Guam mistakes an attack for a salute and surrenders

Guam had not been told that Spain and the United States were at war, and Charleston's thirteen shots all missed the empty fort so neatly that Spanish officials interpreted them as a salute. The officials learned they were prisoners only after coming aboard, then encountered the island's returning saluting guns and sent them away. Three transports carried volunteer and regular infantry plus heavy artillery, making an American lieutenant's warning that troops would land in thirty minutes credible to the roughly fifty-man garrison. Merchant and American citizen Francisco Portusach supplied boats to move coal to Charleston, whose bunkers were running low, while the supposedly targeted fort proved more archaeological ruin than useful defence. The Americans removed the governor, officers, and garrison, then left Portusach administering the island as the convoy continued to Manila.