A passage from Port Tampa, around the eastern end of Cuba, through the Windward Passage, even in June, is ordinarily pleasant.  On the deck of a clean steamer, protected from the sun’s rays by a friendly awning, it may be put down as nearly an ideal pleasure trip; but crowded into freight ships as these men were, many of them clad in thick and uncomfortable clothing, reduced to the uninviting travel ration, compelled to spend most of the time below decks, occupied with thoughts of home and friends, and beset with forebodings of coming events, it was very far from being to them a pastime.  Of the thousands who are going to Cuba to magnify the American flag, not all will return.  Occasionally the gay music of the bands would relieve the dull routine and cause the spirits to rise under the effects of some enlivening waltz or stirring patriotic air; or entering a school of flying fish the men would be entertained to see these broad-finned creatures dart from the waves like arrows from the bow, and after a graceful flight of perhaps near two hundred yards drop again into the sea; but taken altogether it was a voyage that furnishes little for the historian.

The transports were so arranged as to present an interesting and picturesque spectacle as they departed from our shores on their ocean march.  Forming in three columns, with a distance of about 1,000 yards between the columns, and the vessels in the columns being distanced from one another about 400 yards, the fleet was convoyed from Port Tampa by small naval vessels until it reached a point between the Dry Tortugas and Key West.  Here it was met by the noble battleship Indiana and nine other war vessels, thus making a convoy altogether of fifteen fighting craft.  Transports and convoy now made an armada of more than forty ships, armed and manned by the audacious modern republic whose flag waved from every masthead.  Thus spreading out over miles of smooth sea, moving quietly along by steam, carrying in its arms the flower of the American army, every man of which was an athlete, this fleet announced to the world the grim purpose of a nation aroused.

The weather from the time of leaving Port Tampa continued fine until the fleet entered the passage between the western coast of Hayti and the eastern end of Cuba, known as the Windward Passage, when the breeze freshened and a rough sea began, continuing more or less up to the time of landing.  Rounding this eastern coast of Cuba the fleet headed its course westerly and on the morning of the 20th was able to determine its position as being off Guantanamo Bay, about fifty miles east of Santiago.  Here, eight days before, the first battle on Cuban soil, in which four American marines were killed, had been fought.  About noon on the same day, the fleet came to a halt off Santiago harbor, or a little to the west of the entrance to it, and Admiral Sampson came on board.  He and General Shafter soon after went ashore to consult the Cuban General, Garcia, who was known to be in that vicinity with about 4,000 well armed troops.