The Land Fight at Santiago: American
Early in June I was called to the telephone in Tampa and told from the President's mansion in Washington to proceed immediately with not less than 10,000 men to Santiago. The news had been received that day that the fleet of Cervera was surely within the harbor, and that if 10,000 men could be placed there at once, the fleet and the city could be captured in forty-eight hours. The horses and mules, as well as the men, had been taken off from the ships, and the time consumed in reloading the horses and mules allowed me to embark 17,000 men nearly. That was very fortunate for me and our cause.
On arriving off Santiago, with Admiral Sampson, I went down the coast about twenty miles, and saw General Garcia, and asked him his opinion of the country, what his force was, and whether he was disposed to assist. I found him very willing and very glad to offer his services at once, with 3,000 men that he had with him and another thousand that he had up the country a little farther, which were to join us immediately. In sailing along the coast, looking for a landing-place, I selected two places--Siboney, a little indentation in the coast about twelve or thirteen miles east of Santiago, and another little bay about eight miles farther east, where small streams emptied into the sea, making a valley and a sand-bar about 150 to 200 yards in extent. All the rest of the coast is abrupt, perpendicular walls of rock from ten to thirty feet high, against which the waves were dashing all the time, and where it is utterly impossible to land.
We had the earnest and able support of the navy and its assistance in disembarking, and the next morning were bombarding the two little places and driving away the few hundred Spanish soldiers who were there. We began disembarking, and before the end of the day the men were on shore with the artillery and 2,000 horses and mules that we had to throw overboard to get ashore.
I knew that my entire army would be sick if it stayed long enough; that it was simply a question of getting that town just as soon as possible. I knew the strength, the courage, and the will of my men, or I thought I did, and the result shows that I was not mistaken. It was a question of starting the moment we landed and not stopping until we reached the Spanish outposts, and, therefore, as soon as a division was put on shore it was started on the march.
On the 24th the first engagement took place, in which there were between 800 and 900 men on the American side and probably 1,000 or 1,200 on the Spanish. The enemy was strongly entrenched, showing only their heads, while the American forces had to march exposing their whole bodies to the fire of the enemy.
It is announced by military experts as an axiom that trained troops armed with the present breech-loading and rapid-firing arms cannot be successfully assailed by any troops who simply assault. Of course you can make the regular approaches and dig up to them. The fallacy of that proposition was made manifest that day, when the men composing the advance, marched as deliberately over those breastworks as they ever did when they fought with arms that could be loaded only about twice in a minute, and had a range of only 200 or 300 yards.
This army was an army of marksmen. For fifteen years the greatest attention had been paid to marksmanship, and I suppose four-fifths of all the men in that army wore on their breasts the marksman's badge. I had given orders, knowing that the noise of firing is harmless and that shots put in the air are harmless--I had given the strictest orders to all officers that their men should be told not to fire a shot unless they could see something moving, and the firing was to be by individuals, what is called file firing, individual firing. The Spanish troops, not so well drilled in firing as ours, used volley firing, which is very effective against large bodies of troops massed and moving over a plain, but utterly inefficient when used against skirmishers moving over a rough country. In that battle, which lasted two hours, less than ten rounds of ammunition per man was fired by my men, and the losses, notwithstanding my men had exposed their whole bodies, while the enemy were in trenches where only their heads could be seen, were about equal.
I saw the commander of that force a few days later in Santiago, and in talking about it he said to me: "Your men behaved very strangely. We were much surprised. They were whipped, but they didn't seem to know it. They continued to advance and we had to go away." He was quite right about it. They did have to go away.