Battles of the Nineteenth Century, Page 211.

The Fall of Santiago.

              Early in the morning of Sunday July 3^rd, General Shafter had telegraphed to Washington, describing the situation before Santiago as very serious, and suggesting a retirement to the hills near the coast.  A half past two the same afternoon he sent a message in to General Toral, summoning him to surrender Santiago without further delay, and threatening to bombard the city if it was not handed over to him immediately.  The contrast between these two messages shows how everything had changed in a few hours.  Toral showed the summons to Mr. Ramsden, and he assembled the other consuls; and, a brief deliberation, they proceeded to the American headquarters behind San Juan Hill.  Generals Kent and Wheeler met the consuls, and, after telegraphing to Shafter, told them that the bombardment would be delayed for twenty-four hours.  To put it familiarly, this talk of bombardment was a piece of bluff.  The Americans had neither the guns nor the ammunition up at the front; and, with one muddy hill-road to bring up by from Siboney, they could net expect them for some days to come.  But the consuls could not know this.  Considering that the army had been eleven days on Cuban soil, they supposed that it had brought up its artillery.  And they knew that, in any case, the fleet could repeat its previous performances.  So they took the threat seriously.

            “We explained to the generals,” writes Ramsden, “what a frightful act they were about to commit, and that, while doing no harm whatever to the Spanish army, they would drive out to a barren country and starvation some 20,000 women and children, and destroy their homes.  The villages of El Caney, and Cuavitas, and Dos Bocas were designated as places to which the people might go, the former being in hands of the Americans, and the latter in those of the Cubans; but, of course, there was no food at either, and little shelter, and the country round was barren in consequence of the three years war.”  Thus the mission of the consuls had little result except to prepare the way for a miserable exodus of the civil population of Santiago.

            The fate of the fleet was not known in the city till the afternoon, when band of weary fugitives, many of them wounded, came straggling in from the westward and told the terrible tale.  Two small tugboats, the Colon and the Esmeralda, had slipped out under Socapa after the destruction of the torpedo boats, and had picked up some of their crews floating on wreckage or waiting on the shore.  By this time the American ships were all in chase of the cruisers, and the little steamers got safely back into harbour.  For some hours it was thought that, though the torpedo boats had failed to get away, the cruisers had escaped; and for some days there was uncertainty as to the fate of the Cristobal Colon.

            At times during the day there had been desultory firing at the trenches, chiefly on the north side of the city, where the Cubans faced the Spaniards.  In the evening Colonel Escario marched into Santiago with the long-expected reinforcements from Manzanillo.  He had started on June 22^nd with 3,700 men, regulars and volunteers, a few mountain guns, and a mule train laden with supplies for the march.  He had fought on the way numerous minor engagements with the Cubans, losing about a hundred men killed and wounded in action.  But as he approached Santiago he met with practically no resistance.  Garcia had promised Shafter that his men would deal with the Manzanillo column, which was supposed to be under the command of General Pando, and to be about seven or eight thousand strong.  But Garcia’s lieutenants, who held the lines to the north of the city, had no liking for a pitched battle, and let Escario pass through, contenting themselves with firing some long range rifle shots at the column.

            The reinforcements enabled the weary men who had held the trenches for three days to be relieved.  Otherwise Colonel Escario’s arrival was of doubtful benefit to General Toral and the Spanish garrison of Santiago.  The Manzanillo column brought with it hardly anything in the way of provisions.  It could not have supplied its own wants for even a few longer.  And thus, whilst adding to the fighting force in the city, and making it safer against a coup-de-main, it diminished its power of resistance against a prolonged blockade.

            On the Monday morning the exodus of the unfortunate civilian population of Santiago began.  It was blowing a heavy gale, and some of the British subjects were with great difficulty transferred from the tugboat Esmeralda to H.M.S. Pallas and Alert, outside the harbour.  Others went out with Consul Ramsden to El Caney, whither the people were making their way in thousands.  The little town was soon overcrowded, and became the centre of a great camp or bivouac of the refugees.  Days and nights of misery followed.  The wretched people living in the overcrowded camp and town, without proper shelter or food, sick and well huddled together, were dying by the score.  The mortality of the children was especially heavy.  The Americans and the Red Cross Society furnished some supplies, both they were utterly insufficient to meet the wants of the people.  It would be impossible adequately to describe the wretchedness of those days in Caney.  Mr. Ramsden gives some idea of it in the detailed narrative of his diary.  He was himself one of the victims, falling ill just before the people returned to Santiago after the surrender.

