Tampa
Tampa became the gathering point of the army. Its camps filled like magic, first with regulars, then volunteers, as if the fiery torch of Duncraigen had spread over the hills and prairies of America; the great ships gathered in the waters; the monitors, grim and terrible, seemed striving to hide their heads among the surging waves; the transports, with decks dark with human life, passed in and out, and the great monarchs of the sea held ever their commanding sway. It seemed a strange thing, this gathering for war. Thirty years of peace had made it strange to all save the veterans, with their gray beards, and the silver-haired matrons of the days of the old war, long passed into history. Could it be possible that we were to learn this anew? Were men again to fall, and women weep? Were the youth of this generation to gain that experience their fathers had gained, to live the war lives they had lived, and die the deaths they had died? Here was abundant food for reflection, while one waited through the days and watched the passing events.
At length the fleet moved on, and we prepared to move with, or rather after, it. The quest on which it had gone and the route it had taken bordered something on the mystery shrouding the days when Sherman marched to the sea. Where were the Spanish fleets? and what would be the result when found and met? and where were we to break that Cuban wall and let us in? Always present in our minds were the food we carried, the willing hands that waited, and the perishing thousands that needed. We knew the great hospital ships were fitting for the care of the men of both army and navy. Surely they could have no need of us, and the knowledge that our cargo was not adapted to army hospital use brought no regret to us.
These days of quiet waiting were like the lull that precedes the storm. The time seemed long regarded only from that standpoint, but when it is remembered that these few days were all that had been allowed for a great nation with thirty years of peace to rouse up and plunge itself into a war, the time seems comparatively short. We had taken possession of our ship at Key West on the twenty-ninth of April; it was now the twentieth of June, and the great national records of two countries at least will always give the history of those days. It is our part to keep as clearly, truthfully and kindly as possible the record of the little that fell to us to perform in this great drama. Our arrangements for putting out to sea were quickly made. Such supplies and such persons as were not to go with us must be landed and left. Among the latter, to our deep and lasting regret, was our charming friend, Mrs. J. Addison Porter, who had kindly passed the last weeks with us, leaving us as she did, however, with the comforting promise to return if she should find it possible.
All preliminaries arranged, at ten o’clock, the twentieth of June we weighed anchor at Key West and steamed for the open sea, having first taken the official advice of Commodore Remie, commanding the navy at that point, to find Admiral Sampson and report to him.
The twenty-fifth gave us our first view of the water of Santiago. Our transports and battleships were gathered there, and the advice of Admiral Sampson was that we proceed to Guantanamo, where the marines had made a landing and were camped on the shore. There had been some fighting at Guantanamo. The “Solace” was there. Its harbor was fine, and the run of forty miles was made by noon of that day. Whoever has enjoyed the quiet, sheltered harbor of Guantanamo will not require to be reminded of it—protected on three sides by beautifully wooded hills. At six o’clock our anchors sunk in the deep still waters, and we had time to look about us and see for the first time the beginning of the war. The marines were camped diagonally along the brow of a beautiful hill. On our right a camp of Cubans, and all about us the great monsters with their protruding guns which told of forthcoming trouble. Captain McCalla, who was in command of Guantanamo, had sent compliments and a launch pointing out our place of anchorage.
The courtesies of the navy, so early commenced at Key West, were promptly continued. At eight o’clock we received a visit from Commander Dunlap of the “Solace” which, after a long and cordial interview, closed by his proposing to send his launch at ten o’clock the following day to take our entire company for a visit to the “Solace” and its fifty wounded men. If that beautiful ship or its management had left room on the records of our country’s mead of gratitude for more words of appreciative praise, I should be glad to speak them. Only those familiar with the earliest history of the Red Cross in our country and the methods by which our navy alone of all the Red Cross nations had gained even an approximately legal place, can judge what the sight of that first naval relief ship on our American waters was to me. It brought back so vividly the memory of the day when President Arthur called me to him to carefully explain the conditions of the treaty which he had just signed in 1881, and that Congress, having generously included the navy in its treaty for war, he would provide to hold it carefully until the probable widening of the original treaty would include the navies of the world as well as the armies. I was thankful for themodus vivendi, which I knew was as welcome to Spain as to ourselves, that had made it possible to pick up these poor wounded sailors and given them kindly care among their own, that there were not to be left uncared for, or thrown into land hospitals where everything would be strange to them. My twenty or thirty assistants glided about the polished decks of the magnificent ship, with a kindly greeting for every poor, wounded fellow, and delighted with everything they saw. For me, I had few words, prayerful gratitude, and many memories of the long years of patient waiting that had brought the American Red Cross even up to the point it had attained.
Before the day closed news came to us of a more serious character than we had before learned. The daring Rough Riders had been hardly dealt by; Hamilton Fish and Capron had been killed, and the wounded needed help. Wherever they might be, it must be possible to reach them, and it was decided that no time be lost. Our men commenced work in the hold of the ship to get at medical supplies and dressings, and the captain took his orders. I find in my diary at the close of that day the following paragraph:
“It is the Rough Riders we go to, and the relief may be also rough; but it will be ready. A better body of helpers could scarcely be gotten together.”
Nine o’clock of the same night, June 26, found us in Siboney and anchored in its waters, which can scarcely be called a harbor. It seems to be rather an indenture in the coast. Shall I be pardoned if I again revert to the diary which, by some means, I found time to hastily pencil:
Siboney, Cuba, June 27, 1898.
We were wakened at daybreak to see the soldiers filing up over the hill in heavy marching order, forming in lines by ones and twos, winding up, in and out among the hills, higher and higher, like a great anaconda. As we watched them through a glass, they were a moving line trailing on toward the clouds, till lost in the mist, and we can only think as we look at them, on how many or on which is set the mark of death, He knows no more than we, poor fellow, and unthinkingly, perhaps, with his swinging, careless gait, toils up and up and waits for—he knows not what.
The hospitals, both American and Cuban, are located on the shore just to the right of us, and have been visited by our men during the night. Some of their surgeons called on us; all seemed interested in the Red Cross, but none thought that a woman nurse would be in place in a soldier’s hospital; indeed, very much out of place. I suggested that that decision was hard for me, for I had spent a great deal of time there myself. They appeared to understand that perfectly, or were so polite as not to criticise it, but there seemed to be a later line which could not be crossed. The Cubans, who had just come into camp, were less conventional and expressed a great desire for any assistance we could give them. “Sister Bettina” and her four trained “Sisters,” Drs. Egan and Hubbell went ashore to the hospitals. This had been proposed the evening before at General Garcia’s headquarters; but they were begged to wait just one day until their hospital could be in a little better order. These “Sisters” were not the persons to grant that day of preparation. On the contrary, we were told that as soon as they were fairly in the wards they commenced putting things into order and cleanliness, and worked through the day without interruption, coming home only after dark, tired it must be, but fresh and happy, full of the conviction of a work well done. Long before that day’s work was ended our own American hospitals alongside commenced to be jealous of the Cubans, and believed that they had spoken first. Be that as it might, we were equally forgetful, and from that time no distinction between the hospitals was known.
