Series editor Martin Windrow
Introduction
The Spanish-American War
China and Mexico
World War I
Dress
Orders of Battle
Select Bibliography
The Plates
The years between 1890 and 1920 probably saw more profound changes in the US Army than any other comparable period. In little more than a quarter-century the Army was transformed from a small blue-clad force which fought with single-shot rifles, colours flying, against disturbers of America’s internal peace, into a mighty host of men dressed in dirt-coloured combat uniforms, using automatic weapons, tanks and aircraft against its country’s enemies on fields across the world. These changes reflected—indeed, in many ways spearheaded—the transformation of America herself, from an inward-looking third-class nation into a powerful and confident world power.
After the clash at Wounded Knee in 1890 it was clear that major confrontations between Indians and whites were a thing of the past. The Army began to close many of the small, company-size posts which dotted the West, concentrating its troops in large posts from which they could be deployed by rail and road at the first signs of trouble. While up-dating its deployment, the Army maintained its antiquated organization, however: an organization innocent of general staff or national planning machinery. Contemporary thinking saw the Navy as the country’s bastion against external threat. Since America was not interested in invading foreign lands, the Army would never be sent overseas; the Navy would do any fighting which needed to be done with foreign powers. Money was spent on the Navy, but the Army remained small—about 26,000 officers and men. In case of emergency this tiny professional army would be supported in defence of the nation by the National Guard units of the states of the union. Although the Guards totalled some 114,000 men in 1897, they did not represent a combat-ready army; many regiments were little better than social clubs. The ‘Dandy’ 5th Maryland, for instance, was most noted for the excellence of the party traditionally thrown by its officers at the end of annual summer camp, while the main claim to fame of Philadelphia’s 1st City Troop was the splendour of its uniforms and the wealth of its members.
Guards officers and men alike were poorly trained and equipped. While the regulars had been wholly re-equipped with the Krag-Jörgensen, a magazine-fed rifle using a smokeless-powder round, the outbreak of the Spanish-American War found most National Guardsmen still using the old .45/70 single-shot, black-powder rifle whose basic design could be traced back to the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. For years reformers urged the replacement of the Guard by a kind of territorial army, but were frustrated by state politicians who saw Guard units as their own playthings.
This 1st Pennsylvania Regiment private, photographed about 1890, wears a typical National Guard dress uniform, of medium blue with dark blue frogging.
This Delaware National Guard officer wears the 1895 pattern hat and an infantry officer’s undress coat with black-trimmed collar and front.
On 15 February 1898 the battleship USS Maine blew up in the harbour of Havana, Cuba. For years Spain’s attempts to retain colonial power against a rag-tag army of Cuban insurgents had been watched by an American public fed by a biased anti-Spanish press vociferous in its demands for Cuban independence. Public feeling had been running so high that the issue was discussed in terms of independence or war. The mysterious disaster which overtook the Maine was a spark sufficient to blow the country into war, and on 25 April 1898 Congress declared that a state of war had existed between the USA and Spain since 21 April. Only three days earlier Congress had passed a mobilization act which represented a compromise between National Guard enthusiasts and Army reformers; it called for an army made up of regulars, Guardsmen and volunteers, many of the latter supposedly being raised from among men immune to tropical diseases such as yellow fever. Since Spain, obviously, would not invade the United States (outside the fevered imagination of a few alarmists), and since Cuba could not be freed without direct intervention, a number of regiments organized as the V Corps were sent to the ill-equipped port of Tampa, Florida, for eventual embarkation for Cuba.
At Tampa they received a smattering of training, but mostly they simply waited for Spain’s Atlantic Fleet to be located; to risk the interception of the crowded troopships on the high seas was unthinkable. The Spanish warships were discovered at anchor in the port of Santiago de Cuba in May 1898, and the US Navy sat guard outside, unable to enter and fight under the guns of the shore batteries. The Army was summoned to capture the guns, and on 31 May V Corps was ordered to Santiago. It took a fortnight to load the small transports and head out to sea, and to achieve even that the Corps commander, Major-General William R. Shafter, had to leave behind precious artillery, wagons, horses, and even camp stoves, for lack of room. By 21 June, after a hot and hellishly uncomfortable voyage, the troops found themselves gazing at the green hills of Cuba. The next day 6,000 men, the first Americans ever to stage an overseas landing against a European power, hit the beaches at Daiquiri, above Santiago. They met no opposition from anything more lethal than land crabs and tarantulas, and the following day another 11,000 landed. Some 5,000 Cuban insurgents also joined the invasion force.
The last troops to invade Cuba had been Lord Vernon’s British redcoats in the 18th century. They had suffered horribly from disease while following a traditional programme of building roads and formal siege-works. Shafter studied that campaign, and determined to avoid those mistakes. Hardly had the men landed than they were off into the interior, pushing along jungle trails against scattered opposition. There was a sharp little skirmish at El Guásimas, but before long they came up to the main Spanish defence line which was based on a blockhouse on top of San Juan Hill, overlooking Santiago. Although the Spanish had dug in on the actual crest, rather than on the ‘military crest’ a little below the top, their entrenchments and Mauser rifles made them a dangerous foe. Shafter planned to send part of his troops against the hill itself while another part moved to take El Caney, which would enable him to cut off Santiago’s water supply.
The 3rd US Cavalry Regiment on parade in Camp Tampa, 1898, just before going off to Cuba. They carry both regimental and national colours.
The day of the attack, 1 July, started badly with regiments becoming mixed up on overcrowded trails, and a stiffer enemy defence of El Caney than had been expected; however, it was to end well. The famed ‘Rough Riders’ of the 1st Volunteer Cavalry, led by their lieutenant-colonel, Theodore Roosevelt, took Kettle Hill alongside the men of the 9th and 10th Cavalry. After taking this feature, a little apart from the main ridge line, they pressed on towards San Juan Hill proper, which was taken by infantry of the 1st Division. By nightfall all objectives were in American hands, at a cost of 1,700 casualties—a figure almost beyond the capabilities of the Medical Corps. The Spanish withdrew to a second entrenched line closer to the city. Shafter, ill from fever and gout, despaired, and even considered retreating. Calmer heads talked him into a hot and uncomfortable siege. On 3 July the Spanish fleet, trying to break out, was sunk, ship by ship, by the waiting American squadron. With the ostensible reason for defending the port now gone, the Spanish gave up on 16 July.
1898 Corps Badges as worn on coats and hats in red (1st Division), white (2nd Division) and blue (3rd Division). They are, from left, those of the I, VIII, VII, II, III, V, and IV Corps.
The Army’s General-in-Chief, the former Indian-fighter Nelson A. Miles, set sail from Cuba to Puerto Rico on 21 July with 3,000 men. Landing at Guánica, they met no opposition and quickly took the port of Ponce. Some 10,000 reinforcements landed there in early August, and Miles split his forces into four columns for a co-ordinated advance on the island’s capital, San Juan. The island fell into American hands in a virtually bloodless campaign, and the Spanish surrendered on 13 August.
America’s third overseas force, the 20,000-strong VIII Corps under Major-General Wesley Merritt, was assigned the Philippines as its target. On 30 April the US Navy, under Rear Admiral George Dewey, destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila and silenced the shore batteries. His marines and sailors were not a sufficient force to take the city itself, however, and he called for the Army. By the end of July it had arrived. The Spanish were willing to surrender, but not to the Philippine insurgents under Emilio Aguinaldo. The Americans therefore concluded a discreet agreement whereby they would pass through rebel lines, make a token attack, and accept a prompt Spanish surrender. Apart from inevitable confusion and a few small fire fights the plan went smoothly, and on 13 August, having lost only 17 dead and 105 wounded, the Americans received the enemy’s surrender. On 10 December a treaty was signed in Paris, ending the war and leaving the United States with an empire. Cuba became independent, but America now ruled Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.