Spanish-American War, 1898 -- Regimental histories; United States. Army. Volunteer Cavalry, 1st
That afternoon I arranged to get our baggage up, sending back strong
details of men to carry up their own goods, and, as usual, impressing
into the service a kind of improvised pack-train consisting of the
officers' horses, of two or three captured Spanish cavalry horses, two
or three mules which had been shot and abandoned and which our men had
taken and cured, and two or three Cuban ponies. Hitherto we had simply
been sleeping by the trenches or immediately in their rear, with
nothing in the way of shelter and only one blanket to every three or
four men. Fortunately there had been little rain. We now got up the
shelter tents of the men and some flies for the hospital and for the
officers; and my personal baggage appeared. I celebrated its advent by
a thorough wash and shave.
Later, I twice snatched a few hours to go to the rear and visit such
of my men as I could find in the hospitals. Their patience was
extraordinary. Kenneth Robinson, a gallant young trooper, though
himself severely (I supposed at the time mortally) wounded, was
noteworthy for the way in which he tended those among the wounded who
were even more helpless, and the cheery courage with which he kept up
their spirits. Gievers, who was shot through the hips, rejoined us at
the front in a fortnight. Captain Day was hardly longer away. Jack
Hammer, who, with poor Race Smith, a gallant Texas lad who was
mortally hurt beside me on the summit of the hill, had been on kitchen
detail, was wounded and sent to the rear; he was ordered to go to the
United States, but he heard that we were to assault Santiago, so he
struggled out to rejoin us, and thereafter stayed at the front. Cosby,
badly wounded, made his way down to the sea-coast in three days,
unassisted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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