Dr. Lesser, Mr. Kennan and Mr. Elwell tramped, for there was no other mode of conveyance, to our advance line within three miles of Santiago. They found the artillery up and things nearly ready for attack, which it was thought would be on the following Wednesday.
The sea grew wild and rough; the water was too deep for firm anchorage, and we rocked at such a fearful rate that in pity for the pale faces about me, I begged the captain to draw as near the shore as possible and let, at least, a portion of them onto the land. Let them have, if only a few minutes, the solid ground under their feet. He drew up to within two or three hundred feet of the cliff which runs around like a firm sea wall, and succeeded in anchoring; took a boat and tried to land some of our people, but there were no wharves; the poor little seven by nine bench, designated as a wharf, running out into the sea, against which the boats swung and crashed as they tried to land supplies, was all there was, except the narrow beach with a heavy surf. Our people declined the landing, and headsick, heartsick and seasick returned to the ship.
We had been long without news from the United States; but the next day brought the following dispatch from the New York Cuban Relief Committee:
Cobb sails Wednesday with Red Cross supply boat. All articles requested by her will be shipped. The launch will be towed from Jacksonville. Do you want additional nurses? Five hundred tons provisions and clothing, also three ambulances complete, shipped to Key West warehouse this week from New York. Send “State of Texas” to New York as soon as can be spared. Cobb with Red Cross boat expects to reach Guantanamo July 5 to 10. Massachusetts relief ship cannot sail before middle of July. Will dispatch schooner with ice within a fortnight. Make your requisitions specific in kind and quantity.
This was only one of the scores of dispatches reaching us within the few following weeks, and I repeat it here, not as having any special significance, excepting to show the uncertainty and utter instability of all human calculations. Analyzing this kind-hearted and well-meant dispatch in the light of the future, we find that neither the Red Cross supply boat, the steam launch, the Massachusetts relief ship, nor the additional nurses ever reached us. The ice schooner proved to be the “Mary E. Morse,” of which mention is made elsewhere. The five hundred tons of provisions shipped to the Key West warehouse were distributed there. I name this, not in any spirit of complaint—far from it, indeed—but simply to show still further and make more apparent, if possible, the difficulties attendant upon all work at a field of war. Those who have seen only this one war will find these uncertainties and shortcomings very strange, and unaccountable; to me, who had seen other wars, they seemed natural, probably largely inevitable, and quite the thing to be expected, the fatal results of which misfortunes I had spent half my lifetime in instituting measures to prevent or lessen.
We were honored next day by a call from an officer of the “Olivette,” with his assistant. It is not singular, in the light of the great, elegant, newly-fitted ship at his command, that it was difficult for him to realize the use or the necessity of an unpretending little black boat like the “State of Texas,” or of what service it could be expected to be to an army. We labored to impress upon him the fact that this ship did not come for the war, but was loaded and dispatched weeks before there was any war, and simply waited an opportunity to deliver its cargo to the hungry and naked reconcentrados for whom they were designed. This explanation we hoped would make it apparent to the gentleman, how it was, that our supplies of clothing would not be likely to contain the articles of which he said his ship was in want; it probably never having entered into the minds of our sympathetic generous lady donors of America to provide pajamas for Cuban women. Anything we had was freely at his service. If we made any attempt at conversion (which I do not now recall), it was simply on the line of a better understanding of Red Cross methods and principles as connected with his profession, and not a change of heart.
With the constant reminders of the sufferings of the people on shore and our inability to reach them, it was a welcome errand brought by a dispatch boat that afternoon from Captain McCalla, that if we could get five thousand rations to him before the next Thursday morning, he could find a way to deliver them to the refugee families of insurgents and others lying out in the hills and woods beyond his camp at Guantanamo, where they had fled for safety. We steamed at once to Guantanamo and landed the rations next morning, returning to Siboney the same afternoon. The next day our working force was busy all day getting off material to refugees coming in from the mountains. General Garcia detailed a detachment to repair pontoons for the purpose of landing the supplies. Captain McCalla cabled for twenty thousand rations for refugees, to be delivered at Guantanamo by Sunday.
Our Red Cross sisters and surgeons were all busy at the Cuban Hospital, when the following letter from Major Le Garde was received:
To Miss Clara Barton, President American National Red Cross:
I have the honor to request your assistance in caring for the patients in a so-called hospital near the landing at this point. The orders are to the effect that all patients now under treatment on the shore shall be transferred to the “Iroquois” and “Olivette,” but the facilities for carrying out this order are apparently inadequate. In order that the Divisional Hospital may remain unhampered for the care of the wounded in the engagement about to take place, it is necessary for me to request this favor of you, and I trust that you may find it possible to comply with said request.
Your obedient servant,
Louis A. Le Garde,
Major and Surgeon, U.S.A., Commanding Hospital.
To this the following reply was immediately returned:
Steamship “State of Texas,”
Siboney, Santiago de Cuba, June 30, 1898.
Dr. Louis A. Le Garde,
Major and Surgeon, U.S.A., Commanding Hospital:
Major:—Permit me, I pray you, to express the great pleasure given me by your cordial letter inviting the assistance of the persons here under my direction in the care of the sick and wounded of the engagement about to take place.
Although not here as a hospital ship by any means, nor legitimately fitted for the work, still we have some hospital supplies, a few intelligent workers, skill, intrepidity, experience, the willingness to serve, the readiness to obey, and I believe, the true spirit of the Red Cross, that seeks to help humanity wherever its needs exist.
I send them to you in the hope that they may be of service. With grateful appreciation, I am, doctor,
Most cordially yours,
Clara Barton,
President American National Red Cross.
In the afternoon of this day some members from our ship went ashore and visited the Cuban Hospital and General Garcia’s headquarters, which that general, on leaving Siboney had graciously ordered to be placed “at Miss Barton’s disposal as headquarters for herself and her staff.” It was found, however, that the building would be required by the military, and the matter was given no further consideration.
On the first of July Dr. and Mrs. Lesser with their assistants went early ashore to work in the hospitals, both United States and Cuban. The transport “Harvard” arriving with troops, demanded our anchorage, and on coming out of the harbor to give place to her, we saw that a bombardment of Aguadores, five miles to the west, was taking place. A battleship, perhaps the “Oregon,” the flagship “New York” and a little cruiser were standing in near the shore, the latter keeping up a rapid fire, which was responded to by the batteries on both sides of a ravine which the railroad crossed. We ran down as close as safety permitted and watched the engagement from the bridge of our own ship. The two large ships then drew in and shelled the ravine, apparently silencing the batteries. When we returned to Siboney we learned that our troops had been fighting all day, and that large numbers of wounded were walking or being brought in for treatment. The Red Cross had been requested to take entire charge of a fever hospital of United States troops, which it did. Dr. and Mrs. Lesser and two of the Sisters were assisting in the operating tent. All of us worked nearly through the night—the nurses and physicians as above stated; the others taking out supplies for wounded—one hundred cots, bedding, hospital utensils, medicine, food, etc. The reports were that we had taken and held all the commanding positions around Santiago, but that it had cost us four hundred men.
The diary of July 2 says: The day opened cool and fresh, and although having worked steadily until three o’clock the night previous, when they had been brought back to the ship for a little rest, the Sisters were ready for work at half-past six. Sisters Anna and Isabell had been on duty all night, and must now be relieved. Dr. Egan and Mr. Kennan made ready for the front, the former to have a field hospital.
