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It was Billy Hell's hill and he knew his family wouldn't like it if he let a mere 7,000 Spaniards and Cubans chase his 600-Marine battalion off it. Billy and his ornery crony, Marine Major Henry Clay Cochrane, will remind you of the World War II Marine who is supposed to have said, “They've got us surrounded again . . . the poor bastards."
As the sun rose out of the eastern Caribbean on the morning of II June 1898, bringing with it the promise of another sweltering day, a group of war correspondents descended a hill on the windward side of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The newspapermen had just interviewed members of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Huntington's Marine battalion following the previous night's battle. Among the group was Stephen Crane, novelist and perhaps the most noted war correspondent of his time. Crane's story and sketches soon appeared in the New York Herald, depicting the stalwart Marines doggedly holding McCalla Hill, with the caption, “The firing drill of the Marines was splendid." His story and stories that followed electrified the nation and set into history the Marines at Guantanamo Bay.
Had the correspondents glanced back up the hill that morning, they would have seen several Marine officers leave the battle lines. Unbeknownst to Crane and his companions, Colonel Huntington was on his way to the USS Marblehead to make a startling request of her captain and the landing force commander. Captain Bowman H. “Billy Hell” McCalla. The real story of the battle for Guantanamo was about to unfold.
On board the Marblehead, McCalla heard the haggard Marine argue that the Marines' position on the hill was untenable, and that the men were exhausted. Huntington wanted to immediately evacuate his men from the island. McCalla tlevv into rage. “Leave this camp? No. sir. That camp is named for me. Never. My family would suffer.” Adding that he would send for Huntington’s dead body if the fortunes of war so dictated, McCalla ordered the hill held.1
Whether the hill would be held was touch and go from the start. In lact, the battle at Guantanamo was saved from the jaws of defeat by the dogged determination of Captain McCalla and Major Henry Clay Cochrane, a staff officer of the Marine battalion. Thanks to a most fortuitous turn of fate, both men were brought together during the heat of battle.
Both McCalla and Cochrane were of Scotch-lrish stock and were born in the early 1840s in Chester. Pennsylvania. At the onset of the Civil War, McCalla was accepted at the Naval Academy, and Cochrane accepted a Marine Corps commission. When it was discovered that he was only 19 years old, Cochrane's commission was revoked, and he joined the Navy as a master's mate, with a promise front Gideon Welles that the Marine commission would be
awarded when he reached 21. Thus, when Midshipman McCalla visited Port Royal, South Carolina, in 1862 on a summer cruise, Cochrane by coincidence was also in port, having taken a respite from his duties on the gunboat Pembina. While McCalla continued his studies at Newport, Rhode Island (the Academy having been moved there from Annapolis, Maryland, for security reasons in 1861), Cochrane saw extensive service with the brown water Navy, blockading the southern coast. As promised, the
ciplinarians. McCalla, who had acquired the nicknan'j- “Billy Hell,” was brought to court-martial, charged with using the flat of his sword upon a recalcitrant bluejackel who appeared to be inciting a riot. Cochrane was, said8 fellow officer, “hated equally by officers and men alike . . . ornery and meaner than hell on duty ... a man of ^ sympathy and no affection, but efficient to an unusu8 degree.”2
In 1896, both men met again, this time at the Naval W31 College. McCalla was a student there, and Cochrane 'vaS the barracks commander. Each had access to documents provided by the Office of Naval Intelligence dealing ^ the Spanish situation in Cuba. McCalla and Cochrane na between them solid experience in command and in landi^r operations. Both were seasoned veterans who, uflU^ many of the fellow officers, had survived the doldrums the 1870s and 1880s and had remained outspoken pr°P° nents for a professional Navy and Marine Corps.
