Camp Alger, Virginia, 1898
corps, the IV and V consisted of regulars and volunteers, while the others were made up of volunteers.[1]
To facilitate command and control, corps and division commanders requested permission to use distinctive Civil War flags and badges for their units. Secretary of War Russell A. Alger, however, disapproved the request because of pressure from Civil War veterans who had been permitted by Congress to wear their distinctive unit insignia and guarded the privilege jealously. The quartermaster general, therefore, had to prepared an entirely new group of heraldic items for the recently organized army corps and their divisions and brigades.[2]
Before the new army completed its organization and training, it was thrust into combat. About two-thirds of V Army Corps, one dismounted cavalry and two infantry divisions, sailed for Cuba in June 1898. Expeditions also were mounted for Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands in which partial army corps provided the troops. The war ended in August 1898, and less than two months later the wartime army began to fade away. The War Department disbanded the last army corps on 13 April 1900. Following the war, the Army maintained troops in the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, but those commands did not employ army corps and divisions.[3]
- ↑ Rpt of the Maj Gen Commanding the Army, Annual Reports of the War Department, 1898, pp. 7–8, hereafter cited as ARWD; Russell A, Alger, The Spanish-American War (New York: Harper and Co,, 1901), pp. 26–27; Harper's Pictorial History of the War With Spain (New York: Harper and Co., 1899), p. 187; Correspondence Relating to the War With Spain, 1:509, 519, 534, 539, and 547; WD GO 30 and 96, 1898.
- ↑ Ltr. V Army Corps to The Adjutant General, U.S. Army, 28 May 1898, no subject, with five endorsements, AGO file 85411, Telegram, I Corps to the Quartermaster General (QMG), U.S. Army, 28 May 1898, no subject, AGO file 3198, Ltr. 1st Division, IV Corps, to The Adjutant General, IV Corps, 19 June 1898, no subject, Adjutant General's Office (AGO) file 114100, all in Record Group (hereafter cited as RG) 165, National Archives and Records Administration (here-after cited as NARA); WD Cir 12, 1883: WD GO 99, 1898.
- ↑ Rpt of the Maj Gen of the Army, ARWD, 1898, pp, 499–S01; Correspondence Relating to the War With Spain, 2705–08.
