But this one isolated case sinks into insignificance beside the
condition in which some of the sick were left by commands returning to
the United States. All cases of yellow fever suspects were left
behind, and in the mad scramble to embark for the return voyage many
of these were left without proper attention or supplies.
Gen. Kent's Division had left by the 11th of August. The following
extract from a letter dated Santiago de Cuba, August 12, 1898, will
convey some idea of the condition in which the sick of this division
were left:
"Yesterday Gen. Kent's Division left for Montauk, and they left behind
350 sick, many of them too ill to care for themselves. This humane
country, of course, left ample care for them? There was left one
surgeon, one steward, and one case of medicines. Many of these men are
too ill to rise. They are 'suspected' of having yellow fever. They are
suffering from Cuban malaria, and many of them from diarrhea. There
was not left a single bed-pan for this battalion of bed-ridden,
suffering humanity, nor any well men to nurse the sick. There was not
even left any to cook food for them. Those left by the 9th Infantry
had to bribe marauding, pilfering Cubans, with a part of their
rations, to carry food to the camp of the 13th, where there were a few
less ill, to get it cooked.
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