Spanish-American War

A war between Spain and the United States in 1898, as a result of which Spain ceded Puerto Rico, the Philippine Islands, and Guam to the United States and abandoned all claim to Cuba, which became independent in 1902.

Spanish-American war (1898), imperialist conflict in which the USA extended its formal authority over the Caribbean and across the Pacific, achieved on the back of long-standing insurgencies in Cuba and the Philippines, which traduced America's self-image and created many future complications. The American establishment wanted to establish American hegemony and to acquire naval bases in both places, but President McKinley shrank from embarking upon the necessary war. It was forced upon him by popular clamour whipped up by the yellow press and by Spanish intransigence.

American public opinion strongly sympathized with the nationalist guerrillas in Cuba, particularly after the Spanish military governor introduced a system of concentration camps (the origin of the term) in which as many as 100, 000 died. The flashpoint was the publication on 9 February 1898 of a dispatch by the Spanish ambassador in Washington, purloined by a Cuban revolutionary sympathizer, which spoke contemptuously of McKinley, followed six days later by the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbour. Post-war investigation showed that it sank from an internal explosion, but at the time an American court of enquiry blamed it on a mine. Popular agitation led to a US ultimatum and Spain declared war on 23 April.

Already possessed of a two-to-one advantage in warship tonnage, the US navy spent over $30 million acquiring 131 new vessels and doubling its manpower between March and August. By contrast, the Spanish possessed neither the means to add significantly to their fleet, nor the diplomatic clout to obtain coal in foreign ports for the ships they had. Their armoured cruisers were designed as ocean-going raiders and certainly not to engage their heavier armoured and gunned American counterparts, built for coastal defence. They were to be sacrificed by the Madrid government, which incorrectly calculated that it could survive a heroic defeat.

In a classic demonstration of ‘mission creep’, Commodore Dewey of the Pacific squadron based in Hong Kong set out to neutralize the obsolete Spanish naval presence in Manila and ended by adding the Philippines to the US empire. In a one-way battle during the morning of 1 May, he sank or disabled the outgunned enemy squadron at Cavite. The Spanish admiral could have run to maintain some kind of ‘fleet in being’, or he could have anchored under the heavy guns of nearby Manila. He chose instead to bring about ‘heroic defeat’ sooner rather than later.

There were about 26, 000 Spanish regulars and 15, 000 local militia facing about 30, 000 insurgents throughout the archipelago. With the exception of the 12, 000 Manila garrison, the rest soon fell to the insurgents. That this was due mainly to Spanish defeatism is illustrated by the tiny outpost at Baler, which held out beyond the end of the war to June 1899. Once 11, 000 American ground forces had landed, Manila surrendered on 13 August after symbolic resistance. By conspiring with the Spanish governor to bring this about while excluding the rebels, who had done most of the fighting, the American military commanders set in motion the second Philippines insurrection.

There were 70, 000 Spanish ‘effectives’ in Cuba (27, 000 more were in hospital) with perhaps 30, 000 local militia. These were also scattered around the island and, as in the Philippines, pressure from the insurgents made concentration of forces impossible. Havana was strongly held, but the poorly provisioned garrison at Santiago numbered less than 12, 000. What made it the prize of the campaign was the arrival there on 19 May of the Spanish Atlantic squadron under Cervera, who believed he had nowhere else to go. This was fortunate, because it took the blockading fleet under Sampson ten days to locate him. An unsuccessful attempt was made to sink a blockship in the narrow mouth of the harbour on 3 June, and US Marines seized Guantánamo Bay to provide a sheltered anchorage in mid-month, but a decision awaited the arrival of the expeditionary force under Shafter.

After a rushed and chaotic embarkation at Tampa, followed by landings on open beaches at Daiquirí and Siboney, where it proved impossible to bring heavy equipment ashore, some 17, 000 US troops were available for the battles around Santiago. Much of the fighting was done by a spearhead formed by highly motivated dragoon units, including the African-American troops of the 9th and 10th regiments and the ‘Rough Riders’, the 1st USA Volunteer Cavalry, at Las Guásimas on 24 June and at El Caney, Kettle Hill, and neighbouring San Juan Hill on 1 July. Shafter failed to follow up, but the positions won were sufficiently menacing to force Cervera to steam out of Santiago harbour to annihilation on 3 July.

Pausing to satisfy ‘honour’ and to obtain repatriation at American expense, the Spanish commander surrendered the whole province and 23, 000 men on 17 July at a ceremony from which the leader of the Cuban insurgents, hitherto working in close concert with the Americans, was excluded. Further operations in Cuba and those of army commander Miles in Puerto Rico ended with the suspension of hostilities on 12 August. By the Treaty of Paris, the USA annexed Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, paying $20 million compensation for the latter, and Cuba exchanged Spanish rule for an independence subject to US intervention.

In a war that ended in bitter mutual recrimination among American commanders ashore and afloat, the popular hero was the Rough Riders' dynamic Theodore Roosevelt, who had already played a significant role in the mobilization as assistant secretary of the navy. He led on horseback up much of Kettle Hill and culminated a day of outstanding temerity by charging from there to take San Juan Hill.

It was to be called ‘a splendid little war’, and while the first adjective is debatable, there can be no argument about the second. US combat casualties were 385 dead (2, 061 more by disease) and 1, 662 wounded. While the financial cost was considerably higher than the Mexican war 50 years earlier, it was greatly inflated by the crash naval expansion and the enrolment of 308, 000 men, most of whom never left training camp.

Bibliography

• Trask, David, The War with Spain in 1898 (New York, 1981)

— Hugh Bicheno

In 1895, the Cuban patriot José Martí renewed his homeland's attempt to achieve independence from Spain, triggering a guerrilla war that eventually brought about U.S. intervention. The Spanish government tried to suppress the insurgency, but the Cubans, led by Maximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo, managed to remain in the field. One Spanish general, Valeriano Weyler, adopted a policy of reconcentration of the civilian population in detention camps, but this measure backfired when it aroused international concern, notably in the United States. Presidents Grover Cleveland and William McKinley both extended good offices to Spain, eventually urging a policy of home rule. This campaign proved successful. The Spanish premier Práxedes Sagasta granted a form of autonomy to Cuba and Puerto Rico beginning 1 January 1898, but the insurgents, sensing weakness, rejected it.

U.S. opinion gradually coalesced in favor of the insurgent cause, but only the mysterious sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on 15 February 1898 led to vast popular support for armed intervention on behalf of the Cubans. McKinley proved reluctant to go to war. He attempted to obtain Cuban independence by diplomatic measures. The Spanish government balked. It recognized that the United States would most likely prevail in battle, but Sagasta and his colleagues, after unsuccessfully seeking assistance from other European powers, decided that failure to defend the Pearl of the Antilles might lead to revolution at home. An unsuccessful war appeared preferable to overthrow of the established order. On 25 April, the United States declared war, retroactive to 21 April.

Spain had a large army in Cuba and a strong garrison in its other insular possession, the Philippine Islands, but its navy was largely based in home ports. A weak squadron defended Manila. There were no significant naval forces in Cuban waters. In an attempt to retain its principal overseas colonies, Spain adopted a defensive strategy, depending on troops already in the field to fend off American attacks. The navy would reinforce and resupply threatened locations.

The United States fielded a small regular army of only 28,000 men, although it would eventually mobilize an impressive volunteer army to support the efforts of its modest but well‐prepared navy. Prewar preparations envisioned a naval blockade of Cuba and command of the Caribbean Sea—an achievement that would permit land operations when the U.S. Army was sufficiently mobilized to take such action. A secondary naval campaign would take place in the western Pacific. The Asiatic Squadron would attack the Spanish Squadron at Manila to preclude commerce raiding and to exert maximum pressure on Spain.

On 21 April, Adm. William Sampson took the North Atlantic Squadron to Havana and established a blockade, and on 1 May, Commodore George Dewey smashed Adm. Patricio Montojo's squadron in Manila Bay. Sampson extended his blockade to other Cuban ports while awaiting the arrival of a Spanish squadron under Adm. Pascual Cervera. Dewey remained in Manila Bay, unable to take further action until land forces came to his assistance. Early in May, the McKinley administration decided to send troops under Gen. Wesley Merritt to seize Manila and to prepare for eventual land operations at Havana. The Eighth Army Corps assembled at San Francisco finally reached Manila.

Plans for operations in Cuba changed when Cervera's squadron, reduced to six vessels, arrived at Santiago de Cuba, only to be blockaded in port by 28 May. This event led McKinley to organize a force at Tampa composed mainly of regular army regiments. It was ordered to Santiago de Cuba to help destroy Cervera's squadron.

Gen. William Shafter hastily transferred the Fifth Army Corps, 17,000 men strong, to Santiago de Cuba, arriving there on 20 June. Admiral Sampson urged him to attack the batteries defending the entrance to the harbor. When these were reduced, he could sweep naval mines from the channel and steam in to engage Cervera. Shafter had different ideas. He decided upon an interior line of operation, proceeding westward from a beachhead in the Daiquirí‐Siboney area to Santiago de Cuba, depriving himself of much needed naval gunnery support. After landing virtually unopposed, the Fifth Corps moved toward the San Juan Heights, the principal bulwark in the first of three defensive lines around the city. Spanish artillery supported this position from a second line of defenses. The only opposition to the advance occurred at Las Guásimas, where a small skirmish gave the Fifth Corps its baptism of fire (24 June).

Shafter chose to form three divisions in line for the attack on the San Juan Heights, which would roll over the hills and move on to capture Santiago de Cuba. To protect his right flank, he asked Gen. Henry Lawton, commanding one of his divisions, to seize the Spanish fortifications at El Caney before moving into the line of battle at the heights. The Spanish commander, Gen. Arsenio Linares, played into Shafter's hands: he distributed his force of 10,000 at various points around the perimeter of Santiago de Cuba instead of concentrating at probable points of attack. Only 500 men defended the heights.

Shafter attacked on 1 July, but the engagement did not develop as expected. Lawton encountered difficulty from a garrison of a mere 500 Spaniards at El Caney. After considerable delay, Shafter decided to attack the heights without Lawton. After a difficult deployment under Spanish artillery fire, the dismounted cavalry division under Gen. Joseph Wheeler attacked up the northeastern extension of the heights, a rise known as Kettle Hill, and the infantry division to its left commanded by Gen. Jacob Kent assaulted the principal elevation to the southwest. Fortunately, a battery of Gatling guns positioned at El Pozo about 600 yards to the rear was able to drive the Spanish defenders off the heights. Fifth Corps struggled into the Spanish positions and hastily entrenched. All thought of continuing on to Santiago de Cuba was forgotten. American casualties for the day were 1,385, with 205 killed, about 10 percent of the troops engaged. The Spanish suffered less—593 casualties, with 215 killed, about 35 percent of some 1,700 troops in good defensive positions. Theodore Roosevelt's ability to publicize his exploits as a commander of The First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment—the Rough Riders—during the Battle of San Juan Hill helped propel him into the governorship of New York and later the vice presidency.

