Part 11 (2/2)

The almost complete absence of landing equipment, in the shape of surf-boats, lighters, and launches, eventually proved, as I shall hereafter show, to be disastrous in the extreme; and if the navy had not come to the rescue, at Daiquiri and Siboney, it is not at all certain that General Shafter could have landed his army. In a telegram to the War Department dated ”Playa del Este, June 25,” he frankly admits this, and says: ”Without them [the navy] I could not have landed in ten days, and perhaps not at all.”

Now, it seems to me that the responsibility for this lack of boats, which came near ruining the expedition at the outset and which hampered and embarra.s.sed it for three weeks afterward, can be definitely fixed.

The difficulty to be overcome was one that might have been foreseen and provided for. If General Shafter did not foresee and provide for it, as General Scott did at Vera Cruz, he, manifestly, is the person to blame; while, on the other hand, if he did foresee it, but failed to get from the War Department the necessary boats, the department is to blame. The committee of investigation which is holding its sessions at the time this book goes to press ought to have no trouble in putting the responsibility for this deficiency where it belongs.

Boats, however, were not the only things that were lacking in the equipment of General Shafter's army. Next in importance to landing facilities come facilities for moving supplies of all kinds from the sea-coast to the front, or, in other words, means of land transportation. In his official report of the campaign General Shafter says: ”There was no lack of transportation, for at no time, up to the surrender, could all the wagons I had be used.” If I were disposed to be captious, I should say that the reason why the general could not use the wagons he had was that a large number of them lay untouched in the holds of the transports. He might have said, with equal cogency, that there was no lack of food, because at no time could all the hard bread and bacon in his s.h.i.+ps be eaten. The usefulness of food and wagons is dependent to some extent upon their location. A superfluity of wagons on board a steamer, five miles at sea, is not necessarily a proof that there are more than enough wagons on sh.o.r.e.

When the army began its march in the direction of Santiago, without suitable tents, without hospital supplies, without camp-kettles, without hammocks, without extra clothing or spare blankets, and with only a limited supply of food and ammunition, there were one hundred and eighteen army wagons still on board the transport _Cherokee_. When they were unloaded, if ever, I do not know, but they were not available in the first week of the campaign, when the army began its advance and when the roads were comparatively dry and in fairly good condition. It must be observed, moreover, that transportation is not wholly a matter of wagons. Vehicles of any kind are useless without animals to draw them; and General Shafter does not anywhere say that he had a superfluity of mules, or that he could not use all the horses he had. It was in draft-animals that the weakness of the quartermaster's department became most apparent as the campaign progressed. There were never half enough mules to equip an adequate supply-train for an army of sixteen thousand men, even if that army never went more than ten or twelve miles from its base. If it had been forced to go fifty miles from its base, the campaign would have collapsed at the outset.

General Shafter seems disposed to attribute the difficulty that he experienced in supplying his army with food to the condition of the roads rather than to the lack of mules, packers, teamsters, and wagons.

In an interview with a correspondent of the Boston ”Herald” at Santiago on August 25 he is reported as saying: ”There has been some question concerning the transportation facilities of the army. The facilities were all there, and the transportation equipment provided was all that it should have been; but our difficulties were enormous. There was only one road; to build another would have taken two years. The nature of the country, the weather, all these things helped to disorganize this department. The use of wagons was almost impossible. The pack-train, as a matter of fact, did the real service. I had not, at first, thought the pack-train would be of service; but if it had not been there, I do not know what the army would have done for food. The roads were practically impa.s.sable. With the bridges down, the wagons could not be worked. I had a great deal of concern when we were only able to get up one day's rations at a time, but as soon as we were able to get a few days'

rations ahead, we knew we were prepared for anything.”

It is hardly accurate to say, without qualification and without limitation as to time, that the ”roads were practically impa.s.sable.”

