e reached the front. At
the same time came word that General Pando with 5000 Spanish
reinforcements was nearing the besieged city from the north. In that
direction, and only three miles from Santiago, lay the fortified
village of Caney, held by a strong force of Spanish troops. If it were
captured, Pando's advance might be cut off. So General Shafter, coming
ashore for the first time a week after the landing of his troops,
planned a forward movement with this object in view. Lawton's division
was to capture Caney, and then swing round so as to sever all outside
communication with Santiago. While he was doing this, demonstrations
that should deter the Spaniards from sending an additional force in
that direction were to be made against San Juan and Aguadores. These
movements were to occupy one day, and on the next the reunited army was
to attack the entire line of the San Juan ridge. In the mean time no
one knew anything of the valley lying between this strongly protected
ridge and those who proposed to capture it.

So the order was issued, and late in the afternoon of June 30th, in a
pouring rain, the camps were broken, and the drenched army eagerly
began its forward movement. Lawton's division marching off to the
right slipped and stumbled through the mud along a narrow, almost
impassable, trail over the densely wooded hills until eight o'clock
that evening, when, within a mile of Caney, it lay down for the night
in the wet grass without tents or fire, and amid a silence strictly
enjoined, for fear lest the Spaniards should discover its presence, and
run away before morning.

At the same time Wheeler's division of dismounted cavalry, including
the Rough Riders and Kent's infantry division, advanced as best it
could over the horrible Santiago road, ankle-deep in mud and water, to
El Poso Hill, on and about which it passed a wretchedly uncomfortable
night. Seven thousand heavily equipped men, mingled with horses,
artillery, pack-mules, and army wagons, all huddled into a narrow gully
slippery with mud, advance so slowly, however eager they may be to push
forward, that although the movement was begun at four o'clock, midnight
found the rearmost regiment still plodding wearily forward.

With the coming of daylight, on July 1st, the army lay beneath a dense
blanket of mist that spread its wet folds over the entire region they
were to traverse. It was eight o'clock before Grimes's battery of four
light field-pie