Autograph Letter Signed by Edwin Cole (“Edwin”), 12 pp recto and verso, 8vo, n.p., n.d., [around July 4, 1898, near Santiago, Cuba], to his wife describing the Battle of San Juan Hill, with a diagram of the battleground, in pencil, rather faint in places. Stupendously detailed and emotional eyewitness account of the Battle of San Juan Hill, led by Theodore Roosevelt. 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 … 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 … this seemed like pretty ticklish business to those of us who were green … 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 an unbuckled my belt and I got through. About ten minutes after ward we went through the fence and after them. Capt. 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 the wires apart 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 the forehead and did not go a yard after he got through the fence. … The courage displayed was simply sublime, but the position is a terribly difficult one to take and anyone who says that the Spaniards will not fight is a terrible liar.” Cole’s diagram shows the distance from the trenches to the wire fence where A Company was located and Capt. Wetherill was killed. On either side of the fence at the bottom of the Hill was high grass and a dense thicket. Accompanied by an early typed transcription of the letter, perhaps made by Cole himself and several letters to Cole in his later capacity as chairman of the Department of Military Science at M.I.T. See illustration.
Autograph Letter Signed by Edwin Cole (“Edwin”), 12 pp recto and verso, 8vo, n.p., n.d., [around July 4, 1898, near Santiago, Cuba], to his wife describing the Battle of San Juan Hill, with a diagram of the battleground, in pencil, rather faint in places. Stupendously detailed and emotional eyewitness account of the Battle of San Juan Hill, led by Theodore Roosevelt. 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 … 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 … this seemed like pretty ticklish business to those of us who were green … 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 an unbuckled my belt and I got through. About ten minutes after ward we went through the fence and after them. Capt. 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 the wires apart 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 the forehead and did not go a yard after he got through the fence. … The courage displayed was simply sublime, but the position is a terribly difficult one to take and anyone who says that the Spaniards will not fight is a terrible liar.” Cole’s diagram shows the distance from the trenches to the wire fence where A Company was located and Capt. Wetherill was killed. On either side of the fence at the bottom of the Hill was high grass and a dense thicket. Accompanied by an early typed transcription of the letter, perhaps made by Cole himself and several letters to Cole in his later capacity as chairman of the Department of Military Science at M.I.T. See illustration.
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Create an alert![[SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR.]](https://images2.bonhams.com/image?src=Images/live/2008-01/16/7598172-33-1.jpg "Source: Bonhams London")
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