Impossible Victories

by Bryan Perrett

  On 22 June the warships subjected the Spanish forts to a twenty-minute bombardment. There was no response and it was later learned that the garrison had pulled out before dawn. Disembarkation commenced, using ships’ boats and pontoons while the horses and mules swam ashore. Shafter and Sampson, having been unable to agree on a coordinated plan of campaign, now began to fight what amounted to separate wars. Only one road, grandly described as a ‘camino real’ despite being little more than a country cart track, led from Daiquirí to Santiago, following a route westwards for seven miles to the little port of Siboney and then turning inland to pass through close, rolling country. On the morning of 23 June Shafter, having learned that Siboney had also been evacuated, despatched Lawton’s 2nd Division along the road with orders to defend the port until disembarkation had been completed. Hard on Lawton’s heels came the dismounted Cavalry Division, the commander of which, ‘Fighting Joe’ Wheeler, had been informed by the Cubans that a Spanish force, 2,000 strong with two guns, was digging in across the road in the hilly country some two or three miles further on. Wheeler had no intention of being bound by the orders given to Lawton and, as Shafter had not yet left his headquarters ship, he took full advantage of his own position as being the senior officer ashore. During the night he passed Brigadier S. B. M. Young’s 2nd Cavalry Brigade through Lawton’s lines and ordered the rest of the division to hurry forward. The Cubans informed him that a trail ran through the bush parallel to the road, which it rejoined at Las Guásimas, where the Spaniards were now lying in wait. The Rough Riders were despatched down the trail while Young with the 1st and 10th Cavalry continued to advance along the road. At about 07:30 both columns spotted some stone breastworks on a dominant hill approximately 700 yards distant. Wheeler probed the position with Hotchkiss fire, which was immediately answered from the breastwork itself and from the tall grass, bushes and trees covering the area.

  The air seemed to be so full of the crack and zip of flying bullets that Wheeler remarked he had never experienced such concentrated musketry during the entire Civil War. The Spaniards, in fact, were equipped with clip-loading 7mm Mauser magazine rifles which enabled them to maintain a much higher rate of fire than the Americans. Furthermore, they were using smokeless ammunition, making their positions difficult to spot. More often than not, the only visible indication of their presence was a briefly glimpsed straw hat or two. Casualties began to mount steadily. Colonel Leonard Wood, commanding the Rough Riders, conferred with Roosevelt, his second-in-command, and the two agreed that the only solution was to attack. Yelling as though Shafter’s entire corps was behind them, the Rough Riders surged forward through the dense underbrush, firing as they went. It was the purest bluff, but it worked. The Spaniards suddenly broke and ran. On the opposite flank Young’s two regiments also went over to the attack, joining the Rough Riders in chasing the enemy beyond their breastworks. Wheeler, suddenly transported back to the scenes of his youth, gave vent to a delighted yell:

  ’We’ve got the damn Yankees on the run!’

  He had been sufficiently concerned about the outcome to swallow his pride and request assistance from Lawton, but before this could arrive the Spaniards had broken and, simultaneously, the 9th Cavalry from Brigadier-General S. S. Sumner’s 1st Cavalry Brigade had arrived at the double.7

  The action at Las Guásimas cost the Americans sixteen killed and 52 wounded, while Spanish casualties amounted to ten killed and 25 wounded. The skirmish raised American morale, but it was also a pointer of things to come and Shafter had little reason to feel over-confident. He was not inclined to place much reliance on his allies the Cuban rebels when it came to serious fighting since, notwithstanding their promises, they had been notable for their absence during the skirmish. Furthermore, of the 200,000 Spanish troops known to be in Cuba, some 35,000 were present in Santiago de Cuba Province, outnumbering him by two to one, and Santiago city itself was held by a 13,000-strong garrison. Luckily for him the local commander, Lieutenant-General Arsenio Linares, was not in the same league as Weyler. Linares could have made V Corps’ march from Daiquirí to Santiago very difficult indeed, but he did not. He could have concentrated most of his troops east of the city and met the Americans in a pitched battle as they arrived, a possibility which would have offered a reasonable chance of success, but he chose not to do so. Instead, he opted for an entirely defensive stance, keeping a large number of his troops west of Santiago to face a wildly overestimated threat from the Cuban rebels, and prepared defensive positions to the east of the city on San Juan Ridge and at the village of El Caney, allocating a mere 1,700 men to hold them.

