neral Shafter, and it was made public by General
Shafter precisely as mine was made public.[*] Later I was much amused
when General Shafter stated that he could not imagine how my letter and
the round robin got out! When I saw this statement, I appreciated how
wise Wood had been in hinting to me not to act on the suggestion of the
General that I should make a statement to the newspapers, but to put
my statement in the form of a letter to him as my superior officer, a
letter which I delivered to him. Both the letter and the round robin
were written at General Shafter's wish, and at the unanimous suggestion
of all the commanding and medical officers of the Fifth Army Corps, and
both were published by General Shafter.

[*] General Wood writes me: "The representative of the
Associated Press was very anxious to get a copy of this
despatch or see it, and I told him it was impossible for him
to have it or see it. I then went in to General Shafter and
stated the case to him, handing him the despatch, saying,
'The matter is now in your hands.' He, General Shafter, then
said, 'I don't care whether this gentleman has it or not,'
and I left then. When I went back the General told me he had
given the Press representative a copy of the despatch, and
that he had gone to the office with it."

In a regiment the prime need is to have fighting men; the prime virtue
is to be able and eager to fight with the utmost effectiveness. I have
never believed that this was incompatible with other virtues. On the
contrary, while there are of course exceptions, I believe that on the
average the best fighting men are also the best citizens. I do not
believe that a finer set of natural soldiers than the men of my regiment
could have been found anywhere, and they were first-class citizens in
civil life also. One fact may perhaps be worthy of note. Whenever we
were in camp and so fixed that we could have regular meals, we used to
have a general officers' mess, over which I of course presided. During
our entire service there was never a foul or indecent word uttered at
the officers' mess--I mean this literally; and there was very little
swearing--although now and then in the fighting, if there was a moment
when swearing seemed to be the best method of reaching the heart of the
matter, it was resorted to.

The men I cared for most in the regiment were the men who did the best
work; and therefore my likin