I wish to bear testimony to the energy and capacity of Colonel Weston, the Commissary-General with the expedition.  If it had not been for his active aid, we should have fared worse than we did.  All that he could do for us, he most cheerfully did.

As regards the clothing, I have to say:  As to the first issue, the blue shirts were excellent of their kind, but altogether too hot for Cuba.  They are just what I used to wear in Montana.  The leggings were good; the shoes were very good; the undershirts not very good, and the drawers bad—­being of heavy, thick canton flannel, difficult to wash, and entirely unfit for a tropical climate.  The trousers were poor, wearing badly.  We did not get any other clothing until we were just about to leave Cuba, by which time most of the men were in tatters; some being actually barefooted, while others were in rags, or dressed partly in clothes captured from the Spaniards, who were much more suitably clothed for the climate and place than we were.  The ponchos were poor, being inferior to the Spanish rain-coats which we captured.

As to the medical matters, I invite your attention, not only to the report of Dr. Church accompanying this letter, but to the letters of Captain Llewellen, Captain Day, and Lieutenant McIlhenny.  I could readily produce a hundred letters on the lines of the last three.  In actual medical supplies, we had plenty of quinine and cathartics.  We were apt to be short on other medicines, and we had nothing whatever in the way of proper nourishing food for our sick and wounded men during most of the time, except what we were able to get from the Red Cross or purchase with our own money.  We had no hospital tent at all until I was able to get a couple of tarpaulins.  During much of the time my own fly was used for the purpose.  We had no cots until by individual effort we obtained a few, only three or four days before we left Cuba.  During most of the time the sick men lay on the muddy ground in blankets, if they had any; if not, they lay without them until some of the well men cut their own blankets in half.  Our regimental surgeon very soon left us, and Dr. Church, who was repeatedly taken down with the fever, was left alone—­save as he was helped by men detailed from among the troopers.  Both he and the men thus detailed, together with the regular hospital attendants, did work of incalculable service.  We had no ambulance with the regiment.  On the battle-field our wounded were generally sent to the rear in mule-wagons, or on litters which were improvised.  At other times we would hire the little springless Cuban carts.  But of course the wounded suffered greatly in such conveyances, and moreover, often we could not get a wheeled vehicle of any kind to transport even the most serious cases.  On the day of the big fight, July 1st, as far as we could find out, there were but two ambulances with the army in condition to work—­neither of which did we ever see.  Later there were, as we were informed,