In the jungles around Santiago, American soldiers heard the sounds of the naval battle of July 3rd. For them it was a signal that something major was happening, and word of Cervera's defeat spread quickly. Initially, General Shafter had set a deadline of 10 A.M. on July 4th for the surrender of the city. In view of the unexpected naval battle within hours of issuing his ultimatum on July 3rd, and at the urging of the representatives of foreign governments still residing in Santiago which came out personally to meet with the American commander, General Shafter extended the deadline an extra day.

Inside the besieged city, General Jose Toral, who had assumed command from the wounded General Linares, faced increasingly dangerous possibilities. Surrounding him in the hills and jungles on three sides were the American soldiers. So close had the Americans pushed towards Santiago, by July 4th the 22nd Infantry Regiment had moved within two hundred yards of the enemy rifle pits on the north-east edge of the city. "We were so close to the Spaniards," Captain Wassell later stated, "that we could yell at each other. Some of our men could speak Spanish, and many verbal exchanges took place - usually ending in mutual cursing." To the west, Santiago Harbor seemed eerily empty, patrolled now only by the Reina Mercedes.

Named for the wife of King Alfonso XII of Spain, the Reina Mercedes was launched in 1887 and served near her homeland until 1893 when the unprotected (unarmored) cruiser was dispatched to serve in the waters around Cuba as the flagship of the Spanish Navy in the region. Upon the arrival of Admiral Cervera's squadron in Santiago Harbor, Reina Mercedes was tasked with patrolling the harbor entrance. She was the same ship that had fired on the USS Merrimac during the early morning darkness of May 3rd when Richmond Hobson and his volunteers had valiantly attempted to scuttle their own aging collier to block the harbor entrance.

During the June 6th bombardment of Santiago by the ships of Admiral Sampson's fleet, the Reina Mercedes took 35 hits and was badly damaged. Among the Spanish casualties of that night was the Reina's captain, Commander Emilio Acosta y Eyermann. He was the first Spanish Naval officer killed in the war.

General Toral pondered the new dangers posed to the fortified city with the destruction of Admiral Cervera's squadron. Before the six ships could depart the harbor, it had been necessary for the removal of the torpedoes that had served as protective mines. With those mines now gone, along with the six Spanish ships, Santiago was subject to possible siege from the sea should Admiral Sampson choose to send his own warships into the harbor.

The uneasy truce ended on July 5th, and General Shafter send word anew to General Toral to surrender the city to the Americans. Near famine conditions had fallen upon the city, and General Toral opened the city's gates for the civilian inhabitants to escape before the imminent American bombardment could begin. "They were received with compassion and kindness," one American soldier later wrote. "The rabble were hungry, and stricken with disease and infection. They were truly more menacing to the Americans than all of the soldiers of Spain. Houses and huts in which yellow fever was raging were visited regularly, and the dangerous germs of this and other diseases were inhaled as a matter of course."

Still, the Spanish general chose to hold out his own beleaguered forces. During the night of July 5th he began preparing his crumbling fortress to withstand assault from the sea as well as from land. As darkness fell over the harbor, he sent the Reina Mercedes out with a skeleton crew under the leadership of Ensign Nardiz. The ship that had been the first to fire on the USS Merrimac was about to attempt an almost identical mission.

It wouldn't be a major loss, certainly not compared to the Spanish warships that had been lost two days earlier. The Mercedes had no armor, a limited battery of guns, and only three of the ships ten boilers were still operable. Ensign Nardiz mission was to steam his ship into the harbor entrance beneath the towering Morro Castle, then drop his anchors fore and aft to hold the ship in place while it was scuttled to block any entrance by the American ships.

