A very deep impression was made upon me by the condition of our army at the end of two months’ campaigning in this tropical region. It was utterly used up and of no value whatever as a fighting machine. Fully four-fifths of the men were having fever. This small army of sixteen thousand men was as fine a body of soldiers when they landed at Siboney as could probably be gotten together, but after two months’ campaigning in this tropical jungle, and after several weeks of fever from which no one was free, their stamina and morale were completely gone. After the surrender of the Spanish garrison there was a complete let-down on our side. Everybody wanted to go home. No one could see any need of staying in Cuba, and every individual was perfectly certain that he would die if he remained there a month longer. Officers and men became nervous and hysterical. I commanded the base hospital at Siboney, and it was my disagreeable duty to select from day to day those who would have to remain. Many times every day the poor fellows, officers and men, would break down and cry when told that they could not leave on the next ship. I could form some idea of what it must have been among the French at Haiti when they knew that they could not get away, but had to stay and die. Being immune to yellow fever, I made application to go with the troops that took possession of Havana. We arrived there in December, 1898. The military authorities concluded that this was the opportunity which the United States had been awaiting for the past two hundred years. Thinking that yellow fever was a filth disease, they believed that if we could get Havana clean enough, we could free it from yellow fever. It was felt that if we could eliminate Havana as a focus of infection, the United States would cease to be subject to epidemics. This meant so much to the United States, financially and otherwise, that the authorities determined to make all other efforts secondary to this sanitary effort. The city was cleaned as well as it was possible to cleanse it. This remark applies as well to the private premises as to the public highways. Energetic and capable Army officers were placed at the head of various municipal departments, and these departments were thoroughly organized and made as efficient as possible. By the middle of the year 1900 all the city governments were perfectly organized, and were accomplishing all that it was possible for them to accomplish. I believe that Havana was cleaner than any other city had ever been up to that time.