tery, and fever, and no medicine at all to combat
them, that men have actually died for want of it. Four days after my
reporting here there was not a single medicine in the entire hospital
for the first two diseases, and nothing but quinine for the fever."

Dr. Edward L. Munson reported to Surgeon-General Sternberg, under date
of July 29, that "at the time of the battle of Las Guasimas there were
absolutely no dressings, hospital tentage, or supplies of any kind on
shore, within reach of the surgeons already landed. The medical
department was compelled to rely upon its own energies and improvise its
own transportation. I feel justified in saying that at the time of my
departure [from Siboney] large quantities of medical supplies, urgently
needed on shore, still remained on the transports, a number of which
were under orders to return to the United States. Had the medical
department carried along double the amount of supplies, it is difficult
to see how, with the totally inadequate land and water transportation
provided by the quartermaster's department, the lamentable conditions on
shore could have been in any way improved. The regimental medical
officers had no means of transportation even for their field-chests."

Lieutenant-Colonel Senn, chief of the surgical operating staff, in a
letter to the "Medical Record," dated "Siboney, August 3," disclaimed
responsibility for the want of medical and surgical supplies in the
field-hospitals, and said: "The lack of proper transportation from the
landing to the front cannot be charged to the medical department."

Finally, General Shafter himself, in a telegram to President McKinley,
dated "Santiago, August 8," reported as follows: "At least seventy-five
per cent. of the command have been down with malarial fever, from which
they recover very slowly.... What put my command in its present
condition was the twenty days of the campaign when they had nothing but
meat, bread, and coffee, without change of clothes, and without any
shelter whatever."

In view of the above statements, made, not by irresponsible "newspaper
correspondents and camp-followers," but by the officers and men of the
Fifth Army-Corps, and in view of the confirmation given to them by the
commanding general himself in a telegram to the President, it is proper,
I think, to press once more the question, Why was the army left for
almost a month without suitable tents, without adequate hospital
supplies, without ca