These days of quiet waiting were like the lull that precedes the storm. The time seemed long regarded only from that standpoint, but when it is remembered that these few days were all that had been allowed for a great nation with thirty years of peace to rouse up and plunge itself into a war, the time seems comparatively short. We had taken possession of our ship at Key West on the twenty-ninth of April; it was now the twentieth of June, and the great national records of two countries at least will always give the history of those days. It is our part to keep as clearly, truthfully and kindly as possible the record of the little that fell to us to perform in this great drama. Our arrangements for putting out to sea were quickly made. Such supplies and such persons as were not to go with us must be landed and left. Among the latter, to our deep and lasting regret, was our charming friend, Mrs. J. Addison Porter, who had kindly passed the last weeks with us, leaving us as she did, however, with the comforting promise to return if she should find it possible.

All preliminaries arranged, at ten o’clock, the twentieth of June we weighed anchor at Key West and steamed for the open sea, having first taken the official advice of Commodore Remie, commanding the navy at that point, to find Admiral Sampson and report to him.

The twenty-fifth gave us our first view of the water of Santiago. Our transports and battleships were gathered there, and the advice of Admiral Sampson was that we proceed to Guantanamo, where the marines had made a landing and were camped on the shore. There had been some fighting at Guantanamo. The “Solace” was there. Its harbor was fine, and the run of forty miles was made by noon of that day. Whoever has enjoyed the quiet, sheltered harbor of Guantanamo will not require to be reminded of it—protected on three sides by beautifully wooded hills. At six o’clock our anchors sunk in the deep still waters, and we had time to look about us and see for the first time the beginning of the war. The marines were camped diagonally along the brow of a beautiful hill. On our right a camp of Cubans, and all about us the great monsters with their protruding guns which told of forthcoming trouble. Captain McCalla, who was in command of Guantanamo, had sent compliments and a launch pointing out our place of anchorage.

The courtesies of the navy, so early commenced at Key West, were promptly continued. At eight o’clock we received a visit from Commander Dunlap of the “Solace” which, after a long and cordial interview, closed by his proposing to send his launch at ten o’clock the following day to take our entire company for a visit to the “Solace” and its fifty wounded men. If that beautiful ship or its management had left room on the records of our country’s mead of gratitude for more words of appreciative praise, I should be glad to speak them. Only those familiar with the earliest history of the Red Cross in our country and the methods by which our navy alone of all the Red Cross nations had gained even an approximately legal place, can judge what the sight of that first naval relief ship on our American waters was to me. It brought back so vividly the memory of the day when President Arthur called me to him to carefully explain the conditions of the treaty which he had just signed in 1881, and that Congress, having generously included the navy in its treaty for war, he would provide to hold it carefully until the probable widening of the original treaty would include the navies of the world as well as the armies. I was thankful for themodus vivendi, which I knew was as welcome to Spain as to ourselves, that had made it possible to pick up these poor wounded sailors and given them kindly care among their own, that there were not to be left uncared for, or thrown into land hospitals where everything would be strange to them. My twenty or thirty assistants glided about the polished decks of the magnificent ship, with a kindly greeting for every poor, wounded fellow, and delighted with everything they saw. For me, I had few words, prayerful gratitude, and many memories of the long years of patient waiting that had brought the American Red Cross even up to the point it had attained.

Before the day closed news came to us of a more serious character than we had before learned. The daring Rough Riders had been hardly dealt by; Hamilton Fish and Capron had been killed, and the wounded needed help. Wherever they might be, it must be possible to reach them, and it was decided that no time be lost. Our men commenced work in the hold of the ship to get at medical supplies and dressings, and the captain took his orders. I find in my diary at the close of that day the following paragraph:

“It is the Rough Riders we go to, and the relief may be also rough; but it will be ready. A better body of helpers could scarcely be gotten together.”

