We were ordered by Ruloff to burn all azucaderos (sugar mills) and to blow up with dynamite all railroad culverts and bridges and to destroy all telegraph lines. Our division frequently made rapid raids, always gaining ground westward. The division to which we were attached raided the town of San Lazaro which was defended by a small body of Spaniards. We routed them and captured some two hundred Mauser rifles and a large quantity of ammunition and other military stores. Our commander then ordered the execution of the alcalde (mayor) for having betrayed a number of insurgent sympathizers, causing them to be shot, and their families to be driven through the streets, beaten with sticks. Early in November we were encamped near Nuevitas where we had lain inactive for several days. One afternoon scouts had reported an advancing column and we had chosen for our ambuscade the ruins of a stone building, now overgrown with vines and nearly hidden from view by a cactus thicket. There was a hushed stillness in the dark forest that lay beyond the long yellow road, and in the cane fields that stretched away for leagues to our right. To the left the San de Cubitas mountains, with their covering of dense tropical vegetation, rose dark and silent. A lookout had climbed a tall cebra tree and was watching with a field glass. He suddenly gave the signal. Then the men were told in whispers each to select a man and to fire at a given order. The Cuban sun blazed hotly down that day. The air was close and stifling in our position behind the cactus thicket and our hearts beat quick and fast in those moments of waiting. There was the low rumble of horses hoofs, a cloud of yellow dust arose from down the road, and soon the Spanish column was almost abreast the 150 rifles that pointed from behind the stone wall. I peered over the sights of my Winchester and drew a bead on the breast of a young officer. He was chatting gaily with a companion and as he turned his face revealed a handsome countenance. It was a boyish face with the dawn of manhood just settling upon the brow. Thoughts crowded each other in my mind just then: Perhaps the young man was a conscript, not here by his own choice to imperil his young life, and I, whom he had never wronged, an unsuspected foe, safely hid in the cactus thicket behind the stone wall, about to send his soul into eternity. I lowered my aim from his breast to his horse just behind the shoulder. The order came to fire. The trigger that would have pulled like a ton weight a second before pulled easily now. And so all through those dreadful volleys that we poured into the struggling ranks. For firing into a mass of men is a different thing from that of firing upon one man singly. When the smoke of battle cleared away more than forty of the routed Spanish column lay dead or wounded in the road. I went to the place where the young trooper’s horse had fallen and there lay the young officer pinioned underneath with a broken leg.