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ExtractsKnownSPIRITEDA Horne Which He Caught Wild on the Plainn and Tamed JuKt Enough to Ride in theArmy.LETTERS RECEIVED FROM MAJOR William H. Cox, of the Cuban army, relate some of the hardships which a soldier has to face and describe the hopelessness of the Spanish cause..mmmmMajor William H. Cox, of the Cuban Army, has a host of friends in Philadelphia who are anxious to hear from him, but his letters are* fe v and far between owing to the difficulties in transmission. The following extracts from communications received by his ; relatives a.ic fri nds are pubilahed i with the assent of the Major.This letter w'as received here in January, although it was dated August11, 1896. In it he writes:“We have just reached Lalaga, on the Cauto River, after a month’s march In the mountains of Santiago de Cuba, but, thank God, we are in the open country again, where there is more to eat. I am feeling miserable, having been quite sick, but nowMajor William H. Cox - aiI am better and ready to fight. Gen- ai lB eral Gomez is here with us, and we w expect to enter some town near here gj in a few days. I have received a i sj number of letters and I hear there are w others for me, but they have not been able to reach me. Tell my re friends to w'rite as often as they can. i- Osgood had a letter a few days ago,;n ! and he was disappointed because there ai were no more. I had a very narrow a( iy escape the other day. We were com- Si eg ing down a steep hill, and at the f? h bottom was a mountain stream with 11 m a swift current. The path was slip- OI s- pery and my horse went down, drag- ™ ging me into the stream. The cur-e_ rent turned us over and over. My 01 leg was caught in the stirrup, and L]t there we were, sometimes the horse e. on top of the water and sometimes , m myself. But at last I managed to w w loosen the stirrup and crawl to the a 1S bank, exhausted and feeling half-dead. P|s. I want to give you a pointer—stake y' all you can on the next issue of Cuban el bonds. This is a dead sure thing for ^ J3 the insurgents, it only being a matter “,d of time. *\ j3'SPANIARDS DESERT.jd The Spanish soldiers are continu-n alfy deserting and coming to our elt; 'e ranks, not out of sympathy, but to le get something to eat. In’ the larger w 11 towns the soldiers have scarcely any- G n thing to eat, and have not been paid w 15 for six or eight months. Their clothes sj — i are ragged and they need shoes bad- plt; ly. I wish you would go out to the r battery and see the boys and tell the ai captain I will write to him at the next v opportunity.” wj The first letter received from Cox i0If after he went to Cuba was dated Los si | Tunis, April 10, 1896. He wrote:“It has been a little over a month since we left Charleston. ‘ I think we left pn the 8th of March, and landed ai on the 19th. I have become entirely I* Cuban in color and manner, except ~ I am not an expert with the machette.I wish you could see one of those vj fellows swing them. I have seen a! them cut a head clean off of a bull fj-or ste°r running wild In a field. Trees * that we would take an axe to they cut O dowm with the machette, but they are matched by the Spaniards with the 01 Mauser rifles, the bullets from which P’ will go clear through a man. We 01 have quite a number of men who u have bullet , wounds completely ™ through them. ^“Cuba they pronounce as If it was lr Kooba. The streams here are filled “ with fish, a species of bass, and you can catch any amount of them.”RIDES OVER DEAD HORSES.From a letter dated May 26, 1896. w ! and sent by way of Jamaica, this ex- ti tract is taken: d• We have been having some very b hard marches, having marched to Bar- i£ acoa, the easternmost end of the is- a ie land, and are now on our wray back | ti d to civilization. We shall have rain u 5* nowr every day until October, and the » n rains are so dense that you cannot f, n see thirty feet from you. Words fail i ^ o to express the condition of our roads, | fl h with mud up to our horses’ shoulders, t 8 d “I have seen as many as 500 dead ■e horses, and I walked my horse on 1- their dead bodies in order to save my g own horse. I have three horses at a (£ present, all good ones. My favorite 11n is a black stallion, which I caught wild cand have tamed just enough to ride s- him. He is a corker and can jump £ t- like a breeze. We have some very Df high mountains here in the East, and nw many times have I been above the 8s clouds. Descending on horseback is er something ^hat ordinary mortals do e b not take pleasure in. Before the ^ s rainy season we used to march about *It twenty leagues a day, but now we 11 e can only march about ten. We sad-h die up about 3 A. M. and march un-o til sunset.” E
Newspaper Details
Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
Fri, Mar 19, 1897
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
State L.
PA, USA 04 Mar 2022
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