Beyond his own ship, it does not appear that the acting commander-inchief had any influence upon the result of the battle.

The Oregon did especially good service on account of the speed she was able to develop, and for the condition and handling of his ship Captain Clark is universally accorded great credit. Captain Evans, on the Iowa, and Captain Taylor, on the Indiana, pounded the enemy at close quarters, and fought with the grim determination of bulldogs until ordered to cease, when they turned to and worked like beavers to rescue the surviving Spaniards. Both these Captains"Fighting Bob," with his bluff ways, and Captain Taylor, with his polite manner—are recognized in the navy as joyful fighters, and they lived up to their reputation.

The Texas, a second-class battleship, made a new record for herself under the command of Captain Philip, and did her full share of the day's work. It is believed to have been a shell from the Texas that exploded one of the Vizcaya's torpedoes and put that dangerous ship out of commission. The Texas also showed good speed, and was gaining on the Colon in the last hour of the chase.

The converted yacht Vixen, on the extreme left of the blockading line, was almost directly in the course of the Spanish fleet, and had to get out of the way or be between two fires. Beyond a few shots with her 6-pounders at the Vizcaya, she did not take any active part in the battle.

The torpedo boat Ericsson, which in the beginning was off Altares with the New York, steamed back at full speed, and was able to do good work in rescuing the shipwrecked Spaniards and carrying dis patches.

The auxiliary cruiser Resolute was lying eastward of the Indiana at the beginning of the fight, and was utilized to take charge of about five hundred of the Spanish prisoners. The converted yacht Hist and the auxiliary cruiser Harvard were in the vicinity, and assisted in the work of caring for the Spanish prisoners.

In this battle Admiral Cervera lost the four Spanish cruisers and two torpedo boat destroyers, and about 600 men killed, while he and some 1,500 of his officers and men were taken prisoners.

On the American side one man, Yeoman George II. Ellis, of the Brooklyn, was killed, and only two or three were wounded. Several of the American ships were hit, but no material damage was done. As the Spanish ships lay burning upon the shore, frequent explosions oc

curred on board of them, and although the work of rescue was attended with much danger, the American seamen freely risked their lives to save their defeated enemies. Many of the Spaniards who succeeded in swimming ashore were attacked by the Cuban allies, who shot at them in the water and inflicted machete wounds when they reached dry land. This cold-blooded slaughter was noticeable near the Vizcaya, and was checked by the men from the Iowa, Harvard and Ericsson. There were terrible sights to be seen on that hot July Sunday, for war is of necessity cruel, but the greatest dangers that the Yankee sailors faced were not in fighting, but in rescuing their Spanish brethren.

Many controversies, technical and otherwise, have grown out of this battle, but there can be no dispute when it is said that the victory depended upon two factors-men and guns. From the American guns it is estimated that 6,500 shots were fired, and about 190,000 pounds of metal were hurled against the enemy. And the men of the United States Navy, whether on the bridge, in the firerooms or behind the guns, did their whole duty.

Map showing Entrance to Santiago Harbor and Position of
the Sunken Merrimac.

CHAPTER VIII.

SHAFTER'S SANTIAGO CAMPAIGN.

HOW THE FIFTH ARMY CORPS TOOK SANTIAGO DE CUBA, AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF CERVERA'S FLEET

TORAL'S SURRENDER.

HE FIRST expedition of the land campaign against Santiago was a failure. This was the unsuccessful attempt in May, 1898, to land men and arms on Cuban soil from the Morgan Line steamer Gussie, the expedition being under command of Captain Joseph H. Dorst, of the Fourth Cavalry.

The first formidable movement, however, was not made until Major-General William R. Shafter was given command of the Fifth Army Corps, and ordered to sail for Cuba and attack the city of Santiago by land. The order was issued on May 30, as soon as it was learned that Cervera's fleet had been bottled up in Santiago Harbor, but owing to the delay in assembling the thirty transports needed to carry so large a force, the start was not made from Tampa until June 14, under convoy of a strong fleet sent by Acting Rear-Admiral Samp

son.

The expedition thus dispatched to Cuba comprised 773 officers and 14,564 enlisted men. The infantry force consisted of the First, Second, Third, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Twentieth, Twenty-first, Twenty-second and Twenty-fourth Regulars, the Seventy-first New York Volunteers and the Second Massachusetts Volunteers. The cavalry force consisted of two dismounted squadrons of four troops each from the First, Third, Sixth, Ninth and Tenth Regular Cavalry and two dismounted squadrons from the First Volunteer Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Leonard Wood, with Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt second in command.

