Basilio AUGWS’PIN DIVILIO.

Exploding the mines.

If the cry ef “Remember the Maine” were not enough to put the American sailors in a fighting mood as the warships moved forward in battle line, the memory of this insulting proclamation helped to put them on their mettle.

The Olympia headed straight for the Spanish position a few minutes before 5 o’clock.  She was moving at moderate speed.  The other vessels followed in the same order which had been observed in entering the bay.  The Spaniards were impatient and showed bad judgment.  At 5:10 o’clock there was a puff of smoke from one of the Cavite batteries and a shell dropped into the water far inshore from the flagship.  Several shots followed, but the range was too long.  While the American ships continued to crowd on, two uplifts of the water far in the wake of the Olympia, and off at one side, were seen.  Two mines had been exploded from their land connections.  They did not even splash one of our boats, but those who were watching and following behind, held their breath in dread, for they did not know at what moment they might see one of the ships lifted into the air.  But there were no more mines.  The Spaniards, in exploding them, had bungled, as they did afterward at every stage of their desperate fighting.

Already there was a film of smoke over the land batteries and along the line of Spanish ships inshore.  The roar of their guns came across the water.  Our fleet paid no attention.

The Olympia, in the lead, counted ten Spanish warships, formed in a semi-circle in front of the rounding peninsula of Gavite, so that they were both backed and flanked by the land batteries.  The ten vessels which made the fighting line were the flagships Eeina Christina, the Castilla, the Antonio de Ulloa, the Isla de Cuba, the Isla de Luzon, the El Correo, the Marquis del Duero, the Velasco, the Gen. Lezo and the Mindanao, the latter being a mail steamer which the Spaniards had hastily fitted with guns.  The Castilla was moored head and stern, evidently to give the fleet a fixed spot from which to maneuver, but the other boats were under steam and prepared to move.

The Olympia opened fire for the American fleet when two miles away from the enemy.  She began blazing away with her four eight-inch turret guns.  The thunders of sound came rolling across the water and the flagships were almost hidden in smoke.  Now our ships circled to the north and east in the general direction of the city of Manila.  That is, the American fleet circling toward the northeast and further in toward shore all the time, turned and came back in a southwesterly direction, passing in parade line directly in front of the Spanish fleet and batteries, so that the first general broadside was from the port side, or the left of the ships as one stands on the stern and faces the bow.  The McCulloch had taken its position so that the fleet, in delivering this first broadside, passed between it and the enemy.  The McCulloch and the Nanshan and Zafiro played in behind the heavy line like the backs of a football team.