ds, we found
even the tropic night chilly before morning came.

During the afternoon's fighting, while I was the highest officer at our
immediate part of the front, Captains Boughton and Morton of the regular
cavalry, two as fine officers as any man could wish to have beside him
in battle, came along the firing line to tell me that they had heard
a rumor that we might fall back, and that they wished to record their
emphatic protest against any such course. I did not believe there was
any truth in the rumor, for the Spaniards were utterly incapable of any
effective counter-attack. However, late in the evening, after the fight,
General Wheeler visited us at the front, and he told me to keep myself
in readiness, as at any moment it might be decided to fall back. Jack
Greenway was beside me when General Wheeler was speaking. I answered,
"Well, General, I really don't know whether we would obey an order to
fall back. We can take that city by a rush, and if we have to move
out of here at all I should be inclined to make the rush in the right
direction." Greenway nodded an eager assent. The old General, after a
moment's pause, expressed his hearty agreement, and said that he would
see that there was no falling back. He had been very sick for a couple
of days, but, sick as he was, he managed to get into the fight. He was a
gamecock if ever there was one, but he was in very bad physical shape
on the day of the fight. If there had been any one in high command to
supervise and press the attack that afternoon, we would have gone
right into Santiago. In my part of the line the advance was halted only
because we received orders not to move forward, but to stay on the crest
of the captured hill and hold it.

We are always told that three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage is the most
desirable kind. Well, my men and the regulars of the cavalry had just
that brand of courage. At about three o'clock on the morning after the
first fight, shooting began in our front and there was an alarm of a
Spanish advance. I was never more pleased than to see the way in which
the hungry, tired, shabby men all jumped up and ran forward to the
hill-crest, so as to be ready for the attack; which, however, did not
come. As soon as the sun rose the Spaniards again opened upon us with
artillery. A shell burst between Dave Goodrich and myself, blacking us
with powder, and killing and wounding several of the men immediately
behind us.

Next day the fight turne