Captain McCalla had received orders on 5 June from Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, commander
of
pay
tl3<*
Marine commission was forthcoming in 1863, and the young Marine lieutenant accompanied President Abraham Lincoln to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. McCalla and Coch- . rane made lengthy South Pacific cruises in the late 1860s and early 1870s. In 1874, they were assigned to the Naval Academy, and there they met for the first time. European tours followed for both men, and in 1880, McCalla visited Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Both were key members in the reform movements of their respective services. McCalla advocated the creation of a Navy general staff and supported the creation of the Office of Naval Intelligence, partially as a method to see the general staff brought to life. Cochrane argued for the professionalization of the Marine Corps. He authored a proposal that called for restructuring and reorganizing the Corps. He argued that the Marine Corps should take a shape similar to the Royal Marines Artillery. The idea reached Congress in the form of a bill, but died there.
In 1885, McCalla was sent to Panama to quell the disturbances there when insurrection halted transit of the isthmus. Captain Cochrane, a veteran of the recent landing in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1882, where he led Marines ashore alongside Royal Marines, commanded a company in the two-battalion force that McCalla commanded. (This expedition was similar to the Guantanamo landing.) When all naval forces returned to the states after the disturbance, McCalla expressed specific views on the use of naval landing forces and complained of the lack of equipment for the Marines. In 1890, Cochrane had been placed in command of an expeditionary force to the Bering Sea to deal with seal poachers.
Both McCalla and Cochrane were regarded as strict dis-
the U. S. Atlantic Fleet, to reconnoiter Guantanamo so that it could be used as a coaling station. Sampson been unsuccessful in finding and bringing to battle Spanish fleet, which had entered Santiago de Cuba on May. Upon receipt of the orders, McCalla had request6 battalion of Marines to act as a landing party. v The Marines, who had been previously uncere^j niously dumped on the beach at Key West, Florida. , been fighting off the mosquitoes, firing their newly >sS Lee rifles, and worrying about being left out of the ^ As the Marines reembarked on board the transport Patl ^ for passage to Guantanamo, the fleet Marine officer ^ lected a site for the battalion—a position on the wind^, side of Guantanamo Bay. The site was approved by ^ tain McCalla, and the hill above Fisherman’s Point ,
■dtl*
occupied by the battalion on 10 June. That first nigh1
been quiet. Two Marine companies were still on boar0^J Panther to off-load the remainder of the equipment ammunition the next day. tjie
Unbeknownst to either McCalla or Huntington’ ^ Marines were facing 6,000-7,000 men of the EscUf1 p Guantanamo. Consisting of Cubans who had j°ine^tle'v Spanish forces, the practicos, as they were called, rf. every inch of the area. And, as the 600-man battal*0 ^ | loaded during the daylight hours of 11 June, they under the watchful, waiting eyes of the enemy- ^ As the last of the supplies were being off-loade ^ the Panther, during the late afternoon on the ‘
practicos attacked the Marine positions atop ieiit
Hill. Descending the gangplank at just that mo ^j) Major Cochrane heard the firing and rushed up 1 ^ while Marines grabbed for stacked rifles and ran .fit the firing. Arriving at the hill’s crest, Cochrane vie'^g$ scene and noted that ‘ ‘The camp was badly sited b ^ the crest of a hill with thickets and chaparral sides.”3 Colonel Huntington was nowhere to be ^ir The defense works at the camp were either p°° . ^ structed or nonexistent. In a report to the Generali) mandant, Huntington had stated, “The hill occup'6
80
Proceedings / N°v<
eirt1
^cCaii^e *Tre discipline of the Marines was poor.
