The age-herald., 1899-01-27
WHY DEWEY STOPPETI
 THE TRUE REASON

Joseph L. sticHney in Harper's Magazine | for February.
 What was the most interesting and im-
 portant of all the events that occurred dur
 ing the battle of Manila Bay?' This question has been put to me so often since my return from the Philippines that
 l am glad to be at liberty-now that peace
 is assured-to answer it without risk of glv- ing aid and comfort to the enemy.
 It has always been assumed in the
 United States that from start to finish,
 there was nothing felt on our side except a
 buoyant certainty of victory It will do no
 harm now to tell the real facts.
 It will be remembered that the battle be-
 gan at six minutes past 5 o'clock the
 morning of May l; that Commodore (now
 Rear AdmiraD Dewey led the line of Amer
 iean warships into action in his flagship
 Olympia that, after fierce fight, lasting
 two hours and half, the attacking fleet
 retired from the battle into the center of
 Manila Bay, and did not renew the attack
 until nearly four hours later.
 When we hauled off from the fighting line,
 at 7:S6 O clock, the situation had become ap- parently serious for Commodore Dewey. We had been fighting determined and
 courageous enemy for-more than two hours without having notieeaby diminished the volume of his fire It is true, at least three
 of his ships had broken into flames, but so
 had one of ours-the Boston. These fires had all been put out without apparent in- jury to the ships Generally speaking, noth- ing of great importance had occurred to
 show that we had seriously injured any Spanish vessel. They were all steaming
 apout in the blight back of Sangley point,
 or in Bakor Bay, as actively as when we first sighted them in the early dawn. So far, therefore, we could see nothing indi-
 eating that the enemy was less able to de- fend his position than he had been at the
 beginning,
 On the other hand, our condition was
 greatly altered for the worse. There re-
 nlained in the magazines of the Olympia
 only eighty-five rounds of 5-inch ammuni- ton, and though the stock of S-fncn charges
 was not proportionately depeted.it was re- duced enough to make the continuance or
 the battle for another two hours impossible When it is remembered that Commodore Dewey was more than 1000 miles from home port, and that under the most favor- able conditions a supply of ammunition could not be obtained in less than month, the outlook was far from being satisfactory. The commodore knew that the Spaniards had just received an ample supply of am- munition in the transport Mindanao, so that there was no hope of eXhausting their fighting power vy an action lasting twice
 as long. If we should run short of powder anu she'll we might become the hunted 1n- stead of the hunters
 I do not exaggerate in the least when I
 say that, as we hauled off into the bay, the gloom on the bridge of the Olympia was
 thicker than a London fog in November. Neither Commodore Dewey nor any of the
 staff believed that the Spanish ships had
 been sufficiently injured by our fire to pre-
 vent them from renewing the battle quite
 as furiously they had previously fought. Indeed, we had all been directly dtsap-
 pointed in the results of our fire. Our pro-
 jectiles seemed to go too high or too low
 just as had been the case with those fired at us by the Spanards. Several times the
 commodore had expressed dissatisfaction with the failure of our gunners to hit the enemy. We had begun the firing at too great a distance, but we had gradually worked in further on each of the turns, until we were within about 2,500 yards at the close of the fifth round. At that dis tance, in smooth sea, we ought to have made a large percentage of hits; yet, so far as we could judge, we had not sensibly crippled the foe. Consequently Commodore Dewey hauled out into the open bay at the end of the fifth round to take stock of am-
 
 As went aft the men asked me what we were hauling off for They were in dis t:nctly different humor from that which prevailed on the bridge. They believed that they had done well, and that the other ships had done likewise. The Olympia cheered the Baltimore, and the Baltimore returned the cheers with interest. The gun captains were not at all dissatisfied with the results of their work. Whether they had a better knowledge of the accu- racy of their aim than we had on the bridge, or whether they took it for granted that the enemy must have suffered severely after so much fighting I do not know; at
 any rate they were eager to go on with the battle, and were confident of victory. I told one of them that we were merely hauling off for breakfast. which statement elicited the appeal to Captain Lamberton, as he came past moment later:
 "For Gods sake, captain, don't let US stop now. To hell with breakfast!' When I told the commodore that I in- tended to attribute our withdrawal to the need for breakfast, he int mated that it was not matter of so much importance what reason I gave, so long as I did not give the true one. And so the breakfast epi- sode went to the world as plausible excuse for what seemed like an extraordinary stragetic maneuver-one which has been the subject of more comment than almost any other event during the battle. Many peo-
 pie have said to me that it would be pity to spoil so good story by telling the truth but as the commodore will be sure to let the cat out of the bag some day, may as well let her have her freedom now. Of course we learned the truth about the effect of our fire when we saw, soon af- terward, the flames rising from the Reina Cristina and the Castilla, and heard the explosion of their ammunition and the for rner's magazine.