Part 6 (2/2)

The events which are recalled by this painting are so recent that it would seem superfluous to refer to them at all, and yet, in continuation of the historic outline presented in these pages, it may be of interest to record that the battle of Manila was fought on May 1, 1898; that not a single life was lost on the American side and only a few men wounded, without any material injury to the American s.h.i.+ps, consisting of four cruisers and two gunboats, while the whole Spanish fleet, under the command of Admiral Montojo, consisting of seven cruisers and five gunboats, was destroyed, with the exception of two, and these were captured, and that our s.h.i.+ps, in addition, silenced and captured the formidable sh.o.r.e batteries on Cavite Point. Furthermore, that our naval operations came to a close off Santiago Harbor on July 3, 1898, through the destruction or capture by our fleet--under the command of Admirals Schley and Sampson, consisting of four battles.h.i.+ps, one armored cruiser and two converted yachts, one of them the ”Gloucester,” under the command of the intrepid Richard Wainwright--of the entire Spanish fleet, consisting of four powerful armored cruisers of the highest cla.s.s and two torpedo boat destroyers, under the command of Admiral Cervera.

s.p.a.ce forbids even a pa.s.sing reference to the instances of individual heroism displayed during this war by the officers and men of our s.h.i.+ps, as for example that of Lieutenant Richmond P. Hobson, all of which are conjured up by a contemplation of this painting. It is also impossible to refer at length to the reception itself to Admiral Dewey and the other officers and men of our fleets, of which the naval procession const.i.tuted only one feature; but no eye-witness can ever forget the march of the returning victors in the land parade on September 30, 1899, as it pa.s.sed under that masterpiece of American sculpture, the arch located at Madison Square.

There were also some touching incidents connected with this celebration.

Among them, and as suggested by this picture, should be mentioned the fact that a sailor by the name of Bartholomew Diggins presented Admiral Dewey with the blue flag of Admiral Farragut, which had been in the possession of Diggins, who had served with Dewey under Farragut in the Civil War, and this flag flew from one of the mast-heads of the ”Olympia” as she steamed up the river in the van of the magnificent array.

How doubly glorious will appear this splendid ovation to our heroes immortalized in this picture, if the war, from which they are shown returning as conquerors, shall result in a full realization of the n.o.ble motive, which inspired it, of liberation and not of conquest, and we may in patriotic pride address Columbia in the words of Timothy Dwight:

”To conquest and slaughter let Europe aspire; Whelm nations in blood, and wrap cities in fire; Thy heroes the rights of mankind shall defend, And triumph pursue them, and glory attend!”

With this picture the artist closes the commemoration of our naval achievements in the four great periods of our history, the War of the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American War of 1898, to which the last six pictures of the series are devoted, as the preceding six ill.u.s.trate the dawn of our history from the first landing of the white man to the settlement of the Pilgrim Fathers--preceding all of which is the mysterious and unfathomable past symbolized by the trackless ”Ocean,” the first of these paintings.

From the time that Eirek the Red sailed to the bleak sh.o.r.es of Greenland down to the brilliant exploit of Admiral Dewey in the Philippine Islands, how true it is, in view of each and every one of the events immortalized in this unequalled series of paintings, that, in the words of Bishop Berkeley,

”Westward the course of empire takes its way!”

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Moran _v._ Morrill, 78 Appellate Division Reports, 440.

[B] Moran _v._ Morrill, 177 New York Reports, 563.

[C] Size of canvas: nine and one-half feet in length by six and one-quarter feet in height.

[D] About six feet long by about three and one-half feet high.

[E] Eight feet long by four and one-half feet high.

[F] Four and one-half feet long by three feet high.

[G] It is difficult to preserve the full beauty of the original of these concise verses in a translation; but in attempting this I have found it quite as easy to rhyme them as to reproduce them simply in the blank verse of the original, in which rhymes occur in only two lines.

[H] About four feet long by two and one-half feet high.

[I] About eight feet long by four and one-half feet high.

[J] About four feet long by about two and one-half feet high.

[K] About six feet long by about three and one-third feet high.

<script>