Significance of the Fall of Santiago: Red Cross and Willie
A vivid and pathetic account of the horrors of war was given in several issues of McClure's Magazine, in the diaries kept during the last days at Santiago by Mr. Ramsden, British Consul in that city. He had lived among its people a number of years and was cordially esteemed by all. The editorial note which follows the extract from the last diary, gives a pitiful tragic touch to its story of devotion to duty.
Tuesday, 5th July. At 5:30 a. m. I started with two carts which Willie had found, provisions, and people for Caney, with flag. Three hours and a half on the road. The scene was terrible; people flocking out, sick carried in chairs or as they could, children getting lost by the way, etc. Through a son of Diego Moyas in the American army, I obtained a room, such a one, in a house just chockfull of blacks, and put my wife's mother and sisters in there, while Willie pitched our tent in an empty piece of ground where a house had stood, and also managed to obtain a small room in a house close alongside. The entrance to Caney was stinking with half-buried corpses of men and horses, as three days before there had been a tremendous battle there.
Wednesday, 6th July. Visited by war correspondents of papers, etc. About 18,000 to 20,000 in Caney; houses, of which there are 300, full of people, in most of them not leaving room enough to lie on the floor, but having to pass the night in a sitting posture. I wrote to General Shafter about provisions for the British subjects, of which I have thirty odd on the list.
Thursday, 7th July. Akers and other correspondents arrived. He has no horse. I received 100 pounds of flour from General Shafter for Britishers, and had it made into bread, which they brought to my tent at midnight, and made me get up to cool it down and put away till morning. General Toral wrote me asking me to send in the English cable clerks if I could, and I sent in poor Cavanagh, Frume and Booney. Toral said he had important telegrams for Madrid, and I knew it was with regard to capitulation. Musgrave, correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, turned up, and was very kind. I wrote by him to my girls at Jamaica and to the Commodore, having also done so two days before. Captain Arthur Lee, of Royal Artillery, and military attache, turned up.
Friday, 8th July. More correspondents, etc. Distributed biscuit, or rather bread, I had made. Got Edwards to take charge of distributing provisions for British subjects. The people are starving. The Red Cross Society cannot get provisions up in time for want of means of transportation, nor can the army. The people, thinking they had come out for but a couple of days and not being allowed to bring animals of burden with them, have now no provisions left, and round here the only thing obtainable is mangoes, of which there is a profusion. The streets are filled with the remains of these thrown down by the people, and they are in a state of ferment. The place is one big pigsty, and soon there must be a frightful epidemic, with the people bathing and washing dirty clothes in the river, from which the drinking water is obtained and to which any quantity of filth and refuse finds its way. In some houses you will find fifty in a small room, and among them one dying of fever, another of diarrhoea, and perhaps a women in the throes of childbirth, and all that with not a chair to sit on or a utensil of any kind, and all in want of food. You cannot buy anything for money, though I know one man lucky enough to buy five biscuits of about two ounces each for a five-dollar piece, and another who bought a small chicken for seven dollars, but he did not take it right off, and the bargain was refused. People will exchange mangoes or other things for food, such as rice, biscuit, or pork, the things mostly looked for. Twenty-five good sized biscuits were paid for three small chickens by a Red Cross man. The country is absolutely bare, and money will buy nothing, and it is useless. Children dying for want of food; in fact, the situation is indescribable. We now hear that the bombardment has been postponed until Saturday, 9th, at noon. Elwell turned up in the afternoon; had been in Kingston, Jamaica, the previous day, and had seen the Brooks and Douglas families at the hotel, and said that my people had also arrived safely, though he had not seen them. Elwell is chief of Miss Clara Barton's Red Cross work, and prevailed on Willie to take charge to run the distribution, in place of poor old Bangs, who works like a mule. Captain Finlay had arrived the day before, and went off to-day. Major Allen also arrived, and two wagons of food.