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Updated: May 18, 2025
It was found that he was a commissioner from General Toral. lie announced to those who met him that he had an important communication to deliver to the commander of the American army, coming direct from General Toral, and he desired to be taken to General Shafter. Ordinarily such a messenger going through the lines would be blindfolded.
"When I told General Toral that we would carry his men back he said: 'Does that include my entire command? I said: 'What is your command and where are they? He replied the Fourth Army Corps; 11,500 men in the city, 3,000 twenty miles in the rear of us; 7,500 he said were up the coast less than sixty miles, and about 1,500 125 to 150 miles off on the northeastern coast.
Please inform the citizens of foreign countries and all women and children that they should leave the city before 10 o'clock to-morrow morning. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, W. R. SHAFTER, Major-General, U. S. A. General Toral made this reply: Santiago de Cuba, July 3, 2 pm.
The auxiliary gunboat Viking captured the Norwegian steamer Bergen off Francis Key. August 8. General Shafter and the Spanish General Toral held a consultation at the palace in Santiago, with regard to the embarkation of the Spanish prisoners of war.
After the naval battle of July 3, all hope of successful resistance by the Spaniards vanished, and on July 17, General Toral surrendered Santiago, the eastern end of Cuba, and an army of nearly 25,000 men. A week later General Miles set off to seize the island of Porto Rico. He landed on the southern coast, and had occupied much of the island when hostilities came to an end. Peace.
"Two days after this I saw General Toral, and I was convinced from conversation with him that he was going to surrender. I had no one but myself to take the responsibility, in fact, I did not want anyone else to do it, but while I was convinced myself it was hard to convince others.
"General Toral knew just as well as I did that I knew just what he had that he was on his last rations, and that nothing but plain rice, that we had his retreat cut off, that we had the town surrounded, that he could not hurt us, while we could bombard him and do some little damage, perhaps, and that it was only a question of a few days.
He immediately relinquished the command to General Toral. On the evening of July 3d, General Shafter sent the following cablegram to the War Department: “To-night my lines completely surrounded the town from beyond the north of the city to point of San Juan River on the south. The enemy holds from west bend San Juan River at its mouth up the railroad to the city.
"I found out a few days later what the hitch was which caused the delay, for General Toral had told me that he had been authorized by Blanco, the Governor-General, to enter into negotiations and make terms for surrender, and in Cuba you know General Blanco was in supreme command. His authority was such that he could even set aside a law of Spain.
The soldiers knew what the salute meant, and cheer upon cheer arose and ran from end to end of the eight miles of the American lines. A troop of colored cavalry and the Twenty-fifth colored infantry then started to join General Shafter and his party. The Americans waited under the tree as usual, when General Shafter sent word to General Toral that he was ready to take possession of the town.
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