The San Francisco call., 1898-06-13

| tain Chadwick, and a great yell went
 up from the New York.
 The navy regulations forbid cheer | ing, but regulations don't count for
 much when the enemy's guns are si- l fenced.
 The New Orleans proceeded on her
 errand, joined the Yankee and Dolphin and banged away merrily at the silent | guns. The New York steamed across 1 the mouth of the harbor to the west
 erly of the column. One mortar bat 1 tery inside the harbor, which had not l been seen before, sent one or two
 shells in the direction of the flagship,
 but not dangerously close. The Brook lyn, Texas, Massachusetts, Marblehead
 and. Vixen were still firing. At 10:21 l (not 1:21 as previously cabled) a gen.
 eral signal to cease firing was hoisted, 1 the smoke cleared away from the sides of the ships and they resumed their 1 blockade stations. One of the officers of the flagship was heard to remark:
 ''There is nothing more to fire at just
 now. We have silenced their fire effec- lively. What destruction was done by
 our shells it is impossible to tell. The
 defenses of Santiago de Cuba cannot be compared to those of San Juan de Porto Rico.'
 The bombardment was little more than target practice. The enemy ap- parently deserted their guns soon after the firing commenced, and had 1t not been for the Merrimac heroes, thought to be in MCrro Castle, there would now be little left of that picturesque pile.
 The men behaved splendidly through out The bombardment of Santiago de Cuba, although perhaps more effective than the bombardment of San Juan de Porto Rico, cannot be compared with the cannonading of the latter. The work done this morning should make it easy for a land attack by the troops. As at Matanzas and San Juan, the smoke and the distance made it impos- sible to tell the exact damage done by the shells The firing at times was short and wild, due to those causes. At about noon, while the Dolphin was lying close into a cove a few miles east of Morro Castle, she commenced firing on the shore, apparently at some troops. She kept this up for an hour or more The other ships lay quietly in their usual positions and there was nothing to indicate that heavy bombardment had been progressing few hours be- fore Later the Dolphin signaled that she had disabled g. carload of soldiers and had knocked down a blockhouse
 During the bombardment, despite the clouds of smoke, the twelve~inch shells of the Iowa could be seen striking on the base of the Estrella battery. The thirteen-inch shells from the Massachu- setts and Oregon struck into the hills near the batteries and threw up moun- tains of earth even when they fell a trihe short The moral effect of the terrible power must have been great, for battery after battery was deserted by the Spaniards. The Texas. with two twelve-inch guns, and the Iowa. with her four big guns, raked the entire hillside, while the Brooklyn and New York poured in heavy fire from de- structive eight and five-inch guns. The Brooklyn headed ir further with her squadron of fighters when the smoke became too dense, and then, obtaining a new range, the ships poured in q deadly rain of eight-inch and five-inch shells.
 In the meantime the shells from a little Spanish fort on the water front. two miles off Morro Castle. opened on the Suwanee and the Vixen, and they moved in and with a hot fire from their small guns soon silenced them.
 The great earthworks on the hill near the flying squadrons end of the line then began putting shells in so close to the Brooklyn and Massachusetts that it was determined to silence them if possible It was a difficult job, because the earthwork was 1S0 feet above the water line and it required great eleva tion of the guns.
 After the first three-quarters of an hour of firing Commodore Schley or