With a portion of my assistants I go ashore to visit the hospitals in the early part of the day, to learn if anything further can be done for them. We find the wounded coming in rapidly, long rows of hospital tents being filled with them, and many waiting their turn on the operating tables. We learned that the officers had suffered very severely, having been picked off by Spanish sharpshooters. A note came by messenger from Mr. Kennan at the front, saying that by order from General Shafter’s headquarters “Miss Barton was directed to seize any empty wagons coming in and send by them hospital supplies, medical stores, which were badly needed at the front.” This direction would of course be filled as far as possible; the supplies would be gotten out and sent, and it was decided that myself and as many of our assistants as could be spared go with them the next day. These were anxious, trying days throughout the whole country. All America was astir, once more in the dreaded throes of war.
Another dispatch from our committee at New York reveals this state of feeling:
New York, July 2, 1898.
Barton, Santiago de Cuba:
Government transport “Port Victor” sailing New York, Wednesday via Tampa takes all our supplies to Santiago. Look out for arrival. Twenty-five nurses go there Tuesday; more follow; order them forward if needed. Report your actions. People anxious.
To which the following reply is returned:
Dispatch received. Lesser’s force attending wounded here constantly coming in. Elwell and force landing supplies in the surf at night, without dock, under great difficulties and dangers. An urgent appeal from the front for medicines and food. None there. Will try to get two four-mule wagons full to them to-night and go ourselves. Have reported all we could. No telegraph here till to-day. No dispatch boats. No post-office. We also anxious.
July 3 opened clear and bright, the commencement of a hard and busy day, to be long remembered. Our shippers had been landing supplies all night and keeping such guard over them on the sandy beach as was possible.
The daily record of our movements kept always up and open, like the log of the ship, must now fall to the hands of our faithful stenographer, Miss Lucy Graves, and taking up her duties bravely that day, she commences with this paragraph:
“Miss Barton, with Dr. and Mrs. Gardner, Dr. Hubbell and Mr. McDowell, leave for the front to-day, taking two six-mule wagon loads of hospital supplies.” To the young writer it was a simple note in the records of the day, having no special significance. As my eye glanced over it it seemed very strange—passing strange, that after all this more than a quarter of a century I should be again taking supplies to the front of an army in the United States of America; that after all these years of Red Cross instruction and endeavor, it was still necessary to promiscuously seize an army wagon to get food to wounded men.
I hope in some way it may be made apparent to any one who follows these notes how difficult a thing it was to get this food from our ship to the shore. In a surf which after ten o’clock in the morning allowed no small boat to touch even the bit of a pier that was run out without breaking either the one or the other, and nothing in the form of a lighter save two dilapidated flat boat scows which had been broken and cast away by the engineer corps, picked up by ourselves, mended by the Cubans, and gotten in condition to float alongside our ship and receive perhaps three or four tons of material. This must then be rowed or floated out to the shore, run on to the sands as far as possible, the men jumping into the water from knee to waist deep, pulling the scow up from the surf, and getting the material on land. This was what was meant by loading the “seized wagons from the front” and getting food to the wounded. After ten o’clock in the day even this was impossible, and we must wait until the calm of the next morning, three or four o’clock, to commence work again and go through the same struggle in order to get something to load the wagons for that day.
Our supplies had been gotten out, all that could be sent that day for the heavy surf, and among the last, rocking and tossing in our little boat, went ourselves, landing on the pier, which by that time was breaking in two, escaping a surf which every other moment threatened to envelop one from feet to head, we reached the land. Our wagons were there already loaded with our best hospital material,—meal, flour, condensed milk, malted milk, tea, coffee, sugar, dried fruits, canned fruits, canned meats, and such other things as we had been able to get out in the haste of packing—entirely filling the two wagons.
An ambulance had been spoken of, but could not be had. We walked out a little way to wait for it. Dr. Hubbell left our party and went again in search of an ambulance, notwithstanding the assurance that an army wagon would answer our purpose quite as well. These were going line by line up to the front, mainly with ammunition. We waited a little by the roadside; the doctor did not return; our own wagons had gone on, and stopping another loaded with bales of hay, we begged a ride of the driver, and all took our seats among the hay and made our way once more to the front.
The road was simply terrific—clayey, muddy, wet and cut to the hub. A ride of about four hours brought us to the First Division Hospital of the Fifth Army Corps, General Shafter’s headquarters. This was properly the second day after the fight. Two fearful nights had passed.
The sight that greeted us on going into the so-called hospital grounds was something indescribable. The land was perfectly level—no drainage whatever, covered with long, tangled grass, skirted by trees, brush and shrubbery—a few little dog tents, not much larger than would have been made of an ordinary tablecloth thrown over a short rail, and under these lay huddled together the men fresh from the field or from the operating tables, with no covering over them save such as had clung to them through their troubles, and in the majority of cases no blanket under them. Those who had come from the tables, having been compelled to leave all the clothing they had, as having been too wet, muddy and bloody to be retained by them, were entirely nude, lying on the stubble grass, the sun fitfully dealing with them, sometimes clouding over, and again streaming out in a blaze above them. As we passed, we drew our hats over our eyes, turning our faces away as much as possible for the delicacy of the poor fellows who lay there with no shelter either from the elements or the eyes of the passers-by.
Getting past them as quickly as possible, and seeing a smoke ahead of us, and relying upon the old adage that where there is smoke there must be fire, we went to it. A half-dozen bricks had been laid about a yard apart, a couple of pieces of wagon-tire laid across these, so low and so near the ground that no fire of any strength or benefit could be made, the bits of wet wood put under crosswise, with the smoke streaming a foot out on each side, and two kettles of coffee or soup and a small frying-pan with some meat in it, appeared to be the cook-house for these men. They told us there were about eight hundred men under the tents and lying in the grass, and more constantly coming in.
I looked at the men who had constructed and who had charge of that “fireplace,” and saw how young and inexperienced the faces were, and how little they could know of the making up of a camp, and how unsatisfactory it must all be to themselves, and was filled with a sense of pity for them as well as the poor sufferers they were trying to serve. I looked around for the faces of some old veterans of the wars before, who could bring a little knowledge gained from practice. There were none there, but here was our own McDowell, with a record of four years and twenty-six battles in the old Civil War, and after a few moments’ consultation as to the best method to be pursued, we, too, gathered stones and bricks and constructed a longer, higher fireplace, got more wagon-tires, found the water, and soon our great agate kettles of seven and ten gallons were filled. But the wood! It was green, not resinous as the wood of some islands. In Corsica, for instance, one may take the green, wet wood and make a blazing fire. The wood of Cuba is beautiful in quality, but hard and slow to burn.
