In response to the request of Admiral Sampson, who represented that he would not risk forcing the harbour entrance, filled as it was with mines, an expedition of sixteen thousand men was soon afloat on transports in Tampa harbour, Florida, and after long delays, reached the coast of Cuba, off Santiago, on the 22d of June. These troops, comprising the Fifth Army Corps, commanded by General Shafter, were soon landed at Baiquiri and Siboney, despite the tremendous surf, and lost no time in possessing themselves of the country adjacent.
As time was precious, the troops of General Shafter’s command were landed rapidly, each man with three days’ rations and two hundred rounds of ammunition, and the van was pushing for Santiago while the rear was disembarking. They encountered little opposition at first, and the second day, or on the 23d of June, a base of operations was secured by the capture of Juragua. On the 24th the first blood was spilled, when the dismounted cavalry, known as the Rough Riders, were attacked, several miles beyond the most advanced position, at La Guasimas, and lost sixteen in killed and fifty–two wounded. This attack by the Spaniards upon troops struggling through a tropical thicket was referred to by the men themselves as merely a skirmish, and did not for a moment cause them to falter.
The Spaniards withdrew from their advanced positions, and a few days after the skirmish at La Guasimas eight thousand troops, under Generals Wheeler and Lawton, occupied the hamlet of Sevilla without opposition. The first great battle was a week later, on the 1st of July, when a general advance was ordered upon the outworks of Santiago. Two important positions were taken and held, that of El Caney by General Lawton, consisting of a strong blockhouse defended by rifle pits, and San Juan Hill by General Kent. Both positions were gallantly and obstinately defended by the Spaniards, and it was only after repeated charges by our troops that they were taken. The charge up the steep slopes of San Juan Hill, led by Colonel Roosevelt, compelled the unstinted admiration of the foreign _attachés_ representing various European governments, who could not sufficiently praise the gallant “initiative,” as they called it, of the American soldier. After two days’ hard fighting the men intrenched and lay down on their arms, with a loss of two hundred and thirty killed and more than twelve hundred wounded. Volunteers and regulars vied with each other in deeds of bravery, in individual heroism, and it would be impossible to mention every hero of this fight. The Spaniards fought well also, and as they possessed weapons superior to those of the Americans, and cartridges loaded with smokeless powder, and were in the main sheltered behind intrenchments, they had a great advantage.