I do not mean to throw any undeserved blame upon the quartermasters and commissaries at Siboney. Many of them worked day and night with indefatigable energy to get supplies on shore and forward them to the army; but they were hampered by conditions over which they had no control, and for which, perhaps, they were not in any way responsible; they were often unable to obtain the assistance of steamer captains and other officers upon whose coöperation the success of their own efforts depended, and they probably did all that could be done by individuals acting as separate units rather than as correlated parts of an organized and intelligently directed whole. The trouble at Siboney was the same trouble that became apparent at Tampa. There was at the head of affairs no controlling, directing, and energizing brain, capable of grasping all the details of a complex situation and making all the parts of a complicated mechanism work harmoniously together for the accomplishment of a definite purpose.
III. The strategic plan of campaign and its execution.
As this branch of the subject will be discussed--if it has not already been discussed--by better-equipped critics than I can pretend to be, I shall limit myself to a brief review of the campaign in its strategic aspect as it appears from the standpoint of a civilian.
I understand, from officers who were in a position to know the facts, that the original plan of attack on the city of Santiago provided for close and effective coöperation of the army with the navy, and for a joint assault by way of Aguadores and Morro Castle. General Shafter was to move along the line of the railroad from Siboney to Aguadores, keeping close to the coast under cover of the guns of the fleet, and, with the assistance of the latter, was to capture the old Aguadores fort and such other intrenchments as should be found at the mouth of the Aguadores ravine. This, it was thought, might be accomplished with very little loss, because the fleet could shell the Spaniards out of their fortifications, and thus make it possible for the army to occupy them without much fighting. Having taken Aguadores, General Shafter was to continue his march westward along the coast, still under the protection of Admiral Sampson's guns, until he reached Morro. Then, without attempting to storm or reduce the castle, he was to go down through the ravine that leads to the head of the Estrella cove, and seize the submarine-mine station at the mouth of Santiago harbor. When electrical connection between the station and the mines had been destroyed, and the mines had thus been rendered harmless, Admiral Sampson was to force an entrance, fighting his way in past the batteries, and the army and fleet were then to advance northward toward the city along the eastern side of the bay.