Nine o’clock of the same night, June 26, found us in Siboney and anchored in its waters, which can scarcely be called a harbor. It seems to be rather an indenture in the coast. Shall I be pardoned if I again revert to the diary which, by some means, I found time to hastily pencil:

The hospitals, both American and Cuban, are located on the shore just to the right of us, and have been visited by our men during the night. Some of their surgeons called on us; all seemed interested in the Red Cross, but none thought that a woman nurse would be in place in a soldier’s hospital; indeed, very much out of place. I suggested that that decision was hard for me, for I had spent a great deal of time there myself. They appeared to understand that perfectly, or were so polite as not to criticise it, but there seemed to be a later line which could not be crossed. The Cubans, who had just come into camp, were less conventional and expressed a great desire for any assistance we could give them. “Sister Bettina” and her four trained “Sisters,” Drs. Egan and Hubbell went ashore to the hospitals. This had been proposed the evening before at General Garcia’s headquarters; but they were begged to wait just one day until their hospital could be in a little better order. These “Sisters” were not the persons to grant that day of preparation. On the contrary, we were told that as soon as they were fairly in the wards they commenced putting things into order and cleanliness, and worked through the day without interruption, coming home only after dark, tired it must be, but fresh and happy, full of the conviction of a work well done. Long before that day’s work was ended our own American hospitals alongside commenced to be jealous of the Cubans, and believed that they had spoken first. Be that as it might, we were equally forgetful, and from that time no distinction between the hospitals was known.

Dr. Lesser, Mr. Kennan and Mr. Elwell tramped, for there was no other mode of conveyance, to our advance line within three miles of Santiago. They found the artillery up and things nearly ready for attack, which it was thought would be on the following Wednesday.

The sea grew wild and rough; the water was too deep for firm anchorage, and we rocked at such a fearful rate that in pity for the pale faces about me, I begged the captain to draw as near the shore as possible and let, at least, a portion of them onto the land. Let them have, if only a few minutes, the solid ground under their feet. He drew up to within two or three hundred feet of the cliff which runs around like a firm sea wall, and succeeded in anchoring; took a boat and tried to land some of our people, but there were no wharves; the poor little seven by nine bench, designated as a wharf, running out into the sea, against which the boats swung and crashed as they tried to land supplies, was all there was, except the narrow beach with a heavy surf. Our people declined the landing, and headsick, heartsick and seasick returned to the ship.

We had been long without news from the United States; but the next day brought the following dispatch from the New York Cuban Relief Committee:

This was only one of the scores of dispatches reaching us within the few following weeks, and I repeat it here, not as having any special significance, excepting to show the uncertainty and utter instability of all human calculations. Analyzing this kind-hearted and well-meant dispatch in the light of the future, we find that neither the Red Cross supply boat, the steam launch, the Massachusetts relief ship, nor the additional nurses ever reached us. The ice schooner proved to be the “Mary E. Morse,” of which mention is made elsewhere. The five hundred tons of provisions shipped to the Key West warehouse were distributed there. I name this, not in any spirit of complaint—far from it, indeed—but simply to show still further and make more apparent, if possible, the difficulties attendant upon all work at a field of war. Those who have seen only this one war will find these uncertainties and shortcomings very strange, and unaccountable; to me, who had seen other wars, they seemed natural, probably largely inevitable, and quite the thing to be expected, the fatal results of which misfortunes I had spent half my lifetime in instituting measures to prevent or lessen.

We were honored next day by a call from an officer of the “Olivette,” with his assistant. It is not singular, in the light of the great, elegant, newly-fitted ship at his command, that it was difficult for him to realize the use or the necessity of an unpretending little black boat like the “State of Texas,” or of what service it could be expected to be to an army. We labored to impress upon him the fact that this ship did not come for the war, but was loaded and dispatched weeks before there was any war, and simply waited an opportunity to deliver its cargo to the hungry and naked reconcentrados for whom they were designed. This explanation we hoped would make it apparent to the gentleman, how it was, that our supplies of clothing would not be likely to contain the articles of which he said his ship was in want; it probably never having entered into the minds of our sympathetic generous lady donors of America to provide pajamas for Cuban women. Anything we had was freely at his service. If we made any attempt at conversion (which I do not now recall), it was simply on the line of a better understanding of Red Cross methods and principles as connected with his profession, and not a change of heart.

