THE SPANISH WAR
Cuba broke out in one of her numerous insurrections in 1895. The island
had been nominally quiet since the close of the Ten Years' War, in 1878,
but had always been an object of American interest. More than once it
had entered into American diplomacy to bring out reiterations of
different phases of the Monroe Doctrine. Its purchase by the United
States had been desired to extend the slave area, or to control the
Caribbean, or to enlarge the fruit and sugar plantation area. The free
trade in sugar, which the McKinley Bill had allowed, ended in 1894, and
almost immediately thereafter the native population demanded
independence.
The revolt of 1895 was defended and justified by a recital of the faults
of Spanish colonial government. Caste and monopoly played a large part
in Cuban life. The Spanish-born held the offices, enjoyed the profits,
and owned or managed the commercial privileges. The western end of the
island, most thickly settled and most under the influence of Spain, gave
least support to the uprising, but in the east, where the Cubans and
negroes raised and ground cane, or grazed their herds, discontent at the
system of favoritism and race discrimination was an important political
force. Here the insurgents soon gained a foothold in the provinces of
Santiago, Puerto Principe, and Santa Clara. From the jungle or the
mountains they sent bands of guerrillas against the sugar mills and
plantations of the ruling class, and when pursued their troops hid their
weapons and became, ostensibly, peaceful farmers. A revolutionary
government, sitting safely in New York, directed the revolt, raised
money by playing on the American love of freedom, and sent cargoes of
arms, munitions, and volunteers to the seat of war. Avoiding pitched
battles and living off the country, the patriot forces compelled Spain
to put some 200,000 troops in Cuba and to garrison every place that she
retained.
[Illustration: ALASKA, THE PHILIPPINES, AND THE SEAT OF THE SPANISH WAR]
Through 1895 and 1896 the war dragged on with no prospect of victory for
the authorities and with growing interest on the part of the United
States. Public sympathy was with the Cubans, and news from the front was
so much desired that enterprising papers sent their correspondents to
the scene of action. The reports of these, almost without exception,
magnified the character and promise of the native leaders and attacked
the policy of the Spanish forces of repression.
The insurgents began, in 1895, a policy of terror, destroying the cane
in the fields of loyalists and burning their sugar mills. To protect the
loyalists and repress the rebels the Queen Regent sent General Valeriano
Weyler to the island in 1896, with orders to end the war. Weyler replied
to devastation with concentration. Unable to separate the loyal natives
from the disloyal, or to prevent the latter from aiding the rebels, he
gathered the suspected population into huge concentration camps,
fortified his towns and villages with sentinels and barbed-wire fences,
and endeavored to depopulate the area outside his lines. American public
opinion, unused for a generation to the sight of war, was shocked by the
suffering in the camps and was aroused in moral protest. Sympathy with
the insurgents grew in 1896 and 1897, as exaggerated tales of hardship
and brutality were circulated by the "yellow" newspapers. The evidence
was one-sided and incomplete, and often dishonest, but it was effective
in steering a rising public opinion toward ultimate intervention.
The nearness of the contest brought the trouble to the United States
Government through the enforcement of the neutrality laws. There was no
public war, and Spain was thus unable to seize or examine American
vessels until they entered actual Cuban waters. It was easy to run the
Spanish blockade and take supplies to the rebel forces, which was a
permissible trade. It was easy, too, to organize and send out
filibustering parties, which were highly illegal, and which the United
States tried to stop. Out of seventy-one known attempts, the United
States broke up thirty-three, while other Powers, including Spain,
caught only eleven. Enough landed to be a material aid to the natives
and to embitter Spain in her criticism of the United States. Cleveland
issued proclamations against the unfriendly acts of citizens, and
enforced the law as well as he could in a population and with juries
sympathizing with the law-breakers. Even in Congress he found little
sympathy in his attempt to maintain a sincere neutrality.
Congress felt the popular sympathy with the Cubans and responded to it,
as well as to the demands of Americans with investments in Cuba. In the
spring of 1896 both houses joined in a resolution favoring the
recognition of Cuban belligerency. This Cleveland ignored. In December,
1896, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations reported a resolution
for the recognition of Cuban independence, and individual members of
Congress often read from the newspapers accounts of horror, and made
impassioned speeches for recognition and intervention. But Cleveland
kept his control over the situation until he left office, as Grant had
done during the Ten Years' War and the excitement over the Virginius
affair. He left the determination of the time and manner of ultimate
intervention to his successor.
