Charge! The Story of the Battle of San Juan Hill

A. C. M. Azoy

• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781789124224
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The Battle of San Juan Hill of July 1, 1898, also known as the battle for the San Juan Heights, was a decisive battle of the Spanish-American War. The San Juan heights was a north-south running elevation about 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) east of Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. This fight for the heights was the bloodiest and most famous battle of the war. It was also the location of the so called "greatest victory" for the Rough Riders, as stated by the press and its new commander, Theodore Roosevelt, who eventually became vice president and later president of the United States, and who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for his actions in Cuba.In Charge! The Story of the Battle of San Juan Hill, Colonel Azoy reconstructs the events of the Battle of San Juan Hill, the climax of the Spanish-American War, a war that so strongly shaped the course of American Development and one that has until now been curiously ignored in the annals of American historical writing.

I—REVEILLE—[JANUARY 1—APRIL 25]

OF ALL THE MIDNIGHT celebrations of December 31, 1897, welcoming the new year of 1898, none—not even the holiday high jinks in the luxurious lobbies of New York’s recently opened Waldorf-Astoria—aroused more enthusiastic gaiety than that offered by a man-of-war of the United States Navy, moored in lonely majesty in the harbor of Key West, at the very tip of Florida.

As the ship’s bell sounded the eight strokes that marked the last hour of the old year a boatswain’s pipe shrilled from the dark mass of the ironclad and on the instant strings of electric lights blazed into a dazzling outline of hull, funnels, masts, and rigging. The effect on the surprised onlookers of this sudden and undreamed-of spectacle was overwhelming. Salvos of applause, whistles, and cheers burst spontaneously from the watchers on the shore and the neighboring ships, and next day the local paper enthusiastically termed the show “one of the finest displays of electricity ever witnessed in the city, or perhaps in the south.” With such a splendid start, the Key West citizenry gaily assured each other, 1898 should indeed be a happy New Year for all.

But, as the year turned out, a less accurate symbol of happiness than the gleaming silhouette that shone so bravely there in the soft Florida night, or one more inappropriate to serve as an omen of peace and prosperity, would have been hard to find. For the ship was the U.S.S. Maine, destined in six short weeks to inspire and lend her name to a national call to arms.

For a month the Maine had idly swung at her harbor buoy, her white hull and buff superstructure dominating the local seascape. By day her crew could be seen busy at drill and assorted tasks of marine housekeeping; by night her shore liberty parties were equally active in acquiring chronic indigestion from the fried pork and possum urged on them by the city’s hospitable inhabitants, and everyone wondered why such a ship should be so long sequestered in a harbor that even the most rabid Key West booster would have to admit was a port of something less than national importance. Only the Maine’s commander, Captain Charles D. Sigsbee, knew the answer and that answer was in navy orders marked “Confidential.”

As a member of our North Atlantic Squadron under doughty old Admiral Sicard the Maine had spent the summer of ‘97 off the New England coast. Target practices and fleet maneuvers were pleasantly interspersed with visits to Newport, Bar Harbor, and other highly social ports of call that delightfully dulled the ugly rumors that with increasing frequency were drifting up from the Spanish island colony of Cuba, a paltry ninety miles or so from our southernmost coast. For more than two generations the Cuban colonists had been agitating for an autonomous status for their country. Over the years this agitation had taken various forms, ranging from passive resistance to a shooting war with all the trimmings of burned plantation houses, ruined crops, starving peasants, homeless refugees, and the killing of innocent bystanders. Now at last Spain was determined that the island unrest should be stopped once and for all, and to see that it was she sent over her most experienced pacifier, one General Weyler. His primitive pacification methods soon earned him the accurate but hardly affectionate nickname of “Butcher” and served to inflame still further the resentment which most Americans had long felt against Spain’s rough treatment of her Cuban subjects. Recruits for the Cuban insurrectos were secretly enlisted in the United States and spirited across the Caribbean; the single-starred Cuban flag was designed and first flown in New York City; guns and ammunition were smuggled from our shores to the Cuban insurgents by American filibusters whose descendants would, in years to come, smuggle rum in the opposite direction. Diplomatic relations between Uncle Sam and the Castilian crown were becoming decidedly strained, and when William Randolph Hearst of the New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World heedlessly seized upon the headline news possibilities inherent in this tenuous situation to promote the circulations of their rival sheets, official Washington was gravely apprehensive over what might happen. What did at last happen to cause the final rupture between the two countries could not have been less provoked nor more provoking.

