Our Action on the Maine Disaster

The warlike trend of affairs and of public opinion was suddenly brought to a climax when the mysterious destruction of the Maine was reported. The following narrative, taken from "American History," by Joseph M. Rogers, is interspersed with official and personal records.

THE administration resolved to maintain friendly relations, and, as an earnest of its good intentions, sent the battle-ship Maine (Captain Charles D. Sigsbee) in January, 1898, to the harbor of Havana, on a friendly visit; and the Spanish cruiser Vizcaya was ordered to New York. Neither ship was received with enthusiasm, and the relations were formal and strained, On February 8 a sensation was created by the publication of a letter purporting to have been written by the Spanish Minister at Washington, Dupuy de Lome, to Senor Canalejas, a Spanish official at Havana. In this letter McKinley was called "a low politician," "weak and catering to the rabble," "who desires to leave a door open to me and to stand well with jingoes of his party." Canalejas was urged to agitate commercial relations even if "only for effect," and to send a man to Washington" to make a propaganda among the Senators." When de Lome saw the letter was published, he immediately cabled his resignation to Madrid, and, when questioned by the State Department, blandly acknowledged it and left the country. This caused a storm of excitement. Just how the Cuban Junta secured the letter is not known, but it proved a powerful weapon. The excitement had not cooled down on the morning of February 16, 1898, when the country was driven wild with excitement on learning that, at 9:40 o'clock the evening previous, the battle-ship Maine had been blown up in Havana harbor, killing or mortally wounding two officers and 264 men. Captain Sigsbee, who was on board, was saved, and immediately wired the Secretary of the Navy, asking suspension of judgment pending an investigation. Despite his manly appeal for judicial patience the dominant impression was that treachery had been at work and there was no particular hesitancy in expressing that opinion.

Writing after the first excitement had subsided, Captain Sigsbee told the story as follows: "On that dreadful night I had not retired. I was writing letters. I find it impossible to describe the sound or shock, but the impression remains of something awe-inspiring, terrifying, of noise-rending, vibrating, all-pervading. There is nothing in the former experience of any one on board to measure the explosion by.... After the first great shock--I cannot myself recall how many sharper detonations I heard, not more than two or three--I knew my ship was gone. In a structure like the Maine, the effects of such an explosion are not for a moment in doubt.. I made my way through the long passage in the dark, groping from side to side, to the hatchway and thence to the poop, being among the earliest to reach that spot. As soon as I recognized the officers, I ordered the high explosives to be flooded, and then directed that the boats available be lowered to the rescue of the wounded or drowning.. Discipline in a perfect measure prevailed. There was no more confusion than a call to general quarters would produce--not as much.. I soon saw, by the light of the flames, that all my officers and crew left alive and on board surrounded me. I cannot form any idea of the time, but it seemed five minutes from the moment I reached the poop until I left, the last man it was possible to reach having been saved. It must have been three-quarters of an hour or more, however, from the amount of work done.. I remember the officers and men worked together lowering the boats, and that the gig took some time to lower. I did not notice the rain of debris described by Lieutenant Blandin or others who were on the deck at the time of the first explosion, but I did observe the explosion of the fixed ammunition, and wonder that more were not hurt thereby.. Without going beyond the limits of what was proper in the harbor of a friendly Power, I always maintain precautions against attack, and the quarter-watch was ordered to have ammunition for the smaller guns ready so that in the improbable event of an attack on the ship it would have been found ready. It was this ammunition which exploded as the heat reached it."

The affair loses none of its horrors when described by eye-witnesses from the outside. The Maine was moored near the Ward Line steamer, City of Washington, one of whose passengers recorded his impressions of the explosion. He says: