men of the Seventy-first New York Volunteers joined promiscuously
in the charge.

To the right rose Kettle Hill, jutting out and Banking the
approach to the main position. Facing it and dismounted were the
First and Ninth Regular Cavalry, the latter a negro regiment, and
the Rough Riders under Colonel Roosevelt. The Tenth Infantry was
between the two wings, and divided in the support of both. A
battery of Gatling guns was placed in position. The Americans
steadily advanced in an irregular line, though kept in some sort
of formation by their officers. Breaking down brush and barbed
wire and sheltering themselves in the high grass, the men on the
right wing worked their way up Kettle Hill, but before they
reached the rifle pits of the enemy, they saw the Spaniards
retreating on the run. The audacity of the Americans at the
critical moment had insured the ultimate success of their attack
and they found the final capture of the hill easy.

The longer charge against the center of the enemy was in the
meantime being pressed home, under the gallant leadership of
General Hawkins, who at times was far in advance of his line. The
men of the right wing who looked down from their new position on
Kettle Hill, a quarter of a mile distant, saw the Spaniards give
way and the American center dash forward. In order to support
this advance movement, the Gatlings were brought to Kettle Hill,
and General S.S. Sumner and Colonel Roosevelt led their men down
Kettle and up San Juan Hill, where they swept over the northern
jut only a moment after Hawkins had carried the main blockhouse.

The San Juan position now in the hands of the Americans was the