Our War with Spain for Cuba's FreedomWhite, Trumbull
History
Our War with Spain for Cuba's Freedom
White, Trumbull
Cuba -- History; Spain -- Foreign relations -- United States; Spanish-American War, 1898; United States -- Foreign relations -- Spain
Spain, suffering, as it suffers to-day, from intellectual dry rot,
had known for weeks of the intended beleaguerment. Then, as now,
nothing adequate was done to meet it. The Governor of Havana, the
Marquis de Gonzalez, was a gallant soldier, as he was to prove;
but that ounce of prevention which is proverbially worth more than
the pound of cure, was not taken by him, and the British found the
fortifications in a partially ruinous condition, and the fourteen
ships of the line which were lying in the harbor before the city
in such a state that they could hardly be called in commission.
The Spanish army of defense numbered 27,000 men, and was in better
condition; but the Spanish sailors were utterly demoralized by the
granting of too much shore liberty, and the best use the Spaniard
could put his fighting ships to was by sinking them at the
entrance to the anchorage to prevent the entrance of the British
fleet. Once the enemy was before the city, however, all was
activity. The fortifications, which were too newly erected to be
quite incapable of repair, were set in order, the guns of Morro
Castle and of the fort known as the Puntal, across from it, were
trained on the advancing foe, and the Spanish ships were sunk, as
has been said.
Those familiar with the history of English administrative methods
during this period will find little to choose between them and the
methods of Spain. The season of the year most unwholesome to the
inhabitants of a temperate climate had already set in, with all
its train of pestilences, when the British arrived. Though deluged
by the tremendous rains of the tropics from day to day, the water
supply was wholly insufficient, and the little obtainable was so
tainted as to make its use fraught with danger. There was no pilot
who knew the roadstead in order to lead the ships against the
Morro and the Puntal for many days. In throwing up the parallels
and approaches to the walls of the city on the landward side, the
soldiers found such scarcity of earth, the blanket over the rocks
being of the thinnest sort, that this necessary material for
covering an attack had to be brought from a distance. Then, too,
it was charged with the germs of disease, and all who handled it
suffered extremely. Despite all the precautions of the officers,
the sanitary condition surrounding the camp was horrible, and the
troops died like dogs.
YANKEES IN CUBA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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