William Thomas Sampson was marked for greatness from his days as a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy. He was number one in his class, top midshipman as class adjutant. With an engineering bent, he received recognition early for his intellect and his many inventions and innovations, particularly in the field of gunfire. He became Superintendent of the Naval Academy while still a commander, and afterward served as Chief of the prestigious Bureau of Ordnance. His contemporaries believed him to be the officer best fitted to lead the Navy out of the post-Civil War doldrums. He was a born leader of men.
Named President of the February 1898 Court of Inquiry, which reached the now-discredited judgment that the battleship Maine had been sunk by a mine placed under her keel by “persons unknown,” Sampson created the proximate cause of the now-regretted war with Spain. At Santiago in July, the U.S. Atlantic Fleet under his command completely destroyed a Spanish squadron of cruisers, effectively making the United States—with an efficient Navy that was largely Sampson’s creation—a world power. He had been too ill to attend all of the Court’s sessions, however, and even then his attention seemed to wander. In July, the battle began with Sampson a few miles away in his flagship; returning to the scene at maximum speed, he stood on the bridge, totally silent and absorbed in his own thoughts. He gave neither orders nor leadership to his fleet, or to his own ship, which was laboring to get into action. In both Court and the Battle of Santiago, Sampson seemed unable to act, his tremendous intellect appearing to be frozen inside.
How could so distinguished a man perform so poorly in the two most important events of his career? How could a life of so many distinguished years fail in its greatest challenge?
Historians recognize that mental and physical deterioration shattered the final years of Admiral Sampson’s brilliant career. Most writers, however, have been unaware that Sampson’s illness began three years before the onset of the Spanish- American War. Peers and subordinates rationalized his flawed decisions as the brilliant products of an outstanding intellect, while his illness progressed, stepwise, until his death.
The Court of Inquiry deliberating on the destruction of the Maine reached its conclusions with a president whose mind was beginning to fail. Sampson was commander-in- chief at the naval victory of Santiago, but his recurring cerebral problems had rendered him medically unfit for duty. His elevated rank and the high regard in which the Navy held him, as well as the inability of naval physicians to understand his illness, resulted in failure to relieve him from duty.
Official information—other than Sampson’s record of service—either has been suppressed or lost from the National Personnel Records Center. His second wife destroyed most of his personal correspondence intentionally. Mrs. Sampson did, however, apply to the U.S. Pension Office in 1903; the file of that application contains a record of all hospitalizations since Sampson’s days as a plebe at the U.S. Naval Academy. This previously unavailable information yields a plausible diagnosis: repeated small strokes caused the Admiral to suffer from multiple infarct dementia.
Evidence of brain damage symptoms arise first in the records kept while Sampson was Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance in 1895 (age 55). He had an attack of aphasia, a decreased ability to use or comprehend words, but he was not hospitalized and soon recovered. On 12 February 1896, Captain Sampson entered the Washington Naval Dispensary with the diagnosis of cephalalgia, Latin for “headache.” He was discharged five days later. Why it took so much time to deal with a simple headache is unclear. Perhaps the attending physician realized the presence of a more complicated problem but was unwilling to record it.
On 15 April 1897 (age 57), Sampson was readmitted for eight days with a history of symptoms during the preceding week. He was “. . . unable to express himself on account of disconnected ideas. Complains of headache and some numbness on left side of face and arm.” Captain (later Admiral and Surgeon-General of the Navy) Presley M. Rixey attended Sampson at this time. Medical science was not aware of the symptoms’ serious nature, so Dr. Rixey suggested sea duty to restore health. He attributed the illness to “a low condition of the nervous system,” an obscure diagnosis, even in the English he used in place of the recondite Latin favored by physicians of that time.
