Lessons of the War with Spain and Other Articles

Lessons of the War with Spain and Other Articles is a book by A. T. Mahan. The text speaks of a blaze of glory and of success which, after forty years of patient waiting, crowned the last six months of Havelock's life. The text describes two principal methods of imparting the illustrations that compose the body of precedents by which the primary teachings of the Art of War are at once elucidated and established.

The first method lets the several principles be separately stated, more or less at large, each followed closely by the appropriate illustrations. The other method may give the consecutive narrative of a particular series of operations, accompanied by a running commentary or criticism. The text names, among others, the battleship Iowa, the torpedo boat Porter and the collier Merrimac. Morris, described as an able financier, conjectured that to support a navy of such size for twenty years would cost the public treasury less than five years of war would.