A HISTORY OF THE 
 
 SPANISH -AMERICAN WAR 
 
 OF 1898 
 
 RICHARD H. TITHERINGTON 
 
 >\ 
 
 With Diagrams and Index 
 
 New York 
 
 D. Appleton and Company 
 1900 
 
.Tb 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1900 
 BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
PREFACE 
 
 MUCH has been published on the brief but in 
 teresting and very important war of 1898 between 
 the United States and Spain ; but practically every 
 thing that has appeared belongs to one of two classes. 
 On the one hand, there are the narratives of sailors, 
 soldiers, and correspondents who took part in it, 
 and who describe what they saw. These books are 
 not history, though many of them are excellent ma 
 terial for history. On the other hand, there are 
 records of a more general character, most of which 
 are hasty compilations of little value. The con 
 temporary accounts of the war were very inaccurate 
 and imperfect ; it was not until some time later that 
 there was a sufficient body of trustworthy evidence 
 to make it possible to write anything like a real 
 history. 
 
 For the present volume it is claimed that it is 
 based upon a study of all the available first-hand 
 evidence. On the American side there is a great 
 quantity of this in the shape of the copious reports 
 
iy THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 made public by the War and Navy Departments, 
 and the numerous books and magazine articles writ 
 ten by participants in the war. On the Spanish side 
 comparatively little has been published, but there 
 is interesting material in the works of Lieutenant 
 Miiller and Captain Severe Gomez Nunez, which 
 have been translated and printed by the Bureau 
 of Naval Intelligence, and in a few letters and re 
 ports by Admirals Cervera and Montojo and other 
 officers. 
 
 This narrative appeared serially in Munsey s 
 Magazine, and has since been revised in the light 
 of recently published evidence and of letters re 
 ceived by the writer. 
 
 RICHARD H. TITHERINGTON. 
 NEW YORK, December, i8gg. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I- THE EARLY HISTORY OF CUBA, 1492-1823 . I 
 
 II. AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH CUBA, 1823-1873 . 17 
 
 HI- FROM THE VlRGINIUS TO THE MAINE, 1873- 
 
 1898 36 
 
 IV. THE COMING OF WAR 66- 
 
 V. THE RESOURCES OF THE COMBATANTS . . 96 
 
 VI. THE BEGINNING OF WAR Ir g 
 
 VII. THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY . . . .127 
 
 VIII. THE CUBAN BLOCKADE, MAY, 1898 . . .145 
 
 IX. THE COMING OF CERVERA I57 
 
 X. THE BLOCKADE OF* SANTIAGO . . . .181 
 XI. THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION .... 204 
 
 XII. THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN . . 232 
 
 XIII. THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 269 
 
 XIV. THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO .... 294 
 
 XV. THE PORTO Rico CAMPAIGN . . . .331 
 XVI. THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 350 
 
 XVII. THE LATTER DAYS OF THE CUBAN BLOCKADE . 379 
 
 XVIII. THE CONCLUSION OF PEACE . . . .389 
 
 INDEX 395 
 
 v 
 
^**C\ B R A ft 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 HISTORY OF THE 
 SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE EARLY HISTORY OF CUBA, 1492-1823 
 
 THE war of 1898 between the United States and 
 Spain was the logical and inevitable ending of a 
 long chapter of history. The conditions that 
 caused it began with the earliest settlements of the 
 English and the Latin peoples in the new world. 
 The race that was to dominate the wide continent 
 of North America came into conflict with its French 
 rivals two centuries ago, and their struggle was de 
 cided by Wolfe at Quebec in 1759. While Spain 
 held Florida and Louisiana, hostilities with the 
 English colonies, which had now become the 
 United States, were a constant probability, and were 
 averted only by the timely cession of both those 
 great provinces. The possession of Texas and Cali 
 fornia was the prize of victory in the war of 1846 
 and 1847 against the Spaniards of Mexico a war 
 that seems to have finally settled the southwestern 
 frontier of the Union. Cuba, lying scarcely more 
 than a hundred miles from the shores of the great 
 republic, facing its southern seaports, and com 
 manding the Gulf of Mexico, is geographically as 
 necessary an appanage of its territory as Florida. 
 Under Spanish rule the so-called Pearl of the An 
 tilles has been an unfailing source of anxiety in the 
 foreign relations of the United States, a perpetual 
 
2 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 problem to American statesmen a problem to 
 which there could be but one ultimate solution. 
 The unhappy island has long been a running sore 
 in the body politic of the northern half of the new 
 world. It is extraordinary that the nineteenth cen 
 tury should almost have ended before the great 
 power to which Nature has set her in such close 
 relation found itself compelled to draw the sword 
 against the government responsible for her intoler 
 able condition. 
 
 It was the first westward voyage of Columbus 
 that made Cuba known to European civilization. 
 Sixteen days after the Italian navi- 
 gator s landing on the island that he 
 christened San Salvador which was 
 probably Watling s Island he sighted the Cuban 
 coast at a point near the present site of Nuevitas. 
 This was on the 28th of October, old style, or the 
 7th of November, new style, in the year 1492. Here 
 was no low-lying islet, such as he had seen in the 
 Bahamas ; it was a land of forests and rivers and 
 noble mountains a part, doubtless, of the Asiatic 
 mainland of which Columbus was in search. In the 
 discoverer s optimistic way he described it in his 
 diary as " the most beautiful land that human eyes 
 ever beheld." The natives received him with won 
 dering hospitality, but, naturally enough, could give 
 him little information. Hearing them mention a 
 village or district called Cubanacan, Columbus 
 concluded that he had reached the dominions of 
 Kublai Khan, the great Tartar sovereign whose 
 court Marco Polo visited two hundred years before. 
 He sent some of his men inland, as ambassadors to 
 the reigning prince ; but after travelling a dozen 
 leagues they came back, reporting that they could 
 find no prince, no cities, no roads nothing but the 
 same primitive villages of naked, harmless Indians. 
 Columbus spent two months on the northern 
 coast of Cuba; then he sailed from Cape Maysi 
 
THE EARLY HISTORY OF CUBA 3 
 
 which he named " Alpha and Omega," supposing it 
 to be the easternmost extremity of Asia to His- 
 paniola (Haiti), where his flagship, the Santa 
 Maria, was wrecked, and he left its crew to build 
 the fortified post of La Navidad. He never founded 
 any settlement in Cuba, though on his second voy 
 age (1494) he passed along almost the entire length 
 of its southern coast, and on his fourth and last 
 (1503) he paid it another brief visit. When he 
 died, three years later, he still believed that it was 
 part of the mainland of Asia. He had named it 
 Juana, in honour of the Infant Juan (John), the 
 son of his patrons, Ferdinand and Isabella. It 
 also appears on early maps as Fernandina, Isa 
 bella, Santiago (after the patron saint of Spain), 
 and Ave Maria ; but all these titles were soon 
 superseded by the old Indian name which it still 
 bears. 
 
 To the chance that wrecked the Santa Maria on 
 its shores was due the fact that Spanish colonization 
 of the new world began in Hispaniola. In 1511 
 Diego Columbus, the great discoverer s son, who 
 was ruling in that island as admiral of the Indies, 
 sent out Diego Velasquez, with four ships and 
 three hundred men, to conquer Cuba. With this 
 force of which Hernando Cortez, the future con 
 queror of Mexico, was an undistinguished member 
 Velasquez established the armed posts of Bara- 
 .coa (1511), Santiago de Cuba (1514), and some 
 others whose names still appear on the maps of the 
 island. Baracoa, now a decayed seaport with the 
 population of a village, was the first seat of gov 
 ernment, being made a city and a bishopric in 
 1518; but four years later the capital was trans 
 ferred to Santiago, of whose long history the latest 
 and most eventful chapter is fresh in all American 
 minds. 
 
 In Hispaniola the Spaniards had already estab 
 lished the bloody and brutal system of enforced la- 
 
4 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 hour or slavery, to give it its true name which 
 utterly exterminated the West Indian aborigines. 
 They carried the same policy to Cuba. The In 
 quisition, established in Spain thirty years before, 
 went with it, and the torch of the Holy Office sec 
 onded the sword of the soldier in cowing the help 
 less natives. " Thus began," says Arrate, the 
 Cuban historian of the eighteenth century, " that 
 gathering of an infinite number of gentiles to the 
 bosom of our holy religion, who otherwise would 
 have perished in the darkness of paganism." They 
 were gathered so rapidly to that gentle bosom that 
 within fifty years the Indians of Cuba, who had 
 numbered several hundred thousand when the 
 Spaniards came, were totally extinct. 
 
 There is a characteristic story of Hatuey, a chief 
 whom Velasquez ordered to the stake for his re 
 sistance to the conquerors. A priest soothed his 
 last moments by asking if he wished to go to 
 heaven. " Are there any Spaniards there ? " Ha 
 tuey inquired. " Many," replied the priest. 
 " Then," said the Indian, " I would rather go to 
 hell ! " 
 
 Spain has suffered from no little misrepresenta 
 tion at the hands of Cuban writers, and of some 
 Americans; but the facts of this dark page of her 
 colonial annals do not rest upon the testimony of 
 any foreign critic. They are told by that great 
 Spaniard, Bartolome de las Casas, whose Destruc 
 tion of the Indies is a narrative of what he himself 
 saw in Cuba and Hispaniola between 1502 and 
 
 I530- 
 
 For more than two hundred years after the first 
 colonization of Cuba the development of the island 
 was very slow. Spanish interest centred upon the 
 richer provinces of Peru and Mexico, and the chief 
 value of Cuba was as a port of call for treasure 
 ships sailing from the mainland. It was this traffic 
 that gave Havana its importance. 
 
THE EARLY HISTORY OF CUBA 5 
 
 The history of the chief city and seaport of the 
 West Indies begins in 1515, with the settlement of 
 fifty of the men of Diego Velasquez s 
 expedition at the post of San Cristo 
 bal de la Habana, on the present site 
 of the town of Batabano, on the southern coast of 
 Cuba. A few years later, finding the spot they had 
 chosen unhealthy, the settlers crossed to the north 
 ern shore, little more than thirty miles distant, and 
 established themselves at the narrow entrance of a 
 bay in which Ocampo the Spanish admiral who 
 first circumnavigated Cuba had repaired his ships 
 in 1508. Here, beside its fine harbour, Havana 
 had a long struggle for existence. The sixteenth 
 century was a stormy time in West Indian waters. 
 There might be peace at home, but in the new 
 world the Spaniard, the Frenchman, the English 
 man, and the Hollander were foes wherever they 
 met ; and all of them were fair game to the bucca 
 neers who fought under any flag or no flag. Havana 
 suffered several hostile visitations. In 1538, the 
 settlement having been burned by a French pirate 
 or privateer the distinction between the two was 
 often very slight Hernando de Soto, the governor 
 of Cuba, came from Santiago, his capital, and built 
 the fort of La Fuerza to defend it. The old build 
 ing, not a formidable fortress, still stands, the most 
 ancient relic of Havana s early days. 
 
 It was at Havana that De Soto gathered his 
 expedition for the exploration of Florida, and from 
 thence that he sailed with nine ships on the I2th 
 of May, 1539 never to return. A dozen years 
 later the seat of government was transferred from 
 Santiago to Havana ; but this did not save the place 
 from another piratical raid in 1554. In 1589, to 
 protect his treasure ships from those dreaded 
 wolves of the sea, Drake and Hawkins, who " held 
 the power and glory of Spain so cheap," Philip II 
 ordered two strong fortresses built to defend the 
 
6 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 harbour. These, too, are standing to-day the Ba- 
 teria de la Punta (Battery of the Point) at the 
 northernmost point of the city, west of the entrance 
 to the bay, and the famous Morro * on the low 
 heights that rise on the east side of the channel. In 
 the same year the colonial government of Cuba was 
 reconstituted, and Juan de Tejada was sent out as 
 the first captain-general. 
 
 During the next century the fortification of Ha 
 vana was completed by the building of a wall 
 around the town ; and from this time, owing to its 
 situation and defences, it was long regarded as im 
 pregnable. A contemporary description pictures 
 it as an unkempt place, with houses of straw and 
 wood, surrounded by little gardens with hedges of 
 a prickly shrub. At night the narrow streets were 
 unlighted, and swarmed with land crabs. 
 
 As agriculture slowly gained a footing in Cuba, 
 and commerce developed, gold seekers were no 
 longer the only adventurers in the West Indies, and 
 the day of the buccaneers passed away. Trade 
 questions began to be the motives of political con 
 tention. In 1717 the first clash between the inter 
 ests of the colony and those of the mother country 
 was caused by the proclamation of the tobacco in 
 dustry as a royal monopoly. In 1739 hostility be 
 tween Spanish and English traders broke out into 
 war, which lasted for nine years without any de 
 cisive result, its principal incident being an unsuc 
 cessful British attack upon Santiago de Cuba in 
 1741. 
 
 In 1762 occurred an event which, memorable and 
 interesting in itself, is of historical importance as 
 having first brought Cuba prominently into the field 
 of international politics, and as marking the begin- 
 
 * The Spanish word tnorro, which means " a protruding lip," is fre 
 quently applied to forts standing upon an elevation at the mouth of a 
 harbour. There is another famous Morro at Santiago de Cuba, and 
 another at San Juan, in Porto Rico. 
 
THE EARLY HISTORY OF CUBA 7 
 
 ning of the island s relations with the United States, 
 then a dependency of England. This was the cap 
 ture of Havana by the British and 
 Havana taken co i on i a i troops commanded by the 
 
 by the British, r> i f A ti 1 T " r i 
 
 I762< Earl of Albemarle. It was one of the 
 
 scenes of that great drama of battle, 
 the Seven Years War, in which Europe s soldiers 
 and sailors met and fought in Asia and America, on 
 Atlantic and Pacific. England, after some initial 
 reverses, had shattered the French fleets at Lagos 
 and Quiberon, and driven the Bourbon flag from 
 Canada and India. When Spain entered the con 
 flict as France s ally, the next blows were directed 
 against her colonial possessions, and British expe 
 ditions were despatched against Havana and Manila. 
 Both were completely successful, although in each 
 case diplomacy gave back to Spain what had been 
 won from her by the sword. 
 
 Havana being reputed a strongly fortified and 
 garrisoned place, the force sent against it was a 
 powerful one. There were thirty-two ships of war, 
 with nearly two hundred transports, in the fleet that 
 was sighted off the harbour on the 6th of June, 
 1762. A landing was effected at Guanabacoa, a 
 few miles east of Havana, on the I7th, and the Brit 
 ish army, numbering about twenty thousand men, 
 advanced and captured the heights above the har 
 bour, where the fortress of Cabanas now stands. 
 The Spaniards, who had twenty-seven thousand 
 regulars, besides an auxiliary force of volunteers, 
 still held the Morro, and prevented the English 
 men-of-war from entering the port by sinking ships 
 in the channel. 
 
 In many respects the campaign suggests com 
 parisons with the experiences of Shafter s army at 
 Santiago a hundred and thirty-six years later. Al 
 though a considerable part of their force had been 
 raised in the West Indies, the British found the 
 fevers of the Cuban coast a deadlier foe than the 
 
8 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Spanish guns. Before the end of July nearly half 
 of their force was disabled by sickness, and the ar 
 rival, on July 28th, of a body of fresh troops from 
 the North American colonies was a most welcome 
 reinforcement. These earliest American invaders 
 of Cuba consisted of a thousand men from Connec 
 ticut, eight hundred from New York, and five hun 
 dred from New Jersey, with General Lyman, of 
 the first-named colony, in command. It is worth 
 recording that Israel Putnam, destined to win 
 fame in the Revolution, was acting colonel of the 
 Connecticut regiment. 
 
 The Morro was stormed a few days later, and 
 on August 1 3th the city surrendered, the garrison 
 being allowed to march out with the honours of 
 war. An immense quantity of spoil fell to the vic 
 tors, who confiscated public property and levied 
 contributions unsparingly. The tobacco and sugar 
 seized and sold on the spot alone brought three and 
 a half million dollars. Sir George Pocock, who 
 commanded the fleet, and Lord Albemarle drew six 
 hundred thousand dollars apiece as prize money. 
 The comparative value that eighteenth-century 
 officialdom attached to officers and men may be in 
 ferred from the fact that each soldier s share was 
 twenty dollars and each sailor s eighteen. 
 
 The territory surrendered to the British 
 stretched eastward to Matanzas, but they had made 
 no effort to push their conquests when peace was 
 proclaimed, and on the 6th of July, 1763, they 
 evacuated Cuba, George Ill s Government having 
 accepted in exchange the Spanish province of 
 Florida which was returned to Spain twenty years 
 later. While holding Havana the soldiers were ter 
 ribly scourged by disease. Mante, a chaplain from 
 New England, has left in his diary a vivid picture 
 of the sufferings of his compatriots, in whose camp 
 the " putrid fever " wrought frightful havoc. Only 
 a remnant returned alive. 
 
THE EARLY HISTORY OF CUBA 9 
 
 To Havana a year of British occupation was 
 
 not without benefit. Efforts were made to improve 
 
 the sanitary condition of a city 
 
 Cuba s golden w hi c h Spanish incompetence allowed 
 
 period. r . 1 1 i r r 
 
 to remain a hotbed ot lever to 
 the present day. Its port, for the first time, was 
 opened to the commerce of the nations, and the 
 world s attention was called to the possibilities of 
 Cuba as a mart for trade. Havana s importance as 
 a modern city may be said to have begun at this 
 point, although with the restoration of Spanish rule 
 the law giving Spain a monopoly of traffic with Cuba 
 was temporarily reaffirmed. At the end of the 
 eighteenth century it was probably the largest 
 American city of European settlement, and cer 
 tainly the richest and most important seaport in the 
 new world. 
 
 Luis de las Casas, who came out as captain- 
 general in 1790, did much for Havana, helping to 
 form its Sociedad Patriotica (Patriotic Society), to 
 found its first newspaper, the Papel Periodico, and 
 to promote useful public works. Another name of 
 the same period that is held in grateful memory is 
 that of Francisco Arango. Born in Havana in 
 1765, Arango was secretary of the local chamber of 
 commerce when Napoleon drove the Bourbon 
 dynasty from Madrid, in July, 1808. The Spanish 
 officials in Cuba promptly met, and at four thou 
 sand miles distance defied the conqueror of Europe 
 by affirming their loyalty to the deposed sovereign. 
 Their action won for Cuba the title of the Ever 
 Faithful Isle a name of grim irony, in the light of 
 later events and the privilege, bestowed by the 
 constitution framed in 1812, when Ferdinand VII 
 returned to his throne, of representation in the 
 Cortes at Madrid. Arango went to Spain as one 
 of the first Cuban delegates, and secured the final 
 abolition of the law debarring foreign ships from 
 the ports of the island. -*" x * "R A K **" 
 
 OF Tf*tt 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
10 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 The first quarter of the nineteenth century has 
 been called the " golden period " of Cuba s history. 
 It was for her a time of general internal tranquility, 
 and of great industrial and commercial develop 
 ment. She was benefited by the fact that Spain was 
 at its lowest ebb of weakness both at home and 
 abroad. For years at a time, during the Napoleonic 
 wars, communication with Madrid was cut off by 
 the hostile sea power of Britain, which, though it 
 seized Trinidad, made no further attack upon Cuba. 
 The successful revolt of all the mainland colonies, 
 too, seemed at least temporarily to have opened the 
 ear of the Spanish Government to Cuban griev 
 ances. At the same time it brought loyalist settlers 
 to the island, just as Canada, after the American 
 Revolution, became a refuge for colonists who pre 
 ferred their old allegiance. A more important im 
 migration came from Haiti, whence thirty thousand 
 white families, victims of the island s race war, are 
 said to have fled to Cuba between 1798 and 1808, 
 bringing with them the cultivation of coffee which 
 became the chief Cuban product, till superseded by 
 sugar. All these causes contributed to the island s 
 rapid advance in wealth and population. She 
 had but 170,370 inhabitants in 1775, and 272,140 
 in 1791. The number grew to 551,998 in 1817, to 
 704,487 in 1827, and to 1,007,624 in 1841. 
 
 But with all this material development signs of 
 Cuba s later troubles were not lacking. 
 
 The West Indies seem to be well fitted by na 
 ture to be the home of civilized and prosperous 
 communities, yet European colonization can show 
 little, if anything, but failure in that rich chain of 
 islands. They have had four centuries of checkered 
 history history full of revolts and massacres, of 
 crimes and horrors, of battles fought for the spoils 
 of war. The white conquerors exterminated the 
 native tribes, to replace them with negro slaves ; 
 and it has been their just retribution to see the 
 
THE EARLY HISTORY OF CUBA Ir 
 
 African multiply and possess the land where the 
 superior race failed to take thrifty root. In Haiti 
 negro domination has long been absolute. Ja 
 maica, always orderly under English rule, and for 
 a time a prosperous colony, has but a dwindling 
 remnant of a few thousand whites to more than 
 half a million coloured inhabitants. In the lesser 
 islands British or French, Danish or Dutch the 
 story is the same. 
 
 To this long chapter of failures Cuba has ap 
 peared as the conspicuous exception. With all her 
 mistakes and shortcomings as a colonizing power, 
 Spain seemed to have done in the West Indies 
 what France and England could not do to have 
 planted the seeds of a community capable of be 
 coming a civilized nation. But recent history sug 
 gests a serious question of this conclusion. There 
 are many to-day who hold that the prosperity of 
 Cuba was founded upon slave labour; that from 
 the industrial viewpoint Cuba without slavery 
 which, it must be remembered, ended little more 
 than a dozen years ago is still an experiment; 
 that from the social and political viewpoint the 
 islanders, taken as a community, have yet to prove 
 their capacity for self-government and their right 
 to rank with the free peoples of America. 
 
 There were no schools in Cuba till near the 
 end of last century. In 1836, when the population 
 was nearly a million, only nine thousand pupils 
 were receiving instruction. In 1860 the munici 
 palities of the island had two hundred and eighty- 
 three schools for white children, and just two for 
 coloured, and the total attendance was no larger, 
 in proportion to the population, than in 1836. In 
 1883 a report shows eight hundred and thirty-five 
 schools, but their management is described as one 
 of utter neglect, few teachers being paid their sal 
 aries, and sixty-seven schools being entirely vacant. 
 There is no census of illiteracy in Cuba, but, of 
 
12 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 course, it is practically universal among the 
 negroes and quite general among the poorer 
 whites. Enrique Varona, a Cuban deputy to the 
 Cortes, stated in 1895 that seventy-six per cent of 
 the population meaning, presumably, the adult 
 population could neither read nor write ; and his 
 estimate is probably too low. Of another test of 
 popular enlightenment the relative proportion of 
 legitimate and illegitimate births we find no re 
 cent report. The percentages of forty years ago are 
 given by Ballou : 
 
 
 Legitimate. 
 
 Illegitimate. 
 
 White 
 
 67 8 
 
 02 2 
 
 
 aa.7 
 
 66. q 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 CQ. C 
 
 4Q. ^ 
 
 
 
 
 Even allowing for the existence of slavery, the 
 figures are sufficiently shocking. Both Spain and 
 Cuba were to pay a terrible penalty for allowing 
 successive generations to grow up under such con 
 ditions of savagery. 
 
 Negro slavery, as has been said, ended in Cuba 
 
 in 1886, but it has left a deep and indelible mark 
 
 upon the island s present and future. 
 
 Slavery in Cuba. T * , . \ . . c . , 
 
 It began almost with the bpanish oc 
 cupation, and by a curious anomaly its origin is 
 traced to the sainted Las Casas. Seeing that the 
 native Indians, a people neither accustomed to la 
 bour nor physically competent for it, were perish 
 ing in thousands under the lash of their taskmas 
 ters, Las Casas suggested, as an alternative, the 
 importation of a limited number of African slaves. 
 The suggestion, developed to an extent of which its 
 author never dreamed, was destined to bring mo 
 mentous results, and to stain the history of the new 
 world with a crime to be expiated by the blood 
 and tears of nations. Yet to stigmatize Las Casas 
 
THE EARLY HISTORY OF CUBA ^ 
 
 as the founder of American slavery is scarcely fair. 
 There were African bondsmen in Spain before the 
 time of Columbus, and the institution was certain 
 to cross the Atlantic to lands where it found so fer 
 tile a field prepared for it. 
 
 Nominally, at least, the Spanish laws that regu 
 lated slavery in Cuba were fairly humane. They 
 forbade the owner to work his slaves longer than 
 from sunrise to sunset (from six to six, in the 
 tropics), with two hours for a siesta at noon, and 
 with Sunday as a day of rest. They prescribed a 
 certain quantity and variety of food, allowed slaves 
 to keep pigs and cultivate patches of their own, and 
 created a system whereby an industrious negro 
 could secure his freedom by paying the amount of 
 his first cost to his master; but it appears that if 
 there was little ill treatment of slaves and Ballou, 
 Abiel Abbott, and other American travellers in 
 Cuba testify that they witnessed none it was 
 rather from self-interest on the part of their owners 
 than from respect for the statutes. 
 
 Whatever the material condition of the slaves, 
 the institution was a fruitful source of social and 
 political disorder. It was bitterly opposed by the 
 mass of white Cubans, just as it was opposed by 
 the free labouring class in the United States. On 
 the other hand, it kept the rich planters loyal to 
 Spanish rule, which protected them in the posses 
 sion of their chattels ; especially as the cafctals 
 (coffee farms) were turned into great sugar plan 
 tations, operated on a far larger scale of agricul 
 ture. It was a fruitful source of official corruption. 
 The negroes themselves formed a dangerous ele 
 ment of the population in slavery, and an unde 
 sirable one since emancipation. Their numbers, at 
 different times, are given in the table on the next 
 page. 
 
 Their number in 1898 was estimated at half a 
 million. If these figures are correct, it is strange 
 
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 
 Slaves. 
 
 Free. 
 
 1827 
 
 286,042 
 
 106,494 
 
 1841 
 
 4^6.40^ 
 
 152,838 
 
 iSm 
 
 4.42 ooo 
 
 20^,670 
 
 1867 . . 
 
 370,521 
 
 22^,038 
 
 
 
 
 that Cuba s coloured population should have de 
 creased by nearly one hundred and fifty thousand 
 in the last half century, while that of the United 
 States during the same period has considerably 
 more than doubled. It looks as if many Cuban 
 negroes had been set down as whites. 
 
 The first blow at slavery in Cuba was struck in 
 1817, when Spain agreed to prohibit the importa 
 tion of African negroes into her colonies. A con 
 sideration for this act of humanity was the receipt 
 of two million dollars from the British Government 
 which, a hundred years before, had itself bought 
 from Spain a monopoly of the slave trade in her 
 ports. But long after 1817 the forbidden traffic 
 went on clandestinely. With the full cognizance 
 of the Spanish officials, and to their great financial 
 profit, the barracoons of Havana continued to be a 
 mart for planters who needed labour. The trade 
 was not without its risks, of course, and many a 
 human cargo from the east coast of Africa was con 
 fiscated and liberated by the watchful British 
 cruisers ; and as the demand outran the supply, the 
 price of slaves went up. In 1830 an able-bodied 
 negro was worth two hundred and fifty dollars or 
 less; in 1850 his value had doubled, and in 1870 it 
 had doubled again. 
 
 But the government at Madrid could not much 
 longer maintain an institution offensive to the civi 
 lized world, and in 1870, without compensating the 
 planters, a law was passed to effect its gradual 
 abolition. Slaves sixty years old were declared 
 free, and those not yet sixty were to become free 
 
THE EARLY HISTORY OF CUBA j^ 
 
 on reaching that age ; children born to slavery were 
 to remain under " patronage " until they were 
 twenty-two, and then be free. One purpose of this 
 act was to dissuade the negro population from join 
 ing the revolt then in progress. Ten years later 
 the Spanish Cortes hurried matters by declaring 
 slavery abolished, while patronage the same thing 
 under another name was to end in 1888. Shortly 
 before the latter date arrived, the liberation of all 
 negroes was completed by the decree of October 7, 
 1886. 
 
 It was the Cuban negroes who first began the 
 series of revolts that have made the island s later 
 history so turbulent and disastrous. 
 During the race war in Haiti, ending 
 in the triumph of the blacks, order 
 was preserved in Cuba; but in 1812, when the first 
 agitation for the abolition of slavery was in the air, 
 there was a revolt under a free negro, one Jose 
 Aponto, which was speedily ended by the execution 
 of its leaders. 
 
 The first rising of white Cubans Creoles, as 
 they used to be called, though the word is not often 
 used now was that of the Soles de Bolivar in 1823. 
 The revolution of 1820 in Spain had led to inter 
 vention by the Holy Alliance, and a French army, 
 commissioned by that league of rulers by divine 
 right, had invaded the peninsula and restored Bour 
 bon absolutism by force of arms, suppressing the 
 newly established liberal constitution. Of this con 
 stitution Cuba had briefly enjoyed the benefit, but 
 Marshal Vives was sent to Havana to cancel the 
 privileges it had granted. Intense discontent was 
 the result, and the secret association of the Soles 
 de Bolivar was organized, its aim being to accom 
 plish for Cuba what the South American liberator 
 had achieved for the mainland colonies. It is said 
 to have been in correspondence with Bolivar, and 
 to have received from him promises of help. Au- 
 
!6 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 gust 16, 1823, was fixed as the date for simultaneous 
 risings in several cities ; but there were traitors in 
 the camp. On the day of the intended outbreak 
 the head of the society, Jose Lemus, and his chief 
 lieutenants, were arrested, and the conspiracy col 
 lapsed. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH CUBA, 1823-1873 
 
 THAT same year, 1823, was a memorable one in 
 American history. The close political relations of 
 Cuba and the United States may be dated from it. 
 The Holy Alliance, organized to combat de 
 mocracy wherever found, sought to follow up its 
 success in Spain by reconquering her 
 revolted colonies, the South Ameri 
 can republics. With Cuba as a mili 
 tary base it would not have been a difficult task, 
 had there not been strenuous and probably unex 
 pected opposition. In December, 1823, President 
 Monroe sent to the United States Congress his fa 
 mous message declaring that " we could not view 
 an interposition by any European power in any 
 other light than as a manifestation of an unfriendly 
 disposition toward the United States " thus laying 
 down the principle that has become historic as the 
 Monroe Doctrine. The stand he took was backed 
 by England, and the Continental powers were 
 checked. 
 
 The Monroe Doctrine was not a new principle 
 of American statesmanship, but its enunciation at 
 this time marked a new era in the foreign relations 
 of the United States. vTo the destiny of Cuba it was 
 a fact of decisive importance, for it directly implied 
 that the island would not be allowed to pass to any 
 power other than Spain? Thus much had been 
 foreshadowed a few months before by John Quincy 
 
 17 
 
1 8 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Adams, then Secretary of State, writing to Mr. 
 Nelson, American minister at Madrid: 
 
 e transfer of Cuba to Great Britain would be an 
 *S event unpropitious to the interests of this Union./ The 
 opinion is so generally entertained that even the ground 
 less rumours, that it was about to be accomplished which 
 have spread abroad, and are still teeming, may be traced 
 to the deep and almost universal feeling of aversion to 
 it, and to the alarm which the mere probability of its 
 occurrence has stimulated. The question both of our 
 right and of our power to prevent it, if necessary by 
 force, already obtrudes itself upon our councils, and the 
 administration is called upon, in the performance of its 
 duties to the nation, at least to use all the means within 
 its competency to guard against and forefend it. 
 
 At nearly the same time the veteran Jefferson 
 wrote to Monroe, whose valued political counsellor 
 he had always been : 
 
 ( Cuba alone seems at present to hold up a speck of war 
 to us. Its possession by Great Britain would indeed be 
 a great calamity to us. Could we induce her to join us 
 in guaranteeing its independence against all the world, 
 / except Spain, it would be nearly as valuable as if it were 
 our own. But should she take it, I would not immedi 
 ately go to war for it; because the first war on other ac 
 counts will give it to us, or the island will give itself to 
 us when able to do so./ 
 
 After Monroe s message, American statesmen 
 took a more decisive tone. For instance, in Henry 
 Clay s instructions to the American ministers in 
 Europe, issued shortly after he became Secretary 
 of State in 1825, he said : 
 
 * You will now add that we could not consent to the 
 / occupation of those islands [Cuba and Porto Rico] by 
 any other European power than Spain under any contin 
 gency whatever. 
 
 Spain s extreme weakness at this period, and 
 her loss of great colonies in rapid succession, natu 
 rally led to the belief that she could not retain 
 her hold upon her remaining dependencies. That 
 England intended to seize Cuba seems to have been 
 
AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH CUBA ig 
 
 a baseless supposition. At that time and later 
 American politicians were prone to mistrust of 
 British designs. There was a strong feeling in 
 favour of annexing the island to the United States. 
 Adams, in the note already quoted, declared: 
 
 It is scarcely possible to resist the conviction that s 
 the annexation of Cuba to our Federal Republic will be 
 indispensable., to the continuance and integrity of the 
 Union itself. / 
 
 And Jefferson gave his opinion that 
 
 her addition to our confederacy is exactly what is wanted 
 to round our power as a nation to the point of its utmost 
 interest. . 
 
 But nothing was done to realize the suggestion. 
 The sinister shadow of the slavery question was an 
 obstacle to action, either in the direction of acquir 
 ing Cuba from Spain, or in that of helping the 
 island to assert its independence. All the South 
 American states, on throwing off the Spanish yoke, 
 had abolished human servitude. An influential ele 
 ment in the United States was very unwilling to 
 aid Cuba to take a similar step. f As for admission 
 to the Union, the North would not accept the island ^ 
 with slavery, the South or those who controlled 
 the South s political course would not admit her 
 as a free State. Van Buren, as Secretary of State, 
 in 1829, thus stated the situation, after asserting 
 the country s " deep interest " in the fate of the 
 Spanish Antilles : 
 
 Considerations connected with a certain class of our 
 population make it to the interest of the Southern section 
 of our Union that no attempt should be made in that island 
 to throw off the yoke of Spanish dependence, the first 
 effect of which would be the sudden emancipation of a 
 numerous slave population, which result could not but be 
 very sensibly felt upon the adjacent shores of the United 
 States. 
 
 It is noteworthy that a couple of years after 
 Jefferson s expression of a wish that England would 
 
2Q THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 join in guaranteeing Cuba to Spain, the British 
 Government made that very proposal to France and 
 the United States, the consideration from Spain be 
 ing her acknowledgment, which she still refused, of 
 the independence of the South American republics ; 
 but both Paris and Washington Declined the sug 
 gestion. The former, possibly, did not care to re 
 nounce its chance for a valuable possession that 
 seemed to be in the international market ; the latter 
 acted strictly on the lines of the Monroe Doctrine. 
 Amid these international complications a sec 
 ond rebellion against Spanish rule was planned by 
 Cuban Creoles in 1826. Its chief 
 organizers were fugitives of the 
 unsuccessful movement of three 
 years before ; their headquarters were in Caracas, 
 and again the aid of Bolivar was expected ; but 
 again, through treachery or lack of support, the 
 rising collapsed before a blow was struck. The 
 Spanish authorities were now equipped against dis 
 affection with the weapon which from that time 
 they used so unsparingly to subvert popular rights 
 and render pretended concessions worthless. By 
 the decree of May 28, 1825, the captain-general had 
 been permanently invested, in " extraordinary cir 
 cumstances " of which he was to be the sole judge 
 with " all the powers which are conceded to the 
 governors of cities in a state of siege " in other 
 words, with absolute military power superseding all 
 forms of law and all guarantees of liberty. 
 
 With his authority thus asserted in Cuba, Cap 
 tain-General Vives formed a highly ambitious plan 
 for the reconquest of Spain s mainland colonies. It 
 was a task far beyond his powers. Landing at 
 Tampico in August, 1828, with three thousand five 
 hundred men, he was speedily hemmed in by su 
 perior Mexican forces, and compelled to surrender 
 his arms and withdraw. But Spain s power in Cuba 
 was not shaken by this reverse, and a third native 
 
AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH CUBA 2 I 
 
 rising, planned by the secret society of the Aguila 
 Negra (Black Eagle), was crushed as readily as its 
 predecessors. Vives, who personally was a clear 
 sighted ruler and capable administrator, refrained 
 from any bloody vengeance upon the conspirators, 
 none of whom was executed. 
 
 Vives was succeeded by Ricafort, Ricafort by 
 Tacon, the most famous of Spain s colonial gov 
 ernors. Cuban historians paint 
 
 Mi s uel Tacon in dark colours - A 
 
 more impartial estimate of him is 
 given by an American * who lived in Havana dur 
 ing his administration. He seems to have been a 
 benevolent tyrant. He took vigorous measures to 
 end the social and political disorders that had made 
 Cuba a place where there was no honesty in gov 
 ernment and little security for life and property. 
 He warred fiercely upon the organized bands of 
 criminals. He divided the island into partidos, and 
 required all who went from one district to another 
 to carry a passport. He shut the gates of Havana 
 at eleven o clock at night, and allowed no one on 
 the streets after that hour without a lantern. He 
 forbade the carrying of weapons. Even swearing 
 was prohibited till it was found that Cuban horses 
 and cattle could not be driven without the cries 
 to which they were accustomed. He inspected 
 prisons, and invited petitions from all who had 
 grievances. He promoted public works, and built 
 the first railway in the island, the line from Havana 
 to Guines. 
 
 " General Tacon," says the American chroni 
 cler, " was the only Spanish official I ever knew 
 who would not accept a bribe." When an importer 
 who did not know his peculiarities, and who had 
 recently landed a shipload of slaves, brought him 
 
 * Jonathan S. Jenkins, an artist, who was afterward United States 
 consul in Samoa, and whose memoirs were published in the Century 
 Magazine in 1898. 
 
22 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 what was both before and after his time the captain- 
 general s customary tribute a doubloon per head 
 of the cargo Tacon gave the money to a favour 
 ite orphan asylum. Some of his corrupt underlings 
 he punished severely, thereby earning much hatred 
 among the Spanish officials in Cuba. He was not 
 merciful to those who dared to oppose him, whether 
 they were great or small. When he learned that 
 some negroes in Havana were organizing a rebel 
 lion, he promptly arrested them, and their punish 
 ment is thus described : 
 
 The leaders and instigators were taken to the garrote. 
 The iron collar was drawn until they were nearly dead 
 from suffocation; then they were released until life was 
 restored, their heads were struck off, inclosed in parrot 
 cages, and set on the bridges as a warning to others. 
 
 Well-meaning despot as he was, the benefits of 
 Tacon s rule were temporary, while the evil he 
 wrought was lasting. It was he who deliberately 
 destroyed the last chance of reconciliation between 
 Spaniard and Cuban. Amid the troubles that fol 
 lowed the death of Ferdinand VII, in 1833, the revo 
 lution of La Granja secured for Spain the re-estab 
 lishment of the liberal constitution of 1812. When 
 the news crossed the Atlantic, General Lorenzo, 
 governor of the province of Santiago, at once pro 
 claimed the new order, which affirmed the liberty 
 of the press, and created local governing bodies and 
 a national militia. At Havana, Tacon utterly re 
 fused to recognise the reformed constitution, and 
 used his arbitrary power to suppress it. Declaring 
 Lorenzo a public enemy, he was moving an armed 
 force to invade the eastern province, when the gov 
 ernor of Santiago fled to Spain and laid his case 
 before the Cortes. With fatuous inconsistency, 
 the Madrid legislators approved Tacon s course, 
 excluded the deputies who had arrived as repre 
 sentatives of Cuba, and declared that the island was 
 not governed by the restored constitution, but by 
 
AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH CUBA 23 
 
 special laws. Meanwhile Tacon had established a 
 reign of terror in Santiago, where he laid heavy 
 hands on those who had dared to antagonize him. 
 Clergymen and leading citizens were imprisoned or 
 banished, and five hundred men were set to work 
 with shackled feet in the streets of Havana. 
 
 fTn the early forties, when the troubles of the 
 
 Texan border were bringing the United States 
 
 nearer and nearer to war with Mex- 
 
 pians for American attention again be- 
 
 annexing Cuba. fe . i 
 
 came focused upon Cuba. / The 
 British Government s active work for the abolition 
 of the slave trade which, as has been said, con 
 tinued to flourish in the Spanish West Indies with 
 corrupt official connivance gave rise to a wide 
 spread belief that England s real aim was the ac 
 quisition of Cuba for herself. Such a plan certainly 
 never materialized, and there seems to be not a 
 scintilla of evidence that it was ever contemplated ; 
 but the alarm evidently found credence at Wash 
 ington. John Forsyth, Secretary of State, wrote to 
 the American minister at Madrid, in 1840: 
 
 You are authorized to assure the Spanish Government 
 that in case of any attempt, from whatever quarter, to 
 wrest from her this portion of her territory, she may se 
 curely depend upon the military and naval resources of 
 the United States to aid her either in preserving or re 
 covering it. 
 
 Daniel Webster, who succeeded Mr. Forsyth in 
 the State Department, told the same official, three 
 years later : 
 
 It is represented that the situation of Cuba is at this 
 moment in the highest degree dangerous and critical, and 
 that Great Britain has resolved upon its rule. 
 
 Had such a design been formed in London, the 
 war with Mexico offered a favourable opportunity 
 for its execution ; but nothing of the sort occurred. 
 That war over, leaving the United States with a vast 
 accession of territory, President Polk sought to 
 
24 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 round out its new acquisitions by a stroke like Jef 
 ferson s purchase of Louisiana, and in 1848 a year 
 of trouble in Europe he instructed his minister at 
 Madrid to offer the Spanish Government a hundred_ 
 million dollars for the sovereignty of the island.- 
 Spain refused the proposal, regarding the mere 
 suggestion of such a transaction as an indignity ; 
 /and it was never officially renewed, though various 
 plans for the purchase of Cuba were brought for- 
 t- xX ward by individuals or newspapers, and President 
 Buchanan twice urged Congress to consider the 
 subject./ 
 
 At this same date, just fifty years ago, the po 
 litical disorders of Cuba developed a new phase, 
 bringing them into closer connection 
 
 Filibustering *,.i_ _*.!_ TT -^ j O.L j 
 
 begins, 1849 Wlt ^ " ie United States, and consti 
 tuting a source of annoyance that 
 ultimately became almost intolerable. In 1848 
 the first society of Cuban refugees in America was 
 formed by Narciso Lopez, a Venezuelan soldier of 
 fortune, who had escaped from the island after an 
 other attempt at rebellion, too feeble and abortive 
 to deserve chronicling; and in the following year 
 Lopez organized his first filibustering expedition. 
 He was stopped by the United States Government, 
 but in 1850 he rendezvoused six hundred men on 
 an island off the Yucatan coast, and effected a land 
 ing at Cardenas, where he expected that recruits 
 would flock to his standard. 
 
 The story of a dozen insurrections shows that 
 while the grievances of the Cubans have undoubt 
 edly been great, and their outcry against their op 
 pressors correspondingly loud, they have been sin 
 gularly backward in striking a bold and united 
 blow for liberty. The expectations of Lopez were 
 totally disappointed. The people did not rise. 
 They did not even obstruct the railway from Ha 
 vana, which speedily brought two thousand five 
 hundred of Captain-General Roncali s soldiers ; and 
 
AMERICAN RELA-nbN 25 
 
 at his approach the invaders, who had seized the gov 
 ernment house, retreated to their steamer. They 
 disbanded at Key West, and Lopez was arrested by 
 the Federal authorities. Brought to trial he was dis 
 charged, but his ship, the Creole, was confiscated. 
 
 The expedition of 1851 was at least a more stir 
 ring and romantic failure. Lopez had gathered 
 about four hundred and fifty men and procured a 
 steamer, the Pampero. His second officer, Gen 
 eral Pragay, was an exiled Hungarian rebel. 
 There were a few more Hungarians and Germans 
 among his men ; forty-nine were Cubans, the rest 
 Americans, one of them being a well-known Ken- 
 tuckian, Colonel Crittenden. They sailed from 
 New Orleans, and, after nearly running into Ha 
 vana harbour by mistake, landed at Bahia Honda, 
 some forty miles to the west, on the nth of August. 
 As Lopez stepped ashore he went down on his 
 knees and kissed the earth, saying : " Querida 
 Cuba!" (" Beloved Cuba!") 
 
 With about three hundred of his soldiers, Lopez 
 pushed inland toward the mountains, where he 
 planned to establish himself in an intrenched camp. 
 Colonel Crittenden and one hundred and fifty men 
 were left at Bahia Honda to land the ammunition 
 and baggage. They had not brought everything 
 ashore when a Spanish steamer entered the harbour 
 and attacked them. Some of the filibusters fled in 
 land and rejoined Lopez ; Crittenden and most of 
 his men attempted to escape in their boats, but 
 were captured, taken to Havana, and shot. 
 
 The Spanish troops found Lopez at Las Pozas. 
 Attacking his camp, they were received with a 
 deadly fire, and driven off with a loss of two hun 
 dred killed. The filibusters had lost thirty-five 
 men, and when they abandoned Las Pozas they had 
 to leave their wounded behind to be murdered by 
 the Spaniards, who had no mercy for outlaws. They 
 made a second stand at Las Frias, where two hun- 
 
commerce. 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 dred of them defeated thirteen hundred of the 
 enemy, but their doom was certain. No recruits 
 jointed them, they had no supplies, and their scanty 
 ammunition was ruined by tropical storms. They 
 became scattered, and wandered through the for 
 ests till every one of them perished miserably, or 
 was captured and taken to Havana for execution. 
 Lopez met a felon s death by the garrote in the 
 castle of La Punta. 
 
 The annihilation of the Lopez expedition did 
 
 not deter the Cubans and their sympathizers in the 
 
 United States among whom Gen- 
 
 interferences era j Quitman of Mississippi was ac- 
 
 with American , , r , 
 
 tively prominent from threatening 
 fresh descents, andfthe result was a 
 serious strain in the relations between the Govern 
 ments at Washington and Madrid. The bitter feel 
 ing of the latter found expression in interferences 
 with American commerce, which provoked intense 
 indignation in the United States. In 1851 the 
 American ship Falcon was fired on, and two other 
 vessels were seized upon a vague suspicion that 
 they had been concerned in Lopez s operations. 
 In 1852 the United States mail bags at Havana 
 were opened and examined by order of the cap 
 tain-general ; and the Crescent City was debarred 
 from landing her passengers and mails because her 
 purser, a Mr. Smith, was personally obnoxious to 
 the Spanish officials. In his annual message that 
 year President Fillmore stated the situation thus : 
 
 The affairs of Cuba remain in an uneasy condition, 
 and a feeling of alarm and irritation on the part of the 
 Cuban authorities appears to exist. This feeling has in 
 terfered with the regular commercial intercourse between 
 the United States and the island, aQd led to some acts of 
 which we have a right to complain./ 
 
 In the same document the President reported a 
 renewal of the British suggestion of 1825, and its 
 renewed rejection : 
 
AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH CUBA 2 ? 
 
 Early in the present year (1852) official notes were re 
 ceived from the ministers of France and England inviting 
 the Government of the United States to become a party 
 with Great Britain and France to a tripartite convention, 
 in virtue of which the three powers should severally 
 and collectively disclaim, now and for the future, all in 
 tention to obtain possession of the island of Cuba, and 
 should bind themselves to discountenance all attempts to 
 that effect on the part of any power or individual what 
 ever. This invitation has been respectfully declined. I 
 have, however, directed the ministers of France and Eng 
 land to be assured that the United States entertain no de 
 signs against Cuba, but that on the contrary I should re 
 gard its incorporation into the Union at the present time 
 as fraught with serious peril. 
 
 / During the next two years the friction of which 
 Mr. Fillmore complained became still more serious, 
 
 The Ostend 
 
 Manife^o" i8 54 . can shi P BJ ack Warrior at Havana, 
 on a charge of violating the custom 
 house regulations, brought Spain and the United 
 States to the verge of war. The famous Ostend 
 manifesto, issued by the American ministers at 
 London, Paris, and Madrid, was generally indorsed 
 by American public opinion when it declared: 
 
 Our past history forbids that we should acquire the 
 island of Cuba without the consent of Spain, unless justi 
 fied by the great law of self-preservation. We must, in 
 any event, preserve our own conscious rectitude and our 
 self-respect. Whilst pursuing this course, we can afford 
 to disregard the censures of the world, to which we have 
 been so often and so unjustly exposed. After we shall 
 have offered Spain a price for Cuba, far beyond its pres 
 ent value, and this shall have been refused, it will then be 
 time to consider the question: " Does Cuba in the pos 
 session of Spain seriously endanger our internal peace 
 and the existence of our cherished Union? " Should this 
 question be answered in the affirmative, then by every 
 law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it 
 from Spain if we possess the power: and this upon the 
 very same principle that would justify an individual in 
 tearing down the burning house of his neighbour if there 
 were no other means of preventing the flames from de 
 stroying his own home.~~7 
 
28 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 This bold and somewhat undiplomatic state 
 ment was signed by Pierre Soule of Louisiana, 
 John Young Mason of Virginia, and James Bu 
 chanan of Pennsylvania; but neither Congress nor 
 the Executive took any action upon it. Two years 
 later, when Buchanan was elected to the Presi 
 dency, it was thought that he would take some step 
 toward carrying out the decided views he had ex 
 pressed; but beyond his repeated suggestion that 
 Congress should consider the purchase of Cuba, 
 nothing was done. All less pressing questions were 
 now thrust aside by the great conflict that culmi 
 nated in the civil wan 
 
 The prospect of intervention by the United 
 States naturally did not tend to allay Cuba s in 
 ternal troubles, and the social and political disorder 
 of the island continued. In 1865 the Liberal party, 
 then in power at Madrid, made a characteristic at 
 tempt to restore the once vaunted loyalty of the 
 Ever Faithful Isle, by referring its grievances to a 
 commission of reform, half of whose members were 
 appointed by the Government itself, and the rest 
 elected in Cuba, but by a system that gave the 
 Spanish party control of the polls. The Cuban de 
 mands * were submitted and rejected seriatim. 
 
 Three years later there was again a gleam of 
 hope for Cuba, which proved equally illusory. 
 The reign of Isabella ended in a revolution, and 
 another constitution one of the seven or eight 
 that Spain has had in the present century was pro 
 claimed. On paper, at least, it was quite an ad 
 vanced one, decreeing universal suffrage and a free 
 press, and granting Cuba and the Philippines com 
 plete political equality with the mother country ; 
 but it was never put into operation beyond the 
 
 * The chief points of these were the abolition of the military autoc 
 racy of the captain-general ; representation in the Cortes ; mitigation 
 of the press censorship ; the right of assembly ; the lessening of taxa 
 tion, and the enforcement of the laws against the slave trade. 
 
AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH CUBA 
 
 2 9 
 
 ocean. It would have destroyed the political su 
 premacy of the Peninsular cs, the Spanish element 
 that regarded itself as rightfully the ruling class in 
 Spain s colonies ; and Lersundi, captain-general at 
 Havana, simply ignored it. Had he desired to 
 recognise it, the Spanish volunteers, who were now 
 established as the strongest political force in Cuba, 
 would not have permitted him to do so. 
 
 It was clear that the Cubans could rest no fur 
 ther hope on political agitation. Plans for a new 
 revolution were already afoot, and on 
 October I0 > l868 > the standard of 
 revolt was raised by Carlos Cespedes 
 on the plantation of Yara, near Manzanillo, in the 
 province of Santiago. At the head of one hundred 
 and forty men, Cespedes proclaimed the Cuban re 
 public ; and thus^fregan the Ten Years War, which,ix 
 barren of other results, was destined to bring such 
 frightful losses to Spain and such equally terrible 
 devastation to the Pearl of the Antilles! 5 
 
 The military history of the Ten Years War is 
 utterly insignificant. It consisted of a confused 
 series of guerrilla campaigns, similar to those that 
 have laid Cuba waste during the last few years. 
 There were frequent reports of important actions, 
 which were always sweeping victories for the side 
 making the report. It was several times announced 
 that the insurgents had captured this or that city, 
 but quite or almost invariably these triumphs were 
 purely imaginary. The Spaniards succeeded in 
 confining the rebellion to the provinces of Santiago 
 and Puerto Principe, its western limit being prac 
 tically marked by the trocha, or fortified line, which 
 they threw across the island from Moron to Jucaro. 
 In the two eastern provinces they held the sea- 
 coast, the towns, and many fortified posts, but were 
 utterly unable to dislodge the patriots from the 
 forest-clad mountains of the interior. 
 
 Had they sent thirty or forty thousand men to 
 
30 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Cuba on the outbreak of the rebellion, and moved 
 against its scanty and ill-armed forces with prompt 
 ness and vigour, it is very improbable that the 
 Cubans could have kept the field. But Spain was 
 distracted by domestic troubles ; civil war was 
 threatened, and in 1872 it broke out, the Carlists 
 attacking the supporters of the Italian Amadeo. 
 Such troops as could be spared were sent over to 
 Cuba in driblets. Some were Carlist prisoners, 
 whose loyalty was doubtful. Some officers high in 
 command were strongly suspected of a desire to 
 continue the war for the chances of illegitimate 
 profit it brought them. 
 
 fThere were shocking atrocities on both sides, 
 i/terribje waste of life, and great destruction of prop 
 erty. / Statistics of the Spanish losses were never 
 published, but it is believed that during the ten 
 years not less than one hundred and fifty thousand 
 soldiers from the Peninsula left their bones in Cuba 
 some of them victims of the bullets or machetes 
 of the insurgents, but far more slain by the fevers 
 of the tropics. The Cubans suffered in turn, for 
 half of the island was laid waste ; and though they 
 seem never to have had more than a few thousand 
 men in the field at once it is impossible to give the 
 exact number, estimates varying all the way from 
 two thousand to thirty thousand their losses from 
 the hardships of guerrilla warfare were dispropor 
 tionately heavy. 
 
 Some of the worst excesses of the war were 
 committed by the Spanish volunteers a force nu 
 merous enough to have suppressed the rebellion had 
 they displayed any desire for active service in the 
 field rather than for terrorizing the cities. There 
 were about sixty thousand of them in Cuba, twenty 
 thousand in Havana alone, and they carried matters 
 with a high hand in the capital. 
 
 In May, 1870, a performance was announced at 
 one of the Havana theatres for the benefit of " Cu- 
 
AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH CUBA 3! 
 
 ban insolvents," which doubtless meant the insur 
 gents. A crowd of armed volunteers broke into the 
 house and poured a volley into the audience. In 
 the following month, displeased with the mild pol 
 icy of Captain-General Dulce, they arrested him 
 and forced him to sail for Spain a bold usurpation 
 in which the Madrid Government meekly ac 
 quiesced. In November, 1871, they seized forty- 
 three students of the University of Havana, charg 
 ing them with scratching the glass in a cemetery 
 vault containing the remains of a Spanish soldier. 
 The students were acquitted in court, whereupon 
 the volunteers constituted a court-martial of their 
 own officers, condemned eight of the young men 
 to death, and shot them the next morning. The 
 official paper announced that " some negroes had 
 killed a volunteer, and two of them were summarily 
 shot." 
 
 " It could not be expected/ wrote an American 
 correspondent who was in Cuba in 1873, " that the 
 insurgents, on their side, should abstain from fear 
 ful reprisals. The practice with them when a pris 
 oner, and especially an officer, falls into their hands, 
 is to tie his feet up to a tree, and to pile up fuel 
 under the dangling head, thus burning their enemy 
 alive with a slow fire. It would not be easy to 
 ascertain on which side the atrocities first began, 
 or are carried to greater lengths." 
 
 A specially sinister reputation was earned by 
 the Spanish general, Balmaceda (afterward captain- 
 general of Cuba), whose proclamation of April 4, 
 1869, in the districts of Bayamo and Jiguani, antici 
 pated the ruthless policy of Weyler in some of its 
 orders : 
 
 Every man from the age of fifteen years upward found 
 away from his habitation, who does not prove a proper 
 reason therefor, will be shot. 
 
 Every unoccupied habitation will be burned. 
 
 Every habitation that does not fly a white flag, as a 
 sign that its occupants desire peace, will be burned. 
 
32 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Women not living at their own homes, or at the 
 houses of their relatives, will collect in the towns of 
 Jiguani and Bayamo, where subsistence will be provided. 
 Those who do not present themselves will be conducted 
 forcibly. 
 
 I It was only natural that popular sympathy in 
 the United States should be strongly enlisted on 
 behalf of the insurgents. The spec- 
 American t j f people struggling to be free 
 
 sympathy for . , fete fe 
 
 the insurgents. ls one tnat appeals too strongly to 
 give time for a close scrutiny of the 
 standing and the methods of those whom misgov- 
 ernment has driven to revolt^ Washington s sol 
 diers were ragged regiments, and partisan warfare 
 had helped to whj^the struggle against the armies 
 of George III. \ On the other side was a power 
 against whom Americans had a long series of griev 
 ances, and who represented a European domination 
 such as they themselves had cast off. There was a 
 strong demand that the Government should form 
 ally recognise the insurgents as belligerents, as 
 had been done by some of the South American 
 republics ; but the Administration, with undoubted 
 political wisdom, opposed this step, which would 
 have been of no practical benefit./ As President 
 Grant said in his first annual message (December 
 6, 1869) : 
 
 The contest has at no time assumed the conditions 
 which amount to a war in the sense of international law, 
 or which would show the existence of a de facto political 
 organization of the insurgents sufficient to justify a recog 
 nition of belligerency. 
 
 / Conditions had not changed when in June, 
 
 / 1870, the President sent to Congress a special mes- 
 
 ^-^ sage in which he described the shocking state of 
 
 affairs existing in CubzL/ It was a description that 
 
 applied as well to the rebellion of 1895 as to that of 
 
 1868: 
 
 The condition of the insurgents has not improved, 
 and the insurrection itself, although not subdued, ex- 
 
AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH CUBA 
 
 33 
 
 hibits no signs of advance, but seems to be confined to 
 an irregular system of hostilities carried on by small 
 and illy armed bodies of men, roaming without concen 
 tration through the woods and the sparsely populated re 
 gions of the island, attacking from ambush convoys and 
 small bands of troops, burning plantations and the estates 
 of those not sympathizing with their cause. 
 
 But if the insurrection has not gained ground, it is 
 equally true that Spain has not suppressed it. Climate, 
 disease, and the occasional bullet have worked destruction 
 among the soldiers of Spain; and although the Spanish 
 authorities have possession of every seaport and every 
 town on the island, they have not been able to subdue the 
 hostile feeling which has driven a considerable number 
 of the native inhabitants of the island to armed resistance 
 against Spain, and still leads them to endure the dangers 
 and the privations of a roaming life of guerrilla warfare. 
 
 ^Public feeling in the United States was greatly 
 excited by the seizure (January 21, 1869) of the 
 American steamer Colonel Lloyd Aspinwall, on the 
 charge, apparently unfounded, that she had been 
 landing arms for the insurgents. She was held for 
 three months, and was finally liberated on the 
 ground that she carried official despatches, the 
 Spanish Government ignoring repeated protests 
 from Washington that her arrest on the high seas 
 was a violation of international law. Subsequently 
 a small indemnity $19,702.50 in gold was paid 
 to her owners?") 
 
 In March of the same year another American 
 ship, the schooner Lizzie Major, was arrested at 
 sea by a Spanish frigate, and two passengers, 
 alleged to be Cuban revolutionists, were forcibly 
 taken from her. The act wa s disclaimed, however, 
 and the prisoners released. In May, Captain-Gen 
 eral Dulce attempted to legalize such seizures 
 by a proclamation authorizing Spanish men-of-war 
 to stop and search foreign vessels. Of course 
 the United States Government promptly pro 
 tested against this palpable breach of the law of 
 nations, and Dulce had to withdraw his procla 
 mation. 
 
34 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Much greater excitement was caused by the 
 Virginius affair, which for a time made war ap 
 pear inevitable. The Virginius was 
 a sma11 side-wheel steamer, British 
 built, but claiming a somewhat ques 
 tionable American registry, which had made sev 
 eral filibustering voyages to Cuba. On October 
 31, 1873, she was sighted off the south coast of the 
 island by the Spanish gunboat Tornado, which 
 promptly gave chase. By a curious coincidence the 
 two vessels were sister ships, built in the same Eng 
 lish yard ; and in the light of recent tests of Spanish 
 and American seamanship it might have been ex 
 pected that the Virginius would outrun her pur 
 suer. But though she made frantic efforts to reach 
 Jamaican w 7 aters, throwing her cargo of horses and 
 arms overboard to lighten the ship, as well as to 
 destroy evidences of her unlawful mission, she was 
 overhauled and taken to Santiago de Cuba. 
 
 One hundred and fifty-five men were captured 
 with the Virginius. On November 4th four of 
 them three Cubans and one American were 
 summarily shot by order of the Spanish com 
 mander, General Juan Burriel. Three days later, 
 thirty-seven prisoners, one of whom was the ship s 
 commander, Captain Joseph Fry, a former officer 
 of the United States navy, were taken ashore, lined 
 up before a file of marines, and shot. These men 
 were Cubans, Americans, and British subjects. 
 The American and British consuls protested vehe 
 mently, but without effect. On the 8th twelve 
 more, prisoners suffered the same fate. 
 
 The news of the executions was received with 
 wild rejoicings in Havana, with a burst of horrified 
 indignation in the United States. The Govern 
 ment at Washington found itself in a very difficult 
 position. Whether they were filibusters or not, the 
 shooting of American citizens captured on the high 
 seas was an undisguised outrage upon international 
 
AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH CUBA 
 
 35 
 
 law ; but the weakness of the navy which since the 
 end of the civil war had been left to rot in de- 
 fenceless harbours rendered a prompt and effec 
 tual protest impossible} A fleet was ordered to ren 
 dezvous at Key West, but little could be expected 
 of the rusty ironclads and obsolete wooden ships. 
 The rest of the Virginius prisoners would probably 
 have shared the doom of the fifty-three who had 
 perished had it not been for Sir Lambton Loraine, 
 captain of the British sloop of war Niobe, who ran 
 into Santiago harbour with his guns ready for 
 action, and threatened to open fire on six Spanish 
 gunboats lying in the port if there were any fur 
 ther executions. He had come from Jamaica in 
 answer to an urgent message from Mr. F. W. 
 Ramsden, the British consul at Santiago a gentle 
 man who will be mentioned again in this history. 
 
 There followed weeks of tedious correspondence 
 between Washington and Madrid. The Spanish 
 Government declared that it had sent orders for 
 bidding the shooting, but that owing to the interrup 
 tion of telegraph lines by the insurgents they had not 
 reached Santiago in time. Finally Spain consented 
 to surrender the Virginius, to release the surviving 
 Americans in her crew, to pay an indemnity of 
 eighty thousand dollars, to salute the American 
 flag, and to punish " those who have offended." 
 By way of carrying out the last promise, General 
 Burriel was promoted. The formal transfer of the 
 Virginius, which had been taken in triumph to Ha 
 vana, was ungraciously carried out in the obscure 
 harbour of Bahia Honda; she was in a filthy and 
 unseaworthy condition the Spaniards had pur 
 posely defiled her and she sank on her way to the 
 north. 
 
 But once more war with the United States had 
 been postponed, and Spain was left to wreak her 
 will in Cuba. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE, 1873-1898 
 
 \THE series of unpleasant incidents that culmi 
 nated in the Virginius affair created a mutual feeling 
 of intense bitterness in America and in Spain) In 
 the latter country, where civil war was in progress, 
 Don Carlos sent an aide-de-camp to Madrid to 
 propose to his cousin Alfonso, lately restored to 
 the throne of the Bourbons, that the two factions 
 should suspend their strife to join forces against 
 their common foe, the United States, whose arro 
 gance punished, each prince,should be free to assert 
 his claim to the crown. In America the general 
 feeling in favour of an official recognition of the 
 Cuban insurgents was greatly strengthened, and 
 the step would undoubtedly have been taken had it 
 not been for the opposition of the Secretary of 
 State, Mr. Fish, whose advice was decisive with 
 President Grant an opposition that was unpopular 
 at the time, but which has been abundantly justified 
 by later events?? 
 
 As the hope of American intervention faded, 
 the rebellion seemed to wane. In December, 1873, 
 its lack of organization was shown by reports of dis 
 sensions among its leaders. Carlos Cespedes, who 
 had been designated as the first president of the 
 
 * General Grant s position upon the question of recognising the 
 Cuban insurgents was fully stated in his first annual message (Decem 
 ber 6, 1869) ; in the special message of June 13, 1870; and in his 
 seventh annual message (December 7, 1875). 
 
 36 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 
 
 37 
 
 insurgent republic, was deposed by the so-called 
 Cuban congress ; and it was found impossible to 
 agree upon a successor, though Salvador Cisneros 
 Betancourt assumed the title of acting president. 
 Cespedes continued in the field, but in March, 1874, 
 he was mortally wounded in a skirmish, and his 
 death brought further discouragement. 
 
 The war had dragged on for two years more 
 when the Spanish Government decided, in 1876, 
 to make a supreme effort to end it. 
 ^ a p s 87 g 6 esto The old Bourbon dynasty was now 
 firmly re-established at Madrid, the 
 struggle with the Carlists was over, and the man 
 of the hour, the man to whom Spain owed the res 
 toration of peace and order, was General Martinez 
 Campos. With twenty-five thousand soldiers, the 
 flower of the Spanish army, he was sent out to 
 Havana as captain-general, in the hope that he 
 would do for Cuba what he had accomplished at 
 home. 
 
 As a rule, the military operations of the Cuban 
 wars have been practically limited to the winter 
 and spring months, which constitute the dry sea 
 son ; there being on both sides a wholesome dread 
 of the climatic terrors of the summer and early 
 autumn, which decimated the American troops dur 
 ing the brief Santiago campaign of 1898. Campos s 
 first winter, that of 1876-^77, passed without any 
 tangible result ; and he found his task so heavy that 
 he turned over the captain-general s office to Gen 
 eral Jovellar, devoting himself solely to his work in 
 the field against the insurgents. Perhaps the most 
 patriotic and clear-sighted public man that his 
 country has produced in our time, he recognised 
 that Spain s policy in Cuba had been a disastrous 
 failure. In one of his reports a remarkable docu 
 ment, which must have been read with unpleasant 
 surprise in Madrid he openly arraigned its blun 
 ders and crimes : 
 
38 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 The insurrection here, acknowledging as its cause the 
 hatred of Spain, is due to the causes that have separated 
 our other colonies from the mother country, intensified 
 by the fact that promises made to Cuba at different times 
 have not been fulfilled; that, as I understand it, their ful 
 filment, when begun, has been forbidden by order of the 
 Cortes. 
 
 When one day after another passed without the 
 island s hopes being realized, the concessions occasionally 
 granted by this or that governor being more than can 
 celled by his successor; when bad officials and a worse ad 
 ministration of justice aggravated the existing disorders; 
 when the provincial governorships, continually growing 
 more corrupt, fell at last into the hands of men without 
 training or education, petty tyrants who could practise 
 their thefts, and sometimes their oppressions, because of 
 their distance from the supreme authority; then public 
 opinion began urgently to desire those liberties which, if 
 they bring much good, contain also some evil, especially 
 when applied to a country that has so peculiar a life of 
 its own, and is not prepared for them. 
 
 Seeing that pacification by the sword was im 
 possible, and that to prolong the war meant ruin 
 to Cuba and disastrous loss to Spain, 
 The compro- Campos resolved to attempt concilia- 
 
 mise of Zanjon, . * TT . ~ c f ., , , 
 
 Feb. jo, 1878. tlon - His first negotiation failed be 
 cause the insurgent leaders to whom 
 he made overtures, and who expressed a desire for 
 peace, were murdered by the irreconcilables who 
 had decreed death to any one treating with the 
 Spaniards except on the basis of independence. In 
 spite of this outrage he succeeded in communicat 
 ing with Vicente Garcia, who had recently been 
 named to succeed Cisneros as head of the insur 
 gent government, and on the 7th of February, 
 1878, the two commanders had a seven hours in 
 terview at Chorrilla, near Las Tunas. On the 
 loth there was a second meeting, at Zanjon, be 
 tween Campos and ten Cuban commissioners, of 
 whom Garcia was one and Maximo Gomez an 
 other ; and here was signed the document, variously 
 called the treaty or compromise of Zanjon, which 
 ended the Ten Years War. These were its terms : 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 39 
 
 ARTICLE I. Concessions to the island of Cuba of the 
 political, organic, and administrative privileges accorded 
 to the island of Porto Rico.* 
 
 ART. II. Forgetfulness of the past as regards political 
 offences committed from 1868 to the present time, and 
 amnesty for all now under sentence for such offences in or 
 put of the island; full pardon to deserters from the Span 
 ish army, irrespective of nationality, including all who had 
 taken part in revolutionary movements. 
 
 ART. III. Freedom to the Asiatic coolies and the 
 slaves who are now in the revolutionary ranks. 
 
 ART. IV. No one who by virtue of this convention rec 
 ognises and remains under protection of the Spanish Gov 
 ernment shall be compelled to render any military service 
 until peace be established throughout the island. 
 
 ART. V. All persons affected by these provisions who 
 desire to leave the island without stopping in any town 
 shall receive the aid of the Spanish Government to that end. 
 
 ART. VI. The capitulation of the forces shall take 
 place in the open field, where, preferably, the arms and 
 military equipments shall be surrendered. 
 
 ART. VII. The commander-in-chief of the Spanish 
 army, in order to facilitate the disbanding of the several 
 sections of the Cuban army, will place at their disposal 
 the railway and steamship facilities at his command. 
 
 ART. VIII. This agreement with the central committee 
 shall be considered general and without special restric 
 tions, extending to all departments of the island accept 
 ing these conditions. 
 
 To the terms of this treaty the signature of 
 Campos morally though perhaps not technically, 
 as there seems to have been a convenient vagueness 
 about his authority to treat with the insurgents 
 committed the Spanish Government ; and after 
 provisionally establishing a system for the election 
 of Cuban deputies to the Cortes, he went back to 
 Madrid to secure the execution of the agreement. 
 The premier, Canovas del Castillo, declared that 
 Spain could accept nothing but the complete sub 
 jection of Cuba, and resigned office to avoid sub 
 mitting a compromise to the legislature. Campos 
 
 * These were substantially identical with the concessions demanded 
 by the Cubans before the outbreak of the Ten Years War, and enu 
 merated on page 28 (footnote). 
 
40 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 took the vacant place, but found himself unable to 
 form a cabinet that would accept his plans, and 
 gave up the attempt in despair. Canovas returned 
 to the premiership, and the promises of Zanjon 
 were laid aside. 
 
 Cuba still had her right of representation at 
 Madrid, but even that was speedily rendered little 
 more than a mockery. The Pcninsulares regarded 
 themselves as entitled to a political domination over 
 the Insulares as natural as that exercised by the 
 white men of the Southern States over their seven 
 million negro fellow-citizens ; and their methods 
 of insuring their supremacy were as ingenious and 
 as unscrupulous as anything yet devised in Louisi 
 ana or Mississippi. The franchise was limited to 
 those paying a tax of twenty-five dollars annually 
 a provision which excluded all but the richer Cu 
 bans, many of whom, especially in former years, 
 were loyal to the Spanish connection, mainly 
 through dread of the disorders of civil war. But 
 to prevent the disfranchisement of Spaniards, all 
 government employees, and all persons recognised 
 as belonging to any mercantile company, were 
 registered as voters without taxation. 
 
 The result was that the Peninsular es, number 
 ing not more than one sixth of the total population, 
 were enabled to carry most of the election districts. 
 In 1 879," of forty delegates, ten were Cuban autono 
 mists, thirty Spanish or Cuban conservatives, and 
 the disproportion grew still more marked at later 
 elections. In 1886, of thirty-eight delegates, eight 
 were autonomists, thirty conservatives, all but four 
 of the latter being Spanish born ; in 1896, of thirty 
 delegates, all but four were Spaniards. Some of 
 the Spanish candidates were men who had never 
 seerj^Cuba. 
 
 /The Ten Years War was followed by seventeen 
 years of comparative quietude in Cuba. There was 
 official friction with the United States, but not so 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 4I 
 
 serious as to create an alarm of war, though in 1880 
 Mr. Evarts, then Secretary of State, sent an urgent 
 protest to Madrid against a " grave 
 affront to the honour and dignity of 
 our flag " in the overhauling of four 
 Amencan vessels by Spanish gunboats 
 off the Cuban coas*t7 There were minor internal dis 
 orders banditry in the hills, the legacy of years 
 of guerrilla warfare, and plots, or suspicions of 
 plots, in the cities ; but no disturbance loud enough 
 to reach the ears of the outside world. The diary 
 of Captain-General Polavieja, subsequently pub 
 lished in Madrid, records that in 1892 he executed 
 no less than sixty-three prisoners accused of trea 
 sonable conspiracy against the existing regime. 
 During the following year there were two more 
 attempts at insurrection one under the Sartorius 
 brothers in the province of Santiago, the other un 
 der Esquirre in Santa Clara; but both were feeble 
 and futile. 
 
 It would not be fair to say that the Spanish 
 Government made no attempt whatever to improve 
 the condition of Cuba. The burden of taxation, 
 which had been mercilessly extortionate, was made 
 less crushing. The Cuban budget for 1878 79 was 
 more than forty-six million dollars ; that of 1882, 
 a little less than thirty-six millions ; that of 1893, 
 twenty-three millions. Of the other reforms, or 
 pretended reforms, some were farcical in their 
 worthlessness ; others, perhaps well meant by their 
 authors at Madrid, were frustrated by the official 
 dom of Cuba, whose morale was hinted at in Cam- 
 pos s report, already quoted. 
 
 Under the changes effected in the Spanish con 
 stitution in 1876, the government of Cuba, hitherto 
 regarded as an appanage of the crown, was trans 
 ferred to the Cortes. This was not proclaimed in 
 the island until five years later, and then proved to 
 be a reform only in name. In 1892 the qualifica- 
 
42 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 tion for the franchise was reduced from twenty-five 
 dollars a year in taxes to five dollars ; but the 
 extension of the suffrage had no apparent influ 
 ence upon the result of the elections, as re 
 turned by the Spanish authorities in control of the 
 polls. In 1895 it was announced that the mili 
 tary power of the captain-general was to be tem 
 pered by a council of thirty members, but the 
 constitution of the advisory body was character 
 istic. Of its thirty members, fifteen were to be ap 
 pointed by the crown, fifteen elected in Cuba, and 
 to muzzle any champion of popular rights who 
 might slip into it, the captain-general was empow 
 ered to suspend at will any fourteen councillors, 
 and with the consent of certain officials all pretty 
 sure to be Peninsula-res to dismiss the entire body. 
 
 Spaniards who recount these efforts at concilia 
 tion, and bewail the ingratitude of the colony that 
 is now lost to them, add that taxes are proportion 
 ately higher in the Peninsula than they were in 
 Cuba ; that the Cubans have had the privilege of 
 exemption from the conscription ; and that the 
 long maintenance of slavery, in the face of strenu 
 ous opposition, was a special favour to the indus 
 tries of the island. They do not add* that it may 
 have been because Spain dared not arm and train 
 the Cubans that she asked no military service from 
 them ; or that the connivance at human servitude 
 suited the interests of peculating Spanish office 
 holders rather than the public sentiment of Cuba. 
 None of these excuses can palliate the fact that the 
 island was utterly, hopelessly, and shamelessly mis 
 governed, under a vicious system badly adminis 
 tered by corrupt officials. 
 
 Under such conditions, the recurrence of dis 
 order was inevitable. It is idle to discuss whether 
 those who began the latest rebellion were justified 
 in drawing the sword. They were men who saw 
 the Ten Years War, and who must have foreseen, 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 
 
 43 
 
 if they foresaw anything, that in raising the stand 
 ard of revolt they were dooming the island they 
 professed to love to years of blood and ruin, of an 
 archy and starvation. Revolt is justified only when 
 it has the prospect of military success ; and could 
 these leaders of small guerrilla bands expect to cope 
 with Spain s army and navy? Events brought 
 them a mighty ally, but Gomez and Maceo and 
 their comrades have much to answer for besides the 
 ending of Spanish rule in the West Indies. And 
 yet we think of the " embattled farmers " who 
 defied the power of George III, and sympathy 
 silences criticism. 
 
 The 24th of February, 1895, was a day of ex 
 citement in Havana, and of consternation in the 
 
 palace of the captain-general, Don 
 of h i e 89 5 ebe Emilio Calleja. There were tidings 
 
 of new revolts both in the east 
 and in the west. Juan Gomez had taken the field, 
 near Matanzas, with a small band of followers; at 
 Manzanillo, Bartolome Masso was at the head of 
 two hundred men ; and at several points in the 
 province of Santiago there were risings tinder Jesus 
 Rabi, Guillermo Mon^ada, and other rebel leaders. 
 Calleja at once proclaimed a state of siege, and tele 
 graphed to Madrid for assistance. There were 
 about eighteen thousand Spanish troops in the 
 island, besides the volunteers, but, as is quite usual 
 with Spanish troops, they were poorly supplied and 
 equipped. Little had been done to modernize the 
 mediseval fortifications of the chief cities ; the cap 
 tain-general had scarcely any artillery, and only 
 eleven small cruisers and gunboats to patrol a coast 
 line of two thousand miles. The neglect and in 
 efficiency of the Spanish military administration 
 was a powerful ally to the rebels. 
 
 The revolutionists in Matanzas, or a part of 
 them, were speedily forced to surrender to the gov 
 ernor of the province, who thereupon reported his 
 
44 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 district as " pacified " ; but further east the Span 
 iards were practically powerless, and the rebellion 
 spread like a prairie fire. In the province of Santi 
 ago, within three weeks several thousand men, 
 armed with rifles or machetes, had flocked to its 
 standard, and the Spanish troops found themselves 
 unable to leave their fortified posts without subject 
 ing themselves to guerrilla attacks. The gravity of 
 the situation was appreciated both at Havana and 
 at Madrid, for on the 2/th of March Captain-Gen 
 eral Calleja resigned, and next day the cabinet of 
 Premier Canovas del Castillo met to decide upon 
 heroic measures. 
 
 Campos, who had once pacified Cuba with 
 promises which he had not been allowed to fulfil, 
 was again summoned to save for Spain the Pearl 
 of the Antilles. He can scarcely have approached 
 the task with confidence, or without reluctance ; 
 but he accepted the commission, and sailed 
 promptly not to Havana, but to the troubled east, 
 the headquarters of the rebellion, landing at Guan- 
 tanamo on the i6th of April, 1895. Three gun 
 boats were sent at the same time to Cuban waters, 
 twelve thousand additional troops were ordered 
 from Spain, and an unlimited credit was voted by 
 the Cortes for the expenses of the war. 
 
 Meanwhile the rebels had received important 
 accessions, for the chieftains of the Ten Years War, 
 who had sought safety in exile, now returned to 
 strike another blow at Spain. On the ist of April 
 the two negro leaders, Antonio and Jose Maceo, 
 landed near Baracoa, easily avoiding the Spanish 
 gunboats; and on the nth they were followed by 
 Jose Marti, who assumed the provisional headship 
 of the government nominally established by the in 
 surgents, and by Maximo Gomez, who was recog 
 nised as commander-in-chief of the scattered and 
 scantily equipped " army of liberation." 
 
 Campos s first plan of campaign was to confine 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 45 
 
 the insurrection to the Santiago province, and he 
 posted ten thousand troops along the Puerto Prin 
 cipe border. Marti was killed in attempting to 
 break through the cordon, but Gomez made his way 
 into Puerto Principe ; and during the summer, 
 when hostilities slackened, he remained there, or 
 ganizing the rebellion, threatening the Spanish posi 
 tions, and beginning his work of destruction among 
 the plantations and the railroads. At the approach 
 of the dry season he moved westward again, in con 
 cert with Antonio Maceo. 
 
 During the Ten Years War a main feature of 
 
 the Spanish military policy was the maintenance of 
 
 the trocha, or fortified line running 
 
 Campos^ aCr SS thC islaild fl " 0m M r0n t0 J U - 
 
 caro, near the western boundary of 
 Puerto Principe ; and this line Campos now at 
 tempted to hold against Gomez and Maceo. As a 
 question of strategy, his judgment was of doubtful 
 wisdom. Although he massed along the trocha 
 troops that might have been better employed in 
 attacking and following up the enemy, it was im 
 possible to guard its fifty miles of length effectually. 
 Gomez and Maceo had little difficulty in crossing 
 the barrier when hostilities reopened in the autumn 
 of 1895. 
 
 With fire and sword the rebel leaders continued 
 their westward advance. Campos marched in pur 
 suit, but their rapid movements and better knowl 
 edge of the country baffled him. Their forces were 
 usually split into small commands, which engaged 
 the Spaniards only when they could intercept a 
 convoy or ambush a detachment. In spite of 
 Spain s determined efforts to crush the revolt fifty 
 thousand soldiers were sent to Cuba during the 
 summer and autumn, and in November General 
 Pando sailed from Cadiz with thirty thousand more 
 her ablest commander, when he entered Havana 
 on the day before Christmas, appeared there as a 
 
 OF TltS 
 
 ,-r-KTTVfTRsrrY 
 
46 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 defeated general, while Gomez followed him with 
 impunity almost within sight of the capital. The 
 smoke of burning villages and plantations could be 
 seen from the suburbs, and the railroads running 
 out of the city were paralyzed by the destruction of 
 bridges and trains. 
 
 Unsuccessful in the field, and assailed by a fierce 
 storm of criticism both in Havana and from Spain, 
 Campos resigned his command, and on January 17, 
 1896, it was announced from Madrid that General 
 Valeriano Weyler had been selected to succeed 
 him. This appointment, which was regarded as 
 foreshadowing a stringent and vigorous prosecu 
 tion of the war, was received with delight by the 
 Peninsular es, with bitter resentment by the Cubans 
 and their sympathizers. As an officer in the Ten 
 Years War Weyler was accused of numerous and 
 shocking cruelties. The charges may have been 
 false, as were many of those brought against him 
 later; but he speedily proved himself truculent 
 enough. 
 
 Weyler reached Havana on the loth of Feb 
 ruary. On the I7th he issued a sweeping proclama 
 tion ordering a summary military 
 
 conviction, for fourteen specified of 
 fences, including the furnishing of 
 arms, provisions, horses, or any other assistance to 
 the rebels ; the disclosing of telegraph messages to 
 any but the proper official ; the invention or circu 
 lation of any news directly or indirectly favouring 
 the rebellion ; the speaking or writing of anything 
 that might belittle the prestige of Spain or of the 
 Spanish army. He further ordered that in the two 
 eastern provinces, Puerto Principe and Santiago, 
 all stores in country districts should be vacated by 
 their owners, and that no person should go abroad 
 without a passport issued by the military com 
 manders. 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 
 
 47 
 
 It would be useless to attempt to follow in detail 
 the campaigns of 1896 and 1897. The struggle 
 continued to be a confused series of guerrilla com 
 bats, destructive yet indecisive, uninteresting to 
 the historian and utterly valueless to the student of 
 tactics. The facts of the situation were constantly 
 obscured by a cloud of false statements. The offi 
 cial bulletins, chronicling nothing but Spanish 
 successes, were manifestly unreliable. Reports 
 from insurgent sources were still more irresponsi 
 ble and imaginative. 
 
 It may be regarded as strange that the Ameri 
 can newspaper press, with its record of almost 
 invincible enterprise, should have 
 allowed years of civil strife in Cuba, 
 an island so close to the shores of 
 the great republic, and bound to it by so many 
 ties of interest, to pass without a more earnest and 
 successful effort to record the exact facts of the 
 case. While Campos was in command, corre 
 spondents were free to go and come throughout 
 the island, and to investigate the character and 
 progress of the struggle; but little or nothing was 
 done in this direction. Certainly not one of 
 them went afield with the Spanish forces. Wey- 
 ler, from the first, was less accommodating to 
 newspaper men ; few soldiers regard them with 
 special affection witness Kitchener in the Sou 
 dan, Otis at Manila, and sundry generals in the 
 civil war ; but he did not begin to expel them until 
 he had received very serious provocation. A corre 
 spondent is always held responsible for the news 
 that appears in the periodical he represents, and 
 any commander might well resent the utterly un 
 scrupulous fakes if that expressive term may be 
 employed continually published by certain sheets 
 which loudly proclaim themselves the leaders of 
 American journalism, and which the foreigner may 
 be pardoned for accepting as such. 
 
48 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 An exposure which apparently stands uncon- 
 tradicted and imcontroverted of this long series 
 of misstatements has been published by Mr. George 
 Bronson Rea, one of the very few American corre 
 spondents who witnessed any considerable amount 
 of righting in Cuba. According to Mr. Rea s Facts 
 and Fakes About Cuba, there were only three, or 
 possibly four, who can truthfully claim to have done 
 so. Of the dozens of others who started for the 
 seat of war in 1896 and 1897, many seem to have 
 gone no farther south than Florida, where they 
 found abundant material for sensational stories in 
 the information they gathered from Cuban labor- 
 antes a class with whom the invention of news 
 favourable to the insurgents may be said to have 
 been a recognised duty. 
 
 ! It is from this source that American newspapers 
 received the imaginative tales that only need to be 
 collected and compared, as they are in Mr. Rea s 
 book, to make evident their reckless inconsistencies 
 and extreme improbabilities the stories of desper 
 ate battles, when in the whole war there was 
 scarcely an action that deserved the name ; of the 
 capture of fortified towns, of terrible machete 
 charges, of dynamite guns that mowed down whole 
 Spanish battalions, of the marvellous prowess of 
 regiments of Cuban Amazons all equally ficti 
 tious ; of the thorough organization, civil and mili 
 tary, of the rebel government ; of its " capital " at 
 Cubitas, of its school system and postal service 
 almost all of which were mere figments of the im 
 agination. Spanish atrocities, which may have oc 
 curred, but which were established solely by hear 
 say evidence, were contrasted with the miraculous 
 and incredible clemency said to distinguish the in 
 surgent chiefs.] 
 
 /As a typical instance, out of scores that might 
 
 given, take the case of the alleged outrage upon 
 a Cuban woman, a passenger on the American 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 49 
 
 steamer Olivette, who in February, 1897, was 
 charged with carrying documents for the insurgents, 
 and was searched before being allowed 
 
 to leave Havana - A New York 
 newspaper * paraded this as a sensa 
 tion, and published a large engraving showing 
 the woman stripped naked, standing before three 
 Spanish officials. The not unnatural result was a 
 burst of public indignation at what appeared to be , 
 a very shocking incident until the correspondent 
 who had furnished the story emphatically dis 
 claimed it in any such guise as that in which his 
 paper presented it. The woman had been searched 
 only by a female inspector, privately, in a state 
 room ; the sensational picture had been drawn by 
 an artist who was not present, and who very care 
 lessly and culpably relied upon his imagination. ! 
 
 fThe newspaper press possesses much less prac 
 tical and direct political influence in the United /Jj 
 States than unthinking observers suppose. All V 
 this journalistic misrepresentation was unfortunate, 
 but it had no effect upon the policy of either the 
 Cleveland or the McKinley Administration] ^It 
 aroused Spanish resentment, created false impres 
 sions in America, and led to utterances in Congress / 
 that were unwise and regrettable ; but it could never ^ 
 have brought on a war. That came, primarily, from ^ 
 the inevitable logic of an age-long situation, and " 
 was immediately precipitated by the terxlble and un 
 foreseen disaster of the Maine explosion./ 
 
 As a matter of fact, during the last two months 
 of Campos s command the Cuban rebellion reached 
 its high-water mark, and from the 
 fam nfa^d^ arrival of Weyler it steadily declined, 
 death. " To the Spaniards, indeed, the cost of 
 
 the war, in men and money, con 
 tinued to be frightful, and even ruinous ; nor was 
 
 * The New York Journal, February 12, 1897. The reporter was 
 Mr. Richard Harding Davis, the artist Mr. Frederic Remington. 
 
50 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 there any apparent prospect of restoring peace and 
 order in Cuba so long as the last of the native in 
 habitants remained alive to face the starvation that 
 was closing in upon them ; but it became more and 
 more clear that the insurgents were hopeless of 
 military success. Antonio Maceo, by general testi 
 mony the most soldierly of the Cuban leaders, was 
 hemmed in in Pinar del Rio, the trocha that 
 stretched from Mariel to Majana cutting him off 
 from Gomez, who seems to have made no effort to 
 succour him ; and when he made his way across the 
 trocha with a few followers, in December, 1896, he 
 was killed in a chance encounter with Spanish 
 troops. His successor in command of the insur 
 gents in the west, Rius Rivera, was captured in 
 March, 1897, and deported. His brother, Jose 
 Maceo, had fallen in the preceding July. The 
 operations of Gomez, of whom so much was heard 
 in the first year of the war, seem to have degener 
 ated into mere guerrilla tactics if, indeed, they 
 ever were anything else. 
 
 Seldom caring to take the offensive, the insur 
 gents were constantly aided in eluding the Span 
 iards by the fact that most of the rural population 
 were ready to serve as spies, carrying information 
 of every movement attempted by the Spanish com 
 manders. \ It was to prevent this, and to render it 
 more difficult for the enemy to obtain food, that 
 Weyler issued his reconcentration order an order 
 that brought detestation upon his name, that was 
 rightly denounced by President McKinley as 
 "brutal" and "horrible," and that^ proved disas 
 trous to both parties in the struggle.! It may have 
 been as much of a military necessity as Sheridan s 
 devastation of the Shenandoah Valley, but its effects 
 were so cruel that it proved to be one of those blun 
 ders that are worse than crimes. 
 
 Yet it is easy to show not as any excuse for its 
 author that reconcentration was not the only nor 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 5! 
 
 indeed the main cause of famine and death in Cuba. 
 The sufferings of the pacificos began before it was 
 inaugurated and continued after it ended. Weyler s 
 first bando directing the country people to assemble 
 in the fortified towns was issued October 21, 1896, 
 and the new policy was not in general operation 
 before February, 1.897, to be revoked by Blanco s 
 decree of November I3th in that year; but as far 
 back as December, 1895, there were reports of thou 
 sands of refugees flying to the cities from the dev 
 astated rural districts. In his report presented at 
 the meeting of Congress in 1896, Mr. Olney, then 
 Secretary of State, said : 
 
 It is officially reported that there are in one provin 
 cial city alone some four thousand necessitous refugees 
 from the surrounding country, to whom the municipal au 
 thorities can afford little or no relief. 
 
 It would be easy to multiply evidence of this 
 state of affairs, and it is equally easy to discover 
 reasons for it. How could there but be destitution 
 and suffering when all the industries of the island 
 were practically suspended when plantations were 
 burned on every hand, factories razed and railroads 
 destroyed, while a considerable part of the able- 
 bodied male population, instead of working to sup 
 port their families, took to the woods 
 as guerrilla warriors? 
 
 General Gomez, in the letter he 
 sent to President McKinley in February, 1898, had 
 the effrontery to assert : 
 
 The revolution, as master of the country, has never 
 prohibited any citizen, whatever his nationality, from 
 earning his living. 
 
 This was the same commander who issued the 
 following proclamation under date of November 
 6, 1895: 
 
 ARTICLE I. All plantations shall be totally destroyed, 
 their sugar cane and outbuildings burned, and railroad 
 connections destroyed. 
 
52 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 ART. II. All labourers who shall aid the sugar fac 
 tories shall be considered as traitors to their country. 
 
 ART. III. All who are caught in the act, or whose vio 
 lation of Article II shall be proven, shall be shot. Let all 
 officers of the army of liberty comply with this order, de 
 termined to unfurl triumphantly, even over ruin and ashes, 
 the flag of the Republic of Cuba. 
 
 Such, as a matter of fact, was the deliberate pol 
 icy of the insurgents throughout the war. As early 
 as March, 1895, an American traveller who was in 
 eastern Cuba during the first two weeks of the re 
 bellion, said that 4k the most deplorable feature of 
 the warfare is the pillaging and burning done by 
 the insurgents " ; and so it continued to the end. 
 Gomez s order was frequently and emphatically re 
 iterated by those of other chieftains ; witness one 
 of Antonio Maceo s, dated June 9, 1896: 
 
 Allow me to impress on you the necessity of employ 
 ing all means to destroy the railroads in your district, and 
 to blow up trains and bridges with dynamite. 
 
 It is also advisable to destroy all houses that may 
 offer refuge or shelter to the Spanish troops, and to ren 
 der useless all corn and tobacco found deposited in your 
 territory. 
 
 Here is another signed by " Jose B. Aleman, 
 Secretary of War," and dated December 2, 1897 : 
 
 Considering that the working of the sugar estates fa 
 vours the plans of our enemies, as shown by the marked 
 interest in their last winter campaign, thus injuring the 
 steady headway of the revolution: 
 
 It has been ordered by our government ... to abso 
 lutely prohibit the realization of the sugar crop of 1897- 
 98. . . . Violators will suffer the punishment prescribed 
 by our laws. 
 
 The practical working of these ruthless edicts, 
 and their effect upon the starving plantation hands 
 of Cuba, may be illustrated by a few quotations 
 from the official reports of the American consuls in 
 Cuba authorities unlikely to be unduly favourable 
 to the Spaniards. Mr. Barker wrote from Sagua la 
 Grande, December 28, 1897 : 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 
 
 53 
 
 This (Santa Clara) province is capable this season of 
 producing perhaps two thirds of whatever cane might be 
 made in the entire island. To grind this cane without in 
 terruption would be the means of saving the lives of thou 
 sands who, without this or outside aid within the next 
 thirty to fifty days, must die of actual hunger. Over a 
 month since the planters were officially advised of Spain s 
 inability to provide protection in order to operate their 
 mills. This leaves the sugar-growers entirely in the hands 
 of the Cubans in revolt. I know that strict orders have 
 been given that under no circumstances must mills be 
 permitted to grind. 
 
 A month later January 31, 1898 the same 
 official reported : 
 
 One sugar mill is running, not without interruption, 
 with chances of making one fourth of a crop. Another, 
 just started up, was attacked yesterday by a band of in 
 surgents, killing fourteen and wounding five of the guer 
 rillas paid by the estate to protect the operatives. Seven 
 labourers were killed. 
 
 An adjoining estate, the property of the British con 
 sul, was also attacked, the growing cane burned. This 
 precludes further attempts to grind, as men can not be 
 induced to work while the insurgents roam at will over 
 the country. 
 
 Such was the humane warfare of which Gomez 
 boasted ! 
 
 Mr. Brice wrote from Matanzas, November 17, 
 1897 after the reconcentrados had received official 
 permission to return to the country : 
 
 Only those who can obtain employment on sugar plan 
 tations can live. . . . Several plantations report cane 
 burned by insurgents, and the general opinion is little or 
 no sugar will be made this season. 
 
 On December 5, 1897, Mr. Hyatt reported from 
 Santiago de Cuba : 
 
 Mr. Rigney, an American sugar planter near Manza- 
 nillo, was preparing to grind during the coming season. 
 A few nights since, the insurgents fired seven cannon shots 
 among his buildings, one ball passing through the roof of 
 his house. 
 
54 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 On January 12, 1898, the same consul added: 
 
 I regret to say that the stoppage of industries, from 
 present appearances, will not halt at the sugar crop, but 
 coffee and other agricultural crops fall under the same 
 ban. . . . All of the benefits that should have accrued to 
 our citizens are thwarted by the action of the insurgents, 
 who refuse to allow them to return to their sugar, coffee, 
 and other estates. The Pompo manganese mines, owned 
 by Americans, are also being held up by the same power. 
 
 It is beyond the power of my pen to describe the 
 situation in Eastern Cuba. 
 
 On the other hand, where the insurgents were 
 unable to carry out their policy of destruction, 
 somewhat better conditions prevailed. Mr. Mc- 
 Garr, American consul at Cienfuegos, reported on 
 January 10, 1898: 
 
 All the sugar mills in this consular jurisdiction, twen 
 ty-three in number, have been grinding since the first of 
 the month. . . . The demand for labour has drawn from 
 the towns a great portion of the unemployed labourers 
 and given employment to the male concentrados, many 
 of whom were in a state of enforced idleness and destitu 
 tion. As a consequence, few of them are now seen here, 
 and the labour congestion has been relieved. 
 
 Small predatory parties of insurgents make frequent 
 attempts to fire the cane fields, and it requires constant 
 and active vigilance to prevent their destruction. The dry 
 weather and the high winds prevailing at this season ren 
 der it a simple matter for one person (who can easily 
 conceal himself in the tall cane) to start a conflagration 
 that will, unless promptly extinguished, destroy hundreds 
 of acres in a few hours. 
 
 The sugar crop is the support of all classes, and espe 
 cially of the labouring class, and should it be in large 
 part destroyed a famine in reality would be inevitable. 
 
 This letter explains the extreme difficulty the 
 Spanish commanders experienced in preventing the 
 destruction of the industries by which, in time of 
 peace, the island supported itself. That their efforts 
 to do so were sincere as they naturally would be, 
 if only from motives of self-interest is attested by 
 General Fitzhugh Lee, who reported under date of 
 November 23, 1897: 
 
( UNr 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 FROM THE VIRGINIUS<O THE MAINE 55 
 
 The Spanish authorities are sincere in doing all in 
 their power to encourage, protect, and promote the grind 
 ing of sugar. The insurgents leaders have given instruc 
 tions to prevent grinding wherever it can be done, because 
 by diminishing the export of Sugar the Spanish Gov 
 ernment revenues are decreased. It will be very difficult 
 for the Spanish authorities to prevent cane burning, be 
 cause one man at night can start a fire which will burn 
 hundreds of acres, just as a single individual could ignite 
 a prairie by throwing a match into the dry grass. 
 
 Nor is it true that the Spanish authorities, mili 
 tary and civil, made no effort whatever to relieve 
 the victims of the cruel war. The 
 measures taken were indeed inade 
 quate and futile ; when Spain could 
 not pay her own officials and feed her own troops, 
 how could she provide for half a million hungry 
 Cubans? She was powerless before the hideous 
 spectre of famine that arose in the island which she 
 had so long misruled, and whose doom was now 
 sealed by its own sons. Yet there were attempts 
 at relief, besides the three million pesetas (six hun 
 dred thousand dollars) voted by the Cortes in 
 March, 1898, but never sent to Cuba the outbreak 
 of war with the United States being a good excuse 
 for its retention. While Campos was at Havana he 
 raised a fund for the destitute, himself heading the 
 list with two thousand dollars, and the entire Span 
 ish army subscribing a day s pay. In many cities a 
 junta dc socorros was formed, which distributed 
 such money or provisions as could be obtained. 
 In November, 1897, General Lee reported that 
 " charitable committees " were caring for " large 
 numbers " of refugees. General Blanco gave one 
 hundred thousand dollars in Spanish silver to feed 
 the destitute, and the city of Havana raised eighty 
 thousand dollars by a special tax for the same pur 
 pose. 
 
