The Old Navy

by Daniel P. Mannix

  I took a train to Port Tampa, where I could get a boat to Key West. There were about five hundred men of the Naval Reserves on the boat, and at our table were three of their officers; they sat up like plebes with their hands in their laps and didn’t say a word during the entire trip. I never saw commissioned officers behave like that.

  At Key West, I reported to the naval commandant, Commodore Reamy,* and had my orders endorsed but was unable to get to the Indiana which, being a battleship, is a long way from shore. There are over a hundred vessels in the harbor, many of them prizes we had captured from the Spaniards.

  * Officers of higher rank than the author were referred to by their rank.

  The next morning, I ran into Thomas who had been a first classman at the Academy when I was a plebe. He told me that the Indiana’s launch was at a certain dock so I had my chest taken down there and embarked.

  The Indiana, on which Mannix served during battle, bombarding Santiago.

  She is a fine ship and I know lots of the people on her. Captain Taylor is splendid; when I reported he shook hands and said he was glad to see me and was very sorry that the junior officer’s mess was so crowded, but that we must expect to rough it in war times and that he would do all he possibly could. After being “cussed out” at the Academy it is a pleasant change to be treated like a human being.

  We dress anyway we want to; quite a change from Annapolis. The steerage is awfully crowded; there are twenty junior officers quartered here. Some have bunks, some swing in hammocks, some sleep on the transoms and two are on the table. I have been assigned to the navigator’s division.

  FRIDAY

  We have General Quarters twice a day and all hands run up on deck to their stations wearing sidearms. My station is on the bridge to look out for signals; all the navigator’s division will be very busy as soon as we get to sea. Went down in the dynamo room today where the temperature is 150; the thermometer was so hot it couldn’t be handled. Wonder what it will be like when we have steam up. The Yosemite came in this evening and signaled us; there is a rumor that we are to sail on Sunday but no one knows anything definite.

  OFF KEY WEST. JUNE 6TH

  We expect to get out of here tomorrow and all hands are coaling; in consequence of which we are all completely exhausted. The crews of the secondary battery sleep at their guns which have ammunition ready by them. All the officers carry revolvers and the sentries’ rifles are loaded. Why all these precautions are necessary when we are in a home port, I can’t imagine. We will all be glad when this monotony is changed; there is no shore liberty and it gets tiresome. The divers finished scraping the ship’s bottom yesterday and as the captain went ashore this morning, we hope to receive orders to sail.

  I do most of my work in the chart house which is on the forward bridge. It is made of wood and is covered with a rope net so that if struck by a shell the splinters will not scatter. My station in action will be in the conning tower with the navigator. My billet is to stand by the voice pipe while McDowell in the top with the range finder passes down the range to me and I set it on the range indicator, which is connected with every gun in the ship, and also pass it to the central station so it can be verified verbally.

  We have a great advantage over the men stationed in the gun turrets, for if anything interesting happens we will be able to see it, while they won’t know anything about it until it is all over.

  OFF KEY WEST. JUNE 13TH

  We leave for Rebecca Shoal tomorrow at 5. The army transports will meet us there and we will convoy them to Santiago de Cuba, on the southern part of the island. They are to be landed there and will capture the city. We have heard that the Spanish Fleet under Admiral Cervera is in Santiago Bay and may attempt to prevent the troops from landing. If so, we may have a crack at them.

  It is very pleasant on the bridges but in the steerage it is frightful. When we wake in the mornings the sheets are dripping wet with perspiration and, as the water has a temperature of 100, there is no relief in taking a bath. We have a sort of progressive euchre arrangement — no man sleeps in the same place two successive nights; the best place is on the dining room table and the worst is on two trunks. I prefer to swing in a hammock, as the roaches crawl over anything stationary.

  AT SEA. JUNE 16TH

  We are convoying the American Army of Invasion. There are nearly fifty vessels in the fleet and they extend for miles. Every evening we stop for several hours to let those in the rear close their assigned stations and as they are merchantmen we have no control over them. Whether it is fear of collision or merely a desire to drive us crazy it is hard to tell but they should be under Navy command. They are absolutely independent.

