History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0435/04355.txt

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$Unique_ID{how04355}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Rough Riders
Part I}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Roosevelt, Theodore}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{general
spaniards
young
fight
time
troops
first
wood
captain
jungle
see
pictures
see
figures
}
$Date{}
$Log{See General Wheeler's Headquarters*0435501.scf
}
Title:       Rough Riders
Book:        Chapter III: General Young's Fight At Las Guasimas
Author:      Roosevelt, Theodore

Part I

     Just before leaving Tampa we had been brigaded with the First (white) and
Tenth (colored) Regular Cavalry under Brigadier-General S.B.M. Young. We were
the Second Brigade, the First Brigade consisting of the Third and Sixth
(white), and the Ninth (colored) Regular Cavalry under the Brigadier-General
Sumner.  The two brigades of the cavalry division were under Major-General
Joseph Wheeler, the gallant old Confederate cavalry commander.

     General Young was - and is - as fine a type of the American fighting
soldier as a man can hope to see.  He had been in command, as Colonel, of the
Yellowstone National Park, and I had seen a good deal of him in connection
therewith, as I was President of the Boone and Crockett Club, an organization
devoted to hunting big game, to its preservation, and to forest preservation.
During the preceding winter, while he was in Washington, he had lunched with
me at the Metropolitan Club, Wood being one of the other guests.  Of course,
we talked of the war, which all of us present believed to be impending, and
Wood and I told him we were going to make every effort to get in, somehow; and
he answered that we must be sure to get into his brigade, if he had one, and
he would guarantee to show us fighting.  None of us forgot the conversation.
As soon as our regiment was raised General Young applied for it to be put in
his brigade.  We were put in; and he made his word good; for he fought and won
the first fight on Cuban soil.

     Yet, even though under him, we should not have been in this fight at all
if we had not taken advantage of the chance to disembark among the first
troops, and if it had not been for Wood's energy in pushing our regiment to
the front.

     On landing we spent some active hours in marching our men a quarter of a
mile or so inland, as boat-load by boat-load they disembarked.  Meanwhile one
of the men, Knoblauch, a New Yorker, who was a great athlete and a champion
swimmer, by diving in the surf off the dock, recovered most of the rifles
which had been lost when the boat-load of colored cavalry capsized. The
country would have offered very great difficulties to an attacking force had
there been resistance.  It was little but a mass of rugged and precipitous
hills, covered for the most part by dense jungle.  Five hundred resolute men
could have prevented the disembarkation at very little cost to themselves.
There had been about that number of Spaniards at Daiquiri that morning, but
they had fled even before the ships began shelling.  In their place we found
hundreds of Cuban insurgents, a crew of as utter tatterdemalions as human eyes
ever looked on, armed with every kind of rifle in all stages of dilapidation.
It was evident, at a glance, that they would be no use in serious fighting,
but it was hoped that they might be of service in scouting.  From a variety of
causes, however, they turned out to be nearly useless, even for this purpose,
so far as the Santiago campaign was concerned.

     We were camped on a dusty, brush-covered flat, with jungle on one side,
and on the other a shallow, fetid pool fringed with palm-trees.  Huge
land-crabs scuttled noisily through the underbrush, exciting much interest
among the men.  Camping ias a simple matter, as each man carried all he had,
and the officers had nothing.  I took a light mackintosh and a tooth-brush.
Fortunately, that night it did not rain; and from the palm-leaves we built
shelters from the sun.

     General Lawton, a tall, fine-looking man, had taken the advance.  A
thorough soldier, he at once established outposts and pushed reconnoitring
parties ahead on the trails.  He had as little baggage as the rest of us. Our
own Brigade-Commander, General Young, had exactly the same impedimenta that I
had, namely, a mackintosh and a tooth-brush.

     Next morning we were hard at work trying to get the stuff unloaded from
the ship, and succeeded in getting most of it ashore, but were utterly unable
to get transportation for anything but a very small quantity.  The great
shortcoming throughout the campaign was the utterly inadequate transportation.
If we had been allowed to take our mule-train, we could have kept the whole
cavalry division supplied.

