San Luis.  A detachment of the Illinois Regiment, under command of Major Jackson, was sent to Palma Soriana, and did excellent work there in the preservation of order between the Cubans and Spaniards, who were living together in that place in outward peace but in secret resentful hostility.  Major Jackson managed affairs so well that both parties came to admire him, and when he was called away expressed their regret.  Captain Roots, who commanded the post after the departure of Major Jackson, was equally fortunate, especially with the Cubans, and when it was thought his command was to be removed, the citizens generally united in a petition to the General commanding, asking that both the Captain and his command might remain in the city.  The fact is also noted by the chroniclers of the regiment that several marriages took place in Palma Soriana between soldiers of the Eighth Illinois and Cuban maidens.

The Eighth Regiment was finally settled in San Luis, occupying the old Spanish barracks and arsenal, and under Colonel Marshall’s supervision the city was put in fine sanitary condition, streets and yards being carefully policed; meanwhile under the reign of order and peace which the Colonel’s just methods established, confidence prevailed, business revived and the stagnation which had so long hung like a fog over the little city, departed, and in its stead came an era of bustling activity.

All was peaceful and prosperous, both with the citizens and the garrison, until the Ninth United States Volunteers came in the vicinity.  Then a difficulty sprang up in which both regiments became involved, although it was in no sense serious, but it afforded a pretext for the removal of the Eighth Illinois from the city.  The event turned out all the better for the Eighth, as it enabled them to establish Camp Marshall, about three miles from the city, in a healthy neighborhood, where they remained until ordered home to be mustered out.  The regiment came back to Chicago in fine condition and was tendered an enthusiastic welcome by that great city.  Thus two entire regiments represented the country abroad in this, its first, foreign war with a European power.

It should also be recorded that although the Ninth United States Volunteers was composed of persons who were classed as immune, and had come chiefly from Louisiana, and notwithstanding that the officers of the regiment above lieutenants were white men, and the colonel an officer of the Regular Army of long experience, and was specially praised by so good a sanitarian as General Wood for having been, constant and untiring in his efforts to look after the welfare of his men, and that the surgeons of the regiment were white men, that deaths among the colored men numbered one officer and seventy-three enlisted men.  In striking contrast with this record of the immune regiment is that of the Eighth Illinois, which was made up entirely of residents of that State and officered throughout by colored men.  Its medical officers