“The palace was reached soon after ten o’clock. There General Toral introduced General Shafter and the other American generals to the alcalde, Señor Feror, and to the chief of police, Señor Guiltillerrez, as well as to the other municipal authorities.
“Luncheon was then served at the palace. The meal consisted mainly of rum, wine, coffee, rice, and toasted cake. This scant fare occasioned many apologies on the part of the Spaniards, but it spoke eloquently of their heroic resistance. The fruit supply of the city was absolutely exhausted, and the Spaniards had nothing to live on except rice, on which the soldiers in the trenches of Santiago have subsisted for the last twelve days.”
Ten thousand people witnessed the ceremony of hoisting the stars and stripes over the governor’s palace in Santiago.
A finer stage setting for a dramatic episode it would be difficult to imagine. The palace, a picturesque old dwelling in the Moorish style of architecture, faces the Plaza de la Reina, the principal public square. [pg 300]Opposite rises the imposing Catholic cathedral. On one side is a quaint, brilliantly painted building with broad verandas, the club of San Carlos; on the other a building of much the same description, the Café de la Venus.
Across the plaza was drawn up the Ninth Infantry, headed by the Sixth Cavalry band. In the street facing the palace stood a picked troop of the Second Cavalry, with drawn sabres, under command of Captain Brett. Massed on the stone flagging between the band and the line of horsemen were the brigade commanders of General Shafter’s division, with their staffs. On the red-tiled roof of the palace stood Captain McKittrick, Lieutenant Miles, and Lieutenant Wheeler. Immediately above them, above the flagstaff, was the illuminated Spanish arms, and the legend, “Vive Alphonso XIII.”
All about, pressing against the veranda rails, crowding to windows and doors, and lining the roofs, were the people of the town, principally women and non-combatants.
As the chimes of the old cathedral rang out the hour of twelve, the infantry and cavalry presented arms. Every American uncovered, and Captain McKittrick hoisted the stars and stripes. As the brilliant folds unfurled in the gentle breeze against the fleckless sky, the cavalry band broke into the strains of “The Star Spangled Banner,” making the American pulse leap and the American heart thrill with joy.
KING ALPHONSO XIII. OF SPAIN.
At the same instant the sound of the distant booming of Captain Capron’s battery, firing a salute of twenty-one guns, drifted in.