Slavery and Four Years of War Part 73

"Now, as I know you commanded the infantry engaged on the Union side in that battle from first to last, and that no infantry troops save of your corps there fought under you, that only a portion of the Third Division (in which I was then serving) was present, and General Frank Wheaton's division of the Sixth Corps was the only other infantry division there, though I am not quite sure that his entire division was up and engaged in the battle at the time of the a.s.sault, overthrow, and destruction of General Ewell's forces, and my recollection is quite clear that General G. W. Getty's Division of your corps did not arrive on the field in time for the battle, I am certain Generals Ewell and G. W. C. Lee have fallen into a grave error. We certainly captured more men in the Sailor's Creek battle than Ewell and G. W. C. Lee say were engaged on the Confederate side.

"Since the war, there seems to be a disposition to disparage the Northern soldiers by representing a small number of Confederate troops engaged with a very large number of Union troops. The above is to my mind simply an ill.u.s.tration of what I find running through the reports, letters, and speeches of Southern officers.

"As I am writing something from time to time in a fugitive way, and may some time write with a view to a more connected history of the war, in so far as it came under my personal observation, I should be very much obliged to you if you will write me a letter on this subject as full as you feel that you have time, and allow me to make such use of it as I may think best. I wish I had a copy of your report of this battle, etc. Where can I get it?

"Believe me yours, with the highest esteem, "J. Warren Keifer."

"Was.h.i.+ngton, November 3, 1888.

"1203 N Street, N. W.

"Dear General Keifer:

"I have never seen or before heard of the report of General R. S.

Ewell to which you refer, in which you say he states that he was informed at my headquarters, to which he was carried after his capture at Sailor's Creek, 'that 30,0000 men were engaged with us when we surrendered--viz., two infantry corps, and Custer's and Merritt's divisions of cavalry--the whole under the command of General Sheridan.'

"General Ewell was entirely mistaken in regard to the strength of the infantry opposed to him. Instead of two infantry corps, there were only two divisions--the First and Third of the Sixth Corps, the Second Division not having come up till the battle was nearly over, and taking no part in the fight. He may have been correct as regards to two divisions of cavalry, though I had not supposed it to be so strong. Its part in the battle was important, as, by getting in the rear of the Confederate force, the latter, after being broken by the infantry attack, and its retreat cut off, was compelled to surrender. I never knew accurately the number captured, but General Sheridan and myself estimated it at about 10,000.

"Of course, the statement of General G. W. C. Lee, to which you refer, is also erroneous as regards the strength opposed to the Confederate force.

"You are quite correct in your statement that you know I commanded the infantry engaged on the Union side in that battle, from first to last. General Sheridan was with me as our troops were coming up, but he left before the battle commenced, to join the cavalry, as I supposed, and I was not aware that he claimed to be in command of the combined infantry and cavalry force till some time subsequent to the battle, when he called upon me for a report. This I declined to make, on the ground that I was under the orders of General Meade only, the commander of the Army of the Potomac. General Grant, to whom the matter was referred by General Sheridan, having decided that I should make a report to the latter, I sent him a copy of my report of the battle, which I had already made to General Meade.

I regret that I have no copy of the report, or I should send it to you with pleasure. I presume that it will soon be published in the official records of the Rebellion. All the records of the Sixth Corps were turned in to the Adjutant-General of the Army, as required by the Army Regulations, on the discontinuance of our organization, and are, I presume, accessible to any who desire to examine them.

"With the most sincere good wishes for your health and prosperity, "I am, very truly yours, "H. G. Wright, "General J. Warren Keifer, Springfield, Ohio."

APPENDIX E

"Headquarters First Division, Seventh Army Corps, "Camp Columbia, Havana, Cuba, January 28, 1899.

"General Henry C. Corbin, "Adjutant-General U.S.A., "Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.

"_Sir_.--I dislike to take your time, but I hope you will pardon me for writing you this purely unofficial letter, relative to the situation in Cuba as it appears to me after a month's investigation while serving here. Necessarily, to keep in bounds, I must generalize and not always give reasons for opinions. This is not written in any spirit of criticism, or of dissatisfaction with my own position here; in fact, I am satisfied with my command, and am very well treated by everybody about and around me. Major-Generals Brooke and Lee are both very kind to me. But to the subject. I shall not attempt to exhaust it.

"Cuba is now prostrate and her people quiet. This applies to all cla.s.ses,--Cubans, Spaniards, citizens, and soldiers,--including those who upheld the insurrection and those who did not, and whether living in cities or in country districts. I say this after having been in touch with officers and soldiers of the Cuban army, and others.