     In the afternoon word came to us to march.  General Wheeler, a regular
game-cock, was as anxious as Lawton to get first blood, and he was bent upon
putting the cavalry division to the front as quickly as possible. Lawton's
advance-guard was in touch with the Spaniards, and there had been a skirmish
between the latter and some Cubans, who were repulsed.  General Wheeler made a
reconnaissance in person, foun  out where the enemy was, and directed General
Young to take our brigade and move forward so as to strike him next morning.
He had the power to do this, as when General Shafter was afloat he had command
ashore.

     I had succeeded in finding Texas, my surviving horse, much the worse for
his fortnight on the transport and his experience in getting off, but still
able to carry me.

     It was mid-afternoon and the topic sun was beating fiercely down when
Colonel Wood started our regiment - the First and Tenth Cavalry and some of
the infantry regiments having already marched.  Colonel Wood himself rode in
advance, while I led my squadron, and Major Brodie followed with his. It was a
hard march, the hilly jungle trail being so narrow that often we had to go in
single file.  We marched fast, for Wood was bound to get us ahead of the other
regiments, so as to be sure of our place in the body that struck the enemy
next morning.  If it had not been for his energy in pushing forward, we should
certainly have missed the fight.  As it was, we did not halt until we were at
the extreme front.

     The men were not in very good shape for marching, and moreover they were
really horsemen, the majority being cowboys who had never done much walking.
The heat was intense and their burdens very heavy.  Yet there was very little
straggling.  Whenever we halted they instantly took off their packs and threw
themselves on their backs.  Then at the word to start they would spring into
place again.  The captains and lieutenants tramped along, encouraging the men
by example and word.  A good part of the time I was by Captain Llewellen, and
was greatly pleased to see the way in which he kept his men up to their work.
He never pitied or coddled his troopers, but he always looked after them.  He
helped them whenever he could, and took rather more than his full share of
hardship and danger, so that his men naturally followed him with entire
devotion.  Jack Greenway was under him as lieutenant, and to him the entire
march was nothing but an enjoyable outing, the chance of fight on the morrow
simply adding the needed spice of excitement.

     It was long after nightfall when we tramped through the darkness into the
squalid coast hamlet of Siboney.  As usual when we made a night camp, we
simply drew the men up in column of troops, and then let each man lie down
where he was.  Black thunder-clouds were gathering.  Before they broke the
fires were made and the men cooked their coffee and pork, some frying the
hard-tack with the pork.  The officers, of course, fared just as the men did.
Hardly had we finished eating when the rain came, a regular tropic downpour.
We sat about, sheltering ourselves as best we could, for the hour or two it
lasted; then the fires were relighted and we closed around them, the men
taking off their wet things to dry them, so far as possible, by the blaze.

     Wood had gone off to see General Young, as General Wheeler had instructed
General Young to hit the Spaniards, who were about four miles away, as soon
after daybreak as possible.  Meanwhile I strolled over to Captain Capron's
troop.  He and I, with his two lieutenants, Day and Thomas, stood around the
fire, together with two or three non-commissioned officers and privates; among
the latter were Sergeant Hamilton Fish and Trooper Elliot Cowdin, both of New
York.  Cowdin, together with two other troopers, Harry Thorpe and Munro
Ferguson, had been on my Oyster Bay Polo Team some years before.  Hamilton
Fish had already shown himself one of the best non-commissioned officers we
had.  A huge fellow, of enormous strength and endurance and dauntless courage,
he took naturally to a soldier's life. He never complained and never shirked
any duty of any kind, while his power over his men was great.  So good a
sergeant had he made that Captain Capron, keen to get the best men under him,
took him when he left Tampa - for Fish's troop remained behind.  As we stood
around the flickering blaze that night I caught myself admiring the splendid
bodily vigor of Capron and Fish - the captain and the sergeant.  Their frames
seemed of steel, to withstand all fatigue; they were flushed with health; in
their eyes shone high resolve and fiery desire.  Two finer types of the
fighting man, two better representatives of the American soldier, there were
not in the whole army.  Capron was going over his plans for the fight when we
should meet the Spaniards on the morrow, Fish occasionally asking a question.
They were both filled with eager longing to show their mettle, and both were
rightly confident that if they lived they would win honorable renown and would
rise high in their chosen profession.  Within twelve hours they both were
dead.

