APPENDIX D

CORRECTIONS

It has been suggested to me that when Bucky O'Neill spoke of the
vultures tearing our dead, he was thinking of no modern poet, but of
the words of the prophet Ezekiel: "Speak unto every feathered fowl
. . . . . ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood
of the princes of the earth."

At San Juan the Sixth Cavalry was under Major Lebo, a tried and
gallant officer. I learn from a letter of Lieutenant McNamee that it
was he, and not Lieutenant Hartwick, by whose orders the troopers of
the Ninth cast down the fence to enable me to ride my horse into the
lane. But one of the two lieutenants of B troop was overcome by the
heat that day; Lieutenant Rynning was with his troop until dark.

One night during the siege, when we were digging trenches, a curious
stampede occurred (not in my own regiment) which it may be necessary
some time to relate.

Lieutenants W. E. Shipp and W. H. Smith were killed, not far from
each other, while gallantly leading their troops on the slope of
Kettle Hill. Each left a widow and young children.

Captain (now Colonel) A. L. Mills, the Brigade Adjutant-General, has
written me some comments on my account of the fight on July 1st. It
was he himself who first brought me word to advance. I then met
Colonel Dorst--who bore the same message--as I was getting the
regiment forward. Captain Mills was one of the officers I had sent
back to get orders that would permit me to advance; he met General
Sumner, who gave him the orders, and he then returned to me. In a
letter to me Colonel Mills says in part:

I reached the head of the regiment as you came out of the
lane and gave you the orders to enter the action. These were
that you were to move, with your right resting along the
wire fence of the lane, to the support of the regular
cavalry then attacking the hill we were facing. "The
red-roofed house yonder is your objective," I said to you.
You moved out at once and quickly forged to the front of
your regiment. I rode in rear, keeping the soldiers and
troops closed and in line as well as the circumstances and
conditions permitted. We had covered, I judge, from one-half
to two-thirds the distance to Kettle Hill when
Lieutenant-Colonel Garlington, from our left flank called
to me that troops were needed in the meadow across the lane.
I put one troop (not three, as st