To The
Reader All These Little Things That One Remembers Seem Very Little
Indeed, But They Were Vivid At The
Moment, and I have always thought
of them as stretching over a long extent of time and territory.
Before I
Revisited San Juan I would have said that the distance along
the road from the point where I left the artillery to where I joined
Wood was three-quarters of a mile. When I paced it later I found the
distance was about seventy-five yards. I do not urge my stupidity or
my extreme terror as a proof that others would be as greatly
confused, but, if only for the sake of the stupid ones, it seems a
pity that the landmarks of San Juan should not be rescued from the
jungle, and a few sign-posts placed upon the hills. It is true that
the great battles of the Civil War and those of the one in Manchuria,
where the men killed and wounded in a day outnumber all those who
fought on both sides at San Juan, make that battle read like a
skirmish. But the Spanish War had its results. At least it made
Cuba into a republic, and so enriched or burdened us with colonies
that our republic changed into something like an empire. But I do
not urge that. It will never be because San Juan changed our foreign
policy that people will visit the spot, and will send from it picture
postal cards. The human interest alone will keep San Juan alive.
The men who fought there came from every State in our country and
from every class of our social life. We sent there the best of our
regular army, and with them, cowboys, clerks, bricklayers, foot-ball
players, three future commanders of the greater army that followed
that war, the future Governor of Cuba, future commanders of the
Philippines, the commander of our forces in China, a future President
of the United States. And, whether these men, when they returned to
their homes again, became clerks and millionaires and dentists, or
rose to be presidents and mounted policemen, they all remember very
kindly the days they lay huddled together in the trenches on that hot
and glaring sky-line. And there must be many more besides who hold
the place in memory. There are few in the United States so poor in
relatives and friends who did not in his or her heart send a
substitute to Cuba. For these it seems as though San Juan might be
better preserved, not as it is, for already its aspect is too far
changed to wish for that, but as it was. The efforts already made to
keep the place in memory and to honor the Americans who died there
are the public park which I have mentioned, the monument on San Juan,
and one other monument at Guasimas to the regulars and Rough Riders
who were killed there. To these monuments the Society of Santiago
will add four more, which will mark the landing place of the army at
Daiquairi and the fights at Guasimas, El Caney, and San Juan Hill.
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