After the Rain.
During this last engagement it had been necessary to obtain more men to assist in carrying ammunition, and Capt. Ayers, of the 10th Cavalry, had furnished a detail, consisting of Serg. Graham and Privates Smith and Taylor, Troop E, 10th Cavalry. These colored soldiers proved to be excellent. They remained with the battery until the end of the fighting on the 17th, and were in every respect the peers of any soldier in the detachment. Serg. Graham was recommended for a medal of honor. Privates Smith and Taylor did as good service, were as willing, as obedient, as prompt, and as energetic in the discharge of their duties as any commanding officer could wish to have. It is a great pleasure to be able to give this testimony to the merits of our colored troopers, and to say, in addition, that no soldiers ever fought better than the “Brunettes” of the 9th and 10th Cavalry, who fought from the 3d of July until the 12th, near or with the Gatlings.
After the firing at the ford had ceased, Capt. Marcotte had returned to El Poso to investigate the movements of our artillery. These were then, and have remained, one of those inscrutable and mysterious phenomena of a battle; incomprehensible to the ordinary layman, and capable of being understood only by “scientific” soldiers. The charge upon the San Juan ridge was practically unsupported by artillery. No American shells had struck the San Juan block-house; none had struck or burst in its vicinity; not even a moral effect by our artillery had assisted in the assault. So Marcotte had gone to investigate the artillery arm. He returned at sundown, and brought the information that our baggage was safe at El Poso; that Private Pyne, still alive and unhurt, had been doing good work against the enemy’s sharpshooters; and, better than all this, had brought back with him a canteen of water from the San Juan River and a pocket full of hardtack. He poured out his hardtack, and it was equally distributed among the members of the detachment, each man’s share amounting to two pieces. Each man was also given a sup of water from the canteen, and this constituted their only supper on that night, as they had been compelled to throw away everything to keep up with the guns. Having disposed of that, exhausted Nature could do no more; they lay down in the mud where they stood, and slept so soundly that even the firing which occurred that night did not arouse them from their slumbers. They were not disturbed until Best’s Battery began to occupy this hill about four o’clock in the morning. They were then aroused and the Gatling guns were drawn down, and the whole battery moved to the salient occupied by the Rough Riders, because their position was at that time closest to the enemy, and, as was determined by the previous day’s reconnaissance, offered a chance to enfilade several of the enemy’s trenches with machine gun fire.
To dispose of the subject of artillery, it may be said that Best’s Battery and some other artillery occupied the ground vacated by the Gatlings on the morning of July 2d, fired four shots, and then withdrew with more haste than dignity. They remarked, “This is the hottest fire to which artillery has been subjected in modern times,” and lit out to find a cooler place. They found it—so far in rear that their fire was almost equally dangerous to friends and foes on account of the close proximity of the two firing-lines. The obvious conclusion is that machine guns can live at close ranges, where artillery can not stay. There is no better light artillery in the world than that which had to withdraw from San Juan block-house and its vicinity, on the morning of July 2d.
CHAPTER VIII.
TACTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLES AT SANTIAGO.
The situation of affairs on the night of the 1st of July was rather critical. The plan which the general had laid down had been delayed in execution at El Caney, while the impetuousity of the troops had precipitated an unexpected rapidity of movement at San Juan. Capron’s Battery had opened at El Caney about half past seven o’clock, with badly aimed and ill-directed fire, which did very little damage to the enemy. The troops engaged in this part of the battle were pushed forward until, by about eleven o’clock, they had become pretty thoroughly deployed around the vicinity of Las Guamas Creek. They had also extended slightly to the right and to the left toward the Du Cuorot house. The Spanish forts obstinately held out, and the handful of Spanish soldiers in El Caney and vicinity stubbornly resisted the attack made by our troops.
About nine o’clock, Hamilton’s right piece, No. 3 of Capron’s Battery, succeeded in planting a shell directly in the old stone fort, which knocked a hole in the masonry; but, just at this juncture, the battery was ordered to cease firing at the blockhouse, and to shell the enemy’s trenches. The enemy forthwith utilized the hole made in the wall by the shell as a loop-hole, and continued to fire through it until the fort was taken by the infantry assault at about half-past four o’clock. No worse commentary than this could possibly be made upon the tactical handling of this battery of artillery, because, having obtained perfectly the range of the enemy’s stronghold, it was simply asinine not to knock that block-house to pieces immediately.
So Lawton’s Division had remained in front of El Caney, held by about 1000 Spaniards, while the shadows crept from the west to the north, from the north to the northeast, and from the northeast toward the east. It was coming toward night before the artillery was finally turned loose. One corner and the roof of this block-house were knocked off, but even then the artillery was so poorly handled that the enemy had to be dislodged from this block-house by hand-to-hand fighting, A single Hotchkiss gun, properly handled, should have converted it into ruins in thirty minutes.
While these events were transpiring, Kent and Wheeler, constituting the left wing of the army, had moved forward on the El Poso road, parallel to the Aguadores River, as far as the San Juan had captured the San Juan farm-house, and had gradually deployed to the right and to the left along the San Juan River. About one o’clock their line had swept forward and had captured the first ridge between the San Juan and the city of Santiago, the “San Juan ridge,” driving the enemy on this portion of the field into their last trenches. But the right flank of this wing was entirely unsupported, and the road by the way of Fort Canosa to San Juan, passing by the portion of the line subsequently occupied by the dynamite gun, marked the extreme position of the right of this wing of the army. The enemy was already well toward its right, and had the excellent El Caney road to move upon. He was thoroughly familiar with the country, while the troops composing this wing were exhausted by the charge. This wing had no reserve that the firing-line knew of, and, as a matter of fact, had none except two battalions of the 71st New York, which had not got into battle, and which were scattered along the road from the San Juan River to Siboney.
The position occupied by the left wing of the army was a strong natural position, but had no protection for the right flank. In this, Lawton’s Division did not execute the part of the battle assigned to it. Thus the officers on the San Juan ridge, who knew anything about the plan of the battle, were constantly directing their gaze, at every lull in the fighting, toward El Caney, and to the right of Gen. Wood’s position, but there were no indications of the approach of Gen. Lawton.