-nine men killed and thirteen hundred and sixty-three wounded, yet
General Shafter was so disheartened that he not only thought of
retreating to a position five miles in the rear, but seems to have been
upon the point of surrendering the command of the army to General
Breckenridge. Ill health, doubtless, had much to do with this feeling of
discouragement. It certainly was not warranted by anything that one
could see at the end of the second day's fight. We had taken every
position that we had attacked; we had lost only ten per cent of our
available force; and we were strongly intrenched on the crest of a high
hill less than a mile and a half from the eastern boundary of the city.
After General Lawton's division and the brigade of General Bates had
reinforced Generals Kent and Wheeler at San Juan, there was very little
reason to fear that the Spaniards would drive us from our position.

The fighting of all our soldiers, both at Caney and at San Juan, was
daring and gallant in the extreme; but I cannot refrain from calling
particular attention to the splendid behavior of the colored troops. It
is the testimony of all who saw them under fire that they fought with
the utmost courage, coolness, and determination, and Colonel Roosevelt
said to a squad of them in the trenches, in my presence, that he never
expected to have, and could not ask to have, better men beside him in a
hard fight. If soldiers come up to Colonel Roosevelt's standard of
courage, their friends have no reason to feel ashamed of them. His
commendation is equivalent to a medal of honor for conspicuous
gallantry, because, in the slang of the camp, he himself is "a fighter
from 'way back." I can testify, furthermore, from my own personal
observation in the field-hospital of the Fifth Army-Corps Saturday and
Saturday night, that the colored regulars who were brought in there
displayed extraordinary fortitude and self-control. There were a great
many of them, but I cannot remember to have heard a groan or a complaint
from a single man. I asked one of them whether any of his comrades
showed signs of fear when they went into action. "No," he replied, with
a grin, "not egzactly; two or three of 'em looked kindo' squandered just
at first, but they mighty soon braced up."

Among the volunteer regiments that were hotly engaged and lost heavily
in Friday's battle were the Seventy-first New York and the Second
Massachusetts. Both were armed with Springfield rifles, and