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Contents
INTRODUCTION
1. A Dangerous New World, 1607–1689
2. The Colonial Wars, 1689–1763
3. The American Revolution, 1763–1783
4. Preserving the New Republic’s Independence, 1783–1815
5. The Armed Forces and National Expansion, 1815–1860
6. The Civil War, 1861–1862
7. The Civil War, 1863–1865
8. From Postwar Demobilization Toward Great Power Status, 1865–1898
9. The Birth of an American Empire, 1898–1902
10. Building the Military Forces of a World Power, 1899–1917
11. The United States Fights in the “War to End All Wars,” 1917–1918
12. Military Policy Between the Two World Wars, 1919–1939
13. The United States and World War II: From the Edge of Defeat to the
Edge of Victory, 1939–1943
14. The United States and World War II: The Road to Victory, 1943–1945
15. Cold War and Hot War: The United States Enters the Age of Nuclear
Deterrence and Collective Security, 1945–1953
16. Waging Cold War: American Defense Policy for Extended Deterrence
and Containment, 1953–1965
17. In Dubious Battle: Vietnam, 1961–1967
18. The Lost War: Vietnam, 1968–1975
19. The Common Defense and the End of the Cold War, 1976–1993
20. World Disorder New and Old, 1993–2001
21. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 2001–2011
Photographs
APPENDICES
Appendix A. Participation and Losses, Major Wars, 1775–2012

Appendix B. The Armed Forces and National Expansion
Appendix C. The Armed Forces of the Cold War and After
Appendix D. U.S. Troops Stationed Abroad
Appendix E. American Military and Diplomatic Deaths, Terrorist
and Military Actions, 1980–2000
INDEX
The Chapter Bibliographies and General Bibliography can be accessed
online at the Free Press author pages:
http://www.SimonandSchuster.com, and Professor Feis’s webpage at
Buena Vista University:
http://web.bvu.edu/faculty/feis/ftcd/FTCD_Bib.html

Acknowledgments
Writing the acknowledgments for a book that is thirty years old and now
takes new life in a third edition is more challenging than writing the book.
It does not become easier when the book has three authors. As the senior
author, I have usurped the role of writing these acknowledgments in order
to avoid pronoun confusion. Peter Maslowski and William B. Feis are
blameless for any oversights or insensitivities our readers may spy.
This book had its start in my first exposure to a class in American
military history taught by my adviser, the late Harry L. Coles, at The Ohio
State University. Harry assigned us Walter Millis’s Arms and Men (1956).
Given the choices in 1963, the book was the right one for a course that
stressed civil-military relations and the political and social influences on
strategy. Having just finished three years as a Marine infantry officer, I
didn’t want to read a textbook written for ROTC cadets about leadership
and patriotism, the general focus of the other potential texts. On the other
hand, Millis had little feel for how military organizations work (or don’t),
and his grasp of operational problems lacked expertise. Harry agreed—
and said I should try to do better some day. That day came sooner than he
and I anticipated.
I had the good fortune to return to The Ohio State University in 1969
after teaching at the University of Missouri-Columbia for
three years. Harry Coles had become department chair, and
I inherited his one-quarter (ten-week) course on American
military history, from Jamestown to the nuclear age. I had
used Millis at Missouri and did not like it for a semester
course. I liked it even less on the quarter system. On the
other hand, I also inherited a stellar group of graduate
students, among them Calvin Christman, Robert Daugherty,
J. Frederick Shiner, and Peter Maslowski. Peter and I shared
several interests, among them bird-watching and basketball.

