Hon. Richmond P. Hobson gives his impressions of army achievements as
he recalls his prison experiences in a Spanish fortress, and has this
to say:
From my prison window in Santiago, which was but little in the
rear of the Spanish line of entrenchments, I saw the Spaniards
fortifying the city for twenty days. I watched them with
critical interest. I saw them bring up guns from the ships and
place them. Then I saw our men come up and drive the Spaniards
into those entrenchments, and when they had driven them into the
entrenchments I saw them go on and try to take the entrenchments
themselves. It looked to be an impossible thing, but as yet
the artillery was silent. The men came on up the hill and the
artillery opened, and my heart sank when I saw that it was
flanking artillery. For a moment the American fire ceased as
tho the enemy’s guns had been a signal. “Now, then,” said I
to myself, “this is the place where the individuality of the
soldier will appear, for each man there knows that he is just
as likely as any other man to be struck with that shrapnel.”
None of them had ever been under fire before; they could not be
put to a harder test; but how did they respond to it? Instantly
after the lull a more rapid fire set in, and a more rapid rush
of men up to the trenches. In spite of flanking artillery we
had taken those fortified trenches with unsupported infantry--a
thing that army experts the world over said could not be done.
(1552)