There was no order for this glorious charge.

The commanding generals had not even contemplated such a bit of splendid but reckless daring.

Even now, so hopeless did it seem, they would have stopped it if they could; but they might as well have tried to arrest the rush of an avalanche by wishing.

It was a voluntary movement of men goaded beyond further endurance by suffering and suspense.

As one of the foreign military spectators afterwards said, "It was a grand popular uprising, and, like most such, it proved successful." The Rough Riders and the negro troopers who charged with them had no bayonets, and did but little firing until more than half-way up the hill they had undertaken to capture.