The Fallot
Santiago

By Thos. J.Vivian
Author of
fWith Dewey at Manila

THE FALL OF SANTIAGO

THE
FALL OF SANTIAGO

BY
THOMAS J. VIVIAN
Author of " With Dewey at Manila."

R. F. FENNO & COMPANY : 9 and ii E.
SIXTEENTH STREET : : NEW YORK
1898

Copyright, 1898
BT
R. F. FBNNO & COMPANY

The Fall of Santiago

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. PAGE
How Schley Chased Cervera's Fleet  5
CHAPTER II.
How Hohson Sank the Merrimae  25
CHAPTER III.
How the Marines Fought at Guantanamo  51
CHAPTER IV.
How Shafter Landed His Army at Daiquiri  72
CHAPTER V.
How the Rough Riders Fought at La Guasima  95
CHAPTER VL
How the Army Marched to the Front  113
CHAPTER VII.
How El Caney Was Carried  133
CHAPTER VIII.
How San Juan Was Stormed and Taken  155
CHAPTER IX.
How Schley Destroyed Cervera's Fleet  190
CHAPTER X.
How Toral Surrendered More than was Asked for. . . . 227

Copyright by R. F, Fcnno & Co, Map showing the scene
The roads leading! from Daiquiri and Siboney have been heavily linet

Military operations around Santiago.
indicate their importance as way* of travel, but, for the purpose of identification.

THE FALL OF SANTIAGO.

CHAPTER I.
HOW SCHLEY CHASED CEETEBa's FLEET.
At the time that the great sea hunt for
Admiral Cervera's elusive fleet began, the condi
tion of things specifically hinging on it was
just this :
There were three positive and five possible
parties in the hunt. The positive parties were
Schley's Flying Squadron, then a resting one at
Hampton Eoads; Sampson's Blockading Fleet,
off Havana; and Admiral Cervera's Cape Verde
Squadron, so called because at the outbreak of
hostilities the Spanish ships constituting that
squadron were at the Cape Verde Islands. The
possibilities were Admiral Camara's fieet at
Cadiz and Admiral Villamil's squadron, concern
ing whose exact location there existed much
doubt. Ever since the 25th of April, the date of
the declaration of war between the United States
and Spain, it was a self-evident strategical propo
sition that no definite campaign in the "West

6 The Fall of Santiago.
Indies could be laid out and carried through
until an accounting had been made with the
Spanish fleet or fleets.
In general: The blockade of Havana was estab
lished; the presidential policy was esteemed
from the outside to be one of pacific waiting;
Admiral Dewey had destroyed the Spanish fieet
at Manila; and Spain was threatening to send a
heavy sea force against him in the hope of re
gaining her power in the Orient. Troops were
gathering from every part of the United States
toward the fields of Chickamauga and the blazing
sand spits and coral keys of Florida; the different
States had been called on to send their quota of
volunteers to the front; and the government
agents were busy all over the world buying war
ships and craft convertible into cruisers.
Such was the naval and military status when
late on the night of May 12 Commodore Schley
walked into his cabin on the Brooklyn with an
unopened dispatch in his hands, which dispatch
had just been brought out from Fortress Monroe.
An hour after, it being then exactly one a.m..
May 13, a string of colored lights was displayed
from the flagship, "Be readj' to put to sea at
daybreak." Evidently there were many wake
ful eyes on the fleet, and no sooner had the com
modore's signal gone up than a whole colony of

The Fall of Santiago. 1
drug stores seemed to spring into being as the
colored lights were run up all around with the
answer "Signal understood. "We will beready."
There was no more sleep that night on board
the fleet, and although they did not sail at da.r-
break, the executive officers made the effort of
their lives to do so. The laggards in this case
were the converted cruiser St. Paul and the
cruiser New Orleans which were coaling at New
port News. The squadron -waited, to the visible
heat and audible impatience of the commodore,
until half-past three in the afternoon, and then,
accompanied by a big collier, the Brooklyn,
Massachusetts, Texas, Minneapolis and Scorpion
sailed, leaving instructions for the St. Paul and
New Orleans to follow as quickly as they could.
Save for the delay there was jollity all over the
fleet, for though the men were not sure what
they were going to do, they were certain that
they were going to do something, and that they
had two hundred guns of the most modern type,
eighteen hundred officers and men, and seven
good vessels to do it with.
Next day, that is May 14, the squadron was off
Charleston and there it was found that the sealed
orders under which sail was made from Hamp
ton Eoads, read only to put to sea at once and
proceed to Charleston, there to receive further

8 The Fall of Santiago.
orders. It may be said here, and with much
appropriateness, that rarely for an instant was
there any evidence of indecision on the part of
those in control of the Santiago campaign and
that with few exceptions the plans that were made
were clear, were expressed to those who had to
discharge them with equal clearness, and carried
out as undeviatingly as the changing circum
stances of war would permit by those in com
mand of the operations on land and sea. At
Charleston the new orders were to proceed to
Havana with all expedition there to join forces
with Admiral Sampson, under whose command
two fast fleets would be made up for the Cervera
hunt. But while the plans of the hunters were known
with some kind of definiteness those of the
quarry were decidedly nebulous. The Dons
were rich in what may be called the feint and
ambuscade of news. The Cape Verde Fleet had
sailed. It had not sailed. It was at the
Canaries. It was at Cadiz. These were some of
the sample reports. Of course, at Washington
data of a somewhat more definite character had
been gathered by trusted agents, but so wily and
uncertain, so full of dodges, turns, back-tracking
and unexpected dashes was Cervera at the last
that not the combined intelligence of the Secret

Admiral Cevera.

The Fall of Santiago. 9
Service branches of the War and Navy Depart
ments and the untiring and omnipresent news
paper men could always tell where Spain's great
est of naval dodgers really was.
The facts that were patent were these. When
the war broke out Cervera, as has been said, was
at St. Vincent in the Cape de Verde Islands.
Now these islands belong to Portugal and it was
intimated to Portugal by our State Department
that the presence of Cervera's fleet, coupled with
the ostentatious announcement that Spain in
tended to gather at St. Vincent one of those
formidable armadas which have ever been her
pet embodiment of naval power, would seem to
indicate that the nation with which we were at
war was using the territory of a nation with
which we were at peace as a base of offensive
operations and we would like to know just what
Portugal's position in the matter was. In
answer to this demand Portugal's prime minister
cabled to the State Department at Washington,
April 26, that the Spanish flotilla would be given
forty-eight hours in which to leave St. Vincent.
When the forty-eight hours were up, however,
the Spanish flotilla was still at St. Vincent.
Then, on April 28, Portugal, in response to
another quiet but still more emphatic interroga
tory from Washington as to her position, did

10 The Fall of Santiago.
declare her neutrality, and Cervera, having in
this friendly leisure mobilized his fleet and
thoroughly provisioned and coaled it, soon after
steamed away with his black-painted warships.
But with the certainty of Cervera's departure
ended the certainty of his whereabouts, and it
was from the latter date that the Cervera hunt
may be said to properly begin.
Would he sail back to Cadiz to join forces with
Camara? Would he sail to the Canaries, there
to wait until reinforced by Admiral Villamil with
his undefined fleet? Was he planning to inter
cept the battleship Oregon on her great trip
around Cape Horn and crush her by force of
numbers? Would he make a dash for the North
Atlantic ports; reduce the summer cottages of
Newport to ruins ; loot the Boston banks of their
millions; or, dashing down Long Island Sound,
lay Brooklyn waste and raze New York's sky
scrapers to the ground? Was Newport News,
with its yards and government supplies to be
captured? Was Charleston in danger or Key
West to be bombarded? Did the Spanish
admiral contemplate a flight across the Atlantic
to Porto Eico with a view of using that port as a
strong base for menace and attack ? Would he
push on through the Carribean Sea and get into
the shelter of Cienfuegos, with its railroad to

The Fall of Santiago. 11
Havana, and so bring new heart and supplies to
Governor-General Blanco; or would he make one
wild cut at the blockading squadron and try to
get into Havana itself? All of these proposi
tions had to be considered and though some were
wild, none could be dismissed as impossible.
It may be asked why Cervera's fleet was con
sidered such an important factor; why the pro
gramme of the United States depended so much
on the disposal of the Cape Verde flotilla and
why the plan was not adopted to quietly wait
until Cervera's fleet materialized and then meet
and smash it. The answer is a plain one.
When Cervera left St. Vincent his fleet consisted
of four first-class cruisers — the Vizcaya, the
Almirante Oquendo, the Cristobal Colon and the
Infanta Maria Teresa; and three torpedo boat
destroyers, the Furor, the Terror, and the
Pluton. Not such a formidable fleet, one might
imagine, considering the fact that Schley's flying
squadron included the Massachusetts, Texas,
Brooklyn, New Orleans, and Minneapolis; that
Sampson from his blockaders could make up a
fighting fleet consisting of the Iowa, Indiana,
New York, Amphitrite, Terror, Detroit, Mont
gomery, and Marblehead; and that if he had
luck. Captain Clark could join these with the
Oregon, Marietta and Nictheroy. The potent

12 The Fall of Santiago.
fact about Cervera's fleet, however, was its
homogeneity. It was all alike. In a collection
of fighting vessels, as in a collection of fighting
men, its unit of capability is its weak spot.
When moving into action or retiring from one,
the fastest cruiser can only sail at the speed of
the slowest — that is, if there is to be any concert
of attack or retreat. The four cruisers of Cer
vera were not only all alike in speed, they were
all alike in strength, in the disposition, art of
training and power of their batteries. The ton
nage of the Cristobal Colon was 6,840 while that
of the other three cruisers was exactly 6,890 for
each vessel. The Colon's batteries could throw
in one ton of metal at each volley, while the
volley of the other three was one and a quarter
tons each. The speed of each ship was twenty
knots. It follows, then, that the four cruisers might
practically be considered as one enormous
fighting machine, with equal power to strike,
speed to run, strength to resist and which, if
properly handled, would really be one of the most
formidable things afloat. It must not be inferred
from all this that there would be any hesitation
on the part of our fleet commanders to engage
Cervera as soon as found, but it must be under
stood that Cervera afloat and unsmashed was a
menace of formidable proportions.

Com. Winfidd Scott Schley.

The Fall of Santiago. 13
Instructions having been received to proceed
to Key West, to Key West Schley's squadron
sailed. That scorched end of the United States
was reached on May 18 and next day the com
modore was joined by Admiral Sampson and his
fleet. Sampson had been off on an errand of his
own and though it had been moderately success
ful in one way, it had been a failure in another
and he was not in the most cheerful of moods
when Schley went to visit him. His double pur
pose when he drew away from the blockading fleet
outside Havana had been to chase down Cervera,
and failing that, to put Porto Eico into such an
undefendable condition that the Spanish admiral
might not be able to use it as a harbor of refuge.
He did not engage the Spaniard and so on May
9 reported to Washington an inability to find
any trace of Spain's master in the art of hiding,
and announced his intention to bombard Porto
Eico. That intention he carried into partial
effect on the 12th of May, but of what was done
on that date and in that action it would be
too wide a parenthesis to speak here.
After thoroughly canvassing the situation and
as a result of the combined capital of information
possessed by the admiral and commodore and
furnished them from Washington, it was decided
that instead of combining the fleets for a further

14 The Fall of Santiago.
sea hunt the vessels under command of Sampson
and Schley should be divided and two lines of pur
suit followed. Sampson held that he had given
Porto Eico such a shaking up that it was in no
condition to afford anything except the shakiest
kind of support to Cervera; that the Spanish
admiral would not think of remaining there
when once he discovered its condition ; and that
BO much, therefore, in the twistings and dou
blings of the pursued fleet might be eliminated.
There remained then, the dash on the Atlantic
ports, the endeavor to force the blockade of
Havana, the push ahead for a port on the
southern coast of Cuba or the double and return
flight to Cadiz. As to the ports on the southern
coast of Cuba there were only two which were
thought necessary of consideration — those of
Cienfuegos and Santiago. Of these the balance
of opinion was that everything was in favor of
Cervera's selection lighting upon Cienfuegos.
It lies right across from Havana on the southern
coast, has an excellent harbor, and, as has been
intimated, is within easy railroad connection
with the Cuban capital. Then, too, it was one
of the places on which a blockade had been set,
so that if the Spanish Admiral contemplated any
scheme of relief Cienfuegos was the best place
for its application. The fortifications of Cien-

The Fall of Santiago. 15
fuegos were not as formidable, it is true, as they
had been prior to May 14, when Commander
McCalla, with the cruisers Marblehead and Nash
ville and the converted cruiser Windom, sent
one of the big guns there sprawling, rent the
forts at the harbor's entrance with four and
six-inch shells, and left things generally demoral
ized after a three hours' administration of iron
and steel correctives. McCalla 's object had been
to cut the cable between Cienfuegos and Man-
zanillo and the ripping bombardment, which
lasted from six to nine a.m. was inflicted because
the Spanish forts had fired on the American
boats while they were engaged in this enterprise.
Still, Cienfuegos ranked as a fortified and very
enticing haven for Cervera, and it was decided
that leaving Commodore Watson to continue the
blockade of Havana with his "mosquito fleet,"
Schley should sail around the western end of
Cuba to that port, while Sampson was to sail
eastward down to the Windward Passage, so as
to intercept Cervera should he try to make for
Havana and at the same time to trap him should
he have visited Porto Eico and found it unten
able. Commodore Schley sailed from Key West on
May 19, taking with him the Brooklyn, Texas,
Massachusetts, and Scorpion. These reached

16 The Fall of Santiago,
Cienfuegos Sunday, May 22, and were there
joined by the Iowa, the cruiser Marblehead, the
torpedo boat Dupont, the gunboats Castine and
Eagle, and the collier Merrimae, the latter craft,
which was destined to become historical, having
arrived at eight o'clock on the morning of May
23 under the convoy of the Castine. When
Cienfuegos was reached it was seen that much
work of reparation had been done on the forti
fications at the harbor mouth, so much indeed
that even after the peppering which McCalla had
administered it would have been no easy task to
force a way past the batteries at Punta Colorado
on the one hand, and the much more important
fortification at the castle of Xagua on the other.
Many contradictory reports were brought the
commodore by Cuban scouts as to the presence
of Cervera in Cienfuegos, the general trend of
these reports, however, being that the Spanish
admiral had arrived and was safely ensconced
behind these fortifications. Schley was much
inclined to the opinion that he had run down
the Spanish admiral and had indeed prepared a
report to that effect when the little gunboat
Hawk, a converted yacht, brought such definite
news of Cervera being really at Santiago, that he
had to accept it as authoritative. He would
have started for Santiago there and then, but the

Casde ot El Morro, the eastern guardian ol tlie sra gatL-\\a\ tu Santiago.

The Fall of Santiago. 17
question of coaling — the pivotal question in
naval proceedings nowadays — delayed him until
Tuesday. With Schley at Cienfuegos preparing to run
down to Santiago to establish the accuracy of the
Hawk's report; with Sampson cruising along the
northern coast of Cuba and watching the Win-
ward Passage, with the Yale and St. Louis,
auxiliary cruisers, scouting and watching for Cer
vera at the Mona and Virgin Passages, and with
half a dozen other scouts steaming here and there
over the Atlantic and West Indian seas, it will
be appropriate here to show how Cervera eluded
his pursuers. And as it happened, it was by one
of the strange fortunes of war that the exact
story came to light through the capture of the
flagship's log-book, as the Cristobal Colon lay a
battered and stranded hulk off Santiago's rooky
shore. It will be remembered that Portugal informed
our government that Cervera had been instructed
to vacate his anchorage on April 26 with a forty-
eight hours time of grace, he having arrived there
on the 14th. As a matter of fact, Cervera left
St. Vincent, April 30, the Colon towing the
Furor, the Oquendo the Pluton, and the Teresa
the Terror. When Cervera left he steamed west
ward. The next report was from Spain, that

18 The Fall of Santiago.
Cervera had returned home and that on May
11 he was safe at Cadiz, waiting to be re
inforced by Admiral Camara's ships. Here
again the truth is that on that very day he was
within twenty-four hour's easy steam of Port de
France, Martinique. Waiting at Port de France
only for dispatches, he pushed on southwest-
ward, and on Saturday, May 14, reached Wil-
lemstad, the port of the Dutch island of Curacao.
He entered the harbor with the Teresa and Viz
caya, leaving the Oquendo and Colon, with the
three torpedo boat destroyers on the outside.
The selection of Willemstad as a port of call,
while at first blush it may seem to have been an
out-of-the-way locality, was really an excellent
one. The French cable for Caracas, Venezuela,
touches at Curacao, so that he was able to com
municate with home over a friendly line and at
the same time be posted as to the condition of
things in Cuba.
It doubtless had been Cervera's original plan
to steam swiftly over the four hundred and
seventy-five miles lying between Curacao and
Porto Eico, and establish there a base of supplies
and attack, but at the Dutch settlement he
learned of Sampson's attentions to Porto Eico,
and so having given out the intimation that he
intended under the new condition of things, to

The Fall of Santiago. 19
keep in the friendly shelter of the South Ameri
can shores, sent the Terror on a scouting trip to
Porto Eico, steamed away westward, then re
traced his way, put on all steam and crowded
for Santiago, which he reached on the morning
of May 19.
The prosaic but essential work of coaling hav
ing been completed, Schley shipped anchor off
Cienfuegos and steamed eastward. He was off
Santiago on May 28, but neither from his guns
nor from the shore batteries was a single shot
fired to emphasize the fact of his arrival.
It will not be going ahead of the proper
sequence of fact and description to say here that
the presence of Cervera's fleet in the harbor of
Santiago, as something that could be sworn to
from evidence of sight was an extremely difficult
matter of demonstration. Like all of the harbors
along the Cuban coast, that of Santiago is bottle-
shaped, with the neck as the entrance. But in
the case of Santiago there is not only a neck, but
a long and curved one. Moreover the shore
sides of the neck entrance are so high and pre
cipitous that from the sea it is impossible to look
into the harbor beyond that part which lies close
to the inner end of the neck. How to satisfy
himself that Cervera was at Santiago without
sailing into the harbor presented itself, there-

20 The Fall of Santiago.
fore, as the problem which Schley would have to
solve. To risk a sharp dash into the harbor with
all its certain dangers and its uncertainties, its
tortuous channel, mines and commanding forti
fications, with the chance of not finding the
quarry in the presumptive hiding-place, was
something about which even Schle.y hestitated.
There remained then strategy, and that strategy
the commodore employed.
Schley knew as well as though he had been
told by the Governor of Santiago that his
movements were being closely watched from the
shore, that indeed no move was made without
being known and its significance noted. As soon
therefore as the squadron had steamed into the
blue water that lay in the bight of land forming
what might be called the Bay of Santiago, it
steamed slowly around, past the harbor mouth,
close enough to distinguish the guns in the
forts. Again no gun was fired. Upon reaching
the extreme eastern limit of the bight the squad
ron was formed in line and steamed away west
ward as though it had been making merely a
reconnaissance. The presumption was that if
Cervera were in the long-necked and land-locked
harbor of Santiago he would, if the feint were
successful, move down toward the mouth to help
resist the invader, and so come into the line of
vision.

High alt-r in the Cat'iedr:il at S.'.nn 'l^o where a Te l^eum was
c!.,iig on tiie .,rri.:.l of C'i;r\cra s fl^^ft.

The Fall of Santiago. ' 21
Steaming away westward with as near an air
of disgust and disappointment as it was possible
for a squadron to assume, Schley signaled to stop
when at a sufficient distance, it being then one
o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and the vessels hid
themselves, so to speak, behind a point of land
that shut out all observation from the Santiago
lookouts. When Sunday morning broke, and Sunday
seems to have been selected as the day of deeds
in this war, all steam was made and the squadron
went churning its way back to Santiago. Put
ting the keenest-eyed men aloft and arming him
self with the biggest pair of binoculars that the
ship possessed, the commodore went on the
bridge and headed the flagship full speed for the
harbor entrance. Through his glasses he made
out the earthworks and the Spaniards behind
them, but no glimpse of vessels could he get.
When five miles from the shore the lookouts
reported the masts of three ships peeping over
the entrance cliffs. This was promising, but the
commodore wanted to see for himself.
Next Flag-Lieutenant Sears and Ensign
McCalley, who were perched in the forward fight
ing top, declared they could see the vessels, and
that one of them was the Cristobal Colon. Still
Schley kept the vessel moving, and a few minutes

22 The Fall of Santiago.
later word was shouted down from aloft that two
torpedo boats and a vessel of the Vizcaya class
could be seen. Still the Brooklyn was kept on
its course, until for an instant it lay right in a
direct line of sight into the harbor. In that
happy moment the commodore saw that his ruse
had been successful, for there clustering about
the inside of the entrance was Cervera's fleet.
As the Brooklyn was turned quickly out,
Schley took down his glasses and with a wink of
most portentous satisfaction said :
"I told you I would find them. I have caught
them and they will never get home."
Gratified as the commodore was, and as all his
men were, at the finding of Cervera's fleet, this
pacific end of the chase by no means gratified
the sailors and the fighting men of the deck.
The batteries had been cleared, the men stripped
for action, and though the temperature was a
hundred degrees in the shade, the sailors were
hotter still to fight. But Schley believed that it
was no time for a fight. For three days a howling
storm with furious gusts of rain-laden wind had
been sweeping this southeastern shore, the great
ships were heaving and bumping in the cross
running waves, and as an effective bombardment
is difficult enough under the best conditions, it
was Schley's opinion that he might rest content

The Fall of Santiago, 23
with the discovery of Cervera as the final act of
this edition of the play, without risking an anti
climax by firing shells around Santiago's forts.
Having found him, however, the commodore
was very determined not to let Cervera escape,
and Sunday evening, May 29, found our squad
ron in battle line outside Santiago, the Brooklyn
on the east of the line, then the Massachusetts,
the Iowa, the New Orleans (Amazonas) and the
Texas, while the Marblehead and Vixen scouted
near the shore and the Harvard was racing over
to Kingston to cable the news to Washington.
Cervera and his twenty -million-dollars' worth of
cruisers had been found.
Madrid, it was learned afterward, characterized
Cervera's slip into Santiago as a remarkable
piece of strategy and a tactician's victory.
Santiago welcomed Cervera as the city's savior.
The whole community turned out to welcome the
admiral; there was band-playing, song-singing,
speech-making, fireworks and a Te Deum of
thankfulness at the cathedral with the Arch
bishop Monsignor Saenz y Utero y Crespo
officiating in his most gorgeous raiment. At
Washington the receipt of the news was regarded
as having cleared up the entire situation, and as
dispelling the clouds of uncertainty which had
been over the War and Navy Department for

24 The Fall of Santiago.
weeks. It meant a radical change in the plan of
campaign, but that change was from the
general to the particular. It crystallized the
operations into the specific act of capturing or
destroying Cervera's fleet and possibly the in
vestment and capture of Santiago.
With the sun setting of Sunday, May 29, the
wind went down also, and there could be heard
the great diapason of the Texas men singing the
hymn "Pull for the Shore," and as he heard it
Schley again winked that portentous wink of his
and said: "We'll be pulling there, sure enough,
in a few days."

The Fall of Santiago. 25

CHAPTEE II.
HOW HOBSON SANK THE MEEEIMAC.
Washington's reply to Schley's notification of
having found Cervera was :
"Under no circumstances permit ships to
escape. Destroy or capture them."
And as the circling events proved, the com
modore carried out those instructions to the
letter. Soon after this order reached Schley, he was
joined, Wednesday morning, June 1, by Samp
son with the New York, Oregon and Mayflower,
and later by the torpedo boat Porter, the
Dolphin and the Adria with supplies and appli
ances for grappling and cutting marine cables.
Schley went on board the New York to report,
and it was thought that the conference would
result in some decided action. Schley related
what has been told hore, and in addition told of
the capture of Cervera's coal ship, the Eestormel,
by Captain Sigsbee of the St. Paul, under the
very guns of Santiago's El Morro on the 25th of
May ; of the bombardment of Santiago on May

26 The Fall of Santiago.
31, in which the batteries of Punta Gorda, El
Morro and Zacopa were furiously shelled, and so
the commodore believed, a Spanish cruiser dis
abled. He thought at the time that it was the
Cristobal Colon, but it was learned afterward
that it was the old timer Eeina Mercedes which
had been lying at Santiago. It was learned, too,
that a shell from the Massachusetts had struck
this cruiser, which had been drawn up behind
the harbor entrance as a sort of floating battery,
and, exploding, had partially sunk the ancient
craft. Schley was not very enthusiastic over the
result of this bombardment, and frankly stated
that when he withdrew at six o'clock in the even
ing the Zacopa and Punta Gorda batteries were
still firing. He therefore counseled that if it
were decided to force an entrance into Santiago
and engage Cervera a necessary preliminary
would be to increase the blockading fleet with
four monitors and the Helena, the Wilmington,
the Cincinnati, the Montgomery, the Detroit and
the dynamite boat the Vesuvius — especially the
latter — as with her dynamite bombs she might
explode the mines along the entrance way and so
clear a passage into the harbor after silencing
the forts.
Sampson held, however, and that without in
the faintest discrediting the report of the com-

The Fall of Santiago. 27

&"-

modore, that the absolute identification of Cer
vera's fleet was first necessary, and the identifica
tion being complete, the bottling up of that fleet
might be tried in a somewhat original and spec
tacular fashion. The following out of these two
ideas brought into the fierce light of fame two
young men, Lieutenant Victor Blue, of the gun
boat Suwanee, and Naval Constructor, Eichmond
Pierson Hobson.
In the matter of occurrence, as well as in the
relatively momentous results, the enterprise of
Hobson comes easily first. But lest that of Blue
should be lost sight of in the brighter light of
that which enhaloes Hobson, the expedition of
the lieutenant shall be dealt with first.
To catch a glimpse of the masts of warships
through the sinuous entrance to Santiago harbor,
and to look down on those warships from the
heights surrounding Santiago at such a distance
as would make their identification absolute, were
rightly esteemed by Sampson as two entirely
different propositions; the one being burdened
with the element of doubt, the other being en
dowed with the benefit of certainty. Admiral
Sampson therefore determined to send a man on
a trip of inspection, and the man he selected for
this enterprise was Lieutenant Blue, who had
already run the gauntlet of five Spanish gun-

28 The Fall of Santiago.
boats in the bay of Buena Vista, and had carried
the American flag to the spot of his meeting
with General Gomez.
On Saturday, June 11, Blue was landed in a
little cove well to the east of the entrance and
pushing his way through a country swarming
with Spanish soldiery, and through the swelter
ing, tangled jungle, only halted when he peered
through the cacti and palms which crested a hill
overlooking the old city and the long blue bay.
In the bay he saw Cervera's fleet, four armored
cruisers, two torpedo boat destroyers, and the
wrecked Eeina Mercedes, which with a gunboat
had constituted Santiago's naval defense before
the arrival of Cervera. Then backward through
the sweltering jungle, dodging the Spanish out
posts and wriggling his way through a network
of tangling vines and tearing thorns, until on
Monday, ragged but triumphant, he stood on the
quarter-deck of the flagship New York and made
his report to Admiral Sampson.
Seventy -two miles of travel through an enemy's
country and a pathless tropical thicket, is a deed
which in times of ordinary enterprise would stand
out as a matter for a volume, but when writing
of these stirring times when every day saw some
thing done that marked the upspringingof anew
hero. Lieutenant Blue's gallant work must be dis-

The Fall of Santiago. 29
missed with a paragraph. It is the misfortune of
comparison which diminishes the fact.
So many, many things have been written and
said and sung about Hobson, and how he put the
stopper into the Santiago bottle that all there
remains to do is to tell a clear running story of
the actual facts, even at the risk of brushing
aside one or two illusions, but, of course, with
out minifying the heroism of accomplishment.
When sailing eastward along the northern
coast of Cuba the contingencies of Cervera's cap
ture were more than once discussed on board
Sampson's flagship — ^so Sampson reported to
Washington — and it was during one of these
discussions that the admiral said :
"I think it quite possible we shall find that
Cervera has made a running for it to Santiago
harbor. If so, and if Schley has him shut up
there I am in favor of closing the door of his
prison house rather than of attempting to batter
down the door-post."
When asked what this plan might be the
admiral replied that it was not quite formulated,
but that it embraced the sinking of an obstruction
in the mouth of the harbor, "And by the by,"
he added, "young Hobson, of the Construction
Bureau, is just the man I want to consult with.
I noticed him at San Juan when he stood at our
range-finder timing the shells."

30 The Fall of Santiago.
Hobson was sent for and to him was put the
proposition of "making the harbor entrance
secure against the possibilities of egress by the
Spanish ships by obstructing the narrow part of
the entrance" to quote Sampson's words.
Hobson at once took the liveliest interest in the
plan and asked for a day or two in which to con
sider the problem and the best means of working
it out. At the end of the given time Hobson
reported to the admiral. His plan briefly was
not to wait for stone-laden barges, which had
been suggested as the best form of impediment,
but to take one of the fleet colliers and sink her
athwart the selected place in the channel. Hob
son showed that the drawbacks to the barge
scheme were the time it would take to get them
from a United States port, and the fact that they
would have to be towed into position, while in
the case of the collier there would be no delay
and she would have the added advantage of be
ing a self-propelling engine. Hobson wound up
by entering a plea that to him might be intrusted
the active carrying out of the plan.
"You know all that this means, Hobson?"
asked the admiral.
"I do, sir," replied Hobson; and the admiral
consented. No one who knew Hobson could very well see

The Fall of Santiago. 31

o"-

how the admiral could have refused. Upright as
one of his own Alabama pines; twenty-eight
years old; ruggedly simple in his manners; with
dogged determination expressed in every feature,
from the deep set eyes, along the pronounced
bridge of the nose down to the square-set jaw;
the sweetheart of his mother ; not afraid to show
that he carried a Bible in his kit; a student,
equally ready to pray or to fight, and with a
long record of having done both, "Eich" Hob
son was just the sort of man that any other man
would have selected for the short and fiery cruise
of the Merrimae.
Sampson, it will be remembered, joined Schley
off Santiago on Wednesday morning, June 1,
and immediately on receiving Schley's report
sent in his launch to reconnoiter ashore. The
report brought back confirmed Schley's esti
mates of the difficulties of running the forts and
crystalized his resolution to attempt the bottling-
up process and to attempt it at once.
The collier Merrimae was selected for the office
of barrier. A Norwegian steam freighter, called
the Solveid; three hundred and forty -four feet
long, and with a tonnage of five thousand three
hundred and sixty -two tons; burned out while
loading grain at Newport News, April 27, 1897 ;
repaired at the Erie Basin, Brooklyn, for the

32 The Fall of Santiago.
Lone Star Line, and standing to that company
at one hundred and ninety-two thousand dollars;
sold to the government for three hundred and
forty-two thousand dollars; no beauty and gen
erally cantankerous in her behavior — not a soul
grieved when her selection for sacrifice was
announced. As soon as the selection was made, active work
was begun to fix her up for the slaughter. All
her stores were taken out and all of her coal ex
cept two thousand tons. In the engine room,
not to be technical, the covers to the valves of the
big fire pump were so arranged that a single
blow of a sledge would let in the sea; all water
tight doors were opened, and where possible, the
bulkheads were broken down so as to give free
play to the water as soon as it was admitted into
the ship. The salient part of the plan was to
scuttle her by outside explosion and as a means
to this end, ten pitch covered 8-inch copper
cases, each filled with eighty pounds of ordinary
brown, prismatic powder and each fitted with an
igniting charge, primer and connecting wire for
electrically exploding the charge, were lowered
over the port rail until they rested against the
side of the vessel just below the water line; the
charges being so arranged that in each case they
would bear their explosive force against the
space between the bulkheads.

