William O’Hearn, of Brooklyn, N. Y., one of the Winslow’s crew, thus tells his story of the battle to a newspaper correspondent:
“From the very beginning,” he said, “I think every man on the boat believed that we could not escape being sunk, and that is what would have happened had it not been for the bravery of the boys on the Hudson, who worked for over an hour under the most terrific fire to get us out of range.”
“Were you ordered to go in there?” he was asked.
“Yes; just before we were fired upon the order was given from the Wilmington.”
“Was it a signal order?”
“No; we were near enough to the Wilmington so that they shouted it to us from the deck, through the megaphone.”
“Do you remember the words of the commander who gave them?”
“I don’t know who shouted the order; but the words as I remember them were, ‘Mr. Bagley, go in and see what gunboats there are.’ We started at once towards the Cardenas dock, and the firing began soon after.
“The first thing I saw,” continued O’Hearn, “was a shot fired from a window or door in the second story of the storehouse just back of the dock where the Spanish gunboats were lying. A shell then went hissing over our heads. Then the firing began from the gunboat at the wharf, and from the shore. The effect of shell and heavy shot the first time a man is under fire is something terrible.
“First you hear that awful buzzing or whizzing, and then something seems to strike you in the face and head. I noticed that at first the boys threw their hands to their heads every time a shell went over; but they soon came so fast and so close that it was a roaring, shrieking, crashing hell.