IN THE TRENCHES

When the shrapnel burst among us on the hill-side we made up our minds

that we had better settle down to solid siege work. All of the men who

were not in the trenches I took off to the right, back of the Gatling

guns, where there was a valley, and dispersed them by troops in

sheltered parts. It took us an hour or two's experimenting to find out

exactly what spots were free from danger, because some of the Spanish

sharp-shooters were in trees in our front, where we could not possibly

place them from the trenches; and these were able to reach little

hollows and depressions where the men were entirely safe from the

Spanish artillery and from their trench-fire. Moreover, in one hollow,

which we thought safe, the Spaniards succeeded in dropping a shell, a

fragment of which went through the head of one of my men, who,

astonishing to say, lived, although unconscious, for two hours

afterward. Finally, I got all eight troops settled, and the men

promptly proceeded to make themselves as much at home as possible. For

the next twenty-four hours, however, the amount of comfort was small,

as in the way of protection and covering we only had what blankets,

rain-coats, and hammocks we took from the dead Spaniards. Ammunition,

which was, of course, the most vital need, was brought up in

abundance; but very little food reached us. That afternoon we had just

enough to allow each man for his supper two hardtacks, and one

hardtack extra for every four men.

During the first night we had dug trenches sufficient in length and

depth to shelter our men and insure safety against attack, but we had

not put in any traverses or approaches, nor had we arranged the

trenches at all points in the best places for offensive work; for we

were working at night on ground which we had but partially explored.

Later on an engineer officer stated that he did not think our work had

been scientific; and I assured him that I did not doubt that he was

right, for I had never before seen a trench, excepting those we

captured from the Spaniards, or heard of a traverse, save as I vaguely

remembered reading about them in books. For such work as we were

engaged in, however, the problem of intrenchment was comparatively

simple, and the work we did proved entirely adequate. No man in my

regiment was ever hit in the trenches or going in or out of them.

But on the first day there was plenty of excitement connected with

relieving the firing line. Under the intense heat, crowded down in

cramped attitudes in the rank, newly dug, poisonous soil of the

trenches, the men needed to be relieved every six hours or so.

Accordingly, in the late morning, and again in the afternoon, I

arranged for their release. On each occasion I waited until there was

a lull in the firing and then started a sudden rush by the relieving

party, who tumbled into the trenches every which way. The movement

resulted on each occasion in a terrific outburst of fire from the

Spanish lines, which proved quite harmless; and as it gradually died

away the men who had been relieved got out as best they could.

Fortunately, by the next day I was able to abandon this primitive,

though thrilling and wholly novel, military method of relief.

When the hardtack came up that afternoon I felt much sympathy for

the hungry unfortunates in the trenches and hated to condemn them to

six hours more without food; but I did not know how to get food into

them. Little McGinty, the bronco buster, volunteered to make the

attempt, and I gave him permission. He simply took a case of hardtack

in his arms and darted toward the trenches. The distance was but

short, and though there was an outburst of fire, he was actually

missed. One bullet, however, passed through the case of hardtack just

before he disappeared with it into the trench. A trooper named

Shanafelt repeated the feat, later, with a pail of coffee. Another

trooper, George King, spent a leisure hour in the rear making soup out

of some rice and other stuff he found in a Spanish house; he brought

some of it to General Wood, Jack Greenway, and myself, and nothing

could have tasted more delicious.

At this time our army in the trenches numbered about 11,000 men; and

the Spaniards in Santiago about 9,000,* their reinforcements having

just arrived. Nobody on the firing line, whatever was the case in the

rear, felt the slightest uneasiness as to the Spaniards being able to

break out; but there were plenty who doubted the advisability of

trying to rush the heavy earthworks and wire defenses in our front.

* Note: This is probably an understatement. Lieutenant Muller, in

chap. xxxviii. of his book, says that there were "eight or nine

thousand;" this is exclusive of the men from the fleet, and

apparently also of many of the volunteers (see chap. xiv.), all of

whom were present on July 2nd. I am inclined to think that on the

evening of that day there were more Spanish troops inside Santiago

than there were American troops outside.

All day long the firing continued--musketry and cannon. Our artillery

gave up the attempt to fight on the firing line, and was withdrawn

well to the rear out of range of the Spanish rifles; so far as we

could see, it accomplished very little. The dynamite gun was brought

up to the right of the regimental line. It was more effective than the

regular artillery because it was fired with smokeless powder, and as

it was used like a mortar from behind the hill, it did not betray its

presence, and those firing it suffered no loss. Every few shots it got

out of order, and the Rough Rider machinists and those furnished by

Lieutenant Parker--whom we by this time began to consider as an

exceedingly valuable member of our own regiment--would spend an hour or

two in setting it right. Sergeant Borrowe had charge of it and handled

it well. With him was Sergeant Guitilias, a gallant old fellow, a

veteran of the Civil War, whose duties were properly those of

standard-bearer, he having charge of the yellow cavalry standard of

the regiment; but in the Cuban campaign he was given the more active

work of helping run the dynamite gun. The shots from the dynamite gun

made a terrific explosion, but they did not seem to go accurately.