The rain, that had been drizzling more or less all day, increased. Our supplies were taken from the wagon, a piece of tarpaulin found to protect them, and as the fire began to blaze and the water to heat Mrs. Gardner and I found the way into the bags and boxes of flour, salt, milk and meal, and got material for the first gallons of gruel. I had not thought to ever make gruel again over a camp-fire; I cannot say how far it carried me back in the lapse of time, or really where or who I felt that I was. It did not seem to be me, and still I seemed to know how to do it, and when the bubbling contents of our kettles thickened and grew white with the condensed milk, and we began to give it out, putting it in the hands of the men detailed as nurses and of our own to take it around to the poor sufferers shivering and naked in the rain, I felt again that perhaps it was not in vain that history had reproduced itself. And when the nurses came back and told us of the surprise with which it was received and the tears that rolled down the sun-burned, often bloody, face into the cup as the poor fellow drank his hot gruel and asked where it came from, who sent it, and said it was the first food he had tasted in three, sometimes in four, days (for they had gone into the fight hungry), I felt it was again the same old story, and wondered what gain there had been in the last thirty years. Had anything been worse than this? But still, as we moralized, the fires burned and the gruel steamed and boiled and bucket after bucket went out, until those eight hundred men had each his cup of gruel and knew that he could have another and as many as he wanted. The day waned and the darkness came and still the men were unsheltered, uncovered, naked and wet—scarcely a groan, no word of complaint; no man said he was not well treated.
The operating tables were full of the wounded. Man after man was taken off and brought on his litter and laid beside other men and something given him to keep the little life in his body that seemed fast oozing out. All night it went on. It grew cold—for naked men, bitter cold before morning. We had no blankets, nothing to cover them, only as we tore off from a cut of cotton cloth, which by some means had gotten on with us, strips six or seven feet long, and giving them to our men, asked them to go and give to each uncovered man a piece that should shield his nakedness. This made it possible for him to permit us to pass by him if we needed to go in that direction.
Early in the morning ambulances started, and such as could be loaded in were taken to be carried back over that rough, pitiless road down to Siboney to the hospitals there, that we had done the best we could toward fitting up—where our hundred cots and our hundred and fifty blankets had gone, and our cups and spoons and the delicacies that would help to strengthen these poor fainting men if once they could get there, and where also were the Sisters under Dr. Lesser and Dr. Le Garde to attend them.
They brought out man after man, stretcher after stretcher, to the waiting ambulances, and they took out seventeen who had died in the night—unattended, save by the nurse—uncomplaining, no last word, no dying message, quiet and speechless life had ceased and the soul had fled.
By this time Dr. Hubbell had returned for he had missed our wagons the day before and gone at night for more supplies. This time came large tarpaulins, more utensils, more food, more things to make it a little comfortable—another contribution from the surf of Siboney. We removed our first kitchens across the road, up alongside the headquarter tent of Major Wood in charge of the camp. The major is a regular army officer, brusque, thickset, abrupt, but so full of kind-hearted generosity that words cannot do justice to him. He strove in every way to do all that could be done. He had given us the night before a little officer’s tent into which we had huddled from the pouring rain for a few hours in the middle of the night. The next day, although no tent so spacious as that could be had, a little baby tent it seemed, of about seven feet, was found, pitched alongside of the other, the tarpaulins put over, a new fireplace made near us, magnificent in its dimensions, shelter given for the boxes, bags and barrels of supplies that by this time had accumulated about us. There was even something that looked like tables on which Mrs. Gardner prepared her delicacies.
The gruel still remained the staple, but malted milk, chocolate and rice had come in, and tea, and little by little various things were added by which our ménage became something quite resembling a hotel. The wounded were still being taken away by ambulance and wagon, assorted and picked over like fruit in a barrel. Those which would bear transportation were taken away, the others left where they were. The numbers grew a little less that day.
I ought not neglect mentioning the favorite and notable drinks which were prepared, for it will seem to the poor, feverish men who partook of them that they ought to be mentioned—they will never forget them. They have not even yet ceased to tell through the hospitals that they fall into later of the drink that was prepared for them at the Fifth Corps Hospital. We had found a large box of dried apples, and remembering how refreshing it would be, we had washed a quantity, put it in a large kettle, filled it with water and let it soak. It happened to be a fine tart apple, and the juice was nearly as good as wine. Perhaps no wine had ever seemed so good to those men as a cup of that apple water, and when they tasted it tears again ran down their faces. To their poor, dry, feverish mouths it was something so refreshing that it seemed heaven-sent. The next day a box of prunes was discovered, and the same thing was done with that; a richer, darker juice was obtained, and this also took its place among the drinks prepared at the Fifth Corps Hospital. The apple and prune juice will remain, I suspect, a memorial for that poor neglected spot.
By the third day our patients seemed strong enough that we might risk food as solid as rice, and the great kettles were filled with that, cooked soft, mixed with condensed and malted milk, and their cups were filled with this. It was gratifying to hear the nurses come up and say: “I have sixteen men in my ward. So many of them would like rice; so many would like malted milk; so many would like gruel; so many would like chocolate, and a few would like a cup of tea; and another, who is feverish, would like only some apple or prune juice,”—and taking for each what he called for, go back to his patients as if he had given his order to the waiter at a hotel; and the food that he took was as well cooked, as delicate and as nice as he could have gotten there. The numbers were now getting considerably less—perhaps not over three hundred—and better care could be taken of them.
A dispatch on Thursday afternoon informed me that Mrs. J. Addison Porter would be on the hospital ship “Relief” coming into Siboney that day. I would of course go to meet her. It was a great joy to know that she would return to us. We at once decided that an army wagon should be asked for from headquarters and a party of us go to Siboney, both for Mrs. Porter and more supplies. The roads were getting even worse—so bad, in fact, that I dared not risk an ambulance, an army wagon being the only vehicle strong enough to travel over it.
We had blankets and pillows and the ride was fairly comfortable; but it was late, nine o’clock, before we reached Siboney. The “State of Texas,” which in the last three days had made a trip to Port Antonio for ice, we thought must be back by that time, and on reaching Siboney, found that she had arrived that evening at five o’clock and was lying at her old anchorage. But there was no way of communicating with her in order that a boat might be sent for us. Everything was tried. We had no signals; there was no system of signaling on the shore by which we could reach her or, in fact, any other boat. There was no way but to remain where we were until morning. It was proposed that I go to the rooms assigned for the hospital assistants. I decidedly refused this, for every reason. I knew the buildings were not to be trusted, and persons nursing day and night among all kinds of patients were not the people to room with. I asked to be allowed to remain in my army wagon. This was not thought proper. I suggested that it might be drawn out anywhere, the mules taken off, and I be left with the blankets and pillows. I thought it, in fact, a good place for any one to sleep, and ventured to recommend it as an old-time method—a refuge which once would have been palatial for me on the war-swept fields of old Virginia, or in the drifting sands of Morris Island—what would that have been the night after Antietam or old Fredericksburg, Chantilly or the Wilderness? But the newer generation could not see it so; a building must be had somewhere, and as I refused the hospital appendage in toto, it was proposed that I enter the post-office, a room there being offered to me.
