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Updated: June 17, 2025
“‘Just as I turned to speak to Captain Haskell I was struck by a bullet from the trenches on the Spanish side.’” Before five o’clock, on the morning of July 2d, the crew of the flag-ship New York was astir, eating a hurried breakfast. At 5.50 general quarters was sounded, and the flag-ship headed in toward Aguadores, about three miles east of Morro Castle.
When I went on deck, the morning after our return to Siboney, I found that the State of Texas had drifted, during the night, half-way to the mouth of the Aguadores ravine, and was lying two or three miles off the coast, within plain sight of the blockading fleet.
That is the Morro Castle, which, with the battery of Aguadores, the battery of the Estrella, and the above named Cabanas, commands the approaches to the harbour and town of Cuba.
In view of this, I decided to begin the attack next day at El Caney with one division, while sending two divisions on the direct road to Santiago, passing by the El Pozo house, and as a diversion to direct a small force against Aguadores, from Siboney along the railroad by the sea, with a view of attracting the attention of the Spaniards in the latter direction, and of preventing them from attacking our left flank.... But we were in a sickly climate; our supplies had to be brought forward by a narrow wagon-road which the rain might at any time render impassable; fear was entertained that a storm might drive the vessels containing our stores to sea, thus separating us from our base of supplies, and, lastly, it was reported that General Pando, with eight thousand reinforcements for the enemy, was en route for Manzanillo, and might be expected in a few days.
In the second notch, about six miles from Aguadores and ten from Morro Castle, are the hamlet and railroad-station of Siboney; and in the third, five miles farther to the eastward, lies the somewhat larger and more important mining village of Daiquiri, which, before the war, was the shipping-port of the Spanish-American Iron Company.
Between nine and ten o'clock in the morning heavy cannonading could be heard in the direction of Morro Castle, and great clouds of white smoke began to rise over a projecting point of the rampart which hid, from our point of view, the mouth of the Aguadores ravine.
In fact, throughout the entire engagement none of our ships was hit and no American was injured. One purpose of Admiral Sampson, it appears, was to land troops and siege guns at Aguadores, after reducing the defenses of the place, and then make a close assault upon Santiago, which, in view of the present condition of its fortifications, may be expected to yield soon.
The first detachment of troops, including heavy and light artillery and the engineer corps, embarked for Santiago on the second of June. Four days later this force was landed at Aguadores, a few miles east of Santiago, under the cover of Admiral Sampson’s guns. June 6.
But the captain's eyesight was better than mine. In five minutes more he announced that he could see the Brooklyn, the New York, and the Iowa. "They're all there," he added after another look, "but some of them seem to be away out of position. The New York is off Aguadores, and the Brooklyn is half-way down to Aserraderos."
Bombardment of the Socapa battery near Santiago. Spaniards set fire to the town of Aguadores. The U. S. S. Texas engages the west battery of Cabanas. Captain Sigsbee of the U. S. S. St. Paul, in reporting his cruise of twenty-three days, gave the following account of a meeting with the enemy off San Juan de Porto Rico on the 22d of June: June 22. “We came off the port on the twenty-second.
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