THE CUBAN COAST
The course usually taken by steamers
from Key West to Santiago lies along the northern
coast of Cuba, through the Nicholas and Old Bahama
channels, to Cape Maysi, and thence around the eastern
end of the island by the Windward Passage. Inasmuch,
however, as we were going without a convoy, and Commodore
Remey had advised us to keep out of sight of land,
in order to avoid possible interception by a Spanish
gunboat from some unblockaded port on the coast, we
decided to go around the western end of the island,
doubling Cape San Antonio, and then proceeding eastward
past the Isle of Pines to Cape Cruz and Santiago.
Tuesday afternoon we saw the high mountains in the
province of Pinar del Rio looming up
faintly through the haze at a distance of twenty-five
or thirty miles, and late that same evening we passed
the flash-light at the extremity of Cape San Antonio
and turned eastward toward Cape Cruz and Santiago.
After rounding the western end of the island we had
a succession of thunder-storms and rain-squalls, with
a strong easterly breeze and a heavy head sea; but
Thursday night the weather moderated, and at half-past
six o’clock Friday morning we sighted Cape Cruz
rising out of the dark water ahead in a long, transverse
stretch of flat table-land, backed by mountains and
terminating on the sea in a high, steep bluff.
The coast of Cuba between Cape Cruz
and Santiago is formed by a striking and beautiful
range of mountains, known to the Spaniards as the “Sierra
Maestra,” or “Master Range,” which
extends eastward and westward for more than a hundred
miles and contains some of the highest peaks to be
found on the island. As seen from the water its
furrowed slopes and flanks are deceptively foreshortened,
so that they appear to fall with extraordinary steepness
and abruptness to the sea; its rocky, wave-worn base
is whitened by a long line of snowy breakers; its deep,
wild ravines are filled with soft blue summer haze;
and down from the clouds which shroud its higher peaks
tumble in white, tortuous streaks the foaming waters
of unnamed and almost unknown mountain torrents.
As one sails, at a distance of two or three miles,
along this wild, beautiful coast, the picture presented
by the fringe of feathery palms over the white line
of surf, the steep slopes of the foot-hills, shaggy
with dark-green tropical vegetation, and the higher
peaks broken in places by cliffs or rocky escarpments
and rising into the region of summer clouds, is one
hardly to be surpassed, I think, in the tropics.
The average height of this range is three or four
thousand feet; but in many places it is much greater
than this, and the summit of the peak of Turquino,
about midway between Cape Cruz and Santiago, is eighty-four
hundred feet above the level of the sea.
Our captain thought that we should
be off the entrance to Santiago harbor about three
o’clock Saturday morning, and at half-past three
I was on the bridge. There was not a sign, as
yet, of dawn, and although I could make out faintly
the loom of high land to the northward, it was so
dark on the water that nothing could be distinguished
at a distance of five hundred yards, and in the absence
of all lights on the coast it was almost impossible
to determine our exact position. Somewhere ahead
of us, or perhaps around us, in
the impenetrable gloom, were twelve or fifteen ships
of war; but they were cruising about in silence and
darkness, and the first evidence that we should probably
have of their proximity would be the glare of a search-light
and the thunder of a gun. About four o’clock
the lookout forward shouted to the captain, “Vessel
on the port bow, sir,” and a large, dark object
stole silently out toward us from under the shadow
of the land. I took it, at first, for a gunboat;
but it proved to be the transport Santiago,
which had not yet disembarked her troops and was cruising
aimlessly back and forth, as we were, waiting for
daylight.
At a quarter past four the sky in
the east began to grow lighter, and as the hidden
sun climbed swiftly to the horizon the world about
us began to assume form and color. Almost directly
in front of us were two fine groups of high, forest-clad
mountains, separated by an interval of perhaps ten
or fifteen miles. In this gap and nearer the sea
was a long stretch of lower, but still high, table-land,
which extended from one group of mountains to the
other and seemed to form the outer rampart of the
coast. About the middle of this rocky, flat-topped
rampart there was a deep, narrow notch, on the eastern
side of which I could see with a glass a huge grayish-stone
building, elevated a little above the level of the
table-land on one side and extending down the steep
declivity of the notch in a series of titanic steps
on the other. I hardly needed to be informed
that the notch was the entrance to the harbor of Santiago,
and that the grayish-stone building was Morro Castle.
Between us and the land, in a huge, bow-shaped curve,
lay the war-ships of the blockading fleet, with Commodore
Schley’s flagship, the Brooklyn, at one
end, Admiral Sampson’s flagship, the New
York, at the other, and the battle-ships Texas,
Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts,
and half a dozen gunboats and cruisers lying at intervals
between. The convex side of the crescent was
nearest to Morro Castle, and in this part of the curve
were the battle-ships Texas, Indiana,
and Iowa, with the small gunboat Suwanee
thrown out as scout or skirmisher in the position
that the head of the arrow would occupy if the line
of the blockading vessels were a bent bow eight miles
long.
We steamed directly in toward the
entrance to the harbor, without being stopped or questioned,
and took a position in front of Morro Castle, about
one thousand yards south of the battle-ship Indiana.
From this point of view, with the aid of a good glass,
we could make out quite distinctly the outlines of
the castle, and were a little disappointed to see
still floating over it the red-and-yellow banner of
Spain. We had had no news for more than a week,
and thought it possible that both the castle and the
city were in the possession of General Shafter’s
army.
The entrance to the Bay of Santiago
appears, from a distance of three or four miles, to
be a narrow cleft or notch in the high, flat-topped
rampart which forms the coast-line. On account
of an eastward curve in the channel just beyond Morro
Castle, one cannot look through the notch into the
upper harbor. At a distance of a quarter of a
mile from the entrance, the line of vision strikes
against a steep hill, which forms one side of the
curving, fiord-like passage leading to the city.
Owing to the great depth of water off the entrance
to the bay, it is impossible for vessels to anchor
there, and the ships of the blockading fleet simply
drifted back and forth with the winds and tides, getting
under way occasionally, when it became necessary to
change position.
After breakfast I went off in a boat
to the flagship New York, called upon Admiral
Sampson, and obtained from him a brief account of all
that had happened off that coast since the 1st of
May.
Admiral Cervera, with a fleet of seven
Spanish war-ships, left the Cape Verde Islands for
West Indian waters on the 29th of April. On the
13th of May he was reported at the French port of
St. Pierre, Martinique, and from there he sailed to
Curacao, an island off the coast of Venezuela,
nearly due south of Haïti. From Curacao it
was thought he would be likely to go either to Cienfuegos
or Havana; and on the 19th of May Commodore Schley,
with the Flying Squadron, was sent to watch the former
port, while Admiral Sampson, who had just returned
from Porto Rico, resumed the blockade of Havana.
Cervera, however, did not go to either place.
Leaving Curacao on the 16th, he crossed the Caribbean
Sea, and at daybreak on the morning of Thursday, May
19, he entered the harbor of Santiago de Cuba for
the purpose of obtaining a fresh supply of coal.
His fleet then consisted of the second-class battle-ship
Cristobal Colon, the armored cruisers Vizcaya,
Almirante Oquendo, and Maria Teresa,
and the torpedo-boat destroyers Furor and Pluton.
What he expected to do, after coaling his vessels,
does not clearly appear; but certain of his Spanish
friends in the United States have recently published
what seems to be an authorized statement, in which
they set forth his views as follows:
Admiral Cervera did not enter Santiago
harbor with any intention of remaining there, or of
seeking refuge from the pursuit of the American fleets.
His object was merely to make some slight repairs to
his vessels, obtain a fresh supply of coal, and then
run out to sea. As a result of interference from
Havana, however, he was prevented from carrying out
his plans. No sooner had he reported his arrival
in Santiago than “Captain-General Blanco communicated
with Spain and asked the Minister of Marine to place
Admiral Cervera and his fleet under his (Blanco’s)
orders. Blanco then ordered Cervera to remain
in Santiago and assist in the defense of the shore
batteries. Admiral Cervera protested strongly
against this, and appealed to Spain; but it is doubtful
whether his appeal ever reached the government.
He asked to be allowed to coal up and then leave Santiago,
where he might be free to meet the American fleet,
rather than to be bottled up in a blockaded harbor.
He contended that he could not possibly be useful to
Spain by remaining in Santiago harbor, with the certainty
of American ships coming to keep him there, whereas,
outside and free, his strong fleet could be of great
value to the Spanish cause. The answer of General
Blanco was that Admiral Cervera was now subject to
his orders; that he, and not Admiral Cervera, was
in command of affairs in Cuba, and that the admiral
must obey his command. Cervera could then do nothing.”
If this semi-official statement of
Admiral Cervera’s case is an accurate one, the
Santiago campaign, which ended in the destruction of
Cervera’s fleet and the capture of the city,
was the direct result of General Blanco’s interference.
The Spanish admiral had plenty of time to coal his
vessels and make his escape before either of our fleets
reached the mouth of the harbor, and if he had done
so there might have been no Santiago campaign, and
the whole course of the war might have been changed.
But the opportunity soon passed.
On the 20th of May the news of Cervera’s
appearance at Santiago was reported to the Navy Department
in Washington, and Secretary Long immediately cabled
it to Admiral Sampson by way of Key West. On the
following day, May 21, Sampson sent the Marblehead
to the southern coast of Cuba with an order directing
Commodore Schley to proceed at once to Santiago unless
he had good reason to believe that the Spanish fleet
was really in Cienfuegos. When this order reached
Schley, on the 23d of May, he felt sure that he had
Cervera “bottled up” in Cienfuegos harbor,
and he did not become aware of his error until the
25th. He then proceeded with his fleet to Santiago,
but did not reach there until the 26th. Cervera
had then had a whole week in which to coal his vessels
and make his escape. That he fully intended to
do this seems to be evident from the statement of
Mr. Frederick W. Ramsden, British consul at Santiago,
whose recently published diary contains the following
entry, under date of May 23: “The Spanish
fleet is taking in coal, water, and provisions in
a hurry, and it is evident that it is preparing to
go to sea, probably to-night or in the morning, as
I hear the pilots have been ordered for this evening.”
If Cervera had gone to sea on the
evening of May 23, or the morning of the 24th, as
was plainly his intention, he would have made his escape
without the slightest difficulty, because Admiral Sampson
was then cruising off Havana, while Schley was still
blockading Cienfuegos. What would have been the
course of the war in that event, it is impossible to
say; but General Shafter would certainly have been
held at Tampa until the Spanish fleet had been overtaken
and destroyed, and then, very likely, the army of
invasion would have landed at some point nearer to
Havana. Admiral Cervera, however, for some reason
not yet positively known, remained in Santiago a whole
week, and at the expiration of that time it is doubtful
whether he could have made his escape, even had he
wished to do so, because Commodore Schley, with the
Flying Squadron, was off the entrance to the harbor.
Six days later, when Schley’s squadron was reinforced
by the powerful fleet of Admiral Sampson, Cervera’s
last chance of escape vanished, and there was nothing
left for him to do but assist the forts and the garrison
to defend the city to the last, or make a desperate
and almost hopeless attempt to break through the line
of the blockading fleet.
Late in May, while Admiral Sampson
was still cruising off Havana, he sent an order, by
the captain of the New Orleans, to Commodore
Schley, directing the latter to “use the collier
Sterling to obstruct the [Santiago] channel
at its narrowest part leading into the harbor,”
so as to make the escape of the Spanish fleet absolutely
impossible. “I believe,” he said,
“that it would be perfectly practicable to steam
this vessel into position, drop all her anchors, allow
her to swing across the channel, and then sink her,
either by opening the valves, or whatever means may
be best.”
Commodore Schley, for some reason,
did not obey this order; but as soon as Admiral Sampson
reached the mouth of Santiago harbor, he proceeded
to carry out the plan himself. At three o’clock
on the morning of June 3, Lieutenant R. P. Hobson,
with a volunteer crew of seven men, ran the steam-collier
Merrimac into the mouth of the harbor, under
a heavy fire from the Spanish batteries, dropped her
anchors in mid-channel between Churruca Point and
Smith Cay, opened her sea connections, exploded a
number of torpedoes hung along her sides at the water-line,
and when she sank, hung on to a raft attached by a
rope to the sunken vessel. They were rescued
from this position by the Spaniards and thrown into
Morro Castle, but were treated with the consideration
and courtesy to which their gallantry entitled them.
On the afternoon of the same day, Admiral Cervera,
who with his own hand had dragged Hobson from the
water, sent his chief of staff out to the New York,
under a flag of truce, with a letter to Admiral Sampson,
in which he informed the latter that the lieutenant
and his men were safe, and referred in terms of admiration
and respect to their courage and devotion to duty.
Unfortunately, or perhaps
fortunately, the object for which Lieutenant
Hobson and his men risked their lives was not attained.
The Merrimac failed to swing around so as to
lie transversely across the channel, but sank in such
a way as to place her hull parallel with the middle
of it and near its eastern edge. This left plenty
of water and plenty of room for vessels to pass on
the western, or Smith Cay, side. Egress, however,
although still possible, was extremely difficult and
dangerous, on account of the strictness and closeness
of the blockade which was established when Admiral
Sampson arrived and took command of the combined fleets.
The battle-ships and larger vessels, which formed
the outer line of the blockade, were disposed in a
semicircle around the mouth of the harbor, at a distance
of four or five miles, with the flagship New York
at one end of the line and the Brooklyn at the
other. Inside of this semicircle, and much nearer
the entrance, were stationed two or three small cruisers
or gunboats, whose duty it was to watch the mouth
of the harbor incessantly and give instant warning
of the appearance of any hostile vessel. At night,
when the danger from the Spanish torpedo-boats was
greatest and when Cervera’s fleet was most likely
to escape, a powerful and piercing search-light was
held constantly on the mouth of the narrow canon between
Morro and Socapa; the battle-ships closed in
so as to diminish the radius of their semicircle by
nearly one half; the cruisers and gunboats, under cover
of the blinding radiance of the search-light, moved
a mile nearer to the mouth of the harbor; and three
steam-launches patrolled the coast all night within
pistol-shot of the enemy’s batteries. In
the face of such a blockade it was virtually impossible
for Cervera to escape, and almost equally impossible
for his torpedo-boats to come out of the harbor unobserved,
or to reach any of our larger vessels even if they
should venture out. Long before they could get
across the mile and a half or two miles of water that
separated the harbor entrance from the nearest battleship,
they would be riddled with projectiles from perhaps
a hundred rapid-fire guns. Torpedo-boats, however,
did not play an important part on either side.
Our own were prevented from entering the harbor by
a strong log boom stretched across the channel just
north of the Estrella battery, and those of the Spaniards
never even attempted to make an aggressive movement
in the period covered by the blockade. Admiral
Cervera evidently thought that the chance of accomplishing
anything by means of a torpedo-boat attack was too
remote to justify the risk.
On the 6th of June Admiral Sampson
bombarded the shore batteries and the mouth of the
harbor for two hours and a half, destroying a number
of houses on Smith Cay, setting fire to the Spanish
cruiser Reina Mercedes, which was moored near
the end of the Socapa promontory, and killing
or wounding twenty-five or thirty officers and men
on the cruiser, in the batteries, and in Morro Castle.
The earthwork batteries east and west of the entrance
did not prove to be very formidable and were quickly
silenced; but the submarine mines in the narrow channel
leading to the upper harbor, which prevented our fleet
from forcing an entrance, could not be removed without
the cooeperation of a land force. All that Admiral
Sampson could do, therefore, was to bombard the harbor
fortifications now and then, so as to prevent further
work on them; occupy the lower part of Guantanamo
Bay, forty miles east of Santiago, as a coaling-station;
and urge the government in Washington, by telegraph,
to send the army forward as speedily as possible.
The fleet of transports which conveyed
General Shafter’s command to the southern coast
of Cuba arrived off the entrance to Santiago harbor
at midday on the 20th of June, after a tedious and
uneventful voyage of five days from the Dry Tortugas
around the eastern end of the island. General
Shafter at once held a conference with Admiral Sampson
and with the Cuban general Garcia, who had come to
the coast to meet the fleet, and, after considering
every possible line of attack, decided to land his
force at two points, within supporting distance of
each other, ten or fifteen miles east of the entrance
to Santiago harbor, and then march toward the city
through the interior. The points selected for
debarkation were Siboney, a small village about ten
miles east of Morro Castle, and Daiquiri, another
similar village five miles farther away, which, before
the war, was the shipping-port of the Spanish-American
Iron Company. From Daiquiri there was a rough
wagon-road to Siboney, and the latter place was connected
with Santiago by a narrow-gage railroad along the
coast and up the Aguadores ravine, as well as by a
trail or wagon-road over the foot-hills and through
the marshy, jungle-skirted valleys of the interior.
When we reached the entrance to Santiago
harbor in the Red Cross steamer State of Texas
on the 25th of June, the Fifth Army-Corps or
most of it had already landed, and was
marching toward Santiago along the interior road by
way of Guasimas and Sevilla. The landing had been
made, Admiral Sampson told me, without the least opposition
from the Spaniards, but there had been a fight, on
the day before our arrival, between General Wheeler’s
advance and a body of troops supposed to be the rear-guard
of the retiring enemy, at a place called Guasimas,
three or four miles from Siboney, on the Santiago
road. Details of the fight, he said, had not
been received, but it was thought to be nothing more
than an unimportant skirmish.
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. Acting upon this suggestion, we got under
way promptly, steamed into the little cove of Siboney
to take a look at the place and to land Mr. Louis
Kempner of the Post-Office Department, whom we had
brought from Key West, and then proceeded eastward
to Guantanamo Bay.