From the retreat of The Ten Thousand after the Battle of Cunaxa, described in Xenophon’s Anabasis, to the U.S. marines’ fighting retreat from the frozen Chosen Reservoir in the Korean winter, it is a reoccurring theme in military history that the real test of an army is how it fairs in defeat. If the battle was horrible, the aftermath is almost always worse, with men beginning the undertaking fatigued, injured, and demoralized, with depleted equipment.
Consider the fact that every Spaniard was wounded at least once. The following events, though seemingly mundane, are the stuff of many of history’s most harrowing military adventures. The soldiers’ wounds are primarily to the legs, arms, faces, neck and armpit, with most having multiple wounds. Any unit that maintains mobile cohesion after sustaining 100% casualties is either highly trained and seasoned—which this unit was not—or is made up of men of exceptional spirit.
“When it was all safely over we thanked God in heaven for our escape. But as the soldiers’ wounds were being dressed some of them complained of pains, for they were beginning to grow cold and the salt water caused considerable swelling. Some of them also cursed the pilot and his voyage to this island that we had discovered, for he was always insisting that it was an island, and not the mainland.
“After attending to our wounds, we decided to return to Cuba. But as almost all the sailors were wounded [fighting off the pursuing natives while evacuation the defeated soldiers] we did not have enough men to tend the sails. So we abandoned our smallest vessel and set fire to her after removing her sails, cables, and anchors and dividing her unwounded crew among the two larger vessels. But we had even worse hardship in our lack of fresh water. Owing to the attacks at Champoton and our hurried retreat to the boats, we had been unable to bring off the casks and barrels we had filled, but had left them ashore. We suffered such thirst that our mouths and tongues cracked, and there was nothing to give us relief. Such are the hardships to be endured when discovering new lands in the manner that we set about it! No one can imagine their severity who has not himself endured them.
“We kept our course very close to the land in hope of finding some river or bay where we could get fresh water; and after three days we sighted an inlet in which we thought there might be a stream or a freshwater creek. Fifteen of the sailors who had stayed aboard and were unwounded and three soldiers whose wounds were no longer dangerous landed with pickaxes and some barrels. The creek was salty and they dug some holes on the shore. But the water was as salty and bitter as the creek. However, bad as the water was they filled the casks and brought them aboard. But no one could drink this water, and it pained the mouths and stomachs of the few soldiers that tried. In this creek there were so many large alligators that it has always been called El Estero de los Lagartos, by which name it is yet marked on the charts.
“While the boats were ashore taking water, a northeast gale arose, so violent that the ships dragged their anchors and were driven towards the beach. Seeing this danger, the sailors who had gone ashore hastily brought the boats back, and had just time to throw out additional anchors and cables, so that the ships rode in safety for two days and nights. Then we raised anchor and set sail, continuing our voyage towards Cuba. The pilot Alaminos discussed our course with the two other pilots, and it was agreed that we should make for Florida, which according to his reading of the chart, was only two hundred miles away. Once we had reached Florida, he said, the crossing would be shorter than the course by which we had come."
Incidentally, Florida had been, and would be, the home of the most combative coastal Natives of the Caribbean Sea. Four years earlier, renowned Indian fighter Ponce de Leon took 200 men in three ships to Florida in a search for the Fountain of Youth, and instead found a shark tooth-tipped arrow protruding from his ass…
