Late in the evening we camped at El Poso.  There were two regular officers, the brigade commander’s aides, Lieutenants A. L. Mills and W. E. Shipp, who were camped by our regiment.  Each of my men had food in his haversack, but I had none, and I would have gone supperless to bed if Mills and Shipp had not given me out of their scanty stores a big sandwich, which I shared with my orderly, who also had nothing.  Next morning my body servant Marshall, an ex-soldier of the Ninth (Colored) Cavalry, a fine and faithful fellow, had turned up and I was able in my turn to ask Mills and Shipp, who had eaten all their food the preceding evening, to take breakfast with me.  A few hours later gallant Shipp was dead, and Mills, an exceptionally able officer, had been shot through the head from side to side, just back of the eyes; yet he lived, although one eye was blinded, and before I left the Presidency I gave him his commission as Brigadier-General.

Early in the morning our artillery began firing from the hill-crest immediately in front of where our men were camped.  Several of the regiment were killed and wounded by the shrapnel of the return fire of the Spaniards.  One of the shrapnel bullets fell on my wrist and raised a bump as big as a hickory nut, but did not even break the skin.  Then we were marched down from the hill on a muddy road through thick jungle towards Santiago.  The heat was great, and we strolled into the fight with no definite idea on the part of any one as to what we were to do or what would happen.  There was no plan that our left wing was to make a serious fight that day; and as there were no plans, it was naturally exceedingly hard to get orders, and each of us had to act largely on his own responsibility.

Lawton’s infantry division attacked the little village of El Caney, some miles to the right.  Kent’s infantry division and Sumner’s dismounted cavalry division were supposed to detain the Spanish army in Santiago until Lawton had captured El Caney.  Spanish towns and villages, however, with their massive buildings, are natural fortifications, as the French found in the Peninsular War, and as both the French and our people found in Mexico.  The Spanish troops in El Caney fought very bravely, as did the Spanish troops in front of us, and it was late in the afternoon before Lawton accomplished his task.

Meanwhile we of the left wing had by degrees become involved in a fight which toward the end became not even a colonel’s fight, but a squad leader’s fight.  The cavalry division was put at the head of the line.  We were told to march forward, cross a little river in front, and then, turning to the right, march up alongside the stream until we connected with Lawton.  Incidentally, this movement would not have brought us into touch with Lawton in any event.  But we speedily had to abandon any thought of carrying it out.  The maneuver brought us within fair range of the Spanish intrenchments along the