Brookings weekly register. (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1898-1903, 1899-04-27

4 -
6n{SI ZHAMwh command
| RNN.CH WI was first in the
| fSST4E72d ETNt attack or which
| 1If-N1NA MJlost the heaviest
in the encounter. Official figures are
not fables. The honor belongs to the
Sixth United States infantry.
After all that has been written in a
general way about the physical hard
ships of the soldiers in Cuba the pic
ture is incomplete without those little
details that linger in the memory of
soldiers who faced everything, hour by
| hour and day by day, from gnawing
| hunger to battle wounds. My first in
| terview with a man of the Sixth regu-
lars was at the headquarters of Camp
| Wikoff, where the commandant, Cap
tain W. II. H. Crowell, spoke for the
regiment. The captain had served in
the western army during the civil war
| He said that he had never seen any
| thing in all his 81 years experience to
equal the hardships in Cuba.
The Sixth led the infantry division,
| but before it reached the crossing of
| the Aguadorres creek the column halted
| to give the dismounted cavalry the road
This halt in the torrid jungle was
| enough to sap the fervor of soldiers
who needed all the fire of their fresh
| enthusiasm for what lay ahead. During
the wait General Hawkins, the brigade
commander, had been to the front across
| San Juan river to look the ground over
| Confident of success, he told General
Kent, the division leader, that he could
take the San Juan blockhouse by flank
attack. An aid sped back along the
| road to summon the Sixth and Six
| teenth forward. Reaching the ford,
General Hawkins pointed toward the
slope and the Spanish position and said
to Lieutenant Colonel Egbert Of the
| Sixth, Somewhat beyond here You can
get an enfilade fire upon those works. +"
| AT this time the leaders were waiting
for the Seventy-first to march forward
and clear the road for Wikoff's brigade,
these two commands of six regiments
having been assigned to the capture Of
| the fort
Hawkins orders meant that the Sixth
long range on the Spaniards to reduce
the fierceness of the fire then pouring
down the slope into the jungle. One
battalion of the regiment went forward
to help the cavalry skirmishers in their
attempt to cope with the Mausers, and
as soon as the Sixteenth regiment
reached the fording place Colonel Egg
bert led Company E, Captain S. W. V.
Kennon, to the river and waded to the
opposite bank Seven companies fol-
lowed, and in few minutes the two
battalions We're lined up at wire fence
inclosing road which ran between the
river and the blockhouse.
There were then no skirmishers in
front of the Sixth, for it had left the
cavalry to its right and rear. A bat
talon Of the Sixteenth crossed the river
and formed on the left of the Sixth, and
in this position Colonel Egbert held his
regiment an hour, trying to carry out
the orders to enfilade Fort San Juan.
Finding the range long one and par
TALLY obstructed, the colonel decided to
cross the road to ridge covered with
tall grass just beyond. This forward
march of the Sixth was to be the first
direct attempt upon the blockhouse
Meanwhile the little column had had
its taste of Mauser fire. Captain Gro
well told of following in the wake of
the balloon and coming under Spanish
view while deploying at the creek to
advance. He says the line found itself
in hornets nest in the tangled un-
derbrush and that men dropped ON all
sides This deadly fire from the Span
iards on the hill was mainly at random.
Their Mauser3 were set at fixed ranges,
and they fred because they saw the
Americans massing in the valley of San
Juan river.
As the Sixth moved forward after
crossing San Juan river it marched
directly from the positions where the
Americans were deployed toward the
blockhouse. In its direction, therefore,
the Spaniards' eyes were fixed, looking
for the enemy. They did not look in
vain.
Captain Crowell says that the barbed
wire fence, the first encountered by the
infantry, was four to five feet high and
the strands Of wire about ten inches
apart. The men had no tools for cutting
the wire, but Cuban negro solved the
case for them in short order. He was
described as a giant in size, with
strength to match. Captain Crowell
said that he was amazed to see the
negros machets cleave through all the
strands at a single blow. The man