With the constant reminders of the sufferings of the people on shore and our inability to reach them, it was a welcome errand brought by a dispatch boat that afternoon from Captain McCalla, that if we could get five thousand rations to him before the next Thursday morning, he could find a way to deliver them to the refugee families of insurgents and others lying out in the hills and woods beyond his camp at Guantanamo, where they had fled for safety. We steamed at once to Guantanamo and landed the rations next morning, returning to Siboney the same afternoon. The next day our working force was busy all day getting off material to refugees coming in from the mountains. General Garcia detailed a detachment to repair pontoons for the purpose of landing the supplies. Captain McCalla cabled for twenty thousand rations for refugees, to be delivered at Guantanamo by Sunday.

Our Red Cross sisters and surgeons were all busy at the Cuban Hospital, when the following letter from Major Le Garde was received:

To this the following reply was immediately returned:

In the afternoon of this day some members from our ship went ashore and visited the Cuban Hospital and General Garcia’s headquarters, which that general, on leaving Siboney had graciously ordered to be placed “at Miss Barton’s disposal as headquarters for herself and her staff.” It was found, however, that the building would be required by the military, and the matter was given no further consideration.

On the first of July Dr. and Mrs. Lesser with their assistants went early ashore to work in the hospitals, both United States and Cuban. The transport “Harvard” arriving with troops, demanded our anchorage, and on coming out of the harbor to give place to her, we saw that a bombardment of Aguadores, five miles to the west, was taking place. A battleship, perhaps the “Oregon,” the flagship “New York” and a little cruiser were standing in near the shore, the latter keeping up a rapid fire, which was responded to by the batteries on both sides of a ravine which the railroad crossed. We ran down as close as safety permitted and watched the engagement from the bridge of our own ship. The two large ships then drew in and shelled the ravine, apparently silencing the batteries. When we returned to Siboney we learned that our troops had been fighting all day, and that large numbers of wounded were walking or being brought in for treatment. The Red Cross had been requested to take entire charge of a fever hospital of United States troops, which it did. Dr. and Mrs. Lesser and two of the Sisters were assisting in the operating tent. All of us worked nearly through the night—the nurses and physicians as above stated; the others taking out supplies for wounded—one hundred cots, bedding, hospital utensils, medicine, food, etc. The reports were that we had taken and held all the commanding positions around Santiago, but that it had cost us four hundred men.

The diary of July 2 says: The day opened cool and fresh, and although having worked steadily until three o’clock the night previous, when they had been brought back to the ship for a little rest, the Sisters were ready for work at half-past six. Sisters Anna and Isabell had been on duty all night, and must now be relieved. Dr. Egan and Mr. Kennan made ready for the front, the former to have a field hospital.

With a portion of my assistants I go ashore to visit the hospitals in the early part of the day, to learn if anything further can be done for them. We find the wounded coming in rapidly, long rows of hospital tents being filled with them, and many waiting their turn on the operating tables. We learned that the officers had suffered very severely, having been picked off by Spanish sharpshooters. A note came by messenger from Mr. Kennan at the front, saying that by order from General Shafter’s headquarters “Miss Barton was directed to seize any empty wagons coming in and send by them hospital supplies, medical stores, which were badly needed at the front.” This direction would of course be filled as far as possible; the supplies would be gotten out and sent, and it was decided that myself and as many of our assistants as could be spared go with them the next day. These were anxious, trying days throughout the whole country. All America was astir, once more in the dreaded throes of war.

Another dispatch from our committee at New York reveals this state of feeling:

To which the following reply is returned:

July 3 opened clear and bright, the commencement of a hard and busy day, to be long remembered. Our shippers had been landing supplies all night and keeping such guard over them on the sandy beach as was possible.

The daily record of our movements kept always up and open, like the log of the ship, must now fall to the hands of our faithful stenographer, Miss Lucy Graves, and taking up her duties bravely that day, she commences with this paragraph:

“Miss Barton, with Dr. and Mrs. Gardner, Dr. Hubbell and Mr. McDowell, leave for the front to-day, taking two six-mule wagon loads of hospital supplies.” To the young writer it was a simple note in the records of the day, having no special significance. As my eye glanced over it it seemed very strange—passing strange, that after all this more than a quarter of a century I should be again taking supplies to the front of an army in the United States of America; that after all these years of Red Cross instruction and endeavor, it was still necessary to promiscuously seize an army wagon to get food to wounded men.

