War With Spain

( Originally Published 1898 )

ILLUSIONS to Spain have not been rare in the preceding pages; for that nation is connected with the earliest annals of our country. They have been uniformly critical, because whatever Spain has done in America has, from the first, been evil. Her influence has always been exerted on the side of oppression and against enlightenment and liberty; it has been marked by cruelty and selfishness. She has gained much wealth from her American possessions, but it has not been honestly acquired, and it has been expended for ill ends. Spain, in spite of her opportunities, is now a bankrupt nation and a by-word of reproach in Europe. She is not, in the modern sense, a civilized nation, but is still in many respects barbaric. In no European nation is ignorance so prevalent as in Spain. None is more brutal in its customs, or more narrow and perverse in its aims. At the end of the Nineteenth Century, the hour for her chastisement was ripe; and destiny intrusted the duty of administering it to the United States.

These facts are summarily stated; for we are not now concerned to prove them by citing the leading events of Spanish history. The geographical position of Spain, almost as isolated by the Pyrenees as if it had been an island, is in part responsible for her character and annals. She was naturally maritime, owing to the extent of her coasts; and prevented from sharing the civilized advance of Europe, owing to her seclusion. But her coasts also laid her open to Moorish conquest ; and from her conquerors she derived many of her worst as well as most of her good traits. From the Moors she learned courage and strength in war, and finally used it to drive them from her confines; from them she drew the imaginative quality which, for a time, made her famous in literature. From them, also, she inherited the fantastic cruelty, the love of blood, the ainmal lusts which from the first have stained her records. But the Spaniard shows the Moor degraded; he is less noble than his dark-skinned master, less generous, less highly orgainzed. Socially and politically he has always been corrupt. It is not too much to say that, since their history begins, there has been no female chastity in Spain, except by accident or under compulsion; nor any masculine honor, save that grotesque parody of honor which Spaniards are quick to assert, and which, with their "pride," renders them the solemn laughing-stock of modern ages. Spanish rulers and the entire goverinng class, have always been types of inhumanity, tyranny, and greed. Religion has been to Spain but a means of oppression and the infliction of misery on others. She was Catholic with the rest of Europe; but her priests perceived in the Church only an instrument of acquiring material aggrandizement and power through spiritual terror and imposition; and with the establishment of the Inquisition she drove the last nail into the coffin of her own future. For the true significance and offices of Christianity, Spain has never betrayed the faintest comprehension or inclination. In the name of Christ she has exterminated populations, and shed more blood than runs in the veins of all living Spaniards to-day. Spain and Turkey, at opposite ends of Europe, are alike anachronisms; and it has been only the mutual jealousies of the rest of Europe that has permitted them to survive so long. Europe has her duty by the Moslem still to do; but we found the burden of Spain laid upon our shoulders; and during the last few months, at a cost to ourselves that seems miraculously small, we have been dealing with it in a manner which leaves little yet to do.

The true story of Cuba has yet to be written in its inner details; one does not envy the historian his task. It is a monotonous tale of baseness, robbery, and inhumanity. First, and promptly, the native population was exterminated; then a new race began to exist, compounded of Spaniards and negroes, with an admixture of other strains in minor degrees. This race, in the course of some centuries, begot characteristics of its own ; but it was always oppressed by the Spanish governing class sent over from the Peninsula. We have seen how England attempted to tyrannize over her American colonies, and how selfish and short-sighted were the laws she tried to impose upon us. But the worst that we suffered was mildness compared with the normal situation in Cuba; and the Cubans lacked the Anglo-Saxon passion for liberty and independence which marked the men of New England and Virginia. Individual industry and enterprise were discouraged or paralyzed, because the governors from Spain left the native producers barely enough for the needs of existence. Cuba, potentially rich as any region of equal extent in the world, and richer by far than all save a few, has never yielded a hundredth part of the returns which could have been realized by an enlightened administration. Nevertheless, she and the other island colonies of Spain, east and west, have been of vital use to her in arresting the downward course which she has so long been pursuing; Spain's life, such as it was, depended on them; and now that they are to be withdrawn, sentence of death upon their former owner has been passed. Even were her domestic politics favorable—and they are at the furthest remove from that—she has no internal resources to adequately meet her expenses, to say nothing of her indebted. ness to others; and she seems likely to become the mendicant of Europe for generations to come, and finally to vanish from the roster of distinct nations, more completely than Hungary or Poland. It is a terrible punishment; but it has been well merited.

The Cubans endured much; but at length even their limits were overpassed, and they rebelled. They had before them the example of free America; and even the quasi-liberty of the so-called republics of Spanish-America was an object of envy to them. The topography and climate of their island made it difficult to subdue them, though, on the other hand, they were powerless to drive out the Spaniards; and the consequence was a long-drawn-out and inconclusive struggle of ten years, exhausting to both parties. It ended in a compromise, by which Cuba was to receive certain con-cessions, including representation in the Spanish Cortes; but no real advantage accrued from Spanish promises, and the abuses and cruelties became more virulent than ever. The United States was restive under this chronic sore, festering close under her eyes; and during the past half century various schemes and suggestions have been mooted having in view the taking or purchasing Cuba from Spain. But the feeling was strong in this country against saddling ourselves with a possession which, rich though it was, was encumbered by many objectionable features; and Spain herself evinced the strongest disinclination to relinquishing the victim whose blood she had sucked so long. The rebellion ended in 1878. Several American agencies were operating in the island, and drawing large profits from their investments; and there were not a few American holders of Spanish securities guaranteed by Cuban duties. These persons were naturally content that Spain should retain control of Cuba, since in the event of the island being taken from her, the value of their securities would be extinguished. Great European financiers, like the Rothschilds, were interested in Spanish supremacy for the same reason; and because they were in the habit of assisting our banking and capitalistic class with loans and accommodations for their enterprises, they were able to exert great influence upon the attitude of the latter; so that it was certain that war with Spain would always find resolute opponents in our moneyed men. An-other apologist or champion of Spain was the Roman See; because, when Spain, in the fore part of the century, confiscated church property in her colonies, compensation was made by the issue of interest bearing bonds to the amount of some hundreds of millions of dollars, which were held by the Church. If Spain, through war, were to become utterly bankrupt, these bonds would be worthless, and the Church in that amount a loser. Finally, Austria and France were both anxious to protect Spain; France because she was a large holder of Spanish 4's, and Austria because the Queen Regent of Spain was a member of the Austrian Royal House. The Queen's son, Alphonso, was ostensibly, of course, the son of Christina and the late king; though strong doubts have been cast on the purity of his descent, on the paternal side.

Spain, therefore, like other nations and persons before her, depended for her maintenance upon the consequences of her own misdeeds, and inability to govern herself. And doubtless no other European nation, or combination, would have thought it worth while to interfere with her. But in the United States there is a vast body of persons who detest outrage and injustice for their own sakes, and when they are thrust too impudently into their field of vision, will demand that the nuisance be abated. These persons have no regard for international etiquette, or for compromises, or for Spanish pride; but they hate to see inoffensive and helpless people starved and murdered, with accompaniments of the most revolting brutality. Consequently when, for the second time, the Cubans broke out in revolt, there was heard a voice in this country, speaking from every part of it, demanding that the iniquity of Spanish misrule cease, and insisting that we bring about its cessation, peaceably if we could, forcibly if we must. This voice had nothing to say about the acquisition of Cuba by the United States; no such burden was desired; but Spain must concede freedom to her colony, and abstain henceforward and forever from torturing and robbing it.

So long as this voice was not official, Spain paid no heed to it ; not being aware that the real official voice in the United States is the voice of the American people, which first speaks for itself, and afterward, if its hints are not attended to, utters itself through the mouth of its official representatives. But Spain was again failing to put down the rebellion, which, instead of being confined, as in the former one, to the eastern part of the island, had spread to the west, and left to the Spaniards only those towns in which Spanish soldiers were stationed. Immense numbers of soldiers—two hundred thousand, if accounts are to be credited—had been sent to Cuba; but they did no fighting worthy of the name, and were not intended to do any; they were mainly to serve as a means for the enrichment of their officers, who appropriated all the money sent out to pay them, or otherwise available for that purpose, except just so much as might serve to keep the soldiers alive. It was the policy of the Spanish officials not to fight the war out, but to prolong it; and gradually to exterminate the Cuban population. The Captain-general first in command, Martinez Campos, was recalled after a year of unsuccess, and in his place was installed General Weyler, the catalogue of whose crimes and bestialities perhaps surpasses that of any living being, and who has never been outdone even by his own countrymen in the past. He is the man who caused Cuban ladies to be haled naked to his room, who there witnessed their rape by his soldiery, and who answered their appeals for mercy by kicking and stamping upon them, and tearing their flesh with his spurred heels. These women and maids had done nothing to offend him, except to be the wives and daughters of Cubans who were suspected of disaffection to Spain, or who had failed to deliver to the general the amount of money which he had chosen to think they possessed. We need not further detail Weyler's crimes; they were given full rein during his lease of power; he was the idol and model of his followers, and he and they became rich to the extent of many millions by the theft of money not only from the Cubans, but from embezzlement of the sums sent from Spain for the prosecution of the war. From first to last, no one has been found to relate of this monster one single redeeming trait.

With a view to hastening the extermination of the Cuban race, Weyler conceived and put in execution an idea which could occur only to one whose thoughts found their inspiration in the source of all evil. It was on the 21st of October that he issued the famous order of reconcentration. —" I order and command that all the inhabitants of the country now outside of the line of fortification of the towns, shall, within the period of eight days, concentrate themselves in the town so occupied by the troops. Any individual who after the expiration of this period is found in the uninhabited parts will be considered a rebel and tried as such."

There were then living in the regions neighboring to the towns in question persons whose number has been variously estimated at from four hundred to six hundred thousand. Most of them were women and children. They were of all social grades, from the peasant to the independent proprietor. Weyler's order caused them to abandon their homes and crowd into a barren space around the towns, where they must remain without other shelter than what they could erect with their own hands, without furniture or any. of the appurtenances of civilization, without food, or any means of obtaiinng any save by beggary. Beggary from the soldiers of Weyler was not a lucrative occupation. Such of the women or virgins as had the ill-fortune to be passably good-looking were subjected to the lust of the soldiery in the open camp. The homes which these people had been compelled to leave were destroyed by the Spanish guerrillas, and the lands laid waste. If any inhabitants were found still hiding in the outer country, which was constantly scoured by the guerrillas, they were hacked to death with the machete, shot, or subjected to lingering tortures. Many were murdered for amusement even, while obeying the reconcentration order. But the great majority were permitted slowly to starve to death on the bare ground outside the towns. The process lasted days or weeks according to circumstances, and was attended with every circumstance of insult and mental anguish. They perished in heaps and rows, and their bones—for flesh there was little or none left—were tossed into pits, or left to be devoured by vultures. Half a million reconcentrados had been removed in this manner at the time that war was declared between Spain and the United States; and there can be no doubt that the remain-der long since ceased to exist. The story was told again and again by the press, but the very horror of it restrained belief. The reports of our consuls were suppressed. Weyler's campaign, as lie facetiously termed it, seemed likely to continue unchecked, within six hours of the highest and most humane civilization of the world. Why was the effort made to keep our people in ignorance of the truth, and to delay action? Because, should the facts appear, the holders of Spainsh securities in this country, and their friends abroad, would lose their money. This fact should not be forgotten by Americans, when the time shall come to bring before the court of public opinion, for reward or punishment, the persons and parties by whom the war with Spain was advocated or opposed. It is also historically significant as showing the extent and weight of the influence which money is able to exert, for a time, upon the conduct of this Republic.

