Posted on Apr 11, 2021
Declaration of War (1898), President William McKinley
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On April 11, 1898, President McKinley asked the United States Senate for a declaration of war against Spain. Here is an excerpt from that request. From the article:
"Declaration of War (1898), President William McKinley
President McKinley found it impossible to resist the mounting public and political pressure for war against Spain. In requesting a declaration of war from the Senate on April 11, 1898, he listed several concerns but stressed the nation's humanitarian sympathy for the Cuban independence movement. He said little about the long-range implications of war.
To the Congress of the United States:
. . . The present revolution is but the successor of other similar insurrections which have occurred in Cuba against the dominion of Spain, extending over a period of nearly half a century, each of which during its progress has subjected the United States to great effort and expense in enforcing its neutrality laws, caused enormous losses to American trade and commerce, caused irritation, annoyance, and disturbance among our citizens, and, by the exercise of cruel, barbarous, and uncivilized practices of warfare, shocked the sensibilities and offended the human sympathies of our people. . . .
Our trade has suffered, the capital invested by our citizens in Cuba has been largely lost, and the temper and forbearance of our people have been so sorely tried as to beget a perilous unrest among our own citizens, which has inevitably found its expression from time to time in the National Legislature, so that issues wholly external to our own body politic engross attention and stand in the way of that close devotion to domestic advancement that becomes a selfcontained commonwealth whose primal maxim has been the avoidance of all foreign entanglements.
All this must needs awaken, and has, indeed, aroused, the utmost concern on the part of this Government, as well during my predecessor's term as in my own. . . . The overtures of this Government [to the Spanish government] . . . were met by assurances that home rule in an advanced phase would be forthwith offered to Cuba, without waiting for the war to end, and that more humane methods should thenceforth prevail in the conduct of hostilities.
* * *
The war in Cuba is of such a nature that, short of subjugation or extermination, a final military victory for either side seems impracticable. The alternative lies in the physical exhaustion of the one or the other party, or perhaps of both. . . . The prospect of such a protraction and conclusion of the present strife is a contingency hardly to be contemplated with equanimity by the civilized world, and least of all by the United States, affected and injured as we are, deeply and intimately, by its very existence. . . .
The spirit of all our acts hitherto has been an earnest, unselfish desire for peace and prosperity in Cuba, untarnished by differences between us and Spain and unstained by the blood of American citizens. The forcible intervention of the United States as a neutral to stop the war . . . is justifiable on rational grounds . . . [which] may be briefly summarized as follows:
First. In the cause of humanity and to put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries now existing there, and which the parties to the conflict are either unable or unwilling to stop or mitigate. It is no answer to say this is all in another country, belonging to another nation, and is therefore none of our business. It is specially our duty, for it is right at our door.
Second. We owe it to our citizens in Cuba to afford them that protection and indemnity for life and property which no government there can or will afford, and to that end to terminate the conditions that deprive them of legal protection.
Third. The right to intervene may be justified by the very serious injury to the commerce, trade, and business of our people and by the wanton destruction of property and devastation of the island.
Fourth, and which is of the utmost importance. The present condition of affairs in Cuba is a constant menace to our peace and entails upon this Government an enormous expense. With such a conflict waged for years in an island so near us and with which our people have such trade and business relations; when the lives and liberty of our citizens are in constant danger and their property destroyed and themselves ruined; where our trading vessels are liable to seizure and are seized at our very door by war ships of a foreign nation; the expeditions of filibustering that we are powerless to prevent altogether, and the irritating questions and entanglements thus arising—all these and others that I need not mention, with the resulting strained relations, are a constant menace to our peace and compel us to keep on a semi-war footing with a nation with which we are at peace.
These elements of danger and disorder already pointed out have been strikingly illustrated by a tragic event which has deeply and justly moved the American people. I have already transmitted to Congress the report of the naval court of inquiry on the destruction of the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana during the night of the l5th of February. The destruction of that noble vessel has filled the national heart with inexpressible horror.
* * *
The naval court of inquiry, which, it is needless to say, commands the unqualified confidence of the Government, was unanimous in its conclusion that the destruction of the Maine was caused by an exterior explosion—that of a submarine mine. It did not assume to place the responsibility. That remains to be fixed. In any event, the destruction of the Maine, by whatever exterior cause, is a patent and impressive proof of a state of things in Cuba that is intolerable. That condition is thus shown to be such that the Spanish Government can not assure safety and security to a vessel of the American Navy in the harbor of Havana on a mission of peace, and rightfulIy there. . . .
The long trial has proved that the object for which Spain has waged the war can not be attained. The fire of insurrection may flame or may smolder with varying seasons, but it has not been and it is plain that it can not be extinguished by present methods. The only hope of relief and repose from a condition which can no longer be endured is the enforced pacification of Cuba. In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of endangered American interests which give us the right and the duty to speak and to act, the war in Cuba must stop. In view of these facts and of these considerations I ask the Congress to authorize and empower the President to take measures to secure a full and final termination of hostilities between the Government of Spain and the people of Cuba, and to secure in the island the establishment of a stable government, capable of maintaining order and observing its international obligations, insuring peace and tranquility and the security of its citizens as well as our own, and to use the military and naval forces of the United States as may be necessary for these purposes. . . .
[From James D. Richardson, ed., Messages and Papers of the Presidents (Washington, D.C., 1899), 10:139-50.]"
"Declaration of War (1898), President William McKinley
President McKinley found it impossible to resist the mounting public and political pressure for war against Spain. In requesting a declaration of war from the Senate on April 11, 1898, he listed several concerns but stressed the nation's humanitarian sympathy for the Cuban independence movement. He said little about the long-range implications of war.
To the Congress of the United States:
. . . The present revolution is but the successor of other similar insurrections which have occurred in Cuba against the dominion of Spain, extending over a period of nearly half a century, each of which during its progress has subjected the United States to great effort and expense in enforcing its neutrality laws, caused enormous losses to American trade and commerce, caused irritation, annoyance, and disturbance among our citizens, and, by the exercise of cruel, barbarous, and uncivilized practices of warfare, shocked the sensibilities and offended the human sympathies of our people. . . .
Our trade has suffered, the capital invested by our citizens in Cuba has been largely lost, and the temper and forbearance of our people have been so sorely tried as to beget a perilous unrest among our own citizens, which has inevitably found its expression from time to time in the National Legislature, so that issues wholly external to our own body politic engross attention and stand in the way of that close devotion to domestic advancement that becomes a selfcontained commonwealth whose primal maxim has been the avoidance of all foreign entanglements.
All this must needs awaken, and has, indeed, aroused, the utmost concern on the part of this Government, as well during my predecessor's term as in my own. . . . The overtures of this Government [to the Spanish government] . . . were met by assurances that home rule in an advanced phase would be forthwith offered to Cuba, without waiting for the war to end, and that more humane methods should thenceforth prevail in the conduct of hostilities.
* * *
The war in Cuba is of such a nature that, short of subjugation or extermination, a final military victory for either side seems impracticable. The alternative lies in the physical exhaustion of the one or the other party, or perhaps of both. . . . The prospect of such a protraction and conclusion of the present strife is a contingency hardly to be contemplated with equanimity by the civilized world, and least of all by the United States, affected and injured as we are, deeply and intimately, by its very existence. . . .
The spirit of all our acts hitherto has been an earnest, unselfish desire for peace and prosperity in Cuba, untarnished by differences between us and Spain and unstained by the blood of American citizens. The forcible intervention of the United States as a neutral to stop the war . . . is justifiable on rational grounds . . . [which] may be briefly summarized as follows:
First. In the cause of humanity and to put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries now existing there, and which the parties to the conflict are either unable or unwilling to stop or mitigate. It is no answer to say this is all in another country, belonging to another nation, and is therefore none of our business. It is specially our duty, for it is right at our door.
Second. We owe it to our citizens in Cuba to afford them that protection and indemnity for life and property which no government there can or will afford, and to that end to terminate the conditions that deprive them of legal protection.
Third. The right to intervene may be justified by the very serious injury to the commerce, trade, and business of our people and by the wanton destruction of property and devastation of the island.
Fourth, and which is of the utmost importance. The present condition of affairs in Cuba is a constant menace to our peace and entails upon this Government an enormous expense. With such a conflict waged for years in an island so near us and with which our people have such trade and business relations; when the lives and liberty of our citizens are in constant danger and their property destroyed and themselves ruined; where our trading vessels are liable to seizure and are seized at our very door by war ships of a foreign nation; the expeditions of filibustering that we are powerless to prevent altogether, and the irritating questions and entanglements thus arising—all these and others that I need not mention, with the resulting strained relations, are a constant menace to our peace and compel us to keep on a semi-war footing with a nation with which we are at peace.
These elements of danger and disorder already pointed out have been strikingly illustrated by a tragic event which has deeply and justly moved the American people. I have already transmitted to Congress the report of the naval court of inquiry on the destruction of the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana during the night of the l5th of February. The destruction of that noble vessel has filled the national heart with inexpressible horror.
* * *
The naval court of inquiry, which, it is needless to say, commands the unqualified confidence of the Government, was unanimous in its conclusion that the destruction of the Maine was caused by an exterior explosion—that of a submarine mine. It did not assume to place the responsibility. That remains to be fixed. In any event, the destruction of the Maine, by whatever exterior cause, is a patent and impressive proof of a state of things in Cuba that is intolerable. That condition is thus shown to be such that the Spanish Government can not assure safety and security to a vessel of the American Navy in the harbor of Havana on a mission of peace, and rightfulIy there. . . .
The long trial has proved that the object for which Spain has waged the war can not be attained. The fire of insurrection may flame or may smolder with varying seasons, but it has not been and it is plain that it can not be extinguished by present methods. The only hope of relief and repose from a condition which can no longer be endured is the enforced pacification of Cuba. In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of endangered American interests which give us the right and the duty to speak and to act, the war in Cuba must stop. In view of these facts and of these considerations I ask the Congress to authorize and empower the President to take measures to secure a full and final termination of hostilities between the Government of Spain and the people of Cuba, and to secure in the island the establishment of a stable government, capable of maintaining order and observing its international obligations, insuring peace and tranquility and the security of its citizens as well as our own, and to use the military and naval forces of the United States as may be necessary for these purposes. . . .
[From James D. Richardson, ed., Messages and Papers of the Presidents (Washington, D.C., 1899), 10:139-50.]"
Declaration of War (1898), President William McKinley
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Spanish American War
Congress
American History
Military History
Warfare
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The Spanish American War: Explained (Short Animated Documentary)
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Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for reminding us that on April 11, 1898, President William McKinley asked the United States Senate for a declaration of war against Spain.
"William McKinley (1843-1901) was 18 years old in 1861 when he enlisted as a private in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry (O.V.I.). By the time he mustered out of service, he had been promoted to the rank of brevet major of volunteers. William McKinley, the twenty-fifth president of the United States, was born in Niles, Ohio. He enlisted in the army at the outbreak of the Civil War and, after being mustered out, studied law and opened a law office in Canton.
The Spanish American War: Explained (Short Animated Documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaOKfu7ZK7I
Images:
1. 1898 Battleship U.S.S. Maine, at anchor. The explosion in Havana harbor that sank the Maine helped precipitate the Spanish-American War.
2. Aberdeen Daily News newspaper April 26, 1898 Spanish American War
3. Wreck of USS Maine
4. Spanish American War 1898 maps
5. This photograph of McKinley in uniform measures 2" by 4" (5.08 by 10.16 cm).
Background
1. edsitement.neh.gov/this-day/president-william-mckinley-asks-congress-declaration-war-against-spain
2. Chronology
3. spanamwar.com/McKinleywardec.htm
1. Background summary {[https://edsitement.neh.gov/this-day/president-william-mckinley-asks-congress-declaration-war-against-spain]}
On April 11, 1898, two months after the battleship U.S.S. Maine was destroyed by an explosion in Havana harbor, President McKinley sent a message to Congress requesting authority to use the U.S. armed forces to end a brutal civil war in the Spanish colony of Cuba. Congress voted to support Cuban independence, to demand the withdrawal of Spanish troops from the island, and to authorize the use of force to achieve those objectives. On April 25, after Spain broke diplomatic relations and declared war against the United States, Congress formally asserted that a state of war existed. In a whirlwind military campaign, the U.S. Army invaded Cuba and the U.S. Navy destroyed Spanish squadrons in the Caribbean and Manila Bay. Hostilities were halted on August 12, 1898. The two sides signed a peace treaty in Paris on December 10, in which Madrid recognized Cuban independence and ceded Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam to the United States. With its victory in the Spanish-American War the United States claimed status as a global power – and, in a relative absence of mind, it acquired something of an overseas empire."
2. Chronology of Spanish American War
Background from {[https://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/chronology.html]}
Chronology
By Country: Cuba | Philippines and Guam | Puerto Rico | Spain
1868
10 October - Carlos M. Céspedes issued the Grito de Yara and initiated the Ten Years' War in Cuba (1868-1878), the independence movement that served as the forerunner of the 1895 Insurrection and the Spanish American War.
1887
March - Publication in Berlin, Germany, of Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) by José Rizal, the Philippines' most illustrious son, awakened Filipino national consciousness.
1890
U.S. foreign policy is influenced by Alfred T. Mahan who wrote The Influence of Sea Power upon history, 1600-1783, which advocated the taking of the Caribbean Islands, Hawaii, and the Philippine Islands for bases to protect U.S. commerce, the building of a canal to enable fleet movement from ocean to ocean and the building of the Great White fleet of steam-driven armor plated battleships.
1892
5 January - José Julián Martí y Pérez formed El Partido Revolucionario Cubano (Cuban Revolutionary party). This Cuban political party was organized first in New York City and Philadelphia and soon spread to Tampa and Key West, Florida.
3 July - La Liga Filipina, a political action group that sought reforms in the Spanish administration of the Philippines by peaceful means, was launched formally at a Tondo meeting by José Rizal upon his return to the Philippines from Europe and Hong Kong in June 1892. Rizal's arrest three days later for possessing anti-friar bills and eventual banishment to Dapitan directly led to the demise of the Liga a year or so later.
7 July - Andrés Bonifacio formed the Katipunan, a secret, nationalistic fraternal brotherhood founded to bring about Filipino independence through armed revolution, at Manila. Bonifacio, an illiterate warehouse worker, believed that the Liga was ineffective and too slow in bringing about the desired changes in government, and decided that only through force could the Philippines problem be resolved. The Katipunan replaced the peaceful civic association that Rizal had founded.
1895
24 February - Cuban independence movement (Ejército Libertador de Cuba) issued in the Grito de Baire, declaring Independencia o muerte (Independence or death), as the revolutionary movement in Cuba began. It was quelled by Spanish authorities that same day.
10 April - José Martí and Máximo Gómez Baez returned to Cuba to fight for independence; Gómez was to serve as military leader of the new revolution. The Cuban Revolutionary party (El Partido Revolucionario Cubano) in New York worked tirelessly for revolution, inspired by José Martí and maintained by various voices for Revolution.
12 June - U.S. President Cleveland issues proclamation of neutrality in the Cuban Insurrection.
1896
16 February - Spain begins reconcentration policy in Cuba.
28 February - The U.S. Senate recognized Cuban belligerency with overwhelming passage of the joint John T. Morgan/Donald Cameron resolution calling for recognition of Cuban belligerency and Cuban independence. This resolution signaled to President Cleveland and Secretary of State Richard Olney that the Cuban crisis needed attention.
2 March - The U.S. House of Representatives passed decisively its own version of the Morgan-Cameron Resolution which called for the recognition of Cuban belligerency.
9 August - Great Britain foils Spain's attempt to obtain European support for Spanish policies in Cuba.
26 August - Grito de Balintawak begins the Philippine Revolution.
7 December - President Cleveland says that the United States may take action in Cuba if Spain fails to resolve crisis there.
1896
William Warren Kimball, U.S. Naval Academy graduate and intelligence officer, completed a strategic study of the implications of war with Spain. His plan called for an operation to free Cuba through naval action, which included blockade, attacks on Manila, and attacks on the Spanish Mediterranean coast.
1897
19 January - Both William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, through its sensational reporting on the Cuban Insurrection, helped strengthen anti-Spanish sentiment in the United States. On this date the execution of Cuban rebel Adolfo Rodríguez by a Spanish firing squad, was reported in the article "Death of Rodríguez" in the New York Journal by Richard Harding Davis. On October 8, 1897, Karl Decker of the New York Journal reported on the rescue of Cuban Evangelina Cisneros from a prison on the Isle of Pines.
4 March - U.S. President William McKinley inaugurated.
March - Theodore Roosevelt was appointed assistant U.S. Secretary of the Navy. Emilio Aguinaldo was elected president of the new republic of the Philippines; Andrés Bonifacio was demoted to the director of the interior.
25 April - General Fernando Primo de Rivera y Sobremonte became governor-general of the Philippines, replacing General Camilo García de Polavieja; his adjutant was Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, his nephew.
8 August - Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas is assassinated prompting change in government.
1 November - Philippine revolutionary constitution approved creating Biak-na-Bato Republic.
14-15 December
Spain reacted quickly to the Biak-na-Bato Republic and sought negotiations to end the war. With Pedro Paterno, a noted Filipino intellectual and lawyer, mediating, Aguinaldo representing the revolutionists and Governor-General Fernando Primo de Rivera representing the Spanish colonial government, the Pact of Biak-na-Bato was concluded. The Pact paid indemnities to the revolutionists the sum of 800,000 pesos, provided amnesty, and allowed for Aguinaldo and his entourage voluntary exile to Hong Kong.
1898
1 January - Spain grants limited autonomy to Cuba.
8 February - Spain's ambassador to the U.S., Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, resigned.
9 February - Pulitzer-owned New York Journal publishes Spanish Minister Enrique Dupuy de Lóme's letter criticizing President McKinley.
14 February - Luís Polo de Bernabé named Minister of Spain in Washington.
15 February - U.S.S. Maine explodes in Havana Harbor.
3 March - Governor-General of the Philippine Islands Fernando Primo de Rivera informed Spanish minister for the colonies Segismundo Moret y Prendergast that Commodore George Dewey had received orders to move on Manila.
9 March - U.S. Congress passes Fifty Million Bill to strengthen military.
17 March - U.S. Senator Redfield Proctor (R-Vt.) influences Congress and U.S. business community in favor of war with Spain.
19 March - The battleship U.S.S. Oregon left the port of San Francisco, California on its famous voyage to the Caribbean Sea and Cuban waters.
28 March - Report of U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry finds U.S.S. Maine explosion caused by a mine.
29 March - The United States Government issued an ultimatum to the Spanish Government to terminate its presence in Cuba. Spain did not accept the ultimatum in its reply of April 1, 1898.
April - Governor-General of the Philippine Islands Fernando Primo de Rivera, in a surprise move, was replaced by Governor-General Basilo Augustín Dávila in early April. Upon his departure from the Philippines, the insurgent movement renewed revolutionary activity due mainly to the Spanish government's failure to abide by the terms of the Pact of Biak-na-Bato.
4 April - The New York Journal issued a million-copy press run dedicated to the war in Cuba. The newspaper called for the immediate U.S. entry into war with Spain.
10 April - Spanish Governor General Blanco in Cuba suspended hostilities in the war in Cuba.
11 April - The U.S. President William McKinley requested authorization from the U.S. Congress to intervene in Cuba, with the object of putting an end to the war between Cuban revolutionaries and Spain.
13 April - The U.S. Congress agreed to President McKinley's request for intervention in Cuba, but without recognition of the Cuban Government.
The Spanish government declared that the sovereignity of Spain was jeopardized by U.S. policy and prepared a special budget for war expenses.
19 April - The U.S. Congress by vote of 311 to 6 in the House and 42 to 35 in the Senate adopted the Joint Resolution for war with Spain. Included in the Resolution was the Teller Amendment, named after Senator Henry Moore Teller (Colorado) which disclaimed any intention by the U.S. to exercise jurisdiction or control over Cuba except in a pacification role and promised to leave the island as soon as the war was over.
20 April - U.S. President William McKinley signed the Joint Resolution for war with Spain and the ultimatum was forwarded to Spain.
Spanish Minister to the United States Luís Polo de Bernabé demanded his passport and, along with the personnel of the Legation, left Washington for Canada.