I hope in some way it may be made apparent to any one who follows these notes how difficult a thing it was to get this food from our ship to the shore. In a surf which after ten o’clock in the morning allowed no small boat to touch even the bit of a pier that was run out without breaking either the one or the other, and nothing in the form of a lighter save two dilapidated flat boat scows which had been broken and cast away by the engineer corps, picked up by ourselves, mended by the Cubans, and gotten in condition to float alongside our ship and receive perhaps three or four tons of material. This must then be rowed or floated out to the shore, run on to the sands as far as possible, the men jumping into the water from knee to waist deep, pulling the scow up from the surf, and getting the material on land. This was what was meant by loading the “seized wagons from the front” and getting food to the wounded. After ten o’clock in the day even this was impossible, and we must wait until the calm of the next morning, three or four o’clock, to commence work again and go through the same struggle in order to get something to load the wagons for that day.

Our supplies had been gotten out, all that could be sent that day for the heavy surf, and among the last, rocking and tossing in our little boat, went ourselves, landing on the pier, which by that time was breaking in two, escaping a surf which every other moment threatened to envelop one from feet to head, we reached the land. Our wagons were there already loaded with our best hospital material,—meal, flour, condensed milk, malted milk, tea, coffee, sugar, dried fruits, canned fruits, canned meats, and such other things as we had been able to get out in the haste of packing—entirely filling the two wagons.

An ambulance had been spoken of, but could not be had. We walked out a little way to wait for it. Dr. Hubbell left our party and went again in search of an ambulance, notwithstanding the assurance that an army wagon would answer our purpose quite as well. These were going line by line up to the front, mainly with ammunition. We waited a little by the roadside; the doctor did not return; our own wagons had gone on, and stopping another loaded with bales of hay, we begged a ride of the driver, and all took our seats among the hay and made our way once more to the front.

The road was simply terrific—clayey, muddy, wet and cut to the hub. A ride of about four hours brought us to the First Division Hospital of the Fifth Army Corps, General Shafter’s headquarters. This was properly the second day after the fight. Two fearful nights had passed.

The sight that greeted us on going into the so-called hospital grounds was something indescribable. The land was perfectly level—no drainage whatever, covered with long, tangled grass, skirted by trees, brush and shrubbery—a few little dog tents, not much larger than would have been made of an ordinary tablecloth thrown over a short rail, and under these lay huddled together the men fresh from the field or from the operating tables, with no covering over them save such as had clung to them through their troubles, and in the majority of cases no blanket under them. Those who had come from the tables, having been compelled to leave all the clothing they had, as having been too wet, muddy and bloody to be retained by them, were entirely nude, lying on the stubble grass, the sun fitfully dealing with them, sometimes clouding over, and again streaming out in a blaze above them. As we passed, we drew our hats over our eyes, turning our faces away as much as possible for the delicacy of the poor fellows who lay there with no shelter either from the elements or the eyes of the passers-by.

Getting past them as quickly as possible, and seeing a smoke ahead of us, and relying upon the old adage that where there is smoke there must be fire, we went to it. A half-dozen bricks had been laid about a yard apart, a couple of pieces of wagon-tire laid across these, so low and so near the ground that no fire of any strength or benefit could be made, the bits of wet wood put under crosswise, with the smoke streaming a foot out on each side, and two kettles of coffee or soup and a small frying-pan with some meat in it, appeared to be the cook-house for these men. They told us there were about eight hundred men under the tents and lying in the grass, and more constantly coming in.

