EL CANEY AND SAN JUAN.
For a few days after the battle of Las Guasimas no great event took
place. There was no fighting. The other troops were making their way
up from the coast, but the roads were so narrow and so bad that
progress was slow. The army wagons had great trouble to get on, and
many supplies were left at the coast or on the boats, because there
was no proper way of taking them forward. The heavy cannon were hauled
a few miles from the coast and then most of them were left, though
they would have been a great help to our Army, and should have been
taken to the front. It was soon found that many of the doctors'
supplies--the things needed in taking care of the sick and
wounded--had not been taken off the ships that brought the men from
Florida. It was thought by some of our men that now more effort should
be made to clear roads through the woods and thick bushes, but not
much was done. A great deal of fault has been found with the way
things were managed at this time. It seems as if some of the officers
were very much to blame. There need not have been so many men killed
in the battles that followed, or so much suffering and sickness in our
Army, if all our officers had done their duty. Meanwhile, the
Spaniards went on improving their forts on the hills a few miles away.
Nearly two thousand more of our soldiers landed in Cuba about this
time, and more were expected soon.
But I must tell you about another Army that arrived in this part of
Cuba during these days--a very small one beside General Shafter's
Army, but one that did mighty work. Have you ever heard of the Red
Cross Society? This is a society that nurses the sick and wounded. It
has members in all parts of the world. Its chief officer is Miss Clara
Barton, whose work has been so great and noble that it has made the
whole world better. The badge, or flag of the Red Cross Army is a red
cross on a white ground.
[Illustration: Miss Clara Barton.]
The Red Cross Army takes no part in war except to help those who need
help. It does not know the difference between friend and foe. Its work
is a work of love and mercy. No soldiers with any honor would ever
fire upon a tent that has the Red Cross flag floating over it, or harm
any person wearing the Red Cross badge. Yet, to the awful disgrace of
the Spaniards, it is known that some of them, hidden in trees and
bushes, fired upon doctors and nurses who were taking care of the
wounded on the battlefields near Santiago.
This was the new Army, whose soldiers wear the sign of the Red Cross,
that reached this part of Cuba now, and put up a large tent. In this
tent all help that could be given was given, to Spaniards, Cubans and
Americans. There were also "floating hospitals"--ships fitted up as
hospitals. They proved to be great blessings to our Army and Navy.
You will remember that the Red Cross Society took great quantities of
supplies to the suffering Cubans in the early part of 1898. Its work
in Cuba was just well-established when hostilities broke out between
the United States and Spain, and while the members who were on the
ground wanted to stay and carry on the work of relief, General Blanco
told them it was best for them to leave the island. They did so
reluctantly, after doing all they could to insure the proper
distribution of the supplies they left behind them. The result was
that the food and medicines intended for the Cubans were used to
sustain the Spanish army.
When the blockade of Cuban ports was instituted, the Red Cross Society
was asked by the Government to take charge of the steamship State of
Texas which had been loaded with provisions, clothing, medical and
hospital supplies by the generous people of the United States. Miss
Clara Barton instantly responded, but the ship was not allowed to go
to Cuba under a flag of truce, because Acting Rear-Admiral Sampson
would not allow it. He said he was afraid the supplies would fall into
the hands of the Spanish army. But the Red Cross Society would not
give up its errand of mercy, and when the United States army invaded
Cuba, the State of Texas followed the transports and so got to Cuba
after all, and anchored at a little place called Siboney, where the
nurses immediately began to care for the wounded on the hospital ship
Solace.
There had been so much mismanagement about the landing of the troops
and the supplies, that General Shafter's army was without medicines or
shelter for his wounded men. When he learned that the Red Cross ship
had arrived, he sent word to Miss Barton to seize any empty army
wagons and send him a load of hospital supplies and medical stores.
She did this, although there were no boats obtainable to convey the
supplies to the shore. There were only two old scows which had been
thrown away as useless, but the Red Cross men patched them up as best
they could, and then loaded them with the material asked for. They
worked all night, and just as the sun rose in the morning, they
managed to get them to the shore. It was the hardest kind of work
unloading the scows in the surf, but they did it, and loaded some
wagons with the precious supplies. Then the women nurses, who had been
drenched to the skin in the surf, mounted on top of the load and
started on a terrible ride over a roadless country. They reached the
army, and the whole world knows the splendid work they did there. It
was no fault of the surgeon-general of the United States that they
were able to accomplish it, though, for he was opposed to female
nurses and his action sadly hampered the work.
