outed; "they are
firing at our troops." That was part of the information contributed by
the balloon. Captain Howse's reply is lost to history.

General Kent's division, which, according to the plan, was to have been
held in reserve, had been rushed up in the rear of the First and Tenth,
and the Tenth had deployed in skirmish order to the right. The trail was
now completely blocked by Kent's division. Lawton's division, which was
to have re-enforced on the right, had not appeared, but incessant firing
from the direction of El Caney showed that he and Chaffee were fighting
mightily. The situation was desperate. Our troops could not retreat, as
the trail for two miles behind them was wedged with men. They could not
remain where they were, for they were being shot to pieces. There was
only one thing they could do--go forward and take the San Juan hills by
assault. It was as desperate as the situation itself. To charge
earthworks held by men with modern rifles, and using modern artillery,
until after the earthworks have been shaken by artillery, and to attack
them in advance and not in the flanks, are both impossible military
propositions. But this campaign had not been conducted according to
military rules, and a series of military blunders had brought seven
thousand American soldiers into a chute of death from which there was no
escape except by taking the enemy who held it by the throat and driving
him out and beating him down. So the generals of divisions and brigades
stepped back and relinquished their command to the regimental officers
and the enlisted men.

"We can do nothing more," they virtually said. "There is the enemy."

Colonel Roosevelt, on horseback, broke from the woods behind the line of
the Ninth, and finding its men lying in his way, shouted: "If you don't
wish to go forward, let my men pass." The junior officers of the Ninth,
with their negroes, instantly sprang into line with the Rough Riders, and
charged at the blue block-house on the right.

I speak of Roosevelt first because, with General Hawkins, who led Kent's
division, notably the Sixth and Sixteenth Regulars, he was, without
doubt, the most conspicuous figure in the charge. General Hawkins, with
hair as white as snow, and yet far in advance of men thirty years his
junior, was so noble a sight that you felt inclined to pray for his
safety; on the other hand, Roosevelt, mounted high on horseback, and
charging the rifle-pits at a ga