“No war in history,” exalted one American, “has accomplished so much in so short a time with so little loss.” The United States acquired a colonial empire, annexing Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines and establishing a limited protectorate over Cuba. During the imperial outburst, it also annexed Hawaii, Samoa, and Wake Island. A nation born more than a century earlier in a reaction to imperial domination had become an imperial power, joining the maelstrom of international politics. During the 1880s, Europeans spoke of six great powers (France, Germany, England, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy). They now added a seventh, computing the United States into balance-of-power combinations. A German cartoon expressed the new sentiment, showing Uncle Sam reaching out to encircle the globe, saying, “I can’t quite reach around—but that may come later.”
Yet for the Army it had been far from “a splendid little war,” as Secretary of State John Hay called it. A storm of controversy caused by medical disasters in the 5th Corps and in the volunteer camps engulfed the War Department as the war ended. The death toll explained the calamity’s magnitude: Out of 5,462 deaths in the armed services in 1898, only 379 resulted from combat. The 5th Corps’ ordeal was severe. During the siege men lay in their tents, which were steaming mudholes during downpours and ovens when the sun blazed down, without adequate food. Exhausted and filthy, they were susceptible to disease even as the opening of Santiago Bay remedied their material deficiencies. Malaria, dysentery, and typhoid began their death march through the ranks. The Americans also greatly feared an outbreak of yellow fever, although doubts remain as to whether it actually afflicted any of the troops.
By late July almost a quarter of the men were sick, and so many died that Shafter suspended rifle volleys and bugle calls at burials for fear of undermining morale. On August 3, with the concurrence of his general officers and medical staff, Shafter finally alerted the War Department, writing that he commanded “an army of convalescents.” The corps must be immediately transferred home, or it would perish. When the news leaked to the press, it further discredited the War Department, already under mounting criticism for its seeming ineptitude in preparing for war, threatened to undermine the peace negotiations then underway, and hastened the corps’ withdrawal to Camp Wikoff at Montauk Point, New York. By August 25 the veterans had departed, replaced by volunteer regiments and “Immunes” who, as it turned out, were not immune.
The survivors arrived at Montauk “mere shadows of their former selves,” with pale faces, sunken eyes, staggering gaits, and emaciated forms, many of them candidates for premature graves. They wobbled ashore into a welter of confusion. Alger had planned a reception camp before he received Shafter’s August 3 report, and given enough time a fine facility would have awaited the troops. But the sudden emergency caught the camp with inadequate transportation and shortages of equipment, medical supplies, and laborers. As during the mobilization in April and May, the War Department’s heroic efforts, plus the goodwill of private relief agencies, resulted in rapid improvements. However, the press and private citizens had flooded into the camp in its early weeks and spread tales of suffering, convincing citizens that the government had neglected the victors of Santiago.
Events in the volunteer camps reinforced the belief that the War Department had ill-used its soldiers. Most volunteers remained in camp for the duration, bored and homesick, engaging in endless military routine, enduring shortages of all types since overseas expeditions had supply priority, and wallowing in pervasive filth caused by their own carelessness and indiscipline. Under these conditions epidemic diseases swept the camps. In combating them, the Medical Department labored under crippling handicaps. It had little prestige or authority, low priority in terms of men and money, too few trained personnel, no power to enforce its recommendations (which were often excellent but ignored by the volunteers), and, like medical science as a whole, it did not know how the killer diseases were transmitted. Only when the crisis was at hand did the Army react, rushing doctors and supplies to the camps and ordering a massive redeployment that placed the men in healthful new camps where officers enforced strict cleanliness. The improvements, plus the onset of winter, rapidly dropped the disease mortality rate, but the public did not easily forget the sight of hundreds of men dying on home soil.
Demobilization and an investigation of the War Department’s alleged mismanagement began almost simultaneously. In October Shafter formally disbanded the 5th Corps, and in May 1899 the last of the original seven corps was demobilized. Spurred by the outcry caused by the Army’s chaotic mobilization and the tragedies in the 5th Corps and the volunteer camps, on September 26 McKinley appointed a commission, chaired by Grenville M. Dodge, to investigate Army administration. The commission questioned numerous witnesses, including Alger, the bureau chiefs, officers of every grade, enlisted men, nurses, and concerned citizens. Miles was the most spectacular witness, charging that troops had been fed beef injected with harmful chemicals, causing much of the sickness. The commission thoroughly studied the “embalmed beef” issue and, when it reported on February 9, 1899, correctly pronounced Miles’s accusations as false. When Miles persisted in his charges, McKinley appointed a military board of inquiry that came to the same conclusion.
The Dodge report also exonerated the War Department of charges of stupidity, deliberate negligence, and major corruption, drawing a picture of conscientious officers struggling “with earnestness and energy” to overcome problems primarily not of their own making. However, it did indict the department for excess paperwork and declared, in a tactful criticism of Alger, that “there was lacking in the general administration of the War Department . . . that complete grasp of the situation which was essential to the highest efficiency and discipline of the Army.” Although Alger was not a strong secretary, and inefficiency and poor coordination dogged the war effort, the real causes of the War Department’s difficulties were the hasty mobilization of too many men, primitive medical knowledge, and the country’s long neglect of the Army.
Most citizens found the Dodge report’s detailed analysis of staff organization and Army administration boring and did not want the facts to interfere with their perceptions. They were sure something was rotten in the War Department, and Alger became the scapegoat; “Algerism” became synonymous with government corruption and incompetence. Despite the public’s lack of confidence in the secretary, McKinley owed Alger a moral debt, knowing that he had loyally followed orders and was taking the blame for decisions imposed upon him. McKinley also worried that firing Alger would be an admission of military mismanagement, which would reflect badly on his presidency. Not until Alger sided with an anti-administration senatorial candidate did McKinley ask for his resignation; on August 1, 1899, Elihu Root replaced him. The widespread sentiment that the war had been conducted unscientifically, the lack of interservice cooperation, and the new international responsibilities allowed Root to institute Army reforms.
Most of the overseas acquisitions posed few problems. The Navy Department governed Samoa, Guam, and Wake without difficulty. Puerto Rico remained under military government only until May 1900, when the first American civil governor assumed his duties, and Hawaii was quickly placed on the road to eventual statehood. But Cuba was different. The United States had never recognized the Cuban Republic. Now the question was whether it should grant independence, establish a protectorate, or annex the island despite the Teller Amendment, which imperialists argued had been a great mistake. While the nation wrestled with this problem, Cuba remained under military government, headed by Major General John R. Brooke until December 1899, when Wood succeeded him. Wood tried to Americanize the island, hoping to pave the way for eventual annexation. A man of great administrative talent and imbued with Progressive ideals, he did much to rebuild the devastated island and restore its economy, and he promoted reforms in education, municipal government, the legal system, and sanitation and health care. Although his emphasis on centralization and urban development ran counter to the Cubans’ des
ire for more local autonomy and rural traditions, many of Wood’s programs were of lasting value.
In May 1902 the United States recognized Cuban independence. Expansionists could not overcome the idealism expressed in the Teller Amendment or the fear that Cubans might rebel against annexation. However, the U.S. established a semiprotectorate and maintained de facto dominance through the Platt Amendment and the Reciprocal Trade Treaty of 1902. Incorporated into the Cuban constitution, the amendment was a compromise between altruism and annexation, allowing Cuban internal self-government while protecting America’s special interests. It forbade Cuba to sign treaties that might infringe its independence, limited its capacity to get into debt, preserved America’s right to intervene to maintain stability, and forced Cuba to sell or lease naval stations to the U.S. The trade treaty tied Cuba’s principal export, sugar, to the American market, thus giving the United States considerable economic influence.
Cuba, however, was not the most troublesome of the overseas possessions, for in annexing the Philippines the United States annexed a war.
War in the Philippines, 1899–1902
“Is Government willing to use all means to make the natives submit to the authority of the United States?” Merritt and Dewey asked Washington as the Filipinos pressed for the joint occupation of Manila. McKinley replied that there must be no joint occupation, that the insurgents must recognize U.S. authority, and that Merritt could “use whatever means in your judgment are necessary to this end.” The president realized that war was possible, although he sincerely wanted to avoid fighting the Filipinos. While awaiting the outcome of the Paris peace conference, the Filipinos also prepared for war. Merritt’s successor, Elwell S. Otis, convinced the Filipinos to withdraw from the suburbs they had occupied, but Aguinaldo’s men strengthened their besieging positions and their sandatahan (militia) inside Manila. In this festering situation the American troops began referring to Filipinos with derogatory terms, such as “niggers” and “gugus,” and the number of violent incidents increased.
Since the United States was determined to exercise sovereignty and the Filipinos were equally determined to be independent, the Treaty of Paris created an impasse solvable only through war. Fighting began on the night of February 4–5, 1899, along the Manila perimeter. Aided by gunfire from Dewey’s squadron and gunboats on the Pasig River, the next morning the Army attacked, driving the Filipinos from their trenches after several days of combat. Later in the month the Manila sandatahan rose in rebellion, but the Americans quashed it. In March and April, Otis launched attacks north and east from Manila, continually defeating the Filipinos. Aguinaldo favored guerrilla warfare but one of his generals, the European-educated Antonio Luna, persuaded him to fight in conventional style; this ill-suited the Filipinos, who lacked artillery and sufficient modern rifles. However, Otis’s spring offensive achieved few permanent results before the rainy season began in May, halting large-scale campaigning.
As Otis waited for better weather he confronted severe problems. The Eighth Corps had an unprecedented task, for Americans had never before engaged in a colonial war of conquest. The Indian wars were not analogous: Indian resistance was always on a smaller scale, and the Army had the assistance of railroads, settlers, and buffalo hunters. Once defeated, Indians could be confined to reservations, but no Philippine reservation system was feasible. For pacification to succeed, the Army had not only to defeat Aguinaldo’s army but also to make Filipinos want American rule or at least tolerate it peacefully. But the proper mix between coercion and benevolence was not easily discovered.
