Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History Spanish-American War 20240712

Want to recap a few things we did in our last class. Specifically, lets talk a little bit about the imperialism that developed in the late 19th century. Blake, do you have anything you can contribute in this regard . Blake sure. We had we were imperialistic and we thought that going sorry. One of our reasons to go were i guess humanitarian. We tried to help our little Brown Brothers down there, to try and make them more american because we felt it was superior. Joseph it is really an ethnocentrism. Blake yeah. Joseph taylor, do you have anything to add to that . Taylor the one thing that stood out the most to me was the economic aspect because the u. S. Had a lot of territorial interests in cuba and a lot of americans owned sugar plantations and they wanted to protect their citizens and investments down there. But in the u. S. , there was also overproduction, so they were also looking to advance to new markets. Joseph good, good. Anyone else have a reason . Anyone want to volunteer something . Tyler i can say something. Joseph good, tyler. Tyler im sorry, my smoke alarm is beeping right now. But going off of what blake said about imperialism, i felt it was the start of blatant american patriotism, which we talk about a lot now and missionary trips and evangelical christianity, and i just thought that was an interesting connection to what we are talking about now. Joseph good, good. So what we have got our three principal motivations. One economic. We talked about how turbulent the American Economy was in the latter part of the 19th century. Also, we talked about we talked about how they needed to find new markets because of overproduction. So the economic motive was just that, to find new markets. Then on top of that, you have a humanitarian component that both blake and tyler talked about, then there is the ethnocentric component that blake talked about. We have a superior system, and what we really need to do is share our superior system with other people, even if they are a little unwilling. We are going to force it upon them. I talked in the course of that lecture, we talked about the work of Alfred Thayer mahan, and what was so interesting about mahans naval strategy was it dovetailed beautifully with the sense of imperialism. A just force around the world that would open new markets, but also be able to fight climactic rattles and win victories. In wartime, we would be able to control the sea lane so we could get supplies. In addition to those elements, we would have colonies around the world. Those colonies would serve as stations for our vessels. And we would have to build a canal in the isthmus in Central America so we could easily move warships from the atlantic to the pacific and back. So all of these things worked in conjunction with sentiments that were kicking around in American Society at the time. That is, we really needed to find new markets, we needed colonies for Raw Materials, colonies that would buy our finished products. And of course, having the military strength to project forces to protect those elements. So it all worked out really well with regard to imperialism. Im sorry . Did someone have a question . The whole idea of the white mans burden, i think it was actually written about the spanish war. Was that more about ethnocentrism, or more about the humanitarian aspect, or an elixir of both . Joseph i think it is a combination of ethnocentrism and racism. As they expressed it in that time period, the little brown brother. But it is also a form of exploitation because we expected them to produce the Raw Materials and buy the finished products. But in the end, it would improve their quality of life. So there are all three components, ethnocentrism, humanitarian, and racism. I guess you could say that ethnocentrism is racist. Professor, i have a question as well. Joseph sure. I know this had been happening with europe for a long time, especially with africa and all their colonies over there. Was this an idea that had already spread from europe to the americas . Joseph yeah, we were a little slow to get into the imperialist game. But on the other hand, we were acting in an imperialist fashion in america, expanding from one ocean to another, suppressing the indians, gobbling up their land for economic exploitation. So we were already doing it. Our focus was mainly in america, though. Thank you. Joseph sure. Does anyone else have a question about this . Right when we broke from class last time, we talked about the uss maine. We talked about how there had been trouble in cuba for a long time. The American People were increasingly upset, and the motivations, as both taylor and blake had talked about, a lot of americans felt sympathy for the cubans, that they should have their independence. The United States had long had interest in acquiring cuba. It was a great means of defense against the gold coast states in case of invasion. And of course, lots of americans had invested heavily, as taylor said, in cuba, owning sugar plantations and the like. So the United States sent the uss maine to show the flag and make sure that everyone knew the United States was there to protect american property. On the 15th of february, 1898, the maine exploded. Who knows about what yellow journalism is . Yellow journalism was the press would emphasize and not fully tell the truth about an event that happened, so they created onesided accounts of what the spanish were doing to the cubans. Joseph yeah. It is a means of selling newspapers by sensationalization. The journalists claimed spain had been the ones who had blown up the ship, but in fact subsequent investigations indicated that explosion took place on the ship. So it was not an act of terrorism, as the newspapers claimed. Nonetheless, 260 american soldiers were killed, and the American People were driven into a frenzy because of the yellow journalists. The pressure was