The department had heard that Cervera had munitions of war essential to the defence of Havana, and that his orders were to reach Havana, Cienfuegos, or a port connected with Havana by rail. As Cienfuegos seemed the only place he would be likely to choose, Schley was ordered there with the Brooklyn, Massachusetts, and Texas, May 19th. He was joined later by the Iowa, under Captain Evans, and by several cruisers. The Spanish squadron slipped into Santiago, unobserved by the cruisers on scouting duty, May 19th, two days before Schley arrived at Cienfuegos, so that had Cervera known the conditions he could easily have made the latter port. On the same day the department received from spies in Havana probable information, conveyed by the cable which had been allowed to remain in operation, that Cervera had entered Santiago. As we now know, he had entered early that morning. Several auxiliary cruisers were immediately ordered to assemble before Santiago in order to watch Cervera and follow him in case he should leave.
At the same time the department “strongly advised” Sampson to send Schley to Santiago at once with his whole command. Sampson replied that he had decided to hold Schley at Cienfuegos until it was certain that the Spanish fleet was in Santiago. Later he sent a despatch to Schley, received May 23d, ordering him to proceed to Santiago if satisfied that the enemy were not at Cienfuegos.[276] The next day[277] Schley started, encountering on the run much rain and rough weather, which seriously delayed the squadron. At 5.30 P.M., May 26th, he reached a point twenty-two miles south of Santiago, where he was joined by several of the auxiliary cruisers on scouting duty. Captain Sigsbee, of the St. Paul, informed him that the scouts knew nothing positively about the Spanish fleet. The collier Merrimac had been disabled, which increased the difficulty of coaling. At 7.45 P.M., a little over two hours after his arrival, Schley without explanation signalled to the squadron: “Destination, Key West, via south side of Cuba and Yucatan Channel, as soon as collier is ready; speed, nine knots.” Thus began the much-discussed retrograde movement which occupied two days. Admiral Schley states in his book that. Sigsbee’s report and other evidence led him to conclude that the Spanish squadron was not in Santiago; hence the retrograde movement to protect the passage west of Cuba.[278] But he has never yet given any satisfactory explanation why he did not definitely ascertain the facts before turning back. Fortunately the squadron did not proceed very far; the lines towing the collier parted and other delays occurred. The next morning Schley received a despatch from the department stating that all the information at hand indicated that Cervera was in Santiago, but he continued on his westward course slowly and at times drifting while some of the ships coaled. The next day, May 28th, Schley returned to Santiago, arriving before that port about dusk, and established a blockade.[279]
Admiral Sampson arrived off Santiago June 1st, and assumed direct command of the squadron. The blockade, which lasted for over a month, was eagerly watched by the whole American people. The most thrilling incident was the daring but unsuccessful attempt made by Lieutenant Richmond Pearson Hobson to sink the collier Merrimac across the entrance to Santiago harbor, undertaken by direction of Admiral Sampson. Electric torpedoes were attached to the hull of the ship, sea-valves were cut, and anchor chains arranged on deck so that she could be brought to a sudden stop. Early on the morning of June 3d, Hobson, assisted by a crew of seven seamen, took the collier into the entrance of the harbor under heavy fire and sunk her. The unfortunate shooting away of her steering-gear and the failure of some of the torpedoes to explode kept the ship from sinking at the place selected, so that the plan miscarried. Hobson and his men escaped death as by a miracle, but fell into the hands of the Spaniards.[280]
II
THE LAND CAMPAIGN
As soon as Cervera was blockaded in Santiago and the government was satisfied that all his ships were with him, it was decided to send an army to co-operate with the navy. Hitherto the war had been a naval war exclusively, and the two hundred thousand volunteers who had responded to the calls of the President in May had been kept in camp in different parts of the country. Most of the regular infantry and cavalry, together with several volunteer regiments, had been assembled at Tampa and organized as the Fifth Army Corps, in readiness to land in Cuba as soon as the navy had cleared the way. Conspicuous among these troops was the First Volunteer Cavalry, popularly known as Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, a regiment which through the energetic efforts of Dr. Leonard Wood, an army surgeon, who became its colonel, and Theodore Roosevelt, who resigned the position of assistant secretary of the navy to become its lieutenant-colonel, had been enlisted, officered, and equipped in fifty days. It was recruited largely from Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, and had in its ranks cowboys, hunters, ranchmen, and more than one hundred and sixty full-blooded Indians, together with a few graduates of Harvard, Yale, and other Eastern colleges.
Tampa was ill-suited for an instruction camp, and the preparations made by the department for the accommodation and provisioning of such large bodies of men were wholly inadequate. One of the main difficulties was the inability of the Commissary and Quartermaster departments, hampered by red tape, senseless regulations, and political appointees, to distribute the train-loads of supplies which blocked the tracks leading to Tampa; so great was the congestion that the soldiers could not even get their mail. This condition continued for weeks. The great majority of the troops were finally sent to Santiago to fight under a tropical sun in heavy woollen clothes; lighter clothing was not supplied to them until they were ready to return to Montauk Point, where they needed the woollen. The sanitation of the camp was poor and the water-supply bad; dysentery, malaria, and typhoid soon made their appearance. Similar conditions prevailed at the other camps. The administrative inefficiency of the War Department was everywhere revealed in striking contrast with the fine record of the Navy Department. Secretary Alger had been too much occupied with questions of patronage to look after the real needs of the service. Although war had been regarded for months as inevitable, when it finally came the department was found to be utterly unprepared to equip troops for service in Cuba. As the result of this neglect, for which it should be said Congress was partly responsible, it was necessary to improvise an army—a rather serious undertaking!
It had been the original intention to land the Fifth Army Corps at Mariel, near Havana, and begin operations against the capital city under the direct supervision of General Miles; but the bottling-up of Cervera at Santiago caused a change of plan, and General Miles, who still expected the heavy fighting to take place at Havana, selected Major-General William R. Shafter for the movement against Santiago. By June 1st the battle-ship Indiana, under Captain Henry C. Taylor, with a dozen smaller vessels, was ready to convoy the expedition. The army was very slow in embarking, and it was not until June 8th that the force was ready to depart. Further delay was caused by the unfounded rumor that a Spanish cruiser and two torpedo-boat destroyers had been sighted off the north coast of Cuba.[281] In order to ascertain whether all the Spanish ships were at Santiago, Lieutenant Victor Blue, of the navy, landed, and by personal observation from the hills back of the city located Cervera’s entire division in the harbor. On June 14th the transports, about thirty in number, sailed from Tampa with their convoy. They were crowded and ill-provided with supplies, the whole movement showing lack of experience in handling large bodies of men. The expedition consisted of 815 officers and 16,072 enlisted men, regulars except the Seventy-first New York, Second Massachusetts, and the First Volunteer Cavalry.[282]
The expedition under Shafter began disembarking at Daiquiri on the morning of June 22d, and by night six thousand men had with great difficulty been put ashore. No lighters or launches had been provided, and the only wharf, a small wooden one, had been stripped of its flooring: the War Department expected the navy to look after these matters. In addition, the troops had been crowded into the transports without any reference to order, officers separated from their commands, artillery-pieces on one transport, horses on another, harness on a third, and no means of finding out where any of them were. By the aid of a few launches borrowed from the battle-ships, the men were put ashore, or near enough to wade through the surf, but the animals had to be thrown into the sea, where many of them perished, some in their bewilderment swimming out to sea instead of to shore.
General Lawton advanced and seized Siboney next day, and Kent’s division landed here, eight miles nearer Santiago. General Wheeler pushed on with part of Young’s brigade, and on the morning of the 24th defeated the Spanish force at Las Guasimas, with a loss of one officer and fifteen men killed, six officers and forty-six men wounded.[283] During the next week the army, including Garcia’s Cuban command, was concentrated at Sevilla. These were trying days. The troops suffered from the heavy rains, poor rations, and bad camp accommodations. No adequate provision had been made for landing supplies or for transporting them to the camps, so that with an abundance, such as they were, aboard the transports, the soldiers were in actual want.
On June 30th it was decided to advance. San Juan Hill, a strategic point on the direct road to Santiago, could not be taken or held while the Spaniards occupied El Caney, on the right of the American advance. The country was a jungle, and the roads from the coast little more than bridle-paths. Lawton moved out to a position south of El Caney that afternoon, so as to begin the attack early next morning. Wheeler’s division of dismounted cavalry and Kent’s division of infantry advanced toward El Poso, accompanied by Grimes’ battery, which was to take position early in the morning and open the way for the advance toward San Juan. The attack at this point was to be delayed until Lawton’s infantry fire was heard at El Caney. After forcing the enemy from this position, Lawton was to move toward Santiago and take position on Wheeler’s right. Little was known of the ground over which the troops were to move or the position and strength of the forces they were to meet, consequently they went into battle without knowing what they were about and fought without any generalship being displayed. General Shafter was too ill to leave his headquarters in the rear.