314 The Rough Riders 



Riders was ambushed by the Spaniards on the morn- 

 ing of June 24th." 



General Wood also writes me at length about 

 Mr. Bonsai's book, stating that his account of the 

 Guasimas fight is without foundation in fact. He 

 says : "We had five troops completely deployed be- 

 fore the first shot was fired. Captain Capron was 

 not wounded until the fight had been going on fully 

 thirty-five minutes. The statement that Captain 

 Capron's troop was ambushed is absolutely untrue. 

 We had been informed, as you know, by Castillo's 

 people that we should find the dead guerilla a few 

 hundred yards on the Siboney side of the Spanish 

 lines." 



He then alludes to the waving of the guidon by 

 K Troop as "the only means of communication with 

 the regulars." He mentions that his orders did 

 not come from General Wheeler, and that he had no 

 instructions from General Wheeler directly or in- 

 directly at any time previous to the fight. 



General Wood does not think that I give quite 

 enough credit to the Rough Riders as compared to 

 the regulars in this Guasimas fight, and believes 

 that I greatly underestimate the Spanish force and 

 loss, and that Lieutenant Tejeiro is not to be trusted 

 at all on these points. He states that we began the 

 fight ten minutes before the regulars, and that the 

 main attack was made and decided by us. This was 

 the view that I and all the rest of us in the regiment 



