Twelve Months with the Eighth Massachusetts Infantry in the Service of the United States

by Harry Endicott Webber

There was a great deal of destitution throughout the cities and towns of Matanzas Province. Most of the towns had been occupied as fortified camps by the Spanish troops, and the people of the surrounding country had been brought within the limits of the camps to prevent their helping the insurgents.

The food supply was inadequate to support the population herded together in this way, and there were many deaths from starvation, and great mortality, especially among the children. Committees were formed throughout the Province for the purpose of getting food to these people. Captain Horace S. Bean of Company B was sent into the interior to organize these committees and superintend the distribution.

Chaplain George D. Sanders was detailed on special duty as chairman of the commission on charities and corrections for the District, where he served with much credit until mustered out.

Many poor people came to the camp to collect scraps of food that were thrown away. They were mostly children and were not burdened with much covering. They were special objects of pity to the soldiers, who supplied them with food and clothing. After the depots were opened in the city for the distribution of food, people were forbidden, for sanitary reasons, assembling about the mess houses.

The men were annoyed by other visitors for whom they had no compassion. There was a large variety of bugs and insects that made their homes among the coral rocks. Centipedes and tarantulas were especially unwelcome, as they formed the unpleasant habit of spending the night in flannel shirt sleeves and trouser legs, and resented being disturbed in the morning when the owner put on his clothing. Fortunately, their bites, although very painful, were not deadly. It was soon discovered that they disliked tent floors which had been washed with a solution of corrosive sublimate, and after a while these pests either died, or migrated to other quarters, where they were treated to less frequent doses of corrosive sublimate.

Everything in the City of Matanzas, including streets, people, buildings and language, were at first matters of great curiosity to the soldiers. The city was supposed to have a population of some 40,000, and was the chief sea port and capital of the province bearing the same name. The streets were narrow and ill kept. The sidewalks were not over two and a half feet wide, and most of the roadways were so rough that it would be impossible to drive a light American wagon over them without great discomfort.

The houses were mostly alike, built of stone or stucco, and many were colored a light blue or pink. They were built about a square court yard, and usually not over two stories in height. The front of the houses were flush with the sidewalks, and the windows barred on the outside. No glass was used, but behind the iron bars, were shutters, which, when opened, permitted anyone in the street to look upon the family life within the front room. The front door was usually large enough to allow a carriage to enter the house, and opened into a passageway leading to a court. The kitchen was in the corner of this court, or in a covered way leading into a back court. This back court was sometimes used as a stable, and the exit from the stable was through the court and front door of the house. Charcoal brasiers were used exclusively for cooking, and a stove was unknown. The sleeping rooms were usually upon the second floor, and opened upon a balcony, which ran around three sides of the court. In the better class of houses there was usually a fountain in the court, surrounded by flowers and shrubbery.

Owing to the absence of decent roads, everything brought from the country had to be carried upon pack horses. The milk dealers carried their cans in the pouches of a huge saddle placed upon a very small horse. Fodder was carried through the streets on similar saddles, and a horse bearing a load of grass, looked as if he was going to a masquerade disguised as a hay cock. Venders peddled bunches of poultry tied together by the legs, and fishermen went about carrying blue lobsters hanging by their tails from sticks, and advertised their wares in shrill invitations to buy "langostas frescas."

Life in the streets and in the stores, the manner of preparing and marketing foods, the different business methods, and the Spanish language as a setting to all this strangeness, was new and interesting. The men enjoyed the custom of storekeepers charging different prices to officers and enlisted men over the same counter for the same article, and the bland way a haberdasher would meet an officer's protest, by telling him that everything ought to cost him more, as his pay was larger. On Sunday, the only places of business closed were the U. S. Quartermaster and Commissary Depots.

Sunday afternoons and evenings were holidays for everyone except the storekeepers, and during Lent the streets were filled with masqueraders. This manner of life was new to the men from New England. Passes to visit the city were freely issued, when not interfering with military duty, and men with good records were allowed to visit Havana for a few days.