How many American soldiers died in the Spanish-American War?
The VA estimates some 106,000 American troops fought to "tame the West" and at least 1,000 died doing it, giving the combined wars with Native American tribes a death rate of 0.94%. The total number of American service members who fought in the Spanish-American War hovered around 306,700, with only 385 dying in combat.
How were soldiers called into service for the Spanish-American War?
Most soldiers called into service for the Spanish-American War served with regiments raised by their state.
What was the Spanish-American War?
This year marks the centennial of the Spanish-American War, which was fought between May and August 1898. For many reasons, this short war was a turning point in the history of the United States.
What happened to the Buffalo Soldiers in the Spanish-American War?
Buffalo Soldiers and the Spanish-American War. On February 15th, 1898, over 250 American sailors were killed when the battleship Maine blew up and sank in Havana harbor. The war with Spain began in April, 1898 when Major General William Shafter, a former commander of the 24th Infantry led an expeditionary force of over 17,000 men,...
How many US soldiers died in the Spanish-American War?
A little over 280,000 U.S. sailors, marines and soldiers served in the Spanish-American War with approximately 2,061 casualties, many of whom died from yellow fever.
How many sailors did the US lose in the Spanish-American War?
In the initial naval engagement, the Spanish lost 167 killed and 214 wounded, out of a total of 1,875. The Americans had 7 slightly wounded out of 1,748 men in action. The total loss of the Americans during the whole Manila campaign was 20 killed and 105 wounded.
How many soldiers did Spain lose in the Spanish-American War?
Spanish-American War Begins In total, fewer than 10 American seamen were lost, while Spanish losses were estimated at over 370. Manila itself was occupied by U.S. troops by August. The elusive Spanish Caribbean fleet under Adm.
How big was the Spanish-American War?
In the spring of 1898, the strength of the U.S. Regular Army was just 24,593 soldiers. The Army wanted 50,000 new men but received over 220,000 through volunteers and the mobilization of state National Guard units, even gaining nearly 100,000 men on the first night after the explosion of USS Maine.
What killed most American troops in the Spanish-American War?
Data varies but indicates that between 55,000 and 60,000 men died. Of these men, 90 % died from malaria, dysentery and other diseases; the remaining 10 % died during the battles or later as a consequence of their injuries.
When did the last Spanish American veteran died?
There are no longer any veterans surviving from the Spanish American War today. The last surviving veteran was Jones Morgan, a man of color. Mr. Jones passed away in Richmond, Virginia on August 29, 1993 at the incredible age of 110 years, 10 months and 6 days.
How many Americans died in Spanish American?
The Spanish-American War claimed the lives of 3,000 Americans, but only a small fraction of these soldiers died in combat. Yellow fever and typhoid decimated entire units, swiftly spreading through camps in the Caribbean and the southeastern United States.
How many Americans died in Cuba Spanish-American War?
Fewer than 400 American soldiers were killed in combat during the war. But more than 2,000 contracted yellow fever during the campaign.
How many Cubans died in Spanish-American War?
Food was scarce and famine and disease quickly swept through the camps. By 1898, one third of Cuba's population had been forcibly sent into the concentration camps. Over 400,000 Cubans died as a result of the Spanish Reconcentration Policy.
What did the US get from the Spanish-American War?
Representatives of Spain and the United States signed a peace treaty in Paris on December 10, 1898, which established the independence of Cuba, ceded Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States, and allowed the victorious power to purchase the Philippines Islands from Spain for $20 million.
Who won Spanish-American War?
the United StatesU.S. victory in the war produced a peace treaty that compelled the Spanish to relinquish claims on Cuba, and to cede sovereignty over Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States.
Why did U.S. take Puerto Rico?
The strategic value of Puerto Rico for the United States at the end of the nineteenth century centered in economic and military interests. The island's value to US policy makers was as an outlet for excess manufactured goods, as well as a key naval station in the Caribbean.
What are the military records for the Spanish American War?
The compiled military service records for the Spanish-American War usually show the date of enlistment, place of enlistment, birth place and date, personal description, medical information, date and place of discharge, and address of next of kin.
When did sailors enlist in the Spanish American War?
Since some sailors who served in the Spanish-American War enlisted before 1898, researchers should also check the keys to enlistment for 1894-1897. Another source of information at the National Archives is a register of Bureau of Navigation correspondence with enlistees for the years 1896-1902.
