Photo of the Fort Porter memorial to the 13th U.S. Army Regiment, 1899, after dedication. Image source: private collection.
The Spanish-American War is considered to have lasted officially from 1898-1902 with the Phillipine and China campaigns included. The total number of American soldiers involved was 305, 760, with 385 killed in action and 2,061 dead from othe causes, mostly illness. A number of different veterans organizations formed immediately after the war and, in 1904 the three largest joined to form the United Spanish War Veterans organization. One of their goals was to perpetuate the memories of those who served. Translated into action, that meant memorials were created across the country. |
Photo of the Fort Porter memorial to the 13th U.S. Army Regiment, 1899, after dedication. Image source: private collection.
Local Buffalonians determined to honor the 13th regiment which was garrisoned at Fort Porter by erecting a memorial to the
only area unit which saw significant fighting (in Cuba). The boulder they chose upset fishermen, the regiment left the night
before the monument was to be unveiled, never to return to Buffalo. And then the monument was lost when the Peace Bridge approach was expanded in 1957. |
The 13th Regiment memorial outside the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society, 2009.
The momument had been buried by construction crews in 1957. The story of its rediscovery, retrieval and movement to its current location at BECHS is very interesting; Ben Maryniak tells it here. The current bronze plaque on the monument reads: "TO COMMEMORATE THE GALLANTRY OF THE THIRTEENTH REGIMENT U.S. INFANTRY IN THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST SANTIAGO DE CUBA. FIRST AT SAN JUAN HILL, JULY 1ST 1898 AS THEY WERE AT VICKSBURG IN 1863. ERECTED BY THE CITIZENS OF BUFFALO 1899. RE-ERECTED BY THE BUFFALO HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1958. " |
Current Location of the 202nd Regiment Monument, Connecticut Street Armory, 2009.
The 202nd, a U.S. Army Regiment created solely for the duration of the Cuba campaign of the war, was comprised mostly of Western New Yorkers. The monument was installed on Main Street across from Forest Lawn. By June 1990, it had been moved to the Memorial Auditorium area, near Veterans Park. By 2003, it was moved again and now rests at a corner of the Connecticut Street Armory. The monument was dedicated September 19, 1925, possibly by the United Spanish War Veterans organization. The plaque reads: "IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 202ND REGIMENT NEW YORK VOLUNTEER INFANTRY RECRUITED IN BUFFALO AND VICINITY FOR SERVICE IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN. MUSTERED IN JULY AND AUGUST 1898. MUSTERED OUT AT SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, APRIL 15, 1899. SERVED IN THE UNTIED STATES AND THE PROVINCES OF HAVANA AND PINAR DEL RIO, CUBA." |
"The Hiker" statue at Roosevelt Square, Main & Huron Streets, downtown Buffalo, 2009.
"The Hiker" statue was created by New York City sculptor Allen G. Newman (1875-1940); he copyrighted it in 1904. For a time it served as the official monument of the United Spanish War Veterans organization. The name "hiker" was the term infantry men used to address one another casually in the 19th century; "Hello, Hiker!" was a common greeting. Buffalo's statue was dedicated on May 29, 1920. The Courier described the scene: "Before the services opened the audience was entertained by a Curtiss plane which soared and swooped over the square. Edward Ronnie, a war veteran, was the pilot and he had the crowd standing up with some of his stunts. Nose dives, spirals and "falling leaves" mean nothing in his life, apparently. In addition, he dropped hundreds of "Hiker" postcards over the business sections of the city. The small boys had a great time chasing after them. "The day was ideal, the sky blue and cloudless. As the American flag dropped away from the statue the blazing sun brought every detail of the militant figure into relief. "Ooh's" and "Ah's" of admiration came from the large crowd assembled. Upon the top of a granite shaft flanked with tablets stands the bronze figure of a young soldier, life size, and in a more natural attitude of arrested motion. The youth, cleanly cut and of perfect physique, is depicted in a gracefully negligent pose, rifle in hand, weather beaten hat pulled low over a resolute face. He is in the costume of the "hiker" of the Spanish-American War." |
 Detail of the Buffalo statue (conserved in 1993). |
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Some other castings of Newman's "Hiker" statue are installed in Pittsburgh, PA; Ypsilanti, MI; Staten Island, NY; Southbridge, MA; Woonsocket, RI; Westerly, RI; Wichita, KS; Arlington National Cemetery, VA. |
Statue at Forest Lawn, Buffalo, installed by the United Spanish War Veterans in 1927.
When the last Spanish-American War veteran died in 1992, the United Spanish American War Veterans organization ceased to exist. |
