3-086-301 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Spanish-American War: general view of Ponce, Porto Rico, 1898. 'Admiral Sampson, with the United States squadron, on Friday morning, at daybreak, was at San Juan, Porto Rico, which island, the second in size and importance of the Spanish West Indies, lies over a thousand miles eastward and beyond Haiti from that part of the Cuban coast where he was previously engaged in the blockade of Havana and Matanzas. He bombarded the forts and batteries which defend San Juan during three hours; there were no Spanish vessels of war there. Some damage was done to Morro Fort and the batteries, and incidentally to a portion of the town, but with little loss of life. The American squadron then withdrew to Key West, its station at the southern extremity of Florida. Admiral Sampson could not then be aware that the Spanish squadron was lying at Martinique, which is distant only four hundred miles from where he was on the coast of Porto Rico'. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.