While General Miles and his I Corps were departing for the landings at Puerto Rico, the war in Cuba was winding down.  The Spanish navy had suffered a defeat from which it would never recover, and with the capitulation of Santiago, most hostilities ended.  The ground war that began scarcely six weeks earlier with the landing of Colonel Huntington's Marines at Guantanamo Bay had been bitterly fought, but the victories that ranged from the Cuzco Well to the heights over Santiago had been won with relatively little loss of life.  Indeed American battle deaths for the entire campaign (including the US Naval actions in both theaters of operation) were less than 500 men.

Throughout the three-week siege to take Santiago, General Shafter had watched his fighting force slowly dwindle away through an attrition caused, not so much by enemy bullets or fierce battles, but by a new enemy.  His soldiers might well have encamped around the city of Santiago to cut off the enemy from any resupply, even if it took months to "starve out its defenders", were it not for the tropical diseases that were decimating his ranks.  Veterans of the campaign described long days spent in muddy trenches that were re-filled with rain water during cold nights.  The puddles bred mosquitoes that not only made life miserable, but tenuous.  Rations of embalmed beef provided little sustenance, and Shafter's V Corps didn't have TIME to wait out the forces inside Santiago.  It was these factors that pushed the general to pursue the surrender of General Toral with increased vigor in the early part of July.

 

With the capitulation of the Spanish forces on July 17th, a steady stream of American soldiers could be seen returning to the over-crowded hospital at Siboney.  Meanwhile, the hard-won victory opened the way for General Miles to launch his Puerto Rican campaign, departing from Guantanamo Bay with his troop ships on July 21st.

Overlooking the large harbor at Guantanamo was Camp McCalla, still firmly under the control of Colonel Harrington's Marines.  Since the battle at Cuzco, the Spanish had withdrawn most of their forces from the jungles around the vast harbor, and confined their activities to the city.  Believing themselves out-numbered, the 7,000 man force were hesitant to mount further major attacks on the Marines.  

Guantanamo Bay is a harbor of distinctive design, almost like being "two harbors in one", stretching ten miles inland.  The outer harbor that sat beneath Camp McCalla is dotted with numerous inlets.  It is narrow, but deep enough to accommodate even the larger of America's warships.  For weeks these ships had patrolled the waters with impunity, and General Miles' troop transports had spent a week in the outer harbor awaiting his return from meetings with General Shafter at Santiago.  

Further inland is the larger expanse of Bahia de Guantanamo, nearly six miles long and five miles deep.  Inside rests the port of Caimanera with its natural moorage and well constructed piers.  The port city of Caimanera served as the primary shipping point for the city of Guantanamo, which is actually 20 miles inland from the bay that bears its name. 

Guantanamo Bay had seen plenty of activity since the arrival of Harrington's Marines and had served as a re-coaling station for the Navy for weeks.  With hostilities winding down and the demands for landing replacements and supplies for the American soldiers in Cuba, by late July the time had arrived for the Navy to finally venture into the inner reaches of the bay.  Despite the strong American presence in the outer harbor, however, Bahia de Guantanamo was anything but safe for shelter.  The small inlet that connected the two bodies of water was a dangerous passage, filled with deadly mines. 

The mines themselves were French-made, constructed to explode upon contact with the force of a 45-pound blow.  This meant they were dangerous not only to large ships, but even to smaller landing craft.  The mines contained forty-five kilograms of explosive guncotton, and would easily destroy a small craft and wreak major damage on larger vessels.  Clearing the entrance to the inner harbor would be a tedious and dangerous job, and would have to be accomplished under the watchful eyes of Spanish soldiers still still trying to recover from the surrender of the entire southeastern region of Cuba.

 

On the morning of July 26th, two small boats set out from the USS Marblehead, patrolling just outside Guantanamo Bay.  In those small boats was a group of sailors, tasked with entering the harbor near Caimanera to find and destroy these dangerous mines.  The process was simple in design, effective in its implementation, and extremely hazardous to say the least.

The two small boats entered the passage fifty yards apart, connected by ropes and a chain.  The chain formed something of a drag-net, which the boats slowly pulled along until it snagged on one of the many mines in the harbor entrance.  When this happened, the two boats would carefully close in on the mine while the brave sailors assigned this hazardous duty cut the contact wires.  Then the explosive contents were destroyed, rendering the mine harmless.

For two days the two small boats remained at their task, the courageous sailors from the Marblehead destroying one mine, then moving on to find yet another.  "The task was perilous in the extreme," said Seaman Samuel Triplett, one of the volunteers.  "But it was accomplished expeditiously and without the loss of a single man."

