History of the Gatling Gun Detachment, Fifth Army Corps, at Santiago Part 4

"Official. J. D. Miley, E. J. McClernand, "Aide. a.s.st. Adj.-Gen."

The organization was thus perfected by a single stroke of the general's pen on the 11th of June, theoretically; practically it was the 14th of June before the details from the 12th and 17th Infantry reported, and when they did, instead of being equipped as directed, they carried rifles with 100 rounds of ammunition.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Landing.]

Serg. Weigle, of the 9th Infantry, who reported at the same time, carried a revolver. On the 14th a wigwag message was received from the 13th Infantry, inquiring whether the detail was desired to report at once or not, to which the reply was sent that it was desired to report at the earliest possible moment. It did not report.

The detachment was at once organized as well as possible for the trip on board the transport, and the guns brought up from the hold of the s.h.i.+p and mounted in such a way that they would be ready for instant use. It was not known but that the detachment might have to partic.i.p.ate in a naval engagement, and the value of machine guns in the navy has long been demonstrated. At any rate, it was determined to be ready to give a warm reception to any torpedo vessel which might attempt to attack the Cherokee. One object of getting the guns up was to give instruction to the new men who reported on the 14th. Sergt.

Weigle was well instructed in the use of Gatling guns, but none of the other members of the detachment had ever received any instruction, and had been selected rather on the ground of their superior intelligence and courage than on any special knowledge of machine guns. They were given a drill each day in loading and firing the piece, during the time they remained on board the transport, when the weather permitted.

The condition of the troops on board the transport was miserable. The following extract from a letter written at that time will convey some idea of the crowded, ill-ventilated condition of the vessel:

"We have now been on board the transport a week, and are getting into a frame of mind suitable for desperate work. If you can imagine 1000 men crowded into s.p.a.ce needed for 500, and then kept there without room to stand or move or sit for seven days, under a tropical sun, in foul holds utterly without ventilation (just imagine it!), endured without a single murmur or complaint, not stoically, but patiently and intelligently, while every officer on board is kicking as hard and as often as possible for the relief of his men, then you will have some idea of the situation. The men are very patient, but they know someone has blundered. Talk about the heroism of the Light Brigade! It is nothing to the heroism that goes cheerfully and uncomplainingly into the Black Hole of Calcutta (there is nothing else that will compare with these transports), all because it is duty. When will the people appreciate the heroism of the Regular Army?"

This was the actual condition of affairs on board the Cherokee up to the time of leaving port on the 14th of June, and it was modified only by the hoisting of wind-sails, after we got under way.

These were not very efficient and there were only two of them, so very little relief was given to the overcrowded berth-deck. Most of the men spent their time on the upper deck, and one whole company was quartered there. At night, after 8 o'clock, Col. Comba authorized the men to sleep on deck, and there was always a rush, when the s.h.i.+p's bell struck the hour, for good places on the quarter-deck. The only thing that made the voyage endurable was the good weather which prevailed. This prevented seasickness, to a certain extent.

The squadron reached Santiago de Cuba, and after tacking about for several days, either for the purpose of deceiving the enemy, or of waiting a decision as to the landing-place, finally approached Baiquiri, which had been selected for the landing. The troops on the Cherokee began to land on the 23d of June, the battalion of the 12th Infantry going first. This was followed by the 17th Infantry, and upon its departure the captain of the Cherokee put to sea. The reason for this maneuver is not known. The orders issued by Gen.

Shafter in regard to the landing were that the Gatling Gun Detachment should accompany Gen. Lawton's Division. This movement of the Cherokee completely blocked the landing of the Gatling guns. The s.h.i.+p's captain was finally induced to put back into the bay and speak to the Seguransa, and Gen. Shafter directed that the detachment should be taken off the next morning.

