The capitulation of Santiago followed.  The city was closely besieged by land, while the entrance of our ships into the harbor cut off all relief on that side.  After a truce to allow of the removal of noncombatants protracted negotiations continued from July 3 until July 15, when, under menace of immediate assault, the preliminaries of surrender were agreed upon.  On the 17th General Shafter occupied the city.  The capitulation embraced the entire eastern end of Cuba.  The number of Spanish soldiers surrendering was 22,000, all of whom were subsequently conveyed to Spain at the charge of the United States.  The story of this successful campaign is told in the report of the Secretary of War, which will be laid before you.  The individual valor of officers and soldiers was never more strikingly shown than in the several engagements leading to the surrender of Santiago, while the prompt movements and successive victories won instant and universal applause.  To those who gained this complete triumph, which established the ascendency of the United States upon land as the fight off Santiago had fixed our supremacy on the seas, the earnest and lasting gratitude of the nation is unsparingly due.  Nor should we alone remember the gallantry of the living; the dead claim our tears, and our losses by battle and disease must cloud any exultation at the result and teach us to weigh the awful cost of war, however rightful the cause or signal the victory.

With the fall of Santiago the occupation of Puerto Rico became the next strategic necessity.  General Miles had previously been assigned to organize an expedition for that purpose.  Fortunately he was already at Santiago, where he had arrived on the 11th of July with reenforcements for General Shafter’s army.

With these troops, consisting of 3,415 infantry and artillery, two companies of engineers, and one company of the Signal Corps, General Miles left Guantanamo on July 21, having nine transports convoyed by the fleet under Captain Higginson with the Massachusetts (flagship), Dixie, Gloucester, Columbia, and Yale, the two latter carrying troops.  The expedition landed at Guanica July 25, which port was entered with little opposition.  Here the fleet was joined by the Annapolis and the Wasp, while the Puritan and Amphitrite went to San Juan and joined the New Orleans, which was engaged in blockading that port.  The Major-General Commanding was subsequently reenforced by General Schwan’s brigade of the Third Army Corps, by General Wilson with a part of his division, and also by General Brooke with a part of his corps, numbering in all 16,973 officers and men.

On July 27 he entered Ponce, one of the most important ports in the island, from which he thereafter directed operations for the capture of the island.