The Spanish-American War engagement of the little torpedo boat Winslow at Cardenas, May 11, 1898, appears as a noteworthy result of measures taken by United States naval authorities to distribute vessels along the northern line of the Cuban blockade in sufficient force to discourage attacks by Spanish gunboats upon the smaller units of our blockading forces.
During this period of reassignment of stations, it happened that, by May 8, only the small converted yacht Hornet and the torpedo boat Winslow commanded by Lieutenant John B. Bernadou, U. S. Navy, comprised the patrol off Matanzas. These two vessels took stations some five to seven miles apart at night to cover the harbor approaches, and were thus individually exposed to attacks from enemy gunboats known to be lying at Cardenas.
The Winslow had been commissioned at Norfolk on December 29, 1897, and after a trip to Newport for her torpedoes, she had proceeded to Key West, arriving there in March 1898, where she remained until war was declared.
This little vessel was 160 feet long, had only a ten-foot beam and a shallow draft of seven feet. She mounted three torpedo tubes, one on each bow and one astern; and three one-pounder Hotchkiss quick- firing guns, one mounted forward on the conning tower, and one on each beam. Her crew numbered twenty-one officers and men.
The ship developed a speed of 24.8 knots on her trials, and was powered by two triple-expansion engines drawing steam from two water-tube boilers. Each was enclosed in a separate compartment and her hull was also divided by nine transverse bulkheads.
The Winslow, like all vessels of her class, was without protection save for that afforded by the two conning towers, one forward, the other aft, made of half-inch steel plating.
On May 10 the two vessels were reenforced by the arrival of the armed tug Uncas from Key West, and, with a consort thus provided for the Hornet, the Winslow departed for Cardenas to secure some coal from the gunboat Machias, Commander Merry.
Arriving at Cardenas, on the morning of the eleventh, Lieutenant Bernadou found the Machias about to sail for Matanzas, and the Winslow was directed to apply for fuel to the gunboat Wilmington, which had just arrived on the station.
Commander Todd, of the Wilmington, had other things on his mind beside refueling torpedo boats, however, and he informed the commander of the Winslow that he intended to enter Cardenas Harbor that day, depth of water permitting, and undertake the destruction of Spanish gunboats and other shipping.
The Navy had received reports that the main entrance channel between Chalupa and Diana cays had been mined; and that mines would probably be found in the second channel between Diana and Mangle cays.
There remained a third channel, the shallowest of the three, between Romero and Blanco cays, and the chart gave this channel a depth of only one and a quarter fathoms at low water. If this was correct, the Wilmington, which drew about nine feet, ten inches, could safely navigate the channel to the harbor at high water. However, Commander Todd ordered the Winslow in company with the revenue cutter Hudson, to sound the channel.
This operation was carried out without molestation from the Spaniards, and Lieutenant Bernadou reported to his senior that the gunboat could safely use the entrance.
Before 2:00 p.m., the Wilmington started in toward the town with the Winslow and Hudson taking station on each side of her, to give warning in case the water suddenly shoaled.
The passage was uneventful, however, and once in the harbor. Commander Todd dispatched the torpedo boat and cutter on eastern and western courses to skirt the circular shore of the bay, while the Wilmington took the middle course directly toward the town of Cardenas.
The three ships had proceeded but a short distance when Commander Todd sighted the outlines of a gunboat tied up at a wharf, and signaled the Winslow to close her. The Wilmington then changed her course away from the torpedo boat’s line of advance, so that she could use her heavier guns if the Spaniards opened fire. The Winslow started in at once, heading directly toward the enemy’s gunboat.
The first shot of the engagement was fired from the Spaniard’s bow gun at about 2:30. This was followed immediately by a heavy and long-sustained fire from enemy shore batteries located at different points along the water front of the town. The Spaniards were using smokeless powder, and it was impossible to spot the exact location of their guns, although reddish dust clouds rose to indicate the movement of troops over the clay roads into town.
When the Winslow had approached to about twelve hundred feet from the shore, she encountered a field of anchored range marks. At this time a shell, coming from dead ahead, and apparently from a six- pounder fieldpiece, crashed through the torpedo boat’s bows, and bursting fragments pierced the lower face of the forward conning tower, cutting steam lines and wrecking the steam steering gear.
Daniel McKeown, the quartermaster at the wheel, had a miraculous escape from death. The concussion threw him out the door, but except for minor bruises, he was unhurt.
This hit compelled the use of the steering gear in the after tower. Several men were required to make the connections, and while they were busy in the petty officers’ quarters aft, a shell burst against the after tower, carrying away the wheel ropes and scattering the men working below.