After the action of 1 July, Cervera received orders to leave Santiago de Cuba. On 3 July, the reluctant admiral complied. His six ships—four cruisers and two destroyers—began their exit from the channel at 9:00 A.M. Sampson had left the blockade to meet Shafter, leaving Commodore William Schley as the senior officer present. The American vessels were able to concentrate their fire on each Spanish ship as it emerged from the channel. Only one, the Cristóbal Colón, managed to avoid immediate destruction or beaching. It fled for about seventy miles westward toward Cienfuegos, but the pursuing Americans finally obtained its range, and the Spanish commander drove his vessel onto the shore. After the war, a controversy erupted over credit for the victory between Schley and Sampson, dividing the officer corps for many years.

Shafter decided to besiege the city, a measure that forced its capitulation on 17 July. The Fifth Corps meanwhile fell victim to tropical diseases. Early in August, it was evacuated to Long Island for recuperation and other troops arrived to continue the occupation.

The victory at Santiago de Cuba forced the Spanish government to inaugurate peace negotiations, but during this process, the army undertook two more campaigns. One was an expedition to Puerto Rico, led by the Commanding General of the Army, Gen. Nelson Miles, which landed on the south shore of the island and advanced against token opposition toward San Juan. The other was an attack on the city of Manila. The land operations of the Eighth Corps amounted to a sham battle because Admiral Dewey managed to arrange a Spanish capitulation that took place after a brief engagement satisfied Spanish honor. A third operation, a naval sortie into Spanish waters by a detachment of Sampson's fleet designated the Eastern Squadron, did not occur because Spain finally agreed to a protocol signed on 12 August that ended hostilities.

The protocol settled all major issues except the disposition of the Philippine Islands. Early in June, the United States signaled its war aims to Madrid through a third party. They included independence for Cuba, the cession of Puerto Rico in lieu of a monetary indemnity, the cession of a port in the Ladrones (Marianas), and a port in the Philippines. In the protocol, Spain agreed to the first three demands. A peace conference was arranged to confirm this agreement and to decide the disposition of the Philippines. McKinley eventually instructed the American peace commission to obtain the entire archipelago, responding both to a burst of annexationist sentiment and to the lack of a viable alternative. Spain reluctantly accepted a payment of $20,000,000. On 6 March 1899, the Senate gave its consent to the treaty, and on 19 March, the queen regent of Spain overrode opposition in the Cortes and agreed to ratification. Ratifications were exchanged on 11 April 1899.

The acquisition of the Philippines led to a long insurgency that was finally quelled by July 1902. McKinley and his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, were able to exert sufficient force to bring down the Filipino insurgents while overcoming an active but ultimately ineffective protest from anti‐imperialists who offered constitutional, political, economic, and even racial arguments against annexation. The imperialist impulse proved short‐lived. As early as 1916, Congress began preparations for Philippine independence, a process that was completed in 1946.

Although the United States triumphed during the Spanish‐American War, inefficiency, waste, and even scandal characterized the army's mobilization efforts, especially the supplying of troops. Widely investigated by the newspapers and the Dodge Commission, appointed by the McKinley administration, these problems prompted calls for a restructuring of the War Department and reconsideration of the relationship between the regular army and the National Guard. During the tenure of Secretary of War Elihu Root, a series of reforms were implemented.

[See also Caribbean and Latin America, U.S. Military Involvement in the; Cuba, U.S. Military Involvement in; Militia and National Guard

Bibliography

• Chadwick, French Ensor. The Relations of the United States and Spain: The Spanish‐American War, 2 vols., 1911. Reprinted New York: Russell & Russell, 1968.
• May, Ernest R. Imperial Democracy: The Emergence of America as a Great Power, New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1961.
• Rickover, Hyman G. How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed, 1976.
• Offner, John L. An Unwanted War: The Diplomacy of the United States and Spain Over Cuba, 1895–1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
• Trask, David F. The War with Spain in 1898, N.Y.: Macmillan, 1981. Reprinted Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.
• Cosmas, Graham A. An Army for Empire: The United States Army and the Spanish‐American War, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1971. Reprinted College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1998.
• Louis A. Pérez, Jr., The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography, 1998

(1898) A conflict between the U.S. and Spain triggered by Cuban patriot José Martí's attempt to achieve Cuban independence from Spain. The Spanish government tried to suppress the insurgent forces (also led by Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo), including adopting a reconcentration policy that placed the civilian population in detention camps. The reconcentration policy drew the attention of Presidents Grover Cleveland and William McKinley, both of whom encouraged Spain to adopt a policy of home rule in Cuba. When Spain responded by issuing such a policy on January 1, 1898, however, the Cuban insurgents rejected it and continued their struggle. The mysterious sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898 pushed U.S. leaders and public opinion from an ambivalent position to one supporting armed intervention on behalf of the Cubans. President McKinley first pursued diplomatic channels to achieve Cuban independence, but Spain balked, fearing that a failure to defend the colony would trigger revolution in Spain itself. The U.S. then declared war on Spain on April 25, 1898, retroactive to April 21. Spain had a large army in Cuba and a strong garrison in the Philippine Islands, but its naval presence was weak in the Philippines and nonexistent in Cuba. Spain thus adopted a defensive strategy, using troops in the field to fend off American attacks, with the navy periodically reinforcing and resupplying threatened locations. The U.S. had a small regular army of 28, 000 men and a large volunteer army that supported its strong navy. It planned a naval blockade of Cuba that would permit land operations, and a second naval campaign in the Philippines. The naval blockade was established in Havana on April 21 and broadened while Spain awaited the arrival of a squadron under Pascual Cervera. By the time the squadron arrived, it had been reduced to six vessels and was quickly blockaded in port by May 28. McKinley organized a force at Tampa to go to Santiago de Cuba to destroy the squadron. Gen. William Shafter transferred the Fifth Army Corps, 17, 000 men, to Santiago de Cuba on June 20. Shafter approached Santiago de Cuba from the east, landed virtually unopposed, and moved toward San Juan Heights, the principal bulwark around the city. Shafter attacked on July 1, struggling into the Spanish positions. All thought of continuing to Santiago de Cuba was forgotten, given the 1, 385 casualties suffered that day. Part of this assault was the Battle of San Juan Hill by the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment (or Rough Riders), which Theodore Roosevelt later used in his campaigns for the governorship of New York and the vice presidency. After the action of July 1, Cervera received orders to leave Santiago de Cuba, complying two days later but encountering assaults from the American blockade vessels as they emerged from the channel. Only one Spanish vessel, the Cristobal Colón, escaped the harbor. Shafter then decided to besiege the city, which forced its capitulation on July 17. The victory at Santiago de Cuba forced the Spanish government to inaugurate peace negotiations. During this process, however, U.S. forces undertook a campaign in Puerto Rico and an attack on Manila, where U.S. forces had established a presence on May 1. Spain agreed to a protocol on August 12 that ended hostilities among the nations, specifying independence for Cuba, cession of Puerto Rico to the U.S. in lieu of a monetary indemnity, and the cession of a port in the Ladrones (Marianas). However, the protocol did not address the Philippine Islands. McKinley, riding a domestic annexationist wave and lacking a viable alternative, instructed the American peace commission to obtain the entire Philippine archipelago; Spain accepted a payment of $20, 000, 000. The treaty was ratified on March 6, 1899 by the Senate and on March 19 by the queen regent of Spain (overriding opposition in the Cortes). Ratifications were then exchanged on April 11, 1899. The acquisition of the Philippines led to a long insurgency that was finally quelled in July 1902. The imperialist impulse proved short-lived, though, since by 1916 Congress had begun preparations for Philippine independence, which was ultimately achieved in 1946.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

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The sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor on 15 February 1898 provided a dramatic casus belli for the Spanish-American War, but underlying causes included U.S. economic interests ($50 million invested in Cuba; $100 million in annual trade, mostly sugar) as well as genuine humanitarian concern over long-continued Spanish misrule. Rebellion in Cuba had erupted violently in 1895, and although by 1897 a more liberal Spanish government had adopted a conciliatory attitude, U.S. public opinion, inflamed by strident "yellow journalism," would not be placated by anything short of full independence for Cuba.

The Maine had been sent to Havana ostensibly on a courtesy visit but actually as protection for American citizens. A U.S. Navy court of inquiry concluded on 21 March that the ship had been sunk by an external explosion. Madrid agreed to arbitrate the matter but would not promise independence for Cuba. On 11 April, President William McKinley asked Congress for authority to intervene, and, on 25 April, Congress declared that a state of war existed between Spain and the United States.

The North Atlantic Squadron, concentrated at Key West, Florida, was ordered on 22 April to blockade Cuba. The Spanish home fleet under Adm. Pascual Cervera had sortied from Cadiz on 8 April, and although he had only four cruisers and two destroyers, the approach of this "armada" provoked near panic along the U.S. East Coast.

Spanish troop strength in Cuba totaled 150,000 regulars and forty thousand irregulars and volunteers. The Cuban insurgents numbered perhaps fifty thousand. At the war's beginning, the strength of the U.S. Regular Army under Maj. Gen. Nelson A. Miles was only twenty-six thousand. The legality of using the National Guard, numbering something more than 100,000, for expeditionary service was questionable. Therefore, authorities resorted to the volunteer system used in the Mexican-American War and Civil War. The mobilization act of 22 April provided for a wartime army of 125,000 volunteers (later raised to 200,000) and an increase in the regular army to sixty-five thousand. Thousands of volunteers and recruits converged on ill-prepared southern camps where they found a shortage of weapons, equipment, and supplies, and scandalous sanitary conditions and food.

In the Western Pacific, Commo. George Dewey had been alerted by Acting Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt to prepare his Asiatic Squadron for operations in the Philippines. On 27 April, Dewey sailed from Hong Kong with four light cruisers, two gunboats, and a revenue cutter—and, as a passenger, Emilio Aguinaldo, an exiled Filipino insurrectionist. Dewey entered Manila Bay in the early morning hours on 1 May and destroyed the Spanish squadron, but he had insufficient strength to land and capture Manila itself. Until U.S. Army forces could arrive, the Spanish garrison had to be kept occupied by Aguinaldo's guerrilla operations.

