While the Army of Invasion
was sweltering in the ships lying at anchor off Port Tampa, a small
body of American marines made a landing at Guantanamo, and on June
12th fought the first battle between Americans and Spaniards on Cuban
soil. In this first battle four Americans were killed. The next day,
June 13th, General Shafter's army containing the four colored
regiments, excepting those left behind to guard property, sailed for
Cuba.[13]
The whole number of men and officers in the expedition, including
those that came on transports from Mobile, amounted to about seventeen
thousand men, loaded on twenty-seven transports. The colored regiments
were assigned to brigades as follows: The Ninth Cavalry was joined
with the Third and Sixth Cavalry and placed under command of Colonel
Carrol; the Tenth Cavalry was joined with the Rough Riders and First
Regular Cavalry and fell under the command of General Young; the
Twenty-fourth Infantry was joined with the Ninth and Thirteenth
Infantry and the brigade placed under command of Colonel Worth and
assigned to the division commanded by General Kent, who, until his
promotion as Brigadier-General of Volunteers, had been Colonel of the
Twenty-fourth; the Twenty-fifth Infantry was joined with the First and
Fourth Infantry and the brigade placed under command of Colonel Evans
Miles, who had formerly been Major of the Twenty-fifth.
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