ILLUSTRATED WITH DRAWINGS BY W. J. GLACKENS, SPECIAL ARTIST FOR MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE WITH THE ARMY OF INVASION; WITH PORTRAITS OF COMMANDERS, SCENES IN THE FIELD FROM PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN EXPRESSLY FOR MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE BY ITS SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS, AND WITH MAPS. OUR times, turning from this soft picture to a sterner scene and pulling aside some corner of the dark green veil of vine with which the earth was thickly covered, we would start back to see under so much loveliness deep yawning fissures, and great masses of granite boulders lying here and there, as they had fallen from some Cyclopean hand. Little glimpses such as these, of the lay of the land stripped of its foliage, revealed the volcanic agencies with which the sculptor of the world had worked. UR advance led through a country of singular beauty and through scenes of tropical exuberance such as the dwellers in more temperate zones never behold. Out of the jungle and chaparral with which the valley was covered, there rose upon our astonished view the graceful royal palm, the spreading banyan, and the majestic ceiba tree. And between and over and all around them grew in wild luxuriance thousands of vines and trailing plants, through which even the Cuban scouts with their ready machetes could not cut a path. And at The valley through which we marched Copyright, 1898, by the S. S. MCCLURE Co. All rights reserved. added another garland to the military laurels of our race. When we started inland from the sea, the foot-hills of the Uraguacita Mountains rose abruptly to the north and on the right of our trail, and as we advanced the foot-hills multiplied and the great mountains receded. plain, if distant, view of the third ridge or altar that crosses the valley, we find that, measured from the top of the sea cliffs above Aguadores to the mountains looming up darkly to the north of El Caney, the valley is about seven miles across. Along the crest of this ridge, which is but rarely intersected by ravines and depressions, the Spaniards were posted, and this was their first serious line of defense. It also proved to be their last. gradually widened as we left the sea and approached Santiago. It was marked by three steep ascents, terraces or steps of the kind they call in Cuba altares. The guns of the navy, concentrated upon the first ascent or altar, rising directly behind our places of disembarkation, had made the surmounting of this natural obstacle an easy achievement, And now that we have come to a halt in merely a question of physical endurance. The dash and spirit which characterized the advance of Young's brigade at La Guasima had quickly dislodged the Spaniards from the strong position they held there commanding the defile through which the army would have to climb to reach the second terrace upon the march to Santiago. The army spent five days in climbing this second ridge that lay across our path, and in deploying out upon the mesa, or table-land, which here marks the center of the valley, now growing broader and more undulating with every advancing step. It was upon this table-land, known as the Jurisdiction of Sevilla, that the first division of the army camped during the days that were occupied by the second division and the dismounted cavalry in coming to the front. During these days of waiting we were confronted in the distance by the heights of San Juan, the third altar or step in the climb to Santiago. It is a scene we should look upon with more than a passing glance; the generations that are unborn will linger over the picture in its most trivial detail. It is a scene that will live as long as the hearts of the children shall love to revert to the field in a far distant land where their fathers The table-land about Sevilla, where the army rested and collected its strength for the struggle that lay before it, was high and sandy and comparatively dry. But for at least two miles before the heights of San Juan were reached the trails descended into lowlying, alluvial lands, the wash and overflow of the San Juan and Guama creeks and their innumerable tributaries. These two miles through which we scouted and at which we looked so anxiously and so often while the army grew were, with the exception of here and there an open meadow, filled with guineagrass or coffee bushes run to seed, an impenetrable jungle of tropical luxuriance hedged about with cactus and Spanish bayonet. A week passed, and the struggle for life From a drawing made on June 22d by W. J. Glackens, special artist for MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE, with the Fifth Army Corps. had become so acute that no one had a moment's thought to devote to the Spaniards. War had become simply a rustle for rations. The idyllic beauty of the valley had disappeared. The noisome trail of war had hurried over a natural paradise, and all its beauty was gone. SHUT UP IN A JUNGLE. We had entered upon a new phase of the campaign. The old, mildewed signs over some of the dog-tents, "No war talk here," were quite unnecessary. Nobody thought, much less talked, about war. The soldiers engaged in a struggle for existence had thought and time only for "rustling grub," and the outlook, even for the most hopeful and practical rustler, was poor. We seemed lost in a jungle, as far out of the world of rapid transit and quick transportation as though we had been dropped down somewhere in the wild recesses of Ethiopia. Three mule trains passing backward and forward, up and down down the valley, were the admirable but in There was very little enterprise shown by men creeping out to the picket line and peering through the brush toward the Spanish position on the heights of San Juan. Indeed, so very human is the soldier, especially if he be of the heroic stamp, that I think all eyes were now more frequently turned toward the rear; and while all ears were ever on the alert, it was rather for the tread of the mule train with the longpromised canned tomatoes than for the booming of the big guns that announce the pageantry of war. When a soldier is living upon three hard-tacks a day, a very little sufficient link which connected MAJOR-GENERAL W. R. SHAFTER, us with the outside world. commanding the Fifth Army Corps. coffee without any sugar, and a bit of bacon rind better suited to clean his rifle with than to satisfy his stomach, he