Once one of them struck a Spanish trench and wrecked part of it. On

another occasion one struck a big building, from which there promptly

swarmed both Spanish cavalry and infantry, on whom the Colt automatic

guns played with good effect, during the minute that elapsed before

they could get other cover.

These Colt automatic guns were not, on the whole, very successful.

The gun detail was under the charge of Sergeant (afterward Lieutenant)

Tiffany, assisted by some of our best men, like Stevens,

Crowninshield, Bradley, Smith, and Herrig. The guns were mounted on

tripods. They were too heavy for men to carry any distance and we

could not always get mules. They would have been more effective if

mounted on wheels, as the Gatlings were. Moreover, they proved more

delicate than the Gatlings, and very readily got out of order. A

further and serious disadvantage was that they did not use the Krag

ammunition, as the Gatlings did, but the Mauser ammunition. The

Spanish cartridges which we captured came in quite handily for this

reason. Parker took the same fatherly interest in these two Colts that

he did in the dynamite gun, and finally I put all three and their men

under his immediate care, so that he had a battery of seven guns.

In fact, I think Parker deserved rather more credit than any other

one man in the entire campaign. I do not allude especially to his

courage and energy, great though they were, for there were hundreds of

his fellow-officers of the cavalry and infantry who possessed as much

of the former quality, and scores who possessed as much of the latter;

but he had the rare good judgment and foresight to see the

possibilities of the machine-guns, and, thanks to the aid of General

Shafter, he was able to organize his battery. He then, by his own

exertions, got it to the front and proved that it could do invaluable

work on the field of battle, as much in attack as in defence. Parker's

Gatlings were our inseparable companions throughout the siege. After

our trenches were put in final shape, he took off the wheels of a

couple and placed them with our own two Colts in the trenches. His

gunners slept beside the Rough Riders in the bomb-proofs, and the men

shared with one another when either side got a supply of beans or of

coffee and sugar; for Parker was as wide-awake and energetic in

getting food for his men as we prided ourselves upon being in getting

food for ours. Besides, he got oil, and let our men have plenty for

their rifles. At no hour of the day or night was Parker anywhere but

where we wished him to be in the event of an attack. If I was ordered

to send a troop of Rough Riders to guard some road or some break in

the lines, we usually got Parker to send a Gatling along, and whether

the change was made by day or by night, the Gatling went, over any

ground and in any weather. He never exposed the Gatlings needlessly or

unless there was some object to be gained, but if serious fighting

broke out, he always took a hand. Sometimes this fighting would be the

result of an effort on our part to quell the fire from the Spanish

trenches; sometimes the Spaniards took the initiative; but at whatever

hour of the twenty-four serious fighting began, the drumming of the

Gatlings was soon heard through the cracking of our own carbines.

I have spoken thus of Parker's Gatling detachment. How can I speak

highly enough of the regular cavalry with whom it was our good fortune

to serve? I do not believe that in any army of the world could be

found a more gallant and soldierly body of fighters than the officers

and men of the First, Third, Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth United States

Cavalry, beside whom we marched to blood-bought victory under the

tropic skies of Santiago. The American regular sets the standard of

excellence. When we wish to give the utmost possible praise to a

volunteer organization, we say that it is as good as the regulars. I

was exceedingly proud of the fact that the regulars treated my

regiment as on a complete equality with themselves, and were as ready

to see it in a post of danger and responsibility as to see any of

their own battalions. Lieutenant Colonel Dorst, a man from whom praise

meant a good deal, christened us "the Eleventh United States Horse,"

and we endeavored, I think I may say successfully, to show that we

deserved the title by our conduct, not only in fighting and in

marching, but in guarding the trenches and in policing camp. In less

than sixty days the regiment had been raised, organized, armed,

equipped, drilled, mounted, dismounted, kept for a fortnight on

transports, and put through two victorious aggressive fights in very

difficult country, the loss in killed and wounded amounting to a

quarter of those engaged. This is a record which it is not easy to

match in the history of volunteer organizations. The loss was but

small compared to that which befell hundreds of regiments in some of

the great battles of the later years of the Civil War; but it may be

doubted whether there was any regiment which made such a record during

the first months of any of our wars.

After the battle of San Juan my men had really become veterans; they

and I understood each other perfectly, and trusted each other

implicitly; they knew I would share every hardship and danger with

them, would do everything in my power to see that they were fed, and

so far as might be, sheltered and spared; and in return I knew that

they would endure every kind of hardship and fatigue without a murmur

and face every danger with entire fearlessness. I felt utter

confidence in them, and would have been more than willing to put them

to any task which any crack regiment of the world, at home or abroad,

could perform. They were natural fighters, men of great intelligence,

great courage, great hardihood, and physical prowess; and I could draw

on these qualities and upon their spirit of ready, soldierly obedience

to make up for any deficiencies in the technique of the trade which

they had temporarily adopted. It must be remembered that they were

already good individual fighters, skilled in the use of the horse and

the rifle, so that there was no need of putting them through the kind

of training in which the ordinary raw recruit must spend his first

year or two.

