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Spanish-American War

click image to enlarge Born in Montreal, Province of Quebec, Canada, as Joseph Jean Baptiste Gervais to Thomas Gervais and Julienne Leblanc on October 7, 1877. John J. Jarvis (Gervais) enlisted in the Army for the Spanish-American war and died December 20, 1953 and is buried in the Long Island National Cemetary.

On February 15, 1898, at 9:40 pm, the USS Maine exploded while anchored in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, with the loss of 260 men. Captain Charles D. Sigsbee of Albany wired the Secretary of the Navy that the cause was unknown, and judgement should be suspended.

This was more than the American press, many politicians, and the crusading American public, who for years had longed to help the bleeding and desolate land of Cuba suffering under Spanish Dominion; this was asking for more patience than they were willing to give. On April 25th, 1898, Congress, after several days of debate, voted for war.

With little thought, and less regard for the implications, America embarked upon its four decades of imperialism, and inexorably, to war with Japan, when they too, struck Manila in 1942.

The Spanish fleet eventually took shelter in the harbor of Santiago, on the south coast of Cuba, and was bottled up, once the Americans found them. But the Americans could not get at the Spaniards. Eventually the US War Department, in the absence of any other practical plans for winning this unexpected war, decided to land an army corps to capture Santiago from the land, thus pulling the Navy's chestnuts out of the fire.

The US Army consisted of 26,000 men deployed all over the nation, most still expecting to fight Indians. (In the winter of 1898 an Infantry regiment had to put down "trouble" on a reservation.) This army had gotten it's first magazine rifles only six years earlier. It's artillery was in some cases Civil War muzzle-loaders re bored and made into breech loaders. Its units were at about half authorized strength. It had not fought a modern enemy in 33 years.

There were 100,000 Spanish regulars on the Island of Cuba, and as many veteran Cuban militiamen, committed to Spanish Rule. They were armed with a version of the superior German Mauser. Illiterate conscripts, and lacking many support weapons and services the world considered necessary, the Spanish soldier was brave, could endure hardships, cared well for his weapons and obeyed his orders promptly and exactly.

On May 30, 1898 Major General William R. Shaftner, a 300+ pound veteran of the Civil War in which he had won the Medal of Honor, was ordered to take the Fifth Army Corps of about 15,000 men, then at Tampa, Florida, to Santiago. On June 22nd they disembarked at Daiquiri, 15 miles from Santiago, and prepared to march along the jungle tracks to that place. On the morning of June 24, the dismounted cavalry of Major General Joseph Wheeler's division, (West Point, class of 1859 and once a 29 year old Lieutenant General in the Confederate States Army) advanced to unexpected contact with the Spaniards at Las Guasimas. The 1st US Volunteer Cavalry, and the Black soldiers of the 9th and 10th US Cavalry, deployed and after suffering from Spanish long range fire, spontaneously charged through the jungles and captured the ridge line. It established the pattern for all future fighting.

On July 1st, a prepared American assault captured the ridge lines commanding the city of Santiago, and it's harbor. This "Battle of San Juan Hill" forced the Spanish Fleet to sortie on July 3rd, which led to their total destruction by the blockading US ships. With no further need to protect the fleet, the Spanish commander now felt it pointless to defend the city. Indeed, the Spaniards now concluded it was pointless to continue the war. The peace 'gave' the US Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam, and the US meanwhile annexed the Hawaiian Islands.

Given the inadequate preparations and lack of expertise of the US Army, and given the deadliness of Cuban tropical diseases, the US was lucky the Spanish enemy was so ineptly commanded. One of the most telling statistics of the war, was the fact that five times as many soldiers died from disease, as died of enemy bullets. High sick rates were true even of those units which never left the United States. Indeed, one of the results of this war was the attention given to tropical diseases by Army medical researchers, particularly Surgeon Walter Reed, who headed the team which discovered that mosquitoes spread Yellow Fever. This discovery of "carriers" made it possible to prevent many tropical diseases.

As a result of the inevitable postwar scandals, and even more, from the bush fighting in the Philippine jungles during the next decade, the US Army began its path to reform and modernize itself. This struggle enjoyed considerable success, but the US Army was still found to be woefully inadequate to meet the needs of World War I.

The first officer killed in Cuba was Lt. Wansboro, a graduate of Albany's Christian Brothers Academy. New York supplied 30,000 men to the Armed Forces, about 10% of the total war effort. Eight units served overseas; the 71st National Guard Regiment from New York City, being one of only two national Guard units to see serious fighting.

Elbert Hubbard of East Aurora, NY wrote A Mission to Garcia, an inspirational piece often recited at school exercises for the next 40 years, and well known to Americans of that era. Another literary work of great importance was Theodore Roosevelt's, The Rough Riders; which made him governor of New York, and later President. I cannot resist Finley Peter Dunne's somewhat unfair remark, that the book ought to be called Alone in Cuba.