  These transports are of all ages and every known type of architecture. One old paddle-wheel ferryboat loaded with mules is waddling along like a duck about a mile to port of her proper position. The Bancroft and Helena are doing their best to nose her back into the column but she ignores them completely.

  The days are hot but the evenings are delightful. The Indiana is Chief of Convoy so we occupy the van. This morning a torpedo boat arrived from Key West and signaled, “We have mail for the fleet” so we have something to look forward to.

  JUNE 18TH

  Still at sea. The weather today was very threatening with heavy rain squalls. A number of water spouts were seen from time to time and one large spout was sighted dead ahead. As its presence would have been a danger to the transports, the crew of No. 1 8-inch turret were sent to their guns and a shot fired which hit the spout squarely amidships, demolishing it completely, to the great relief of the soldiers.

  Everyone is indignant; there is a lot of mail on the Dupont torpedo boat and they won’t let us have a bit of it until we get to Santiago and deliver Admiral Sampson’s mail first. Admiral William T. Sampson is in command of the squadron guarding the entrance to the harbor. It is official courtesy to give him his letters first so we will run for six days with mail in sight and not get any of it.

  We were obliged to go out of our course to get fresh water for the cavalry’s horses, but will probably arrive at Santiago day after tomorrow.

  JUNE 21ST

  We are about ten miles from Santiago and tomorrow the troops will be landed under the guns of the fleet. The entrance to the bay of Santiago is said to be a narrow gut, guarded on the west side by a mortar battery on Socapa Hill and on the east by an enormous fortress called Morro Castle, hundreds of years old, 230 feet high, and built of massive stones. The army is to attack these strong points at dawn while we give them covering fire. After they are taken, the fleet will run the gut and engage Admiral Cervera’s squadron in the bay. It should be quite a battle.

  One of the transports has just passed within fifty yards of us with her decks and rigging crowded with soldiers. They gave us a tremendous cheer and we replied with all the volume we could muster and shouted, “Who are you?” They answered, “The Ninth Infantry.” Someone beside me remarked, “There will be a lot of vacant mess numbers on that by tomorrow night. They’re the ones who are to lead the attack on Morro.”

  (It was this same Ninth Infantry that two years later fought in the Boxer Campaign in China, their commanding officer, Colonel Liscum, being killed at Tientsin. Later still they took part in the Samar Campaign in the Philippines where one of their companies, Company C commanded by Captain Connell stationed at Balanhiga, while at mess, was suddenly attacked by bolomen who had crept through the jungle like red Indians. The Americans were slashed to death, dying to the last man.)

  JUNE 22ND-24TH

  All plans have been changed as it was decided that the forts were too formidable to be taken by direct assault. Instead, the troops are to be landed at a little village named Daiquiri 18 miles east of Santiago. We are to give them covering fire in case the Spaniards oppose the landings. As it is reported to be an open roadstead with heavy surf, they w
ill have to be ferried ashore by our steam cutters and pulling boats.

  All hands were called this morning at four o’clock. We put on clean uniforms, had coffee, and went to our battle stations. At six we sighted the beach and cleared for action. There was a big fire ashore and in a short time it was easy to make out that the Spaniards had set fire to the village where the army was to land.

  As soon as we saw there was to be no opposition to the landing, we kept on to Santiago to join with Admiral Sampson’s fleet blockading the entrance to the harbor where the Spanish Fleet is at anchor, leaving behind our boats with their crews to put the Army ashore. Soon we sighted the fleet spread out before the long, narrow, winding channel that leads to the landlocked bay. In places this channel is less than 200 yards wide and the Spanish guns on the rocky escarpments on either side of the entrance completely control the narrow passageway. Morro is huge and seems to be carved out of the solid rock of the hill. Ahead of us we could see the Iowa, the Oregon (which had just made a famous voyage of 11,000 miles from a drydock in Bremerton, Washington State, around the Horn to be in on the fighting), the Massachusetts, the New York and the Brooklyn and a lot of smaller vessels.

