After the prisoners were settled into the camp at the Navy Yard and the injured and ill were being treated, prisoners were allowed a "parole."
Many of the man went to Seavey’s Island, other parts of the Navy Yard, and the town of Portsmouth during their 15 days of parole.
The war was fought to end Spanish colonial rule in Cuba -- as well as in the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico, replaced by U.S. control of those territories.
The battleship Maine, blown up in Havana harbor, was one factor that precipitated the war.
