Battle of Santiago de Cuba Cuba, leaving civil order to the military government that the United States established. The U.S. Army under the overall administration of General Leonard Wood governed the island for some time afterwards and, with help, removed many of the mines laid in the bay. The immediate effect of the Battle of Santiago and the larger Spanish–American War, then, was the end of any noteworthy Spanish naval presence in the New World. In the imperial vacuum left by Spain's New World empire, the United States now exerted considerable influence both in annexing formal territories such as Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines
Battle of Santiago de Cuba and were lost. , abandoned in Santiago Bay because of engine troubles, was an unprotected cruiser captured by the U.S. Navy and used as a receiving ship until 1957 as . All of the various flags, warship pennants, national combat flags, the royal standard, admirals' flags and so on retrieved from the Spanish ships in the days following the battle, are part of the United States Navy Trophy Flag Collection at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland. The collection was given to the care of the U.S. Naval Academy by an act of Congress in 1949. In 1998,