Three of our detachment were killed and four wounded out of twenty-one men, which shows that we were in a pretty warm place.  Well, I did not go to the hospital about my injury until July 14, and I was then so weak I could scarcely walk.  The surgeons at the field hospital placed me in an old army wagon without springs at 9 o’clock one night to be taken to another hospital seven miles away, over the worst road in the world, without doubt.  We had gone about half a mile when the wagon turned completely over, the wagon body catching my neck under its side and the corner of a box striking me in the abdomen.

I was unconscious for two hours.  My neck is still very sore.  When I regained consciousness I was placed in the wagon, but the bumping over ruts and rocks fairly drove me mad, and I said I could not stand it.  I was told that I could walk, which I did.  The wagon went on.  I reached the hospital at 7 o’clock the next morning after a night of agony.  At this hospital I was told that I was injured internally and that they could do nothing for me, that I would have to go to the United States for an operation, and here I am.

I hope to be in Springfield soon, but I am as weak as a child and cannot walk fifty yards.  On top of my accidents I had a case of bilious fever and was shoved into the yellow fever hospital for several days.  Bilious fever is a nasty thing, although not dangerous.  There are thousands of cases of it in our Cuban army.  It arises, I believe, from sleeping on the rain-soaked ground and in wet clothing night after night.  There was not a day while I was in Cuba, with the exception of time spent in the hospital, that I was not soaked through from rain.  Mosquitoes at night and flies during day make life unbearable here.  They are a thousand times worse than any I ever saw.  I am bitten from head to foot.  They bite clear through the clothing.

When Captain Capron was killed at the battle of La Quasima Lieutenant Thomas became the commander of the troop.  He was on the point of leading the fierce charge against the Spaniards when shot down by a Mauser bullet passing through his right leg below the knee.  He gives the following interesting account of his personal experience and observations: 

Our trip from the point of landing to Siboney, a distance of about eleven miles, took about three hours, and was over a trail that was very muddy in parts and crossed a number of streams.  Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt on this trip had his mount, but as we were not mounted he walked over the trail with us, leading his horse along.  That was a simple act, but it indicated a feeling of comradeship he had for the members of the regiment and it touched a tender place in the men’s hearts.

No glimpse of Spaniards.

Lawton’s command had gone over this trail before us and the Spaniards had retreated so that we did not get a glimpse of the Spaniards on that march.  A few men who had been ill on shipboard with measles, and had recovered only a short time before, were still weak and had to drop out of the line, but they reached Siboney a little while after the main body of our regiment got there.  We got to Siboney on the evening of June 23, and with our shelter tents were very comfortable until the next morning, although it rained.