21 April - The Spanish Government considered the U.S. Joint Resolution of April 20 a declaration of war. U.S. Minister in Madrid General Steward L. Woodford received his passport before presenting the ultimatum by the United States.
A state of war existed between Spain and the United States and all diplomatic relations were suspended. U.S. President William McKinley ordered a blockade of Cuba.
Spanish forces in Santiago de Cuba mined Guantánamo Bay.
22 April - U.S. fleet left Key West, Florida for Havana to begin the Cuban blockade at the principal ports on the north coast and at Cienfuegos.
23 April - President McKinley called for 125,000 volunteers.
24 April - Spanish Minister of Defense Segismundo Bermejo sent instructions to Spanish Admiral Cervera to proceed with his fleet from Cape Verde to the Caribbean, Cuba and Puerto Rico.
President of the Cuban Republic in arms, General Bartolomé Masó issued the Manifiesto de Sebastopol and reiterated the mambí motto "Independencia o Muerte".
25 April - War was formally declared between Spain and the United States.
26 April - Willaim R. Day became U.S. Secretary of State.
29 April - The Portuguese government declared itself neutral in the conflict between Spain and the United States.
30 April - The Spanish Governor General Blanco ordered hostilities resumed with the Cuban insurrectionists.
1 May - Opening with the famous quote "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley" U.S. Commodore George Dewey in six hours defeated the Spanish squadron, under Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasarón, in Manila Bay, the Philippines Islands. Dewey led the Asiatic Squadron of the U.S. Navy, which had been based in Hong Kong, in the attack. With the cruisers U.S.S. Olympia, Raleigh, Boston, and Baltimore, the gunboats Concord and Petrel and the revenue cutter McCulloch and reinforcements from cruiser U.S.S. Charleston and the monitors U.S.S. Monadnock and Monterey the U.S. Asiatic Squadron forced the capitulation of Manila. In the battle the entire Spanish squadron was sunk, including the cruisers María Cristina and Castilla, gunboats Don Antonio de Ulloa, Don Juan de Austria, Isla de Luzón, Isla de Cuba, Velasco, and Argos.
"The message to García". U.S. Army Lieutenant Andrew S. Rowan, through the assistance of the U.S. government, the Cuban Delegation in New York, and the mambises in Cuba, made contact with General Calixto García in Bayamo to seek his cooperation and to obtain military and political assessment of Cuba. This contact benefitted the Cuban Liberation Army and the Cuban Revolutionary Army and totally ignored the Government of the Republic in arms.
2 May - The U.S. Congress voted a war emergency credit increase of $34,625,725.
General Máximo Gómez opens communication with U.S. Admiral Sampson.
4 May - A joint resolution was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives, with the support of President William McKinley, calling for the annexation of Hawaii.
10 May - Secretary of the Navy John D. Long issued orders to Captain Henry Glass, commander of the cruiser U.S.S. Charleston to capture Guam on the way to Manila.
11 May - Charles H. Allen succeeded Theodore Roosevelt as assistant secretary of the navy.
President William McKinley and his cabinet approve a State Department memorandum calling for Spanish cession of a suitable "coaling station", presumably Manila. The Philippine Islands were to remain Spanish possessions.
18 May
Prime Minister Sagasta formed the new Spanish cabinet. U.S. President McKinley ordered a military expedition, headed by Major General Wesley Merritt, to complete the elimination of Spanish forces in the Philippines, to occupy the islands, and to provide security and order to the inhabitants.
19 May - Emilio Aguinaldo returned to Manila, the Philippine Islands, from exile in Hong Kong. The United States had invited him back from exile, hoping that Aguinaldo would rally the Filipinos against the Spanish colonial government.
24 May - With himself as the dictator, Emilio Aguinaldo established a dictatorial government, replacing the revolutionary government, due to the chaotic conditions he found in the Philippines upon his return.
25 May - First U.S. troops were sent from San Francisco to the Philippine Islands. Thomas McArthur Anderson (1836-1917) commanded the vanguard of the Philippine Expeditionary Force (Eighth Army Corps), which arrived at Cavite, Philippine Islands on June 1.
27 May - U.S. Navy, under Admiral William Thompson Sampson and Commodore Winfield Scott Schley, formally blockaded the port of Santiago de Cuba.
28 May - General William Rufus Shafter, U.S. Army, received orders to mobilize his forces in Tampa, Florida for the attack on Cuba.
June-October - U.S. business and government circles united around a policy of retaining all or part of the Philippines
3 June - First contact of the commanders of the U.S. Marines and leaders of the Cuban Liberation Army, aboard the armored cruiser U.S.S. New York at which the revolutionary forces provided detailed information for the campaign.
9 June - U.S. Admiral William Thompson Sampson sailed to Guantánamo Bay.
10 June - U.S. Marines land at Guantánamo, Cuba.
11 June - McKinley administration reactivated debate in Congress on Hawaiian annexation, using the argument that "we must have Hawaii to help us get our share of China."
12 June - Philippines proclaim independence. German squadron under Admiral Diederichs arrives at Manila.
13 June - The Rough Riders sailed from Tampa, Florida bound for Santiago de Cuba.
14 June - McKinley administration decided not to return the Philippine Islands to Spain.
15 June - Anti-war American Anti-Imperialist League assembles. Admiral Cámara's squadron received orders to relieve Spanish garrison in Philippines.
Congress passed the Hawaii annexation resolution, 209-91. On July 6, the U.S. Senate affirmed the measure.
American Anti-Imperialist League was organized in opposition to the annexation of the Philippine Islands. Among its members were Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, William James, David Starr Jordan, and Samuel Gompers. George S. Boutwell, former secretary of the treasury and Massachusetts senator, served as president of the League.
Admiral Dewey's defeat of the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay on May 1, 1898 ignited impassioned nationalistic feelings in Spain. Spanish Admiral Manuel de la Cámara y Libermoore's squadron received orders to relieve the Spanish garrison in the Philippine Islands. His fleet consisted of the battleship Pelayo, the armored cruiser Carlos V, the cruisers Rápido and Patriota, the torpedo boats Audaz, Osado, and Proserpina, and the transports Isla de Panay, San Francisco, Cristóbal Colón, Covadonga, and Buenos Aires.
18 June - U.S. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long ordered Commodore William T. Sampson to create a new squadron, the Eastern Squadron, for possible raiding and bombardment missions along the coasts of Spain.
20 June - Spanish authorities surrendered Guam to Captain Henry Glass and his forces on the cruiser U.S.S. Charleston.
The main U.S. force appeared off Santiago de Cuba, with more than 16,200 soldiers and various material in 42 ships. A total of 153 ships of the U.S. forces assembled off of the harbor.
Lieutenant General Calixto García (Cuba) and Admiral Sampson and General Shafter (US) met in El Aserradero (south coast of Oriente Province, Cuba) to complete the general strategy of the campaign. Cuban forces occupied positions west, northwest and east of Santiago de Cuba.
22 June - U.S. General Shafter's troops land at Daiquirí, Cuba.
27 June - Lieutenant General Calixto García requested that Tomás Estrada Palma and the Cuban Committee ask President McKinely to recognize the Cuban Council of Government.
1 July - U.S. and Cuban troops took El Viso Fort, the town of El Caney, and San Juan Heights. Spanish General Vara del Rey died in the fighting. San Juan Hill was taken at the same time, with the help of the Rough Riders under Teddy Roosevelt and Leonard Wood at the battle on Kettle Hill. These victories opened the way to Santiago de Cuba. General Duffield, with 3,000 soldiers, took the Aguadores Fort at Santiago de Cuba. Spanish General Linares and Navy Captain Joaquín Bustamante died in battle.
2 July - Admiral Cervera and the Spanish fleet prepared to leave Santiago Bay.
3 July - The Spanish fleet attempt to leave the bay was halted as the U.S. squadron under Admiral Schley destroyed the Spanish destroyer Furor, the torpedo boat Plutón, and the armored cruisers Infanta María Teresa, Almirante Oquendo, Vizcaya, and Cristóbal Colón. The Spanish lost all their ships, 350 dead, and 160 wounded.
7 July - U.S. President McKinley signed the Hawaii annexation resolution, following its passage in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.
8 July - U.S. acquired Hawaii.
15 July - Spanish forces under General Toral capitulated to U.S. forces at Santiago de Cuba.
17 July - Santiago surrenders to U.S. troops.
18 July - The Spanish government, through the French Ambassador to the United States, Jules Cambon, initiated a message to President McKinley to suspend the hostilities and to start the negotiations to end the war. Duque de Almodóvar del Río (Juan Manuel Sánchez y Gutiérrez de Castro), Spanish Minister of State, directed a telegram to the Spanish Ambassador in Paris charging him to solicit the good offices of the French Government to negotiate a suspension of hostilities as a preliminary to final negotiations.
U.S. General Leonard Wood was named military governor of Santiago de Cuba.
Clara Barton of the Red Cross cared for wounded soldiers at Santiago de Cuba.
25 July - General Wesley Merritt, commander of Eighth Corps, U.S. Expeditionary Force, arrived in the Philippine Islands.
26 July - French Government contacted the United States Government regarding the call for suspension of hostilities at the request of the Spanish Government.
28 July - Duque de Almodóvar del Río called for the U.S. annexation of Cuba.
U.S. officials instruct General Shafter to return troops immediately to the United States to prevent an outbreak of yellow fever.
30 July - U.S. President McKinley and his Cabinet submitted to Ambassador Cambon a counter-proposal to the Spanish request for ceasefire.
2 August - Spain accepted the U.S. proposals for peace, with certain reservations regarding the Philippine Islands. McKinley called for a preliminary protocol from Spain before suspension of hostilities. That document was used as the basis for discussion between Spain and the United States at the Treaty of Peace in Paris.
11 August - U.S. Secretary of State Day and French Ambassador Cambon, representing Spain, negotiated the Protocol of Peace.
12 August - Peace protocol that ended all hostilities between Spain and the United States in the war fronts of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines was signed in Washington, D.C.
13 August - Manila falls to U.S. troops.
14 August - Capitulation was signed at Manila and U.S. General Wesley Merritt established a military government in the city, with himself serving as first military governor.
President of the Governing Council of the Republic of Cuba Bartolomé Masó called for elections of Revolutionary Representatives to meet in Assembly.