Among the planks of the Republican platform of 1896 was one asserting
the duty of the United States to "use its influence and good offices to
restore peace and give independence to Cuba," but there is no evidence
that President McKinley contemplated a forcible intervention when he
organized his Cabinet. John Sherman had, as Senator, spoken freely in
sympathy with Cuba. As Secretary of State he recalled Hannis Taylor from
Madrid and sent out General Stewart L. Woodford, with instructions
looking toward a peaceful mediation. Not until the autumn of 1897 was it
possible to press the Cuban matter, for Spain suffered two changes of
Ministry and the murder of a Prime Minister. But by the end of
September Spain had been notified that McKinley hoped to be able to give
positive assurances of peace to Congress when it met in December.
A Liberal Government, headed by Sagasta, took office in Spain in
October, 1897. It declined mediation by the United States, retorting
that if the United States were to enforce the law of neutrality the war
would soon cease. It recalled Weyler, however, sent out a new and milder
governor-general, modified the _reconcentrado_ orders that had so
enraged the United States, and issued, on November 25, a proclamation
establishing a sort of home rule, or autonomy, for Cuba. In the winter
of 1897 the Spanish Government was endeavoring to give no excuse for
American intervention, and at the same time, by moderate means, to
restore peace in Cuba. The Spanish population of Cuba opposed autonomy
and made the establishment of autonomous governments a farce. In January
there were riots in Havana among the loyal subjects. Outside the Spanish
lines the rebels laughed at autonomy, for they were determined to have
independence or nothing. Woodford, in touch with the Spanish Government,
believed that in the long run the Spanish people would let the Queen
Regent go beyond autonomy to independence, and that with patience Cuba
might be relieved of Spanish control.
There was no positive news for Congress in December, 1897, but by
February the conditions in Cuba had become the most interesting current
problem. The New York _Journal_ obtained and published a private letter
written by the Spanish Minister, De Lome, in which McKinley was
characterized as a temporizing politician. The Minister had no sooner
been recalled than the Maine, a warship that had been detached from the
North Atlantic Squadron, and sent to Cuba to safeguard American citizens
there, was destroyed by an explosion in the harbor of Havana, on
February 15, 1898. There was no evidence connecting the destruction of
the Maine with any person, but unscrupulous newspapers made capital out
of it, using the catch-phrase, "Remember the Maine," to inflame a public
mind already aroused by sympathy and indignation. After February, only a
determined courage could have withstood the demand for intervention and
a Spanish war.
The negotiations with Spain continued rapidly in the two months after
the loss of the Maine. McKinley avoided an arbitral inquiry into the
accident, urged by Spain, but pressed increasingly for an end of
concentration, for relief for the suffering population, and for full
self-government. He did not ask independence for Cuba, and every demand
that he made was assented to by Spain. Notwithstanding this, on April
11, 1898, he sent the Cuban correspondence to Congress, urged an
intervention, and turned the control of the situation over to a body
that had for two years been clamoring for forcible interference. Nine
days later Congress resolved, "That the people of the Island of Cuba
are, and of right ought to be, free and independent." On April 21 the
Spanish War began.
The administrative branches of the Government had made some
preparations for war before the declaration. The navy was small but
modern. It dated from the early eighties, when Congress was roused to a
realization that the old Civil War navy was obsolete and began to
authorize the construction of modern fighting ships. The "White
Squadron" took shape in the years after 1893. Only two armored cruisers
were in commission when Harrison left office, but the number increased
rapidly until McKinley had available for use the second-class
battleships Maine and Texas, the armored cruiser Brooklyn, and the
first-class battleships Iowa, Indiana, Massachusetts, and Oregon. From
the beginning of the McKinley Administration these, as well as the
lesser vessels of all grades, were diligently drilled and organized. The
new Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, had foreseen
and hoped for war. He spent the contingent funds on target practice, and
had the naval machine at its highest efficiency when the Maine was lost.
On March 9, 1898, Congress, in a few hours, put $50,000,000 at the
disposal of the President for national defense, and the navy spent its
share of this for new vessels, transports, and equipment. The vessels in
the Orient were mobilized at Hongkong under the command of Commodore
George Dewey; the Oregon, on station in the Pacific, was ordered home by
the long route around the Horn; the ships in the Atlantic were assembled
off the Chesapeake. Part of the latter were organized as a flying
squadron, for patrol, under Commodore Winfield Scott Schley, while
toward the end of March Captain William T. Sampson was promoted over
the heads of many ranking officers and given command of the whole North
Atlantic Squadron, including the fleet of Schley.
