Part 22 (1/2)
General Kent says:
”The b.l.o.o.d.y fighting of my brave command can not be adequately described in words. The following list of killed, wounded, and missing tells the story of their valor:
”July 1st the loss was 12 officers and 77 men killed, 32 officers and 463 men wounded, 58 men missing. Total loss, 642.”
The following day the Spaniards resumed the battle, and the losses of Kent's command on the 2nd and 3d of July made up a total loss in three days of 99 killed and 597 wounded, and 62 missing. General Shafter said that before closing his report he desired to dwell upon ”the natural obstacles I had to encounter, and which no foresight could have overcome or obviated. The rocky and precipitous coast afforded no sheltered landing places, the roads were mere bridle paths, the effect of the tropical sun and rains upon unacclimated troops was deadly, and a dread of strange and unknown diseases had its effect on the army.
”The San Juan and Aguadores rivers would often suddenly rise so as to prevent the pa.s.sage of wagons, and then the eight pack trains with the command had to be depended upon for the victualing of my army, as well as the 20,000 refugees, who could not in the interests of humanity be left to starve while we had rations.”
During the Chicago Peace Jubilee, General Shafter made an address at the Armory of the First Illinois Volunteers, and, released from the continual forms of official reports, added much of interest to the story of Santiago. He says of the send-off:
”We were twice embarked and twice taken back to Tampa and disembarked. On the first occasion the cause was the appearance of Admiral Cervera's fleet; it requiring the entire navy that was disposable to go after that fleet, and the second time by a report that afterwards turned out to be incorrect, that in the St. Nicholas channel, through which we would have to go, some Spanish cruisers had been seen.”
When ordered to Tampa to command the first Cuban expedition, he continued:
”I took the troops that I thought best fitted and prepared for that service. There were some magnificent regiments of volunteers, but to part of them I had issued arms only two or three days before. They were not properly equipped, and lacked experience. As I had the choice, I took all of the regulars that were there, and with them three regiments of volunteers. They were magnificent men, as perfect as men could be, but, as you know who served in '61, poorly prepared to take care of themselves at first. You recollect it was months before we were prepared, and we made numerous mistakes that led to sickness and death. The same things have occurred again, and they always will continue with troops that are not used to the field, and in this campaign men were taken directly from their camps immediately after being mustered in, and put into the most difficult campaign of modern military history.
”I practically had the entire regular army of the United States, twenty of the twenty-five regiments of infantry, five of the ten regiments of cavalry, and five batteries of artillery, with three regiments of volunteers, the Seventy-first New York, the Second Ma.s.sachusetts, and the regiment known as Roosevelt's rough riders. The last were practically seasoned soldiers. They were men from the frontier, men who had been accustomed for years to taking a little sack of corn meal on their saddles, and a blanket, and going out to sleep out of doors for a week or a month at a time. Of course, they knew how to care for themselves in camp.
”Early in June I was called to the telephone in Tampa, and told from the President's mansion in Was.h.i.+ngton to proceed immediately with not less than 10,000 men to Santiago; that news had been received that day that the fleet of Cervera was surely within that harbor, and that if 10,000 men could be placed there at once the fleet and the city could be captured in forty-eight hours. The horses and mules had been taken off from the s.h.i.+ps as well as the men, and the time consumed in reloading the horses and mules allowed me to embark 17,000 men nearly. That was very fortunate for me and our cause.”
On arrival off Santiago, he, ”with Admiral Sampson, went down the coast about twenty miles, and saw General Garcia, and asked him his opinion of the country, what his force was, and whether he was disposed to a.s.sist. I found him very willing and very glad to offer his services at once, with 3,000 men that he had with him and another thousand that he had up the country a little further, which were to join us immediately. In sailing along the coast, looking for a landing place, I selected two places--Siboney, a little indentation in the coast about twelve or thirteen miles east of Santiago, and another little bay about eight miles further east, where small streams entered into the sea, making a valley and a sandbar about 150 to 200 yards in extent. All the rest of the coast is abrupt, perpendicular walls of rock from ten to thirty feet high, against which the waves were das.h.i.+ng all the time, and where it is utterly impossible to land.
”We had the earnest and able support of the navy and their a.s.sistance in disembarking, and the next morning were bombarding the two little places and driving the few hundred Spanish soldiers, that were there away. We began disembarking, and before the end of the day the men were on sh.o.r.e, with 2,000 horses and mules that we had to throw overboard to get ash.o.r.e, and the artillery.”
The General noted the loss of 17,000 troops out of 24,000 in the English army that besieged Havana in 1762, at the same time of year that he landed at Santiago, and remarked:
”I knew that my entire army would be sick if it stayed long enough; that it was simply a question of getting that town just as soon as possible. I knew the strength, the courage, and the will of my men, or I thought I did, and the result shows that I was not mistaken. It was a question of starting the moment we landed and not stopping until we reached the Spanish outposts, and, therefore, as soon as a division was put on sh.o.r.e it was started on the march.
