The Rough Riders 



course not done so, and they were literally without 

 anything to eat. They were fine fellows and we 

 could not see them suffer. I furnished them with 

 some beans and coffee for the elder officers and two 

 or three cases of hardtack for the men, and then 

 mounted my horse and rode down to headquarters, 

 half fording, half swimming the streams; and late 

 in the evening I succeeded in getting half a mule- 

 train of provisions for them. 



On the morning of the 3d the Spaniards had sent 

 out of Santiago many thousands of women, chil- 

 dren, and other non-combatants, most of them be- 

 longing to the poorer classes, but among them not 

 a few of the best families. These wretched crea- 

 tures took very little with them. They came 

 through our lines and for the most part went to El 

 Caney in our rear, where we had to feed them and 

 protect them from the Cubans. As we had barely 

 enough food for our own men the rations of the 

 refugees were scanty indeed and their sufferings 

 great. Long before the surrender they had begun 

 to come to our lines to ask for provisions, and my 

 men gave them a good deal out of their own scanty 

 stores, until I had positively to forbid it and to in- 

 sist that the refugees should go to headquarters ; as, 

 however hard and merciless it seemed, I was in duty 

 bound to keep my own regiment at the highest pitch 

 of fighting efficiency. 



