f the Spaniards and his crowd were not nearer than a
quarter of a mile which was near enough as they had nearly as many
killed. Gen. Chaffee told me to-day that it was Wood's charge that won
the day, without it the tenth could not have driven the Spaniards
back-- Wood is a great young man, he has only one idea or rather all
his ideas run in one direction, his regiment, he eats and talks nothing
else. He never sleeps more than four hours and all the rest of the
time he is moving about among the tents-- Between you and me and the
policeman, it was a very hot time-- Maybe if I drew you a map you would
understand why.

Wood and Gen. Young, by agreement the night before and without orders
from anybody decided to advance at daybreak and dislodge the Spaniards
from Las Guasimas. They went by two narrow trails single file, the two
trails were along the crests of a line of hills with a valley between.
The dotted line is the trail we should have taken had the Cubans told
us it existed, if we had done so we would have had the Spaniards in the
frontband rear as General Young would have caught them where they
expected him to come, and we would have caught them where they were not
looking for us. Of course, the Cubans who are worthless in every way
never told us of this trail until we had had the meeting. No one knew
we were near Spaniards until both columns were on the place where the
two trails meet. Then our scouts came back and reported them and the
companies were scattered out as you see them in the little dots. The
Spaniards were absolutely hidden not over 25 per cent of the men saw
one of them for two hours-- I ran out with the company on the right of
the dotted line, marked "our position." I thought it was a false alarm
and none of us believed there were any Spaniards this side of Santiago.
The ground was covered with high grass and cactus and vines so that you
could not see twenty feet ahead, the men had to beat the vines with
their carbines to get through them. We had not run fifty yards through
the jungle before they opened on us with a quick firing gun at a
hundred yards. I saw the enemy on the hill across the valley and got
six sharp shooters and began on them, then the fire got so hot that we
had to lie on our faces and crawl back to the rear. I had a wounded
man to carry and was in a very bad way because I had sciatica, Two of
his men took him off while I stopped to help a worse wounded trooper,
but I found