In the Atlantic, Cervera slipped into Santiago on Cuba's southeast coast. Commo. Winfield Schley took station off Santiago on 28 May and was joined four days later by Rear Adm. William T. Sampson. To support these operations, a marine battalion on 10 June seized nearby Guantánamo to serve as an advance base. Sampson, reluctant to enter the harbor because of mines and land batteries, asked for U.S. Army help. Maj. Gen. William R. Shafter, at Tampa, Florida, received orders on 31 May to embark his V Corps. Despite poor facilities, he had seventeen thousand men, mostly regulars, ready to sail by 14 June and by 20 June was standing outside Santiago. On 22 June, after a heavy shelling of the beach area, the V Corps began going ashore. It was a confused and vulnerable landing, but the Spanish did nothing to interfere.

Between Daiquiri and Santiago were the San Juan heights. Shafter's plan was to send Brig. Gen. Henry W. Lawton's division north to seize the village of El Caney and then to attack frontally with Brig. Gen. Jacob F. Kent's division on the left and Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler's dismounted cavalry on the right. The attack began at dawn on 1 July. Wheeler, one-time Confederate cavalryman, sent his dismounted troopers, including the black Ninth and Tenth cavalries and the volunteer Rough Riders, under command of Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt, against Kettle Hill. The Spanish withdrew to an inner defense line, and, as the day ended, the Americans had their ridge line but at a cost of seventeen hundred casualties.

Shafter, not anxious to go against the Spanish second line, asked Sampson to come into Santiago Bay and attack the city, but for Sampson there was still the matter of the harbor defenses. He took his flagship eastward on 3 July to meet with Shafter, and while they argued, Cervera inadvertently resolved the impasse by coming out of the port on orders of the Spanish captain general. His greatly inferior squadron was annihilated by Schley, and on 16 July the Spaniards signed terms of unconditional surrender for the 23,500 troops in and around the city.

At the end of July the VIII Corps, some fifteen thousand men (mostly volunteers) under Maj. Gen. Wesley Merritt, had reached the Philippines. En route, the escort cruiser Charleston had stopped at Guamand accepted the surrender of the island from the Spanish governor, who had not heard of the war. Because of an unrepaired cable, Dewey and Merritt themselves did not hear immediately of the peace protocol, and on 13 August an assault against Manila was made. The Spanish surrendered after token resistance.

The peace treaty, signed in Paris on 10 December 1898, established Cuba as an independent state, ceded

Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States, and provided for the payment of $20 million to Spain for the Philippines. Almost overnight the United States had acquired an overseas empire and, in the eyes of Europe, had become a world power. The immediate cost of the war was $250 million and about three thousand American lives, of which only about three hundred were battle deaths. A disgruntled Aguinaldo, expecting independence for the Philippines, declared a provisional republic, which led to the Philippine Insurrection that lasted until 1902.

Bibliography

Cosmas, Graham A. An Army for Empire: The United States Army in the Spanish-American War. Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane Publishing, 1994.

Hoganson, Kristin L. Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998.

Linderman, Gerald F. The Mirror of War: American Society and the Spanish-American War. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1974.

Musicant, Ivan. Empire by Default: The Spanish-American War and the Dawn of the American Century. New York: Holt, 1998.

Traxel, David. 1898: The Birth of the American Century. New York: Knopf, 1998.

In the late nineteenth century, the United States grew in industrial and economic strength. By the 1880s, the nation was one of the most robust in the Western Hemisphere, wielding increasing power in the region despite a stated policy of neutrality. In 1898, diplomatic relations between the United States and Spain began to sour over Spain's domination of Latin America and some parts of the Caribbean. Reports of the brutal rule of Spanish General Valeriano Wyler in Cuba inflamed public opinion in the United States. The convergence of anti-Spanish public opinion and the government's desire to protect American economic interests in Cuba prompted tense diplomatic meetings between Spain and the United States.

During the negotiations, two events spurred the United States to declare war. A U.S. ship, the USS Maine sank off the coast of Cuba on February 15, 1898. A Navy inquiry board incorrectly declared that a mine fatally wounded the vessel. 266 Navy seamen and two high-ranking officers perished in the accident. The event consumed newspaper headlines for weeks. Sensationalistic reporting, dubbed "yellow journalism," helped to swell the tide of pro-war sentiment in the United States.

Within weeks of the sinking of the Maine, intelligence operatives intercepted a private letter between the Spanish Ambassador to the United States and a friend in Havana, Cuba. The letter disparaged U.S. President McKinley, and hinted at plans to commit acts of sabotage against American property in Cuba. The letter was published by several newspapers, further agitating public opinion. On April 19, 1898, Congress resolved to end Spanish rule in Cuba.

In the first military action of the war, the United States blockaded Cuban ports on April 22, 1898. The Navy transferred several vessels to neighboring Florida to consolidate the forces available to fight the Spanish in the Caribbean. Naval presence off the Florida coast also facilitated the transfer of information from the battlefront to the government in Washington, D.C.

The Office of Naval Intelligence established sophisticated communications intelligence operations in support of their efforts in Cuba. Martin Hellings, who worked for the International Ocean Telegraph Company, was sent to Key West, Florida, to intercept Spanish messages. Hellings convinced other telegraph operators to copy Spanish diplomatic messages and deliver the copies to him. Within a few days, he operated a sizable communications ring, conducting surveillance on underwater and land-based telegraph cables. Hellings also employed a courier to run special messages between his offices and United States ships in the region.

The theater of war rapidly expanded to include other Spanish strongholds, including the Philippines. Intelligence operations were not initially as well developed in the Pacific as they were in the region around Cuba. Cuba's proximity to the Florida coast aided intelligence and espionage operations. United States military commanders knew little about the Philippines and the Spanish defenses there. To obtain information, the Office of Navy Intelligence and the Army's Military Intelligence Division employed human intelligence. Agents were sent to the remote islands to obtain information about Spanish defenses, military strength, and island terrain. The operation moved swiftly, and within weeks, United States commanders learned that the Spanish were ill-prepared to fight a strong offensive in the Philippines.

On May 1, 1898, the United States Asiatic Squadron, under the command of George Dewey, sailed into Manila Bay and attacked the Spanish. The Spanish fleet was decimated, but the United States sustained no losses. Though the Spanish surrendered the Philippines, the United States fleet remained, and began a campaign to take the island as a United States territory. The ensuing conflict lasted until 1914.

Human intelligence was not limited to operations in the Philippines. The United States employed covert agents in Europe, Cuba, and Canada. These agents aided the war effort by spying on Spanish diplomats abroad and providing intelligence information to dissident groups in Cuba. German-educated Henry Ward traveled to Spain in the guise of a German physician. William Sims, an American attaché in Paris, managed a spy ring throughout the Mediterranean. In Cuba, Andrew Rowan united rebel groups and reported on the location and size of the Spanish fleet. He supervised the trafficking of arms to rebel outfits and helped plan their assaults on Spanish targets. Human intelligence also contributed to counterintelligence efforts. Based on agent reports, the United States Secret Service was able to infiltrate and destroy a Spanish spy ring working in Montreal, Canada.

In June 1898 United States intelligence learned, via telegraph intercepts, that the Spanish fleet planned to attack the U.S. blockade in Cuba and draw ships into a naval battle in the Caribbean. When the Spanish fleet arrived in the region, United States Naval Intelligence tracked them and gave chase. United States commanders hoped to deplete Spanish fuel reserves before engaging them in battle. The United States backed off, and redeployed to aid blockade ships stationed around Havana. The Spanish ships proceeded undetected to the narrow harbor of Santiago, Cuba. When the Spanish commander telegraphed his government to declare his position, U.S. agents working in Florida intercepted the cable. The United States fleet moved to intercept the Spanish at Santiago. The U.S. Navy blockaded the port and immobilized the Spanish fleet. The Spanish attempted to run the blockade on July 3, but the entire fleet of six ships was destroyed.

In the final phase of the war, the United States deployed ground forces to sweep Spanish forces out of Havana and Santiago. The "Rough Riders," the most famous of which was Theodore Roosevelt, worked with rebel groups to take control of the nation's capitol and ferret out remaining Spanish forces in the countryside. The U.S. troops then departed Cuba for Puerto Rico, driving the Spanish from the island.

The war ended with the Spanish surrender on July 17, 1898. The event signaled a new international stance for the United States, as the nation began to acquire territories and dominate the politics of the Western Hemisphere. As a result of the Spanish-American War, or in its immediate wake, the United States gained Guantanamo Bay, Puerto Rico, Guam, and Hawaii.

The Spanish-American War, though a brief conflict, helped to revolutionize United States intelligence organizations and their operations. Before the war, agencies like the Office of Naval Intelligence relied on openly available sources for their information. After the war, personnel were trained in espionage tradecraft, and covert operations became standard intelligence community practice. Congress briefly entertained the idea of establishing a permanent, civilian intelligence corps, but the agency never materialized. Despite the progress made with technological surveillance, espionage tradecraft, and inter-agency cooperation made during the war, the intelligence community was once again allowed to slip into disarray until the eve of World War I.

Further Reading

Books

Musicant, Ivan. Empire by Default: The Spanish-American War and the Dawn of the American Century. Henry Holt, 1998.

O'Toole, G. J. A. The Spanish-American War: An American Epic, 1898. New York: W.W. Norton, 1986.

The Spanish-American War of 1898 was brief, lasting only a few months. It resulted in a U.S. victory that not only ended Spain's colonial rule in the Western Hemisphere but also marked the emergence of the United States as a world power, as it acquired Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. Theodore Roosevelt's military exploits in Cuba catapulted him onto the national stage and led to the vice presidency and, ultimately, the presidency.

The conflict had its origins in Spain's determined effort in the 1890s to destroy the Cuban independence movement. As the brutality of the Spanish authorities was graphically reported in U.S. newspapers, especially Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, the U.S. public began to support an independent Cuba.

In 1897 Spain proposed to resolve the conflict by granting partial autonomy to the Cubans, but the Cuban leaders continued to call for complete independence. In December 1897, the U.S. battleship Maine was sent to Havana to protect U.S. citizens and property. On the evening of February 15, 1898, the ship was sunk by a tremendous explosion, the cause of which was never determined. U.S. outrage at the loss of 266 sailors and the sensationalism of the New York press led to cries of "Remember the Maine" and demands that the United States intervene militarily in Cuba.

