Bunce planned to follow this up with a Caribbean cruise by the entire squadron from 21 December 1895 to 12 May 1896, with it operating together throughout the cruise and visiting ports strictly as a squadron, without the diversion of individual ships to other tasks; this would have been the first time the entire squadron had made such a cruise together. However, the outbreak of the Cuban War of Independence in Cuba – then a part of the Spanish Empire – and the Department of the Navy's fear that such a deployment would heighten tensions with Spain led to the Department of the Navy cancelling these plans, and the squadron remained at Hampton Roads. Bunce continued to exercise the squadron at sea off Virginia, and gradually sent his ships into various navy yards for refits in the winter and spring of 1896 in order to keep them ready for any operations against Spain. By August 1896, enough ships had returned to the squadron and enough newly commissioned ships had joined it in time for planned late-summer tactical exercises that "The New York Times" called it "the largest fleet ever assembled by the Navy Department for instruction in fleet tactics at sea." During a social and diplomatic visit to New York City in August 1896, the squadron carried out extensive and complicated tactical exercises at sea, and in early September 1896 under Bunce's command the North Atlantic Squadron battleships , , , and operated together in line and in column during a voyage from New York City to Fishers Island, New York, the first time in history that a division of U.S. Navy battleships operated together as a tactical unit.