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Updated: May 3, 2025
He was in two minds whether or not to send it back, but decided not to do so in fear lest he might give fresh offence. The next day at dawn the Dixie sailed for the scene of war. Then followed the historic days of the blockade; the first landing on Cuba; the suspense and triumph attending Cervera's capture; El Caney; San Juan Hill; Santiago; and the end of the war.
The Spaniards replied, after it had sent five shells among them. The Spanish forces were much stronger than our men thought they were, and it took General Lawton nearly all day to gain possession of El Caney.
“‘Up here on the heights General Chaffee, facing Caney, moved his troops very early in the morning, and the battle opened by Ludlow’s artillery firing on the fort and knocking several holes in it. “‘The artillery kept up a steady fire on the fort and town, and finally demolished the fort.
General Wheeler, a former Confederate who was now in command of the cavalry, met and defeated a Spanish force at Las Guasimas. Further advance met difficulties that were more serious. On the left of the American line was San Juan Hill, an eminence which commanded the country toward the east; on the right was El Caney, a fortified village held by a small force of Spaniards.
At San Juan the Ninth Cavalry distinguished itself, its commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton, being killed. The fourth of the Negro regiments, the Twenty-fifth Infantry, played an especially brilliant part in the battle of El Caney on July 1st. It was held in reserve with the rest of Colonel Miles' brigade, but was ordered to support General Lawton's brigade toward the middle of the day.
Our losses in the fighting at Caney and San Juan were only two hundred and thirty-nine men killed and thirteen hundred and sixty-three wounded, yet General Shafter was so disheartened that he not only thought of retreating to a position five miles in the rear, but seems to have been upon the point of surrendering the command of the army to General Breckenridge.
The top-notch was made of a notched wheel or disc, into each slot of which an axis fixed on the top of the stretchers worked. The runner was made on a similar principle. At the point of the rib where the stretcher joined it, Caney fixed a middle bit, consisting of a small fork, in which the end of the stretcher was hinged.
The really hazardous nature of the movement is shown by the fact that the column of Escario, three thousand strong, from Manzanillo, reached Santiago on July 3rd; too late, it is true, abundantly too late, to take part in the defence of San Juan and El Caney, upon holding which the city depended for food and water; yet not so late but that it gives a shivering suggestion how much more arduous would have been the task of our troops had Escario come up in time.
It was slow, hard work, under a blazing July sun and a perfect hail-storm of bullets, which, thanks to the poor marksmanship of the Spaniards, "went high." It has been generally admitted, by all fair-minded writers, that the colored soldiers saved the day both at El Caney and San Juan Hill.
No anxiety was felt for two or three days, as he was a good mountaineer, and it was supposed he had crossed the mountain and made his way out by the Caney River. But when several days passed without tidings of him, a search party was formed. Big Tom Wilson was with it. They explored the mountain in all directions unsuccessfully.
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