     I had lain down when toward midnight Wood returned.  He had gone over the
whole plan with General Young.  We were to start by sunrise toward Santiago,
General Young taking four troops of the Tenth and four troops of the First up
the road which led through the valley; while Colonel Wood was to lead our
eight troops along a hill-trail to the left, which joined the valley road
about four miles on, at a point where the road went over a spur of the
mountain chain and from thence went down hill toward Santiago.  The Spaniards
had their lines at the junction of the road and the trail.

     Before describing our part in the fight, it is necessary to say a word
about General Young's share, for, of course, the whole fight was under his
direction, and the fight on the right wing under his immediate supervision.
General Young had obtained from General Castillo, the commander of the Cuban
forces, a full description of the country in front.  General Castillo promised
Young the aid of eight hundred Cubans, if he made a reconnaissance in force to
find out exactly what the Spanish strength was.  This promised Cuban aid did
not, however, materialize, the Cubans, who had been beaten back by the
Spaniards the day before, not appearing on the firing-line until the fight was
over.

     General Young had in his immediate command a squadron of the First
Regular Cavalry, two hundred and forty-four strong, under the command of Major
Bell, and a squadron of the Tenth Regular Cavalry, two hundred and twenty
strong, under the command of Major Norvell.  He also had two Hotchkiss
mountain guns, under Captain Watson of the Tenth.  He started at a quarter
before six in the morning, accompanied by Captain A. L. Mills, as aide.  It
was at half-past seven that Captain Mills, with a patrol of two men in
advance, discovered the Spaniards as they lay across where the two roads came
together, some of them in pits, others simply lying in the heavy jungle, while
on their extreme right they occupied a big ranch.  Where General Young struck
them they held a high ridge a little to the left of his front, this ridge
being separated by a deep ravine from the hill-trail still farther to the
left, down which the Rough Riders were advancing. That is, their forces
occupi d a range of high hills in the form of an obtuse angle, the salient
being toward the space between the American forces, while there were advance
parties along both roads.  There were stone breastworks flanked by
block-houses on that part of the ridge where the two trails came together.
The place was called Las Guasimas, from trees of that name in the
neighborhood.

     General Young, who was riding a mule, carefully examined the Spanish
position in person.  He ordered the canteens of the troops to be filled,
placed the Hotchkiss battery in concealment about nine hundred yards from the
Spanish lines, and then deployed the white regulars, with the colored regulars
in support, having sent a Cuban guide to try to find Colonel Wood and warn
him.  He did not attack immediately, because he knew that Colonel Wood, having
a more difficult route, would require a longer time to reach the position.
During the delay General Wheeler arrived; he had been up since long before
dawn, to see that everything went well.  Young informed him of the
dispositions and plan of attack he made.  General Wheeler approved of them,
and with excellent judgment left General Young a free hand to fight his
battle.

[See General Wheeler's Headquarters: A consultation at General Wheeler's
headquarters.]

     So, about eight o'clock Young began the fight with his Hotchkiss guns, he
himself being up on the firing-line.  No sooner had the Hotchkiss one-pounders
opened than the Spaniards opened fire in return, most of the time firing by
volleys executed in perfect time, almost as on parade.  They had a couple of
light guns, which our people thought were quick firers.  The denseness of the
jungle and the fact that they used absolutely smokeless powder, made it
exceedingly difficult to place exactly where they were, and almost immediately
Young, who always liked to get as close as possible to his enemy, began to
push his troops forward.  They were deployed on both sides of the road in such
thick jungle that it was only here and there that they could possibly see
ahead, and some confusion, of course, ensued, the support gradually getting
mixed with the advance.  Captain Beck took A Troop of the Tenth in on the
left, next Captain Galbraith's troop of the First; two other troops of the
Tenth were on the extreme right.  Through the jungle ran wire fences here and
there, and as the troops got to the ridge they encountered precipitous
heights.  They were led most gallantly, as American regular officers always
lead their men; and the men followed their leaders with the splendid courage
always shown by the American regular soldier.  There was not a single
straggler among them, and in not one instance was an attempt made by any
trooper to fall out in order to assist the wounded or carry back the dead,
while so cool were they and so perfect their fire discipline, that in the
entire engagement the expenditure of ammunition was not over ten rounds per
man.  Major Bell, who commanded the squadron, had his leg broken by a shot as
he was leading his men.  Captain Wainwright succeeded to the command of the
squadron.  Captain Knox was shot in the abdomen.  He continued for some time
giving orders to his troops, and refused to allow a man in the firing-line to
assist him to the rear.  His First Lieutenant, Byram, was himself shot, but
continued to lead his men until the wound and the heat overcame him and he
fell in a faint.  The advance was pushed forward under General Young's eye
with the utmost energy, until the enemy's voices could be heard in the
entrenchments.  The Spaniards kept up a very heavy firing, but the regulars
would not b, denied, and as they climbed the ridges the Spaniards broke and
fled.

