THE FIGHT AT GUANTANAMO
As the southeastern coast of Cuba is high and bold, with deep water
extending close up to the line of surf, vessels going back and forth
between Santiago and Guantanamo run very near to the land; and the
ever-changing panorama of tropical forest and cloud-capped mountain
which presents itself to the eye as the steamer glides swiftly past,
within a mile of the rock-terraced bluffs and headlands, is a constant
source of surprise and delight, even to the most experienced voyager. It
is an extremely beautiful and varied coast. In the foreground, only a
rifle-shot away across the blue undulating floor of the Caribbean, rises
a long terraced mesa, fronting on the sea, with its rocky base in a
white smother of foaming surf, and its level summit half hidden by a
drooping fringe of dark-green chaparral and vines. Over the cyclopean
wall of this mesa appear the rounded tops of higher and more distant
foot-hills, densely clad in robes of perennial verdure, while beyond and
above them all, at a distance of five or six miles, rise the aerial
peaks of the splendid Sierra del Cobre, with a few summer clouds
drifting across their higher slopes and casting soft violet shadows into
the misty blue of their intervening valleys. Here and there the terraced
mesa, which forms the coast-line, is cut into picturesque castle-like
bluffs by a series of wedge-shaped clefts, or notches, and through the
openings thus made in the rocky wall one may catch brief glimpses of
deep, wild ravines down which mountain torrents from the higher peaks
tumble to the sea under the dense concealing shade of mango-and
mimosa-trees, vines, flowering shrubs, and the feathery foliage of
cocoanut and royal palms.
Wild, beautiful, and picturesque, however, as the coast appears to be,
not a sign does it anywhere show of a bay, an inlet, or a safe sheltered
harbor. For miles together the surf breaks almost directly against the
base of the terraced rampart which forms the coast-line, and even where
streams have cut deep V-shaped notches in the rocky wall, the strips of
beach formed at their mouths are wholly unsheltered and afford safe
places of landing only when the sea is smooth and the wind at rest.
Often, for days at a time, they are lashed by a heavy and dangerous
surf, which makes landing upon them in small boats extremely difficult,
if not absolutely impracticable.
About thirty-five miles from Santiago harbor, as one sails eastward, the
wall-like mesa on the left sinks from a height of two or three hundred
feet to a height of only twenty or thirty; the mountains of the Sierra
del Cobre come to an end or recede from the coast, leaving only a few
insignificant hills; and through a blue, tremulous heat-haze one looks
far inland over the broad, shallow valley of the Guantanamo River.
We entered the beautiful Bay of Guantanamo about half-past five o'clock
on Saturday afternoon, and found it full of war-ships and transports.
The white hospital steamer _Solace_ lay at anchor over toward the
western side of the harbor, and between her and the eastern shore were
the _Dolphin_, the _Eagle_, the _Resolute_, the _Marblehead_, and three
or four large black colliers from Key West. As we rounded the long, low
point on the western side of the entrance and steamed slowly into the
spacious bay, a small steam-launch came puffing out to meet us, and, as
soon as she was within hailing distance, an officer in the white uniform
of the navy rose in the stern-sheets, put his hands to his mouth, and
shouted: "Captain McCalla presents his compliments to the captain of the
_State of Texas_, and requests that you follow me and anchor between the
_Marblehead_ and the Haitian cable-steamer."
"All right," replied Captain Young, from the bridge.
"That sounds well," I said to one of the Red Cross men who was standing
near me. "It shows that things are not allowed to go helter-skelter
here."
We followed the little launch into the harbor and dropped anchor in the
place indicated, which was about one hundred yards from shore on the
eastern side of the channel, and just opposite the intrenched camp of
Colonel Huntington's marines. I was impatient to land and see the place
where the American flag had first been raised on Cuban soil; but
darkness came on soon, and it did not seem worth while to leave the ship
that night.
