Free The Roughest Riders by Jerome Tuccille

the island’s southern shore.
    Based on a map that appeared in
San Juan Hill 1898
by Angus Konstam, Osprey Publishing, 1998.
    García had been anticipating their arrival ever since he received a letter from Major-General Nelson A. Miles dated June 2, 1898, which read in part: “It would be a very great assistance if you could have as large a force as possible in the vicinity of the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, and communicate any information[,] by signals which Colonel Hernandez will explain to you[,] either to our navy or to our army on its arrival, which we hope will be before many days.”
    Miles had also requested that García march his rebels to the coast and harass the Spanish troops in and around Santiago de Cuba. He advised the Cubans to attack the Spanish at all points andprevent them from sending reinforcements to the region. He also asked him to try to seize any commanding positions to the east or west of Santiago de Cuba before the Americans arrived. Once there, American ships would begin to bombard the entire coastal area with the big guns on the battleships.

    Calixto García, the elderly leader of the Cuban rebels in the region around Santiago de Cuba, coordinated his efforts with the American invasion forces, which were in the process of disembarking after their voyage from Florida.
    Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (LC-USZ62-91767)
    García took some umbrage at Miles’s deprecating tone. Hadn’t they, García and his rebels, already been shedding their own blood to free their land from Spanish rule for decades before the Americans entered the fray? Nevertheless, he needed American support to win the war, and he responded cordially, saying that he would “take measures at once to carry out your recommendations…. Will march without delay.”
    García performed his job well, attacking Spanish positions in and around the landing zone as the rebels burst out of the bush and fired volley after volley at the enemy. Although they could not see what was happening up in the hills, the Americans could hear from their ships the rebel shouts echoing in the air:
“¡Viva Cuba Libra! ¡Viva los Americanos!”
    Shafter, Sampson, and García devised a battle plan to attack the rear of the Spanish garrison in the vicinity, following the debarkation of the American troops on June 22. But the process of unloading thousands of soldiers, animals, and equipment onto shore proved to be a logistical nightmare. The fleet now lay anchored a mile and more offshore, and the men had to file onto small boats and make the crossing to land in heavy seas. The Spanish soldiers occupied the higher peaks and could use the men and boats for target practice as they struggled to navigate the choppy water. García’s forces held the terrain on both sides of the Spanish garrison but were unable to move in for the kill without American help. To soften Spanish resistance, Sampson ordered a steady bombardment of the villages along the coast as Miles had promised, an effort that continued for two to three hours. The boom of the big guns onthe
New Orleans
,
Detroit
,
Castine
,
Wasp
,
Suwanee
, and
Texas
echoed off the cliff walls, and shells exploded spectacularly in the jungle growth on the higher elevations.
    â€œThe first day[,] Sampson got all his gunboats together and fired shots all around the landing, tearing everything around there all to pieces,” wrote C. D. Kirby, with the black Ninth, to his mother. “The following day we all landed and went about a mile before we struck camp.”
    The American shells exploded on Spanish forts, blockhouses, and various entrenchments in Daiquiri, Siboney, and other villages strewn for twenty miles along the coast, clearing the way for the Americans to come ashore. But the process of getting them there continued to be hazardous.
    â€œWe did the landing as we had done everything else—that is, in a scramble, each