Spanish-American War

Allen, TX

Formally established by the Odd Fellows in 1884, Allen Cemetery has gathered a community's memory across three acres for well over a century. Its stones record early epidemics, pioneer settlers and physicians, and veterans of foreign wars — among them a soldier killed in the Meuse-Argonne offensive of World War I and another who served in the Spanish-American War — while oral tradition places an older slave burial ground in one corner. A cemetery association organized in 1899 still tends the grounds and keeps an annual Decoration Day.

Augusta, GA

Joseph Wheeler was born near Augusta in 1836 and, after West Point, resigned his U.S. commission to ride for the Confederacy, rising within two years to command all the cavalry of the Army of Tennessee. "Fighting Joe" harried Union forces from Kentucky to the Carolinas and was wounded three times. In a rare second act, he returned to U.S. uniform as a general in the Spanish-American War, fighting at San Juan Hill before his burial at Arlington.

Raleigh, NC

When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, North Carolina volunteers mustered at this ninety-five-acre encampment, the only U.S. Army camp in the state during the conflict. It was named for Bryan Grimes, a Confederate general of the previous generation. The camp reflected a moment when a nation reunited after civil war marched off together under one flag.

Lower Swatara Township, PA · est. 1966

Sprawling across three square miles just northwest of here, Camp Meade was a sizable military encampment opened during the Spanish-American War of 1898 and named in honor of the Civil War general who commanded Union forces at Gettysburg. Its importance was underscored when President William McKinley visited the camp on August 27, 1898.

Erie, PA · est. 1946

In the spring of 1898 the Spanish-American War carried the U.S. Navy across the Pacific to the Spanish-held Philippines. At Manila Bay, Commodore George Dewey's squadron destroyed the Spanish fleet in a single morning, and his calm words to the captain of his flagship Olympia became one of the most quoted commands in American naval lore. That captain, Charles Vernon Gridley, was already gravely ill and died weeks later; he rests in this Erie cemetery.

San Antonio, TX

North Carolina-born Lee Hall came to Texas in 1869 and won national fame as a frontier lawman, serving as a Grayson County marshal and then in the Texas Rangers' Frontier Battalion from 1876 to 1880, pursuing notorious outlaws like Sam Bass and John Wesley Hardin and quelling the Taylor-Sutton feud. Decades later he was cited for gallantry in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War era.

Erie, PA

This Erie monument honors a hometown son whose steady nerve gave the U.S. Navy one of its most quoted commands. Charles Vernon Gridley captained the cruiser USS Olympia into Manila Bay in May 1898, where Commodore George Dewey turned to him with the now-legendary order, "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." The guns that followed shattered the Spanish Pacific squadron in a matter of hours, a decisive opening blow of the Spanish-American War. Gridley, already gravely ill, died weeks later before he could return home to Erie.

Chelsea, MA

In the spring of 1898 the United States went to war with Spain, and within months young men from mill towns and cities across the country—including Chelsea, Massachusetts—found themselves shipping out to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the distant Philippines. This granite tribute was raised by a local camp of the United Spanish War Veterans, the fraternal order that kept the memory of that brief but consequential conflict alive, to honor Chelsea's own volunteers and soldiers. The dates carried on the memorial reach past 1898 to 1902, a reminder that the fighting in the Philippines dragged on for years after Spain's formal surrender.

Andrews, TX

Dorsie M. Pinnell, a descendant of a Virginia Revolutionary War soldier, came to Texas at seventeen seeking better health. He served in the Spanish-American War with Company K of the 1st Texas Infantry before taking up ranching in Andrews County, where he raised four sons with his wife Jessie. His life traces the westward path of a young man who traded the East for the promise of the open Texas plains.

Palacios, TX

Missouri-born John Augustus Hulen came to Texas as a boy and rose from a militia unit into a long military career, serving in the Spanish-American War and the Philippines, where he earned a Silver Star. In World War I he won a French Croix de Guerre and the U.S. Distinguished Service Medal. He helped establish Camp Palacios in 1925—renamed Camp Hulen in his honor—and retired a lieutenant general in 1935.

