Chapter III: Part 3

Do you remember the pillow shams of the gay nineties? For those of you who don’t, I’ll tell you that they were clean, ruffled upright coverings for pillows in the daytime. When they were laid aside at night, they revealed too often a certain amount of real estate underneath. What a cleanly view for the daily visitor and what an unpleasant surprise for the nightly sleeper. I remember such a set of shams. On the left one were embroidered in pink the words: “I slept and dreamed that life was beauty.” On the right one in blue: “I woke and found that life was duty.”

Now that we’ve laid aside the shams of our school histories and looked upon the tragically soiled linen of the Civil War, we find even cleaner shams laid over the period _right after_ that war. You know as we scratch our head and try to look wise when our young son attacks us with a question about his history lesson, we see, among the cobwebs those days of ’65, ’66 and ’67 as a time of sleeping beauty. The tired, worn soldiers of the war, in our misty memory, are beating their swords into pruning hooks and all that sort of thing. Are we wrong? Yes, we are. Life was anything but beauty for our country then. They were days of frightful, alarming duty. For we were even in a worse fix than when Sumter’s guns tumbled us helter-skelter into catastrophe. On all sides were threatenings of big wars and slaughter. On the north the Fenians were trying to carry on strife against Great Britain from within our borders, and the Alabama claims were adding to the fuel. The South, smarting under revengeful reconstruction laws, was angered to a pitch of frenzy. In Mexico, Napoleon the third had set up an empire, placing the Archduke Maximilian of Austria on the throne in defiance of the Monroe Doctrine. The thousands of irreconcilables of the former Confederacy could there find a foothold to work against us. And in the West, a half million Indians, unrestrained during the Civil War, were overrunning half our territory, and sprinkling the soil with death and massacre. In the midst of all this trouble, Abraham Lincoln was shot down in cold blood. We had gone from a sizzling frying pan into a surrounding fire.

The situation in Mexico was so perilous that Sheridan was torn away before the Grand Review in Washington, and sent immediately south. When he arrived near the Rio Grande, the republican force in Mexico was weak, worn and scattered. But it wasn’t hopeless long. For Sheridan had something--we had something we’d never before had--a decent sized, trained force. Even if it had been expensively trained under the bullet, it was trained and well-trained. Sheridan just sat down in Texas with almost three corps, and peered threateningly into Mexico. Maximilian knew there wasn’t anything he had which could overcome such a force. Little by little under the American display of strength, the republicans gained power. In a year and a half the Empire fell, without a single American gun being fired and with no bloodshed for us. We had gained our ends by merely a show of force. Here is something for our histories to brag about. Why do they cover it over with a sham? You remember experts said that if we had had twenty-five thousand trained men in 1860, the Civil War could not have lasted more than three months. Well that statement, however careful, is at best theory, but taken with the example of Sheridan’s force, it becomes a fact. And there are other examples in our history where a sufficiently trained force prevented bloodshed. The only reason we haven’t had more examples is because we haven’t had more force.

But we had a force this once, and one part of it had as difficult a task as ever fell to the lot of soldiers. Nineteen thousand of them were scattered in one hundred thirty-four places in the South to enforce stringent, cruel laws for a conquered people. The ire of the North had vented itself in insulting control. No one who had given aid to the Confederacy was allowed to hold office. The northern carpetbagger swaggered in to lord over poverty-stricken communities. This exhibition of revenge leads one to believe the statement of the clergymen that peace treaties, peace reactions and peace societies are our most fruitful causes of war.

But there was one saving grace--and that lay in the treatment of the southern people by the soldier. You know it’s a funny thing about fighters. After the fight is over, they seldom hold grudges. We can all call up many instances where they were outstandingly friendly with the former opponents. The Union soldier in the South was no exception. He saw too clearly the injustice to these stricken people and sympathized with them. He leagued up with the former Confederate soldiers in efforts to help. He often got around the laws and sometimes overrode them. His reports to Washington had much to do with rescinding cruel legislation. So helpful was his attitude that a southern city afterwards erected a monument to a Union general. The soldier’s understanding sympathy was the big factor in overcoming riots, disorders and slaughter.

Similarly trained troops took their places along the northern border, and beyond a little wire cutting, overcame the disturbances from the Fenians. And as these fearful threats to the north, east and south of us were slowly calmed, we began to be over-confident and stupid again. We failed to see that our unusual strength had been the reason for coming through these calamities unscathed. In our customary way we descended into weakness. And how we were going to pay in human life for this let-down!

At first we pared the Army down to thirty-eight thousand. The day before General Grant took the oath of office as President, we again reduced it, against his urgent recommendation, by twenty regiments. By 1876 it was a scant twenty-five thousand soldiers, at which figure it remained up until the time of the Spanish-American War--during almost a quarter of a century. Thus we stagnated while our population was increasing, savages were roaming over half our territory and we had acquired Alaska. There was a war party who wanted to keep peace and a peace party who let us fall into war. Naturally you’d know which party would win in the United States. A paltry seventeen thousand soldiers were strewn around the west in little groups. Their task was to control hundreds of thousands of Indians in protection of the advancing settlers. It was the dark age for the soldier. Impossible was his struggle to be everywhere at once and to do the government’s bidding against odds of twenty-four to one. In return the government often armed the Indian with fine repeating rifles and always gave the soldier a single-loader.

Then came the tragedies that follow in the wake of helplessness. In our history books, we have placed an embroidered, starched sham over them, but underneath none the less lie very dirty pillows. Massacres of our settlers and soldiers were too frequent. The Indian was one of the shrewdest warriors of all time to sense the size and strength of his opponents. Weakness to him meant a call for scalps. At Fort Phil Kearney in Nebraska the officers and men were engaged in building their own barracks and quarters (if they were going to have a roof to cover them) and the work was going along quite smoothly, when one morning two thousand Indians swooped down on the small garrison of two hundred fifty and killed and mutilated one hundred seventy-four of them. In Kansas when eighty-four settlers were slain or captured by a band of Cheyennes, Major Forsyth with fifty scouts tried to trail the Indian desperadoes. When he came upon them he was trapped, had to fight for his life, lost half of his command, (among whom was the nephew of Henry Ward Beecher,) and barely escaped with the remnants of his force.

Later came the Custer affair. Probably no action in our history has been more discussed and less understood. The story goes back a long way and doesn’t show us up in any fine colors. The government had made a treaty with the Great Sioux Nation in which it gave to these tribes the Black Hills and all of South Dakota west of the Missouri River. Gave them what was theirs in the first place. Kind of us. Another law confirmed by our Senate, made it a crime for a white settler to go into this region. Well, the whites as usual went in, because the land appealed to them. And they went out of their way to trespass because the Indians were six hundred miles from the nearest railroad and far from white settlements. When the Indians complained and got no redress, they went upon the warpath. Did so for the same reason that we took up arms in the Revolution--from behind each “farmyard fence and wall.” The Secretary of the Interior ordered the troops to put the Indians on their reservations. He made a consistent sweep of things for he not only violated the treaty, but did not uphold the law. So, little companies of Infantry and Cavalry under General Terry, were ordered to drive the victimized Indians to where neither the Indian nor the soldier wanted to go. Fifteen hundred troops, half of whom were afoot, were sent against six thousand hardy Sioux who were well-mounted. Why such a small body of soldiers? Because other little groups were busy with Assineboines, Piegans, Arapahoes, Kiowas, Pawnees, Commanches and Flatheads. And there weren’t any more troops. The entire regular force on the plains would scarcely have been a match then for the Great Sioux Nation, but we were content to send this paltry number out against this overwhelming force. Terry’s command accordingly advanced toward the Indians. Custer, who was in command of the Cavalry, was sent ahead with instructions to move toward the Tongue River, keep on the flank of the Sioux, and not let them escape. It was an impossible task in the face of so many Indians. But the soldier couldn’t know that such a big force was there, for there were too few troops to scout the Sioux country and find out. And if they could have found out, what was there to do about it? They had to go against the Indians. No matter how perfectly Terry’s force might act, it was in for a licking. So Custer split his command into three parts in order to keep the Indians from escaping. The irony!--from escaping. Well, it happened just as you would expect. Custer’s little band was overwhelmed and annihilated. The other two parts were backed against the wall and had to fight in desperation for their lives. It was not a real massacre. It was a fight in which the Indian used his normal methods of no quarter. We knew his methods. And we unjustly and murderously sent a puny force against him to be butchered to the extent of two hundred sixty-five killed and fifty-two wounded.

The Indians could have overwhelmed the rest of the force, but feeling they had taught the white man a lesson in fair play, they drew off. But the ones who bore the brunt of the punishment by paying the extreme penalty, were innocent soldiers, who had had nothing to do with the cause of the fight. The instigators were walking the eastern streets crying for an investigation. And how the affair was investigated! After reams of testimony had been taken down, and much money expended, it was found that we had sent a pigmy out barehanded to fight a giant. The result? True to form.

Would we have been a little more decent, had we spent more on soldiers beforehand and less on testimony afterward? If we had, it’s quite possible we wouldn’t have needed the testimony. For it’s an accepted fact that had we had ten thousand trained men for the Sioux alone, placed in some conspicuous spot, the Custer fight would never have been. The Indian would have been too wary. He always was. And many another fight would not have taken place, as we’ll see. Going back over the true events of these times, are we made to wonder whether we really do care about human life? We talk a lot about it. Is it another starched sham?

_X_

MORE FIDDLING

Abraham Lincoln one afternoon sat listening to the members of a committee arguing. The next day he heard them arguing _more_ without arriving anywhere. In a pause, he said, “I am reminded of old Zeke Williams out in my home town. Zeke was the finest rifle shot with his Brown Bess in those parts. One day he took his young son out hunting with him. They approached a tree. Said Zeke, ‘Boy, shake that ’ar tree. They’s a squirrel in it.’ The lad shook the tree, the father blazed away, but nothing happened. Said Zeke, ‘Shake that ’ar tree agin.’ The boy obeyed. The father blazed away and _still_ nothing happened. The father brought his gun down from his shoulder and almost wept as he said, ‘I must be gettin’ old. I can’t hit ’em no more.’ The son was very sorry for his father. So he went and looked the tree all over. Seeing no sign of a squirrel, he came over to his father and gazed intently into the old man’s face. ‘Why pap,’ exclaimed the boy, ‘That ’ar ain’t no squirrel in the tree. That ’ar a _louse_ on your eyebrow’.”

