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Updated: June 28, 2025
At 10.50 o'clock, when Admiral Cervera's flagship, the 'Almirante Oquendo, suddenly headed in shore, she had the 'Brooklyn' and 'Oregon' abeam and the 'Texas' astern. 'The Brooklyn' and 'Oregon' pushed on after the 'Cristobal Colon, which was making fine time and which looked as if she might escape, leaving the 'Texas' to finish the 'Almirante Oquendo. This work did not take long.
It is impossible to imagine that any definite policy at all was followed by the advisers of the Queen Regent in this matter, unless it were the incredible one ascribed to it by Captain Concas Palan of deliberately allowing the fleet, such as it was, to be destroyed in fact, in the case of Admiral Cervera's squadron, sending it out to certain and foreseen annihilation so as to make the disaster an excuse for suing for peace, without raising such a storm at home as might have upset the Ministry.
Three gunboats were destroyed, one other was driven ashore and sunk, and another was entirely disabled. No casualties occurred on board any of the American vessels. The Spanish loss was over 100 in killed and wounded, and the Delgado, Guantanamo, Ostralia, Continola and Guardian, gunboats of the Spanish navy, were sent to join Cervera's fleet.
Consequent upon this requirement, therefore, the blockades on the north and on the south side, to be secure against this military accident, should each have been supported by a division of armored ships capable of meeting Cervera's division on fairly equal terms; for, considering the sea distance between Cienfuegos and Havana, one such division could not support both blockades.
They are the cavalry of the fleet. Prominent among these in modern navies is the so-called "armored" cruiser, a type to which belonged the four principal vessels of Cervera's squadron. The name itself is interesting, as indicating the inveterate tendency of mankind to straddle, the reluctance to choose one of two opposite things, and frankly to give up the other.
New York, for instance, is a singularly central and suitable point, relatively to our northern Atlantic seaboard, in which to station a division intended to meet and thwart the plans of a squadron like Cervera's, if directed against our coast ports, in accordance with the fertile imaginations of evil which were the fashion in that hour.
It meant Cervera's gallant dash, Sampson and Schley's great victory, the fall of Santiago; freedom for Cuba, a quieter sleep for the Maine dead, and peace with Spain.
"They saw then the guns of the 'Cristobal Colon, Admiral Cervera's flagship, and of the old cruiser 'Reina Mercedes, which had been considered gunless, trained on them and thundering in their ears. "Still they searched with never as much as a faint cry for help or the sign of a single arm raised in mute appeal to guide them.
It was a strange port for the Spaniards to seek, and it was a fatal one. While Sampson was looking in one direction for Admiral Cervera's ships, Commodore Schley, with another squadron, was close upon their track. For awhile he thought they were in Cienfuegos, but when he found they were not there, he kept on up the coast.
By means of their secret wire, he had been informed of Cervera's arrival at the diamond plant, and of Kilgore's designs upon Nick, and Venner at that moment suspected that he might be under the eye of the detective. For nearly half an hour Nick waited for some sign of this artifice, but Venner in no way betrayed it.
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