Nor was this wide-spread feeling of alarm entirely without foundation, or due to unreasoning fear. More than one foreign service journal had reckoned the opposing fleets as nearly of equal strength, and even our own Captain Mahan now writes: "The force of the Spanish navy on paper, as the expression goes, was so nearly equal to our own, that it was well within the limits of possibility that an unlucky incident, the loss, for example, of a battleship, might make the Spaniard superior in nominal, or even in actual, available force. Where so much is at stake as the result of a war, or even the unnecessary prolongation of war, with its sufferings and anxieties, the only safe rule is to regard the apparent as the actual, until its reality has been tested." We are looking backward now; then we were looking forward. We now know, through the supreme tests of May 1st and July 3d, that the paper strength and the fighting strength of the Spanish navy were two widely differing qualities; but late in April, 1898, all this yet remained to be determined, and the memorable rush of the Oregon from the far Pacific bears witness that the Navy Department recognized the preponderance that might be given by the addition of even a single fighting-ship to our force on the threatened Atlantic sea-board.

Of the result of a general fleet action the country had small doubt; it was the possibility of sudden and unexpected naval raids that caused concern. The words of the English naval critic, Steevens, applied with tenfold force to our own case: "It is tolerably obvious that no superiority in the world could guarantee our whole empire against raids by hostile cruisers. A fast cruiser could break the closest blockade possible in the days of torpedo boats, and though she would stand to meet and be engaged by a cruiser or cruisers of our own, yet she would also stand to elude them. She might then shell or lay under contribution unprotected coast towns, destroy shipping lying in their harbors, or making for or from them, besides landing small forces to do serious, if not vital damage." And this fact was recognized no better by any one than by Admiral Cervera himself, who, in a letter written in February, 1898, after deploring the lack of Spanish naval preparation, said: "Under such conditions, a campaign would be disastrous, if not an offensive one, and all that could be done in an offensive war would be to make some raids with a few fast vessels."

Reduced to its lowest terms, the situation confronting the authorities was this: the Spanish naval list showed—either in commission or building—nine 20-knot cruisers,[[1]] heavily armed and armored, and theoretically able to run away easily from any armored ships in our establishment save the Brooklyn and New York, while (still theoretically) capable of whipping without effort these two latter cruisers, if brought to bay. Furthermore, the operations of the army and navy, in the West Indies and the Philippines, imperatively required the services of every modern fighting-ship at our disposal, and thus the long stretch of Atlantic coast, with its teeming harbors and populous cities, practically was left at the mercy of any chance squadron of swift cruisers, or even—at least in the earlier days of the war—of possible raids by privateers or wandering torpedo-gunboats. There was, it is true, the hastily improvised and costly coast-patrol fleet, of something over forty vessels—monitor relics of the '60's, armed yachts, ferry-boats, and tugs—distributed along the coast at stations from Eastport to New Orleans, but this heterogeneous outfit was brought into existence rather for scouting than for fighting. As a factor in actual resistance to determined naval attack it called for no serious consideration, and as a matter of record its organization was not complete until the 16th of June, when the dreaded Vizcaya, with her sister ships, finally had been marked down and safely penned in the harbor of Santiago.

[1]. Almirante Oquendo, Cardenal Cisneros, Cataluna, Cristobal Colon, Emperador Carlos V., Infanta Maria Teresa, Pedro d'Aragon, Princesa de Asturias, Vizcaya.—"Brassey's Naval Annual," 1897.

It was evident that the coast States, in the impending emergency, must turn for comfort from the Navy to the War Department, and it soon became most painfully evident that the prospect of obtaining any immediate aid from this quarter was far from reassuring. This especially was true in the case of the New England States, and notably so in that of Massachusetts. To make a broad statement, modern defensive works, modern sea-coast guns, and trained artillerymen to man them, were lacking. In other words, the apathy of thirty years had borne its legitimate fruit: the Congressmen of New England—with honorable exceptions, like Senators Hawley and Lodge—while ever willing to exert themselves in favor of "Protection" of the commercial variety, had been sublimely indifferent to their duty in providing protection of another and very vital sort, and their constituents, in consequence, were enabled to enjoy the sensation of a war-scare which was far from being unwarranted. For it did not require a high order of intellect to comprehend that thirty days would not suffice for the accomplishment of the work of ten years—nor, indeed, could any one furnish a satisfactory guarantee of even thirty days' freedom from attack.

THE COAST-DEFENCE PROBLEM IN
MASSACHUSETTS

II.

Early in April, when war was imminent, Governor Wolcott, with two officers of his staff, sat down to the study of a war-map of the Massachusetts coast which had been prepared and carefully revised to meet existing conditions. It is no exaggeration to say that this map furnished material for the most serious thought. The map pitilessly showed that from the Merrimac River, on the northern boundary, to the Taunton River, on the southern, there were on navigable waters, open to some of the many forms of naval attack—whether by fleet bombardment, cruiser raid, or torpedo-boat dash—no less than forty-one cities and towns, none with less than one thousand of population, whose inhabitants aggregated one million seventy-seven thousand, or over forty-three per cent. of the population of the State. Furthermore, it appeared that, at a low estimate, the property interests exposed in these towns reached the enormous sum of $1,586,775,000—surely a tempting bait for any adventurous naval commander in the service of a desperate and bankrupt enemy.

But the map relentlessly showed more than this: it demonstrated the absolutely defenceless condition of this rich strip of coast. At Boston there were indications of a rudimentary defence; at New Bedford stood the obsolete granite walls of old Fort Rodman; Fall River was protected by the guns at Fort Adams and the batteries at Dutch Island; but elsewhere along the coast there was not to be found even the pretence of preparation for the surely coming war.

The obsolete defenses, however, were not alone in giving cause for grave concern. The question of manning them had to be considered. As a matter of record, there were scattered along the coast from Fort Preble, Me., to Fort Trumbull, Conn., eight batteries—one ("F") a light battery—of the Second Artillery, whose duty-strength on the 16th of April may have been approximately six hundred men. There were but three of these batteries on duty on the Massachusetts coast—"C" (Schenck's) and "M" (Richmond's) at Fort Warren; "G" (Niles') at the yet incomplete battery at Long Island Head, Boston Harbor. Where more trained gunners were to be had was problematical. The bill providing for the organization of the Sixth and Seventh Regiments of regular artillery had been passed by Congress as late as March 7th, and these new commands were only in process of evolution. It was not until the 16th of May that the first of the newly raised batteries took station in New England, and even then its standard of efficiency was low, owing to the heavy percentage of recruits in its ranks.