The postmaster and deputy postmaster, who felt themselves under obligation to us, came out to our men and insisted that I occupy a room in that building. Such a courtesy could not be gainsaid, and against all feeling of acquiescence, and with a terrible dread, as if there were something so wrong about it, I allowed myself to be helped out of the wagon and entered the house. The postmaster sat down and talked with me a little while. I thought he seemed ill. It appeared to be an effort for him to talk. I had never met him before, but my heart went out in sympathy for him. I feared I was taking his room, as was indeed the case, although he did not admit it. I was shown into a large room with one cot, one table, cheerless, bare, with an outside door, and a candle without a stick burning upon the table. The men went outside and laid down upon the steps for the night. I laid down upon the stretcher. It was impossible for me to remain there. Something constantly warned me to leave it. I got up, went to the outside door, looked out upon the night and darkness and waited for the gray of the morning. I went out and stood upon the beach beside the sea and waited more and more, until finally some of the men appeared and I went with them down to the water.
I might as well say here, as I will not refer to it again, that six days after, when I returned, they told me that the rightful occupant of the cot—the postmaster who had seemed so ill—had died of a fever raging here that they called “yellow fever.” I had occupied his cot and he had gone to heaven. I wondered who it was that so continually warned me that night to keep away from that room, away from the cot, away from all connected with it, when I had not the slightest suspicion of anything wrong. “Yellow fever” was then not talked of. Did some one tell me? I do not know, but something told me.
While standing at the dock, Dr. Smith, of the “Olivette,” who had taken a ride with us to the front a day or two before, approached, and kindly asked if he could place his boat at my service, and if I would go to the “Olivette” with him. I replied that I would go to the “Relief,” if he would be so kind as to take me there, for a friend whom I had on board. He did so, and as we drew around the side of the elegant white and green striped boat in full navy regulation, the men in white duck appeared on the decks above and below, a half dozen ladies’ faces showing among them, but most notably the good, substantial, matronly looking lady who had left us a few days before—Mrs. Porter. It occurred to me that she had possibly come by invitation to remain on the “Relief” and aid in the charge of the nurses, and would make this explanation to me, but was agreeably surprised when I saw a satchel and a package or two coming down the steps immediately followed by Mrs. Porter herself. I could scarcely believe that she was leaving that elegant boat to come over to the obscure “State of Texas.” But so it was, and, taking her seat in the boat, we rowed around to the “Olivette,” where Dr. Smith left us, and was replaced by a major-surgeon, who would escort us over to the “Texas,” only some rods distant. I did not at once recall him, but among his first remarks were, “You have been at the front?” “Yes, Major.” “I should think you would find it very unpleasant there.” “Such scenes are not supposed to be pleasant.” “What do you go for?” I scarcely know what reply was made to this abrupt question, but the significance was that possibly we could be useful there. “There is no need of your going there—it is no place for women. I consider women very much out of place in a field hospital.” “Then I must have been out of place a good deal of my lifetime, Doctor, for I have been there a great deal.” “That doesn’t change my opinion, and if I had my way, I would send you home.” “Fortunately for me, if for no one else, Doctor, you have not your way.” “I know it, but again that doesn’t change my opinion. I would send you home.” By this time we were rowing pretty near our own boat, and it was admissible for me to maintain the silence that I felt dignity called for. I made no other remark to him beyond “Good morning, Major,” as we separated for our respective ships.
This is a foolish little episode to enter in one’s diary, not worth the time of writing, especially in days like these, only as it will serve as a landmark, a kind of future milestone noting the progress of humane sentiment, and the hopeful advancement of the civilization and enlightenment of the world. Only a few years ago the good major would have actually possessed the power of which this advancement has relieved him. Finding an accumulation of work at our ship, large mails from the North having arrived, it was Monday before we could return to the front, Mrs. Porter accompanying us. This journey was also made in an army wagon, and a wretched, miserable wagon it was. We found the camp in perfect running order. Mrs. Gardner had stood like a rock through it all, neglecting nothing, quiet, calm, peaceful, faithful, busy—how well she had done, I have no words to express. Everybody grateful to her, everybody loving her.
The camp had now from one hundred to two hundred men. There began to be strong talk of yellow fever, not only at Siboney but at the front as well.
The negotiations between General Shafter and the Spanish army at Santiago were still going on. The flag of truce that threatened every day to come down still floated. The Spanish soldiers had been led by their officers to believe that every man who surrendered (and the people as well), would be butchered instantly the city should fall and the American troops should come in. But when General Shafter commenced to send back convoys of captured Spanish officers, their wounds faithfully dressed and carefully placed on stretchers and borne under flags of truce to the Spanish lines at Santiago and set down at the feet of the general as a tender gift back to him, and when in astonishment he learned the object of the flag of truce and sent companies of soldiers to form in line and present arms while the cortege of wounded were borne through by American troops, a lesson was learned that went far toward the surrender of that city.
I happened to know that it was not without some very natural home criticism that General Shafter persisted in his course in the face of the time-honored custom of “hostages.” One can readily understand that the voluntary giving up of prisoners, officers at that, in view of an impending battle might seem in the light of old-time army usages a waste, to characterize it by no harder term. It is possible that none of the officers on that field had ever read the articles of the Treaty of Geneva or fully realized that that treaty had become a law or that their commander, possibly without fully realizing it himself, was acting in full accord with its wise and humane principles.
The main talk of the camp was now “yellow fever.” On Monday night occurred one of the most fearful storms which I have ever seen—rain, thunder and lightning. Our tent had been well protected and deeply ditched, but the water rolled around it in the ditches like rivers. The thunder shook the ground; the lightning blazed like a fire. As I have said, the camp was as level as a floor. No water could really run off. During the most of that night the men in the tents laid in five to six inches of water. Before daybreak the rain had ceased, some water had run away—some soaked in—and the ground was passable. The next day followed another rain. It was now discovered by the medical authorities that from there having been at first one case of fever, there were now one hundred and sixteen; that a fever camp would probably be made there and the wounded gotten away. It was advisable then that we return to our ship and attempt, as far as possible, to hold that free from contagion. I was earnestly solicited to do this in view of what was expected of our ship and of what was expected of us—that we not only protect ourselves, but our cargo and ship from all contamination and even suspicion. I faithfully promised this, and again we called for an army wagon, leaving all supplies that were useful for the men here, sending to Caney what was most needed there and taking only our personal effects, we again placed ourselves in an army wagon with a tarpaulan over us and started for Siboney. In less than twenty minutes the rain was pouring on us and for two hours it fell as from buckets. The water was from a foot and a half to two feet deep in the road as we passed along. At one time our wagon careened, the mules were held up, and we waited to see whether it should go over or could be brought out—the water a few inches only from the top of the lower side. It was scarcely possible for us to stir, hemmed in as we were, but the men from the other wagons sprang to our wheels, hanging in the air on the upper side, and we were simply saved by an inch. The mud and water was at least two and one-half feet deep where we should have gone down.
But like other things, this cleared away. We came into Siboney about three o’clock, in a bright glare of sunshine, to find the town utterly burned, all buildings gone or smoking, Dr. and Mrs. Lesser and the faithful Sisters as well, in a “yellow fever” hospital a mile and a half out of the city, reached by rail. All customary work was suspended. The atmosphere was thick and blue with smoke. Men ran about the grounds smutted and bareheaded like children. My medical knowledge was not sufficient to allow me to judge if everybody there had the yellow fever, but general observation would go far toward convincing a very ordinary mind that everybody had gone crazy.
