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.
