And nameless horrors hid within thy breast.
Cuba! Thou still shalt rise, as pure, as bright
As thy free air—as full of living light;—
The American navy, with flags flying, in triumph was ready to enter the Bay of Santiago. The Red Cross Flag floats from the flagstaff of the State of Texas. The Admiral gives the order that the “Red Cross Ship” is to lead; that now “flag-ship” moving majestically, is commanded by a woman—that woman “The Angel of the Battlefield.” Moving over the smooth waters of the Bay that Angel with her cospirits thrilled the ear with the patriot’s song “My Country ’Tis of Thee;” and there too the little band of crusaders, while nearing the holy wreckage they would rescue, touched the human heart with the grandest of all hymns of gratitude, “Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow.”
As on the Island of Corsica nearly three decades before, again there goes in spirit to Heaven the prayer of Clara Barton: “And I pray, Oh! how earnestly, once more to battle with error; to help sever the shackles of the oppressed of every name and kind; to hold firm the right and to set right the wrong; to raise up the weak against the power of the mighty; to make our country what it should, and must, be—true and just as well as great and strong. Once more to comfort the afflicted; to give rest and shelter to the weary, water to the thirsty, bread to the hungry; to stay the tide and bind the wounds that bleed, or to take the farewell message and point the glazing eye to hope and heaven.”
There is a woman, it’s the Red Cross!
My God, boys, it’s Clara Barton! now we’ll
Get something to eat. (Starving children.)
“Majestic in simplicity” and of more heraldic splendor than that of the army and navy, with their thousands of heroes, stands the little woman overlooking the scene of woe’s misery. There on the peaceful waters are the destroyers that had done the “horrible deed;” there on the bridge of the Peace-Ship, leading all others, stands the “Angel of Peace,” who will restore what she can; and before the eyes of all lay the “Gem of the Ocean,” strewn with life’s woes—a scene of pathetic grandeur unequaled in the annals of history.
Miss Barton: Admiral Sampson, I wish to express to you my sincere appreciation of your exceeding courtesy in permitting my ship to precede the battleships into Santiago.