After breakfast on the following morning, I took a small boat and went
off to the _Marblehead_ to call upon Captain McCalla, who was in command
of the station. I had made his acquaintance in Washington, when he was
one of the members of a board appointed to consider means of sending
relief to the Greely arctic expedition; but I had not seen him in many
years, and it is not surprising, perhaps, that I almost failed to
recognize him in his Cuban costume. The morning was hot and oppressive,
and I found him clad in what was, in the strictest sense of the words,
an undress uniform, consisting of undershirt, canvas trousers, and an
old pair of slippers. Like the sensible man I knew him to be, he made no
apology for his dress, but welcomed me heartily and introduced me to
Captain Philip of the battle-ship _Texas_, who had just come into the
harbor after a fresh supply of coal. As I entered, Captain McCalla was
telling Captain Philip, with great glee, the story of his experience off
the Cuban coast between Morro Castle and Aguadores, when his vessel, the
_Marblehead_, was suddenly attacked one night by the whole blockading
fleet.
"They saw a railroad-train," he said, "running along the water's edge
toward Siboney, and in the darkness mistook it for a Spanish
torpedo-boat. The train, of course, soon disappeared; but I happened to
be cruising close inshore, just there, as it passed, and they all turned
their search-lights on me and opened fire."
"All except the _Iowa_," corrected Captain Philip, with a smile.
"Yes, all except the Iowa," assented Captain McCalla, laughing heartily,
as if it were the funniest of jokes. "Even the _Texas_ didn't show me
any mercy; but Bob Evans knew the difference between a railroad-train
and a torpedo-boat, and didn't shoot. I told him, the last time I saw
him, that he was clearly entitled to take a crack at me. Every other
ship in the fleet had had the privilege, and it was his turn. I'm the
only man in the navy," he said, with renewed laughter, "who has ever
sustained the fire of a whole fleet of battle-ships and cruisers and got
away alive."
After Captain Philip had made his call and taken his leave, I explained
to Captain McCalla the object of our coming to Guantanamo Bay, and asked
whether there were any Cuban refugees in the vicinity who needed food
and could be reached. He replied unhesitatingly that there were. He was
in almost daily communication, he said, with General Perez, an insurgent
leader who was then besieging Guantanamo city, and through that officer
he thought he could send food to a large number of people who had taken
refuge in the woods north of the bay and were in a destitute and
starving condition. He had already sent to them all the food he himself
could spare, but it was not half enough to meet their wants. With
characteristic promptness and energy he called his stenographer and
dictated a letter to General Perez, in which he said that Miss Clara
Barton, president of the American National Red Cross, had just reached
Guantanamo Bay in the steamer _State of Texas_, with fourteen hundred
tons of food intended for Cuban reconcentrados, and asked whether he
(Perez) could furnish pack-animals and an escort for, say, five thousand
rations, if they could be landed on the western side of the lower bay.
This letter he sent to General Perez by a special courier from the
detachment of Cubans then serving with the marines, and said that he
should probably receive a reply in the course of two or three days. As
nothing more could be done at that time, I returned to the _State of
Texas_, reported progress to Miss Barton, and then went on shore to send
a telegram to Washington by the Haitian cable, which had just been
recovered and repaired, and to take a look at the camp of the marines.
When, on May 26, Commodore Schley, with the Flying Squadron, arrived off
the entrance to Santiago harbor, and began the blockade of that port,
the great need of his vessels was a safe and sheltered coaling-station.
The heavy swell raised along the southern coast of Cuba by the
prevailing easterly winds makes it often dangerous and always difficult
to lay a collier alongside a battle-ship in the open sea and transfer
coal from one to the other. Understanding and appreciating this
difficulty, Secretary Long telegraphed Admiral Sampson on May 28 to
consider the question whether it would not be possible to "seize
Guantanamo and occupy it as a coaling-station." Sampson replied that he
thought it might be done, and immediately cabled Commodore Schley off
Santiago as follows: "Send a ship to examine Guantanamo with a view to
occupying it as a base, coaling one heavy ship at a time." The official
correspondence thus far published does not show whether Commodore Schley
received this order in time to act upon it before Sampson arrived or
not; but as soon as the latter came he caused a reconnaissance of
Guantanamo Bay to be made, decided that the lower part of it might be
seized by a comparatively small land force if protected by the guns of a
few war-ships, and immediately sent to Key West for the first battalion
of marines, which was the only available landing force at his command.
