On the 20th of June General Shafter and his Staff, accompanied by Admiral Sampson and his Chief of Staff, landed in a emall bout at Asserradero, twelve miles west.of Santiago, and held a brief conference with General Garcia, who had arrived with an army of four thousand Cubans. The th Commanders seated themselves on boxes in an open palm-leaf hut, with a blue-print map before them, and here the fate of Santiago was sealed. On the 22nd and 23rd of June Shafter disembarked six thousand troops at Juragua and Baiquiri, twelve and fifteen miles east of Santiago, while Sampson shelled the coast as a diversion. One. shell demolished a whole battery, blowing the guns over the frit of the works and destroying the entire garrison, Another shell sank the Reina Mercedes in the harbour and disabled one of the Spanish torpedo boats. During the landing of the troops at Baiquiri, Corporal Cobb and Private English, of Troop D, Tenth Cavalry (coloured), fell between a lighter and the pier.. Captain O'Neill, of Wovd's Rough Riders, attempted their re-cue at the risk of his life, but the men were crushed before he reached them. Captain O'Neill. was hiniself subsequently Killed in the forefront of battle.
After landing, the American forces had pushed westward towards Santiago, and. early in the. morning. encountered the enemy near Siboney. Many of the volunteers were armed with old-style Springfield rifles, which' put them -at a: great disadvantage. Che smoke interfered with their aim' and revealed their positions to the Spanish, while the Spanish, who used smokeless powder, could often not be located. It was in this fight that the Rough liders first distinguished themvolves. Colonel Wood writes commenced our advance from our first landing-place on the twenty-third. General Young and I hid a long war-talk about taking the very strong Spanish position about five miles up the rad. He decided that he would make x" feint on their front, while I was to make a detour by trail, under a couple of Cuban guides, anil take them in flank, and try to get them out of their strong position, which was in the wildest "ud roughest part of the trail toward the town.
"Our little plan worked. I located the Spanish outposts and deployed on silently, and when in position fired on them. Shortly after I opene? I could hear Young on the right, down in the valley. The fight lasted over two hours, and was hot at close inge. The Spani-h used the volley a great deal, while my men fired as individua's. We soon found that instead of fifteen hundred men we had strack a very heavy outpost of several thotisand.
"However, to cut a long story short, we drove them stealily but, slowly, and finally threw them into fight Their losses must have been heavy, for all ports cuming out of Santiago report a great may dead and wounded."
To this fight the frough Riders marched singing songs and chafing "ne another. as was their wont. They had felt some grievance at the necessity of being dismounted, but they soon for-t it, und when warned by some. Cub ought to. proceed with grest caution, answered that they could very well take care of themselves. We quote from a graphic description of the battle At seven-thirty a.m. General Young gave the command to the men at the Hotchkiss eans to open fire. 'Ihe command was the beginning of a fight that for stubbornness has seldom been equalled. The instant the Hotchkiss gaus wore fired, the hill-sides commanding' the road gave forth volley after volley from the. Mausers of the Spanish.
"Don't shoot until you see something to shoot at!" yelled General Young, and the men, with set jaws and gleaming eyes, obeyed the order.
"Crawling along. the edge of the road, and protecting themselves as much as possible from the fearful fire of the Spaniards, the troops, some of them stripped to the waist, watched the base of the hill, and when' any part of " Spaniard became visible, fired. Never for an instant did they falter, "One dusky warrior of the Tenth Cavalry, with aragyed wound in his thigh, coolly knelt behind a rock loading and firing, and when told by one of his con rades' that he was wounded, lau shed an: said:
Oh, that's all right; that's been there for some time.'
"In the meantime, away off to the left, was heard the clack of the rifles of Colonel Wood's men and the regular, d-ep-toned volley-firing of the Spanish" Over there the American losses were the greatest.
"Colonel Wood's mes, wit an advance guard. well out in front snd two Cuban guides before them, but apparently with ho flankers, went squarely int the trap set for them ly the Spaniards, and only the unfaltering courage of the men in the face of lire that would make even " veteran quail prevented whit mizht have. been a disaster. As it was, Truop L, the advance guard, under the unfortunate Capron, Surrounded, and but for the r- inforeemments hurriedly sent forward every man probably would base been killed or wounded."
One of the officers engaged in the fight says:
"The fire of the Spaniards hud increased in volume, but, notwithstanding, att order for a general charge was given, and with yell the men sprang forward. Colonel Roosevelt, in front of his men, snatched arite and ammunition-belt froma wounded soldier, and, cheering and yelling with his men, led the advance. For a moment the bullets were singing like a swarm. of bees all-around them, and every instant suine poor fellow went down, On the right wing Captain BMoClintock had his leg: br ken by a bullet from a machine-gun, white four of his men went down. A" the sama time Captain Luna, of Troop F, lost- nine of his men. Then the reserves, Troops K and E, were ordered up. Colonel Wood, with the right wing, charge! straight at a block-house, eight hundred yards away, and Lieut.-Colonel Roosevelt, on the left, charged at the same time. Up the men went, yelling like fiends and never sto ping th tetum the fire of the Spaniards, but keeping on with grim determination to capture that block-house.
"That charge was the end. When within five hundred yards of the coveted: point the Spaniards broke and ran, and for the first time we had the pleasure, which the Spiniards had been experiencing all through the engagement, of shooting with the enemy in sight."
The battle had lasted two hours. Sergeant Hamilton Fish was the first to fall "He was near the head of the column as it turned from the woo! road into the range of the Spanish ambuscade. He shot one Spaniard who was firing from the cover of a dense patch of underbrush when a bullet struck his breast and he sank at the foot of a tree, with his back against it. Captain Capron stond over him, shooting, and the others rilled around him, covering; the wounded man. The ground was thie with empty shells where Fish lay. flo lived twenty minutes. He gave a Indy's small hunting-case watch from his belt to messmate'as a last souvenir."
Here are some instances "f American valour:
"Sergeant Bell stond by the side of Captain Capron when the Intter was mortal-aguinst terrible odds, but never flinched. ly hit. He had seen that ho was fighting "Give me your arma minute,' he said to the sergeant', and, kneeling down, he deliberately aimed and fired two shots in quick succession. At each n Spaniard was sorn to fall. Bell, in the meantime, had seized a dead comrade's gun and knelt beside his captain and tired steadily.
Whan Captain Capron fell he gave the so-geant a parting message to his wife and father, and bade the sergeant good-bye in a cheerful voice, and was than borne away dying.
"One of the men of Trosp E., dea berately wounded, was lying squarely between the lines of fire. Surgeon Church hurried to his side, and, with bullets pelting all aten d him, calmly dressed the n's wound, band"ged it, and walked unconcernedly b ok, soon returning with two men and a litter. The wounded man was pliced on the litter and brought into our lines.
S-geant Ousler, of the Regular Army, who bore Sergeant Hamilton Fish to the has furnished us a glimpse of that "The coolness of Assistant-Surgeon Church, wh- dressed a fallen man's wound away out ahead of the line amid a hail of Mauser bullets, wasn't even half described, While he was' making an examination of his wounded comrade, paying no attention to the whistle of the bullets, a young private of the Rough Riders, who lad beer a college'mate of Church, at Prince. ton, yelled over to "him from a distance of about twenty feet, to ask how badly the patient was hurt. The young surgeon lucked over his shoulder in the direction whence the private's voice proceeded, and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.