Reply to the above:
U.S. Flagship “New York,” 1st Rate,
Off Santiago de Cuba, July 17, 1898.
Dear Miss Barton:—We are now engaged in taking up mines, just so soon as it is safe to go in your ship will go. If you wish, you can anchor in near us, and send anything up by boats, or, if we could get lighters, drawing less than eight feet, food may be sent by the lighters, but it is not yet possible for the ship to go in. There are four “contact” mines, and four what are known as “observation” mines, still down.
Yours very truly,
(Signed) F.E. Chadwick
It was after this that we turned back again and steamed to Guantanamo to unload our supplies at night and return the next morning.
These were anxious days. While the world outside was making up war history, we thought of little beyond the terrible needs about us—if Santiago had any people left, they must be in sore distress, and El Caney—terrible El Caney—with its thirty thousand homeless, perishing sufferers, how could they be reached?
The diary at this point says: On returning from our fruitless journey to Guantanamo we stopped at Siboney only long enough to get our dispatches, then ran down directly in front of Santiago and lay with the fleet. A personal call from Admiral Schley, Captain Cook and other officers served to show the interest and good will of those about us. Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon a small Spanish steamer—which had been among the captures of Santiago—ran alongside and informed us that an officer wished to come aboard. It proved to be Lieutenant Capehart, of the flagship, who brought word from Admiral Sampson that if we would come alongside the “New York,” he would put a pilot on board. This was done and we moved on through waters we had never traversed—past Morro Castle, long, low, silent and grim—past the Spanish wrecks on the right—past the “Merrimac” in the channel, which Hobson had left. We began to realize that we were alone, of all the ships about the harbor there were none with us. The stillness of the Sabbath was over all. The gulls sailed and flapped and dipped about us. The lowering summer sun shot long golden rays athwart the green hills on either side, and tinged the waters calm and still. The silence grew oppressive as we glided along with scarce a ripple. We saw on the right as the only moving thing a long slim boat or yacht dart out from among the bushes and steal its way up half hidden in the shadows. Suddenly it was overtaken by either message or messenger, and like a collared hound glided back as if it had never been. Leaning on the rail half lost in reverie over the strange quiet beauty of the scene, the thought suddenly burst upon me: Are we really going into Santiago—and alone? Are we not to be run out and wait aside and salute with dipping colors while the great battleships come up with music and banners and lead the way? As far as the eye could reach no ship was in sight. Was this to remain so? Could it be possible that the commander who had captured a city declined to be the first to enter—that he would hold back his flagship and himself and send forward and first a cargo of food on a plain ship, under direction of a woman? Did our commands, military or naval, hold men great enough of soul for such action? It must be true—for the spires of Santiago rise before us, and turning to the score of companions beside me I asked, “Is there any one here who will lead the doxology?” In an instant the full rich voice of Enola Gardner rang out: “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.” By that time the chorus was full, and the tears on many a face told more plainly than words how genuine was that praise, and when in response to a second suggestion “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” swelled out on the evening air in the farewell rays of the setting sun, the “State of Texas” was nearing the dock, and quietly dropping her anchors she lay there in undisputed possession of the city of Santiago.
It has been remarked that Mr. Elwell had been a resident of Santiago and connected with its shipping for several years. It was only the work of an hour after landing to find his old-time help. A hundred and twenty-five stevedores were engaged to be on the dock at six o’clock next morning, to work for pay in rations.
The dock had its track and trucks running to its open warehouses. As we had entered we saw it bare of every movable or living thing. Want had swept it of all that could be carried away, and the remaining people dared not approach us. Six o’clock next morning changed the scene. The silence was no longer oppressive. The boxes, barrels and bales pitched out of that ship, thrown onto the trucks and wheeled away told the story of better days to come; and it was something to see that lank, brawny little army of stevedores take their first breakfast in line alongside of the ship.
The city was literally without food. In order to clear it for defence, its inhabitants had been ordered out, ten days before, to El Caney, a small town of some five hundred people, where it was said thirty thousand persons were gathered, without food, shelter, or place of rest. Among these were the old-time residents—the wealthy and the best people of Santiago. Its British consul, Mr. Ramsden, and his family were of them, and the care and hardship of that terrible camp cost his life. A message from the headquarters of General Shafter, telegraphed to us even after leaving Siboney, said: