Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles

IV

Problems Presented by Cervera's Appearance in West Indian Waters.—Movements of the United States Divisions and of the Oregon.—Functions of Cruisers in a Naval Campaign.

The departure of Admiral Cervera from Martinique for Curaçao was almost simultaneous with that of Admiral Sampson from San Juan for Key West. The immediate return of the latter to the westward was dictated by reasons, already given in his own words, the weight of which he doubtless felt more forcibly because he found himself actually so far away from the centre of the blockade and from his base at Key West. When he began thus to retrace his steps, he was still ignorant of Cervera's arrival. The following night, indeed, he heard from a passing vessel the rumor of the Spanish squadron's regaining Cadiz, with which the Navy Department had been for a moment amused. He stopped, therefore, to communicate with Washington, intending, if the rumor were confirmed, to resume the attack upon San Juan. But on the morning of the 15th—Sunday—at 3.30, his despatch-boat returned to him with the official intelligence, not only of the enemy's being off Martinique, but of his arrival at Curaçao, which occurred shortly after daylight of the 14th. The same telegram informed him that the Flying Squadron was on its way to Key West, and directed him to regain that point himself with all possible rapidity.

Cervera left behind him at Martinique one of his torpedo destroyers, the Terror. A demonstration was made by this vessel, probably, though it may have been by one of her fellows, before St. Pierre,—another port of the island,—where the Harvard was lying; and as the latter had been sent hurriedly from home with but a trifling battery, some anxiety was felt lest the enemy might score a point upon her, if the local authorities compelled her to leave. If the Spaniard had been as fast as represented, he would have had an advantage over the American in both speed and armament,—very serious odds. The machinery of the former, however, was in bad order, and she soon had to seek a harbor in Fort de France, also in Martinique; after which the usual rule, that two belligerents may not leave the same neutral port within twenty-four hours of each other, assured the Harvard a safe start. This incident, otherwise trivial, is worthy of note, for it shows one of the results of our imperfect national preparation for war. If the conditions had allowed time to equip the Harvard with suitable guns, she could have repulsed such an enemy, as a ship of the same class, the St. Paul, did a few weeks later off San Juan, whither the Terror afterwards repaired, and where she remained till the war was over.

The news of Cervera's appearance off Martinique was first received at the Navy Department about midnight of May 12th-13th, nearly thirty-six hours after the fact. As our representatives there, and generally throughout the West Indies, were very much on the alert, it seems not improbable that their telegrams, to say the least, were not given undue precedence of other matters. That, however, is one of the chances of life, and most especially of war. It is more to the purpose, because more useful to future guidance, to consider the general situation at the moment the telegram was received, the means at hand to meet the exigencies of the case, and what instructive light is thereby thrown back upon preceding movements, which had resulted in the actual conditions.

Admiral Cervera's division had been at Martinique, and, after a brief period of suspense, was known to have disappeared to the westward. The direction taken, however, might, nay, almost certainly must, be misleading,—that was part of his game. From it nothing could be decisively inferred. The last news of the Oregon was that she had left Bahia, in Brazil, on the 9th of the month. Her whereabouts and intended movements were as unknown to the United States authorities as to the enemy. An obvious precaution, to assure getting assistance to her, would have been to prescribe the exact route she should follow, subject only to the conditional discretion which can never wisely be taken from the officer in command on the spot. In that way it would have been possible to send a division to meet her, if indications at any moment countenanced the suspicion entertained by some—the author among others—that Cervera would attempt to intercept her. After careful consideration, this precaution had not been attempted, because the tight censorship of the Press had not then been effectually enforced, and it was feared that even so vital and evident a necessity as that of concealing her movements would not avail against the desire of some newspapers to manifest enterprise, at whatever cost to national interests. If we ever again get into a serious war, a close supervision of the Press, punitive as well as preventive, will be one of the first military necessities, unless the tone and disposition, not of the best, but of the worst, of its members shall have become sensibly improved; for occasional unintentional leakage, by well-meaning officials possessing more information than native secretiveness, cannot be wholly obviated, and must be accepted, practically, as one of the inevitable difficulties of conducting war.

