The Colored Regulars in the United States Army

by T. G. Steward

On the day following, June 27th, the entire division moved out on the road toward Santiago and encamped on the same ground that Lawton had occupied the night previous. The Second Brigade took its place near Savilla, while the Third Brigade, which included the Twenty-fourth Infantry, went into camp at Las Guasimas, where the affair of the 24th had occurred. The order of march had now partially fallen back to the original plan: Lawton in advance, with whom was the Twenty-Fifth Infantry; Wheeler next, with whom was the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, and Kent in the rear, who had, as we have just related, the Twenty-fourth Infantry in his Third Brigade. In this order the army moved, so far as it moved at all, until the morning of the 30th, when dispositions for the general attack began.

The story of the great battle, or as it turned out, of the two great battles, begins on this day, and the careers of the four colored regiments are to be followed through the divisions of Lawton, Kent and Wheeler. Let us begin, however, with General Shafter's official report and his "Story of Santiago," as told in the "Century" of February, 1899.

From these sources it is learned that on June 30th General Shafter reconnoitered the country about Santiago and determined upon a plan of attack. Ascending a hill from which he could obtain a good view of the city, and could also see San Juan Hill and the country about El Caney, he observed afresh what had impressed itself upon all immediately upon landing, to wit: That in all this country there were no good roads along which to move troops or transport supplies. The General says: "I had never seen a good road in a Spanish country, and Santiago did not disappoint my expectations." The roads as he saw them from the summit of the hill on June 30th were very poor, and indeed, little better than bridle paths, except between El Caney and San Juan River and the city. Within this region, a distance of from four to four and a half miles, the roads were passable. El Caney lay about four miles northeast of Santiago, and was strongly fortified, and, as events proved, strongly garrisoned. This position was of great importance to the enemy, because from it a force might come to attack the right flank and rear of the American Army as it should make its attempt on San Juan Hill. El Caney held the road from Guantanamo, at which point an important Spanish force was posted. While General Shafter was surveying the country from the hill at El Pozo and making what special examination he could of the country toward San Juan Hills, Generals Lawton and Chaffee were making a reconnoisance around El Caney. From General Lawton's report it would appear that the work of reconnoitering around El Caney was done chiefly by General Chaffee. He says: "To General Adna R. Chaffee I am indebted for a thorough and intelligent reconnoissance of the town of El Caney and vicinity prior to the battle and the submission of a plan of attack which was adopted. I consider General Chaffee one of the best practical soldiers in the army and recommend him for special distinction for successfully charging the stone fort mentioned in this report, the capture of which practically closed the battle."

The general plan of attack as explained by General Shafter himself in his "Century" article was "to put a brigade on the road between Santiago and El Caney, to keep the Spaniards at the latter place from retreating on the city, and then with the rest of Lawton's division and the divisions of Wheeler and Kent, and Bates' brigade to attack the Spanish position in front of Santiago." Before that he had said that he wished to put a division in on the right of El Caney and assault the town on that road. To Admiral Sampson on June 26th he said: "I shall, if I can, put a large force in Caney, and one perhaps still farther west, near the pipe-line conveying water to the city, making my main attack from the northeast and east." His desire at this time was to "get the enemy in my front and the city at my back." On June 30th he had modified this plan so as to decide to place one brigade on the road between El Caney and Santiago, with a view merely to keeping the El Caney garrison from retreating into Santiago.

As he was explaining his plan to the division officers and others on the afternoon of the 30th at his own headquarters, Lawton and Chaffee were of the opinion that they could dispose of the Spaniards at El Caney in two hours time. "Therefore," says the General, "I modified my plan, assigning Lawton's whole division for the attack of El Caney and directed Bates' independent brigade to his support." This last modification of General Shafter's plan was made in deference to the opinion of subordinates, and was based upon observations made especially by General Chaffee.

The force assigned for the reduction of El Caney was to begin its work early in the morning, and by ten or eleven o'clock at the outside it was expected that the task would be accomplished and Lawton would join Kent and Sumner in the assault upon San Juan. Early on the morning of July 1st Capron's battery was got into position on a line running directly north from Marianage on a hill about five hundred yards east of Las Guasimas Creek. Lawton's division began its move on the afternoon of the 30th, as did in fact the whole army, and bivouacked that night near El Pozo. The Twenty-fifth Infantry, which belonged to the Second Brigade, commanded by Colonel Miles, a former Major of the Twenty-fifth, left El Pozo at daylight by way of the road leading almost due north, and marched about one mile to the little town of Marianage. Here a halt was made for an hour, from 6.30 to 7.30, during which time reconnoitering parties were sent out to examine the ground toward the Ducoureau House, which lay about one mile to the northward of Marianage, and which had been designated by General Lawton as a general rendezvous after the engagement should terminate. Reconnoissance was made also to the front for the purpose of discovering the enemy, and to ascertain the left of Ludlow's brigade. This was the first brigade of Lawton's division and consisted of the Eighth and Twenty-second Infantry and the Second Massachusetts, the last named regiment being on the right. The Second Brigade was to connect with this on its right and succeeded in finding the position of the Second Massachusetts during this halt. At 11.30 Miles' brigade was ordered to take position on the right of Ludlow's brigade, which it did in the following order: The Fourth Infantry on the left, joining with the Second Massachusetts on Ludlow's right; the Twenty-fifth on the right, with its left joining on the Fourth Infantry.

