Young Peoples' History of the War with Spain Part 8

The dynamite gun is the latest development in light artillery. One of them had been supplied to Roosevelt's Rough Riders, or "Teddy's Terrors," as they were often called, but none of them wanted to handle it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sergeant Borrowe Working the Dynamite Gun.]

They were willing to face Spanish bullets, but they were afraid of the dynamite gun. They thought it was just as dangerous at one end as at the other. It is an odd looking piece of artillery, having two tubes, or barrels, one above the other. It throws a long cartridge or sh.e.l.l, similar in shape, but not so large as those used on the Vesuvius, about which I have told you. One day Sergeant Borrowe volunteered to manage the gun that the rest of the men were afraid of. They let him have it, and he did splendid work with it.

Another famous gun in the fighting before Santiago was gun No. 2, of Captain Cap.r.o.n's battery. Captain Cap.r.o.n was the father of the young man who was killed in the battle of Las Guasimas. No guns did more effective work than his, unless it was Parker's Gatlings, and one shot from this No. 2 is said to have killed sixteen Spaniards at one time.

After the battery returned to the United States, Lieutenant Henly, after saying that the battery was in every battle on Cuban soil except that at Las Guasimas, continued:

"We were peculiarly fortunate in escaping the bullets. The only man killed in our battery was a horse--I suppose we can count him as a man. At El Caney, we were directed to support the infantry in an attack on several blockhouses and a stone fort. We were twenty-four hundred yards away and soon got the range. The first shot was fired by Corporal Williams. Corporal Neff fired the shot that brought down the Spanish flag. We pounded a hole in the fort and the infantry went through it."

A young soldier who was wounded at San Juan told this story:

"My company got mixed up in the charge, and I pushed on with the Thirteenth Regulars. When we reached the top of the hill, some of us took shelter in a blockhouse and began firing from there at the opposite hills. There wasn't one of the enemy in sight unless you count dead ones, so we blazed away at nothing at all, for awhile. But they had us dead in range, and it was no dream the way their bullets played around us.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Famous No. 2 Gun.]

"One of the bravest things I saw in the war happened right here. An officer came up--he was a major of regulars--I don't know his regiment--and he saw that we didn't know what to aim at, and were getting a little rattled. So what did he do but quickly walk out in front of the blockhouse where the bullets were coming thickest, and proceed to study the hills with his field-gla.s.s, just as unconcerned as you please. And every now and then he would call to us who were inside, 'Men, sight at eight hundred yards and sweep the gra.s.s on the ridge of the hill'; or, again: 'Men, I can see the Spaniards over there; try a thousand-yard range and see if you can't get some of them. Fire low!' I never saw such nerve as that officer had; he'd have stirred courage in everybody."

"Didn't he get hit?" he was asked.

"I'll tell you about that in a minute; but while he was out there shaking hands with death, you might say, I was witness to a little incident in the blockhouse that is worth telling about: A lot of us were in there from different regiments--some from the Thirteenth, some from the Sixteenth, and some colored boys from the Twenty-fourth. We were all blazing away through the firing-openings in the walls.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bringing Up Captain Cap.r.o.n's Battery.]

"Just beside me was a big negro, who didn't seem more than half interested in what he was doing. I saw him pull a dead Spaniard out of the door with a listless movement, and then pick up his rifle as if he thought the whole thing a bore. Suddenly, a bullet came in with a zip along the underside of his gun barrel, glanced against the strap, and took the skin off the negro's knuckles as if they'd been sc.r.a.ped with a knife. And then you should see the change! He wasn't scared--not a bit; but he was mad enough to have charged the whole Spanish army alone. How he did talk--not loud, just quietly to himself--and how he did grab his cartridges and begin to shoot.

"Speaking of cartridges, some of the boys ran short because they had thrown away a lot in their haversacks; but I had put two beltfuls in a pair of socks and pinned them inside my shirt with safety pins, so I had plenty, and I was peppering away from behind a brick chimney, when one of the Thirteenth lads called out to me: 'Come over here, Seventy-one; I've got a fine shot for you.'

"I looked around and saw him standing by a window that was barred with iron, but had no sash to it. He was kneeling on the floor, just showing his head over the sill, and looking at the Spanish line. He was a nice looking lad, not a day over twenty-one, and his face was as smooth as a girl's. 'All right,' said I, going over to him, 'Where's your shot?'

"'There,' said he, pointing to one of the hills: 'n.o.body's fired at that one yet, but I'm sure the dagos are there. Set your sights at six hundred yards and we'll try it together!'

"So I fixed my sights, and we both fired out of the window with our rifles resting on the ledge. As I drew back I saw there was something queer with the boy, and noticed a splash of red on the lobe of his ear, just like a coral bead.

"'Did they wing you?' I asked. And even as I spoke, he staggered against the wall and turned round so that I saw him full in the face.

There was a hole in the other side, just at the cheek bone, that I could have put my finger in. He had been shot clear through the head.

