Lieutenants W. E. Shipp and W. H. Smith were killed, not far from each other, while gallantly leading their troops on the slope of Kettle Hill. Each left a widow and young children.
Captain (now Colonel) A. L. Mills, the Brigade Adjutant-General, has written me some comments on my account of the fight on July 1st. It was he himself who first brought me word to advance. I then met Colonel Dorst—who bore the same message—as I was getting the regiment forward. Captain Mills was one of the officers I had sent back to get orders that would permit me to advance; he met General Sumner, who gave him the orders, and he then returned to me. In a letter to me Colonel Mills says in part:
I reached the head of the regiment as you came out of the lane and gave you the orders to enter the action. These were that you were to move, with your right resting along the wire fence of the lane, to the support of the regular cavalry then attacking the hill we were facing. "The red-roofed house yonder is your objective," I said to you. You moved out at once and quickly forged to the front of your regiment. I rode in rear, keeping the soldiers and troops closed and in line as well as the circumstances and conditions permitted. We had covered, I judge, from one-half to two-thirds the distance to Kettle Hill when Lieutenant-Colonel Garlington, from our left flank called to me that troops were needed in the meadow across the lane. I put one troop (not three, as stated in your account*) across the lane and went with it. Advancing with the troop, I began immediately to pick up troopers of the Ninth Cavalry who had drifted from their commands, and soon had so many they demanded nearly all my attention. With a line thus made up, the colored troopers on the left and yours on the right, the portion of Kettle Hill on the right of the red-roofed house was first carried. I very shortly thereafter had a strong firing-line established on the crest nearest the enemy, from the corner of the fence around the house to the low ground on the right of the hill, which fired into the strong line of conical straw hats, whose brims showed just above the edge of the Spanish trench directly west of that part of the hill.** These hats made a fine target! I had placed a young officer of your regiment in charge of the portion of the line on top of the hill, and was about to go to the left to keep the connection of the brigade—Captain McBlain, Ninth Cavalry, just then came up on the hill from the left and rear—when the shot struck that put me out of the fight.
* Note: The other two must have followed on their own initiative.
** Note: These were the Spaniards in the trenches we carried when we charged from Kettle Hill, after the infantry had taken the San Juan block-house.
There were many wholly erroneous accounts of the Guasimas fight published at the time, for the most part written by newspaper-men who were in the rear and utterly ignorant of what really occurred. Most of these accounts possess a value so purely ephemeral as to need no notice. Mr. Stephen Bonsal, however, in his book, "The Fight for Santiago," has cast one of them in a more permanent form; and I shall discuss one or two of his statements.
Mr. Bonsal was not present at the fight, and, indeed, so far as I know, he never at any time was with the cavalry in action. He puts in his book a map of the supposed skirmish ground; but it bears to the actual scene of the fight only the well-known likeness borne by Monmouth to Macedon. There was a brook on the battle-ground, and there is a brook in Mr. Bonsal's map. The real brook, flowing down from the mountains, crossed the valley road and ran down between it and the hill-trail, going nowhere near the latter. The Bonsal brook flows at right angles to the course of the real brook and crosses both trails—that is, it runs up hill. It is difficult to believe that the Bonsal map could have been made by any man who had gone over the hill-trail followed by the Rough Riders and who knew where the fighting had taken place. The position of the Spanish line on the Bonsal map is inverted compared to what it really was.
On page 90 Mr. Bonsal says that in making the "precipitate advance" there was a rivalry between the regulars and Rough Riders, which resulted in each hurrying recklessly forward to strike the Spaniards first. On the contrary. The official reports show that General Young's column waited for some time after it got to the Spanish position, so as to allow the Rough Riders (who had the more difficult trail) to come up. Colonel Wood kept his column walking at a smart pace, merely so that the regulars might not be left unsupported when the fight began; and as a matter of fact, it began almost simultaneously on both wings.
On page 91 Mr. Bonsal speaks of "The foolhardy formation of a solid column along a narrow trail, which brought them (the Rough Riders) within point-blank range of the Spanish rifles and within the unobstructed sweep of their machine-guns." He also speaks as if the advance should have been made with the regiment deployed through the jungle. Of course, the only possible way by which the Rough Riders could have been brought into action in time to support the regulars was by advancing in column along the trail at a good smart gait. As soon as our advance-guard came into contact with the enemy's outpost we deployed. No firing began for at least five minutes after Captain Capron sent back word that he had come upon the Spanish outpost. At the particular point where this occurred there was a dip in the road, which probably rendered it, in Capron's opinion, better to keep part of his men in it. In any event, Captain Capron, who was as skilful as he was gallant, had ample time between discovering the Spanish outpost and the outbreak of the firing to arrange his troop in the formation he deemed best. His troop was not in solid formation; his men were about ten yards apart. Of course, to have walked forward deployed through the jungle, prior to reaching the ground where we were to fight, would have been a course of procedure so foolish as to warrant the summary court-martial of any man directing it. We could not have made half a mile an hour in such a formation, and would have been at least four hours too late for the fighting.
On page 92 Mr. Bonsal says that Captain Capron's troop was ambushed, and that it received the enemy's fire a quarter of an hour before it was expected. This is simply not so. Before the column stopped we had passed a dead Cuban, killed in the preceding day's skirmish, and General Wood had notified me on information he had received from Capron that we might come into contact with the Spaniards at any moment, and, as I have already said, Captain Capron discovered the Spanish outpost, and we halted and partially deployed the column before the firing began. We were at the time exactly where we had expected to come across the Spaniards. Mr. Bonsal, after speaking of L Troop, adds: "The remaining troops of the regiment had travelled more leisurely, and more than half an hour elapsed before they came up to Capron's support." As a matter of fact, all the troops travelled at exactly the same rate of speed, although there were stragglers from each, and when Capron halted and sent back word that he had come upon the Spanish outpost, the entire regiment closed up, halted, and most of the men sat down. We then, some minutes after the first word had been received, and before any firing had begun, received instructions to deploy. I had my right wing partially deployed before the first shots between the outposts took place. Within less than three minutes I had G Troop, with Llewellen, Greenway, and Leahy, and one platoon of K Troop under Kane, on the firing-line, and it was not until after we reached the firing-line that the heavy volley-firing from the Spaniards began.