     Meanwhile, at six o'clock, the Rough Riders began their advance.  We
first had to climb a very steep hill.  Mans of the men, foot-sore and weary
from their march of the preceding day, found the pace up this hill too hard,
and either dropped their bundles or fell out of line, with the result that we
went into action with less than five hundred men - as, in addition to the
stragglers, a detachment had been left to guard the baggage on shore.  At the
time I was rather inclined to grumble to myself about Wood setting so fast a
pace, but when the fight began I realized that it had been absolutely
necessary, as otherwise we should have arrived late and the regulars would
have had very hard work indeed.

     Tiffany, by great exertions, had corralled a couple of mules and was
using them to transport the Colt automatic guns in the rear of the regiment.
The dynamite gun was not with us, as mules for it could not be obtained in
time.

     Captain Capron's troop was in the lead, it being chosen for the most
responsible and dangerous position because of Capron's capacity.  Four men,
headed by Sergeant Hamilton Fish, went first; a support of twenty men followed
some distance behind; and then came Capron and the rest of his troop, followed
by Wood, with whom General Young had sent Lieutenants Smedburg and Rivers as
aides.  I rode close behind, at the head of the other three troops of my
squadron, and then came Brodie at the head of his squadron.  The trail was so
narrow that for the most part the men marched in single file, and it was
bordered by dense, tangled jungle, through which a man could with difficulty
force his way; so that to put out flankers was impossible, for they could not
possibly have kept up with the march of the column.  Every man had his canteen
full.  There was a Cuban guide at the head of the column, but he ran away as
soon as the fighting began.  There were also with us, at the head of the
column, two men who did not run away, who, though non-combatants - newspaper
correspondents - showed as much gallantry as any soldier in the field.  They
were Edward Marshall and Richard Harding Davis.

     After reaching the top of the hill the walk was very pleasant.  Now and
then we came to glades or rounded hill-shoulders, whence we could look off for
some distance.  The tropical forest was very beautiful, and it was a delight
to see the strange trees, the splendid royal palms and a tree which looked
like a flat-topped acacia, and which was covered with a mass of brilliant
scarlet flowers.  We heard many bird-notes, too, the cooing of doves and the
call of a great brush cuckoo.  Afterward we found that the Spanish guerillas
imitated these bird-calls, but the sounds we heard that morning, as we
advanced through the tropic forest, were from birds, not guerillas, until we
came right up to the Spanish lines.  It was very beautiful and very peaceful,
and it seemed more as if we were off on some hunting excursion than as if we
were about to go into a sharp and bloody little fight.

     Of course, we accommodated our movements to those of the men in front.
After marching for somewhat over an hour, we suddenly came to a halt, and
immediately afterward Colonel Wood sent word down the line that the advance
guard had come upon a Spanish outpost.  Then the order was passed to fill the
magazines, which was done.

     The men were totally unconcerned, and I do not think they realized that
any fighting was at hand; at any rate, I could hear the group nearest me
discussing in low murmurs, not the Spaniards, but the conduct of a certain
cow-puncher in quitting work on a ranch and starting a saloon in some New
Mexican town.  In another minute, however, Wood sent me orders to deploy three
troops to the right of the trail, and to advance when we became engaged;
while, at the same time, the other troops, under Major Brodie, were deployed
to the left of the trail where the ground was more open than elsewhere - one
troop being held in reserve in the centre, besides the reserves on each wing.
Later all the reserves were put into the firing-line.

