Trophies

At the entrance to our neighborhood recreation park and pool stands a relic from a war fought so many years ago.   I never realized what it was there for, nor the history behind it, so I figured that today would be a good day to study it.   Walking around the 6-pounder gun for a little bit taking a few pictures, I noticed a plaque that said it was a trophy from the Spanish ship "Infanta Maria Teresa" taken from the Battle of Santiago near Cuba in the Spanish-American War.   It was the flagship of the Spanish navy and it led a last-ditch effort to break the American blockade of the ports and escape, but not before destroying as many ships as she could before she left.   Unfortunately for the ship and the crew, the American navy was better equipped and fired all of their guns at the Maria Teresa over several hours, crippling the ship and causing it to turn and retreat toward the safety of the Cuban beaches.   The defeated captain scuttled the ship and allowed his men to escape into Cuba, exposing them to the native residents tiring of the war.   After the Americans confiscated the ship, they attempted to renovate it, but to no avail.   As with any victory in war, pieces of the ship were sent to cities around the country to display as trophies, one being sent here to Monroe.

I took this photo of part of the gun that had a barbed-wire connection and thought it was pretty interesting.   Whether it was part of the original piece, or a support piece that was added later, it made me think of how that image of the wire is a reference to those held as POW's.   Kind of brought the experience full circle after doing a bit of research to where the gun came from in the first place.   While not a trophy I would want, it's a piece of naval history that documented one country's fight to survive along with a captain's drive to escape by all means necessary.