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Sale 58
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Lot 70
[Spanish American War]. Autograph Letter Signed from Edwin Cole to his wife, 12pp, written in pencil (1898), giving an eyewitness account of the Battle of San Juan Hill, which was really the battle for the San Juan Heights, the most famous battle of the Spanish American War, fought on July 1, 1898. Cole went on to become the chairman of the Department of Military Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, later becoming the first tech director on the Board of Directors of Harvard Cooperative Society in the 1920s. Some parts of the letter are very faint, but it comes with a very early typescript, probably done by Cole.
In part: "My darling wife: It is with devout thankfulness that I am able to write to you for my time had certainly very nearly come the other day. It was simply frightful, and we were sacrificed by trying to do against modern effective small arms what was formerly considered only a last resort. Take the famous Lookout mountain and the enemy had rifles that could be fired but twice a minute….Yet we were ordered without any attempt at flanking or maneuvering to go up and take it. We started at three in the morning and about seven came up with two of our guns in position and saw the first of it. They were firing and the enemy was answering them and the shells were bursting right over them. We halted about fifty yards away and saw several men knocked over and then we marched across their line of fire right under the bursting shells….Shortly after that we arrived in sight of a block house on top of a hill and were ordered into position. The diagram will give you an idea [he drew a diagram]. We were first ordered in the dense thicket the one on the rights of the line and several of the regiment on various parts. It was all swept by fire. Then we were successively in the open field. At one time "A" company which I joined when the fighting began was in the field where I marked up above. I was where the dot is and for some reason none of the men in my immediate vicinity were hit but the right was shot all to pieces and had to draw back and we were left alone and had to run for shelter. In trying to get through the fence I was caught by my sword belt and for thirty seconds was the only man in sight of the Spaniards and it is a miracle that I was not hit twenty times. A soldier reached up and unbuckled my belt and I got through. About ten minutes afterward we went through the fence and after them. Capt. [Alexander Macomb] Wetherill went through our opening and I followed him. Some of the men did not come and I turned back and yelled at them and swore at them and stayed at that fence holding apart the wires for several minutes. When I turned to the fence I saw Wetherill and 30 seconds afterward I missed him and we never got a chance to look for him until 24 hrs. afterward Atkinson found his body. He was shot through he forehead and did not go a yard after he got through the fence. I ran on up to the top of the hill. When I got there the enemy was in full retreat. [1st Lt. Jules Garesche] Ord was killed leading the charge right at the top [he led the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th U.S. Cavalry]. Our regiment outfired terribly, losing 137 killed, wounded, and missing out of 450. "A" company lost 4 killed and 9 wounded, 2 not accounted for, probably dead…. I have been through one of the most, if not the most terrible battle in history and I never want to hear another shot…."
Colonel Theodore Roosevelt led his Rough Riders on the charge up the hill and rode the fame to the governorship of New York and the vice presidency of the U.S., becoming president when McKinnley was assassinated.
Estimated Value $3,500 - 4,500.
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