In an interview that I had on the following day with Colonel Babcock, General Shafter's adjutant-general, I was informed, confidentially, that the army was destined for "eastern Cuba." Small parties, Colonel Babcock said, would be landed at various points on the coast east and west of Havana, for the purpose of communicating with the insurgents and supplying them with arms and ammunition; but the main attack would be made at the eastern end of the island. He did not specifically mention Santiago by name, because Cervera's fleet, at that time, had not taken refuge there; but inasmuch as Santiago was the most important place in eastern Cuba, and had a deep and sheltered harbor, I inferred that it would be made the objective point of the contemplated attack. The Secretary of War, in his reply to the questions of the Investigating Commission, says that the movement against Santiago, as then planned, was to be a mere "reconnaissance in force, to ascertain the strength of the enemy in different locations in eastern Cuba"; but Colonel Babcock certainly gave me to understand that the attack was to be a serious one, and that it would be made with the whole strength of General Shafter's command. The matter is of no particular importance now, except in so far as the information given me by Colonel Babcock indicates the views and intentions of the War Department two weeks before Admiral Cervera's fleet took refuge in Santiago harbor.
I left Port Tampa for Key West on the Plant-line steamer _Mascotte_ at half-past ten o'clock Saturday evening, May 7. The long, narrow, and rather sinuous channel out of Tampa Bay was marked by a line of buoys and skeleton wooden frames resting on driven spiles; but there were no lights for the guidance of the mariner, except one at the outer entrance, ten or twelve miles from the port; and if the _Mascotte_ had not been provided with a powerful search-light of her own she would hardly have been able to find her way to sea, as the night was cloudy and the buoys were invisible. With the long, slender shaft of her search-light, however, she probed the darkness ahead, as with a radiant exploring finger, and picked up the buoys, one after another, with unfailing certainty and precision. Every two or three minutes a floating iron balloon, or a skeleton frame covered with sleeping aquatic birds, would flash into the field of vision ahead, like one of Professor Pepper's patent ghosts, stand out for a moment in brilliant white relief against a background of impenetrable darkness, and then vanish with the swiftness of summer lightning, as the electric beam left it to search for another buoy farther away.