T60 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



age and the Spaniards abandoned their intrench- 

 ments and fell back a mile or more from their 

 original position. Gen. Wheeler had sent for re- 

 enforcements, but before Gen. Chaffee came up with 

 the Second Infantry, the three regiments of dis- 

 mpunted cavalry had completely routed the enemy. 

 The American forces engaged numbered 964 men. 

 The American losses were Capt. Allyn K. Capron, 

 Jr., and 14 men killed and 6 officers and 46 men 

 wounded ; the Spanish, whose strength was officially 

 reported as 500, lost 9 killed and 27 wounded. 



On June 25 the American line was advanced 

 without opposition to the ridge of Sevilla, looking 

 down on Santiago, 6 miles away. Sevilla was oc- 

 cupied by Gen. Lawton's second division, behind 

 which encamped Gen. Wheeler's dismounted cav- 

 alry, while Gen. Kent's first division lay farther in 

 the rear. By June 27 the outposts reached points 

 within 3 miles of Santiago. The light batteries 

 were brought up and posted alongside of Gen. 

 Wheeler's division, and near these the mounted 

 troops of cavalry. The re-enforcements having 

 arrived, Gen. Shafter, in consultation with the other 

 generals, determined on an enveloping movement 

 to prevent a junction of Gen. Pando's force with 

 the troops in Santiago, and a vigorous attack at the 

 same time on the formidable outworks in front, the 

 fortified heights of the San Juan ridge. In order 

 to turn the enemy's left flank and reach the north- 

 ern side of the city, it was necessary to capture the 

 fortified suburban village of El Caney, an elevated 

 position strongly held 3 miles northeast of Santiago, 

 menacing the American right flank. Gen. Lawton's 

 division moved out on June 30 into the positions 

 determined by a previous reconnoissance. Before 

 daylight on July 1 Capt. Allyn K. Capron's light 

 battery occupied an eminence commanding the vil- 

 lage, 2,400 yards distant. Major-Gen. Adna E. 

 Chaff ee's brigade took up a position east of the 

 town, ready to move to the attack after the prelimi- 

 nary bombardment, and Brig.-Gen. William Lud- 

 low took his brigade round to the west to cut off the 

 retreat of the Spaniards into Santiago. While the 

 battery was firing at the stone blockhouse and church 

 in the center of the Spanish position and the hedges 

 and trenches where the enemy's infantry was located, 

 Gen. Chaffee's brigade, consisting of the Seventh, 

 Twelfth, and Seventeenth Infantry, advanced to the 

 attack in front, firing continuously but with care, 

 for the men had only 100 rounds of ammunition. 

 Gen. Ludlow also moved up in the rear, and Brig.- 

 Gen. Evan Miles brought up his reserves on the 

 south, so as to form the center of a continuous line 

 nearly encircling the town, and steadily closing in 

 upon its brave defenders. So stubborn was the 

 defense that the brigade of Major-Gen. John C. 

 Bates was ordered up from the rear to strengthen 

 the line, which was thinned in the repeated desper- 

 ate assaults. After the Spaniards had fallen back 

 from the intrenchments the fire of the guns was 

 concentrated on the brick fort, from which a deadly 

 fire of musketry was poured into the American 

 ranks. Rents were soon torn in the thick walls, 

 and then the brigades of Chaffee, Miles, and Bates 

 made a rush, and carried the work, which was 

 so stoutly defended to the last that only wounded 

 men were left. The smaller blockhouses ceased 

 fighting soon after the main one fell, except one, 

 which was knocked to pieces by a few shots from 

 Capron's battery. The valiant defense of El Caney 

 was conducted by Brig.-Gen. Vara de Rev. who 

 perished in the battle, and of whose total force of 

 only 520 men scarcely a fifth remained alive at the 

 end of the day. The attack on the San Juan posi- 

 tion was delayed until Geri. Lawton's troops were 

 well engaged with the Spaniards at El Caney. 