I looked at the men who had constructed and who had charge of that “fireplace,” and saw how young and inexperienced the faces were, and how little they could know of the making up of a camp, and how unsatisfactory it must all be to themselves, and was filled with a sense of pity for them as well as the poor sufferers they were trying to serve. I looked around for the faces of some old veterans of the wars before, who could bring a little knowledge gained from practice. There were none there, but here was our own McDowell, with a record of four years and twenty-six battles in the old Civil War, and after a few moments’ consultation as to the best method to be pursued, we, too, gathered stones and bricks and constructed a longer, higher fireplace, got more wagon-tires, found the water, and soon our great agate kettles of seven and ten gallons were filled. But the wood! It was green, not resinous as the wood of some islands. In Corsica, for instance, one may take the green, wet wood and make a blazing fire. The wood of Cuba is beautiful in quality, but hard and slow to burn.

The rain, that had been drizzling more or less all day, increased. Our supplies were taken from the wagon, a piece of tarpaulin found to protect them, and as the fire began to blaze and the water to heat Mrs. Gardner and I found the way into the bags and boxes of flour, salt, milk and meal, and got material for the first gallons of gruel. I had not thought to ever make gruel again over a camp-fire; I cannot say how far it carried me back in the lapse of time, or really where or who I felt that I was. It did not seem to be me, and still I seemed to know how to do it, and when the bubbling contents of our kettles thickened and grew white with the condensed milk, and we began to give it out, putting it in the hands of the men detailed as nurses and of our own to take it around to the poor sufferers shivering and naked in the rain, I felt again that perhaps it was not in vain that history had reproduced itself. And when the nurses came back and told us of the surprise with which it was received and the tears that rolled down the sun-burned, often bloody, face into the cup as the poor fellow drank his hot gruel and asked where it came from, who sent it, and said it was the first food he had tasted in three, sometimes in four, days (for they had gone into the fight hungry), I felt it was again the same old story, and wondered what gain there had been in the last thirty years. Had anything been worse than this? But still, as we moralized, the fires burned and the gruel steamed and boiled and bucket after bucket went out, until those eight hundred men had each his cup of gruel and knew that he could have another and as many as he wanted. The day waned and the darkness came and still the men were unsheltered, uncovered, naked and wet—scarcely a groan, no word of complaint; no man said he was not well treated.

The operating tables were full of the wounded. Man after man was taken off and brought on his litter and laid beside other men and something given him to keep the little life in his body that seemed fast oozing out. All night it went on. It grew cold—for naked men, bitter cold before morning. We had no blankets, nothing to cover them, only as we tore off from a cut of cotton cloth, which by some means had gotten on with us, strips six or seven feet long, and giving them to our men, asked them to go and give to each uncovered man a piece that should shield his nakedness. This made it possible for him to permit us to pass by him if we needed to go in that direction.

Early in the morning ambulances started, and such as could be loaded in were taken to be carried back over that rough, pitiless road down to Siboney to the hospitals there, that we had done the best we could toward fitting up—where our hundred cots and our hundred and fifty blankets had gone, and our cups and spoons and the delicacies that would help to strengthen these poor fainting men if once they could get there, and where also were the Sisters under Dr. Lesser and Dr. Le Garde to attend them.

They brought out man after man, stretcher after stretcher, to the waiting ambulances, and they took out seventeen who had died in the night—unattended, save by the nurse—uncomplaining, no last word, no dying message, quiet and speechless life had ceased and the soul had fled.

By this time Dr. Hubbell had returned for he had missed our wagons the day before and gone at night for more supplies. This time came large tarpaulins, more utensils, more food, more things to make it a little comfortable—another contribution from the surf of Siboney. We removed our first kitchens across the road, up alongside the headquarter tent of Major Wood in charge of the camp. The major is a regular army officer, brusque, thickset, abrupt, but so full of kind-hearted generosity that words cannot do justice to him. He strove in every way to do all that could be done. He had given us the night before a little officer’s tent into which we had huddled from the pouring rain for a few hours in the middle of the night. The next day, although no tent so spacious as that could be had, a little baby tent it seemed, of about seven feet, was found, pitched alongside of the other, the tarpaulins put over, a new fireplace made near us, magnificent in its dimensions, shelter given for the boxes, bags and barrels of supplies that by this time had accumulated about us. There was even something that looked like tables on which Mrs. Gardner prepared her delicacies.

