On February 25, 1898, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt sent a telegram to Commodore George Dewey, ordering him to ready ships in Hong Kong. After the United States declared war on Spain in April, Dewey’s Asiatic Squadron, comprised of six steel-clad vessels, departed for the Philippines. On May 1, Dewey’s ships fired on Rear Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasarón’s seven unarmored ships, which completely destroyed the Spanish fleet. 

Ildefonso Sanz y Doménech, a Spanish medical officer aboard the cruiser Isla de Luzón, witnessed the first U.S. victory of the war with Spain and
later recorded the battle in a series of oil paintings. Against a backdrop of battered Spanish vessels, Sanz y Doménech shows the USS Olympia leading the USS Baltimore, Raleigh, Concord, Petrel, and Boston in line of battle.