  Even though its advance from Daiquirí and Siboney was now unopposed, V Corps soon found itself in difficulty. The camino real, never having been intended to carry so much concentrated traffic, was quickly trampled into a such a mud-wallow that, for the moment, it was decided to bring forward only the field batteries and lighter supporting weapons and leave most of the heavy guns behind. The wagon trains bogged down regularly requiring assistance from the heavily laden riflemen to extract them from the mire. With the temperature well above 90°F the troops, sweating into their thick uniforms as they marched or heaved guns and vehicles out of the mud, began to suffer from heat exhaustion. Packs and blanket rolls were shed regularly, to be plundered eagerly by the Cuban rebels. At length, by 30 June, Shafter’s corps had reached a position from which it could strike against Santiago.

  Shafter carried out a personal reconnaissance of the terrain the same day, climbing a hill named El Pozo which gave him a view across the valley of the little San Juan river, the heights beyond and, some three miles distant, of Santiago itself, with Admiral Cervera’s warships lying in the harbour. On San Juan Ridge the Spaniards could be seen working on their blockhouses and trenches or stringing wire in front of them. Similar activity was taking place on a detached feature fronting the northern end of the main ridge, named Kettle Hill because of a large sugar-refining plant on the summit. In the foreground, between El Pozo Hill and the stream was a wide belt of dense jungle that his troops would have to negotiate along a single track before they could deploy for an attack on the ridge. Such an attack, however, would be taken in flank from the fortified village of El Caney to the north, and this would have to be neutralised first. After San Juan Ridge had been taken, Shafter intended isolating Santiago and cutting the city’s water supply. A degree of urgency existed, in that he had been informed that Linares was expecting a column of reinforcements, several thousand strong.

  Shafter assembled his orders group during the afternoon. At first light next morning El Caney was to be neutralised by Lawton’s 2nd Infantry Division with one field battery in support. Two hours had been allowed for the operation, during which the Cavalry Division on the right and Kent’s 1st Infantry Division on the left would debouch from the jungle track and remain along the edge of the tree line. Once El Caney had fallen, they would assault San Juan Ridge, covered by the second field battery, which had been hauled to the top of El Pozo Hill, and Lawton would re-deploy to add his weight to the attack. Curiously, Shafter did not ask Sampson to support the attack with naval gunfire; nor did Linares ask Cervera for defensive fire from his cruisers to assist in holding the position. Had either commander done so, the result would almost certainly have been decisive.

  By now, tropical diseases had begun to make their first effects felt among the Americans. The following morning, 1 July, found Shafter confined to his bed, suffering from an attack of gout and the onset of malaria, although he was kept informed of developments by runner. Wheeler, too, was down with fever, as was Young, so that the Cavalry Division was commanded by Brigadier-General Sumner. Because of this, Colonel Wood assumed command of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade and Roosevelt took over the Rough Riders. With both the corps commander and his second-in-command hors de combat, the Americans were thus going into action effectively leaderless. The same could be said of the Spaniards, since Linares made no attempt to manoeuvre, reinforce or counter-attack during
the day. In overall terms, therefore, the battle can be said to have fought itself.

  Good leadership, however, was to be found in unexpected places. The 500 Spaniards holding El Caney were led by Major-General Vara del Rey, who had turned the village into a miniature fortress. It contained one major and four smaller blockhouses, a stone church and houses loopholed for defence, and a wired trench system. Lawton’s division had opened its attack promptly at 07:00 when the supporting battery of 3.2-inch guns opened fire. After searching the trenches for a while they switched their fire to the blockhouses and the church, against which their light shells caused largely superficial damage. Lawton may well have overestimated the results of the bombardment, and he certainly underestimated the effects of the enemy’s rapid Mauser fire, for whenever his regiments rose to rush the works they quickly sustained such heavy casualties that they were forced to seek cover. Lying prone in the long guinea grass, they returned the fire as best they could, but even this proved to be the undoing of the 2nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Every time one of its Springfield rifles was discharged the black powder left a cloud of smoke hanging over the firer’s position, giving a clear aiming point to the Spanish sharpshooters. So rapidly did the regiment’s casualties mount that it had to be pulled out of the line. As hour followed hour it became clear that instead of Lawton adding his weight to the main attack, he would himself require reinforcements. Having been informed of the situation, Shatter sent up his only reserve, Bates’ Independent Infantry Brigade. The unbelievably stubborn defenders of El Caney, just 500 strong, were now holding off ten American infantry regiments, a total of approximately 6,000 men, plus 1,500 Cuban rebels who were firing into the village from a distant hill to the north. The dynamite gun, which Shafter had also sent up to boost the artillery support, fired only one round, springing its breech in the process, and was out of action for the rest of the day.

  The battle was going equally badly for the Americans elsewhere. At 08:00 the battery on El Pozo Hill began shelling the trenches and blockhouses on San Juan Ridge, watched by an interested crowd of foreign military observers and officers who should have been with their regiments. The lack of immediate response caused the Swedish observer to enquire whether the Spaniards had any field artillery at all. They had. It consisted of cleverly concealed, modern 77mm Krupp guns using smokeless propellant. The position of the American battery was clearly marked by a cloud of powder smoke and the Spanish gunners knew the range to a yard. Almost immediately, a complete salvo of shells burst over the guns, killing or wounding several men and dispersing the spectators. ‘It was amusing to note how soon these “rubber necks” lost their curiosity’, recorded Captain Brown drily in his diary, ‘and how quickly they seemed to remember that their proper places were with their troops, which they then rejoined with commendable alacrity.’ The fact, however, was that the American battery was practically silenced and because of this the assault on San Juan Ridge would have to be made without artillery support.

  Worse was to follow. The Cavalry and 1st Infantry Divisions were now winding their way forward along the trail through the belt of jungle beneath El Pozo Hill. The Spaniards, gunners and riflemen alike, knew that they would have to use this and were suitably prepared. Shatter, however, made it much easier for them by insisting that an observation balloon was sent up from a point on the trail itself. Shells exploded among the trees and volleys of Mauser bullets clipped a steady shower of twigs and leaves from overhead. To the files trudging forward along the trail it was unnerving that men should be killed or wounded by an enemy who remained as yet unseen. The Cavalry Division passed through, forded the San Juan, turned right and took cover in the long grass at the foot of Kettle Hill. Kent’s brigades came next, turning left after they had splashed through the stream, and shook out into skirmish lines. Both formations immediately drew heavy aimed fire which kept them pinned down.

  At this point the observer in the balloon noticed a secondary trail through the jungle, apparently emerging near the southern end of the Spanish position. The 71st New York Volunteer Infantry, a very inexperienced unit one third of whose men had not handled a firearm until the previous month, was directed along it. As the leading battalion emerged from the tree line it attracted a storm of Mauser fire and bursting shrapnel that cut down the leading ranks. Panic-stricken, the regiment would have bolted had not Kent and his staff blocked the trail and ordered the men to lie down where they were. At about the same time the observation balloon, repeatedly punctured by bullets and shrapnel, slowly collapsed into the trees amid cheers from both armies.

  Long before noon was reached and passed Shafter had become seriously alarmed. A battle which he had estimated would take two or three hours to win was still raging. From the reports he received it seemed that resistance at El Caney was as tough as ever, that his troops were pinned down everywhere and had already incurred 1,000 casualties. With nothing more to commit to the fight, defeat stared him in the face.

  In the firing line, few of the regimental officers had been thoroughly briefed on the plan of battle. They had simply advanced until they were in contact with the enemy and no further orders had been received. In Kent’s 1st Infantry Division Colonel C. A. Wikoff, commanding the 3rd Brigade, was shot dead and two regimental commanders were critically wounded. It was madness to hold the troops in their untenable position, yet to retire would be to invite a disastrous defeat. The remaining alternative was to advance up the 600 yards of open, bullet-swept slope to the enemy trenches, and that seemed to offer only certain death.

