semi-circular position along the ridge and immediately to the right of the house.  You had pickets out to your front; and several hundred yards to your front the Spaniards had a heavy outpost occupying a house, with rifle pits surrounding it.  Later in the day, and during the following day, the various regiments forming the Division were rearranged and brought into tactical formation, the First Brigade on the left and immediately to the right of Fort San Juan, and the Second Brigade on the right of the First.

This was the position occupied by the Cavalry Division until the final surrender of the Spanish forces, on July 17, 1898.

In conclusion allow me to say, that I saw you, personally, at about 8 A.M., at El Poso; later, on the road to San Juan River; later, on the summit of Kettle Hill, immediately after its capture by the Cavalry Division.  I saw you move forward with your command to assault San Juan Ridge, and I saw you on San Juan Ridge, where we visited your line together, and you explained to me the disposition of your command.

I am, sir, with much respect, Your obedient servant, SAMUEL S. SUMNER, Major-General United States Army.

CHAPTER VIII

THE NEW YORK GOVERNORSHIP

In September, 1898, the First Volunteer Cavalry, in company with most of the rest of the Fifth Army Corps, was disembarked at Montauk Point.  Shortly after it was disbanded, and a few days later, I was nominated for Governor of New York by the Republican party.  Timothy L. Woodruff was nominated for Lieutenant-Governor.  He was my stanch friend throughout the term of our joint service.

The previous year, the machine or standpat Republicans, who were under the domination of Senator Platt, had come to a complete break with the anti-machine element over the New York mayoralty.  This had brought the Republican party to a smash, not only in New York City, but in the State, where the Democratic candidate for Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, Alton B. Parker, was elected by sixty or eighty thousand majority.  Mr. Parker was an able man, a lieutenant of Mr. Hill’s, standing close to the conservative Democrats of the Wall Street type.  These conservative Democrats were planning how to wrest the Democratic party from the control of Mr. Bryan.  They hailed Judge Parker’s victory as a godsend.  The Judge at once loomed up as a Presidential possibility, and was carefully groomed for the position by the New York Democratic machine, and its financial allies in the New York business world.

The Republicans realized that the chances were very much against them.  Accordingly the leaders were in a chastened mood and ready to nominate any candidate with whom they thought there was a chance of winning.  I was the only possibility, and, accordingly, under pressure from certain of the leaders who recognized this fact, and who responded to popular pressure, Senator Platt picked me for the nomination.  He was entirely frank in the matter.  He made no pretense that he liked me personally; but he deferred to the judgment of those who insisted that I was the only man who could be elected, and that therefore I had to be nominated.