Camp Ponce, Between Town of Ponce and Shipping Port, August 6.
Dear Ones and All: I hope you received my letter from Samono Bay and that you are all well. I am fine, as well as ever I have been. We arrived here last Monday and landed on Tuesday. We were on the water eleven days and it was a grand trip and all enjoyed it greatly, but if would have been much better if we had good food. What we ate consisted of canned beef, hardtack, canned beans and tomatoes with coffee twice a day.
Well, now to tell you something about this place. It is without exception the prettiest place I ever saw. We have about five hundred Spanish prisoners here in this camp and leave to-night by train to cross the mountains and clear the road for the main body of troops, which will advance on San Juan. You will probably know the outcome long before this letter reaches you. We are camped on the roadside. The thoroughfare is macadamized from one end of the island to the other, and as fine a road as one ever saw. It would be a grand place to have a bicycle. Our camp is always crowded with hungry, starving Cuban men, women and children, some of them naked and the rest only partially clothed. They will do almost anything for our hardtack, for some of them never had any flour, and when we purchase we have to pay two cents for a small roll, but while we are in camp we make our own bread and they go crazy for some of it.
There is plenty of tobacco here and the way we get it is to give one hardtack for a cigar. The men and women are all cigarmakers, and, as our commissary is not yet open, we have to make native cigars. All the people here seem glad to have the Americans take the island.
Wine and rum costs two cents a drink and an American dollar is worth $1.80 in Spanish money. Our regiment and the Nineteenth are the only regiments of regular infantry on the island. All others are volunteers excepting one or two regiments of cavalry and artillery, so we are likely to get the brunt of all the battles. We had a little scrimmage yesterday, but it did not amount to much. Now I will try to tell you a little about the island before I run out of paper. Cocoanuts grow in abundance here, with all other kinds of tropical fruit. As yet we have not been near the banana or pineapple district. The roads are all shaded with trees, and if I could get at a desk for a short time I would write a better letter. This one is only to let you know I am alive and well and as soon as the affair is over I think I'll buy a farm here,—etc.
LETTERS FROM JOE BOHON.
Ponce, Porto Rico, Aug. 4, 1898.
I suppose you know by this time where we are. I have written several times to the folks and different ones, but have received no mail for twenty days.
We landed at Guanica July 25 and were the first troops on the island. We had considerable music from our gunboat escorts there. You could see them going over the hills in droves. We stayed there three days, then Company H and one company from Massachusetts Regiment marched to Yauco. We looked for trouble there but were disappointed. We stayed there three days, then started to march for Ponce. It took us two days to come a distance of thirty-five miles. We were in heavy marching order with an extra 100 rounds of ammunition. Its weight was between 80 and 100 pounds.
This is a town of 35,000; they have banks, electric lights, telephones and an ice plant. There are some English-speaking people here. I was down town yesterday. The hotels and restaurants are all run by French people. It's a wonderful sight how the natives respect us. They take off their hats and say Viva Americana (long live America). If one of them can get hold of a blue shirt or pants or a small flag they are the envy of every one of their people. Our company have four with us since we landed. They wash our dishes, carry water and make themselves useful.