The Boys of '98 Part 26

"The enemy had noticeable losses."

_June 8._ Nearly, if not quite, twenty-seven thousand men were embarked at Tampa for Santiago on the eighth of June, under the command of Maj.-Gen.

William R. Shafter.

Fire was opened by the _Marblehead_ and the _Yankee_ of the blockading squadron upon the fortifications of Camianera, a port on c.u.mberland Harbour fifteen miles distant from Guantanamo. The enemy was forced to retire to the town, but no great injury was inflicted.

The _Vixen_ entered Santiago Harbour under a flag of truce from Admiral Sampson, to arrange for an exchange of Lieutenant Hobson and his men.

Admiral Cervera said in reply that the matter had been referred to General Blanco.

The _Suwanee_ landed weapons, ammunition, and provisions for the insurgents at a point fifteen miles west of Santiago.

In Santiago were about twenty thousand Spanish soldiers, mostly infantry; but with cavalry and artillery that may be drawn from the surrounding country. On the mountains five thousand insurgents, many unarmed, watched for a favourable opportunity to make a descent upon the city.

Orders were sent by the Navy Department to Admiral Sampson to notify Admiral Cervera that, if the latter destroyed his four armoured cruisers and two torpedo-boat destroyers to prevent their capture, Spain, at the end of the war, would be made to pay an additional indemnity at least equivalent to the value of these vessels.

_June 10._ The American troops made a landing on the eastern side of Guantanamo Harbour, forty miles east of Santiago, at two P. M. on the tenth of June. The debarkation was effected under the cover of the guns of the _Oregon_, _Marblehead_, _Dolphin_, and _Vixen_.

The war-vessels prepared the way by opening fire on the earthworks which lined the sh.o.r.e, a blockhouse, and a cable station which was occupied by Spanish soldiers. The defence was feeble; the enemy retreated in hot haste after firing a few shots. A small gunboat came down from Guantanamo, four miles away, at the beginning of the bombardment, but she put back with all speed after having approached within range.

Soon after the enemy had been driven away, the steamer _Panther_ arrived with a battalion of marines under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Huntington. She reported having sh.e.l.led a blockhouse at Daiquiri, ten miles east of Santiago, but without provoking any reply.

Colonel Huntington's force took possession of the heights overlooking the bay, where was a fortified camp which had been abandoned by the Spaniards.

There was nothing to betoken the presence of the enemy in strong numbers, and the men soon settled down to ordinary camp duties, believing their first serious work would be begun by an attack on Guantanamo.

_June 11._ It was three o'clock on Sat.u.r.day afternoon; Colonel Huntington's marines were disposed about the camp according to duty or fancy; some were bathing, and a detail was engaged in the work of carrying water. Suddenly the sharp report of a musket was heard, followed by another and another until the rattle of firearms told that a skirmish of considerable importance was in progress on the picket-line.

The princ.i.p.al portion of the enemy's fire appeared to come from a small island about a thousand yards away, and a squad of men was detailed with a 3-inch field-gun to look out for the enemy in this direction, while the main force defended the camp.

After perhaps an hour had pa.s.sed, during which time the boys of '98 were virtually firing at random, the men on the picket-line fell back on the camp. Two of their number were missing. The battalion was formed on three sides of a hollow square, and stood ready to resist an attack which was not to be made until considerably later.

The firing ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Skirmishers were sent out and failed to find anything save a broad trail, marked here and there by blood, which came to an end at the water's edge.

There were no longer detonations to be heard from the island. The 3-inch gun had been well served.

The skirmishers which had been sent out returned, bearing the bodies of two boys in blue who had been killed by the first shots, and, after death, mutilated by blows from Spanish machetes.

Night came; heavy clouds hung low in the sky; the force of the wind had increased almost to a gale; below in the bay the war-ships were anch.o.r.ed, their search-lights streaming out here and there like ribbons of gold on a pall of black velvet.

No signs of the enemy on land or sea, and, save for those two cold, lifeless forms on the heights, one might have believed the previous rattle of musketry had been heard only by the imagination.

Until nine o'clock in the evening the occupants of the camp kept careful watch, and then without warning, as before, the crack of repeating rifles broke the almost painful stillness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: U. S. S. MARBLEHEAD.]

The enemy was making his presence known once more, and this time it became evident he was in larger force.

Another 3-inch gun was brought into play; a launch from the _Marblehead_, with a Colt machine gun in her bow, steamed swiftly sh.o.r.eward and opened fire; skirmish lines were thrown out through the tangle of foliage, and only when a dark form was seen, which might have been that of a Spaniard, or only the swaying branches of the trees, did the boys in blue have a target.

It was guerrilla warfare, and well-calculated to test the nerves of the young soldiers who were receiving their "baptism of blood."

Until midnight this random firing continued, and then a large body of Spanish troops charged up the hill until they were face to face with the defenders of the camp, when they retreated, being lost to view almost immediately in the blackness of the night.

_June 12._ Again and again the firing was renewed from this quarter or that, but the enemy did not show himself until the morning came like a flash of light, as it does in the tropics, disclosing scurrying bands of Spanish soldiers as they sought shelter in the thicket.

Now more guns were brought into play at the camp; the war-ships began sh.e.l.ling the sh.o.r.e, and the action was speedily brought to an end. Four Americans had been killed, and among them one of the surgeons.

At intervals during the day the crack of a rifle would tell that Spanish sharpshooters were hovering around the camp; but not until eight o'clock in the evening did the enemy approach in any great numbers.

Then the battle was on once more; again did the little band of bluejackets stand to their posts, fighting against an unseen foe. Again the war-ships flashed their search-lights and sent sh.e.l.l after sh.e.l.l into the thicket, and all the while the Spanish fire was continued with deadly effect.

Lieutenants Neville and Shaw, each with a squad of ten men, were sent out to dislodge the advance line of the enemy, and as the boys in blue swung around into the thicket with a steady, swinging stride, the Spaniards gave way, firing rapidly while so doing.

The Americans, heeding not the danger, pursued, following the foe nearly to a small stone house near the coast, which had been used as a fort. They were well up to this structure when the bullets rained upon them in every direction from out the darkness. Sergeant Goode fell fatally wounded, and the Spaniards charged, forcing the Americans to the very edge of a cliff, over which one man fell and was killed; another fell, but with no further injury than a broken leg. A third was shot through the arm, after which he and the man with the broken limb joined forces, fighting on their own account. One more was wounded, and then the Americans made a desperate charge, forcing the enemy back into the stone house, and then out again, after fifteen had been killed.

Meanwhile severe fighting was going on in the vicinity of the camp; but six field-pieces were brought up, and the second battle was ended after two Americans had been killed and seven wounded.

_June 13._ The camp was moved to a less exposed position, while the war-ships poured sh.e.l.l and shrapnel into the woods, and then the marines filed solemnly out to a portion of the hill overlooking the bay where were six newly made graves.

All the marines could not attend the funeral, many having to continue the work of moving camp, or to rest on their guns, keeping a constant watch for the lurking Spaniards; but all who could do so followed the stumbling bearers of the dead over the loose gravel, and grouped themselves about the graves.

The stretcher bearing the bodies had just been lifted to its place, and Chaplain Jones of the _Texas_ was about to begin the reading of the burial service, when the Spaniards began shooting at the party from the western chaparral.

"Fall in, Company A, Company B, Company C, fall in!"

"Fall in!" was the word from one end of the camp to the other. The graves were deserted by all save the chaplain and escort, who still stood unmoved.

The men sprang to arms, and then placed themselves behind the rolled tents, their knapsacks, the bushes in the hollows, boxes and piles of stones, their rifles ready, their eyes strained into the brush.

Howitzers roared, blue smoke arose where the sh.e.l.ls struck and burst in the chaparral, and rifles sounded angrily.

The _Texas_ fired seven shots at the place from which the shooting came, and the Spaniards, as usual, fled out of sight.

The funeral services had hardly been resumed when there was another attack; but this time the pits near the old blockhouse got the range of the malignant marksmen and shattered them with a few shots. The _Texas_ and _Panther_ sh.e.l.led the brush to the eastward, but the chaplain kept right on with the service, and from that time until night there was little shooting from the cover.

On this day the dynamite cruiser _Vesuvius_ joined Admiral Sampson's fleet, and the weary marines, holding their posts on sh.o.r.e against overwhelming odds, hoped that her arrival betokened the speedy coming of the soldiers who were so sadly needed.

_June 14._ Substantial recognition was given by the Navy Department to the members of the gallant crew who took the _Merrimac_ into the entrance of Santiago Harbour and sunk her across the channel under the very muzzles of the Spanish guns.

The orders sent to Admiral Sampson directed the promotion of the men as follows:

Daniel Montague, master-at-arms, to be a boatswain, from fifty dollars a month to thirteen hundred dollars a year.

George Charette, gunner's mate, to be a gunner, from fifty dollars a month to thirteen hundred dollars a year.

Rudolph Clausen, Osborne Deignan, and -- Murphy, c.o.xswains, to be chief boatswain's mates, an increase of twenty dollars a month.

George F. Phillips, machinist, from forty dollars a month to seventy dollars a month.