The moral effect of this battle was to give each of the combatants a feeling of sincere respect for the bravery of the other. Our men never doubted, after July 1, that the Spaniards would fight stubbornly--at least, behind intrenchments; while the Spaniards, in turn, were greatly impressed by the dash, impetuosity, and unflinching courage of General Lawton's regulars. A staff-officer of General Vara del Rey said to a correspondent after the battle: "I have never seen anything to equal the courage and dash of those Americans, who, stripped to the waist, offering their naked breasts to our murderous fire, literally threw themselves on our trenches--on the very muzzles of our guns. We had the advantage in position, and mowed them down by the hundreds; but they never retreated or fell back an inch. As one man fell, shot through the heart, another would take his place, with grim determination and unflinching devotion to duty in every line of his face. Their gallantry was heroic." There could hardly be a more generous or a better deserved encomium. The battle on the Siboney-Santiago road, in the center of our line, began nearly two hours later than the battle at Caney. Grimes's battery, which had taken position on a hill near the Pozo farm-house, opened fire on the heights of San Juan about eight o'clock. A few moments later the Spaniards, who evidently had the range of the Pozo hill perfectly from the beginning, returned the fire with shrapnel, killing two men and wounding a number of others at the first shot, striking the house at the third, and driving from the hill in disorder some of the soldiers of the cavalry division who had been stationed there, as well as a few war correspondents and non-combatants who had gathered to witness the bombardment. For three quarters of an hour, or an hour, there was an artillery duel between Grimes's battery on the Pozo hill and a Spanish battery situated somewhere on the heights to the westward. In this interchange of shots the enemy had all the advantage, for the reason that the smoke from Grimes's black powder revealed the position of his guns, while the smokeless powder of the Spaniards gave no clue to the location of theirs.