Q|,a estim^J .L„. nr\ Ar\ r>r>« _.......... ________ ,
Is a faulty position but the best to be had at this point. The r'dge slopes downward and to the rear from the bay; the sPace at the top is very small, and all the surrounding c°Untry is covered with almost inpenetrable brush. The Position is commanded by a mountain, the ridge of which ls about 1,200 yards to the rear.”4 Although some pickets had been posted, and in fact two arines on such duty were the first to die, command and ontrol on the hill still left much to be desired. The make- At battalion, formed from Marine barracks and stations ^°ng the East Coast, had little time to work together as a The battalion executive officer had gone to a hospital sj Key West, and Cochrane had never been formally as- in§ned as the second in command, although he functioned Ij aat capacity during the campaign. Huntington and he ^ ^ad words earlier in the year, and their relationship s not good. In fact, communication between the two s.as limited at best. Huntington had been in poor health (L Ce the start of the expedition, having contracted a fever Cub ^'m bedridden throughout much of the time in
The battalion was formed into a square, with one com- arfn rnann'n8 each side and the remaining company and lery in the center of the camp as a reserve. Since chap-
tQew to the very edge of the camp, it was relatively JW approach the camp undetected. The practicos did lat- At the i
Ut f: estimated that 30,000-40,000 rounds were fired
CoS tight.
eatdi$ane SPent ^ night patrolling the camp. To his noted lbat many of the officers had gone Jt°ne • ^ur'n§ the early morning hours, he discovered s'de of the perimeter had no outposts. Armed with
his service revolver, he led out a squad of Marines and set them in position.
Private Frank Keeler, a Marine for little more than two months, had been sent to an outpost after dark. His description of the first night of battle reflected the scrambled events on the hill:
‘‘I had not been in 15 minutes when the enemy opened fire upon us and for an hour they kept it up ... . We returned it as best we could. They knew where we were. They were scattered about in the bush .... Had we been placed on this post by day we should have known the lay of the land, but we came as strangers at eleven at night and now we didn’t know which way to go. . . ,”5
Stephen Crane provided the most graphic picture of the charged atmosphere that night.
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llnBs /
November 1984
“It was my good fortune—at that time I considered it my bad fortune, indeed—to be with them . . . when a wild storm of fighting was pealing about the hill; of all the actions of the war, none were so hard on the nerves, none strained courage so near the panic point, as those nights in Camp McCalla, with a thousand rifles rat-
Sampson called in his fleet Marine officer and questi , him as to the strength of the hill. The officer resp00^ that with a few hours of work, the hill could be defen against 10,000 men. 0r-
After a meeting with Admiral Sampson, McCal 3 dered the Marine camp shifted toward the west to del Este—the same location that Cochrane had re ^ mended earlier in the day. Shortly after noon, a f*a£ sent ashore from the Marblehead and raised to the c ^ of the Marines’ and ships’ whistles. The Marines ^ stay, but the 100 hours of fighting, as Cochrane desc the ordeal, was just beginning.
it1
/ Novel0
ib*r
tling; with the field guns booming in your ears; with the diabolic Colt automatics clacking; with the roar of the Marblehead coming from the bay, and last, the Mauser bullets sneering always in the air a few inches over one’s head, and with this enduring from dusk to dawn, it is extremely doubtful that if any one who was there will be able to forget it easily. The noise; the impenetrable darkness; the knowledge from the sound of bullets that the enemy was on three sides of the camp; the infrequent bloody stumbling and death of some man
with whom, perhaps, one had messed two hours previous; the weariness of the mind, at the endlessness of the thing, made it wonderful that at least some of the men did not come out of it with their nerves hopelessly in shreds.”6
At 0400, the practicos found the weak spot they had been looking for and rushed a spot near B Company, forc82
ing the Marines back a short distance. At the same time, Assistant Surgeon John B. Gibbs was killed either by Spanish rifle fire or by the pistol of the Cuban insurge111 leader, Colonel Laborde. The Marines rose to the chal' lenge, and the attack was driven back under the fire of the battalion’s rifles, automatic guns, and naval gunfire frotl1 the Marblehead. The naval guns were adjusted by Marines standing erect during the melee signaling with lanterns-
The panic to which Crane had unknowingly allude became reality at dawn. Three of the rifle company com' manders sought out Huntington and argued that the M®' rines’ position was untenable. They demanded that the battalion be evacuated at once. .
