th difficult turns, and at the narrowest point only 300 feet
wide. Lieut. Hobson's gallant effort on June 3 to sink the collier
_Merrimac_ across the channel had made its navigation even more
difficult, though the vessel did not lie athwart-stream. Mine barriers
and batteries on the high hills at the harbor mouth prevented forcing
the channel, but the guns were mostly of ancient type and failed to
keep the ships at a distance. On the other hand, bombardments from
the latter did little more than to afford useful target practice.

The despatch of troops to Santiago was at once decided upon, and
the subsequent campaign, if it could be fully studied, would afford
interesting lessons in combined operations. On June 22, 16,000 men
under General Shafter landed at Daiquiri, 15 miles east of Santiago,
in 52 boats provided by the fleet, though the War Department had
previously stated that the general would "land his own troops."[2]
"It was done in a scramble," writes Col. Roosevelt; and there was
great difficulty in getting the skippers of army transports to bring
their vessels within reasonable distance of the shore. Since the sole
object of the campaign was to get at and destroy the enemy fleet,
the navy fully expected and understood that the army would make its
first aim to advance along the coast and capture the batteries at
the entrance, so that the mines could be lifted and the harbor
forced. Army authorities declare this would have involved division
of forces on both sides of the channel and impossibilities of
transportation due to lack of roads. But these difficulties applied
also in a measure to the defenders, and might perhaps have been
surmounted by full use of naval aid.

[Footnote 2: Goode, WITH SAMPSON THROUGH THE WAR, p. 182.]

Instead, the army set out with some confidence to capture the city
itself. El Caney and San Juan Hill were seized on July 2 after
a bloody struggle in which the Spanish stuck to their defenses
heroically and inflicted 1600 casualties. By their own figures the
Spanish on this day had only 1700 men engaged, though there were
36,500 Spanish troops in the province and 12,000 near at hand. In
considerable discouragement, Shafter now spoke of withdrawal, and
urged Sampson "immediately to force the entrance"[1]--in spite of
the fact that the main purpose in sending troops had been to avoid
this very measure. In view of threatening foreign complications
and the impossibility of replacing battlesh