Lawton's division marching off to the right slipped and stumbled through the mud along a narrow, almost impassable, trail over the densely wooded hills until eight o'clock that evening, when, within a mile of Caney, it lay down for the night in the wet grass without tents or fire, and amid a silence strictly enjoined, for fear lest the Spaniards should discover its presence, and run away before morning.
At the same time Wheeler's division of dismounted cavalry, including the Rough Riders and Kent's infantry division, advanced as best it could over the horrible Santiago road, ankle-deep in mud and water, to El Poso Hill, on and about which it passed a wretchedly uncomfortable night.

Seven thousand heavily equipped men, mingled with horses, artillery, pack-mules, and army wagons, all huddled into a narrow gully slippery with mud, advance so slowly, however eager they may be to push forward, that although the movement was begun at four o'clock, midnight found the rearmost regiment still plodding wearily forward.
With the coming of daylight, on July 1st, the army lay beneath a dense blanket of mist that spread its wet folds over the entire region they were to traverse.

It was eight o'clock before Grimes's battery of four light field-pieces, posted on El Poso Hill, opened an ineffective fire upon the heights across the broad valley.

For twenty minutes the Spaniards paid no attention to the harmless barking of the little guns; then the smoke cloud hanging over them proved so admirable and attractive a target that they could no longer resist firing at it.

So shells began to fall about the battery with such startling accuracy that a score of Americans and Cubans gathered near it were killed or wounded before they could seek shelter.