An effort was made, therefore, to obtain the use of a lighter which was not at that time in use, but the Commissary Department refused to yield the boat, and it remained until 11 o'clock the next morning tied up to the wharf with half a load of commissaries on board before it became available, and then was seized by the Quartermaster's Department. An effort was then made to obtain the use of three pontoons, belonging to the Engineer Department, which had been drawn up to the sh.o.r.e and were of no use to anybody. The young engineer officer in charge of these boats, a premature graduate of the cla.s.s of '98, was "afraid the boats might get smashed in the surf," and could not consent without seeing Col. Derby. Col. Derby could not be found.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pack Train.]

A wigwag came from Gen. Shafter, asking whether the Gatling guns had been landed. The reply, "No; may I use pontoons?" was answered at once, "Use pontoons, and get off immediately." On returning to sh.o.r.e with a party to work the pontoons, the party was stopped in the act of launching the first boat by Gen. Sumner, and ordered to proceed to the Cherokee, take her out into the offing, and order another to take her place to unload. Protesting against this action, and informing Gen.

Sumner of the urgent orders for the Gatling guns to disembark at once, that officer inquired the opinion of the prematurely graduated engineer as to the practicability of using the pontoons, and this experienced young man again expressed the fear that the boats might be injured in the surf. To the detachment commander's indignant exclamation, "What the h-- were these boats made for, if they are not to be used and smashed?" Gen. Sumner responded by a peremptory order to warp the Cherokee out from the pier and send the other vessels in.

The order was obeyed, and all the circ.u.mstances reported to Gen.

Shafter the same evening, with the expression of the opinion that if the general wanted the Gatling guns landed, he would have to attend to it personally, because the Gatling gun commander did not have sufficient rank to accomplish it in the face of all these obstacles.

Early on the morning of June 25th, therefore, Gen. Shafter sent peremptory orders to the lighter to lay alongside the Cherokee, take the Gatling guns and detachment on board, and land them on the dock.

The transfer began at 8 o'clock in the morning, Gen. Shafter coming out in person in his steam launch to see that his order was executed.

By 11 o'clock the guns, carriages, 30,000 rounds of ammunition, four sets of double harness, and the detachment were on board the lighter.

This had been accomplished a mile outside in the offing, with the vessel rolling and pitching in the trough of the sea and on the crest of the gigantic rollers in so violent a manner that it was almost impossible for men to stand on their feet, much less handle such heavy material as guns and ammunition. The lighter was warped to the pier at 11 o'clock, and the general tied his steam launch alongside to see that it was not disturbed until the debarkation was completed. At 1 o'clock everything was ash.o.r.e, and, in compliance with the general's instructions, the best mules in the corral were taken, and as they were led away from the corral-gate, a fat, sleek, black streaked, long-eared specimen, which had been selected for a saddle-mule, set up a cheerful "Aw! hee haw! haw!" which produced a burst of laughter and cheering from the members of the detachment and the soldiers in the vicinity. It was a cheerful omen. These Missouri mules were capable of pulling anything loose at both ends, and four experienced drivers had been selected from the detachment who were capable of riding anything that walked on four feet, or driving anything from an Arab courser to a pair of Shetland ponies.

Priv. J. s.h.i.+ffer had been selected as corral boss of the detachment.

The most picturesque figure, the most boyish member, and as brave a soldier as ever shouldered a musket; broad of shoulder, stout of limb, full of joke, as cheerful as a ray of sunlight, this man was the incarnation of courage and devotion. He loved a mule. He was proud of the job. With the instinct of a true teamster, he had snapped up the best pair of mules in the whole corral and was out before the detachment commander had selected a single mule. This team was as black as s.h.i.+ffer's shoes and as strong as a pair of elephants. They were worked harder than any other team in the 5th Army Corps, and when they were turned in to the quartermaster in August, they were as fat, as sleek, as strong, and as hardy as on the day they were taken from the corral in Baiquiri. The other three teamsters were like unto the first. They were all handy men. They were as capable of fighting or aiming a gun as of driving a team. Any one of the four could take a team of mules up a mountain-side or down a vertical precipice in perfect safety. They could do the impossible with a team of mules, and they had to do it before the detachment reached the firing-line. The success of the battery was to depend to a very large degree upon the coolness, good judgment, and perfect bravery of these four teamsters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Calvary Picket Line.]

