|
The Battle of San Juan Hill (July 1, 1898), also known as the battle for the San Juan Heights, was a decisive battle of the Spanish–American War. The San Juan heights was a north-south running elevation about two kilometers east of Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. The names San Juan Hill and Kettle Hill were given to the location by the Americans. This fight for the heights was the bloodiest and most famous battle of the war. It was also the location of the greatest victory for the Rough Riders, as claimed by the press and its new commander, the future vice-president and later president, Theodore Roosevelt, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions in Cuba.〔Brands, H.W. ed. The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt. (2001), Chapter 13〕 The American press at the time overlooked the fact that the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry and 24th Infantry Regiments had actually done much of the heaviest fighting.〔 == Background == Spanish General Arsenio Linares ordered 760 Spanish Army regular troops to hold the San Juan heights against an American offensive on July 1, 1898. For unclear reasons, Linares failed to reinforce this position, choosing to hold nearly 10,000 Spanish reserves in the city of Santiago de Cuba. Spanish hilltop entrenchments, while typically well-concealed, were not all correctly positioned for plunging fire, which made return fire at the advancing Americans more difficult. Most of the Spanish fortifications and trench lines were laid out along the geographic crest of the heights instead of the military crest. This meant that the fire from the Spanish troops would have difficulty hitting the advancing enemy when the attacking Americans reached the defilade at the foot of the heights. Once they began scaling the hill, however, the attackers would be in full view of the defenders, who could engage the Americans with both rifle and artillery fire.〔 Most Spanish troops were recently arrived conscripts, but their officers were skilled in fighting Cuban insurgents. The Spanish were well equipped with supporting artillery, and all Spanish soldiers were armed with 7 mm Mauser M1893 rifles, a modern repeating bolt-action weapon with a high rate of fire that used high-velocity cartridges and smokeless powder. Spanish artillery units were armed mainly with modern rapid-fire breech-loading cannon, again using smokeless powder.〔Roosevelt, Theodore, ''The Rough Riders'', Scribner's Magazine, Vol. 25, January – June 1899, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 423〕 The American regular forces and troopers were armed with bolt-action Krag rifles chambered in the smokeless .30 Army caliber.〔While the Rough Rider's troopers carried the Krag, each Rough Rider officer was equipped with a .30 Army caliber M1895 Winchester lever-action rifle, courtesy of Col. Roosevelt.〕 However, U.S. artillery pieces were of an outmoded design, with a slow rate of fire.〔 They also used less powerful black powder charges, which limited the effective range of support fire for U.S. troops. The Americans also had a four-gun detachment of older style hand-cranked Gatling guns in .30 Army caliber with swivel mounts to allow greater coverage. General William Rufus Shafter commanded Fifth Army Corps, of about 15,000 troops in three divisions. Jacob F. Kent commanded the corps' 1st Division (brigade and division numbers in this era were only unique within their parent formation), while Henry W. Lawton commanded the 2nd Division, and Joseph Wheeler led the Cavalry Division.〔Once the fighting had begun General Wheeler rode to the front becoming the senior ranking officer on the front lines as General Shafter was far to the rear at his headquarters. There he directed parts of Kent's division and his own Cavalry Division during the attack.〕 commanded the dismounted Cavalry Division but was suffering from fever and had to turn over command to General Samuel S. Sumner. Shafter's plans to attack Santiago de Cuba called for Lawton's division to move north and reduce the Spanish stronghold at El Caney, a task which was to take about two hours. Then they were to join with the rest of the troops for the attack on the San Juan Heights. The remaining two divisions would move directly against the San Juan heights, with Sumner in the center and Kent to the south. Shafter, too ill to personally direct the operations, set up his headquarters at El Pozo from the heights and communicated via mounted staff officers. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of San Juan Hill」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|