Part 7 (1/2)

Whether General Sumner or General Kent directly and personally ordered this charge or not, I cannot say; but from statements made to me by officers and men who partic.i.p.ated in it, I am inclined to believe that it really was--as it has since been called--a ”great popular movement,”

the credit for which belongs chiefly to the regimental and company officers and their men. That General Shafter had nothing to do with it is evident. He might have ordered it if he had been there; but he was not there. One of the wounded men in the field-hospital told me a story of a sergeant in one of the colored regiments, who was lying, with his comrades, in the woods, under the hot fire from the San Juan heights.

Getting no order to advance, and tiring of the inaction, he finally sprang to his feet and rushed out into the open, shouting to the men of his company: ”Come on, boys! Let's knock h--l out of the blankety-blanks!” whereupon the whole regiment rose like a single man, and started, at a dead run, for the hill. The story is doubtless apocryphal, but it will serve as an ill.u.s.tration of the way in which the charge up the slope of San Juan may have originated. Our men in the edge of the woods, in the bushes, and in the grain-fields had perhaps become so tired of inaction, and so exasperated by the deadly fire which was picking them off, one by one, as they lay, that they were ready for any desperate venture; and when somebody--no matter who--started forward, or said, ”Come on, boys!” they simply rose en ma.s.se and charged. I cannot find, in the official reports of the engagement, any record of a definite order by any general officer to storm the heights; but the men were just in the mood for such a movement, and either with orders or without orders they charged up the hill, in the face of a tremendous fire from batteries, trenches, and blockhouses, and, in the words of an English officer, quoted by General Breckenridge in his testimony before the Investigating Commission, they not only covered themselves with glory, but extricated their corps commander ”from a devil of a fix.”

When the divisions of Generals Kent and Wheeler had been distributed along the crest of the San Juan ridge, the line looked too weak and thin to hold the position; but Skobeleff once said that a position carried by attack can be held, even if seventy-five per cent. of the attacking force have perished; and there was no doubt in the minds of the regulars and the Rough Riders that there were enough of them left not only to hold San Juan, but to take the city. Mr. Ramsden, British consul in Santiago, says, in his diary, that the Spaniards were so disheartened by their defeat that ”if the Americans had followed up their advantage and rushed the town, they would have carried it.” But our men were too much exhausted by the heat, and by their floundering in the jungle, to fight another battle that day. When the firing ceased they had to pick up the wounded and bury the dead, and then they spent a large part of the night in erecting breastworks, digging trenches, and making preparations for a counter-attack.

CHAPTER XII

THE FIELD-HOSPITAL

On the morning of Friday, July 1, Dr. Egan and I, with three Cuban soldiers put at our service by General Castillo, set out on foot for the front, carrying on our backs or in our hands such medicines and hospital supplies as we thought would be most needed by the wounded, as well as hammocks, blankets, cooking-utensils, and four or five days' rations for ourselves. The march was a long and tiresome one, and it was after noon before we reached the glade, or opening, near the Pozo house which had been selected as the site for the first and only field-hospital of the Fifth Army-Corps. We reported at once to Major Wood, chief surgeon of the First Division, who gave us a hearty welcome and at once granted our request to be set at work. The second day's battle was then in progress; the booming of cannon and the rattle of Krag-Jorgensens could be plainly heard a short distance in advance, and wounded men by the score were coming back in army wagons from the firing line.

The First Division hospital of the Fifth Army-Corps was established in the field, about three miles east of Santiago, Wednesday, June 29. At that time it was in advance of the whole army, and had no other protection than a line of pickets thrown out toward the enemy's intrenchments. The site of the camp was a large, partly open glade, or field, on the floor of a wooded valley, which was bounded on the northeast, at a distance of three miles, by a range of mountains, and which extended to within a mile of Santiago. Through this valley ran the Siboney-Santiago road, nearly parallel with a brook which had its source in the mountains to the northward, and after being joined by a number of other brooks coming from the same direction, fell into the sea through a notch in the coast rampart three or four miles east of Morro Castle. The glade, or field, in which the hospital camp stood was one of a series of similar glades stretching away to the northeast toward the base of the mountains, and resembling a little in outline and topographical arrangement the openings known as ”barrens” in the forests of Nova Scotia. In every other direction except the one taken by this line of glades the camp was bounded by a dense tropical jungle through which the Siboney-Santiago road had been cut. The opening occupied by the hospital camp was covered with a dense growth of high wild gra.s.s, shaded here and there by small clumps of pinon-bushes, with a few larger trees of kinds to me unknown. South and southwest of the camp lay a tropical forest which I did not undertake to explore, but which our pickets said was so wild and so tangled with vines and creepers as to be almost impenetrable. The site of the camp between the road and the brook was well chosen, and it was, perhaps, as satisfactory a place for a hospital as could have been found in that vicinity.

