The Mockingbird's Ballad

The Stevenson's missed the general by two days. He had been sent from Camp Thomas (Chickamauga Battlefield, ten miles south of Chattanooga, Tennessee) to Tampa, Florida. The newly commissioned Major General of The United States Volunteers was on his way to Tampa to take over command of the 2,900-member cavalry division of the V Corps. They were destined for Cuba. Veteran cavalry units were in his new command. They came from cavalry stationed in posts, mostly in the west and southwest. A third of his troopers were "Buffalo Soldiers" of the 9th and 10th cavalry. These Black troops were thought by the paper pushers in Washington to be better able to endure the death dealing summer heat of tropical Cuba. They weren't.

The most conspicuous of Wheeler's V Corps cavalry were the "Rough Riders", officially, the 1st Volunteer Cavalry. Recently resigned Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, the future president, was a published naval historian, former Dakota rancher, New York state senator and Commissioner of New York City Police. He had raised the "Rough Riders" and pushed for their inclusion in the military. He shied from command of the unit because of his lack of military experience. Roosevelt's role in the approaching war was significant. His actions, while his boss, Secretary of the Navy, John Long was away from Washington, placed the US Navy warships in strategic positions in the Gulf of Mexico, Philippines waters, and east Atlantic coastal shipping lanes. They were set for offensive action. The newly modernized US Navy, posed for hostilities with previously developed plans for their primary role in the conflict, was equal to or better than any seagoing fighting force in the world. If war came, it was intended to be a joint naval and army effort.

The sinking of the USS Maine, a battleship of the line, in Havana Bay, February 15, 1898, was the final straw of US and Spanish tension and struggle over the issue of Cuban independence. Off and on, rebellions by Cubans determined to rid Cuba of Spanish rule with the establishment of a free and independent nation, had been going on since 1868. President William McKinley had resisted war cries for most of his administration. He had worked for a peaceful solution with Spain giving Cuba greater independence. He'd made some progress. The sinking of the Maine had brought a demand for war from across the nation and halls of Congress. He listened to the voice of the people.

On April 19, Congress passed a joint resolution, "for the recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba. . . . direct the president of the United States to use the land and naval forces of the United States to carry these resolutions into effect."