15 August - U.S. General Arthur MacArthur appointed military commandant of Manila and its suburbs.
12 September - The U.S (General Wade, General Butler and Admiral Sampson) and Spanish Military Commission (Generals Segundo Cabo and González, Admiral Vicente Manterola, and Doctor Rafael Montoro) met in Havana, Cuba, to discuss the evacuation of Spanish forces from the island.
13 September - The Spanish Cortes (legislature) ratified the Protocol of Peace.
15 September - The inaugural session of the Congress of the First Philippine Republic, also known as the Malolos Congress, was held at Barasoain Church in Malolos, province of Bulacan, for the purpose of drafting the constitution of the new republic.
16 September - The Spanish and U.S. Commissioners for the Peace Treaty were appointed. U.S. Commissioners were William R. Day (U.S. Secretary of State), William P. Frye (President pro tempore of Senate, Republican-Maine), Whitelaw Reid, George Gray (Senator, Democrat- Delaware), and Cushman K. Davis (Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican-Minnesota). The Spanish Commissioners were Eugenio Montero Ríos (President, Spanish Senate), Buenaventura Abarzuza (Senator), José de Garnica y Diaz (Associate Justice of the Supreme Court), Wenceslao Ramírez de Villa Urrutia (Envoy Extraordinary), and Rafael Cerero y Saenz (General of the Army).
William R. Day resigned as U.S. Secretary of State and was succeeded by John Hay.
22 September - When Major General Calixto García and his Cuban forces arrived in Santiago de Cuba, General Leonard Wood formally recognized his efforts in the war since General Shafter had failed to recognize the Cuban leader's participation in the capitulation of Santiago.
26 September - Commission established under U.S. General Grenville Dodge to investigate mismanagement by U.S. War Department.
1 October - The Spanish and United States Commissioners convened their first meeting in Paris to reach a final Treaty of Peace.
25 October - McKinley instructed the U.S. peace delegation to insist on the annexation of the Philippines in the peace talks.
10 November - In accord with the Assembly of Representatives of the Revolution, a commission of Major General Calixto García, Colonel Manuel Sanguily, Dr. Antonio González Lanuza, General José Miguel Gómez and Colonel José R. Villalón met to seek support for needs of the Liberation Army and to establish a Cuban government. The U.S. did not recognize this commission. The U.S. instead stated that the U.S. had declared war on Spain and all of its possessions because of the destruction of the battleship U.S.S. Maine and other acts against the United States.
26 November - Captain General Ramón Blanco y Erenas resigned as Governor General of Cuba.
28 November - The Spanish Commission for Peace accepted the United States' demands in the Peace Treaty.
29 November - The Philippine revolutionary congress approved a constitution for the new Philippine Republic.
10 December - Representatives of Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Peace in Paris. Spain renounced all rights to Cuba and allowed an independent Cuba, ceded Puerto Rico and the island of Guam to the United States, gave up its possessions in the West Indies, and sold the Philippine Islands, receiving in exchange $20,000,000.
21 December - President McKinley issued his Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation, ceding the Philippines to the United States, and instructing the American occupying army to use force, as necessary, to impose American sovereignty over the Philippines even before he obtained Senate ratification of the peace treaty with Spain.
23 December - Guam placed under control of U.S. Department of the Navy.
1899
1 January - Emilio Aguinaldo was declared president of the new Philippine Republic, following the meeting of a constitutional convention. United States authorities refused to recognize the new government.
Spanish forces left Cuba.
17 January - U.S. claims Wake Island for use in cable link to Philippines. U.S. Commander Edward Taussig, U.S.S. Bennington, landed on the island and claimed it for the United States.
21 January - The constitution of the Philippine Republic, the Malolos Constitution, was promulgated by the followers of Emilio Aguinaldo.
4 February - The Philippine Insurrection began as the Philippine Republic declared war on the United States forces in the Philippine Islands, following the killing of three Filipino soldiers by U.S. forces in a suburb of Manila.
6 February - U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris by a vote of 52 to 27.
19 March - The Queen regent of Spain, María Cristina, signed the Treaty of Paris, breaking the deadlock in the Spanish Cortes.
11 April - The Treaty of Paris was proclaimed.
2 June -Spanish forces at Baler, Philippine Islands, surrender to U.S.
1901
23 March - Led by General Frederick Funston, U.S. forces captured Emilio Aguinaldo on Palanan, Isabela Province. Later, he declared allegiance to the United States.
1902
July War - ended in the Philippines, with more than 4,200 U.S. soldiers, 20,000 Filipino soldiers, and 200,000 Filipino civilians dead.
3. Background from {[https://www.spanamwar.com/McKinleywardec.htm]}
General:
The following letter, dated April 25, 1898 is President William McKinley's declaration of war with Spain.
The Letter:
EXECUTIVE MANSION,
WASHINGTON April 25, 1899.
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America:
I transmit to the Congress for its consideration and appropriate action, copies of correspondence recently had with the representative of Spain in the United States, with the United States minister at Madrid, and through the latter with the Government of Spain, showing the action taken under the joint resolution approved April 20, 1898, "for the recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba, demanding that the Government of Spain relinquish its authority and Government in the island of Cuba, and to withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters, and directing the President of the United States to use the land and naval forces of the United States to carry these resolutions into effect."
Upon communicating to the Spanish minister in Washington the demand which it became the duty of the Executive to address to the Government of Spain in obedience, to said resolution, the minister asked for his passports and withdrew. The United States minister at Madrid was in turn notified by the Spanish minister for foreign affairs that the withdrawal of the Spanish representative from the United States had terminated diplomatic relations between the two countries, and that all official communications between their respective representatives ceased therewith.
I commend to your especial attention the note addressed to the United States minister at Madrid by, the Spanish minister of foreign affairs on the 21st instant, whereby the foregoing notification was conveyed. It will be perceived therefrom that the Government of Spain, having cognizance of the joint resolution of the United States Congress, and in view of the things which the President is thereby required and authorized to do, responds by treating the reasonable demands of this Government as measures of hostility, following with that instant and complete severance of relations by its action which by the usage of nations accompanies an existent state of war between sovereign powers.
The position of Spain being thus made known, and the demands of the United States being denied, with a complete rupture of intercourse, by the act of Spain, I have been constrained, in the exercise of the power conferred upon me by the joint resolution aforesaid, to proclaim, under date of April 22, 1898, a blockade of certain ports of the north coast of Cuba, between Cardenas and Bahia Honda, and the port of Cienfugos, on the south coast of Cuba, and to issue my proclamation dated April 23, 1898, calling forth volunteers.
I now recommend the adoption of a joint resolution declaring that a state of war exists between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain, that the definition of the international status of the United States as a belligerent power may be made known and the assertion of all its rights in the conduct of a public war may be assured.
WILLIAM McKINLEY.
DECLARATION OF WAR WITH SPAIN
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, First. That war be, and the same is hereby, declared to exist, and that war has existed since the 21st day of April, A. D. 1898, including said day, between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain.
Second. That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, directed and empowered to use the entire land and naval forces of the United States and to call into the actual service of the United States the militia of the several States to such extent as may be necessary to carry this act into effect.
Approved, April 25, 1898."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SPC Michael Duricko, Ph.D GySgt Thomas Vick SGT Denny Espinosa LTC (Join to see)Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. PO1 William "Chip" Nagel PO2 (Join to see) SSG Franklin Briant SPC Woody Bullard TSgt David L. SMSgt David A Asbury SPC Michael Terrell SFC Chuck Martinez CSM Charles Hayden SFC William Farrell SSG Bill McCoy
"William McKinley (1843-1901) was 18 years old in 1861 when he enlisted as a private in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry (O.V.I.). By the time he mustered out of service, he had been promoted to the rank of brevet major of volunteers. William McKinley, the twenty-fifth president of the United States, was born in Niles, Ohio. He enlisted in the army at the outbreak of the Civil War and, after being mustered out, studied law and opened a law office in Canton.
The Spanish American War: Explained (Short Animated Documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaOKfu7ZK7I
Images:
1. 1898 Battleship U.S.S. Maine, at anchor. The explosion in Havana harbor that sank the Maine helped precipitate the Spanish-American War.
2. Aberdeen Daily News newspaper April 26, 1898 Spanish American War
3. Wreck of USS Maine
4. Spanish American War 1898 maps
5. This photograph of McKinley in uniform measures 2" by 4" (5.08 by 10.16 cm).
Background
1. edsitement.neh.gov/this-day/president-william-mckinley-asks-congress-declaration-war-against-spain
2. Chronology
3. spanamwar.com/McKinleywardec.htm
1. Background summary {[https://edsitement.neh.gov/this-day/president-william-mckinley-asks-congress-declaration-war-against-spain]}
On April 11, 1898, two months after the battleship U.S.S. Maine was destroyed by an explosion in Havana harbor, President McKinley sent a message to Congress requesting authority to use the U.S. armed forces to end a brutal civil war in the Spanish colony of Cuba. Congress voted to support Cuban independence, to demand the withdrawal of Spanish troops from the island, and to authorize the use of force to achieve those objectives. On April 25, after Spain broke diplomatic relations and declared war against the United States, Congress formally asserted that a state of war existed. In a whirlwind military campaign, the U.S. Army invaded Cuba and the U.S. Navy destroyed Spanish squadrons in the Caribbean and Manila Bay. Hostilities were halted on August 12, 1898. The two sides signed a peace treaty in Paris on December 10, in which Madrid recognized Cuban independence and ceded Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam to the United States. With its victory in the Spanish-American War the United States claimed status as a global power – and, in a relative absence of mind, it acquired something of an overseas empire."
2. Chronology of Spanish American War
Background from {[https://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/chronology.html]}
Chronology
By Country: Cuba | Philippines and Guam | Puerto Rico | Spain
1868
10 October - Carlos M. Céspedes issued the Grito de Yara and initiated the Ten Years' War in Cuba (1868-1878), the independence movement that served as the forerunner of the 1895 Insurrection and the Spanish American War.
1887
March - Publication in Berlin, Germany, of Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) by José Rizal, the Philippines' most illustrious son, awakened Filipino national consciousness.
1890
U.S. foreign policy is influenced by Alfred T. Mahan who wrote The Influence of Sea Power upon history, 1600-1783, which advocated the taking of the Caribbean Islands, Hawaii, and the Philippine Islands for bases to protect U.S. commerce, the building of a canal to enable fleet movement from ocean to ocean and the building of the Great White fleet of steam-driven armor plated battleships.