On July 2nd, as the day wore on, the fight, though raging fitfully at

intervals, gradually died away. The Spanish guerillas were causing us

much trouble. They showed great courage, exactly as did their soldiers

who were defending the trenches. In fact, the Spaniards throughout

showed precisely the qualities they did early in the century, when, as

every student will remember, their fleets were a helpless prey to the

English war-ships, and their armies utterly unable to stand in the

open against those of Napoleon's marshals, while on the other hand

their guerillas performed marvellous feats, and their defence of

intrenchments and walled towns, as at Saragossa and Gerona, were the

wonder of the civilized world.

In our front their sharp-shooters crept up before dawn and either

lay in the thick jungle or climbed into some tree with dense foliage.

In these places it proved almost impossible to place them, as they

kept cover very carefully, and their smokeless powder betrayed not the

slightest sign of their whereabouts. They caused us a great deal of

annoyance and some little loss, and though our own sharp-shooters were

continually taking shots at the places where they supposed them to be,

and though occasionally we would play a Gatling or a Colt all through

the top of a suspicious tree, I but twice saw Spaniards brought down

out of their perches from in front of our lines--on each occasion the

fall of the Spaniard being hailed with loud cheers by our men.

These sharp-shooters in our front did perfectly legitimate work, and

were entitled to all credit for their courage and skill. It was

different with the guerillas in our rear. Quite a number of these had

been posted in trees at the time of the San Juan fight. They were

using, not Mausers, but Remingtons, which shot smokeless powder and a

brass-coated bullet. It was one of these bullets which had hit Winslow

Clark by my side on Kettle Hill; and though for long-range fighting

the Remingtons were, of course, nothing like as good as the Mausers,

they were equally serviceable for short-range bush work, as they used

smokeless powder. When our troops advanced and the Spaniards in the

trenches and in reserve behind the hill fled, the guerillas in the

trees had no time to get away and in consequence were left in the rear

of our lines. As we found out from the prisoners we took, the Spanish

officers had been careful to instil into the minds of their soldiers

the belief that the Americans never granted quarter, and I suppose it

was in consequence of this that the guerillas did not surrender; for

we found that the Spaniards were anxious enough to surrender as soon

as they became convinced that we would treat them mercifully. At any

rate, these guerillas kept up in their trees and showed not only

courage but wanton cruelty and barbarity. At times they fired upon

armed men in bodies, but they much preferred for their victims the

unarmed attendants, the doctors, the chaplains, the hospital stewards.

They fired at the men who were bearing off the wounded in litters;

they fired at the doctors who came to the front, and at the chaplains

who started to hold burial service; the conspicuous Red Cross brassard

worn by all of these non-combatants, instead of serving as a

protection, seemed to make them the special objects of the guerilla

fire. So annoying did they become that I sent out that afternoon and

next morning a detail of picked sharp-shooters to hunt them out,

choosing, of course, first-class woodsmen and mountain men who were

also good shots. My sharp-shooters felt very vindictively toward these

guerillas and showed them no quarter. They started systematically to

hunt them, and showed themselves much superior at the guerillas' own

game, killing eleven, while not one of my men was scratched. Two of

the men who did conspicuously good service in this work were Troopers

Goodwin and Proffit, both of Arizona, but one by birth a Californian

and the other a North Carolinian. Goodwin was a natural shot, not only

with the rifle and revolver, but with the sling. Proffit might have

stood as a type of the mountaineers described by John Fox and Miss

Murfree. He was a tall, sinewy, handsome man of remarkable strength,

an excellent shot and a thoroughly good soldier. His father had been a

Confederate officer, rising from the ranks, and if the war had lasted

long enough the son would have risen in the same manner. As it was, I

should have been glad to have given him a commission, exactly as I

should have been glad to have given a number of others in the regiment

commissions, if I had only had them. Proffit was a saturnine, reserved

man, who afterward fell very sick with the fever, and who, as a reward

for his soldierly good conduct, was often granted unusual privileges;

but he took the fever and the privileges with the same iron

indifference, never grumbling, and never expressing satisfaction.

The sharp-shooters returned by nightfall. Soon afterward I

established my pickets and outposts well to the front in the jungle,

so as to prevent all possibility of surprise. After dark, fires

suddenly shot up on the mountain passes far to our right. They all

rose together and we could make nothing of them. After a good deal of

consultation, we decided they must be some signals to the Spaniards in

Santiago, from the troops marching to reinforce them from without--for

we were ignorant that the reinforcements had already reached the city,

the Cubans being quite unable to prevent the Spanish regulars from

marching wherever they wished. While we were thus pondering over the

watch-fires and attributing them to Spanish machinations of some sort,

it appears that the Spaniards, equally puzzled, were setting them down

as an attempt at communication between the insurgents and our army.