Meanwhile the auxiliary cruiser _Yankee_ bombarded and burned a Spanish
blockhouse situated on a hill near the entrance to the lower harbor of
Guantanamo, and on June 8 Captain McCalla, in the _Marblehead_, seized
and occupied--as far as he could do so without a landing force--all that
part of the bay which lies between the entrance and the narrow strait
leading to the fortified post of Caimanera.
The marines, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Huntington, arrived on
the steamer _Panther_, Friday, June 10, and proceeded at once to
disembark. The place selected for a landing was a low, rounded,
bush-covered hill on the right, or eastern, side of the bay, about a
quarter of a mile from the entrance. On the summit of this hill the
Spaniards had made a little clearing in the chaparral and erected a
small square blockhouse; but inasmuch as this blockhouse had already
been destroyed and its garrison driven to the woods by the fire of the
_Yankee_, all that the marines had to do was to occupy the abandoned
position and again fortify the hill. In some respects this hill, which
was about one hundred and fifty feet in height, made a strong and easily
defended position; but, unfortunately, it was covered nearly to the
summit with a dense growth of bushes and scrub, and was commanded by a
range of higher hills a little farther to the eastward. The enemy,
therefore, could not only creep close up to the camp under cover of the
dense chaparral, but could fire down upon it from the higher slopes of
the wooded range which runs parallel with the bay on its eastern side.
The landing was made, without opposition, about two o'clock on the
afternoon of Friday, June 10. Under cover of the guns of the war-ships,
the marines disembarked on the strip of beach at the foot of the hill;
burned all the houses and huts left by the Spaniards, so as to guard
against the danger of infection with yellow fever; and then deployed up
the hill, pitched their shelter-tents on its eastern slope, and spent
all the afternoon and a large part of the next day in landing ammunition
and stores, establishing outposts, and making arrangements for a
permanent camp.
The Spaniards, who must have been watching these operations from the
concealment of the bushes and from the slopes of the adjacent hills,
gave no sign, at first, of their presence; but seeing that the marines
were comparatively few in number, they finally plucked up courage, and
about five o'clock Saturday afternoon began a desultory, skirmishing
attack which lasted the greater part of that day and night, and, indeed,
continued, with an occasional intermission, for three or four days and
nights. Major Cochrane, who described the fight to me, said that he
slept only an hour and a half in four days, and that many of his men
became so exhausted that they fell asleep standing on their feet with
their guns in their hands.
The strength of the marine battalion at that time was between five and
six hundred men. They were armed with rifles of the Lee or Lee-Metford
pattern, and had, in addition, two automatic Colt machine-guns and three
rapid-fire Hotchkiss cannon of three-inch caliber. The greatest
disadvantage under which they labored was that due to the tangled,
almost impenetrable nature of the chaparral that surrounded the camp,
and the facilities which it afforded the enemy for concealment and
stealthy approach. The gunboats shelled the woods from time to time,
drove the hidden Spaniards back, and silenced their fire; but as soon as
night fell they would creep silently up through the bushes until they
were so near to the camp that the pickets of the marines could smell the
smoke of their cigarettes, and yet could neither see them nor hear them.
Then the nocturnal skirmishing would begin again. There were six
successive attacks from different directions on the night of the 11th,
and a still greater number on the night of the 12th, with more or less
desultory skirmishing during the day, so that for a period of
forty-eight hours the gallant marines had no rest or sleep at all.