President William McKinley, who had originally opposed intervention, approved an April 20 congressional resolution calling for immediate Spanish withdrawal from Cuba. This resolution precipitated a Spanish declaration of war against the United States on April 24. Congress immediately reciprocated and declared war on Spain on April 25, stating that the United States sought Cuban independence but not a foreign empire.

The war itself was brief due to the inferiority of the Spanish forces. On May 1, 1898, the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in the Philippines was destroyed by the U.S. Navy under the command of Commodore George Dewey. On July 3, U.S. troops began a battle for the city of Santiago, Cuba. Roosevelt and his First Volunteer Cavalry, the "Rough Riders," led the charge up San Juan Hill; he emerged as one of the war's great heroes. With the sinking of the Spanish fleet off the coast of Cuba on July 3 and the capture of Santiago on July 17, the war was effectively over.

An armistice was signed on August 12, ending hostilities and directing that a peace conference be held in Paris by October. The parties signed the Treaty of Paris on December 12, 1898. Cuba was granted independence, and Spain agreed to pay the Cuban debt, which was estimated at $400 million. Spain gave the United States possession of the Philippines and also ceded Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States. Many members of the U.S. Senate opposed the treaty, however. They were concerned that the possession of the Philippines had made the United States an imperial power, claiming colonies just like European nations. This status as an imperial power, they argued, was contrary to traditional U.S. foreign policy, which was to refrain from external entanglements. The Treaty of Paris was ratified by only one vote on February 6, 1899.

A war between Spain and the United States, fought in 1898. The war began as an intervention by the United States on behalf of Cuba. Accounts of Spanish mistreatment of Cuban natives had aroused much resentment in the United States, a resentment encouraged by the yellow press (see yellow journalism). The incident that led most directly to the war was the explosion of the United States battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, an incident for which many Americans blamed Spain (see Remember the ). The United States won the war easily. The best-remembered incidents in the Spanish-American War were the charge of the Rough Riders, led by Theodore Roosevelt, in the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba, and the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines, at which Admiral George Dewey said, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.” The United States acquired Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines in the war and gained temporary control over Cuba.

Spanish-American War
Part of the Philippine Revolution, Cuban War of Independence
Charge of the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill, by Frederic Remington
Date April 25 – August 12, 1898 Location Cuba, and Puerto Rico (Caribbean) Philippines, and Guam (Asia-Pacific) Result U.S. Victory, Treaty of Paris, Philippine–American War Territorial changes Spain relinquishes sovereignty over Cuba, cedes the Philippine Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the United States for the sum of $20 million.
Belligerents
United States Cuba Katipunan[1] Philippines[2][3]	Kingdom of Spain
Commanders
Nelson A. Miles William R. Shafter George Dewey William T. Sampson Máximo Gómez Emilio Aguinaldo Apolinario Mabini	Patricio Montojo Pascual Cervera Arsenio Linares y Pombo Manuel Macías y Casado Ramón Blanco y Erenas
Strength
Cuban Republic: 30,000 irregulars[4]:19-20 United States: 300,000 regulars and volunteers[4]:21	208,812 – 278,447 regulars and militia[4]:20-21 (Cuba), 10,005 regulars and militia[4] (Puerto Rico), 51,331 regulars and militia[4] (Philippines)
Casualties and losses
Cuban Republic: 10,665 dead[4] United States: 345 dead, 1,645 wounded, 2,565 diseased[4]:67	Spanish Navy: 560 dead, 300–400 wounded<[4]:67 Spanish Army: 6,700 captured,[5](Philippines) 13,000 diseased[4] (Cuba)

v • d • e Spanish–American War Cuba – Pacific – Puerto Rico

The Spanish–American War was a military conflict between Spain and the United States that took place between April and August 1898, over the issues of the liberation of Cuba. The war began after American demands for the resolution of the Cuban fight for independence were rejected by Spain. Strong expansionist sentiment in the United States motivated the government to develop a plan for annexation of Spain's remaining overseas territories including the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.^[6]

The revolution in Havana prompted the United States to send in the warship USS Maine to indicate high national interest. Tension among the American people was raised because of the explosion of the USS Maine, and the yellow journalist newspapers that accused the Spanish of oppression in their colonies, agitating American public opinion. The war ended after victories for the United States in the Philippine Islands and Cuba.

On December 10, 1898, the signing of the Treaty of Paris gave the United States control of Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

Contents 1 Historical background 1.1 Cuban struggle for independence 1.2 USS Maine 1.3 Path to war 2 Theaters of operation 2.1 Pacific 2.1.1 Philippines 2.1.2 Guam 2.2 The Caribbean 2.2.1 Cuba 2.2.1.1 Land campaign 2.2.2 Naval operations at Cuba 2.2.3 American troops withdraw 2.2.4 Puerto Rico 3 Peace treaty 4 Aftermath 5 Controversy 6 Spanish-American War in film and television 7 Military decorations 7.1 United States 7.2 Other countries 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 Further reading 11.1 Diplomacy and causes of the war 11.2 War 11.3 Historiography 11.4 Memoirs 11.5 Media 12 External links

Historical background

The Monroe Doctrine^[7] of the 19th Century served as the political foundation for the support of the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain in the United States. Cubans had been fighting for self determination, on and off, since the Grito de Yara of 1868.

Cuban struggle for independence

In 1895, the Spanish colony of Cuba was the site of a small armed uprising against Spanish authority. Financial support for the "Cuba Libre" rebellion came from external organizations, some based in the United States.^[8]

In 1896, the new Captain General for Cuba, General Valeriano Weyler, pledged to suppress the insurgency by isolating the rebels from the rest of the population ensuring that the rebels would not receive supplies.

By the end of 1897, more than 300,000 Cubans had relocated into Spanish guarded concentration camps. These camps became cesspools of hunger and disease where more than one hundred thousand died.^[9]

A propaganda war waged in the United States by Cuban émigrés attacked Weyler's inhuman treatment of his countrymen and won the sympathy of broad groups of the U.S. population. Weyler was referred to as "The Butcher" by yellow journalists like William Randolph Hearst. The American newspapers began agitating for intervention with stories of Spanish atrocities against the Cuban population.

USS Maine

Main article: USS Maine (ACR-1)

In January 1898, a riot by Cuban volunteers, most of whom were Spanish loyalists, broke out in Havana and led to the destruction of the printing presses of three local newspapers that were critical of General Weyler. These riots prompted the presence of an American Marine force in the island: although there had been no attack on Americans during the rioting,^[10][11] there were still fears for the lives of Americans living in Havana. Concern focused on the pro-Spanish Cubans who harbored resentment of the growing support in the United States for Cuban independence. The U.S. Department of State^[12] informed the Consul-General in Havana, Fitzhugh Lee, a nephew of Robert E. Lee, that the Maine would be sent to protect United States interests should tensions escalate further.

The USS Maine arrived in Havana on January 25, 1898. Her stay was uneventful until the following month. On February 15, 1898, at 9:40 p. m. the Maine sank in Havana Harbor after an explosion, resulting in the deaths of 266 men. An American inquiry reported that it was caused by a mine but recent investigations have led people to believe that the explosion was indeed caused by an internal infusion of coal combustion and not a mine. At the time the Spanish attributed the event to an internal explosion. The Spanish inquiry, conducted by Del Peral and De Salas, collected evidence from officers of naval artillery who had examined the remains of the Maine. Additional observations included that 1) had a mine been the cause of the explosion a column of water would have been observed; 2) the wind and the waters were calm on that date and hence a mine could not have been detonated by contact but using electricity, but no cables had been found; 3) no dead fish were found in the harbour as would be expected following an explosion in the water; and, 4) munition bunkers usually do not explode when mines sink ships. Del Peral and De Salas identified the spontaneous combustion of the coal bunker that was located adjacent to the munition stores in the Maine as the likely cause of the explosion. The conclusions of the report were silenced by the American press (Hugh Thomas, Memoria del 98, p. 104). In 1976, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover wrote a book (How the Battleship Maine was Destroyed, Naval History Division, Department of the Navy) arguing persuasively^{[citation needed]} that the origin of the explosion that sank the ship was indeed internal.

A total of four USS Maine investigations were conducted into the causes of the explosion, with the investigators coming to different conclusions. The Spanish and American versions would carry on with divergences.^[13] A 1999 investigation commissioned by National Geographic and carried out by Advanced Marine Enterprises concluded that "it appears more probable than was previously concluded that a mine caused the inward bent bottom structure" and the detonation of the ship. However there is still much contention over what caused the explosion.^[14]

In Spring of 1898, the total strength of the U.S. Army was just 28,183 men. The size of the army was rapidly expanded to about 250,000 men, the majority undisciplined troops lifted from the National Guard and the remainder untrained volunteers.^[15]

Path to war

Main article: Propaganda of the Spanish–American War

Upon the destruction of the Maine,^[16] newspaper owners such as William Randolph Hearst came to the conclusion that Spanish officials in Cuba were to blame, and they widely publicized this theory as fact. They fueled American anger by publishing sensationalistic and astonishing accounts of "atrocities" committed by Spain in Cuba. A common myth states that Hearst responded to the opinion of his illustrator Frederic Remington, that conditions in Cuba were not bad enough to warrant hostilities with: "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."^[17] Lashed to fury, in part by such press, the American cry of the hour became, "Remember the Maine, To Hell with Spain!" President William McKinley, Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed and the business community opposed the growing public demand for war.

Senator Redfield Proctor's speech, delivered on March 17, 1898 thoroughly analyzed the situation concluding that war was the only answer. Many in the business and religious communities, which had heretofore opposed war, switched sides, leaving President McKinley and Speaker Reed almost alone in their opposition to the war.^[18] On April 11 President McKinley asked Congress for authority to send American troops to Cuba for the purpose of ending the civil war there.

On April 19, while Congress was considering joint resolutions supporting Cuban independence, Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado proposed the Teller amendment to ensure that the United States would not establish permanent control over Cuba following the cessation of hostilities with Spain. The amendment, disclaiming any intention to annex Cuba passed Senate 42 to 35; the House concurred the same day, 311 to 6. The amended resolution demanded Spanish withdrawal and authorized the president to use as much military force as he thought necessary to help Cuba gain independence from Spain. President McKinley signed the joint resolution on April 20, 1898, and the ultimatum was forwarded to Spain. In response, Spain broke off diplomatic relations with the United States and declared war on April 25. On that same day, Congress declared that a state of war between the United States and Spain had existed since April 20 (later changed to April 21).^[19]

Theaters of operation

Pacific

Philippines

The Spanish had first landed in the Philippines on March 17, 1521, though colonization did not start until 1565. Since then, the islands had been a key holding for the Spanish Empire. In the 300 years of Spanish rule, the country developed from a small overseas colony governed from the Viceroyalty of New Spain, to a modern partly-autonomous country, with infrastructures, schools, hospitals and universities.

Battle of Manila Bay.

The Spanish-speaking middle classes of the 19th century were mostly educated in the liberal ideas coming from Europe. Among these Ilustrados was the Filipino national hero José Rizal, who demanded larger reforms from the Spanish authorities. This movement eventually led to the Philippine Revolution which the United States later backed. The first battle between American and Spanish forces was at Manila Bay where, on May 1, 1898, Commodore George Dewey, commanding the United States Navy's Asiatic Squadron aboard the USS Olympia, in a matter of hours, defeated the Spanish squadron under Admiral Patricio Montojo. Dewey managed this with only nine wounded.^[20][21]

With the German seizure of Tsingtao in 1897, Dewey's Squadron had become the only naval force in the Far East without a local base of its own, and was beset with coal and ammunition problems.^[22] Despite these logistical problems, the Asiatic squadron had not only destroyed the Spanish fleet but had also captured the harbor of Manila.^[22]

Following Dewey's victory, Manila Bay was filled with the warships of the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Japan; all of which outgunned Dewey's force.^[22] The German fleet of eight ships, ostensibly in Philippine waters to protect German interests (a single import firm), acted provocatively—cutting in front of American ships, refusing to salute the United States flag (according to customs of naval courtesy), taking soundings of the harbor, and landing supplies for the besieged Spanish. The Germans, with interests of their own, were eager to take advantage of whatever opportunities the conflict in the islands might afford. The Americans called the bluff of the Germans, threatening conflict if the aggressive activities continued, and the Germans backed down.^[23][24]

Commodore Dewey transported Emilio Aguinaldo to the Philippines from exile in Hong Kong in order to rally Filipinos against the Spanish colonial government.^[25] By June, U.S. and Filipino forces had taken control of most of the islands, except for the walled city of Intramuros. On June 12, 1898, Aguinaldo proclaimed the independence of the Philippines.^[26][27]

On August 13, with American commanders unaware that the cease fire had been signed between Spain and the United States on the previous day, American forces captured the city of Manila from the Spanish.^[28][29] This battle marked an end of Filipino-American collaboration, as Filipino forces were prevented from entering the captured city of Manila, an action which was deeply resented by the Filipinos and which later led to the Philippine–American War.^[30]

Guam

On June 20, 1898, a U.S. fleet commanded by Captain Henry Glass, consisting of the cruiser USS Charleston and three transports carrying troops to the Philippines entered Guam's Apra Harbor, Captain Glass having opened sealed orders instructing him to proceed to Guam and capture it. The Charleston fired a few cannon rounds at Fort Santa Cruz without receiving any return fire. Two local officials, not knowing that war had been declared and, being under the misapprehension that the firing had been a salute, came out to the Charleston to apologize for their inability to return the salute. Glass informed them that the United States and Spain were at war. The following day, Glass sent Lt. William Braunersruehter to meet the Spanish Governor to arrange the surrender of the island and the Spanish garrison there. 54 Spanish infantry were captured and transported to the Philippines as prisoners of war. No U.S. forces were left on Guam, but the only U.S. citizen on the island, Frank Portusach, told Captain Glass that he would look after things until U.S. forces returned.^[31]

The Caribbean

Cuba

Spanish armored cruiser Cristóbal Colón. Destroyed during the Battle of Santiago on 3 July 1898.

Detail from Charge of the 24th and 25th Colored Infantry and Rescue of Rough Riders at San Juan Hill, July 2, 1898 depicting the Battle of San Juan Hill.

Theodore Roosevelt actively encouraged intervention in Cuba and, while assistant secretary of the Navy, placed the Navy on a war-time footing and prepared Dewey's Asiatic Squadron for battle. He worked with Leonard Wood in convincing the Army to raise an all-volunteer regiment, the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry. Wood was given command of the regiment that quickly became known as the "Rough Riders".^[32]

The Americans planned to capture the city of Santiago de Cuba in order to destroy Linares' army and Cervera's fleet. To reach Santiago they had to pass through concentrated Spanish defenses in the San Juan Hills and a small town in El Caney. The American forces were aided in Cuba by the pro-independence rebels led by General Calixto García.

Land campaign

Between June 22 and June 24, the U.S. V Corps under General William R. Shafter landed at Daiquirí and Siboney, east of Santiago, and established the American base of operations. A contingent of Spanish troops, having fought a skirmish with the Americans near Siboney on June 23, had retired to their lightly entrenched positions at Las Guasimas. An advance guard of U.S. forces under former Confederate General Joseph Wheeler ignored Cuban scouting parties and orders to proceed with caution. They caught up with and engaged the Spanish rear guard who effectively ambushed them, in the Battle of Las Guasimas on June 24. The battle ended indecisively in favor of Spain and the Spanish left Las Guasimas on their planned retreat to Santiago.

The U.S. army employed American Civil War-era skirmishers at the head of the advancing columns. All four U.S. soldiers who had volunteered to act as skirmishers walking point at head of the American column were killed, including Hamilton Fish, from a well-known patrician New York City family and Captain Alyn Capron, whom Theodore Roosevelt would describe as one of the finest natural leaders and soldiers he ever met. The Battle of Las Guasimas showed the U.S. that the old linear Civil War tactics did not work effectively against Spanish troops who had learned the art of cover and concealment from their own struggle with Cuban insurgents, and never made the error of revealing their positions while on the defense. The Spaniards were also aided by the then new smokeless powder, which also helped them to remain concealed while firing. American soldiers were only able to advance against the Spaniards in what are now called "fireteam" rushes, four-to-five man groups advancing while others laid down supporting fire.

On July 1, a combined force of about 15,000 American troops in regular infantry, cavalry and volunteer regiments, including Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders", notably the 71st New York, 1st North Carolina, 23rd and 24th Colored, and rebel Cuban forces attacked 1,270 entrenched Spaniards in dangerous Civil War style frontal assaults at the Battle of El Caney and Battle of San Juan Hill outside of Santiago.^[33] More than 200 U.S. soldiers were killed and close to 1,200 wounded in the fighting.^[34] Supporting fire by Gatling guns was critical to the success of the assault.^[35][36] Cervera decided to escape Santiago two days later.

The Spanish forces at Guantánamo were so isolated by Marines and Cuban forces that they did not know that Santiago was under siege, and their forces in the northern part of the province could not break through Cuban lines. This was not true of the Escario relief column from Manzanillo,^[37] which fought its way past determined Cuban resistance but arrived too late to participate in the siege.

After the battles of San Juan Hill and El Caney, the American advance ground to a halt. Spanish troops successfully defended Fort Canosa, allowing them to stabilize their line and bar the entry to Santiago. The Americans and Cubans forcibly began a bloody, strangling siege of the city.^[38] During the nights, Cuban troops dug successive series of "trenches" (actually raised parapets), toward the Spanish positions. Once completed, these parapets were occupied by U.S. soldiers and a new set of excavations went forward. American troops, while suffering daily losses from Spanish fire and sniper rifles, suffered far more casualties from heat exhaustion and mosquito-borne disease.^[39] At the western approaches to the city, Cuban general Calixto Garcia began to encroach on the city, causing much panic and fear of reprisals among the Spanish forces. The Americans planned to capture the city of Santiago de Cuba in order to destroy Linares' army and Cervera's fleet. To reach Santiago they had to pass through concentrated Spanish defenses in the San Juan Hills and a small town in El Caney.

Naval operations at Cuba

The major port of Santiago de Cuba was the main target of naval operations during the war. The U.S. fleet attacking Santiago needed shelter from the summer hurricane season. Thus Guantánamo Bay with its excellent harbor was chosen for this purpose. The 1898 invasion of Guantánamo Bay happened June 6–10, with the first U.S. naval attack and subsequent successful landing of U.S. Marines with naval support.

The Battle of Santiago de Cuba on July 3, 1898, was the largest naval engagement of the Spanish–American War and resulted in the destruction of the Spanish Caribbean Squadron (also known as the Flota de Ultramar). In May 1898, the fleet of Spanish Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete, had been spotted by American forces in Santiago Harbor where they had taken shelter for protection from sea attack. A two month stand-off between Spanish and American naval forces followed. When the Spanish squadron finally attempted to leave the harbor on July 3, the American forces destroyed or grounded five of the six ships. Only one Spanish vessel, the speedy new armored cruiser Cristobal Colón, survived, but her captain hauled down her flag and scuttled her when the Americans finally caught up with her. The 1,612 Spanish sailors who were captured, including Admiral Cervera, were sent to Seavey's Island at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, where they were confined at Camp Long as prisoners of war from July 11 until mid-September.

During the stand-off, United States Assistant Naval Constructor Richmond Pearson Hobson had been ordered by Rear Admiral William T. Sampson to sink the collier Merrimac in the harbor to bottle up the Spanish fleet. The mission was a failure, and Hobson and his crew were captured. They were exchanged on July 6, and Hobson became a national hero; he received the Medal of Honor in 1933 and became a Congressman.

American troops withdraw

On August 7 1898, the American invasion force started to leave Cuba. The problem was fiebre amarilla, yellow fever, which had quickly spread amongst the American occupation force, crippling it. A group of concerned officers of the American army chose Theodore Roosevelt to draft a request to Washington that it withdraw the Army, a request that paralleled a similar one from General Shafter, who described his force as an “army of convalescents”. By the time of his letter, 75% of the force in Cuba was unfit for service.^[40]

The evacuation was not total. The Army kept the black Ninth Infantry Regiment in Cuba to support the occupation. The logic was that their race and the fact that many black volunteers came from southern states would protect them; this logic led to these soldiers being nicknamed “Immunes”. Still, by the time the Ninth left, 73 of the 984 soldiers had contracted the disease.^[40]

Puerto Rico

Main article: Puerto Rican Campaign

U.S. 1st Kentucky Volunteers in Puerto Rico, 1898.