It should be noted that the use of mules was an experiment. The "scientific" branch of service has always held that the proper animal to draw a field-piece is the horse. They expatiate with great delight upon the almost human intelligence and sagacity of that n.o.ble animal; upon his courage "when he snuffeth the battle afar," and upon the undaunted spirit with which he rushes upon the enemy, and a.s.sists his master to work the destruction of his foes. The Artillery claims that mules are entirely too stubborn, too cowardly, and too hard to manage for the purpose of their arm of the service. It was also an experiment to use two mules per gun. The Engineer Department had reported that the road to the front was impa.s.sable for wheeled vehicles, and even the general had apparently thought that four mules per gun would be necessary. The necessity of economizing mules, and the opinion of the detachment commander that two mules per gun would be sufficient, had led to the issue of that number. Those who despise the army mule for the purposes of field artillery know very little of the capacity of this equine product of Missouri when properly handled. It was demonstrated that two mules can pull a Gatling gun with 10,000 rounds of ammunition, loaded down with rations and forage, where eight horses are required to draw a field-piece; and that mules are equally as easy to manage under fire as horses.

The landing was completed and the detachment organized at 3 p. m., having rations, forage, and ammunition complete. There was no tentage, except the shelter-halves which some of the men had brought with them.

Capt. Henry Marcotte, retired, the correspondent of the Army and Navy Journal, requested permission to accompany the detachment, which was granted, and soon all were _en route_ for the front, entrusted with the task of opening the way for wheeled transportation and of demonstrating the practicability of the road for army wagons and field artillery.

For the first mile the road was excellent. It lay through one of the most fertile parts of the most fertile island in the world. A little stream trickling along the side of the road furnished plenty of water for both men and animals. At the end of the mile the detachment found a steep hill to descend. The Ordnance Department, which designed and built the carriage for the Gatling guns, had never foreseen the necessity for a brake, and it was therefore necessary to cut down bushes from the roadside and fasten the rear wheels by placing a stout pole between the spokes and over the trail of the piece. This locked the wheels, and the guns were thus enabled to slide down the steep hill without danger of a runaway. From this point the road became a narrow defile. The rank jungle closed in upon the trail, the long barbed leaves of the Spanish bayonet hung across and lacerated the legs of the mules until the blood trickled down to the hoofs; the boughs of the trees hung down over it so that even the men on foot had to stoop to pa.s.s under them, and the tortuous path winding in and out amid the dense tropical undergrowth made it impossible to see in places more than twenty-five or thirty yards ahead at a time.

The advance guard, consisting of all the members of one gun crew, had been organized at once upon starting, and this guard moved along the road about two hundred and fifty yards in advance of the detachment, scouting every path vigilantly to the right and left, and keeping a constant, careful lookout to the front. Their orders were, in case of encountering the enemy, to scatter in the underbrush, open fire with magazines, so as to produce the impression upon the enemy that there was a large force, and then slowly fall back upon the battery. The plan was, upon the first alarm, to bring the two leading guns into battery upon the road, with the fourth gun ready to be opened to either flank, while the gun crew of the third gun, which formed the advance guard, were to act as infantry support to the battery. It was hoped that the enemy would follow the advance guard as it retreated, and it was believed that the Gatling gun battery could take care of two or three regiments of Spaniards without help if necessary.

This form for the march had been adopted as the result of mature reflection. The general had offered a cavalry escort of two troops, and Gen. Sumner had rather urged the use of an escort, but it was desired to demonstrate that a battery of machine guns, properly manned and equipped, is capable of independent action, and does not need the a.s.sistance of either arm of the service. In fact, the Gatling gun men would have been rather pleased than not to have had a brush with the enemy without the a.s.sistance of either infantry or cavalry. But it was not to be.

The march was continued until darkness fell over the landscape, and the battery arrived at a beautiful camping-place about one mile east of Siboney, where a break in the water-pipe near the railroad track gave an ample supply of excellent water, and a ruined plantation, now overgrown with luxuriant sugar-cane, provided ample forage for the mules. The two troops of cavalry, which had been offered and refused as an escort, had reached this camping-place some time before, so that the wearied members of the detachment found pleasant camp-fires already throwing their weird lights and shadows over the drooping branches of the royal palm.

Here, in the midst of the jungle, they pitched their first camp in Cuba. The condition of the mules was duly looked to, their shoulders washed down with strong salty water, their feet carefully examined, and the animals then tethered to graze their fill on the succulent sugar-cane, after having had a bountiful supply of oats. Meantime the camp cooks had a kettle full of coffee simmering, and canned roast beef warming over the fire, and after a hearty meal the tired men stretched themselves upon the ground, with no canopy except the stars and only one sentinel over the camp, and slept more soundly than they had on board the tossing Cherokee.

CHAPTER V.

THE MARCH.

At early dawn the battery arose, and, after a quick breakfast, resumed the march. Some half-mile farther on they pa.s.sed a battery of light artillery which had preceded them on the road by some nine hours, and which had camped at this point awaiting forage. At Siboney the detachment stopped to look after the detail from the 13th Infantry, which had not yet reported. The detachment commander sought out the regimental adjutant, who referred him to the regimental commander, Col. Worth. This colonel was at first reluctant to allow the men to go, but, on being informed of the necessity for them, and after inquiring about the orders on the subject, he directed the detail to report immediately. All the members of this detail reported at once, except Corp. Rose, who had been left by his company commander on board s.h.i.+p.

The road from Siboney to the front was not known. There was no one in camp who even knew its general direction. Application was therefore made to Gen. Castillo, who was in command of a body of Cubans at Siboney, for a guide. After a great deal of gesticulation, much excited talk between the general and members of his staff, and numerous messengers had been dispatched hither and thither upon this important and very difficult business, a Cuban officer was sent with instructions to furnish a guide who could conduct the detachment to Gen. Wheeler's headquarters at the front. In the course of some twenty minutes, a dirty slouchy, swarthy, lousy-looking vagabond was pointed out as the desired guide, and was said to know every by-path and trail between Siboney and Santiago. He was told to go with the detachment to Gen. Wheeler's headquarters and then return, and the detachment commander started for his command followed by his sable guide. Pa.s.sing through a group of these brave Cuban heroes, he lost sight of his redoubtable guide for an instant, and has never since found that gentleman.

It would be just as well to add a description of the patriotic Cuban as he was found by the Gatling Gun Detachment during their campaign in behalf of Cuban independence, in the name of humanity; and this description, it is thought, tallies with the experience of all officers in the expedition.

The valiant Cuban! He strikes you first by his color. It ranges from chocolate yellow through all the shades to deepest black with kinky hair; but you never by any chance see a white Cuban, except the fat, sleek, well-groomed, superbly mounted ones in "khaki," who loaf around headquarters with high-ranking shoulder-straps. These are all imported from the United States. They comprise the few wealthy ones of Spanish descent, who are renegade to their own nativity, and are appealing to the good people of the United States to establish them in their status of master of peons without any overlord who can exact his t.i.thes for the privilege.

[Ill.u.s.tration: San Juan Hill.]

The next thing you notice is the furtive look of the thief. No one has ever yet had a chance to look one of these chocolate-colored Cubans straight in the eye. They sneak along. Their gait has in it something of that of the Apache, the same soft moccasined tread, noiseless and always stealthy. Your impressions as to their honesty can be instantly confirmed. Leave anything loose, from a heavy winter overcoat, which no one could possibly use in Cuba, to--oh well, anything--and any Cuban in sight will take great pleasure in dispelling any false impressions that honesty is a native virtue.

