Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1911 — MACE HATH [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MACE HATH

B y EDWARD B. CLARK

, capwMwr by tvA PArrePson

pBMBBffw•' TNgjffPallj v- -T r '‘ v ' -| i , Bf P T&B war and navy departH meats would publish in book H form the records of the serv- §■ ice of officers ar.d men in 9H times of peace the readers SHT thereof would be dispossesed of the thought that all the hardships undergone and all * «fn lhe sieroism displayed by men of the armed forces were of J necessity connected with deeds of warfare. There are many jjr thrilling stories and many huPjP man interest stories in the I ‘‘peace records” of the army I u and navy. Recently the monitor PurixSß ’ tan, a heavily armored craft if of one of the older types, was used for purposes of experiment with a new high explosive. Willard S. Isham, an ordinance engineer,. Invented the explosive, and his claim was that with it & vessel could be destroyed from the outside just as well as from the inside. It has tkeen held that high explosives lose their force unless more or less confined. It was known to he the rule that the effect of the explosion generally went upwaM and outward away from the object against which it was discharged. Hr. Isham believed that a charge of his ammunition against the side of a vessel would open the armor and would not expend its force in the air. The monitor Puritan was chosen for the experiment. A charge of 200 pouuds of the explosive was placed in an unconftned condition against the Puritan’s armor plate near the stern. Capt. A. M. Knight, president of the

special ordnance board, with four volunteer sailors agreed to stay on board the Puritan when the explosive was detonated. More than this. Captain Knight had the task of punching small holes in the explosive with a lead pencil to permit the introduction of fuses. This was an exceedingly delicate operation knd because of the fact that the explosive was a new combination It was possible that something might happen during the puncturing, lightly as it waa performed. After the fuses were inserted Captain Knight connected electric wires with them and then went forward to a position on the berth deck with the four enlisted men who elected to stay on board with him. The ordnance board offlcer turned a switch and the explosion took place. The report was thnnderons. “It felt like an earthquake,” said Captain Knight afterward. With his men the venturesome captain escaped injury, but their heroism was Just as real as if they bad been blown to atoms, for because of the fact that the explosive was a comparatively unknown quantity, no one could tell definitely what might happen. Writing of tiie Puritan, which is a monitor, brings to mind the fact that officers and men serving on vessels of this type undergo hardships of which the people of the country know little. The monitor gradually is passing as an active service vessel and it is not likely that anybody connected with the service from admiral down to cook’s mate is torry for it. The heat in the monitors Is something Intense, and as the waves wash fiver the low decks of the ▼••• sis when any kind of a breeze is blowing the men are confined below with no air except such as Is pumped down to them by way of the engine room, and this air is hot, oily and productive on many occasions of sickness, called sea sickness, but which in reality is nothing of the kind, although It has all the attendant symptoms of the real article. 'The modem battleships are frightfully hot below decks, especially when they get Into txopical and subtropical waters. A civilian who went to Panama with President Taft said that in his cabin when dressing for dinner he was obliged to stand directly in the draught of a "blow pipe to prevent the prefuao perspiration from so “melting” the besom of his dress shirt that ft would be unpresentable when he appeared at the president's tab'.e. The thermometer in the staterooms stood at about 112 a l ' ,k ' 1 J Some years ago an officer wpo was sta Honed on s monitor waa fsuq<T,«cad In his jtortb and the surgeons pronounced hit death Jp. have been eaused hy apoplexy, heat apo plexy the officers of the ship nilqd It. An old naval atteer In Washington bus ttrid me that glphflnnoaicttr in the cabin ofy the officer jMpm dlsd stood at 140 degrees aim that the ■Kp was due tolely to a heat rtnwte. tb* Spanish war the mon far Mian fttaouab was on blockading duty off\hc port Of Havana, Cuba. The MHntnru mah is an old Heel mon'.tcr cased is,™.-;.: a - (! v i(f> the

deck Just peeping above the water. When the sea was calm and the sky was clear the sun beat down on the metal and the men who had stcod the night watches and were trying to sleep suffered more severely than do the people in the crowded back tenements in New York city on a hot July night when death walks through the streets. An offlcer who served on a monitor during the Spanish war told me that the average temperature for a long period of time in hi 3 cabin was 104 degrees. Recently two young officers not long out of the naval academy were forced to resign from the service because they were constantly seasick while on service on the battleships. The young fellows stuck it out for several voyages, but when It Is remembered that a seasick mair as a rule Is so sick that he is perfectly willing to die, it can be understood what these young fellows Buffered during the weeks of the voyaging. They resigned from the navy simply because they could not be of any service. They were sick from the moment the voyage began until they were back once more In pert. They were competent officers and slnco their resignation they have been given land berths as officers of heavy artillery in the United States army. 1 asked an old naval offlcer recently, a man who served on the old frigate Constitution, If he knew of any, cases of chronic seasickness among officers and men during the old days cf the service. He said he knew of only one case, that of an offlcer w-ho developed seasickness after some years of service, but that It was thought that a slight Injury to his spine had affected his stomach and that it was this mere than the motion of the vessel which was the cause cf h,is ailment. This same veteran efficer said that there is considerable seasickness today in the navy, although comparatively few cases that could be culled chronic, and that they were due. he believed, mere to the heat of the modern steel vossela than to the motion caused by the wave®. In the old days of wooden ships with sail power cniy, there was no heat on board cxcei t that given out by the galley and by the small stove wbicb occasionally was to be found In the captain's cabin. The .old-time ships In winter were kept in warm climates as much as possible or otherwise tho men would hare frozen to death. The old wooden vessel, Jamestown, cnce commanded’ by Commodore Perry, who opened the ports of Japan to the commerce of the United States, is anchored In Hampton Roads, where It is used as a marine hospital service station. A surgeon stationed an the Jamestown once told me that in the old days, when the vessel was in commission the only way the captain could warm himself without going to the galley was to baTe a ronndshot heated In the stove, then dropped into a bucket of sand to he carried aft to h!a cabin, where It gave oat Just enough warmth to temper for a few moments the cold of the qnerters.

