This met with loud cries of “You did right, Bob,” and one lusty-lunged individual announced that there was not a man in the country that would take it.  Captain Evans, who recognized the speaker, a friend from the rural districts, answered:  “Oh, you don’t know what some of those up-country Pennsylvanians would do.  It was a pretty good sword.”

Continuing, Captain Evans said:  “I didn’t know exactly what to do with the Spanish Captain to get him into our sick bay.  As I was about to ask him of his wound he stepped toward the gangway and looked shoreward.  About a quarter of a mile off lay the once magnificent vessel in which he had boasted he would tow the Brooklyn back to Spain.

“She was burning fore and aft, terrific columns of flame shooting up around her, and suddenly, with a burst of tears, Captain Eulate kissed his hand and bade fond farewell to the burning hulk and said with impassioned voice, ‘Adios Viscaya.’  As he did this the very same instant there came a tremendous roar and the Vizcaya’s magazine blew her superstructure hundreds of feet into the air.  Had the incident occurred that way on the stage anybody would have said it was too well timed.

“He turned back and we got him into the ship’s hospital, where the surgeons placed him on his stomach to shave the hair around a small cut on the back of his head.  I stood alongside of him, and rolling his eyes into the starboard corner he said to me, with a rather comical expression, ‘I think I have heard of you before.’  I told him I did not know how that could have been, and he asked:  ’Did you not command the Indiana?’ ‘Yes,’ I said; then he said, shaking his head as well as circumstances would permit, ’Yes, I have heard of you.  You are “Bob” Evans.’

“I have often wondered just what he referred to.  I have a notion that it would fit certain remarks regarding certain language that I was credited with having used in reference to an attack on Havana; language, by the way, which I never used.  As I said before, the battle before Santiago was the prettiest imaginable kind of effect.  Why, two torpedo boat destroyers came out, and inside of ten minutes we had them sounding.  One sounded in 200 fathoms of water and sunk to rest there.  The other preferred a berth with her nose on the beach.

“The Maria Teresa and Admiral Oquendo were on fire inside of five minutes after the fight had started.  They made beautiful sweeps toward the shore, and were regular Fourth of July processions as they swept in on the beach.  We helped them along a bit by landing a few shells in the stern.  It was a pretty fight, but it should never be forgotten that the Spaniards fought their ships as hard and with as much valor as any men in any ships ever fought.”

After the first cabinet meeting succeeding the peace jubilee, the President issued his annual Thanksgiving proclamation: 

“By the President of the United States.