If Lincoln were alive today, I fear he’d discover many lice on our eyebrows--many fancies about our past that are contrary to reality. And nowhere would he find more than in our mistaken notions of the Indian struggles in our West. Soldiers fighting Indians! That’s what the school histories lead us to see. We get the feeling that the soldier was a bloodthirsty fellow who loved to go out before breakfast and kill a few redmen for pastime. The truth of the matter is that he was the best and almost the only friend the Indian had. The reason for this relationship is natural and simple. The soldier had no personal gain to get from the West. He wanted nothing that belonged to the redman. If he were out for greed, as the settlers, traders, trappers and adventurers too often were, he wouldn’t have been a soldier at his paltry wage. And as a hardy fellow, he appreciated the good points in other hardy fellows like the Indians. So let us look at real scenery and not at lice for a few minutes. Here is the tale of the Modocs.

The Modocs had always been a peaceable tribe, often assisting the whites in their undertakings, and even going so far as to help save a California town from fire. The government had made a treaty with them. As usual it violated it. All that these Indians asked was to be moved to a small strip of land, no good to anybody. General Canby, known as the Indian’s friend, tried to make the Indian Agents and Washington see the point of view of these redmen and begged and entreated that their simple request be granted. But the powers stubbornly refused. The Indians, denied and double-crossed, went on the warpath. The soldiers were ordered to fight them. In the ensuing engagements many of them were killed. But that was not all. General Canby, Dr. Thomas and other soldiers, in trying to carry out the government’s unjust orders, were killed also. The very men who had tried to avert injustice and bloodshed, were butchered. Dr. Thomas’ son has always claimed that the government murdered his father. But the tragic irony of this whole affair is that after all this debauch of human life and craze of injustice, General Canby’s advice was finally heeded. Those that were left of the Modocs, were transported to where they wanted to go in the first place. But General Canby and many another good soldier and Indian were dead. This story does not stand alone by any means. That of the Nez Perce’s is even worse. This tribe was more peaceful, high-minded and friendly than the Modocs. From the time that it had helped the Lewis and Clark expedition, way back after our Revolution, it had held uninterrupted good-will with the whites. But the government defrauded these Indians of a little strip of poor land where they wanted to go. They asked to be taken there. Chief Joseph, handsome, intelligent, upright, patiently pleaded his cause. General Howard naturally interceded and begged the government to let them go. But he also like Canby was met with curt refusal, over and over again. After long drawn-out insults by our government, the Nez Perce’s rebelled, and Howard was ordered to fight them. An officer and thirty-three of our soldiers were killed in the first action. Then began a chase through three territories. In one instance, so few were the troops that a general had to use a rifle himself and was severely wounded. The tribe was finally captured after much loss of life to white and redman. The government, contrary to General Miles’ recommendation, transported what remained of the tribe to an unhealthful region where they quickly perished. And that was our way of disposing of the Nez Perces. The Ute uprising of 1879 was in principle a repetition of these events. Major Thornburg and a large part of his command were killed because of the stubbornness of an Indian Agent.

Let’s look for a moment at another tribe. In 1870 the Apaches, the most subtle redmen we’ve ever dealt with, broke from their reservations and went upon the warpath. The cause as usual was our injustice. Colonel George Crook with a small force was sent against them. He was the kind of man who believed in a square word rather than a round bullet. He was in every way (unlike his name) the kind of man you’d want your boy to be like. But he faced a racking problem. The Apache country in the rugged Sierras was one of the toughest spots anybody could search, and when you added to it a wily Indian, ready to snare you at every turn, you had something that looked hopeless. It meant that the soldier had to master the country, know the valleys, streams, canyons, water holes, and unexplored mountain ranges; and hang doggedly on the trail, hour by hour, day by day through exhausting privation and bitter disappointment. Crook trailed the Apaches, but not with menace or threats. With a small escort he sought out the chiefs, ever imperilling his life by exposing himself. After months of effort he succeeded in getting a few of the chiefs to come in for a talk. Little by little his strong personality and shining integrity led them to listen to him. More chieftains came in. At length they talked to him freely, and he in turn saw that they were well cared for. He offered them forgiveness for any past misdeeds and urged a life of peace. Slowly they began to believe in him. At the end of six years of utmost patience he had calmed them, brought them into the reservations and made them contented--without bloodshed.