The gruel still remained the staple, but malted milk, chocolate and rice had come in, and tea, and little by little various things were added by which our ménage became something quite resembling a hotel. The wounded were still being taken away by ambulance and wagon, assorted and picked over like fruit in a barrel. Those which would bear transportation were taken away, the others left where they were. The numbers grew a little less that day.

I ought not neglect mentioning the favorite and notable drinks which were prepared, for it will seem to the poor, feverish men who partook of them that they ought to be mentioned—they will never forget them. They have not even yet ceased to tell through the hospitals that they fall into later of the drink that was prepared for them at the Fifth Corps Hospital. We had found a large box of dried apples, and remembering how refreshing it would be, we had washed a quantity, put it in a large kettle, filled it with water and let it soak. It happened to be a fine tart apple, and the juice was nearly as good as wine. Perhaps no wine had ever seemed so good to those men as a cup of that apple water, and when they tasted it tears again ran down their faces. To their poor, dry, feverish mouths it was something so refreshing that it seemed heaven-sent. The next day a box of prunes was discovered, and the same thing was done with that; a richer, darker juice was obtained, and this also took its place among the drinks prepared at the Fifth Corps Hospital. The apple and prune juice will remain, I suspect, a memorial for that poor neglected spot.

By the third day our patients seemed strong enough that we might risk food as solid as rice, and the great kettles were filled with that, cooked soft, mixed with condensed and malted milk, and their cups were filled with this. It was gratifying to hear the nurses come up and say: “I have sixteen men in my ward. So many of them would like rice; so many would like malted milk; so many would like gruel; so many would like chocolate, and a few would like a cup of tea; and another, who is feverish, would like only some apple or prune juice,”—and taking for each what he called for, go back to his patients as if he had given his order to the waiter at a hotel; and the food that he took was as well cooked, as delicate and as nice as he could have gotten there. The numbers were now getting considerably less—perhaps not over three hundred—and better care could be taken of them.

A dispatch on Thursday afternoon informed me that Mrs. J. Addison Porter would be on the hospital ship “Relief” coming into Siboney that day. I would of course go to meet her. It was a great joy to know that she would return to us. We at once decided that an army wagon should be asked for from headquarters and a party of us go to Siboney, both for Mrs. Porter and more supplies. The roads were getting even worse—so bad, in fact, that I dared not risk an ambulance, an army wagon being the only vehicle strong enough to travel over it.

We had blankets and pillows and the ride was fairly comfortable; but it was late, nine o’clock, before we reached Siboney. The “State of Texas,” which in the last three days had made a trip to Port Antonio for ice, we thought must be back by that time, and on reaching Siboney, found that she had arrived that evening at five o’clock and was lying at her old anchorage. But there was no way of communicating with her in order that a boat might be sent for us. Everything was tried. We had no signals; there was no system of signaling on the shore by which we could reach her or, in fact, any other boat. There was no way but to remain where we were until morning. It was proposed that I go to the rooms assigned for the hospital assistants. I decidedly refused this, for every reason. I knew the buildings were not to be trusted, and persons nursing day and night among all kinds of patients were not the people to room with. I asked to be allowed to remain in my army wagon. This was not thought proper. I suggested that it might be drawn out anywhere, the mules taken off, and I be left with the blankets and pillows. I thought it, in fact, a good place for any one to sleep, and ventured to recommend it as an old-time method—a refuge which once would have been palatial for me on the war-swept fields of old Virginia, or in the drifting sands of Morris Island—what would that have been the night after Antietam or old Fredericksburg, Chantilly or the Wilderness? But the newer generation could not see it so; a building must be had somewhere, and as I refused the hospital appendage in toto, it was proposed that I enter the post-office, a room there being offered to me.