  Positions of ships during the battle of Santiago.

  There is fighting going on all around. Away off inshore the Texas is engaged with the Socapa battery; it looks just like a painting. First the battery would fire and we would hold our breath until we saw the projectile strike the water near the ship, and then the Texas would let drive and stones, bricks and sand would go flying up in the air from the fort.

  We got orders to engage and went to quarters. There were three of us in the conning tower; the navigator, a quartermaster at the wheel and myself. We headed straight for the entrance and the captain gave the order “Fire to the right of Morro” but on the voice pipe it was given as “Fire right at Morro”. We fired several rounds before the Spaniards replied. Their first shell went directly over us and only a little high. It is all nonsense about their not being able to shoot; every shot they fired came within a very short distance of us. Any ship that tried to run the channel between the forts would have been instantly sunk.

  I had a fine view until the smoke covered everything for in those days we were using brown powder; not the modern smokeless powder. We would hear a whizzing in the air that sounded like a giant bumble bee and then a great column of steam and water would suddenly appear a short distance away. A few minutes after we commenced firing there was a tremendous shock, as if a locomotive had run into the ship; a shell had struck our armor belt just below the port sheet anchor.

  The shock threw me against the sharp edge of a projecting steel shelf and I received a violent blow on the right leg between the hip and the knee. It didn’t hurt at first; the leg felt numb as though it was “asleep”. So many things were happening that I had no time to think of it. [It didn’t even hurt for several days, but about four days later I woke with the most excruciating pain in the sciatic nerve of my right leg. That pain bothered me for the next twenty years, not constantly by any means, sometimes it would go away and remain absent for weeks at a time but it always came back again, sometimes light, sometimes severe. Then, finally, it seemed to wear itself out, as physical ills occasionally do but even now, when the weather is bad, it hurts a little.]

  Whenever we fired our own 8-inch guns forward of the beam it seemed as though we had been hit by the enemy; the muzzles of these guns are close to the eye slits in the conning tower and the concussions were simply terrific. Clouds of smoke, dust, and solid matter would come surging in filling our eyes, and our eardrums ached so I felt sure they would be broken in spite of the cotton we were using to protect them.

  The ship did some splendid shooting, one 13-inch shell going right into a gun embrasure on Morro and knocking down a whole lower wall. It was impossible to see this from the conning tower but the people on the bridge reported it.

  After the bugle sounded the Retreat I went down to the steerage to get a drink of water. McDowell was sitting there with his trouser leg rolled up and a big red spot on one side of his calf and a corresponding one on the other side where the bullet had gone out. I couldn’t understand how he could have been hit by a revolver at a range of several thousand yards. Then he volunteered the information that he had been so absorbed in measuring ranges from the top that he had dropped his own revolver and shot himself through the leg.

  We exchanged signals with the other ships and learned that the Texas was struck and had one man killed and five wounded. There is fighting still going on all around and there is no telling when we will be sent to quarters again. They fight all day here, the object being to exhaust the Spaniards. We watched a party of Spanish soldiers trying to destroy a railroad bridge that led to Santiago, obviously fearing our land forces would capture it and use it to invade the city, but the Vesuvius, a dynamite cruiser, ran in and chased them away.

  We are all very tired, sleepy and dirty; our clothes are covered with a white coating of saltpeter. This powder leaves a residue that settles on everything in sight.

  Many of the officers did not get up the next morning until the bugle sounded General Quarters and had to pull on their uniforms over their night clothes, dressing on the run to their battle stations. As the day wore on and it began to get hot, we started stripping and all the clothes I had on when “Cease firing” sounded were a dirty undershirt and a pair of trousers. The men had on absolutely nothing but duck trousers. The heat in the gun positions was awful. I was sent to the forward turret with a message in the midst of the action and found the officer in command wearing a nightshirt with beautiful ruffles all down the front and with a revolver strapped around his waist, pointing and firing the right 13-inch gun.

