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.
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