hysteria and sudden panics swept the nation. Cheers and waving handkerchiefs and laughing girls sped the troops on their way. It cannot be denied that the most popular son

was apparent none of the concentration of effort and of the calm foresight so necessary for efficiency in modern warfare.

believed that the country could supply the munitions needed, and that of facilities for transport it had enough. If the United States did not have at hand exactly the munitions needed, if the transportation system had not been built to launch an army into Cuba, it was popularly supposed that the wealth of the country rendered such trifles negligible, and that, if insufficient attention had been given to the stud

nd honorably... by every person except one." When Lieutenant Whitney risked his life as a spy in order to investigate conditions in Porto Rico; his plans and purpose were blazoned in the press. Incredible as it may now seem, the newspaper men appear to have felt themselves part of the army. They offered their services as equals, and William Randolph Hearst even ordered one of his staff to sink a vesse

lable army force in time of peace should be just sufficient for the purposes of peace, and that it should be enlarged in time of war. To allow a fair amount of expansion without too much disturbance to the organization in increasing to war strength, the regular army was over-officered in peace times. The chief reliance in war was placed upon the militia. The organization and training of this force was left, however, under a few very general directions, to the various States. As a result, its quality varied and it was nowhere highly efficient in the military sense. Some regiments, it is true, were impressi

were the functions of his office. Nor did he correct or supplement his own incompetence by seeking professional advice. There existed no general staff, and it did not occur to him, as it did to Secretary Long, to create one to advise him unofficially. He was on bad terms with Major General Nelson A. Miles, who was the general in command. He discussed even the details of questions of army strategy, not only with Miles but with the President and members of the Cabinet. One of the most extraordinary d

the militia as it was then organized, but to rely for numbers as usual chiefly upon a volunteer army, authorized by the Act of the 22d of April, and by subsequent acts raised to a total of 200,000, with an additional 3000 cavalry, 3500 engineers, and 10,000 "immunes," or men supposed not to be liable to tropical disease

were the appointments of new officers confined to the lower ranks. The country, still mindful of its earlier wars, was charmed with the sentimental elevation of confederate generals to the rank of major general in the new army, though a public better informed would hardly have welcomed for service in the tropics the selection of men old enough to be generals in 1865 and then for thirty-three years without military experience in an age of great development in the methods of warfare. The other commanding officers were as old and were mostly chosen by seniority in a service retiring at sixty-four. The unwonted strain of active service natu

f the Navy, a position in which he had contributed a great deal to the efficiency of that Department, in order to take a more tangible part in the war. After raising among his friends and the cowboys of the West a regiment of "Rough Riders," he decline

administration, by professional soldier as well as by public sentiment, that the army must invade Cuba without regard to its fitness for such active service. The responsibility for this decision must rest upon the nation. The experience of centuries had proved conspicuously that climate was the strongest defense of the Caribbean islands against invasion, and it was in large measu

tated between Tunas on the south coast of Cuba, within touch of the insurgents, and Mariel on the north, the seizure of which would be the first step in a siege of Havana. The situation at Santiago, however, made that city the logical objective of the troops, and on the 31st of May, General Shafter was ordered to be prepared to move. On the 7th of Jun

supplies, particularly at the eastern end of the island, in the neighborhood of Santiago. It was estimated that the number of men of use about Santiago was about 12,000, with 5000 approaching to assist. Perhaps 3000 insurgents were at hand under General Garcia. The number sent, then, was not inadequate to