At this juncture, Secretary of the Navy John Davis Long, one of Sampson’s legion of admirers, offered him a transfer to the less taxing Bureau of Navigation. Sampson indicated his preference for the sea duty recommended by Dr. Rixey, and in June 1897 Long assigned him command of the new battleship Iowa. Such a position did not yield the anticipated benefit; he was again hospitalized for two days in January 1898. The diagnosis again was cephalalgia, but this time the record more fully described the significant problem: “…incomplete aphasia. Patient unable to remember words or names of objects, but able to recognize names when mentioned, and conscious of condition. No sign of muscular paralysis.” Dr. Rixey again attended and should have been more alarmed than he had been previously, but he allowed another return to duty. Photographs taken in the first months of 1898 reveal that Sampson looked ill and had lost weight. Various associates confirmed his poor appearance but blamed overwork and stress.
The battleship Maine blew up in Havana Harbor on 15 February 1898. Military and U.S. government officials immediately attributed the sinking to Spain and provoked outrage among the public and the Congress. A Court of Inquiry met in Havana in closed session from 21 February to 21 March 1898, but its president, Sampson, was ill and could not give full attention to the matters at hand. The members of the Court knew this, of course, but did not take official notice. Captain French Ensor Chadwick, senior member after Sampson, kept tight control, and publicly no one voiced concern. Unfortunately, Chadwick failed to remedy the deficiencies in the Court’s procedures.
Admiral Hyman Rickover, in his book, How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed, attacks the findings of the inquiry and concludes that spontaneous combustion of coal stored in bunkers adjacent to the forward magazine most probably detonated the ammunition. He also found that the danger was well known. Warning devices were installed in several ships, had been ordered for the Maine, but were not yet in place.
The Court’s conclusion that an external mine had destroyed her drove President William McKinley and the Congress to declare war on Spain. The Spanish government already had made the concessions demanded by the United States, and modern historians consider the conflict to have been unjustified, but war enthusiasts such as Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, industrialists with a stake in foreign investment, and public opinion fanned by the sensationalist press won the day.
Secretary Long acquired an important responsibility when Admiral Montgomery Sicard, Commander-in-Chief of the North Atlantic Squadron, was judged medically unfit for further active duty. Sicard had malaria, a diagnosis the medical board obviously understood better than it did the aphasia suffered repeatedly by Sampson.
Long sought advice and concluded that Sampson had the “full confidence of the officers and men of the entire navy, was a man of splendid judgment, and intimate knowledge of the vessels he would use.” He appointed Sampson commander-in-chief on merit alone over many higher-ranking officers. Sampson requested that Captain Chadwick, who had been with him on the Court of Inquiry, be made captain of the Admiral’s flagship, the armored cruiser New York, and thus chief of staff.
The United States declared war on Spain effective 22 April 1898, and on 9 May appointed a Naval War Board to advise the Secretary and President William McKinley on the conduct of the war. The president of the Board was the recovered Admiral Sicard. For the first time in naval history, a government directed the action of distant ships at sea, communicating mainly by telegram.
In one of its first actions—and one of several misjudgments—the Board cabled Sampson that the Spanish fleet under Admiral Pascual Cervera had arrived at San Juan, Puerto Rico. In reality, Cervera was on his way to Martinique, where he put in on 12 May. Sampson and the fleet arrived at San Juan on 11 May and found no evidence of Cervera, but the U.S. ships nonetheless fired on the town and coastal fortifications. Civilian populations were traditionally given prior notice of a shelling, but in this instance, the U.S. fleet offered none. The 113 people killed and wounded were mainly civilians. Sampson did not realize the futility of long-range naval shelling against land batteries. The “silenced batteries” he reported could mean that gunners merely had sought shelter—as was the Case— until the bombardment ceased.
