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Updated: May 26, 2025
It was a great help to have a coaling place at Guantanamo, but our sailors had much hard work to take the place. Now I will tell you about some of this hard work, and something about two men who made it possible to land the marines and establish a coaling station in Guantanamo Bay. The men were Commander McCalla, of the Marblehead, and Captain Brownson, of the Yankee.
"Excellent!" exclaimed the latter; "nothing could be better, for it is absolutely safe. Very well, Senor, we will use this cipher, then, in communicating with each other; and you will wire to me upon your arrival at Guantanamo. Meanwhile, I will make it my business to watch the course of events here, and be prepared to furnish you with all the news as soon as I hear of your return.
It was the last touch we had of Cuban soil. As the old ship gathered headway, cheer after cheer rang out from the ships that were left behind, and in answer to each, our crew, which had gathered on the forecastle, gave three rousing hurrahs and a tiger. So we sailed out of Guantanamo Bay for the last time.
Not only would the force from Guantanamo have to pass around the main body to attack the train; it would again have to pass around the main body to get back to Guantanamo; whereas a force operating from Culebra could make a direct attack upon the enemy's train, and then a direct retreat to Culebra.
As it was, the Massachusetts, New Orleans, and Newark had gone to Guantanamo after coal, while the New York was too far away to take any active part in the fighting. This left only the Brooklyn, Oregon, Iowa, Indiana, and Texas on guard, with the converted yachts Gloucester and Vixen acting as picket-boats.
The coming hostile force would push before it all resistance, and leave the sea free for the passage of its auxiliaries and supplies. A defending force, operating from Guantanamo, in endeavoring to prevent a hostile fleet from establishing a base to the eastward of it, would act much less effectively than a force operating from Culebra.
The ports of Matanzas, Cardenas, Cienfuegos, Sagua, Caibarien, Santiago, Manzanillo, Nuevitas, Guantanamo, Gibara, and Baracoa, in said islands, are hereby declared to be subports of entry, and an officer of the Army will be assigned to each of the subports, who will be the collector of customs of a subport and shall have general jurisdiction of the collection of customs at such port.
In reply to my question whether he had any orders for us, or any suggestions to make with regard to our movements, he said that, as there seemed to be nothing for the Red Cross to do in the vicinity of Santiago, he should advise us to go to Guantanamo Bay, where Captain McCalla had opened communications with the insurgents under General Perez, and where we should probably find Cuban refugees suffering for food.
The field to which I am going is a tropical field, and the unusual and unfamiliar difficulties with which I shall have to contend are probably those dependent upon climatic conditions. There are no sheltered harbors on the southeastern coast of Cuba between Cape Cruz and Cape Maysi except the harbor of Santiago and the Bay of Guantanamo.
Swinging around that, the coasting steamers turn due west along the shore to Santiago, passing the harbor of Guantanamo, with its United States naval station. That place is reached by rail from Santiago, a highly picturesque route through the Guantanamo valley.
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