His departure was the end of the crude idea with which the war opened, that we were to batter down the Morro Castle and the Cabanas forts, land a few thousand troops, and take Havana out of hand. Before the war a high authority was reported to have said that in ten days we could have 40,000 men ready for operations in Cuba. April 23 the President called for 125,000 volunteers, and a month later for 75,000 more. It was at once discovered that but very few of the regiments furnished by the States were fully equipped; most of them were only partially prepared, and many were not equipped at all. Instead of being able to mobilize 40,000 soldiers in ten days, it was found that it was not possible to even muster them in that time. While sundry newspapers were clamoring for an immediate advance on Havana, it was becoming quite clear to all men, even in those confused days, that it would take weeks and months, rather than days, to make these really fine volunteers into an army; that the machinery of transportation, supplies, hospital service, and the rest was utterly inadequate for the strain suddenly put upon it, even if it had been good, and that it was not good, but bad and rusty. On May 14, ten days after Sampson's departure for Puerto Rico, there were only a little over 10,000 men at Tampa, and the wise men who had said from the beginning that we ought to move on Puerto Rico, the Spanish base, and not begin in early summer on Havana, ultimately carried their point because of facts more potent than the best reasoning.

But no military movement being possible until we had command of the sea, the pursuit of Cervera's fleet, from both the military and the naval point of view, was

the one thing to which all else had to be subordinated. So while the generals and admirals of civil life were laying out and discussing campaigns in the newspapers, facts were putting the real war into the right channels; and while the prepared navy was off after Spain's sea power, the unprepared army was occupying the time thus fortunately given in getting ready with an energy and speed most remarkable when one understood the wretched system imposed upon it by Congress, and the weight of needless clerks, endless red-tape, and fear of responsibility which had grown up in choking luxuriance during the long, neglectful peace.

But although the direct attack on Havana so confidently looked for at the outset was thus practically abandoned the work of blockading the island and cutting it off from all outside communication went diligently forward. Various expeditions were undertaken to open connection with the Cuban insurgents and supply them with arms and ammunition, as the exaggerated estimate then existing of their numbers and efficiency made the belief general that they could be developed into a powerful offensive force, and be used with effect against the Spaniards. Then and later various expeditions were sent forth in the Leyden, Gussie, and Florida, but they had no result. The earlier landings, managed and conducted in large measure by Captain Dorst of the regular army, a most gallant and accomplished officer, were effective sometimes in the face of a sharp fire. The first skirmishing took place on one of these expeditions, much courage was shown, some blood was shed, arms were landed, and communication opened with the insurgents, but

that was the end of it. There was no trouble about the expeditions, but nothing was developed by them among the insurgents.

More serious work was that entailed by the blockade and by attacks upon the lesser ports to break down the defences and destroy any lurking gunboats. Before the New York went eastward she had broken up some parties of Spaniards who, with strange absence of humor, had opened on her with Mauser rifles at Mariel, but she was drawing very near to San Juan when, on May 11, a far more serious affair than any which had yet taken place occurred at Cardenas. Off that port the gunboats Machias and Wilmington, the torpedoboat Winslow, and the converted revenue-cutter Hudson were maintaining the blockade. After a time it was learned that there were three Spanish gunboats in the harbor, and on the 8th of May an attempt was made to decoy them out of the harbor, which so far succeeded that one came within range of the Machias, got a 6-pounder shell landed upon her, and quickly retreated. It was obvious, after this, that to fight the Spaniards it was necessary to go after them wherever they might be, a discovery which became later an accepted principle of the war. Acting on this theory, the Wilmington, Winslow, and Hudson, on May 11, made their way into the bay along an unused channel, which was free from mines, until they were within a mile and a half of the wharves where the enemy's gunboats were lying. Then the water became too shoal for the Wilmington, and the Winslow was ordered ahead to attack. It was a most reckless piece of work to undertake, for the Winslow was a torpedo-boat, not a fight