Wildfire
Warning and Disclaimer:
Because of the context of the nation in this AAR, there may be topics and wordings that some may find offensive. Please be aware that these are only written as they apply to the history of the nation and are in no way my personal views or beliefs on the subject.
Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city in the state of Cuba, second only to the capital at Havana. Its large, protected harbor serves as the main port for the eastern portion of the island, allowing cotton and sugar growers to export their goods across the world. Nowadays the city is a bustling center of commerce, with ships coming and going every day. But during the war, the city had become a fortress.
Due to the rebellion, which had exploded in size and scope, the Spanish had decided to use Santiago as a staging point for the military. Operating from the well protected city troop columns would be sent out to attack or hold key positions. The force at Guantanamo had been one such unit, before it was cut off and trapped by a surprising attack from the rebels. It was this strategy that posed a rather difficult problem for the Confederate army. While the countryside was theirs, and most of the populace was on their side, Santiago stood in their way. The city had to be captured to achieve victory, but how to do so was quite difficult.
Because it is nestled in a coastal valley of the Sierra Maestra mountains the city is ringed with steep hills that provide a natural barrier to any hostile forces. It was on these natural walls that the Spanish constructed elaborate, if slightly flawed earthen work defenses. Trenches carved their way from blockhouse and bunker across the tops of the hills to the east of the city. Manning these defenses were over two thousand of the best troops that Spanish General Arsenio Linares had at his command.
The hills are what stopped the westward rush of the Confederate forces. Bolstered by the successful landing at Guantanamo, and open and fervent support of the locals and rebels, the troops rapidly moved along the southern coast. Hindered only by the weather, which was bearable to those used to the heat of a Confederate summer, and the occasional skirmish over a defendable position the army found itself just east of Santiago in late July. That was when it broke its teeth on the San Juan Heights.
Initially believing the trenches to be another lightly defended hill top maned by a few hundred conscripts, the eager soldiers charged up the slopes to be met with a hail of accurate rifle fire from a crack volunteer force. Stunned by this deadly barrage, the troops fell back in disarray. Thus, began the siege of Santiago. The army pulled back slightly, out of the range of the Spanish guns. The navy, returned from its attack on Puerto Rico, took up positions at the mouth of the harbor and formed a blockade.
This monotonous duty on both land and sea quickly took its toll on the men. What had been an eager and efficient fighting force began to decay in the mind-numbing and boring repetitiveness of a siege. The climate and weather did not aid in their struggle either, for as the days became weeks the oppressive heat and humidity of the Caribbean hurricane season began.
The tents of the Confederate camp dripped with excess moisture, small droplets falling to gently splash across the maps. Major General James Ewell Brown Stuart frowned. The water had smeared his papers. What was the point, he thought, leaning back in his chair and stroking his still impressive if now fully greyed beard. They had remained in place for nearly two months. Wake up, stare at the hills, eat breakfast, stare at the hills, review the days reports, stare at the hills, eat lunch, stare at the hills. Stare at the hills. Stare at the hills. Stare at the hills.
The sound of tearing paper brought him back. He looked down sadly at what had been the south coast of Cuba on his map, now a crumpled ball in his fist. He needed air, air that wasn’t filled with water. The tent was already open, in a pathetic attempt to garner some relief from the oppressive heat. The view was still the same: Confederate troops clad in undershirts lazed about, hoping for a breeze or a short rainstorm, while above them to the west stood those damn hills. No change. Nothing.
Hanson wasn’t even here. He was further back, at Sibony, overseeing the entire campaign from a comfortable villa. Roger was content to wait out the Spanish. ‘No attacks’ he ordered. He had gone soft over the years. What had happened to the man who led the Orphans in battle? Where had he disappeared to behind that sad gaze and winkled face? A general led from the front. He faced the same danger as his men and didn’t shy away from the snap of bullets overhead. He was a general. He had led his cavalry in battle at Manassas and chased the Yankees back to Washington. He rode around the Army of the Potomac. He fought at Second Manassas. He had held the line at Sandy Hook, dismounted and in bad terrain with only a thin line of his boys alongside him against the entire Union Army.
He was a general, damn it, and he was not about to let some blasted hills get in his way!
“Damn you Hanson, and damn your orders too!” He roared, shaking his fist at the distant summits. The camp, already quiet, became deathly still. Turning, he focused his energy at a suddenly pale faced lieutenant standing nearby. “Get me my staff.” The officer stood still, rooted to the spot. “Now! Or I’ll have your hide!” Stuart stalked back into his tent as the man sprinted away. “We are taking those hills!”
Portsmouth was still bustling with activity. The temporary panic that had gripped the Navy Building had dissipated into a calm, effective drive towards victory. This was helped along by the fact that the service had been granted a very large emergency stipend because of the war, a substantial portion of which had gone towards reorganizing the bureaucracy that was essential to running any government organization. But much of the remaining funds had been added to a surprisingly large and equally well-hidden hoard that had been saved from each year’s budget.
Unlike the navies of other nations, the Confederate service was guaranteed a minimum yearly budget from the senate, a holdover from the Jackson administration’s reforms. If further funding was needed the Senate would have to be lobbied by the Navy or the President. Beyond that, the service was expected to find its own sources of revenue. One of the best sources had been allowing navy yards to compete with private shipyards for commercial building contracts, as well as the construction of warships for foreign navies. In total, the navy had become rather wealthy, a fact that was carefully hidden from both the public and the Confederate government. Secretary Anderson had a plan to use that capital.
Shortly before the Flying Squadron left to begin its campaign in the Caribbean, Anderson ordered the formation of council. Centered around a core of experienced navy men, the new group’s task was to review, discus, plan, and independently draft new ship designs for the navy. They were told to expect their designs to serve as the new backbone of the fleet for at least a decade, and that they should plan as such.
Steel for the Navy
Anderson hovered over this group as much as he could. In-between managing a navy at war, lobbying the Senate for yet more funding, maintaining the navy’s relations abroad, laying down a new class of torpedo boat destroyers, organizing recruiting drives to fill out said new ships, ensuring that the active ships had ample supplies of both ammunition and coal at the new anchorage of Guantanamo Bay, and meeting with President Garrison every week, Anderson still found time to meet with his committee every Monday at noon. There he would go over their findings, ask their opinions, give them his recommendations, and veto the designs before sending them back out to begin again.
But one thought continued to poke at the back of his mind. What had Garrison and Morten been talking about on the floor the of congress building?
“Gentlemen, I have called you all here for one reason.” General Stuart began. His tent was quite crowded, filled with generals or colonels from each unit under his command. The close quarters only increased the discomforting humidity that plagued the rest of the camp. “As we know, the Spanish hold the San Juan heights. These hills are key to our success in this campaign. If we take them, we will have greatly weakened the defenses of Santiago and will have made a breakthrough in the Spanish lines.” Stuart ran his eyes across the men assembled before him. “I plan to have these hills in our possession by this time tomorrow.”
“Sir, General Hanson has made it quite clear.” Said Elliot Burwell, one of his Brigadiers. “There are to be no attacks on the hills unless he orders them.”
“General Hanson is in strategic command of this campaign, General Burwell. I, however, am in tactical command of the troops under me. I am permitted by General Hanson to take any measures I deem a tactical necessity. Those hills are a necessity. Is that clear?”
Burwell set his face in a determined grin. “Yes Sir.” The other officers in the tent shared a similar opinion. They had spent too long doing nothing.
“Now, I am certain that all of you are well aware of the situation that we face. Nevertheless, we will go over what we know again.” Faces fell, and a few eyes were rolled. Each man had gone through the same routine as their commander, with little else to do but revise and rework their plans. “Save your grumbling for when we are finished, gentlemen. Now, thanks to the work of Lieutenant Avant and his navy boys,” The balloonist nodded his head in recognition. “we have a fairly accurate idea of where the Spanish defenses are. The heights are split into two fairly distinctive crests. Avant has named the one further to the south San Juan hill and the northern one Kettle hill.”
“Really, Avant?” Spoke up Colonel Joseph Wheelwright. “Kettle hill?”
“It gets cold up there. Found myself looking over the terrain, but thinking of the nice kettle of coffee waiting for me on the fire once I got back down. That, and it vaguely looks like one from above.”
“Gentlemen.” Stuart interjected. “If I may continue?” Both officers blushed a deep red. Snarking in front of the general was not a good idea. “Thank you. As I was saying, the heights are split in two. In between them is a shallow ravine with a flood pond. This feature prevents the Spanish from constructing a unified defensive line, so they have built a series of fortifications on the crest of each hill.” That started the group muttering excitedly. Each man knew what that blunder would mean for them. “We also have the locations of several blockhouses that have been built in the defenses. They are located here and here on San Juan and here on Kettle. It is believed that they act as both strongpoints for the defense and as local command headquarters These will to be difficult to take, but once they are ours the rest of the defenses should collapse in short order.”
“Tomorrow at dawn General McDowell’s artillery will begin a bombardment on the hills while our troops advance under the cover provided by the barrage. Burwell’s division will attack San Juan hill while Harman’s division will attack Kettle hill. The two of you can work out the tactical objectives for each of your brigades. The attack is to take place exactly one hour after the artillery attack begins, so I suggest you set your watches. If God is willing, we will camp on those hills tomorrow night. Gentlemen, with exception of Lieutenant Watie, you are dismissed. Back to your units, all of you.”
The other officers swiftly left the tent, seeking the slightly cooler and less humid air to be found outside. Only the named party, a young swarthy man in the uniform of the artillery, remained behind. Stuart was still uncertain about this soldier, mostly because his charges were new, but also because the man himself was rather young for such an important assignment.
At only 28, Moses Watie was the grandson of Stand Watie, a hard-fighting Cherokee who had led both his nation as the Principal Chief, and his men as a colonel in the Trans-Mississippi theater during the war. Stand’s son, Saladin Watie, had been chosen to follow his father as Chief, giving him a position of high standing in both his people and the Confederacy. But Moses refused to rest on the laurels of his father and grandfather and had enrolled at the Virginia Military Institute, graduating in 1891. Despite his Indian background, and his refusal to use his family name to influence others, Moses could have chosen practically any part of the service to begin his career and would have certainly begun a meteoric rise up the ranks.
Instead, Moses decided to take command of the newly formed Machine Gun Battery of the Confederate army. This new formation was anchored around a section of temperamental Maxim guns, purchased from Vickers, sons, & Maxim co. in Britain. Few other officers in the South saw them as anything other than unreliable and expensive toys, unsuited for real warfare, and as such the young Cherokee’s career was seemingly frozen. Watie, however, drilled his men constantly, encouraging them to think of ways the guns could be used in both offensive and defensive roles in battle, and how to effectively and quickly transport them. By the time of the Spanish-Confederate War, the Battery had been turned into a highly skilled, if thoroughly untested and still undersized unit. Watie had six of the only eight guns in the Confederacy with him in Cuba, and Sturt hoped that they would be useful in the coming battle.
“Lieutenant, your guns are going to play a very important role tomorrow, if you can guarantee they will work.”
The sun had broken over the steaming jungles, rising with a pale glow through the morning mists. Opposite to her, on the far western horizon, the thinnest crescent bowed her head in sleep. On the San Juan heights the few soldiers standing guard in the blockhouses and trenches blinked tiredly, trying to shield their eyes from the unwanted intruder. A few men rose from their bunks, stumbling towards the banked cook fires to begin making breakfast for the soon to be awoken troops.
