rst
and Tenth Cavalry, killing some and wounding many. These casualties were
utterly unnecessary and were due to the stupidity of whoever placed the
men within fifty yards of guns in action.

[Picture: Grime's battery at El Poso. The third Spanish shell fell in
among the Cubans in the block-house and among the Rough Riders]

A quarter of an hour after the firing began from El Poso one of General
Shafter's aides directed General Sumner to advance with his division down
the Santiago trail, and to halt at the edge of the woods.

"What am I to do then?" asked General Sumner.

"You are to await further orders," the aide answered.

As a matter of fact and history this was probably the last order General
Sumner received from General Shafter, until the troops of his division
had taken the San Juan hills, as it became impossible to get word to
General Shafter, the trail leading to his head-quarters tent, three miles
in the rear, being blocked by the soldiers of the First and Tenth
dismounted Cavalry, and later, by Lawton's division. General Sumner led
the Sixth, Third, and Ninth Cavalry and the Rough Riders down the trail,
with instructions for the First and Tenth to follow. The trail, virgin
as yet from the foot of an American soldier, was as wide as its narrowest
part, which was some ten feet across. At places it was as wide as
Broadway, but only for such short distances that it was necessary for the
men to advance in column, in double file. A maze of underbrush and trees
on either side was all but impenetrable, and when the officers and men
had once assembled into the basin, they could only guess as to what lay
before them, or on either flank. At the end of a mile the country became
more open, and General Sumner saw the Spaniards intrenched a half-mile
away on the sloping hills. A stream, called the San Juan River, ran
across the trail at this point, and another stream crossed it again two
hundred yards farther on. The troops were halted at this first stream,
some crossing it, and others deploying in single file to the right. Some
were on the banks of the stream, others at the edge of the woods in the
bushes. Others lay in the high grass which was so high that it stopped
the wind, and so hot that it almost choked and suffocated those who lay
in it.

The enemy saw the advance and began firing with pitiless accuracy into
the jammed and crowded trail and along the whole border of the woods.
There was not