During May 1898, Lt. Henry H. Whitney of the United States Fourth Artillery was sent to Puerto Rico on a reconnaissance mission, sponsored by the Army's Bureau of Military Intelligence. He provided maps and information on the Spanish military forces to the U.S. government prior to the invasion. On May 10, U.S. Navy warships were sighted off the coast of Puerto Rico. On May 12, a squadron of 12 U.S. ships commanded by Rear Adm. William T. Sampson bombarded San Juan. During the bombardment, many government buildings were shelled. On June 25, the Yosemite blockaded San Juan harbor. On July 25, General Nelson A. Miles, with 3,300 soldiers, landed at Guánica, beginning the Puerto Rican Campaign. The troops encountered resistance early in the invasion. The first skirmish between the American and Spanish troops occurred in Guánica. The first organized armed opposition occurred in Yauco in what became known as the Battle of Yauco.^[41] This encounter was followed by the Battles of Fajardo, Guayama, Guamaní River Bridge, Coamo, Silva Heights and finally by the Battle of Asomante.^[41][42] On August 9, 1898, infantry and cavalry troops encountered Spanish and Puerto Rican soldiers armed with cannons in a mountain known as Cerro Gervasio del Asomante, while attempting to enter Aibonito.^[42] The American commanders decided to retreat and regroup, returning on August 12, 1898, with an artillery unit.^[42] The Spanish and Puerto Rican units began the offensive with cannon fire, being led by Ricardo Hernáiz. The sudden attack caused confusion among some soldiers, who reported seeing a second Spanish unit nearby.^[42] In the crossfire, four American troops — Sargeant John Long, Lieutenant Harris, Captain E.T. Lee and Corporal Oscar Sawanson — were gravely injured.^[42] Based on this and the reports of upcoming reinforcements, Commander Landcaster ordered a retreat.^[42] All military action in Puerto Rico was suspended later that night, after the signing of the Treaty of Paris was made public.

Peace treaty

With defeats in Cuba and the Philippines, and both of its fleets incapacitated, Spain sued for peace.

Hostilities were halted on August 12, 1898, with the signing in Washington of a Protocol of Peace between the United States and Spain.^[43] The formal peace treaty was signed in Paris on December 10, 1898, and was ratified by the United States Senate on February 6, 1899. It came into force on April 11, 1899. Cubans participated only as observers.

The United States gained almost all of Spain's colonies, including the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Cuba, having been occupied as of July 17, 1898, and thus under the jurisdiction of the United States Military Government (USMG), formed its own civil government and attained independence on May 20, 1902, with the announced end of USMG jurisdiction over the island. However, the United States imposed various restrictions on the new government, including prohibiting alliances with other countries, and reserved for itself the right of intervention. The US also established a perpetual lease of Guantanamo Bay.

On August 14, 1898, 11,000 ground troops were sent to occupy the Philippines. When U.S. troops began to take the place of the Spanish in control of the country, warfare broke out between U.S. forces and the Filipinos resulting in the Philippine-American War.

Aftermath

With the end of the war, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt musters out of the U.S. Army after the required 30 day quarantine period at Montauk, Long Island, in 1898.

The war lasted only four months. Ambassador (and later United States Secretary of State) John Hay, writing from London to his friend Theodore Roosevelt declared that from start to finish it had been "a splendid little war."^[44][45] The press showed Northerners and Southerners, blacks and whites fighting against a common foe^{[citation needed]}, helping to ease the scars left from the American Civil War.

The war marked American entry into world affairs. Ever since, the United States has had a significant hand in various conflicts around the world, and entered into many treaties and agreements. The Panic of 1893 was over by this point, and the United States entered a lengthy and prosperous period of economic and population growth, and technological innovation that lasted through the 1920s.^[46]

The war also effectively ended the Spanish Empire. Spain had been declining as an Imperial power since the early 19th century as a result of Napoleon's invasion. The loss of Cuba caused a national trauma because of the affinity of peninsular Spaniards with Cuba, which was seen as another province of Spain rather than as a colony. Spain retained only a handful of overseas holdings: Spanish West Africa, Spanish Guinea, Spanish Sahara, Spanish Morocco, and the Canary Islands.

The Spanish soldier Julio Cervera Baviera, who served in the Puerto Rican Campaign, published a pamphlet in which he blamed the natives of that colony for its occupation by the Americans, saying: "I have never seen such a servile, ungrateful country [i.e. Puerto Rico]... In twenty-four hours, the people of Puerto Rico went from being fervently Spanish to enthusiastically American... They humiliated themselves, giving in to the invader as the slave bows to the powerful lord."^[47] He was challenged to a duel by a group of young Puerto Ricans for writing this pamphlet.^[48]

Culturally a new wave called the Generation of '98 originated as a response to this trauma, marking a renaissance in Spanish culture. Economically, the war actually benefited Spain, because after the war, large sums of capital held by Spaniards not only in Cuba but also all over America were brought back to the peninsula and invested in Spain. This massive flow of capital (equivalent to 25% of the gross domestic product of one year) helped to develop the large modern firms in Spain in industrial sectors (steel, chemical, mechanical, textiles and shipyards among others), in the electrical power industry and in the financial sector.^[49] However, the political consequences were serious. The defeat in the war began the weakening of the fragile political stability that had been established earlier by the rule of Alfonso XII.

The cover of Puck from April 6, 1901. Caricaturizes an Easter bonnet made out of a warship that alludes to the gains of the Spanish-American War.

Congress had passed the Teller Amendment prior to the war, promising Cuban independence. However, the Senate passed the Platt Amendment as a rider to an Army appropriations bill, forcing a peace treaty on Cuba which prohibited it from signing treaties with other nations or contracting a public debt. The Platt Amendment was pushed by imperialists who wanted to project U.S. power abroad (this was in contrast to the Teller Amendment which was pushed by anti-imperialists who called for a restraint on U.S. hegemony). The amendment granted the United States the right to stabilize Cuba militarily as needed. The Platt Amendment also provided for the establishment of a permanent American naval base in Cuba. Guantánamo Bay was established after the signing of treaties between Cuba and the US beginning in 1903.

The United States annexed the former Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. The notion of the United States as an imperial power, with colonies, was hotly debated domestically with President McKinley and the Pro-Imperialists winning their way over vocal opposition led by Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who had supported the war. The American public largely supported the possession of colonies, but there were many outspoken critics such as Mark Twain, who wrote The War Prayer in protest.

Roosevelt returned to the United States a war hero, and he was soon elected governor and then vice president.

1900 Campaign poster.

The war served to further cement relations between the American North and South. The war gave both sides a common enemy for the first time since the end of the Civil War in 1865, and many friendships were formed between soldiers of both northern and southern states during their tours of duty. This was an important development since many soldiers in this war were the children of Civil War veterans on both sides.^[50]

Segregation in the U.S. Military, 1898.

The African-American community strongly supported the rebels in Cuba, supported entry into the war, and gained prestige from their wartime performance in the Army. Spokesmen noted that 33 African-American seamen had died in the Maine explosion. The most influential Black leader, Booker T. Washington, argued that his race was ready to fight. War offered them a chance "to render service to our country that no other race can", because, unlike Whites, they were "accustomed" to the "peculiar and dangerous climate" of Cuba. One of the Black units that served in the war was the 9th Cavalry Regiment. In March 1898, Washington promised the Secretary of the Navy that war would be answered by "at least ten thousand loyal, brave, strong Black men in the south who crave an opportunity to show their loyalty to our land, and would gladly take this method of showing their gratitude for the lives laid down, and the sacrifices made, that Blacks might have their freedom and rights."^[51]

In 1904, the United Spanish War Veterans was created from smaller groups of the veterans of the Spanish American War. Today, that organization is defunct, but it left an heir in the form of the Sons of Spanish–American War Veterans, created in 1937 at the 39th National Encampment of the United Spanish War Veterans. According to data from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the last surviving U.S. veteran of the conflict, Nathan E. Cook, died on September 10, 1992, at age 106. (If the data are to be believed, Cook, born October 10, 1885, would have been only 12 years old when he served in the war.)

Finally, in an effort to pay the costs of the war, Congress passed an excise tax on long-distance phone service.^[52] At the time, it affected only wealthy Americans who owned telephones. However, the Congress neglected to repeal the tax after the war ended four months later, and the tax remained in place for over 100 years until, on August 1, 2006, it was announced that the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the IRS would no longer collect the tax.^[53]

Controversy

There is, however, an alternative view to the mainstream analysis of the origins of the war which is extremely skeptical of the sincerity of US action. Several American historians, for example Charles A. Beard, Howard Zinn and Richard Hofstadter, claim that US expansionism led to a contrived Spanish–American War. They posit that it was sponsored and promoted by US business interests and corporations who needed overseas markets for their goods. Detailed evidence for this claim is outlined by Philip Foner in his ten-volume The History Of The Labor Movement In The United States and Daniel B. Schirmer in Republic Or Empire: American Resistance To The Philippine War. The American Anti-Imperialist League was founded specifically to express dismay at the invasion of the Philippines^[54].

The war was condemned by Mark Twain, who was vice-president of the league from 1901 until his death in 1910. He described the war as "a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater"^[55] and in 1901 published the anti-war essay "To The Person Sitting In Darkness". Explaining his views in an article published in the New York Herald on October 15, 1900, Twain wrote that the United States had gone to the Philippines "to conquer, not to redeem". Other notable members were Henry James,^{[citation needed]} his brother William James, Andrew Carnegie, Grover Cleveland, Ambrose Bierce and Jane Addams.

Spanish-American War in film and television

• The Rough Riders, a 1927 silent film
• Rough Riders, a 1997 television miniseries directed by John Milius, and featuring Tom Berenger (Theodore Roosevelt), Gary Busey (Joseph Wheeler), Sam Elliott (Buckey O'Neill), Dale Dye (Leonard Wood), Brian Keith (William McKinley), George Hamilton (William Randolph Hearst), and R. Lee Ermey (John Hay)
• The Spanish–American War: First Intervention, a 2007 docudrama from The History Channel

Military decorations

U.S. Army "War with Spain" campaign streamer.

United States

United States awards and decorations of the Spanish–American War were as follows:

Wartime service and honors

• Medal of Honor
• Specially Meritorious Service Medal
• Spanish Campaign Medal — upgradeable to include the Silver Citation Star to recognize those U.S. Army members who had performed individual acts of heroism.
• West Indies Campaign Medal
• Sampson Medal, West Indies service under Admiral William T. Sampson
• Dewey Medal, service during the Battle of Manila Bay under Admiral George Dewey
• Spanish War Service Medal, U.S. Army homeland service

Postwar occupation service

• Army of Puerto Rican Occupation Medal
• Army of Cuban Occupation Medal

Other countries

The governments of Spain and Cuba also issued a wide variety of military awards to honor Spanish, Cuban, and Philippine soldiers who had served in the conflict.

