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Updated: June 28, 2025
The great evil of our deficiencies in coast armament was that they neutralized temporarily a large part of our navy; prevented our sending it to Cuba; made possible that Cervera's squadron, during quite an interval, might do this or that thing of several things thus left open to him, the result of which would have been to encourage the enemy, and possibly to produce political action by our ill-wishers abroad.
Less than a week after this declaration, in the early morning of May 1, a victory over the Spanish fleet at Manila was achieved by Commodore Dewey, which made him virtual master of the Philippines; and just two months later, July 1 and 2 were made memorable by two engagements in the West Indies, resulting, the one in the defeat of the Spanish land forces at San Juan, and the other in the complete annihilation of Admiral Cervera's fleet in the Bay of Santiago de Cuba misfortunes so overwhelming that overtures for peace were quickly received at Washington from Madrid; and the Spanish-American War was over.
He offered to force an entrance if General Shafter would seize the mine-station north of Morro; but the general could not do this without changing his plan of campaign. The coöperation of the navy, therefore, was limited to the destruction of Cervera's fleet and the bombardment of the city from the mouth of Aguadores ravine.
Such efficiency it is probable Cervera's division never possessed.
I want to say that no fleet ever met a braver enemy than we did at Santiago. Those Spaniards stood up and got killed in the best possible shape. Six hundred of them died in less than thirty minutes, so you can see that there was very little flinching on Cervera's ships.
They were thousands iv r-rounds iv catridges f'r ivry rig'mint, and all th' rig'mints had to do was to write f'r thim. Th' navy had taken Manila an' Cervera's fleet, an' th' ar-rmy had taken Sandago an' th' yellow fever. Th' war is over, an' peace wanst more wags her wings over th' counthry. Pine scantlings is quoted sthrong. Ivrywhere is peace an' contint.
"There is little to add to what you already know about the way I hoped to fight Cervera's fleet, if we fell in with it.
Admiral Sampson with his two ships arrived off Santiago on the 1st of June at 6 A.M., and established at once the close watch of the port which lasted until the sally and destruction of Cervera's squadron.
Dashing at full speed from the harbor-mouth, outlined by the smokeless flames of her forward turret and port batteries, Admiral Cervera's flag-ship was quickly headed to the westward, and for the most open point of the blockade. Behind her steamed the Vizcaya, Colon, Oquendo, and the torpedo-boats Furor and Pluton.
Certain summers ago our cruisers, the St. Louis and the Harvard, arrived at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with sixteen or seventeen hundred Spanish prisoners from Santiago de Cuba. They were partly soldiers of the land forces picked up by our troops in the fights before the city, but by far the greater part were sailors and marines from Cervera's ill-fated fleet.
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