UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



753 



The Cruise of Cervera's Fleet. Admiral Pas- 

 qual Cervera sailed from Cadiz on April 8 with the 

 armored cruisers " Infanta Maria Teresa " and " Cris- 

 tobal Colon." The number of vessels, their names, 

 find their destination were alike shrouded in mys- 

 tery, so that the unknown strength of the fleet, 

 and the uncertainty as to where it would strike, 

 created unrest and dread in the United States. 

 A naval war board was appointed by the Presi- 

 dent, charged with the task of preparing plans 

 for encompassing the destruction of Spain's fleet. 

 On April 14 the two vessels were reported at St. 

 Vincent, the port of the Portuguese Cape Verd 

 Islands, where the torpedo-boat destroyers " Ter- 

 ror," " Furor," and " Pluton," with transports, had 

 previously arrived. All five vessels busied them- 

 selves with coaling and preparations for a cruise 

 while awaiting the arrival of the " Vizcaya " and 

 " Almirante Oquendo," which had sailed from Puerto 

 Rico to join the active squadron. They arrived on 

 April 19. and on April 29 the whole fleet steamed 

 away, taking a westerly course. The fast auxiliary 

 cruisers of the American navy scoured the western 

 Atlantic in search of the Spanish squadron ; but no 

 news came from any quarter regarding its move- 

 ments, though vague rumors of its being sighted at 

 different points off the American coast caused con- 

 sternation in the seaboard cities. The failure to 

 receive any intelligence of the movements of the 

 hostile fleet from consuls, spies, cables, passing 

 steamers, or news agencies stationed all over the 

 world, or from the scouts of the fleet, was a sur- 

 prise, not only to the American Government, but 

 to all naval powers, as it was supposed that the 

 days were past when fleets could navigate the seas 

 unobserved and strike in unexpected quarters. 



On May 11 the squadron arrived off Martinique, 

 near which port the bunkers were partly refilled 

 from coaling steamers waiting there. The voyage 

 of 2,200 miles was made at a speed below 10 knots. 

 The " Terror " was left at St. Pierre for repairs. 

 The rest of the squadron was reported as hull down 

 to the west by Capt. Cotton of the " Harvard,'* 

 whose dispatch was delayed a day in the telegraph 

 office at St. Pierre. While Admiral Sampson with 

 a fleet detached from blockade duty was watching 

 San Juan, Puerto Rico, and scouts were patrolling 

 the channels leading to Cuban ports, Cervera took 

 a straight course for Curacao. His fleet was first 

 sighted on May 14 off the Venezuelan coast, where 

 it took on coal from colliers, two of the cruisers 

 entering the Dutch port of Willemsted. After that 

 came another time of uncertainty for the American 

 naval authorities. The fleet sailed for Santiago de 

 Cuba and succeeded in making that port without 

 encountering either of the American fleets or being 

 observed by the scouts cruising in the Caribbean. 

 Spanish ships were reported to have been seen near 

 the Jamaican coast, and after a collier had been 

 caught by the " St. Paul " attempting to enter the 

 bay of Santiago it was surmised that this harbor 

 was the destination of the Spanish fleet. On May 

 19 Cervera entered the bottle-shaped harbor of San- 

 tiago de Cuba, which is only a cable's length wide 

 at the entrance, and was protected by the old Morro 

 and some freshly erected batteries and earthworks, 

 with a triple line of sunken torpedoes, while within 

 was deep water and good anchorage, where the fleet 

 could securely coal and prepare for another cruise. 

 The slow passage over the Atlantic, and the secret 

 movements in the Caribbean, although baffling to 

 the American strategists and a cause of doubts and 

 dismay to the public, placed the Spanish forces 

 more and more at a disadvantage compared with 

 the Americans, who were now fully prepared both 

 to cover the coast and to strike at the enemy 

 wherever he might be found. When at last the 

 VOL. xxxvni. 48 A 



fleet of the wily Spaniard was securely bottled up 

 in Santiago harbor, all questions and fears of the 

 American public were removed. The condition of 

 t he Spanish ships as to speed, armament, and sea- 

 worthiness was far from what was supposed, and 

 the cruise in tropical seas had caused the fouling of 

 their bottoms and further reduced their fighting 

 efficiency. Even at their nominal strength, they 

 were inferior to either of the American squadrons, 

 having only 8 heavy guns, while Admiral Sampson's 

 squadron and the flying squadron each had 22; 

 having altogether only 54 guns in the main bat- 

 tery, with a muzzle energy of 282,392 pounds, while 

 in Sampson's squadron there were 68 guns, with a 

 total muzzle energy of 562,958 pounds, and in 

 Schley's 60 guns, with a muzzle energy of 540,622 

 pounds. In speed and quickness in manoeuvring 

 the Spanish cruisers were, from their build and 

 design, superior to any of the American ships; 

 but their condition, and the defects in their ma- 

 chinery, the impossibility of their obtaining suffi- 

 cient coal so far away from their naval base, and 

 the mechanical inefficiency of their engineers, ren- 

 dered this superiority of no avail, just as lack of 

 practice and training in gunnery rendered the best 

 of the Spanish guns almost useless when contend- 

 ing with the scientific marksmanship of American 

 gunners. 



Measures of Naval Defense. The Navy De- 

 partment at Washington was guided in its prepara- 

 tions and defensive measures by the advice of a 

 council of experts constituted for the emergency, 

 known as the Board of Strategy, but officially 

 designated the Naval War Board. It consisted in 

 the beginning of Assistant Secretary Theodore 

 Roosevelt, Capt. Arent S. Crowninshield, chief of the 

 Bureau of Navigation, and Capt. Albert S. Barker. 

 then naval aid to Secretary Long. After the 

 retirement of Col. Roosevelt, and the assignment of 

 Capt. Barker to the command of the " Newark," the 

 members were Capt. Crowninshield, Rear-Admiral 

 Montgomery Sicard, and Capt. A. T. Mahan. This 

 board organized the information service. It re- 

 ceived reports in cipher from the United States 

 consuls and diplomatic officers in all countries, and 

 was thus informed of the military and political 

 situation in Europe at all times. It also had its 

 secret agents everywhere, even in the naval ports 

 and dockyards of Spain. Its plan of naval defense 

 for the Atlantic coast of the United States served 

 at least to alleviate the trepidation felt in the sea- 

 board cities when the Spaniards succeeded in con- 

 cealing the movements of their vessels at sea, 

 causing owners of property to fear a sudden descent 

 of the fast cruisers on one or another of the exposed 

 towns and its demolition by bombardment. A 

 coast-patrol system was established, with ('apt. 

 Bartlett J. Cromwell at its head. A large number 

 of vessels of the auxiliary navy were employed t> 

 create four lines of observation and three separate 

 lines of defense. Some of the strongest \ . ->ds civ 

 stationed at important points, as the " Katahdin " 

 off Provincetown. Mass., the "Columbia" off the 

 Maine coast, and two monitors at Boston. Soon 

 after the Spanish fleet left CajH' Verd the converted 

 ocean liners "St. Paul," "St. Louis," "Harvard." 

 and "Yale" were sent out to sea, each having a 

 stated line to patrol hundreds of miles from the 

 coast. A second patrol fleet, under the command 

 of Commodore John A. llowcll. consisted of the 

 swift steamers " Yoseinite." "Dixie." "Prairie," 

 "Yankee," and "San Francisco." which covered 

 the New England coast and had orders to steam 

 to the nearest cable station on discovering the ap- 

 proach of the enemy, and notify the authorities at 

 Washington, so as to enable them to concentrate all 

 the ships along the coast at any threatened point. 