But then the Sioux uprising called him and his troops away to the north, because of the smallness of the army. Crook, a general now, tried to round up the Sioux with two thousand soldiers, whom he had drained the west to get. Conditions there wouldn’t permit him to use his Apache methods. Even under his able leadership he was nearly trapped and reduced to starvation. All he could do was to make his escape and let the Indians roam on. The Sioux were too strong for his puny force. Meanwhile the Apaches were left to the control of Indian Agents, who mishandled, defrauded and abused them. So awful did the conditions become, that even in the east the President felt obliged to send General Crook back to the Apaches in 1882. There Crook, after six years’ absence, found his previous work had been worse than undone. The Agents had ejected the Indians from their reservations because silver had been found there, had thrown them into prison to languish for months without trial, starved them, stolen their crops and in general treated them like cattle. Crook set himself to win them back by his old methods. But it was a monstrous task now, since the Indian had been infuriated afresh and had lost faith in all whites. In his old, bold way Crook set out through the trails to investigate complaints and find out the causes. Fortunately the Indians recognized and remembered him. They told him stories that would have wrung pity from a hardened criminal. But the way they met him--a real friend and champion after all these years of cruelty--was pathetic in its child-like appeal. The faces of the old men brightened and the squaws wept when they saw him again. The chieftain, Old Pedro, with dimmed eyes spoke to him pitifully. His words were taken down at the time and here they are:

“When you, General Crook, were here, whenever you said a thing, we knew it was true, and we kept it in our minds. When Colonel Green was here, our women and children were happy and our young people grew up contented. And I remember Brown, Randall, and the other officers who treated us kindly and were our friends. I used to be happy. Now I am all the time thinking and crying, and I say, ‘Where is old Colonel John Green, and Randall, and those other good officers, and what has become of them? Where have they gone? Why don’t they come back? And the young men all say the same thing’.”

That was how the Indian in his simple faith, trusted and regarded the soldier, who was too often unjustly sent out to fight him. And how do you suppose the soldier felt when he had to? Certainly he could have no relish for such dismal, perilous work. Anyway Crook and his small command kept up their exhausting efforts to avoid bloodshed. But all the while the Indian Agent Ring was sending out newspaper accounts of murder and depredations by the Indians, in order to involve Crook in a fight, which would drive the Indian away from the land on which the agents wished to profiteer. These stories Crook investigated and wherever he could, gave the lie to the rumor. Despite this knifing in the back, he again restored peace and contentment to the Apache--after two years.

And so I could recount for many evenings true incidents like this. In five years one regiment had sixty-seven battles and skirmishes and another marched sixty-four hundred miles. In the first six years after the Civil War, the army experienced two hundred three actions with the redmen. And Indian troubles didn’t dwindle out until over 30 years after the Civil War. But the uphill work with the redman was by no means all that the soldier had to encounter. Between 1886 and 1895, he was called upon to restore order in civil uprisings throughout every state and territory in our country to the number of three hundred twenty-eight. And he accomplished these tasks with almost no bloodshed. The show of trained force was enough, small as it was. But during all this time when the soldier was enduring the hardships of intense heat and cold, and running untold risks for his nation, his work was little understood or appreciated. Once Congress tried to reduce the army to ten thousand, which would have brought on more slaughter, especially to the whites, and prolonged the Indian troubles indefinitely. Fortunately the reduction didn’t succeed. But something else did. No appropriation for the pay of the army for the fiscal year 1877-78 was made by Congress, and this right after the Custer fight. The soldier without his meager wage had to borrow money at interest, in order to live--to go on--go on enduring rude conditions and the hazards of life and death. There was a faction back east which believed the Indian should be exterminated. There was another which believed the Indian was right and should be left alone. There were very few who realized that there were good Indians and bad Indians just as there are good and bad white men. When the soldier lost battles, he was investigated. When he won some, he was branded as a butcher. Meanwhile the settlers were crowding in and had to be protected, and the Indian Agent Ring was forcing Crook, Canby, Howard, Miles and many others into fights they wished to avoid.

But the soldiers’ position was unfortunate mostly because his force was not large enough to awe the Indian into peace without fighting. For no one more than the Indian respected _size_. He was an expert scout and had a keen eye for numbers. One hundred thousand soldiers would doubtless have cut the losses in half. And had the government used the Indian with common decency, they would have been cut to nothing. We talk a lot about the violation of Belgium and we are justly enraged at the Germans. But the Germans at least didn’t murder their soldiers in addition to their enemies. Are there lice on our eyebrows? Are there sins of our own? Greater sins?

_XI_

THE BLACK HOLE

One day in Texas after a long hike through broiling heat and alkali dust, we came at last to our camping-place. Weary officers and men went about their appointed tasks of setting up tentage, attending to the water-supply and sanitation and generally making the place livable. After a brief meal from rattling mess-kits, most of us lay down to get the kinks out of our muscles. One company on a little hill in plain view of the rest of the brigade, was resting quietly under its pup-tents. Suddenly a Texas twister, one of those little mysterious whirlwinds, came tearing along out of the silent, clear afternoon. It pounced upon the most conspicuous tent, grabbed the canvas and personal covering off the big First Sergeant, lifted them high in the air, and left him lying in the open like a plucked chicken. A thousand pairs of eyes fastened on him. He slowly awoke, rubbed his face, squirmed a little and squinted at his coverings swishing about in the heavens. “Well,” he said, “Who in the devil started that?”--and rushed threateningly toward the nearest group of soldiers.

