It is my purpose, in the concluding chapters of this volume, to review as fully and dispassionately as I can the series of military operations known collectively as "the Santiago campaign," including, first, the organization and equipment of the expedition of General Shafter at Tampa; second, the disembarkation of troops and the landing of supplies at Daiquiri and Siboney; third, the strategic plan of the campaign and its execution; and, fourth, the wrecking of the army by disease after the decisive battle of July 1-2. The point of view from which I shall regard this campaign is not that of a trained military expert or critic, but merely that of an attentive and fair-minded civilian observer. I do not pretend to speak _ex cathedra_, nor do I claim for my judgments any other value than that given to them by such inherent reasonableness and fairness as they may seem to have. I went to Cuba without any prejudice for or against any particular plan of operations; I had very little acquaintance with or knowledge of the officers of the Fifth Army-Corps; and the opinions and conclusions that I shall here set forth are based on personal observations made in the field without conscious bias or prepossession of any kind.
In reviewing a military campaign, an arctic expedition, a voyage of discovery, or any other enterprise involving the employment of a certain force for the accomplishment of a certain purpose, the first question to be considered is the question of responsibility. Who is to be held accountable for the management and the results of this enterprise--the leader who directed and had charge of it, or the superior power which gave him his orders, furnished him with his equipment, and sent him into the field? When General Shafter was ordered to "go and capture the garrison at Santiago and assist in capturing the harbor and the fleet," did he become personally responsible for the management and the results of the campaign, or did he share that responsibility with the War Department? Unless there is some evidence to the contrary, the presumption in such a case is that the general in command of the army is told in due time where he is to go and what he is expected to do, and is then allowed to make his own plan of campaign, and to call upon the War Department for such supplies and means of transportation as, in the exercise of his individual judgment, he may think necessary for the successful execution of that plan. If he is given time enough to acquaint himself thoroughly with the field in which he is to operate, if his plan of campaign, in its general outlines, is approved, and if all his requisitions for vessels, horses, mules, wagons, ambulances, tents, guns, ammunition, and miscellaneous supplies are duly honored, there is no reason that I can see why he should not be held to a strict personal accountability for results, both generally and in detail. He has made his own plan; he has had everything that he asked for; and if the campaign does not go as it should, he, and not the War Department, is to blame. If, however, the department, after selecting him and approving his plan, does _not_ furnish him with the transportation and the stores that he needs and has called for, he ought to protect himself and his own reputation by referring respectfully to that fact in his report of the campaign, so that, if any of his bricks are imperfect for lack of straw, the people may know that he was not supplied with straw and had no means whatever of getting it in the field to which he was sent. The importance of this point will become apparent when an attempt is made to ascertain the causes and fix the responsibility for the wrecking of the Fifth Army-Corps by disease in the short space of one calendar month.