FACING SAN JUAN HEIGHTS
The fight of Las Guasimas, in which Rough Riders and colored regulars
covered themselves with glory, was only a first brisk skirmish between
the advanced outposts of opposing armies, but its influence on both
sides was equal to that of a pitched battle. It furnished a notable
example of the steadiness and bull-dog tenacity of the American
regular, as well as the absolute fearlessness and determination to win,
at any cost, of the dudes and cowboys banded under the name of Rough
Riders. It afforded striking proof that it is not the guns, but the
men behind them, who win battles, since an inferior force, unsupported
by artillery, and unprovided with bayonets, had charged and driven from
strong intrenchments nearly four times their own number of an enemy
armed with vastly superior weapons. It inspired the Americans with
confidence in themselves and their leaders, while it weakened that of
the Spaniards in both. To the Rough Riders it was a glorious and
splendidly won victory, and as they swarmed over the intrenchments,
from which the fire of death had been so fiercely hurled at them that
morning, they yelled themselves hoarse with jubilant cheers.
Then came the reaction. They were exhausted with the strain of
excitement and their tremendous exertions under the pitiless tropical
sun. Strong men who had fought with tireless energy all at once found
themselves trembling with weakness, and the entire command welcomed the
order to make camp on the grassy banks of a clear stream shaded by
great trees.
In their baptism of fire eight of the Riders had been killed outright,
thirty-four more were seriously wounded, and fully half of the
remainder could show the scars of grazing bullets or tiny clean-cut
holes through their clothing, telling of escapes from death by the
fraction of an inch. Ridge Norris, for instance, found a livid welt
across his chest, looking as though traced by a live coal, and marking
the course of a bullet that, with a hair's deflection, would have ended
his life, while Rollo Van Kyp's hat seemed to have been an especial
target for Spanish rifles.
After regaining their breath, and receiving assurance that the enemy
had retreated beyond their present reach, these two, in company with
many others, went back over the battle-field to look up the wounded,
and bring forward the packs flung aside at the beginning of the fight.
At sunset that evening the Riders buried their dead, in a long single
grave lined with palm-leaves, on a breezy hill-side overlooking the
scene of their victory. The laying to rest of these comrades, who only
a few hours before, had been so full of life with all its hopes and
ambitions, was the most impressive ceremony in which any of the
survivors had ever engaged. It strengthened their loyalty and devotion
to each other and to their cause as nothing else could have done, and
as the entire command gathered close about the open grave to sing
"Nearer my God to Thee," many a voice was choked with feelings too
solemn for expression, and many a sun-tanned cheek was wet with tears.
The camp of the Rough Riders was very quiet that night, and the events
of the day just closed were discussed in low tones, as though in fear
of awakening the sleepers on the near-by hill-side.
After the fight of Las Guasimas, its heroes rested and waited for six
days, while the remainder of the army effected its landing and made its
slow way to the position they had won over the narrow trails they had
cleared. These days of waiting were also days of vast discomfort, and
the patient endurance of drenching tropical rains and steaming heat,
the wearing of the same battle-soiled clothing day after day and night
after night, and, above all, of an ever-present hunger, that sapped
both strength and spirits. They had started out with but three days'
rations, and four days passed before a scanty supply of hard-tack,
bacon, and coffee began to dribble into camp. The road to Siboney,
flooded by constant rains, bowlder-strewn, and inches deep in mud, was
for a long time impassable to wagons; and during those six days such
supplies of food and ammunition as reached the idle army were brought
to it by three trains of pack-mules that toiled ceaselessly back and
forth between the coast and the front, bringing the barest necessities
of life, but nothing more.
So the American army suffered and prayed to be led forward, while the
Spaniards between them and Santiago strengthened their own position
with every hour, and confidently awaited their coming. The invaders
now occupied the Sevilla plateau, and were within five miles of the
city they sought to capture. In their front lay a broad wooded valley,
to them an unknown region, and on its farther side rose a range of
hills, that Ridge Norris told them were the San Juan Heights, strongly
protected by block-houses, rifle-pits, and bewildering entanglements of
barbed wire, a feature of modern warfare now appearing for the first
time in history. With their glasses, from the commanding eminence of
El Poso Hill, crowned with the ruined buildings of an abandoned
plantation, the American officers could distinctly see the Spaniards at
work on their intrenchments a mile and a half away, and note the
ever-lengthening lines of freshly excavated earth.
But for six days the army waited, and its artillery, which was expected
to seriously impair, if not utterly destroy the effectiveness of those
ever-growing earthworks, still reposed peacefully on board the ships
that had brought it to Cuba. Only two light batteries had been landed,
and on the sixth day after Las Guasimas these reached the front. At
the same time came word that General Pando with 5000 Spanish
reinforcements was nearing the besieged city from the north. In that
direction, and only three miles from Santiago, lay the fortified
village of Caney, held by a strong force of Spanish troops. If it were
captured, Pando's advance might be cut off. So General Shafter, coming
ashore for the first time a week after the landing of his troops,
planned a forward movement with this object in view. Lawton's division
was to capture Caney, and then swing round so as to sever all outside
communication with Santiago. While he was doing this, demonstrations
that should deter the Spaniards from sending an additional force in
that direction were to be made against San Juan and Aguadores. These
movements were to occupy one day, and on the next the reunited army was
to attack the entire line of the San Juan ridge. In the mean time no
one knew anything of the valley lying between this strongly protected
ridge and those who proposed to capture it.