Peter finished his dissertation despite my mentoring, went
to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, taught American
military history, and agreed with me that the book choices
still left much to be desired. By now we had a new
candidate, Russell F.
Weigley’s The American Way of War (1973); but Russ, I
thought, worked too hard to make military history (often just
army history) fit his criticism of American strategy in
Vietnam. Through the 1970s, as Peter and I taught and
wrote other books, we talked about writing our own text.
Peter took the initiative in opening negotiations with the
Free Press, and soon we had a contract and a chance to
write, not just gripe.
NO GENERAL HISTORY of American military policy could exist without the
contributions of the two generations of scholars whose books, essays, and
articles provide the foundation for this book. Our debt to them,
acknowledged in the online chapter and general bibliographies
(http://www.bvu.edu/faculty/feis/ftcd/FTCD_Bib.html and the Free
Press author pages at http://www.SimonandSchuster.com) is complete.
We hope they recognize their contributions among our breezy assertions
and breathtaking generalizations. We are indebted to our colleagues who
volunteered their considerable talent and precious time to critique our
individual chapters. Peter, the author of Chapters 1 through 9 for the first
two editions, appreciated the advice of Dr. Douglas E. Leach, Dr. Don
Higginbotham, Dr. Charles Royster, Dr. Richard H. Kohn, Dr. Craig L.
Symonds, Dr.
Francis Paul Prucha, Dr. K. Jack Bauer, Dr. Archer Jones, Dr.
Frank E. Vandiver, Dr.
James A. Rawley, Dr. John Y. Simon, Dr. James M. McPherson,
Dr. Robert M. Utley, Dr.

Benjamin Franklin Cooling III, Dr. Graham A. Cosmas, and Dr.
David F. Trask, all experts on the American military
experience from the colonial period to the twentieth century.
Dr. Patrice M. Berger of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
history department, Lawrence J. Baack (a former history
professor), and Ms. Barbara Rader also provided Peter with
evaluations from perspectives professional but
unspecialized in U.S. history. Peter asked his mother, Edna
H. Maslowski, to read portions of several chapters to check
his literary English in the first edition.
I wrote Chapters 10 through 17 of the first edition with the sound
advice of a distinguished platoon of specialists in twentieth-century
American military history: Dr. Timothy K. Nenninger, Dr. Dean C. Allard,
Dr. Daniel R. Beaver, Dr. Donald Smythe, Dr. Forrest C. Pogue, Colonel
J. F. Shiner, USAF, Dr. Gerald E. Wheeler, Dr.
Williamson Murray, Mr. Kenneth H. Watman, Mr. Charles
MacDonald, Dr. Ronald H. Spector, Dr. John L. Gaddis,
Colonel Roy K. Flint, USA, Lieutenant Colonel Harry
Borowski, USAF, Brigadier General Douglas Kinnard, USA
(Ret.), Dr. David Alan Rosenberg, Brigadier General Edwin H.
Simmons, USMC (Ret.), Dr. George C. Herring, Dr.
David S. Sorenson, and Dr. Joseph J. Kruzel. We also want to
thank those members of the history departments of the U.S.
Military Academy and the U.S. Air Force Academy who
reviewed parts of the original manuscript.
From its inception, this study enjoyed the support of the Mershon
Center for Education and Research in National Security at The Ohio State
University, directed successively by Dr. Richard K. Snyder and Dr. Charles
F. Hermann, when this book was first written. In addition, the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln provided Peter with a Faculty Development

Fellowship and Maude Hammond Fling Summer Fellowship in order to
work on this book.
Mrs. Yvonne Holsinger and the staff of the graphic arts division of The
Ohio State University’s Teaching Aids Laboratory drew the maps that
have graced this book for almost thirty years. In addition, Joyce Seltzer
and Robert Harrington of the Free Press offered valuable suggestions on
the original manuscript.
AFTER TEN YEARS, Peter and I agreed that For the Common Defense needed
a fresh coat of learning and updating. We had suggestions for
improvement from reviewers, from other historians who used the book in
their classes, and from our students, never shy in commenting about their
readings. Since our readers had not found whole sections of the book
wrongheaded, we agreed that peer review of every word in every chapter
need not slow our revision process. The only original addition was
Chapter
18 and the Epilogue, which started with the end of the
Vietnam War and carried the narrative through the Gulf War,
which I wrote. Even though Peter did not have to rewrite
Chapters 1 through 9, he sent these chapters or portions of
them to Dr. Ira D.
Gruber, Dr. Robert Wooster, Dr. Donald R. Hickey, and Dr.
Brian Linn for review. As I recall, they liked the chapters very
much. Since I had one new chapter that needed close
review, I asked my colleague Dr. Williamson Murray to read
it, and we turned to an uncommon graduate student, Jay
Young, whose government service in the 1980s made him
especially expert on the defense policy of the Reagan era.
For the Gulf War, I relied upon Brigadier General Edwin H.
Simmons, USMC (Ret.), director of the Marine Corps History
and Museums Division and my former commanding officer
when I headed the fighting historians of MTU DC-4. After my
retirement from the USMCR in 1990, the dedicated reserves
of DC-4 covered the Gulf War on the ground, and I saw their

