Williston's article until
after the battle of Santiago.
[Illustration: Gatling Battery under Artillery Fire at El Poso.]
A study of the science of tactics--not merely drill regulations, but
tactics in the broader sense of maneuvering bodies of troops upon the
battle-field--had led Lieut. Parker to the conclusion that the
artillery arm of the service had been moved back upon the battle-field
to ranges not less than 1500 yards. This not because of lack of
courage on the part of the Artillery, but as an inherent defect in any
arm of the service which depends upon draft to reach an effective
position. It was not believed that animals could live at a shorter
range in anything like open country. The problem of supporting an
infantry charge by some sort of fire immediately became the great
tactical problem of the battle-field. Admitting that the assault of a
fortified position has become much more difficult than formerly, the
necessity of artillery support, or its equivalent in some kind of
fire, became correspondingly more important, while under the
conditions it became doubly more difficult to bring up this support in
the form of artillery fire.
The solution of this problem, then, was the principal difficulty of
the modern battle-field; and yet, strange to say, the curtailed
usefulness of artillery does not seem to have suggested itself to
anybody else in the service previous to the first day of July.
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