"The reconcentrados are about all dead, and the few living are too weak to soon recover, even if fed. The attempts to feed them are, necessarily, largely failures, and must continue to be until some provision can be made to organize and remove the helpless, broken families from congested places, where it is impossible to house them comfortably, and place them in homes in the country districts.

These people are still dying under our eyes. The food we give them they are not strong enough to eat, save the rice. Some of my officers were recently shown at San Jose de las Lajas, this province, one coffin (kept for convenience on a hand-cart) that had recently done duty in the burial of about five thousand Cubans. But instances need not be given when it is known that above seven hundred thousand Cuban non-combatants have been killed or have died of starvation in the past two or three years, many of them not buried, but their bones picked by the buzzards. The island is a charnel-house of dead. Every graveyard has piles of exposed human bones, and the earth has been strewn with them outside of cities and towns. There were many killed who were not actual insurgents, but Cubans, women and children included. The deaths left broken families; many orphans, who do not know who their parents were. Many owners of land and their entire families and friends have been killed or died, and there is no one to claim the land. This in some of the richest districts is quite the rule.

"Outside of a little circle about Havana, the plantations in general have been destroyed, including houses and other buildings, fruit trees, banana plants, cane fields, farm implements, stock, etc., and the wells filled up, first being polluted by throwing dead bodies of Cubans and animals in them.

"The soil is marvellously rich. It shows no signs of exhaustion by cultivation, and I think it never will. Tobacco, sugar-cane, pineapples, oranges, bananas, plantain, etc., to say nothing of corn, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, onions, beans, gra.s.ses, etc., will grow, if given the slightest chance. Two, three, and as high as four crops can easily be grown in one year. You will say, Why do not the people grow them? They have no bread to eat while they labor, nor have they any oxen or mules,--horses are out of the question and not suitable to till land here,--or seed, or implements, or anything. They die in the midst of the most extraordinary riches.

"Owners of much of the land in the interior districts, who have survived, are as helpless as the poorest laborers.

"The exceptions are confined to remote little valleys, and mountain places where the insurgents held constant control, and there too they are poor, having in the past, and still, to maintain the Cuban soldiers, regular and irregular.

"Only provisions for food for a short time and means to get animals, farm implements, etc., will end the present conditions and put the people of the island on the road to prosperity. Spasmodic issues of army rations give only temporary relief and tend to encourage idleness.

"Another race of people might come, but they could not soon get t.i.tles to lands, if ever.

"There is no civil government here, not even in form. Gomez and his insurgent followers are still in their mountain fastnesses, and whatever of organizations they have are irregular, and military.

They are biding their time for something, not yet fully developed.

"Our government here is military, disguise it as we may. If it were anything else, it would soon fail. All attempts at a hermaphroditical government here must also fail, as it has everywhere.

It must be all American or all Cuban. The Spaniards here, though they predominate in the princ.i.p.al cities, do not yet count as a factor, although they are for annexation; this to save their estates and for personal safety. Any attempts to build up a Cuban government by the use of a few Cubans and Spaniards in Havana and other cities, no matter what their character for intelligence and peaceableness may be, must end in disaster, and a little later, in a wild repet.i.tion of war and bloodshed. Those who organized and maintained, through the dreadful years of the past, the insurrection against Spanish power and suffered so much in their estates and families, are going to have a say in the future control of this island, and if it is to be annexed to the United States, they will have to be consulted or a b.l.o.o.d.y guerilla war will ensue. They are now exhausted, and tired and sick of war, but they are used to it, and familiar with death, and already they are preparing and calculating on a war much easier for them to wage against the United States than against Spain, as the United States is not expected to be so barbarous in the treatment of their remaining women and children; and such people can reasonably calculate on help from sympathizers, adventurers, etc., of other countries, especially South American, and people of kindred races and instincts. The cry of freedom and liberty is always seductive and brings friends.

"The Cuban people now being recognized here, with rare exceptions, had nothing to do with maintaining the insurrection, but remained within the cities and lines of the Spanish army, pretending to be loyal to Spain, if they were not so in fact. They were too cowardly to fight, and too avaricious to render material aid to those in the field. All such are under the ban of suspicion in the eyes of the real Cuban insurgents, no matter what their pretensions may be. Any government organized with such persons at the head will, sooner or later, be overthrown in blood, if not otherwise. The Cubans, like other people, desire offices, and the war-patriots of Cuba are no exceptions, and will fight for power, and when the test comes the ma.s.s of Cubans in and out of the cities will be with the real insurgent leaders. Already the latter are resolving not to take office until they are recognized and given a full share of power.

