The battle began at half-past six o'clock in the morning. General Chaffee's brigade took up a position six or eight hundred yards from the fort on the eastern side of the village; Ludlow's brigade marched around on the western side, so as to seize the Caney-Santiago road and thus cut off the enemy's escape; while the brigade of General Miles closed in on the south. Capron's battery, from the summit of a hill a little more than a mile southeast of the fort, fired the first shot at 6:35 A. M. Our infantry on General Chaffee's side then opened fire; the Spaniards replied from their fort, blockhouses, and rifle-pits; and the engagement soon became general. For the next three or four hours the battle was little more than a rifle duel at about six hundred yards' range. Capron's battery, from the top of the distant hill, continued to bombard the fort and the village at intervals, but its fire was slow and not very effective. Our infantry, meanwhile, were suffering far more loss than they were able to inflict, for the reason that they could find little or no shelter, while the Spaniards were protected by loopholed walls and deep rifle-pits, and were firing at ranges which had been previously measured and were therefore accurately known. In spite of their losses, however, our men continued to creep forward, and about eleven o'clock General Chaffee's brigade reached and occupied the crest of a low ridge not more than three hundred yards from the northeastern side of the village. The fire of the Spanish sharp-shooters, at this short range, was very close and accurate, and before noon more than one hundred of General Chaffee's men lay dead or wounded in a sunken road about fifty yards back of the firing line. The losses in the brigades of Generals Ludlow and Miles, on the western and southern sides of the village, were almost as great, and at 1:30 P. M. the attacking force seemed to be barely holding its own. At this critical moment, when the chances of success or defeat seemed to be almost evenly balanced, General Lawton received an order from General Shafter to abandon the attack on Caney and hurry to the relief of Generals Kent and Sumner, who were hotly engaged in front of the San Juan heights. Believing that a retreat at this juncture would be disastrous, and that the demoralizing effect of a repulse at Caney would more than counterbalance the support that he could give the center of the line in front of San Juan, General Lawton disregarded this order and pressed the attack with renewed vigor. Capron's battery, about this time, got the range of the stone fort, shot away its flagstaff, amid vociferous cheers from our men, and soon began to make great breaches in its massive walls. General Chaffee, who had been directed to make a final assault on the fort when, in his judgment, the proper time had come, then gave the order to charge; and the Twelfth Infantry, closely followed by several regiments from General Miles's brigade, and the brigade of General Bates, which had just arrived from Siboney, swarmed up the steep slope of the hill, drove the Spaniards out of their rifle-pits, and took the fort by storm. The first man inside its walls was Mr. James Creelman, a war correspondent, who was shot through the shoulder while recovering the Spanish flag. Although the fire from the village and the blockhouses still continued, it gradually slackened, and in less than half an hour the Spaniards who remained alive gave up the struggle and retreated by the northern Santiago road, suffering considerable loss from the fire of General Ludlow's brigade as they passed. At 4 P. M. village, fort, and blockhouses were all in undisputed possession of General Lawton's gallant division. The battle had lasted about nine hours, and in that time seven hundred men had been killed or wounded. Our own loss was four officers and eighty-four men killed, and twenty-four officers and three hundred and thirty-two men wounded; total, four hundred and forty-four. The loss of the Spaniards, as reported by themselves, was two hundred and forty-eight,--about one half their entire strength,--not including inhabitants of the village killed in their houses and in the streets. General Vara del Rey, their commander, was shot through both legs as he stood in the square opposite the village church after the storming of the fort, and then, as his men were placing him on a stretcher, he was instantly killed by a bullet through the head. Our loss, in this obstinately fought battle, was numerically much greater than that of the Spaniards; but their percentage of loss, based on the number of men engaged, was nearly five times as great as ours. When they retreated, they left forty-eight per cent.