 Elsewhere municipal relief failed because public 
 and private resources were exhausted. Consul 
 
N/ 
 
 56 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Brice wrote from Matanzas, also in November, 
 1897, that " several days ago an order from captain- 
 general * was given municipal authorities to issue 
 rations and clothing, but no attention is paid the 
 order " lack of funds being, no doubt, one reason 
 for the neglect. Later, in the same city, " two thou 
 sand rations were given out, for a few days only, 
 to eight thousand persons." But by this time the 
 situation almost everywhere was that described by 
 Consul Barker, of Sagua la Grande : " The authori 
 ties are utterly helpless to extend any relief to those 
 who have thus far survived the pangs of hunger." 
 Truly General Sherman s saying that " war is hell " 
 was never more frightfully verified than in Cuba. 
 There was no hope of relief from within. The situa 
 tion was one that cried to Heaven for the merciful 
 intervention of a foreign power, more loudly than 
 ever Bulgaria cried, or Armenia, or Crete. 
 
 But terrible as was the island s plight, it was 
 
 exceedingly difficult to formulate any proper and 
 
 practical plan of ameliorating it. (it 
 
 The movement s not stran gr e t h at w hi] e intervention 
 
 for interven- - 1 1 A 
 
 tion was so eagerly urged by American 
 
 sympathy, two successive administra 
 tions were so reluctant to undertake it. For more 
 than two years the United States witnessed the 
 spectacle not an entirely pleasant one to the 
 friends of popular government of periodical 
 scenes of excitement in Congress, which, vehement 
 and even disorderly in debate, yet failing to agree 
 upon any definite and consistent line of action ; 
 making inflammatory speeches and passing belli 
 cose resolutions, yet continuing its neglect of the 
 national defences stood in more or less direct op 
 position to an executive policy, which, though criti 
 cised as unduly conservative, was firm, prudent, 
 
 * This word appears in consular reports (Senate document No. 230, 
 Fifty-fifth Congress, second session) as "Captain Gin" no doubt a 
 typographical error. 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 57 
 and based upon a better understanding of the situ- - 
 
 question first came to the front in the na 
 tional legislature when the Senate Foreign Affairs 
 Committee reported, on January 20. jjfafi. ,a curi 
 ously worded resolution instructing President 
 Cleveland to 
 
 use in a friendly spirit the good offices of this Government, 
 to the end that Spain shall be requested to accord to the 
 armies with which it is engaged in war the rights of 
 belligerents. 
 
 After a month s debate, during which the reso 
 lution went through several changes, the Senate 
 finally passed it in the form of a recognition of the 
 insurgents as a belligerent power, with the further 
 request 
 
 that the friendly offices of the United States should be 
 offered by the President to the Spanish Govejnment for 
 the recognition of the independence of Cuba. "J 
 
 The House of Representatives adopted a much 
 less pacific resolution, declaring that the only per 
 manent solution of the conflict was the establish- J v^, 
 ment of a government by the choice of the Cuban \/ 
 people ; that American interests were seriously in 
 jured by the struggle, and should be protected by 
 intervention if necessaryTTjThere were conferences 
 and further debates, in one of which Senator Mills, \/ 
 of Texas, offered a motion calling on the President 
 to seize the island and hold it by military force until 
 the Cuban people could organize a republic ; but 
 finally, on April 6th, the House accepted the Senate 
 resolution. The President took no action upon it. / 
 It could hardly have been expected that the 
 " friendly offices " thus proffered had the slightest 
 chance of acceptance by what Senator Sherman 
 termed the " sensitive, proud, and gallant nation " 
 of the Iberian peninsula, whose temper was indi 
 cated, during the debate in Congress, by an attack 
 
58 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 on the United States consulate in Barcelona, and 
 by riotous anti-American demonstrations in other 
 Spanish cities. Two days before the final passage 
 of the resolution April 4, 1896 Secretary Olney 
 had sent to Madrid a frank and full statement of the 
 position of the Washington Administration. He 
 pointed out that Spain s promises of a speedy res 
 toration of order had signally failed; that the 
 anarchy existing in Cuba had greatly damaged 
 American commerce, and threatened the " absolute 
 impoverishment " of the island s inhabitants ; that 
 while not suggesting intervention at the time in 
 deed, he expressl-y declared that " the United States 
 has no designs upon Cuba, and no designs against 
 the sovereignty of Spain " yet he hoped 
 
 to find a way of co-operating with Spain in the imme 
 diate pacification of the island on such a plan as, leaving 
 Spain her rights of sovereignty, shall yet secure to the 
 people of the island all such rights and powers of local 
 self-government as they can reasonably ask. 
 
 The Spanish reply, not received until June, was 
 a refusal of Mr. Olney s rather vague offer; and 
 there the matter ended for a time. 
 
 When Congress met in the following December, 
 President Cleveland s message contained a brief re 
 view of the situation in Cuba, which 
 congress versus remained unchanged, and a carefully 
 president cieve- g uarc led yet distinct warning of pos- 
 
 land, Dec., 1896. & .., , , J . , , fe 
 
 sible future interference : 
 
 I 
 
 * When the inability of Spain to deal successfully with 
 the insurrection has become manifest, and it is demon 
 strated that her sovereignty is extinct in Cuba for all pur 
 poses of its rightful existence, and when a hopeless strug 
 gle for its re-establishment has degenerated into a strife 
 which means nothing more than the useless sacrifice of 
 human life and the utter destruction of the very subject- 
 matter of the conflict, a situation will be presented in 
 which our obligation to the sovereignty of Spain will be 
 superseded by higher obligations which we can hardly 
 hesitate to recognise and discharge. 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 
 
 59 
 
 This cautions utterance was severely criticised 
 in Congress, and several motions were made with 
 a view to forcingj.be Administration to take some 
 more decided stepT/The most important was a reso 
 lution offered by Senator Cameron, of Pennsyl 
 vania : 
 
 That the independence of the Republic of Cuba be and 
 the same hereby is acknowledged by the United States of 
 America. 
 
 That the United States should use its friendly offices 
 with the Government of Spain to bring to a close the 
 war between Spain and Cuba. 
 
 This resolution was reported favourably by the 
 Senate Foreign Affairs Committee (December 18, 
 1896), in spite of the fact that Secretary Olney ap 
 peared before that body and strongly opposed it. 
 On the day after the committee s decision the sec 
 retary publicly stated that if it passed both houses, 
 as was then generally expected, it would be noth 
 ing more than " an expression of opinion by the 
 eminent gentlemen who might vote for it. The 
 power," he added, " to recognise the so-called re 
 public of Cuba as an independent state rests exclu 
 sively with the Executive " thereby raising an 
 interesting point of constitutional law which still 
 remains in doubt. fT or a time it seemed as if a 
 conflict between the national legislature and the Ex 
 ecutive was imminent, but a more conservative feel 
 ing arose in Congress, created partly by the alarm 
 of various commercial interests at what appeared 
 to be a threat of war, and partly by the general will 
 ingness to leave the whole question to be dealt with 
 by the incoming Administration, and the Cameron 
 resolution was never pressed to a voteT^I 
 
 It soon became clear that under President Mc- 
 Kinley and Secretary Sherman the Administration s 
 Cuban policy was to be a continuation of the mas 
 terly inactivity of Messrs. Cleveland and Olney; 
 Mr. McKinley s position being that domestic prob- 
 
6o THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 lems of the currency, the tariff, the deficit in the 
 government revenue, and the long-continued in 
 dustrial depression were paramount 
 president ^ o a ca jj f rO m beyond the repub- 
 
 McKinley and r /-\ ir o 
 
 Cuba lies frontiers. On May 17, 1897, 
 
 however, the tidings of increasing 
 distress in Cuba, and Consul-General Lee s report 
 that from six hundred to eight hundred American 
 citizens were among the destitute, led him to send 
 to Congress, which he had called together in special 
 session, a message asking for an appropriation of 
 fifty thousand dollars for their relief. The money 
 was voted, not without some delay in the House, 
 caused by an attempt to attach to the grant a recog 
 nition of the insurgents. 
 
 Seven months later (December 24, 1897), the 
 President issued a public appeal for charity to 
 Cuba s famine-stricken people. There was a gen 
 erous response, about two hundred thousand dollars 
 being speedily contributed. The Red Cross So 
 ciety gave valuable aid, and its president, Miss 
 Clara Barton, went to Havana to distribute the 
 supplies, which Captain-General Blanco admitted 
 free of duty, and which proved at least a temporary 
 assistance to thousands of sufferers until the coming 
 of w#r ended the relief work. 
 
 Meanwhile the Senate (May 20, 1897), by forty- 
 one votes to fourteen, passed a joint resolution ac- 
 / cording belligerent rights to " the government pro 
 claimed and for some time maintained by force of 
 arms by the people of Cuba."; This was done in 
 spite of the well-understood objections to such a 
 recognition. It was not warranted by the known 
 status of the rebellion ; it might have encouraged 
 the insurgents, but it would have been of much 
 greater practical aid to Spain, by giving her ships 
 the right of searching neutral vessels on the high 
 seas ; it would have tied the hands of the United 
 States Government in its later dealings with the 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 6l 
 
 island, and it would have precluded all claims from 
 American citizens for damages caused by the war. 
 The Senate s declaration, however, was entirely 
 fruitless, fit never came before the House, as tX 
 Speaker Reed, who was no less strong! v opposed to 
 hasty intervention than was the President] had 
 named no committees for the special session, and 
 there was no medium for receiving and transmit- 
 tinga joint resolution. 
 
 (Throughout this critical period of American re 
 lations with Spain, constant friction was caused by 
 
 the activity of Cuban agents and 
 ^il^tfon 10 " s y m P atmzers in tne United States, by 
 1896 1897 expeditions carrying arms to the in- . / \ 
 
 surgents, and by questions of the ^ 
 rights of American citizens involved in the strug 
 gle all of which had been such sinister factors in 
 the situation during the Ten Years War, and were 
 certain to remain so while Spanish sovereignty in 
 Cuba should lasO The list of individuals on whose 
 behalf the Washington Government was called 
 upon to intervene was a long one, the most im 
 portant cases being those of Julio Sanguilly, who 
 was liberated at its request by the Spanish Govern 
 ment ; of Ricardo Ruiz, whose death in prison was 
 never satisfactorily explained ; and of Alfredo La- 
 borde and four others, captured on the filibustering 
 schooner Competitor. These names will suggest 
 what was undoubtedly the case that American 
 citizenship was acquired, or claimed, by many Cu 
 bans with the deliberate intention of invoking its 
 protection in case of conflict with the Spanish au 
 thorities ; but the Federal Government was none 
 the less bound to defend their rights, and it did so 
 in one instance, that of the Competitor prisoners, 
 to the point of threatening the most serious conse 
 quences had not their death sentence been re 
 scinded. 
 
 On their side, the United States authorities ex- 
 
62 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 ercised great vigilance in the fulfilment of neutral 
 obligations and the suppression of filibustering. 
 On the 30th of July, 1896, President Cleveland 
 issued a special and very stringent proclamation 
 against such illegal attempts " to make war upon a 
 foreign country." Several arrests were made, in 
 American ports and on the seas, and a diligent 
 patrol was maintained by revenue cutters and naval 
 vessels, at a cost said to amount to rfearly a million 
 dollars annually; yet many expeditions succeeded 
 in reaching Cuba, and the Spaniards found it im 
 possible to believe that the United States was not 
 deliberately giving aid and comfort to the rebels. 
 
 The assassination of the Spanish premier, Cano- 
 
 vas del Castillo, on the 8th of August, 1897, again 
 
 delayed action from Washington 
 
 The recall of upon the Cuban question ; and when, 
 
 Weyler, Oct. 6. T ,1 , r A 
 
 I8g7> after the stopgap ministry of Azcar- 
 
 raga, Sagasta, leader of the Liberal 
 party at Madrid, came into power, the new Govern 
 ment made a genuine effort to forestall the demands 
 which the United States, in the name of civiliza 
 tion, must inevitably sooner or later formulate. At 
 a meeting held on the 6th of October the Spanish 
 cabinet decided upon the recall of Captain-General 
 Weyler, and announced a new constitution for 
 Cuba, giving the island a local parliament of its 
 own, and a fairly liberal measure of autonomy. In 
 timations were made at Washington that Sagasta s 
 ministry would be willing to negotiate a treaty 
 abolishing the differential duties which had given 
 Spanish manufacturers a practical monopoly of the 
 Cuban market a system very unfair to Cuba and 
 detrimental to American commercial interests. To 
 succeed Weyler, General Blanco was sent to Ha 
 vana, where his earliest official actions were a form 
 al revocation of his predecessor s reconcentration 
 order, a proclamation offering amnesty to all po 
 litical offenders, and the release of the Competitor 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 63 
 
 prisoners, whom Weyler had held for eighteen 
 months. 
 
 rvVhen Congress met, in December, President 
 McKinley s message reviewed the Cuban question 
 at some length. With regard to the demand for a 
 recognition of the insurgents, either as a govern 
 ment or as belligerents, the President recited Gen 
 eral Grant s arguments against such a step, and re- ; 
 peated the conclusion that it was " now unwise, 
 and therefore inadmissible," adding a sentence 
 which reads a little curiously in the light of later 
 events : 
 
 I speak not of forcible annexation, for that can not be 
 thought of. That, by our code of morality, would be 
 criminal aggressionT? 
 
 Continuing, the message hailed Spain s new 
 policy with somewhat optimistic gratification : 
 
 That the Government of Sagasta has entered upon a 
 course from which recession with honour is impossible 
 can hardly be questioned; that in the few weeks it has 
 existed it has made earnest of the sincerity of its profes 
 sions is undeniable. I shall not impugn its sincerity, nor 
 should impatience be suffered to embarrass it in the task 
 it has undertaken. It is honestly due to Spain, and to 
 our friendly relations with Spain, that she should be 
 given a reasonable chance to realize her expectations, and 
 to prove the asserted efficacy of the new order of things 
 to which she stands irrevocably committed. She has re 
 called the commander whose brutal orders inflamed the 
 American mind and shocked the civilized world. She has 
 modified the horrible order of concentration, and has un 
 dertaken to care for the helpless and permit those who de 
 sire to resume the cultivation of their fields to do so, and 
 assures them the protection of the Spanish Government 
 in their lawful occupations. Not a single American citi 
 zen is now in arrest or confinement in Cuba, of whom this 
 Government has any knowledge. 
 
 Had Sagasta s move been made two years 
 earlier, it is possible, though not probable, that it 
 might have succeeded ; but now it came far too 
 late. Indeed, by a curious train of events, and 
 
64 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 with the ill luck that seems to be the historical at 
 tendant of weakness and unwisdom, it was Spain s 
 most earnest attempt at conciliation that brought 
 about the catastrophe which was to lose her the 
 remnant of her empire in the new world. 
 
 It speedily became clear that the offer of auton 
 omy was an absolute failure. Years before there 
 had been an organized political party 
 
 The failure of f autonomists in Cuba but ft had 
 
 autonomy. . / 
 
 practically ceased to exist. Enough 
 of its adherents could not be found to fill the offices 
 in which the Spanish Government now desired their 
 services.* There \vas no possibility of any com 
 promise with the insurgents the single exception 
 reported being the surrender of Juan Masso, in the 
 province of Santiago, with one hundred and ten 
 men. Colonel Joaquin Ruiz, of the Spanish army, 
 commissioned by Blanco to treat with the rebel 
 leader Aranguren, was seized and shot, in spite of 
 his flag of truce a brutal murder that was excused 
 as an " execution " under the insurgents decree 
 against all dealings with the enemy. 
 
 On the other hand, the new constitution pro 
 voked furious opposition from the Peninsular party 
 in Cuba. There were violent outbreaks in Havana, 
 and on January 12, 1898, a mob led by officers of the 
 Spanish garrison attacked the offices of three au 
 tonomist newspapers the Diario de la Marina, the 
 Discusion, and the Reconcentrado. Soldiers sent 
 to restore order fraternized with the rioters, and 
 though little damage was done there was great ex- 
 
 * Consul Hyatt reported from Santiago, January 8, 1898: "That 
 the Spanish Government has made a most energetic and thorough 
 campaign to make autonomy successful there is no room for doubt. . . . 
 Wholesale removals of Spanish officers from civil positions are made 
 by sweeping orders, with instructions to fill their places with Cuban 
 autonomists. About a week since there came an order dismissing 
 every employee of the custom house in this city, to take effect as soon 
 as proper autonomists could be found to fill their places. As yet only 
 two have been named ths collector and first deputy." 
 
FROM THE VIRGINIUS TO THE MAINE 65 
 
 citemcnt. The crowds shouted threats against 
 Blanco, and there was alarm among the Americans 
 in the city. On the following day Consul-General 
 Lee telegraphed to Washington : 
 
 Uncertainty exists whether he [Blanco] can control 
 the situation. If demonstrated he can not maintain order, 
 preserve life, and keep the peace, or if Americans and their 
 interests are in danger, ships must be sent, and to that 
 end should be prepared to move promptly. 
 
 For a month the second-class battleship Maine 
 had been lying at Key West, with orders to answer 
 any call that might come from General Lee. She 
 was now instructed to go at once to Havana, her 
 mission being announced as a " friendly naval visit." 
 General Lee was informed of her despatch on Janu 
 ary 24th, and at once replied : 
 
 Advise visit be postponed six or seven days, to give 
 last excitement more time to disappear. 
 
 Secretary Day s immediate answer was: 
 Maine has been ordered. 
 
 And on the following morning, January 25, 
 1898, at eleven o clock, the white battle ship, flying 
 the Stars and Stripes, exchanged salutes with the 
 Spanish batteries and steamed into the harbour, 
 where so terrible a fate awaited her. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE COMING OF WAR 
 
 WHILE the Maine lay in Havana harbour the 
 s tension of the situation was greatly increased by an 
 incident which at another time might have pos 
 sessed little significance! On February 9, 1898, 
 there was published a letter written by Senor 
 Dupuy de Lome, the Spanish minister to the 
 United States, whose tactfulness and influential per 
 sonal friendships had made him a valuable agent 
 for his country at Washington. It was a private 
 letter to Senor Jose Canalejas, the editor of a Mad 
 rid newspaper, the Heraldo, who had recently 
 visited America and had gone thence to Cuba, and 
 it had come into the hands of Cuban sympathizers, 
 presumably, through theft in the Havana post 
 office. It was an astounding indiscretion on the 
 part of a man regarded as_an accomplished and ex 
 perienced diplomatist, fit condemned Sagasta s 
 policy of attempted conciliation as " a loss of time 
 and a step in the wrong direction," and went on to 
 record the writer s private opinion of President 
 McKinley and his statesmanship : 
 
 The message has undeceived the insurgents, who ex 
 pected something different, and has paralyzed the action 
 of Congress, but I consider it bad. Besides the natural 
 and inevitable coarseness with which it repeats what the 
 press and public opinion in Spain has said of Weyler, it 
 shows once more what McKinley is weak and catering 
 to the mob, and moreover a small politician \polto\ccahr9\ 
 66 
 
THE COMING OF WAR 
 
 6 7 
 
 who wishes to leave a door open and to stand well with 
 the jingoes of his party .""] 
 
 Self-respect compelled the Administration to 
 take action, but the Spanish Government, instead of 
 recalling the offending minister, allowed him to re 
 sign, appointing Senor Luis Pplo y Bernabe to 
 take his place at Washington. ^The incident had a 
 very unfortunate effect upon public feeling in the 
 United States."? If the suave and courtly Dupuy de 
 Lome in private held this cynical estimate of the 
 men with whom he had been dealing, what Spanish 
 professions could be trusted? /No wonder that 
 there was an instant cry of treachery a few days 
 later, when news came of the fearful tragedy of 
 February I5th77 
 
 The Maine had been at Havana for three weeks, 
 lying at the buoy assigned her by the authorities of 
 the port. The usual formal courtesies 
 The Maine were exchanged between her corn- 
 
 destroyed, Feb. t /* A /"-i 1 T-\ r" t_ 
 
 15,1898. mancler, Captain Charles D. Sigsbee, 
 
 and the local officials. Her errand was 
 announced as a friendly visit, and her presence 
 evoked practically no demonstration of hostility 
 the only exceptions being a few derisive calls from a 
 passing ferryboat crowded with people returning 
 from the bullfight at Regla, and a circular, copies of 
 which were sent to Sigsbee, denouncing the cochinos 
 yankces (Yankee pigs) and their podrida escuadra 
 (rotten squadron). As was natural and proper, the 
 captain had enjoined an extra degree of watchful 
 ness upon all those responsible for the care of the 
 ship, but there was no alarm of any sort until 
 twenty minutes to ten o clock on the night of Tues 
 day, February I5th. Then, without a moment s 
 warning, from deep down in the bowels of the ves 
 sel there came the shock and roar of a tremendous 
 explosion or rather of two explosions with a brief 
 but distinct interval instantly transforming the en 
 tire forward part of the Maine into a shattered 
 
68 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 wreck, scattering debris over other vessels an 
 chored in the harbour, and breaking windows and 
 extinguishing lights along the water front of 
 the city. 
 
 Captain Sigsbee was sitting in his cabin writing 
 a letter when the upheaval came. As he reached 
 the door an orderly, from whom no explosion could 
 shock the habit of discipline, stumbled against him 
 in the darkness the ship s lights had gone out 
 and reported that the Maine had been blown 
 up. The captain ran on deck and ordered that 
 the magazines should be flooded ; but the maga 
 zines, partly exploded, were already filled by the 
 water that rushed through the rent frame of the 
 vessel. 
 
 The Maine was blazing fiercely and sinking fast. 
 In a few minutes* she had settled down in about 
 thirty feet of water, her upper works, a mass of 
 wreckage, remaining above the surface, and con 
 tinuing to burn, with occasional explosions of am 
 munition, for four hours more. Three of her boats, 
 which hung aft, were intact, and were launched 
 before she sank; and in these, and in boats from 
 two neighbouring vessels the Spanish cruiser 
 Alfonso XII and the American steamer City of 
 Washington, of the Ward line the survivors were 
 carried ashore. Most of the crew, whose quarters 
 were directly above the seat of the explosion, were 
 instantly killed, or were drowned with the sinking 
 ship, the total loss being two hundred and sixty 
 men, including two officers, Lieutenant Jenkins 
 and Engineer Merritt. A third officer, Lieutenant 
 Blandin, died some months later from causes at 
 tributed to the shock of the disaster. 
 
 To his brief announcement of the loss of his 
 ship, cabled as soon as he went ashore, Captain 
 Sigsbee added the sentence : 
 
 Public opinion should be suspended until further 
 proof. 
 
THE COMING OF WAR fig 
 
 I The circumstances were such that a suspension 
 of the popular judgment was impossible. The 
 case was one that decided itself. The 
 5im P le fact that an American man-of- 
 war had gone to a Spanish port, and 
 there, moored in the spot assigned by Spanish 
 officials, had been destroyed by a nocturnal explo 
 sion, led inevitably to one conclusion. / 
 
 At another time it might have been possible to 
 consider, as was urged by a technical journal,* 
 that " the combination of steam, electricity, high 
 explosives, and coal that may become self-igniting, 
 is not a happy one, and the most exact precau 
 tions against accidents may fail at times, as they 
 have in the case of other vessels." There had been 
 narrow escapes from disastrous explosions on at 
 least three others of the new American steel war 
 ships, due to the escape, in the coal bunkers, of the 
 gas that causes " fire-damp " explosions in mines a 
 gas which, innocuous in the open air, is a very 
 dangerous explosive when it accumulates in a con 
 fined space. About two years before, while she was 
 stationed at Key West, some of the Cincinnati s 
 coal was fired by spontaneous combustion, and the 
 steel bulkhead which just as in the Maine sepa 
 rated the bunker from a magazine full of projectiles 
 and ammunition became red hot. The imminent 
 peril was revealed only by a tiny curl of smoke, and 
 the magazine was flooded in time to prevent dis 
 aster, although some of the shells it contained had 
 actually been charred by the heat. Among other 
 cases cited was that of the British man-of-war 
 Dotterel, destroyed in the Straits of Magellan, in 
 1 8?3, by an explosion which remained a mystery 
 until it was traced to the paint room, where a dan 
 gerous inflammable gas had generated. 
 ) But no technical plea of the possibility of acci- 
 
 * The Army and Navy Journal, February 19, 1898. 
 
 irNTVERSlTY 
 
70 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 dent to the Maine could avail against the over 
 whelming suspicion nay, the practical certainty 
 engendered by the broad facts of the case. She had 
 been destroyed, by deliberate and fiendish treach 
 ery, and her destroyers must be brought to account. 
 That was the verdict rendered by a public opinion 
 so strong, so unanimous, so earnest, that no official 
 authority, however anxious to avoid a conflict so 
 long as an honourable way of escaping it was to be 
 found, could restrain the voice of national indigna 
 tion^ 
 
 - The sinking of the Maine meant war between 
 the United States and Spain? That soon became 
 evident even to those who least desired hostilities. 
 But war was not to be proclaimed without proper 
 formalities, and these could not proceed with undig 
 nified haste. They might have moved faster had 
 the great republic s armed forces been better pre 
 pared. The game was in its hands, but it was not 
 ready to play the trump card that its vast and un 
 doubted superiority of strength gave it. Every 
 day s delay enabled it to organize that strength 
 for action, and much effective work was accom 
 plished during those eight weeks of suspense, when 
 impatient critics were denouncing the Administra 
 tion for its supposedly timid and half-hearted policy. 
 The President s first step was the natural and 
 regular one of appointing a commission of inquiry 
 to make a formal report on the disaster. Four 
 naval officers of ability and experience were se 
 lected Captain Sampson, Captain Chadwick, 
 Lieutenant-Commander Marix, and Lieutenant- 
 Commander Potter. Their sessions began in Ha 
 vana harbour, on board the lighthouse tender 
 Mangrove, which brought them from Key West, 
 on the 2 ist of February. Divers and wrecking 
 apparatus had already been sent from the United 
 States, but it was soon determined that the Maine 
 could not be raised. About a hundred of her dead 
 
THE COMING OF WAR ^j 
 
 were never recovered from the wreck ; the rest were 
 buried in the Cristobal Colon cemetery, the funeral 
 (February I7th) of those first found being attended 
 by a great demonstration of public sympathy. 
 
 The commission of inquiry sat for twenty-three 
 days in Havana harbour and at Key West, closely 
 following the work of the divers, and 
 examining officers and men of the 
 Maine and a few others who had been 
 near the scene of the disaster. No Spanish witnesses 
 were summoned, and suggestions for a joint inquiry 
 were declined ; but no objection was made to the in 
 spection of the wreck by Havana divers, whose evi 
 dence was taken by a Spanish board appointed on 
 the night of the explosion. During the inquiry the 
 Montgomery, which had been ordered to Cuban 
 waters with the Maine, arrived at Havana from 
 Matanzas (March pth). The Spanish cruiser Viz- 
 caya entered the harbour a few days earlier. To 
 keep up the polite fiction of the Maine s " friend 
 ly visit " to Havana, the Vizcaya had been de 
 spatched to New York, to return the courtesy. She 
 had arrived there in time to hear of the destruc 
 tion of the American vessel (February i8th), and 
 had spent a week in the port, watchfully guarded 
 by the metropolitan police, before sailing for Ha 
 vana, where she was joined on March 5th by her 
 sister ship, the Almirante Oquendo doomed to 
 share her fate in Sampson s marine graveyard oft 
 Santiago. 
 
 A\vaited with intense eagerness by Congress 
 and the country at large, the commission s report 
 signed by Captain Sampson as president and Lieu 
 tenant-Commander Marix as judge advocate was 
 delivered to the President on the 2ist of March, 
 but was not transmitted to Congress until the 28th. 
 The message that accompanied it was brief, formal, 
 and non-committal, reciting the facts ascertained by 
 the court, and concluding : 
 
72 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 I have directed that the finding of the court of inquiry 
 and the views of this Government thereon be communi 
 cated to the Government of her Majesty the Queen Re 
 gent, and I do not permit myself to doubt that the sense 
 of justice of the Spanish nation will dictate a course of 
 action suggested by honour and the friendly relations of 
 the two Governments. 
 
 It will be the duty of the Executive to advise Congress 
 of the result, and in the meantime deliberate consideration 
 is invoked. 
 
 This W 7 as highly unsatisfactory to that portion 
 of the American public which retains its old-time 
 appetite for flamboyant oratory. The 
 country s lack of preparation for 
 hostilities was not generally appre 
 ciated, ev<en by those who should have under 
 stood it ; and fiery spirits in Congress and in 
 journalism continued^ to talk war with the " light 
 heart " with which Emile Ollivier, in 1870, sent 
 the unready legions of France against the per 
 fectly organized armies of Germany. " I do not 
 think," declared a senator, on the 28th of March 
 and his easy confidence was by no means excep 
 tional " that any war measure will be necessary, 
 except to blockade two or three Cuban ports and 
 compel their capitulation."/ The President s utter 
 ances and actions were in a different spirit. As be 
 fitted his vastly greater responsibilities as the official 
 head of the nation, he moved with a dignified 
 deliberation ; as commander-in-chief of the armed 
 forces of the United States he was preparing for 
 the decisive moment with the whole energies and 
 resources of the Government. 
 
 It is a familiar fact that the United States was 
 not ready for war. It was afterward stated by the 
 American minister to Spain * that on February 
 1 8th, three days after the destruction of the Maine, 
 he was warned, by departments other than the State 
 
 * General Woodford s speech at the Army and Navy Club in New 
 York, January 28, 1899. 
 
THE COMING OF WAR 
 
 73 
 
 Department, to defer decisive action as long as pos 
 sible, because " there were not on American ships 
 or in the ordnance depots of the United States two 
 rounds of powder per gun." He also spoke of the 
 hasty despatch of a sealed express train across the 
 continent, loaded with ammunition which the Bal 
 timore carried to Dewey, at Hong-Kong, in the 
 nick of time. As a matter of fact, if such infor 
 mation was sent to General Woodford, it was in 
 correct. Such a shortage could exist only by a 
 flagrant and inexcusable neglect of the standing 
 regulations of the Navy Department, which prescribe 
 forty rounds per gun as the minimum supply that 
 every war ship must maintain while at sea ; and the 
 Bureau of Ordnance emphatically denied * that any 
 American vessel carried less than that allowance. 
 Ammunition had been shipped to the Asiatic sta 
 tion on the Concord, which left San Francisco on 
 January 8th, and on the Mohican, which left on 
 March nth and met the Baltimore at Honolulu. 
 The only trainload sent West was one made up at 
 Harrisburg on June 3Oth, to replenish the supply 
 at the Mare Island navy yard. 
 
 But though it was by no means entirely unready 
 for service, the American navy was an untried 
 weapon. Some of its ships had never been under 
 forced draft since their first trial, f Owing to the 
 refusal of Congress to vote the necessary money in 
 time, it had no guns ready to arm the merchant 
 vessels purchased as auxiliaries. 
 
 With a mere handful of standing army, and with 
 very inadequate coast defences, there was much to 
 do at the eleventh hour, and both War and Navy 
 Departments the latter, as appeared in the light 
 of later revelations, working with the greater fore 
 sight and efficiency were busily making ready for 
 
 * Statement of Captain O Neill, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, 
 January 30, 1899. 
 
 t Chief Engineer Melville s report for 1898. 
 
74 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 hostilities. Enlistments were hastened, the navy 
 yards and arsenals toiled day and night, guns and 
 ammunition were hurried to strategic points, orders 
 were placed for all kinds of military material. Had 
 all this, which of course was done as quietly as pos 
 sible, been more widely known at the time, it 
 might have silenced the popular impatience. 
 
 O n the 2th of March, as the result of a confer 
 ence at the White House the most important 
 participants being Secretaries Day and Long, 
 Senator Hale, chairman of the Senate Committee 
 on Naval Affairs, and Representative Dingley, 
 chairman of the House Committee on Ways and 
 Means /Representative Cannon introduced a 
 briefly worded bill appropriating fifty million dol- 
 lars " for the national defence, and for each and 
 every purpose connected therewith, to be expended 
 at the discretion of the President. J More might 
 have been voted, for the Treasury had an avail 
 able cash balance of more than two hundred mil 
 lion dollars. Vine appropriation was passed by 
 the House, on the 8th, by a vote of three hun- 
 dred and eleven to none a signal demon- 
 stration of the fact that all political parties were 
 united in support of a firm policy and by the 
 Senate, on the Qth, without change or debate?"? 
 This placed ample funds at the disposal of the War 
 and Navy Departments, and, besides employing 
 almost all the available industrial forces at home, a 
 trusted agent, Commander Brownson, was imme 
 diately sent to Europe to purchase anything that 
 might be in the market. 
 
 Another valuable preparatory measure was the 
 Hawley bill, passed by the Senate on the 22d of 
 February, and approved by the House on the /th 
 of March, adding to the army two regiments of 
 artillery, urgently needed to man the coast defences. 
 
 A bill providing for a much larger increase, re 
 organizing the regular forces and augmenting them 
 
THE COMING OF WAR 
 
 75 
 
 to one hundred and four thousand six hundred 
 men four times their existing number failed of 
 Failure of the P assa g^> meeting with an opposition 
 H un^ui! ^ at m ight seem unaccountable were 
 
 it not of a piece with the historical 
 policy of Congress. Ever since the ending of the 
 Revolutionary War, when it reduced the Conti 
 nental Army to eighty men, and refused to send 
 garrisons to the frontier posts surrendered by the 
 British,* the national legislature has shown an ex 
 traordinary jealousy of a standing force. The 
 statesmen of 1784 may be excused for fearing that 
 such a body might one day subvert their hardly 
 won popular liberties, as it had done in ancient 
 Rome ; but in 1898 prudence seems to have degen 
 erated into prejudice. In the debate upon the Hull 
 bill so named after the chairman of the Com 
 mittee on Military Affairs, who fathered it in the 
 House Representative Lewis, of Washington, is 
 reported as describing the regular army as consist 
 ing of " gilded military satraps on the one hand and 
 tasselled society sapheads on the other." Mr. Hep 
 burn, of Iowa, voiced the traditional sentiment of 
 Congress when he said, in the same debate 
 (April 6th) : 
 
 If the country enters upon war, we want that war to 
 be a popular one. To make it so, the patriots of the land 
 must be invited to take part in it, as they have done in 
 all previous wars. 
 
 " Ignorance and prejudice held high carnival," 
 Mr. Hull afterward said, and his description of the 
 debate is not an unjust one, " and the bill was de 
 feated by sheer force of the lung power of members 
 who have since confessed that they knew nothing 
 of the subject." f 
 
 * McMaster s History of the People of the United States, vol. i, 
 p. i 86. 
 
 t North American Review, April, 1899. "An army can be raised 
 in a day, and be drilled and disciplined in a month," Senator Foraker 
 6 
 
7 6 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Had the Hull bill been passed, the United States 
 would have had, even at the eleventh hour, a regu 
 lar army large enough to conquer the Spanish 
 colonies, while the militia could have been relied 
 on for service as a home guard. The sufferings of 
 the volunteers in the field and in camp would have 
 been minimized or avoided, and the nation would 
 have escaped most of the unpleasant developments 
 that tarnished the glory of its victory. If the les 
 sons of the war with Spain are heeded, as those 
 of previous wars have not been, it will have an 
 adequate force of trained regulars for the next 
 emergency, instead of depending upon a hasty 
 " invitation " to the " patriots of the land." 
 
 The proceedings of the Maine commission had 
 
 been carefully kept from the public until the report 
 
 was published on the 28th of March. 
 
 Report of the j t was ano ther comparatively brief 
 
 Maine commis- , r , , . L . . 
 
 sioni and formal document, giving a gen 
 
 eral description of the condition and 
 discipline of the ship and crew previous to the ex 
 plosion, a technical summary of the injuries she had 
 received, and the following momentous verdict : 
 
 The court finds that the loss of the Maine was not in 
 any respect due to fault or negligence on the part of any 
 of the officers or members of the crew of said vessel, 
 x / In the opinion of the court the Maine was destroyed 
 by the explosion of a submarine mine, which caused the 
 partial explosion of two or more of her forward maga 
 zines. 
 
 The court has been unable to obtain evidence fixing 
 the responsibility for the destruction of the Maine upon 
 any person or persons. / 
 
 The commission had been able to gather com 
 paratively little definite and positive evidence; and 
 no ray of light has since been thrown upon the sub 
 ject. Only one of the Maine survivors was actually 
 
 said in an article published in Munsey s Magazine, December, 1897, and 
 that extraordinary statement may be taken as the keynote of the mili 
 tary policy of Congress. 
 
THE COMING OF WAR 
 
 77 
 
 an eye-witness of the explosion Marine William 
 Anthony, the orderly who reported it to Captain 
 Sigsbee. He testified that he saw " an immense 
 shoot of flame " and " debris going up with it," 
 but did not notice any column of water, such as 
 might have been expected to be thrown into the 
 air by a submarine mine. Captain Teasdale, of the 
 British bark Deva, anchored near the destroyed 
 battleship, " saw no wave after the explosion "- 
 another negative piece of testimony. On the other 
 hand, the divers whose work was accomplished 
 under great difficulties, owing to the shattered 
 condition of the wreck and its rapid settling in the 
 soft bottom of the harbour testified positively to 
 finding a hole in the mud under the Maine s bow, 
 and some of her bottom plates bent inward and 
 thrust upward; and this testimony, no doubt, was 
 conclusive with the board of inquiry. One diver 
 spoke of wires and pieces of plate, not belonging 
 to the ship, lying near her in the mud not a very 
 suspicious circumstance in so frequented a harbour. 
 A large piece of cement found on the deck of the 
 City of Washington after the explosion, and at first 
 supposed to have come from the Maine s bottom 
 which would have been striking evidence was 
 afterward identified as part of the floor of a wash 
 room on the berth deck. 
 
 The proceedings of the Spanish board of in 
 quiry were belittled by the American correspond 
 ents in Havana, but they resulted in a voluminous 
 report it fills more than seventy pages as a Con 
 gressional document ^-which at least made a dis 
 play of careful examination of such slight evidence 
 as was procurable. The Spanish divers flatly con 
 tradicted the American divers. Witnesses from the 
 Alfonso XII, moored only about a hundred and 
 fifty yards from the Maine, and from the Legazpi, 
 which lay at twice that distance, testified that there 
 was no disturbance of the water, as from the 
 
78 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 explosion of a mine. One of these witnesses 
 was Ensign Guillermo Farragut, said to be nearly 
 connected by blood with the famous Ameri 
 can admiral, whose father was a Spaniard, a native 
 of the island of Minorca. There had been an 
 official search of the harbour early in the morning 
 after the disaster, and no dead fish had been found 
 a point on which the Spaniards laid much stress, 
 but which was, at best, negative and inconclusive. 
 Their conclusion, of course, was that the catas 
 trophe was due to internal causes ; and this was 
 confirmed by the statement, officially made through 
 the Spanish legation at Washington, that no mines 
 had ever been placed in the harbour of Havana. 
 It is pointed out by Captain Sigsbee * that no 
 demonstration of the truth of this statement was 
 made or suggested. On the other hand, in an in 
 terview published in the Madrid Heraldo (April 6, 
 1898), Admiral Beranger, Secretary of the Navy 
 under Canovas, declared that he had shipped one 
 hundred and ninety electrical and contact torpedoes 
 to Cuba, and arranged for their installation at Ha 
 vana, Cienfuegos, Santiago, and Nuevitas. 
 
 There is much about the destruction of the 
 Maine that still remains unexplained. The Span 
 iards have only themselves to blame if their official 
 reports are disbelieved and disregarded. The in 
 vestigation by the American naval officers was to a 
 certain extent an ex parte inquiry. Those who vir 
 tually stood before it as men accused of a frightful 
 crime the official authorities of Havana were 
 not and could not be represented by counsel. Had 
 they been so represented, it is at least conceivable 
 that the evidence on which the court based its find 
 ings might have been modified at material points. 
 Those findings suggest interesting and important 
 questions. A submarine mine powerful enough to 
 
 * The Maine, p. 188. 
 
THE COMING OF WAR 
 
 79 
 
 destroy a war ship is no ordinary article of com 
 merce. It costs hundreds, or even thousands, of 
 dollars ; it weighs several hundred pounds ; it is not 
 likely to be possessed or operated except with 
 official authority and by expert hands. Who set so 
 mighty an engine of destruction under the keel of 
 the Maine? Was it exploded there exploded with 
 such fatal precision, such a maximum of destruc- 
 tiveness by some accident of criminal careless 
 ness, or by the foulest act of deliberate treachery 
 that ever blotted the name of Spain? How was it 
 all accomplished without leaving behind any ap 
 parent trace of telltale evidence ? If no later revela 
 tions answer these questions, the loss of the Maine 
 will go down in history as one of the most ex 
 traordinary and mysterious events ever recorded. 
 
 Although the Government at Washington was 
 actively making ready for the foreseen event of 
 war, diplomatic dealings with Madrid 
 were not abandoned. On the 2 ;th 
 of March General Woodford, the 
 United States minister to Spain, was instructed to 
 submit a proposition for a six months armistice in 
 Cuba, to give time " for the negotiation of peace 
 with the good offices of the President " ; and to ask 
 for the immediate and final revocation of the order 
 of reconcentration. In reply, on the 3ist, Sagasta s 
 cabinet offered to intrust the preparation of peace 
 to the island s newly constituted parliament, which 
 was to convene on the 4th of May ; meanwhile, the 
 insurgents might ask the captain-general for an 
 armistice, to which the home Government would 
 raise no objection. As for the reconcentration sys 
 tem which, nominally ended by the decree of 
 November 10, 1897, had practically continued, 
 chiefly owing to the absolute helplessness both of 
 the refugees and of the local authorities Blanco at 
 once (March 30) issued a proclamation declaring it 
 abolished throughout the island, without any limita- 
 
go THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 tion or condition, and ordering all civil and mili 
 tary officials to assist the destitute in finding means 
 of livelihood. 
 
 Sagasta s counter proposal, it will be seen, was 
 carefully framed so as to avoid the humiliating ap 
 pearance of accepting American intervention. It 
 was largely, perhaps, in consequence of this exi 
 gency somewhat indefinite and dilatory ; yet in 
 conjunction with the grant of three million pesetas 
 for the relief of Cuban distress, voted a few days 
 before, and with the free field allowed to American 
 charitable effort, it certainly showed a conciliatory 
 disposition. It might have led to further negotia 
 tion but for the prevalent fatal distrust of Spanish 
 official sincerity. President McKinley, however, 
 regarded it as so disappointing that he let the mat 
 ter drop, and made no further pretence of amicable 
 dealing with Madrid. 
 
 The last interlude in the drama, before the Gov 
 ernment at Washington took the decisive and irrev 
 ocable step for which it was preparing, came on 
 the 7th of April, when the representatives of the 
 six great powers of Europe, headed by the senior 
 ambassador, Sir Julian Pauncefote, called at the 
 White House to present a joint note urging fur 
 ther negotiations for the maintenance of peace. 
 Whether undertaken at the request of Spain, or at 
 the suggestion of one of the powers, the proceed 
 ing which might have carried an unpleasant 
 meaning as a hint of possible intervention in the 
 coming struggle was treated as simply a humane 
 formality. The President s reply was perfectly 
 courteous, but showed no sign of stirring from the 
 policy upon which he had now fully determined, 
 and which he was to announce to the country and 
 to the world four days later : 
 
 The Government of the United States recognises the 
 good will which has prompted the friendly communica 
 tion of the representatives of Germany, Austria-Hungary, 
 
THE COMING OF WAR 8 1 
 
 France, Great Britain, Italy, and Russia, as set forth in 
 the address of your excellencies, and shares the .hope 
 therein expressed that the outcome of the situation in 
 Cuba may be the maintenance of peace between the 
 United States and Spain by affording the necessary guar 
 antees for the re-establishment of order in the island, so 
 terminating the chronic condition of disturbance there 
 which so deeply injures the interests and menaces the 
 tranquility of the American nation by the character and 
 consequences of the struggle thus kept up at our doors, 
 besides shocking its sentiment of humanity. 
 
 The Government of the United States appreciates the 
 humanitarian and disinterested character of the communi 
 cation now made on behalf of the powers named, and for 
 its part is confident that equal appreciation will be shown 
 for its own earnest and unselfish endeavours to fulfil a 
 duty to humanity by ending a situation the indefinite pro 
 longation of which has become insufferable. 
 
 The Spanish answer to the communication of 
 
 the verdict of the Maine board was a proposal " that 
 
 the facts be ascertained by an impar- 
 
 President ^ a j investigation by experts, whose 
 
 McKinley swar dedsion 5 {n accepts in advance . 
 message 
 
 April 11/1898. To this no reply was made. [On the 
 nth of April the President sent to 
 Congress his message reviewing the whole situa 
 tion, recapitulating the position of the Government 
 during Cuba s years of agony, and declaring that 
 at last the hour for intervention had struck. It was 
 an able and dignified state paper, and of such im 
 portance as defining the issues upon which America 
 stood ready to dcaw the sword, that it deserves ex 
 tended quotation. The opening paragraphs de 
 scribe the intolerable conditions existing so close to 
 the southern shores of the United States : 
 
 The present revolution is but the successor of other 
 similar insurrections which have occurred in Cuba against 
 the dominion of Spain, extending over a period of nearly 
 half a century, each of which, during its progress, has sub 
 jected the United States to great effort and expense in 
 enforcing its neutrality laws, caused enormous losses to 
 American trade and commerce, caused irritation, annoy 
 ance, and disturbance among our citizens, and, by the ex- 
 
82 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 ercise of cruel, barbarous, and uncivilized practices of war 
 fare, shocked the sensibilities and offended the humane 
 sympathies of our people. 
 
 Since the present revolution began, in February, 1895, 
 this country has seen the fertile domain at our threshold 
 ravaged by fire and sword in the course of a struggle un 
 equalled in the history of the island and rarely paralleled as 
 to the numbers of the combatants and the bitterness of the 
 contest by any revolution of modern times where a de 
 pendent people struggling to be free have been opposed 
 by the power of the sovereign state. 
 
 Our people have beheld a once prosperous community 
 reduced to comparative want, its lucrative commerce vir 
 tually paralyzed, its exceptional productiveness dimin 
 ished, its fields laid waste, its mills in ruins, and its people 
 perishing by tens of thousands from hunger and destitu 
 tion. We have found ourselves constrained, in the obser 
 vance of that strict neutrality which our laws enjoin, and 
 which the law of nations commands, to police our own 
 waters and watch our own seaports in prevention of any 
 unlawful act in aid of the Cubans. Our trade has suf 
 fered; the capital invested by our citizens in Cuba has 
 been largely lost, and the temper and forbearance of our 
 people have been so sorely tried as to beget a perilous 
 unrest among our own citizens which has inevitably 
 found its expression from time to time in the national 
 legislature. 
 
 The war in Cuba is of such a nature that short of sub 
 jugation or extermination a final military victory for 
 either side seems impracticable. The alternative lies in 
 the physical exhaustion of the one or the other party, or 
 perhaps of both a condition which in effect ended the 
 Ten Years War by the truce of Zanjon. The prospect of 
 such a protraction and conclusion of the present strife is 
 a contingency hardly to be contemplated with equanimity 
 by the civilized world, and least of all by the United 
 States, affected and injured as we are, deeply and inti 
 mately, by its very existence. 
 
 The President then recounted his offers of 
 friendly mediation, which Spain had uniformly de 
 clined, and discussed an alternative course which 
 had been so frequently urged in Congress the 
 recognition of the insurgents either as belligerents 
 or as an independent power. He pointed out that 
 in avoiding this step he had followed the prece 
 dents clearly established by Jackson and other chief 
 
THE COMING OF WAR 83 
 
 magistrates, and had continued the policy consist 
 ently maintained by his more recent predecessors 
 before whom the same question had come Presi 
 dents Grant and Cleveland ; and he added, in a pas 
 sage whose foresight will now be admitted : 
 
 Such recognition is not necessary in order to enable 
 the United States to intervene and pacify the island. To 
 commit this country now to the recognition of any par 
 ticular government in Cuba might subject us to embar 
 rassing conditions of international obligation toward the 
 organization so recognised. In case of intervention our 
 conduct would be subject to the approval or disapproval 
 of such government. We would be required to submit to 
 its direction and to assume to it the mere relation of a 
 friendly ally. 
 
 When it shall appear hereafter that there is within the 
 island a government capable of performing the duties and 
 discharging the functions of a separate nation, and having, 
 as a matter of fact, the proper forms and attributes of na 
 tionality, such government can be promptly and readily 
 recognised. 
 
 Recognition of the insurgents being inadmis- 
 sible and inexpedient, and mediation being de 
 clined, nothing but intervention remained/ That 
 the time would come for the United States to take 
 action, Spain had long ago been warned. President 
 Grant had declared that " the agency of others, 
 either by mediation or by intervention, seems to be 
 the only alternative which must sooner or later be 
 invoked." President Cleveland had repeated the 
 warning, in a passage already quoted, and JVtr. 
 McKinley s earlier messages had reiterated it. I And 
 as to the moral right to intervene : 
 
 The forcible intervention of the United States as a 
 neutral to stop the war, according to the large dictates of 
 humanity, and following many historical precedents where 
 neighbouring states have interfered to check the hopeless 
 sacrifices of life by internecine conflicts beyond their 
 borders, is justifiable on rational grounds. It involves 
 hostile constraint upon both the parties to the contest, as 
 well to enforce a truce as to guide the eventual settle 
 ment. 
 
84 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 The grounds for such intervention may be briefly sum 
 marized as follows: 
 
 First. In the cause of humanity and to put an end to 
 the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible mis 
 eries now existing there, and which the parties to the con 
 flict are either unable or unwilling- to stop or mitigate. 
 It is no answer to say this is all in another country, be 
 longing to another nation, and is therefore none of our 
 business. It is specially our duty, for it is right at our 
 door. 
 
 Second. We owe it to our citizens in Cuba to afford 
 them that protection and indemnity for life and property 
 which no government there can or will afford, and to that 
 end to terminate the conditions that deprive them of legal 
 protection. 
 
 Third. The right to intervene may be justified by the 
 very serious injury to the commerce, trade, and business 
 of our people, and by the wanton destruction of property 
 and devastation of the island. 
 
 Fourth, and which is of the utmost importance. The 
 present condition of affairs in Cuba is a constant menace 
 to our peace, and entails upon this Government an enor 
 mous expense. With such a conflict waged for years in 
 an island so near us, and with which our people have such 
 trade and business relations; where the lives and liberty 
 of our citizens are in constant danger and their property 
 destroyed and themselves ruined; where our trading ves 
 sels are liable to seizure and are seized at our very door 
 by war ships of a foreign nation; the expeditions of fili 
 bustering that we are powerless to prevent altogether, 
 and the irritating questions and entanglements thus aris 
 ing all these and others that I need not mention, with the 
 resulting strained relations, are a constant menace to our 
 peace, and compel us to keep on a semi war-footing with 
 a nation with which we are at peace. 
 
 All these sinister conditions had been patiently 
 endured until there came the crowning and intoler 
 able outrage of the destruction of an American 
 battle ship, while " reposing in the fancied security 
 of a friendly harbour."! 
 
 The naval court of inquiry, which, it is needless to 
 say, commands the unqualified confidence of the Govern 
 ment, was unanimous in its conclusion that the destruc 
 tion of the Maine was caused by an exterior explosion, 
 that of a submarine mine. It did not assume to place the 
 responsibility. That remains to be fixed. 
 
THE COMING OF WAR 85 
 
 In any event, the destruction of the Maine, by what 
 ever exterior cause, is a patent and impressive proof of a 
 state of things in Cuba that is intolerable. That condition 
 is thus shown to be such that the Spanish Government 
 can not assure safety and security to a vessel of the Ameri 
 can navy in the harbour of Havana on a mission of peace, 
 and rightfully there. 
 
 On all these convincing and carefully stated \f 
 premises the President based his concluding call for 
 immediate and decisive action"!") 
 
 The only hope of relief and repose from a condition 
 which can no longer be endured is the enforced pacification 
 of Cuba. In the name of humanity, in the name of civili 
 zation, in behalf of endangered American interests which 
 give us the right and the duty to speak and to act, the 
 war in Cuba must stop. 
 
 .... I ask the Congress to authorize and empower 
 the President to take measures to secure a full and final 
 termination of hostilities between the Government of 
 Spain and the people of Cuba, and to secure in the island 
 the establishment of a stable government, capable of 
 maintaining order and observing its international obliga 
 tions, insuring peace and tranquility and the security of 
 its citizens as well as our own, and to use the military and 
 naval forces of the United States as may be necessary for 
 these purposes. 
 
 The issue is now with the Congress. . . . Prepared to 
 execute every obligation imposed upon me by the Consti 
 tution and the law, I await your action. 
 
 I The message was received with a marked and 
 rather curious absence of enthusiasm?) The im 
 pression it made in Congress was one of disappoint 
 ment. In the House, where it was read to crowded 
 galleries, it was greeted with only two faint out 
 bursts of applause. /It was not regarded as a call * 
 to arms, though it certainly seems such as we read 
 it in the light of its consequences. 1 Many in Wash 
 ington had expected a direct and unqualified dec 
 laration of war with Spain jljtliey were dissatisfied 
 with a policy of intervention, seeing a possible loop 
 hole in the fact that no date for action was fixed. 
 It is difficult to see how they expected Spain to re- 
 
86 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 gard the announcement of forcible interposition 
 " hostile constraint upon both the parties to the 
 contest," the message said as anything else but a 
 virtual declaration of hostilities. 
 
 Two days later (April I3th) the Senate Com 
 mittee on Foreign Affairs, to which the President s 
 two messages had been referred, with 
 The Davis several resolutions, most of them in 
 
 AprTi a, 1898. favour of recognising the Cuban in 
 surgents, presented its report. This, 
 written by the chairman of the committee, Senator 
 Davis, was another document of such historical im 
 portance that its salient points must be cited here. 
 It first dealt with the situation created by the 
 destruction of the Maine, a catastrophe which 
 
 excited to an unprecedented degree the compassion and 
 resentment of the American people. 
 
 The event itself, though in a certain sense a distinct 
 occurrence, was linked with a series of precedent tran 
 sactions which can not in reason be disconnected from 
 it. It was the catastrophe of a unity of events extend 
 ing over more than three years of momentous his 
 tory. Standing by itself it would be, perhaps, merely 
 an ominous calamity; considered, as it must be, with 
 the events with which reason and common sense must 
 connect it, and with animus by Spain so plainly appar 
 ent that no one can even plausibly deny its existence, 
 it is merely one reason for the conclusion to which the in 
 vestigating mind must come in considering the entire sub 
 ject of the relations of the United States with that Gov 
 ernment. 
 
 Coming, then, to the policy proper in these un 
 toward circumstances, the report took issue with 
 the President s opposition to any recognition of the 
 insurgents, and defended the constant moves all 
 of them fruitless that Congress had made in this 
 direction : 
 
 The United States ought at once to recognise the in 
 dependence of the people of Cuba. . . . 
 
 It is believed that recognition of the belligerency of 
 the insurgents in Cuba, if it had been given seasonably, 
 
THE COMING OF WAR g/ 
 
 when it was suggested by concurrent resolutions to that 
 effect passed by Congress, would have insured the speedy 
 termination of the war without involving the United 
 States in the contest. 
 
 The recognition of the independence of the people of 
 Cuba is justified and demanded by the highest considera 
 tions of duty, right, and policy. 
 
 This very positive assertion was supported by a 
 description of the " Cuban Republic " and its sup 
 posed established control of the eastern half of the 
 island. 
 
 The insurgents hold the eastern portion of the island, 
 to the practical exclusion of Spain. This possession ex 
 tends over one body of territory comprising fully one 
 half of the area of Cuba. 
 
 .... The insurgents comprise in the eastern half 
 nearly one third of the population of the island. That 
 third of the population pays taxes to them, serves in their 
 armies, and in every way supports and is loyal to them. 
 
 The cause of Spain has continually grown weaker, 
 and that of the insurgents has grown stronger. The 
 former is making no substantial effort for the recovery of 
 these lost provinces. Their people are secure from in 
 vasion and cruel administration. Spain has never been 
 able to subject them to her unprecedented and murderous 
 policy of concentration and extermination. 
 
 Her control over the western portion of the island is 
 dominance over a desolation which she herself has cre 
 ated. Even there she controls only the territory occupied 
 by her cantonments and camps. 
 
 This description accorded with the prevalent 
 impression of the existing state of affairs in Cuba, 
 but it was quite at variance with the facts given 
 in the reports quoted on an earlier page,* and 
 with the conditions which our forces found con 
 fronting them when the war began. The Presi 
 dent s view was, as has been said before, the 
 better informed one. It was strange that the 
 Senate committee should speak of the eastern 
 provinces as having escaped the horrors of the 
 war when the American consular agents were 
 
 * Page 54. 
 
88 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 giving such frightful pictures of their sufferings 
 sufferings far more severe than the distress of the 
 western provinces, serious as that was. " I do not 
 believe," Consul Hyatt wrote from Santiago, Feb 
 ruary i, 1898, " that the western continent has 
 ever witnessed death by starvation equal to that 
 which now exists in eastern Cuba." 
 
 The plea for recognition of the insurgents was 
 little more than a thrashing of old straw. The re 
 port touched a more vital point in its justification of 
 intervention by sufficient precedents, and by the 
 opinions of authorities on international law. It 
 pointed out that the great political principles which 
 guide national policies in the old world and in the 
 new the " balance of power " in Europe and the 
 Monroe Doctrine in America are distinct asser 
 tions of the right of intervention in certain contin 
 gencies. Under those principles, in 1878, united 
 Europe intervened between Turkey and Russia 
 which latter power had itself forcibly intervened in 
 Turkey to put a stop to flagrant misgovernment 
 and in 1867 the United States, " by threat and show 
 of force " compelled France to evacuate Mexico. 
 Egypt, Crete, and Greece have furnished further 
 instances in point. 
 
 After a final summary of the injuries suffered by 
 American interests, already stated in the Presi 
 dent s message, Senator Davis s report concluded 
 by submitting the following resolution : 
 
 Whereas, The abhorrent conditions which have existed 
 for more than three years in the island of Cuba, so near 
 our own borders, have shocked the moral sense of the 
 people of the United States, have been a disgrace to 
 Christian civilization, culminating, as they have, in the 
 destruction of a United States battle ship, with two hun 
 dred and sixty-six of its officers and crew,* while on a 
 friendly visit in the harbour of Havana, and can not longer 
 be endured, as has been set forth by the President of the 
 
 * This seems to have been a slight inaccuracy. The figures given 
 by the Navy Department are 260. 
 
THE COMING OF WAR 
 
 8 9 
 
 United States in his message to Congress of April n, 
 1898, upon which the action of Congress was invited; 
 
 Therefore, Resolved by the Senate and House of Rep 
 resentatives of the United States of America in Congress 
 assembled: 
 
 First. That the people of the island of Cuba are, and 
 of right ought to be, free and independent. 
 
 Second. That it is the duty of the United States to de 
 mand, and the Government of the United States does 
 hereby demand, that the Government of Spain at once re 
 linquish its authority and government in the island of 
 Cuba, and withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba 
 and Cuban waters. 
 
 Third. That the President of the United States be,- 
 and hereby is, directed and empowered to use the entire 
 land and naval forces of the United States and to call 
 into the actual service of the United States the militia of 
 the several States to such an extent as may be necessary 
 to carry these resolutions into effect. 
 
 /A week of vehement debate followed in both 
 
 branches of Congress. The House was the quicker 
 
 to act, passing a resolution, framed 
 
 TheHousevotes b { ^ Foreign Affairs Committee, 
 
 for intervention, J , , - A M - .. 
 
 April 13, 1898. on the J 3th of April, after a dis 
 cussion in which the strained feel 
 ings of the hour found expression in passages of 
 violent disorder. The lie was passed between the 
 two sides of the House ; there was much shouting 
 and shaking of fists ; one Southern member hurled 
 a heavy book at an opponent, and another ran along 
 the top of a line of desks to plunge into the fray, 
 which was finally quieted by the sergeant-at-arnisT) 
 The resolution adopted amid such scenes of ex 
 citement was couched in terms that were certainly 
 sweeping and vigorous, lit declared that for three 
 years Spain had waged war upon the inhabitants of 
 Cuba without making any substantial progress to 
 ward suppressing the revolution ; that she had con 
 ducted her warfare in a manner contrary to the laws 
 of nations, had caused the death by starvation of 
 more than two hundred thousand non-combatants, 
 and had destroyed the lives and property of many 
 
gQ THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 American citizens ; that the long series of losses, in- 
 / juries, and murders for which Spain was responsible 
 had culminated in the destruction of the Maine]! 
 With all this as a preamble, it authorized the Presi 
 dent to intervene at once to stop the war in Cuba, 
 " with the purpose of establishing, by the free 
 action of the people thereof, a stable and inde 
 pendent government of their own." It passed the 
 House by 322 votes to 19, Representative Boutelle, 
 of Maine, being the most prominent member of the 
 minority. 
 
 fThe debate in the Senate was also marked by 
 
 . an excitement rare in that dignified body, and the 
 
 lie was passed when one speaker al- 
 
 The senate hided to another Senator s visit to 
 
 resolution, / i .1 a r 
 
 April 16, 1898. Cuba as the commissioner of a 
 sensational New York newspaper.! 
 It ended in the adoption of the resolution submitted 
 by the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, and al 
 ready quoted at the conclusion of Senator Davis s 
 report, with two notable amendments. One was the 
 addition suggested by a minority of the com 
 mittee, including Senators Foraker and Turpie 
 of the following words to the first paragraph : 
 
 And that the Government of the United States hereby 
 recognises the Republic of Cuba as the true and lawful 
 government of that island. 
 
 This was in direct opposition to the President s 
 message and reaffirmed the Congressional antago 
 nism to his policy of non-recognition. As Mr. Mc- 
 Kinley had very justly pointed out, it would have 
 ended his freedom of action in Cuba. Having once 
 acknowledged the authority of the insurgents, the 
 United States could not have appeared in the island 
 without their permission, nor have acted except at 
 their direction. 
 
 The other amendment, moved by Senator Davis, 
 was the addition of a fourth paragraph to the reso 
 lution : 
 
THE COMING OF WAR 91 
 
 Fourth. That the United States hereby disclaims any 
 disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdic 
 tion, or control over said island, except for the pacification 
 thereof, and asserts its determination when that is ac 
 complished to leave the government and control of the 
 island to its people. 
 
 With these amendments the Senate passed the 
 resolution by a vote of sixty-seven to twenty-one, 
 on the night of April i6th, after a continuous ses 
 sion of eleven hours. 
 
 The difference between the House and Senate 
 resolutions necessitating a conference, the repre 
 sentatives of the former branch agreed to the fourth 
 paragraph, but refused to accept the recognition of 
 the insurgents. The refusal, in spite of the strong 
 feeling in favour of recognition that had always ex 
 isted in the House, was a fortunate and patriotic 
 concession to the judgment of the President, as well 
 as a remarkable tribute to the influence of Speaker 
 Reed. It is to be regretted that the other Senate 
 amendment could not also have been left off the 
 record. Well intentioned as was the disclaimer of 
 desire for aggrandizement, and correctly as it ex 
 pressed the feeling in which the United States 
 entered upon the war, it is easy to see now that its 
 wisdom was doubtful. History moves rapidly in 
 war time, and it is difficult to predict, before draw 
 ing the sword, what policy will best meet the prob 
 lems that may have arisen when it is sheathed again. 
 It would have been better to follow more strictly the 
 lines laid down in the President s message, and 
 avoid all the " embarrassing conditions " of which 
 he spoke in warning. 
 
 The final debate took place on the i8th, lasting 
 beyond midnight and ending at half past one in 
 the morning of the iQth, when the 
 to h s U a 1 i t ^ matum conference report was adopted by the 
 April ao^iigi. House. The President held the reso 
 lution for a day, adding his signature 
 on the 2Oth, at 11.24 A. M., in the presence of most 
 7 
 
9 2 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 of his cabinet. In accordance with its terms, in 
 structions were immediately sent to General Wood- 
 ford, United States minister at Madrid, to present 
 to the Spanish Government a formal demand that 
 it should " at once relinquish its authority and gov 
 ernment in the island of Cuba, and withdraw its 
 land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban 
 waters." For a " full and satisfactory response," 
 the American ultimatum continued, the President 
 would wait till noon on April 23d ; in default of such 
 reply, he would use the power of the nation to carry 
 it into effect. 
 
 That Spain would comply with the demand was 
 not to be expected. Although diplomatically she 
 had admitted that the conduct of the United States 
 during the Cuban civil war had been correct, she 
 bitterly resented the fact that the insurrection had 
 been to a great extent organized and directed from 
 that country, and assisted by illegal expeditions re 
 cruited there. She had been the subject of constant 
 abuse, both just and unjust, in its newspapers and 
 in Congress. Her proud and sensitive people, 
 ignorant of the real character and resources of the 
 American republic, would not have suffered her 
 statesmen to accept the proffered terms even had 
 they themselves desired to do so. Such a conces 
 sion would have unseated Sagasta s ministry and 
 might have upset little Alfonso s throne. 
 
 Senor Polo, the Spanish minister at Washing 
 ton, was notified by a messenger from the State 
 Department, on the morning of the 
 
 Diplomatic rela- 2Qth Q | the s {or n { nj r Q f t h e joint rCSO- 
 tions broken off, , , 9 , te . J . , 
 
 April 20 1898. lution, and of the instructions that 
 had gone to General Woodford. He 
 at once replied with a request for his passports. 
 ;< The resolution," he wrote, " is of such a character 
 that my permanence in Washington becomes im 
 possible." At seven o clock after an interview 
 with the ubiquitous newspaper correspondents, to 
 
THE COMING OF WAR 93 
 
 whom he foretold victory for Spain in the coming 
 struggle he took a train for the north. Police 
 guarded the station to prevent any hostile demon 
 stration, but none was attempted. His destination 
 was Niagara Falls, just over the Canadian fron 
 tier, whither Seiior du Bosc, first secretary of the 
 legation, followed him a day later, leaving the 
 affairs of the Spanish Government in the hands of 
 the French ambassador, M. Cambon, and the Aus 
 trian minister, Baron Hengelmuller. 
 
 Meanwhile, there was great excitement in 
 Madrid. On the iQth Seiior Sagasta addressed a 
 meeting of his supporters in the Cortes which had 
 been summoned in special session and called on 
 " all sons of Spain " to " repel with the whole might 
 of the nation a most odious outrage, the like of 
 which has never been seen in history." On the fol 
 lowing day the boy king and his mother, the queen 
 regent, went in person to open the legislature, and 
 their appearance was the signal for a great demon 
 stration of enthusiasm. Maria Cristina herself 
 read the opening speech to the Cortes, which body, 
 she declared, would " undoubtedly indorse the 
 invincible resolution which inspires my Govern 
 ment to defend our rights with whatever sacrifices 
 may be required from us." It is impossible not to 
 feel a touch of personal sympathy for this hapless 
 princess, a pathetic figure amid the troubles of her 
 adopted country, and never, perhaps, more pathetic 
 than when, on the eve of a disastrous war that was 
 Spain s just punishment, she told the Cortes that 
 " with the self-devotion which always guided our 
 ancestors in the great emergencies of our history, 
 we will surmount the present crisis without loss of 
 honour." 
 
 The American ultimatum was never officially 
 presented, for on the morning of April 21 st, before 
 General Woodford had handed it to the Spanish 
 Government, he received a note from Pio Gullon, 
 
9 4 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the minister for foreign affairs, informing him that 
 diplomatic relations were at an end. Congress, 
 said Senor Gullon, had passed a resolution which 
 " denies the legitimate sovereignty of Spain and 
 threatens immediate armed intervention in Cuba 
 which is equivalent to a declaration of war." 
 American newspapers saw in this another piece of 
 Spanish treachery, and declared that the President s 
 despatch to General Woodford must have been sur 
 reptitiously copied at the telegraph office in 
 Madrid ; but the supposition is unnecessary. As al 
 ready stated, the ultimatum had been communi 
 cated to the Spanish legation in Washington 
 twenty-four hours before, and Senor Polo had no 
 doubt promptly informed the home Government of 
 so momentous a piece of news. 
 
 General Woodford at once asked for his pass 
 ports, and on the afternoon of the 2ist he started 
 for the French frontier, leaving the affairs of his 
 legation in the hands of the British ambassador, 
 and instructing the American consuls in other 
 Spanish cities to take similar steps. He was 
 escorted to the station by Senor Aguilera, the gov 
 ernor of Madrid, who preserved an attitude of grave 
 Castilian courtesy till the train was moving away, 
 when he led the bystanders in cheering for Spain. 
 There was an unpleasant incident as the departing 
 minister passed through Valladolid, where a mob 
 yelled " Death to the Yankees ! " and threw stones 
 at the train, in spite of the efforts of the local police. 
 In Madrid, that same evening, excited crowds 
 thronged the streets, and there was some disorder, 
 a gilded eagle being pulled down from the office of 
 an American life insurance company. 
 
 Such were some of the incidents of the day that 
 was to be memorable in history as the first of the 
 war ; but its great and decisive event was the flash 
 ing of a brief message along the wire from Wash 
 ington to Key West, where the most powerful fleet 
 
THE COMING OF WAR 
 
 95 
 
 of war ships that ever floated in American waters 
 lay waiting with intense eagerness for the word 
 for action. Before entering upon the battle 
 drama that ensued, it may be well to give a brief 
 review of the forces that the combatants had mar 
 shalled for the struggle thus signalled to begin. 
 
 *?: 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE RESOURCES OF THE COMBATANTS 
 
 FOUR hundred years ago Spain rose suddenly 
 to the foremost place among the nations; but she 
 fell almost as speedily, and in the present century 
 she has not been reckoned as one of the great 
 powers of Europe. At the beginning of 1898 her 
 population was estimated at eighteen millions 
 about a quarter of that of the United States ; and 
 in other respects the disproportion of resources was 
 still greater. Her one point of advantage on 
 paper, at least lay in the fact that she had the 
 greater number of trained soldiers. The issue of 
 the conflict depended on the command of the sea, 
 and her navy was weaker than her adversary s, 
 though the tremendous inferiority it was to display 
 under the guns of Dewey and Sampson did not 
 appear in the navy lists. Almost overwhelmingly 
 burdened with debt, her Government had neither 
 ready money nor credit the sinews of modern war. 
 Her financial condition, indeed, was in itself a 
 handicap that predetermined the result of her strug 
 gle against her rich and powerful enemy from the 
 day it began. 
 
 There is no boastfulness in saying that the 
 American is a better fighter than the Spaniard. 
 Napoleon stigmatized the British as a nation of 
 shopkeepers, and in that historical epigram he un 
 intentionally phrased the strength of the peoples 
 whom we classify by the oft-abused term of Anglo- 
 Saxon. The qualities that win in the arts of peace 
 
THE RESOURCES OF THE COMBATANTS 97 
 
 will also win in the arts of war, and the greater 
 energy, intelligence, and organizing power in a 
 word, the superior business ability of the men 
 who speak the English language is setting them 
 further and further ahead of the Latin races in the 
 struggle for worldwide dominion. 
 
 Of all the Latin countries, Spain is probably the 
 least advanced, the most mediaeval. Her people 
 live primitively by agriculture ; her manufactures 
 are utterly insignificant in comparison to the vast 
 industrial forces of the United States. In 1889 
 sixty-eight per cent of her inhabitants were re 
 turned as illiterate. In such a soil good govern 
 ment does not thrive, and she has suffered sorely 
 from misrule and civil disorder. Her lack of great 
 men is sufficiently shown by the disastrous inepti 
 tude with which her foremost soldiers and states 
 men have met the military and political emergencies 
 of the last few years. 
 
 The Spaniard can fight bravely, but modern 
 war, especially at sea, is not won by personal brav 
 ery. It is a matter of engineering, of the skilful 
 use of ponderous and intricate machinery. In this 
 the Spaniard is specially deficient, and the Ameri 
 can conspicuously strong. As has been said by Hi 
 ram S. Maxim : "The complication of modern imple 
 ments of destruction gives to the highly scientific and 
 mechanical races a marked advantage over the un 
 trained and unscientific nations " ; * and the war of 
 1898 was a signal demonstration of this principle. 
 
 As in practically all the countries of continental 
 
 Europe, Spain s army is raised by conscription, 
 
 80,000 recruits being levied annually. 
 
 The^Span .j,^ term Q{ service j s twdve years 
 
 three in the line, three in the first 
 reserve, six in the second reserve. The full force 
 of the army is nominally 1,083,595 men, but this 
 
 * The Engineering Magazine, September, 1898. 
 
9 8 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 is on paper only, as nothing like that number could 
 be equipped for service. The standing army is 
 stated at 128,183 on a peace footing, 183,972 on a 
 war footing. The infantry is equipped with the 
 Mauser, a good modern rifle that is also used by the 
 German and other armies. It is of German make, 
 a magazine rifle of small calibre and great range 
 and power, using smokeless powder, and shooting 
 five bullets without reloading. 
 
 Of the morale of the Spanish soldiers, their ill 
 success in Cuba had created an unfavourable a 
 much too unfavourable opinion in the United 
 States. Americans who saw them there described 
 them as not lacking in courage, but undisciplined, 
 undrilled, and badly officered criticisms that agree 
 with those made by Wellington during the Penin 
 sular war. They were wretched marksmen, the cor 
 respondents said, never doing target practice, and 
 so careless in action that they seldom raised their 
 rifles to the shoulder, finding it easier to fire with 
 the butt held under the arm. They spoiled their 
 weapons by ignorant misuse, knocking off the 
 sight, for instance, because they complained that it 
 tore their clothes. 
 
 In the face of the American navy Spain had 
 little prospect of sending any further reinforcement 
 to her army in Cuba. The strength of her garrison 
 there at the outbreak of the war was not known 
 with anything like exactitude. According to Mr. 
 Springer, vice-consul at Havana, official records 
 showed that since February, 1895, she had de 
 spatched 237,000 men across the Atlantic; a few of 
 these had been killed in action, many thousands had 
 died of disease, many more thousands had been in 
 valided home. Consul-General Lee testified before 
 the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, on April 
 1 2th, that there were probably 97,000 or 98,000 
 Spanish troops then in the island, of whom only 
 about 55,000 were capable of bearing arms. This 
 
THE RESOURCES OF THE COMBATANTS 
 
 99 
 
 was far too low an estimate; the figures given by 
 General Miles 150,000 men with 183 guns were 
 much nearer the truth. At the end of the war, 
 after some 23,000 troops had left Santiago, the 
 American commissioners in Cuba Admiral Samp 
 son and Generals Wade and Butler reported that 
 there were in the island about 118,000 Spanish 
 regulars, 21,000 volunteers on duty, and 52,000 vol 
 unteers armed but not on duty. 
 
 It has been repeatedly stated that Spain s naval 
 
 power, on paper, was quite equal to that of the 
 
 United States ; but the navy lists do 
 
 Iav e y Span not bear this out Her total number 
 
 of vessels in service was given as 137, 
 against 86 in the American navy ; but such figures 
 mean nothing. Of armoured men-of-war the 
 ships that win sea fights she had in commission 
 six, against seven, and her vessels were individually 
 inferior. In its second line the United States had 
 thirteen good modern steel cruisers besides the 
 New Orleans, bought just in time for the war ; Spain 
 had only five that could be classed as such. The rest 
 of her navy consisted mainly of old iron and wooden 
 vessels and of small gunboats used in patrolling the 
 Cuban coast. Of her six first-rates, only one was a 
 battle ship the Pelayo, a steel vessel of 9,900 tons, 
 launched at La Seyne (Toulon) in 1887 and since 
 fitted with new boilers. Another battle ship, the Em- 
 perador Carlos V, launched at Cadiz in 1895, was at 
 Havre taking her armament aboard when the war 
 began. In June she was hurried off with Camara s 
 squadron, her equipment still incomplete. Spain had 
 no other ship of this class in service or building. 
 
 The fighting strength of the Spanish navy lay in 
 its armoured cruisers. Nine of these were listed, 
 but two of the nine were unfinished, and two the 
 Numancia and the Vittoria were iron ships more 
 than thirty years old, very slow, and practically use 
 less for distant work. The other five cruisers were 
 
I0 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 fine modern vessels. Four theAlmiranteOquendo, 
 the Infanta Maria Teresa, the Princesa de Asturias, 
 and the Vizcaya were sister ships, built in the 
 Spanish yards, mainly by British constructors, dur 
 ing the last eight years. Each was of 7,000 tons, 
 with a speed stated at twenty knots an hour, and 
 costing three million dollars. The fifth was the 
 Cristobal Colon, built at Sestri, Italy, as the 
 Giuseppe Garibaldi II, the purchase of which was 
 reported by the American newspapers, in March, 
 1898, as part of Spain s hostile preparations. As a 
 matter of fact the Colon was bought in 1897, an 
 order being placed with the same builders for a 
 sister ship, which has never been delivered. 
 
 At the Spanish yards the most important are 
 those at Cartagena, Cadiz, Ferrol, and Bilbao 
 some other ships were building. Two were the un 
 finished cruisers Cardinal Cisneros and Cataluna, 
 similar to the Vizcaya class. Another, the Isabel 
 la Catolica, a 3,ooo-ton cruiser, was to be paid for 
 by a fund raised in Mexico ; a third small cruiser, 
 the Rio de la Plata, was building at Havre, as a 
 gift from the Spaniards of South America. None 
 of these could be made ready for service, but two 
 swift torpedo cruisers had just been completed in 
 Thomson s yard, at Glasgow. In bringing them 
 south their Spanish crews ran afoul of the Irish 
 coast, and one was badly damaged. 
 
 Never, since the days of the Armada, has 
 Spain s navy been famed for good seamanship. 
 Her people, as has been said, do not possess the 
 mechanical ability that is proverbially an American 
 characteristic ; and in handling so complicated a 
 piece of machinery as the modern war ship a lack 
 of intelligent care is speedily ruinous to efficiency. 
 During the last three years her vessels had suffered 
 many mishaps, and four had actually been lost 
 one being the cruiser Reina Regente, which went 
 down with all on board off Cape Trafalgar in 1895. 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 THE RESOURCES OF THE CO] 
 
 The personnel of the Spanish navy recruited 
 mainly by conscription in the coast districts was 
 thus stated for 1898: 
 
 Officers 1,002 
 
 Sailors 14,000 
 
 Marines 9,000 
 
 Mechanics, etc 725 
 
 Total 24,727 
 
 For fourteen years the United States had been 
 busily at work upon the construction of its new 
 navy, but for about two years there 
 The united i iac j b een something of a lull in the 
 fs^ 63 work. During that time the Iowa 
 
 and the Brooklyn were the only im 
 portant additions to the list, and no large vessels 
 were under construction until, in 1897, five new 
 battle ships were ordered. These the Illinois, the 
 Kearsarge, the Kentucky, the Alabama, and the 
 Wisconsin will be powerful vessels of 11,525 tons 
 each, and will practically double the fighting 
 strength of the navy s first line. None of them had 
 been launched at the outbreak of war with Spain. 
 
 At the head of the list of ships in actual service 
 there stood seven great engines of warfare which 
 in speed, armament, and general efficiency were 
 well prepared to meet anything of their inches on 
 the sea. These included the four first-class battle 
 ships four floating fortresses, carrying twelve- and 
 thirteen-inch guns, making from fifteen and a half 
 to seventeen knots an hour, and costing more than 
 three million dollars each : 
 
 SHIPS. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 When launched. 
 
 
 1 1 4.IO 
 
 Philadelphia, 1896. 
 
 Indiana 
 
 10 288 
 
 Philadelphia, 1893. 
 
 Massachusetts .... 
 
 10,288 
 
 Philadelphia, 1893. 
 
 Oregon . . 
 
 10 288 
 
 San Francisco, 1893. 
 
 
 
 
102 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Spain had nothing to pit against this quartette 
 of bulldogs of the sea. Next came one second-class 
 battle ship, a vessel very similar to the lost Maine, 
 and classed by some authorities as an armoured 
 cruiser: 
 
 SHIP. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 When launched. 
 
 Texas 
 
 6.^ 1C 
 
 Norfolk 1892 
 
 
 
 
 Then the two great armoured cruisers : 
 
 SHIPS. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 When launched. 
 
 Brooklyn 
 
 Q 21 ^ 
 
 Philadelphia 1805 
 
 New York 
 
 8 2OO 
 
 Philadelphia 1891 
 
 
 
 
 These carried eight-inch guns, with a good sec 
 ondary rapid-fire battery, and had a rated speed 
 of 21 and 21.9 knots respectively. After them, in 
 a class by themselves, came two large and swift 
 protected cruisers : 
 
 SHIPS. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 When launched. 
 
 Columbia 
 
 
 Philadelphia, 1892. 
 
 Minneapolis . . 
 
 7.*7< 
 
 Philadelphia. 180^. 
 
 These two, generally designated as " commerce 
 destroyers," were built for speed, carrying no 
 armour and a comparatively light armament one 
 eight-inch gun apiece, with batteries of four-inch 
 rapid-firers. They did not play any very promi 
 nent part in the war with Spain. 
 
 Of smaller protected cruisers the United States 
 had eleven of three thousand tons or more, all of 
 them good modern steel vessels : 
 
THE RESOURCES OF THE COMBATANTS 
 
 103 
 
 SHIPS. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 When launched. 
 
 Olympia 
 
 ; 800 
 
 San Francisco 1802 
 
 Chicago 
 
 4 ^OO 
 
 Chester 1885 
 
 
 4,413 
 
 Philadelphia, 1888 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 A 724 
 
 Philadelphia 1889 
 
 San Francisco 
 
 4,008 
 
 San Francisco 1880 
 
 Newark 
 
 4,008 
 
 Philadelphia, 1890 
 
 Charleston.. 
 
 1 730 
 
 San Francisco 1889 
 
 Cincinnati 
 
 3.21 ? 
 
 Brooklyn, 1892 
 
 Raieigh 
 
 3,213 
 
 Norfolk, 1892. 
 
 Atlanta 
 
 3 OCO 
 
 Chester 1884 
 
 Boston 
 
 3 OOO 
 
 Chester, 1884 
 
 
 
 
 The heaviest weapons carried on these vessels 
 were eight- and six-inch rifles, supplemented by 
 rapid-fire batteries usually of six-pounders, but in 
 the Olympia, the Raleigh, and the Cincinnati of 
 five-inch guns. A valuable addition to their class 
 was made by the purchase, in March, of the cruisers 
 Amazonas and Almirante Abru (rechristened New 
 Orleans and Albany) built by the Armstrongs, at 
 Elswick, for the Brazilian Government. The 
 Albany * was still unfinished ; the New Orleans, a 
 fine vessel of 3,600 tons, twenty knots, and armed 
 with a powerful battery of 6-inch and 4./-inch 
 rapid-fire guns using smokeless powder, had just 
 been completed, and left the Thames for New York 
 on the 27th of March. 
 
 In the remainder of the navy list the more im 
 portant items were the six double-turreted monitors 
 Puritan, Monterey, Amphitrite, Monadnock, 
 Miantonomoh, and Terror vessels of low speed, 
 armed with heavy guns (ten- and twelve-inch 
 rifles), and designed for coast and port defence, 
 though the voyage of the Monterey and the Mo 
 nadnock to Manila proved their availability for dis 
 tant service in an emergency ; the trio of small 
 cruisers, each displacing 2,089 tons the Detroit, 
 
 * The Albany was launched January 14, 1899. 
 
104 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the Marblehead, and the Montgomery ; that unique 
 naval type, the Vesuvius, with her three fifteen-inch 
 dynamite guns; and a dozen gunboats. Of these 
 last the largest were the i,7io-ton Bennington, 
 Concord, and Yorktown, armed with six-inch guns ; 
 next came the Wilmington and the Helena, 1,392 
 tons apiece, carrying four-inch rapid-fire guns ; the 
 Nashville, 1,371 tons; the Castine and the Machias 
 of 1,177 tons; the Annapolis, the Marietta, the New 
 port, the Vicksburg, the Wheeling, and the Prince 
 ton, each of 1,000 tons the last named not quite 
 ready for service ; and the Petrel, 892 tons. 
 
 The personnel of the navy was thus stated at the 
 beginning of the year : 
 
 Officers (line) 1,031 
 
 Engineers 226 
 
 Paymasters, surgeons, and chaplains . . . 262 
 
 Warrant officers 143 
 
 Seamen 1 1 , 750 
 
 Marines, officers 74 
 
 Marines, men JJ939 
 
 Total 15,425 
 
 The naval militia, which had been organized in 
 fifteen seaboard and lake States, constituted an 
 auxiliary force of 200 officers and 3,703 men vol 
 unteers who, though not experienced sailors, had 
 had some training in seamanship and gunnery. 
 
 The corresponding figures for the army were: 
 
 
 Officers. 
 
 Men. 
 
 Infantry 25 regiments 
 
 877 
 
 jq I2 
 
 Cavalry 10 " 
 
 4^2 
 
 6 T7O 
 
 
 280 
 
 A O2^ 
 
 General and staff officers 
 
 162 
 
 
 Ordnance department . . 
 
 56 
 
 6O5 
 
 
 IOQ 
 
 =;oo 
 
 Hospital corps 
 
 
 706 
 
 Miscellaneous . . 
 
 
 C7e 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 2,116 
 
 2^,706 
 
 
 
 
THE RESOURCES OF THE COMBATANTS 105 
 
 To this force the Hawley bill had added two 
 regiments of artillery. The adjutant general s re 
 turns (February, 1898) showed 114,632 4iien en 
 rolled in the militia of the States, and estimated the 
 total number of men available for service in case of 
 necessity at 10,301,339. 
 
 The meaning of this brief array of figures was 
 
 that the United States had gone to war, practically 
 
 speaking, without an army. To create 
 
 The call for Q the first st must be a call for 
 
 volunteers, , , . f , . 
 
 April 23 volunteers, and to provide tor this 
 
 Congressman Hull, chairman of the 
 House Military Affairs Committee, introduced a 
 bill (April 2oth) framed by the War Department. 
 It declared that all able-bodied male citizens from 
 eighteen to forty-five years old constituted the na 
 tional forces, and were liable to military duty ; that 
 troops might be called out by the President, to be 
 supplied by each State and Territory in proportion 
 to its population ; that the regimental and company 
 officers should be named by the Governors of the 
 States, the general and staff officers by the Presi 
 dent. The bill was hurried through House and 
 Senate, and received Executive approval April 22d ; 
 and on the following day a call for 125,000 men was 
 issued. 
 
 By an act that became law four days later Con 
 gress partially retrieved its failure to pass the orig 
 inal Hull bill for the reorganization of the regular 
 army. This later measure, also named after Mr. 
 Hull, who fathered it in the House, authorized addi 
 tional enlistments up to a total of 62,597 men, 
 doubling the rank and file of each of the existing 
 regiments. It was carefully provided that the in 
 crease should be only temporary, and that the army 
 should be reduced to its former strength or rather 
 weakness at the end of the war. 
 
 The first plans of the War Department were to 
 concentrate the regular troops, scattered in small 
 
106 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 detachments at the army posts, at three Southern 
 ports New Orleans, Mobile, and Tampa in 
 readiness for an immediate move upon the Spanish 
 West Indies. Like a great many other plans made 
 during the war, this was changed before it had been 
 carried out. It was decided to form a great central 
 camp in the national park on the battlefield of 
 Chickamauga, to whose poignant memories of 
 warfare a new chapter was to be added by the great 
 host that gathered there the North and the South 
 in arms together. 
 
 The first regiment to move southward was the 
 Seventeenth Infantry, which left its post at Colum 
 bus Barracks, Ohio, on the i8th of April, bound for 
 Camp Thomas, as the point of concentration at 
 Chickamauga had been named, in honour of the 
 general who stemmed the tide of Federal defeat 
 there in 1863. Later, another great instruction 
 camp Camp Alger was formed at Falls Church, 
 Virginia ; and troops were sent to three points in 
 Florida Tampa, Jacksonville, and Fernandina 
 selected for their healthfulness, real or supposed, 
 and for their convenience as ports of embarkation. 
 At Tampa a powerful train of siege artillery was or 
 ganized as rapidly as possible, under General John 
 I. Rodgers only one battery of it being destined 
 to see active service. 
 
 Such were the army s chief offensive prepara 
 tions. It had also to care for the defence of the 
 coast, which, except at a few points, 
 fn ^ 01 was ver y inadequately protected. In 
 
 1886, at a time when the ports of 
 the United States were practically devoid of de 
 fences, a commission of officers, generally known 
 as the Endicott Board, drew up a comprehensive 
 scheme of fortification ; but Congress dealt out 
 the necessary money so grudgingly only $50,000 
 was appropriated in 1893, and no more than 
 $3,521,000 from 1890 to 1895 inclusive that only 
 
THE RESOURCES OF THE COMBATANTS 
 
 107 
 
 a small part of the work had been completed. 
 Plans had been prepared for batteries at thirty 
 ports, to consist of about five hundred heavy guns, 
 seven hundred smaller rapid-fire weapons, and a 
 thousand mortars. Of these, at the beginning of 
 the fiscal year (July I, 1897) only one hundred 
 and six less than five per cent had actually been 
 mounted. The supply of powder and projectiles 
 was entirely inadequate, only about one fifth of the 
 quantity needed being on hand.* Many important 
 points were in a condition of defencelessness which, 
 in the face of a more powerful and active enemy, 
 might have proved disastrous. To remedy this 
 the ordnance and engineer departments, as far back 
 as the preceding February, had been making spe 
 cial efforts, and though the work is of the sort that 
 moves slowly, much had been accomplished. At 
 the end of the fiscal year (June 30, 1898), 630 em 
 placements were reported as completed or under 
 construction, 291 guns and mortars were mounted, 
 and it was promised that within three months 156 
 more would be in place. Besides these, 1,500 sub 
 marine mines had been planted in twenty-nine har 
 bours. 
 
 The navy s preparations were much farther ad 
 vanced than those of the army. It was the service 
 
 upon which the first brunt of the 
 preparation.. struggle was expected to fall ; nor had 
 
 it, like the army, been kept in time 
 of peace at merely skeleton strength. Roughly 
 speaking, its personnel was doubled during the 
 war; that of the army was multiplied by ten. Its 
 problems of organization and equipment were easy 
 ones compared to the overwhelming task that con 
 fronted the army staff. This, however, does not 
 detract from the credit due to Secretary Long s 
 department for the remarkable record it made 
 
 * Annual report of General Flagler, Chief of Ordnance. 
 
I0 8 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 throughout the conflict, administering the affairs of 
 the American fleets in two hemispheres without a 
 breakdown, a hitch, or a complaint. 
 
 For months the navy had been holding itself in 
 readiness to strike at short notice. In January, 
 Admiral Sicard, commanding the North Atlantic 
 squadron, rendezvoused at Key West the strongest 
 fleet that ever went to sea under the American 
 flag, its chief vessels being the Iowa, the Massa 
 chusetts, the Indiana, the Maine, the Texas, the 
 Brooklyn, and the New York. It was from this 
 squadron that the Maine was detached for her fatal 
 cruise to Havana. The rest of the fleet was still in 
 Southern waters, from Hampton Roads to the West 
 Indies, and the Cincinnati (brought up from the 
 South Atlantic station), the Detroit, the Marble- 
 head, the Montgomery, the monitors Amphitrite, 
 Miantonomoh, Puritan, and Terror, and several 
 other vessels, much more than replaced the lost 
 battle ship. 
 
 On the European station, at the beginning of 
 the year, there were only the cruiser San Francisco 
 and the gunboats Helena and Bancroft. These 
 were ordered home, the San Francisco crossing the 
 Atlantic in company with the newly purchased New 
 Orleans, and reaching New York on the I4th of 
 April 
 
 Of the eleven second-class cruisers, four the 
 Philadelphia, the Newark, the Chicago, and the 
 Atlanta were undergoing repairs or alterations. 
 The Newark went into commission in June; the 
 Philadelphia was ready for sea in July, when she 
 was ordered to Hawaii ; the two latter were not 
 available during the war. Three more the 
 Olympia, the Raleigh, and the Boston were on 
 the Asiatic station, commanded by Commodore 
 George Dewey. A fourth cruiser, the Baltimore, 
 had been ordered from the Pacific station to 
 strengthen Dewey s squadron, for which fighting 
 
THE RESOURCES OF THE COMBATANTS 
 
 109 
 
 was foreseen ; and she joined him at Hong-Kong 
 on the second day of the war (April 22d). 
 
 On the Pacific coast were the battle ship 
 Oregon, the cruiser Charleston, and the monitors 
 Monadnock and Monterey, besides the cruiser 
 Philadelphia, laid up for repairs, and the gunboat 
 Marietta, which had been showing the flag in the 
 Pacific ports of Central America. The Oregon, of 
 little service where she was, would make a splendid 
 addition to the navy s fighting strength in the main 
 theatre of war, and immediately after the Maine ex 
 plosion she had been dry-docked and prepared for 
 the fifteen-thousand-mile journey around Cape Horn. 
 It was an object lesson upon the strategic value of a 
 canal through the Central American isthmus. 
 
 The Oregon s voyage from Puget Sound to 
 Florida was a remarkable one, far surpassing all 
 
 previous records made by men-of-war 
 voyage over anything like so great a dis- 
 
 MMcht"* 00 tance.* Leaving the Bremerton dry 
 Mayas. dock on March 6th, she sailed from 
 
 San Francisco, under command of 
 Captain Charles E. Clark, on the iQth, and reached 
 Callao on April 4th. Here coal ordered by 
 the Marietta, which had preceded her, having 
 started from Panama March 24th was waiting in 
 lighters, and was hurried aboard. The Marietta 
 had gone on to Punta Arenas, the southernmost 
 Chilian port, to arrange for another supply of fuel ; 
 but the Oregon, leaving Callao on April 7th, passed 
 her in the Straits of Magellan, after weathering one 
 of the fierce squalls of those stormy seas. The gun 
 boat overtook the battle ship at Punta Arenas, and 
 the two coaled together. 
 
 * When the cruiser Columbia made her speed trial across the At 
 lantic, in July and August, 1895, she recorded a considerably higher 
 average speed (18.41 knots an hour from Southampton to Sandy 
 Hook) ; but her journey was only one fifth as long as the Oregon s 
 great voyage. 
 
IIO THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 From this point which they left on April 2ist, 
 of course unaware that it was the first day of the 
 war the run was an exciting one. It was expected 
 that hostilities might be declared at any time, and 
 it w y as known that a Spanish torpedo cruiser, the 
 Temerario, was in their track, off the South Ameri 
 can coast. The American ships were kept in con 
 stant readiness for action, and no lights were shown 
 at night. On the 3Oth they reached Rio de Janeiro, 
 where they heard the news of war, and learned that 
 the Temerario had sailed from Montevideo, proba 
 bly for Rio. Expecting that she might appear at 
 any moment, and fearing that in the neutral har 
 bour his costly ship might not be safe from treach 
 erous attack, Captain Clark sent word to the port 
 authorities that if the Spanish torpedo cruiser en 
 tered the bay and came too near him he would 
 sink her. 
 
 The Temerario did not appear, and on May 4th 
 the Oregon and the Marietta put to sea, followed 
 by the Nictheroy, which the United States had pur 
 chased from the Brazilian Government. The Nic 
 theroy, renamed the Buffalo, had originally been 
 El Cid, of the Morgan line, and had since been 
 fitted as a cruiser and armed with a dynamite gun. 
 She was a vessel of nearly five thousand tons, but 
 proved an unsatisfactory purchase, her machinery 
 being in very poor condition. Her first perform 
 ance was to break down, shortly after starting from 
 Rio, and the Oregon pushed on alone, leaving the 
 Marietta to convoy the crippled ship. The engineers 
 repaired her, but at Para she broke down again, and 
 the Marietta left her, making for Key West, where 
 she arrived on June 4th. The Buffalo reached 
 Norfolk only three days later. 
 
 Meanwhile the Oregon, straining every nerve 
 for speed, had called at Bahia to inquire for news 
 of Cervera s movements. Later acquaintance with 
 the Spaniards seamanship and gunnery showed 
 
THE RESOURCES OF THE COMBATANTS Iri 
 
 that she need scarcely have feared an encounter 
 with the enemy s squadron, overwhelmingly supe 
 rior as it was on paper. Captain Clark was quite 
 prepared to fight if necessary, and telegraphed to 
 the Navy Department from Bahia (May 9th) his 
 opinion that his vessel " in a running fight might 
 beat off and even cripple the Spanish fleet." Secre 
 tary Long s reply was cautious but confident: 
 " Avoid if possible we believe that you will defeat 
 it if met." On the I2th the naval war board dis 
 cussed the question of sending him assistance, but 
 it was decided not to do so, as the Oregon could 
 probably take care of herself, and it was not desired 
 to weaken Sampson s fleet. 
 
 There was no definite news of Cervera till Cap 
 tain Clark put in at Barbadoes (May i8th), where 
 he learned that seven Spanish men-of-war were at 
 Martinique, just to the north of him. Leaving the 
 little British island at sunset that day, he steamed 
 to the northwest, as if direct for Cuba, but as soon 
 as darkness fell he turned about, went south of 
 Barbadoes, and eastward into the ocean, before 
 again heading toward the United States. On the 
 25th he put into Jupiter Inlet, Florida, for instruc 
 tions, with the Oregon in as fine condition as when 
 she left the dry dock, and needing only a supply of 
 coal to be in complete readiness for instant action. 
 
 During the civil war, when the Federal Govern 
 ment, with but little naval strength at its command, 
 found itself compelled to blockade 
 
 auxiliaries the lon ? COaSt lmC f the Southern 
 
 States, it bought almost everything 
 that Northern shipmasters had to sell. More than 
 four hundred vessels, from ocean steamers to coast 
 ing schooners and New York ferryboats, were 
 purchased, and it was one of the latter unwarlike 
 craft a boat taken from daily duty on the Fulton 
 Ferry that captured, in Cuban waters, one of the 
 most valuable prizes of the war. There was less 
 
H2 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 need of indiscriminate purchases in 1898, but aux 
 iliaries and supply ships of all sorts were wanted, 
 and immediately after the voting of fifty million dol 
 lars for military preparations a board, with Captain 
 Frederick Rodgers at its head, was appointed to 
 buy or lease the most available vessels. 
 
