six
successive attacks from different directions on the night of the 11th,
and a still greater number on the night of the 12th, with more or less
desultory skirmishing during the day, so that for a period of
forty-eight hours the gallant marines had no rest or sleep at all.

There was some danger, at first, that the enemy, reinforced from
Caimanera or Guantanamo city, would assemble in force on the slopes of
the eastern hills, creep up through the scrub until they were within a
short distance of the camp, and then overwhelm the marines in a sudden
rush-assault. They were known to have six thousand regulars at
Guantanamo city, only about fifteen miles away, and it was quite within
the bounds of possibility that they might detach a large part of this
force for offensive operations on the eastern side of the lower bay. To
provide for this contingency, and to strengthen his defensive position,
Lieutenant-Colonel Huntington withdrew his men from the eastern slope of
the hill, where they had first been stationed, and posted them on the
crest and upper part of the western slope, where they would be nearer
the fleet and better protected by its guns. At the same time our small
force, in the intervals of fighting, dug a trench and erected a
barricade around the crest of the hill on the land side, so as to
enlarge the clearing, give more play to the automatic and rapid-fire
guns, and make it more difficult for the enemy to approach unseen. When
this had been done, there was little probability that a rush-assault
would succeed. The best troops in the world, unless they were in
overwhelming force, could hardly hope to cross a clearing that was swept
by the fire of six hundred rifles, two machine-guns, and three Hotchkiss
cannon hurling canister or shrapnel.

In the course of the first three days' engagement the marines were
joined by eighty or a hundred Cuban insurgents; but opinions differ as
to the value of the latter's cooeperation. Some officers with whom I
talked spoke favorably of them, while others said that they became
wildly excited, fired recklessly and at random, and were of little use
except as guides and scouts. Captain Elliott, who saw them under fire,
reported that they were brave enough, but that their efficiency as
fighting men was on a par with that of the enemy; while Captain McCalla
called attention officially to their devotion to freedom, and said that
one of them, who had been shot through the heart, died on t