As a matter of fact and history this was probably the last order
General Sumner received from General Shafter, until the troops of his
division had taken the San Juan hills, as it became impossible to get
word to General Shafter, the trail leading to his head-quarters tent,
three miles in the rear, being blocked by the soldiers of the First
and Tenth dismounted Cavalry, and later, by Lawton's division.
General Sumner led the Sixth, Third, and Ninth Cavalry and the Rough
Riders down the trail, with instructions for the First and Tenth to
follow. The trail, virgin as yet from the foot of an American
soldier, was as wide as its narrowest part, which was some ten feet
across. At places it was as wide as Broadway, but only for such
short distances that it was necessary for the men to advance in
column, in double file. A maze of underbrush and trees on either
side was all but impenetrable, and when the officers and men had once
assembled into the basin, they could only guess as to what lay before
them, or on either flank. At the end of a mile the country became
more open, and General Sumner saw the Spaniards intrenched a half-
mile away on the sloping hills. A stream, called the San Juan River,
ran across the trail at this point, and another stream crossed it
again two hundred yards farther on. The troops were halted at this
first stream, some crossing it, and others deploying in single file
to the right. Some were on the banks of the stream, others at the
edge of the woods in the bushes. Others lay in the high grass which
was so high that it stopped the wind, and so hot that it almost
choked and suffocated those who lay in it.

The enemy saw the advance and began firing with pitiless accuracy
into the jammed and crowded trail and along the whole border of the
woods. There was not a single yard of ground for a mile to the rear
which was not inside the zone of fire. Our men were ordered not to