War between the United States and Spain began April 21, 1898. Actual hostilities ended August 12, 1898, by the signing of the protocol by the Secretary of State of the United States for the United States and M. Cambon, the French Ambassador at Washington, acting for Spain.
The war lasted 114 days. The Americans were victorious in every regular engagement. In the three-days battle around Santiago, the Americans lost 22 officers and 208 men killed, and 81 officers and 1,203 men wounded, and 79 missing. The Spanish loss as best estimated was near 1,600 officers and men killed and wounded.
Santiago was surrendered July 17, 1898, with something over 22,000 troops.
General Shatter estimates in his report the American forces as numbering 16,072 with 815 officers.
CHAPTER III.
SERGEANT-MAJOR PULLEN OF THE 25th INFANTRY DESCRIBES THE CONDUCT OF THE NEGRO SOLDIERS AROUND EL CANEY.
THE TWENTY-FIFTH U.S. INFANTRY--ITS STATION BEFORE THE SPANISH AMERICAN WAR AND TRIP TO TAMPA, FLORIDA--THE PART IT TOOK IN THE FIGHT AT EL CANEY.
When our magnificent battleship Maine was sunk in Havana harbor, February 15, 1898, the 25th U.S. Infantry was scattered in western Montana, doing garrison duty, with headquarters at Fort Missoula. This regiment had been stationed in the West since 1880, when it came up from Texas where it had been from its consolidation in 1869, fighting Indians, building roads, etc., for the pioneers of that state and New Mexico. In consequence of the regiment's constant frontier service, very little was known of it outside of army circles. As a matter of course it was known that it was a colored regiment, but its praises had never been sung.
Strange to say, although the record of this regiment was equal to any in the service, it had always occupied remote stations, except a short period, from about May, 1880, to about August, 1885, when headquarters, band and a few companies were stationed at Fort Snelling, near St. Paul, Minnesota.