We must now review the progress of the battle so far as it is possible to do so, from the firing of the first shot by Capron's battery up to 11.30, an hour long after the time at which it had been supposed that El Caney would fall. Capron's reports are very brief. He says: "July 1—Fired shell and shrappnel into El Caney (ranged 2,400) 6.15 a.m. to 11.30 a.m." In another report he says: "Opened fire July 1, with shell and shrappnel at 6.15 on Caney; range, 2,400 yards; continued until 11.30 a.m." He says that the battery "continued its fire against specified objectives intermittently throughout the day under the personal direction of the division commander." The forces we have so far considered, consisting of Ludlow's and Miles' brigades, and of Capron's battery, lay to the south of Caney, between it and Santiago, Ludlow's brigade having been placed there to "cut off the retreat of the garrison should it attempt to escape." Up to 11.30 there had been no call for employing it for that purpose. The garrison had made no attempt to escape. We must now go around to the east and north of Caney. Here the Third Brigade, consisting of the Seventh, Twelfth and Seventeenth Infantry, was posted, and early in the morning joined in the attack, the brigade getting under fire before eight o'clock. Colonel Carpenter, of the Seventh Regiment, says that one company of his regiment, by General Chaffee's direction, was detached and sent forward to reduce a blockhouse, well up on the hill, which commanded the approach of his regiment to the field of action. After several ineffectual attempts by the company, the Captain (Van Orsdale) was directed to abandon the undertaking and rejoin the regiment, which then took up a position on the crest of a hill running nearly parallel with the Spanish lines. From this position the men crawled forward about fifty yards and opened a deliberate fire upon the enemy, keeping it up for about an hour, but as the losses of the regiment at this time were considerable and the fire seemed to be without material effect, the command was withdrawn to its position on the hill where it found protection in a sunken road. In this condition this regiment lay when Capron's battery made its lull at 11.30. The fearful fire this regiment met can be estimated by the losses it sustained, which during the day were as follows: Killed, 1 officer and 33 enlisted men; wounded, 4 officers and 95 enlisted men; missing, 3 enlisted men. The Seventeenth Regiment went into action on the right of the Seventh, doing but little firing, as their orders were not to open fire unless they could make the fire effective. Companies C and G fired a few volleys; the remainder of the regiment did not fire at all. Four enlisted men were killed and two officers severely wounded, one, Lieutenant Dickinson, dying from his wounds within a few hours. Several enlisted men were also wounded. At 11.30 this regiment was lying on the right of the Seventh. The Twelfth Regiment began firing between 6 and 7 in the morning and advanced to take its position on the left of the Seventh Infantry. This regiment early reached a position within 350 yards of the enemy, in which it found shelter in the sunken road, "free from the enemy's fire." The regiment remained in this position until about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and, hence, was there at 11.30 a.m. The losses of this regiment during the day were, killed, 7 enlisted men; wounded, 2 officers and 31 enlisted men. From these brief sketches the reader will now be able to grasp the position of Lawton's entire division. Beginning on the south, from the west, with Ludlow's brigade, consisting of the Twenty-second, Eighth and Second Massachusetts, the line was continued by Miles' brigade of the Fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry; then passing over a considerable space, we strike Chaffee's brigade, posted as has just been described. General Bates' brigade probably arrived upon the field about noon. This brigade consisted of the Third and Twentieth Infantry, and is known as "Bates' Independent Brigade." The brigade is reported as going into action about 1 o'clock and continuing in action until 4 o'clock. It took a position on the right, partially filling up the gap between Miles and Chaffee. The first battalion of the Twentieth Infantry went into action on the left of the Twenty-fifth Infantry's firing line, and one company, A, took part in the latter part of the charge by which the stone house was taken. Between 11.30, when Capron's firing stopped, and when Miles' brigade was moved forward to join the right of Ludlow's, and 12.20, when the battery recommenced, the troops, including Bates' brigade, were either in the positions described above or were moving to them. Noon had arrived and El Caney is not taken; the garrison has not attempted to escape, but is sending out upon its assailants a continuous and deadly fire. "Throughout the heaviest din of our fire," says Colonel Carpenter, "could be heard the peculiar high-keyed ring of the defiant enemy's shots."

