two weeks, drenched with rains, scorched by the burning
sun at times, and chilled by cool nights, subsisting on food not of
the best and poorly cooked, cut off from news and kept in suspense,
when the surrender finally came it found our army generally very
greatly reduced in vital force. During the period following, from July
16th to about the same date in August the re-action fell with all its
weight upon the troops, rendering them an easy prey to the climatic
influences by which they were surrounded.[20] Pernicious malarial
fever, bowel troubles and yellow fever were appearing in all the
regiments; and the colored troops appeared as susceptible as their
white comrades. The theory had been advanced that they were less
susceptible to malarial fever, and in a certain sense this appears to
be true; but the experience of our army in Cuba, as well as army
statistics published before the Cuban War, do not bear out the popular
view of the theory. The best that can be said from the experience of
Cuba is to the effect that the blacks may be less liable to yellow
fever and may more quickly rally from the effects of malarial fever.
These conclusions are, however, by no means well established. The
Twenty-fourth suffered excessively from fevers of both kinds, and in
the judgment of the commanding officer of the regiment "effectually
showed that colored soldiers were not more immune from Cuban fever
than white," but we must remember that the service of the
Twenty-fourth was exceptional. The Twenty-fifth Infantry lost but one
man during the whole campaign from climatic disease, John A. Lewis,
and it is believed that could he have received proper medical care his
life would have been saved. Yet this regiment suffered severely from
fever as did also the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry.

Arriving at Montauk[21] early the author had the opportunity to see
the whole of the Fifth Army Corps disembark on its return from Cuba,
and was so impressed with its forlorn appearance that he then wrote of
it as coming home on stretchers. Pale, emaciated, weak and halting,
they came, with 3,252 sick, and reporting 87 deaths on the voyage.
But, as General Wheeler said in his report, "the great bulk of the
troops that were at Santiago were by no means well." Never before had
the people seen an army of stalwart men so suddenly transformed into
an army of invalids. And yet while all the regiments arriving showed
the effects of the hardships they had endured, the