two days later the streets filled with hearses bearing reverently the bodies of martyred heroes; and the crape and the flowers mingled in their tributes of tenderness and beauty, and the muffled drums and tolling bells spoke all that inanimate substance could speak of sorrow and respect; and the silent, marching tread of armies fell upon the listening ear,—the heart grew sick in the midst of all this pageant, and the thoughts turned away to the far land, smitten with horror, and the homes wailing in bitter grief for these, so lone, so lost; and one saw only the:
Nodding plumes over their bier to wave,
And God’s own hand in that lonely land
To lay them in their grave.
We were still in hotel—excellent of course—but a home should be made for the body of assistants it was by this time proposed to send for. I remembered the visit of a lady—one among the hundreds who called the day before—and who impressed me as being no ordinary person. She had the air of genuine nobility and high birth. I had retained her card:
Senora J.S. Jorrin,
528 del Cerro.
It would be certain I thought that this lady knew something of suitable homes; and we drove to her residence next day, to find one of the loveliest villas in the city, surrounded by gardens, fountains, flowers, baths, a little river rushing through the garden, palms, bananas, cocoanuts, all growing luxuriantly. This was the home of Senora Jorrin, given her as a wedding gift many years before by her husband, a man of great power in the island, and who had three times represented Cuba in the Senate of Madrid. Three months before he had died on a visit to New York. La Senora was alone with her retinue of servants, and waiting to make some suitable disposition of her mansion, in order to join her only daughter residing in America.
The desired disposition was quickly made, and in the next day or two we were safely installed in our new home, with Senora as honorary hostess, to the delight and advantage of all. This pleasant arrangement has never been interrupted, and is the origin of the charming Red Cross headquarters at Cerro, that all our friends and visitors recall with such admiration. I might be pardoned for adding that Senora Jorrin, who was early called to Washington by the sudden death of her beautiful and only daughter, has remained with her grandchildren, and we have continued such loving care as we were able to extend over her palatial home from that time to the present.
The diary now makes the following notes, which I remember to have once copied in a letter to some periodical which perhaps published it. I never knew; but will venture to reproduce it here, as the description of the first visit made to any point of the country outside of Havana.
We were overborne by requests to visit towns and villages filled with suffering and death. The notes run: