Action of 13 June 1898 decided to withdraw. At the outbreak of the Spanish–American War Cienfuegos was a strategically important port due to its facilities and good communications with Havana. Some prewar plans recommended its prompt capture, but instead it was blockaded, along with some other important ports of the southern coast of Cuba such as Santiago de Cuba and Manzanillo. The most powerful Spanish naval units of the island, meanwhile, had been gathered in Santiago, and submarine defenses consisting mainly of torpedoes had been installed in the major ports of Havana, Cienfuegos, Santiago and San Juan de Puerto Rico. The naval units based in
USS Santiago de Cuba (1861) public auction in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 21 September 1865. She was redocumented on 16 November 1865. For more than two decades, she operated in mercantile service. On 7 December 1886, her engines were removed, and she was rigged as a schooner. Records of her subsequent career have disappeared. Pictures of the USS "Santigo de Cuba" USS Santiago de Cuba (1861) USS "Santiago de Cuba" (1861) was a brig acquired by the Union Navy during the first year of the American Civil War. She was outfitted as a gunboat with powerful 20-pounder rifled guns and 32-pounder cannon and was assigned to