The Dismounted Cavalry Division on the morning of July 1 presented 2,663 fighting men, including officers.  The First Brigade, commanded by Colonel Carrol, had 50 officers and 1,054 men, in regiments as follows:  Third Cavalry, 22 officers, 420 men; Sixth Cavalry, 16 officers, 427 men; Ninth Cavalry, 12 officers, 207 men, the Ninth having hardly one-half the strength of either of the other regiments of the brigade.  The Second Brigade, commanded by General Wood, contained 1,559 persons, distributed as follows:  Brigade staff, 9 officers, 14 men; First Cavalry, 21 officers, 501 men:  Tenth Cavalry, 22 officers, 507 men; First Volunteer Cavalry (Rough Riders), 25 officers, 517 men.

Before the troops left El Poso, Grimes’ battery had been put in position and had fired a few shots at a blockhouse on San Juan Hill, distance 2,600 yards.  Using black powder, which created a cloud of smoke with every shot, the battery was readily located by the foe, and the shrapnel from their guns was soon bursting among our forces.  The second shot from the Spaniards wounded four of the Rough Riders and two or three of the regulars, while a third killed and wounded several Cubans.  As a matter of course there was a rapid movements of the troops from that immediate vicinity.  The firing soon ceased, and the troops took up that general advance movement already noted.

It is no easy task to follow the movements of the Cavalry Division from the time it left El Poso that July morning until it finally entrenched itself for the night on San Juan Hills.  As heretofore we will take the official reports first, and from them make up the itinerary and the movements of the battle that followed, as far as they will enable us to do so.  General Sumner says the division proceeded toward Santiago, and when about three-fourths of a mile from El Poso was halted in a narrow road to await orders and remained there for nearly an hour, subject to the effects of heavy artillery fire from the enemy’s battery.  Major Wessells, of the Third Cavalry, says, while following the road toward Santiago that morn, “much delay ensued from some reason unknown to the undersigned,” and that the First Brigade of the division arrived at San Juan ford about 10 o’clock.  This creek was about five hundred yards farther toward Santiago than Aguadores River, and ran about parallel with San Juan Heights, from which it was about three-fourths of a mile distant.

The orders for which General Sumner had waited nearly an hour under fire had come and were “verbal instructions to move to the San Juan Creek and hold it.”  Reaching this creek his advance guard was met by the Spaniards who fired one volley and retreated to a position on a hill on Sumner’s right front, about 1,200 yards distant.  Crossing this creek with sufficient strength to hold it, Sumner was now ordered to move by the right flank and connect with Lawton’s left.  While his troops were in this massed condition prior to deploying to the