Part 9 (2/2)
After Colonel Roosevelt had taken the initiative, all the American general officers united in a ”round robin” addressed to General Shafter. It reads:
We, the undersigned officers commanding the various brigades, divisions, etc., of the Army of Occupation in Cuba, are of the unanimous opinion that this army should be at once taken out of the island of Cuba and sent to some point on the Northern sea-coast of the United States; that can be done without danger to the people of the United States; that yellow fever in the army at present is not epidemic; that there are only a few sporadic cases; but that the army is disabled by malarial fever to the extent that its efficiency is destroyed, and that it is in a condition to be practically entirely destroyed by an epidemic of yellow fever, which is sure to come in the near future.
We know from the reports of competent officers and from personal observations that the army is unable to move into the interior, and that there are no facilities for such a move if attempted, and that it could not be attempted until too late. Moreover, the best medical authorities of the island say that with our present equipment we could not live in the interior during the rainy season without losses from malarial fever, which is almost as deadly as yellow fever.
This army must be moved at once, or perish. As the army can be safely moved now, the persons responsible for preventing such a move will be responsible for the unnecessary loss of many thousands of lives.
Our opinions are the result of careful personal observation, and they are also based on the unanimous opinion of our medical officers with the army, who understand the situation absolutely.
J. FORD KENT, Major-General Volunteers Commanding First Division, Fifth Corps.
J. C. BATES, Major-General Volunteers Commanding Provisional Division.
ADNAH R. CHAFFEE, Major-General Commanding Third Brigade, Second Division.
SAMUEL S. SUMNER, Brigadier-General Volunteers Commanding First Brigade, Cavalry.
WILL LUDLOW, Brigadier-General Volunteers Commanding First Brigade, Second Division.
ADELBERT AMES, Brigadier-General Volunteers Commanding Third Brigade, First Division.
LEONARD WOOD, Brigadier-General Volunteers Commanding the City of Santiago.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Colonel Commanding Second Cavalry Brigade.
Major M. W. Wood, the chief Surgeon of the First Division, said: ”The army must be moved North,” adding, with emphasis, ”or it will be unable to move itself.”
General Ames has sent the following cable message to Was.h.i.+ngton:
CHARLES H. ALLEN, a.s.sistant Secretary of the Navy:
This army is incapable, because of sickness, of marching anywhere except to the transports. If it is ever to return to the United States it must do so at once.
APPENDIX D
CORRECTIONS
It has been suggested to me that when Bucky O'Neill spoke of the vultures tearing our dead, he was thinking of no modern poet, but of the words of the prophet Ezekiel: ”Speak unto every feathered fowl . . . . . ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth.”
At San Juan the Sixth Cavalry was under Major Lebo, a tried and gallant officer. I learn from a letter of Lieutenant McNamee that it was he, and not Lieutenant Hartwick, by whose orders the troopers of the Ninth cast down the fence to enable me to ride my horse into the lane. But one of the two lieutenants of B troop was overcome by the heat that day; Lieutenant Rynning was with his troop until dark.
One night during the siege, when we were digging trenches, a curious stampede occurred (not in my own regiment) which it may be necessary some time to relate.
Lieutenants W. E. s.h.i.+pp and W. H. Smith were killed, not far from each other, while gallantly leading their troops on the slope of Kettle Hill. Each left a widow and young children.
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