The Admiral returned to Key West, and on 20 May received a message that the Spanish fleet had entered the harbor of Santiago the previous day. This information was correct, but the wording left him uncertain. Therefore, he ordered Commodore Winfield Scott Schley to look for Spanish ships in the harbor of Cienfuegos on Cuba’s south coast. If convinced the ships were not there, Schley was to establish a blockade at Santiago. He vacillated at Cienfuegos, departed for Key West, turned back, then finally moved slowly to Santiago, where his “flying squadron” arrived on 29 May. He sent a message that he was unable to follow orders because of an imagined lack of coal, but finally obeyed. These preposterous maneuvers have never been understood, except as illustrating the “fog of war.”
Sampson showed his own continued eccentricity by flying the flag off Havana and then once more returning to Key West. New information confirmed that Cervera had been in Santiago since 19 May, but Sampson did not arrive to join the blockade until 1 June, two days after Schley and nearly two weeks after the Spanish had arrived. Cervera could have escaped and changed the course of the war, but he had already accepted defeat. Repeated complaints to the Ministry about his deficient fleet provoked replies of patriotic rhetoric that the honor of Spain always must be upheld.
Sampson then acted with the decisiveness of former days. His order of battle on 2 June established the blockade of Santiago. He ordered that the harbor channel be illuminated by night at close range by searchlights from his major ships acting in turn. It was the first such use of light by naval forces.
The unsuccessful exploit of Naval Constructor Richmond Pearson Hobson on 3 June is, however, an example of Sampson’s uneven performance. At Key West, Hobson and Sampson made plans to sink the fleet’s least valuable ship in the narrow entrance to the harbor to block egress of the Spanish squadron. It was a questionable tactic. Had it succeeded, the Spanish fleet still would have been intact, capable of using its guns in defense of Santiago, and might have prevented U.S. ships from bringing food to the city after its capture by land forces.
In a letter dictated to his yeoman, Fred J. Buenzle, Sampson frequently referred to the ship to be sunk as the Sterling. Each time, Captain Chadwick would say, “Merrimac, Admiral.” This was the only recorded wartime example of the speech difficulty designated as anomic aphasia.
The commanding officer of the collier Merrimac, experienced in handling this troublesome ship, was Captain James M. Miller. Sampson heard his forceful argument that the mission be assigned to him and his crew, because they were the most qualified to cope with her many difficulties. Sampson first agreed that Miller should have the honor, then uncharacteristically allowed Hobson to dissuade him. Hobson argued that he was needed to handle the torpedoes necessary to sink the ship at the intended moment. But he had never commanded a ship. Indeed, as a naval constructor, he was prohibited by regulations from exercising any command at sea. A suitable compromise might have been for Captain Miller to command the ship with Hobson on board to handle the explosives; but that would have lessened the glory for the ambitious Hobson. Ultimately, Hobson failed in his mission, completely missing the plotted sinking point and failing to detonate most of his “torpedoes.” Nevertheless, he became a national hero, received the Medal of Honor, resigned from the Navy, and later was elected to Congress. Years later, by Special Act of Congress, he was elevated to the rank of Rear Admiral.
Sampson’s erratic performance continued. On 6 June, he bombarded Santiago harbor. An estimated 8,000 shells killed six of the enemy and destroyed one gun battery. After the fruitless bombardment, the fleet had the tedious task of waiting for the Spanish fleet to move. A useful interlude occurred on 10 June when Sampson sent 750 Marines, joined by Cuban guerrillas, to take Guantanamo Bay 40 miles to the east. It became a valuable coaling station and naval base.
New troubles arose for Sampson when General William Rufus Shafter and the Fifth Army Corps were ordered to Cuba to take Santiago. The Army arrived off the coast on 21 June. Sampson went aboard the Army transport Seguranca to arrange a conference with Shafter and the insurgent leader Calixto Garcia at Asseraderos. Garcia recommended Daiquiri as the landing place, but no formal record of the conversation was made, and later accounts by aides are contradictory. The Navy wanted the Army to attack the batteries defending the channel entrance to the harbor, behind which lay the Spanish fleet. But the Army preferred to take the city of Santiago, four miles from the harbor entrance.
