Our Man in Havana: Fitzhugh Lee

In the final days before the United States went to war with Spain in April 1898, Fitzhugh Lee returned home to a hero’s welcome after serving two years in Havana as consul general for the United States. Newspapers announced “Lee’s Triumphal Progress North,” “Fitz Lee the Hero, and “Honor to Fitz Lee,” as a special train hurried him from Florida to the nation’s capital. Admiring crowds gathered to cheer him in Southern towns along his route. Whistles blew, bells rang, and muskets and cannon fired in salute. Hastily assembled committees showered praise and compliments on him at every stop. Ten thousand persons, including the governor of Virginia, his staff, and the Light Infantry Blues, gathered to honor him at Richmond. In Washington, Lee’s train was met by “a large crowd of enthusiastic admirers.” Well-wishers cheered and serenaded him; reporters interviewed him; and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee respectfully listened to his views on the sinking of the Maine. President William McKinley gave him a “hearty reception” at the White House. Newspapers speculated that Lee would be put in command of the forces soon to liberate the island of Cuba. Throughout the popular demonstrations one sentiment rang out: as consul general in Havana, Lee had been “The Right Man in the Right Place at the Right Time.”¹

Certainly Lee’s alert, zealous patriotism and his decisiveness had made him a strong defender of American citizens who ran afoul of Spanish authorities in Cuba. In retrospect his convictions that Spain was decadent, that Cuba would never surrender to Spanish rule, and that the United States must guide the political and economic development of the island made many of his reports prophetic. But in the end Lee had not been the right man in the right place at the right time. A thorough study of his correspondence from Havana and some recently discovered letters from Lee to Daniel S. Lamont casts a less favorable light on both his motivations and his tactics.²

Not content simply to report to his superiors the apparent direction of events in Cuba, Lee undertook to make his predictions come true. His determination in favor of American intervention involved more than sympathy for Cuba or concern for the welfare and safety of the United States. In July 1896, following the Democratic national convention, Lee believed that the Cuban situation offered a means by which conservative Democrats could recapture their party from William Jennings Bryan and the silverites. In February 1897 Lee tried to precipitate a crisis in Spanish-American relations that would allow the Democrats rather than the incoming Republicans to reap the credit for liberating Cuba. Finally, Lee saw in Cuba a rich bonanza for Americans wise enough to invest there before the island changed flags, and he hoped very much to be among that fortunate group.

“Fitz” Lee had been appointed consul general in April 1896 by President Grover Cleveland. The President and his Secretary of State, Richard Olney, for several months had felt the need for an accurate appraisal of military and political conditions in Cuba. The revolt there was in its second year. American sympathies for the Cuban cause seemed to grow stronger with each passing day, and in the spring of 1896 Congress, responsive to the increasing popular clamor, passed resolutions calling upon the administration to recognize Cuba as a belligerent.³

The Spanish minister at Washington, Dupuy de Lôme, who was on friendly terms with Secretary Olney, tried to persuade the administration that the revolt was doomed to failure. He and other Spanish sources insisted that the insurgents belonged to “the lowest order of the population,” did “not represent its property or its intelligence or its true interests,” were “the ignorant and vicious and desperate classes marshaled under the leadership of a few adventurers, and would be incapable of founding or maintaining a decent government if their revolution … were to be successful.” If the United States strictly enforced its neutrality laws, the Spaniards suggested, the rebels in Cuba would be cut off from their chief sources of supply, and Spain would soon be able to restore law and order to the island.⁴

On the other hand, Paul Brooks, a wealthy American planter in Cuba, and other rebel sympathizers, informed Olney and Cleveland that even the best Cuban families secretly sided with the revolutionary cause and that nine-tenths of the population wanted Spanish rule terminated. Recognition of the rebels as belligerents or recognition of Cuban independence, Brooks urged, would hasten the day of inevitable victory and end the troubles in Cuba.⁵

During the fall and winter of 1895-1896, Cleveland and Olney considered sending an agent—a man with military background—to Cuba to investigate conditions and to report to them. Spain, however, opposed such a mission.⁶ President Cleveland thereupon decided to name a new consul general to Havana who would be competent, he hoped, to gather the needed information. He chose Fitzhugh Lee for the post. A nephew of the Confederate hero, Robert E. Lee, Fitz Lee was graduated from West Point forty-fifth in a class of forty-nine. He was best remembered at the Academy for his camaraderie, his pranks, and his horsemanship. The high point of his career came with his service to the Confederacy during the Civil War. Before his twenty-eighth birthday, Lee rose to the rank of major general and by war’s end established himself as one of the dozen or so best cavalry officers born in America. After Appomattox he lived simply for the next twenty years, struggling to support his family by farming.⁷

Lee entered politics in 1885 when Virginia Democrats nominated him for governor in the hope that nostalgia for the Lost Cause would sweep the Republicans from office. “Ensconced upon Marse Robert’s very own saddle,” and exploiting in full his reputation as an ex-confederate cavalry officer and his family name, Lee toured the Old Dominion on horseback in his quest for votes.⁸ Elected to office, he became a champion of intersectional harmony and reconciliation.

