trong appeal to an army three years away from home and with dwindling
hopes of ever seeing Spain again. On the 15th of July a capitulation was
agreed upon, and the terms of surrender included not only the troops
in Santiago but all those in that military district--about twenty-four
thousand men, with cannon, rifles, ammunition, rations, and other
military supplies. Shafter's recommendation that the troops be allowed
to carry their arms back to Spain with them was properly refused by the
War Department. Arrangements were made for Spanish ships paid by the
United States to take the men immediately to Spain. This extraordinary
operation was begun on the 8th of August, while the war was still in
progress, and was accomplished before peace was established.

The Santiago campaign, like the Mexican War, was fought chiefly by
regulars. The Rough Riders and the Seventy-first New York Regiment
were the only volunteer units to take a heavy share. Yet the absence
of effective staff management was so marked that, as compared with the
professional accuracy shown by the navy, the whole campaign on land
appears as an amateur undertaking. But the individual character of both
volunteers and regulars was high. The American victory was fundamentally
due to the fighting spirit of the men and to the individual initiative
of the line and field officers.

In the meantime the health of the American Army was causing grave
concern to its more observant leaders. Six weeks of Cuban climate had
taken out of the army all that exuberant energy which it had brought
with it from the north. The army had accomplished its purpose only
at the complete sacrifice of its fighting strength. Had the Spanish
commander possessed more nerve and held out a little longer, he might
well have seen his victorious enemies wither before his eyes, as the
British had before Cartagena in 1741. On the 3d of August a large
number of the officers of the Santiago army, including Generals Wheeler,
Sumner, and Lawton, and Colonel Roosevelt, addressed a round robin to
General Shafter on the alarming condition of the army. Its substance is
indicated in the following sentences: "This army must be moved at
once or it will perish. As an army it can be safely moved now. Persons
responsible for preventing such a move will be responsible for the
unnecessary loss of many thousands of lives." Already on the 1st of
August, General Shafter had reported 4255 sick, of whom 3164 were cases
of y