The Spaniards hurried from these towns towards San Juan before an attack was made. The second fleet of transports arrived safely at Fort Ponce, the Roumanian bringing the cavalry detachment, and the Indiana and Missouri the batteries. Generals Brooke, Schwan, and Haines, with their staffs, were on board. The troops carried included the Thirteenth Illinois, Seventh Ohio, Fourth Pennsylvania, Nineteenth Regulars, and Troops A and C of the New York volunteer cavalry.
There were also one thousand animals, thirty days’ rations for thirty thousand men, a signal corps detachment, and an ambulance corps. The whole force, as well as the ammunition and quartermaster’s stores, was landed, and the men were camping on the outskirts of the town.
August 2. San Juan blockaded by the New Orleans, Puritan, Prairie, Dixie, and Gloucester, which kept out of range of the masked batteries ashore.
The railroad from Ponce to Yauco in possession of U. S. troops. Spanish volunteers continued to come into the American lines and give themselves up.
August 4. A portion of General Grant’s brigade, on the transport Hudson, sailed from Newport News.
A correspondent for the Associated Press, with the invading army, thus wrote under date of August 4th:
“The Americans have taken peaceful possession of the eastern portion of the island.
“Small parties of marines have been landed, who have lighted the lamps in the lighthouse at Cape San Juan, and in other lighthouses along the coast. They met with no resistance.
“Indeed, at Cape San Juan, deputations of citizens came out to meet them.
“The war-ships now in this vicinity are the Montgomery, the Annapolis, the Puritan, and the Amphitrite. The two former are looking for the transports with troops which left the United States and have scattered all about the island.