What are Navy medical records?
The National Archives has medical logbooks kept by ships' surgeons and by surgeons at shore stations. These logs describe medical treatments received by officers and enlisted men and their return to duty or death. There are also registers of patients at U.S. Navy hospitals. Court records.
How many volumes of 1898 are there?
The five volumes for 1898 include records for most of the sailors who enlisted in response to the outbreak of the war or who enlisted for the war's duration. If you are searching for a John Brown, for example, you would need to check all the "B" enlistments for 1898.
What was the first volunteer cavalry?
The U.S. volunteers were special regiments raised for the Spanish-American War. The most famous of these is the First Volunteer Cavalry, the official name of the Rough Riders. There were three volunteer cavalry units, three volunteer engineers, ten volunteer infantry regiments, and a volunteer signal corps. The Seventh to Tenth Volunteer Infantries were composed of African American soldiers. There are compiled military service jackets for the enlisted men and officers, similar to the jackets for the state volunteers. Their names are also indexed on National Archives Microfilm Publication M871.
What records did the Surgeon General's Office have?
Records of the Surgeon General's Office include case files, personal data cards, and correspondence files for contract nurses and doctors, most of which is arranged alphabetically.
How are military records arranged?
Compiled service records are arranged by state, type of regiment (artillery, cavalry, and infantry), and then by number of the regiment. Within each regiment, the jackets for individual soldiers are arranged alphabetically. There are compiled military service records for both officers and enlisted men.
Who led the troops on San Juan Hill?
Called the most integrated battle force of the 19th century, the troops of the 24th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry fought up the slope of San Juan Hill along with White regular army regiments and the 1st Volunteer Cavalry (the Rough Riders) led by Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt.
What happened to the Buffalo Soldiers?
On February 15th, 1898, over 250 American sailors were killed when the battleship Maine blew up and sank in Havana harbor.
Where was the 9th Cavalry stationed?
Originally billeted near Tampa, Florida, where overt racial discrimination was the norm, local white citizens refused "to make any distinction between the colored troops and the colored civilians" and tolerated no infractions of local discriminatory laws and racial customs. Despite this prejudice, the troops of the 9th and 10th Cavalry, and the 24th and 25th Infantry served with distinction on the battlefields of Las Guasimas, El Caney, and San Juan Hill. (12)
Why did the Black 24th Infantry serve as nurses and hospital orderlies for the stricken Caucasian?
When there was an outbreak of yellow fever in the army camps, Black 24th Infantry soldiers served as nurses and hospital orderlies for the stricken Caucasian troops, ordered to do so because of the stereotype that Blacks were physically better able to deal with tropical heat conditions. (13) Credit: Library of Congress.
How many Americans were in uniform during World War I?
If the Spanish-American War showcased the U.S. military operating at high efficiency, then World War I was the beginning of the end of that. With 4.73 million men in uniform, World War I saw Americans mobilize like never before.
How many American soldiers died in Vietnam?
More than 58,220 American troops died during the course of the Vietnam War, for a death rate of about 1.7%. Despite the prolonged fighting, improvements in battlefield medicine and the mobility of helicopters helped save many lives.
What was the likelihood of dying in the Confederate Army?
The chances of dying in combat in the Confederate Army was around 7%.
Why did veterans volunteer?
Over the years, a lot of veterans have described the reasons they volunteered to serve. Many admitted that they were afraid of dying in combat. No one ever asked them if they actually considered the odds of dying -- they just went to fight anyway.
How many Korean War deaths were there?
At the end of the war, the tally was 54,260 , which combined 33,643 combat deaths with 20,617 "other deaths."
How many people died in the Revolutionary War?
The colonial militias mustered up another 145,000. With a death toll of around 6,800, the chances of dying in combat in the Revolutionary War were roughly 1.8%.
Why was the Gulf War so successful?
There are many reasons for the swift, lopsided victory and the relatively low human cost (for the winners, that is). Vast improvements in battlefield medicine, search-and-rescue operations, interoperability between branches of service and allied nations, and the Caspar Weinberger-Colin Powell doctrines of overwhelming, decisive force with the intent to win all contributed to the coalition's success in the Gulf War.
