Battles of San Juan Hill and El Caney

Background

The war between the United States and Spain over Cuba turned on Santiago de Cuba when Admiral Cervera's squadron put into its harbour rather than Cienfuegos and was blockaded there by Sampson's fleet. Major General William R. Shafter's Fifth Corps, regulars stiffened with a few volunteer regiments, was sent to take the city and its harbour defences. It landed at Daiquirí, east of Santiago, from 22 June, with help from Calixto García's Cuban insurgents, pushed through the Spanish outposts at Las Guásimas on 24 June, and closed on the city along the Siboney–Santiago road.

Santiago's commander, General Arsenio Linares, had over 10,000 men, but spread them thinly: along the coast, in the mountain passes against the Cubans, and in a ring of trenches and blockhouses round the city. Only a few companies held the outer positions the Americans would meet first: the San Juan Heights, a ridge across the road from El Pozo, and the village of El Caney to the north-east, on the road into the city from the north.

On 30 June Shafter viewed the ground from the hill at El Pozo. Lawton and Chaffee, back from reconnoitring El Caney, reported only five or six hundred Spaniards there and thought the village could be taken in about two hours. Shafter's plan followed: Lawton's division would storm El Caney at daybreak; meanwhile Wheeler's dismounted cavalry and Kent's infantry would move up to the San Juan River, and when Lawton came south-west along the El Caney road all three would assault the heights together. A feint at Aguadores and a naval demonstration would hold Spanish troops on the coast.

The armies

Fifth Corps put about 15,000 men into the two actions: some 6,650 under Brigadier General Henry Lawton at El Caney and 8,400 under Kent and Wheeler (with Sumner commanding the cavalry while Wheeler was sick) before San Juan. Most were regulars armed with the smokeless .30 Krag; the volunteers, except the 1st Volunteer Cavalry, Roosevelt and Wood's "Rough Riders", still had black-powder Springfields whose smoke drew fire. Four of the regular regiments were Black: the 9th and 10th Cavalry and 24th Infantry on the heights, and the 25th Infantry at El Caney. The American field artillery, a few light batteries of 3.2-inch guns, also fired black powder. Lieutenant John Parker's detachment of Gatling guns would prove far more useful.

The Spaniards were few but well placed. Brigadier General Joaquín Vara de Rey held El Caney with about 520 men in four wooden blockhouses, a loopholed stone church, trenches and the stone fort of El Viso, with no artillery at all. On the San Juan Heights a first line of about 521 under Colonel José Vaquero held a blockhouse and trenches behind barbed wire, with two rapid-fire Krupp guns; Linares stood behind them with about 400 more. Their 7 mm Mausers fired smokeless powder and loaded faster than the Krag.

The battle

CDB90 treats the day as a single engagement, San Juan Hill and El Caney (01 July 1898, 06:30–17:00), covering both fights.

El Caney, 06:30–11:00. Capron's battery opened at half past six from a hill a little over a mile south of the village. Chaffee's brigade engaged from the east, six to eight hundred yards from El Viso, while Ludlow's worked round the south-west to cut the Santiago road and Miles's waited in reserve. The Spanish fire stopped them at about 600 yards, and for four or five hours the fight was a rifle duel in which the attackers, in the open, lost far more than they inflicted. The 2nd Massachusetts, whose black-powder smoke drew heavy fire, was pulled out of the line.

The approach to San Juan, 08:20–12:30. Grimes's battery opened from El Pozo at 08:20, about 2,500 yards from San Juan Hill; its smoke drew Spanish shells, and a duel of three-quarters of an hour followed. Shafter, ill, stayed behind; his adjutant McClernand and his aide Miley carried his orders forward. With Lawton held up, the cavalry and Kent's division were pushed down the single jungle road towards the fords of the Aguadores and San Juan rivers. The Signal Corps balloon was towed along above the column to the ford, giving the Spaniards an aiming mark; it was soon holed and brought down, but not before Lieutenant Colonel Derby spotted a side trail that let Kent's rear brigades deploy to the left. The 71st New York recoiled on that trail, and Wikoff's brigade pushed through it after 12:20. At the crossing, later called "Bloody Ford", men waited under steady Mauser fire with no room to shelter or reply. Wikoff was killed, and his two successors were hit within minutes.

Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill, about 13:00–13:30. Miley finally authorised Sumner to attack. The 1st and 9th Cavalry, the Rough Riders and part of the 10th Cavalry rushed Kettle Hill, crossing the stream and wire under fire; the Spaniards left before they reached the top. Most of the 10th, with the 3rd and 6th Cavalry, swung left to join Hawkins's brigade. About one o'clock Parker's Gatlings opened from 600 yards and in a few minutes drove Spaniards from their trenches; Hawkins and Lieutenant Jules Ord led the 6th and 16th Infantry over the river, and the 24th Infantry and the rest of Wikoff's old brigade rose on their left. The climbing troops were briefly stopped by their own supporting fire near the crest, then went over it: San Juan Hill was taken at about 13:30. The cavalry on Kettle Hill, led by Sumner and Roosevelt, then took the heights north of the road, and Pearson's brigade those to the south. The Spaniards fell back to a second line 600–800 yards behind.

El Caney falls, 14:00–17:00. At about two Capron's guns moved to 1,000 yards, and by three they had shot away El Viso's flagstaff and breached its walls. Chaffee sent in the 12th Infantry, with the 25th Infantry close behind, and the fort was stormed; Private T. C. Butler of the 25th took its flag. The garrison fought on from house to house for nearly two hours. Vara de Rey, shot through both legs, was killed on his stretcher. About 17:00 the survivors broke out west.

Evening. A Spanish counter-attack with sailors under Bustamante was driven back, and Linares was wounded. Lawton's exhausted men, sent the long way round, did not reach the heights until the next morning.

Aftermath

The day cost Fifth Corps about 1,400 men killed and wounded, some 9 per cent of those engaged, and the field hospitals were overwhelmed. The Spaniards lost about 600 killed and wounded and over 100 prisoners; of the El Caney garrison only about a hundred got back to Santiago that night. The Americans held a thin line on the heights with no reserve; after another day of firing Shafter told Washington he was considering a withdrawal of about five miles, yet the same morning, 3 July, he called on the Spanish commander to surrender. That same day Cervera's squadron, ordered out, was destroyed at sea. After a truce and negotiations, General Toral surrendered Santiago and the troops of his division, and the Spaniards marched out on 17 July.

The battle made Theodore Roosevelt, and he was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor in 2001. The Rough Riders' fame long overshadowed the regulars who did most of the fighting, among them the Black 9th and 10th Cavalry and 24th and 25th Infantry. Trooper Edward Baker of the 10th later won the Medal of Honor for rescuing a wounded comrade from the river. Roosevelt first praised the Black troopers, then wrote that they depended on their white officers, a claim Presley Holliday of the 10th publicly rebutted. Spaniards remember Vara de Rey's stand at El Caney, which American officers admired too.

Wargaming it

San Juan and El Caney make a classic two-table game, or a linked pair of scenarios, at battalion or company scale. The contrast is the appeal: ten-to-one odds at El Caney and about eight-to-one at San Juan, yet the Spanish player, with smokeless Mausers behind wire and blockhouses, can make the Americans pay for every hundred yards.

The American problem is command and congestion, not firepower. One jungle road feeds two divisions to two fords under fire; deployment is slow, smoke from black-powder guns and rifles gives away positions, and the attack is meant to wait for Lawton. Rules should let units lose cohesion in the queue at Bloody Ford, limit what Shafter can see from the rear, and make the assault order depend on a junior aide's judgement. The balloon is a lovely optional rule: it finds the hidden trail, but draws fire on everyone beneath it. Gatlings should be devastating at 600 yards against men in trenches.

The Spanish player faces a different clock: hold on long enough to bleed the attack, but with a second line, few reserves and no artillery at El Caney. "What ifs": Linares sending part of his 10,000 forward; Lawton bypassing El Caney as Shafter ordered at 14:00; Wheeler fit and in command from the start; or the Spaniards counter-attacking the thin line on the heights that night.

Maps and pictures