1892
5 January - José Julián Martí y Pérez formed El Partido Revolucionario Cubano (Cuban Revolutionary party). This Cuban political party was organized first in New York City and Philadelphia and soon spread to Tampa and Key West, Florida.
3 July - La Liga Filipina, a political action group that sought reforms in the Spanish administration of the Philippines by peaceful means, was launched formally at a Tondo meeting by José Rizal upon his return to the Philippines from Europe and Hong Kong in June 1892. Rizal's arrest three days later for possessing anti-friar bills and eventual banishment to Dapitan directly led to the demise of the Liga a year or so later.
7 July - Andrés Bonifacio formed the Katipunan, a secret, nationalistic fraternal brotherhood founded to bring about Filipino independence through armed revolution, at Manila. Bonifacio, an illiterate warehouse worker, believed that the Liga was ineffective and too slow in bringing about the desired changes in government, and decided that only through force could the Philippines problem be resolved. The Katipunan replaced the peaceful civic association that Rizal had founded.
1895
24 February - Cuban independence movement (Ejército Libertador de Cuba) issued in the Grito de Baire, declaring Independencia o muerte (Independence or death), as the revolutionary movement in Cuba began. It was quelled by Spanish authorities that same day.
10 April - José Martí and Máximo Gómez Baez returned to Cuba to fight for independence; Gómez was to serve as military leader of the new revolution. The Cuban Revolutionary party (El Partido Revolucionario Cubano) in New York worked tirelessly for revolution, inspired by José Martí and maintained by various voices for Revolution.
12 June - U.S. President Cleveland issues proclamation of neutrality in the Cuban Insurrection.
1896
16 February - Spain begins reconcentration policy in Cuba.
28 February - The U.S. Senate recognized Cuban belligerency with overwhelming passage of the joint John T. Morgan/Donald Cameron resolution calling for recognition of Cuban belligerency and Cuban independence. This resolution signaled to President Cleveland and Secretary of State Richard Olney that the Cuban crisis needed attention.
2 March - The U.S. House of Representatives passed decisively its own version of the Morgan-Cameron Resolution which called for the recognition of Cuban belligerency.
9 August - Great Britain foils Spain's attempt to obtain European support for Spanish policies in Cuba.
26 August - Grito de Balintawak begins the Philippine Revolution.
7 December - President Cleveland says that the United States may take action in Cuba if Spain fails to resolve crisis there.
1896
William Warren Kimball, U.S. Naval Academy graduate and intelligence officer, completed a strategic study of the implications of war with Spain. His plan called for an operation to free Cuba through naval action, which included blockade, attacks on Manila, and attacks on the Spanish Mediterranean coast.
1897
19 January - Both William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, through its sensational reporting on the Cuban Insurrection, helped strengthen anti-Spanish sentiment in the United States. On this date the execution of Cuban rebel Adolfo Rodríguez by a Spanish firing squad, was reported in the article "Death of Rodríguez" in the New York Journal by Richard Harding Davis. On October 8, 1897, Karl Decker of the New York Journal reported on the rescue of Cuban Evangelina Cisneros from a prison on the Isle of Pines.
4 March - U.S. President William McKinley inaugurated.
March - Theodore Roosevelt was appointed assistant U.S. Secretary of the Navy. Emilio Aguinaldo was elected president of the new republic of the Philippines; Andrés Bonifacio was demoted to the director of the interior.
25 April - General Fernando Primo de Rivera y Sobremonte became governor-general of the Philippines, replacing General Camilo García de Polavieja; his adjutant was Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, his nephew.
8 August - Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas is assassinated prompting change in government.
1 November - Philippine revolutionary constitution approved creating Biak-na-Bato Republic.
14-15 December
Spain reacted quickly to the Biak-na-Bato Republic and sought negotiations to end the war. With Pedro Paterno, a noted Filipino intellectual and lawyer, mediating, Aguinaldo representing the revolutionists and Governor-General Fernando Primo de Rivera representing the Spanish colonial government, the Pact of Biak-na-Bato was concluded. The Pact paid indemnities to the revolutionists the sum of 800,000 pesos, provided amnesty, and allowed for Aguinaldo and his entourage voluntary exile to Hong Kong.
1898
1 January - Spain grants limited autonomy to Cuba.
8 February - Spain's ambassador to the U.S., Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, resigned.
9 February - Pulitzer-owned New York Journal publishes Spanish Minister Enrique Dupuy de Lóme's letter criticizing President McKinley.
14 February - Luís Polo de Bernabé named Minister of Spain in Washington.
15 February - U.S.S. Maine explodes in Havana Harbor.
3 March - Governor-General of the Philippine Islands Fernando Primo de Rivera informed Spanish minister for the colonies Segismundo Moret y Prendergast that Commodore George Dewey had received orders to move on Manila.
9 March - U.S. Congress passes Fifty Million Bill to strengthen military.
17 March - U.S. Senator Redfield Proctor (R-Vt.) influences Congress and U.S. business community in favor of war with Spain.
19 March - The battleship U.S.S. Oregon left the port of San Francisco, California on its famous voyage to the Caribbean Sea and Cuban waters.
28 March - Report of U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry finds U.S.S. Maine explosion caused by a mine.
29 March - The United States Government issued an ultimatum to the Spanish Government to terminate its presence in Cuba. Spain did not accept the ultimatum in its reply of April 1, 1898.
April - Governor-General of the Philippine Islands Fernando Primo de Rivera, in a surprise move, was replaced by Governor-General Basilo Augustín Dávila in early April. Upon his departure from the Philippines, the insurgent movement renewed revolutionary activity due mainly to the Spanish government's failure to abide by the terms of the Pact of Biak-na-Bato.
4 April - The New York Journal issued a million-copy press run dedicated to the war in Cuba. The newspaper called for the immediate U.S. entry into war with Spain.
10 April - Spanish Governor General Blanco in Cuba suspended hostilities in the war in Cuba.
11 April - The U.S. President William McKinley requested authorization from the U.S. Congress to intervene in Cuba, with the object of putting an end to the war between Cuban revolutionaries and Spain.
13 April - The U.S. Congress agreed to President McKinley's request for intervention in Cuba, but without recognition of the Cuban Government.
The Spanish government declared that the sovereignity of Spain was jeopardized by U.S. policy and prepared a special budget for war expenses.
19 April - The U.S. Congress by vote of 311 to 6 in the House and 42 to 35 in the Senate adopted the Joint Resolution for war with Spain. Included in the Resolution was the Teller Amendment, named after Senator Henry Moore Teller (Colorado) which disclaimed any intention by the U.S. to exercise jurisdiction or control over Cuba except in a pacification role and promised to leave the island as soon as the war was over.
20 April - U.S. President William McKinley signed the Joint Resolution for war with Spain and the ultimatum was forwarded to Spain.
Spanish Minister to the United States Luís Polo de Bernabé demanded his passport and, along with the personnel of the Legation, left Washington for Canada.
21 April - The Spanish Government considered the U.S. Joint Resolution of April 20 a declaration of war. U.S. Minister in Madrid General Steward L. Woodford received his passport before presenting the ultimatum by the United States.
A state of war existed between Spain and the United States and all diplomatic relations were suspended. U.S. President William McKinley ordered a blockade of Cuba.
Spanish forces in Santiago de Cuba mined Guantánamo Bay.
22 April - U.S. fleet left Key West, Florida for Havana to begin the Cuban blockade at the principal ports on the north coast and at Cienfuegos.
23 April - President McKinley called for 125,000 volunteers.
24 April - Spanish Minister of Defense Segismundo Bermejo sent instructions to Spanish Admiral Cervera to proceed with his fleet from Cape Verde to the Caribbean, Cuba and Puerto Rico.
President of the Cuban Republic in arms, General Bartolomé Masó issued the Manifiesto de Sebastopol and reiterated the mambí motto "Independencia o Muerte".
25 April - War was formally declared between Spain and the United States.
26 April - Willaim R. Day became U.S. Secretary of State.
29 April - The Portuguese government declared itself neutral in the conflict between Spain and the United States.
30 April - The Spanish Governor General Blanco ordered hostilities resumed with the Cuban insurrectionists.
1 May - Opening with the famous quote "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley" U.S. Commodore George Dewey in six hours defeated the Spanish squadron, under Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasarón, in Manila Bay, the Philippines Islands. Dewey led the Asiatic Squadron of the U.S. Navy, which had been based in Hong Kong, in the attack. With the cruisers U.S.S. Olympia, Raleigh, Boston, and Baltimore, the gunboats Concord and Petrel and the revenue cutter McCulloch and reinforcements from cruiser U.S.S. Charleston and the monitors U.S.S. Monadnock and Monterey the U.S. Asiatic Squadron forced the capitulation of Manila. In the battle the entire Spanish squadron was sunk, including the cruisers María Cristina and Castilla, gunboats Don Antonio de Ulloa, Don Juan de Austria, Isla de Luzón, Isla de Cuba, Velasco, and Argos.
"The message to García". U.S. Army Lieutenant Andrew S. Rowan, through the assistance of the U.S. government, the Cuban Delegation in New York, and the mambises in Cuba, made contact with General Calixto García in Bayamo to seek his cooperation and to obtain military and political assessment of Cuba. This contact benefitted the Cuban Liberation Army and the Cuban Revolutionary Army and totally ignored the Government of the Republic in arms.
2 May - The U.S. Congress voted a war emergency credit increase of $34,625,725.
General Máximo Gómez opens communication with U.S. Admiral Sampson.
4 May - A joint resolution was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives, with the support of President William McKinley, calling for the annexation of Hawaii.
10 May - Secretary of the Navy John D. Long issued orders to Captain Henry Glass, commander of the cruiser U.S.S. Charleston to capture Guam on the way to Manila.
11 May - Charles H. Allen succeeded Theodore Roosevelt as assistant secretary of the navy.
President William McKinley and his cabinet approve a State Department memorandum calling for Spanish cession of a suitable "coaling station", presumably Manila. The Philippine Islands were to remain Spanish possessions.