Congress debated a new army bill while the navy was being prepared for
war. Not until April 22 did it permit the enlargement of the little
regular army of 25,000. Until war had begun the volunteers, of whom some
216,000 were taken into the service, could not be called out or made
ready for the field. Some preparations were made within the War
Department, but the little staff of clerks, used to the small routine of
the peace basis, and having no plan of enlargement or mobilization
worked out, made little headway. The navy was ready to strike the day
war was declared, but the army had yet to be planned, recruited,
clothed, drilled, and transported to the front. The men of the navy knew
their duty and were ready for it; in the army thousands of civilians had
to blunder through the duties of strange offices. William J. Bryan
accepted the colonelcy in a Nebraska regiment. Theodore Roosevelt
resigned his office in the Navy Department to raise a regiment of
volunteer cavalry. Politicians struggled for commissions for themselves
and friends. Civil War veterans fought for reappointment, and enough
soldiers of the Confederacy put on the blue uniforms, or sent their
sons, to show that the breach had been healed between the North and
South. It was an enthusiastic rather than an effective army that was
brought together in the two months after the war began.
Cuba, the cause of the war and its objective, was the center of the
scheme of strategy. The navy was called upon to protect the Atlantic
seaboard from the fleet of Spain, which was reputed to be superior to
that of the United States. It had also to maintain a blockade of Cuba
and prevent the landing of reinforcements until the army could be
prepared to invade the island. Dewey's fleet in the Pacific was ordered
to destroy the Spanish naval force in the Philippine Islands, and moved
immediately upon Manila when Great Britain issued her proclamation of
neutrality and made it impossible to remain longer in her waters at
Hongkong.
On the morning of May 1 Dewey led his squadron past the forts, over the
submerged mines, and up the channel of Manila Bay. The Spanish forces in
the islands, already contending with a native insurrection, were
helpless before evening, having lost the whole fleet. Dewey was left in
a position to take the city when he chose, and sent home word to that
effect. He waited in the harbor until an army of occupation had been got
ready, hurried to the transports at San Francisco, and sent out under
General Wesley Merritt. He brought the native leader Aguinaldo back to
the islands, whence he had been expelled, to foment insurrection. The
first American reinforcements arrived at Manila by the end of June. On
August 13 they took the city.
Before the news of the surprising victory at Manila reached the United
States there was nervousness along the Atlantic Coast because of the
uncertain plans of the main Spanish fleet, which had left the Cape Verde
Islands, under Admiral Cervera, on April 29, and which might appear off
New York or Boston at any time. The naval strategists knew it must be
headed for the West Indies, but seaboard Congressmen begged excitedly
for protection, and the sensational newspapers pictured the coast in
ruins after bombardment.
To Sampson and Schley was assigned the task of guarding the coast,
keeping up the blockade, and finding Cervera's fleet before it reached a
harbor in American waters. San Juan, Santiago de Cuba, Cienfuegos, and
Havana were the only probable destinations. Sampson watched the north
side of Cuba and Porto Rico, while Schley and the flying squadron moved
to Key West, and on May 19 started around the west end of Cuba to patrol
the southern shore. On that same day, entirely unobserved, Cervera
slipped into the port of Santiago, at the eastern extremity of Cuba.
When the rumor of his arrival reached Sampson at Key West, Schley was
already well on his way and firm in his belief that Cervera was heading
for Cienfuegos.
The flying squadron, impeded by its colliers and its tenders, moved
deliberately around Cuba to Cienfuegos, outside of whose harbor it
remained for two days. Here Sampson's orders to proceed immediately to
Santiago reached it. On May 26 the fleet was off the entrance to
Santiago Harbor, and in this vicinity it stayed for two more days.
Schley could get no news that Cervera was here; he feared that his coal
would give out and that heavy seas would prevent his getting what coal
he had out of his colliers. He decided, in spite of orders, to go back
to Key West; he started a retrograde movement, reconsidered it, and was
again on blockade when, early on Sunday morning, May 29, he discovered
the Spanish fleet at anchor in the channel, where it had been for the
last nine days.