Significance
Records
- Anyone who has done family or genealogical research in Civil War records will be pleasantly surprised at the fullness and accuracy of the Spanish-American War records. The records tend to be more descriptive and complete, with more consistency in name spelling, than the records for previous wars. By the turn of the century, enlistees were more likely to know their birth dates an…
Preparation
- With a few significant exceptions, the process of locating records of Spanish-American War veterans is similar to that for Civil War veterans. The best place to start is with National Archives Microfilm Publication T288, General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934. Pension records were carefully compiled when a veteran applied for benefits on grounds of injury, illness, or disability (…
Naming
- Researchers should note that the index to pension files intermingles the names of Civil War and Spanish-American War veterans. It is usually easy to distinguish those who served in the Spanish-American War, however, by the \"date of service\" (at the top right of the index card) or by the date on which they applied for a pension (at the bottom left of the index card.) When researchers kno…
Crew
- On board U.S. Navy ships, African Americans were integrated with sailors of all nationalities. (Many aliens, including Japanese, Chinese, and Filipinos, served on U.S. Navy ships during that era. Some of them enlisted while the ships were in foreign ports.) According to a list of \"colored men on board USS Maine, February 15, 1898,\" 30 African Americans were among the 350 perso…
Notable players
- The names of the African American sailors who served on USS Maine during the Spanish-American War, and the addresses of their next of kin, can be found in the records of the Naval Records Collection, U.S. Navy Subject File, 1775-1910 (hereinafter called the Navy Subject File). Two African American sailors received the Medal of Honor, one for actions at the Battle of Santi…
Military service
- African American soldiers served in the U.S. Army's Seventh to Tenth U.S. Volunteer (Colored) Infantries and in the Tenth U.S. Cavalry (whose soldiers were commonly referred to as the \"Buffalo Soldiers\"). Five soldiers from these regiments were awarded the Medal of Honor. The U.S. Marine Corps did not accept African Americans until World War II.
Casualties
- For the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps, the casualties that resulted from the explosion of the USS Maine (which actually occurred nearly three months before the declaration of war) were far greater than those sustained during the war itself. Only 90 of the 350 men on board the USS Maine at the time of the explosion survived. During the war, there were eighty-five U.S. Navy and …
Collections
- The National Archives has a collection of the letters and checks sent by two relief societies as well as replies from the family members. One of the relief organizations, known as the \"Captain Sigsbee Relief Fund,\" was funded by Congress. The other, the \"Ladies Committee Relief Fund,\" was privately funded. Both made substantial efforts to locate the widows, mothers, fathers, siste…
Content
- Many of these letters describe the intense grieving of the families and their desolate poverty, which was aggravated by the loss of pay to their sailor sons and husbands. One mother of twelve children pleads for help because she was too sick to work at anything other than \"taking in laundry.\" Other mothers sent the relief organizations newspaper clippings, prayers, and in one i…
Aftermath
- Regarding the survivors of the USS Maine, there are medical records of treatment at naval hospitals and their requests for compensation for personal possessions that went down with the ship. Their claims for lost possessions are located in the Navy Subject File. The records also include a list of addresses for all the survivors as of 1926. Another undated list of survivors indic…
Overview
The Spanish–American War (April 21 – August 13, 1898) was a period of armed conflict between Spain and the United States. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. The war led to the United States emerging predominant in the Caribbean region, and resulted in U.S. acqu…
Aftermath
The war lasted 16 weeks. John Hay (the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom), writing from London to his friend Theodore Roosevelt, declared that it had been "a splendid little war". The press showed Northerners and Southerners, blacks and whites fighting against a common foe, helping to ease the scars left from the American Civil War. Exemplary of this was the fact that four former Confederate States Army generals had served in the war, now in the U.S. Army and all of …
Historical background
The combined problems arising from the Peninsular War (1807–1814), the loss of most of its colonies in the Americas in the early 19th-century Spanish American wars of independence, and three Carlist Wars (1832–1876) marked the low point of Spanish colonialism. Liberal Spanish elites like Antonio Cánovas del Castillo and Emilio Castelar offered new interpretations of the concept of "empire" to dovetail with Spain's emerging nationalism. Cánovas made clear in an address to the University …
