The Second and Third had an interesting experience in Puerto Rico. Arriving at the port of Guamico upon the 25th of July, they took a prominent part in the bloodless capture of the neighboring city of Ponce. This task completed, they were detailed, with the Sixteenth Pennsylvania, to form the advance guard of the army, which prepared at once to sweep the island from south to north. Our men were almost daily under fire, particularly in road clearing skirmishes under General Roy Stone.

Two days after the landing at Guamico, Lieutenant Perry Cochrane, of Eau Claire, an officer of the Third, was sent forward with seventeen other Eau Claire men, to open up the railway line leading to the little village of Yauco, lying about twenty miles westward of Ponce, and to capture that place. The track and the bridges had been wrecked by the fleeing enemy, so that Cochrane's party endured much peril and fatigue before they reached their destination; and Yauco was not disposed to succumb to this handful of men. Cochrane successfully held his own, however, until the following day, when reënforcements arrived.

A few days after the fall of Ponce, the Sheboygan company was acting as guard to a detachment repairing the San Juan road, several miles out of town. Hearing that a party of Spanish soldiers had taken a stand at Lares, eighteen miles away, a detail was sent with a flag of truce, to treat with them. The squad consisted of Lieutenant Bodemer, four privates, and a bugler. The Spaniards were not in a pleasant frame of mind, and but for their officers would have made short shrift of the visitors, despite the peaceful flag which they bore. Finally, the Spaniards agreed to receive a deputation of native Puerto Ricans, and talk the matter over with them. Our men withdrew, and sent natives in their stead; but the latter were treacherously assaulted, and only one of them escaped to tell the story.

Upon the 9th of August, there was a sharp fight at Coamo. Both of our regiments were actively employed in this encounter, and were of the troops which finally raised the American flag over the town walls.

The final engagement was fought two days later, at the mountain pass of Asomanta, near Aibonito, where 2500 Spanish troops were centered. The Second Wisconsin was the last American regiment in this fight, and lost two killed and three wounded. These were Wisconsin's only field losses during the war, although her deaths from camp diseases were about seventy.

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Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.