CHAPTER XII.

On to Santiago-El Poso Hill-General Wheeler-El Caney-Through the Lane-Kettle Hill-A Ruse to get to the Front-The Colored Troops-The Gatlings-In Charge of Parts of Six Regiments-Taking the TrenchesSan Juan Hill Taken-Only Forward Movement of the Spanish-Acts of Gallantry-Digging Trenches-Opposing Forces-Waiting to Take Santiago.

RDERS were received June 30th for the regiment to hold itself in readiness to march against Santiago. The men were overjoyed. The road beside the camp was crowded with marching men already going forward when the Rough Riders struck camp and drew up in the rear of the first Cavalry.

The heat was intense and there was little or no shade except from the jungle, whose density made the air stifling. It was eight o'clock in the evening when the regiment climbed El Poso hill. Here General Wood was making preparations for the encampment of the brigade. The arrangements for the night on the part of the Rough Riders were simple. Each troop extended across the road into the jungle and the men, throwing down their belongings, slept on their arms. Next morning there was an early and scant breakfast, and there was hope that the day would bring some fighting.

General Wheeler was sick, but pluckily kept to the front. He was unable to retain control of the cavalry division, which then devolved on General Samuel Sumner, who commanded it till the middle of the afternoon, when most of the fighting was over. General Sumner's own brigade fell to Colonel Henry Carroll.

It was about six o'clock in the sultry morning that the first report of cannon from El Caney came booming across the miles of jungle. The American guns opened immediately. For a minute afterwards

no response came. General Wood remarked to Colonel Roosevelt that he wished their brigade could be moved to a more secure position, for it was directly in line of any fire aimed by the Spaniards at the battery. He had hardly spoken when there was a whistling in the air, and a Spanish shrapnel exploded over their heads. The officers sprang to their feet and leaped on their horses. A second shot came, and a third. A shell exploded among the Cubans, killing and wounding many. General Wood's led-horse was also shot down.

Colonel Roosevelt got his men over the crest of the hill into the thick underbrush. Then General Wood formed his brigade, with the Rough Riders in front, ordering Colonel Roosevelt to follow behind the First Brigade. No reconnoisance had been made, and the exact position and strength of the Spaniards was unknown. Colonel Roosevelt was next ordered to cross the ford, march half a mile to the right and then halt and await further orders.

As he led his column along through the high jungle grass the First Brigade was to the left of the Rough Riders and the firing between it and the Spaniards steadily increased. In a little while the Riders came to a sunken lane, and as the First Brigade was then engaged in a stand-up fight, Colonel Roosevelt halted his men and sent back word for orders.

"The sunken lane, which had a wire fence on either side, led straight up toward and between the two hills in our front, the hill on the left which contained heavy block houses being farther away from us than the hill on our right, which we afterward grew to call Kettle Hill, and which was surmounted merely by some ranch buildings and haciendas with sunken brick-lined walls and cellars. I got the men as well sheltered as I could. Many of them lay close under the bank of the lane, others slipped into the San Juan River and crouched under its hither bank, while the rest lay down behind the patches of

bushy jungle in the tall grass. The heat was intense, and many of the men were already showing signs of exhaustion. The sides of the hills in front were bare, but the country up to them was for the most part covered with such dense jungle that in charging through it no accuracy of formation could possibly be preserved."

Fighting was on in earnest now, the enemy on the hills sending out heavy volley firing. Colonel Roosevelt sent messenger after messenger to try to find General Sumner or General Wood to get permission to advance, and was just about making a forward movement when the command came "to move forward and support the regulars in the assault on the hills in front."

Immediately the troopers were in motion. Guerrillas had been shooting at the men from the edges of the jungle and from their perches in the trees, and as they used smokeless powder to carry their Mauser bullets, it was next to impossible to locate them. The men had also suffered from the hill on the right front where guerrillas and Spanish regulars were firing. Colonel Roosevelt formed his men in column of troops, each troop extending in open skirmishing order. The Ninth Regiment and the First went up Kettle Hill with the Rough Riders. General Sumner gave the Tenth the order to charge the hills, and the three regiments went forward, keeping up a heavy fire.