They were unquestionably very bad, and perhaps impa.s.sable, at the last; but before they became so there was ample time to take over them, with a suitable supply-train, all the tents, cooking-utensils, clothing, medical supplies, and provisions that the army so urgently needed but did not have. The road from Daiquiri and Siboney to the front did not become impa.s.sable for loaded wagons until the end of the second week in July. For ten days after the army landed it was comparatively dry and good; and for ten days or two weeks more it was at least pa.s.sable, and was constantly traversed, not only by pack-trains, but by wagons with loads.

Captain Henry L. Marcotte, a retired officer of the Seventeenth Infantry, who went with General Shafter's army as correspondent for the ”Army and Navy Journal,” describes the condition of the road as follows:

”The road from Daiquiri to Siboney, about seven miles, leads over the foot-hill slopes of the mountain-ranges and crosses a winding stream several times during that distance. The road-bed, being mostly of rock, and well shaded by tropical growths, with good water every few hundred yards, made the journey for the Catling battery a picnic without obstacles. From Siboney to [a point] near El Pozo the road was as good as [from Daiquiri] to Siboney, with the exception of one part. This, with five minutes' work, was made pa.s.sable for the battery and for the three army wagons which the quartermaster's department had ventured to send out. In fact, the road, all the way to Santiago, proved equal to most country roads, and there was not the slightest excuse for not using the hundred or more wagons stowed in the hold of the Cherokee to transport tentage, medical and other supplies close upon the heels of the slow-moving Fifth Corps.... There is a mystery about the 'condition of the road' that may remain so unless it is fixed upon as the scape-goat for the lack of transportation.... The condition of the road at no time would have prevented a farmer from taking a load of hay to market.... There was no point from Daiquiri to the trenches which could not have been as easily reached by wagons as by pack-mules between June 22 and July 18.”

Captain Marcotte, as a retired officer of the regular army, is better qualified than I am to express an opinion with regard to the availability of a road for military purposes, and he does not hesitate to say that the road from Daiquiri and Siboney to the front was practicable for loaded wagons up to July 18, or for a period of nearly a month subsequent to the landing of the army. During a part of that time, he says, its condition was not such as to prevent a farmer from taking a load of hay over it.

I myself went over this road from Siboney to the front four times between June 26 and July 9,--twice on foot, once in an ambulance, and once in an army wagon,--and my own judgment is that for ten days after the disembarkation of the army the road was comparatively dry and good.

After that it became muddy and bad, but was by no means impa.s.sable, even for heavily loaded wagons, when I traversed it for the last time, five days before the surrender of Santiago. With the fall of that city the army's base of supplies was transferred from Siboney to Santiago harbor, and the condition of the Siboney road ceased to be a factor in the transportation problem. When a dozen steamers, loaded with supplies of all kinds, anch.o.r.ed off the Santiago piers, on July 15, the bulk of the army was within two miles of them, and there ought to have been no difficulty in getting to the troops everything that they needed.

If the road from Siboney to the front was practicable for both pack-mules and wagons from the time when the army landed to the time when its base of supplies was transferred to Santiago, and if, as General Shafter a.s.serts, ”the facilities were all there, and the transportation equipment provided was all that it should have been,” why was the army left for almost a month without suitable tents, without adequate hospital supplies, without camp-kettles, without cooking-utensils other than tin plates, coffee-cups, and old tomato-cans, without hammocks, without extra clothing or spare blankets, and with only a limited supply of food? That this was the state of the army is beyond question.

Lieutenant John H. Parker of the Gatling-gun battery reported to Adjutant-General Corbin, under date of July 23, that he and his men had been entirely without tents for a period of twenty-eight days.

John Henry of the Twenty-first Infantry wrote to his cousin in Lowell, Ma.s.sachusetts, that his regiment had been on the firing line seventeen days. For two days they had nothing at all to eat, and no shelter, and lay on the ground in puddles of water.

Ex-Representative F. H. Krebs of the Second Ma.s.sachusetts Regiment says that for twenty-six consecutive days he had only hard bread, bacon, and coffee, and that for three days he lived on one hardtack a day. The soldiers of his regiment did all their cooking in tin plates and coffee-cups, and slept for two months on the wet ground, under what are called ”shelter”-tents, for the reason, I suppose,--_lucus a non lucendo_,--that they do not shelter.

