The daily morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1883-1899, 1898-06-26

t-e miles by coast from Dalquiri. the or.
iginal landing place OF General Skaters
troops, is u miles distant By road. the
wors, road Imaginable. The town. or VII
lage, lies in the throat Of a rav!ne opening
between the coast range Of hills and
the ocean. It has a good railway station,
where 30 cars Of ore are tracked. and a
large commlssary supply OF -four. The
village itself Is inconsiderable. consisting
Of few houses near a picturesque palm
grove.
The Americans have captured orders
which show that the spanlards planned,
in the event OF troops attempting to lana
there, to repulse them from the shore.
and II this was not sufficient, to charge
the landing parties with machetes. All
this, however. was to be done. the order
, stated, strictly "wlthou, loss to the Span
ish," In case loss was inevitaO,e re-
treat was ordered westward.
The latter Instructions were obeyed
mos, implicitly. since the Spanish burned
Baiquiri and retreated on the approach
OF the American troops without firing a
shot
Apparently judging the American meth
DDS by their own, they seemed wholly un-
prepared for General Lawton's advance
on Juragua by way OF Demajaya. Cen
eral Lawton, on the other hand. acted
as though he were after hostile Apaches
on the war path
Daylight saw the first move Of the Am
orleans from Damajaya, the Twenty
second infantry passing the Eighth in
infantry on the extreme outpost. while
the latter breakfasied, the Cubans scout
ing ahead, batting up the spaniards like
partridges and driving them headlong.
The Spaniards hastily tried to dis
able locomotive and engine with steam
up on the track. by disconnecting the
coupling rods, the throttle lever and sew
eral essential parts. burying some and
throwing others into the sea.
Two engineers happened to be with the
advance squadron Of the Twenty-second
infantry and the troops went for the
locomotive with a yell. The soldiers hunt
ing about for the missing parts found
them and improvised others. One engl-
neer acted as fireman, the other at the
throttle, in twenty minutes ran into Jur-
aqua with the tender full Of sharpshoot-
ers, dellrious with Yankee ingenuity.
The engineer remarked:
III the fools had knocked in the cylin-
der heads We could not have fixed her"
The iron railroad bridge at Juragua was
slightly damaged during yesterdays bonn
pardment, but the rolling stock is safe,
and ii the track to the east is not de-
stroyed the transportation problem is
solved. The haste Of the Spanish evacu-
alton Is shown by the fact that breakfast
was on the table and the bacon actually |
frying, Our soldiers prohted by this.
The Spaniards tried TO destroy the flour
supply by cutting open the bags, but
much of this was saved by our troops
who are very short of ratlons, as they
'arried only about three days supplies
rom Daiquirl, Indeed the Second Massa-
'husetts took nothing. The heat led
many soldiers to discard their rations as
well as their clothing. The heat of the
roads was awful, and es-
,ecially to heavily accoutred men, and
he path was lined with packets, Their
shirts were discarded by hundreds, as
vell as blankets and haversacks. Sew
sral men were exhausted and removed to
he rear, not from sickness, but from
heat,
General Wheeler Is in command of all
he cavalry and with General Lawton at
he front these two should keep any of
he enemys attention thoroughly en-
gaged,