United States Ship "Oregon,"
BLOCKADING SANTIAGO DE CUBA,
June 22, 1898.
The Oregon is a first-class coast defence battle-ship of about 10,000 tons' displacement at the so-called normal draught. In this condition, however, she has only a certain limited amount of stores on board and only four hundred tons of coal. When she goes to sea, with her bunkers full of coal, with all stores and all ammunition on board, her actual displacement is something over 12,000 tons, and her draught of water is then over twenty-seven feet. She was, of course, in this latter condition when we started out from San Francisco, having on board at that time about 1,500 tons of coal, all bunkers being practically full.
We all knew, of course, that we had a remarkably fine ship, but before starting out we felt some little anxiety as to our ability to keep the machinery fully up to its work during such a long cruise. Nothing approaching it had ever before been attempted by a heavy battle-ship. Fortunately, we had just come out of dry dock in Bremerton (and our trip should really be considered as starting from that point rather than from San Francisco) and were only nine or ten days in San Francisco before starting for Callao -- just long enough to fill our bunkers and magazines. Our machinery, both engines and boilers, were then in excellent condition, everything having been thoroughly overhauled by our own people while in dry dock, so it was not necessary to do any great amount of work in San Francisco.
Having finally filled up with coal, ammunition and stores, we left on March 19, and proceeded under three boilers direct for Callao, which port we reached on the morning of April 4, having expended, during this run of sixteen days, nine hundred tons of coal, leaving six hundred tons still in our bunkers. This we consider a remarkably efficient performance, having averaged 4.24 knots perton of coal. The revolutions of the engines during this run were remarkably steady, averaging at least seventy-five per minute, day after day without a variation of a tenth of a revolution.
On the afternoon of March 27 smoke and gas were discovered to be coming out of one of the coal bunkers. This bunker was over half full at the time, having probably between sixty-five and seventy tons in it. There was nothing to do but dig for the fire, as it was evidently down somewhere in the body of the pile. So we started in, working a couple of men in the bunker for about ten minutes at a time and then sending in a couple more to relieve the first. After about two hours' work the fire was reached, only about a shovelful of live coal being found, but probably a couple of tons so hot that it was giving off smoke and gas. After about four hours' steady work all the dangerous coal had been removed, and no further trouble was encountered.
On arriving at Callao we found that our coal had been ordered for us by the Marietta. The lighters had all been loaded, and were brought alongside as soon as we let go the anchor.
Then began some real work. I started in on the starboard engine and Reeves on the port engine, and we overhauled connections, scraped in brasses where necessary, examined, cleaned, and repaired air-pumps, circulating pumps, wiped out and oiled all the main cylinders and valve-chests. Fortunately for me, my engine was in pretty good shape, needing only a slight amount of keying up here and there. Reeves, however, found one of his main cross-head slippers so badly cut and scored that it was deemed best to remove it and put in place a spare one, which we carried on board. This sounds easy, but it required twenty-four hours' continuous work, as it had to be fitted exactly, the face carefully scraped to a true surface; and, finally, the guides nicely adjusted.
When we arrived here it was evident that war with Spain was inevitable, but it had not yet broken out. However, every precaution was taken to guard against any treachery on the part of Spanish sympathizers. The ordinary number of sentries was doubled and these men were armed with ball cartridges, ammunition was gotten up for the rapid-fire guns, and the steam launches were manned with armed crews and kept patrolling around the ship all night, to warn off and prevent any strange boats from approaching. These precautions were observed whenever we were at anchor in any port during the whole trip.