Don't Know Much About History, Anniversary Edition: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (Don't Know Much About®) (47 page)
Authors: Kenneth C. Davis
Against the urgings of party and press, and of businessmen and missionaries calling for bringing Anglo-Saxon Christianity to the world, McKinley tried to avert war. But finally he found it easier to go with the flow. Through a series of diplomatic ultimatums, McKinley pushed Spain into a corner of a room and then closed the only window that would have provided escape. What Secretary of State John Hay would call a “splendid little war” lasted a few months. But like all wars, it carried a price in lives and perhaps in virtue.
MILESTONES IN THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR
1898
January 25
The U.S. battleship
Maine
arrives in Havana Harbor. Its stated purpose is to protect the interests of Americans who are being brutalized by the Spanish governor, according to reports in the tabloids.
February 9
A private letter by Spain’s ambassador to the United States is published in Hearst’s
New York Journal
in which President McKinley is characterized as feebleminded, provoking a wave of indignation, fanned by the Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers.
February 15
The battleship
Maine
mysteriously explodes while anchored in Havana Harbor, resulting in the deaths of 260 crew members. The newspapers and war hawks soon trumpet, “Remember the
Maine
! To hell with Spain!” as a battle cry. The source of the blast is said to be an external explosion. While the Americans claim the blast was caused by a mine in the harbor, Spanish authorities assert it was an internal explosion, perhaps in the heavily loaded ship’s magazine.
March 9
By unanimous vote, Congress appropriates $50 million “for national defense,” and the country moves toward a war footing.
March 27
President McKinley offers Spain several conditions to avert a war that is widely desired by the banking and military interests of the country. The conditions include negotiations with Cuban rebels, revocation of concentration camps, and U.S. arbitration to settle the rebel question in Cuba. While Spain seems to express willingness to negotiate and accept McKinley’s conditions, war hawks continue to apply pressure.
April 11
McKinley delivers a “war message.” Fearing peace will split his party, he ignores Spanish peace overtures as the call for war is pressed by the Hearst and Pulitzer papers, Henry Cabot Lodge in Congress, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt.
April 19
Congress adopts a war resolution calling for Cuban independence from Spain and evacuation of Spanish forces from the island. The measure asserts that the United States is uninterested in exerting control over the island, and the coming war is depicted as a war of “liberation” of a western colony from a European power, which will allegedly permit the Cubans to “determine their fate.”
April 20
To prevent the use of diplomatic channels to avoid a war, the Spanish ambassador’s passport is returned before he can deliver the U.S. ultimatum. A day later, Spain breaks off diplomatic relations with the United States.
April 22
Congress passes the Volunteer Army Act, which calls for organization of a First Volunteer Cavalry—a “cowboy cavalry” that the press will christen Rough Riders. Resigning his post as assistant secretary of the navy and chief instigator of war within the McKinley administration, Theodore Roosevelt takes a commission as lieutenant colonel of the brigade, which is commanded by Leonard Wood. Hundreds of applications for the Rough Riders come from all over the country, and Roosevelt will draw on Ivy Leaguers as well as cowboys. The U.S. Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports, and a Spanish ship is captured in the first actual encounter of the war.
April 23
McKinley issues a call for 125,000 recruits.
April 24
Spain declares war on the United States.
April 25
The United States declares that a state of war exists as of April 21, the day Spain broke off diplomatic relations.
May 1
While Cuba is the focus of hostilities, the United States launches a surprise naval attack on the Philippines. Commodore (later Rear Admiral) Dewey’s Asiatic Squadron has been preparing for this attack for some time, at the secret order of Theodore Roosevelt. In a seven-hour battle outside Manila Bay, where the outdated and outgunned Spanish ships have maneuvered to avoid civilian casualties, the United States sinks all the Spanish ships, killing more than 300 Spanish, at a loss of no American ships and incurring only a few wounded. With a quick and easy victory under its belt, America’s hawkishness quickly explodes into outright war fever.
May 12
The United States bombards San Juan, Puerto Rico.
May 19
With American assistance, the Philippine guerrilla leader Aguinaldo arrives in Manila. At the same time, back in Cuba, the Spanish fleet moves into Santiago Harbor.
May 25
The first American troopships leave for Manila. McKinley calls for another 75,000 volunteers.
May 29
The American fleet blockades the Spanish fleet in Santiago Harbor.
June 10
A force of 647 marines lands at Guantanamo Bay, beginning the invasion of Cuba.
June 22
Nearly 20,000 American troops arrive at the fishing village of Daiquiri, eighteen miles east of Santiago.
June 24
Led by Joseph Wheeler, formerly of the Confederate cavalry—who occasionally lapses in battle and calls the Spanish Yankees—and Leonard Wood, 1,000 regular army and Rough Riders, accompanied by several war correspondents, win the first land battle of the war at Las Guasimas, Cuba. In his first action, Roosevelt is accompanied by two major war correspondents and is already being marked as a war hero.
