STARTING FOR THE FIELD W ar broke out between the United States and Spain on April 21, 1898. A week or ten days later I was asked by the editors of the "Outlook" of New York to go to Cuba with Miss Clara Barton, on the Red Cross steamer State of Texas , and report the war and the work of the Red Cross for that periodical. After a hasty conference with the editorial and business staffs of the paper I was to represent, I accepted the proposition, and on May 5 left Washington for Key West, where th

UNDER THE RED CROSS W hen Miss Barton joined the State of Texas at Key West on April 29 there seemed to be no immediate prospect of an invasion of Cuba by the United States army, and, consequently, no prospect of an opportunity to relieve the distress of the starving Cuban people. Knowing that such distress must necessarily have been greatly intensified by the blockade, and anxious to do something to mitigate it,—or, at least, to show the readiness of the Red Cross to undertake its mitigation,—M

ON THE EDGE OF WAR U ntil the illuminating search-light of war was turned upon the island of Key West, it was, to the people of the North generally, little more than a name attached to a small, arid coral reef lying on the verge of the Gulf Stream off the southern extremity of Florida. Few people knew anything definitely about it, and to nine readers out of ten its name suggested nothing more interesting or attractive than Cuban filibusters, sponges, and cigars. In less than a month, however, af

WAR CORRESPONDENTS AND DESPATCH-BOATS F ew things impressed me more forcibly, in the course of my two weeks' stay at Key West, than the costly, far-sighted, and far-reaching preparations made by the great newspapers of the country to report the war. There were in the city of Tampa, at the time of my arrival, nearly one hundred war correspondents, who represented papers in all parts of the United States, from New England to the Pacific coast, and who were all expecting to go to Cuba with the army

OFF FOR SANTIAGO T he most important event in the early history of the war, and the event that controlled the movements of the Red Cross steamer State of Texas , as well as the movements of General Shafter's army, was the arrival of the Spanish fleet of cruisers and torpedo-boats at Santiago de Cuba on May 19. There had been skirmishes and bombardments before that time, at Matanzas, Cardenas, and various other points on the Cuban coast; but none of them had any strategic importance, or any parti

THE CUBAN COAST T he course usually taken by steamers from Key West to Santiago lies along the northern coast of Cuba, through the Nicholas and Old Bahama channels, to Cape Maysi, and thence around the eastern end of the island by the Windward Passage. Inasmuch, however, as we were going without a convoy, and Commodore Remey had advised us to keep out of sight of land, in order to avoid possible interception by a Spanish gunboat from some unblockaded port on the coast, we decided to go around th

THE FIGHT AT GUANTANAMO A s the southeastern coast of Cuba is high and bold, with deep water extending close up to the line of surf, vessels going back and forth between Santiago and Guantanamo run very near to the land; and the ever-changing panorama of tropical forest and cloud-capped mountain which presents itself to the eye as the steamer glides swiftly past, within a mile of the rock-terraced bluffs and headlands, is a constant source of surprise and delight, even to the most experienced vo

THE LANDING AND ADVANCE OF THE ARMY E arly Sunday morning, at the little zinc-walled telegraph office under the camp of the marines at Guantanamo, I happened to meet two war correspondents—one of them, if I remember rightly, Mr. Howard of the New York "Journal"—who had just come from the front with a detailed account of the fight at Guasimas. This fight, they said, was not a mere insignificant skirmish, as Admiral Sampson supposed when I saw him on Saturday, but a serious battle, in which a part

A WALK TO THE FRONT W hen I went on deck, the morning after our return to Siboney, I found that the State of Texas had drifted, during the night, half-way to the mouth of the Aguadores ravine, and was lying two or three miles off the coast, within plain sight of the blockading fleet. The sun was just rising over the foot-hills beyond Daiquiri, and on the higher slopes of the Cobre range it was already day; but the deep notch at Siboney was still in dark-blue shadow, and out of it a faint land-br

SIBONEY ON THE EVE OF BATTLE D uring my absence at the front on Monday, the auxiliary cruiser Yale , with two or three regiments of Michigan troops on board, arrived off Siboney, and when I went on deck on Tuesday morning these reinforcements were just beginning to go ashore in a long line of small boats, towed by a steam-launch from one of the war-ships of the blockading fleet. The landing of troops and supplies on the Cuban coast was the first serious difficulty with which General Shafter had

THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN G eneral Shafter went to the front to take personal command of the army on Wednesday, June 29. At that time the divisions of Generals Kent, Wheeler, and Lawton were encamped on the Siboney-Santiago road, between the high ridge of Sevilla, from which I had seen the city two days before, and a half-ruined house and plantation, two or three miles farther on, known as El Pozo. Most of the troops were in the valley of a small stream which rises on the western slope o

THE FIELD-HOSPITAL O n 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 P

SIBONEY DURING THE ARMISTICE O n the morning of July 3, General Shafter, who had recovered confidence, demanded the immediate surrender of Santiago, threatening, in case of refusal, to bombard the city; and negotiations under a flag of truce continued thereafter for a period of ten days. Meanwhile, on the evening of Friday, July 8, Miss Barton, Dr. Egan, Dr. Hubbell, and I returned to the State of Texas to meet Mrs. J. Addison Porter, wife of the President's secretary, who had just arrived on th

ENTERING SANTIAGO HARBOR A s soon as possible after our return from Guantanamo, Miss Barton sent a note to Admiral Sampson, on board the flagship New York, saying that, as the inhabitants of the city were reported to be in a starving condition, she hoped that food would be allowed to go in with the forces. The admiral promptly replied: "The food shall enter in advance of the forces; you may go in this afternoon." Almost any other naval commander, after destroying a hostile fleet and reducing all

THE CAPTURED CITY W e lay at anchor all Sunday night off the foot of the street known as Calle Baja de la Marina, and early on Monday morning steamed up to the most spacious and convenient pier in the city, made fast our lines, and began to discharge cargo. The dock and warehouse facilities of Santiago are fairly good. They are not so extensive as those of an American seaport of equal importance, but so far as they go they leave little to be desired. The pier at which the State of Texas lay was

THE FEEDING OF THE HUNGRY T he problem of supplying myself with food and drink in the half-starved city of Santiago, after the steamer had been quarantined against me, proved to be even more serious than I had anticipated. In my walk up Marina and Enramadas streets and out to the Caney road on Tuesday forenoon I passed two or three restaurants bearing such seductive and tantalizing names as "Venus," "Nectar," and "Delicias," etc., but they were all closed, and in a stroll of two miles through th

MORRO CASTLE I n the course of the first week after I landed in Santiago, I made a number of interesting excursions to points in the vicinity of the harbor, for the purpose of ascertaining the real nature and strength of the Spanish fortifications and intrenchments. From the front of our army, after the battle of July 1-2, I had carefully examined, with a strong glass, the blockhouses and rifle-pits which defended the city on the land side; and from the bridge of the State of Texas , two weeks l

FEVER IN THE ARMY T he most serious and threatening feature of the situation at Santiago after the capture of the city was the ill health of the army. In less than a month after it began its Cuban campaign the Fifth Army-Corps was virtually hors de combat . On Friday, July 22, I made a long march around the right wing from a point near the head of the bay to the Siboney road, and had an opportunity to see what the condition of the troops was in that part of our line. I do not think that more tha

THE SANTIAGO CAMPAIGN I t is my purpose, in the concluding chapters of this volume, to review as fully and dispassionately as I can the series of military operations known collectively as "the Santiago campaign," including, first, the organization and equipment of the expedition of General Shafter at Tampa; second, the disembarkation of troops and the landing of supplies at Daiquiri and Siboney; third, the strategic plan of the campaign and its execution; and, fourth, the wrecking of the army by

THE SANTIAGO CAMPAIGN ( Continued ) W hen , on June 14, General Shafter's army sailed for the southeastern coast of Cuba, without adequate facilities for disembarkation, and without a sufficient number of mules, packers, teamsters, and army wagons to insure its proper equipment, subsistence, and maintenance in the field, it was, ipso facto , predestined to serious embarrassment and difficulty, if not to great suffering and peril. No amount of zeal, energy, and ability on the part of quartermaste

THE SANTIAGO CAMPAIGN ( Concluded ) IV. The wrecking of the army by disease after the decisive battle of July 1-2. The army under command of General Shafter left Tampa on the fourteenth day of June, and arrived off the Cuban coast near Santiago on the 20th of the same month. Disembarkation began at Daiquiri on the 22d, and ended at Siboney on the 24th. On the morning of June 25 the whole army was ashore, and was then in a state of almost perfect health and efficiency. One week later the soldiers