Last Moves First Moves

The Spanish reply to the Confederate offer may seem surprising when you consider that the United States was offering a great deal more. It certainly did to the officials in Richmond. In reality, this only seems to be the case until you examine the offers from the Spanish point of view. One of the main reasons that Spain wanted to rid itself of it’s over sea possessions was because of the nations inability to protect them in the event of war. By mid September, war was exactly what the Spanish were predicting. 

This explains why they were in a hurry to sell but, not why they chose an offer that was far bellow the asking price. In truth, the US offer might look to be more on paper but, that was only on paper. Washington was offering a fairly lucrative deal but, it was of the kind that only pays off in the long term. The payments in paper cash were spread out over a twenty year period. The limited amount of hard metals to be paid were in the form of one lump sum, up front, and then in installments over the next fifty years. These payments combined did not even make up a tenth of the US offer. The majority of it was in trading concessions, tariff adjustments, and long term low cost loans. 

The officials in Madrid were not stupid. The US deal would have been better but, that was only if the US actually had the ability to pay it. Wars tend change the standing order with an outcome that is not always certain. Spain was now thinking in terms of short range survival due to what could possibly be a calamity of biblical proportions. With that in mind the Confederate offer looked far more attractive in that it dealt primarily with the exchange of hard metal and currency which was backed by London banks. The term of payment was also far shorter than the US proposal, set at a ten year span of time. The Spanish figured they would not get a better offer before all hell broke loose.

One might imagine that the news of a Confederate purchase of Cuba would not be too well received in Washington. That may or may not have been the case but, that was only if someone had bothered to tell them. At the time the Spanish accepted the CS offer, the negotiations with the United States, at Lake Geneva, were temporarily taking a scheduled break. Ironically, the head of this secret delegation, John D Rockefeller, was on vacation in Spain and could not have been further removed from events by being in the very country he had been negotiating with. In short, there was no way that President Root would learn of the purchase from his team. He was certainly not going to learn of it from the Confederates and, due to the mounting tension, the Spanish were not about to announce it either.

It would take months to finalize the treaty that facilitated the sale. It would probably be even longer before Confederate authorities could take possession but, Joe Wheeler had been spooked by recent events. He was not in the mood to wait a second longer than he had to before he ran up the stars and bars over Havana. Not an hour after he learned of Spain’s acceptance he personally took a trip across Richmond to the War Department where he met with the Army Chief of Staff, Robert E Lee Jr. Wheeler wanted to see the plans for the occupation of Cuba, personally. He was horrified to find out there were none.

In all fairness, the Army could not be held accountable for making plans for the occupation of an island that they did not even know was up for grabs. The Cuban negotiations had been a tightly held secret, at least from the people who needed to know about it the most. It would seem that every one else, including US spies, were more than aware of Confederate ambitions towards the island. 

Naturally, Wheeler was not pleased and even added conditions to his orders to Lee. Wheeler was concerned that military action might become necessary once the deal was public knowledge. He was even concerned that the US (and possibly even Germany) might play the military card even before it was public knowledge. He told the Army Chief of staff to not only be prepared to move troops to Cuba, he wanted them ready to go, “as soon as was practicable.”

Wheeler had once occupied the exact same post as Lee and should have known exactly what he was ordering. It is quite possible that he did understand the full implications or, more likely, did not care. Either way, he left Lee in something of a dilemma. The Confederacy simply did not have the needed number of troops, on active duty, that would be required for such an operation. There would be any number of political matters that would come up, in the effort to raise troops, because Lee would have to deal with most of the state governors in order to call up reserves.

Why it was that Wheeler simply did not order Bulloch to form a Naval Brigade is unknown. (Naval Brigade was the British term for sailors used as infantry forces. While the CS adopted the practice they referred to theirs as a “Black Gang.”) It could be that Wheeler did not fully trust Bulloch to handle such a matter. It could be that Wheeler did not want to use his Colored Sailors for such a mission. There were domestic political angles he would have to deal with and the recruiting practices of the CS Navy had always been on tenuous ground at best. The navy’s detractors had already started dubbing the CSN, “The Great Black Fleet.” It was a name that raised many scowls on the faces of southern voters and politicians alike.  