Seaman Triplett's job was made even more dangerous by pockets of resistance from the shore.  He later recounted the scene as the two boats went about their two-day mission.  "The Spaniards ashore eyed us keenly as we rowed toward them, and fully understanding our design waited with their fire until we would be within their reach.  No sooner had we come within reach of their fire than they began to open up on us, and for a time it rained bullets and deadly missiles.  Their fire did little damage, and a number of steam launches which accompanies us on the expedition protected us from a more direct and certainly more effective attack."

Over the two days of July 26th and 27th, these brave sailors found and destroyed 27 such contact mines.  Four of them received Medals of Honor.

William Morin William Spicer Axel Sundquist Samuel Triplett

These were the LAST Medals of Honor of the Spanish-American War!

---

 

The Rough Riders transport took them to Montauk, New York where they were met by throngs of adoring citizens who had hung on their exploits through the reports of the media.  All were hailed as heroes, their intrepid Colonel returning a larger-than-life American legend.  As the soldiers left their ship, someone in the crowd yelled out to ask Colonel Roosevelt how he felt.

"I've had a bully time and a bully fight.  
I feel as big and as strong as a Bull Moose!" 

The crowd responded with cheers of approval.  Colonel Roosevelt had returned to his hometown, the most popular man in America.

Despite his popularity with the people, not everyone loved TEDDY.  The Colonel's outspoken criticism of Secretary of War Alger's handling of the war had  created personal enemies in high places.  General Wheeler recommended Colonel Roosevelt for the Medal of Honor, an action endorsed by General Shafter and General Lawton...both Medal of Honor recipients themselves.  Had it been left to the people to decide, his award would never have been in doubt.  Instead, the recommendation had to pass through the higher echelons in Washington, D.C.; the one place in America where Colonel Theodore Roosevelt was NOT a legend.  Many historians believe it was Secretary Alger himself who was most instrumental in denying the award to Theodore Roosevelt in his lifetime.  

Charges of incompetence on the part of Secretary of War Russell Alger subsequently led President McKinley to appoint a special commission to investigate the charges.  Among the most reported issues revolved around the rations the soldiers had dubbed "Embalmed Beef".  During the hearings, General Nelson Miles charged that Alger and other War Department officials, in collusion with meat-packers, had deliberately sent the American troops in the Caribbean, meat that had been injected with dangerous chemicals as an experiment.  Though these charges were never proven, the public uproar against Alger forced him to resign in 1899.  (Russell Alger did subsequently return to Washington, DC to serve as a Senator from his home state of Michigan from 1902 until his death in 1907.) 

The Walking Dead

Perhaps no where was the inept manner in which the veterans of the Spanish-American War were received home more vividly illustrated than at Camp Wikoff, a "hospital" built on Long Island, New York and named for Colonel Charles Wikoff who had been killed during the Spanish American War.  Intended to be a place for returning veterans from the sick camps to get well, it became instead a place for them to die.

The first veterans began arriving at the hastily established tent-hospital on August 9th.  There wasn't an ample supply of potable water, and almost no food.  An article in The New York Sun reported, "There are no board floors in (the tents), but strips of canvas are spread on the ground and the men lie on them with their own uniforms for pillows and army blankets for covering.  The men are all pale and wasted.  In one tent, two men burst out crying when a reporter asked them if they were getting all they wanted to eat."

Collier's Weekly demonstrated the grim reality of Camp Wicoff on the cover of their magazine, a sad portrait with the caption beneath that read "HOME!"

Food rations arrived slowly, some filled with worms.  Medical supplies were in short supply, and sanitation was almost non-existent.  The first veteran died at Camp Wikoff on August 17th.  During its two-months of operation, 21,000 veterans passed through its squalor, another 250 war veterans died.  

Stories about the conditions of the camp moved the citizenry to act, descending on the the camp with food, blankets, water, and whatever else they could muster.  The East Hampton Star wrote:

"There must be a screw loose somewhere when Uncle Sam's soldiers, backed by a country of unlimited resources, are...compelled to depend upon charity for food."

It was perhaps, a fitting epitaph for the Splendid Little War that claimed fewer than 500 lives in combat action, resulted in an unqualified victory that launched the United States into prominence as a world power, and ended with more than 4,000 non-combat deaths...to the lingering effects of foreign service.  Indeed, no war is ever SPLENDID....

And sadly, how quickly the valiant who serve are forgotten, when the peril of war has passed.

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