A mile to the south-east, General William H. McDowell eyed his pocket watch. 6:45 in the morning. As good a time as any. The men had been up for an hour, with the morning meal having been eaten for nearly as long. The guns were ready, shells loaded and aimed, spare ammunition waiting at hand. Avant’s balloon was set to go up on the first salvo, prepared to adjust the accuracy of his batteries. The troops meant to storm the hills were hiding, just at the edge of the thick scrabble forest near the base of the heights. All they needed was his signal.
Placing the gold watch back in his pocket, McDowell nodded to his second. The man turned, bellowing out an order that carried down the length of the assembled batteries.
“Fire!”
A photo taken of the Navy spotting balloon, shortly before the order to fire was given
The quiet dawn was shattered by the roar of the Confederate artillery. As the shells shrieked towards the Spanish positions the gun crew fell into their drills, adjusting the shaken accuracy and loading shot and powder while behind them the gray canvas of the balloon soared into the sky. The guns had already fired again by the time the first signals came down. Both salvos were off. Short by a few hundred they had impacted against the steep slopes of the hills. “All guns, short two hundred feet, up five degrees!” came the shout, barely heard through the cotton stuffed in the gunner’s ears. Turn the cranks, drop the breech down and the barrel up, ignore the suddenly hot metal that sears your arms, then a short swift pull on the lanyard, sending another 4” shell at the enemy.
McDowell looked over his command, confident in his men and their actions. The Spanish would not know what hit them. Another wave of the flags. This time they were long, but nearly on point. The guns would find the targets, that he had no doubts, but whether they would do enough to drive the enemy off the hills was another question.
The short, dense forest was rife with buzzing mosquitos. It was expected, Watie mused glumly. The river, really more of a shallow creek, ran just in front of him. It would be a perfect spawning ground for the insufferable insects. He slapped one such annoyance away from his neck. All around him the men of the 1st Cavalry did the same. In hindsight having the troops hide in the tree line might not have been the best idea. No hope for it now, just grin and bear it.
“Sir.” That was his first sergeant, a burly Texan. “Gun five’s bolt is sticking again. We can take it apart and have it fixed in ten, if you want.”
“No time for it, I’m afraid.” The Cherokee said, looking at his watch. “The attack is set to go in less than three minutes. Five is going to have to deal with it for now.”
The distant roar of the guns increased as each second ticked past. They would fire until the first butternut uniform broke through the trees, short shells be damned. 7:43. Another bug whined in his ear, not caring about the imminent conflict. 7:44. The explosions on the ridge looked almost beautiful from here, each blast a brief flash of red in the flying dirt and debris. 7:45. That was the time. Watie signaled his men to ready themselves, the whistle would blow at any second. 7:46. Had something happened? Why hadn’t the attack begun? Was Stuart’s watch slow? 7:47. Still no whistle. The men looked at each other, nervous and shaken. Was the attack going to be called off?
Then, off the right and slightly in front of him there was loud voices, shouting voices. “Damn you Stuart, I will have you court martialed for this! I gave explicit orders there would be no attack without my say so!” An equally loud voice, Virginian drawl thickened with anger. “Then, God willing, you may court martial me on the top of that hill, Hanson! Give me that blasted whistle!”
The shriek rang out through the trees and shrubs. Further whistles up and down the line were drowned out by the yipping Rebel yell that rang up from the 1st Cavalry as the dismounted troops ran from the cover of the forest to cross the shallow river in front of them. Watie’s men followed, letting out their own cries as they hit the water. One became a curse as the soldier carrying number two’s tripod slipped and fell with a splash, thankfully keeping the equipment out of the stream.