Next you notice that he is dirty. His wife does sometimes make a faint attempt at personal cleanliness; this is evident, because in one bright instance a white dress was seen on a native woman, that had been washed sometime in her history. But as to his lords.h.i.+p, the proud male citizen of Cuba libre, you would utterly and bitterly insult him by the intimation that a man of his dignity ought ever to bathe, put on clean clothes, or even wash his hands. He is not merely dirty, he is filthy. He is infested with things that crawl and creep, often visibly, over his half-naked body, and he is so accustomed to it that he does not even scratch.

Next you observe the intense pride of this Cuban libre. It is manifested the very first time you suggest anything like manual labor--he is incapable of any other--even for such purposes as camp sanitation, carrying rations, or for any other purpose. His manly chest swells with pride and he exclaims in accents of wounded dignity, "Yo soy soldado!" Still his pride does not by any chance get him knowingly under fire. At El Poso some of him did get under fire from artillery, accidentally, and it took a strong provost guard to keep him there. If he ever got under fire again there was no officer on the firing-line who knew it.

He is a treacherous, lying cowardly, thieving, worthless, half-breed mongrel; born of a mongrel sp.a.w.n of Europe, crossed upon the fetiches of darkest Africa and aboriginal America. He is no more capable of self-government than the Hottentots that roam the wilds of Africa or the Bushmen of Australia. He can not be trusted like the Indian, will not work like a negro, and will not fight like a Spaniard; but he will lie like a Castilian with polished suavity, and he will stab you in the dark or in the back with all the dexterity of a renegade graduate of Carlisle.

Providence has reserved a fairer future for this n.o.ble country than to be possessed by this horde of tatterdemalions. Under the impetus of American energy and capital, governed by a firm military hand with even justice, it will blossom as the rose; and, in the course of three or four generations, even the Cuban may be brought to appreciate the virtues of cleanliness, temperance, industry, and honesty.

Our good roads ended at Siboney, and from there on to Gen. Wheeler's headquarters was some of the worst road ever traveled. Part of it lay through deep valleys, where the sun was visible scarcely more than an hour at noontime, and the wet, fetid soil was tramped into a muck of malarial slime under foot of the mules and men. The jungle became ranker, the Spanish bayonets longer and their barbs sharper in these low bottom jangles. The larger undergrowth closed in more sharply on the trail, and its boughs overhung so much in some places that it became necessary to cut them away with axes in order to pa.s.s.

These guns were the first wheeled vehicles that had ever disturbed the solitude of this portion of Cuba. The chocolate-colored natives of Cuba sneak; the white native of Cuba, when he travels at all, goes on horseback. He very seldom travels in Cuba at all, because he is not often there. Consequently the roads in Cuba, as a rule, are merely small paths sufficient for the native to walk along, and they carry the machete in order to open a path if necessary. These low places in the valleys were full of miasmatic odors, yellow fever, agues, and all the ills that usually pertain to the West Indian climate.

At other places the road ran along the tops of the foot-hills from one to two hundred feet higher than the bottom of these valleys. Here the country was much more open. The path was usually wide enough for the guns to move with comparative ease. Sometimes one wagon could pa.s.s another easily. These parts of the road were usually more or less strewn with boulders. The road was rarely level and frequently the upland parts were washed out. Sometimes it was only the boulder-clad bottom of a ravine; again the water would have washed out the gully on one side so deep as to threaten overturning the guns. The portions of the road between the valleys and the top of these foot-hills were the worst places the detachment had to pa.s.s. These ascents and descents were nearly always steep. While not at all difficult for the man upon horseback or for the man on foot, they were frequently almost too steep for draft, and they were always washed out. In places it was necessary to stop and fill up these washouts by shoveling earth and stone into the places before the detachment could pa.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cuban Soldiers as They Were.]

