About 11.00 P.M. found Colonel Roosevelt a few hundred yards from the Spanish lines with some of my regiment, the First Cavalry, and Rough Riders, at work on trenches, where we reported.  All seemed glad to have my little reinforcement, about 65 men, and ammunition.  I never felt so relieved at anything as I did to get that herculean task off my hands, a job as hard as working a problem in the third book of Euclid.  The men were so tired that they would lie down at every stop to find the right road or the way out of the wire entanglements constantly encountered.  I have never seen in a book anything to equal the Spanish wire entanglements.  Barbed wire was stretched in every nook and corner, through streams, grass, and from two inches to six feet in height, and from a corkscrew to a cable in design.  It takes the nerve of a circus man to get men along when they are so exhausted that every place feels alike to them, and that they would gladly give away Mr. Jim Hill’s fortune if they possessed it, for a few hours’ sleep.

On arrival at the front, lunch was about over or just ready.  Lieutenant E.D.  Anderson (10th Cavalry) gave me two and one-half hardtacks from his supply, which he carried in his bosom.  I was soon down for a little rest; all desultory firing had ceased; the pick and the shovel were the only things to disturb the quietude of that anxious night.  Had been down but a short time when aroused by one of the Rough Riders, who had some rice and meat in an ammunition box which he brought from the captured blockhouse.  The meat was undoubtedly mule, as the longer I chewed it the larger and more spongy it got, and were it not for the fact that I had had some experience in the same line many years before in Mexico while in pursuit of hostile Indians, I would certainly have accused our best friends (Rough Riders) of feeding us rubber.  I made another effort for a little sleep, and was again aroused by some one passing around hardtack, raw bacon, etc., with instructions as to where to go to cook it.  I thanked him and carefully laid it aside to resume my nap.  At 2.40 A.M. the pickets were having such a lively set to, that I thought the general engagement was on.  It was at this time I discovered that I was shivering cold, and that my teeth were rattling equal to a telegraph sounder; so under the circumstances, I concluded not to try for any more sleep.  The dew was falling thick and heavy; no coat, no blanket, top shirt torn in strips from the brush, and undershirt wet and in my pack, thrown off on coming into battle.

Early July 22nd the artillery took position on our left.  Pickets kept up firing from 2.40 A.M. until 5.25, when the engagement became general.  Shortly after 6.00 A.M. our artillery opened on the Spanish works, who promptly returned the compliment.  During the firing the Dons exploded a shell in the muzzle of one of our pieces.  Adjutant Barnum fell at 6.30 A.M.; his wound was promptly dressed, when I