u
may be sure that was an anxious night for me when I decided
to part company. The Department was, of course, obliged to
leave much to my discretion, and I knew that the Spaniards
might all close to rapid-fire range, overpower all but our
turret guns, and then send in their torpedo boats."

It was upon the _Marietta_ that he had previously depended, in a
measure, to thwart the attacks of these small vessels; but in such a
contest as that with four armored cruisers she could scarcely count,
and she was delaying his progress in the run immediately before him.

"The torpedo boat [he continues] was a rattlesnake to me,
that I feared would get in his work while I was fighting the
tiger; but I felt that the chances were that Cervera was
bound to the West Indies, and so that the need of the
_Oregon_ there was so great that the risk of his turning
south to meet me should be run, so I hurried to Bahia, and
cabled to the Department my opinion of what the _Oregon_
might do alone and in a running fight.... My object was to
add the _Oregon_ to our fleet, and not to meet the Spaniards,
if it could be avoided."

It may be added that in this his intention coincided with the wish of
the Department.

"So when, in Barbados, the reports came off that the Spanish
fleet (and rumors had greatly increased its size) was at
Martinique, that three torpedo boats had been seen from the
island, I ordered coal to be loaded till after midnight, but
left soon after dark, started west, then turned and went
around the island"--that is, well to the eastward--"and made
to the northward."

This was on the evening of May 18th. Six days later the ship was off
the coast of Florida, and in communication with the Department.

The _Oregon_ may properly be regarded as one of the three principal
detachments into which the United States fleet was divided at the
opening of the eventful week, May 12th-19th, and which, however they
might afterwards be distributed around the strategic centre,--which we
had chosen should be about Havana and Cienfuegos,--needed to be
brought to it as rapidly as possible. No time was avoidably lost. On
the evening of May 13th, eighteen hours after Cervera's appearance at
Martinique was reported, the two larger divisions, under Sampson and
Schley, were consciously converging upon our point of concentration at
Key West; whil