Kettle Hill

[Utah Bob #35998]

Quote

 

I think the thing which impressed one the most, when our men started from cover, was that they were so few. It seemed as if someone had made an awful and terrible mistake. One's instinct was to call them to come back. You felt that someone had blundered and that these few men were blindly following out some madman's mad order. It was not heroic then, it seemed merely terribly pathetic. The pity of it, the folly of such a sacrifice was what held you.

 

They had no glittering bayonets, they were not massed in regular array. There were a few men in advance, bunched together, and creeping up a steep, sunny hill, the top of which roared and flashed with flame. The men held their guns pressed across their breasts and stepped heavily as they climbed. Behind these first few, spreading out like a fan, were single lines of men, slipping and scrambling in the smooth grass, moving forward with difficulty, as though they were wading waist high through water, moving slowly, carefully, with strenuous effort. It was much more wonderful than any swinging charge could have been. They walked to greet death at every step, many of them, as they advanced, sinking suddenly or pitching forward and disappearing in the high grass, but the others' waded on, stubbornly, forming a thin blue line that kept creeping higher and higher up the hill. It was as inevitable as the rising tide. It was a miracle of self-sacrifice, a triumph of bulldog courage, which one watched breathless with wonder. The fire of the Spanish riflemen, who still stuck bravely to their posts, doubled and trebled in fierceness, the crests of the hills crackled and burst in amazed roars, and rippled with waves of tiny flame. Bur the blue line crest steadily up and on, and then, near the top, the broken fragments gathered together with a sudden burst of speed, the Spaniards appeared for a moment outlined against the sky and poised for instant flight, fired a last volley and fled before the swift moving wave that leaped and sprang after them

 

The men of the Ninth and the Rough Riders rushed to the blockhouse together, the men of the Sixth, of the Third, of the Tenth Cavalry, of the Sixth and Sixteenth Infantry, fell on their faces along the crest of the hills beyond, and opened upon the vanishing enemy. They drove the yellow silk flags of the cavalry and the Stars and Stripes of their country into the soft earth of the trenches, and then sank down and looked back at the road they had climbed and swung their hats in the air. And from far overhead, from these few figures perched on the Spanish rifle-pits, with their flags planted among the empty cartridges of the enemy, and overlooking the walls of Santiago, came, faintly, the sound of a tired, broken cheer."

 

Reported Richard Harding Davis

July 1, 1898

 

 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Lead by "that damned cowboy" who ended up it the White House.

 

I'll die believing Teddy was one of our greatest Presidents.....and the Rough Riders were mostly our local lads.

 

Those Buffalo soldiers showed well, too.  They earned a place of honor in our history.

[Widder, SASS #59054]

There is an episode of Perry Mason (original series) where a feller is on trial and shares his military information

concerning "Kettle Hill".

 

..........Widder

 

[Trigger Mike]

8 hours ago, Widder, SASS #59054 said:

There is an episode of Perry Mason (original series) where a feller is on trial and shares his military information

concerning "Kettle Hill".

 

..........Widder

 

Saw it recently.  

[Seldom Seen #16162]

Thank you for the pictures. I just rewatched Rough Riders last week which I enjoy despite some of the inaccuracies.