Eleven militiamen face 1,300 American soldiers landing at Guánica

By late July 1898, with Santiago de Cuba captured and the Spanish fleet destroyed, General Nelson A. Miles turned his attention to Puerto Rico. On July 25, U.S. infantry came ashore at Guánica Bay, where a defending force of just eleven militiamen could not hold the beach. Miles pushed inland toward Ponce and beyond, and in towns across the south and west, Puerto Ricans often came out to greet the arriving American columns. Within weeks, fighting at places like Yauco, Asomante, and the flooded Guacio River decided the island's fate before an armistice ended the war on August 13…