Empire by Default

Being a Civil War buff and author who is considering doing a work on the Indian Wars, I have always been fascinated by that period between the Civil War and the turn of the century.Especially on its effect on the U.S. Army as it fought both the Indian Wars and the Spanish American War under the leadership of former Civil War Generals, and Musicant does not disappoint.Some of the names are familiar - Nelson Miles, Wesley Merritt, Admiral (George) Dewey,and of course, the Confederate Cavalry great "Fighting Joe" Joseph Wheeler. And the not-so-well known - men such as William Rufus Shafter, the corpulent former Union officer and presumed model for "Pecos Bill", who was named commander of the expeditionary forces in Cuba and who often clashed with both his superiors in Washington, and with one certain volunteer colonel by the name of Theodore Roosevelt.To be fair, I haven't gotten to the military operations nor the logistical problems experienced by the U.S. Army - poisoned (embalmed) beef, lack of smokeless cartridges (the antiqudated Spanish Army was more "modern" in this respect), as Musicant's account is an excellent read. But he does effectively score the two Presidents who bungled into the Cuban morass - Cleveland, definitely the Bill Clinton of his time, and William McKinley, a man of great character and virtue but hamstrung by a senile Secretary of State (William Tecumseh Sherman's brother) and politico appointees as well as his own desire to please all. The account of the destruction of the USS Maine which finally provoked McKinley is the finest that I have read.Musicant shows great knowledge of the Cuban situation and of the Spanish predicament. I only wish that he had covered the infamous "Virginius" affair, when the American Captain Joseph Fry, a former Confederate hero, and a score of American sailors were brutally executed by Spanish authorities after trying to smuggle guns to Cuban insurgents. This happened during the time of Grant's Presidency, and it nearly then led to war with Spain...Who knows - it might have been George Armstrong Custer leading the charge up San Juan Hill instead of Teddy.The US wasn't spoiling for a fight with Spain in 1873 - 25 years later, it was.

Despite its length, "Empire by Default," is a very well written book that is worth reading. Musicant's account is a straightforward narrative history, but his talent as a writer keeps it from being draggy or boring. Particularly good are his accounts of the battles which have narrative excitement and give a good overall view of tactics and strategy. Musicant covers all aspects of the war, both geographically and politically. Knowing only what I had learned in school about this episode in history, I appreciated this thorough account.

This book tells you everything you will ever need to know about which US soldiers and sailors fought where and with what weapons in 1898. If it has a weakness, it is in its treatment of the "why" questions. Certainly, there was strong pressure from the popular press, public opinion and several key figures in Congress and President McKinley's administration to sweep away the decrepit Spanish Empire in the Caribbean and Pacific. But it was one thing to intervene in Cuba, quite another to annex the Philippines - as was shown soon after the war when a popular revolt broke out against the US takeover. Musicant could perhaps have devoted more space to exploring the impulses behind US empire-building, and a little less to the rather confusing details of military campaigns whose outcomes were, let us face it, hardly in doubt. That said, it is still elegantly written and a good read.

I was generally pleased with this book. It is readable, reasonably detailed (in most areas), and I would recommend it to any reader with even a casual interest in this period of American history.If I have any complaint, it is that Musicant largely fails to really "set the stage" for the Spanish-American War. His one-chapter synopsis of the United States prior to the war seems almost hasty, and one fails to really grasp the enormous impact of "Yellow Journalism" on the American public and pro-war sentiment in his narrative.Another slight complaint: I found it necessary to have an atlas beside me in the early chapters. The inclusion of a map to orient the reader during the discussions of the campaigns of Gomez and Maceo would have been beneficial.That having been said, this book is considered a valuable addition to my library.

Oddly enough, I came across this book in a joint review (it may have been the New Yorker) of it & Elmore Leonard's Cuba Libre. The latter was poor, like cardboard cut-outs marching across the stage. The former, the book under review here, really brought things to life in a way you usually encounter in fiction & rarely in history. The New Yorker complained about the excessive detail ... but it was not. An understanding of the details (like the Spanish reclassifying their 50 year old ships as new Class I battleships) is critical to understanding the war. Highly recommended.