n, too much given to
impulse, though he outranked Sampson, was put under his command. Sampson
was not gracious in his treatment of the Commodore, and ill feeling
resulted. When the time came to promote both officers for their good
conduct, Secretary Long by recommending that Sampson be raised eight
numbers and Schley six, reversed their relative positions as they
had been before the war. This recommendation, in itself proper, was
sustained by the Senate, and all the vitality the controversy ever had
then disappeared, though it remains a bone of contention to be gnawed by
biographers and historians.

CHAPTER XII. The Close Of The War

While the American people were concentrating their attention upon the
blockade of Santiago near their own shores, the situation in the distant
islands of the Pacific was rapidly becoming acute. All through June,
Dewey had been maintaining himself, with superb nerve, in Manila Harbor,
in the midst of uncertain neutrals. A couple of unwieldy United States
monitors were moving slowly to his assistance from the one side, while
a superior Spanish fleet was approaching from the other. On the 26th of
June, the Spanish Admiral Camara had reached Port Said, but he was not
entirely happy. Several of his vessels proved to be in that ineffective
condition which was characteristic of the Spanish Navy. The Egyptian
authorities refused him permission to refit his ships or to coal, and
the American consul had with foresight bought up much of the coal which
the Spanish Admiral had hoped to secure and take aboard later from
colliers. Nevertheless the fleet passed through the Suez Canal and
entered the Red Sea.

Fully alive to the danger of the situation, the Naval War Board gave
orders on the 29th of June for a squadron under Commodore Watson to
start for the Spanish coast in hope of drawing Camara back.

The alarm which had previously been created on the American coast by
the shrouded approach of Cervera naturally suggested that the Americans
themselves might win one of those psychological victories now recognized
as such an important factor in modern warfare. The chief purpose of
future operations was to convince the Spanish people that they were
defeated, and nothing would more conduce to this result than to bring
war to their doors. This was, moreover, an operation particularly suited
to the conditions under which the United States was waging war, for
publicity was here a helping factor. Admiral