All effort was made to hold our ship free from suspicion. The process of reasoning leading to the conclusion that a solid cargo, packed in tight boxes in the hold of a ship, anchored at sea, could become infected in a day from the land or a passing individual, is indeed, an intricate process; but we had some experience in this direction, as, for instance, Captain McCalla in his repeated humane attempts to feed the refugees around Guantanamo had called again for a hundred thousand rations, saying that if we could bring them to him soon, he could get them to the thousands starving in the woods. We lost no time, but got the food out and started with it in the night. On reaching Guantanamo we were met at a distance out and called to, asking if anyone on our ship had been on shore at Siboney within four days, if so, our supplies could not be received, and we took them away, leaving the starving to perish.
On Friday morning the constantly recurring news of the surrender of Santiago was so well established that we drew anchor and came up to the flagship and the following letter was addressed to Admiral Sampson:
“State of Texas,” July 16, 1898.
Admiral Sampson,
Commanding United States Fleet off Santiago, Flagship “New York”:
Admiral:—It is not necessary for me to explain to you my errand, nor its necessity; both your good head and heart divine it more clearly than any words of mine can represent.
I send this to you by one of our men, who can tell you all you will wish to know. Mr. Elwell has resided and done mercantile and shipping business in Santiago for the last seven years; is favorably known to all its people; has in his possession the keys to the best warehouses and residences in the city, to which he is bidden welcome by the owners. He is the person appointed four months ago to help distribute this food, and did so with me until the blockade. There seems to be nothing in the way of our getting this 1400 tons of food into a Santiago warehouse and giving it intelligently to the thousands who need and own it. I have twenty good helpers with me. The New York Committee is clamoring for the discharge of the “State of Texas,” which has been raised in price to $400 a day.
If there is still more explanation needed, I pray you, Admiral, let me see you.
Respectfully and cordially,
(Signed) Clara Barton.
This was immediately responded to by Captain Chadwick, who came on board, assuring me that our place was at Santiago—as quickly as we could be gotten there.
On Saturday, the sixteenth, feeling that it might still be possible to take the supplies to Guantanamo, requested by Captain McCalla, a letter was addressed as follows:
Steamship “State of Texas,” July 16, 1898.
Captain Chadwick, Flagship “New York” off Santiago:
Captain:—If there is a possibility of going into Santiago before to-morrow morning, please let me know, and we will hold just where we are and wait.
If there is no possibility of this, we could run down to Guantanamo and land Captain McCalla’s 100,000 rations in the evening and be back here to-morrow morning.
Will you please direct me.
Yours faithfully,
Clara Barton.
Reply to the above:
U.S. Flagship “New York,” 1st Rate,
Off Santiago de Cuba, July 17, 1898.
Dear Miss Barton:—We are now engaged in taking up mines, just so soon as it is safe to go in your ship will go. If you wish, you can anchor in near us, and send anything up by boats, or, if we could get lighters, drawing less than eight feet, food may be sent by the lighters, but it is not yet possible for the ship to go in. There are four “contact” mines, and four what are known as “observation” mines, still down.
Yours very truly,
(Signed) F.E. Chadwick
It was after this that we turned back again and steamed to Guantanamo to unload our supplies at night and return the next morning.
These were anxious days. While the world outside was making up war history, we thought of little beyond the terrible needs about us—if Santiago had any people left, they must be in sore distress, and El Caney—terrible El Caney—with its thirty thousand homeless, perishing sufferers, how could they be reached?
The diary at this point says: On returning from our fruitless journey to Guantanamo we stopped at Siboney only long enough to get our dispatches, then ran down directly in front of Santiago and lay with the fleet. A personal call from Admiral Schley, Captain Cook and other officers served to show the interest and good will of those about us. Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon a small Spanish steamer—which had been among the captures of Santiago—ran alongside and informed us that an officer wished to come aboard. It proved to be Lieutenant Capehart, of the flagship, who brought word from Admiral Sampson that if we would come alongside the “New York,” he would put a pilot on board. This was done and we moved on through waters we had never traversed—past Morro Castle, long, low, silent and grim—past the Spanish wrecks on the right—past the “Merrimac” in the channel, which Hobson had left. We began to realize that we were alone, of all the ships about the harbor there were none with us. The stillness of the Sabbath was over all. The gulls sailed and flapped and dipped about us. The lowering summer sun shot long golden rays athwart the green hills on either side, and tinged the waters calm and still. The silence grew oppressive as we glided along with scarce a ripple. We saw on the right as the only moving thing a long slim boat or yacht dart out from among the bushes and steal its way up half hidden in the shadows. Suddenly it was overtaken by either message or messenger, and like a collared hound glided back as if it had never been. Leaning on the rail half lost in reverie over the strange quiet beauty of the scene, the thought suddenly burst upon me: Are we really going into Santiago—and alone? Are we not to be run out and wait aside and salute with dipping colors while the great battleships come up with music and banners and lead the way? As far as the eye could reach no ship was in sight. Was this to remain so? Could it be possible that the commander who had captured a city declined to be the first to enter—that he would hold back his flagship and himself and send forward and first a cargo of food on a plain ship, under direction of a woman? Did our commands, military or naval, hold men great enough of soul for such action? It must be true—for the spires of Santiago rise before us, and turning to the score of companions beside me I asked, “Is there any one here who will lead the doxology?” In an instant the full rich voice of Enola Gardner rang out: “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.” By that time the chorus was full, and the tears on many a face told more plainly than words how genuine was that praise, and when in response to a second suggestion “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” swelled out on the evening air in the farewell rays of the setting sun, the “State of Texas” was nearing the dock, and quietly dropping her anchors she lay there in undisputed possession of the city of Santiago.
It has been remarked that Mr. Elwell had been a resident of Santiago and connected with its shipping for several years. It was only the work of an hour after landing to find his old-time help. A hundred and twenty-five stevedores were engaged to be on the dock at six o’clock next morning, to work for pay in rations.
The dock had its track and trucks running to its open warehouses. As we had entered we saw it bare of every movable or living thing. Want had swept it of all that could be carried away, and the remaining people dared not approach us. Six o’clock next morning changed the scene. The silence was no longer oppressive. The boxes, barrels and bales pitched out of that ship, thrown onto the trucks and wheeled away told the story of better days to come; and it was something to see that lank, brawny little army of stevedores take their first breakfast in line alongside of the ship.
The city was literally without food. In order to clear it for defence, its inhabitants had been ordered out, ten days before, to El Caney, a small town of some five hundred people, where it was said thirty thousand persons were gathered, without food, shelter, or place of rest. Among these were the old-time residents—the wealthy and the best people of Santiago. Its British consul, Mr. Ramsden, and his family were of them, and the care and hardship of that terrible camp cost his life. A message from the headquarters of General Shafter, telegraphed to us even after leaving Siboney, said:
“The death rate at El Caney is terrible. Can you send food?”
Word went back to send the thirty thousand refugees of El Caney at once back to Santiago;—we were there and could feed them—that the “State of Texas” had still on board twelve hundred tons of supplies for the reconcentrados. That day poured in upon us all that had strength to make the journey, of the thirty thousand starving wrecks of El Caney. If there were any at night who had not received food, no one knew it. The fires were rekindled in the great steam soup kitchens of Mr. H. Michaelsen—that name should be carved in marble and lettered in gold in Santiago—that had run uninterrupted for nearly two years, until within a few weeks of the surrender, when there was no more food for its kettles. Ten thousand persons had hot soup there the first day, and it was estimated that ten thousand more had dry food of crackers, meat and meal. To the sick were distributed condensed and malted milk as fast as it could be gotten to them.
Of the districting of the city, the formation of committees for the distribution of food, the care, the justice, and the success with which it was done, I leave to the reports of my experienced staff officers and assistants and to the committee of Santiago, which nobly volunteered its aid. These persons performed this work—they were a part of it—and no one can describe it so well as they. I refer the reader to the reports of Dr. Hubbell, Dr. Egan, Mr. Cottrell, Miss Fowler, now the wife of Baron Van Schelle of Belgium, and the committee of Santiago composed of H. Michaelsen, vice-consul for Germany, Robert Mason, Chinese consul and vice-consul for England, and Wm. Ramsden, son of the late Frederick Ramsden, British consul. With these latter gentlemen, together with twenty of the leading ladies of Santiago, was left, one month later, the supplies remaining in our warehouses, and the oversight of the poor of the city, over whom their care had extended so tenderly and so wisely in the past, and on whom as helping them back into citizenship it must largely devolve in the future.
Returning to our first day in Santiago, it is remembered that this narration has thus far left the navy, its flagship and commander at the entrance of the harbor in obscurity. It would seem but just that it reproduce them.
Until ten o’clock on Monday the eighteenth we saw no sign of life on the waters of the bay—neither sail, steam nor boat—but suddenly word passed down from the watch on deck that a ship was sighted. Slowly it came in view—large, fine, full masted—and orders went to salute when it should pass. At length here was something to which we could pay deference. The whistles were held, the flag was ready for action, ropes straight and without a tangle—all stood breathless—but she does not pass, and seems to be standing in. In a minute more a stout sailor voice calls out: “Throw us a rope,” and here, without salute, whistle or bell, came and fastened to the stern of our boat this glittering and masted steamship from whose decks below Admirals Sampson and Schley and their respective staffs shouted up their familiar greetings to us.
The view from their ship enfiladed, to speak in military parlance, our entire dock. There was every opportunity to see how our work was done and if we were equal to unloading our ship. The day was spent with us till four o’clock in the afternoon; and when about to leave and the admiral was asked what orders or directions he had for us, the reply was, “You need no directions from me, but if anyone troubles you, let me know.”
Many months have passed since that day, and I write this without ever having seen again the face of the commander who had been so courteous and kind, and so helpful in the work I went to do.
Under date of July 23 is found the following entry in the diary which sums up the entire matter of facts, dates and figures in few words:
“The discharge of the cargo of the ‘State of Texas’ of over twelve hundred tons, commenced at six o’clock Monday, July 18. One hundred and twenty-five stevedores were employed and paid in food issued as rations.
“On Thursday, the twenty-first, at six o’clock p.m. the discharge was completed, and the following morning, Friday, July 22, the ship left for New York.
“During that time the people had returned to Santiago, numbering thirty thousand, and all were fed—ten thousand a day from the soup kitchen of Mr. Michaelsen, the others with bread, meat and milk.
“The present general committee was formed, the city districted into sections, with a commissioner for each district, selected by the people themselves living there.
“Every family or person residing in the city is supplied by the commissioner of that district. All transient persons are fed at the kitchen, the food being provided by the Red Cross.
“Although the army has entered the city during the latter part of that time, there has been no confusion, no groups of disorderly persons seen, no hunger in the city more than in ordinary times. We wait the repairs of the railroads to enable us to get food and clothing to the villages enclosed within the lines of the surrender.”
We had done all that could be done to advantage at that time in Santiago. The United States troops had mainly left; the Spanish soldiers were coming in to their waiting ships, bringing with them all the diseases that unprovided and uncleanly camps would be expected to hold in store. Five weeks before we had brought into Santiago all the cargo of fourteen hundred tons of the “State of Texas,” excepting the light hospital supplies which had been used the month previous among our own troops at Siboney, General Shafter’s front and El Caney during the days of fighting. To any one accustomed to apportioning food, it would be at once apparent that these twelve hundred tons of heavy supplies, of meal, meat, beans and flour, etc., were too much for distribution at one time for a little town of thirty thousand, which naturally partly fed itself. But it must all be stored.
The “State of Texas” discharged her cargo and left for New York on the fifth day, leaving us without a particle of transportation, and in the pressure and confusion none could be obtained. Let those who tried it testify. The two railroads leading out of the town were destroyed. The ports were not open, and the country portions of the province reached only by pack mules. Later, forty large, fine healthy mules were shipped to us, but the half score of fully equipped ambulances, harnesses and between four hundred and five hundred bushels of oats were on the transports which brought them, could not be lightered off, and up to the time of our departure were never seen.
The schooner “Morse,” which, following the behest of an angelic thought of some lovely committee of home ladies, had come in laden with a thousand tons of ice. The tug “Triton,” which towed her all the way from Kennebec, and was to have been held for our use, was at once seized by the government. Santiago had neither an ice house nor a pile of dry sawdust, and the ice remained on the “Morse” till discharged order by order among the transports of sick, wounded and convalescing as they sailed one after another with their freight of human woe. Slowly, painfully waiting, but gladly, piece by piece, the ice went out, filling to repletion the box of every transport sailing north, and something glistened on the weather-beaten bronzed cheek of more than one of those long-serving, faithful, north Atlantic captains, as he tried to say what it would be to the poor fever-burnt sufferers he must take.
Visions, of the schooner “Morse” when she should be unloaded constituted our only transportation up to the day we left Santiago. I cannot say that other visions did not obtrude at times. In our perplexity, memory pictured, as in another life, the hundreds of strong-built, luxuriantly-furnished, swift-running steam tugs, yachts and house boats of the restful “Thousand Islands,” and the health and pleasure-giving resorts of the lovely Jersey coast; but they were only visions, quickly put aside for the stern realities of the inevitable surroundings. The “Morse” did well its blessed work, but never came to us.
Neither for love nor money could transportation be gotten. I did, however, near the last, obtain the use of a leaky lighter for two hours to get off some mules, but I might specify that it was on neither of the above considerations.
Some reporter is responsible for the statement that a large ship seen floating near the dock that morning had been seized. While it might not be possible to verify this statement by actual facts, it was not so very far out of the way in theory.
These were the last days of General Shafter in Santiago, who was, as he had at all times been, the kind and courteous officer and gentleman.
General Wood, alert, wise and untiring, with an eye single to the general good of all, toiled day and night.
The government warehouses were so filled with supplies that there seemed no room for more. The harbor filling with merchant ships for the trade, would soon come to regard with a jealous eye any body of persons who dispensed anything without price to even the poorest and most destitute.
But all this did not stay the marching stride of the native fever, so persistent in its grasp as scarcely to merit the appellation of intermittent. Day by day I watched my little band ever growing less; out of twenty which the good “State of Texas” brought, seven were on their feet; twelve had sickened, been nursed and gotten off home, and one had gone to heaven. Of our own band of the national Red Cross workers, none had actually gone down; of those who had joined us as assistants, few remained.
