Perhaps no better illustration can be given of the new military conditions which modern strategy and tactics have to meet than a picture that shows how an actual battlefield looks. During the third day the fighting had been very severe, and in one place in the line the British had been compelled to charge a position several times in order to prevent being completely surrounded. There were eight Maxim one-pounder machine guns, several Colts’ machine guns, and a large number of heavy guns in action during the entire day, and at one time they were all concentrated at one point. I took a photograph, which shows better than anything else how modern warfare has lost all picturesque features. This picture shows nothing but a placid landscape that might have been taken on any farm, instead of which thousands of men were fighting desperately. At the time the photograph was taken there was a charge going on, but the khaki clothing makes the men invisible to the camera. Bullets were singing across the plain like sheets of rain, and shells were screeching overhead; along the ridge there was a constant crackling of small arms; but the landscape itself was as quiet as that of a New England farm. CHAPTER VI. Feeding the Two Armies [Illustration: U. S. Officer providing for feeding the poor.] The most important work of an army is that of the commissary department, which is the one division of labor that receives the least credit and no glory. An army might get along without its engineer corps, or its signal service; it could at least march without guns; but it cannot move a foot without its full supply of food. A few days before Santiago fell, General Shafter wired the War Department that he thought it likely he would be compelled to withdraw. The despatch was made public in the press; to withdraw meant a retreat, and instantly a wave of indignation arose against General Shafter. He was blamed for being weak; he was blamed for allowing himself to be drawn into a trap; he was blamed for everything that the criticising public could think of in their resentment. That the American army should retreat was maddening to the people, for they could see no reason for such action, except the power of the enemy against them. It was not the enemy, however, that threatened to drive the Fifth Army Corps back, nor was it the weakness of the commanding general--it was a rain storm. The columns had pushed forward toward Santiago as fast as possible, and so long as the line of communication between the front and the base of supplies at Siboney was open all went well. But suddenly it rained, and then all was different. The road was eight miles of swimming mud, flanked by impossible jungle; a wheel could not turn in it, and the pack animals could flounder through it but slowly. Hence the supply of rations at the front began to dwindle away, and General Shafter decided that he must move his army toward the food supply, as the food supply could not move toward the army.