"Captured at Santiago De Cuba, July 17, 1898, by the Fifth Army
Corps, U.S. Army, Commanded by Major General William R. Shafter, and
presented by him to the City of San Francisco, California, in trust
for the Native Sons of the Golden West, and accepted as a token of the
valor and patriotism of the Army of the United States."

While I was reading the inscriptions and making measurements an open
two-seated carriage was driven up to the curbstone, about four o'clock
in the afternoon. From this a gentleman in a business suit, about
sixty years of age, alighted and approached me. He was a man of
pleasing address. He said to me, "You seem to be interested in this
cannon." "I am," was the reply. Then he began to pace it and to
examine it, and said, "It is just twelve feet long." He thought that
possibly it came into the hands of the Spaniards during the Napoleonic
wars, and that it at length found its way over to Cuba to help
in enslaving the people of that island. As I was attracted to
my informant, I ventured to ask him whom I had the pleasure of
addressing. Imagine my astonishment and delight when he said
modestly--"I am General Shafter." I said to him, "I am glad to meet
one so brave and who has helped to add new lustre to our Flag." He
replied that "he considered it a privilege to have had a share in the
liberation of Cuba, and that our beloved nation was on the march to
still greater glory." Finding out where I came from, and that I lived
near Ballston Spa, he said, "You must know my son-in-law, William H.
McKittrick." I replied that I did, that I knew him when he was a boy,
and that he and his family were my parishioners, when I was Rector of
Christ Church, Ballston Spa, twenty-eight years ago. Said he, "William
distinguished himself in the Cuban War. He is now a Captain and
Assistant Adjutant-General, and it was he who was the first to hoist