On the other hand Lee was not concerned with the politics. It has been commented that he was not as talented a soldier as his father had been. This is unfair. Robert E Lee Jr had never been presented with the same kinds of opportunities, as his father, to demonstrate his military acumen. What Lee Jr had done was prove himself a more than competent administrator. Unfortunately for him, such things rarely get noticed. He was also an obedient soldier and he followed his orders, no matter how monumental they might seem, to the letter.

The Confederate war department went into overdrive and strangely enough this was completely overlooked by the US spies in Richmond. None of them (that we know of) thought to report it. It is quite possible that this was because such things happened from time to time but, they rarely meant anything. Of course, this is not to say that the sudden flurry of military activity went un-noticed at all. The alert just came from somewhere other than Richmond.

It would be an accurate assessment to say that Elihu Root was the focal point for his nations desire for revenge. That Root had spent a decade fostering and building sentiment that were expressly for the purposes of fostering a conflict is also true. What is not factual is that Root ever got around to making any specific plans to act on any of these desires. This topic is now hotly debated in the historical community because, for all of Root’s hawkish traits, he was ill prepared to fight this war when it was finally dumped in his lap.

It is quite possible that he considered his nation prepared. It is also true that the United States was far more prepared than it had been in 1861. It had the raw power and, unlike the earlier war, this power had now been harnessed and channeled into a formidable war machine. It just appears that no one around Washington had much of an idea about what to do with it when the time came. This is not to say that the US was lacking military plans, they simply had none to fit the situation they were facing. This was mostly thanks to a man named General Nelson A. Miles.

Miles was very typical of a great many officers, serving in the United States Army, after 1864. When the American 61 broke out he had been working as a clerk in a crockery store. He volunteered and served as a private, only to be later commissioned as a Lieutenant. When his regiment was disbanded he was noted for ability and given a new commission, in a new regiment, as Lieutenant Colonel and served as it’s executive officer. He was wounded twice and the last time was serious. Miles was in a crowded, and miserable, Washington Hospital (placed at Robert E Lee’s former mansion no less) when he heard about McClellan’s cease fire. Like many soldiers of the time, Miles had been mostly disconnected from the raging political storm back home and had very little idea of the larger picture. He, like most of his comrades in arms, could see first hand that their opponents were worn, tired, and running out of everything. The cease-fire made no sense and left a great many of them bitter. Their sacrifices had been for nothing!

While a great many soldiers went home there were opportunities a plenty for those who chose not to. Miles was one of the latter. With a hostile Canada to the north, and bitter rival on the southern border, the United States Army was destined to no longer remain the frontier constabulary that it had once been. There were suddenly thousands of miles of hostile border to man. There was now two militarily formidable powers behind each of those borders, one of which, Great Britain, was considered the foremost military power on the planet. The US had fought both these nations in the last 50 years and neither of these wars had went well. There was no argument, by anyone, that the Army would now have to become a real one.

Miles’ commission remained in the Army of the United States (a state reserve commission) until 1869. He served mainly at border postings with several regiments from his home state. Then a massive reorganization took place with the passing of the Stevens-Fessenden Act. At that time he was commissioned into the United States Army as a Captain. 

Many of Miles’ former comrades, that had gone home after the war, found themselves back in uniform for periods of time. Stevens-Fessenden had instituted a huge, federal controlled, military reserve that effectively abolished the old state regimental system. It also instituted a new conscription service, and in effect made every able bodied man in the United States subject to a minimum of two years active service with a 10 year reserve obligation that could be served in various capacities.

Men who had chosen to remain in uniform before that time, like Nelson Miles, were usually given special consideration when it came to promotions. For this reason alone, Nelson Miles rose rapidly through the ranks. Miles, and his generation of officers also, did not share the blame for the war like so many higher ranking men did. If anything, Miles and his comrades, those who had served on the front lines, were seen as the victims of bungling incompetence by their superiors. There had been a rush to get a lot of those old ones out of the way and promote the new generation into leadership roles. All of these younger men (with the most notable probably being George Armstrong Custer) held an intense grudge against their former enemy.