After an undistinguished term as governor and defeat in the senatorial election of 1893, Lee became the president of a minor Virginia railroad company and accepted appointment as federal collector of revenue in Virginia.⁹

In temperament Lee was impulsive, with a flair for the dramatic. He much preferred acting and decision-making to gathering information and carrying out the orders of his superiors. Except for his military experience, Lee was not well suited for the post in Havana. He spoke no Spanish, knew little about Cuba or Spain, and had never before held a diplomatic assignment.¹⁰

Lee, revealing a taste for spying and intrigue, relished his new role from the start. He requested from the army the services of “a young, active, discreet, intelligent, courageous officer, who can ride a horse, and who will do exactly as you tell him, and no more & no less.” The request was granted, but for some reason the young man did not get to Cuba as planned. Lee did not complain. “My past experiences,” he wrote Secretary of War Lamont, “taught me many ways of collecting information and I have made use of it [sic].” The letter to Lamont, very long and designated by Lee “Letter no. One,” was the first in a series of confidential reports to the Secretary of War.¹¹ There is no evidence that Lamont had requested such reports or that either of Lee’s superiors, Secretary Olney or President Cleveland, knew of them.

From private consultation with Cleveland and Olney before leaving for Cuba, Lee gathered that the two men hoped for peace on the island if the United States indirectly promoted Cuban autonomy. After only two weeks there, Lee blasted that hope in his first report to Olney, declaring that there was no longer an autonomy party willing to accept reforms or self-government from the Spanish. Nearly all Cubans, he said, wanted independence or annexation to the United States.

Lee waxed eloquent at the prospect of the island’s becoming an American possession or dependency. “Its fertile soil,” he wrote, “producing so many varieties of food, fruit, tobacco, coffee & sugar, can easily support, and give employment to 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 people.” “It is claimed,” he went on, that “with the proper commercial facilities, American capital, enterprise & energy, will in a brief interval direct its destiny.” The island would become “an immense garden supplying the United States with its earliest vegetables & fruits & be its richest and most prosperous possession.” In its “splendid harbors,” Lee observed, American vessels could “conveniently float,… charged with defending American interests and promoting American commerce.”

The consul general went on to declare that Spain could not subdue the island and that the rebels could not force Spain to evacuate. In the meantime Cuba would be “laid waste & destroyed.” If possible, Lee suggested, the United States should buy the island from Spain and organize it as an independent republic or annex it.¹² Three days later, Lee reported the presence of 240,000 Spanish troops in Cuba, “or nearly 90,000 more men than the combined armies of Wellington and Napoleon at Waterloo, or of Meade and Lee at Gettysburg.” He observed that he saw “nothing in front but famine and the Sword.” A “bad feature” of the protracted struggle, he said, was “the damage to the planting interests of the Island.”¹³

Olney thanked Lee for his “confidential notes,” which, he said, “fulfill our anticipations.” From the questions which followed, however, it was clear that the administration wanted less information about Cuba’s potential as an American possession and more news about the status of the rebel government. Was there, indeed, “any such civil government de facto?” he asked. Was there a fixed seat of government? Were elections held and did a legislature meet and enact laws? Was there a civil government actually protecting life, liberty, and property? Were there established and functioning courts of law? Did a civil government collect taxes, provide mail service, issue currency, build roads, provide for the poor, or maintain educational facilities for the young? “In short,” Olney concluded, “what of the ordinary functions of civil government, if any,” did “the so-called Cuban Republic exercise?” Or was it a “ mere government on paper?”¹⁴

Lee’s reply several days later did not indicate a fully responsible Cuban government. The rebels had a written constitution, he reported, which created a Council of Government, to regulate the civil and political life of the Revolution. Civil governors and tax collectors had been appointed for all of the provinces, and taxes were collected wherever Cuban arms prevailed. Where planters paid taxes they were allowed to grind their sugar cane unmolested. Others had their properties destroyed. In two provinces courts of justice had been established, and in many places schools and hospitals had been set up, generally hidden in the woods or mountains. However, mail was imperfectly organized, and the insurgents had no currency except Spanish gold and silver coins. The rebel armies apparently were not under the control of any civil government: “Practically, General Máximo Gómez’ views on all questions prevail, though it is not understood that [he] interferes with the minor details of the civil machinery put in motion by the civil authorities.” For the present the government declined to establish a permanent seat, because troops would have to guard it. And this force, said Lee, could be “more profitably employed in the general campaign.” Rather, the government assembled wherever it was safest and most convenient, its members moving about in a body under military escort.¹⁵

Meanwhile, Lee embroidered his regular dispatches to the State Department with strong personal opinions and comments. He concluded a report on taxation with the observation that “the condition of the inhabitants of the Island of Cuba is growing worse day by day,” and a report on restrictions on tobacco exportation ended: “This is another evidence of the want of confidence in the authorities here.…” Another report compared Cuban conditions with “a huge volcano … which must in the near future produce an eruption.” On July 4 he observed to Secretary Olney that “no one” expected that Spain would grant promised reforms in Cuba or that the rebels would accept them if offered. According to Lee, more and more Spanish soldiers saw but two courses remaining open to them—war with the United States or “an ignoble surrender to the demands of the insurgents.” Rather than haul down the Spanish flag, he said, the soldiers preferred to fight the Americans and at least “lose the Island with honor.”¹⁶

