Porto Rico Part 8

"It is the policy of the Department to have our ships a little ahead of those of any other nation, to have them equipped with armor of greater resistive power, and guns capable of doing more execution. The 13-inch gun, as at present designed, is a more destructive gun than a 12-inch ordinarily, and its energy is very much greater, the result naturally being that it has superior armor-piercing powers.

"I think we should keep the 13-inch gun on board of our battleships. On account of the light armor which protected the Spanish men-of-war, it is difficult to compare the ships and the effect of their fire, or to draw conclusions. We would have learned more if the Spanish fleet had been made up of battleships, and the fire of their gunners had been more accurate. As it is, the value of the secondary battery was certainly demonstrated.

"The necessity of eliminating wood to the greatest extent possible and fireproofing what remains, was shown by the destruction of the Spanish men-of-war. Fire mains should be kept below the protective deck. The battle proved that ships moving rapidly can attack other vessels also under way and inflict serious injury.

"The excellent gunnery of the American sailors is entirely due to the practice which they had undergone, but the target fired at was stationary, while their ship was moving. The conditions were different in action. The Spanish were under way, yet the American gunners fired as well as if they were merely practising."

The New York Herald speaks as follows of our naval victories:

"Ramming, that expedient of despair, was not attempted. Torpedoing, despite the opportunities afforded, was estopped by the quick service of rapid-fire guns on board an inferior but superbly handled construction, and that final effort, a 'charge through,' was never allowed to challenge the combined energies of our fleet. If audacity could have merited success, these Spaniards deserved much, but here the marrow of the war proverb was not with them.

"Pitted against similar ships, even in superior numbers, some of the fleeing cruisers might have slipped seaward in hot haste for the breaking of the Havana blockade. Failing that, all might have concentrated an a.s.sault upon certain selected vessels and found consolation for final defeat in the foundering hulls of their enemy. But audacity did not count, individual bravery went for naught; because, while heavier constructions barred the way, and superior guns smashed the pathways of escape, energized skill overcame untrained courage and patient discipline crushed unorganized effort.

"The battleships not only fought the armored cruisers in a long, stern chase down the sh.o.r.e, but destroying as they ran, finally forced them blazing in their own wrecks upon a hostile coast. The torpedo boat destroyers engaged single handed by the Gloucester succ.u.mbed so quickly to inferior armament and speed that their value in a day attack, or, indeed, their value at any time save as weapons of surprise, need no longer be reckoned with. This will be a rude awakening to the zealots who had seen in this weapon the downfall of the ship of the fighting line, but it will be a heart-cheering confirmation to the loyal seamen who in season and out have never ceased to proclaim that the integrity of sea nations rests on battleships and the well-served guns of a fleet."

"I think sometimes if it had not been for the work of the Oregon the Colon might have got away," was the statement made by an admiral on the retired list. "I am not sure that the Brooklyn, with all her speed, could have stopped the Colon, but I think it quite likely that the New York would have finally overtaken the Colon and stopped her."

More emphasis was laid upon the speed of the Oregon and the closeness of her position than upon her 13-inch sh.e.l.ls, one of which played such havoc. The admiral was not seemingly impressed with the difference in effectiveness between the guns of large and small calibre, but continued to lay stress on the admirable speed of the Oregon.

"But," he continued, "the war has proved nothing so far as the navy is concerned. The Spaniards showed no enterprise. If we had come up against the navy of England there would have been some basis for a conclusion, but shooting in the air, as the Spaniards did, proves nothing. They had a fine fleet, with most modern equipment, and yet they could kill only one man in the whole encounter."

Admiral Sir George Elliot, of the British Navy, considers that at least five important lessons have been taught by the war. His opinions are as follows:

"First, in state of peace be fully prepared for war in every respect; second, the value of adequately-protected coaling stations; third, the value of superior speed for the cruiser cla.s.s, and especially for the more weakly-armored vessels; fourth, the naval defense of seaports by gunboats and the raising of the naval volunteer corps as an integral portion of the naval reserve forces; fifth, that great importance be attached to a steady gun platform for quick-firing guns, looking to the small number of hits compared with numerous shots fired.