     To the right the jungle was quite thick, and we had barely begun to
deploy when a crash in front announced that the fight was on.  It was
evidently very hot, and L Troop had its hands full; so I hurried my men up
abreast of them.  So thick was the jungle that it was very difficult to keep
together, especially when there was no time for delay, and while I got up
Llewellen's troops and Kane's platoon of K Troop, the rest of K Troop under
Captain Jenkins which, with Bucky O'Neill's troop, made up the right wing,
were behind, and it was some time before they got into the fight at all.

     Meanwhile I had gone forward with Llewellen, Greenway, Kane and their
troopers until we came out on a kind of shoulder, jutting over a ravine, which
separated us from a great ridge on our right.  It was on this ridge that the
Spaniards had some of their intrenchments, and it was just beyond this ridge
that the Valley Road led, up which the regulars were at that very time pushing
their attack; but, of course, at the moment we knew nothing of this.  The
effect of the smokeless powder was remarkable.  The air seemed full of the
rustling sound of the Mauser bullets, for the Spaniards knew the trails by
which we were advancing, and opened heavily on our position.  Moreover, as we
advanced we were, of course, exposed, and they could see us andafire.  But
they themselves were entirely invisible. The jungle covered everything, and
not the faintest trace of smoke was to be seen in any direction to indicate
from whence the bullets came.  It was some time before the men fired;
Llewellen, Kane, and I anxiously studying the ground to see where our
opponents were, and utterly unable to find out.

     We could hear the faint reports of the Hotchkiss guns and the reply of
two Spanish guns, and the Mauser bullets were singing through the trees over
our heads, making a noise like the humming of telephone wires; but exactly
where they came from we could not tell.  The Spaniards were firing high and
for the most part by volleys, and their shooting was not very good, which
perhaps was not to be wondered at, as they were a long way off. Gradually,
however, they began to get the range and occasionally one of our men would
crumple up.  In no case did the man make any outcry when hit, seeming to take
it as a matter of course; at the outside, making only such a remark as, "Well,
I got it that time." With hardly an exception, there was no sign of flinching.
I say with hardly an exception, for though I personally did not see an
instance, and though all the men at the front behaved excellently, yet there
were a very few men who lagged behind and drifted back to the trail over which
we had come.  The character of the fight put a premium upon such conduct, and
afforded a very severe test for raw troops; because the jungle was so dense
that as we advanced in open order, every man was, from time to time, left
almost alone and away from the eyes of his officers.  There was unlimited
opportunity for dropping out without attracting notice, while it was
peculiarly hard to be exposed to the fire of an unseen foe, and to see men
dropping under it, and yet to be, for some time, unable to return it, and also
to be entirely ignorant of what was going on in any other part of the field.

     It was Richard Harding Davis who gave us our first opportunity to shoot
back with effect.  He was behaving precisely like my officers, being on the
extreme front of the line, and taking every opportunity to study with his
glasses the ground where we thought the Spaniards were.  I had tried some
volley firing at points where I rather doubtfully believed the Spaniards to
be, but had stopped firing and was myself studying the jungle-covered
mountain ahead with my glasses, when Davis suddenly said: "There they are,
Colonel; look over there; I can see their hats near that glade," pointing
across the valley to our right.  In a minute I, too, made out the hats, and
then pointed them out to three or four of our best shots, giving them my
estimate of the range.  For a minute or two no result followed, and I kept
raising the range, at the same time getting more men on the firing-line.
Then, evidently, the shots told, for the Spaniards suddenly sprang out of the
cover through which we had seen their hats, and ran to another spot; and we
could now make out a large number of them.

     I accordingly got all of my men up in line and began quick firing.  In a
very few minutes our bullets began to do damage, for the Spaniards retreated
to the left into the jungle, and we lost sight of them.  At the same moment a
big body of men who, it afterward turned out, were Spaniards, came in sight
along the glade, following the retreat of those whom we had just driven from
the trenches.  We supposed that there was a large force of Cubans with General
Young, not being aware that these Cubans had failed to make their appearance,
and as it was impossible to tell the Cubans from the Spaniards, and as we
could not decide whether these were Cubans following the Spaniards we had put
to flight, or merely another troop of Spaniards retreating after the first
(which was really the case) we dared not fire, and in a minute they had passed
the glade and were out of sight.