             It is doubtful; too, whether the Americans through this threat of bombardment gained anything.  The wholesale migration of the people to El Caney and the other villages made it, if anything easier for Toral to hold out in the town.  Though almost at the end of his resources, the Spanish general managed t maintain him for nearly a fortnight after the destruction of the fleet.                      

            On the evening of Monday July 4^th, the cruiser Reina Mercedes, the only Spanish warship, except a gunboat, left at Santiago, was sunk at the harbour mouth.  Now that the fleet was gone, and some of the torpedoes had been removed to let the cruisers out, it was felt that it would be better to try to obstruct the entrance by sinking a large ship in the narrows.  The Mercedes was the only vessel available for the purpose.  Her guns and stores had been removed for the defence of the sea forts and the entrenchments of Santiago.  Between eight and nine in the evening she weighed anchor and steamed down to the harbour mouth.  Miguel Lopez, the pilot who had gone out with Cervera, was one of the men in charge of the ship on this her last voyage.  At half-past eleven she was in the narrows.  The blockading ships discovered her with their searchlights, and, not knowing that the state of her engines and boilers had long condemned her to in-activity, they fought that she was trying to run out, and opened a heavy fire on the narrow channel.  The shore batteries replied.  The Mercedes was hit several times by shells fired from the Texas and the Massachusetts, which this night laid just opposite the harbour mouth.  But no one on board of her was hurt, and her crew sank her at the spot that had been chosen.  They did not however, succeed in obstructing the channel, for the cruiser swung round as she sank, lying length ways in the narrows, with her upper decks awash, instead of sinking athwart the channel.  Under the fire of the battleships, she had gone down quicker than was intended.  During the firing the batteries on shore made one hit, sending an 8-inch shell into the officers quarters of the Indiana, where it exploded, wrecking the place, but injuring no one, as all the officers were at their battle stations.  Thus, although two ships, the Merrimac and the Mercedes, had been sunk with a view to blocking the entrance, the sea gate of Santiago still lay open.  But Admiral Sampson did not realise this, and made no attempt to enter.  The sunken cruiser had proved a very useful auxiliary in the defence.  It was her guns, manned by her officers and men that constituted the only serious element of strength in, the batteries.  Out of a reduced crew, the Mercedes had lost during the siege some thirty killed and wounded, including her commander, the gallant Acosta.     

             On this same evening of the Fourth the Americans cut the water mains that supplied the city, forcing the garrison to depend on a few wells and on the inferior water to be got from the streams near the suburbs.  Notwithstanding the truce, which had been granted, to allow of the withdrawal of non-combatants, the preparations for attack and defence went on steadily on both sides.  The Americans were laboriously dragging mortars and light guns up to the front from Siboney and mounting them on the ridges facing the city, so that they could fire over the heads of their own men holding the advanced trenches.  The heavy siege train was still on the transports or on the beach.  The Spaniards were mounting some of the quick-firers of the Mercedes and digging trenches and loop holing house and garden walls, and barricading the streets all along the margin of the city.  Their hospitals were full of sick, the men in the working parties were half starved, but up to the very last day of the siege they were busy with pick and spade, with their rifles ready beside them.       

              General Shafter realised that to storm the Spanish works would be a costly business.  He knew that Toral was not to be frightened into immediate surrender by the threat of bombardment, a threat that could not even be acted upon for some days, and he made a last effort to get Sampson to settle the question by forcing the harbour mouth.  On Monday, the 4^th, he had cabled to Washington: “I feel that I am master of the situation and can hold the enemy for any length of time.”  But holding the enemy and conquering him were two different things, and in a later telegram he made a final appeal for Sampson’s help.  This was his message: -

             “Camp near San Juan river, July 4^th 1898-if Sampson will force an entrance with all his fleet to the upper bay of Santiago, we can take the place within a few hours.  Under these conditions I believe the town will surrender.  If the army is to take the place I want 15,000 troops speedily, and it is not certain that they can be landed, as it is getting stormy.  Sure and speedy way is through the bay.  Am now in position to do my part.

“Shafter, Major-General.

            But Admiral Sampson would not risk anything.  In the United States his caution was made the subject of hostile comment.  Such was the public feeling that most of the credit for the destruction of Cervera’s squadron was given to Commodore Schley, who had led the chase in the Brooklyn.

            The truce arranged by the consuls in the interest of the non-combatants had been prolonged till Saturday, the 9^th on which day it was declared that it the city did not surrender, the fleet and army would open fire upon it.  The first reinforcements were arriving from the United States, and on the evening of the 6^th there was a wild scene of enthusiasm in the American camps as Lieutenant Hobson and his companions arrived in the lines, released from their Santiago prison in exchange for some Spanish officers.  New uniforms had been sent top them, and Hobson was mounted, his men walking beside him.  As they passed through the lines bands played, men and officers cheered, flags were waved, and when they embarked at Siboney to get on board the New York, they were welcomed by cheers from every ship, steam whistles and sirens adding to the din.

            On the 9^th there was another unexpected extension of the truce.  General Toral had sent out a party of officers with a white flag and a letter making the first of surrender.  But it must be surrender on terms.  He suggested that his army should be allowed to march out with colours flying and their arms in their hands and proceeds to some other part of the island.  On these conditions he would hand over Santiago at once.  The truce was prolonged till four p.m. next day, Sunday July 10^th, to consider the matter.  Some of the American officers were for giving Toral what he asked.  It was worthwhile paying a good price for the immediate possession of the city, especially now that the American camps were full of sick and wounded, and the refugees at Caney had brought the yellow fever into the lines.  Toral was allowed to communicate by telegraph with Havana during the truce.  On the Sunday morning Shafter informed him that he could give no terms, but must demand unconditional surrender.  Toral answered that this was impossible, and at four on that Sunday afternoon the truce came at last to an end, after having dragged on for a week.

            “At 4.20,” writes Mr. Caspar Whitney, “we opened our bombardment of Santiago, as promised, but it never seemed a very determined affair, even though for two hours our artillery maintained a fairly heavy fire, to which the Spaniards replied vigorously, sending one shell at least into the trenches of the 2^nd Infantry, which I was unfortunate enough to see explode and kill Captain Rowell.  The musketry was sharp and continuous on both sides until dark, and then all settled to quiet.”  During this brief bombardment the fleet had joined in, sending shells at intervals over the hills, the aim being taken by compass bearings and the sights fixed for a range of 8,500 yards.  The result of each shot was telegraphed to the shore and signalled to the fleet.  The shooting on this indirect aiming plan was very good, and the large shells wrecked several houses.  But, of course the city was a large target.

            Next morning the fleet and the land batteries resumed a kind of desultory bombardment.  Some of the shells from the ships went very wide.  One burst among the wretched refugees in El Caney.  This day Spaniards made very little reply.  It was supposed their power of resistance was nearly at an end, and towards noon General Shafter stopped the bombardment and sent in another flag of truce with a summons to Toral to surrender at discretion.  For the last hour of the bombardment the guns had been firing through a blinding deluge of rain, and a tropical thunderstorm was flashing and roaring over the trenches, where the men crouched, soaked to the skin.  In the two days fighting the Americans had lost two killed and eleven wounded, the Spaniards forty-two killed or wounded.  General Toral sent no reply till eight o’clock next morning, when he answered that unconditional surrender was impossible, and would be refused at all costs and risks.  Meanwhile, on the Monday afternoon, General Miles had landed at Siboney and proceeded at once to the front, riding through the storm of the forest track, where at times his horse sank to his knees in mud.  He took care not to supersede General Shafter, acting rather as a kind of non-official adviser, while leaving the general the executive command.  Even so there were somewhat strained relations between the two commanders.  Miles ordered all the infected houses at Siboney to be burned and replaced by tents.  General Randolph, of the artillery, who accompanied him, landed six fresh batteries of field artillery and took immediate steps for getting the heavy siege guns up to the front.  Several regiments of infantry volunteers had arrived, the first available being the 9^th Massachusetts, 34^th Michigan, 8^th Ohio, 1^st Illinois, and 1^st District of Columbia, this last being a Washington regiment.

            While thus strengthening Shafter’s hands for the attack on Santiago, and at the same time making preliminary arrangements with Admiral Sampson for a land attack in the Socapa battery, which would open the way for him to enter the bay and compel the surrender of the city, General Miles recognised that it would not be good policy to drive the Spaniards to extremities.  A prolongation of the siege might mean a disastrous loss of life by exposure and sickness, and the utter ruin of the few regular regiments, which had done all the hard fighting, and which must by the vanguard of a force sent against Havana if the war continued.  After a council of war and a reference to Washington, another message was sent in to General Toral offering that if he would surrender, his troops should be sent back to Spain.  This afforded a basis for discussion, and a conference was arranged for the afternoon, when Generals Miles, Shafter, Wheeler, and Toral met under the shadow of a spreading tree on the neutral ground between the lines.

            At that meeting the capitulation was practically agreed upon.  Certain details led to debates on the following days, and there was a difficulty in obtaining the assent of the Havana and Madrid governments.  Toral told Consul Ramsden on the 15^th-the eve of surrender-that if the permission did not come soon he would sign the capitulation without it and risk a court martial.  He had held a council of war, and it had been decided that further resistance was impossible.  There was no food, and this was why no attempt was made to break out to the northwards and reach Holguin or Bayamo.

            By the terms agreed upon, the garrison of Santiago was to march out and lay down its arms.  But Toral surrendered not only the city but the district depending upon it, including all the country east of the line drawn from Aserraderos to Sagua de Tanamo, including the garrisons of Guantanamo and Baracoa and all other posts in the region thus defined.  Why the surrender was thus extended is not clear.  It looks as if the Spanish leaders were becoming tired of the war, and had given up the idea of a fight to the death.

            The one favourable condition conceded to the Spaniards was that the troops were to be conveyed to Spain at the cost of the United States as soon as possible.  This concession was not, however, such a piece of generosity as it seems at first sight.  If the garrison had not thus been sent to Europe, either a large force must have been kept to guard them, and this under unhealthy conditions in Eastern Cuba, or they must have been transferred to the United States at the risk of spreading yellow fever in the country.

            On Saturday, the 16^th the capitulation was signed.  The news was received in the American trenches with cheer upon cheer and the singing of patriotic songs.  It was just eight weeks and two days since Cervera’s fleet had run in between the headlands, bringing the storm of war upon the old city and its land locked bay. Consul Ramsden, who had closely watched events from the first, and was now dying of an illness contracted at El Caney, thus summed up his impression of the siege on the day of surrender: -

             “Santiago de Cuba has made an heroic defence and the Americans have learned to admire the pluck of the Spaniards.  On the first attack there were, including 1,000 men from the squadron, 3,500 men of all arms, with volunteers.  Aldea had a column of 600 on the other side of the Bay, and there were about 200 more between Morro, etc., and Aguadores.  From Manzanillo 3,500 men arrived after the attack and helped to replace the killed and wounded.  At Caney there were 500 men.  There are now here and along the railway, etc, 10,500 men, at Guantanamo 5,000 and Baracoa and others scattered 2,000, making a total of 17,500.  Santiago had no defences, but they ran up some earthworks, mounted some good-for-nothing, old-fashioned guns, and made trenches after the fleet began to blockade and the United States army to besiege them.  The Spanish soldiers are half starved, have very little ammunition left, and are sick.  Linares would have surrendered the place a week ago had he been in command, but Toral has been delaying, etc., while Blanco and Madrid were against it.”

            On the Sunday the city was handed over to the victors.  General Miles had re-embarked.  He was on his way to Tampa to take command of an expedition to Puerto Rico.  General Shafter was therefore the chief figure on the American side.  He acted with chivalrous courtesy to General Toral and the Spanish officers, and the measures he took for securing order in the city were most excellent.

             Early in the day, escorted by two mounted companies of regular cavalry, and followed by the 9^th Infantry, who were to garrison the town, Shafter rode towards Santiago, accompanied by his staff and the generals commanding brigades and divisions.  Outside the town General Toral and the Spanish staff met him.  As they approached, Shafter saluted, and riding up to Toral, told him that before the surrender took place he wished to present him with the sword and spurs of his gallant comrade, General Vara de Rey, who had fallen so bravely in the heroic defence of El Caney.  General Toral, evidently deeply moved, expressed his warm thanks for this act of courtesy.  He then formally declared that he handed over Santiago, with the other towns and garrisons of the district, to General Shafter, and he was about to unbuckle his sword belt, when Shafter told him that he must keep his sword.  Neither he nor any of his officers would be asked to surrender their weapons.  The American general then expressed the admiration of himself and his colleagues for the gallantry with which the city had been defended.

            Then came the second part of the surrender.  A battalion of Spanish regulars advanced, with colours flying and its band playing. The men looked worn and haggard, but they stepped out smartly to the stirring march, shouldering arms as they passed the generals, and receiving a salute from the American troops.  They then passed the spot where the staffs were halted and piled arms, and countermarched, returning towards the city without their weapons.  The arms of the other corps were taken over later in the day, without any formal ceremony.

              The generals then marched into the city, Toral riding beside Shafter, conversing with him, and their staffs mingled together, looking more like friends and comrades than victors and vanquished.  “One might have thought it was the meeting of old friends,” wrote a correspondent who was present.  The American officers looked with keen curiosity at the defences they would have had to storm if the siege had been prolonged.  To quote the same correspondent: “We had no advanced guard, though the way into the city was lined with Spanish soldiers still armed.  But confidence was placed in them, and that confidence was not broken.  Between the lines, and especially as we neared the city, the condition was terrible.  All along the road were carcasses of horses, most of which still had the saddle, bridle, and, in many cases, saddlebags full of effects on the dead animals.  This state of things showed the hasty retreat under a terrific fire the enemy experienced during the three days battle.  Shallow graves along the road had been scratched open by vultures, and the odour was horrible in the extreme.  The first barricade we encountered was the cleverly conceived barbed wire entanglement that did not close the road but compelled anyone entering to zigzag back and forth, so that entrance under fire would be next to impossible.  Then came barricades of sand-filled barrels covering trenches, side streets blocked with paving stones, leaving loopholes.  The thick walled houses were also loopholes, and would have made excellent fortifications.  To have attempted to have taken the city by infantry assault would have meant the loss of thousands of our men.”

             As the cavalcade passed through the city to the Plaza, the streets were lined with thousands of Spanish soldiers, some standing in groups, others drawn up under arms.  Many of the companies presented arms to the generals, and the officers exchanged friendly salutes.  In front of the palace the officers dismounted and entered the building, where the governor of the city received them.

             In the palace a kind of reception was held, General Toral introducing the notables of the place to the American commander.  Among them was the archbishop, who expressed a hope that peace would be soon concluded between the two countries, on terms as honourable as those, which had secured the surrender of the city.  General Shafter announced that the local Spanish officials would for the present retain their functions, and that the regiment of the guardia civile would keep its arms, and assist in maintaining order in Santiago.  The Cubans, who had expected a day of personal triumph over the Spaniards, were intensely disappointed, and still more exasperated at finding that their flag was not to be hoisted on the palace, but that the Stars and Stripes were to fly alone.

               A few minutes before twelve the officers went out into the Plaza, where the American cavalry and infantry stood to “attention,” a crowd of civilians and Spanish soldiers looking on, and every window being full of interested spectators.  On the palace roof the Captain McKittrick, of the staff, stood with the halyards in his hand ready to hoist the flag.  As the clock struck, the Americans uncovered, the troops presented arms, the band struck up the “Star-Spangled Banner,” and the national flag ran up the flagstaff and flew out brightly in the sun.  From the trenches came the boom of saluting cannon, and the regiments that watched for the flag from the old battlefront cheered again and again, almost drowning the music of their bands. 

              “Not so in Santaigo,” writes Mr. Archibald, the correspondent who has been already quoted.  “We did not cheer.  We did not feel like it; for victory has; almost the sadness that I might imagine defeat would have.  And when the band followed with Stars and Stripes forEver, there was a feeling of sadness, for all about us was pinched, wan faces of the hungry citizens, and the sorrowful faces of the defeated officers, who covered heavy hearts with gracious manner to their foe.  There could not be too much said in praise of the manner in which the enemy’s officers treated un on the very day on which our flag replaced their.  And no one would knowingly criticise the action of continuing the Spanish officials in power, or keeping the guardia civile on duty in the city.  They were ready to do all in their power to make our delay perfect; and yet I saw many a strong, brave Spaniard brush away a tear as their banner gave way to ours.  The scene was intense in the extreme.  Yet no one felt like exulting.”

              So ended the siege of Santiago.  To what extremity the garrison had been reduced was proved by General Toral having to ask General Shafter if it was possible to send in some food for his men, who were almost starving.  Of course, the request was at once granted, and something was also done to help the starving citizens, although even in the American lines supplies were running short.  It was a strange ending to the fierce struggle, Spaniard and American clasping hands under the shadow of the conqueror’s flag, while the Cuban rebels looked on in angry disappointment that the long wished for day of vengeance had been taken from them.

            With the city the Spanish authorities handed over two or three merchant steamers and a small gunboat.  This last hoists the American flag, and was once attached to the fleet as a despatch boat.  Working parties under Lieutenant Hobson were engaged in clearing away the obstruction of the harbour mouth, but, contrary to general expectation, Admiral Sampson did not take his fleet in.  Only some of the small vessels actually entered the harbour.  The bigger ships went away to coal at Guantanamo.  The Spanish garrison and then laid down their arms without the least demur on learning that they had been included by General Toral in the capitulation of Santiago, and a couple of gunboats, or large armed lunches that had taken refuge in the inner bay, were also handed over to the Americans.

            An examination of the batteries at Santiago revealed the fact that very little harm of any importance had been done by the long series of bombardments on the part of the fleet.  The results of the fire of the Vesuvius were especially disappointing.  In the city it was found that the long ranging fire of the fleet damaged about a hundred houses.

            The inhabitants had suffered terribly.  Few had been injured by the earlier bombardments, and during the last attack most of the civilian population had fled to the adjoining villages.  It was this exodus that led to the greatest loss of life.  Enfeebled by want of food, and already attacked by sickness, the unfortunate townsfolk were in no condition to resist the unhealthy and enfeebling influences to which they were now exposed.  Unsheltered from the weather, or huddled together in the small houses, drinking foul water and eating scanty food, no wonder they died by hundreds.

            The Spanish garrison, too, had suffered more loss by want and sickness than from the fire of the besiegers.  When the Americans entered the city the hospitals were full, and every regiment had a heavy death roll.  Most of the Spanish volunteers, after behaving steadily in the early days of the siege, had abandoned all shares in the defence as soon as they saw that victory was hopeless.  Some disappeared in the civil population; others deserted and joined Garcia’s Cuban irregulars.  As for the Spanish regulars who had survived the siege, they openly fraternised with the victors.  Most of the American soldiers were forbidden to go into Santiago, but the Spaniards would come up to the line of the trenches, give them bottles of wine in exchange for biscuits or tobacco, and heartily shake hands with their late foes.  Before they embarked to Spain many of them addressed letters to General Shafter, thanking him for the kind treatment they had received after the capitulation, and expressing their admiration for the way in which the American soldiers had acted, both as brave foes in fight and as generous friends when battle was done.

             The fall of Santiago brought the end of the war in sight.  Though Havana was still held by Marshal Blanco’s army, Spain was tired of the war, and felt that enough had been done for honour, now that victory could no longer be expected, and none of the Powers seemed likely to intervene on her side.  During the siege of Santiago there had been a number of minor engagements between American cruisers and gunboats and the coast batteries of Cuban ports.  In July General Miles was sent with an army chiefly composed of volunteers to drive the Spanish troops from Puerto Rico.  He began to land his troops on July 24^th at Guanica, in the south of the island.  The Spaniards kept their main force concentrated at San Juan, and only left small detachments in the south to delay the American advance.