The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 29, 1898, Page 20

FRA THE CISCO' CALL UNDAY, MAY 29, 1898 f APTAIN PHILO { ( JRTON Mc- at name for famous nav GIFFIN made a gr himself in the tle of the Yalu between the Chi- nese and Japanese. He fought on the Chen Yvuen, the fiagship of the Chi- s adron, and his courage, re- - and steadfastness in that ter- > contlict of ironclads are matters of hock of the engagement com- pletely shattered his health, and he re- to this eountry. For a time he different physicians and hospi- and at last completely worn out he shot himself with {a pistol stern hospital. { McGiff about 34 years of ag ne of the battle of Yalu. He was e of Annapolis, but the bill of 1882 reducing the navy “squeezed” him out. General Grant gave him a very warm letter of recommendation to Vice- Li Hung Chang, and young Mc- n went to the Orient to seek his ) fortune. My Dear Stahl I must apologize for leaving your welcome letter so long unanswered. I have been ten years now without leave, save a few months in Japan and a few weeks in America. when I was in England to bring out the cruiser Chen Yuen; so I was very much run down. However, I could not well go, as I am director (superintend- ent a la C. R. P. Rodgers) of the new naval college, and I did not wish to leave until my first cls was gradu- ated. That was in June, and I had six months’ leave -on full pay given me, when up came this bad Jap biz. The Viceroy didn’t ask me to stop, but I thought it mean to go in such a crisis, 80 I volunteered to stay and leave the college for the time to my senior in- structor and go afloat, which was glad- 1y accepted. The Chinese don’t go in for doctors much—more’s the pity. Both in the army and navy we need ’em badly only one—foreign—to our fleet here of fifteen and more big ships. besides the gunboats, torpedo boats, transports, ete., and that is not enourh. of course. We won't have much quarter given or taken in this racket. The wounds made by steel shells in these quick- firing guns, 4.7 inch., ete, are horrible. In a sea fight lately they had all cas- ualties killed (34; no wcunded); but coming from Asan.we had 27 poor fel- lows twenty-four hours without a doc- tor. Strange, only one died since. All the rest will recover. The Chinese put feathers into wounds to stop the blood, and it was a comical sight to see a lot of disconsolate fowls walking about the decks perfectly plucked, picking at clots of brain and meat, etc., that lay about plentifully. I trust that if I am hit badly that ’twill be instantly fatal. You know I elways was such a coward about paln. One who hasn't the feeling cannot un- derstand one who has it, though. Any- tried {and despondent, n an 1 bat- 2 Viceroy Li Hung Chang obtained him ! a position in one of the Chinese naval§ demies as an_instructor. McGiffin) gradually worked his way up in_the’ academy and when the Franco-Ton-{ quin ficulty broke out he was sent) into Tonquin waters with a Chinese{ gunboat. McGiffin was the only officer { on the Chinese side who succeeded in) capturing a French gunboat and this( feat gave him great prestige at court. | When the Chino-Japanese war began | he was appointed to a prominent posi- tion in the Chinese naval list. The accompanying letter was written at this period to Dr. F. H. Stahle of} this city, a friend and classmate at An-) napoli: It furnishes a graphic de- scription of the war at that time and the horrors of a naval battle. The bat-{ tle of the Yalu, in which Mc Giffin took | such a prominent part, was the second | engagement in history where fleets of | ironclads have engaged. Historians/ and naval experts have assiduously | studied it in order to learn how the new ) theories regarding big guns, projectiles) and armor plate have worked out. how, I am of a very highstrung, ner- vous temperament, and it has been my fate out here to have several very painful illnesses, and I can’t stand pain well—so let’s change the subject. 1 had just had a dispatch sent by the Viceroy Li Hung Chang to the Em- peror, asking for another dec ete., for me (the third that'll be); the Order of the Double Dragon Medal, et second, third Mandarin rank, blue button and rank of lieuten- ant-colonel in my hat—and then this— but things are so much upsidedown now that I can’t expect it to be noticed. I have been commissioned staff-com- mander and hold that rank (command- er) on this ship, one of the biggest— 7500 tons, 320 men, four 30.5 C. m. Krupps in turri six Krupps (1 ts barbette, and twenty- c. m.), bow and stern, with torpedoes, etc.; eight 6-pdr. Hitchkiss, six 3-pdr. _ five-barrel Hotchkiss, and four 3-pdr. Maxim, Nor- denfeldt, S. F. (automatic), besides ten or twenty 1-pdr. Hotehkiss and thirty- seven m. m. 1-pdr. Hitchkiss in tops, etc., and some Gatlings; 14-inch steel armor, torpedoes, etc., a good ship and a good crew. I have a Chinese rear-admiral and a captain on board. Of course I joined just for this war and they rank me. Both speak English and have been ed- ucated