Officers Of Every Regiment,
Attaches Of Foreign Countries, Correspondents, And Staff Officers
Daily Reported The Fact That The Rifle-Pits
Were growing in length
and in number, and that in plain sight from the hill of El Poso the
enemy
Was intrenching himself at San Juan, and at the little village
of El Caney to the right, where he was marching through the streets.
But no artillery was sent to El Poso hill to drop a shell among the
busy men at work among the trenches, or to interrupt the street
parades in El Caney. For four days before the American soldiers
captured the same rifle-pits at El Caney and San Juan, with a loss of
two thousand men, they watched these men diligently preparing for
their coming, and wondered why there was no order to embarrass or to
end these preparations.
On the afternoon of June 30, Captain Mills rode up to the tent of
Colonel Wood, and told him that on account of illness, General
Wheeler and General Young had relinquished their commands, and that
General Sumner would take charge of the Cavalry Division; that he,
Colonel Wood, would take command of General Young's brigade, and
Colonel Carroll, of General Sumner's brigade.
"You will break camp and move forward at four o'clock," he said. It
was then three o'clock, and apparently the order to move forward at
four had been given to each regiment at nearly the same time, for
they all struck their tents and stepped down into the trail together.
It was as though fifteen regiments were encamped along the sidewalks
of Fifth Avenue and were all ordered at the same moment to move into
it and march downtown. If Fifth Avenue were ten feet wide, one can
imagine the confusion.
General Chaffee was at General Lawton's head-quarters, and they stood
apart whispering together about the march they were to take to El
Caney. Just over their heads the balloon was ascending for the first
time and its great glistening bulk hung just above the tree tops, and
the men in different regiments, picking their way along the trail,
gazed up at it open-mouthed. The head-quarters camp was crowded.
After a week of inaction the army, at a moment's notice, was moving
forward, and every one had ridden in haste to learn why.
There were attaches, in strange uniforms, self-important Cuban
generals, officers from the flagship New York, and an army of
photographers. At the side of the camp, double lines of soldiers
passed slowly along the two paths of the muddy road, while, between
them, aides dashed up and down, splashing them with dirty water, and
shouting, "You will come up at once, sir." "You will not attempt to
enter the trail yet, sir." "General Sumner's compliments, and why
are you not in your place?"
Twelve thousand men, with their eyes fixed on a balloon, and treading
on each other's heels in three inches of mud, move slowly, and after
three hours, it seemed as though every man in the United States was
under arms and stumbling and slipping down that trail. The lines
passed until the moon rose. They seemed endless, interminable; there
were cavalry mounted and dismounted, artillery with cracking whips
and cursing drivers, Rough Riders in brown, and regulars, both black
and white, in blue. Midnight came, and they were still stumbling and
slipping forward.
General Sumner's head-quarters tent was pitched to the right of El
Poso hill. Below us lay the basin a mile and a half in length, and a
mile and a half wide, from which a white mist was rising. Near us,
drowned under the mist, seven thousand men were sleeping, and,
farther to the right, General Chaffee's five thousand were lying
under the bushes along the trails to El Caney, waiting to march on it
and eat it up before breakfast.
The place hardly needs a map to explain it. The trails were like a
pitchfork, with its prongs touching the hills of San Juan. The long
handle of the pitchfork was the trail over which we had just come,
the joining of the handle and the prongs were El Poso. El Caney lay
half-way along the right prong, the left one was the trail down
which, in the morning, the troops were to be hurled upon San Juan.
It was as yet an utterly undiscovered country. Three miles away,
across the basin of mist, we could see the street lamps of Santiago
shining over the San Juan hills. Above us, the tropical moon hung
white and clear in the dark purple sky, pierced with millions of
white stars. As we turned in, there was just a little something in
the air which made saying "good-night" a gentle farce, for no one
went to sleep immediately, but lay looking up at the stars, and after
a long silence, and much restless turning on the blanket which we
shared together, the second lieutenant said: "So, if anything
happens to me, to-morrow, you'll see she gets them, won't you?"
Before the moon rose again, every sixth man who had slept in the mist
that night was either killed or wounded; but the second lieutenant
was sitting on the edge of a Spanish rifle-pit, dirty, sweaty, and
weak for food, but victorious, and the unknown she did not get them.
El Caney had not yet thrown off her blanket of mist before Capron's
battery opened on it from a ridge two miles in the rear. The plan
for the day was that El Caney should fall in an hour. The plan for
the day is interesting chiefly because it is so different from what
happened. According to the plan the army was to advance in two
divisions along the two trails. Incidentally, General Lawton's
division was to pick up El Caney, and when El Caney was eliminated,
his division was to continue forward and join hands on the right with
the divisions of General Sumner and General Kent.
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