This work is intended in the main as a documentary history. An endeavor has been made to give all important orders, tele grams, and reports. It is not to be understood that these, or any considerable portion of them, are for the first time before the public.' All of any real importance have already appeared in government publications or with governmental approval. The interior history of no war or other great event has ever before been so fully exposed as in the many volumes published by the American government and in the documents set forth with the authority of the government of Spain. These are given in detail in the bibliography.