miles of still jungle. It was a
very lovely morning, the sky of cloudless blue, while the level,
shimmering rays from the just-risen sun brought into fine relief the
splendid palms which here and there towered above the lower growth.
The lofty and beautiful mountains hemmed in the Santiago plain, making
it an amphitheatre for the battle.

Immediately our guns opened, and at the report great clouds of white
smoke hung on the ridge crest. For a minute or two there was no
response. Wood and I were sitting together, and Wood remarked to me
that he wished our brigade could be moved somewhere else, for we were
directly in line of any return fire aimed by the Spaniards at the
battery. Hardly had he spoken when there was a peculiar whistling,
singing sound in the air, and immediately afterward the noise of
something exploding over our heads. It was shrapnel from the Spanish
batteries. We sprung to our feet and leaped on our horses. Immediately
afterward a second shot came which burst directly above us; and then a
third. From the second shell one of the shrapnel bullets dropped on my
wrist, hardly breaking the skin, but raising a bump about as big as a
hickory-nut. The same shell wounded four of my regiment, one of them
being Mason Mitchell, and two or three of the regulars were also hit,
one losing his leg by a great fragment of shell. Another shell
exploded right in the middle of the Cubans, killing and wounding a
good many, while the remainder scattered like guinea-hens. Wood's lead
horse was also shot through the lungs. I at once hustled my regiment
over the crest of the hill into the thick underbrush, where I had no
little difficulty in getting them together again into column.

Meanwhile the firing continued for fifteen or twenty minutes, until
it gradually died away. As the Spaniards used smokeless powder, their
artillery had an enormous advantage over ours, and, moreover, we did
not have the best type of modern guns, our fire being slow.

As soon as the firing ceased, Wood formed his brigade, with my
regiment in front, and gave me orders to follow behind the First
Brigade, which was just moving off the ground. In column of fours we
marched down the trail toward the ford of the San Juan River. We
passed two or three regiments of infantry, and were several times
halted before we came to the ford. The First Brigade, which was under
Colonel Carroll--Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton commanding the Ninth
Regiment, Major Wessels t