The postmaster and deputy postmaster, who felt themselves under obligation to us, came out to our men and insisted that I occupy a room in that building. Such a courtesy could not be gainsaid, and against all feeling of acquiescence, and with a terrible dread, as if there were something so wrong about it, I allowed myself to be helped out of the wagon and entered the house. The postmaster sat down and talked with me a little while. I thought he seemed ill. It appeared to be an effort for him to talk. I had never met him before, but my heart went out in sympathy for him. I feared I was taking his room, as was indeed the case, although he did not admit it. I was shown into a large room with one cot, one table, cheerless, bare, with an outside door, and a candle without a stick burning upon the table. The men went outside and laid down upon the steps for the night. I laid down upon the stretcher. It was impossible for me to remain there. Something constantly warned me to leave it. I got up, went to the outside door, looked out upon the night and darkness and waited for the gray of the morning. I went out and stood upon the beach beside the sea and waited more and more, until finally some of the men appeared and I went with them down to the water.

I might as well say here, as I will not refer to it again, that six days after, when I returned, they told me that the rightful occupant of the cot—the postmaster who had seemed so ill—had died of a fever raging here that they called “yellow fever.” I had occupied his cot and he had gone to heaven. I wondered who it was that so continually warned me that night to keep away from that room, away from the cot, away from all connected with it, when I had not the slightest suspicion of anything wrong. “Yellow fever” was then not talked of. Did some one tell me? I do not know, but something told me.

While standing at the dock, Dr. Smith, of the “Olivette,” who had taken a ride with us to the front a day or two before, approached, and kindly asked if he could place his boat at my service, and if I would go to the “Olivette” with him. I replied that I would go to the “Relief,” if he would be so kind as to take me there, for a friend whom I had on board. He did so, and as we drew around the side of the elegant white and green striped boat in full navy regulation, the men in white duck appeared on the decks above and below, a half dozen ladies’ faces showing among them, but most notably the good, substantial, matronly looking lady who had left us a few days before—Mrs. Porter. It occurred to me that she had possibly come by invitation to remain on the “Relief” and aid in the charge of the nurses, and would make this explanation to me, but was agreeably surprised when I saw a satchel and a package or two coming down the steps immediately followed by Mrs. Porter herself. I could scarcely believe that she was leaving that elegant boat to come over to the obscure “State of Texas.” But so it was, and, taking her seat in the boat, we rowed around to the “Olivette,” where Dr. Smith left us, and was replaced by a major-surgeon, who would escort us over to the “Texas,” only some rods distant. I did not at once recall him, but among his first remarks were, “You have been at the front?” “Yes, Major.” “I should think you would find it very unpleasant there.” “Such scenes are not supposed to be pleasant.” “What do you go for?” I scarcely know what reply was made to this abrupt question, but the significance was that possibly we could be useful there. “There is no need of your going there—it is no place for women. I consider women very much out of place in a field hospital.” “Then I must have been out of place a good deal of my lifetime, Doctor, for I have been there a great deal.” “That doesn’t change my opinion, and if I had my way, I would send you home.” “Fortunately for me, if for no one else, Doctor, you have not your way.” “I know it, but again that doesn’t change my opinion. I would send you home.” By this time we were rowing pretty near our own boat, and it was admissible for me to maintain the silence that I felt dignity called for. I made no other remark to him beyond “Good morning, Major,” as we separated for our respective ships.

This is a foolish little episode to enter in one’s diary, not worth the time of writing, especially in days like these, only as it will serve as a landmark, a kind of future milestone noting the progress of humane sentiment, and the hopeful advancement of the civilization and enlightenment of the world. Only a few years ago the good major would have actually possessed the power of which this advancement has relieved him. Finding an accumulation of work at our ship, large mails from the North having arrived, it was Monday before we could return to the front, Mrs. Porter accompanying us. This journey was also made in an army wagon, and a wretched, miserable wagon it was. We found the camp in perfect running order. Mrs. Gardner had stood like a rock through it all, neglecting nothing, quiet, calm, peaceful, faithful, busy—how well she had done, I have no words to express. Everybody grateful to her, everybody loving her.

The camp had now from one hundred to two hundred men. There began to be strong talk of yellow fever, not only at Siboney but at the front as well.

