Campaigning in Cuba

by George Kennan

The scenes of Saturday were like those of the previous day, but with added details of misery and horror. Many of the wounded, brought in from the extreme right flank of the army at Caney, had had nothing to eat or drink in more than twenty-four hours, and were in a state of extreme exhaustion. Some, who had been shot through the mouth or neck, were unable to swallow, and we had to push a rubber tube down through the bloody froth that filled their throats, and pour water into their stomachs through that; some lay on the ground with swollen bellies, suffering acutely from stricture of the urinary passage and distention of the bladder caused by a gunshot wound; some were paralyzed from the neck down or the waist down as a result of injury to the spine; some were delirious from thirst, fever, and exposure to the sun; and some were in a state of unconsciousness, coma, or collapse, and made no reply or sign of life when I offered them water or bread. They were all placed on the ground in a long, closely packed row as they came in; a few pieces of shelter-tenting were stretched over them to protect them a little from the sun, and there they lay for two, three, and sometimes four hours before the surgeons could even examine their injuries. A more splendid exhibition of patient, uncomplaining fortitude and heroic self-control than that presented by these wounded men the world has never seen. Many of them, as appeared from their chalky faces, gasping breath, and bloody vomiting, were in the last extremity of mortal agony; but I did not hear a groan, a murmur, or a complaint once an hour. Occasionally a trooper under the knife of the surgeon would swear, or a beardless Cuban boy would shriek and cry, "Oh, my mother, my mother!" as the surgeons reduced a compound fracture of the femur and put his leg in splints; but from the long row of wounded on the ground there came no sound or sign of weakness. They were suffering,—some of them were dying,—but they were strong. Many a man whose mouth was so dry and parched with thirst that he could hardly articulate would insist on my giving water first, not to him, when it was his turn, but to some comrade who was more badly hurt or had suffered longer. Intense pain and the fear of impending death are supposed to bring out the selfish, animal characteristics of man; but they do not in the higher type of man. Not a single American soldier, in all my experience in that hospital, ever asked to be examined or treated out of his regular turn on account of the severity, painful nature, or critical state of his wound. On the contrary, they repeatedly gave way to one another, saying: "Take this one first—he's shot through the body. I've only got a smashed foot, and I can wait." Even the courtesies of life were not forgotten or neglected in that valley of the shadow of death. If a man could speak at all, he always said, "Thank you," or "I thank you very much," when I gave him hard bread or water. One beardless youth who had been shot through the throat, and who told me in a husky whisper that he had had no water in thirty-six hours, tried to take a swallow when I lifted his head. He strangled, coughed up a little bloody froth, and then whispered: "It's no use; I can't. Never mind!" Our Dr. Egan afterward gave him water through a stomach-tube. If there was any weakness or selfishness, or behavior not up to the highest level of heroic manhood, among the wounded American soldiers in that hospital during those three terrible days, I failed to see it. As one of the army surgeons said to me, with the tears very near his eyes: "When I look at those fellows and see what they stand, I am proud of being an American, and I glory in the stock. The world has nothing finer."

It was the splendid courage and fortitude of the men that made their suffering so hard to see. As the row of prostrate bodies on the ground grew longer and longer Saturday afternoon and evening, the emotional strain of the situation became almost unbearable, and I would have exchanged all the knowledge and ability I possessed for the knowledge and skill even of a hospital steward, so that I might do something more than carry around food and water to those suffering, uncomplaining American soldiers.

Late Saturday afternoon there was a heavy tropical shower, which drenched not only the wounded who were awaiting examination in front of the operating-tents, but also the men who had been operated upon and carried away into the long grass. I doubt, however, whether it made their condition any worse—at least for a time. Most of them had been exposed for hours to a tropical sun, and the rain must have given them, at first, a feeling of coolness and relief.

As the sun set and darkness settled down upon the camp after the short tropical twilight, candles were again lighted around the operating-tables, and the surgeons worked on without intermission and without rest. The rattle of rifles and machine-guns and the booming of artillery along the line of battle died away into an occasional sputter after dark; the full moon rose into a cloudless sky, and the stillness of the jungle south of the camp was broken only by an occasional shot from a sentry or from a Spanish sharp-shooter hidden in a tree. Around the operating-tables there was a sound of half-audible conversation as the surgeons gave directions to their assistants or discussed the injuries of the men upon whom they were at work, and now and then a peremptory call for "Litter-squad here!" showed that another man was about to be brought to the operating-table, or carried from it into the field and laid on the ground.

At midnight Saturday the number of wounded men that had been brought into the hospital camp was about eight hundred. All that could walk, after their wounds had been dressed, and all that could bear transportation to the sea-coast in an army wagon, were sent to Siboney to be put on board the hospital steamers and transports. There remained in the camp several hundred who were so severely injured that they could not possibly be moved, and these were carried to the eastern end of the field and laid on the ground in the high, wet grass. I cannot imagine anything more cruelly barbarous than to bring a severely wounded man back four or five miles to the hospital in a crowded, jolting army wagon, let him lie from two to four hours with hardly any protection from the blazing sunshine in the daytime or the drenching dew at night, rack him with agony on the operating-table, and then carry him away, weak and helpless, put him on the water-soaked ground, without shelter, blanket, pillow, food, or drink, and leave him there to suffer alone all night. And yet I saw this done with scores, if not hundreds, of men as brave and heroic as any that ever stood in a battle-line. It might not have been so,—it ought not to have been so,—but so it was; and in that hospital there were no means whatever of preventing it. The force of surgeons and hospital stewards immediately available was altogether too small to attend properly to the great number of wounded thrown suddenly upon their hands, and no men could be spared to look after the wretched and suffering soldiers in the grass whose wounds had been treated, when there were a hundred more who had not even been looked at in twenty-four hours, and who were lying in a long, closely packed row on the ground, awaiting their turns at the operating-tables. When a litter-squad had carried a man away into the bushes, they had to leave him there and hurry back to put another sufferer on a table or bring another from an ambulance or army wagon to the operating-line. Instead of the force of five surgeons and about twenty stewards and attendants with which the hospital began work on Friday, there should have been a force of fifty surgeons and at least two hundred stewards, attendants, and stretcher-bearers, so that they might have been divided into two watches, or reliefs, working and resting alternately. As it was on Friday, five surgeons and twenty attendants had to take care of the wounded from three whole divisions. They were reinforced by five more surgeons and perhaps twenty more attendants Friday evening, but even this force was so insufficient and inadequate that at midnight on Saturday one of the highest medical officers in the camp said to me: "This department is in a state of complete collapse."