But now I must tell you about the next hard work that our soldiers had
to do. On the last day of June, General Shafter gave orders that the
whole Army was to move on toward Santiago the next day. General
Shafter was sick, and stayed at headquarters in his tent, two miles
away. Before Santiago could be reached, El Caney and San Juan had to
be taken. So, on the first of July, early in the morning, six thousand
of our troops, under brave officers, marched to attack El Caney.
General Shafter thought this place could be taken in about an hour.
[Illustration: Church at El Caney, Wrecked by American Shells.]
The town of El Caney, four miles northeast of Santiago, lies in a
broad valley. Beyond it, on the Santiago side, is a high, level piece
of country. The houses in the town are built of stone, and have thick
walls. The town was protected by a stone fort on a hill, and also by
log forts, trenches, and covered places, where the Spaniards could
stay under shelter while they fired. The stone fort on the hill was
first attacked by our men, and if they had had more heavy cannon the
work might have been easy. As it was, more than half the day passed,
and, in spite of the hard work of our men, the fort still stood. Our
men had no smokeless powder, and their firing made a big black cloud
around them all the time, so that they could not see clearly. At last
the stone walls of the fort began to weaken, and then our men were
ordered to "storm." They ran along the valley, broke through fences of
barbed wire, and went up the hill with such a rush that the Spaniards
could not meet them, but fled down into the town. The other forts kept
up firing for a while, but our men, now having the fort on the hill,
forced the Spaniards farther and farther, and, by four o'clock, our
men held the town. The whole place was strewn with dead Spaniards, and
our own loss was heavy. Both sides had fought bravely, and the
struggle had lasted nearly nine hours.
[Illustration: General Henry W. Lawton.]
At El Caney the Spaniards made the strongest resistance that the
American army met in Cuba. One of the foremost figures in this
battle was Brigadier-General Henry W. Lawton. I must tell you
something about him. Lawton was but seventeen years old when the Civil
War in this country broke out. He enlisted at once and was made a
sergeant in an Indiana regiment. When his term of service expired he
re-enlisted and fought gallantly throughout the remainder of the war.
After the war was over Lawton enlisted in the regular army and was
sent to the frontier, where he developed into one of the best Indian
fighters in the army. When our country went to war with Spain, Lawton
was holding an important position in the War Department at Washington.
His splendid services were remembered and he was promoted to be a
brigadier-general of volunteers and sent to Cuba. After the war with
Spain was over, Lawton was again promoted, and in 1899 was sent to the
Philippines to assist in putting down the Filipino insurrection.
[Illustration: Battle of El Caney.]
Meanwhile, our other regiments had been ordered to attack San Juan, a
village on steep heights, less than a mile east of Santiago. Our men
went to the place by two different roads, and had to go through woods,
wade through streams, and wind along narrow paths. A number of men
from each regiment went before, with tools, and cut the fences of
barbed wire. Fences of barbed wire had been put, like a network, all
around Santiago, to keep our men away.
[Illustration: Assault of San Juan Hill.]
San Juan was protected by trenches and forts, and from these places
Spanish bullets rained down upon our men. During the early hours of
the morning there was much confusion among our troops. They were
looking for further orders from headquarters, but none came. So, at
last, the captains and colonels took things into their own hands and
did what seemed best. Again there was need of more heavy cannon, and
again our men were troubled by having powder that made a thick black
smoke. Just as it was at El Caney, so it was at San Juan; not having
cannon enough to destroy the forts, our men had to take the place by
storm. Colonel Roosevelt led his "Rough Riders" in one of the finest
charges ever made. The other troops, nearly all "Regulars," did noble
work. With bullets pouring down upon them, our men made a wild rush up
the heights, and the Spaniards fled. The struggle to take San Juan had
lasted more than five hours, and cost many lives.
Though our men were worn and weary, they took no rest that night. They
buried the dead, they repaired the forts and trenches. Our men knew
that the Spaniards would try to win back the heights of San Juan, the
last stronghold on the outskirts of Santiago.
