firing at our troops." That was part of the information contributed
by the balloon. Captain Howse's reply is lost to history.

General Kent's division, which, according to the plan, was to have
been held in reserve, had been rushed up in the rear of the First and
Tenth, and the Tenth had deployed in skirmish order to the right.
The trail was now completely blocked by Kent's division. Lawton's
division, which was to have re-enforced on the right, had not
appeared, but incessant firing from the direction of El Caney showed
that he and Chaffee were fighting mightily. The situation was
desperate. Our troops could not retreat, as the trail for two miles
behind them was wedged with men. They could not remain where they
were, for they were being shot to pieces. There was only one thing
they could do--go forward and take the San Juan hills by assault. It
was as desperate as the situation itself. To charge earthworks held
by men with modern rifles, and using modern artillery, until after
the earthworks have been shaken by artillery, and to attack them in
advance and not in the flanks, are both impossible military
propositions. But this campaign had not been conducted according to
military rules, and a series of military blunders had brought seven
thousand American soldiers into a chute of death from which there was
no escape except by taking the enemy who held it by the throat and
driving him out and beating him down. So the generals of divisions
and brigades stepped back and relinquished their command to the
regimental officers and the enlisted men.

"We can do nothing more," they virtually said. "There is the enemy."

Colonel Roosevelt, on horseback, broke from the woods behind the line
of the Ninth, and finding its men lying in his way, shouted: "If you