The hospital, when I arrived, consisted of three large tents for operating-tables, pharmacy, dispensary, etc.; another of similar dimensions for wounded officers; half a dozen small wall-tents for wounded soldiers; and a lot of ”dog-kennels,” or low shelter-tents, for the hospital stewards, litter-bearers, and other attendants. I do not know how many ambulances the hospital had for the transportation of wounded from the battle-line, but I saw only two, and was informed by Dr. G.o.dfrey that only three had been brought from Tampa. Fifty or more had been sent to that port for the use of the Fifth Army-Corps, but had been left there, by direct order of General Shafter, when the expedition sailed.

The hospital staff at the beginning of the first day's battle consisted of five surgeons: namely, Major M. W. Wood, chief surgeon of the First Division; Major R. W. Johnson, in command of the First Division hospital; Dr. Guy C. G.o.dfrey, Dr. H. P. Jones, and Dr. F. J. Combe.

The resources and supplies of the hospital, outside of instruments, operating-tables, and medicines, were very limited. There was tent-shelter for only about one hundred wounded men; there were no cots, hammocks, mattresses, rubber blankets, or pillows for sick or injured soldiers; the supply of woolen army blankets was very short and was soon exhausted; and there was no clothing at all except two or three dozen s.h.i.+rts. In the form of hospital food for sick or wounded men there was nothing except a few jars of beef extract, malted milk, etc., bought in the United States by Major Wood, taken to the field in his own private baggage, and held in reserve for desperate cases.

Such was the equipment of the only field-hospital in Cuba when the attack on Santiago began. That it was wretchedly incomplete and inadequate I hardly need say, but the responsibility for the incompleteness and inadequacy cannot be laid upon the field force. They took to the hospital camp from the steamers everything that they could possibly get transportation for. There was only one line of very bad road from Daiquiri and Siboney to the front, and along that line had to be carried, with an utterly insufficient train of mules and wagons, all the food and ammunition needed by an advancing army of more than sixteen thousand men. In loading the mules and wagons preference was given to stores and supplies that could be used in killing Spanish soldiers rather than to stores and supplies that would be needed in caring for our own, and the result was the dreadful and heartrending state of affairs in that hospital at the end of the second day's fight. If there was anything more terrible in our Civil War, I am glad that I was not there to see it.

The battle before Santiago began very early on Friday morning, July 1, and the wounded, most of whom had received first aid at bandaging-stations just back of the firing line, reached the hospital in small numbers as early as nine o'clock. As the hot tropical day advanced, the numbers constantly and rapidly increased until, at nightfall, long rows of wounded were lying on the gra.s.s in front of the operating-tents, without awnings or shelter, awaiting examination and treatment. The small force of field-surgeons worked heroically and with a devotion that I have never seen surpa.s.sed; but they were completely overwhelmed by the great b.l.o.o.d.y wave of human agony that rolled back in ever-increasing volume from the battle-line. They stood at the operating-tables, wholly without sleep, and almost without rest or food, for twenty-one consecutive hours; and yet, in spite of their tremendous exertions, hundreds of seriously or dangerously wounded men lay on the ground for hours, many of them half naked, and nearly all without shelter from the blazing tropical sun in the daytime, or the damp, chilly dew at night. No organized or systematic provision had been made for feeding them or giving them drink, and many a poor fellow had not tasted food or water for twelve hours, and had been exposed during all that time to the almost intolerable glare of the sun. I saw a soldier of the Tenth Cavalry, who had been shot through the body, lie on the ground in front of the operating-tent for at least three hours, naked to the waist, and exposed to suns.h.i.+ne in which I could hardly hold my hand. I speak of this particular soldier, not because he was an exception, but rather because he exhibited such magnificent fort.i.tude and self-control. Although he must have been suffering terrible agony, he lay there for three hours without a murmur or a complaint, and, so far as I could see, without change of countenance, until his turn came and he was lifted upon the operating-table.