At daybreak the next morning the Spaniards attacked our troops, and
the fighting went on all day. A sharp attack was made in the evening,
but our men still held the place. Yet they did not feel secure. The
Spanish Army in Santiago was a large one, and might force our men
back. Our men, though weary from marching and fighting and digging,
hungry, for food was scarce, wanted to hold the heights that had been
so dearly won.
The attack upon the Spanish defenses of Santiago began early in the
morning of July 1st, as I have told you, and I wish I could tell you
the one hundredth part of the brave and gallant deeds that were done
by our brave soldiers on that and the next day.
[Illustration: Lieutenant John H. Parker.]
Battery A, of the Second United States Artillery, fired the first shot
of the engagement known as the battle of El Caney. The Spaniards
replied, after it had sent five shells among them. The Spanish forces
were much stronger than our men thought they were, and it took General
Lawton nearly all day to gain possession of El Caney. Early in the
day, Lieutenant Parker's battery of four Gatling guns began to hurl
bullets into the Spanish trenches, and so well did it keep up the work
that it played a very important part in the battle and a great deal of
the credit of the victory is due to Lieutenant Parker. Afterwards,
Lieutenant Parker, in speaking of these wonderful machine guns, said:
"We trained the guns on the top of the hill. They were fired above the
heads of the slowly advancing line of blue which had started up the
slope. I ordered the men to work the Gatlings as fast as they could.
The result was astounding. With each of the four guns firing at the
rate of eight hundred shots a minute, the bullets formed a canopy over
the heads of the men at the foot of the hill. A Gatling gun in action
is a sight to remember; so thick and fast do the bullets fly that one
can actually see the stream of lead leaving the gun and, as if
handling a hose, train it on any desired point.
"I remember one incident of the first day which showed how deadly was
the fire of these machine guns. Away off, across the valley, we saw a
clump of Spanish cavalrymen. I ordered the guns turned on them. They
were so far away we had to use glasses to find them accurately, but
when the little wheels began to turn, those who stood in the front
line of the clump fell as grass falls before a mower, and it didn't
take the rest of those Spaniards long to get behind something.
"As the day wore on, and the troops kept climbing up the hill, Colonel
Roosevelt, who had been watching the work of the Gatlings, came along
and placed his light battery of two Colt machine guns and one dynamite
gun in my command."
You can get an idea of the deadly work of the Gatlings when I tell you
that the fire of one of these guns is equal to that of one hundred and
eighty riflemen, each discharging thirteen shots per minute.
The dynamite gun is the latest development in light artillery. One of
them had been supplied to Roosevelt's Rough Riders, or "Teddy's
Terrors," as they were often called, but none of them wanted to handle
it.
[Illustration: Sergeant Borrowe Working the Dynamite Gun.]
They were willing to face Spanish bullets, but they were afraid of the
dynamite gun. They thought it was just as dangerous at one end as at
the other. It is an odd looking piece of artillery, having two tubes,
or barrels, one above the other. It throws a long cartridge or shell,
similar in shape, but not so large as those used on the Vesuvius,
about which I have told you. One day Sergeant Borrowe volunteered to
manage the gun that the rest of the men were afraid of. They let him
have it, and he did splendid work with it.
Another famous gun in the fighting before Santiago was gun No. 2, of
Captain Capron's battery. Captain Capron was the father of the young
man who was killed in the battle of Las Guasimas. No guns did more
effective work than his, unless it was Parker's Gatlings, and one shot
from this No. 2 is said to have killed sixteen Spaniards at one time.
After the battery returned to the United States, Lieutenant Henly,
after saying that the battery was in every battle on Cuban soil except
that at Las Guasimas, continued:
"We were peculiarly fortunate in escaping the bullets. The only man
killed in our battery was a horse--I suppose we can count him as a
man. At El Caney, we were directed to support the infantry in an
attack on several blockhouses and a stone fort. We were twenty-four
hundred yards away and soon got the range. The first shot was fired by
Corporal Williams. Corporal Neff fired the shot that brought down the
Spanish flag. We pounded a hole in the fort and the infantry went
through it."
A young soldier who was wounded at San Juan told this story:
"My company got mixed up in the charge, and I pushed on with the
Thirteenth Regulars. When we reached the top of the hill, some of us
took shelter in a blockhouse and began firing from there at the
opposite hills. There wasn't one of the enemy in sight unless you
count dead ones, so we blazed away at nothing at all, for awhile. But
they had us dead in range, and it was no dream the way their bullets
played around us.
