The Battle of Fajardo was an engagement between the armed forces of the United States and Spain that occurred on the night of August 8–9, 1898 near the end of the Puerto Rican Campaign during the Spanish–American War.
This information was immediately telegraphed to Governor General Manuel Macías y Casado at La Fortaleza in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
On the afternoon of August 5, Captain Barclay, Ensign Albert Campbell, a few prominent Fajardan leaders, including Veve and a landing party of 14 bluejackets boarded the shallow-draft Leyden and navigated through the shoals to shore.
Before the sailors returned to their ship, Barclay organized a citizens militia to patrol the town and appointed Dr. Veve as military governor of the eastern region of Puerto Rico.
Rivero Méndez passed the information to General Ricardo de Ortega y Diez who suggested to Governor Macias that they take the town with 200 soldiers and an artillery battery.
Macias was told to capture Dr. Santiago Veve Calzada and all those involved in the revolt, including the Americans in the lighthouse even if it meant the destruction of the structure.
On August 5, Governor General Macias dispatched Colonel Pedro del Pino and 200 men, including provisional troops and civil guardsmen from San Juan to recapture Fajardo.
[8] Early on the evening of August 6, with USS Amphitrite anchored about 1,800 yards offshore, Captain Barclay ordered a landing party of 14 petty officers and men from Amphitrite, armed with rifles, pistols and a 6mm Colt machine gun under Ensign Kenneth M. Bennett, with Assistant Engineer David J. Jenkins, Naval Cadets William H. Boardman, Paul Foley and Pay Clerk O.F.
Though no attack materialised the first night, Cadet Boardman was mortally wounded when his revolver dislodged from its faulty holster, fell to the marble floor and fired into his left inner thigh as he was entering the darkened lighthouse with three sailors.
As he was heading to the yard gate to order the corporal of the guard and sentry to come inside the light-house, those men came running up and announced they had seen Spanish troops in the road.
[14] Early the next morning, Captain Barclay decided to withdraw the landing party and civilian refugees as the advantage of continuing to hold the lighthouse seemed slight.
After the Americans had departed, Col. Pino's men tore down the two U.S. flags that flew over the Customs House and City Hall and returned to San Juan after verifying that the lighthouse was abandoned, leaving only the civil guard behind to police Fajardo.
President McKinley mentioned the engagement in his State of the Union address, remarking, "With the exception of encounters with the enemy at Guayama, Hormigueros, Coamo, and Yauco and an attack on a force landed at Cape San Juan, there was no serious resistance.