A
Chronology of
Medal of Honor Heroism
During
The Spanish-American War
Is has been said somewhere that "There
has never been a good WAR or a bad PEACE." War is a
horrible human experience, disrupting world harmony and taking the
lives of young men and women before their time. The
United States of America was conceived in revolution, tested in a
great civil war, and tempered through its westward expansion by
armed conflict. Perhaps Thomas Jefferson best summarized the
inevitability of war, as well as its desired outcome, in his
letter to William Smith in 1787 when he wrote:
"The tree of
liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of
patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure."
In the spring of 1898 the United States went
to war with the empire of Spain. It was our Nation's first
major conflict since the Civil War, and the first major foreign
war in our Country's brief history. It was a war for which
the United States was unprepared militarily, but a war that had
been looking for an excuse to happen for a quarter-century.
It was a war that lasted less than a year
from declaration of war to signing of the Treaty of Paris ending
it. Violent conflict spanned a period of only 115 days with
less than 400 American combat deaths. It was an unqualified
victory for the United States, a success that propelled the young
nation to the forefront as a world power.
It was a foreign war that received popular
support on the home front, considered by many historians to be our
most popular war. It was glamorized in the media,
indeed even instigated to some degree by the leading news
publishers of the day. In the early days before war was
declared but when conflict appeared imminent, New York Journal publisher
William Randolph Hearst sent the famous Western artist Frederick
Remington to Cuba to sketch Cuban insurgents fighting for their
independence from Spain. After several months, Remington had
found little to draw and wired New York, "Everything quiet,
no trouble here. There will be no war. I wish to
return." Hearst reportedly responded to Remington's
appraisal of the situation in Cuba and his request to come home
with the following:
"You furnish the
pictures and I'll furnish the war."
When at last war with Spain did come, a
nationalistic press sensationalized the defeats of the enemy and
embellished the heroic actions of American soldiers. Several
national heroes emerged "larger than life". Theodore
Roosevelt would be propelled into the White House within 3 years,
in large part on the basis of the stories of his exploits during
the war. Just before the war began, Roosevelt
summarized the sentiment of the American public well in a speech
to the Naval War College when he said:
"No triumph of
peace is quite so great as the supreme triumphs of war."
As a direct result of that brief, first
major foreign war, the face of America changed forever. The
Spanish American War led to the liberation of Cuba, a continued
American presence in the Philippine Islands, American expansion to
Guam and Puerto Rico, and the construction of the Panama
Canal. It was a war fought largely by citizen soldiers
from the National Guard and led to the reorganization of our
reserves under the Dick Act of 1903. On the fields of
combat, lifetime friendships were formed. Upon their
triumphal return, American soldiers were hailed as heroes in their
hometowns.
Indeed, from the perspective of United
States history, if ever there were a good war, it was the
Spanish American War. Shortly after hostilities ended in
Cuba and the United States entered a period of negotiations for
the peace treaty to end the Spanish American War, John Milton Hay
was appointed Secretary of State by President William
McKinley. Years later when Theodore Roosevelt occupied the
White House, Hay wrote the President about that war. In that
letter he summarized the conflict with a quote that came to be
linked with the first war of American expansion beyond her
borders. He called it:
"A
Splendid Little War"
"We want no wars of conquest;
we must avoid the temptation of territorial aggression. War should never be
entered upon until every agency of peace has failed; peace is preferable to war
in almost every
contingency.
(President McKinley in his 1897 Inaugural Address)
The assurances of the U.S. President aside,
events in Cuba were making war with Spain an eventuality that was destined to
occur.
Lying just 90 miles south of the tip
of Florida, the sugar-rich island of Cuba was sometimes called the Pearl
of the Antilles. Along with
the neighboring island
of Puerto Rico,Cuba
was among the last holdings of the aging
Spanish empire. Between the islands lay the independent Republic of
Haiti (freed from French rule in 1804) and the Dominical Republic, which
declared independence from Haiti in 1844. The people of Cuba likewise
sought independent rule, leading to a quarter-century of unrest. A
short distance away the people of the United States watched events in the
Caribbean unfold with great interest.
In 1823 Secretary of State John
Quincy Adams noted, "The apple severed from the tree must fall to
the ground. Cuba severed from Spain, and incapable of self-support,
can gravitate only toward the North American Union (United States), which
by the same law of nature cannot cast her off from its bosom." That
the United States was interested in acquiring the Caribbean island with
its natural port at Havana was no secret. In 1848 President James K.
Polk offered Spain $100 million for Cuba, an offer that was quickly and
curtly rejected. Six years later the American ministers to France,
Spain and England joined in writing a confidential memorandum to
Washington (known as the Ostend Manifesto) urging President Franklin
Pierce to either purchase Cuba or forcefully wrest control of the island
from Spain.
In the years following the American
Civil War, interest in acquiring Cuba as an annexation to the United
States waned, to be replaced by cries for Cuban independence. During
Cuba's Ten Years' War for independence (1868-78), American sympathies lay
with the Cuban insurgents who struggled to throw off the last remnants of
the Spanish global empire that dated back to Christopher Columbus.
Clandestine support for the Cuban rebels was common, particularly in the
South where Filibusters...military expeditions by private
adventurers...were encouraged and supported by the American
citizenry. Leaders in the revolt like Jose Marti often operated on
American soil as they plotted the overthrow of Spanish rule. But,
after the devastating Civil War, the American populace was not ready to
become involved in another war themselves.
In 1873 the Cuban ship Virginius, a
vessel of the Filibusters,was captured by the Spanish while
fraudulently flying the American flag as it ferried arms to the Cuban
insurgents. Captain Joseph Fry and 52 of his crew and passengers
were executed, among them several American and British citizens. In
other times, such an incident might have led to immediate war but, after
the devastating Civil War, the US populace was not ready to become
involved in another conflict...yet. Civil War hero Daniel Edgar
Sickles, now the US Minister to Spain, was infuriated and might have
rendered any negotiations futile. But Secretary of State Hamilton
Fish took negotiations out of Sickles' hand, settling the matter peaceably
with Spain which paid an $80,000 indemnity to the families of those
Americans executed.
When the Ten Years' War ended in
1878, the Cuban bid for independence had been crushed and Spain continued
to tenuously hold its Caribbean asset. The sad loss could not,
however, diminish the desire the Cuban patriots held for
independence. Within 20 years it rose again, with a renewed
fervor. Meanwhile attitudes in the United States were becoming more
and more imperialistic and the American people were taking a new view of
their nation in the affairs of a world that advances in technology had
made much smaller. Even as rebellion broke out anew in Cuba in 1895,
the United States was taking a more active role in events in the western
hemisphere. While intervening in a dispute between Venezuela and
Great Britain, Secretary of State Richard Olney echoed the growing
American sentiment:
"The United States is practically sovereign upon
this continent, and its fiat is law upon subjects to which it
confines its interposition."
In April 1895 the bid for independence in
Cuba was renewed in earnest. Patriots, willing to expend every energy and
even their own lives to oust the Spanish, began arming themselves and conducting
bloody campaigns against their oppressors. In response, the Spanish
government sent General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau to pacify the island in
1896. General Weyler responded by identifying districts that
posed the greatest trouble to maintaining control over Cuba, then herded the
civilian populations in those districts to detention camps near military
headquarters. It was a policy he called reconcentrado. As a
result of this action, more than 100,000 Cubans starved or died of disease
before General Weyler was recalled in October, 1897.
In the United States, two trends of the times
contributed greatly to the ultimate end result of the unrest in Cuba.
Manifest
Destiny
As a philosophy, Manifest Destiny was
a common belief throughout much of the 19th century, long before
it was given a title when Democratic Review editor John
L. Sullivan wrote in 1845 that no nation on earth should be
allowed to interfere with America's "MANIFEST DESTINY to
overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free
development of our yearly multiplying millions."
Sullivan wrote his article in support of annexation of Texas,
but the concept that the people of the United States had a
sacred obligation to expand its borders to include all of North
America (including Canada and Mexico), became the rallying
cry... and excuse, for all incursions into new territory.
Sullivan defined Manifest Destiny in a
three-point argument that quickly gained poularity:
God Himself was on the side of those
eager to expand the US Territories. This
line of thinking stemmed from the belief following the
American Revolution that the United States was the land of a
chosen people, delivered from Great Britain's rule and
preserved by divine providence and in accordance with a
divine plan.
FREE DEVELOPMENT meant that the
conquest of new regions, placing them under American rule,
was the liberation of previously oppressed people. In
this regard, the philosophy rendered a concept of the United
States as the ultimate savior of the western
hemisphere, thereby excusing expansionist activities.
Sullivan's third point was the belief
that, as the United States population grew rapidly, it was
necessary to expand and inhabit new territories to accommodate
the needs of the people of this chosen nation.
Yellow
Journalism
In 1895 William Randolph Hearst acquired the New York
Journal and immediately launched a circulation war against
the other giant of newspaper publishing, Joseph Pulitzer's New
York World. To compete for readers, the two
newspapers stooped to heavy coverage of scandal and
sex-related content beneath glaring headlines designed to
capture attention. In addition to what we would today call
"tabloid" journalism, colorful cartoons were used to
draw loyal audiences.
R.F. Outcault was a cartoonist for the New
York World, creating the immensely popular YELLOW KID
cartoons. In May 1896 World competitor the New
York Journal pulled off a journalistic coups when Hearst
convinced Outcalult to bring his artistic talents to his own
newspaper. Pulitzer quickly brought in George Luks to keep
the cartoon running in the New York World, sparking a
battle between the two "yellow kids".
Thus it was that, as the two major
newspapers stooped to any means from sensational news reporting
to cartoon battles, the battle of the YELLOW KID lent its own
name to the process to become known as "YELLOW
JOURNALISM".
The heavy-handed tactics of General
Weyler made for sensational reporting in the media of the yellow press.
He became known as the "Butcher", and sensational stories of his
brutality ran under blazing headlines that read: "Spanish Cannibalism",
"Inhuman Torture", and worse. In the traditions of David
and Goliath, Cuban patriots were portrayed as heroically defending their
homeland against a brutal and aggressive enemy with no conscience. The
truth of the news didn't matter as much as the ability of a headline to
capture attention..."Amazon Warriors Fight for Rebels"...or
the potential of a story to incite the emotions of the reader for more.
The
Spanish recall of General Weyler on October 31, 1897 might have otherwise
robbed the media of the prime subject of their inflammatory stories were it
not for the continued unrest in Cuba. Building on stories already
written and widely known, and with a battery of reporters and artists that
included the likes of William Remington, the media survived. Two years
earlier a 25-year old author inspired a nation by reliving the sacrifice and
glory of Civil War service with the release of his second novel, The Red
Badge of Courage. Now Stephen Crane joined the battery of writers
chronicling the valiant struggle for freedom in Cuba. Even with the
absence of Weyler, tensions mounted and Spain was portrayed as a poor ruler
about to leap from the frying pan into the fire of Cuba.
Meanwhile the American consul in Havana,
Fitzhugh Lee, was becoming increasingly concerned for the safety of American
citizens in Cuba. (A Confederate general in the Civil War and nephew of
Robert E. Lee, "Fitz" Lee is often confused by historians of these
events with Fitzhugh Henry Lee, the son of Robert E. Lee and also a
Confederate general.) On January 1, 1898 Spain demonstrated its desire
to avoid war in the Caribbean when it instituted a limited political autonomy
in Cuba. It was too little, too late for the ardent revolutionaries who
would settle for nothing less than full independence. Meanwhile, the
Spanish government had supporters of its own in Cuba, an opposing force of
citizens who had supported General Weyler and who now opposed the limited
autonomy afforded the island's inhabitants. On January 12th these
Spanish loyalists rioted, prompting new concerns for the safety of American
citizens in Cuba. Five days later Consul Lee requested the President to
dispatch an American vessel in a show of American presence in the region of
increasingly violent civil unrest. On January 24th, after clearing such
a visit with the reluctant and nervous government in Madrid, the second class
battleship U.S.S. Maine was dispatched from Key West, Florida.
The impressive American battleship arrived in Havana the following day.
In the weeks that followed Consul Lee
reported to Washington that the presence of the Maine had a
calming effect on the unrest in Cuba. He requested that the Navy prepare
to send another battleship to Havana when it came time to relieve the Maine.
It almost appeared that the situation in Cuba might settle down. Spain
didn't want war...its aging fleet would be no match for the might of the
United States Navy. President McKinley had repeatedly called for negotiations,
and in this new year at the close of the century, Spain had provided a limited
political autonomy to the people of Cuba. Then came the first attack.
One might say that the first attack of
the Spanish-American War was not made with bullets, but with words. Back
in Washington, D.C. the Spanish Minister Enrique de Lome wrote a letter to a
Spanish editor who was traveling in the United States. The communication
was stolen by a Cuban official in the Havana Post office and passed on to the New
York Journal, which printed it on February 9th. In that letter the
Spanish Minister expressed his adverse personal reaction to the U.S.
President's message to Congress in December of the previous year. The
undiplomatic diplomat stated in his letter that President McKinley was
"weak and a bidder for admiration of the crowd...(that he was) a would-be
politician who tries to leave a door open behind himself while keeping on good
terms with the jingoes of his party."
In fact, President McKinley had been one
of the cooler heads in government where the subject of war with Spain was
becoming increasingly hawkish. An American public already incensed by the yellow press, was
becoming more and more ardent in their calls for American intervention in
Cuba. Now the citizenry saw the attack by a Spanish diplomat on the US
President as the ultimate proof of Spain's disrespect and arrogance towards
the United States and events in neighboring Cuba. De Lome's resignation, and even a reluctant apology from Spain, could not assuage the
anger of the American people or the sensational reporting on the incident in
the media.
With the U.S.S. Maine
still at anchor in Havana...
The
unrest in Cuba was about to become a war... looking for an excuse
to happen!
This series of stories
can be downloaded in printed as either a .pdf or MS WORD
document for easy printing as a full-color book. We
encourage you to take time to download a print a copy for your
personal library, or even as a gift for a friend. (Because
of its size, this file may take up to 15 minutes to
download)
BEYOND THE MEDAL This 5 Disc DVD Education Program has been
distributed to over 17,500 Public & Private High Schools and is now
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The
following links are to major sections in our
website containing both indexes, as well as
full-text citations for other major military
awards for valor.
Cuba
was among the last holdings of the aging
Spanish empire. Between the islands lay the independent Republic of
Haiti (freed from French rule in 1804) and the Dominical Republic, which
declared independence from Haiti in 1844. The people of Cuba likewise
sought independent rule, leading to a quarter-century of unrest. A
short distance away the people of the United States watched events in the
Caribbean unfold with great interest.
In 1895 William Randolph Hearst acquired the New York
Journal and immediately launched a circulation war against
the other giant of newspaper publishing, Joseph Pulitzer's New
York World. To compete for readers, the two
newspapers stooped to heavy coverage of scandal and
sex-related content beneath glaring headlines designed to
capture attention. In addition to what we would today call
"tabloid" journalism, colorful cartoons were used to
draw loyal audiences.
The
Spanish recall of General Weyler on October 31, 1897 might have otherwise
robbed the media of the prime subject of their inflammatory stories were it
not for the continued unrest in Cuba. Building on stories already
written and widely known, and with a battery of reporters and artists that
included the likes of William Remington, the media survived. Two years
earlier a 25-year old author inspired a nation by reliving the sacrifice and
glory of Civil War service with the release of his second novel, The Red
Badge of Courage. Now Stephen Crane joined the battery of writers
chronicling the valiant struggle for freedom in Cuba. Even with the
absence of Weyler, tensions mounted and Spain was portrayed as a poor ruler
about to leap from the frying pan into the fire of Cuba.
This series of stories
can be downloaded in printed as either a .pdf or MS WORD
document for easy printing as a full-color book. We
encourage you to take time to download a print a copy for your
personal library, or even as a gift for a friend. (Because
of its size, this file may take up to 15 minutes to
download) 