[Illustration: The Famous No. 2 Gun.]
"One of the bravest things I saw in the war happened right here. An
officer came up--he was a major of regulars--I don't know his
regiment--and he saw that we didn't know what to aim at, and were
getting a little rattled. So what did he do but quickly walk out in
front of the blockhouse where the bullets were coming thickest, and
proceed to study the hills with his field-glass, just as unconcerned
as you please. And every now and then he would call to us who were
inside, 'Men, sight at eight hundred yards and sweep the grass on the
ridge of the hill'; or, again: 'Men, I can see the Spaniards over
there; try a thousand-yard range and see if you can't get some of
them. Fire low!' I never saw such nerve as that officer had; he'd have
stirred courage in everybody."
"Didn't he get hit?" he was asked.
"I'll tell you about that in a minute; but while he was out there
shaking hands with death, you might say, I was witness to a little
incident in the blockhouse that is worth telling about: A lot of us
were in there from different regiments--some from the Thirteenth, some
from the Sixteenth, and some colored boys from the Twenty-fourth. We
were all blazing away through the firing-openings in the walls.
[Illustration: Bringing Up Captain Capron's Battery.]
"Just beside me was a big negro, who didn't seem more than half
interested in what he was doing. I saw him pull a dead Spaniard out of
the door with a listless movement, and then pick up his rifle as if he
thought the whole thing a bore. Suddenly, a bullet came in with a
zip along the underside of his gun barrel, glanced against the strap,
and took the skin off the negro's knuckles as if they'd been scraped
with a knife. And then you should see the change! He wasn't
scared--not a bit; but he was mad enough to have charged the whole
Spanish army alone. How he did talk--not loud, just quietly to
himself--and how he did grab his cartridges and begin to shoot.
"Speaking of cartridges, some of the boys ran short because they had
thrown away a lot in their haversacks; but I had put two beltfuls in a
pair of socks and pinned them inside my shirt with safety pins, so I
had plenty, and I was peppering away from behind a brick chimney, when
one of the Thirteenth lads called out to me: 'Come over here,
Seventy-one; I've got a fine shot for you.'
"I looked around and saw him standing by a window that was barred with
iron, but had no sash to it. He was kneeling on the floor, just
showing his head over the sill, and looking at the Spanish line. He
was a nice looking lad, not a day over twenty-one, and his face was as
smooth as a girl's. 'All right,' said I, going over to him, 'Where's
your shot?'
"'There,' said he, pointing to one of the hills: 'nobody's fired at
that one yet, but I'm sure the dagos are there. Set your sights at six
hundred yards and we'll try it together!'
"So I fixed my sights, and we both fired out of the window with our
rifles resting on the ledge. As I drew back I saw there was something
queer with the boy, and noticed a splash of red on the lobe of his
ear, just like a coral bead.
"'Did they wing you?' I asked. And even as I spoke, he staggered
against the wall and turned round so that I saw him full in the face.
There was a hole in the other side, just at the cheek bone, that I
could have put my finger in. He had been shot clear through the head.
"'Poor chap,' I said, and lifted him over behind the chimney, where I
had been. He didn't speak. I left him there and went to the door,
thinking that I might see a Red Cross nurse somewhere about, and sure
enough, there was one bending over a man stretched on the ground. It
was the major who had been giving us the ranges.
"'Is he hurt bad?' I asked.
"The Red Cross man had the major's shirt open, looking at his wound.
'He's shot through the heart,' he said.
"'Can you come in here a minute, when you get through with him?
There's a Thirteenth boy just been hit.'
"'Hit where?'
"'In the head.'
"'Hold him by the jowls,' he said, 'until I come,' So I held him by
the jowls, and then he spoke for the first time, and what he said was
this: 'Say, Seventy-one, I done my duty, didn't I?'
"I told him that he did.
"'I had my face toward 'em when they got me, didn't I?
"'Sure, you did.'
"'Well,' he went on, quite cheerful like, 'I may get through this, and
if I do, I'll have another crack at 'em. But if I don't, why I aint
got no kick comin', for there'll be others to stay here with me.'
