General Shafter's plan of operations, as outlined by Captain Lee, British military attaché, was substantially as follows: General Lawton's division was to attack Caney at daylight, July 1, and was expected to drive the enemy quickly out of that post, which then menaced our right flank. Meanwhile the remainder of the Fifth Corps was to advance along the main trail toward Santiago, pushing back the Spanish outposts, and occupy the line of the San Juan River. There it was to deploy and await Lawton, who, having taken Caney, was to wheel to his left and form up on the right of the main line. All these movements were to be completed by the evening of the 1st, and then the whole army would combine for the assault of San Juan on the 2d.
The advance began on the afternoon of Thursday, June 30. General Lawton's division, accompanied by Capron's battery of four field-guns, marched out on the Caney road, without meeting any opposition, and bivouacked for the night behind a ridge, or hill, about a mile southeast of the village. At the same time the remainder of the corps, consisting of General Wheeler's cavalry division, the division of General Kent, and three batteries of light artillery, moved down the Siboney-Santiago road, and went into camp near the Pozo farm-house. At daybreak on Friday, July 1, both columns were in position, within striking distance of the enemy's intrenched line. As the fighting at Caney was wholly independent of the fighting at San Juan, it will be more convenient to regard the two engagements as separate battles, although they were carried on simultaneously. I shall not attempt, however, to do more than describe the tactics on the two widely separated fields, and briefly state the results.
The defenses of Caney consisted of a strong stone fort on a steep conical hill at the southeastern corner of the village, and four or five substantial log blockhouses, so placed as to command every possible, or at least every practicable, avenue of approach. The blockhouses were connected one with another by deep, narrow trenches; the stone fort was surrounded by a network of outlying rifle-pits; there was a barbed-wire entanglement along the whole eastern front of the enemy's position; and the large trees in the village, as well as the houses and the old stone church, were full of sharp-shooters. The garrison of the place, not including the inhabitants, who, of course, participated to a greater or less extent in the fighting, consisted of three companies of infantry belonging to the San Luis brigade and forty-seven guerrillas--a total force of five hundred and fourteen men. The regulars were armed with the Mauser magazine-rifle, while the guerrillas used a .45-caliber Remington, carrying a large and very destructive brass-jacketed ball. They had neither artillery nor machine-guns, and relied wholly upon their small arms, their rifle-pits, and the great natural strength of their position. The officer in command was Brigadier-General Joaquin Vara del Rey. The attacking force, under direction of General Lawton, consisted of four brigades, numbering about forty-five hundred men, and was made up wholly of regulars with the exception of the Second Massachusetts.