18 May
Prime Minister Sagasta formed the new Spanish cabinet. U.S. President McKinley ordered a military expedition, headed by Major General Wesley Merritt, to complete the elimination of Spanish forces in the Philippines, to occupy the islands, and to provide security and order to the inhabitants.
19 May - Emilio Aguinaldo returned to Manila, the Philippine Islands, from exile in Hong Kong. The United States had invited him back from exile, hoping that Aguinaldo would rally the Filipinos against the Spanish colonial government.
24 May - With himself as the dictator, Emilio Aguinaldo established a dictatorial government, replacing the revolutionary government, due to the chaotic conditions he found in the Philippines upon his return.
25 May - First U.S. troops were sent from San Francisco to the Philippine Islands. Thomas McArthur Anderson (1836-1917) commanded the vanguard of the Philippine Expeditionary Force (Eighth Army Corps), which arrived at Cavite, Philippine Islands on June 1.
27 May - U.S. Navy, under Admiral William Thompson Sampson and Commodore Winfield Scott Schley, formally blockaded the port of Santiago de Cuba.
28 May - General William Rufus Shafter, U.S. Army, received orders to mobilize his forces in Tampa, Florida for the attack on Cuba.
June-October - U.S. business and government circles united around a policy of retaining all or part of the Philippines
3 June - First contact of the commanders of the U.S. Marines and leaders of the Cuban Liberation Army, aboard the armored cruiser U.S.S. New York at which the revolutionary forces provided detailed information for the campaign.
9 June - U.S. Admiral William Thompson Sampson sailed to Guantánamo Bay.
10 June - U.S. Marines land at Guantánamo, Cuba.
11 June - McKinley administration reactivated debate in Congress on Hawaiian annexation, using the argument that "we must have Hawaii to help us get our share of China."
12 June - Philippines proclaim independence. German squadron under Admiral Diederichs arrives at Manila.
13 June - The Rough Riders sailed from Tampa, Florida bound for Santiago de Cuba.
14 June - McKinley administration decided not to return the Philippine Islands to Spain.
15 June - Anti-war American Anti-Imperialist League assembles. Admiral Cámara's squadron received orders to relieve Spanish garrison in Philippines.
Congress passed the Hawaii annexation resolution, 209-91. On July 6, the U.S. Senate affirmed the measure.
American Anti-Imperialist League was organized in opposition to the annexation of the Philippine Islands. Among its members were Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, William James, David Starr Jordan, and Samuel Gompers. George S. Boutwell, former secretary of the treasury and Massachusetts senator, served as president of the League.
Admiral Dewey's defeat of the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay on May 1, 1898 ignited impassioned nationalistic feelings in Spain. Spanish Admiral Manuel de la Cámara y Libermoore's squadron received orders to relieve the Spanish garrison in the Philippine Islands. His fleet consisted of the battleship Pelayo, the armored cruiser Carlos V, the cruisers Rápido and Patriota, the torpedo boats Audaz, Osado, and Proserpina, and the transports Isla de Panay, San Francisco, Cristóbal Colón, Covadonga, and Buenos Aires.
18 June - U.S. Secretary of the Navy John D. Long ordered Commodore William T. Sampson to create a new squadron, the Eastern Squadron, for possible raiding and bombardment missions along the coasts of Spain.
20 June - Spanish authorities surrendered Guam to Captain Henry Glass and his forces on the cruiser U.S.S. Charleston.
The main U.S. force appeared off Santiago de Cuba, with more than 16,200 soldiers and various material in 42 ships. A total of 153 ships of the U.S. forces assembled off of the harbor.
Lieutenant General Calixto García (Cuba) and Admiral Sampson and General Shafter (US) met in El Aserradero (south coast of Oriente Province, Cuba) to complete the general strategy of the campaign. Cuban forces occupied positions west, northwest and east of Santiago de Cuba.
22 June - U.S. General Shafter's troops land at Daiquirí, Cuba.
27 June - Lieutenant General Calixto García requested that Tomás Estrada Palma and the Cuban Committee ask President McKinely to recognize the Cuban Council of Government.
1 July - U.S. and Cuban troops took El Viso Fort, the town of El Caney, and San Juan Heights. Spanish General Vara del Rey died in the fighting. San Juan Hill was taken at the same time, with the help of the Rough Riders under Teddy Roosevelt and Leonard Wood at the battle on Kettle Hill. These victories opened the way to Santiago de Cuba. General Duffield, with 3,000 soldiers, took the Aguadores Fort at Santiago de Cuba. Spanish General Linares and Navy Captain Joaquín Bustamante died in battle.
2 July - Admiral Cervera and the Spanish fleet prepared to leave Santiago Bay.
3 July - The Spanish fleet attempt to leave the bay was halted as the U.S. squadron under Admiral Schley destroyed the Spanish destroyer Furor, the torpedo boat Plutón, and the armored cruisers Infanta María Teresa, Almirante Oquendo, Vizcaya, and Cristóbal Colón. The Spanish lost all their ships, 350 dead, and 160 wounded.
7 July - U.S. President McKinley signed the Hawaii annexation resolution, following its passage in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.
8 July - U.S. acquired Hawaii.
15 July - Spanish forces under General Toral capitulated to U.S. forces at Santiago de Cuba.
17 July - Santiago surrenders to U.S. troops.
18 July - The Spanish government, through the French Ambassador to the United States, Jules Cambon, initiated a message to President McKinley to suspend the hostilities and to start the negotiations to end the war. Duque de Almodóvar del Río (Juan Manuel Sánchez y Gutiérrez de Castro), Spanish Minister of State, directed a telegram to the Spanish Ambassador in Paris charging him to solicit the good offices of the French Government to negotiate a suspension of hostilities as a preliminary to final negotiations.
U.S. General Leonard Wood was named military governor of Santiago de Cuba.
Clara Barton of the Red Cross cared for wounded soldiers at Santiago de Cuba.
25 July - General Wesley Merritt, commander of Eighth Corps, U.S. Expeditionary Force, arrived in the Philippine Islands.
26 July - French Government contacted the United States Government regarding the call for suspension of hostilities at the request of the Spanish Government.
28 July - Duque de Almodóvar del Río called for the U.S. annexation of Cuba.
U.S. officials instruct General Shafter to return troops immediately to the United States to prevent an outbreak of yellow fever.
30 July - U.S. President McKinley and his Cabinet submitted to Ambassador Cambon a counter-proposal to the Spanish request for ceasefire.
2 August - Spain accepted the U.S. proposals for peace, with certain reservations regarding the Philippine Islands. McKinley called for a preliminary protocol from Spain before suspension of hostilities. That document was used as the basis for discussion between Spain and the United States at the Treaty of Peace in Paris.
11 August - U.S. Secretary of State Day and French Ambassador Cambon, representing Spain, negotiated the Protocol of Peace.
12 August - Peace protocol that ended all hostilities between Spain and the United States in the war fronts of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines was signed in Washington, D.C.
13 August - Manila falls to U.S. troops.
14 August - Capitulation was signed at Manila and U.S. General Wesley Merritt established a military government in the city, with himself serving as first military governor.
President of the Governing Council of the Republic of Cuba Bartolomé Masó called for elections of Revolutionary Representatives to meet in Assembly.
15 August - U.S. General Arthur MacArthur appointed military commandant of Manila and its suburbs.
12 September - The U.S (General Wade, General Butler and Admiral Sampson) and Spanish Military Commission (Generals Segundo Cabo and González, Admiral Vicente Manterola, and Doctor Rafael Montoro) met in Havana, Cuba, to discuss the evacuation of Spanish forces from the island.
13 September - The Spanish Cortes (legislature) ratified the Protocol of Peace.
15 September - The inaugural session of the Congress of the First Philippine Republic, also known as the Malolos Congress, was held at Barasoain Church in Malolos, province of Bulacan, for the purpose of drafting the constitution of the new republic.
16 September - The Spanish and U.S. Commissioners for the Peace Treaty were appointed. U.S. Commissioners were William R. Day (U.S. Secretary of State), William P. Frye (President pro tempore of Senate, Republican-Maine), Whitelaw Reid, George Gray (Senator, Democrat- Delaware), and Cushman K. Davis (Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican-Minnesota). The Spanish Commissioners were Eugenio Montero Ríos (President, Spanish Senate), Buenaventura Abarzuza (Senator), José de Garnica y Diaz (Associate Justice of the Supreme Court), Wenceslao Ramírez de Villa Urrutia (Envoy Extraordinary), and Rafael Cerero y Saenz (General of the Army).
William R. Day resigned as U.S. Secretary of State and was succeeded by John Hay.
22 September - When Major General Calixto García and his Cuban forces arrived in Santiago de Cuba, General Leonard Wood formally recognized his efforts in the war since General Shafter had failed to recognize the Cuban leader's participation in the capitulation of Santiago.
26 September - Commission established under U.S. General Grenville Dodge to investigate mismanagement by U.S. War Department.
1 October - The Spanish and United States Commissioners convened their first meeting in Paris to reach a final Treaty of Peace.
25 October - McKinley instructed the U.S. peace delegation to insist on the annexation of the Philippines in the peace talks.
10 November - In accord with the Assembly of Representatives of the Revolution, a commission of Major General Calixto García, Colonel Manuel Sanguily, Dr. Antonio González Lanuza, General José Miguel Gómez and Colonel José R. Villalón met to seek support for needs of the Liberation Army and to establish a Cuban government. The U.S. did not recognize this commission. The U.S. instead stated that the U.S. had declared war on Spain and all of its possessions because of the destruction of the battleship U.S.S. Maine and other acts against the United States.
26 November - Captain General Ramón Blanco y Erenas resigned as Governor General of Cuba.
28 November - The Spanish Commission for Peace accepted the United States' demands in the Peace Treaty.
29 November - The Philippine revolutionary congress approved a constitution for the new Philippine Republic.
10 December - Representatives of Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Peace in Paris. Spain renounced all rights to Cuba and allowed an independent Cuba, ceded Puerto Rico and the island of Guam to the United States, gave up its possessions in the West Indies, and sold the Philippine Islands, receiving in exchange $20,000,000.
21 December - President McKinley issued his Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation, ceding the Philippines to the United States, and instructing the American occupying army to use force, as necessary, to impose American sovereignty over the Philippines even before he obtained Senate ratification of the peace treaty with Spain.
