Of a bread-loaf missile: the shaming of Brooklyn’s 13th Regiment of the National Guard during the Spanish–American War

Abstract

The Spanish–American War constituted a pressure point in American military history. The citizen-soldier tradition in the United States—a tradition based on a reliance on state militias rather than a large standing army—was tested as the country scrambled to provide a fighting force to support its growing imperial ambition. When Brooklyn’s 13th Regiment of the National Guard was ordered to camp at the beginning of May 1898, roughly half the men answered the call. Most of the guardsmen did not object to serving but only wished to do so within their regiment. As a result, the regiment was subjected to rough music, pelted by half a loaf of bread, and disbanded. Over time, however, the tables turned, with the regiment ultimately being resurrected and redeemed and the governor and the adjutant general who had disbanded the regiment being ridiculed and discarded. The case of Brooklyn’s 13th Regiment reveals that the alignment of national and state allegiances was neither straightforward nor without casualty as the country entered the age of imperialism.