Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history
through old photographs. This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is a
group of moustached military men. But instead of presenting a
CORPS or PLATOON or SQUADRON, I give you merely ONE soldier –
complete with moustache – one of 30,000 who reported to
Jacksonville, Florida in 1898, to aid Cuba in its fight for
independence from Spain. Meet John Wesley Rucker, my great-grand
uncle on my mother’s side. He was the second son of Frank and
Sarah Rucker of Rockingham County, Virginia, and an older
brother to my great-grandfather. He was a member of the Virginia
Volunteer Infantry that was part of the Seventh Corps under the
leadership of Major General Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of Robert E.
Lee. When the Tampa area camps were full, Camp Cuba Libre was
established in May 1898 near Jacksonville to serve as an
assembly area in preparation for the liberation efforts in Cuba.
In the early days of Camp Cuba Libre, the soldiers had to fend
for themselves as supplies were sent e