Nearly half the command is sick.  We have only short rations of hard bread, bacon and coffee.  We have no shelter except dog tents, and they are no good in such a climate as this.  We have no vegetables, and of course we will all be sick.  We are living miserably.  There are thousands of supplies of all sorts in the harbor and on the landing, but they are not sent to us.  The army is in a disabled condition for want of food and shelter.  A box of hardtack and a piece of fat bacon thrown on the ground has been considered enough for the soldiers and officers who are in the trenches.  Somebody will hear from this.  Our government intends its soldiers to be well treated, but our supply department here in the field lack experience.  Day before yesterday Clara Barton sent each company twenty-five pounds of corn meal and seventeen pounds of rice.  It was a blessing, I tell you.  We all got a spoonful of mush, and it was the best thing I ever tasted in my life.

If we could only get our rations, just the regular ration and our tents, we would be willing to take our chances with the climate.  There will be enough go by the board, even if we get our supplies.  The soldiers have fought bravely and won the victory.

Keep out of the war.  Whole armies will be lost by disease and mismanagement.  If we stay here under the present layout not one in four will ever see the United States again.  We could not go into another campaign now, and unless matters improve very much we may as well be counted out for the summer.

How A war balloon came down after being pierced more than two hundred times.

Sergeant Thomas C. Boone of company K, Second regiment, wrote a thrilling letter.  Mr. Boone’s letter in part says: 

I have not told you of my accidents before while in Cuba, because I did not care to arouse the anxiety of my friends at home, and, although I have been unable to walk for some time, still I did not consider my condition as serious as the surgeons here claim it to be.  I will tell you how I got hurt.  It was a streak of continuous bad luck.  On the 1st of July I went up in the balloon on the battlefield at 7 am, and the balloon was being moved all over the field when shot to pieces eighty yards from the Spanish line at 1 p.m.  We thought our height, together with their bad marksmanship, afforded us protection.  We were badly mistaken.

At least 200 bullets and four shrapnel shots went through the inflated bag, allowing the gas to escape, and we came down with a rush, striking the top of a tree alongside of a creek, throwing us out.  In falling I was caught in the abdomen by a point of the anchor of the balloon, was suspended for a moment—­it seemed a lifetime—­then dropped into the creek, with the water up to my shoulders.  I was badly bruised and shaken up, but, owing to the excitement of the time, I did not notice the pain.