Major Wood, who superintended the bringing in and disposition of the wounded, did everything that was possible to make them comfortable, and worked day and night with tireless energy and devotion; but there was very little that could be done with the resources at his command.
The second day's battle in front of Santiago consisted, generally speaking, of a series of attempts on the part of the Spaniards to drive our troops from the positions which they had taken by assault on Friday. The firing continued throughout the day, and at times was very heavy; but just before sunset it died away to a faint sputter and crackle of rifles, and at dark ceased altogether. The moon rose in an unclouded sky over the dark tree-tops east of the camp; the crickets began to chirp in the thicket across the brook; sounds like the rapid shaking of a billiard-ball in a resonant wooden box came from nocturnal birds or tree-toads hidden in the depth of the forest; and the teeming life of the tropical wilderness, frightened into silence for a time by the uproar of battle, took courage from the stillness of night, and manifested its presence by chirps, croaks, and queer, unfamiliar cries in all parts of the encircling jungle.
About ten o'clock the stillness was broken by the boom of a heavy gun at the front, followed instantly by the crash and rattle of infantry fire, which grew heavier and heavier, and extended farther and farther to the north and south, until it seemed to come from all parts of our intrenched line on the crest of the San Juan ridge. For nearly half an hour the rattle and sputter of rifles, the drumming of machine-guns, and the intermittent thunder of artillery filled the air from the outskirts of Santiago to the hospital camp, drowning the murmur of the rippling brook, and silencing again the crickets, birds, and tree-toads in the jungle beyond it. Then the uproar ceased, almost as suddenly as it had begun; the stillness of night settled down again upon the lonely tropical wilderness; and if I had not been able to hear the voices of the surgeons as they consulted over an operating-table, and an occasional shot from a picket or a sharpshooter in the forest, I should not have imagined that there was an army or a battle-field within a hundred miles. From the wounded who came back from the firing line an hour or two later we learned that the enemy made an attempt, about ten o'clock, to recapture the San Juan heights, but were repulsed with heavy loss.