It will be necessary to outline in only the most terse and condensed form the political and military events which succeeded the destruction of the "Maine" and led up to the declaration of war. The news of the great disaster was received at home with horror, speedily turning to anger. The Government, rightly desiring to proceed calmly and in accordance with regularly ascertained facts, strove to calm the public temper, but with little success. It gave out as Captain Sigsbee's first report of the disaster a cable message, which contained no charge of treachery, advised caution, and urged a suspension of judgment. But presently it became rumored about Washington that this dispatch was, in fact, sent under orders; that the captain's first report formally charged the Spaniards with blowing up the ship. In the newspapers the discussion raged and theories of the disaster were plentiful, but, after long weeks of careful study of the evidence, the Naval Board of Inquiry presented the following report:
When the "Maine" arrived at Havana, she was conducted by the regular Government pilot to buoy No. 4, to which she was moored in from five to six fathoms of water.
The state of discipline on board, and the condition of her magazines, boilers, coal-bunkers, and storage compartments, are passed in review, with the conclusion that excellent order prevailed, and that no indication of any cause for an internal explosion existed in any quarter.
At eight o'clock on the evening of February 15 everything had been reported secure, and all was quiet. At 9.40 o'clock the vessel was suddenly destroyed.
There were two distinct explosions, with a brief interval between them. The first lifted the forward part of the ship very perceptibly; the second, which was more open, prolonged, and of greater volume, is attributed by the Court to the partial explosion of two or more of the forward magazines.
The evidence of the divers establishes that the after-part of the ship was practically intact, and sank in that condition a very few minutes after the explosion. The forward part was completely demolished.
Upon the evidence of a concurrent external cause the finding of the Court is as follows:
At frame 17 the outer shell of the ship, from a point eleven and one-half feet from the middle line of the ship and six feet above the keel when in its natural position, has been forced up so as to be now about four feet above the surface of the water; therefore, about thirty-four feet above where it would be had the ship sunk uninjured.
The outside bottom plating is bent into a reversed V-shape, the after-wing of which, about fifteen feet broad and thirty-two feet in length (from frame 17 to frame 25), is doubled back upon itself against the continuation of the same plating extending forward.