Fatal Glory: Narciso López and the First Clandestine U.S. War Against Cuba (review)

BOOK reviews345 For a short work, Cheseborough's book is a very good statement of the furor and intense emotion prevalent in that wretched period of our nation's history. Admirably researched, the text and bibliography might have been strengthened by G. G. Smith's Life and Times ofGeorge Foster Pierce and Daniel Stowell's Ph.D. dissertation (Florida) on clergy dissent in Georgia. Gerald J. Smith Paine College Fatal Glory: Narciso López and the First Clandestine U.S. WarAgainst Cuba. By Tom Chaffin. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996. Pp. xxii, 282. $34-95·) Historians have for too long regarded Narciso Lopez's filibustering attempts in Cuba as driven by Southern slaveholders. This beautifully written and exhaustively researched volume by Tom Chaffin ofEmory University provides a valuable corrective to the literature. López, according to the author, led the first forceful attempt to end Spain's control over Cuba and incorporate it into the rapidly expanding American republic in the aftermath of the Mexican War. Five times between 1848 and 185 1 he tried to throw out the Spanish; but, according to Chaffin, López as leader lacked the necessary "mastery of details" combined with "grand vision" and proved "more cunning than thoughtful." He was, however , a "genius of promotion" who attracted a wide following (45). In addition to Southerners John C. Calhoun, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and John Quitman, he drew support from influential Northerners—including urban leaders from the Democratic party and the New York journalist and public architect of the term "manifest destiny," John L. O'Sullivan (whose sister married a Cuban planter). López also received assistance from Cuban businessmen, New Orleans entrepreneurs, young adventurers, and numerous otherAmericans who learned of his exploits from reading the penny press. Lopez's support was national rather than sectional, mercantile as well as agricultural, and urban as much as rural—too diverse in makeup to categorize as Southern conspirators seeking Cuba as another slave state. López emerges as anAmerican patriot who sought Cuba as part of the "Young America" fever of the turbulent 1850s. López became a spokesman for the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian brand of republicanism that included both slavery and expansionism within its definition of liberty, whereas his enemies advocated a nationalism built on halting the spread of slavery. López attracted Southerners interested in defending states' rights; but his efforts bore no relation to the later cry for secession. Morality took precedence over law, López believed; and this stance provided license for annexing Cuba by force. The government inWashington, however, considered his actions a flagrant violation of the Neutrality Act of 18 18 and of treaty agreements with Spain. Despite Lopez's momentary fame as a romanticized agent of American republicanism and as an apostle of states' rights against a steadily 346civil war history encroaching federal government, he failed to acquire Cuba. The Spanish executed him by strangulation, garroting him in ajammed public plaza in Havana on a Sunday morning in September 1851. It is difficult to believe that anyone will have to tell this story again. Chaffin's rich account rests on both U.S. and Cuban sources, and it fits easily into the broad scope of nineteenth-century political and diplomatic developments. His masterful summation of a complex series of events fulfills a fundamental tenet of sound history: an engagingly written narrative about a narrow story that reveals much about a people and the period in which they lived. López became a folk hero who challenged federal law during a time in which political decentralization was popular. We finally have the definitive account of Lopez's central achievement: fatal glory. Howard Jones University of Alabama O. O. Howard, Union General. By Gerald Weland. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 1995. Pp. viii, 187. $26.50.) Gen. William T. Sherman hung O. O. Howard's portrait next to his own in his home in New York City after he had retired. West Pointer, Indian fighter, and Indian peacemaker, Civil War corps commander in both the eastern and western theaters, Freedmen's Bureau executive, writer, educator, and deeply religious, O. O. Howard is an interesting biographical subject. His honesty and integrity may...