The blockade of Santiago was strengthened on June 1 by the arrival of
Sampson, who had rushed thither on hearing that Schley had decided to
leave the post. The two fleets were merged, and Schley, outranked by
Sampson, became a passenger on his flagship Brooklyn. By day, the
warships, ranged in a great half-circle, watched the narrow outlet of
the harbor. By night they took turns standing close in, with
searchlights playing on the entrance. For five weeks they kept this up,
not entering the harbor because of their positive orders not to risk the
loss of any fighting units, and waited for the arrival of an army to
cooperate with them against the land defenses of Santiago.
Sampson asked for military aid early in June, and on June 7 the War
Department ordered the army that had been mobilized at Tampa to go to
his assistance. General Nelson A. Miles, in command of the army, was not
allowed to head the expedition, but was kept at home while General
William R. Shafter directed the field work. At Tampa there was almost
hopeless confusion. The single track railway that supplied the camp was
unable to move promptly either men or munitions, the Quartermaster's
Department sent down whole trainloads of supplies without bills of
lading, and when the troops were at last on board the fleet of
transports they were kept in the river for a week before they were
allowed to start for Santiago. Sixteen thousand men, mostly regulars,
with nearly one thousand officers and two hundred war correspondents,
sailed on June 14, and were in conference with Sampson six days later.
A misunderstanding as to strategy arose in this conference. Sampson left
it believing that the army would land and move directly along the shore
against the batteries that covered the entrance to the harbor. Shafter,
however, though he issued no general order to that effect, was
determined to march inland upon the city of Santiago itself. On June 22
and 23 the army was landed by the navy, for it had neither boats nor
lighters of its own. The first troops, climbing ashore at the railway
pier at Daquiri, marched west along the coast to Siboney, and then
plunged inland, each regiment for itself, along the narrow jungle trail
leading to Santiago. Shafter himself, corpulent and sick, followed as he
could. Before he established his control over the army on land the head
of the column had engaged the enemy at Las Guasimas, nine miles from
Santiago, on June 24. The First Volunteer Cavalry, under the command of
Colonel Leonard M. Wood, with Theodore Roosevelt as lieutenant-colonel,
had marched most of the night in order to be in the first fighting.
After a sharp engagement the Spanish retired and the American advance
upon Santiago continued in a more orderly fashion.
The narrow trail between Siboney, on the shore, and Santiago, was some
twelve miles long. There were dense forests on both sides. Along this
the American army stretched itself at the end of June. There were few
ambulances or wagons, and they could not have been used if they had been
more numerous. Rations for the front were packed on mules or horses. The
troops, hurried to the tropics in the heavy, dark, winter clothing of
the regular army, suffered from heat, rain, and irregular rations.
Before them the San Juan River crossed the trail at right angles. Beyond
this were low hills carrying the fortifications, trenches, and wire
fences of Santiago, behind which the Spanish force could fight with
every advantage in its favor. Some five miles to the right of the line
of advance was the Spanish left, in a blockhouse at El Caney. On the
night before July 1, the American army moved on a concerted plan against
the whole Spanish line.
Lawton, with a right wing, moved against El Caney, with the idea of
demolishing it and crumpling up the Spanish left. The main column
followed the trail, crossed the San Juan River, and stormed the hills
beyond. The fight lasted all day on July 1, leaving the American forces
to sleep in the Spanish trenches, and to re-face them the next day.
There was more fighting on July 2 and 3, after which Santiago was
besieged by land, as it had been by sea since June 1.
Cervera watched the invading army with growing desperation. He knew the
inefficiency of his fleet, that it had left Spain unprepared because
public opinion demanded immediate action, that its guns were lacking and
its morale low, that if it stayed at anchor in the harbor it would be
taken by the army, and that if it went to sea it would be annihilated
by Sampson. His only chance was to rush out, scatter in flight, and
trust to luck. On Sunday, July 3, he led his ships out of the harbor in
single file, turned west against the Brooklyn, which guarded the
American left, and endeavored to escape.
Sampson had already issued orders for battle in case Cervera should come
out. He had himself started with his flagship, the New York, for a
conference with Shafter, and was some seven miles east of the entrance
to the harbor when the fleet appeared and the battle began. He turned at
once to the long chase that pursued the Spanish vessels along the Cuban
shore. The Brooklyn, at which Cervera had headed, instead of closing,
circled to the right, and nearly rammed her neighbor, the Texas, before
she regained her place at the head of the pursuit. Schley was the
ranking officer in the battle, but no one needed or heeded the orders
that he signaled to the other ships. Before sundown the Spanish fleet
was completely destroyed.