 Gen. Wheeler's cavalry division lay concealed from 



the enemy on the hill of El Pozo, 3 miles from San- 

 tiago, and Gen. Kent's division was in the rear of 

 the other, encamped near the road. Capt. Grimes 

 got his battery into position at El Pozo, and began 

 firing as soon as it was light on July 1. The Span- 

 ish field guns on San Juan hill replied, concentrat- 

 ing their fire on the battery, which, having only 

 ordinary black powder, made a good target. An 

 hour later the cavalry division, the command of 

 which during the illness of Gen. Wheeler devolved 

 upon Brig.-Gen. Edwin V. Sumner, crossed the 

 Aguadores river and deployed to the right under 

 a heavy volley fire of the enemy. Gen. Kent's 

 division followed, taking a road discovered by the 

 war balloon crossing the river farther down, and 

 when across the river advanced in the face of a 

 destructive enfilading fire, then turned to the left, 

 and formed for the attack in front of the main 

 Spanish position, being subjected all the while to 

 the fire of infantry and machine guns from the 

 hill, and that of riflemen hidden in trees on both 

 flanks and in the rear. While the column was 

 halting before forming in line for a charge, Grimes's 

 battery shelled the enemy's position on the heights, 

 2,000 yards distant. After the cavalry had driven 

 the enemy from their outpost on Kettle hill, the 

 whole line advanced. The brigade commanded by 

 Col. Charles A. Wikoff, consisting of the Ninth, 

 Thirteenth, and Twenty-fourth Infantry, suffered 

 most severely while getting into position, losing 

 successively that commander, Lieut.-Col. William 

 S. Worth, and Lieut.-Col. Emerson H. Liscom, so 

 that the command devolved finally upon Lieut.- 

 Col. Ezra P. Ewers. Gen. Kent hurried forward 

 the rear brigade to save the imperiled formation, 

 the Tenth and Second Infantry, under the brigade 

 commander Col. E. P. Pearson, going to the sup- 

 port of Wikoff's brigade, and driving the enemy 

 back toward his trenches, while the Twenty-first 

 was sent after the brigade of Col. Hamilton S. 

 Hawkins, which had deployed on the right of the 

 division. The formation was at length completed 

 under a destructive fire, and the whole line ad- 

 vanced a short distance, only to find a wide bottom 

 obstructed with entanglements of barbed wire, on 

 the other side of which the enemy was strongly 

 posted along the crest of the high hill. The United 

 States regulars were not dismayed by the sacrifices 

 necessary for the taking of such a position. Both 

 divisions Vent forward in perfect order, halting at 

 intervals under a pitiless fire while the thick wire 

 fences were being cut. Lieut.-Col. Ewers led his 

 men against a blockhouse surmounting San Juan 

 hill flanked by rifle pits and guarded by obstruc- 

 tions stretching for a mile on both sides. Lieut. 

 Parker's Gatling battery performed valuable serv- 

 ice, moving from place to place along the line to 

 support the advance of the infantry. Gen. Haw- 

 kins, whose brigade consisted of the Sixth and 

 Sixteenth Infantry and the Seventy-first New York 

 Volunteers, led the two regiments of regulars up the 

 steep sides of the hill in the face of a constant hail 

 of bullets from Mauser repeating rifles. The Thir- 

 teenth, Twenty-fourth, and Sixteenth Regiment s Buf- 

 fered most heavily. There was no keeping the ran ks 

 together in this heroic charge, no need and no ]'o-- 

 sibility of giving orders, yet no wavering or confu- 

 sion occurred. With one common impulse the men 

 swarmed up the hill, each man as fast and as safely 

 as he could find his way, and over into the trendies. 

 which the Spaniards quickly abandoned. When i tr- 

 action was over the company commanders found 

 that half or more of their men were missing, but. 

 the places of some were filled by soldiers from oilier 

 commands. Capt. Ducat of the Twenty-fourth 

 started with 75 men up the path to the bluek- 

 house, and though he fell, Lieut. Lyon after him, 





