Slavery and Four Years of War Part 71

I was a.s.signed to the Seventh Army Corps, then being organized, with headquarters at Jacksonville, Florida. I reported there to Major-General Fitzhugh Lee, its commander, and was a.s.signed to the First Division, then located at Miami, 366 miles farther south, on the east coast of Florida, at the terminus of railroad transportation.

I a.s.sumed command of the Division, July 7th, with headquarters at Miami. It then numbered about 7500 officers and enlisted men. My tents were pitched in a cocoanut grove on the sh.o.r.e of the Biscayne Bay. The corps had been designated to lead an early attack on Havana. I had exercised no military command for a third of a century, and had misgivings of my ability to discharge, properly, the important duties. This feeling was not decreased by the fact that the division was composed of southern troops--1st and 2d Louisiana; 1st and 2d Alabama; and 1st and 2d Texas Volunteer Infantry regiments. Some of these regiments and many of the companies were commanded by ex-Confederate officers, and one brigade --the Second--was commanded by Brigadier-General W. W. Gordon, an ex-Confederate officer from Georgia. He commanded this brigade until the protocol, when he was made one of the evacuation commissioners for Porto Rico. Several of the staff were sons of Confederate officers. The only officer, other than staff-officers, who was not southern, was Brigadier-General Loyd Wheaton, who commanded the First Brigade. He had served in the Union Army in the Civil War from Illinois, and became, after the war, an officer in the United States Army, from which he was appointed a general officer of Volunteers in the Spanish War. Wheaton remained in my command until after our army occupied Havana, and commanded a division that entered that city, January 1, 1899, then shortly thereafter was ordered to the Philippines, where he has, in several battles with the Filipinos, distinguished himself, and deservedly acquired fame.

I soon, however, became familiar with my duties, and the command was a most agreeable and pleasant one. I became warmly attached to and proud of it; and it was, throughout, loyal to me. No better volunteer soldiers were ever mustered, and if occasion had arisen they would have proved their skill and valor by heroic deeds and willing sacrifices.

The camp at Miami was the farthest south of any in the United States, consequently the hottest, and by reason of the situation near the Everglades and the Miami River (their princ.i.p.al outlet to the sea) the water proved bad, and only obtainable for the troops through pipes laid on the rocky surface of the earth from the Everglades at the head of the river. It thus came warm, and sometimes offensive by reason of vegetable matter contained in it.

The reefs--an extension of the Florida Reefs--which lay four miles from the west sh.o.r.e of the bay, cut off easterly sea breezes; and the mosquitoes were at times so numerous as to make life almost unbearable. All possible was done for the health and comfort of the command. Notwithstanding the location, hotness of the season, and bad general conditions, the health of the soldiers was better, numbers considered, than in any other camp in the United States.

A good military hospital was established under capable medical officers, and, through some patriotic ladies--the wife and daughter of General W. W. Gordon and others--a convalescent hospital was established where the greatest care was taken of the sick, and wholesome delicacies were provided for them. A feeling of unrest amounting to dissatisfaction, however, arose, which caused the War Department to order my command to Camp Cuba Libre, Jacksonville, Florida. It was accordingly transported there by rail early in August, my headquarters having been at Miami just one month. My division was then camped in proximity to the St. John's River at Fairfield, immediately east of Jacksonville. My headquarters tents were pitched in a pine forest. Here the general conditions were much better than at Miami, though much sickness, chiefly typhoid and malarial fevers, prevailed in the corps, my own division having a far less per centum of cases than either of the other two. The water was artesian and good, but the absence of anything like a clay soil rendered it impossible to keep the camps well policed and the drainage was difficult. Florida sand is not a disinfectant; clay is. This camp, however, had a smaller list of sick in proportion to numbers than was reported in other camps farther north.

There was added to my division at Jacksonville, before any were mustered out, the 1st Ohio (Colonel C. B. Hunt) and the 4th U. S.