Both sides were accordingly on the alert, and the Spaniards must have

strengthened their outlying parties in the jungle ahead of us, for

they suddenly attacked one of our pickets, wounding Crockett

seriously. He was brought in by the other troopers. Evidently the

Spanish lines felt a little nervous, for this sputter of shooting was

immediately followed by a tremendous fire of great guns and rifles

from their trenches and batteries. Our men in the trenches responded

heavily, and word was sent back, not only to me, but to the commanders

in the rear of the regiments along our line, that the Spaniards were

attacking. It was imperative to see what was really going on, so I ran

up to the trenches and looked out. At night it was far easier to place

the Spanish lines than by day, because the flame-spurts shone in the

darkness. I could soon tell that there were bodies of Spanish pickets

or skirmishers in the jungle-covered valley, between their lines and

ours, but that the bulk of the fire came from their trenches and

showed not the slightest symptom of advancing; moreover, as is

generally the case at night, the fire was almost all high, passing

well overhead, with an occasional bullet near by.

I came to the conclusion that there was no use in our firing back

under such circumstances; and I could tell that the same conclusion

had been reached by Captain Ayres of the Tenth Cavalry on the right of

my line, for even above the cracking of the carbines rose the

Captain's voice as with varied and picturesque language he bade his

black troopers cease firing. The Captain was as absolutely fearless as

a man can be. He had command of his regimental trenches that night,

and, having run up at the first alarm, had speedily satisfied himself

that no particular purpose was served by blazing away in the dark,

when the enormous majority of the Spaniards were simply shooting at

random from their own trenches, and, if they ever had thought of

advancing, had certainly given up the idea. His troopers were devoted

to him, would follow him anywhere, and would do anything he said; but

when men get firing at night it is rather difficult to stop them,

especially when the fire of the enemy in front continues unabated.

When he first reached the trenches it was impossible to say whether or

not there was an actual night attack impending, and he had been

instructing his men, as I instructed mine, to fire low, cutting the

grass in front. As soon as he became convinced that there was no night

attack, he ran up and down the line adjuring and commanding the

troopers to cease shooting, with words and phrases which were

doubtless not wholly unlike those which the Old Guard really did use

at Waterloo. As I ran down my own line, I could see him coming up his,

and he saved me all trouble in stopping the fire at the right, where

the lines met, for my men there all dropped everything to listen to

him and cheer and laugh. Soon we got the troopers in hand, and made

them cease firing; then, after awhile, the Spanish fire died down. At

the time we spoke of this as a night attack by the Spaniards, but it

really was not an attack at all. Ever after my men had a great regard

for Ayres, and would have followed him anywhere. I shall never forget

the way in which he scolded his huge, devoted black troopers,

generally ending with "I'm ashamed of you, ashamed of you! I wouldn't

have believed it! Firing; when I told you to stop! I'm ashamed of

you!"

That night we spent in perfecting the trenches and arranging

entrances to them, doing about as much work as we had the preceding

night. Greenway and Goodrich, from their energy, eagerness to do every

duty, and great physical strength, were peculiarly useful in this

work; as, indeed, they were in all work. They had been up practically

the entire preceding night, but they were too good men for me to spare

them, nor did they wish to be spared; and I kept them up all this

night too. Goodrich had also been on guard as officer of the day the

night we were at El Poso, so that it turned out that he spent nearly

four days and three nights with practically hardly any sleep at all.

Next morning, at daybreak, the firing began again. This day, the 3rd,

we suffered nothing, save having one man wounded by a sharp-shooter,

and, thanks to the approaches to the trenches, we were able to relieve

the guards without any difficulty. The Spanish sharp-shooters in the

trees and jungle nearby, however, annoyed us very much, and I made

preparations to fix them next day. With this end in view I chose out

some twenty first-class men, in many instances the same that I had

sent after the guerillas, and arranged that each should take his

canteen and a little food. They were to slip into the jungle between

us and the Spanish lines before dawn next morning, and there to spend

the day, getting as close to the Spanish lines as possible, moving

about with great stealth, and picking off any hostile sharp-shooter,

as well as any soldier who exposed himself in the trenches. I had

plenty of men who possessed a training in woodcraft that fitted them

for this work; and as soon as the rumor got abroad what I was

planning, volunteers thronged to me. Daniels and Love were two of the

men always to the front in any enterprise of this nature; so were

Wadsworth, the two Bulls, Fortescue, and Cowdin. But I could not begin

to name all the troopers who so eagerly craved the chance to win honor

out of hazard and danger.

Among them was good, solemn Fred Herrig, the Alsatian. I knew Fred's

patience and skill as a hunter from the trips we had taken together

after deer and mountain sheep through the Bad Lands of the Little

Missouri. He still spoke English with what might be called Alsatian

variations--he always spoke of the gun detail as the "gondetle," with

the accent on the first syllable--and he expressed a wish to be allowed

"a holiday from the gondetle to go after dem gorrillas." I told him he

could have the holiday, but to his great disappointment the truce came

first, and then Fred asked that, inasmuch as the "gorrillas" were now

forbidden game, he might be allowed to go after guinea-hens instead.

