The Boys of '98

    “Shafter, Major-General.”

July 17. The ceremony of surrendering the city was impressive, and, as can well be imagined, thrilling for those boys of ’98 who had been standing face to face with death in the trenches.

At six o’clock in the morning Lieutenant Cook, of General Shafter’s staff, entered the city, and all the arms in the arsenal were turned over to him. The work of removing the mines which obstructed navigation at the entrance of the harbour had been progressing all night. At about seven o’clock General Toral, the Spanish commander, sent his sword to General Shafter, as evidence of his submission, and at 8.45 A. M. all the general officers and their staffs assembled at General Shafter’s headquarters. Each regiment was drawn up along the crest of the heights.

Shortly after nine o’clock the Ninth Infantry entered the city. This position of honour was given them as a reward for their heroic assault on San Juan Hill.

The details of the surrender are thus described by a correspondent of the Associated Press, who accompanied General Shafter’s staff:

“General Shafter and his generals, with mounted escort of one hundred picked men of the Second Cavalry, then rode over our trenches to the open ground at the foot of the hill on the main road to Santiago, midway to the then deserted Spanish works. There they were met by General Toral and his staff, all in full uniform and mounted, and a select detachment of Spanish troops.

“What followed took place in full view of our troops.

“The scene was picturesque and dramatic. General Shafter, with his generals and their staffs grouped immediately in their rear, and with the troops of dashing cavalrymen with drawn sabres on the left, advanced to meet the vanquished foe.

“After a few words of courteous greeting, General Shafter’s first act was to return General Toral’s sword. The Spanish general appeared to be touched by the complimentary words with which General Shafter accompanied this action, and he thanked the American commander feelingly.

“Then followed a short conversation as to the place selected for the Spanish forces to deposit their arms, and a Spanish infantry detachment marched forward to a position facing our cavalry, where the Spaniards were halted. The latter were without their colours.

“Eight Spanish trumpeters then saluted, and were saluted, in turn, by our trumpeters, both giving flourishes for lieutenant and major-generals.

“General Toral then personally ordered the Spanish company, which in miniature represented the forces under his command, to ground arms. Next, by his direction, the company wheeled and marched across our lines to the rear, and thence to the place selected for camping them. The Spaniards moved rapidly, to the quick notes of the Spanish march, played by the companies; but it impressed one like the ‘Dead March’ from Saul.

“Although no attempt was made to humiliate them, the Spanish soldiers seemed to feel their disgrace keenly, and scarcely glanced at their conquerors as they passed by. But this apparent depth of feeling was not displayed by the other regiments. Without being sullen, the Spaniards appeared to be utterly indifferent to the reverses suffered by the Spanish arms, and some of them, when not under the eyes of their officers, seemed to secretly rejoice at the prospect of food and an immediate return to Spain.

“General Toral, throughout the ceremony, was sorely dejected. When General Shafter introduced him by name to each member of his staff, the Spanish general appeared to be a very broken man. He seems to be about sixty years of age, and of frail constitution, although stern resolution shone in every feature. The lines are strongly marked, and his face is deep drawn, as if with physical pain.

“General Toral replied with an air of abstraction to the words addressed to him, and when he accompanied General Shafter at the head of the escort into the city, to take formal possession of Santiago, he spoke but few words. The appealing faces of the starving refugees streaming back into the city did not move him, nor did the groups of Spanish soldiers lining the road and gazing curiously at the fair-skinned, stalwart-framed conquerors. Only once did a faint shadow of a smile lurk about the corners of his mouth.

“This was when the cavalcade passed through a barbed-wire entanglement. No body of infantry could ever have got through this defence alive, and General Shafter’s remark about its resisting power found the first gratifying echo in the defeated general’s heart.

“Farther along the desperate character of the Spanish resistance, as planned, amazed our officers. Although primitive, it was well done. Each approach to the city was thrice barricaded and wired, and the barricades were high enough and sufficiently strong to withstand shrapnel. The slaughter among our troops would have been frightful had it ever become necessary to storm the city.

“Around the hospitals and public buildings and along the west side of the line there were additional works and emplacements for guns, though no guns were mounted in them.

“The streets of Santiago are crooked, with narrow lines of one-storied houses, most of which are very dilapidated, but every veranda of every house was thronged by its curious inhabitants, – disarmed soldiers. These were mostly of the lower classes.

“Few expressions of any kind were heard along the route. Here and there was a shout for free Cuba from some Cuban sympathiser, but as a rule there were only low mutterings. The better class of Spaniards remained indoors, or satisfied their curiosity from behind drawn blinds.

“Several Spanish ladies in tumble-down carriages averted their faces as we passed. The squalor in the streets was frightful. The bones of dead horses and other animals were bleaching in the streets, and buzzards, as tame as sparrows, hopped aside to let us pass.

“The windows of the hospitals, in which there are over fifteen hundred sick men, were crowded with invalids, who dragged themselves there to witness our incoming.

“The palace was reached soon after ten o’clock. There General Toral introduced General Shafter and the other American generals to the alcalde, Señor Feror, and to the chief of police, Señor Guiltillerrez, as well as to the other municipal authorities.

