| Show THE NAVAL BOARDS REPORT the findings of the naval board or of inquiry anent the battle of the third of july possess some features which are entitled to rank among the sensational literature of the day what useful purpose they are designed tor for it would be hard to say they inferentially lly extinguish the of glory which has up to date enveloped schley it if not sampson and indefinitely locate the honor for that stupendous victory among the captains of the fleet they show that sampson and the new york were from five to ten miles away when the coup de grace was given the spanish fleet and that Sch leys order to sail gan in and fight was a superfluous matter as a the ships had already sailed in and were fighting when the order was given it is also made to appear that the battle wis was fought out on the lines prepared by sampson so that what little of the glory of the occasion is left to the admirals rests entirely with the new gew yorker the marylander getting beiting nothing the finc findings are as follows 1 I 1 the battle was fought and won upon plans prepared by rear admiral sampson 2 the directing of the movements of ships done by schley during the battle was inconsiderable 3 the new york had no active part in the fight 4 the brooklyn was not engva engaged at so close quarters as has been represented by the first report on an aa average she was two miles away from the enemy 5 the bulk of the fighting waw wa borne by the oregon texas and iowa dowa 6 the new york was about nine miles from the colon when the ship surrendered and between tour or five miles from the nearest sister ships engaged from which signal dustam dl distance stam is taken 7 the average range of the shiaw most engaged was about a mile and a half 8 no american ship at any titta during the battle was within a mile W of an spanish ship this makes it that to captains clark philip and evans bvans axe are due the honors honnors and consequently the rb P wards of the occasion even alee brooklyn which the spanish called the three horned devil is left out in the cold but what can be the object of mentioning the mile and a half range and the statement that none of the americans was within a mile of the enemy at any time during the engagement Is it to show that the destruction might have been accomplished more rapidly or completely had the american vessels moved in and made it a yardarm yard arm against yardarm yard arm affair ordinarily an employer is satisfied when the employed emp loyes work is accomplished in substantial accordance with instructions and assuredly that was at santiago santiag o surel surely no job of the kind was ever before done so quickly and so completely and yet a civil board which has not even visited the scene of the encounter and was never any nearer to it than now can sit in washington and seek to overturn all the good impressions which the american people have received regarding the work of at least one brave commander on shipboard at santiago As previously suggested if any good can come out of such proceedings it is not even dimly discernible just now the proceeding has ah iconoclastic air that seems to have a political taint it will be observed that admiral samp iron eon is not altogether excluded from the roll of honor |