Sampson and Shafter thought they had agreed on how to proceed, but they had not, in fact, settled their differences after all. They exchanged aides, telegrams, hostile letters, and bridge signals, but never met again. Neither had knowledge of joint operations. Shafter’s background in particular was as an Indian fighter in command of small units. The two men were personally incompatible; their medical problems worsened matters. (Shafter was so obese he could hardly walk.)
Secretary of War Russell A. Alger was overwhelmed by the problems of a wartime office. The more effective Secretary of the Navy Long wrote Alger asking what provisions the Army had made for landing troops and supplies. Alger replied, “. . . the major-general commanding the expedition will land his own troops. All that is required of the Navy is to convoy and protect with the guns of the convoy while the military forces are landed.” This foolish response came even though the Army arrived off Cuba with almost no landing capability. It had neither lighters nor small vessels other than the few life boats and launches normally carried by the transport ships.
The Fifth Corps landed at Daiquiri on 22 June, surprisingly without opposition. The Spanish inexplicably had withdrawn earlier that morning from well-entrenched positions on the nearby heights. Had they remained, their inferior force, fighting from prepared high positions, could have destroyed the Fifth Corps. Despite Alger’s ridiculous assertion that the Army would handle the landing, Sampson had to detach sailors and small boats from the fleet to aid in the debarkation. The amphibious landing was disorderly, but in two days the entire Corps had finally landed.
President McKinley, aware of problems between Sampson and Shafter, had urged them to confer face-to-face. The General was too ill to travel; Sampson’s condition was not much better. Admiral Cervera already had received orders from Governor General Ramon Blanco in Havana to leave harbor. He considered a departure at 1600 on Saturday, 3 July, but the need to reembark 1,000 sailors from the land defense of Santiago caused him to delay until the next morning. That evening, his ships made ready by getting up steam. A few U.S. ships reported smoke issuing from the funnels of the Spanish cruisers. The flagship received this information, but did not change plans for the morning. Someone in a staff command position should have alerted Sampson and Chadwick about the smoke and suggested modification of the next day’s schedule. But Sampson’s brain was not the only one functioning poorly on board the New York.
Early Sunday morning, 3 July, the battleship Massachusetts left the blockade to coal at Guantanamo. Sampson departed at 0930 in the New York with the intention of conferring directly with Shafter in Siboney, some ten miles away. Cervera’s lookouts reported departures of a battleship and the flagship, and he immediately gave orders to weigh anchor. The four Spanish cruisers, gaily caparisoned, flags flying at full staff on every mast, left the twisted harbor channel to meet utter defeat.
Sampson’s tactical error at this juncture blighted the rest of his shortened life. It even prevented him from participating in the battle. He was beyond signal range, ready to go ashore, when he heard the first shots and immediately headed back, but only at half engine power. To provide the necessary power for their designed speeds of 22 knots, both the New York and the Brooklyn had four of the most powerful engines then available, but they had only two propeller shafts. Consistently, two engines were on each shaft, separated by a huge jaw clutch. For all normal operations, only the aftermost engines were used. For full speed they had to warm their two cold forward engines as their cold boilers were lighted and brought to steaming pressure. Even under the urgency of combat, this consumed much time, but the worst effect occurred when all was ready, for then the after engines had to be brought to a complete halt—stopping the ship’s motion through the water—the jaw clutches carefully lined up, and the huge connecting links slid into the gaps on the tandem engines. No one had taken account of this problem, and at this point Sampson did not even answer when asked permission for his flagship to halt its halfpower run to make the change.
Impotent frustration on board the New York affected every man in her crew. She did not come up with the Oregon and the Brooklyn until after the two had together disposed of the last fleeing Spanish cruiser. The New York almost made it into action, but the battle had run away as fast as she could pursue it.
The most miserable person on board was the Admiral. He was in a catatonic state, unable to think properly or even respond when Schley signaled “a glorious victory.” Schley tried again with the signal, “This is a great day for our country.” After another delay, the flagship replied in a needlessly curt signal, “Report your casualties.” This message originated with either Captain Chadwick or Flag Lieutenant Sidney A. Staunton.
Sampson ignored Schley again when the latter signaled, “Request the honor of receiving the surrender of the Cristobal Colon.” Unable to understand the situation, Schley launched a boat and went to the New York to confer with his superior, who was seated immobile in a chair on the quarterdeck. A message that another Spanish warship had been sighted interrupted this meeting. Sampson ungraciously ordered Schley to go after the new ship, which was ultimately discovered to be Austrian. Schley’s flagship, the Brooklyn, and the Oregon had just been in the heaviest fighting of the day. The former had been hit 20 times and had lost one man killed in the battle. The so- far-unblooded New York, with full supplies of coal and ammunition and a commander usually aggressive in pursuit of the enemy, was the obvious ship to engage the newcomer. At last she had her four main engines on the line and all boilers steaming. Nevertheless, she made no move. Sampson had lost his will to fight, as well as his common sense.
He had not recovered by the next day, 4 July. Flag Lieutenant Staunton wrote a victory message signed by Sampson, although its florid style was uncharacteristic of the man himself. It began: “The fleet under my command offers the nation as a Fourth of July present the whole of Cervera’s fleet. . . .” Reporters following the fleet, as well as citizens and politicians in general, reacted negatively to the bombastic telegram. Most of the press at Santiago disliked the uncommunicative Sampson. By contrast, Schley was an excellent raconteur, much liked because he always gave journalists newsworthy material. People asked how the officer who was not in the battle could claim victory. Why did he not give credit to Schley and the other officers who actually had fought the battle?
This was the beginning of the Sampson-Schley controversy that split both the Navy and the public, although neither man participated directly in the argument.
Recognizing the undesirability of this controversy, Schley cabled Secretary Long by way of Sampson on 10 July: “feel some mortification that the newspaper accounts of July 6th have attributed victory on July 3rd almost entirely to me. Victory was achieved by the force under command Commander-in-Chief...When he read the cable draft Schley handed him, Sampson responded appreciatively: “this is kind and generous.” But on the same day, he signed a confidential letter written by Captain Chadwick, finding fault with Schley’s slowness in establishing the blockade and suggesting a court martial. The secret report was unjustified and entirely unlike Sampson. At no time had he complained of this matter to Schley, and worse, Sampson had been even slower to join the blockade. In his debilitated state, he allowed Chadwick— who disliked Schley immensely—to influence him, just as Hobson had used his powers of persuasion over the Admiral to take charge of the Merrimac.
Although partly victorious, heavy casualties caused General Shafter to lay siege on 1 July rather than attack again. On 4 and 5 July, he appealed to the War Department: “The Navy should go into Santiago Harbor at any cost. If done, we can take the place within a few hours. If they do not the country should be prepared for heavy losses among our troops.” The messages went immediately to the President, who again asked the recalcitrant commanders to confer. Sampson said he was in bed with a severe headache, but it may have been another stroke. He delegated Chadwick to represent him on 6 July at Shafter’s headquarters, where Chadwick found the General depressed by his losses of 1 July, unaware that the condition of the Spanish army was worse than his own.
Chadwick drafted a letter to Spanish General Jose Toral, urging surrender. The letter, signed by Shafter, stated that failure to comply would result in additional naval bombardment of Santiago. Toral refused the armistice, and Santiago was shelled on 10 and 11 July, but as usual, with little effect on the town.
Shafter’s complaining telegrams to the War Department were leaked to the New York Herald and published on 6 July. Another public furor arose against Sampson, already accused of failing to help the battered Army. He responded on 14 July in a cable to Secretary Long, charging that Shafter was ignoring the sea approaches both parties had agreed upon, that putting ships into a mined harbor “would be suicidal folly,” and that his naval force was not strong enough to take the forts by direct assault. As with many of Sampson’s messages, the press ignored his response, thus casting further discredit on the Navy.
