Letters from the Front

Quite a few of the horses were drowned while they unloaded them by lowering them over the side of the transport with a belly sling. Getting a panicked horse out of a sling without getting your ribs kicked in is a chore all in it's own. We lost a lot of horses in the trying. Some did make it clear and swam for shore. Colonel Woods lost one of his two animals; fortunately, the other one made it to shore.

We could hear the new armored steamships up the coast away's, firing their guns at the shore, trying to make the Spanish pay them some mind. I guess it must have worked, as we did not see any Spaniards. I hear that they deserted the village just before we sailed into the bay here. I am told it is just as well for us that they did. The beach here is quite defensible, and the Imperialists could have made our landing very precarious. We did find plenty of Cuban insurgents though. A dirty unkempt lot of men, cowards all, they looked to me; they do not look as if they have ever had a notion of civility in their minds. Heard that the Colonel wants to use the Cubans for scouting, as their rifles do not look to be in any condition to fight with. I have to agree with Sergeant Brown though, I do not think that they will be much help to us.

I was more fortunate than some of the other men, as my horse had been left behind on the docks of Port Tampa, a week gone by now. So once we were on dry land, I was able to make ready much faster than most. I must admit, I was never so happy to put my boots on the ground as I was yesterday. Some men just are not made for sea travel, and I know now that I am one of those. William said I looked as if I had fell into a bucket of green paint.

We spent our first night here, sleeping next to a dreadful pool of dark water ringed around by trees Major Dunn called palms. Right behind my tent, a jungle of scrubby bushes and coconut trees seems to leap out at us. This morning, right after breakfast, we worked like blazes unloading all our supplies from the ships, I don't think I have been so worn tired since we started training at the camp back in Santa Antoni.

I was told that we landed at the end of the rainy season, but you would be hard-pressed to believe that was true. It has rained constantly for the past several days. One of the men in William’s unit stated that he would need a year standing on the sun to dry off completely. I’d be hard pressed to say he was exaggerating. We all are feeling the effects of the very humid conditions here.

I will have to write this some more later. The corporal says we are going to move out in a little while, and I need to get my pack in order.

We finally attacked the enemy yesterday at a crossroads called Las Guasimas. The Spaniards had set themselves on a tall ridge overlooking the road well hidden in rifle pits and behind stone fortifications that were all over with jungly cover. The Cuban scouts were of some use after all, as they are the ones who first discovered the ambush. We quickly brought our entire force to bear on them with the colonel placing the Hotchkiss rapid-fire guns off on to one side, those new Browning automatic cannons to the opposite side, and the majority of us in the center.