enormous on our president , who many of you know, william mckinley. Mckinley, as i said, was a civil war hero. Had he fought in todays military, he probably would have been a recipient of the medal of honor because he went out under fire and rescued wounded comrades and carried them back to american lines. And he did this repeatedly. What an extraordinary soldier. He knew what war was all about and he did not want to get the United States involved. But the pressure was enormous, and ultimately he succumbed to that pressure. The United States sent cuba i mean, sent spain an ultimatum, demanding they negotiate a peace with the cuban insurrectionist. But the matter is, before cuba could respond, the United States declared war on spain. So weve got the spanishamerican war. In the declaration of war, we attached what was called the teller amendment, which said the United States had no desire to acquire cuba. We are trying to make our fight against spain look altruistic. That is, we are fighting on behalf of our cuban americans, and that was our sole intention, when in fact we had much different motivations. One of the most interesting aspect of this whole event occurred just before the u. S. Declared war. The secretary of the navy, a guy named long, left the office one day, and that left his assistant secretary, Teddy Roosevelt, in charge. He fired off a telegraph to george dewey. He warned that it looked like there would be were ahead, so he should prepare his vessels for an attack on manila. When war was declared, dewey was ordered to go after the spanish fleet in Manila Harbor in the philippines, and he did just that. The very first fight took place on may 1 in the philippines. That instance, dewey had six u. S. Vessels take elliptical passes on the spanish fleet. The shooting began about 5 40 a. M. After the americans had fired 15 rounds from each gun, dewey received the information that he thought they said we only had 15 rounds left, when in fact they said they had only fired 15 rounds. But at that point, dewey decided to pull back. Also at that point, the troops had not eaten anything. The spanish fleet was in a disastrous shape. The spanish had 380 one killed and wounded in the fight, the americans had eight wounded, one death, and the death was from heat prostration. As a result of that, it was a resounding victory. The spanish fleet surrendered, and dewey won the first battle. Now, one of the big issues the United States had with this big which mobilizing for war, and we had a small regular army, about 28,000 people. Our secretary of war was russell alger. He was a civil war hero and a congressman, but he was really incompetent as secretary of war. So what happened ultimately, the commanding general was a man name nelson miles. He was an excellent soldier and not a very nice human being. In fact, he married shermans niece, and William Tecumseh sherman hated miles. He thought he was a jerk. Mckinley isolated miles and had the acting general come to the white house, and the two of them ran the war and they excluded alger. First, they were going to mobilize increasing dramatically, but they didnt like it. Jake, why would the National Guard be able to change policy like that . Do you have any idea . Jake a lot of the National Guard would have been holdovers from the militia, i assume. A lot of those people would have some pretty influential people in lower level government positions to get upset about Something Like this. Joseph that is exactly right. Keep in mind, the National Guard comes from the local community. These people live in the community, and they vote. As a result of that, the government is very careful about responding to National Guard, and it has been ever since. In this instance, mckinley did not want that kind of pressure. As a result, he allowed the National Guard to invest in mass. All they would have is one regular army officer assigned to them. He also raised about 200,000 volunteers to fight the war, and we expanded the size of the regular army dramatically. As far as units were concerned, the most famous was the first volunteer cavalry, Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt was the brainchild of this. He had no military experience, so he got his friend leonard wood to serve the regimental doctor. He had earned a medal of honor fighting geronimo. There is a picture of Teddy Roosevelt with some of the rough riders. It is a really unusual mixture of individuals. Hes got his volunteer unit, some regular army officers, hes got some cowboys. Can you imagine the campfires in those situations . Hes got some really tough folks in there. A strange, strange mixture of people. Another organization was called the astor battery. John jacob astor paid for an artillery battery. He recruited some harvard grads, and he got men to serve for them too. You have strange commands here in the spanishamerican war. When we began mobilizing manpower, we had absolutely no mobilization planned whatsoever. No manpower mobilization plans, no industrial mobilization plans. So the army was completely unprepared for this situation. The Quartermaster Department only had 57 officers and had enough supplies for 40,000 men for three months. That is not going to do when you bring into hundred thousand volunteers and expanding the size of the regular army to 64,000. As one bureaucrat said, we had a great system going until the war came along and messed it up. There is a lot of truth to that. On top of that, the War Department was flooded, absolutely flooded, with applications for commissions and papers. Huge numbers of people wanted to get into the war, so they were working all hours of the day and night all around the clock to try and staff and equip these units. They did do something smart. They started taking over areas, often times old civil war battle areas because they were cleared areas, and they used those for training facilities. One of the big problems they had was the regular army had really good