Evening star., 1898-10-24

ciose blockade at all hazards. especially at
night; very little to fear from torpeio-hoat
destroyers. Coal in open sea whenever con
ditons permit. Send d ship to examine
Guantanamo with view to occupying it as
base, coaling one heavy ship at a time.
SchIey's Announcement.
Later same day C29th) the Navy Depart
rlent received dispatch from Schley at San
tiago saying:
Enemy in port; recognized Cristohal CO.
Ion and Infanta Maria Teresa and two tor
pedo boats moored inside MORO, behind
point. Doubtless the others are here. We
are short of coal, using every effort to ge;
coal in. Have about 5000 tons OF coal in
collier but 1ot easy to get on board here
If no engagement in next two three
days, SIMPSONS squadron could relieve this
one to coal at Gonaives or vicinity of Port
Prince"
May 30 Secretary Long telegraphed Samp-
son as follows:
''Schley has seen and recognized two ar
mored cruisers and two torpedo boat de-
stroyers, the Spanish division at Santiago
de Cuba. Proceed) to Santiago with the
New York and Oregon and such other YES
sells you may desire"
Admiral Sampson arrived off Santiago
June /, and found Schley's squadron in
column to the westward of the mouth of
the harbor. The remainder of the corre-
spondence relates to the blockading opera
uons, the sinking of the Merrimac in the
channel and the convoy and landing of
Skaters army at Santiago and the bonn
bardments of the Notifications
The Attack on Santiago.
The report closes with correspondence be
tween Admiral Sampson and Gen. Shafter
concerning the attack on Santiago. July
Shafter wrote Sampson:
Terrible fight yesterday, but my line is
now strongly intrenched about three-quar
ters of mile from town. l urge that you
make effort Immediately to force the en-
trance to avoid future losses among my
men. which are already very heavy. You
can now operate with less loss of life than
1 can"
And the following was telephoned to him:
Gen. Shafter: Admiral Sampson has this
morning bombarded forts at entrance OF
Santiago, and also Punta Gorda battery
inside. silencing their fire. Do you wish
further firing on his part? He began at
$50, finished ct I:30 Your message TO
him here. Impossible to force entrance un-
til we can clear channel of mines-1 work
of some time after forts are taken posses
sion of by your troops. Nothing in this d.
rection accomplished yesterday by the ad-
vance on Aguadores. Lieut.. Stanton.
To which reply was made as follows:
July 2-It IS impossible for me to say when
| can take batteries at entrance to narbor.
If they are as difficult to take as those
which we have been pitted against 1t viii
be some time and at a great loss of life. j
am at a loss to see why the navy cannot
work under destructive fire as well as the
arlny NV loss yesterday was over .bEl
men BY all means keep up fire on every,
thing in sight of you until demolished:
expect, however, in time and with sutiiclent
men, to capture the forts along the bay.
Shaftar
Admiral Sampson made the following re-
ply:
IAN officer of my staff has already re-
ported to you the firing which we did TINS
morning, but | must say in addition TO
uba be told that the forts which we
silenced were not the forts which would
give you any inconvenience in capturing
the city. as they cannot fire except to sea-
ward. They cannot even prevent our en-
trance into the harbor of Santiago. Our
trouble from the first has been that the
channel to the harbor is we'll strewn with
observation mines which would certainly
result in the sinking of one or more of our
ships if We attempted to enter the harbor
and by the sinking of a ship the object of
the attempt to enter the harbOr would be de-
feated by the preventing of further prog
ress on our part.
part of these shore batteries. from the
rear, would leave us AT liberty to drag the
channel for torpedoes.
IF it is your earnest desire that we
should force our entrance, ] Will at once
prepare to undertake it. ! think. however,
that our position and yours would be made
more difficult if, as is possible, we fail In
our attempt.
we have in our outfit at Guantanamo
forty countermining mines, which i Will
bring here with as little delay possible,
and if We can succeed in freeing the en-
trance of mines by their use l Will enter
the harbor
This work, which is unfamiliar to us,
will require considerable time.
1T is not so much the loss of men as 1t
is the loss of ships which has until now
deferred me from making a direct attack
upon the ships within the port
In closing his report Admiral Sampson
says:
The sortie of Admiral Cervera's squad
ron and its destruction has been made the
subject of a separate paper. and need not
be repeated here. This event closes the
purely naval campaign, crowning with
complete success the anxious work of al
most exactly two months"