23 December - Guam placed under control of U.S. Department of the Navy.
1899
1 January - Emilio Aguinaldo was declared president of the new Philippine Republic, following the meeting of a constitutional convention. United States authorities refused to recognize the new government.
Spanish forces left Cuba.
17 January - U.S. claims Wake Island for use in cable link to Philippines. U.S. Commander Edward Taussig, U.S.S. Bennington, landed on the island and claimed it for the United States.
21 January - The constitution of the Philippine Republic, the Malolos Constitution, was promulgated by the followers of Emilio Aguinaldo.
4 February - The Philippine Insurrection began as the Philippine Republic declared war on the United States forces in the Philippine Islands, following the killing of three Filipino soldiers by U.S. forces in a suburb of Manila.
6 February - U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris by a vote of 52 to 27.
19 March - The Queen regent of Spain, María Cristina, signed the Treaty of Paris, breaking the deadlock in the Spanish Cortes.
11 April - The Treaty of Paris was proclaimed.
2 June -Spanish forces at Baler, Philippine Islands, surrender to U.S.
1901
23 March - Led by General Frederick Funston, U.S. forces captured Emilio Aguinaldo on Palanan, Isabela Province. Later, he declared allegiance to the United States.
1902
July War - ended in the Philippines, with more than 4,200 U.S. soldiers, 20,000 Filipino soldiers, and 200,000 Filipino civilians dead.
3. Background from {[https://www.spanamwar.com/McKinleywardec.htm]}
General:
The following letter, dated April 25, 1898 is President William McKinley's declaration of war with Spain.
The Letter:
EXECUTIVE MANSION,
WASHINGTON April 25, 1899.
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America:
I transmit to the Congress for its consideration and appropriate action, copies of correspondence recently had with the representative of Spain in the United States, with the United States minister at Madrid, and through the latter with the Government of Spain, showing the action taken under the joint resolution approved April 20, 1898, "for the recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba, demanding that the Government of Spain relinquish its authority and Government in the island of Cuba, and to withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters, and directing the President of the United States to use the land and naval forces of the United States to carry these resolutions into effect."
Upon communicating to the Spanish minister in Washington the demand which it became the duty of the Executive to address to the Government of Spain in obedience, to said resolution, the minister asked for his passports and withdrew. The United States minister at Madrid was in turn notified by the Spanish minister for foreign affairs that the withdrawal of the Spanish representative from the United States had terminated diplomatic relations between the two countries, and that all official communications between their respective representatives ceased therewith.
I commend to your especial attention the note addressed to the United States minister at Madrid by, the Spanish minister of foreign affairs on the 21st instant, whereby the foregoing notification was conveyed. It will be perceived therefrom that the Government of Spain, having cognizance of the joint resolution of the United States Congress, and in view of the things which the President is thereby required and authorized to do, responds by treating the reasonable demands of this Government as measures of hostility, following with that instant and complete severance of relations by its action which by the usage of nations accompanies an existent state of war between sovereign powers.
The position of Spain being thus made known, and the demands of the United States being denied, with a complete rupture of intercourse, by the act of Spain, I have been constrained, in the exercise of the power conferred upon me by the joint resolution aforesaid, to proclaim, under date of April 22, 1898, a blockade of certain ports of the north coast of Cuba, between Cardenas and Bahia Honda, and the port of Cienfugos, on the south coast of Cuba, and to issue my proclamation dated April 23, 1898, calling forth volunteers.
I now recommend the adoption of a joint resolution declaring that a state of war exists between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain, that the definition of the international status of the United States as a belligerent power may be made known and the assertion of all its rights in the conduct of a public war may be assured.
WILLIAM McKINLEY.
DECLARATION OF WAR WITH SPAIN
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, First. That war be, and the same is hereby, declared to exist, and that war has existed since the 21st day of April, A. D. 1898, including said day, between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain.
Second. That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, directed and empowered to use the entire land and naval forces of the United States and to call into the actual service of the United States the militia of the several States to such extent as may be necessary to carry this act into effect.
Approved, April 25, 1898."
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LTC Stephen F.
Karl Rove: The triumph of William McKinley | LIVE STREAM
In this Bradley Lecture, Karl Rove, one of the nation’s foremost political strategists, will discuss his new book. In “The Triumph of William McKinley: Why t...
Karl Rove: The triumph of William McKinley | LIVE STREAM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-QR1yzK30U
Images:
1. William McKinley - POTUS #25 official portrait
2. William McKinley, c. 1896
3. Ida McKinley in the conservatory of the White House, Washington, D.C., c. 1901
4. Campaign image of presidential incumbent William McKinley and his vice presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt, 1900.
Background from {[https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/william-mckinley/]}
"William McKinley was the 25th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1897, until his assassination on September 14, 1901, after leading the nation to victory in the Spanish-American War and raising protective tariffs to promote American industry.
At the 1896 Republican Convention, in time of depression, the wealthy Cleveland businessman Marcus Alonzo Hanna ensured the nomination of his friend William McKinley as “the advance agent of prosperity.” The Democrats, advocating the “free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold”–which would have mildly inflated the currency–nominated William Jennings Bryan.
While Hanna used large contributions from eastern Republicans frightened by Bryan’s views on silver, McKinley met delegations on his front porch in Canton, Ohio. He won by the largest majority of popular votes since 1872.
Born in Niles, Ohio, in 1843, McKinley briefly attended Allegheny College, and was teaching in a country school when the Civil War broke out. Enlisting as a private in the Union Army, he was mustered out at the end of the war as a brevet major of volunteers. He studied law, opened an office in Canton, Ohio, and married Ida Saxton, daughter of a local banker.
At 34, McKinley won a seat in Congress. His attractive personality, exemplary character, and quick intelligence enabled him to rise rapidly. He was appointed to the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Robert M. La Follette, Sr., who served with him, recalled that he generally “represented the newer view,” and “on the great new questions .. was generally on the side of the public and against private interests.”
During his 14 years in the House, he became the leading Republican tariff expert, giving his name to the measure enacted in 1890. The next year he was elected Governor of Ohio, serving two terms.
When McKinley became President, the depression of 1893 had almost run its course and with it the extreme agitation over silver. Deferring action on the money question, he called Congress into special session to enact the highest tariff in history.
In the friendly atmosphere of the McKinley Administration, industrial combinations developed at an unprecedented pace. Newspapers caricatured McKinley as a little boy led around by “Nursie” Hanna, the representative of the trusts. However, McKinley was not dominated by Hanna; he condemned the trusts as “dangerous conspiracies against the public good.”
Not prosperity, but foreign policy, dominated McKinley’s Administration. Reporting the stalemate between Spanish forces and revolutionaries in Cuba, newspapers screamed that a quarter of the population was dead and the rest suffering acutely. Public indignation brought pressure upon the President for war. Unable to restrain Congress or the American people, McKinley delivered his message of neutral intervention in April 1898. Congress thereupon voted three resolutions tantamount to a declaration of war for the liberation and independence of Cuba.
In the 100-day war, the United States destroyed the Spanish fleet outside Santiago harbor in Cuba, seized Manila in the Philippines, and occupied Puerto Rico.
“Uncle Joe” Cannon, later Speaker of the House, once said that McKinley kept his ear so close to the ground that it was full of grasshoppers. When McKinley was undecided what to do about Spanish possessions other than Cuba, he toured the country and detected an imperialist sentiment. Thus the United States annexed the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.
In 1900, McKinley again campaigned against Bryan. While Bryan inveighed against imperialism, McKinley quietly stood for “the full dinner pail.”
His second term, which had begun auspiciously, came to a tragic end in September 1901. He was standing in a receiving line at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition when a deranged anarchist shot him twice. He died eight days later.
The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association."
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-QR1yzK30U
Images:
1. William McKinley - POTUS #25 official portrait
2. William McKinley, c. 1896
3. Ida McKinley in the conservatory of the White House, Washington, D.C., c. 1901
4. Campaign image of presidential incumbent William McKinley and his vice presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt, 1900.
Background from {[https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/william-mckinley/]}
"William McKinley was the 25th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1897, until his assassination on September 14, 1901, after leading the nation to victory in the Spanish-American War and raising protective tariffs to promote American industry.
At the 1896 Republican Convention, in time of depression, the wealthy Cleveland businessman Marcus Alonzo Hanna ensured the nomination of his friend William McKinley as “the advance agent of prosperity.” The Democrats, advocating the “free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold”–which would have mildly inflated the currency–nominated William Jennings Bryan.
While Hanna used large contributions from eastern Republicans frightened by Bryan’s views on silver, McKinley met delegations on his front porch in Canton, Ohio. He won by the largest majority of popular votes since 1872.
Born in Niles, Ohio, in 1843, McKinley briefly attended Allegheny College, and was teaching in a country school when the Civil War broke out. Enlisting as a private in the Union Army, he was mustered out at the end of the war as a brevet major of volunteers. He studied law, opened an office in Canton, Ohio, and married Ida Saxton, daughter of a local banker.
At 34, McKinley won a seat in Congress. His attractive personality, exemplary character, and quick intelligence enabled him to rise rapidly. He was appointed to the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Robert M. La Follette, Sr., who served with him, recalled that he generally “represented the newer view,” and “on the great new questions .. was generally on the side of the public and against private interests.”
During his 14 years in the House, he became the leading Republican tariff expert, giving his name to the measure enacted in 1890. The next year he was elected Governor of Ohio, serving two terms.
When McKinley became President, the depression of 1893 had almost run its course and with it the extreme agitation over silver. Deferring action on the money question, he called Congress into special session to enact the highest tariff in history.
In the friendly atmosphere of the McKinley Administration, industrial combinations developed at an unprecedented pace. Newspapers caricatured McKinley as a little boy led around by “Nursie” Hanna, the representative of the trusts. However, McKinley was not dominated by Hanna; he condemned the trusts as “dangerous conspiracies against the public good.”
Not prosperity, but foreign policy, dominated McKinley’s Administration. Reporting the stalemate between Spanish forces and revolutionaries in Cuba, newspapers screamed that a quarter of the population was dead and the rest suffering acutely. Public indignation brought pressure upon the President for war. Unable to restrain Congress or the American people, McKinley delivered his message of neutral intervention in April 1898. Congress thereupon voted three resolutions tantamount to a declaration of war for the liberation and independence of Cuba.
