t was at least passable, and
was constantly traversed, not only by pack-trains, but by wagons with
loads.

Captain Henry L. Marcotte, a retired officer of the Seventeenth
Infantry, who went with General Shafter's army as correspondent for the
"Army and Navy Journal," describes the condition of the road as follows:

"The road from Daiquiri to Siboney, about seven miles, leads over the
foot-hill slopes of the mountain-ranges and crosses a winding stream
several times during that distance. The road-bed, being mostly of rock,
and well shaded by tropical growths, with good water every few hundred
yards, made the journey for the Catling battery a picnic without
obstacles. From Siboney to [a point] near El Pozo the road was as good
as [from Daiquiri] to Siboney, with the exception of one part. This,
with five minutes' work, was made passable for the battery and for the
three army wagons which the quartermaster's department had ventured to
send out. In fact, the road, all the way to Santiago, proved equal to
most country roads, and there was not the slightest excuse for not using
the hundred or more wagons stowed in the hold of the Cherokee to
transport tentage, medical and other supplies close upon the heels of
the slow-moving Fifth Corps.... There is a mystery about the 'condition
of the road' that may remain so unless it is fixed upon as the
scape-goat for the lack of transportation.... The condition of the road
at no time would have prevented a farmer from taking a load of hay to
market.... There was no point from Daiquiri to the trenches which could
not have been as easily reached by wagons as by pack-mules between June
22 and July 18."

Captain Marcotte, as a retired officer of the regular army, is better
qualified than I am to express an opinion with regard to the
availability of a road for military purposes, and he does not hesitate
to say that the road from Daiquiri and Siboney to the front was
practicable for loaded wagons up to July 18, or for a period of nearly a
month subsequent to the landing of the army. During a part of that time,
he says, its condition was not such as to prevent a farmer from taking a
load of hay over it.

I myself went over this road from Siboney to the front four times
between June 26 and July 9,--twice on foot, once in an ambulance, and
once in an army wagon,--and my own judgment is that for ten days after
the disembarkation of the army the road was comparatively dry and good.
After tha