gard
to Colonel Escarrio's movements, it was simply because he did not ask
any of his officers or men to get it for him--and it was information
well worth having. If that column of five thousand Spanish regulars had
reached Santiago two days earlier--the evening before instead of the
morning after the battle of July 1-2--I doubt very much whether we
should have taken either Caney or San Juan Hill, and General Shafter
might have had better reason than he did have to "consider the
advisability of falling back to a position five miles in the rear."[14]

If General Shafter believed that these Spanish reinforcements were "some
distance away" and that they would "not get into Santiago," it is
difficult to understand why he should have so far lost his grip, after
the capture of Caney and San Juan Hill, as to telegraph the War
Department that he was "seriously considering the advisability of
falling back to a position five miles in the rear." His troops had not
been defeated, nor even repulsed; they had been victorious at every
point; and the Spaniards, as we afterward learned in Santiago, were
momentarily expecting them to move another mile to the front, rather
than five miles to the rear. It is the belief of many foreign residents
of Santiago, including the English cable-operators, who had the best
possible means of knowing the views of the Spanish commanders, that if
our army had continued the attack after capturing Caney and San Juan
Hill it might have entered the city before dark. This may or may not be
so; but the chance--if chance there was--vanished when Colonel Escarrio,
on the morning after the battle, marched around the head of the bay and
into the city with a reinforcing column of five thousand regulars.
General Shafter says, in his official report, that "the arrival of
General Escarrio was not anticipated" because "it was not believed that
his troops could arrive so soon." The time when a reinforcing column of
five thousand men will reach the enemy ought not to be a matter of vague
belief--it should be a matter of accurate foreknowledge; and if General
Shafter had sent a couple of officers with a few Rough Riders out on the
roads leading into Santiago from Manzanillo, he might have had
information that would have made the arrival of Colonel Escarrio less
unexpected. But he seems to have taken no steps either to ascertain the
movements of the latter or to prevent his junction with Linares.

General O. O. Howard, in