assador at Washington, acting for Spain.

The war lasted 114 days. The Americans were victorious in every
regular engagement. In the three-days battle around Santiago, the
Americans lost 22 officers and 208 men killed, and 81 officers and
1,203 men wounded, and 79 missing. The Spanish loss as best estimated
was near 1,600 officers and men killed and wounded.

Santiago was surrendered July 17, 1898, with something over 22,000
troops.

General Shatter estimates in his report the American forces as
numbering 16,072 with 815 officers.

CHAPTER III.

SERGEANT-MAJOR PULLEN OF THE 25TH INFANTRY DESCRIBES THE CONDUCT OF
THE NEGRO SOLDIERS AROUND EL CANEY.

THE TWENTY-FIFTH U.S. INFANTRY--ITS STATION BEFORE THE SPANISH
AMERICAN WAR AND TRIP TO TAMPA, FLORIDA--THE PART IT TOOK IN THE FIGHT
AT EL CANEY.

When our magnificent battleship Maine was sunk in Havana harbor,
February 15, 1898, the 25th U.S. Infantry was scattered in western
Montana, doing garrison duty, with headquarters at Fort Missoula. This
regiment had been stationed in the West since 1880, when it came up
from Texas where it had been from its consolidation in 1869, fighting
Indians, building roads, etc., for the pioneers of that state and New
Mexico. In consequence of the regiment's constant frontier service,
very little was known of it outside of army circles. As a matter of
course it was known that it was a colored regiment, but its praises
had never been sung.

Strange to say, although the record of this regiment was equal to any
in the service, it had always occupied remote stations, except a
short period, from about May, 1880, to about August, 1885, when
headquarters, band and a few companies were stationed at Fort
Snelling, near St. Paul, Minnesota.

[Illustration: SERGEANT FRANK W. PULLEN, Who was in the Charge on El
Caney, as a member of the Twenty-fifth U.S. Infantry.]

Since the days of reconstruction, when a great part of the country
(the South especially) saw the regular soldier in a low state of
discipline, and when the possession of a sound physique was the only
requirement necessary for the recruit to enter the service of the
United States, people in general had formed an opinion that the
regular soldier, generally, and the Negro soldier in particular, was
a most undesirable element to have in a community. Therefore, the
Secretary of War, in ordering changes in stations of troops from time
to time (as is customary to change t