Volunteer Infantry (Colonel James S. Pett.i.t), the two const.i.tuting a third brigade, commanded by Colonel Hunt. My division then numbered about 11,000; the corps something over 32,000.

I commanded the corps, in the absence of General Lee, from the 14th to the 22d of August, 1898. Again, September 27th, I a.s.sumed command of the corps and retained it until October 6th, when I took a leave of absence home, returning _via_ Washington for consultation with the authorities. I resumed command of the corps (then removed to Camp Onward, Savannah, Georgia), October 25th, and retained it until November 11th, 1898.

General Lee being about to depart for Havana, Cuba, I a.s.sumed, December 8th, command of all the United States forces at Savannah, consisting of regulars and volunteers.

The President, William McKinley, the Secretary of War, R. A. Alger, and others of the President's cabinet, visited Savannah, December 17th and 18th, and reviewed (17th), under my command, all the troops then there; about 16,000 of all arms, some of whom had seen service at Santiago, Cuba, and in Porto Rico.

The Springfield rifles with which the volunteers had been armed, were exchanged at Savannah for Krag-Jorgensen magazine (calibre .30) rifles.

The troops while at Savannah were generally in good health, although a few cases of cerebro or spinal meningitis occurred, owing to frequent changes of temperature.

The secret of preserving the health of soldiers is in regular drill and exercise, ventilation of clothing, bedding, and tents, and in cleanliness of person and camps. Exposure to sun and air purifies and disinfects better than lime or chemicals.

I superintended the final equipment and shipment to Cuba of about 16,000 troops; about one half were volunteers of the Seventh Corps, who went to Havana.

While at Jacksonville, the war with Spain having ended, a number of volunteer regiments were mustered out, and the Seventh Corps was reorganized into two divisions. The 1st Texas, Colonel W. H.

Mabry (who died near Havana, January 4, 1899), and 2d Louisiana, Colonel Elmer E. Wood, only, were left of my original First Division, to which was added the 3d Nebraska, Colonel William Jennings Bryan (who resigned at Savannah December 10, 1898); the 4th Illinois, Colonel Eben Swift; the 9th Illinois, Colonel James R. Campbell, and the 2d South Carolina, Colonel Wilie Jones. The first three regiments const.i.tuted the First Brigade, commanded by General Loyd Wheaton, and the last three, the Second Brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Henry T. Douglas, who had served in the Confederate Army in the Civil War. He was an excellent officer.

I embarked for Havana on the 26th of December, 1898, with my headquarters, including my staff, provost-guard, etc., on the _Panama_, a ship captured from the Spanish early in the war. I arrived in Havana Harbor the evening of the 28th, and the next day reached Camp Columbia, southwest of Havana about eight miles, at Buena Vista, near Marianao, where my last military headquarters were established, in tents, as always before. The troops were prepared to take possession of Havana on its surrender by the Spaniards, January 1, 1899. Major-Generals Brooke, Lee, Ludlow, and some other officers attended to the ceremonial part in the surrender of the city, and it became my duty to march the Seventh Corps and other troops in the vicinity of Havana into it for the purpose of taking public and actual possession. I, accordingly, early New Year morning, moved my command, numbering, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, about 9000, to and along the sea-sh.o.r.e, crossing the Almendares River on pontoons, near its mouth, thence through Vedado to the foot of the Prado, opposite Morro Castle, located east of the neck of the harbor. The formal ceremonies being over (12 M.), the troops were moved up the Prado, pa.s.sing Major-General Brooke and others on the reviewing-stand at the Inglaterra Hotel, then through princ.i.p.al streets to camp, having made a march of about eighteen miles, under a tropical sun, the day being excessively hot for even that climate. The soldiers endured the march well. The day was a memorable one. A city which had been under monarchical rule for four hundred years witnessed the power of freedom, represented by the host of American soldiers, under the flag of a Republic, move triumphantly through its streets, with the avowed purpose of securing freedom to all the people.

The Spanish residents did not partake of the joyous feeling or partic.i.p.ate in the wild demonstrations of the Cuban inhabitants.