There was some danger, at first, that the enemy, reinforced from
Caimanera or Guantanamo city, would assemble in force on the slopes of
the eastern hills, creep up through the scrub until they were within a
short distance of the camp, and then overwhelm the marines in a sudden
rush-assault. They were known to have six thousand regulars at
Guantanamo city, only about fifteen miles away, and it was quite within
the bounds of possibility that they might detach a large part of this
force for offensive operations on the eastern side of the lower bay. To
provide for this contingency, and to strengthen his defensive position,
Lieutenant-Colonel Huntington withdrew his men from the eastern slope of
the hill, where they had first been stationed, and posted them on the
crest and upper part of the western slope, where they would be nearer
the fleet and better protected by its guns. At the same time our small
force, in the intervals of fighting, dug a trench and erected a
barricade around the crest of the hill on the land side, so as to
enlarge the clearing, give more play to the automatic and rapid-fire
guns, and make it more difficult for the enemy to approach unseen. When
this had been done, there was little probability that a rush-assault
would succeed. The best troops in the world, unless they were in
overwhelming force, could hardly hope to cross a clearing that was swept
by the fire of six hundred rifles, two machine-guns, and three Hotchkiss
cannon hurling canister or shrapnel.
In the course of the first three days' engagement the marines were
joined by eighty or a hundred Cuban insurgents; but opinions differ as
to the value of the latter's cooeperation. Some officers with whom I
talked spoke favorably of them, while others said that they became
wildly excited, fired recklessly and at random, and were of little use
except as guides and scouts. Captain Elliott, who saw them under fire,
reported that they were brave enough, but that their efficiency as
fighting men was on a par with that of the enemy; while Captain McCalla
called attention officially to their devotion to freedom, and said that
one of them, who had been shot through the heart, died on the field,
crying with his last breath: "Viva Cuba libre!"
At the end of the third day's fighting, all attacks of the Spaniards
having been repulsed, Lieutenant-Colonel Huntington determined to take
the offensive himself. About six miles southeast of the camp, at a place
called Cuzco, there was a well from which the Spanish troops were said
to obtain all their drinking-water, and a heliograph signal-station by
means of which they maintained communication with Caimanera. On the
morning of June 14 Captain Elliott, with two companies of marines and
about fifty Cuban volunteers, was sent to attack this place, drive the
Spaniards away, and destroy the well and signal-station. The
expeditionary force engaged the enemy, five hundred strong, about eleven
o'clock in the morning, and fought with them until three in the
afternoon, driving them from their position and inflicting upon them a
loss of sixty men killed and one hundred and fifty wounded. Then, after
capturing the heliograph outfit, burning the station, and filling up the
well, the heroic little detachment returned, exhausted but triumphant,
to its camp, with a loss of only two men killed, six wounded, and twenty
or thirty overcome by heat.
On the fourth day of the long struggle for the possession of Guantanamo
Bay, the Spaniards virtually gave up the contest and abandoned the
field. A few guerrillas still remained in the chaparral, firing
occasionally at long range either into the camp or at the vessels of the
fleet; but, finally, even this desultory, long-range target practice
ceased, and the last of the enemy fled, either to the fort at Caimanera
or to Guantanamo city, leaving the plucky marines in undisputed control
of the whole eastern coast of the lower bay. Our total loss in the
series of engagements was only six men killed and twelve or fifteen
wounded; but among the killed was the lamented Dr. Gibbs, acting
assistant surgeon, United States navy, who was shot at one o'clock on
the night of the 11th.
After the four days of fighting were over, Captain McCalla, with the
_Marblehead_, the auxiliary cruiser _St. Louis_, and the battle-ship
_Texas_, steamed up the bay to the little village of Caimanera,
demolished the fort there with a few well-directed shots, and drove the
garrison back into the woods. In the course of this expedition the
_Marblehead_ and the _Texas_ ran into a number of submarine contact
mines, or fouled them with their screws; but, fortunately, none of them
exploded. The firing-pins had become so incrusted with barnacles and
other marine growths during their long immersion that the force of the
blow when the ships struck them did not drive them in far enough to
explode the charges. When we reached Guantanamo in the _State of
Texas_, Captain McCalla's boats and launches had thoroughly explored and
dragged the lower bay, and had taken out safely no less than thirteen
contact mines, each containing about one hundred pounds of guncotton.
The upper bay was still in the possession of the Spaniards; but its
control was not a matter of any particular importance. What Admiral
Sampson wanted was a safe and sheltered coaling-and repairing-station
for the vessels of his fleet, and this he obtained when his war-ships
and marines, after four days of almost incessant fighting, drove the
Spanish troops from the whole eastern coast of the lower bay.