See also

• Ostend Manifesto
• Commonwealth of the Philippines
• Panama Canal Zone
• Battles of the Spanish–American War
• Cuban Independence
• Spain – United States relations

Notes

1. ^ The United States was informally allied with Katipunan forces under Emilio Aguinaldo from the time of Aguinaldo's return to Manila on May 19, 1898 until those forces were absorbed into a government proclaimed by Aguinaldo on May 24, 1898, and continued to be informally allied with government forces until the end of the war.
2. ^ Guevara, Sulpico, ed. (2005), "Philippine Declaration of Independence", The laws of the first Philippine Republic (the laws of Malolos) 1898-1899., Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Library (published 1972), http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=philamer;cc=philamer;rgn=full%20text;idno=aab1246.0001.001;didno=aab1246.0001.001;view=image;seq=00000221, retrieved 2008-03-26 . (English translation by Sulpicio Guevara)
3. ^ Guevara, Sulpico, ed. (2005), "Facsimile of the Proclamation of the Philippine Independence at Kawit, Cavite, June 12, 1898", The laws of the first Philippine Republic (the laws of Malolos) 1898-1899., Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Library (published 1972), http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=philamer&cc=philamer&idno=aab1246.0001.001&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=203, retrieved 2008-03-26 . (Original handwritten Spanish)
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Dyal1996
5. ^ Trask, p.371
6. ^ Smithsonian Institution 2005
7. ^ "Monroe Doctrine, 1923". U.S. Department of State. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/jd/16321.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-06. 
8. ^ Trask, p.2
9. ^ Trask, p.9
10. ^ Trask, p.24
11. ^ American Peace Society 1898, p. 36
    This contemporary remark claims that no attacks were made on the American consulate, etc.
12. ^ The War of 1898, and U.S. Interventions, 1898-1934, An Encyclopedia, Edited by Benjamin R. Beede, p. 255
13. ^ Santa Cecilia (1998-02-15). "España y EEUU aún discrepan" (in Spanish). El Mundo. http://www.elmundo.es/1998/02/15/cultura/15N0102.html. 
14. ^ Campbell 2001, p. 135 (see item no. 99).
15. ^ Wolff 2006, pp. 89-90
16. ^ Casualties on USS Maine, Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq71-2.htm, retrieved 2007-12-20 
17. ^ Campbell, W. Joseph (August 2000). "Not likely sent: The Remington-Hearst "telegrams"". Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. http://academic2.american.edu/~wjc/wjc3/notlikely.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-06. 
18. ^ Offner 1992 pp 131–35; Michelle Bray Davis and Rollin W. Quimby, "Senator Proctor's Cuban Speech: Speculations on a Cause of the Spanish-American War", Quarterly Journal of Speech 1969 55(2): 131–141. ISSN 0033-5630.
19. ^ Hakim 2007, pp. 144-149
20. ^ Battle of Manila Bay, 1 May 1898, Department of the Navy — Naval Historical Center. Retrieved on October 10, 2007
21. ^ The Battle of Manila Bay by Admiral George Dewey, The War Times Journal. Retrieved on October 10, 2007
22. ^ ^{a b c} James A. Field, Jr. (June 1978), "American Imperialism: The Worst Chapter in Almost Any Book", The American Historical Review 83 (3): 644, doi:10.2307/1861842, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28197806%2983%3A3%3C644%3AAITWCI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W 
23. ^ Seekins, Donald M. (1991), "Historical Setting—Outbreak of War, 1898", in Dolan, Philippines: A Country Study, Washington: Library of Congress, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ph0023), retrieved 2007-12-25 
24. ^ Augusto V. de Viana (September 21, 2006) (^{[dead link]} – ^{Scholar search}), What ifs in Philippine history, Manila Times, http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/sept/21/yehey/top_stories/20060921top9.html, retrieved 2007-10-19 
    ^ (^{[dead link]} – ^{Scholar search}) What ifs in Philippine history, Conclusion, September 22, 2006, http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/sept/22/yehey/top_stories/20060922top9.html, retrieved 2007-10-19 
25. ^ The World of 1898: The Spanish-American War, U.S. Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/intro.html, retrieved 2007-10-10 
26. ^ Guevara, Sulpico, ed. (2005), "Philippine Declaration of Independence", The laws of the first Philippine Republic (the laws of Malolos) 1898-1899., Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Library (published 1972), http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=philamer;cc=philamer;rgn=full%20text;idno=aab1246.0001.001;didno=aab1246.0001.001;view=image;seq=00000221 
27. ^ "Philippine History". DLSU-Manila. http://pinas.dlsu.edu.ph/history/history.html. Retrieved 2006-08-21. 
28. ^ The World of 1898: The Spanish-American War, U.S. Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/intro.html, retrieved 2007-10-10 
29. ^ Our flag is now waving over Manilia, San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.footnote.com/spotlight/6879/newspaper_article_americans_capture/, retrieved 2008-12-20 
30. ^ Lacsamana, Philippine History and Government, p. 126
31. ^ Beede 1994, pp. 208; Rogers 1995, pp. 110-112.
32. ^ Roosevelt 1899
33. ^ The Battles at El Caney and San Juan Hills at HomeOfHeroes.com.
34. ^ The Crowded Hour: The Charge at El Caney & San Juan Hills at HomeOfHeroes.com.
35. ^ Parker 2003
36. ^ History of the Gatling Gun Detachment, John Henry Parker at Project Gutenberg.
37. ^ Escario's Column, Francisco Jose Diaz Diaz.
38. ^ Daley 2000, pp. 161–71
39. ^ McCook 1899
40. ^ ^{a b} Vincent J. Cirillo. 2004. Bullets and Bacilli: The Spanish-American War and Military Medicine. (Rutgers University Press).
41. ^ ^{a b} The American Army Moves on Puerto-Rico, Retrieved August 2, 2008
42. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Edgardo Pratts (2006) (in Spanish). De Coamo a la Trinchera del Asomante (First ed.). Puerto Rico: Fundación Educativa Idelfonso Pratts. ISBN 0-976-2185-569. 
43. ^ Protocol of Peace Embodying the Terms of a Basis for the Establishment of Peace Between the Two Countries, Washington, D.C., U.S.A., 1898-08-12, http://www.msc.edu.ph/centennial/pr980812.html, retrieved 2007-10-17 
44. ^ Bethell, John (November-December 1998), "A Splendid Little War"; Harvard and the commencement of a new world order, Harvard magazine, http://harvardmagazine.com/1998/11/war.html, retrieved 2007-12-11 
45. ^ Thomas 1998
    This source provides a more complete quote:

    It has been a splendid little war; begun with the highest motives, carried on with magnificent intelligence and spirit, favored by the fortune which loves the brave. It is now to be concluded, I hope, with that firm good nature which is after all the distinguishing trait of our American character.

46. ^ Bailey 1961, p. 657
47. ^ Negrón-Muntaner 2004, p. 11, citing Julio Cervera Baviera (1898), La defensa militar de Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico, pp. 79-80 .
48. ^ Protagonistas de la Guerra Hispano Americana en Puerto Rico Parte II — Comandante Julio Cervera Baviera, 1898 La Guerra Hispano Americana en Puerto Rico, http://home.coqui.net/sarrasin/pers2.htm#anchor134043, retrieved 2008-02-06  (an excerpt frem Carreras & Tafunell 2004)
49. ^ Albert Carreras & Xavier Tafunell: Historia Económica de la España contemporánea, p. 200–208, ISBN 84-8432-502-4.
50. ^ Confederate & Federal Veterans of '98: Civil War Veterans who served in the Spanish-American War, Philippine Insurrection, and China Relief Expedition by Micah J. Jenkins. Retrieved on October 13, 2007
51. ^ Gatewood 1975, pp. 23-29; there were some opponents, ibid. p. 30–32.
52. ^ Reardon, Marguerite (2005-06-30). "Senators want to nix 1898 telecom tax". CNET Networks. http://www.news.com/Senators-want-to-nix-1898-telecom-tax/2100-1036_3-5769948.html?tag=st.nl. Retrieved 2008-02-15. 
53. ^ Reardon, Marguerite (2006-08-01). "Telecom tax imposed in 1898 finally ends". CNET Networks. http://www.news.com/2100-1037_3-6101004.html. Retrieved 2008-02-15. 
54. ^ , http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1899antiimp.html 
55. ^ "Mark Twain, The Greatest American Humorist, Returning Home", New York World, 10/6/1900

References

• American Peace Society (1898), id=wtsBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=1898+a+riot+broke+out+in+havana+by+cuban+spanish+loyalists&source=web&ots=tEiWfcnDGF&sig=J169xCQ2XXY6zSDDs3crcE0JhRY The Advocate of Peace, http://books.google.com/books id=wtsBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=1898+a+riot+broke+out+in+havana+by+cuban+spanish+loyalists&source=web&ots=tEiWfcnDGF&sig=J169xCQ2XXY6zSDDs3crcE0JhRY, retrieved 2008-01-22 .
• Bailey, Thomas Andrew (1961), The American Pageant: A History of the Republic, Heath, http://books.google.com/books?id=dnRGAAAAMAAJ .
• Beede, Benjamin R., ed. (1994), The War of 1898 and U.S. Interventions, 1898–1934, Taylor & Francis, http://books.google.com/books?id=48g116X9IIwC , ISBN 0824056248, ISBN 9780824056247. An encyclopedia.
• Campbell, W. Joseph (2001), Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 0275966860, http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=1u4ZBA-P1IQC .
• Carreras, Albert; Tafunell, Xavier (2004), Historia económica de la España Contemporánea, Crítica , ISBN 8484325024, ISBN 9788484325024.
• Dyal, Donald H; Brian B. Carpenter, Mark A. Thomas (1996), Historical Dictionary of the Spanish American War, Greenwood Press, ISBN 0313288526, http://books.google.com/books?id=PvxFKPI6q_oC .
• Gatewood, Willard B. (1975), Black Americans and the White Man's Burden, 1898–1903, University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0252004752 
• Hakim, Joy (2007), An Age of Extremes: 1880-1917 A History of US Book 8, Oxford University Press, USA, http://books.google.com/books?id=2n9VAAAACAAJ , ISBN 0195327225, ISBN 9780195327229.
• Hendrickson, Kenneth E., Jr. (2003), The Spanish-American War, Greenwood, http://books.google.com/books?id=Jk53AAAAMAAJ , ISBN 0313316627, ISBN 9780313316623. short summary
• Negrón-Muntaner, Frances (2004), Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture, NYU Press , ISBN 0814758185, ISBN 9780814758182.
• Parker, John H. (2003), The Gatlings at Santiago, Indypublish.com , ISBN 1404381376, ISBN 9781404381377. Full text at Authorama.
• Rogers, Robert F. (1995), Destiny's Landfall: A History of Guam (illustrated ed.), University of Hawaii Press, http://books.google.com/books?id=AEn9J3tXFS8C  ISBN 0824816781, ISBN 780824816780.</ref>
• Roosevelt, Theodore (1899), "I. RAISING THE REGIMENT", The Rough Riders, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, http://bartleby.com/51/1.html .
• Smithsonian Institution (2005), The Price of Freedom: Americans at War — Spanish American War, National Museum of American History (U.S.) , ISBN 0974420239, ISBN 9780974420233. Excerpts from The National Museum of American history.
• Thomas, Hugh (1998), Cuba Or the Pursuit of Freedom, Da Capo Press, ISBN 0306808277, http://books.google.com/books?id=FC8vFXEbIJIC, retrieved 2008-01-12 .
• Trask, David F. (1996), The War with Spain in 1898, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, ISBN 0803294298, http://books.google.com/books?id=2f0Gf0DQfmUC .
• Wolff, Leon (2006), Little brown brother: how the United States purchased and pacified the Philippine Islands at the century's turn, History Book Club (published 2005), ISBN 9781582882093, http://books.google.com/books?id=TGowAAAACAAJ  (Introduction, Decolonizing the History of the Philippine-American War, by Paul A. Kramer dated December 8, 2005)