During this time, the Spanish artfully protracted negotiations for the capitulation that occurred on 17 July, two weeks after the destruction of Cervera’s fleet. Shafter had saved U.S. lives by refusing to attack Santiago frontally, despite accusations of cowardice, but he acted from personal weakness and a sense of defeat. Each time Toral suggested new conditions, Shafter recommended Washington accept them. The President and the War Department reiterated that the goal was unconditional surrender. In the end, both sides accepted capitulation rather than surrender as a concession to Spanish “honor.”
In August 1898, the North Atlantic Squadron came to New York for a tumultuous victory welcome. Sampson stayed a few days at home in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. His permanent promotion to rear admiral, considered by the Senate that month, was not confirmed because of a political argument about the appropriate rank of Schley relative to Sampson, Schley having originally been the senior. A year later, both officers received permanent rank as rear admiral, with Sampson specifically named ahead of his rival.
Sampson then received an appointment to the commission for the Spanish evacuation of Cuba, charged with disposition of property, weapons, and documents related to the war. It met in Havana for three months, beginning 10 September 1898. Official records of Sampson’s medical condition at the meetings are not available, but one newspaper reported: “The commission was often obliged to transact its business without him. .. he was frequently unaware of what was going on. . . .” The ever-sanguine Chadwick knew something was physically and mentally wrong with his revered superior, but publicly remained silent. Privately, he wrote to Secretary Long, blaming Sampson’s poor condition on newspaper attacks and difficult negotiations with the Spanish representatives. Ever hopeful for the man he admired, Chadwick suggested that active sea duty would restore the Admiral’s health.
Secretary Long therefore returned Sampson to command of the North Atlantic Squadron, where he enjoyed working with the fleet, occasionally putting in at Narragansett Bay to permit his officers to attend lectures at the Naval War College. He accepted numerous invitations to speak, which he did well, and in June 1899 received an honorary law degree from Harvard. But he was unhappy with the unceasing press attacks on him. Even respectable newspapers, such as The Baltimore American, persistently called him a coward and later added a canard that the Navy had favored Sampson over Schley by suppressing records of Schley’s heroic deeds.
The Army and Navy Journal described a remarkable tribute to Sampson on 25 October 1899. The Governor of New Jersey presented the Admiral a magnificent sword on behalf of the people of that state.
Among those present were the captains of the warships that took part in the naval battle of Santiago. Suddenly, Captain Philip [of the Texas]. . . leaped to his feet, and in a voice that used to carry above the gale, called out, ‘Three cheers for our beloved Commander-in-Chief.’ Then up jumped Wainwright of the Gloucester, Evans of the Iowa, Taylor of the Indiana, Clark of the Oregon, Cook of the Brooklyn, Chadwick of the New York, grizzled veterans all, and cheered and cheered and cheered again. It was an electric moment.”
Their love and regard for their leader had not been diminished by almost certain recognition of his decreased abilities. Possibly, the demonstration was at least emotionally initiated by actual awareness of his problem.
Although Sampson did not enter a hospital in 1899, he was feeling ill in September when he requested relief from command of the North Atlantic Station. In October, Secretary Long assigned him a less demanding position as Commandant of the Boston Navy Yard. In early 1900, the trustees of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offered him its presidency. Wisely, he declined: “It would mean my leaving the service with which I have been so long identified and entering on a new life for which I am probably less fitted.”
On 10 October 1900, newspaper headlines revealed that the Admiral was extremely ill. He had been in good health when he boarded a train from Boston to Washington, became ill as the trip progressed, and grew worse after arrival. Secretary Long was so alarmed that he ordered Sampson back to Boston accompanied by a Navy surgeon. On return to Massachusetts, he spent eight days in the Boston Naval Hospital, then returned for another six days in February 1901. Both admissions were for cephalalgia, although the medical records clearly indicate repeated strokes accompanied by headache. Incredibly, in each instance, he was returned to duty.