Twelve o'clock on July 1st, 1898, was a most anxious hour for our army in Cuba. The battle at El Caney was at a standstill and the divisions of Kent and Sumner were in a most perilous situation. Bonsal's description of the state of the battle at that time is pathetic. Speaking of the artillery at El Caney—Capron's battery—he says it was now apparent that this artillery, firing from its position of twenty-four hundred yards, could do very little damage to the great stone fort and earthworks north of the village. The shots were too few and the metal used too light to be effectual. Three hours of the morning had worn away and the advance of our men had been slowly made and at great cost; all the approaches were commanded by Spanish entrenchments and the fighting was very unequal. A soldier of the Twenty-fifth says that when he came in sight of the battle at El Caney, "the Americans were gaining no ground, and the flashes of the Spanish mausers told us that the forces engaged were unequally matched, the difference of position favoring the Spaniards." This view was had about noon, or soon after. At that time "a succession of aides and staff officers came galloping from headquarters with messages which plainly showed that confusion, if not disaster, had befallen the two divisions which, by the heavy firing, we had learned to our great surprise, had become warmly engaged in the centre. The orders to General Lawton from headquarters were at first peremptory in character—he was to pull out of his fight and to move his division to the support of the centre" (Bonsal). This call for Lawton arose from the fact that about noon General Shafter received several dispatches from Sumner, of the Cavalry Division, requiring assistance. General Sumner felt the need of the assistance of every available man in the centre of the line where he was carrying on his fight with the Spaniards on Blue House Hill. This situation so impressed the General, Shafter, that he finally wrote to Lawton, "You must proceed with the remainder of your force and join on immediately upon Sumner's right. If you do not the battle is lost." Shafter's idea then was to fall back to his original plan of just leaving enough troops at El Caney to prevent the garrison from going to the assistance of any other part of the line. Shafter himself says: "As the fight progressed I was impressed with the fact that we were meeting with a very stubborn resistance at El Caney and I began to fear that I had made a mistake in making two fights in one day, and sent Major Noble with orders to Lawton to hasten with his troops along the Caney road, placing himself on the right of Wheeler" (Sumner). Lawton now made a general advance, and it is important to see just what troops did advance. The Seventh Infantry did not move, for Lieutenant-Colonel Carpenter says that after withdrawing "to the partial cover furnished by the road, the regiment occupied this position from 8 o'clock a.m. until about 4.30 p.m." The Seventeenth did not move, for Captain O'Brien, commanding, says the regiment took a position joining "its left with the right of the Seventh Infantry" and that the regiment "remained in this position until the battle was over." The Twelfth Infantry remained in its shelter within 350 yards of the stone fort until about 4 p.m. Then we have Chaffee's brigade on the north of the fort remaining stationary and by their own reports doing but little firing. The Seventeenth fired "for about fifty minutes" about noon, with remarkable precision, but "it seemingly had no effect upon reducing the Spanish fire delivered in our (their) front." The Seventh did not fire to any extent. The Twelfth Infantry lay in its refuge "free from the enemy's fire" and may have kept up an irregular fire.

About this time Bates' brigade entered the field and one battalion of the Twentieth Infantry is reported to have joined the left of the firing line of the Twenty-fifth. General Ludlow says there was a lull from 12 to 1 p.m., "when the action again became violent, and at 3 p.m. the Third Brigade captured the stone fort with a rush and hoisted the American flag." From Ludlow's brigade, Captain Van Horne, commanding the Twenty-second Infantry, after the wounding of Lieutenant-Colonel Patterson, says that the First Battalion of his regiment took a position about 800 yards from the town and kept up firing until the place surrendered. He does not say positively that the firing was upon the town, but he had said just before that the Second Battalion slowly moved forward, firing into the town from the left, so that we may readily conclude from the context as well as from the position that the First Battalion fired into the town also. Hence it seems fair to exclude from the fort all of Ludlow's brigade, and it is observable that Ludlow himself claims no part in the capture of that stronghold.

General Bates says his brigade took position to the right of Colonel Miles' brigade and pushed rapidly to the front. He then says that after remaining sometime in the crossroad to the right of Miles' brigade, under a heavy fire from the enemy, the brigade moved farther "to the right to the assault of a small hill, occupied upon the top by a stone fort and well protected by rifle pits. General Chaffee's brigade charged them from the right, and the two brigades joining upon the crest, opened fire from this point of vantage, lately occupied by the Spanish, upon the village of El Caney." General Chaffee says it was in consequence of the fire of General Bates' troops upon the fort that the assault by the Twelfth Infantry was postponed.