Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1899-06-24

mistake the deploying rough riders on
the right for Spaniards, and one of the
officers of the 10th afterward said that
he was greatly relieved when the gui-
don of K appeared or a slight elevation
in the valley ahead. 1t is doubtful
whether troops G, K and A, which We're
in that order on the right of company l.,
could have driven the Spaniards off the
hill without support. The 10th, on get
ting the word, swarmed up the hill, fir
ing with great d%eliberation volley after
volley. Their alignment and GOODNESS
were remarkable. Whenever a man was
hit the cry of Hospital" went up
calmly, and the troopers pressed on as
if engaged in practice maneuvers. AL
though many Of them had never beer
under fire, there was not the least fall
tering or confusion.
On the left of the rough riders troops
D and f did the heaviest work, E and
b being farther back and in the zeal of
l.. Captain Capron was shot early in
the fight, and the fighting had not gone
on long before Hamilton Fish fell NOR
tally 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 enthusiasm. Fish
died the death of a brave soldier.
1t a 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 because the
foe, attacking from cover, could not be
seen. Five times during the engagement
the order was given to stop firing, and
it was obeyed instantly. There could be
no better evidence that the men kept
their heads, and army officers speak of
the circumstance as IN 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 We're 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 command Of 500 men, and, far
from being driven back, the rough rid
.ers finished their part in the battle with
a charge up the hill on the left with a
rush that filled the Spaniards with
panic.
Troops D, F and E We're concerned in
his final movement, and Lieutenant
Colonel Roosevelt led them in person,
Major Brodie having been wounded and
taken to the rear. On the top of the
slope was a block house, from which the
Spaniards were iireing with apparently
little risk to themselves. The boys
yelled like Comanches as they pressed
up the hill on the run, and Colonel
Roosevelt, forgetting in his ardor that
he vas in command, snatched up a
Krag-Jorgensen and pumped shot after
shot into the block house.
The 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
10th cavalry and the list, 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 planned, for they took
their wounded away in wagons, and
there was a 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 fol-
lowing day reported that the Spaniards
returned with the story that they had
been fighting the whole American army,
and they complained that the more they
fired on the Americans the faster they
came on.
The S~paniards were plainly heart
broken and dismayed by the result of
the battle. So sure were they Of victory
that they brought some of their women
with them to witness the defeat of the
Americans. The fact is, the unfaltering
advance of our men after volleys had
been poured into them from the front
and TANKS vas an unpleasant surprise
the Spaniards, who had always seen
the Cubans retreat after one raking |
volley. BY Spanish rules of war, the
Americans were whipped early in the
fight, and so badly whipped that their
volleying and rushing were
like the resurrection Of a dead man.
About 1,500 Americans were engaged.
The Spanish force was not less than
2 1000, and some estimates have made it
1000. It's position should have been i'm
pregnable, even If it had been outnum-
bered. If Guasimas had been fought
between Spanlards and Cubans 1t would
have figured in the history Of the civil
war as a great battle-the greatest bat
tie, in fact, of three years of fighting
New York Sun.