A recent campaign in Puerto Rico by the Independent Regular Brigade under the command of BrigGeneral Schwan . and early on Friday — therebeing many other things to engage the atten-tion of myself and troops — I started Burkeout in pursuit, with about 700 men, all overtook him Saturday morning about threeand one-half miles north of Las Marias. Hisinfantry had pulled his guns over roads thatwere almost perpendicular. His troops wereexchanging shots at long range across a deepvalley with the retreating Spaniards, most ofwhom had forded (losing a lot of men, whowere drowned) a deep and rapi
A recent campaign in Puerto Rico by the Independent Regular Brigade under the command of BrigGeneral Schwan . and early on Friday — therebeing many other things to engage the atten-tion of myself and troops — I started Burkeout in pursuit, with about 700 men, all overtook him Saturday morning about threeand one-half miles north of Las Marias. Hisinfantry had pulled his guns over roads thatwere almost perpendicular. His troops wereexchanging shots at long range across a deepvalley with the retreating Spaniards, most ofwhom had forded (losing a lot of men, whowere drowned) a deep and rapid river knownin that country as the Rio Prieto. Our firehad already demoralized the thoroughly dis-heartened and half-famished Spanish soldiers ;and their rear-guard, at least, was also disor-ganized and hiding in the hills. A company of infantry I had sent outbrought in, about ten oclock in the evening,forty odd prisoners, a number of pack-ani-mals, etc. Our men were thoroughly wornout by the days work. Early the nextmorning I had four companies of infantry,the cavalry, and two guns ready to resume. YAUCO TO LAS MARIAS 8i the pursuit. And there cannot be the shadowof a doubt that, had I had five more hours, Ishould have taken Lares; for that the flyingSpaniards had prepared to abandon it at onceI have the most reliable information. Butat this particular juncture the notice that hos-tilities would be suspended came to me. Notroops ever suspended with worse had given the Spanish no peace, and hadtaken all the starch out of them. Thecolonel and lieutenant-colonel had surren-dered. Their troops were utterly demoral-ized and disintegrated. It seemed a pity todeprive us of the full fruits of a victory forwhich we had labored so hard; but of coursewe had to bow to the inevitable. Please letthe general read this. Faithfully your friend, Theo. Schwan. The part of our command left under Col-onel DeRussy set out on the morning of the13th to join the rest of the column, whose
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