The individual valor of officers and soldiers was never
more strikingly shown than in the several engagements leading to the
surrender of Santiago, while the prompt movements and successive
victories won instant and universal applause. To those who gained this
complete triumph, which established the ascendency of the United States
upon land as the fight off Santiago had fixed our supremacy on the seas,
the earnest and lasting gratitude of the nation is unsparingly due. Nor
should we alone remember the gallantry of the living; the dead claim our
tears, and our losses by battle and disease must cloud any exultation at
the result and teach us to weigh the awful cost of war, however rightful
the cause or signal the victory.

With the fall of Santiago the occupation of Puerto Rico became the next
strategic necessity. General Miles had previously been assigned to
organize an expedition for that purpose. Fortunately he was already at
Santiago, where he had arrived on the 11th of July with reenforcements
for General Shafter's army.

With these troops, consisting of 3,415 infantry and artillery, two
companies of engineers, and one company of the Signal Corps, General
Miles left Guantanamo on July 21, having nine transports convoyed by the
fleet under Captain Higginson with the _Massachusetts_ (flagship), _Dixie_,
_Gloucester_, _Columbia_, and _Yale_, the two latter carrying troops.
The expedition landed at Guanica July 25, which port was entered with
little opposition. Here the fleet was joined by the _Annapolis_ and
the _Wasp_, while the _Puritan_ and _Amphitrite_ went to San Juan and
joined the _New Orleans_, which was engaged in blockading that port. The
Major-General Commanding was subsequently reenforced by General Schwan's
brigade of the Third Army Corps, by General Wilson with a part of his
division, and also by General Brooke with a part of his corps, numbering
in all 16,973 officers and men.

On July 27 he entered Ponce, one of the most important ports in the
island, from which he thereafter directed operations for the capture of
the island.

With the exception of encounters with the enemy at Guayama,
Hormigueros, Coarno, and Yauco and an attack on a force landed at Cape
San Juan, there was no serious resistance. The campaign was prosecuted
with great vigor, and by the 12th of August much of the island was in
our possession and the acquisition of the remainder was only a matter
of a short time. At most of the point