The latter exhibited a frantic hilarity at times; then a dazed feeling seemed to come over them, in which condition they stood and stared, as in meditation. The natural longing to be free had possessed these people, but when they were confronted with the fact of personal freedom it was too much for them to fully realize, or to estimate what the absence of absolute tyranny meant for them.

They appeared in the fronts and on the roofs of the houses, and along the sides of the streets, displaying all the tokens and symbols of happiness they possessed. Flowers were thrown in great profusion, and wild shouts went up from men, women, and children; especially from children, as, in some way, they seemed to know that a severance of their country from Spain meant more for them that it did for the older people. The Cubans are of mixed races, though they are not to be despised. Some have pure Castilian blood, some are from other European countries, and some are of pure African descent, many of the latter having once been in slavery; but many of the Cubans proper are of a mixed blood, including the Spanish, African, some Indian, and a general admixture of the people who early settled in the American tropics. There do not seem to be any race distinctions where Cubans alone are concerned. The African and those of mixed blood mingle freely together; and in the insurgent army officers of all ranks were chosen from the pure or mixed-blood African as freely as from others. The Cuban colored people seem to be exceptionally intelligent and energetic, and have a high reputation as brave soldiers. The typical Cuban does not belong to the coast cities, the inhabitants of which are more distinctly Spanish, especially the dominant cla.s.s. These cities did little towards the insurrections, and their inhabitants, as a ma.s.s, can claim little of the glory in making Cuba free or independent. Many of the princ.i.p.al officers of the Cuban army were educated men, and some were of a high order, capable of deeds, on the theatre of war, worthy of the best soldiers of any age. When our war with Spain broke out, the latter had over 200,000 regular soldiers, besides volunteers, on the island, and the insurgent bands were few in number, without good arms, with little ammunition and no quartermaster, commissary, or pay department. Cuba had no permanently located civil government, and the insurgents owned no ship on the seas, nor did they possess a single coast city, or a harbor where supplies could come to them from abroad. They having held the Spanish army at bay for years, and often confined large parts of it, almost in a state of siege, within cities and fortified lines, all circ.u.mstances considered, forces us to conclude that talent, skill, endurance, and bravery were possessed by the Cuban officers, and that the ranks were filled with devoted soldiers. The insurrections were of long duration (ten and four years), yet Spain, in 1898, had made no substantial progress in suppressing the last one, though the most barbarous methods were adopted. We exploit the partisan heroes of our Revolution, such as Francis Marion and others, yet they only acted with and against small bands, leaving our armies to meet the large organized forces of the British. What is to be said of the Cuban patriot officer who, year by year, maintained, unsupported, a war for independence against a relentless foe, equipped with the best arms the world has yet known?

My work in Cuba was confined to a military command, princ.i.p.ally outside of the cities. My men were in carefully selected camps, which were constantly throughly policed and supplied with wholesome water, piped form the Vento (Havana) Water-works. Thanks to a thorough enforcement of a good sanitary system, the general health of my command was good throughout, only a few cases of typhoid or malarial fever appeared, and there were less than half a dozen cases of yellow fever among my soldiers. There was no epidemic of any disease in the camp. The yellow fever cases developed among men who, out of curiosity, exposed themselves in foul places about old forts and wharves, or in the unused dungeons of Morro and other castles. Yellow fever is a _place_ disease, not generally contagious by contact with the sick.

My time was taken up in Cuba in keeping the peace and preserving order, and with the care of the camps and field-hospitals, and, as throughout my military service, with the drill and discipline of my command, often turning the corps out for review by superior officers. I made incursions to the interior of the island, and observed the devastation of that magnificently beautiful country, with its stately royal palms, etc., and noted the depopulation, under Weyler's reconcentrado plan, of the richest and once most populous rural parts of the island. I saw the Cuban soldiers in their camps or bivouacs, and made the acquaintance of many of their officers, and formed a high regard for them; but it was no part of my duty to try to solve the great, yet unsettled, Cuban problem, and I must be silent here.(20)