Four days later Lee wrote Olney a confidential report calling openly for American intervention in Cuba. Feelings between Spaniards and Americans were growing “intense,” and “matters [were] daily converging to a certain focus,” he warned. Reforms earlier (promised by the Spanish were no longer expected. But, even if the reforms were granted, they could not solve the problem. Lee again suggested that the United States attempt to buy the island. That failing, “a declaration of its independence should promptly follow, something after the order of President Jackson’s treatment of the Texas question in 1836.” War with Spain would “almost certainly follow,” he feared, but it would be “short and decisive,” and the purchase price of the island could be credited to its cost. Lee thought that it would be a wise precaution to station a warship at Key West, with a full complement of marines under a discreet officer, instructed to proceed to Havana at his request, should it ever “be necessary to protect the consulate and the lives of Americans from mob violence.… ”¹⁷

Olney told Cleveland that he was not much impressed with this proposal, and Cleveland replied: “I am a little surprised at Consul General Lee’s dispatch. He seems to have fallen into the style of rolling intervention like a sweet morsel under his tongue.… It would seem absurd for us to buy the Island and present it to the people now inhabiting it, and put its government and management in their hands.” The president thought Lee’s reference to Jackson unfortunate, and he also disliked the suggestion about a man-of-war, though he agreed that prudent measures should be taken to provide for the safety of Americans in Cuba. Apparently referring to the approaching presidential campaign, Cleveland concluded that he did “not want now anything of that kind made a convenient excuse for trouble with Spain.”¹⁸ Even before receiving Cleveland’s response, Olney had answered Lee, rejecting the proposal for keeping a man-of-war at Lee’s disposal. Both Olney and the Secretary of the Navy thought that if a naval demonstration were to be made, a fleet rather than a single ship should be sent. Lee was disappointed but, as he wrote, “always willing to abide by any decision made by those who have after all to bear the responsibility.”¹⁹

Meanwhile the Democratic convention at Chicago, dominated by its Southern and Western delegates, dispossessed its business-oriented Eastern leadership, denounced the incumbent Democratic administration and all its works, and proceeded to nominate Bryan for the presidency on a free-silver platform. Conservative Democrats, including Cleveland, Olney, and Lee, were dumbfounded. About two weeks after Bryan’s nomination, Lee wrote Olney a political letter. Damning the Chicago convention as “populistic” and “anarchical,” he observed that Democrats who objected to what had happened there had but three courses open to them: to abstain from voting, to vote for McKinley, or to call another Democratic convention on the grounds that the first had been taken over by Populists. A second convention, Lee thought, offered “the chance to win,” especially if it adopted a platform which strongly endorsed the Cleveland administration and called for an end to the hopeless war in Cuba by American mediation, “or if necessary American intervention.” Either occupation or purchase of the island would give the administration and “Sound Democrats” in general the credit for “stopping the wholesale atrocities daily practiced here…” In the event of war, “the enthusiasm, the applications for service, the employment of many of the unemployed, might do much towards directing the minds of the people from imaginary ills, the relief of which, is erroneously supposed to be reached by ‘Free Silver.’”²⁰

Olney apparently made no reply to Lee’s proposals, and from July until the following February the flow of rash suggestions and gratuitous comments from Havana subsided. Lee restricted his official correspondence to straightforward reporting, and his activities to intervening with officials for the release of Americans arrested and jailed by Spanish authorities. The months of November and December he spent on leave in the United States. In private conversations with Postmaster General William L. Wilson, Lee spoke “with strong feeling” of Spanish cruelties and declared that all the United States needed to do to end these barbarities “would be to blockade the ports of Cuba with our fleet” and to “cut the cable to Madrid,” thereby starving out the Spaniards in a few days. He reported also that Spanish officials in Cuba were in a temper for war “on slight provocation, especially for political reasons by the party in power.”²¹ Here as elsewhere he seems to have been attributing to others motives closer to his own.

After McKinley’s election and as Inauguration Day drew near, Lee launched a final campaign to induce President Cleveland to intervene in Cuba and collect the credit which otherwise would go to the Republicans. At the same time he revealed his interest in exploiting his official position for personal gain. These ill-conceived plans began with a letter to Secretary of War Lamont—a letter which has only recently come to light. In it Lee invited Lamont to share in a get-rich investment in Havana:²²

Someone told me—it matters not when or where—that you were interested in street railways. So—it has occurred to me to say to you—that here in Habana is a gold mine. Picture in your mind a city as large as Washington—with no modern travelling facilities. The car lines are limited to three in number—short old fashioned ears—drawn—each by thin little poor horses & this in a city where from March to November everybody rides & the remainder of the year large numbers of persons. Not a cable—not a trolley—no open or summer cars—attractive suburbs—beautiful places— within close range—on the Ocean &c &c &c. I have an excellent well posted man looking over the field now with a view of getting options—buying out the old lines & acquiring ocean property outside—so that when peace is declared the business can be proceeded with. Now all can be purchased low, When the war is over everything will be high.

In case of a change of flag here no one can estimate the possibilities. I see no chance of the Cubans driving the Spanish from the Island or of the Spanish quelling the present insurrection.

Without a cry of halt from some quarter it looks as if the length of the war only depends on the length of Spain’s purse.…

Now if you & Mr. [William C.] Whitney (I understand he too is interested in N.Y. city lines) or either of you would like to look over the ‘bonanza’ here, send me a man in whom you have confidence to examine & report.…

You had better to run down here after 4th March & see for yourself unless you have no use for more money—Mr. Cleveland [the President] came here you remember with Messrs. [William F.] Vilas, [Thomas F.] Bayard & [Don M.] Dickinson just after his first term.…

Lee’s information was right. Both Lamont and Whitney were interested in New York City street railways, and Lamont reacted favorably to the consul general’s proposition. Official duties, however, prevented Lee from pursuing the matter for several months.

