If a hurricane had struck the transports, scattering
them to the four winds, or if three days of heavy rain had completely
broken up our communication, as they assuredly would have done, we
would have been at starvation point on the front; and while, of
course, we would have lived through it somehow and would have taken
the city, it would only have been after very disagreeable experiences.
As soon as I was able I accumulated for my own regiment about
forty-eight hours' hardtack and salt pork, which I kept so far as
possible intact to provide against any emergency.

If the city could be taken without direct assault on the intrenchments
and wire entanglements, we earnestly hoped it would be, for such an
assault meant, as we knew by past experience, the loss of a quarter
of the attacking regiments (and we were bound that the Rough Riders
should be one of these attacking regiments, if the attack had to be
made). There was, of course, nobody who would not rather have
assaulted than have run the risk of failure; but we hoped the city
would fall without need arising for us to suffer the great loss of
life which a further assault would have entailed.

Naturally, the colonels and captains had nothing to say in the peace
negotiations which dragged along for the week following the sending in
the flag of truce. Each day we expected either to see the city
surrender, or to be told to begin fighting again, and toward the end
it grew so irksome that we would have welcomed even an assault in
preference to further inaction. I used to discuss matters with the
officers of my own regiment now and then, and with a few of the
officers of the neighboring regiments with whom I had struck up a
friendship--Parker, Stevens, Beck, Ayres, Morton, and Boughton. I also
saw a good deal of the excellent officers on the staffs of Generals
Wheeler and Sumner, especially Colonel Dorst, Colonel Garlington,
Captain Howze, Captain Steele, Lieutenant Andrews, and Captain Astor
Chanler, who, like myself, was a volunteer. Chanler was an old friend
and a fellow big-game hunter, who had done some good exploring work in
Africa. I always wished I could have had him in my regiment. As for
Dorst, he was peculiarly fitted to command a regiment. Although Howze
and Andrews were not in my brigade, I saw a great deal of them,
especially of Howze, who would have made a nearly ideal regimental
commander. They were both natural cavalry-men and of most enterprising
natures,