590 
OLOF SCHWARZKOPF. 
ports may sail in the future. The Quartermaster Department is natur¬ 
ally desirous of sending forward as many animals as possible, but when 
treated in this manner they will be utterly useless, even if they finally 
arrive alive at their destination. What is needed is the employment of 
men experienced in these matters. The quartermaster is too busy, even 
if perfectly capable, to attend to such details. 
Sun, Aug. i6. * * * The ignorance displayed in the shipment of 
horses and mules needs severe criticism. The first horses shipped at 
Tampa were absolutely lowered into the hold like wooden boxes, and 
before a dozen of them had been thus accommodated nine of them were 
dead, and had to be lifted out again. * * * 
N. Y. Herald, Aug. 20, 1898. The death rate among the cavalry 
horses at Tampa and Fernandina is extremely high in most of the regi¬ 
ments. Many of the horses, from lack of rations, swallowed quantities 
of sand in grazing in this arid country and died from that. Almost all 
were more or less blistered on the back by the intense heat, and these 
blisters often formed sores which finally rendered the horse useless. 
Many died of heat-prostration and disease, but nobody seems to know 
what this disease really is ; some say it is epizootic, others pronounce it 
glanders. The Tenth Cavalry suffered smaller, loss than any other regi¬ 
ment mainly because they had a veterinarian who insisted on the best 
of care of them. The result was that the regiment has come out with as 
sturdy looking a lot of horses as one would wish to see. 
Dr. J. P. Turiter. in a report to the thirty-fifth annual meeting of the 
American Veterinary Association, writes as follows ; Sept. 2, 1898 : When 
one contemplates four million dollars being spent for war-horses and 
mules without any proper veterinary supervision, one wonders at the 
recklessness of such mismanagement. A glance at the thousands of 
horses and mules in the great corrals at Tampa, Fla., would show any 
honest man that something is wrong in the present system. During 
the month of May from five to ten thousand animals were in this corral 
and 7 iot one vetcri 7 iaria 7 i to treat them, and dozens were dying every day. 
Later on, one of the old non-graduate army veterinarians, a man past 
sixty years of age, was sent to this corral to save him from the climate 
of Cuba, when the invasion was ordered. He was without authority, 
assistants, hospital or medicines, so his value to the corral can be 
imagined. 
Dr. G. E. Griffi, 7 i, Fifth U. S. Cavalry, reports in the American 
Veterinary Review, November, 1898, that the government-teamsters 
Tampa, watered the mulevS in pools formed by rain in the depressions 
of the palmetto swamps which were charged with decaying organic mat- 
^cr. The object of the teamsters was no other than to save themselves 
from walking to the designated water-trough at a distance. The veter¬ 
inarian had no authority to prohibit this proceeding. The result was 
that in a few days the wagon-master reported .several cases of “cracked 
heels, but on examination it was found that water leeches had pene¬ 
trated the skin near the hoof and had produced foot-rot. Thirty-two 
mules of one wagon train became so afflicted, five among them died 
from sloughing of the hoof, others had to be shot to end their suffering 
and several were left behind uncured when the command left. 
The N. Y. Mail a 7 id Express. October ii, 1898, reports that the 
Quartermaster Department purchased “in haste ’’ 17,149 cavalry and 