weapons. They had a magazine you clipped on that had five bullets in it, and these fired smokeless gunpowder. But most of the National Guard and ultimately most of the volunteers had to use old springfield models, which emitted black powder and white clouds of smoke they were fired, which gave away your position. The only volunteer unit that did not was the first u. S. Volunteer calvary, the rough riders. Teddy roosevelt that political clout that he could get things he wanted and thought he needed. A lot of these units were still loaded with civil war veterans, and a lot of them had very old folks. For example, there was a guy named bigelow who graduated from west point in 1877. Bigelow had his first assignment with this regiment, got all sorts of other excitements, and in 1898 got reassigned to his old regiment, and the old First Sergeant was in his company. He was assigned as a First Company commander. After 21 years, this does not sound that appealing. 21 years and you are still a captain . 21 years and he had the same First Sergeant he had when he got out of west point. Not a lot of turnover, especially the older guys. The more Senior Officers were civil war commanders. The overall commander for the operation is a guy named william shafter. You can see he is brutalizing a horse. He had received a medal of honor in the civil war, and he was not a west point graduate. He was widely regarded as being unprofessional. As far as his conduct. And if you look at the size of him, you can see he is illsuited for deployment in cuba. He weighs over 300 pounds. In that cuban summer heat, he is just not going to make it. He is not going to get the job done. He is very much disorganized. You have a little clash in the regular army in those days between those who came into the army in the aftermath of the who civil war who did not have a west point education and those who did. Some of those who didnt became very good professional soldiers, but many of them did not. In shafters case, he was looked down upon. People were pretty critical of him. Shafter had just been promoted to Brigadier General, and he was assigned to an invasion in tampa, florida. That is where they began accumulating manpower. The army was undersupplied. People were rushing into tampa, soldiers were coming in, civilians were coming in to see the invasion. Yellow journalists were pestering shafter at all hours of the day and night. He was not dealing with the heat very well. It was a huge problem. Anyway, to make matters worse, the u. S. Army did not own transport ships, so we had to try to lease them from private sources, civilians, and leasing them from civilians was a big deal, it was a big problem because of course they did not want to risk their boats being sunk. No one had thought out the logistical issues, so there was only a single Railroad Track that ran into tampa and trains were literally backed up from tampa, florida, to North Carolina with supplies and other goods. To make matters worse, no one put a bill of lading on the railroad cars. Does anybody know what a bill of lading is . Then i will just have to tell you. A bill of lading is a statement about exactly what is in each railroad car. That is kind of important stuff. So without bills of lading, you have to get in and start rummaging through crate after crate after crate to find out what youve got. You can imagine what a mess that was. To make matters worse, people like Teddy Roosevelt did not want to get left behind. His idea of a nightmare was not participating in the war. So teddy stole a train. He literally stole a train. Then he literally stole two transport ships and his men on them. And when an officer came and said, excuse me, you are on our transport ships, teddy gave them a big white toothed grin. His men were not giving up the transports. Teddy did not realize he was actually designated to go to tampa, but he was not going to give up those transport. That is how Teddy Roosevelt ended up getting there. They finally got it underway in midjune 1898. Eight day trip from tampa to the santiago area. If you look at the map, santiago is in the southeastern portion of cuba. As i said, it was an eight day trip, which is fairly long. Troops went long periods of time without adequate food. The best they got was some cold beef and maybe a cup of coffee once a day, Something Like that. The stores were woefully inadequate. The men were crammed on these transports. They had blue woolen uniforms and they are going into cuba. That does not sound all that pleasant to me. It is a really bad situation. Of course, the transports they took were scattered over an enormous number of miles. Had one spanish warship broken free, it would have smashed all of them. But fortunately, that didnt happen. They landed at a place called daiquiri, a beach on the righthand side of the map, of your powerpoint. It was a fiasco. Private shipowners would not let their vessels get close. They had no lighters so they could not get close to shore, and they had to loan a bunch of small rowboats to enable them to row so they could take troops and ultimately supplies, but they did not manage the supplies, so they created a Giant Mountain of supplies on the beach. Everything was completely chaotic. Two soldiers lost their lives in the landing. Think back to the mexican war, when Winfield Scott assisted in the designing and construction of 67 Landing Craft and pulled off an Amphibious Landing in mexico against Hostile Forces and suffered zero casualties. It shows you what a good soldier Winfield Scott was. It also shows you how fouled up this was because the cuban insurrectionists had sealed off the area so no one was firing at the americans. It was a bad scenario. Of course, they could not deal with horses, so some genius came up with a great idea. Lets put a bugler on the shore. We will push the horses into the water and have the bugle play in the horses will swim to the sound of the bugle. So they did that, they had the bugler start