Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1898 — WAR IN THE TROPICS. [ARTICLE]

WAR IN THE TROPICS.

The Grave Difficulties of Campaigning in a Torrid Clime. The difficulties of conducting war in the tropics is great. This Government has had no experience with campaigning in the tropics. A good many years ago the Seruiuolos in southern Florida went on the warpath. There wore only 3,000 of those Indians, counting bucks, squaws and papooses. To subdue them the United States sent an army of 7,400 men. The Seniinoles fought about as the Cubans have been doing. They dodged about, hid in the everglades and bushwhacked. The Seminole war cost the lives of 1,531 soldiers, of whom 58 fell in battle. 214 died of wounds and 1.230 succumbed to malarial diseases. The United States has paid $53,000,000 iu pensions to survivors, widows and orphans of the Seminole war. The expeditions of the British and other European powers in the West Indies and Central America have always resulted iu an enormous loss of life from disease. 'ln 1741 Vernon’s expedition to Carthagena cost-over 20,000 lives, Other disasters due to similar causes have marked all England’s military operations in American territory. The intense heat the noxious vapors, and the poisonous dews and miasmas that arise from the tropical swamps are almost certain to result fatally to those who are unaccustomed.