under the midsummer sun of the tropics.  The ration of coffee was often short, and that of sugar generally so; we rarely got any vegetables.  Under these circumstances the men lost strength steadily, and as the fever speedily attacked them, they suffered from being reduced to a bacon and hardtack diet.  So much did the shortage of proper food tell upon their health that again and again officers were compelled to draw upon their private purses, or upon the Red Cross Society, to make good the deficiency of the Government supply.  Again and again we sent down improvised pack-trains composed of officers’ horses, of captured Spanish cavalry ponies, or of mules which had been shot or abandoned but were cured by our men.  These expeditions—­sometimes under the Chaplain, sometimes under the Quartermaster, sometimes under myself, and occasionally under a trooper—­would go to the sea-coast or to the Red Cross head-quarters, or, after the surrender, into the city of Santiago, to get food both for the well and the sick.  The Red Cross Society rendered invaluable aid.  For example, on one of these expeditions I personally brought up 600 pounds of beans; on another occasion I personally brought up 500 pounds of rice, 800 pounds of cornmeal, 200 pounds of sugar, 100 pounds of tea, 100 pounds of oatmeal, 5 barrels of potatoes, and two of onions, with cases of canned soup and condensed milk for the sick in hospitals.  Every scrap of the food thus brought up was eaten with avidity by the soldiers, and put new heart and strength into them.  It was only our constant care of the men in this way that enabled us to keep them in any trim at all.  As for the sick in the hospital, unless we were able from outside sources to get them such simple delicacies as rice and condensed milk, they usually had the alternative of eating salt pork and hardtack or going without.  After each fight we got a good deal of food from the Spanish camps in the way of beans, peas, and rice, together with green coffee, all of which the men used and relished greatly.  In some respects the Spanish rations were preferable to ours, notably in the use of rice.  After we had been ashore a month the supplies began to come in in abundance, and we then fared very well.  Up to that time the men were under-fed, during the very weeks when the heaviest drain was being made upon their vitality, and the deficiency was only partially supplied through the aid of the Red Cross, and out of the officers’ pockets and the pockets of various New York friends who sent us money.  Before, during, and immediately after the fights of June 24th and July 1st, we were very short of even the bacon and hardtack.  About July 14th, when the heavy rains interrupted communication, we were threatened with famine, as we were informed that there was not a day’s supply of provisions in advance nearer than the sea-coast; and another twenty-four hours’ rain would have resulted in a complete break-down of communications, so that for several days we should have been reduced to a diet of mule-meat and mangos.  At this time, in anticipation of such a contingency, by foraging and hoarding we got a little ahead, so that when our supplies were cut down for a day or two we did not suffer much, and were even able to furnish a little aid to the less fortunate First Illinois Regiment, which was camped next to us.  Members of the Illinois Regiment were offering our men $1 apiece for hardtacks.