THE PLAN OF ATTACK. 363 around us on three sides arose, tier upon tier the beautiful Maestra Mountains, wearing delicate pearly tints in the first rays of the risingsun. To our left stretchedtherich greenjungle, withits rippling bamboo groves and clumps of royalpalm. The only landmarkin all this wide expanse was the great red-roofed Ducoureaud House, a deserted country-seat that lay midway between El Caney and Santiago. Three miles away in this direction loomed the long, undulating ridge of San Juan, streaked with Spanish trenches, and behind it showed up clearly- the faint pink buildings, with twinkling windows and innumerable Red Cross flags, that marked the city of Santiago."

quarter past seven all the infantry was moving forward, and the Spaniards hadopened fire from the little stone sort, the trenches, the blockhouses on three sides of El Caney, shots also coming from sharpshooters on house-roofs and in tree-tops alongthe edge of the town. There hadbeen tillnow a very generalimpression that Spaniardscould not shoot straight,but the men whoheldElCaney shot coolly,deliberately,and well, and the Americans found that every step forward meant loss, and to rush the town till the Spanish fire was subdued by their own was impossible. Capron's battery,short ofammunition, and husbanding it by a slow rate of fire, was making little or no impression on the defence. The attack of a position like that of ElCaney shouldhave been preparedby a heavy fire of artillery from several batteries, pouring such a shower of shells into the place as to demoralise the garrison and make it impossible for them to stick to their trenches. But laere there were only sour light guns in action. On the other hand, there were no Spanish batteries at thispoint, andCapron'sguns,firing at a range of 2,400 yards, could be worked as safely as if they were at target practice. They ought to have been able to give more effective support to the infantry. As it was, these latter had to try their best to do the work of artillery with their rifles, and prepare the way for their own attack by concentrating their volleys on the trenches and picking off the sharpshooters.

As the first shell of Capron's battery burst over the fort, a group of Spanish soldiers that hadbeen loungingnear itsentrance disappeared into cover, and on the slope of the hill below some straw hats appeared here and there in line, showing where theinfantry werelining the shelter trenches. But not a shot was fired in reply for a quarter of anhour, and so silent was the fort that one of Lawton's staff suggested that it had been evacuated, and that the straw hats were stuck up on sticks as dummies to delude the attacking forceinto the idea that the trenches were held. The shells were knocking stones out of the walls of the fort, and one of them had all but demolished a blockhouse, but still the Spaniards held their fire. Not a shot came from the trenches till Lawton's infantry began to deployfor the advance.

The plan of attack was that General Chaffee, with the 7th, 12th, and 17th Infantry, should work round to the north of ElCaney ;Colonel Miles's brigade, the ist, 4th, and 25th Infantry (these last negroes), was to advance against the west side of the town, and General Ludlow, with the 8th and 22nd Regulars and the 2nd Massachusetts Volunteers, was to move against theplace from the south. It was expected that in this way not merely would the town be quickly captured, but that its garrison would be made prisoners. It was expected that the business would be allover early in the day, and then Lawton's division could move against the flank of the Spaniards at San Juan and help Kent to turn them out.

In the first three hours the American firing line had pressed forward gradually to a range of about boo yards from the town, the men firing lying downin the grass as they halted. Beyond this point no advance wasmadefor some hours more, during which the attackmerely held their own. The 2nd Massachusetts had been withdrawn before this from the firing line. The volunteershad behaved well,advancing steadily and losing several men. But whilethe regulars were properly armed with modern rifles using smokeless powder, the volunteers, with the exception of Roosevelt's men, had only their old Springfield rifles and cartridges loadedwith the old-fashioned black powder. The result was, that as the Massachusetts men advanced they were enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke, which drew the fire of the enemy's trenches, and would doubtless soon have been a mark for the artillery of the works nearer Santiago. General Ludlow had therefore to reduce his brigade to the two regular regi-Miles's and Ludlow's brigades werethe first to come into action, opening up on El Caney with volleys at about a thousand yards, from grassy ridges to the west and south. Chaffee had further to march with his three regiments, and reached his ground somewhat later. At a