第37章 The Preparation Of The Army (2)

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 decisions made during his tenure of office was that the act of the 9th of March, appropriating $50,000,000 "for national defense," forbade money to be spent or even contracts to be made by the quartermaster, the commissary, or the surgeon general.In his book Secretary Alger records with pride the fact that all this money was spent for coast defense.In view of the fact that the navy did its task, this expenditure was absolutely unnecessary and served merely to solace coast cities and munition makers.

The regular army on April 1, 1898, consisted of 28,183 officers and men.An act of the 26th of April authorized its increase to about double that size.As enlistment was fairly prompt, by August the army consisted of 56,365 officers and men, the number of officers being but slightly increased.It was decided not to use 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 diseases.The war seemed equally popular all over the country, and the million who offered themselves for service were sufficient to allow due consideration for equitable state quotas and for physical fitness.There were also sufficient Krag-Jorgensen rifles to arm the increased regular army and Springfields for the volunteers.

To provide an adequate number of officers for the volunteer army was more difficult.Even though a considerable number were transferred from the regular to the volunteer army, they constituted only a small proportion of the whole number necessary.Some few of those appointed were graduates of West Point, and more had been in the militia.The great majority, however, had purely amateur experience, and many not even so much.Those who did know something, moreover, did not have the same knowledge or experience.This raw material was given no officer training whatsoever but was turned directly to the task of training the rank and file.Nor 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 naturally proved too great.

At the most critical moment of the campaign in Cuba, the commanding general, William R.Shafter, had eaten nothing for four days, and his plucky second in command, the wiry Georgian cavalry leader of 1864 and 1865, General "Joe" Wheeler, was not physically fit to succeed him.There is not the least doubt that the fighting spirit of the men was strong and did not fail, but the defect in those branches of knowledge which are required to keep an army fit to fight is equally certain.The primary cause for the melting of the American army by disease must be acknowledged to be the insufficient training of the officers.