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Medal
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ENCYCLOPEDIA
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WINGS OF VALOR
 
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The Defining Generation
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Las Guasimas
"First Blood"
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They called him "Fighting
Joe", the grizzled 62-year-old Major General, commander of Volunteers
and dismounted cavalry landing at Daiquiri behind General Lawton's 2nd
Division. Like his counterpart General Lawton and like corps commander General Shafter,
Wheeler was a veteran of the Civil War. Unlike the other two generals,
"Fighting Joe" did not wear the Medal of Honor. His valor on
the fields of battle, his brilliant leadership through campaigns at
Stone River, Chickamauga, Knoxville and Atlanta might have earned him one
but for one minor technicality.
General Joseph Wheeler had served in the
Civil War as a commander of cavalry in the CONFEDERATE Army.
A man of immense character, Joe Wheeler quickly
earned the deep respect of both friend and foe. Following the War
Between the States, Fighting Joe had settled down in his home state in a
community quickly named for him, Wheeler, Georgia. For almost two
decades he served his state as a member of the U. S. House of
Representatives, working hard for reconciliation between the North and South
in the post-war years. At the outbreak of hostilities in Cuba,
Fighting Joe was coaxed out of retirement to command the U.S.
Volunteers. Despite his age, his reputation and sturdy nature made him
legendary. The years had not diminished his faculties, his military
prowess, or his individualism. In a war that often placed a group of
highly competitive and fiercely independent general officers against each
other, General Joseph Wheeler could hold his own.
General Shafter was proceeding, despite the
disagreement of Admiral Sampson, to initiate his plan to land his troops and
then move them westward to encircle and capture Santiago. This plan
called for General Lawton to take the lead, moving his men westward on June
23rd to secure Siboney as a landing site for the remainder of the troops of
his Fifth Army Corps, most of which consisted of General J. Ford Kent's 1st
Division. Wheeler would follow, and when all was ready, a two-pronged
assault would be launched against Santiago with Lawton's troops attacking
from San Juan while General Kent's 1st Division and Fighting Joe's
volunteers and dismounted cavalry attacked at El Caney to cover the
flank. Fighting Joe however, had ideas of his own.
 As General Lawton's advance guard moved
westward, they encountered the Spaniards in a brief battle. The enemy
quickly withdrew and, upon hearing this, Fighting Joe Wheeler himself led a
reconnaissance force to determine the enemy strength and position.
Moving ahead of General Lawton's advance, he found them. The enemy had
pulled back inland from Siboney to fortified positions near Sevilla, which
the Americans called Las Guasimas (because of a particular tree that grew
around it).
Wheeler ordered an assault, but quickly found the enemy resistance stronger
than he had anticipated.
As he withdrew, General Wheeler sent orders
to General Lawton to prepare for an assault on Las Guasimas the following
day. (General Shafter was still off shore in his floating command
post, and when the Corps Commander was not on the ground, General Wheeler
was the senior officer with authority to issue such orders.) General
Lawton wasn't happy with his new orders, was in fact even more disturbed by
Fighting Joe's direct actions in defiance of Shafter's own orders.
Never-the-less, orders were orders and the men were all eager for
action. The ground battle for Cuba was about to begin in earnest.
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Throughout the afternoon
of June 23rd General
Lawton's First Brigade (which included the Rough Riders) under General Young,
continued its advance to Siboney. It was long after nightfall when
the soldiers reached their destination and began setting up camp for the
night. Almost as quickly as the Rough Riders built fires to
prepare their dinner, a tropical rain storm hit, drenching them
all and extinguishing their fires. The weary soldiers, men
accustomed to traveling everywhere on horseback, were tired
after the day's march. The heavy rain and lack of shelter
did nothing to ease their comfort.
Meanwhile,
Colonel Leonard Wood departed to meet with General Young.
Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt likewise met with Captain Capron of
the Rough Riders as they discussed the coming battle.
After a couple hours the rain ended and the men began to bed
down. Close to midnight Wood returned and awakened
Roosevelt to detail General Young's plan for meeting the enemy
the following morning.
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 At
a quarter to six General Young began forming up the men of his First
Brigade and marching them towards Las Guasimas, four miles to the
north. The main force, 244 men of the First Regular Cavalry under
Major Bell, and 220 men of the all-Black 10th Regular Cavalry under
Major Novell, would proceed along the roadway. Fifteen minutes
after their departure the Rough Riders under Colonel Wood would move out
along the higher ridgelines in support of the two cavalry
squadrons. If all went according to plan, they would find and
destroy the enemy positions near Las Guasimas.