The muster out of the volunteers commenced again in March, 1899, and progressed rapidly. The Secretary of War visited Cuba, and with Major-Generals Brooke, Ludlow, Wilson, and other officers, reviewed what troops remained of the Seventh Corps, with others, near Marianao, March 29, 1899. On this occasion, my riding horses having been shipped away preparatory to my leaving Cuba, I rode a strange horse, which at a critical time in the review ran away, carrying me, in much danger, some distance from the reviewing officers. I recovered control of the horse, but dismounted him and mounted another, which proved equally untamed, and he likewise, a little later, attempted to run afield or cast me off. Fortunately these exceptional accidents terminated without injury; and with that review ended my public military service--_forever_.

The fatal illness of my beloved and devoted wife and her death (March 12, 1899) caused me (with my son) to go to my Ohio home.

I returned to Cuba with Captain Horace C. Keifer, who was on my staff continuously during my service in the Spanish War.

All arrangements having been completed for the early muster out of the volunteers of the Seventh Corps not already gone, and my mission in the army being practically at an end, and my command proper disbanded, I took ship (the _Yarmouth_), in Havana Harbor, March 30th, and proceeded _via_ Port Tampa, home, where I was mustered out of the military service May 12, 1899, having been in the army as a Major-General eleven months and three days. During my service in the field in the Spanish War I was not off duty on account of illness, injury, or accident.

I had an attack of typhoid fever, at my home in April, from which I soon recovered, doubtless contracted while travelling to or from Cuba.

I had now lived about five years in a tent, or without shelter, in war times, through all seasons, and being in my sixty-fourth year, gave up all inclination to continue in military life, knowing the field is for younger men. My duties in the army, though always arduous, were pleasant, hence gratifying. I had no serious trouble with any officer or soldier, though I tried to do my duty in the discipline of my command. My personal attachment to superior and inferior officers, especially members of my military staff, was and is of no ordinary kind. I congratulate myself on being able to attach to me, loyally, some of the most accomplished, hard- working, conscientious, and highly educated officers of the United States Army, as well as others of the volunteers, the service has known. A list of officers (nine of whom were sons of former Confederate officers) who served, at some time, on my division staff in the field, is given in Appendix F.

Here this narrative must end with only a parting word as to the Spanish War.

Dewey destroyed the entire Spanish fleet, with much loss of life, in Manila Bay, May 1, 1898; seven Americans were wounded, none killed. Admiral Cervera, with the pride of the Spanish battle- ships, cruisers, and torpedo-boats, reached Cuban waters from Cape Verde Islands, and, May 19th, sailed into Santiago Harbor, where he was blockaded--"bottled up"--by Admirals Sampson and Schley's fleets. Cervera's fleet, in an attempt to escape, was totally destroyed, with a loss of above six hundred killed or drowned, and about two thousand captured, himself included, in two hours, by our navy under Sampson, on Sunday morning, July 3, 1899, with a loss of one American killed and one wounded. Other minor naval affairs occurred, all disastrous to the Spanish. Cervera's entry into Santiago Harbor caused previous plans for the movement of the army to be changed.

The bulk of the regular army, under Major-General Wm. R. Shafter, was a.s.sembled at Port Tampa, from whence they were transported to and landed (June 24th) at Guantanamo Bay, near Santiago. They were then joined by a body of Cuban troops under General Garcia. Fighting commenced at once and continued irregularly at Siboney, El Caney, San Juan Hill, etc., the princ.i.p.al battles being fought on the 1st and 2d of July. The next day a demand was made on the Spanish commander (Toral) for the surrender of his army and Santiago. This was acceded to, after much negotiation, July 17, 1898, including the province of Santiago and 22,000 troops, in number exceeding Shafter's entire available force. The display of skill and bravery by officers and men of our small army (princ.i.p.ally regulars) at Santiago never was excelled. Our loss in the series of battles there was, killed, 22 officers and 208 men; wounded, 81 officers and 1203 men. A Porto Rico campaign was then organized. General Miles wired the War Department, about July 18th, to send me with my division (then in camp at Miami) to make up his Porto Rico expedition. His request was not carried out, and it thus happened that no soldier of a Southern State volunteer organization fired a hostile shot during the Spanish War. Ponce was taken July 25th, followed by an invasion of the island from the south. An affair took place, August 10th, and operations here, as elsewhere, were terminated by the _protocol_. Manila was surrendered August 13th, the day after the protocol was signed. This was the last offensive land operation of the Spanish War. The invasion of Porto Rico cost us 3 killed and 40 wounded.

Through the intervention of Cambon, the French Amba.s.sador at Washington, negotiations were opened which resulted in a protocol which bound Spain to relinquish all sovereignty over Cuba, to cede Porto Rico and other West India island possessions to the United States, and it provided for a Commission to agree upon a treaty of peace, to meet in Paris, not later than October 1, 1898; also provided for Commissions to regulate the evacuation of Cuba and Porto Rico.

The treaty was signed in Paris December 10, 1898; was submitted by the President to the Senate January 11, 1899, and ratified by it, and its ratification approved by him, February 6, 1899. The Queen of Spain ratified the treaty March 19, 1899, and its ratifications were exchanged and proclaimed at Washington April 11, 1899. It provided for the cession, also, to the United States of the Philippine Islands and the payment of $20,000,000 therefor.

The total casualties in battle, during the war, in our navy, were 17 killed and 67 wounded (no naval officer injured); and, in our army, 23 officers and 257 men killed, and 113 officers and 1464 men wounded; grand total, 297 killed and 1644 wounded, of all arms of the service.

The deaths from disease and causes other than battle, in camps and at sea, were, 80 officers and 2485 enlisted men. Many died at their homes of disease; some of wounds.

An insurrection broke out in the Philippines in February, 1899, which is not yet suppressed.

The war was not b.l.o.o.d.y, and the end attained in the cause of humanity and liberty is a justification of it; but whether the acquisition of extensive tropical and distant island possessions was wise, or will tend to perpetuate our Republic and spread const.i.tutional liberty, remains to be shown by the infallible test of time. Our sovereignty over Cuba, thus far, appears to be a friendly usurpation, without right, professedly in the interest of humanity, civilization, and good government. Our acquisition of Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands, all in the tropics, is a new national departure which may prove wise or not, according as we deal justly and mercifully with the people who inhabit them. It may be in the Divine plan that these countries should pa.s.s under a more beneficent, enduring, newer, and higher civilization, to be guided and dominated by a people speaking the English tongue.

( 1) The certificate of his naturalization reads:

"Maryland ss.

"These are to certify all persons whom it may concern: That George Keifer of Frederick County, within the Province aforesaid, born out of the Allegiance of his most Sacred Majesty King George the Third, etc., did, on the 3d day of September Anno Domini 1765, Personally appear before the Justices of his Lordship's Provincial Court, and then and there, in Term Time, between the hours of nine and twelve in the forenoon of the same day, produced and delivered a certificate in writing of his having received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in a Protestant or Reformed Congregation in the said Province of Maryland, within three months next before the exhibiting of such certificate, signed by the person administering such Sacrament, and attested by two credible witnesses, in pursuance of an Act of Parliament made in the thirteenth year of the reign of his late Majesty King George the Second, ent.i.tled, An Act for naturalizing such foreign _Protestants_, and others therein mentioned, as are settled or shall settle in any of his Majesty's Colonies in America; and then and there made appear, that he had been an inhabitant in some of his Majesty's Plantations seven years, and had not been absent out of some of the said Colonies for a longer s.p.a.ce than two months at any one time during the said seven years; and also then and there took the oaths of Allegiance, Abhorrency, and Abjuration, repeated the Test, and subscribed the same, and oath of Abjuration. In testimony whereof, I have hereto set my hand, and affixed the seal of the said court, this 3d day of September in the year of our Lord G.o.d, one thousand seven hundred and Sixty-five.

