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channel, and some eighteen miles southeast of Santiago by the direct trail through the tropical jungle. The first troops to land cleared the adjacent hills of sharpshooters, and most of the forces were on shore before the end of the 23d. From Siboney the narrow and much-worn trail through the jungle loam led toward the Spanish entrenchments and entanglements east and south of Santiago. Without orders on the night of the 23d the troops swarmed inland along this path. The nature of the terrain made it less important that most of the cavalry horses had been left behind at Tampa together with many of the ambulances of the medical department and other wheeled vehicles belonging to the supply service. Along a jungle path only a pack-mule could advance with comfort. The morning of the 24th found the head of the column deployed along the line of hills marked by a junction in the trails at a point known to the Cubans as Las Guasimas. The Rough Riders were here too, dismounted but enterprising, for they had marched all night without orders and unchecked by superior command, in order to select for themselves a good fighting place upon the front. The correspondents and the military reports differ as to whether the column was ambushed or expected the engagement that the Spanish outposts offered at Las Guasimas, but here on the 24th was the first military engagement of importance with nearly a thousand American troops involved, fighting rather blindly in the forest, and with some seventy casualties which fell most heavily upon Colonel Wood's First Volunteer Cavalry.

During the next week General Shafter established control over his army and prepared for his Santiago campaign independent of Sampson's force.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Theodore Roosevelt, Rough Riders (1899), is the classic of the war, and is supplemented by R. H. Davis, The Cuban and Porto Rican Campaigns (1899), and the official histories, John D. Long, The New American Navy (1903), and Russell A. Alger, The Spanish-American War (1901). The Annual Reports (1898) of Long and Alger contain many documents. W. A. M. Goode, With Sampson through the War (1899), and J. D. Miley,

In Cuba with Shafter (1899), are narratives by journalistic eye-witnesses. A convenient summary is H. W. Wilson, The Downfall of Spain (1899); much more important is F. E. Chadwick, The Relations of the United States and Spain: The Spanish-American War (1911).

Advance

CHAPTER XXVI

SANTIAGO AND THE PEACE

FROM Siboney to the fortifications around Santiago there extended a dense forest with no improved roads and with only one important direct trail. Shortly before on Santiago reaching the Spanish trenches and wire entanglements, the forest gave way to an open valley through which the San Juan River flowed southwestward, and along the western ridge of which the Spanish station had been taken. General Shafter prepared for a direct attack along the line of this road, and for an enveloping movement headed at the Santiago waterworks at El Caney, some six miles up the San Juan above the crossing of the trail. The army was entirely ashore by the 25th, and in the remaining days of June its units were sorted out, and its brigade commanders were given their tasks in connection with the general advance which was to take place on the night preceding July 1. The Spanish forces made no serious attempt to interfere with these preparations, but instead discussed with the Government at Havana the course to be taken in defense and the possibility of saving a portion of the fleet through flight.

On the evening of June 30 the regiments got into position, with Shafter sick in his tent behind the lines at El Pozo, and deriving his information at second-hand. Lawton on the right of the line moved early in the evening for his detour by another jungle trail against El Caney and the Spanish blockhouses defending it. Early on the morning of July 1 the double attack opened. Its strategy was partly defeated at the start by a stubborn Spanish resistance at El Caney. Lawton, instead of wiping out the Spanish left and rejoining the main American column early in the day, was detained at El Caney until late in the afternoon, and came back into line the following morning after thirty-six weary hours.

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The advance against the hills beyond the San Juan took place as arranged. The trenches here were assaulted and Battle of taken. The Rough Riders, now under the comSan Juan mand of Colonel Roosevelt, charged at the right of the main column, having their chief engagement at Kettle Hill, somewhat northeast of the San Juan hills. That night the American forces occupied and reversed the Spanish trenches. On the 2d of July the engagement continued with considerable rifle fire all day, and by evening Shafter began to wonder whether he was able to retain the ground he had seized. The possibility of a withdrawal was discussed with Washington, while Sampson was appealed to to force the channel, engage the Spanish fleet, and create a diversion in the Spanish rear. Arrangements were made for a conference at Siboney on the morning of the 3d, in order that the two commanders might reconstruct their plan of action.

The successful assault upon the land defenses of Santiago convinced the Spanish authorities of the certainty of defeat. Upon July 2 Admiral Cervera was ordered to take his fleet to sea, and to run the risk of total destruction in the hope that some of the units might escape. He had known before leaving Spain, and had made record of the fact, that he was being sent to defeat. The Spanish Ministry of Marine had known that his fleet was hardly seaworthy, and in no sense ready for an engagement. The heavy guns of his largest ship were not mounted in the turrets, but were carried as cargo in the hold. The fleet was sent to sea because of insistence on the part of Spanish opinion, and because the Ministry feared that the monarchy could not stand an open confession of naval incapacity. Defeat in battle would be less of a blow.

The American battle fleet was, as usual, drawn up facing the entrance to the harbor at daybreak on Sunday, July 3. Naval battle

At about eight o'clock Sampson started off in the New York, from his station near the right of the line, for his conference with Shafter. At nine-thirty-five the lookouts on the Brooklyn sighted the first vessel of the

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