An Army For Empire Summary

The book I choose to review was An Army for Empire The United States Army in the Spanish American War written by Graham A. Cosmas. The main purpose for writing this book as Cosmas explains in the introduction is to dispel the thoughts that most people have about the supposed incompetence of the American high command during the war, the War Department and the office of President McKinley. According to Cosmas the reason that people feel that the high command especially the War Department’s role in this war was less than satisfactory is largely due to the little information given about how and why leaders made the decisions they did. As he points out most of the important people of the time; the vague memoirs of then Secretary of War Russell …show more content…
He has worked for various governmental Military History Agencies including the Deputy Director, Joint History Office and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to his website he is the “Author or Co-author of four books, but I’m pretty sure this is a little out of date because he is listed on Amazon as having more then eleven published works. While An Army for Empire was his first published book, having been published in 1993 the majority of his works deal with the Vietnam War, other topics he has touched on include the US in WW2, and the Dominican Republic. As a Professional historian who works closely with the military himself in writing his works, majorities of his works are co-published with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I feel that he is qualified to discuss the high command and give a reliable interpretation. In crafting his argument Cosmas uses a mixture of both new information such as the memoirs and notes of key figures from the time, to relooking at what he calls “unexploited files of the Adjutant General’s and Quartermaster General’s Office.” (Cosmas …show more content…
His first point in proving his thesis is the state of the United States army at the end of 1897 and begging of 1898. The Civil War having ended only 30 years earlier many of the top brass in the army were proud veterans but having been in relative peace for the few decades’ congress had decreased the size of the army down to basically a national police force. The authorized strength of the army in 1897 was only 25000 men, a force that could offer no real protection against a major power, or so Cosmas argues. He also points to the fact that this was also a time of dysfunction in the army leadership as young officers and older ones clashed for positions and promotions. This is especially bad when you consider as he points out later how many of the older officers who were commissioned during the Civil War did not have any actually Military education as they had risen through the ranks due to seniority. Many had little knowledge or experience commanding larger groups. Personally I don’t think this should be a reason used in trying to lesson the blame of the high command. In my opinion the fact that McKinley as commander

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