The true northerner., 1898-05-11
A Marvellous Battle.

From The ST. Louis Globe Democrat:
In two important particulars the bat
tie of Manila has no counterpart in his
tory. The story of it was first told to
the world by the loser. On one side the
destruction was complete, while the other
side escaped virtually unharmed. The
victor is the one that first announces to
his own nation and the rest of mankind
the result of great battles. Previous to
the fight at Manila there have been no ex-
ceptions to this rule in the modern age in
the case of an epoch making conflict.
Oddly enough, the story of the Manila
battle as told by the loser week ago was
substantially correct. True, the first re-
ports from Madrid on Sunday night last
were misleading but those which were
sent out few hours later made toer-
ably close approach to absolute correct
ness. The calamity for Spain was so
vast that the Spaniards dared not at
tempt to conceal it. Their overthrow
was so sudden, so unexpected and so
crushing that they were dazed into tell
ing the truth, SO far as the truth could
be learned at that hour.
Butthe other particular connected with
the battle-the fact that the destruction
was all on one side-is the more marvel
Gus. SPANS entire feet, eleven vessels,
was destroyed, while not an American ship
was damaged. Among the Spaniards,
80 were killed and 400 wounded. These
are the figures sent by Dewey, and they
will probably, so far as regards the killed,
be found to be under the mark, for the
number of Spanish vessels which were
blown to pieces or sunk would indicate a
heavier loss of life than this. Not an
American was killed or badly injured, and
only eight were slightly hurt. To en-
ploy the phrase used by Plutarch for the
fight between the Spartans on one side
and the Arcadians and Argines on the
other, in 367 B. c., this was a fearless
battle" for the Americans, as it was for
the Lacedemonians then. The old war
rior who said that nothing is so sad as
great defeat except great victory" did
not foresee last Sundays battle. There
was nothing sad for the Americans in
the fight at Manila.
In still another aspect the battle was
memorable. The American ships in the
darkness sailed into a harbor defended by
powerful fleet, by many forts supplied
by modern guns, adequately Manned and
by mines and torpedoes which had been
carefully laid to guard against such in
vasion and to destroy the invaders. In
boldness of conception and audacity of
execution Dewey's exploit will rank be
side brakes attack on the Spanish feet
in the harbor of Cadiz in 1887, in which
he burned, sunk or captured a large
number of vessels-a feat which he
styled "singeing the King of Spain's
beard d"-and with Nelson's destruction
of the Danish wa ships in the harbor of
Copenhagen in 1901. But the German
and French papers which are expressing
surprise at Deweys vigor and daring
merely show an ignorance of the long
list of brilliant achievements which cast
their splendor across a century of United
States naval history. Dewey belongs to
the same race as Paul Jones, Barry,
Perry, McDonough, Decatur, Bainbridge,
Farragut, and the other accomplished
and intrepid sea warriors whose deeds
have shed an undying glory on the
American name.