T
he outcome of the U.S.-Mexican
War brought the United States
its first large population of
Hispanic Americans. But there had
already been some people of Hispanic
descent in the country—immigrants from
Spain and Hispanic America—and more
would follow in the second half of the
19th century. Near the end of the centu-
ry, in 1898, another large Hispanic popu-
lation entered the United States: the
people of Puerto Rico, which became an
American possession in that year’s
Spanish-American War. The war also
brought Cuba under American hegemo-
ny, preparing the way for a century in
which the destinies of Cuba and the
United States were interwoven.
HISPANIC AMERICANS
AND THE CIVIL WARIn the American Civil War (1861–1865),
the northern states (the Union) forced
the secessionist southern states (the Con-
federacy) to return to the Union and
accept abolition of slavery. The bitter
conflict cost more than 500,000 American
lives, more than any other American war.
It resulted in part from disagreement
about the lands gained during the U.S.-
Mexican War. The issue of whether the
territories acquired from Mexico should
be slave or free sharply divided North and
South and contributed to the South’s
decision to secede.
Soldiers and Spies
The best known Hispanic-American par-
ticipant in the Civil War is one whom
many people are surprised to learn was of
Spanish descent: Union naval officer
David Glasgow Farragut (1801–1870),
the son of Spanish Minorcan immigrant
Jorge Farragut, a war hero in his own
right. In the U.S. Navy since joining as a
midshipman at age nine, David Farragut
served in the War of 1812 while still a boy
and participated in the blockade of
Mexico during the U.S.-Mexican War.
He founded the Mare Island Navy Yard
near San Francisco in 1854. Though his
home was in Virginia, he backed the
Union when Virginia seceded. In 1862 he
received command of the West Gulf
Blockading Squadron, with orders to cap-
ture New Orleans, which he did on April- The victory won him promotion to
rear admiral and led to more action, most
memorably the Battle of Mobile Bay,
Alabama, in August 1864.
His objective in that battle was to
capture the port of Mobile, but to do so
he had to bypass underwater mines, called
torpedoes, that blocked the entrance to
Mobile Bay. One Union ship had already
been sunk by a torpedo, but Farragut led
the rest of the fleet through the mined
waters, reportedly calling, “Damn the tor-
pedoes—full speed ahead!” The ships got
through and Farragut captured Mobile.
For his daring victory, he was made the
first admiral of the United States in 1866.
As commander of the European Squadron
after the war, he was later honored with a
hero’s welcome when he visited his father’s
birthplace at Ciudadela, Minorca.
Other Hispanic Americans joined
Farragut in defending the Union. Two of
them, navy seamen, were the first
Hispanic-American recipients of the
Medal of Honor (also called the
Congressional Medal of Honor), the
nation’s highest military award, first
awarded in 1863 to recognize uncommon
valor. One of the two was Chilean-born
Philip Bazaar, who distinguished himself in
the assault on Fort Fisher, North Carolina,
in 1865; the other was Spanish-born John
Ortega, who saw action aboard the USS
Saratoga. In the ensuing years, dozens of
other Hispanic Americans would also
receive the Medal of Honor.
During the Civil War, some of New
York City’s Spanish Americans participat-
ed in the Garibaldi Guard, also known as
the 39th New York Infantry. This polyglot
regiment contained volunteers of many
ethnicities—Italian, Spanish, German,
Hungarian, Swiss, and French—and
A Time of Transition
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