Seeing, therefore, that they had been so well trained as regulars, we need not wonder that they acquitted themselves so well in the preliminary assault, that occurred before preparations were made for the final advance on the doomed city. That part of the operations of our men that caused most noise to be made in the newspapers and elsewhere took place when Colonel Roosevelt and his Rough Riders advanced up one of the hills that was overgrown with dense brushwood, where the Spaniards had dug trenches along the face of the hill, and had run powerful wire fences along the front of those trenches, from which they fired upon the Americans as they came up the hill-side. The Rough Riders had a hard time of it as they advanced in the face of the showers of balls that were poured down upon them. Little progress did they make, although they lay down again and again to let those leaden showers pass over their devoted heads. Colonel Roosevelt had a horse killed under him, jumped off the animal before it carried him under as it fell, and advanced up the hill in advance of all his men, shouting to them to come on. Well, of course, the men did come on; but some were killed here, and others were wounded there; while as for the Spaniards, they went down like grass before the scythe. As a general thing they were bad shots--as might be expected of a dying nation still bragging of the deeds of their ancestors four hundred years back; and they themselves swollen with ignorance and pride, too haughty to be taught better ways! Thus the Rough Riders gravely struggled up the hill-side, cutting the wire fences as they went, clearing the retreating Spaniards out of the rifle-pits (or trenches, rather), lying down and advancing again and again as best they could. It was evident that they must suffer great losses, or might even fail altogether.
At this very crisis the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, or United States colored troops, were ordered forward to the rescue of their dismounted brothers, and so dismounted, they advanced up the hill-side, laughing and hurrahing with as much trained ease, and as cheerfully as if they had been upon their old parade grounds in the far West! Success against the enemy was now assured. Our brave, well-seasoned veterans from the West fired, advanced, lay down, chatted and laughed with their white brothers, as they lay upon the ground, partly hidden among the brushwood, tall grasses and bushes of the Cuban jungle; and thus the day there was saved, and the white men were saved by the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, just in the self-same way as white and black had often saved one another during the Civil War in the sixties. The wire fences were cut, the trenches were cleared of their occupants, the hill-top was gained, the Spaniards were set upon the run down the hill, on the other side, and now our men could see their enemies, and have a straight shot at them as they ran down the open, in full retreat and rapid flight. Our own trained heroes followed fast after them, dropping on one knee every now and then, to get a steadier aim at the fleeing Spaniards and thus they fell at a rapid rate before our guns.