Meanwhile, on February 18, Lee began his efforts to induce the Democratic administration to put an end to the disorders in Cuba before leaving office. “There has been no change here in the situation,” he wrote Olney, “and no prospect, in my opinion, of peace, unless the United States stops this horrible war.” This it could do, said Lee, in two weeks by a blockading fleet, without firing a gun or landing a soldier.”²³ On the same day the consul general sent three provocative cables to the State Department. In the first he suggested that the United States should undertake to protect ladies, whether or not American citizens, from inspection by Spanish officials. “Ladies searched on Plant American Steamer anchored in port February 10th,” he cabled. “[S] earched twice ashore before women employed to do it.… Instruct as to allowing such proceedings in future whether Americans or not.”²⁴ In a second cable Lee reported “great excitement” over an issue of paper money in Havana. The currency, by official proclamation, was to be accepted at par, and was redeemable in silver “at pleasure.” According to rumor, however,. Spain had no silver on hand to redeem the paper. “Trouble and violence at any time in consequence,” he warned.²⁵ The third cable related that high-ranking Cuban military leaders had passed back and forth freely through Spanish lines. “No provinces pacified, no peace in sight,” he commented. From these facts he concluded that his confidential report of the previous June was still valid and “fully verified by intermediate events.”²⁶ (This was the report in which the consul general had predicted that neither side could win militarily or would accept a negotiated settlement and had urged that the United States buy Cuba from Spain and give the island its independence or annex it.)

Capping the communications of February 18 was Lee’s report of the death of Richard Ruiz, an American dentist. Ruiz had died on February 17 in a cell in Guanabacoa, where the Spanish had held him incommunicado for nearly two weeks. Lee noted that Ruiz’ death was variously rumored as being due to solitary confinement in a “filthy dark place” until he lost his reason, to his having committed suicide, or to his having been beaten to death. The original charges against Ruiz were “absolutely false,” Lee declared, and he promised to investigate the case at once. If the dentist’s death involved “foul work,” he would demand “fullest indemnity.”²⁷

There were more cables the next day, including a follow-up report on the Ruiz case. In this Lee said that the dentist had always tended strictly to his profession and had had nothing whatever to do with the rebels. He believed that Ruiz had died from neglect or violence, although he admitted that it was “very difficult to ascertain the facts” because “all knowledge” was “confined to officials.” He concluded with the suggestion that the United States “demand from [the] Spanish Government the release of all Americans imprisoned [in] Cuba.”²⁸

In a very long letter on the Ruiz case to Assistant Secretary of State William W. Rockhill on February 20, Lee again recommended that he be “instructed to demand the release of all American prisoners” who were “suffering and lingering in the prisons and jails” of Cuba with “no reasonable prospect of their cases being taken up and decided upon one way or the other.…”²⁹ That same day he also cabled Rockhill that rebel strength in Cuba was stronger than when first he had come to the island. He predicted that the fighting would last for months, “unless brought to a close by outside interference.” Inasmuch as American policy barred other nations from intervening, Lee believed it “more obligatory” that the United States “take such action, in the interest of peace, prosperity, human life, commerce, and American progress.”³⁰

The cables from Havana on February 20 reached a climax in the report of the arrest of another American citizen, Charles Scott, who had already been held incommunicado for nearly eleven days. “Cannot stand another Ruiz murder and have demanded his release,” declared Lee. He asked: “How many war vessels Key West or within reach, and will they be ordered here at once if necessary to sustain demand?”³¹ On February 21 Olney drew up a chilling reply to the overheated dispatches of his consul general. He criticized Lee’s handling of the Ruiz ease, questioned sharply his motives in calling for warships, and listed specific questions to be answered. Lee’s dispatches respecting the Ruiz and Scott cases, Olney declared, indicated “views and purposes which are not understood and require explanation.” Observing that Lee had reported nothing to the department between Ruiz’ arrest on February 4 and his death thirteen days later, he asked him what he had done to protect the prisoner during that time. If Ruiz was being mistreated, Lee should have intervened, and if the authorities disregarded this intervention, he should have reported the fact to the department. Olney was also curious as to why, after saying on February 19 that “all knowledge” in the case was “confined to officials” and that it was “very difficult to ascertain the facts,” Lee on February 20 could declare that Ruiz had been murdered.

The secretary asked for more detailed information about Ruiz Was he not a native Cuban who had come to the United States, taken out citizenship papers, and then returned permanently to Cuba? Had he not, by this act, forfeited any right to American protection? “Have you ascertained [the] facts on these points—if not explain why not, and investigate and report about them without delay.” Turning to the Scott case, Olney raised more questions: “Explain how you know he is a United States citizen, whether by birth or naturalization, when and where he was arrested, and under what circumstances, where he has been confined, how he has been treated, what you have done in assertion of his rights, or to secure him proper treatment, and why you demand [his] release only after 264 hours.”

