From Yauco to Las Marias | Page 4

on the road to Sabana Grande at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. It will observe the following rules and order of march:--
1. Macomb's troop of cavalry will act as a screen, and will march about two miles in advance of the point of the advance-guard. The extent of the front to be covered by, and the disposition of the cavalry, will depend upon the nature of the country, and will be left to the judgment of the troop commander. He will communicate freely by means of orderlies with the commander of the advance-guard, who will at once transmit all messages to the commanding general. Three mounted orderlies to be furnished by the troop, will march with the advance-guard.
2. Two companies of infantry, one platoon of artillery, and two Gatling guns will constitute the advance-guard. A pioneer detachment, consisting of one non-commissioned officer and eight men, to be carefully selected from the advance-guard, will march with the reserve, and will be under the direction of the engineer officer of the brigade. The requisite tools will be carried on a cart. Upon arriving in camp, the advance-guard will immediately establish the outpost.
3. The main body will consist of nine companies of infantry, one battery and two platoons of artillery, and two Gatling guns.
4. The trains following the main body will be under the direction of the brigade quartermaster, and their order of march will be:--
Hospital train. Ammunition column. Supply and baggage wagons.
The rear-guard will be composed of one company of infantry. A detachment from it will protect exposed flanks of the train. If horses can be procured for them, the commanders of the advance and rear guards will be mounted.
The above disposition for each day's march will be conformed to, unless otherwise ordered.
By command of Brigadier-General Schwan.
GROTE HUTCHESON, _Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General._
[Illustration: Spanish Prisoners who were brought from Las Marias to Mayaguez.]
As Captain Macomb's cavalry had not arrived at the hour appointed for our start, we set off without him. And in fact there was little need of his services on that day, our march being through a section of the island already cleared of Spanish troops, and exceedingly slow and wearisome, besides.
The route from Yauco to Sabana Grande lies for some two miles along the level and creditable road leading to Guanica, suddenly going off at right angles just beyond a picturesque sugar-mill into as uneven, crooked, and hilly a highway as can well be imagined.
I cannot tell you in adequate language just how the tropical sun punishes the unacclimated Northerner, especially if he be a foot-soldier tramping along in a blinding dust, parched of throat, empty of belly, and loaded down with a pack that would make a quartermaster's mule to fake the glanders. If you have been there, it needs no words of mine to galvanize your memory; and, if you have not, you cannot understand. This matter of the soldier's pack and what to do with it became a subject of serious consideration during the recent war, in both Cuba and Puerto Rico. On the march, in the charge or pursuit or retreat, it is a senseless, clogging, spirit-shackling incubus, a rank absurdity, and an utter impossibility. As a result, after three days of active campaign the infantryman is seen gayly stalking along with no burden save his rifle, ammunition-belt, and a wisp of gray blanket, which seems to me to be a fatuous and footless condition of affairs that might well be quickly remedied for the benefit of all concerned.
[Illustration: Plaza Principal, Mayaguez. A Public Celebration of the New Flag's Advent, under the Auspices of the Local School-teachers and their Pupils.]
As we passed the occasional little hacienda, set in its grove of cocoanut palms or orange-trees, dusky and wrinkled women came forth from the doors, bearing upon their heads huge jars, from which we filled our ever-parched canteens with cool, sweet water. They also brought us mangoes and other native fruits, and queer cigars of most abominable flavor. Because we were forbidden to eat of the fruit, we stuffed ourselves with it, and looked for more. From time to time a weary or sick soldier would lay himself down by the roadside, to be picked up later on by an ambulance; but, as the day wore on, the intervals of rest grew longer and more frequent. We had but one opportunity to water the sweating horses of the artillery, and then it was a painful matter of buckets. We munched hard-tack for our noonday meal, and made merry over it, talking of the day when we should go home and feast on beans and beefsteak and countless other things of which the heathen wot not. We were intensely voluble or silent by turns, and invented new nicknames for each other, which were so apt, spite of being touched