Public curiosity compelled the attending naval surgeon, Dr. Henry G. Beyer, to issue a statement on 3 March 1901 that the Admiral’s brain was strong and sound, but that his mental reactions were slowed. This was a coverup; all close observers recognized that his brain was damaged severely. Chadwick wrote Long a few months later that Sampson had collapsed under the stress of a Fourth of July celebration: “. . . any strain .... deprives him of memory for names, and causes extreme slowness of cerebration and speech.” This description, remarkable because it came from Chadwick, who was finally admitting the obvious, could have been written about Sampson’s behavior in the aftermath of the battle at Santiago almost three years earlier. He reentered the Boston Naval Hospital from 5 to 11 July, went home, but once again resumed duty on 30 July.
In 1901, Volume III of Edgar Maclay’s History of the United States Navy appeared, slated to join Volumes I and II as textbooks at the Naval Academy. The book, in which Chadwick may have exercised some influence, contained severe criticism of Schley’s actions before and during the battle. Although Schley had avoided previous suggestions of investigation, the accusations were so public and so severe that he demanded a Court of Inquiry. It met in September 1901 for 40 days under the presidency of the also-promoted Admiral George Dewey—whose victory at Manila was unsullied by controversy—and took 2,300 pages of testimony. Everyone involved, including Schley, appeared and gave his version of the affair—with the outstanding exception of Sampson, who, next to Schley, was clearly the person most concerned and interested.
The Court had been directed to consider only the criticism of Schley. The public understanding, however, fostered by an avidly interested press, was that it should determine who deserved credit for the victory at Santiago. In the outcome, it found for Sampson, but Dewey issued a minority report supporting Schley’s original complaint. Sampson might have appeared before the court, but Dr. Beyer strongly advised Secretary Long that the Admiral be spared this trial, fearing a public breakdown.
In a confidential letter, the physician revealed his reasons. He acknowledged that the admiral . . is an invalid ... his race is run ... he will never again be the man he was before. . . . Any exertion beyond routine duties is almost invariably followed by a mental depression, the most constant symptom of which is . . . aphasia, characterized by his mixing up words.” Beyer cited as an example a situation in which the family is in the library, dinner is announced, the Admiral tells his wife he wants to go to bed. Alarmed, she goes to his side and leads him toward the bedroom, but he resists and goes to his place at the dinner table. The descriptive narrative indicates anomic aphasia, often encountered in patients with multiple infarct dementia.
On 12 September 1901, Mrs. Sampson wrote a note signed by the Admiral to Secretary Long, requesting detachment from the Boston Navy Yard for reasons of ill health. Sampson’s difficulty walking even short distances and his mental deterioration was by then widely known. At that time, the couple moved to Washington, D.C.
Sampson’s last hospital admission was to the Washington Naval Dispensary on 8 October 1901. There, the record at last stated the diagnosis of aphasia. Rumors of his imminent death caused Navy surgeon William S. Dixon to issue another public statement on 21 December 1901: “The Admiral goes out for exercise every day, weather permitting. He goes to the table for meals. He smokes his cigar after dinner. He is just in impaired health.” The statement was accurate, but as usual, it sidestepped the major problem. Mrs. Sampson, however, wrote a friend: “His brain is tired beyond ever being rested.”
The Admiral retired from service on 9 February 1902 at the statutory age, on his 62nd birthday. Thereafter he could be seen walking near his home, accompanied by his wife, his frame bent, his face haggard, recognizing only vaguely the friends who greeted him as they passed. The official record then ceases. Newspaper reports indicate he suffered repeated strokes in March and April. On 3 May he became semiconscious, then succumbed to a massive cerebral hemorrhage on 6 May 1902.
