The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1899-03-08
FIRST FIGHT ON CUBAN SOIL
Roosevelt Tells in the March Scribner of
the Fighting Of the Second Brigade

We take great pleasure in present
Ing to our readers few extracts fror
that portion Of Colonel Roosevelt
story Of the Rough Riders in tn
March Scribner's which deals witt
General Young's Fight at Las Quasi
mas.
Just before leaving Tampa we bat
been brigaded with the First (white
and Tenth. (eolored) Regular Cavalr!
under Brigadier General S. NJ. B
Young. We were the second brigade
the first brigade, consisting Of th'
Third and Sixth (white), and th'
Ninth {colored) Regular Cavalry un
der Brigadier General Sumner. Th'
two brigades Of the cavalry division
were under Major General JOSEPH
Wheeler, the gallant CID Confederate
cavalry commander.
General Young was-and is-as hne
a type of che American fighting soldier
as man can hope to see.s He hao
been in command, as Colonel. Of the
Yellowstone National Park: and [ had
seen a good deal Of him in connection
Herewith, as I was President Of the
Boone and Crockett Club, an organiza-
ton devoted TO hunting big game, to
its preservation, and to forest preser.
walton. During the preceding winter,
while he WAS in Washington, he had
lunched with me at the Metropolitan
Club, Wood being one Of the other
guests. Of course, We TALKED Of the
war, which all Of us present believed
to be impending, and Wood and ] told
him we were going to make every
effort to get in, somehow; and he an
swered that we must be sure to get
into his brigade, if he had one, and he
would guarantee to show us fighting,
None of us forgot the conversation.
AS soon as onr regiment was raised
General Young applied for it to be
put in: his brigade. We were put in;
and he made his word good;l for he
fought and won the first fight on Gu.
ban soil.
Yet, even though under him, we
should net have been in this fight at
all if We had not taken advantage OF
the chance to disembark among the
FIRST troops, and if it had not been fol
Woods energy in pushing our regi-
ment to tie front.
On landing we spent some active
hours in marching our men quarter
Of mile or SO inland, as boat-load by
boat-load they disembarked. Mean.
while Ole Of the men, Knoblauch, q
New Yorker, who vas a great athlete
and champion swimmer, by diving in
the surf of the dock, recovered most
Of the rifles which had been lost when
the bcat-load of colored cavalry cap,
sized. The country would have offer
ed very great difficulties to an attack
ing force had there been resistance
It was little but mass Of rugged and
precipitous hills, covered for the most
part by dense jungle. Five hundred
resolute men could have prevented the
Decentralization at very little cost to
themselves. There had been about
that number of Spaniards at Daiquir'
that morning, but they had fed ever
before the ships began shcllirg. II
their place we found hundreds Of Gu
ban insurgents, crew Of as utter
tatterdemalions as human eyes looked
on, armed with every kind Of rife il
all stages of dilapidation. It wa'
evident at a glance, that they woule
be no use in serious fighting, but i
was hoped that they might be Of ser
vice in scouting. From variety o.
causes, however, they turned out te
be nearly useless, even fer this pur
pose, SO far as the Santiago campaign
was concerned.
We were camped on dusty, brush
covered fat, with jungle on one side
and..on the other shallow, fetld poo
fringed with palm-trees. Huge land
crabs scuttled noisily through the un
derbush, exciting much interest among
the men. Camping was a simple mat
ter, as each man carried all he had
and the officers had nothing. | tool
light macintosh and toothbrush
Fortunately, that night il did not rain
and from the palm-leaves we bull
shelters from the sun,
General Lawton, tall, fnc.lookinl
man. had taken the advance. A thor
ough soldier, he at once established
outposts and pushedrecon oiteriDg par
ties ahead on the trails. He had a
little baggage as the rest Of us. Ou
p.;.ado CommonInr Genera