 The most important accessions were the four 
 swift passenger steamers of the American line the 
 St. Paul, the St. Louis, the New York (rechristened 
 Harvard), and the Paris (rechristened Yale), for 
 whose services the Government paid nine thousand 
 dollars a day, and whose great speed (twenty to 
 twenty-two knots) and carrying capacity made 
 them valuable as scouts and transports. The St. 
 Paul, armed with eight five-inch rapid-fire guns, 
 was to show that she could fight, too. A number 
 of smaller steamers were bought from other com 
 mercial lines, some of which had their business sus 
 pended by the war. A flotilla of small and speedy 
 auxiliary cruisers and despatch boats was formed 
 by the purchase of twenty-five private steam yachts, 
 and two more were lent to the Government, without 
 charge, by their public-spirited owners Messrs. 
 Augustus Schermerhorn and William R. Hearst, 
 of New York. The city of Philadelphia gave the 
 use of an ice-boat, the Arctic or, to be precise, 
 rented it for the nominal sum of one dollar. The 
 total cost of one hundred and two vessels added to 
 the navy before the war ended was nearly eighteen 
 million dollars. 
 
 Of the ships bought abroad, the New Orleans, 
 the Albany, and the Buffalo have already been 
 mentioned. Another was the i,8oo-ton cruiser 
 Diogenes, built in Germany, in 1884, for Peru, but 
 never delivered. In 1896 she was rebuilt by the 
 Thames Iron Works, which firm now sold her to 
 the United States for $175,000 a low price, even 
 though her machinery was not in first-rate condi 
 tion. The one other armed vessel that the Ameri- 
 
THE RESOURCES OF THE COMBATANTS 113 
 
 can agents succeeded in finding in the market was 
 the torpedo boat Somers, which Lieutenant Knapp 
 purchased in Germany from the Schichau Com 
 pany, of Elbing. The lieutenant took her to Wey- 
 mouth, where she met the Diogenes (renamed the 
 Topeka), and crews were picked up to take the 
 two vessels across the Atlantic ; but the Somers 
 proved to be unseaworthy, and had to put in at 
 Falmouth, where she was dismantled and laid up.* 
 The Topeka went on without her, and reached New 
 York on May ist. 
 
 The Treasury Department also turned over to 
 the navy fifteen revenue cutters and four lighthouse 
 tenders. Four of the former, by courtesy of the 
 British and Canadian authorities, were brought 
 down by way of the St. Lawrence from the great 
 lakes to the Atlantic. Another, the Hugh McCul- 
 loch, was on its way from New York to the Pacific 
 Coast, via the Suez Canal, when it was ordered to 
 join Dewey, who afterward acknowledged its use 
 fulness in a special despatch. 
 
 Another imposing fleet was created by the War 
 Department, as need arose for transports, f More 
 than fifty troop ships were required 
 for the expeditions to Manila, Cuba, 
 and Porto Rico, besides water boats, 
 lighters, barges, and such prosaic but useful 
 craft. High rates were paid for some of them 
 for instance, a Plant line steamer of 5,018 tons 
 was rented to the Government for $1,200 a 
 day. In the Pacific the transport service was still 
 more expensive, the Pacific Mail receiving $1,500 
 daily for the 5,ooo-ton China, and steamers of no 
 more than 2,400 tons being rated at $1,000 a day. 
 
 * The Somers was finally brought across the Atlantic on board an 
 ocean liner in April, 1890. 
 
 t Transports are under the sole charge of the War Department. 
 When the St. Louis and other American liners were used to transport 
 troops, they had been turned over to the army service by the navy. 
 
H4 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 In all, the War Department chartered seventy-seven 
 vessels and bought sixteen. 
 
 Each service had a hospital ship, the two ves 
 sels (the Solace for the navy, and the Relief for the 
 army) being purchased for $600,000 and $450,000 
 respectively, besides the cost of equipment. They 
 were a new feature in warfare, as was also another 
 experiment which proved its value, the naval re 
 pair ship Vulcan. 
 
 A rich government can buy ships, but it can not 
 buy experienced naval officers ; and the great in 
 crease in the number of vessels in service proved 
 a heavy strain upon the personnel of the navy. In 
 other words, there were just enough officers to go 
 around, and none to spare. Had the struggle 
 proved a long and severe one, with many casual 
 ties on both sides, the American navy would have 
 suffered seriously for want of a reserve of trained 
 men. Coming through the war, as it did, with the 
 marvellous record of only eighteen men killed, it 
 escaped this difficulty ; but the lesson is one that 
 should not be forgotten. 
 
 It was evident that Key West, lying in the Gulf 
 of Mexico, opposite Havana, and only a hundred 
 miles from the Cuban capital, would be a very im 
 portant point in the naval strategy of the war. 
 Early in March a great depot of supplies was estab 
 lished there, and the building of a repair plant 
 long planned, but never undertaken owing to lack 
 of the necessary appropriation was begun. In the 
 latter part of April the War Department erected a 
 hospital and a distilling plant the latter made 
 necessary by the lack of water on the island for 
 the benefit of troops using Key West as a base of 
 operations for the invasion of Cuba. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF WAR 
 
 THE preparatory moves outlined in the preced 
 ing chapter were forming the effective force of the 
 United States navy into two fleets, on opposite 
 sides of the globe, ready to strike at Spain in the 
 two remaining strongholds of her colonial empire. 
 One was the North Atlantic squadron, in which 
 were all the first-rate men-of-war; the other the 
 fleet of cruisers at Hong-Kong. Their chief officers 
 were two men destined to win the brightest laurels 
 of the war, and to prove themselves worthy to rank 
 among the heroic figures of American naval annals 
 Commodore George Dewey, commanding the 
 Asiatic station ; and Captain William T. Sampson, 
 acting rear admiral, promoted from the captaincy 
 of the Iowa to succeed Rear-Admiral Sicard, who 
 was relieved on account of ill health. 
 
 Admiral Sicard relinquished his command to 
 
 Captain Sampson on March 26th. On the first day 
 
 of the war (April 2ist) Sampson was 
 
 Rear-Admiral appointed an acting rear admiral, and 
 
 Sampson, l , r ,, . *5 , , * * 
 
 April 21. on the lollowing day he hoisted his 
 
 admiral s pennant on his flagship, the 
 cruiser New York. He owed his selection for the 
 most important and responsible post in the entire 
 service to the fact that he was the senior officer 
 present with the squadron, that he knew its vessels 
 and their capabilities, and that his record had been 
 an excellent one ever since the days when, as a 
 young lieutenant, he narrowly escaped death in the 
 
 "5 
 
H6 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Patapsco s daring run into Charleston -harbour, in 
 January, 1865. 
 
 The great fleet under Sampson s orders was di 
 vided into two main bodies one, under his per 
 sonal command, with its base at Key West; the 
 other, under Commodore Winfield Scott Schley, 
 held in reserve at Newport News as a " flying 
 squadron " to meet any move that might be made 
 by the Spanish fleet lying at St. Vincent, in the 
 Cape Verde Islands. The " flying squadron " con 
 sisted, at the date of the outbreak of hostilities, of 
 the armoured cruiser Brooklyn (Commodore 
 Schley s flagship, Captain Cook), the battle ships 
 Massachusetts (Captain Higginson) and Texas 
 (Captain Philip), the cruisers Columbia (Captain 
 Sands) and Minneapolis (Captain Jewell), and the 
 collier Merrimac (Commander Miller). Sampson s 
 own fleet, at the same date, when he first moved 
 upon Cuba, comprised twenty-two men-of-war 
 the armoured cruiser New York (Admiral Samp 
 son s flagship, Captain Chadwick) ; the two battle 
 ships Iowa (Captain Evans) and Indiana (Captain 
 Taylor) ; the three monitors Amphitrite (Captain 
 Barclay), Puritan (Captain Harrington), and Ter 
 ror (Captain Ludlow) ; the four cruisers Cincinnati 
 (Captain Chester), Marblehead (Commander Mc- 
 Calla), Detroit (Commander Dayton), and Mont 
 gomery (Commander Converse) ; the six gunboats 
 Wilmington (Commander Todd), Nashville (Com 
 mander Maynard), Castine (Commander Berry), 
 Machias (Commander Merry), Newport (Com 
 mander Tilley), and Helena (Commander Swin 
 burne) ; the despatch boat Dolphin (Commander 
 Lyon), the converted yacht Mayflower (Com 
 mander Mackenzie), and the four torpedo boats 
 Dupont (Lieutenant Wood), Foote (Lieutenant 
 Rodgers), Porter (Lieutenant Fremont), and Wins- 
 low (Lieutenant Bernadou). 
 
 Besides these two fleets, a " northern patrol 
 
THE BEGINNING OF WAR 
 
 117 
 
 squadron " was hastily organized for the protection 
 of the Atlantic coast from the capes of the Delaware 
 northward. It was commanded by Commodore 
 John A. Howell, and consisted, in the first days of 
 the war, of his flagship, the cruiser San Francisco 
 (Captain Leary), and four auxiliary cruisers 
 manned by naval reserve men the Yankee (Com 
 mander Brownson), the Dixie (Commander Davis), 
 the Prairie (Commander Train), and the Yosemite 
 (Commander Emory). In May the Columbia and 
 the Minneapolis were detached from the Flying 
 Squadron, and served for a time under Howell, the 
 latter being posted at Newport News to guard the 
 battle ships building there ; but as Spain s navy 
 demonstrated its impotence, and the fear of an at 
 tack upon the northern coast dwindled to the van 
 ishing point, one after another of the commodore s 
 ships was detached for more active service in Cuban 
 waters, till on the 25th of June he was ordered to 
 Key West with all his remaining force except the 
 Minneapolis. 
 
 But in the early days of hostilities there were 
 many alarms of mysterious Spanish war ships. On 
 the 27th of April, for instance, it was very positively 
 reported that a Spanish battle ship and three tor 
 pedo boats had been seen in the North Atlantic, in 
 the track of the ocean liners ; and some uneasiness 
 was felt for the Paris, which had left Southampton 
 on the 22d, to take her place in the navy as an aux 
 iliary cruiser. On the 3Oth, however, she reached 
 New York in safety, having seen nothing of the 
 phantom foe. 
 
 To all the warlike preparations of the United 
 States Spain had made but little answer chiefly, 
 no doubt, through her lack of means, 
 but P artl y because her statesmen 
 seem to have been strangely blind to 
 the crisis that was upon them. There is a charac 
 teristic Spanish proverb which says that " it is a 
 
U8 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 long way from said to done, and from talking war 
 to making war " ; and Sagasta s Government appar 
 ently acted upon it to the last moment. Their de 
 fensive moves were few. Just before hostilities be 
 gan they purchased three German Atlantic liners 
 and an English yacht as auxiliary cruisers. On the 
 day when General Woodford left Madrid, a call was 
 issued for eighty thousand men of the reserves. 
 The most important move was the concentration oi 
 a squadron at St. Vincent. A small flotilla of tor 
 pedo boats and torpedo-boat destroyers, com 
 manded by Captain Fernando Villamil, had left 
 Cadiz early in March, going to the Canaries, and 
 thence (March 24th) to the Cape Verde Islands. 
 Here they were joined on April I4th by the 
 Maria Teresa, Admiral Cervera s flagship, and the 
 Cristobal Colon, which had followed them from 
 Cadiz, and on the I9th by the Vizcaya and the 
 Almirante Oquendo, from Havana. With a 
 couple of transports the Ciudad Cadiz and the 
 San Francisco the squadron remained at St. Vin 
 cent, a Portuguese port, awaiting the outbreak 
 of war. 
 
 It was in no condition to meet the powerful 
 fleet that was waiting for it across the Atlantic. 
 The Colon had never received the 
 heavy guns that should have been in 
 her turrets. On the three other 
 cruisers, the batteries of fourteen centimetre (five- 
 and-a-half-inch) artillery their chief power of of 
 fence were disabled by defective breech mechan 
 ism and inferior ammunition. The Vizcaya urgent 
 ly needed docking and cleaning, and was far below 
 her speed. Cervera had repeatedly reported the 
 deficiencies of his ships, but the authorities at 
 Madrid took no notice of either recommendations 
 or protests. Just before leaving Cadiz he frankly 
 declared that he was going upon a desperate, not to 
 say a suicidal, errand : 
 
THE BEGINNING OF WAR 119 
 
 It seems to me a most risky adventure, which may 
 cost us very dear, for the loss of our flotilla and the defeat 
 of our squadron in the Caribbean Sea entails a great 
 danger for the Canaries, and perhaps the bombardment 
 of our coast cities. I do not mention the fate of the 
 island of Cuba, because I have anticipated it long ago. 
 
 In spite of this, on the 22cl of April, orders came 
 from Madrid that the squadron should sail for 
 Cuba at once. Cervera acknowledged their receipt 
 thus : 
 
 It is impossible for me to give an idea of the sur 
 prise and astonishment experienced by all on the receipt 
 of the order to sail. Nothing can be expected for this 
 expedition except the total destruction of the fleet or its 
 hasty and demoralizing return. . . . This is already a dis 
 aster, and it is to be feared that it will be a more frightful 
 one before long. 
 
 And Captain Villamil, his second in command, 
 added in a private telegram to Sagasta a pathetic 
 message from the brave sailor who was to lose his 
 life off Santiago : 
 
 I deem it expedient you should know, through a friend 
 who does not fear censure, that while as seamen we are 
 all ready to meet honourable death in the performance of 
 duty, I think it certain that the sacrifice of these naval 
 forces will be as sure as it will be fruitless and useless. 
 
 The fleet did not put to sea until April 29th, and 
 then it separated the torpedo boats Rayo, Ariete, 
 and Azor, and the two transports, putting back to 
 the Canaries, while Cervera, with the four cruisers 
 and three torpedo-boat destroyers, headed west 
 ward. The subsequent career of his squadron a ca 
 reer neither long nor glorious will be traced later. 
 
 As Havana was the great seat of Spanish power 
 
 in the West Indies, it was natural that the first plan 
 
 of attack should look toward the 
 
 Cuban ca P itaL Admiral Sampson 
 was anxious to begin the war by 
 striking direct at it with the full power of his 
 squadron, and at least three of his leading officers 
 
120 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Captains Evans of the Iowa, Taylor of the Indiana, 
 and Chadwick of the New York strongly sup 
 ported him. The matter was fully discussed before 
 hostilities began. On April 6th Secretary Long in 
 structed him : 
 
 The department does not wish the vessels of your 
 squadron to be exposed to the fire of the batteries at 
 Havana, Santiago de Cuba,* or other strongly fortified 
 ports in Cuba, unless the more formidable Spanish ves 
 sels should take refuge in those harbours. Even in this 
 case the department would suggest that a rigid blockade 
 and employment of our torpedo boats might accomplish 
 the desired object, viz., the destruction of the enemy s 
 vessels, without subjecting unnecessarily our own men-of- 
 war to the fire of the land batteries. 
 
 There are two reasons for this: 
 
 First. There may be no United States troops to oc 
 cupy any captured stronghold, or to protect from riot and 
 arson, until after the dry season begins, about the first of 
 October. 
 
 Second. The lack of docking facilities makes it particu 
 larly desirable that our vessels should not be crippled be 
 fore the capture or destruction of Spain s most formidable 
 vessels. 
 
 On April Qth Sampson replied with a long letter 
 in which he pleaded hard for permission to carry 
 out his aggressive policy. He described the shore 
 batteries at Havana, all of which face seaward, with 
 little protection for their gunners, and explained 
 his plan of attack : 
 
 These batteries are well calculated to keep off a fleet 
 from seaward, which approaches to within a moderate dis 
 tance of a few thousand yards. I do not think they are 
 well placed to resist an attack (for instance, the western 
 batteries) from the westward and close inshore, where 
 the batteries would be exposed to a flank fire, or to the 
 fire of our big ships at short range, where the secondary 
 batteries would have full effect. Even under these cir 
 cumstances the ships must have such a heavy fire that the 
 men in the batteries would be overwhelmed by its volume. 
 Before the Puritan and Amphitrite arrived I was not en- 
 
 * The strength of the batteries at Santiago de Cuba was greatly 
 overestimated at this time. 
 
THE BEGINNING OF WAR 121 
 
 tirely sanguine of the success of such an attack. Since 
 their arrival yesterday I have little doubt of its success.* 
 
 Having silenced the western batteries, it would be 
 quite practicable to shell the city, which I would do only 
 after warning given twenty-four hours in advance. 
 
 I see the force of your reasoning that we would have 
 no troops to occupy the city if it did surrender, yet, Mr. 
 Secretary, it will be very unfortunate, besides a great loss 
 of time, if we must delay until the rainy season is over. 
 Probably a close blockade would terminate the trouble 
 before October. 
 
 Captain Chadwick, Sampson s chief of staff, 
 records that an order of battle for an assault upon 
 Havana was drawn up and placed in the hands of 
 each officer whose ship was to take part in it. An 
 other plan discussed at the naval council was that of 
 forming three squadrons one to bombard Ha 
 vana ; a second to be held at Cape Haitien in readi 
 ness to attack San Juan, Porto Rico, as soon as war 
 was declared; and a third, consisting of swift 
 cruisers, to move upon the coast of Spain itself. 
 
 In spite of Sampson s plea, it was decided f to 
 defer the blow till an army could be organized to 
 follow it up, and the first mobilization of troops was 
 made with this object in view. But when the War 
 Department, a few days before hostilities began, 
 ordered the regulars to the Gulf ports (April I5th), 
 it does not seem to have realized how ill prepared 
 its forces were for an active campaign, and how 
 tremendous the task before the commissary, quar 
 termaster, medical, and other bureaus. The camp 
 
 * After the expedition to San Juan, Admiral Sampson s opinion of 
 the monitors was less favourable. In a report dated May 2oth, he de 
 scribed them as "very inefficient." 
 
 t Instructions to the commanding officers of the United States fleets 
 and armies issue from the President, as commander in chief of the land 
 and sea forces of the nation, through the Secretary of War and the 
 Secretary of the Navy. In planning the grand strategy of the late war, 
 the President and Secretary Long were assisted by a specially appointed 
 naval war board, which at first consisted of Rear-Admiral Sicard, Cap 
 tain Barker, Captain Crowninshield, and Theodore Roosevelt, Assist 
 ant Secretary of the Navy. In May Mr. Roosevelt and Captain Barker 
 left the board, and Captain Mahan joined it. 
 
122 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 at Chickamauga was formed to give time for the 
 work of equipment ; and from this point men were 
 to be moved as rapidly as possible to Tampa, or 
 other Southern ports. 
 
 On the 2 ist of April, as was said at the end of 
 Chapter IV, Admiral Sampson, at Key West, re 
 ceived the orders for which he had 
 been waiting for weeks. What they 
 were the world knew on the fol 
 lowing day, when President McKinley issued a 
 proclamation declaring a blockade of " the north 
 coast of Cuba, including ports on said coast be 
 tween Cardenas and Bahia Honda, and the port of 
 Cienfuegos on the south coast." This meant a 
 blockade covering Havana and extending some 
 forty miles westward and fifty miles eastward. 
 Cienfuegos, on the other side of the island, was 
 closed because it had railroad communication with 
 the Cuban capital. 
 
 The instructions sent to Sampson on the 2ist 
 informed him that a plan was under consideration 
 for an expedition to Matanzas, where a sufficient 
 force might be landed to hold the place and open 
 communication with the insurgents. Meanwhile, 
 an attack upon the defences of Havana was defi 
 nitely forbidden. 
 
 It is possible that the admiral s plan of imme 
 diate and vigorous aggression might have ended the 
 war more summarily, but the policy that prevailed 
 at Washington was an eminently safe one. The 
 first move made Blanco s position in Cuba unten 
 able, unless Spain should make some effective coun 
 ter stroke which, with her weaker navy, and with 
 all the disadvantages of fighting from a base four 
 thousand miles distant, was practically impossible. 
 The American fleet at once took undisputed com 
 mand of Cuban waters. A number of armed vessels 
 lay in the harbours of the island the cruisers Al 
 fonso XII and Conde de Venadito, with one or 
 
THE BEGINNING OF WAR 123 
 
 more torpedo boats, at Havana; the Reina Mer 
 cedes at Santiago, the Jorge Juan in Nipe Bay, and 
 smaller gunboats at Manzanillo, Cienfuegos, and 
 other ports ; but they made no serious attempt to 
 attack the American ships. The first prize, the 
 Spanish steamer Buena Ventura, was taken by the 
 Nashville early on the morning of April 22d, shortly 
 after Sampson s squadron left Key West; and in 
 the afternoon of the same day the New York over 
 hauled a larger vessel, the Pedro, coming out of 
 Havana. 
 
 The seizure of ships owned by citizens of a hos 
 tile country is a survival from the days when might 
 was right, and a successful battle 
 private prop- t indiscriminate loot. In war- 
 
 erty at sea. . , 
 
 fare on land, private property has 
 long been respected by civilized armies, and it is a 
 curious anomaly that the same principle should not 
 obtain on the sea. It was partially recognised, 
 forty years ago, in the Declaration of Paris, by 
 which the leading European powers agreed to abol 
 ish privateering, and to respect neutral flags and 
 neutral goods. Spain did not sign that agreement, 
 nor did the United States, though President Pierce 
 offered to go further, and to join in a declaration ex 
 empting all private property, except contraband of 
 war, from seizure, whether by privateers or by naval 
 vessels. It has been suggested that the Washing 
 ton Government, with the prestige of a victorious 
 war, should propose to add such a rule to the 
 canons of international law, and the suggestion com 
 mends itself to all respecters of the eighth com 
 mandment.* Overhauling some helpless mer 
 chantman, which may have had no notice of the 
 
 * In his annual message of December 5, 1898, President McKinley 
 recommended " that the Executive be authorized to correspond with the 
 Governments of the principal maritime powers with a view of incorpo 
 rating into the permanent law of civilized nations the principle of the 
 exemption of all private property at sea, not contraband of war, from 
 capture or destruction by belligerent powers." 
 
124 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 existence of war ; making prisoners of its crew ; de 
 priving its skipper of the ship that is perhaps his 
 only property and source of livelihood ; and con 
 fiscating its cargo, which may be of no possible 
 service to the enemy s forces the Buena Ventura, 
 for instance, was a small steamer carrying American 
 lumber this is a poor business for the navy of a 
 great power. 
 
 At the same time, it is so profitable that naval 
 officers can not be expected to oppose its continu 
 ance. During the civil war, for instance, Admiral 
 Farragut besides the fifty thousand dollars pre 
 sented to him by a subscription raised in New 
 York received no less than one hundred and forty 
 thousand dollars in prize and bounty money, and 
 several other Federal officers drew an amount not 
 much less. In the United States army, which has 
 no such perquisite, the pay of all ranks is increased 
 twenty per cent during war. It would be more con 
 sonant with the advance of civilization to give the 
 navy a similar allowance, and to end the seizure of 
 private property on the sea. 
 
 It was announced by the State Department, on 
 the day before the war began, that the United States 
 would commission no privateers ; but 
 
 as S P ain had not si S ned th , e .ec- 
 laration of Paris, she was technically 
 
 at liberty to do so. There is reason to believe that 
 an inquiry which implied a warning against a 
 policy that might work serious damage to neutral 
 commercial interests was sent to Madrid from 
 London. On April 24th Sagasta s Government re 
 plied by issuing a decree which declared a state of 
 war to exist between Spain and the United States, 
 and added : 
 
 The Spanish Government, reserving its right to grant 
 letters of marque, will at present confine itself to organiz 
 ing, with the vessels of the mercantile marine, a force of 
 auxiliary cruisers, which will co-operate with the navy, 
 
THE BEGINNING OF WAR 125 
 
 according to the needs of the campaign, and will be under 
 naval control. 
 
 The threatened force of auxiliary cruisers did 
 not figure in the war, though the Government, in 
 addition to its few purchases abroad, took over sev 
 eral steamers from the Compania Transatlantica 
 Espaiiola, whose traffic to West Indian ports was 
 cut off by the blockade. Only one American ves 
 sel was taken during the struggle the bark Sara- 
 nac, which, not knowing that hostilities were in 
 progress, entered the port of Iloilo, in the Philip 
 pines, and was captured by a Spanish gunboat. 
 She was subsequently released, as her owners had 
 transferred her to a British subject while she was 
 at sea. On the other hand, the American men-of- 
 war took no less than fifty-six prizes.* 
 
 The United States was a day behind Spain in 
 its formal announcement of war. On the 25th of 
 April the President requested Congress to give 
 legal status to the operations of the country s armed 
 forces, and a brief bill stating that " war has existed 
 since the 2ist day of April, 1898, including said day, 
 between the United States of America and the king 
 dom of Spain " was passed without a dissenting 
 vote in either House. The State Department at 
 once notified all the foreign powers, who promptly 
 responded with proclamations of neutrality. 
 
 The American squadron in Cuban waters had 
 
 before it plenty of nobler and more serious work 
 
 than the taking of prizes. It first 
 
 First shots at exchanged shots with the enemy at 
 
 April"** Matanzas, on April 27th. On that 
 
 morning Captain Harrington, of the 
 
 monitor Puritan, reported to Admiral Sampson that 
 
 a new battery was being constructed at Punta 
 
 * According to the Attorney- General s annual report for 1898. The 
 amount realized by the sale of these vessels and their cargoes, up to the 
 date of the report (November, 1898), with several ships still to be sold, 
 was $701,034. 
 
1 2 6 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Gorda (Broad Point) on the west side of the en 
 trance to Matanzas harbour. Deciding that his in 
 structions * would permit him to give his gunners 
 some target practice, the admiral steamed eastward 
 from his blockading station off Havana, and, in 
 company with the Puritan and the cruiser Cincin 
 nati, opened fire on the Spaniards, bombarding both 
 the Punta Gorda battery and another on the east 
 side of the harbour. The range was long from 
 two to four miles but the shells seemed to reach 
 their mark, and the batteries replied with only a 
 few shots, which did no damage. The three ships 
 had discharged about three hundred projectiles in 
 half an hour when the admiral signalled to " cease 
 firing." The Spaniards reported that their loss was 
 " one mule " which, whether true or not, was dis 
 tinctly humorous, and caused much mirth in Ha 
 vana and Madrid. 
 
 * On April 26th Secretary Long telegraphed to Sampson : " While 
 the department does not wish a bombardment of forts protected by 
 heavy cannon, it is within your discretion to destroy light batteries 
 which may protect vessels you desire to attack, if you can do so without 
 exposure to heavy guns." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY 
 
 VERY different news was to come a few days 
 later, from a widely distant point. It was strange 
 that the first battle of a war waged for the liberation 
 of an island almost in sight of the American shores 
 should be fought on the opposite side of the globe ; 
 but it was a perfectly logical indeed, an inevitable 
 train of action that led to the attack on Manila, 
 with all the new and unforeseen chapter of history 
 of which that was to be the beginning. War con 
 sists in striking at the enemy s forces wherever they 
 are to be found; and a blow at the Spanish power 
 in the Philippines was not only a telling offensive 
 move, but also a defensive necessity for the protec 
 tion of American commerce in eastern seas, and 
 even for the security of the Pacific coast. 
 
 The Philippines were Spain s, like the rest of her 
 once vast empire, by right of discovery. Fernao de 
 Magalhaes, better known as Magellan, 
 
 . 
 
 and was slain there by hostile natives. 
 In 1565 Spaniards from Mexico, under Legazpi, 
 crossed the Pacific to plant colonies in these eastern 
 islands, which they named after the reigning sover 
 eign, the Philip of the Armada. Manila was 
 founded in 1571, on the finest harbour on the west 
 coast of Luzon ; and from that date to 1898 the 
 Philippines have had very little history. In the six 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries there were hos- 
 
 127 
 
I2 8 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 tilitics with Chinese pirates, and with the Dutch, 
 who harried the Spanish commerce, but were de 
 feated in an attack on Manila. 
 
 In 1762 the city was taken by the British. A 
 fleet under Admiral Cornish, with twenty-five hun 
 dred men commanded by Sir William Draper, en 
 tered the bay on September 23d of that year ; and on 
 October 6th the defences of Manila were stormed, 
 except the citadel, which the Spanish governor, the 
 Marquis de Medina, surrendered a few days later, 
 together with the entire archipelago. A ransom of 
 four million dollars was demanded, and was paid in 
 drafts on Madrid, which were afterward repudiated ; 
 and in 1763 the Philippines were returned to Spain, 
 together with Havana, captured in the same year. 
 
 Under Spain s colonial rule the development of 
 the islands was extraordinarily slow. Manila was 
 almost fifty years old when the Pilgrims landed at 
 Plymouth, yet the Philippines are to-day in great 
 part a terra incognita. Compare what the Span 
 iards have done for them with the achievements 
 of the Anglo-Saxon race in Australia, whose coloni 
 zation began in 1788, and in South Africa, British 
 only since 1806; or with the changes wrought in 
 India by her present rulers, whose power dates from 
 Clive s victory at Plassey in 1757. While civiliza 
 tion has fought its battles and won its triumphs in 
 America, in Asia, in Africa, in the isles of the sea, 
 the greater part of this richly endowed archipelago 
 has progressed little since the days when the pagan 
 king of Cebu came to meet Magellan. 
 
 The ruinous disorders of Cuba, too, have had 
 
 their counterpart in Spain s eastern possessions. 
 
 Throughout this century the natives 
 
 flections. have rown more and " more discon 
 tented with the domination of the 
 
 monastic orders, the corrupt and oppressive admin 
 istration of the courts, the burden of compulsory 
 military service, and above all the intolerably ex- 
 
THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY 129 
 
 tortionate system of taxation. One revolt followed 
 another, but the Spaniards suppressed them usu 
 ally with little difficulty, always with great cruelty. 
 The insurrection of 1896 was more formidable 
 than any that preceded it. Blanco, then captain- 
 general at Manila, could do little to suppress it. He 
 had only a handful of regular soldiers, and his na 
 tive auxiliaries could not be trusted ; and when 
 he left the islands, in December of that year, the 
 insurgents controlled all the southern part of Luzon, 
 close up to the capital. His successor, General 
 Polavieja, came out with strong reinforcements, and 
 inaugurated an active campaign. More than twenty 
 thousand Spanish troops, commanded in the field 
 by General Lachambre, made a clean sweep of the 
 revolted territory, and drove the remnants of the 
 Filipino forces into the mountains of the north. 
 But Polavieja, irritated at the failure of the Madrid 
 Government to support him with the men and sup 
 plies he needed, resigned after four months in office ; 
 and under the next captain-general, Primo de Rivera, 
 the rebels continued to hold their own. Finally, 
 Rivera succeeded in effecting a pacification, osten 
 sibly by liberal promises of political concessions, 
 but secretly, it is understood, by the more effectual 
 method of bribing the Filipino leaders.* The na 
 tives disbanded, and seven thousand of Rivera s 
 troops were returned to Spain ; but the promised 
 reforms were not made, and in the early months of 
 1898, when Rivera was succeeded by Basilio Au- 
 gustin, there were renewed risings on several of the 
 
 * Oscar F. Williams, United States consul at Manila, reported to 
 the State Department (February 22, 1898) that " certain rebel leaders 
 were given a cash bribe of $1,650,000 to consent to public deportation 
 to China." Mr. Wildman, consul-general at Hong-Kong, gave a dif 
 ferent version in a report dated July 18, 1898 : " I was in Hong-Kong 
 in September, 1897, when Aguinaldo and his leaders arrived under con 
 tract with the Spanish Government. They waited until the ist of No 
 vember for the payment of the money promised for the widows and 
 orphans of the insurgents and the fulfilment of promised reforms. 
 Only $400,000 Mexican was ever placed to their credit." 
 
130 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 islands. Meanwhile Emilio Aguinaldo, who had 
 been the head and front of the rebellion in Luzon, 
 had gone to Singapore, where he met Mr. Pratt, 
 the United States consul, and through him opened 
 relations with the American forces which were to 
 
 have an important bearing on the 
 
 Manila campaign. 
 
 On April 24th Commodore 
 Dewey, at Hong-Kong, received the following 
 despatch from the Navy Department at Wash 
 ington : 
 
 War has commenced between the United States and 
 Spain. Proceed at once to Philippine Islands. Commence 
 operations at once, particularly against the Spanish fleet. 
 You must capture vessels or destroy. Use utmost en 
 deavours. 
 
 This, of course, was not his first notification of 
 the task before him. For several weeks he had been 
 preparing his squadron for it. He had dismantled 
 the one unserviceable vessel in his command, the 
 old wooden corvette Monocacy, and had distributed 
 her crew among his other men-of-war, leaving her 
 at Woosung. At the beginning of April he was 
 instructed to secure two auxiliary ships to carry 
 coal and supplies ; he accordingly bought the Nan- 
 shan and the Zafiro, with ten thousand tons of 
 Welsh coal, besides filling up the bunkers of the 
 cruisers. His fuel bill for the month was $81,872. 
 
 At Manila, Governor-General Augustin pre 
 pared for the coming fray by issuing, on April 23d, 
 a proclamation which, if the published version of it 
 be correct, was so ridiculously bombastic that it is 
 worth quoting as a curiosity : 
 
 The North American people, constituted of all the so 
 cial excrescences, have exhausted our patience and pro 
 voked war with their perfidious machinations, with their 
 acts of treachery, with their outrages against the law of 
 nations and international conventions. 
 
 The struggle will be short and decisive. The God of 
 
THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY 
 
 victories will give us one as brilliant as the justice of our 
 cause demands. Spain, which counts upon the sympathies 
 of all the nations, will emerge triumphantly from this 
 new test, humiliating and blasting the adventurers from 
 those States which, without cohesion and without a his 
 tory, offer to humanity only infamous traditions and the 
 ungrateful spectacle of a legislature in which appear united 
 insolence and defamation, cowardice and cynicism. 
 
 A squadron manned by foreigners possessing neither 
 instruction nor discipline is preparing to come to this 
 archipelago with the ruffianly intention of robbing us of 
 all that means life, honour, and liberty. 
 
 Filipinos, prepare for the struggle, and united under 
 the glorious Spanish flag, which is ever covered with 
 laurels, let us fight with the conviction that victory will 
 crown our efforts, and to the challenge of our enemies 
 let us oppose, with the decision of the Christian and the 
 patriot, the cry of "Viva Espafia! " 
 Your General, 
 
 BASILIC AUGUSTIN Y DAVILA.* 
 
 This was as fine a piece of vituperation as any 
 thing that Napoleon ever launched at his foes. 
 
 Dewey was still at Hong-Kong completing his 
 
 preparations, and awaiting the arrival of Oscar F. 
 
 Williams, the American consul at 
 
 Dewey leaves Manila, f who was expected to bring 
 
 Hong-Kong, . . r . ^ 
 
 April 25. important information when, on 
 
 April 25th, the governor of the colony 
 requested him to leave the harbour, to prevent any 
 breach of British neutrality. The squadron now 
 reinforced by the Baltimore, which reached Hong- 
 Kong on the 22d accordingly withdrew to Mirs 
 Bay, in Chinese territory, about thirty miles dis 
 tant. Mr. Williams arrived on the 27th, and in the 
 
 * This is an instance of the Spanish custom of adding the maiden 
 name of a man s mother to his own surname, to distinguish him from 
 others of the same name. 
 
 t Mr. Williams left Manila on April 23d, turning over the affairs of 
 his office to E. H. Rawson Walker, the British consul, whose services 
 were afterward acknowledged by Dewey as "of invaluable assistance," 
 Mr. Walker being his "only means of communicating with the Span 
 ish authorities, and the chief agent in the protection of foreign resi 
 dents." The Belgian consul, M. Andre, also did valuable work of 
 the sort. 
 
132 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 afternoon of that day the start for Manila was made. 
 Besides the Olympia (flagship, Captain C. V. Grid- 
 ley commanding ; Commander Lamberton, chief of 
 the commodore s staff), the Baltimore (Captain N. 
 M. Dyer), the Raleigh (Captain J. B. Coghlan), 
 and the Boston (Captain Frank Wildes), the fleet 
 included the small cruiser Concord (1,700 tons, 
 Commander Asa Walker), the gunboat Petrel (890 
 tons, Commander E. P. Wood), the two colliers, 
 and the revenue cutter Hugh McCulloch, now 
 serving as a despatch boat. 
 
 Accommodating its speed to that of the heavy 
 colliers, the squadron crossed the China Sea to 
 gether. On the morning of the 3Oth, when the 
 shore of Luzon was sighted, the ships were cleared 
 for action, nets were stretched around the boats to 
 lessen the danger from flying splinters, and on some 
 of the cruisers chain cables were coiled around the 
 ammunition hoists. The ingenuity of this last de 
 vice for increasing the protection of a vulnerable 
 point was afterward warmly commended by an 
 English naval critic, who apparently did not know 
 that it was used on board the Kearsarge when she 
 fought and won her famous duel with the Alabama. 
 Captain Winslow went into action with his engines 
 protected by sheet chains hung over the side of his 
 vessel. 
 
 Steaming southward, in the afternoon of the 
 3Oth the American ships reached Subig Bay, an in 
 dentation of the coast about forty miles north of 
 Manila. Dewey had information that Montojo, the 
 Spanish admiral, intended to meet the attacking 
 squadron at this point, and he sent the Boston and 
 the Concord into the bay, which is about seven 
 miles deep, in search of the enemy; but the 
 Spaniards plans had been changed, and they 
 were not there. During the reconnaissance, the 
 Baltimore, lying in the entrance of the bay, fired the 
 first shot of the campaign in overhauling a Spanish 
 
THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY 
 
 133 
 
 schooner of which, however, it was not thought 
 worth while to make a prize. Late in the afternoon 
 the commodore ordered the fleet to lie to, to avoid 
 appearing before Manila by daylight, and sum 
 moned his commanding officers to a council on 
 board the flagship. He informed them that he 
 meant to enter Manila Bay during the night. 
 
 The bay is a large sheet of water, running inland 
 for thirty miles, and the same distance in average 
 width, though much narrower at the 
 Dewey reaches mout h. In the entrance are two high 
 Apriilo*** rock y islands, Corregidor and Ca- 
 ballo, dividing the waterway into two 
 channels, the Boca Chica (Little Mouth) on the 
 north, and the Boca Grande (Great Mouth) on the 
 south. In the latter, which is about six miles wide, 
 rises the isolated rock of El Fraile (The Friar) ; 
 in the former are La Monja (The Nun) and sev 
 eral other islets. Corregidor was fortified and 
 garrisoned by the Spaniards ; there were small bat 
 teries on Caballo and El Fraile, and on the main 
 land at Punta Restinga, south of the entrance, and 
 at Mariveles, Punta Gorda, and Punta Lasisi, north 
 of it. None of them contained guns of more than 
 fifteen-centimetre (six-inch) calibre. 
 
 An hour before midnight the American fleet 
 reached the mouth of the bay and turned into the 
 Boca Grande, steaming at eight knots. The ships 
 were in column, the Olympia leading, and the Bal 
 timore, Raleigh, Petrel, Concord, and Boston fol 
 lowing in order. No lights were shown except one 
 at the stern, to guide the vessel next in line. There 
 was a half moon, and the night was light enough 
 to make it a risky matter to run through a channel 
 that was commanded by batteries and might be laid 
 with mines. In a published narrative by Lieu 
 tenant Fiske,* of the Petrel, it is stated that not an 
 
 * The Century Magazine, November, 1898. 
 
I 
 
THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY ^5 
 
 officer in the squadron had been in the bay before, 
 but this is not quite correct, for Captain Gridley 
 was at Manila in 1894, when he commanded the 
 Marion. Nevertheless, Lieutenant Calkins, the 
 navigator of the Olympia, who piloted the fleet, had 
 a very difficult and responsible task. 
 
 Commodore Dewey had been perfectly correct 
 in his belief that the Spaniards would not dream of 
 his forcing an entrance into the bay before day 
 break. Their watch was not a very sharp one, for 
 half of the ships had passed Corregidor before any 
 alarm was given. Then a rocket went up from the 
 island, and a little later the guns on El Fraile 
 opened fire. The Raleigh and the Concord replied, 
 and the rear-guard ship, the Boston, turned aside to 
 pass close to the battery, not a formidable one, and 
 hammered it until it was silenced. 
 
 The McCulloch and the two colliers formed a 
 separate column to the right of the war ships. As 
 they passed into the bay the former signalled that 
 her chief engineer had been disabled by sudden ill 
 ness. It was a stroke of heat prostration or of 
 apoplexy, and in twenty minutes Engineer Randall 
 was dead the only life lost in the attack on Manila. 
 
 Past the batteries, and untouched by a hostile 
 shot, the fleet advanced at its leisure toward the 
 Philippine capital, still about twenty miles distant. 
 There was time to spare, as it was useless to arrive 
 there before daybreak, and the crews, who had 
 stood to their guns since nightfall, had three or four 
 hours for such rest as they could get. At four 
 o clock coffee and hardtack were served out. At 
 five the ships were opposite Jihe city, and it was 
 light enough to see that there were no men-of-war 
 in the port. Turning southward again, the squad 
 ron moved toward the peninsula of Cavite, which 
 projects into the bay a few miles below Manila, and 
 on which the Spaniards had their naval arsenal; 
 and here Montojo s fleet was speedily descried. As 
 
136 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the American ships circled toward Cavite, a few 
 shots were exchanged with a shore battery in 
 Manila that of the Luneta, consisting of twenty- 
 five-centimetre (ten-inch) Krupp guns but at too 
 great a range to be effective. 
 
 Montojo had only one vessel that could be 
 ranked as high as the second class his flagship, 
 the Reina Cristina, a steel cruiser of 
 3 5 tons > launched at Ferrol in 
 1886, and armed with six six-inch and 
 fourteen smaller guns. Her consorts were two 
 small English-built cruisers, the Isla de Cuba and 
 the Isla de Luzon, 1,030 tons each, and two others, 
 old iron ships, slightly larger but less efficient, the 
 Don Antonio de Ulloa, which was under repair, 
 and the Don Juan de Austria; a still more an 
 cient wooden vessel, whose engines were disabled 
 the Castilla, 3,342 tons ; two 5ooton gunboats, 
 the General Lezo and the Marques del Duero ; and 
 four small torpedo boats. There were also two 
 transports, the Manila and the Isla de Mindanao, 
 and the Velasco, another obsolete iron ship which 
 was undergoing repairs. In offensive and defen 
 sive power the squadron was far inferior to Dewey s 
 fine quartette of cruisers, but it had a great ad 
 vantage in position, fighting in its own waters, 
 where it knew the ranges, and had the aid of bat 
 teries on shore. 
 
 Montojo had abandoned his plan of meeting 
 Dewey in Subig Bay only two days before, having 
 found the fortifications there to be worthless. In 
 Manila Bay he had a stronger base, but he had 
 not had time to complete his preparations. What 
 ever may have been the case elsewhere, at Cavite 
 the Spaniards had an abundant store of war ma 
 terial. When the American marines occupied the 
 arsenal, they found it well supplied and apparently 
 well kept. The most serious defect in the Spanish 
 defences was the lack of mines. It was believed on 
 
THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY 
 
 137 
 
 the Olympia that as she approached Montojo s 
 squadron two mines were exploded in the bay, 
 ahead of her. Captain Gridley reported so, and in 
 Dewey s first detailed account of the action he also 
 said that " while advancing to the attack, two mines 
 were exploded ahead of the flagship, too far to be 
 effective." In a statement given by one of the 
 Olympia s engineers it is asserted that a mine went 
 off twelve hundred yards in front of the ship. At 
 such a distance, in the dim light of dawn, it would 
 be easy to mistake the splash of a shell, which some 
 times throws the water masthead high, for the ex 
 plosion of a torpedo. Spanish projectiles frequently 
 fell as much as twelve hundred yards short of their 
 mark, but it would be an extraordinary mis 
 calculation to discharge an electric mine nearly 
 three quarters of a mile away from its intended 
 victim. 
 
 On the other hand, the reports of Dewey s other 
 captains, and the narratives of Lieutenant Fiske, of 
 Engineer Ford of the Baltimore,* and of several 
 other eye-witnesses, do not record any explosion 
 of mines. The official report of Admiral Montojo, 
 in which he details his preparations for defence, 
 mentions no mines ; nor does the account published 
 in the Diario de Manila of May 4th. Lieutenant 
 Fiske expressly states that the Spaniards had none 
 in place, though some mine cases lay in the arsenal, 
 unfinished. This is confirmed by Montojo s state 
 ment f that he had repeatedly asked for torpedoes 
 
 * An American Cruiser in the Far East. 
 
 t Reported by the China Mail s correspondent in Manila shortly 
 after the battle. 
 
 A comparison of Gridley s report with Montojo s confirms the sug 
 gestion that the splash of shells was mistaken for the explosion of 
 mines. The captain of the Olympia says : " At 5.06 two submarine 
 mines were exploded near. At 5.15 batteiy on Shangly Point opened 
 fire." Montojo records that "at q the batteries on Sanp-lev Point 
 opened fire. The two first shots fell short and to the left of the lead 
 ing- vessel. These shots were not answered by the enemy. ... At 
 5.15 I made signal that our squadron open fire." 
 
138 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 from Madrid, but had received none, and his at 
 tempts to make them had been failures. 
 
 The peninsula of Cavite is shaped like a two- 
 pronged fork, with the small bay of Canacao be 
 tween the prongs, and the larger bay 
 of Bakoor between the peninsula and 
 the mainland of Luzon. Montojo s 
 ships were drawn up in line across Bakoor Bay, 
 their left resting on the Cavite arsenal, their right 
 on the shore near the village of Bakoor. The two 
 disabled vessels, the Castilla and the Ulloa, were 
 moored close to Sangley Point, the former having 
 a row of lighters, filled with sand, to protect her 
 water line. The Velasco was tied up at the arsenal, 
 and was not in the action. The six other cruisers 
 and gunboats were at anchor, with steam up. In 
 spite of the warning sounded by the firing at the 
 mouth of the harbour, Dewey s attack apparently 
 took the Spaniards by surprise, for many of the 
 officers and men were ashore, and came hurrying 
 out in boats as the battle began. 
 
 The American ships came on in the same order 
 as before, attacking in column, as Nelson did at the 
 Nile and at Trafalgar, but veering to the right, so 
 as to turn their port broadsides to the enemy. The 
 Spanish batteries and men-of-war had been firing 
 for about half an hour when at twenty minutes to 
 six, and at a distance of three miles, Dewey gave 
 the order for the Olympia to reply. The engage 
 ment soon became general. Every ship in both 
 fleets was using every gun it could bring to bear, 
 and the Spaniards had the assistance of five shore 
 batteries. None of the five, however, proved dan 
 gerous to the American vessels, the most formida 
 ble being that on Sangley Point, consisting of two 
 fifteen-centimetre (six-inch) Ordonez guns, of 
 which Montojo reported that only one could be 
 used. A mile southward, at Canacao, was another 
 battery of a single twelve-centimetre (five-inch) 
 
THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY 139 
 
 gun, and a totally ineffective fire, at long range, 
 was kept up from three points in Manila by the 
 heavy cannon of the Luneta, by some smaller guns 
 on the mole at the mouth of the Pasig River, and 
 by the old fort in the southern suburb of Malate. 
 
 To render them a more difficult mark, Dewey 
 kept his ships passing slowly up and down in front 
 of the Spanish line. Early in the action Montojo 
 ordered all of his vessels that could do so to slip 
 their anchors and get under way. Two of the tor 
 pedo boats boldly dashed out to attack the 
 Olympia, but the American gunners did not allow 
 them to get within striking distance. One was 
 sunk, the other driven ashore disabled. The 
 Reina Cristina also steamed out to attack at close 
 quarters, but she too had to retreat, and the Span 
 iards made no further move until at the end of the 
 battle they went inshore to sink, as a dog crawls 
 into his kennel to die. 
 
 There being no armoured ships on either side, 
 the result was simply a question of gunnery; and 
 here the Americans had a great advantage in their 
 more powerful batteries, and a still greater one in 
 their vastly superior marksmanship. Whether from 
 lack of training or from inability to preserve, in 
 the stress and strain of battle, the steadiness of hand 
 and eye that is needed for accurate gun practice, 
 the Spaniards fire was extraordinarily wild and in 
 effective. With about seventy guns firing for two 
 hours at an enemy within easy range, they did prac 
 tically no damage. Only one of their shells a 4.7- 
 inch projectile from the Isla de Cuba injured a 
 gun or a man in the American fleet, striking a six- 
 inch gun on the Baltimore, disabling it, and sending 
 out a shower of splinters that wounded Lieutenant 
 Kellogg, Ensign Irwin, and six seamen, none of 
 them seriously. Besides this the Baltimore was hit 
 or grazed by four other shots, the Olympia by eight, 
 the Boston by four, the Raleigh by one, the Petrel 
 
140 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 by one, but none of them left more than a slight 
 mark. The Concord was not struck. Indeed, the 
 chief injury received by Dewey s ships was the 
 shattering of boats and skylights, the starting of 
 planks, and the breaking of wires by the concus 
 sion of their own artillery. 
 
 On the other hand, the American fire was ex 
 ceedingly accurate and destructive. As they passed 
 along the Spanish line Dewey s gunners paid spe 
 cial attention to the Reina Cristina, their only an 
 tagonist that could be considered formidable, and 
 Montojo s flagship suffered terribly. Early in the 
 action a shell exploded in the forecastle, and killed 
 or disabled the crews of four of her rapid-fire guns. 
 The helmsman on the bridge being wounded by 
 splinters struck from the foremast, Lieutenant 
 Nunez took the wheel and kept it, amid the hail of 
 shot, until another shell destroyed the steering gear. 
 The admiral s flag was shot from the mizzenmast, 
 one gun after another was put out of action, the 
 smokestack was riddled, the engines were struck 
 and damaged. A shell burst in the hospital, kill 
 ing wounded men who were being treated there ; 
 another set fire to the crews quarters, and another 
 caused a serious blaze close to one of the maga 
 zines. Altogether, as reported by Montojo, the 
 flagship was struck seventy times. 
 
 Both here and on the other ships, the Spaniards 
 fought with great bravery. The Cristina s guns 
 were fired until only two gunners remained unhurt. 
 Finally, with his ship hopelessly disabled and burn 
 ing in half a dozen places, with more than half her 
 crew killed or wounded, with her boilers and maga 
 zines likely to explode at any moment, the admiral, 
 who had himself been wounded by a splinter from 
 a shell, ordered her abandoned. The boats were 
 launched, and Montojo was rowed over to the Isla 
 de Cuba. Many of the crew jumped overboard and 
 swam to other vessels or to the shore. Captain 
 
THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY 
 
 141 
 
 Cadarso, the Cristina s chief officer, stayed on the 
 ship to the last, and was killed by a shell as he was 
 about to leave her. 
 
 The rest of the Spanish vessels had suffered 
 almost as severely. The wooden Castilla was no 
 better than a floating coffin under the fire of the 
 American guns, and she had burned and sunk 
 where she lay. As Lieutenant Fiske remarks, 
 Montojo would have been wiser to dismantle her 
 before the battle, and mount her guns on shore. 
 The whole fleet was practically silenced and 
 wrecked when, at twenty-five minutes to eight, after 
 passing five times along the Spanish line, and 
 gradually drawing closer until he was within two 
 thousand yards of it, Dewey ordered his squadron 
 to cease firing. It had been reported to him that 
 the Olympia s ammunition was running low, only 
 fifteen rounds remaining for her five-inch rapid-fire 
 battery ; and he drew out of range, to communicate 
 with his other ships and redistribute his supply of 
 shot and shell. It was soon discovered that the 
 report of a shortage was a mistake, but the commo 
 dore remained out in the bay for three hours and 
 a half, receiving reports of casualties or, rather, of 
 the extraordinary absence of casualties from his 
 captains, and giving his men time for rest and re 
 freshment. During this interval he sent in a mes 
 sage to the governor-general, informing him that if 
 the city batteries continued to fire the American 
 fleet would bombard Manila. The warning silenced 
 them. 
 
 At sixteen minutes past eleven Dewey gave the 
 signal for returning to the attack, and the squadron 
 moved inshore again, the Baltimore now leading 
 the way. Montojo had moved his ships all that 
 could be moved close to the point of Cavite. 
 Only one of them the Antonio de Ulloa was still 
 able to fire a gun. Most of them were in flames, 
 and one of them after another was scuttled and 
 
142 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 abandoned. The admiral himself had been carried 
 to a convent in the town. A few more rounds from 
 the American cruisers completed the work of de 
 struction, and at twenty minutes to one, the Span 
 ish ships being wrecked and sunk, the shore bat 
 teries silenced, and the arsenal having hauled down 
 its flag, Dewey steamed northward again to Manila, 
 
 Sangley Pt 
 
 Sketch map showing position of the sunken Spanish ships 
 after the battle of Manila Bay, May I, 1898. 
 
 1. Reina Cristina. 
 
 2. Don Antonio de Ulloa. 
 
 3. Castilla. 
 
 4. Velasco. 
 
 5. Don Juan de Austria. 
 
 6. Isla de Cuba. 
 
 7. Isla de Luzon. 
 
 8. Marques del Duero. 
 
 9. General Lezo. 
 
 10. Isla de Mindanao. 
 
 leaving the Petrel whose light draught enabled her 
 to go into the shallow water inshore to destroy 
 or capture anything that might still remain afloat. 
 Commander Wood carried out his commission 
 effectually, sending his executive officer, Lieuten 
 ant Hughes, with a boat s crew to set fire to the 
 scuttled gunboats, while his navigator, Lieutenant 
 Fiske, seized and brought out the tugs Rapido and 
 
THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY 
 
 143 
 
 Hercules and three steam launches, without any at 
 tempt at resistance by the Spanish soldiers and 
 seamen on the beach at Cavite. The coast-survey 
 vessel Manila, which had been run ashore at 
 Bakoor, was afterward hauled off uninjured and 
 added to the list of prizes. 
 
 Thus was executed one of the most brilliant and 
 completely successful naval operations in history. 
 The morning s work of Dewey s squadron had ob 
 literated Spain s naval power in the East, and had 
 given him command of the great Philippine archi 
 pelago. All this had been done without losing a 
 single man in a battle in which the enemy s loss, 
 as reported to Madrid by Montojo, was three hun 
 dred and eighty-one killed and wounded besides 
 the destruction of a fleet and the ruin of a colonial 
 empire. 
 
 In the afternoon, while the victorious squadron 
 was anchored off Manila, which lay at the mercy 
 of its guns, Mr. Rawson Walker, the British con 
 sul, came out to the Olympia and requested, on 
 behalf of resident foreigners of twenty-one nation 
 alities, that the city should not be shelled. Dewey 
 consented on certain conditions, which included a 
 supply of coal for his ships, and control of the cable 
 to Hong-Kong. Governor-General Augustin re 
 fused his terms, but there was no further firing. A 
 bombardment would have caused frightful destruc 
 tion, and would have been of no equivalent mili 
 tary advantage, as Dewey could not land a force 
 sufficient to hold the city against the insurgents who 
 would have swarmed in to loot it. 
 
 On the following day (May 2d) the commodore 
 moved his ships back to Cavite, where they took 
 up a position which they were to hold 
 
 f ay3. for ma "y weeks - the 3d the 
 arsenal, which the Spaniards had 
 
 evacuated, was occupied not in time to prevent 
 some plundering by the rebels, who also despoiled 
 
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the neighbouring villages of Cavite and San Roque. 
 On the same day the Baltimore and the Raleigh 
 went over to Corregidor Island and received the 
 surrender of its garrison, which was released on 
 parole. 
 
 During the battle, General Augustin had sent to 
 Madrid a vaguely worded despatch which, though 
 it admitted the loss of two ships, gave the impres 
 sion that the Spaniards had the best of the fight. 
 It created momentary jubilation in the Spanish 
 capital, which was gradually changed to sorrow 
 and indignation as later reports, though still very 
 indefinite, left no doubt of a disaster. On the 3d 
 of May, when the Cortes met, Sefior Salmeron, the 
 republican leader, demanded an explanation, and 
 declared that it would be necessary to establish the 
 responsibility attaching to the existing Govern 
 ment. Sagasta replied by appealing to the house 
 to subordinate partisanship to patriotism. Com 
 munication between Madrid and Manila had ended 
 on the previous day, when Dewey cut the cable of 
 which Augustin had refused him the use. 
 
 In America, meanwhile, there was intense sus 
 pense, in the absence of definite news. Dewey s 
 success was not doubted, but no one dreamed that 
 it could have been won without serious loss. Not 
 until May 4th did the commodore send the McCul- 
 loch speeding off to Hong-Kong, the nearest 
 cable station, with despatches for the Navy Depart 
 ment, and on the 7th the country was thrilled by his 
 laconic announcement of his magnificent and blood 
 less victory. 
 
 Five more weeks were to pass before a detailed 
 story of the battle was received. By that time an 
 army was on its way across the Pacific to reap for 
 America the fruit of the fleet s great achievement 
 of the ist of May. 
 

 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CUBAN BLOCKADE, MAY, 1898 
 
 THE course of events in the chief theatre of war 
 during the months of May and June may be thus 
 briefly summed up : 
 
 1. Plans for the immediate invasion of Cuba, 
 which were abandoned or postponed ; the blockade, 
 meanwhile, being maintained and extended. 
 
 2. The coming of Cervera s fleet, and the move 
 ments of the squadrons under Sampson and Schley 
 to intercept it. 
 
 3. The "bottling" of Cervera at Santiago, 
 which thereupon became the centre of naval and 
 military operations, and the scene of the chief sea 
 fight and the only land battle of the war. 
 
 The first army of invasion was formed by mov 
 ing men from Camp Thomas, at Chickamauga, to 
 Tampa, where in the early days of May a corps was 
 organized, designated as the Fifth Corps, and com 
 manded by General William R. Shafter a briga 
 dier in the regular army,* appointed a major-gen 
 eral of volunteers. On May 2d it was decided, at 
 a White House conference in which General Miles 
 and Admiral Sicard took part, as well as the Presi 
 dent and Secretaries Alger and Long to move 
 forty or fifty thousand men to some point near Ha 
 vana, and attack or besiege the capital on the land 
 
 * The general officers of the regular army, just before the war, were 
 Major-Generals Miles (commanding the army), Merritt, and Brooke; 
 Brigadier-Generals , Otis, Coppinger, Shafter, Graham, Wade, and 
 Merriam ; and the heads of the staff bureaus, Brigadier-Generals 
 Greely (chief signal officer), Breckinridge (inspector-general), Flagler 
 
 145 
 
146 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 side. On May Qth Shafter was instructed by Sec 
 retary Alger to " move his command, under pro 
 tection of navy, and seize and hold Mariel, or most 
 important point on north coast of Cuba and where 
 territory is ample to land and deploy army." 
 
 Mariel is twenty-six miles from Havana, and is 
 the nearest harbour west of the city. General 
 Wade, in command at Tampa, was to send reinforce 
 ments as fast as they could be brought from Chicka- 
 mauga and other points. He was directed to " have 
 troops fully equipped ; send abundance of ammuni 
 tion, and ship with them food for men and animals 
 for sixty days, to be followed by four months sup 
 plies." 
 
 It was vastly easier to issue these instructions 
 than to execute them. There was a great deficiency 
 of ammunition and of supplies and equipments of 
 all sorts, and on the loth orders came from Wash 
 ington to defer sailing until May i6th. Meanwhile, 
 to get the army in motion, twelve thousand men 
 were to be transported from Tampa to Key West, 
 as a halfway station on the route to Cuba. This 
 
 (chief of ordnance), Sternberg (surgeon-general), Lieber (judge-advo 
 cate-general), Stanton (paymaster-general), Wilson (chief of engi 
 neers), Ludington (quartermaster-general), Corbin (adjutant-general), 
 and Eagan (commissary-general). 
 
 The following army corps were organized during the war : 
 
 CORPS. 
 
 Commander. 
 
 Where organized. 
 
 Strength, 
 June soth. 
 
 First . . 
 Third . 
 Second 
 Fourth 
 Fifth.. 
 Sixth . 
 
 Major-General Brooke ) 
 Major-General Wade j 
 Major-General Graham . . . 
 Major-General Coppinger . 
 Major-General Shafter .... 
 Major-Genera] Wilson 
 
 Camp Thomas. 
 
 Camp Alger. . . . 
 Mobile 
 Tampa 
 
 58,548 
 
 23.5H 
 20,816 
 15,736 
 
 Seventh 
 
 Major-General Lee 
 
 Tampa (moved 
 
 19,156 
 
 Eighth . . . 
 
 Major-General Merritt . 
 
 to Jacksonville) 
 San Francisco 
 and Manila. 
 
 22,989 
 
 The Sixth Corps was never organized ; General Wilson was as 
 signed to command a division of the First Corps. 
 
THE CUBAN BLOCKADE 
 
 147 
 
 also was speedily found to be impracticable, as there 
 was no adequate supply of water on the island, 
 and nothing had been done to provide it. 
 
 Finally the idea of attacking Havana with a 
 large army was given up, and Shafter was ordered 
 to take five thousand men for a " reconnaissance in 
 force." The plan was to effect a landing on the 
 south coast, in Santiago or Puerto Principe prov 
 ince, and open up communications with Gomez; 
 but this, too, fell through. Besides the difficulty of 
 equipping an adequate force, the wet season was 
 beginning in Cuba, with its terrible menace to the 
 health of unacclimated invaders; the fortifications 
 of Havana had been greatly strengthened; there 
 was risk in sending transports to sea while there 
 existed the possibility of an attack by Cervera s 
 fleet; and when the blockade of Santiago ended 
 this latter danger, the whole plan of campaign was 
 changed. 
 
 What may be called legalized filibustering ex 
 peditions were a feature of these early days of 
 the war, when the assistance of the 
 Cuban insurgents was valued much 
 more highly than it came to be upon 
 closer acquaintance. Official relations with them 
 were first opened by Lieutenant A. S. Rowan, of the 
 military information bureau. Charged with mes 
 sages to General Calixto Garcia, the exact nature 
 of which has not been disclosed, Lieutenant Rowan 
 was ordered to Jamaica early in April, to await 
 the inevitable outbreak of war. When it came, he 
 crossed to the south coast of Cuba in a fishing 
 smack, in company with agents of the insurgent 
 junta in Jamaica, and landed between .Santiago and 
 Cape Cruz, on April 25th. On May 1st, after an 
 arduous journey through mountains and forests, he 
 met Garcia at the town of Bayamo, which had just 
 been evacuated by its Spanish garrison and occu 
 pied by the insurgents. He delivered his de- 
 
148 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 spatches, rode on across the province of Santiago, 
 which he found to be a desolated wilderness, to the 
 north coast, and on the 5th sailed from the harbour 
 of Manati, with five companions, in an open row- 
 boat,, which was so small that its occupants were 
 forced to sit upright with their provisions between 
 their knees. They were picked up by a Bahama 
 sponging steamer, and on May nth Lieutenant 
 Rowan s adventurous journey ended at Key West, 
 whence he hurried to Washington to report. 
 
 The first expedition with arms and supplies for 
 the insurgents had left Key West a few days be 
 fore, under the command of Colonel R. H. Hall, of 
 the Fourth Infantry. Its purpose was accom 
 plished, and the honour of being the first American 
 officer to set foot on Cuban soil during the war was 
 ^claimed for one of its members, Lieutenant W. M. 
 Crofton, of the First Infantry ; but Lieutenant 
 Rowan would seem to possess a prior title to this 
 particular distinction. 
 
 Another expedition, which left Key West May 
 nth on the transport Gussie, with a cargo of arms 
 and ammunition, and a hundred men of the First 
 Infantry, commanded by Lieutenant J. H. Dorst, 
 was less successful. At Puerto Cabanas (about 
 forty miles west of Havana), where she attempted 
 to make a landing, she found herself confronted by 
 a strong force of Spaniards. Even with the assist 
 ance of the gunboats Wasp and Manning, the 
 enemy could not be dislodged, and the Gussie had 
 to withdraw. Much of the blame for her failure 
 was charged to the newspapers, which had openly 
 advertised the starting of the expedition two days 
 before it sailed; and as a result, the military censor 
 ship of press despatches became more strict.* 
 
 * The chief signal officer, Brigadier-General A. W. Greely, speaks 
 of this most responsible as well as most delicate duty " in his annual 
 report : " The great daily journals of the country not only held up the 
 hands of the chief signal officer, but also refrained at critical times 
 
THE CUBAN BLOCKADE 
 
 149 
 
 No news was published of an expedition which 
 started from Tampa a week later. For this eight 
 hundred Cubans had been recruited an ill- 
 equipped, undisciplined regiment ; so undisciplined 
 that on the night of embarkation nearly half of 
 them straggled down to the pier too late for their 
 steamer, the Florida, which took the rest to the 
 harbour of Banes, on the north coast of the prov 
 ince of Santiago. 
 
 There were a few other similar expeditions, but 
 their movements were kept so quiet that their his 
 tory can not now be written fully ; and, indeed, it 
 would scarcely be worth while to write it, as they 
 had little or no effect upon the course of the war. 
 One was diverted into a filibustering attack upon 
 Santo Domingo.* What was probably the last 
 went from Key West on the transports Florida and 
 Fanita, June 25th, with two hundred Cubans, and 
 fifty coloured troopers of the Tenth Cavalry, 
 escorted by the auxiliary cruiser Peoria. After an 
 unsuccessful attempt to land near Trinidad, and 
 
 from publishing; information detrimental to the public interests. All 
 messages to the West Indies were carefully supervised. Through the 
 signal-corps censorship a rich harvest of information was gained from 
 the telegrams of newspaper correspondents, blockade runners, personal 
 despatches, etc. 
 
 " While hundreds of improper messages were quietly deposited in 
 the waste-basket, others were allowed to pass freely as leading up to 
 other and more valuable information." 
 
 The War and Navy Departments, of course, were from the first 
 very sparing of information for the press, and on April 2qth Secretary 
 Alger issued an order absolutely forbidding his subordinates to answer 
 any questions from reporters. The New York Sun said on May ist : 
 " The system inaugurated yesterday is more stringent than a press cen 
 sorship. A query in regard to the most inconsequential matter con 
 nected with the routine work of the department was treated in the 
 same way as a query in reference to the next important strategic move ; 
 a refusal to answer w.is given in all cases. The department believes 
 that some recent publications have caused embarrassment to the plans 
 of the Government in its campaign against Spain." 
 
 * Commander Clover, of the Bancroft, reported overhauling this 
 expedition, on board the Fanita, off Key West, on May 2yth, and 
 allowing it to proceed, not without some misgiving as to its purpose. 
 Its leader was a "General Rodriguez," who seems to have been the 
 Dominican revolutionist Timinez. A full account of the incident was 
 published in the New York Herald, August 6, 1899. 
 
ISO 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 another at Tunas, a little farther east where the 
 Cubans were repulsed with some loss by a Spanish 
 detachment the men were put ashore at Palo Alto, 
 in Puerto Principe province, and joined Maximo 
 Gomez, who, according to the story told by a vol 
 unteer member of the expedition, gave them a 
 somewhat chilly reception, declaring that he needed 
 arms and supplies, not recruits. During July they 
 took part in some minor engagements with the 
 Cuban general s nephew, Miguel Gomez, who hor 
 rified his American allies by shooting prisoners and 
 looting a captured town (Arroyo Blanco). At the 
 close of the war, after suffering much hardship, 
 they made their way to the north coast. 
 
 It was naturally desired that the Cuban coast 
 should be more effectively patrolled, but during the 
 
 month of May, with the limited num- 
 in May C ^ er ^ sm p s available, it was not 
 
 found possible to watch any ports 
 except those covered by the proclamation of April 
 2 1 st. Indeed, it was not until the end of June, 
 when Sampson s fleet had grown from twenty ves 
 sels to almost a hundred, that an extension of the 
 blockade was declared. The whole coast of Cuba 
 was a line of two thousand miles " greater in ex 
 tent," as Sampson said, " than that patrolled by 
 nearly six hundred ships during the civil war, and 
 one in many respects offering greater difficulties." 
 To watch even a small part of it was a tedious and 
 exhausting service for the American ships and 
 sailors, without many exciting incidents. 
 
 Sampson s bombardment of the Matanzas bat 
 teries (April 27th), already chronicled, was followed 
 by a series of small brushes with the enemy, the 
 first occurring two days later off Cienfuegos. At 
 this point, owing to its distance from a coaling base 
 (it is six hundred miles from Key West by way of 
 Cape San Antonio), and to Sampson s lack of ships, 
 it was impossible, in the early weeks of the war, to 
 
THE CUBAN BLOCKADE 151 
 
 maintain a strict blockade. The first American 
 ships to appear there were the cruiser Marblehead, 
 the gunboat Nashville, and the converted yacht 
 Eagle, on April 29th. Sampson had detached this 
 little squadron, whose senior officer was Com 
 mander McCalla, of the Marblehead, with orders to 
 intercept two Spanish transports which had been 
 reported as bound for Cienfuegos. Unfortunately 
 the Marblehead and the Eagle ran aground, losing 
 twelve hours ; and McCalla was too late to catch 
 the intended prizes. He was off the port, and had 
 captured the coasting steamer Argonauta, when the 
 torpedo boat Gallicia and two other small armed 
 vessels came out and fired on the Eagle, seconded 
 by batteries on shore. The American ships replied 
 in kind, and drove the Spaniards off, disabling the 
 Gallicia, which limped back into port with a shot 
 through her boilers. Immediately after the brief 
 engagement McCalla was obliged to withdraw, as 
 his coal was running low. 
 
 On the same day the New York fired upon forts 
 and a company of cavalry at Puerto Cabanas, the 
 scene of the Gussie s repulse. The Spaniards main 
 tained a cavalry patrol along many parts of the 
 blockaded coast, and on May 2d the gunboat Wil 
 mington and the torpedo boat Ericsson had some 
 target practice of the same sort. On the 6th and 
 7th the torpedo boats Dupont and Winslow and 
 the yacht Hornet fired upon the shore batteries near 
 Matanzas, where the Spanish engineers had re 
 sumed work since Sampson s visit. On the 7th the 
 gunboat Vicksburg and the revenue cutter Morrill 
 chased a schooner under the Havana fortifications 
 and exchanged shots with them. 
 
 The most serious engagements of the blockade, 
 and the first in which American lives were lost, 
 were fought on May nth, at Cardenas and Cien 
 fuegos. At the former port which lies on one of 
 those deep indentations so characteristic of the 
 
152 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Cuban coast, with an entrance barred by a chain 
 of keys were three Spanish gunboats, which con 
 stantly showed themselves at the mouth of the har 
 bour, and one day repelled an attack 
 The fight at car- , h torpedo boat Foote. Early on 
 
 denas, May n. / . , _. . J . 
 
 the morning of May nth, when the 
 gunboats Machias and Wilmington, the revenue 
 cutter Hudson, and the torpedo boat Winslow were 
 off the port, Commander Merry, of the Machias, the 
 senior officer present, after a consultation with 
 Commander Todd, of the Wilmington, ordered an 
 attack, in hope of capturing the daring Spaniards. 
 
 The bay of Cardenas is shallow, and the main 
 entrance was believed to be laid with mines oper 
 ated from a station on Diana Key, one of the ob 
 structing islands. The Machias stayed outside to 
 attack this point, while the three other vessels 
 picked their way into the harbour by another chan 
 nel through the keys, and moved across the wide 
 bay toward the town. The Winslow, leading the 
 way, was within a mile of the wharves, which were 
 lined with small craft, when a hot fire suddenly 
 opened upon her, apparently coming from a battery 
 at the water s edge, as well as from the Spanish 
 gunboats. She made a spirited reply with her puny 
 armament of three one-pounder rapid-fire guns, 
 and the Wilmington and Hudson joined in the 
 bombardment, doing serious damage to the enemy s 
 vessels and some to the town, but failing to silence 
 the Spaniards fire, which was concentrated on the 
 Winslow, and fairly riddled her. One of her en 
 gines was struck and injured, her steering gear was 
 shot away, a shell exploded in one of her boilers, 
 another started a fire in her paint room, and an 
 other disabled one of her guns ; and she was drift 
 ing helplessly toward the shore when her com 
 manding officer, Lieutenant J. B. Bernadou, sig 
 nalled for help, and the Hudson steamed up to tow 
 her out of her imminent peril. Lieutenant Berna- 
 
THE CUBAN BLOCKADE 
 
 153 
 
 dou had been wounded in the thigh by a splinter, 
 but had stuck to his post, stopping the How of 
 blood by means of a tourniquet improvised with 
 a towel and an empty shell case. 
 
 A line was thrown from the Hudson to the 
 Winslow, but fell short. At the second attempt, as 
 the torpedo-boat s crew stood ready to grasp the 
 rope, a shell exploded among a group of them, 
 instantly killing the second officer, Ensign Bagley, 
 and two seamen, and mortally wounding two 
 others. Ensign Bagley, a very promising young 
 North Carolinian, was the only officer of the United 
 States navy killed in action during the war. Finally 
 the line was made fast, and the Winslow was taken 
 out of the bay and to Key West. 
 
 The skirmish at Cardenas, which was more like 
 a defeat than anything else that the American arms 
 encountered during the war, showed that to pit 
 such unprotected vessels as torpedo boats against 
 even mediocre shore batteries may be magnificent, 
 but is not war. Even for the routine work of the 
 blockade these frail craft were ill adapted, and 
 probably they would not have been ordered to this 
 duty but for the urgent need of all the ships that 
 could be mustered into service. They are, of 
 course, designed for a special purpose, armament, 
 protection, and seagoing ability being sacrificed to 
 the power to make a lightninglike dash at the 
 enemy in battle. Of their condition after the four 
 months campaign Engineer-in-Chief Melville said 
 in his official report : " Nearly every one has had 
 some accident, and the machinery of some at the 
 close of the war was in a condition that can only 
 be described as horrible." 
 
 It has been charged, or at least hinted, that in 
 taking the Winslow so close to an enemy whose 
 strength was imperfectly known, Lieutenant Ber- 
 nadou was guilty of the rashness to which young 
 commanders are naturally prone. The charge is 
 
JEJ4 TH E SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 answered, as far as the lieutenant is concerned, by 
 the fact that he was acting throughout under the 
 orders of superior officers. 
 
 As it was, the American loss five killed and 
 three wounded was small, and the Winslow s in 
 juries, though numerous, were so slight that she 
 was ready for sea again a few hours after reaching 
 Key West. The Spaniards, on the other hand, had 
 suffered considerably. They reported one of their 
 gunboats, the Antonio Lopez, a total wreck, and 
 much damage along the water front of the town. 
 The Machias, moreover, had shelled and demol 
 ished the station on Diana Key. A boat s crew, 
 commanded by Ensign A. L. Willard, went ashore 
 on the key and hoisted the Stars and Stripes above 
 the Spanish barracks the first appearance of the 
 American flag as an emblem of conquest on Cuban 
 soil. 
 
 On the same day, soon after sunrise, four boats 
 the steam and sailing launches of the Marblehead and 
 the Nashville, commanded by Lieu- 
 
 tCnant Winsl W > f the latter VeSSel > 
 
 May ii a son f Captain Winslow of the old 
 
 Kearsarge made a daring and partly 
 successful attempt to cut the telegraph cables that 
 connected Cienfuegos with Havana and with Eu 
 rope. For more than three hours the boats crews 
 grappled for the submarine wires, going within 
 sixty feet of the beach, in a heavy sea, and work 
 ing with the utmost coolness under a constant rifle 
 fire from troops on shore. Two lines were brought 
 up and cut, and another small one had been found 
 when the Spanish fire became so heavy that Lieu 
 tenant Winslow, who had been shot through the 
 hand, was obliged to order the launches to with 
 draw from their perilous position. The Marble- 
 head and the Nashville, together with the revenue 
 cutter Windom, though they had not been able to 
 drive the Spaniards from their cover on the beach, 
 
THE CUBAN BLOCKADE 
 
 155 
 
 had wrecked the cable station ; and as the boats had 
 been fired on from the lighthouse at the harbour 
 mouth, it was also demolished. The Eagle, mean 
 while, destroyed an outlying lighthouse (Piedras 
 Key) and lightship (Diego Perez Island), and sent 
 ashore their keepers who had not been paid for 
 months, and in one case had had no food for three 
 days. The American loss in the launches was 
 twelve men wounded, of whom two died. 
 
 The severing of the ocean cables landing in 
 Cuba was part of the plan for a complete blockade 
 of the island.* A specially fitted steamer, the Adria, 
 was commissioned for this difficult and frequently 
 dangerous work, but she proved a failure. Better 
 results were gained by the St. Louis and the Wom- 
 patuck. The big liner and her small consort, a tug 
 bought from the Standard Oil Company, had little 
 equipment for fighting, but Captain Goodrich and 
 Lieutenant Jungen, their commanding officers, on 
 May 1 8th took them under the batteries at the 
 mouth of the harbour of Santiago de Cuba and 
 severed the cable running to Jamaica. On the fol 
 lowing day they were repulsed in an attempt to 
 cut the French line near its landing at Guanta- 
 namo ; but on the 2oth Captain Goodrich found and 
 broke it off the Haitian coast, f and a few days later 
 he reported to the Navy Department his belief that 
 
 * This step was decided upon only after much hesitation in Wash 
 ington. Sampson s first orders were to cut no cables, and on April 
 27th Secretary Long: telegraphed : " We are considering the advantage 
 of declaring telegraph cables neutral." Three days later, when it was 
 known that Cervera had sailed from the Cape Verde Islands, Sampson 
 was authorized to destroy the cables on the south coast of Cuba. Of 
 course it was unnecessary to cut those that ran northward to the 
 United States 
 
 f It was claimed by the Spaniards and correctly, it appears that 
 this was a breach of international law. A neutral cable within the 
 enemy s territorial waters must take the chances of war ; in neutral 
 waters, or in the high seas, it is protected by the rights of neutrals 
 (The Spanish- American War, by Captain Severe Gomez Nunez, trans 
 lated and published by the United States Office of Naval Intelligence, 
 page 58). 
 
 II 
 
I 5 6 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 " the island of Cuba is now isolated, telegraphically 
 speaking." This same announcement was made 
 more than once, but always prematurely,* for when 
 Santiago fell it still had its cables to Havana and 
 Madrid. It was fortunate for the American forces, 
 and perhaps for the Spaniards, too, that such was 
 the case, for these wires carried to Cervera the 
 orders that sent his squadron from its stronghold in 
 Santiago harbour to destruction under Sampson s 
 guns, precipitating the fall of the Cuban city and 
 bringing near the end of the war. 
 
 * The mistake may have been due to the fact (reported by Admiral 
 Sampson, July igth) that the Spaniards had laid dummy cables, so 
 that it was almost impossible to know when a "live wire" had been 
 cut. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE COMING OF CERVERA 
 
 MEANWHILE, in the early days of May, the 
 situation in the West Indies was changed by the 
 appearance of Cervera s fleet as a factor indeed, as 
 the central factor in the campaign. Although its 
 strength was small in comparison with the whole 
 American naval force in the Atlantic, the Spanish 
 squadron was powerful enough, with Sampson s 
 ships scattered in Cuban waters, and a long stretch 
 of scantily protected coast before it, to threaten 
 grave danger at almost any point at which it might 
 strike. To insure the command of the sea, and to 
 make feasible the invasion of Cuba, it must be met 
 and vanquished. 
 
 Cervera s departure from St. Vincent on April 
 29th with the four cruisers, Maria Teresa (flagship ; 
 Captain Concas), Cristobal Colon (Captain Moreu), 
 Vizcaya (Captain Eulate), and Almirante Oquendo 
 (Captain Lagaza), and the three torpedo-boat de 
 stroyers, Furor (flagship of Captain Villamil, com 
 manding the flotilla ; the Furor commanded by 
 Lieutenant Carlier), Pluton (Lieutenant Vazquez), 
 and Terror (Lieutenant de la Rocha), was re 
 ported to the Navy Department on the same 
 day. Secretary Long immediately informed Samp 
 son that the Spanish fleet had sailed westward, 
 probably for Cuba, but possibly to strike at the 
 coast of the United States or to intercept the 
 Oregon. With equal promptitude he despatched 
 
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the Harvard and St. Louis, which were at New 
 York, waiting for orders, to cruise off Martinique 
 and Guadeloupe to watch for the Spaniards and 
 cable the earliest news of their movements. Two 
 days later (May ist) another of the American liners, 
 the Yale, was sent out to circle about Porto Rico. 
 It was not thought likely that Cervera would make 
 direct for Cuba without calling at some of the in 
 tervening islands, either for coal, for communica 
 tion with Madrid, or for news of the military situa 
 tion ; and it was fully expected that one of these 
 speedy scouts would be able to give ample warn 
 ing of his approach. 
 
 Behind this first line of the American naval de 
 fences was Sampson s fleet, which was now called 
 upon to present a double front to the enemy. To 
 meet the emergency it was divided into two bodies. 
 With the most powerful fighting ships the admiral 
 faced westward to meet Cervera, leaving Commo 
 dore Watson * to maintain the blockade with a 
 squadron consisting mainly of auxiliaries and 
 " mosquito " craft. A thousand miles to the north, 
 at Hampton Roads, the central point of the eastern 
 coast, was Schley, with the Flying Squadron, ready 
 to sally forth against the Spaniards if they should 
 make any attempt to strike at American seaports. 
 
 It was calculated that Cervera would reach West 
 
 Indian waters about May 8th a reckoning that 
 
 proved to be based upon an overesti- 
 
 sampson moves mate Q f his S q Uac iron s speed. Dur- 
 
 in g the first three da y s of the month 
 Sampson was at Key West with his 
 flagship, the New York, and his two battle ships, 
 the Iowa and Indiana, taking on coal and supplies 
 and making preparations for the expected fight. In 
 
 * To relieve Admiral Sampson of part of his tremendous burden of 
 work and responsibility, Commodore J. Crittenden Watson, who had 
 been serving as governor of the United States Naval Home, was ap 
 pointed (May 6th) to command the blockading squadron, under the 
 
THE COMING OF CERVERA 
 
 159 
 
 the early morning of the 4th the three great war 
 ships slipped out singly, to rendezvous a few hours 
 later at Juruco Cove, a dozen miles east of Havana. 
 The small cruiser Detroit also met them here, and 
 the four vessels steamed eastward toward San Juan, 
 Porto Rico, which both Sampson and the Navy 
 Department regarded as the admiral s probable 
 meeting place with the Spaniards. On their way, 
 in the Nicholas Channel, they picked up the moni 
 tors Terror and Amphitrite, the small cruiser 
 Montgomery, the torpedo boat Porter, the tug 
 Wompatuck, and the collier Niagara. It was a 
 heavily armed but not a swiftly moving squadron. 
 It could, of course, go no faster than its slowest 
 vessels, and the monitors were credited, at their 
 best pace, with only ten knots an hour. Every one 
 of Cervera s vessels was rated at fully twice that 
 speed. That a slow fleet should set out in search 
 of a swift one was an anomaly which the Navy 
 Department would doubtless have avoided had it 
 been possible. Had the United States possessed 
 only two or three more battle ships or good ar 
 moured cruisers, it would not have been necessary 
 to undertake an offensive movement with vessels 
 designed, as the monitors were, for coast defence. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Sampson could not make 
 anything like ten knots an hour, even by taking the 
 monitors in tow of the New York and the Iowa. 
 He had expected to reach San Juan in five days 
 steaming; it took him more than seven. On his 
 way (May 6th) he sent the Montgomery in to Cape 
 Haitien, on the north coast of Haiti, where she 
 found a despatch from Secretary Long : 
 
 admiral s orders. His "broad pennant" was hoisted successively on 
 the Cincinnati, the Dolphin, and other vessels. At the same time 
 Commodore George C. Remey was sent from the Portsmouth (New 
 Hampshire) navy yard to take charge of the station at Key West, the 
 great naval base of the war. Later (June 2ist) his command was ex 
 tended to include " all vessels within signalling distance " being still, 
 of course, subordinate to Sampson. 
 
!6o THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Do not risk so crippling your vessels against fortifica 
 tions as to prevent trom soon afterward successfully 
 righting Spanish fleet, composed of Pelayo, Carlos V,* 
 Oquendo, Vizcaya, Maria Teresa, Cristobal Colon, four 
 deep-sea torpedo boats, if they should appear on this side. 
 
 Sampson replied with a request that the Ameri 
 can liners should be ordered to meet him at St. 
 Thomas. " Lacking the services of these vessels," 
 he told the Navy Department, " I will have to re 
 turn to the west immediately. I shall await answer 
 to this request at Cape Haitien, and if granted I 
 will proceed to San Juan, probably destroying for 
 tifications, establishing a temporary base at Culebra 
 Island, to the east of Porto Rico, as entrance to San 
 Juan is obstructed." f 
 
 Secretary Long replied that the scouts had been 
 ordered to St. Thomas to await Sampson s instruc 
 tions, and on May nth the squadron left Cape Hai 
 tien, moving slowly eastward, and sighting the 
 lights of San Juan at three o clock the next morn 
 ing. At half past three breakfast was served ; at 
 four " all hands " was sounded for the final clearing 
 for action. All this time the ships were slowly mov 
 ing in toward the sleeping city. " One who was 
 there," said a correspondent who was with the fleet, 
 " knows how the tiger feels as it creeps up on its 
 prey." 
 
 The harbour of San Juan is a wide bay sheltered 
 from the Atlantic by a long, narrow island, which 
 at its eastern end approaches the mainland of Porto 
 Rico so closely that it is practically a peninsula. 
 The city, a place of about thirty thousand people, 
 lies at the western end of the island, facing toward 
 
 * The whereabouts of the Spanish battle ships Pelayo and Empera- 
 dor Carlos V was not positively known at this date. It was several 
 times reported that they had sailed or were about to sail for American 
 waters. Secretary Lone: was stating Cervera s squadron at its maxi 
 mum of possible strength. 
 
 f Admiral Sampson had been notified by Secretary Long (April 
 2gth) of a reoort, which seems to have been correct, that the Spaniards 
 had sunk hulks loaded with stones at the entrance of San Juan harbour. 
 
THE COMING OF CERVERA 161 
 
 the bay, and partly screened from the ocean by a 
 ridge of high ground that rises abruptly along the 
 beach some sixty feet above high tide. On the 
 westernmost point of the ridge, directly overlooking 
 the harbour entrance, stands the Morro Castle, an 
 extensive but antiquated stone fortress. The other 
 gate-post of the harbour is Cabras Island, and just 
 inside of this is Fort Canuelo, a small work built 
 on a sand bar. 
 
 Admiral Sampson had carefully formulated his 
 
 plan of attack, and had sent detailed instructions, 
 
 in writing, to each of his captains on 
 
 Bombardment the previous day> His fiye armoU r- 
 of San Juan, 111 1 i 111 1 
 
 May I2> clads advanced in column, led by the 
 
 Iowa, the most powerful vessel in the 
 fleet, to which the admiral, in expectation of heavy 
 fighting, had temporarily transferred his flag. The 
 Indiana, the New York, the Amphitrite, and the 
 Terror followed in order. In advance of all, a thou 
 sand yards ahead of the Iowa, the Detroit sounded 
 her way across the harbour mouth and under the 
 Morro, with orders to signal when she found the 
 water shoaling to ten fathoms. Five hundred yards 
 to starboard of the column, the little Wompatuck 
 steamed inshore, off Cabras Island, to anchor a boat 
 at the ten-fathom mark this to serve as a " turning 
 stake " for the steersmen of the fighting ships when 
 shore marks might be hidden by smoke. The 
 Montgomery, bringing up the rear of the squadron, 
 was instructed to take her station east of the har 
 bour entrance and silence Fort Canuelo if its guns 
 were fired. Both the small cruisers, and the Por 
 ter which came up close alongside of the Iowa, 
 screened by the big battle ship were to watch for 
 any of Cervera s vessels that might sally out of the 
 bay. If one of the Spanish torpedo-boat destroyers 
 should make a dash at Sampson s ironclads, the De 
 troit and the Montgomery were to sink it or drive it 
 back ; if a cruiser should come out, the Porter was 
 
* 
 j62 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 to rush in and torpedo it at the imminent risk, of 
 course, of her own destruction. 
 
 At sixteen minutes past five, when the Iowa was 
 about a mile and a quarter from the Morro, now 
 clearly visible in the dawning light, with the De 
 troit halfway between the flagship and the shore, 
 the first shot of the action was fired from a six- 
 inch gun in the battle ship s bows, and her whole 
 starboard battery immediately followed it up. She 
 was now opposite the mouth of the bay, and the 
 officers on her deck all the American officers 
 scorned the protection of the conning towers 
 could see, to their great disappointment, that Cer- 
 vera s squadron was not inside. No Spanish flags 
 were in sight in the harbour or on the fortifications, 
 and the garrison was apparently taken wholly by 
 surprise. Eight minutes passed before there was 
 any reply to the attack ; then the old muzzle-loading 
 guns in the Morro opened fire, seconded by the 
 more formidable weapons six-inch Krupp guns 
 in some newly built batteries farther east on the 
 shore bluff. 
 
 In the absence of Cervera s fleet, Sampson s ex 
 pedition had failed of its main purpose, but he did 
 not countermand his orders for an attack upon the 
 San Juan batteries. To use the words of his report 
 to the Navy Department, he had determined " to 
 develop their position and strength, and then, with 
 out waiting to reduce the city or subject it to a 
 regular bombardment which would require due 
 notice turn to the west," toward Cuba or Key 
 West. 
 
 At a speed of four knots an hour, the five ar- 
 mourclads steamed in front of the Morro, each ship 
 pouring in her full fire as she passed. Then, led 
 by the Iowa, the column turned seaward and out 
 of range. From the flagship s opening shot to the 
 last discharged by the Terror, the first round of the 
 engagement had lasted nearly an hour. The enemy 
 
164 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 had not suffered severely; although the breeze was 
 very light, there was a long, rolling swell that made 
 Sampson s vessels, especially the monitors, poor 
 gun platforms, and the American gunners scarcely 
 got the proper distance and elevation in their brief 
 turn in the firing line. The Spaniards marksman 
 ship was very much worse still, and not a ship had 
 been touched, though the three small vessels in par 
 ticular had been subject to a heavy fire at such close 
 range that the admiral was alarmed for their safety 
 especially for that of the Detroit, which kept her 
 place in front of the Morro. After the first round 
 he ordered them out to sea, where they remained 
 to the end of the battle, in company with the Wom- 
 patuck, the collier Niagara, and two newspaper 
 tugs. These last had accompanied the fleet from 
 Key West uninvited and not wholly welcome 
 companions, whose presence was a novel feature in 
 naval warfare. 
 
 Circling around at four or five miles distance 
 from shore, the armourclads passed a second and 
 then a third time before the fortifications, which 
 Sampson found to be much stronger than he had 
 expected. In these rounds, using the heavy guns 
 only their gunners had complained that the smoke 
 from the rapid-fire batteries made it difficult to 
 aim the American fire was much more accurate, 
 while the enemy s shooting improved little. The 
 Spaniards scored only three hits in the three hours 
 artillery duel. Two shells struck the Iowa, one 
 doing no damage, the other, which exploded on the 
 battle ship s deck as she withdrew after the second 
 round, wounding three men ; a third reached the 
 New York at nearly three miles range, as the 
 action ended, destroying a boat, and killing one and 
 wounding four of a gun crew. 
 
 The five American armourclads fired, in all, 
 eight hundred and ninety-four shells, and the exe 
 cution they did was considerable. The stone walls 
 
THE COMING OF CERVERA 165 
 
 of the Morro were riddled, and during the latter 
 part of the battle the old fortress was veiled in a 
 cloud of dust from its shattered masonry, as well 
 as smoke from its own guns ; yet these were served 
 to the last, their fire diminishing under the hail 
 of shot, but never being silenced. As the fleet with 
 drew they sent shells after it almost as long as it 
 was in sight. Many of the American projectiles 
 wasted themselves on the sea wall below the Morro, 
 which was built with embrasures that made it look 
 like part of the fort. Many others passed over the 
 batteries into the town, where they did great dam 
 age. This bombardment of noncombatants, with 
 out the " due notice " of which Sampson had 
 spoken, must be set down as one of the shocking 
 but inevitable incidents of war. It can not be 
 termed purely an accident, for the Terror deliber 
 ately fired some of her ten-inch shells over the bluff, 
 " hoping," Captain Ludlow said in his official re 
 port, " to strike any vessel in the inner harbour "- 
 which would scarcely seem to have been necessary, 
 when it was known that Cervera s ships were not 
 there ; and missiles fired in this somewhat random 
 fashion were as likely to fall in the city as in the 
 port. . Of twenty persons killed in San Juan, it is 
 stated that fourteen were civilians. 
 
 At a quarter to eight o clock Sampson signalled 
 " Form column, course northwest," and the fleet 
 slowly steamed away from land, reluctantly ceasing 
 its fire as it drew out of range. Its last shot came 
 from the after turret of the rear-guard ship, the 
 Terror, at 8. 1 5 ; and the action was over, though 
 the Spanish gunners continued to waste their am 
 munition for a quarter of an hour. 
 
 Viewed as the sole achievement of a two-weeks 
 cruise by a fairly powerful fleet, the bombardment 
 of San Juan was a disappointment. Had Cervera s 
 squadron been there, the case would have been 
 entirely different ; and Sampson, of course, was no 
 
1 66 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 whit blamable for his failure to encounter the Span 
 iards where both the admiral and the strategists at 
 Washington had expected to find them. In itself, 
 though the manoeuvres of the attacking fleet were 
 well planned and efficiently executed, the action was 
 resultless and indecisive. It gave the captain-gen 
 eral of Porto Rico, Macias, an opportunity to issue 
 one of the usual Spanish bulletins, optimistic be 
 yond the verge of mendacity, declaring that his 
 redoubtable gunners had repulsed the Yankee 
 ships. 
 
 Sampson could no doubt have forced the sur 
 render of the Porto Rican capital not, perhaps, 
 without loss but there was no adequate military 
 advantage to be gained by doing so. He could hold 
 the place only by keeping his squadron there, leaving 
 Havana open to entry by a force as strong as Cer- 
 vera s. As it was, he had not fulfilled his announced 
 intention of destroying the fortifications. His 
 ships, though practically unscathed by the enemy s 
 fire, had suffered many slight injuries from the con 
 cussion of their own heavy guns ; the Indiana s en 
 gines were out of order; the monitors had proved 
 themselves a drag upon the squadron s move 
 ments ; he would soon be in need of coal ; and with 
 no clew to Cervera s whereabouts it was useless, as 
 well as scarcely practicable, to prolong the cruise. 
 That afternoon he informed Secretary Long : 
 
 Have received no information of Spanish armed ves 
 sels. The Spanish fleet is not here. The United States 
 fleet in great need of repairs; was seven days from Ha 
 vana to San Juan. If I can not obtain information of the 
 Spanish squadron by Yale at St. Thomas, I will leave to 
 morrow for blockade, Cuba. 
 
 This despatch was cabled to Washington from 
 St. Thomas by the Yale, which fell in with Samp 
 son s fleet as it left San Juan. She had been on her 
 cruising station off Porto Rico since May 6th, and 
 had several times reconnoitred San Juan harbour, 
 
THE COMING OF CERVERA 167 
 
 where she had observed two small gunboats and a 
 transport. 
 
 There was no news of Cervera at the Danish 
 island, and Sampson moved westward. On the 
 I4th he was off Puerto Plata, in Santo Domingo, 
 when a newspaper despatch boat brought him the 
 unexpected report that Cervera, instead of making 
 for American waters, had taken his squadron back 
 to Spain, and was in the harbour of Cadiz. The ad 
 miral immediately sent the Porter speeding into 
 Puerto Plata, with despatches requesting that if this 
 latest intelligence were confirmed, the Navy De 
 partment should send a collier to San Juan, and 
 that Commodore Remey, at Key West, should 
 order the dynamite cruiser Vesuvius to the same 
 rendezvous. With the Spanish fleet out of the 
 West Indies, he had resolved to return to the Porto 
 Rican capital, to complete his work there and cap 
 ture the place. But Secretary Long s reply in 
 formed him that the elusive squadron had at length 
 been sighted, and ordered him to " proceed with all 
 possible despatch to Key West." 
 
 Cervera left St. Vincent with orders to sail for 
 the Antilles, calling at some neutral port for in 
 formation ; then to make for either 
 
 Cuba r P rt Ric > aS hi . S " skill > dis ~ 
 
 cretion, and courage " might suggest. 
 Besides the poor condition of some of his ships, he 
 was heavily handicapped, in setting forth to face an 
 enemy whose strength was greatly superior to his 
 own, by the fact that no adequate provision had 
 been made for furnishing him with coal. No sup 
 ply ships accompanied his fleet. The torpedo-boat 
 destroyers, with their small coal capacity, were de 
 pendent upon the cruisers. A British steamer 
 which cleared for the Cape Verde Islands from 
 Norfolk, Virginia, on April 15, with three thousand 
 tons of coal, may have been intended for his use, 
 but she was stopped by the United States Govern- 
 
j68 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 ment as she left port. About the time of his start 
 from St. Vincent a quantity of coal was purchased 
 in England and shipped to the West Indies on 
 three British ocean tramps, in the somewhat vague 
 hope that it would escape the American blockaders 
 and reach Cervera. These colliers did get to San 
 Juan, whence one, the Restormel, was sent on to 
 Curasao, and thence to Santiago de Cuba, where 
 it was captured (May 25th) by the St. Paul, 
 almost within gunshot of the harbour in which 
 the Spanish fleet lay. Another, the Twicken 
 ham, appeared at Martinique with four thousand 
 tons of coal consigned to the Spanish consul. Per 
 mission to land her contraband cargo being re 
 fused, she sailed for Kingston, Jamaica, and on her 
 way was captured by the St. Louis, on June loth. 
 Crossing the Atlantic the three torpedo-boat 
 destroyers were taken in tow by the Teresa, Oquen- 
 do, and Colon, the Vizcaya having all she could do 
 to propel herself. Slow progress was made, the 
 best day s run recorded in the Colon s log, which 
 has been published by the United States Navy 
 Department, being two hundred and eighteen 
 knots. On the evening of May loth, nearly twelve 
 days from St. Vincent, the squadron was approach 
 ing the lesser Antilles, and that night the ships 
 were cleared for action and the men stood at their 
 guns. No American vessels were sighted, how 
 ever. On the afternoon of the nth Martinique was 
 reached, and the Furor went into the port of Fort 
 de France, in order, no doubt, to communicate 
 with Madrid and collect any information that might 
 be useful. The cruisers lay in the offing till she 
 rejoined them, when Cervera shaped his course for 
 Curagao either in obedience to orders from Mad 
 rid, or for the reason that he had not coal enough 
 to take him to Havana, and that the Dutch island, 
 lying south of the direct route to Cuba, offered a 
 safe and convenient stopping place. He probably 
 
THE COMING OF CERVERA 
 
 169 
 
 heard, at Martinique, of Sampson s eastward cruise, 
 news of which would come from Cape Haitien. 
 
