[Illustration: Captain Charles D. Sigsbee.]

Small boats came out from the other ships, and rescued many men from
the Maine. The Spaniards helped the sufferers in every possible way,
taking them to the hospitals in Havana, where they received the best
care that the hospitals could give.

In that awful destruction of the Maine, two officers and two hundred
and fifty-four of the crew were lost. Several of those who were
rescued, died afterward.

The next day divers went down into the water to see what they could
find in the wreck, and nineteen dead bodies were brought up. The
Spanish officers of Havana asked Captain Sigsbee to permit the city to
give the a public funeral; and a plot of ground in Colón Cemetery,
outside the city, was given to the United States free of expense
forever. The day of the funeral all the flags were put at "half mast,"
as a sign of mourning, and the stores were closed. Crowds of people
joined the long funeral procession.

In the latter part of the year 1899, however, the Maine dead were
brought from Havana by the battleship Texas, then commanded by Captain
Sigsbee, formerly of the Maine. They were laid away in Arlington
Cemetery, near Washington, on December 28th, with simple religious
services and the honors of war, in the presence of the President of
the United States and his Cabinet, officers of the army and navy, and
many other spectators.

Besides Captain Sigsbee and Father Chidwick, who was chaplain of the