306 The Rough Riders 



through the jungle, prior to reaching the ground 

 where we were to fight, would have been a course 

 of procedure so foolish as to warrant the summary 

 court-martial of any man directing it. We could 

 not have made half a mile an hour in such a forma- 

 tion, and would have been at least four hours too 

 late for the fighting. 



On page 92 Mr. Bonsai says that Captain Cap- 

 ron's troop was ambushed, and that it received the 

 enemy's fire a quarter of an hour before it was ex- 

 pected. This is simply not so. Before the column 

 stopped we had passed a dead Cuban, killed in the 

 preceding day's skirmish, and General Wood had 

 notified me on information he had received from 

 Capron that we might come into contact with the 

 Spaniards at any moment, and, as I have already 

 said, Captain Capron discovered the Spanish out- 

 post, and we halted and partially deployed the col- 

 umn before the firing began. We were at the time 

 exactly where we had expected to come across the 

 Spaniards. Mr. Bonsai, after speaking of L Troop, 

 adds : "The remaining troops of the regiment had 

 traveled more leisurely, and more than half an hour 

 elapsed before they came up to Capron's support." 

 As a matter of fact, all the troops traveled at ex- 

 actly the same rate of speed, although there were 

 stragglers from each, and when Capron halted and 

 sent back word that he had come upon the Spanish 

 outpost, the entire regiment closed up, 'halted, and 

 most of the men sat down. We then, some minutes 