This splendid little war sometimes has an air of farce, but given the fact that the war ushered in what has come to be called "The American Century" with all that implies, I think the war to be worthy of study and commemoration.

It has been a splendid little war; begun with the highest motives, carried on with magnificent intelligence and spirit, favored by that fortune which loves the brave.

Ambassador to Great Britain John Hay
to Colonel Theodore Roosevelt
U S Volunteers

On the 23rd of April, two days before the official declaration of war, President William McKinley issued a call for 125,000 volunteers to bolster the ranks of the regular U.S. Army for the coming conflict in the Philippines and the Caribbean. New York State was asked to furnish twelve full regiments of infantry and two troops of cavalry to the war effort. President McKinley expressed the desire that as large a portion of the volunteers as possible should be composed of troops from the National Guard, as they are already armed, equipped, and drilled. As the National Guard was technically the New York State militia, it was illegal to simply muster the units into the army. The commanders of all of the state’s infantry organizations were ordered to assemble their units in full uniform and obtain by actual count, the number of officers and men who wished to be relegated to active service for a two-year tour of duty. Under this first call for volunteers New York State furnished in full their quota, composed entirely of units from the National Guard.

The twelve regiments chosen for service in the Spanish-American War were the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 9th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 47th, 65th, 69th, and 71st New York Volunteer Infantry Regiments. All of these regiments were formerly National Guard units and most of them retained their original organizations. Only the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd regiments were different as they had been assembled from a collection of independent companies and battalions. Squadron A and Troop C, of the National Guard cavalry provided the two required troops for the war effort. Each regiment was composed of twelve companies, each with an effective strength of 84 officers and men. This gave each regiment a total strength of 1,008 men on paper. In actuality the numbers at the onset of the war were slightly higher, with each regiment fielding 1,019 officers and men. The cavalry troops were the same size as an infantry company and had an equivalent strength. New York State supplied a total of 12,460 officers and men in its volunteer regiments in response to the president’s first call for troops.

12th Regiment Infantry

New York Volunteers

The 12th Infantry Regiment was one of twelve New York State National Guard infantry regiments that were federalized for service in the Spanish-American War. The 12th Regiment was originally formed in late June of 1847. It was initially known as the 11th Regiment and contained a collection of ten companies from a number of different units. Over the next few years companies were added and subtracted until 1859 when the 12th Regiment was principally composed of companies from the 22nd Regiment and the few remaining founding companies. During the Civil War the 12th served for several three month terms and was present for a number of engagements, including the surrender of Harper’s Ferry, WV in which the entire regiment was taken prisoner by Stonewall Jackson’s confederates. Following the war the 12th Regiment served in the Orange riots of 1871, the railroad riots of 1877, the switchman’s strike in Buffalo of 1892, and the motormen’s strike in Brooklyn of 1895. The regiment was mustered into federal service and reorganized to a twelve-company format on May 13th, 1898 at Camp Townsend, Peekskill, New York. It was officially designated the “12th Regiment Infantry, New York Vols.” on the same date.

At the time of muster in, the unit consisted of 43 officers and 978 enlisted men. The 12th Regiment stayed at Camp Townsend for only a few days before it was moved south to Chickamauga Park in Tennessee. The regiment arrived at Chickamauga on the 20th of May and was ordered to set up at Camp George H. Thomas where it remained until August 24th, 1898. Conditions in this camp were terrible. It was overcrowded, unsanitary, and disease-ridden. To stem the losses, the camp was eventually broken up and the troops relocated. The 12th New York became part of the Third Brigade of the Third Division of the Second Army Corps in September, 1898. Eventually, it was sent to Lexington, Kentucky, for garrison duty which is where the unit appears in October, 1898.

On November 13th the regiment departed Lexington for Americus, Georgia, where a new camp was set up. On December 26th the 12th Regiment left camp en route for Cuba, where it arrived on the 1st of January 1899 and took up garrison duty at Matanzas and Cardenas as part of the occupation force. Santiago had fallen on July 17, and all fighting had ended on August 12, 1898, so the unit did not see action. The war formally ended on December 10, 1898, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. It served in Cuba until March 22, when it returned to the United States, arriving on March 26, 1899. The regiment was sent home to New York City where it arrived on March 27th and was mustered out on April 20th, 1899.

At the time of muster out, it consisted of 46 officers and 945 men. During its term of service, the unit suffered from high losses. Twnety-three enlisted men died of disease, one man died as the result of an accident, and one man committed suicide. Forty-seven additional men were discharged on disability. Ninety-one men deserted!

Robert E. Mulligan, Jr., Institute Historian. A Brief Overview of NY in the Spanish American War. New York State Military Heritage Institute. Albany, NY. January, 1998.

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