“They have been worn down by the terrific strain of fighting, marching, digging in the trenches, during the tropical midsummer; they have been in the fore-front, all through, they never complained though half-fed and with clothes and shoes in tatters; but it is bitter to think of the wealth at home, which would be so gladly used in their behalf if only it could be so used. They are devoted to me, and I cannot get their condition out of my thoughts. If only you could see them in battle, or feeding these wretched refugee women and children, whose misery beggars description. [Did I not say that these wild, strong men of the West were gentle in heart as well as fierce in courage!]
“Well, it is a great thing to have led such a regiment on the crowning day of its life. Young Burke [Eddie Burke] is well and is a first-class man and soldier. I like and respect him. Bob earned his promotion. The New York men have stood the strain well. I felt dreadfully about Kenneth’s wound that day, but I was near the line, with my men, nearest the Spaniard, and I could not have gone back or held back for my own son. No man was ahead of me when we charged or rushed to the front to repel a charge; and indeed, I think my men would follow me literally anywhere. In the hard days I fared absolutely as they did, in food and bedding,—or rather, the lack of both. Now, yellow fever has broken out in the Army and I know not when we shall get away, but whatever comes, it is all right and I am content. Love to little Teddy and all the others. Your brother.”
The same day he wrote my husband:
“Two of our men have died of yellow fever. We hope to keep it out of camp, and if we succeed, I trust we shall soon get to Porto Rico. Whatever comes, I cannot say how glad I am to have been in this. I feel that I now leave the children a memory that will partly offset the fact that I did not leave them much money. I have been recommended for the Colonelcy of this regiment, and for the medal of honor. Of course, I hope to get both, but I really don’t care very much, for the thing itself is more important than the reward, and I have led this regiment during the last three weeks, the crowning weeks of its life. There is nothing I would have exchanged for having led it on horseback, where, first of all the army, we broke through the enemy’s entrenchments. By the way, I then killed a Spaniard myself with the pistol Will Cowles raked up from the Maine. Of the six hundred men with whom I landed, less than three hundred are left; the others are dead or in the hospital; the mismanagement has been beyond belief.”
Alas, how sad it seems that the mismanagement should have been beyond belief at such a time!
On July 27 a letter dated “First Regiment, U. S. Volunteer Cavalry, in camp near Santiago de Cuba,” was received by my husband. A very characteristic letter it was, full of the joy of a fight well fought, and full also, of that tremendous human sympathy with his men, combined with an intelligent practicality which resulted later in the “round robin,” requesting that the men who had fought so bravely, should not be allowed to die of disease unnecessarily by being retained for no good reason in the broiling heat of a Cuban summer.
“Dear Douglas,” he writes, “we had a bully fight at Santiago, and though there was an immense amount that I did not exactly enjoy, the charge itself was great fun. Frankly, it did not enter my head that I could get through without being hit, but I judged that even if hit, the chances would be about 3 to 1 against my being killed.
“As far as the political effect of my actions;—in the first place, I never can get on in politics, and in the second, I would rather have led that charge and earned my colonelcy, than serve three terms in the United States Senate. It makes me feel as though I could now leave something to my children which will serve as an apology for my having existed. [How much his existence needed an apology!] In spite of the strain, and the anything but hygienic conditions under which we have lived, I am in very good health. If we stay here all summer, we shall have yellow fever among us, of course, but I rather think I will pull through that too. I wish they would let us go to Porto Rico, or if not, then let me get all my regiment together in Maine or somewhere like that and get them in trim for the great campaign against Havana in the Fall. I wish you could see these men. I am as proud of them as I can be, and I verily believe they would go anywhere with me. They are being knocked down right and left, however, with the fever. I shan’t take any risks unless I really think I ought to, and now, I begin to believe that I am going to get home safely.”
A letter from Bob Ferguson about the same time backs up his future position in regard to moving the men, and reiterates:
“It was a glorious spin, over trenches and barbed wires instead of oaken panels, however. One never expects to see the like again;—Corinne and Anna must have suffered terribly from Theodore’s wild, whirlwind career! His courage all through was so simple and so true to him. The Spaniards laughed at the Cubans, and said they had no fighting to do until the Americans came;—they ‘kept on coming.’ One officer told Colonel Wood that the Americans were ‘magnanimous, brave, and ferocious.’ If Cervera had stayed in harbor with his ships, we would have been in the devil of a hole between starvation and fever. It is lucky things went as they did.”