The Fall of Santiago. 33
When the bombs had been lowered into posi
tion, the wires for exploding the charges were
run along the deck and connected with a main
wire leading to a dry battery and contact key on
the bridge. Lastly, in the way of preparation
for sinking her all her ports were lashed open I
and the four cargo ports (the openings in the
sides of the ship through which a cargo is taken
on while the vessel is lying at her dock) were
opened, two forward and two aft, there being
about three feet of freeboard from the water to
the lower edge of the cargo ports — that is, that
as the vessel lay drawing sixteen feet of water
these openings were nineteen feet above her keel.
All these preparations meant that, were they
successfully and simultaneously carried out, at the
touch of the key and the blow of the sledge ham
mer, six great gaping holes would be torn in the
ship's sides, the great sea valves would be
opened, and as the vessel shuddered and rocked
under the explosion the sea would rush into her
and, thus inundated from stem to stern by
twleve rushing cataracts of water, the Merrimae
would go down like a rock dropped from a cliff
into the sea. Lastly, as the plan for bringing
her to a sudden halt at the desired locality, both
of the ship's anchors were lashed over the rail
at the starboard quarter in such a way that the

34 The Fall of Santiago.
chop of an ax would cut the lashings and drop
them in an instant. Then, not that there was
very much hope that they would be used, but as
a Christian precaution, a lifeboat and a cata
maran life raft were slung over the side by steel
lines and a ship's launch was to be detailed to
follow in the wake and pick up the survivors of
this Enterprise Perilous.
All day long two hundred men were busy as
bees stripping the Merrimae and preparing her
for her last trip. From first to last, and that
without any planning on the part of the partici
pators, the incident of the Merrimae was most
spectacular. As the men pulled and tore and
dragged at their work of discharging the collier
Merrimae and charging her as a death machine,
they sang sometimes cheerily, sometimes dole
fully; and as they sang and worked, one of those
black rattling thunderstorms which punctuate
Cuba's rainy season, came rolling up over the
Santiago hills, and each time the sudden dark
ness was ripped by a lightning flash, the men
could still be seen at their work and could be
heard roaring out their apostrophe to "The Star
Spangled Banner" or putting the best harmonies
that they knew to the staccato refrain of "Home
Sweet Home."
As these men worked the other men on board

The Fall of Santiago. 35
the different vessels of the fleet were called out
in obedience to a signal from the flagship that
volunteers were wanted, and were told just what
was to be done ; that no compulsory detail would
be made ; and that it must be from those wil-
linglj"- offering their services that the Merri-
mac's last crew would be made up. There had
been no attempt to veil the character of the en
terprise, in fact it was the policy of the admiral
in this case to see that the full gravity of the
plan was known all over the fleet.
When the demand for volunteers was therefore
made the men knew that thej' were to steer an
undefended, non-combatting ship into the very
mouth of Santiago harbor. That no concealment
of the vessel's presence was possible or was even
contemplated. That every gun guarding Santi
ago that could be trained upon the Merrimae
would be pointed and fired at her. That — for
such was the idea then — she would be in point-
blank range of the great rapid firing Maxim-
Nordenfeldt guns supposed to be at Morro ; of
the whole of the Socapa battery, of the Hontorias
and long bronzes at Punta Gorda, of the guns
reputed to be at Cayo Smith — the island which
stands at the inner end of the harbor entrance,
and of all the cannon, big and little, that were
believed to have been placed at every vantage

36 The Fall of Santiago.
point about the harbor's mouth — that, in fact,
she would be the target for more [and heavier
guns than were trained on Cardigan's light
cavalry at Balaklava. They believed that their
chances of destruction were in the proportion of
one thousand to one of escape ; that death was the
programme and that escape would be the miracle.
They believed that not only did certain annihila
tion menace them from all around, but that they
were to travel to destruction on a vehicle which
they themselves had, at the critical instant, to
destroy. That if by God's mercy they did get
into the channel to that point where it was in
tended she should lie as a barrier, they were to
sink what remained of their craft instantly and
effectually, and ,then to save themselves as best
the.v could by the lifeboat or raft. They be
lieved, granting, still by God's mercy, they had
sunk the Merrimae where she should be sunk and
had got on board their frail means of escape, that
they would be still subjected to the hail of shot
from the batteries. They knew and believed all
of these things, yet when volunteers were asked
for — six were wanted — it was not from twice
or even ten times six that the selection had to
be made.
Every man in the fleet wanted to go.
In actual figures one hundred and fifty-three

The Fall of Santiago. 57

't>^

men volunteered from the Iowa, one hundred and
forty from the Texas, one hundred and forty-
nine from the flagship — men and officers crowd
ing forward and pleading to be allowed a chance
not to do or die, but to do and die — so many in
literal fact that had all been accepted there would
not have been a working crew left on board a
single ship.
The men who were selected out of the pushing,
crowding, shouting body of volunteers were :
gunner's-mate Philip O'Boyle of the Texas;
gun-captain Mill of the New Orleans; seaman
Anderson of the Massachusetts seaman Wade;
of the Vixen; two of the Merrimao's men and
Hobson. The Vixen, when the selection had
been made, steamed about the fleet picking up
the men and then headed for the Merrimae with
the double purpose of putting the volunteers on
board and taking off the collier's crew.
And here an odd thing came to pass. Com
mander Miller, of the Merrimae, and the crew of
the Merrimae rebelled. They were in charge of
the ship they said, and if there was anything to
be done with the old craft that was better than
slinging coal, any chance of distinguishing them
selves, it was but right and fair thej' should have
the benefit of that chance. They could run the
Merrimae, they could sink her, and they could die

38 The Fall of Santiago.
just as well as any one else. It was the insubor
dination of devotion, the disobedience of hero
ism. So pertinacious in their determination
were the Merrimao's men, indeed, that they
would not and did not leave her until the
admiral had sent a sharp command to vacate,
and then they left growling and swearing at
being driven back to the ordinary risks of war.
At midnight Admiral Sampson went on board
the Merrimae to inspect the arrangements, said
they were excellent, and left with the full inten
tion of having the vessel go in by daybreak that
morning, Thursday, June 2. The tide, however,
did not exactly serve and the admiral decided to
postpone the attempt until the next night.
Word was sent to Hobson to this effect, Hobson
sending back the message :
"Mr. Hobson 's compliments to the admiral,
and he requests that he be allowed to make the
attempt now, feeling certain that he can
succeed." To this the admiral sent reply, "Wait until
to-morrow," and so far as postponement went,
that ended it. The plans were not changed,
although the postponement brought about a
change in the people. Hobson remained, but it
was considered by the head judges of character
that the first batch of volunteers had undergone

The Fall of Santiago. 39
too great a strain by the long wait without com
pensating event, and so they were sent back to
their ships as wretched and broken-hearted a set of
men as ever had their lives given back to them.
Again, came the mustering for volunteers, again,
the scenes of enthusiasm, and again, the selection
of the little band of volunteers. The octette of
immortals were these :
Hobson, of course; George Charette, gunner's-
mate of the flagship New York ; Osborn Diegnan,
coxswain of the Merrimae; George F. Phillips,
machinist of the Merrimae ; Francis Kelly, water-
tender of the Merrimae; Daniel Montague,
master-at-arms of the Brooklyn ; J. C. Murphy,
coxswain of the lov/a; and Eandolph Cranson,
coxswain of the New York.
Six men only were chosen as before, but Cran
son dropped down in the darkness to the Merri
mae and hid in the hold. When this remarkable
stowaway was discovered it was too late to send
him back and he was allowed to stay.
The Merrimao's old officers and men having
been sent to the Texas in growling discontent,
and the new volunteers being safely on board
the collier, she lay alongside the flagship in
order to receive final instructions. So that Hob
son and his men might be relieved of all work
except the great task of running his vessel

40 The Fall of Santiago.
through the gauntlet of flame and shot, a pilot
was detailed to give Hobson the steerway up to
the harbor entrance, and a special crew of forty
volunteers was sent on board to work her to that
point where the pilot was to leave and the Merri
mae was to take her final run.
As the afternoon wore on another great thun
derstorm came up, but with sunset came a quiet
— skies clearing where they had been black and
riven by lightning, and seas running smoothly
where they had been whipped and torn by the
fierce gusts of wind, and the cascades of water
that always accompany these sub-tropical sum
mer storms. Hobson came onboard the flagship
about nightfall to see the admiral. He was in
full uniform, but as he had been crawling around
through the bulkheads of the collier and person
ally inspecting the layout of the torpedoes and
the unshipping of the sea valves, he was in a
condition of grime that passes description. He
started to apologize, but the admiral stopped
him. "Every soot spot is a service mark, Mr. Hob
son," he said.
Hobson was told that Naval Cadet Joseph
Wright Powell, a slip of a fellow from Oswego,
N. Y., would follow the Merrimae in the New
York's launch and pick them up, on which he
turned to the cadet and said :

The Fall of Santiago. 41
"Powell, watch the boat's crew when we pull
out of the harbor. We will be cracks rowing
thirty strokes to the minute."
He had not been told, however, that there had
been almost as fierce a fight for the command of
the launch as there had been for a position in the
Merrimao's forlorn hope; that the contest, which
had almost developed into a scrimmage, had nar
rowed down to an issue between Cadets Palmer
and Powell, and that these two had settled the
matter by drawing cigarettes from a box, he
who drew the last being the man to go. When
Hobson in all his grime and in the full knowl
edge of what he had to face left the admiral to
go on board the Merrimae, the officers and men
all crowded round to shake him by the hand and
wish him a God's blessing. It was noted by
those who did get at his hand and who could
look closely into his face, that there was not the
faintest assumption in his demeanor that he was
going to do something great and unusual, but
the simple, quiet bearing and the unaffected tem
perature of a man who had a duty to do and who
was not in the habit of letting his duty interfere
with his heartbeat.
Night came and with it a moon that silvered
the hills around Santiago, but which left the
harbor mouth in deep shadow. The fleet with-

42 The Fall of Santiago.
drew to about six miles from shore forming a
crescent, leaving in the center of its arc the Mer
rimae. When last seen by the fleet's men Hob
son was standing on the collier's bridge talk
ing to the pilot. The subsidary crew was at its
post and in its usual garb, but Hobson 's aspecial
men were grouped underneath the bridge and
were stripped to their underclothing. Midnight
was sounded on the fleet bells, then the first
three morning hours, and still no signal from
the admiral for the Merrimae to move.
At last, at twenty-five minutes past three of
Friday, June 3, the lamp signals to start were
run up and the Merrimae began to move. If
eyes had been strained to see the last of Hobson,
they were strained doubly now to see the last of
the Merrimae. It was the pilot's duty to run
the collier into such a position that it meant a
clear straight-away dash to the harbor entrance,
but to the strung senses of the watchers every
thing appeared to be going wrong, and as
though fate were determined to give Hobson and
his men every possible wrench. The Merrimae
was seen to flutter, as it were, for a moment, and
it was thought that she was off her course. Then
she was seen again running and then to stop.
This time it was made out that she was properly
headed and that the pilot and subsidiary crew
were leaving her.

The Fall of Santiago. 43
So quiet was the night and so still was every
one keeping that through her open ports and
hatchways could be heard the jingle of the Mer
rimao's engine-room bell, and as it was heard the
smoke was seen to come tumbling out of her
funnel as she jumped ahead. Then the fleet saw
her no more, for she had entered the great
shadows of the harbor hills.
The light of El Morro burned bright but quiet,
and as it was not swept over the arc of the en
trance the watchers imagined for one wild
moment that the Merrimae might have slipped
by the forts unobserved, but scarcely had this
hope been formed when from out the eastern side
there came an arrow of flame, and with this
signal flash and following roar, the hills on each
side of the harbor became volcanoes.
By Cadet Powell, in charge of the launch, act
ing as life saver, it was calculated that Hobson
had got to within three hundred yards of the
entrance before the first shore gun was fired, and
to his wrought-up fancy it seemed that not even
in a bombardment from the fieet had he seen such
a screaming, flashing, continuous fire as that
which followed the Spanish gunner's discovery
of the Merrimae.
Certainly the water about the collier was white
with foam as though it had been whipped with

44 The Fall of Santiago.
a hail storm, while to the plunging fire of the
batteries was added the continuous rattle of the
garrison's musketry. Powell held it to be abso
lutely impossible for the Merrimae even to
advance in the face of such a reception, much
less live, but on she plowed through it all until,
just as she had been lost to the view of the fleet
in the shadow of the cliffs, so, she was lost to
Powell's view as she dashed in between them.
Then above the scream and roar of the guns
and the snap and whistle of the rifles came five
thunder claps that drowned all the Spaniard's
noise and the fleet knew either that she had been
blown up by mines, or at least, one man had
lived through it all and had touched off the
battery. Then a silence where there had been such an
uproar and nothing seen until a quarter past five,
when Powell's launch was discovered steaming
out from the shore followed by a new clatter and
shrieking from the Spanish forts as they picked
up this little craft and did their best to blow her
into matchwood. But she raced safely to the
shelter of the flagship's drab sides, although it
was to bring the sad report that "No one had
come out of the entrance to the harbor." No
one had supposed that Powell would save a single
member of the Merrimao's men or that any one

The Fall of Santiago. 45
would be left to save. So Powell's report was
simply looked on as one of the incidents in the
inevitable catastrophe.
But no, Hobson had not only measurabl.v done
what he started to do, he had done it without los
ing a man, and almost without a scratch. Eiddled
like a sieve as she was he had pushed the Merri
mao past the forts, over the mines, two of which
exploded, and had driven her staggering right to
the selected spot and then, while shot and shell
plowed and plunged about them, each man had
done his particular duty as though fear or haste,
or need to haste were unknown quantities.
The anchor lines were cut, the two anchors
flew down bringing the ship up with a jerk as
their flukes caught below, and then, as the tide
swung her round in the channel, the valves were
opened, engines stopped, and with three bellow
ing crashes and three rending staggering blows
at her sides, that number of torpedoes was ex
ploded and the Merrimao settled in ninety
seconds and in thirty feet of water.
The whaleboat had been blown to pieces but
the catamaran was saved, and on this Hobson
and his men leaped just before the ship began to
settle. There was no chance for them to get into
the open sea and so Hobson, characteristically,
decided to make for the Spanish shore. As the

46 The Fall of Santiago.
Spanish gunners saw the raft put off from the
sinking hulk they forbore to fire, and when the
men reached shore the Spanish gunners shook
hands with them and patted them on the back.
And when they were marched as prisoners to
Cervera, the Spanish admiral not only shook
hands with them and patted them on the back,
but embraced the quiet Alabamian and told him
that he was a man after his own heart.
More than this, he sent Captain Oviedo, his
chief of staff, out to Admiral Sampson with a flag
of truce and a long message of compliments, a
report of what had been accomplished, all done
as an act of appreciation shown by one sailor to
another sailor concerning the brave act of still
another sailor.
And so it was learned that what Hobson
had started out to do he had done. He had
done it with nothing more than the hope that he
might be allowed to live long enough to sink his
ship, but to him and to the brave men who were
with him there had come that sheltering hand
that seems always extended over those who, with
clear heads and calm souls, go steadfastly along
their lines of duty.
Neither the entities of history nor of narrative
will be destroyed if it is told here how "with
weeping and with laughter" Hobson and his fel-

The Fall of Santiago. 47
low heroes came into the American lines July 6.
It had been supposed, in view of Admiral Cer
vera's extreme courteousness toward the con
structor, that an exchange of the Merrimao's men
might easily be effected. Such was not the case,
however, and after dallying negotiations which
were carried limpingly around the circle from
Blanco to Washington, and from Washington to
Madrid, from Madrid to Santiago and thence to
Havana again, the matter came to a standstill.
It happened, however, that at the battle of El
Caney we had captured, among many others, a
Lieutenant Arios, of the aristocratic Barcelona
regiment, and with Arios and his fellow-officers
in our hands we were able effectually to treat for
an exchange. On the morning of July 6, a
meeting took place under a tree midway between
the lines of the Eough Eiders and those of the
first Spanish intrenchments. Colonel John
Jacob Astor conducted to this rendezvous three
Lieutenants Volez, Aurolius, and Arios, besides
fourteen sergeants, corporals and privates.
Hobson and his men came out under charge of
Major Iries, a Spanish staff officer. The Spanish
prisoners were kept blindfolded until they
reached the point of exchange; the eyes of the
American prisoners were unbandaged. Iries was
told that he might have all fourteen of the men

48 The Fall of Santiago.
and his choice of the officers. Without hesita
tion he chose the aristocrat. Then Colonel Astor
put out his hand to Hobson saying :
"My name is Astor, and I'm mighty glad to
welcome you back to freedom."
"Thank you, colonel," replied the Alabamian,
"if you are half as glad as I am to get back,
there is no question as to the warmth of your
welcome." Then the Spanish major and the American
colonel looked at their watches, and seeing that
the hour of truce, during which this little pacific
interlude had been conducted, was on the point
of expiring, bowed with Amerioo-Castilian
politeness to each other and went back to their
lines. If Hobson had been of the stuff that is puffed
into bullfrog uselessness he would surely have
been spoiled by the reception which his fighting
compatriots accorded him from the first intrench-
ment to the last vessel of the fleet. The Eough
Eiders, cowboys and college men, swarmed out of
the trenches and over the guns yelling like Com-
anches ; swept them off their feet and bore them
on their shoulders inside the lines. Then the
colored troopers swarmed about and the Alabama
white shook hands with the Georgia black as
though slave days had ended five centuries ago;

The Fall of Santiago. 49
every soldier who knew what was going on
yelled as though he had personally secured free
dom from a Spanish cell ; the wounded in the
hospital at Siboney sat up in their cots and
cheered, and when the launch bearing the re
leased prisoners put off from Daiquiri in the dusk
of the evening and made for the New York, every
ship's whistle tooted and every ship's men
cheered, and even Admiral Sampson stepped over
his habitual reserve and embraced Hobson with
almost as much effusion as had the Spanish
admiral. Hobson's story, a characteristically simple
one, cleared up many points that had been in
doubt. He said that he and his associates had
been confined in Morro Castle but four days,
being removed thence on board the Eeina Mer
cedes which the Spanish were using as a hospital
ship. The kind greeting which Cervera had
granted them bore its fruit and during the
whole thirty-three days of their incarceration
their treatment by the Spanish was most cour
teous. It was not a keen sighted gunner, as had been
supposed, who first caught a glimpse of the
Merrimao stealing into Santiago, but a patrol
boat which ran close up under the stern of the
Merrimao and fired -several shots at her from a

50 The Fall of Santiago.
three-pounder. In this fire the Merrimao's rud
der was carried away. The picket boat at once
gave the alarm and in a moment the guns of the
Vizcaya, Almirante Oquendo and shore batteries
were turned upon the collier, while sub-marine
mines and torpedoes grumbled and exploded all
about her.
When the Merrimae was in the desired posi
tion and the attempt was made to throw her
across the channel the loss of the rudder was
discovered. It was not possible therefore, to do
this, but the anchors were thrown out and the
tide swung her so that she blocked the passage
way for some three-quarters of it. As the
anchors were dropped the catamaran was
launched and Hobson touched off the battery.
At that same moment two torpedoes, fired by the
Eeina Mercedes, struck the Merrimae amidships
and in the combined shock the collier was lifted
out of the water and almost rent asunder.
It is worthy of remark that one of the first
acts of Hobson after his return to the New York
was a request to the admiral that he might be
allowed to take a battleship into the harbor,
claiming that the shore fortifications were not
nearly as formidable as was supposed. Quite as
characteristically, Sampson concluded that his
policy of long distance bombardment was better
than the constructor's plan of venture and dash.

The Fall of Santiago. 51

CHAPTER in.
HOW THE MAEINES FOUGHT AT GUANTANAMO.
The whole campaign at Santiago was so full of
spectacular effects and valiant deeds, done in
dividually and collectively, that what would
under ordinary circumstances mark an epoch,
becomes but an incident in the revival of
America's military spirit. Treading close on the
heels of Hobson's exploit, for instance, came
Huntington's defense of Fisherman's Point at
Guantanamo Bay, leading up to the first battle
on Cuban soil, and of which some future his
torian will make a book.
With Cervera at Santiago, the seat of war in
the West Indies, as has been said, was suddenly
and distinctively removed to that port. It
meant the determination to destroy the Spanish
admiral's fleet together with the city's invest
ment by sea and land, and our government at
once set to work to dispatch the beleaguering
forces southward. But the mobilization and
transport of an invading army, especially when
that army is to enter on a tropical campaign and

52 The Fall of Santiago.
has been raised from the basis of a citizen
soldiery, is a task whose rapid and successful
accomplishment should mean the canonization of
the quartermaster-general. In every such en
terprise some bureau, some group of men, is sure
to be ahead of the others — to form a sort of pro
cess on the body military, so to speak. In this
case it was Lieutenant Colonel Eobert W. Hunt
ington and his six hundred marines, who for
weeks had been cramped and packed on the
sweltering decks of the troop ship Panther off
Tampa, before her commander received instruc
tions to weigh anchor and report to Sampson off
Santiago. It was at ten o'clock on Friday morning, June
10, that the troop ship under convoy of the Yo-
semite steamed up to the blockading fleet and half
an hour later she had put about for Guantanamo
to land her marines. The place had been selected
as a base of operations and supplies, and, topo
graphically it was an ideal selection. The harbor
of Guantanamo is one of the best on the south
coast of Cuba. It lies thirty-eight miles east of
Santiago, the town and fort being situated- about
five miles back from the coast. There are no
established fortifications to speak of at the en
trance to the harbor, but prior to the arrival of
the Panther's men, the Spaniards — who kept

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Guantanamo Bay and its surrounding — Where Huntington's marines established the first
United States military camp in Cuba.
the Fall of Santiago. 63
singularly well informed as to our intended
movements — had thrown up earthworks and dug
rifle pits from which to command this entrance.
Here, in order to understand what follows, it
will be necessary to gain as clear an idea as possi
ble of the lay of the land.
Looking shoreward from on board ship you
would see to the west, that is to the left of the
entrance, a rather extensive strip of low lying,
swampy ground. To the right is a sandy stretch
covered with bushes and cacti from which rises
the shoulder of a range of steep, almost precipi
tous, rocky hills running parallel with the shore
and ending in a lagoon. Up and down the face
of the hills are jutting rocks and patches of faded
vegetation, while at their base on the little rocky
ledge or beach is, or was, a straggling collection
of fishermen's huts, one or two stores, and the
distinctively clean looking cable office. Between
the swampy lowland of the west and the cliff-
like hills of the east lay spread out the curving
waterway into Guantanamo harbor. On the
bare, brown summit of a bluff which formed a
step of the cliff and in caves in the cliff itself,
the Spaniards had placed their earthworks and
rifle pits and out of these earthworks and rifle
pits. Captain McCalla had driven them on the
day before with the guns of the Marblehead.

54 The Fall of Santiago.
If you landed and toiled up one of the steep
zig-zag trails until you stood on the top of the
bluff beside the deserted earthworks and looked
inland you would see that the shore mountains
really comprised three distinct, heavily-wooded
ranges of a gradually increasing elevation and
with equally heavily-wooded gullies between the
ridges. Back of the ridges stretched out the
flat lands around the upper end of the bay on
which it set down the city of Guantanamo.
Looking across the bay you would see the village
and fort of Caimanera and the railroad running
up to Guantanamo.
When the Panther reached Guantanamo bay
the fishing village and its defenses were found to
be deserted alike by fishermen and soldiers.
The marines were all landed, in quick and easy
order, running and cheering and stretching
their legs like a lot of schoolboys at recess.
Then they lugged their equipage up the trails to
the breezy bluff, where they pitched their tents,
established camp and named it after the com
mander of the Marblehead. The Spaniards had
left a flagpole and just before sunset, while the
shore detail was burning up the wretched little
village below, as the most convenient form of
fumigating the locality, the Stars and Stripes
were run up at Camp McCalla, the main body of

The Fall of Santiago. 55
marines was drawn up in line and the first estab
lishment of United States troops on Cuban soil
was greeted with cheers from above and below,
and by a salute from the little fleet lying in the
roadstead. Then the men sang and ate and
frolicked and at ten o'clock the camp, save for
the sentries, was as quiet as a wood in winter.
The quiet lasted just two hours, for everybody
agreed that it was midnight, when, instead of six
hundred sleeping men there were six hundred
swearing marines startled into half-wakefulness
by a shot, a sentry's challenge and then a crack
ing volley. If the first moment was one of half-
wakefulness, the second was one of complete
activity, and in two minutes the rifles of the
marines were all vigorously replying to the crack
and splutter of the Spanish Mausers that came,
or seemed to come from the chaparral-covered
slopes to the east. The long Mauser bullets were
singing over the marines' heads, but no one was
hit and as the hail from the Lees battered the
brush which concealed the Spaniards, the firing
from the thicket soon lessened.
It did not, however, cease and all that night
Huntington's men were kept awake and on the
jump by single shots and volleys from the
guerrillas. Neither was there any rest for the
marines during daylight on Saturday. The

56 The Fall of Santiago.
volley firing ceased, it is true, but the camp was
made the center for one of the most aggravating
and nerve-destroying forms of attack of which
it is possible to conceive.
Untried, absolutely inexperienced in any form
of land fighting, all the marines had to fall back
on was the discipline of drill and individual grit.
But in no tactics had they ever come across any
thing that met the exigencies of the present occa
sion. Nearly all town-bred, conscious that at all
times they were regarded as a sort of marine
police, they found themselves suddenly called on
to bear the brunt of an attack so harassing and
unusual that to meet it would have called up all
the experience and cunning of our plain and
lava-bed fighters. Instead of fighting the Spanish
troops in Cuba the Panther's men might really
have been fighting the Sioux in the Bad Lands
of South Dakota. Like the half-blind man in the
Bible they saw men as trees walking, for the
Spaniards, stripping themselves to the buff re-
clothed themselves with the Adamic garb of
leaves, and, gently waving palm trees over their
heads, crept stealthily here and there until a
tongue of fire and a singing bullet showed that
instead of a piece of tropical vegetation it was a
Spanish sharp-shooter. Not only were the Span
iards masked but they were, undoubtedly, under

The Fall of Santiago. 57

to^

the very prince of guerrilla fighters ; one who, to
the cunning of the Indian added the cruelty of
the Inquisitorial Spaniard. Silenced at one
point, the bushwhackers would break out into
furious firing from another ; then, when all the
bush seemed to have been battered into silence
by the marines, the rifle fire would blaze out
from a hundred points at once.
Although under this scattering but persistent
fire from the Spaniards all day, Huntington kept
his men at work strengthening the earthworks,
digging new rifle pits, and dragging up the bat
talion's field-pieces from the beach, and when
Saturday night came the marines were ready
enough to bless their commander for his pre
science and discipline. Sleep was absolutely out
of the question. All through the night, shadowy
figures could be dimly seen creeping through the
edge of the bush that rose around the camp.
There was the constant, tense, singing note of
the Mauser balls following the sharp pop of the
Spanish rifles ; the humming deeper note of the
Lee bullets following the louder ring of the
marines' weapons; while, as the result of a coun
sel between Huntington, Philip and McCalla, the
Texas and Marblehead added their deeper note
to the serenade. The warships swung their
searchlights on to the bush, and sent in their

58 The Fall of Santiago.
launches with orders to let fly their howitzers
at any illuminated spot that showed a Spaniard
as a blot in its cone of light.
It was all decidedly picturesque, but neither
the searchlights nor the howitzers of the
launches, nor the constant blazing of the
marines at anything that seemed to suspiciously
move in the undergrowth brought any relief to
Camp McCalla. As a desperate resort a detail
of men was sent out to set fire to the jungle, but
this proved impossible on account of the lush
young trees which formed the undergrowth.
While the attempt was being made to smoke out
the guerrillas from the nearest slope, the Span
iards appeared in the bush across the lagoon to
the east of the camp. They were driven thence
by the searchlights of the Marblehead and the
clever drop of a few screeching shells only to
appear in a ravine on the east side near the bay
shore. And so it went on all night, until from
want of sleep, because of the long fight with
shadows, and from a night of noise unspeakable
the men, when daylight struck them, looked as
haggard as though they had camped for a fort
night in a stable of nightmares.
There had been men killed, too. Not many, it
is true, not one per cent of what would have
been the result had the Spaniards' aim ap-

The Fall of Santiago. 59
proached in accuracy the cleverness of their
tactics. Those who had been killed and wounded
had been shot down almost at the rifle's muz
zle, and so horrible were the effects of the fierce
wire nails of the Mausers at this distance that it
was supposed at first the Spaniards had been
guilty of unutterable mutilations.
For the first time our surgeons were able to
make a close study of what a Mauser rifle-shot
wound was like. To their reports the curious
student of the horrors of modern warfare is re
ferred. All that need be said here is that the
dead and wounded in the fighting around Guan
tanamo bay showed that the Mauser bullet when
received at close range makes at its point of en
trance only a small hole, but at its point of exit
it seems to take everything with it. In size the
bullet is as the section of an ordinary lead pencil
one and a half inches long. It is nickel covered,
but while the charges of mutilation, which Ad
miral Sampson laid against the Spaniards when he
saw the dreadful character of the men's wounds,
were withdrawn, the evidence would seem to show
that in some cases the nickel points of the bul
lets had been scraped away. The result was
that the exposed lead mushroomed on its impact
and when to this spreading quality of the missile
was added its rotary motion, the resulting

60 The Fall of Santiago.
wound, as may be imagined, was a frightful one.
Those killed at Guantanamo and struck in the
head would have been scarcely more shattered
had they stood in the path of a shell.
The marines saw these things, and they saw,
too, that their camp on the bluff, breezy though
it might be, was, on account of the thickly
wooded hills around it and its own bareness,
little more than a target for the Spanish bush
whackers. Huntington saw this also, and when
Sunday morning came he decided to move camp
to the landing-place on Fisherman's Point.
McCalla sent sixty-five Cuban insurgents, and
Philip added a squad of blue jackets and two
Colt automatic guns to assist in the moving.
Instead of being a day of rest it was a day of
din, distress and desperation. The Spaniards
swarmed through the bushes and every move
made by the marines was under a hot fire. In
the midst of it those who had been killed, in
cluding Assistant Surgeon Gibbs, had to be
buried, but the same spirit that prompted the
scraping of the Mauser bullet and the shooting
of a noncombatant under the shadow of the
Eed Cross stood out ferociously even here.
Graves were dug in the red, stony soil of the
bluff to the north of the camp and a squad of
marines was sent ashore from the Texas to act as

The Fall of Santiago. 61
funeral escort, Huntington's marines being too
busy in the diverse labors of moving camp and
potting the Spanish bushwhackers. About the
time the little procession, headed by Chaplain
Jones of the Texas, had stumbled over the rocky
ground to the improvised graveyard, the firing
from the bush slackened sufficiently for the men
of Camp McCalla to look around. They saw
this little procession, and laying down fheir Leea
in the trenches, stepped over and fell in after the
Texas men. No sooner had they done this than
the skulking Spaniards turned a hot fire on the
funeral party. For a moment or two chaplain,
escort, and marines paid no attention to the fusil
lade, but grouped themselves about the open
graves, the chaplain, it is true, stepping behind
the mounds of new turned earth, but without
dropping a word of the service. The sad little
ceremonj' would have been concluded with this
attendance had not the Spaniards crept in force
up to the nearest clumps of bushes from which
the bullets were so persistently whistled that
chaplain, mourners and corpses alike seemed in
danger of being riddled.
This was too much for the men of Camp
McCalla, and with a cry of "Fall in," they
rushed for their rifles in the trenches. As they
broke away from the funeral they had begun the

62 The Fall of Santiago.
intoning of the Lord's Prayer, and it was with
out ceasing the full-throated intercession that,
throwing themselves fiat, they pegged fiercely
away at the hidden and pitiless enemy. The
pump of the Lee bullets was as rhythmical as
the intoned phrases. It was a prayer punctuated
with gunshots, and was only another instance of
the Puritan spirit — the spirit of the Bible and
sword carried hand to hand into battle — that
marked this whole campaign. The ships in the
bay sniffed the contest from afar and turned
loose their shells and machine guns, and it was
to this martial accompaniment that the dead were
buried. Chaplain Jones committing his brethren
to the ground without a break in his sonorous
voice, and without a cringe in his long, thin
form as he stood full in the strong sunlight.
Although the camp was moved to the beach,
the intrenchments on the hilltop were not de
serted. The American flag had been planted on
the site of the destroyed blockhouse, and it was
not to bfi taken down or forsaken. New trenches
were dug and the defending guns better placed.
Still the attacks from the bush were maintained,
varied now by dashes on the beach camp from
the chaparral growing around the eastern lagoon.
More men were killed and the constant drag and
strain were visibly telling on the marines. It

The Fall of Santiago. 63
was very evident that something had to be done
to break this dreadful monotony of fighting hid
den foes. A retreat was out of the question, and
so it was decided to make at once a sortie and a
round up.
How strong the Spaniards might be was not
known, the Cuban scouts bringing in estimates
that varied from two hundred to two thousand,
but it was known that constant accessions to the
army of bushwhackers were being ferried across
the bay from Caimanera, and that unless some
bold movement were made the first American
garrison in Cuba stood a very good chance of
being shot out of existence or driven into the
sea. Eoughly speaking, the Spaniards held the
three ranges of hills, before alluded to, and
which were like three fingers with two deep
valleys between, like the hollows between the
fingers. On the first ridge stood a heliograph
station ; on a mound commanding the first and
second ridges stood a blockhouse; and between
the second and third ridges was a well, or water
tank, around which had been established the
guerrilla headquarters. All three, heliograph
station, blockhouse, and well, were to be the
objects of attack, for it was argued that with their
signal station, their stronghold, and their water

