The age-herald., 1898-08-07
The Young Officers Account of
 the Great Naval Fight.
IN FRONT OF SANTIAGO
The Wreck ofthe Colon by Its Own Crew A Description of the New York's Long Chase-How the
 Men Acted.

EnSlRn Joseph ROWell, ol <Auliii "i NSi"P sons flagship New York, has written to friends in Oswego, his home town, an ac- count of the destruction of Cervera's fleet. Powell is the young man who took the launch in under Morro's guns to rescue Hobson when the latter sank the Merri- mac. Powell says in his letter under date of July 3:
 Victory has "1it upon us'' today, all right. Between this point forty-five miles to the westward of Santiago, and Santiago city itself are the four Spanish armored cruis- CTS and two torpedo boat destroyers, all on the rocks and blown up except the Cris- tobal Colon, which is in good condition, but sunk by her own officers after being run ashore when four of our ships had surrounded her. What days work! And only one American killed and two wounded! We have from one ship nearly 400 prisoners, and 200 from another; how many were taken from the other two we do not yet know. The majority of the Spanish crews from three of the cruisers and the two destroyers were killed.
 And 1t was all so unexpected. One bat tleship, the Massachusetts, went to Guam tanamo early this morning, so. of course,
 
 the New York were only onlookers, I'm sor- ry to say, though we probably received more fire than any other one ship, thanks to our friends the forts. The day started with breakfast at S. After breakfast I had the extreme pleasure of putting on com plete outfit of clean clothes, and it was a luxury. Just before quarters we started down to Siboney, where the admiral and INHVnar rn1 Shafters headquarters. We went through quarters as usual, but, although it was the first Sunday in the month, we didn't have general muster, and after the mere mastering of the men at the guns we were dismissed. We were about five miles from Moro when, To! a puff of smoke from the mouth of the harbor and dozen puffs from our ships in the offing and some one yelled
 "The ships are coming out!''
 I had reached the quarterback when this news was called out, and after watching the fire for a minute, I jumped below to get my glasses and started forward to my station. The mepunl1Ss running around everywhere,- >sfns.'+ s Rshing, and t2angAr-fhe call to seneia a!a duaTSSZs had not been given, every one was at his stasN tion. I never saw such crowd. They were crazy to get at the "Dagoes." One man shouted: wen kill every damned one of them! Where's my dirty clothes?'
 And that was the universal cry-for a fight to the death. All hands took off their clean Sunday clothes and put on their dir tiest habiliments After seeing that every thing was all right at my gun, went be- low, took off my own finery, put on my fighting suit and was ready for business. All this time the battleships were pouring in shot after shot, while the four Spanish cruisers, who turned away from us to the westward and were straining along the coast, were quite enveloped in their smoke. We could see shells splashing the water in all directions-a sight it was worth going to war to see. The two parallel lines of vessels moved up the coast, but we moved faster aStern of them and gained some what. The Spainsh vessels soon turned a point and we lost sight of them Then there was more smoke at the mouth of the harbor and we knew that more vessels were coming out, and in a minute we saw, first one, then a second, torpedo boat de- stroyer appear and head up after the oth- CT ships. They had nearly a clear chance to run, as all the vessels had passed to the westward except one, the little Glou- cester, commanded by Lieutenant Com mander Wainwright, boat not as big as either of the destroyers, converted yacht, with only six 6-pounders on side-not as much of battery as that of either of the destroyers.
 But that didn't feaze Dick Wainwright He sailed in and gave those boats fits, first one and then the other, and when we were about off Morro and three miles to the eastward of the three vessels a shot struck something explosive on one of the destroy CTS, there was a puff of black smoke, fol- lowed by a cloud of white, and the vessel turned and made for the shore. The Glou- cester then turned her attention to the other destroyer, which turned and started back for Moro, but we were there, and my forward 4-inch gun was ordered to open fire on it. Seeger, the gun captain, hit that fellow the first shot, nailed boiler, and the boat never moved again. The gun aft of ours also hit her, and then both guns fired one more shot. Then they stop ped as she was done for. The Gloucester had boat in the water when we came by and we did not stop at all as both tor pedo boats were clearly done for, and the Gloucester was quite able to pick up the remnant of their crews and look out for the vessels, and we tore along down the coast Some of our vessels were still visible around the point and were hot at it. All the time we were crossing the mouth of the harbor we were having serenade from the batteries. About dozen mortars that have never fired on us in any of our bom- bardments sprang into life and played merry tattoo. They used shrapnel, which burst about us two or three times a min ute-above us, on each side of us, ahead of us and behind us, but never touched us. They are fine shots! Soon after we left the Gloucester we passed out of range of these shore guns and were all busily watching a dense mass of smoke rising from behind the point Ten minutes later we could make out the military tops of one of the cruisers and a minute or two later could see the ship itself high up on the beach-and also burning. And then we saw that there was another vessel there, and sure enough, further up, also on the beach, and also on fire, was another, exactly like the first. The two were the Infanta Maria Teresa and the Oquendo. We could see men in crowds on their forecastles. the fire being all aft.
 A mana Spaniard-swim ming. came alongside us about this time and yelled .Picka up!' but we only threw him life preserver, and a second man whom we passed in the water soon afterward got only a wooden shellcase; but there were two more ships ahead and we could not stop.
 But, as 1t proved. the two ships were safe enough, and on we chased after the two still ahead, with the Indiana, Iowa, nd in