Allyn Capron

Capron is the officer at the point of contact—the one who discovers the Spanish outpost and, in Roosevelt's account, has time to deploy his troop before the shooting starts. Roosevelt invokes him repeatedly to rebut the charge that the regiment blundered into an ambush, making Capron's skill and composure the factual hinge of that argument. His death at Las Guasimas makes him the regiment's first significant loss and gives the early Cuban fighting its human cost.