believe the Colonel thought he spoke the exact truth. But did he know,
that of the four officers connected with two certain troops of the
Tenth Cavalry one was killed and three were so seriously wounded as to
cause them to be carried from the field, and the command of these two
troops fell to the first sergeants, who led them triumphantly to the
front? Does he know that both at Las Guasima and San Juan Hill the
greater part of troop B, of the Tenth Cavalry, was separated from its
commanding officer by accidents of battle and was led to the front by
its first sergeant?

When we reached the enemy's works on San Juan Hill our organizations
were very badly mixed, few company commanders having their whole
companies or none of some body else's company. As it was, Capt.
Watson, my troop commander, reached the crest of the hill with about
eight or ten men of his troop, all the rest having been accidentally
separated from him by the thick underbrush during the advance, and
being at that time, as was subsequently shown to be the firing line
under some one else pushing to the front. We kept up the forward
movement, and finally halted on the heights overlooking Santiago,
where Colonel Roosevelt, with a very thin line had preceded us, and
was holding the hill. Here Captain Watson told us to remain while he
went to another part of the line to look for the rest of his troop. He
did not come to that part of the field again.

The Colonel made a slight error when he said his mixed command
contained some colored infantry. All the colored troops in that
command were cavalry men. His command consisted mostly of Rough
Riders, with an aggregate of about one troop of the Tenth Cavalry, a
few of the Ninth and a few of the First Regular Cavalry, with a half
dozen officers. Every few minutes brought men from the rear, everybody