Everything about Spanish American War totally explained
United States Republic of Cuba Philippine Republic Katipunan Puerto Rico
|combatant2=
Kingdom of Spain Cuban Loyalists to Spain Puerto Rico Under Spain Filipino Loyalists
|commander1=
Nelson A. Miles William R. Shafter George Dewey Máximo Gómez Emilio Aguinaldo
|commander2=
Patricio Montojo Pascual Cervera Arsenio Linares Manuel Macías y Casado}}
Ramón Blanco y Erenas
|casualties1=385 KIA USA
5,000 Killed from Disease USA
5,000 Cubans KIA
5,000 Filipinos KIA
|casualties2=2,159 KIA
53,000 Killed from Disease
Riots in
Havana by pro-Spanish "Voluntarios" gave the United States a reason 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 "
yellow journalism" that accused Spain of extensive atrocities, agitating American public opinion. The war ended after decisive naval victories for the United States in the Philippines and Cuba.
Only 109 days after the outbreak of war, the
Treaty of Paris, which ended the conflict, gave the United States ownership of the former
Spanish colonies of
Puerto Rico, the
Philippines and
Guam.
Background
The historical background for the war was the growing Cuban struggle for independence from
Spain that had been simmering off and on for over thirty years, which had captured the American imagination. American newspapers had been agitating for intervention with sensational stories of Spanish atrocities against the native Cuban population even though Spain had removed the general behind the harsh policies that had displaced thousands of Cubans in the countryside,
Valeriano Weyler, and had placed them between 30,000 Spanish troops and the
insurrectos, or Cubans fighting for independence. In January 1898, a riot broke out in Havana by Cuban Spanish loyalists leading to the destruction of the printing presses of four local newspapers for publishing articles critical of Spanish Army atrocities. Since this riot was largely also anti-American, because of the growing support in the US for Cuban independence, the US Consul-General, nephew of
Robert E. Lee and former
Civil War Confederate general
Fitzhugh Lee, cabled Washington with fears for the lives of Americans living in
Havana, the United States wasted no time sending a tepid response. It was into this explosive situation of an ongoing independence struggle that the
USS Maine was sent to
Havana,
Cuba, to protect U.S. interests. With
insurrection and civil disturbances the rule of the day, the mysterious sinking of the battleship
USS Maine on
February 15 1898, at 9:40 p.m. in Havana Harbor was attributed, by Spanish scientists, to an internal and accidental explosion; but in 1898 a
Naval inquiry reported that it was caused by submarine mine and one month later the war was declared.
A total of four
investigations looked into the causes of the explosion with the investigators coming to different conclusions. However, US Naval History Center would say several scientists refuted Rickover's thesis, and the Spanish and USA versions would carry on with divergences. A
1999 investigation commissioned by
National Geographic Magazine and carried out by Advanced Marine Enterprises disagreed, concluding that “it appears more probable than was previously concluded that a mine caused the inward bent bottom structure and the detonation of the magazines.” Spanish and Cuban opinions included a theory that would point that the USA government would have caused intentionally the detonation ., in order to have an excuse to enter the war, which, in their opinion, would agree with his strategic interests at the time, and with the pre-war tension between the countries.
When the
Maine blew up causing the deaths of 266 men, newspaper owners such as
William R. Hearst leapt to the conclusion that Spanish officials in Cuba were to blame, and they widely publicized the conspiracy. Such publications practiced what was called "
yellow journalism", which originated in
New York. Yellow journalism fueled American anger by publishing astonishing "atrocities" committed by Spain in Cuba. Hearst when informed by
Frederic Remington, whom he'd hired to furnish illustrations for his newspaper, that conditions in Cuba were not bad enough to warrant hostilities, allegedly replied, "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
Lashed to fury by the yellow journalism, 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.
The decisive event was probably the speech of
Republican Senator Redfield Proctor delivered on
March 17,
1898, which thoroughly and calmly analyzed the situation and concluded war was the only answer. The business and religious communities, which had opposed war, switched sides, leaving President William McKinley and
Thomas Brackett Reed almost alone in their opposition to the war. Thus, on
April 11, McKinley asked
Congress for authority to send American troops to Cuba for the purpose of ending the
civil war there.
On
April 19, Congress passed joint resolutions supporting Cuban independence and disclaiming any intention to annex Cuba, demanded Spanish withdrawal, and authorized the president to use as much military force as he thought necessary to help Cuban patriots gain independence from Spain. (This was adopted by resolution of Congress and included from Senator
Henry Teller of
Colorado the
Teller Amendment, which passed unanimously.) The Senate passed the amendment, 42 to 35, on
April 19,
1898, and the House concurred the same day, 311 to 6. 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 23. On
April 25, Congress declared that a state of war between the United States and Spain had existed since
April 20 (later changed to
April 21).
Theaters of operations
Philippines
The first battle was the
Battle of Manila Bay where, on
May 1,
1898,
Commodore George Dewey, commanding the U.S. Navy's
Asiatic Squadron aboard the
USS Olympia, in a matter of hours, defeated the Spanish squadron under Admiral
Patricio Montojo y Pasarón. Dewey managed this while sustaining only one fatality, and that because of a heart attack.
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. Despite his logistical problems, Dewey hadn't only destroyed a fleet but had also captured a harbor.
Commodore Dewey had transported
Emilio Aguinaldo to the Philippines from exile in Hong Kong in the hope he'd rally Filipinos against the Spanish colonial government. U.S. land forces and the Filipinos had taken control of most of the islands by June, except for the walled city of
Intramuros and, on
June 12 1898, Aguinaldo had declared the independence of the Philippines.
On
August 13, with American commanders unaware that a peace protocol had been signed between Spain and the United States on the previous day, American forces captured the city of Manila from the Spanish. 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.
Guam
Captain
Henry Glass was on the
cruiser USS Charleston when he opened sealed orders notifying him to proceed to
Guam and capture it. Upon arrival on
June 20, he fired his cannon at the island. A poorly equipped Spanish officer, not knowing that war had been declared, came out to the ship and asked to borrow some powder to return the American's salute. Glass responded by taking the officer prisoner and, after taking parole, ordered him to return to the island to discuss the terms of surrender. The following day, 54 Spanish infantry were captured, and the island became a possession of the United States.
Cuba
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".
Naval operations
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–
June 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, Spanish Admiral
Pascual Cervera y Topete, was first spotted in Santiago Harbor where his fleet had taken shelter for protection from sea attack. For two months there was a stand-off between the Spanish naval forces and American. When the Spanish squadron 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 his flag and
scuttled her when the Americans finally caught up with her. The 1,612 Spanish sailors 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.
Ground operations
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'd 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.
Battle of Las Guasimas
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 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 didn't 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 aided their remaining concealed even 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.
Battles of El Caney and San Juan Hill
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. More than 200 U.S. soldiers were killed and close to 1,200 wounded in the fighting. Supporting fire by
Gatling guns was critical to the success of the assault. Cervera decided to escape Santiago two days later.
The Spanish forces at Guantánamo were so isolated by Marines and Cuban forces that they didn't know that Santiago was under siege, and their forces in the northern part of the province couldn't break through Cuban lines. This wasn't true of the Escario relief column from Manzanillo, which fought its way past determined Cuban resistance but arrived too late to participate in the siege.
Aftermath
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. 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. 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.
Puerto Rico
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 and invaded the island with little resistance in the brief
Puerto Rican Campaign.
Peace treaty
With 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. 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. See
Philippine-American War.
Aftermath
The war lasted only four months. Ambassador (later
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.” The press showed Northerners and Southerners, blacks and whites fighting against a common foe, helping to ease the scars left from the American Civil War.
The war marked American entry into world affairs: over the course of the next century, the United States had a large hand in various conflicts around the world. The
Panic of 1893 was over by this point, and the United States entered a lengthy and prosperous period of high economic growth, population growth, and technological innovation which lasted through the 1920s.
The war marked the effective end of the
Spanish empire. Spain had been declining as a great power over most of the 19th century, especially since the
Napoleonic Wars and had already lost the rest of its colonies. The defeat 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. Only a handful of African territories remained of Spain's overseas holdings.
The Spanish military man
Julio Cervera Baviera, involved in the
Puerto Rican Campaign, blamed the natives of that colony for its annexation by the Americans: "I have never seen such a servile, ungrateful country [for examplePuerto 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." He was challenged to a
duel by a group of young Puerto Ricans for writing this pamphlet.
Culturally a new wave called the
Generation of 1898 originated as a response to this trauma, marking a renaissance of the 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 firm in Spain in industrial sectors (steel, chemical, mechanical, textiles and shipyards among others), in the electrical power industry and in the financial sector. 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.
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; it's still in use today at
Guantánamo Bay. The Cuban peace treaty of 1903 governed Cuban-American relations until 1934.
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.
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.
The black 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 black 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
Buffalo Soldiers. 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."
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 is 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. 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 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.
Spanish-American War in film and television
- The Rough Riders, a 1927 silent film
- Rough Riders, a 1997 television mini-series directed by John Milius, and featuring Tom Berenger (Theodore Roosevelt), Gary Busey (Joseph Wheeler), Sam Elliott (Bucky 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
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.
Further Information
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