This was the organization known as the "Roosevelt Rough Riders."

There was also one squadron of the Second Regular Cavalry, which took its horses with it. The artillery force consisted of light batteries E and K of the First Artillery, light batteries A and F of the Second Artillery and siege batteries G and H of the Fourth Artillery. There were also two companies of engineers and fifteen staff officers, beside some fifty newspaper correspondents and representatives of the armies and navies of Europe.

The voyage from Tampa was made almost without incident, save such slight mishaps as the loss of a water barge which one of the vessels had in tow, and on Monday, June 20th, the transports arrived off Santiago. Admiral Sampson, advised by swift scouts of the approach of the expedition, at once sent Captain Chadwick, of the flagship New York, to receive General Shafter. Captain Chadwick, acting under direction of his chief, advised General Shafter that the transports be kept out of sight of land until the point at which the troops were to go ashore had been finally selected. General Shafter promptly accepted this suggestion and the troopships were ordered to remain twenty miles out at sea.

Coincident with the arrival of the Fifth Corps off Santiago, General Calixto Garcia appeared at Accerraderos, some fifteen miles to the west, at the head of 4,000 Cubans, and arrangements were at once made for a conference between the insurgent leader, General Shafter and Admiral Sampson.

This conference took place in General Garcia's camp, on a hill near Accerraderos, on the afternoon of June 20, and when it was ended it had been decided that General Shafter should disembark his troops at Baiquiri, an iron pier used by a railroad company for unloading iron ore and a wharf in fairly good condition. Moreover, the beach at that point, while having considerable surf, was still not too rough to permit of the landing of horses and mules by swimming ashore. On June 21 plans for the landing were made out and transmitted to the several commanders, and early on the morning of June 22d Admiral Sampson made a feint of bombarding the batteries of Juragua to draw off the attention of the Spaniards while the New Orleans and some of the other vessels of the fleet shelled the hills around Baiquiri to rout any Spanish troops that might be in ambush there. Then the landing began and soon the sea was alive with flotillas of small boats, towed by launches, speeding for the dock at Baiquiri.

The Eighth Infantry was the first regiment to land. It was fol

lowed by the First, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-second, Fifteenth, Seventeenth' and Twelfth Regulars, the Second Massachusetts Volunteers and a part of the cavalry. General Shafter remained aboard the transport Seguranca directing the disembarkation, while Major-General Joseph Wheeler, commanding the cavalry division, conducted the movements of the troops ashore. As soon as landed the troops formed and moved inland, taking up positions along the banks of the Baiquiri River and extending to a distance of about three miles westward toward Santiago. A number of Cubans that had been landed the night previous at a point east of Baiquiri marched westward and entered the village from the land side at about the same time that the first American troops were landed. Under the conditions prevailing the landing was necessarily slow. No horses were landed on the first day, and less than 6,000 soldiers succeeded in getting ashore. The landing of troops continued on June 23d, and the advance, under Brigadier-General Henry W. Lawton, pushed on to Siboney, a coast village nine miles west of Baiquiri. Horses and mules were landed by swimming, and in the afteraoon General Shafter began to land troops at Siboney, where the beach was much smoother than at Baiquiri. The landing of troops was practically concluded on June 24th, and early in the morning of that day the American advance reached La Guasimas, about four miles west of Siboney, where a skirmish had occurred the day before between Cubans and Spaniards, in which one Cuban was killed and eight wounded. Here the American advance for the first time encountered the enemy in force and here took place what has since been called the action of La Guasimas, which is described in another chapter.

BATTLE OF EL CANEY.

On June 25 the American advance occupied the high ridge of Savilla, six miles distant from but in full view of the City of Santiago. Lawton's division, the Second, was in advance; Wheeler's dismounted cavalry occupied a position some distance behind Lawton, and Brigadier-General J. Ford Kent's First Division lay in the rear of Wheeler. The advance continued on June 27, the outposts reaching points within three or four miles of Santiago. The light batteries as they came up passed through Kent's division into camp near Wheeler's division, and the mounted squadron of the Second Cavalry took up a position near the light battery. Reinforcements were landed June 28 and went into