ld be regarded as effective
or formidable in modern warfare, and two of these were so small that
their projectiles would have made no impression whatever upon a
battle-ship, and could hardly have done much damage even to a protected
cruiser. Six of these guns were so situated that, although they
commanded the outside approach to the bay, they could not possibly hit
an enemy that had once passed Morro and entered the channel. The neck of
the bottle-shaped harbor, or, in other words, the narrow strait between
Morro Castle and the upper bay, had absolutely no defensive intrenchment
except the Punta Gorda battery, consisting of two guns taken from the
old cruiser _Reina Mercedes_.

"Why," it may be asked, "did not Admiral Sampson fight his way into the
harbor, if its defenses were so weak?"

Simply because the channel was mined. He might have run past the
batteries without serious risk; but in so narrow a strip of water it was
impossible to avoid or escape the submarine mines, four of which were
very powerful and could be exploded by electricity. He offered to force
an entrance if General Shafter would seize the mine-station north of
Morro; but the general could not do this without changing his plan of
campaign. The cooeperation of the navy, therefore, was limited to the
destruction of Cervera's fleet and the bombardment of the city from the
mouth of Aguadores ravine.

CHAPTER XVIII

FEVER IN THE ARMY

The most serious and threatening feature of the situation at Santiago
after the capture of the city was the ill health of the army. In less
than a month after it began its Cuban campaign the Fifth Army-Corps was
virtually _hors de combat_. On Friday, July 22, I made a long march
around the right wing from a point near the head of the bay to the
Siboney road, and had an opportunity to see what the condition of the
troops was in that part of our line. I do not think that more than fifty
per cent. of them were fit for any kind of active duty, and if they had
been ordered to march back to Siboney between sunrise and dark, or to
move a distance of ten miles up into the hills, I doubt whether even
forty per cent. of them would have reached their destination. There were
more than a thousand sick in General Kent's division alone, and a
surgeon from the First Division hospital--the only field-hospital of the
Fifth Army-Corps--told me that a conservative estimate of the number of
sick in the army as a whole would be about