It didn't take long
to find the Spaniards. Less than two hours later General Young's
aid Captain A. L. Mills with two scouts, was leading the advance of the
regular cavalry when they discovered they enemy near a junction in the
road. The Spanish had dug defensive pits to fortify their position
while others lay hidden in the heavy jungle surround the roads. To
the right was a large ranch, also firmly under enemy control.
General Young
personally rode his mule to join Captain Mills and his advance scouts,
quickly making a visual reconnaissance of the enemy and their
positions. He ordered his men to fill their magazines and placed
his Hotchkiss battery in a firing position about 900 yards from the
enemy fortifications. He deployed the 1st Regular Cavalry in
position to storm the enemy, with the 10th in support.
Wisely, General
Young delayed his attack while he dispatched a Cuban messenger to advise
Colonel Wood as to the enemy position. Knowing the more difficult
jungle route the Rough Riders were taking would slow them down, he held
up his assault to coincide with their arrival. During this brief
delay General Wheeler personally moved to the front, reviewing and then
approving Young's plan of attack.
At eight o'clock
General Young ordered his Hotchkiss guns to open fire, while the brigade
commander himself led his troops from the firing line. Throughout
the day, indeed throughout the days of ground war that followed, it was
commonplace for the commanding officers to lead from the forefront of
the battle, often at greater peril than that of their enlisted soldiers.
As quickly as the
American guns began their initial volley, the Spanish returned
fire. The denseness of the jungle along the roadway, combined with
the enemy's use of smokeless powder, made it difficult to locate the
enemy positions. General Young began pushing his men forward, taking the
fight to the Spaniards.
Observing the
action, as was the constant case throughout the Spanish-American War,
were members of the media. All expected the men of the First
Regular Cavalry to perform well under fire, these being professional
soldiers. The speculation was on how the other elements of the
brigade would perform...the all-Black Tenth Cavalry and the
all-volunteer Rough Riders. Both would give such solid account of
themselves in that first battle, the First Regular Cavalry would become
all but ignored while the Buffalo Soldiers of the Tenth and the Rough
Riders of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry became national heroes.
General Young's
main force pushed the attack, struggling through the heavy jungle to
find and rout the enemy. The struggled through barbed wire fences,
scaled the high ridges, and attacked with determination and courage
eloquently recalled by Theodore Roosevelt himself:
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"They were
lead most gallantly, as American regular officers always lead
their men; and the men followed their leaders with the splendid courage
always shown by the American regular soldier. There was not
a single straggler among them, and in not one instance was an
attempt made by any trooper to fall out in order to assist the
wounded or carry back the dead, while so cool were they and so
perfect their fire discipline, that in the entire engagement the
expenditure of ammunition was not over ten rounds per man.
Major Bell, who commanded the squadron, had his leg broken by a
shot as he was leading his men. Captain Wainwright succeeded
to the command of the squadron. Captain Knox was shot in the
abdomen. He continued for some time giving orders to his
troops, and refused to allow any man in the firing-line to assist
him to the rear. Lieutenant Bryam was himself shot, but
continued to lead his men until the wound and the heat overcame
him.
 The
advance was pushed forward....with the utmost energy, until the
enemy's voices could be heard in the entrenchments. The
Spaniards kept up a very heavy firing, but the regulars would not
be denied, and as they climbed the ridges the Spaniards broke and
fled."
Watching
his troops attacking and routing the enemy, General Fighting
Joe Wheeler couldn't help getting caught up in the excitement,
though in his joy he momentarily forgot in what war he was
engaged. It was later reported that in the heat of the
attack he yelled out to his men: |
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"Come
on!
We've got the damn Yankees on the run!"
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It was an exhausting pace that Colonel Wood
set for his Rough Riders, many of whom were not at all comfortable with marching
for two days in a row. As they struggled up steep hillsides through dense
jungle, some of the men dropped their bundles or fell from the heat and
exhaustion. With a detachment from the Rough Riders still back at Daiquiri
guarding supplies, compounded by the men who had fallen to the heat and the
march, only about 500 of the regiment's soldiers were able to
complete the move northward.
"I was rather inclined to grumble
to myself about Wood setting so fast a pace," Roosevelt wrote. "When the fight began I realized that it had been
absolutely necessary, as otherwise we should have arrived late and the regulars
would have had a very hard work indeed."
Slowly the regiment continued forward,
Sergeant Hamilton Fish and 20 men of Captain Capron's troop leading the way
along a trail so narrow and overgrown with jungle foliage that the men had to
move forward in single file. For more than an hour the soldiers
crossed the first high hill and wound their way through ridges and valleys of
beautiful jungles filled with the calls of exotic birds...a setting so serene it
belied the tumult that was about to erupt around them.
Colonel Wood commanded from a position
forward with Captain Capron's troop, when the advance party encountered a Spanish
outpost. Quickly he began deploying his Rough Riders, three troops under
Roosevelt moving to the right of the trail while three troops deployed
left. The final troop was held back in reserve.
Suddenly the sound of the enemy's Mausers
began to erupt all around. The heavy foliage and the enemy's use of
smokeless powder made them almost invisible. As bullets whipped through
the air, some of the Rough Riders began cursing. "Don't
swear--SHOOT!" grumbled Colonel Wood as he moved back and forth
among his men.
Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt was taking
cover behind a large palm tree as he peered around it looking for the location
of the enemy. At that moment a Mauser bullet struck the tree, passing
through-and-through, showering his face and filling his left ear with dust and
splinters. It was fortunate, for had Roosevelt not been looking out from
the side of the tree, the bullet would have been in direct line with his head.
The opening moments of combat were both
terrifying and frustrating. The men had been eager for combat, had trained
and prepared for this very moment. Now, as the enemy attacked with
ferocity, the Rough Riders could find nothing to shoot back at. Several
soldiers including their leader probed suspected enemy locations with infrequent
bursts of fire, to no effect. It was a non-combatant that finally gave
them the break they needed.
"There they are, Colonel," shouted
Richard Harding Davis. Davis was one of two newspaper reporters Roosevelt
had allowed to accompany him on this mission. Pointing across the valley
to the right he yelled, "look over there; I can see their hats near that
glade."
Finally noticing the location of the enemy,
Roosevelt pointed them out to a couple of his better marksmen, who began
returning fire. The first rounds fell short, but in minutes the Americans
had the enemy's range and the Spaniards jumped up to run to new positions.
Following their movement, Roosevelt began to make out dozens of hats of enemy
soldiers. His Rough Riders began moving forward, attacking with courage
and determination.
Slowly Roosevelt's men began taking
casualties. Harry Heffner of G Troop was shot in the hips. He fell
without uttering a sound. Two of his companions dragged him to the shelter
of a nearby tree. Slowly, painfully, Heffner dragged himself up to lean
against the trunk. He asked his comrades to hand him his canteen and his
rifle. As the battle raged, he continued to fire at the hidden enemy while
his comrades pressed ever forward. When they returned later, Heffner was
dead, but he had gone down fighting.
At the front of the regiment, Sergeant Fish
was one of the first casualties, killed instantly by enemy bullets. Three
of his 20-man advance party also fell. A few minutes later Captain Capron
was also killed.
When Captain Capron died, leadership of L
Troop transferred to First Lieutenant Thomas. In minutes Thomas was
shot in the leg and for the third time in less than half an hour, command
changed. Second Lieutenant Day, a very young junior officer, now led the
troop.
Seeing the battering Capron's troop was
taking, Captain McClintock ordered B Troop, composed mostly of Arizona
volunteers, to its relief. McClintock was shot in the leg, and command of
B Troop fell to young First Lieutenant Wilcox.
Roosevelt ordered G Troop forward, dashing
with them past the lifeless body of Sergeant Fish to the forward firing
line. The cover had thinned out and the sparce line of Rough Riders was
still moving forward, taking cover wherever they could find a depression in the
earth, a small tree, or a boulder. Across the open expanse Colonel Wood
strolled back and forth shouting orders and encouraging his men.
As casualties mounted, the Rough Riders
fought with courage and grim determination. When someone fell wounded, his
comrades rushed past him to press their attack. "It was hard to
leave them (the wounded) there in the jungle, where they might not be found
again until the vultures and the land-crabs came," Roosevelt wrote, "but
war is a grim game and there was no choice."
One
man did tend to the wounded. A 32-year old assistant surgeon and former
Princeton football player named James Robb Church did his best to stop the flow
of blood and bind up ruptured flesh throughout the morning. Time and again
he braved the fusillade of enemy Mauser bullets to enter the battlefield, locate
the most badly injured, and then carry them through the gauntlet of enemy fire
to the safety of the rear. So outstanding was his display of courage in
saving lives not only from serious wounds, but directly under the guns of the
enemy, the men of the regiment recommended him for special recognition.
His was to be the first Army award of the Medal of Honor of the Spanish American
War. While valor abounded on the jungle ridges around Las Guasimas on the
morning of June 24, 1889; he was the only hero to be so recognized for his
courage in that first Army engagement of the war.
Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt was also
distinguishable for his courage and leadership in the Rough Riders baptism of
fire. With the same disregard for enemy fire shown by Colonel Wood, he
boldly led his men into the foray, swiftly moving to the forefront. Nearby
he watched as Major Brodie, who was commanding the other three troops of Rough
Riders, take a Mauser bullet in the arm. The heavy round shattered the
limb, spinning Brodie completely around. Despite his severe wound, Brodie
continued to lead and encourage his men, refusing to return to the rear for
medical treatment. He lead valiantly until his wounds made him so faint,
he had to be carried from the field of battle. Under Colonel Wood's
orders, Roosevelt took command of Brodie's troops.
