The Boys of '98 Part 27

Francis Kelly, water tender, to be chief machinist, from thirty-seven dollars a month to seventy dollars a month.

Lieutenant Hobson's reward would come through Congress.

While a grateful people were discussing the manner in which their heroes should be crowned, that little band of marines on the sh.o.r.e of Guantanamo Bay, worn almost to exhaustion by the hara.s.sing fire of the enemy during seventy-two hours, was once more battling against a vastly superior force in point of numbers.

From the afternoon of the eleventh of June until this morning of the fourteenth, the Americans had remained on the defensive,-seven hundred against two thousand or more. Now, however, different tactics were to be used. Colonel Huntington had decided that it was time to turn the tables, and before the night was come the occupants of the graves on the crest of the hill had been avenged.

A scouting party, made up of nine officers, two hundred and eighty marines, and forty-one Cubans, was divided into four divisions, the first of which had orders to destroy a water-tank from which the enemy drew supplies. The second was to attack the Spanish camp beyond the first range of hills. The third had for its objective point a signal-station from which information as to the movements of the American fleet had been flashed into Santiago. The fourth division was to act as the reserve.

In half an hour from the time of leaving camp the signal-station was in the hands of the Americans, and the heliograph outfit lost to the enemy.

The boys of '98 had suffered no loss, while eight Spaniards lay with faces upturned to the rays of the burning sun.

At noon the Spanish camp had been taken, with a loss of two Cubans killed, one American and four Cubans wounded. Twenty-three Spaniards were dead.

The water-tank was destroyed, and the enemy, panic-stricken, was fleeing here and there, yet further hara.s.sed by a heavy fire from the _Dolphin_, who sent her sh.e.l.ls among the fugitives whenever they came in view.

When the day drew near its close, and the weary but triumphant marines returned to camp, a hundred of the enemy lay out on the hills dead; more than twice that number must have been wounded, and eighteen were being brought in as prisoners.

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

On this night of June 14th, at the entrance to Santiago Harbour, the dynamite cruiser _Vesuvius_-that experimental engine of destruction-was given a test in actual warfare, and the result is thus graphically pictured by a correspondent of the New York _Herald_:

"Three sh.e.l.ls, each containing two hundred pounds of guncotton, were fired last night from the dynamite guns of the _Vesuvius_ at the hill at the western entrance to Santiago Harbour, on which there is a fort.

"The frightful execution done by those three shots will be historic.

"Guns in that fort had not been silenced when the fleet drew off after the attack that followed the discovery of the presence of the Spanish fleet in the harbour.

"In the intense darkness of last night the _Vesuvius_ steamed into close range and let go one of her mysterious missiles.

"There was no flash, no smoke. There was no noise at first. The pneumatic guns on the little cruiser did their work silently. It was only when they felt the shock that the men on the other war-ships knew the _Vesuvius_ was in action.

"A few seconds after the gun was fired there was a frightful convulsion on the land. On the hill, where the Spanish guns had withstood the missiles of the ordinary ships of war, tons of rock and soil leaped in air. The land was smitten as by an earthquake.

"Terrible echoes rolled around through the shaken hills and mountains.

Sampson's ships, far out at sea, trembled with the awful shock. Dust rose to the clouds and hid the scene of destruction.

"Then came a long silence; next another frightful upheaval, and following it a third, so quickly that the results of the work of the two mingled in mid-air.

"Another still, and then two shots from a Spanish battery, that, after the noise of the dynamite, sounded like the crackle of firecrackers.

"The _Vesuvius_ had tested herself. She was found perfect as a destroyer.

She proved that no fortification can withstand her terrible missiles.

"Just what damage she did I could not tell from the sea. Whatever was within hundreds of feet of the point of impact must have gone to destruction."

_June 16._ On the fifteenth of June the marines at Guantanamo Bay were given an opportunity to rest, for the lesson the Spaniards received on the fourteenth had been a severe one, and the fleet off Santiago remained inactive. It was but the lull before the storm of iron which was rained upon the Spanish on the sixteenth.

The prelude to this third bombardment of Santiago was a second trial of the _Vesuvius_ at midnight on the fifteenth, when she sent three more 250-pound charges of guncotton into the fortifications. This done, the fleet remained like spectres, each vessel at its respective station, until half-past three o'clock on the morning of the sixteenth, when the bluejackets were aroused and served with coffee.

Immediately the first gray light of dawn appeared, the ships steamed in toward the fortifications of Santiago until within three thousand yards, and there, lying broadside on, three cables'-lengths apart, they waited for the day to break.

It was 5.25 when the _New York_ opened with a broadside from her main battery, and the bombardment was begun.

All along the crescent-shaped line the big guns roared and the smaller ones crackled and snapped, each piece throughout the entire squadron being worked with such energy that it was like one mighty, continuous wave of crashing thunder, and from out this convulsion came projectiles of enormous weight, until it seemed as if all that line of sh.o.r.e must be rent and riven.

Not a gun was directed at El Morro, for there it was believed the brave Hobson and his gallant comrades were held prisoners.

When the signal was given for the fleet to retire, not a man had been wounded, nor a vessel struck by the fire from the sh.o.r.e.

The governor of Santiago sent the following message to Madrid relative to the bombardment:

"The Americans fired one thousand shots. Several Spanish sh.e.l.ls. .h.i.t the enemy's vessels. Our losses are three killed and twenty wounded, including two officers. The Spanish squadron was not damaged."

While the Americans were making their presence felt at Santiago, those who held Guantanamo Bay were not idle. The _Texas_, _Marblehead_, and the _Suwanee_ bombarded the brick fort and earthworks at Caimanera, at the terminus of the railroad leading to the city of Guantanamo, demolishing them entirely after an hour and a half of firing. When the Spaniards fled from the fortifications, the _St. Paul_ sh.e.l.led them until they were hidden in the surrounding forest.

An hour or more after the bombardment ceased the _Marblehead's_ steam launch began dragging the harbour near the fort for mines. One was found and taken up, and while it was being towed to the war-ship a party of Spaniards on sh.o.r.e opened fire. The launch headed toward sh.o.r.e and began banging away, but the bow gun finally kicked overboard, carrying the gunner with it. At this moment the enemy beat a prompt retreat; the gunner was pulled inboard, and the bluejackets continued their interrupted work.

_June 17._ Next day the batteries on Hicacal Point and Hospital Cay were sh.e.l.led, the _Marblehead_ and the _St. Paul_ attending to the first, and the _Suwanee_ caring for the latter, while the _Dolphin_ and even the collier _Scindia_ fired a few shots for diversion. The task was concluded in less than half an hour, and had no more than come to an end when a small sloop was sighted off the entrance to the bay.

The _Marblehead's_ steam launch was sent in pursuit, and an hour later returned with the prize, which proved to be the _Chato_. Her crew of five were taken on board the _Marblehead_ as prisoners.

_June 18._ The active little steam launch made another capture next day while cruising outside the bay; a nameless sloop, on which were four men who claimed to have been sent from the lighthouse at Cape Maysi to Guantanamo City for oil. There were strong reasons for believing this party had come to spy out the position of the American ships, and all were transferred to the _Marblehead_.

The crew of the _Oregon_ had gun practice again on this day when they sh.e.l.led and destroyed a blockhouse three miles up the bay, killing, so it was reported, no less than twenty of the enemy.

The first vessel of a long-expected fleet of transports, carrying the second detachment of General Shafter's army, hove in sight of Admiral Sampson's squadron on the evening of June 18th, and next morning at daylight the launches of the _New York_ and _Ma.s.sachusetts_ reconnoitred the sh.o.r.e between Cabanas, two miles off the entrance to Santiago Harbour, and Guayaganaco, two miles farther west, in search of a landing-place.

Lieutenant Harlow, in command of the expedition, made the following report:

"The expedition consisted of a steam launch from the _Ma.s.sachusetts_, in charge of Cadet Hart, and a launch from the _New York_, in charge of Cadet Powell. I took pa.s.sage on the _Ma.s.sachusetts'_ launch, leading the way.

Soundings were taken on entering the bay close under the old fort, and we were preparing to circ.u.mnavigate the bay at full speed when fire was opened from the fort and rocks on the sh.o.r.e. The _Ma.s.sachusetts'_ launch was some distance ahead and about forty yards off the fort. There was no room to turn, and our 1-pounder could not be brought to bear. We backed and turned under a heavy fire.

"Cadet Hart operated the gun as soon as it could be brought to bear, sitting exposed in the bow, and working the gun as coolly and carefully as at target practice.

"Cadet Powell had been firing since the Spaniards opened. He was also perfectly cool. Both launches ran out under a heavy fire of from six to eight minutes. I estimate that there were twenty-five Spaniards on the parapet of the old fort. The number along sh.o.r.e was larger, but indefinite. The launches, as soon as it was practicable, sheered to give the _Vixen_ the range of the fort. The _Vixen_ and the _Texas_ silenced the sh.o.r.e fire promptly.

"I strongly commend Cadet Hart and Cadet Powell for the cool management of the launches. One launch was struck seven times. n.o.body in either was hurt. A bullet struck a sh.e.l.l at Cadet Hart's feet between the projectile and the powder, but failed to explode the latter.

"c.o.xswain O'Donnell and Seaman Bloom are commended, as is also the coolness with which the marines and sailors worked under the Spanish fire.

"Nothing was learned at Cabanas Bay, but at Guayaganaco it is evident a landing is practicable for ships' boats. The same is true of Rancho Cruz, a small bay to the eastward. Both would be valuable with Cabanas, but useless without it.

"I am informed that to the north and westward of Cabanas Bay there is a large clearing, with plenty of gra.s.s and water.

"I think a simultaneous landing at the three places named would be practicable if the ships sh.e.l.led the adjacent wood. A junction would naturally follow at the clearing."

Cuban scouts reported to Colonel Huntington on Guantanamo Bay that the streets of Caimanera have been covered with straw saturated in oil, in order that the city may be destroyed when the Americans evince any disposition to take possession. The Spanish gunboat _Sandoval_, lying at one of the piers, has been loaded with inflammables, and will be burned with the city, her commander declaring that she shall never become an American prize.