GENERAL CHAFFEE'S METHODS. 359 army tnat marchedagainst Santiago. asA he showed his soldierly qualitiesmost ofall ii his careful study of the ground in his front towards El Caney, the point which he had to attack when the advance came. Captain Lee, theBritishattache,in his notes on thecampaign, aftermaking a remark on the general carelessness about reconnoitring, goes on to say:— hillof San Juan and preparing the town of El Caneyfor defence ;but though somefield-pieces andmachine guns had been brought up to the front, nothing was done to interrupt the operations of the enemy's working parties. On this side no reconnaissance was made,and the day before the attack the officers were furnished with a wretched plan of the ground,a rough sketch without scale, omitting some of the most essential points, and misrepresenting the relative position of the chief places.

"Ifeel it only just at this point to mention that,howevernovel theabsence ofreconnaissance in other directions, nothing could have been more enterprising or systematic than General Chaffee's explorationof his own theatreof operations. Ihad the pleasureof accompanyinghim on more than one occasion, and derived much profit from a study of his method-. Leavinghis staffbehindhe wouldpush far to the front,and, finally,dismounting, slipthrough the brush with the rapidity andnoiselessness of anIndian. My efforts to follow him were like the progress of a band waggon in comparison;but Igradually acquired a fairy-like tread and a stumbling facility in sign language, which enabled me to followthe genera! without too loudly advertising our presence to the Spaniards. On one occasion we approachedso closely to the .Spanish pickets that we could hear the men talking over their suppers,and until Ibegan to speculate on the probable efficacy of the British passportthat was ray sole defensive weapon. Inthis silentIndian fashion General Chassee explored the entire di-trict, and was the only man in the army to whom the network of bridal paths round El Caney wasin any sense familiar."

On the 2Qth GeneralShafferrodeup to the hili of El Pozo and reconnoitred the Spanish position. He was so exhaustedby the short ride to the front and back to his headquarters at Sevilla that he was unable to leave his tent for some days. The plan of attack was decided upon early on the 30th, and orders for the advance were issued in the afternoon.

The firsteffort was to he directedagainst the two Spanish advanced positions,El Caney to the eastward of Santiago, on the Guantanamoroad, andSanJuan to the southwardof the city,above the fords of the San Juan river. The army v\ as to concentrate on the edge of the woodsduring the evening of June 30th, and at dawn on July 1st General Lawton's division was to attack and capture El Caney. He was then to turn to the westward and threaten the Hank anel rear of the San Juan position, while General Kent's division attacked it in front. On the extreme right General Duffield's brigade was te> make a demonstration against Fort Aguadoref, and the fleet was to co-operate by shelling the battery. On the American left towards San Juan two tracks led from the woodsinto the opencountry towardsthe Spanish lines and the advancedfort onSan Juan Hill. It was clear that if the army advanced into the open by these two lines,the outlets of which were well known to the enemy, the men packed together on a smallfront must be exposed to a destructive fire at marked ranges. Officers whoknew theirbusiness pointed out that as a preparation for the advance a path or widetrail should have been cut through the bushparallel to the edgeof the wood and a little inside it,with a nuhaber of branch tracksleading from it into the open,so that the army could deploy for the attack on a widefront. This was talked of, but nothing was done,and when the day of battlecame, the result of this neglect was a heavy loss that could easily have been avoided. From the outposts of the American army, especially from the hill of El Pozo, the Spaniards could be plainly seen at work entrenching the The brigadecommands had been considerably modifieet since the first organisationot Shaffer's corps at Tampa. The brigade commanders in the actual advance were:— In the 1st Division (GeneralKent's), 1stBrigade,General H.S.Hawkins; 2nd Brigade,Colon..! Pierson;3rd Brigade, Colonel Wickoff. Inthe 2nd Division (General Lawton's),1st Brigade,GeneralLudlow; 2ndBrigade,ColonelMiles;3rdBrigade,GeneralChaffee. In the 3rd Division, which was still incomplete, the ist Brigade was commanded by General Bates, and the 2ndby GeneralDuffield. Inthe Cavalry division both Generals Wheeler and Young were temporarily invalided,andGeneral Sunnier had taken command. Only two batteriesand somemachine guns had been gotup to the front. Some sixty guns, many of them ol I 1 calibre, werelying idle at Siboney. 'Hi the afternoon of June 30th the long-, x pectedorder to advance was brought to General