Hearne, TX

When Hearne grew up as a rail crossroads on the Texas farmland where enslaved and later freed African Americans lived and labored, its Black community needed a burying ground of its own. Consecrated in 1894 as the New Colored Cemetery — later St. Mark's, then Riverside — it took its first known burial in 1896 and has since received hundreds, among them veterans reaching back to the Spanish-American War and members of the Mosaic Templars of America, a rare Texas chapter of that Black fraternal order. Church congregations and, from 1982, the Greater Riverside Association enlarged and tended the grounds to their present 24 acres.

Seattle, WA

Known as 'The Hiker,' this statue honors the American soldiers, sailors, and Marines who served between 1898 and 1902 in the War with Spain, the Philippine-American War, and the China Relief Expedition. The popular figure, replicated in cities across the country, memorializes a generation of volunteers who fought in the nation's first overseas campaigns. It marks the moment the United States stepped onto the world stage as an imperial power.

Bay City, TX

William Shields Holman, a Spanish-American War veteran who served as Matagorda County judge, built this showpiece home with his wife Louise just as Bay City was coming into its own. Completed in 1909, it is a textbook example of Queen Anne styling, with an asymmetrical silhouette, a corner tower, a wraparound porch, and richly varied wall textures. The Holman family held onto it for seven decades.

Seattle, WA

This memorial keeps 'sacred remembrance' of the Illinois soldiers, sailors, and Marines who served in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Volunteers from across the states poured into that brief conflict, which pulled the United States into Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. The tribute, placed far from Illinois in Seattle, reflects how veterans' groups planted memorials wherever their comrades gathered.

Raleigh, NC

James H. Young commanded a Black North Carolina regiment in the Spanish-American War and served as a state legislator while editing the Raleigh Gazette. He was among the most prominent Black leaders in the state at the close of the 19th century. His home stood just feet west of this marker.

Village of Sea Cliff, NY

This monument honors John Henry Geohegan, described as the only Sea Cliff man to volunteer for the war to free Cuba — the Spanish-American War of 1898. That brief conflict swept up young Americans in a wave of patriotic fervor, and Geohegan gave his life in the cause. His neighbors raised the memorial to remember a local youth lost far from home.

Lewistown, PA · est. 1967

This Lewistown home was the birthplace of Frank R. McCoy, a West Point graduate whose long career carried him from the Spanish-American War through both World Wars. A soldier-diplomat as much as a general, he served on international commissions and led the Foreign Policy Association, helping shape how Americans understood their growing role in the world. His life spanned the era in which the United States rose to global power.

San Antonio, TX

German-born William and Mary Menger opened a boarding house and brewery here in 1855, replacing it in 1859 with a stone hotel on Alamo Plaza that became San Antonio's finest. Cattlemen like Richard King lodged here during the great cattle drives, and guests ranged from Generals Grant, Lee, and Pershing to writers O. Henry and Sidney Lanier. In 1898 Theodore Roosevelt recruited his Rough Riders at the Menger for the Spanish-American War.

San Antonio, TX

When William Menger opened his fine stone hotel beside Alamo Plaza in 1859, he set a new standard of luxury for frontier San Antonio, serving venison, quail, and turtle soup to guests ranging from Indians and generals to presidents and poets. The bar even offered vintages cooled with ice hauled in by Gulf steamer and wagon. In 1898 Theodore Roosevelt recruited his Rough Riders for the Spanish-American War in these very rooms.

Morgantown, WV

Standing in Morgantown, the seat of Monongalia County, this memorial gathers three generations of the county's soldiers under a single tribute. It remembers the Union men who marched off during the Civil War of the 1860s, the volunteers of the brief 1898 Spanish-American War that pushed the United States onto the world stage, and the doughboys who shipped to France during World War One. Communities across West Virginia raised such monuments in the early twentieth century, turning a courthouse lawn or town square into a permanent roll of local service.

