The San Francisco call., 1898-05-25
DETAILS OF
 TWO BATTLES A Lively Skirmish Off Santiago de Cuba. FAILURE TO CUT 4 CABLE A NEW VERSION OF THE CAR DENAS ENGAGEMENT. The Mortality on the Spanish Side Was Not So Great as
 at First Re
 ported.
FAILURE TO CUT A CABLE
A NEW VERSION OF THE CAR
 DENAS ENGAGEMENT
Special Dispatch to The Call.

KEY WEST, May 24-The United States auxiliary tug Waumpatuck brought in to-day a story of a sharp skirmish off Santiago de Cuba last Wednesday. The tug, with the United States auxiliary cruiser St. Louis, went into the Santiago channel to cut the cable. While the vessels were en- gagged in the work they were fired upon by the shore batteries. The St. Louis returned the fire and a lively fusillade ensued for about half an hour. The Waumpatuck eventually succeeded in cutting the cable. None of the Span ish shots hit either boat, while neither of the boats in turn inflicted any dam age on the enemy. From Santiago the two ships proceeded to Guantanamo, the Waumpatuck going in about four hundred yards from shore to cut the cable there the St. Louis lying out Of range. The shore batteries again open ed re and the St. Louis signaled the tug to come out, which she did, with out having cut the cable at that point. This adventure was equally harmless
 A new aspect was given to-day to the engag cement al Cardenas, where En- sign Bagley and four men of the United States torpedo boat Winslow were killed by a statement of Insurgent Colonel John J. Jova. who has been fighting under General MaXimo Gomez. Colonel Jova has been in Cardenas since the engagement, and he says the mortality on the Spanish side was by no means so great as reported at that time in the United States. According to his information, which seems to be corrobOrated by the testimony of other Cubans taken aboard rom Cardenas by the vessels of the blOckading fleet, only nine pc. so, $ were killed on the Spanish side. A shell from one of the American ships fell on one of the streets of the town, killing two women and three children. while three sailors and one medical officer on the a Span ish gunboat fell under the fire of the United States ships.
 The firing from the shore was not from a masked battery but from the three Spanish gunboats, to attack which the Winslow was sent in. Two of them were disabled, but not per manently and the third ran away. According to JoVaS information the shells from the gunboat Wilmington did little execution, because she lay too far off shore.
 No fewer than three Spanish flags were brought down by the stray shots from the Wilmington's guns. One shell struck the flagpole on the Casino in the heart of the town, crashing through the roof and exploding in a china shop below. The place was wrecked, but no one was hurt. The second flag to come down was flying in the Spanish bar racks, and the third from building formerly used by the American Consul flying defiantly on the very pole where the Stars and Stripes had once waved. Curiously enough not one of these shots had been aimed at the flags, but the Spaniards were so amazed at what they considered the marvellous skill of the American gunners that every Span ish flag was hauled down.