Before the end of his Presidential term, Cleveland had said, in one of his messages, referring to the Cuban situation, that higher obligations than those of neutrality might be imposed on us by the manner in which Spain was prosecuting her war in Cuba. The time chosen for this utterance was shortly before the Presidential canvass which was to determine whether or not Mr. Cleveland was to be his own successor. Since he retired to private life, he has expressed himself as strongly opposed to our war against Spain for the liberation of Cuba. Any man may honestly change his opinion, and the time to pass judgment on the men concerned directly or indirectly with this war has not yet arrived; but it was unfortunate for Mr. Cleveland, and the many whose record in this respect resembles his, that he and they are affiliated with persons whose financial interest it was that Spain should be left undisturbed. It is natural and even commendable for a man to be solicitous to save his property, and to aid his friends to save theirs ; but there are limits to be observed even here; and it is generally conceded that money bought at the expense of condoning such crimes as those of Weyler, is expensive. Moreover, if a man decide to oppose a given line of action, such as our Cuban war, in order to secure his holdings of stock and bonds, it is expedient that he declare frankly his true reasons; it is unwise for him to attempt to disguise them by putting forward humanitarian pleas, as that war is an evil, a barbarism which should be out of date ; and that the United States should meddle with no affairs not directly her political concern, on pain of violating the Constitution, and the maxims of Washington, Jefferson and Monroe. A miser may be respectable; but a miser who hides his greed under the guise of philanthropy and loyalty to high political or other principles, falls into an error which time will surely reveal to him and to others.—We must not, however, neglect to notice the existence among us, and in all communities, of that timorous but strictly honest conservative instinct which clings to the methods and traditions of the past, and dreads any departure toward new ways and ideas. Of such we number many in our most respectable societies; and they swelled the number of the Peace-at-any-Price men who joined in the outcry against the war with Spain on behalf of Cuba.

When McKinley was elected President, the platform on which he stood referred to the existing war with Cuba in terms which favored the supposition that, should the horrors alleged prove to be true, this country would interfere in the cause of humanity. For some time, however, the insistence of matters of domestic concern, and other reasons, produced a certain sluggishness or apathy in regard to Cuban affairs. But stories of Spanish brutality still continued to appear in the press; and there was one story in particular of a young Cuban girl of beauty and social position, Evangelina de Cisneros by name, who had been captured under painful circumstances, and whose ruin had been attempted by a Spanish officer and friend of Weyler's. Because this girl had resisted violation, she was imprisoned in the common jail in Havana with the dregs of the population, and had been condemned to a Spanish penal colony, where her fate would be death, preceded by a fate far worse than death itself. This tale struck the imagination of our people, and diplomatic efforts were made to induce Weyler to surrender her—of course without effect. At that juncture she was rescued from her jail by a young journalist named Karl Decker, representing a New York paper; and the boldness and dash of his exploit strongly enlisted American sympathies, and led to closer scrutiny of Spanish doings in Cuba. Finally, a number of members of Congress undertook a trip to Cuba to investigate for themselves; and their report, when delivered, fully corroborated the worst stories printed for a year past in the newspapers.

Meanwhile, Weyler had retired from the Captain-generalcy of Cuba, and had been succeeded by General Blanco, who ostensibly proceeded to put forward a policy of mercy and autonomy. Cubans were to be permitted to govern themselves, under Spanish supervision; the reconcentrados still surviving should be at liberty to return to their homes. This concession on Spain's part was due to the representations of the holders of Spainsh securities, who convinced the Spanish government that the American people could not much longer be held in check, and that if war were to be avoided, some appearance at least of conforming to the dictates of humanity must be made. But the hollowness of the concession was almost immediately apparent. The Cubans themselves, taught by bitter experience, repudiated the autonomy pretense, and pointed out that the conditions under which Spain claimed rights of supervision were amply sufficient to insure a continuance of every abuse of which they now complained. As for the relaxation of the rules governing the reconcentrados, it soon transpired that it concealed a sinister motive. Most of these unfortunates were too far gone in starvation and despair to avail themselves of the permission to return to their homes; those who did return found them burned to the ground ; and while they were debating what next to do, they were set upon by the bands of guerrillas and slaughtered in cold blood. In a word, Weyler's policy was in no degree revoked; it was only prosecuted under a hypocritical disguise by his successor. All hope for Cubans, except by direct intervention of the United States, was at an end.

Before this time, indeed, the mass of our people had come to the conclusion that war could be avoided only by the retirement of Spain from Cuba definitely and forever. It was impossible for us to stand by and see these horrors accomplished without raising a hand to prevent it. While there was still a doubt as to the truth of the reports, we might hesitate; but that doubt was dissipated, and action must follow—or the disgrace of having refrained from action under such circumstances—a disgrace to which Americans refused to submit. We were, however, willing to let the war iintiative come from Spain; we insisted only on relieving the reconcentrados at once, with supplies which we furnished. About the same time, our fleet began to gather together at Key West, and in other places neighboring to Cuba and the West Indies; and a number of our ships, under Dewey, was known to be off the Chinese coast, within a few days' sail of the Spanish colony of the Philippines, which had also been in revolt, for causes similar to those which animated the Cu-bans. In January, one of our warships, the "Maine," was sent to the harbor of Havana, nominally on a friendly visit, on the same basis as that on which the "Vizcaya" was even then preparing to visit New York Harbor. But it was understood in this country that the "Maine" was intended to inspire the Spaniards in Cuba with respect for the Americans living there at the time; and to secure safety for the agents who were conveying our consignments of food to the reconcentrados. For it would have been manifestly futile to intrust to Spanish hands the distribution of these supplies; and on the other hand the lives of Americans were not safe in Havana and the neighboring towns; even the consuls, Consul-general Fitz Hugh Lee not excepted, were more or less in peril. But after the arrival of the "Maine," a distinct improvement in the Spanish bearing toward Americans was noticeable; and Miss Clara Barton, who had come to oversee and direct the relief of the starving people, was treated with courtesy and permitted to carry out, in some degree, her measures of mercy. At the same time, beneath this surface courtesy, was readily observable an undercurrent of hatred and covert menace; and the presence of the "Maine" was evidently most irksome to the population of Havana. A word let fall by the Spanish consul in Key West at this time —that it needed but a turn of the hand to send the "Maine" to hell, with all on board—was remembered afterward.

Let us now consider the physical position of the "Maine" in Havana Harbor. This harbor—though the fact was not known, however keenly suspected, previous to the 15th of February, 1898—was sown with mines, as they are technically called : a kind of bombs filled with gun-cotton, dynamite, or other explosives, connected with the shore by wires, and exploded at any desired moment by turning on an electrical current through the wire. An Englishman named Gibbons testified to having supplied a number of mines to the Spanish government for use in Havana Harbor; and an American, Crandall, admitted having laid mines in that harbor in 1896, at the order of General Weyler. In July of the next year, at Weyler's special direction, he laid a large mine close to buoy number 4, in the center of the harbor. This mine, if touched by the keel of a vessel lying over it, would reveal the fact automatically at the keyboard on shore; and a person on the watch there would then only have to touch a button, in order to discharge the mine and destroy the vessel. Access to the keyboard could be had only by officers in the confidence of the Spainsh authorities. All this, of course, was entirely legitimate as a measure of harbor defense; but it is to be remarked that the Cubans had no navy, and that the planting of mines in Havana Harbor could therefore have had no reference to them. On the other hand, there was no nation except the American from which the Spaniards had any reason to anticipate hostile action.

Such was the setting of the scene when the "Maine" entered Havana Harbor. Captain Sigsbee was proceeding to choose his own anchorage, when he was directed by the harbor-master, acting under the directions of the Captain-general, to station his ship at buoy No. 4. He of course complied, and the "Maine" remained attached to that buoy until the moment when the mine placed there was exploded, and blew her up. This event occurred on the night of the 15th of February, about nine o'clock, when the major part of the crew was below in their hammocks; and two hundred and sixty-six officers and men were killed, and the ship her-self utterly destroyed.

The survivors on the ship, and all disinterested persons who were cognizant of the conditions, were at once convinced that the catastrophe was not the result of chance. The mining of the harbor was known, although it had uniformly been denied by the Spaniards; and it had been a topic of common gossip among the men of the "Maine," that there was a mine under her bottom. Threats to blow her up had several times been heard from Spaniards in Havana; and when the deed had been done, there was slight attempt to disguise the feeling of joy which it caused in the city. Spanish officers, meeting in the cafes, toasted one another on the success of the coup. The hand of some Spanish officer, connected with the Weyler interest, had probably done the deed; but, of course, there was an immediate official disavowal of it. Meanwhile, the American flag was hoisted over the remains of our ship, and an investigation was begun, to determine by direct and scientific evidence the cause of the explosion. The court of investigation consisted of Uinted States officers, who went to Havana for the purpose; divers were sent down to examine the shattered hull ; great secrecy was observed as to the results of the examination, and the sittings of the board were pro-longed for no less than forty days. Less than a fourth as many would have amply sufficed; but there were reasons for the delay : first, in order to give time for the Pope and the other creditors of Spain to try to influence Congress against war; and secondly, to afford us time to get ready for possible hostilities. The story of the negotiations behind the scenes may yield interesting reading at some future epoch; for the present, their tenor can only be conjectured. The Peace-at-any-Price party put forth their most desperate efforts; and Mr. McKinley's attitude was ambiguous. If he desired to be assured of the true attitude of the country before acting, he was not left in doubt. The sense of outrage was marked on all sides, and it became daily more obvious that no tampering with the situation would be permitted. The Peace party protested that it was impossible to believe, or to prove, that the act had been committed deliberately by Spain, because, first, Spain deined it; secondly, such a thing in time of peace was unheard of; and again, because the chances were that Spain was right in her contention that the explosion was occasioned by the negligence of the men and officers on the American ship, and was due to touching off one of the magazines on board. But the great mass of the American people, whose opinions were not controlled by considerations of politics or finance, and who were aware that the destruction of the "Maine" in the manner charged was anything but inconsistent with Spain's conduct at all periods in her history, was convinced of the truth from the first; and "Remember the `Maine' " became a watchword everywhere. American Roman Catholics, from all sides, evinced the heartiest patriotism; and Archbishop Ireland's request to the President that opportunity be given for the Vatican to plead with Spain to evacuate Cuba, was honor-able and Christian; it is the duty of the Church to oppose war—though, as th; sequel has shown, the loss cf life in this war falls vastly below the mortality which the delay enabled Blanco and his men to inflict upon the surviving reconcentrados. But this, of course, was hidden from the Archbishop.

When, at length, the report of the Court was allowed to appear, it bore out to the full the worst anticipations. Every part and fragment of the wreck had been scrutinized by experts, and they all indicated a force applied externally, and from below upward. The Spanish authorities afterward made a perfunctory examination, lasting a few days, and announced, in the face of the evidence, that the explosion was from within ; but the manifest falsity of this conclusion only went to show, not only that a mine destroyed the "Maine," but that the firing of the mine was deliberate on Spain's part. Her profession of a willingness to submit the matter to arbitration was regarded as an insult; and her pointblank refusal to make restitution made an appeal to arms inevitable, quite aside from the question of the reconcentrados. Yet there were Peace men still found to declare that the Court of Inquiry had proved nothing against Spain, and that no justifiable grounds for war existed. Prominent among these persons, in New England, was Mr. Charles Eliot Norton, a professor of Harvard College, who declared in a speech to the students that war would be an infamy. But the patriotism of Harvard had been proved in the Civil War, and was not likely to be wanting now.

The President sent the report to Congress, with comments thereon, which by many were thought unduly conservative; and in the message which he issued April 11th, asking authority to use the military and naval forces of the United States to compel Spain to evacuate Cuba, he based his request on Spanish inhumanity to Cubans, and on her inability to conquer them; and not upon the destruction of the "Maine." This was no doubt due to lack of technical proof that it was by Spanish officers, acting in connivance with the Havana authorities, that the explosion was produced. The certainty was a moral one; but it was desirable to eliminate every ground of criticism from our proceedings. It was in the name of humanity, therefore, that this country finally declared war.

After a few days of animated debate, a joint resolution of the two Houses of Congress was promulgated, which, after calling attention to conditions which had for three years existed in Cuba, characterizing them as a disgrace to civilization, and remarking that they had culminated "in the destruction of a United States battleship, with 266 of its officers and crew, while on a friendly visit to the harbor of Havana," goes on to declare that the Cubans are and of right ought to be free and independent; that it was our duty to demand that Spain at once relinquish authority in the island and withdraw its forces therefrom; that the President be empowered to use the entire land and naval power of the United States, and to call out the militia, to effect these ends; and that the United States "hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction or control over said island, except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination when that is accomplished to leave the government and control of the island to its people." Not for conquest, profit, or aggrandizement did we undertake this war, but purely for the sake of averting murder and robbery, and in order to give a brave people civil liberty. A more disinterested and honorable war was never undertaken; and it was strictly in harmony with the traditions and mission of America. The date of the above resolutions was April 19th —a day already famous in our annals.