There! The slight hill to the right of the paddock. That was his place. His men followed, some sliding on the moist dirt as they stopped. Tripods down, guns on top. Locked in place, water hose twisted tight on the barrel. Ammo box down, opened. A belt of gleaming brass nestled in cloth, ram it into breech. Foreword and back on the lever, again to slide the bolt home. Then, in unison, all six guns began their chattering bellow, replacing the artillery as it died away. A small part of Watie, directing his guns like Bach would an orchestra, watched in detached awe as twelve thousand Confederates, clad in the butternut of the tropics, charged across the open ground in a brown wave.
Up the Hill!
Here and there, and becoming more rapid as the Spanish recovered from the bombardment, men fell. No one stopped. To stop there was death, you had to move forewords, keep moving. Don’t stop, not yet. Not until you reach dead ground at the base. They can’t hit you there. You’ll be safe there. That’s what the officers said. They can’t hit you at the base. Make it to the base. That sound! The Spanish machine guns! No, that’s from behind you. The Maxims! The Maxim boys! They’re ducking, away from the fire. They can’t shoot you now, not without getting shot back. But don’t stop, keep running. There, safety. Catch your breath, look around.
Who made it? Who won’t be coming back?
Not now, up the hills, quickly! Up the hills and at those bastards so they can’t shoot the boys behind you! Steep ground. Bad ground, rough and broken. Both hands here, Enfield on the shoulder now. Don’t look down, just move. Climb up the hill like the trees back home. Past the bad part, keep moving. Don’t stop, over the rise.
The fire! Like hail on a roof! Men fall, fall everywhere! No one can survive here, how can you? Wait! It’s Stuart! Saber and revolver, that’s how its done! Drop the rifle, its dead weight now. Saber in the right, revolver in the left. You are cavalry, fight like it, damn it! Over the rise, with the yell boys! Into the trenches, steel on rifle. Too close, he’ll get me first. No bayonet on the gun, don’t think just hit him already! He’s down, watch it! A shot back, sand colored uniform red with blood. Where’s the blockhouse? That’s what the officers said, right? Take the blockhouse and they’d break. There, that’s it! The 3rd boys have it, that’s their flag on the roof! Yes!
Its over. The Spanish are running, running away from you. Breathe. You can breathe now. Your mouth is dry, drink some water. The canteen is on the other side, stupid. Pull the stopper, take a long drink, you earned it.
“We need help over here!”
That was close. Canteen away, you can help. Where. There, that group of men. Run, ignore the pain that burns your legs and run. Lots of men, lots of officer too. Why are they crying?
“Someone get bandages! Hurry!”
You’ve got bandages! In your pouch. Get through the crowd, shoulder them aside, move damn it, they need me. Finally, out of the crowd, here’s the banda-
White cloth hit the ground. All around the small open space men were crying. Soldiers were crying. In the center, a tiny group clustered around a single man, lying fallen on the ground, red staining his side.
“Son.” Said James Ewell Brown Stuart. “Can I have some water?”
The stunned private swallowed, choking on grief, and shakily passed his general his open canteen.
“Thank you, son.” The water was nice, just the thing he needed. “Here you go, I’ve had my fill. Elliot are you there?” Burwell, tears streaming down his face, took his commanders hand. “I’m here sir.”
“We took the hill, right?”
“Yes sir, we… you took them both, sir.”
“Good. Take command. Don’t give up these hills, and don’t listen to Hanson.”
He looked west. A fine sight, the city shining in the sun. He would have liked to have seen it, the city with the Stars and Bars above it. No use for it though. Right here was good. A fine place to die. A nice view, and good men all around.
“God’s will be done.”
With that, J.E.B. Stuart, the last Knight of the Confederacy, died.
Post notes:
Sorry for the delay all, had to get a new laptop set up after my old one died. Evidently the battery had decayed at an 'unnatural' rate and because it was under warranty, new laptop for free! Took a while to get all my files transferred and set up, and I lost much of the original work for this chapter. Most of it was beta drafts and unconnected sections of writing, but it did set me back. Posts should be a bit more regular now.
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