Subject: es and from personal observation."

From: Cacciola Waldall <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:55:47 +0200

Uch by the Spanish sharpshooters stationed in tops of the beautiful
palms and other trees of dense foliage. A number of these guerillas were
found provided with seats, water and other necessaries, and I am told
some of them had evidently robbed our dead to secure themselves an
American uniform, that they might still carry on their nefarious work
undetected. Many of the disabled received their second and some their
mortal wound, while being conveyed from the field by litter-bearers.
Though it was the tendency for a time to give the sharpshooter story
little or no credence, but to lay the matter to "spent bullets"; it
seemed almost out of the question that "spent bullets" should annoy our
Division Hospital, some four or five miles from the Spanish works. It
would also seem equally as absurd that a bullet could be trained to turn
angles, as several of our men were hit while assembled for transfer to
general hospital and receiving temporary treatment at the dressing
station located in an elbow of the San Juan River. The Division Hospital
was so harassed that it was necessary to order four Troops of the 9th
U.S. Cavalry there for guard. While en route to the hospital on the
morning of July 2 with wounded, I saw a squad of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry
after one of these annoying angels, not 20 feet from the road. On
arrival at the hospital I was told by a comrade that several had been
knocked from their stage of action. On July 1, our Color-Sergeant was
shot from a tree after our line had passed beneath the tree where he was
located. July 3, three more fell in response to a volley through tree
tops, and on July 14, while waiting the hand to reach the hour for the
bombardment of the city, one of the scoundrels deliberately ascended a
tree in plain view of, and within two hundred yards of, our line. It was
a good thing that the white flag for surrender appeared before the hour
to commence firing, otherwise Spain would have had at least one less to
haggle with on account of back pay. To locate a sharpshooter using
smokeless powder among the dense tropical growth may be compared with
"looking for a needle in a haystack." The killed and wounded in battle
present a scene well c