THE FIRST BATTLE.

[Illustration:  Charge on El Caney—­Twenty-Fifth Infantry.]

On the morning of June 24th the Rough Riders struck camp early, and was marching along the trail at a rapid gait, at “route step,” in any order suitable to the size of the road.  Having marched several miles through a well-wooded country, they came to an opening near where the road forked.  They turned into the left fork; at that moment, without the least warning, the Cubans leading the march having passed on unmolested, a volley from the Spanish behind a stone fort on top of the hill on both sides of the road was fired into their ranks.  They were at first disconcerted, but rallied at once and began firing in the direction from whence came the volleys.  They could not advance, and dared not retreat, having been caught in a sunken place in the road, with a barbed-wire fence on one side and a precipitous hill on the other.  They held their ground, but could do no more.  The Spanish poured volley after volley into their ranks.  At the moment when it looked as if the whole regiment would be swept down by the steel-jacketed bullets from the Mausers, four troops of the 10th U.S.  Cavalry (colored) came up on “double time.”  Little thought the Spaniards that these “smoked yankees” were so formidable.  Perhaps they thought to stop those black boys by their relentless fire, but those boys knew no stop.  They halted for a second, and having with them a Hotchkiss gun soon knocked down the Spanish improvised fort, cut the barb-wire, making an opening for the Rough Riders, started the charge, and, with the Rough Riders, routed the Spaniards, causing them to retreat in disorder, leaving their dead and some wounded behind.  The Spaniards made a stubborn resistance.  So hot was their fire directed at the men at the Hotchkiss gun that a head could not be raise, and men crawled on their stomachs like snakes loading and firing.  It is an admitted fact that the Rough Riders could not have dislodged the Spanish by themselves without great loss, if at all.

The names of Captain A.M.  Capron, Jr., and Sergeant Hamilton Fish, Jr., of the Rough Riders, who were killed in this battle, have been immortalized, while that of Corporal Brown, 10th Cavalry, who manned the Hotchkiss gun in this fight, without which the American loss in killed and wounded would no doubt have been counted by hundreds, and who was killed by the side of his gun, is unknown by the public.

At the time the battle of the Rough Riders was fought the 25th Infantry was within hearing distance of the battle and received orders to reinforce them, which they could have done in less than two hours, but our Brigade Commander in marching to the scene of battle took the wrong trail, seemingly on purpose, and when we arrived at the place of battle twilight was fading into darkness.

The march in the direction of Santiago continued, until the evening of June 30th found us bivouacked in the road less than two miles from El Caney.  At the first glimpse of day on the first day of July word was passed along the line for the companies to “fall in.”  No bugle call was sounded, no coffee was made, no noise allowed.  We were nearing the enemy, and every effort was made to surprise him.  We had been told that El Caney was well fortified, and so we found it.