The fact that there was hardly any US military present during the Spanish-American War was the biggest obstacle the US military had to overcome. State militias existed, but there was no "National Guard" as we understand it today with any form of centralized management and planning. In addition, we had no officers who had led troops against other military formations using modern weapons, with the exception of a few Civil War retreads who were still stumbling around.
The conflict in Cuba Civil War would have been extremely embarrassing for the US if the Spanish-American War had been led more expertly and energetically.US Regular Army soldiers carried smokeless-powder Krag-Jorgenson repeating rifles. A tiny portion of the US troops involved were equipped with these guns in Civil War, as were other US small arms, like the Gatling.
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