Riders to guard some road or some break in
the lines, we usually got Parker to send a Gatling along, and whether
the change was made by day or by night, the Gatling went, over any
ground and in any weather. He never exposed the Gatlings needlessly or
unless there was some object to be gained, but if serious fighting
broke out, he always took a hand. Sometimes this fighting would be the
result of an effort on our part to quell the fire from the Spanish
trenches; sometimes the Spaniards took the initiative; but at whatever
hour of the twenty-four serious fighting began, the drumming of the
Gatlings was soon heard through the cracking of our own carbines.

I have spoken thus of Parker's Gatling detachment. How can I speak
highly enough of the regular cavalry with whom it was our good fortune
to serve? I do not believe that in any army of the world could be
found a more gallant and soldierly body of fighters than the officers
and men of the First, Third, Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth United States
Cavalry, beside whom we marched to blood-bought victory under the
tropic skies of Santiago. The American regular sets the standard of
excellence. When we wish to give the utmost possible praise to a
volunteer organization, we say that it is as good as the regulars. I
was exceedingly proud of the fact that the regulars treated my
regiment as on a complete equality with themselves, and were as ready
to see it in a post of danger and responsibility as to see any of
their own battalions. Lieutenant Colonel Dorst, a man from whom praise
meant a good deal, christened us "the Eleventh United States Horse,"
and we endeavored, I think I may say successfully, to show that we
deserved the title by our conduct, not only in fighting and in
marching, but in guarding the trenches and in policing camp. In less
than sixty days the regiment had been raised, organized, armed,
equipped, drilled, mounted, dismounted, kept for a fortnight on
transports, and put through two victorious aggressive fights in very
difficult country, the loss in killed and wounded amounting to a
quarter of those engaged. This is a record which it is not easy to
match in the history of volunteer organizations. The loss was but
small compared to that which befell hundreds of regiments in some of
the great battles of the later years of the Civil War; but it may be
doubted whether there was any regiment which made such a record during
the first months of any of our wars.

After the