64 The Fall of Santiago.
supply gone, the bushwhackers would find them
selves deprived of their three mainstays.
That the enterprise might prove a failure never
entered the heads of Huntington and his officers.
The woods had to be purged of the Spaniards.
That was the simple programme.
Early on Tuesday morning, June 14, two hun
dred and eighty-nine Americans, and forty-one
Cubans were drawn up at Fisherman's Point
ready for the desperate expedition. The men
were divided into four companies. Captains
Elliott and Spicer each had ninety marines and
fifteen Cubans in his party. Lieutenants
Mahoney and Ingate each had fifty marines in
his command, Mahoney having ten Cubans and
Ingate one, this latter to act as guide. The
Ingate party can be very briefly disposed of.
Its contemplated share in the operations was to
skirt the first range of hills eastward until it
came to the lagoon and then turn northward,
that is inland way, so as to be able to attack the
guerrilla headquarters from the flank while the
other parties were attacking it from the front.
Long before the flank movement could be exe
cuted, however, Ingate grew suspicious of his
Cuban guide and turned back. Elliott and
Spicer were to make objectively for the Spanish
headquarters, while Mahoney 's line of advance

The Fall of Santiago. 65
was between that of these two captains and that
of Ingate, with the capture of the heliograph
station and blockhouse as a preliminary duty.
The Cubans were to act as scouts and bush-
beaters. The marines were inspected as scrutinizingly I
as though they were to parade; the Cubans
hopped spasmodically about without any sem
blance of order or preparation. The marines
were clad in their brown uniforms, as speckless
as though just from the factory; the Cubans wore
what the sailors had given them, what rags they
had owned, or nothing, as the fancy suited them.
The faces of the marines were drawn, bronzed,
rather wistful and decidedly determined; those
of the Cubans were mostly black and were agleam
with satisfaction and pride at having a chance to
show the Americans what thej' could do in fight
ing the Spanish.
There was a sharp call of order and then the
lines of brown, white and black men began to
climb up the steep tangled sides of the first ridge.
Mahoney's men were first at work. They found
the heliograph station guarded by a company of
Spaniards and there was immediately the song
in unison of Lee and Mauser. The Spaniards
had been waiting the attack while the marines
had been toiling through the tangle of woods

66 The Fall of Santiago.
under a broiling sun, but when within shooting
range our men went to work at once as steadily
and sturdily as though they had been the waiting
party. Fifteen minutes of this brisk, deadly
work and the Spaniards fled helter-skelter down
the inland slope of the first range, where they
were joined by the fleeing garrison of the block
house, while the marines knelt along the ridge
and picked off the fleeing men as they ran or
dodged from bush to bush.
Meanwhile Elliott and Spicer's men to the
west but moving northward had crossed the
first ridge, tramped across the gully, and
climbed to the top of the second ridge under
a spattering but wild fire of the Spaniards who
were stationed here. When our men reached
the summit of the second ridge the sun was blaz
ing at high noon, the water in their canteens was
a sickly warm fluid and the jungle through which
they had come was so full of thorny cactus and
tearing mesquite that each step was a struggle.
Yet when our men reached this crest and saw the
guerrilla headquarters in the valley beneath, a
new spirit of freshness took possession of them.
Plainly in view, in the valley before them were
the huts of the men, the officer's quarters and
the water tank which they had set out to destroy.
The marines and Cubans had scrambled up the

The Fall of Santiago. 67
ridge on which they now stood in single order
and as best they might, but when once there the
hundred and eighty marines and the thirty
Cubans were formed in line along the crest, with
the Cubans on the left flank and then began to
slowly work their way down, firing as they went.
The long brown and white line moved steadily
down the slope, aiming and firing as it moved,
with the Spaniards' bullets whistling viciously
all about it. The guerrillas fired from the shelter
of the huts and other buildings so that they really
had the advantage of an intrenched position, but
the marines never wavered in their advance.
Now they were at the base of the hill and the
order was given to fix bayonets and charge across
the gully. The gleam and click of the bayonets
were too much for the Spaniards, and in a panic
they left the shelter of the headquarters and
made for the cover of the brush-clad slopes of
the third ridge. Between the huts and brush,
however, there was a clear space of about one
hundred yards, and as the Spaniards galloped
across this open space it was easy shooting for
our men. Still in line they advanced, pouring a
deadly fire into the guerrillas, while the Cubans
waved their machetes and sprang forward with a
howl. Still in line, the brown-clad marines
made straight for the thickets into which the

68 The Fall of Santiago.
Spaniards had fled, while the white and black
clad Cubans ran and fired, and cursed as they
ran. Out of the thickets the Spaniards darted,
and as they darted the marines shot them down.
Up the slopes the Spaniards climbed and strug
gled, while the marines climbed and struggled
after them and fired as they climbed. Clear to
the crest the Spaniards were driven, and then to
their dismay another fighting force of these ter
rible Americans was met.
After capturing the heliograph station and
blockhouse Mahoney and his men had skirted the
eastern end of the second and third ridges in an
ticipation of just what was happening so that when
the terror-stricken Spaniards started to scamper
down this third ridge Mahoney's fifty marines
and ten Cubans were waiting for them. Back
the Spaniards ran and as they scrambled once
more on to the crest of the third ridge, still
another enemy appeared. Huntington had taken
counsel with the commander of the Dolphin, and
that gunboat had been watching all the morning
for just this opportunity. With their glasses
the Dolphin's officers had been sweeping the
hills for a good chance for a long shot and when
the Spaniards appeared crowding the hilltop they
knew they had that chance. Down dropped the
shells in the midst of the dismayed Spaniards

The Fall of Santiago. 69
and again they rushed to the hillside. Again,
Mahoney's men met them and as the Spaniards
turned back again they were met by Captain
Elliott's marines moving steadily up the slope
and by the fierce assault of the Cubans.
Three times over that terrible ridge were the
Spanish guerrillas thus driven. With two
musketry cross-fires, the assaults of the Cubans
and the bursting of the shells as a composite hor
ror, the Spaniards finally made their disordered
way down the further side of the last ridge and
so into the shelter of the Guantanamo lowlands.
The five days of persistent cruel bush attacks had
been amply revenged. In the sortie two Cubans
had been killed and one of our marines wounded,
while of the Spanish some one hundred killed
and wounded lay between the heliograph station
and the last slope of the third ridge. To wind
up the expedition the water tank and headquar
ters were destroyed, the blockhouse razed, eigh
teen prisoners captured, and a hundred rifles and
a thousand rounds of ammunition brought back
by the dripping, wearied, but triumphant, little
army. It was not a very great affair, but barring the
funny little Gussie expedition it was the first
battle on Cuban soil between American and
Spanish forces. Moreover, it was a fight between

70 The Fall of Santiago.
unseasoned, wearied men, fighting their way
through an enemy's country, and a much
superior force of seasoned veterans holding a
strong position. The odds had been all against
us, but the honors were all ours. From Spanish
sources it was afterward learned that the de
fenders of the hills included at least two com
panies of picked regulars and two companies of
guerrillas, numbering in all four hundred and
eighty men. The actual losses on the Spanish
sides in the six days fighting cannot be stated,
but they were approximately one hundred and
fiftj' killed and wounded, while ours were five
killed and fifteen wounded.
Having driven the bushwhackers off the ridges
and destroyed their rallying center, it was next
decided to put a stop to the constant accession
of reinforcements which had been received by
the bushwhackers from Guantanamo by way
of Caimanera. Every day new detachments
of Spanish soldiers had been brought from
the city by railroad to the fort and earthworks,
and these it was decided to reduce. Accordingly
on the day following the successful sweep of the
marines over the hills, the Texas, Marblehead and
Suwanee sailed into Guantanamo Bay, and from
two until half-past three o'clock in the afternoon
rained shells on the brickwork and intrench-

The Fall of Santiago. 71
ments. At the end of this bombardment the fort
was a brick pile and the trenches were little more
than reddish-brown dirt heaps, while the garri
son, or such as was left of it, had taken train to
Guantanamo. The infliction of these two blows taught the
Spaniards their lesson, and from that time on the
outer bay of Guantanamo and the hills overlook
ing Fisherman's Point were as placid and un
troubled as a summer resort. A varying number
of colliers lay at anchor within Fisherman's
Point, the Panther was anchored close beside the
camp, the Solace rode in the smooth sheltered
waters of the bay, the Marblehead, as flagship of
the station, steamed here and there, the cable
office was re-established and officially known
as Pleya del Este, vessels from the block
ading squadron came and went, rowboats and
launches moved rapidly about, no Spaniard
was to be seen, and that which was the theater
of a seven-days' continuous performance of
unrest, distress and bloodshed became so peace
ful that the captured Spaniard 's letter dolefully
describing the American occupation of Guan
tanamo Bay as the matter of fact conversion of
the place into "a harbor of rest" exactly fitted
the transformation.

7^ The Fall of Santiago.

CHAPTEE rV.
HOW SHATTER LANDED HIS ARMY AT DAIQUIRI.
When Huntington's marines were landed at
Guantanamo Bay it was in the expectation that
the army of investment would reach Santiago
almost immediately thereafter. It was three
weeks, however, before the transports, with
their fifteen thousand and odd American soldiers,
were sighted by the blockading fleet.
Major-General William Eufus Shafter, in com
mand of the Fifth Army Corps, had been selected
to lead the army of invasion, and Tampa was
chosen as the point of debarkation. As has been
intimated, the dispatch of an army largely com
posed of unseasoned men is a task that might try
the capabilities of a quartermaster's department
accustomed to the active operations at home and
abroad of an enormous standing army ; but when
it meant the sudden call upon a department used
only to the gentle and easy demands of a tiny
standing army accustomed only to garrison life
and police duties on the plains, it became a matter
whose exactions can scarcely be measured.

The Fall of Santiago. 73
The invading army consisted of the following
forces :
Infantry —
Officers  561
Enlisted men  10,709
 11,270
Cavalry (Dismounted) —
Officers  168
Enlisted men  3,155
 3,323
Artillery —
Officers  18
Enlisted men  455
 473
Engineers —
Officers  9
Enlisted men  200
 209
Signal Corps  15
15,290
Total Fighting Men —
Officers  747
Enlisted men  14,319
 15,066
Fieldpieces  24
Horses  578
Mules  1,301
For three weeks things at Tampa were chaotic.
The water supply was short; machinery broke
down ; siege guns had to be carried bodily for
miles; embarkation stages had to be built; sup
ply trains were stalled; mules and horses that
should have arrived had been left behind in some
unknown locality ; troops were coming in from a

74 The Fall of Santiago.
dozen different camps in a dozen different stages
of unpreparedness — such were a few of the
tangles, drawbacks and difficulties which had to
be met, unraveled, and conquered before the
great transport fleet could get on her way.
Every one, from Shafter down, was in a fever
ish condition of fume and fret. The war fury of
the soldiers was rapidly changing into one of
weariness and disgust, while the foreign repre
sentatives who peered everywhere and watched
everything, confided to their respective govern
ments that the army of invasion was an armed
mob and that the quartermaster's department
had gone to pieces. As a plain matter of fact,
the work done in the way of licking raw material
into shape, and in the arming, equipping, and
forwarding of Shafter's army compared most
favorably with anything done in the same line
by nations who are adepts in the art of war. It
was May 29 when Schley's dispatch was re
ceived saying that Cervera was in Santiago har
bor, and it was on the 14th of June that the
army for Santiago sailed from Tampa, an inter
val of only sixteen days in which inventive
spirit, Yankee push, and the indomitable con
quest of obstacles had done all that could have
been accomplished by the practiced military ex
perts and well-oiled war bureaus of Europe.

The Fall of Santiago. 75

'o'-

There was impatience everywhere, of course ;
in the press, at headquarters in Washington, and
with the blockading fleet. Every day the lookouts
off Santiago watched for the smoke of the trans
port armada coming around Cape Maysi, and as
each day closed with the report that there was
nothing in sight, that impatience grew. Upon
Admiral Sampson devolved not only the duty of
preventing the escape of Cervera's fleet, but also
that of preventing if possible the junction of the
various divisions of the Spanish army which were
known to be scattered up and down the eastern
end of the island and which he was sure would
be making every effort to effect a concentration
in Santiago city. Envoys were sent to General
Calixto Garcia, asking him to move his forces of
insurgents down to the southern coast so as to
hold if possible the passes leading from Man-
zanillo and Holquin through which the various
Spanish garrisons would have to come. To this
Garcia replied by sending General Eabi to the
north of Santiago with nine hundred men, and
six hundred, under Castillo, to the east of the
city, while he, Garcia, established his headquar
ters at Aceraderos, fourteen miles west of Santi
ago, to await the arrival of the American troops.
As further and useful ways of passing the wait
ing time, there was more cable cutting and

76 The Fall of Santiago.
another striking attention was given to the forts
guarding the entrance to Santiago harbor.
There were several small exchanges with the
forts, but the onl.v two of consequence, in addi
tion to that which they received at the hands of
Schley soon after his arrival, were the bombard
ments of the forts by the entire blockading fleet,
which took place on the 6th and 16th of June.
The endeavors to reduce the harbor fortifica
tions on these two dates were valuable as
lessons and practice, but so far as the reduction
of the forts wont they were practically without
result. We learned again at Santiago what the
allied forces had learned at Sebastopol and Cron-
stadt, and what we had learned at Charleston.
When the shells fell unpleasantly near the gun
ners they left their guns, and when the bombard
ment was over the damages were repaired and the
forts and batteries were in as good fighting trim
as before. During these two bombardments our
ships expended ammunition to the value of three
hundred thousand dollars, killed and wounded
less than three hundred Spaniards, and at the
conclusion of the engagements Morro was practi
cally unscathed and the earthworks practically as
good as ever.
Nor did these bombardments result in drawing
a very heavy Spanish fire, the return from all

Copyright by Mail and Express,

The bluffs and pier at Daiquiri, the first landing place of Shafter's troops in Cuba.

The Fall of Santiago. 77
the fortifications being extremely small and de
liberate. Not more than ten per cent, of the
guna in place was used, and if our attacks were
practically without result the Spanish reply was
absolutely unproductive of harm.
Neither can the bombardment by the dynamite
cruiser or gunboat Vesuvius be said to have
effected the "tremendous revolution in naval
warfare" which some people expected of her.
The first use of the Vesuvius was on Monday,
June 13. Commander Pillsbury had been beg
ging Sampson ever since his arrival off Santiago
for permission to try his three pneumatic tubes,
and on Monday night he gained the admiral's
coasent. It was dark as a pit's mouth all about
the harbor entrance, and under cover of this
blackness the Vesuvius crept up to within three-
quarters of a mile and fired her first gun.
The term is used only as a colloquialism, for as
one of description it is entirely inaccurate.
When the Vesuvius discharged her shell there
was no smoke, no flash and, in place of an explo
sion, a peculiar husky, wheezing sound, as
though — so said the sailors in homely but ex
pressive phrase — some gigantic cow had been
choked with an enormous turnip and were trying
to cough it up. But, while the emission and
flight of the projectile^ — a contact exploding

78 The Fall of Santiago.
shell containing two hundred pounds of gun
cotton — were noiseless, the landing of the mis
sile was thunderous. Three shells at this time
were fired, all three exploded on impact and
each explosion was as though there had been
some convulsion of nature — not so much a deaf
ening sound as an all-pervading and appalling
concussion. Here again, while it was proved that the Vesu
vius could successfully discharge her gun-cotton
shells, that these shells would traverse a great
distance, that impact meant detonation, and that
detonation meant a convulsion of the country
side — this practically limited the accomplish
ment of her bombardment. It was found after
ward — and following other bombardments — that
where the shells struck they changed the topog
raphy of the coast, and that the demoralizing
effect of a silently emitted shell that shook the
hills and plowed up the valleys when it struck
homte was very great, but it was also found that
the fact of the vessel's being her own gun-car
riage and the fixed elevation of the tubes meant
that it was almost impossible to aim accurately
at a fortified eminence. The Vesuvius where her
tubes could be brought to bear on an extended
area, well in range, and chiefly within the
limited parabola of her shells' flight, would

The Fall of Santiago. 79
doubtless be a tremendous engine of destructive-
ness, but the fact remains that she did not tear
up a single fort off Santiago nor send a single
gun flying into space.
Meanwhile the armada of invasion was being
rushed into sailing form, and at last the final
rendezvous of the fleet was made just inside the
bar at the mouth of Tampa Bay at 3 :50 p.m. June
14, and two hours later it got under way. The
mobilization of the transport fleet had been ac
complished with much shuttle work between the
various points of rendezvous, but when it had
formed into fair sailing order and was steaming
across the waters of the gulf it formed a naval
pageant whose like had not been seen since the
days of Philip of Spain and Drake.
Stretching over twenty miles of sea and mov
ing slowly ahead at a seven-knot rate the
great fleet advanced in throe parallel columns.
In number they were forty; in formation the
transports kept in triple column, preceded and
flanked by the armed convoys. At the head of
the central column of transports steamed the
Detroit with pennant flying; while to the right of
the troop ships were aligned the Indiana, Anna
polis, Castine and Panther. In patrol duty the
Bancroft flitted along to the left; the Hornet and
Scorpion steamed in among the troop ships like

80 The Fall of Santiago.
marshals at a parade to keep the procession well
in order, while the Helena brought up the rear.
As in a procession, too, sometimes the divisions
would become ill spaced. Then the whole parade
would halt and the little steaming, puffing
marshals would scurry here and there, driving
the laggard into place or keeping back too restive
a member, while the transport steamers marked
time by rolling and pitching in the short run
ning seas. All around, like the uneasy boys on
the street flitted the press dispatch boats and
private craft attracted by the novelty, danger and
excitement of the event.
Guarded, though it was, by warships and
moving though it might be into the enemy's
waters, there was nothing about the whole fleet
that would indicate impending fight. It was,
rather, the ostentatious, open order of a floating
armament devised as a spectacle. Far as the
eye could reach the ships spread out covering
the sea, as open to the enemy's view as though
it had been a moving continent. The guns of
the great pyramidical Indiana boomed out a
salute to the commanding general, the Bancroft
howled orders through her siren, and so vast
was the formation that had an enemy attacked
the rear the Indiana could not have seen it even
from her fighting tops.

The Fall of Santiago. 81

o^

There was a bright sunshine, sky and sea
were both of the vividest blue, and over sky
and sea both there rushed white flecks — these of
clouds, those of foam. The decks of the ships
were crowded with men ; right at the head of the
middle column flew a dark-blue flag with its
Maltese cross at the foremast head of the Sagur-
anca, the headquarters of General Shafter;
orders were shouted here and there through the
megaphone; the hospital ship steamed about
like a doctor on his visits inquiring the health of
his patients in reply to the sick signal, and so
with running seas, bright skies by day and
lighted ships by night the great armada moved
majestically along.
On Friday, June 17, those on the transport
fleet caught the first sight of the Cuban coast, a
white lighthouse on the outlying key of Paredon
Grande. Then on Saturday the mainland came
into view — hazy hills along Cape Lucretia;
Sunday morning the fleet turned into the Wind
ward Passage ; Cape Maysi was rounded at night,
and early on the morning of Monday, June 21,
the seventh day of the fleet's journey from Port
Tampa, the great broken Sierras that lie around
Santiago came into view.
As an evidence of the impatience with which
the arrival of the transport fleet had been awaited.

82 The Fall of Santiago.
the two tugs, Eesolute and Wompatuck, were
seen by the lookout men on board the Indiana
steaming about Cape Maysi like pilots on the
lookout for a patron, and another evidence was
observed when these same lookout men saw that
as soon as the watching tugs caught a glimpse of
Shafter's armada they scurried away with the
news toward Santiago. Next the Detroit caught
the infection of impatience, and when the fleet
was abreast of Guantanamo she put on full steam
and raced with the tugs for first place in carry
ing the news.
As the great sea procession moved slowly into
view of the blockading fleet the waiting sailors
burst into a mighty cheer, and as the line of
massive gray hulks was seen by the fighting men
on board the transports they sent back the cheer.
And so it went on in a majestic and inspiring
antiphonal of hurrahs that must have crossed
the hills and reached Santiago itself. The flag
ship fired a salute and sent the Admiral's launch
to welcome Shafter, while with signals flying the
great transport fleet wheeled into position with
every ship's bows facing Santiago.
For the sailors it meant that something was to
be done beside swinging up and down in the oily
waters of the Caribbean Sea or firing shells at
ever demolished and ever repaired earthworks ;

Copyright by Mail and Express.

The first landing place of the Americ

an troop

JS in Cuba — View of Daiquir.

The Fall of Santiago. 83
while to the soldiers it meant something more
than the dreary routine of camp life, the vexa
tion of contradictory orders and the cramped life
of the transports. For both, it meant action
and war at last.
Early next morning, that is, on Tuesday, June
21, Shafter and Sampson went ashore at the little
landing-place of Aceraderos to meet Garcia and
discuss the best location for landing the troops.
Garcia was in favor of landing there and advanc
ing on Santiago from the west, and Sampson was
inclined to agree with him, but Shafter, who had
closely inspected the coast from a launch the day
before, and who had studied the best available
maps, decided in favor of Daiquiri, fifteen miles
to the east of the Santiago harbor. The Gen
eral's two chief reasons for this selection were
that from Daiquiri could be gained the command
of a great plateau directly overlooking Santiago
and that the cove contained a railroad wharf.
Deference was naturally paid to the wish of the
general in command, and the conference broke
up after settling the plans of co-operation on the
part of the fleet and insurgents.
Daiquiri deserves a paragraph to itself. At it
the coast range of Santiago Province, known as
the Sierra Cobre, ends in a great peak or mas
sive pile of rocks called La Gran Piedra, which

84 The Fall of Santiago.
seems to rise abruptly from the sea. It does
not, however, drop sheer into the sea, but puts
out a number of rugged spurs which have been
cleft in some cataclysm into a series of sharply
cut rocky formations separated by well-defined
chasms or gullies. To some poetic-souled Span
iard, these massive, steep-sided rook masses con
veyed the impression of altars, and so the locality
is set down on some maps as Las Altares. Between
the beach and the mountain peak stretches a
terrace some fift3' feet above the water, and on
this terrace had been built a little settlement of
some twenty frame houses, owned by the Span
ish American Iron Company, largely controlled
by the Carnegie Corporation at Pittsburg. The
company had been formed to exploit the iron
mines which lie ten miles away in the mountains
overlooking Santiago harbor. Between the mines
and the landing-place the company had also built
a railroad which at Daiquiri ended in a trestle
bridge and loading chutes, a wharf, a machine
shop, and roundhouse. The surf thunders cease
lessly in on all the coast except in one little cove
to the west of the railroad wharf, and through this
break and at this wharf and along the sparse
stretches of coral beach it was that the landing
took place on the morning of Wednesday, June
22.

The Fall of Santiago. 85
Before the landing, however, the blockading
fleet had its part to play. That part was a dual
one. First to insure as nearly as possible a safe
landing for the troops, and secondly to confuse
the Spaniards as to the selected place of landing.
To carry out the second part of this programme
the Cubans counterfeited a scene of great prep
aration at Aceraderos and decoy transports
sailed into Cabanas Bay, a small inlet about two
miles distant from the entrance. For the first
part of the programme Sampson treated the men
on the transports to a sight which they will never
forget. It was that of twenty miles of bombard
ment. East and west of Santiago harbor the
great fleet of warships stretched along the shore,
hurling shells at Aguadores, Cabanas, Siboney,
Juragua, Daiquiri, and wherever a roundhouse
was noticed, an earthwork seen, or a blockhouse
flag distinguished.
The feature of this twenty miles of bombard
ment was the long distance duel between the
Texas and the Socapa battery. It was remark
able for two things. First, as an engagement
between a single battleship and a shore battery
in which the ship shelled the fort to a standstill,
and secondly, as furnishing the unusual example
of a Spanish cannoneer hitting his mark and kill
ing his man. The engagement grew out of the

86 The Fall of Santiago.
feint which had been planned for Cabanas
Bay. Ten transports had been ordered to make a
pretense of landing troops there, and the Texas,
Scorpion and Vixen had been ordered to shell
the blockhouse and surrounding hills as if
covering the landing. During the night of
June 21-22, the Texas steamed into the shadow
of the Cabanas mountains, and daylight found
her there waiting for the transports. At seven
o'clock four of these appeared and the Texas, to
get the shore range, fired a half-dozen rifle shots.
They were immediately answered by a gun from
high-perched Socapa — a shell in splendid line
whistling over the mastheads as the puff of white
smoke rose above the fort. The range was found
to be five thousand yards and the accuracy of
the Spanish gunner at that long distance was
such a thorough surprise that Captain Philip
decided to give tho feint a larger proportion of
actuality than had been intended.
The port twelve-inch turret gun was trained
on Socapa, and as its report shook the ship a
cloud of red dust was seen to rise over the Span
ish guns. Forging slowly but steadily nearer,
the Texas followed this first shot with a contin
ued and well-aimed fire from the big guns of her
port battery. Hit after hit was counted, but

The Fall of Santiago. 87
unfortunately the Texas had no explosive shells
for her turret guns and could only use the solid,
armor-piercing shot. It was the crushing force
of the impact, therefore, and not the rending of
an explosion on which the Texas gunners had to
rely for the damage done and which, of course,
materially limited the area of possible injury.
Each shot was reported to Captain Philip, and
aiming instructions given from the bridge. The
Spanish repl.v was fierce and the most accurate
that had been experienced. Shells from the
Socapa guns moaned over the ship's deck,
splashed the water about her, rattled exploding
fragments all over her sides and at last struck
her fairly. The Indiana, Oregon, Massachusetts,
Iowa, and Brooklyn were all lying a few miles
away from the encounter, but none thought it
worth while taking a hand in the duel, holding
that the Texas was able to take care of herself.
And so it proved, the battery being fought to a
standstill by the Texas and her solid shot in an
hour and a half.
The Spaniard's shell was not only noteworthy
as killing the first man on an American vessel
during the Santiago campaign, but as furnish
ing a valuable example of the apalling force and
destructive qualities of a modern projectile.
The shell that struck the Texas was six inches

88 The Fall of Santiago.
in diameter, was of steel and weighed about
seventy-five pounds. It struck the ship's side
on the port bow about five feet below the main
deck and burst in the forward compartment where
there were six 6-po under guns, three on either
side. The crews of all these guns were at quar
ters, although they had not been in action, and
the miracle is that instead of only one man killed
and eight wounded, the entire fifteen were not
blown into fragments.
At the point of impact the ship's side consisted
of steel plates one and a quarter inches thick,
the shell piercing it like so much paper; or
rather, like so much parchment, the tough metal
being folded back in long strips. So trifling had
been the resistance of the steel that the shell
slipped through it without exploding, and would
in all probability have passed out on the other
side unexploded had it not struck a metal stan
chion amidships. The stanchion was shivered
for about two feet of its length, the shell burst,
and, while many fragments flew from the explo
sion as a common center, the larger mass of the
broken shell flew forward against the starboard
side and bulged out the stout steel plates until
they stood as a ridge on the ship's side three
inches high.
Where this bulge occurred and on the inside

«/_, ^-u-W-

copyright l»y .Mail and Express.

Debarkation of Shaft

/»~-^

¦y ^

nj ot In\ \^w\\ at Diiquin

The Fall of Santiago. 89
of the ship one of the big doubleheaded angle
irons of the ship's frame was situated. It was
of steel, nearly twice as thick and heavy as a rail
road rail, yet two feet of it were scooped out
and carried away as though chipped off by a
cold chisel. The base of the shell took a down
ward direction after cutting through the stan
chion, plowed a great furrow through the steel
deck, hit and broke a steel rib of the ship, broke
itself and buried its pieces down through four
feet of hemp hawser wound around a cable reel
which stood close to the starboard side and shiv
ered the two-foot prism of solid oak on which
the hawser was wound. By the explosion of the
shell and the fractures made by coming into con
tact with the stanchion and ribs the shell was
resolved into a flying hail of steel splinters
which swept along the starboard side for nearly
thirty feet, cutting off bolt heads, breaking gun-
fittings and actually planing off the paint from
the ship's side as cleanly as though it had been
laboriously done by hand. The fragmentary
result of the explosion was very remarkable.
The pieces of steel which were rained every
where through the compartment weighed about
an ounce each, the only fragment of any size
being rath«r less than half of the base of the
shell and it was from that fragment that the size
of the projectile was learned.

90 The Fall of Santiago.
The man who was killed was directly in the
path of the shell at the moment of its explosion,
and he was literally blown to pieces, although,
strangely enough, the comrade to whom he was
talking, and who stood at less than an arm's
length away, escaped unhurt, except for being
knocked down by the force of the explosion.
Every other man within radius of the flying frag
ments was wounded; and not only wounded, but
wounded, so to speak, profusely. One gunner
was hit with no fewer than fifteen pieces of steel,
each about the size of a hazelnut, while other
men thirty feet away from the line of shot were
found to have a dozen pieces or more of shell in
their bodies.
Lastlj', as an example of the destructive force
of the exploding shell, it may be stated that, when
it burst, the gunpowder smoke was forced by the
concussion down the ammunition hoists, and into
the forward compartments of the ship in such
volumes that for a few minutes the crew below
were almost suffocated.
This, it is repeated, was the first time that our
men had had the opportunity to observe the
havoc caused by a modern steel shell filled with
high explosives, and as Captain Philip looked at
the wrecked compartment and the dead and
wounded he was heard to say :

The Fall of Santiago. 91
"Well, if a six-inch shell did all that, what
would a thirteen-incher do?"
Ever since the arrival of the blockading fleet
outside Santiago, General Linares, in command
of the Spanish military forces of Santiago Prov
ince, had prepared for what he knew must come.
Every possible landing-place had been fortified,
and naturally in this series of defenses Daiquiri
had not escaped attention. Indeed, Daiquiri
had been especially looked after, up to a certain
point. When our troops landed there they found
what was really a magnificent system of defense,
earthworks, trenches, pits, breastworks, every
thing indeed, except the one essential — that of
artillery. When the bombardment began there
were five hundred Spaniards in charge of these in
trenchments, but when the Helena, Hornet and
Bancroft tore great gashes in the scrub and brush
of the hillsides with their shells; dropped a few
6-inch explosives among the earthworks; filled
up the rifle pits with fountains of gravel and
dust and even demolished the blockhouse on top
of the La Gran Piedra, the garrison concluded
that any attempt to keep out the American army
of invasion would be somewhat futile.
Steaming down in full view of this theatric act '
of war the transports formed outside Daiquiri,
while the signal went upon the Saguaranca,

92 The Fall of Santiago.
"Everybody get ashore. " Instantly the flotilla
of whaleboats, gigs, barges, and launches which
had hung around the transports got into motion.
The troopers rushed down the gangway, clam
bered over the side ladders, pushed their way
into the boats, a laughing, cheering, jostling
crowd, and loaded the boat to the gunwales in
their eagerness to get ashore. As the first boat,
in tow of the steam launches, started from the
fleet a few Spaniards who had taken refuge be
hind the blockhouse, ran out and began firing
at the loaded boats. As they did so a thousand
Cubans who had been brought down during the
night from Aceraderos under charge of General
Castillo, burst from the woods as if by magic
and began firing on the Spaniards. These broke
and ran for cover into the western woods, while
the New Orleans and Detroit steamed alongshore
and hastened their departure with a few shells.
All day long the landing went on. Quietly
cruising here and there like great sentries on
patrol were the vessels of war ; in uneven ranks
the transports rolled in the short running waves ;
and between these and the shore there was a con
stant procession of laden-going and empty-re
turning boats and puffing launches. All around
on the shore side of the view stretched the open
crescent of hills, wooded from verge to summit.

The Fall of Santiago. 93
On the closer hills could be seen the long shaggy
leaves of the palms, the towering coooanut trees
lifting their fronded heads above the lower
woods; as a background, a purple peak four
thousand feet high; as a foreground, beetling
cliffs and wooded glades; and as sounds, the
cheery cry of American voices, the unending call
of the chafing sea and the wild vivas of Castillo's
men as they trooped down to the landing-place
to welcome the first of the armies of liberation
after having disposed of the Spaniards in the
woods. There had been delay, disappointment and
drag in the collection and shipping of Shafter's
army, there was none in its debarkation. When
night came about twenty small boats had been
smashed at the landing-wharf by the surf, two
colored troopers of the Tenth Cavalry had been
drowned from an overturned boat, a few horses
and mules had been drowned while trying to
swim ashore, but otherwise ten thousand troops
had landed on an enemy's country without mis
hap and with a celerity and order that will
always stand as a precedent in the science of '
campaigning. Next day, in order to further expedite the
landing, those transports having artillery and
the balance of supplies were sent to Siboney

94 The Fall of Santiago.
Cove, five miles westward. Wednesday night
saw the camp fires sparkling all over the valley
and beach around Daiquiri ; and Thursday night
found the men who had lit these camp fires a
long line of marching men with its advance mak
ing for Santiago, and other camp fires sparkling
all over the valley and beach around picturesque,
but ill-starred Siboney.

The Fall of Santiago. 95

CHAPTEE V.
HOW THE KOtJGH EIDEES FOUGHT AT LA GUASIMA.
Broadly speaking, Shafter's plan of campaign
was to push his men forward as rapidly as possi
ble after landing, to drive the enemy back to
ward Santiago, and not to stop in his march on
to Santiago until he occupied the plateau and
heights which immediately looked down on and
commanded the city. He knew from the Cuban
scouts that between that point of vantage and
Daiquiri the Spanish lay in strength; and he
knew from what he had seen from shipboard and
the inspection of maps that between Santiago
and Daiquiri lay fifteen miles of the roughest
country and dense tropical jungle. Eoads, how
ever, that were down on the map in large invit
ing lines turned out, on actual inspection, to be
but bridle paths which became mud streams after
each downpour, while the transportation of artil
lery to the front would mean a gigantic task for
the engineers whose complete fulfillment would
take a far longer time than he in his impatience

96 The Fall of Santiago.
was willing to consider. But some semblance of
work on the roads was an actual necessity, and
in order to cover this preparatory work and to
clear the territory immediately surrounding the
landing, General Shafter deemed it essential to
occupy Siboney, a village occupying a command
ing position eleven miles up the coast from
Daiquiri and eight across country from Santiago.
Not waiting, therefore, for the cavalry horses,
siege artillery and balance of the troops, Shafter,
in pursuance of his impetuous plans, sent forward
General Joseph Wheeler with nine hundred and
sixty-four men from his cavalry division, made
up of eight troops of Colonel Wood's regiment
(the Eough Eiders), numbering five hundred;
four troops of the First Eegular Cavalry, num
bering two hundred and forty-four men; and
four troops of the Tenth Cavalry (colored), num
bering two hundred and twents', all dismounted.
The Eough Eiders had pleaded for advance duty
and Shafter obliged them.
These Eough Eiders furnished the picturesque
element of the army. At the very outbreak of
hostilities, and indeed before the actual declara
tion of war, there were vague rumors in the
newspapers of the contemplated formation of a
cavalry regiment for the Cuban campaign that
should be something conjointly approaching a

The Fall of Santiago. 97
Buffalo Bill show, a round-up of Western cowboys
and a congregation of cross-country huntsmen.
The credit for the initiative of the idea lies in
amiable dispute between General Miles and Theo
dore Eoosevelt, but from the very first the name
of Eoosevelt was more intimately associated in the i
public mind with the idea than that of any one
else. When war broke out he was Assistant Secre
tary of the Navy, but immediately following
on McKinley's proclamation he resigned and was
by the president named as Lieutenant-Colonel of
the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, of
which Captain Leonard Wood, assistant surgeon
in the regular army, was appointed Colonel. The
work of organization was immediately begun by
Colonel Wood and aides, who chose the Western
States as the best recruiting ground from which
to select their men. Dr. Wood, as he was general
ly known, was admirably adapted for this recruit
ing work, having had a long experience in West
ern army life. Truth to tell, there was little
need of recruiting, for with the first intimation
that the regiment was to be an accomplished
fact, the War Department was swamped with
appeals for information as to points at which
enlistments might be made.
Every man in the country who could ride a

98 The Fall of Santiago.
horse, or who had an inclination to do so, ap
peared to imagine that he was the man of all men
who should be a trooper. Colonel Wood was,
however, determined that his regiment should
only contain the very best of horsemen and
fighting material. The line was drawn rigor
ously at toughs and incapables. Every man was
a picked man and when the regiment was finally
declared to be completed at San Antonio, Texas,
it proved to be an aggregation of extremes,
record and experience that was unique in mili
tary history. The members ranged from cotil
lion leader to bronco buster, from society roy-
sterer to policeman, from dead-shot cowboy to
champion golfer, from a record-making college
runner to a steer brander of Skull Valle.y, from a
champion football player of the East to a bear
hunter of the West. Dancers, polo players,
good fellows, old soldiers, bad men, firemen — ¦
the wildest congregation of dudes and dare
devils surely that was ever brought together. A
few of the names and a word of those who bore
them should find a place here.
"Dead Shot Jim" Simpson, from Albuquerque,
N. M., could put a rifle ball through a jack
rabbit's eyes while riding a wild horse a thou
sand yards off. Woodbury Kane, a cousin of
John Jacob Astor, was equally at home as a polo

The Fall of Santiago. 99
player and a yachtsman. "Lariat Ned" Per
kins, from Trinidad, Col., had the reputation of
being able to make his twisted rope as deadly
as a rifle. Willie Tiffany, of New York, was
a cousin of the Belmonts, the nephew of Com
modore Perry and an authority on fine raiment.
"Eocky Mountain Bill" Jenkins was a mighty
hunter of the grizzly and was, literally, always
loaded for bear. Hamilton Fish, Jr., of New
York, was the descendant of a long line of
famous men and had established a reputation in
which energy and animal spirits were only
equaled by good fellowship and lovable disposi
tion. "Bronco George" Brown, of Arizona,
had killed his five men, but they all went down for
cattle stealing, for cheating at cards, or for im
pudence to women. Eeggie Eeynolds, son of
Mrs. Lorillard B. Eeynolds, was quarterback on
a Yale team and a handshaking acquaintance of
the Prince of Wales. "Fighting Bob" Wilson,
of Wyoming, was the terror of the rustlers on his
range. I. Townsend Burden, Jr., was the son of
a great millionaire of New York City, and proud
of his record on the football field.
And so, with much dust and jingle of spurs,
the plainsmen and mountaineers of the West
came trooping into San Antonio; with valets,
bathtubs, and dress-suit cases, the dudes and

100 The Fall of Santiago.
brokers of the East rolled into town in parlor
cars; with the outfits of the fop, the handbag of
the hardy experienced man, and with no kits at
all, save the things on his back and the beast
he bestrode, the Eough Eiders gathered together.
But when once together every division of class
and belonging was swept away. There was com
radeship from the start, for each man was a
United States trooper, sworn to serve his coun
try and to fight for it at thirteen dollars a month
with rations and uniform. The uniform, by the
bye, was as picturesque as the men. Made of
gray grass cloth, cool and light of texture, with
pipings and facings of blue, with a sombrero
turned up and fastened at the side with a rosette,
armed with a Krag-Jorgensen carbine, two revol
vers and a machete, the Eough Eiders presented
a decidedly dashing and warlike appearance.
In their camp life they settled down to hard
work with an energy, obedience and good will
that were glorious. Much of this hard work was
given to the breaking and drilling of the horses,
yet by one of the ironical strokes of fate the first
time the Eough Eiders went into battle they
went afoot.
Such were the Eough Eiders, who with the
First Eegulars, a regiment noted in every army
post for its steady valor, and the Tenth troopers.

The Fall of Santiago. 101
with their Western reputation as always wanting
to fight and always fighting as devils when that
want was gratified, at daybreak of June 23,
marched out of Daiquiri on the road to Siboney,
accompanied by a body of Cuban scouts. The
first halt was made at the little village of Dema-
jayabo, and for these and all other names to be
mentioned reference had i)etter be had to the
accompanying map.
That march was a trial to the souls and condi
tion of the men. They had heard of the Cuban
forests and the Cuban heat, but the most vivid
imagination had pictured nothing approaching
the reality. The road was a mule path and not
always an ordinarily good mule path at that.
Where it did not pass through swamps of malo
dorous mud it was a winding lane of irony-red
earth, which rose in clouds of dust as the men
tramped on, filled their eyes and noses, was plas
tered on their streaming faces, and found its way
even between the flaps of the buttoned gaiters.
On each side of the path rose the thick steamy
jungle, so profuse in its vegetation that its en
tangling vines and piercing thorns stretched
across it almost at every step. Sometimes there
were breaks in the chaparral, but on these open
spaces the sun beat down with uninterrupted
fervor, so that it was not a relief but rather a

102 The Fall of Santiago.
choice of evils between the blazing experience of
the bare spots and the boiling experience of the
woods. As was the case at the fight over the
hills at Guantanamo, the men started in heavy
accoutrements, in full marching order, but as
the day grew and the heat with it, the men
threw away not only their blanket rolls and pro
vision haversacks but even their clothing, until
the path side looked as though it had been
traversed rather by an army in retreat than by
one in advance.
Juragua waa reached at night without the
faintest opposition from the Spaniards, the Cuban
scouts bringing in information that the enemy
which had been in some force at Siboney had
fallen back on the Sevilla road and had halted
and intrenched themselves at a small settlement
named La Guasima, some three or four miles be
yond Siboney. Many of the men had fallen
from exhaustion, and the detachment of Eough
Eiders, which had been in charge of the dyna
mite gun, with which it was expected to do great
things, had insisted on bringing this weapon
with them, so that it was long after dusk when
the last stragglers were brought in by the rear
guard. General Castillo, who was in command
of the Cuban scouts, made out a rough map of
La Guasima for General Wheeler and it was de-

Gen. "Joe" Wheeler.

The Fall of Santiago. 103
cided to continue the march beyond Siboney at
daybreak of the 24th and attack the Spanish
position. There were two roads leading to La Guasima,
and it was decided to divide the American forces
so as to attack the Spaniards from two quarters.
Colonel Wood's regiment was sent to approach
the enemy on the left hand or mountain road,
while Wheeler and Young, with the First and
Tenth, and three Hotchkiss mountain guns, were
to attack the enemy on the main or valley road.
Young's command had somewhat the shorter
road and they started by throwing out a strong
scouting line in order to give Wood's men a
chance to work round to the left. The troopers,
as they lay at Juragua, had heard the Spaniards
felling the trees before daybreak and judged that
they were throwing up barricades, but on ac
count of the echoing hills could not exactly
locate the spot from which the sounds came.
With the general locality of the Spaniards and
the character of their position and their strength
General Wheeler was, however, measurably well
informed, as his plan of battle indicates.
In the first confused reports of what follows
the belief was entertained that the Eough Eiders
had fallen into an ambuscade, but except inso
much as nearly all the Spanish fighting was done

104 The Fall of Santiago.
from the ambush of protecting timber, dense
screens of foliage and well-hidden rifle pits, the
fight at La Guasima scarcely possessed any
greater share of an attack from ambush than did
the battles of San Juan and El Caney. No
clearer refutation of the ambush story is needed
than the fact that on the night before the battle
General Young sent for Colonel Wood and said
to him :
"Colonel, Castillo's scouts tell me that the
Spaniards have taken a very strong position near
the junction of the trail over the mountain to
Sevilla and the valley road. It is evidently their
belief that they can stop or drive us back if we
try to advance, but I think the brigade can fight
and win the first battle of the war to-morrow
morning." Althought last to start, the First and Tenth
Cavalry men were the first to open the action.
The road over which they went cheerily along
was moderately good, and the men being used
to hot weather marching made good progress.
When they rose from the valley on to one of the
foothills which rose in chaotic prodigality all
about they discovered the enemy, hurried a
Hotchkiss gun to the crest and began blazing
away. Eight across a narrow valley which lay in front

The Fall of Santiago. 105
of them rose another hill, and on it they plainly
distinguished the Spanish position. The main
body of the Spaniards was posted around two
blockhouses near the summit, flanked by irreg
ular intrenchments of stone and trees. These
intrenchments were in the shape of a broad V or
horseshoe, the point of which was toward the
trail and road where they came together at the
foot of the hill. In this position they were en
abled to offer a triple fire against any advancing
force. Between the intrenchments and the trails
was a dense thicket, and as it proved afterward,
this thicket was alive with sharpshooters and
guerrillas. The main body of the regulars was
streaming up the valley road after the advance
men with their Hotchkiss, but the Eough Eiders
could not be seen owing to the broken nature of
the country and its densely wooded character.
As a matter of fact, they were, at that time,
pushing along the trail which led over the crest
of a hill much similar in elevation and character
to that occupied by the regulars. If this de
scription is at all clear it will be seen, therefore,
that in the confusion of hills there were three
that were distinct points of interest. To the
right that occupied by the Eegulars, to the left
that over which the Eough Eiders were climbing
and, between these two flanking elevations, the

106 The Fall of Santiago.
central hill on which the Spaniards were
posted. The distance between the two hills occupied
by our men was about half a mile. The Hotch
kiss pieces began the fight at seven-thirty,
and in reply to the first rattling sweep of the
machine guns the whole front of the hill facing
them burst into volleys from the Spanish Mau
sers. The troopers were instantly ordered to lie
down in the road along which they were strung.
General Young's command being "Don't shoot
until you see something to shoot at," which he
yelled to his men as stripped to the waist they
crawled and squirmed into some position from
which they could get a chance to see their
enemies. Almost immediately thereafter came
the crack of the Krag-Jorgensens from Colonel
Wood's men and the engagement was on.
Meanwhile, the Eough Eiders had pushed their
way over the cactus-lined mountain trail. They
had marched two miles when they came across
the body of a dead Cuban and this evidence of
the Spanish whereabouts was sufficient to admon
ish the men that an especially sharp lookout was
necessary. The dead scout was found by the
skirmishers of Troop L, which was under com
mand of Captain Allyn K. Capron. He imme
diately deployed his men and sent back word to

The Fall of Santiago. 107
Colonel Wood of his discovery. The regiment
was hurried up, but before it could be well de
ployed the whole line of thickets to their front
and right broke out with the sharp, sibillant sing
of the Spanish rifles. As at Guantanamo the
Spaniards fired in such rapid volleys by holding
the rifle at the hip and pumping the shots out
with the quick fanning of the right hand on the
lever bar that the discharges actually sounded
as though they were from machine guns.
Word was passed along the American line to
fire right and left and in front, and for an hour
and a half this fight of gunnery continued. Ow
ing to the facts that the Spanish were so com
pletely under cover and that they used smokeless
powder it was almost impossible to direct any
answering fire that might be effective, but by
careful watching a Spanish head was seen here
or there or some sharpshooter was seen slipping
from cover to cover, and wherever either head or
sharpshooter was seen an American bullet was
sure to find its mark.
In the first blaze of the Mausers' Hamilton
Fish was killed. He was in the advance as the
head of the skirmishers turned the crest of the
hill and though the order to take cover was im
mediate, the commanding position of the Spanish
riflemen was such that they could send a drop-

108 The Fall of Santiago.
ping fire into the men as they lay down. Along
side Fish lay Ed Culver, a Cherokee Indian, and
the same long Mauser bullet that struck the
brave roystering aristocrat struck the half-breed,
for it passed through Fish's body and lodged in
that of Culver. When Fish was struck he said
to Culver: "I am wounded," to which Culver
made reply: "And I am killed." But it was
not BO, for it was Fish who died when they took
him back and set him under a tree with his face
to the enemy, while the half-breed Indian lived
and, though shot through the lung, continued
to empty his rifle at the Spaniards until his am
munition pouch was exhausted and the gun fell
from his hands.
Soon after this Captain Capron was shot as he
walked along the line cheering his men. He had
taken a rifle from a wounded man and was firing
when the bullet struck him. As the troopers
lifted him to carry him to the rear he shook his
head and said: "No, place me here. I want to
see this thing out."
And so he did, for they propped up his head
so that the firing line was visible, and when the
captain died the troopers were chasing down the
valley and up the hill and the day was prac
tically won.
When it was seen that only a desperate charge

The Fall of Santiago. 109
would win the day, orders were sent along the
line for an advance and then began the first of
those cyclonic rushes which later won Santiago,
and which so amazed the Spaniards. By all the
rules of warfare to which they were accustomed,
the Spanish soldiers held an impregnable posi
tion, while the fire to which the Americans were
exposed was one that could only force a retreat.
But the Americans had quite another idea and
when the word came to advance they leaped from
cover with yell that rang from end to end of the
line, and went sweeping down the sides of their
hills, across the valleys beneath, and up the
central mountain.
As at Guantanamo the long line of men would
rush forward, loading as they rushed, then halt
with a rock-like poise, aim and fire, and then
rush on again. On the right could be heard the
screaming negroes of the Tenth, in the center
the First Cavalry moved forward like a living
wall, while to the left the Eough Eiders, yelling
like Indians, pressed forward, Eoosevelt in the
lead with a Erag-Jorgensen in his hands and
yelling as loud as the wildest man from the West.
The Spanish fire was steady enough for a time,
but nothing could stand the charges of our men.
So fast was the pace of the soldiers across the
valley and up the hill that they threw away their

110 The Fall of Santiago.
side arms and accouterments in order to move
the faster. The Spaniards moved back as the
men advanced, but made a stand in the intrench
ments and blockhouse. Between these and the
line of advance there was an open space of roll
ing land, some three hundred yards across. It
was when the Americans emerged from the bush
into this open space that the Spanish made their
last attempt to drive back the attacking line, and
it was when they saw how the dismounted cav
alrymen swept across the clearing notwithstand
ing the way in which they went down under
the close range Mauser fire that they gave up the
impossibility of resisting men who did not know
when they were beaten, broke and ran. On
swept our men, and with a mighty cheer the hill
was won, Eough Eiders and Eegulars, white and
black, shaking hands and cheering again when
they found breath — brothers in arms indeed.
Inside the trenches were many Spanish dead ;
within the blockhouse were seventeen more, and
a long line of wagons with wounded could be
seen making its way down the Santiago trail.
Altogether and from after reports the estimate
is made that the Spanish losses at La Guasima
numbered fully one hundred and fifty. Our
losses were, of the First United States Volunteer
Cavalry, eight killed, thirty -four wounded; of

The Fall of Santiago. Ill

'o^

the First United States Cavalry, seven killed,
eight wounded ; of the Tenth United States Cav
alry, one killed, ten wounded ; that is, out of a
total strength of nine hundred and sixty-four
men, sixteen were killed and fifty-two wounded.
Beside these losses to the combatants, Edward
Marshall, a New York Journal correspondent, was
seriously and for a time it was believed fatally
wounded. He was in the advance with the
Eough Eiders as they moved up the trail and
was plodding, struggling along with the best of
them when the murderous volley from the Span
iards stopped the advance. Though warned of
his danger he had taken a place underneath a royal
palm from which he could note the progress of
the fight, when a Mauser bullet passed from the
groin, the point of entrance, through the body
and shattered the base of the spine. Though
told by the surgeons on the field that the blow was
a mortal one, Marshall kept his ground. It was an
illustration of another kind of bravery than that
of the fighting men. It was the bravery of duty.

112 The Fall of Santiago.

CHAPTEE VI.
HOW THE AEMY MARCHED TO THE FRONT.
The skirmish of La Guasima took place on June
24 ; the first assault on the outposts of Santiago
occurred on July 1. Between those dates, how
ever, much was done, and while that much did
not include any more brushes with the Span
iards, it was a time of hard and testing experi
ence. The story of the great fighting will be
found in the next chapters, but he who would
read these chapters with understanding had bet
ter read this.
Anticipatory descriptions, it is true, are al
ways more or less looked upon as halts in a fair-
running story, but sometimes these halts are
necessary for the full appreciation of the develop
ment of that story. The description of the bat
tles of San Juan and El Caney, however lamely
toid, cannot fail to make the pulses beat, but
unless one puts oneself more nearly into the
place of the American soldier than would be the
case should the story jump from the landing at

The Fall of Santiago. 113
Daiquiri to the dash up the great hills that form
the outposts of the Gran Mesa, one will not get
truly into the very heart of the task which was
set the American soldier to do.
When the news of the landing at Daiquiri
reached Washington the great war maps of San
tiago were spread out, and it was noticed with
satisfaction that from the landing-place there ran
a broad highway over the hills to Santiago. But
as was the case when studying the road that was
taken by the Eough Eiders, the inaccuracies of
the great map of Cuba, compiled though it was
by the Spanish government, were astonishing.
For instance, the railroad, which really ends at
Daiquiri, is set down as turning inland from a
point some five or six miles to the east of its
actual terminus. The suburb of El Caney is
written Guay, and is located five miles to the
west of where it really is ; Siboney is not on the
maps at all, while towns which are marked inland
were found to be on the seacoast, and those
which were set down on the cliffs were found to
be miles back in the woods. To add to these
contradictions of topography it was found that
the residential nomenclature was not at all that
of the map-maker, while the Cubans, possibly as
another evidence of their love of freedom, had

114 The Fall of Santiago.
from two to half a dozen different names for the
same place.
But, perplexing as these contradictions and
mislooations were, they faded into insignificance
before the upset of transportation plans and the
new set of physical problems which were caused
and presented by the vast difference of what was
seen on the maps and what was found on land.
In the matter of roads it may be set down at once
that the invading army found none that could be
called military highways. What it did find were
trails and bridle paths. On the maps and from
the sea were shown and could be seen the larger
outlines of the Sierra Cobre, but these broad
outlines concealed a mass of smaller, but steep,
declivities, cross-running hills, swampy gullies
and rooky spurs that lined the face of nature as
thickly as do the wrinkles on that of an old
Breton fisherwoman.
The Gran Mesa was to Major-General Shafter
the great alluring spot from the very outset.
To gain that plateau was the central point of his
strategy. That plateau was, as it were, like the
palm of an inviting hand laid down midway on
the map between Daiquiri and Santiago. To
the west of the plateau, that is Santiago wards,
it was flanked by a system of hills whose slopes
trended down to the city. The occupation of

Cuban scouts on the advance from El Caney to Caimanes to intercept General Pando.

The Fall of Santiago. 115
this plateau therefore, with its bulwark of hills,
meant the command, the actual investment, of
Santiago. To throw his men right across the
country, until it should form a line across these
uplands, was therefore Shafter's first necessity.
It was, to use the same figure of speech, as
though, having gained a place on that inviting
palm of the Gran Mesa, the hand were turned
until it rested on edge, forming a living line of
ciroumvallation which was to move closer and
closer on the invested city.
Two other factors were to be considered in the
coming fight : First the possible reinforcement of
General Linares by General Pando ; second, the
possible escape of General Linares from Santiago
when he found that the day had gone against
him. Shafter had fourteen thousand seven hun
dred men; the best, the most reliable, estimates
placed the army of Linares at eleven thousand
four hundred and thirty, while Pando was re
ported as having nine thousand under him at
Holquin. To prevent Linares from slipping
away from and Pando from slipping into Santi
ago, therefore, it was an essential that — still
keeping to the simile of the hand — the finger
tips should be crooked until the living line
which it indicated had closed around Santiago
Bay on the north and westward. So the moving

116 The Fall of Santiago.
and crushing process was to go on until Santiago
was in the American grasp.
By looking at the accompanying map it will
be seen that were a line drawn across the three
points, Aguadores, San Juan and El Caney and
then curved around to the westward, it would
roughly form a parallel line to that of the Santi
ago Bay shore. These three places, because of
their position and because they were the foci of
the Spanish defenses, were therefore selected as
the three main points in the plan of occupation
and investment, with San Juan as the center. El
Caney as the right and Aguadores as the left of
attack. General Lawton's division was to as
sault El Caney ; General Duffield was to march
against Aguadores, and Generals Wheeler and
Kent were to advance against San Juan.
This broad outline of Shafter's plan of attack
is all that need be given here. What is next to
be shown is what our men encountered as they
moved into position to carry out this plan of
attack. In order that there might be as little
congestion as possible and in pursuance with the
commanding officer's policy of hurry work, the
troops were hastened forward from the landing-
places as rapidly as possible. The nest days
saw the entire debarkation of the first army of
invasion, this work having been expedited by

The Fall of Santiago. 117
sending some of the transports into the adjoin
ing cove of Siboney after it had been ridden of
the enemy by the dismounted cavalry on June
24. It was a fatal expediteness as it proved, for
though the selection of this enticing, vine-
embowered little hamlet by the sea was undeni
ably useful as a second and additional point from
which to hurry troops inland and new base of
supplies, it proved afterward to be the starting
point of a plague that meant a shallow Cuban
grave for many a good man.
In the first days the march toward Santiago
was generally begun in the early morning or the
late afternoon, but toward the last, regiments,
companies and troops were sent forward at any
hour, no matter what the position of the sun.
Each regiment, company or troop went forward
with a swing, but as the days of weary climbing
through brush and undergrowth, over rocks and
across gullies went on, the very life seemed to
go out of the men. ^
The curious tourists who will flock to Santiago
and walk back over the road from the lovely
suburb of El Caney to Daiquiri and note that
between the metropolis of eastern Cuba and the
landing-place of the iron company there is a
road, and a moderately good one, will fail to un
derstand the true character of the Via Dolorosa

118 The Fall of Santiago.
over which our troops had to make their way.
Before these troops had stamped it into some
thing like a roadbed and the engineers had been
fitfully at work, before the brush had hcBn cut
away and the swamps logged into something ap
proaching passability, every step was a labor.
Then the roads outside the one main route were
simply errant paths through dense tropical for
ests, over sun-scorched patches of desert and
through rank grass and tangled weeds which
were as ropes and nets to the feet of the men.
There were no bridges over the streams, no tres
tles across the gullies, and nowhere were the
paths wide enough for two vehicles. What this
moment was the trickling remnant of a stream in
a rocky bed became a torrential river after five
minutes' of cloudburst in the mountains; the
engineers' makeshift bridges were swept away
time and again; wagon trains were stalled all
along the line of march, communication was at
times entirely interrupted between the front and
the shore depots, and as an example of the condi
tion of things it may be stated that during the
four days preceding the surrender it was only
possible to get to the front one light battery of
the six brought by General Eandolph, while not
a single one of the heavy siege guns was taken
off the transports at Siboney.

The Fall of Santiaffo. 119

o

The experience which had been that of the
First and Tenth Cavalry and Eough Eiders was
repeated in the case of the troops in the main
advance. When they started on the march every
man went in full marching order. That meant
rifle, cartridges, bayonet, pistol, canteen,
poncho, half of a shelter tent, rations and what
ever else the man might like to burden himself
with. The men had worn these traps on the hot
but breezy days when they were in Camp Black,
on the hotter and breezeless days when they
were at Chickamauga, in the sweltering pine
groves back of Tampa, and in the oven-like
plains of our great middle basin, but none of
these experiences had fitted them for what they
were enduring now. As the regiments moved
from the beaches up into the trails, they were as
presentable and trim a set of fighting men as one
would wish to see. When they had got into po
sition along the line of attack they were as
untrim, un-uniformed and bedraggled a lot of
fighting men as ever did great deeds. As they
struggled up the hillsides and tramped down
the slopes the packs shifted and slipped and bore
down on them ; and as the sun beat down on the
lines of men that were stretched for miles
through this terrible country the packs and
bundles and impedimenta slid about as though

120 The Fall of Santiago.
they were alive, and gained in weight from
pounds to tons. In the woods the packs caught
in the overhanging underbrush and sent the men
stumbling and falling. In the open places the
sun was like a furnace and the packs were like
lead. At last one man threw his blanket away
and then was begun over and carried out that
scene of derobement and dispossession which had
marked the progress of the dismounted cavalry
men. Blankets were strung along the bushes as
though some flock of gigantic sheep had gone
through and had left tufts of wool on every
bush. After the blankets went cans of meat,
then the shelter tents, then the cooking outfit,
then coats and underclothes and anything else
except his fatigue uniform, his rifle and cart
ridges, for these last two essentials every man
kept. This was while the sun was blazing, but when
the sun set there came another evil out of this
strange land. The awful heat passed and with
the night air came a penetrating, damp chill that
seemed to touch the bone.
All during the day not even the liveliest imagi
nation could conceive of such heat being followed
by any such poetic relief as "the cool of the
evening," nor were the evenings cool, but it was
at that crisis of the night, the early hours of

The Fall of Santiago. 121
dawn, that the searching, penetrating cold came
upon the men. So cold indeed was it at this
time, partly by comparison with the hot day and
partly as a positive condition, that the men were
actually awakened shivering at about two or three
o'clock. The first consideration then was warmth
and dryness, but when another hour or so had
passed and reveille had sounded at four o'clock
another change had come and exercise seemed
the desideratum in the fresh of the morning.
Another hour or two and as the sun mounted
and the pitiless heat grew apace all the men
wanted to do was to sit and rest. So the changes
went on, from cool humidity to hot humidity,
each change sapping away the very vitality of
the men.
A still more serious result to the men came
from their stripping themselves during their
march. Not only did they throw away their
heavy clothing, but they rejected their food sup
plies, trusting to luck and the supply trains; or
they abandoned their rations for the simple rea
son that the rations were heavy and they were
hot. But the supply trains, as has been inti
mated, were as rare as Sunday railway trains in
Vermont, and the situation of the camps soon
became a serious one. Officers and men were
alike in their plight, but all through the ranks

122 The Fall of Santiago.
there was no complaining. The ready helping
hand of good companionship was there and the
clever combining, lending and aiding that went
far toward relieving the individual discomforts,
and that welded the companionship of the men
into those strong bonds of friendship formed in
times of trial which never break and live forever.
One great practical lesson in the economy of
the commissariat was learned in this march.
When the men left the landing-places they car
ried cans of preserved food — admirable forms of
protected diet under certain conditions, but cans
of meat and vegetables are decidedly iumpj' and
uncomfortable adjuncts to a march through a
tropical forest, and, it will be remembered, they
were among the first things to be slung into the
bush. Between a future meal of bacon and
beans and a present bumping battering ram
there was no choice, and the banging thing was
discarded. The three essentials of food that the
men clung to were coffee, hardtack and bacon — ¦
the standard rations — and it was proved again
that with these three simples an army could be
kept in well-sustained and fighting trim.
The men on march, too, furnished a practical
solution of the water question. Before the inva
sion of Cuba there were many learned discus
sions on water supply, the hygiene of water-drink-

The Fall of Santiago. 123
ing, clever arrangements for filtration and the
establishment of condensing plants. Scientific
men, military men and fadful men wrote and
talked about the water of Cuba and the water
which our troops were to get while in Cuba. It
was to be boiled and filtered and never drunk
unless filtered and boiled. In theory, the
columns of learned matter which were printed
and the hours of clever talk which were given td
the subject were admirable. In practice, the
men drank the first water they came to. When
the Spaniards withdrew from Daiquiri and Sib-'
oney they partially destroyed the water systems
of those two places, but our engineers repaired
them and the water taken from those tanks was
freely used without boiling or filtering, and with
out any ill effects. In the inland march the men
crossed many streams, large and small, and the
men drank of these streams without boiling or
filtering and apparently without any ill effects.
The water that did bother them was that which
came down in sheets, cold drenching sheets,
every time the black clouds swept across the
Sierra Cobre. They had heard of the wet season
in Cuba, but as their experience of Cuban heat
transcended their imagination of it, so was it the
case in their conception and experience of a rainy
afternoon near Santiago. Before the storm

124 The Fall of Santiago.
came, the sultry air grew still sultrier. From
the trampled, beaten, crushed, tropical under
growth rose sickening odors and heavy miasmatic
mists. As the heat grew fiercer, the odors and
mists grew heavier. Every life-giving quality of
the air seemed to be squeezed out of it, and even
the myriad insects and crawling reptiles were
quieted. Then, just as the sizzling heat reached a
spot where it apparently could go no further
and be bearable, a zigzag flash, a thunderclap,
and a cataract of ice-cold rain came simulta
neously, and every man was soaked and shiver
ing. If the men were marching, they found
themselves suddenly wading through swift run
ning streams of cold muddj' water, with what
they had on changed from its reek of perspira
tion into cold, wet, clinging garments. If the
men were in camp or the trenches, their fires
were put out and every ditch became a mud pool.
For two or three hours the icy water fell, until
all the hillsides were moving with a floating mass
of mud and leaves, and the muddy water in the
trails had risen from sole to ankle and from ankle
to legging top. Then, as suddenly as it had
begun, the storm would come to an end, the sun
came out hotter than ever; the wet ground
steamed; horrible crawling, flying things filled

The Fall of Santiago. 125

&^

the muggy air, and from shivering the men
passed to gasping. Yet through it all the men
pressed forward, far less complainingly perhaps,
than they would have done had they been at
home and a summer shower had spoiled their
picnic. The flying pests of Cuba the men found bad
enough, but it was the consensus of opinion
that bad as gnats, mosquitoes and beetles were
they were far less dreaded than the land crabs,
and this because of the repulsiveness of the
latter creatures. These hard-shelled, crawling
things were everywhere, in the woods and on the
plains; crowds of them in the gullies and troops
of them on the hilltops. No matter where the
men marched or where they halted, there were
the squads, regiments and battalions of the land
crabs, until the men were sickened at the sight
and began to believe that, like sharks following
a ship, the land crabs actually followed the
army, a species of horrible camp follower. In size
the land crabs varied from four to twelve inches
across the carapace, its covering area being, of
course, increased by legs and claws, the latter
qu'.te formidable implements.
They are rather gay-colored creatures, their
tints ranging from light-green to dark-blue, the
blue crab being the most objectionable. They are

126 The Fall of Santiago.
decidedly gregarious and travel in hosts, and are
not inclined to let anything interfere with their
line of progression. Individuall.v, the crab walks
in a decidedly aggressive attitude. The eye
stalks are thrust out, the body tilted sidewise,
and the claws thrown upward and outward like
sabers. He has the strange fashion of moving
forward for a few feet then rapidly scuttling
either to the right or to the left, and then as
abruptly walking backward. As this decidedly
eccentric method of advance seems to animate
the whole body of crabs, the aggjegate result is
that this whole body of crabs seems to move
along in a wave-like motion. As they move they
clash their claws and rattle among themselves,
so that when making their way through the brush
or grass the sound of their progress is so singu
larly like that of men marching that our pickets
constantly mistook the advance of the crabs for
the sudden onslaught of the enemy. As the men
marched the crabs marched too in parallel
columns; and whe:a the men halted for the night
the crabs swarmed over the sleeping men and
acted in a generally inquisitive and unpleasant
fashion. Many stories were spread by imagina
tive Cubans of the uncanny results of crab-nips,
of nocturnal attacks on protruding toes, and of
the desperate results that would follow should a

The Fall of Santiago. 127
crab desire the protruding toe; of their living in
the poisoned shade of witch trees and so on, but
in plain truth they are the creeping buzzards of
the West Indies, and aid those disagreeable look
ing bird in the great work of scavengering.
A glance at the map will show that Santiago lies
at the head of a landlocked bay, six miles from the
sea. Aguadores lies two and a half miles east of
the entrance to the harbor and is directly south of
Santiago itself, the bay shore curving northward
to El Morro. Four miles southeast of Santiago
is the ridge of San Juan. Three miles northwest
of Santiago is the suburb of El Caney, which is
six miles due north of San Juan. A line from
El Caney to Aguadores through San Juan would
be a fairly straight line in a southwesterly di
rection. Both San Juan and El Caney are
perched upon hills, the flat-topped steep-sided
formation before alluded to as the distinguishing
mark of Las Altares characterizing the scores of
hills into which the country is broken to the east
of Santiago Bay. On the flat tops of these hills
the rich Santiagoans had built themselves broad-
eaved country seats, or farmhouses, the altitude of
the locality and the general park-like character
of the country making these plantation houses
charming homes.
The Spanish engineers were quick to see the

128 The Fall of Santiago.
strategical importance of these hills as natural
defenses and were most ingenious in their elabo
rations upon nature's work. The farmhouses, or
country seats, were quickly and effectually trans
formed into forts by filling the spaces between
the piazza pillars with ramparts of broken stone
or earth bags and by breaking out loopholes in
the walls. Where no farmhouses stood they
built a blockhouse of planks and stone, and
perched these so promiscuously and generously
about that from any commanding elevation one
might count a score of these tiny forts.
As a further elaboration in the system of de
fense the engineers made free use of Weyler's
great barbed-wire idea. Barbed-wire fences
were found bordering the trails and it was
learned that these had been erected for the sim
ple purpose of keeping the Cubans in the right
path, any Cuban caught straying in the woods
being summarily treated as one who had crossed
the deathline; or at least as one who was a
poacher on preserves, or a suspicious character.
Barbed-wire was strung around the approaches
to every blockhouse. The Eough Eiders had
found it impeding their way when they charged
the hill at La Guasima and the men who fought
at San Juan and El Caney found that, like the
experience of Cuban heat and Cuban jungle, the

From photograph by J. C. Hcmmrnt. Copvtight, 1S9S, bv W. B. Hearst.
The trenches with their barbed wire protections on the San Juan hiU. After Kent's men had emptied the
ditches of the dead Spaniards, they leaped into the pits and turned their guns on the fleeing enemy.