playing, they pushed horses into the ocean, and in fact the horses started swimming back to miami. Virtually all the horses died, drowned, in the attempted landing. The whole thing was a complete fiasco. Shafter was too ill to deal with anything when they landed, so he remained at sea. That was a little cooler there, you have the cooler breeze. That left a guy named joe wheeler in charge. Joe wheeler, as you can see, there he is with mckinley, joe wheeler was a west point graduate and was the chief of calvary for the Confederate Army of tennessee. After the war, he eventually got reinstated. Not into the army, but got authorization, ran for congress, and was a very prominent congressman from alabama. Of course, when the war broke out, in an effort to unify the south behind the cause, wheeler got appointed Major General of volunteers. With wheeler on land, he was the ranking officer. They had a regular command ahead of wheeler, but wheeler led his troops around the infantry and launched an attack against the spanish at a place called las guasimas. There, he got himself shot up pretty badly. His command was roughed up horribly. Finally, the roughriders began advancing. The leader of the infantry thought he was the lead of the u. S. Forces. In fact, he was nothing of the sort. Eventually, they routed the spanish forces. When the spanish began to pull back, wheeler called out, come on, boys. Weve got those damn yankees on the run. Which is a scary thought when somebody would say that. He forgot what side he was fighting on. Wheeler fought the first battle at las guasimas. He got roughed up a little bit, but ultimately the americans occupied the position. According to a number of sources, the u. S. Had problems with this they had problems with it because they wanted to advance toward santiago closer to the coastline so he could receive naval support. But in fact, by moving into las guasimas, they pushed them further in land. It became a big issue, at least in the minds of lots of americans, and especially shafter. So shafter revised his plans and he wanted to try to seize the high ground outside of santiago. Here is a map of that. The americans are coming from the jungle and pushing out in this direction here. The problem is, the spanish have a fort over here. Here is kettle hill. Teddy roosevelt did not assault san juan hill, he assaulted kettle hill. Here is the san juan ridge, all of this that the americans needed to secure, the high ground outside santiago. Things didnt quite work out as the americans had hoped. He was so sick, he couldnt come to the front. He was so big and heavy, he couldnt get by with an army cot, they collapsed under his weight. So they ripped the door off and rested shafter on the door, and had a man carry the door around, which took quite if you guys. Meanwhile, wheeler by this point just got a bad case of dysentery, so he is not up to action as well. So he is largely in the rear, but during the fighting, eventually moves to a forward position, but is in no position to control the fight. The United States under a guy named lawton, a regular army officer with a drinking habit but a pretty good soldier nonetheless, was going to attack el caney and sees that. The estimated they could do that in two hours. Meanwhile, other troops would hit in this direction, and with lawton coming on the flank and these troops attacking on the front, the americans would seize control of the high ground. Well, that was the concept. Of course, the concept didnt work out as people hoped. First, el caney was well fortified, barbed wire, breastworks, tough situation. So lawton attacked, and the two or three Hour Campaign against el caney lasted all the way until 5 00 p. M. , and the americans suffered pretty heavy losses. In fact, americans had 81 killed, 360 wounded, just going after el caney, which had 500 defenders. So the spanish fought well there. Americans exhibit a tremendous courage, but that didnt make much of a difference. Meanwhile, troops advancing through the jungle in this direction ran into a big problem. Some genius thought it would be a great idea to have an observation balloon up there. But there were fearful they observation balloon would drift over spanish positions, so they had a long rope dangling from the container of it, and a soldier at the bottom holding onto the rope, which told the spanish where the american troops were coming, through the jungle. The spanish, being no fools, began throwing fire on the americans below the balloon in the americans advancing through the jungle were getting really shot up. A bad situation. One guy in this National Guard unit described it as mod mixed with blood. It was a pretty bad situation, and by the time soldiers from that National Guard unit emerged from the jungle, they would advance any farther. They were worn out by the pummeling they had taken. Eventually, some imbecile shut down the balloon and that salvaged the other americans that were advancing. But when they came out of the jungle, they could see the front troops were laying down, regulars were right behind them, as were the rough riders. It was clear to them they only had one option, to launch a frontal assault. And they were really fortunate. Couple of factors came into play. When was that the spanish, even though they were armed with weapons that fired smokeless gunpowder, the americans mostly emitting smoke with their weapons, a real problem since it was an american invented smokeless gunpowder. It shows you how slow the army was in and embracing new technologies. The second advantage we had though, was that the spanish had dug in on the actual crest, not the military crest. The actual crest is on the top of the hill, the military crest is a position on a hill, which eliminates any dead zones, so that those advancing up the hill will be under fire at all times. In this instance, the spanish were on the actual crest, so when the americans crossed over to get close to the base of the hill, there