this put
them at a great disadvantage as compared with the regulars, all of whom
used Krag-Jorgensen rifles or carbines with smokeless powder. In a
wooded and chaparral-covered country like that around Santiago, where it
was so easy to find concealment and so difficult to see troops at a
distance, the use of smokeless powder was of the utmost possible
importance. A body of men might be perfectly hidden in woods or
chaparral within five hundred yards of the enemy's intrenchments, and
if they used smokeless powder they might fire from there for half an
hour without being seen or getting a return shot; but if they were armed
with Springfields, the smoke from their very first volley revealed to
the enemy their exact position, and the chaparral that concealed them
was torn to pieces by a hail-storm of projectiles from Mausers and
machine-guns. It was cruel and unreasonable to ask men to go into
action, in such a field, with rifles that could be used only with common
powder. Our men might as well have been required to hoist above the
bushes and chaparral a big flag emblazoned with the words, "Here we
are!" Dr. Hitchcock, surgeon of the Second Massachusetts, told me that
again and again, when they were lying concealed in dense scrub beside a
regiment of regulars, the latter would fire for twenty minutes without
attracting a single return shot from the enemy's line; but the moment
the men of the Second Massachusetts began to use their Springfields, and
the smoke rose above the bushes, the Spaniards would concentrate their
fire upon the spot, and kill or wound a dozen men in as many minutes. It
is to be hoped that our government will not send any more troops abroad
with these antiquated guns. They were good enough in their day, but they
are peculiarly unsuited to the conditions of warfare in a tropical
field.

Wounded men from the front continued to come into the hospital camp on
Saturday until long after midnight, and the exhausted surgeons worked at
the operating-tables by candlelight until 3 A. M. I noticed, carrying
stretchers and looking after the wounded, two or three volunteer
assistants from civil life, among them Mr. Brewer of Pittsburg, who died
of yellow fever a few days later at Siboney.

Worn out by sleeplessness, fatigue, and the emotional strain of two
nights and a day of field-hospital experience, I stretched my hammock
between two trees, about three o'clock in the morning, crawled into it,
and slept, for two o