"Ignoring such people now is easy; later they will defy our country and be its eternal enemies, with the civilized world in sympathy with them. The Spaniards, other foreigners, and home-staying Cuban politicians are the people who now get a hearing, but wait and listen for what is to come! Our people will appear to the real Cubans as their despoilers and oppressors, instead of liberators.

"I am in favor of annexation, and the sooner the better, but the Cuban patriots must first form a government, provisional or otherwise, and consent to annexation. This at first would have been easy, even now possible, to be brought about, but we are fast drifting away from annexation or a peaceful solution of the great and scandalous Cuban problem confronting us.

"The Cuban people are not to be despised; they are a mixed race it is true, but they have talked of and fought for freedom too many years not to know something of the sweet fruits of individual liberty. They are polite and affable, but yet suspicious, as all people are who have been oppressed. It is said they may be resentful of the real or imaginary wrongs they have suffered from the Spaniards.

Grant this. Who would not, with their homes as open graveyards strewn with the dead of their families, etc.? It is not best or safe to believe all the tales told of Gomez and his followers by the Spaniards or city Cubans.

"However, I do not believe that a reorganization, with the insurgents fairly recognized, would be as bad as these interested people claim, or would be half so b.l.o.o.d.y as any organized civil government will prove to be with them left out. Woe to the Spaniard in the island if war again breaks out here! Gomez is at the head of the Cuban military forces, but there are others, generally good men, who are recognized heads of the Cuban insurgent civil power. These are the people who will have to be dealt with, or they will deal with whatever power may be set up.

"The Cuban is not so ignorant as is often claimed. Generally all cla.s.ses can read and write. Now they have no redress for wrongs against person or property. (They have no civil courts; only a little remaining semblance of Spanish authority in a few places.)

"With a simple form of civil government they could soon have this, and they could be schooled in the primary principles of civil government, such as self-reliance, knowledge of their just rights, duty to others, and others' duty to them. Cubans have more need of justices of the peace than of justices of a Supreme Court. The people want and need quick redress against trespa.s.sers, and in the collection of debts, etc.

"A simple code of laws, primitive in character, but comprehensive and easily understood, yet adequate to bring speedy relief, is what is now most needed. Such laws could be pa.s.sed by a provisional legislative body. Light taxes for a few years should be a.s.sessed.

Good land laws with a reasonable law of limitations should be made.

Land t.i.tles then soon would be settled. The established government should take up and lease, pending the adjustment of t.i.tles, all tillable and unoccupied land. Much of this land, even the best of it (which would be cheap at two hundred dollars per acre), would escheat for the want of living owners or descendants. The escheated lands would make a large revenue for the State. Much of the land in cultivation is capable of netting each year, with only fair cultivation in tobacco, etc., one thousand dollars per acre. These lands have had, and soon should have again, a value of from two to five hundred and often one thousand dollars per acre.

"Cuba (under Spanish semi-barbaric rule for four hundred years) could be transformed from a graveyard of open graves, the feeding- ground and paradise of vultures, to the richest and most ideally beautiful and most enchanting spot on the face of the earth, with a prosperous population on a high plane of civilization. Even the tropical diseases in Havana and other coast cities would disappear before modern methods of sanitation. In general, outside of a few cities, the island is healthful, notwithstanding the contaminating effect of the pestilential cities. Yellow fever, smallpox, and a few infectious diseases exist here continually, but they soon would disappear.

"The property owners, in spite of high taxes, have lived in this island in 'barbaric luxury,' partaking somewhat of _splendor_.

This will be the case again, and much intensified, when touched by a civilization that regards the rights of man.

"The ease and comfort possible in such a place as this are too great to be appreciated by such plain hard-working persons as you and I. But----

"Yours most respectfully, "J. Warren Keifer, "Major-General Volunteers."

APPENDIX F

List of officers who served (at some time) on the division staff of Major-General Keifer in the Spanish War.

_Personal Staff_

Captain Horace C. Keifer (Ohio), 3d U. S. Vol. Engineers, Aide.

First Lieutenant Albert C. Thompson, Jr. (Ohio), U. S. Vol. Signal Corps, Aide.

First Lieutenant Edward T. Miller (Ohio), U. S. Vol. Signal Corps, Aide.

Second Lieutenant Dwight E. Aultman (U.S.A.), 2d U. S. Artillery, Aide.