The American people, after a sleep of a quarter of a century, woke up one morning in 1898 to find that a twister out of the blue had pitched the battleship Maine to the bottom of Havana Harbor, and tossed us into war. Amazed, we asked, “Who started that?” Amazed, we said, “How could war have come upon us?” Amazed and confused we rushed threateningly this way and that. And why the surprise when for three years we’d been shaking angry fists at the Spaniard--when we’d been lying in the path of twisters from a land of twisters. And how completely we’d been lying.

All the while we were provoking Spain to wrath, we were using sugared cut-throat words to our own people. Well-meaning idealists, thinking to calm our citizens, were really running them into misery. Two years before the twister struck us, Mr. Livingstone in the Congress of our nation, rose and stated: “I do not take much stock in an early war with Spain or England.” The same day on the same floor Uncle Joe Cannon said, “I want to say that I do not believe we will have war the coming year, nor the year after. I doubt if there will be any during this century or perhaps the early years of the next century.” At the same time in Europe, Czar Nicholas II of Russia showed how arbitration would settle everything; and books and articles were published proving that modern mechanisms would make war result in suicide--in short that war was impossible. Under this dangerous racket of propaganda the only attention paid to our land forces, was to pick at them and tear off little pieces. Any attempt to keep us from slaughtering and distressing our youth needlessly as we’d done in the past, was laughed out of court. When the twister struck us, the army was just the same size it had been twenty-two years before. Little groups of soldiers were scattered all over the west and on our borders. The overhead of these little posts had become drab routine. The War Department was clogged with thirty years’ mold. Its personnel was just sufficient to carry on a peanut-stand administration and supply. There was no thought for expansion or operating the army as a whole. There were no plans, no staffs, no proper maps of Cuba, no set-up for any respectable force. The army had not been brought together since the Civil War--a third of a century before. No officer in the service had commanded more than a regiment, about 700 men, and few had seen that many together. The soldiers had had no chance to act as a unit, as an organization, as a going concern. Supplies of all sorts were lacking--food, equipment, guns and ammunition, everything. We had not learned a single lesson from a hundred years of horrible disasters of our own making. We showed to the world the greatest unreadiness we’d had since we’d been a nation.

We still persisted in the idea that an able bodied man was a soldier. The President in this belief called out one hundred twenty-five thousand volunteers when there wasn’t ammunition enough in the country to let them fight one battle. The people seemed to feel we were going out with brass bands playing to bag the Spaniard. One day in a conference, the President turned to the Secretary of War and asked, “How soon can you put an army into Cuba?” Said the Secretary, “I can put 40,000 men there in ten days.” Later we found out we couldn’t put half that number there in two months.

General Miles, the head of the army, suggested the training of fifty thousand soldiers rather than put in jeopardy a great quantity of untrained men. But the President rejected that expert advice and called out seventy-five thousand more volunteers to be exposed to death in camp. The people were crying “On to Havana!” as they had yelled, On to Richmond, Mexico and Canada. What matter utter extravagance and human life?

The government now had two hundred thousand men on its hands. Where would they put them? O yes, the question of camps. Tampa, New Orleans and Mobile were decided upon. It was found that all but Tampa were unsuitable. After much investigation and delay. Camp Alger in Virginia, and Camp Thomas in Tennessee were selected. They afterwards proved to be far too small. Meanwhile the volunteers were flocking in much as they had done in the Civil War--in a sad state of neglect. Unequipped, untaught, unfed, uncared for, uneverything, they were all struggling to the front. The little crippled War Department was beset with every kind of request it could not fill. Congressmen who had taken delight in blocking legislation for preparedness were the loudest in crying for guns and vessels to protect their districts. Where were any implements for the crises? Without having any, the President ordered General Miles to take to Havana seventy thousand troops--(troops, mind you--real troops)--when such an irregular mass could have fired little more than one shot, if they had been troops. Then he ordered General Shafter at Tampa to the north coast of Cuba, but it was found there were no transports. Then he ordered twelve thousand troops to Key West, but the place was found unsuitable.

A month and a half passed. Why weren’t we getting on? General Miles went to Tampa to see. There he found what you’d expect. Troops were slowly assembling. Why not? One regular regiment had to come clear from Alaska. Supplies were failing. Loading of transports was helter-skelter. Miles reported that the principal part of the regular army was there, but that of the fourteen regiments of volunteers nearly forty per cent were undrilled and in one regiment over three hundred men had never fired a gun. And these were the pick of the untrained men.

Finally most of the regular army and a few volunteers set sail, after a mad unmanaged scramble to get trains, and go abroad. Supplies were hustled into holds helter-skelter. Most of the volunteers had to be left behind because they were not equipped or trained. But the little seventeen thousand were off. Were they? The Navy thought they had sighted the Spanish fleet. The troops out at sea were turned back to the mainland. The presence of the Spanish fleet proved to be a myth. Again they set sail, crowded like galley-slaves into small vessels, with little water, on pine cots, among neighing horses and foul odors. The food made them sick. The embalmed beef by hurried contracts became notorious. The boats moved seven miles an hour, then four miles, and often not at all. After much suffering they arrived at Daiquiri near Santiago harbor. There the civilian transports refused to land and kept far out. Men were hurt and drowned in getting to shore. Fifty horses swam out to sea and were lost. Fortunately the Spaniards fled inland. If they hadn’t, their superior weapons would have torn our foolhardy little force to pieces. One hundred ninety-six thousand, eight hundred twenty Spanish troops were in Cuba, but we didn’t know it. Nor did we know that they were as badly led and cared for as troops could be. By the godsend of their complete lack of resistance, the little seventeen thousand got ashore in five days.

