The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1898-05-20
COMMANDMENT OF SAN JUAN.
Spanish Gunners Again Give a show o.
Their Poor Mark smanship.

Spanish Gunners Again Give Show of
Their Poor Marksmanship.
Madrid, May 14-An unconfirmed ru-
NOR II in Giro Ilation here that "after
it's defeat before Porto Rico the Ameri-
can squadron encountered the Spanish
squadron, which inflicted considerable
damage on the enemy"
Washington, May 14-At 1880 yester-
day morning the navy department re-
ceived a dispatch from Admiral Samp-
son. 1t is dated st. Thomas. May H.,
and is as follows: "A portion of the
squadron under my command reached
San Juan this morning at daybreak.
No armed vessels were found in the
port. AS soon as it was sufficiently light
1 commenced an attack upon the bat
teries defending the city. This attack
lasted about three hours and resulted
in much damage to the batteries and
incidentally to a portion of the city
adjacent to the batteries. The batteries
replied to our fire, but without material
effect. One was killed on board the New
York and seven slightly wounded in
the squadron. No serious damage to
any ships resulted. SAMPSON"
Associated Press Dispatch Boat Daunt-
less, st. Thomas Danish West Indies,
May 14.-tCopyrighted. 1898, by the AS
ISOLATED Press. 1.-The forts of San Juan
de Porto Rico. have been bombarded by
q portion of the fleet under command of
Rear Admiral Sampson. The feature of
the bombardment was the bad marks
manship of the Spanish gunners. Hard
ly a shot from the forts struck the
ships, while the forts were hit repeated
ly. Most Of the Spanish projectiles fell
very wide, and at the close Of the en-
gagement the Notifications had very
dilapidated appearance but the guns
were as active as ever The United
States monitor Terror had a magnifi-
cent half hour duel with the forts. The
batteries threw shot and shell about her
until she seemed to occupy the center of
great geyser basin.
The Spanish gunners were craZed by
excitement and sometimes dropped their
shells a mile away from the Terror The
latter fred one shot to the forts three,
and when the monitor retired she did
so slowly, contemptuously, still firing
at the Spanish forts. The Spaniards
| continued to fire on her until she was
miles out of range. After the engage
ment the Dauntless steamed among the
| fleet whose crews were cleaning the decks
and polishing the guns. The American
sailors seemed to be not at all excited,
! and were going about their work as II
nothing extraordinary had happened.
The men killed were: Seaman Frank
| Widemark, Of the New York; gunner's
mate, of the Amphitrite. The latter
died from the effects of the extreme
heat. or the injured men three were on
| board the Iowa and four on board the
New York. The names of those injured
! on the Iowa are: Private Marine Mer-
J kle, Seaman Mitchell and Apprentice
| Hill-all slightly. The injured on the
/ New York are: Seaman Samuel Felt
| man, seriously; Seaman Michael MUIR
| ply and two other enlisted men slightly
All those on the New York were injured
| by the bursting of she'll This is a
complete list of the killed and wounded
| The American ships were uninjured.
| The only marks on the Iowa were a
dent on her exhaust pipe and slight
injury to the railing of her bridge. The
New, York had several small holes in
one of her ventilators Each vessel in
action carried two large American flags.
Only one vessel is known to be in the
harbor of San Juan de Porto Rico,
and that craft is a small French steam
err which hurried away, affirighted after
| the warships had departed.