or our objective, had begun our operations,
Cervera was on his way across the ocean, and our battle fleet was
divided and posted as stated. It was reasonable for us to estimate
each division of our ships--one comprising the _New York_, _Iowa_, and
_Indiana_, the other the _Brooklyn_, _Massachusetts_, and _Texas_--as
able to meet Cervera's four, these being of a class slightly inferior
to the best of ours. We might at least flatter ourselves that, to use
a frequent phrase of Nelson's, by the time they had soundly beaten one
of these groups, they would give us no more trouble for the rest of
the year. We could, therefore, with perfect military propriety, have
applied the two divisions to separate tasks on the Cuban coast, if our
own coast had been adequately fortified.

The advantage--nay, the necessity--of thus distributing our
battleships, having only four enemies to fear, will appear from a
glance at the map of Cuba. It will there be seen that the island is
particularly narrow abreast of Havana, and that from there, for a
couple of hundred miles to the eastward, extends the only tolerably
developed railroad system, by which the capital is kept in
communication with the seaports, on the north coast as far as Sagua la
Grande, and on the south with Cienfuegos and Batabano. This
narrowness, and the comparative facility of communication indicated by
the railroads, enabled Spain, during her occupation, effectually to
prevent combined movements between the insurgents in the east and
those in the west; a power which Weyler endeavored to increase by the
_trocha_ system,--a ditch or ditches, with closely supporting works,
extending across the island. Individuals, or small parties, might slip
by unperceived; but it should have been impossible for any serious
co-operation to take place. The coast-wise railroads, again, kept
Havana and the country adjacent to them in open, if limited,
communication with the sea, so long as any one port upon their lines
remained unblockaded. For reasons such as these, in this belt of land,
from Havana to Sagua and Cienfuegos, lay the chief strength of the
Spanish tenure, which centred upon Havana; and in it the greatest
part of the Spanish army was massed. Until, therefore, we were ready
to invade, which should not have been before the close of the rainy
season, the one obvious course open to us was to isolate the capital
and the army from the sea, through which supplies of all kinds--daily
bread,