One cannot be certain at this point that Olney wanted or expected answers to all these questions. He may have been attempting to divert Lee from other activities. However, the secretary’s reactions to Lee’s proposed demand was clear from the questions which he asked. Did Lee suppose “that such demand, which must be refused, can be made [the] basis for hostile intervention or demonstration?” The United States made demands, Olney concluded, “only when prepared to enforce them, and therefore only on assured grounds.” Given the “complete uncertainty as to facts” in the case at hand, Lee’s suggestion as to warships was “most surprising.”³²

During the next few days letter followed cable back and forth between the peppery consul general and the equally fiery Secretary of State. Much of the correspondence was related to the Ruiz case. On the point of whether the dentist had been entitled to United States protection, Lee eventually convinced Olney that Ruiz had completed his naturalization, had duly registered himself as a citizen with the consulate in Havana, and hence was presumably entitled to protection.³³ Lee was less successful in proving his charge that Ruiz had been murdered. Because the full details of the incident were in Spanish possession, he conceded that “the exact manner of his death would probably never be determined.…” On the other hand, he said, he had “strong testimony” from relatives, friends, residents of Guanabacoa, and from a Spanish priest, all to the effect that Ruiz had been killed by his captors.³⁴

Stung by Olney’s criticism, Lee testily defended himself: “I do not understand why you should call my attention to ‘my duty to protect Dr. RUIZ before death, as well as afterwards.’ You forget that he was ‘incommunicado’ and in that condition no one was allowed to see him or communicate with him.”³⁵ But this, as Olney pointed out, was no defense at all. The fact that the authorities held Ruiz incommunicado was all the more reason for Lee to give the matter his “closest attention,” since if Ruiz had been merely jailed, his friends and relatives could have looked after him. Olney demanded “a clear statement” of Lee’s views on this point for the “information and guidance” of the department. “I desire to ask,” he said, “… whether in the case of a prisoner claiming American citizenship, your idea of duty is that nothing is to be done in the way of inquiry, or protest, or in the way of insuring immunity from maltreatment, because the prisoner’s confinement is aggravated by his being kept incommunicado?”³⁶

Lee told Olney that the sight of Ruiz’ dead body had convinced him that strong demands had to be made on behalf of Scott, and that the time was ripe to demand the release of all American prisoners held in Spanish jails. Olney disagreed. This would be unwise, particularly in the cases of Americans taken with arms in their posssession, who had no justification for being armed. For them the demand for trial or release “might simply mean … death or perpetual imprisonment.” Lee responded that confinement in Cuba’s “hot, sticky climate” was killing the prisoners “even as RUIZ was killed by other methods.” Happily, the Spanish, without further protest, released Scott—but only “just in time,” in Lee’s opinion, “to prevent the record of another American dead in a Spanish cell.”³⁷

Until Scott’s release Lee pressed vigorously for a promise from the administration that warships would be sent if needed to back his demands. Without directly answering Olney’s charge that this action would constitute deliberate provocation, Lee cabled: “Deprecate war, seen too much of it.” But obviously he did not shrink from war. Nor did he deny that the demands he sought to make were designed to bring Spain and America to the brink of war. He was “actuated,” he said, “only by [the] desire to serve the President and you [Olney] and American interests.” To strengthen his request for warships, the consul general implied his readiness to resign. “If action not indorsed, remedy [is] in your hands and you should not hesitate to employ it.” At the same time he added on his own behalf: “No one not here can appreciate the situation.” The next day he repeated both the demand and the threat. “If you support it, and Scott is so released, the trouble will terminate. If you do not I must depart.”³⁸

Even after the Spanish released Scott, however, Lee continued to insist that the State Department tell him whether or not warships would be sent if he called for them to back similar demands in the future. The department’s reply, based on a letter drafted by Olney (after he left office on March 4), informed Lee that he needed no fresh instructions. As in the past, he was to protest the confinement of any American for more than seventy-two hours. Should his protest be ignored, he was to notify Washington. “If he carries out those instructions,” Olney wrote, “he will have discharged his whole duty and need hardly take upon himself the additional burden of anticipating and indicating such further measures, if any, as this Government should resort to with the Government at Madrid.”³⁹

During this correspondence with the Secretary of State, Lee revealed clearly his motive for precipitating a crisis. On February 24 he asked if the President could not see his way clear before leaving office to demand capital punishment for all persons whose involvement in the Ruiz murder was properly proved. He added: “Nothing can prevent [the] Cuban matter very soon settling itself. I am deeply interested that [this] administration should participate.”⁴⁰ Such participation was the farthest thing from the mind of the Cleveland administration, and Lee’s provocative course deeply disturbed the president. On February 28 Cleveland summoned Frederic R. Coudert, an expert on international law, to the White House and asked him to undertake a secret mission to Madrid for the purpose of averting war. He told Coudert that war would come because of the “activities of the Americans in Cuba” whose “ringleader” was Fitzhugh Lee.⁴¹

The lawyer declined the assignment because of his poor health. Four days later the Cleveland administration passed from power without further incident. On Inauguration Day, however, Grover Cleveland warned his successor that Lee was not to be relied upon.⁴²

As the new administration came to power, the storm, largely whipped up by Lee himself, suddenly died down. “All quiet,” he cabled on March 5. “No excitement here now.”⁴³ The calm may well have been related to his uncertain tenure as consul general, for he probably suspected that McKinley and his advisors were considering whether to appoint a man of their own for so sensitive a post as Havana. Lee tendered no hasty pro forma resignation but instead wrote to the new Secretary of State, John Sherman, that he would resign or stay on as the President wished. Disregarding Cleveland’s warning, McKinley sent word to Havana that he was both confident of Lee’s “devotion to American interests,” and “convinced of his earnest desire to guard the rights of American citizens,” and would be pleased if Lee continued in his duties.⁴⁴

