Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 103 



only occasionally see a chance to retaliate. Wood's 

 experience in fighting Apaches stood him in good 

 stead. An entirely raw man at the head of the regi- 

 ment, conducting, as Wood was, what was practi- 

 cally an independent fight, would have been in a 

 very trying position. The fight cleared the way tow- 

 ard Santiago, and we experienced no further resist- 

 ance. 



That afternoon we made camp and dined, sub- 

 sisting chiefly on a load of beans which we found 

 on one of the Spanish mules which had been shot. 

 We also looked after the wounded. Dr. Church 

 had himself gone out to the firing-line during the 

 fight, and carried to the rear some of the worst 

 wounded on his back or in his arms. Those who 

 could walk had walked in to where the little field- 

 hospital of the regiment was established on the trail. 

 We found all our dead and all the badly wounded. 

 Around one of the latter the big, hideous land-crabs 

 had gathered in a grewsome ring, waiting for life 

 to be extinct. One of our own men and most of 

 the Spanish dead had been found by the vultures 

 before we got to them; and their bodies were 

 mangled, the eyes and wounds being torn. 



The Rough Rider who had been thus treated was 

 in Bucky O'Neill's troop; and as we looked at the 

 body, O'Neill turned to me and asked, "Colonel, 

 isn't it Whitman who says of the vultures that 