Even after the truce, however, some of my sharp-shooters had

occupation, for two guerillas in our rear took occasional shots at the

men who were bathing in a pond, until one of our men spied them, when

they were both speedily brought down. One of my riflemen who did best

at this kind of work, by the way, got into trouble because of it. He

was much inflated by my commendation of him, and when he went back to

his troop he declined to obey the first Sergeant's orders on the

ground that he was "the Colonel's sharp-shooter." The Lieutenant in

command, being somewhat puzzled, brought him to me, and I had to

explain that if the offence, disobedience of orders in face of the

enemy, was repeated he might incur the death penalty; whereat he

looked very crestfallen. That afternoon he got permission, like Fred

Herrig, to go after guinea-hens, which were found wild in some numbers

round about; and he sent me the only one he got as a peace offering.

The few guinea-hens thus procured were all used for the sick.

Dr. Church had established a little field hospital under the

shoulder of the hill in our rear. He was himself very sick and had

almost nothing in the way of medicine or supplies or apparatus of any

kind, but the condition of the wounded in the big field hospitals in

the rear was so horrible, from the lack of attendants as well as of

medicines, that we kept all the men we possibly could at the front.

Some of them had now begun to come down with fever. They were all very

patient, but it was pitiful to see the sick and wounded soldiers lying

on their blankets, if they had any, and if not then simply in the mud,

with nothing to eat but hardtack and pork, which of course they could

not touch when their fever got high, and with no chance to get more

than the rudest attention. Among the very sick here was gallant

Captain Llewellen. I feared he was going to die. We finally had to

send him to one of the big hospitals in the rear. Doctors Brewer and

Fuller of the Tenth had been unwearying in attending to the wounded,

including many of those of my regiment.

At twelve o'clock we were notified to stop firing and a flag of

truce was sent in to demand the surrender of the city. The

negotiations gave us a breathing spell.

That afternoon I arranged to get our baggage up, sending back strong

details of men to carry up their own goods, and, as usual, impressing

into the service a kind of improvised pack-train consisting of the

officers' horses, of two or three captured Spanish cavalry horses, two

or three mules which had been shot and abandoned and which our men had

taken and cured, and two or three Cuban ponies. Hitherto we had simply

been sleeping by the trenches or immediately in their rear, with

nothing in the way of shelter and only one blanket to every three or

four men. Fortunately there had been little rain. We now got up the

shelter tents of the men and some flies for the hospital and for the

officers; and my personal baggage appeared. I celebrated its advent by

a thorough wash and shave.

Later, I twice snatched a few hours to go to the rear and visit such

of my men as I could find in the hospitals. Their patience was

extraordinary. Kenneth Robinson, a gallant young trooper, though

himself severely (I supposed at the time mortally) wounded, was

noteworthy for the way in which he tended those among the wounded who

were even more helpless, and the cheery courage with which he kept up

their spirits. Gievers, who was shot through the hips, rejoined us at

the front in a fortnight. Captain Day was hardly longer away. Jack

Hammer, who, with poor Race Smith, a gallant Texas lad who was

mortally hurt beside me on the summit of the hill, had been on kitchen

detail, was wounded and sent to the rear; he was ordered to go to the

United States, but he heard that we were to assault Santiago, so he

struggled out to rejoin us, and thereafter stayed at the front. Cosby,

badly wounded, made his way down to the sea-coast in three days,

unassisted.

With all volunteer troops, and I am inclined to think with regulars,

too, in time of trial, the best work can be got out of the men only if

the officers endure the same hardships and face the same risks. In my

regiment, as in the whole cavalry division, the proportion of loss in

killed and wounded was considerably greater among the officers than

among the troopers, and this was exactly as it should be. Moreover,

when we got down to hard pan, we all, officers and men, fared exactly

alike as regards both shelter and food. This prevented any grumbling.

When the troopers saw that the officers had nothing but hardtack,

there was not a man in the regiment who would not have been ashamed to

grumble at faring no worse, and when all alike slept out in the open,

in the rear of the trenches, and when the men always saw the field

officers up at night, during the digging of the trenches, and going

the rounds of the outposts, they would not tolerate, in any of their

number, either complaint or shirking work. When things got easier I

put up my tent and lived a little apart, for it is a mistake for an

officer ever to grow too familiar with his men, no matter how good

they are; and it is of course the greatest possible mistake to seek

popularity either by showing weakness or by mollycoddling the men.

They will never respect a commander who does not enforce discipline,

who does not know his duty, and who is not willing both himself to

encounter and to make them encounter every species of danger and

hardship when necessary. The soldiers who do not feel this way are not

worthy of the name and should be handled with iron severity until they

become fighting men and not shams. In return the officer should

carefully look after his men, should see that they are well fed and

well sheltered, and that, no matter how much they may grumble, they

keep the camp thoroughly policed.

