random to disclose the enemy's position. I ran after G Troop under
Captain Llewellyn, and found them breaking their way through the
bushes in the direction from which the volleys came. It was like
forcing the walls of a maze. If each trooper had not kept in touch
with the man on either hand he would have been lost in the thicket.
At one moment the underbrush seemed swarming with our men, and the
next, except that you heard the twigs breaking, and heavy breathing
or a crash as a vine pulled some one down, there was not a sign of a
human being anywhere. In a few minutes we broke through into a
little open place in front of a dark curtain of vines, and the men
fell on one knee and began returning the fire that came from it.

The enemy's fire was exceedingly heavy, and his aim was excellent.
We saw nothing of the Spaniards, except a few on the ridge across the
valley. I happened to be the only one present with field glasses,
and when I discovered this force on the ridge, and had made sure, by
the cockades in their sombreros, that they were Spaniards and not
Cubans, I showed them to Roosevelt. He calculated they were five
hundred yards from us, and ordered the men to fire on them at that
range. Through the two hours of fighting that followed, although men
were falling all around us, the Spaniards on the ridge were the only
ones that many of us saw. But the fire against us was not more than
eighty yards away, and so hot that our men could only lie flat in the
grass and return it in that position. It was at this moment that our
men believed they were being attacked by Capron's troop, which they
imagined must have swung to the right, and having lost its bearings
and hearing them advancing through the underbrush, had mistaken them
for the enemy. They accordingly ceased firing and began shouting in
order to warn Capron that he was shooting at his friends. This is
the foundation for the statement that the Rough Riders had fired on