Day decided to send Maine to Havana. They believed this would satisfy those calling for Cuban intervention in the United States and, since visits by warships of other powers to Havana occurred regularly, would not create issues in Cuba.
Sigsbee to Long , the visit was viewed as a diplomatic success by Sigsbee. On the evening of 15 February , a massive explosion ripped Maine apart. Two hundred and fifty enlisted men and two officers were killed, eight more died in the next few hours, and another six died in the months following as a result of their injuries. It was one of the worst peacetime naval catastrophes in the history of the United States Navy.
In fact, more naval personnel died in this explosion, than would be killed during the entire war that followed. The situation was volatile, but a key Navy leader, Commo. Arent S. As Crowninshield indicates, there was no immediate demand for war. While certain groups in the United States blamed the Spanish and agitated for armed retaliation, most Americans, including Secretary of the Navy Long , were impressed by the compassion and concern shown by Spanish authorities in Cuba and Spain.
Philip R. Alger , and newspapers such as The New York Times made the early case that Maine was destroyed by a spontaneous fire in a coal bunker that set off ammunition stored near-by, a theory strongly supported by the best modern study on the destruction of Maine authored by Adm.
Hyman G. A Court of Inquiry was convened to establish the exact cause of the explosion. Its members were carefully chosen 8 and it seems to have done its best to arrive at the unbiased verdict that Maine was destroyed by sabotage. Spanish authorities in Cuba, fearful that the Court might decide that Maine had been destroyed by sabotage, conducted an investigation of their own, although its deliberations were hampered by the refusal of the Americans to allow them to examine the ship or the point at which the explosion occurred.
Footnote 3: On these importance of these riots, see John L. Footnote 7: Rickover, Destruction of the Maine. Naval History and Heritage Command. What caused the explosion and who was responsible? The Maine had been showing the flag in Cuba, where the Spanish regime was resisting an armed uprising by nationalist guerrillas. No one has ever established exactly what caused the explosion or who was responsible, but the consequence was the brief Spanish-American War of American sentiment was strongly behind Cuban independence and many Americans blamed the Spanish for the outrage.
They were vigorously supported by hawkish senators and the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, who attacked President McKinley for trying to cool the situation down. In the end the government in Spain declared war on the United States on April 24th. Newton, blew taps. The ship bobbed listlessly, its imposing yard length visible from stem to stern. Along the pier, passersby could hear a rumbling explosion. Within seconds, another eruption--this one deafening and massive--splintered the bow, sending anything that wasn't battened down, and most that was, flying more than feet into the air In all, of the men aboard the Maine were killed.
The American press was quick to point to an external explosion--a mine or torpedo--as the cause of the tragedy.
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