The Yale expositor., 1898-08-12

E and being further back and in the
rear of l.. Capt. Capron was shot
early In the fight, and the firing had
not gone on long before Hamilton Fish
fell MORALLY wounded. He had been in
the front rank pressing on and firing
as fast as he could load. Every one
who witnessed his behavior under a
CALLING fire speaks Of it with enthu-
siasm. Fish died the death of brave
soldier.
1t can be said of the Rough Riders
that almost to a man they faced with
the GOODNESS OF veterans the ordeal Of
fire. which was the more trying be-
cause the foe, attacking from cover,
could not be seen. Five times during
the engagement the order was given to
stop firing, and II was obeyed instantly
There could be no better evidence that
the men kept their heads, and army
officers speak of the circumstance as an
unusual one. One man, however, seems
to have lost his head He rode back TO
Siboney when the fighting was fiercest
with a story that the Rough Riders
were being cut to pieces and were
falling back. Nothing could have been
further from the truth. Ten men killed
and perhaps three times that number
wounded was not a heavy loss in a
ing driven back, the Rough Riders fin
ished their part in the battle with n
charge UP the hill on the left with q
rush that filed the Spaniards with
panic.
Troops d, F and e were concerned in
this final movement, and Lieut.-Col.
Roosevelt led them in person, Maj.
Brodie having been wounded and taken
to the rear. On the top Of the slope
was a block house from which the
Spaniards were firing with apparently
little risk to themselves. The boys
yelled like Comanches as they pressed
up the hill on the run, and Col. Rcose-
welt, forgetting in his ardor that he
was in command, snatched up Krag-
Jorgensen and pumped shot after shot
into the block house.
4ne Spanish fire was steady enough.
but in its sweep the charge of the three
troops was cyclonic, and the Spaniards
burst from the block house and took
to their heels in the brush. Seventeen
bodies were counted in and around the
house. Meanwhile the other troops,
the Tenth cavalry and the First, the
last Of which was not heavily engaged,
finished the rout OF the Spaniards on
the right and in front. The battle
seems to have been deliberately plan
ed, for they took their wounded away
in wagons, and there was long line
of them. The Spanish loss in killed
was then known to be at least fifty.
Some fruit pickers who came out from
Santiago the following day reported
that the Spaniards returned with the
story that they had been fighting the
whole American army, and they COM
planned that the more they fired on
Americans the faster they came on.
The Spaniards were plainly heart
broken and dismayed by the result Of
the battle. So sure were they OF vic
tory that they brought some of their
women with them to witness the de-
feat Of the Americans. The fact is,
the unfaltering advance OF our men
after volleys had been poured into
them from the front and TANKS was IN
unpleasant surprise for the Spaniards,
who had always seen the Cubans e
treat after one raking volley. BY Span
ish rules Of war the Americans were
whipped early in the fight, and so bad
ly whipped that their invincible volley-
ing and rushing were like the resur-
rection of dead man.
About $500 Americans were engaged;
the Spanish force was not less than
$500, and some estimates have made
it 1000. It's position should have been
impregnable, even IL it had been. ou;-
numbered.