"In this connection," said Sir George Elliot, "I am informed that the Americans are likely to adopt Captain Hodgett's form of bottom for their new ships, which must give greater steadiness than bilge keels."

Admiral Sir Henry Nicholson, who was captain of the Temeraire at the bombardment of Alexandria, and has since been commander in chief at the Cape of Good Hope and at the Nore, has spoken thus:

"This war has taught us nothing. The state of the Spanish navy has been for years so hopelessly rotten that when the moment for action arrived its military value was nil. The Spanish gunners hardly seem to have got a hit in on any American ship. Nothing is taught us as to the relative value of the belt or deck armor."

As regards ships versus forts, he said:

"The Spanish forts seem to have been, probably from various reasons, as inefficient as their ships. Both the Spaniards and the Americans in their use of torpedo craft have shown very remarkable absence of dash.

Practically neither side has made any use of this dreaded arm."

Captain Montagu Burrow, who is professor of modern history at the University of Oxford, had this opinion to offer:

"There are no new lessons to be learned, but only confirmation of some that are very old. The state of unreadiness in Spain when the war suddenly broke out might, from the unfortunate circ.u.mstances of that country, have been expected, but if the United States had had to deal with a Power anything like its own strength it would have found its own position intensely difficult. The war will probably have the effect of inducing their government to keep up a standing army and navy of a very superior kind to that of their present system. The recent warning of their admirable writer, Captain Mahau, will now have a chance of being listened to, but the Americans have only to expand what is already proved to be good. The training of their officers and men must have been of a superior kind to enable them to handle their ships and point their guns with such excellent effect. It was at one time considered doubtful whether modern guns could be as accurately fired at great distances as the old armament at shorter ranges, but they were laid quite as accurately, and were far more destructive."

As the New York Herald declared at the time, the United States had now attained their majority. They were now of age, and their voice must be heard in the council of nations.

There were misgivings all over Europe, especially in Germany and France, old and bitter foes though they are.

A prominent Parisian thus summed up these misgivings:

"The young American giant," he said, "is only trying his strength on Spain, but what if he should use it against us?"

CHAPTER IX.

WHAT OUR ARMY ACHIEVED.

Now to turn from the navy to the army, and see what the latter achieved in Porto Rico.

On July 21, 1898, General Miles sailed from Guantanamo Bay with a force of 3,415 men. General Wilson had sailed the day before from Charleston with 4,000 men, and General Schwan and his command sailed from Port Tampa two days later.

The entire army of invasion numbered about eleven thousand men.

The hardships on the transports were very great.

The Ma.s.sachusetts carried three troops of cavalry from New York and Pennsylvania to Porto Rico and the events of the voyage have been thus narrated by an eye-witness:

"With the penetrating of the tropics come days of languor and nights of inactivity so delicious it seems profanation to move. More than one thousand men, who boarded the Ma.s.sachusetts with the vigor of the North in their veins, have succ.u.mbed, one by one, to the lethargy of the soft breeze of the Bahamas.

But an awakening is at hand. Pumps that have been running steadily day and night slow down and stop. Troopers had become so accustomed to the quick beating of the smaller machines that the cessation of throbs between the slower pulsations of the heavier engines is noticed instantly. A quick inquiry as to the cause brings the answer from one less well-informed: "Only the water pumps broken down." That is all, only eleven hundred parched horses awaiting the answer to the bugle call they had learned so well--"Water horses!"--which sounded at the moment of the fatal break in the pumps. Only a transport carrying ten hundred and thirty men, and no means of extinguishing a fire!

Twenty minutes; one-half hour, and Captain Read, who has gone down into "the hole," asks for five Troop A men. "No hurry," so the order said.

Somebody knew better, and the troopers go, hand over hand, down into the ship's hold. A few bales of hay come up and over the side of the ship, and sizzle as they strike the water. The troopers nurse a few burned fingers, and Captain Read reappears on deck, smoked, wet with perspiration, and makes his usual answer to a question, "What's the trouble?" with "Nothing at all." But five men of Troop A and Captain Read knows that a dangerous fire has been extinguished for the third time in one day with men's bare hands.

"Three-quarters of an hour, and no sound from the engine-room, except the steady throb of the propeller.

"'Thirty men from Troop A, thirty men from City Troop, and thirty men from Troop C!' and ninety men in three squads silently are lined around that entrance to Hades--the hole. 'Another fire,' was the quick alarm, but it was worse than that. 'Water! water! water!" the cry comes from the sunken eyes that look pleadingly at men; from harsh breathing; from parched throats; from hanging heads of eleven hundred horses and mules that had not been watered since receiving a scant quart eighteen hours before. 'Let's see,' said the United States cavalrymen, quietly, 'the pumps are hopeless, but we can draw up one bucketful every minute from the hold aft, and one every minute from the forward hatch. We ought to water all in ten hours. Form lines and water solid. The horse you skip will be dead in the morning.'

"The horses stand with swollen legs far apart, instinctively to prevent a fall. Once down, they know they never can get up. Their heads hang low and their breathing comes in a whistle from parched lungs through a long, dry throat and dusty mouth. There is an occasional form in the black galleys. It is some trooper, his big arms around the neck of his beloved dying mount, with tears in his eyes, but petting and talking to the animal as if it understood. Then ropes over blocks begin to draw buckets of water from sixty feet below. Immediately each horse or mule has its draught, it is bathed in perspiration, and skin dry and shriveled becomes soft and pliable. One can feel in the dark, whether a horse has been missed or not.

"There is a delay and an anxious inquiry from above: 'What's the matter?' 'Haul away,' is the response, and the bucket comes heavy this time. Oh, it's only a man, stark naked, fainting, with a rope beneath his arms, and head away to one side. 'Hospital case, overcome, haul away,' and another bucket swings upward."

Of course the objective point of the whole campaign was the capital, San Juan, on the northeastern coast of the island. Nevertheless the troops were mostly landed on the southern coast not far from the southwestern corner. The plan was to drive all the Spanish troops upon the island into San Juan, where they could be captured upon the surrender of that city.

The Spaniards abandoned precipitately the whole southern coast line, and this seemed to promise an easy march for the Americans across Porto Rico.

But this was not exactly the case, as we shall proceed to demonstrate.

There were several causes why the Spaniards fled before the invading Americans.

One was that in the beginning the Spanish forces, from lack of knowledge as to where the Americans would land, were widely scattered. By retreating, the coast garrisons were brought together in bodies of more or less magnitude. More than this in the interior could be found stronger positions for defense, and there only land forces would have to be dealt with.

It is probable that the Spaniards in Porto Rico, knowing as they must have, that the war was virtually over, hoped by a show of resistance at the end to come out with a certain degree of credit, and had resolved to give up the fight only when they received an order to do so from Madrid.

At all events, the Spanish troops disputed the American advance at several points. At Fajardo the American forces raised the Stars and Stripes, but the Spaniards, several hundred in number, pulled it down and even sought to drive away the landing party that held the lighthouse on the sh.o.r.e. This attempt was most manifestly absurd, as in the harbor was a squadron, consisting of the monitor Amphitrite, the protected cruiser Cincinnati and the Leyden. No time was lost in landing men to support the lighthouse force, and to open fire from the ships.

The Spaniards were driven back and suffered much from their foolish temerity.

In the beginning the plan of campaign included an advance along three lines.

The first division, under General Schwan, was to advance along the western coast to Aguadilla, in the north-western corner of the island, and then to push to the east until Arecibo, on the northern coast and about half-way between Aguadilla and San Juan, was reached. The second division, under General Henry, was to push directly to the north from Ponce, forming a union with Schwan at Arecibo. The main advance was to be along the military road from Ponce to San Juan. As this road runs for some distance parallel to the southern coast, a division was dispatched under General Brooke to land at Arroyo and capture Guayama, an important city on the military road, about forty miles east of Ponce. By this means, whatever detachments of Spanish troops might be stationed on the road between these two points were exposed to attack from both front and rear.