resort to the
use of privateers. The naval contest, therefore, was confined to the
regular navies. Actually the American fleet was superior in battleships,
monitors, and protected cruisers; the Spanish was the better equipped in
armored cruisers, gunboats, and destroyers.

Both Spain and the United States hastily purchased, in the last days of
peace, a few vessels, but not enough seriously to affect their relative
strength. Both also drew upon their own merchant marines. Spain added
18 medium-sized vessels to her navy; the United States added in all 123,
most of which were small and used for scouting purposes. The largest and
most efficient of these additional American ships were the subsidized
St. Paul, St. Louis, New York, and Paris of the American line, of
which the last two, renamed the Harvard and Yale, proved to be of great
service. It was characteristic of American conditions that 28 were
private yachts, of which the Mayflower was the most notable. To man
these new ships, the personnel of the American Navy was increased from
13,750 to 24,123, of whom a large number were men who had received some
training in the naval reserves of the various States.

The first duty of the navy was to protect the American coast. In 1885
the War Department had planned and Congress had sanctioned a system
of coast defense. Up to 1898, however, only one quarter of the sum
considered necessary had been appropriated. Mines and torpedoes were
laid at the entrances to American harbors as soon as war broke out, but
there was a lack of highpower guns. Rumors of a projected raid by the
fast Spanish armored cruisers kept the coast cities in a state of high
excitement, and many sought, by petition and political pressure, to
compel the Navy Department to detach vessels for their defense. The
Naval War Board, however, had to remember that it must protect not only
the coast but commerce also, and that the United States was at war not
to defend herself but to attack. Cuba was the objective; and Cuba must
be cut off from Spain by blockade, and the seas must be made safe for
the passage of the American Army. If the navy were to accomplish all
these purposes, it must destroy the Spanish Navy. To achieve this
end, it would have to work upon the principle of concentration and not
dispersion.

For several months before the actual declaration of war with Spain, the
Navy Department had been effecting this concentration. On the 21st of
April, Captain W