The second reason is that, for lack of adequate means of transportation, they were unable to keep a large force supplied with food and ammunition at a distance from its base. I doubt whether this reason has any greater force than the other. I saw a large number of native horses and mules in Santiago after the surrender, and as the distance from the city to the strong positions on the Siboney road is only six or eight miles, it would not have required extraordinary transportation facilities to carry thither food and ammunition for three or four thousand men. But even half that number, if they fought as the San Luis brigade afterward fought at Caney, might have held General Shafter's advance in check for days, and made the capture of Santiago a much more serious and costly business than it was. The truth probably is that General Linares was intimidated by the great show made by our fleet and transports--sixty steam-vessels in all; that he credited us with a much larger army than we really had; and that it seemed to him better to make the decisive fight at once on the commanding hills just east of Santiago than to lose perhaps one third of his small available force in the woods on the Siboney road, and then be driven back to the city at last with wearied and discouraged troops. But it was a mistaken calculation. If he had delayed General Shafter's column, by obstinately resisting its advance through the woods on the Siboney road, he would have given Colonel Escarrio time enough to reach Santiago with the reinforcements from Manzanillo before the decisive battle, and would also have given the climate and the Cuban fever more time to sap the strength and depress the spirits of our badly equipped and improperly fed troops. The final struggle on the hills east of the city might then have had a very different termination. The policy that General Linares should have adopted was the Fabian policy of obstruction, harassment, and delay. Every hour that he could detain General Shafter's advancing army on the Siboney road increased his own chances of success and lessened those of his adversary; because the army of defense, already acclimated, could stand exposure to sun, rain, and miasma much better than the army of invasion could. Besides that, a column of five thousand regulars from Manzanillo was hurrying to his assistance, and it was of the utmost importance that these reinforcements should reach him before he should be forced into a decisive battle. Instead of resisting General Shafter's advance, however, with obstinate pertinacity on the Siboney road, he abandoned his strong position at Guasimas, after a single sharp but inconclusive engagement, and retreated almost to Santiago without striking another blow. As I have already said with regard to the unopposed landing at Daiquiri and Siboney, it was great luck for General Shafter, but it was not war.