296 The Rough Riders 



of what should be done with the army. To keep 

 us here, in the opinion of every officer commanding 

 a division or a brigade, will simply involve the de- 

 struction of thousands. There is no possible rea- 

 son for not shipping practically the entire command 

 North at once. 



Yellow-fever cases are very few in the cavalry 

 division, where I command one of the two brigades, 

 and not one true case of yellow fever has occurred 

 in this division, except among the men sent to the 

 hospital at Siboney, where they have, I believe, 

 contracted it. 



But in this division there have been 1,500 cases 

 of malarial fever. Hardly a man has yet died from 

 it, but the whole command is so weakened and shat- 

 tered as to be ripe for dying like rotten sheep, when 

 a real yellow-fever epidemic instead of a fake epi- 

 demic, like the present one, strikes us, as it is bound 

 to do if we stay here at the height of the sickness 

 season, August and the beginning of September. 

 Quarantine against malarial fever is much like 

 quarantining against the toothache. 



All of us are certain that as soon as the authori- 

 ties at Washington fully appreciate the condition 

 of the army, we shall be sent home. If we are 

 kept here it will in all human possibility mean an 

 appalling disaster, for the surgeons here estimate 

 that over half the army, if kept here during the 

 sickly season, will die. 



This is not only terrible from the standpoint of 

 the individual lives lost, but it means ruin from the 

 standpoint of military efficiency of the flower of the 