One of the outstanding viewers-with-alarm of the national scene was our consul in Havana, ex-confederate General Fitzhugh Lee, West Point ‘56, and a nephew of old “Massa Robert” himself. He openly espoused the Cuban cause and was firmly convinced that he was in consequence surrounded by deep-laid plots against the United States which could only be thwarted by a show of American armed might. In weary capitulation to the consuls daily warnings of the critical situations which he felt were constantly threatening him, Washington had finally agreed to hold a warship in readiness to come to his aid if really needed, and the Maine—detached from the squadron—would be that ship. Ostensibly she would be berthed at Key West to prevent the running of contraband from the United States to the Cuban rebel forces, but actually she would be prepared at all times to set out at full speed for Havana when called. The starting signal would be given by Lee himself; remarkably, the Navy had waived all requirements for communicating through official channels and the consul was authorized to address Sigsbee directly, using a code prepared especially for the occasion. At the first sign of actual danger, Lee was to send to the Maine’s captain by cable or courier—there was more than a little evidence that American mail was tampered with in the Havana post office—the simple message “Two dollars.” This would alert the warship to be on her way within two hours after the receipt of a second message of a similarly innocuous nature. Meanwhile, genial and kindly William McKinley in the White House was hopefully prophesying that Spain would effect an honorable settlement of her colonial difficulties, and all in all it seemed that the quiet tenor of our national ways would continue unbroken.

Captain Sigsbee was a notable exception to the number of those who happily contemplated this idyllic outlook. He already had received a message from the Navy Department that the Maine was to rejoin Admiral Sicard’s squadron when it arrived off Key West on January 23; now he got another wire that contained only the cryptic words “Two dollars” and was signed “Lee.” If Sigsbee felt any portentous connection between these two cables he gave no sign of it Obviously, Lee was getting jittery about something that might happen in Havana, but against this vague contingency was the very definite directive that the Maine would return to the fleet, and she fell in with her sister ships exactly on schedule.

By twilight of the 24th the fleet had reached its berth off the Dry Tortugas, and as the anchor chains rattled through the hawse holes, the flagship New York broke out the welcome signal “Bank your fires.” Apparently the squadron was going to take it easy for a while, and the crews thankfully began to prepare for a few days’ respite from their strenuous drill and maneuver program. All, that is, but Sigsbee. Moved by a sudden impulse that he could afterward explain only as a “strange premonition” he ordered the Maine’s black gang merely to spread their fires. Within three hours his unusual action was vindicated

Two bells (nine o’clock for landlubbers) was echoing from the decks of the fleet when Sigsbee sighted the dispatch boat DuPont roaring up under forced draft, burning signal flares to ensure immediate recognition. The urgency of the DuPont’s arrival from the direction of Key West gave the Maine’s skipper another of his “strange premonitions”; as he later recalled it, “I felt the DuPont might carry orders for the Maine to go to Havana, and I piped all hands to their stations so we could start at once.” Again his hunch proved correct.

No sooner had Admiral Sicard received the DuPont’s commander than the red and white signal lights on the flagship summoned Sigsbee to come aboard. His visit was brief. “The Navy Department orders the Maine to proceed to Havana for a friendly visit of undetermined length,” said Sicard. “How soon can she be ready to go?” The captain reached for his cap. “She is ready now, sir,” he replied and, at the admiral’s gratified nod, was over the side to his waiting gig.

Within two hours the Maine’s engine room reported a full head of steam. Anchors were off the bottom, sailing lights lit, lookouts posted, and high on the bridge Sigsbee turned to his executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Richard Wainwright, and gave the most fateful order of his naval career: “Take her out, sir!” So for the last time the U.S.S. Maine left her home waters, slipping softly past the sleeping ships she would never sail with again, heading toward that other harbor where destiny was waiting for her.

Back in his cabin Captain Sigsbee finished checking his orders for the morrow—a Cuban landfall to be made east of Havana, the course then along the coast to bring the Maine to the city about eleven o’clock, everybody in dress blues, saluting batteries ready, the largest U.S. ensign at the stern. Calling William Anthony, his Marine orderly, the captain sent the orders to the bridge and then in his diary permitted himself a puzzled comment; “I do not know the precise reason which induced the United States Government to act at this time.” If he had known, he would have been even more puzzled.

At about the same time that the Maine was meeting up with Sicard’s ships off Key West, that eccentric but astute newspaper publisher, James Gordon Bennett, decided that his New York Herald should have a special correspondent in Havana to furnish firsthand reports on the worrisome Spanish-Cuban situation, which daily seemed to be getting worse. So to join the other foreign press representatives in the capital of that troubled isle, Bennett dispatched John Caldwell, one of the ablest newshounds on his staff, whose ability to ferret out secret and confidential information was equalled only by his adroitness in getting such information back to his paper.

Knowing of the strict censorship Spain was imposing on all Cuban dispatches, Caldwell, before leaving New York, had fixed up a private code of his own with the Herald’s cable editor. This commendable bit of foresight would prove its worth as soon as he had established himself in Havana’s Hotel Ingleterra and found it expedient secretly to ask his home office to furnish him some means of personal protection—pistol preferred—against possible assaults by the resident Yankee-haters. The Herald obligingly sent Caldwell a revolver. And only a revolver; no cartridges came with it. Foreigners were forbidden to purchase ammunition in Havana and as his special code contained nothing that would cover this situation, Caldwell slyly reported back to New York: “Camera arrived but no films. Please rush by next steamer.” To this he signed his full name signifying that the message was in cipher, and hoped his cable editor would get the point.