"I spoke to the captain in command of the rear platoons, saying that I had been ordered to support the regulars in the attack upon the hills, and that in my judgment we could not take these hills by firing on them, and that we must rush them. He answered that his orders were to keep his men lying where they were, and that he could not charge without orders. I asked where the Colonel was, and as he was not in sight, said, 'Then I am the ranking office here, and I give the order to charge'-for I did not want to keep the men longer in the open suffering under a fire which they could not effectively

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return. Naturally, the Captain hesitated to obey this order when no word had been received from his own Colonel. So I said, 'Then let my men through, Sir,' and rode on through the lines, followed by the grinning Rough Riders. When we started to go through, however, it proved too much for the regulars, and they jumped up and came along, their officers and troops mingling with mine, all being delighted at the chance. When I got to where the left wing of the Ninth was lying, through the courtesy of Lieutenant Hartwick, two of whose colored troopers threw down the fence, I was enabled to get back into the lane, at the same time waving my hat and giving the order to charge the hill on our right front. Out of my sight, over on the right, Captains McBlain and Taylor made up their minds independently to charge at just about this time, and at almost the same moment Colonels Carroll and Hamilton who were off, I believe, to my left, where we could see neither them nor their men, gave the order to advance. But of all this I knew nothing at the time. The whole line, tired of waiting and eager to close with the enemy, was straining to go forward, and it seems that different parts slipped the leash almost at the same moment."

The First, Ninth, Third, Sixth and Tenth Cavalry were all represented in this rush. As soon as Colonel Roosevelt saw that his men were well started he galloped back to help Goodrich get his men across the road so as to make an attack on that side. Captain Mills had thrown three of the other troops across the road for the same purpose. Colonel Roosevelt then wheeled around and once more galloped toward the hill, passing by the shouting, cheering, fighting men, and got abreast of the ranch buildings on the top of Kettle Hill. Some yards from the top his horse ran into a wire fence, when he jumped to the ground and turned "Little Texas," the horse,. loose, and ran up the hill. The hill was at once covered by the troops, Rough Riders, colored troops of the Ninth, men of the First.

Then the Spaniards, from the line of hills in front where they were heavily intrenched, opened fire with cannon and rifles. On the top of the hill was a great iron kettle which had probably been used in the process of refining sugar, and behind it several men took shelter -this kettle which was to give its name to the hill. The infantry of Kent, led by Hawkins, were climbing the hill in the charge on the San Juan block-house, and they needed help. Colonel Roosevelt got the men together and started volley firing against the Spaniards in the block-house and in the trenches around it.

All at once above the cracking of the carbines came a strange drumming sound, and some of the men cried out that it was the Spanish machine guns.

"Listening, I made out that it came from the flat ground to the left, and jumped to my feet, smiting my hand on my thigh, and shouting aloud with exultation, 'It's the Gatlings, men, our Gatlings.'" Lieutenant Parker was indeed bringing his four Gatling guns into action and getting them nearer and nearer to the front. Then the infantry moved nearer and nearer the crest of the hill.

"At last we could see the Spaniards running from the rifle pits as the Americans came on in the final rush." Helter-skelter, shouting, cheering went the men, until they were stopped by Colonel Roosevelt who feared they would injure their comrades. He "called to them to charge the next line of trenches on the hills in our front from which we had been undergoing a good deal of punishment. Thinking that the men would all come I jumped over the wire fence in front of us and started at the double; but as a matter of fact the troopers were so excited, what with shooting and being shot, and shouting and cheering, that they did not hear, or did not heed me; and after running about a hundred yards I found I had only five men along with me. Bullets were ripping the grass all around us and one of the men was mortally wounded; another was first shot in the leg and