ll the time, and where it is utterly impossible to land.

"We had the earnest and able support of the navy and their assistance
in disembarking, and the next morning were bombarding the two little
places and driving the few hundred Spanish soldiers, that were there
away. We began disembarking, and before the end of the day the men
were on shore, with 2,000 horses and mules that we had to throw
overboard to get ashore, and the artillery."

The General noted the loss of 17,000 troops out of 24,000 in the
English army that besieged Havana in 1762, at the same time of year
that he landed at Santiago, and remarked:

"I knew that my entire army would be sick if it stayed long enough;
that it was simply a question of getting that town just as soon as
possible. I knew the strength, the courage, and the will of my men,
or I thought I did, and the result shows that I was not mistaken. It
was a question of starting the moment we landed and not stopping
until we reached the Spanish outposts, and, therefore, as soon as a
division was put on shore it was started on the march.

"On the 24th the first engagement took place, in which we had between
800 and 900 men on the American side and probably 1,000 or 1,200 on
the Spanish. The enemy was strongly intrenched, showing only their
heads, while the American forces had to march exposing their whole
bodies to the fire of the enemy.

"It is announced by military experts as an axiom that trained troops
armed with the present breech-loading and rapid-firing arm cannot
be successfully assailed by any troops who simply assault. Of course
you can make the regular approaches and dig up to them. The fallacy
of that proposition was made very manifest that day when the men
composing the advance marched as deliberately over those breastworks
as they ever did when they fought with arms that you could only load
about twice in a minute and of the range of only 200 or 300 yards.

"This army was an army of marksmen. For fifteen years the greatest
attention has been paid to marksmanship, and I suppose four-fifths
of all the men in that army wore on their breasts the marksman's
badge. I had given orders, knowing that the noise of firing is
harmless and that shots put in the air are harmless--I had given the
strictest orders to all officers that their men should be told not to
fire a shot unless they could see something moving, and the firing
was to be by individuals, what is called file firing, indivi