Editing Rough Riders (section)

=== Battle of Las Guasimas ===
[[File:Stand of the Rough Riders at Las Guasimas.jpg|thumb|"The Battle of Las Guasimas, June 24 – The heroic stand of the 'Rough Riders'" in ''Harper's Pictorial History of the War with Spain''.]]
{{Main|Battle of Las Guasimas}}

Within another day of camp being established, men were sent forward into the jungle for reconnaissance purposes, and before too long they returned with news of a Spanish outpost, Las Guasimas. By afternoon, The Rough Riders were given the command to begin marching towards Las Guasimas, to eliminate opposition and secure the area which stood in the path of further military advance. Upon arrival at their relative destination, the men slept through the night in a crude encampment nearby the Spanish outpost they would attack early the next morning.<ref name=" ReferenceB">Pierson, "What the Rough Riders lacked ...," 10.</ref> The American side included the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, under [[Leonard Wood]], the [[1st Cavalry Regiment (United States)|1st U.S. Regular Cavalry]], and the [[10th Cavalry Regiment (United States)|10th U.S. Regular Cavalry]] (this consisted of [[Afro-American]] soldiers, then called [[Buffalo soldiers]]). Supported by artillery, the American forces numbered 964 men,<ref name=Wheeler>Wheeler, J., 1899, ''The Santiago Campaign in Campaigns of Wheeler and His Cavalry'', Atlanta: Hudgins Publishing Company</ref>{{rp|9}} supported by 800 men from Castillo.{{Citation needed |reason=A ref tag named Nofi with a notation for page 124 was specified, but no citation was provided in the article for the tag name. |date=February 2020}}

The Spanish held an advantage over the Americans by knowing their way through the complicated trails in the area of combat. They predicted where the Americans would be traveling on foot and exactly what positions to fire on. They also were able to utilize the land and cover in such a way that they were difficult to spot. Along with this, their guns used [[smokeless powder]] which did not give away their immediate position upon firing as other gunpowders would have. This increased the difficulty of finding the opposition for the U.S. soldiers. In some locations, the jungle was too thick to see very far.<ref name="ReferenceB" /> Rough Riders on both left and right sides of the trail moved forward and eventually forced the Spaniards back to their second line of trenches. Continuing to advance, the Rough Riders eventually forced the Spanish to withdraw completely from their final positions. Rough Riders from A Troop on the far-right linked up with their regular counterparts and helped them seize the Spanish positions on the long finger-like hill to the right of the right road, with both Rough Riders and Regulars meeting at the base of the hill. By this time it was approximately 9:30&nbsp;a.m. Reinforcements from the regular 9th Cavalry arrived 30 minutes after the fight.<ref name="bartleby.com">[http://www.bartleby.com/51/ Roosevelt, Theodore, ''The Rough Riders''] Chapter III, page 18, Bartleby Website</ref>

General [[Samuel Baldwin Marks Young|Young]], who was in command of the regulars and cavalry, began the attack in the early morning. Using long-range, large-caliber [[Hotchkiss gun]]s, he fired at the opposition, who were reportedly concealed along trenches, roads, bridges, and jungle cover. Colonel Wood's men, accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt, were not yet in the same vicinity as the other men at the start of the battle. They had a more difficult path to travel around the time the battle began, and at first they had to make their way up a very steep hill. "Many of the men, footsore and weary from their march of the preceding day, found the pace up this hill too hard, and either dropped their bundles or fell out of line, with the result that we went into action with less than five hundred men."<ref name=TR />{{rp|50}} Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt became aware that there were countless opportunities for any man to fall out of formation and resign from battle without notice as the jungle was often too thick in places to see through. This was yet another event that left the group with fewer men than they had at the start.

Regardless, The Rough Riders pushed forward toward the outpost along with the regulars. Using careful observation, the officers were able to locate where the opposition was hidden in the brush and entrenchments and they were able to target their men properly to overcome them. Toward the end of the battle, Edward Marshall, a newspaper writer, was inspired by the men around him in the heat of battle to pick up a rifle and begin fighting alongside them. When he suffered a gunshot wound in the spine from one of the Spaniards, another soldier mistook him as Colonel Wood from afar and ran back from the front line to report his death. Due to this misconception, Roosevelt temporarily took command as colonel and gathered the troops together with his leadership charisma. The battle lasted an hour and a half from beginning to end with The Rough Riders suffering eight dead and 31 wounded, including Captain [[Allyn K. Capron Jr.]] Roosevelt came across Colonel Wood in full health after the battle finished and stepped down from his position to lieutenant-colonel.<ref name=TR />{{RP|49-60}}

The United States had full control of this Spanish outpost on the road to Santiago by the end of the battle. General Shafter had the men hold position for six days while additional supplies were brought ashore. During this time, The Rough Riders ate, slept, cared for the wounded, and buried the dead from both sides. During the six-day encampment, some men died from fever. Among those stricken by illness was General [[Joseph Wheeler]]. Brigadier General [[Samuel S. Sumner|Samuel Sumner]] assumed command of the cavalry and Wood took the second brigade as brigadier general. This left Roosevelt as colonel of The Rough Riders.<ref name="ReferenceA" />