By 1894, during the Endicott reforms, Miles was already a Brigadier General. He had served with distinction during the Missouri Campaign of 1872, the Sioux uprising of 76, and a host of border skirmishes in Kansas and New Mexico. He had also spent a great deal of time working in Washington at the US Army’s headquarters, Fort Lincoln, located on the Virginia side of the river. His many postings in the nations capital had allowed him to play politics and when the Bryan administration came to power his friends finally had their day.

One of Endicott’s most vital acts was to abolish the position of Commander in Chief of the Army. It was a controversial act at the time, mainly because it’s detractors never mentioned, nor even seemed to notice, that the position was being replaced with a more modern and European styled General Staff. The new position that commanded the American ground forces was called Army Chief of Staff and was very similar to the old one except the powers that he commanded, most namely being a planning staff that was built on the German model and allowed for military organization on a broad scale.

Miles was in the right place and time. He was promoted over several men that were his senior and went directly from Brigadier to Lieutenant General, the highest position at that time, and skipped over the rank of Major General along with all those who actually held that rank. There was more than a little animosity between Miles and some of his former superiors, most notably Adna Chaffee and Arthur Macarthur. There were many in the army, such as the two aforementioned, who described Miles command and strategic skills as “uninspiring.”

This is most likely the reason that President Root came into office with a desire to sack Miles. Root had even gone so far as to say that on the day that Miles was removed, the Occupational Guard would be ordered to escort him off federal property. It probably did not help matters any that Miles was a Social Democrat while his two rivals, Chaffee and Macarthur, were both Republicans. Regardless of the reasons, this developed a definitive rift between the Chief Executive and his number one soldier and, as a result, Miles was not privy to any of the plans that were being fostered by Root or John Hay. Miles had proven to be harder to remove (for he still had many friends in congress and not all of them were Social Democrats) than either Root or Hay had imagined, so, Miles was still running things from Fort Lincoln in September of 1898.

One of the strongest arguments against the idea that Root had planned all of this was the fact that, on September 15th, he was not even in Washington. Root had left Washington on August 31st (the day that he had received word that his Great White Fleet had secured Port Arthur in China) to travel to New York for a series of fund raising dinners, a little in house cleaning, and most of all for some vacation time. He was in fact, yachting on Lake George when Fort Lincoln was first notified that something was wrong.

The Vice President, Philander Chase Knox, was in town, however,  and he had also never truly been in Root’s inner circle. He had only gotten on the ticket as a last minute compromise and, as a result, had been largely ignored by Root. John Hay was present and in effect, was the de-facto acting chief executive in Root’s absence. If there was anyone who hated Miles more than Elihu Root then it was John Hay. The feeling was quite mutual and while Root would at least talk to his general, Hay seldom did. This was not to mean that communications between the army and the Secretary of State did not take place. They just normally passed any information along via subordinates and would usually ignore any note from each other until the last possible moment.

By September the 15th, John Hay had been trying to get a grip on the rapidly deteriorating situation in South Africa. At this time he was fully aware of the Jameson Verdict and of London’s response to it. Hay had no idea that London was now aware of US and French arm shipments to the Boers. He had no idea that a meeting had taken place between Milner and Kruger. Worst of all, Hay was completely in the dark as to Kruger’s mobilization for an offensive against the British possessions of Natal and Cape Colony. Kruger had no expedient way to notify Washington. As was noted before, the Boer republics were geographically isolated and lacked both sea ports and access to a secure telegraph line.

While Hay did not have a clear picture of what his own allies were doing, he did have a very detailed view of British actions over the last two weeks. Not only had the US built up an extensive spy network in Europe but, they were getting a gold mine of information about the British from their spies in Richmond. Being close allies with the British, the Confederates were privy to a great deal of information about the deployments of the Royal Navy. US spies had had a difficult time penetrating the Royal Navy but, had been far more successful in firmly establishing themselves in the Confederate War Department.