abroad at Greenwich Naval Col- lege and spent a few years in the royal navy. Don’t be fooled about the Chinese by the poor d—d coolies you see in San Francisco. You seldom see a northern or Shantung man. They are a good lot and will go through hell itself with me. Don't believe all you hear about the Japs here, ete. They had their “Yo- shino” nicely put into pie by omne of our worst ships and she is ready for sea in three days now. I have lost some very near friends among the officers killed already. To give one idea of the horrors of war—the first lieutenant of one ship was stooping over a voice tube in the conning tpower, when a shell (4.7 inch Q. F.) came in and blew his head to pleces—the tower was a reeking place— and scattered his remains all over the lace. leu captain was standing about five . feet off—just outside the open door on other side, on the bridge—and his &?remle form was smeared with stuff and the poor victim's teeth and fmg& ments of bone and sinew were dashe into his face—penetrating through _the cheeks in some cases—nearly all im- bedded in his flesh. Fancy after that fighting his ship for five hours, disabling and driving away is enemy, the Yoshino. hSho su}:‘rendered, but he could not take possession—no boats, steering gear jammed and bow guns disabled; only sixteen stern guns to fight with. And then having to bring his ship back home—twenty-four hours, no chow gal- leys, all destroyed, etc., and this still on, and in his face and body. We let the Japs know nothing of our damages or anything. We go out to- night for another fight with a strong squadron of eight at least, excluding the tcrpedo-boats. I lm\!)e a nice cabin—the nne_!n the superstructure aft under the 15 c. m. tern-chaser—a snug little soloon about feet by 15 feet, and a cabin to Slyeep in—but T don't; it's 98 de; s there! The Japs have been spying on this place. We are strongly fortified with heavy Krupp and Armstrong suns, many of 'em on disappearing carriages. Besides, the entrances are heavily mined, so that a fish can hardly pass without being hoisted—also heavy booms across, and defended by dozens of quick-firing guns, torpedo-boats, etc., cruising in and outside all the time. We've caught five spies—all they sent, I think. Four were caught before they saw anything—they can't see now. The fifth had a plan, of a sort, cf the guns, etc. His hands and feet were cut off—then his head! T hear the Japs have “something lin- gering, with burning oil” in for me when they c . First catch your hare, etc. address, please. Be careful of s if you write via Japan—the Japs are on the Q. V. The Chinese may be bad—but the Japs!! Oh. Lord!! O McGiffin’s bravery was due the fact that the Chinese saved at least one of their ironclads from the terribly destructive fire of the Japanese rapid-firing and heavy guns. McGiffin, in command of the Chen Yuen, was in the hottest part of the The ship was struck repeat- edly by shells. She caught fire no less than eight times, but every time the Europeans on board of her managed to put the fire out. Here is the way McGiffin tells of his thrilling experiences: In helping to put out one of these fires I was wounded. The fire was for- ward of the forecastle, and there was such a flerce fire sweeping the deck be- tween it and the fore-barbette that the officer whom I ordered to go and put it out declared that it was impossible to get there alive, so I had to go my- self. I called for volunteers and got sev- eral splendid fellows—some of our best men, unhappily, for nearly all were killed, but we got the fire under. The fire was on the port side, and as the starboard fore-barbette gun was firing across it I sent crders that it was only to fire on the starboard side, but as bad luck would have it the man who received the order—the Number One of the gun—had his head shot off just after I had gone forward and his successor did not know of it. As I stooped to pick up the hose a shel), or a fragment, passed between my wrists, grazing each. Shortly after- ward I heard a loud explosion, and saw a brilliant light behind me, and was knocked down. I lay unconscious for a while—how long, 1 do not know. I believe it was the flame from the gun which I had or- dered to fire only on the starboard side, but it may have been a shell exploding, contest. though if so I ought to have been blown to pieces. Any how, I was pretty badly burned. When I came to, I sat up, leaning on my elbow, and found myself looking almost down the tube of the great gun, pointing straight at me. I saw the end move a little to cne side, then to the other, up a little, then down, and I waited for years—a fraction of a sec- ond, no doubt—for the gun to fire, for I knew that the gunner had taken aim. Thén it suddenly occurred to me to make an effort. I rolled over on my side and by great gcod fortune, down a hatchway, some eight feet or so, on to a heap of rubbish, which broke my fall. As I fell I heard the roar of the big gun. THE EXECUTIONER OF SPAIN. Rev. Dr. R. Heber