 Soon after the exploded in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, under suspicious circumstances, Crane was offered a £60 advance by "Blackwood's Magazine" for articles "from the seat of war in the event of a war breaking out" between the United States and Spain.His health was failing, and it is believed that signs of his pulmonary tuberculosis, which he may have contracted in childhood, became apparent.With almost no money coming in from his finished stories, Crane accepted the assignment and left Oxted for New York.