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The British and Provincial Conquest of Cuba: Putnam

A terrible storm now arose, and the transport that bore Lieutenant-Colonel Putnam, with five hundred men, making one-half of the Connecticut regiment, was driven on a rift of craggy rocks and wrecked. Thus separated from the rest of the fleet, so that he could hope for no aid from any external source, the surf rolling mountain high, and dashing against the sides of the ship with such force that she threatened to part her timbers at every stroke of the sea, this brave officer, looking calmly in the face of death, maintained, above the noise of the waves, a discipline that enabled him to issue all his orders without interruption, and secured an obedience to them as perfect as if the bold-hearted men whom he commanded had stood upon the ridges of their own cornfields.

In this appalling situation every man who could wield a saw or a hammer was employed in making rafts from spars, planks, and the scanty and scattered materials that came to hand. In this way a part of the men were landed at the great risk of being drifted far out into the sea. After a few of the men had been safely disembarked, ropes were lashed to the rafts, and those who had thus gained the shore, aided in pulling their companions to the beach. Such was the address and caution exercised by Putnam in this most critical of all conditions, that not a man was lost. Colonel Putnam now pitched his camp and remained several days within twenty-four miles of the enemy at Carthagena. At last the storm abated, and the convoy soon after took them aboard and carried them to Havana.

The climate proved fatal to a large proportion of our soldiers who went upon this expedition. Of the thousand brave men who sailed for Havana, and who aided in reducing it, with all its shipping and military stores, to the dominion of the British crown, a mere handful ever returned to lay their bones in their native soil. A few officers, and here and there a straggling soldier, wasted to a skeleton, were the sole survivors of that fatal campaign, in which victory and death went hand in hand.

This historian Hollister worthily celebrates the record of the colony of Connecticut in the memorable French and Spanish wars, which lasted eight years, when closed by the peace of 1773, saying that during those years: "The sons of the colony had found their graves in every part of the continent, and had been laid to rest beneath the waters of the West Indian seas. No colony, in proportion to her population, had furnished an equal number of men. Again and again she had sent into the field a duplicate supply of troops beyond those demanded of her, to make up for the deficiency that she had but too good reason to think would exist in some of those provinces less embued with the spirit of liberty and less devoted to the cause of humanity. She had also paid out of her own treasury, after deducting the pittance that she had received from parliament, more than four hundred thousand pounds--far surpassing, according to her wealth, the amount paid by any other of the colonies; and the exploits of her gallant officers--her Lymans, her Whitings, her Parsons, her Dyers, her Spencers, her Hinmans, her Coits, her Fitches, her Durkees, her Woosters, her Putnams, and her Wolcotts--were as glorious as their fame will be immortal."

C. C. Hazewell says, in his paper on the "Conquest of Cuba," contributed to an early number of the Atlantic Magazine: "Of the many conquests which were made by the English in the Seven Years' War, no one was more remarkable than that which placed Havana and its neighborhood in their hands, virtually giving them possession of the Island of Cuba; and the manner in which they disposed of their magnificent prize, when George III. forced peace upon his unwilling subjects, was among the causes of their failure to conquer the Thirteen States in the War for Independence." It is related that among the laborers of the English "were five hundred black slaves, purchased, for the use of the expedition, at Antigua and Martinique." This was, of course, a long time before the English developed their talent in abolishing slavery. The English fleet attempted to support the siege of the Moro, but "were roughly received by the Spaniards, and lost one hundred and eighty-two men, besides being greatly damaged in hull, masts, and rigging, so that they were forced to abandon the conflict without having made any impression on the fortress, though they had effected an important diversion in favor of the land batteries." The Spaniards made one desperate sally, and if they had succeeded, the siege would have been abandoned; but they were beaten back with heavy loss, and "in this action a battalion of North Americans bore a prominent part, aiding to drive the first Spanish column to the water, where one hundred and fifty men were drowned."

The commander of the Moro, when the castle was stormed--an operation which cost the English but two officers and thirty men--refused to retreat, and was mortally wounded. The Spaniards lost on the spot 530 men besides the drowned, and the English turned their batteries upon the city and pounded it with forty-five guns. When it was surrendered, besides "Havana and its immediate territory, the terms of the surrender placed in the hands of the English as much of the Island of Cuba as extended one hundred and eighty miles to the west, which belonged to the government of the place. This was a great conquest, and it was in the power of the conquerors to become masters of the whole Island."

The news of the capture of Havana reached Philadelphia in fourteen days, and was published in the Boston Gazette, September 13th, with the concluding statement that the spoil amounted to "fourteen million milled dollars." The victory was celebrated all over New England, and throughout the colonies great pride was taken in belonging to the conquering nation. Hazewell says of the Canadian conquest: "It is certain that those victories had greatly exalted the American heart; and now that they were followed by the conquest of Cuba, made at the expense of a great nation with which England was at peace when Quebec and Montreal had passed into her possession, it is not strange that our ancestors should have become more impressed than ever with the honor of belonging to the British empire. They were not only loyal, but they were loyal to a point that resembled fanaticism."