“Luncheon was then served at the palace. The meal consisted mainly of rum, wine, coffee, rice, and toasted cake. This scant fare occasioned many apologies on the part of the Spaniards, but it spoke eloquently of their heroic resistance. The fruit supply of the city was absolutely exhausted, and the Spaniards had nothing to live on except rice, on which the soldiers in the trenches of Santiago have subsisted for the last twelve days.”

Ten thousand people witnessed the ceremony of hoisting the stars and stripes over the governor’s palace in Santiago.

A finer stage setting for a dramatic episode it would be difficult to imagine. The palace, a picturesque old dwelling in the Moorish style of architecture, faces the Plaza de la Reina, the principal public square. Opposite rises the imposing Catholic cathedral. On one side is a quaint, brilliantly painted building with broad verandas, the club of San Carlos; on the other a building of much the same description, the Café de la Venus.

Across the plaza was drawn up the Ninth Infantry, headed by the Sixth Cavalry band. In the street facing the palace stood a picked troop of the Second Cavalry, with drawn sabres, under command of Captain Brett. Massed on the stone flagging between the band and the line of horsemen were the brigade commanders of General Shafter’s division, with their staffs. On the red-tiled roof of the palace stood Captain McKittrick, Lieutenant Miles, and Lieutenant Wheeler. Immediately above them, above the flagstaff, was the illuminated Spanish arms, and the legend, “Vive Alphonso XIII.”

All about, pressing against the veranda rails, crowding to windows and doors, and lining the roofs, were the people of the town, principally women and non-combatants.

As the chimes of the old cathedral rang out the hour of twelve, the infantry and cavalry presented arms. Every American uncovered, and Captain McKittrick hoisted the stars and stripes. As the brilliant folds unfurled in the gentle breeze against the fleckless sky, the cavalry band broke into the strains of “The Star Spangled Banner,” making the American pulse leap and the American heart thrill with joy.

At the same instant the sound of the distant booming of Captain Capron’s battery, firing a salute of twenty-one guns, drifted in.

When the music ceased, from all directions around our lines came flying across the plaza the strains of the regimental bands and the muffled, hoarse cheers of our troops.

The infantry came to “order arms” a moment later, after the flag was up, and the band played “Rally Round the Flag, Boys.”

Instantly General McKibben called for three cheers for General Shafter, which were given with great enthusiasm, the band playing “The Stars and Stripes For Ever.”

The ceremony over, General Shafter and his staff returned to the American lines, leaving the city in the possession of the municipal authorities subject to the control of General McKibben, who had been appointed temporary military governor.

CHAPTER XIV.

MINOR EVENTS

June 24. The details of the bloodless capture of the principal of the Ladrone Islands are thus told by a private letter from the naval officer who figured in the leading rôle of the exploit, Lieutenant William Braunerzruther, executive officer of the cruiser Charleston:

    “U. S. S. Charleston, at Sea and One
    “Thousand Miles from Manila,
    “June 24, 1898.

“We have just carried out our orders to capture the Spanish authorities at the capital of the Ladrone Islands, Agana. I was selected by the captain to undertake this job, and given 160 men to land as a starter.

“I went ashore to have a talk with the governor about affairs, and the results were that I did not lose even a single man. The matter was all settled in one day, and we are carrying with us fifty-four soldiers (Spanish) and six officers, besides a lot of Mauser rifles and nearly ten thousand pounds of ammunition.

“I had the whole to handle, and did it quickly. The captain’s instructions were to wait a half hour for his answer to our ultimatum, then use my troops. I waited, and in just twenty-nine minutes the governor handed me his sealed reply addressed to the captain of our ship out in the harbour about four or five miles off.

“I knew this was sealed with the sole object of gaining time, and hence I broke the seal, read the contents, the governor protesting and saying that was a letter for my captain. I replied: ‘I represent him here. You are now my prisoners, and will have to come on board ship with me.’

“They protested and pleaded, and finally the governor said:

“ ‘You came on shore to talk over matters, and you make us prisoners instead.’ I replied: ‘I came on shore to hand you a letter and to get your reply; in this reply, now in my hand, you agree to surrender all under your jurisdiction. If this means anything at all, it means that you will accede to any demands I may deem proper to make. You will at once write an order to your military man at Agana (the capital; this place was five miles distant), directing him to deliver at this place at four P. M. (it was 10.30 A. M., June 21st) all ammunition and flags in the island, each soldier to bring his own rifle and ammunition, and all soldiers, native and Spanish, with their officers, must witness this.’

“They protested and demurred, saying there was not time enough to do it, but I said: ‘Señors, it must be done.’

“The letter was written, read by me, and sent. I took all the officers with me in a boat, and at four P. M. went ashore again and rounded in the whole outfit. I was three miles away from my troops, and I had only four men with me. At four P. M., when I disarmed 108 men and two officers, I had forty-six men and three officers with me.

“The key-note to the whole business was my breaking the seal of that letter and acting at once. They had no time to delay or prepare any treacherous tricks, and I got the ‘drop’ on the whole outfit, as they say out West.

“The native troops I released and allowed to return to their homes unrestricted; they had manifested great joy in being relieved from Spanish rule. While it is harsh, it is war, and in connection with the Spanish treachery it was all that could be done.

“Twenty-four hours would have – yes, I believe even four hours with a leader such as the governor was, a lieutenant-colonel in the Spanish army – given them a chance to hide along the road to Agana, and at intervals in the dense tropical foliage they could have almost annihilated any force that could land.