The Battle of San Juan Hill was a battle of the Spanish-American War which was fought on 1 July 1898 near Santiago, Cuba. The battle was most notable for the charge of Theodore Roosevelt's "Rough Riders", and the Americans captured the hill in one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
History[]
On 1 July 1898, the Spanish general Arsenio Linares y Pombo deployed 760 Spanish Army regular troops to San Juan Hill to hold the heights against an American offensive on Santiago; most of the Spanish soldiers were recently-arrived conscripts commanded by seasoned officers who had been fighting in the Cuban War of Independence. However, Linares withheld 10,000 Spanish reserves in the city of Santiago de Cuba. The US Army general William Rufus Shafter planned to attack the Spanish strongholds atop El Caney hill and San Juan Hill before besieging Santiago. The Americans outnumbered the Spanish sixteen-to-one, and among their ranks were Theodore Roosevelt's "Rough Riders". Spanish artillery fire inflicted heavy casualties on the Americans, but the Americans charged up the hill and dispersed the Spanish after even worse casualties. The Americans then set up Gatling guns on the captured hill and were attacked by a Spanish counterattack; the attack on San Juan Hill was easily repelled, but the Spanish regulars' assault on Kettle Hill proved to be more intense. Lieutenant John Henry Parker's Gatling gun battery inflicted heavy losses on the Spanish, killing all but 40 of the 600 Spanish attackers from a range of 600 yards (550 meters). The Americans suffered twice as many casualties as the Spanish, but the Spanish defenders of San Juan Hill had fought to the knife, and lost a third of their number. The battle propelled Roosevelt into heroic fame, aiding in his political ambitions as a Republican, and resulting in his selection as President William McKinley's Vice President in 1900.