They went by two narrow trails single file, the two trails were along the crests of a line of hills with a valley between.
The dotted line is the trail we should have taken had the Cubans told us it existed, if we had done so we would have had the Spaniards in the frontband rear as General Young would have caught them where they expected him to come, and we would have caught them where they were not looking for us.

Of course, the Cubans who are worthless in every way never told us of this trail until we had had the meeting.

No one knew we were near Spaniards until both columns were on the place where the two trails meet.

Then our scouts came back and reported them and the companies were scattered out as you see them in the little dots.

The Spaniards were absolutely hidden not over 25 per cent of the men saw one of them for two hours-- I ran out with the company on the right of the dotted line, marked "our position." I thought it was a false alarm and none of us believed there were any Spaniards this side of Santiago.
The ground was covered with high grass and cactus and vines so that you could not see twenty feet ahead, the men had to beat the vines with their carbines to get through them.