Town of Huntington, NY

When American troops came home from the Spanish-American War in 1898, thousands were quarantined at Camp Wikoff on nearby Montauk Point, many gravely ill with fevers they had contracted in Cuba. In an age before modern medicine, clean spring water was prized as a restorative, and Long Island communities mobilized to aid the stricken soldiers. Water bottled at this spring and carried east to Montauk was part of that homefront effort to nurse the returning veterans back to health.

Sherman, TX

On April 5, 1905, Theodore Roosevelt became the first sitting president to visit Grayson County, stopping in Sherman on his way to a reunion of his Spanish-American War "Rough Riders" in San Antonio. A crowd said to number 35,000 poured in by buggy, horse, and special train, and the president rode up banner-draped streets between lines of Union and Confederate veterans. From a stand at this corner he spoke for fifteen minutes, praising Texas and celebrating the reunion of North and South before hurrying on to Dallas.

Plainview, TX

Austin-born and educated at the Texas Military Institute, Rawleigh Porteus Smyth rose to brigadier general after service in the Spanish-American War. But his deepest mark on Texas was made with a surveyor's chain: in 1887 he ran the boundaries of the great South Plains ranches and platted the towns of Plainview, Happy, Tulia, and Kress. As a state legislator in 1897 he wrote laws to aid Plains settlers, and as a tireless irrigation advocate he helped turn the dry High Plains into farmland.

Junction, TX

The Kimble County community of Roosevelt got its start with an 1898 post office — and its name from Washington, apparently in honor of Theodore Roosevelt, whose Rough Riders had passed through the area before their famous Spanish-American War service. Sitting where two military roads crossed, it grew into a social hub for surrounding ranch families, with a lodge, churches, stores, and a school. It reflects the ranching frontier at the turn of the century.

New York, NY

The Spanish-American War of 1898 was a brief but pivotal conflict that ended Spanish colonial rule in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam and announced the United States' arrival as a global power. This monument in Jamaica, Queens, was raised in 1941 by the United Spanish War Veterans — a fraternal order of that war's aging survivors — through their Captain George H. Tilly Camp No. 66. Erected as a second world war engulfed the globe, it was the veterans' way of ensuring their own service would not be forgotten.

Pinellas County, FL

This Florida park is dedicated to the American servicemen who fought in the Spanish-American War of 1898. That brief but consequential conflict, sparked in part by the sinking of the USS Maine, sent U.S. troops to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Florida's ports and rail lines made it a major staging ground, and many soldiers passed through the state on their way to war.

Sacramento, CA

Dedicated in 1925 to the veterans of the Spanish-American War, this memorial was raised by a local women's auxiliary of the United Spanish War Veterans. The brief 1898 conflict with Spain vaulted the United States onto the world stage, and its veterans organized for decades afterward to honor their service.

Gardner, MA

In the spring of 1898 the United States went to war with Spain, and within months young men from mill towns across New England—Gardner among them, then famous as the "Chair City" for its furniture works—shipped south and across the Pacific. Victory was quick, but it handed the nation an overseas empire, and the fighting did not end with Spain's surrender: American troops spent four more years suppressing a Filipino independence movement in the grinding conflict this memorial calls the Philippine insurrection. Raised by Gardner's own citizens, the monument gathers both chapters of that 1898–1902 struggle into a single act of remembrance.

Mount Vernon, WA

This memorial honors the veterans of 1898–1902 — the Spanish-American War that freed Cuba and carried the United States into Puerto Rico and the Philippines, the bitter Philippine-American War that followed, and the China Relief Expedition that marched during the Boxer Rebellion. It was raised by the United Spanish War Veterans and the Nelson A. Miles women's auxiliary. These were the conflicts that announced America's arrival on the world stage.

North Attleborough, MA

In the winter of 1898 the battleship USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana harbor, killing more than 260 American sailors. "Remember the Maine!" became the rallying cry that helped push the United States into war with Spain that spring — a short, decisive conflict that ended with American forces victorious and Spain surrendering its remaining colonial holdings. Towns across the country, North Attleborough among them, later raised memorials to the local men who answered the call to serve in that first overseas war of the new American century.

Oak Park, IL

Erected in 1928 by Oak Park Camp No. 80 of the United Spanish War Veterans, this memorial honors local men who served between 1898 and 1902 in the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, and the Boxer Uprising in China. Those overlapping conflicts marked the United States' abrupt emergence as an overseas power, sending American troops from the Caribbean to the Pacific and East Asia. The veterans' organization raised such monuments to keep that service in public memory.

Toledo, OH

Raised by Spanish-American War veterans, patriotic groups, and the citizens of Toledo, this monument honors local men who served in the 1898 war with Spain and in the campaigns that followed — the Philippine Insurrection and the China Relief Expedition. Together these conflicts marked the United States' abrupt arrival as an overseas power at the turn of the twentieth century.

Sabine Pass, TX

As war with Spain loomed in the late 1890s, Congressman Samuel Bronson Cooper urged the War Department to fortify the strategic Sabine Pass, and by May 1898 — a month after the declaration of war — engineers under Maj. James B. Quinn were building two batteries on land granted by Augustus Kountze. The guns were finished but never fired in anger; the short war ended that December with the Treaty of Paris. Fifteen years later the abandoned site turned deadly when a boy was killed by an exploding ammunition cache, and hurricanes have since worn the earthworks nearly away.

Springfield, IL

"Remember the Maine" was the rallying cry of the Spanish-American War, born from the mysterious explosion that sank the battleship USS Maine in Havana harbor in February 1898. Within months the United States was at war with Spain, emerging as an overseas power with new possessions from Cuba to the Philippines. This Springfield memorial keeps that slogan — and the Illinois volunteers who answered it — in public memory.

Matagorda County, TX

Built in 1909 for A. B. Pierce, a Spanish-American War veteran who helped found the town of Blessing, this home became a gathering place for the area's civic leaders and visiting Episcopal clergy. It was here in 1916 that Pierce's wife Adelaide co-organized the Matagorda County Federation of Women's Clubs and served as its first president. The house has been a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark since 1968.

City of Troy, NY

This is a casting of "The Hiker," the celebrated statue of a common foot soldier, erected by Rensselaer County to honor its men who served in the War with Spain, the Philippine Insurrection, and the China Relief Expedition of 1898–1902. These conflicts marked the United States' abrupt emergence as an overseas power, sending young Americans to Cuba, the Philippines, and China within just a few years. "The Hiker" — the infantryman's nickname — became the standard national monument to these soldiers, cast in dozens of towns across the country. Troy's version keeps that turn-of-the-century service in local memory.

Minneapolis, MN

This monument honors the University of Minnesota students who served in the Spanish-American War of 1898–99. That brief conflict thrust the United States onto the world stage, and college men across the country volunteered for service in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. The marker ties a young state university to the nation's emergence as an overseas power.

Veterans Administration, CA

This memorial honors the volunteers of the Spanish-American War era, dating its service to 1898–1902—years that span both the brief war with Spain and the longer fighting in the Philippines that followed. The conflict marked the United States' emergence as an overseas power, taking control of former Spanish territories. The inscription's language of extending "liberty to alien peoples" reflects how that generation framed a war whose legacy of empire remains debated.

Charlotte, NC

In the summer of 1898, the Spanish-American War carried American soldiers to the hills outside Santiago de Cuba, where the fighting on July 1 around San Juan Heights became the war's defining land battle. William Ewen Shipp, a North Carolina–born West Point graduate serving as a first lieutenant with the 10th Cavalry—one of the celebrated regiments of Black 'Buffalo Soldiers' led by white officers—was killed that day as his men pressed the assault. This monument in his home city of Charlotte gathers his short life into a single elegant image, calling him 'the very straightest plant' amongst a grove.