It has been suggested that the entire reason why the US spies in Richmond had failed to report the activities of the Confederate Military was because they had been recently ordered to concentrate on reports about the British. There is no evidence that this is the case but, it is a plausible theory. At any rate, Hay was in possession of quite accurate intelligence as to the disposition of the British military since the onset of the South African Crisis. The most disturbing of these reports were the mobilization of the British reserve fleet in both England and India. 

The British reserve fleet was not really a fleet at all. It was considered to be every merchant vessel and passenger liner that was flying the Union Jack. In times of war these ships were pressed into service for various purposes, mostly logistical, to fill out the Royal Navy’s need for jobs that were not normally required in peace time. To take any number of these vessels out of commercial service would greatly impact the British economy so they did not do so lightly. Hay was fully aware of this fact and viewed these developments as ominous since he had no idea as to why the British would do such a thing at this time.

The only answer Hay could arrive at was that the English were either planning a campaign against the Boers or, most likely this was a military response to the American and Russian seizure of Port Arthur. It could quite possibly be both. Hay had to consider (and he later wrote of this) that at the time it seemed likely that the Boer’s were becoming defensive because of the increased military activity which, was due to the American move in China. Hay chose to believe that Port Arthur was the cause and began planning his responses in kind. If this was the only thing that the US government had done then war may not have happened. Unfortunately, it was not.

The US Army had long since developed it’s own spy network. It had found in the early years after the American 61, that intelligence gathered by the State Department was not the kind it needed. State was usually more interested in the Royal Navy and diplomatic intelligence whereas, the US Army’s chief concern was the Confederate Army. Probably one of the only insightful thoughts that General Henry Halleck ever had was to recognize that the key to the Confederate Army was in the Governor’s offices of it’s States as opposed to it’s war offices in Richmond. As a result, US Army spies had spent the last three decades working on thoroughly penetrating the staffs of Confederate Governors.

They were never more successful than in Nashville, Tennessee. During the American 61, this state had experienced a genuine civil war with it’s population equally divided over the issues surrounding that war. Such sentiment still existed in 1898 and as a result it made recruitment of spies, by the US Army, easy. These spies tended to be exceptionally effective as well. They had an international border that was very close to the state’s capital. Many of these Tennessee spies were also idealists and that meant they would take risks where other spies, motivated by things like money, would not.

Even today, we are not sure who the spy was. We do know that he was referred to only as “Singer” and that he worked in the State Capitol in Nashville. He obviously had an effective communications system in place because within hours of Lee’s call for reserves from Tennessee, Singer had notified Fort Lincoln. General Miles became aware of this not long after it arrived at his headquarters. We can only imagine what he thought. Miles was even less aware, of developments abroad, than was Hay. All Miles knew was that an unprovoked call up of military reserves, in the Confederacy, was underway.

This bears a little bit of explaining. Military planning had changed dramatically since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The stunning defeat of France was studied intensely by the world militaries and it was quickly attributed to the very efficient use of railroads by the Germans. It could be equally noted that the French Army’s war plans thought of railroads as a necessary evil, at best. The consequences of this had a dramatic effect on more than just military planners. It changed the very relations between nation-states.

Mobilizing reserves (which constituted the bulk of all national military forces by 1898 with the only exception being Britain) and shifting them to where they were needed was an exercise in keeping train schedules. Since most tracks of the time were still single line affairs it meant that once you started the process it was nearly impossible to stop it or you would leave yourself vulnerable to your enemy and have mass confusion in your ranks. Military planners, by the 1890’s, had gotten this down to a science and were very bookish in their approach. The weaknesses of this system were yet to be discovered and any military staffer of the time would tell you that delays in train schedules equaled X amount of miles lost in territory. For these reasons, in this period, a mobilization was tantamount to a declaration of war.

It is no wonder that Miles viewed this news with the gravest of concerns. That much was responsible on his part but, what he did after that was not. The rational course of action at this point would have been to notify John Hay. Miles did not. His actions were, by protocol, technically correct but, Miles was quite aware of the political realities in Washington and he knew full well that Vice President Knox was not the man to go to. Miles did so anyway.

