Cavalrymen leaped over the wire fence and raced across the valley to the next line, with Captain Eugene D. Dimmick leading the men of the 9th Cavalry. The Spaniards retreated long before the cavalry reached the trenches. Cavalrymen had swept over the palm-covered ridge and started for Santiago before Roosevelt stopped them. With a small mixed force, he commanded the extreme right of the American front.

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The black soldiers had fought superbly throughout the battle, but since their officers were not with them on the hill, they began to straggle back. Roosevelt drew his revolver and headed them off. He commended them for their courage but threatened to shoot the first man who went to the rear for any reason. The black troops asked Roosevelt’s men if he would make good on that threat. The Rough Riders replied in chorus to the affirmative. The black troopers readily accepted Roosevelt as their acting commander.

Sumner kept a sizable reserve on Kettle Hill under the command of Major Henry Jackson of the 3rd Cavalry. Realizing that Roosevelt was in a precariously weak position, Sumner sent a request for an infantry regiment. Kent reached the hill that Hawkins reported his brigade had captured (neglecting to mention that the regiments of Ewers’ brigade had done so as well). Kent forwarded this report to V Corps headquarters at 3 o’clock. Ten minutes later, Kent received requests from both Sumner and Wood for assistance on the right. He sent over the 13th, and Roosevelt positioned the infantry reinforcements between his command and a small contingent of the 9th Cavalry.

Spanish cavalrymen, marines and infantrymen launched a fainthearted counterattack against Roosevelt’s position. The Americans cheered as they fired, and a few seconds later the Spaniards stopped and retreated to cover. Shortly afterward, Parker wheeled his Gatlings in on the extreme right of the Rough Riders, positioning them where he could best fire across the enemy trenches. As darkness fell and the firing ceased, the Americans commanded the heights overlooking Santiago.

Shortly after Wheeler reached the trench line, he ordered breastworks to be built and sent back for the entrenching tools that had been discarded along the road. Wheeler sent word along the line that reinforcements would soon arrive. Brigadier General John C. Bates’ Independent Brigade, however, did not arrive until midnight, when he reinforced Kent’s left. Lawton, who had finally taken El Caney at 4 p.m., did not arrive until noon the next day.

At 8:20 p.m., Wheeler reassured Shafter that his thin line could hold. Nevertheless, Shafter later ordered a withdrawal. Summoning Bates and Kent, Wheeler told them that he was the best judge of the situation. From his Civil War experience, he knew that if a force was strong enough to take a position from an entrenched enemy, regardless of the losses, it could hold out against a counterattack by that same enemy. He ordered the men to hold, and the troops realigned themselves with their proper regiments.

Although the Spaniards would bitterly contest the Americans for two more weeks, on July 17 the commander of the Spanish IV Army Corps, Maj. Gen. José Toral y Vazquez, signed articles of ‘capitulation’ (avoiding the use of the more pejorative word’surrender’) that handed Santiago over to the Americans. They had won their splendid little war.

This article was written by Richard E. Killblane and originally published in the June 1998 issue of Military History magazine.

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