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About Yale Alumni Magazine | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 1898)
ATI ALUMNI “WHEKLY 13 came piling on. They simply camped on the promenade deck. It was quite a sight last night to see every available foot of the deck covered with sleeping men. Fortunately the weather is beautiful, the ocean absolutely smooth. They are swarming now all over the top of the deck-houses and life-boats. The officers’ uniform is so nearly like that of the men that it is not easy to distinguish them. In their flannel shirts and dusty clothes, they look very shabby besides the clean naval officers. On the whole, the sailor’s is an easier lot than the soldier’s. I saw one of the men who had received as his ration a fine big piece of fat pork sitting by the rail.paring off all the fat and throw- ing it overboard. He then ate the slice of lean. He. will want that pork before he gets done. Later, one of the soldiers was standing by the porthole of the saloon where the crew eat, looking at the long table full of sailors each with his bowl of soup, his salt horse and cab- bage. After he had feasted his eyes on the sight for some time, he shook his. head and said: “Well, if ever I go to war again, durned if I don’t go on ship.” Very few of these soldiers had ever sten the salt water before. They talk of taking Santiago as if all they had to do was to get on a trolley car and ride right in. The officers mess with us in the saloon at a charge of $1.50 per day. The men are allowed to make their coffee in the galley but the rest of their food is eaten direct from the can. They have not learned to. sit on their haunches, so most of them eat standing. One of the officers is a Yale man, James McMillan of ’88, and a mighty good officer, too. June 25th.—It is getting hot, but if it were not for these soldiers, it would be delightful to sit on deck and read and smoke. But we should be charitable towards them, for their lack of disci- pline and carelessness will cost many of them their lives. If they would only spit overboard! The ship has a long -easy toll which is scarcely noticeable, but many of the soldiers are sick. Our ready-made soldiers from the Illinois Naval Militia are also ill. They thought it very hard when they were told that sailors are not supposed to get sick, and were set to work. It is the best thing for them, if they only knew it. The soldiers are fine fellows individu- ally, but have not the faintest idea of discipline. They obey orders so long as the orders are agreeable, but as soon as they are tired and the fun is over, they want to stop, and have no hesita- tion in saying so. Last night a guard was picked out (fifteen or twenty men), and then the officer left them for a few minutes before he was ready to station them. When he came back they had all deserted, an offense punishable by six months’ imprisonment. The officers are militiamen, elected to command by their comrades. They know the drill but not the more import- ant matters of how to take care of the health of their men. Their chief fault, perhaps, is their anxiety to be popular. The men have been warned about drink- ing and about their clothing, but pay no attention. One might suppose that in the commissary and supply depart- ments, if anywhere, civilians could dis- charge the duties, but they tell me of a quartermaster at Camp Alger who distributed a lot of clothing without receipts, or keeping accounts, and was surprised to find himself indebted to the Government for the sum of $10,000. TARGET PRACTICE. June 26th.—Yesterday at quarters, I was assigned to the bridge, in my capac- ity of Captain’s aide, to note his com- ments on the target practice. Hereto- fore the gun drill has been mere show or else sub-caliber practice. For this a rifle, Springfield, is fastened in the breech of five-inch guns, while a wooden dummy, in the center of which is a pistol bore for a 45-90 cartridge, is used for the 3-pounders. Yesterday, however, full service ammunition was used, and from two or four shots were fired from each gun. A barrel was bal- lasted and with a flag attached to it, was thrown overboard. We circled about it at a range of 1,000 yards. The ease with which this great ship maneu- vered was very surprising, for, by revers- ing one screw, she turned quickly and in small space. No very remarkable shooting was to be expected, since none ~ _ solemn sight—this of the militia had fired a cannon before. Nearly all the shots were in line but most of them were low. Still, the showing was excellent. Just as we were starting to practice, a steamer went by us. Evidently her captain did not see our target, for after the second shot had gone skipping across her bow, although at quite a safe distance, the ship hove to and came toward us. “That fool,’ said Captain Wise. “What does he think we want with him?” “I would have thought as he did,” said Captain Watkins, “if any- one had fired as near meas that.” Final- ly they saw our target. When we signaled to clear the road, our 1300 soldiers sent back a tremendous cheer. These soldiers had no hesitation in shouting to an officer when we pass a ship, “Say! can you tell me what boat that is?’ The doctor tells a very pathet- ic story, in which he takes great delight, on one of the Illinois naval militia. The man came to him utterly played out and after telling him how terribly tired and sick he was, said, “Why, doc- . tor they want to make a stevedore out of me. I-I’m a clerk.” About 2 A. M. we passed San Salva- dor and have been running down Crooked Island Channel all the morn- ing and passed Castle Island before noon. This afternoon, at 5, Cape Maysi, the extreme eastern point of Cuba, was looming up only five miles away. The formation is very peculiar, consisting of a series of terraces, sharply cut, as with a knife, six or eight, one above another at varying heights. The first, rising direct from the sea; the last, hun- dreds of feet above it, the clouds resting upon it. All are covered with verdure. As we passed close in, we saw a small steamer which had gone ashore. The lighthouse, which stood near by, is not lighted now; hence the disaster, I sup- pose. IN HOSTILE WATERS. June 27th.—As we are now in hostile - waters we came along last night with not a light showing. It was quite a great grey ship, crowded with silent sleeping men, mov- ing at a slow and stealthy pace through the white mist, the pale crescent moon slightly silvering on the few ripples of the otherwise motionless sea. All this changed from the sublime to the ridic- ulous when bed time arrived. For you tripped over one man to step on another; you ran into railings, and after finally groping your way down the passage to your room, nothing seemed to be in the place you left it. I am told that on the last cruise several black eyes and skinned noses appeared at the breakfast table, and the individual owners accused each other of having the hardest heads it had ever been their misfortune to encounter. At five o’clock this morning I was awakened by an orderly sent by the Captain to tell me to have the mail for the fleet ready. Off to starboard four or five miles away was the coast of Cuba. It is the finest coast I have ever seen. The rocks rise sharply from the water, forming a bluff two or three hundred feet high. Behind the cliffs rise the mountains to five thousand feet —severe and sharp in outline, seamed with gullies, but beautifully green to the very top. Every three or four miles the cliffs are broken by little bays with a sandy beach and behind this groves of palms—cocoanut and banana. Off where we lay, the line of the mountains curved inland, leaving a wide plateau between them and the sea. Toward the western end of the bluff which separates plateau and sea is a narrow opening (from where we were, one could hardly realize that it was an opening). On one side is a line of earthworks; on the other, crowning the bluff, is a pile of dilapidated, but pic- turesque white-washed adobe buildings. Above them floats the Spanish flag. This is Morro Castle, and the entrance to the harbor of Santiago. The moun- tains and coast line remind me of the Irish coast in Bantry Bay or again of the northwestern coast of Italy. Close alongside of us was the New York, and scattered along all down the coast were the Oregon, Iowa, Massa- chusetts, New Orleans, Vesuvius, and the other battleships, cruisers and tor- pedo boats of the fleet. All are stripped of every thing that could splinter—rail- ings, nearly all the boats, etc. Ensign Williams, who went on board the New York with the Captain, said that the officers’ quarters are almost as bare as. the decks. When the Captain returned we went back along the coast six or seven miles to a little bay. Just out- side was the fleet of transports, hospital steamers, colliers, etc. The village is called Siboney, and here most of the troops with Shafter were landed. : one THE VOLUNTEERS. In the course of the day, all our brethren from Michigan have been landed. Up to the time they came on this ship many of the men had never fired their pieces. They had only had arms a few days. Two very well-known men are at the head of the medical] staff—Nancreed and Vaughn, professors in Ann Arbor. They tell me that their supply of medicines is so small that already orders have been issued to use medication only when absolutely neces- sary. This afternoon Powell (who went in after Hobson) came aboard. He is rather a good looking, very well built, hearty, straight forward fellow, and shows evident enjoyment of the fight- ing. He is in command of a steam launch, and goes sailing around over the ocean as aide to General Shafter. Siboney, June 290th.—Yesterday a party of us went ashore. Thirty transports were anchored in the offing or steaming about the bay. The surf was breaking on the beach and around a shakey little row-boat pier. In the water naked soldiers were bath- ing—their backs already burned red by the fierce sunlight. Neither they nor the Volunteer officers and doctors who watched them realized the days and nights of torture they were tempt- ing. The beach was covered with boxes and barrels, but little or nothing was going on in the way of landing more supplies. I saw several regular army officers, and when out of ear shot of others, they complain bitterly of the way things are being managed. The General is in his flagship “directing the campaign and especially the important matter of land- ing supplies.’ During the day just half a boat load was landed. It takes two days to get a message out to the Seguranca and back. Near the beach is the railroad which leads up to the mines and down to Santiago. It is being repaired, and soldiers are running the engines. The village consists of a dozen frame cot- tages and some sheds thatched with palm leaves. Back of it is a grove of cocoanut palms and on _ eminences about are little block houses surmounted by a cupola where the Spanish sentry stood. Over one house floated the Cuban flag. At the door we were met by a very courteous little aide de camp who spoke English perfectly and introduced us to General Garcia. The General is a fine intelligent looking man, with a deep bullet wound in the middle of his fore- head. The bullet went in below his chin and out again between and just above the eyes without destroying the sight of either. He was very cordial, and entrusted me with a letter to a lady in New York. It seems as if the Germans who sold the ammunition to the Spaniards must have cheated them as to powder, for the little copper bullets, instead of going on through half a dozen men, stay in the body of the first, and show quite as remarkable deflection as the old minie balls used to do. We had a good deal of trouble in finding a boat to take us back to the ship. Finally we were rowed out to the Olivette (the hospital steamer). On the way we were caught in one of the fierce rain storms which sweep over the ocean once or twice a day, and drenched to the skin. I saw Hearst of the N. Y. Journal rowing about in a rowboat, and John Jacob Astor steering another. They must both have got the same drenching that I did. Late in the afternoon we reached the ship, and reveled in the comforts of a bath, clean clothes and a good dinner— and our satisfaction was by no means diminished by a realization of what we had seen on shore. To-day we have been running up and down the coast collecting mail. I have now a dozen great bags in my care. We went as far as Daiqueri, where the first landing was made. It is a cove much like Siboney, except that there is what was . ways go well. an iron pier. As yet there are no cases of yellow fever among the trOODS. 1+ is surprising this is such an unhealthy country. It is perfectly drained, and although the sun is very bright there is generally a pleasant breeze, plenty of shade, and Iam told that cool streams come down from the moun- tains. On the bridge the thermometer seldom goes above 85°. In the rooms on the lee side it gets warmer than that, of course, but we have plenty of Ice and a tub of salt water whenever wanted. Down in the engine room it gets up to 135° and in some of the coal unkers the hose is kept playing on the men all the time they are working. Last night I wished I could hear going on in New Haven. Strange that after three years in New Haven I should be cruising on a man- of-war down here in the Carribean Sea just when my Class is back for triennial. I hope to be in New York before long, and get up to New Haven for a day or two. We have just received our last bag of mail and have been ordered to cruise along the southern coast of Cuba and. see if we can not stop a few of the schooners which are carrying provisions across from Kingston to the coast back of Havana. : A FOREIGN ATTACHE COMMENTS. June 27th.—While we were at Santi- ago, the German attache, Captain-Lieu- tenant von Rebour Paschwitz, member of the Kaiserliche’s Yatch Club, etc., etc., came on board to inspect. It is one of my duties as Captain’s aide to look after these gentlemen, so I showed him about and did the hospitable for the ship. I was very anxious to get some comment from him on the way affairs are going, but he was too diplo- matic for me. He seemed much inter- ested in this ship as a merchant vessel converted into an auxiliary cruiser. The French attache. du Grand Pré, and the two attaches from Norway ase now on board, on their way to Key West with us. The Frenchman says the reason he left was because he could- n’t get anything to eat. He is quite frank in his comments on the mistakes which we have made, but his wonder at what our men accomplish is an implied soupement of the highest value. He said: “In Europe when we wish to send a foreign expedition, we take six months to prepare it and then it does not al- You have made an army and transported it in a month or two. If a Continental power tried to use underschooled troops, like your volun- teers, and the men lost confidence in their leaders, there would be a cry of sauve qui peut. Yet, with your men, they have all come because they wanted to, and although in many respects they are a mob, they go ahead and accomplish things, even lacking leaders as well as discipline. They have no discipline; there is no order, yet there is no dis- order. It is wonderful! You do the impossible.” He was especially struck by the good spirits and enthusiasm of the men. “Their physique,” said he, “is magnifi- que.” He regards the danger from yel- low fever as very great and claims that few tropical expeditions escape sick- ness. He thinks our new ideas of im- perialism will very soon clash with the European idea of the balance of power. He returns continually to the wonderful intelligence, spirit and bravery of our men, as compared with the conscript soldiers of Europe. The old Surgeon- General from Norwav was especially interested in the hospital steamers and admired the fine arrangements, the operating rooms, et cetera, but he seemed to think that the operations of the Red Cross steamer, State of Texas, in carrying miscellaneous supplies, were a flagrant violation of the Red Cross agreements. This afternoon we ran down off Havana, and had a distant view of the city. The fleet was ranged in a wide half-circle before the harbor entrance. We went close along the side of the monitor Amphitrite, and although there was scarcely any sea on, and the Yale was as steady as a rock, the waves were breaking across the Amphitrite’s deck so violently that a man could not have stood upon it. It has been a very delightful two weeks. The worst thing is that we never get any letters. [Continued on r7th page.]