"That was the last I saw of him, for the Red Cross man came in then,
and I went back to the firing. He was a game boy, though, wasn't he?"
[Illustration: The "Red Cross" in the Field.]
What would have become of the wounded if the Red Cross nurses had not
been on the field to help them, nobody knows, except that thousands of
"mothers' boys" were saved, who in a few hours more would have been
beyond mortal aid. No wonder bearded men wept like babies and blessed
the angels of mercy as they passed. The boys went into the fight
hungry, lay for two days in trenches, almost without food; and when
they were wounded, were ordered to make their way to the rear as best
they could. Men with desperate wounds had to walk or crawl perhaps a
mile; perhaps five or six miles, over the wild, rough country, those
who were least injured, assisting their comrades, and hundreds dying
by the wayside. Had the Red Cross been allowed its way in the
beginning, many of these horrors would have been avoided. The few army
surgeons did all in their power, but nearly everything they-needed to
allay suffering was lacking, and so insufficient was the force that
many of the wounded lay for days before their turn came. Men taken
from the operating table, perhaps having just had a leg or arm cut
off, or with bodies torn by bullets, were laid naked on the
rain-soaked ground, without shelter, and in the majority of cases
without even blankets. And there they lay through two long days and
nights. All honor to the Red Cross Society which finally forced its
way to the spot and knew exactly what to do.
[Illustration: Captain "Buckey" O'Neill.]
Some time after the return of the "Rough Riders" to the United States,
Colonel Roosevelt told some interesting experiences:
"I recollect, as I was sitting, I gave a command to one of my
orderlies, and he rose up and saluted and fell right forward across my
knees dead. The man upon whom I had most to rely--I relied upon all of
those gallant men, but the man upon whom I most relied, Buckey
O'Neill--was standing up, walking up and down in front of his men,
wanting to show them by his example that they must not get nervous,
and to reassure them.
"Somebody said, 'Captain--Captain O'Neill! You will be struck by a
bullet as sure as fate; lie down! lie down!' and he laughed, and said,
'Why, the Spanish bullet is not made that will kill me!' And the next
minute a bullet struck him in the mouth and came out the back of his
head and he was killed right there.
"Captain Jenkins crept up beside one of his sharpshooters and said to
him, 'I see a Spaniard over in that tree, give me your rifle for a
moment.' He fired two or three shots and then turned around and handed
the rifle back to the man, and the man was dead--had been killed
without making a sign or sound as he stood beside him.
"I was talking to a gallant young officer, asking him questions, and
he was answering. I turned around and he had been shot through the
stomach."
But General Shafter, still at headquarters some miles away, did not
know how the men felt, and thought they ought to retreat to some safer
point, and wait for more troops from the United States. Early the next
morning--Sunday, July 3d--General Shafter sent a telegram to the War
Office at Washington, saying that he thought of withdrawing his forces
from the neighborhood of Santiago. An answer was sent to him, asking
him to try to hold his present place, and more troops started for
Cuba.
Fortunately, there were brave commanders in the American army who did
not think as General Shafter did.--They had been doing the fighting,
while he hadn't, and they had no idea of giving up an inch of the
ground they had gained. One of the most prominent of them was General
Joseph Wheeler. He had a splendid record in the Civil War, fighting on
the side of the Confederacy. He was a bold and tireless fighter, and
before he was thirty years old he was the commander of all the
Confederate cavalry. His sabre had flashed in the thickest of many
fights and he had led his splendid horsemen in many a furious charge.
When the war with Spain broke out, General Wheeler offered his
services to the Government and was sent to Cuba, and when there began
to be talk of retreat after those terrible days of fighting before
Santiago, the splendid old Confederate counselled holding the army
where it was, and fighting the Spaniards again, if necessary. He said,
"American prestige would suffer irretrievably if we gave up an inch;
we must stand firm!"
[Illustration: General Joseph Wheeler.]
The message from General Shafter flew through the United States, and
caused great anxiety. It was sad to think that our troops had drawn
near the place they had been striving to reach, had had great labor,
had borne much suffering, and that now, after all, they might have to
retreat because there were not enough of them to finish the work--not
enough to take Santiago.
But that very Sunday something took place that changed the whole color
of the scene.
[Illustration: (U.S. flag flying over building)]