It was the middle of July when the Wyoming found herself in the Straits of Simonoseki and in sight of the shore batteries, which were a part of the prince’s defenses to seaward. Before she had time to open on the batteries two Japanese gunboats loomed up, one ahead and one astern, in the narrow straits, and presently a third came cruising out from among the neighboring islands. It was a nasty place for a fight, McDugall being without charts or pilots, and the odds were more than enough for Nelson himself, being forty-eight guns of the three Japanese vessels to the twenty-six of the old Wyoming, to say nothing of the batteries on shore.
Working to windward of the nearest Japanese ship, the Wyoming opened at long range, and worked down on her till when close aboard there was nothing of the enemy left standing above decks. The other two vessels had come up in the meantime and engaged the American on either side, but she lay to and gave them shot for shot, port and starboard, till her gunners were smoke-blind and the flame of the guns no longer served to light the battle-cloud that rolled in white billows over the smooth waters of the straits. It was desperate work in the shallow water, but the Wyoming was the best vessel and she outmanœuvered her two opponents from the start, though twice aground and once afire, with as many men disabled from splinters and heat as from the enemy’s shot.
Fighting themselves out of one smoke-patch into another, the three combatants circled around till they had drifted down in range of the shore batteries, which opened upon the Wyoming. But McDugall ran across the bows of one of his enemies, raked her as he went and left her a floating wreck, and then turned his attention to the batteries. The Wyoming’s men rigged the smith’s forge on deck and tossed hot shot into the works ashore till they set them afire, and the soldiers fled, and the crew of the remaining cruiser followed their example.
McDugall mended his rigging and patched his bulwarks, sent word to the recalcitrant prince to arrange for indemnity, which he did. The share of the United States was $300,000.
In this action McDugall’s loss was five men killed and six wounded.
CAPTAIN McGIFFEN AT THE BATTLE OF THE YALU.
On September 17, 1894, the Chinese ironclad Chen-Yuen with her sister ship, the flagship Ting-Yuen, and nine smaller war vessels, met the Japanese off the mouth of the Yalu River.
The Chen-Yuen was protected by 12 and 14-inch armor, and carried four 12.2-inch, two 6-inch, and twelve machine guns. Her commander was Captain McGiffen of the United States Navy.
Here the famous battle of the Yalu, the first great trial of modern ironclads, was fought. Owing to the cowardice of several Chinese commanders, who ran away at the first exchange of shots, eight Chinese ships did all the fighting against the twelve ships of the enemy. The battle was altogether a contest of Orientals, except that one man of European blood, trained in the naval school of a great Western power, commanded the Chen-Yuen—Philo Norton McGiffin, of the United States Navy. His fighting that day was the dramatic climax of a brave and spotless life that had been a nineteenth-century revival of knight-errantry. The lives of none of the free-lances and fearless adventurers from Hawkesworth to Gordon were more romantic than that of McGiffin.
