"It has been a splendid little war..." wrote John Hay to Theodore Roosevelt as the Spanish-American War ended in 1898. Indeed it was splendid for the American public, but for the Rough Riders and other soldiers it was as grim, dirty and bloody as any war. Only the ineptitude of the Spaniards, and the luck of the Americans, kept it from stretching into a disastrous struggle.

The Splendid Little War is the compelling story of this often overlooked conflict, told largely in the words of the participants themselves. It was a war people by the famous and those soon to be: Theodore Roosevelt, Stephen Crane, Clara Barton and William Jennings Bryan are among those who played key roles in the war against Spain. Above all, as Freidel writes, the Spanish-American War marked the end of an era: "Beyond the 'splendid little war' hung the indefinite shadow of world cataclysm....Few Americans dreamed how different the United States would be afterwards."