In the 100-day war, the United States destroyed the Spanish fleet outside Santiago harbor in Cuba, seized Manila in the Philippines, and occupied Puerto Rico.
“Uncle Joe” Cannon, later Speaker of the House, once said that McKinley kept his ear so close to the ground that it was full of grasshoppers. When McKinley was undecided what to do about Spanish possessions other than Cuba, he toured the country and detected an imperialist sentiment. Thus the United States annexed the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.
In 1900, McKinley again campaigned against Bryan. While Bryan inveighed against imperialism, McKinley quietly stood for “the full dinner pail.”
His second term, which had begun auspiciously, came to a tragic end in September 1901. He was standing in a receiving line at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition when a deranged anarchist shot him twice. He died eight days later.
The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association."
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LTC Stephen F.
Life Portrait William McKinley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxw6bZwtQcs
William McKinley (1843-1901) was 18 years old in 1861 when he enlisted as a private in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry (O.V.I.). This photograph of McKinley in uniform measures 2" by 4" (5.08 by 10.16 cm). By the time he mustered out of service, he had been promoted to the rank of brevet major of volunteers. William McKinley, the twenty-fifth president of the United States, was born in Niles, Ohio. He enlisted in the army at the outbreak of the Civil War and, after being mustered out, studied law and opened a law office in Canton, Ohio. McKinley served in the U.S. Congress for 14 years, and became president in 1897, largely due to the influence of Marcus Hanna, boss of the Cleveland political machine. McKinley was most noted for his foreign policy and the conduct of the Spanish-American War in 1898. It was during McKinley's administration that the U.S. acquired its first overseas possessions in the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. He was re-elected in 1900, but was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in 1901. His running mate, Theodore Roosevelt, then became president.
Images
1. William McKinley delivering his final speech, Buffalo, New York, September 5, 1901; he was fatally shot the following day.
2. Leon Czolgosz assassinating U.S. Pres. William McKinley, 1901
3. William McKinley being transported to a hospital after an assassination attempt in Buffalo, N.Y., 1901
4. Union 1LT William McKinley, 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry (O.V.I.)
Background from {[https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/william-mckinley/]}
"William McKinley was the 25th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1897, until his assassination on September 14, 1901, after leading the nation to victory in the Spanish-American War and raising protective tariffs to promote American industry.
At the 1896 Republican Convention, in time of depression, the wealthy Cleveland businessman Marcus Alonzo Hanna ensured the nomination of his friend William McKinley as “the advance agent of prosperity.” The Democrats, advocating the “free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold”–which would have mildly inflated the currency–nominated William Jennings Bryan.
While Hanna used large contributions from eastern Republicans frightened by Bryan’s views on silver, McKinley met delegations on his front porch in Canton, Ohio. He won by the largest majority of popular votes since 1872.
Born in Niles, Ohio, in 1843, McKinley briefly attended Allegheny College, and was teaching in a country school when the Civil War broke out. Enlisting as a private in the Union Army, he was mustered out at the end of the war as a brevet major of volunteers. He studied law, opened an office in Canton, Ohio, and married Ida Saxton, daughter of a local banker.
At 34, McKinley won a seat in Congress. His attractive personality, exemplary character, and quick intelligence enabled him to rise rapidly. He was appointed to the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Robert M. La Follette, Sr., who served with him, recalled that he generally “represented the newer view,” and “on the great new questions .. was generally on the side of the public and against private interests.”
During his 14 years in the House, he became the leading Republican tariff expert, giving his name to the measure enacted in 1890. The next year he was elected Governor of Ohio, serving two terms.
When McKinley became President, the depression of 1893 had almost run its course and with it the extreme agitation over silver. Deferring action on the money question, he called Congress into special session to enact the highest tariff in history.
In the friendly atmosphere of the McKinley Administration, industrial combinations developed at an unprecedented pace. Newspapers caricatured McKinley as a little boy led around by “Nursie” Hanna, the representative of the trusts. However, McKinley was not dominated by Hanna; he condemned the trusts as “dangerous conspiracies against the public good.”
Not prosperity, but foreign policy, dominated McKinley’s Administration. Reporting the stalemate between Spanish forces and revolutionaries in Cuba, newspapers screamed that a quarter of the population was dead and the rest suffering acutely. Public indignation brought pressure upon the President for war. Unable to restrain Congress or the American people, McKinley delivered his message of neutral intervention in April 1898. Congress thereupon voted three resolutions tantamount to a declaration of war for the liberation and independence of Cuba.
In the 100-day war, the United States destroyed the Spanish fleet outside Santiago harbor in Cuba, seized Manila in the Philippines, and occupied Puerto Rico.
“Uncle Joe” Cannon, later Speaker of the House, once said that McKinley kept his ear so close to the ground that it was full of grasshoppers. When McKinley was undecided what to do about Spanish possessions other than Cuba, he toured the country and detected an imperialist sentiment. Thus the United States annexed the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.
In 1900, McKinley again campaigned against Bryan. While Bryan inveighed against imperialism, McKinley quietly stood for “the full dinner pail.”
His second term, which had begun auspiciously, came to a tragic end in September 1901. He was standing in a receiving line at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition when a deranged anarchist shot him twice. He died eight days later.
The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association."
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxw6bZwtQcs
William McKinley (1843-1901) was 18 years old in 1861 when he enlisted as a private in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry (O.V.I.). This photograph of McKinley in uniform measures 2" by 4" (5.08 by 10.16 cm). By the time he mustered out of service, he had been promoted to the rank of brevet major of volunteers. William McKinley, the twenty-fifth president of the United States, was born in Niles, Ohio. He enlisted in the army at the outbreak of the Civil War and, after being mustered out, studied law and opened a law office in Canton, Ohio. McKinley served in the U.S. Congress for 14 years, and became president in 1897, largely due to the influence of Marcus Hanna, boss of the Cleveland political machine. McKinley was most noted for his foreign policy and the conduct of the Spanish-American War in 1898. It was during McKinley's administration that the U.S. acquired its first overseas possessions in the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. He was re-elected in 1900, but was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in 1901. His running mate, Theodore Roosevelt, then became president.
Images
1. William McKinley delivering his final speech, Buffalo, New York, September 5, 1901; he was fatally shot the following day.
2. Leon Czolgosz assassinating U.S. Pres. William McKinley, 1901
3. William McKinley being transported to a hospital after an assassination attempt in Buffalo, N.Y., 1901
4. Union 1LT William McKinley, 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry (O.V.I.)
Background from {[https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/william-mckinley/]}
"William McKinley was the 25th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1897, until his assassination on September 14, 1901, after leading the nation to victory in the Spanish-American War and raising protective tariffs to promote American industry.
At the 1896 Republican Convention, in time of depression, the wealthy Cleveland businessman Marcus Alonzo Hanna ensured the nomination of his friend William McKinley as “the advance agent of prosperity.” The Democrats, advocating the “free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold”–which would have mildly inflated the currency–nominated William Jennings Bryan.
While Hanna used large contributions from eastern Republicans frightened by Bryan’s views on silver, McKinley met delegations on his front porch in Canton, Ohio. He won by the largest majority of popular votes since 1872.
Born in Niles, Ohio, in 1843, McKinley briefly attended Allegheny College, and was teaching in a country school when the Civil War broke out. Enlisting as a private in the Union Army, he was mustered out at the end of the war as a brevet major of volunteers. He studied law, opened an office in Canton, Ohio, and married Ida Saxton, daughter of a local banker.
At 34, McKinley won a seat in Congress. His attractive personality, exemplary character, and quick intelligence enabled him to rise rapidly. He was appointed to the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Robert M. La Follette, Sr., who served with him, recalled that he generally “represented the newer view,” and “on the great new questions .. was generally on the side of the public and against private interests.”
During his 14 years in the House, he became the leading Republican tariff expert, giving his name to the measure enacted in 1890. The next year he was elected Governor of Ohio, serving two terms.
When McKinley became President, the depression of 1893 had almost run its course and with it the extreme agitation over silver. Deferring action on the money question, he called Congress into special session to enact the highest tariff in history.
In the friendly atmosphere of the McKinley Administration, industrial combinations developed at an unprecedented pace. Newspapers caricatured McKinley as a little boy led around by “Nursie” Hanna, the representative of the trusts. However, McKinley was not dominated by Hanna; he condemned the trusts as “dangerous conspiracies against the public good.”
Not prosperity, but foreign policy, dominated McKinley’s Administration. Reporting the stalemate between Spanish forces and revolutionaries in Cuba, newspapers screamed that a quarter of the population was dead and the rest suffering acutely. Public indignation brought pressure upon the President for war. Unable to restrain Congress or the American people, McKinley delivered his message of neutral intervention in April 1898. Congress thereupon voted three resolutions tantamount to a declaration of war for the liberation and independence of Cuba.
In the 100-day war, the United States destroyed the Spanish fleet outside Santiago harbor in Cuba, seized Manila in the Philippines, and occupied Puerto Rico.
“Uncle Joe” Cannon, later Speaker of the House, once said that McKinley kept his ear so close to the ground that it was full of grasshoppers. When McKinley was undecided what to do about Spanish possessions other than Cuba, he toured the country and detected an imperialist sentiment. Thus the United States annexed the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.
In 1900, McKinley again campaigned against Bryan. While Bryan inveighed against imperialism, McKinley quietly stood for “the full dinner pail.”
His second term, which had begun auspiciously, came to a tragic end in September 1901. He was standing in a receiving line at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition when a deranged anarchist shot him twice. He died eight days later.
The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association."
FYI LTC John Shaw 1SG Steven ImermanGySgt Gary CordeiroPO1 H Gene LawrenceSgt Jim BelanusSGM Bill FrazerMSG Tom EarleySGT Michael HearnSGT Randell Rose[SGT Denny EspinosaA1C Riley SandersSSgt Clare MaySSG Robert WebsterCSM Chuck StaffordPFC Craig KarshnerSFC Don VanceSFC Bernard Walko SPC Nancy GreenePVT Mark Zehner Lt Col Charlie Brown
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The bow of the USS Maine is on a monument in Bangor, Maine where every year there's a memorial ceremony remembering the ship that blew up in Havana Harbor - the spark that launched the Spanish American War. I have attended a couple of these programs.
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