There were some ignorant Volunteers at Santiago, but of all the willful violation of all the laws of sanitation, camp hygiene, and health ever seen, these particular Volunteers did the most outrageous things. They threw their kitchen refuse out on the ground anywhere; half of the time they did not visit the sink at all, but used the surface of the ground anywhere instead; and they continued these offenses at Montauk Point. They raked over an abandoned camp of the Spanish prisoners on their arrival at Fort Roosevelt, and appropriated all the cast-off articles they could find, using the _débris_ for bedding. This surgeon, a “family doctor” from the pine woods in northern Michigan, did not seem to regard these matters as of any importance. His attention was called to them, but he took no action. In short, there was no law of health which these people did not utterly ignore, no excess dangerous to health which they did not commit. Three-fourths of them were too sick for duty, and the rest looked like living skeletons. They fairly wallowed in their own filth—and cursed the climate of Cuba on account of their sickness.
In sharp contrast to the 34th Michigan was the 1st U. S. Volunteer Cavalry, the Rough Riders. This was an organization the peer of any in the Regular Army in morale, in fighting, and in every quality that goes to make up a fine body of soldiers. They were picked men; all classes were shown in that organization. The tennis champion was a private, the champion oarsman of Harvard a corporal. On the 2d of July a stock-broker of Wall Street who can sign his check for $3,000,000 was seen haggling with a cow-puncher from the Indian Territory over a piece of hardtack. Both were privates and both were fine soldiers. The whole regiment was just such a medley, but fought like Regulars, and endured like Spartans. They hung on like bull-dogs, and charged like demons. They were as strict about the camp police as Regular Army surgeons, and as punctilious about saluting as a K. O. on “official relations.” Withal, they were a clean-mouthed, clean-clad, clean-camped lot of gentlemen, each in his way, from the “Hello, pard!” of the cowboy to the frozen stare of the monocled dude from Broadway. And they fought—like Regulars; there is no other just comparison. Roosevelt said: “They are the 11th Cavalry.” He found enthusiastic endorsers of this remark in every Regular who saw them fight. They were the finest body of Volunteers who ever wore uniform, and they were stamped indelibly with the personality of Theodore Roosevelt. Pushing, aggressive, resolute, tenacious, but self-contained, cool, and restrained, they represented the very best type of what the Volunteer ought to be—but often was not.