Now more certain of his position, Lee fell back into his old patterns. His reports on conditions in Cuba, for instance, revealed no changes in the situation there or in his attitudes. His predictions, also unchanged, continued to be proved correct by events. In a cable to Sherman of mid-March, he summed up the situation much as he had nine months earlier for Olney. The insurgents, he said, could not expel the Spanish, nor could the Spanish suppress the rebellion in the near future. Warfare would continue until Spain was exhausted financially, or until some outside government intervened. Since America would allow no non-American state to intervene, Lee concluded that the task must fall to the United States. In the meantime, he said, loss of life, destruction of property, and interruption of commerce would increase.⁴⁵

Over two months later, after Spain had offered certain reforms in Cuba, Lee reported that the Cubans showed no interest whatever in them. He rejected the idea that Spain might grant something like Canadian autonomy, as some had suggested: “England is not Spain, or are the Canadians, Cubans.” Spain’s financial condition and the Cuban debt would always stand in the way of Spain’s “relinquishing her hold upon the purse strings of the Island.…”

Furthermore he was not aware of any reform party in Cuba, except for an autonomist group, never strong, which had gone to pieces.⁴⁶

In the autumn of 1897 Spain recalled the hated governor, “Butcher” Valeriano Weyler. His successor, General Ramón Blanco, impressed Lee as “a gentleman of culture, courteous, polite, and kindhearted,” but also as a man past his prime, sick, “physically and mentally incapable of discharging the duties of his great office.…” Since Blanco was disposed to countermand Weyler’s policies in toto, Lee was satisfied that the new regime intended to remove all causes of American complaint. He anticipated better relations between the United States and Spain and predicted that by the time of the President’s Annual Message in December all Americans imprisoned in Cuba would be released.

But despite the improved state of affairs, Lee was certain that the ultimate course of events in Cuba would be unchanged, for he observed that more and more Spaniards were becoming resigned to the withdrawal of Spain from the island. They opposed, however, either autonomy or independence, which would put them under Cuban rule, he said, and preferred outright annexation by the United States or some sort of American protectorate.⁴⁷ These alleged views of the Spanish residents coincided exactly with Lee’s own favorite solution of the Cuban question.

The consul general’s penchant for intrigue and semi-secret correspondence also reappeared. Apparently sensing that Secretary Sherman was not the driving force of the State Department, Lee began to direct his correspondence to Assistant Secretary William R. Day. He sent Day maps and charts of Havana harbor and informed him of a $1200 emergency fund set up during Cleveland’s administration with which he maintained a secret detective network to keep the consulate informed against any surprise crises. Lee hoped that Day would continue the fund. Early in June, in a letter marked “Personal and Private,” the consul general told Day of a number of recent atrocities committed in Cuba. He offered to write the assistant secretary privately from time to time and keep him “personally posted as to many of the incidents happening in our midst.” It is not clear why Lee thought this necessary, or how Day reacted to the offer, but he frequently received “personal” letters from the consul general which he filed with the regular consular correspondence. If he replied in kind, that correspondence has not come to light.⁴⁸

In July 1897, Lee turned again to his long-postponed project for making money from investments in Havana. The man who he hoped would finance the venture, former Secretary of War Lamont (now in business in New York City), had written in February that he “would be glad to look into the business situation” and had asked the consul general to forward certain information to him. Lee had not done so because the “unsettled condition” of Cuba had “operated aginst [sic] any consideration of business propositions.” But now the end was drawing near. “The present condition must be changed and will be changed in the near future,” he predicted, “and then there will come a great appreciation of all values in this city and on this Island.”

Lee went on in his letter to introduce the son of a major New York tobacco importer who had been involved in business in Havana for over fifteen years, and who was “throughly [sic] acquainted with existing conditions.” Lee had “talked freely to him on the business” and had commissioned him to carry the requested data to Lamont.⁴⁹ That fall, Lee, on leave in the United States, visited New York City for at least two days. But again the project was delayed.

When Lee returned to his post in November, he found that a new Spanish ministry had offered extensive reforms to Cuba, aimed eventually at a high degree of self-government for the island. This proposal made as little impression on him as had all the previous Spanish offers. “Autonomy will follow the Weyler reforms,” he predicted, “& then the deluge!” He began to bombard the State Department with suggestions for meeting the unrest that he anticipated. Inasmuch as no one could tell exactly what might happen next in Cuba, he wrote, he thought it “judicious to keep at least two warships at Key West.” He wanted the officer in command to be instructed to respond quickly upon receipt of a key code letter from Havana. If a signal could be agreed upon, its use “could be arranged subject to the approval of the President, if time permitted, or otherwise—if the emergency was sudden and great.” Lee assured his superiors that he could be “absolutely depended upon—though perhaps I should not say it—not to take hasty or premature action, for I never get excited or bewildered.”⁵⁰ Time and again in the weeks that followed, Lee reiterated the need to have men-of-war at his disposal “to preserve order & protect American life & property.”⁵¹

President McKinley, in his Annual Message of December 6, 1897, suggested that the new regime in Spain should be given a “reasonable chance” to put its new Cuban policies into operation. If its policies failed, “the exigency of further and other action by the United States will remain to be taken,” he warned. Lee quickly reacted to these phrases by pushing for more action, recommending that the United States tell Spain that thirty days would constitute a “reasonable time” in which to pacify Cuba. “[A]nd if at the end of that period the Spanish authorities here are unable to give liberty to the citizen and succor” to those in need on the island, he added, “the U.S. must proceed to do both, in the interest of peace, prosperity and humanity.”⁵² Should Congress decide to intervene as one of the President’s “other actions,” Lee asked that two warships be sent well in advance “as an ounce of prevention,” for his scouts had informed him that any such ships would be received in the spirit sent—“as messengers of peace & protection to life and property.”⁵³