After the cessation of the three days' fighting we began to get our

rations regularly and had plenty of hardtack and salt pork, and

usually about half the ordinary amount of sugar and coffee. It was not

a very good ration for the tropics, however, and was of very little

use indeed to the sick and half-sick. On two or three occasions during

the siege I got my improvised pack-train together and either took or

sent it down to the sea-coast for beans, canned tomatoes, and the

like. We got these either from the transports which were still landing

stores on the beach or from the Red Cross. If I did not go myself I

sent some man who had shown that he was a driving, energetic, tactful

fellow, who would somehow get what we wanted. Chaplain Brown developed

great capacity in this line, and so did one of the troopers named

Knoblauch, he who had dived after the rifles that had sunk off the

pier at Daiquiri. The supplies of food we got in this way had a very

beneficial effect, not only upon the men's health, but upon their

spirits. To the Red Cross and similar charitable organizations we owe

a great deal. We also owed much to Colonel Weston of the Commissary

Department, who always helped us and never let himself be hindered by

red tape; thus he always let me violate the absurd regulation which

forbade me, even in war time, to purchase food for my men from the

stores, although letting me purchase for the officers. I, of course,

paid no heed to the regulation when by violating it I could get beans,

canned tomatoes, or tobacco. Sometimes I used my own money, sometimes

what was given me by Woody Kane, or what was sent me by my

brother-in-law, Douglas Robinson, or by the other Red Cross people in

New York. My regiment did not fare very well; but I think it fared

better than any other. Of course no one would have minded in the least

such hardships as we endured had there been any need of enduring them;

but there was none. System and sufficiency of transportation were all

that were needed.

On one occasion a foreign military attache visited my head-quarters

together with a foreign correspondent who had been through the

Turco-Greek war. They were both most friendly critics, and as they

knew I was aware of this, the correspondent finally ventured the

remark, that he thought our soldiers fought even better than the

Turks, but that on the whole our system of military administration

seemed rather worse than that of the Greeks. As a nation we had prided

ourselves on our business ability and adroitness in the arts of peace,

while outsiders, at any rate, did not credit us with any especial

warlike prowess; and it was curious that when war came we should have

broken down precisely on the business and administrative side, while

the fighting edge of the troops certainly left little to be desired.

I was very much touched by the devotion my men showed to me. After

they had once become convinced that I would share their hardships,

they made it a point that I should not suffer any hardships at all;

and I really had an extremely easy time. Whether I had any food or not

myself made no difference, as there were sure to be certain troopers,

and, indeed, certain troop messes, on the lookout for me. If they had

any beans they would send me over a cupful, or I would suddenly

receive a present of doughnuts from some ex-roundup cook who had

succeeded in obtaining a little flour and sugar, and if a man shot a

guinea-hen it was all I could do to make him keep half of it for

himself. Wright, the color sergeant, and Henry Bardshar, my orderly,

always pitched and struck my tent and built me a bunk of bamboo poles,

whenever we changed camp. So I personally endured very little

discomfort; for, of course, no one minded the two or three days

preceding or following each fight, when we all had to get along as

best we could. Indeed, as long as we were under fire or in the

immediate presence of the enemy, and I had plenty to do, there was

nothing of which I could legitimately complain; and what I really did

regard as hardships, my men did not object to--for later on, when we

had some leisure, I would have given much for complete solitude and

some good books.

Whether there was a truce, or whether, as sometimes happened, we

were notified that there was no truce but merely a further cessation

of hostilities by tacit agreement, or whether the fight was on, we

kept equally vigilant watch, especially at night. In the trenches

every fourth man kept awake, the others sleeping beside or behind him

on their rifles; and the Cossack posts and pickets were pushed out in

advance beyond the edge of the jungle. At least once a night at some

irregular hour I tried to visit every part of our line, especially if

it was dark and rainy, although sometimes, when the lines were in

charge of some officer like Wilcox or Kane, Greenway or Goodrich, I

became lazy, took off my boots, and slept all night through. Sometimes

at night I went not only along the lines of our own brigade, but of

the brigades adjoining. It was a matter of pride, not only with me,

but with all our men, that the lines occupied by the Rough Riders

should be at least as vigilantly guarded as the lines of any regular

regiment.

Sometimes at night, when I met other officers inspecting their

lines, we would sit and talk over matters, and wonder what shape the

outcome of the siege would take. We knew we would capture Santiago,

but exactly how we would do it we could not tell. The failure to

establish any depot for provisions on the fighting-line, where there

was hardly ever more than twenty-four hours' food ahead, made the risk

very serious. If a hurricane had struck the transports, scattering

them to the four winds, or if three days of heavy rain had completely

broken up our communication, as they assuredly would have done, we

would have been at starvation point on the front; and while, of

course, we would have lived through it somehow and would have taken

the city, it would only have been after very disagreeable experiences.

As soon as I was able I accumulated for my own regiment about

forty-eight hours' hardtack and salt pork, which I kept so far as

possible intact to provide against any emergency.

If the city could be taken without direct assault on the intrenchments

and wire entanglements, we earnestly hoped it would be, for such an

assault meant, as we knew by past experience, the loss of a quarter

of the attacking regiments (and we were bound that the Rough Riders

should be one of these attacking regiments, if the attack had to be

made). There was, of course, nobody who would not rather have

assaulted than have run the risk of failure; but we hoped the city

would fall without need arising for us to suffer the great loss of

life which a further assault would have entailed.