they could organize and launched an attack up hill. Teddy roosevelt and his rough riders were among the first people at the top. Also arriving at the top of the hill were black regular army soldiers. Teddy later claimed he deserved the metal of honor for his exploits. And i was fortunate to be chosen to serve on an Army Committee to investigate teddys exploits, and teddy it deserved medal of honor. He was incredibly heroic, bold, and was critical in seizing kettle hill. The problem was that teddy shamelessly promoted himself, and that turned people off, so no one was willing to support his application that he received a medal of honor. About seven or eight years ago, Teddy Roosevelt was posthumously awarded the medal of honor for the battle of kettle. But as i said, teddy arrived at the top of the hill at the same time as some black regulars. The americans seized kettle hill, then attacked the high ground here, once again exhibiting extraordinary boldness and we were able to drive the spanish back. The spanish then fell back into santiago, so we secured the high ground. Interesting episode had happened meanwhile in the harbor of santiago. The spanish fleet, which had been terrorizing, at least in the minds of americans, people who lived on the east coast, which never materialized on the east coast, but people lived in terror that it would show up outside their waterfront home and begin shelling it. But the fleet got blocked in santiago harbor, so the spanish fleet tried to make a run for it. At the time, the admiral was on land in a meeting with shafter. The secondincommand then fought the battle. It was a very interesting battle. The americans fired thousands of rounds against the spanish fleet. They had 123 hits, and sunk or incapacitated everyone of the spanish ships. The secondincommand thought he deserved credit for the victory. Samson ignored the secondincommand and took full credit for the victory and they ended up being a big squabble, but the spanish suffered 470 killed and wounded, the americans had one sailor killed, one sailor wounded, but we sunk all the ships. This is going to become a big point of issue within the navy later, because a guy named william sims, and you will learn about william sims in the second half of this course, sims leapt a means of firing more accurately. But the navy was resistant. After all, how much better can you do then sink every spanish ship . Do we really need to fire more accurately . So what if we only need to use 4000 shells, as opposed to 8000, we still sunk every ship. You cant do better than that. So that became an obstacle for navy reform at that time. Does anybody have any questions thus far about what i have been talking about . I have a quick question. Why was there such a lack of logistical planning and foresight, even after the army established Cavalry Schools . Professor glatthaar excellent question. You have these people trained in combined arms, but the problem is you have an organization within the War Department, whose job it is to plan for war. We have no mobilization plans. We didnt even have a map. The War Department did not have a map of cuba. Can you believe that . They didnt even have a map of cuba, that is how unprepared they were. So of course, they are doing everything on the fly, and shafter is not a good admitted strata, not a very professional soldier, and he is incapacitated by heat to make matters worse and as a result, you have a disastrous logistical situation. It is a classical example of how valuable good logistics are. Take the second half of the course and you will study the first gulf war and see how incredibly valuable just a are valuable logistics are, and of course world war ii in the Pacific Theater was tremendously valuable. But this is a valuable lesson. It will have a Significant Impact in the postwar period, as we will talk about a couple of lectures from now. Anyone else . I have a question. Professor glatthaar who is it . Kaylee. I wanted to go back to general wheeler. What presence did exconfererates have . Professor glatthaar with regard to wheeler, they are trying to bring the former confederacy back into government in a very effective way. And they are very slow to do that, because you dont want to bring back guys who were traitors to the United States, according to the United States military. But slowly but surely, they begin to do that, not so much guys bringing guys who fought in the confederacy into the regular army, but that opened up west point and the Naval Academy to southerners. So slowly but surely, you begin to build up large numbers. And when you had a situation like this when you had to mobilize large numbers of people, they thought it would be smart to choose selected individuals who had professional military experience, maybe even professional training, and put them in positions like wheeler, a former congressman, or James Harrison wilson, who was this extraordinary cavalry officer in the civil war, west point graduate, i think he graduated second in his west point class, and he was very close to grant. And they brought him back as well. So they had a number of individuals in that situation. Thank you. Professor glatthaar youre welcome. Anyone else . Good, good. So here we are, we occupy the high ground outside santiago, the spanish fleet is destroyed, the spanish of large numbers of troops in cuba. In santiago province they have 36,000 troops ending all of cuba almost 200,000 troops, but remember, the spanish are fighting cuban insurrectionists, who are really tough customers. They are badly equipped, badly clothed, badly financed, but tough customers. The problem is that their morale is low, they are running low on supplies and they are not in good shape, but the americans dont know that. So we began to suffer some problems. Yellow fever showed its ugly head. Soldiers came down with malaria, yellow fever, a lot of diarrhea, and they werent practicing effective sanitary precautions, werent being supplied properly, werent getting a balanced diet, and the situation began to get dyer. Shafter didnt know what to do. He floated the idea of retreating back to the beach, reorganizing everyone and then launching a new campaign. His subordinates said, the president will fire you in a heartbeat, that is a terrible idea, so what they end up doing, a staff officer said, offer them an opportunity to surrender. Shafter thought it was ridiculous, but he did, the americans sent a messenger, we think you should surrender, and amazingly, the spanish did. The americans didnt know how bad the situation was for the spanish. And to make matters worse, the spanish were really, really hurting, and it took a while for negotiations to come to that point. The amazing thing was, the spanish not only surrendered santiago, they surrendered all the spanish troops in cuba. The big stumbling block wise, who was going to transport the spanish soldiers back to spain . The u. S. Didnt want to, the spanish didnt have any means, the spanish were uneasy about the cuban fighters, that they the spanish were uneasy about the cuban fighters, that they would attack spanish soldiers after theyd disarmed. So the United States really had to protect the spanish soldiers in this scenario. But the spanish surrendered july 17, 1898. Now, matters werent over. With the yellow fever outbreak, to protect the spanish soldiers in this scenario. A number of Senior Officers signed a letter called a round robin. It was sent to the War Department and president. The intention was to warn him, or them, that if they didnt get these troops out of here, they would die of yellow fever and malaria. It is a little reminiscent of the Teddy Roosevelt Aircraft Carrier and the situation we have just been undergoing in guam. So in this case, Teddy Roosevelt, so it seems, leaked the round robin to the press. And the press played it up in a sensational way. William mckinley read the round robin in a washington, d. C. Newspaper, before he actually got the roundrobin. It doesnt take a genius to figure out president s dont like to learn Important News like that in that fashion. So the u. S. Government was in a bad situation, and didnt know what to do. They had to take steps to deal with the problem. They selected montauk, new york. Has anyone been to montauk, new york . You have . What was it like . It was pretty nice. I went to the lighthouse when i went there. Professor glatthaar it is really beautiful, it is on the extreme tip of long island in york, but it is so far out there that it is really isolated. And they didnt really know what the cause of yellow fever was, they didnt know what the cause of malaria was, they still thought it was miasmax emanating from the ground and didnt know how contagious they were, so they sent them to montauk, long island. The problem was, it was so far out there, there were no facilities for them. So they dumped these sick soldiers on the beaches, and the soldiers just laid there, no tents, no cot, didnt have sufficient medical supplies, one railroad goes out there and it has all sorts of family members of soldiers on their soldiers on there, because if they were going to take the soldiers way out there, by god, they were going to look after their loved ones. It became a huge scandal for the United States. They replaced these guys, and the government did another unbelievable, foolish thing. They raised units and called these units the immunes. They raised individuals they thought were immune from tropical diseases. Take a while to ask who made up the immunes . Anyone . Not white people . Professor glatthaar not white people, youve got that. They raised black units because they thought there were immune to tropical diseases, and they raised white units from places like louisiana where you may have been exposed to tropical diseases. They figured, if you are 22 years of age and have been exposed to tropical diseases, you are probably immune now. So they sent these people in to do the occupation of cuba. I have a question. If the spanish had already surrendered, why did they need those men to be replaced . I know they needed a few to occupy cuba, but did they need the same size army . Professor glatthaar they didnt send the exact same size. I think they sent eight immune regiments. But they had a lot of work to do. Cuba was afraid of widespread infection, they were worried about spanish soldiers, so we needed a military presence there. Plus, you couldnt just turn over cuba to the cubans. They were disorganized, had no experience leading their country, many of the more elite cubans sided with the spanish because they were all welloff and had a lot to lose, so it was a complicated situation and would take time to make adjustments. The americans were a little slower on allowing both, but they would need to take them. To put things in context, 771 americans died from disease. The u. S. Suffered 1500 casualties, killed and wounded in combat. But the death rate was much greater from disease, and much of this was unnecessary. And heres the evidence. The u. S. Had two separate commands that got involved in cuba. One was a Marine Battalion that went into guantanamo. The marines were dressed properly. They practiced rigorous sanitation. And as a result, they never had a sick rate that exceeded 2. 