Then came the scrambling action of Las Gausimas through the brush. The Army was used to this sort of bushwhacking against the Indians. And the Rough Riders, though they’d just received their new Krags the day before the fight, did good work. But the Spaniards fled--and that helped. Then came a delay of a week. Supplies were hard to get from the boats. Troops milled around with little food and ammunition. The artillery wasn’t brought forward. What a chance for the Spaniard then! A determined charge of a quarter of his force and the United States troops would have been helpless. But since the Spaniard didn’t do anything right, we were saved again. Half the regular army and three volunteer regiments went on to San Juan and El Caney. Although assaulting El Caney was a military blunder, the little force went charging along with useless losses. One volunteer regiment funked the fight. And another, though acting well, had to be sent out of it because its ancient black powder weapons made it an easy target for the smokeless Mauser rifle of the enemy. More useless casualties. The artillery had nothing but black powder too. Every time it belched, it threw up clouds of smoke that could be seen for miles. Still more casualties. The Spaniards had put up barbed wire around their little forts. And we had no wire-cutters. It was a long day’s work of slow progress. The Spaniard, like all poor troops, could shoot well as long as his vitals were covered up. But we finally took the two strongholds, with over twelve per cent losses. We had won because the enemy was grossly mismanaged and inefficient. We were badly managed, but we had streaks of efficiency. Therein lay the difference--our salvation. When the siege of Santiago was undertaken, General Shafter’s lines were so thin that even poor troops with a little zeal could have punctured them. But the Spaniards for some unknown reason seemed to be more fearful than we were.

Even so it would have been a stand-off, had it not been for the great victory of our Navy in destroying Cervera’s fleet. And of course it would destroy the Spanish ships. It had had seven years’ building before the war. Under the supervision of Presidents Cleveland and Arthur, we had developed the famous White Squadron. What would the soldier have done without the Navy? What would he have done without the complete sloppiness of the Spaniard? One authority shows that the war would have lasted four or five years with more useless slaughter of our own men than we had seen even in the Civil War.

Even so, in only one hundred nine days of war, the volunteers alone lost two hundred eighty-nine killed--but--listen to the _but_--three thousand eight hundred forty-eight by sickness. Thirteen times as many by disease as by battle. And most of these deaths occurred in our country--before the poor volunteer had had a chance to lift a finger of help.

When the twister caught us, we had the great sum of one hundred seventy-nine army medical officers for a mass of men that swelled to two hundred sixteen thousand in four months. In our sleep there had been no thought that the camp is more deadly than the bullet, that any doctor can’t be a sanitary man in the field--that field sanitation is a specialty like eye, ear, nose and throat or abdominal surgery. Doctors can’t get that training in a few months. In over-crowded camps in the United States many an otherwise fine medical man made a fizzle of sanitation. Others who did know sanitation were not backed up by the untrained volunteer officers. So our best youth died like flies and by flies. And the suffering of those who did not die was appalling torture. Filth was too often in the open. An untrained regiment would be strewn with sickness, while a trained one right beside it would have no sickness at all.

By our sleep beforehand and our unjust haste after we were waked up by the twister, we had done worse things. We had forced the little seventeen thousand into Cuba at the height of the fever season. Right after the surrender of Santiago, seventy-five per cent of Shafter’s command, the majority of our entire trained forces were on the sick list. Had the Spaniard held out a little longer, he’d have had only a handful or none at all to fight. But he didn’t hold out. And we had another miraculous escape. But the death toll went up. And over in the Pacific it went up higher. In the Philippine Insurrection that followed the Spanish-American War, we lost in two years over seven thousand men.

Sleep is a very soothing thing, isn’t it? Quite necessary as a part-time job. But when we sleep all the time, our friends know that we are sick. When such a sickness overtakes a nation, how quickly it spreads into death. How suddenly it kills innocent persons, when the twister comes out of the blue and leaves us naked.

_XII_

BACKING AND FILLING

One day an old friend of mine, whom I had not seen for nearly twenty years, burst into my office. After the gladsome handshakes and slaps of affection, I asked him to tell me about himself.

“Well,” he said, “I got married.”

“Hm,” I said, “That’s good.”

“No,” he said, “Not so good. My wife turned out to be a tartar.”

“Well,” I said, “That’s bad.”

“No,” he said, “Not so bad. She brought me twenty thousand dollars.”

“O,” I said, “that’s good.”

“No,” he said, “Not so good. I invested the money in sheep and they all died.”

“Hm,” I said, “that’s bad.”

