The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-06-18
Beach, of the Baltimore,
Corrects Popular rIisappre-
hension as to the Battle.
1T WAS AN EVEN MATCH
Had Dewey and Monteo Snapped Fleets the Result
Should Have Been the Same, an
American Victory.

New York. June 1s.-Passed Assistant
Baltomire, which took part in the battle
OF Manila harbor. writing to a friend IN
this city under date OF May s. says:
We feel that We have had great vic
tory here, which was ascribed to several
causes. First. the Spaniard IS always be-
hind the times He knew that an Ameri-
can feet was expected, and so sure of his
tremendous superiority. that he took alb
solutely no precaution. The night we ran
by the forts On the early morning Of the
engagement the Spanish officers We're
all at a grand ball. The entrance 70 the
harbor was planted with torpedoes; ne
thought that was enough, and had no pa
troll, picket boats. or torpedo boats on
watch. The result is that We ran by their
mangnifcent guns guarding the entrance
to Manila Bay. and were out OF range in
side beofe the Spaniards know 1t.
Another reason for Gus success was due
to Commodore Dewey's orders. Not one
of the ships had any intimation that We
would run by the forts as we did until
,
the order We were by the Spanish forts
and at the fleet by $50 a. m on Sunday
May l. They 10 ships strong. carry
ing 116 modern guns, to which We oppo-
sed a superior fleet of six ships carrying
lS5 guns. Two of their ships were OF over
800 tons displacement, and the rest were
sisted by the batteries on shore armed
with modern guns, which made their guns
superior in number to ours. In nHmoer OF
men engaged they were undoubtedly far
superior to us. The Spaniards were alb
soluteiy confident of victory. No other
outcome was anticipated by them; no
preparation was made for a different re-
suit. 1 think their ships, combined with
their forts. madethem equal to us. so far
as powers of offence and defence were
concerned. They had as many modern
guns approximately to the same size as
we had and more men to fire them. They
should have been able to have fired as
much weight of shot in a specified time
as we did.
The whole thing, in other words. lay In
the fact that IT was the American against
the Spaniard. the Anglo-Saxon against
the Latin Every shot fired from our fleet
was most deliberately. coolly and p!tiless-
" aimed. The Spaniards fred an enor- .
nous number of times. but with appar-
entity the most impracticable aim. Shells /
dropped all around our ship; we were in
action for over four hours; hundreds Of ]
shot and shell fell close to US. Only five /
or six pierced US. and they did no damage. /
The damage done by our ships WAS
frightful. 1 have visited all the sunken /
Sranlsh ships, and. had 1 not seen the /
effects of American Workmanship. I wound /
hardly give credit TO reports Of II. One I
smlestack Of the Castillo. a $500 ton Span /
lsh ship, was struch eight times. and the /
shells through the hull were so many AMI {
so close that il is impossible that Span +
lard could have lived on her deck. The I
other large ship, the Reina Cristina, was .
ted in the same way. We did not .
employ much tactics because there WASH
mucn need for them. There were the en-
emv. and we went for them bullheadedly,
and made them exceedingly sick
The lesson | drew from the hght is the
great utility OF target practice. The Spa
nlard has none: we have 1t ever three
months. Strengths OF navies are oompa--
ed generally ship for ship; the personnel
Ia ms. as important. I am confident that
had we manned the Spanish ships and bad
-be SDaniards manned our feet. the Arer-
can side would have been as victorious
a. II vas. The spanlard certainly was
brave fer he stuck TO his guns 70 the