 On leaving Martinique the Terror was sent back 
 to Fort de France, apparently owing to an accident 
 to her boilers.* She was repaired there, and sub 
 sequently (May 25th) left for San Juan, where we 
 shall hear of her again. 
 
 At Willemstadt, the port of Curasao, which he 
 reached on the morning of May Hth, Cervera re 
 quested permission to coal his ships. The Dutch 
 officials insisted upon a strict observance of the 
 rules of neutrality, which allow a belligerent only 
 so much fuel as is necessary to carry him to the 
 nearest port on his route; and they would permit 
 only two of the cruisers to enter the harbour. The 
 Teresa and the Vizcaya went in, the rest of the 
 squadron waiting outside. On the night of the I5th 
 the fleet was again in motion, steering northwest, 
 toward Cuba. It made slower progress than ever, 
 the condition of the Vizcaya s engines necessitating 
 a stop for repairs ; and Cervera found it impossible 
 to reach Havana with the coal he had. On the 
 morning of the i8th the flagship signalled : " Ad 
 miral intends making port of Santiago de Cuba " ; 
 and soon after sunrise on the I9th the Teresa led 
 the way into the harbour about which 
 
 Cervera reaches the war wag tQ centre f Qr the next t Q 
 Santiago, , ., , . . , 
 
 May 19. eventful months. At night, in cross 
 
 ing the Caribbean, the gun crews had 
 again stood at their stations in readiness for an en 
 counter, but again no enemy had been sighted. 
 Meanwhile, the movements of the Spanish ad- 
 
 * The Colon s log, as published by the Navy Department, states 
 that she coaled the Terror at Curasao on May i5th, but apparentlv the 
 name " Terror" must be a misprint or mistake for " Furor." All the 
 other evidence is that the Terror did not go beyond Martinique with 
 Cervera. For instance, Lieutenant Muller, who as second in command 
 of the port of Santiago had abundant opportunity of ascertaining the 
 facts he recorded from the officers of Cervera s squadron, states that 
 she was left behind at Martinique. Captain Cotton of the Harvard 
 reported her to be lying disabled at Fort de France on May i4th. 
 
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 miral, simple and straightforward as they were, had 
 caused an extraordinary amount of perplexity to 
 the American strategists. There were all sorts of 
 rumours and conjectures, to which the newspapers 
 gave wide circulation, but there was a singular ab 
 sence of authentic news. The first American ves 
 sel to report Cervera s squadron was the Harvard, 
 which put in at St. Pierre, Martinique, on May 
 nth, and learned that the Furor had called that 
 day at Fort de France, a dozen miles away. Cap 
 tain Cotton, the Harvard s commander, was in 
 formed by the governor of Martinique that he could 
 riot leave port until twenty-four hours after the 
 Spanish vessel s departure. On the following 
 morning he was warned by some American sympa 
 thizers who were a small minority in the little 
 French colony that the Spaniards were lying off 
 St. Pierre in readiness to catch him, and that his 
 departure would be signalled to them from the hills. 
 " That we were expected to go to sea last night," 
 he says in a report dated May I3th, " was evidenced 
 by the lively signalling going on on shore ; and that 
 the Spanish squadron was so distributed as to give 
 us the least possible chance of escape I have no 
 doubt." It appears that the captain or his inform 
 ants had an overactive imagination, as Cervera, at 
 the time, was under way for Curasao. 
 
 To guard against his supposed peril, Captain 
 Cotton applied for permission to remain seven days 
 at St. Pierre, to make " necessary repairs to boilers 
 and engines " another exhibition of imaginative 
 powers. The request was granted, but on the 
 morning of the I5th a despatch from Washington 
 informed him that the Spaniards had reached Cu- 
 raqao, and ordered him to follow and endeavour to 
 overtake them whereupon he notified the gov 
 ernor that his repairs, " not having required as long 
 a time as was anticipated, were completed," and that 
 he proposed to sail the next day. Before he got 
 
THE COMING OF CERVERA 
 
 171 
 
 off, however, orders came from Sampson to cruise 
 in the Mona Passage, between Haiti and Porto 
 Rico. 
 
 Cervera being reported from the southeastern 
 end of the Caribbean, making it clear that his des 
 tination was Cuba and not the United States coast, 
 Secretary Long at once ordered Schley s flying 
 squadron from Hampton Roads to Charleston 
 (May 1 3th), and thence, on May ijjth, to Key West. 
 The cruiser Minneapolis and the liner St. Paul, also 
 lying at Hampton Roads, were hurried southward, 
 and on the I5th, when the American consul at 
 Curagao had sent word of Cervera s arrival, these 
 two swift scouts were ordered to follow the Spanish 
 fleet, which was now supposed, on the strength of 
 a report from London, to be bound for the Gulf 
 of Venezuela, to take coal from colliers that might 
 meet it there. Similar instructions were sent to the 
 Harvard, as has been stated. 
 
 Before these latter orders could be carried out, 
 Sampson, on his way back from San Juan, had 
 issued another set. The admiral s plan was to 
 patrol the passages by which Cervera might make 
 his way northward through the island chain of the 
 Antilles. He assigned the Yale and the St. Paul to 
 the waters between Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti ; the 
 Harvard to the Mona Passage ; and the St. Louis 
 to cruise south of Porto Rico to St. Thomas. The 
 conflict of orders naturally caused some confusion, 
 and suggested allusions to Dewey s go od fortune 
 in being ten thousand miles from Washington, at 
 the end of a severed cable ; but such criticism was 
 superfluous. It was entirely proper that the Navy 
 Department should direct the movements of vessels 
 which, as frequently happened, were in touch with 
 it but not with the admiral. That it had entire con 
 fidence in Sampson was shown by such despatches 
 as that sent to Captain Cotton at Martinique, on 
 May i6th, authorizing him to obey the admiral s 
 
 12 
 
Ij2 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 orders rather than the department s, if conflicting 
 instructions had been received. 
 
 The consul at Curasao reported the Spanish 
 fleet on May I4th, and Secretary Long ordered him 
 to protest against its being allowed to coal. On the 
 1 6th, apparently from a European agent, the secre 
 tary was informed that it carried munitions essen 
 tial to the defence of Havana, and had imperative 
 orders to reach either the Cuban capital or some 
 harbour connected with it by railroad. Cienfuegos 
 was the port best fulfilling this condition, and it was 
 thought so probable that Cervera would make for it 
 that as soon as Schley was ready to leave Key 
 West he was instructed to go there at once. 
 
 On his way back from San Juan Sampson left 
 his squadron off the north coast of Cuba and hur 
 ried on to Key West, where he found 
 schicy starts Schley on his arrival (May i8th). On 
 
 for Cienfuegos, jt . r _, ... ^ . 
 
 May 19. tne morning of the iQth at the very 
 
 hour when Cervera was entering San 
 tiago Schley started for Cienfuegos with the 
 cruiser Brooklyn (flagship), the battle ships Massa 
 chusetts and Texas, and the yacht Scorpion. Near- 
 ing his destination on the afternoon of the 2ist, the 
 commodore heard guns which he took for a salute 
 fired in welcome to the Spanish fleet ; and on the 
 next morning, standing in close to reconnoitre, he 
 saw so much smoke rising from the harbour that he 
 was confirmed in his belief that he had trapped the 
 enemy a belief which, it is said, was not shared by 
 many of his officers.* To verify it by observation 
 from the ships was impossible, the port, like that 
 of Santiago, being a deep bay screened from the 
 sea by fortified heights ; and no attempt was made 
 at communication with the insurgents, or at such 
 a feat of scouting as was afterward accomplished at 
 
 * So reported by Lieutenant Hood, the commanding officer of the 
 Hawk. 
 
THE COMING OF CERVERA 
 
 173 
 
 Santiago by Lieutenant Blue. It was at this point 
 that Commodore Schley first displayed that lack of 
 push and energy which was so disappointing in 
 view of his previous record of admirable service. 
 For three days he lay off the harbour mouth. The 
 Scorpion had been detached to cruise eastward, but 
 on the 22d and 23d the squadron was joined by the 
 battle ship Iowa, the gunboat Castine, the torpedo 
 boat Dupont, and the collier Merrimac. 
 
 A few hours after Schley left Key West it was 
 learned at Washington that Cervera had that morn 
 ing (May 1 9th) arrived at Santiago. The news 
 came through Colonel James Allen, of the signal 
 corps, who received it from an agent in Havana ; 
 and the prompt reporting of this most crucial piece 
 of intelligence in the entire campaign is a feat for 
 which the signal service deserves full credit.* The 
 information transmitted was not entirely correct. 
 The first despatch stated : " Five f Spanish vessels 
 arrived at Santiago de Cuba " ; the second, received 
 on the 2oth : " Pelayo and four cruisers in San 
 tiago. No destroyers or torpedo boats arrived 
 there " ; but these were errors of detail only. 
 
 On the assurance of General Greely, the chief 
 signal officer, that his information from Santiago 
 was trustworthy, it was at once credited at Wash 
 ington and recognised as the key to the whole situa 
 tion. It was less easy for Sampson and Schley 
 especially, as it proved, the latter to accept it. On 
 the 2oth, in reply to a despatch from Secretary 
 Long, " strongly advising " him to order Schley 
 to Santiago immediately, Sampson telegraphed 
 from Key West that he was in favour of the commo- 
 
 * Cervera s arrival was bulletined in Madrid on the same day (May 
 ioth\ but in America no reliance was placed in an announcement that 
 might be inaccurate or intentionally falsified. 
 
 t This was the truth, but not quite the whole truth. Cervera had 
 only five ships actually with him when he reached Santiago. The 
 Furor had dropped behind, and arrived three hours later than the rest 
 of the squadron. 
 
174 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 dore remaining at Cienfuegos for the present, but 
 had instructed him to communicate with the Min 
 neapolis and the Harvard, which were ordered to 
 reconnoitre Santiago. These instructions went to 
 Schley in duplicate by the Iowa and the Dupont, 
 reached him on the 22d, and were at once carried 
 out, the Scorpion being detached to inquire for 
 news from the scouting ships. 
 
 Sampson also sent a private letter to the com 
 modore on the 2oth, in which he thus stated the 
 situation : 
 
 DEAR SCHLEY: The Iowa leaves this morning at n 
 o clock, bound for Cienfuegos. The Marblehead and the 
 Eagle will both be ready to depart to-night and join you. 
 
 Enclosed is a telegram * received at Key West, May 
 igth, marked " A." After duly considering this telegram 
 I have decided to make no change in the present plan 
 that is, that you hold your squadron off Cienfuegos. 
 
 If the Spanish ships have put into Santiago they must 
 come either to Havana or Cienfuegos to deliver the muni 
 tions of war which they are said to bring for use in Cuba. 
 I, therefore, am of the opinion that our best chance of 
 success in capturing these ships will be to hold the two 
 points Cienfuegos and Havana with all the force we 
 can muster. 
 
 If, later, it should develop that these vessels are at 
 Santiago, we could then assemble off that port the ships 
 best suited for the purpose and completely blockade it. 
 
 Meanwhile there had been more correspond 
 ence between Key West and Washington, and early 
 in the morning of the 2ist Sampson, now fully ac 
 cepting the signal-service news, sent the following 
 despatch to Schley, by the Marblehead : 
 
 Spanish squadron probably at Santiago de Cuba, four 
 ships and three torpedo destroyers. If you are satisfied 
 that they are not at Cienfuegos, proceed with all despatch, 
 but cautiously, to Santiago de Cuba, and if the enemy is 
 there blockade him in port. 
 
 The admiral was so anxious to insure the 
 prompt delivery of these instructions that a few 
 
 * This was the despatch reporting Cervera s arrival at Santiago. 
 
THE COMING OF CERVERA 175 
 
 hours later he sent a duplicate of them by the 
 Hawk, adding as an indorsement : 
 
 It is thought the inclosed instructions will reach you 
 by two o clock A. M., May 23d. This will enable you to 
 leave before daylight (regarded very important) so that 
 your direction may not be noticed, and be at Santiago 
 A. M., May 24th. 
 
 This second despatch * was sent by the Hawk, 
 whose commander, Lieutenant Hood, was specially 
 and emphatically urged to get it into Schley s 
 hands at the earliest possible moment. He reached 
 Cienfuegos on the morning of the 23d, having 
 passed the Marblehead, which came up early the 
 next day in company with the yachts Vixen and 
 Eagle, and was sent back to Sampson with letters 
 in which the commodore gave it as his opinion that 
 
 it would seem to be extremely unwise to chase up a 
 probability at Santiago de Cuba reported via Havana, 
 no doubt as a ruse. I shall therefore remain off this port 
 with this squadron. . . . 
 
 I think I have them here almost to a certainty. 
 
 In the afternoon of the 24th, in answer to sig 
 nals displayed on shore, Commander McCalla, of 
 the Marblehead, landed and commu- 
 schiey moves n i cate d with some Cuban insurgents. 
 
 on Santiago, TT , , , & . . 
 
 May 24. He gave them needed ammunition, 
 
 and clothing, probably no less needed, 
 and learned from them that the Spanish fleet was 
 not in the harbour. His report at last convinced 
 the commodore that he was blockading the wrong 
 port, and at sunset he started his squadron east 
 ward, leaving the Castine to watch Cienfuegos, and 
 sending the Dupont to Key West to report his 
 movements. 
 
 * Later in the day Sampson telegraphed to Washington : " Schley 
 has been ordered to Santiago de Cuba." It will be seen, however, that 
 the order, though it made the admiral s wishes tolerably plain, was 
 only a conditional one, and left the commodore at liberty to prefer his 
 own judgment. 
 
!^6 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Notwithstanding the urgency of its errand, 
 Schley s fleet now consisting of the Brooklyn, the 
 Iowa, the Massachusetts, the Texas, the Marble- 
 head, the Vixen, the Eagle, and the collier Mer- 
 rimac made slow progress. The sea was rough, 
 and the Eagle could make no more than six knots 
 an hour; and though his fighting force would not 
 have been perceptibly diminished by leaving her 
 behind, the commodore held back the other ships 
 to her speed. On the 26th, however, as her coal 
 ran short, he ordered her to Port Antonio, Jamaica, 
 and late that afternoon the rest of the squadron 
 arrived off Santiago. 
 
 It found there the Minneapolis, the St. Paul, 
 and the Yale. None of them had seen the Span 
 iards, and Schley afterward asserted * that Cap 
 tain Sigsbee expressed his belief that the hostile 
 fleet was not in the harbour. This the captain 
 denied, saying that " every officer on board the St. 
 Paul knew that I believed Cervera to be at San 
 tiago." The capture of the collier Restormel on 
 the previous day certainly indicated that such was 
 the case. But without attempting to institute a 
 blockade, as Sampson had ordered, or even to 
 ascertain whether the Spaniards were there or not, 
 Commodore Schley signalled to his squadron the 
 unexpected order that it should make for Key 
 West, going by the southern side of Cuba. 
 
 Schlev s reason for his withdrawal, as explained 
 in his official report, was that some of his ships 
 were short of coal, and that he believed he could 
 still block any attempt of Cervera s to reach Ha 
 vana through the Yucatan Channel, while Samp 
 son was on guard on the other side of Cuba. The 
 explanation is a very unsatisfactory one. There 
 were then on board the Brooklyn 940 tons of coal ; 
 
 * Rear-Admiral Schley s statement of February 20, 1890, to the 
 Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, and Captain Sigsbee s reply to it. 
 
THE COMING OF CERVERA 
 
 the Iowa had 762 tons, the Massachusetts 789, the 
 Texas 394, the Marblehead 116; and there were 
 4,300 tons on the Merrimac. The rough sea made 
 it difficult to transfer fuel from the collier to the 
 men-of-war, but there were sheltered spots within 
 reach where it could have been done without trou 
 ble. As was afterward stated in a communication 
 from the Navy Department to the United States 
 Senate, " there was coal enough to return to Key 
 West, and therefore to remain at Santiago till fur 
 ther supplies came. He [Schley] could have 
 counted on the department s sending him a further 
 coal supply." * His position was no doubt diffi 
 cult, but nothing short of an imperative necessity 
 should have led him to abandon it. He has been 
 criticised for wasting three days at Cienfuegos ; but 
 the commodore, hitherto reputed an able and gal 
 lant officer, made a much graver error of judgment, 
 and one that might have had the most serious con 
 sequences, in failing to strain every nerve to hold 
 his station off Santiago. 
 
 Schley s westward start was delayed by an acci 
 dent to the Merrimac, which disabled her machin 
 ery. The Yale was ordered to take the collier in 
 tow, but this proved a difficult operation, the tow- 
 line breaking again and again ; and the squadron had 
 moved only a few miles when the Harvard over 
 took it, on the morning of the 27th. She brought 
 from the Mole St. Nicholas, Haiti, an urgent de 
 spatch from Secretary Long, informing Schley that 
 
 * This statement was drawn up in answer to the Senate s request 
 (January 23, 1899) for the facts on which nominations for promotion 
 were made. It was signed by Secretary Long, and verified by a board 
 consisting of Captain Evans, Captain Taylor, Lieutenant Sears, Schley s 
 flag lieutenant on the Brooklyn, and Ensign Ward. 
 
 The quantity of coal on board the vessels of the Flying Squadron 
 on May 26th is given above as it appears in this same official statement. 
 Slightly different figures are furnished to the writer by the Bureau of 
 Steam Engineering, which states the amount thus : Brooklyn, i,coo 
 tons ; Iowa, 858 tons ; Texas, 468 tons ; Massachusetts, 878 tons ; Mar 
 blehead, 184 tons. 
 
!^8 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 all reports indicated that Cervera was at Santiago, 
 and begging him to secure positive information 
 which, the secretary suggested, could be done by 
 communicating with the insurgents, or by sending 
 a scout to one of the hills overlooking the harbour. 
 Still the commodore did not change his mind. 
 He signalled his captains : " Can you fetch into the 
 port of Key West with coal remaining?" and re 
 plied to Washington, by the Harvard : 
 
 Can not remain off Santiago present state squadron 
 coal account. . . . Much to be regretted, can not obey 
 orders of the department. Have striven earnestly; forced 
 to proceed for coal to Key West by way of Yucatan Pas 
 sage. Can not ascertain anything respecting enemy 
 positive. 
 
 During the 27th, however, the sea moderated, 
 and it was found possible for the Texas and the 
 Marblehead to take fuel from the Merrimac, the 
 squadron lying that night about forty miles west 
 of Santiago. On the 28th the Vixen also coaled, 
 and at one o clock in the afternoon Schley signalled 
 an order to return to the harbour mouth. Arriv 
 ing there at dusk, the Vixen and the Marblehead 
 were sent in close to watch the entrance, the other 
 ships lying about ten miles out. Next morning 
 they circled in nearer, and saw the Colon and 
 two other Spanish cruisers lying in the channel. 
 There could be no further question as to Cervera s 
 whereabouts though it was not until June 3d that 
 all his six vessels were positively known to be with 
 him and the St. Paul was sent off to take the 
 news to Sampson. 
 
 The admiral had left Key West on May 2ist, 
 and gathered, off Havana, a squadron that included 
 the New York, the Indiana, the monitors Puritan 
 and Miantonomoh, the cruisers New Orleans, De 
 troit, and Montgomery, and several gunboats and 
 torpedo boats besides the monitor Amphitrite, 
 the cruiser Cincinnati, and the dynamite gunboat 
 
THE COMING OF CERVERA 179 
 
 Vesuvius, which joined him on the 25th. He 
 cruised slowly backward and forward in the 
 Nicholas Channel,* expecting to meet Cervera, 
 who, according to Sampson s calculations, was 
 likely to leave Santiago before Schley could inter 
 cept him, and to make for Havana by the north 
 coast of Cuba. At the same time, as it was pos 
 sible that the Spaniards might go south of the 
 island, and through the Yucatan Channel, he was 
 prepared to fall back at short notice and cover 
 Havana from the west as well as from the east. 
 No lights were shown at night, and three different 
 " orders of battle " had been given to the com 
 mander of each ship, to be used according to the 
 circumstances of the expected encounter. De 
 spatches passed frequently between the admiral and 
 Washington, but it was less easy to keep in touch 
 with Schley whose command, hitherto rated as an 
 independent one, by an order dated May 24th 
 was directly subordinated to Sampson s instruc 
 tions. The change was no mark of censure to 
 Schley, who had been informed by Secretary Long, 
 at the time of his appointment to the Flying Squad 
 ron, that if his ships should join Sampson s the lat 
 ter would have command of the whole fleet. 
 
 On May 26th Sampson despatched the Vesu 
 vius to Schley with another message, assuring him 
 that Cervera was at Santiago ; and next day, when 
 the Wasp brought the commodore s letter of May 
 23d, the same courier was sent back with an urgent 
 order that he should " proceed with all possible 
 despatch to Santiago to blockade the port." f 
 Later that day the admiral heard from Wash 
 ington that Schley had informed the Navy Depart 
 ment that he was about to start from Cienfuegos, 
 
 * This is the passage between the Cuban keys, off Cardenas and 
 Sagua, and Salt Key Bank. It is the narrowest part of the wide chan 
 nel along: the north coast of Cuba. 
 
 t Schley had already started when this reached Cienfuegos. 
 
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 but could not blockade the Spaniards for lack 
 of coal. 
 
 It is easy to understand that with the situation 
 in so critical and uncertain a state it was a time 
 of great anxiety for Sampson. This last news de 
 cided him to cut loose from Havana, and go with 
 his own ships to the central point of the campaign 
 the spot where the enemy s naval power lay. To 
 do so he must first return to Key West for coal ; 
 but he sent on the New Orleans and the collier 
 Sterling direct to Santiago, with a message to 
 Schley instructing him " to remain on the blockade 
 at all hazards," and adding an order that the collier 
 should be sunk in the mouth of the harbour so as 
 to close the entrance. 
 
 From Key West Sampson telegraphed to 
 
 Washington that " the failure of Schley to continue 
 
 blockade must be remedied at once 
 
 Sampson moves jf possible," and on the evening of the 
 
 on Santiago, -11 , 1 -,i 
 
 May 29. 2gt\\ he was at sea again, taking with 
 
 him the battle ship Oregon, the 
 yacht Mayflower, and the torpedo boat Porter. To 
 the former, fresh from her great voyage around 
 Cape Horn, he signalled : " Can you make thirteen 
 knots an hour? " " Fourteen if necessary," replied 
 the Oregon, and the squadron speeded off. On 
 the 3Oth it met the St. Paul, with the news that 
 Schley had seen Cervera s ships. This same wel 
 come intelligence had reached Washington the day 
 before, shortly after Secretary Long, in his extreme 
 anxiety about the situation at Santiago, had sent 
 Schley the following despatch in triplicate, address 
 ing it to each of the three nearest cable stations 
 Port Antonio and Kingston, in Jamaica, and the 
 Mole St. Nicholas, in Haiti : 
 
 It is your duty to ascertain immediately if the Span 
 ish fleet is in Santiago, and report. Would be discredit 
 able to the navy if that fact were not ascertained immedi 
 ately. All military and naval movements depend upon 
 that point. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE BLOCKADE OF SANTIAGO 
 
 SANTIAGO DE CUBA * is almost the most ancient 
 European settlement in America. Founded in 1514 
 by Spanish colonists sent from Santo Domingo by 
 Diego Columbus, it was for a time the capital of 
 Cuba. In 1873 it was the scene of the shooting 
 of the Virginius prisoners. Other notable names in 
 its annals are those of Antommarchi, Napoleon s 
 physician and biographer at St. Helena, who set 
 tled here after the emperor s death ; of Adelina 
 Patti, who is said to have made her first public 
 appearance in Santiago, shortly before her, recorded 
 debut in New York ; and of the notorious " Boss " 
 Tweed, who made it his first hiding place after his 
 flight from the United States. But the old city 
 was destined to have more history between May 
 and August of 1898 than it had had in its four cen 
 turies of previous existence. 
 
 No American war ships appeared off Santiago 
 until May i8th, when the St. Louis and the Wom- 
 patuck cut the cable to Jamaica. Cervera s squad 
 ron arrived on the I9th. During the following 
 week the St. Paul watched the harbour entrance, 
 and her commander, Captain Sigsbee, formerly of 
 the Maine, made sketches of it. On the 26th 
 Schley came up, withdrew at once, and returned on 
 
 * Santiago de Cuba commonly abbreviated to "Santiago" by 
 Americans, to " Cuba" by its own citizens is named after the patron 
 saint of old Spain, St. James the elder, whose body is supposed to lie 
 at Santiago de Compostella, near Corunna. 
 
!g2 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the 28th ; but even yet there was no close block 
 ade of the port. The Spaniards had plenty of time 
 to continue their voyage unmolested, had they 
 been able to fill their empty bunkers.* 
 
 There was coal at Santiago. The navy depot 
 
 had twenty-three hundred tons of Welsh steam 
 
 coal, and fuel was requisitioned from 
 
 cervera coals the j ura g ua mines (owned by an 
 
 at Santiago, A 1 r 1 
 
 May 19-25 American company), and from the 
 
 little local railway ; but there were no 
 proper appliances for getting it aboard. The 
 cruisers could not come up to the coaling piers, 
 which were in such shallow water that only light 
 ers could lie at them, and not more than two 
 boats could be loaded at once. When baskets 
 were ordered for carrying the coal, very few could 
 be found in the city. It was almost equally dif 
 ficult to supply the fleet with the fresh water it 
 needed. 
 
 Work went on day and night, and some of the 
 ships were able to move on the morning of May 
 25th, when the Colon went down to a position in 
 side the harbour mouth. She was just in time to 
 witness the St. Paul s capture of the collier Re- 
 stormel a disaster which it would seem that she 
 might have prevented. Lieutenant Miiller f ex 
 plains that she could not, in his opinion, have 
 reached the scene in time ; that she could not spare 
 the fuel that would have been burned in a chase ; 
 and that the sea was so rough that she might have 
 
 * For some days after Sampson s arrival, with good luck, they 
 might have escaped with little loss. As late as June \$ih the admiral 
 warned his captains that through carelessness in maintaining positions 
 there were times when "the fleet is so scattered that it would be per 
 fectly possible for the enemy to come out of the harbour and meet with 
 very little opposition." Gradually, however, the blockade became 
 more and more perfect, especially at night. 
 
 t Combates y Capitulation de Santiago de Cuba, by Lieutenant 
 Jose Muller y Tejeiro, who was second in command of the local naval 
 office during the siege. The United States Navy Department has pub 
 lished a translation of most of this interesting record. 
 
THE BLOCKADE OF SANTIAGO 183 
 
 grounded in going down the channel. All this 
 would scarcely have prevented most of the Ameri 
 can captains from an effort to reach the enemy, 
 had the case been reversed. 
 
 In the afternoon of that day (May 25th) the 
 Vizcaya joined the Colon, both ships anchoring 
 where their broadsides commanded the channel, 
 but neither vessel, it appears, being sighted by the 
 St. Paul. Coal was still coming out to them in 
 lighters. The Pluton had reconnoitred outside 
 on the 24th ; on the 29th both of the destroyers 
 went out, but attempted no attack, though Schley s 
 squadron was in sight. 
 
 That morning (May 29th) the lookouts of the 
 Flying Squadron saw the Colon and the Vizcaya, 
 and observed the masts of a third cruiser farther up 
 the channel. Here was Schley s opportunity. Two, 
 at least, of the Spanish ships the ships whose de 
 struction was the grand object of the American 
 strategy, the ships which the strength of the Ameri 
 can navy had been vainly seeking for weeks lay 
 in plain sight, within easy range, and probably 
 without sufficient steam to manoeuvre. It can 
 hardly be doubted how Nelson, or Dewey, or 
 Sampson, would have followed up such a discovery. 
 They would have struck at the enemy at once, and 
 with all their strength. Unfortunately, Schley did 
 nothing of the sort. Captain Evans records that 
 in expectation of an immediate attack he cleared 
 the Iowa s decks for action; but the commodore 
 gave no signal to engage. Throughout the 2o,th 
 and the 3oth he lay off the harbour mouth main 
 taining a close blockade, as he subsequently re 
 ported ; but his idea of a close blockade seems to 
 have differed materially from Sampson s. Captain 
 Evans states that the squadron which cruised in 
 column, following the movements of the flagship 
 remained from five to ten miles off shore, and 
 a meeting place was appointed, in case the ves- 
 
1 84 TH E SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 sels should become separated, twenty-five miles 
 away.* 
 
 Not until the afternoon of May 3ist did Schley 
 attempt an offensive movement. Transferring his 
 pennant to the Massachusetts, he moved in to 
 within five miles of the harbour entrance, followed 
 by the New Orleans, which had joined him on the 
 3Oth, and by the Iowa. Only a few shots were 
 exchanged, at too long range for damage on either 
 side, though the Spaniards too easily elated, as 
 usual believed that they had hit two of the Ameri 
 can ships, and the officer who wrote the Colon s 
 log cheerfully recorded that the assailants " retired 
 in disorder." Schley reported to Washington that 
 his reconnaissance " was intended principally to 
 injure or destroy the Colon." This makes it dif 
 ficult to understand why the commodore s order 
 was to engage at a distance of seven thousand 
 yards, and why the firing, which lasted only about 
 ten minutes, was actually done at a still greater 
 range from eight thousand to eleven thousand 
 yards, f The elevating gear of some of the Iowa s 
 guns was strained by firing at so high an angle/ 
 Next morning (June ist) Sampson arrived, and, 
 
 * In the chapter contributed by Captain Evans to W. A. M. Goode s 
 With Sampson through the War. 
 
 Lieutenant Miiller, the Spanish historian, thus chronicles Schley s 
 movements : 
 
 "May 28. At 4.30 P. M. six large ships were signalled, disappear 
 ing to the south at nightfall. 
 
 "May 29. At 7, seven hostile ships were sighted, reconnoitring 
 the coast at a distance of about eight miles ; they withdrew to the south 
 before dark. 
 
 "May 30. At 5.30 the hostile fleet was signalled approaching to 
 within nine miles of the harbour. 
 
 "May 31. The ships disappeared, as usual, to the south before 
 dark." 
 
 After Sampson s arrival, on June ist, Lieutenant Muller notes that 
 "from that time on the hostile ships, which were afterward increased 
 in number, established day and night a constant watch, without with 
 drawing at nightfall, as they used to do." 
 
 t So stated by Captain Evans and Captain Higginson, who add 
 that with their gun sights set at these ranges most of their shots fell 
 short. " Do not go in any closer" was signalled to the squadron. 
 
THE BLOCKADE OF SANTIAGO 185 
 
 probably in expectation that the enemy, thus rein 
 forced, would make a more persistent attack, the 
 two Spanish cruisers withdrew further into the har 
 bour, out of sight from the sea. 
 
 The admiral, on his arrival off Santiago, found 
 Schley s squadron cruising in column west of the 
 harbour entrance. The commodore had not car 
 ried out his instructions regarding the Sterling, 
 which had joined him on May 3Oth ; and Sampson 
 decided to use the other collier, the Merrimac, 
 which was a larger ship and more likely to block 
 the channel. He had discussed the manoeuvre, on 
 the way from Key West, with Naval Constructor 
 Richmond P. Hobson,* and the young officer had 
 shown so enthusiastic an interest in it that at his 
 urgent request the admiral intrusted him with its 
 execution, though this involved the removal of the 
 captain of the Merrimac, Commander J. M. Miller, 
 from his ship. 
 
 As worked out by Lieutenant Hobson, the plan 
 was to steam into the channel just before day 
 light, and at the narrowest point 
 
 which is Onl y a sh rt distanCC in ~ 
 
 side the entrance, a little more than 
 a hundred yards from the nose of the Morro to 
 swing the big collier round, drop anchors at stern 
 and bow, and sink her by opening her sea valves 
 and exploding torpedoes along her sides. He 
 needed six assistants two in the engine and boiler 
 rooms, one at each anchor, one at the wheel, and 
 
 * It has been popularly supposed that Lieutenant Hobson originated 
 the Merrimac adventure, but such was not the case. He has himself 
 recorded the fact that Admiral Sampson first discussed the subject with 
 him on May 2gth, the day on which the New York left Key West. 
 The admiral s despatch to Commodore Schley, dated May 2yth, when 
 he ordered the Sterling to Santiago, contains an accurate outline of the 
 manoeuvre : " I believe it would be perfectly practicable to steam this 
 vessel into position and drop all her anchors, allow her to swing across 
 the channel, then sink her either by opening the valves or whatever 
 means may be best in his [Schley s] judgment." It is said that the 
 idea was first suggested to Sampson by Commander Converse of the 
 Montgomery. 
 
186 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 one to help with the torpedoes. The men on deck 
 were to lie on their faces at their stations, with a 
 
 Sketch map of the harbour of Santiago de Cuba. 
 
 cord tied to their wrists, with which Hobson, on 
 the bridge, was to signal the moment for action. 
 Then the anchors, lashed over the side, were to be 
 
m \ 
 
 I XTNIV 
 
 THE BLOCKADE (^SANTIAGO 187 
 
 cut loose, and the men were to jump overboard and 
 swim to a lifeboat towing behind. As the ship 
 swung athwart the channel she was three hundred 
 and thirty-three feet long,* and the charts showed a 
 point at which the deep water was only about three 
 hundred and fifty feet wide the lieutenant was to 
 fire the torpedoes, which were connected with the 
 bridge by electric cables, and then follow his men 
 overboard. The details were carefully arranged, 
 even to the specification that the crew s uniform 
 was to consist of one suit of woollen underwear, two 
 pairs of socks, a life preserver, and a revolver belt, 
 with revolver and cartridges. 
 
 To take an unarmed vessel close under the 
 enemy s batteries and sink her there, trusting for 
 escape to luck and a lifeboat, was an undertaking 
 of such manifest peril that to man the Merrimac a 
 signal was made for volunteers. In the American 
 navy " the danger s self is lure alone," and hun 
 dreds of officers and men at once proffered their 
 services. The six selected were Daniel Montague, 
 chief master at arms of the New York ; Gunner s 
 Mate Charette, of the New York; and Boatswain 
 Mullen, Coxswain Deignan, Machinist Phillips, and 
 Water-Tender Kelly, all of the Merrimac. 
 
 It took so long to get the collier ready that it 
 was after four o clock in the morning of June 2d 
 when Sampson, who had gone on board to say fare 
 well to her brave crew, left her, and she started 
 for the harbour mouth. As she steamed in it grew 
 so light that the admiral sent the Porter speeding 
 after her to order her back, thinking it wiser to 
 postpone the attempt till the following night. 
 
 The day (June 2d) passed uneventfully, and at 
 night the Merrimac was ready for a second attempt. 
 A few changes had been made in her equipment. 
 
 * The Merrimac was a five-thousand-ton ship, the largest of the 
 Navy Department s fleet of colliers. She had about twenty-three hun 
 dred tons of coal in her hold when she sank. 
 
 13 
 
1 88 T HE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 To minimize the chance of failure in the apparatus 
 for igniting the torpedoes, it was arranged that each 
 should be fired with a separate battery. As this 
 necessitated the services of another pair of hands, 
 Coxswain Clausen, of the New York, was added 
 to the ship s company ; * and as one of the original 
 six, Mullen, was exhausted by the mental and 
 physical strain, Coxswain Murphy, of the Iowa, 
 took his place. A lifeboat and a catamaran were 
 slung over the side of the vessel, and Cadet Joseph 
 W. Powell, of the New York, was ordered to follow 
 her to the harbour mouth with the flagship s steam 
 launch, and wait there on the chance of picking up 
 her crew should they succeed in escaping. 
 
 Mr. Crank, the assistant engineer of the Mer- 
 rimac, took the ship to the starting point of her 
 run, and left her, very reluctantly, at the last mo 
 ment, being taken off by Cadet Powell s launch. 
 It was about half past three o clock, with the moon 
 shining brightly above the western horizon. Lieu 
 tenant Hobson steered straight for the Morro, and 
 was within five hundred yards of the point when 
 the first shot came from a picket boat that lay 
 under the west bank of the channel. It was a 
 plucky challenge, for the Spaniards in the little 
 craft could hardly have guessed that the big vessel 
 that came driving right up to them was unarmed. 
 In a few minutes there was a heavy fire on both 
 sides, while the Merrimac passed in, her engines 
 stopped, but her own momentum and a strong tide 
 carrying her on. 
 
 As she reached the spot that had been picked 
 out, on the chart, as the place to sink her, the sea 
 valves were thrown open, and Hobson gave the 
 order to explode the torpedoes. Only two of them 
 could be discharged ; the others had had their wires 
 or batteries broken by the enemy s fire. The ship 
 
 * The newspaper storv of the Merrimac represented Clausen as a 
 stowaway a picturesque bit of fiction. 
 
THE BLOCKADE OF SANTIAGO 189 
 
 was not sinking fast enough, nor could she be 
 swung fairly across the channel ; her steering gear 
 was shot away, and her stern anchor had been pre 
 maturely cut loose by a shell. The tide swept her 
 steadily in. A tremendous fire came 
 sinking of the rom t j ie batteries and troops on 
 
 Mernmac, . , ^. , 
 
 , une shore ; eight * electric mines were 
 
 fired in the channel; torpedoes were 
 discharged by two Spanish vessels the Pluton and 
 the cruiser Reina Mercedes ; and finally the Mer- 
 rimac went down between Soldados Point and 
 Smith Key, where she lay with her masts and 
 smokestack out of the water, obstructing but by no 
 means blocking the fairway. 
 
 Her lifeboat had disappeared, but the catamaran 
 floated, and all the crew reached it and clung to 
 it. Boats came out to the wreck with lanterns, but 
 the men were not discovered ; and Hobson ordered 
 silence, fearing that even an offer to surrender 
 might be answered with bullets, and expecting that 
 at daylight a responsible officer would come out to 
 reconnoitre. The catamaran was fastened to the 
 sunken hulk by a rope; and with only their heads 
 above water and their teeth chattering with cold, 
 the refugees had held their position for an hour, 
 when, just after sunrise, a steam launch came down 
 the harbour. As it passed, thirty yards away, Lieu 
 tenant Hobson hailed, inquiring if any Spanish 
 officer was aboard, and saying that an American 
 officer wished to surrender himself and seamen as 
 prisoners of war. A Spaniard, who proved to be 
 Admiral Cervera himself, stepped forward and 
 
 * So Lieutenant Hobson asserts. Lieutenant Mailer, who gives the 
 Spanish side of the story, says that only three mines were fired. 
 
 During the day (June ?d\ two of the Spanish torpedoes were found 
 outside the harbour by the Porter, having drifted out with the tide. 
 One was taken aboard as a trophy, the other sank. 
 
 The Merrimac s lifeboat was picked up by men from the Colon, on 
 June 6th. The Spanish cruiser s log for that day says : " Secured the 
 Marymak s boat, repaired it, and supplied it with a new rudder." 
 
190 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 helped Hobson to board the launch ; and the lieu 
 tenant and his men, who were very courteously 
 treated by their captors, were taken to the Reina 
 Mercedes and thence to the Morro. They were 
 afterward moved to the Reina Mercedes Barracks 
 in Santiago, where they were confined till released 
 on July 5th. 
 
 It is easy to say, after the event, that it would 
 have been almost a miracle had the Merrimac 
 manoeuvre proved successful. To block a chan 
 nel has never, even under the most favourable cir 
 cumstances, proved an easy operation. In the civil 
 war, for instance, it was again and again attempted 
 unsuccessfully notably at Charleston, in Decem 
 ber, 1 86 r. The work there was done by an officer 
 who knew the harbour well, having spent four 
 years, shortly before the war, in improving it ; there 
 was no hindrance from the enemy ; no less than 
 sixteen ships, loaded with stone, were carefully 
 towed into position and scuttled ; and yet the chan 
 nel remained navigable. 
 
 The sinking of the Merrimac was the most pic 
 turesque exploit of personal courage performed 
 during the war, and as such it has brought its re 
 ward to the brave men who undertook it. At the 
 same time, it is no detraction of their achievement 
 to say that other soldiers and sailors performed 
 deeds that were less showy but no less truly heroic. 
 Many of these, no doubt, will never be chronicled ; 
 others are to be found in the formal records of the 
 official reports. Among the many instances that 
 might be given, here is one that occurred off San 
 tiago just four days earlier : 
 
 Assistant-Engineer J. P. Morton of the Vixen 
 officially reports the conduct of P. Johnson and G. 
 Mahoney, two of the Vixen s firemen, on the night 
 of May 28, 1898, when " the lower front manhole 
 gasket of boiler A blew out, sending out a large 
 stream of boiling water and steam into the fire- 
 
THE BLOCKADE OF SANTIAGO \g\ 
 
 room, driving the men from the fireroom and low 
 ering the water in the boiler below the gauge glass. 
 Upon calling for volunteers to haul the fires the 
 two men above mentioned responded, went below, 
 and with the scalding water blowing into their 
 faces, and subject to the most intense heat, suc 
 ceeded in hauling the fires and thereby saving the 
 boiler from injury and the ship from great damage." 
 And Lieutenant Sharp, commanding officer of 
 the Vixen, in forwarding the report, adds : " Assist- 
 
 | Brooklyn. Porter t 
 
 Texas I | tNewYork 
 
 Massachusetts 1 I * 
 
 Sampson s first order of blockade off Santiago de Cuba. 
 
 ant-Engineer Morton says nothing of his own 
 conduct; when the gasket, having been refitted, 
 again blew out, he, with Johnson, hauled the fires 
 a second time." 
 
 Sampson s first order of blockade, issued June 
 2d, arranged his fleet in two squadrons, the first 
 consisting of the New York, the 
 Iowa > the Oregon, the New Orleans, 
 the Mayflower, and the Porter, under 
 the admiral s direct command; the second, under 
 Commodore Schley, including the Brooklyn, the 
 
I 9 2 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Massachusetts, the Texas, the Marblehead, and the 
 Vixen. Both squadrons formed a single line, drawn 
 in a semicircle off the harbour mouth, Sampson s 
 ships on the east and Schley s on the west, the 
 battle ships in the centre of the line, and the 
 swifter cruisers on the flanks. In the daytime the 
 distance from the Morro was to be six miles; at 
 night the blockaders were to draw in closer. 
 
 This simple plan was soon modified, Sampson 
 devoting much care and thought to its elaboration, 
 
 Sampson s final arrangement of the night blockade off 
 Santiago de Cuba. 
 
 and finally evolving a remarkably effective forma 
 tion. In this perfected arrangement the night 
 watch was drawn up in three lines. The first, a 
 mile from the Morro, consisted of three picket 
 boats steam launches from the men-of-war; the 
 second, two miles out, of three videttes, chosen 
 from the smaller vessels of the fleet ; the third, from 
 three to four miles from shore, of the battle ships 
 and cruisers. The novel and ingenious feature of 
 
THE BLOCKADE OF SANTIAGO 193 
 
 the blockade was the advancing of one battle ship 
 to the line of videttes, where it held a searchlight 
 steadily upon the entrance of the harbour, making 
 it impossible for even a small boat to slip out un 
 seen; while one of her sister ships lay close at 
 hand, ready to use her guns in case of fire from the 
 enemy. 
 
 Throughout the blockade, with the exception of 
 an occasional rifle shot at the picket boats, the 
 Spaniards never fired upon the American ships at 
 night, though the latter constantly lay within a 
 moderate range. This fact, which caused no little 
 wonderment at the time for, as was said by Cap 
 tain Chadwick, of the New York, " we, had the 
 case been reversed, would not have been so for 
 bearing " was due in part, perhaps, to that dis 
 inclination for the offensive which seems to be a 
 traditional and characteristic trait of the Spanish 
 military genius ; but it may probably be explained 
 more directly by their lack of good guns and 
 shortage of ammunition. The Morro battery, 
 just east of the Morro Castle which latter was 
 armed with ancient bronze cannon had only five 
 guns as large as sixteen-centimetre (six-inch) cali 
 bre, and these were muzzle-loaders. The Socapa 
 battery, on the other side of the entrance, had two 
 good sixteen-centimetre Hontoria guns, taken 
 from the cruiser Reina Mercedes. Two similar 
 weapons, together with two howitzers of fifteen 
 centimetres, and two nine-centimetre Krupp guns, 
 were mounted at Punta Gorda, nearly a mile up the 
 harbour. There were other small batteries along 
 the channel, at Estrella Point and along the hill 
 side under the Socapa, but these had no heavy 
 guns. The guns from the Mercedes were set in 
 place during the first two weeks of June ; later in 
 the month three twenty-one-centimetre howitzers 
 were mounted at the Socapa and two in the Morro 
 battery. 
 
194 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 After his brief and cautious bombardment of 
 May 3 ist, Schley had reported that the Spanish 
 fortifications were " well provided with long-range 
 guns of large calibre." Sampson estimated their 
 strength more accurately when he said, in the in 
 structions he issued on the day after his arrival 
 (June 2d) : " It is not considered that the shore baf- 
 teries are of sufficient power to do any material 
 injury to battle ships." But for the certainty that 
 the channel was mined, it may be taken for granted 
 that the admiral would speedily have forced an en 
 trance into the bay, and would have destroyed or 
 captured Cervera s fleet without waiting for the 
 army. No doubt he remembered Farragut s 
 tk Damn the torpedoes ! " but he also remembered 
 the fate of the Maine a fate that probably awaited 
 the first ship to enter. 
 
 It is noteworthy, too, that the Spaniards never 
 made an attempt at attacking with their torpedo 
 cruisers. In bolder hands these might have proved 
 dangerous weapons, and in the early days of the 
 blockade they caused much anxiety. The end 
 to be attained justifies the risk of torpedo attack, 
 and that risk must be taken," Sampson said in an 
 order dated June 7th. There were several false 
 alarms. The first was on the night of May 2Qth, 
 when the Vixen signalled, " Enemy s torpedo boat 
 sighted," and after some random firing it was dis 
 covered that the supposed torpedo boat was a train 
 on the narrow-gauge railway that runs along the 
 beach near Fort Aguadores.* A few nights later 
 the New Orleans gave the alarm, and a stream of 
 shot was hurled at a mysterious dark object, which 
 proved, when the valorous Yankee dashed in to 
 cut off its retreat, to be a floating mass of sea 
 weed. After this, Sampson s perfecting of the 
 blockade, and especially his effective use of search- 
 
 * Reported by Captain Higginson of the Massachusetts, August 5th. 
 
THE BLOCKADE OF SANTIAGO 
 
 195 
 
 lights, lessened the danger, and greatly relieved the 
 strain upon his crews. 
 
 On the morning of the Merrimac s dramatic 
 suicide (June 3d) Cadet Powell s steam launch, 
 though it was observed and fired at, waited off the 
 Morro until hope for the escape of Hobson and his 
 men was abandoned. Their fate was not known to 
 the fleet till the afternoon, when a Spanish tug 
 came out flying a flag of truce, and the Vixen, 
 which Sampson sent to meet her, found that she 
 carried Cervera s chief of staff, Captain Busta- 
 mente, with a message announcing that the collier s 
 crew were prisoners. The message, sent in recog 
 nition of the dramatic bravery of their exploit, was 
 a fine piece of courtesy on the part of the Spanish 
 admiral. 
 
 With the powerful fleet now under his com 
 mand, Sampson was not content with merely lying 
 off Santiago and waiting for the Spanish ships to 
 come out. His next moves against the enemy were 
 his bombardment of the harbour defences on June 
 6th, and the attack on Guantanamo Bay on the 7th. 
 
 The former was intended to destroy the Span 
 ish batteries, or at least to injure and weaken them 
 enough to make it safe for the block- 
 
 adin g s q uadron to close in around the 
 entrance of the harbour. The admiral 
 issued an order of battle on the 5th, and after sun 
 rise the next morning his two divisions formed in 
 a double column, heading inshore. At twenty 
 minutes to eight a tremendous fire was opened with 
 every gun that could be brought to bear, Samp 
 son s ships, on the east, bombarding the Morro and 
 Fort Aguadores, about three miles further east; 
 Schley s, on the west, devoting their attention to 
 the Socapa. 
 
 The hail of projectiles hurled upon the Spanish 
 batteries during the next three hours was probably 
 the heaviest ever fired from the guns of a fleet, not 
 
I0y 6 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 excepting the British bombardment of Alexandria 
 in 1882. Beginning at three miles distance, the 
 ships worked in until they were within two thou 
 sand yards of the forts, where they used their rapid- 
 fire weapons as well as their big rifles, about two 
 thousand shots being fired in all. It was a still, 
 misty morning, with no swell to disconcert the 
 American gunners, though , heavy showers occa 
 sionally obscured their aim. 
 
 In the afternoon Sampson reported to Wash 
 ington * that he had " silenced the works quickly 
 without injury of any kind." " Silenced," in the 
 report of a bombardment, is, of course, a very in 
 definite word. It may merely mean that the gun 
 ners have been driven to shelter, to return when the 
 enemy s fire ceases ; and such seems to have been the 
 case in this instance. The batteries were frequently 
 hit they had three men killed and forty wounded, 
 principally in the Morro ; but little or no injury was 
 done to the guns. It was a signal proof of the 
 difficulty of firing effectively from shipboard upon 
 fortifications that stand high above the water. 
 Most of the American shells shattered themselves 
 against the rocks of the Morro and the Socapa. 
 Many passed over the heights, and fell inland, or 
 in the waters of the inner bay. Here, indeed, the 
 principal damage was done. Most of the village on 
 Smith Key was destroyed, some of its inhabitants 
 only escaping by standing waist deep in the water. 
 The Reina Mercedes, moored near the key, was 
 struck by thirty-five shells, and was twice set on 
 fire; her second officer, Commander Acosta, and 
 five seamen were killed, and twelve wounded. 
 
 The reply of the batteries was feeble and ineffec- 
 
 * Until he had a cable station at Playa del Este, on Guantanamo 
 Bay, Sampson s usual method of communicating with Washington, 
 while off Santiago, was by sending a despatch boat which sometimes, 
 as in the present case, was a newspaper tug to the Mole St. Nicholas, 
 Haiti. The station at Playa del Este was opened on June 2ist. 
 
THE BLOCKADE OF SANTIAGO 
 
 I 9 7 
 
 tive. The six-inch guns in the Socapa fired forty- 
 seven shots, those at Punta Gorda, which seldom 
 had a ship in line, only seven. None of the 
 American vessels was injured, though the Massa 
 chusetts was hit once, and another shot went 
 through her flag. 
 
 During the bombardment the Suwanee entered 
 the mouth of the small harbour of Cabanas, about a 
 mile and a half west of the Socapa, and silenced 
 a battery there. In the afternoon she made a land 
 ing further west, at Aserraderos, where for three 
 days she lay landing arms and ammunition for a 
 Cuban force under Colonel Cebreco, a part of Gen 
 eral Jesus Rabi s brigade. 
 
 This communication with the insurgents led 
 to one of the notable individual exploits of the war. 
 Commander Delehanty of the Su- 
 Lieutenant wance, being ordered by Sampson to 
 fxpioit* C< ting et positive- assurance of the presence 
 June u , i2. of Cervera s ships in the blockaded 
 harbour,* and believing, as he after 
 ward reported, that " reliable information could not 
 be secured through the insurgent forces, assigned 
 the task to his second officer, Lieutenant Victor 
 Blue, who had been ashore, only a few days be 
 fore, on a mission to the Cubans in Matanzas prov 
 ince. Wearing his uniform and side-arms, Lieu 
 tenant Blue landed at Aserraderos on the nth and 
 went inland to the camp of General Rabi, who fur 
 nished him with a guide and a mule, and sent him 
 on to an insurgent post nearer Santiago. Here he 
 found three other guides, with whom he made his 
 way through the Spanish lines to a hilltop over 
 looking the bay, where he could see vessels that 
 were unmistakably Cervera s. He was back at Rabi s 
 camp on the evening of the I2th, and reported on 
 
 * The information was urgently needed to disprove the report that 
 some of the Spanish ships had escaped, and had been sighted off the 
 north coast of Cuba. See p. 210. 
 
10,8 TH E SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the Suwanee next morning, after a daring journey 
 of seventy miles through the enemy s country. 
 
 A fortnight later (June 25th) the same officer 
 went ashore again, as Sampson desired once more 
 to verify the position of the enemy s squadron. 
 Again he accomplished his mission successfully, 
 though his journey was more dangerous than be 
 fore, the Spaniards having occupied the hills west 
 of Santiago in force, with intrenched lines at sev 
 eral points, in expectation of an attack from that 
 direction by American troops. 
 
 The operations in Guantanamo Bay, which be 
 gan on June 7th, marked a step of cardinal impor 
 tance in the naval campaign the 
 operations in securing of the first American foot- 
 
 Guantanamo 1 i 1 i /--- i A 
 
 Bay, June 7. nold on the Cuban coast. As a sta 
 tion for coaling, cable communica 
 tion, and refitting, it proved to be of the greatest 
 value to Sampson s ships. The admiral might in 
 deed have found it difficult, or even impossible, to 
 maintain an effective blockade of Santiago had Key 
 West, nearly a thousand miles away, remained his 
 only available base. Especially would it have been 
 so in case of stormy weather. It was only by the 
 good fortune which seemed to follow the American 
 forces throughout the war that Sampson s fleet, 
 in waters notorious for their hurricanes, encoun 
 tered few rough seas and no serious gale. 
 
 The seizure of the bay had figured, no doubt, 
 in the war plans discussed at Washington before 
 hostilities began ; and when Cervera was shut in 
 at Santiago the American strategists naturally 
 turned their attention to the convenient harbour 
 that lies some thirty-five miles farther east.* On 
 May 28th Secretary Long suggested its capture, 
 
 * Guantanamo Bay (then called Walthenham Bay) was the base of 
 the British attack upon Santiago in 1741, under General Wentworth 
 and Admiral Vernon. The expedition failed because Wentworth 
 found it impossible to move his troops, who suffered terribly from sick 
 ness, through the difficult country between the bay and Santiago. 
 
THE BLOCKADE OF SANTIAGO 
 
 I 99 
 
 both to Sampson then at Key West and to 
 Schley ; and on the 29th he telegraphed the former 
 that Captain Goodrich, who had reconnoitred the 
 place on his cable-cutting expedition (May I9th), 
 reported the Spanish position there to be very weak. 
 " The seizure of, immediately, is recommended," 
 the secretary added. 
 
 Nor was it necessary to call upon the army to 
 supply a garrison ; the navy had at hand a suf 
 ficient force of its own. As long ago as April i6th 
 five days before war began an order was sent 
 to New York to organize a marine battalion imme 
 diately. Just six days later the battalion started 
 southward on the transport Panther six hundred 
 and forty-seven officers and men, commanded by 
 Lieutenant-Colonel R. W. Huntington, and divided 
 into five companies of infantry and one of artillery, 
 with four small rapid-fire guns. On April 29th it 
 reached Key West, where it was held in readiness 
 for just such service as was now in prospect at 
 Guantanamo. 
 
 The bay of Guantanamo consists of an outer 
 and an inner basin, connected by a narrow channel 
 running through a cluster of islands. When the 
 Marblehead and the Yankee entered the outer 
 basin, on the morning of June 7th, they found that 
 the Spanish defences consisted of the gunboat 
 Sandoval, which, after firing a few shots, retreated 
 into the upper harbour; an old fort on Toro Key, 
 near the town of Caimanera, which was speedily 
 silenced ; and a blockhouse, near the cable station 
 at Playa del Este (" Eastern Shore "), which was 
 shelled and demolished. The American ships did 
 not follow the Sandoval, as the entrance of the 
 inner bay was known to be laid with mines, and 
 the outer basin afforded the sheltered anchorage 
 that Sampson needed. Their task done, the Yankee 
 returned to Santiago, while the Marblehead re 
 mained to secure possession, which was clinched 
 
200 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 on the loth, when the Panther arrived from Key 
 West, by landing the marine battalion. 
 
 The marines pitched their camp which they 
 named Camp McCalla, after the commander of the 
 Marblehead on the ridge above the cable station, 
 
 Inner Bay 
 
 Sketch map of part of Guantanamo Bay. 
 
 where the demolished blockhouse had stood. The 
 site chosen was not an easy one to defend, being 
 conspicuously set in a clearing on the brow of the 
 ridge, which was commanded by a higher hill a 
 little farther inland, while a dense growth of 
 
THE BLOCKADE OF SANTIAGO 2 QI 
 
 manigua scrub, affording perfect cover, came up 
 within fifty yards of the tents. Apparently no 
 attack was expected ; no trenches were dug, and 
 the artillery was not sent ashore. 
 
 Under the fire of the ships the Spaniards had 
 withdrawn from the neighbourhood, but in the 
 evening of the I2th they returned, and from the 
 safe cover of the bushes opened a galling fire that 
 never ceased for three days and nights. The 
 marines position was a trying one; they had no 
 shelter and could get no rest ; and had the enemy s 
 marksmanship been better they must have suffered 
 severely. Their rapid-fire guns were landed on the 
 1 2th, but it was difficult to reply effectively to the 
 fire of the Spanish sharpshooters, whose smokeless 
 powder gave little sign of their whereabouts. That 
 night the enemy came in some force up to the edge 
 of the clearing, but did not attempt to rush the 
 camp perhaps owing to the furious firing of the 
 marines, who, almost exhausted by the strain, ob 
 served no fire discipline, and poured away their 
 ammunition in a wild fusillade. 
 
 On the next day (June I3th) shelter trenches 
 were dug, and some Cubans came into camp with 
 useful reports of the enemy s movements. Acting 
 on their information, Captain George F. Elliott was 
 sent out, on the I4th, with two companies of 
 marines and fifty Cubans, to destroy a well from 
 which the Spaniards had been drawing their water 
 supply. Captain Elliott marched six miles through 
 the scrub, in a heat so intense that twenty-three of his 
 men were prostrated, though all of them recovered ; 
 and not only did he succeed in choking the well, but 
 he attacked and routed a Spanish force whose num 
 bers were variously reported at from two hundred 
 to five hundred, killing forty or more of them, tak 
 ing eighteen prisoners, and capturing a heliograph 
 signal apparatus. The prisoners, who belonged to 
 the Sixty-fourth Regiment of the line, told their 
 
202 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 captors that the soldiers at Guantanamo had only 
 rice for rations, and had six months pay due them. 
 
 As the Spaniards were bringing reinforcements 
 over the bay from Caimanera, Sampson next day 
 (June 1 5th) detached the Texas and the Suwanee 
 to join the Marblehead in an attack upon the de 
 fences of the inner bay, and if it could be reached 
 upon the Sandoval, which had been carrying the 
 troops across. The ships bombarded the fort on 
 Toro Key till there was nothing left to fire at, but 
 did not venture to run over the mines into the 
 inner bay, and the gunboat again escaped. In 
 passing through the channel west of Hospital 
 Key, both the Texas and the Marblehead had 
 already risked serious injury or even destruction. 
 Each struck her propeller against a contact mine, 
 which failed to explode only because it was in- 
 crusted with a thick growth of barnacles. Grati 
 tude for the vessels escape may fairly be divided 
 between " divine care," to which the gallant and 
 devout Captain Philip attributed it in his report, 
 and the Spaniards neglect to maintain a proper in 
 spection of their defences. A number of these tor 
 pedoes, which were of French manufacture, and 
 contained forty-six and a half kilogrammes (one 
 hundred and two pounds) of guncotton, were after 
 ward dragged up in the channel. 
 
 Besides destroying the Toro Key fort, the men- 
 of-war shelled Point Hicacal, from which some in 
 fantry had fired on them. The operation was 
 repeated on the I7th, and the point was swept so 
 clear of cover that the Spaniards made no further 
 attempt to hold it. 
 
 The whole loss of the marines, during ten days 
 of more or less constant fighting, was six killed 
 and sixteen wounded, among the former being 
 Surgeon John Blair Gibbs, a New York physician 
 of high professional standing, who had sought serv 
 ice from patriotic motives. The first three to lose 
 
THE BLOCKADE OF SANTIAGO 
 
 203 
 
 their lives were a sergeant and two privates who 
 went into the bush as a scouting party, and when 
 their bodies were found it was thought that they 
 had been mutilated by the enemy. It was unfor 
 tunate that this shocking allegation too shocking 
 to be credible in a war with a civilized foe found 
 its w r ay into the official reports, being forwarded by 
 Commander McCalla to Admiral Sampson, and by 
 him to Washington, where of course it aroused 
 widespread horror and indignation. The charge 
 was afterward retracted, the apparent mutilation 
 being attributed to the effect of Mauser bullets at 
 short range. The fact, so well established later, 
 that the small-calibre projectile fired by the Spanish 
 rifle inflicts a remarkably clean wound, makes it 
 seem more probable that the ghastly work was done 
 by some of those gruesome scavengers of Cuba 
 the buzzards or the land crabs. 
 
 The Spanish forces at Guantanamo and Caima- 
 nera, numbering some seven thousand men under 
 General Felix Pareja, were known to be in great 
 straits for food. The stories told by the marines 
 prisoners were confirmed by a letter sent by General 
 Pareja to Santiago, and intercepted by the Cubans, 
 who hanged the messenger. It told how on the 7th 
 seven ships the general s enemies multiplied like 
 Falstaff s men in buckram had attacked Playa del 
 Este ; that his guns were not powerful enough to 
 make any effective defence ; and that " the Ameri 
 can squadron in possession of the outer bay has 
 taken it as if for a harbour of rest, they having 
 anchored as if in one of their own ports." As to 
 his own situation the general said : 
 
 The forces of the brigade here are in good spirits. 
 I continue serving out half rations of everything, and in 
 that way I expect to reach only the end of the month, 
 above all in bread, as I have no flour of any kind, and 
 no way of getting any, on account of there having been 
 no corn for some time. Quinine for the hospitals the 
 same. Town in needful circumstances. 
 14 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 
 
 UP to this point the navy, on the American side, 
 had been practically the sole actor on the stage of 
 war. The army missed its chance of an early blow 
 at the enemy, as has already been told, by its un 
 readiness for immediate action ; but when the plans 
 for an attack upon Havana were perforce postponed, 
 the organization of an invading force was still 
 pushed as energetically as possible. Besides this im 
 mediate task, the powers of the War Department 
 were tremendously taxed by the rapid increase of 
 the volunteer forces, and the necessity for furnishing 
 the recruits with equipments. The full nominal 
 strength of the army mounted within five weeks 
 from less than 30,000 to a little more than 280,000. 
 The first call for 125,000 volunteers was followed by 
 another (May 25th) for 75,000 more, and Congress 
 authorized the enlistment of four special forces ten 
 regiments of volunteer infantry composed of " im- 
 munes," or men not liable to yellow-fever infection ; 
 three regiments of cavalry, one of which was to be 
 come famous as the " Rough Riders " ; a volunteer 
 signal corps, and an engineer brigade of 3,500 men. 
 
 The actual enlisted strength rose very close to 
 the same figure, reaching, in August, a maximum of 
 58,688 regulars and 216,029 volunteers, or 274,717 
 in all. Less than one fifth of this great army saw 
 service in the field a fact which certainly justifies 
 the opinion of the commanding general, whose 
 plans, submitted shortly before the war began, sug- 
 204 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 
 
 205 
 
 gested the immediate calling out of 50,000 volun 
 teers, with 40,000 more to be held in reserve and to 
 garrison coast defences. General Miles, to use his 
 own words, " deemed it of the first importance to 
 well equip such a force, rather than to partly equip 
 a much larger number " ; but his views were over 
 ruled not for the only time in the campaign. 
 
 At the end of May the War Department began to 
 collect its fleet of transports at Tampa, where about 
 16,000 troops (the Fifth Corps, com- 
 r b F a i S a e manded by Major-General Shafter) 
 were encamped, with as many more 
 within easy reach at Fernandina and Mobile, be 
 sides some 40,000 at Chickamauga. On May 24th 
 Sampson was instructed somewhat prematurely 
 to be prepared to convoy forty troopships, 
 carrying 30,000 men, to Cuba. Three days later 
 the estimate of the force prepared to move sud 
 denly dropped to 10,000, and Secretary Long cabled 
 to Schley, who was supposed to be blockading San 
 tiago, that if Cervera s squadron was in the harbour 
 
 immediate movement against it and the town will be 
 made by the navy and division of about ten thousand men 
 of the American troops, which are ready to embark. 
 
 A similar despatch was sent to Sampson, then at 
 Key West : 
 
 If the Spanish division is proved to be in Santiago 
 de Cuba it is the intention of the department to make 
 descent immediately upon that port with ten thousand 
 men, United States troops. You will be expected to con 
 voy transports, probably fifteen or twenty, going in per 
 son and taking with you the New York and Indiana and 
 the Oregon, and as many smaller vessels with good bat 
 teries as can possibly be gathered, to guard against pos 
 sible attack by Spanish torpedo-boat destroyers, etc. 
 
 Rut Sampson could not wait for the unready expe 
 dition, and sailed for Santiago on the 29th,* leaving 
 the Indiana for convoy duty. Two days later a de- 
 
 * Page 1 80. 
 
2o6 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 spatch was sent after him, from Washington, telling 
 him that 25,000 men were " now embarking at 
 Tampa." On June 3d, however, he was informed 
 that " General Shafter expects to start from Tampa 
 on June 4th with 18,000 or 20,000 men." 
 
 To these puzzling messages Sampson replied, on 
 the 4th, with a telegram giving information of the 
 Spanish forces at Santiago,* and continuing : 
 
 With superior force and insurgent forces, which are 
 ready, though mostly needing arms, Santiago de Cuba 
 must fall, together with ships in port, which can not be 
 entered against obstructions and mines. 
 
 To his report of the bombardment of June 6th the 
 admiral added (June /th) : 
 
 If ten thousand men were here, city and fleet would 
 be ours within forty-eight hours. Every consideration 
 
 * This telegram appears in three different forms in the printed re 
 ports of the War and Navy Departments. In Sampson s report the 
 estimate of the Spanish force is given thus: "Have received reliable 
 information from Cuban officers the Spanish force in this vicinity of 
 Santiago consists of 7,000 men, intrenched in Juraguacito and Daiquiri ; 
 5,000 men in Santiago de Cuba ; in Morro de Cuba, 400 men ; at other 
 points in the bay, 100 men, with small rapid-fire gun and submarine 
 mines at various points." 
 
 In the Bureau of Navigation s report on " Operations in Conjunc 
 tion with the Army," the figures appear thus : " 7,000 men intrenched 
 in Juraguacito and Daiquiri, 5,000 men at Morro de Cuba, 400 men at 
 other points in the bay, 500 men with small Hotchkiss 37 mm. rapid- 
 fire guns, and submarine mines at various points." 
 
 In the Secretary of War s report they are given as " 7,000 men in 
 trenched in Juraquacito and Daiquiri ; 5,000 at Morron de Cuba ; 4,000 
 at other points ; in bay 500, with small Hotchkiss gun." 
 
 It would appear that the wording of an official cipher despatch is 
 not so fixed and unalterable a thing as might be supposed. Perhaps 
 none of these variant versions gives the admiral s estimate exactly as he 
 intended it. It seems improbable that 7,000 men would be located in 
 Juraguacito and Daiquiri, when the Spanish commander was of course 
 unaware that Shafter would land in that quarter, and was preparing, 
 as Lieutenant Blue found, to resist an attack on the other side of Santi 
 ago. It may perhaps be conjectured that Sampson meant 7,000 to be 
 his figure for the whole force of the Spaniards. Other reasons for this 
 supposition are, first, that 7,000 was very near their actual strength ; 
 second, that it agrees well enough with the admiral s estimate (reported 
 June nth) of about 12,000 regulars and 3,000 militia between Santiago 
 and Guantanamo ; and third, that in speaking of the American expe 
 dition he uses the terms " superior force " in one despatch, and " 10,000 
 men " in another, as if synonymous the inference being that he be 
 lieved the Spaniards to have less than 10,000. 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 
 
 207 
 
 demands immediate army movement. If delayed, city will 
 be defended more strongly by guns taken from fleet. 
 
 Sampson has been criticised for this misleading esti 
 mate, as it has been termed, of the task Shafter had 
 to undertake. It may be answered that " ten thou 
 sand men " was not his own suggestion for the 
 strength of the expedition; it was the figure given 
 him from Washington as far back as May 27th. 
 Moreover, the delay that followed strengthened the 
 enemy s position, as he had foretold. 
 
 The delay was a disconcerting one to the navy, 
 as vessels for the convoy had been withdrawn from 
 the blockade, and were lying idle at Key West. On 
 the 5th Sampson telegraphed to Washington that it 
 was " very important we should know immediately 
 whether the army expedition has sailed." The Navy 
 Department forwarded the message to the War De 
 partment, and suggested " that urgent measures be 
 taken to terminate the present delay." 
 
 Affairs at Tampa were in a state of almost inex 
 tricable confusion. " The capacity of the place had 
 been greatly exceeded," as General Shafter very 
 conservatively phrased it. The port was approached 
 by a single-track railroad, which proved unequal 
 to the demands upon it. For miles the line was 
 choked with freight cars, which could not be un 
 loaded with any promptitude. Few had labels show 
 ing their contents, and consignments could not be 
 found when wanted. There were instances of pro 
 visions spoiling on the railway while soldiers suf 
 fered from insufficient rations, and some of the vol 
 unteers were actually seen begging for food in the 
 streets. No storage facilities had been provided. 
 The little local post office was overwhelmed with 
 the sudden increase of business, and could not dis 
 tribute the freight bills. At Port Tampa, where 
 about thirty transports had been collected by the 
 end of May, the docking space was limited, there 
 being wharf room for only eight vessels ; the chan- 
 
208 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 nel was narrow and overcrowded, and one ship, the 
 Florida, was disabled by a collision while loading. 
 
 It was useless to send urgent messages from 
 Washington ; the officers in charge of loading the 
 transports toiled day and night, but their best exer 
 tions were sorely handicapped by the adverse con 
 ditions under which they had to work conditions 
 due, primarily, to a lack of systematic and intelligent 
 prevision on the part of those responsible -for the 
 equipment of the troops. One of the heads of the 
 army staff subsequently testified before the commis 
 sion that investigated the conduct of the campaign, 
 that when, war being imminent, he suggested the 
 purchase of supplies for his branch of the service, he 
 was informed that " the policy was to wait " a 
 policy curiously suggestive of the Spanish motto of 
 " mafiana." At the same time, much of the blame 
 may fairly be traced to Congress, with its eagerness 
 for hostilities, and its persistent refusal to provide a 
 military organization adequate to the needs of war. 
 
 On May 3Oth General Miles left Washington to 
 give his personal assistance to the task of embark 
 ing the expedition. From Tampa he telegraphed to 
 the War Department (June 5th) : 
 
 This expedition has been delayed through no fault of 
 any one connected with it. It contains the principal part 
 of the army,* which for intelligence and efficiency is not 
 exceeded by any body of troops on earth. It contains 
 fourteen of the best-conditioned regiments of volunteers, 
 the last of which arrived this morning. Yet these have 
 never been under fire. Between thirty and forty per cent 
 are undrilled, and in one regiment over three hundred 
 men had never fired a gun. . . . This enterprise is so 
 important that I desire to go with this army corps or to 
 immediately organize another and go with it to join this 
 and capture position number 2.f 
 
 The answer to General Miles s request for serv 
 ice was an inquiry how soon he could have an ex 
 peditionary force ready for Porto Rico. It is 
 
 * That is, the regular army. t Porto Rico. 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 
 
 209 
 
 scarcely strange that there should have been some 
 impatience at Washington, as appears in the per 
 emptory order transmitted to Shafter by Secretary 
 Alger on June 7th : 
 
 The President directs you to sail at once with what 
 force you have ready. 
 
 Shafter s reply was : " I will sail to-morrow 
 morning. Steam can not be gotten up earlier " ; 
 and Miles added : 
 
 From the commanding general down to the drummer 
 boys, every one is impatient to go, and annoyed at the 
 delay. 
 
 On the 8th nearly sixteen thousand men were 
 on board the transports, and the fleet was actually 
 under way for Key West, when there came an un 
 expected and unfortunate interruption. 
 
 The converted yacht Eagle, after her brief 
 
 service with the Flying Squadron,* had rejoined 
 
 the north coast blockade. On the 
 
 The Eagle night of June 7th she was cruising 
 
 sights a phan- . t XT ^ . / , , . 6 
 
 tom fleet, June 7. m tne Nicholas Channel, when she 
 sighted a strange ship, which did not 
 answer her signals. She ran nearer, and made out 
 four vessels, two large and two small, heading east 
 ward in column, with no lights showing except one 
 at the stern of each ship. For more than half an 
 hour she watched them, steaming parallel with their 
 course, and within a mile of them ; and as the private 
 night signal had been made twice without bringing 
 a reply " an omission*" says her commander, Lieu 
 tenant Southerland, " which would have been almost 
 criminal in a United States man-of-war " it was 
 concluded that the four vessels were enemies. The 
 Eagle was headed for Key West, and Commodore 
 Remey, in command there, at once informed Wash 
 ington of the news she brought : 
 
 * Page 176. 
 
2io THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Spanish armoured cruiser, Spanish cruiser second- 
 class, and Spanish torpedo-boat destroyers seen by Eagle 
 near Nicholas Channel, Cuba. Delay convoy. 
 
 It scarcely seemed possible that four of Cervera s 
 ships had slipped out and escaped Sampson s vigi 
 lant watch, or that another squadron, of whose move 
 ments the American strategists had no information, 
 had arrived from Spain ; and the Eagle s disturbing 
 statement might have been dismissed at once had it 
 not been confirmed by the Resolute, which came 
 into Key West a few hours later and reported that 
 she had been chased by four strange vessels, near 
 the scene of Lieutenant Southerland s nocturnal 
 adventure. It was manifestly unsafe to send out a 
 fleet of unprotected transports loaded with troops, 
 when hostile war ships were directly in their path, 
 and on receipt of the news from Remey Secretary 
 Alger at once telegraphed to Shafter (June 8th) : 
 
 Wait until you get further orders before you sail. 
 Answer quick. 
 
 Shafter s answer, sent the same afternoon, was: 
 
 Message received. Vessels are in the stream, but will 
 be able to stop them before reaching the Gulf. 
 
 The transports were recalled, and the vessels 
 waiting at Key West to convoy them were ordered 
 out to cruise in search of the mysterious Spanish 
 squadron. No trace of it cou^d be found. Sampson, 
 when he heard of it, promptly declared it a myth, 
 and cabled his opinion to Secretary Long. He 
 cited another case of false alarm a double one 
 that had just come under his notice. The Yankee, 
 returning to Santiago from the Mole St. Nicholas, 
 had reported that on the night of the Qth she passed 
 " a squadron of eight vessels, one of which was a 
 battle ship." The " eight vessels " proved to be the 
 Resolute (an Old Dominion liner) and five smaller 
 auxiliaries, one of which the Scorpion -had 
 sighted the Yankee and fired upon her, mistaking 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 211 
 
 her for a Spanish torpedo-boat destroyer. " This/ 
 said Sampson, " shows how easily the most experi 
 enced may be deceived at night at sea " ; and he 
 telegraphed to Washington (June loth) : 
 
 Have no confidence in the report of Eagle as to na 
 tionality or character of the vessels, and consider very un 
 wise to suspend operations on this account. Armoured 
 vessel was probably Talbot [a British cruiser]. . . . De 
 lay seems to me most unfortunate. 
 
 And again the following day : 
 
 The vessels seen by the Eagle were the Armeria, 
 Scorpion, and Supply. They were in just that position at 
 time named. 
 
 On the 1 3th Lieutenant Blue s daring expedition 
 enabled the admiral to report positively that Cer- 
 vera s six ships were still in Santiago harbour. By 
 this time the transports were once more under 
 orders to sail, and some of them started that after 
 noon, the rest getting under way on the i/j-th. 
 
 Campaigns are not won by commanders who 
 never make a mistake and by armies whose organi 
 zation is faultless, for such commanders and such 
 armies do not exist. Warfare even victorious war 
 fare with all its outward show of pomp and glory, 
 generally proves on closer acquaintance to be more 
 full of blunders and errors than of brilliant achieve 
 ments. Shafter s expedition against Santiago was 
 successful sweepingly successful not because its 
 management was without blot or blemish, but be 
 cause it fought with unsurpassed valour against an 
 enemy inferior in numbers and weaker in resources. 
 
 Its embarkation was of a piece with the state of 
 confusion characteristic of the camp at Tampa. The 
 transports, which had been fitted out for the much 
 shorter voyage to Havana, proved unable to accom 
 modate anything like the number of men for which 
 they had been rated.* The degree of system in 
 
 * "The quarter master-general was not told in advance of the pro 
 posed size of Shafter s expedition, or its destination. Had it been 
 
212 THE SPANISH- AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the assignment of troops to the different ships 
 may be judged from the statement of Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Roosevelt that when the depot quarter 
 master allotted a transport to the Rough Riders, 
 he found that the same vessel had already been 
 allotted to two other regiments ; and when she 
 came up to the wharf there was an exciting race to 
 seize her. 
 
 The commissary supplies taken with the expedi 
 tion were ample in quantity, though the quality of 
 some of them has been a subject of controversy. 
 There was plenty of ammunition for the small artil 
 lery force. The medical stores were found inade 
 quate. Only three ambulances were embarked ; the 
 surgeon-general s orders prescribed two for each 
 regiment, but Colonel Jacobs, chief quartermaster of 
 the corps, testified that the commanding general 
 ordered them left behind.* Before blaming Shafter 
 for what proved to be a serious omission, it must be 
 remembered that his orders to hurry were impera 
 tive, and that space on the transports was at a pre 
 mium. Practically nothing had been done to fit 
 the clothing of the troops for service in the tropics, 
 and the regulars went to Cuba in the uniforms they 
 had perhaps been wearing, two months before, in 
 Dakota or Montana. Some of the regiments carried 
 overcoats as well as blankets. 
 
 There are discrepancies in different accounts of 
 the expedition s equipment, due, apparently, to the 
 difficulty of exact knowledge as to what was taken 
 
 done, there would have been a vast difference in the war-transportation 
 work." Statement of Colonel Bell, of the transportation division of 
 the quartermaster-general s office, before the War Investigation Com 
 mission, December 2, 1808. 
 
 * Lieutenant Miley (In Cuba with Shafter, p. 44") states that seven 
 ambulances were taken ; so does the report of Quartermaster-General 
 Ludington ; but Surgeon -General Sternberg s report gives the number 
 as three, and the report of the War Investigation Commission (p. 84^ 
 adopts his figure. Shatter s report assorts that " as many were taken 
 as was thought necessary, judging from previous campaigns." The 
 general fails to specify which campaigns justified him in landing an 
 army of invasion practically without ambulances. 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 213 
 
 and what left behind, and what, after being carried 
 to Santiago, was sent north again without being un 
 loaded. Even the number of men who sailed is 
 variously stated. General Shafter s official report 
 puts it at 815 officers and 16,072 men. General 
 Miles, who was at Tampa, reported 803 officers and 
 14,935 men. The figure given by Secretary Alger 
 to the War Investigation Commission was 16,988. 
 Lieutenant Miley, of Shafter s staff a careful and 
 well-informed statistician says 819 officers and 
 15,058 men.* 
 
 The corps consisted of the following com 
 mands : 
 
 FIRST DIVISION (BRIGADIER-GENERAL KENT) 
 
 First Brigade (Brigadier-General Hawkins). 
 Sixth Infantry (Lieutenant-Colonel Egbert), Six 
 teenth Infantry (Colonel Theaker), and Seventy- 
 first New York Volunteers (Colonel Downs). 
 
 Second Brigade (Colonel Pearson). Second In 
 fantry (Lieutenant-Colonel Wherry), Tenth Infantry 
 (Lieutenant-Colonel Kellogg), and Twenty-first In 
 fantry (Lieutenant-Colonel McKibbin). 
 
 Third Brigade (Colonel Wikoff). Ninth Infan 
 try (Lieutenant-Colonel Ewers), Thirteenth Infan 
 try (Lieutenant-Colonel Worth), and Twenty-fourth 
 Infantry (Lieutenant-Colonel Liscum). 
 
 SECOND DIVISION (BRIGADIER-GENERAL LAWTON) 
 
 First Brigade (Colonel Van Horn). Eighth In 
 fantry (Major Conrad), Twenty-second Infantry 
 (Lieutenant-Colonel Patterson), and Second Massa 
 chusetts Volunteers (Colonel Clark). 
 
 Second Brigade (Colonel Miles). First Infantry 
 (Lieutenant-Colonel Bisbee), Fourth Infantry 
 (Lieutenant-Colonel Bainbridge), and Twenty-fifth 
 Infantry (Lieutenant-Colonel Daggett). 
 
 * In Cuba with Shafter, p. 44. 
 
214 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Third Brigade (Brigadier-General Chaffee). 
 Seventh Infantry (Colonel Benham), Twelfth Infan 
 try (Lieutenant-Colonel Comba), and Seventeenth 
 Infantry (Lieutenant-Colonel Haskell). 
 
 CAVALRY DIVISION (MAJOR-GENERAL WHEELER) 
 
 First Brigade (Brigadier-General Sumner). 
 Third Cavalry (Major Wessels), Sixth Cavalry 
 (Lieutenant-Colonel Carroll), and Ninth Cavalry 
 (Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton). 
 
 Second Brigade (Brigadier-General Young). 
 First Cavalry (Lieutenant-Colonel Viele), Tenth 
 Cavalry (Major Norvell), and First Volunteer Cav 
 alry, popularly designated as the Rough Riders 
 (Colonel Leonard Wood). 
 
 The cavalry division sailed without horses, be 
 cause there was no room for them on the transports, 
 and because it was reported, quite correctly, that 
 mounted troops would be of little use in the rough 
 country around Santiago. The animals were left 
 at Tampa, and only two squadrons (about five hun 
 dred men) of each regiment went to Cuba. Armed 
 with their cavalry carbines, the three thousand men 
 of the division fought as infantry throughout the 
 campaign. 
 
 There were four light batteries : Batteries E 
 (Captain Capron) and K (Captain Best) of the First 
 Artillery, and A (Captain Grimes) and F (Captain 
 Parkhurst) of the Second Artillery. Each consisted 
 of four three-inch guns, and all were under the com 
 mand of Major Dillenback, of the Second Artillery. 
 There were also Batteries G (Captain Ennis) and H 
 (Captain Cummins) of the Fourth Artillery, each 
 equipped with two five-inch siege rifles and four 
 3. 6-inch mortars ; and two machine-gun detach 
 ments, one of four Catlings, commanded by Lieu 
 tenant Parker, of the Thirteenth Infantry, and one 
 of an equal number of one-pound Hotchkiss guns, 
 manned by men of the Tenth Cavalry, under Lieu- 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 215 
 
 tenant Hughes. Besides these, the Rough Riders 
 had two rapid-fire Colts, presented by members of 
 the regiment, and a dynamite gun. 
 
 An engineer battalion, under Captain Burr, ac 
 companied the expedition, as did also a signal corps 
 and balloon detachment commanded by Major 
 Greene. An entire division of infantry Brigadier- 
 General Snyder s consisting of volunteer regi 
 ments, was left at Tampa for lack of ships to carry 
 it and time to embark it. To make up for this, a 
 detachment was shipped from Mobile, which in 
 cluded the Third Infantry (Colonel Page), the 
 Twentieth Infantry (Major McCaskey), and Major 
 Rafferty s squadron of the Second Cavalry, 
 mounted the only mounted cavalry in the expedi 
 tion. It formed an independent brigade, under the 
 command of Brigadier-General Bates. 
 
 Two other general officers accompanied the ex 
 pedition Major-General Breckinridge, inspector- 
 general of the army, and Brigadier-General Ludlow, 
 of the engineer department. In the field, the latter 
 took command of the first brigade of Lawton s divi 
 sion, replacing Colonel Van Horn, who was seri 
 ously injured on the day before the landing at Dai 
 quiri. The chief commissary of the expedition was 
 Colonel Weston, the chief quartermaster Lieuten 
 ant-Colonel Humphrey. 
 
 On June I4th the transports rendezvoused at 
 Egmont Key, outside of Tampa harbour, where five 
 of the smaller men-of-war were wait- 
 1 escort them southward. Off 
 the lortugas, on the evening ot the 
 1 5th, they met the Indiana, whose chief officer, Cap 
 tain Taylor, took over the command of the convoy 
 from Commander Hunker of the Annapolis. From 
 this point the course was to the southeast, toward 
 Santiago. The transports moved sjowly ; they had 
 two scows and a water boat to tow, and there was 
 a good deal of straggling. One or two of them had 
 
2i6 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 to put in at Great Inagua, in the Bahamas, for 
 water. Two the Yucatan, carrying the Rough 
 Riders, and the City of Washington fell so far be 
 hind that the Bancroft and the Wasp were sent back 
 to protect them, and they reached Santiago several 
 hours later than the rest of the fleet. Captain Taylor 
 had been instructed, if possible, to form a fast divi 
 sion and hurry some of the vessels forward, in order 
 to reinforce the marines at Playa del Este, who were 
 reported as being hard pressed ; but Shafter did not 
 wish to divide his army, and Taylor found his hands 
 full without reorganizing his unwieldy flotilla. 
 
 The transports had all been freight vessels, and 
 their lack of proper ventilation and accommodations 
 caused discomfort among the troops ; but the voy 
 age was uneventful, no enemy appearing, and the 
 most serious mishap being the loss of one of the 
 two scows, which was much needed for landing 
 Shafter s artillery. 
 
 While waiting for the army, Sampson had been 
 reconnoitring possible landing places near San 
 tiago, and testing the Spanish defences. To prevent 
 any strengthening of the harbour works he bom 
 barded them heavily on the i6th. Once more the 
 batteries were " quickly silenced," but the injuries 
 inflicted again proved slight. The Morro and the 
 Socapa reported three men killed and eighteen 
 wounded, but no guns dismounted, though one of 
 the six-inch weapons in the Socapa was temporarily 
 disabled by being buried in debris. On the follow 
 ing day two steam cutters from the New York and 
 the Massachusetts attempted to enter Cabanas Bay, 
 the nearest harbour to the west, but were driven off 
 by a heavy fire from shore. 
 
 The Vesuvius, which joined the blockading fleet 
 on the 1 3th, was having her first test in warfare at 
 this time. Every night she ran in close to the har 
 bour mouth and fired three of her dynamite shells. 
 Their tremendous explosions undoubtedly had a 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 
 
 moral effect upon the Spaniards, although largely 
 owing to the difficulty of aiming them accurately 
 they did very little actual damage.* 
 
 On June i Qth General Calixto Garcia, commander 
 of the insurgent forces in eastern Cuba, reached 
 Rabi s camp near Aserraderos, and came out to the 
 New York to see Sampson. The Cuban leader, 
 though the conference was interrupted by his sea 
 sickness, made a favourable impression upon the 
 American admiral, who describes him as a man " of 
 most frank and engaging manners and most sol 
 dierly appearance." His arrival was a sequel to 
 the negotiations begun by Lieutenant Rowan in 
 the first days of the war. One of his officers, 
 Colonel Hernandez, who had accompanied Rowan 
 to Washington, went back to Cuba with a let 
 ter from General Miles (dated June 2cl) informing 
 Garcia of the proposed moVement against San 
 tiago, and suggesting that he could render valu 
 able assistance. Garcia replied through Sampson, 
 who cabled his message to Washington that 
 " the roads were bad and Cubans scattered " ; but 
 he ordered his lieutenants to concentrate their 
 forces about the three chief Spanish military posts 
 in the province Holguin (where ten thousand 
 troops were quartered), Manzanillo, and Guantana- 
 mo, in order to prevent reinforcements from going 
 to Santiago. He himself mustered some four thou 
 sand men near Aserraderos, and readily promised 
 their aid in return for the arms, clothing, and rations 
 
 * Lieutenant Muller speaks of " the Vesuvius that gave us so much 
 trouble." He says that" "one of her projectiles, which fell on the 
 northern slope of the Socapa, tore up trees right and left for a distance 
 of twenty metres. Another made an excavation not very deep, hut 
 very wide ; I was told that it would hold twenty horses. Still another 
 dropped in the water, but close to one of the destroyers, which was 
 violently shaken, as also ihe Mercedes, anchored at a short distance." 
 
 Of this last shot, fired on the night of June isth, an officer of the 
 Pluton told Mr. Ramsden, the British consul at Santiago, that its ex 
 plosion lifted the small vessel out of the water, throwing every one on 
 board off his feet. 
 
2 i8 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 given him from the fleet s stores. He had recently 
 received a cargo of rifles and ammunition from the 
 United States, landed at Banes by the Florida. 
 
 On the morning of the 2oth the Wompatuck, 
 which Captain Taylor had sent ahead to herald the 
 approach of the army, reached Samp- 
 shafter reaches SO n s fleet, and about noon the trans- 
 junHo ports came in sight. The admiral sent 
 
 Captain Chadwick, on the Gloucester, 
 to invite Shafter up to the blockading line ; and on 
 his arrival Sampson went on board of the general s 
 headquarters ship, the Seguranga. In the afternoon 
 the Seguranga took both commanders to Aserra- 
 deros, where they landed Garcia not caring for an 
 other experience afloat and conferred with the Cu 
 ban leader and Generals Rabi and Castillo. It is 
 scarcely probable, if the campaign were to be fought 
 over again, that the American admiral and major- 
 general would begin it by a visit to an insurgent 
 camp, while an American army corps waited off 
 shore. 
 
 It was arranged, at Aserraderos, that at sun 
 rise on the 22d a feint of landing should be made at 
 Cabanas, while the real debarkation should be be 
 gun at Daiquiri ; that a Cuban force under General 
 Castillo should engage the Spanish detachment in 
 the rear, while Rabi supported the attack at Cabanas. 
 
 On the 2 ist Shafter summoned his division and 
 brigade commanders to receive their landing orders, 
 and the Bancroft brought them to the Seguranga 
 a task which, as Commander Clover reported, meant 
 more than twenty miles steaming among the scat 
 tered transports. The sea was rough, and the transfer 
 of the officers from vessel to vessel was difficult and 
 even dangerous. It was in boarding the Bancroft 
 that Colonel Van Horn, who was to have led the 
 first brigade ashore in the morning, received the in 
 jury which disabled him, and from which he died a 
 few months later. 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 
 
 219 
 
 Next day (June 22d) the plan already outlined 
 was successfully carried out, except that the Cubans 
 entirely failed to intercept the enemy s 
 retreat - The fleet bombarded all the 
 Spanish defences for nearly twenty 
 miles along the coast, from Daiquiri to Cabanas. 
 Off this latter point the Texas was struck by a 
 shell from the Socapa, which killed one man and 
 wounded eight. The landing at Daiquiri was car 
 ried out with a good deal of confusion, yet with 
 creditable rapidity. Captain Goodrich, of the St. 
 Louis, who was in command on behalf of the navy, 
 had much to contend with. Half a dozen men-of- 
 war had shelled the country about the bay, with a 
 fire heavy enough, as the captain said, " to drive out 
 the whole Spanish army in Cuba, had it been there," 
 but the transports could not be induced to go any 
 where near the shore. The navy had no control over 
 these marine hirelings, and their captains moved, 
 perhaps, by a conscientious regard for their owners 
 interest, or possibly by a tender care for their own 
 personal safety declined to face any avoidable risk 
 in the service of their country. As a result, the 
 boats more than fifty of which were furnished by 
 the men-of-war, to supply the army s deficiency in 
 this respect had to make a voyage of several miles 
 to carry the troops ashore. One ship, carrying six 
 hundred men who were to have landed in advance 
 of the army, did not put in an appearance till the 
 afternoon, after four steam launches had spent hours 
 in searching for her. 
 
 There were two piers in the little bay of Daiquiri. 
 One, a large iron structure owned by an American 
 mining company, and used for loading ships with 
 iron ore, was too high above the water to serve as a 
 landing stage. The troops used the other, a small 
 wooden pier which the Spaniards had unsuccessfully 
 tried to burn. The pack mules and officers horses 
 were thrown overboard and left to swim ashore 
 15 
 
220 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 which a few of them failed to do. The first soldier 
 landed a few minutes before ten o clock; at sunset 
 about six thousand men Lawton s division and 
 part of Wheeler s were on Cuban soil. The only 
 loss of human life was that of two infantrymen, 
 drowned from a capsized boat. There was no moles 
 tation from the enemy. General Rubin, who had 
 been stationed at Daiquiri with six hundred men 
 and two guns, withdrew to Siboney as soon as the 
 bombardment began, losing one killed and seven 
 wounded ; and from Siboney he continued his retreat 
 to a position in front of Sevilla, where he received 
 considerable reinforcements. Here the first fight 
 ing of the land campaign was to take place. 
 
 On the following day (June 23d), while the de 
 barkation at Daiquiri continued, Lawton s and 
 Wheeler s troops pushed westward to- 
 ward Siboney, which they reached in 
 the afternoon. As there was no oppo 
 sition from the enemy, Shafter decided to put the 
 rest of his men and material ashore in the bay of 
 Siboney or the Ensenada de los Altares (" bay of 
 the altars."), as the Spaniards called it thus bring 
 ing his base several miles nearer Santiago.* At the 
 same time he placed the transports under the per 
 sonal authority of Captain Goodrich an order 
 which enabled that energetic officer to board each 
 vessel as it came up to land its men, and take it close 
 inshore. There was no pier at Siboney, and the 
 soldiers had to go ashore through the surf, but six 
 thousand more were landed during the day. 
 
 Shafter s orders for the arrangement of the army 
 ashore directed Lawton to lead its advance, occupy 
 ing " a strong defensive position " a little way be 
 yond Siboney, on the road toward Santiago ; Bates s 
 
 * In General Shafter s report the distance from Daiquiri to Siboney 
 is stated at eight miles, in General Wheeler s at eleven, in Captain 
 Goodrich s at four which shows how estimates of distance vary, even 
 when made by minds trained to accuracy. On the map it measures 
 six miles. 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 
 
 221 
 
 brigade was to be close behind, supporting Law- 
 ton ; Kent s division was to be held at Siboney, 
 where it landed ; Wheeler s was to bring up the rear, 
 
222 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 taking its station between Siboney and Daiquiri.* 
 But Wheeler, who was the senior officer ashore 
 Shafter remained on the Seguranga until the 29th 
 partly upset this programme. The gallant veteran 
 was as eager to get at the enemy as he had ever 
 been thirty-five years before, when he was a daring 
 young leader of Confederate cavalry. On the even 
 ing of the 23d he ordered the commander of his 
 second brigade, General Young, who had just 
 reached Siboney from Daiquiri, to move forward, in 
 the morning, to reconnoitre General Rubin s posi 
 tion near Sevilla. He had received information of 
 the Spaniards whereabouts from General Castillo, 
 whose men had had a skirmish with their rearguard, 
 and had been driven off with one killed and nine 
 wounded. 
 
 The main road from Siboney to Santiago runs 
 inland along a small valley, and then ascends some 
 three hundred feet to a gap in the hills, at a point 
 called Las Guasimas (" the guasima trees "), where 
 it turns westward to Sevilla and thence through an 
 undulating country to the capital of the province. 
 General Castillo had pointed out another trail, which 
 climbs the hillside directly above Siboney, and 
 passes along the high ground to join the main road 
 at Las Guasimas, about three miles inland. The 
 former is an ordinary Cuban highway, rough and 
 narrow; the latter a mere footpath through dense 
 woods. General Young s plan of attack was to ad 
 vance a squadron of the First Cavalry and another 
 
 * On the morning of June 24th Shafter sent the division com 
 manders, through Lieutenant Miley, a message repeating and empha 
 sizing these instructions : 
 
 " The commanding general begs me to say it is impossible to ad 
 vance on Santiago until movements to supply troops can be arranged. 
 Take up strong positions where you can get water, and make yourself 
 secure from surprise or attack. Lawton s division will be in front, 
 Kent s near Siboney, Wheeler s near Daiquiri, and Bates s command 
 where it will be in support of Lawton." 
 
 Wheeler had moved out of Siboney before this message reached 
 him. 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 
 
 223 
 
 of the Tenth, four hundred and sixty-four men in 
 all, with the battery of Hotchkiss guns he had not 
 been able to get rations for his other two squadrons 
 of regulars along the main road, while his other 
 regiment, the Rough Riders, with five hundred men, 
 nearly its full strength, moved forward by the hill 
 trail to join them. General Castillo was to support 
 the attack with eight hundred Cubans, whom he 
 promised to bring up at five o clock the next 
 morning. 
 
 At half past five Young s men were ready to 
 
 move, and he sent Lieutenant Rivers, one of his 
 
 aides, to notify Castillo, who had not 
 
 skirmish at p ut j n an appearance. Rivers came 
 
 ^uL G * aS back and re P rted that the Cuban gen 
 eral was asleep, and his sentries would 
 not allow him to be aroused. Young then gave the 
 order to march, and the First Cavalry led the way 
 forward, followed by the Hotchkiss battery of 
 which Captain Watson, Tenth Cavalry, was in tem 
 porary command that day and by the negro 
 troopers of the Tenth. At half past seven, approach 
 ing the enemy s position, the column was halted 
 in an open space and scouts were sent forward to 
 reconnoitre. They reported the Spaniards in plain 
 sight on a hill above the gap through which the road 
 passed. 
 
 Young advanced two of his guns along the road 
 to draw the enemy s fire, while he deployed his men, 
 keeping them covered in the thick chaparral, for an 
 attack upon the left of Rubin s lines. In order to 
 allow the Rough Riders, who had a more difficult 
 trail to follow, time to reach the Spanish right, he 
 waited twenty minutes before opening fire. During 
 this delay General Wheeler rode up and joined him, 
 but made no change in his arrangements. The two 
 commanders were with the guns, in full view of the 
 Spaniards, who did not fire until the Hotchkiss 
 guns began the fight. The enemy then replied with 
 
224 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 rifle volleys from behind rough breastworks of piled 
 stones, and their fire was so hot that Young ordered 
 his guns which he had to use sparingly, as they 
 had only one box (fifty rounds) of ammunition 
 under cover for a time. Wheeler even sent back a 
 message to Lawton, saying that he had encountered 
 " a bigger force of the enemy than he had antici 
 pated," and requesting that reinforcements should 
 be hurried forward a circumstance which he neg 
 lects to mention in either of his published narratives 
 of the campaign. 
 
 Meanwhile his troopers were creeping forward 
 through dense undergrowth and w r ire fences till 
 they reached a position close under the Spanish 
 lines. Here for the first time they opened fire, ad 
 vancing upon the enemy s front and left flank, and 
 pressing forward with the greatest courage and de 
 termination over very difficult ground and up a 
 steep slope. 
 
