The Secretary of War then hit upon the really happy though quite unmilitary device of offering, in return for unconditional surrender, to transport the Spanish troops, at once and without parole, back to their own country. Secretary Alger was no unskillful politician, and he was right in believing that this device, though unconventional, would make a strong appeal to an army three years away from home and with dwindling hopes of ever seeing Spain again. On the 15th of July a capitulation was agreed upon, and the terms of surrender included not only the troops in Santiago but all those in that military district—about twenty-four thousand men, with cannon, rifles, ammunition, rations, and other military supplies. Shafter's recommendation that the troops be allowed to carry their arms back to Spain with them was properly refused by the War Department. Arrangements were made for Spanish ships paid by the United States to take the men immediately to Spain. This extraordinary operation was begun on the 8th of August, while the war was still in progress, and was accomplished before peace was established.
The Santiago campaign, like the Mexican War, was fought chiefly by regulars. The Rough Riders and the Seventy-first New York Regiment were the only volunteer units to take a heavy share. Yet the absence of effective staff management was so marked that, as compared with the professional accuracy shown by the navy, the whole campaign on land appears as an amateur undertaking. But the individual character of both volunteers and regulars was high. The American victory was fundamentally due to the fighting spirit of the men and to the individual initiative of the line and field officers.
In the meantime the health of the American Army was causing grave concern to its more observant leaders. Six weeks of Cuban climate had taken out of the army all that exuberant energy which it had brought with it from the north. The army had accomplished its purpose only at the complete sacrifice of its fighting strength. Had the Spanish commander possessed more nerve and held out a little longer, he might well have seen his victorious enemies wither before his eyes, as the British had before Cartagena in 1741. On the 3d of August a large number of the officers of the Santiago army, including Generals Wheeler, Sumner, and Lawton, and Colonel Roosevelt, addressed a round robin to General Shafter on the alarming condition of the army. Its substance is indicated in the following sentences: "This army must be moved at once or it will perish. As an army it can be safely moved now. Persons responsible for preventing such a move will be responsible for the unnecessary loss of many thousands of lives." Already on the 1st of August, General Shafter had reported 4255 sick, of whom 3164 were cases of yellow fever, that deadly curse of Cuba, which the lack of proper quarantine had so often allowed to invade the shores of the United States. On the 3d of August, even before General Shafter had received the round robin, the Secretary of War authorized the withdrawal of at least a portion of the army, which was to be replaced by supposedly immune regiments. By the middle of August, the soldiers began to arrive at Camp Wikoff at Montauk Point, on the eastern end of Long Island. Through this camp, which had been hastily put into condition to receive them, there passed about thirty-five thousand soldiers, of whom twenty thousand were sick. When the public saw those who a few weeks before had been healthy and rollicking American boys, now mere skeletons, borne helpless in stretchers and looking old and shriveled, a wave of righteous indignation against Secretary Alger swept over the country, and eventually accomplished enough to prevent such catastrophes in the future.
The distressing experience of the army was too real not to have its constructive effect. Men like William Crawford Gorgas were inspired to study the sanitation and the diseases of the tropics and have now made it possible for white men to live there safely. Men of affairs like Elihu Root were stimulated to give their talents to army administration. Fortunately the boys were brought north just in time to save their lives, and the majority, after a recuperation of two or three years, regained their normal health.
The primary responsibility for this gamble with death rested with those who sent an expedition from the United States to the tropics in midsummer when the measures necessary to safeguard its health were not yet known. This responsibility rested immediately upon the American people themselves, all too eager for a war for which they were not prepared and for a speedy victory at all costs. For this national impatience they had to pay dearly. The striking contrast, however, between the efficiency of the navy and the lack of preparation on the part of the army shows that the people as a whole would have supported a more thorough preparation of the army, had the responsible officials possessed sufficient courage and intelligence to have demanded it; nor would the people have been unwilling to defer victory until autumn, had they been honestly informed of the danger of tropical disease into which they were sending the flower of their youth. Such a postponement would not only have meant better weather but it would have given time to teach the new officers their duty in safeguarding the health of their men as far as possible, and this precaution alone would have saved many lives. Owing to the greater practical experience of the officers in the regular regiments, the death rate among the men in their ranks fell far below that among the volunteers, even though many of the men with the regulars had enlisted after the declaration of war. On the other hand, speed as well as sanitation was an element in the war, and the soldier who was sacrificed to lack of preparation may be said to have served his country no less than he who died in battle. Strategy and diplomacy in this instance were enormously facilitated by the immediate invasion of Cuba, and perhaps the outcome justified the cost. The question of relative values is a difficult one.
No such equation of values, however, can hold the judgment in suspense in the case of the host of secondary errors that grew out of the indolence of Secretary Alger and his worship of politics. Probably General Miles was mistaken in his charges concerning embalmed beef, and possibly the canned beef was not so bad as it tasted; but there can be no excuse for a Secretary of War who did not consider it his business to investigate the question of proper rations for an army in the tropics simply because Congress had, years before, fixed a ration for use within the United States. There was no excuse for sending many of the men clad in heavy army woolens. There was no excuse for not providing a sufficient number of surgeons and abundant hospital service. There was little excuse for the appointment of General Shafter, which was made in part for political reasons. There was no excuse for keeping at the head of the army administration General Nelson A. Miles, with whom, whatever his abilities, the Secretary of War was unable to work.
The navy did not escape controversy. In fact, a war fought under the eyes of hundreds of uncensored newspaper correspondents unskilled in military affairs could not fail to supply a daily grist of scandal to an appreciative public. The controversy between Sampson and Schley, however, grew out of incompatible personalities stirred to rivalry by indiscreet friends and a quarrelsome public. Captain Sampson was chosen to command, and properly so, because of his recognized abilities. Commodore Schley, a genial and open-hearted man, too much given to impulse, though he outranked Sampson, was put under his command. Sampson was not gracious in his treatment of the Commodore, and ill feeling resulted. When the time came to promote both officers for their good conduct, Secretary Long by recommending that Sampson be raised eight numbers and Schley six, reversed their relative positions as they had been before the war. This recommendation, in itself proper, was sustained by the Senate, and all the vitality the controversy ever had then disappeared, though it remains a bone of contention to be gnawed by biographers and historians.
CHAPTER XII. The Close Of The War
While the American people were concentrating their attention upon the blockade of Santiago near their own shores, the situation in the distant islands of the Pacific was rapidly becoming acute. All through June, Dewey had been maintaining himself, with superb nerve, in Manila Harbor, in the midst of uncertain neutrals. A couple of unwieldy United States monitors were moving slowly to his assistance from the one side, while a superior Spanish fleet was approaching from the other. On the 26th of June, the Spanish Admiral Camara had reached Port Said, but he was not entirely happy. Several of his vessels proved to be in that ineffective condition which was characteristic of the Spanish Navy. The Egyptian authorities refused him permission to refit his ships or to coal, and the American consul had with foresight bought up much of the coal which the Spanish Admiral had hoped to secure and take aboard later from colliers. Nevertheless the fleet passed through the Suez Canal and entered the Red Sea.