The Politics of Intervention

132 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTION

The Americans have mapped the country thoroughly—every hill,
ravine, swamp, thicket, watercourse and trail. Cuba has no topographical
secrets for the General Staff; it knows the island better than all the
practicos, or guides, in existence, and there is no maze an American
officer with a map in his pocket could not thread, no camp he could
not find.^2?

Lieutenant Colonel Bullard, in an interview, emphasized
the map's deterrent value. The Army's exploration of the
island, he said, had impressed the Cubans and they now real­
ized that the soldiers knew the countryside better than they.
Bullard concluded that "if the Army can but get past the term
of pacification without firing one hostile shot, it is prob­
able that we shall thereby have already accomplished the
conquest of future revolution."^28
The mission of the Second Battalion of Engineers when it
was assigned to the Cuban expeditionary force was to handle
map making and, in case of hostilities, provide engineer sup­
port for the Army of Cuban Pacification. At the Provisional
Governor's request, the engineers became involved in build­
ing roads. General Bell originally sold the road-building pro­
gram to the Chief of Engineers as a military necessity, but
this argument was secondary to providing jobs for the unem­
ployed during the rainy season and to open markets to Cuban
farmers.^29 The engineers worked on four roads in western
Pinar del Rio which were to link the towns of Guane and
Pinar del Rio with the lines of the Western Railway and the
coast. The Corps of Engineers, not accepting the military
rationale for these public works projects, withdrew five com­
panies of engineers after the mapping was finished. Never­
theless, by the end of 1908, Army engineers had graded
ninety-two kilometers of new road and macadamized sixty-
nine, at a cost of $1.6 million. Much of the expense, reported
the Army of Cuban Pacification's Chief Engineer, Major
Mason M. Patrick, was due to working in the rainy season
and the high wages paid native labor.^30 The engineers' con­
tribution to the Provisional Government's road-building pro­