 Colonel Wood s men came in contact with the 
 Spaniards just before Young s column got into 
 action, meeting them almost face to face in the 
 tropical jungle. It has been stated that the Rough 
 Riders were ambushed, but the term can not be 
 applied to an encounter so deliberately planned. 
 The volunteer troopers, knowing that the enemy 
 was close in front, were moving cautiously through 
 the woods, with Captain Capron s troop as an ad 
 vance guard, but without flankers, the jungle beside 
 the trail being too dense. Capron had sent back 
 word that he thought he had discovered a Spanish 
 outpost, and Wood had begun to deploy his men 
 into the forest, when they received a sharp fire at 
 short range. Several of the Rough Riders fell, one 
 of the first men killed being Sergeant Hamilton 
 Fish, a member of a well-known New York family. 
 A Cuban guide who was at the head of the column 
 fled at the first fire ; so did the drivers of the mules 
 that carried the Colt guns, leaving the animals to 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 
 
 225 
 
 stray off into the forest. They were trailed and re 
 covered after the fight. 
 
 Deploying both to the right, to get in touch with 
 the other column, and to the left, to outflank the 
 enemy, the volunteer cavalrymen pushed on as 
 bravely as the regulars, driving the Spaniards before 
 them through the woods. Rubin s men made a 
 brief stand at some ranch buildings, but retreated 
 before the advancing Americans came to close quar 
 ters, and about an hour and a quarter after the action 
 began the brigade had captured the entire position 
 of the enemy, who " fled precipitately," according 
 to General Young s report ; but as they carried all 
 their wounded with them, their disorder may have 
 been more apparent than real. 
 
 The Spanish account of the action, as given by 
 Lieutenant Miiller, is that General Rubin was at 
 tacked by a strong American force, which he drove 
 back, but that he withdrew in obedience to orders 
 received the day before from General Linares. Two 
 days later Linares issued a general order, in which 
 he declared : 
 
 Soldiers! We left the mineral region* because I did 
 not wish to sacrifice your lives in unequal battle, with 
 musket fire, against the pompous superiority of the enemy, 
 who was fighting us under cover of his armoured ships, 
 armed with the most modern and powerful guns. 
 
 Linares tactics seem to have been weak and un 
 decided. Sampson s guns could sooner or later 
 have rendered untenable any position within three 
 miles of the shore, but a more determined stand at 
 Las Guasimas, a position quite as well suited for 
 defence as Caney or San Juan, might at least have 
 checked Shafter s advance and given time for the 
 arrival of reinforcements from Manzanillo. The 
 half-hearted resistance that Rubin offered to Young 
 
 * The neighbourhood of Daiquiri and Juragua (near Siboney), 
 where there are extensive iron mines owned by three American com 
 panies. 
 
226 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 was worse than useless, and his hasty retreat before 
 so small a force was not calculated to encourage the 
 defenders of Santiago. 
 
 The Spanish force at Las Guasimas has been 
 variously stated, American estimates running from 
 twelve hundred to four thousand. Colonel Roose 
 velt gives the former figure, which is probably near 
 the truth. Wood s official report puts it at twenty- 
 five hundred, but commanding officers almost 
 always overestimate the numbers opposed to them. 
 Lieutenant Miiller asserts that only part of Rubin s 
 troops seven companies, under Major Alcaniz, 
 together with some engineers and artillery, perhaps 
 eight hundred men in all were actually in the 
 fight. It is quite possible that Rubin s whole 
 force was not engaged, though the Spanish army 
 officers from whom Miiller got his information 
 were by no means unimpeachable authorities. The 
 detailed list they gave of the American regiments 
 in the attacking force was highly imaginative, in 
 cluding troops that were not within miles of the 
 place. 
 
 Young s attack was so bold that the Spaniards 
 very probably regarded his four squadrons as the 
 advance guard of a much larger body. Indeed, 
 they must have seen other American troops com 
 ing up from Siboney along the valley below them. 
 But Young deserves credit for a successful stroke. 
 With nine hundred and sixty-four men he had 
 driven a force larger than his own from a strong 
 position. Bravery is expected of American sol 
 diers, but his troops had fought notably well, 
 though practically none of them had been under 
 fire before, and the Rough Riders had never fired 
 a Krag-Jorgensen rifle until that day, having 
 received their guns only just before they left 
 Tampa. The American loss was sixteen killed 
 (eight in each column) and fifty-two wounded, 
 the dead including one officer Captain Capron, 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 227 
 
 whose troop led the advance of the Rough Riders.* 
 As for the enemy s loss, General Young reported 
 that forty-two dead bodies were seen ; Colonel 
 Wood, that the Rough Riders alone found forty ; 
 but Colonel Roosevelt, in his interesting record of 
 his regiment s share in the campaign, states that 
 these figures are too high, and that after going 
 over the ground carefully he counted only eleven 
 dead Spaniards, probably missing two or three. The 
 Spanish official report nearly agrees with this, ad 
 mitting only nine killed and twenty-seven wounded. 
 General Wheeler, in his book on the campaign, 
 records that General Toral told him that the Spanish 
 loss on June 24 was about two hundred and fifty, 
 and that General Escario put it at about two hun 
 dred ; but these figures are incredible, and must be 
 the result of a misunderstanding. 
 
 It has been pointed out that in attacking the 
 enemy s position with a divided force, General 
 Young violated a rule of tactics. The trails along 
 which his command moved, however, were nowhere 
 more than a mile and a half apart much less than 
 that at the point where fighting was expected ; and 
 his two columns were out of touch with each other 
 for only a brief time. Moreover, Castillo had 
 assured him that the Cuban outposts covered both 
 roads. And, like many another move in warfare, the 
 plan was vindicated by its complete success. After 
 the fight, Young said to Wheeler : " General, if I 
 had lost this battle and lived through it, you would 
 have had my resignation/ 
 
 The day was an oppressively hot one, and 
 Young s men were too much exhausted to pursue 
 the Spaniards, even had it been prudent to do so. 
 The race to the front for the eagerness of the 
 
 * Captain Allyn K. Capron of the Rough Riders was a son of Cap 
 tain Allyn Capron of the First Artillery, who commanded one of Shaf- 
 ter s field batteries. Both father and son lost their lives, the former 
 dying, after his return to the United States, of a fever contracted in 
 Cuba. 
 
228 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 American commanders really made it a race was 
 now taken up by the Ninth Cavalry, which came 
 up an hour after the fight closed, and relieved 
 Young s outposts. Chaffee s brigade was close 
 behind, and Miles had also been ordered forward 
 when Lawton received Wheeler s request for rein 
 forcements. Naturally, in view of Shafter s instruc 
 tions, Lawton and his brigade commanders had been 
 surprised to find that Wheeler was in front of them. 
 On the night before, as the Rough Riders dyna 
 mite gun was being hurried forward from Daiquiri, 
 under Wheeler s orders, to join Young s attacking 
 column, its captain, Sergeant Borrowe, was halted 
 by one of Lawton s officers, who refused to let him 
 pass to the front. 
 
 Shafter, no doubt, was also astonished when he 
 heard that his rearguard division had pushed for 
 ward and won a sharp fight, but he accepted the 
 result with soldierly readiness, and commended 
 Wheeler and Young in his official report. At the 
 same time, while he remained on the Seguranga 
 he sent daily despatches to the veteran cavalry 
 man enjoining him not to bring on another en 
 gagement. 
 
 Castillo had not appeared during the action at 
 Las Guasimas, but after it was over a column of 
 Cubans came up, led by a Frenchman, who, accord 
 ing to General Young, " was in a very bloodthirsty 
 mood. He said that he had orders from Castillo 
 to follow up the Spaniards and fight them wherever 
 he found them. I ordered him to go back," Young 
 adds, " and would not have him near me." From 
 this time the insurgents figured less prominently in 
 the American plans of campaign. 
 
 If the mobilizing of Shafter s corps brought to 
 light serious weaknesses in the organization of the 
 United States army, the campaign revealed, on the 
 Spanish side, a state of affairs exceedingly dis 
 creditable to Spain s military administration in 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 
 
 22 9 
 
 Cuba. Few or none of the preparations that ordi 
 nary foresight would have suggested had been 
 made. When Cervera s squadron first lay in San 
 tiago harbour, helpless for lack of coal, and the 
 American blockaders gathered outside, the least 
 accomplished strategist might have seen where the 
 
 war was about to centre ; yet no 
 o 11 timel y ste P s were taken to gather men 
 
 and supplies at the threatened point. 
 Not until the last days of May were the mediaeval 
 batteries at the harbour mouth reinforced with guns 
 from the Reina Mercedes. There had been a 
 chronic shortage of provisions, and nothing was 
 done to remedy it. Had not a German steamer 
 come in on May 7th with a cargo of rice,* the 
 troops would have fared even worse than they did. 
 With more than thirty thousand soldiers in the 
 province, and with plenty of time to send reinforce 
 ments to the garrison of Santiago, no effort was 
 made to do so in season to render effective aid. 
 
 Captain-General Blanco s first defensive move 
 was an order issued on June 2oth almost three 
 weeks after the beginning of the blockade consti 
 tuting the forces of the extreme southeastern dis 
 trict, extending from Manzanillo to Baracoa and 
 Guantanamo, a separate army corps, under Lieu- 
 tenant-General Arsenio Linares. Two days later 
 Colonel Frederico Escario left Ma nzanillo for San 
 tiago with 3,550 men and two guns. His march 
 was a difficult one, and the insurgents constantly 
 harassed him, killing or wounding ninety-seven of 
 his men, but failing to keep him out of Santiago, 
 where he arrived on the evening of July 3d just 
 too late for the decisive fight of the campaign. It 
 
 * This vessel, the Polaria, was bound for Havana, but put in at 
 Santiago on hearing of the blockade. Lieutenant Miiller states that 
 she carried 1,700 sacks of rice; Commander Jacobsen of the German 
 cruiser Geier, who visited Santiago during the blockade, and whose ac 
 count of his observations has been published by the Navy Department, 
 says 14,000 sacks. 
 
230 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 is stated in General Miles s report that another 
 body of Spaniards started to Linares s relief from 
 Holguin, but was compelled to turn back. Gen 
 eral Pareja, whom Shafter left in his rear at Guan- 
 tanamo, never attempted a hostile movement, and 
 had apparently no orders to do so. 
 
 On withdrawing Rubin s brigade from Sevilla, 
 Linares posted his forces along a line beginning on 
 the coast at Fort Aguadores, following the railroad 
 from that point to its terminus at Las Cruces on 
 Santiago Bay, and thence running northeastward, his 
 last outpost on the left wing being in the village of 
 Caney, four miles northeast of Santiago. This long 
 line was thinly held, there being, according to Lieu 
 tenant Miiller, 3,000 around the city and as far in 
 front of it as San Juan ; 800 on the right wing, from 
 Las Cruces to Fort Aguadores ; and 520, under 
 General Vara del Rey, at Caney in all 4,320 men, 
 of whom about two thirds were Spanish regulars, 
 the rest being mobilized troops (Spanish militia), 
 volunteers, and sailors from Cervera s fleet. Be 
 sides these, there was in Santiago a small reserve 
 force of cavalry, police (the guardia civile), and fire 
 men ; nearly 1,000 men were stationed in the har 
 bour batteries 450 at the Morro, 400 at the So- 
 capa, 1 20 at Punta Gorda; and 900 more, under 
 Colonel Aldea, were intrenched west of the bay. 
 These figures do not include the outlying detach 
 ments at Palma Soriano, San Luis, and other inland 
 points. 
 
 This does not seem to be the best disposition that 
 could have been made. Shafter moved straight for 
 ward to deliver his attack, not veiling it by feint or 
 strategy, and the defending force* might have been 
 concentrated more effectively to meet him. It may 
 have been necessary to station a regiment west of 
 the bay, but the garrison of the harbour forts might 
 well have been diminished to strengthen the posi 
 tion in front of Shafter s advance. Lieutenant Miil- 
 
THE SANTIAGO EXPEDITION 231 
 
 ler accounts for the effort to cover so wide an extent 
 of country by the necessity of protecting the aque 
 duct that supplied Santiago with water, and of hold 
 ing a district that kept the troops supplied with a 
 certain amount of fresh food presumably mangoes, 
 sweet potatoes, and sugar cane. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 
 
 ON the evening of June 24th the day of the 
 action at Las Guasimas the last men of Kent s 
 division were ashore at Siboney. Six comparatively 
 uneventful days followed, during which the corps 
 gradually pushed forward and occupied the hilly, 
 wooded country about Sevilla, as far as El Pozo. 
 The field batteries were disembarked at Daiquiri on 
 the 25th and 26th. The first tactical problem, that 
 of the landing, had been successfully accomplished ; 
 General Shafter was now struggling with the second 
 that of getting ashore the supplies that his army 
 needed before it could go into battle. It proved an 
 exceedingly difficult task, owing to the lack of tugs 
 and scows, and for several days the troops lived from 
 hand to mouth, provisions being landed no faster 
 than they were consumed. Had a storm driven 
 the fleet from the coast the result might have been 
 serious, or even disastrous. Two weeks passed 
 before the corps had three days rations in ad 
 vance. 
 
 On the 25th and 26th Garcia and 2,978 of his 
 Cubans were carried on the transports from Aserra- 
 deros to Siboney. On the 27th the first reinforce 
 ments arrived from the United States, the Thirty- 
 third and part of the Thirty-fourth Michigan, form 
 ing a brigade under Brigadier-General Duffield, 
 being landed at the same point. These regiments 
 came from Camp Alger. 
 232 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 233 
 
 On the 29th Shafter came ashore, and estab 
 lished his headquarters about a mile east of El Pozo 
 that is, a mile behind his outposts 
 
 Cl Se tO the tKlil alO11 which mOSt f 
 
 the army was encamped. His heavy 
 guns were not landed, and the equipment of his 
 corps was still far from complete, but he was un 
 willing and very properly so to delay a day 
 longer than was absolutely necessary. Coming 
 into the tropics in the rainy season, his men were 
 certain, if the campaign were prolonged, to find the 
 fevers of Cuba a more deadly foe than the guns of 
 the Spaniards.* " It was to be a dash or nothing," 
 as Shafter himself said. 
 
 General Shafter did not attempt any reconnais 
 sance in person, beyond overlooking the country 
 before him from a hill near his headquarters. He 
 has been severely criticised for failing to keep in 
 closer touch with his troops, and to foresee more 
 exactly the difficulties of the field of battle; but it 
 must be remembered that he was a man of sixty-one, 
 exceedingly stout, and that his health suffered seri 
 ously in the tropical climate and under his tre 
 mendous burden of hard work and responsibility. 
 Besides the exhaustion of malaria, he was enduring 
 great pain from an attack of the gout, which inca 
 pacitated him from putting his foot into a stirrup. 
 
 * During: nine weeks, while the Fifth Corps was in Cuba, it lost 318 
 men from disease, against 263 who were killed in action or died of 
 their wounds. 
 
 In describing the conditions under which he went into battle, Shaf 
 ter said in his official report : " These preparations were far from what 
 I desired them to be, but we were in a sickly climate ; our supplies had 
 to be brought forward by a narrow wagon road which the rains might 
 at any time render impassable ; fear was entertained that a storm 
 might drive the vessels containing our stores to sea, thus separating us 
 from our base of supplies ; and, lastly, it was reported that General 
 Pando, with 8,000 reinforcements for the enemy, was en route from 
 Manzanillo, and might be expected in a few days." The movement of 
 Escario s brigade was of course the foundation for this last report. 
 General Pando, it afterward appeared, was not in that part of Cuba at 
 the time. 
 
234 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 He was absolutely compelled to let other men repre 
 sent him at the front. 
 
 Generals Wheeler, Lawton, and Chaffee, Colonel 
 Derby of the engineers, and other officers, had been 
 active in reconnoitring, and had received pretty 
 full information as to the Spanish forces and posi 
 tions from Cuban peasants. The enemy s weakness 
 in artillery and lack of supplies were also learned, 
 and it was concluded that his resistance would not 
 be strong. Shafter undoubtedly underestimated the 
 task he was about to set his men ; but his mis 
 take was shared by his ablest officers, and probably 
 by every member of his corps. Wheeler, who had 
 been close up to Caney, asked permission to attack 
 at that point, his plan being to concentrate a heavy 
 artillery fire upon it, and cut off the retreat of its 
 garrison, which was known to be small, by placing 
 a division between the village and Santiago. Shafter 
 agreed with him as to the direction of the first at 
 tack, but preferred to intrust it to Lawton. On the 
 29th the commanding general telegraphed to Wash 
 ington : 
 
 Advance pickets within a mile and a half of Santiago. 
 No opposition. Spaniards have evidently withdrawn to 
 immediate vicinity of the town. Expect to put division 
 on Caney road, between that place and Santiago, day after 
 to-morrow, and will also advance on Sevilla road to San 
 Juan river, and possibly beyond. General Garcia, with 
 three thousand men, will take railroad north of Santiago 
 at the same time to prevent Pando reaching city. 
 
 On the afternoon of the 3Oth Shafter summoned 
 his division commanders to a council of war, at 
 which his plans for an immediate attack were for 
 mulated. Lawton s division, supported by Bates s 
 brigade and by one battery of artillery (Captain 
 Capron s), was to assault Caney at daybreak ; the 
 other two divisions were to march straight forward 
 toward Santiago by the road through San Juan, 
 Kent s deploying to the left, Wheeler s to the right ; 
 and Lawton, who promised to take Caney in two 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 235 
 
 hours at most, was to come down the high road 
 from that village, and bring his left in line with the 
 right of the cavalry division in time for the attack 
 upon the Spaniards central position. Captain 
 Grimes s battery, posted at El Pozo, was to sup 
 port the left wing; the other two batteries of light 
 artillery, and the Catling guns, were to be held in 
 reserve. The only infantry reserve was a battalion 
 of the Thirty-fourth Michigan, back at Siboney.* 
 General Duffield, who was present at the conference, 
 was ordered to move the Thirty-third Michigan 
 along the narrow-gauge railroad from that point and 
 threaten the Spanish detachment at Fort Agua- 
 dores. 
 
 General Wheeler was not at the council. The 
 veteran cavalry commander was lying in his tent, 
 exposure to heat and rain having brought on a slight 
 fever ; and though he had not reported himself unfit 
 for duty, it seems that Shafter, or possibly one of 
 Shafter s aids, considered him so, and summoned 
 his senior brigade commander, General Sumner, to 
 headquarters in his place. 
 
 Lawton s division marched toward Caney during 
 the night, and at sunrise next morning (July 1st) 
 was in position for the attack. For his plan of action 
 Lawton gives credit to General Chaffee, who had 
 made a very thorough reconnaissance close up to 
 the enemy s lines. Chaffee s own brigade was to 
 move upon the village from the east, at daybreak, 
 and capture it. Ludlow was to occupy the road 
 between Caney and Santiago, cutting off the gar 
 rison s retreat. Of Miles s three regiments, the 
 First Infantry was to be held in support of Capron s 
 battery, together with Troop D of the Second Cav 
 alry ; the Fourth and the Twenty-fifth were to follow 
 Ludlow. Caney taken, the division was to ren 
 dezvous at the Ducrot house, on the Santiago road, 
 
 * The other two battalions of the Thirty-fourth Michigan, and the 
 Ninth Massachusetts, reached Siboney on the Harvard on July ist. 
 16 
 
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 and thence to march forward and join Wheeler and 
 Kent in attacking the Spanish lines. 
 
 During the night, Chaffee personally guided 
 
 companies of the Seventh and the Twelfth to points 
 
 where, at dawn, they could seize the 
 
 Battle of Caney, ^^ overlooking the vil l age O n the 
 
 east. The first shot was fired by 
 Capron s battery at a quarter past six, with a range 
 of about twenty-four hundred yards. The Spaniards 
 had no artillery, and there was no reply till Chaffee s 
 skirmish line was within half a mile of the trenches, 
 when the Spaniards opened fire with unexpected 
 spirit and effect, and for three hours the battle was 
 a sharp infantry duel. It was soon clear that Law- 
 ton s estimate had been far too sanguine, and that 
 the garrison of Caney, though greatly outnumbered, 
 had heavy odds in the strength of its defences, and 
 was prepared to make a desperate resistance. The 
 key to the position was a small conical hill at the 
 southern end of the village, on the top of which 
 stood an old masonry fort. In front of this were 
 trenches some of them cut in solid rock and wire 
 entanglements. There were also five blockhouses, 
 with connecting trenches, dotted around Caney, and 
 when the Spaniards were finally driven into the 
 village they continued a desperate resistance from 
 its houses and its stone church, whose walls were 
 loopholed for rifle fire. 
 
 The defence of Caney was the best and bravest 
 bit of fighting the Spaniards did in the whole war. 
 It was worthy of the finest traditions of a nation 
 whose most famous deeds of valour, from the days 
 of Saguntum to those of Saragossa, have been done 
 in defence of beleaguered towns. For more than 
 ten hours General Vara del Key s five hundred men 
 kept at bay ten times their number of American 
 soldiers. And while the Spanish resistance was 
 nothing less than heroic, the action was equally 
 creditable to. Lawton s troops, whose attack was 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 237 
 
 finally successful only because it was pushed home 
 with unfaltering courage and persistence.* 
 
 The fire of the American artillery was disap 
 pointingly ineffective,! and the work was done by 
 hard fighting on the part of the infantry. The first 
 movement to get at close quarters with the enemy 
 was made by the Seventeenth Infantry, forming 
 Chaffee s extreme right, who advanced along a 
 slightly sunken road to seize a low ridge command 
 ing the village on the northeast. As they deployed 
 through a gap in the hedge that bordered the road, 
 they met such a heavy fire that they had to with 
 draw, Lieutenant-Colonel Haskell, who was lead 
 ing his men, being badly wounded by three bullets. 
 The regiment was moved to a less exposed position 
 still further to the right. 
 
 The Seventh Infantry, meanwhile, came up 
 along the road, deployed behind the ridge, advanced, 
 and held it under a heavy fire, which caused seri 
 ous losses, and to which they could make little reply, 
 the Spaniards being seldom visible. Their loss of 
 thirty-three men killed and a hundred and one 
 wounded was far heavier than that of any other 
 American command. General Chaffee, who was 
 with them, had a button shot from his coat, and a 
 bullet went through his shoulder strap. 
 
 His other regiment, the Twelfth Infantry, was 
 fighting its way forward a little farther to the left, 
 along a valley that led close under the Spanish fort. 
 Far to the left, Ludlow was gradually closing in on 
 
 * " On the ist of July," says Lieutenant Mxiller, the Spanish histo 
 rian of the campaign, "the Americans fought with truly admirable 
 courage. . . . Did they think that all they had to do was to attack our 
 soldiers en masse to put them to flight ? God knows." 
 
 f General Chaffee reoorted that the fire of Capron s battery was 
 " accurate and very effective," but though the guns began at 6.15 A. M. 
 it was more than eight hours later when the fort was charged and cap 
 tured by the infantry. Other observers agreed with General Ludlow, 
 whose report states that " the artillery fire was too distant to reduce the 
 blockhouses or destroy the intrenchments, so that the attack was prac 
 tically by infantry alone." 
 
238 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the southwest side of the village; Miles had come 
 up in line with him on the south ; and when Bates s 
 brigade which had had to march up from Siboney 
 during the night arrived and occupied the gap be 
 tween Miles and Chaffee, Caney was surrounded on 
 three sides with a continuous ring of fire. Ludlow s 
 two regiments of regulars, the Eighth and the 
 Twenty-second Infantry, were hotly engaged with 
 the Spanish riflemen in two blockhouses and be 
 hind loopholed walls. His third regiment, the 
 Second Massachusetts, took little part in the battle. 
 Like all the volunteers except the Rough Riders, 
 they carried the old Springfield rifles, with non- 
 smokeless cartridges, and when they tried to push 
 a line of skirmishers toward the enemy their fire 
 drew so heavy a return that they were ordered to 
 fall back. 
 
 Capron s battery kept up its fire almost continu 
 ously, under the personal direction of General Law- 
 ton, until about two o clock ; it was then moved 
 forward to a new position south of Caney, a thou 
 sand yards from the Spanish lines. Half an hour 
 later, judging that the enemy had not strength left 
 to resist a charge, Chaffee ordered the Twelfth to 
 storm the stone fort. Lawton had authorized him to 
 make this decisive movement at his discretion, and 
 it was executed with great gallantry, Bates s ad 
 vance guard and some of Miles s men coming up 
 almost simultaneously on the other side of the hill. 
 It was claimed, indeed, by Lieutenant-Colonel Dag- 
 gett, of the Twenty-fifth, that the credit of the cap 
 ture was due to his regiment, but this Chaffee 
 branded as " absurd," stating that the first com 
 mand to reach and enter the fort was the Twelfth ; 
 next, Bates s two regiments, the Third and the 
 Twentieth ; and then the Twenty-fifth. 
 
 This point of vantage captured, the assailants 
 commanded the village; but fighting lasted fully 
 two hours longer, the Spaniards resisting stubbornly 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 239 
 
 as they fell back from house to house. When Caney 
 finally became untenable under the overwhelming 
 fire poured into it, the surviving defenders fled to 
 ward Santiago, suffering terribly from the volleys 
 of Ludlow s men especially of the Twenty-second 
 as they passed his lines. At five o clock the battle 
 was over, and Caney had been taken, at a heavy 
 cost to its captors, for the division had lost 453 men 
 killed and wounded.* On the Spanish side, Gen 
 eral Vara del Rey had been killed at noon ; he was 
 wounded in both legs, and as he was being carried 
 to the rear on a stretcher another bullet despatched 
 him. Two of his sons had fallen with him, and of 
 his 520 men about 300 were dead and wounded, 
 120 were captured, and 100 escaped to Santiago. 
 
 A considerable body of Garcia s Cubans took 
 part in the battle of Caney by making one of their 
 characteristic attacks upon an outlying blockhouse 
 about a mile from the village. Although they are 
 
 * The following table shows the strength and the losses of the 
 American troops at Caney : 
 
 
 Strength, 
 June soth. 
 
 Killed, 
 July ist. 
 
 Wounded, 
 July ist. 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 I.udlow s Brigade, staff 
 
 IT 
 
 
 
 Eighth Infantry 
 
 506 
 
 6 
 
 48 
 
 Twenty-second Infantry 
 Second Massachusetts 
 
 49 6 
 
 QO7 
 
 8 
 8 
 
 41 
 37 
 
 Miles s Brigade staff 
 
 I 3 
 
 
 
 First Infantry 
 
 4^2 
 
 
 i 
 
 Fourth Infantry . . . 
 
 465 
 
 7 
 
 35 
 
 Twenty-fifth Infantry 
 Chaffee s Brigade staff .... 
 
 527 
 
 20 
 
 8 
 
 25 
 
 Seventh Infantry 
 
 016 
 
 33 
 
 IOT 
 
 Twelfth Infantry 
 Seventeenth Infantry . . . 
 
 Is 
 
 so6 
 
 I 
 
 3i 
 
 25 
 
 Bates s Brigade, staff 
 Third Infantry 
 
 48? 
 
 2 
 
 T, 
 
 Twentieth Infantry 
 Capron s Battery 
 
 *t"3 
 
 5Q6 
 82 
 
 I 
 
 8 
 
 Second Cavalry (estimated } 
 
 75 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 6,654 
 
 88 
 
 355 
 
 
 
 
 
240 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 said to have numbered several hundred, while the 
 blockhouse was garrisoned by possibly a dozen 
 men, they remained about a mile from the enemy, 
 at which distance they poured in a hot but harmless 
 fire until their ammunition was exhausted and Gen 
 eral Chaffee refused them a fresh supply. 
 
 On the other hand, Colonel Miles reported that 
 a small Cuban detachment forty men under Cap 
 tains Vargas and Bravo fought bravely with his 
 brigade. 
 
 Meanwhile the other two divisions had moved 
 forward toward the San Juan River, where, accord 
 ing to Shafter s plan, Lawton was to 
 
 right, after taking Caney. There was 
 only one road for the advance a rough, narrow 
 trail, deep in mud from the daily rains, crossing the 
 low ground that stretched between the hills about 
 El Pozo and the heights of San Juan, about a mile 
 in front of Santiago. This basinlike depression is 
 traversed by three rivers, or, rather, good-sized 
 brooks the Aguadores, flowing westward from El 
 Pozo ; its tributary, the creek of Las Guamas, com 
 ing down southward from Caney; and a stream 
 marked on the maps as the Purgatorio Creek, ris 
 ing in the mountains north of Santiago. This last 
 passes close under the San Juan ridge, and in the 
 southwest corner of the basin it joins the Agua 
 dores to form the San Juan River, which runs down 
 to the sea at Fort Aguadores. In the reports of the 
 battle of July 1st the Aguadores and the San Juan 
 are frequently confused. 
 
 The trail from El Pozo ran through dense woods 
 to a ford of the Aguadores, just above its junction 
 with the western stream ; beyond was a short stretch 
 of open country, partly cultivated ; then, beyond 
 the second brook, the ground sloped upward to the 
 low ridges on which the first Spanish lines were 
 posted. 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 241 
 
 General Wheeler was not present when the 
 Cavalry Division formed at sunrise. He had not 
 reported sick " I was not off duty for a single 
 moment during the campaign," he declares * but 
 Sumner, the senior brigadier, took command of the 
 division by Shafter s order, leaving his own brigade 
 to Lieutenant-Colonel Carroll of the Sixth Cavalry. 
 The other cavalry brigade was commanded by Colo 
 nel Wood, of the Rough Riders, General Young 
 being down with a severe attack of fever. About 
 nine o clock, when the fighting had scarcely begun, 
 Wheeler, ailing as he was, rode to the front ; and it 
 is quite clear, from his narrative of the engagement, 
 that he regarded himself as being in command of the 
 two divisions, as senior officer in the field, f Some, 
 at least, of the other officers do not seem to have 
 understood so. " The battle was fought by General 
 Sumner and by General Kent," says Colonel Roose 
 velt, and those generals reports bear out his state 
 ment. In the afternoon, when the Spanish position 
 had been captured, Wheeler sent Shafter a message 
 inquiring whether he should " continue command 
 ing and supervising as I am now," or " resume com 
 mand of the cavalry division and displace Sumner." 
 Shafter ordered him to take the latter course, and 
 Wheeler so notified Sumner. 
 
 Kent had his division ready to move at seven 
 o clock, when Lieutenant-Colonel McClernand, 
 Shafter s adjutant-general, gave him the word to ad 
 vance. His first brigade (General Hawkins s) was 
 leading, followed by the third (Colonel WikofFs) 
 and the second (Colonel Pearson s). The head of his 
 column formed by the Sixth Infantry was a few 
 
 * The Santiago Campaign, p. 119. 
 
 t " I had been directed by Colonel McClernand, General Shafter s 
 adjutant-general, to give directions to General Kent. . . . My former 
 instructions and the general custom of the service made it proper that 
 I should exercise this control over the whole line. ... I also gave di 
 rections to General Sumner. and, through my staff officers, to Colonel 
 Carroll and Colonel Wood." The Santiago Campaign, p. 43. 
 
242 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 hundred yards beyond El Pozo when he received 
 orders to allow the cavalry division right of way, 
 and his troops halted along the trail. There was a 
 delay of three quarters of an hour, which Kent and 
 Hawkins utilized for reconnoitring. They rode 
 down to the river, forded it, and observed the Span 
 ish position, from which a sharp fire, both of rifles 
 and of artillery, was already coming. The enemy s 
 guns were replying to Grimes s battery at El Pozo, 
 and a damaging fusillade was attracted by the sig 
 nal-corps balloon, which was being slowly drawn 
 forward along the crowded trail, revealing to the 
 Spaniards the precise line of the American ad 
 vance.* The balloon was finally anchored at the 
 main ford of the Aguadores, making the passage 
 of the stream a bloody one. 
 
 It took the two divisions more than six hours 
 to push through the mile and a half of woods be 
 tween El Pozo and the river, and to deploy on the 
 further bank of the stream. During the continual 
 halts and delays along the narrow and crowded trail 
 they were under a severe fire, to which they could 
 make practically no reply, the enemy s position not 
 being in sight. It was impossible to tell from what 
 quarter the Mauser bullets, fired with smokeless 
 powder, were flying. They came, as General Kent 
 said in his report, or seemed to come, " from all 
 directions, not only from the front and the dense 
 tropical thickets in our flanks, but from sharp 
 shooters apparently posted in our rear." 
 
 Much was heard of these Spanish sharpshooters. 
 It is probable that they were fewer than was gen- 
 
 * For this costly blunder General Greely s annual report, on behalf 
 of the signal corps, emphatically disclaims responsibility: " The forc 
 ing of the signal-corps balloon to the skirmish line, where its position 
 is reported to have caused serious loss to the troops by disclosing their 
 movements and attracting the enemy s fire, was the action of Major- 
 General Shafter, through his chief engineer, Colonel G. McC. Derby, 
 in the face of professional advice given him by Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Maxfield of the United States Volunteer Signal Corps, who was 
 charged with the practical operation of the balloon." 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 243 
 
 erally supposed, for a reason given by General 
 Shafter, who says : " I do not think there were any 
 sharpshooters in the rear of our lines. The Mau 
 sers have a range of two miles, and it was dropping 
 bullets which gave this impression." Some, how 
 ever, there undoubtedly were, posted here and there 
 in the trees. They were accused of deliberately 
 firing on wounded men and Red Cross attendants. 
 It is doubtful whether they could be proved guilty 
 of this crime against civilization ; but the fact that 
 such a form of warfare was used at all was a blemish 
 upon Spanish chivalry. " Sniping " of this sort may 
 annoy an enemy, and certainly adds to the horrors 
 of war, but it could never win a battle or change the 
 course of a campaign. 
 
 Kent s and Wheeler s divisions lost nearly a 
 thousand men on the ist of July, and most of the 
 loss was suffered during their slow and toilsome 
 advance into a position where they could begin to 
 fight. The movement was one to be commended to 
 students of strategy as a warning rather than as 
 a model. It would scarcely have been undertaken 
 had the ground been more thoroughly studied be 
 forehand, and had not the enemy been held in some 
 thing very near to contempt. If the defenders of 
 San Juan had been stronger in numbers, had their 
 marksmanship been more accurate, had they been 
 better supported by artillery, or had they not yielded 
 and fled at the critical moment of the battle, the 
 attacking force might have been annihilated. As 
 it was, the two divisions lost thirteen per cent of 
 their strength (reported at 362 officers and 7,391 
 men) in killed and wounded. 
 
 The spirit of the American troops was signally 
 displayed by their unflinching endurance of such 
 a trying situation. There were, of course, as always 
 happens, individual cases of straggling,* but among 
 
 * About noon Lieutenant-Colonel McClernand, stationed at El 
 Pozo, sent back this message to Shafter s headquarters : " If you have 
 
244 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the regiments there was only one partial exception 
 to the army s record of heroism an exception 
 which any but the most censorious historian might 
 have passed over unnoticed had it not been so loudly 
 advertised by the bitter controversies subsequently 
 waged over it. The facts of the case, though they 
 have been hotly denied, are clearly and incontestably 
 on record. Besides the official reports and various 
 published accounts, the writer has the personal testi 
 mony of a correspondent who was an eyewitness. 
 
 The advance was well under way when Colonel 
 Derby, who had been reconnoitring from the bal 
 loon work that should have been done earlier in 
 formed Kent of a narrow wood road that branched 
 to the left from the main trail, and led to another 
 ford of the San Juan River, a little farther down the 
 stream. The general at once went to the forks of 
 the road, with his staff. The two leading regiments 
 of Hawkins s brigade, the Sixth and Sixteenth, had 
 already passed, marching in double or even in single 
 file, together with the cavalry troopers. The Sev 
 enty-first New York, coming up next, was ordered 
 by General Kent to take the left-hand trail. It did 
 so, but its first battalion had gone only a short dis 
 tance when it fell into confusion under the galling 
 fire, and, as the general says in his report, " recoiled 
 in disorder." 
 
 Such an incident is nothing exceptional with raw 
 troops on first going into battle, especially under 
 conditions so trying as those of the advance upon 
 San Juan. There were many instances in the civil 
 war, some in the case of regiments that afterward 
 made notable records as fighters. If there be any 
 word of blame, it must be for the officers who failed 
 
 a troop of cavalry or a company of infantry to spare, they can do good 
 work out here stopping: stragglers. This does not imply any reverse 
 at the front, but the firing was probably hotter than some like." Shaf- 
 ter sent him Troop A of the Second Cavalry, and later in the after 
 noon, when this command want forward with the artillery, Troop F 
 took its place. 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 245 
 
 to rally their men. General Kent s staff to a certain 
 extent took their place, and, as he states, " formed 
 a cordon behind the panic-stricken men," who were 
 ordered to lie down in the thicket, leaving the trail 
 clear.* The other two battalions of the volunteers 
 came forward in better order, but they were halted, 
 and were passed by Wikoff s brigade of regular in 
 fantry the Thirteenth, Ninth, and Twenty-fourth, 
 which moved down the left-hand road, crossed the 
 river, and deployed into position to the left of the 
 lower ford, with the Thirteenth on the right, the 
 Ninth on the left. All this was done under a heavy 
 fire how heavy may be judged from the fact that 
 within half an hour, between twelve and one o clock, 
 the brigade had four commanders. Colonel Wikoff 
 the ranking American officer killed in the war 
 was mortally shot as he stood near the river, per 
 sonally directing the deployment of his men, and 
 daringly exposing himself. His successor, Lieu 
 tenant-Colonel Worth, of the Thirteenth, fell five 
 minutes later, severely wounded; in another five 
 minutes Lieutenant-Colonel Liscum, of the Twenty- 
 fourth, the next in command, was also wounded, 
 leaving Lieutenant-Colonel Ewers, of the Ninth, 
 senior officer of the brigade, f 
 
 Farther to the right, the Sixth and the Sixteenth 
 were suffering still more severely. General Haw 
 kins had directed these regiments to push forward, 
 telling them that they would reach a position where 
 they could enfilade the enemy s works. Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Egbert, commanding the Sixth, made his 
 way across both rivers, and after halting for about an 
 hour in a partly sheltered position along the bank 
 of the second which in his report he calls the San 
 
 * Nevertheless, the regiments that followed were more or less im 
 peded by being obliged to "step over prostrate forms of men of the 
 Seventy-first," as General Kent and other officers reported. 
 
 t Lieutenant-Colonel Ewers was not aware of this until after the 
 taking of the hill. It is a fact that the brigade charged with no officer 
 actually in command. 
 
246 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Juan exchanging shots with the lines on the hill 
 above, he boldly moved forward into the open 
 ground beyond, within four hundred yards of the 
 Spanish trenches. He was greeted with a tremen 
 dous fusillade, the whole fire of the heights being 
 concentrated upon him. Nearly a quarter of his 
 men were killed or wounded within ten minutes. 
 To save the rest he ordered them to retreat to the 
 river. On his left, at the same time, some men of 
 the Sixteenth and of the Thirteenth, who had 
 advanced beyond the main bodies of their regi 
 ments, also fell back ; and the Tenth Cavalry s 
 Hotchkiss gun detachment, which had fired a few 
 shots from a position near the ford of the Aguadores, 
 had been forced to withdraw. All along the Ameri 
 can line there was so much confusion, and the losses 
 had been so heavy, that affairs began to look de 
 cidedly critical. 
 
 Meanwhile Kent was hurrying his remaining 
 brigade the second, Colonel Pearson s forward, 
 the Tenth and Second Infantry by the left-hand trail, 
 to the left of WikofFs men, the Twenty-first by the 
 main road, to support Hawkins ; and about one 
 o clock all these regiments were in line beyond the 
 river. The cavalry division was already in position 
 on the right wing, Colonel Carroll s brigade, which 
 led the way across the river, forming the first line. 
 Of his regiments, the Third was on the left, next to 
 the infantry division ; the Sixth was in the centre, 
 the Ninth on the extreme right. Wood s brigade 
 formed, or was supposed to form, a second line, with 
 the Tenth on the left, the First in the centre, and the 
 Rough Riders on the right; but owing to the ex 
 ceedingly difficult nature of the ground the cavalry 
 kept even less of orderly formation than Kent s 
 division, and in the charge the two lines mingled 
 and rushed forward together. 
 
 The American lines were now at an average dis 
 tance of about six hundred yards from the enemy s 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 247 
 
 works. The Spanish position was a strong one, its 
 centre being Fort San Juan a large brick block 
 house with loopholed walls, on the summit of a ridge 
 that rose about a hundred and fifty feet above the 
 low ground at its foot. Along the crest ran four 
 long trenches and several shorter ones, and the slope 
 was partially protected with barbed-wire entangle 
 ments. Farther to the American right, in front of 
 the cavalry division, a slightly lower hill rose in 
 front of the main ridge. On this detached elevation 
 which became known as Kettle Hill, from a huge 
 iron sugar caldron on its top, belonging to the San 
 Juan ranch-house was posted the Spanish advance 
 guard, " favourably positioned," as General Wheeler 
 says, " but not strongly fortified." 
 
 There is some doubt as to the direct responsibil 
 ity for what followed. General Shafter, in his narra 
 tive published by the Century Magazine, states that 
 about nine o clock he decided to send the main col 
 umn forward without waiting for Lawton, as origi 
 nally intended. " They understood," he says, " that 
 they were to assail the Spanish blockhouses and 
 trenches as soon as they could get into position." It 
 seems, nevertheless, that some at least of the com 
 manders did not so understand their instructions. 
 Both in his official report and in his book on the 
 campaign, General Wheeler describes the original 
 plan of attack in which Lawton was to have joined, 
 and adds that after his division crossed the river 
 he ordered an assault for the reason that " it was 
 quite evident that the enemy had our range very 
 accurately established, and that it would not increase 
 our casualties to charge." The general does not add 
 that his men had already been in position for two 
 hours or more, holding their ground under a fire 
 from which they had very little shelter. Several 
 messages came and went during the day between 
 Shafter and Lieutenant Miley, who was representing 
 him at the front; but no mention is made of any 
 
248 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 that passed at this critical moment of the battle. 
 Communication with the corps commander was by 
 no means easy. The field telegraph had been ex 
 tended only to El Pozo, nearly two miles from the 
 firing line, along a rough and narrow trail blocked 
 with wagons and wounded men.* 
 
 General Hawkins is quoted by a correspondent 
 as saying, after the fight : " My understanding of the 
 orders was that the left wing was to wait at a desig 
 nated place on the road to San Juan for Lawton 
 to come up, but the fire was so hot that we either 
 had to go on and take the ridge or to retire." 
 
 General Kent s report does not locate the re 
 sponsibility for his division s assault upon the hill. 
 It does state, however, that early in the morning 
 Lieutenant-Colonel McClernand, Shafter s adjutant- 
 general, pointed out a green knoll which was to be 
 his objective on the left ; but when his left, formed 
 by Pearson s brigade, had crossed the river, it 
 " passed over the knoll and ascended the high ridge 
 beyond." When it did so, Kent s centre and right 
 were already holding the Fort San Juan Hill, for the 
 capture of which he gives credit to " the officers of 
 my command, whether company, battalion, regi 
 mental, or brigade commanders, who admirably 
 directed the formation of their troops, unavoidably 
 intermixed in the dense thicket, and made the des 
 perate rush for the distant and strongly defended 
 crest." 
 
 Most explicit of all and, it must be said, most 
 positive in its implied contradiction of General 
 Shafter s version is the report of General Sumner. 
 So far from setting out with the plain and simple 
 order to " assail the Spanish blockhouses and 
 trenches as soon as he could get into position," he 
 
 * It may be recalled at this point that in Shafter s despatch of June 
 agth, quoted on page 234, he announced his intention of advancing, 
 two days later, "on the Sevilla road to the San Juan river, and possi 
 bly beyond. 1 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 249 
 
 records that his command had advanced only three 
 quarters of a mile beyond El Pozo when he had 
 to halt it though already under fire for nearly an 
 hour to await instructions. Then, after crossing the 
 Aguadores, he was directed to move to the right, 
 " to connect with Lawton s left." The deployment 
 completed, and there being no news of Lawton, 
 " the command was so much committed to battle 
 that it became necessary either to advance or else 
 retreat under fire. Lieutenant Miley, representing 
 General Shafter, authorized an advance, which was 
 ordered." It appears that to Lieutenant Miley 
 whose promising military career was cut short, a 
 year later, by a fatal illness at Manila belongs a 
 great share of the responsibility for the assault upon 
 the San Juan heights, and of the credit for its 
 success. 
 
 The story of the assault, in brief, was that the 
 
 right half of Sumner s division consisting chiefly 
 
 of the First Cavalrv, the Ninth Cav- 
 
 Storming of the j and th Rough Riders, but with 
 San Juan Jt . te . 
 
 heights, July i. man y stragglers from other regi 
 ments, charged up Kettle Hill, the 
 Spaniards fleeing as they came up the slope. 
 Reaching the top, they were in time to see the 
 American centre and left move upon the main Span 
 ish position an attack of greater difficulty, there 
 being a wider intervening space to traverse, and the 
 defenders being much stronger in numbers. The 
 charge was not a swift rush of cheering regiments, 
 sweeping forward in serried ranks, as the popular 
 fancy has pictured it. It was a climb up a rough, 
 steep slope, covered with tall grass and dotted with 
 trees, and the assailants were irregular masses of 
 men, now halting to fire, now rushing on, breaking 
 down the wire fences or vaulting over them. Of 
 the many descriptions given by officers who took 
 part in it, perhaps the most graphic is that of Cap 
 tain Bigelow, of the Tenth Cavalry, who was at 
 
250 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 about the centre of the American line. He reports 
 that after cutting an impeding fence with a sharp 
 ened bayonet : 
 
 I struck out as fast as the tall grass would permit me 
 toward the common objective of the mass of men which I 
 now saw surging forward on my right and left San Juan 
 Hill. The men kept up a steady double time, and com 
 menced firing of their own accord over one another s 
 heads and the heads of the officers, who were well out in 
 front of the men. I tried to stop the firing, as I thought 
 it would seriously retard the advance, and other officers 
 near me tried to stop it; but a constant stream of bullets 
 went over our heads, the men halting in an erect position 
 to fire. The men covered, I should say, about fifty yards 
 from front to rear. They formed a swarm rather than 
 a line. 
 
 Close under the ridge there was a considerable 
 space sheltered from fire by the steep slope above, 
 the Spanish trenches having been located too far 
 back upon the crest of the hill. Here, at some 
 points, the assailants halted to gather themselves 
 together. Captain Kerr, of the Sixth Cavalry, re 
 ports that his squadron was half an hour in this 
 " dead " space, about sixty yards from the summit, 
 not being in sufficient force to charge the trenches, 
 and the Spaniards not daring to leave their defences 
 and fire down upon him. 
 
 Immediately under the blockhouse the charging 
 troops were stopped by the fire of the American 
 artillery and machine guns, which just at this time 
 began to pour in upon the Spanish lines. Lieu 
 tenant Parker, who had been sent forward with the 
 somewhat vague order to " make the best use he 
 could " of his Catlings, got three of them into action 
 about the centre of the firing line, and poured a 
 destructive stream of bullets along the top of the 
 hill as the assault began. Back at El Pozo, where 
 Captain Grimes had been firing intermittently dur 
 ing the day, Best s and Parkhurst s batteries had 
 gone into position beside him, and had sent one 
 round of shells into the Spanish blockhouse and 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 251 
 
 trenches. As they saw these projectiles and the 
 Catling bullets striking above them, the leaders of 
 the charge stopped, although at that very moment 
 the Spaniards were running from their defences. 
 
 " At this time," reports Captain Allen, of the 
 Sixteenth Infantry, " there arose at the foot of the 
 slope and in the field behind us a great cry of Come 
 back ! Come back ! The trumpets there sounded 
 Cease firing, Report/ and Assembly. The men 
 hesitated, stopped, and began drifting down the 
 steep slope." 
 
 " We rushed forward almost to the trenches," 
 says Captain Byrne, of the Sixth, " when shells from 
 our guns in rear commenced to fall a short dis 
 tance, probably thirty yards, in front of us, and we 
 saw that those in rear had stopped and would not 
 follow or support us. In this front party there were 
 comparatively very few men, not enough to accom 
 plish anything, and we turned reluctantly back." 
 
 Captain McFarland, of the Sixteenth, another of 
 the leading officers, was wounded at this point it 
 was thought by the fire from the rear. But the 
 American batteries now ceased firing ; and a few 
 minutes later the time was half past one o clock 
 the infantrymen made a final rush, occupied the 
 trenches, in which only dead and wounded men were 
 left, and poured a brisk fusillade upon the retreating 
 Spaniards. 
 
 When the cavalrymen on Kettle Hill saw the cen 
 tre and left charging, they supported the movement 
 first by firing volleys into the Spanish lines and then 
 by moving on to attack the San Juan ridge. Rush 
 ing across the intervening valley and through a 
 swampy pond, they climbed the heights north of the 
 blockhouse. Here, too, the Spaniards ran before 
 the assailants came to close quarters. Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Viele, of the First Cavalry, was left to hold 
 Kettle Hill with all the men he could gather for a 
 reserve force. Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton, of the 
 17 
 
252 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Ninth Cavalry, had been shot dead on the hill, and 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Carroll, the brigade com 
 mander, was wounded there. 
 
 General Hawkins, who had personally started 
 the Sixth and the Sixteenth in their charge, running 
 with them and waving his hat, was the first general 
 officer to ascend the ridge, about half an hour after 
 it was taken ; and shortly afterward, when General 
 Kent came up, the gallant brigadier reported to his 
 division commander that his two regiments of regu 
 lars had captured the Spanish \vorks at Fort San 
 Juan. Kent later pronounced this a mistake, and 
 attributed an equal share in the exploit to the three 
 regiments of Colonel Ewers s brigade, the Ninth, 
 Thirteenth, and Twenty-fourth. The Spanish flag 
 on the blockhouse was captured by a private of the 
 Thirteenth.* Nevertheless, it is no more than jus 
 tice to say that to the Sixth and the Sixteenth fell 
 the very hardest of the fighting the casualty lists 
 prove this and that they took the lead in the as 
 sault on the key of the enemy s position. 
 
 It appears from Lieutenant Miiller s rather con 
 fused account of the battle that the Spaniards " fore 
 most echelon," posted on San Juan Hill, consisted 
 of three hundred men under Colonel Jose Baquero, 
 with two small rapid-fire guns commanded by Colo 
 nel Ordonez. The guns were placed behind the 
 crest of the first hill, and were withdrawn in time to 
 escape capture. Of the two commanding officers, 
 Colonel Baquero was killed, Colonel Ordonez 
 wounded. The force in the second line, that of Fort 
 San Juan, the lieutenant does not specify, beyond 
 stating it at three hundred men when the battle 
 opened. Several bodies of reinforcements were sent 
 forward during the morning, among them being a 
 detachment of marines under Captain Bustamente, 
 
 * Captain Noble, of the Sixteenth (afterward major of the Twenty- 
 fifth), states in a letter to the author that "the Thirteenth found the 
 flag lying on the roof, after our men had gone through the blockhouse." 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 253 
 
 Admiral Cervera s chief of staff, who was mortally 
 wounded early in the afternoon. About the same 
 time Lieutenant-General Linares, who had come 
 up from his headquarters at the junction of the roads 
 from Santiago to San Juan and to Caney, was shot 
 through the arm. He was carried on a stretcher to 
 his house in the city, relinquishing his command to 
 Major-General Jose Toral. 
 
 Colonel Roosevelt states the Spanish strength at 
 San Juan as forty-five hundred, which is merely an 
 estimate, arrived at by taking six thousand as the 
 total effective force in Santiago and deducting fif 
 teen hundred for the outpost at Caney and the gar 
 risons of the harbour forts. It is not likely, how 
 ever, that General Linares was able to put every 
 soldier he had, outside of these detachments, into 
 action at any one point. He had men at Fort Agua- 
 dores, and others on the north and west of the city.* 
 Colonel Aldea s regiment was not withdrawn from 
 the other side of the bay until July 2d. 
 
 Lieutenant Miley puts the number defending the 
 San Juan intrenchments at 750, adding that behind 
 them, close around the city, were 3,500 soldiers, 
 sailors, and marines. His figures, apparently, are 
 based on those of Lieutenant Miiller. The Spanish 
 court of inquiry which tried and acquitted Toral de- 
 
 * Senator Lodge, in his brilliant but highly inaccurate narrative of 
 the war, asserts that " the Spaniards had 12,000 to 13,000 men in San 
 tiago ; they had over 9,000 along the line of defences on the east side, 
 confronting the Americans." Adding 3,500 for Escario s brigade, 
 which arrived July 3d, and deducting 1,000 for the naval landing par 
 ties, this would make about 15,000 at the time of the surrender a 
 great over-statement. Tt must be remembered, too, that at least 1,000 
 Spaniards were in the hospitals. More than 2,000 sick and wounded 
 men chiefly the former were found there when S s hafter occupied 
 the city. 
 
 As another instance of Senator Lodge s misrepresentations, he 
 quotes Lieutenant Muller as saying that there were " only 3,000 men 
 defending Santiago," and denounces him for so transparent a false 
 hood. Lieutenant Muller nowhere states the total Spanish strength at 
 any such figure. On the contrary, in one place he catalogues 6,190 
 troops and mentions others ; in another, he estimates the entire force 
 as " at most, 8,000 men." 
 
254 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 clared in its report that 1,700 men were available 
 to meet the attack, but its list of regiments does not 
 include the naval detachment. From these per- 
 plexingly different statements, and in the absence 
 of exact and trustworthy Spanish returns, it does 
 not seem probable that the defenders of San Juan 
 were more than three thousand at most. The at 
 tacking force, undoubtedly, greatly outnumbered 
 them ; but allowing for this, their resistance was far 
 less tenacious than Vara del Rey s at Caney. They 
 replied briskly to the American fire, but, as usual, 
 their marksmanship was poor, the great majority 
 of their bullets flying too high. Very little of their 
 musketry seemed to be aimed at individual objects ; 
 when the attacking force came within short range 
 of the trenches they put their rifles at arms length 
 above their heads, and pulled trigger at a guess. 
 When the Americans charged home, they fled with 
 out waiting for a hand-to-hand fight. 
 
 Lieutenant Miiller states the Spaniards loss for 
 the day, including both Caney and San Juan, as 
 being 593 94 killed, 376 wounded, 123 prisoners 
 and missing. Elsewhere he gives these same figures 
 as the casualty list for the three days, July ist to 3d 
 a discrepancy which does not create added confi 
 dence in the accuracy of his statistics. Moreover, he 
 says that of 520 men at Caney only 80 returned, 
 most of them crippled and bruised. Not reckoning 
 any of the " crippled and bruised " as wounded, this 
 leaves only 153 for all casualties at San Juan an 
 incredibly small figure. Probably he does not in 
 clude the losses of the naval brigade ; very possibly 
 his returns are for the Spanish regulars only. Six 
 or seven hundred wounded men were found in the 
 hospitals when the city surrendered. It is easy to 
 believe, however, that the defenders losses were 
 much smaller than those of the assailants. 
 
 On the American side, Kent s division, with a 
 strength of 5,206 men, had 93 killed, 492 wounded, 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 255 
 
 and 58 missing. Most of the missing were in the 
 Seventy-first New York, and nearly all reported 
 later. The cavalry division suffered slightly more 
 in proportion to its numbers, losing 45 killed and 
 313 wounded, with 10 missing, of its total of 2,738 
 men. The following table shows the losses by regi 
 ments, as reported by the division commanders : * 
 
 
 Killed. 
 
 Wounded. 
 
 Missing. 
 
 Kent s Division : 
 
 14 
 
 87 
 
 6 
 
 Sixth. Infantry . . 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 Seventy-first New York 
 
 16 
 
 vv 
 
 4.8 
 
 A 
 
 Tenth Infantry 
 
 
 26 
 
 
 Twenty-first Infantry 
 
 
 
 * * 
 
 Second Infantry 
 
 i 
 
 20 
 
 " * 
 
 Ninth Infantry 
 
 4" 
 
 2^ 
 
 I 
 
 Thirteenth Infantry 
 
 18 
 
 86 
 
 
 Twenty-fourth Infantry 
 
 12 
 
 77 
 
 
 Cavalry Division : 
 Third Cavalry 
 
 3 
 
 e T 
 
 
 Sixth Cavalry 
 
 
 C 
 
 
 Ninth Cavalry 
 
 -5 
 
 IO 
 
 J 
 
 First Cavalry 
 
 I a 
 
 *y 
 
 47 
 
 I 
 
 Tenth Cavalry 
 First Volunteer Cavalry 
 
 7 
 
 1C 
 
 6 9 
 
 72 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 The work of Lieutenant Parker and his Catling 
 detachment at a critical moment of the battle has 
 already been mentioned. After the taking of the 
 heights he went forward to the firing line ; so did 
 Lieutenant Hughes, with the Hotchkiss guns. The 
 field artillery played no great part in the battle. 
 General Shafter states that when Grimes s battery 
 opened fire, early in the morning, upon the San Juan 
 blockhouse, " this fire was effective, and the enemy 
 could be seen running away from the vicinity of the 
 blockhouse." Evidently, however, they came back 
 again when the bombardment, which seems to have 
 
 * The following; table shows the whole American strength at San 
 Juan and the losses during the ist, 2d, and 3d of July, as given by the 
 
 R A 
 
256 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 done no noticeable damage, was over. Grimes fired 
 for fifteen or twenty minutes and then stopped, prac 
 tically silenced by the Spaniards return fire, which 
 was fairly spirited and accurate, causing several 
 casualties in the battery and in regiments halted 
 near it. The Spanish artillery had the great advan 
 tage of using smokeless powder, making it a far less 
 conspicuous target than the American guns. 
 
 Grimes resumed firing at intervals, but dis 
 charged only a hundred and sixty shots during the 
 day not a large number for guns calculated to fire 
 three shots a minute. When Best and Parkhurst, 
 who had been held in reserve, came into action, 
 
 Returns Division of the adjutant-general s office. Ther 
 crepancies between its figures and those printed above : 
 
 eral s office. There are slight dis 
 
 Kent s Division, staff u 
 
 Hawkins s Brigade, staff 6 
 
 Sixteenth Infantry 679 
 
 Sixth Infantry. 
 
 Seventy-first New York 969 
 
 Pearson s Brigade, staff 
 
 Second Infantry . 
 Tenth Infantry . . 
 
 Twenty-first Infantry 467 
 
 Wikoff s Brigade, staff 5 
 
 Ninth Infantry 466 
 
 Thirteenth Infantry 465 
 
 Twenty-fourth Infantry . . 
 
 Wheeler s Division, staff 13 
 
 Sumner s Brigade, staff. 
 
 Third Cavalry 
 
 Sixth Cavalry 451 
 
 Ninth Cavalry 219 
 
 Wood s Brigade, staff 10 
 
 First Cavalry 523 
 
 Tenth Cavalry 480 
 
 First Volunteer Cavalry 583 
 
 Artillery, three batteries 242 
 
 Second Cavalry (estimated) 
 
 Total 8,336 
 
 Strength, 
 June 30th. 
 
 Killed, 
 July ist-sd. 
 
 Wounded, 
 July ist-3d. 
 
 "5 
 114 
 68 
 
 53 
 40 
 
 34 
 
 25 
 92 
 
 77 
 
 Besides the above casualties, on the 2d and ,-?d Lawton s division 
 lost 6 killed and 33 wounded ; Bates s brigade, i killed and 18 wounded. 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 257 
 
 Major Dillenback reports that " after a vigorous 
 shelling of the enemy s works on the ridge by all 
 three batteries, the position was occupied by our 
 infantry." As a matter of fact, this " vigorous shell 
 ing " consisted in firing just eight shells, one by 
 each of Best s and Parkhurst s guns, Grimes s men 
 being engaged, at the time, in refilling their ammu 
 nition chests. Captain Parkhurst, in his interesting 
 account of The Artillery at Santiago, claims that the 
 eight shots fell with marvellous accuracy into the 
 trenches and blockhouse, and did more to drive the 
 Spaniards from their defences than all the rest of the 
 American fire. Lieutenant Parker, in his narra 
 tive of The Catlings at Santiago, is equally confi 
 dent that his machine guns were the more effective 
 weapon, and asserts that not a shell hit the block 
 house or exploded near it. 
 
 The hill taken, Best s battery was hurried for 
 ward, escorted by a troop of the Second Cavalry, 
 and took station with the firing line, two hundred 
 yards north of the San Juan blockhouse. It stayed 
 there for about ten minutes, and then, finding the 
 Spanish fire too warm, fell back to Kettle Hill, 
 where it was of no further service, the higher ridge 
 in front shutting it off from the enemy. 
 
 In the demoralized condition of the Spaniards as 
 they fled from their defences, the Americans might 
 probably have marched straight forward into San 
 tiago ; but after eight hours marching and fighting 
 under a blazing sun they were too much exhausted 
 to do more than hold what they had won. A few 
 men of the Tenth Cavalry, the Rough Riders, and 
 other regiments who had pushed on beyond the 
 main line, were recalled. There was no available 
 reserve, except the Seventy-first New York, some 
 of whose men had already joined other commands 
 in the assault of the hill, and the rest of which was 
 moved forward during the afternoon. Lawton s 
 nonarrival left the right of the American line with- 
 
258 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 out support, and along the thinned ranks of the 
 cavalry division it was fully expected that the enemy 
 would return in force to retake the captured posi 
 tion. In response to urgent messages from Sumner 
 and Wood, Kent moved tfre Thirteenth Infantry 
 over from his centre to support them, but he could 
 spare no other troops. 
 
 Viewing the battle from the hill near his head 
 quarters, Shafter had naturally felt anxiety at Law- 
 ton s failure to finish his work at Caney in the two 
 hours allowed him. As the day wore on and Vara 
 del Rev s men still held out, he sent one of his 
 aids with instructions that Lawton should withdraw 7 
 from Caney and march down the Santiago road to 
 join Wheeler s right. The movement ordered was 
 undoubtedly a correct one. Lawton s division was 
 urgently needed at the front, while Caney was not 
 a vital point in the American campaign, and would 
 in any case become untenable by the Spaniards 
 when the hills of San Juan were taken. But to 
 abandon an attack in which so many lives had been 
 sacrificed would be to admit a defeat, and the order 
 was not obeyed. General Shafter, whose reports 
 were notably generous to his subordinate officers, 
 says that when his messenger reached Lawton, " the 
 troops were in the act of making the final charge ; 
 nothing could stop them ; and when that charge 
 was over, the fight at El Caney was won. It was 
 then near evening." Captain Lee, the British mili 
 tary attache, in his account of the battle, of which 
 he was an eyewitness, records the arrival of Shafter s 
 order at half past one at least an hour before the 
 storming of the fort. In Lawton s report it is not 
 mentioned at all. 
 
 The first American troops to leave Caney were 
 the two regiments of Bates s brigade, the Third and 
 the Twentieth. General Bates says in his report that 
 " after consultation with General Chaffee " he with 
 drew at about half past four, hoping to be in time to 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 259 
 
 take part in the battle at San Juan. Retracing their 
 steps toward El Pozo, his men, who had been 
 marching or fighting all day and most of the previ 
 ous night, were too much exhausted to move fast, 
 and as darkness was coming on Bates halted them 
 at the first stream they crossed, and rode to Shafter s 
 headquarters for instructions. The general ordered 
 him to the left of Kent s line, and at midnight his 
 tired troops were in position there. 
 
 It was near sunset before Lawton could get his 
 men in motion, marching forward in column along 
 the road from Caney to Santiago, which is a good 
 macadamized highway, the only good road running 
 east from Santiago. He left five companies of the 
 Seventh Infantry, and one of the Seventeenth, as a 
 guard at Caney. The head of the column had 
 passed the Ducrot house the abandoned country 
 place of a French resident of Santiago and was 
 nearing the right of Wheeler s position, when the 
 order was given to halt for supper. The soldiers 
 were boiling their coffee when bullets began to fall 
 among them. It was impossible to tell just whence 
 the fire came, and Lawton, not knowing what might 
 be in front of him, and not considering it safe to 
 advance further in the darkness, sent back to Shafter 
 for orders. The messenger reached headquarters 
 half an hour after midnight, and returned with in 
 structions that Lawton should turn about face to 
 ward Caney, and make his way to the front along 
 the El Pozo trail. This long and circuitous march 
 took all the rest of the night. At half past seven next 
 morning (July 2d) Chaffee s brigade reached San 
 Juan and deployed to the right of Wheeler s lines ; 
 and the whole division was in position by noon. 
 
 To complete the story of the operations of July 
 Duffieid s feint Ist ^ on ly remains to mention Gen- 
 at Fort Agua- eral Duffieid s movement against 
 dores, juiy i. Fort Aguadores. On the previous 
 day Shafter wrote to Sampson : 
 
2 6o THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 I wish you would bombard the works at Aguadores 
 in support of a regiment of infantry which I shall send 
 there early to-morrow. 
 
 Accordingly, at sunrise on the 1st, the New York, 
 the Gloucester, and the Suwanee were lying off the 
 shore, ready to use their guns. Three hours later 
 the Thirty-third Michigan came up, having been 
 brought from Siboney on the narrow-gauge railway, 
 and the ships opened fire on the old fort west of the 
 San Juan River, and on a couple of rifle pits upon a 
 hill behind it. Not more than twenty Spanish sol 
 diers were to be seen, and these disappeared when 
 the shells began to fly. When the order to cease 
 firing was given by the New York, the Suwanee sig 
 nalled for permission to knock down the flag on 
 the fort. Sampson replied that she might have three . 
 shots. Lieutenant Blue, the hero of two venture 
 some reconnoitring expeditions, fired them with a 
 four-inch gun, at thirteen hundred yards. The first 
 tore the Spanish ensign, the second struck near the 
 base of the staff and bent it, the third shot staff and 
 flag away. 
 
 The Michigan volunteers now advanced as far 
 as the bridge over the river, which the enemy had 
 broken down, and for some time a few Spaniards 
 concealed among the trees on the hill beyond the 
 stream exchanged a desultory fire with them. Sev 
 eral requests were signalled to the ships to drive the 
 enemy off, to which the New York uniformly replied 
 that there was no perceptible enemy to drive off. 
 About noon the Spaniards brought afield piece along 
 the railway from Santiago. It had fired only four or 
 five shots when the New York turned her guns upon 
 it and silenced it; but General Durfield, who had 
 had two men killed and six wounded, withdrew his 
 regiment to Siboney. * The New York remained off 
 Fort Aguadores another hour. She was joined by 
 the Oregon, and both ships slowly fired eight-inch 
 shells over the hills in the direction of Santiago. 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 2 6l 
 
 General Duffield has been severely criticised 
 for his half-hearted and resultless attack, but the 
 general, in reply, has shown that he acted in 
 precise accordance with Shafter s orders. At the 
 conference of June 3Oth, at El Pozo, the corps 
 commander cautioned him not to drive the 
 Spaniards out of their position, as they might come 
 upon the exposed left flank of the American line. 
 On the following day Shatter telephoned to Si- 
 boney : 
 
 I do not wish you to sacrifice any of your men, but 
 to worry the enemy at Aguadores sufficiently to keep 
 him there. 
 
 Shatter himself confirms General Duffield s state 
 ment. In his official report he states that that officer 
 " attacked Aguadores as ordered, but was unable to 
 accomplish more than to detain the Spaniards in that 
 vicinity." In his Century article, he says that the 
 general " was ordered to make a feint at Aguadores, 
 to detain the Spanish troops in the vicinity. This 
 movement was well executed." In his indorsement 
 on General Duffield s report, dated September 30, 
 1898, he is still more explicit, saying that the object 
 of the manoeuvre was " accomplished perfectly," 
 and adding: 
 
 There was no intention of attempting to capture the 
 place, as it would naturally fall with Santiago, and, be 
 sides, was very strong. I had had the place carefully 
 examined by my engineer officers and General Bates, 
 besides personal observation of it in passing it, and knew 
 it was no place to assault, and not on the true line of 
 advances for Santiago. 
 
 As to the strategy of the movement, it would 
 appear, at a time when men were so urgently needed 
 where real fighting was in progress, that it was a 
 mistake to detach a whole regiment, not to men 
 tion three war ships, to detain the few Spaniards 
 Duffield states them at five hundred, and his esti 
 mate is probably much too high who held Fort 
 
2 62 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Aguadores.* As much might have been accom 
 plished by a single company, or by a boat load of 
 marines from the fleet. 
 
 On the following day July 2d the demonstra 
 tion was repeated, on a smaller scale, by a bat 
 talion of the Thirty-third Michigan under Major 
 Webb, who exchanged a few shots with the Span 
 iards, and had one man fatally wounded. 
 
 On the evening of July ist the " thin blue line " 
 
 of Wheeler s and Kent s divisions was holding the 
 
 ridge from which it had driven the 
 
 The "thin blue Spaniards, and keeping up a rifle duel 
 
 line " before -.11 i ^1 J 
 
 Santiago. wltn tne enemy posted in their second 
 
 series of trenches, a few hundred yards 
 nearer Santiago. The soldiers had won a very gal 
 lant victory, but the situation was one of no little 
 anxiety. A thousand men had been killed and 
 wounded, and many others detailed to find and bury 
 the dead and to carry the injured to the rear ; all 
 were exhausted, and as most of them, while fighting 
 in the tropical heat, had thrown away either of 
 their own motion or by order of their officers 
 everything but guns and ammunition, there was 
 little to eat except the scanty rations the Spaniards 
 had left in the captured position. Few men had 
 coats, still fewer had blankets. The discomfort of 
 the situation was extreme, but its imminent danger 
 was the thinness of the American line at such a dis 
 tance from its support, and so close in front of a 
 considerable force of the enemy. 
 
 General Wheeler records that a number of 
 officers urged him to abandon the San Juan heights, 
 and take up a more defensible position farther back ; 
 but the veteran fighter stoutly refused to withdraw, 
 and fearing that the same appeal would be made to 
 the commanding general he sent a message to head- 
 
 *A prisoner told General Wheeler that the garrison consisted of 
 one hundred men, with three guns, two of which were useless (The 
 Santiago Campaign, p. 303). 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 263 
 
 quarters that such a movement " would cost us 
 much prestige." He had already requested that 
 intrenching tools should be hurried forward. As 
 soon as it was dark Shafter sent all he had, and 
 Wheeler personally set his weary men at work to 
 fortify their position, telling General Kent to do 
 the same. As with most of the supplies of the corps, 
 there were not enough shovels to go around, but 
 the deficiency was partly remedied with Spanish 
 tools found along the enemy s trenches. 
 
 Shafter also ordered all the field artillery to the 
 front, and during the night three batteries 
 Grimes s, Best s, and Parkhurst s occupied the 
 position which Best had attempted to hold the day 
 before, with orders to open, at dawn, on the near 
 est part of Santiago, the centre of the Spanish posi 
 tion. " We ought to knock that part of the town 
 to pieces in a short time," Shafter told Colonel 
 McClernand, but this proved too much to ex 
 pect of a dozen three-inch field pieces. After fir 
 ing for about an hour, greatly hampered by their 
 own smoke,* and under a heavy fusillade from 
 the enemy s lines, Major Dillenback ordered them 
 to withdraw, and they fell back all the way to El 
 Pozo, where Capron, returning from Caney, joined 
 them. 
 
 All day, on the 2d of July, firing was kept up 
 between the two armies, with considerable loss on 
 both sides, the American casualties being about one 
 hundred and fifty killed and wounded. Among the 
 wounded was General Hawkins, who was succeeded 
 as brigade commander by Colonel Theaker, of the 
 Sixteenth. Shafter s line was now extended by the 
 
 * Lieutenant Aultman, who was left in command of Captain Park- 
 hurst s battery by the wounding of the latter officer, early in the morn 
 ing, reports : " Our fire was unaimed, and the results could neither be 
 observed nor ascertained, as our view was absolutely obscured by our 
 own smoke " a severe commentary upon the mismanagement that 
 sent the artillery into the field equipped with a powder discarded by 
 every military power. 
 
264 . THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 arrival of Bates and Lawton, on the left and on the 
 right respectively, but it was as thinly held as ever, 
 and another anxious day followed. Lying on their 
 arms, at some points only a quarter of a mile from 
 the enemy, under a continual fire and in constant 
 expectation of an attack in force, the men felt 
 the strain of the situation severely. Without shel 
 ter, they were alternately drenched with rain and 
 scorched by the sun. The trail to El Pozo and 
 Siboney had become almost impassable, and so lit 
 tle food could be brought up that semistarvation was 
 added to physical exhaustion. 
 
 At the rear, the sufferings of the wounded were 
 nothing less than shocking. It was not realized at 
 first how heavy the American losses had been. 
 Shafter telegraphed to Washington,* late on July 
 ist, that his casualties were " above four hundred," 
 including but few killed. When the four hundred 
 grew to be thrice as many, the medical department 
 was simply overwhelmed, devotedly as its personnel 
 worked to cope with so entirely unexpected a situa 
 tion. For the wounded men the journey from the 
 chief emergency station, at the ford of the Agua- 
 dores River, to the field hospital near El Pozo and 
 the general hospital at Siboney was a terrible one. 
 There were practically no ambulances, and but a 
 limited number of wagons springless vehicles of 
 bare and splintered boards that caused frightful 
 agony to the ghastly freight they bore over the 
 rough trail. They carried only those who could not 
 possibly make "their way over the six miles afoot, 
 perhaps with a rude crutch cut from a tree. Most 
 of the wounded men were half naked, many entirely 
 so. There were not enough tents or cots or cover 
 ings for them in the hospitals, not enough medi- 
 
 * Shafter was in communication with Washington through a coast 
 wise cable from Santiago to Playa del Este, which had been picked up 
 and carried ashore at Siboney, where it connected with the field tele 
 phone to his headquarters. 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 265 
 
 cines,* not enough surgeons, not nearly enough 
 nurses, and no better food than canned meat and 
 hardtack. A heavy penalty was being paid for the 
 failure to bring proper hospital equipments from 
 Tampa, but it was not being paid by those respon 
 sible for the failure. And yet this was one of the 
 strangest facts of the campaign the mortality 
 among the wounded was phenomenally small, being 
 only about one per cent. 
 
 Though the Spaniards maintained a constant fire 
 until fighting was suspended by Shafter s flag of 
 truce about noon on the 3d, it does not seem that 
 they made any real sortie against the beleaguering 
 lines, although there were several alarms of an 
 attack, and once, at least, the American troops be 
 lieved that they had repelled an assault in force. 
 This was between nine and ten o clock on the night 
 of July 2d, when a wave of fierce firing swept around 
 the trenches. Shafter speaks of it as " the attack 
 called the night sortie," and adds that " it did not 
 amount to much, though there was wild firing in 
 the dark." This is no doubt a more correct account 
 than the earlier one he gave in his official report: 
 " About ten P. M. the enemy made a vigorous 
 assault to break through my lines, but he was re 
 pulsed at all points." His authority was probably 
 the statement in Kent s report that " at nine p. M. 
 a vigorous assault was made all along our lines. 
 This was completely repulsed, the enemy again re 
 tiring to his trenches." Wheeler makes no mention 
 of the supposed sortie. The division commanders, 
 at the time, were with Shafter at El Pozo. 
 
 " Suddenly a burst of firing broke out," says 
 Lieutenant Parker, who was at the front with the 
 
 * This was admitted even by the army staff. " During and after 
 the battles at El Caney and San Juan there was an insufficiency of 
 tents, cots, bedding, and medicines," said Surgeon-General Sternberg 
 in his annual report for 1898. Unofficial observers with the army- 
 George Kennan, for instance, in Campaigning in Cuba describe a 
 scene of pitiable misery and gruesome horror. 
 
2 66 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 cavalry division, " and it was believed by many that 
 a serious night attack had been made." The lieu 
 tenant tells how two officers near his position tried 
 to stop the waste of ammunition in the dark. Lieu 
 tenant-Colonel Roosevelt strode along the trenches 
 in front of the Rough Riders and told them that 
 " he thought cowboys were men who shot only when 
 they could see the whites of the other fellow s eyes." 
 Captain Ayres, of the Tenth Cavalry, called to his 
 negro troopers that they were " no better than the 
 Cubans," upon which the men laughed and ceased 
 their wild firing.* How wild it was is shown by the 
 fact that some American officers reported that they 
 were fired upon from their own lines. 
 
 On their side, at the same time, the Spaniards 
 believed that they had sustained and repelled an 
 attack. " A little before ten P. M.," f says Lieuten 
 ant Miiller, " the enemy, who no doubt intended to 
 surprise us, furiously attacked our lines, and was 
 repulsed with great loss." 
 
 At six o clock on the evening of the 2d, General 
 Shafter summoned his division commanders to meet 
 him at El Pozo. The conference began about eight, 
 and each of the officers he had sent for Wheeler, 
 Lawton, Kent, and Bates beginning with the 
 junior, gave his view of the situation. The four men 
 were not unanimous upon the question of a with 
 drawal ; but after an hour s discussion, Shafter 
 stated his intention of making no 
 First demand m ove at present. Early the next 
 Ju y 3 ler morning he took two steps which may 
 at first seem somewhat contradictory, 
 but which can readily be reconciled. He tele 
 graphed to the Secretary of War : 
 
 * Lieutenant Parker seems to date this incident as occurring "on 
 the night of the 3d " (The Catlings at Santiago, p. i6i\ but the night 
 of the 2d must be meant, as firing was suspended at noon on July 3d 
 until ten A. M. on the 5th. 
 
 t This appears, in the translation published by the Navy Depart 
 ment, as " ten A. M." an evident mistake, as it occurs at the end of the 
 
THE BATTLES OF CANEY AND SAN JUAN 2 6/ 
 
 We have the town well invested on the north and 
 east, but with a very thin line. Upon approaching it 
 we find it of such a character and the defences so strong 
 it will be impossible to carry it by storm with my present 
 force, and I am seriously considering withdrawing about 
 five miles and taking up a new position on the high 
 ground between the San Juan River and Siboney, with 
 our left at Sardinero, so as to get our supplies to a 
 large extent by means of the railroad, which we can use, 
 having engines and cars at Siboney. 
 
 At the same time he sent a flag of truce into the 
 enemy s lines with this message to the u command 
 ing general of the Spanish forces " : 
 
 SIR: I shall be obliged, unless you surrender, to shell 
 Santiago de Cuba. Please inform the citizens of foreign 
 countries, and all women and children, that they should 
 leave the city before ten o clock to-morrow morning. 
 
 In the fire of criticism, just and unjust, of which 
 General Shafter has been the object, his despatch to 
 Secretary Alger has been cited in proof of his vacil 
 lation and mental and physical debility. In reality, 
 the fact that he demanded the enemy s surrender 
 while he was warning his Government that he might 
 be compelled to move backward, shows his correct 
 estimate of the situation, and his promptness and 
 resolution in availing himself of it. It was, to a cer 
 tain extent, like Grant after the first day of Shiloh. 
 His position was bad, and might become untenable, 
 but he had reason to believe that that of the enemy 
 was much worse. The Spanish troops were neces 
 sarily quite as exhausted as his own men; it was 
 known that their food was meagre, and it was easy 
 to guess that their ammunition was running low. 
 The climate was but little less trying to them than 
 to the Americans. Blockaded by sea, defeated on 
 land, what could Toral see before him but destruc 
 tion or surrender? 
 
 day s chronicle, and a few lines farther on the affair is called " a night 
 surprise." 
 
 18 
 
2 68 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 At Washington, where the situation was very 
 imperfectly understood Shafter s despatches had 
 been few and not specially luminous there was 
 some natural anxiety. Secretary Alger had waited 
 with the President until four o clock that morning 
 (July 3d) for news from the front, one of the last 
 despatches they received on the 2d having been a re 
 quest for more surgeons. It was nearly noon when 
 the telegram telling of a possible retreat reached 
 them. The secretary, a politician as well as a sol 
 dier, replied : 
 
 Of course you can judge the situation better than we 
 can at this end of the line. If, however, you could hold 
 your present position, especially San Juan heights, the 
 effect upon the country would be much better than fall 
 ing back. 
 
 
 
 Shafter s answer, received at Washington shortly 
 after midnight, was brief and decided : 
 
 I shall hold my present position. 
 
 For in the meantime the situation had entirely 
 changed. Cervera s squadron had gone out of the 
 harbour, leaving the city to its fate. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 
 
 DURING the battle of the ist of July Cervera s 
 ships threw a few shells in the direction of the Amer 
 ican lines, but with little effect, as the intervening 
 hills prevented any accurate aim. The Punta Gorda 
 battery also joined in the firing, but its heavier guns 
 turned seaward, and could not be brought to bear. 
 
 During the day the French consul at Santiago 
 wrote to the admiral, inquiring whether he intended 
 to bombard the city if the American troops occupied 
 it, and requesting that he should not do so without 
 giving notice. Cervera replied, next morning, that 
 if the enemy entered Santiago he would at once turn 
 his guns on the town, without further warning. 
 The French official at once informed his country 
 men and the other consuls, and there was something 
 of a panic. Mr. Ramsden, the British representa 
 tive, sent the civil governor of Santiago to see Cer 
 vera, who modified his truculent announcement 
 for there were more than twenty thousand women 
 and children in the city saying that he would 
 bombard the place if the Americans took it and the 
 inhabitants deserted it.* 
 
 * A detailed account of the incident appeared in the New York Sun, 
 December 5, 1898, in which it was stated that Cervera s bloodthirsty 
 des gn quite foreign to the character displayed at other times by the 
 gallant Spanish admiral was frustrated only by the interference of 
 the British Government. According to the Sun s historian, Ramsden 
 telegraphed information of it to Sir Alexander Gollan, the British con 
 sul-general in Havana, at two o clock A. M., July 2d. Gollan went to 
 Blanco, but was rebuffed, Blanco telling him that Cervera was entirely 
 at liberty " to take the measures which he should deem best for the suc 
 cess of the campaign " ; but a protest to London caused a change of 
 
 269 
 
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 On the morning of the 2d the harbour batteries 
 were again shelled at close range by the blockading 
 ships. This was in answer to a note from Shafter, 
 requesting Sampson to keep up his fire upon Santi 
 ago. The action lasted two hours, the Spaniards 
 making little attempt to reply ; and a shot from the 
 Texas accomplished w r hat had not been done in all 
 the bombardments of the blockade it dismounted 
 one of the six-inch guns in the Socapa, besides kill 
 ing three men and wounding six, among the latter 
 being Ensign Pifia, the commander of the battery. 
 
 Throughout the day Cervera made preparations 
 for leaving the harbour, Blanco having sent him 
 imperative orders to make a dash for 
 Havana, in spite of the admiral s pro 
 test of his inability to cope with the 
 blockading fleet.* The marines who had gone 
 ashore to reinforce Linares were taken aboard, a 
 pilot was sent to each ship, steam was made, and a 
 little before half past nine o clock on the morning 
 of Sunday, July 3d, the six vessels, cleared for 
 action, were moving toward the sea gate of the har 
 bour that had sheltered them for forty-five event 
 ful days. 
 
 heart, and the captain-general ordered Cervera to leave Santiago in 
 stead of bombarding it. 
 
 This version of the affair is not borne out bv Mr. Ramsden s diary ; 
 indeed, it is contradicted at an essential point by his statement that it 
 was ten o clock on the morning of July ad when he saw Cervera s note 
 to the French consul. It must therefore be relegated to the already 
 well-filled realm of war fiction. 
 
 * On September 10, 1898, according to a press report, Senor Aunon, 
 the Spanish minister of marine, stated in the Cortes that Cervera 
 "wanted to blowup his ships in the harbour; but I informed him 
 that it would be preferable to leave the port and engage the enemy. 
 General Blanco ordered Admiral Cervera to leave Santiago, and fixed 
 the day of his departure." 
 
 Cervera s official report to Captain-General Blanco was read to rep 
 resentatives of the Madrid press on August 22, 180,8, but no copies of it 
 were given out. According to the version published by the Heraldo 
 (translated by the Navy Department) it begins : " In obedience to your 
 orders, in the face of that which would have happened, and of which 
 you were informed, I left the bav of Santiago for sea on the 3d day of 
 July." Its account of the battle is very brief. 
 
THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 271 
 
 Cervera s choice of the daytime, rather than the 
 night, for the moment of his sortie, was a paradox 
 that is not explained in his official report; but 
 officers of his squadron afterward gave what was no 
 doubt the true reason that the American ships lay 
 so close inshore from sunset to sunrise, and their 
 watch with searchlights was so perfect, that the 
 Spanish admiral saw no possible hope of a night 
 escape.* Mistaken as his judgment probably was, 
 it was a remarkable testimony to the effectiveness 
 of Sampson s plan of blockade. 
 
 The militant captain of the Iowa is reported as 
 saying, some time after the battle, that the Span 
 iards " were so thoroughly rattled that they just 
 started to run out of the way as fast as they could." 
 To show how unfair is such a description of Cer 
 vera s sortie, it is worth while to quote the account 
 given to Lieutenant Miiller by the pilot of the Maria 
 Teresa : 
 
 I was in the forward tower by the side of Admiral 
 Cervera, who was as calm as though he had been at 
 anchor in his own cabin, and was observing the channel 
 and the hostile ships, and only said these words: 
 
 " Pilot, when can we shift the helm? " 
 
 He had reference to turning to starboard, which could 
 be done only after we had passed Diamante Bank. After 
 a few seconds he said: 
 
 " Pilot, advise me when we can shift the helm." 
 
 " I will advise you, admiral," I answered. 
 
 * In The Story of the Captains (Century Magazine, May, 1899) Cap 
 tain Taylor records his opinion that in coming out by daylight Cervera 
 "exhibited a sound tactical sense," and that if he had made his sortie 
 at night his ships would have been sunk before passing the Morro. On 
 the other hand, Captain Clark, in the same symposium, adduces some 
 strong reasons to the contrary ; and Captain Taylor s argument is 
 seriously weakened by the fact that on the night of July 4th the Reina 
 Mercedes an unarmoured vessel came down the channel, under a 
 heavy fire from the blockading fleet, practically uninjured. She went 
 down near the harbour mouth, but she was scuttled by the opening of 
 her valves, not sunk by the American gun-fire. 
 
 As to the courses open to Cervera when he came out of the harbour 
 to go eastward, to go westward, or to scatter his ships while the 
 latter might have saved one or possibly more of his cruisers, it can 
 hardly be doubted that his decision to steam to the west was strategi 
 cally correct. 
 
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 A few moments later I said: "Admiral, the helm may 
 be shifted now." 
 
 In a moment the admiral, without shouting, without 
 becoming excited, as calm as usual, said: * To starboard," 
 and the next minute, " Fire! " 
 
 At the same moment the two guns of the turret and 
 those of the port battery fired on a ship which seemed 
 to me to be the Indiana. By this time there were already 
 many dead and wounded in the battery, because they had 
 been firing on us for some time, and I believe that in spite 
 of the water that was in the ship she was already on fire. 
 The admiral said to me: 
 
 " Good-bye, pilot; go now; go, and be sure you let 
 them pay you, because you have earned it well." 
 
 The Spanish cruisers came down the channel in 
 column, Cervera s flagship, the Maria Teresa, in the 
 lead, and the Vizcaya, the Cristobal Colon, and the 
 Almirante Oquendo following in order, with about 
 eight hundred yards distance between each ship 
 and the next. Twelve hundred yards behind the 
 Oquendo came the torpedo-boat destroyers. As to 
 the order in which the destroyers went out, there 
 are discrepancies in the reports of the American 
 officers, and even in Lieutenant Miiller s narrative, 
 in which accuracy might have been expected. Ap 
 parently the explanation is that the Furor led down 
 the channel, and when just outside the Morro she 
 circled to port as if to escape to the eastward, but 
 seeing the Gloucester and other vessels in her path, 
 she turned west to follow the cruisers thereby los 
 ing enough ground to allow the Pluton to overhaul 
 and pass her.* 
 
 Cervera s plan was to turn westward as soon as 
 he reached the sea, and run for it. His one hope of 
 success lay in outrunning the American battle ships 
 and beating off Sampson s speediest vessel, the 
 Brooklyn not by any means an impossible scheme 
 on paper. In the test of action, his ships proved 
 
 * This is based on the detailed account given by Lieutenant Muller 
 on the authority of Lieutenants Bustamente of the Furor and Caballero 
 of the Pluton. 
 
THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 
 
 273 
 
 much slower than they should have been, the Ameri 
 cans faster than he had expected ; while in fighting 
 power his four cruisers showed themselves pitiably 
 inferior to the five powerful men-of-war four bat 
 tle ships and a cruiser of whose guns they had to 
 run the gantlet. 
 
 These five the Indiana, the Oregon, the Iowa, 
 the Texas, and the Brooklyn, recounting them in 
 order from east to west lay at or near their regular 
 blockading stations, in a semicircle about the har 
 bour mouth, and from two and a half to four miles 
 distant from it. The Massachusetts had gone early 
 that morning to Guantanamo Bay for coal. The 
 New York had signalled, at a quarter to nine, " Dis 
 regard movements of the commander-in-chief," and 
 had started eastward for Siboney, where Sampson 
 intended to land for a conference with Shafter. She 
 was nearly ten * miles east of the Morro when the 
 Teresa came out, and in company with her were 
 the torpedo boat Ericsson and the converted yacht 
 Hist. Of the other small vessels, the Gloucester and 
 the Vixen lay inside the main blockading line, the 
 former to the east of the harbour entrance, the latter 
 to the west. The Resolute was farther out, close to 
 the Indiana. On all the ships the men were at 
 " quarters for inspection," according to the regular 
 routine of Sunday morning. 
 
 Suddenly, at almost exactly half past nine, the 
 Teresa, with smoke pouring from her funnels, came 
 around Smith Key and turned down the channel to 
 ward the sea. She was in plain view of several 
 American ships, and three or four of them an 
 nounced "Enemy s ships escaping " at almost the 
 same instant, the Iowa also firing a gun to attract 
 attention. The Brooklyn s records show that she 
 made the warning signal at 9.35, having received 
 
 * "About seven," Sampson says in his report; but the distance 
 measures almost ten miles on the chart drawn up by the board of offi 
 cers appointed to make a map of the battle. 
 
274 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 it from the Iowa.* Sampson had prescribed this 
 signal in a general order dated June 7th. Elsewhere 
 in the carefully prepared instructions with which he 
 had sought to insure that there should be no un 
 readiness in any emergency that might arise, he had 
 directed that whenever the enemy appeared, " the 
 ships must close and engage as soon as possible, and 
 endeavour to sink his vessels or force them to run 
 ashore in the channel." 
 
 Even without this order, there was no doubt of 
 what was to be done. The Spaniards simple tactics 
 rendered manoeuvring unnecessary, and the re 
 markable combat that followed was a gunners and 
 engineers rather than a commanders battle. Com 
 modore Schley flew from the Brooklyn the signals 
 " Clear for action " and " Close up," but apparently 
 they were not noticed in the smoke and the excite 
 ment, as they are not recorded in the logs of the 
 other men-of-war. Sampson, when he saw what 
 was happening, put the New York about and sig 
 nalled " Close in toward harbour entrance and at 
 tack vessels," but his orders could have been visible 
 only to the easternmost of his ships. 
 
 * In The Story of the Captains, Captain Philip remarks that " when 
 so many eyes must have seen the approach of Cervera at once, it is to 
 the credit of all that none claims the distinction of having been the first 
 to discover the sally " But Captain Evans asserts that the Iowa was 
 the first to discover the Spanish ships," and accounts for it "because of 
 her position, by which she was enabled to see farther into the harbour 
 than any other ship. All the vessels," he adds, "were most vigilant 
 and watchful, as is shown by the fact that no fewer than three claim 
 to have been the first to see the Spaniards." For the Oregon, Lieuten 
 ant Eberle claims that " at twenty-eight minutes after nine, our sharp- 
 eyed chief quartermaster sighted the masthead of a ship coming from 
 behind Smith Cay." Captain Cook s view is that "it can not be de 
 termined which ship first discovered the enemy. The Iowa was first 
 to signal the fact, but the other vessels were in the act of hoisting the 
 signal arranged by the admiral." 
 
 In his official report, Captain Philip states that the Texas made the 
 signal a moment earlier than the Iowa ; but this must be a mistake. 
 Captain Evans s quartermaster had "bent on " those particular flags 
 the evening before, when suspicious columns of smoke were seen rising 
 from the harbour ; and when the Teresa was sighted they were hoisted 
 instantly. 
 
THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 275 
 
 It has been stated that Cervera s sortie caught 
 the blockading fleet napping; that most of the 
 American vessels were ready to shoot but not to 
 pursue; that with two shining exceptions their 
 engineers were " unprepared to make a quick move 
 ment of any kind in the face of the enemy." * 
 While not wholly untrue, the criticism is decidedly 
 unfair. Of course, the ships were not ready to jump 
 instantly to their highest speed. To keep them, 
 through all the weeks of the blockade, in condition 
 to use their full steaming power at a moment s no 
 tice, would have been utterly impossible. It would 
 have involved an intolerable strain upon the crews, 
 and an expenditure of fuel that would have crippled 
 the fleet s efficiency by necessitating constant re- 
 coaling. The New York had steam in four of her 
 six boilers ; the fifth was hot, the sixth was ready for 
 lighting fires ; her forward engines were discon 
 nected, as they can not be used to advantage except 
 with full boiler power. The Brooklyn, which has 
 seven boilers, had steam in three, with three more 
 full of hot water. If any ships were caught nap 
 ping it was the Iowa and the Indiana. Captain 
 Evans reports that the former could make only five 
 knots at first, quickening later to about ten ; and 
 the latter, whose machinery was not in prime con 
 dition, did no better. Readiest of all the fleet was 
 that naval bulldog, the Oregon. Her engineers, 
 who had already distinguished themselves by speed 
 ing her from San Francisco to the West Indies, won 
 fresh laurels by their ship s fine performance on the 
 3d of July a performance that entitles her chief 
 engineer, Robert Milligan, to a place among the 
 heroes of the war. The other vessel whose readi 
 ness for action deserves special mention was the 
 Gloucester. 
 
 * This criticism was made in an article published in the Engineer 
 ing Magazine, December, 1898, which attracted some attention at the 
 time. 
 
2^6 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Quickly as the crew sprang to their stations, it 
 was some few minutes * before the gunners were 
 rea ^y to fire, and they were not in 
 
 . time nor . near en 9 u g h > to prevent Cer- 
 vera s ships coming out of the chan 
 nel. But when they opened, with every gun that 
 could be brought to bear, the hail of shell that rained 
 upon the Spaniards was terrific. There was no swell 
 to render an accurate aim difficult, and the Ameri 
 can marksmanship was deadly. It drove the Span 
 ish gunners from their pieces, it made slaughter pens 
 of their decks, and, most fatal of all, it set their 
 ships on fire. When two of Cervera s cruisers the 
 Vizcaya and the Oquendo lay beside the Maine 
 in Havana harbour, Captain Sigsbee noticed the 
 " long stretch of beautiful woodwork " in their 
 cabins, and foresaw their danger of fire in battle, f 
 His forecast was verified now. The Teresa and the 
 Oquendo were ablaze after fifteen minutes fighting. 
 The former had her fire main cut by one of the first 
 shots, leaving her powerless to extinguish the flames 
 that were devouring her. 
 
 The Spanish cruisers came down the channel at 
 a speed of eight or ten knots. When they turned 
 westward they used the full power of their engines, 
 but only the Colon could quicken materially. Their 
 speed was enough, however, to carry them past the 
 American ships before the latter could get well 
 under way. The five first-rate vessels within range 
 headed in directly toward the escaping foe, the only 
 exception being a manoeuvre made by the Brooklyn, 
 out of which there subsequently grew one of the 
 innumerable controversies of the war. 
 
 The westward station of Schley s flagship placed 
 
 * "Within eight minutes," Sampson says in his report. "Within 
 five minutes," says Captain Cook. "Within three minutes," says 
 Captain Philip. "Not two minutes, it seemed to me," says Captain 
 Taylor. Under the circumstances, the discrepancy is not surprising. 
 
 f The Maine, pp. 56, 57. 
 
THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 277 
 
 her nearest to Cervera s ships when they turned to 
 starboard out of the channel ; but their line of flight 
 was close along shore, almost a mile from her. 
 The Teresa had passed, and the Vizcaya was fol 
 lowing, when the Brooklyn, which was heading to 
 the northeast, wore around to seaward. As her 
 tactical diameter that is, the space in which she 
 can go about is eight hundred yards, this move 
 ment turned her in the direction taken by the flee 
 ing Spaniards, but set her nearly half a mile farther 
 away from them. 
 
 His handling of the Brooklyn having been criti 
 cised or, perhaps it would be fairer to say, hav 
 ing been commented on with much curiosity as 
 to its precise purpose Commodore Schley subse 
 quently explained that he made his seaward turn, 
 at a moment when the other ships were follow 
 ing the order to close with the enemy, in order to 
 prevent the Brooklyn from cutting off the fire of 
 the rest of the fleet. He added that he regarded 
 it as " the crucial and deciding feature of the com 
 bat," and claimed the sinking of four ships within 
 half an hour as the result of it.* In view of this 
 it is certainly curious that in his official report of 
 the battle he makes no mention of the manoeuvre. 
 His flag captain, Captain Cook, merely records that 
 " the enemy turned to the westward to close in to 
 the land. We then wore around to starboard, bring 
 ing the starboard battery into action. The enemy 
 hugged the shore to the westward." Before his 
 later explanation, Schley s statement that " the 
 Spanish admiral s scheme was to concentrate all fire 
 for a while on the Brooklyn, and the Vizcaya to 
 ram her " was regarded as giving his reason for the 
 course he took. The commodore attributes his in 
 formation to two of Cervera s captains, but no other 
 officer seems to have noticed any threat of ramming 
 
 * Rear-Admiral Schley s statement to the Senate Committee on 
 Naval Affairs, February 19, 1899. 
 
2 ;8 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 on the part of the Vizcaya.* Cervera s general plan 
 was simply to run ; and such a bold offensive stroke 
 would have been most uncharacteristic of Spanish 
 seamanship. Moreover, had it been attempted, a 
 vessel can not ram without risk of being rammed, 
 and the Brooklyn was more than two thousand tons 
 heavier than any of the Spanish ships, as well as 
 swifter. 
 
 The Brooklyn s seaward turn was made, too, at 
 very serious risk of collision with the Texas, which 
 was coming up outside of her. It appears that when 
 Commodore Schley gave the order to port the helm, 
 Lieutenant Hodgson, navigating officer of the flag 
 ship, who was beside him on the platform around 
 the conning tower, pointed out the danger, but his 
 suggestion was disregarded.! The officers of the 
 Texas had last seen the Brooklyn heading north 
 east, toward the Spaniards ; then the smoke hid her, 
 till suddenly she appeared, Captain Philip states, 
 " bearing toward us and across our bows. She 
 seemed so near that it took our breath away. Back 
 both engines hard ! went down the tube to the 
 astonished engineers, and in a twinkling the old 
 ship was racing against herself. The collision which 
 seemed imminent, even if it was not, was averted, 
 and as the big cruiser glided past all of us on the 
 bridge gave a sigh of relief. Had the Brooklyn 
 struck us then, it would probably have been an end 
 of the Texas and her half thousand men. Had the 
 Texas rammed the Brooklyn, it would have been 
 equally disastrous ; for the Texas was not built for 
 
 * " No Spanish ship," says Captain Evans, "gave the slightest in 
 dication of using either ram or torpedo." 
 
 f An unpleasant controversy afterward arose over this incident, it 
 being stated by Lieutenant Heilner, of the Texas, who cited Lieutenant 
 Hodgson as his informant, that Schley said " Damn the Texas : let her 
 look out for herself ! " The matter being officially investigated by the 
 Navy Department, Lieutenant Hodgson testified that the commodore s 
 words were " All right ; the Texas must look out for that " or to that 
 effect. Schley himself stated (to Lieutenant Hodgson, in June, 1899) 
 that he had no recollection of any such conversation. 
 
THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 
 
 279 
 
 ramming, and she would have doubled up like a 
 hoop. Few of our ship s company knew of the in 
 cident." 
 
 The Brooklyn was still nearest to the leading 
 Spanish ships. The Iowa, the Indiana, and the 
 Texas, after pouring in a tremendous fire upon each 
 of Cervera s cruisers as it came out of the harbour 
 mouth, headed after the fugitives at the best pace 
 they could make, their guns still steadily at work. 
 The unarmoured Vixen, finding herself between the 
 two fleets, prudently turned seaward and ran out 
 side of the American ironclads. The Oregon dashed 
 forward wifh a splendid burst of speed, and drew 
 almost level with the Brooklyn. " It was an inspir 
 ing sight," the captain of Schley s flagship gener 
 ously says in his report, " to see this battle ship, 
 with a large white wave before her, and her smoke 
 stacks belching forth continued puffs from her 
 forced draught. We were making fourteen knots 
 at the time, and the Oregon came up off our star 
 board quarter at about six hundred yards and main 
 tained her position, though we soon after increased 
 our speed to fifteen knots, and just before the Colon 
 surrendered were making sixteen." f 
 
 In The Story of the Captains, Captain, Evans 
 gives an equally appreciative description. " Clark, 
 of the Oregon," he says, " put his helm to starboard, 
 and came through the lee of the Iowa with the speed 
 of a locomotive. So sudden was his change of posi 
 tion in the dense smoke that he had great difficulty, 
 as he afterward told me, in preventing his men from 
 firing into us, as they took us for one of the enemy s 
 ships. As it was, he did not waste much time, and 
 as he cleared us on our port side, his thirteen-inch 
 guns fairly raised the scalps of those in the conning- 
 
 * Century Magazine, May, 1899, p. qi. 
 
 t Captain Cook s estimate of his ship s speed was a little too high. 
 The map plotted by the official board already mentioned shows that 
 the Brooklyn s average speed in the long chase of the Colon was a little 
 more than thirteen knots, the Oregon s a trifle less. 
 
280 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 tower of the Iowa. We may all live a hundred years, 
 and fight fifty naval battles, but we can never hope 
 again to see such a sight as the Oregon was on this 
 beautiful Sunday morning. We could see her for 
 a moment only as she sped on after the Colon, com 
 pletely enveloped in the smoke of her own guns 
 a great white puffball, decorated every second with 
 vicious flashes as her guns spoke out." * 
 
 The Teresa and the Oquendo soon dropped be 
 hind the other two cruisers. Their fate had been 
 sealed by the terrific fire that met them as they left 
 the channel. Both were ablaze, and the hail of shells 
 had wrought frightful havoc on their decks. Cap 
 tain Concas, of the Teresa, had been wounded, and 
 as the second officer could not be found Admiral 
 Cervera took command in person. His ship was a 
 mass of flame and smoke. It was too late even to 
 flood the magazines, and to save her from sinking 
 in deep water the admiral ordered her beached. 
 " I thought to lower the flag, but that was not pos 
 sible, on account of the fire," Cervera says, but sev 
 eral American officers report that a white flag was 
 shown as she ran ashore. She went aground in a 
 small cove at Nima Nima, six and a half miles west 
 of the Morro, and lay there, burning fiercely, about 
 a hundred yards from the beach. 
 
 This happened at a quarter past ten. The 
 Oquendo lived just five minutes longer, and got half 
 a mile farther west, before she followed the flag 
 ship s example and ran for the shore, hauling down 
 her colours. She was on fire fore and aft, and her 
 fire pumps were disabled ; her decks were a sham 
 bles, and most of her guns had been put out of 
 action. Among the dead were her commander, 
 Captain Lagaza, who was drowned in attempting to 
 reach the shore, and his two chief officers. 
 
 The next victims of the American gunners were 
 
 * The Century Magazine, May, 1899, pp. 54, 55. 
 
THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 281 
 
 the Pluton and the Furor. The two destroyers 
 frail craft, yet dangerous weapons if properly han 
 dled were sent to sure destruction by Cervera s 
 tactics. In the broad daylight their only chance of 
 escaping, or of getting within striking distance of 
 the enemy, lay in creeping close beside the cruisers, 
 where they would have had at least a partial shel 
 ter. Coming out about fifteen minutes later than 
 the Teresa, they were doomed. The blockading 
 ships had had time to close in, and were ready to 
 meet them with a deadly fire. All four of the battle 
 ships, while their heavy guns were hammering the 
 cruisers, turned their secondary batteries upon the 
 destroyers. 
 
 The Gloucester, too, steamed in to engage them 
 at close quarters. Her attack a bold movement 
 for an unprotected yacht, whose heaviest guns were 
 six-pounders was a well-planned stroke, as well 
 as a brave one, on the part of her captain, Lieuten 
 ant-Commander Wainwright, who was executive 
 officer of the Maine at the time of the fateful ex 
 plosion of February I5th. As the Spanish cruisers 
 came out of the harbour he ordered his engines 
 slowed, gaining steam, and waiting for the expected 
 appearance of the destroyers. When the Pluton 
 and the Furor left the channel, he dashed at them 
 at full speed. Captain Taylor, of the Indiana, sig 
 nalled " Enemy s torpedo boats coming out," but in 
 the smoke Wainwright read it as " Gunboats will 
 advance," which he interpreted as an assurance that 
 he would not be fired on by his own ships ; and 
 though he narrowly escaped the fire of both the 
 Indiana and the Iowa, he closed in upon the de 
 stroyers, training his forward guns upon the Pluton, 
 his after guns upon the Furor, and getting within 
 six hundred yards range. 
 
 Both were disabled within three miles of the 
 Morro. At half past ten the Pluton, with fire and 
 smoke bursting from her decks, turned shoreward, 
 
282 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 and ran upon the rocks west of the Cabanas inlet, 
 where she blew up and settled in the surf. The Furor, 
 also on fire, was circling about help- 
 
 less{ y> and as a white fla s. was waved 
 
 from her deck Wainwright ceased 
 firing and launched his boats, to rescue the crews, 
 and to see if there was any chance of saving the 
 prizes. The boats had taken aboard Lieutenant 
 Carlier and eighteen of his men, and were picking 
 up the survivors of the Pluton, when there was a 
 series of explosions on the Furor; her bow rose 
 into the air, and she went down stern first in deep 
 water. 
 
 The Gloucester s boats saved twenty-six men 
 from the Pluton, including her captain, Lieutenant 
 Vazquez. Captain Villamil, commanding the two 
 destroyers, was on the Furor, and perished with 
 her.* A few refugees from both vessels, with some 
 from the Teresa and the Oquendo, escaped to the 
 shore and made their way back to Santiago, swim 
 ming the Cabanas inlet. 
 
 Credit for the destruction of the Pluton and the 
 Furor has been claimed as the sole possession of the 
 Gloucester. Lieutenant Huse, executive officer of 
 the plucky yacht, states in his report that after Cap 
 tain Taylor s signal " it appeared that the fight be 
 tween this ship and the two apparently uninjured 
 destroyers was a thing apart from the battle in which 
 the larger ships were engaged." Lieutenant-Com 
 mander Wainwright, though he mentions the fact 
 that " the Indiana poured in a hot fire from all her 
 secondary batteries upon the destroyers," asserts 
 that until the Gloucester closed with them " they 
 were not seriously injured." 
 
 On the other hand, Captain Taylor s version is 
 that when the Teresa and the Oquendo gave up the 
 fight, " we (the Indiana) then devoted our special 
 
 * Remains identified as those of Captain Villamil were found among 
 the rocks on the beach in March, 1899. 
 
THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 
 
 28 3 
 
 attention to prevent the escape of the destroyers, 
 which appeared more than a match for the Glou 
 cester. They were soon seen to blow up, apparently 
 struck by our six-inch and six-pounders." Captain 
 Eaton, of the Resolute, corroborates this, testifying 
 that he distinctly saw the Furor " struck by an 
 eight-inch or thirteen-inch shell from the Indiana, 
 which was followed by an explosion and flames." 
 
 Furthermore, Captain Evans asserts that the fire 
 of the Iowa, " together with that of the Gloucester 
 and another smaller vessel,* proved so . destructive 
 that one of the torpedo-boat destroyers (Pluton) was 
 sunk, and the Furor was so much damaged that she 
 was run upon the rocks." Captain Philip claims a 
 share of the work for the Texas. " Owing to our 
 secondary battery," he says, " together with the 
 Iowa and Gloucester, the two destroyers were forced 
 to beach and sink." And Captain Clark, of the Ore 
 gon, adds that " when it was discovered that the 
 enemy s torpedo boats were following their ships, 
 we used our rapid-fire guns, as well as the six-inch, 
 upon them with telling effect." The New York 
 also fired some four-inch shells the only shots she 
 discharged in the battle at the Furor. 
 
 Other ships, besides the Indiana, claim the shots 
 that exploded the two boats. " One of our heavy 
 shells," says Captain Taylor, " was seen to strike 
 one of the destroyers, an explosion and flames fol 
 lowing." In narrating the fate of the Furor, Captain 
 Evans writes : " A large projectile, we believed from 
 the Iowa, seemed to cut her in two." Captain Philip 
 also describes her explosion, and adds : " The men 
 of the Texas have always insisted that this was 
 caused by a shell from Ensign W. K. Gise s six-inch 
 gun." Lieutenant Eberle, of the Oregon, records 
 that " the plucky little vessels fought their guns 
 
 * This seems to be an error, as the Gloucester was the only smaller 
 vessel engaged. Captain Evans also confuses the Pluton and the 
 Furor. 
 
 19 
 
284 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 until a shell which, it is claimed, was fired by our 
 after six-inch gun struck the Furor amidships and 
 caused an explosion. The torpedo boat was literally 
 torn to pieces." 
 
 No doubt none of Sampson s captains had the 
 least desire to claim more than his due, but it is 
 easy to understand that all of them were, as the 
 admiral said, " vitally interested and justly proud 
 of their ships." Sampson s report gives what is 
 probably a very fair summary of the matter: 
 
 The destroyers probably suffered much injury from 
 the fire of the secondary batteries of the battle ships 
 Iowa, Indiana, and the Texas. Yet I think a very consid 
 erable factor in their speedy destruction was the fire, at 
 close range, of the Gloucester s battery. 
 
 From the wreck of the Pluton the Gloucester s 
 boats went on to the Teresa and the Oquendo. The 
 Spanish flagship had lowered a boat, which sank at 
 once, and a steam launch, which also went down 
 after making one journey to the beach. The admiral 
 jumped overboard, and his son, Lieutenant Angel 
 Cervera, and two sailors helped him ashore, where 
 he surrendered to Lieutenant Norman of the Glou 
 cester. The work of rescue was rendered perilous 
 by the explosion of guns and ammunition on board 
 the burning cruisers. The Teresa s magazines had 
 flooded as she filled with water, but one of the 
 Oquendo s blew up, shattering the forward part of 
 the ship. Farther aft her torpedoes added to the 
 destruction, and she was left a hopeless wreck, her 
 frame practically broken in two. Her flag, and 
 those of the two destroyers, were captured by the 
 Gloucester s boats. 
 
 Meanwhile the Colon and the Vizcaya were flee 
 ing westward, hotly pursued by the Brooklyn and 
 the Oregon, with the Texas following, 
 
 drivwMhwe and the Iowa and the Indiana doin g 
 
 their best to keep up with the chase. 
 The Colon passed her consort about half past ten, 
 
THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 285 
 
 and drew out of range of the American ships ; but 
 the Vizcaya was still under fire from all five, 
 and in twenty minutes more her race was over. 
 Burning, and with a heavy list to port, she 
 was headed for the shore, and after veering about 
 as if in indecision she was run ashore in the small 
 bay of Aserraderos, twenty miles west of the 
 Morro. 
 
 The Vixen, which had followed the pursuit, was 
 in time to fire a few shots at the Vizcaya before 
 her flag went down. The New York, which had 
 turned westward at sight of the escaping Spaniards, 
 and had passed through the fire of the Morro and 
 Socapa batteries without deigning to return it, was 
 now coming up, accompanied by the Ericsson and 
 the Hist. The Ericsson had her torpedoes ready for 
 use, but she was too late to get within striking dis 
 tance. 
 
 As there was now no enemy afloat but the Colon, 
 who was too fast for him, and whom the swifter 
 ships were pretty sure to overtake, Captain Evans 
 sent five of the Iowa s boats to take off the crew of 
 the burning Vizcaya. The rescuers, who were rein 
 forced from the Ericsson and the Hist, kept up their 
 dangerous work in the face of constant explosions 
 both of the cruiser s main magazines blew up until 
 there were no more living men to save. Captain 
 Eulate was taken aboard the Iowa. He had his 
 sword, and proffered it, in token of surrender, to 
 Captain Evans, who chivalrously declined to re 
 ceive it. 
 
 Sampson had already ordered the Indiana to 
 return to her blockading station a wise precaution, 
 as there were still a couple of armed vessels in San 
 tiago harbour, which might have wrought havoc 
 among the. transports at Siboney and he now sent 
 back the Iowa and the Ericsson, leaving the Hist to 
 stand by the Vizcaya. Of Cervera s ships, only the 
 Colon was left. At this time she had a lead of six 
 
286 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 miles, but it is evident that Captain Moreu had no 
 hope of escape. He kept close along shore, follow 
 ing the bends of the coast, while his pursuers steered 
 straight forward to cut him off. A little after eleven 
 o clock, when the Vizcaya turned shoreward, the 
 Brooklyn was three quarters of a mile ahead of the 
 Oregon, both ships having now worked up to a speed 
 of quite or nearly fifteen knots, and gaining steadily 
 on the Colon. The Vixen was nearly abeam of the 
 Oregon, but farther seaward ; the Texas was a mile 
 and a half from the Oregon, and not quite holding 
 her own in the race ; the New York was six miles 
 behind the Texas, steaming a little faster than any 
 of the other vessels. 
 
 It was an exciting race, but its end was certain. 
 At twenty minutes after twelve the Oregon was near 
 enough to the quarry to open fire at 
 
 ! on g ran & e wit1 } her g reat thirteen- 
 inch rifles. A little later the Brook 
 lyn began to use her eight-inch guns, but her shots 
 fell short. A thirteen-inch shell from the Oregon, 
 however, fell just ahead of the Colon, and another 
 struck under her stern ; and at a quarter past one 
 she turned into the cove at the mouth of the Rio 
 Turquino (" Blue River "), fifty-four miles west 
 of Santiago harbour, and ran for the shore, haul 
 ing down her flag. Commodore Schley sent Cap 
 tain Cook on board to receive her surrender. 
 Captain Moreu, Cook reports, " surrendered un 
 conditionally. He was polite, shook hands, and 
 said that his case was hopeless, and that he saw 
 we were too much for him." Captain Paredes, 
 second in command of the Spanish squadron, was 
 also on the Colon. 
 
 As Captain Cook left the Colon the New York 
 and the Texas came up, and he went aboard the 
 flagship to report to Sampson. The admiral ordered 
 Captain Chadwick to take over the prize. After 
 transferring the prisoners five hundred and eight 
 
THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 287 
 
 in number to the Resolute, which had followed the 
 chase, he left Lieutenant-Commander Cogswell, of 
 the Oregon, in charge, with a crew from the Oregon 
 and the New York. But the fine Spanish cruiser 
 was not destined to be of service to her captors. 
 Her sea valves had been opened, and so broken that 
 they could not be closed. Many of her crew were 
 drunk, and Lieutenant Eberle, of the Oregon, states 
 that they deliberately damaged the vessel s arma 
 ment and equipment. It is said that her firemen 
 had been ashore without food for thirty-six hours, 
 and on their return to the ship brandy was given 
 them. Demoralization resulted, and a number of 
 men were shot by the officers for abandoning their 
 places in the fireroom. The Colon had been run 
 upon a steep beach, where the water was seventy 
 feet deep at her stern and only eight at her bow ; 
 but as she settled she slipped backward, and was 
 in danger of going down in deep water. Captain 
 Chadwick thereupon placed the New York s stem 
 against her, and pushed her bodily up on the beach. 
 Here she gradually settled, in spite of all efforts to 
 stop her leaks ; and finally, just after the prize crew 
 abandoned her, she went over on her starboard 
 beam ends. 
 
 An hour before midnight Sampson started the 
 New York for Santiago, leaving the Oregon and 
 the Texas to stay by the Colon. Except for the 
 breaking of her valves, the captured cruiser was 
 practically uninjured when she sank, and it was fully 
 though, as it proved, mistakenly expected that 
 she could be raised. She showed the marks of only 
 half a dozen shells, probably received as she left 
 the harbour, and some of them had not penetrated 
 her armour. Her handling during the battle was not 
 creditable to the Spaniards. Rated at twenty knots 
 an hour, she allowed the sixteen-knot Oregon to 
 overhaul her ; she was surrendered practically with 
 out a fight though this is to a great extent excused 
 
2 88 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 by the fact that she was without her heavy guns 
 and most ingloriously scuttled. 
 
 The battle was over, and one of the greatest and 
 most complete of naval victories had been won. 
 The Spanish squadron was utterly de- 
 stroyed. Of its complement of about 
 twenty-three hundred men, some 
 three hundred and fifty were killed, burned, or 
 drowned ; the rest except those who escaped to 
 Santiago were prisoners.* The American fleet 
 was practically unscathed. It had lost one man 
 killed Chief Yeoman Ellis, of the Brooklyn, who 
 was struck by a shell and ten wounded, none fatal 
 ly, most of the cases being injuries to eardrums from 
 the concussion of the guns. The ships were scarcely 
 marked by the torrent of ill-aimed fire that had 
 come from the fleeing Spaniards. 
 
 The Brooklyn showed most traces of the fight 
 chiefly in her rigging and upper works, the Span 
 ish gunners having fired high, as seems to be their 
 inveterate habit. The flag at her main was shot 
 to pieces, and her signal halyards repeatedly cut. 
 In all she was struck by twenty shells, besides 
 pieces of bursting projectiles and small shot from 
 machine guns. Of the other ships, the Oregon was 
 hit three times, the Indiana twice, by fragments or 
 small-calibre missiles which did no damage. A six- 
 inch shell struck the Texas, going through her ash 
 
 * The prisoners captured on July 3d were confined at Annapolis 
 and at Portsmouth, N. H., the number being: 93 at the former place 
 and 1,681 at the latter, besides a few sick and wounded men sent to the 
 Naval Hospital at Norfolk, and 8 who, through a regrettable misunder 
 standing, were shot and killed by their guards on board the Harvard, 
 during a false alarm of mutiny. The number of those who escaped to 
 Santiago is stated by Lieutenant Mullerat about 150. Stories are told, 
 both by Spaniards and by Americans, of unarmed refugees being mur 
 dered by Cubans ; but it is fair to add that Cervera, who mentions that 
 the insurgents temporarily held about 200 prisoners from the Teresa 
 and the Oquendo, makes no complaint of ill treatment, and Lieutenant 
 Hazeltine, of the Hist, reports that Cubans at Aserraderos helped in 
 the rescue of the Vizcaya s crew, and gave " first aid" to some of the 
 wounded men. 
 
THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 289 
 
 hoist and injuring her forced-draught apparatus. 
 The Iowa received two of about the same calibre, 
 which pierced her hull, but did no material harm, 
 though one started a small fire ; and about seven 
 minor projectiles, which left only trifling marks. 
 The Gloucester, which went nearest to the enemy s 
 guns, seemed to bear a charmed life, for not a shot 
 touched her. At one moment of the battle she had 
 a narrow escape. As she closed with the destroyers, 
 her crew could hear, amid the roar of cannon, the 
 drumming sound of a machine gun, and could trace 
 its fire by a line of splashes, about as long as their 
 ship, and steadily drawing nearer as the Spaniards 
 gauged the range. It was from a one-pounder 
 Maxim on the Furor, and if its stream of shot reached 
 the Gloucester, even for a few minutes, it meant ter 
 rible slaughter on her decks ; but when the splashes 
 were only a few yards away they suddenly ceased 
 the gun, no doubt, having been put out of action by 
 the American fire. 
 
 The completeness of Cervera s defeat is not ade 
 quately explained by his squadron s inferiority to 
 the enemy it had to meet. The Span- 
 causes of the ish ac i m i ra i states j n his report that 
 
 American (( . . M r , r . 
 
 victory the hostile forces were three times 
 
 as large as ours." Lieutenant Miiller 
 calculates that " six ships, if the Pluton and Furor 
 may be called such, had to fight against twenty- 
 four that were better protected and armed." These 
 are utter misrepresentations. The battle was fought, 
 on the American side, by six ships the battle ships 
 Iowa, Oregon, Indiana, and Texas, the cruiser 
 Brooklyn, and the converted yacht Gloucester. An 
 other auxiliary, the Vixen, must be added to the 
 list, as she was present throughout the fight, though 
 her part in it was little more than that of a spec 
 tator. The New York, though she fired a few shots, 
 was practically out of the JDattle. The Hist, the 
 Ericsson, the Harvard, and the Resolute came up 
 
2QO THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 only in time to receive the prisoners. No other 
 American ship was present at all. Some of the 
 twenty-four vessels listed by Lieutenant Miiller were 
 as far away as Manila. 
 
 The comparative gun power of two fleets may 
 be stated in various ways. The seven American 
 vessels engaged at Santiago had a total of 225 guns 
 to Cervera s 146, and they had 14 guns the twelve- 
 and thirteen-inch rifles of the battle ships heavier 
 than anything the Spaniards carried. In the me 
 dium-sized weapons, with which most execution was 
 done, the Spanish ships were better off. The Amer 
 ican ships had 64 guns of calibres from four to 
 eight inches, only 18 of which were rapid-firers; 
 Cervera had 46 rapid-fire guns of calibres from four 
 and a half to six inches. Not all the guns, of course, 
 on either side, could be used. A published calcula 
 tion by Lieutenant Wells, of the Brooklyn, esti 
 mates that the number actually engaged during the 
 battle was 105 on the American ships and 91 on 
 the Spanish, and that the weight of metal they could 
 throw per minute was respectively 6,720 and 4,827 
 pounds. As a summary of all these figures it is 
 probably fair to say that on paper the American 
 gun fire was superior to the enemy s by fully fifty 
 per cent.* In this no account is taken of the shore 
 batteries, which maintained a brisk but quite ineffec 
 tive fire during the early part of the battle. 
 
 Several of the Spanish cruisers guns, Lieutenant 
 Miiller states as Cervera also stated before he left 
 the Cape Verde Islands were out of order, and 
 some of their ammunition was defective ; but it was 
 not so much the better guns as the better gunnery 
 that won the sweeping victory. It was the same 
 story that was told in Manila Bay two months be- 
 
 * Captain Taylor records that Admiral Cervera, a few hours after 
 the battle, said that he had estimated Sampson s force as four times 
 stronger than his own. u The odds," adds the commander of the In 
 diana, " were surely exaggerated in the mind of this gallant officer." 
 
THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 
 
 2 9 I 
 
 fore. Sampson s men had a special advantage in 
 the practice they had had during the blockade. 
 Their fire killed the enemy s fire, and would have 
 done so had the Spaniards possessed twice the bat 
 teries they had. Another very important factor in 
 the result was the extensive use of wood in the con 
 struction of the Spanish ships. With the possible 
 exception of the Furor, none of Cervera s vessels 
 was destroyed by the direct effect of shot and shell ; 
 all of them but the Colon perished by fire, the flames 
 being started by exploding projectiles, and the dis 
 abling of pumps and hose leaving them to spread 
 unchecked. 
 
 There is scarcely a chapter of history, however 
 stately or terrible, that has not its footnote of com 
 edy ; and such was the case with the 
 Adventures of storv o f t } ie Santiago sea fight, bril- 
 
 IndthrReso- liant with trium P h for America, and 
 lute, July i. tragic with ruin and death for the 
 ships and sailors of Spain. A gleam 
 of humour is to be found in the adventures of certain 
 minor members of Sampson s fleet. 
 
 When Cervera s ships came out of the harbour, 
 the Resolute, as has been said, lay east of the Morro, 
 near the Indiana. She had on her decks several tons 
 of guncotton, which Sampson intended to use in an 
 attempt to explode the channel mines, in order to 
 remove the obstructions most to be dreaded in forc 
 ing an entrance to the harbour. When the shells 
 began to fly, Captain Eaton regarded his position 
 as too perilous, and made full speed for Siboney. 
 Meeting the New York, he informed Sampson of 
 Cervera s sortie a service which the admiral neg 
 lects to acknowledge in his report, possibly because 
 he could see for himself what had happened and 
 was ordered to " proceed to Guantanamo and notify 
 the ships there to join the fleet." Passing Siboney 
 on this mission, vigorously sounding his whistle, 
 and flying a signal which announced that the Span- 
 
292 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 iards " had fled," he caused much natural alarm to 
 the transports lying there. Captain Cotton, of the 
 Harvard, who was discharging stores in the bay, 
 hastily recalled his boats, and stood westward after 
 Sampson, his ship cleared for action. 
 
 From Siboney the news, becoming more and 
 more alarming as it travelled, was cabled to Playa 
 del Este, on Guantanamo Bay. The Suwanee, 
 which had been coaling in the bay, was just putting 
 to sea, when Commander McCalla of the Marble- 
 head, lying at Playa, signalled her to wait for him ; 
 and coming within hailing distance, he informed her 
 captain, Lieutenant-Commander Delehanty, that 
 " the Spanish fleet had escaped from Santiago de 
 Cuba, and was in all probability on its way to this 
 port to destroy unarmed vessels." On this appalling 
 intelligence, Delehanty called his line officers three 
 in number about him, and explained the situation. 
 A month ago, he told them, the Navy Department 
 had stated that if Cervera s squadron escaped the 
 service would be disgraced. Apparently that mis 
 fortune had come to it; and the four line officers of 
 the Suwanee, without a dissenting voice, resolved 
 to do all in their power to redeem the reputation of 
 the American navy. All this is modestly recorded 
 in Lieutenant-Commander Delehanty s report, 
 which continues : 
 
 I thereupon directed these officers to draw the com 
 mon charges from the guns, to load with armour-piercing 
 shell, and to which parts of the enemy s ships they should 
 direct their fire. We were in a small gunboat, with a 
 maximum speed of ten knots, standing out to meet a 
 fleet of heavily armed armoured cruisers with reputed 
 speed of double ours. Under other circumstances it would 
 have been my duty to avoid so unequal a conflict. I 
 felt the full responsibility of making the decision, and I 
 record with pride that not a man flinched when it was 
 made known. 
 
 Unfortunately for history, the Suwanee did not 
 encounter the Spanish fleet, and an hour or so 
 
THE SANTIAGO SEA FIGHT 
 
 293 
 
 later the Dupont brought news of its destruction. 
 Meanwhile the Resolute had been spreading a sec 
 ond alarm. Off Daiquiri, on the way eastward, she 
 sighted a "large, strange man-of-war," whose colours 
 Captain Eaton took to be Spanish. He promptly 
 faced about, and steamed at full speed to give notice 
 of this new and entirely unexpected enemy. After 
 warning the transports at Siboney this was an ex 
 citing morning for nervous skippers he continued 
 westward till he met the Indiana, returning from the 
 wrecks of Cervera s cruisers, and informed her that 
 a " Spanish battle ship " was approaching. While 
 the Resolute passed on to find Sampson, Captain 
 Taylor stood for the mysterious stranger with his 
 guns ready for use, and found her to be the Aus 
 trian cruiser Kaiserin Maria Theresa a name curi 
 ously like that of Cervera s flagship which desired 
 permission to enter the blockaded harbour. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 
 
 ON the morning of July 3d, Lieutenant Allen, 
 of the Second Cavalry, stationed on Lawton s ex 
 treme right, saw the departure of Cervera s fleet, 
 and at once sent word to Shafter s headquarters. 
 The scene of the great sea fight was screened from 
 the armies ashore by the high hills along the coast, 
 and its result was not known till after noon, when 
 news came from Siboney that all the Spanish ships 
 but one had been destroyed. That the Colon had 
 shared the fate of her consorts was not reported 
 until the following day. 
 
 To Santiago, too, the news came slowly. Half 
 an hour after noon a message from the Morro told 
 of the loss of the two destroyers ; but not until 
 evening did refugees from the Teresa and the 
 Oquendo come in with their story of disaster, and 
 the fate of Cervera s other vessels was not known 
 until the officers of the Kaiserin Maria Theresa re 
 ported it next morning. The Austrian cruiser and 
 a small British man-of-war, the Alert, came to take 
 away from the doomed city residents claiming the 
 protection of their flags. Neither ship entered the 
 harbour ; they lay off the Morro, and the refugees 
 were taken out to them in boats. 
 
 Toral had already answered the demand for 
 capitulation. " It is mv duty to sav to you that this 
 city will not surrender," was his reply, which 
 294 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 295 
 
 reached Shafter at half past six on the 3d. Firing 
 which had ceased in the morning, when the flag 
 of truce left the American lines was not resumed, 
 as four of the foreign consuls in Santiago came out 
 with Colonel Dorst, Shafter s messenger, and 
 begged for a day s respite. They stated that fifteen 
 or twenty thousand people desired to leave the city, 
 and begged that the noncombatants should be 
 allowed to occupy the village of Caney, and be sup 
 plied with food. Shafter at once wrote to Toral that 
 he would not bombard until noon of the 5th, if in 
 the meantime no move were made against him, and 
 requested that the consuls would come out again 
 next morning for another interview. 
 
 That same evening (July 3d) Colonel Escario s 
 column from Manzanillo marched into Santiago 
 from the west, by the Cobre road, 
 apparently without resistance from 
 Garcia, who had undertaken to stop 
 it. Although this added thirty-five hundred soldiers 
 to the garrison, it made little change in the situation. 
 When Shafter heard of it, on the 4th * Garcia re 
 ported that five thousand men had passed in he 
 sent a message to Wheeler warning him to be ready 
 in case of attack ; but with Cervera s fleet destroyed, 
 and with some reinforcements arriving and more 
 promised, he felt strong enough to hold his position 
 without any difficulty, except, perhaps, in the event 
 of a larger body of Spaniards coming up from Hol- 
 guin. Escario s advent meant that Toral would have 
 more mouths to feed for the newcomers had ex 
 hausted their rations during the march from Man 
 zanillo and more men to surrender. 
 
 * On the evening of July 3d, Shafter had telegraphed to Washing 
 ton : "To-night my lines completely surround the town from the bay 
 on the north of the city to a point on the San Juan River on the south. 
 General Pando, I find to-night, is some distance away, and will not 
 get into Santiago " a despatch that shows imperfect information both 
 as to the movements of the enemy and even as to the situation of his 
 own troops. 
 
296 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Of Shafter s reinforcements, the Ninth Massa 
 chusetts had come up from Siboney on the 2d, and 
 other troops were reported on their way from Tampa 
 and Newport News. On the 3d General Miles tele 
 graphed from Washington : 
 
 I expect to be with you within one week with strong 
 reinforcements. 
 
 When the consuls came out again on the morn 
 ing of the 4th, Lieutenant Miley, representing 
 Shafter, conferred with them upon the question of 
 quartering and feeding the noncombatants. It was 
 a difficult problem, because Caney, a village of three 
 hundred houses at most,* had been shelled during 
 the battle of July ist, and contained many wounded 
 men and some unburied dead ; it was fifteen miles 
 from Shafter s base of supplies, and all that he could 
 promise to furnish was the simplest food bread, 
 bacon, sugar, and coffee for not more than three 
 or four thousand. The consuls were advised to keep 
 the people in the city as long as possible, unless a 
 bombardment should be ordered, and to send them 
 out gradually as their provisions became exhausted ; 
 and another conference was arranged for the follow 
 ing day, the 5th. 
 
 The events of the night, however, precipitated 
 matters. 
 
 Fearing lest the batteries and the mines might 
 
 not avail, without the support of Cervera s fleet, to 
 
 prevent Sampson from forcing an en- 
 
 sinkingofthe trance to the harbour and putting an 
 
 Mercedes, , ,.. ., .,. . . 
 
 juiy 4 . end to all possibility of further resist 
 
 ance, General Toral and the com 
 mandant of the port decided upon an attempt to 
 block the channel by sinking the Reina Mercedes 
 at its narrowest point. It was a repetition of the 
 Merrimac manoeuvre, and it proved equally unsuc- 
 
 * Lieutenant Muller gives the number as two hundred ; Mr. Rams- 
 den, who was among the refugees, as three hundred. 
 
^*~~- r "Y 
 
 THE SURRENDER OF Sj~ 
 
 cessful. The dismantled cruiser her guns had al 
 ready been taken ashore was hastily stripped dur 
 ing the 4th, and an hour before midnight her com 
 mander, Ensign Nardiz, and a few engineers and 
 sailors moved her down the harbour, intending to 
 drop her bow and stern anchors, swing her across 
 the channel, and open her valves. 
 
 Shafter had notified Sampson that fighting on 
 land was suspended, but the admiral did not regard 
 the truce as applying to the navy, and he still kept 
 up the nightly watch with searchlights. As soon 
 as the Mercedes came into view the Massachusetts, 
 which was the ship on guard duty, and the Texas, 
 which lay beside her, opened fire, and the shore 
 batteries replied. A mortar shell from the latter 
 struck the Indiana, going through her forward 
 deck and exploding below, where it did some 
 damage but hurt none of her crew. This was the 
 only hit the Spanish mortars scored during the 
 campaign. 
 
 The Mercedes went down at the intended spot, 
 but not in the intended position, a shell so her 
 crew reported having cut her stern anchor loose 
 prematurely. Next morning (July 5th) the Suwanee 
 reconnoitred close in, and reported that the chan 
 nel was not closed by the sunken ship, which lay 
 with her upper deck partly submerged; but it was 
 thought that she would prove a dangerous obstruc 
 tion to Sampson s larger ships. 
 
 An immediate result of the midnight firing was 
 a panic in Santiago. Fully believing that the Amer 
 ican fleet was forcing the harbour, the inhabitants 
 poured out of the city, and on the morning of the 
 5th the Caney road was thronged with women, chil 
 dren, and old men, who during the remaining days 
 of the siege, in spite of the efforts of Shafter s com 
 missary department and of the Red Cross organiza 
 tion, had to endure terrible sufferings. Many fugi 
 tives fled to camps in the mountains ; others sought 
 
298 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 refuge along the shores of the bay; and Santiago 
 was almost emptied of all but soldiers.* 
 
 During these days of truce, and the week that 
 followed, the American lines were gradually ex- 
 sie -ofsar tend ed, north of the city, until Lud- 
 tia^o 6 , jui y a "-i7. low s brigade, on the extreme right of 
 Lawton s division, finally closed the 
 gap through which Escario had entered, command 
 ing the Cobre road and touching the head of the 
 bay.f Two of the field batteries (Capron s and 
 Parkhurst s, the latter now commanded by Lieuten 
 ant Hinds) were brought up from El Pozo and sta 
 tioned with Lawton ; the other two (Grimes s and 
 Best s) were also moved forward to a position in 
 the rear of Bates s brigade, on the left of the army. 
 The field mortars were sent up to San Juan, and 
 one of the siege guns was disembarked at Siboney, 
 but it was found impossible to carry it over the 
 muddy trail to the front. J Besides strengthening 
 his own lines, Shafter endeavoured to cripple the 
 
 * Lieutenant M filler gives a striking picture of the desolation of the 
 beleaguered city : 
 
 "Santiago presented the same aspect that Pompeii and Hercula- 
 neum must have offered. Not a single store was open, not even the 
 drug stores. A few horses were running through the city, pulling up 
 the grass growing along the sidewalks. Many dogs were staying at 
 the entrances of the houses, which their masters had abandoned. At 
 night they barked incessantly. 
 
 " At night the city was truly impressive. The streets were dark as 
 wolves dens. A few guerrillas were breaking into abandoned stores 
 and houses, which they ransacked." 
 
 To suppress such robberies General Toral issued a special decree 
 fixing death or life imprisonment as the penalty for offences against 
 persons cr property. 
 
 f The Spaniards ?eem to have been able to use the Cobre road as 
 late as the loth of July, for Garcia reported on that day that he had 
 driven in the enemy s outposts at Cobre and Dos Caminos. On the 
 afternoon of the nth Ludlow s lines were extended down t the bay. 
 
 % Some of these movements do not seem to have been in strict ac 
 cordance with the rather indefinite truce between the two armies. On 
 July 1 2th Toral called Shafter s attention to the advance of the Ameri 
 can troops north of the city, "of which," the Spanish general said, " I 
 suppose you are ignorant," and requested that they should return to 
 their former position. It does not appear that any withdrawal resulted, 
 but Shafter promised that there should be no further advance, and sent 
 the division commanders explicit orders to that effect. 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 299 
 
 enemy by cutting the pipe that brought water to 
 Santiago from the hills north of the city. In the 
 dry season this might have been an effective stroke ; 
 but with heavy rain falling daily, the Spaniards had 
 an ample supply in cisterns for their immediate 
 needs.* 
 
 Shafter s position grew stronger day by day 
 he telegraphed to the War Department, on the 8th, 
 that it was " impregnable against any force the 
 enemy can send "-but the task of storming Toral s 
 defences did not promise to be less difficult or less 
 costly. At one time, indeed, the idea of abandoning 
 the siege occurred to him, as is shown by a despatch 
 he sent to Washington on the 4th : 
 
 If we have got to try and reduce the town, now that 
 the fleet is destroyed, which was stated to be the chief 
 object of the expedition, there must be no delay in getting 
 large bodies of troops here. 
 
 At Washington, General Miles took up the sug 
 gestion of withdrawing from Santiago, and proposed 
 that Shafter s corps, with all the reinforcements 
 ready to leave the United States, should be sent to 
 Porto Rico, the conquest of which he was eager to 
 undertake at once. He was overruled, however 
 and fortunately, for the withdrawal would have re 
 vived the drooping hopes of Spain, while the city s 
 fall undoubtedly prompted her Government to sue 
 for peace. 
 
 With " take Santiago " the keynote of every 
 despatch from Washington, Shafter contemplated an 
 assault only as a last resort. He kept up negotiations 
 for a surrender, and meanwhile he urged Sampson 
 to force his way into the harbour and end the cam 
 paign with the great guns of the fleet. His first 
 
 * It seems, however, from Lieutenant M filler s narrative, that in the 
 last days of the siege a shortage was beginning to be felt, or at least 
 apprehended ; and the immediate repair of the broken pipes was one 
 of the concessions requested by the Spanish commissioners who nego 
 tiated the surrender. 
 
 20 
 
300 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 note to Toral, written on July 3d, was followed up 
 by three letters on the 4th. One offered to parole 
 and return the wounded men captured at Caney. 
 Another proposed the exchange of a corresponding 
 number of Spanish prisoners for Lieutenant Hobson 
 and his seven comrades of the Merrimac, who were 
 still held in Santiago, Blanco having declined to 
 authorize their release. The third announced the 
 destruction of Cervera s squadron and the death of 
 Vara del Rey at Caney, and concluded : 
 
 In view of the above, I would suggest that, to save 
 needless effusion of blood and the distress of many people, 
 you may reconsider your determination of yesterday. 
 Your men have certainly shown the gallantry which was 
 expected of them. 
 
 The return of the wounded Spaniards, besides its 
 slight relief to Shafter s overworked hospital serv 
 ice, was designed to disprove the idea that the in 
 vading army was in the habit of murdering its 
 prisoners. The behaviour of the men captured at 
 Caney showed that this preposterous myth had 
 found wide credence among the Spanish soldiers. 
 Many Americans thought that it accounted for the 
 unexpectedly stubborn resistance they had offered, 
 and that it had been deliberately spread by their 
 officers. 
 
 Toral replied to all three notes with a letter of 
 the most formal politeness, thanking Shafter for his 
 courtesy, informing him that the proposition for 
 Hobson s exchange had been referred to the captain- 
 general, and again refusing to surrender. 
 
 Next day (July 5th) twenty-eight wounded pris 
 oners four officers, one of whom was Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Vara del Rey, a brother of the dead general, 
 and twenty-four men were delivered to the Span 
 iards ; and word came from Toral that Blanco had 
 agreed to the exchange for Hobson, which was car 
 ried out on the afternoon of the 6th. Besides the 
 four he had paroled, Shafter had three Spanish offi- 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 
 
 301 
 
 cers among his prisoners. From them Toral chose 
 Lieutenant Arias, who was sent into Santiago with 
 seven privates ; and the crew of the Merrimac came 
 out to the American lines, where they received a 
 warm greeting on their way to Siboney and the 
 fleet. With these pacific negotiations in progress, 
 firing was not resumed, though the limit set for the 
 truce had expired at noon on the 5th. 
 
 A conference between Shafter and Sampson 
 postponed from the 3d of July, when the admiral, 
 
 on his way to Siboney, was called back 
 Misunderstand- by t h e events of that memorable 
 L n h K aftTnd n morning had been arranged for the 
 Sampson. 6th. A serious misunderstanding had 
 
 arisen between the two commanders, 
 dating back to their meeting on the 2Oth of June, the 
 day of the arrival of the Fifth Corps off Santiago, 
 when the joint plan of campaign was first outlined. 
 Of this plan Sampson has stated his idea very clearly 
 and positively in a report dated July I5th: 
 
 It was essential . . . that the positions occupied by 
 the eastern and western batteries should be carried, and 
 this was the scheme of action first proposed by General 
 Shafter in his discussion with my chief of staff, who was 
 sent by me to meet General Shafter the day of his arrival. 
 The chief of staff carried with him a chart of the harbour 
 and explained the situation, stating that it was regarded 
 by us as a movement of primal importance that these 
 points should be carried before any attention was paid to 
 the city. The possession of these points insured the de 
 struction of the mines by us, the entrance of our heavy 
 ships in the harbour, and the assault on Admiral Cervera s 
 squadron inside. To this General Shafter gave most cor 
 dial assent, and stated that he had no intention of attack 
 ing the city proper, that here [pointing to the entrance] 
 was the key to the situation, and that when we had this 
 we had all. This was repeated in his interview with Gen 
 eral Garcia at Aserraderos. 
 
 I do not know why a change of plan occurred, unless 
 it was that the troops on being landed advanced them 
 selves so far on the roads toward Santiago before any 
 specific plan of operations had been decided upon that it 
 was found inconvenient to divert them to the other points. 
 
302 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 On the other hand, Shafter s memorandum of 
 the conference at Aserraderos which he dictated 
 on the spot to Lieutenant Miley, of his staff, and of 
 which Lieutenant Staunton, of Sampson s staff, took 
 a copy makes no mention of the harbour batteries, 
 simply recording the proposal to " land expedition 
 at Daiquiri and march on Santiago." In his article 
 published in the Century Magazine the general 
 adds: 
 
 Soon after coming on board the Seguranga, some of 
 the naval officers suggested that, in their opinion, the 
 first thing to do was to drive the Spanish troops from 
 the Morro and Socapa batteries, thus enabling the navy 
 to remove the mines in the harbour; but after my inter 
 view with General Garcia, and having seen the character 
 of the shore on my way down to Aserraderos, I regarded 
 this as entirely out of the question. . . . There could have 
 been no misunderstanding as to my purpose.* 
 
 * This recalls the general s statement that his instructions for the 
 battle of July ist were clearly understood by tfte officers who com 
 manded in the field (see p. 247). 
 
 In his official report of the campaign, General Shafter says, after 
 describing the arrangements for landing at Daiquiri : 
 
 "These movements committed me to approaching Santiago from 
 the east over a narrow road, at first in some places not better than a 
 trail, running from Daiquiri through Siboney and Sevilla, and mak 
 ing attack from that quarter. This, in my judgment, was the only 
 feasible plan, and subsequent information and results confirmed my 
 judgment." 
 
 The general has also stated, as his reason for not attacking the 
 Morro, that the country along the coast was u rugged, devoid of water, 
 and densely covered with a poisonous undergrowth." Could it have 
 been more difficult than the jungles through which Wheeler s and 
 Kent s divisions made their way, at such heavy cost, on July ist ? 
 
 On the other hand, he would have had the railroad to bring his sup 
 plies from Siboney. It will be remembered that on July 3d he wanted 
 its aid so much that he was " seriously considering withdrawing about 
 five miles, and taking up a new position on the high ground between 
 the San Juan river and Siboney, with our left at Sardinero " on the 
 coast between Siboney and Fort Aguadores "so as to get our supplies 
 to a large extent by means of the railroad, which we can use, having 
 engines and cars at Siboney." (See page 267.) He might also have 
 received effective assistance from Sampson ; but apparently Shafter 
 had a low estimate of the value of a fleet as a factor in land fighting. 
 This is shown by his confident assertion that it was "nonsense" to 
 suppose that Cervera s squadron could have kept him out of Santiago. 
 "We could easily have protected ourselves," he says, "and taken po 
 sition to clear his decks with musketry fire." A general who can de 
 feat and silence heavily armed ironclads with musketry fire, even when 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 
 
 303 
 
 It is quite clear, nevertheless, that there was a 
 fundamental misunderstanding, and one sure to 
 cause friction in the management of the joint cam 
 paign. Expecting the troops to strike at the Morro, 
 Sampson was disappointed, to use no stronger word, 
 when their only move in that direction Duffield s 
 feeble demonstration at Fort Aguadores proved 
 utterly abortive, in spite of his own co-operation. 
 On the following day (July 2d) he told Shatter, by 
 telephone from Siboney : 
 
 Impossible to force entrance until we can clear chan 
 nel of mines, a work of some time after forts are taken 
 possession of by your troops. Nothing was accomplished 
 yesterday by the advance on Aguadores. 
 
 the ironclads are Spanish and the riflemen are Americans, is not a man 
 to argue with. 
 
 On June 26th, Colonel Pearson, with the Second Infantry, recon 
 noitred along the coast, marching six miles westward from Siboney, 
 along the railroad, without any special difficulty. He found the bridges 
 intact, and no enemy in sight. 
 
 In his book on The Santiago Campaign (pp. 286, 310), General 
 Wheeler gives some despatches which are scarcely consistent with 
 Shafter s positive and repeated assertion that he regarded an attack on 
 the harbour batteries as "entirely out of the question" from the first. 
 On July 2d the cavalry commander received this note : 
 
 " MY DEAR GENERAL WHEELER : What do you think of the idea 
 of sending a division in rear of the left division to clear out the forts 
 along the entrance to the bay so as to let the navy in and have the busi 
 ness over. Can it be done ? Very respectfully, 
 
 "WILLIAM R. SHAFTER." 
 
 Wheeler s reply was : " I regret to say that I do not think infantry 
 can take the forts along the entrance to the bay. I would like to do it, 
 but the effort would be attended with terrible loss." 
 
 Again, on July 6th, Shafter wrote : " If it was possible to get be 
 tween the town and the lower bay and try and clear those batteries out 
 and let the navy in, the capture of the city would be easy ; but I am at 
 a loss how to accomplish it." 
 
 It would appear that but for Wheeler s contrary advice, Shafter 
 contemplated ordering an assault upon the Punta Gorda or Morro bat 
 tery, or possibly both, as the next step after the battle of July ist. 
 Wheeler s belief that the landward defences of the batteries were too 
 strong for assault seems to have been based upon observation with " a 
 very powerful glass " at several miles distance (The Santiago Cam 
 paign, p. 87). 
 
 General Shafter has one triumphant answer to make to all criticisms 
 upon his management of the campaign : he was sent to take Santiago, 
 and he took it. In war success covers a multitude of mistakes, and 
 very properly so. 
 
304 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Shafter replied : 
 
 It is impossible for me to say when I can take bat 
 teries at entrance to harbour. If they are as difficult to 
 take as those which we have been pitted against, it will 
 be some time and a great loss of life. I am at a loss 
 to see why the navy can not work under a destructive fire 
 as well as the army. 
 
 And an hour later he added : 
 
 I urge that you make effort immediately to force the 
 entrance to avoid future losses among my men, which are 
 already very heavy. You can now operate with less loss 
 of life than I can. 
 
 Sampson at once wrote a letter in which he reiter 
 ated his opinion that it was impracticable to enter 
 the harbour while the Spaniards controlled the 
 mines, but promised to attempt to remove them by 
 countermining. On the following morning (July 
 3d) the Resolute brought a quantity of guncotton 
 from Guantanamo for this purpose, and the admiral, 
 as already recorded, started for the army headquar 
 ters, intending to propose the storming of the Morro 
 and Socapa batteries by the marines there were 
 about a thousand of them at Playa del Este and 
 with the fleet and a detachment of Shafter s troops. 
 On the 4th, after the great sea fight, Shafter re 
 peated his demand that Sampson should force the 
 harbour, and twice telegraphed his view of the case 
 to Washington, stating in one despatch : 
 
 I regard it as necessary that the navy force an entrance 
 into the harbour of Santiago not later than the 6th instant, 
 and assist in the capture of that place. If they do, I be 
 lieve the place will surrender without further loss of life. 
 
 And in the other : 
 
 If Sampson will force an entrance with all his fleet 
 to the upper bay of Santiago we can take the city within 
 a few hours. Under these conditions I believe the town 
 will surrender. If the army is to take the place, I want 
 fifteen thousand troops speedily, and it is not certain that 
 they can be landed, as it is getting stormy. Sure and 
 speedy way is through the bay. Am now in position to 
 do my part. 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 305 
 
 On the 5th the two commanders received orders 
 to confer and arrange a joint attack. Shafter was 
 unable to ride to Siboney, and Sampson promised 
 to come to his headquarters ; but next morning (July 
 6th) the admiral was ill, and Captain Chadwick went 
 ashore to represent him. At the conference it was 
 agreed that another demand should be made for 
 Toral s surrender. If this should be refused, at noon 
 on the Qth the navy was to bombard Santiago with 
 its great guns, lying off Fort Aguadores. Should 
 the Spaniards still fail to come to terms, the Socapa 
 was to be stormed, and some of Sampson s smaller 
 ships were to attempt a dash into the harbour. 
 
 The demand for surrender which Captain Chad- 
 wick states that he wrote, though Shafter signed it 
 was similar in tenor to Shafter s pre- 
 siow progress v i ou s notes to Toral, adding the warn- 
 
 toward sur- , . , 
 
 render ing that unless terms were arranged 
 
 by noon of the Qth the navy would 
 open fire the three clays respite giving time for 
 communication with Havana and Madrid. The 
 Spanish commander replied with a request that the 
 English cable operators, who were among the refu 
 gees at Caney, should be sent into Santiago. This 
 was done, with the result that on the 8th he sent 
 an offer to evacuate the city and the eastern part 
 of the province the territory subsequently sur 
 rendered on condition that he should be allowed 
 to withdraw unmolested to Holguin, with his arms, 
 ammunition, and baggage. 
 
 Shafter telegraphed this unexpected offer to 
 Washington, and after a conference with his division 
 commanders he sent a second despatch strongly 
 advocating its acceptance. It would, he pointed out, 
 at once open the harbour, and relieve him from de 
 pendence upon his base at Siboney, which the pos 
 sibility of stormy weather made more or less pre 
 carious ; it would end the terrible sufferings of the 
 refugees who had fled from the city; it would save 
 
306 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the property, mostly owned by Cubans, which a 
 bombardment would destroy ; and it would leave 
 his corps ready for service elsewhere, while yet 
 in good health which might not be the case much 
 longer, for yellow fever had appeared at Siboney. 
 All that would be lost, he said, would be some 
 prisoners, who were not wanted, and the arms 
 they carried. But the reply from Washington, de 
 spatched late in the evening of the Qth, was : 
 
 Your message recommending that Spanish troops be 
 permitted to evacuate and proceed without molestation 
 to Holguin is a great surprise, and is not approved. The 
 responsibility of destruction and distress to the inhabitants 
 rests entirely with the Spanish commander. The Secre 
 tary of War orders that when you are strong enough to 
 destroy the enemy and take Santiago, you do it. 
 
 Toral was at once informed that his proposal was 
 declined, and that unless he surrendered the truce 
 would end at four o clock in the afternoon of July 
 loth. He repeated his refusal, and at the hour 
 named the Spaniards opened fire. They were 
 promptly answered from the American lines, and 
 late in the day Shafter s message requesting Samp 
 son s co-operation having been delayed the 
 Brooklyn and the Indiana threw eight-inch shell 
 into the city for an hour. Hostilities ceased at 
 nightfall, but were renewed early on the nth, the 
 New York, the Brooklyn, and the Indiana again 
 joining in the bombardment, which was stopped, in 
 the afternoon, by a flag of truce from Shafter. 
 
 The principal result of the firing was the dis 
 abling of most of Toral s artillery. In men, the 
 Spaniards lost seven killed and sixty-five wounded, 
 the Americans two killed and thirteen wounded. 
 The shells from the fleet destroyed or damaged 
 fifty-nine houses, but the city was almost entirely 
 deserted, and Lieutenant Muller states that there 
 was no loss of life. Many of the projectiles did not 
 explode ; those that did so caused no serious fires, 
 as Santiago is a stone-built town. 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 307 
 
 The message from Shafter to Toral, which ended 
 the fighting, gave a new turn to the negotiations. 
 It was the result of a telegram from Washington : 
 
 Should the Spaniards surrender unconditionally and 
 wish to return to Spain, they will be sent back direct at 
 the expense of the United States Government. 
 
 Informed of this offer, Toral replied that he " con 
 firmed his former communication," but added : " I 
 have communicated your proposition to the general- 
 in-chief [Blanco] " an unmistakable sign of 
 yielding. 
 
 Meanwhile, the reinforcements for which Shafter 
 had asked had begun to arrive in force. On the 9th 
 the First Illinois a Chicago volunteer regiment 
 and six batteries of light artillery, under Brigadier- 
 General Randolph, had reached Daiquiri; on the 
 loth the First District of Columbia and the Eighth 
 Ohio had landed at Siboney. The District of 
 Columbia men and two battalions of the Illinois 
 regiment were at once moved forward, and placed 
 between Wheeler and Lawton ; the artillery was 
 disembarked, but the roads were now in such im 
 passable condition that only two batteries had 
 reached the front on the I4th, when the final negotia 
 tions for the surrender began. On the nth General 
 Miles arrived off the harbour on board 
 Miles reaches the Ya le, which, with the Columbia, 
 had brou g ht the S . ixth Massachusetts 
 and part of the Sixth Illinois, under 
 Brigadier-General Henry, from Charleston. 
 
 General Miles had planned to land troops west 
 of the harbour, and before going ashore he ordered 
 Henry to be ready to disembark at Cabanas. He 
 rode to headquarters on the morning of the I2th. 
 Shafter at once informed Toral that the command 
 ing general of the American army was present, and 
 suggested a personal interview. At noon on the 
 1 3th the three generals met, and a conversation fol 
 lowed of which Shafter reported : " I think it made 
 
308 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 a strong impression on him [Toral]." But pending 
 instructions from Havana nothing was finally set 
 tled, and another interview was arranged for noon 
 of the 1 4th. 
 
 Uncertain of the success of these long-drawn-out 
 negotiations, Shafter had again appealed to Wash 
 ington that Sampson should be ordered to force the 
 harbour. On the I3th Secretary Alger, who appar 
 ently took Shafter s view of the matter, wrote to 
 the Navy Department formally requesting that the 
 necessary instructions should be issued at once. 
 Secretary Long, who evidently agreed with Samp 
 son, formally acknowledged the receipt of the letter, 
 but, instead of issuing the requested order, tele 
 graphed to the admiral : 
 
 The commanding general of the army urges, and Secre 
 tary of War urgently requests, that navy force harbour. 
 Confer with commander of army. Wishing to do all that 
 is reasonably possible to insure the surrender of the enemy, 
 I leave the matter to your discretion, except that the 
 United States armoured vessels must not be risked. 
 
 Adjutant-General Corbin sent Shafter a private 
 telegram, confidentially informing him : 
 
 The Secretary of War suggests that if the navy will 
 not undertake to break through, take a transport, cover 
 the pilot house and most exposed points with baled hay 
 . . . and call for volunteers, from the army not a large 
 number to run into the harbour, thus making a way for 
 the navy. 
 
 But the remarkable idea of running ships piled 
 up with inflammable hay past batteries of rapid-fire 
 guns was never tested. Three hours before noon on 
 the i4th Toral informed Shafter that he had heard 
 from the captain-general. Blanco said that he had 
 referred the question to Madrid; and that mean 
 while, if the American commander would continue 
 the truce, terms of capitulation might be agreed 
 upon provisionally. Here was a distinct step in the 
 slow progress toward a surrender. 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 
 
 309 
 
 That the Spaniards were perfectly aware of the 
 hopelessness of their situation was shown by a de 
 spatch which General Linares sent to Blanco on 
 the 1 2th, in answer to an official suggestion that he 
 might break through the American lines by attack 
 ing in conjunction with the troops at Holguin : 
 
 Although confined to my bed by great weakness and 
 much pain, the situation of the long-suffering troops here 
 occupies my mind to such an extent that I deem it my 
 duty to address your Excellency and the Minister of War 
 that the state of affairs may be explained. 
 
 Enemy s positions very close to precinct of city, fa 
 voured by nature of ground; ours spread out over four 
 teen kilometres; large number sick; not sent to hospitals 
 because necessary to retain them in trenches. Horses and 
 mules without food and shelter; rain has been pouring into 
 the trenches incessantly for twenty hours. Soldiers with 
 out permanent shelter; rice the only food; can not change 
 or wash clothes. Many casualties; chiefs and officers 
 killed; forces without proper command in critical mo 
 ments. Under these circumstances impossible to open 
 passage, because one third of the men of our contingent 
 would be unable to go out; enemy would reduce forces 
 still further; result would be great disaster without accom 
 plishing the salvation of eleven much-thinned battalions, 
 as desired by your Excellency. In order to go out under 
 protection of Holguin division it would be necessary for 
 the latter to break through the enemy s line, and then with 
 combined forces to break through another part of the 
 same line. This would mean an eight-days journey for 
 Holguin division, bringing with them a quantity of rations 
 which they are unable to transport. The situation is hope 
 less; surrender inevitable; we are only prolonging the 
 agony. . . . 
 
 Santiago de Cuba is not Gerona. a walled city, on the 
 soil of the mother country, defended inch by inch by her 
 own sons, by old men, women, and children, who encour 
 aged and assisted the combatants, and risked their lives, 
 impelled by the sacred idea of independence and with the 
 hope of succour which they received. Here is solitude, 
 the complete exodus of the population, insular as well as 
 peninsular, including the public officials, with few excep 
 tions. Only the clergy remain, and they intend to leave 
 to-day, headed by their archbishop. 
 
 The defenders are not just beginning a campaign, full 
 of enthusiasm and energy; for three years they have been 
 fighting against the climate, privations, and fatigue; and 
 
310 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 now that the most critical time has arrived their courage 
 and bodily strength are exhausted. . . . There is a limit 
 to the honour of arms, and I appeal to the judgment of the 
 Government and the whole nation. 
 
 At noon on the I4th, when Miles, Shafter, and 
 Toral met again, the latter was told that he must 
 surrender immediately and with no conditions be 
 yond the return of his troops to Spain. After some 
 discussion, carried on through interpreters, the two 
 American officers understood that he consented to 
 do so, and commissioners were appointed to draw 
 up terms Generals Wheeler and Lawton and 
 Lieutenant Miley, for the United States ; for Spain, 
 General Escario,* Lieutenant-Colonel Fontan, and 
 Robert Mason, the British vice-consul. 
 
 Both Miles and Shafter telegraphed to Washing 
 ton that Santiago had surrendered, and the welcome 
 news went all over the country ; but when the com 
 missioners met, at half past two o clock (July I4th), 
 it was found that there had been a misunderstand 
 ing, and that Toral s representatives had power to 
 act only subject to approval from Madrid. This 
 was a serious disappointment, but negotiations pro 
 ceeded, several questions of detail being raised, and 
 the Spaniards making a hard fight for permission 
 to retain their arms, so that they could go back to 
 their native land with some at least of the honours 
 of war. The three American officers could not 
 grant such a concession, but they agreed to make 
 a strong recommendation to the Government at 
 Washington that the surrendered weapons should 
 be returned to the prisoners. 
 
 The commissioners sat until after midnight, and 
 then adjourned to meet early on the i^th. In the 
 morning Shafter sent a telegram correcting his pre 
 mature announcement of a surrender, and reporting 
 
 * Colonel Escario was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general by 
 cable from Madrid, in recognition of the skill and gallantry of his march 
 from Manzanillo to Santiago. 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 311 
 
 the negotiations in progress. " It can not be pos 
 sible," he added, u that there will be a failure in com 
 pleting arrangements " a sentence which inevitably 
 created an impression that a failure was by no means 
 impossible. Secretary Alger replied with a despatch 
 suggesting that Toral might be playing for time, in 
 hope that reinforcements would reach him ; and a 
 similar misgiving had naturally arisen at the front. 
 With this disturbing doubt in the background, the 
 presence of Mr. Mason as a member of the joint 
 commission proved valuable to the Americans as an 
 assurance that the Spaniards, as finally became evi 
 dent, were acting in entire good faith throughout 
 the negotiations. 
 
 Few of Shafter s officers and men expected that 
 Toral would surrender until Santiago was stormed. 
 The whole army was prepared to attack at the word. 
 The artillery, reinforced by Randolph s batteries, 
 and pushed boldly forward one battery, Captain 
 Reilly s, was posted in front of the firing line was 
 eager for a chance to redeem its comparative failure 
 in the battles of the ist of July. At the point where 
 the American lines were nearest to the enemy, on 
 the extreme right, two of Lawton s brigades, Lud- 
 low s and McKibbin s Brigadier-General McKib- 
 bin, who came to Cuba as lieutenant-colonel of the 
 Twenty-first Infantry, had succeeded Colonel Evan 
 Miles were ready to charge the Spanish trenches. 
 
 The attack would probably have been a bloody 
 one. In front of the trenches was a double line of 
 barbed-wire fences, which would have held the 
 assailants under a murderous fire. Farther back 
 there were pitfalls and barricaded streets. " Upon 
 entering the city," Shafter said in the despatch he 
 sent to Washington at the moment of the hoisting 
 of the flag, " I discovered a perfect entanglement 
 of defences. Fighting as the Spaniards did the first 
 day, it would have cost five thousand lives to have 
 taken it." 
 
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 At three o clock on the I5th the terms of capitu 
 lation were signed. They provided for the surrender 
 of the whole eastern district of the province of San 
 tiago, with all the troops and war material it con 
 tained ; the garrison of the city of Santiago to march 
 out and deposit their arms, the officers retaining 
 their side arms, and both officers and men keeping 
 their personal property ; all the Spanish troops to be 
 transported to Spain with as little delay as possible, 
 any volunteers or guerrillas who wished to remain 
 in Cuba being allowed to do so on parole. This 
 agreement was only provisional, but all suspense 
 was ended next morning (July i6th) when a note 
 came from Toral announcing that the Spanish Gov 
 ernment had authorized him to capitulate. 
 
 There now remained only the signing of the final 
 convention identical in terms with the preliminary 
 agreement which took place at six 
 
 July x^ ceremony of the surrender. Shafter 
 
 and Toral met at half past nine in the 
 morning of the I7th, under a tall ceiba tree between 
 the lines which had been the meeting place of the 
 commissioners and when Toral had saluted and 
 said : " I yield the city and the military division of 
 the province of Santiago de Cuba to the authority 
 of the United States of America," the two generals, 
 with their escorts, rode into Santiago, and at the 
 stroke of noon the American flag went up over 
 the Government palace in the centre of the ancient 
 Spanish city Spanish no longer. 
 
 The Santiago campaign was over, and Shafter, 
 after being brought to the very brink of disaster by 
 adverse circumstances and by his own mistakes, had 
 won a sweeping and complete success. As he after 
 wards said himself,* there had been very little 
 strategy in his movements. He certainly had not 
 
 * In his speech at a dinner of the Sons of the Revolution, in New 
 York, November 25, 1898. 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 
 
 313 
 
 proved himself a Napoleon or a Caesar, but he had 
 earned the right to say veni, vidi, vici. Bluff and 
 untactful in personal intercourse, he was not a man 
 to be widely popular among his subordinates. His 
 attitude to the press representatives gentry seldom 
 beloved of commanding generals involved him in 
 some undignified controversies, and brought upon 
 him, in retaliation, much unjust censure. But a 
 hundred newspaper criticisms are more than offset 
 by one such expression as those that have come 
 from some of the men who were with him at San 
 tiago. 
 
 General Wheeler, who has an ill word for no one, 
 calls him " a man of more than ordinary intellect 
 and force of character." General Breckinridge, not 
 regarded as an especially friendly critic, bears testi 
 mony in his official report to " the remarkable 
 energy, decision, and self-reliance which character 
 ized General Shafter s course during this distin 
 guished military adventure throughout its arduous 
 course to its most honourable conclusion." More 
 valuable still is the judgment of that fine soldier 
 General Chaffee, given in his reply to a speaker who 
 had complimented him at Shafter s expense : * 
 
 He worked night and day at his duties, and though 
 his physical disabilities made his strength unequal to 
 mine, and prevented him from doing some of the things 
 I was able to do, yet I say there is no more honest, faith 
 ful, and conscientious man who ever went out to command 
 troops. Let no one decry him in my presence. No man 
 ever possessed more iron courage. General Shafter is a 
 man. He has my unbounded respect. 
 
 These are strong words of praise, and they are en 
 tirely true. 
 
 When the Fifth Corps was preparing to embark 
 at Tampa, newspaper prophets were spreading 
 abroad detailed forecasts of the marvellous ways in 
 
 * At a dinner of the Commercial Club of Kansas City, Mo., De 
 cember 19, 1898. 
 
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 which American engineering skill was to be applied 
 to military uses. Shafter, we were told, was to in 
 vade Cuba with " fortification machines " that would 
 throw up breastworks at railroad speed ; with " road 
 builders " that would construct macadam highways 
 as if by magic ; with powerful searchlights to reveal 
 the enemy s movements at night; and with other 
 novel paraphernalia destined to make victory swift 
 and easy. As a matter of fact, if we except the work 
 done by the signal service in establishing telegraph 
 and telephone communication, the Santiago cam 
 paign was fought out on the most primitive lines, 
 with scarcely an attempt at " scientific warfare." 
 Shafter s small engineer corps accomplished prac 
 tically nothing ;* his weak force of artillery did little 
 for him ; of cavalry he had almost none. His battles 
 were fought by infantry, and were won by the sheer 
 pluck and dash of his men, in spite of the fact that 
 to a certain extent they had the disadvantage of 
 inferior equipment, f 
 
 Much has been said, in the newspapers and else 
 where, upon the question whether Santiago was sur 
 rendered to General Miles or to Gen 
 eral Shafter. Unlike another question 
 that has been raised by sundry war 
 critics ignorant of warfare, who have 
 debated whether Admiral Sampson or Commodore 
 Schley was in command of the fleet that destroyed 
 Cervera,t this is not entirely an idle query. It ap- 
 
 * The engineers built a pier for the Cubans at Aserraderos, and 
 later one at Siboney, which was not finished until just before the end 
 of the campaign. They also did a little scouting and some road re 
 pairing, but did not succeed in making even a tolerable trail from Si 
 boney to the front. They complained no doubt truly that they were 
 seriously handicapped by lack of proper equipment, and especially of 
 transportation. 
 
 t There is little to choose between the Mauser rifle and the Krag- 
 Jorgensen, but there is no question of the terrible disadvantage under 
 which the American volunteers and artillery laboured by reason of their 
 lack of smokeless powder. 
 
 % The answer to this question is so self-evident to any one who has 
 the slightest understanding of naval affairs that no space has been 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 315 
 
 pears that on July 8th, the day after Miles left 
 Washington, Adjutant-General Corbin telegraphed 
 to Shafter : 
 
 Secretary of War directs me to inform you that Gen 
 eral Miles left here at 10.40 last night for Santiago, but 
 with instructions not to in any manner supersede you as 
 commander of the forces in the field near Santiago so 
 long as you are able for duty. 
 
 This not unnaturally led to a certain amount of mis 
 understanding. On the day of the surrender, in 
 reply to an order directing him to move his troops 
 to fresh camps, Shafter telegraphed to Miles : 
 
 Letters and orders in reference to movement of camp 
 received and will be carried out. None is more anxious 
 than myself to get away from here. It seems from your 
 orders given me that you regard my force as a part of 
 your command. Nothing will give me greater pleasure 
 than serving under you, general, and I shall comply with 
 all your requests and directions, but I was told by the 
 secretary that you were not to supersede me in command 
 here. 
 
 To this communication, an entirely creditable and 
 soldierly one, Miles, who had gone to Guantanamo 
 Bay with the transports carrying Henry s troops, re 
 plied (July 1 8th) : 
 
 wasted on it in the present narrative. It may be said here that the at 
 tempts which have been made in the press, and even in Congress, to 
 deprive Admiral Sampson of the honour justly earned by his splendid 
 services to his country are disgraceful to their authors. They must rest 
 either upon a total misunderstanding of the facts, or upon some most 
 unworthy motive of jealousy. 
 
 As a sample of the methods employed, Sampson s signal, on the 
 morning of July 3d, to "disregard the movements of commander-in- 
 chief," has been distorted into "disregard the orders of commander- 
 in-chief," and paraded as a proof that he had nothing to do with the 
 battle of that day. 
 
 The fact that venomous attacks upon Sampson have been coupled 
 with extravagant praise of Schley must be most embarrassing to the 
 latter officer, who very properly said, in an official despatch written a 
 week after the battle with Cervera : " Victory was secured by the forces 
 under the command of the commander-in-chief, North Atlantic station, 
 and to him the honour is due." 
 
 As has been said by Captain Mahan, the foremost American au 
 thority on naval strategy, " the first credit of the battle, as of the cam 
 paign, belongs to the man whose dispositions prevailed in both to 
 Admiral Sampson." 
 
 21 
 
316 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Have no desire and have carefully avoided any 
 appearance of superseding you. Your command is a 
 part of the United States army, which I have the honour 
 to command, having been duly assigned thereto, and 
 directed by the President to go wherever I thought 
 my presence required and give such general directions 
 as I thought best concerning military matters, and espe 
 cially directed to go to Santiago for a specific purpose. 
 You will also notice that the orders of the Secretary 
 of War of July I3th left the matter to my discretion. 
 I should regret that any event would cause either 
 yourself or any part of your command to cease to be 
 a part of mine. 
 
 This was unanswerable, and exactly defined the 
 position General Miles occupied during his brief stay 
 before Santiago. When he landed at Siboney, in 
 the afternoon of July n, he had found the place 
 in a very unsatisfactory condition. General Duffield, 
 in command, was ill, and apparently no one had 
 taken his place ; an alarming outbreak of yellow 
 fever had begun probably caused, and certainly 
 hastened, by the use of infected buildings which 
 should have been destroyed ; the medical and trans 
 portation services were frightfully inadequate. The 
 landing stage was still unfinished, and General Miles 
 went on shore through the surf. He began to issue 
 orders at once, signing them " Nelson A. Miles, 
 major-general commanding " ; * but he counter 
 manded no plan of Shafter s, and his part in the con 
 clusion of the campaign was limited to his share in 
 the conferences with Toral which, on Shafter s own 
 statement, Miles allowed to continue when his own 
 judgment was in favour of breaking them off and 
 
 * One of his first orders was for the burning of the buildings be 
 lieved to be infected with yellow fever, including the army post-office, 
 a house used by the newspaper correspondents, and others occupied by 
 the Thirty-third Michigan. General Shafter had that morning issued 
 instructions to the same effect, but apparently nothing had been done 
 toward carrying them out. 
 
 Warnings against the use of buildings likely to be infected had been 
 issued before the Fifth Corps landed, and General Miles regarded the 
 neglect of proper precautions at Siboney as a distinct violation of 
 orders. 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 317 
 
 his preparations, afterward abandoned, to land 
 troops at Cabanas. 
 
 It was hardly a secret at the time, and has since 
 become notorious, that an unfortunate ill feeling 
 had arisen between General Miles and the army staff 
 at Washington ; but Secretary Alger s despatches 
 distinctly recognize him as in command, notably the 
 one mentioned in Miles s note of the i8th to Shafter, 
 already quoted. This is dated July I3th, and ad 
 dressed to " Major-General Miles, Camp near San 
 tiago " : 
 
 You may accept surrender by granting parole to 
 officers and men, the officers retaining their side arms. 
 The officers and men after parole to be permitted to 
 return to Spain, the United States assisting. If not ac 
 cepted, then assault, unless in your judgment an assault 
 would fail. Consult with Sampson, and pursue such 
 course as to the assault as you jointly agree upon. Matter 
 should now be settled promptly. 
 
 After such an order, clothing him with com 
 plete authority, and therefore with full responsibility, 
 it was certainly both tactful and generous on Miles s 
 part to leave the formal reception of Toral s sur 
 render to Shafter, whom he would necessarily have 
 outranked had he been present. At the same time, 
 it was a very proper recognition of the fact that to 
 the commander of the Fifth Corps belonged the 
 honours of a victorious campaign, and especially 
 the credit of having secured a capitulation without 
 further fighting, thus capturing Santiago at a cost 
 which, after all, was small in proportion to the great 
 results gained. 
 
 General Miles s report indicates his belief that 
 his preparations to land a brigade at Cabanas helped 
 to bring Toral to terms : 
 
 The Spanish commander was well aware of our de 
 signs, as the position and movements of the fleet had been 
 in full view of the officers commanding his troops, and 
 they had reported to him having seen fifty-seven vessels, 
 some of them loaded with troops, menacing that part of 
 his position. 
 
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 For the navy, too, a share in the work is claimed 
 apart from its victory over Cervera, which was the 
 great decisive event of the campaign 
 and of the war. A board appointed 
 by Sampson to inspect the captured 
 city reported, after a detailed account of the damage 
 done by the war-ships fire : 
 
 We believe that the bombardment by the ships had 
 much to do with the early surrender of the city. 
 
 This is indorsed by the admiral. " The effect of our 
 shell," he says, " was undoubtedly one of the prin 
 cipal causes of the surrender at this time." 
 
 And in distributing the credit where it is due 
 mention should be made of the effective stroke of 
 military diplomacy that came from Washington. 
 There is no doubt that the offer to return Toral s 
 forces to Spain did much toward making the sur 
 render possible. 
 
 It was somewhat anomalous that in the cere 
 monies marking the successful ending of a joint 
 land and sea campaign the American navy w T as not 
 represented. On July I3th, when Shafter informed 
 Sampson that a surrender was expected, the admiral 
 expressed his desire to share in the negotiations, 
 which involved questions of importance to both 
 branches of the service. The general acquiesced, 
 and promised that if possible he would give due 
 notice of the final arrangement of terms, in order 
 that Sampson might send a representative. Next 
 morning (July I4th) Shafter again telephoned to 
 Siboney that there was " every prospect of capitula 
 tion," and Miles invited the admiral to send an 
 officer ashore ; but before this could be done there 
 came a message telling him that Santiago had 
 already surrendered. 
 
 On the 1 5th Sampson was informed of the hitch 
 in the negotiations. On the i6th Shafter tele 
 phoned : 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 
 
 319 
 
 Enemy has surrendered. Will you send some one to 
 represent navy in the matter? 
 
 Captain Chadwick, as Sampson s chief of staff, 
 landed and went to the front as quickly as he could. 
 The convention had already been signed; it con 
 tained no reference to the navy, nor to the Spanish 
 ships at Santiago. The captain told Shafter that 
 these latter the gunboat Alvarado and five mer 
 chant steamers, one of which, the Mejico, was armed 
 would be regarded by the navy as its prizes. Shaf 
 ter said that he would refer the matter to the Secre 
 tary of War. 
 
 :< This," Sampson says, " could have no bearing 
 upon what I considered my duty in the matter, par 
 ticularly in view of our late experience of Spanish 
 perfidy in regard to injury of ships, which in my 
 opinion made it necessary to look after their safety 
 at once." But when he sent in prize crews, they 
 found army officers in charge of the vessels, and 
 General McKibbin, who had been designated as 
 military governor of Santiago, declined to give them 
 up until Sampson had sent Shafter an emphatic 
 protest. In a joint campaign, the admiral pointed 
 out, usage gives captured cities or forts to the 
 army, floating property to the navy; he had left the 
 harbour batteries to be occupied by the troops, and 
 he expected, in return, similar consideration with 
 regard to the ships. " My prize crews must remain 
 in charge," he concluded, " and I have so directed." 
 His action was approved at Washington, but the 
 merchant vessels were afterward released, it being 
 decided that shipping captured jointly by the army 
 and the navy is not liable to seizure as prizes. The 
 Alvarado, commanded by Lieutenant Blue, for 
 merly of the Suwanee, was added to Sampson s fleet. 
 
 On the day before the surrender (July :6th) 
 Shafter personally invited Garcia and his staff to 
 witness the ceremony. The Cuban chief asked if 
 it was intended to continue the Spanish civil 
 
320 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 officials in power, and on being answered in the 
 
 affirmative he dramatically declared that he could 
 
 not go where Spain ruled. No Cuban 
 
 Garcia leaves troops were allowed to enter the city 
 
 Santiago, L . . J . 
 
 juiyie. a ver y proper precaution against 
 
 disorder, but one that was bitterly re 
 sented by the excluded patriots. Garcia was so deep 
 ly offended that he marched his men northward into 
 the interior, and sent Shatter a letter * reproaching 
 the American commander for his ingratitude. On 
 July 3Oth he appeared at Gibara, on the north coast, 
 which had been evacuated by the Spaniards a few 
 days before ; and meeting Commander Maynard, of 
 the Nashville, he announced his intention of mov 
 ing upon Holguin, where the garrison, commanded 
 by General Luque, was in great straits for food, but 
 apparently no serious fighting followed. 
 
 Early in the morning of the I7th the Spanish 
 troops began to deposit their rifles at the arsenal 
 in Santiago, where they were re- 
 surrender * ceived and inventoried by Lieutenant 
 Brooke, Shafter s ordnance officer, the 
 disarmed men being marched out to a camp near 
 San Juan. Of the Spanish Mauser, the weapon of 
 the regular troops, the number surrendered was 
 7,902 rifles and 833 carbines, besides about 7,000 
 guns of other makes, chiefly the Remington, which 
 was used by the volunteers. There were only 1,500,- 
 ooo rounds of Mauser ammunition less than 200 
 cartridges for each gun. The store of food was 
 larger than might have been expected, amounting 
 on the authority of General Wood to 1,200,000 
 rations, but including little except rice. 
 
 Of the men, it seems that no precise count was 
 taken a rather curious omission, f In his official 
 
 * Or at least Shatter received a letter purporting to come from Gar 
 cia. Its authenticity does not seem to be certain. 
 
 t No report was made to Washington of the number of men form 
 ing the garrison of Santiago. The only figures received by the War 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 
 
 321 
 
 report Shafter estimates their number as about 
 12,000. In his Century Magazine article he gives it 
 as 11,500, which is still probably an overstatement. 
 Lieutenant Miley, who was in a position to have 
 exact information, puts it at 10,500,* and other esti 
 mates are lower. Of these more than 2,000 were 
 sick and wounded men in the four hospitals, f 
 
 Toral s division included nine garrisons outside 
 of Santiago, numbering 13,000 men, and stationed at 
 Guantanamo, Baracoa, Sagua de Tanamo, El Cristo, 
 El Songo, Dos Caminos, Moron, San Luis, and 
 Palma Soriano. The surrender of such considerable 
 forces without a shot fired against them came as a 
 surprise when the Spanish general offered it ; yet it 
 is easily accounted for. General Pareja s men at 
 Guantanamo, as was already known, were on the 
 brink of starvation ; J and the other detachments 
 were little better off. Toral told Miles that all of 
 them were hard pressed by insurgents. With San 
 tiago taken and the coast blockaded their position 
 became hopeless, and if not surrendered to Shafter 
 they would be left to the tender mercies of the 
 Cubans. 
 
 Shafter commissioned Lieutenant Miley, of his 
 staff, to receive the surrender of the inland garrisons. 
 With two mounted troops of the Second Cavalry, 
 under Captain Lewis, and accompanied by Captain 
 Ramus, an aid of Toral s, the lieutenant started on 
 July igth, making his way over the mountains, 
 
 Department were those of the whole number of soldiers transported to 
 Spain, 22,137, of whom 14,995, representing the garrisons of the city 
 and of six inland stations, sailed from Santiago. 
 
 * In Cuba with Shafter, p. 214. 
 
 t "At the hospitals," says Lieutenant Muller, "only the seriously 
 wounded and sick were admitted ; those who could stand on their feet 
 were refused and sent back to the trenches. If this had not been the 
 case, there would not have been beds enough in which to put them nor 
 physicians to attend them." 
 
 % The condition of the Spanish troops at Guantanamo may be 
 judged from the fact that from April to September T2th nine hundred 
 and eighteen men nearly one-seventh of Pareja s force died in 
 hospital. 
 
322 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 through a country from which almost all traces of 
 civilization had disappeared, to El Cristo. The 
 small Spanish detachments here and at Moron and 
 Dos Caminos * surrendered readily, but the coman- 
 dante of the larger force at San Luis refused to 
 accept the statements of Miley and Ramus until he 
 had sent a messenger of his own to Santiago. At 
 Palma Soriano, on the 22d, eight hundred men 
 capitulated without resistance, though Miley had 
 been warned at San Luis that he would probably be 
 fired upon. The prisoners from all these places, and 
 from El Songo, which yielded without a visit, were 
 marched down to Santiago as rapidly as possible, 
 and the First Infantry, a regiment which had 
 scarcely suffered in the fighting, was sent up to gar 
 rison the towns. 
 
 The Spanish troops at Guantanamo surrendered 
 to Colonel (now Brigadier-General) Ewers ; but it 
 was not until August I3th the last day of the war 
 that Lieutenant Miley, with another Spanish staff 
 officer, Major Irles, set out for Baracoa and Sagua 
 de Tanamo, on the northern coast. At neither place 
 was there any attempt at resistance, though no news 
 of the fall of Santiago had reached these isolated 
 towns. Shafter s transports had passed within sight 
 of Baracoa, and the comandante had told his men 
 
 * This is a station on the railroad from Santiago to San Luis, and 
 must not be confounded with the village of the same name just outside 
 of Santiago, on the road to Cobre, mentioned on page 298. " Dos 
 Caminos," meaning Two Roads, or Crossroads, is a common Spanish 
 name. 
 
 Lieutenant Miley fin Cuba with Shafter, p. 193) thus describes the 
 condition of these outlying Spanish posts : 
 
 "Surrounding each of the towns there was a little cultivated zone 
 Avith a radius of half a mile or a mile, depending on the size of the 
 place, planted mainly to corn and sweet potatoes. The mango trees 
 were to be found everywhere loaded with fruit. The natives in the 
 towns consisted of old men, women, and children, while the able- 
 bodied men were all soldiers in the insurgent army. I found all these 
 towns surrounded by bands of insurgents, and the Spanish garrisons 
 could not lay down their arms in safety unless I had American troops 
 to leave as guard. For that reason the garrisons at El Cristo, Moron, 
 and Dos Caminos were not disarmed until I came back on my return 
 to Santiago." 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 323 
 
 that they were Spanish ships, loaded with troops 
 on their way to conquer the Americans. At Sagua, 
 which Miley reached on the I5th, a bulletin was 
 posted announcing a great victory won by Montojo 
 at Manila. 
 
 At Santiago, on July i6th, the refugees from 
 
 Caney, a miserable procession of sick and starving 
 
 people, who had endured horrors 
 
 shafter s army orse than a bombardment, began to 
 
 fever stricken. , . , r\ <i 
 
 return to their homes. On the two 
 following days the electric mines in the harbour 
 mouth were exploded, and the contact torpedoes 
 taken up, two that could not be moved being marked 
 with buoys ; and on the afternoon of the i8th the 
 transports, headed by the Red Cross ship State of 
 Texas, were able to come into the bay. 
 
 This ended all fear of a shortage of supplies ; but 
 the victorious army was in a sorry and shocking 
 condition of sickness and debility. More than half 
 the soldiers were either down with malarial fever, or 
 slowly recovering from it ; dysentery was prevalent, 
 typhoid had appeared, and there were cases of yel 
 low fever in every regiment. Attempts were made 
 to fight this last, the most dreaded of diseases, by 
 moving to fresh camping grounds, but it was soon 
 found that the soldiers had not strength enough to 
 move their tents and impedimenta. Any exertion 
 in the hot sun only increased the sickness. The hos 
 pital service was still utterly inadequate ; there was 
 a lack of needed medicines, and a total absence of 
 suitable food. 
 
 The wounded and part of the sick were sent 
 back to the United States on returning transports. 
 On some ships notably the Seneca and the Concho, 
 which reached Fort Monroe on the i8th and 28th 
 of July respectively, and, hoisting the yellow flag, 
 were ordered on to New York there was great 
 suffering through their utter lack of proper accom 
 modation and attendance. The Seneca had four 
 
324 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 deaths during the voyage, the Concho six ; and the 
 arrival of these vessels with their wretched cargo in 
 such pitiable contrast to the strong and eager host 
 that sailed from Tampa a few weeks before was the 
 first revelation to the people of the United States 
 of the sinister results that a defective army organi 
 zation had inevitably caused.* But still, both in 
 Washington and in the country generally, there was 
 no realization of the desperate plight of the soldiers 
 in Cuba. 
 
 On July 1 4th Secretary Alger had telegraphed 
 to General Miles : 
 
 As soon as Santiago falls, the troops must all he put 
 in camp as comfortable as they can be made, and remain, 
 I suppose, until the fever has had its run. 
 
 Miles gave similar directions to Shafter several 
 times, and on the 2ist he cabled to Washington from 
 Guantanamo, where he was preparing to sail for 
 Porto Rico : 
 
 There is not a single regiment of regulars or volun 
 teers with General Shafter s command that is not infected 
 with yellow fever, from one case in the Eighth Ohio to 
 thirty-six in the Thirty-third Michigan. 
 
 * " Algerism" is a word that was coined by certain newspapers to 
 denote the cause of all the armv s sufferings. The term was an unfair 
 attack upon the Secretary of War, and betrayed either political spite or 
 ignorance of the true facts of the case. 
 
 Secretary Alger did not accomplish such wonders as those that 
 Stanton achieved when he brought order and efficiency out of the chaos 
 of President Lincoln s war office. The task of equipping an army to 
 fight Spain was well nigh an impossible one, and the badly organized 
 system of which General Alger was the official head was incompetent 
 to grapple with it. Much creditable work was done, but it was inev 
 itable that there should be failure at many points, and that loss and 
 suffering should result. But in attempting to fasten blame upon the 
 personnel of the department it is impossible to find more than the un 
 avoidable percentage of human error. Though he did not prove to be 
 the rare and brilliant organizer who alone could have cut the obstruc 
 tive red tape and met the overwhelming needs of the service, the secre 
 tary himself laboured with the most devoted energv. 
 
 The main cause of the armv s troubles is to be found in the illiberal 
 and unintelligent policy that has been traditional with Congress in its 
 control of the military establishment. The responsibility rests upon 
 the national legislature, and indirectly upon the nation that it rep 
 resents. 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 325 
 
 After consulting with best medical authorities, it is my 
 opinion that the best mode of ridding the troops of the 
 fever will be as I have directed namely, the troops to 
 go up as high into the mountains as possible, selecting 
 fresh camps every day. If this does not check the spread 
 of the disease, the only way of saving a large portion of 
 the command will be to put them on transports and ship 
 them to the New England coast, to some point to be desig 
 nated by the surgeon-general. 
 
 The plan of changing camps, as has been said, 
 proved worse than useless, yet on August 3d Shafter 
 was again instructed to move his command along 
 the San Luis railroad to the high ground north of 
 Santiago. It was quite impossible to carry out such 
 an order. Shafter assembled his general officers, 
 read the instructions he had received, and asked 
 their opinion. One of them * was for seizing every 
 ship in the harbour and starting northward at once, 
 orders or no orders; all agreed that to leave Cuba 
 was an imperative necessity. At the suggestion of 
 General Bates, they drew up a " round robin " letter 
 to the corps commander, stating that 
 
 the arm y was utterl y disabled by ma 
 larial feVer ; that it was in a condition 
 to be destroyed by an epidemic, already threatened, 
 of yellow fever; that it must be moved at once or 
 perish as an army ; and that those responsible for 
 preventing such a move would be responsible for 
 the unnecessary loss of thousands of lives. 
 
 This strong letter was signed by all the officers 
 present Major-Generals Wheeler, Kent, Lawton, 
 Bates, and Chaffee, Brigadier-Generals Sumner, 
 Ludlow, McKibbin, Ames, and Wood, and Colonel 
 Roosevelt, f There was, as Shafter says, no secrecy 
 
 * General Shafter records this incident without mentioning names, 
 but the outspoken officer was probablv General Ames, who expressed a 
 similar opinion to a correspondent, and who sent a private telegram to 
 Mr. Allen, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy : " This army is incapa 
 ble, because of sickness, of marching: anywhere except to the transports. 
 If it is ever to return to the United States, it must do so at once." 
 
 t Brigadier-Generals Kent, Lawton, Bates, and Chaffee had just re 
 ceived their major-generalships. General Ames a distinguished gen- 
 
3 26 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 about it, and the newspaper correspondents cabled 
 its contents to the United States, where it came as 
 a revelation. This was no utterance of a sensational 
 reporter ; it was the voice of an army that had been 
 sent out to fight the nation s battles, and that now 
 found itself left to parish on the soil it had won. 
 
 At Washington Shafter telegraphed it to the 
 War Department with an expression of his own 
 opinion, saying that if the troops were not to be 
 moved till the fever had passed there would be very 
 few to move its effect was immediate. Next day 
 (August 4th) the general was ordered to transport 
 his men as rapidly as possible to Montauk Point, 
 where General S. B. M. Young, himself a fever con 
 valescent, was commissioned to prepare a camp for 
 them. 
 
 The embarkation began on August 7th, and was 
 continued as rapidly as transports could be secured. 
 On the 25th General Shafter sailed with almost the 
 last men of his corps, leaving General Lawton in 
 command of the province, with General Wood in 
 charge of the city. Some of the " immune " regi 
 ments were sent from the United States to do gar 
 rison duty, it being expected too sanguinely, as it 
 proved that they would not suffer from the climatic 
 fevers that had been so disastrous to the Fifth Corps. 
 
 The shipment of Toral s troops \ began on 
 August 9th, and on September I7th all the pris 
 oners had left Santiago except a small number who 
 
 eral of the civil war, hailing from Massachusetts, though formerly gov 
 ernor of Mississippi was in command of Kent s third brigade, formerly 
 Colonel Wikoff s. Wood, promoted brigadier- general, had on July 
 2oth succeeded McKibbin as military governor of Santiagp. Being a 
 physician by profession, he was peculiarly fitted for a post whose most 
 immediate and important problem was that of sanitation. Colonel 
 Roosevelt, who had also gained a step in rank, was present as com 
 mander of the second cavalry brigade. 
 
 * Just before he sailed, Toral is said to have sent Shafter a letter 
 commenting bitterly on the fact that the surrendered arms had not 
 been returned, as recommended or promised, as the Spaniards seem 
 to have understood by the American commissioners who negotiated 
 the capitulation. 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 
 
 327 
 
 elected to remain in Cuba, and a few yellow-fever 
 patients at Baracoa and Guantanamo. The work 
 was done by the Compania Transatlantica Espafiola, 
 which made the lowest tender when bids were in 
 vited by the quartermaster-general s department. 
 It seemed, at first sight, anomalous that the United 
 States Government should employ a Spanish com 
 pany, some of whose ships were actually serving as 
 auxiliaries in the enemy s navy ; and representatives 
 of other ocean lines willing to accept the contract 
 at a much higher price were greatly concerned at 
 so extraordinary an arrangement. Undoubtedly, 
 however, the War Department s action was busi 
 nesslike and judicious. It was very satisfactory that 
 the Spanish soldiers should be intrusted to their 
 own people, so that no charge of ill treatment could 
 be laid at any American door. For these hapless 
 men were suffering terribly during the unhealthy 
 months of August and September. Several hundred 
 died before they could be taken on board the ships, 
 and several hundred more during the voyage. On 
 one vessel, the Pedro de Satrustegui, there were 
 seventy-six deaths. 
 
 The total number of people carried to Spain was 
 22,864. This included 22,137 soldiers 1,163 
 officers and 20,974 men ; the rest were officers 
 wives and children, priests, and sisters of mercy. 
 Of the soldiers, 5,820 sailed from Guantanamo, 
 1,322 from Baracoa and Sagua de Tanamo, and the 
 remainder from Santiago. The cost to the United 
 States Government was a little more than half a 
 million dollars. 
 
 At Camp Wikoff as the Montauk encampment 
 was named, in honour of the ranking American 
 officer killed in the war there was at first much 
 confusion, and some actual suffering, owing to the 
 difficulty of preparing for so large a body of men 
 at such short notice ; but the outburst of newspaper 
 criticism that ensued was quite unwarranted. After 
 
328 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the first weeks the comfort of the soldiers was well 
 provided for, and private beneficence fairly show 
 ered them with attentions, which in many cases 
 took the form of delicacies actually injurious to men 
 recovering from fever. There were 257 deaths in the 
 camp during August and September, but quite or 
 nearly all of them were due to disease contracted 
 before arriving there. The total number of men it 
 received was 21,870, of whom 17,577 were from 
 Santiago, the remainder from Tampa and else 
 where. 
 
 The sanitary condition of some of the other 
 camps, at this time, had become very unsatisfactory. 
 The army s death rate in May and June 0.46 and 
 0.70 per thousand respectively was not above 
 normal. In July it rose to 2.15 " somewhat higher 
 than that of most well-cared-for cities," Surgeon- 
 General Sternberg said in his report for the year; 
 but his comparison is palpably a most unfair one. 
 An army consists only of picked men in the prime of 
 life, and its mortality, apart from loss in battle, 
 should be but a fraction of that of a community in 
 cluding all ages and conditions. In August the rate 
 was 4.08 per thousand, which even Sternberg char 
 acterizes as " excessive." In September, when the 
 most unhealthy camps had been abandoned, it fell 
 to 2.45. The total number of deaths for the four 
 months was 2,910. Secretary Alger may be cor 
 rect in his assertion that this was " the smallest 
 death rate recorded of any army of history," but it 
 does not follow, in view of the recent advance of 
 sanitary science, and of the fact that not a quarter 
 of the troops saw any active service, that the mor 
 tality was as low as it should have been. 
 
 More discreditable than the actual number of 
 deaths was the fact that there were about fifteen 
 thousand cases of typhoid fever, that scourge of ill- 
 kept camps. Of these Camp Thomas is charged 
 with 3,426; the camp of the Seventh Corps, at 
 
THE SURRENDER OF SANTIAGO 
 
 329 
 
 Jacksonville, which proved particularly unhealthy, 
 had about 4,600.* Some of the smaller encamp 
 ments made a still worse showing, notably those of 
 the Fifteenth Minnesota Volunteers, at St. Paul and 
 Fort Snelling, where, in August, out of 1,323 sol 
 diers, 260 contracted the disease. 
 
 There were many causes that contributed to 
 bring about this unsatisfactory state of affairs. One 
 was that mainspring of the American army s 
 troubles the inadequacy of the staff departments 
 to the huge task suddenly thrust upon them. Some 
 of the camp sites were badly chosen ; none was 
 properly prepared for the occupancy of large bodies 
 of troops. There was very little official inspection, 
 half of the inspector-general s small corps of assist 
 ants having taken line commissions in the volunteer 
 army ; the supplies of tentage, transportation, medi 
 cines, disinfectants, and camp requisites of all sorts 
 were sometimes far from complete ; and the inex 
 perience of volunteer officers frequently caused 
 avoidable discomfort to the men under their charge. 
 Many regimental camps were not properly laid out ; 
 many were very inadequately policed. 
 
 But most of the blame must rest upon the sol 
 diers themselves. Of the regulars, perhaps, it was 
 true, as a foreign officer observed, that " every man 
 looked fit to command," and, as the adjutant-general 
 asserted, that the force put into the field was, for its 
 size, " the finest army the world had ever known " ; 
 but it would be idle to deny that in a hasty levy of 
 more than two hundred thousand volunteers, with 
 the age limit as low as eighteen years, an undesir 
 able element was present. Even a casual inspection 
 of some of the camps Camp Black, for instance, 
 the chief rendezvous of the New York volunteers 
 was enough to show that " toughness " was too 
 commonly mistaken for soldierliness. Surgeon- 
 
 * The surgeon-general s figures are 4,760, including a few cases 
 from Tampa. 
 
330 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 General Sternberg points out, in his report, that 
 drunkenness and immorality were prominent causes 
 of the early increase of sickness. For further testi 
 mony on this unpleasant subject there may be cited 
 the evidence given before the War Investigation 
 Commission as to the shockingly unsanitary habits 
 of the troops at Camp Thomas, and a report by 
 Lieutenant Miner, of the navy, on the condition 
 of some of the transports that carried volunteers 
 from San Francisco to Manila.* 
 
 * On one vessel, the Valencia, "the army officers were advised to 
 take the necessary steps to preserve cleanliness, which some of them 
 attempted to do, but were unable to carry out. The bedding soon be 
 came unfit for use, and had to be thrown overboard. The troops were 
 not clean in their persons, because no wise bathing regulations were 
 adopted, and the regular scrub and wash clothes was unknown. Lice 
 and other vermin were rampant. The men spit on the deck, threw 
 waste food on deck, and defecated there without regard to the expos 
 tulations of the officers of the transport." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE PORTO RICO CAMPAIGN 
 
 THE Spanish colony of Porto Rico had figured 
 in the early war plans. General Miles had sug 
 gested an attack upon it in a letter dated May 27th, 
 and on June 6th Secretary Alger telegraphed to him, 
 at Tampa : 
 
 The President wants to know the earliest moment you 
 can have an expeditionary force ready to go to Porto Rico 
 large enough to take and hold island without the force 
 under General Shafter. 
 
 Miles replied that he could be ready in ten days 
 an estimate that seems decidedly sanguine, in 
 view of the experience of Shafter s corps, and of the 
 lack of transports. On June Qth he was again in 
 formed that " expedition No. 2 must be organized 
 as rapidly as possible"; but on the I5th his 
 preparations were interrupted by an urgent sum- 
 .mons to Washington. On the 26th a new plan was 
 formulated : General Brooke was to organize a corps 
 from Chickamauga and Camp Alger, for operation 
 against the enemy in Cuba and Porto Rico " ; 
 Shafter s troops, or any that he could spare, were to 
 join it, and Miles was to be commander-in-chief. 
 But instead of detaching part of his force, Shafter 
 began to plead for reinforcements, and Miles went 
 to Santiago, where his share in the last days of the 
 campaign has already been narrated. 
 
 For some time after Sampson s resultless bom 
 bardment of San Juan on May I2th, Porto Rico 
 22 331 
 
332 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 scarcely appeared in the war news. On June 
 to prevent the armed ships * at San Juan from 
 attempting to molest the transports 
 passing between the United States 
 and Santiago, Admiral Sampson or 
 dered the St. Paul and the Yosemite to blockade 
 the port. Captain Sigsbee reached his station first, 
 on the morning of the 22d, and he had been there 
 only a few hours when he was attacked by the 
 Isabel II and the Terror. 
 
 The Spanish vessels had been ordered to drive 
 the St. Paul off, and the bluff above the harbour 
 mouth was crowded with people who came out to 
 see the fight. The Isabel opened an entirely ineffec 
 tive fire at long range, keeping close under the shore 
 batteries. The Terror whose only weapons were 
 her torpedoes and two small guns, her twelve-pound 
 rapid-firers having been put aboard the Maria 
 Teresa for the voyage across the Atlantic, and left 
 there when she parted company with Cervera 
 moved eastward along shore, to get out of the Isa 
 bel s line of fire, and then steamed straight at the 
 big liner. Such an attack showed more pluck than 
 judgment. At night it might have succeeded ; in 
 the daylight the St. Paul s five-inch guns were not 
 likely to let her come within striking distance. The 
 two ships were three quarters of a mile apart f when 
 a shell shattered the Terror s steering gear. She 
 veered around, practically disabled, and another 
 shot went clear through her, killing three men, 
 
 * At San Juan were the small Spanish cruiser Isabel II (1,130 tons, 
 a sister ship to the Antonio de Ulloa and the Juan de Austria, de 
 stroyed by Dewey in Manila Bay), the torpedo-boat destroyer Terror, 
 and three gunboats. This was no doubt known to the Navy Depart 
 ment, which had an agent Ensign H. H. Ward, of the Bureau of 
 Navigation in the city during June. Ensign Ward, who passed as an 
 English traveller, was arrested on suspicion by the Spanish authorities, 
 but was released on the demand of the British consul. 
 
 f According to the account of the engagement given by her captain, 
 Lieutenant de la Rocha, to Commander Jacobsen, of the German 
 cruiser Geier, and published by the latter in the Marine Rundschau. 
 
THE PORTO RICO CAMPAIGN 
 
 333 
 
 damaging her engines, and making a dangerous 
 hole in her side just below the water line. She 
 was barely able to turn and get back into the 
 harbour, where she was run aground to prevent 
 her sinking, and was subsequently under repair for 
 a month. 
 
 During the same afternoon (June 22d) the Isabel 
 appeared again, accompanied by a gunboat, appar 
 ently attempting to draw the St. Paul under the 
 shore batteries a challenge which Captain Sigsbee 
 wisely declined, his great ship, with her high free 
 board, being a mark that even Spanish gunners 
 might have found an easy one. 
 
 The Yosemite arrived on June 25th. On the 26th 
 the St. Paul started for New York, to coal ; and on 
 his way north Captain Sigsbee called at Cape Hai- 
 tien and cabled to Washington that in order to 
 blockade San Juan effectively a " considerable force 
 of vessels " was needed. No other ships could be 
 spared, and the Yosemite, manned by men of the 
 Michigan Naval Reserve, was left to maintain the 
 blockade alone. On June 28th she had a sharp en 
 gagement. At dawn that day she caught the Span 
 ish transport Antonio Lopez attempting to steal up 
 to the harbour entrance from the west, and drove 
 her ashore. The Isabel II and two gunboats prob 
 ably informed of the Lopez s approach by a signal 
 sent along the coast came out to rescue the block 
 ade runner, and the shore batteries also opened fire. 
 The odds were heavily against the Yosemite, but 
 the Spanish gunners could not hit her, and a long- 
 range artillery duel was kept up for four hours, end 
 ing, as Commander Emory reported, in the repulse 
 of the enemy s vessels, without any injury to his 
 ship. 
 
 The Yosemite was alone off San Juan for three 
 weeks ; in July the New Orleans was sent to the 
 station, and later the Amphitrite, the Cincinnati, and 
 some other men-of-war. 
 
334 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 On July 2 1st, as he had thirty-five hundred 
 troops at Guantanamo, and reinforcements were on 
 their way from Tampa and Charles- 
 Miles moves on t General Miles decided to move 
 
 Porto Rico, -r-. -.^. . ,., 
 
 juiy 21. upon Porto Rico. The regiments 
 
 with him were the Sixth Massachu 
 setts and the Sixth Illinois, with two hundred and 
 seventy-five recruits ordered to join Shafter s corps, 
 but not needed at Santiago; Batteries C and F of 
 the Third Artillery, B and F of the Fourth, and B 
 of the Fifth; and detachments of engineers, of the 
 signal corps, and of the hospital corps. He had 
 requested permission to take the marines from Playa 
 del Este, but the Secretary of War refused it, say 
 ing " we have enough army for our work." His 
 troops were on the Columbia, the Yale, and seven 
 transports, and as a convoy Sampson assigned the 
 Massachusetts, the Gloucester, and the Dixie, with 
 Captain Higginson of the Massachusetts as senior 
 naval officer. The Cincinnati was also ordered from 
 the Havana station to Porto Rico. The admiral s 
 hands were very full at this time, with almost the 
 whole Cuban coast to patrol, and with some of his 
 strongest men-of-war detached for service in Com 
 modore Watson s Eastern Squadron ; and he had 
 considered that with Cervera s fleet destroyed and 
 San Juan blockaded, the Cincinnati alone, in addi 
 tion to the guns of the Columbia and the Yale, 
 would be a sufficient protection ; but at Miles s re 
 quest, and finally upon the President s positive order 
 that a battle ship should be sent, he added the three 
 vessels mentioned. 
 
 The garrison of Porto Rico consisted, according 
 to General Miles s report, of 8,223 Spanish regulars 
 and 9,107 volunteers. These figures, presumably, 
 were obtained officially after the surrender, and are 
 accurate, though Commander Jacobsen gives the 
 Spanish army roll of January I, 1898 since which 
 time it seems that no reinforcements were sent 
 
THE PORTO RICO CAMPAIGN 
 
 335 
 
 as showing 7,002 regulars. It was believed quite 
 correctly, as it proved that the volunteers were dis 
 affected, and would refuse to fight. The chief mill- 
 
336 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 tary stations, besides San Juan, were Mayaguez, in 
 the west ; Ponce, the largest city in the island, in the 
 south; and Guayama, in the southeast; but since 
 the outbreak of war the Spanish forces had been 
 concentrated in San Juan, only small detachments 
 remaining elsewhere. 
 
 The port of Fajardo, near Cape San Juan, at the 
 northeast corner of the island, was the point selected 
 for the landing of the expedition ; but on the way 
 eastward from Guantanamo, General Miles went on 
 board of the Massachusetts (July 23d) and told 
 Captain Higginson that he preferred to make for 
 Guanica, at the other end of Porto Rico, in the 
 extreme southwest.* His reasons were that the 
 enemy was likely to have information of his plans, 
 and to be prepared to resist a landing at Fajardo ; 
 that there were reported to be no defences either at 
 Guanica or at the neighbouring city of Ponce, from 
 which a fine military road led across the island to 
 San Juan ; and that he would find there plenty of 
 sugar lighters, which he could use in taking men 
 and material ashore, the tugs and launches promised 
 him from Washington having failed to arrive, f 
 Captain Higginson at first demurred on the ground 
 
 * It has been stated that a landing at Guanica or Ponce was really 
 planned from the first, Fajardo being mentioned merely as a ruse ; but 
 such does not seem to have been the case. On July i8th Miles tele 
 graphed to Washington that Sampson and himself had agreed upon 
 Cape San Juan (presumably meaning Fajardo). On the same day he 
 received a despatch the result of a conference between the President 
 and Secretaries Alger and Long authorizing him to use his own dis 
 cretion in the matter. On July 26th, just before his report of the cap 
 ture of Guanica reached Washington, the Secretary of War sent him a 
 telegram that shows surprise, if not disapproval : 
 
 " Conflicting reports here as to your place of landing. Why did 
 you change ? Doraco TDorado], fifteen miles west of San Juan, is re 
 ported an excellent place to land. Did you leave ships to direct Schwan 
 and Wilson, now en route, where to find you ? " 
 
 Miles replied with a despatch stating at length his reasons for pre 
 ferring Guanica to Fajardo. 
 
 t General Miles received valuable information about Porto Rico 
 from Lieutenant H. H. Whitney, of the Fourth Artillery, who during 
 May spent two weeks in the southern part of the island, travelling in 
 disguise, and who now returned there on Miles s staff. 
 
THE PORTO RICO CAMPAIGN 337 
 
 that the harbour at Guanica was too shallow for the 
 heavier ships, and that the southern coast was less 
 convenient for coaling, and less sheltered from the 
 prevailing winds; but he finally waived his objec 
 tions, and after passing Haiti the fleet turned south 
 ward by the Mona Passage, detaching the Dixie to 
 summon any ships that might go to the abandoned 
 rendezvous near Cape San Juan. 
 
 Guanica was reached at sunrise on July 25th, 
 
 and Lieutenant-Commander Wainwright took the 
 
 Gloucester into the harbour, scorn- 
 
 nica d ju* *a U> ing th . e P ssible dangers of unknown 
 batteries or torpedoes. A landing 
 party of thirty men, under Lieutenant Huse, execu 
 tive officer of the Gloucester, went ashore and 
 hoisted the Stars and Stripes. At this a few shots 
 came from the outskirts of the village, and a country 
 man the only male inhabitant who had not fled 
 at sight of the American ships told the lieutenant 
 that the garrison of Guanica, thirty Spanish regulars, 
 had sought shelter in the bushes, after telegraphing 
 to Yauco for reinforcements. Huse barricaded the 
 road leading inland, and a little later, when a small 
 body of mounted troops appeared, a few shots from 
 the Gloucester s three-pounders drove them off. 
 
 By this time the transports had followed the 
 Gloucester into the bay, and the soldiers were land 
 ing in boats from the ships and in some lighters 
 found in the harbour and promptly seized. The vil 
 lage was occupied without further resistance, and at 
 daylight next morning (July 26th) General Garret- 
 son, with six companies of the Sixth Massachusetts 
 and one of the Sixth Illinois, moved upon Yauco, 
 about four miles inland. At the hacienda of Santa 
 Desidera they encountered a Spanish force, which 
 opened a brisk fusillade, and there was a moment of 
 confusion among three companies of the Massa 
 chusetts men whom Garretson had posted, as a re 
 serve, in a hollow that proved to be unsheltered from 
 
338 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the enemy s fire. They were soon rallied, however, 
 the advance was continued, and the Spaniards re 
 treated, leaving the road to Ponce open. The 
 American loss in the skirmish was four men 
 wounded, all in the Massachusetts regiment ; their 
 antagonists had two killed and eighteen wounded. 
 
 On the morning of the 27th the Wasp and the 
 Annapolis joined Captain Higginson s squadron, 
 and Major-General Wilson and Brigadier-General 
 Ernst arrived from Charleston with the latter s bri 
 gade, which included the Second Wisconsin, the 
 Third Wisconsin, and the Sixteenth Pennsylvania. 
 The troops were not landed at Guanica, as Miles was 
 now ready to take and hold Ponce, a point of im 
 portance in itself, and a better base for his move 
 ment upon San Juan. 
 
 It fell to Commander Davis, of the Dixie, to re 
 ceive the surrender of Ponce and of its port, La 
 Playa. With the Annapolis and the 
 
 WaS P> the DLxie anch red in the har " 
 
 bour before sunset that same day (July 
 27th). Lieutenant Merriam, who was sent ashore, 
 found that the garrison of La Playa had fled, leaving 
 no one with whom he could deal ; but the British and 
 German consuls came down from Ponce, with some 
 representatives of mercantile interests, and through 
 their mediation the comandante, Colonel San Martin, 
 surrendered the city to Commander Davis, on con 
 dition that he should be allowed to retreat unmo 
 lested with his soldiers who numbered about three 
 hundred, besides forty or fifty sick men who were 
 left behind. He could have done nothing else ; the 
 Dixie alone, with her guns trained on his defence 
 less city, was a sufficient argument for capitulation, 
 without considering the overwhelming force close 
 behind her ; yet it was the luckless colonel s fate to 
 be a scapegoat for Spain s resentment of her mis 
 fortunes. On reaching San Juan he was arrested 
 and court-martialed by Captain-General Macias, and 
 
THE PORTO RICO CAMPAIGN 
 
 339 
 
 sentenced to death for giving up Ponce without 
 resistance. Upon the intercession of General 
 Brooke and other American officers, his punish 
 ment was subsequently commuted to life imprison 
 ment, and it is understood that he was sent to the 
 Spanish convict station at Ceuta, in Morocco. 
 
 The transports came into the harbour of Ponce 
 early on the 28th, and the army took possession of 
 the city. Here, as elsewhere, they were received 
 with a general display of friendliness by the natives. 
 General Miles issued a proclamation, setting forth 
 in somewhat flowery periods that the American 
 forces were in Porto Rico " in the cause of liberty, 
 justice, and humanity," and " bearing the flag of 
 freedom ; " that they represented " the fostering 
 arm of a nation of free people, whose greatest power 
 is in its justice and humanity to all those living 
 within its fold. Hence," the general added, " the 
 first effect of this occupation will be the immediate 
 release from your former political relations, and, it is 
 hoped, a cheerful acceptance of the Government of 
 the United States." General Wilson was appointed 
 military governor of Ponce, and Captain Chester, 
 of the Cincinnati, captain of the port. 
 
 General Miles had declined to consider himself 
 bound by Commander Davis s agreement that there 
 should be no pursuit of the withdrawing Spaniards 
 for forty-eight hours, but he made no immediate 
 movement. With this firm foothold in the south 
 west of the island, he waited for the 
 troops he needed to advance in force. 
 Ihey came on the 3ist, when Briga 
 dier-General Schwan arrived from Tampa with the 
 Eleventh and the Nineteenth Infantry, a troop of 
 the Second Cavalry, and two batteries of the Sev 
 enth Artillery; and Major-General Brooke and 
 Brigadier-General Hains brought nearly six thou 
 sand men from Newport News, including the Third 
 Illinois, the Fourth Ohio, the Fourth Pennsylvania, 
 
340 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 a company of the Eighth Infantry, a troop of the 
 Sixth Cavalry, the Philadelphia City Troop, Troops 
 A and C, New York Cavalry, and Rodney s bat 
 talion of artillery. One of Schwan s transports had 
 an adventure en route. .She was chased by the 
 Eagle off the Cuban coast, and as her captain 
 ignored Lieutenant Southerland s signals and 
 warning shots she narrowly escaped being fired on. 
 
 Miles s plan of campaign now began to disclose 
 itself. At Ponce he had before him a fine highway 
 running through Coamo and across the centre of 
 the island for seventy miles to San Juan. General 
 Brooke s division was carried eastward on its trans 
 ports to Arroyo, which surrendered to Captain 
 Goodrich, on the Gloucester, on August 1st. Land 
 ing there, Brooke was to rnarch by Guayama to 
 reach the San Juan road at Cayey. Schwan, mean 
 while, was ordered to go ashore at Guanica and 
 move around the western end of Porto Rieo, by 
 way of San German and Mayaguez. Henry and 
 Garretson with General Stone, famous as a road 
 builder, to make a practicable highway out of a neg 
 lected trail across the hills headed straight across 
 the centre of the island, by Ad juntas and Utuado, 
 to cut off the retreat of any Spanish forces dis 
 lodged by Schwan. All four columns were to 
 converge upon San Juan, where the Spaniards 
 were likely to make their last stand, and where 
 the final blow could be struck by army and navy 
 together. 
 
 The story of the Porto Rico campaign recalls 
 the proverb which says that the happiest nation is 
 the one that has the least history. Its brief annals 
 are not lengthened by any record of sufferings and 
 difficulties like those that made the story of San 
 tiago. General Miles s well-laid plans were car 
 ried out with almost clocklike precision, and in the 
 nineteen days between the landing at Guanica and 
 the end of the war his four advancing columns occu- 
 
THE PORTO RICO CAMPAIGN 
 
 341 
 
 pied about one third of the island, with the insig 
 nificant loss of three men killed and forty wounded. 
 
 General Schwan, with the westernmost column 
 consisting of the Eleventh Infantry (Colonel De 
 Russy), Troop A of the Fifth Cavalry, a battery of 
 Catling guns, and two of field artillery, a total of 
 1,447 men, with a few native guides left Yauco on 
 August Qth. At San German, which was reached 
 next morning, he heard that the garrison of Maya- 
 guez eleven hundred Spanish regulars of the 
 Alfonso XIII regiment, commanded by Colonel 
 Soto, and a few volunteers was coming out to 
 meet him. 
 
 Moving on down the valley of the Rio Grande, 
 
 the American advance guard encountered the 
 
 enemy at Hormiguero, about four 
 
 The fight at miles from Mayaguez. Here the 
 
 Hormiguero, c j j 1 -11 -J 
 
 Aug. 10. bpamards were posted on a hillside 
 
 commanding the valley, and their fire 
 caused a few casualties while Schwan s men were 
 discovering their position and deploying for an 
 attack. Turning into the fields on both sides of 
 the road planted with sugar cane, and intersected 
 by creeks and wire fences the American soldiers 
 pushed steadily forward; the Catling guns, under 
 Lieutenant Maginnis of the Eleventh, moved with 
 the firing line, and the artillery was brought to bear 
 from the foothills. The Spaniards, who had the 
 advantage of position, but were outnumbered and 
 had no guns, made a feeble resistance and a pre 
 cipitate retreat. Schwan s losses in the skirmish 
 were one man killed and sixteen wounded; the 
 enemy s he estimated at fifty killed and wounded. 
 Early next day (August nth) the American 
 troops entered Mayaguez, a city of 22,000 people, 
 and the chief seaport on the west coast of Porto 
 Rico. The inhabitants received them with every 
 demonstration of satisfaction. The garrison had 
 retreated by a road running inland toward Lares, 
 
342 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 and Schwairs first intention was to hurry on in 
 pursuit; but the settlement of affairs in Mayaguez 
 demanded attention ; his men were tired, the roads 
 were poor, and drenching rains helped to make 
 operations difficult. He decided to send out a fly 
 ing column, under Lieutenant-Colonel Burke, of 
 the Eleventh, to follow the enemy. 
 
 With seven hundred men six companies of his 
 regiment, a platoon of cavalry, and another of 
 artillery Burke set out on the morning of the I2th. 
 That night, after pushing all day along a road 
 that climbed into the mountains, he had bivouacked 
 in the trail, when news reached him that the Span 
 iards had assembled from one to two thousand men 
 at Las Marias, and were preparing to make a stand. 
 He sent a courier back to General Schwan with this 
 information, adding that he proposed to move for 
 ward at daybreak and attack the enemy. 
 
 Fearing that Burke s force might be inadequate, 
 Schwan promptly hurried after him with the cavalry 
 troop, ordering Colonel De Russy to follow as 
 rapidly as possible with the rest of the brigade. He 
 found the advance guard drawn up on the crest of 
 a ridge, firing upon the Spaniards, who held the 
 opposite hill and were scattered in the valley be 
 tween. Through the valley ran a swift and deep 
 mountain torrent, the Rio Prieto, which most of 
 Colonel Soto s men had crossed, but some had been 
 unable to cross. After a brisk exchange of shots, 
 the main body continued its retreat, leaving the 
 rear guard, utterly disorganized, to hide in the 
 woods, where forty prisoners were rounded up by 
 the American cavalry. Colonel Soto was found in 
 a peasant s cottage, disabled by an injury ; his sec 
 ond in command was also among the prisoners. 
 
 Schwan was ready to move on early the next 
 morning (Sunday, August I4th) to attack Lares 
 which would no doubt have proved easy prey 
 when he received word that the peace protocol had 
 
THE PORTO RICO CAMPAIGN 
 
 343 
 
 been signed the day before, and he had to recall 
 his orders for an advance. " No troops," he says, 
 " ever suspended with a worse grace." 
 
 No fighting at all fell to Garretson s brigade, 
 which, with General Henry as division commander, 
 left Ponce on August 8th. Its move- 
 d enry"coiumn. ments were slower than Henry had an 
 ticipated. He had nothing but ox carts 
 to carry his supplies through a hilly country where 
 pack trains would have given better service. Be 
 sides a battalion of the Nineteenth Infantry and a 
 small mounted detachment Troop A, of the Sec 
 ond Cavalry his force consisted of two unseasoned 
 volunteer regiments, the Sixth Illinois and the Sixth 
 Massachusetts. The discipline of the latter had 
 been unsatisfactory both in the skirmish of July 26th 
 before Yauco and during the march to Ponce. At 
 Ponce several of the officers, who had been ordered 
 before a board of inquiry, resigned their commis 
 sions, and since then its morale had improved ; but 
 on the first day s march northward Henry reports 
 that there was much straggling in the brigade, 
 " new shoes being the alleged cause." Only nine 
 miles were covered on the 8th, and the troops did 
 not reach Adjuntas until August loth. On the I3th, 
 when the order to discontinue hostilities came, 
 Henry was at Utuado with his regulars and two 
 battalions of the Massachusetts men, preparing to 
 advance upon Arecibo, where there was a small 
 body of Spaniards ; Garretson, with the rest of the 
 brigade, was still at Adjuntas. 
 
 Meanwhile, after some delay in the landing of 
 the necessary supplies and material at Ponce, 
 Ernst s brigade the Sixteenth Pennsylvania (Colo 
 nel Hulings), the Second Wisconsin (Colonel 
 Born), and the Third Wisconsin (Colonel Moore), 
 with two batteries, Potts s and Anderson s, both 
 commanded by Major Lancaster had advanced 
 along the main highway across the island, running 
 
344 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 eastward and northward to San Juan. Before leav 
 ing Ponce the volunteers exchanged their Spring 
 field rifles for Krag-Jorgensens. The Pennsyl 
 vania regiment led the advance, and its reconnoi 
 tring parties came into conflict with the outposts of 
 the Spaniards, who were falling back slowly. On 
 August 8th General Ernst, with the rest of the bri 
 gade, passed the Pennsylvanians, and camped 
 within four miles of Coamo. 
 
 General Wilson, the division commander, came 
 out from Ponce on the previous afternoon (August 
 7th). From deserters and friendly natives he had 
 full information of the Spaniards movements. They 
 were preparing to meet him near Aibonito, at the 
 highest point on the road, where it crosses the 
 mountain ridge that parallels the south coast of the 
 island. Here they had some two thousand troops 
 in a strong natural position, which they were further 
 strengthening with batteries and intrenchments. 
 At Coamo, where the road first reaches the hills, 
 was an outpost held by about three hundred men. 
 This, too, was a strong position, not to be taken by 
 direct assault without risk of serious loss, and Gen 
 eral Wilson planned a turning movement. 
 
 On the evening of the 8th the Pennsylvania 
 
 regiment moved out from the rear and struck into 
 
 a hill trail north of the road, which 
 
 The action at i j i 1 1 T 
 
 Coamo, July 9 . had been reconnoitred by Lieuten 
 ant-Colonel Biddle and other staff 
 officers. After bivouacking in the hills, the march 
 a rough and difficult journey of about a dozen 
 miles was resumed before daybreak, and at eight 
 o clock next morning Colonel Hulings s men 
 reached a point commanding the San Juan road in 
 the rear of Coamo. The Spaniards were already 
 retreating, Major Lancaster s guns having opened 
 upon them in front. A few escaped toward Aibo 
 nito, but their commander, Major Martinez, who ex 
 posed himself with reckless gallantry, was shot down, 
 
THE PORTO RICO CAMPAIGN 345 
 
 and after returning the Pennsylvanians fire till their 
 position was evidently hopeless, the main body gave 
 up the fight, waving hats and handkerchiefs in 
 token of surrender. The Pennsylvanians, who had 
 had the fight practically to themselves, marched 
 back into Coamo with two hundred and one pris 
 oners. Their loss was only six wounded ; the Span 
 iards had seven killed and sixtynine wounded.* 
 
 A bridge over a deep ravine before Coamo had 
 been destroyed, but General Wilson saved several 
 others on the road to Aibonito by sending out a 
 mounted detachment Troop C of the New York 
 cavalry, under Captain Clayton in prompt pursuit 
 of the fleeing enemy. Five and a half miles beyond 
 Coamo the troopers came under fire from the Span 
 ish batteries on the hill of Asomanta, commanding 
 the highway where it winds up to the summit of the 
 divide, over which it passes to the village of Aibo 
 nito; and here the American cavalrymen were 
 ordered to remain as an outpost. 
 
 During the loth and nth General Wilson was 
 
 bringing up his forces and reconnoitring. He 
 
 found a serious task before him. 
 
 The span- The Spaniards position gave them a 
 
 lards stand at r i ,1 , 1 
 
 Aibonito. plunging fire down the steep road, 
 
 and the American artillery could not 
 be brought to bear except with the disadvantage of 
 firing from points several hundred feet lower than 
 the enemy s guns. On both sides of the road the 
 ground was broken by deep and precipitous ravines. 
 Nevertheless General Wilson decided that another 
 flanking movement was practicable, and ordered 
 Ernst to be ready, on the morning of the I3th, to 
 take a mountain trail branching to the left and run- 
 
 * In his official report of the action, dated Coamo, August 10, 1898, 
 Colonel (now Brigadier-General) Hulings stated the Spanish loss as 6 
 killed, 40 wounded, and 167 prisoners. In a personal statement to the 
 writer he substitutes the figures given above, saying that men were 
 found later among the houses in the village. 
 
346 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 ning westward and northward over the divide to 
 Barranquito, whence Aibonito could be taken in 
 the rear. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the I2th, to engage the Span 
 iards attention and develop their strength, Major 
 Lancaster took a field battery to a hilltop on the 
 left of the road and opened fire upon the works on 
 the hill of Asomanta. At first the Spanish guns 
 replied feebly, and Major Lancaster thought he 
 had silenced them ; but after an hour s firing, when 
 his ammunition was running low, the enemy ap 
 parently received reinforcements, and he found his 
 battery the target of a hail of shells and bullets, his 
 smoke powder helping the Spaniards to get his 
 range. His position was evidently untenable, and 
 the guns were withdrawn, Lieutenant Hains, who 
 commanded one of them, being shot through the 
 body, and the battery s whole loss being one man 
 killed and six wounded, one mortally. 
 
 Knowing that he might at any moment receive 
 news of an armistice, General Wilson delayed 
 Ernst s flanking movement and sent a flag of truce 
 to the Spanish lines with a demand for surrender. 
 The message was forwarded to San Juan, to the 
 captain-general, whose reply, received early the 
 next morning (August I3th) was a curt refusal ; and 
 Ernst was on the point of starting when General 
 Miles telegraphed from Ponce the order to suspend 
 operations. 
 
 General Brooke s advance, too, was halted at the 
 
 very moment when a sharp fight was imminent. 
 
 His disembarkation at Arroyo was 
 
 Brooke s ad- slow, there being no wharf and few 
 
 vance from available boats, and two of his trans- 
 Arroyo. 
 
 ports being delayed by running 
 
 aground at Ponce. On August 5th the infantry was 
 ready to move, and that morning General Hains 
 marched upon Guayama with the Fourth Ohio 
 (Colonel Coit) and the Third Illinois (Colonel Ben- 
 
THE PORTO RICO CAMPAIGN 
 
 347 
 
 nitt), the former leading the way. About a mile 
 from the town the Ohioans encountered a small 
 number of Spaniards, who fired a few shots and 
 retreated through Guayama, of which the Ameri 
 cans took possession. Just beyond the town, on the 
 road to Cayey, there was another skirmish, the 
 enemy being dispersed again by the Ohio regi 
 ment s dynamite guns. 
 
 No further advance was made till the 8th, when 
 General Hains ordered a company of the Fourth 
 Ohio to reconnoitre toward Cayey. Colonel Coit 
 took two companies, and three miles out they came 
 under a sharp fire from Spaniards posted on a hill 
 commanding the road, near the village of Pablo 
 Vasquez. The enemy had the range accurately, 
 and the reconnoitring party could do nothing but 
 seek shelter and then fall back, which they did with 
 five men wounded. They met the rest of the regi 
 ment, with the dynamite guns, hurrying out to sup 
 port them, an alarming report of disaster having 
 reached Guayama. 
 
 Again General Brooke was forced to wait, in 
 order to get his cavalry and artillery ashore and to 
 the front. On the I2th he issued orders for an 
 attack, his plan being to threaten the Spanish posi 
 tion with the Third Illinois, a battalion of the Fourth 
 Pennsylvania, and a couple of batteries, while Gen 
 eral Hains, with the Fourth Ohio, marched north 
 ward into the hills to take it in the rear. Hains 
 set out early next morning, and was close upon the 
 enemy who would seemingly have been taken by 
 surprise, and could scarcely have escaped capture, 
 Brooke s guns being ready to open fire upon them 
 in front when a staff officer overtook him with 
 news of the signing of the protocol. 
 
 The navy, which had opened the way for Miles s 
 troops at Guanica, at Ponce, and at Arroyo, con 
 ducted practically no offensive operations during 
 the last days of the campaign. It made a small 
 23 
 
348 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 diversion by sending ashore thirty-five sailors and 
 marines from the Amphitrite at Cape San Juan, 
 on August 6th. The landing party, commanded by 
 Lieutenant Atwater, occupied the Cape San Juan 
 lighthouse, and defended it against a night attack 
 by some one hundred and twenty Spanish mounted 
 infantry ; but on the Qth, as the advantage of hold 
 ing the place seemed slight, Captain Barclay with 
 drew his men. They had suffered no casualties, 
 except the fatal wounding of Naval Cadet Board- 
 man by the accidental discharge of a revolver. 
 
 A reason for the comparative inaction of the 
 navy may possibly be found in certain despatches 
 which General Miles sent to the Secretary of War. 
 One was dated from Ponce, August 9th : 
 
 I am informed the naval vessels at this place have been 
 ordered round to San Juan. In order that there may be 
 no conflict of authority I request that no aggressive action 
 be taken against that place, that no landings be made, or 
 communication held with the Spanish officials or forces 
 on this island by the navy. 
 
 And on the following day the general telegraphed 
 to Secretary Alger : * 
 
 I am fully convinced that Sampson has sent orders to 
 the commander of this fleet, as soon as army leaves south 
 coast, to take his fleet, go round to San Juan, and demand 
 the surrender of the capital or bombard the city, and not 
 to waste ammunition on any of the batteries. First, to 
 bombard a city containing innocent women and children 
 would be a violation of the first order of the President. 
 Second, it is an interference with the work given the 
 army by the President. I ask that any such action be 
 suspended. After we have raised the flag over all the prin 
 cipal cities and arrived at San Juan, any aid by the navy 
 against land batteries, intrenchments, or fortifications 
 would be advisable, but not against a city of non-combat 
 ants. The control of all military affairs on the land of this 
 island can safely be left to the army. 
 
 * This despatch is not among; those published by the War Depart 
 ment, but it appeared in the New York Sun, July 3, 1899, and is pre 
 sumably authentic. 
 
THE PORTO RICO CAMPAIGN 
 
 349 
 
 It is only natural that General Miles should 
 have been anxious to finish his well-planned cam 
 paign with his own forces, but these letters cer 
 tainly show professional jealousy carried to an ex 
 treme. 
 
 Commander Davis, of the Dixie, submitted to 
 Sampson, on August 2d, a plan for taking San 
 Juan by a bombardment from the ocean front and 
 by landing marines and light guns at the eastern 
 end of the island on which the city lies ; and it can 
 hardly be doubted that Sampson would have been 
 willing to sanction the attack, which would have 
 been tolerably sure of success. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 
 
 LIKE the invasion of Porto Rico, the campaign 
 which completed Dewey s triumph in Manila Bay 
 by forcing the surrender of the Philippine capital 
 involved little actual righting ; but it was interesting 
 in a military sense, from the novelty and the dif 
 ficulty of the work it set before the American army, 
 and its political importance was still more momen 
 tous. It marked, indeed, a new era of history for 
 the United States, setting its flag over a great em 
 pire in the eastern hemisphere, and making it no 
 longer an American power merely, but a world 
 power. 
 
 Very few Americans, even among those in au 
 thority at Washington, realized this in the early 
 days of May, 1898, when hurried preparations to 
 follow up Dewey s victory were afoot. The irre 
 sistible logic of events destiny, if the term be pre 
 ferred was swiftly making obsolete the policy that 
 had guided American statesmanship for more than 
 a century ; yet it is hard to single out any precise 
 point as that of the new departure, or, indeed, any 
 point at which it was feasible to halt or turn back. 
 Dewey s instructions (cabled from Washington on 
 April 24th) were to " commence operations, particu 
 larly against the Spanish fleet." A previous tele 
 gram (February 25th) warned him that in case of 
 war his duty would be " offensive operations in 
 35o 
 
THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 35! 
 
 Philippine Islands." No despatch, or at least no 
 published despatch, gave any more explicit order 
 for an attack upon Manila, and the conquest of the 
 islands can hardly have been a long-preconceived 
 plan of the Administration that stood committed to 
 a declaration that by the American code of morality 
 the annexation of another power s territory would 
 be " criminal aggression." * Yet to destroy Spain s 
 fleet and leave her land forces at the mercy of the 
 insurgents, to shatter her power without replacing 
 it with any other constituted authority, would have 
 been a disaster to civilization. 
 
 That a land campaign in the Philippines had not 
 been reckoned among the probable developments of 
 the war is shown by the fact that during April the 
 whole military resources of the United States had 
 been concentrated in the East and South, the Pa 
 cific coast being practically stripped of men and 
 material. General Shafter, commanding the De 
 partment of California, had gone to Tampa with his 
 whole staff and most of the troops of his com 
 mand, leaving only the Fourteenth Infantry (Colo 
 nel Thomas M. Anderson, then stationed in Alaska) 
 and part of the Third Artillery (Colonel Marcus P. 
 Miller), the latter a force quite insufficient to man 
 the defences of San Francisco. 
 
 On May 7th, with Dewey s first announcement 
 of his victory, there came another despatch saying : 
 
 I control bay completely and can take city at any time, 
 but I have not sufficient men to hold. . . . Will ammuni 
 tion be sent? 
 
 Secretary Long immediately replied : 
 
 The Charleston will leave at once with what ammuni 
 tion she can carry. Pacific Mail Steamship Company s 
 steamer Peking will follow with ammunition and supplies. 
 Will take troops unless you telegraph otherwise. How 
 many will you require? 
 
 * President McKinley s message to Congress, December 6, 1897. 
 
352 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Dewey s answer went from Cavite on May I3th, 
 and from Hong-Kong two days later : 
 
 I believe the Spanish governor-general will be obliged 
 to surrender soon. I can take Manila at any moment. To 
 retain possession and thus control Philippine Islands 
 would require, in my best judgment, well-equipped force 
 of five thousand men. . . . Spanish force is estimated ten 
 thousand men. The rebels are reported thirty thousand. 
 
 With such an estimate of the situation by no 
 means an accurate one coming from the admiral, 
 it is not strange that in the United States there 
 should have been divergent opinions as to the task 
 an army expedition would have to face and the force 
 it would require. General Miles seems to have been 
 the first to formulate a plan of operation. On May 
 3d, when Dewey s victory was known, though not 
 officially reported, he wrote to the Secretary of War : 
 
 I have the honour to recommend that General Thomas 
 M. Anderson be sent to occupy the Philippine Islands, in 
 command of the following troops: two battalions Four 
 teenth Infantry, two troops Fourth Cavalry, one regiment 
 of infantry, California volunteers; two batteries heavy 
 artillery, California volunteers; one regiment of infantry, 
 Washington volunteers; the troops to go with all the 
 necessary appliances, supplies, and equipment. 
 
 Miles has been criticised for so greatly under 
 estimating the force needed at Manila, just as 
 Sampson received censure for his statement that 
 ten thousand soldiers could take Santiago in forty- 
 eight hours; but he might reply that his figures 
 agree closely with Dewey s. 
 
 On May nth Major-General Wesley Merritt, 
 then commanding the Department of the East, was 
 summoned to Washington, and on 
 
 thC I2th ^ WaS ann Unced that he had 
 
 been appointed to command an army 
 corps the Eighth Corps to be or 
 ganized immediately for service in the Philippines. 
 General Merritt was fortunately unwilling to under 
 take an almost unknown task with a mere handful 
 
THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 353 
 
 of men, and requested (May I3th) a total force of 
 fourteen thousand four hundred, including four 
 regiments of regulars. Two days later, after some 
 further study of the situation, he wrote to the Presi 
 dent that still more men might be needed, adding, 
 with remarkable foresight: 
 
 It seems more than probable that we will have the so- 
 called insurgents to fight as well as the Spaniards. 
 
 General Miles who had not seen Merritt s esti 
 mate submitted a different list of troops, includ 
 ing only two regular regiments the Fourteenth 
 and Fifteenth with two squadrons of cavalry, three 
 batteries of artillery, thirteen thousand volunteers 
 from the Western States, and some heavy guns, 
 which were to be mounted for the defence of Manila 
 as soon as the city should be captured. " When 
 this is accomplished," he suggested, " the fleet can 
 be released for more important service." 
 
 To this Merritt replied, on May I7th: 
 
 Two regiments of regular infantry, two thirds of a 
 regiment of regular cavalry, and two light batteries is a 
 very small proportion of the forty-two regular regiments 
 in the army when the work to be done consists of con 
 quering a territory seven thousand miles from our base, 
 defended by a regularly trained and acclimated army of 
 from ten thousand to twenty-five thousand men, and in 
 habited by fourteen million of people, the majority of 
 whom will regard us with the intense hatred born of race 
 and religion. 
 
 My letters of May I3th and I5th give the composition 
 and minimum strength of the regular force I deem neces 
 sary. 
 
 Merritt s view prevailed at Washington, and 
 orders were finally issued that twenty thousand 
 men should be assembled and equipped at San 
 Francisco, and sent across the Pacific as fast as 
 transports could be secured. Organizing work was 
 at once begun or rather had already been begun 
 under Colonel Anderson, now appointed a briga 
 dier-general of volunteers, and General Merriam, 
 
354 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 who had succeeded Shafter in San Francisco; and 
 on May 25th the advance guard of the expedition 
 the first soldiers the young republic of the west 
 had ever sent into the ancient lands of the east 
 sailed from the Golden Gate. It consisted of the 
 First California (Colonel Smith), the Second 
 Oregon (Colonel Summers), and six companies of 
 the Fourteenth Infantry, in all 2,491 men, under 
 General Anderson, in three transports, the City of 
 Sydney, the Australia, and the City of Peking. 
 
 At Honolulu, where the transports put in for 
 
 coal, they found the cruiser Charleston, which left 
 
 San Francisco a few days before them, 
 
 Guam June *>. waitin g to Serve as their eSCOrt The y 
 
 carried an order from Secretary Long 
 to Captain Glass of the Charleston there being no 
 cable to Hawaii instructing him to seize the island 
 of Guam, in the Ladrones, on his way to Manila.* 
 The expedition left Honolulu on June 4th, and 
 reached Guam on the morning of the 2oth. Captain 
 Glass first visited Agana, the capital, whose port he 
 found entirely empty ; then in search of a Spanish 
 gunboat of which he had heard rumours at Honolulu 
 he took the Charleston into the picturesque har 
 bour of San Luis d Apra, a reef-fringed bay com 
 manded by rocky cliffs. The chart showed fortifica 
 tions Fort Santiago and Fort Santa Cruz but 
 these proved to be nothing more than abandoned 
 ruins ; and the only vessel in the harbour was a 
 small Japanese trader. No Spanish man-of-war 
 had called at the island for eighteen months; no 
 news had come from the outer world since April 
 1 4th, and the exiles who formed Spain s garrison 
 
 * The Ladrone or Marianne Islands had belonged to Spain ever 
 since their discovery by Magellan in 1521. They consist of fifteen islets 
 scattered in a broken line from north to south, with a total area of 420 
 square miles and a population of about 10,000. Guam, the most im 
 portant island, which was the seat of the Spanish colonial government, 
 lies at the southern end of the chain, 900 miles north of the equator 
 and 1,300 miles east of the nearest of the Philippines. 
 
THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 355 
 
 in this remote speck of land knew nothing of the 
 war with the United States. They had no defences ; 
 the only cannon in Guam were four little cast-iron 
 antiquities once used for saluting, but condemned 
 as unsafe even for that peaceful purpose. 
 
 Captain Glass fired a shot or two at the fortifica 
 tions before he discovered that they were deserted, 
 and the sound of his guns brought out two officers 
 in a boat, who were mightily surprised to find 
 themselves prisoners. They were paroled and sent 
 ashore to summon the governor, Lieutenant-Colo 
 nel Marina, from Agana. That official replied that 
 the Spanish law forbade him to board a foreign 
 vessel, but he would be pleased to confer with 
 Captain Glass on shore. The captain s answer was 
 a note sent ashore on the following morning, with 
 a landing party under Lieutenant Braunersreuther, 
 giving Marina half an hour to surrender uncondi 
 tionally. No resistance was possible; the garrison 
 sixty Spaniards and a few native soldiers was 
 disarmed, the Spaniards were taken on board the 
 Sydney, and on the 22d the four ships resumed 
 their voyage, entering Manila Bay on June 3Oth. 
 
 Here the situation had changed little since the 
 
 destruction of Montojo s fleet two months before. 
 
 Rear-Admiral Dewey (promoted to 
 
 Anderson that rank M ^h) had been waiting 
 
 reaches Manila, -,11 r it. r* *. 
 
 June 30 m the bay, in possession ot the Lavite 
 
 arsenal and of the fortifications on 
 the island of Corregidor, and with Manila itself, 
 rigidly blockaded, lying at the mercy of his guns. 
 He had lost one of his officers, Captain Gridley, of 
 the Olympia, through illness,* the vacant place 
 being taken by Captain Lamberton, who had been 
 serving on the flagship as the admiral s chief of staff. 
 
 * Captain Gridley was "condemned by a medical survey" to use 
 the cynical-sounding phrase that ends the career of many a brave 
 sailor who has served his country well in May, and was ordered 
 home. He died on the way, at Kobe, Japan, June 4th. 
 
 
 TTNTVF,3.8IT 
 
356 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Commander Wood, of the Petrel, had been put in 
 charge of the station at Cavite, which was well 
 equipped with storehouses and barracks, and with 
 machine shops that proved very useful for small re 
 pairs to the squadron. On May I2th another prize 
 had been captured the Spanish gunboat Callao, 
 which steamed into the bay in ignorance of Dewey s 
 presence there. 
 
 The position of the Manila garrison was a des 
 perate one. In the harbour were Dewey s ships ; 
 on the landward side they were hemmed in by the 
 insurgents, who had pushed their lines close up to 
 the city, and who mustered about fourteen thou 
 sand men, commanded by General Emilio Agui- 
 naldo. This remarkable young Fili- 
 Dewey s pino leader, who has since been the 
 
 relations with x , - , ... , . 
 
 Aguinaido. author of such disasters to his coun 
 trymen and so much suffering and 
 loss to the American troops, landed at Cavite on 
 May iQth, having been brought from Hong-Kong 
 on the McCulloch, sent for despatches. Negotia 
 tions with him had been begun in April, at Singa 
 pore, by United States Consul Pratt, who, with 
 Dewey s permission, sent him to Hong-Kong for 
 a conference. Arriving there a few days after the 
 admiral s departure, he was received by Rounsevelle 
 Wildman, the American consul at Hong-Kong. 
 Aguinaido afterward asserted that both Mr. Pratt 
 and Mr. Wildman promised that their Government 
 would assist him to establish the independent repub 
 lic for which he had long been righting; but his 
 allegations can not be credited in the face of their 
 emphatic denials, and of Dewey s repeated and ex 
 plicit assertion that no pledges of any sort were 
 given. With or without pledges, however, it must 
 be admitted that it was a mistake to accept his co 
 operation on any basis. He proved to be an effect 
 ive weapon against the Spaniards, but in thoroughly 
 scrupulous fighting such a weapon should not have 
 
THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 
 
 357 
 
 been employed. If the Filipinos were to have no 
 political recognition, they should have had no mili 
 tary recognition. If they were to be regarded no 
 doubt correctly as incapable of civilized self-gov 
 ernment, they should not have been used as allies 
 in war, aided with gifts of arms, and intrusted with 
 the care of Spanish prisoners. 
 
 The admiral thus described his relations with 
 the insurgents on June 27th, in answer to an inquiry 
 from Washington : 
 
 Aguinaldo, insurgent leader, with thirteen of his staff, 
 arrived May ipth, by permission, on Nanshan.* Estab 
 lished self Cavite, outside arsenal, under the protection of 
 our guns, and organized his army. I have had several 
 conferences with him, generally of a personal nature. 
 Consistently I have refrained from assisting him in any 
 way with the force under my command, and on several 
 occasions I have declined requests that I should do so, 
 telling him the squadron could not act until the arrival of 
 the United States troops. At the same time I have given 
 him to understand that I consider insurgents as friends, 
 being opposed to a common enemy. Aguinaldo has acted 
 independently of the squadron, but has kept me advised 
 of his progress, which has been wonderful. I have allowed 
 to pass by water recruits, arms, and ammunition, and to 
 take such Spanish arms and ammunition from the arsenal 
 as he needed. Have advised frequently to conduct the 
 war humanely, which he has done invariably. My rela 
 tions with him are cordial, but I am not in his confidence. 
 The United States has not been bound in any way to 
 assist insurgents by any act or promises, and he is not, 
 to my knowledge, committed to assist us. I believe he 
 expects to capture Manila without my assistance, but doubt 
 ability, they not yet having many guns. In my opinion, 
 these people are far superior in their intelligence and more 
 capable oi self-government than the natives of Cuba, and 
 I am familiar with both races. 
 
 On the other side, Aguinaldo s attitude was stated 
 in a proclamation he issued at Cavite, May 24th : 
 
 Now that the great and powerful North American 
 nation have come to offer disinterested protection for the 
 
 * Apparently a mistake, as other accounts agree that Aguinaldo 
 went to Manila on the McCulloch. 
 
358 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 effort to secure the liberation of this country, I return to 
 assume command of all the forces for the attainment of 
 our lofty aspirations, establishing a dictatorial government 
 which will set forth decrees under my sole responsibility, 
 assisted by the advice of eminent persons, until these islands 
 are completely conquered and able to form a constitutional 
 convention and to elect a president and a cabinet, in whose 
 favour I will duly resign the authority. 
 
 During June, as the insurgents gained in 
 strength, Aguinaldo issued several decrees consti 
 tuting a civil government in the territory they con 
 trolled, and on July ist he proclaimed himself presi 
 dent of the Filipino republic a step of which, por 
 tentous as it was of coming trouble, no official 
 notice was taken. 
 
 Immediately after the battle of May ist, and be 
 fore the naval weakness of the Spaniards was fully 
 understood, there were rumours that they would 
 make an effort to retrieve their first great disaster. 
 When Cervera left the Cape Verde Islands, one of 
 the many conflicting reports, or conjectures, as to 
 his destination was that he was bound for the east, 
 to attack the American fleet with what would in 
 deed have been an overwhelming force. On May 
 1 2th Secretary Long cabled to Dewey that the 
 whereabouts of the powerful Spanish squadron 
 was still unknown ; but that day its arrival at Mar 
 tinique was reported by Captain Cotton, of the 
 Harvard. 
 
 Although it had sent the flower of its navy to 
 sure destruction in the West Indies, instead of 
 probable success in the Philippines, the Madrid 
 Government, it soon appeared, still entertained the 
 idea that it could save Manila. Its attempt proved 
 an utterly feeble one, and effected nothing save to 
 expose its lack of resources and the almost ludicrous 
 incompetence of the directors of its military policy. 
 In the whole story of Spanish weakness and failure, 
 the adventures of Camara s squadron form the most 
 pitiable chapter. 
 
THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 
 
 359 
 
 During May and June there were active prepara 
 tions at the Cadiz navy yard watched, during part 
 of the time, by two young American 
 officers, Ensigns W. H. Buck and H. 
 H. Ward, of the Bureau of Naviga 
 tion, who had volunteered for secret service duty 
 to equip for foreign service all the war ships that 
 could be sent to sea. The available vessels included 
 two battle ships the old 9,9OO-ton Pelayo and the 
 Emperador Carlos V, a fine new ship of 9,235 tons, 
 whose armament was still incomplete ; the two 
 armed auxiliaries Rapido and Patriota, formerly the 
 Hamburg-American liners Normannia and Colum 
 bia ; and several torpedo boats and destroyers, of 
 the class whose inefficiency, in Spanish hands, was 
 demonstrated at Santiago. On June I7th it was 
 reported that a squadron under Admiral Camara 
 had left Cadiz, sailing eastward; on the I9th it had 
 reached Cartagena. As far back as May 2oth Sec 
 retary Long had warned Dewey that there were 
 rumours of such a movement, but on May 29th he 
 had cabled : 
 
 There is no Spanish force en route to Philippine 
 Islands. 
 
 Even when Camara s sailing was reported, it was 
 not believed at Washington that he would actually 
 leave the Spanish coast. On June 22d Secretary 
 Long telegraphed to Dewey : * 
 
 Our special agents report Camara s fleet at Cartagena, 
 Spain. It is thought reliable information. His future 
 destination not ascertained yet. 
 
 * Correspondence between Dewey and Washington went through 
 the American consulate at Hong-Kong, requiring from two to five 
 days to pass between Hong-Kong and Manila. The McCulloch and 
 Dewey s supply ships made frequent voyages to and fro with de 
 spatches. 
 
 It appears that on cutting the Manila cable the admiral took the 
 wire on board the Olympia and attempted to use it, but the Spanish 
 Government prevented this by sealing the line at Hong-Kong a right 
 reserved by its contract with the cable company. 
 
360 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 That there was no alarm at Washington is shown 
 by the secretary s despatch of the same date to 
 Sampson at Santiago : 
 
 Spanish fleet at Cartagena, Spain; movement probably 
 made to satisfy people. This information probably re 
 liable. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Camara passed Cape Bon, in 
 Tunis, on the 22d, and on the 26th he appeared off 
 Port Said, at the northern end of the Suez Canal. 
 Sagasta, the Spanish premier, announced in the 
 Cortes, on the 23d the legislature was dissolved OR 
 the following day that Manila was the objective 
 point of the expedition. On the 25th, and again on 
 the 27th, Secretary Long cabled the news to Dewey. 
 Admiral Dewey is established in the popular re 
 gard as so invincible a hero that many Americans, 
 no doubt, vaguely assume that if 
 Camara had reached Manila he would 
 have been destroyed as speedily as 
 was Montojo s feeble fleet. They may be surprised 
 to learn that the admiral himself was very far from 
 possessing such an easy confidence. On the con 
 trary, it is recorded by General Greene,* who was 
 personally in conference with him, that he fully de 
 cided, in case the Spanish squadron continued its 
 voyage, to abandon Manila Bay and retreat before 
 it. He was not prepared to pit his unarmoured 
 cruisers against a pair of heavy battle ships. He 
 resolved, the general relates, to take his men-of-war 
 and the transports out into the Pacific, and cruise 
 eastward to meet the monitors Monterey and 
 Monadnock, which were on their way to him from 
 California. With this important addition to his 
 fighting strength, he would return and give battle 
 to Camara. The army, meanwhile its senior 
 officer, General Anderson, having readily accepted 
 
 * The Capture of Manila, published in the Century Magazine for 
 March and April, 1899. 
 
THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 361 
 
 Dewey s plan would march inland from Cavite, in 
 trench itself in the interior of Luzon, and await the 
 fleet s return. The result, as General Greene ob 
 serves, would have been a very interesting cam 
 paign ; but on July 22d, just as the admiral was on 
 the point of taking steps to put his design into 
 action, the news came that Camara had turned back. 
 To Dewey himself, apparently, belongs the first 
 suggestion of the effective counter stroke that re 
 moved the danger. In the first despatch he sent to 
 Secretary Long after hearing of Camara s start 
 from Cadiz he said: 
 
 In my judgment, if the coast of Spain was threatened, 
 the squadron of the enemy would have to return. 
 
 This reached Washington on June 27th, and that 
 very day an official bulletin of the Navy De 
 partment announced that " Commo- 
 watson s East- dore \Vatson sails to-day in the 
 
 ern Squadron, . - T , "* A j 1 
 
 June 27. cruiser Newark to join Admiral 
 
 Sampson at Santiago, where he will 
 take under his command an armoured squadron, 
 with cruisers, and proceed at once to the Spanish 
 coast." The new move was not kept a secret, and 
 news of it immediately went all over the world, and 
 to Madrid in particular. Further information was 
 given out the same day. Watson s fleet the com 
 mand, it may be presumed, would have been 
 Schley s had he made a better record with the 
 Flying Squadron was to be called the Eastern 
 Squadron, and was to consist of the Newark as 
 flagship, the battle ships Iowa and Oregon, the 
 armed auxiliaries Yosemite, Dixie, and Yankee, 
 and three colliers. When the squadron was actually 
 commissioned (July 7th) these arrangements had 
 been modified, the Massachusetts taking the place 
 of the Iowa ; and as it never sailed for Spain, all the 
 vessels named remained under Sampson s orders. 
 Here we may note another testimony to the 
 
362 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 supreme importance of the destruction of Cervera s 
 fleet as the great decisive event of the war. While 
 his squadron remained intact it would have been 
 exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to hold the 
 American position at Santiago, to maintain the 
 blockade of Cuba, and at the same time to detach 
 a powerful force for offensive operations beyond the 
 Atlantic. The triumphant ending of Sampson s 
 naval campaign made this last undertaking entirely 
 feasible, and ended Dewey s chief apprehension. 
 
 Camara reached Port Said short of coal, after 
 the fatal habit of Spanish admirals ; and according 
 to instructions from Washington, Mr. Watts, the 
 deputy consul-general, who was in charge of the 
 American consulate at Cairo, promptly lodged a 
 protest against his being allowed to take on fuel in 
 any Egyptian port. The fact that the protest was 
 successful is ascribed to the good offices of Lord 
 Cromer, the British agent. Nevertheless, the Span 
 iards passed through the canal except the three 
 torpedo-boat destroyers, Audaz, Osada, and Pro 
 serpina, which were ordered back to Spain from Port 
 Said ; but they still lay at Suez on July 6th, the war 
 ships having taken some coal from the auxiliaries, 
 when an order came recalling them to the threat 
 ened coast of the peninsula. The fiasco of the Ca- 
 rnara expedition was over, and Manila was left to 
 its fate. 
 
 Though the position of the Spanish garrison was 
 now hopeless, that of Admiral Dewey was not en 
 tirely easy or comfortable. He was 
 Diedrichs seven thousand miles from an avail 
 
 able base; his stock of ammunition 
 was small, and his supply of provisions most of 
 which came from Australia more or less precari 
 ous, though he never was actually short of food or 
 fuel.* He had to face a peculiar embarrassment, 
 
 * On June i3th Dewey sent to Washirf^ton a request for six months 
 supplies in all departments, stating that it was "practically impossible 
 
THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 363 
 
 moreover, in the behaviour of some of the foreign 
 war ships which lay, ostensibly to watch the inter 
 ests of their respective flags, in the blockaded har 
 bour. Germany, in particular, was represented by 
 a squadron that seemed disproportionate to her 
 share in the commerce of Manila. Admiral Died- 
 richs, commanding the German fleet on the East 
 Asiatic station, came into the harbour on June I2th, 
 and at the end of the month he had with him five 
 vessels whose rated strength was superior to 
 Dewey s small fighting force. 
 
 Amid the excitement of war, and under the 
 strain of a trying situation, it is probable that anx 
 iety and resentment were created by incidents which 
 under other conditions would have passed unno 
 ticed. It is entirely clear, now, that the German 
 Government cherished no insidious designs against 
 the United States, and had no idea of provoking a 
 conflict with its forces in Asiatic waters. It is 
 equally clear that the American officers at Manila, 
 from the admiral down, believed the situation to 
 be one of real danger, and that there was a bitter 
 ill feeling between the two fleets. It appears that 
 Diedrichs failed to display a proper respect for 
 Dewey s position as a blockader of the port, and 
 that Dewey, at least on one occasion, was peremp 
 tory in enforcing his rule that every vessel entering 
 or leaving the harbour should be examined by his 
 guard ship of the day. 
 
 The situation was not improved by an incident 
 which occurred early in July, when Aguinaldo sent 
 word that his troops had captured the shore de 
 fences of Subig Bay, and had endeavoured to attack 
 
 to obtain further supplies within the limits of the station during the 
 war." On July zcth, however, he said that he had six months pro 
 visions on hand. On August gth he reported "provisions for three 
 months, fresh ; also plenty of coal." A British ship, the Ellen A. 
 Reed, brought him a cargo of coal from Cape Town in July ; he also 
 took a supply from another British vessel, the Honolulu, laid up at 
 Manila by the blockade. 
 24 
 
364 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the main Spanish position on an island in the har 
 bour (Isla Grande), but had been prevented from 
 doing so by the German cruiser Irene, which had 
 threatened to fire on their boats, on the ground 
 that they flew no recognised flag. Dewey met the 
 difficulty by sending the Raleigh and the Concord 
 to Subig (July 7th), where the Spaniards, numbering 
 about thirteen hundred, surrendered without resist 
 ance, the Irene whose interference with the insur 
 gents, though perhaps officious, was technically 
 quite correct of course interposing no objection. 
 The prisoners were turned over to the insurgents 
 a transaction which came dangerously near to being 
 a recognition of them as a belligerent power. 
 
 The first American troops, as has been said, 
 arrived on June 3Oth, and next morning General 
 Anderson began to disembark his 
 men an ^ material at Cavite. During 
 the day he had an interview with 
 Aguinaldo, whom he found to be in control of 
 everything between the navy-yard gates and the 
 Spanish lines. The Filipino leader, the general re 
 ports, " did not seem pleased at the incoming of 
 our land forces." No further move was made, 
 though Anderson did some reconnoitring mean 
 while, till July 1 5th. Then, in order to secure space 
 for the landing of Greene s brigade, whose arrival 
 was expected, a battalion of the California regi 
 ment was sent across from Cavite to the eastern 
 shore of the bay, and encamped near the hamlet of 
 Tambo, some three miles from Malate, the south 
 ernmost suburb held by the Spaniards. To the new 
 camp christened Camp Dewey the rest of the 
 Calif ornians went on the I7th, on which day the 
 second army . expedition came into the harbour. 
 This consisted of a battalion of the Eighteenth In 
 fantry and another of the Twenty-third ; three regi 
 ments of volunteer infantry, the First Colorado 
 (Colonel Hale), the First Nebraska (Colonel Bratt), 
 
THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 365 
 
 and the Tenth Pennsylvania (Colonel Hawkins) ; 
 and two batteries of volunteer artillery from Utah 
 in all 3,586 men, commanded by General Francis 
 V. Greene, a former officer in the regular army, and 
 late colonel of the Seventy-first New York. 
 
 Greene s brigade left San Francisco on June 
 1 5th, on the four transports China, Colon, Zealandia, 
 and Senator. After calling at Honolulu (June 
 23d to 25th), and passing Wake Island (July 4th) 
 and Guam (July Qth), off Cape Engano, at the 
 northern end of Luzon, the Boston was found wait 
 ing to escort the transports to Manila. On the 
 1 7th they were in the harbour, and next day the 
 men began to go ashore at Camp Dewey, where 
 General Greene took command, General Anderson, 
 who until Merritt s arrival was senior officer, re 
 maining at Cavite. Aguinaldo had moved his head 
 quarters from Cavite to Bakoor, across the small bay 
 of that name, to make room for the Americans, but 
 his attitude was by no means cordial, and he gave 
 them no aid in securing what they most needed 
 vehicles and draught animals. The insurgents still 
 occupied a thin line of intrenchments between 
 Camp Dewey and the Spanish works. 
 
 On July 25th the transport Newport, with 
 Major-General Merritt and his staff, reached Ca 
 vite, and on the 3oth five other ves- 
 sels brought in Brigadier-General 
 MacArthur and his brigade. This 
 pretty nearly doubled the force in the field, the 
 new arrivals numbering 4,847, including four vol 
 unteer regiments the Thirteenth Minnesota, First 
 North Dakota, First Idaho, and First Wyoming ; 
 another battalion each of the Eighteenth and 
 Twenty-third Infantry ; and the Astor Battery, a 
 volunteer field battery organized as a gift to the 
 Government by Colonel John Jacob Astor, of New 
 York. 
 
 With almost eleven thousand men under his 
 
366 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 command, besides nearly five thousand more 
 already on their way from San Francisco,* General 
 Merritt was eager to end a situation that was full 
 of perplexities by an immediate attack on Manila. 
 After reviewing the ground he decided, as Ander 
 son and Greene had already agreed, that the best 
 approach to the city was by the road from the 
 south, the Calle Real (" Royal Road "), which ran 
 parallel to the shore from Camp Dewey to the 
 Spanish lines at Malate, within easy range of the 
 guns of the fleet. To clear the ground for an ad 
 vance it was necessary to get the insurgents out of 
 the way ; and Greene was commissioned to arrange 
 this with Aguinaldo unofficially, as Merritt pre 
 ferred to have no dealings with the Filipino leader. 
 Aguinaldo consented to withdraw his soldiers four 
 hundred yards from the beach, on condition that 
 the request should be made of him in writing; and 
 on July 29th this arrangement was carried out, the 
 abandoned line being occupied by some of Greene s 
 men, who were promptly set to work to strengthen 
 the trenches. 
 
 The growth of the defences, in plain view of 
 their lines, and but a thousand yards distant, seem 
 ingly apprised the Spaniards that 
 f American troops had taken the place 
 
 of the Filipinos, and on the night of 
 July 3 ist, just before midnight, they opened a heavy 
 fire of musketry and artillery. The trenches were 
 held, at the time, by the Tenth Pennsylvania, with 
 four guns of the Utah artillery. The Spaniards 
 
 * Five additional transports were on their way across the Pacific 
 when the war ended : the Peru and the City of Puebla with 1,682 men, 
 under Major-General Elwell S. Otis, who left San Francisco July i5th 
 and arrived at Manila August 2ist ; the Pennsylvania, with 1,348 men, 
 left San Francisco July igth ; and the City of Rio de Janeiro (July 23d) 
 and the St. Paul (July 29th), with 1,735 men, under Brigadier-General 
 Harrison Grey Otis. 
 
 The monitor Monadnock started from San Francisco on June 25th, 
 in company with the collier Nero, but did not reach Manila until 
 August i6th. 
 
Sketch map of the scene of General Merritt s campaign 
 in July and August, 1898. 
 
368 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 kept up a hot fusillade for about two hours, but did 
 not advance from their works, though an attack 
 in force was momentarily expected, and the whole 
 American camp was under arms. A company of 
 the Third Artillery, serving as infantry, hurried to 
 support the Pennsylvanians, and the California regi 
 ment was also moved up. 
 
 It was a dark, stormy night, with high wind and 
 tropical rain, and it was difficult to ascertain what 
 was happening. Major Cuthbertson, commanding 
 a battalion of the Pennsylvanians, reported that the 
 enemy had sallied out and attempted to turn the 
 right flank of the American line, but he was un 
 doubtedly mistaken. General Greene, who was at 
 the front, had been ordered to remain on the de 
 fensive, and therefore sent no more men forward 
 than were necessary to hold the trenches. For the 
 same reason he did not signal to the Boston, which 
 lay off the shore, ready to use her guns if called 
 upon. The skirmish the expedition s baptism of 
 fire ended without result, though not without 
 casualties, Greene s loss being ten killed and forty- 
 three wounded. 
 
 After the night encounter of July 3ist, General 
 Greene kept his men at work extending their in- 
 trenchments, to secure the American right against 
 the possibility of an attack in flank. Before the 
 final advance upon Manila, a strong line of works 
 had been completed, about twelve hundred yards in 
 length, its left coming down to the bay, while its 
 right extended across the Calle Real and rested 
 upon a practically impassable rice swamp just be 
 yond a parallel road farther inland, running into 
 the city from the village of Pasay. To construct 
 and hold this line was a task of no small difficulty 
 and hardship. Any exposure drew the enemy s fire. 
 Tropical rains were incessant, and shelter from 
 them impossible. The soil was so wet that it could 
 be held in place only by bagging it, and the mud 
 
THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 369 
 
 so deep that shoes were ruined and many men per 
 force went barefoot. One storm left two feet of 
 water in part of the trenches. 
 
 Almost every night the Spaniards fired upon the 
 American works, generally with both artillery and 
 musketry. Greene s instructions were to make no 
 reply unless they actually came out to attack him; 
 but with raw troops posted close to the enemy s 
 lines, and under fire for the first time in the dark 
 ness and rain, it proved impossible to enforce such 
 an order strictly, and in four of these resultless 
 nocturnal skirmishes a hundred and fifty thousand 
 rounds of ammunition were expended. Almost 
 every night, too, a few men were killed and 
 wounded. It began to appear that though Greene s 
 forward move was in accordance with the spirit of 
 his orders, it was unfortunate that he had taken 
 up so advanced a position so long before the be 
 sieging forces were prepared to strike a decisive 
 blow. 
 
 For though General Merritt was anxious to end 
 the army s discomfort by an immediate attack, Ad 
 miral Dewey now declared himself not quite ready 
 for the final, move. It may be remembered that in 
 May and June the admiral had repeatedly reported 
 that he could take Manila at any moment.* Since 
 then he had been strengthened by the arrival of the 
 Charleston, while the Spaniards had been weakened 
 in numbers and morale by the long siege, by their 
 losing fight with Aguinaldo, and by the growing 
 hopelessness of their position between the American 
 fleet and army and the insurgent forces. It is pos 
 sible that the prolonged strain of an anxious situa 
 tion had lessened Dewey s confidence and increased 
 his caution ; it is possible that he dreaded political 
 
 * " I control bay completely, and can take city at any time," he 
 said in his despatch of May 4th. Again, on May i3th : "I can take 
 Manila at any moment" ; and on July 3d : "This squadron can re 
 duce the defences of Manila at any moment." 
 
370 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 complications. To put into words what the admiral 
 probably refrained from putting into words, if he 
 should summon the Spaniards to surrender or stand 
 his fire, and if one or more of the foreign squadrons 
 should protest against a bombardment, he would 
 find himself in a situation of great embarrassment, 
 perhaps of humiliation. He had five cruisers, none 
 of them armoured or very heavily armed ; two moni 
 tors the Monterey and the Monadnock were on 
 their way across the Pacific. The ten- and twelve- 
 inch guns of these formidable fighting machines * 
 would give him a trump card in any game he might 
 be called upon to play ; and he wished to wait for 
 them, or at any rate for one of them, before taking 
 action. 
 
 On August 4th the Monterey came into the bay 
 fifty-four days from San Diego a remarkable voy 
 age for a coast-defence ship, even though she was 
 towed most of the way by the collier Brutus. On 
 the 5th General Greene went to General Merritt,who 
 had remained on his transport, the Newport, and 
 reported the situation at the front. Merritt sent 
 him on to Dewey, who explained his wish for a little 
 further delay. To silence the Spaniards heavy guns 
 without risk of loss, he needed the Monterey to 
 engage the city batteries ; but she required time for 
 slight repairs after her long journey. If the troops 
 could not be withdrawn from the first line of 
 trenches which Greene naturally regarded as im 
 possible he would stand ready to aid them, if 
 they were hard pressed, whenever they signalled to 
 him from the beach ; but he would prefer not to 
 use his guns, except in case of necessity, as he did 
 not desire to bring on a general engagement. Be 
 sides although this is not mentioned in General 
 
 * Sampson reported the monitors inefficient for such service as the 
 San Juan expedition, because they lacked speed and were poor gun 
 platforms in a swell. They were well suited for fighting in the smooth 
 water of Manila Bay. 
 
THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 
 
 371 
 
 Greene s narrative he was negotiating through the 
 Belgian consul, M. Andre, for the peaceful sur 
 render of the city. 
 
 Next day (August 6th) Dewey and Merritt had 
 
 a further conference, and on the morning of the 
 
 7th one of the navy launches took into 
 
 surrenderor Manila the following joint note to 
 
 Manila de- , t , . i -r? T j 
 
 manded, Aug. 6. the captain-general, Fermm Jaudenes, 
 who had superseded General Augustin 
 on the 4th : * 
 
 SIR: We have the honour to notify your excellency 
 that operations of the land and naval forces of the United 
 States against the defences of Manila may begin at any 
 time after the expiration of forty-eight hours from the 
 hour of receipt by you of this communication, or sooner 
 if made necessary by an attack on your part. 
 
 This notice is given in order to afford you an oppor 
 tunity to remove all noncombatants from the city. 
 
 General Jaudenes replied promptly, thanking the 
 American commanders for their " humane senti 
 ments," and saying that as he was surrounded by 
 the insurgents he was " without places of refuge for 
 the increased number of wounded, sick, women, and 
 children now lodged within the walls." 
 
 As a result of the notice thus served upon the 
 Spanish captain-general, there was no further firing, 
 either by night or by day, upon the American 
 trenches. Not another shot was exchanged between 
 the opposing forces, until the last day of the cam 
 paign and the war. 
 
 At noon on the gth the forty-eight hours had 
 expired, and Manila expected an immediate bom 
 bardment. Red-cross flags were hoisted on build 
 ings containing sick or wounded men. Boats came 
 out of the Pasig carrying foreign residents, and the 
 neutral squadrons steamed out of range. It was 
 
 * The change is said to have been made under orders from Madrid, 
 for the reason that Augustin had requested permission to surrender 
 without further resistance. The orders must presumably have been 
 sent through one of the foreign squadrons at Manila. 
 
372 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 noted as a significant fact though perhaps its 
 meaning was exaggerated that the British and the 
 Japanese vessels took up a position beside Dewey s, 
 off Cavite, while the fleets of Germany and France 
 moved away northward into the bay. But there was 
 no bombardment. Instead, another joint note was 
 sent to Jaudenes, formally demanding a surrender : 
 
 SIR: The inevitable suffering in store for the wounded, 
 sick, women, and children, in the event that it becomes our 
 duty to reduce the defences of the walled town in which 
 they are gathered, will, we feel assured, appeal successfully 
 to the sympathies of a general capable of making the de 
 termined and prolonged resistance which your excellency 
 has exhibited after the loss of your naval forces, and with 
 out hope of succour. 
 
 We therefore submit, without prejudice to the high 
 sentiments of honour and duty which your excellency en 
 tertains, that surrounded on every side as you are by a 
 constantly increasing force, with a powerful fleet in your 
 front, and deprived of all prospect of reinforcement and 
 assistance, a most useless sacrifice of life would result in 
 the event of an attack, and therefore every consideration 
 of humanity makes it imperative that you should not sub 
 ject your city to the horrors of a bombardment. Accord 
 ingly, we demand the surrender of the city of Manila, and 
 the Spanish forces under your command. 
 
 The captain-general replied with a refusal to sur 
 render, but offered to refer the question to Madrid 
 if time were granted him to send and receive a mes 
 sage by way of Hong-Kong. As this would involve 
 a delay of several days, Dewey and Merritt declined 
 the proposal, and made final arrangements for an 
 attack. At the same time, almost up to the last 
 moment, they continued their negotiations through 
 the Belgian consul. M. Andre s mediation would 
 no doubt have been entirely successful had not the 
 Spanish officers feared the disapproval of the home 
 Government in case they laid down their arms with 
 out a fight. As it was, though no such agree 
 ment was officially made or recorded, it was tacitly 
 understood that nothing more than a show of re 
 sistance would be offered. Manila, with its two 
 
THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 373 
 
 hundred and fifty thousand people, lay at the mercy 
 of Dewey s guns ; the insurgents had cut off its 
 water supply, leaving it dependent upon the rains, 
 and upon such food as was stored in the city; its 
 garrison must have surrendered, before long, either 
 to the Americans or to the still more hated and 
 dreaded Aguinaldo. 
 
 The reports of the army officers who com 
 manded in the action of August i3th scarcely give a 
 
 historical account of the events of the 
 Aug " 3 f memorable day that saw the American 
 
 flag hoisted over the capital of the 
 Philippines. They relate the advance of their troops, 
 the capture of the Spanish lines, the entry into 
 the city, and its surrender, as if that told the whole 
 story. As a matter of fact, though there was some 
 real fighting, and though it was not the fault of the 
 American troops that there was not more, the land 
 " battle " of Manila was a curious and Pickwickian 
 sort of combat. The Philippine capital was prac 
 tically taken when Dewey destroyed Montojo s 
 squadron on the morning of May ist. The affair 
 of August 1 3th was little more than a formality. 
 The Spaniards had seventy pieces of modern artil 
 lery, of calibres up to nine inches, but they did not 
 use them, with the exception of two small guns 
 in the trenches, Dewey having promised M. Andre 
 that if their batteries remained silent he would 
 throw no shells into the city. Of Jaudenes thirteen 
 thousand men only a very small part contested the 
 American advance, though he might have massed 
 nearly his whole force to meet it. Five thousand 
 were held behind the fortifications of the old city, 
 where they stood, without firing a shot, to watch 
 Greene s men march under the walls. 
 
 Had Dewey s fleet held aloof, had there been 
 no besieging army of insurgents, and had the 
 Spaniards resisted with all their power, Merritt s 
 men would very probably have taken Manila; 
 
374 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 but the battle would have been an entirely differ 
 ent one. 
 
 The plan of attack was that Dewey should open 
 fire upon Fort San Antonio, at Malate, seconded 
 by Greene s artillery seven of the Utah guns, and 
 three lent by the navy and manned by men of the 
 Third Artillery. When the bombardment seemed 
 to have been effective, Greene s brigade, on the 
 American left, near the beach, was to advance upon 
 the Spanish works. MacArthur,* who had the 
 Astor Battery and one of the Utah guns, was to 
 follow a similar programme on the right, where the 
 centre of the Spanish position was a blockhouse 
 marked as " No. 14 " on the plan of the Manila de 
 fences. The admiral was then to signal a demand 
 for the city s surrender, and it was understood that 
 this would be yielded, although it was not known 
 just how much resistance would satisfy the Span 
 iards. The Oregon regiment was to come up from 
 Cavite on a transport, in readiness to go ashore and 
 take possession. The division commander, General 
 Anderson, went over from Cavite to direct opera 
 tions at the front ; General Merritt did not go 
 ashore, making his headquarters on the Zafiro. 
 
 At half past nine" the Olympia fired the first 
 shot. The artillery on shore promptly followed suit, 
 and the bombardment was kept up for three quar 
 ters of an hour, the Spaniards making no reply 
 
 * By an order dated August ist, Major-General Merritt organized 
 his forces into a division (the second division of the Eighth Corps), 
 under Brigadier-General Anderson, whose headquarters were at Ca 
 vite. The division consisted of two brigades : 
 
 First Brigade (Brigadier-General MacArthur) Fourteenth and 
 Twenty-third Infantry, Thirteenth Minnesota, First North Dakota, 
 First Idaho, First Wyoming, and Astor Battery. 
 
 becond Brigade (Brigadier-General Greene) Eighteenth Infantry, 
 First California, First Nebraska, First Colorado, Tenth Pennsylvania, 
 Third Artillery, Utah Artillery, and Company A, United States En 
 gineers. 
 
 The Second Oregon, the California Heavy Artillery, and a signal- 
 corps detachment were stationed at Cavite, under the immediate or 
 ders of General Anderson, who remained at that point until August 
 I3th. General Merritt did not go ashore until Manila surrendered. 
 
THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 
 
 375 
 
 whatever. Then, Fort San Antonio having been 
 heavily buffeted, and its magazine exploded, Greene 
 sent the First Colorado forward along the beach, 
 and signalled the navy to cease firing. As the Colo 
 rado men advanced, a few shots came from behind 
 the Spanish lines. They volleyed in reply, forded 
 the shallow channel in front of the fort, and entered 
 its battered walls without opposition. The garri 
 son had deserted it, carrying off the breech-blocks 
 of the guns, and leaving behind a wounded man 
 and two dead. 
 
 MacArthur s artillery, on the right, opened o n 
 the enemy s lines while Dewey was bombarding 
 Fort San Antonio, the Utah gun firing upon Block 
 house Fourteen, from which no response came, and 
 the Astor Battery, on the extreme right, engaging 
 in a brief duel with a couple of field guns in the 
 Spanish lines. These latter having ceased firing, a 
 squad of the Twenty-third Infantry scouted forward 
 and found that the enemy s trenches were aban 
 doned. The brigade then advanced, and the Thir 
 teenth Minnesota occupied the blockhouse, where 
 the American flag was hoisted about twenty min 
 utes past eleven. Still pushing forward, no resist 
 ance was encountered till the Minnesota regiment, 
 leading the way, entered the streets of the suburban 
 village of Cingalon. 
 
 Here, of course, the ground had not been recon 
 noitred. There was a blockhouse in the village, 
 with emplacements fortunately empty for six 
 guns. It was held by the rear guard of the retreat 
 ing Spaniards, who fired into the Minnesota men 
 at short range, causing them to fall back in some 
 disorder. The position was a strong one, and it 
 was obstinately held, though MacArthur brought 
 up his force as rapidly as he could over the difficult 
 ground. He was hampered by the necessity of 
 moving along a single road, with thick timber and 
 rice swamps on either hand. Only a small part of 
 
376 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 his brigade could be put on the firing line ; and the 
 check was so serious that General Anderson, who 
 was now in Malate, sent over the field telegraph a 
 message instructing him to retreat from Cingalon 
 and make his way over to the left to follow Greene s 
 advance. This was at twenty-five minutes past one 
 o clock, but when MacArthur received the order 
 which is not mentioned in his report the Spanish 
 fire was dying out, and a little later the blockhouse 
 was abandoned, leaving the way to Paco and 
 Manila open. 
 
 Meanwhile Greene s brigade, entering Malate, 
 had a brief exchange of fire with the Spanish posi 
 tions farther inland ; but no serious resistance was 
 offered, and after clearing the enemy s line of 
 trenches the American troops marched steadily 
 forward through Malate and Ermita, keeping close 
 to the bay. The Callao, the captured Spanish gun 
 boat, now commanded by Lieutenant Tappan, 
 moved beside them along the shore. Occasional 
 shots still came from street corners and from houses, 
 though when they reached the open space of the 
 Luneta the water-side parade ground of Manila 
 and were in full view of the old walled city, a white 
 flag was seen flying above its ancient fortifications. 
 The white ensign of surrender had been hoisted 
 shortly after eleven o clock, in answer to Dewey s 
 signalled demand, and Lieutenant 
 B . m ! ) y and Lieutenant -Colonel 
 Whittier, representing the admiral 
 and General Merritt, had already gone ashore to 
 negotiate terms with General Jaudenes. The sur 
 render was of course complete, but Spanish honour 
 was salved by the proviso that the garrison should 
 " capitulate with all the honours of war." This 
 enabled them to claim the privilege for which Toral 
 pleaded so hard at Santiago that of carrying their 
 arms back to Spain. Merritt yielded the point 
 which would no doubt have been disallowed by his 
 
THE MANILA CAMPAIGN 377 
 
 official superiors had he been in communication 
 with Washington, as Shafter was. For the rest, the 
 articles finally signed on Sunday, August I4th, by 
 a commission consisting of General Greene, Lieu 
 tenant-Colonels Whittier and Crowder, of Merritt s 
 staff, and Captain Lamberton, chief of staff to 
 Dewey, and by General de la Pena and Colonels 
 Reyes and Felifi for the Spaniards provided that 
 the city, its defences, and all public property, should 
 be turned over to the victorious army; that Jau- 
 denes s troops should be prisoners of war pending 
 the conclusion of a peace treaty, the officers retain 
 ing their side arms, horses, and personal property ; 
 and that the question of their return to Spain should 
 be left to the United States Government. 
 
 The casualties in Greene s brigade, on August 
 1 3th, were one man killed and six -wounded; in 
 MacArthur s brigade, four killed and thirty-nine 
 wounded. In the firing between the trenches, 
 earlier in the month, Greene had fifteen killed and 
 sixty wounded, making the entire American loss in 
 action during the Manila campaign twenty killed 
 and one hundred and five wounded. 
 
 It appears that most of the fighting on the I3th, 
 and most if not all of the few casualties to Merritt s 
 men, took place after the white flag had gone up 
 over the Manila walls. The order to cease firing 
 may have been delayed in transmission to some 
 parts of the Spanish lines, or may not have been 
 promptly obeyed when received. Each army, it 
 seems, blamed the other for the desultory exchange 
 of shots that accompanied Greene s march into the 
 city. At one point a body of insurgents, on the road 
 from Paco, had fired upon the Spaniards, and the 
 latter replied with a volley that killed one man and 
 wounded two of the First California, the only loss 
 the regiment suffered during the day. 
 
 Merritt had hoped, by closely following up the 
 retreating Spaniards, and by holding the bridges 
 
378 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 on the roads entering Manila from the south and 
 east, to keep Aguinaldo s men out of the city, where 
 their presence could only be a serious embarrass 
 ment and a menace to law and order. Moreover, 
 their exclusion appears to have been part of the 
 understanding with the captain-general. Unfortu 
 nately, during the blocking of MacArthur s advance 
 at Cingalon, some two or three thousand of them 
 made their way in from Paco and established them 
 selves at several points in the suburbs. They are 
 said to have looted some houses, among them the 
 residence of a Spanish official in Ermita, where they 
 broke open the safe and appropriated the funds it 
 contained. Though they were held in check by the 
 American troops, and though they afterward with 
 drew from the city, the friction thus caused helped 
 to precipitate the disastrous rupture that ultimately 
 resulted. 
 
 By the evening of the I3th, except for the posi 
 tions held by the insurgents, Manila was effectively 
 occupied by the American troops. The Oregon regi 
 ment had come up the Pasig in boats and taken 
 possession of the walled city, where Merritt made 
 his headquarters in the ayuntamiento, or city hall. 
 MacArthur s brigade was distributed through Ma- 
 late, Ermita, and the southern suburbs, while 
 Greene held Binondo, Tondo, and the northern dis 
 tricts. MacArthur himself was appointed governor 
 of the city. 
 
 And so, almost without a blow, the seat of Span 
 ish power in the east was captured, with thirteen 
 thousand prisoners of war, twenty-two thousand 
 small arms, seventy modern and several hundred 
 obsolete pieces of artillery, and a public fund of 
 nine hundred thousand dollars. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE LATTER DAYS OF THE CUBAN BLOCKADE 
 
 AFTER outlining the campaigns of Santiago, 
 Porto Rico, and Manila, it only remains, in order 
 to complete the military and naval record of the war, 
 to chronicle several minor engagements that took 
 place on the Cuban coast during the last two 
 months of hostilities. The story of the blockade 
 has already been briefly given up to the point at 
 which the advent of Cervera changed the course of 
 events. When the struggle centred about Santi 
 ago, and the main strength of the American navy 
 was concentrated there under Admiral Sampson, 
 Commodore Watson was left in command off Ha 
 vana. At this time, it may be recalled, the blockade 
 covered only a hundred miles of the island s north 
 ern coast, from Bahia Honda to Cardenas, and the 
 port of Cienfuegos on the south ; but it was pro 
 posed to extend it as soon as possible. To reinforce 
 Watson s scanty fleet composed of small armed 
 auxiliaries vessels were drawn from Commodore 
 Howell s squadron, patrolling the North Atlantic 
 coast ; and on June I9th Sampson sent word to 
 Washington : 
 
 The President may declare immediately the blockade 
 of whole southern coast. 
 
 Three days later Secretary Long telegraphed to the 
 admiral : 
 
 It is proposed to proclaim the blockade on the east * 
 side of Cape Cruz, Cuba, to Cape Frances, Cuba. When 
 will you be ready? 
 
 * This word should probably read " south." 
 25 379 
 
380 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 And again on June 24th : 
 
 Reports constantly received of provisions reaching 
 Spanish forces via southern port of Cuba, and of prepara 
 tion at Mexico, Jamaica, to forward further supplies; 
 therefore the department desires greatly to keep all block 
 ade effective, to establish blockade from Cape Cruz, Cuba, 
 to Cape Frances, Cuba. When shall you be ready for the 
 latter to be proclaimed? 
 
 On the 28th the proclamation was issued, the port 
 of San Juan, in Porto Rico, being included. This 
 set the navy a difficult task. Sampson had tele 
 graphed, on June 23d, that the detachment of men- 
 of-war for convoy duty with transports would " so 
 reduce the available ships for blockade as to make 
 it quite impossible to maintain strict blockade on 
 the whole of Cuba. Vessels running blockade," he 
 added, " are smaller in size but greatly increased in 
 number." 
 
 Watson had now been ordered to Guantanamo, 
 to organize a squadron for a strategic move against 
 the coast of Spain ; and to take his place, on June 
 25th, Commodore Howell was instructed to bring 
 his remaining ships south. On July ist, when he 
 reached Key West, Howell was put in charge of 
 the blockade, his new command being designated 
 as the " first North Atlantic squadron," and being 
 still subject to Sampson s authority as commander- 
 in-chief. At this date the admiral had a total of 
 ninety-eight vessels under his orders. 
 
 During June, the tedious routine of the blockade 
 
 was enlivened by but little fighting. On the I3th 
 
 the Yankee ordered to Cienfuegos 
 
 ci h e e nf Y ue n g k o e s at after ^ T brief service with Sampson 
 June 13. at Santiago, and specially commis 
 
 sioned to watch for the blockade run 
 ner Purissima Concepcion, which was afterward 
 destroyed at Manzanillo had a brush with two 
 Spanish vessels, the Gallicia and a smaller gunboat; 
 and though the enemy had the aid of shore bat- 
 
LAST DAYS OF THE CUBAN BLOCKADE 381 
 
 teries, her amateur gunners the New York naval 
 reserve men drove their antagonists into the har 
 bour. Cubans with whom Commander Brownson 
 communicated a few days later told him that the 
 Gallicia was so badly damaged when she retreated 
 that she was beached to prevent her from sinking. 
 The Yankee was not hit, though she had one man 
 wounded by fragments of a shell that burst just 
 outside a gun port. 
 
 A week later (June 2oth) she exchanged shots 
 with another gunboat at Casilda, the port of Trini 
 dad, forty miles east of Cienfuegos as did also the 
 Dixie on the 22d. On the 29th the Dixie, the 
 Eagle, and the Yankton practised upon a body of 
 Spanish cavalry at Rio Hondo, between Casilda and 
 Cienfuegos. 
 
 The chief Spanish strongholds on the south 
 
 coast, west of Santiago, were Cienfuegos and Man- 
 
 zanillo. The first reconnaissance of 
 
 First attack on the j atter made Qn j th i 
 
 Manzanillo, ... . , J ,, . ?, 
 
 june 30. three auxiliaries of the mosquito 
 
 class the Hist, the Hornet, and the 
 Wompatuck. This adventurous little squadron, two 
 yachts and a tug, with Lieutenant Young, of the 
 Hist, as its senior officer, steamed boldly into the 
 bay a wide, shallow sheet of water behind a line 
 of keys. In the entrance it encountered a Spanish 
 gunboat, which was speedily disabled and blown up. 
 Nearing Manzanillo, quite a formidable array of de 
 fences was found. Five gunboats and some armed 
 pontoons were drawn up across the inner harbour ; * 
 
 * Lieutenant Young reports seeing a large torpedo boat, four gun 
 boats, and four large pontoons. Lieutenant Helm, of the Hornet, ob 
 served "five to six armed vessels." Lieutenant Jungen, of the Wom 
 patuck, saw a torpedo boat, three small gun vessels, an old steam 
 cruiser, and a sailing vessel. Captain Barreda, the Spanish commander 
 of the port, states that his force consisted of five gunboats the Guan- 
 tanamo, the Estrella, the Delgado Pareja. the Guardian, and the Cuba 
 Esoanola, the last two being disabled and the pontoon Maria, supported 
 by the " few guns " that the city had. He reports his loss as two killed 
 and seven wounded on the ships, and a few wounded on shore. On 
 
382 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 behind them were several small batteries on the 
 water front, and another in a fort above the town, 
 while for two miles the shore was lined with sol 
 diers. 
 
 Though the odds were heavily against them, the 
 three little American ships steamed up within a mile 
 of the enemy, and for an hour and a half a brisk 
 fire was exchanged. The attacking vessels were re 
 peatedly hit, but received no material injury till a 
 shot cut the Hornet s steam pipe, temporarily dis 
 abling her, and scalding three of her crew. She 
 was towed out of range by the Wompatuck, and 
 the squadron withdrew. The Spaniards had suf 
 fered far more severely. One of their gunboats and 
 a sloop loaded with soldiers were sunk, and a pon 
 toon burned ; but it was clear, as Lieutenant Young 
 reported to Sampson, that a much stronger force 
 than his was needed to capture the place. 
 
 The Scorpion (Lieutenant-Commander Marix) 
 and the Osceola (Lieutenant Purcell) were to have 
 joined in the attack on Manzanillo, but they did not 
 receive their orders in time. Arriving on the fol 
 lowing day (July ist), and missing the Hist and 
 her consorts, they made an independent reconnais 
 sance, steaming into the bay and opening fire on 
 the Spanish gunboats. The return fire was so 
 heavy and accurate that after a twenty minutes en 
 gagement Marix decided to withdraw. The two 
 ships remained outside, watching the port, and cap 
 turing some small prizes. The skipper of a British 
 schooner, the Edmund Blunt, which came out car 
 rying refugees to Jamaica, told them that the town 
 was in great straits for food. 
 
 On that same day (July ist) Commodore Howell 
 arrived at Key West from the north, and took per 
 sonal charge of the north coast blockade. As to the 
 
 the other hand, the captain of the British ship Edmund Blunt told an 
 officer of the Scorpion that an American shell killed thirteen men on 
 the Maria. 
 
LAST DAYS OF THE CUBAN BLOCKADE 383 
 
 extent of this, there was some doubt and misunder 
 standing. For once, the clocklike workings of the 
 Navy Department seem to have 
 Howeiiin slipped a cog. Howell found no or- 
 
 charge of the , *.!_ ^ ^^ ixr i 
 
 blockade July i ders awaiting him at Key West, and 
 to his request for instructions the only 
 answer was a despatch saying that his duty was to 
 be " that formerly performed by Commodore Wat 
 son as inspector of blockade." Taking his flagship, 
 the cruiser San Francisco, to Havana, he found 
 there only Watson s directions to the vessels on that 
 one station. He therefore confined himself to pa 
 trolling the coast from Bahia Honda to Cardenas, 
 the limits fixed by the President s proclamation of 
 April 2 1 st. 
 
 On July Qth, however, Sampson sent him in 
 structions to blockade the whole north coast of 
 Cuba, as far as his force permitted, and especially 
 the part of it between Nipe and Nuevitas, to pre 
 vent communication between Havana and the Span 
 ish troops in Santiago province. Howell carried 
 out the order as well as he could, though he re 
 ported that he needed fifty vessels more than 
 twice as many as he could muster* to do the work 
 effectively. He also applied to the Navy Depart 
 ment for more precise information as to the status 
 of the blockade ; but the misunderstanding seems 
 to have continued, for on August 8th he received 
 the following despatch from Secretary Long : 
 
 By what authority are you blockading Sagua La 
 Grande? It is not included in the President s proclama 
 tion. Sampson has not informed department that he has 
 blockaded it, and therefore no proclamation has been 
 
 * On August 3d Howell reported only fourteen vessels at their sta 
 tions on the north-coast blockade - nine off Havana, two off Matanzas, 
 two off Sagua la Grande, one off Cardenas, none off such ports as 
 Mariel and Bahia Honda and added : " I desire to call your attention 
 to the small number of ships with which I am supposed to keep up an 
 efficient blockade of over four hundred miles of coast, and also to the 
 fact that most of these ships are of low speed, light gun fire, and would 
 be entirely at the mercy of a hurricane." 
 
384 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 issued. Courts are releasing vessels captured. Claims for 
 damages will be heavy. Protests from three governments 
 already received at State Department. 
 
 In reply, Howell informed the secretary of the 
 directions received from Sampson, and stated that 
 he had allowed the Nuevitas to Nipe blockade to 
 lapse after the surrender of Santiago, but was 
 patrolling the coast farther west, between Cardenas 
 and Nuevitas, in order to prevent the landing of 
 supplies for Havana, which, he had learned, was 
 being done on a large scale. Secretary Long an 
 swered by instructing him to restrict the blockade 
 to its original limits, not molesting vessels trading 
 with other ports, unless they were Spanish or car 
 ried contraband cargoes ; and in compliance with 
 this he withdrew his ships from the coast east of 
 Cardenas. 
 
 Though Howell s force was so small, it made 
 two captures in July that seriously discouraged the 
 business of blockade running. The victims were 
 two Spanish Atlantic liners, vessels of five thousand 
 tons each the Alfonso XII, which, after showing 
 her heels to the Eagle off the Isle of Pines, was run 
 ashore at Mariel by the Hawk, and set on fire by 
 shells from the Castine ; and the Santo Domingo, 
 which, pursued by the Eagle, met a like fate near 
 Cape Frances, on the south coast. The latter vessel 
 was armed with two five-inch guns which she did 
 not attempt to use and carried in her hold two 
 twelve-inch rifles and a full cargo of provisions, in 
 tended for Havana. 
 
 The capture of Nipe Bay, on the 2ist of July, 
 was of importance because it secured another har 
 bour of refuge for the blockading 
 iy iPe squadron and a half-way station on 
 the direct route to Porto Rico. It 
 was executed by the Annapolis (Commander 
 Hunker), the Wasp (Lieutenant Ward), the Topeka 
 (Lieutenant-Commander Cowles), and the Leyden 
 
LAST DAYS OF THE CUBAN BLOCKADE 385 
 
 (Ensign Crosley), under direct orders from Samp 
 son. Cuban insurgents had informed Cowles that 
 the place was held by eight hundred Spanish troops, 
 the nine-hundred-ton gunboat Jorge Juan, and a 
 smaller vessel, with mines and a battery to defend 
 the entrance. Approaching the mouth of the bay, 
 Commander Hunker, senior officer of the attacking 
 squadron, ordered the Wasp and the Leyden to 
 steam ahead and develop the enemy s strength. The 
 young officers commanding the two small vessels 
 were so eager for the fray that they raced forward 
 at full speed,* the Wasp overhauling her consort 
 and reaching the entrance first. The shore battery 
 proved to be dismantled ; the mines were there, as 
 was afterward found, but the daring little craft 
 passed them without injury probably for the same 
 reason that made the torpedoes in Guantanamo Bay 
 so harmless to the Texas and the Marblehead.f In 
 the bay, quite unprepared for action no doubt 
 through misplaced confidence in the protection of 
 the mines lay the Jorge Juan, at anchor, with her 
 awnings spread, her boats lowered alongside, and 
 her firemen hurriedly attempting to get up steam. 
 The Wasp and the Leyden promptly opened fire, 
 which she returned with such of her guns her main 
 battery consisted of three six-inch rifles as she 
 could bring to bear, being of course unable to 
 manoeuvre. The Annapolis and the Topeka were 
 within range a few minutes later, and in half an 
 hour the Jorge Juan was sinking. A boat from 
 the Leyden captured her colours just before she 
 went down, and the Annapolis took off one of 
 her small guns. Her crew, or most of it, escaped 
 ashore. 
 
 * Lieutenant Ward was so anxious to establish the fact that he was 
 instructed to go in first that he submitted a special report citing the 
 names of thirty-five witnesses members of his crew who, he said, 
 could testify that Commander Hunker authorized him to take the lead. 
 
 t Page 202. 
 
386 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 The other vessel reported to be in the bay was 
 not to be found. Insurgents afterward told Com 
 mander Hunker that the Spaniards had taken her 
 up a creek and sunk her, and had then abandoned 
 the place, retreating to Holguin. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the south coast, Lieutenant-Com 
 mander Marix was still blockading Manzanillo, but 
 had deferred another attack until an 
 Attacks on Man- a( jequate f orce CO uld be mustered. 
 
 zanillo, July 18 TT /L , 
 
 and Aug. 12. He sent word to Sampson (by the 
 Hist, on July nth) that he was 
 willing and anxious to assault, but that he consid 
 ered it his duty though it would probably place 
 another officer in command to recommend that a 
 protected man-of-war should be assigned to the 
 work. As a result the Wilmington (Commander 
 Todd) and the Helena (Commander Swinburne) 
 were detached to join Marix s squadron, and on the 
 1 7th these two gunboats rendezvoused with the 
 Scorpion, the Hist, the Hornet, the Wompatuck, 
 and the Osceola at Guayabal, twenty miles west of 
 Manzanillo, Commander Todd being senior officer. 
 Early next morning they were in the bay, where 
 they lay for three hours deliberately firing upon the 
 Spanish ships, opening at long range and gradually 
 closing in, until nothing was to be seen afloat in the 
 harbour. All the enemy s gunboats were burned 
 or sunk, as was also the blockade-runner Purissima 
 Concepcion. The American ships, which were en 
 tirely uninjured, then withdrew, Sampson having 
 ordered them not to engage the forts. 
 
