472 



OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (SAMPSON.) 



tiles; designed and built the armor; placed the 

 batteries upon the ships and superintended their 

 construction; aided in the preparation of the 

 drill book; drilled the crews and the officers; and 

 finally took command of the fleet and fought it 

 through a successful war. When he had com- 

 pleted his term as chief of the Bureau of Ord- 

 nance, Secretary Long, who has said of him that 

 at that time " no other man then on the active 

 list of the navy had a higher reputation as an ac- 

 complished, efficient, competent, all-round naval 

 officer," offered him the post of chief of the Bu- 

 reau of Navigation. This appointment he de- 

 clined, preferring outdoor life and duty, and ac- 

 cordingly was assigned to the battle-ship Iowa, 

 which had been placed in commission in June, 

 1897, and with which he joined the North Atlan- 

 tic squadron. He continued as senior captain in 

 that squadron, although two days after the de- 

 struction of the Maine, on Feb. 15, 1898, he was 

 appointed president of a board of inquiry 

 charged with the duty of investigating that dis- 

 aster. This work included taking testimony at 

 Key West of the survivors of the accident, exam- 

 ining the wreck at Havana, taking testimony 

 there, and carefully investigating all circum- 

 stances preceding and succeeding the disaster. 

 (See Message from the President of the United 

 States, transmitting the Report of the Naval 

 Court of Inquiry upon the Destruction of the 

 United States Battle-ship Maine in Havana, being 

 Senate Document No. 207, Washington, 1898.) 

 This service was concluded on March 22, and 

 Sampson was about to return to his command, 

 when Admiral Sicard was found by a medical 

 survey to be physically incapacitated for further 

 duty, and as the next ranking officer in the North 

 Atlantic squadron, Sampson was promptly ap- 

 pointed to its command, with the war rank of 

 acting rear-admiral. According to Capt. Chad- 

 wick, who commanded the flagship, " no one was 

 more surprised at this than Sampson himself; 

 this I know to be a fact. The captains- of the 

 squadron were unanimously wishing that he 

 might be selected, hoping rather against hope 

 that the few months intervening until his pro- 

 motion to the rank of commodore might not 

 stand in the way. Whatever was said in favor 

 of the appointment was not said by Sampson 

 or with Sampson's knowledge." Secretary Long 

 wrote: " Sampson had been senior captain of the 

 squadron during all its evolutions and practise 

 of the previous year. He possessed the confidence 

 of its officers to a very high degree, and was un- 

 doubtedly their preference. He was familiar with 

 its details, and he had special experience in train- 

 ing in ordnance. To retain him in command was 

 therefore the best thing to do." Mr. Stayton 

 wrote, referring in all probability to the possible 

 war with England in 1894: "If war must come, 

 and all hoped that it would be averted, our ships 

 must be got in order, and there must be a man 

 to command whatever of battle-front our navy 

 could make. According to very high authority, 

 the President [Cleveland] went slowly down the 

 naval list until his finger rested on a name. 

 ' There is the man,' he said. ' He should be the 

 commander-in-chief of our provisional battle 

 squadron.' The man thus honored was William 

 Thomas Sampson. His name was far down the 

 list. ' I will make him a rear-admiral if it ever 

 comes to the point,' said the President." War 

 was declared by the United States on April 21, 

 and at daybreak the morning following the 

 North Atlantic squadron the largest ever com- 

 manded by an officer of the United States navy 

 under Sampson, with the New York as his flag- 



ship, sailed from Key West to blockade the north- 

 ern coast of Cuba, from Cardenas on the east to 

 Bahia Honda on the west a coast-line of nearly 

 120 miles. As the sun rose, the first prize of 

 the war, the Buenaventura, appeared in sight 

 and was captured. The blockade had been in 

 operation for a few days only when the Navy 

 Department learned that a Spanish fleet, under 

 Admiral Cervera, consisting of the Infanta Maria 

 Teresa, Almirante Oquendo, Vizcaya, Crist6bal 

 Colon, and the torpedo-boat destroyers Terror, 

 Furor, and Pluton, had sailed, April 29, from the 

 Cape Verde Islands, presumably for the relief of 

 Havana. The necessity of discovering and en- 

 gaging the Spanish fleet as soon as it should 

 appear in American waters became Sampson's 

 principal object. On May 4 he sailed from Key 

 West eastward, and thinking it possible that 

 Cervera had made the harbor of San Juan de 

 Porto Rico, he reached that port on May . 12, 

 but not finding the Spanish fleet there, he bom- 

 barded the forts, and then returned westward, 

 so as better to intercept the enemy's fleet should 

 Havana be its destination. The information that 

 Cervera was in American waters was received 

 by Sampson on May 14, but it was not until 

 May 20, w r hile at Key West, according to his 

 own account, that he " learned by cable from 

 Havana that Cervera had reach'ed Santiago on 

 the 19th." Admiral Schley, who had command 

 of the Flying Squadron, with the Brooklyn as 

 his flag-ship, was at that time on the south of 

 Cuba at Cienfuegos, and Sampson immediately 

 informed him of the reported arrival of Cervera 

 in Santiago, and ordered him to proceed thither 

 if he was satisfied that the enemy was not at 

 Cienfuegos. On May 29 Schley reported that 

 Cervera's fleet was at Santiago, and on June 1 

 Sampson arrived off that port, and assumed com- 

 mand of the combined fleet, which numbered 

 more than 125 vessels. He established a close 

 and efficient blockade, ordering the harbor to be 

 guarded day and night by the squadrons arranged 

 in a semicircle, 6 miles from the harbor mouth 

 by day and 4 miles by night, and directed that 

 search-lights be thrown upon the entrance at 

 night. His first order was: "If the enemy tries 

 to escape, the ships must close and engage as 

 soon as possible, and endeavor to sink his vessels 

 or force them to run ashore in the channel. It is 

 not considered that the shore batteries are of 

 sufficient power to do any material injury to bat- 

 tle-ships." On June 3 Hobson made his famous 

 attempt to sink the Merrimac in the channel at 

 the entrance of Santiago harbor, and thus shut 

 in the enemy, a plan that had been contemplated 

 by Sampson as early as May 27, when he pre- 

 pared orders to be sent to Schley to obstruct the 

 channel by the sinking of a collier. According to 

 Secretary Long: " His sinking of the Merrimac in 

 the channel has been criticized, and yet, had it 

 blocked the channel as intended, the Spanish fleet 

 could never have emerged, and would have be- 

 come ours without destruction by us." Moan- 

 while, the blockade continued, with bombard- 

 ments on the fortifications, June 6 and 16, and on 

 June 21 the troops, under Gen. Shafter, arrived 

 off Santiago, and on the day following wrro 

 landed at Daiquiri. The actions by the land 

 forces at El Caney and San Juan had driven the 

 Spaniards under Gens. Linares and Toral into the 

 city of Santiago. The time for positive action 

 was rapidly approaching, and Shafter desired the 

 active cooperation of the naval forces for the 

 purpose of making an assault on Santiago. The 

 works at Aguadores were bombarded on July 1, 

 and on July 2 the batteries at the entrance of 



