The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby [44]
Sigsbee groped his way through the darkened, smoke-filled quarters, feeling the Maine rolling seaward. Squinting and trying to adjust his eyes to the dark, he took in all the damage around him. The explosion had taken place near the front ammunition magazine in the forward part of the ship—right below the berth where the enlisted men slept in their hammocks. “On the white paint of the ceiling was the impression of two human bodies— mere dust,” he would later report.
As the captain made his way onto the deck, a dreadful calm and discipline prevailed in spite of all the violence. The captain was informed that the explosion had taken place at 9:40 p.m. The ship had sustained much damage, and one of the smokestacks was lying starboard. The compartments below were filling with water, and the Maine would soon go under.
Cries from men in the water echoed: “Help! Lord God, help us! Help! Help!” Sigsbee ordered his officers, most of whom had been spared in their quarters far from the explosion, to lower all undamaged lifeboats and set out to rescue the sailors of the Maine. Boats from the City of Washington, as well as Spanish seamen, paddled toward the wreckage to rescue the wounded. The Maine continued to sputter and rupture as flames ignited live rounds aboard the ship until nearly 2:00 a.m.
Newspapers would write that Captain Charles Sigsbee had heroically stayed on board the Maine until he was the last man to leave his ship. Sigsbee saw it differently: “It is a fact that I was the last to leave, which was only proper; that is to say, it would have been improper otherwise; but virtually all left last.”
The wounded were taken aboard nearby ships or carted to the hospitals on the shore. Sigsbee worried that his sailors would be taken to hospitals where yellow fever existed, but there were no hospitals in Havana that didn’t house the dreaded fever. Doctors, nurses and civilians tried to mend the crushed bones, deep cuts and hideous burns of the sailors. Many survived, but only partially, losing eyes or limbs or faces in the process. When the final death toll came in, including a number of wounded who later died, 268 had perished in the explosion.
Aboard the City of Washington, Captain Charles Sigsbee dispatched his telegram to the secretary of the navy in Washington, D.C. He ended the message with a warning: “Public opinion should be suspended until further report . . . Many Spanish officers, including representatives of General Blanco, now with us to express sympathy.”
Regardless, two days after the tragedy of the Maine, William Randolph Hearst sent forth his morning edition with a definitive yet unsubstantiated headline: “Destruction of the Warship Maine Was the Work of an Enemy.” The enemy, the paper clearly illustrated, was the Spanish.
A Spanish officer in Havana held the newspaper up to Charles Sigsbee. In it, he could see an artistic rendering of his ship, as she once was, anchored above a Spanish mine. In another illustration, wires connected the Maine to the Havana shore.
“What do you think of that?” the Spanish officer asked.
Still irritated that the Havana newspapers had been unfair to him in the past, Sigsbee remarked, “If the American newspapers gave more than the news, the Spanish newspapers gave less than the news: It was a question of choice.”
Tensions in Havana flared over the next few days as separate American and Spanish inquiries studied the remains of the Maine. Sigsbee watched helplessly as divers picked through his capsized ship and bodies were recovered. More was at stake than just the destruction of a U.S. Navy vessel and loss of seamen.
The apex of all shipping that came into the Caribbean and an island rich in sugar plantations and workers, Cuba had long been considered a piece of prime real estate for expanding America. At least four U.S. presidents had attempted to buy it. John Quincy Adams had called it a natural appendage to North America, and Thomas Jefferson believed it to be “the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States.”