"Test. Reverdy Ghiselm, Clk."

( 2) Dr. Jenner's primary investigation of the principles of vaccination began in 1775, but was not satisfactorily completed in England until five years later. Lady Montagu had, however, introduced from Turkey into England, as early as 1717, inoculation for smallpox, but from the beginning it met the fiercest opposition of physicians, the clergy, and the superst.i.tious public, which was never entirely overcome in England or America.

( 3) John Uri Lloyd, Ph.M., Ph.D. (Cin.), the distinguished author and scientist and collector of medical, etc., books, in an article printed in the _Am. Jour. of Pharmacy_, January, 1898, on "Dr.

Peter Smith and His Dispensatory," says his book was the "first Materia Medica 'Dispensatory' published in the West."

( 4) Owing to its remarkable character we quote from his book:

"In South Carolina I was once in company with old Dr. Dilahoo, who was noted for great skill and experience, having traveled into many parts of the world. In the course of our conversation I asked him what he conceived the _plague_ to be, which had been so much talked of in the world. He readily told me that it was his opinion that the plague is occasioned by an invisible _insect_. This insect floating in the air, is taken with the breath into the lungs, and there it either poisons or propagates its kind, so as to produce that dreadful disease. This, he was confirmed, was likely to be the truth from the experiments frequently made at Gibraltar. For there, said he, they of the garrison, when they fear the plague, have a way to elevate a piece of fresh meat pretty high in the air; they put it up at night, and if it comes down sound and sweet in the morning, they conclude there is no danger of the plague. But if the plague is in the air, the meat will be tainted and spoiled, and sometimes almost rotten. He was further confirmed in his opinion of the _insect_, because in and about tobacco warehouses the plague has never been known. I will remark: Now it is well known that tobacco will prevent moth from eating our woolen clothes, if we pack but little of it with them, that is the moth cannot breed or exist, where there is a sufficient scent of the tobacco.

This scent may be death to the invisible _insects_ even after they are drawn in with the breath and fastened upon the lungs. This may account for tobacco being burned (as I have heard it), in many old countries, on a chaffing dish in a room, that the people of the house may take in the smoke plentifully with their breath, to preserve their health and prevent pestilential disorders.

"Agreeable to this view, we may conclude that all tainted air may bring disease and death to us. And the plague has never been (properly speaking) in America as we know of. Yet other effluvia taken in with the breath may have occasioned other fearful diseases, such as the yellow fever and other bilious and contagious complaints."

--P. 14.

( 5) His grandson, James Johns, in the 30's, wandered, as a trapper, to the Pacific coast, thence north to the mouth of the Willamette River on the Columbia (Oregon), and there lived a bachelor and alone until his death, about 1890. He was neither a fighting man nor a hunter. He travelled, often alone, wholly unarmed, among wild, savage Indians, his peaceable disposition and defenceless condition being respected. He, it is said, would not sell his lands at the mouth of the river, and thus forced the city of Portland to be located twelve miles from the Columbia.

( 6) My father was not a large man, his weight being only about one hundred and sixty pounds and height five feet, ten inches, but my mother, while only of medium height for a woman, was of large frame and weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds.

( 7) Solitary reading law, with time for thought and reflection, has its advantages, more than compensating for the opportunity to consult reports, etc., usually enjoyed by a law student in an office.

The present Chief-Justice (Hon. David Martin) of Kansas, though nominally a law student of mine, yet read and mastered the elementary and princ.i.p.al law-books while tending, as a miller, a dry-water country grist-mill, remote from my office.

( 8) On the recommendations of Generals Grant and Meade I was appointed (1866) by President Johnson a Lieutenant-Colonel in the 26th Infantry, U. S. A., one of the new regular regiments provided for after the close of the war. I declined the appointment because I was of too restless a disposition and not educated for a soldier in time of peace.

( 9) The Thirteenth Amendment was proclaimed ratified Dec. 18, 1865; the Fourteenth, July 28, 1868, and the Fifteenth, March 30, 1870.