Nelson had a long talk with Admiral Fletcher.... On receipt of orders to prevent the delivery by the Ypiranga of the arms and ammunition she was carrying to the Mexican government and to seize the customs, his duty was solely to carry out the commands of the President in a manner as effective as possible, with as little damage to ourselves as possible. This he did.
I think we have done a great wrong to these people; instead of cutting out the sores with a clean, strong knife of war and occupation, we have only put our fingers in each festering wound and inflamed it further. In Washington there is a word they don’t like, though it has been written all over this port by every movement of every war-ship and been thundered out by every cannon—War. What we are doing is war accompanied by all the iniquitous results of half-measures, and in Washington they call it “peaceful occupation.”
Now I must sleep. The horrors of San Juan Ulua (on which our search-lights play continually) will haunt me, I know. The stench of those manholes is rising to an unanswering, starlit sky. May we soon deliver it from itself!
Saturday Morning.
Captain Simpson came back from shore duty late last night. He is so kind and solicitous for our comfort, that I only hope we are not too greatly interfering with his. He has had his men lodged in a theater, commandeered for the purpose. He went to some barracks first, but fortunately learned in time that there had been meningitis there, and decamped even quicker than he went in. Captain Niblack has taken his place.
The Minnesota, on which Admiral Fletcher was when he went into Vera Cruz, is a ship not belonging to any division down here, and is only temporarily in harbor. So she is used for all sorts of disjointed, but important work—distributing of supplies, communications of all kinds. She is more than busy—a sort of clearing-house—during what they call here “the hesitation war, one step forward, one step back, hesitate, and then—side-step.”
The rescue-train goes out through our lines every day under Lieutenant Fletcher, to meet any train possibly arriving from the interior. And, oh, the odds and ends of exasperated and ruined American humanity it brings in!
XXIV
Dinner on the Essex—The last fight of Mexico’s naval cadets—American heroes—End of the Tampico incident—Relief for the starving at San Juan Ulua—Admiral Fletcher’s greatest work.