a there was almost
hopeless confusion. The single track railway that supplied the camp was
unable to move promptly either men or munitions, the Quartermaster's
Department sent down whole trainloads of supplies without bills of
lading, and when the troops were at last on board the fleet of
transports they were kept in the river for a week before they were
allowed to start for Santiago. Sixteen thousand men, mostly regulars,
with nearly one thousand officers and two hundred war correspondents,
sailed on June 14, and were in conference with Sampson six days later.

A misunderstanding as to strategy arose in this conference. Sampson left
it believing that the army would land and move directly along the shore
against the batteries that covered the entrance to the harbor. Shafter,
however, though he issued no general order to that effect, was
determined to march inland upon the city of Santiago itself. On June 22
and 23 the army was landed by the navy, for it had neither boats nor
lighters of its own. The first troops, climbing ashore at the railway
pier at Daquiri, marched west along the coast to Siboney, and then
plunged inland, each regiment for itself, along the narrow jungle trail
leading to Santiago. Shafter himself, corpulent and sick, followed as he
could. Before he established his control over the army on land the head
of the column had engaged the enemy at Las Guasimas, nine miles from
Santiago, on June 24. The First Volunteer Cavalry, under the command of
Colonel Leonard M. Wood, with Theodore Roosevelt as lieutenant-colonel,
had marched most of the night in order to be in the first fighting.
After a sharp engagement the Spanish retired and the American advance
upon Santiago continued in a more orderly fashion.

The narrow trail between Siboney, on the shore, and Santiago, was some
twelve miles long. There were dense forests on both sides. Along this
the American army stretched itself at the end of June. There were few
ambulances or wagons, and they could not have been used if they had been
more numerous. Rations for the front were packed on mules or horses. The
troops, hurried to the tropics in the heavy, dark, winter clothing of
the regular army, suffered from heat, rain, and irregular rations.
Before them the San Juan River crossed the trail at right angles. Beyond
this were low hills carrying the fortifications, trenches, and wire
fences of Santiago, behind which the Spanish force could fight with
every advant