The land and naval battles at Santiago brought the Spanish War to an
end. For several weeks the army kept up the investment, with health and
morale steadily deteriorating. On July 17 the Spanish army at Santiago
was surrendered. On July 27 an invasion of Porto Rico under General
Miles took place, and on August 12 the preliminaries of peace were
signed on behalf of Spain by the French Minister at Washington. Manila
fell the next day, and the war closed with the American army in
possession of the most valuable of Spain's remaining colonies.
The Spanish and American peace commissioners met in Paris in October to
fix a basis for settlement. An American demand that Cuba should be set
free, without debt, and left to the tutelage of the United States, and
that Porto Rico should become an American possession, was formulated
early in the autumn. There was less certainty about the retention of the
Philippines, for here the desire for expansion was checked by a
conservative opposition to the adoption of foreign colonies. The evil
effects of imperialism were already being pictured by those who had
opposed the war. The difficulties of returning the islands to Spain were
greater than those involved in their retention, and McKinley finally
determined that the cession must include the Philippine Archipelago, and
the island of Guam in the Ladrones. The chief of the American
commissioners was William R. Day, who had become Secretary of State
early in the war, and who was succeeded in that post by John Hay. Under
his direction the Treaty of Paris was signed December 10, 1898.
The war and the conquest of the Philippines hastened another though
peaceful expansion. The Hawaiian Islands had been a matter of interest
to the United States since the American missionaries had begun to work
there in the thirties. A growing, American, sugar-raising population had
long hoped for annexation and had carried out a successful revolution
shortly before 1893. Harrison had concluded a treaty of annexation with
the provisional government, but Cleveland had refused to approve it. On
July 7, 1898, however, the Newlands Resolution accomplished the
annexation of the republic, and in 1900 a regular territorial government
was provided for the group of islands. The spectacular journey of the
Oregon around Cape Horn revived the demand for an isthmian canal.
Expansion suddenly took possession of the American mind, and a new idea
of duty, summed up by Rudyard Kipling in _The White Man's Burden_,
filled a large portion of the press.
The United States had suddenly passed from internal debate over free
silver to war and conquest. At the end of 1898 the War Department, that
had proved its inadequacy in nearly every phase of the war, was forced
to develop a colonial policy for Porto Rico and the Philippines and to
guide Cuba to independence. It was still under the direction of General
Russell A. Alger, but was torn by dissension and criticism upon the
conduct of the war. Not until Alger was asked to retire, in 1899, and
Elihu Root, of New York, succeeded him, was the War Department made
equal to its task.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The best account of the war with Spain is F.E. Chadwick, _Relations of
the United States and Spain: Diplomacy_ (1909), and _Relations of the
United States and Spain: The Spanish American War_ (2 vols., 1911).
These works have in large measure superseded the earlier studies; J.M.
Callahan, _Cuba and International Relations_ (1899); J.H. Latane, _The
Diplomatic Relations of the United States and Spanish America_
(1900:--so far as it relates to Cuba); H.E. Flack, _Spanish-American
Diplomatic Relations preceding the war of 1898_ (in Johns Hopkins
University Studies, vol. XXIV); and E.J. Benton, _International Law and
Diplomacy of the Spanish-American War_ (1908). Useful narratives
relating to the army are R.A. Alger, _The Spanish-American War_ (1901);
H.H. Sargent, _The Campaign of Santiago de Cuba_ (3 vols., 1907); J.
Wheeler, _The Santiago Campaign_ (1899); J.D. Miley, _In Cuba with
Shafter_ (1899); and T. Roosevelt, _The Rough Riders_ (1899). The navy
may be followed in J.D. Long, _The New American Navy_ (2 vols., 1903);
E.S. Maclay, _History of the United States Navy_ (3 vols., 1901, the
third volume containing allegations that precipitated the Schley-Sampson
controversy); G.E. Graham, _Schley and Santiago_ (1902); W.S. Schley,
_Forty-five Years under the Flag_ (1904); W.A.M. Goode, _With Sampson
through the War_ (1899). The public documents of the war are easily
accessible, especially in the Annual Reports for 1898 of the Secretaries
of War and Navy, and in the Foreign Relations volume for that year. The
controversies after the war illuminated many details, particularly the
Schley Inquiry (57th Congress, 1st Session, House Document, no. 485,
Serial nos. 4370, 4371), and the Miles-Eagan Inquiry (56th Congress, 1st
Session, Senate Document, no. 270, Serial nos. 3870-3872).