The Oregon, therefore, was left a loose end, and was considered to be safer so than if more closely looked after. From the time she left Bahia till she arrived at Barbados, and from thence till she turned up off Jupiter Inlet, on the Florida coast, no one in Washington knew where she was. Nevertheless, she continued a most important and exposed fraction of the national naval force. That Cervera had turned west when last seen from Martinique meant nothing. It was more significant and reassuring to know that he had not got coal there. Still, it was possible that he might take a chance off Barbados, trusting, as he with perfect reason could, that when he had waited there as long as his coal then on hand permitted, the British authorities would let him take enough more to reach Puerto Rico, as they did give Captain Clark sufficient to gain a United States port. When the Oregon got to Barbados at 3.20 A.M. of May 18th, less than six days had elapsed since Cervera quitted Martinique; and the two islands are barely one hundred miles apart. All this, of course, is very much more clear to our present knowledge than it could possibly be to the Spanish Admiral, who probably, and not unnaturally, thought it far better to get his "fleet in being" under the guns of a friendly port than to hazard it on what might prove a wild-goose chase; for, after all, Captain Clark might not have gone to Barbados.

It may be interesting to the reader to say here that the Navy Department,—which was as much in the dark as Cervera himself,—although it was necessarily concerned about the Oregon, and gave much thought to the problem how best to assure her safety, was comforted by the certainty that, whatever befell the ship, the national interests would not be gravely compromised if she did meet the enemy. The situation was not novel or unprecedented, and historical precedents are an immense support to the spirit in doubtful moments. Conscious of the power of the ship herself, and confident in her captain and officers, whom it knew well, the Department was assured, to use words of Nelson when he was expecting to be similarly outnumbered, "Before we are destroyed, I have little doubt but the enemy will have their wings so completely clipped that they will be easily overtaken." Such odds for our ship were certainly not desired; but, the best having been done that could be in the circumstances, there was reasonable ground to believe that, by the time the enemy got through with her, they would not amount to much as a fighting squadron.

Some little while after the return of Admiral Sampson's squadron to New York, the writer chanced to see, quoted as an after-dinner speech by the chief engineer of the Oregon, the statement that Captain Clark had communicated to his officers the tactics he meant to pursue, if he fell in with the Spanish division. His purpose, as so explained, deserves to be noted; for it assures our people, if they need any further assurance, that in the single ship, as in the squadrons, intelligent skill as well as courage presided in the councils of the officers in charge. The probability was that the Spanish vessels, though all reputed faster than the Oregon, had different rates of speed, and each singly was inferior to her in fighting force, in addition to which the American ship had a very heavy stern battery. The intention therefore was, in case of a meeting, to turn the stern to the enemy and to make a running fight. This not only gave a superiority of fire to the Oregon so long as the relative positions lasted, but it tended, of course, to prolong it, confining the enemy to their bow fire and postponing to the utmost possible the time of their drawing near enough to open with the broadside rapid-fire batteries. Moreover, if the Spanish vessels were not equally fast, and if their rate of speed did not much exceed that of the Oregon, both very probable conditions, it was quite possible that in the course of the action the leading ship would outstrip her followers so much as to be engaged singly, and even that two or more might thus be successively beaten in detail. If it be replied that this is assuming a great deal, and attributing stupidity to the enemy, the answer is that the result here supposed has not infrequently followed upon similar action, and that war is full of uncertainties,—an instance again of the benefit and comfort which some historical acquaintance with the experience of others imparts to a man engaged with present perplexities. Deliberately to incur such odds would be unjustifiable; but when unavoidably confronted with them, resolution enlightened by knowledge may dare still to hope.