In January 1898 Lee’s expectations of the preceding year and a half were fulfilled, and riots broke out in Havana. The consul remained cool and unexcited, and in spite of talk that rioters were about to attack the consulate, he cabled, “presence [of] ships may be necessary later, but not now.” He explained his reasons in detail in a personal letter to Day. American ships at Havana would only tend to unite the Spanish and to direct their attentions against the United States, he said. As matters stood, an increasing number of Spaniards were coming to the conclusion that American “intermediation” was the one resort left for restoring peace. “So it is best, in my opinion,” he wrote, “to let matters progress in that direction rather than for the U.S. to insist upon being heard at once on this question. One method may bring trouble & perhaps some bloodshed. The other may reach the same result by peaceful paths.” When warships became necessary, he now believed that there should be “such a show of force as to give moral effect & disarm any foolish attempt that might be made against them.” He did not think one or two vessels would be enough.⁵⁴

In spite of Lee’s urgent request that the visit be delayed for six or seven days, the administration in Washington ordered the second-class battleship Maine to Havana harbor late in January. Once it arrived, Lee forgot his misgivings and was both moved and pleased. “The Maine … came gliding into the harbor as easily and smoothly as possible yesterday about 11 a.m.,” he wrote Day. “It was a beautiful sight & one long to be remembered— & has greatly relieved (by her presence) the Americans here.”⁵⁵

The initial Spanish dismay at the arrival of the Maine had hardly subsided before Lee was suggesting steps to increase the number of ships on hand in Havana harbor. He proposed that a small torpedo boat run in mail to the Maine one day and then promptly leave. In a few days it might return to check the Maine’s coal supply, and again leave. Finally, it could return, drop anchor, and stay, ready to serve as an emergency means of communication between Americans in Havana and the fleet. Later, Lee thought, the Maine might be relieved by a first-class battleship, and in time by two.⁵⁸

Lee’s scheming had outrun events, for on February 15 the Maine blew up in Havana harbor. He reacted to the disaster responsibly and in a restrained manner. His initial impression was that the explosion was an accident, and he hoped that Americans would repress excitement and calmly await the findings of a naval inquiry. At no point did he believe that General Blanco or the higher Spanish officials in Cuba were responsible for the sinking, though he thought it possible that lesser officials or outside parties were involved.⁵⁷

Lee’s restraint following the January riots and the sinking of the Maine seems strangely inconsistent with his earlier aggressiveness, but the inconsistency may be more apparent than real. Throughout his tenure as consul general, he had repeatedly urged American intervention in one form or another to end the disorders in Cuba. At no point, however, had he called for outright war with Spain. Unlike many of the more strident jingoes, Lee was less interested in waging war than in seeing Cuba ultimately brought under American economic and political tutelage. Putting pressure on Spain obviously ran the risk of war—a risk Lee was willing to face. But as he had said many times, if the United States imposed a blockade on the island, decadent and exhausted Spain would probably back away from direct and open conflict.

Moreover, by January 1898 Lee was convinced that Spain’s control over Cuba was fast slipping away. The riots revealed a growing split between the Spanish authorities in Cuba and resident Spaniards whose lives and fortunes were permanently tied to the island. Lee believed that direct intervention by the United States at that time or in response to the sinking of the Maine would antagonize those Spaniards and drive them back into the arms of the Mother Country. If they were left alone, deteriorating conditions in the island would shortly force them to look to the United States for protection of their property and other interests from the native Cubans. Since Spanish withdrawal was imminent whether or not the United States intervened, the wiser course was to avoid needless conflict as far as possible, and retain the favor of the resident Spaniards. This group, the best element in the Cuban population, Lee believed, would be strong supporters of American annexation, once Spain was gone.

By March 1, Lee was thinking once more about the ultimate fate of Cuba. “ If a change of any sort should come in the government of the Island,” he wrote, “I do not apprehend much difficulty in settling future questions, if there is a guarantee of some sort by the U.S. that order, peace, and respect for life & property should be insisted upon. All other matters would gradually settle themselves & in that case American capital & push & enterprise would soon Americanize the Island & the immigration would be so great that when the question of annexation would have to be considered the Cuban population would not be much of a factor in the … problem.”⁵⁸

Perhaps Lee’s ponderings were appropriate, for time was fast running out. Within a few days McKinley sent his ultimatum to Spain and early in April decided to intervene in Cuba with force. When it became certain that war at last was coming, Lee requested and secured a delay in McKinley’s message so as to make provision for the safety of American citizens in Cuba.⁵⁹ Finally, on April 10, Lee came home with the last boat-load of Americans to the cheers of his appreciative fellow-countrymen.

