of campaign, in its general outlines, is
approved, and if all his requisitions for vessels, horses, mules,
wagons, ambulances, tents, guns, ammunition, and miscellaneous supplies
are duly honored, there is no reason that I can see why he should not be
held to a strict personal accountability for results, both generally and
in detail. He has made his own plan; he has had everything that he asked
for; and if the campaign does not go as it should, he, and not the War
Department, is to blame. If, however, the department, after selecting
him and approving his plan, does _not_ furnish him with the
transportation and the stores that he needs and has called for, he ought
to protect himself and his own reputation by referring respectfully to
that fact in his report of the campaign, so that, if any of his bricks
are imperfect for lack of straw, the people may know that he was not
supplied with straw and had no means whatever of getting it in the field
to which he was sent. The importance of this point will become apparent
when an attempt is made to ascertain the causes and fix the
responsibility for the wrecking of the Fifth Army-Corps by disease in
the short space of one calendar month.

There is nothing in the official documents thus far published to
indicate that General Shafter was unreasonably hurried, or that he
failed to get from the War Department anything for which he made timely
requisition. The invasion of eastern Cuba was planned as early as the
first week in May--possibly much earlier than that, and, at any rate,
long before Admiral Cervera's fleet took refuge in Santiago harbor.
Colonel Babcock, Shafter's adjutant-general, told me on May 7 that the
government had decided to send the army of invasion to the eastern end
of the island, and to leave Havana and the western provinces unmolested
until later in the season. Before General Shafter sailed from Tampa,
therefore, he had nearly or quite six weeks in which to acquaint himself
with the Santiago field and mature a plan of operations. The question
whether or not he was furnished with all the means of transportation and
all the supplies for which he made requisition is in more doubt; but,
inasmuch as he seems to have made no complaint or protest, and does not
refer in his official reports to deficiencies of any kind, it may be
assumed, for the purposes of this review, that he had been furnished by
the War Department with everything for which he asked. Upon this
assum