A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" From the Diary of Number Five of the After Port Gun (Russell Doubleday): The Yarn of the Cruise and Fights of the Naval Reserves in the Spanish-American War

The days following our arrival at Guantanamo were days of keen expectation and equally keen disappointment. A rumor that we were to return home at once would start up from nowhe...

The "Yankee's" stay in Key West was marked by one of the most melancholy incidents of the cruise. Thomas Clinton LeValley, one of the first of the New York Naval Reserves to res...

"Hurray! the old man won't give it up," cheered "Stump," under his voice. "That's the stuff. Now, if only that measly fog lifts and we get a trifle nearer, we'll do something fo...

The after wheel-house on board the "Yankee" was a round structure of steel built on the spar deck directly over the counter. It contained a steering wheel to be used in case the...

The boatswain's mate's shrill piping and the long drawn out cry, "All hands clear ship for action!" was not entirely unexpected. An unusual activity on the part of the signal me...

The finger of light sweeping the heavens above the distant horizon meant to us the presence either of friend or foe, and the question was one we had little desire to solve at th...

The white-capped seas raced alongside, and the "Yankee" heaved and tossed like a bucking bronco. The lookouts at the masthead swayed forward and back, to and fro, dizzily, and t...

When a man-of-war sails from port under what are called "sealed orders," which means that the orders given to the captain by the admiral are not to be opened for a certain numbe...

On the morning of Monday, August 1st, we had orders to get under way and go to sea. Tongues began to wag at once, and before we had fairly cleared the harbor a dozen different d...

The following morning, after "all hands," the "Yankee" started westward along the coast. Cienfuegos was passed, and presently the cruiser was taken nearer shore. The lookouts we...

The scene on the gun deck of the "Yankee" at that moment would have made an eloquent subject for the brush of a Meissonier. It was the deck of a warship in battle, and the spect...

On the twenty-first of July the "Yankee" arrived off Santiago. The "Brooklyn" was the only warship on guard, and the absence of that grim line of drab-colored ships changed the...

The shrill pipe of the bosun's whistle, followed by the order "All hands to muster," reached our ears a day or two out from New York. We were enjoying an hour of well-earned lei...

The well-directed fire of the forts at the entrance to Cienfuegos was rapidly making the "Yankee's" position untenable, and it soon became apparent that we would have to give wa...

It was evening, the evening of the day on which the "Yankee" sailed from Tompkinsville bound out on her maiden cruise as an auxiliary ship of war. The afternoon had passed witho...

The hint of possible fun that night was sufficient to keep me alert. "All work and no play, etc.," was part of our code aboard the "Yankee," and goodness knows we had worked har...

Shortly after breakfast the "Yankee" came to anchor outside of Provincetown, Mass. An hour later a large man-of-war was discovered steaming toward us. Rumors were rife at once,...

The little strip of North American coast between Delaware Breakwater and Block Island is very interesting, and, in places, beautiful. The long beaches and bare sand dunes have a...

As the "Yankee" steamed in toward the blockading fleet off the entrance to Santiago harbor, the scurrying torpedo boats and the many little launches darting here and there like...

It was this telegram, brief but extremely comprehensive, received early on the morning of the twenty-sixth of April, which sent me post-haste to the old receiving-ship "New Hamp...