With yellow journalists fomenting war with Spain, Spanish authorities put restrictions on American reporters in Havana. The U.S. government sent the USS Maine to Havana harbor “to protect American interests” by showing the flag. It arrived on Jan. 25, 1898. It was scheduled to leave on Feb. 17 in time for Mardi Gras in New Orleans. On the night of Feb. 5, 1898, a mysterious explosion sank the battleship. 266 sailors were killed. American newspapers assumed the explosion was the work of the Spanish and demanded a circulation-boosting war. William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal blared the headline: “The Warship Maine Was Split in Two by an Enemy’s Secret Infernal Machine”. The papers did not wait for the official report of the investigation. When the report came out on March 17, it was determined that the explosion was due to a “submerged mine”. It could not determine who did it, but the implication was that it was the Spanish. McKinley was still skeptical, but public pressure forced him to ask for a declaration of war. On April 25, the war began, but was it justified?
The naval court of inquiry that the declaration was based on had determined the cause was a submerged mine for several reasons. Charles Sigsbee, the captain of the ship, claimed the ship was carrying out all the required safety measures and he had checked the coal bunkers. Navy divers reported that the explosion was inward.
A Spanish investigation found differently, naturally. The explosion could not have been a mine because there were no dead fish, no geyser, and it was too loud. The attitude of the Spanish government, unless they were good actors, seemed to show they were not to blame. In 1910, the Army Corps of Engineers brought up the Maine. A new investigation came to the same conclusion as the first and refuted the Spanish evidence. In 1976, Admiral Hyman Rickover did his own investigation. His experts determined the explosion resulted from a fire in a coal bunker. They were able to argue that an internal explosion could result in an inward bend to the plates below the water line. History textbook authors switched to the sinking was an accident. Not so fast. In 1998, a National Geographic investigation determined it was a mine, but a Discovery Channel inquiry sided with the mine theory.
Since the various investigations disagree, you have to look at motive. There were Spanish extremists who wanted to avoid a moderate solution to the Cuban problem. They would have found the arrival of the Maine as being provocative. A war with the U.S. would have undermined the moderates. However, the heavy-handed Gen. Weyler had been replaced by a more moderate general, so seemingly the Maine was less likely to be sabotaged by the Spanish. On the other hand, if you look at who benefited the most from the U.S. entering the revolution, you could look at the Cuban rebels. By sinking the Maine, they would have brought the U.S. in on their side. The yellow journalist would have been sure to blame Spain and push for a declaration of war. If you think about it, Cuban rebels sinking the Maine would have been a brilliant move. But did they have the ability to pull it off. Unlikely. So, it is logical to conclude the explosion was an accident. Battleships had their coal bunkers located dangerously close to the ammunition magazines. Other incidents had occurred on other ships involving sparks. Uncle 4 pp. 168-171
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/sinking-maine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1889)
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