This conspicuous advance of the Twenty-fifth brought that regiment into the view of the world, and established for it a brilliant reputation for skill and courage.  Arriving in the very jaws of the fort the sharpshooters and marksmen of that regiment poured such a deadly fire into the loopholes of the fort that they actually silenced it with their rifles.  These men with the sternness of iron and the skill acquired by long and careful training, impressed their characteristics on the minds of all their beholders.  Of the four hundred men who went on the field that morning very few were recruits, and many had passed over ten years in the service.  When they “took the battle formation and advanced to the stone fort more like veterans than troops who had never been under fire,” as their commander reports, they gave to the world a striking exhibition of the effect of military training.  In each breast a spirit of bravery had been developed and their skill in the use of their arms did not for a moment forsake them.  They advanced against volleys from the fort and rifle pits in front, and a galling fire from blockhouses, the church tower and the village on their left.  Before a less severe fire than this, on that very day, a regiment of white volunteers had succumbed and was lying utterly demoralized by the roadside; before this same fire the Second Massachusetts Volunteers were forced to retire—­in the face of it the Twenty-fifth advanced steadily to its goal.

Lieutenant Moss, who commanded Company H on the firing line on that day, has published an account in which he says:  “The town was protected on the north by three blockhouses and the church; on the west by three blockhouses (and partially by the church); on the east by the stone fort, one blockhouse, the church, and three rifle pits; on the south and southeast by the stone fort, three blockhouses, one loop-holed house, the church and eight rifle pits.  However, the Second Brigade was sent forward against the southeast of the town, thus being exposed to fire from fourteen sources, nearly all of which were in different planes, forming so many tiers of fire.  The cover on the south and southeast of the town was no better than, if as good, as that on the other sides.”

The cavalry regiments were no less conspicuous in their gallantry at San Juan than was the Twenty-fifth Infantry at El Caney.  The brilliancy of that remarkable regiment, the Rough Riders, commanded on July 1st by Colonel Roosevelt, was so dazzling that it drew attention away from the ordinary regulars, yet the five regiments of regular cavalry did their duty as thoroughly on that day as did the regiment of volunteers.[22] In this body of cavalry troops, where courage was elevated to a degree infringing upon the romantic, the two black regiments took their places, and were fit to be associated in valor with that highly representative regiment.  The Inspector-General turns aside from mere routine in his report long enough