, it turned out, Sampson, not Schley, commanded during the hot
hours. Moreover, the evidence seemed to reveal that the court's
strictures upon Schley, like many criticisms of General Grant at Shiloh
and in his Wilderness campaign, were probably just. In both cases the
public was slow to accept the critics' view.

Both before and after his resignation, July 19, 1899, Secretary of War
Alger was subjected to great obloquy. Shafter's corps undoubtedly
suffered much that proper system and prevision would have prevented. The
delay in embarking at Tampa; the crowding of transports, the use of
heavy uniforms in Cuba and of light clothing afterward at Montauk Point,
the deficiency in tents, transportation, ambulances, medicines, and
surgeons, ought not to have occurred. Indignation swept the country when
it was charged that Commissary-General Eagan had furnished soldiers
quantities of beef treated with chemicals and of canned roast beef unfit
for use. A commission appointed to investigate found that "embalmed
beef" had not been given out to any extent. Canned roast beef had been,
and the commission declared it improper food.

The commission made it clear that the Quartermaster's Department had
been physically and financially unequal to the task of suddenly
equipping and transporting the enlarged army--over ten times the size of
our regular army--for which it had to provide. If wanting at times in
system the department had been zealous and tireless. At the worst it was
far less to blame than recent Congresses, which had stinted both army
and navy to lavish money upon objects far less important to the country.
The army system needed radical reform. There was no general staff, and
the titular head of the army had less real authority than the
adjutant-general with his bureau.

These imbroglios had little significance compared with the problems
connected with our new dependencies. The Senate ratified the peace
treaty February 6, 1899, by the narrow margin of two votes--forty-two
Republicans and fifteen others in favor, twenty-four Democrats and
three others opposing. But for the advocacy of the Democratic leader,
William J. Bryan, who thought that the pending problems could be dealt
with by Congress better than in the way of diplomacy, ratification would
have failed.

The ratification of the Treaty of Paris marked a momentous epoch in our
national life and policy. In a way, the very fact of a war with Spain
did this. A century an