ey invariably availed
themselves to the fullest extent; but the confidence of the
general officers in their superb gallantry, which the event
proved to be not misplaced, added still more, and it is a
fact that the services of no four white regiments can be
compared with those rendered by the four colored
regiments--the 9th and 10th Cavalry, and the 24th and 25th
Infantry. They were to the front at La Guasima, at Caney,
and at San Juan, and what was the severest test of all, that
came later, in the yellow-fever hospitals."--Bonsal.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Official Report of General Sumner.

CHAPTER VIII.

SAN JUAN (Continued).

Kent's Division: The Twenty-fourth Infantry; Forming Under
Fire--A Gallant Charge.

Turning now to the centre and left of the American line we follow the
advance of that division of infantry commanded by General Kent, and
which met the brunt of Spanish resistance at San Juan. This division,
known as the First Division, Fifth Army Corps, consisted of three
brigades, composed as follows:

First Brigade, Brigadier-General Hawkins commanding, made up of the
Sixth Infantry, the Sixteenth Infantry, and the Seventy-first New York
Volunteers.

The Second Brigade, Colonel Pearson commanding, made up of the Second
Infantry, the Tenth Infantry and the Twenty-first Infantry.

The Third Brigade, commanded by Colonel Wikoff, in which were the
Ninth Infantry, the Thirteenth Infantry and the Twenty-fourth
Infantry; in all 262 officers and 5,095 men. Thus, in the whole
division there were eight regiments of regular infantry and one
volunteer regiment, the Seventy-first New York.

Although our present purpose is to bring into view the special work of
the Twenty-fourth Infantry, it will be necessary to embrace in our
scope the work of the entire division, in order to lay before the
reader the field upon which that particular regiment won such lasting
credit. General Kent, who commanded the division, a most accomplished
soldier, gives a lucid account of the whole assault as seen from his
position, and of the work performed by his division, in his report,
dated July 8, 1898.

When General Kent's division arrived in the neighborhood of the San
Juan ford and found itself under fire and the trail so blocked by
troops of the cavalry division, which had not yet deployed to the
right, that direct progress toward the front was next to impossible,
the