5 , and they lost zero in due to disease. Pretty impressive. If you look at our class, weve probably got somebody in the class who is sick right now, which means weve got 3 sick rate. So it is an extraordinary achievement, what the marines did. Furthermore, we sent nelson miles on an expedition into puerto rico. Miles is a very skilled officer and very difficult to deal with. You remember how insufferable Winfield Scott was . Miles wasnt quite in that league, but very close, very difficult person to deal with, but very skilled. Miles organized is puerto rico expedition skillfully, half of his regiments regular army and half volunteers, they landed in puerto rico july 25. The puerto rican public generally receive the americans well. Miles organized everything well. It was really effective in his execution. He made sure they abided by sanitary procedures and as a result, miles had virtually no sick rate. So it tells you it could have been done had we had a more competent command. So weve got guantanamo bay, weve got san juan, anyone with any more questions before we shift to the pacific . All right, lets talk about the pacific. That is how you spell the philippines, people, oftentimes misspelled, one l, two ps. Dewey sunk the spanish fleet, waited for reinforcement, waited for reinforcement command the british and germans both dried to make inroads there, because the spanish were in bad shape. The u. S. Resisted, they were going to be a part of it. The u. S. Eventually sent troops out there to the philippines, and it was one of those interesting situations. A brigade, 2500 men, arrived at guam. Guam was at the time part of spain, and the governor of guam apologized to the americans for not firing the appropriate salute to the american flag, but he said they had a shortage of gunpowder. The americans said, we are at war with spain, and you ought to surrender. Guam surrendered to the United States, that is how the United States got guam. Strange episode. The troops pushed onto the philippines, another 5000 arrived, then another 2500 under arthur macarthur, Douglas Macarthurs father. He was in the civil war, received the metal of honor, stayed in the army, was not a west point graduate but was a proven professional, really a fine soldier. The americans again building up troops in the philippines. Meanwhile, the philippines had been involved in a number of insurrections, the most recent to couple of years earlier, 1896. So the spanish in effect bought off the filipino leadership. They offered them money and other concessions if they would move into exile. The leader of this group was a guy named amelio aguinaldo. Aguinaldo was around forever, and my graduate advisor interviewed aguinaldo in 1960. He was still around in 1960. That is a long time to be in a single position. So aguinaldo took the money, didnt distribute it, stowed it away in the bank and was waiting to buy weapons to go back to the philippines for their independence. Aguinaldo began communicating with the American Ambassador in singapore, he thought they struck a deal, the American Ambassador set if the filipinos would 80 americans against the spanish, we would give the philippines their independence. The ambassador denied that. We dont know who was telling the truth, but when the americans began moving income the filipinos had already resurrected their insurrection, had a loose cordon around the city of manila with the spanish garrison inside the city. The americans then occupied a substantial portion of the land, and then something similar to cuba occurred. The spanish began communicating with the americans. They began saying, listen, we dont want to surrender to the filipinos. We are afraid they are going to execute us. So the americans and the spanish brokered a deal. The americans would launch an attack at a prescribed time, they would not inform the filipinos, spanish would fire some shots, then surrender, americans would take possession of the spanish and eventually ship them to spain. And the spanish could keep their heads held high, saying they resisted, but they could not defeat them. Well, at the appointed time, the americans did just that, launched the attack on august 3, 1898. Unfortunately, some spanish troops get word, so some americans got shot up, 50 of them. It was a sad situation where americans were attacking blockhouses with 38 caliber pistols thinking at the spanish were just going to fire over their heads, and they did do it. But the americans seized control of manila, gathered up the spanish troops, meanwhile, filipinos surrounded the americans. So youve got the spanish held by the americans and the filipinos surrounding the americans. The situation became really, really tense. Ultimately, the american who did a great job, west mayor it, civil war veteran, did a great job, then otis took charge. Otis was first commander of the infantry and Cavalry School and was instrumental in building it. In january 1899, something happened. It was a tense atmosphere, and a filipino patrol moving around, and nebraska troops began firing on them. As a captain recorded in his diary, last night about 930, firing began and it lasted all day and the natives got it good and hard. They ran like jackrabbits. So the situation was tense, once someone started firing, everyone started firing on the line. The filipinos were poorly armed, didnt have good discipline, they were poor marksmen, and after a few battles with the americans, they scattered into the mountains. And this turned into a really nasty guerrilla war. The americans replaced otis with macarthur, and macarthur conducted a skillful guerrilla campaign, as good as anyone could do under the circumstances. If we study the american war in vietnam, we will see similarities to things macarthur attempted, creating free fire zones, relocating communities, massive destruction of private property. Unfortunately, there was torture, there were concentration camps, large american parties going through jungles, tracking down insurgents, it was a nasty fight. Lots of losses and lots of destruction. One of the key advances occurred when a guy named fred funston captured aguinaldo. Funston had volunteered to fight alongside the cuban insurrectionist and he got shot. He was able to recover, and he really liked being in the military, so he enlisted in the u. S. Army and ended up fighting there. He came up with an ingenious plan to capture aguinaldo. There were filipino scouts working for the americans and they seized funston into his camp, pretending it was a prisoner of war, and that the appropriate time they seized aguinaldo from his camp and brought him back. So he was captured, and fighting continued on the island of luzon until july 1902. The war ended because Teddy Roosevelt simply announced the war was over. Teddy roosevelt, writing on the fame of his success in the spanishamerican war, became mckinleys Vice President ial candidate and when mckinley was assassinated, Teddy Roosevelt became president. The war was pretty extraordinary and pretty brutal. Almost 75,000 americans fought in the philippines. We tend to focus on cuba, but the war in the philippines whats that philippines was much bigger and much longer lasting. The u. S. Lost 4300 killed and 2800 wounded in fighting in the philippines. The war cost 600 million, a staggering sum at the time. We dont know exactly how many casualties the filipinos suffered, but we do know they were astounding. Estimates i have seen our 16,000 to 20,000 killed, and another 200,000 civilian deaths. But we dont have any idea how accurate that information is. And that doesnt reflect the harsh implications of the war on the philippines economy, so you had widespread starvation, hunger, someone. Back home, there is tremendous opposition to the war. War is closely related to imperialism. People began hearing about atrocities, and that bothered them. An Organization Called the antiimperialist league was organized against american imperialism, and they began publishing antiwar materials. They published this letter, allegedly from american soldier a. A. Barnes, third u. S. Artillery, 1899, the town was surrender to us and to us into companies occupied same. Last night one of our boys was found shot and his stomach cut open. Orders were received burned the town and kill every native insight, which was done to a finish. 1000 men, women and children were killed. I am hard hearted, for i am in my glory when i can cite my gun on some dark skin. Actually, the letter is fictitious, there is no a. A. Barnes in the u. S. Army. The governor of illinois, also an antiimperialist, he read a letter that the command shot a wedding party, and this was investigated in this claim was false. But it did create a really bad perception in the minds of many people. We also have an issue in the southernmost large island of the philippines. The philippines consists of, i cant were member, 4000 islands, and one major island is mindanao. Mindanao is occupied by the moros. If you are an inveterate newspaper reader, you will see every year or two, a story about the moros. The moros are fighting the philippines government today, they fought the spanish, they fought the americans, they fought the japanese in world war ii, the moros love to fight. And when we kept of the spanish, the spanish warned us, no matter what you do, do not mess with the moros. You guessed it, we must with the moros, and got involved in some really tough fighting. This poster was promoting the handgun that american officer was carrying, a 45 caliber handgun. The u. S. Standard sidearm for officers was a 38 caliber, but it wouldnt stop a moro, so they had to shift to the 45 caliber and the nickname for it was called the moro stopper. The fighting was tough. The moros were extraordinarily good at it. And it became a sort of whos who in the early American Army in terms of who got involved in fighting against the moros. Three chiefs of staff in world war i fought the moros. The sole member of the u. S. Air force, to induce you to sign up for the second half of this course, benny malloy fought the moros. They even set up a club within the old army for people who have fought the moros, because there were so tough to fight. But the one who was better at fighting them than anyone else was john j. Pershing. Pershing would lead expeditionsize campaigns against the moros, he was good at it and got promoted based on two factors. One, he was so good at fighting the moros. Second, his fatherinlaw was on the Senate Military affairs committee, which helped when you have that clout. So he went from captain to Brigadier General in the army. The war ended, the u. S. Continue to fight the moros, there were Amazing Stories about fighting the moros in American Military history, pretty extraordinary stuff. There is a famous story where an american officer is leaving and the moro came out to bid him farewell, and they had respected the americans who fought well, and as the ship was leaving, the chief was was coming out and in translation, send back pershing, send back pershing, they left fighting pershing because pershing was so tough. In the end, the war was resolved with the treaty of paris. Pershing was so tough. In the end, the war was resolved there were big issues whether the United States should take over the philippines as colonies, mckinley struggled over the decision, he didnt have a problem having cuba independence, but his big problem was the philippines. The United States decided it would keep the philippines, keep puerto rico, keep guam. The u. S. Compensated spain 20 million for the philippines, the treaty was signed in december 1898, called the treaty of paris. The treaty was ratified by a vote of 5727, so these areas became part of the u. S. And the west now became an overseas imperialist power. Anyone have any questions about any of these issues . Anyone . Ok, so no one has anything to say . All right, great fun as usual. I will see you here thursday. Thank you so much for all your participation. You folks are great. Take care. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] youre watching American History tv only on cspan3. This is American History tv on cspan3 where each weekend w feature 48 pe hours of programming exploring our nations past. This year marks the 250th anniversary of the march 5 1770 boston massacre. Next on American History tv from the American Society in massachusetts, mitch kachun talks about his book f irst martyr in history. He explores how and why attucks, they former slave who was killed of the massacre, has sometimes been celebrated and other times forgotten or vilified by americans. Good evening,