thinks very little about Spaniards and becomes wholly absorbed in his determination to live and fight his country's battles despite the evident purpose of the commissary and subsistence departments to starve him to death. His imagination grows more vivid just in proportion as his perceptions are dulled. He talks about eating canned peaches in his sleep, and swoops down like a brigand upon a mule train, hungry for grub, when, if only he had emy's works. Our advance was under listened to the evidence of his own ears, he taken, had been in fact precipitated, be would have understood from the metallic rattle of the boxes and packs that these particular mules are carrying ball cartridges up to the firing line, where men are expected to fight and not to eat. I had ridden out the Santiago road, late on the afternoon of June 30th, to where our picket line was drawn. Here, on a hill to the left of the road, near where the Eighth Infantry camped, we enjoyed a splendid view of Santiago. MAJOR-GENERAL J. F. KENT, cause of the news that a column of 5,000 Spaniards was pushing across the country from Manzanillo to relieve the beleaguered city. The northern side of Santiago was not invested, either by our troops or by the Cubans, and unless some change was made in our position, the entrance of the reinforcements to the city would have to go uncontested. So the demands of the commissary, subsistence, and medical departments had to be, or at As I looked at the red-tiled roofs commanding First Division. least were, sacrificed to the mili and the yel low walls of the old city, I thought I heard the crashing sound of ar tillery mov tary exigencies of the situation, and the army was moved fully a week before it could hope to have been prepared for an advance. Doubtless in the next fallen into such a stupor that this sudden generation the cadets at West Point awakening was too rude. I galloped down will spend much time studying the camthe hill, tearing through the bushes and the paign of Santiago, and they will be instructed briars, following through the dusk of the to believe that the strategy exhibited was evening the glint of the dying sunlight upon Napoleonic and that our tactics would have the bright steel jackets of the guns. given pleasure and gratification to Jomini, had he been there to see. But to-day, with nothing but the bald facts to guide and with no other purpose than that of making a simple statement of facts, the following is a description of the movement as it was planned and as it was carried out: "Cannoneers forward!" I heard the familiar command, and the great crashing noise with which the iron-bound wheels jolted over the rough roads and through the granite bed of the stream. There was no mistake now. Behind the artillery as far back as the eye could see the road was thronged with soldiers in heavy marching order. The army was moving at last, and before night fell Grimes's Battery was in position on the hill above the El Pozo sugar-house, commanding the volunteer only about four thousand yards from the en 恩 BRIGADIER-GENERAL H. M. DUFFIELD, brigade which operated at Aguadores, on the left. THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. By noon on the 30th, General Shafter had decided to swing the army around by our right flank and invest the city on the north side. The ground there was higher and healthier, and, once occupied, the entrance of reinforcements into the city would be impossible. Also the retreat of the garrison itself to the only places to which retreat was possible, San Luis and Holguin, would be cut off. The only obstacle to this flank movement on our right was the village of NOTE.-The portraits of General Lawton, Colonel Wikoff, Colonel Worth, and Colonel Liscum are from photographs kindly loaned by the New York "Herald;" the portrait of General Sumner is reproduced by the permission of "Collier's Weekly;" and the portrait of General Hawkins is from a photograph by Pach Brothers. El Caney, held as an advanced post by a only if he was satisfied it could be done strong force. On the 30th, reconnoissances with little or no loss. In case the Spaniards were made in force by Batson in the direction of El Caney, and some attempt made to develop the Spanish position. The Second Infantry advanced along the railway from Siboney in the direction. of Aguadores, upon our extreme left, with the same object in view; and when the information they obtained was received at headquarters, the final details of the movement for the next day were decided upon and the necessary orders were given, principally by means of verbal conversations with the di vision commanders, who were summoned to headquarters. A rough map of the MAJOR-GENERAL A. R. CHAFFEE, who commanded the First Brigade, Second Division. MAJOR-GENERAL H. W. commanding Second GENERAL WILLIAM LUDLOW, commanding Second Bri- country, reproduced on page 500, was also given to the brigade adjutants, so that they might fully understand and intelligently follow the movement towards El Caney and the fight it was contemplated to open in the morning. It was decided that at daybreak General Lawton, with the Second Division, having gotten into position under cover of darkness, should attack El Caney. At the same time, upon our extreme left, General Duffield, in command of a brigade of volunteers, consisting of the Thirty-third and Thirtyfourth Michigan and Ninth Massachusetts, and supported by several vessels of Admiral Sampson's fleet, was to make an attack upon the little port of Aguadores. It was hoped that the fire of our vessels would of itself silence the Spanish batteries and render Aguadores untenable. Should our naval fire not be as successful as expected, General Duffield was ordered to take Aguadores; but GENERAL S. S. commanding First Brigade, Cavalry Division, and during General Wheeler's illness, the whole Division. made a stout resistance, he was to retire. Of course the principal object of this demonstration was to confuse the enemy as to which was our real advance, that upon the extreme left or that upon the extreme right; to leave him in doubt as to whether we proposed, by taking Aguadores, to invest the Morro and the eastern batteries, or whether, after capturing El Caney, we proposed to invest the city from the north. I have mentioned the efforts which were made to explore the country on our right and upon our left. The center, the Spanish front, where the heavy fight COLONEL EVAN MILES, ing subse |