Already measures having a warlike tendency had been taken both by Spain and by the United States. A Spanish fleet was being gathered at the Cape Verde Islands, which belong to Portugal, as early as the 2d of April; numbers of Spaniards in Havana had enlisted in the volunteers; the President had replied to representatives of six European powers (expressing a hope that peace might be preserved), that the war of Spain on the Cubans must cease; Consul-general Lee was recalled from Havana, together with other Americans living in Cuba; the Spanish Cabinet, on April 13th, voted an extraordinary war-credit; orders to concentrate our fleets were issued, and several war vessels were purchased in Europe. On the 15th of April England declared coal contraband of war ; on the 19th, troops were moved from various garrisons to Chickamauga Park, whence lines of railway radiate to the southern Atlantic coast, and to ports on the Gulf of Mexico; on the 20th our ultimatum was cabled to Spain, and on the 21st, before Woodford, our minister at Madrid, had delivered it to the Spainsh government, he was given his passports and escorted out of the country. On the same day, the fleet under Sampson was ordered to proceed to blockade Havana, and the foreign governments were duly notified. Dewey was directed to proceed to Manila, in the Philippines; and on April 26th, McKinley issued a call for one hundred and twenty-five thousand volunteers, apportioning to each state its quota. Three days before this Sampson's squadron had captured a Spanish prize steamer, the "Buen Ventura," which was entering Key West in ignorance that the war had begun. The shot which caused her to bring to was fired by Patrick Walton, on board the Uinted States ship "Nashville, " about half-past five in the morning.

At this time, neither nation was fully prepared for war, though Spain had been urging preparations ever since January; but she had perhaps doubted whether we really meant to fight, being misled by the vociferousness of the Peace party. The European powers were divided in their sympathies, France and Austria favoring Spain, as did also a part of the German press; while Italy was disposed to adopt a friendly attitude toward us, and Russia intimated that she had nothing to object to in our course. England, however (although, in common with the rest, declaring a strict neutrality), took occasion in various ways to express a cordial friendship for the United States, and entire approval of our course. It was semi-officially intimated that an alliance would not be unwelcome to England, in the event of any other power siding with Spain against us; and a great deal was said about the bonds of kinship binding together the two great English-speaking peoples. Americans, as a whole, met these advances in a spirit of cheerful recognition, though permitting the inference that friendship rather than a regular alliance would meet our view of the greatest expediency. We thought ourselves well able to take care of Spain with-out assistance; and it was generally felt that, in the long run, England might profit more by an alliance with us than we should. But all this was premature; and the sickening sentimentality of poets on both sides, who instantly broke into a piping chorus of mutual congratulation at the prospect of the great Anglo-Saxon bond, probably was of service in making sensible persons shy of committing themselves too far. But the future of Europe is dark, if not ominous; and this war might easily cause us to take a far more intimate share in coming events on the other side of the oceans than we had lately believed possible. In that case, it seems reasonable that England and America would be found standing side by side.

The navies of Spain and of the United States were considered by experts to be about equal, with a slight preponderance in favor of Spain. Of trained soldiers under arms Spain undoubtedly had by far the greater number; and the remark was already being made that she would have a powerful ally against us in Cuba, in the shape of the yellow fever, which would be due about the time fighting in the island began. It was conceded that after the first months of the war, America would begin to gain, owing to her enormous superiority in resources of men and money; but it was thought that, meanwhile, Spain might be able to inflict staggering losses on us by sending a swift fleet to bombard our great seacoast cities, and collecting ransom. Indeed, there was something approaching a panic in some of these exposed places, and regrets were freely expressed that, in time of peace, we had not prepared for war. As it turned out, there was never any danger from the Spanish fleet, which was presently to prove itself incapable of either enterprise or fighting ability. But had we been opposed by the navy of any other power, we might no doubt have been forced to pay a fearful price for our neglect.

But if the Spanish fleet could not fight or attack, it could puzzle us sorely as to its whereabout and intentions. After collecting at St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands, it remained there as long as the dilatory tactics of Portugal, which was the last of the nations to declare neutrality, would permit. It finally set sail in a westerly direction ; but it might be aiming at any point of our coast ; and reports of "phantom fleets" seen or heard of at the most diverse points began to come in. Now mysterious ships were seen off Nova Scotia; now they were approaching New York, now Boston, or Charleston; or they were descending in force on Havana; or they were sailing to cut off our battleship "Oregon," which had started from San Francisco, and was now coming up the coast of South America. Until we could know which of these several points to protect, we could form no definite plan of campaign; and thus Spain kept us guessing for what seemed a long time. Suddenly the report was sent with every sign of authority that the fleet had returned to Cadiz, Spain, and had given up the idea of crossing the Atlantic. But shortly after, it was heard of from Martinique, and its destination was surmised to be Cienfuegos, on the south coast of Cuba. If we could intercept it, a naval battle might be expected off the coast of Porto Rico. Schley, who had been on guard at Hampton Roads, was sent to the west end of Cuba, on the chance of the fleet's appearing there; while Sampson, after testing the defenses of San Juan, Porto Rico, by a short bombardment of its forts on May 12th, repaired to the Windward Passage, east of Cuba, in the hope of catching the Spanish fleet on its way north or west. Study of the map made it seem impossible that Cervera's ships could escape; but the feat was not so difficult in the actual waters of the Caribbean; and on May 19th the report was disseminated that the Spaniards were safe in the landlocked harbor of Santiago de Cuba.

Long previous to this date, however, several skirmishes by land and sea had taken place on the Cuban coast, and one great and memorable naval battle had been fought and won in the bay of remote Manila. The skirmishes are interesting chiefly as having bestowed their baptism of fire upon our soldiers and sailors; the losses were trifling, and the results unimportant. On the 27th of April the earthworks at Matanzas, about sixty miles east of Havana, were bombarded for fifteen minutes by the "New York," "Puritan" and "Cincinnati," of Sampson's squadron. The first gun was fired from the waist of the "New York" by Ensign Boone, one of the cadets who had been sent to the front from Annapolis before the regular time of graduation. The earthworks were destroyed, and it was supposed that the enemy suffered some losses; no one was injured on the American ships. On April 29th, a force of Spanish cavalry near Port Cabanas was dispersed by the "New York." On May 11th, while Sampson was on the Porto Rican coast, there occurred at Cardenas an engagement which was notable as being the first in the war in which Americans were killed by the enemy. There were concerned in this affair two gunboats, the "Machias" and the "Wilmington," under Commanders Merry and Todd; the converted revenue cutter "Hudson," Lieutenant New-comb, and the torpedo boat "Winslow," under Lieutenant Bernadou. It had been discovered that there were in Cardenas Harbor three Spanish gunboats; but the waters were so shallow that not all of the American vessels could maneuver within, and a partially successful attempt was made, on the 8th of May, to draw the Spaniards out. On the 11th the "Hudson" and the "Winslow" undertook to run into the harbor and engage the gunboats where they lay off the wharf of Cardenas town. The harbor had been buoyed in places in order to fix the range, and as the "Winslow," which was in front, passed amid these buoys, she was hit by guns from the shore, and Bernadou was wounded in the leg. He bandaged his wound, and continued to direct his ship ; but meanwhile another shot had broken the steering-gear of the "Winslow," and others passed through the boiler and disabled one of the engines. By the aid of the other engine, moving the vessel alternately backward and for-ward, it was found possible to get out of the region of the buoys; and Ensign Worth Bagley was stationed amidships to pass orders to the engineer below. The "Winslow" had all this while been firing her one-pounders continuously. The "Hudson," a slower ship,. had meanwhile arrived with-in hailing distance, and Bernadou asked her to tow his ship out of the harbor. Up to this moment, no one except Bernadou had been hit, though ten shells had struck his boat. But while the "Hudson" was trying to pass a line, a shell struck in the midst of a group of men standing near Bagley. Three were killed at once, including Bagley ; two more died soon after, and five were wounded; thus putting nearly half of the whole crew hors de combat. The "Hudson" succeeded in passing a line, but it broke, or was shot in two; and the same mishap happened to the second. The "Hudson" then went alongside the "Winslow," made fast to her, and in this manner took her out of range; while the "Wilmington," from outside, destroyed the Spanish gunboat lying by the wharf, and silenced all the shore batteries. It is a singular fact that more American seamen were killed in this little incidental skirmish than in all the other naval engagements of the war combined. The behavior of all the men in action was daring and cool throughout, and sufficed to show, without Dewey's superb demonstration, that the spirit of the American navy was all that it had ever been.

On the very next day there was a sharp little affair at Cabanas Harbor, on the other side of Havana, which was notable as being the first occasion on which troops were landed and engaged with the Spaniards. Two companies, E and G, of the First United States Infantry, were ordered on board the transport "Gussie" to carry three Cuban scouts, Major Donato Soto and two others, to some point on the Cuban coast, to communicate with the insurgent armies in the interior. A week was spent in running up and down the north shore, looking for a good landing-place; but the Spaniards were found everywhere actively on the lookout; a place near Cabanas was finally decided upon, though here also there were signs of the enemy, and in fact two thousand Spanish troops were posted at the town; but, at the time of the landing, most of these were engaged in repelling an attack from an insurgent force on the other side. Company G was left on board the transport; to Company E was accorded the honor of landing in the face of the enemy's fire, the operation being covered by Company G firing from behind a breastwork of bales of hay on the transport, assisted by the gunboats "Wasp" and "Manning," accompanying the expedition. Captain O'Connell was in command of the landing force.

At the moment of getting the men into the landing boats, a heavy tropical rain began to fall, and continued its deluge until after the landing was accomplished, accompanied by gusts of wind which threw up a choppy sea. Midway to the shore the men had to jump out on a reef and lift the boats across it, while exposed to the Spanish fire, which was copious, but did no damage. Reaching, at length, a thickly wooded point, the men were formed in skirmish line, with twenty paces between each of them. At a bridge, a little distance inland, the enemy was encountered, and retreated after exchanging a volley. The engagement then extended along the entire front of the advance, but, as usual, the enemy could not be seen. The Americans held the line until the Cuban scouts, in the rear, had saddled and mounted their horses, and passed round the flank into the interior country; whence they returned a month later, having obtained and communicated valuable information. While the line was held, or for about half an hour, the two gunboats and the transport were unable to give any assistance, lest their fire might fall among our own men, who, like the Spaniards, were invisible; but after the scouts had escaped, the line was withdrawn toward the shore, and placed behind a hasty intrenchment; and then the boats opened fire and put the enemy to flight. No Americans were killed, but many Spanish dead were found after the engagement. The men were safely re-embarked before the regiments in Cabanas fort had arrived at the scene of action. ° They seem to have looked over the ground after we had left it, and to have reported to General Blanco, in Havana, a great Spanish victory.

But it is more than time that we cross the Continent, and the Pacific, and follow the doings of Admiral Dewey at the Philippines. He was at that moment a commodore; but after the 1st of May he suddenly received an admiral's rank; and the cause of it was as follows.—On the 26th of April he received a cablegram order from the President, directing him to "capture or destroy" the Spanish fleet in Pacific waters. On the 27th he sailed from Mirs Bay, on the Chinese coast, prepared to carry out the order. Dewey, it appears, had long ago foreseen that there would be opportunity for work on the Pacific station, and had applied for the assignment; and ever since he had been carefully studying the situation. His squadron consisted of two transports, "Zafiro" and "Nanshan," laden with coal, and stores enough for six months; four cruisers, one of which, the "Boston," was partially protected, while the three others, the "Olympia," the "Raleigh" and the "Baltimore," were protected; two gunboats, the "Concord" and the "Petrel," and a revenue cutter, the "McCulloch." Thus there were seven fighting ships in all, though the "McCulloch," being very lightly armed, and unprotected, did not take part in the engagement. The armament was fifty-seven big guns, including ten 8-inch and seventy-four rapid-fire and machine guns.

The Spanish force against which this squadron was to fight numbered one wooden and six steel protected and iron cruisers, five gunboats and two torpedo boats; the largest of their guns were not above 6.2-inch, and none of their ships was so large as the "Olympia" or the "Baltimore"—which measured, respectively, 5,870 and 4,600 tons. On the other hand, the Spaniards had the advantage in numbers, and a great advantage in the guns mounted in Cavite and the shore batteries, many of which were 10-inch, and of the best modern make. The harbor was also sown with mine-fields and torpedoes; but only one or two of these were exploded during the engagement, and they did us no harm. Their moral effect, however, should not be left out of the account. Admiral Montojo commanded the Spanish fleet; and he had 1,950 men against our 1,808.

The American squadron left Mirs Bay at two P.M. on Wednesday, April 27th, and reached Bolinao Bay, on the Philippine coast, early on the morning of Saturday, April 30th: the run having been made slowly, to economize coal. The "Concord" and "Boston" were then sent ahead to look for the enemy in Subig Bay, and the "Baltimore" afterward followed to support them; the rest of the ships arriving there in the afternoon. No enemy was in sight, and the conclusion was, that Montojo must have chosen to do battle under the Manila batteries. The entrance to the harbor was forty miles further on, and orders were given to steam thither at six knots an hour, in order to pass the batteries there about midinght. The nerves of the men were tested by this slow approach to unknown dangers. The entrance to the bay is five miles wide, but in its mouth are three islands : Corregidor, the largest, a mass of volcanic rock, well-fortified, and mounted with Krupp cannon; Caballo, four hundred feet high, near it on the south, and El Fraile, a small rock mounted with a battery, a little off the southern main. The northern channel is narrow, and was said to be mined; the southern channel is three miles wide, but is exposed to a cross-fire from the three islands. Dewey decided to pass in by the latter, and hoped to get by, under cover of the darkness, without being seen.

Contemporary history cannot be accurately written; there has been no opportunity to collate evidence and cancel out the incompatible features. We do not know when the American ships were first seen by the Spaniards, or to what cause their discovery was due. Their arrival at Bolinao Bay might have been telegraphed thence to Montojo. But if so, it would seem that he should have prepared some surprise for them on their arrival. He did nothing, but remained to the last self-immured in the little harbor within Cavite. Some accounts state that our approach was heralded by rockets from the Spanish forts at the mouth of the harbor before we had fairly entered it; others say that we were all but through, when a shower of sparks from the funnel of the "McCulloch," in the rear of the column, betrayed our presence, and that it was then that the rockets were sent up. All that can be declared with certainty is, that as our ships passed under those tall, silent walls, over the smooth surface that might conceal sudden destruction, a signal from the unknown was heard or seen, and then a flash from the direction of El Fraile showed that the enemy was awake. But nothing could be seen of our ships except gliding gray shadows, and the lanterns hung over the stern of each to guide its follower; and that shower of sparks from the "McCulloch." The Spaniards, therefore, had no good mark to shoot at; and, as we have constantly seen since, they can hit nothing save by accident, be the conditions never so favorable. The several shots they fired, therefore, plunged harmlessly into the water to right and left; and they were replied to only by some half dozen shots from the "Con-cord," "Boston" and "McCulloch," the effect of which was undetermined. Dewey's orders were not to engage, and in a few minutes silence resumed its reign in the mysterious darkness. But the incident had somewhat relieved the nervous strain of the men, and they breathed freer for those few explosions.

From Corregidor to Manila city is about thirty miles, and it was the commodore's purpose not to begin fighting before daylight; consequently there was more than enough time to cover the distance. Dawn in the tropics comes suddenly. The speed of the ships was still further reduced, until it equaled the pace of a man walking. The air was still and hot; the water smooth; silence was kept on all the vessels, except for the whispered orders. Perhaps the enemy's fleet might creep upon them and suddenly open fire; or perhaps a mine might yet tear its way through the vitals of a ship. At such times a man inevitably holds his breath, and hears his heart beat. One of the officers, a man of unquestionable bravery, was found reading his Bible. Characteristic acts were performed unconsciously. The omnipresent darkness seemed to mold itself into strange shapes. None had been in those waters before; they were sailing by a Spainsh chart, which, like all else Spanish, might lie. We may believe that the hours between midnight and five o'clock on Sunday morning were long ones. The only thing certain was, that a great battle was imminent; and unless the Americans won it, their total destruction was sure; for they were eight thousand miles from home, and the laws of neutrality would prevent them from getting succor short of San Francisco. They must win, or never again would they pass Corregidor. Commodore Dewey had thought of these things, but with the rare union of daring with sagacity which marked his character, he had determined what to do, and would do it without faltering.

It had been a cloudy night, and the dawn was gray : the first objects seen by the men on lookout were the embattled promontory of Cavite, jutting out from the line of the shore, and beyond it, the low houses of flat Manila. Shots came from both directions, but fell short; the Spanish fleet was then discerned under the lee of Cavite, from the citadel of which hung heavily the flag of Spain, stained with every crime and baseness known to humanity. The ships had been cleared for action long since; the men were ready. They stood to their guns with a smile. As the fleet turned to pass before the enemy, the transports and the "McCulloch" were left in the center of the bay, not out of range, but out of action.

The Commodore's plan was to pass back and forth before the ships of Spain and the forts, delivering port and star-board broadsides alternately; thus giving each of his vessels its equal chance, and at the same time offering the difficulty of a moving target to the enemy. Montojo had apparently made no preparations for battle, except to ensconce himself in as safe a place as possible; it does not appear that he even had steam in his boilers. Did he imagine that his foe was going to anchor in front of him, ship for ship, and hammer it out to the end? So far as events can indicate, Montojo knew no more about naval tactics than little King Alphonso in Madrid; and for all the benefit his presence bestowed upon his fleet, he might as well have been in Madrid with the little king. Before the action was over, he doubtless wished he had been.

Dewey's ideas were bolder and less medieval. He knew that his men could shoot straight, and that they would do their duty without the spur of a revolver at their backs, or a jug of rum in their bellies. The accuracy of aim of American gunners has been one of the deciding features of this war. It indicates true, as distinguished from impulsive, courage. Spaniards have no staying power, but only the audacity of excitement, which is transient : it lasts as long as the man can forget himself; and if during that time it prevails, all goes well. Resisted, it relaxes, and then the cowardice which is beneath it comes uppermost. Moreover, the Spanish soldier or sailor knows that if he flinches his officers will kill him; and he has been taught to believe that if the Americans capture him they will massacre him without mercy. The officers themselves know that if they surrender, or fail to conquer, court-martial and probable execution await them at home. It would be no wonder if men fought frantically under such stimulus; it is remarkable, rather, that they have invariably been so badly and often disgraoefully defeated. Except when the advantage has been enormously on their side they have made no appreciable resistance to us; and no amount of odds has been sufficient to give them the victory. Neither in intelligence, discipline, physique or bravery are they fit antagonists for us; the bubble of Spanish valor, being pricked, collapses utterly; so far as one may judge, they are the worst fighting men in the world.

As the American squadron advanced to the attack, the scene was beautiful and peaceful; as fair a May-day morning as was ever seen. As the sun rose, its level rays streamed over the pallid bay, painting it with increasing azure. All round that great amphitheater of inland sea, distant mountains rose; the stretches of nearer landscape were densely shawled with the variegated greens of tropical vegetation, fading into aerial perspectives of purple and blue. An impalpable veil of lovely color shimmered everywhere; delicate films of haze lingered in unsunned tracts; soft mists gave a warm pallor to the horizon; but the vault of sky above was untroubled sapphire. To the left, as the ships moved round for their first advance, lay the irregular expanse of white Manila; a white beach bordered the bay like a silver line. The waters were placid, with here and there a darkening flush of ultramarine, where little breezes scudded across the surface; and dancing images of the massive gray vessels were reflected in the glossy undulations, as they moved on. On the shore, between Manila and Cavite, was seen a constantly augmenting throng of people, dressed mostly in white; they were coming to witness the annihilation of the Yankee fleet. But nothing could be less suggestive of annihilation than this quiet and lovely scene. It was a perfect Sabbath and May-day; but the posies with which Dewey was going a-Maying were steel shot and shell.

At this juncture, a string of party-colored flags fluttered from the "Olympia," the Commodore's flagship; which was no sooner seen, than a deep burst of sound, again and again renewed, broke from the hitherto silent vessels—the cheering of the Yankee tars. The signal had been displayed with good judgment and knowledge of human nature; in the language of naval emblems it communicated a thought that filled every heart in the squadron with desire for battle. To the Spaniards it meant nothing, and they replied to the cheering with a further dropping fire of ineffective shells; but to the Americans it brought up a picture of a dastardly deed done six weeks before and eleven thousand miles away, whereby near three hundred gallant lives had been extinguished in a moment with no chance to defend themselves.

The warlike passion to avenge these murdered brethren of theirs was awakened in every man of Dewey's fleet. "Re-member the `Maine' ! " It was a word to aim every gun on board those grim, gray champions, now almost within fighting distance of the enemy. Let every Spanish ship be sunk and every Spaniard die, if it might be—yet the balance would not be even between us and them.

Though no additional reminder was needed, about this time there leaped heavily up from the level surface of the bay a huge pyramid of foaming water darkened with mud and sand, accompanied with a dull and muffled roar. A mine-field had been fired; but so much out of distance as hardly to be remarked. A new signal now showed from the "Olympia"—"Hold your fire until close to the enemy." And that might have recalled another, more distant day, when the embattled farmers on Bunker Hill kept finger to trigger till the red-coated ranks of _invaders toiling up the hot slope were so near that one could see the whites of their eyes. Americans waited then, and would wait to-day, with results even more terrible.

But the time was at hand. The captains on their bridges kept their eyes on the Commodore, who stood quietly observing the diminishing distance between his ship and the Spanish line. When within five thousand yards he turned and spoke to Captain Gridley : it was eighteen minutes to six. Gridley gave an order; the naked, sweating men in the turrets, who had waited so long, made their quick, sharp movements : and all at once there broke from the "Olympia" such a volley of sound as that quiet bay had never known before. The great cruiser herself reeled backward from the shock of her own mighty voice; the bridge on which stood the Commodore seemed about to burst upward from its fasteinngs; men standing on the decks staggered as from a giant blow. Forth from the gun-muzzles streamed a horizontal flash of death, with white volumes of smoke that hid the ship; an instant later, she spoke again, and destruction sped across the expanse, which shuddered and swung aside beneath. In less time than one draws a breath those huge bolts of steel had crossed the space to the "Reina Cristina," on whose bridge the Spanish admiral stood. Before the effect could be seen, the "Baltimore" had taken up the refrain with a bellowing as great; and after her the "Raleigh," "Petrel," "Concord" and "Boston" ; and all were hidden in palpitating clouds—the pungent breath of the prismatic brown pow-der. Meanwhile from the entire Spanish fleet, and from the batteries, and Cavite, came a roar and tempest of detonations and deep explosions, mingling together in one stupendous diapason : the high vault of sky seemed too narrow to contain the sound, and the air shook, riven asunder by blows beyond the force of titans. Human senses were out-done and numbed; the naked men worked like demons in the smutty reek and heat; the joy of fighting flamed in their souls. Far below, in stifling iron chambers, engineers and firemen labored to work the ships and feed their incandescent maws; buried beyond hope in blind hells of heated metal, but deserving no less the crown of heroism. "Down with Spain ! Hurrah for Old Glory ! Remember the `Maine' ! " went as heartily with the hurling of coal into the furnaces, as from the gunners' deck, or the captain's bridge, or the fighting-tops aloft.

What things are men! What agonies, triumphs, despairs, miracles, do they achieve and suffer and create ! What infinity in such an hour as this—in these tremendous moments ! In every human soul may be awakened Heaven, or kindled Hell.

The second round passed without special incident, the fire on both sides being kept up without interruption. On the third turn, a rip of the tide carried the "Raleigh" close to the Spanish fleet, but so flurried were the Spanish gunners that none could hit her, though she poured in destruction. Then Montojo, perhaps fancying that he should respond to such a challenge, moved out to attack the "Olympia." He posed, for a moment, as the champion of Spain. But his ardor soon subsided ; he was met by the concentrated fire of half our fleet, and half-way out he stopped, turned, and began to scuttle homeward. As the stern of the "Reina Cristina" swung into view a shot from one of the "Olympia's " 8-inch guns struck it fairly, with an effect as if the unhappy vessel had been kicked violently from behind. The gigantic impact started her forward, and the shell, passing through all obstructions, exploded in her boiler, killing half her crew and tearing her almost to pieces. Montojo abandoned his ship forthwith, and got on board the "Isla de Cuba" ; but this too was riddled and shattered by our fire, and made for the shore, where it sank. At this juncture, however, occurred an episode which partly redeemed the Spanish admiral's timidity. The two torpedo boats which had been lying hidden behind the larger ships, came forth to destroy the "Olympia." They offered but a small mark for the big guns, and kept on until a range of eight hundred yards brought them within the scope of the rapid-fire weapons. Then, in a moment, the first of the two was hit in the boiler, and exploded and sank; the second turned tail and hastened in a sinking condition to the shore. A little longer lease of courage might have achieved a notable exploit for Spain; but in this, as in all else, they failed. Anglo-Saxon tenacity is not to be looked for in the degenerate Latins of the Peninsula.

After the fifth round, the "Olympia" turned and steamed out of range, to the dismay, at first, of some of our fleet, and to the delight of the Spaniards, who seemed to fancy that they must in some way have gained a victory. But it was only that Dewey had made up his mind that his men needed a chance to cool off and to get some breakfast. The ships drew together some miles out, while the forts continued to pour tons of shot into the bay, with the same blind unreason that had marked their shooting throughout. A conference of the American officers elicited the astonishing fact that not a man in the fleet had been killed, and but a handful were wounded throughout. The "Baltimore" was penetrated by a shell, which did not interfere with her fighting capacity ; and the other ships were more lightly marked. Spanish gunners, like women, seem to turn away their heads and shut their eyes when firing. But even so it is perplexing that with such a rain of steel they should hit nothing. Our ships passed slowly, broadside on; and some of the lighter-draught boats ran close in to the batteries; but nothing touched them effectively. This led one of our gunners to remark that God was behind our guns, and the devil behind those of Spain. But it is also to be remembered that the Spainards were "rattled" and inexpert, whereas our men were practiced and cool.

After a three hours' intermission, Dewey returned to the attack. But the first battle had practically disposed of the Spanish fleet; the "Reina Cristina" and the "Castilla" were burning, and all the others were more or less incapacitated. Therefore, the plan of the second battle was different from the first; the ships advanced one by one, or in pairs or threes, took up a chosen position, and poured their fire, care-fully aimed, at the Spanish forts on Cavite and elsewhere. The "Baltimore" was the first to advance; then the "Olympia," shooting heedfully, for her ammunition was running low. For a time the forts replied rapidly, though as ineffectively as ever; but at last only three guns on Cavite were in action, and one shot from the "Boston" disabled all of them. Attention was then given to the remainder of the Spanish ships, and one after the other they were destroyed or sent to the bottom. The "De Ulloa" had the distinction of going down with her flag flying. Much of the fiinshing work was done by the little "Petrel," which fearlessly entered the Cavite harbor; and it was a shot from her that changed the flag flying over the navy yard from yellow to white. It was just past one o'clock when the surrender of Cavite took place—about eight hours from the opening of the engagement, including the three hours' intermission. Higher praise cannot be given to the marksmanship of the Americans than to say that it was as good as that of the Spanish was contemptible. Never was less ammunition wasted in battle than by them in this fight. The number of Spanish dead is not exactly known, but it was about a third of those engaged, and the wounded were correspondingly numerous. Not one of their fourteen ships survived; and the guns of all the forts were silenced. Such a victory made the American navy, man for man and ship for ship, the most formidable in the world, and more formidable absolutely than any except the greatest two or three. As an object lesson for foreign nations the result was most salutary; and on Americans it had the excellent effect of reviving a desire to command the seas, and foreshadowing a future for the nation which has long been the dream of a few, but had been constantly postponed by the greedy and unpatriotic selfishness of a dishonorable moneyed clique.

Admiral Dewey, as we may now call him, might have bombarded Manila and caused its surrender; but as he had not men enough to garrison it, this would have thrown the inhabitants into the power of the Filipinos, who would probably have massacred them and looted the city. He contented himself, accordingly, with sending home news of the engagement, and a demand for troops to complete the conquest of the islands. Manila is a town of three hundred thousand inhabitants, a few thousand of them foreigners; it stands on Luzon, the largest of the twelve hundred islands and islets of which the Philippine group consists. Pending further operations, Dewey occupied Cavite and the forts at the entrance of the harbor, and put Aguinaldo, a rebel leader who had accompanied him from Hong Kong, in command of the insurgents—Aguinaldo agreeing to co-operate with the Americans. As the operations in Manila were distinct from those in the West Indies, we may conveniently review the leading events there up to the close of the war.

To General Wesley Merritt, an officer of experience, was intrusted the task of dispatching troops to the islands; and after some delay, partly due to the incompetence of con-tractors, which had been disagreeably conspicuous in all matters throughout the war in which they have been concerned; and partly to the refusal of Merritt to undertake his duties unless a much larger force of regulars than was at first given him was placed at his disposal, a series of little armies was sent forward from San Francisco. The first of these expeditions, convoyed by the "Charleston," Captain Glass, stopped at the Ladrones group of islands, beyond the Sandwich Islands, and executive officer Braunersreuter was sent ashore with a few men to receive their surrender from the Spanish commandant. The latter asserted that he had not heard of the declaration of war; but he and his men were taken prisoners, and the Ladrones became American soil. They will be of great convenience as an intermediate coaling station. Continuing her voyage, the "Charleston" brought her transports to Manila on June 30th. Another expedition was by that time part way across the Pacific; and General Merritt himself, with the third convoy, had left San Francisco the day before. He arrived out about the first of August, a fourth expedition having left the California coast by that date; and the land investment of Mainla was at once begun. There were in the garrison about eight thousand Spanish soldiers, under Captain-general Augustin; and smaller Spanish forces held positions in other parts of the islands. A large number of insurgents were speedily collected by Aguinaldo as general-in-chief, and they beleaguered the town and the neighboring strongholds, capturing most of the latter with small resistance ; for many of the defenders were Filipinos forced to serve by the Spaniards, and ready to desert at the first opportunity. But the final attack upon the city itself was postponed until the American troops should be ready; for it was apprehended that the insurgents, should they obtain control of Manila, would massacre and rob the inhabitants, in revenge for the outrages which they had endured for many generations at Spanish hands.

A singular state of things insensibly resulted. The Americans found themselves in opposition to both the Spaniards and to the insurgents, though of course on different grounds. We had to conquer the Spaniards, but at the same time to protect them against the barbarism of the natives. Thus while we were acting with the insurgents on general principles, we were yet acting with the Spaniards against them from a special point of view. The situation was complicated by the behavior of Aguinaldo, who had at first been a protege of ours, and professedly our firm ally. The successes which he met with, and the urgency of the desires of his followers, led him gradually to adopt an ambiguous if not semi-hostile attitude toward us; and though the expulsion of Spain from the islands would be wholly due to us, we were given to infer that our presence and control were considered undesirable by the insurgents. It was a possible issue, therefore, that, after disposing of Spain, we might be constrained to fight the natives also. This raised a question as to the motives which had brought about our invasion of the Philip-pines. Had we originally contemplated their conquest and annexation? The answer must be a modified negative. We had attacked them because Spain held them, and would be crippled by our seizure of them. But having seized them, we must hold them; we could not surrender them to the Filipinos, because they were incapable of establishing a strong and orderly government; we could not give them back to Spain, because her rule was there, as everywhere, a stench in the nostrils of humanity and civilization; and we could not leave them to be divided up between European powers, because they had a commercial value, and it was our right to secure that for ourselves, as recompense for the losses of the war. The situation was forced upon us by the logic of events.

Meanwhile, the critical aspect of Europe's warring interests in the East made the securing of a foothold in the group desirable to them, or some of them; and the tactics of the German squadron at Manila rendered it probable that Germany, more than the other powers, was anxious to possess herself of a station there at least. England, on the other hand, seemed to favor our retention of the whole group, and Japan, so far as her feeling could be surmised, would not oppose our doing so. But the officers on the German ships openly fraternized with the Spaniards; and Aguinaldo was believed to have made promises of concessions to the Germans, in return for moral or physical support from them against us. There was, altogether, a curious and delicate complication, which might easily have been inflamed into serious trouble by an indiscreet or feeble representative on our side. Fortunately we were represented by a man of exceptional executive and diplomatic ability, as well as of great courage and resources. The war has produced no figure comparable to Admiral Dewey; and there is obviously no position in the gift of his country which he is not fully competent to fill, whether in war or in peace. He firmly and sternly checked the German admiral when the latter presumed to push his arrogance beyond the bounds of technical right conduct; he kept his temper and his wits on all occasions; he fathomed the character and position of Aguinaldo, and knew how to hold him in hand. He perceived that with every day that passed our own stand, both moral and physical, would become more unassailable. He understood the evil of political interference in military affairs, and kept the cable connecting him with Washington unrepaired: he had cut it the day after the battle of Manila, and all communications to or from him must go by dispatch boats plying between Manila and Hong Kong. Thus he retained control, and was free to use his own discretion as to what should be done or left undone; and his native intelligence, his experience, and the advantages he enjoyed in being on the spot, enabled him to do all well.

We may surmise that Dewey perceived the necessity of our ownership of the Philippines, and took his measures with that end in view. Of the twelve hundred islands included in the group, only four hundred are inhabited ; and but half a dozen of these are of considerable size. They are occupied by two races, in addition to the Spaniards, the half-breeds, and the representatives of other European nations than Spain. The aboriginees are a race of savages called Negritos, of whom little is known, and who have never been conquered. With them, but quite distinct from them, are the Malays, with whom alone Spain has dealt during her three hundred years' occupation of the islands. The Spaniards have never penetrated into the interior parts of the islands; they hold only the coasts of some of them, with the towns which they have built there. Little or nothing is known, therefore, of the inland topography of the group, or of its mineral and other resources. The total population has been roughly estimated at about ten millions; the principal commercial products are tobacco, sugar and hemp. At a miinmum valuation., the exports are given at about $50,000,000. But here, as in other Spanish colonies, a very large proportion of the revenues goes into the pockets of the official thieves whom Spain sends out to rule her possessions. The taxes are innumerable, iniquitous, and preposterously high. Under a more liberal and just system of government, the receipts from the islands would undoubtedly be enormously increased. A great part of the real estate is held by the Church, which has aided to impose a superficial civilization upon the bulk of the Malays, the effect of which however is of very questionable benefit. There is also a large number of the natives who profess the Mahometan faith. It is evident that such a population is incapable of self-government; and the power of a general like Aguinaldo is insecure and limited. On the other hand, we shall doubtless find grave difficulties in introducing order and subordination in the islands; but the task is not beyond the abilities of Americans, and there will be many collateral advantages, in addition to commercial profits. There is a great deal of both latent energy and of capital in this country, which could nowhere find such suitable employment as in ruling and developing colonial possessions.

During July, the successive bodies of American troops were landed on the shores of Manila Bay, and got in readiness for the assault on the Manila fortifications. By the end of the month there were about fifteen thousand troops under General Merritt, of whom a third or more were regulars. The number of soldiers wearing the Spanish uniform was about eight thousand, the majority of them regulars. They were well intrenched, and the advantage was apparently on their side; but in truth there was no misgiving as to the American superiority. The Spainsh troops were poor in physique, and still poorer in spirit, from Augustin down; the latter, as his dispatches to Spain indicated, would have surrendered long before, but for the dread of court-martial. He also dreaded the numerous insurgent troops who now surrounded the city on every side; and he appeared to be trying to secure a promise from us to hold Aguinaldo in check in case of surrender, and on the other hand intriguing with the rebel chief to join against us with him. It is not in this temper, or under such conditions, that victories are won. The arrival, toward the end of July, of the powerful monitor "Monterey" greatly strengthened our position, both as regarded the con-tending parties, and the Germans, whose naval force was now so inferior to ours as to make an overt demonstration on their part impossible. It was, nevertheless, full time for us to act; since the rainy season was beginning, and the health of our army would be impaired by long inactivity in the trenches. Dewey would of course have taken and occupied Manila long before, had the troops been available; but with his own men he could not have policed the city, or taken charge of the prisoners and prevented disorders and massacres. But his diplomatic resources proved equal to maintaining the status quo until the right juncture should arrive.

Aguinaldo was between two fires, or possibly three. Ha feared to support the Americans, lest his followers charge him with intending to transfer them from one master to an-other; he could not trust the Spaniards, knowing their faithlessness of old; and yet, if the Germans took part with the Spainards, he would be in peril should he refuse the latter's overtures. In this predicament, he issued a statement not devoid of acuteness, though it was amusingly transparent. "Why should the Americans expect me to fight blindly for their interests when they will not be frank with me?" he asked. "Am I fighting for annexation, protection, or independence? I can take Mainla, but to what use?—If America takes it, I save my men and arms for what the future has in store for me. I am not both a fool and a rogue, but the interests of my people are as sacred as yours." Evidently Aguinaldo had taken his first lessons in Oriental diplomacy. As has been pointed out, annexation, with a strong and just government, is all that could be promised to the Filipinos; the period when they could develop the ability to govern themselves was so remote as not to be considered. The manifesto was therefore significant, for practical purposes, only as showing that the insurgents could not be depended upon as allies, and that it might be necessary to guard against them as enemies. Orders were given to enter into no negotiations with them. A few days later, Aguinaldo proposed to General Merritt -that, in the event of the surrender of Manila, he should be permitted to lead his troops through the city in a triumphal march; and that hereafter American officers should be put in command of native troops. This indicated a moderation of his attitude toward us; there were arguments for and against such a suggestion; but Merritt and Dewey decided that all questions must be postponed till Manila had fallen, when the answer would be controlled by circumstances and prospects.

As the decisive moment drew near, it seemed likely that Augustin might surrender without a conflict : the hopelessness of contending against our army and fleet simultaneously being apparent. This, also, would be the best way to secure the city against being looted by the insurgents, in the confusion of the first hours of our entry into it. But on the other side were to be considered the punctilios of Spanish "honor," which demanded some show of a battle; or, in other words, if Augustin surrendered without a fight, or the pretense of one, he would be shot on returning to Spain. Dewey and Merritt were desirous to avoid bloodshed, and useless destruction of property, but they could not enter into intricacies of this kind, and announced that unless the city was surrendered, it would be attacked from land and sea, with results the responsibility for which must rest on Spanish shoulders.

At this juncture, our troops were assembled in Camp Dewey, some miles south of Manila, but near the Spanish intrenched lines on that side. Immediately in front of them were insurgent troops under Aguinaldo, in breastworks constructed by him. Before the 30th of July, a section of the insurgents moved out of that part of their breastworks which adjoined the shore of the bay, and were replaced by our troops, who thus lay with their left wing on the shore, and their right adjoining the left wing of the insurgents. The distance between them and the Spanish lines was about one thousand yards. The town here held by the Spaniards was not Manila, but a southern suburb called Malate, several miles below it, and connected with it by a road passing through the suburban village of Paco. The number of Spanish troops at this point was about thirty-five hundred, all regulars. The number of our men in the trenches was about nine hundred on the night of July 31st; and they were nearly all volunteers, lately arrived, who had never been under fire. The fleet was at Cavite, opposite Manila, some miles to the north.

As evening fell, a violent typhoon set in, with pitchy darkness, and torrents of rain. Either for the alleged reason that the following day was a holiday, or owing to a secret understanding with the Spaniards, Aguinaldo withdrew his troops from their position this evening, thereby leaving our right flank exposed. At eleven o'clock, in the midst of the storm, our pickets were fired on, and retreated slowly within our lines, the enemy following in force, with artillery. Our troops were called to arms and responded promptly, and amid the fury of the tropical downpour a severe battle began. The first of our troops to sustain the onset of the enemy was a battery of the Tenth Regiment of Pennsylvaina volunteers, who held the Spaniards in check with a well-directed fire until some companies of the First California Volunteers and the Utah Battery, under Captain Young, could move forward to their support. By the time the relief came, the Pennsylvania men had but four rounds of am-munition left. A partial penetration of their right had been made, when the regulars of the Third Artillery charged as infantry, and drove the enemy back in confusion, the volunteers assisting. The Astor Battery, which was on the ground, was unable to do any execution, owing to the boats in which they landed having capsized in the storm, ruiinng their am-munition. After the repulse of the first attack, there was a lull for two or three hours, and then the enemy advanced once more, and maintained his attack for half an hour, with the same result as at first. They had moved some artillery to our right, and directed a harassing fire from that direction; but again fell back. The storm continued with unabated vigor, and the only indication for our men of the whereabout of the enemy had been the flash of their guns, so that the fighting was of a blindfold character; but toward four o'clock the Spainards came on a third time, though now in a half-hearted manner. Our men, on the contrary, were now in a better position, and their fire was more effective than at first; the Spaniards were repulsed with loss, and were pursued for some distance toward Malate. This ended the battle for the night, and such further fighting as took place on the morrow was between artillery forces on either side. The defeat of the enemy was complete.

Their attack had been well planned, and ought to have been successful. Our men had been engaged in digging new intrenchments in advance of the main line, and were flanked and nearly cut off before they could resume their former position. The roads leading from our camp, in the rear, to the intrenchments, along which our supporting troops must move, were under a heavy flanking fire throughout, which would not have been possible had not the insurgents abandoned their positions at the outset of the engagement. Considering the bewildering circumstances of the battle, and the rawness and inferior numbers of our troops, they deserve great credit for holding their ground; but it has always been a desperate enterprise to attack Americans in intrenchments. The losses of the Spaniards in killed and wounded have been variously estimated at from one thousand to five hundred; our own loss was again miraculously small—nine killed and forty-five wounded. The Spaniards used Mauser rifles, and had they known how to aim them, they might have exterminated our entire force.

The fact that their first attack was directed precisely at the junction point of our line with that of the insurgents, combined with Aguinaldo's ambiguous conduct during several days previous to the battle, made it seem more than probable that he had had information of the attack, and had withdrawn in order to facilitate it. Had our men been driven from their trenches, the camp would have been open to the enemy, and even without the active help of the insurgents, they could have driven our troops into the sea. Several transports full of American soldiers were lying off shore, waiting for the storm to cease before disembarking. But the moral effect of a defeat would have been a strong encouragement to the Spaniards, and disastrous to us, and might have indefinitely prolonged the war in this quarter. It transpired after the battle that the Spaniards had confidently expected victory, and were both astonished and discouraged by their repulse. The usual stories had been circulated as to the incapacity and cowardice of the Americans; and the report was rife that we had been defeated in the West Indies and our chief coast towns bombarded. The credulity of the Spaniard seems to be surpassed only by his ability as a fabricator.

The sally from Malate was the overture to the American attack upon Manila and its defenses, which took place on Saturday, August 13th. By that time all the American troops and guns had been disembarked, and were in position, and the fleet was ready to cooperate. Many of the Spanish troops, being natives, were untrustworthy; many more were in hospital; their morale was gone, and their guns were inferior to ours. They had just learned of the failure of Camara's fleet to come to their assistance, and this completed their disheartenment. Finally, the insurgents, admonished by the result of the Malate battle, had ranged themselves emphatically on our side, to the number of at least ten thousand men. Under these circumstances, it was not to be expected that the Spaniards would make a serious resistance. Their intrenchments were ten miles in length, and could not be adequately manned.

Dewey had given notice on Friday that he would bombard the town on the following day unless it were surrendered in the meantime. Saturday morning the demand for surrender was made, and declined. At a little before ten o'clock the "Olympia," lying off Malate, fired the first gun at the defenses of that town. The rest of the American fleet was ranged along the coast between Malate and the Pasig River, which flows through the center of Manila. The ships of the French and Germans lay to the north of this point, while the English and Japanese were near the Malate end of the line.

For an hour and a half the American fleet kept up the bombardment, directing their fire at fortified places only. Most of the non-combatants had before this taken refuge in vessels in the harbor. At half past eleven the American troops, led by the First Colorado Regiment, charged the Malate defenses. The Spaniards retreated to their second line of intrenchments, where for a while they made a stand; but the Americans were re-enforced, and drove them into the town itself. At half past one, the white flag was hoisted, and Mainla was ours. That evening, Augustin accepted the offer of a German warship, the "Kaiserin Augusta," to carry him to Hong Kong; he was smuggled aboard at ten o'clock, leaving his subordinate, General Jaudenes, to hand over the city to Dewey and Merritt. It was given out that he had deputed Jaudenes for this service ten days be-fore; and that Admiral Dewey had given him permission to take his departure on the German war-vessel.

This, the last battle of the war, was fought a day after peace had been agreed upon and the protocol signed at Washington and Madrid; but, as in the case of the battle of New Orleans, three-quarters of a century before, the news did not reach the contending parties in season to avert the engagement. In other respects, the two battles had little in common with each other. The shooting at Manila was careful and slow, and was not meant to be deadly; the object of the fleet was to destroy the Spanish works rather than to slaughter their defenders. The latter did little except keep out of the way, and, after a proper interval, move out of the works and hoist the flag of surrender. There were no casualties on the fleet; only the "Olympia," "Raleigh," "Petrel" and "Callao took part in the active operations; the others were not needed. After all was over, Merritt, with Lieutenant Brumby, went up the Pasig River and landed in Manila; and after some searching found the modest Jaudenes "in a church, crowded with women and children." The insurgents were not allowed to enter the town; the position taken by our Government being that we could not tolerate, in the same jurisdiction, an army of an-other nation which does not place itself under the command of the American commander-in-chief. Measures were taken to keep back the insurgents by force if necessary Our loss in the battle was estimated at seven killed and about forty wounded; the Spainsh losses were not ascertained.

Thus the first and the last important engagements of the war were fought by Dewey, in a place nearly twelve thou-sand miles distant from the normal seat of hostilities. They were perfect victories, marred by no errors, and followed by acts of humanity and charity. They showed that American men-of-war were models of discipline, order and efficiency; and so far as the land troops had opportuinty to partake in them, the duty to be done was accomplished valiantly and cleanly. The political future of the Philippines still remains to be settled; and we can express no better aspiration than that our statesmen may acquit themselves, in the premises, as well as our soldiers and sailors have done.

We must now return to the situation in the west, and to the month of May, with Sampson and Schley guarding the east and west ends of Cuba, in the hope of intercepting the Spanish fleet under Cervera. When it became certain that Cervera was in fact hidden in the narrow-necked harbor of Santiago, Schley placed himself on guard opposite the en-trance, and was soon joined there by Sampson ; for it would not have been impossible for the Spanish ships to escape under cover of some dark and stormy night, and it was a matter of vital importance either to keep Cervera where he was, or, if he came out, to fight and destroy him. There was the third alternative of entering the harbor and fighting him there; since Dewey had done a similar thing at Manila, why might not Schley do it at Santiago. But the two cases were very different. For Dewey, there had been no alter-native, nor could he afford to delay. He had braved a great peril, but he had been justified in doing so because there was nothing else to be done. But to enter the harbor of Santiago was not justifiable, until all other methods had been tried.

The channel, instead of being three miles wide, was but little over four hundred feet. It was filled with torpedoes, and was commanded lengthwise and crosswise by guns of heavy caliber, from some of which a plunging fire could be directed on the unprotected decks of our vessels. There was hardly a chance that the first of our ships to enter that channel would not be blown up or sunk; and her hull would then obstruct the passage for the rest. Our loss was certain to be intolerably large, and the odds were great that it would also be entirely futile. On the other hand, if we let Cervera alone, his capture and that of Santiago Were only a question of time. Troops could be landed east and west of the bay, and completely invest the town on the landward sides; so that even without a battle the garrison and crews would finally be starved out. Meanwhile our fleet could bombard Morro and the other outer defenses at leisure, and perhaps, when they were reduced, either throw shells into the town, over the intervening hills, from the mouth of the channel, or devise some means of exploding the torpedoes in the channel, preparatory to entering in force. The only objection to deliberate operations was that, until Cervera was disposed of, nothing else could safely be attempted. We had not ships enough at our disposal both to keep him where he was, and to carry the war in other directions. Besides, the rainy sea-son was coming on, and the health of our troops was sure to be impaired if they were forced to remain for an indefinite time in trenches.

On May 31st, the day before Sampson's squadron joined Schley's in front of Santiago, the latter bombarded Morro and the other fortifications with the ships "Massachusetts" and "Iowa," and the cruiser "New Orleans." The Spanish "Cristobal Colon" came out near the mouth of the harbor, and added her guns to those of Morro, and four land batteries, in defense. Morro was severely pounded but was not reduced; three of the land batteries were silenced, and it was thought that the "Colon" was hit. On June 1st, Sampson arrived and took command of the entire fleet of sixteen war-ships. Among other attendant vessels was a collier, the "Merrimac" ; and on June 3d, with this collier as the instrument, a deed was done which immediately took its place as the most daring and brilliant of the war, and one of the most heroic ever planned and executed in naval history.

The protagonist of this exploit was Richmond Pearson Hobson, a young graduate of Annapolis, and a naval constructor of eminence. He was born in the South in 1872, and graduated at the head of his class in 1889. For some years he pursued special studies in France and England. His official duties would ordinarily keep him in the home office; but Hobson asked and received permission to go to sea; and he sailed on board the "New York," as a member of the commodore's staff, with the rank of lieutenant. On the way to Santiago he perfected and communicated to Sampson his plan for preventing all further apprehension from Cervera. In its principle, it was simplicity itself :—to sink a vessel in the narrowest part of the channel, so as to obstruct the egress of the Spanish fleet. It was the details that were interesting. Who was to navigate the ship to the proper place in the channel, and sink her there at the right moment? And how was the sinking to be done?

Hobson had his answers all ready. He would take in the "Merrimac" himself, with a crew of six men only, who of course must be volunteers. He would have anchors at bow and stern, the former to be dropped when the proper point was reached, and the other when the tide had swung the ship athwart channel. Torpedoes would be arranged along the sides, which could be exploded at the right moment by electricity, and the ship thus sunk immediately—the rather as she would have on board a load of two thousand tons of coal. That, broadly stated, was Hobson's plan. He had thought it out carefully, and could see no valid objections to it; it did but involve the loss of a collier—and the probable sacrifice of his own life and those of his volunteers. In view of the result to be obtained, Hobson thought the expense was not worth considering. Commodore Sampson took the mat-ter into consideration, and finally told Hobson that if he wanted to do the thing, he was at liberty to try. Between two brave and patriotic men there need be little palaver. Hobson set to work to prepare the "Merrimac" at once.

In fine weather, in. broad daylight, in time of peace, the project presented no extraordinary difficulties. A firm and true hand at the tiller, a prompt and disciplined crew, ordinary good luck with currents, and all would be well. But the conditions under which Hobson must carry out his exploit were very different from these. He must go into the jaws of death under cover of darkness, because otherwise he would be sunk by the guns of Morro and the batteries before he could reach his objective point. At the best, before he could be ready, he would have risked death a thousand times. When he attained the desired point in the channel—if he ever did attain it—he must risk death at his own hands by blowing up and sinking his vessel. And after that was done, how was he to escape? He had prepared a catamaran, or raft, on which he hoped to be able to paddle to safety; but it was a forlorn hope. A fellow officer, young cadet Powell, was to cruise off the mouth of the harbor for a time, on the chance of picking him up ; but what a desperate chance it was ! No : the odds against his accomplishing his object were almost beyond computation; but the odds against his coming out alive were entirely so. No one understood all this better than Hob-son, but it did not for a moment dash his cheerfulness or diminish his earnestness. His eye was single to business; he would do the best he could; let the rest take care of itself.

The attempt was to have been made on June 2d. The matter of getting volunteers caused some embarrassment, because all the sailors of the fleet wished to go. Out of upward of a thousand likely men, six were selected; but a seventh managed to smuggle himself on board, for the mere pleasure of the adventure. All was ready on the night of June 2d, but there had been delays, and after the collier had started, it was so near daylight that Sampson recalled her, lest she be uselessly destroyed. The men had been keyed up to a high pitch, and this recall was very trying; and Hobson himself, grimy with sweat, oil and coal-dust, mounted to the commodore's quarter-deck and told him, with a certain fierceness, that "there must be no more recalls!" And the next night he was allowed to go.

It was dark when they set out; the clouds covered the sky, there was no moon, and a brisk breeze threw up a choppy sea. The "Merrimac" did not steer straight for the entrance of the harbor, but made a detour, in order to avoid rocks. Being at length on her right course, she was driven ahead at full speed. The men were ordered to lie on the deck, and not to stir until ordered to do so; they were to pay no attention to the fire poured upon them, and if hit, were not to move. These trying instructions every man faith-fully observed. Before the big collier had entered the channel, she was discovered, and the rain of shot began. The tall walls of rock on either hand made the darkness more intense than ever, but Hobson steered a true course amid the darkness and the roar of shot and shell and the difficult twistings of the channel. The Spaniards thought they had to deal with a battleship, and turned loose everything they had upon her; though they might have wondered why she made no reply to their furious attack. .She kept on her course in silence; but ere she could reach the appointed spot, a shot disabled her steering gear. She was already sinking, without aid of her own torpedoes; but she forged ahead a little, and then began to swing round with the rush of the tide. At this moment, every element of terror at sea was present, except that the ship was not on fire. But her crew had not the relief of fighting back against their enemies; they must keep quiet and lie still, while they sank. They were alone; and nature and man were conspiring to crush them. But they knew that they were doing a mighty service to their country; and there was not a man of them who would have changed places with any other man alive. Let us remember that they were not exceptional men; they were Americans such as you may meet daily in the street. They were six volunteers chosen out of a thousand like them. Those who were not chosen, envied them. The spirit of a man is a marvelous thing.

The "Merrimac" gave a final plunge, and sank; and a whirlpool formed over the spot where she went down. Hobson and his men found themselves in the water : how, they did not exactly know. With all their strength they swam away from the whirlpool, lest it suck them under. In a few minutes, the suction ceased to drag on them; and then they turned to climb on the catamaran, which had been fastened to the roof of the midship house. But before they could reach it, boats containing Spaniards armed with rifles appeared round the point of rock up the channel. To have climbed upon the raft would have been certain death, for these Spaniards would shoot before asking questions. What should they do, then? The only thing to do was to take shelter underneath it; and this was rendered practicable by the accident that the rope which moored the raft to the deck-house of the sunken ship was a foot or more too short, so that the raft was submerged on one side, while the other stood up out of water. Under this providential roof they swam, and remained huddled together, with only their noses above water, while the Spaniards searched everywhere for traces of the crew which brought this mysterious craft into their harbor, and found none. They barely ventured to breathe, or to converse even in whispers. Hour after hour passed by, and still the curious Spaniards hovered about the spot, ejaculating, conjecturing, and inquisitive. The water, which had at first felt warm, got cold, and their teeth began to chatter till they feared the noise would betray them. One man started to swim ashore, but was ordered back, almost revealing the whole party. At last morning dawned, and then appeared a launch, with officers on board. Hobson hailed them, and clambered out on the raft; after a few minutes' hesitation, the launch allowed him to swim toward them and surrender himself. Admiral Cervera himself pulled him aboard, heard his story, recognized the officer's belt which he wore over his underclothing, and accepted the capitulation of himself and his shivering comrades. General Linares, to whom they were handed over, confined them in a blind dungeon in Morro, and threatened them with the question by torture; but to the inquiry, "What was the object of your act?"—a superfluous inquiry, one would think—one of them made the answer, "In the United States Navy it is not the custom for seamen to know or to ask to know the object of the superior officer." Had their fate depended on Linares, they would doubtless have been shot; but Cervera would not permit it; it was he who sent word of their safety to Sampson, and obtained better quarters for them, after they had been subjected to a day's shelling in Morro.

It all seems like a chapter of romance by Stevenson or Cooper. The rush into the black channel, the frenzied cannonade, the explosion and the sinking, the eight heroes, unscathed every one, breathless under the raft, holding on by slipping their fingers between the crevices of the boards; the corning of the admiral, and his grotesque meeting with Hob-son, whose rank he recognized, we may be sure, not so much by the belt he wore as by the eye and aspect which all the smut and filth of the night's work could not disguise; the day in the dungeon, with the shells of his own fleet screaming and splintering around him ; and at last his removal to Santiago town, where he and his companions witnessed with thrilling hearts the charges of American soldiers on the Spanish breastworks ;was ever fairy-tale more wonderful? The matter-of-fact, prosaic Nineteenth Century vanishes as we read, and the great days of classic heroism are present with us once more. But, indeed, they are never absent, so long as human souls are brave and devoted.

One might almost say that this exploit marked the crisis of the war. For though the "Merrimac" was found not to lie exactly across the channel, she was enough of an obstruction to make it unsafe for Cervera to attempt escape at night; and if he came out in the day time, his fate was practically certain. His fleet was done for, all but the actual smashing; and Spain without a fleet either west or' east was already a conquered nation. The conquest of Cuba and Porto Rico could be accomplished at our convenience, with no possibility of interruption ; and we could prosecute the war in Spain itself by sending troops and ships to its coasts. It is true that Spain presently conjured up another phantom fleet, under Camara, and pretended to dispatch it to the Philippines to wipe out Dewey; but it never caused us a day's anxiety, and after being dragged through the Suez Canal, it could only be dragged back again, crippled not by battle, but simply by being handled by its own ignorant crews. In order to defeat a Spanish navy, it is necessary only to leave it in the unrestricted charge of its own officers and men; in a year or so, at most, its machinery will be hopelessly ruined, its bottoms foul with seaweed and barnacles, and a few smartly-managed American gunboats or converted pleasure-yachts can do the rest.

The American people is impatient of delay, and the government felt the pressure of public opinion, demanding that the war be prosecuted with vigor. Hitherto our troops had done nothing except congregate in camps and learn drill. No better material for an army was ever got together; but it must be admitted that there was shown, in the management, transportation and commissariat of an army, consider-able incompetence. It must be remembered that more than a generation had passed since the outbreak of the Civil War, and that there existed few of the men who, at that epoch, had made themselves familiar with the work of handling and supplying large bodies of troops. Mistakes were inevitable, and in the case of contractors there may also have been negligence or recklessness. The problems of a campaign in a tropical country were likewise novel and of especial difficulty. The story of abuses was vehemently told, but no such evidence was adduced as to justify retailing it here; the time will come when a full accounting will be demanded, and equal justice dispensed. In the great picture of this conflict, as of others, there are dark shadows as well as brilliant lights; and men like Dewey and Hobson are set off by creeping scoundrels whose names soil the page of history. The worst as well as the best qualities of human nature come uppermost in wars. The ruin of Spain is largely due to the unrestrained and sinister luxuriance of noxious growths, the germs at least of which have appeared among ourselves. We may take her example as a warning to us, to stamp. out the evil before it gains greater headway.

The first thing to be done, now that our navy had pre-pared the way, was to get our troops ashore; and some time was spent in selecting a place in which to land them. There was a harbor east of Santiago, and some forty miles distant from it, which answered our needs; but there was a force of Spainards there which had to be taken into consideration. Admiral Sampson, supposing, as he had every reason to do, that transports must already be on their way with troops, put ashore at this harbor of Guantanamo a force of six hundred marines, under the charge of Commander McCalla. This officer's career had been interrupted a few years before by the sentence of a court martial, convicting him of cruelty to his men; and he was anxious to redeem himself. The ad-ventures of this little detachment of marines, commanded by Lieutenant-colonel R. W. Huntington, is a stirring episode by itself; but it cannot be treated in detail here. They were attacked by Spanish guerrillas, fighting in the bush and the tall grass, and concealing themselves with screens of leaves, on June 11th and following days; the enemy were numerous, and our men were in an exposed position. They began to suffer from the loss of sleep and continual nervous strain; two officers and two men were killed. On June 12th they changed the place of their camp, and were again attacked, but drove the assailants off, losing two more men killed and several wounded. Meanwhile a force of Cubans had joined the Americans, and did good service in scouting and bush-fighting; and on the 11th of June, the soldiers of the two. peoples fought for the first time side by side and pursued the Spaniards, inflicting an estimated loss of two hundred upon them. The following day, the warship "Marblehead," Commander McCalla, with the "Texas" and "Suwanee," shelled the fort at Caimanera, the port of Guantanamo; but all this while nothing had been seen of the promised trans-ports with sixteen thousand troops under General Shafter. They should have arrived on the 10th; but as a matter of fact, they did not start from Tampa until the 15th of June. An additional force of marines had been meanwhile landed from the fleet, and the Spaniards had been repulsed in every engagement; but the number of the enemy far exceeded ours, and there seemed to be no reason why they might not receive important reinforcements. For a time, there-fore, some uneasiness was felt about our men. Intense indignation was also aroused by the report that the bodies of our men killed in the bush had been mutilated by the Spanish guerrillas. The statement was embodied- in one of the official reports; but the defense was made that the apparent mutilations were in fact caused by the spreading of the bullets fired by the Spaniards, causing them to make lacerated wounds suggesting wanton disfigurement. Admiral Sampson, in a subsequent dispatch, accepted this interpretation of the matter, being naturally anxious to disbelieve that the enemy against which he fought was unworthy of civilized consideration. Unfortunately, however, the stories told were subsequently shown to be too true. An American officer who personally examined the bodies of our men found that they had been subjected to the same wanton and obscene outrages which had been inflicted upon the bodies of Japanese soldiers during the late war between China and Japan. The work was deliberate and unmistakable; no room was left for the plea of accident. We are, however, able to re-cord that, so far as is known, no repetition of the mutilations occurred in the battles before Santiago; and it may fairly be inferred that the work at Guantanamo was done by Spanish irregular troops only, without the coginzance or authority of their officers. In most of the cases in which our troops have met those of the enemy, the Spaniards seem to have fought with reasonable courage and persistence; though there can be no comparison in this respect between their troops and the American ones. They always had the advantages of position and of superior artillery; and being armed with smokeless powder, they could not readily be located by our men; in spite of which they invariably abandoned their positions when attacked.

The delay in sending forward our reenforcements from Tampa was due to the confusion incident to handling an unexpectedly large number of troops; and General Shafter undoubtedly was embarrassed by the task assigned to him. He was lacking in experience and, as it afterward appeared, in tact, as shown in his dealings with our allies, the Cuban troops and generals. It was fortunate for him and for our army that the war was so short-lived, and that the men against whom we fought were so lacking in spirit as well as in leaders.

Before the transports arrived, two Cuban leaders, Rabi and Garcia, had effected a lodgment at Acceraderos, a coast town west of Santiago, having a good wharf. June 20th the transports hove in sight, over thirty in number; next day Shafter and Sampson conferred with Garcia as to his cooperation with us; and on the 22d the landing took place at Baiquiri, a feint of landing being made at the same time at a point just west of Santiago, and the coast being shelled by the fleet along a stretch of many miles. No serious op-position was met with; the weather was fine, and in two or three days the sixteen thousand men were ashore.

The road from Baiquiri to Santiago runs first west and then north, passing through the towns of Demajayabo, Juragua, and Sevilla, and crossing streams which are rivulets in dry weather, but torrents in the rains. The country is rough and difficult to a degree incomprehensible to those who have not seen tropical forests; the roads are but bridle paths through dense and briery jungle, and in wet weather become terrible sloughs of slippery mud. It is impossible to see for any distance, the heat is intolerable; travel for a single person is difficult enough, but for an army, subjected to the fire of unseen foes, loaded with trappings and carrying supplies, it is appalling indeed.

Besides Baiquiri, we had secured a base at Siboney, between Baiquiri and Santiago. The Spaniards fell back from Demajayabo and Juragua to Sevilla; before reaching that point our advance met the enemy in a sharp skirmish. An ambush had been prepared for us in the hills of La Guasima: whether or not it was a surprise was a question; General Wheeler, an ex-Confederate soldier, says it was not, and his word may be trusted. At all events we suffered relatively severe losses. An unknown number of Spaniards, conjectured to be fifteen hundred, had constructed effective defenses and strung barbed wire at points of vantage; they used smokeless powder, and it was liard to locate them. The number of our troops at this point was about nine hundred, under Colonel Young: they comprised the 23d Regular Infantry and the 1st and 10th Cavalry, and a regiment of volunteer cavalry known as Roosevelt's Rough Riders. All were on foot. The chief loss fell on the Rough Riders, who maintained their ground with great courage and steadiness; among the first killed of this regiment was Sergeant Hamilton Fish, and at the same time with him fell Captain Capron, a gallant officer. Altogether, in the hour's fight, we lost sixteen killed and fifty-two wounded; but the enemy could not withstand our advance, the persistency of which amazed them, and they fled, leaving Sevilla open to our occupation.

The two armies now confronted each other along a line stretching from the coast town of Aguadores, a few miles east of Morro, to El Caney, northwest of Santiago. The country was better adapted for defense than for attack; the enemy's positions were strong and well chosen, and the earthworks and block houses were rendered more effective by barbed wire fences, so placed as to delay our troops at points where they would be under the direct fire of the enemy, who knew the range, and were themselves unseen. Three things were imperative for the attacking force : thorough knowledge of the ground; a leader who could control and co-ordinate all movements; and abundance of both heavy and light artillery, to prepare the way for the charges of the infantry. None of these conditions were present; the ground was almost entirely unknown; Shafter himself was stricken with fever and compelled to remain in the rear throughout the battle; and the heavy artillery was quite wanting, though some batteries of light artillery, which proved ineffective against the earthworks and block houses, were got into position. The burden of the battle was there-fore thrown upon the infantry, and our victory was due to their extraordinary courage and intelligence, and to the heroic leadership of some of the regimental commanders. It was a battle of soldiers, captains and colonels, not of generals; and probably no soldiers in the world, under the conditions, could have acquitted themselves so brilliantly as did our regulars during those trying and exhausting days; and the volunteer regiments caught inspiration from them, and in the desperate charge up San Juan Hill men of the 71st New York kept side by side with the regulars and fully shared their glory. Nor were the Rough Riders ever found wanting; their dash and daring were worthy of their leaders, Wood and Roosevelt, who exposed themselves with perfect gallantry wherever danger was sorest. But it was a military error to send our men forward to carry positions which had not previously been shelled by heavy artillery; and the losses of the battle—over fifteen hundred—might have been almost entirely avoided had a leader of greater experience and discretion directed affairs. It must be re-membered, however, that the rainy season had begun, and that the roads, always rough and difficult, were rendered immeasurably worse by the deluge of water which was daily poured upon them, and by the constant passage of large bodies of men. In war, an initial mistake or misfortune is apt to produce others; and there is no doubt that the delay in getting the men off from Tampa was in a great degree responsible for the calamities that afterward occurred. Had we begun active preparations a week or two earlier, the capture of Santiago might have been effected at the date on which its siege actually began; and not only would the movement of siege trains have been easier, but the army might have been saved from the fever which overtook it before arrangements could be made to remove it from the island. Were the campaign to be made over again, the experience gained through our errors and oversights would cause it to be conducted in a very different manner.

The disposition of our army was as follows :—It was technically known as the Fifth Army Corps, consisting of infantry, cavalry (unmounted), and light and heavy artillery. The infantry was in two divisions; the cavalry in two brigades ; and there were two brigades of light artillery and four of heavy artillery, which last could not be made effective in season for the attack. Of the infantry, the first division under General Kent occupied the center of our line; it comprised Hawkins's, Pearson's and Wikoff's brigades—eight regular regiments and one (the 71st New York) of volunteers. General Lawton commanded the second division on our right, made up of Chaffee's, Ludlow's and Colonel Miles's brigades—eight regular regiments and one (the 2d Massachusetts) volunteer. Our left, whose duty it was to attack Aguadores, was commanded by General Duffield, and consisted of two Michigan volunteer regiments and two thousand Cubans. The cavalry was under the orders of the veteran General Wheeler, Sumner and Young being the brigade commanders, but Young was incapacitated by illness. Sumner's brigade was all regulars; Young's contained two regular and one volunteer regiments—the latter being Roosevelt's Rough Riders. The army, it will be seen, had twenty-one regular and five volunteer regiments—an unusual preponderance of the former arm of the service. As to the volunteers, it should be mentioned that the authorities had made the singular mistake of arming them with old-fashioned Springfield rifles, which carried scarce half as far as the enemy's Mausers, and burned ordinary black powder, which made a smoke that afforded an excellent indication of their position to the Spaniards. Thus they were not only in constant peril themselves, but to the regulars fighting beside them as well. More than once, owing to this cause, they were ordered to cease firing; and it was partly owing to this that the confusion occurred in the 71st Regiment to which further allusion will be made presently. In addition to other embarrassing circumstances attending our advance, was the fact that Spanish sharp-shooters, with smokeless powder, were posted in tall and thick-foliaged trees all along our route, and even occasion-ally in our rear ; these men did great execution, and fired constantly upon the wounded, and upon the litters in which they were being taken to the rear, and upon the surgeons and Red Cross officers engaged in tending them. The Spaniards, as has been said, proved themselves not altogether despicable as fighters; but from the blowing up of the "Maine" to the end of the war, the conduct of Spanish soldiers and sailors was consistently that of people beyond the pale of decent civilization.

In spite of all obstacles, errors and drawbacks, the Spaniards were forced to abandon all their positions, and with-draw to the immediate defenses of Santiago itself. It might almost be said that our men fought each man for himself ; there was no united action, or comprehensive knowledge at one point of what was doing at another. Wherever our troops saw the enemy, they advanced to attack him, and sooner or later drove him back. At the end of the fighting, a general advance would have overwhelmed the dispirited enemy and given Santiago into our hands; but at this juncture, which a brave and competent general would have seized upon, Shafter so far misunderstood the situation that he would have ordered a retreat along the whole line, had he not been restrained by decisive orders from Washington. A vast calamity was thus averted; but one only less serious was invited by the failure of the war department to order an immediate advance. They directed him to demand the surrender of the city; this led to prolonged delays, during which our troops were compelled to remain in trenches, exposed to the horrors of the tropic rainy season, half starved, owing to the failure of the commissariat, and drinking water which was full of the germs of death. The inevitable consequence was the outbreak of an epidemic of yellow and typhoid fevers which killed hundreds and shattered the health of thousands. There was again delay in sending the sick and dying men home; and when transport was at last provided, the ships were so inadequate in furinshing and supplies that they be-came veritable pest ships, and caused the death of many who might otherwise have been saved. The responsibility for these blunders has not been fixed ; but the blood of brave men needlessly destroyed cries out to the nation, and will not be silenced by evasions and prevarications.

Let us now consider the various reports of the battle, which are by no means all compatible one with another, but from which some facts may be elicited. The attack upon Aguadores, on our left, was, as has been mentioned, with-drawn, the positions being considered too strong; it had been designed to prepare the way for the attack and capture of Morro, which had been shelled by the fleet, though without the effect of entirely silencing the guns. The failure, which was afterward described as a feint, was, as it turned out, not of vital importance, inasmuch as the Spanish fleet was destroyed on the 3d of July, while attempting to escape from the harbor; and this led to the surrender of Santiago, with all the surrounding defenses. Meanwhile, the movement of our right and center was successful.

The battle began on July 1st, and continued three days. On the right, the objective point was the heights of El Caney, protected by earthworks and by a stone house or fort. Our artillery was on a ridge facing it; but the range was known to the Spaniards, and our guns were not heavy enough to drive them from their positions. In order to reach the position with infantry, it was necessary to cross a river under heavy fire, and ascend the opposite slope. With the exception of the stone fort, the enemy's batteries were invisible; but their fire, from cannon, machine guns and rifles, was very heavy and destructive. During the shelling, the infantry slowly advanced from point to point, fighting their way on; the quantity of ammunition expended on both sides was great, but in this preliminary work the losses on our side were the heavier. From four in the morning till two in the afternoon the struggle continued; our extreme right was held by Chaffee with the 7th, 17th and 12th infantry; down in the low land to the south was Ludlow, with his ineffective light battery of four guns. It was evident that the Spanish could not be dislodged by shelling; and when a force of our men, under Clarke, had reached the foot of the hill on which the stone fort stood, with its surrounding concealed earth-works, Chaffee sent them the order to charge up the hill and capture the positions at the point of the bayonet. And these men, after ten continuous hours of the most exhausting kind of fighting, prepared promptly to obey the command. It was the turning point of the battle in this quarter; the last moment of earth for many who were to take part in it. With the taking of the stone fort, the left of the Spanish position would be turned, and its evacuation forced, including that of the village of El Caney, from the stone houses of which a fire had been all along maintained.

The charge was made in full view of both armies; its success seemed impossible. The grass was long and slippery; the ropy vines coiled round the limbs of our men; the thorny branches of the tropic vegetation caught their garments and tore their faces; the bullets and shells of the enemy beat upon them in a continuous stream. The ascent