e under conditions which
almost insured being attacked by the severe malarial fever of the
country. My own men were already suffering badly from fever, and they
got worse rather than better in the new camp. The same was true of the
other regiments in the cavalry division. A curious feature was that
the colored troops seemed to suffer as heavily as the white. From week
to week there were slight relative changes, but on the average all the
six cavalry regiments, the Rough Riders, the white regulars, and the
colored regulars seemed to suffer about alike, and we were all very
much weakened; about as much as the regular infantry, although
naturally not as much as the volunteer infantry.

Yet even under such circumstances adventurous spirits managed to make
their way out to us. In the fortnight following the last bombardment
of the city I enlisted no less than nine such recruits, six being
from Harvard, Yale, or Princeton; and Bull, the former Harvard oar,
who had been back to the States crippled after the first fight,
actually got back to us as a stowaway on one of the transports,
bound to share the luck of the regiment, even if it meant yellow
fever.

There were but twelve ambulances with the army, and these were quite
inadequate for their work; but the conditions in the large field
hospitals were so bad, that as long as possible we kept all of our
sick men in the regimental hospital at the front. Dr. Church did
splendid work, although he himself was suffering much more than half
the time from fever. Several of the men from the ranks did equally
well, especially a young doctor from New York, Harry Thorpe, who had
enlisted as a trooper, but who was now made acting assistant-surgeon.
It was with the greatest difficulty that Church and Thorpe were able
to get proper medicine for the sick, and it was almost the last day of
our stay before we were able to get cots for them. Up to that time
they lay on the ground. No food was issued suitable for them, or for
the half-sick men who were not on the doctor's list; the two classes
by this time included the bulk of the command. Occasionally we got
hold of a wagon or of some Cuban carts, and at other times I used my
improvised pack-train (the animals of which, however, were continually
being taken away from us by our superiors) and went or sent back to
the sea-coast at Siboney or into Santiago itself to get rice, flour,
cornmeal, oatmeal, condensed milk, potatoes, and canned vegetable