  Fortunately, the hour produced the men. The thoughts of Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, riding his horse Little Texas along the Rough Riders’ firing line below Kettle Hill, were inclining towards the same sort of decisive action that had won the skirmish at Las Guásimas, notwithstanding orders that he was merely to support the attack of the Cavalry Division’s 1st Brigade, consisting of the 3rd, 6th and 9th Cavalry, on Kettle Hill. Making up his mind, he told his trumpeter to sound the Charge. The men scrambled to their feet, heading steadily upwards as fast as the slope and the heat of the day permitted, passing through the 9th Cavalry in 1st Brigade’s line. The attack was taken up by the 9th, then by the 6th and 3rd, and finally by the 1st and 10th until the whole division was moving steadily upwards, with individuals pausing to fire from time to time. Among the participants was a young officer of the 10th Cavalry named John J. Pershing who was to command the American Expeditionary Force in France during the First World War. Roosevelt, encountering a line of barbed wire, turned his horse loose, noting that it had been grazed twice by bullets. His elbow was nicked and at one stage his spectacles were shot off – to his fury, the latter shot came from behind, but he quickly donned a spare pair and continued. He certainly made an indelible impression on one of his tough Westerners.

  ’It’s a sight to see him in a fight. You’d think his hide was double-chilled steel and three thicknesses, and that he known it watching him running around waving his gun to bring the boys up and taking a crack at the Spaniards now and then, just to show us how. I don’t never trust no man with gold-rimmed glasses and a beaming smile no more. When I seen him at San Antonio, I figured he was raised a pet and wouldn’t kick if you tickled his heels with a toothpick. I wouldn’t undertake to harness him with a pitchfork.’

  The Spaniards inflicted some loss but nothing like enough to stop the momentum of the attack. Most simply fled and by 13:00 the feature was firmly in the Cavalry Division’s hands.

  Dramatic as its capture had been, Kettle Hill was simply an outwork of the main Spanish position. Over in Kent’s division Lieutenant Jules Ord, a young officer on the staff of Brigadier-General H. S. Hawkins’ 1st Brigade, had asked for permission to lead an attack at about the same time. Hawkins declined either to grant or refuse formal permission, but wished him luck. Stripped to the waist, a pistol in one hand and a bayonet in the other, Ord set off up the slope, shouting at the men around him, ‘Follow me! We can’t stay here!’ A few indi
viduals from the 16th Infantry responded, then small groups. The Spanish fire suddenly intensified but the attackers, sustaining remarkably little loss, kept moving upwards, some aiming carefully before they fired, some hip-shooting from full magazines, others hacking their way through the strung wire with machetes. ‘Very gallant, but very foolish,’ murmured some among the foreign observers. They can’t take it, you know. Never in the world. It’s slaughter, absolute slaughter.’

  How this forlorn hope might have ended remains a matter for speculation, for at this juncture the entire nature of the battle was changed by another junior officer. Lieutenant John Parker was a rare machine gun enthusiast at a time when the small Regular Army had little use for such weapons other than against hostile Indians on the Frontier, and he had had to lobby hard for the privilege of being allowed to accompany V Corps with a four-gun Gatling detachment. Normally, his little unit would have been regarded as corps troops, but once in Cuba it seemed to be nobody’s baby, having to arrange for its own disembarkation and everything else besides. It does not seem have had a place in Shaffer’s plans, and if Shatter sent it forward to support the attack on San Juan Ridge the fact is not recorded in otherwise reliable published accounts of the battle. The probability is that Parker had followed his instinct, hurrying the detachment towards the sound of the guns. He had taken the secondary track through the belt of jungle, where his men had been forced to manhandle the high-wheeled carriages past the prostrate 71st New York, and emerged from the trees just as the Spaniards’ attention was diverted by Ord’s attack. It was the work of a moment to swing the guns round and sight them on the enemy positions lining the crest, and then the Gatlings were grinding out up to 3,600 rounds per minute, kicking up spurts of dust everywhere along the breastworks. For some of the Spaniards this was too much and they fled beyond the brow of the ridge.