ts,
but this seems to me to be a conservative estimate. A prominent officer
of the battle-ship _Iowa_ told me in Santiago, after the surrender, that
the fighting ships under Admiral Sampson's command, including the
auxiliary cruisers and mosquito fleet, could concentrate on any given
field a fire of about one hundred shells a second. This included, of
course, small projectiles from the rapid-fire and one-pound machine
guns. He did not think it possible for Spanish infantry to live, much
less fight, in the field swept by such a fire, and this was his reason
for believing that the fleet could have cleared the way for the army if
the latter had advanced along the coast instead of going back into the
interior. The plan of attack by way of Aguadores and Morro was regarded
by the foreign residents of Santiago as the one most likely to succeed;
and a gentleman who lived eight years at Daiquiri, as manager of the
Spanish-American Iron Company, and who is familiar with the topography
of the whole region, writes me: "I have always thought that the great
mistake of the Santiago campaign was that they assaulted the city at its
most impregnable point, instead of taking possession of the heights at
Aguadores, which would have been tantamount to the fall of Morro, the
possession of the harbor entrance and of the harbor itself. The forces
of the Spaniards were not sufficient to maintain any considerable number
of men there, and it seems to me that, with the help of the fleet
shelling the heights, they could have been reached very easily along the
Juragua Railroad. If General Duffield had pressed on when he was there,
it is probable that he would have met with only a thin skirmish-line,
or, if the fleet had done its work, with no resistance at all."

The reason assigned for General Shafter's advance through the valleys
and over the foot-hills of the interior, instead of along the high land
of the coast, is that he had been ordered to "capture the garrison at
Santiago and assist in capturing the harbor and the fleet." He did not
believe, it is said, that he could "capture the garrison" without
completely investing the city on the east and north. If he attacked it
from the southern or Morro side, he might take the city, but the
garrison would escape by the Cobre or the San Luis road. This seems like
a valid and reasonable objection to the original plan of campaign; but
I doubt very much whether the Spanish army would have tried to escape i