Little is known about 'the Forgotten Wars,' yet both had huge impact on the United States

Susan Doak

SW Nebraska

Genealogy Society

Both the Mexican-American War and the Spanish American War had huge impacts on the United States and yet little is known about either.

The Mexican-American War ended in 1848 with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe. That treaty signed over to the United States all of California, Utah and Nevada plus parts of Arizona, Wyoming and Colorado in exchange for @ $ 15 million dollars. It also established the Rio Grande as the border of Texas and gave people living within all these boundaries, including several Native American Tribes, U.S. citizenship after one year. This war was the training ground for important Civil War Generals such as Lee, Grant, Sherman and Jackson.

Less than 2000 soldiers were killed in action during the conflict, but over 13,000 died from poor conditions and disease. The defeat proved to have been even more costly to Mexico when gold was discovered shortly after in the California territories.

After the huge loss of life during the Civil War, the United States seemed to be headed down a path against colonialism. Rebuilding the South, stabilizing the economy and settling the western frontier had overshadowed any desire to "rule" territories outside of the continental states.

Spain had control of Cuba but factions from Cuba had come to the United States primarily to build a base of support (both public and military) for Cuba's independence from Spain. President William McKinley opposed the involvement of the United States in a war over Cuba and wanted no part of expanded US influence off the Florida coastline.

His desires were not to be granted when under pressure to respond to abuse of the Cuban people by the Spanish government, McKinley sent the U.S. Battleship Maine to Cuba in hopes of inspiring Spain to abandon the fight. Instead the Maine blew up in the Havana Harbor killing about 260 men aboard. Conflicting investigations have not determined the cause of the explosion, but it did not matter because sensational journalism by Hearst and Pulitzer's newspapers help fuel the fire for the US to enter into war against Spain.

The ensuing fight ended badly for Spain and she was forced to give up the colonies of Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and part of Guam. The U.S. lost less than 3,000 enlisted men during the engagement, nearly 90% of which died from disease, not wounds.

The most interesting part about this war however, is the Teller Amendment, proposed by Senator Teller from Colorado in 1898. Senator Teller managed to pass an amendment restricting the USA from colonizing Cuba, mandating Cuba to be self-governing. So while Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines became US Territories, Cuba did not. Forward several years to 1963 and the cost of protecting beet sugar prices from cane sugar imports by not allowing Cuba to align as a territory to the United States becomes even more apparent.

If you would like to research the war dead of these two conflicts, you can go to www.archives.gov or to the American Battle Monuments Commission (www.abmc.gov). Some records are available by mailing in a downloadable form, others, such as war dead lists, are available online.