“No,” he said, “Not so bad. I sold the wool for more than the sheep cost me.”

“Well,” I said, “that’s good.”

“No,” he said, “Not so good. I bought a fine home and a fire burned it to the ground.”

“Hm,” I said, “that’s bad.”

“No,” he said, “Not so bad. My wife was in it.”

Before and during our part of the World War we were not so good and not so bad. Two years after that comedy of errors and tragedy of blood called the Spanish-American War, we did the most unusual thing in our life as a nation. For the first time after a war, we increased and helped our land forces. Under the pressure of Philippine Wars and onward-looking men like Elihu Root and Theodore Roosevelt, we raised our army to one hundred thousand for a hundred million people. We set up new service schools and broadened others for the higher military education of our officers. We at last formed a general staff. And in 1911 we assembled during peace a regular division of troops for the first time in our history. To be sure, it took months to do so, it drained the country of nearly all its trained forces, and the division couldn’t be entirely collected, but the move wasn’t so bad. For several years it looked as though our army would be a going concern. Then we lagged. The wolf in sheep’s clothing began to bleat. In 1913, Congressman Dies, in the House of Representatives, stated: “God has placed us on this great, rich continent, separate and secure from the broils of Europe.” Dr. David Starr Jordan, President of Leland Stanford University, flooded the country with his prophesies. Here is one. “It is apparently not possible for another real war among the nations of Europe to take place.” As for our getting into any war, he threw it off as so much silliness. That was just the opium the country wanted in 1913 and early ’14. The people ate up the idea. Anyone who spoke preparedness was a jingoist and wanted war. Why, war was impossible. It meant too much to Wall Street. European nations were too poor to fight. Modern weapons would be too horrible to allow a war. What was the use of paying out good money for scientific training--for modern materials--for being ready at all? War couldn’t be. Not so good.

For war suddenly _was_. Right in the midst of this dangerous propaganda. Someone struck a match at Sarajevo and set all Europe on fire. Despite those priceless brains that had so lately invented no war, Russia, England, France, Belgium, Austria and Germany were flaming. What a sight! Americans rushed for front seats and bought concessions. Wasn’t it an awful fire! What a pity! As for us--poof! We couldn’t get into it. It was Europe’s affair. We sensed no tidal wave of emotions. We didn’t even send experts over there to see how modern war was conducted. Not so good, for the rumblings grew plainer and plainer. In 1915, Colonel House, the President’s confidential adviser, wrote to Woodrow Wilson: “If war comes with Germany, it will be because of our unpreparedness and her belief that we are more or less impotent to do her harm.” He was on the ground and saw. But did we take his word and see? Our mobile army _then_ was smaller than our trained force before the Spanish-American War. Our general staff was reduced and our equipment laughable. No so good. We entered 1916 still unconcernedly watching the drama in Europe, while U-boats were sinking our shipping, Germany was sticking out her tongue at us and we were getting hotter and hotter. Were we doing anything for our safety? No, no, that would be a violent gesture. Despite our watchful waiting and utter helplessness, General Leonard Wood established the business men’s training camp. And Congress, by some miracle, put over our first real National Defense Act--a comprehensive thing built on sound lines. Not so bad.

But the legislation wouldn’t be fulfilled for five years--and here we were ten months before we got into the war. Even if the act had been immediately and wholly effective, we wouldn’t have had time to get the men and train them. Not so good.

Then out of the blue came Pancho Villa. He crossed our border March 9, 1916, raided the defenseless town of Columbus, New Mexico, and killed eleven civilians and nine soldiers. It looked like a horror for us. Not so good. But the tragedy was a blessing in disguise. It probably kept France from being German today. It gave an excuse to the President for rushing to the border a large part of the regular army and one hundred and fifty thousand National Guardsmen. There they received fine training in fundamentals. Their experience gave the foundation for the 1st, 2nd, 26th and 42nd Divisions--the first ones to be factors in France later. Not so bad. But it took a brutal act to compel us to do what we wouldn’t do under our own steam. Even so we were magnificently unready. And we jumped into the European War, April 6, 1917, because we were angry, inflamed, anxious to punish Germany at any cost. No catch phrases, no plottings of a few could possibly have pitched us into the struggle without that general hatred. And we had little with which to carry out the wholesale desire for force. Immediately we needed two hundred thousand officers. We hadn’t ten thousand trained ones to instruct them and at the same time lead our forces. In equipment we were worse off. We had a few out-of-date airplanes, only enough artillery ammunition for a two-day battle, no automatic rifles and comparatively few machine guns and ordinary rifles. Materially we lacked almost everything. Although we had the best rifle in the world, there was not anywhere near enough. We had to arm our men largely with British Enfields--unfamiliar to Americans--at best poor makeshifts. We couldn’t manufacture any of these things in time. In July 1917, Congress voted six hundred forty million dollars for airplanes. Nearly a year later we hadn’t any of our aircraft in Europe. Where had the money gone? An investigation was ordered. After seventeen thousand pages of testimony were taken down, it was found that aircraft couldn’t be built and shipped abroad in that time. Not so good.

