In this way two cavalrymen of the Tenth lost their lives,
falling into the sea with their equipments on and sinking before help
could reach them. Some of the boats were rowed ashore and made a
landing on the beach some distance from the pier. By this method some
men of the Twenty-fifth tried to be the first to land, but failed,
that regiment landing, however, in the first body of troops to go
ashore, and being the second in order, in the invasion of the island.
By night of the 22nd more than one-third of the troops were on shore,
and by the evening of the 24th the whole army was disembarked
according to the program announced at the beginning, the squadron of
cavalry coming in at the close of the march to the shore.
The only national movement on our part deserving to be brought into
comparison with the expedition against the Spanish power in Cuba, is
that of fifty years earlier, when General Scott sailed at the head of
the army of invasion against Mexico. Some of the occurrences of that
expedition, especially connected with its landing, should be carefully
studied, and if the reports which have reached the public concerning
it are truthful, we would do well to consider how far the methods then
in use could be applied now. Scribner's recent history, published just
before the outbreak of the Spanish War, tells the story of that
expedition, so far as it tells it at all, in the following sentence:
"On the 7th of March, the fleet with Scott's army came to anchor a few
miles south of Vera Cruz, and two days later he landed his whole
force--nearly twelve thousand men--by means of surf-boats.
Pages:
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177