Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1898 — ON TO CUBA! [ARTICLE]

ON TO CUBA!

THE vanguard of the army of Cuba has moved at last. Many of the soldiers who have been grumbling at Tampa and Mobile over their unwelcome inactivity embarked on the transports which have l>een lying idle at those points so long. Gen. Miles has left Washington for the front. Soon stirring news will come of victories won over Spanish troops. The work of liberating Cuba, to which this country pledged itself more than a month’ ago, has been commenced in earnest. Decoration Day was made memorable not alone by the ceremonies attaching to its observance and by the reunion of the veterans, both of the blue and the gray, under the same flag, and of the volunteers also under the same flag in defense of a common cause, but by the good news which came from Commodore Schley that at last the Cape Verde fleet was definitely located in Santiago harbor. This officer asserts he has seen the vessels, and the evidence of one's eyes does not need further confirmation. The receipt at Washington of the news that Admiral Cervera’s fleet was in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba with Commodore Schley at the entrance, ready and able to fall on it if it attempted to escape, dispelled those fears of the Spanish vessels which have kept the army on American shores so long. When it was learned authoritatively that Cervera was bottled up and could not interfere with the transports or with the landing of the troops, the forward movement began.