eers excepted--than former
reports indicated. Captain Wester greatly praised the treatment he had
received from all the American officers, and the bravery of the Americans
in the regular army. "Of the 18,000 men under the command of General
Shafter," he says, "only 4,000 were volunteers or militiamen; the rest
consisted of regulars, which had had an average service of six years on the
borders of the Indian territory. They were very good and well-disciplined
soldiers, who went into battle with complete disregard of death. The
militia regiments, however, could not be got within range of the Spanish
bullets, and all the stories about the heroism of volunteers are untrue.
The only volunteers who distinguished themselves were the 'rough riders,'
who, in spite of their name, fought on foot, but these men were not a
militia regiment. The troop consisted of cowboys and adventurers, who cared
neither for life nor death, but rushed blindly into battle. Brave fellows
withal." After praising the bravery of the Spaniards and the accuracy of
their fire, Captain Wester expresses the belief that with modern rifles in
use it is of the greatest importance to have well-trained soldiers, who
in the heat of battle retain their coolness and listen to their officers'
directions and commands,--in a word, soldiers who retain good firing
discipline. This, he says, cannot be expected of men with short time of
training, on whom the din of battle often has so paralyzing an effect that
the soldier can neither hear nor see.

III

The question concerning the quality of the beef served as a ration to our
troops during the recent war--in Cuba and Puerto Rico, and aboard the
transports--has already been pretty thoroughly answered, one way or the
other. Yet, though the topic is worn nearly threadbare and admittedly has
nothing in particular to do with General Schwan's campaign, I venture to
make, in this place, a personal contribution to the discussion in the form
of an extract from a letter, written by me from Mayaguez on September 15,
1898.

Our rations [on the transport "Comanche"] consisted of hard tack, coffee,
canned baked-beans, canned tomatoes, and canned "roast beef." Before we
arrived at Key West the baked-beans had all been eaten and the water in the
tanks had gone rotten--we carried no condenser--so that we were reduced to
the rather monotonous diet of tomatoes for breakfast, tomatoes and canned
roast beef for dinner, and tomatoes again fo