Knox had filled his time in office by dealing with the Senate on any number of domestic issues that were considered, by Root at least, to be of little importance. He had not participated in any of the meetings of the cabinet that concerned itself with foreign affairs or military matters. On the afternoon of the 15th, congress was not in session, so he was enjoying some leisure time with his family and few close acquaintances. They were on the lawn of their house in Northwest Washington, passing the time with a picnic of which, was quite the fad of the day. He was notified by a servant of a telephone call from Fort Lincoln and he amiably excused himself to take it.

What Knox must have thought is unknown but, it is safe to say he must have been surprised. Like most high officials in Washington, of the day, he had a telephone. Unlike those who were in Root’s inner circle, his seldom rang. According to the one and only witness to the conversation, his servant, he took the news from General Miles quite calmly. He must have been anything but, because, Knox had never handled a situation like this before. For this reason he probably went along with the General’s recommendations. Knox made it clear to Miles that he understood the seriousness of the situation and would give it the due regard it deserved. Miles went on to explain the appropriate response and Knox agreed.

Here is where it is very apparent that Knox did not fully understand the implications of what Miles was asking for. To Knox, it must have seemed only prudent that the US match the CS mobilization. Knox was probably unaware that there had never been such a thing since the American 61. He, like any average reader of the New York times, probably just assumed that such things happened all of the time.

After getting off the phone, Knox then pulled out a pad of paper and scribbled several notes. One was to John Hay which, he entrusted to a servant to deliver to the State Department. Why it was that Knox did not just call the Secretary of State is unknown but, it is speculated that this was because Knox did not know how. The other note was entrusted to an aide with very specific instructions. It is obvious which note Knox considered more important. Maybe this is because he had believed Miles about this being a time sensitive matter.

That is the only reason why anyone can fathom that Knox felt the need to directly contact the head of the American delegation, William Howard Taft, in Richmond. The second note, to Taft, was delivered to the Western Union telegraph office that was located just two blocks from the Vice Presidential residence. It was not marked as sensitive or urgent and was not handled via the proper State Department channels that existed. Maybe Knox had no knowledge of these systems or, maybe, he just felt speed was a factor. In the end it did not matter for the Telegram was sent and every telegraph operator between Washington and Richmond got to read it.

Meanwhile the servant arrived at the State Department offices at Foggy Bottom. He delivered the note to the front clerk who thought little of it due to the fact that a man dressed in a servants tuxedo had dropped it off. It was shoved in a bin and Hay would not receive it until he was fully aware of it’s contents. All the while Knox went back to his picnic, probably expecting some kind of reply to his telegram, but it never came.

Taft, in Richmond, was too busy to reply. While his post was considered one of the most important at the State Department, Taft was an ambassador in all but name. He ran a consulate that was probably better funded and staffed than most embassies except for maybe the one in Paris. The reason for this distinction was because technically, the United States and it’s Confederate neighbors were still in a state of war. The first Langley Accords had normalized relations between the two countries but, not officially. Until the issue was resolved the US government was not willing to call the posting an embassy. 

When Taft received the telegram, at his “consulate,” he realized how it had arrived, and realized that the Confederate government had most likely seen it already. Taft was sitting in a capital city that was a hub of world affairs due to the Confederacies alliance with the British Empire. For that reason, Taft was far more up to speed on world events than the man who sent him the telegram. Taft was also more familiar with the implications of the news that Miles had received.

What Taft was not aware of was Wheeler’s preoccupation, if not downright paranoia, over Cuba. Taft did know that the Confederacy wanted Cuba and that both nations were negotiating for it. It was here that Taft understood the situation and President Wheeler did not. While the US government did consider Cuba to be of vital importance, it had a few more pressing matters it was currently dealing with.

Taft judged it unlikely that the Confederates would respond to the telegram first, protocols being what they were, it was viewed as impolite to appear to be reading someone else’s mail. It was perfectly fine to do so as long as you did not get caught. Taft quickly drafted a letter for Confederate Secretary of State, Stephen D Lee. At first Taft was going to have it delivered by the usual channels but quickly changed his mind and thought the matter both urgent, and sensitive. He decided to deliver it himself and promptly requested a meeting with Lee.