In our equipment we were helpless without our Allies. But in our manpower, we did surprisingly well. A little over a month after war was declared, we did the astonishing thing of passing a Draft Act. We put teeth in the law of 1792 promoted by George Washington, which had been a dead statute for over one hundred and twenty-five years. Instead of the horrors of volunteering, of utterly untrained men, of political shilly-shallying, we turned to a just and equalizing system. We did away with the woes of extra disease and death--and put our soldiers into training. Not in _this_ war would absolutely green officers send into eternity helpless volunteers. Our best men went to training camps, where they at least had to qualify in leading others. Not so bad. But of course these candidates couldn’t be fully trained in eighty days. And the regular officers, who had been deprived of modern methods in Europe, couldn’t give them all they needed. But they _did_ get many essentials, which they could pass on to the drafted men.

Today, many don’t realize what a vast amount of hardship, sickness and death was saved by our moves of the draft and officers’ training camps. It has been estimated that by the draft alone we saved five per cent in money and possibly twenty per cent in human life. Not so bad. To be sure we had unnecessary suffering and mortality. No system invented as late as 1917 could have overcome our shiftlessness during the years before. A month after we declared war, General Pershing was sent to Europe with a handful. “Where are the Americans?” asked our Allies. “Why,” he had to explain, “they are back in the United States getting ready.” And for a year they had to keep getting ready before they were of real physical help.

Suppose you were attacked on the street by a strong bandit. I calmly from my window watch you struggling against him for several hours. Finally my wrath gets the best of me. I rush out to the curb. I see blood and bruises on your face. I yell to you: “I’m for you, old man. I’ll fight on your side, but chuck me a pair of brass knuckles. I’ll go down town and have them made to fit me. I may get a few boxing lessons too. I’ll be back in about an hour. Just keep on going. You’re doing fine.” What would you think of me? Not so good. Well, we did that very thing to our Allies. Sixteen months after we entered the war, General Pershing pathetically stated: “This is the first time the American Army has been recognized as a participant alongside of the Allies.” What we did after war was declared was about as good as could humanly be expected. What we didn’t do beforehand was about as dumb as could humanly be expected. Most of the unnecessary woes of the war can justly be laid to this stupidity. Out of nearly two million Americans who went to Europe, over fifty thousand were killed by battle. Out of the three and one-half millions in service, sixty-five thousand died of accident or disease. Much of this waste could have been avoided. It is estimated that there are fifteen thousand graves of our soldiers in France, which should not be there. Men were sent overseas who didn’t know how to load their rifles, use their gas masks, or take the simplest precautions of taking cover or care of themselves. They hadn’t been given a chance to learn. There was no time to teach them. The training camp products, though better than untrained volunteers, were too often uncertain in their movements and orders. There were times when they brought unnecessary slaughter to themselves and their commands. The German General Ludendorff after the war, paid great tribute to the gallantry of the individual American soldier, but at the same time told of the inferior quality of some American troops--as troops. General Pershing’s complaints about the lack of training of men sent over, remind us of George Washington’s pitiful pleas during our Revolution. We waited for the calamity to get us, instead of getting the calamity beforehand. The sad part is that our losses, our hardships, our waste of money and material could all have been prevented, had we had strength in ’14, ’15 and ’16. German records and statements brought to light since the war, prove beyond doubt that we would never have been insulted by Germany, had our people drowned at sea and been drawn into the war at all, had we not been considered so senselessly weak. And we were weak--just as weak as Germany estimated us. As it was we were barely able to help. In the spring of 1918 all looked lost for our Allies. They were making their last stand. A matter of hours and nothing could stem the German onrush. By the greatest fortune and luck we had, by that time, a few troops worthy of taking the places of French and British reserve divisions and releasing them to the front. It was that plugging up of the tiny hole in the dyke that let the Allies hold on. Had we not shown an unbelievable efficiency over all of our other wars, after we got into the fight, and had not Villa crossed our border in 1916, the hole could not have been plugged--and America would have been on the losing side. Our unreadiness before war--not so good. Our surprising efficiency after we got into the war--not so bad. Our dependence upon a Mexican bandit for partial preparation--not so good.

But suppose we had been forced to fight our enemy alone. Suppose we hadn’t had Allies to spend their lives in defense for a whole year. Suppose in wandering off for brass knuckles and boxing lessons we’d have been left alone with him. Can you picture the frightful, extravagant, tremendous deaths we would have dealt out to our own young men?

_XIII_

NOW

One very rainy day my regiment was marching through that gloomy red-mud country of North Georgia. We were cold and tired, and our shoes were heavy as suit-cases. Our camping-place was to be at a little town of Jasper. We had trudged along for about ten miles when we came to a sign which said: “Seven miles to Jasper.” That was encouragement. Only seven more miles. The old Sergeant near me set his jaw. In a few minutes we came to another sign which said: “Seven miles to Jasper.” The old Sergeant glared at the words as if he could bite them. In about ten minutes we came to a third sign which said: “Seven miles to Jasper.” It was too much for the Sergeant. He plunked his foot down in the mud. “Well,” he said, “thank God, we’re holding our own.”