line. It was the only place they could go--there was no other line.
With the exception of Church's dressing station and its wounded there
were no reserves.

Among the first to be wounded was the correspondent, Edward Marshall,
of the New York Journal, who was on the firing-line to the left. He
was shot through the body near the spine, and when I saw him he was
suffering the most terrible agonies, and passing through a succession
of convulsions. He nevertheless, in his brief moments of comparative
peace, bore himself with the utmost calm, and was so much a soldier
to duty that he continued writing his account of the fight until the
fight itself was ended. His courage was the admiration of all the
troopers, and he was highly commended by Colonel Wood in the official
account of the engagement.

Nothing so well illustrated how desperately each man was needed, and
how little was his desire to withdraw, as the fact that the wounded
lay where they fell until the hospital stewards found them. Their
comrades did not use them as an excuse to go to leave the firing-
line. I have watched other fights, where the men engaged were quite
willing to unselfishly bear the wounded from the zone of danger.

The fight had now lasted an hour, and the line had reached a more
open country, with a slight incline upward toward a wood, on the edge
of which was a ruined house. This house was a former distillery for
aguardiente, and was now occupied in force by the enemy. Lieutenant-
Colonel Roosevelt on the far left was moving up his men with the
intention of taking this house on the flank; Wood, who was all over
the line, had the same objective point in his mind. The troop
commanders had a general idea that the distillery was the key to the