The New Nation

by Frederic L. Paxson

The flying squadron, impeded by its colliers and its tenders, moved deliberately around Cuba to Cienfuegos, outside of whose harbor it remained for two days. Here Sampson's orders to proceed immediately to Santiago reached it. On May 26 the fleet was off the entrance to Santiago Harbor, and in this vicinity it stayed for two more days. Schley could get no news that Cervera was here; he feared that his coal would give out and that heavy seas would prevent his getting what coal he had out of his colliers. He decided, in spite of orders, to go back to Key West; he started a retrograde movement, reconsidered it, and was again on blockade when, early on Sunday morning, May 29, he discovered the Spanish fleet at anchor in the channel, where it had been for the last nine days.

The blockade of Santiago was strengthened on June 1 by the arrival of Sampson, who had rushed thither on hearing that Schley had decided to leave the post. The two fleets were merged, and Schley, outranked by Sampson, became a passenger on his flagship Brooklyn. By day, the warships, ranged in a great half-circle, watched the narrow outlet of the harbor. By night they took turns standing close in, with searchlights playing on the entrance. For five weeks they kept this up, not entering the harbor because of their positive orders not to risk the loss of any fighting units, and waited for the arrival of an army to coöperate with them against the land defenses of Santiago.

Sampson asked for military aid early in June, and on June 7 the War Department ordered the army that had been mobilized at Tampa to go to his assistance. General Nelson A. Miles, in command of the army, was not allowed to head the expedition, but was kept at home while General William R. Shafter directed the field work. At Tampa there was almost hopeless confusion. The single track railway that supplied the camp was unable to move promptly either men or munitions, the Quartermaster's Department sent down whole trainloads of supplies without bills of lading, and when the troops were at last on board the fleet of transports they were kept in the river for a week before they were allowed to start for Santiago. Sixteen thousand men, mostly regulars, with nearly one thousand officers and two hundred war correspondents, sailed on June 14, and were in conference with Sampson six days later.

A misunderstanding as to strategy arose in this conference. Sampson left it believing that the army would land and move directly along the shore against the batteries that covered the entrance to the harbor. Shafter, however, though he issued no general order to that effect, was determined to march inland upon the city of Santiago itself. On June 22 and 23 the army was landed by the navy, for it had neither boats nor lighters of its own. The first troops, climbing ashore at the railway pier at Daquiri, marched west along the coast to Siboney, and then plunged inland, each regiment for itself, along the narrow jungle trail leading to Santiago. Shafter himself, corpulent and sick, followed as he could. Before he established his control over the army on land the head of the column had engaged the enemy at Las Guasimas, nine miles from Santiago, on June 24. The First Volunteer Cavalry, under the command of Colonel Leonard M. Wood, with Theodore Roosevelt as lieutenant-colonel, had marched most of the night in order to be in the first fighting. After a sharp engagement the Spanish retired and the American advance upon Santiago continued in a more orderly fashion.

The narrow trail between Siboney, on the shore, and Santiago, was some twelve miles long. There were dense forests on both sides. Along this the American army stretched itself at the end of June. There were few ambulances or wagons, and they could not have been used if they had been more numerous. Rations for the front were packed on mules or horses. The troops, hurried to the tropics in the heavy, dark, winter clothing of the regular army, suffered from heat, rain, and irregular rations. Before them the San Juan River crossed the trail at right angles. Beyond this were low hills carrying the fortifications, trenches, and wire fences of Santiago, behind which the Spanish force could fight with every advantage in its favor. Some five miles to the right of the line of advance was the Spanish left, in a blockhouse at El Caney. On the night before July 1, the American army moved on a concerted plan against the whole Spanish line.

Lawton, with a right wing, moved against El Caney, with the idea of demolishing it and crumpling up the Spanish left. The main column followed the trail, crossed the San Juan River, and stormed the hills beyond. The fight lasted all day on July 1, leaving the American forces to sleep in the Spanish trenches, and to re-face them the next day. There was more fighting on July 2 and 3, after which Santiago was besieged by land, as it had been by sea since June 1.

Cervera watched the invading army with growing desperation. He knew the inefficiency of his fleet, that it had left Spain unprepared because public opinion demanded immediate action, that its guns were lacking and its morale low, that if it stayed at anchor in the harbor it would be taken by the army, and that if it went to sea it would be annihilated by Sampson. His only chance was to rush out, scatter in flight, and trust to luck. On Sunday, July 3, he led his ships out of the harbor in single file, turned west against the Brooklyn, which guarded the American left, and endeavored to escape.

Sampson had already issued orders for battle in case Cervera should come out. He had himself started with his flagship, the New York, for a conference with Shafter, and was some seven miles east of the entrance to the harbor when the fleet appeared and the battle began. He turned at once to the long chase that pursued the Spanish vessels along the Cuban shore. The Brooklyn, at which Cervera had headed, instead of closing, circled to the right, and nearly rammed her neighbor, the Texas, before she regained her place at the head of the pursuit. Schley was the ranking officer in the battle, but no one needed or heeded the orders that he signaled to the other ships. Before sundown the Spanish fleet was completely destroyed.

The land and naval battles at Santiago brought the Spanish War to an end. For several weeks the army kept up the investment, with health and morale steadily deteriorating. On July 17 the Spanish army at Santiago was surrendered. On July 27 an invasion of Porto Rico under General Miles took place, and on August 12 the preliminaries of peace were signed on behalf of Spain by the French Minister at Washington. Manila fell the next day, and the war closed with the American army in possession of the most valuable of Spain's remaining colonies.

The Spanish and American peace commissioners met in Paris in October to fix a basis for settlement. An American demand that Cuba should be set free, without debt, and left to the tutelage of the United States, and that Porto Rico should become an American possession, was formulated early in the autumn. There was less certainty about the retention of the Philippines, for here the desire for expansion was checked by a conservative opposition to the adoption of foreign colonies. The evil effects of imperialism were already being pictured by those who had opposed the war. The difficulties of returning the islands to Spain were greater than those involved in their retention, and McKinley finally determined that the cession must include the Philippine Archipelago, and the island of Guam in the Ladrones. The chief of the American commissioners was William R. Day, who had become Secretary of State early in the war, and who was succeeded in that post by John Hay. Under his direction the Treaty of Paris was signed December 10, 1898.