Eighth Army Corps (Spanish–American War)

The Eighth Army Corps was formed on June 21, 1898, shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, in order to provide a ground contingent to exploit Commodore George Dewey's success in defeating the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay on May 1, 1898.

San Francisco was the natural point of departure, but troops stationed there had been deployed to Cuba at the outbreak of the war. Colonel Thomas M. Anderson, who commanded the last remaining regiment on the coast, was ordered to San Francisco, made brigadier general of volunteers, and put in charge of the preliminary arrangements pending the selection of the officer to command the expedition that was to become Eighth Corps.^[1] Major General Wesley Merritt was later selected to command Eighth Corps, which had only one division, numbered as the Second Division, with General Andersom selected to command it.

Eighth Corps defeated the Spanish forces under the command of Governor-General of the Philippines Fermín Jáudenes in the Battle of Manila on August 14, 1898 and continued to prosecute the Spanish–American War and the Philippine–American War until, at the end of March 1900, the complexities involved in dealing with guerrilla warfare and governing the islands led to the transformation of what had been the Department of the Pacific into the Division of the Philippines with four geographical departments, each of which was in turn divided into military districts. This step brought an end to the Eighth Corps.^[2] Units of the former Eighth Corps fought to an eventual victory in the Philippine–American War in July 1902.