Naturally, the colonels and captains had nothing to say in the peace

negotiations which dragged along for the week following the sending in

the flag of truce. Each day we expected either to see the city

surrender, or to be told to begin fighting again, and toward the end

it grew so irksome that we would have welcomed even an assault in

preference to further inaction. I used to discuss matters with the

officers of my own regiment now and then, and with a few of the

officers of the neighboring regiments with whom I had struck up a

friendship--Parker, Stevens, Beck, Ayres, Morton, and Boughton. I also

saw a good deal of the excellent officers on the staffs of Generals

Wheeler and Sumner, especially Colonel Dorst, Colonel Garlington,

Captain Howze, Captain Steele, Lieutenant Andrews, and Captain Astor

Chanler, who, like myself, was a volunteer. Chanler was an old friend

and a fellow big-game hunter, who had done some good exploring work in

Africa. I always wished I could have had him in my regiment. As for

Dorst, he was peculiarly fitted to command a regiment. Although Howze

and Andrews were not in my brigade, I saw a great deal of them,

especially of Howze, who would have made a nearly ideal regimental

commander. They were both natural cavalry-men and of most enterprising

natures, ever desirous of pushing to the front and of taking the

boldest course. The view Howze always took of every emergency (a view

which found prompt expression in his actions when the opportunity

offered) made me feel like an elderly conservative.

The week of non-fighting was not all a period of truce; part of the

time was passed under a kind of nondescript arrangement, when we were

told not to attack ourselves, but to be ready at any moment to repulse

an attack and to make preparations for meeting it. During these times

I busied myself in putting our trenches into first-rate shape and in

building bomb-proofs and traverses. One night I got a detail of sixty

men from the First, Ninth, and Tenth, whose officers always helped us

in every way, and with these, and with sixty of my own men, I dug a

long, zigzag trench in advance of the salient of my line out to a

knoll well in front, from which we could command the Spanish trenches

and block-houses immediately ahead of us. On this knoll we made a kind

of bastion consisting of a deep, semi-circular trench with sand-bags

arranged along the edge so as to constitute a wall with loop-holes. Of

course, when I came to dig this trench, I kept both Greenway and

Goodrich supervising the work all night, and equally of course I got

Parker and Stevens to help me. By employing as many men as we did we

were able to get the work so far advanced as to provide against

interruption before the moon rose, which was about midnight. Our

pickets were thrown far out in the jungle, to keep back the Spanish

pickets and prevent any interference with the diggers. The men seemed

to think the work rather good fun than otherwise, the possibility of a

brush with the Spaniards lending a zest that prevented its growing

monotonous.

Parker had taken two of his Gatlings, removed the wheels, and mounted

them in the trenches; also mounting the two automatic Colts where he

deemed they could do best service. With the completion of the

trenches, bomb-proofs, and traverses, and the mounting of these guns,

the fortifications of the hill assumed quite a respectable character,

and the Gatling men christened it Fort Roosevelt, by which name it

afterward went.*

* Note: See Parker's "With the Gatlings at Santiago."

During the truce various military attaches and foreign officers came

out to visit us. Two or three of the newspaper men, including Richard

Harding Davis, Caspar Whitney, and John Fox, had already been out to

see us, and had been in the trenches during the firing. Among the

others were Captains Lee and Paget of the British army and navy, fine

fellows, who really seemed to take as much pride in the feats of our

men as if we had been bound together by the ties of a common

nationality instead of the ties of race and speech kinship. Another

English visitor was Sir Bryan Leighton, a thrice-welcome guest, for he

most thoughtfully brought to me half a dozen little jars of devilled

ham and potted fruit, which enabled me to summon various officers down

to my tent and hold a feast. Count von Gotzen, and a Norwegian

attache, Gedde, very good fellows both, were also out. One day we were

visited by a travelling Russian, Prince X., a large, blond man, smooth

and impenetrable. I introduced him to one of the regular army

officers, a capital fighter and excellent fellow, who, however, viewed

foreign international politics from a strictly trans-Mississippi

stand-point. He hailed the Russian with frank kindness and took him

off to show him around the trenches, chatting volubly, and calling him

"Prince," much as Kentuckians call one another "Colonel." As I

returned I heard him remarking: "You see, Prince, the great result of

this war is that it has united the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon

people; and now that they are together they can whip the world,

Prince! they can whip the world!"--being evidently filled with the

pleasing belief that the Russian would cordially sympathize with this

view.

The foreign attaches did not always get on well with our generals.

The two English representatives never had any trouble, were heartily

admired by everybody, and, indeed, were generally treated as if they

were of our own number; and seemingly so regarded themselves. But this

was not always true of the representatives from Continental Europe.

One of the latter--a very good fellow, by the way--had not altogether

approved of the way he was treated, and the climax came when he said

good-by to the General who had special charge of him. The General in

question was not accustomed to nice ethnic distinctions, and grouped

all of the representatives from Continental Europe under the

comprehensive title of "Dutchmen." When the attache in question came

to say farewell, the General responded with a bluff heartiness, in

which perhaps the note of sincerity was more conspicuous than that of

entire good breeding: "Well, good-by; sorry you're going; which are

you anyhow--the German or the Russian?"