At sunset the five surgeons had operated upon and dressed the wounds of one hundred and fifty-four men. As night advanced and the wounded came in more rapidly, no count or record of the operations was made or attempted. Late in the evening of Friday, division and regimental surgeons began to come back to the hospital from the front, and the operating force was increased to ten. More tables were set out in front of the tents, and the surgeons worked at them all night, partly by moonlight and partly by the dim light of flaring candles held in the hands of stewards and attendants. Fortunately, the weather was clear and still, and the moon nearly full. There were no lanterns, apparently, in the camp,--at least, I saw none in use outside of the operating-tent,--and if the night had been dark, windy, or rainy, four fifths of the wounded would have had no help or surgical treatment whatever until the next day. All the operations outside of a single tent were performed by the dim light of one unsheltered and flaring candle, or at most two. More than once even the candles were extinguished for fear that they would draw the fire of Spanish sharp-shooters who were posted in trees south of the camp, and who exchanged shots with our pickets at intervals throughout the night. These cold-blooded and merciless guerrillas fired all day Friday at our ambulances and at our wounded as they were brought back from the battle-line, and killed two of our Red Cross men. There was good reason to fear, therefore, that they would fire into the hospital. It required some nerve on the part of our surgeons to stand beside operating-tables all night with their backs to a dark tropical jungle out of which came at intervals the sharp reports of guerrillas' rifles. But there was not a sign of hesitation or fear. Finding that they could not work satisfactorily by moonlight, brilliant although it was, they relighted their candles and took the risk. Before daybreak on Sat.u.r.day morning they had performed more than three hundred operations, and then, as the wounded had ceased to come in, and all cases requiring immediate attention had been disposed of, they retired to their tents for a little rest. The five men who composed the original hospital force had worked incessantly for twenty-one hours.

Of course the wounded who had been operated upon, or the greater part of them, had to lie out all night on the water-soaked ground; and in order to appreciate the suffering they endured the reader must try to imagine the conditions and the environment. It rained in torrents there almost every afternoon for a period of from ten minutes to half an hour, and the ground, therefore, was usually water-soaked and soft. All the time that it did not rain the sun shone with a fierceness of heat that I have seldom seen equaled, and yet at night it grew cool and damp so rapidly as to necessitate the putting on of thicker clothing or a light overcoat. Many of the wounded soldiers, who were brought to the hospital from a distance of three miles in a jolting ambulance or army wagon, had lost their upper clothing at the bandaging-stations just back of the battle-line, where the field-surgeons had stripped them in order to examine or treat their wounds. They arrived there, consequently, half naked and without either rubber or woolen blankets; and as the very limited hospital supply of s.h.i.+rts and blankets had been exhausted, there was nothing to clothe or cover them with. The tents set apart for wounded soldiers were already full to overflowing, and all that a litter-squad could do with a man when they lifted him from the operating-table on Friday night was to carry him away and lay him down, half naked as he was, on the water-soaked ground under the stars. Weak and shaken from agony under the surgeon's knife and probe, there he had to lie in the high, wet gra.s.s, with no one to look after him, no one to give him food and water if he needed them, no blanket over him, and no pillow under his head. What he suffered in the long hours of the damp, chilly night I know because I saw him, and scores more like him; but the reader, who can get an idea of it only through the medium of words, can hardly imagine it.

When the sun rose Sat.u.r.day morning, the sufferings of the wounded who had lain out all night in the gra.s.s were intensified rather than relieved, because with suns.h.i.+ne came intense heat, thirst, and surgical fever. An attempt was made to protect some of them by making awnings and thatched roofs of bushes and poles; but about seven o'clock ambulances and wagons loaded with wounded began again to arrive from the battle-line, and the whole hospital force turned its attention to them, leaving the suffering men in the gra.s.s to the care of the camp cooks and a few slightly wounded soldiers, who, although in pain themselves, could still hobble about carrying hard bread and water to their completely disabled and gasping comrades.