Slowly the enemy fire began to taper off,
then cease altogether. Roosevelt was to the extreme front of the action
when the enemy pulled back. Quickly he began placing his men in defensive
positions in case the Spaniards returned, and ordered his men to check their
ammunition and resupply their canteens. During this period he received
some devastating news. Colonel Wood had been killed during the fierce
fighting. Sadly but efficiently he took command of the Rough Riders,
seeking to insure their firm hold now on the ridges around Las Guasimas.
His soldiers took control of the nearby ranch buildings, and began gathering their wounded. Only then did Roosevelt return to the rear. It
was a happy moment for him, returning to find the reports of Wood's death had
been in error. For a brief moment, if even based upon false
information, Theodore Roosevelt had been commander of the Rough
Riders. He was happy to resume his role as executive officer when he found
his friend still among the living.
By mid-afternoon the Rough Riders had built
their camp, firmly staking their claim to the heights just beyond San Juan Hill
and Santiago. Search details combed their way through the foliage to
locate the dead and wounded. The latter carried back to Siboney on
litters. Among the wounded was a non-combatant, a correspondent named
Edward Marshall. The newsman had been shot in the back and no one expected
him to survive his awful wound. Struggling to remain conscious, the
correspondent insisted on ignoring his pain to dictate his account of the battle
at Las Guasimas and record it for the newspapers back home.
Also among the wounded was Thomas Isbell, a
half-breed Cherokee from L Troop. Isbell was part of Sergeant Fish's
advance party, among the first to taste enemy fire. In the opening volley,
Isbell was shot through the neck. Ignoring his wounds, he continued to
fight, being hit again in the left thumb. Refusing medical attention, the
intrepid volunteer continued to battle, receiving wounds in the hip, a
second wound to the neck (the bullet remained lodged against the bones), his
left hand, scalp, and a third neck wound. A total of seven times enemy
rounds broke his flesh, but he had remained in the battle until he was so
weakened by blood loss, he had to be carried back to Siboney.
A New Mexico cowboy named Rowland was also
among the wounded. Though able to walk back to Siboney under his own
power, upon arrival the physicians determined his wounds so severe that they
ordered him to bed to await removal back to the United States. (That
night, under cover of darkness, Rowland slipped out a window with his rifle and
pack to return to the Rough Riders. His determination was met with a
respectful welcome, and he continued with the regiment through the coming
battles.)
The wounded like Marshall, Isbell and
Rowland were all placed in a large, improvised open-air hospital at Siboney as
the physicians did all they could to stem blood flow and save lives.
Nearby lay the bodies of their dead comrades. Amazingly, the wounded
accepted their fate without whimper, not even crying out in their agony.
Sometime in the late afternoon, one of the wounded men began to hum "My
Country 'tis of Thee". One by one the others joined in, their refrain
loud enough to be heard across the hospital, out even into the jungles where
they had met and defeated the enemy.
The
following day the Rough Riders buried their dead. In the fight at Las
Guasimas they had lost eight men including Captain Capron whom Roosevelt
described as "the best soldier in the regiment" and the
venerable Sergeant Fish. Thirty-four Rough Riders were wounded.
The First Regulars and Tenth Cavalry also
lost eight men killed, eighteen wounded. The 964 young Americans had,
however, met a force of 1,100 enemy soldiers, well entrenched in fortified and
camouflaged positions, and sent them scurrying back to Santiago in
retreat.
The
advance party slowly rowed to the shoreline in their small boats
launched from the transports Florida and Funita.
As soon as they reached the shoreline they hid their boats
in the heavy jungle around the horse-shoe shaped bay, and began
creeping inland. Suddenly enemy fire raked their midst
from a Spanish blockhouse. The enemy fire was
overpowering, and the party began moving back to the water,
several Americans falling wounded and five or six Cubans killed
in the action. When they reached the waters of the bay,
they found their boats destroyed by enemy artillery. 
Meanwhile,
further down the coast at Manzanillo, American Naval
forces were engaging the Spanish in an unrelated
action. The gunboat Centinela (named for the
Spanish word "sentinela" meaning GUARD), was
overtaken by three American warships. During the
ensuing battle, the Spanish vessel was quickly sunk.
One of the three American ships involved in the lopsided
victory was the USS Wompatuck. Mate Frederick
Muller so distinguished himself in the brief battle, he
was awarded the Medal of Honor. 
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