The Fall of Santiago. 129
reality went far ahead of even the most vivid
anticipation. The quartermaster-general had been forwarned
of the barbed-wire defenses which the American
army would meet with in Cuba and had fore
armed the men with nippers, but nippers, like
cans of corned beef, are hard things to carry on
a hot march, and were among the first of the im
pedimenta to be dropped. Moreover, when the
barbed-wire fences were met with they did not
yield to the nippers as easily as had been antici
pated. The nippers had been supplied on the
belief that the barbed-wire abatis was composed
simply of wire fences of from four to eight feet
high, and that a few vigorous nips along the
posts would result in loose strands that could
easily be thrown back and so open the way to
the men. It was found, however, that the
barbed-wire defenses were not built on this simple
fence plan. Instead of being stretched in regular
strands the wire was strung from tree to tree at
the most irregular heights possible. Some
times, a strand was found fastened to a stump
and running thence to a neighboring tree at such
an angle as to carry it ten feet from the ground,
from which it slanted down to the next tree to a
height of three or four feet from the ground.
Six or eight strands of the wire would thus be

130 The Fall of Santiago.
run irregularly along for miles, and it meant a
hunt to discover each individual strand.
To have done with the barbed-wire question
so as not to let it interfere with the plain de
scription of the fight, it may be said here that
both at San Juan and El Caney it was frequently
found that the only way to discover the presence
of a barbed-wire fence was to run against it. At
the last slope-down of a steep hill, in the pools
and rivers, strung along through the rank grass
and surrounding the rifle pits and trenches in a
perfect maze — were these abominable wire fences.
Nor were they made of single strands, but were
often most elaborately put together, being in
some cases twisted together like ropes and so
matted that it was impossible to get a finger in
between the interstices. Before such unusual and
artful use of barbed-wire the nippers with which
the American soldiers were provided were not
much more useful than cheese scoops would be
as rock drills.
To the array of blockhouses and forts and the
tangle of barbed-wire, the Spanish engineers had
added admirably devised lines of deep but nar
row trenches, running in such lines that the
riflemen holding them could easily move from
one range to another. Line after line of these
trenches and rifle pits was found at every pos-

The Fall of Santiago. 131
sible point of vantage, the whole system of de
fense exciting the admiration of our engineers.
Thus it was that the army pushed its way into
the line of attack, and it was after passing
through such trials of advance, climate, country,
and pests that it found itself, on the night
of June 31, drawn up across the island in a
great broken line of three divisions from El
Caney in the interior to Aguadores on the sea.
But they had all been natural difficulties to over
come and bear, none of battle, for, save for the
brush at La Guasima, the Spanish had made no
resistance to the army's advance. The men had
practically landed without opposition, and just
as it was Shafter's bustling policy to push his
men forward until they occupied the outposts of
Santiago, so it turned out now to be the Span
iard's equally well-settled plan of campaign to
let that advance be made until those outposts were
reached, and then to defend them to the death.

132 The Fall of Santiago.

CHAPTEE VII.
HOW EL CANEY WAS CAKEIED.
In the future days of criticism much will
doubtless be said as to the wisdom, indecision
and fortuitous fulfillment of Shafter's plan of
campaign. But this book is a record of events
and not a discussion of military technicalities.
Doubtless Shafter expected to do much more
in certain directions than he did ; and in other
directions much more was done than he had an
ticipated would be the case. The capture of El
Caney was to be effected, so Shafter thought, in
the early hours of the day, after which the
troops were to join those before San Juan and the
day was to be wound up in a joint attack on and
capture of San Juan. As it turned out. El
Caney offered a more stubborn resistance than
did San Juan, and by the time the troops form
ing the right of the general advance had carried
the suburb, San Juan had been stormed and
taken. It is a fact, too, that Shafter planned the re-

The Fall of Santiago. 133
duction of an intrenched city without seige guns
and mortars, these having been left on the Ori
zaba. But in explanation of this it may be said
that Shafter, in the choice between an assault by
unsupported infantry and waiting for the engi
neers to put the road into sufficiently good con
dition to admit of moving the siege batteries to
the front, decided that it was better to attack the
Spaniards by his army as it stood with such field
pieces as could be easily moved forward, rather
than to expose his men to climatic effects. As
the men stood they were yet full of tho strength
and vitality they had brought with them, but
subject them to a long exposure to summer rains
and heat, argued Shafter, and the debilitating
powers of these enemies would seriously diminish
the fighting quality of his army.
The disposition of the army, as decided on at
a council of war on June 29, was as follows :
Lawton's Division, the Second, was sent against
El Caney; Kent's Division, the First, and
Wheeler's Cavalry Division were to proceed
against San Juan; Duffield 's Brigade was to
move on Aguadores. In the order of description,
the fight and fortunes of the men at El Caney
will be first taken up. The Second Division was
constituted as follows :
First Brigade, General Ludlow commanding,

134 The Fall of Santiago.
Eighth, Twenty-second, and Second Massachu
setts. Second Brigade, Colonel Miles commanding
Fourth, First, and Twenty-fifth.
Third Brigade, General Chaffee commanding,
Twelfth, Seventh, and Seventeenth.
Captain Capron 's Battery E, First Artillery,
was to shell the town and General Garcia, as
our ally, held a thousand Cubans under him.
Later in the day General Bates' Independent
Brigade was attached to Lawton's division.
General Lawton, following the council of war,
not only went over the field carefully on the
map, but in company with his three brigade
commanders made a reconnaissance on June 30.
Lawton reported that he found the Spanish
ground much stronger than he had anticipated,
and in the absence of heavy artillery he sug
gested that he move his forces at night and so
get into position for delivering his blow in the
early morning. Lawton failed to get proper
support for his suggestion and, with the excep
tion of Chaffee's Brigade, the division slept on its
arms. General Chaffee, however, worked his
men well to the northward all during June 30,
and before the night was over had his men in
position, well intrenched to the north and east
of El Caney. At early dawn on July 1 the other

From photngraph hv J. C. Hemment.
Fort ana block-iiciu^e at VA Caiu\ . It wa^^ acre
to advance in order to caj^ture the lurt. The ¦

Copyright, 1898, hv \V. B, Hearst
; till-- open sw.de and up rliis p\ramidical hill tJiat Lawtun'^ men h.\d
Uage ut V.i Caney lie;:, behind tlie hill and hclow the tort to t Ik- left.

The Fall of Santiago. 135

to^

troopa of Lawton's Division made their way to
the positions previously designated for them to
occupy. Ludlow's Brigade and Garcia's Cubans
moved still further around El Caney until they
rested on the west of the village in order to cut
off the retreat of the Spaniards when they should
be driven out of the town and attempt to retire.
Colonel Miles' Brigade took up a position to the
east of El Caney ; Bates, on his arrival, forming
to the southeast.
By this disposition of troops it will be seen the
division occupied a broad segment of a circle
with El Caney as the center. Dominating El
Caney was a stone fort perched on the very apex
of a hill, which looked like a minature peak, and
at whose base lay the village. The fort was a
mediaeval affair, four square, except for a round
bastion at each corner. But mediajval as it
was in construction, it was filled with men
armed with modern guns and proved a veritable
citadel. It was toward this fort that Captain
Capron directed the fire of his light battery of
four guns. He had planted his battery before
sunrise on a bluff about a mile and a half distant
from the town, there being a deep swale of roll
ing land between the fort and the battery, the
emplacement of the battery having been effected
without the enemy's discovering the move.

136 The Fall of Santigao.

ti"-

It was yet dark when at five-forty on the morn
ing of July 1 Captain Capron gave the command
"Cannoneers, take your places." The sun was
still hidden behind the high peaks of the Sierra
Cobre, but there was light enough to see the
general surroundings, while with a good glass one
could distinguish the Spanish soldiers moving
about the trenches which were lined thickl.v in
front of the stone fort, and other men on horseback
riding out of the fort. Capron's four pieces, which
were of 3.2 caliber, were lined up at some little
distance apart, but with their fire all concentra
ted on the fortifications. The range was an
nounced to be from twenty -three hundred and
fifty to twenty-four hundred yards. Just before
the first gun was fired, and while comments were
being freely made on the fact that no flag had
been run up on the fort and surmises were being
hazarded that the town had been evacuated, up
popped the sun from behind the Sierra and up
went the flag. Capron accepted this apparently
as a defi, and immediately gave command to open
the battle. He was the father of the young
; officer who had been killed at the skirmish of La
Guasima, and it seemed fitting that he should
have the honor of opening the assault on the
city. The first of our shells brought no answer, nor

The Fall of Santiago. 137
did the next two or three, and the belief began
to obtain that even if El Caney were not deserted
there were no troops in it that would fight.
Soon, however, an answer came in the shape of a
Spanish shell, which burst on the roof of a small
block house at one side of Capron's battery and in
which a number of soldiers were standing to get
a better view of the artillery duel. It wounded
eighteen Americans and thirteen Cubans.
This, however, was the best shot of the Spanish
gunners for, while their line was moderately
good, their range was generally too high. Cap
ron's shooting was excellent, but though many
of his shells struck the stone fort and a small
block house which stood on another hill back of
it, his guns were too light to cause any very
great damage. At half-past seven the artillery
fire on both sides slackened, but half an hour
later Capron began his share of it again, with re
newed energy. General Lawton's infantry being
at that time prepared for its advance.
The same swale which lay between the bluff on
which Capron's battery was placed and the hill
on which the stone fort was perched extended
around the suburbs in moderately well-defined
fashion, but broken by rolling land and gullies
and small winding streams ; the general elevation

138 The Fall of Santiago.
of the country being lower to the left of the
attack than it was to the right.
General Chaffee's Brigade began the infantry
fight by moving along the extreme right over
this higher ground. Then Ludlow's command
began pressing across the low country to the left,
both brigades moving forward in a series of
rushes. The Spanish intrenchments stretched
for a considerable distance to the right of the
stone fort so that Chaffee's men were exposed to
a heavy fire from the earthworks. The Span
iards, too, had thrown out sharpshooters all over
the base and slope of the El Caney hill, and as
our men dodged from cover to cover in single
figures or rushed across a clear space in little
groups, the men in the trenches fired b.v platoon
and the sharpshooters picked off the advancing
men. For a long time, that is for what seemed to
them a long time, Chaffee's men, while making
their advance, had found themselves shot down
and wounded by a fire that came from the left,
and they had begun to imagine that they were
exposed to Ludlow's fire from down the swale,
when they discovered a masked, or rather, half-
hidden blockhouse, on one of the spurs of the
El Caney hill. It was found, too, to be a place
of extreme strength against an infantry attack.

The Fall of Santiago, 139
being made of double thicknesses of pine plank
ing with the intramural space filled with a lining
of gravel and with earth heaped up around the
base to a height of several feet, just above which
embankment were narrow slits for the riflemen.
Eifle pits also surrounded it, and around the
rifle pits was a maze of barbed wire.
General Chaffee sent word to Captain Capron of
the discovery of the block house and a fieldpiece
was moved to a hillock where it could be
trained on this Spanish pest hole, but the range
was found to be too great, and as Chaffee's men
at that time were swarming about the block
house, the cannon was called back. The taking
of this blockhouse had occupied so much time
that our men to the left had moved well forward
to the edge of the swale before Chaffee was free,
and the morning had, indeed, well advanced be
fore the division occupied anything like a well-
defined attacking line all around El Caney.
The Seventh was really the first regiment to
get into commanding line; then came the Seven
teenth, while, little by little, through groves of
royal palms and mango trees, over slippery trails
and by short cuts in the jungle ; across gulches
and through the high Cuban grass the Twelfth,
Twenty-second, and Twenty-fifth got into line,
then the Second Massachusetts, and so on, one

140 The Fall of Santiago.
regiment after another, until the long line of blue-
ehirted and brown-hatted men was stretched out,
and the long-range rifle fight of Mauser against
Krag-Jorgensen and Springfield was fairly on.
Foot by foot and rush by rush our men ad
vanced closer and closer, while the fire from the
Spanish trenches and fortifications grew heavier
and heavier. The men mostly crept along on
hands and knees, or wriggled from point to
point, but the officers led their commands with
out any attempt at cover, and in this way did
their share toward contributing to the great
mortality among the leaders which characterized
the campaign. As the Seventeenth, for instance,
moved to close up the gap in the line between it
and the Seventh, Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Has
kell led the way. It was across an open field,
and as Haskell stepped out erect into the open
space in the first line he fell. Lieutenant Dick
inson ran ahead and was also fatally wounded.
It was in the advance across this open country,
too, that the men suffered most severely.
In fact, for the time, it was found impossible
to further advance, and there the Seventh and
Seventeenth lay under fire for about six hours.
They poured their volleys into the Spanish
breastworks, but apparently without effect; and,
though the Spaniards could be plainly seen,

The Fall of Santiago. 141
something seemed to be wrong in our range,
while the Spaniards were perfectly posted on the
triangulation of every foot of land. The Spring
field muskets of the Second Massachusetts were
even more than ineffectual at this long-distance
fight, and made so much smoke that twice they
were ordered to cease firing. Close to the
Second Massachusetts were lined out the Twelfth
and Twenty-fifth regulars, but though by dint of
incessantly dropping his shells on the fort Cap
ron had succeeded in knocking out its corner
bastions and rendering it comparatively innoc
uous, and though the fire of the Krag-Jorgen
sens was concentrated from all along our lines of
regulars on the Spanish breastworks in a fierce
continuous rattle, still the Spaniards kept up
their volleys, while their Mauser bullets actually
clipped off the grass tops which fell in showers
on our men as though a mower were at work and
chopped off twigs and branches in the trees above
them as though a pruner were busy there. There
seemed no possibility of cleaning outer silencing
the trenches except by an advance in which
decimation was the prospect, and as the hours
wore on El Caney, which was to have been ours
by a sharp and brilliant dash made before noon,
was as bristling and defiant as ever. It was

142 The Fall of Santiago.
spoken of as " The Wasp's Nest," and well de
served its name.
But our men crept doggedly on and, when
the long string of wounded made a continuous
procession to the rear and the dead about them
grew hourly in numbers, they only pressed on
the fiercer. What at times changed the fierce
ness of our men to a condition of actual frenzy
was when the sharpshooters who had crept
through gaps in our lines or had been hidden in
the trees before our advance was made, fired for
very wantonness upon our wounded and upon
the Eed Cross men carrying them from the field.
To be shot at themselves was what our men ex
pected, because to shoot and to be shot was their
business, but when the surgeons and hospital
stewards toppled over, the volunteers fairly
screeched with rage, while the regulars moved
forward another foot and sent another bullet into
the trenches.
Finally the swale was crossed and the attack
ing line was all around El Caney's hillside.
Then it was seen that the chief source of our
slaughter lay in a breastwork which had been run
around the very edge of the village, extending
from one building to another, with extensions at
right angles down the slope of the hill. As
has been said, the stone fort stood on a separate

The Fall of Santiago. 143
hill with the village in a hollow beneath, and
along the sides of this hill, too, trenches and
breastworks had been run out at right angles so
that shots from these could almost rake the whole
length of our advancing line on the right.
Slowly our lines crept forward, and upward,
regiment after regiment dashing across open
spaces and seeking cover in the thickets which
dotted the slopes of the suburb. When the term
"regiment after regiment" is used it must not
be understood as implying well-preserved regi
mental formation. Under the new condition of
things, caused by the long-range rapid-fire
weapons, it has been found wisest to scatter the
forces so as not to subject troops to great loss by
massing them, and at the same time to draw the
fire of the enemy in a widely radiated direction.
Even had not this new order of things been in
existence as a codified plan of action, the nature
of the ground over which our troops had to move
here would have rendered even a battalion for
mation impossible. The Spaniards, it is repeated,
knew the exact location of all the roads and paths
and had the range perfectly, while our men as
they advanced had to feel their way cautiously
over rough and unfamiliar ground.
Bravely as the dashes were made it was bitter
and deadly work for our men and officers. If our

144 The Fall of Santiago.
fighting was stubborn the resistance of the Span
iards was determined. Then, as though to add
to the exactions of the day, at the very moment
when things were at their worst at El Caney, the
division commander at San Juan sent over to
know if proceedings could not be hurried or
abandoned so as to aid in the assault on San
Juan. Before giving a reply, the courier from
the center was taken down the line from Ludlow,
on the extreme left, past Miles' brigade and
Bates' independent brigade to Chaffee's position
at the extreme right, all four brigades having
been drawn into action by the tenacity of the
defense. The proposition of virtually calling off
his men and abandoning the results of a desperate
half-day's work was laid before General Lawton,
and he at once decided not to quit. Instead, and
as though driven to desperation, word was sent
all along the line that the trenches had to be
taken and taken at once. And it was done in
thirty minutes.
Captain Haskell, of the Twelfth Infantry, led
the assault, his long white beard fl.ving out be
hind him as he rushed forward. Far around to
the left General Ludlow, with his white sailor
hat stuck on the back of his head, galloped along
the front and bade his men follow. His horse
was killed under him, but afoot he pushed on,

The Fall of Santiago. 145
gloriously swinging his ridiculous little hat in
his hand and still shouting to his men to come
on. Two leaped out of cover and were shot down.
The Twelfth and Twenty-fifth were almost de
prived of their officers in the rush. Lieutenant
McCorkle was killed and Captain Lawards and
Lieutenant Murdock fell wounded, the disable
ment among the officers being so great that at
one time Lieutenant Moss found himself com
manding two companies. The Second Massa
chusetts struggled into the line of assault and
Lieutenant Field was instantly killed. Lieuten
ant-Colonel Patterson, of the Twenty-second, was
badly wounded and had to be sent to the rear,
but there was no wavering among his men.
At last, after dodging from tree to brush and
from brush to gully with Capron's guns banging
away and the Spanish Mausers volleying inces-
sently, the first of the assaulting lines was actually
formed under a group of trees at the foot of the
hill. Then with a yell the troops, black and
white and brown shot up the hillside, slashed
down the wire fences and were in the trenches
and had the fort. They were practically open
graves and were filled with dead men.
Between the fort and the village stood a block
house, and as the living Spanish soldiers leaped
out from among the dead Spanish soldiers in the

146 The Fall of Santiago.
trenches and made for the blockhouse, our men
who were now swarming up over the ridge of the
hill shot them as they ran, while those who had
taken the fort joined in the slaughter.
Horrible as were the trenches the fort was as
bad. As Captain Haskell, with Captain Clark
just behind him, and their men pressing all
around them, carried the fort, they found ample
and awful evidence of the murderous work done by
our fire and of the stubborn holding out against it.
Out of the entire garrison but one Spanish officer
and four men were alive. Seven lay dead in one
small room and forty bodies were scattered along
the shooting ways, the walls were shattered, the
floors ran blood and the walls were splashed with
it. Just as the fort was captured some fleeing
Spaniard turned half-round and lodged a bullet
in the arm of Mr. James Creelman. He, like
Mr. Marshall, was a Journal correspondent, and
like Mr. Marshall had esteemed it his duty to be
in the thick of the fight.
With the fort and trenches in our possession
the blockhouse was soon taken, and our men were
scampering after the Spaniards as they fled down
into the village. Of the Spaniards who had tried
to seek shelter in the blockhouse as they ran
from the trenches but few escaped, so deadly was
the fire of our men as they steadied themselves

The Fall of Santiago. 147
after the rush up the hillside and brought down
their men with the accuracy born of long target
practice ; and somehow or other when the block
house was reached nearly all of the Spaniards who
had succeeded in getting into that shelter were
found dead, victims to the bull's-eye accuracy of
our men as they drove their Krag-Jorgensen bul
lets through the loopholes at the Spaniards be
hind them.
It was a weary set of men who found them
selves victorious at the top of the El Caney hill,
but there was lots of fight and fume in some of
them yet, and these rushed into the town in order
to bring down or round up a few more of the
Spaniards. It was ugly work, for the town or
village — and a pretty, quiet-looking village it
looked from the top of the hill, with its red-tiled
houses and mauresque church — proved to be a
death trap. Its streets were festooned with
barbed wire, the space between the pillars of the
houses had been turned into forts by filling them
breast high with stonework and across the roads
had been placed barricades of fascines made by
filling empty wine barrels with earth. But there
was no fight left in the Spaniards now, and from
houses and corners the soldiers crawled out in
squads and surrendered to the number of one

148 The Fall of Santiago.
hundred and fifty-eight. So, with the afternoon
sun well down was El Caney won.
The opposing forces, counting the relative
character of the positions, were in number about
equal. The Spaniards, with their usual power of
minimizing defeat, claimed that the defense of El
Caney was made by six hundred men, but it was
later found that the garrison actually numbered
over seventeen hundred men. But whatever
their number, they fought to the death and held
back Lawton for more than nine awful hours. It
was nearly seven in the morning when Captain
Capron fired his first gun, and it was five o'clock
before El Caney fell.
The fighting had been hard and hot all day.
Though there had not been much steady march
ing, our men had been alert, and on the move all
the day under a broiling sun. The water in
their canteens was soon consumed, and the hunt
for streams and pools was a long and dolorous
one. The long-killing range of the Mauser rifle and
the fact that the entire battlefield was the zone
of fire was one of, if not the greatest, trial to the
nerves of the men at El Caney. Troopers a mile
behind our firing line were killed. As the Fourth
Infantry, for instance, was marching to the aid
of General Ludlow's Brigade, First Sergeant

The Fall of Santiago. 149
Kirby was shot squarely through the heart al
though the distance from the front was over a
mile. The consequence, apart from the trial
to the spirit of the men which is the natural out
come of being killed by unseen enemies, was that
when night came our dead and dying were
scattered over the country for miles. The Span
ish prisoners were set to work burying their own
dead while the freshest of our men went back on
the quest for their fallen comrades. The rest of
the weary troops were gathered up as best they
might be, and during the night they got about
three hours of fitful napping. At night the
Cuban support, which had done little more than
scouting duty during the day, moved out to take
a further position to the westward of Santiago,
and all night long men who had lost their com
mands were straggling into the companionship
of their companies, which for the moment meant
their home. Capron's men threw themselves
beside the guns which they had been working all
day. Then, notwithstanding all their fierce work on
the previous day, when early morning came.
General Lawton, leaving a garrison at El Caney,
moved across country to help to strengthen
Kent's line about San Juan.
If the American soldiers were impressed with

150 The Fall of Santiago.
the desperate stubbornness of their Spanish op
ponents, it is also on record that the Spaniards
were amazed at the brilliant courage of our
men. One of the few surviving Spanish officers of
the battle of El Caney, an aid on General Vara del
Eey 's staff, and present at the death of that officer,
has related his impressions of the engagement.
The narrative, which is told in the officer's own
words, gives the Spanish view — somewhat fan
tastic in certain particulars — of one of the hard
est-fought battles of the war. The narrator says :
"Brigadier-General Joaquin Vara del Eey, in
command of the brigade of San Luis, composed
of three companies of the Twenty-ninth regulars,
numbering four hundred and sixty-seven men and
forty-seven guerrillas, was ordered by General
Linares to proceed from San Luis to Santiago,
there to reinforce the garrison in the city.
"We left San Luis on June 23, marched to El
Pozo, and thence to Santiago, where we stayed
forty-eight hours, when we were ordered out to
El Caney to strengthen the left flank of the
Spanish lines. We arrived there on the 28th, in
the evening, after an uneventful march.
"On the afternoon of the 30th we noticed a
balloon ascending in the air, where it remained
about a quarter of an hour. After its descent we
saw the enemy pick up their tents and move their

The Fall of Santiago. 151
camp, but as the night was falling we were un
able to locate their new position, although we
guessed at it pretty correctly.
"We hurriedly dug trenches about three feet
deep, in which the men fired kneeling.
"We worked at the trenches and breastworks
all through the night, assigned the men to their
posts and placed thirty regulars in the fort or
blockhouse known as El Paraiso, fearing a sur
prise from the enemy.
"Our fears proved only too well grounded, for
at daybreak the next morning, July 1, the first
shell from the enemy's guns fell in the town.
"The Americans simultaneously opened with
four rapid-fire guns and kept up a volcanic fire
until three o'clock in the afternoon. We had no
artillery with which to reply, and soon realized
that we had the fight of our lives on our hands.
All the ammunition we had was twelve mule
loads of eight cases each.
"The enemy's fire was incessant, and we an
swered with equal rapidity. I have never seen
anything to equal the courage and dash of those
Americans, who, stripped to the waist, offering
their naked breasts to our murderous fire, liter
ally threw themselves on our trenches on the very
muzzles of our guns.
"Our execution must have been terrible. We

152 The Fall of Santiago.
had the advantage of our position and mowed them
down by the hundreds, but they never retreated
nor fell back an inch. As one man fell, shot
through the heart, another would take his place
with grim determination and unflinching devo
tion to duty in every line of his face.
"Their gallantry was heroic. We wondered at
these men, who fought like lions and fell like
men courting a wholesale massacre, which could
well have been avoided had they only kept up
their tiring without storming our trenches.
"Our stock of ammunition was dwindling fast,
we were losing rapidly, and were fighting the
battle of despair, the inevitable staring us in the
face. General Vara del Eey was standing in the
square opposite the church when word was
brought him that the last round had been served
to the men. This was about three o'clock in
the afternoon.
"He at once gave the order to retreat, crying
to his men, 'Salvese quien pueda!'
"Hardly had he given the order before he fell
shot through both legs. One of his aids. Lieu
tenant Joaquin Dominguez, turned to the general
as he fell, exclaiming: 'General, what slaughter!'
A bullet took the top clean off his skull, killing
him on the spot.
"In the meantime I had secured a stretcher

The Fall of Santiago. 153
and ordered four men to place the general in it
and carry him to a place of safety. Bullets were
whizzing past us and falling like hail all around.
It seemed that fate was against us. As they
placed him in the stretcher General Vara del Eey
was shot through the head and killed.
"All four litter-bearers were shot and Lieuten
ant Antonio Vara del Eey, a brother and aid to
the general, was wounded and taken prisoner.
Earlier in the day Majors Aguero and Aragon,
both on the general's staff, had also been killed.
Beside these, ten other officers were shot, and
we had two hundred and thirty men killed and
wounded. "At General Vara del Eey's death all took
flight, running down the hill and toward the
woods and underbrush, in a mad effort to get
away with their lives.
"Toward evening small bands of straggling,
worn-out soldiers began to arrive in Santiago,
and at half-past eight o'clock that night Colonel
Punet came in with one hundred and three men
whom he had been able to rally and bring into
the city in some sort of order.
"None of the blockhouses in the surrounding
country was engaged that day, but in the early
morning a shell from the American lines fell in

154 The Fall of Santiago.
the San Miguel blockhouse, setting it on fire and
killing seven men.
"We estimated the enemy's forces engaged at
El Caney on July 1 at three thousand men and
their artillery at four rapid-fire guns.
"It was the hardest fighting I have ever seen
or ever care to see. The brilliancy and daring
of the American attack was only equaled by the
coolness and stubbornness of the Spanish
defense. "The report that the body of General Vara del
Eey had never been recovered is untrue. It was
buried by the American troops and his grave was
marked with a wooden cross. A decoration
found on his breast was unpinned and later
handed to General Toral by General Shafter."

The Fall of Santiago. 155

CHAPTEE VIII.
HOW SAN JUAN WAS STOEMED AND TAKEN.
The first part of the battle of San Juan was a
muddle ; the second part was a glory.
Between the battles at El Caney and San Juan
there were many salient points of similarity.
In each case it was a fortified and intrenched hill
that had to be attacked by our men ; in each case
the battle was opened with an artillery duel; in
each case the difficulties of the country prevented
the ready deployment of our troops, and in each
case the fight was won by a dash of men in which
individual grit more than compensated for the
absence of brigade tactics or orders. In the
case of San Juan, however, all of these factors
were accentuated to an extraordinary degree.
San Juan hill is a veritable Gibraltar. It
sharply rises a bare, rocky, steep-sided ridge
from out — to preserve the figure of speech — a sea
of meadow land which lies all around its base, '
except on that side which faces Santiago. This
meadow land, locally called a 'Paradise,' is about

156 The Fall of Santiago.
a third of a mile wide and is broken in its expanse
of tall entangling grass by these three objects : To
the left, supposing one had marched up the road
from Siboney, a small green knoll ; to the right, a
shallow pool or lagoon ; between the lagoon and
the road, another knoll somewhat higher than
that to the left and surmounted by a pretty tiled-
roof country seat. Looking at the San Juan
hill from across the meadow land it would seem to
be a clear rising, unbroken elevation, but a
closer inspection of it would show that its surface
was broken into a number of subsidiary ridges.
On the topmost of these ridges was a large broad-
eaved hacienda or farmhouse.
The commanding qualities of this farmhouse
the Spanish engineers were quick to perceive, and
the dwelling was easily transformed into a strong
hold by piling up broken stone between the pil
lars of the piazza and by cutting loopholes in the
walls of the house after the fashion found at El
Caney and according to the plan generally de
scribed in the chapter dwelling on the march of
the men to the front. Close to the house stood a
shed and this also had been transformed into an
improvised fort. Along the extreme crest of the
hill, facing the meadow land, the Spanish engi
neers had dug a line of trenches in which the
Spanish rifleman might stand and shoot down

Copyright by Mail and E.xprcss.

Looking across the meadow land to the San Juan Hill — The
Rough Riders dashed in their assault — To the left i

lier in the foreground is pointing to the lagoon across which the
-n a \\ind of the road from Siboney to Santiago.