In a letter to his son, in which he described the ‘‘Fourm of July business” at Guantanamo, Huntington wrote:
“We went ashore like innocents .... The night of d1 11th we were attacked . . . from seven different p°sl tions .... I can tell you I was bothered how to stan but more by good luck than good management and ; firing at every flash or any noise we got through. I not know why I did not expect night attack for we ha flurry in the p.m. . . ,”7
Taking counsel of his fears, Huntington decided to co front McCalla. Prior to this decision, Cochrane had c° ferred with Huntington and had recommended an >ninie. ^ ate displacement to what he considered a more defend site to the west at Play a del Este. Cochrane also TeC° j mended bringing up more heavy guns. Huntington ®Sre and then took his leave. j
At this point, two of the company commanders who approached Huntington now put the same request to eS ^ uate to Cochrane. He “refused positively and advl against the thought of such a thing.”8 ^
Word of Huntington’s request spread throughout . fleet. Captain John W. Philips, of the Texas, meg®P^° ^ the event to Admiral Sampson on board the New j
c____ „______ r,„/w •_____________ j „,.^tione.
—„ — j---------------------------------- D----------- bo*
On the 12th, the night again rang with gunfire o ^ sides. The Marines’ fire discipline had improved Two days later, Captain McCalla authorized d^jls, rines to attack from their position toward Cuze° , b)' hoping to destroy the Spaniard’s water supply- $1 Captain George Elliot, at age 51 the youngest eo commander in the battalion, the Marines and Cub®/1 (j$S gents sallied forth. With gunfire support from 1 Dolphin, they drove back the enemy. 6(Jt)>6
The attack on Cuzco Wells immediately *esseI-I1g $ pressure on the Marine positions. The day foil®
y
Proceedings
and
j^ary landing site from the enemy.
(jeetreat from Guantanamo would have delayed if not *r°yed the possibility of victory in Cuba. With Guanta- shif° n° ^on8er a threat, General Lineres could have nUr/e^. his troops to Santiago, strengthening the already encally superior forces there. The Cuban insurgents harrassed the Spanish in the Guantanamo area
fre, > I
the hius
’heir V'ctory b°r the Spanish would have also stiffened t^c res°lve and perhaps would have led to some resis- ^haft °n tPe heach at Daiquiri and Siboney. General ii)g jer s landing was a protracted affair, seemingly lack- n0ln Planning. It was successful only because there was for ,.Slstance. Any opposition could have spelled disaster Corps.
put u ”°ugh they were poorly led, the Spanish troops still pressPa s’iff resistance at Santiago. At 0100, on 3 July, a °at arrived at the Guantanamo cable station. The j |.°ni the front was bleak, with reports of 500 killed Qeiw . 1® wounded. General Shafter sent a dispatch to
s
la’ed
o luici« uiv- upamoii ruiuj' Lapiiu
antiago, unaware that the forces facing them
ra'd, Cochrane wrote . . no attack today. The Span- */y seero to have been driven off. Precautions continue.
rest in shoes and clothes and men carry rifles to raeals .... Most all of the men are worn out and eePing .... Some so tired they could not eat.”9 The thrust to Cuzco Wells appears to have convinced eneral Arsenio Lineres that the major invasion of Guan- anamo was over. At the very moment the skirmish at uzco Wells was taking place, the V Corps of the U. S.
16,888-men strong, under the command of Major eneral William R. Shafter, was departing Tampa under naval escort.
