Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1898 — FIERCE LAND FIGHT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FIERCE LAND FIGHT.

Spaniards Ambush and Kill Thirteen Cavalrymen. FIFTY ARE WOUNDED. Engagement Results in a Victory for the invading Troopers. Spanish Force of 2,000 Men I* Put to Rout by 1,000 of Uncle Fam’* Sol-dier*-Army I* Driven Back Into tbe City with Heavy Loa*, Fourteen Being Found Dead by the Victor*. Washington special: Thirteen Americans were killed in an engagement Friday morning with a Spanish force which ambushed them. Four troops of the First cavalry, four troops of the Tenth cavalry and eight troops of Roosevelt’s rough riders, less than a thousand men in all, dismounted and attacked 2,000 Spanish soldiers in the thickets within five miles of Santiago de Cuba. They heard the Spaniards felling trees a short distance in front, and they were ordered to advance upon the enemy. The country thereabouts is covered with high grass and chaparral, and in this a strong force of the Spaniards were hiding. As the Americans moved forward they were met by a withering fire. Col. Wood

and Lieut. Col. Roosevelt led the charge with great bravery. They scorned to hide themselves In the grass or underbrush, as the enemy did, nud ultimately they drove the enemy back toward Santiago, inflicting heavy losses upon them, but a. loss to themselves of thirteen men killed nnd at least fifty wounded. A number of Cubans took part in the day’s fighting aud forty of them were killed. The fight lasted an hour. The Spaniards opened fire from the thick brush and had every advantage of numbers and position, but the troops drove them back from the start, stormed the blockhouse around which they made the final stand and sent them scattering over the mountains. The cavalrymen were afterward re-enforced by Seventh, Twelfth and Seventeenth infantry, part of the Ninth cavalry, the Second Massachusetts and the Seventy-first New York.

Thursday in a baptism of blood the American invading army at Santiago won its first victory. To the dashing regiment of rough riders under Cols. Wood and Roosevelt fell the honor of striking the first blow and offering up the first lives of our land forces in behalf of a great cause. While portions of the First and Tenth cavalry regiments of the regular army also stood shoulder to shoulder with them, dividing the glory and the losses, the roster of the dead and wounded shows that the rough riders took the brunt of the charge, and to them, as comparatively raw recruits, must be awarded the palm of chief honor. They have shown the Spaniards and the world how Ameyiean volunteers fight their maiden engagement. Though many of the brave horsemen fell at the first volley, the troops calmly stood their ground, dismounted, and returned the fire so vigorously that

the enemy was glad to take to instant flight, leaving a dozen dead on the spot. The subsequent running fight and final taking of the blockhouse in which the Spaniards took refuge will read well hi the annals of American bravery. The enemy’s loss is reported to have been at least forty. Probably it is more than that, or the retreat would not have been so precipitate.. f-hafter Telia the Story. £ Dispatches received frafu ®en. Shafter t>y the War Dopartntont fell the story of the ogSlMatMmof force. TW first dispatch confirmKthe earlier press reports of the remarkably successful manner in which this comparatively large body of troops was landed at Balqniri. It was no light task to convey sixteen thousand men, with animals, trains, supplies, ammunition and artillery, from Key West to Baiquiri and land them in safety through a heavy surf with the loss of less than fifty animals and but two men. It

is also remarkable that the command, notwithstanding the heat and the crowded condition of the transports, was as healthy as when it left Key West, which speaks well for the sanitary precautions which have been taken. That so large a force should have been safely landed was due, first, to the fact that the Spaniards did not care to expose themselves to the fire of the fleet, and, second, to the co-opera-tion of the fleet itself, which enabled Gen. Shafter to accomplish in two days what otherwise, he Himself says, could not have been done in ten, “and perhaps not at all, as I believe I should have lost so many boats in the surf.” To crown all this success, he reports that the weather was good from the start, that there lias been no rain on shore, and all the prospects indicate fair weather. The story from the time of the landing to the encounter near Sevilla is briefly told. The first landing was made on Wednesday and the second on Thursday. No time was lost. Troops were sent forward on Thursday morning and occupied Juragua, which had been evacuated by the Spaniards, and the railroad and its

equipment, which the enemy did not destroy, fell into our hands. The movement forward, under the immediate command of Gen. Joe Wheeler, began on Friday, nnd was undertaken to dislodge the Spaniards, who had intrenched themselves upon a hill near Sevilla to block the road to Santiago. The story of the “skirmish,” ns Gen. Shafter calls it, between the rough’riders nnd the regular cavalry and the Spaniards is told concisoly above. It is called the battle of La Quasiua. According to the later reports it was the fault of the Americans that they lost as heavily as they did, and the fault of the Spaniards that the loss was not much greater than it was. The volunteers appear to have dashed recklessly into a well-planned ambuscade, where they might have been wiped out had the Spaniards made full use of their superiority in numbers and position. They gave way, however, before the headlong rush of the volunteers and abandoned ground which American troops would have held. This painful experience will not affectjhe bravery of the rough riders, but it will make them more cautious. They have learned a lesson which many American soldiers have had to learn before them. Gen. Shafter briefly says the firing lasted about an hour, the enemy was driven from his position and retreated toward Santiago, and our troops occupied the locality, where they were to wait until supplies and artillery could be landed.

LIEUT. COL. ROOSEVELT.

GEN. DON FEDERICO A. G A SCO. One of Spain’s Leading Officers at Santiago.

VICTORIOUS PINK COAT AFTER HIS GREAT RACE FOR NEARLY SIO,OOO.

BRIGADIER GENKRAL DUFFIELD. In command of re-enforcements sent to Major General Shafter from Newport News.