The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-06-02
Leads all Oh0r North Carolina ai88 in BOt News and Circulation
,tc., including the employment of scouts,

For the first time since the beginning !
of hostilities there appears to be some |
thing in the nature of an official state
ment of plan of campaign of the United
States government. This is contained |
in a letter of Secretary Alger to the
speaker of the house, transmitting GER
tain recommendations and statements of |
General Ludlow which disclosed the |
purpose of the war department to send
10000 men to Cuba. 10000 to start at |
once and the remainder just as soon as /
they can be made ready for departure. |
Then there was an estimate for estab- |
fishing electrical communications in Gu |
ba. Porto Rico and the Philippines"
showing for the first time an in |
tention of the government to land troops |
in Porto Rico. OF course all these move |
ments have been anticipated by the
press but nevertheless a strong element
of doubt existed, and therefore the of
fetal statements of the governments
purpose made even in this Indirect fash
ion. created profound sensation here.
The three are to go together, Cuba, FOR
to Rico and the Philippines, and pass
into the military occupation of the Unl-
ted States troops. Inasmuch as the sec
of troops is to 90 forward as soon as
they can be prepared, good deal of in
tercst attaches to an order that was
made to-day at the war department pro-
viding for the organization of the 10,
600 additional volunteers called for. The
order officially established the statement
made heretofore in these dispatches that
a large portion of the new men are to be
a .-x,el
volunteers, which are i'll most cases def
cient in numbers 1t is to be presumed
from tO-day's order that the volunteer
regiments collected under the first call
will be detained until they are filed upI
i'm this fashion SO that the order has some
bearing upon the plan of campaign
The war department received a dis
patch to-day from General Brooke, in
command of the force at Chickamauga,
setting at rest the reports as to made
quate food and water supply there
When these reports were circulated re-
Gently, Secretary Alger telegraphed am
inquiry to General Brooke whose reply
is as follows:
There is no reason whatever for
complaint as to the quality and kind
of food furnished the troops in this
camp. Some regulars arrived here with
bread rations only, but defects of this
Kind are quickly remedied and the vege
tables are provided The question as to
quantity is being solved it has always
been good as to quality"
The naval officials have heen c0nsid-
erabIy mystified throughout the day by
reports of an engagement off Santiago.
tho faf3fcnf fhnpa vvas onparlafo cfra
cism, and disposition to treat the re-
ported action as myth. Gradually, as
the day advanced. the corroborative evi-
dence coming from many quarters, in
Guiding the official announcements from
Havana and Madrid, led the officials to
concede that some engagement had taken
place, although they did not regard it
as Il serious one. No bulletins were is
sued by the department. during the day,
and ut the close of office hours it was
stated that no dispatches from C0mmo-
dore Schley had been received during
the day. There is reason to believe,
however, that the department received
Indirect advices through the state de-
partment, possibly not bearing out the
detailed press dispatches, but sufficient
to Indicate that an engagement of some
kind had occurred at Santiago The i'm
preston obtained during the afternoon
that general instructions had been given
to all United States naval com
manders on the Cuban coast to prevent
the construction or strengthening Of bat
teries by the Spaniards. Commodore
Schley, observing work of this kind go
ing on at Moro Castle. had drawn his
feet up close enough to stop it. 1t is not
believed for an instant that he made
any real attempt to enter the harbOr. al
though it is entirely conceivable that
while engaged in the task of shelling the
shore batteries, finding the Cristobal
Colon in range, he could not resist tho
temptation to try Il few shots at her.
The statement from Madrid, in what
seemed to be almost semi-official form,
of the acuteness of the financial strin-
gency there, and the plain intimation
that the bank of Spain, and consequently
Spain were nearing the end of their
financial resources, was regarded ut the
state department as OF more real sig
niticance than many of the stories of
battles on land and sea that have been
coming over the cables for the past few
weeks, The effect of this notice may
be to hasten the operations against
Porto Rico, lest the prize slip from our
grasp through a sudden and unexpected |
termination of the war. An additional !
evidence that the actual forward move |
mcnt of the army and navy has begun !
was given in the action Of the foreign |
naval and military observers. They have |
been sojOurning leisurely in Washington |
for some time, but within the last week |
all of them have started for FLORIDA. /
The British naval and military attaches
were the first to leave, and now they
have been followed by the German. Aus
trian, Russian. Swedish. Norwegian and
japanese observers. The government of
Norway and Sweden has no less than
six military and naval experts to OBJ
serve various branches of the warfare.
ARMY APPOINTMENTS.