William Rufus Shafter (October 16, 1835 – November 12, 1906) was a Union Army officer during the American Civil War who received America's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions at the Battle of Fair Oaks.

On his father's side, the family was of Scots-Irish descent, as his ancestor came from Northern Ireland and Scotland, arriving in Massachusetts in the year 1670.

[2] Shafter served as a 1st lieutenant the U.S. Army's 7th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment at the battles of Ball's Bluff and Fair Oaks.

[note 1] In April 1864 after his release he was appointed colonel of the 17th United States Colored Infantry and led the regiment at the Battle of Nashville.

He led the 24th Infantry, another United States Colored Troops regiment, in campaigns against the Cheyenne, Comanche, Kickapoo and Kiowa Indian warriors in Texas.

While commander of Fort Davis, he started a controversial court-martial of second lieutenant Henry Flipper, the first black cadet to graduate from West Point.

When General Sumner refused to allow the Army's Gatling Gun Detachment - which had priority - to disembark from the transport Cherokee on the grounds that the lieutenant commanding the detachment did not have the rank to enforce his priority, Shafter had to personally intervene, returning to the ship in a steam launch to enforce his demand that the guns come off immediately.

[5] During the disembarkation, Shafter sent forward Fifth Corps' Cavalry Division under Joseph Wheeler to reconnoiter the road to Santiago de Cuba.

Originally, Shafter planned to lead his forces from the front, but he suffered greatly from the tropical heat and was confined to his headquarters far to the rear and out of sight of the fighting.

During the hurried attack on El Caney and San Juan Heights, American forces, who had packed the available roads and were unable maneuver, suffered heavy losses from Spanish troops equipped with modern repeating smokeless powder rifles and breech-loading artillery, while the short-ranged black-powder guns of U.S. artillery units were unable to respond effectively.

After suffering some 1,400 casualties, and aided by a single Gatling Gun detachment for fire support, American troops successfully stormed and occupied both El Caney and San Juan Heights.

However, the extent of the American losses were becoming known at Shafter's headquarters back at Sevilla (his gout, poor physical condition, and huge bulk did not allow him to go to the front).

Fortunately, by the time this message reached Washington, Shafter changed his mind, and instead renewed siege operations after demanding the Spanish surrender the city and garrison of Santiago.

'Campaigning in Cuba' by George Kennan, 1899 (available on Gutenberg) presents a totally damning account of Shafter's command in the Cuba campaign by a gifted correspondent who was with the troops from Tampa to return: Morbidly obese at 300 lbs with gout and probably diabetes at 63, Shafter should have been in a hospice, not a tropical hellhole where malaria, yellow fever and dysentery annihilated most of the invasion force within three weeks.