An instructive instance of drawing such support from the very fountain heads of military history, in the remote and even legendary past, is given by Captain Clark in a letter replying to inquiries from the present writer:—

"There is little to add to what you already know about the way I hoped to fight Cervera's fleet, if we fell in with it. What I feared was that he would be able to bring his ships up within range together, supposing that the slowest was faster than the Oregon; but there was the chance that their machinery was in different stages of deterioration, and there was also the hope that impetuosity or excitement might after a time make some press on in advance of the others. I, of course, had in mind the tactics of the last of the Horatii, and hopefully referred to them. The announcement Milligan (the chief engineer) spoke of was made before we reached Bahia, I think before we turned Cape Frio, as it was off that headland that I decided to leave the Marietta and Nictheroy, (now the Buffalo), and to push on alone. You may be sure that was an anxious night for me when I decided to part company. The Department was, of course, obliged to leave much to my discretion, and I knew that the Spaniards might all close to rapid-fire range, overpower all but our turret guns, and then send in their torpedo boats."

It was upon the Marietta that he had previously depended, in a measure, to thwart the attacks of these small vessels; but in such a contest as that with four armored cruisers she could scarcely count, and she was delaying his progress in the run immediately before him.

"The torpedo boat [he continues] was a rattlesnake to me, that I feared would get in his work while I was fighting the tiger; but I felt that the chances were that Cervera was bound to the West Indies, and so that the need of the Oregon there was so great that the risk of his turning south to meet me should be run, so I hurried to Bahia, and cabled to the Department my opinion of what the Oregon might do alone and in a running fight.... My object was to add the Oregon to our fleet, and not to meet the Spaniards, if it could be avoided."

It may be added that in this his intention coincided with the wish of the Department.

"So when, in Barbados, the reports came off that the Spanish fleet (and rumors had greatly increased its size) was at Martinique, that three torpedo boats had been seen from the island, I ordered coal to be loaded till after midnight, but left soon after dark, started west, then turned and went around the island"—that is, well to the eastward—"and made to the northward."

This was on the evening of May 18th. Six days later the ship was off the coast of Florida, and in communication with the Department.

The Oregon may properly be regarded as one of the three principal detachments into which the United States fleet was divided at the opening of the eventful week, May 12th-19th, and which, however they might afterwards be distributed around the strategic centre,—which we had chosen should be about Havana and Cienfuegos,—needed to be brought to it as rapidly as possible. No time was avoidably lost. On the evening of May 13th, eighteen hours after Cervera's appearance at Martinique was reported, the two larger divisions, under Sampson and Schley, were consciously converging upon our point of concentration at Key West; while the third, the Oregon, far more distant, was also moving to the same place in the purpose of the Department, though, as yet, unconsciously to herself. Sampson had over twenty-four hours' start of the Flying Squadron; and the distances to be traversed, from Puerto Rico and Hampton Roads, were practically the same.³ But the former was much delayed by the slowness of the monitors, and, great as he felt the need of haste to be, and urgent as was the Department's telegram, received on the 15th, he very properly would not allow his vessels to separate until nearer their destination. Precautionary orders were sent by him to the Harvard and Yale—two swift despatch vessels then under his immediate orders—to coal to the utmost and to hold themselves at the end of a cable ready for immediate orders; while Commodore Remey, commanding at Key West, was directed to have every preparation complete for coaling the squadron on the 18th, when it might be expected to arrive. The St. Louis, a vessel of the same type as the Harvard, met the Admiral while these telegrams were being written. She was ordered to cut the cables at Santiago and Guantanamo Bay, and afterwards at Ponce, Puerto Rico.

