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Updated: June 28, 2025
The "Scuttle Butt Navigators," or, as the "Yankee" boys called them, the Rumor Committee, were very busy that bright day in May. According to them we were to sail seaward and discover Cervera's fleet, the whereabouts of which was then unknown. We were to sail south and bombard Havana.
The American army occupying the muddy trenches before Santiago had been rendered very unhappy that morning by a rumor that Cervera's ships had made a dash from the harbor, evaded the blockade, and escaped almost unharmed. How this rumor started no one knew, but it spread like wildfire, and was generally believed.
No resistance to them was made by the Spanish gunboat, before which the vulnerable and inadequately armed St. Louis and Wompatuck had very properly retired. Although the information received of Cervera's entering Santiago was not reliable enough to justify detaching Sampson's ships from before Havana, it was probable to a degree that made it imperative to watch the port in force at once.
There is a psychological backing for this assumption, for the irksomeness of being penned up wears and wears until it is not to be borne. At least this seems to have been the case in blockades in past wars, notably the dash of Admiral Cervera's squadron from Santiago Harbor.
The forts at Santiago received a terrible punishment, if they were not destroyed, and one of Admiral Cervera's ships, the Maria Teresa, was considerably damaged by shells that went over the forts into the harbor. There were several other warships in the harbor besides those that came with Admiral Cervera. The Reina Mercedes was nearly destroyed by the shells from our ships.
"That's you, old man!" cried Ensign Comly, "And I envy you your present job a heap more than I did the one you were undertaking the last time we set you ashore." So back past the blazing wrecks of Cervera's squadron and on to Siboney dashed the despatch-boat.
The potentialities of Cervera's squadron, after reaching the Spanish Antilles, must be considered under the limitations of his sandbanks and tides; of telegraph cables betraying his secrets, of difficulties and delays in coaling, of the chances of sudden occasional accidents to which all machinery is liable, multiplied in a fleet by the number of vessels composing it; and to these troubles, inevitable accompaniments of such operations, must in fairness be added the assumption of reasonable watchfulness and intelligence on the part of the United States, in the distribution of its lookouts and of its ships.
Spaniards are rich in such inspiring memories, reaching from the earliest days of authentic history to the terrible episodes of the late war with America. The story of Cervera's fleet at Santiago de Cuba is one to make the heart of any nation throb with pride in the midst of inevitable tears.
At the same time they were not happy, for Cervera's ships had escaped. What could the Yankee sailors have been about to let such a thing happen? What a disgrace it was, and how the whole world would jeer! Even Santiago seemed hardly worth capturing now. All at once a sound of shouting was borne faintly to their ears from the distant rear. What had happened?
He did not specifically mention Santiago by name, because Cervera's fleet, at that time, had not taken refuge there; but inasmuch as Santiago was the most important place in eastern Cuba, and had a deep and sheltered harbor, I inferred that it would be made the objective point of the contemplated attack.
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