It Was Much More Wonderful Than Any Swinging
Charge Could Have Been.
They walked to greet death at every step,
many of them, as they advanced, sinking suddenly or pitching forward
and disappearing in the high grass, but the others waded on,
stubbornly, forming a thin blue line that kept creeping higher and
higher up the hill.
It was as inevitable as the rising tide. It was
a miracle of self-sacrifice, a triumph of bull-dog courage, which one
watched breathless with wonder. The fire of the Spanish riflemen,
who still stuck bravely to their posts, doubled and trebled in
fierceness, the crests of the hills crackled and burst in amazed
roars, and rippled with waves of tiny flame. But the blue line crept
steadily up and on, and then, near the top, the broken fragments
gathered together with a sudden burst of speed, the Spaniards
appeared for a moment outlined against the sky and poised for instant
flight, fired a last volley, and fled before the swift-moving wave
that leaped and sprang after them.
The men of the Ninth and the Rough Riders rushed to the block-house
together, the men of the Sixth, of the Third, of the Tenth Cavalry,
of the Sixth and Sixteenth Infantry, fell on their faces along the
crest of the hills beyond, and opened upon the vanishing enemy. They
drove the yellow silk flags of the cavalry and the flag of their
country into the soft earth of the trenches, and then sank down and
looked back at the road they had climbed and swung their hats in the
air. And from far overhead, from these few figures perched on the
Spanish rifle-pits, with their flags planted among the empty
cartridges of the enemy, and overlooking the walls of Santiago, came,
faintly, the sound of a tired, broken cheer.
III - THE TAKING OF COAMO
This is the inside story of the surrender, during the Spanish War, of
the town of Coamo. It is written by the man to whom the town
surrendered. Immediately after the surrender this same man became
Military Governor of Coamo. He held office for fully twenty minutes.
Before beginning this story the reader must forget all he may happen
to know of this particular triumph of the Porto Rican Expedition. He
must forget that the taking of Coamo has always been credited to
Major-General James H. Wilson, who on that occasion commanded Captain
Anderson's Battery, the Sixteenth Pennsylvania, Troop C of Brooklyn,
and under General Ernst, the Second and Third Wisconsin Volunteers.
He must forget that in the records of the War Department all the
praise, and it is of the highest, for this victory is bestowed upon
General Wilson and his four thousand soldiers. Even the writer of
this, when he cabled an account of the event to his paper, gave, with
every one else, the entire credit to General Wilson. And ever since
his conscience has upbraided him. His only claim for tolerance as a
war correspondent has been that he always has stuck to the facts, and
now he feels that in the sacred cause of history his friendship and
admiration for General Wilson, that veteran of the Civil, Philippine,
and Chinese Wars, must no longer stand in the way of his duty as an
accurate reporter. He no longer can tell a lie. He must at last own
up that he himself captured Coamo.
On the morning of the 9th of August, 1898, the Sixteenth Pennsylvania
Volunteers arrived on the outskirts of that town. In order to get
there they had spent the night in crawling over mountain trails and
scrambling through streams and ravines. It was General Wilson's plan
that by this flanking night march the Sixteenth Pennsylvania would
reach the road leading from Coamo to San Juan in time to cut off the
retreat of the Spanish garrison, when General Wilson, with the main
body, attacked it from the opposite side.
At seven o'clock in the morning General Wilson began the frontal
attack by turning loose the artillery on a block-house, which
threatened his approach, and by advancing the Wisconsin Volunteers.
The cavalry he sent to the right to capture Los Banos. At eight
o'clock, from where the main body rested, two miles from Coamo, we
could hear the Sixteenth Pennsylvania open its attack and instantly
become hotly engaged. The enemy returned the fire fiercely, and the
firing from both sides at once became so severe that it was evident
the Pennsylvania Volunteers either would take the town without the
main body, or that they would greatly need its assistance. The
artillery was accordingly advanced one thousand yards and the
infantry was hurried forward. The Second Wisconsin approached Coamo
along the main road from Ponce, the Third Wisconsin through fields of
grass to the right of the road, until the two regiments met at the
ford by which the Banos road crosses the Coamo River. But before
they met, from a position near the artillery, I had watched through
my glasses the Second Wisconsin with General Ernst at its head
advancing along the main road, and as, when I saw them, they were
near the river, I guessed they would continue across the bridge and
that they soon would be in the town.
As the firing from the Sixteenth still continued, it seemed obvious
that General Ernst would be the first general officer to enter Coamo,
and to receive its surrender. I had never seen five thousand people
surrender to one man, and it seemed that, if I were to witness that
ceremony, my best plan was to abandon the artillery and, as quickly
as possible, pursue the Second Wisconsin. I did not want to share
the spectacle of the surrender with my brother correspondents, so I
tried to steal away from the three who were present. They were
Thomas F. Millard, Walstein Root of the Sun, and Horace Thompson. By
dodging through a coffee central I came out a half mile from them and
in advance of the Third Wisconsin.
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