So the great victory at Santiago was won by two leaders, both of whom were medically unfit for duty. Navy physicians should have recognized the problem but lacked knowledge of neurology. Another factor was reluctance to publicize the deficiencies of an important commander, hence the frequent coverups. The Army Medical Corps, however, had no Justification for permitting a grossly obese general—suffering from gout and malaria, and so large he reputedly had to be carried about on an unhinged door—to continue in service. Added to these disqualifications was Shafter’s intolerance to heat. That this obviously disabled commander was allowed to serve in the high temperatures and humidity of Tampa and Santiago stretches credulity. Few military men have been less physically qualified.
Historians have missed Sampson’s diagnosis, because the medical information has been suppressed or lost. None was ever aware of the hospitalization records available from the U.S. Pension Office, so all based their accounts upon the deficient official record. Some information did surface publicly in February 1903, after Sampson’s death, when a reporter leaked the confidential data to the press. But this material and its medical significance were overlooked. Charing the war, rumors abounded in Washington about Sampson’s ongoing illness, but people in political office who knew the facts shunned adverse publicity for an appointed leader. Naval officers were bound by their code of honor, and none of them had medical training.
Dr. Rixey, however, knew of Sampson’s recurrent attacks, as did other naval medical officers who repeatedly sent Sampson back to duty. They were competent physicians, but they lacked knowledge of neurology, then a young specialty. Neurologists of that time, however, were fully aware that repeated episodes of aphasia cumulatively impeded judgment. They should have been consulted.
Alzheimer’s dementia has been advanced as a diagnosis. Multiple infarct dementia better fits the evidence, however. Alzheimer’s dementia is progressive rather than intermittent, and, in contrast to aphasia, it results in loss of personality, inability for personal care, destructive behavior, wandering, and memory loss. Patients with multiple infarct dementia deteriorate episodically. They experience successive strokes by which areas of the brain are destroyed. During attacks, thought processes are faulty, and, depending on the size of the infarct, may remain so for a variable time. Each episode is followed by apparent recovery. Between attacks, however, patients are often unable to deal with stress. With each stroke, mental deterioration becomes more complete. Anomic aphasia is common. Personality is generally preserved. Even when Sampson was a mere shell of a man, he could still join his family for dinner and then smoke a cigar.
Strokes, however, are not usually associated with headache. Hypertension may have been a factor, but blood pressure was not measurable until the early 1900s. Possibly, migraine accompanied the condition. Sampson had experienced headaches since the age of 17 as a plebe, but further information about them is unavailable. Bouts of colic reported at age 26 and 27 may have been migraine equivalents. Repeated strokes, often with headache, began at age 55, increased in frequency, and culminated in a massive episode that killed him.
Sampson and Shafter had demonstrable medical conditions, although the General’s incapacities were more obvious. The problem with Captain Chadwick was psychological in nature, therefore more subtle, yet he was excessively devoted, worshiped the man he knew Sampson to have been. Chadwick regularly covered for the Admiral, even when confronted directly with evidence of mental deterioration. Chadwick may be accused of pathologically remembering only what he wanted. He had an added motive: fear that Schley—whom he hated—might replace Sampson.
Most of the messages signed by Sampson during the war were written by Chadwick and other aides. The staff, Chadwick most of all, ardently wanted the Admiral to recover his brilliance. Repeatedly, the course of Sampson’s malady deceived them when partial recovery occurred. Time and again, they hoped that the present episode would be the last. No one reported the obvious and accumulating deficits. Their loyalty to the Admiral was commendable, but they had a sworn duty also to be loyal to the Navy and to the country, and in this they failed. Chadwick was the senior person attached to Sampson during the war. He stifled all efforts that more junior officers might have made to correct a serious problem that clearly could have been to the detriment of the United States.
Had the Battle of Santiago ended in defeat, the entire staff would have been condemned—and rightly so.
