brave Lieutenant Gurney was killed, and
First Sergeant Ellis, Corporal Keys and Privates Robinson and Johnson
wounded. It was a race with death, but the company arrived at the base
of the hill in good form, though well-nigh exhausted. After breathing
a moment the men were ready to follow their intrepid commander,
Captain Ducat, up the hill, and at twelve o'clock they gained the
summit, being the first company of the regiment to reach the top of
the hill. Just as they reached the crest the brave Ducat fell, shot
through the hip, probably by a Spanish sharpshooter, thus depriving
the company of its last commissioned officer, and leaving its first
sergeant also disabled.

The commander of the regiment speaks of its doings in a very modest
manner, but in a tone to give the reader confidence in what he says.
He became temporarily separated from the regiment, but made his way to
the crest of the hill in company with the Adjutant and there found a
part of his command. He says a creditable number of the men of his
regiment reached the top of the hill among the first to arrive there.
The commander of the Second Battalion, Captain Wygant, crossed the
meadow, or flat, some distance ahead of the battalion, but as the men
subsequently charged up the hill, he was unable to keep up with them,
so rapid was their gait It was from this battalion that Captain
Ducat's company broke away and charged on the right of the battalion,
arriving, as has been said, first on the top of the hill. As the
regiment arrived Captain Wygant, finding himself the ranking officer
on the ground, assembled it and assigned each company its place.
Captain Dodge, who commanded Company C in this assault, and who
subsequently died in the yellow fever hospital at Siboney, mentions
the fact that Captain Wygant led the advance in person, and says that
in the charge across the open field the three companies, C, B and H,
became so intermixed that it was impossible for the company commanders
to distinguish their own men from those of the other companies, yet he
says he had the names of twenty men of his own company who reached the
trenches at Fort San Juan in that perilous rush on that fiery mid-day.
The testimony of all the officers of the regiment is to the effect
that the men behaved splendidly, and eight of them have been given
Certificates of Merit for gallantry in the action of July 1.

The losses of the regiment in that advance were numerous, the killed,
wounded