July 1
The battles of El Caney and San Juan Hill. Against much smaller Spanish forces, Americans take heavy casualties in the major pitched battle of the war. An American balloon sent aloft to observe Spanish troop placements simply gives the Spanish gunners a perfect indication of American positions. More than 6,000 U.S. soldiers suffer 400 casualties at El Caney against a Spanish force of only 600. At San Juan Heights, confusion and delayed orders result in severe U.S. casualties as Spanish guns rake the waiting troops. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt finally takes the initiative, leading an assault first on Kettle Hill and a second charge on San Juan Heights. After successfully taking San Juan Heights, the American forces have command of Santiago below. But the American position is very weak. They are short of supplies, and casualties are heavy. Yellow fever and malaria have already begun to take their toll, as the Spanish defenders had expected. Roosevelt himself writes to Henry Cabot Lodge, “We are within measurable distance of a terrible military disaster.” After the Battle of San Juan Heights, 1,572 Americans are dead or wounded, but Roosevelt achieves instant war-hero status.
July 3
Against his own belief that he is risking certain defeat, Spanish admiral Cervera is ordered to break through the American blockade of Santiago Harbor. After the battle, the Spanish fleet is utterly destroyed. There is one American dead, another wounded.
July 4
In the Pacific, American troops take the deserted Wake Island.
July 8
Admiral Dewey takes Isla Grande near Manila.
July 10
With the destruction of the Spanish fleet guarding Santiago, U.S. troops launch a final attack on the city. By agreement with the Spanish command, there will be no resistance.
July 17
Santiago surrenders to American forces, and the U.S. flag is raised over the government building.
July 25
The town of Guánica in Puerto Rico is taken by U.S. troops.
July 26
Through the French ambassador, Spain requests peace terms. The “splendid little war” ends after three months of fighting. McKinley announces the following terms: independence is granted to Cuba; the United States takes control of Puerto Rico; the United States will occupy Manila until further negotiations.
August 9
McKinley’s terms are accepted by Spain, and a protocol of peace is signed.
What did America gain from the Spanish-American War?
There were 5,462 American deaths in the war, only 379 of which were battle casualties. Yellow fever, malaria, and other diseases were primarily responsible for most of them. Tainted meat sold to the army by the Armour Company may have led to some others. When Roosevelt and his men had opened tinned meat on the way to Cuba, they promptly tossed the putrid contents overboard.
In the aftermath of the war, several unexpected developments arose. America found itself not only in possession of Cuba and Puerto Rico as the island bases Henry Cabot Lodge hoped for, but in control of Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines as well. President McKinley was somewhat uncertain about what should be done with them. His choices were to give them back to Spain, or to give them to France or Germany, which seemed foolish; to leave them alone seemed equally foolish. The best remedy was to keep them for America. With the annexation of Hawaii in 1898, America had in place its “stepping-stones” to a new Pacific empire.
The people in the Philippines had other ideas about whom they needed protection from. Emiliano Aguinaldo, the rebel leader brought back to the Philippines by Admiral Dewey, was no more interested in American rule than he had been in Spanish rule. What followed was a war more bloody than the one with Spain: the Philippine incursion. It carried with it all the earmarks of a modern imperial war: massive strikes against civilians, war atrocities, and a brutality that had been missing from American wars with Europeans. Fighting against the “brown” Filipinos removed all excuses for civility. The Philippines would be an unhappy “protectorate” in the American Pacific for years to come. Five thousand Americans died fighting the Filipinos.
The other development that came home from Cuba was a real, live war hero in Teddy Roosevelt. Unashamedly, he rode his Rough Rider fame into the statehouse of New York in 1898, where his reform-minded ideas unsettled fellow Republicans and the industries they represented. A number of Republicans felt it would be an eminently prudent idea to stash Teddy away in the vice president’s office, where he couldn’t do any harm. Senator Mark Hanna did not join in this thinking. The chairman of the Republican Party, Hanna commented, “Don’t any of you realize there’s only one life between this madman and the presidency?”
Roosevelt initially balked at the post, believing that the office was a political dead end. The bullet fired by anarchist Leon Czolgosz, which struck President McKinley in Buffalo in September 1901, changed all that. At age forty-two, Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest president in American history. In one of his first acts in office, he invited Booker T. Washington to the White House. It was an act that the South would never forgive or forget.
While America prepared for war in Cuba, the American battleship
Oregon
, stationed off the coast of California, was ordered to Cuba. Steaming around South America, the
Oregon
was followed in the press like the Kentucky Derby. The voyage took two months, and while the Oregon arrived in time to take part in the Battle of Santiago Harbor, it was clear that America needed a faster way to move its warships from ocean to ocean.
This wasn’t a new idea. The dream of connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific had been held almost since Balboa stood on the cliffs of Darien in modern Panama. President Grant sent a survey team to look for the best route to dig a canal across Central America, and an American company later built a small railroad line to take steamship passengers across the isthmus, drastically cutting travel time from coast to coast.
Plenty of other people saw the commercial as well as strategic advantages of this undertaking. In 1880, a French group led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, chief architect of the Suez Canal, put together a company with the capital of thousands of investors to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, then still a part of Colombia. In the growing macho mood of America’s leaders, President Hayes announced that no European country would control such a canal, saying, “The policy of the country is a canal under American control.”
Corruption on a grand scale, miserable engineering plans, the harsh realities of the Central American jungle with its rainy-season floods, earthquakes, yellow fever, and malaria doomed the de Lesseps effort. After some preliminary excavations and thousands of deaths by accident and disease, the French company abandoned its canal cut amid a national scandal and left everything behind, the rusted machinery looking like some mechanical dinosaurs fossilized in the dense jungle.
