r us. We were up before dawn and
getting breakfast. Mills and Ship had nothing to eat, and they
breakfasted with Wood and myself, as we had been able to get some
handfuls of beans, and some coffee and sugar, as well as the ordinary
bacon and hardtack.

We did not talk much, for though we were in ignorance as to
precisely what the day would bring forth, we knew that we should see
fighting. We had slept soundly enough, although, of course, both Wood
and I during the night had made a round of the sentries, he of the
brigade, and I of the regiment; and I suppose that, excepting among
hardened veterans, there is always a certain feeling of uneasy
excitement the night before the battle.

Mills and Ship were both tall, fine-looking men, of tried courage,
and thoroughly trained in every detail of their profession; I remember
being struck by the quiet, soldierly way they were going about their
work early that morning. Before noon one was killed and the other
dangerously wounded.

General Wheeler was sick, but with his usual indomitable pluck and
entire indifference to his own personal comfort, he kept to the front.
He was unable to retain command of the cavalry division, which
accordingly devolved upon General Samuel Sumner, who commanded it
until mid-afternoon, when the bulk of the fighting was over. General
Sumner's own brigade fell to Colonel Henry Carroll. General Sumner led
the advance with the cavalry, and the battle was fought by him and by
General Kent, who commanded the infantry division, and whose foremost
brigade was led by General Hawkins.

As the sun rose the men fell in, and at the same time a battery of
field-guns was brought up on the hill-crest just beyond, between us
and toward Santiago. It was a fine sight to see the great horses
straining under the lash as they whirled the guns up the hill and into
position.

Our brigade was drawn up on the hither side of a kind of half basin,
a big band of Cubans being off to the left. As yet we had received no
orders, except that we were told that the main fighting was to be done
by Lawton's infantry division, which was to take El Caney, several
miles to our right, while we were simply to make a diversion. This
diversion was to be made mainly with the artillery, and the battery
which had taken position immediately in front of us was to begin when
Lawton began.

It was about six o'clock that the first report of the cannon from El
Caney came booming to us across the