The scenes of Sat.u.r.day were like those of the previous day, but with added details of misery and horror. Many of the wounded, brought in from the extreme right flank of the army at Caney, had had nothing to eat or drink in more than twenty-four hours, and were in a state of extreme exhaustion. Some, who had been shot through the mouth or neck, were unable to swallow, and we had to push a rubber tube down through the b.l.o.o.d.y froth that filled their throats, and pour water into their stomachs through that; some lay on the ground with swollen bellies, suffering acutely from stricture of the urinary pa.s.sage and distention of the bladder caused by a gunshot wound; some were paralyzed from the neck down or the waist down as a result of injury to the spine; some were delirious from thirst, fever, and exposure to the sun; and some were in a state of unconsciousness, coma, or collapse, and made no reply or sign of life when I offered them water or bread. They were all placed on the ground in a long, closely packed row as they came in; a few pieces of shelter-tenting were stretched over them to protect them a little from the sun, and there they lay for two, three, and sometimes four hours before the surgeons could even examine their injuries. A more splendid exhibition of patient, uncomplaining fort.i.tude and heroic self-control than that presented by these wounded men the world has never seen. Many of them, as appeared from their chalky faces, gasping breath, and b.l.o.o.d.y vomiting, were in the last extremity of mortal agony; but I did not hear a groan, a murmur, or a complaint once an hour.

Occasionally a trooper under the knife of the surgeon would swear, or a beardless Cuban boy would shriek and cry, ”Oh, my mother, my mother!” as the surgeons reduced a compound fracture of the femur and put his leg in splints; but from the long row of wounded on the ground there came no sound or sign of weakness. They were suffering,--some of them were dying,--but they were strong. Many a man whose mouth was so dry and parched with thirst that he could hardly articulate would insist on my giving water first, not to him, when it was his turn, but to some comrade who was more badly hurt or had suffered longer. Intense pain and the fear of impending death are supposed to bring out the selfish, animal characteristics of man; but they do not in the higher type of man. Not a single American soldier, in all my experience in that hospital, ever asked to be examined or treated out of his regular turn on account of the severity, painful nature, or critical state of his wound. On the contrary, they repeatedly gave way to one another, saying: ”Take this one first--he's shot through the body. I've only got a smashed foot, and I can wait.” Even the courtesies of life were not forgotten or neglected in that valley of the shadow of death. If a man could speak at all, he always said, ”Thank you,” or ”I thank you very much,” when I gave him hard bread or water. One beardless youth who had been shot through the throat, and who told me in a husky whisper that he had had no water in thirty-six hours, tried to take a swallow when I lifted his head. He strangled, coughed up a little b.l.o.o.d.y froth, and then whispered: ”It's no use; I can't. Never mind!” Our Dr. Egan afterward gave him water through a stomach-tube. If there was any weakness or selfishness, or behavior not up to the highest level of heroic manhood, among the wounded American soldiers in that hospital during those three terrible days, I failed to see it. As one of the army surgeons said to me, with the tears very near his eyes: ”When I look at those fellows and see what they stand, I am proud of being an American, and I glory in the stock. The world has nothing finer.”

It was the splendid courage and fort.i.tude of the men that made their suffering so hard to see. As the row of prostrate bodies on the ground grew longer and longer Sat.u.r.day afternoon and evening, the emotional strain of the situation became almost unbearable, and I would have exchanged all the knowledge and ability I possessed for the knowledge and skill even of a hospital steward, so that I might do something more than carry around food and water to those suffering, uncomplaining American soldiers.

Late Sat.u.r.day afternoon there was a heavy tropical shower, which drenched not only the wounded who were awaiting examination in front of the operating-tents, but also the men who had been operated upon and carried away into the long gra.s.s. I doubt, however, whether it made their condition any worse--at least for a time. Most of them had been exposed for hours to a tropical sun, and the rain must have given them, at first, a feeling of coolness and relief.

As the sun set and darkness settled down upon the camp after the short tropical twilight, candles were again lighted around the operating-tables, and the surgeons worked on without intermission and without rest. The rattle of rifles and machine-guns and the booming of artillery along the line of battle died away into an occasional sputter after dark; the full moon rose into a cloudless sky, and the stillness of the jungle south of the camp was broken only by an occasional shot from a sentry or from a Spanish sharp-shooter hidden in a tree. Around the operating-tables there was a sound of half-audible conversation as the surgeons gave directions to their a.s.sistants or discussed the injuries of the men upon whom they were at work, and now and then a peremptory call for ”Litter-squad here!” showed that another man was about to be brought to the operating-table, or carried from it into the field and laid on the ground.

