The Next Day Was Like The First, Except That By Five O'clock In The
Afternoon The Turks Appeared On Our
Left flank, crawling across the
hills like an invasion of great ants, and the Greek army that at
Velestinos had
Made the two best and most dignified stands of the war
withdrew upon Halmyros, and the Turks poured into the village and
burned it, leaving nothing standing save two tall Turkish minarets
that many years before, when Thessaly belonged to the Sultan, the
Turks themselves had placed there.
I - THE ROUGH RIDERS AT GUASIMAS
On the day the American troops landed on the coast of Cuba, the
Cubans informed General Wheeler that the enemy were intrenched at
Guasimas, blocking the way to Santiago. Guasimas is not a village,
nor even a collection of houses; it is the meeting place of two
trails which join at the apex of a V, three miles from the seaport
town of Siboney, and continue merged in a single trail to Santiago.
General Wheeler, guided by the Cubans, reconnoitred this trail on the
23rd of June, and with the position of the enemy fully explained to
him, returned to Siboney and informed General Young and Colonel Wood
that on the following morning he would attack the Spanish position at
Guasimas. It has been stated that at Guasimas, the Rough Riders were
trapped in an ambush, but, as the plan was discussed while I was
present, I know that so far from any ones running into an ambush,
every one of the officers concerned had a full knowledge of where he
would find the enemy, and what he was to do when he found him.
That night no one slept, for until two o'clock in the morning, troops
were still being disembarked in the surf, and two ships of war had
their searchlights turned on the landing-place, and made Siboney as
light as a ball-room. Back of the searchlights was an ocean white
with moonlight, and on the shore red camp-fires, at which the half-
drowned troops were drying their uniforms, and the Rough Riders, who
had just marched in from Baiquiri, were cooking a late supper, or
early breakfast of coffee and bacon. Below the former home of the
Spanish comandante, which General Wheeler had made his head-quarters,
lay the camp of the Rough Riders, and through it Cuban officers were
riding their half-starved ponies, and scattering the ashes of the
camp-fires. Below them was the beach and the roaring surf, in which
a thousand or so naked men were assisting and impeding the progress
shoreward of their comrades, in pontoons and shore boats, which were
being hurled at the beach like sleds down a water chute.
It was one of the most weird and remarkable scenes of the war,
probably of any war. An army was being landed on an enemy's coast at
the dead of night, but with the same cheers and shrieks and laughter
that rise from the bathers at Coney Island on a hot Sunday. It was a
pandemonium of noises. The men still to be landed from the "prison
hulks," as they called the transports, were singing in chorus, the
men already on shore were dancing naked around the camp-fires on the
beach, or shouting with delight as they plunged into the first bath
that had offered in seven days, and those in the launches as they
were pitched head-first at the soil of Cuba, signalized their arrival
by howls of triumph. On either side rose black overhanging ridges,
in the lowland between were white tents and burning fires, and from
the ocean came the blazing, dazzling eyes of the search-lights
shaming the quiet moonlight.
After three hours' troubled sleep in this tumult the Rough Riders
left camp at five in the morning. With the exception of half a dozen
officers they were dismounted, and carried their blanket rolls,
haversacks, ammunition, and carbines. General Young had already
started toward Guasimas the First and Tenth dismounted Cavalry, and
according to the agreement of the night before had taken the eastern
trail to our right, while the Rough Riders climbed the steep ridge
above Siboney and started toward the rendezvous along the trail to
the west, which was on high ground and a half mile to a mile distant
from the trail along which General Young and his regulars were
marching. There was a valley between us, and the bushes were so
thick on both sides of our trail that it was not possible at any
time, until we met at Guasimas, to distinguish the other column.
As soon as the Rough Riders had reached the top of the ridge, not
twenty minutes after they had left camp, which was the first
opportunity that presented itself, Colonel Wood ordered Captain
Capron to proceed with his troop in front of the column as an advance
guard, and to choose a "point" of five men skilled as scouts and
trailers. Still in advance of these he placed two Cuban scouts. The
column then continued along the trail in single file. The Cubans
were at a distance of two hundred and fifty yards; the "point" of
five picked men under Sergeant Byrne and duty-Sergeant Fish followed
them at a distance of a hundred yards, and then came Capron's troop
of sixty men strung out in single file. No flankers were placed for
the reason that the dense undergrowth and the tangle of vines that
stretched from the branches of the trees to the bushes below made it
a physical impossibility for man or beast to move forward except
along the single trail.
Colonel Wood rode at the head of the column, followed by two regular
army officers who were members of General Wheeler's staff, a Cuban
officer, and Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt. They rode slowly in
consideration of the troopers on foot, who under a cruelly hot sun
carried heavy burdens. To those who did not have to walk, it was not
unlike a hunting excursion in our West; the scenery was beautiful and
the view down the valley one of luxuriant peace.
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