quarters. It was a very difficult country, and a
force of good soldiers resolutely handled could have held the pass
with ease against two or three times their number. As it was, with a
force half of regulars and half of volunteers, we drove out a superior
number of Spanish regular troops, strongly posted, without suffering a
very heavy loss. Although the Spanish fire was very heavy, it does not
seem to me it was very well directed; and though they fired with great
spirit while we merely stood at a distance and fired at them, they did
not show much resolution, and when we advanced, always went back long
before there was any chance of our coming into contact with them. Our
men behaved very well indeed--white regulars, colored regulars, and
Rough Riders alike. The newspaper press failed to do full justice to
the white regulars, in my opinion, from the simple reason that
everybody knew that they would fight, whereas there had been a good
deal of question as to how the Rough Riders, who were volunteer
troops, and the Tenth Cavalry, who were colored, would behave; so
there was a tendency to exalt our deeds at the expense of those of the
First Regulars, whose courage and good conduct were taken for granted.
It was a trying fight beyond what the losses show, for it is hard upon
raw soldiers to be pitted against an unseen foe, and to advance
steadily when their comrades are falling around them, and when they
can only occasionally see a chance to retaliate. Wood's experience in
fighting Apaches stood him in good stead. An entirely raw man at the
head of the regiment, conducting, as Wood was, what was practically an
independent fight, would have been in a very trying position. The
fight cleared the way toward Santiago, and we experienced no further
resistance.

That afternoon we made camp and dined, subsisting chiefly on a load
of beans which we found on one of the Spanish mules which had been
shot. We also looked after the wounded. Dr. Church had himself gone
out to the firing-line during the fight, and carried to the rear some
of the worst wounded on his back or in his arms. Those who could walk
had walked in to where the little field-hospital of the regiment was
established on the trail. We found all our dead and all the badly
wounded. Around one of the latter the big, hideous land-crabs had
gathered in a gruesome ring, waiting for life to be extinct. One of
our own men and most of the Spanish dead had been found by the
vultur