At this juncture news came that Havana was open. In all the country I knew but one person who had the power to order one of those waiting transports to take myself, staff and some supplies to Havana, and my dispatch went to President McKinley, with the suggestion kindly and thoughtfully made by Major Osgood who had just come in on the “Clinton,” that in order to economize time and labor, possibly the President might furnish a ship already loaded with government supplies, and let us repay from our supplies on shore. This dispatch brought the following prompt reply from the Secretary of War. It was a glad reminder of the kindly courtesy and friendship of many years. I give the text of both the dispatch of the Secretary and my reply, in order to set right a misunderstanding on the part of the public, which I have observed with pain:
Washington, August 18, 1898.
Miss Clara Barton, Santiago de Cuba:
“Clinton” cannot be used until unloaded. Stores aboard were sent on special request and are necessary for the comfort of officers and men at Santiago. The government will send as soon as ship can be loaded at Port Tampa two thousand tons of supplies for relief of destitute. This accomplishes same result and in shorter time. Will not this meet your wishes even better than recommended in your cablegram yesterday? Would it be asking too much for you to go to Havana to superintend the distribution of these stores under the law? Only the destitute and those in immediate danger of perishing can receive these supplies.
R.A. Alger, Secretary of War.
Santiago de Cuba, August 18, 1898.
Pierson, War Department, Washington:
Tell Secretary Alger I appreciate to the greatest possible extent his responsive and practical sympathy. His suggestions are better than I had asked, and are promptly accepted. If the “Clinton” is unloaded in time, I will leave here Saturday morning. Will take forty mules from here. Need ten additional wagons and harness for all my mules. Please give me some horsefeed from here.
Clara Barton.
The reloading was quickly accomplished, the direction of our remaining affairs placed in proper hands, and on the twenty-first of August, just five weeks to an hour since entering the harbor, we retraced the waters we had sailed over coming from Siboney to Santiago. The same golden sunshine rested on the hills and tinged the still waters of the bay, but we were no longer the only ship. The transports to take our soldiers home lay there; the great Spanish liners to take the Spanish soldiers to Spain; the hospital ships with their fevered weight of glad woe “going home,” dotted the sea and skirted the shore.
All who understood our movement saluted, and with tearful glances back to the little spot of earth which had given so much pain, made so many homes in both lands desolate, we ordered on full steam and glided away. Five days of continuous sunshine and scarcely wind to fill a sail brought us to Havana. I had cabled the Spanish authorities on our departure from Santiago and notified them of our arrival, and was courteously referred to the Civil Governor of Havana, on whom I called and received in return a most cordial visit, with the added respect of bringing his entire staff with him.
No supplies from Port Tampa having arrived we spent the second day in Matanzas, receiving from the good Governor and his amiable household such a welcome as one might expect from those they had known longest and loved most. We then hoped to go there at once and leave the supplies they so badly needed.
Next day there came into harbor the steamship “Comal,” from Port Tampa, laden with sixteen hundred tons of government supplies for distribution. We exchanged visits with her gentlemanly and sensible officers, who had governmental instructions to take their cargo to Havana and distribute it, but no instructions to act in conjunction with us or with any one; and we, on the other hand, received no intimation that her supplies were in any way intended for our use.
Both ships alike met the restriction of the customs duties, and while I felt that it might be well for a governmental cargo to test its position with the law of nations, under the circumstances, it was by no means the course for the Red Cross to take—an organization which never leads, but follows, in all military matters.
No commissioners had arrived, and feeling that we might become a source of irritation to them by remaining, and being unable to distribute our supplies, we decided to withdraw. Our captain, having been trained in the merchant service and being unaccustomed to military shipping, had neglected some little formality on leaving Santiago, which admitted, or perhaps called for, a fine of five hundred dollars. This we promptly paid, and with the best understanding with all parties, Spanish, Cuban and our own, no coercion on the part of any one, impelled by nothing but our own sense of the situation, we decided our course. In fact, strenuous efforts were made by the Spanish officials, notably the Secretary of State, to open the way for us; and while they could not override the law and positively remit a duty, they offered in this case to pay the duty themselves, and take part in the distribution. We appreciated the courtesy, but still felt that we might in some way become a hindrance to the pending negotiations by remaining, and after careful consideration, decided to draw anchor and steam for Port Tampa, leaving the “Comal” with its full cargo and efficient officers to meet the situation in the good governmental way, we were sure they would do.
This explanation is given to set right the general impression that the “Comal” was a Red Cross ship. There was no connection whatever between the “Comal” and ourselves, excepting through good will and good fellowship; and again the impression that we were mistreated by the Spanish government at Havana, subjected to discourtesy or requested to leave is a mistaken one. The facts are quite the contrary. We entered under the supposition that Havana was open, as Santiago was open; but it was not an open port. We were in Spanish waters, subject to Spanish laws and customs, and so regarded them, as we should have expected to do in any country, remembering experimentally that our own country is not too much inclined to easily remit its custom duties.
Dividing the time of our Cuban campaign into sections, the incoming days fall exclusively to Santiago. Days of an army in one sense inactive, in another rushed and crowded beyond its powers to meet or control. Days when everything is needed and nothing can be gotten at. No one knows where anything is—must have a formal order to obtain it when it is found, and cannot get the order. Officers clamor for their needy men, the sick list increases, complaints are rife, patience gives place to desperation, and a time of general confusion follows.
Again I would say that to those taking the first lessons in army life, all these things seem incomprehensible, to say the least, and “Who’s to blame?” seems to be floating in the very atmosphere about them.
Deplore such a state of things as we will, it is still a part of army life. It belongs to war, and the grey-haired military chief, whom all would recognize were I to name him, was correct when he once said to me: “Strange as it may seem, the days of ’rest’ at an active field are its hardest days.”
The ofttimes perplexed officers at Santiago will neither exclaim nor disclaim against this little statement, if it should ever meet their eyes. They will realize, however, that there were others, near them having no power, or scarcely place, who could yet comprehend their perplexities, and sympathize with the distressing conditions surrounding them.
They will also recall that from this source no unreasonable request was ever made of them, no impatient word spoken—only thanks for needed facilities that could be granted, for those withheld, respectful acquiesence.
To every officer on that first conquered field of Cuba, who extended to the organization I had there the honor to represent, or to myself personally, the smallest recognition or kindness, if it were only a mere courtesy, I tender in behalf of the Red Cross, honoring gratitude and heartfelt thanks. As soldiers, they performed their duty; as men, they sustained their own manly self-respect.
Knowing that several of my aides have kept their own notes during the entire campaign, especially as pertaining to the department occupied by each, I have for the sake of accuracy and perspicuity, invited them to contribute, from their notes, reports to this hastily written volume. These reports must perforce so completely cover the time of this rather uneventful period, until we should again enter upon some more active operations, I decide to leave this space to them, referring the reader, if he have the interest to follow, to these reports, and especially to the letter from our Santiago committee, composed of the leading men of the city, whose faithful service, wisdom and care for the interests of their community, lends a halo of grateful remembrance to the very mention of their names.