  The insurgents are having a fight with the Spanish troops ashore now and it looks awfully pretty to see the puffs of smoke in bushes; it sounds just like a wood fire crackling.

  The Socapa, the Spanish mortar battery, has started firing at us as we are in range. The shells sound exactly like miniature steam engines coming through the air; “Choo-choo-choo-choo” and then a tremendous BANG when they explode.

  JUNE 25TH

  The troops have all been landed at Daiquiri and we can see their camp fires at night. Falconer, who was in charge of our steam cutter and our two whaleboats that helped to get them ashore, returned this morning. He said the enemy made no resistance. He also told us that several soldiers were drowned in the landings; they went overboard with their knapsacks on and their belts filled with ball cartridges and sank like a shot. “They didn’t even have brains enough to let go their rifles,” Falconer reported in astonishment. Probably a lot of these men came from inland towns and had never seen a body of water larger than a horse trough. There was a heavy swell running and great difficulty was experienced in getting the soldiers off the transports as, instead of waiting for the boats alongside to rise on the top of the roll, they climbed down the sea ladders and threw themselves in regardless of where the boats were, landing sprawling, rifle and all, usually on the head of one of the boat’s crew.

  A regimental commander, in getting in his boat, put his foot on her gunwale as she was coming up with the swell; his knee got caught under one of the rungs of the sea ladder and, as something had to give, his leg was broken between the ankle and the knee and he is out of the campaign at its very beginning. Imagine how he must feel!

  [At the time I felt very contemptuous of these “stupid soldiers” but now I greatly regret my smugness. At any rate, they WENT! During the First World War there were thousands of slackers who did everything possible to avoid serving their country. They were the people to be regarded with contempt.]

  There being no barges to transport the horses and mules, they were thrown overboard, the idea being that they would instinctively swim ashore. Instead, they headed out to sea. A cavalry trumpeter ran down to the beach sounding the Assembly; all the horse
s swung around as if on drill and headed for the sound of the trumpet. The mules kept on and nearly all drowned.

  On June 3rd, two weeks before we arrived, an attempt was made to block the entrance of Santiago Harbor by sinking an old collier named the Merrimac crossway in the passage. The hurricane season is coming on and Admiral Sampson was afraid the fleet could not keep station and Cervera would slip out and escape. The dangerous job of sinking the collier was given to a young naval constructor, Richmond Hobson, and a volunteer crew of seven men. The attempt was made at night but the forts saw the Merrimac enter the gut and opened fire on her. They shot away her tiller-ropes so she became unmanageable and drifted into the bay before she went down. Her funnel and masts protrude above the water and we can see them but obviously Hobson hadn’t been able to swing her sideways so as to block the passage. He and his crew were captured and are being held as prisoners of war. This morning Admiral Sampson sent in a dispatch boat to Morro, flying a tablecloth as a flag of truce, and offered to exchange for Hobson and his men but the offer was refused. The admiral was furious and sent another message that the ships would fire over the forts and into the city of Santiago itself and warned that women and children had better leave the city.

  OFF SANTIAGO. JUNE 28TH

  The Army has advanced to within three miles of the city, so we will soon have some work to do. From the Squadron Bulletins, published on the flagship every day, we hear of a cavalry fight in which twenty-two were killed and eighty wounded. Hamilton Fish was among the killed. He was a sergeant and grandson of the Hamilton Fish who had been Secretary of State under Grant. His death has made quite a stir.

  All sorts of rumors are running around the fleet concerning the fighting ashore. One story is that the “gallant Seventy-first New York” refused to advance under fire. They are a volunteer regiment, not regulars, and had had no training or discipline. As they were blocking the way, they were ordered to lie down and an all-Negro regiment composed of regulars was brought up and charged over their prone bodies.