 One of the navy s marvellously few casualties 
 during the war occurred on August 2d, when 
 the Bancroft, which had been patrolling about 
 the Isle of Pines,* sent a launch into Cortes Bay 
 in pursuit of a schooner, and one of the boat s 
 
 * It had been believed that provisions were being: sent to Havana 
 from the Isle of Pines, but Commander Clover reported that this was 
 probably untrue, as food was very scarce on the island. 
 
LAST DAYS OF THE CUBAN BLOCKADE 387 
 
 crew was killed by rifle fire from an ambuscade on 
 shore. 
 
 The last action on the southern coast of Cuba 
 was the fourth and final attack on Manzanillo, on 
 August 1 2th. On the o,th the Newark now com 
 manded by Captain Goodrich, formerly of the St. 
 Louis, Captain Barker having been transferred to 
 the Oregon and the Resolute, carrying Colonel 
 Huntington s marine battalion, left Guantanamo for 
 the Isle of Pines ; but as some smaller vessels, which 
 were to have accompanied them, were not ready, 
 Captain Goodrich decided, at the suggestion of 
 Lieutenant Young, of the Hist, to strike at Man 
 zanillo while waiting. With a flotilla consisting of 
 the Newark, the Resolute, the Suwanee, the Hist, 
 the Osceola, and the Alvarado the last being the 
 gunboat captured at Santiago, now commanded by 
 Lieutenant Blue he entered the bay on the morn 
 ing of the 1 2th, and sent in a demand for the sur 
 render of the town and garrison, which was refused. 
 Goodrich then began to use his guns. After half 
 an hour s firing he saw, or thought he saw, a white 
 flag, and ordered the Alvarado, also flying the signal 
 of truce, to go in and communicate with the Span 
 iards. The latter, however, continued their fire, and 
 the bombardment was resumed, and kept up until 
 sunset, the Newark firing an occasional shell dur 
 ing the night. 
 
 At daybreak white flags were seen in the town, 
 and a boat came out with the news that the peace 
 protocol had been signed. The armistice robbed 
 the navy of another victory, for it appears that the 
 Spanish comandante had drawn up a formal docu 
 ment of surrender on the previous evening, and 
 was intending to send it to Captain Goodrich in 
 the morning. 
 
 The last shots of the Havana blockade were 
 heard at dawn on the I2th, when the San Fran 
 cisco went within range of the batteries, which fired 
 
388 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 on her, and a twelve-inch shell from the Morro 
 went through her stern, doing but little damage. 
 The last shots of the war were exchanged between 
 the Mangrove and two Spanish gunboats off Cai- 
 barien, in Santa Clara province, on the morning of 
 August 1 4th. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE CONCLUSION OF PEACE 
 
 IN the early days of July, when Cervera s fleet 
 had been destroyed; when the fall of Santiago was 
 imminent, and the American troops were already 
 preparing to move upon Porto Rico ; when the last 
 hope of relieving Manila was abandoned, and Spain 
 itself was threatened with attack, the hopelessness 
 of prolonging the struggle began to be evident 
 even at Madrid. The air was full of rumours of 
 negotiations for peace. Rumours became certainty 
 on the 26th of the month, when Jules Cambon, the 
 French ambassador at Washington, called at the 
 White House and presented an informal but definite 
 inquiry, on behalf of Sagasta s Government, as to 
 the terms upon which the United States would be 
 willing to end the war. 
 
 He got his answer on the 3Oth, in a long inter 
 view with the President. The conditions offered 
 were that Spain should renounce all claim to sover 
 eignty in Cuba, and evacuate the island at once ; 
 that Porto Rico, with its dependent islets, and one 
 of the Ladrones, should be ceded to the United 
 States ; and that the American forces should occupy 
 the city and bay of Manila pending the conclusion 
 of a treaty of peace, by which the " control, disposi 
 tion, and government " of the Philippines should 
 be finally decided. 
 
 Sagasta s cabinet met on Monday, August ist, to 
 consider these terms. It took several days for Span- 
 
 389 
 
390 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 ish pride to swallow so severe a dose of humiliation ; 
 and it was not until the 7th that the minister of 
 state, the Duke of Almodovar del Rio, replied. 
 His note accepted the first two propositions ; to the 
 third it also gave a seeming acceptance, though in 
 somewhat ambiguous terms. To remove all doubt, 
 Secretary Day drew up a protocol 
 Protocol" stating clearly, and without the slight 
 
 est modification, the terms already 
 offered to Spain ; and this document he sent to M. 
 Cambon for signature. Its precise contents were: 
 
 ARTICLE I. Spain will relinquish all claim of sover 
 eignty over and title to Cuba. 
 
 ART. II. Spain will cede to the United States the island 
 of Porto Rico and other islands now under Spanish sov 
 ereignty in the West Indies, and also an island in the 
 Ladrones, to be selected by the United States. 
 
 ART. III. The United States will occupy and hold the 
 city, bay, and harbour of Manila pending the conclusion 
 of a treaty of peace, which shall determine the control, dis 
 position, and government of the Philippines. 
 
 ART. IV. Spain will immediately evacuate Cuba, 
 Porto Rico, and other islands now under Spanish sover 
 eignty in the West Indies; and to this end each Govern 
 ment will, within ten days after the signing of this protocol, 
 appoint commissioners, and the commissioners so ap 
 pointed shall, within thirty days after the signing of this 
 protocol, meet at Havana for the purpose of arranging 
 and carrying out the details of the aforesaid evacuation of 
 Cuba and the adjacent Spanish islands; and each Govern 
 ment will, within ten days after the signing of this proto 
 col, also appoint other commissioners, who shall, within 
 thirty days after the signing of this protocol, meet at San 
 Juan, in Porto Rico, for the purpose of arranging and 
 carrying out the details of the aforesaid evacuation of 
 Porto Rico and other islands now under Spanish sover 
 eignty in the West Indies. 
 
 ART. V. The United States and Spain will each ap 
 point not more than five commissioners to treat of peace, 
 and the commissioners so appointed shall meet at Paris 
 not later than October i, 1898, and proceed to the negotia 
 tion and conclusion of a treaty of peace, which treaty shall 
 be subject to ratification according to the respective con 
 stitutional forms of the two countries. 
 
 ART. VI. Upon the conclusion and signing of this 
 protocol hostilities between the two countries shall be sus- 
 
THE CONCLUSION OF PEACE 391 
 
 pended, and notice to that effect shall be given as soon 
 as possible by each Government to the commanders of its 
 military and naval forces. 
 
 Once more, of course, a reference to Madrid was 
 necessary ; but acceptance was the only possible 
 course, and M. Cambon was authorized -to sign 
 the protocol with Secretary Day. The formal act 
 that ended hostilities took place in the cabinet room 
 of the White House, at twenty-three minutes past 
 four o clock on the afternoon of August I2th. It 
 has already been told how the news reached Miles s 
 army in Porto Rico just in time to stop a battle at 
 Aibonito and another near Cayey ; how it prevented 
 the surrender of Manzanillo, but was too late to 
 save Manila. 
 
 On August 26th the President named the Amer 
 ican peace commissioners William R. Day, Sec 
 retary of State, chairman; Senator Davis, of Min 
 nesota, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs 
 Committee ; Senator Frye, of Maine; Justice White, 
 of the United States Supreme Court ; and Whitelaw 
 Reid, formerly minister to France. One of these, 
 Justice White, declined to serve, and his place was 
 taken by Senator Gray, of Delaware, a leading 
 Democratic member of the Senate. Spain s com 
 missioners were Eugenio Montero Rios, president 
 of the Spanish senate, chairman ; Senor de Abar- 
 zuza, a member of the same body, and formerly his 
 country s ambassador at Paris ; Senor de Garnica, 
 a justice of the supreme court; General Rafael 
 Cerero; and Senor de Villa Urrutia, Spanish min 
 ister to Belgium. 
 
 The commission met in Paris, on October 1st, 
 
 the French Government providing quarters for it 
 
 in the foreign office on the Quai 
 
 ^Pari^*" 116 * d rsai - Its conferences lasted ten 
 
 Ocf TD CC 10. weeks, the Spaniards fighting hard for 
 
 concessions that would at least enable 
 
 their Government to put the best possible face on 
 
392 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 the disasters it had brought upon itself. Cuba be 
 ing dealt with first, they sought to free Spain from 
 the huge debt that she had contracted in her mal 
 administration of the island s affairs, urging that 
 international law requires that the liabilities of a 
 territory should pass with its sovereignty. The 
 American commissioners declined to admit the prin 
 ciple in this particular case, for the reason a rea 
 son of indisputable equity that the so-called Cuban 
 debt was not contracted in any sense for the benefit 
 of Cuba, but was incurred by Spain in her ineffec 
 tual and costly efforts to subjugate the island. 
 
 The Americans also declined a proposition that 
 Cuba should be ceded direct to the United States, 
 the Spanish contention being that if Spain withdrew 
 her authority, and the United States asserted none, 
 the island would be left in a state of anarchy. This 
 was a mere technical objection, perhaps a deliberate 
 attempt at embarrassment, the Washington Govern 
 ment having pledged itself before the world to leave 
 Cuba to her own people. 
 
 A much more serious difference arose when the 
 question of the Philippines was taken up, and the 
 Spaniards were first informed (October 3ist) that 
 entire possession of the great eastern archipelago 
 was required for the United States. The demand 
 was referred to Madrid, where it was answered by 
 a flat refusal ; and it actually appeared, for a time, 
 that the negotiations might be broken off. It seems 
 clear that the Spanish Government regarded the 
 protocol as leaving its sovereignty in the Philip 
 pines intact, and not open to subsequent challenge. 
 In a despatch sent on August 7th the Duke of 
 Almodovar del Rio declared that in assenting to the 
 clause about Manila, his country did not renounce 
 her title to the islands, but left it to the peace com 
 mission " to agree upon such reforms as the condi 
 tion of these dependencies and the civilization of 
 their natives may render desirable." But it is equally 
 
THE CONCLUSION OF PEACE 
 
 393 
 
 clear that the terms of the document have an en 
 tirely different meaning. They express precisely 
 what Secretary Day meant them to express that 
 the United States Government had not decided 
 whether it desired to annex the Philippines, and 
 that their ownership was left for later settlement. 
 " Possession " was the word in the original draft of 
 the protocol ; " disposition " was substituted at M. 
 Cambon s suggestion, as a word less offensive to 
 Spanish sensibilities. 
 
 The Spaniards suggested arbitration as to the 
 /^-^rneaning of the protocol, which was of course re 
 fused, and no progress was made until November 
 2 1st, when the American commissioners made a 
 final proposition practically an ultimatum, allow 
 ing a week for a definite reply. The demand for 
 the archipelago was not modified, but it was prom 
 ised that for ten years Spanish ships and merchan 
 dise should enter Philippine ports on equal terms 
 with American traders, and that the United 
 States should pay to Spain the sum of twenty 
 million dollars. An impression went abroad that 
 the money was offered as a repayment of such 
 part of the Spanish Government s past expenditures 
 in the islands as represented actual betterments. 
 Spain s commissioners may have accepted it as such 
 perhaps to veil the commercial character of the 
 transaction ; but it appears that the offer was in 
 tended by the American commissioners at any rate 
 by most of them as practically a proposition of 
 sale and purchase, or at least a douceur to facilitate 
 the desired agreement.* Neither in the wording of 
 the proposal as submitted on November 2ist, nor in 
 the treaty as finally drawn, is any reason or con 
 sideration for the payment specified. 
 
 * That this view was taken by the American commissioners has been 
 explicitly stated by at lea^t two of them. At the dinner of the Ohio 
 Society in New York, February 25, 1899, Senator Gray spoke of the 
 choice that presented itself of taking the islands either " by the ruthless 
 
394 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 On the 28th, the day by which an answer was 
 required, the Spaniards signified their acceptance, 
 coupling it with a formal and of course ineffectual 
 protest. Recognising the impossibility of resisting 
 their powerful antagonist, they declared, and to 
 avoid still greater loss and suffering to their coun 
 try, they could do nothing but yield to the victor s 
 terms, however harsh. And so, on the evening of 
 December loth, the commissioners met for the last 
 time to sign the treaty that freed Cuba from Spain, 
 and transferred a colonial empire from an ancient 
 monarchy of Europe to the young and mighty re 
 public of the west. 
 
 hand of conquest, or by some concessions that comported with the 
 greatness and character of this country. And therefore," he went on, 
 u we believed that it was better ... to take them by voluntary cession 
 and by purchase, so to speak." 
 
 Secretary Day, in a letter published in the daily press on October 
 12, 1899, quotes and approves Senator Gray s statement, and adds : 
 " It was not claimed that the United States had a right to the Philip 
 pine Islands as a matter of conquest. By the cession for a considera 
 tion we obtained an indisputable title." 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. Whitelaw Reid (Later Aspects of Our New 
 Duties, page 9) says that when the American commissioners first de 
 manded the cession of the islands, they "accompanied this demand for 
 a transfer of sovereignty with a stipulation for assuming any existing 
 indebtedness of Spain, incurred for public works and improvements of 
 a pacific character in the Philippines. The United States thus asserted 
 its right to the archipelago for indemnity, and at the same time com 
 mitted itself to the principle of payment on account of the Philippine 
 debt " ; and that though the ultimatum gave no reason for the twenty- 
 million-dollar payment, "it was really nothing but the old proposition, 
 with the mention for the first time of a specific sum for the payment, 
 and without any question of pacific improvements. That sum just 
 balanced the Philippine debt forty million Mexican, or, say, twenty 
 million American dollars." 
 
 The difference of opinion between Mr. Reid and his colleagues is 
 curious. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abarzuza, Senor de, Spanish peace commissioner, 391. 
 
 Acosta, Commander, of the Reina Mercedes, 196. 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, on Cuba, 18. 
 
 Adjuntas, Porto Rico, 340, 343. 
 
 Adria, American steamer, 155. 
 
 Agafia, capital of Guam, 354, 355. 
 
 Aguadores, Fort, 230, 235; Duffield s movement against, 259; bom 
 barded by Sampson, 260; second movement against, 262. 
 
 Aguadores River, 240, 242, 249; emergency hospital at, 264. 
 
 Aguila Negra, Cuban revolutionary society, 21. 
 
 Aguilera, governor of Madrid, 94. 
 
 Aguinaldo, Emilio, Filipino insurgent, 130; relations with American 
 forces, 356, 357; president Filipino republic, 358; reports German 
 interference at Subig, 363; meets Anderson, 364; at Bakoor, 365; 
 withdraws from before Malate, 366; followers enter Manila, 378. 
 
 Aibonito, Porto Rico, 344; Spanish position at, 345. 
 
 Alabama, American battle ship, 101. 
 
 Albany, American cruiser, 103. 
 
 Albemarle, Lord, at Havana, 8. 
 
 Alcaniz, Major, at Las Guasimas, 226. 
 
 Aldea, Colonel, 230, 253. 
 
 Aleman, Jose B., Cuban insurgent, 52. 
 
 Alert, British sloop of war, 294. 
 
 Alfonso XII, Spanish cruiser, 68, 77; at Havana, 122. 
 
 Alfonso XII, Spanish steamer, 384. 
 
 Alger, R. A., Secretary of War, 145; restricts information to press, 
 149; advises Shafter against retreat, 268; requests co-operation of 
 Sampson, 308; work during the war, 324. 
 
 Allen, Captain L. C., Sixteenth Infantry, 251. 
 
 Allen, Colonel James, Signal Corps, 173. 
 
 Allen, Lieutenant H. T., Second Cavalry, 294. 
 
 Almirante Oquendo, Spanish cruiser, 100; at Havana, 71; at St. Vin 
 cent, 118, 157; crosses Atlantic, 168; leaves Santiago, 272; in battle 
 of Santiago, 276; driven ashore, 280, 284. 
 
 Almodovar del Rio, Spanish Minister of State, 390, 392. 
 
 Alvarado, Spanish gunboat, captured at Santiago, 319; at Manza- 
 nillo, 387. 
 
 Ambulances, lack of, at Santiago, 212, 264. 
 
 Ames, Brigadier-General A., 325. 
 
 Amphitrite, American monitor, 103, 108, 116; goes to San Juan, 159, 
 161; with Sampson in Nicholas Channel, 178; off San Juan, 333; 
 at Cape San Juan. 348. 
 
 Anderson, Captain H. R., Fourth Artillery, 343. 
 
 Anderson, Colonel Thomas M., Fourteenth Infantry, 351; brigadier- 
 general of volunteers, 352; goes to Manila, 360, 364; at Cavite, 365, 
 374; in attack on Manila. 376. 
 
 Andre, Belgian consul at Manila, 131; negotiates for surrender, 371- 
 
 Annapolis, American gunboat, 104, 215, 338; at Nipe Bay, 384, 385. 
 26 395 
 
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Annapolis, Spanish prisoners at, 288. 
 
 Anthony, William, marine, of the Maine, 77. 
 
 Antonio Lopez, Spanish gunboat, 154. 
 
 Antonio Lopez, Spanish transport, 333. 
 
 Arango, Francisco, Cuban statesman, 9. 
 
 Aranguren, Nestor, Cuban insurgent, 64. 
 
 Argonauta, captured by Marblehead, 151. 
 
 Arias, Lieutenant, exchanged for Hobson, 301. 
 
 Ariete, Spanish torpedo boat, 119. 
 
 Army, American, 104, 204; health of, during war, 328. 
 
 Army, Spanish, 97. 
 
 Arroyo, Porto Rico, 340; Brooke lands at, 346. 
 
 Artillery, American, in battle of Caney, 237; in battle of San Juan, 
 255; before Santiago, 263. 
 
 Aserraderos, 197, 217; conference at, 218, 301, 302; Cubans taken to 
 Siboney from, 232. 
 
 Asomanta, hill of, Porto Rico, 345, 346. 
 
 Astor, Colonel John Jacob, on Shatter s staff, 365. 
 
 Astor Battery, 365, 374, 375. 
 
 Atlanta, American cruiser, 103, 108. 
 
 Atwater, Lieutenant C. N., of the Amphitrite, 348. 
 
 Audaz, Spanish torpedo-boat destroyer, 362. 
 
 Augustin, captain-general of the Philippines, 129; issues proclama 
 tion, 130; refuses Dewey s terms, 143; superseded by Jaudenes, 371. 
 
 Australia, American transport, 354. 
 
 Auxiliaries, bought by United States Government, 112. 
 
 Ayres, Captain C. G., Tenth Cavalry, 266. 
 
 Azcarraga, premier of Spain, 62. 
 
 Azor, Spanish torpedo boat, 119. 
 
 Bagley, Ensign Worth, killed at Cardenas, 153. 
 
 Bahia Honda, Lopez lands at, 25; Virginius surrendered at, 35; limit 
 of blockade, 122, 383. 
 
 Bainbridge, Lieutenant-Colonel A. H., Fourth Infantry, 213. 
 
 Bakoor, near Manila, 143, 365. 
 
 Balloon detachment at Santiago, 215; in battle of San Juan, 242. 
 
 Balmaceda, captain-general of Cuba, 31. 
 
 Baltimore, American cruiser, 73, 103, 108: joins Dewey at Hong- Kong, 
 109, 131; leaves Mirs Bay, 132; at Subig Bay, 132; enters Manila 
 Bay, 133; injuries in battle, 139; captures Corregidor, 144. 
 
 Bancroft, American training ship, used as gunboat, 108, 149, 216, 
 218, 386. 
 
 Banes, Cuban expedition lands at, 149. 
 
 Baquero, Colonel J., killed at San Juan, 252. 
 
 Baracoa, founded by Velasquez, 3; surrender of, 321, 322; Spaniards 
 sail from, 327. 
 
 Barbadoes, Oregon at, in. 
 
 Barcelona, attack on American consulate in, 58. 
 
 Barclay, Captain C. J., of the Amphitrite, 116, 348. 
 
 Barker, Captain A. S., member of Naval War Board, 121; command 
 ing the Newark, and later the Oregon, 387. 
 
 Barker, W. B., American consul at Sagua la Grande, 52. 
 
 Barreda, Captain, commander of port at Manzanillo, 381. 
 
 Barton, Miss Clara, president of American Red Cross Society, 60. 
 
 Bates, Brigadier-General J. C., 215: in battle of Caney, 234, 238; 
 marches to San Juan, 259; at conference of July 2, 266; suggests 
 the " round robin," 325. 
 
 Bayamo, Garcia and Rowan meet at, 147. 
 
 Bell, Colonel, quartermaster-general s department, 212. 
 
 Benham, Colonel D. W., Seventh Infantry, 214. 
 
 Bennington, American gunboat, 104. 
 
 Bennitt, Colonel F., Third Illinois, 346. 
 
 Beranger, Admiral, Secretary of Spanish Navy, 78. 
 
 Bernadou, Lieutenant J. B., of the Winslow, 116; wounded at Car 
 denas, 152. 
 
INDEX 
 
 397 
 
 Berry, Commander R. M., of the Castine, 116. 
 
 Best, Captain C. L., First Artillery, 214; in battle of San Juan, 250, 
 257; retires to El Pozo, 263; moves forward, 298. 
 
 Biddle, Lieutenant-Colonel J., on General Wilson s staff, 344. 
 
 Bigelow, Captain J., Tenth Cavalry, 249. 
 
 Binondo, suburb of Manila, 378. 
 
 Bisbee, Lieutenant-Colonel W. H., First Infantry, 213. 
 
 Black Warrior, seized at Havana, 27. 
 
 Blanco, captain-general of Cuba, 55, 62; admits supplies for destitute 
 Cubans, 60; abolishes reconcentration, 79; captain-general of the 
 Philippines, 129; measures for defence of Santiago, 229; orders 
 Cervera to leave Santiago, 270; consents to exchange Hobson, 
 300; refers Shatter s demands to Madrid, 308. 
 
 Blandin, Lieutenant J. J., of the Maine, 68. 
 
 Blockade of Cuba, proclamation of, 122; difficulty of, 150; extended 
 to south coast, 380; misunderstanding as to extent of, 383. 
 
 Blockade of Santiago, 191. 
 
 Blockhouse Fourteen, Manila, 374, 375. 
 
 Blue, Lieutenant Victor, of the Suwanee, 197, 211, 260; commanding 
 the Alvarado, 319, 387. 
 
 Boardman, Cadet W. H., of the Amphitrite, 348. 
 
 Bolivar, Soles de, Cuban revolutionary society, 15. 
 
 Born, Colonel, Second Wisconsin, 343. 
 
 Borrowe, Sergeant H. A., First Volunteer Cayalry, 228. 
 
 Boston, American cruiser, 103, 108; leaves Mirs Bay, 132; at Subig 
 Bay, 132; enters Manila Bay, 133; meets Greene s" expedition, 365; 
 off Manila, 368. 
 
 Boutelle, Congressman, opposes intervention in Cuba, 90. 
 
 Bratt, Colonel J. P., First Nebraska, 364. 
 
 Braunersreuther, Lieutenant W., of the Charleston, 355. 
 
 Breckinridge, Major-General J. C., 145; with Fifth Corps, 215; opin 
 ion of Shatter, 313. 
 
 Brice, American consul at Matanzas, 53. 
 
 British squadron at Manila, 372. 
 
 Brooke, Lieutenant W., Fourth Infantry, 320. 
 
 Brooke, Major-General J. R., 145, 146, 331, 339, 346, 347. 
 
 Brooklyn, American cruiser, 101, 102, 108, 116; goes to Cienfuegos, 
 172; to Santiago, 176; on Santiago blocka-de, 191; in battle of San 
 tiago, 273, 277, 286, 288: bombards Santiago, 306. 
 
 Brownson, Commander W. H., purchasing agent in Europe, 74; com 
 manding the Yankee, 117, 381. 
 
 Brumby, Lieutenant T. M., of the Olympia, 376. 
 
 Brutus, American collier, 370. 
 
 Buchanan, President, and Cuba, 28. 
 
 Buck, Ensign W. H., Bureau of Navigation, 359. 
 
 Buena Ventura, captured by Nashville, 123. 
 
 Buffalo, American cruiser, purchaser! from Brazil, TIO. 
 
 Burke, Lieutenant-Colonel D. W., Eleventh Infantry, 342. 
 
 Burr, Captain E., Engineer Corps, 215. 
 
 Burriel, General Juan, commander at Santiago, 34. 
 
 Bustamente, Captain, chief of staff to Cervera, 195; mortally wounded 
 at San Juan, 253. 
 
 Byrne, Captain B, A., Sixth Infantry, 251. 
 
 Cabanas, harbour of, near Santiago, 197, 216, 219, 307, 317. 
 
 Cables cut on Cuban coast, 134, 155. 
 
 Cabras Island, San Juan harbour, 161. 
 
 Cadarso, Captain, of the Reina Cristina, 141. 
 
 Cadiz, Cervera starts from, 118; Camara starts from, 359. 
 
 Caibarien, Cuba, 388. 
 
 Caimanera, 199, 202; Spanish forces at, 203. 
 
 California Heavy Artillery, 374. 
 
 Calkins, Lieutenant C. G., of the Olympia, 135. 
 
 Callao, Spanish gunboat, captured, 356; in attack on Manila, 376. 
 
 Calleja, Emilio, captain-general of Cuba, 43. 
 
398 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Calle Real, near Manila, 366, 368. 
 
 Camara, Admiral, 358; leaves Cadiz, 359; at Port Said, 360, 362; re 
 called to Spain, 362. 
 
 Cambon, Jules, French ambassador at Washington, 93; asks for terms 
 of peace, 389; signs protocol, 391. 
 
 Cameron, Senator, proposes recognition of Cuban independence, 59. 
 
 Camp Alger, Falls Church, Va., 106, 232. 
 
 Camp Black, near New York, 329. 
 
 Camp Dewey, near Manila, 364, 365. 
 
 Camp McCalla, Playa del Este, 200. 
 
 Campos, Martinez, captain-general of Cuba, 37; premier of Spain, 40; 
 returns to Cuba, 44; resigns, 46; raises fund for destitute, 55. 
 
 Camp Thomas, Chickamauga, Ga., 106, 145, 146; unsanitary condition 
 >f> L " 
 
 Wikoff, Montauk Point, 3;. 
 Canalejas, Jose, editor of the Madrid Heraldo, 66. 
 
 Caney, 230; plan of attack on, 234; battle of, 236; troops left at, 259; 
 Santiago refugees at, 295-297, 305, 323. 
 
 Cannon, Congressman, 74. 
 
 Canovas del Castillo, Spanish premier, 39; assassinated, 62. 
 
 Canuelo, Fort, San Juan harbour, 161. 
 
 Cape Engano, Luzon, 365. 
 
 Cape Haitien, telegraph station at, 159, 333. 
 
 Cape San Juan, Porto Rico, 336, 348. 
 
 Capron, Captain A., First Artillery, 214, 227; in battle of Caney, 236, 
 238; at El Pozo, 263; before Santiago, 298. 
 
 Capron, Captain A. K., First Volunteer Cavalry, killed at Las 
 Guasimas, 224*, 226. 
 
 Cardenas, Lopez lands at, 24; action of May nth at, 152; limit of 
 blockade, 122, 383, 384. 
 
 Cardinal Cisneros, Spanish cruiser, 100. 
 
 Carlier, Lieutenant D., of the Furor, 157, 282. 
 
 Carlist war, in Spain, 30, 36. 
 
 Carroll, Lieutenant-Colonel H., Sixth Cavalry, 214; in battle of San 
 Juan, 241, 252. 
 
 Cartagena, Camara at, 359. 
 
 Castilla, Spanish cruiser, 136; destroyed in battle of Manila Bay, 141. 
 
 Castillo, General, Cuban insurgent, 218, 223, 227, 228. 
 
 Castine, American gunboat, 104, 116; off Cienfuegos, 173, 175; at 
 Mariel, 384. 
 
 Cataluna, Spanish cruiser, 100. 
 
 Cavite, arsenal at, 135, 136; surrenders to Dewey, 142; Dewey s squad 
 ron at, 143; Commander Wood in charge of, 356; Anderson lands 
 at, 364. 
 
 Cayey, Porto Rico, 347. 
 
 Cerero, General Rafael, Spanish peace commissioner, 391. 
 
 Cervera, Admiral, at St. Vincent, 118; sails for West Indies, 157, 167; 
 reaches Santiago, 169; receives Hobson s surrender, 189; threatens 
 to bombard Santiago, 269; leaves Santiago, 271; in battle of San 
 tiago, 280; surrenders, 284; rumoured to be bound for Manila, 358. 
 
 Cervera, Lieutenant Angel, 284. 
 
 Cespedes, Carlos, Cuban insurgent, 29, 36. 
 
 Chadwick, Captain F. E., serves on Maine commission, 70; captain 
 of the New York, 116, 120; in charge of the Colon, 286, 287; con 
 ference with Shafter, 305; goes to represent navy at surrender of 
 Santiago, 310. 
 
 Chaffee, Brigadier-General A. R., 214, 228, 234, 235; in battle of Caney, 
 236, 237; reaches San Juan, 259; opinion of Shafter, 313; signs 
 " round robin." 325. 
 
 Charette, G., of the Merrimac crew, 187. 
 
 Charleston, American cruiser, 103, 109, 351; captures Guam, 354; 
 reaches Manila, 355, 369. 
 
 Chester, Captain C. M., of the Cincinnati, 116; at Ponce, 339. 
 
 Chicago, American cruiser, 103, 108. 
 
 Chickamauga. See Camp Thomas. 
 
INDEX 
 
 399 
 
 China, American transport, 365. 
 
 Cienfuegos, blockade 01, proclaimed, 122; action of April 2Qth off, 151; 
 cables cut off, 154; blockaded by Schley, 172; Yankee off, 380. 
 
 Cincinnati, American cruiser, 103; fire in coal bunkers, 69; ordered 
 to North Atlantic station, 108, 116; bombards Matanzas batteries, 
 126; with Sampson in Nicholas Channel, 178; goes to Porto Rico, 
 
 Cingalon, suburb of Manila, 375, 376. 
 
 Cisneros, Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, Cuban insurgent, 37. 
 
 City of Peking, American transport, 351, 354. 
 
 City of Puebla, American transport, 366. 
 
 City of Rio de Janeiro, American transport, 366. 
 
 City of Sydney, American transport, 354, 355. 
 
 City of Washington, Ward line steamer, 68; used as transport, 216. 
 
 Ciudad Cadiz, Spanish transport, 118. 
 
 Clark, Captain Charles E., of the Oregon, 109; opinion on Cervera s 
 
 strategy, 271; in battle of Santiago, 279, 283. 
 Clark, Colonel E. P., Second Massachusetts, 213. 
 Clausen, R., of the Merrimac crew, 188. 
 Clay, Henry, on Cuba, 18. 
 
 Clayton, Captain B. T., New York Cavalry, 345. 
 Cleveland, President, on Cuba, 58; proclamation against filibuster 
 
 ing, 62. 
 
 Clover, Commander Richardson, of the Bancroft, 149, 218. 
 Coamo, Porto Rico, 340; action at, 344. 
 Coast defences of United States, 106. 
 Coghlan, Captain J. B., of the Raleigh, 132. 
 Cogswell, Lieutenant-Commander J. K., of the Oregon, 287. 
 Coit, Colonel A. B., Fourth Ohio, 346, 347. 
 Colon, American transport, 365. 
 Colonel Lloyd Aspinwall, seizure of, 33. 
 Columbia, American cruiser, 102, 116; carries troops to Santiago, 307; 
 
 to Porto Rico, 334. 
 
 Columbia, German liner, purchased by Spain, 359. 
 Columbus, Christopher, discovers Cuba, 2. 
 Comba, Lieutenant-Colonel R., Twelfth Infantry, 214. 
 Compania Transatlantica Espanola, 125, 327. 
 Competitor, filibustering schooner, 61 ; prisoners released, 62. 
 Concas, Captain Victor, of the Maria Teresa, 157; wounded in battle 
 
 of Santiago, 280. 
 
 Concho, American transport, 323. 
 Concord, American gunboat, 73, 104; leaves Mirs Bay, 132: at Subig 
 
 Bay, 132; enters Manila Bay, 133; captures Spaniards at Subig, 364. 
 Conde de Venadito, Spanish cruiser, 122. 
 Conrad, Major C. H., Eighth Infantry, 213. 
 Converse, Commander G. A., of the Montgomery, 116; suggests 
 
 Merrimac manoeuvre, 185. 
 Cook, Captain F. A., of the Brooklyn, 116; in battle of Santiago, 
 
 274, 277, 279; receives surrender of Colon, 286. 
 Coppinger, Major-General .T. J., 145, 146. 
 Corbin, Adjutant-General H. C., 146, 308, 315. 
 Cornish, Admiral, at Manila, 128. 
 
 Corregidor Island, Manila Bay, 133; captured by Dewey, 144, 355. 
 Cotton, Captain C. S., of the Harvard, 170, 292, 358. 
 Cowles, Lieutenant-Commander W. S., of the Topeka, 384. 
 Crank, R. K., assistant engineer of the Merrimac, 188. 
 Crescent City, American ship, debarred from Havana, 26. 
 Cristobal Colon, Spanish cruiser, 100; at St. Vincent, 118, 157; crosses 
 
 Atlantic, 168; at Santiago, 182-184; leaves Santiago, 272; in battle 
 
 of Santiago, 276, 284; surrenders, 286; sinks, 287. 
 Crittenden, Colonel, comrade of Lopez, 25. 
 Crofton, Lieutenant W. M., First Infantry, 148. 
 Cromer, Lord, British agent in Egvpt, 362. 
 
 Crosley, Ensign W. S., of the Levden, 385. 
 Crowder, Lieutenant-Colonel E. H., of Me 
 
 erritt s staff, 377. 
 
4 00 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Crowninshield, Captain A. S., member of Naval War Board, 121. 
 
 Cuba Espanola, Spanish gunboat, 381. 
 
 Cuban soldiers at Aserraderos, 197, 217; transported to Siboney, 
 
 232; in battle of Caney, 239. 
 Cubitas, insurgent capital at, 48. 
 Culebra Island, 160. 
 
 Cummins, Captain A. S., Fourth Artillery, 214. 
 Curagao, Cervera at, 169, 172. 
 Cuthbertson, Major H. C., Tenth Pennsylvania, 368. 
 
 Daggett, Lieutenant-Colonel A. S., Twenty-fifth Infantry, 213, 238. 
 
 Daiquiri, Fifth Corps lands at, 219; artillery lands at, 232; reinforce 
 ments land at, 307. 
 
 Davis, Commander C. H., of the Dixie, 117, 338, 349. 
 
 Davis, Senator, chairman of Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, 
 86, 90; American peace commissioner, 391. 
 
 Day, William R., Secretary of State, 65, 74, 390; chairman of Ameri 
 can peace commission, 391, 394. 
 
 Dayton, Commander J. H., of the Detroit, 116. 
 
 Declaration of war by Spain, 124; by the United States, 125. 
 
 Deignan, O. W., of the Merrimac, 187. 
 
 Delehanty, Commander D., of the Suwanee, 197, 292. 
 
 Delgado Pareja, Spanish gunboat, 381. 
 
 Derby, Lieutenant-Colonel G. McC., Engineer Corps, 234, 242, 244. 
 
 De Russy, Colonel I. D., Eleventh Infantry, 341, 342. 
 
 Detroit, American cruiser, 103, 108, 116; goes to San Juan, 159, 161; 
 with Sampson in Nicholas Channel, 178. 
 
 Dewey, Commodore George, commanding Asiatic station, 108, 115; 
 at Hong-Kong, 130; starts for Manila, 131; at Subig Bay, 132; 
 enters Manila Bay, 135; battle of Manila Bay, 138; cuts Manila 
 cable, 144; despatches to Washington, 351, 352; promoted to rear- 
 admiral, 355; plan of retreat before Camara, 360; suggests attack 
 on Spanish coast, 361; friction with German squadron at Manila, 
 363; conferences with Greene and Merritt, 370, 371. 
 
 Diana Key, Cardenas harbour, 152, 154. 
 
 Diedrichs, Admiral, commanding German squadron at Manila, 363. 
 
 Dillenback, Major J. W., Second Artillery, 214, 257, 263. 
 
 Dingley, Congressman, 74. 
 
 Dixie, American auxiliary cruiser, 117, 334, 337; at Ponce, 338; in 
 Eastern Squadron, 361; on southern blockade, 381. 
 
 Dolphin, American despatch boat, 116. 
 
 Don Antonio de Ulloa, Spanish gunboat, 136. 
 
 Don Juan de Austria, Spanish gunboat, 136. 
 
 Dorado, Porto Rico, 336. 
 
 Dorst. Lieutenant-Colonel J. H., assistant adjutant-general, 148, 295. 
 
 Dos Caminos, surrender of, 321, 322. 
 
 Dotterel, British cruiser, destruction of, 69. 
 
 Downs, Colonel W. A., Seventy-first New York, 213. 
 
 Draper, Sir William, at Manila, 128. _ 
 
 Du Bosc, secretary of Spanish legation at Washington, 93. 
 
 Ducrot house, near Santiago. 235, 259. 
 
 Duffield, Brigadier-General H. M., 232, 233; movement against Fort 
 Aguadores, 259; at Siboney, 316. 
 
 Dulce, captain-general of Cuba, 31, 33. 
 
 Dupont, American torpedo boat, 116, 151; off Cienfuegos, 173; goes 
 to Key West, 175; at Guantanamo, 293. 
 
 Dupuy de Lome, Spanish minister at Washington, 66; resigns, 67. 
 
 Dyer, Captain N. M., of the Baltimore, 132. 
 
 Eagan, Commissary-General C. P., 146. 
 
 Eagle, American converted yacht, 151, 155: with Flying Squadron, 
 
 174, 176; reports Spanish fleet in Nicholas Channel, 209; chases 
 
 transport, 340; on southern blockade, 381, 384. 
 Eastern Squadron, 334, 361. 
 Eaton, Captain J. G., of the Resolute, 283, 291, 293. 
 
INDEX 
 
 4OI 
 
 Eberle, Lieutenant E. W., of the Oregon, 274, 283. 
 
 Edmund Blunt, British ship, 382. 
 
 Egbert, Lieutenant-Colonel H. C., Sixth Infantry, 213; in battle of 
 
 San Juan, 246. 
 
 Egmont Key, transports rendezvous at, 215. 
 Eighteenth Infantry, 364, 365, 374. 
 Eighth Corps, 146, 352. 
 
 Eighth Infantry, 213; in battle of Caney, 238, 239; m Porto Rico, 340. 
 Eighth Ohio Volunteers, 307, 324. 
 El Cristo, surrender of, 321, 322. 
 Eleventh Infantry, 339. 
 
 El Fraile, Manila Bay, Spanish battery on, 133, 135. 
 Ellen A. Reed, British collier, 363. 
 Elliott, Captain G. F., Marine Corps, 201. 
 Ellis, Chief Yeoman, of the Brooklyn, 288. 
 El Pozo, near Santiago, 232; American artillery at, 242, 250, 263; field 
 
 telegraph at, 243, 248; field hospital near, 264; conference of July 
 
 2d at, 266. 
 
 El Songo, surrender of, 321, 322. 
 
 Emory, Commander W. H., of the Yosemite, 117, 333. 
 Emperador Carlos V, Spanish battle ship, 99, 160, 359. 
 Endicott Board plans coast defences, 106. 
 Ennis, Captain W., Fourth Artillery, 214. 
 
 Ericsson, American torpedo boat, 151; in battle of Santiago, 273, 285. 
 Ermita, suburb of Manila, 376, 378. 
 Ernst, Brigadier-General O. H., 338, 346. 
 Escario, Colonel Frederico, 229; reaches Santiago, 295; promoted 
 
 to brigadier-general, 310; commissioner on surrender, 310. 
 Esquirre, Cuban insurgent, 41. 
 Estrella, Spanish gunboat, 381. 
 Estrella Point, Santiago, 193. 
 
 Eulate, Captain Antonio, of the Vizcaya, 157, 285. 
 Evans, Captain R. D., of the Iowa, 116, 120; off Santiago, 183, 184; 
 
 in the battle of Santiago, 274, 283, 285. 
 Evarts, William M., Secretary of State, 41. 
 Ewers, Lieutenant-Colonel E. P., Ninth Infantry, 213; in battle of 
 
 San Juan, 245, 252; receives surrender of Guantanamo, 322. 
 
 Fajardo, Porto Rico, 336. 
 
 Falcon, American ship, fired on, 26. 
 
 Fanita, American transport, 149. 
 
 Farragut, Ensign Guillermo, 78. 
 
 Felifi, Colonel J. M. de O., 377. 
 
 Fernandina, troops encamped at, 106, 205. 
 
 Fifteenth Infantry, 353. 
 
 Fifteenth Minnesota Volunteers, 329. 
 
 Fifth Artillery, 334. 
 
 Fifth Cavalry, 341. 
 
 Fifth Corps, 146; at Tampa, 205; embarkation of, 211; regiments and 
 
 officers of, 213; landing at Daiquiri, 219; at Siboney, 220; losses 
 
 while in Cuba, 233; sails for Montauk, 326. 
 Filibustering in Cuba, 24; the Virginius, 34; the Competitor, 61; 
 
 efforts to suppress, 62, 84; legalized, during war, 147. 
 Fillmore, President, on Cuba, 26. 
 First Artillery, 214. 
 
 First California Volunteers, 354, 364, 368, 374, 377. 
 First Cavalry, 214; at Las Guasimas, 223; in battle of San Juan, 246, 
 
 249, 255. 
 
 First Colorado Volunteers, 364, 374, 375. 
 First Corps, 146. 
 
 First District of Columbia Volunteers, 307. 
 First Idaho Volunteers, 365, 374. 
 First Illinois Volunteers, 307. 
 
 First Infantrv, 1^8, 213; in battle of Caney, 235, 239. 
 First Nebraska Volunteers, 364, 374. 
 
402 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 First North Dakota Volunteers, 365, 374. 
 
 First Volunteer Cavalry (Rough Riders), 204, 212, 214, 216; at Las 
 Guasimas, 223, 224, 226; in battle of San Juan, 246, 249, 255, 257. 
 
 First Wyoming Volunteers, 365, 374. 
 
 Fish, Hamilton, Secretary of State, 36. 
 
 Fish, Sergeant Hamilton, First Volunteer Cavalry, killed at Las 
 Guasimas, 224. 
 
 Fiske, Lieutenant B. A., of the Petrel, 133, 142. 
 
 Flagler, Brigadier-General D. W., 146. 
 
 Florida, American transport, 149, 218; disabled at Tampa, 208. 
 
 Flying Squadron, 116, 158; moves to Key West, 171; to Cienfuegos, 
 172; to Santiago, 175; made part of Sampson s command, 179. 
 
 Fontan, Lieutenant-Colonel V., 310. 
 
 Foote, American torpedo boat, 116, 152. 
 
 Forsyth, John, on Cuba, 23. 
 
 Fort San Antonio, Malate, 374, 375. 
 
 Fourteenth Infantry, 351, 352, 354, 374. 
 
 Fourth Artillery, 214, 334. 
 
 Fourth Cavalry, 352. 
 
 Fourth Corps, 146. 
 
 Fourth Infantry, 213; in battle of Caney, 235, 239. 
 
 Fourth Ohio Volunteers, 339, 346, 347. 
 
 Fourth Pennsylvania Volunteers, 339. 
 
 Fremont, Lieutenant J. C., of the Porter, 116. 
 
 French squadron at Manila, 372. 
 
 Fry, Captain Joseph, of the Virginius, 34. 
 
 Frye, Senator, American peace commissioner, 391. 
 
 Furor, Spanish torpedo-boat destroyer, 157; at Martinique, 168; 
 reaches Santiago, 169, 173; leaves Santiago, 272; sunk off San 
 tiago, 282. 
 
 Gallicia, Spanish torped9 boat, at Cienfuegos, 151, 380. 
 
 Garcia, Calixto, Cuban insurgent general, 147; meets Sampson, 217; 
 meets Sampson and Shafter, 218; taken to Siboney, 232; fails to 
 stop Escario, 295; leaves Santiago, 320. 
 
 Garcia, Vicejite, Cuban insurgent, 38. 
 
 Garnica, Senor de, Spanish peace commissioner, 391. 
 
 Garretson, Brigadier-General G. A., 337, 343. 
 
 Catling detachment at Santiago, 214, 250, 255. 
 
 General Lezo, Spanish gunboat, 136. 
 
 German squadron at Manila, 363, 372. 
 
 Gibara, Garcia at, 320. 
 
 Gibbs. Surgeon J. B., killed at Playa del Este, 202. 
 
 Gise, Ensign W. K., of the Oregon, 283. 
 
 Glass, Captain Henry, of the Charleston, 354, 355. 
 
 Gloucester, American converted yncht, 218, 260; in battle of San 
 tiago, 273, 275, 281, 289; goes to" Porto Rico, 334; at Guanica, 337; 
 at Arroyo, 340. 
 
 Gollan, Sir Alexander, British consul-general at Havana, 269. 
 
 Gomez, Juan, Cuban insurgent, 41. 
 
 Gomez, Maximo, Cuban general, 38, 44, 50; letter to McKinley, 51; 
 orders plantations destroyed, 51; joined by expedition from United 
 States, 150. 
 
 Goodrich, Captain C. F., of the St. Louis, 155, 199; in charge of land 
 ing of Fifth Corps, 219, 220; at Arroyo, 340; commanding the 
 Newark at Manzanillo. 387. 
 
 Graham. Major-General W. M., 145, 146. 
 
 Grant, President, on Cuba, 32, 36, 83. 
 
 Gray, Senator, American peace commissioner, 391, 393. 
 
 Greely, Brigadier-General A. W., 145; reports on press censorship, 
 148; reports Cervera at Santiago, 173; on use of balloon at San 
 tiago, 242. 
 
 Greene, Brigadier-General F. V., 360: goes to Manila, 365; com 
 manding at the front, 366. 368, 370, 374; in attack on Manila, 376-378. 
 
 Gridley, Captain C. V., of the Olympia, 132, 135; death of, 355. 
 
INDEX 
 
 403 
 
 Grimes, Captain G. S., Second Artillery, 214; at El Pozo, 235, 242, 
 
 255, 263, 298. 
 Guam, Ladrone Islands, capture of, 354; Greene s expedition passes, 
 
 365. 
 
 Guanica, Porto Rico, landing at, 337. 
 Guantanamo, Campos lands at, 44; cable cutting attempted at, 155, 
 
 199; seizure of bay by Sampson, 198; Spanish forces at, 203; vessels 
 
 coaling in bay, 273, 292; surrender of, 321, 322; Spaniards sail 
 
 from, 327. 
 
 Guantanamo, Spanish gunboat, 381. 
 Guardian, Spanish gunboat, 381. 
 
 Guayama, Porto Rico, 336; occupied by Hains, 347. 
 Gussie, American transport, 148. 
 
 Hains, Brigadier-General P. C., in Porto Rico, 339, 346, 347. 
 
 Hains, Lieutenant J. P., Third Artillery, 346. 
 
 Hale, Colonel I., First Colorado, 364. 
 
 Hale, Senator, 74. 
 
 Hall, Colonel R. H., Fourth Infantry, 148. 
 
 Hamilton, Lieutenant-Colonel J. M., Ninth Cavalry, 214; killed at 
 San Juan, 251. 
 
 Harrington, Captain P. F., of the Puritan, 116; bombards Matanzas 
 batteries, 125. 
 
 Harvard, American auxiliary cruiser, 112, 158; reports Cervera s 
 squadron at Martinique, i^o; ordered to Mona Passage, 171; to 
 Santiago, 174; overtakes Schley, 177; alarm of mutiny on, 288; 
 at Siboney, 292. 
 
 Haskell, Lieutenant-Colonel J. T., Seventeenth Infantry, 214; 
 wounded at Caney, 237. 
 
 Hatuey, Cuban chief, 4. 
 
 Havana, early history of, 5; captured by British, 7; prosperity in 
 eighteenth century, 9; under Tacon, 21; Campos enters, 45; Weyler 
 lands at, 46; Blanco sent to, 62; mob attacks autonomist news 
 papers, 64; Maine ordered to, 65: Montgomery, Vizcaya, and Al- 
 mirante Oquendo arrive at, 71; mines in harbour, 78; Sampson s 
 plan for attacking, 119. 
 
 Hawaii, Philadelphia ordered to, 108. 
 
 Hawk, American converted yacht, 175; drives Alfonso XII ashore, 
 384.. 
 
 Hawkins, Brigadier-General H. S., 213; in battle of San Juan, 241, 
 245, 248, 252; wounded, 263. 
 
 Hawkins, Colonel A. L., Tenth Pennsylvania, 365. 
 
 Hawley bill, 74, 105. 
 
 Hazeltine, Lieutenant C. W., of the Hist, 288. 
 
 Hearst, William R., of New York, 112. 
 
 Helena, American gunboat, 104, 108, 116; at Manzanillo, 386. 
 
 Helm, Lieutenant J. M., of the Hornet, 381. 
 
 Hengelmuller, Baron, Austrian minister at Washington, 93. 
 
 Henry, Brigadier-General G. V., 307, 343. 
 
 Hepburn, Congressman, opposes Hull bill, 75. 
 
 Hercules, Spanish tug, 143. 
 
 Hernandez, Colonel, Cuban insurgent officer, 217. 
 
 Higginson, Captain F. J., of the Massachusetts, 116; off Santiago, 
 184; goes to Porto Rico, 334, 336. 
 
 Hinds, Lieutenant E., Second Artillery, 298. 
 
 Hist, American converted yacht, 273, 285, 288; at Manzanillo, 381, 
 386, 387. 
 
 Hobson, Lieutenant (naval constructor), 185; sinks the Merrimac, 
 189; released, 300. 
 
 Holguin, Spanish forces at, 217, 230, 309, 320, 386. 
 
 Hong-Kong, Dewey at, 130; Dewey leaves, 131. 
 
 Honolulu, British steamer, 363. 
 
 Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, 354, 365. 
 
 Hood, Lieutenant J.. of the Hawk, 175. 
 
 Hormiguero, Porto Rico, action at, 341. 
 
404 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Hornet, American converted yacht, 151; at Manzanillo, 381, 382, 386. 
 
 Hotchkiss detachment at Santiago, 214, 223; in battle of San Juan, 
 246, 255. 
 
 House of Representatives, votes for recognition of Cuban insurgents, 
 57; votes $50,000,000 for national defence, 74; Hawley bill, 74; defeat 
 of Hull bill, 75; votes for intervention in Cuba, 90. 
 
 Howell, Commodore, commanding Northern Patrol Squadron, 117, 
 379; ordered to Key West, 380; in charge of north coast blockade, 
 382-384. 
 
 Hudson, American revenue cutter, 152. 
 
 Hughes, Lieutenant E. M., of the Petrel, 142. 
 
 Hughes, Lieutenant J. B., Tenth Cavalry, 215, 255. 
 
 Hugh McCulloch, American revenue cutter, 113; leaves Mirs Bay, 
 132; enters Manila Bay, 135; reports battle, 144; brings Aguinaldo 
 to Manila, 356. 
 
 Hulings, Colonel W. J., Sixteenth Pennsylvania, 343, 345. 
 
 Hull bill, defeat of, 75; second bill passed, 105. 
 
 Humphrey, Lieutenant-Colonel C. F., chief quartermaster of San 
 tiago expedition, 215. 
 
 Hunker, Commander J. J., of the Annapolis, 215, 384-386. 
 
 Huntingdon, Lieutenant-Colonel R. W., Marine Corps, 199, 387. 
 
 Huse, Lieutenant H., of the Gloucester, 282, 337. 
 
 Hyatt, American consul at Santiago, 53, 64, 88. 
 
 Illinois, American battle ship, 101. 
 
 Indiana, American battle ship, 101, 108, 116; goes to San Juan, 159, 
 161 ; with Sampson in Nicholas Channel, 178; at Key West for 
 convoy duty, 205; convoys Fifth Corps, 215; in battle of Santiago, 
 2 73 283, 288; meets the Kaiserin Maria Theresa, 293; struck by 
 shell, 297; bombards Santiago, 306. 
 
 Infanta Maria Teresa, Spanish cruiser, 100; at St. Vincent, 118, 157; 
 crosses Atlantic, 168; reaches Santiago, 169; leaves Santiago, 272; 
 driven ashore, 280, 284. 
 
 Iowa, American battle ship, 101, 108, 116; goes to San Juan, 159, 161 ; 
 to Cienfuegos, 173; off Santiago, 184, 191; in battle of Santiago, 
 2 73> 2 79> 285, 289; assigned to Eastern Squadron, 361. 
 
 Irene, German cruiser, 364. 
 
 Irles, Major, aid of General Toral, 322. 
 
 Irwin, Ensign, of the Baltimore, 139. 
 
 Isabel II, Spanish gunboat, 332. 
 
 Isabel la Catolica, Spanish cruiser, 100. 
 
 Isla de Cuba, Spanish gunboat, 136. 
 
 Isla de Luzon, Spanish gunboat, 136. 
 
 Isla de Mindanao, Spanish transport, 136. 
 
 Isla Grande, Subig Bay, 364. 
 
 Isle of Pines, 384, 386, 387. 
 
 acksonville, troops encamped at, 106, 329. 
 acobs, Colonel, chief quartermaster, Fifth Corps, 212. 
 acobsen, Commander, German navy, 332, 334. 
 apanese squadron at Manila, 372. 
 
 audenes, Fermin, captain-general of the Philippines, 371; surren 
 ders, 376. 
 
 efferson, Thomas, on Cuba, 18. 
 enkins, Jonathan S.. Memoirs of, 21. 
 enkins, Lieutenant F. W., of the Maine, 68. 
 ewell, Captain T. F., of the Minneapolis, 116. 
 ohnson, P., of the Vixen, 190. 
 
 orge Juan, Spanish gunboat, 123; sunk in Nipe Bay, 385. 
 ovellar, captain-general of Cuba, 37. 
 ungen, Lieutenant C. W., of the Wompatuck, 155, 381. 
 upiter Inlet, Oregon arrives at, in. 
 uragua, iron mines at, 225. 
 
 Kaiserin Maria Theresa, Austrian cruiser, 293. 
 Kearsarge, American battle ship, 101. 
 
INDEX 405 
 
 "Kellogg, Lieutenant-Colonel E. R., Tenth Infantry, 213. 
 
 Kellogg, Lieutenant F. W., of the Baltimore, 139. 
 
 Kelly, F., of the Merrimac, 187. 
 
 Kent, Brigadier-General J. F., 213; in battle of San Juan, 241, 244, 
 248, 252, 258; reports supposed Spanish sortie, 265; at conference 
 of July 2d, 266; signs " round robin," 325. 
 
 Kentucky, American battle ship, 101. 
 
 Kerr, Captain J. B., Sixth Cavalry, 250. 
 
 Kettle Hill, near Santiago, 247, 249, 251, 257. 
 
 Key West, North Atlantic Squadron at, 108; supply depot and hos 
 pital at, 114; troops to be concentrated at, 146; VVinslow towed to, 
 153; Remey in command at, 159; Flying Squadron at, 171, 172; 
 marine battalion at, 199; convoy ships at, 207, 210; Howell at, 382. 
 
 Laborde, Alfredo, imprisonment of, 61. 
 
 Lachambre, Spanish general, 129. 
 
 Ladrone Islands, 354, 390. 
 
 Lagaza, Captain Juan B., of the Oquendo, 157; drowned off San 
 tiago, 280. 
 
 Lamberton, Commander, chief of staff to Dewey, 132; captain of the 
 Olympia, 355; commissioner on surrender of Manila, 377. 
 
 Lancaster, Major J. M., Fourth Artillery, 343, 344, 346. 
 
 Lares, Porto Rico, 341, 342. 
 
 Las Casas, Bartolome de, Spanish priest, 4, 12. 
 
 Las Casas, Luis de, captain-general of Cuba, 9. 
 
 Las Guasimas, action at, 223. 
 
 Las Marias, Porto Rico, 342. 
 
 Lawton, Brigadier-General H. W., 213, 228, 234; in battle of Caney, 
 235, 238; ordered to withdraw, 258; moves to San Juan, 259; at 
 conference of July 2d, 266; before Santiago, 298; commissioner on 
 surrender, 310; signs " round robin," 325; in command of Santiago 
 province, 326. 
 
 Leary, Captain R. P., of the San Francisco, ^117. 
 
 Lee, Captain A. H., British military attache, 258. 
 
 Lee, Major-General Fitzhugh, American consul-general at Havana, 
 54; reports destitution in Cuba, 60; telegraphs for American ships, 
 65; commands Seventh Corps, 146. 
 
 Legazpi, colonizes the Philippines, 127. 
 
 Lemus, Jose, Cuban revolutionist, 16. 
 
 Lersundi, captain-general of Cuba, 29. 
 
 Lewis, Captain T. J., Second Cavalry, 321. 
 
 Lewis, Congressman, criticises the United States army, 75. 
 
 Leyden, American auxiliary, 384, 385. 
 
 Lieber, Judge-Advocate-General G. N., 146. 
 
 Linares, Lieutenant-General Arsenio, 225, 229; wounded at San Juan, 
 253; letter to Blanco, 309. 
 
 Liscum, Lieutenant-Colonel E. H., Twenty-fourth Infantry, 213; 
 wounded at San Juan, 245. 
 
 Lizzie Major. American ship, seized at sea, 33. 
 
 Long, John D., Secretary of the Navy, 74, 145. *73; declines to order 
 Sampson to force Santiago harbour, 308. 
 
 Lopez, Narciso, and his filibustering expeditions, 24. 
 
 Loraine, Sir Lambton, of the Niobe, 35. 
 
 Lorenzo, General, governor of Santiago, 22. 
 
 Ludington, Ouartermaster-General M. I., 146. 
 
 Ludlow. Brigadier-General W., 215; in battle of Caney, 235, 237; be 
 fore Santiago, 208, 311; signs " round robin, 325. 
 
 Ludlow, Captain Nicoll, of the Terror, 116, 165. 
 
 Luneta, Manila, 376. 
 
 Luque, General, at Holguin, 320. 
 
 Lyman, General, at Havana, 8. 
 
 Lyon, Commander H. W., of the Dolphin, 116. 
 
 MacArthur, Brigadier-General A., 365, 3745 in attack on Manila, 375. 
 377; military governor of Manila, 378. 
 
406 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 McCalla, Commander B. H., of the Marblehead, 116, 151; off Cien- 
 fuegos, 175; in Guantanamo Bay, 203, 292. 
 
 McCaskey, Major W. S., Twentieth Infantry, 215. 
 
 McClernand, Lieutenant-Colonel E. J., adjutant-general of Fifth 
 Corps, 241, 243, 248. 
 
 McCulloch. See Hugh McCulloch. 
 
 Maceo, Antonio, Cuban insurgent, 44; killed, 50; orders property 
 destroyed, 52. 
 
 Maceo, Jose, Cuban insurgent, 44: killed, 50. 
 
 McFarland, Captain W. C., Sixteenth Infantry, 251. 
 
 Machias, American gunboat, 104, 116; off Cardenas, 152, 154. 
 
 Macias, captain-general of Porto Rico, 166, 338. 
 
 Mackenzie, Commander M. R. S., of the Mayflower, 116. 
 
 McKibbin, Lieutenant-Colonel C., Twenty-first Infantry, 213; briga 
 dier-general, 311; military governor of Santiago, 319; signs " round 
 robin," 325; succeeded by Wood, 326. 
 
 McKinley, President, views on Cuba, 59; message of December, 1897, 
 63; criticised by Dupuy de Lome, 66; answers European repre 
 sentatives, 80; message calling for intervention in Cuba, 81 ; signs 
 resolution for intervention, 91; proclaims blockade of Cuba, 122. 
 
 Magellan, discoverer of the Philippines, 127. 
 
 Maginnis, Lieutenant T. F., Eleventh Infantry, 341. 
 
 Mahan, Captain A. T., member of Naval War Board, 121, 315. 
 
 Mahoney, G., of the Vixen, 190. 
 
 Maine, American battle ship, goes to Havana, ^65; destruction of, 67; 
 commission of inquiry, 70; commission s report, 76; Spanish com 
 mission, 71, 77. 
 
 Malate, suburb of Manila, 364, 366, 374, 376, 378. 
 
 Mangrove, American lighthouse tender, 70, 388. 
 
 Manila, early history of, 127; Dewey s squadron off, 143; situation 
 of garrison, 356, 369, 372; surrender of, 376; occupied by American 
 troops, 378; cession to United States, 390, 392. 
 
 Manila, Spanish survey ship, 136; captured by Dewey, 143. 
 
 Manila Bay, topography of, 133; Dewey enters, 135; battle of, 138. 
 
 Manning, American revenue cutter, 148. 
 
 Mante, Chaplain, at Havana, 8. 
 
 Manzanillo, Escario marches from, 229; attacked by American ships, 
 
 381, 382, 386, 387. 
 
 irblehead, American cruiser, 104, 108, 116; ott L-ientuegos, 151, 154; 
 
 returns from Key West to Cienfuegos, 174, 176; off Santiago, 178, 
 
 192; in Guantanamo Bay, 199, 202, 292. 
 
 Maria, Spanish pontoon, 381, 382. 
 
 Maria Cristina, Queen Regent of Spain, 93. 
 
 Mariel, proposed expedition to, 146; blockade of, 383; Alfonso XII 
 driven ashore at, 384. 
 
 Marietta, American gunboat, 104, 109; reaches Key West, no. 
 
 Marina, Lieutenant-Colonel, governor of Guam, 355. 
 
 Marine battalion, organized in New York, 199; at Playa del Este, 
 200, 304; leaves for Isle of Pines, 387. 
 
 Marix, Lieutenant-Commander, serves on Maine commission, 70; 
 commanding the Scorpion, 382, 386. 
 
 Marques del Duero, Spanish gunboat, 136. 
 
 Marti, Jose, Cuban insurgent, 44; killed, 45. 
 
 Martinez, Major, killed at Coamo, 344. 
 
 Martinique, Furor at, 168; Terror returns to, 169; Harvard at, 170. 
 
 Mason, John Y., signs Ostend manifesto, 28. 
 
 Mason, Robert, British vice-consul at Santiago, 310, 311. 
 
 Massachusetts, American battle ship, 101, 108, 116; goes to Cien 
 fuegos, 172; off Santiago, 184, 192; absent from battle of Santiago, 
 273; fires on Reina Mercedes, 297; convoys Miles to Porto Rico, 
 334; in Eastern Squadron, 361. 
 
 Masso, Bartolome, Cuban insurgent, 43. 
 
 Masso, Juan, Cuban insurgent, 64. 
 
 Matanzas, plan for attacking, 122; harbour batteries bombarded, 125, 
 151; blockade of, 383. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Mauser rifle, 98; effect of bullets, 203; number surrendered at San 
 tiago, 320. 
 
 Maxfield, Major J. E., Signal Corps, 242. 
 
 Maxim, Hiram S., on modern warfare, 97. 
 
 Mayaguez, Porto Rico, 336; Schwan s column enters, 341. 
 
 Mayflower, American converted yacht, 116; goes to Santiago, 180; 
 on Santiago blockade, 191. 
 
 Maynard, Commander Washburn, of the Nashville, 116; at Gibara, 320. 
 
 Mejico, captured at Santiago, 319. 
 
 Melville, G. W., engineer-in-chief, 153. 
 
 Merriam, Brigadier-General H. C., 145, 353. 
 
 Merriam, Lieutenant G. A., of the Dixie, 338. 
 
 Merrimac, American collier, 116; with Flying Squadron, 173, 177; 
 Hobson plans sinking of, 185; sinking of, 189. 
 
 Merritt, Engineer, of the Alaine, 68. 
 
 Merritt, Major-General Wesley, 145, 146; appointed to Eighth Corps, 
 352; reaches Manila, 365. 
 
 Merry, Commander J. F., of the Machias, 116; off Cardenas, 152. 
 
 Miantonomoh, American monitor, 103, 108; with Sampson in Nicholas 
 Channel, 178. 
 
 Michigan Naval Reserve, 333. 
 
 Miles, Colonel Evan, First Infantry, 213, 228; in battle of Caney, 235, 
 238; succeeded by McKibbin, 311. 
 
 Miles, Major-General N. A., 145; views on increase of army, 205; 
 at Tampa, 208; letter to Garcia, 217; promises Shafter reinforce 
 ments, 296; proposes withdrawal from Santiago, 299; reaches San 
 tiago, 307; conference with Tpral, 310; relations with Shafter, 314; 
 at Guantanamo, 316, 324; sails for Porto Rico, 334; landing at 
 Guanica, 337; at Ponce, 339; plan of campaign in Porto Rico, 340; 
 jealousy of navy, 348; views on expedition to Manila, 352, 353. 
 
 Miley, Lieutenant J. D., Second Artillery, 212; in battle of San 
 Juan, 247, 249; confers with consuls, 296; commissioner on sur 
 render of Santiago, 310; receives surrender of Spanish garrisons, 
 321, 322. 
 
 Miller, Colonel Marcus P., Third Artillery, 351. 
 
 Miller, Commander J. M., of the Merrimac, 116, 185. 
 
 Milligan, Chief-Engineer, of the Oregon, 275. 
 
 Mills, Senator, favours seizure of Cuba, 57. 
 
 Miner, Lieutenant R. H., 330. 
 
 Minneapolis, American cruiser, 102, 116, 171, 174; off Santiago, 176. 
 
 Mirs Bay, Dewey at, 131. 
 
 Mobile, troops encamped at, 205; Bates s brigade embarks at, 215. 
 
 Monadnock, American monitor, 103, 109, 360, 366, 370. 
 
 Mongada, Guillermo, Cuban insurgent, 43. 
 
 Monitors, 103; reported inefficient by Sampson, 121; slow speed of, 
 159; needed by Dewey, 370. 
 
 Monocacy, American corvette, 130. 
 
 Monroe Doctrine, 17. 
 
 Montague, D., of the Merrimac crew, 187. 
 
 Montauk Point, Fifth Corps ordered to, 326. 
 
 Monterey, American monitor, 103, 109, 360; reaches Manila, 370. 
 
 Montgomery, American cruiser, 104, 108; at Havana, 71; on North 
 Atlantic station, 116; goes to San Juan, 159, 161 ; with Sampson in 
 Nicholas Channel, 178. 
 
 Montojo, Admiral, at Manila, 132, 135; wounded in battle of Manila 
 Bay, 140. 
 
 Moore, Colonel, Third Wisconsin, 343. 
 
 Moreu, Captain E. Diaz, of the Colon, 157, 286. 
 
 Moron, surrender of, 321, 322. 
 
 Morrill, American revenue cutter, 151. 
 
 Morro, of Havana, built by Philip II, 6; stormed by British, 8; San 
 Francisco hit by shell from, 388. 
 
 Morro, of San Juan, Porto Rico, 161. 
 
 Morro, of Santiago, 193, 230; proposal to storm, 304. 
 
 Morton, J, P., assistant engineer of the Vixen, 190, 191. 
 
408 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Mullen, boatswain of the Merrimac, 187. 
 Murphy, J. E., of the Merrimac crew, 188. 
 
 Nanshan, American supply ship, 130. 
 
 Nardiz, Ensign V., of the Reina Mercedes, 297. 
 
 Nashville, American gunboat, 104, 116; captures the Buena Ventura, 
 123; off Cienfuegos, 151, 154. 
 
 Naval militia, American, 104. 
 
 Navy, of Spain, 99; of the United States, 101. 
 
 Nero, American collier, 366. 
 
 Newark, American cruiser, 103, 108; flagship of Eastern Squadron, 
 361 ; at Manzamllo, 387. 
 
 New Orleans, American cruiser, purchased in England, 103; reaches 
 New York, 108; goes to Santiago, 180, 184; on Santiago blockade, 
 191, 194; off San Juan, 333. 
 
 Newport, American gunboat, 104, 116. 
 
 Newport, American transport, 365, 370. 
 
 Newport News, Flying Squadron at, 116. 
 
 New York, American cruiser, 102, 108, 116; captures the Pedro, 123; 
 bombards Matanzas batteries, 126; goes to San Juan, 159, 161 ; in 
 Nicholas Channel, 178; goes to Santiago, 180; on Santiago block 
 ade, 191; bombards Fort Aguadores, 260; in battle of Santiago, 273, 
 283, 285, 287; bombards Santiago, 306. 
 
 New York Naval Reserve, 381. 
 
 Niagara, American collier, 159, 164. 
 
 Nima Nima, near Santiago, 280. 
 
 Nineteenth Infantry, 339, 343. 
 
 Ninth Cavalry, 214, 228; in battle of San Juan, 246, 249, 255. 
 
 Ninth Infantry, 213; in battle of San Juan, 245, 252, 255. 
 
 Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers, 235, 296. 
 
 Nipe, Cuba, 383; capture of bay, 384, 385. 
 
 Noble, Captain C. H., Sixteenth Infantry, 252. 
 
 Norman, Lieutenant G. H., of the Gloucester, 284. 
 
 Normannia, German liner, purchased by Spain, 359. 
 
 Norvell, Major S. T., Tenth Cavalry, 214. 
 
 Nuevitas, Cuba, 383, 384. 
 
 Numancia, Spanish cruiser, 99. 
 
 Ocampo, Spanish admiral, 5. 
 
 Olivette outrage, 49. 
 
 Olney, Richard, Secretary of State, 51; message to Spain on Cuban 
 question, 58; opposes recognition of Cuban independence, 59. 
 
 Olympia, American cruiser, 103, 108; leaves Mirs Bay, 132; enters 
 Manila Bay, 133; in battle of Manila Bay, 138, 139; in attack on 
 Manila, 374. 
 
 Ordonez, Colonel S. D., wounded at San Juan, 252. 
 
 Oregon, American battle ship, 101; voyage from Puget Sound to 
 West Indies, 109; goes to Santiago, 180; on Santiago blockade, 
 191, 260; in battle of Santiago, 273, 275, 279, 286, 288; in Eastern 
 Squadron, 361 ; commanded by Captain Barker, 387. 
 
 Osada, Spanish torpedo-boat destroyer, 362. 
 
 Osceola, American auxiliary cruiser, 382, 386, 387. 
 
 Ostend manifesto, 27. 
 
 Otis, Brigadier-General E. S., 145; major-general of volunteers, 366. 
 
 Otis, Brigadier-General H. G., 366. 
 
 Pablo Vasquez, Porto Rico, Spanish position at, 347. 
 Paco, suburb of Manila, 376-378. 
 Page, Colonel J. H., Third Infantry, 215. 
 Palma Soriano, 321, 322. 
 Pando, General, 45, 233. 
 Panther, American transport, 199, 200. 
 
 Paredes, Captain Jose de, second in command of Cervera s squad 
 ron, 286. 
 Pareja, Brigadier-General Felix, 203, 230. 
 
INDEX 409 
 
 Paris, meeting of peace commission at, 391. 
 
 Parker, Lieutenant J. H., Thirteenth Intantry, 214; in battle of San 
 
 Juan, 250, 255, 257; reports supposed Spanish sortie, 265. 
 Parkhurst, Captain C. D., Second Artillery, 214; in battle of San 
 
 Juan, 250, 257; before Santiago, 263, 298. 
 Pasay, near Manila, 368. 
 Patriota, Spanish auxiliary cruiser, 359. 
 
 Patterson, Lieutenant-Colonel, Twenty-second Infantry, 213. 
 Pauncefote, Sir Julian, British ambassador at Washington, 80. 
 Pearson, Colonel E. P., Tenth Infantry, 213; in battle of San Juan, 
 
 241, 246, 248; reconnoitres the Juragua Railroad, 303. 
 Pedro, captured by New York, 123. 
 Pelayo, Spanish battle ship, 99, 160; reported at Santiago, 173; with 
 
 Camara s squadron, 359. 
 Pena, General Nicolas de la, 377. 
 
 Peninsulares, Spanish party in Cuba, 29, 40, 46; oppose autonomy, 64. 
 Pennsylvania, American transport, 366. 
 Peoria, American auxiliary cruiser, 149. 
 Peru, American transport, 366. 
 Petrel, American gunboat, 104; leaves Mirs Bay, 132; enters Manila 
 
 Bay, 133. 
 
 Philadelphia, American cruiser, 103, 108. 
 Philadelphia City Troop, 340. 
 
 Philip, Captain J. W., of the Texas, 116; in battle of Santiago, 274, 278. 
 Philippines, early history of, 127; insurrections in, 129; cession to 
 
 United States, 392, 393. See Manila. 
 Phillips, G. F., of the Merrimac, 187. 
 Pina, Ensign, 270. 
 
 Pio Gullon, Spanish minister for foreign affairs, 93. 
 Playa del Este, cable station at, 196, 199, 292. 
 Pluton, Spanish torpedo-boat destroyer, 157, 189, 217; leaves Santiago, 
 
 272; driven ashore, 281. 
 Pocock, Sir George, at Havana, 8. 
 Polaria, German steamer, 229. 
 
 Polavieja, captain-general of Cuba, 41; of the Philippines, 129. 
 Polk, President, proposes to purchase Cuba, 24. 
 
 Polo, Luis, Spanish minister at Washington, 67; leaves Washing 
 ton, 92. 
 
 Ponce, Porto Rico, 336; capture of, 338; transports aground at, 346. 
 Porter, American torpedo boat, 116, 159; at San Juan, 161; goes to 
 
 Santiago, 180; off Santiago, 187, 189, 191. 
 Porto Rico, plans of attack on, 331; Spanish forces in, 334; sketch 
 
 map of, 335; American troops land in, 337; cession to United 
 
 States, 390. 
 
 Portsmouth, Spanish prisoners at, 288. 
 
 Potter, Lieutenant-Commander W. P., of the New York, 70. 
 Potts, Captain R. D., Third Artillery, 343. 
 Powell, Cadet J. W., of the New York, 188, 195. 
 Prairie, American auxiliary cruiser, 117. 
 Pratt, American consul at Singapore, 130, 356. 
 Primo de Rivera, captain-general of the Philippines, 129. 
 Princesa de Asturias, Spanish cruiser, 100. 
 Princeton, American gunboat, 104. 
 
 Prizes taken by American ships, 123; at Santiago, 319. 
 Proserpina, Spanish torpedo-boat destroyer, 362. 
 Protocol, drawn up by Secretary Day, 390; signed, 391. 
 Puerto Cabanas, Gussie expedition repulsed at, 148; fired upon by 
 
 New York, 151. 
 
 Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo, 167. 
 Punta Gorda battery, Santiago, 193, 197, 230, 269. 
 Purcell, Lieutenant J. L., of the Osceola, 382. 
 Purissima Concepcion, Spanish steamer, 380, 386. 
 
 Puritan, American monitor, 103, 108, 116; bombards Matanzas bat 
 teries, 126; with Sampson in Nicholas Channel, 178. 
 Putnam, Israel, at Havana, 8. 
 
410 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Rabi, General Jesus, Cuban insurgent, 43, 197, 218. 
 
 Rafferty, Major W. A., Second Cavalry, 215. 
 
 Raleigh, American cruiser, 103, 108; leaves Mirs Bay, 132; enters 
 
 Manila Bay, 133; captures Corregidor, 144; captures Spaniards at 
 
 Subig, 364. 
 
 Ramsden, F. W., British consul at Santiago, 35, 269. 
 Ramus, Captain, aid of General Toral, 321. 
 Randall, Chief-Engineer, of the McCulloch, 135. 
 Randolph, Brigadier-General W. F., 307. 
 Rapido, Spanish auxiliary cruiser, 359. 
 Rapido, Spanish tug, 142. 
 Rayo, Spanish torpedo boat, 119. 
 Rea, George Bronson, American journalist, 48. 
 Reconcentration, ordered by Weyler, 50, 51; abolished by Blanco, 
 
 62, 79. 
 
 Red Cross Society, relieves distress in Cuba, 60. 
 Reed, Speaker, opposes recognition of Cuban insurgents, 61, 91. 
 Reid, Whitelaw, American peace commissioner, 391, 394. 
 Reilly, Captain H. J., Fifth Artillery, 311. 
 Reina Cristina, Spanish cruiser, 136; destroyed in battle of Manila 
 
 Bay, 140. 
 Reina Mercedes, Spanish cruiser, 123; fires torpedoes at Merrimac, 
 
 189; Hobson a prisoner on, 190; guns of, 193, 229; injured in bom 
 bardment, 196; sinking of, 296, 297. 
 Reina Regente, Spanish cruiser, loss of, 100. 
 Relief, American hospital ship, 114. 
 
 Remey, Commodore G. C., commanding at Key West, 159, 167, 209. 
 Resolute, American auxiliary cruiser, 210, 273, 287, 291, 293, 304, 387. 
 Restormel, collier, captured by St. Paul, 168, 176, 182. 
 Reyes, Colonel Carlos, 377. 
 Ricafort, captain-general of Cuba, 21. 
 Rio de Janeiro, Oregon and Marietta at, no. 
 Rio de la Plata, Spanish cruiser, 100. 
 Rio Hondo, Cuba, 381. 
 Rio Prieto, Porto Rico, action at, 342. 
 
 Rios, Eugenio Montero, chairman of Spanish peace commission, 391. 
 Rio Turquino, Colon goes ashore at, 286. 
 Rivera, Rius, Cuban insurgent, 50. 
 Rivers, Lieutenant T. R., Third Cavalry, 223. 
 Rocha, Lieutenant F. de la, of the Terror, 157, 332. 
 Rodgers, Captain Frederick, 112. 
 Rodgers, General John I., 106. 
 Rodgers, Lieutenant W. L., of the Foote, 116. 
 Roncali, captain-general of Cuba, 24. 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, Assistant Secretary of the United States Navy, 
 
 121 ; lieutenant-colonel First Volunteer Cavalry, 212, 266; signs 
 
 " round robin," 325. 
 
 Rough Riders. See First Volunteer Cavalry. 
 " Round robin," signed by Shatter s officers, 325. 
 Rowan, Lieutenant A. S., mission to Garcia, 147, 148; its results, 217. 
 Rubin, Brigadier-General, 220; attacked at Las Guasimas, 223, 225. 
 Ruiz, Colonel Joaquin, murder of, 64. 
 Ruiz, Ricardo, death of, 61. 
 
 Sagasta, premier of Spain, 62; attempts conciliation, 79; speech on 
 outbreak of war. 93; appeals to Spanish patriotism, 144; announces 
 Camara s expedition to Manila, 360; authorizes Cambon to medi 
 ate for peace, 389. 
 
 Sagua de Tanamo, surrender of, 321, 322; Spaniards sail from, 327. 
 
 Sagua la Grande, Cuba, 383. 
 
 St. Louis, American auxiliary cruiser, 112, 155, 158, 171, 181, 219. 
 
 St. Paul, American auxiliary cruiser, 112, 171; off Santiago, 176; meets 
 Sampson, 180; engages the Terror off San Juan, 332. 
 
 St. Paul, American transport, 366. 
 
 St. Thomas, American liners ordered to, 160; Yale at, 166. 
 
INDEX 411 
 
 St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands, Spanish fleet at, 116, 118, 157. 
 
 Salmeron, Spanish republican politician, 144. 
 
 Sampson, Rear-Admiral, serves on Maine commission, 70; com 
 mands North Atlantic Squadron, 115; plans attack upon Havana, 
 119; ordered to blockade Cuba, 122; bombards Matanzas batteries, 
 126; prepares to fight Cervera, 158; bombards San Juan, 161 ; re 
 turns to Key West, 167, 172; correspondence with Schley at Cien- 
 fuegos, 174; cruises in Nicholas Channel, 179; goes to Santiago, 
 180, 184; arranges blockade, 191, 192; bombards Spanish batteries, 
 195; seizes Guantanamo Bay, 198; estimate of Spanish forces at 
 Santiago, 206; meets Garcia, 217, 218; bombards Fort Aguadores, 
 260; in battle of Santiago, 274, 285, 287; misunderstanding with 
 Shafter, 301; share in capitulat.on of Santiago, 318, 319. 
 
 Sandoval, Spanish gunboat, 199, 202. 
 
 Sands, Captain J. H., of the Columbia, 116. 
 
 San Francisco, American cruiser, 103, 108, 117, 383, 387. 
 
 San Francisco, Spanish transport, 118. 
 
 San German, Porto Rico, 341. 
 
 Sanguilly, Julio, release of, 61. 
 
 San Juan, near Santiago, topography of, 240; battle of, 241; Spanish 
 position at, 247; storming of heights, 249; Spanish strength and 
 losses, 252; American strength and losses, 254. 
 
 San Juan, Porto Rico, plan for attacking, 121; topography of, 160; 
 bombarded by Sampson, 162; blockade of, 332, 380. 
 
 San Luis, surrender of, 321, 322. 
 
 San Luis d Apra, Guam, 354. 
 
 San Martin, Colonel, surrenders Ponce, 338. 
 
 Santa Desidera, Porto Rico, skirmish at, 337. 
 
 Santiago de Cuba, founded by Velasquez, 3; attacked by British, 6; 
 Virginius prisoners at, 34; distress at, during Cuban rebellion, 
 53, 88; cable cut off, 155; Cervera arrives at, 169; incidents in 
 history of, 181 ; Spanish troops at, 230; Cervera leaves, 271; naval 
 battle of, 276; fugitives escape to, 288, 294; siege of, 298; bombarded 
 by fleet, 306; surrender of, 312. 
 
 Santo Domingo, filibustering attack on, 149. 
 
 Santo Domingo, Spanish steamer, 384. 
 
 Saranac, captured at Iloilo, 125. 
 
 Sartorius brothers, Cuban insurgents, 41. 
 
 Schermerhorn, Augustus, of New York, 112. 
 
 Schley, Commodore, commanding Flying Squadron, 116, 158; ordered 
 to Kev West, 171; to Cienfuegos, 172; to Santiago, 174; withdraws 
 from Santiago and returns, 176, 178; sights Spanish ships, 183; on 
 Santiago blockade, 191; in battle of Santiago, 274, 277, 286; praised 
 at expense of Sampson, 315. 
 
 Schools in Cuba, n. 
 
 Schwan, Brigadier-General T., in Porto Rico, 339, 341, 342. 
 
 Scorpion, American converted yacht, 172, 174; fires on Yankee, 210; 
 at Manzanillo, 382, 386. 
 
 Second Artillery, 214. 
 
 Second Cavalry, 215, 235, 239, 257, 339, 343. 
 
 Second Corps, 146. 
 
 Second Infantry, 213; in battle of San Juan, 246, 255. 
 
 Second Massachusetts Volunteers, 213; in battle of Caney, 238, 239. 
 
 Second Oregon Volunteers, 354, 374, 378. 
 
 Second Wisconsin Volunteers, 343. 
 
 Seguranc.a, American transport, 218. 
 
 Senate, United States, votes for recognition of Cuban insurgents, 
 57; Cameron resolution, 59; again votes for recognition, 60; warlike 
 agitation in, 72; votes $50,000,000 for national defence, 74; Hawley 
 bill, 74; Foreign Affairs Committee s report on Cuba, 86; votes 
 for intervention in Cuba, 91. 
 
 Senator, American transport, 365. 
 
 Seneca, American transport, 323. 
 
 Seventeenth Infantry, 106, 214; in battle of Caney, 237, 239; one 
 company left at Caney, 259. 
 
 27 
 
412 
 
 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Seventh Artillery, 339. 
 
 Seventh Corps, 146, 328. 
 
 Seventh Infantry, 214; in battle of Caney, 236, 237, 239; five com 
 panies left at Caney, 259. 
 
 Seventy-first New York Volunteers, 213, 365; in battle of San Juan, 
 244, 255, 257. 
 
 Sevilla, near Santiago, 222, 232. 
 
 Shafter, Major-General W. R., at Tampa, 145, 146, 205; sails from 
 Tampa, 215; meets Garcia, 218; on Seguranca, 228; at El Pozo, 233; 
 plans to attack Santiago, 234; instructions for battle of San Juan, 
 247; orders Lawton to withdraw from Caney, 258; considers with 
 drawal from San Juan, 267; demands surrender of Santiago, 267; 
 hears of Escario s arrival, 295; proposes withdrawal from San 
 tiago, 299; misunderstanding with Sampson, 301; conferences with 
 Miles and Toral, 307, 310; receives surrender of Santiago, 312; rela 
 tions with Miles, 314; controversy as to captured ships, 319; sails 
 for Mqntauk Point, 326. 
 
 Sharp, Lieutenant A., of the Vixen, 191. 
 
 Sharpshooters, Spanish, in Santiago campaign, 242. 
 
 Siboney, landing at, 220, 232; hospital at, 264; cable landed at, 264; 
 transports at, 291; reinforcements land at, 307; yellow fever at, 316. 
 
 Sicard, Rear-Admiral, commanding North Atlantic Squadron, 108; 
 succeeded by Sampson, 115; serves on Naval War Board, 121, 145. 
 
 Sigsbee, Captain C. D., of the Maine, 67; of the St. Paul, 176; on 
 construction of Spanish ships, 276; off San Juan, 332. 
 
 Singapore, Aguinaldo in, 130. 
 
 Sixteenth Infantry, 213; in battle of San Juan, 244, 245, 252, 255. 
 
 Sixteenth Pennsylvania Volunteers, 343-345. 
 
 Sixth Cavalry, 214; in battle of San Juan, 246, 255; in Porto Rico, 340. 
 
 Sixth Illinois Volunteers, 307, 334. 337, 343. 
 
 Sixth Infantry, 213; in battle of San Juan, 241, 245, 252, 255. 
 
 Sixth Massachusetts Volunteers, 307, 334, 337, 343. 
 
 Sixty-fourth Regiment, Spanish army, 201. 
 
 Slavery in Cuba, 12; abolition of, 15. 
 
 Smith, Colonel J. S., First California, 354. 
 
 Smith Key, Santiago harbour, 196. 
 
 Snyder, Brigadier-General S., 215. 
 
 Socapa battery, Santiago, 193, 195, 197, 216, 230; proposal to storm, 304. 
 
 Solace, American hospital ship, 114. 
 
 Somers, American torpedo boat, purchased in Germany, 113. 
 
 Soto, Colonel, of Alfonso XIII regiment, 341, 342. 
 
 Soto, Hernando de, governor of Cuba, 5. 
 
 Soule, Pierre, signs Ostend manifesto, 28. 
 
 Southerland, Lieutenant W. H. H., of the Eagle, 209, 340. 
 
 Spain, military resources of, 97. 
 
 Springer, American vice-consul at Havana, 98. 
 
 Stanton, Paymaster-General T. H., 146. 
 
 State of Texas, Red Cross ship, 323. 
 
 Staunton, Lieutenant S. A., of the New York, 302. 
 
 Sterling, American collier, 181, 185. 
 
 Sternberg, Surgeon-General G. M., 146, 212, 265, 330. 
 
 Stone, Brigadier-General Roy, in Porto Rico, 343. 
 
 Subig Bay, Dewey at, 132; surrender of Spanish garrison, 364. 
 
 Suez, Camara s squadron at, 362. 
 
 Summers, Colonel O., Second Oregon, 354. 
 
 Sumner, Brigadier-General S. S., 214; at council of June 3oth, 235; 
 in battle of San Juan, 241, 248, 258; signs " round robin," 325. 
 
 Suwanee, American auxiliary cruiser, 197, 202, 260, 292, 297; at Man- 
 zanillo, 387. 
 
 Swinburne, Commander W. T., of the Helena, 116, 386. 
 
 Tacon, Miguel, captain-general of Cuba, 21. 
 Tambo, near Manila, 361. 
 
 Tampa, troops encamped at, 106, 145, 146, 206; confusion in camp at, 
 207; Fifth Corps sails from, 215. 
 
INDEX 
 
 413 
 
 Tappan, Lieutenant B., of the Callao, 376. 
 
 Taylor, Captain H. C., of the Indiana, 116, 120; commanding convoy, 
 215; opinion of Cervera s strategy, 271; in battle of Santiago, 281, 
 283. 
 
 Tejada, Juan de, captain-general of Cuba, 6. 
 
 Temerario, Spanish torpedo cruiser, no. 
 
 Tenth Cavalry, 149, 214; at Las Guasimas, 223; in battle of San Juan, 
 246, 255; 257. 
 
 Tenth Infantry, 213; in battle of San Juan, 246, 255. 
 
 Tenth Pennsylvania Volunteers, 365, 366. 
 
 Ten Years War, the, 29; ending of, 38. 
 
 Terror, American monitor, 103, 108, 116; goes to San Juan, 159, 161. 
 
 Terror, Spanish torpedo-boat destroyer, 157; at Martinique, 169; en 
 gages the St. Paul, 332. 
 
 Texas, American battle ship, 102, 108, 116; goes to Cienfuegos, 172; 
 to Santiago, 176; on Santiago blockade, 192; in Guantanamo Bay, 
 202; struck by shell, 219; in battle of Santiago, 273, 278, 283, 287, 
 288; fires on Reina Mercedes, 297. 
 
 Theaker, Colonel H. A., Sixteenth Infantry, 213; succeeds Hawkins 
 as brigade commander, 263. 
 
 Third Artillery, 334, 351, 368. 
 
 Third Cavalry, 214; in battle of San Juan, 246, 255. 
 
 Third Corps, 146. 
 
 Third Illinois Volunteers, 339, 346, 347- 
 
 Third Infantry, 215; in battle of Caney, 238, 239; marches from Caney 
 to San Juan, 258. 
 
 Third Wisconsin Volunteers, 343. 
 
 Thirteenth Infantry, 213; in battle of San Juan, 245, 246, 252, 255, 258. 
 
 Thirteenth Minnesota Volunteers, 365, 374, 375. 
 
 Thirty-fourth Michigan Volunteers, 232, 235. 
 
 Thirty-third Michigan Volunteers, 232, 235; at Fort Aguadores, 260, 
 262; at Siboney, 316; yellow fever in, 324. 
 
 Tilley, Commander B. F., of the Newport, 116. 
 
 Todd, Commander C. C., of the Wilmington, 116; at Cardenas, 152; 
 at Manzanillo, 386. 
 
 Tondo, suburb of Manila, 378. 
 
 Topeka, American cruiser, purchased in England, 112, 113; at Nipe 
 Bay, 384, 385. 
 
 Toral, Major-General Jose, 253; refuses to surrender, 294, 300; com 
 plains of breach of truce, 298; first offers to surrender Santiago, 
 305; confers with Miles and Shatter, 307, 310; surrenders Santiago, 
 312; sails for Spain, 326. 
 
 Torp Key, Guantanamo Bay, 199, 202. 
 
 Train, Commander C. J., of the Prairie, 117. 
 
 Transports, American, 113, 216, 219; sanitary condition of, 330. 
 
 Trocha, from Moron to Jucaro, 29, 45; from Mariel to Majana, 50. 
 
 Troop A, New York Cavalry, 340. 
 
 Troop C, New York Cavalry, 340, 345. 
 
 Twelfth Infantry, 214; in battle of Caney, 236, 238, 239. 
 
 Twentieth Infantry, 215; in battle of Caney, 238, 239; marches from 
 Caney to San Juan, 258. 
 
 Twenty-fifth Infantry, 213; in battle of Caney, 235, 238, 239. 
 
 Twenty-first Infantry, 213; in battle of San Juan, 246, 255. 
 
 Twenty-fourth Infantry, 213; in battle of San Juan, 245, 252, 255. 
 
 Twenty-second Infantry, 213; in battle of Caney, 238, 239. 
 
 Twenty-third Infantry, 364, 365, 374. 375. 
 
 Twickenham, collier, captured by St. Louis, 168. 
 
 Ultimatum, presented to Spain, 92. 
 Utah Artillery, 365, 366, 374, 375. 
 Utuado, Porto Rico, 340, 343. 
 
 Valencia, American transport, 330. 
 Valladolid, insult to American minister in, 94. 
 Van Buren, Martin, on Cuba, 19. 
 
414 TH E SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
 
 Van Horn, Colonel J. J., Eighth Infantry, 213; fatally injured, 218. 
 
 Vara del Rey, Brigadier-General, 230; in battle of Caney, 236, 239. 
 
 Vara del Rey, Lieutenant-Colonel, 300. 
 
 Vazquez, Lieutenant P., of the Pluton, 157, 282. 
 
 Velasco, Spanish gunboat, 136. 
 
 Velasquez, Diego, founds settlements in Cuba, 3. 
 
 Vesuvius, American dynamite cruiser, 104; ordered to Santiago, 170- 
 at Santiago, 216. 
 
 Vicksburg, American gunboat, 104, 151. 
 
 Viele, Lieutenant-Colonel C. D., First Cavalry, 214, 251. 
 
 Villamil, Captain Fernando, commanding Spanish torpedo flotilla, 
 118; telegram to Sagasta, 119; leaves St. Vincent, 157; killed in 
 battle of Santiago, 282. 
 
 Villa Urrutia, Senor de, Spanish peace commissioner, 391. 
 
 Virginius, seizure of, 34. 
 
 Vittoria, Spanish cruiser, 99. 
 
 Vives, captain-general of Cuba, 15, 20. 
 
 Vixen, American converted yacht, 175, 176, 190; on Santiago block 
 ade, 192, 194, 195; in battle of Santiago, 273, 279. 
 
 Vizcaya, Spanish cruiser, 100; at Havana, 71; at St. Vincent, 118, 
 157; crosses Atlantic, 168; at Santiago, 183; leaves Santiago, 272; 
 in battle of Santiago, 277, 284; driven ashore, 285. 
 
 Volunteers, call for, 105. 
 
 Volunteers, Spanish, in Cuba, 30. 
 
 Vulcan, American naval repair ship, 114. 
 
 Wade, Major-General J. F., 145, 146. 
 
 Wainwright, Lieutenant-Commander R., in battle of Santiago, 281, 282. 
 
 Wake Island, 365. 
 
 Walker, Commander Asa, of the Concord, 132. 
 
 Walker, E. H. R., British consul at Manila, 131, 143. 
 
 Ward, Ensign H. H., Bureau of Navigation, 332, 359. 
 
 Ward, Lieutenant Aaron, of the Wasp, 384. 
 
 Wasp, American converted yacht, 148, 216, 338; at Nipe Bay, 384, 385. 
 
 Watson, Captain J. W., Tenth Cavalry, 223. 
 
 Watson, Commodore J. C., 158; in command of Eastern Squadron, 
 334, 361 ; in command of north coast blockade, 379. 
 
 Watts, E., American deputy consul-general at Cairo, 362. 
 
 Webb, Major, Thirty-third Michigan, 262. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, on Cuba, 23. 
 
 Wells, Lieutenant B. W., of the Brooklyn, 290. 
 
 Wessels, Major H. W., Third Cavalry, 214. 
 
 Weston, Colonel J. F., chief commissary of Santiago expedition, 215. 
 
 Weyler, Valeriano, captain-general of Cuba, 46; reconcentration order, 
 50, 51; recalled, 62. 
 
 Wheeler, Major-General Joseph, 214, 222; at Las Guasimas, 223; recon 
 noitres near Santiago, 234; absent from council of June 3oth, 235; 
 in battle of San Juan, 241; refuses to retreat, 262; at conference of 
 July 2d, 266; advises against attack on forts, 303; commissioner on 
 surrender, 310; opinion of Shafter, 313; signs " round robin," 325. 
 
 Wheeling, American gunboat, ICM. 
 
 Wherry, Lieutenant-Colonel W. M., Second Infantry, 213. 
 
 White, Justice, nominated as American peace commissioner, 391. 
 
 Whitney, Lieutenant H. H.. Fourth Artillery, 336. 
 
 Whittier, Lieutenant-Colonel C. A., of Merritt s staff, 376, 377. 
 
 Wikoff, Colonel C. A., Twenty-second Infantry, 213; in battle of San 
 Juan, 241 ; killed, 245. 
 
 Wildes, Captain Frank, of the Boston, 132. 
 
 Wildman, Rounsevelle, American consul at Hong-Kong, 356. 
 
 Willard, Ensign A. L., of the Machias, 154. 
 
 Williams, Oscar F., United States consul at Manila, 131. 
 
 Wilmington. American gunboat, 104, 116, 151; at Cardenas, 152; at 
 Manzanillo, " 
 
 Wilson, Brigadier-General T. M., chief of engineers, 146. 
 Wilson, Major-General J. H., 146; in Porto Rico, 338, 3 
 
 339, 344, 346. 
 
INDEX 415 
 
 Windom, American revenue cutter, 154. 
 
 Winslow, American torpedo boat, 116, 151; disabled at Cardenas, 152. 
 
 Winslow, Lieutenant C. McR., of the Nashville, 154. 
 
 Wisconsin, American battle ship, 101. 
 
 Wompatuck, American tug, 155, 159, 181 ; at San Juan, 161, 164; con 
 voying Fifth Corps, 218; at Manzanillo, 381, 386. 
 
 Wood, Colonel Leonard, First Volunteer Cavalry, 214; at Las Gua- 
 simas, 224; in battle of San Juan, 241, 258; signs " round robin," 
 325; military governor of Santiago, 326. 
 
 Wood, Commander E. P., of the Petrel, 132, 142. 
 
 Wood, Lieutenant S. S., of the Dupont, 116. 
 
 Woodford, General, American minister to Spain, 72; submits propo 
 sition for armistice in Cuba, 79; ordered to present American ulti 
 matum, 92; leaves Madrid, 94. 
 
 Woosung, Monocacy left at, 130. 
 
 Worth, Lieutenant-Colonel W. S., Thirteenth Infantry, 213; wounded 
 at San Juan, 245. 
 
 Yale, American auxiliary cruiser, 112, 158; scouting for Cervera, 166, 
 171; off Santiago, 176; brings Miles to Santiago, 307; to Porto 
 Rico, 334. 
 
 Yankee, American auxiliary cruiser, 117; on Santiago blockade, 194; 
 in Guantanamo Bay, 199; fired on by Scorpion, 210; in Eastern 
 Squadron, 361; off Cienfuegos, 380; off Casilda, 381. 
 
 Yankton, American auxiliary cruiser, 381. 
 
 Yauco, Porto Rico, 337. 
 
 Yorktown, American gunboat, 104. 
 
 Yosemite, American auxiliary cruiser, 117, 332; blockades San Juan, 
 333; in Eastern Squadron, 361. 
 
 Young, Brigadier-General S. B. M., 214, 222; at Las Guasimas, 223, 
 227; suffers from fever, 241; at Montauk Point, 326. 
 
 Young, Lieutenant L., of the Hist, 381. 
 
 Yucatan, American transport, 216. 
 
 Zafiro, American supply ship, 130, 374. 
 Zanjon, compromise of, 38. 
 Zealandia, American transport, 365. 
 
 THE END 
 
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 7E HOUSEHOLD HIS 
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 FKOM THE PREFACE. 
 
 The present work is meant, in the first instance, for the young- not alone 
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 Frmndtcm Bulletin, 
 
 beautifully illustrated."-^ AMAW 
 
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