The negotiations between General Shafter and the Spanish army at Santiago were still going on. The flag of truce that threatened every day to come down still floated. The Spanish soldiers had been led by their officers to believe that every man who surrendered (and the people as well), would be butchered instantly the city should fall and the American troops should come in. But when General Shafter commenced to send back convoys of captured Spanish officers, their wounds faithfully dressed and carefully placed on stretchers and borne under flags of truce to the Spanish lines at Santiago and set down at the feet of the general as a tender gift back to him, and when in astonishment he learned the object of the flag of truce and sent companies of soldiers to form in line and present arms while the cortege of wounded were borne through by American troops, a lesson was learned that went far toward the surrender of that city.

I happened to know that it was not without some very natural home criticism that General Shafter persisted in his course in the face of the time-honored custom of “hostages.” One can readily understand that the voluntary giving up of prisoners, officers at that, in view of an impending battle might seem in the light of old-time army usages a waste, to characterize it by no harder term. It is possible that none of the officers on that field had ever read the articles of the Treaty of Geneva or fully realized that that treaty had become a law or that their commander, possibly without fully realizing it himself, was acting in full accord with its wise and humane principles.

The main talk of the camp was now “yellow fever.” On Monday night occurred one of the most fearful storms which I have ever seen—rain, thunder and lightning. Our tent had been well protected and deeply ditched, but the water rolled around it in the ditches like rivers. The thunder shook the ground; the lightning blazed like a fire. As I have said, the camp was as level as a floor. No water could really run off. During the most of that night the men in the tents laid in five to six inches of water. Before daybreak the rain had ceased, some water had run away—some soaked in—and the ground was passable. The next day followed another rain. It was now discovered by the medical authorities that from there having been at first one case of fever, there were now one hundred and sixteen; that a fever camp would probably be made there and the wounded gotten away. It was advisable then that we return to our ship and attempt, as far as possible, to hold that free from contagion. I was earnestly solicited to do this in view of what was expected of our ship and of what was expected of us—that we not only protect ourselves, but our cargo and ship from all contamination and even suspicion. I faithfully promised this, and again we called for an army wagon, leaving all supplies that were useful for the men here, sending to Caney what was most needed there and taking only our personal effects, we again placed ourselves in an army wagon with a tarpaulan over us and started for Siboney. In less than twenty minutes the rain was pouring on us and for two hours it fell as from buckets. The water was from a foot and a half to two feet deep in the road as we passed along. At one time our wagon careened, the mules were held up, and we waited to see whether it should go over or could be brought out—the water a few inches only from the top of the lower side. It was scarcely possible for us to stir, hemmed in as we were, but the men from the other wagons sprang to our wheels, hanging in the air on the upper side, and we were simply saved by an inch. The mud and water was at least two and one-half feet deep where we should have gone down.

But like other things, this cleared away. We came into Siboney about three o’clock, in a bright glare of sunshine, to find the town utterly burned, all buildings gone or smoking, Dr. and Mrs. Lesser and the faithful Sisters as well, in a “yellow fever” hospital a mile and a half out of the city, reached by rail. All customary work was suspended. The atmosphere was thick and blue with smoke. Men ran about the grounds smutted and bareheaded like children. My medical knowledge was not sufficient to allow me to judge if everybody there had the yellow fever, but general observation would go far toward convincing a very ordinary mind that everybody had gone crazy.

All effort was made to hold our ship free from suspicion. The process of reasoning leading to the conclusion that a solid cargo, packed in tight boxes in the hold of a ship, anchored at sea, could become infected in a day from the land or a passing individual, is indeed, an intricate process; but we had some experience in this direction, as, for instance, Captain McCalla in his repeated humane attempts to feed the refugees around Guantanamo had called again for a hundred thousand rations, saying that if we could bring them to him soon, he could get them to the thousands starving in the woods. We lost no time, but got the food out and started with it in the night. On reaching Guantanamo we were met at a distance out and called to, asking if anyone on our ship had been on shore at Siboney within four days, if so, our supplies could not be received, and we took them away, leaving the starving to perish.

On Friday morning the constantly recurring news of the surrender of Santiago was so well established that we drew anchor and came up to the flagship and the following letter was addressed to Admiral Sampson: