[Footnote 2: Goode, WITH SAMPSON THROUGH THE WAR, p. 182.] Instead, the army set out with some confidence to capture the city itself. El Caney and San Juan Hill were seized on July 2 after a bloody struggle in which the Spanish stuck to their defenses heroically and inflicted 1600 casualties. By their own figures the Spanish on this day had only 1700 men engaged, though there were 36,500 Spanish troops in the province and 12,000 near at hand. In considerable discouragement, Shafter now spoke of withdrawal, and urged Sampson "immediately to force the entrance"[1]--in spite of the fact that the main purpose in sending troops had been to avoid this very measure. In view of threatening foreign complications and the impossibility of replacing battleships, it was imperative not to risk them against mines. [Footnote 1: _Ibid._, p. 190.] Food conditions were serious in Santiago, but Cervera was absolutely determined not to assume responsibility for taking his fleet out to what he regarded as certain slaughter. A night sortie, with ships issuing one by one out of an intricate channel into the glare of searchlights, he declared more difficult than one by day. Fortunately for the Americans, in view of the situation ashore, the decision was taken out of his hands, and Governor General Blanco from Havana peremptorily ordered him to put to sea. The time of his exit, Sunday morning, July 3, was luckily chosen, for Sampson, in the _New York_, was 10 miles to eastward on his way to a conference with Shafter, and the _Massachusetts_ was at Guantanamo for coal. The flagship _Maria Teresa_ led out at 9.35, followed 10 minutes later by the _Vizcaya_, and then by the _Colon, Oquendo_, and the destroyers _Furor_ and _Pluton_, each turning westward at top speed. [Illustration: BATTLE OF SANTIAGO, JULY 3, 1898] Simultaneously the big blockaders crowded toward them and opened a heavy fire, while stokers shoveled desperately below to get up steam. To the surprise of other vessels, Schley's ship, the _Brooklyn_, after heading towards the entrance, swung round, not with the enemy, but to starboard, just sliding past the _Texas'_ bow. This much discussed maneuver Schley afterward explained as made to avoid blanketing the fire of the rest of the squadron. The _Oregon_, which throughout the blockade had kept plenty of steam, "rushed past the _Iowa_," in the words of Captain Robley Evans, "like an express train," in a cloud of smoke lighted by vicious flashes from her guns. In ten minutes the _Maria Teresa_ turned for shore, hit by 30 projectiles, her decks, encumbered with woodwork, bursting into masses of flame. The concentration upon her at the beginning had shifted to the _Oquendo_ in the rear, which ran ashore with guns silenced 5 minutes after the leader.