Taft’s assessment of the situation was correct. Not only had Lee already read the Knox Telegram but, so had President Wheeler along with a good number of Confederate Congressmen. At least Stephen Lee was familiar with the personalities in Washington and new right from the start that the Vice President of the United States was a lame duck. He informed Wheeler of this and the President accepted the explanation with the proviso that the American delegation be made aware that the Confederacy would not tolerate interference within it’s borders. It was a fairly standard and empty reply to what was a common and equally empty threat.

Had the two American nations been more autocratic, such as many European nations were at the time, then the entire incident would have been forgotten by the next day. Both the Confederacy and United States were working democracies though and, public opinion counted for a great deal. It was too late to contain the Knox Telegram from the time that it was transmitted. Within hours of having been sent, it’s contents were sitting on news desks in New York, Richmond, and even in far off capitals such as Paris and London where the morning papers quickly picked up the story. Due to the time difference the story even made it into the New York headlines by that evenings edition. The Chicago Tribune ran a special edition because it had not gotten word by it’s evening dead line.

The headlines differed from paper to paper but the telegram was printed, in full, and people were free to make up their own minds. For once, William Randolph Hurst did not need to embellish a single word. The telegram was sufficiently provocative for anyone who was not aware of the events surrounding it and that was most of the population of the world. 

Taft did get his meeting with Lee. It was granted promptly and lasted all of ten minutes. The Taft letter has long since been forgotten. It was inquisitive, to a point, and even sounded apologetic in tone. Lee cordially accepted the letter and politely thanked Taft for his time. The two men shook hands and parted company. The reporters outside had noted the time, or lack there of, that had been spent in the meeting. It was the papers controlled by Hurst who proclaimed, the next morning (the edition after the Knox Telegram was published), that Taft had been rebuffed by Lee. Hurst based this assumption on the fact that the meeting had been so short, however, it is all too likely that Hurst did not care about the truth of the matter. He was definitely in the hawk camp and not for any high minded notions of national honor. Hurst knew the bottom line which was that wars sold newspapers and that was the business he was in.

What the readers at their morning breakfast tables wanted to know was why? In the United States, overwhelming opinion seemed to be that the Confederate States were trying to provoke a war that they had long since expected. In the Confederacy people were universally offended that Knox would demand that their military stand down within their own borders. What people in both countries shared in common was a fundamental lack of understanding as to what mobilizations meant and how telegraphs really worked. To them it must have seemed that everything was just fine until one side decided to arm itself and the leader of another decided to insult them over it.

The questions and confusion over the matter created a sudden demand for information and, naturally, the newspapers were more than happy to provide it. Quite often this was by the means of quoting every self proclaimed expert that could give them a sensational by line, most of which were inflammatory. Now, both Wheeler and Root, were going to have to deal with a public outcry, right at the moment when tensions could have never been higher. Wheeler did what most any politician would do under such circumstances. He tried to figure out an angle that would make things work for him. What he found was that his hands were now tied.

President Root dealt with the situation in a most curious way, by not dealing with it at all. When news of the Confederate mobilization reached him, he had just spent the evening at a fund raising dinner, had a few to many drinks, and retired to bed early. He was staying at the home of a friend on Lake George that night. His personal secretary received the official dispatch and after reading it decided it was sufficiently urgent to wake the President. Apparently, Root greeted the news with no great fanfare. It was not until the second message arrived, from Hay, that he became upset.

He had no idea why Knox would do such a thing! Root’s instincts, as he related to his advisors, was that the entire thing was a hoax, perpetrated by someone who was out to foil all of his plans. It took nearly an hour for Root to settle down and when he finally did so his advisors convinced him that he had best return to Washington at once. 

At this point Root made a fateful decision. He was now worried that his communications system had been compromised and he ordered no wires of any kind to be sent. Perhaps the President was unaware that his advisors took this to mean exactly what he said. That would include the normal dispatches of a more mundane nature including one that would let John Hay know where Root was. Hay did not, and would not, know until Root arrived back at the White House on September 19th. By then it was too late.