The American victory was fundamentally due to the fighting spirit of the men and to the individual initiative of the line and field officers.
In the meantime the health of the American Army was causing grave concern to its more observant leaders.

Six weeks of Cuban climate had taken out of the army all that exuberant energy which it had brought with it from the north.

The army had accomplished its purpose only at the complete sacrifice of its fighting strength.

Had the Spanish commander possessed more nerve and held out a little longer, he might well have seen his victorious enemies wither before his eyes, as the British had before Cartagena in 1741.

On the 3d of August a large number of the officers of the Santiago army, including Generals Wheeler, Sumner, and Lawton, and Colonel Roosevelt, addressed a round robin to General Shafter on the alarming condition of the army.