Auxiliary cruisers and shore batteries around Puerto Rico

Sampson first arrived expecting Cervera, found the harbor empty, and used a three-hour bombardment as practice for untested American gunners. Coal and ammunition shortages then forced him back toward Havana and Key West for supplies and repairs. Yale, Saint Paul, Yosemite, and New Orleans illustrate how merchant conversions and cruisers sustained blockade and interception duties. Yale captured the freighter Rita but also lost an encounter with the Spanish auxiliary cruiser Alfonso XIII, showing that the campaign was not an uninterrupted American procession. Saint Paul defeated a sortie by Isabel II and crippled the destroyer Terror after its torpedo attack exposed it broadside. Yosemite drove the supply steamer Antonio López aground, and New Orleans later destroyed her before she could be recovered. Repeated reliefs and bombardments gradually closed San Juan despite Spanish shore batteries' local successes.