”On the 24th the first engagement took place, in which we had between 800 and 900 men on the American side and probably 1,000 or 1,200 on the Spanish. The enemy was strongly intrenched, showing only their heads, while the American forces had to march exposing their whole bodies to the fire of the enemy.
”It is announced by military experts as an axiom that trained troops armed with the present breech-loading and rapid-firing arm cannot be successfully a.s.sailed by any troops who simply a.s.sault. Of course you can make the regular approaches and dig up to them. The fallacy of that proposition was made very manifest that day when the men composing the advance marched as deliberately over those breastworks as they ever did when they fought with arms that you could only load about twice in a minute and of the range of only 200 or 300 yards.
”This army was an army of marksmen. For fifteen years the greatest attention has been paid to marksmans.h.i.+p, and I suppose four-fifths of all the men in that army wore on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s the marksman's badge. I had given orders, knowing that the noise of firing is harmless and that shots put in the air are harmless--I had given the strictest orders to all officers that their men should be told not to fire a shot unless they could see something moving, and the firing was to be by individuals, what is called file firing, individual firing. The Spanish troops, not so well drilled in firing as ours, used volley firing, which is very effective against large bodies of troops ma.s.sed and moving over a plain, but utterly inefficient when used against skirmishers moving over a rough country. In that battle, which lasted two hours, less than ten rounds of ammunition per man was fired by my men, and the losses, notwithstanding my men were exposed, their whole bodies, while the enemy were in trenches, where only their heads could be seen, were about equal.
”I saw the commander of that force a few days later in Santiago, and in talking about it he said to me: 'Your men behaved very strange. We were much surprised. They were whipped, but they didn't seem to know it; they continued to advance (laughter and applause), and we had to go away.' He was quite right about it. They did have to go away.
”On the 29th we had reached the immediate vicinity of the peaks in front of Santiago, about a mile and a half from the city. On the 30th I carefully reconnoitered the ground as much as one could in the dense undergrowth, and determined where I would make my attack, which was simply directed in front, and to make a direct a.s.sault. There was no attempt at strategy, and no attempt at turning their flanks. It was simply going straight for them. In that I did not misjudge my men, and that is where I succeeded so well. (Applause.) If we had attempted to flank them out or dig them out by regular parallels and get close to them my men would have been sick before it could have been accomplished, and the losses would have been many times greater than they were.
”The only misfortune, as I judged it, of the first day's fight,but which I have since learned was for the best, was that immediately on our right, and what would be in our rear when we attacked the town, was a little village called El Caney, four miles and a half from Santiago, and whence the best road in the country connected with Santiago. I did not know the exact force there, but it was estimated to be 1,000, and perhaps a little more, and it would, of course, have been very hazardous to have left that force so near in our rear.
”Instead of finis.h.i.+ng the affair by 9 o'clock, as we expected, it took until 4:30 o'clock in the afternoon before the last shot was fired, and then after a loss of nearly a hundred killed and 250 wounded on our side and the almost total annihilation of the force opposed to us. They had an idea that they would be killed, and when men believe that it is hard to capture them. Just at the close of the battle three or four hundred did attempt to escape, but ran out in front of a brigade that they did not see, and in the course of about three or four hundred yards most of them were dead or mortally wounded, so that probably not more than twenty men on the other side escaped from that battle. It was a most desperate struggle.
”Men were killed in the trenches by being knocked on the head with muskets, and one man I was shown two days later with what would be called a tremendous head on him, and the interpreter asked him how that had occurred, and he doubled up his fist and spoke of the soldier that had hit him as a black man, that he had dropped his gun and hit him in the head with his fist. That was pretty close work.
”Meanwhile the battle in front of Santiago progressed, with three divisions on our side, one of dismounted cavalry and two of infantry. It was beautifully fought. Every man knew what he had to do, and so did every officer. The orders were that Immediately upon being deployed they were to attack. They did it. Every man kept going, and when one's comrade dropped the rest kept going. The result was that in about two hours the line was taken, and practically that afternoon the battle of Santiago was ended, for those men never advanced beyond that point.
”During the night I brought up the division of General Lawton that had been on the right at Caney and put them on the extreme right, where I had intended to have them the day before, and where, had they been, we should probably have taken the town and have gotten only the men that were there, and not the 12,000 that were far beyond our reach who were surrendered a few days later.
”On the morning of the 2d a weak attempt was made upon our lines. In that the Spaniards had to expose themselves, while my men were covered. The fight lasted but a little while, and they retreated.