Capt. Edmund B. Underwood, United States navy, retired from the service recently after forty years’ service in the line. Just after Captain Underwood came out of the naval academy and was serving as a midshipman he was assigned to the old ship Ossipee, which went to Cuba to bring hack a vessel called the Virglnius, which had been seized by the Spaniards in Cuba and its crew of Americans put to death. This country came near having a war with Spain over the Virginius incident. When the Ossipee was towing the Vir-

ginius back to America Midshipman Underwood was one of two or three officers who were assigned to the Virginius to look after i while the towing process was on. The life on board the Virginius is one that it Is impossible to describe. The Spaniards had left her in 6uch a filthy state that li\ing on board was intolerable even after cleasing processes had been tried. After a few days on board shat ship the men looked as though they had been through a siege of sickness. Finally when off the Virginia capes the Virginius gave every evidence of being in a sinking condition. She foundered quickly and the officers and men on board escaped to the Ossipee, being obliged to leave their belongings behind. The beneficent United States government, because of some red tape reason or other, declined to make good to the devoted sailors the property which they had lost through no fault of their own and In direct line of duty. Captain Underwood was for two years in command of the United States government station In the Samoan islands. He was considered one of the handsomest men In the service cf his country. He was over six feet high, finely proportioned and a fine physical specimen generally. No war with man went on in tho Samoan islands, but the heat and the food and the devlUstners of the climate generally did the work cf the battlefield. If Captain Underwood had never been given an assignment at the Samoan islands it is probable that he would have continued in the active service until the age limit of sixty-two years was reached. The dangers of warfare are not tho only cncs by any means that navy and army officers arc obliged to meet. It may do no harm here to recall the story of the heroism cf Lieut. James E. Bel] of the United States army, who died because of hla devotion to duty, died at a time when no bullets were fiying, but when an even deadlier fee of necessity must be met. This story has been published many times, but It has its everlasting icsson. Fort Jefferson, on the Tortugas, in Angust of the year 1873 was garrisoned by Battery M, First United States artillery. Outside of the surgeons there was only one officer. Lieu ten. ant Dell, at the post Capt. L. L. Langdon had been granted a leave of absence to go north to the bedside of bis dying father. On August 28 yellow fever appeared at the post Within two days four of the garrison had died. Upon the first announcement of the appearance of the scourge Lieutenant Bell seat all the women and children and rorne of the married men to nn Island three miles away. Within a day or two he sent to the same place nearly all the well men of the garrison, retaining only enough to nurse the sick. There could have been no criticism of Bell's course had be gone with the garrison, leaving the sick to the care cf the surgeons and the names. He stayed and devoted himself to the sick In the hospital, assisted by the men who hod volunteered. Tbs

heat was fearful. There was not a pound of ice on the island and many of the deaths that followed one after another were due to'the lack of this necessity. There were 20 cases of the fever and for days and nights continuously the devoted lieutenant commander, the surgeons and the nurses knew no rest. With their own hands they dug the graves for the dead and with their own lips repeated over them the burial service. Captain Langdon In the fair north heard of the yellow fever at Fort Jefferson. He instantly relinquished his leave of absence and hastened to return to his station. Some months before the outbreak of the fever Lieutenant Bell had put in. an application to be detailed as instructor of military science at the University of Vermont. The application had been granted, and Captain Langdcn, hurrying southward to join his command, ’ carried in his pocket the order relieving Lieutenant Bell from duty at Fort Jefferson and detailing him for work in Vermont. I.angdcn reached his post

He called in his first lieutenant and said: "I have here orders transferring you immediately to Vermont. You have done a noble work here. There is no reason why you should stay longer. You have been through enough of this awful thing. Go.” . Bell said: "Captain, I don't want the order. If I read it I suppose I shall have to obey simply because it is an order. You keep it in your pocket until the fever is over and then I’ll read it and go.’’ Langdon shook hands with him. Bell went on with his work. In a few days he felt the hot hand of the scourge on his brow. He went to his tent, pulled up his little camp table and wrote an official letter to the assistant adjutant general at headquarters of the department of the gulf, Holly Springs, Miss. It was a long letter, covering many pages. There was in Bell’s heart that day the fear that he might die and leave undone an act of duty to others. He cherished the thought of the loyalty of the surgeons and the enlisted men who had so nobly performed their duties to the sick and dying, facing the fever and death Itself without flinching. He mentioned in this official communication each doctor and man by name, recommending them for recognition at the hands of the department. ~Ot himself he said nothing, his whole thought was that recognition should be given to others. Lieut. James E. Bell put down his pen, went to the hospital and in three days was dead.