^From 22 to 25 June, V Corps landed, unopposed, at aiquiri, Cuba. Even if they suspected another landing er Guantanamo, the Spanish fleet was tied up in Santi- fo° ^arb°r and thus unable to reconnoiter the sea-lanes an invasion fleet. Unknowingly, the fledgling Navy- ^ae Corps team had doctrinally reached ahead 35 years executed an amphibious deception that had hidden the
> had
^ -quently cut their lines of communication probably ik. .a have left with the retreating Marines or faded into
hevv:
vjfchp ~ vvuunucu. vjcnciai ana he ^ a Miles stating that his line was long and thin, and ’hat hg Conternplating withdrawing five miles. He added ip’o VVas urging Admiral Sampson to force an entrance ^ ,e harbor at Santiago.
teive<j It*°na* word was received that the Spanish had re- hfe^kj re'nf°rcements and had taken the initiative by b,g0»S through the 13th Infantry. An immediate em- signai Was placed on all press releases. After the Army tape u° ^'cer showed Cochrane Shafter’s dispatch, Coch- Miles him to send a message to General Nelson A. ^tesC Would in turn reach the President of the United sage ' tnstant action by fleet imperative” was the mes- ’° send88ested by Cochrane, and the signal officer agreed At th Sornething in that vein.
jnat same time, the Spanish fleet was getting up anticipation of a run to sea. But within several ic pi e ’^eet was driven ashore by the guns of the At- eet- Three weeks later, the Spanish Army capitu-
November 1984
were themselves disintegrating from the ravages of malaria and dysentery.
On 12 August, the Marine battalion was afloat again, steaming toward an anticipated assault at Manzanillo, Cuba. By midaftemoon, orders to clear the decks for action were given, and a flag of truce was taken ashore. The Spanish were given three hours to surrender. Promptly at 1535, the USS Newark two-blocked her battle flags, and three minutes later, she fired the first of a nightlong string of naval projectiles into the city. The following day, hostilities were officially ended. A final Marine assault from the sea was not required. The ‘‘splendid little war” was over.
The near debacle at Guantanamo remained a well-kept secret. A Marine withdrawal in the face of the enemy would probably have sealed the fate of the Marine Corps. The supporters of Lieutenant William F. Fullam, U. S. Navy, who advocated abolition of Marine guards from ships, could have used that disgrace to accomplish their ends. Whether or not the Fullam clique had knowledge of the affair will probably remain a mystery. In fact, it is a moot point. The victory in Cuba and the public acclaim would have negated any attempt to defame the Corps. McCalla praised Huntington after the battle, and Cochrane never mentioned the affair.
One year after Guantanamo, Congress increased the size of the Marine Corps to 200 officers and 6,000 enlisted men, more than a 100% increase. Major Henry Clay Cochrane and Captain Bowman McCalla were traveling toward another rendezvous in China, where the Boxer Rebellion was smoldering.
Forty-five years later, the Marines raised the stars and stripes over Mt. Suribachi. The raising of that flag was supposed to ensure a Marine Corps for another 500 years. It appears the flag raised over Camp McCalla ensured that there would be a Marine Corps.
'Henry Clay Cochrane Papers, diary entry 25 August 1898, Marine Corps Historical Center.
"Frederic Wise and Meigs O. Frost, A Marine Tells It To You (New York: J. H. Sears & Co., 1929), p. 3.
3Cochrane Diary, 11 June 1898.
“Letter to General Commandant, 17 June 1898, Report to the Secretary of the Navy, 1898.
“Journal of Private Frank Keeler, Personal Papers Collection, Marine Corps Historical Center.
“Stephen Crane, Wounds in the Rain (Salem, NH: Amo, 1972), pp. 178-179. ’Huntington Papers, 19 June 1898, Personal Papers Collection, Marine Corps Historical Center.
“Cochrane Diary, 12 June 1898.
“Cochrane Diary, 15 June 1898.
Major Holden-Rhodes was commissioned as a Marine lieutenant in 1965. He served as aide de camp to the Division and Assistant Division Commander, 2nd Marine Division. He saw combat service as a platoon leader with 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company and as a company commander with 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion and 3rd Combined Action Group. He presently holds the position of Reserve Attache, Jamaica, and is attached to 3rd Battalion 87th Infantry as assistant operations officer. He is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New Mexico and is completing a biography on General Cochrane under a grant from the Marine Corps Historical Center.
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