hour in the rear making soup out
of some rice and other stuff he found in a Spanish house; he brought
some of it to General Wood, Jack Greenway, and myself, and nothing
could have tasted more delicious.

At this time our army in the trenches numbered about 11,000 men; and
the Spaniards in Santiago about 9,000,* their reinforcements having
just arrived. Nobody on the firing line, whatever was the case in the
rear, felt the slightest uneasiness as to the Spaniards being able to
break out; but there were plenty who doubted the advisability of
trying to rush the heavy earthworks and wire defenses in our front.

* Note: This is probably an understatement. Lieutenant Muller, in
chap. xxxviii. of his book, says that there were "eight or nine
thousand;" this is exclusive of the men from the fleet, and
apparently also of many of the volunteers (see chap. xiv.), all of
whom were present on July 2nd. I am inclined to think that on the
evening of that day there were more Spanish troops inside Santiago
than there were American troops outside.

All day long the firing continued--musketry and cannon. Our artillery
gave up the attempt to fight on the firing line, and was withdrawn
well to the rear out of range of the Spanish rifles; so far as we
could see, it accomplished very little. The dynamite gun was brought
up to the right of the regimental line. It was more effective than the
regular artillery because it was fired with smokeless powder, and as
it was used like a mortar from behind the hill, it did not betray its
presence, and those firing it suffered no loss. Every few shots it got
out of order, and the Rough Rider machinists and those furnished by
Lieutenant Parker--whom we by this time began to consider as an
exceedingly valuable member of our own regiment--would spend an hour or
two in setting it right. Sergeant Borrowe had charge of it and handled
it well. With him was Sergeant Guitilias, a gallant old fellow, a
veteran of the Civil War, whose duties were properly those of
standard-bearer, he having charge of the yellow cavalry standard of
the regiment; but in the Cuban campaign he was given the more active
work of helping run the dynamite gun. The shots from the dynamite gun
made a terrific explosion, but they did not seem to go accurately.
Once one of them struck a Spanish trench and wrecked part of it. On
another occasion one struck a big building, from which there promptly
swarmed both Spanish cavalry a