In 1891 he was assigned as barometric hypsometrist and assistant astronomer with the Intercontinental Railway Survey, which was planning a (never-completed) rail line through Guatemala.
[3] Following the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, war between the United States and Spain, which then ruled Cuba, seemed inevitable.
Wagner selected forty-year-old 1st Lt. Andrew S. Rowan to join Gen. Calixto García, commander of the rebel forces in eastern Cuba.
With the help of the U.S. consul in Kingston, he connected with the Cuban Revolutionary Junta, some of whose members transported him by open boat during one of their trips to the southeastern coast of Cuba.
Following an eight-day horseback journey with rebels through the Sierra Maestra Mountains, Rowan met with García in the city of Bayamo on May 1.
After a five-day journey to Manatí Bay on Cuba's north coast they “drew a little cockle-shell of a boat from under a mangrove bush” and set sail for Florida.
[13] On August 22, under orders from Miles, Rowan and another officer began a horseback inspection tour of Cuba that lasted six weeks and resulted in a highly detailed report.
They resisted U.S. control, and thus began the Philippine War (1899–1902), in which (now) Captain Andrew S. Rowan was to take part as commander of the First Battalion of the 19th Infantry Regiment.
[19] Having reestablished his reputation, Rowan was promoted to major and assigned command of the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment at Camp Keithley on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.
He was there to participate in the so-called Moro Rebellion (1902–1913), an armed conflict between indigenous ethnic groups and the U.S. His wife accompanied him and remained on Mindanao throughout his entire tour of duty.
[20] After various assignments in New York, Utah, and Wyoming, Rowan retired on December 1, 1909, and spent his final years in San Francisco and Mill Valley, California, where his fame lived on.
Andrew Summers Rowan died at the Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco on January 10, 1943, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
In March, 1899, Hubbard published an essay praising Rowan for having dutifully completed his assignment to carry a message from President McKinley to General García.
In 1922 Rowan was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for “delivering a message to General Garcia [and securing] secret information .
[that] had an important bearing on the quick ending of the struggle and the complete success of the U.S. Army.” He was also awarded a Silver Citation Star for “gallantry in action during the Philippine Insurrection.”[24] Sixteen years later, as further recognition of his meeting with Gen. García, he received Cuba's highest honor, the Order Carlos Manuel de Cespedes.
It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing—'Carry a message to Garcia!'
farm; a retirement home in Sweet Springs, West Virginia; a Civilian Conservation Corps camp; and a road in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.