At midnight Sat.u.r.day the number of wounded men that had been brought into the hospital camp was about eight hundred. All that could walk, after their wounds had been dressed, and all that could bear transportation to the sea-coast in an army wagon, were sent to Siboney to be put on board the hospital steamers and transports. There remained in the camp several hundred who were so severely injured that they could not possibly be moved, and these were carried to the eastern end of the field and laid on the ground in the high, wet gra.s.s. I cannot imagine anything more cruelly barbarous than to bring a severely wounded man back four or five miles to the hospital in a crowded, jolting army wagon, let him lie from two to four hours with hardly any protection from the blazing suns.h.i.+ne in the daytime or the drenching dew at night, rack him with agony on the operating-table, and then carry him away, weak and helpless, put him on the water-soaked ground, without shelter, blanket, pillow, food, or drink, and leave him there to suffer alone all night. And yet I saw this done with scores, if not hundreds, of men as brave and heroic as any that ever stood in a battle-line. It might not have been so,--it ought not to have been so,--but so it was; and in that hospital there were no means whatever of preventing it. The force of surgeons and hospital stewards immediately available was altogether too small to attend properly to the great number of wounded thrown suddenly upon their hands, and no men could be spared to look after the wretched and suffering soldiers in the gra.s.s whose wounds had been treated, when there were a hundred more who had not even been looked at in twenty-four hours, and who were lying in a long, closely packed row on the ground, awaiting their turns at the operating-tables. When a litter-squad had carried a man away into the bushes, they had to leave him there and hurry back to put another sufferer on a table or bring another from an ambulance or army wagon to the operating-line. Instead of the force of five surgeons and about twenty stewards and attendants with which the hospital began work on Friday, there should have been a force of fifty surgeons and at least two hundred stewards, attendants, and stretcher-bearers, so that they might have been divided into two watches, or reliefs, working and resting alternately. As it was on Friday, five surgeons and twenty attendants had to take care of the wounded from three whole divisions. They were reinforced by five more surgeons and perhaps twenty more attendants Friday evening, but even this force was so insufficient and inadequate that at midnight on Sat.u.r.day one of the highest medical officers in the camp said to me: ”This department is in a state of complete collapse.”

In nothing were the weakness and imperfect equipment of the hospital more apparent than in the provision made--or rather the lack of provision--for the care of wounded after their wounds had been dressed.

It seems to have been expected that, when injured men were brought back from the battle-line, their blankets, canteens, and rations would be brought with them; but in seventy-five per cent. of the cases this was not done, and it was unreasonable under the circ.u.mstances to expect that it would be done. The men did not go into action carrying their blankets and rations; on the contrary, most of them left all unnecessary impedimenta in their camps and went into the fight as lightly clad as possible, often stripped naked to the waist. When they were shot, their comrades picked them up and carried them to the rear just as they were.

There was no time to inquire for their personal belongings or to send to their camps for their blankets; and they came back to the hospital not only without blankets or ponchos, but often hatless, s.h.i.+rtless, and in trousers ripped up by surgeon's scissors. Some of them had empty canteens, but I did not see one who had food. Ample provision should have been made in this hospital for clothing, feeding, and supplying the wants of wounded men brought back in this dest.i.tute condition; but such provision as was made proved to be wholly inadequate. The few dozen s.h.i.+rts and blankets that the hospital contained were soon distributed, and then the wounded men were taken from the operating-tables and laid on the ground in the outskirts of the camp in the same state, as regards clothing and bedding, that they were in when picked up on the battle-field. For feeding them no arrangements whatever had been made, and, indeed, there was no food in the hospital suited to their requirements. Our Red Cross surgeon, Dr. Egan, and I brought in a few bottles of malted milk, maltine, beef extract, limes, etc., but as we could not get transportation for a single pound of stuff and had to march in twelve miles over a bad road, we could not bring much, and our limited supply of invalid food, although administered only in desperate cases, was exhausted in two or three hours.

Major Wood, who superintended the bringing in and disposition of the wounded, did everything that was possible to make them comfortable, and worked day and night with tireless energy and devotion; but there was very little that could be done with the resources at his command.