The Flying Squadron had sailed at 4 P.M. of the 13th. Its fighting force consisted of the Brooklyn, armored cruiser, flagship; the Massachusetts, first-class, and the Texas, second-class, battleships. It is to be inferred from the departure of these vessels that the alarm about our own coast, felt while the whereabouts of the hostile division was unknown, vanished when it made its appearance. The result was, perhaps, not strictly logical; but the logic of the step is of less consequence than its undoubted military correctness. We had chosen our objective, and now we were concentrating upon it,—a measure delayed too long, though unavoidably. Commodore Schley was directed to call off Charleston for orders; for, while it is essential to have a settled strategic idea in any campaign, it is also necessary, in maritime warfare, at all events, to be ready to change a purpose suddenly and to turn at once upon the great objective,—which dominates and supersedes all others,—the enemy's navy, when a reasonable prospect of destroying it, or any large fraction of it, offers. When Schley left Hampton Roads, it was known only that the Spanish division had appeared off Martinique. The general intention, that our own should go to Key West, must therefore be held subject to possible modification, and to that end communication at a half-way point was imperative. No detention was thereby caused. At 4.30 P.M. of the 15th the Flying Squadron, which had been somewhat delayed by ten hours of dense fog, came off Charleston Bar, where a lighthouse steamer had been waiting since the previous midnight. From the officer in charge of her the Commodore received his orders, and at 6 P.M. was again under way for Key West, where he arrived on the 18th, anticipating by several hours Sampson's arrival in person, and by a day the coming of the slower ships of the other division.

But if it is desirable to ensure frequent direct communication with the larger divisions of the fleet, at such a moment, when their movements must be held subject to sudden change to meet the as yet uncertain developments of the enemy's strategy, it is still more essential to keep touch from a central station with the swift single cruisers, the purveyors of intelligence and distributors of the information upon which the conduct of the war depends. If the broad strategic conception of the naval campaign is correct, and the consequent action consistent, the greater fighting units—squadrons or fleets—may be well, or better, left to themselves, after the initial impulse of direction is given, and general instructions have been issued to their commanders. These greater units, however, cannot usually be kept at the end of a telegraph cable; yet they must, through cables, maintain, with their centres of intelligence, communication so frequent as to be practically constant. The Flying Squadron when off Cienfuegos, and Admiral Sampson's division at the time now under consideration, while on its passage from San Juan to Key West, are instances in point. Conversely, dependence may be placed upon local agents to report an enemy when he enters port; but when at sea for an unknown destination, it is necessary, if practicable, to get and keep touch with him, and to have his movements, actual and probable, reported. In short, steady communication must be maintained, as far as possible, between the always fixed points where the cables end, and the more variable positions where the enemy's squadrons and our own are, whether for a stay or in transit. This can be done only through swift despatch vessels; and for these, great as is the need that no time be wasted in their missions, the homely proverb, "more haste, less speed," has to be kept in mind. To stop off at a wayside port, to diverge even considerably from the shortest route, may often be a real economy of time.

The office of cruisers thus employed is to substitute certainty for conjecture; to correct or to confirm, by fuller knowledge, the inferences upon which the conduct of operations otherwise so much depends. Accurate intelligence is one of the very first desiderata of war, and as the means of obtaining and transmitting it are never in excess of the necessities, those means have to be carefully administered. Historically, no navy ever has had cruisers enough; partly because the lookout and despatch duties themselves are so extensive and onerous; partly because vessels of the class are wanted for other purposes also,—as, for instance, in our late war, for the blockade of the Cuban ports, which was never much more than technically "effective," and for the patrolling of our Atlantic seaboard. True economical use of the disposable vessels, obtaining the largest results with the least expenditure of means never adequate, demands much forethought and more management, and is best effected by so arranging that the individual cruisers can be quickly got hold of when wanted. This is accomplished by requiring them to call at cable ports and report; or by circumscribing the area in which they are to cruise, so that they can be readily found; or by prescribing the course and speed they are to observe,—in short, by ensuring a pretty close knowledge of their position at every moment.

For the purposes of intelligence, a cruiser with a roving commission, or one which neglects to report its movements when opportunity offers, is nearly useless; and few things are more justly exasperating than the failure of a cruiser to realize this truth in practice. Of course, no rule is hard and fast to bind the high discretion of the officer senior on the spot; but if the captains of cruisers will bear in mind, as a primary principle, that they, their admirals, and the central office, are in this respect parts of one highly specialized and most important system in which co-operation must be observed, discretion will more rarely err in these matters, where errors may be so serious. That with a central office, admirals, and captains, all seeking the same ends, matters will at times work at cross purposes, only proves the common experience that things will not always go straight here below. When Nelson was hunting for the French fleet before the battle of the Nile, his flagship was dismasted in a gale of wind off Corsica. The commander of the frigates, his lookout ships, having become separated in the gale, concluded that the Admiral would have to return to Gibraltar, and took his frigates there. "I thought he knew me better," commented Nelson. "Every moment I have to regret the frigates having left me," he wrote later; "the return to Syracuse," due to want of intelligence, "broke my heart, which on any extraordinary anxiety now shows itself." It is not possible strictly to define official discretion, nor to guard infallibly against its misuse; but, all the same, it is injurious to an officer to show that he lacks sound judgment.

When the Flying Squadron sailed, there were lying in Hampton Roads three swift cruisers,—the New Orleans, the St. Paul, and the Minneapolis. Two auxiliary cruisers, the Yosemite and the Dixie, were nearly but not quite ready for sea. It was for some time justly considered imperative to keep one such ship there ready for an immediate mission. The New Orleans was so retained, subject to further requirements of the Department; but the Minneapolis and the St. Paul sailed as soon as their coaling was completed,—within twenty-four hours of the squadron. The former was to cruise between Haïti and the Caicos Bank, on the road which Cervera would probably follow if he went north of Haïti; the other was to watch between Haïti and Jamaica, where he might be encountered if he took the Windward Passage, going south of Haïti. At the time these orders were issued the indications were that the Spanish division was hanging about Martinique, hoping for permission to coal there; and as both of our cruisers were very fast vessels and directed to go at full speed, the chances were more than good that they would reach their cruising ground before Cervera could pass it.

These intended movements were telegraphed to Sampson, and it was added, "Very important that your fast cruisers keep touch with the Spanish squadron." This he received May 15th. With his still imperfect information he gave no immediate orders which would lose him his hold of the Harvard and the Yale; but shortly after midnight he learned, off Cape Haïtien, that the Spanish division was to have left Curaçao the previous evening at six o'clock—only six hours before this despatch reached him. He at once cabled the Harvard and the Yale, to which, as being under his immediate charge, the Department had given no orders, to go to sea, the former to cruise in the Mona Passage, to detect the enemy if he passed through it for Puerto Rico, the Yale to assist the St. Paul at the station of which he had been notified from Washington. The Department was informed by him of these dispositions. Sampson at the same time cabled Remey at Key West to warn the blockaders off Cienfuegos—none of which were armored—of the possible appearance of the enemy at that port. In this step he had been anticipated by the Department, which, feeling the urgency of the case and uncertain of communicating betimes through him, had issued an order direct to Remey, thirty-six hours before, that those ships, with a single exception, should be withdrawn; and that the vessels on the north coast should be notified, but not removed.

These various movements indicate the usefulness and the employments of the cruiser class, one of which also carried the news to Cienfuegos, another along the north coast, while a third took Sampson's telegrams from his position at sea to the cable port. Owing to our insufficient number of vessels of the kind required, torpedo boats, of great speed in smooth water, but of delicate machinery and liable to serious retardation in a sea-way, were much used for these missions, to the great hurt of their engines, not intended for long-continued high exertion, and to their own consequent injury for their particular duties. The St. Paul's career exemplified also the changes of direction to which cruisers are liable, and the consequent necessity of keeping them well in hand both as regards position and preparation, especially of coal. Between the time the Minneapolis sailed and her own departure, at 6 P.M., of May 14th, the news of the Spanish division's arrival at Curaçao was received; and as there had been previous independent information that colliers had been ordered to meet it in the Gulf of Venezuela, only a hundred miles from Curaçao, the conclusion was fair that the enemy needed coal and hoped to get it in that neighborhood. Why else, indeed, if as fast as reported, and aware, as he must be, that Sampson was as far east as San Juan, had he not pushed direct for Cuba, his probable objective? In regard to colliers being due in the Gulf of Venezuela, the reports proved incorrect; but the inference as to the need of coal was accurate, and that meant delay. The St. Paul was therefore ordered to Key West, instructions being telegraphed there to coal her full immediately on arriving. She would there be as near the Windward Passage as Curaçao is, and yet able, in case of necessity, to proceed by the Yucatan Passage or in any direction that might meanwhile become expedient. It may be added that the St. Paul reached Key West and was coaled ready for sea by the evening of May 18th, four days from the time she left Hampton Roads, a thousand miles distant.