The Fall of Santiago. 157

o ¦

any living thing that ventured to cross the 'Para
dise' without any danger to himself. Back of
the hacienda was a dip, then a rise, and on the
top of this rise had been built one of the charac
teristic Spanish blockhouses, before which had
been dug a second series of trenches. Still fur
ther back waa another rise, another blockhouse
and another series of trenches. Around and in
front of the San Juan hacienda were strung
entanglements of barbed wire ; these were
repeated before each of the lines of trenches to
the rear, were strung across the face of the hill,
stranded in the grass of the valley and stretched
through the lagoon.
Let us now change our position as onlookers
and stand on the San Juan hill, facing the road
from Siboney. On the other side of the meadow
land which swept round the base of the hill would
be seen a broad expanse of jungle and thicket
which closed in on the grassy level in a well-de
fined boundary far as the eye could reach. To
the right the country was hilly, the nearest emi
nence being that of El Poso, on whose top was
the home of a coffee planter. In an air line from
the hacienda on the San Juan hill to that on El
Poso hill the distance was, one would say, about
two miles. To the left the wooded country
sloped down to a moderate condition of plane.

158 The Fall of Santiago.
while in the distance were the ranges of the
Sierra Cobre foothills, among whose mazes our
men had marched up from the coast.
The lagoon was not the only water in the
meadow land, for through it swept a bend of the
winding San Juan Eiver. This bend of the river
could be traced for some distance to the right,
would have to be crossed if a man were to walk
direct from San Juan to El Poso, and turned into
the woods in about what would be the center of
the landscape. To the left of where the river
thus turned into the woods and just back of the
hill and blockhouse, spoken of just now as being
one of the three breaks in the meadow land, the
main road from the coast emerged. All about the
exit point of the road the timber and vegetation
grew so thickly that its line in the woods could
not be distinguished. Once out in the meadow
land the roadway was fairb' plain, as it turned
around the end of the lagoon and up the side of
the San Juan hill, passing back of the hacienda
toward Santiago.
If this description has been written clearly and
has been followed closely the reader will see that
the San Juan hill stood as a citadel in the path of
those who passed to or from Santiago. It had to
be taken before any advance could be made on
the city. It was the Gastilian lion in the path.

The Fall of Santiago. 159
It will also be seen that in order to take the San
Juan hill an advance would have to be made by
regiments strung out along the road in the
woods, and that, in order to attack the hill in any
thing like formation, the troops would have to
debouch from the wood roadway and then deploy
along the meadow land in the full face of the
Spanish fire. It was a task before which a brave
man might well recoil, and whose audacity ap
pealed most strongly to the foreign military rep
resentatives present. These seeing what had to
be done and what was done, wrote it down as an
achievement of personal bravery before which
the word impregnable was but an empty sound,
and as one of the most astonishing examples of
successful mistakes. In a word, it was the as
sault by infantry of a stronghold which should
only have been reduced by artillery.
In meeting the problem thus presented to him,
Brigadier-General J. Ford Kent, in command of
the First Division, decided, naturally, that there
were only two things to do^ — post what little artil
lery he had on El Poso hill, push his infantry as
rapidly as possible up the road through the woods
to the meadow land, and under partial cover
of the artillery fire and the support of Lawton's
men returning from El Caney, throw out his men
into open order and carry the hill. This was

160 The Fall of Santiago.
done, though it was not done just as Kent had
planned it should be. The troops in his division
were these :
First Brigade, General Hawkins, Sixteenth and
Sixth regulars and Seventy-first N. T. V.
Second Brigade, General Pearson, Tenth,
Twenty-first and Second, all regulars.
Third Brigade, General Wikoff, Ninth,
Thirteenth and Thirty-fourth, all regulars.
Beside these he was assisted by General
Wheeler's cavalry division, dismounted, consist
ing of the First, Ninth, and Tenth, regulars, and
the Eough Eiders.
The artillery was under charge of Captain
Grimes, his battery going into position and pre
paring its gun-pits close to the ruins of the El
Poso farmhouse on the night of June 30.
The morning was still and hot, hot with a trop
ical intensity, the meadow lands below being full
of mist while the blue of the sky had a coppery
tinge. The little dismantled ranch house with its
tiled roof and rusted bell were just below
Grimes' battery, and, barring this battery, the
whole scene was as innocent as a picture. Not a
man could be seen at San Juan, and there was not
a sound from the right to indicate that up
through the woods there was being pushed along
winding column of American soldiers. At

The Fall of Santiago. 161
twenty minutes to seven. Grimes, who had the
bespectacled air of a professor, gave the com
mand to fire, and our first shell went flying toward
San Juan. Wherever it struck it did no damage
and a few others were fired, not so much with
a view of demolishing the fortified farmhouse as to i
find the enemy. He was found after ten shots,
his answer coming in the shape of a muffled re
port from the hill and the hissing flight of a five-
inch shrapnel shell which burst high in the air.
It was a good line fire and the reserves were
ordered into cover, but Grimes, like a very fierce
professor now, kept his position and his com
mand to "aim" and "fire" went on as steadilj- as
the ticking of a sedate clock on a farmhouse
stairway. So the give and take of the artillery
part of the engagement proceeded until suddenly
the Spanish fire ceased. But while it had lasted
it had been deadly, for three of our artillerymen
had been killed; three sergeants and a corporal
of the battery had been wounded; in a dip under
the hill twelve Cubans had been torn by the
shrapnel, and in the wood road there had been
terrible havoc. To that wood road it is now time
to turn.
At nightfall of June 30 the three brigades
bivouacked along the San Juan road around
Sevilla. They were up by daybreak, and about

162 The Fall of Santiago.
the time when Grimes began his battery fire
Hawkins, with the First Brigade, had reached that
part of the road where it was crossed by the San
Juan Eiver, about two hundred and fifty yards to
the right of El Poso hill. This river rises in the
hills northeast of Santiago and follows a devious
way under various local names down to the coast
where it empties into the sea at Aguadores.
In its course its affluents cross the road from
Siboney to San Juan several times, its course
being so belooped in the neighborhood of San
Juan that our troops had to ford it twice within
a mile. The first of these crossings was that
already referred to as being near El Poso, and
the second was close up to the edge of the woods,
where the forest ended and the meadow land
began. Torrential stream as it is, it always
carries a considerable body of water spread over
the large area usually occupied by streams that
are accustomed to sudden accessions and diminu
tions, being full of gravel bars and water pits.
The river was really the road maker, for the road
was drawn across the river wherever a ford was
found. Hawkins was moving smartly along the road
and would have crossed both fords and have been
at the debouche of the road into the meadow land
had not the division commander (Kent) received

The Fall of Santiago. 163
orders from headquarters to give right of way to
the cavalry which had been posted back of El
Poso hill. The infantry was accordingly halted,
and as the cavalry came up the road and also
halted at the first ford when it got there, the first
of the series of congestions which marked the
gathering of the troops along the road thus took
place. When the cavalry crossed the first ford
and moved forward, Hawkins, seeing that his
men were suffering severely from the Spanish
fire, decided to move his men along as quickly
as possible, and therefore ordered them to push
alongside the cavalry, and this they did, so that
Wheeler's division and the head of Hawkins'
division were at this time marching in parallel
lines, sometimes by file and sometimes two
abreast. In such a movement of troops, even
were the exigencies of travel alone to be con
sidered, anything like distinct regimental segre
gation would soon have been imperiled; but
when to these moving, crossing, mingling lines
of men along a wood road were added the
deadly and pestiferous attacks of the Spanish
riflemen and artillerists, the impossibility of
keeping the regiments distinct can readily be
understood. It had been expected, or at least hoped, that the
attentions of Grimes' battery would keep the

164 The Fall of Santiago.
batteries and trenches at San Juan sufficiently
employed to allow our men to advance up the
road with only a moderate loss. The contrary
was, however, the case and it was due principally
to two causes— an experiment on our side and the
Spanish sharpshooters.
If any point has been dwelt on in this history
it has been that of attempting to show that the
march from the sea to Santiago was for the most
part through roads which were so bordered with
forest and thickets of underbrush that, except
when on an eminence, it was almost impossible
to see beyond the turn of the road or to form
any idea of what danger lurked in the tangles on
either side. The consideration of hidden foes and
attacks from ambush were alwaj's in the hearts of
the men, if not always in the plans of the leaders.
The same clever tactics and intimate local knowl
edge which were shown by the Spaniards at El
Caney, La Guasima and Guantanamo were shown
here with extreme emphasis. The Spaniards who
knew that the San Juan hill commanded the way
to Santiago knew also every foot of the region
roundabout. They were aware of the natural
obstacles to advance, the turns of the river and
the sharp outlet on to the meadow land and to
these natural obstacles had added the active fight
ing one of sharpshooters in the trees. It has been

The Fall of Santiago. 165
noted that this irregular branch of the service
was found to be a favorite one with the Spanish
strategy all during the Santiago campaign, but it
was used wilth unusual freedom around San Juan.
Every tree from whose branches a turn of the
road could be seen or guessed at seemed to hold
a Spanish sharpshooter.
As these fellows used smokeless powder it was
almost impossible to locate them by casual ob
servation, and they had concealed themselves so
cleverly in the foliage that it was sometimes im
possible to discover them by close examination.
As the Sixteenth and Sixth regiments of Haw
kins' infantry and the cavalrymen of Wheeler's
division were bunched together along the road
about the fords, the sharpshooters in the trees
reaped an awful harvest. The bullets kept chug
ging into our ranks and the men fell thickly here
and there, and all at the hands of an absolutely
invisible enemy.
Men were shot not only in front and flank,
but from the rear, the fire being practically all
around them. Not only were the losses serious,
but the possible demoralization of the men was a
still more serious matter, and two companies of
colored troopers, whose regimental number need
not be given, were at last ordered into the woods
as pot hunters. They were told definitely that no

166 The Fall of Santiago.
prisoners were expected to be brought in ; that
every Spaniard found in a tree was to be killed.
The order was a plain, swift necessity and the
troopers set forward to carry it out with equal
plainness and dispatch. They stalked from tree
to tree and wherever the ping of a Mauser was
heard or the flash of a rifle seen, the colored
hunter bagged his game.
The term "brought down" his game can not be
used for in many cases after the sharpshooter in
the trees had been shot he did not fall. An in
vestigation of this peculiar result showed that the
Spaniard had been tied up in the tree. His
Mauser would fall, but the man would not. It
was found, too, that the sharpshooters were
generally well supplied with provisions, so that
the plan of those who tied the men in the trees
to have them stay there for some time was clear,
although it was never quite clear whether the
men had been tied to the branches with their own
consent or not. The story obtains, although it
has not been proved, that in many cases the men
were tied by order of the Spanish officers and so
tied that they could not get down even had they
wanted to. No particular question was asked of
the pot hunters as to their success, but as they
were away a long time, as they had much hunting
ground to cover and as the fire of the sharpshoot-

roDVrieht 180^, bv \V. B. Hearst.
From photograph bv J. C. Hemment, i-opi ntru, .. ; , ) ^
The balloon which drew the Spanish fire to the .American troops massed along the road leading to
San Juan, and which became known as "The Bloody Angle.

The Fall of Santiago. 167
ors certainly grew markedly less, it is to be under
stood that the grim hints which the huntsmen
brought back of ghastly fruit left to rot in many,
many trees were founded on desperate but neces
sary fact.
Our experiment was that of a war balloon. It
was in charge of the signal corps and was sent up
under the care of Lieutenant Maxfield.
The ascension of the balloon resulted in a bene
ficial discovery and a catastrophe. The dis
covery was of a masked road or trail which led
off to the left of the main road near the first ford
and by following which a second way of reach
ing the open land could be had. The catastrophe
was that the presence of the balloon was imme
diately divined by the Spanish leaders at San
Juan to indicate the position of the troops and to
show definitely that the Americans had reached
the upper part of the road leading to the mead
ow land. Instantly, what shrapnel had been
used in reply to Grimes' battery was deflected to
the road, and every rifle in the trenches was
pointed in the same direction. The sharp
shooters' fire had diminished, it is true, but the
hail of the shrapnel and the swarm of Mauser
bullets was worse. The killing power of the
Spanish rifle at long range was never more dis
tinctively felt than at this time. It was a long-

168 The Fall of Santiago.
distance fight with a vengeance, but it was one
in which our men had to stand and take without
being able to deliver a reply.
The discovery of the branch road was utilized
as speedily as possible. The first regiment to be
sent up to the left from the front was the Seventy-
first New York Volunteers. By sending it up
this trail, the regiment was at once separated
from the rest of the brigade, the other two regi
ments, the Sixteenth and Sixth, both regulars, it
must be remembered, being at that time engaged
in squeezing and pushing its way forward as a
parallel line to the cavalrymen of Wheeler's bri
gade. Between the volunteer regiment and the
regiments of regulars lay the woods and thickets,
not yet cleared of sharpshooters. The garrison
on San Juan hill either knew from observation,
or inferred, that the secondary road was being
utilized, for no sooner had the first battalion of
the Seventy-first started up the branch road than
to the fire of the sharpshooters was added what
ever shrapnel and rifle volleys from the trenches
were not given to the men in the main road.
' The report of the division commander when
dealing with this part of the day states that no
sooner had the First Battalion of the Seventy-first
been turned into this byway with orders to
march up it and form so as to get into line with

The Fall of Santiago. 169
the other two regiments of the division, than "it
was exposed to such a galling fire that it recoiled
in confusion on the rear." This is Kent's cold
blooded official statement and there can be no
doubt as to its accuracy. Neither can there be
any doubt as to the utter absence of anything
like an extenuating or explanatory statement in
the division commander's report. No refer
ence whatever is made to the fact that by thus
ordering the volunteers up a side road, unsup
ported b.v regulars, they were at once thrown
into a position of the most unusually trying
character. It was not even a regimental advance,
but the stringing out of a battalion along a nar
row road, where every step meant possible death.
It is true that this is the sort of thing that all
soldiers, whether volunteers or regulars, are ex
pected to encounter; but it is also true that this
exposure of an unsupported battalion of volun
teers was one of marked severity. Due emphasis
maj' be laid upon these conditions, it is believed,
without in the faintest advancing anything in
the nature of a special plea.
The First Battalion was ordered to lie down,
and it did so, and, by the bye, it was one of the
crying faults of the volunteers in the whole San
tiago campaign that they did not lie down as
much as they should have done to escape the

170 The Fall of Santiago.
Spanish fire. The regulars knew that seeking
cover did not imply cowardice; the volunteers
were afraid that it did. While the First Battalion
was lying down, the Second and Third came
steadily along and moved up the trail.
At twenty minutes past twelve the Third Bri
gade, Wickoff's, reached the forks, and was sent
forward by the left road, up which it marched,
pushing forward past the volunteers and so to
the edge of the woods. No sooner had the Third
Brigade been thus disposed of than up came the
Second Brigade (Pearson's), forming the rear.
This brigade was split at the forks, the Tenth
and Second Eegiments being sent up the trail to
the left and the Twenty-first along the main road.
In each case the different regiments were in
structed to form with their fellow regiments of
the same brigade when possible. But by thus
splitting the forces it came about that only in
the case of the Second was anything like a bri
gade formation preserved. The troops stood in
this wise :
UP THE BKANCH EOAD. UP THE MAIN EOAD.
First Brigade: Wheeler's Cavalry:
Seventy-flrst New York Vol. First.
Third Brigade: Tenth.
Ninth. Ninth.
Thirteenth. Eough Eiders.
Twenty-fourth. First Brigade:
Second Brigade: Sixteenth.
Second. Sixth.
Tenth. Second Brigade:
Twenty-first.

The Fall of Santiago. 171
When the Third Brigade reached the edge of
the wood it found itself at a ford of the San
Juan Eiver, which in its erratic course had turned
that way. Wickoff saw that the only way to
save his men from annhiliation in crossing the
stream and gaining the open was to deploy and
rush for it. Word was given to this effect, was
passed along the line, and with a cheer everybody
along the road started in on one of those dashing
rushes which characterized the day. Through the
jungle, across the stream knee-high, waist-high,
and up and over its banks — slippery with the mud
of the bottom lands and tangled with barbed-
wire — across the shingle beds into which the
feet slipped, the men rushed. Even the division
commander acknowledges that in this wild dash
for the open there was nothing approaching bri
gade formation. By companies, here and there,
battalions now and then, and by regiments rarely,
the Third Brigade, gathering up as it went the
foremost of the Seventy-first New Yorkers, with
Captain Goldsborough of Company M acting as
their impromtu major, reached the open and
actually formed into something like a well-defined
line of assault. But it was bloody work.
Wickoff was killed as he ran ahead, keeping
the men together. Lieutenant-Colonel Worth of
the Thirteenth took his place, and went down

172 The Fall of Santiago.
severely wounded. Lieutenant-Colonel Liscum of
the Twenty-fourth, upon whom the brigade com
mand then descended, took up the lead with a
cheer which had scarcely begun when he too fell,
and as the brigade swept up to the hill it was
under charge of Lieutenant-Colonel E. P. Ewers
of the Ninth. Those who from the woods
could see the burst of the Third Brigade and its
lightning formation and dash across the open
have said that it was one of the most brilliant
and stirring things ever seen on a battlefield.
It only lasted ten minutes, but in those ten
minutes the brigade command had thrice de
scended on the field, while the brigade men lay
scattered in pitiful numbers all over the Paradise.
If the jam and congestion of men in the main
road had been confusing while the two regiments
of the First Brigade and Wheeler's dismounted
cavalrymen were struggling for the right of way,
it can be imagined what the congestion and jam
were like when the regiments of the other bri
gades were added to the mass of men. The de
flection of part of the troops into the trail on the
left was what might literally be called an avenue of
relief, but, even with this, the two roads for miles
back from the open were full of crowded columns
of men all in more or less disorder, all exposed
to a deadly fire which lasted all through the

The Fall of Santiago. 173
morning hours and all anxiously waiting for a
chance to get out and kill something they could
see or be killed by a visible enemy. To the lay
man the simple solution of the whole matter
would, perhaps, seem a steady march along the
roads and a quick burst into the open of each
company as it arrived at the meadow land, the
rapid deploy of those who emerged and the con
tinuous accession to the deploy line of men from
behind. In such a clearance of the congestion
many would surely fall, but some would surely
escape, enough, anywa.v, to form a good line of
advance. But to the military leaders no such
simple method of relief was found practicable,
or, at any rate, it was not put into practice.
Indeed, to the men in the woods, it looked as
though the military leaders did not exactly know
what to do, and in the same cold-blooded spirit
of telling facts which characterizes Kent's report,
it must be stated that on a quiet after considera
tion of the battle the surviving brigade and regi
mental commanders were of the very decided, if
altogether unofficial, opinion that the day had
been remarkable for its utter absence of either
brigade or regimental orders received and carried
out. Orders were issued which, if strictly obeyed,
would have meant that some regiments would

174 The Fall of Santiago.
be still waiting in the San Juan road; and
in other cases contradiction traveled so quickly
on the heels of orders, and reaffirmations so
quickly on the heels of contradictions, that some
times the order of the dispatches was mixed and
a regimental commander was dutifully undoing
that which he was expected to be performing.
But of it all the Third Brigade, as has been
said, did burst out into the open and, as it
did so, the two regiments of Hawkins' brigade
(the Sixteenth and Sixth) also broke from ISie
mass of men at the head of the main road.
The Third and First brigades were out, and
those who stood on the top of El Poso hill and
saw this burst of men said that the efflux of
scampering, dodging, cheering men was like that
of the frothy spume of champagne from two
bottle necks. Almost at the same time, for chro
nological accuracy in such details as minutes
seemed absolutely impossible in the face of the
general and undefined advance, the cavalry
division leaped free of the woods and made a
dash for the hillock which has been described as
occupying a point in the meadow land between
the lagoon and the woods. With them, or after
them, or close on the heels of Hawkins' regi-
Hients ran the Twenty-first regiment of Pearson's
Second Brigade, while far to the left his other

The Fall of Santiago. 175
two regiments, the Tenth and Second, which were
to the rear of Wickoff's brigade in the branch or
path also broke cover and swept out behind the
grassy knoll which has been described as occu
pying a point in the airline between El Poso and
San Juan hills. These two regiments furnished
a notable exception to the general method of
advance, and did actually move forward in com
pany to the rear of the knoll. There they de
ployed and advanced in a line over its crest and
into the meadow, which, now as far as the eye
could reach, was alive with blue-shirted soldiers
with their faces all turned one way — to the San
Juan hill.
What does it matter who got there first? The
division commander confesses his inability to
say, and the one incontrovertible fact is that the
Sixth and the Sixteenth on the right, the Ninth,
Thirteenth and Twenty-fourth, and the fighting
battalions of the Seventy-first New York Volun
teers all got to the top of the hill about the same
time, and that the leading men were there at
some minute between 1 :25 and 1 :30 p. m. A
simple statement this, made as the result of a
dissection of varying reports in the search for
truths, but covering a collection of stirring deeds
such as will be to the history of the American
soldier what that of Tel-el-Kebir is to the British.

176 The Fall of Santiago.
The battle of San Juan has been called a battle
of squads; it was really a battle of men. It was
not the esprit du corps, though that existed,
which carried the day; it was the esprit
d'homme. Out where the Sixth and Sixteenth
were plunging forward, had the day depended on
orders, it would have been a disaster instead of
a victory. Captain Kenon, Company E, of the
Sixth, and Captain Byrnes, Company F, had got
out and were lining forward when the two met a
company of the Sixteenth, merged and went on
again, without any company division. Kenon
and the men who followed him, went up the hill
in a flanking way, then turned at right angles to
face the first blockhouse. When he reached the
top and turned he was alone. His men had
taken another line of attack, and when the regi
ment behind him came piling up it proved to be
Byrnes' men, or, at least, a much-mixed lot who
were following Byrnes. Kenon and Byrnes
shook hands, mutually congratulating each other
on being the first to reach the summit, when
there was a cheer to the left, and Lieutenant Ord
was seen leaping across the trenches with a file
of men behind him. Ord was a staff offlcer, but
had joined the firing line, and in the climb up
the hill had gathered a promiscuous lot of
soldiers whose regimental numbers included
almost everything on the field.

The FaU of Santiago. 177
When the Sixth and Sixteenth started from
the woods Hawkins placed himself between the
two regiments and cheered his men along, and
when he panted to the top and was cheered by
his men, there were as many of Wickoff's
troopers about him as of the regiments he had led.
Even in the assault on the trenches, and the
confusion which followed it, the men on the hill
could hear the yell of the Eough Eiders and
colored troopers as they, too, rushed down the
slope of the hill on which stood the blockhouse,
which they had assaulted and carried, and trot
ted and pulled themselves up the San Juan hill to
be in at the death. General Wheeler, sick and al
most sunstruck though he was, had stuck to his
division in the "Bloody Angle" and struggled for
ward to watch the charge of his horsemen on foot.
He saw the lightning fall of the blockhouse, and as
he saw it the memorable but most forgivable
mistaken cry escaped him of "There go the
Yankees. Give it to 'em, boys!" Between the
blockhouse hill and the main San Juan hill lay
the lagoon, and through it the Eough Eiders
dashed. Colonel Eoosevelt splashing and cheer
ing at the head of his men.
This is what our men had been doing. Mean
while, as the charge was made across the open
and up the hill, the Spaniards turned their vol-

178 The Fall of Santiago.
leys on the advancing troops. It was a wither
ing fire before which the men reeled and dropped
in their tracks. As though by a common
impulse, our men refrained from firing until
they were close upon the trenches, and indeed
until they could see the men individuallj' in the
rifle-pits. Blue-shirted men lay in hundreds
over the thick grass, in the shallow waters of the
pool, and on the slopes of the hill — slopes so
steep that in many cases the men had to pull
themselves up by rocks and bushes. At last they
could see the enemy, see the whites of their eyes,
and then steadying themselves, the whole army
pumped American bullets into the Spanish line.
The first line of trenches was a shambles, and
throwing out the dead Spaniards, our men dropped
into the horrible slime and directed their fire on
the enemy, now running pellmell to the second
line of defense.
But, though the first line was gained, and the
second was commanded by our position in the
first line of trenches, the Spaniards as yet showed
no disposition to acknowledge the day as lost.
A hurried council of war was called in a break
beneath the brow of the hill, and it was decided
to rush and carry the other trenches and block
houses. After the work of the morning this was
comparatively easy, that is, it was a plain case of

-" ,— ¦?*

i^^y^.^j^.^ ,'  :'-*4. .-T- -'--V'' •

> 4. /' -'

''"*.: 4-^**^--
<- ' 'V.

• JT

From photograph by J. C. Hemment.
The Seventy-first N. V. Volunteers as they were turned into the by-path off the main road t
it was while the Seventy-hrst were marching up the by-path that they \

Copyright, 1S9S, by \V. B. Hearst.
San Juan. The two regular regiments of the Brigade were up the road to the right and
¦re met by what the Division Commander styled *'a withering fire.''

The Fall of Santiago. 179
fight. The charge was led by Eoosevelt at the
head of the Eough Eiders and the Twenty-fourth
Colored, and tired as the men were, they formed
behind the hacienda and swept on irresistibly.
This was fighting work they could do and feel
moderately at home in. It was not the lurking
hidden death which they had been facing from
eight until noon. There were the trenches and
the blockhouses on the rolling lands before them.
By rush and volley they went and by volleys
from the trenches they were met. It was awful
work, but there was the fever of fight in the
men, and by 3 :50 p. m. the last intrenchment
was carried and the Spaniards had retired to the
outworks of Santiago.
The men who carried the trenches remarked
on the great number of Spanish dead, and it
was the general opinion that out of those
whose volleys made such frightful holes in the
advancing Americans, from seventy to eighty-five
per cent, went down in that terrible hail of
bullets sent in by our men when they had a fair
chance to show their deadly accuracy of aim. The
chief loss was the disabling of General Linares,
who was shot by Sergeant McKinnery, of Com
pany D, Ninth Infantry, at a thousand yards.
Linares immediately relinquished the command
to General Toral, nor did he again assume it
pending the campaign.

180

The Fall of Santiago.

It was a glorious victory, but dearly bought.
Every regiment had lost and lost heavily.
Twelve officers and seventj'-seven men killed,
and thirty-two officers and four hundred and
sixty-three men wounded made up the casualties
to the First Division, the official report in detail
being as follows :

BEPOKT OP KILLED, WOUNDED AND MISSING, FIRST DIVI
SION, PIPTH AKMY CORPS, JULY 1, 1898.

Killed.

Wounded.

Organization.

e
a
o

First Brigade:
1
4
1313
12
5 i
829547
Seventy-first N. Y. Vol. Infantry. . . .
43
5
88
13
234
Second Brigade:
Tenth Infantry 
1
4 51
B 1
4
2125 16
Totals 
1
10
10
62
Third Brigade:
11
22
3
16 10
4 9
32
23 8173
1
Thirteenth Infantry 
1
6
29
177
12
77
463
The Fall of Santiago. I8l
It was at 4 :45 p. m. that the firing died away
— a firing which had been terrific, and so the
foreign expert observers said, unexampled in its
fierceness and intensity — and quiet fell on the
valley, a quiet so sudden and startling that it
seemed as though the machinery of the universe
had stopped running. It was a case of actual
exhaustion on both sides, and though it was
known afterward that had the Americans pursued
their advantage they could have followed the
Spaniards clear into Santiago and have taken it
almost without a struggle, we could not have
done so even if it had required no more exertion
than driving into the city a flock of sheep.
The men dropped where they stood, and all they
knew or cared for was that they had won the bat
tle of San Juan, and that the impregnable Gibral
tar of the Santiago highroad was theirs.
Though the San Juan hill was taken Santiago
was by no means ours. After trench-digging
and the early morning visit of the commissariat
it was hoped that a few hours' sleep might be
granted our men, but such was not the Spanish
idea. At five o'clock on Saturday morning the
enemy made a desperate effort to recover its lost
position. Again and again the hill was assaulted
and again and again the Spanish soldiers were
driven back — driven back too, with awful losses

182 The Fall of Santiago.
— for now the conditions were reversed. Our
men were intrenched and the Spaniards were at
tacking an intrenched position. The dynamite
gun of the Eough Eiders did telling work
throughout the day, throwing shells into Santiago
itself, and a battery of Hotchkiss guns was set
up near the hacienda and cut swathes out of the
enemy's ranks.
All day long the assaults of varying determina
tion were made and night, that is, the night of
Saturday, July 2, brought a general sortie. It was
at 9 :30 that the firing of the pickets brought the
wearied men once more to their feet. The Span
iards swarmed through tho outer lines and pushed
their way desperately on until in many cases they
reached within a hundred yards of our lines.
But in the trenches now stood men whose fire
was cool and deadly, the sortie was completely
repulsed and the Spaniard fell back to his third
line which placed him close under the walls of
Santiago. Next morning, however, the Spaniards
were again at it, but in a desultory long-distance
firing which lasted until noon, when, to the sur
prise of those who did not know of the curious
things that were happening at headquarters, a
flag of truce was displayed and the order to cease
firing ran along the lines.
Owing to the reversal of positions just spoken

The Fall of Santiaojo.

183

of, our losses at San Juan in the second and
third day's fighting were trifling compared to
what they had been on the first. Nine men
killed, four offlcers and ninety men wounded,
made up the casualties of July 2 ; while in the
third day's fighting only one man was killed and
eight were wounded.
In the three days' fighting the losses were as
follows :

At San Juan.

At El Caney.

Total.

OfSoers.

Men.

Offlcers.

Men.

Officers.

Men.

Killed 

12
36

87
561 68

11
44

121
642 19

2380

208

Wounded 

1,203 81

48
710
B5
782
103
1,492
While it was and has been difficult to secure
anything like a definite statement of the Spanish
casualties, the following figures are substantially
correct. At El Canej' the killed, wounded and
prisoners were found in round numbers to have
been two thousand. At San Juan they reached
three thousand, a total of killed, wounded and
prisoners of five thousand.
It was said just now that the display of the
white flag was a surprise to those who saw it and
184 The Fall of Santiago,

t)^

who were not acquainted with the strange things
that had happened at headquarters. This is the
record : General Shafter, who, during the triple
fight of July 1, had been lying sick at Sevilla,
was in a much worse physical condition on July
2, while to his bodily ailments was added much
mental perturbation. From the reports brought
him from the front he learned of El Caney's
stubborn resistance, of the slaughter at San Juan,
of the Spaniard's persistent fighting at this latter
place and of the small things done at Aguadores
by Brigadier-General Duffield. With the Thirty-
third Michigan Volunteers, a battalion of the
Thirty-fourth Michigan and about two thousand
Cubans this offlcer, it will be remembered, was
to advance on the little fortified town at the
mouth of the San Juan Eiver. Aguadores, with
its four thousand Spanish troops, was to be
shelled by the New York and Suwanee while
Duffield engaged them in a shore attack or cut
off their escape to Santiago. But when Duffield
neared Aguadores he found that the Spaniards
had destroyed the railroad trestle across the San
Juan, the Michigan men being obliged to halt on
this side of a ravine, and that the bombardment b.v
the flagship and her consort had done no material
damage to the fort. When Duffleld's men ap
peared, the fort opened fire and with its first

Wht-re Duffield w.ls held in check outride A')u.Klnres July I — The trestle was dyn.imitid liy the .Sp.tnixh ingineers, nnd Duffield's men
wcie e-\pused to such a Jiea\y hrc iwin the Sp.ini~h turts on the other side ut the ra\jne that the)' had to retiie.