Further reading

Diplomacy and causes of the war

• James C. Bradford, ed., Crucible of Empire: The Spanish–American War and Its Aftermath (1993), essays on diplomacy, naval and military operations, and historiography.
• Lewis Gould, The Spanish–American War and President McKinley (1982)
• Philip Foner, The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism, 1895-1902 (1972)
• Richard Hamilton, President McKinley, War, and Empire (2006).
• Kristin Hoganson, Fighting For American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (1998)
• Paul S. Holbo, "Presidential Leadership in Foreign Affairs: William McKinley and the Turpie-Foraker Amendment," The American Historical Review 1967 72(4): 1321-1335.
• Walter LaFeber, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1865-1898 (1963)
• Ernest May, Imperial Democracy: The Emergence of America as a Great Power (1961)
• Paul T. McCartney, American National Identity, the War of 1898, and the Rise of American Imperialism (2006)
• Mellander, Gustavo A.(1971) The United States in Panamanian Politics: The Intriguing Formative Years. Daville,Ill.:Interstate Publishers. OCLC 138568.
• Mellander, Gustavo A.; Nelly Maldonado Mellander (1999). Charles Edward Magoon: The Panama Years. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Plaza Mayor. ISBN 1563281554. OCLC 42970390.
• Richard H. Miller, ed., American Imperialism in 1898: The Quest for National Fulfillment (1970)
• Walter Millis, The Martial Spirit: A Study of Our War with Spain (1931)
• H. Wayne Morgan, America's Road to Empire: The War with Spain and Overseas Expansion (1965)
• John L. Offner, An Unwanted War: The Diplomacy of the United States and Spain over Cuba, 1895–1898 (1992).
• John L. Offner, "McKinley and the Spanish-American War" Presidential Studies Quarterly 2004 34(1): 50–61. ISSN 0360-4918
• Louis A. Perez, Jr., "The Meaning of the Maine: Causation and the Historiography of the Spanish-American War," The Pacific Historical Review 1989 58(3): 293-322.
• Julius W. Pratt, The Expansionists of 1898 (1936)
• Thomas Schoonover, Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization. (2003)
• John Lawrence Tone, War and Genocide in Cuba, 1895–1898 (2006)
• David F. Trask, The War with Spain in 1898 (1996)
• Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role (1998)

War

• Donald Barr Chidsey, The Spanish American War (New York, 1971)
• Cirillo, Vincent J. Bullets and Bacilli: The Spanish–American War and Military Medicine (2004)
• Graham A. Cosmas, An Army for Empire: The United States Army and the Spanish–American War (1971)
• Philip Sheldon Foner, The Spanish-Cuban-American war and the birth of American imperialism (1972)
• Frank Freidel, The Splendid Little War (1958), well illustrated narrative by scholar
• Allan Keller, The Spanish–American War: A Compact History (1969)
• Gerald F. Linderman, The Mirror of War: American Society and the Spanish–American War (1974), domestic aspects
• Joseph Smith, The Spanish–American War: Conflict in the Caribbean and the Pacific (1994)
• G. J. A. O'Toole, The Spanish War: An American Epic—1898 (1984)
• John Tebbel, America's Great Patriotic War with Spain (1996)

Historiography

• Duvon C. Corbitt, "Cuban Revisionist Interpretations of Cuba's Struggle for Independence," Hispanic American Historical Review 32 (August 1963): 395-404.
• Edward P. Crapol, "Coming to Terms with Empire: The Historiography of Late-Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations," Diplomatic History 16 (Fall 1992): 573-97;
• Hugh DeSantis, "The Imperialist Impulse and American Innocence, 1865–1900," in Gerald K. Haines and J. Samuel Walker, eds., American Foreign Relations: A Historiographical Review (1981), pp. 65–90
• James A. Field Jr., "American Imperialism: The Worst Chapter in Almost Any Book," American Historical Review 83 (June 1978): 644-68, past of the "AHR Forum," with responses
• Joseph A. Fry, "William McKinley and the Coming of the Spanish American War: A Study of the Besmirching and Redemption of an Historical Image," Diplomatic History 3 (Winter 1979): 77-97
• Joseph A. Fry, "From Open Door to World Systems: Economic Interpretations of Late-Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations," Pacific Historical Review 65 (May 1996): 277-303
• Thomas G. Paterson, "United States Intervention in Cuba, 1898: Interpretations of the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War," History Teacher 29 (May 1996): 341-61;
• Louis A. Pérez Jr.; The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography University of North Carolina Press, 1998
• Ephraim K. Smith, "William McKinley's Enduring Legacy: The Historiographical Debate on the Taking of the Philippine Islands," in James C. Bradford, ed., Crucible of Empire: The Spanish–American War and Its Aftermath (1993), pp. 205–49
• Richard W. Stewart, General Editor, Ch. 16, Transition, Change, and the Road to war, 1902-1917", in "American Military History, Volume I: The United States Army and the Forging of a Nation, 1775-1917", Center of Military History, United States Army, ISBN 0-16-072362-0

Memoirs

• Funston, Frederick. Memoirs of Two Wars, Cuba and Philippine Experiences. New York: Charles Schribner's Sons, 1911
• U.S. War Dept. Military Notes on Cuba. 2 vols. Washington, DC: GPO, 1898.
• Wheeler, Joseph. The Santiago Campaign, 1898. Lamson, Wolffe, Boston 1898.

• kaylaMagazine. The perils of Evangelina. Feb. 1968.
• Cull, N. J., Culbert, D., Welch, D. Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present. Spanish–American War. Denver: ABC-CLIO. 2003. 378-379.
• Daley, L. (2000), "Canosa in the Cuba of 1898", in Aguirre, B. E.; Espina, E., Los últimos días del comienzo: Ensayos sobre la guerra, Santiago de Chile: RiL Editores, ISBN 9562841154 

• Ensayos sobre la Guerra Hispano-Cubana-Estadounidense. 2000.
• Davis, R. H. New York Journal. Does our flag shield women? 13 February, 1897.
• Duval, C. New York Journal. Evengelina Cisneros rescued by The Journal. 10 October, 1897.
• Kendrick M. New York Journal. Better she died then reach Ceuta. 18 August, 1897.
• Kendrick, M. New York Journal. The Cuban girl martyr. 17 February, 1897.
• Kendrick, M. New York Journal. Spanish auction off Cuban girls. 12 February, 1897.
• McCook, Henry Christopher (1899), The Martial Graves of Our Fallen Heroes in Santiago de Cuba, G. W. Jacobs & Co. 
• Muller y Tejeiro, Jose. Combates y Capitulacion de Santiago de Cuba. Marques, Madrid:1898. 208 p. English translation by US Navy Dept.
• Dirks, Tim. "War and Anti-War Films". The Greatest Films. http://www.filmsite.org/warfilms.html. Retrieved November 9 2005. 
• Adjutant General's Office Statistical Exhibit of Strength of Volunteer Forces Called Into Service During the War With Spain; with Losses From All Causes. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1899.

Media

• Harrington, Peter, and Frederic A. Sharf. "A Splendid Little War." The Spanish–American War, 1898. The Artists' Perspective. London: Greenhill, 1998.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Spanish-American War

• Operations of the US Signal Corps Cutting and Diverting Undersea Telegraph Cables from Cuba
• Library of Congress Guide to the Spanish-American War
• Spain to Use Privateers; An Official Decree Declares that She is Determined to Reserve This Right (Headline, NY Times, April 24, 1898)
• Emergence to World Power, 1898–1902 (an extract from Matloff's American Military History)
• Hispanic Americans in the U.S. Army
• Emergence to World Power, 1898–1902 (an extract from American Military History — revised 2005)
• Buffalo Soldiers at San Juan Hill
• Impact on the Spanish Army by Charles Hendricks
• Black Jack in Cuba—General John J. Pershing’s service in the Spanish–American War, by Kevin Hymel
• Centennial of the Spanish-American War 1898–1998 by Lincoln Cushing
• The World of 1898: The Spanish-American War — Library of Congress Hispanic Division
• William Glackens prints at the Library of Congress
• Spanish-American War Centennial
• Points of Confusion over the Cuba Question and Cuba Sovereignty
• Images of Florida and the War for Cuban Independence, 1898 from the state archives of Florida
• Individual state's contributions to the Spanish–American War: Illinois, Pennsylvania
• Sons of Spanish American War Veterans
• From 'Dagoes' to 'Nervy Spaniards,' American Soldiers' Views of their Opponents, 1898 by Albert Nofi
• History of Negro soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and other items of interest, by Edward Augustus Johnston, published 1899, hosted by the Portal to Texas History.
• Los ultimos de Filipinas
• The War of 98 (The Spanish-American War) The Spanish–American War from a Spanish perspective (in English).
• Army Nurse Corps in the war
• Art and images
• Name Index to New York in the Spanish-American War 1898
• 1898: El Ocaso de un Imperio Article in Spanish about naval operations during the Spanish-American war.
• Spanish-American War photographic collections, via Calisphere, California Digital Library
• Spanish-American War Service Summary Cards from the Georgia Archives.

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