Lee eventually did return to Cuba in uniform, but not at the head of one of the liberating armies. His friends believed that McKinley and the Republicans, seeing the swell of popular enthusiasm for Lee, had no wish to crown him with military glory, thereby making him a possible presidential candidate.⁶⁰ Instead he received command of the Seventh Army Corps, which did not go to Cuba until December 1898, well after others had harvested such glory as the brief war produced. Lee and his troops drew the unglamorous assignment of occupying and policing Havana and its vicinity between liberation and the establishment of an independent Cuban government.⁶¹

Deprived of any share of martial fame in Cuba, Lee did not propose to miss out on the other spoils of war. While military commander of the Havana area, he pursued once more his long-contemplated investment plans. Just before embarking for Cuba Lee wrote to Lamont that he had not yet taken steps “to advance the matters” they had discussed in New York. There was “so much confusion and uncertainty” surrounding conditions in Cuba that he thought it best to “wait until some light can be thrown upon the future of that island, and the nature and character of its Government.” Meanwhile he had sent one of his aides, Lieutenant Carlos Carbonell, to Havana. Carbonell, Cuban-born but educated in New York, had been before the war “a member of the banking house of Zaldo & Co. in Havana.” Lee instructed him “to quietly make investigation in reference to certain properties that I know must largely increase in value the very instant the [Seventh] Corps reaches Havana, and proves by its presence that the United States proposes to see that law and order is [sic] maintained and human life and property protected.”⁶²

Carbonell reported that everyone to whom he talked wanted to sell his house, but were asking “tremendous prices.” He would prepare a list, he said, so that when Lee arrived he could decide immediately. He reported that an engineer was making “the survey for the trolley line.” Two other parties, he had heard, were also speaking of running a similar line in the area. “It seems to me that the sooner we buy the land and houses will be the better [sic]. You might write to your friends and try to have them come when you do it [sic], as it will be a matter that should be decided right off: as the longer it is delayed the more it will cost.”⁶³

To hurry matters along, Lee forwarded Carbonell’s letter to Lamont. Referring to real estate in one area, he declared: “There is more money along there now than any place I know, and does not seem to have attracted the attention of any one.… If a few of us can pick these properties up now, and build the trolley line, there are real millions in it. Do give this prompt consideration and let me hear from you.…”⁶⁴

Lee was by no means alone in the race to acquire trolley lines, ocean front real estate, and other valuables in Cuba. During 1899 at least seven different syndicates were fighting for control of the Havana Street Railway Company alone. In February a board was established in Washington to advise the Secretary of War on “the sale or gift of franchises, either local or inter-provincial; railway grants; street car-line concessions; electric light and other municipal monopolies.” Fearful of the many temptations and opportunities for scandal that the occupation afforded, Senator Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio introduced and pushed through Congress a self-denying ordinance. Signed into law on March 3, 1899, it prohibited the granting of any “property, franchises, or concessions of any kind whatever,” during the American occupation of Cuba.⁶⁵ Some, including Lee, thought that it prevented Cuban economic development.

In November 1899 Lee wrote to Foraker, urging immediate repeal of the offensive resolution: “Not having inside resources, outside capital must be employed for Cuba’s development.” Lee also advised against withdrawing any troops from Cuba “until after the experiment of free government has been tried and failed.” The educated, property-owning Cubans and Spaniards all wanted American annexation or a protectorate, he said, while the masses of Cuban workmen—“yellow and black”—only wanted “to be let alone.” Foraker did not agree. Once involved in street railways and other franchises, the United States would find it difficult ever to leave the island: “[F]or if we grant franchises, and induce the investment of capital that would follow, we will be under every kind of moral, if not every kind of legal obligation to protect the investment by securing the enjoyment of the franchise.”⁶⁶

For want of documentation the episode of Lee’s Cuban investments ends here. Whether his projects matured and bore fruit is not known. Apparently he had little capital of his own, and perhaps he never quite succeeded in getting the shrewd Lamont to buy up the Havana properties. Possibly Lee and the New Yorker purchased the real estate in question but were blocked in building their proposed trolley line by the Foraker resolution. It is even possible that the two men made money in Cuba.

But Lee’s success in building his personal fortune or advancing his political views is of little consequence in the long run. The significance of his residence in Cuba is that his interests and convictions prevented him from serving his country effectively at a critical stage in America’s relations with Spain and Cuba. Of necessity every administration, in reaching foreign policy decisions must depend heavily upon the information supplied to it by minor officials stationed in strategic posts. The accuracy, astuteness, and reliability of these lesser officials—to say nothing of their motives—go far to determine the quality of the decisions reached.

However accurate Lee’s general estimation of conditions in Cuba, he clearly allowed his personal interests to shape many of his reports and recommendations. He may have been right in arguing that the administration’s objective—Cuban autonomy under Spanish sovereignty—was unrealistic. But if so, the occasion demanded that he convince his superiors by supplying them with reliable and carefully marshalled evidence to prove his contention. Instead Lee, for all practical purposes, destroyed his effectiveness with the Cleveland administration by his first reports from Cuba. His extravagant assertions, his open championing of independence or annexation, and his confessed willingness to use Cuba for partisan political advantage at home, caused Cleveland and Olney to rely on their own less-informed judgments rather than on the prejudiced reports of their consul general. Assuming the accuracy of Lee’s contentions, a more judicious man in Havana might have convinced the Cleveland administration to pursue a different and more effective policy.

In all likelihood Lee’s reports from Havana during the McKinley administration only encouraged the prevailing ambivalence. His certainty that no reforms, however extensive, would end the revolution no doubt cheered those who favored an aggressive policy. On the other hand, his restraint following the riots of January 1898, the sinking of the Maine, and the final decision to intervene, fitted in with the president’s own reluctance to act precipitously. In the end, Lee’s boldness won him the admiration of the jingoist press and a portion of the population, but his overreaching reduced his influence in shaping the nation’s Cuban policy. He was never as important as he or his admirers thought he ought to be.

Author notes