The Kitchen-Garden Is Immediately On The Crest Of The Hill, And Near
It A Cuban Farmer Has Built A Shack Of Mud And Twigs And Cultivated
Several Acres Of Land.
On Kettle Hill there are three more such
shacks, and over all the hills the new tenants have strung
Stout
barbed-wire fences and made new trails and reared wooden gateways.
It was curious to find how greatly these modern improvements confused
one's recollection of the landscape, and it was interesting, also, to
find how the presence on the hills of 12,000 men and the excitement
of the time magnified distances and disarranged the landscape.
During the fight I walked along a portion of the Santiago road, and
for many years I always have thought of that walk as extending over
immense distances. It started from the top of San Juan Hill beside
the block-house, where I had climbed to watch our artillery in
action. By a mistake, the artillery had been sent there, and it
remained exposed on the crest only about three minutes. During that
brief moment the black powder it burned drew upon it the fire of
every rifle in the Spanish line. To load his piece, each of our men
was forced to crawl to it on his stomach, rise on one elbow in order
to shove in the shell and lock the breech, and then, still flat on
the ground, wriggle below the crest. In the three minutes three men
were wounded and two killed; and the guns were withdrawn.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 93 of 202
Words from 25323 to 25580
of 55169