Another difficulty was that Otis underestimated Aguinaldo’s support, the fierce resentment against Americans, and the Filipinos’ fighting skills. Consequently, he sent Washington optimistic assessments that slowed the necessary troop buildup. After ratification of the Treaty of Paris most of his soldiers were eligible for discharge, and McKinley insisted they be returned home as soon as possible. Foreseeing this demobilization, the administration introduced a bill calling for a 100,000-man regular Army. On March 2, 1899, Congress passed a bill keeping the regular Army at 65,000 but authorizing the president to enlist 35,000 volunteers, organized into twenty-five regiments and recruited from the country at large, for the Philippine emergency. The volunteer enlistments expired July 1, 1901; on the same date the regular Army would shrink to 28,000.
In contrast to his actions during the war with Spain, McKinley wanted the force sent to the Philippines kept “within actual military needs.” For immediate reinforcements he dispatched regular regiments. But since Otis claimed he needed only 30,000 men, which could be drawn entirely from regulars, the president delayed organizing the volunteers. Responding to an upward revision by Otis, in late June McKinley authorized the creation of twelve volunteer regiments, and another increased estimate from Otis soon prompted organization of the remainder. Largely due to his own misjudgment, Otis endured what Washington and Scott had experienced: exchanging one army for another in the face of the enemy. Fortunately, War Department procedures perfected during the war with Spain permitted the expeditious shipment of well-equipped volunteers; by February 1900 all of them were in the Philippines.
In November 1899, as the first volunteer regiments arrived, Otis attacked Aguinaldo’s main army on the Luzon plains, shattered it, and drove Aguinaldo into northern Luzon’s mountainous wilderness. Otis then sent a secondary thrust into Cavite Province and the Laguna de Bay region, which fragmented the Filipino forces there. As soldiers marched over Luzon from one end to the other and then occupied virtually every other island of consequence in the archipelago, Otis reported to Washington that “we no longer deal with organized insurrection, but brigandage.”
While smashing the Filipinos’ conventional forces the Army also instituted civic action programs similar to Wood’s in Cuba. Wanting Filipinos to “bless the American republic,” McKinley ordered the Army to prove “to them that the mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation, substituting the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary rule.” Recognizing the value of benevolence as a pacification technique, officers undertook the task with enthusiasm. Beginning in Manila and then fanning outward, they inaugurated reforms, especially in transportation, education, and public health, to convince the Filipinos that the Americans would raise their standard of living. New railroads, bridges, highways, and telegraph and telephone lines strengthened the economy and forged a new interdependence among the islands. Convinced that education “can be more beneficial than troops in preventing future revolutions,” the Army created a school system, which reduced illiteracy. The military’s public-health assault on disease virtually eliminated smallpox and the plague and reduced the infant mortality rate. Although conducted with an arrogant ethnocentrism and often interfering with local customs, these (and other) programs gained an increasing number of Filipino collaborators, reinforcing Otis’s perception that the war was over.
But instead of being over, the war entered a new phase. With their army shattered, the Filipinos turned to guerrilla warfare to counter America’s conventional firepower. Although they had used guerrilla tactics before, these now became the primary means of resistance. What Otis thought was the enemy’s collapse was simply a reorganization into small units at the local level. Instead of a single nationalist struggle directed by one commander, Aguinaldo, the conflict became decentralized, a collection of local conflicts that varied from region to region depending on ethnic and religious differences, the terrain, and the revolutionary leadership’s caliber. During this phase local guerrilla officers were much like Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812, acting like regional warlords who obeyed higher authorities only when it suited their region’s needs. Most leaders came from the economic and political elite rather than the masses; many of the latter loathed Americans but also had scant enthusiasm for a war directed by the prewar Filipino upper class, which had demonstrated little interest in social justice or land redistribution.
In some cas
es guerrilla warfare merged with the traditional banditry that Filipino ladrones had perpetrated since time immemorial, the political “cause” of independence merely providing a cover for age-old practices. Indeed, many U.S. Army officers initially underestimated the guerrilla threat because they blamed the endemic violence wholly on ladrones and other social outcasts. Yet leading Filipinos such as Aguinaldo and Miguel Malvar, a high-ranking officer in Batangas Province, understood guerrilla-warfare techniques and strategy. They believed that a protracted war might result in two possible favorable outcomes. It might undermine the morale of the American Army and populace, leading to victory for the anti-imperialist Democratic Party in the presidential election of 1900. Filipino propagandists attached great importance to this eventuality. As one American officer noted, the insurgents watched American politics closely, and “every disloyal sentiment uttered by a man of prominence in the United States is repeatedly broadcast through the islands and greatly magnified.” Or the Filipinos might receive foreign aid, perhaps from a European nation but more likely from Chinese republicans or Japanese pan-Asianists.
Guerrillas increasingly fought only when victory was certain, usually ambushing small patrols. When confronted by a superior force they hid their weapons and dispersed to their homes, where they greeted Americans with a friendly smile and a hearty “Amigo!” They also engaged in sniping and sabotage, inflicted hideous tortures on prisoners, and set trail-way traps, such as pits filled with sharpened stakes. Soldiers learned that a “pacified” area extended no further than the range of a Krag-Jorgensen.
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