A Recent Campaign in Puerto Rico/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
The End of the Campaign
Arrival of the mail-steamer — The soldier-boy and his letters — The greater part of the brigade is quartered in Mayaguez — Agriculture in Puerto Rico — Material result of our campaign — A fare-well order — General Schwan departs for the United States.
ON the 19th of August a steamer came into the harbor, bringing us a mail, the first we had received since the beginning of July. If the people who wrote those letters could have seen the happiness they wrought upon their distant boys, I am sure they would have been surprised and touched. Again and again we read the simple news of home, — the cat was dead, or little sister had the mumps, or father had built a new fence around the back pasture, — and wars and kings and presidents faded into forgetfulness before the heart to heart talks that had come from over-seas.
I don't suppose there is anybody that knows the value of a letter better than a soldier does. A few blotted lines from his mother or sister or sweetheart are meat and drink and fine raiment for his soul. He feels brave again and good again and — homesick again. He makes life a burden for the whole camp until he has borrowed or stolen a scrap of paper and a stubby pencil wherewith to make reply. He sits down in some convenient spot, with emotion fairly oozing from every pore, and for a solid hour he wrestles with his tools and vocabulary. The result probably does not altogether please him. He feels that he has said too much about his lack of socks, the toughness of his fare, the flatness of his purse. All the love and tenderness he meant to set down have somehow refused to leave him, even in description. But he knows he will be massacred if he goes howling for more paper; and so he sends off what he has written, counting the weary days until his 
A very Popular Spot.
Two Knights and a Pawn. answer comes. The man who first invented writing was, without doubt, the greatest man that ever lived.
On August 25 it was decided to bring all but four companies of the brigade into quarters at Mayaguez, chiefly because a great deal of sickness had begun to spring up in the outlying camps. This was accordingly done.
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Scientific agriculture and prosperity have long been regarded as almost synonymous terms in Puerto Rico.
The provincial government established and maintained an experimental station at Rio Piedras, for the purpose of promoting a technical knowledge of the native soil-products; and the results of this step have proved invaluable. The recent director of the station, Señor Fernando Lopez Tuero, wrote, while in office, several monographs on tropical agriculture; which I have been at some pains to translate in my search for absolutely reliable information relating to that subject. Señor Tuero is considered, to be a high and conservative authority by those of his compatriots who are best able to judge; and I feel confident that the following estimates are nearly, if not entirely, correct: —
The chief agricultural products of the island are cotton, rice, cacao, corn, cocoanuts, pepper, bananas, tobacco, vegetable dyes, coffee, sugar, pineapples, and vanilla. Of all these I shall only pause to deal here with the last four.
Coffee and sugar are regarded by the Puerto Ricans as their most valuable crops. The first takes six years to come into full bearing, and during this time will cost an expense of about 162 pesos an acre, with a return in the last year of 86 pesos an acre, — a net deficit for the full period of 76 pesos. Afterward the expense should be about 66 pesos an acre, and the return 90 pesos. Sugar requires a heavy investment at the start. A plantation of 250 acres, together with the necessary buildings and machinery, will call for about 52,500 pesos. The total cost of a crop, from beginning to end, should be 152 pesos an acre, and the return about 170.
A pineapple plantation, for the investor of limited means, ought to prove profitable and encouraging. The first year of cultivation will produce a crop, at a final cost of 40 pesos an acre, including the land-rent. The return is put down at 200 pesos, leaving a gorgeous net profit of 160 pesos. It would seem perhaps that under such circumstances it is odd that there is not a more general raising of this fruit by the local planters; but the reason for an apparent neglect of a golden opportunity lies in the difficulties heretofore encountered in finding swift and adequate transportation from field to market. With this handicap removed there is little doubt that pineapple-growing will become a tempting industry.
The vanilla bean, however, is king-pin of the list in the claim of profit to be derived from its culture. It is said that the yearly cost of raising the crop will be 94 pesos an acre, chiefly for manure and irrigation. And the annual return for every acre is figured at 652 pesos, — a net profit that is fairly dazzling.
While all these details — which I have digressed so many times to give — do not properly form a part of the story of our campaign, yet it is by no means unusual for one who has put his hand into a grab-bag to look carefully and well at the prize withdrawn. And that is what I have been doing.
The material result of General Schwan's campaign may be briefly summarized thus: He marched his command ninety-two miles in eight days; fought two successful engagements; expelled the Spanish forces from the entire western part of Puerto Rico; captured and occupied nine towns; and took 62 prisoners, including Colonel Villeneuve, a lieutenant-colonel, and four other regular officers. In addition he seized 450 stands of arms, 145,000 rounds of ammunition, and ten thousand dollars in silver coin. His loss was 1 killed and 16 wounded against a total of 20 killed and 50 wounded on the side of the enemy.
On August 27 the general issued a farewell order to his brigade, from which I briefly quote: —
"On relinquishing his command to return to the United States, the brigadier-general commanding desires to congratulate, and to return his heartfelt thanks to, the officers and soldiers of the regular brigade for their achievements and excellent conduct during the last eighteen days. . . . Our troops have continued to hold their advanced positions and outposts until now, when, peace being assured, all but a small fraction have been brought to comparatively comfortable barracks near this city. The hardships endured on the march and at these outposts have been great. . . . But these hardships have been cheerfully borne by officers and men. Not a murmur has been heard, despite the fact that nearly one-fourth of the strength of most organizations is on sick-report, their ailments being directly caused by the exposure incident to this campaign.
"Less than three weeks have been occupied by the campaign, yet a bond of sympathy between officers and soldiers has been established that years of peace could not have engendered."
On the following morning, accompanied by Lieutenant G. T. Summerlin, his aide-de camp, General Schwan left Mayaguez for Ponce, where he boarded the transport "Chester," and returned to the United States.
The campaign of the Independent Regular Brigade was thus brought to an official end.