It was near midnight that the Mercedes reached the harbor entrance, only to fall under the glare of search lights from the USS Massachusetts. The American warship, along with the nearby USS Texas, immediately opened fire. Ensign Nardiz dropped his anchors and the Mercedes began quickly sinking (it was never determined if the sinking was at the hands of the American warships or the vessel's own crew), precisely in the chosen spot. Unfortunately for the ship's daring crew, a shell from one of the American warships cut the stern spring cable and the current in the harbor swung the doomed cruiser to the edge of the channel. As had been the case of the Merrimac little more than a month earlier, despite the courage of the crew, the Mercedes was also only partially successful. It came to rest in the shallows just below the Morro Castle. It now seemed there was nothing to stop the American Army from completely destroying Santiago de Cuba.

Outside the city, young American boys found their dreams of combat glory filled with nightmares of fighting an unseen enemy that was not vulnerable to bullets or artillery. Though the enemy soldiers that manned the guns in and around Santiago were living on "borrowed time", victory was not assured for the Americans. "The men had been standing day and night crouched in trenches - often knee deep in water from thunderstorms, and always short on rations," reported General Marcus Wright of the 22nd Infantry. "The oppressive heat and sickness was having a detrimental effect on the troops. They were unprotected from the drenching rains, and fell easy prey to tropical diseases. Morale was low, and every day it became more difficult to arouse them to vigorous action."

General Shafter realized that his hoped-for ground victory over the Spanish would quickly vanish unless it came soon. His Fifth Army was loosing the battle to the tropical climate almost as quickly as Spain's Navy had lost its ships to the Americans. On July 6th he sent word to General Toral that his patience had worn thin. If the Spanish commander didn't surrender, Santiago de Cuba would be shelled and destroyed by the American guns. General Toral requested time to communicate with General Blanco in Havana before making such a decision, and General Shafter granted extra time. Whether as a gesture of good will, or as a humanitarian gesture towards the now ill members of Richmond Hobson's volunteers, General Toral also released the eight valiant prisoners on July 6th. Six Spanish officers were released by the Americans in the friendly exchange.

On July 8th the Spanish squadron from Cadiz, Spain, at last en route to the Caribbean, was recalled to protect the homeland. There would be no relief for the Spanish defenders. On July 9th the Fifth Army was reinforced however, by the arrival of the First Illinois and the First District of Columbia Regiments under General Randolph. General Shafter sent word to General Toral that, unless he surrendered, his attack on the city would commence at 4 o'clock on the afternoon of the 10th of July.

Two hours before the deadline, General Shafter extended his surrender demands again, coupled with the promise that if the Spanish Commander complied, all of his soldiers would be transported home to Spain. When General Toral continued to resist, the battle was renewed.

Actually, it was the Spanish soldiers that fired first when the deadline passed, but their efforts were brief and lackluster. There was little fight left in the embattled and doomed Dons. The Americans answered the Spanish guns with heavy fire, supported by a horrible rain of artillery from the ships of Admiral Sampson's fleet. The Morro Castle was reduced to rubble, and devastated what remained of the Spanish forces. Within 48 hours General Toral sent word to General Shafter that he would resist no longer.

In the interim between the renewed battle and General Toral's reluctant decision to end the fight, General Nelson Miles arrived in Cuba. The man who had earned the Medal of Honor during the Civil War, and who had been named Commanding General of the Army three years earlier, came to Cuba to confer with his senior ground commander on how best to end the stalemate at Santiago. On July 14th General Miles joined General Shafter in meeting personally with the Spanish commander to negotiate the surrender.

The meeting was indeed an open negotiation. General Toral was left with no other option but, to make his tough decision more palatable, General Shafter agreed to avoid the use of the word "surrender". Instead, General Toral, now with the permission of the government in Madrid for which he had served and to which he had sworn his allegiance, would "capitulate" his Army and the city of Santiago. The capitulation would include all of southeast Cuba, including the 11,500 Spanish soldiers remaining at Santiago as well as another 12,000 enemy throughout the region.

On July 17th General Toral presented his sword to General Shafter in the formal capitulation of Santiago de Cuba and the surrounding regions. Sick and weary American soldiers lined up across their six miles of trenches to witness the end of their war. At exactly 12 noon the American artillery boomed a salute as the Stars and Stripes were raised over Santiago.