Our War with Spain for Cuba's Freedom

res from Mexico and P

ain the Scene of Pir

nd Other Cities Thr

American Troops from

ory on Land and Sea

cans from Fever-Lesso

Hav

galleons sailed with their loads of treasure, stolen from the Montezumas and the Incas. Year after year, rich argosies, laden with gold and silver to replenish the extravagant treasury of the Spanish crown, crossed th

he Gulf of Mexico, and the adjacent waters, became the haunt of buccaneers and pirates, some under flags of European nations, and others under the black flag. Desperate fights were the lot of almost every Spanish galleon that sailed those seas, and fabulous prizes sometimes were taken under the sk

ts of buccaneers and privateers who careened their ships on shore for repairs, or held high revel on the beaches after their triumph over some Spanish treasure fleet

irate chiefs seeking relaxation from their customary life. Others of the buccaneers hoarded their wealth in hiding places known only to themselves, the secret of which must have died with them, while the gold remains undiscovered. All through the Florida keys and the West India islands, as well as along the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas, traditions still exist in

RAIDS TROU

his wealth. The result of this was that they began to make descents upon the coasts, not only of Cuba, but of the neighboring islands of Jamaica and Santo Domingo. The expens

t the office of Captain General was created, in which the governor shared military and civil authority alike. Havana fortifications were hastened to completion and the preparations for defense began, which never have been materia

anishing point, and there was a lack of sufficient labor for the cultivation of tobacco and sugar cane, the chief products of Spanish agriculture in the island. It was to promote

horrors of the trade cannot be magnified and are too distressing for repetition. It is sufficient to say that in Havana it is understood that the harbor was free from sharks which now swarm there, until they followed the slave ships from the African coasts in m

THREATENS SPAN

ing it were utterly defeated, the governor was killed, and many of the inhabitants removed, in consequence, to Cuba. From Jamaica the same fleet sailed for Havana, but the attack was repulsed and the ships abandoned the attempt. Except for the encroachments of the French upon the island of Santo Domingo, and the continual piratical incursions of French a

the interests involved elsewhere. It is almost forgotten in America, in spite of the bearing of all its contemporary incidents upon the rap

e their number of Spaniards fully provisioned and strongly intrenched. It proved that Havana could be successfully assaulted by a combined military and naval force, regardless of her picturesque but obsolete fortifications. Spain's lack of administrative ability in the later war as well

nal character; for though the annals of Spain are filled with instances of individual courage of the first rank, demoralization sets in as soon as they come together in numbers in the face of a civilized foe. Their chief maneuver in the course of a century and a half, has been just plain running a

may be searched in vain, either in the old or new world, for a defense as able in point of generalship or as stubborn in resistance as the Spaniards made at the siege of Havana. In all other cases, from the Elizabethan cam

consisted of nineteen ships of the line, eighteen frigates or smaller men-of-war, and 150 transports containing about 10,000 soldiers, nearly all infantry. At the

NTELLECTU

partially ruinous condition, and the fourteen ships of the line which were lying in the harbor before the city in such a state that they could hardly be called in commission. The Spanish army of defense numbered 27,000 men, and was in better condition; but the Spanish sailors were utterly demoralized by the granting of too much shore liberty, and the best use the Spaniard could put his fighting ships to was by si

to day, the water supply was wholly insufficient, and the little obtainable was so tainted as to make its use fraught with danger. There was no pilot who knew the roadstead in order to lead the ships against the Morro and the Puntal for many days. In throwing up the parallels and approaches to the walls of the city on the landward side, the soldiers found such scarcity of

ES IN

and who was to take that breakneck ride a few years later to escape the very troops with whom he was now associated. The entire force of 2,300 provincials under General Lyman's command was not a mere bevy of raw militia. Nearly all of them had seen service against the French in those well trained and active forces which were given the general name of "Rangers;" the officers especially, of whom Putnam was hardly more than a type, being men of extended experience. The fact that so many men were willing to volunteer in this arduous and, as it turned out, desperate service for the King, speaks volumes for what could have been done with such me

NS WERE

general rejoicings, but without Putnam and 500 of his Yankees. These, in a transport which was skirting the dangerous coast much too closely, were shipwrecked on one of the treacherous shoals thereabouts. Putnam, with true New England fertility of resource, extemporized rafts from the fragments of the vessel and got

Spaniards. A number were lost in this dangerous enterprise, but their valor was dimmed neither by this nor by the still heavier losses which came upon them through the diseases prevalent in every portion of the British camp. Though me

CASTLE

ently to silence the fire from Morro Castle, and this was accordingly left to be carried by assault. The Puntal was silenced, troops landed, and after five days of ferocious fighting, in which the British and American losses were enormous by reason of their exposed position, and where every one concerned exhibited the utmost valor, Morro Castle was carried by the bayonet. The fighting

n the town that the offer was made a subject for derisive laughter. Fifteen days after Morro Castle had fallen, though the mortality in the trenches was so great that a few weeks more must have seen the abandonment of the enterprise, the city fell, the garrison stipulating for a passage out with all the honors of war, wh

mage to the invading forces than all the weeks of hard labor and open assault which had gone before. In the city-the Havannah, as it was then called-treasure was found to the amount of $7,000,0

hip sufficed to remove the shattered remnant of the soldiers from Connecticut, the Jerseys, and New York. Twenty-three hundred sailed; barely fifty returned. It was a part of the good fortune of America-all of the good fortune, to be exact-which brought

ward at heart, a man who could not even avail himself of such hardly gained victories. The peace of Paris was signed, and by its

funds in the treasury, and the scarcity of indispensable supplies, the prospect of an invasion was sufficiently gloomy. The militia and the troops of the garrison were carefully drilled, and companies of voluntee

a portion of the unappropriated, or at least unoccupied, territory, on the south side of the island, as their countrymen had formerly done in St. Domingo. Wi