Spanish-American War Essay

Spanish-American War (1898)

After 1895 Americans were largely unsympathetic to Spain ‘s attempt to subdue Cuban rebels. Relations between the two countries steadily worsened with the sinking of the U.S. battleship Maine , an insulting letter from the Spanish minister Dupuy de Lôme, and a warmongering American press. War finally broke out in April 1898. This ‘‘splendid little war,” as Secretary of State John Hay termed it, ended within a few months after decisive American victories in Cuba and the Philippines, with fewer than four hundred Americans killed in battle. Military and naval heroes included Colonel Theodore Roosevelt and Admiral George Dewey, with their victories at San Juan Hill and Manila Bay , respectively. By the terms of the Treaty of Paris, ratified in 1899, Cuba became independent; the United States acquired Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines for $20 million. However, the treaty’s terms sparked heated debate among Americans over whether their nation should join the ranks of colonial powers.
Suggestions for Term Papers

1. Analyze the impact of the sinking of the Maine on American public opinion, or discuss modern historians’ theories about the cause of the battleship’s loss.

2. Discuss whether William Randolph Hearst’s yellow journalism contributed to the United States ‘s entry into the war, and why.

3. Discuss the long-range impact of the war on the American presence in the Caribbean .

4. Discuss the war’s impact on the future of Cuba or Puerto Rico , or both.

5. Argue that the war was the first modern war of the twentieth century or the last old-fashioned war of the nineteenth century.

Suggested Sources : See entry 2 for related items.

REFERENCE SOURCES

Historical Dictionary of the Spanish-American War. Westport, CT : Greenwood, 1996. Donald H. Dyal. A one-volume encyclopedia with sketches of individuals involved in the war and brief essays on all aspects of the war. Bibliographical references follow each entry.

The Late 19th Century U.S. Army, 1865–1898: A Research Guide. Joseph G. Dawson III. Westport, CT : Greenwood, 1990. Excellent for military campaigns of the Spanish-American War.

The Spanish-American War: An Annotated Bibliography. Anne Cipriano Venzon. New York : Garland, 1990. A supplement to Dawson (above entry) for naval operations, post-1898 operations in Cuba and the Philippines, and diplomatic and political matters.

The War of 1898 and U.S. Interventions, 1898–1934. Benjamin R. Beede, ed. Hamden, CT : Garland, 1993. An excellent analysis of leaders in the debate over the U.S. peacetime role in the former Spanish colonies.

SPECIALIZED SOURCES

The War and Its Aftermath

Blow, Michael. A Ship to Remember: The Maine and the Spanish-American War . New York : Morrow, 1992. Lively study with useful bibliography.

Bradford, James C., ed. Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War and Its Aftermath. Annapolis, MD : Naval Institute Press, 1993. Nine essays supplementing topics covered in David Trask’s War with Spain (see below).

Cashin, Herschel V. Under Fire with the 10th Cavalry. (1899). Reprint. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 1993. Eyewitness account.

Cohen, Stan. Images of the Spanish-American War, April–August, 1898. Missoula , MT : Pictorial Histories, 1997. Hundreds of photographs, prints, and maps about the war and events leading up to it.

Feuer, A. B. The Santiago Campaign of 1898: A Soldier’s View of the Spanish-American War. Westport, CT : Praeger, 1993. Collection of contemporary soldiers’ reminiscences. Helpful footnotes.

Foner, Philip S. The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism, 1895–1902 . 2 vols. New York : Monthly Review Press, 1972. Reprint. Books on Demand. The first volume ends in 1898; second volume provides excellent coverage of the U.S. occupation. A study of the war’s ‘‘imperialist” issues by a respected left-wing historian.

Golay, Michael. The Spanish-American War . New York : Facts on File, 1995. Informative and interesting account of the war from the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine to the end. Includes photographs and maps.

Gould, Lewis A. The Spanish-American War and President McKinley.

Lawrence : University of Kansas Press, 1982. A brief, informative examination of McKinley’s presidency during the war. Based on an earlier work.

Roosevelt, Theodore. The Rough Riders . (1899). Reprint. New York : Da Capo, 1990. Roosevelt ‘s account of the Cuban campaign.

Smith, Robert Freeman. The United States and the Latin American Sphere of Influence . 2 vols. Malabar , FL : Krieger, 1981, 1983. An excellent overview in volume 1 for Cuba and Puerto Rico before, during, and after the war.

Trask, David F. The War with Spain in 1898 . New York : Macmillan, 1981. Standard modern history of the war.

Journalism and the War

Crane, Stephen. Reports of War . Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press , 1971. (Vol. 9 of the university edition of The Works of Stephen Crane .) More than one hundred pages of Crane’s dispatches from Cuba and Puerto Rico , 1898–1899. The author of The Red Badge of Courage was also a well-known journalist.

Milton, Joyce. The Yellow Kids: Foreign Correspondents in the Heyday of Yellow Journalism . New York : Harper&Row, 1989. Lively novelistic approach to the yellow journalists who helped bring about the war.

BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES

Blum, John Morton. The Republican Roosevelt . 2d ed. Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1977. Standard one-volume biography of Theodore Roosevelt .

Dewey, George. Autobiography . [1913]. Reprint. Annapolis : Naval Institute Press, 1987. These memoirs available in several reprints.

Grant, George. Carry a Big Stick: The Uncommon Heroism of Theodore Roosevelt . Nashville , TN ; Cumberland House, 1996. An interesting picture of Theodore Roosevelt’s character.

Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt . New York : Coward, McCann, 1979. Splendid account of Roosevelt ‘s prepresidential career, including the Cuban campaign.

Swanberg, W. A. Citizen Hearst: A Biography of William Randolph Hearst . (1961). Reprint. New York : Simon&Schuster, 1981. Remains the definitive story of a publisher who helped start a war.

AUDIOVISUAL SOURCES

The Spanish-American War/World War I . Nashville : Knowledge Products, 1995. 2 audiocassettes. 90-minute tapes narrated by George C. Scott; part of The United States at War series.

The Splendid Little War . Kearny , NJ : Belle Grove Publishing Co., 1992. Videocassette. 55-minute documentary including recently recovered film documenting the war as the first conflict captured in moving images.

WORLD WIDE WEB

Spanish-American War Centennial Website . http://www.powerscourt.com/war/index.htm Currently under construction. Offers a chronology of the war and eventually will include background material, action reports, profiles, and other material.