nearly ten o'clock
With this the speaker , who had not dismounted , turned his horse 's head and rode away . Never was the temper and patience of the American people more sorely tried than by the two months of waiting and suspense that followed the destruction of their splendid battle-ship . The _ Maine _ had entered Havana Harbor on a friendly visit , been assigned to a mooring , which was afterwards changed by the Spanish authorities , and three weeks later , without a suspicion of danger having been aroused or a note of warning sounded , she was destroyed as though by a thunder-bolt . It was nearly ten o'clock on the night of Tuesday , February 15th . Taps had sounded and the crew were asleep in their hammocks , when , by a terrific explosion , two hundred and fifty-eight men and two officers were hurled into eternity , sixty more were wounded , and the superb battle-ship was reduced to a mass of shapeless wreckage . It was firmly believed throughout the United States that this appalling disaster was caused by a submarine mine , deliberately placed near the mooring buoy to which the _ Maine _ had been moved , to be exploded at a favorable opportunity by Spanish hands . The Spaniards , on the other side , claimed and strenuously maintained that the only explosion was that of the ship 's own magazines , declaring in support of this theory that discipline on all American men-of-war was so lax as to invite such a catastrophe at any moment .