[Illustration:  The Famous No. 2 Gun.]

“One of the bravest things I saw in the war happened right here.  An officer came up—­he was a major of regulars—­I don’t know his regiment—­and he saw that we didn’t know what to aim at, and were getting a little rattled.  So what did he do but quickly walk out in front of the blockhouse where the bullets were coming thickest, and proceed to study the hills with his field-glass, just as unconcerned as you please.  And every now and then he would call to us who were inside, ’Men, sight at eight hundred yards and sweep the grass on the ridge of the hill’; or, again:  ’Men, I can see the Spaniards over there; try a thousand-yard range and see if you can’t get some of them.  Fire low!’ I never saw such nerve as that officer had; he’d have stirred courage in everybody.”

“Didn’t he get hit?” he was asked.

“I’ll tell you about that in a minute; but while he was out there shaking hands with death, you might say, I was witness to a little incident in the blockhouse that is worth telling about:  A lot of us were in there from different regiments—­some from the Thirteenth, some from the Sixteenth, and some colored boys from the Twenty-fourth.  We were all blazing away through the firing-openings in the walls.

[Illustration:  Bringing Up Captain Capron’s Battery.]

“Just beside me was a big negro, who didn’t seem more than half interested in what he was doing.  I saw him pull a dead Spaniard out of the door with a listless movement, and then pick up his rifle as if he thought the whole thing a bore.  Suddenly, a bullet came in with a zip along the underside of his gun barrel, glanced against the strap, and took the skin off the negro’s knuckles as if they’d been scraped with a knife.  And then you should see the change!  He wasn’t scared—­not a bit; but he was mad enough to have charged the whole Spanish army alone.  How he did talk—­not loud, just quietly to himself—­and how he did grab his cartridges and begin to shoot.

“Speaking of cartridges, some of the boys ran short because they had thrown away a lot in their haversacks; but I had put two beltfuls in a pair of socks and pinned them inside my shirt with safety pins, so I had plenty, and I was peppering away from behind a brick chimney, when one of the Thirteenth lads called out to me:  ’Come over here, Seventy-one; I’ve got a fine shot for you.’

“I looked around and saw him standing by a window that was barred with iron, but had no sash to it.  He was kneeling on the floor, just showing his head over the sill, and looking at the Spanish line.  He was a nice looking lad, not a day over twenty-one, and his face was as smooth as a girl’s.  ‘All right,’ said I, going over to him, ’Where’s your shot?’

“‘There,’ said he, pointing to one of the hills:  ’nobody’s fired at that one yet, but I’m sure the dagos are there.  Set your sights at six hundred yards and we’ll try it together!’