So the order was issued, and late in the afternoon of June 30th, in a
pouring rain, the camps were broken, and the drenched army eagerly
began its forward movement. Lawton's division marching off to the
right slipped and stumbled through the mud along a narrow, almost
impassable, trail over the densely wooded hills until eight o'clock
that evening, when, within a mile of Caney, it lay down for the night
in the wet grass without tents or fire, and amid a silence strictly
enjoined, for fear lest the Spaniards should discover its presence, and
run away before morning.
At the same time Wheeler's division of dismounted cavalry, including
the Rough Riders and Kent's infantry division, advanced as best it
could over the horrible Santiago road, ankle-deep in mud and water, to
El Poso Hill, on and about which it passed a wretchedly uncomfortable
night. Seven thousand heavily equipped men, mingled with horses,
artillery, pack-mules, and army wagons, all huddled into a narrow gully
slippery with mud, advance so slowly, however eager they may be to push
forward, that although the movement was begun at four o'clock, midnight
found the rearmost regiment still plodding wearily forward.
With the coming of daylight, on July 1st, the army lay beneath a dense
blanket of mist that spread its wet folds over the entire region they
were to traverse. It was eight o'clock before Grimes's battery of four
light field-pieces, posted on El Poso Hill, opened an ineffective fire
upon the heights across the broad valley. For twenty minutes the
Spaniards paid no attention to the harmless barking of the little guns;
then the smoke cloud hanging over them proved so admirable and
attractive a target that they could no longer resist firing at it. So
shells began to fall about the battery with such startling accuracy
that a score of Americans and Cubans gathered near it were killed or
wounded before they could seek shelter. Among these first victims of
the San Juan fight were several of the Rough Riders.
About this time General Sumner, temporarily in command of the cavalry,
was ordered to advance his troops into the valley as far as the edge of
the wooded belt, and within half a mile of the San Juan batteries.
"What shall I do when I get there?" asked General Sumner.
"Await further orders," was the curt reply.
There were other changes in commands that morning; for
Brigadier-General Young, being prostrated by a fever, the Colonel of
the Rough Riders was assigned to his duties, and became "General" Wood
from that hour. At the same time his Lieutenant-Colonel stepped into
the vacancy thus created, and as "Colonel" Roosevelt was destined to
win for himself and his dashing command immortal fame before the
setting of that day's sun.
So the Rough Riders, together with five other regiments of dismounted
cavalry, started down the deep-cut road, which in places was not over
ten feet wide, and was everywhere sticky with mud, while an entire
infantry division was crowded into it behind them. Like all other
roads in that country, this one, now densely packed with human beings
advancing at a snail's pace along nearly three miles of its length, was
bordered on both sides by an impenetrable tropical jungle.
The Spaniards were advised of the forward movement, and though they
could not see it, were already directing a hot fire at this road, of
whose location they were, of course, well aware, and from the outset
dead and wounded men marked the line of American progress. After a
mile of marching under these conditions, the foremost troops came to a
place where the San Juan River crossed the road. A short distance
beyond it crossed again, thus forming the ox-bow to be known ever after
that memorable day as the "Bloody Bend." A little farther on was open
country, and here General Sumner obeyed instructions by deploying his
troopers to the right in a long skirmish line on the edge of the
timber. In this position they lay down, sheltering themselves as best
they could behind bushes or in the tall hot grass, and anxiously
awaited further orders from headquarters. The Spanish fire, which they
might not return, was ceaseless and pitiless, though because of absence
of smoke none could see whence it came.
Already the loss in killed and wounded was assuming alarming
proportions, and still on-coming troops were pouring into that Bloody
Bend, where they must accept, with what fortitude they could command,
their awful baptism of fire. Fifty feet above their heads floated the
observation balloon of the engineers, betraying their exact position
and forming an admirable focus for the enemy's fire, which, after
awhile, to the vast relief of every one, shot the balloon to pieces so
that it dropped from sight among the trees.
For hours the troops waited thus in the frightful tropical heat,
monuments of patient endurance. The dead and the living lay side by
side, though such of the wounded as could be reached were dragged back
to dressing-stations on the river-banks. Even here they were not safe,
for the dense foliage that afforded a grateful shade also concealed
scores of Spanish sharp-shooters. These maintained a cowardly and
deadly fire, the source of which could rarely be discovered, upon all
coming within range, regardless of whether they were wounded men,
surgeons in discharge of their duties, hospital stewards, or Red Cross
assistants, thus adding a fresh horror to warfare.
It was a terrible position, and the American army was being cut to
pieces without a chance to fire a gun in self-defence. To advance
appeared suicidal, to attempt a retreat meant utter destruction. No
orders could come over the blockaded road from the Commander-in-Chief,
miles in the rear, nor could word of the awful situation be sent back
to him in time. The men thus trapped gazed at one another with the
desperate look of hunted animals brought to bay. Must they all die,
and was there no salvation?
Suddenly a mounted officer dashed into the open, pointing with his
sword to the nearest hill crowned by a block-house. Then through a
storm of bullets he spurred towards it, and, with a mighty yell ringing
high above the crash of battle, his men sprang after him.