The Journals of Martha E. McMillan

most of the motivation for America entering the war was “based on a construction of U.S. national identity that held the United States to be a just, humane civilization that was duty-bound to aid an oppressed people and to punish their wicked persecutors” (McCarthy 269). This was largely based on America’s Protestant Christianity, which made citizens eager to defend justice and bring the light of Christianity and civilization to needy places like Cuba, where starvation and injustice reigned. This sense of duty combined with the fact that America had not been to war in half a century made the Spanish-American War wildly popular. Most historical accounts mention how “volunteers jammed the army and navy recruiting offices,” and many American citizens enthusiastically followed the war updates (Gould). Martha McMillan’s journal entries do, in some places, fit into the traditional historical narrative of America in the summer of 1898. On May 22, 1898, Martha ruminates over a baccalaureate sermon given to the graduating high school class in Cedarville, Ohio. She writes that the speaker “spoke grandly on the outlook of the world, the nations of the earth, and summed up with the question: ‘Who knoweth whether thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this?’” (McMillan). McMillan’s journals confirm that most Americans in 1898 looked at world affairs from the perspective of Protestant Christianity and sensed God’s purpose in their relationship to other nations. Martha believed that she and other Americans like her, as Christians, had a responsibility to act in the world as messengers of the Kingdom of God, which led them into the Spanish-American War. In this way, Martha’s journals support traditional narratives about the Spanish-American War. Yet despite her Protestant Christian outlook, Martha’s journals largely conflict with historical perspectives on America in the summer of 1898. Martha mentions the Spanish- American War (which she calls the “Cubian War”) a totally of 3 times in the months of April- 132