On one of these occasions, while heaving rock to fill up a bad washout, Priv. Jones was stung by a scorpion. Jones did not know what had bitten him, and described it as a little black thing about as long as his finger. Fortunately there was a small supply of whisky with the detachment, and this remedy was applied to Jones internally. Some soldier in the detachment suggested that a quid of tobacco externally would be beneficial, so this also was done. It was not a dressing favorable to an aseptic condition of the wound, perhaps, nor was there anything in the quid of tobacco calculated to withdraw the poison or neutralize its effects, so the doctors may characterize this as a very foolish proceeding; but country people skilled in simples and herb remedies might tell some of these ultra scientific surgeons that the application of a quid of tobacco or of a leaf of tobacco to the sting of a wasp or the bite of a spider, or even the sting of a scorpion, is nearly always attended by beneficial results. In fact, when Jones was stung there was a surgeon, a medical officer, who turned up even before Jones was treated with the whisky cure, and, upon receiving Jones' explanation that he had been heaving rock and had been bitten on the end of the finger by a little black thing, and after hearing the remarks of the men that it was very probably a scorpion sting, this medical officer very sagely diagnosed the accident to that effect, but was unable to prescribe any remedy because he had not brought along his emergency case. This medical officer, with his two attendant hospital satellites, had left both litter and emergency case upon the transport.

The ordinary line officer or soldier who is somewhat accustomed to carrying weights and does not require a hospital drill to teach him to carry a wounded comrade a few yards, looks with a certain degree of envy upon the possession of a hospital litter with its convenient straps for weight-carrying, and would consider this a very convenient means for carrying a pack. This litter is designed to enable two men, hospital attendants or band men, to pick up a wounded soldier weighing some 160 or 180 pounds and carry him from fifty yards to a mile if necessary, to a dressing-station or hospital shack. The medical field-case No. 1 weighs about sixty pounds filled, and field-case No.

2 weighs about forty pounds. These two cases contain all the medicines necessary to run a division hospital; the case of emergency instruments does not weigh above ten or twelve pounds, and would not be a burden for a child to carry. It is therefore difficult for the small-minded officer of the line to see why the Medical Department was unable to have these medicines up at the front. They had the same means of locomotion provided for the other soldiers, by Nature, and they had, moreover, no particular necessity for all rus.h.i.+ng to the extreme front. On the contrary, they had from the 23d of June, when the landing began, at Baiquiri, until the 1st of July, to accomplish a distance of less than twenty miles; and it would seem reasonable that they might have had their medicine-cases up where they were needed by that time.

These gentlemen pose as the most learned, expert, scientific, highly trained body of medical men in the world. They are undoubtedly as well trained, as highly educated, and as thoroughly proficient as the medical officers of any army in the world. A summons of an ordinary pract.i.tioner would bring with him his saddle-bags of medicines; no physician in the city would pretend to answer even an ambulance call without having a few simple remedies--in other words, an emergency case; but it was an exception, and a very rare exception at that, to find a medical officer who took the trouble to carry anything upon his aristocratic back on that march to the front.

A conversation overheard between two medical officers on board a transport just before landing may serve to partially explain the state of affairs. Said surgeon No. 1 to surgeon No. 2, "We are going to land this morning; are you going to carry your field-case?" To which surgeon No. 2 indignantly replied, "No, I'm not a pack-mule!" Surgeon No. 1 again inquired, "Are you going to make your hospital men carry it?" To which surgeon No. 2 replied, "No; my men are not beasts of burden." Both of these medical officers went ash.o.r.e; one of them had his field case carried; the other did not. Both of them were up at the firing-line, both did good service in rendering first aid. Both of them worked heroically, both seemed deeply touched by the suffering they were compelled to witness, and both contracted the climatic fever. But in the absence of medicines the role of the surgeon can be taken by the private soldier who has been instructed in first aid to the injured; for in the absence of medical cases and surgical instruments the first-aid packet is the only available source of relief, and these first-aid packets were carried by the private soldier, not by the Medical Department.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Wagon Train.]