Hearst's Obsession With the US Army

Hearst asks President McKinley, can I form my own outfit? Can I have my own little cavalry company and kind of go over there as mercenaries? He says, no, if you're going to go fight, you have to do it with the US Army. And Hearst is not about to go enlist. So he doesn't go over as a soldier, but what he does is he gets authorization to outfit a yacht with guns and heads over as an armed war correspondent.