In nothing were the weakness and imperfect equipment of the hospital more apparent than in the provision made—or rather the lack of provision—for the care of wounded after their wounds had been dressed. It seems to have been expected that, when injured men were brought back from the battle-line, their blankets, canteens, and rations would be brought with them; but in seventy-five per cent. of the cases this was not done, and it was unreasonable under the circumstances to expect that it would be done. The men did not go into action carrying their blankets and rations; on the contrary, most of them left all unnecessary impedimenta in their camps and went into the fight as lightly clad as possible, often stripped naked to the waist. When they were shot, their comrades picked them up and carried them to the rear just as they were. There was no time to inquire for their personal belongings or to send to their camps for their blankets; and they came back to the hospital not only without blankets or ponchos, but often hatless, shirtless, and in trousers ripped up by surgeon's scissors. Some of them had empty canteens, but I did not see one who had food. Ample provision should have been made in this hospital for clothing, feeding, and supplying the wants of wounded men brought back in this destitute condition; but such provision as was made proved to be wholly inadequate. The few dozen shirts and blankets that the hospital contained were soon distributed, and then the wounded men were taken from the operating-tables and laid on the ground in the outskirts of the camp in the same state, as regards clothing and bedding, that they were in when picked up on the battle-field. For feeding them no arrangements whatever had been made, and, indeed, there was no food in the hospital suited to their requirements. Our Red Cross surgeon, Dr. Egan, and I brought in a few bottles of malted milk, maltine, beef extract, limes, etc., but as we could not get transportation for a single pound of stuff and had to march in twelve miles over a bad road, we could not bring much, and our limited supply of invalid food, although administered only in desperate cases, was exhausted in two or three hours.

Major Wood, who superintended the bringing in and disposition of the wounded, did everything that was possible to make them comfortable, and worked day and night with tireless energy and devotion; but there was very little that could be done with the resources at his command.

The second day's battle in front of Santiago consisted, generally speaking, of a series of attempts on the part of the Spaniards to drive our troops from the positions which they had taken by assault on Friday. The firing continued throughout the day, and at times was very heavy; but just before sunset it died away to a faint sputter and crackle of rifles, and at dark ceased altogether. The moon rose in an unclouded sky over the dark tree-tops east of the camp; the crickets began to chirp in the thicket across the brook; sounds like the rapid shaking of a billiard-ball in a resonant wooden box came from nocturnal birds or tree-toads hidden in the depth of the forest; and the teeming life of the tropical wilderness, frightened into silence for a time by the uproar of battle, took courage from the stillness of night, and manifested its presence by chirps, croaks, and queer, unfamiliar cries in all parts of the encircling jungle.

About ten o'clock the stillness was broken by the boom of a heavy gun at the front, followed instantly by the crash and rattle of infantry fire, which grew heavier and heavier, and extended farther and farther to the north and south, until it seemed to come from all parts of our intrenched line on the crest of the San Juan ridge. For nearly half an hour the rattle and sputter of rifles, the drumming of machine-guns, and the intermittent thunder of artillery filled the air from the outskirts of Santiago to the hospital camp, drowning the murmur of the rippling brook, and silencing again the crickets, birds, and tree-toads in the jungle beyond it. Then the uproar ceased, almost as suddenly as it had begun; the stillness of night settled down again upon the lonely tropical wilderness; and if I had not been able to hear the voices of the surgeons as they consulted over an operating-table, and an occasional shot from a picket or a sharpshooter in the forest, I should not have imagined that there was an army or a battle-field within a hundred miles. From the wounded who came back from the firing line an hour or two later we learned that the enemy made an attempt, about ten o'clock, to recapture the San Juan heights, but were repulsed with heavy loss.

Saturday's fighting did not materially change the relative positions of the combatants, but it proved conclusively that we could hold the San Juan ridge against any attacking force that the Spaniards could muster. Why, after a demonstration of this fact, General Shafter should have been so discouraged as to "seriously consider the advisability of falling back to a position five miles in the rear," I do not know. Our losses in the fighting at Caney and San Juan were only two hundred and thirty-nine men killed and thirteen hundred and sixty-three wounded, yet General Shafter was so disheartened that he not only thought of retreating to a position five miles in the rear, but seems to have been upon the point of surrendering the command of the army to General Breckenridge. Ill health, doubtless, had much to do with this feeling of discouragement. It certainly was not warranted by anything that one could see at the end of the second day's fight. We had taken every position that we had attacked; we had lost only ten per cent of our available force; and we were strongly intrenched on the crest of a high hill less than a mile and a half from the eastern boundary of the city. After General Lawton's division and the brigade of General Bates had reinforced Generals Kent and Wheeler at San Juan, there was very little reason to fear that the Spaniards would drive us from our position.