Newton, in a re- cent sermon in All-Souls’ Protestant Episcopal Church, in New York, de- clared that this country has been ap- pointed the executioner of Spain. A part of his sermon was as follows: “Spain's Nemesis is overtaking her. The long story of Spain’s rapacity and extortion, of her oppression and cruelty, of her treachery and perfidy, is reach- ing its culmination. The cup of woe is at last filled to overflowing, and is even now being pressed to her lips. And the hand which is ordained to hold that cup to her lips is the hand of America. Hs Described by Ca;zt‘m'n e Siffin and Richard Harding Davis. Roar of Rattle on the ..73{y Fronclads THE NEW YORK, ADMIRAL SAMPSON'S FLAGSHIP, FIRING FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY A KEY WEST PHOTOGRAPHER. ITS FIRST GUN, . Cxedting Life on the Hlagahip Yew York in Cuban Waters. HILE it lasted, life on board the flagship New York during the blockade was full of the most novel and picturesque Incidents, and the change to the heat and dust and inac- tion of this base of military operations is painful in comparison. There is all the difference between the deck of a warship cleared for action and a hotel pilazza filled with ladies in summer frocks and officers in straw hats, en- gaged in reading newspapers one day old. On the warship there were also all the comforts of civilization, all the lux- uries of a yachting cruise, but there was none of its ennui and boredom. For if something was not happening, there was always the expectation that it was about to happen. Every column of smoke on the horizon suggested a pos- sible Spanish gunboat, or certainly a blockade runner, and many times each day and night the bells in the engine- room would sound “full steam ahead” and every g on the ship would be turned to the flying stranger. Some- times the New York let her escape, only to run into the jaws of the war- ship on the next station, but almost in- variably the flagship raced after her throwing shells across her bows, until she backed her engines and owed her colors and a boarding officer went over her side. The discipline of the New York was rigid, intelligent and unremitting, and each of the five hundred men on this floating monastery moved in his little groove with the perfect mechanism of one of the 8-inch guns. A modern war- ship is the perfection of organization. It is the embodiment of the axiom that “a stitch in time saves nine.” It is the eternal vigilance which ob- tains that keeps her what she the hourly fight agail.st rust and dust that makes her always look as though she had just been made complete that morning. All the old homely sayings seem to be the mottoes of her execu- tive. There is “a place for everything and everything in its place,” whether it is a projectile weighing half a ton or signal flag No. 22, or a roll of lint for the surgeon. or the bluejacket in charge of the searchlight. A ship of war is like a moving vil- lage. It has to house and feed and give employment to its inhabitants, and to place them at certain points at a mo- ment’s notice, to face unknown condi- tions and to_face them coolly and in- telligently. You can imagine the con- fusion in a villaze of five hundred people should they be dragged out of bed at midnight by an alarm of fire. But in the floating village of the war- ship New York discipline and training have taught the inhabitants to move to certain places and to perform cer- tain work when they get there within ace of two minutes. It is so on other war ship in the navy of the United States. And it does not consist entirely in ma.ning a gun and pulling a lanyard. That is the showy work, the work that tells in the dispatches, and which is illustrated in the weekiy papers. ‘We had several calls to ‘“genecral quarters” at night. They were prob- ably the most picturesque moments of the ten days spent on the flagship. To the landsman one bugle call was like another; ‘‘general quarters” meant no more to me than the fact that the mail was going ashore in ten minutes; it was three sleeping Japanese stewards who told me we were going into action. Whenever I woke to find them in the wardroom I knew some one was going to fire off a four-inch gun. They opened a hatch just beyond my berth and pulled on a creaking ammu- nition hoist. They did this drowsily nd stiffly, with the clutches of sleep still on their limts and heavy on their eyelids. Then officers would run ky buttoning tunis over white and pink pajamas, and buckung on swords and field glasses. Even below decks you could hear tl.e great rush of water at the bows and the thumping of the en- gines, that told the ship was at racing speed, and when vou had stumbled on deck the wind sweeping past awoke you to the fact that in two minutes five hundred men had fallen out of hammocks and into cutlasses and re- volvers, and that the ship was tearing through the dark water in pursuit of a bunch ot .ights. And then, shining suddenly from the flying bridge and rising and reaching out across ‘he waves, would shoot the finger of the searchlight. It showed the empty waters, and the tossing white caps in a path of light. “To the left!” a voice would ccll from the height of the :.rward bridge, and, as thot 'h it were a p:rt of the voice the light shifte.. “No, higher!” the voice would call again. and the obedient light would rise, turning the glare of day upon a half-mile more of troubled water and exposing on its horizon a white, frightencd steamer, scudding at full speed for her life. Sometimes she backed, sometimes she changed her course, but the light never loosened its clasp. It gripped her like a thief held in the circle of a pol’ >man’s lantern. It was llke a cat playing with a mouse, or a hound holding a fox by its scent. In the silence of the great war- ship, where the darkness was so great that the men crowded shoulder to shoulder could not see each other’s faces, the blockade runner, exposed and pointed out, and held up to our deris- ion, seemed the only living thing on the surface of the waters. She was as con- spicuous as a picture thrown by a stereopticon on a screen. And then one of the forward guns would speak, flashing in the night like a rocket and lighting up the line of the deck and the faces of the men, and it would speak again and again. And the flying steamer, helpless in the long- reaching clutch of the searchlight, and hearing the shells whistle across her bews, would give up the race and come to a standstill, sullen and silent. The quarter of an hour during which the firing lasted at Matanzas was of interest in giving some knowledge of how a warship in action acts upon her- self. With land forces the effect of their fire upon the enemy is the only thought; on the sea, in one of these new inventions of warfare, the effect of the batteries on the ship herself is an added consideration. To the civilian the effect was not so tremendous as he had expected. He had been told to stick cotton in his ears, to stand on his toes and keép his mouth open, a somewhat difficult and ridiculous attitude in which to meet death. As it happened the call to quar- ters came so unexpectedly that there was no time to find any cotton, and, as it turned out, there was no necessity to stand on one's toes. I received a cablegram while T was on the New York, asking me to relate how her crew behaved in the action at Matanzas. I did not answer it decause I thought there were a few thfgs the American people were willing to take for granted, and because the bombard- ment at Matanzas was no test of the crew’s courage but of its marksman- ship. There is a story, however, that illustrates the spirit of the men on the New York, and which answers, I think, any queries any one may make as to how they might behave in action. Taylor, a young gunner's mate, was shot on April 26 by a revolver. It was an accident, but it is possible he was more seriously hurt than were any of the six wounded men who went through the seven hours’ battle at Manila, for the ball passed through his arm and into his right side, and came out nearly a foot away under his left armpit. Assistant Surgeon Spear said that if he had tried to dod=e the vital parts in Taylor's body with a surgical instrument he could not have done it as skillfully as did the bullet, which was neither aimed nor guided by a human hand. It was this junior surgeon Spear who performed the operation, while the fleet surgeon, Dr. Gravatt, watched him and advised. It was a wonderful operation. It lasted nearly two hours, and it left the layman uncertain as to whether he should admire the human body more or the way a surgeon masters it. What they did to Taylor I cannot tell in tech- nical language; but I know that they cut him open and lifted out his stomach and put it back again and sewed him up twice. He could not get wholly un- der the influence of the ether, and he raved and muttered and struggled, so that at times two men had to hold him down. Just before the surgeon began to operate the boy gave the chaplain his mother’s addre: and reached out his hand and said, “'So long, chaplain.” He was a typical New York boy. He but nevertheless and thought as you would expect and hope that an ap- prentice from the St. ) s, training- ship would look and His skin was as tough as had remained long in the salt but it was beautifully white an less, like a girl made with the sk winid had tanned was as sharp as the stripes on the flag. When the second part of him was sewn up Taylor was carried to a cot and lay there so still that I thought he was dead. They had to inject strych- nine into his veins to keep his heart beating. But a minute later he opened his eyés and turned them to the operat- ing table, where, he rememberd in a half-drunken way, they had placed him two hours before. His eyes were dazed with the ether, his lips were blue and his face was a ghastly gray. He looked up at the four figutes leaning over him, their bare arms covered with his blood, and back at the operating table that dripped with it. What had hap- pened, who had attacked him, and why, he could not .comprehend. He did .not know that parts of him which had lain covered for many years had been taken out and held up naked, palpitating and bleeding to the ruth- less light of the sun, to the gaze of curious messmates crowded at the end of the sick bay; that these parts of him- self had been picked over and handled as a man runs his fingers over the keys of a piano, and had then been pushed and wedged back into place and cover- ed over as one would sew a patch on an old sail, to lie hidden again for many years more, let us hope. He only knew that some outrageous thing had been done to him—that he had been in a nightmare, in hell—and to Taylor, still drunk with ether, these men whose wonderful surgery had saved his life were only the bloody as- sassins who had attempted it and failed. He was pitiably weak from loss of much blood, from the shock of the heavy bullet that had dug its through his body, from the waves of nausea that swept over him, but the boy opened his eyes and regarded the surgeons scornfully. Then he shook his head from side to side on the pillow and smiled up at them. “Ah, you can’t kill me,” he whis- pered.” “I'm a New Yorker. That is the spirit of the men who sunk the Spanish fleet at Manila. RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, Correspondent London Times, on board the Flagship New York. alk and think. shoe which water, THE BARNACLE-ONE OF THE MOST INSIDIOUS FOES OUR NAVY HAS TO MEET IN L Taf ooy AN i Ny ! \\; \,\“" N insidious ally to Spain is the bar- nacle. The United States warships now busy in Cuban waters, which are particularly favorable to the growtan of shellfish, are sure to have their bottoms fouled by rank sea growth, and probably the first use to which they will put the fine drydock at Havana will be to clean them off. The barnacle loves a ship’s bottom. It attaches itself by means of a peduncle ending in: the barnacle proper, which consists of five shelly valves inside a general protective shell. It makes no ef- fort to improve on its first selection of a home, because immediately it has made its selection and becomes firmly at- tached, nature robs it of its eyesight. Swinging backward and forward it ab- sorbs its food caught in several tenta- cles looking like fine feathers protruding from the nead. It spenas the days pleasantly in foreign travel till the dry- dock is reached, when it is unceremo- niously scraped off and sent to the ma- nure heap. £ A tramp freighter engaged in the Southern trade had eleven tons of bar- nacles removed from her sides at one time, exclusive of grass and other growths. She had been in the water about one year. Grass will only grow on_the sides of the ship, not beneath, Shellfish grow all over. The waters a ship is salling in makes a difference. In the Bermuda trads ships quickly gather a great deal of grass and other marine plants, four and five inches long, causing loss of two to three knots per hour. The use of various anti-fouling compo- sitions to avold these growths has had uncertain success. Coasters that have occasion to enter fresh-water lakes or rivers foul very slowly. The fresh water seems to kill off the shellfish and marine rowths. In the absence of drydocks to ock our ships In the a good idea to send them for a day -or two into the mouth of a near-by river. To call a man a barnacle on board ship s anything but complimentary. Away back in 1597 the barnacle was sup- posed to be the embryo of a bird, and there is a bird, the barnacle or bernicle goose. STEVENSON’S REGIMENT. Continued from Page Nineteen. On the 26th of September, 1846, a por- tion of the regiment sailed from New York in the ships Perkins, Drew and Loo Choo, followed a few months later by the balance in the Brutus, Isabella and Sweden. South it might be - cisco February 14, 1894 TROPIC SEAS The Loo Choo arrived at San Fran- cisco on March 26, 1847, six months to a day from New York. The Perkins completed her voyage on March 6 and the Susan Drew sailed into San Fran- cisco Bay on the 19th. The following month the Brutus put in an appear- ance, and in February, 1848, the Isa- bella and Sweden atrived at Monterey. The average voyage of these vessels was 165 days, and with the exception of the Brutus the ships touched at South American ports, thereby reliev- ing the monctony of the long and tedi- ous voyage. Colonel Stevenson, the commander of the regiment, was born on the first day of this century, and died at San Fran- The lieuten- ant-colonel was Henry S. Burton. who was afterward a major-general of vol- unteers in the Civil War. James A. Hardie was the major.. He served as brigadier-general in the Union army during the rebellion. Among the staft officers were William G. Marcy, the son of the Secretary of War, J. C. Bouny- castle, who became an officer in the regular army, and Joseph L. Folsom, who was a prominent business man and Federal officer In San Franclsco until his death in 1855, WINFIELD J. DAVI& way - ‘