In the first place—and so long as the term "front," in its accepted military sense, shall continue to mean the point of expected or probable contact with an enemy's forces—it requires no argument to prove that the First Heavy Artillery was at its post, _at the front_, on the 26th day of April, 1898. This, to be exact, was fifty-seven days before the Second Infantry disembarked at Baiquiri, sixty-six days before the Ninth Infantry landed at Siboney, and ninety days before the Sixth Infantry left its transport at Guanica, at which points respectively these three Massachusetts commands for the first time found it possible to gain tactical touch with the Spaniards. In other words, in a war with a maritime power, every strategic point on navigable waters accessible to an enemy's ships of war is of necessity at "the front," so long as the hostile fleet remains undestroyed, and the First therefore justly may claim actual service at the front from the day following that on which Congress declared war to exist, until the 3rd of July, when the annihilation of Cervera's squadron finally and definitely relieved the coast from the threat of Spanish attack. While the five Massachusetts regiments of infantry were passing their earlier weeks of service at inland camps of instruction, absolutely beyond the reach of any possible fighting, the First Artillery—from the very day on which it left its home stations—was continuously on duty at vital points open to attack at any hour of day or night. This claim, it should be well understood, is made only in simple justice to the regiment and in the interests of historical accuracy, for not an officer or a man in the First would detract from the hard-won honors of the Second, the Sixth, or the Ninth—honors in which, as Massachusetts soldiers, they ever will feel an honest pride.