Significance of the Fall of Santiago
The following review of and reflections upon the great victory described in the foregoing pages is taken from the "History of the Spanish-American War," by Henry Watterson.
THE land fighting before Santiago was dwarfed by the spectacular glory of the naval engagement that followed swiftly upon its heels. The ocean is the perfect battlefield, offering no natural advantage to either combatant. On land, the limitless opportunities for defence, concealment, and surprise require most patient investigation both of the original plan of a battle and its variations in execution, in order that the action may be comprehended and explained. All that is known at first are the general results and the confused mass of individual experiences and incidents that indicate the fighting temper of the forces engaged. The fighting before Santiago on July 1 and 2 was without precedent, and was involved in more confusion than any other modern battle of respectable scale. The destruction of Cervera's squadron was achieved amid all the surroundings of a magnificent theatrical display. Its opening, swift progress, and final tragedy, possessed a dramatic completeness of effect that could not have been surpassed if the details had been designed and rehearsed in advance.
Yet, splendid as the achievement was, the heroism displayed by the soldiers in the obscurity of the inland jungles was of a quality that equalled the courage and skill by which our ships were brought out victorious. And, at the moment when the observers of the land battles were preparing to analyze the incidents and construct the great story, the naval engagement intervened and relegated the army's achievements to second place. It was not until two weeks had elapsed and Santiago had surrendered, that the world understood the significance of the American fighting at San Juan and El Caney.
The discovery was momentous. Upon a larger field 16,000 men, against the same odds and with the same determination of unprecedented courage, devoid of any quality of desperation, had repeated the achievement of the 950 at Las Guasimas. As Sampson's fleet demonstrated that Dewey's victory was the fruit of national character and system, and not chance, the forces at San Juan and El Caney enforced with equal thoroughness the lesson of Las Guasimas.
It established the quality of manhood developed by free government, which the monarchical systems had persistently denied. The very blunders of forecast called out triumphantly the individual resource of each soldier, apart from the combination in bodies. It is doubtful if the desperate courage of the Spaniards had been underestimated; but certainly the deadly Cuban climate, with its alternation of burning heat and nightly chill, its drowning tropical rains, the rankness of vegetation, the tangled jungles, and the absence of foundations for road-building -- certainly these were all underestimated or not prepared for. Yet, if it had been determined to overcome these obstacles before attacking, the purpose of the government to push the war to a quick conclusion could not have been achieved. Cuba could not have been scientifically invaded and the war ended short of twelve months.
It was thoroughly characteristic of the American idea of "business" that when Shafter perceived the heat and the impending of the rainy season he determined without hesitation to "beat the rains to Santiago," and do the necessary fighting while the health and spirits of the men were good. It cannot be said that the losses in battle were greater because of the impetuous advance. The losses by disease later demonstrated the wisdom of haste.
The three battles on the journey were characteristic of what Europe has sarcastically called "American enterprise." Disregarding tradition and precedent, the army of the United States, provided with no field artillery of sufficient power, plunged into a jungle and marched against a fortified city -- leaving all supplies behind, and throwing away, on the march, every pound of clothing and equipment that was not necessary for actual fighting.
The extreme advance-guard of 950 cavalrymen, marching and fighting for the first time dismounted, half of them volunteers of two months' training, charged an enemy two or three times greater in numbers, intrenched, provided with artillery, protected by barbed wire entanglements, in a familiar jungle, and drove them back after an hour's fighting. It was called an "ambush," and at home amateur critics of war attributed to desperation the valor of our troops. It was to be discovered later that from Las Guasimas to Santiago the same ambuscade confronted all our troops.
Halting only to fight, rest, and permit the main body to come up, cut off from provisions and hospital relief, with quarter rations for empty stomachs, the half-nude and weary, but determined army reached the outposts of Santiago and assaulted them with a spirit that would not be denied. The outposts that were to be taken in two days were stormed and captured against overwhelming odds of defence in one day, after ten hours of ceaseless fighting. The night was spent in making intrenchments and resisting attempts at recapture, and the next day in the blazing sunlight, without tents, without food, without relief, they fought the enemy back to his last ditch and held the city.
Of the 15,000 troops engaged, three regiments were volunteers practically useless, not for lack of fighting qualities -- the stubborn march disproved that -- but because their rifle ammunition carried black powder and the smoke menaced our troops by revealing their position at every discharge. Of the remainder, one regiment was of volunteers with smokeless powder ammunition, and the remainder regulars, one-third of whose ranks had been recruited within sixty-five days. One-third of that army was practically composed of volunteer recruits.