Category Archives: Spanish-American War

The 1902 Rochambeau Delegation

13 Saturday Oct 2018

Posted by in Antietam, General Grant National Memorial (NPS), Henry Cabot Lodge, Horace Porter, Monuments and Statuary, New York City, Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President), Ulysses S. Grant (General and President), Washington, D.C., William McKinley

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One of the most famous moments in American diplomatic history was the Viviani-Joffre Mission to the United States in April-May 1917. This was when the French politician René Viviani and Field Marshal Joseph Joffre, among others, came to America to discuss military and diplomatic details after the United States declared war on Germany that spring. Viviani, Joffre and officials from other Allied governments toured the entire United States for several weeks to meet the American people, many of whom, especially in the South and Midwest, were suspicious of European leaders’ intentions. Fifteen years earlier there was a lesser known diplomatic mission: the 1902 Rochambeau Delegation.

The British Museum acquired this painting of General Joseph Brugère in 1902, the same year this French military leader led a goodwill tour to the United States solidifying Franco-American relations. Many of the individuals involved would go on tour serve in the Great War.

The event was so-called because the central moment of the mission was the May 24, 1902 dedication in Washington D.C.’s Lafayette Park of a memorial to Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, the French military leader who had fought with George Washington during the American Revolution. The early 1900s were an interesting moment in diplomatic relations. The United States had recently won the Spanish-American War and was becoming a true world power; the brutal Philippine Insurrection, the final phase in the Spanish-American War, ended on June 2, 1902. One month earlier, on May 6, General Joseph Brugère boarded Vice Admiral Ernest François Fournier’s Gaulois in Toulon and sailed for Washington. One of the driving forces of this mission was Horace Porter, the United States ambassador to France.

Porter had served under Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War and went on to serve in various capacities over the next several decades. He was the driving force to fund and build Grant’s Tomb, which finally came to fruition on April 27, 1897 when William McKinley dedicated his predecessor’s final resting place. Several weeks after that dedication Porter was off to Paris, where he would be President McKinley’s representative to France. Civil War veterans were still very much running American life; the president himself had been in the Battle of Antietam; his Secretary of State, John Hay, had been one of Lincoln’s personal secretaries; and right then in 1902 Secretary of War Elihu Root was putting Ambassador Porter in for the Congressional Medial of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Chickamauga.

Brugère, Fournier and a sizable contingent visited George Washington’s resting place at Mount Vernon on the afternoon of May 22 and were hosted that evening by Theodore Roosevelt at the White House. The big event came two days later when Ambassador Porter, President Roosevelt, General Brugère, Vice Admiral Fournier, scores of dignitaries, and thousands of others turned out at Lafayette Square Park for the Rochambeau statue dedication. Henry Cabot Lodge was the featured speaker. It was all a huge success.

A few days later the Brugère/Fournier contingent would be fêted across New York City. Among other things they got a look at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, dined with mayor Seth Low, and received a tour of Columbia University from college president Nicholas Murray Butler. Columbia is conveniently located next to Grant’s Tomb and on May 28 Ambassador Porter took Brugère, Fournier and the rest of the French delegates to the mausoleum that he had done so much to build. At the time the general public could not walk down to the sarcophagi as one can today. As leader of the Grant Monument Association however Porter was naturally able to take the Rochambeau delegates down the marble steps, where they all stood in hushed stillness for ten minutes. (At the time it was still only Ulysses; Julia passed away seven months later in December 1902.) After the visit, the delegation walked north of the tomb to the Claremont Inn, where several dozen people had a sumptuous meal.

(image/The British Museum)

 

 

Gotham turns out for Admiral Dewey

30 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Memory, New York City, Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President)

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One of the things that strikes a person when walking the canyon-like street of Lower Manhattan are the sidewalk plaques commemorating the ticker-tape parades held over the years. Such parades stretch back well into the nineteenth century. Ticker-tape itself is a thing of the past, but such parades are still very much a part of present day New York City life. They are held, for instance, when the Yankees win the World Series. I remember being in New York City for the first time in June 1990 and witnessing the parade for Nelson Mandela. Those who know the War of the Rebellion know the importance parades played in the history and remembrance of the conflict. The Grand Review of the Armies in May 1865 put an exclamation point on the Federal victory, emphasizing that the war was over  and the Union preserved. Twenty years later, in 1885, Winfield Scott Hancock, working from Governors Island, quite consciously organized General Grant’s funeral to serve the reconciliation cause. That is why Confederate generals Simon Bolivar Buckner and Joseph Johnston served as pallbearers along with William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan.

30 September 1899

30 September 1899

Today, 30 September, marks another of the landmark New York City parades, even if no one remembers it anymore: it was one this day 114 years ago that the masses turned out to salute Admiral George Dewey after his victory at the the Battle of Manila Bay. Masses is the correct word; a full two million people lined the streets to pay their respects. It was not just New Yorkers either; as the stereograph above shows people came from across the country. John Philip Sousa’s band led the procession.

Teddy Roosevelt understood the importance of these types of gatherings. He had, after all, witnessed Lincoln’s funeral procession from his bedroom window as a young boy. Dewey’s most prominent admirer was the Rough Rider himself. Teddy had ridden the popularity he had earned on San Juan Hill the year before all the way to the governors mansion in Albany. Roosevelt had good reason to be in Manhattan for Dewey’s moment in the sun; it was his machinations as Assistant Secretary of the Navy that had put Dewey in charge of the Asiatic Squadron to begin with. Admiral Dewey, aboard the Olympia, unexpectedly arrived in New York City two days early, and was left to cool his heels on the ship, which he seems to have taken in stride. It was a Who’s Who of prominent military men, including Wesley Merritt and Nelson Miles. For whatever reason the Grand Army of the Republic did not officially send a contingent, though Oliver O. Howard did organize a few thousand old soldiers, including members of Duryea’s Zouaves, to march.

These are the types of stories I am looking forward to telling when I start at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace in October.

(image/NYPL)