 By
Mary Karshner
Reprinted from
the September/October 1996 issue
"Everything now looks
as though Spain blew up the Maine. If she did—Lord pity her.
Would I enlist? Well you needn't guess again." On 21 February 1898,
less than a week after the USS Maine sank in the harbor at Havana, Cuba,
Clyde F. Karshner wrote this observation in his diary. Three weeks later
the nineteen-year-old from Big Rapids joined the Michigan National
Guard. On April 26 Karshner and his unit, Company A, Fifth Regiment,
left Big Rapids for Camp Eaton, where Michigan volunteers were training
for the recently declared war with Spain. "It was hard to leave
everyone"; but soon after arriving at the training camp near
Brighton, he noted: "A week ago we were all good-for-nothing tin
soldiers but today we are all nice fellows and good brave men." On
May 23 the Michigan men, following an inspection and an oath of
allegiance, were mustered into federal service as Company A,
Thirty-fourth Regiment, Michigan Volunteer Infantry. After a few weeks
of additional training in Virginia, they headed to war.
Clyde's company landed in
Cuba on Friday, July 1. They marched all night and by the next day the
Michiganians were a mile and a half from heavy fighting at Santiago.
"We were marched around the hill where the fighting was taking
place and placed under the brow of the hill while the bullets and shells
whistled and screamed over us. After about two hours the Spanish got our
location and then poured it into us without any return fire." On
July 3 he noted: "Wounded and dead are being brought in constantly.
The charge up the hill at the blockhouse day before yesterday by the
colored regulars was the bravest charge since the charge of the light
brigade. Boys are being picked off down by the creek by sharpshooters.
We are getting a real taste of war."
After a week-long lull,
the fighting was renewed:
We marched about four
miles up nearer the front to support battery A of the second artillery .
. . We are right on the mountains, and in full view of our first
position, the American and Spanish lines and the entire Juan Valley with
Santiago in the center. At 4:45 P.M., the bombardment of Santiago was
begun . . . We could see the entire battle and still be out of range
ourselves. It was a beautiful sight. We would see every gun that our men
fired, and could watch the result of every shot.
That was all the battle
action that Clyde and the Thirty-fourth Michigan saw. The rest of their
time was spent guarding prisoners, evacuating the sick and foraging for
provisions. Obtaining water was always troublesome:
During our first ten days
we procured our water supply from the San Juan river . . . which, during
the fighting of the first and second of July had become contaminated by
dead Spaniards and mules. Even this water was only procurable by running
a gauntlet of a quarter mile through a woods that was filled with French
sharpshooters in Spanish employ, who made it decidedly unpleasant for
the Americans until they were cleaned out. While on the hill in support
of the battery, water was obtained at a spring nearly four miles from
camp. That was when the water question became interesting. One little
canteen to a man and four miles to water. The canteen became empty
almost before a person reached camp, so all kinds of means were devised
to have a supply of water for cooking. Cans were used to catch water as
it ran off the tents during the P.M. rain . . . When the artillery
horses went to water, some of us managed to get a ride down to the
creeks and by taking several canteens with us managed to save quite a
bit of foot travel.
Tarantulas, scorpions,
flies and mosquitoes made the soldiers' lives even more unpleasant. The
hill from which they observed the battle was dubbed Crab Hill because of
the many land crabs living there:
They . . . walk sideways,
and are furnished with an immense pair of claws which they understand
thoroughly how to use. They may be found in all colors of the rainbow .
. . These animals are friendly in the extreme and it is a pleasant
incident, and one sure to be remembered, to waken in the dead of night
and feel a cool half dozen of them cuddled up to you as closely as
possible at various parts of your anatomy. But somehow we did not enjoy
their neighborly propensities as we should and the result was that large
numbers of crabs were sent across the river in the prime of their young
manhood.
The soldiers were often
wet, underfed and pest infested, which explains why more than 90 percent
of U.S. casualties in Cuba were caused by disease. Karshner was plagued
by "malarial poisoning," and the lasting effects caused his
premature death at the age of forty-eight. Many of his fellow soldiers
succumbed much sooner. One of Karshner's more poignant observations
concerned the burial of two Michiganians at sea during the regiment's
return voyage in late August:
There is an indescribable
something about such a burial that will affect the strongest of heart.
Bars of iron are tied to the body to insure its sinking. The silence on
deck is painful as the blanket is wound around the lifeless form and
made secure by sewing. The engines are stopped, the plank is brought
upon deck, and the corpse is laid upon it, while over the whole is
placed the American flag. All heads are bowed as the prayer is offered
and the last burial rites read. The plank is inclined, the lifeless form
of the soldier slides out from beneath the flag and, with one loud
splash, sinks beneath the waves forever.
Karshner enlisted
primarily because he wanted to get away from Big Rapids. However, after
only three weeks in Cuba, he recorded the lament of many soldiers before
and after him when he wrote: "Oh God! When shall we get out of this
and get something to eat and have a good dry bed? But if all should go
well enough so that I should get home all safe and sound I shall never
get caught in such a position again."
At about 4:00 P.M. on 5
September 1898 Clyde Karshner returned to Big Rapids to "handshakings
and shouts and cheers." He was mustered out of federal service on
13 December 1898.
Mary Karshner, Clyde's
granddaughter, lives in Royal Oak.
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