Path to war
The first serious bid for Cuban independence, the Ten Years' War, erupted in 1868 and was subdued by the authorities a decade later. Neither the fighting nor the reforms in the Pact of Zanjón (February 1878) quelled the desire of some revolutionaries for wider autonomy and, ultimately, independence. One such revolutionary, José Martí, continued to promote Cuban financial and political fr…
Pacific theater
In the 333 years of Spanish rule, the Philippines developed from a small overseas colony governed from the Mexico-based Viceroyalty of New Spain to a land with modern elements in the cities. The Spanish-speaking middle classes of the 19th century were mostly educated in the liberal ideas coming from Europe. Among these Ilustrados was the Filipino national hero José Rizal, who d…
Caribbean theater
Theodore Roosevelt advocated intervention in Cuba, both for the Cuban people and to promote the Monroe Doctrine. While Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he placed the Navy on a war-time footing and prepared Dewey's Asiatic Squadron for battle. He also worked with Leonard Wood in convincing the Army to raise an all-volunteer regiment, the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry. Wood was given comma…
Cámara's squadron
Shortly after the war began in April, the Spanish Navy ordered major units of its fleet to concentrate at Cádiz to form the 2nd Squadron, under the command of Rear Admiral Manuel de la Cámara y Livermoore. Two of Spain's most powerful warships, the battleship Pelayo and the brand-new armored cruiser Emperador Carlos V, were not available when the war began—the former undergoing reco…
Making peace
With defeats in Cuba and the Philippines, and its fleets in both places destroyed, Spain sued for peace and negotiations were opened between the two parties. After the sickness and death of British consul Edward Henry Rawson-Walker, American admiral George Dewey requested the Belgian consul to Manila, Édouard André, to take Rawson-Walker's place as intermediary with the Spanish govern…
Beginning Research
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Service Records
- Volunteers Below is an index to service records: 1. General Index to Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Soldiers Who Served during the War with Spain. National Archives Microfilm Publication M871. Indexed and published on FamilySearch 1. A wiki article describing the online collection is found at: 1. United States Index to Service Records, War with Spain - FamilySearch Historical Re…
Pension Records
- Indexes 1. The General Index to Pension Files is available online. The "General Index to Pension Files, 1861–1934" (NARA) T288. The index covers veterans of the Civil War, Spanish‑American War, Philippine Insurrection, Boxer Rebellion (1900 to 1901), and the regular Army, Navy, and Marine forces. 1. The Organization Index to Pension Files is available online. The "Organization I…
Casualty Records
- Regular Army Officers 1. The "Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army..." by Francis B. Heitman lists Regular Army and volunteer officers from 1789 to 1903 that were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. See Vol.2 pp. 13-42.
Cemetery Records
- Peterson, Clarence Stewart. Known Military Dead during the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection, 1898–1901. Baltimore: Clarence Stewart Peterson, 1958. (FHLbook 973 M23pc; fiche 6051242.) This work includes name, rank, company, regiment, and death date and place. 1. National Spanish American War Gravesite Recording Project 2. "Casualty List, Rough Ri…
Census Records
- 1900 U.S. Federal Census The 1900 Federal Census (NARAT623) enumerated military personnel stationed overseas in places such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. The census gives the soldier’s name, rank, place of residence in the United States, birth date and place, company, regiment, and branch of service. 1930 U.S. Federal Census The 1930 Federal Census askedif a p…
Veterans Society Records
- The United Spanish War Veteranswas established in 1899. Its membership includes veterans with service in the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection to 4 July 1902. The following sources contain information on their members who were veterans of the two wars. 1. George G. Kane. The history of the United Spanish War veterans through national encampment memorabili…
State & Local
- California 1. History, Department of California, 1908-1938, Auxiliary, United Spanish War Veterans... 2. History, Department of California, 1938-1954, Auxiliary, United Spanish War Veterans... 3. By-laws and roster of Theodore Roosevelt Camp No. 9 and Auxiliary No. 5Los Angeles, California : United Spanish War Veterans. Department of California, 1939] Connecticut …
Additional Societies
- Roster of the Society of the Army of Santiago de Cuba.Fort Meyer, Virginia : Planchet Press, 1992?; Reprint. Originally published: Denver Colorado : Press of the Carson-Harper Co., 1901
Lineage Society Records
- Sons of Spanish American War Veterans 1. Sons of Spanish American War Veterans Daughters of '98 1. Daughters of 98