That gentleman not only did not get the point, but he never got the message. He was off duty the night Caldwell’s message arrived and his young assistant, knowing nothing of any revolver nor the private Caldwell code, assumed that the wire was a regular dispatch and turned to the newspaper’s code book to decipher it. When he had completed his translation he gave it one startled look and fled with it to City Editor Reick. The innocent-appearing text had surprisingly turned out to be a grim bulletin that the U.S. Consulate in Havana was under attack by anti-American mobs!

Reick wasted no time. Grabbing a phone he alerted the chief of his Washington Bureau to inform all appropriate government officials of the situation. The bureau chief wasted no time either, and a hurried conference of Navy and State Department executives resulted in Reick’s cabling back to Caldwell: “Send report Cuban cane crop. Want for main section.” Decoded, this meant “U.S. man-of-war ordered Havana. Ship is Maine.”

Now it was Caldwell’s turn to get excited. Bounding from his office he sought out General Lee and to that surprised individual breathlessly repeated the news he had just received, Lee was incredulous. Only two days ago the Navy had asked him about sending the Maine to Cuba and he had advised against it, and just that very morning he had again cabled Washington that the local Spanish authorities felt such a visit should by all means be postponed until the matter had been referred to Madrid.

His expostulations were interrupted by the thud of gunfire from the harbor, and he and Caldwell rushed to the window to see the Maine busily exchanging salutes with a shore battery as she swung up to her predesignated harbor berth between the Spanish flagship Alfonso XII and the German training ship Gneisenau. It seemed unimportant at the time, but the fact that the Maine’s mooring buoy was officially listed as “No. 3” on the harbor charts and had inexplicably been renamed “No. 4” just before her arrival was later to have sinister implications, particularly when it was whispered that no foreign ship had ever before been allotted that particular spot for anchorage.

Reluctantly Lee cabled the State Department: “Ship arrived quietly 11 A.M. today. No demonstration” and just to cover himself, sulkily added, “so far.” He then sought a siesta in his quarters, only to be interrupted by a superfluous message from Washington that confirmed what he had unhappily known for two hours: “Maine has been ordered. Will arrive Havana some time tomorrow, Tuesday. Probably early. Co-operate with authorities for her friendly visit. Keep advised by frequent telegrams.”

Three days later the official cordiality of the Maine’s reception was given a more personal emphasis when General Parrado, Cuba’s deputy governor, offered Captain Sigsbee a box for the Sunday bullfight in the name of the governor, General Ramon Blanco, accompanying the invitation with a case of fine old sherry. The captain accepted both gifts with pleasure. To show his appreciation he sent with his acceptance a presentation copy of his own monumental work Deep Sea Sounding and Dredging, an amiable gesture which, while it may have been of doubtful fascination to a landbound Army man, was received with every manifestation of gratitude.

Fitzhugh Lee prefaced the bullfight party with an elaborate luncheon at the Havana Yacht Club for the Maine’s senior officers, following which Sigsbee and his staff went to the fight arena, somewhat fearful that although they were in civilian clothes they might receive unfriendly attentions from the Spanish spectators. But except for a few dark looks from their immediate neighbors nothing untoward took place, the only really serious portent of the afternoon being a large poster printed in Spanish which someone thrust into Sigsbee’s hand as he passed through the Havana railroad station. Back on their own quarterdeck that evening, the captain and his officers read the handbill as quickly as they could translate it. They found it extremely interesting reading.

Across the top a headline screamed: “SPANIARDS! Long Live Spain With Honor!” followed by the query: “What are you doing that you allow yourselves to be insulted in this way?” Without specifying the insult the text continued with a special paragraph devoted exclusively to the Maine. “These Yankee pigs who meddle in our affairs, humiliating us to the last degree and, for a still greater taunt, order us a man-of-war of their rotten squadron.” The text ended with the exhortation: “Death to the Americans! Death to autonomy! Long live Spain!”

And just to make sure American readers would get the idea, there was scribbled in English along the bottom margin: “Look out for your ship!”

If any further evidence were needed that Havana was not 100 per cent pro-Yankee, it was immediately supplied by a large billboard in the city depicting a Cuban loyalist about to insert a banana peel under the foot of an arrogant Uncle Sam; plainly the best way for the Maine’s crew to keep out of trouble in Havana was to keep out of Havana. However, Captain Sigsbee entertained many of the local diplomatic and social leaders on his ship, but it was noticeable that no officers of the Spanish Army or Navy ever came aboard except on strictly official business.

Meanwhile, the safety of the Maine herself was jealously guarded. Sentries with rifles and live ammunition were posted on the bridge and at all gangways, and extra stands of guns and ammunition were kept ready for l...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• ATTENTION!
• SALUTE!
• DEDICATION
• I-REVEILLE-[JANUARY 1-APRIL 25]
• II-FIRST CALL-[APRIL 25-APRIL 29]
• III-ASSEMBLY-[APRIL 30-June 14]
• IV-FORWARD-MARCH!-[JULY 14-JULY 31]
• V-COMMENCE FIRING-[JUNE 24-JUNE 31]
• VI-CHARGE!-[JULY 1]
• VII-RECALL-[JULY 2-SEPTEMBER 1]
• VIII-DISMISS
• AWARDS OF THE MEDAL OF HONOR IN THE CUBAN CAMPAIGN
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER