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Montgomery During the Time of the Spanish-American War

The Spanish-American War came in the wake of Cuban discontent with the long colonial rule of Spain and Spanish harshness in trying to crush the Cuban insurrection. The "Yellow Press," U. S. newspapers of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, exaggerated and even falsified Spanish misdeeds in Cuba.

The Montgomery Advertiser repeated some of the exaggerations. When a previously reluctant President William McKinley, on April 11, 1898, told a hawkish Congress, "I await your action," an Advertiser headline proclaimed: THAT MESSAGE AT LAST! But an Advertiser editorial was conciliatory: the writer hoped that negotiations could obtain "a peaceful result, for which every Christian and peace-loving citizen should fervently pray." Prayers and the fact that the Spanish government had reached the point of granting Cuba at least autonomy not withstanding, Advertiser headlines on April 26 proclaimed: BIG EVENTS OF THE DAY!- Declaration of War Official!

On May 2, Advertiser headlines told of a big event in the other war theater involving American and Spanish forces: SPAIN ADMITS HER COWLETE ROUT--Our Fleet Injured Very Little. The paper gave details of the defeat in Manila Bay of the Spanish fleet defending the Philippines and declared: "It was a glorious victory." The commander of the U. S. Navy's Asiatic Squadron, Commodore George Dewey, became an instant national hero. The Advertiser later reported that Montgomerians George Seibels, a ship's paymaster, and Lts. Lay Everhart and James Berney Scott, Annapolis graduates, took part in the Battle of Manila Bay. On May 4 George Seibels wrote his father Emmet in Montgomery a first-hand account of the battle. Well offshore from Manila the night of April 30, George and his shipmates on the gunboat Petrel saw "suddenly a bright light... flashing abreast of us followed by two flashes, which we knew at once came from heavy guns. Then a rocket went up.

This marked the beginning of the battle but it was followed by long silence. We all laid down at our stations and ready for duty... "Finally at 3 o'clock [a.m., May 11] I fell into a delightful doze and was dreaming of Home, Sweet Home, when Boom! Boom! went two cannons from the shore." In the exchanges of fire in two different engagements between the fleets, Petrel was hit once but suffered no casualties. Finally, in late morning, "the enemy hauled down his flag and white ones went up."

George told his father that he was "grateful for a whole hide." He described the Spanish as "so proud and so brave" and the enemy prisoners "so very, very polite and courteous."

With the rest of the nation, Montgomery was ready for "a splendid little war," as characterized by John Hay, later McKinley's secretary of state. On May 1, even before the news from the Philippines, the Advertiser reported that "the usual Saturday crowd was in town and all were talking war."

The city that George Seibels had left to join the Navy in 1896 and the urban development tributary to it had over 40,000 population. By 1898 Montgomery had begun to recover from the Panic of 1893, the depression whose impact on the city had hurt business and seriously impeded the development of outlying urban growth. Population growth and extension of the city itself had picked up in the 1870s. The first mainly white suburb, elegant Cottage Hill, was established to the west on the crest of a ridge. A vast area beyond Cottage Hill would become known as West Montgomery, settled mostly by blacks, and an adjacent area nearest the Alabama River called West End would soon become the site of textile mills.

Several factors combined in the 1880s to accentuate population growth and extension. Economic growth was one. This factor was stimulated by the growing impact of the technology produced by the Industrial Revolution. Animal power and steam and gas energies were supplemented by electricity. The latter in several ways soon pulled ahead. In 1886 Montgomery pioneered in the nation with an electric streetcar system. For a time electricity replaced mule power; but a fire in the system forced a return to mules until 1892. In 1888 the City Council signed a contract with the local Brush Power and Light Company to install electric lights on city streets. Electric lighting had not entirely replaced gas lighting by 1898, the year of the Spanish American War, but it was on its way. In 1898 the Brush Company had to take the City Council to Circuit Court to collect the last payment on its contract.

Street paving in Montgomery began in 1885, after the erection of the Fountain in the Square. Granite stone was laid for pedestrian crossways on the traffic circle around the basin. Sidewalks began to be paved about the same time. In 1895 paving commenced on the main street, Dexter Avenue, with vitrified bricks from local yards. These steadily replaced dirt on the principal arteries stemming from the Square. After the paving of Dexter, Montgomery, and Commerce Streets, work shifted to Court Street and the six streets named for naval heroes of the War of 1812 that consecu- tively intersected Dexter all the way up to the Capitol building. On May 1, 1898, the Advertiser reported "the paving down N. Perry is being pushed energetically and will soon be finished all the way." In June the City Council announced plans for the paving of Lawrence Street from Dexter six blocks south to High Street. By 1898 the city had started to pave the principal streets of Cottage Hill.

Objections to paving were inevitable. Financing came from bond issues but also assessments on adjacent property owners. Street extension and the streetcar encouraged outlying urban growth. The most advanced development was Highland Park some two miles east of the heart of Montgomery, reached by streetcar with tracks that ran along High Street/Highland Avenue. While it had its own city council, its population was small, stunted by the Panic of 1893. "War Declared! on Highland Park Lots" announced an Advertiser ad of April 12, 1898. Half the unsold lots were now priced at $100. "Remember," the ad pointed out, "this sale includes the beautiful OAK and PINE GROVES . . ." The Panic had virtually frozen development in Cloverdale, a planned community two miles south of downtown. Extension of Decatur and Hull Streets had stopped a half mile short. For long distance travel, Montgomery was served directly by five railroad companies in 1898. Pullmans and buffet parlour cars were available for those who could afford it. The Louisville and Nashville (L & N), along with its far-flung system, had "accommodations" to Prattville and Wetumpka. Finishing touches were being applied in April to a,magnificent new depot, Union Station, overlooking the Alabama River at the end of Lee Street.

Just east of the terminal building and shed was a wharf, which steamboats, longtime mode of transportation for central Alabama's cotton, still utilized. Cotton warehouses, factors, and brokers were prominent on Commerce and adjacent streets. Clue to the still dominant role of agriculture, Montgomery Mayor John H. Clisby had a cotton agency on Commerce. The steamboat Tinsie Moore had electric lights and "First Class" accommodations, but its advertisement inadvertently revealed why the steamboat at least was no longer king. The boat left the wharf every Tuesday at 8 o'clock p. m. and arrived in Mobile every Friday. An L & N train usually covered the tracks between Montgomery and Mobile in about 12 hours. A recent transportation marvel of the Industrial Revolution was the bicycle. More people could afford it as individual transportation than a horse or horse-and-buggy. Each spring coveys of the young at heart rode into the countryside to picnic. only the automobile had yet to appear in Montgomery.

City fathers paid attention to matters of public health and safety. Sewer lines and water mains had begun to be extended beyond downtown and the older residential areas by 1898; in that year the city purchased the private waterworks system established in 1885. The city had some 47 over-worked physicians in 1898, two of whom were black, but the advent of modern medicine in the 19th century meant they had such advances as ether for surgery in local hospitals. Dr. L. L. Hill had studied under the English pioneer in antiseptic surgery, Dr. Joseph Lister.

Fires kept the five horse-drawn fire-fighting units, including one hook-and-ladder company, on the run. One of the five was black, the Gray Eagle Company # 3, organized in 1864. The city had 32 fire alarm boxes. Most were in the older settled parts of the city and in Cottage Hill. The City Council voted in 1898 to pay the hitherto volunteer firemen.

Horse-drawn carriages and wagons were still the majority of vehicles on the streets, attested to by 14 livery stables that rented and sold horses and carriages. Owners often violated a city ordinance by failing to tie horses and vehicles to hitching posts. Citizens complained that patrolmen of the city's 33-man police force ignored the violations that created a chaotic and sometimes dangerous situation on Dexter and other busy streets.

The force's pay was not munificent for dealing with Montgomery's frontier-like propensity for violence. But by 1898 blatant violence on downtown streets had largely ebbed. City court and the state circuit court handled all but federal cases. In 1898 some 90 white, but no black, attorneys practiced in Montgomery.

For moral suasion the city had 23 white churches or missions and one synagogue and 27 black churches in 1898. Prostitution, gambling, drinking, and sometimes dancing were regularly denounced in many pulpits. A strong "Bible Belt" strain influenced religion more than Victorian-era morals.

"Red light districts" had come into being in the 1880s on two streets only a few blocks north of Dexter--Columbus Street and Pollard Street. Some gambling took place in downtown, two local breweries flourished, and saloons were plentiful. Two of the latter dared to advertise in the 1898 city directory-the Dixie Bar on Monroe Street announcing "pure liquors, choice wines, jug trade a specialty;" and Doron's Gem Saloon on Dexter claiming "the best wines, liquors, and cigars" and offering "free lunches served every day."

Montgomery had not yet become a city of lavish balls with their imported orchestras, debutantes, and dancing until midnight. But the better off enjoyed the smaller cotillions called "germans" with their grand marches and waltzing. The city had a fine theater, the Montgomery Theater, corner of North Perry and Monroe, featuring traveling and local plays, minstrels, musicals, and other high-quality entertainment. In spring 1898, Montgomery had an entry in a professional minor league baseball league that included Atlanta, New Orleans, Birmingham, and Mobile, among other southern cities; but it folded by summer, apparently the victim of a genetic Montgomery trait, lack of fan support.

In a post-Civil War black subdivision a mile southeast of the capitol was a teacher-training institution for blacks named State Normal. The city's other enduring institution of higher education was Massey Business College for whites on Court Square, which turned out secretaries who could cope with two fairly recent technologies-the telephone and the typewriter.

The City Council's priority for education was indicated by its 1898 budget. From a total of $210,000, only interest on city debt ($70,000) and police ($35,000) topped education ($22,000) Details showed another side. Two small high schools, one for boys and one for girls, and four elementary schools served 1,653 enrolled white students. Six private schools for whites relieved the city of part of its burden. Blacks had no public high schools and only two elementary schools for 753 enrolled students, aside from a small laboratory high school and elementary school at State Normal. The public school for blacks on Day Street serving West Montgomery had a principal and one teacher, both black. Two private schools with mainly white personnel served blacks.

A Confederate veteran wrote the Advertiser: "The Mexican War and the Confederate War with their hardships, which have been preached and handed down from sire to son, have not deterred the younger generation." He was referring to the response to McKinley's call for volunteers from each state to augment regular army units scheduled to be sent to Cuba. His observation was not entirely accurate. The Montgomery part of Alabama's quota of 2,500 volunteers at first consisted of two state militia infantry companies, the True Blues and the Greys. Some of their members did not relish the prospect of actual battle or cared little about Cuban independence. Their ranks came to have a large minority of men recruited from towns in surrounding counties to bring the companies up to full strength.

Both Mobile and Montgomery had black state militia infantry companies that soon became part of a black volunteer Alabama battalion (later regiment) for Cuban service. Montgomery's, formed in 1865 after the Civil War, was called the Capital City Guards. As were the regular armed forces, Montgomery's militia units were segregated. But Gov. Joseph F. Johnston, likely for political expediency as blacks in Alabama were not yet disenfranchised, was behind the forming of the black volunteer unit for Cuban duty. With the example of blacks in the Union Army and Navy, they considered military service an honor.