The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-05-22

The city of Las Tunas, in Cuba, was
taken by the Cuban insurgents in 1896,
after fierce siege of two days and
two nights. IL was strongly fortified
by large garrison of Spaniards and
contained 81 forts scattered about in
different parts of the city. Every one
of them made a strong resistance. For
4S hours there was fighting in the
streets, in the houses and about the
walls The city crumbled to pieces as
cannon and dynamite guns pounded
down the defended houses and made
breaches in the forts
During the short, fierce struggle that
preceded the surrender of the last of
these forts an incident occurred strong
ly dramatic.
The last OF the forts was a huge
stone tower overlapping the surround
ing stone wall. 1t was defended by a
garrison of $50 soldiers, many of whom
had fled from their homes in the city
for the protection of the forts. Among
them was a man named Mendez, a
surgeon and lieutenant colonel in the
Spanish army, who owned a house
across the wide street from the fort.
During the engagement the Cuban Off
Ger commanding the battery ordered
that a gun should be brought into the
abandoned house of Mendez to play
through the window on a vulnerable
part of the fort.
The house of Mendez was one of the
finest in the city, almost a palace-for
Mendez was rich man. 1t was built
of white bricks; the interior was finish
ed with the finest woods, and the fur
nishings were exquisite.
a band of shouting men burst down
the door and dragged up the marble
steps and into the great, wide parlor
l2-Dound Hotchkiss gun. The heavy
wheels rolled across the hardwood
floor to one of the two high windows
that faced the fort; then the men seized
the crowbars and made a breach from
the window sill down low enough to re-
ceive the muZZle of the gun. By this
time the room was filled with Cubans
who swept aside the frail chairs, the
light tables and the jars along the
walls. The pictures were torn from
their hangings, for fear they might fall
at the cannonading and the soldiers
put their feet through the middle of
them. The furniture, the br1c-a-brac
and the decorations were destroyed.
They were tossed aside, kicked out of
the way as things of no account, brok-
en-, smashed and trampled on There
must be room for the fight; there must
be a free space.
But the TOOTH was Ollly llolL SACetA Gu
WREN the Hotchkiss gun opened fire on
the fort. AT the first recoil of the big
gun the muzzle leaped back from the
wall for want of proper bracing, aad
the house trembled as with an earth
quake. Fine vases SDrang from the
mantels and went to pieces on the floor;
the glass in the mahogany bookcases
ratified or was shattered by the shock.
The wind was blowing from the fort
-, .,r4 l,n nd
the smoke drifted back and filed the
room. There was no time to rid the
room of the rest of its furnishings.
The Cubans quickly braced the gun
by driving spikes in the floor, and
while a squad stayed to load and fire.
others took I'D their positions with
rifles at the second window and picked
off the heads at the openings in the
fort; the rest sprawled fiat on the floor
to escape the Mauser bullets that were
now screaming in their ears. The men
at the Hotchkiss gun fired slowly and
carefully; the rest of the battery out
side took up the fire with the cannons, |
and the dynamite gun. The Cubans in |
the house, huddled on the floor, could |
hear the ive-Dound dynamite shells |
drop and explode inside the fort, and |
see. occasionally, through the breach in |
their own wall, the havoc they created. !
The return from the fort was directly |
mainly at the house and at the gun
that spat its balls through the gaping |
wall!
The wind blew stronger and the
smoke in the room was like a thick veil /
that lifted and fell and spun around /
in big, slow rings, so that il was an
alternate light and darkness for the
neE.
In the midst of this storm of pow
Ter smoke a man rose up from the