30, numbering at that time 8 companies, containing 15 officers
and 456 men. Marching on in the night, going through thickets and
across streams, the men were heard singing a fine old hymn:
When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee o'erflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee they deepest distress.
In view of what was before them, the words were very appropriate. They
arrived on the hill at Siboney at 3.30 on the morning of July 16th.
Without discussing the graphic story told by correspondents of the
highest respectability describing the regiment as volunteering, to a
man, to nurse the sick and dying at Siboney, we will rather follow the
official records of their doings in that fever-stricken place. On
arriving at Siboney on the morning of July 16, Sunday, Major Markely,
then in command of the regiment, met Colonel Greenleaf of the Medical
Department, and informed him that the Twenty-fourth Infantry was on
the ground. Colonel Greenleaf was just leaving the post, but Major La
Garde, his successor, manifested his great pleasure in seeing this
form of assistance arrive. Such a scene of misery presented itself to
Major Markely's eyes that he, soldier as he was, was greatly affected,
and assured Major La Garde that he was prepared personally to sink
every other consideration and devote himself to giving what assistance
he could in caring for the sick, and that he believed his whole
regiment would feel as he did when they came to see the situation.
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