The Fall of Santiago. 185

'&'-

three shells killed twenty-three Cubans and two
men of the Thirty-third. Duffield replied with
a few volleys, but seeing the hopelessness of his
position retired along the Siboney road.
Learning of these things Shafter, on Saturday,
called a council of war, during which the proposi
tion was advanced whether it would not be better
to retire the American army to the high lands
above Siboney pending the arrival and emplace
ment of heavy siege guns. Generals Kent and
Sumner, who had arrived from San Juan, favored
a withdrawal, but General Wheeler said bluntly
that he proposed to stay where he was and in this
stand he was backed by Generals Lawton and
Bates, who came in from El Caney. Shafter's
depression was so great, however, that he did
not abandon his idea of retiring but determined,
with a full appreciation of the gravity of such a
movement, that the American lines should mean
while be thrown as far north as possible. And,
with a policy of contingencies that was most re
markable and that produced still more remark
able results, he decided to demand the surrender
of Santiago. In this remarkable determination
General Shafter anticipated that, under cover of
the negotiations that would certainly follow such
a demand, he might be able to retire with safety
and dignity and it may be, although it is not on

186 The Fall of Santiago.
record, that the wild hope may have been enter
tained that the commander of the Santiago forces
would be surprised by such a demand into actual
surrender. It is on record, however, that the
government at Washington received on Sunday,
July 3, two dispatches from Shafter which by
turns so quickly depressed and elated it and
which for a time seemed so inexplicable in their
contradiction that they still occupy a prominent
place in the documentary wonders of the cam
paign. The first dispatch was as follows :
"Plata del Este, July 3. To Secretary of
War, Washington. Camp near Sevilla, Cuba,
July 3. 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 defenses so strong it will be impossible to
carry it by storm with my present force.
"Our losses up to date will aggregate a thou
sand, but the list has not yet been made. There
is but little sickness outside of exhaustion from
intense heat and exertion of the battle of the day
before yesterday, and the almost constant fire
which is kept up on the trenches.
' ' Shatter, Maj or-General. ' '
The effect of this dispatch upon the govern
ment was as depressing as was its tone. A gen
eral council of war was called for and held at noon
in the office of the Secretary of War, at which it

The Fall of Santiago. 187
was decided to rush all possible reinforcements
to Shafter, to send him a message of gratitude
and thanks; while the conclusion was reached
that the results before Santiago were those of a
drawn battle and the expectation was entertained
that the next news from Shafter would be that
he had abandoned El Caney and the San Juan
plateau and was preparing to move his troops to
the Siboney highlands for rest and preparation.
Alger sent a dispatch of comfort to the effect
that the President directed him to forward "the
gratitude and thanks of the nation for the bril
liant and effective work" of the Santiago army
on July 1. General Miles sent his congratula
tions and the notice that he expected to be with
him (Shafter) "within one week with strong
reinforcements. "
Following close on the receipt of Shafter's pes
simistic report and the dispatch of the govern
ment's message of comfort came, like a sudden
sun ray through a rift in a dark cloud, this
remarkable dispatch :
"Playa del Este, July 3. To Secretary of AVar,
Washington. Camp near Sevilla, Cuba, July 3.
I sent a demand for the immediate surrender of
Santiago, threatening to bombard the city. I
believe tlie place will be surrendered. The fol
lowing is my demand for the surrender of San
tiago: ,

188 The Fall of Santiago.
" 'Commanding General Spanish forces, San
tiago de Cuba, July 3.
" 'I shall be obliged, unless you surrender, to
shell Santiago de Cuba. Please inform the citi
zens of foreign countries and all women and
children that they should leave the city before
ten o'clock to-morrow morning. '
"Very respectfully, Shafter,
"Major-General Commanding."
But Washington had not yet dona with the
surprises to which Shafter was to treat it on the
momentous Sunday, July 3. Prior to the report
from the General of his demand for the surrender
of Santiago and his announcement that he be
lieved that the command would be complied with,
the government had received an intimation from
Colonel Allen, in command of the cable station
at Playa del Este, that the Spanish fleet "had
been destroyed and was burning on the beach."
What "beach" or how "destroyed" this first
and meager information of a great event did not
say. Then came this dispatch from Shafter :
"Headquarters Fifth Army Corps,
"Cuba, July 3.
"The Spanish fleet left the harbor this morn
ing and is reported practically destroyed. I de
manded the surrender of the city at ten o'clock
to-day. At this hour, four-thirty p.m. no reply
has been received. Perfect quiet along the line.

The Fall of Santiac-o. 189

a^

The situation has been precarious on account of
the difficulties of supplying the command with
food and the tremendous fighting capabilities
shown by the enemy, who has almost an impreg
nable position. "Shafter, Commanding."
The American Army was ready to fall back ;
the demand for Santiago's surrender had been
made and would be complied with; the Spanish
fleet had been destroyed; and the demand for
the city's surrender was still being considered — ¦
it was a combination of contradictory and sensa
tional news which left the Government still guess
ing and which set the public agape.
From this confusion, and the presentation of
its existence is necessary in a story which aims
at accurately presenting the condition of things
both at home and abroad, it is pleasant to turn
to the facts of events.

190 The Fall of Santiago.

CHAPTEE IX.
HOW SCHLEY DESTROYED CERVERa's FLEET.
Except in a casual way it has not been found
necessary, in the progress of this history, to
refer to Cervera's fleet from the moment of its
discovery inside Santiago Harbor by Schley.
The fieet was there, shut up in the land-locked
harbor; the subject of forcing the passage, brav
ing the mines and risking the fires of the bat
teries and engaging the fleet had, as has been
told, formed the subject of conversation and
plan between Admiral Sampson and his comman
ders; and the Merrimae, as has also been told,
was sunk partly athwart the channel by Hobson
¦ — but outside of these facts and references Cer
vera's fleet has been a passive factor in this
story. It will be remembered that when the great
running Admiral got behind the shelter of
El Morro and La Socapa his seclusion was en
titled by the Spanish authorities "a great tact
ical victory," while our authorities were equally

The Fall of Santiago. 191
precise in esteeming the process of bottling it up
as the settlement of an undefined danger. But,
housed as it was in Santiago Harbor and par
tially locked though the door might be,Cerverva's
fleet was still in existence and sometime or other
would have to be met and accounted for. As to
how that meeting would occur there were many
surmises, but not even the deftest romancer in
the fleet ever spun a yarn so full of bright and
glowing threads as that in which Cervera was
moored, wound up and ended. The spectacular
element, of whose profusion in this campaign I
have before remarked, was eminently, distin-
guishingly present in the last act of Cervera's ap
pearance in the role of naval commander.
Passive though the Spanish fleet may have
seemed to be in its imprisonment, the time had
been by no means one of inaction to the Spani
ards. To the contrarj', it had been one in which
movement and anxiety had had equal parts.
The story of Cervera's imprisonment, and
attempt to escape as told by the Spaniards them
selves is rather a pitiful one. Those who tell it
are Captain Eulate of the Viscaya, Captain Con-
treres of the Colon, Cariuz the impressed and
official pilot of the Spanish fleet, and, lastly, that
log of the Colon out of which we have alread.v
gathered the story of Cervera's flitting from port

192 The Fall of Santiago.
to port. It is a long story as well as a pitiful
one, but some of it must be told here.
The time of feasting and frolic which followed
the entrance of Cervera's fleet into Santiago Har
bor on May 19th lasted until the appearance on
the outside of Schley's grim-looking warships.
Then the rollicking was out short, shore-leave cut
off and feverish activity took their place. Just
as our naval commanders were busy in devising
plaBS to keep Cervera from coming out, so Cervera
was hard at work devising plans to keep Schley
and Sampson from coming in. Four six-inch
guns were taken out of the Eeina Mercedes, two
of them placed in La Socapa battery so as to
enfilade the neck of the harbor and two mounted
in a shore battery opposite Cay Smith ; the elec
tric mines in the channels were reinforced with a
number of contact mines ; a great boom of logs
and swinging rope nooses was laid clear across
the bay between the entrance and the fleet, and
four rapid-fire six-pounders were removed from
the flagship and placed in shore earthworks op
posite the narrowest part of the entrance.
When all of these works of protection had been
done, and their accomplishment occupied until
May 31, both Cervera and Linares held that San
tiago was icipregnable to a sea attack and indeed
it seemed a peculiar fancy of the Spanish com-,

The Fall of Santiago. 193
manders that they were always contriving and
constructing "impregnable" positions, with the
equally nugatory result that the "impregnable
positions" were always either carried by the
enemy or abandoned by themselves.
Hobson learned something of the nature of
Santiago's defenses and much more was learned
afterwards by Schley when he made the tour of
the batteries after the surrender of the city, but
it is evident that Hobson did not know all, and
that Schley was rather inclined to judge super
ficially. Hobson saw nothing but what he was
allowed to see, and Schley only saw what the
Spaniards had left in the way of visible defenses.
It is from the Spanish revelations of what had
been done to guard Cervera's fleet against attack
that we gain an exact idea of what our fleet would
have had to encounter had it pressed into the
harbor to atack the Spaniard.
When the American army landed at Daiquiri
and Siboney, two gun crews were sent from each
Spanish ship with three-pounder landing guns
and a battery of automatic guns to assist the Span
ish forces. Guns and men took an active part in
the battles of El Caney and San Juan, two of the
officers and many of the men being killed there.
When both of these strongholds were taken the
desperate nature of the situation appealed so

194 The Fall of Santiago.
strongly to both Cervera and Linares that the
latter sent an almost despairing message to
Blanco who replied, as Governor General of Cuba,
by ordering Cervera to make a run for it. On the
receipt of these instructions Cervera, on the
afternoon of July 2, signalled his captains to a
conference at which it was agreed by all the com
manders, except those of the torpedo-boat des
troyers, that it was best to make the attempt to
escape at night. The American troops were press
ing forward, taking line after line of intrench
ments; Shafter's indecision and fears were not
known of, and the American fleet seemed to be
closing in on the harbor, so it was decided to go
out that very night at eleven o'clock. As soon as
darkness set in the preparatory work for the dash
into the open sea was begun. The contact mines,
lying to the west of the Merrimae, were removed,
the big boom was drawn aside and the ships were
massed near the entrance. But night brought no
relaxation of vigilance on the part of the Amer
ican blockaders. To the contrary, it was seen
that the blockading fleet was drawn up in un
usually close lines, the great white cones of the
flash-lights played uninterruptedly on the en
trance; while up on the hills beacon fires were
burning. To Cervera and his officers it appeared
impossible to get away from this wary, watchful

The Fall of Santiago. 195
foe and when he ran up the querulous signal,
"Do you think we had better wait until day
light," all the captains answered "Yes."
The Spanish ships were then withdrawn up the
harbor, the boom thrown back, the contact mines
replaced and daylight waited for. But when day
light came and the ships oirce more steamed
down to the entrance, there lay the blockading
fleet close and wary as ever. Fires were all go
ing in the Spaniards' boiler rooms, and at nine
o'clock the captains and admirals met for a final
conference. It was decided that no more delay
was possible, and that the only thing left was to
get up all steam possible and, as soon as a four
teen knot power was made, to start. The order of
the ships' exits were set in this wise : First the In
fanta Maria Teresa, with Cervera on board; then
the Viscaya, then the Almirante Oquendo, then
the Cristobal Colon, each with a cable's length
headway. It was planned that the three first
named were to engage the enemy running and
that the Colon, as the fleetest of the cruisers and
under cover of this engagement, was to put on full
speed to the west and get away to Cienfuegos.
Most of the baggage and valuables of the officers
was put on board the Colon, for while the up
shot of the fight between the Teresa, Viscaya and
Oquendo and our ships was in doubt, none waa

196 The Fall of Santiago.
entertained as to the ability of the Colon to out
strip her pursuers. Tho gunboat destroyers were
to follow the Colon and aid in covering the escape
of that ship.
The swift-running, heavy-batteried Brooklyn
was the most dreaded of the American ships and
all the Spanish captains were instructed to make
a joint attempt to sink her, every big gun being
trained forward of the beam so that on emerging
from the entrance all would be aimed at her.
While these last instructions were being given,
the signalman at El Morro announced that the
American fiagship had just left for the East and
that the Newark and Massachusetts were also well
down the coast. It seemed to the Spaniards as
though Providence was on their side at last, the
captains were hurried to their ships and the dash
for liberty was begun.
The lookout on El Morro had correctly reported.
The joint attack on Santiago by the land and sea
forces, as an emphatic aid to hasten a capitula
tion, was to be arranged, and Sampson steamed
down early on this Sunday morning to Siboney
for the purpose of consulting with Shafter. As
the New York turned eastward she flew the signal
"Disregard commander-in-chief's movements."
Her departure left Schley in virtual command of
the blockading fleet and so it happened that,

The Fall of Santiago. 197
because of this Sunday morning visit, it was left
for Schley to carry out those laconic instructions
which he had received from Washington when
he reported his discovery of Cervera's fleet. He
had been told to "capture or destroy" the Span
ish ships and he did so. Admiral Sampson's
departure for the confabulation at Siboney did
not, it is true, shift the command; he was still
commander-in-chief of the fleet, and officially was
at the head of the American war vessels when
they shot and smothered Cervera's lean cruisers
out of existence. But, while officially present,
he was personally absent and to the plain people,
who so stubbornly stick to plain facts and pocket
offlcial fictions, it was Schley, Schley and his
fighting fellow-commanders to whom is due the
glory of the battle of July 3d.
No one doubts the ability and foresight of Bear
Admiral Sampson. After the landing of the army
of invasion Sampson instructed his captains to
"maintain and display the utmost vigilance in
guarding the harbor entrance. " This was spe
cifically enjoined on them and they were as spe
cifically told that "if the Spanish admiral ever
intends to try to escape he will make that effort
now." That possibility was emphatically laid
down and the commanders understood and ap
preciated the wisdom and foresight of their chief.

198 The Fall of Santiago.
But the night was always regarded as the time
when Cervera would, in all probability, make his
running. The cover of darkness and the con
fusion of a night battle were always considered
the elements which Cervera would choose as aids
to his escape and, while it cannot be said that
nobody dreamed Cervera would bolt for it in full
daylight, certainly such a possibility could not
have been seriously considered by Sampson or he
would not have left the fleet on this Sunday
morning. As Cervera had found on the preced
ing night, the American lines were closely drawn
about the entrance and the searchlights lit up
every inch between the heights of El Morro and
La Socapa. But when morning dawned the lines
of the blockading squadron were broken. Of
the flagship's whereabouts we know. The battle
ship Massachusetts early in the morning had
gone to Guantanamo; the Marblehead was also at
that base of supplies; the New Orleans had been
sent to Key West and of the numerous auxiliary
fleet two only , the converted yacht Gloucester
and the converted tugboat Vixen, were left on
blockade — the others being widely scattered
along the coast from Guantanamo to Acerradores.
We know what the Spaniards had been doing,
what preparations they had made and how they
were lined up behind the shelter of the entrance

The Fall of Santiago. 199
cliffs waiting for the signal to run; let us now see
how lay that pact of the American squadron
which remained on blockade duty.
The morning was clear and a painter would
have said that the sea was turquoise and that the
sky from zenith to horizon was shaded from sap
phire to topaz. The American ships lay in a
long semicircle, with its distance from the shore
ranging from about two miles at the horns of the
crescent to about five miles in the fullness of the
bow. The little Vixen lay at the western horn
of the crescent, she being close under the hills
at Cabanas; a mile to the eastward and outward
lay the Brooklyn flying Commodore Schley's flag;
next, and at equal distances, came the Texas,
Iowa, Oregon and Indiana, the little Gloucester
lying in a corresponding position to the Vixen at
the western horn of the crescent. In this distri
bution the Iowa was at a point about opposite the
Santiago Harbor entrance and therefore the fur
thest from the shore. All the ships were headed
in ; lazily tossing in the long swell, with banked
fires and motionless engines. The crews had
been called to quarters and were grouped about,
clad in their speckless white dress mustering
suits and the captain and executive officer of each
ship were below inspecting. Sunday service
would soon be called and altogether it was a scene

200 The Fall of Santiago,
of Sabbath peace at sea. It is well to fill the
mind with this idea of the rest and quiet of the
American ships on the one side and the alert
stillness of the Spanish fieet on the other, in order
to appreciate the extraordinary and startling
change that took place in a twinkling. It was a
transformation scene from the realms of Peace on
the Deep to the horror and turmoil of the Battle
field of the Demons of Discord, effected with a
suddenness, unique perhaps in the annals of war
fare, and accompanied by such a swift and terrific
work of destruction as was certainly undreamed
of by the students of the possibilities of modern
warships in action.
Complete as was the surprise caused by the
sudden appearance of Cervera's ships it speaks
volumes for the discipline of our men, under
what may be called relaxed conditions, that it
has been found almost impossible to decide
who really did first see the outcoming Span
iards. The lookouts on the Texas, Iowa and
Oregon all claim the distinction of being the
first to signal the discovery of Cervera's
attempt to escape, while, were this a boy's history
of the war, much pleasant importance might be
given to the claim of Joe Gaskin, a Newark lad
on board the Iowa, of whom it is said that he had
been watching all the morning for Cervera's ships

The Fall of Santiago. 201
"because he had passed a good deal of the night
thinking of them." The facts are that all three
vessels signaled so simultaneously that the dis
coveries came as one ; Joe Gaskin got his ten dol
lars as a special reward for vigilance, and it was
the Oregon which put the discovery into effect.
Without waiting to bend on and run up her sig
nals the Oregon fired a six-pounder as an alarm
and before its echoes had died away the string of
parti-colored flags for signal 250, "The enemy is
tryingto escape, " was flying from the masts of
the Brooklyn, Texas, Iowa and Oregon. Smoke
in the harbor had been seen many times and when
it was noticed early this morning not much impor
tance was attached to it. Toward 9 o'clock the
wreaths of smoke which rose above the entrance
hills grew more pronounced and still they
were thought only to indicate activity among the
tugs of the bay ; but when at 9 :35 a moving prow
showed from behind Cay Smith and the next in
stant a black-hulled cruiser came into view the
rousing, heart-prodding truth burst upon the
fleet, and then it was that the signals went up
and the curtain rose on the transformation
scene. Orders were issued of course, but they were
not needed, for even while the ship-boys went
flying through the gangways yelling that

202 The Fall of Santiago.
the Spaniards were coming out, the men had
doffed their spick-and-span suits and stood
stripped at their posts; drums were beating;
battle-hatches and battle-ports were being put
on; guns were loaded and trained and, down
stairs, naked men were piling up the furnaces,
hacking open the banked fires and coupling the
boilers. As by a common impulse all this was
done and as by a common impulse all the warships
headed for the entrance.
It was the Maria Teresa, with Admiral Cervera
on board, but not flying the admiral's pennant,
which came first into view and it was the Maria
Teresa that fired the first shot. As the cruiser
cleared Socapa Point her forward turret belched
black smoke and an eleven-inch shell came hurt
ling through the air and exploded as it touched
the water between the Texas and Iowa. With
its explosion came the American answer, an
answer from all five warships and an' answer that
roared like the coming of a tornado and in whose
midst, like that of a tornado, there was swift
death and destruction.
For a time it was scarcely possible to decide
on precise and separate lines of action or to quite
make out the separate points of attack. The
Spaniards came out shooting and with the dis
charges of their great guns, added to the volume

1 photograph by J. C. Hemmcrit.
The *' Maria TerL-sa" alter her surrender and as slu

lay a hulk of twisted steel am
the inland hills

w.-.

'^f^^S^^t'-

^m

Copyright, lSi;S, by W . B. Hearst.
guns close into the Santiago shore. The precipitous and impassable nature of this shore and
"p fjbularly brought out in this view.

The Fall of Santiago. 203
of smoke from their funnels, the vessels were
soon little more than moving smoke-clouds. They
were rather as moving pillars of fire and smoke
in each of which the faint outlines of a dark-
colored, swift-moving warship could be seen,
while between and across and around these
smoke-clouds there rose and fell a moving
line of fountains, where the great shells struck
and threw up the sea. Then, to this bank of
clouds and congregation of geysers, was added
the on-coming wall of smoke with its spits
of fire that marked the American fleet; and next
the guns of the batteries added their smoke, until
the whole sea and coast were covered with great
rolling heaps and banks of cloud through which
the position of the ships was marked by the flashes
of the guns.
But moving clouds, lightning clouds as were
the ships; and full of murk and lurid light as
was the whole scene, out of it was soon evolved a
fight of definiteness as to plan and of individuality
as to contestants. Before that first terrific and
wholesale broadside of the American fleet Cer
vera's plans melted away. With that frightful
evidence coming from long range of what he
would have to encounter at shorter range the
Spanish fleet settled down to one object, that of
making its escape. The Maria Teresa, the first to

204 The Fall of Santiago.
emerge, was also the first to set the new running.
Scarcely had the cruiser cleared Socapa Point
than over went her helm and away she sped, due
west, heading for that section of the blockading
squadron where the line was formed by the
Vixen and Brooklyn. The Vixen, it will be re
membered, la.v close to shore and Cervera evi
dently thought, in this new and sudden plan, that
he could slip by the Vixen without damage on
account of her small size, and get away up the
coast before the Brooklyn could close in and
certainly before the great battleships could bring
their massive forms into full action. As the long
Castillian cruiser leaped forward the Vixen, with
excellent discretion, scampered off to sea. The
water was leaping high up the bows of the Brook
lyn as she closed in, her long-range guns turned
straight on the fleeing Spaniard. As the two
vessels neared it looked for one desperate moment
as though the Teresa intended to ram the Brook
lyn, so wheeling with a rapidity that was of a part
with the whole engagement the American flagship
turned her bow westward and coupling on fresh
boilers, ran parallel to the escaping cruiser,
blazing away with all her starboard guns. But
not alone from the Brooklyn did the Teresa re
ceive her wounds, for even as the great battleships
smothered inwards and westward they fired at so

The Fall of Santiago. 205
long a range that the resulting hits may be classed
among the miracles of gunnery. The very first
shot which the Brooklyn fired at the Teresa as
the two came into parallel line cut the Spaniard's
main water-supply pipe, but from the Texas and
Oregon's giant guns she received the first of her
death blows. One shell from the Oregon passed
through her port quarter and exploded in the
engine room, another landed on her stern and set
her afire, while several thirteen-inch shells swept
through her, each one at once a battering ram
and a hail of far-reaching death. Then, as the
Brooklyn brought the Teresa within range of her
secondarj' battery the smaller shells of the Amer
ican lodged and burst in her antagonist from
stem to stern.
While the Teresa was thus receiving the brunt
of the first fire, her lean, lank sisters had emerged
from the entrance and were set with all their
noses pointed west and racing for dear life, with
the great American sea-hounds in hot pursuit.
As each passed the fated Teresa she sent another
shell or two into that doomed craft. There was
no time to fight her, nor indeed was there any
need to. The Teresa was out of the running.
She had put her black muzzle out of Santiago
Harbor at 9 :35. At 10 :10 she was a burning,
riddled hulk, with her fire mains cut fore and aft

206 The Fall of Santiago.
and no way of putting out the blaze. Two of
the thirteen-inch projectiles of the Texas had
gone clear through her; an eight-inch shell from
the Brooklyn had entered just forward of the
beam on the port side and exploding had cleaned
out the compartment with its four deck crews.
One six-inch shell had carried away the bridge;
another from the Brooklyn's forward turret struck
the Spaniard amidships, exploded, tore down the
bulkheads, destroyed stanchions, penetrated the
deck, crippled two rapid-fire guns, killed fifteen
or twenty men and carried panic everywhere.
For a moment the Teresa halted and veered,
like a stricken man groping in the oncoming
dark. To the sailors of our fleet, as they swept
by it looked as though she were about to turn
and were trying to stagger back into the shelter
of the harbor, but when she had half swung a
great gush of flame shot upward from her quarter,
and it was seen that her commander was about
to run her ashore. This he did at 10 :35, having
found a little cove, really a break in the coast
line, which the Cubans call Nima-Nama. As she
struck the beach her colors went down, and the
flames leaped up with renewed activity from the
shock of her keel on the beach. And so ended the
Infanta Maria Teresa, first-class cruiser, late of
the Spanish navy.

The Fall of Santiago. 207

'o^

Following the Teresa, and hugging the shore as
that ship had done, came the Viscaya,and after her
and parallel to her came on the Oregon and Texas,
rapidly closing up the gap between them and the
Brooklyn, while the Iowa turned in to look after
the surrendered Teresa. The same tactics that
had obtained in the battle with the Teresa were
carried out in that with the Viscaya, except that
the Brooklyn was now so far ahead that she was
able to turn slightly in shore in such a way as to
cut off the Viscaya's escape. But the cruiser
never reached the line of the Brooklyn's offset.
Schley, Clark and Philip thus kept up the race
and the fire of the three ships was concentrated
on this hapless hulk, while, as the Iowa turned
in to look after the Teresa she let fly one spiteful
shell at the Viscaya which struck the Spaniard's
eleven-inch gun in the forward turret, cutting a
furrow out of the side of the gun as though it had
been done with a cold chisel. The shell exploded
half way in the turret, making the vessel stagger
and shake in every plate. Every gunner in the
turret was killed and the place so choked with
corpses that the new crew had to ship the dead
through the ammunition hoist to the lower deck.
The Viscaya remained, however, the special prey
of the Brooklyn and Oregon, the Texas having in
her run paid most attention to the Oquendo.

208 The Fall of Santiago.

to^

Exclusive of the innumerable one-pounder and
rapid-fire hits which swept the Viscaya's deck
she was struck fourteen times by large projectiles
and eleven times by six-pounders. The eight-
inch guns of the Brooklyn and Oregon tore her
structure above the armor belt into shreds, while
the six-pounders of the two ships actually drove
every Spaniard from the deck. Every rapid-fire
gun on the Viscaya was silenced because every
gunner had been either killed or crippled at his
post ; the military tops were filled with dead men;
the surgeons had ceased to dress the wounded ;
the inside woodwork was ablaze and the hospital
was a furnace. Men and officers acted like peo
ple bereft of their senses. The officers screamed
their orders and the men rolled here and there
like drunkards. Then, at 10 :55, when the whole
gun-deck was in flames and the magazines were
in danger she, with her flag still flying, was
headed for the shore at Acerradores, sixteen
miles west of El Morro. Just as she turned for
the shore, and when about four hundred yards
from the beach, the Texas, in flying past in pur
suit of the Colon, fired a shell from her after-tur
ret. It hit the Viscaya a little forward of amid
ships just above the armor-belt, crashed through
her side, crossed the gun-deck, ricocheting from
compartment to compartment until it reached the

From pholograph by J. C. Hemment.
Superstructure and main deck of the "Viscaya," showing the terribh

Copyright, i8g8, by VV. B. Hearst.
estruction caused by the exploding American shells and the succeeding fire.

The Fall of Santiago. 209
forward torpedo-tubes one of which it exploded
Torpedo and shell alike exploded indeed and
while in its progress over the deck the shell
killed eighty men, the double explosion blew out
the starboard side of the cruiser and made her a
complete wreck. And so ended the Viscaya.
The end of the Oquendo differed but little in
its elements of horror from that of the two cruis
ers whose destruction has been described. Some
thing appeared to be the matter with the machin
ery or engines of this vessel, for though the
draught was being forced to such an extent that
her funnel-tops were frequently crested with
flames, she had fallen behind the Viscaya. In con
sequence of her comparative slowness everyone
of our warships punished her as she swept along
in the great parallel fight. In the case of the
Oquendo, too, the pursuing ships had no need
of long-range gunnery, but forged in closely to
her and overwhelmed her with the fire of their
secondary batteries. Only four eight-inch shells
struck her and but two six-inch shells. On the
other hand she was struck no less than forty-six
times by our six-pounders, all of which entered
above her armor-belt and exploded within, while
the one-pounders from every vessel in the fleet
seemed for a time to have been concentrated on
her, these small but most mischievous missiles

210 The Fall of Santiago.
having plowed through, across and along her as
a battery of machine-guns might have torn a regi
ment to pieces. She furnished an object lesson
of the wonderful rapidity and accuracy of the fire
of our small guns that was in its way as interesting
and instructive as was the Teresa in showing what
the Texas and Oregon could do in the way of
landing a giant shell from a moving fortress into
a flying target with a few miles between them.
Captain Eulate, who commanded the Oquendo,
declared that it was the carnage caused by the
secondary batteries of our ships, and mainly by
the Brooklyn which led to his surrrender, the
men being literally unable to work their guns.
Eulate further reported that the long-range fight
ing, notwithstanding the heavier metal thrown,
was as a child's love-pat compared with the
thrashing received from the small guns. The
rattle of the lighter shot on the steel decks, the
incessant din, the constant flashing of exploding
shells and the never ceasing shriek of the projec
tiles made up such a concatenation of horror that
it seemed impossible to think of or hear anything
outside of this devil's tattoo. The killing inside
the ship was something too horrible for descrip
tion. She caught on fire so many times and in
so many places that the ironwork was scarcely
bearable to the touch and the deck seemed red

The Fall of Santiago. 211
hot. Every beam was twisted and torn from its
original position. It was absolutely beyond hu
man endurance to hold out further; she was a
shambles above and below ; the track of the shells
was marked by human remains. One eight-inch
shell struck the forward turret at the gun open
ing ; every man in the turret was killed and the
officer in the firing-hood was blown to pieces.
The engineer force was penned up because of
the battle-gratings being jammed. So having
reached a point opposite the beach where the
Teresa was run, she was headed in about five hun
dred yards above her helpless consort, with
flames rising fiercely from stem to stern. And
so, with explosions that still further wrecked her
shattered sides and deck, the Almirante Oquendo
was finished.
There remained then the torpedo-destroyers
and the Cristobal Colon. The plans of Admiral
Cervera were being wofully interfered with. For
a time, and really in due sequence as the death
of the Colon came later, the desperate running of
that swift cruiser can be passed over while atten
tion is paid to the fate of the destroyers—those
untried craft concerning whose possibilities so
much had been written and feared. The last of
the cruisers was two miles from the entrance
when the Pluton came into view, closely followed

212 The Fall of Santiago.
by the Furor. Their low black forms seemed to
waver for a moment and their bows were pointed
eastward; then, following the course of the cruis
ers they, too, headed for the west. Blood-cur
dling tales had been told of what these wicked
little craft would do; of their thirty-knot speed;
of their magical ability to maneuver and of
their power to launch a torpedo and get away
unscathed with the swiftness of an enraged wasp.
Instead of all this, the reality was two wavering
little boats which could not even run away, but
which slowly moved into the shadow of the shore
as though seeking to avoid observation. On our
side there was no apparent thought as to the fero
cious possibilities of the destroyers, for the Ore
gon scarcely deigned to pepper them as she
dashed to the front; the Texas treated them to a
secondary battery shower as she too moved west;
the Iowa, running neck and neck with the Oregon,
swerved a little to tear the stern of the Furor to
pieces with one fierce shell and then passed on,
contemptuously leaving the completer destruc
tion of the craft to the little Gloucester.
The Gloucester had been the millionaire Mor
gan's yacht, known as Corsair No. 2, and even as
a converted gunboat was as harmless a looking
pirate as ever put the quietus to a couple of dis
tressed Spanish sea-bravos. The captain of the

The Fall of Santiago. 213

'&^

Gloucester was Lieutenant Harry P. Wainwright,
who had been the last man to leave the hulk of
the Maine as she settled into the silt of Havana
Harbor. Dashing right inside of the line of our
cruisers until she was close under the guns of El
Morro, and in the full fire of those batteries, of the
stern-chasers of the fleeing cruisers and of the
possibilities of the terrible things the destroyers
could do, the little yacht darted in to tackle them
at close quarters. Carrying four six-pounder
rapid-fire guns, four three-pounder rapid-fire
guns and two small Colt automatics and with
a complement of ninety-three offlcers and men
the little unarmored 800-ton yacht started in to
finish up the two Spanish fighting craft, each as
long as she, each built to destroy, each carrying
two fourteen-pound, two six-pound and four one-
pound rapid-fire guns, and two fourteen-inch
torpedo tubes, with a total complement of one
hundred and thirty-four men. The gun work on
the Gloucester was record-making ; empty shells
rolled about the deck, breech-locks grew so hot
that they refused to work, the men were stripped
naked and though the Spaniards shot valiantly
in their attempt to sink their tiny antagonist,
not a shot struck her. Pushing forward until
within five hundred yards of the destroyers, fir
ing now at one now at the other the Gloucester

214 The Fall of Santiago.
pressed on. Suddenly there was a flash, not that
of a gun, on board the Pluton and she began to
settle. At the sight of this catastrophe the Fu
ror circled back to El Morro as though running
away from her wounded sister, and then circled
back as though ashamed of her conduct and as
though she were returning to assist in the Pluton's
dying struggles. But again she turned, and it was
then seen that she was drifting and simply mov
ing in a circle because of a jammed helm. For
all this the Gloucester kept up her withering fire
until the Furor went down by the head and sank
in deep water just west of Cabanas, while the Plu
ton managed to get close enough to run ashore.
Wainwright had remembered the Maine.
Among those saved was Lieutenant Boado-
Suances of the Pluton and some days after, when
he was able to think clearly, for the horror of his
experience almost made him mad, he told his
story. Of shattered steam-pipes and escaping
steam scalding to death the engineers and
stokers as they stood; of men cut in twain by
fragments of giant shells; of the boats thrown
on their beam ends from the force of the shells'
impact and torn to pieces from the explosions;
of other shells whose path could be marked by
splashes in the sea as they came bounding toward
them, sure as death and straight as an arrow, at

The Fall of Santiago. 215
whose sight men screamed shrilly in their
fear. There remained then the Colon. For a time it
looked as though the plan for her escape by runn
ing inside the line of the other cruisers might be
carried to a successful conclusion. In the din
and smother and roar of the other engagements
this fleet ship coursed westward, gaunt-looking
and rapid as a hound. But there were sharp
eyes and nimble minds on board the American
ships. The Spaniard had reeled off many a good
knot in her flight and of her pursuers all but
two were left moderately well behind — the Brook
lyn and the Oregon, a cruiser and a battleship.
In their running fight the two Americans pressed
on after the Spaniard in a line that would have
brought them broadside along her — the Spaniard
following the trend of the coast. But this coast
dipped into bay which ended in Cape Cruz to
the westward. Schley saw the cape and imme
diately turned out and headed for it, and when
the Spaniard saw this move he knew that his
case was hopeless. As the Brooklyn swung out
the Oregon put on a burst of speed and followed
the Colon, and it was at this time that the battle
ship made for herself a record among the fight
ing machines of the world, and set the fleet
a-roaring.