Dr. James S. Kennedy, first a.s.sistant surgeon of the Second Division hospital, wrote from the hospital camp near Santiago: ”There is an utter lack of suitable medicines with which to combat disease. There has been so much diarrhea, dysentery, and fever, and no medicine at all to combat them, that men have actually died for want of it. Four days after my reporting here there was not a single medicine in the entire hospital for the first two diseases, and nothing but quinine for the fever.”

Dr. Edward L. Munson reported to Surgeon-General Sternberg, under date of July 29, that ”at the time of the battle of Las Guasimas there were absolutely no dressings, hospital tentage, or supplies of any kind on sh.o.r.e, within reach of the surgeons already landed. The medical department was compelled to rely upon its own energies and improvise its own transportation. I feel justified in saying that at the time of my departure [from Siboney] large quant.i.ties of medical supplies, urgently needed on sh.o.r.e, still remained on the transports, a number of which were under orders to return to the United States. Had the medical department carried along double the amount of supplies, it is difficult to see how, with the totally inadequate land and water transportation provided by the quartermaster's department, the lamentable conditions on sh.o.r.e could have been in any way improved. The regimental medical officers had no means of transportation even for their field-chests.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Senn, chief of the surgical operating staff, in a letter to the ”Medical Record,” dated ”Siboney, August 3,” disclaimed responsibility for the want of medical and surgical supplies in the field-hospitals, and said: ”The lack of proper transportation from the landing to the front cannot be charged to the medical department.”

Finally, General Shafter himself, in a telegram to President McKinley, dated ”Santiago, August 8,” reported as follows: ”At least seventy-five per cent. of the command have been down with malarial fever, from which they recover very slowly.... What put my command in its present condition was the twenty days of the campaign when they had nothing but meat, bread, and coffee, without change of clothes, and without any shelter whatever.”

In view of the above statements, made, not by irresponsible ”newspaper correspondents and camp-followers,” but by the officers and men of the Fifth Army-Corps, and in view of the confirmation given to them by the commanding general himself in a telegram to the President, it is proper, I think, to press once more the question, Why was the army left for almost a month without suitable tents, without adequate hospital supplies, without camp-kettles, without cooking-utensils, without hammocks, without extra clothing or spare blankets, and with only a limited supply of food? The answer to the question, it seems to me, is obvious. The army had not half transportation enough to supply its wants. General Miles discovered this fact when he reached Siboney on July 11, and he immediately cabled the War Department for more draft-animals; but it was then too late to make good the deficiency. The troops were already breaking down, as General Shafter admitted in his telegram to the President, from ”twenty days of meat, bread, and coffee, without change of clothes, and without any shelter whatever.” I do not know how many draft-animals General Shafter had; but in four journeys over the road between Siboney and the front I happened to see only two pack-trains, one of them going forward with ammunition, and the other returning without load. But whatever may have been the strength of the pack-train equipment, it was certainly inadequate, and the common practice of detailing soldiers to march into Siboney after food and bring it back to the front on their shoulders or on improvised hand-litters showed the urgency of the need. Many such details or deputations came on board the _State of Texas_, obtained small quant.i.ties of hospital supplies or delicacies for the sick, and carried them back to the camps in their hands.

This inadequacy of transportation facilities was apparent to every one who had any knowledge of the condition of the army, and it was a subject of common talk in Siboney, in Daiquiri, on board the fleet, and in every one of our hospitals and camps. I shall try, in another chapter, to show how it affected the health and fighting efficiency of the troops, and how near it came to wrecking not only the Fifth Army-Corps, but the whole Cuban expedition. Suffice it to say, for the present, that General Shafter sailed from Tampa without a sufficient number of mules, teamsters, and packers to supply, equip, and maintain his army in the field. The responsibility for this deficiency, as well as the responsibility for the lack of boats, must rest either upon the War Department or upon the general in command. If the latter did not ask for adequate means of land and water transportation before he left Tampa, he is the person to be held accountable. If he asked and failed to obtain, the War Department must stand in the gap.

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