While on her passage, the Department had entertained the purpose of sending her to the Gulf of Venezuela and adding to her the Harvard and the Minneapolis, the object being not only to find the enemy, if there, but that one of the three should report him, while the other two dogged his path until no doubt of his destination could remain. Their great speed, considered relatively to that which the enemy had so far shown, gave reasonable probability that thus his approach could be communicated by them, and by cables, throughout the whole field of operations, with such rapidity as to ensure cornering him at once, which was the first great essential of our campaign. A cruiser reporting at Cape Haïtien was picked up and sent to the Minneapolis, whose whereabouts was sufficiently known, because circumscribed, and she received her orders; but they served only to develop the weakness of that ship and of the Columbia, considered as cruisers. The coal left after her rapid steaming to her cruising ground did not justify the further sweep required, and her captain thought it imperative to go first to St. Thomas to recoal,—a process which involved more delay than on the surface appears. The bunkers of this ship and of her sister, the Columbia, are minutely subdivided,—an arrangement very suitable, even imperative, in a battleship, in order to localize strictly any injury received in battle, but inconsequent and illogical in a vessel meant primarily for speed. A moment's reflection upon the services required of cruisers will show that their efficiency does not depend merely upon rapid going through the water, but upon prompt readiness to leave port, of which promptness quick coaling is a most important factor. This is gravely retarded by bunkers much subdivided. The design of these two ships, meant for speed, involves this lack of facility for recoaling. There is, therefore, in them a grave failure in that unity of conception which should dominate all designs.

The movements, actual and projected, of the cruisers at this moment have purposely been dwelt upon at some length. Such movements and the management of them play a most important part in all campaigns, and it is desirable that they should be understood, through illustration such as this; because the provision for the service should be antecedently thorough and consistent in plan and in execution, in order to efficiency. Confusion of thought, and consequent confusion of object, is fatal to any conception,—at least, to any military conception; it is absolutely opposed to concentration, for it implies duality of object. In the designing of a cruiser, as of any class of warship, the first step, before which none should be taken, is to decide the primary object to be realized,—what is this ship meant to do? To this primary requirement every other feature should be subordinated. Its primacy is not only one of time, but of importance also. The recognition, in practice, of this requisite does not abolish nor exclude the others by its predominance. It simply regulates their development; for they not only must not militate against it, they must minister to it. It is exactly as in a novel or in a work of art, for every military conception, from the design of a ship up, should be a work of art. Perfection does not exclude a multiplicity of detail, but it does demand unity of motive, a single central idea, to which all detail is strictly accessory, to emphasize or to enhance,—not to distract. The cruiser requirements offer a concrete illustration of the application of this thought. Rapidity of action is the primary object. In it is involved both coal endurance and facility for recoaling; for each economizes time, as speed does. Defensive strength—of which subdivision of coal bunkers is an element—conduces only secondarily to rapidity of movement, as does offensive power; they must, therefore, be very strictly subordinated. They must not detract from speed; yet so far as they do not injure that, they should be developed, for by the power to repel an enemy—to avert detention—they minister to rapidity. With the battleship, in this contrary to the cruiser, offensive power is the dominant feature. While, therefore, speed is desirable to it, excessive speed is not admissible, if, as the author believes, it can be obtained only at some sacrifice of offensive strength.