text: The first successful U.S. foray against Guantánamo Bay occurred on 6 June, with the arrival of the unprotected cruiser , captained by Commander Bowman H. McCalla, and the auxiliary cruisers  and , commanded by Willard H. Brownson. Commander McCalla had been detached by Admiral Sampson from the blockading fleet at Santiago and ordered to reconnoiter the bay for a naval base. The captain of St. Louis was to cut the cables which had their terminus in a small station on Fisherman's Point, and connected Cuba with Haiti and the outside world.
  On a previous occasion, St. Louis, on a similar mission, had been driven from the bay by the Spanish gunboat Sandoval. This time, as the three warships came into the bay at dawn, Spanish soldiers clustered about the blockhouse on the hill known today as McCalla Hill. The blockhouse and the village were speedily cleared by fire from Marbleheads six-pounder gun, along with a single  shell. The Spanish gunboats Alvarado and Sandoval came down the channel from Caimanera to meet the attack but retired precipitately on discovering the caliber of guns against them. The one cannon of the fort on Cayo del Toro opened fire on Marblehead without effect until it was silenced.
  The telegraph cables leading east to Cap-Haïtien, west to Santiago, and the small cable in the bay connecting Caimanera and Guantánamo City with Cap-Haïtien were all successfully cut, and from 7 June to 5 July the town of Guantánamo had no communication with the outside world.