Fragments of the same shell jammed the rudder hard over, and, use of relieving tackles hooked to the tiller proving ineffective, the little ship could only be steered by using the engines. All these injuries had come within a very few minutes during which the ship had gone ahead only a few hundred yards.
Lieutenant Bernadou had remained forward to direct the fire of his guns, and to work his ship, and just after the injury of the after conning tower, a water tender, William O’Hearn, reported to him that a shell had gone straight through the forward boiler, and had burst in the furnace, scattering burning coals about the fireroom. The fireroom force were probably saved from being scalded by the forced draft system, which drove the escaping steam up the stacks.
After making his report, O’Hearn, together with machinist’s mate, Thomas Cooney, dropped into the stifling heat and smother of the fireroom, and extinguished the smoldering coals, as well as the little fire remaining in the furnace.
The torpedo boat’s puny armament of one-pounders was maintaining a steady fire, first at the gunboats, which failed to leave their wharf, and later at the shore batteries as they were unmasked.
The next hit received by the Winslow put her forward engine out of service, when a shell entered the engine, burst in the low pressure cylinder and spiked it. This damage left the vessel with but one engine, without wheel-ropes or steering gear and with her rudder jammed. Further progress toward her objective was impossible. In fact the torpedo boat was in danger of being reduced to a complete wreck by the heavy and well-directed fire of the enemy.
Lieutenant Bernadou, who had been wounded in the thigh by shell fragments, decided that it was time to withdraw his ship, especially since his small crew now included a number of men who were more or less seriously wounded. He decided to attempt his retirement by alternately backing and going ahead—thus working out on a zigzag course. This maneuver made a moving and more difficult target of his boat, but required extreme care in its execution, for there was danger of blanketing the fire of either the Hudson or Wilmington.
Ensign Worth Bagley, executive officer, was stationed at the engine-room hatch so that he could con the man at the throttle
and be sure that he operated the reversing gear as directed.
In this way, the Winslow worked out about four hundred yards toward the Hudson’s station. That vessel, little more than a big, sea going tug, had drawn inshore as far as her draft would permit, and was energetically using her six-pounder against the enemy batteries, who practically ignored her, preferring to concentrate their fire on the crippled Winslow.
The Hudson was struck by only a few small caliber projectiles and Commander Todd’s report of the engagement does not mention any hits scored on the Wilmington, although that ship was well within range throughout the engagement.
Working close to the Hudson, Lieutenant Bernadou hailed her and directed that she tow the Winslow out of range. The revenue cutter shortly ranged alongside, took and secured the latter’s hawser, and started ahead. This line parted, as she attempted to swing the torpedo boat’s bow around. The continued hot fire from enemy batteries compelled the Winslow to return to her tactics of backing and going ahead while a second hawser was broken out.
At the time the first line parted, a group of firemen and engine men, ordinarily employed in the now disabled forward boiler and engine rooms, were clustered about the deck near the engine-room hatch where stood Ensign Bagley. These men had been assigned to pass ammunition and help with the hawsers.
As four of them were passing Ensign Bagley’s position, an armor-piercing shell, coming from abaft the beam, ripped into the deck and exploded. The officer and four men were caught in the cone of fragment dispersion; Bagley and two others were killed and two were fatally wounded.
Lieutenant Bernadou, himself weakened by loss of blood from his wounds, hastened to his fallen men. A glance convinced him that his executive was dead, and he directed that the bodies be covered with the torpedo- tube covers, while the wounded were given first aid.
Shortly after these fatalities, the Hudson once more ranged alongside, received the Winslow’s second line, and, without further accident, towed the battered torpedo boat to a station near the Wilmington. In response to signals, a boat from the Wilmington brought a medical officer to care for the wounded, and at his direction they, together with the dead, were transferred to the gunboat.
Damage from hostile gunfire had not been confined to the American ships, however, for, sometime before the end of the fight, a slackening of fire from the shore batteries had been noted, and about the time the Winslow had been towed clear, it ceased entirely. In fact the last shots from the American ships awakened no reply.
Two Spanish gunboats, the Lealtad and Antonio Lopez, were riddled at the wharf. As there was only about a foot of water under their keels, their battered hulks rested in the mud. A large section of the town of Cardenas was also seen to be in flames. At the close of the action, the ships resumed station off Piedras cay.
The action resulted in the destruction or dispersion of enemy naval forces at Cardenas, thus assuring an unhampered blockade of that section of the coast.
After his wounded had been transferred to the Wilmington, Lieutenant Bernadou was compelled to surrender the command of the little ship he had fought so well, to her chief petty officer, Gunner’s Mate G. P. Brady, and go himself to the gunboat for medical attention.
In the death of Ensign Worth Bagley, the Navy lost a gallant and a promising young officer. His body, and those of the brave men who died with him, were transported to Key West to find resting places in the earth of their homeland.