On Behalf of the North Dakota Boys
In February, 1898, a massive explosion sent the battleship Maine to the bottom of Havana harbor. The Spanish were quickly blamed for the destruction of the American ship and for the deaths of 260 American sailors, over half of the crew. Many influential Americans including Teddy Roosevelt and William Randolph Hearst demanded a forceful response. There were other voices like Mark Twain who remembered the horrors of the Civil War and urged calm, but the cooler heads were unable to prevail. The United States declared war against Spain.
Source: prairiepublic.org