"'Poor chap,' I said, and lifted him over behind the chimney, where I had been. He didn't speak. I left him there and went to the door, thinking that I might see a Red Cross nurse somewhere about, and sure enough, there was one bending over a man stretched on the ground. It was the major who had been giving us the ranges.

"'Is he hurt bad?' I asked.

"The Red Cross man had the major's shirt open, looking at his wound.

'He's shot through the heart,' he said.

"'Can you come in here a minute, when you get through with him?

There's a Thirteenth boy just been hit.'

"'Hit where?'

"'In the head.'

"'Hold him by the jowls,' he said, 'until I come,' So I held him by the jowls, and then he spoke for the first time, and what he said was this: 'Say, Seventy-one, I done my duty, didn't I?'

"I told him that he did.

"'I had my face toward 'em when they got me, didn't I?

"'Sure, you did.'

"'Well,' he went on, quite cheerful like, 'I may get through this, and if I do, I'll have another crack at 'em. But if I don't, why I aint got no kick comin', for there'll be others to stay here with me.'

"That was the last I saw of him, for the Red Cross man came in then, and I went back to the firing. He was a game boy, though, wasn't he?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: The "Red Cross" in the Field.]

What would have become of the wounded if the Red Cross nurses had not been on the field to help them, n.o.body knows, except that thousands of "mothers' boys" were saved, who in a few hours more would have been beyond mortal aid. No wonder bearded men wept like babies and blessed the angels of mercy as they pa.s.sed. The boys went into the fight hungry, lay for two days in trenches, almost without food; and when they were wounded, were ordered to make their way to the rear as best they could. Men with desperate wounds had to walk or crawl perhaps a mile; perhaps five or six miles, over the wild, rough country, those who were least injured, a.s.sisting their comrades, and hundreds dying by the wayside. Had the Red Cross been allowed its way in the beginning, many of these horrors would have been avoided. The few army surgeons did all in their power, but nearly everything they-needed to allay suffering was lacking, and so insufficient was the force that many of the wounded lay for days before their turn came. Men taken from the operating table, perhaps having just had a leg or arm cut off, or with bodies torn by bullets, were laid naked on the rain-soaked ground, without shelter, and in the majority of cases without even blankets. And there they lay through two long days and nights. All honor to the Red Cross Society which finally forced its way to the spot and knew exactly what to do.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Captain "Buckey" O'Neill.]

Some time after the return of the "Rough Riders" to the United States, Colonel Roosevelt told some interesting experiences:

"I recollect, as I was sitting, I gave a command to one of my orderlies, and he rose up and saluted and fell right forward across my knees dead. The man upon whom I had most to rely--I relied upon all of those gallant men, but the man upon whom I most relied, Buckey O'Neill--was standing up, walking up and down in front of his men, wanting to show them by his example that they must not get nervous, and to rea.s.sure them.

"Somebody said, 'Captain--Captain O'Neill! You will be struck by a bullet as sure as fate; lie down! lie down!' and he laughed, and said, 'Why, the Spanish bullet is not made that will kill me!' And the next minute a bullet struck him in the mouth and came out the back of his head and he was killed right there.

"Captain Jenkins crept up beside one of his sharpshooters and said to him, 'I see a Spaniard over in that tree, give me your rifle for a moment.' He fired two or three shots and then turned around and handed the rifle back to the man, and the man was dead--had been killed without making a sign or sound as he stood beside him.

"I was talking to a gallant young officer, asking him questions, and he was answering. I turned around and he had been shot through the stomach."

But General Shafter, still at headquarters some miles away, did not know how the men felt, and thought they ought to retreat to some safer point, and wait for more troops from the United States. Early the next morning--Sunday, July 3d--General Shafter sent a telegram to the War Office at Washington, saying that he thought of withdrawing his forces from the neighborhood of Santiago. An answer was sent to him, asking him to try to hold his present place, and more troops started for Cuba.

Fortunately, there were brave commanders in the American army who did not think as General Shafter did.--They had been doing the fighting, while he hadn't, and they had no idea of giving up an inch of the ground they had gained. One of the most prominent of them was General Joseph Wheeler. He had a splendid record in the Civil War, fighting on the side of the Confederacy. He was a bold and tireless fighter, and before he was thirty years old he was the commander of all the Confederate cavalry. His sabre had flashed in the thickest of many fights and he had led his splendid hors.e.m.e.n in many a furious charge.

When the war with Spain broke out, General Wheeler offered his services to the Government and was sent to Cuba, and when there began to be talk of retreat after those terrible days of fighting before Santiago, the splendid old Confederate counselled holding the army where it was, and fighting the Spaniards again, if necessary. He said, "American prestige would suffer irretrievably if we gave up an inch; we must stand firm!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: General Joseph Wheeler.]

The message from General Shafter flew through the United States, and caused great anxiety. It was sad to think that our troops had drawn near the place they had been striving to reach, had had great labor, had borne much suffering, and that now, after all, they might have to retreat because there were not enough of them to finish the work--not enough to take Santiago.

But that very Sunday something took place that changed the whole color of the scene.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (U.S. flag flying over building)]

CHAPTER X.

THE SPANISH FLEET LEAVES THE HARBOR.