Shortly after midday on the 10th fighting began again, but it soon

became evident that the Spaniards did not have much heart in it. The

American field artillery was now under the command of General

Randolph, and he fought it effectively. A mortar battery had also been

established, though with an utterly inadequate supply of ammunition,

and this rendered some service. Almost the only Rough Riders who had a

chance to do much firing were the men with the Colt automatic guns,

and the twenty picked sharp-shooters, who were placed in the newly dug

little fort out at the extreme front. Parker had a splendid time with

the Gatlings and the Colts. With these machine guns he completely

silenced the battery in front of us. This battery had caused us a good

deal of trouble at first, as we could not place it. It was immediately

in front of the hospital, from which many Red Cross flags were flying,

one of them floating just above this battery, from where we looked at

it. In consequence, for some time, we did not know it was a hostile

battery at all, as, like all the other Spanish batteries, it was using

smokeless powder. It was only by the aid of powerful glasses that we

finally discovered its real nature. The Gatlings and Colts then

actually put it out of action, silencing the big guns and the two

field-pieces. Furthermore, the machine guns and our sharp-shooters

together did good work in supplementing the effects of the dynamite

gun; for when a shell from the latter struck near a Spanish trench, or

a building in which there were Spanish troops, the shock was seemingly

so great that the Spaniards almost always showed themselves, and gave

our men a chance to do some execution.

As the evening of the 10th came on, the men began to make their coffee

in sheltered places. By this time they knew how to take care of

themselves so well that not a man was touched by the Spaniards during

the second bombardment. While I was lying with the officers just

outside one of the bomb-proofs I saw a New Mexican trooper named

Morrison making his coffee under the protection of a traverse high up

on the hill. Morrison was originally a Baptist preacher who had joined

the regiment purely from a sense of duty, leaving his wife and

children, and had shown himself to be an excellent soldier. He had

evidently exactly calculated the danger zone, and found that by

getting close to the traverse he could sit up erect and make ready his

supper without being cramped. I watched him solemnly pounding the

coffee with the butt end of his revolver, and then boiling the water

and frying his bacon, just as if he had been in the lee of the roundup

wagon somewhere out on the plains.

By noon of next day, the 11th, my regiment with one of the Gatlings

was shifted over to the right to guard the Caney road. We did no

fighting in our new position, for the last straggling shot had been

fired by the time we got there. That evening there came up the worst

storm we had had, and by midnight my tent blew over. I had for the

first time in a fortnight undressed myself completely, and I felt

fully punished for my love of luxury when I jumped out into the

driving downpour of tropic rain, and groped blindly in the darkness

for my clothes as they lay in the liquid mud. It was Kane's night on

guard, and I knew the wretched Woody would be out along the line and

taking care of the pickets, no matter what the storm might be; and so

I basely made my way to the kitchen tent, where good Holderman, the

Cherokee, wrapped me in dry blankets, and put me to sleep on a table

which he had just procured from an abandoned Spanish house.

On the 17th the city formally surrendered and our regiment, like the

rest of the army, was drawn up on the trenches. When the American flag

was hoisted the trumpets blared and the men cheered, and we knew that

the fighting part of our work was over.

Shortly after we took our new position the First Illinois Volunteers

came up on our right. The next day, as a result of the storm and of

further rain, the rivers were up and the roads quagmires, so that

hardly any food reached the front. My regiment was all right, as we

had provided for just such an emergency; but the Illinois newcomers

had of course not done so, and they were literally without anything to

eat. They were fine fellows and we could not see them suffer. I

furnished them some beans and coffee for the elder officers and two or

three cases of hardtack for the men, and then mounted my horse and

rode down to head-quarters, half fording, half swimming the streams;

and late in the evening I succeeded in getting half a mule-train of

provisions for them.

On the morning of the 3rd the Spaniards had sent out of Santiago many

thousands of women, children, and other non-combatants, most of them

belonging to the poorer classes, but among them not a few of the best

families. These wretched creatures took very little with them. They

came through our lines and for the most part went to El Caney in our

rear, where we had to feed them and protect them from the Cubans. As

we had barely enough food for our own men the rations of the refugees

were scanty indeed and their sufferings great. Long before the

surrender they had begun to come to our lines to ask for provisions,

and my men gave them a good deal out of their own scanty stores, until

I had positively to forbid it and to insist that the refugees should

go to head-quarters; as, however hard and merciless it seemed, I was

in duty bound to keep my own regiment at the highest pitch of fighting

efficiency.

As soon as the surrender was assured the refugees came streaming back

in an endless squalid procession down the Caney road to Santiago. My

troopers, for all their roughness and their ferocity in fight, were

rather tender-hearted than otherwise, and they helped the poor

creatures, especially the women and children, in every way, giving

them food and even carrying the children and the burdens borne by the

women. I saw one man, Happy Jack, spend the entire day in walking to

and fro for about a quarter of a mile on both sides of our lines along

the road, carrying the bundles for a series of poor old women, or else

carrying young children. Finally the doctor warned us that we must not

touch the bundles of the refugees for fear of infection, as disease

had broken out and was rife among them. Accordingly I had to put a

stop to these acts of kindness on the part of my men; against which

action Happy Jack respectfully but strongly protested upon the

unexpected ground that "The Almighty would never let a man catch a

disease while he was doing a good action." I did not venture to take

so advanced a theological stand.