216 The Fall of Santiao:o

o^

Put together like a watch they knew her to be;
steady as an East Indiaman she had proved her
self to be in her ever-memorable voyage up and
down the oceans of the New World ; big as a city
block of buildings they could see her to be, but
when this monstrous floating fortress went leap
ing over and through the waves like a clipper-
ship and that without any apparent effort, her
smoke-stacks being crested only with the faintest
haze, men threw up their hands in amazement.
From fighting mast to fighting mast the Oregon
and the Brooklyn signaled the range to and fro
and both began firing. It was then one o'clock p.m.
and the distance between battleship and cruiser
was six thousand yards. As the Oregon dashed
along in the general pursuit of and fight with the
other Spaniards she looked indeed a fioating for
tress, firing fore, aft and abeam at once, but now
she settled down into a steady target-practice.
Now, too, the Colon having seen the error of her
way was making every effort to slip past Cape
Cruz, beyond which lay safety. Every pound of
steam was crowded on and she was going a nine-
teen-knot gait. But tear through the water as
she might, the long slim Brooklyn was swiftly
and surely getting between her and the headland.
Captain Clark's great shells were beginning to
fall around her, while behind the Oregon the

The Fall of Santiago. 217
Texas could be seen pounding along in her wake
under a forced draught. The Oregon's thirteen-
inch shells fell nearer and nearer to the Colon
and the Spaniard was headed for the shore and
her flag hauled down.
Hers was the most inglorious end of all the
Spanish fleet. She was in good fighting commis
sion when run ashore. Having kept behind the
other ships for protection, the Colon was hit with
large projectiles about six times, these having
been made by the Brooklyn and Oregon. One
eight-inch shell went clean through her without
exploding, one five-inch hit her just above the
armor-belt and one six-inch struck her on the
bow, but no blow was fatal or even serious.
When the Colon turned in and ran her nose
on the coral keys about the mouth of the Eio
Tarquino, forty-eight miles west of Santiago, she
was a surrendered ship in good condition. When
the Americans reached her she was a wreck and
had been wantonly made so. The breech-locks
of the guns had been torn out and thrown over
board. Every inlet for water had been opened
and the wrecking-gang of the Merrimao had not
worked more religiously and efficiently to sink
that collier than did the officers and men of the
Colon to wreck and scuttle her after surrender.
Only one life had been lost and she had less than
twenty men wounded.

218 The Fall of Santiago.
The New York's share in the fight was that of
an observer. It will be remembered that she had
gone down to Siboney for a Sunday morning call
on Shafter. At half-past nine the sound of heavy
guns reached the flagship and turning westward
the bridge-officer saw and reported "Firing from
the eastern and western batteries and the ships
returning it." A moment's confusion, a skurry-
ing of orderlies and the New York's bow was
brought around for Santiago. Eight knots was
all she could make at first, only two boilers being
in use, but new fires were started, the
forward engines coupled and as the deck was
cleared for action she soon gathered speed. As
she swept by the Eesolute that gunboat was sent
back to Siboney to cable to Playa del Este to order
up the Massachusetts and all other vessels there
abouts, and the torpedo boat Ericsson was gath
ered up in the westward run. As she came oppo
site El Morro the flagship fired her forward four-
inch guns, four shots in all and these were her only
shots for the day. They were aimed at the Terror
and one was thought to have struck the upper
works of that destroyer. The others went wide.
As the flagship swept on, the destroyers were seen
to be total wrecks, and Wainwright was busy
succoring his enemies.
Five miles beyond the harbor entrance,

The Fall of Santiago. 219
Sampson saw the Spanish flagship Infanta
Maria Teresa beached and flying a white flag;
less than a mile beyond at Juan Gonzales, Samp
son saw the Almirante Oquendo beached and
ablaze; opposite Acerradores, Sampson passed the
Viscaya ashore and blazing like the Oquendo.
What Sampson had so far seen of the Spanish
fleet was a succession of battered and blazing
hulks. There remained only the Colon, and the
flagship pressed on to be at least in at the death
of that cruiser, but when the flagship reached
the Eio Tarquino the Colon had surrendered.
Sampson there received Schley's report of his
glorious victory, took charge of the transfer
of prisoners and placed Lieutenant-Commander
James G. Cogswell, executive officer of the
Oregon, in command of the Colon.
It was thought that the Colon might be saved
and the Vixen was set to tow her inshore, but
the tug could not move the Spaniard's huge bulk.
Next the flagship muzzled her sharp prow with a
rope fender and, it being then night time, set the
glare of her searchlight on the Spaniard's star
board quarter and moved her own engines ahead.
Slowly the Colon swung around under this great
pressure and it was hoped that a new vessel would '
be added there and then to our navy. Suddenly,
however, the Colon rolled over on her port side

220 The Fall of Santiago.
with her starboard guns pointing straight and
silently upward. So ended the Colon, and in this
way was the New York in at the death.
Having thus made an end of Cervera's fleet and
done their best to blow the Spanish crews into
eternity, the American commanders remembered ,
that it was Sunday and that the enemy being in
a pit it was their duty as members of the church
militant to drag him out thereof. All up and
down the coast, therefore, where had raged the
tumult of battle the boats and launches of our
warships were busy in the work of succor. The
Gloucester's boats rescued the survivors of the
burning Pluton as they swam and then steamed
to the beach on which were gathered the sur
vivors of the Teresa. Among these was Admiral
Cervera, a short, paunchy gray-bearded gentle
man, who in his underclothes stepped forward
and surrendered. He explained his personality
and was transferred to the Iowa where he re
ceived the honors of his rank and a new suit of
clothes. The Indiana lowered her boats and at
different points along the shore picked up seven
officers and two hundred and three men. From
the sinking Viscaya and the beach near her and
the sea about her, the Iowa picked up thirty-
eight officers and two hundred and thirty-eight
men ; whi-le W. E. Hearst, who with that origi-

The Fall of Santiago. 221

o

nality of enterprise which had made bim and hia
paper, the New York Journal, of national promi
nence, and who had gone to Cuba as the war cor
respondent of his own paper, rounded up a squad
of the Viscaya's men and delivered them out of
the hands of the Cubans into those of the officers
of the St. Louis. So it went on for hours, fcr
the rest of the day and the coming night in truth,
with shelter and courtesj' to the officers, with
care and comfort to the men, with nursing and
medical attendance for the wounded, and with
decent burial for the dead.
It was the same spirit of mercy to the van
quished which led Captain John W. Philip of the
Texas to forbid his men to cheer when the
Viscaya ran up the white flag. So long as there
was any fight in the Spaniard he was to be
battered and pelted and torn, but when the token
of submission was flying over a vessel that had
been changed from a swift-moving thing full of
life and action into something that was at once a
furnace and a charnel-house, it was a triumph to
be sure, but not a time for noisy jubilation. So,
"Don't cheer men," cried Captain Philip, as the
jackies began to yell and caper, "those poor
devils are dying."
It was in a tenderer and still higher spirit that
this same Captain Philip, when the fight was over,

222 The Fall of Santiago.
did something that showed him possessed of a
moral courage as great in degree as the physical
courage that had kept him on the bridge all
through the engagement in the fierce give-and-
take fight between the mighty engines of de
struction. The men with their stripped bodies
black with the grime of battle ; the decks strewn
with the splintered evidences of fight; the great
guns still steaming, with their breech-locks turned
open to the air; the turret crews stumbling out
of their steel furnaces; and the delirium of victory
over all — surely this was a time and these were
the elements for the noise and rejoicing of ma
terial things, the time to yell for themselves and
their good ship. But to Captain Philip it was
something more than a victory of men and ma
terial and beckoning to the crew to gather around
him he stood straight before them, with a clear
unflinching light in his little beady eyes and tak
ing off his cap said:
"I want to make public acknowledgment here
that I believe in God, the Father Almighty, and
I want all you officers and men to lift your hats
and from your hearts offer silent thanks to the
Almighty." Plain, simple words and uttered with the plain
simple faith of a child; yet the heart of the peo
ple has been moved more deeply by this avowal

TheFall of Santiago. 223

o

of the Lord God of Gideon than by all the other
thrilling incidents of the great fight of July 3d — •
whatever may be the cause of the moving, whether
the sentimentality that follows the reading of
great deeds as a transient feeling, or the in
herent Puritanism of the nation as a settled fact.
The statistics of this great sea-battle almost
bore out the Philipian idea of a providential
guardianship. The Spanish losses were five hun
dred killed, sixteen hundred prisoners, mostly
wounded, and the total destruction of four cruis-
sers and two torpedo-boat destroyers, represent
ing a value of over twenty million dollars.
The American list of casualties stood at one
man killed, chief yeoman Geo. H. Ellis of the
Brooklyn, and two wounded, and superficial
damages which it would cost a few thousand
dollar to repair. But the hard logic of fact
shows that the destruction of the Spanish
fleet and the escape of ours was due to relative
gunnery ; to good gunnery on our side and to
bad gunnery on theirs. From the moment of the
fleet's emerging from Santiago to the beaching
of the Colon, the Spaniards fired as best they
might. But most of the Spanish shots fell over
our ships and it was the expert belief of our
officers that the enemy did not change their
range.

224 The Fall of Santiago.
Another reason why the Spanish gunnery was
harmless lay in the demoralization of the gun
ners. As we have seen, the Spanish officers
acknowledged that the scenes on board their
ships were those of cumulative horrors growing
out of the din and slaughter of battle, but the
men have stated that each ship was a drunken in
ferno ; that gunners and stokers were plied with
rum ; that treasure was scattered about the decks ;
that the cannoneers reeled drunkenly about their
guns and that the officers shot them down as they
reeled. For the credit of humanity it is hoped
the stories are exaggerated; to the shame of
Spain it must be said the evidence is strongly
against her.
Cervera himself, as he stood on the quarter
deck of the Iowa, furnished the key to the situ
ation, when he said "the rapidity and accuracy
of the American fire was almost incredible." That
was just it. It was the men behind the guns
who won this famous victory and the Spaniard
was smashed by American gunnerj'.
Here are a few concrete facts to remember in
this connection, given even at the risk of repeti
tion : Cervera came out at 9 :35 a. m. At 10 :10
the Teresa was on fire. At 10:15 the Furor
and Pluton were blown up or sinking. At
10 :30 the Oquendo was beached and had sur-

The Fall of Santiago. 225
rendered. At 10:35 the Teresa had followed
suit. At 11 the Viscaya hauled down her colors.
At 1 :15 the Colon had given up the fight and
had been wrecked. Including the chase of the
Colon it had taken us three hours and forty min
utes to destroy the Spanish squadron. Leaving I
out the chase of the Colon, the fight was won in
one hour and ten minutes, while such was the
condition of the enemy that victory was assured
us in thirty minutes. During that decisive
thirty minutes we fired over seventeen hundred
shots, the reports of the discharges being
literally incessant. By large-sized missiles the
Oquendo was struck fifty-five times; the Teresa
thirty-seven times; the Viscaya twenty-five and
the Colon six; while the hits by the smaller guns
were in each case countless. The fight started
at a range of six thousand yards, while at two
thousand and two thousand five hundred yards
two torpedo boats and two cruisers were anni
hilated. The closest fighting of the whole
engagement, though this record may bring
sorrow to the artists who persist in laying their
battling ships alongside each other, was at eleven
hundred yards, when the Brooklyn and Viscaya
were settling accounts.
As to the other lessons of the great fight; of the
mute evidences furnished by the Oquendo of how

226 The Fall of Santiago.
a ship looks when riven by an internal explosion
as compared to that furnished by the Maine; of
the incalculable damage possible when modern
war ships meet ; of the unspeakable horrors that
were found within the charred hulks of the Span
ish ships and of the great leap forward which the
United States navy made in the appreciation of
Europe's War Lords — of all these things much
could be and doubtless will be said, but there is
no place for it here.

The Fall of Santiago. 227

CHAPTEE X.
HOW TOEAL SUEEENDEEBD MOBE THAN WAS ASKED FOE.
When Shafter sent his ultimatum of shell or
surrender to Toral at 8 :20 on the morning of July
3, Toral replied with a refusal to acknowledge
himself beaten, and it was for the exchange of
these communications between the two command
ers that the white flag was set up between the
opposing lines to the surprise of our men on San
Juan hill, as has been described in a previous
chapter. The repb' of Toral to Shafter's demand
was as follows : Santiago de Cdba, July 3.
"To His Excellency the General Commanding
the forces of the United States, San Juan Eiver:
"Sie: I have the honor to reply to your com
munication of to-day, written at 8 :20 a.m. and
received at 1 p.m., demanding the surrender of
this city ; in the contrary case in announcing to
me that you will bombard the city, and that I
advise the foreigners and women and children

228 The Fall of Santiago.
that they must leave the city before 10 o'clock
to-morrow morning.
"It is my duty to sa.v to you that this city will
not surrender, and that I will inform the foreign
consuls and inhabitants of the contents of your
message. "Very respectfully, "Jose Toeal,
"Commander-in-Chief, Fourth Corps."
When Toral sent this brave reply Cervera was
a fighting or fleeing possibility and something,
that something to which the Spaniard is always
clinging, might be done to relieve the be
leaguered city. Pando was coming too, Pando
with his fresh army from Holquin ; the gunnery
of our ships had not so far wrought much
havoc to the city or forts — and so he sent his
answer. He informed the British, Portuguese,
Chinese and Norwegian consuls of the threatened
bombardment, and in consonance with this
notification these officials came to the American
lines and preferred the request that the bombard
ment be postponed until 10 o'clock a.m. Thurs
day the 5th, asking further that the non-combat
ants, numbering between fifteen thousand and
twenty tnousand, might be allowed to occupy the
town of El Caney. To this request Shafter ac
ceded, and sent the following notification to
Toral :

The Fall of Santiago. 229
"Commanding General Spanish forces, Santiago
de Cuba, July 3.
"Sir: In consideration of the request of the
consuls and officers of your city for delay in car
rying out my intention to fire on the city, and in
the interest of the poor women and children, who
will suffer very greatly by their enforced depar
ture from the city, I have the honor to announce
that I will delay such action solely in their in
terest until noon of the 5th, providing during
the interval your forces make no demonstration
whatever upon mine. I am, with great respect,
your obedient servant, "W. E. Shaftee."

When the news of the destruction of Cervera's
fleet reached our headquarters Shafter not only
sent it to the front, where it was received with a
round of cheers that stretched from one end of
the line to the other and with the blare of the
only band that had managed to keep together,
but with excellent policy sent it also to the
commander of the Spanish forces in San
tiago. Whether the lookout at El Morro had reported
to Santiago the woful result of Cervera's attempt
to escape; whether he had not been able to make
out clearly the full extent of the horror in all its
smother of smoke and its confusion of rushing
ships; or whether Shafter's brief bulletin was

230 The Fall of Santiago.
the first intimation received by Linares and Toral-
that Spain had lost another fleet — all these are
points that have not as yet been definitely settled.
It is definitely known, however, that the reception
of the news of this additional disaster caused the
most poignant grief to the Spanish command
ers, and had it not been for their pachyderma
tous pride and their strict adherence to the
punctilios of deference to higher authorities, the
demand of Shafter would have been there and then
acceded to.
As it was, Governor-General Blanco was com
municated with at Havana, and in obedience to
the suggestion received from him Toral proposed
that the truce still continue and that, during it,
commissioners be appointed from both sides to
discuss the question of capitulation.
In deference to this small step pacifically for
ward the day of general attack by land and sea
was postponed, for while Shafter professed to
the Spaniards that he was opposed to the round
about road to surrender along which commission
ers would possibly travel, he saw at once that
this parleying on the part of Toral pointed but
one way.
The situation within each line was at this time
thoroughly characteristic. On the American
side, the persistent strengthening of the position

Maj. Gen. W. B. Shafter.

The Fall of Santiago. 231
as the practical advantage of the extension of
time ; on the Spanish side, increased distress and
a desperate evasion of the inevitable. Toral's
next move in this impractical direction was the
request to Shafter that the cable operators, who
had left Santiago on the first notification of bom
bardment, might be permitted to return to the
city in order that the situation might be laid be
fore the government at Madrid. Shafter con
sented to this,but,as a rider,notified Toral that too
much time was being consumed in preliminaries,
and that a Yes or No to the demand for surrender
must be received before noon of July 9, or the
threatened bombardment would surely begin.
The cable operators returned to Santiago on
July 8, and when the 9th came Toral was ready
with another move for delay and asked that in
stead of a bombardment the American commander
consider this proposition : that he, Toral, evacu
ate the city, provided his forces be permitted to
retire immediately to Holquin. Shafter refused
to consider this suggestion, and ordered Ean
dolph 's Brigade which had just landed to march
to the front and to bring its field artillery with it.
Then Toral sent back to say that he had been
ordered to make this offer by his government
over the cable which Shafter had so generously
placed at his disposal, and that he had been fur-

232 The Fall of Santiago.
ther requested to ask that the suggestion be laid
before the government at Washington. Then
Shafter saw that he had been deftly cornered,
again postponed the bombardment, forwarded
the request to Washington and strengthened his
lines around the Holquin road. In this fashion it
happened that by the curiously circuitous way of
the single cable from Santiago that had escaped
capture^ — -for oddly enough it was only found, and
that accidentally, by the anchor of the Massa
chusetts off Aguadores on the day of the surren
der — and so it happened, I say, that over this
cable via the generals in command on the bat
tlefield and our appropriated cable from Pla.va del
Este, the authorities at Washington and Madrid
were in communication for the first time since
Woodford had received his passports. In the same
roundabout wa.v, but in the most direct language,
Shafter was instructed to inform Toral, for the
benefit of Sagasta, that the unconditional surren
der of Santiago must be granted, or fire would be
opened along the entire American line on the
morning of July 11.
Possibly Toral thought that in view of the
many postponements he had secured this,new ulti
matum would not be rigorously insisted on. In
this, however, he was mistaken, for when July 11
came, with it came the thunder of the great guns

The Fall of Santiago. 233
from the ships, the cough of the Vesuvius and
the earthquake result of its dynamite shells, and
the roar of Eandolph's heavy siege pieces. Some
of the giant shells from Sampson's ships reached
the city, and the men at San Juan could see whole
squares crumble where the steel projectiles ex
ploded. The firing from the lines was mainly
directed against the Spanish trenches and was
but feebly replied to. Of loss of life there was
little, Santiago being practically deserted by
everyone except the garrison, and El Caney and
the inland roads therefrom to Siboney being
crowded with tens of thousands of refugees. It
was intended as an object lesson, as an emphatic
reminder that an answer to a certain question
was being delayed. Yet with all the havoc
caused by the bombardment and with a full
knowledge of their condition, the Spanish leaders
obstinately clung to their determination to sur
render in obedience to commands from Madrid
and not on the demand of Washington. Then it
was that Linares, whose pride was broked down
by sickness and pain, sent the following appeal to
his government, one of the most pathetic revela
tions of the Spanish helplessness and hopeless
ness at Santiago that can be imagined :

234 The Fall of Santiago.
"Official cablegram, July 12, 1898.
"To the Minister of War from the General-in-
Chief of the Division of Santiago de Cuba:
"Although confined to my bed by great weak
ness and in 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 that the state of affairs may be ex
plained. "Enemy's lines very near the town and on ac
count of the nature of the ground our lines are
in full view from them. Troops weak; sick in
considerable proportion not sent to hospitals
owing to the necessity for keeping them in the
intrenchments. Horses and mules without the
usual allowance of forage. In the midst of the
wet season, with twenty hours' daily fall of rain
in the trenches, which are simply ditches dug in
the ground, without any permanent shelter for
the men, who have nothing but rice to eat and no
means of changing or drying their clothing.
Considerable losses; field officers and company
officers killed, wounded and sick, deprive the
troops of necessary orders in critical moments.
"Under these circumstances it is impossible
to fight our way out , because in attempting to
do so our force would be lacking one-third of
the men, who could not leave, and we would be
weakened beside by casualties caused by the en
emy, resulting finally in a veritable disaster,
without saving our diminished battalions. In
order to get out, protected by the Holquin divis
ion, it will be necessary for me to break the en
emy's line. For this operation the Holquin

The Fall of Santiago. 235
division will require eight days and will have to
bring a large amount of rations, which it is im
possible to transport. The solution of the ques
tion is ominously imposed upon us.
"Surrender is inevitable and we can only suc
ceed in prolonging the agony. The sacrifice is
useless, and the enemy understand this. They
see our lines, and theirs being well established
and close up, they tire out our men without expos
ing themselves, as they did yesterday, when they
cannonaded us on land with such an elevation that
we were unable to see their batteries, and from
the sea by a squadron which had a perfect range
and bombarded the town in sections with math
ematical precision.
"The complete exodus of the inhabitants, in
sular as well as peninsular, includes the occupants
of the public offices, with few exceptions.
There only remains the clergy, and they to-day
started to leave the town with the archbishop
at their head.
"The defenders here cannot now begin a cam
paign full of enthusiasm and energy. They
came here three years ago struggling against the
climate, privations and fatigue, and now thej' are
placed in these sad circumstances, where they
have no food, no physical force and no means of
recuperating. The ideal for them is lacking,
because they are defending the property of those
that have abandoned it and of those that now are
being fed by the American forces. The honor
of the army has its limits, and I appeal to the
opinion of the whole nation as to whether these
long-suffering troops have not kept it safely

236 The Fall of Santiago.
many times since May 18, when they were sub
jected to the first cannonade. If it is necessary
that the sacrifice be endured, for reasons of
which I am ignorant, or that some one shall as
sume the responsibility of the unfortunate termi
nation which I have anticipated and mentioned in
a number of telegrams, I faithfullj' offer myself
on the altars of my country for the one, and for
the other I will retain the command for the pur
pose of signing the surrender, for my modest rep
utation is of little value as compared with the
country 's interests. Linaees. ' '
But pitiful as was the condition of the Spanish
soldiers, that of the American forces was also bad,
was indeed wretched. When the great fight was
over, from the firing line along San Juan's crest
all down the muddy, sodden road to Siboney
was an unending though halting string of maimed
and shattered men; the ambulance-carts —
crowded like a potter's field — jolted down to the
hospitals; the surgeon's field-tents were overrun
and the center of patient men in pain; up and
down the eight wearyful miles of mire, white-
faced lads were dragging themselves with aimless
looks on their faces; and anywhere, wherever they
might be found, writhing Spaniards were being
tenderly but hurriedly oared for by our surgeons,
while a surprised look crept over the poor fellows'
faces, or quiet Spaniards were being hurriedly

Gen. Linares.

The Fall of Santiago. 237
buried when no look could come over their faces
at all. Our trenches too, like those of the Span
iards, were ditches of muddy water and our men
had to stand in these, wet from the waist down
ward and parboiled from the waist upward.
Despite the truce, incessant alertness was neces
sary and trenches were constantly being deepened
and extended. The commissariat was deficient,
and the need of the necessities from which the
men had debarrassed themselves on their march
to the front was again acutely felt. Sickness was
beginning to appear — had appeared in fact — an
ugly persistent malarious fever which seized the
men like a foe in the dark, wrestled with them and
left them helpless. Then from crowded El Caney
and the embowered pest-hole of Siboney rumors
came that the dreaded yellow-jack had appeared,
and all too soon these rumors were found to be
well-founded. First a man here and there
crawled to the doctor with all the telltale
symptoms upon him. Then they were found by
batches, pest-camps were established, and all too
late Siboney was burned out of existence. The
excitement of fight was gone and in its place was
present the horrible depression that came alike
as a collapse after such a tremendous physical
and nervous strain and as the natural accom
paniment of the knowledge that the plague had

238 The Fall of Santiago

o^

appeared and that the Spaniards' invisible ally
was at work.
Things were bad enough, wretched enough
with us indeed. But here the similarity of con
ditions ended. Back of us was a strong, rich
government, with one fixed object in view; a
victorious navy with no floating foe to take ac
count of; reinforcements on a score of hurrying
transports and others already at the Cuban base
of supplies, and best of all the great American
heart which beat in unison with that of the
army. On the other hand was an army without
support of navy, with its local reinforcements
cut off, and hampered by a divided government,
incapable alike of rendering assistance or appre
ciating the desperate bravery of its despairing
soldiers. General Miles arrived almost on the echo of the
bombardment, and when another flag of truce ap
peared in the valley that lay between San Juan
and Santiago, and a message was sent to the
American headquarters repeating the proposition
for the appointment of commissioners, the re
turn proposition was made that in such a dis
cussion the chiefs themselves should meet. A
conference of these was set for July 14, at noon,
and at that hour Generals Miles, Shafter and
Wheeler met General Toral and aids underneath

The Fall of Santiago. 239
a cieba tree halfway between the lines. Toral
informed our generals that he had received in
structions from Captain-General Blanco to con
sent that the commissioners should have plenary
power to negotiate the terms of a surrender.
For himself, Toral named as commissioners
General Escario, Lieutenant-Colonel Fortan and
Albert Mason, the British Vioe-Consul; while
Shafter named Generals Wheeler and Ewers and
Captain Miley. The commissioners met under
the same cieba tree at 2 o'clock in the after
noon, Toral being also present. Though so near
a settlement, the dilatory and evasive tactics of
the Spaniards were consistently manifest. It
was stated by Toral that the sanction of Blanco
to the proceedings was but preliminary, and that
the consent of Madrid would be necessary to
complete the bargain. This the American com
missioners declared to be unsatisfactory and
wrong, and in their direct fashion presented
thirteen articles of surrender to Toral for his ac
ceptance or rejection. But no such direct methods
were in Toral's mind; and in the flood of talk
that followed, the American commissioners
were so swamped from the plain ground of
solid fact that they actually agreed to proceed
to the consideration of the preliminaries, leaving
open the question of whether or not the Spanish

240 The Fall of Santiago,
forces had surrendered. On this undefined
basis the discussion of the thirteen articles was
proceeded with, much to the enjoyment of the
voluble Spaniards and the growing impatience
of the Americans.
At length when midnight was passed and a
crystallization of result seemed as far off as ever.
General Wheeler insisted on a test of bona fides,
and the articles were taken up seriatim and each
was dealt with until it was accepted. When all
had been thus declared satisfactory, Wheeler
further insisted that the Spanish commissioners
should affix their signatures to the articles and
this, much against their will they did, in the early
morning hours of July 15. But satisfactory as
this was, back of it all remained the unpleasant
fact that nothing was concluded. Toral had in
sisted that everything was preliminary and sub
ject to orders from Madrid, and Toral carried the
day. There was no apprehension, however, on
the American side as to the outcome, and the con
cession to Toral's dignity was not regarded as
calculated to jeopardize the result. Next day the
atmosphere was cleared up by the receipt of a
dispatch from Toral saying that his government
had "authorized him to capitulate." This one
phrase was intelligible both in its original Span
ish and in the unique translation which lies in

The Fall of San-tiago. 241
the archives of the War Department, but the rest
of it was a mystery. The document reads as
follows : "Santiago de Cuba, July 16.
"To His Excellency, Commander-in-Chief of
the American Forces.
"Excellent Sir: lam now authorized by my
government to capitulate.
"I have the honor to so apprise you, and re
questing you that you designate hour and place
where my representatives shall appear to compare
with those of Your Excellency to effect the arti
cles of capitulation on the basis of what has been
agreed upon to this date in due time.
"I wish to manifest my desire to know the
resolutions of the United States Government
respecting the return of army, so as to note on
the capitulation, also the great courtesy of Your
Great Graces and return for their great gener
osity and impulse for the Spanish soldiers, and
allow them to return to the Peninsula with the
honors the American army do them, the honor to
acknowledge as dutifully descended. "Jose Toeal,
"General Commanding Fourth Army Corps.
"(Signed) "Geneeal Shaftee,
"Commanding American Forces."
Whether it was during the many conferences
in which interpreters of varying degrees of inac
curacy were employed as the medium of inform-

242 The Fall of Santiago.
ing one side what the other side said; whether
neither side quite understood the literal import
of the various dispatches of demand and evasion ;
which of these conditions lies as the cause of the
result, this amazing fact remains that when Toral
surrendered, our leaders found that he had not
only consented to a capitulation of the city of
Santiago and its armj', but that he intended to
give up what was practically the whole of East
ern Cuba and its armies. Miles has stated that
he was surprised. And so was indeed every
member of the commission, but each man kept
silence with the imperturbability of a practiced
poker-player whose bluff had not been called.
The terms of Toral's capitulation, in brief were
these :
"Surrender of all Spanish forces in that part
of Santiago Province which lies east of a straight
line drawn from Aceradores, on the south coast,
to Dos Palmas, in the interior, and thence to
Sagua de Tanamo, on the north coast; estimated
at nearly twenty-five thousand men, of which
number twelve thousand had not been engaged.
"Surrender of all war material then in the de
scribed district. All artillery and batteries at
the harbor entrance and gunboat in harbor to be
left intact.
"Offlcers to retain their side arms and personal
property.

The Fall of Santiago. 243
"Privates to give up their arms of all kinds
and retain their personal property only.
"Toral authorized to take away the military
archives belonging to the described district.
"The United States to transport all the sur
rendered troops back to Spain as soon as possible,
embarking them near the garrisons they then
occupied. "The volunteer and guerrilla forces allowed
to remain in Cuba, if they wish, under parole,
during the present war.
"Toral's army to march out of Santiago with
honors of war, depositing their arms at a point
mutually agreed upon, to await disposition of
United States Government, our commissioners
recommending that they be returned to the
soldiers. "The existing municipal authorities to con
tinue in control of the garrison cities until the
Spanish troops were embarked.
"Mines and torpedoes at mouth of Santiago
Harbor to be removed by Spanish.
"No Cubans to be allowed to enter Santiago
until after evacuation.
"Eefugees from Santiago to be allowed to
return to their homes.
"Miss Clara Barton and Eed Cross agents to
be allowed to enter the city."
The time of surrender was fixed at 9 o'clock
of the morning of July 17. At that hour Gen
erals Shafter, Lawton, Wheeler, Kent and Hines,
accompanied by their staffs and escorted by

244 The Fall of Santiago.
cavalry and infantry detachments went at an easy
pace down the winding road from San Juan hill
to the famous cieba tree, and sent an aid to the
Spanish lines to notify General Toral that Shafter
was ready to receive the surrender of Santiago.
Toral, white-haired and sad-faced, almost in
stantly appeared with his staff and about a hun
dred picked men and came loping up the road.
As the two commanders neared, the trumpeters
on both sides saluted with fiourishes, while from
a Spanish battery a salute was fired and from our
troops lined up along the trenches there went a
stalwart American cheer. Toral unbuckled his
sword and saluting, handed it to Shafter saying :
"Hago entrega al General Shafter, del ejercito
Americano, la ciudad y fortalejas de la ciudad
de Santiago."
("I make over to General Shafter, Commander
of the American Army, the citadel and fortifica
tions of the City of Santiago.")
To this Shafter replied : "I receive the city in
the name of the Government of the United
States."

With this acceptance, however, Toral's sword
was handed back to him and then with a clatter
of hoofs and a rattle of American scabbards

First United States coaling station in tlie Harbor of Santiago after its occupation by the American troops.

The Fall of Santiago. 245
Shafter and Toral rode side by side into the city
at the head of their dual escort. At its entrance
the civil authorities and church dignitaries in
their glistening vestments came forward to meet
conquered and conquerors. Along the ill-paved
streets, and past the yellow-walled houses, the
procession passed until the Plaza de la Eeina
was reached. On one side rose the Mauresque
Palace, on the other the great cathedral, and on
the other two the broad-verandaed clubhouse
of San Carlos and the Cafe de la Venus. Stretch
ing from side to side of the Plaza was a long blue
line of the Ninth Infantry and a picked troop of
the Second Cavalry. Well to the front was the
Sixth Cavalry Band; massed on the flagging be
fore the palace were Shafter and his retinue.
As the cathedral clock struck twelve every eye
was turned to the red-tiled roof of the palace,
from the flagpole of which streamed out the yel
low and crimson flag of Spain, but before the last
stroke of noon that standard came fluttering
down, never to be again raised, and in its place
ran up the brilliant folds of the Stars and Stripes.
As the full standard broke out in the breeze the
troops came to order arms; the cavalry band
broke into the "Star Spangled Banner;" there
was a faint cheer from the wondering people who
pressed against the Plaza rails and crowded to

246 The Fall of Santiago.
the barred windows of the houses; while from
the American lines drifted in the distant boom of
Capron's saluting batteries and the muffled roar
of our cheering troops.
Santiago had fallen.

THE END.

YALE UNIVERSITY

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