Twelve o'clock on July 1st, 1898, was a most anxious hour for our army in Cuba. The battle at El Caney was at a standstill and the divisions of Kent and Sumner were in a most perilous situation. Bonsal's description of the state of the battle at that time is pathetic. Speaking of the artillery at El Caney--Capron's battery--he says it was now apparent that this artillery, firing from its position of twenty-four hundred yards, could do very little damage to the great stone fort and earthworks north of the village. The shots were too few and the metal used too light to be effectual. Three hours of the morning had worn away and the advance of our men had been slowly made and at great cost; all the approaches were commanded by Spanish entrenchments and the fighting was very unequal. A soldier of the Twenty-fifth says that when he came in sight of the battle at El Caney, "the Americans were gaining no ground, and the flashes of the Spanish mausers told us that the forces engaged were unequally matched, the difference of position favoring the Spaniards." This view was had about noon, or soon after. At that time "a succession of aides and staff officers came galloping from headquarters with messages which plainly showed that confusion, if not disaster, had befallen the two divisions which, by the heavy firing, we had learned to our great surprise, had become warmly engaged in the centre. The orders to General Lawton from headquarters were at first peremptory in character--he was to pull out of his fight and to move his division to the support of the centre" (Bonsal). This call for Lawton arose from the fact that about noon General Shafter received several dispatches from Sumner, of the Cavalry Division, requiring assistance. General Sumner felt the need of the assistance of every available man in the centre of the line where he was carrying on his fight with the Spaniards on Blue House Hill. This situation so impressed the General, Shafter, that he finally wrote to Lawton, "You must proceed with the remainder of your force and join on immediately upon Sumner's right. If you do not the battle is lost." Shafter's idea then was to fall back to his original plan of just leaving enough troops at El Caney to prevent the garrison from going to the assistance of any other part of the line. Shafter himself says: "As the fight progressed I was impressed with the fact that we were meeting with a very stubborn resistance at El Caney and I began to fear that I had made a mistake in making two fights in one day, and sent Major Noble with orders to Lawton to hasten with his troops along the Caney road, placing himself on the right of Wheeler" (Sumner). Lawton now made a general advance, and it is important to see just what troops did advance. The Seventh Infantry did not move, for Lieutenant-Colonel Carpenter says that after withdrawing "to the partial cover furnished by the road, the regiment occupied this position from 8 o'clock a.m. until about 4.30