The Creeping Advance

Under Deadly Fire

the broiling sun they waited patiently and almost without a groan until they could be removed.

All the morning and long into the afternoon the creeping advance continued. The smokeless powder of the Spaniards often made their fire bewildering. The storm of bullets came from new directions, and when it was discovered that the bodies of the men were being hit on a different side, the masked batteries and trenches had to be first coolly located and then silenced.

The Spanish sharpshooters penetrated between our regiments, hid themselves among the trees, and fired upon the wounded as they were staggering to the rear. When this was discovered our men were beside them

selves with rage. But the regulars only moved forward a few feet farther and aimed their Krag-Jörgensens with more dogged determination.

Thus, until the middle of the afternoon, the very slow advance went on; the dark blue shirts writhed forward from bush to bush, and yard by yard shortened the distance; sometimes little dashes were made from one poor protection to another, but every one of these short rushes was a deadly adventure. It was a battle under new conditions. The long distance and rapid fire of the new rifle would have annihilated one of those oldfashioned line-of-battle charges which were made in the Civil War.

Finally, at half-past three, the town which was to have been taken before breakfast seemed to be as bristling and unsubdued as ever. The time had at last come for a desperate charge. The broken and bushy

Final and Desperate Charge

Heroism of the Soldiers

ground had been crossed, and our men were facing the very trenches. The order was passed down the line for a general rush. With a roaring cheer the regiments leaped to their feet and dashed at the hill. They did not go in ranks-scarcely in companies. It was a race to reach the trenches and to swarm around the fort.

Captain Haskell, of the Twelfth Infantry, was conspicuous in the rush; his long white beard streaming back like the plume of Henry of Navarre. Officers and men dropped down in appalling numbers in the gusts of death. But no force was able to check that charge. Prying down the barbed-wire fences, cheering with that thunderous yell which only Americans can give, they closed over the trenches, which were found filled with dead men. In a moment more the blue uniforms were seen around the fortifications on the hilltop; the barricaded doors were broken in and holes were made in the roofs.

But the Spaniards had finished their fight. The barricaded streets of El Caney offered little resistance. A few shots more, and the town was in the hands of the exhausted but jubilant Americans.

Superb in this charge were the colored soldiers of the Twenty-fourth Regiment. At Guasimas colored troops had saved the Rough Riders; at El Caney they fought with no less heroism. The officers of our regular army say that no better soldiers ever wore a uniform, and prisoners taken from the fort at El Caney insisted that the colored troops were nine feet tall and could strangle them with their fists.

Capture of El Caney

Spanish Tribute to American Gallantry

At half-past four the American troops had possession of the town. They found the Spanish dead lying in lines in the blockhouse behind the loopholes from which they had fired. The dead were in the streets and in the houses. The trenches were open graves. When the little fort was broken into, only one Spanish officer and four men were alive out of the entire garrison.

The forces on the opposing sides had been about equal. Had the Spaniards been as skillful with their arms as the Americans, the result might have been longer delayed, and perhaps there might have been another result altogether. But the Spanish were proud and daring men, and they made the most stubborn resistance that Americans have ever met from a foreign foe.

If the Americans appreciated the dogged courage of the Spaniards, the enemy was amazed at the invincible gallantry of the invaders. One of the surviving Spanish officers has told the story of the battle, and in it he said:

"The enemy's fire was incessant, and we answered with equal rapidity. I have never seen anything to equal the courage and dash of those Americans, who, stripped to the waist, offering their naked breasts to our murderous fire, literally threw themselves on our trenches, on the very muzzles of our guns.

Our execution must have been terrible. We had the advantage of our position and mowed them down. by hundreds, but they never retreated or fell back an