“It is gratifying to call the department’s attention to the spirit aboard this ship in both officers and men. This best can be described by referring to instances such as that of the engineer officers in voluntarily doubling their watches when high speed was to be made, to the attempt of men to return to the fire-room after being carried out of it insensible, and to the fact that most of the whole crew, who were working by watches by day and night at Sandy Point, preferred to [pg 173]leave their hammocks in the nettings until they could get the ship coaled and ready to sail from Sandy Point.”
June 3. The collier Merrimac was sunk in the channel of Santiago Harbour, as has already been told.
June 4. Captain Charles Vernon Gridley, commander of the cruiser Olympia, and commanding her during the battle of Manila Bay, died at Kobe, Japan.
June 5. An account of personal heroism which should be set down in every history, that future generations may know of what metal the boys of ’98 were made, was telegraphed from Tampa, Florida.
Lieutenant Parker, who was in charge of the old clubhouse on Lafayette Street, near the brigade headquarters, and which was being used by the government as a storehouse, and Thomas McGee, a veteran of the civil war, prevented what might have been a calamity.
While a force of soldiers was engaged in carrying boxes of ammunition from the warehouse and loading them to waiting army wagons, smoke was seen issuing from a box of ammunition. In an instant the cry of fire went up, and soldiers and negro roustabouts piled over each other in their scramble for safety. McGee, however, rushed toward the box, picked it up, and was staggering in the direction of the river, some distance away, when Lieutenant Parker, who had heard the warning cry, came to his assistance. Together they carried the smoking box until it was possible to throw it into the water.
How the fire originated is a mystery. In the storehouse were piled hundreds of boxes of ammunition, each containing one thousand cartridges. Had the cartridges in the burning box exploded, a great loss of life might have resulted, as there were at least a score of soldiers working in and around the building.
At Madrid the Spanish Minister of Marine issued orders that every one connected with the admiralty must abstain from giving information of any kind regarding naval affairs.
General Blanco in Havana published an order prohibiting foreign newspaper correspondents from remaining in Cuba, under the penalty of being treated as spies.
June 6. As is told in that chapter relating to Santiago de Cuba, American troops were landed a few miles east of the city, at a place known as Aguadores; the forts at the entrance of Santiago Harbour were bombarded.