Editing Spanish–American War (section)

===USS ''Maine'' dispatch to Havana and loss===
{{Further|USS Maine (1889)}}
{{multiple image|align=right|direction=horizontal|total_width=600|image1=USSMaine.jpg|alt1=|width1=|caption1=The sunken {{USS|Maine|ACR-1|6}} in [[Havana harbor]]|image2=18980216 Blown Up By Spain - USS Maine - The Evening Times (Washington, D.C.).jpg|alt2=|width2=|caption2=Though publication of a [[United States Navy|U.S. Navy]] investigation report would take a month, this [[Washington D.C.]] newspaper<ref name=EverningTimes_18980216>{{cite news|title=Blown Up By Spain / Every Evidence That the Maine Was Torpedoed / Cap't Sigsbee's Statement / Two Hundred Fifty American Sailors the Food of Sharks / Lieuts. Jenkins and Merritt Dead|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/the-evening-times-feb-16-1898-p-1/|work=The Evening Times|date=February 16, 1898|location=Washington, D.C., U.S.|page=1|access-date=September 2, 2020|archive-date=October 12, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201012054755/https://newspaperarchive.com/the-evening-times-feb-16-1898-p-1/|url-status=live}}</ref> was among those asserting within one day that the explosion was not accidental.}}
McKinley sent [[USS Maine (1889)|USS ''Maine'']] to [[Havana]] to ensure the safety of American citizens and interests, and to underscore the urgent need for reform. Naval forces were moved in position to attack simultaneously on several fronts if the war was not avoided. As ''Maine'' left Florida, a large part of the [[North Atlantic Squadron]] was moved to Key West and the [[Gulf of Mexico]]. Others were also moved just off the shore of Lisbon, and others were moved to [[Hong Kong]].<ref name=offner2004p56>{{Harvnb|Offner|2004|p=56}}</ref>

At 9:40 P.M. on February 15, 1898, ''Maine'' sank in [[Havana Harbor]] after suffering a massive explosion. More than 3/4 of the ship's crew of 355 sailors, officers and Marines died as a result of the explosion. Of the 94 survivors only 16 were uninjured.<ref>{{cite web | author = US Surgeon General | year = 1896 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=J9QEAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA173 | title = Annual report of the Surgeon General of the US Navy 1898 | page = 173 | work = Bureau of Medicine and Surgery | publisher = US Navy Department | access-date =2 October 2011 }}</ref> In total, 260<ref name="history.navy.mil">{{cite web|url=https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/disasters-and-phenomena/destruction-of-uss-maine.html|title=The Destruction of USS Maine|publisher=Naval History and Heritage Command|access-date=July 27, 2021|archive-date=December 18, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201218041515/https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/disasters-and-phenomena/destruction-of-uss-maine.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> servicemen were killed in the initial explosion, and six more died shortly thereafter from injuries,<ref name="history.navy.mil"/> marking the greatest loss of life for the American military in a single day since the [[Battle of the Little Bighorn|defeat at Little Bighorn]] 21 years earlier.<ref name=Scott-Arch>Where total U.S. casualties were 268 dead, 55 severely wounded-six of whom died shortly thereafter from their wounds. {{cite book |last1=Scott |first1=Douglas D. |first2=Richard A. |last2=Fox |first3=Melissa A. |last3=Connor |first4=Dick |last4=Harmon |year=2013 |orig-year=1989 |title=Archaeological Perspectives on the Battle of the Little Bighorn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iSUA23jOi1sC&pg=PA244 |location=Norman |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-3292-1 |access-date=July 27, 2021 |archive-date=September 23, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230923144102/https://books.google.com/books?id=iSUA23jOi1sC&pg=PA244 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|244}}

While McKinley urged patience and did not declare that Spain had caused the explosion, the deaths of hundreds of American<ref>{{Cite book|title=[[The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898]]|last=Thomas|first=Evan |publisher=Little, Brown and Co.|year=2010|pages=48}}</ref> sailors held the public's attention. McKinley asked Congress to appropriate $50&nbsp;million for defense, and Congress unanimously obliged. Most American leaders believed that the cause of the explosion was unknown. Still, public attention was now riveted on the situation and Spain could not find a diplomatic solution to avoid war. Spain appealed to the European powers, most of whom advised it to accept U.S. conditions for Cuba in order to avoid war.{{sfn|Keenan|2001|p=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofsp00keen/page/372 <!-- quote="european powers". --> 372]}} Germany urged a united European stand against the United States but took no action.{{sfn|Tucker|2009|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=8V3vZxOmHssC&pg=PA614 614]}}

The U.S. Navy's investigation, made public on March 28, concluded that the ship's powder magazines were ignited when an external explosion was set off under the ship's hull. This report poured fuel on popular indignation in the U.S., making war virtually inevitable.<ref name=offner2004p57>{{Harvnb|Offner|2004|p=57}}. For a minority view that downplays the role of public opinion and asserts that McKinley feared the Cubans would win their insurgency before the U.S. could intervene, see Louis A. Pérez, "The Meaning of the Maine: Causation and the Historiography of the Spanish–American War", ''The Pacific Historical Review,'' Vol. 58, No. 3 (August 1989), pp. 293–322.</ref> Spain's investigation came to the opposite conclusion: the explosion originated within the ship. Other investigations in later years came to various contradictory conclusions, but had no bearing on the coming of the war. In 1974, Admiral [[Hyman George Rickover]] had his staff look at the documents and decided there was an internal explosion.<ref name=fisher2010 /> A study commissioned by ''[[National Geographic]]'' magazine in 1999, using AME computer modeling, reported: "By examining the bottom plating of the ship and how it bent and folded, AME concluded that the destruction could have been caused by a mine."<ref name=fisher2010>{{cite web|url=https://loc.gov/law/help/usconlaw/pdf/Maine.1898.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091104112359/https://loc.gov/law/help/usconlaw/pdf/Maine.1898.pdf|archivedate=November 4, 2009|title=Destruction of the Maine (1898) |date=August 4, 2009|last=Fisher|first=Louis|publisher=The Law Library of Congress|page=5}} (source includes a summary of other studies)</ref>