After the Guasimas fight on June 24, the army was advanced along the
single trail which leads from Siboney on the coast to Santiago. Two
streams of excellent water run parallel with this trail for short
distances, and some eight miles from the coast crossed it in two
places. Our outposts were stationed at the first of these fords, the
Cuban outposts a mile and a half farther on at the ford nearer
Santiago, where the stream made a sharp turn at a place called El
Poso. Another mile and a half of trail extended from El Poso to the
trenches of San Juan. The reader should remember El Poso, as it
marked an important starting-point against San Juan on the eventful
first of July.

For six days the army was encamped on either side of the trail for
three miles back from the outposts. The regimental camps touched
each other, and all day long the pack-trains carrying the day's
rations passed up and down between them. The trail was a sunken
wagon road, where it was possible, in a few places, for two wagons to
pass at one time, but the greater distances were so narrow that there
was but just room for a wagon, or a loaded mule-train, to make its
way. The banks of the trail were three or four feet high, and when
it rained it was converted into a huge gutter, with sides of mud, and
with a liquid mud a foot deep between them. The camps were pitched
along the trail as near the parallel stream as possible, and in the
occasional places where there was rich, high grass. At night the men
slept in dog tents, open at the front and back, and during the day
spent their time under the shade of trees along the trail, or on the
banks of the stream. Sentries were placed at every few feet along
these streams to guard them from any possible pollution. For six
days the army rested in this way, for as an army moves and acts only