early drafts, as well as some operational summaries. To
finish the review process, we asked Dr. Stephen E. Ambrose
to read the whole manuscript and participate in a panel
discussion of the book at the March 1993 meeting of the
Southwestern Social Sciences Association in New Orleans.
Steve read the entire manuscript with the highest standards
of professional attentiveness and made recommendations I
accepted without regret.
The last and most important participant in the second review process
was a graduate student from Lincoln, Nebraska, named William B. Feis.
Bill had taken large doses of For the Common Defense as an
undergraduate history major and an MA graduate student, administered
by his adviser, Professor Peter Maslowski. As my advisee and Civil War
reenactor “pard,” Bill was unlucky enough to become a research assistant
and copy editor on the second edition. He escaped the editorial trap only
by completing his dissertation in 1997, fleeing to a faculty appointment at
Buena Vista University in Iowa. Peter and I tracked his escape route and
agreed that we would find more work for him someday.
When we persuaded the Free Press that a book in continued use in
American classrooms should be revised again, Peter and I turned for help
to Dr. Calvin Christman, another Ohio State graduate who had just
retired from a distinguished teaching career at Cedar Valley Community
College in Dallas, Texas, with graduate teaching experience at North
Texas University. We asked Cal to work on the bibliographies and read
any new material we wrote. His work had just begun when Cal learned he
had cancer, which killed him on August 24, 2011. Fortunately, Bill Feis
responded to our mild coercion and joined us as a full partner, happy with
the opportunity to exact red-pencil revenge on his former advisers. Bill
became the essential editor in making the third edition possible against
tight deadlines. With the aid of his academic assistant Zoey Reisdorf, he
also assembled the online bibliographies. We know we tried his legendary
patience and that of his talented wife, Dr. Dixee Bartholomew-Feis, an
accomplished teacher and published historian of the World War II
Vietnamese-OSS collaboration. Bill took over assembling the final
manuscript under demanding time and distance conditions that would

have staggered anyone. In the fall of 2011, Bill lost his father and
grandfather, but pressed on.
In addition to using Bill’s wide knowledge as the foundation for the
review of the third edition, we continued to seek student reaction to the
book. I had a class of graduate students at the University of New Orleans
critique the whole second revision in 2009, and they found several errors
and gaps. The next summer I had a class at the University of Hawaii-
Manoa do a chapter-by-chapter review as part of a class on American
military history. One of this group, Manuel Ortega, proved especially
careful in his analysis.
As I coped with two new chapters that dealt with the complex
interventions in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, I
sought the advice of former students who had seen these distant wars at
close range: Peter Mansoor, Mark Jacobson, Jay Young, and David Gray. I
sought information on Iraqi missiles and their nemesis, the Patriot
antimissile missile, from Bryon Greenwald, a career air-defense officer.
Wick Murray provided me with the publications of the Iraqi Perspectives
Project. Dr. Richard W. Stewart, chief historian of the U.S. Army Center
of Military History, graciously provided the high-quality maps and sound
advice.
Peter, Bill, and I are indebted to all those who contributed to this
book, and we thank them for their role in its publication. Any errors or
omissions are our burden and not theirs.
There are those whose influence deserves special mention. Peter and I
were fortunate to have role models for perfection and perseverance in two
World War II veterans, Technical Sergeant Karl H. Maslowski and
Colonel John D. Millett, who remained interested in our writing until they
died.
We are especially indebted to our wives. Peter’s wife, Linda
Maslowski, has always been a source of patience and wise
counsel. In my case, I had the good sense to marry Martha
E. Farley, whom I met at Ohio State and married in 1980
before publication of the first edition. As a historian and
teacher, Martha brought special insight to writing a book

designed principally for university undergraduates.
Her contribution as researcher, editor, and typist for the
third edition was essential to the book’s completion. She
also has been a full partner in our association with our
colleagues in the International Commission of Military
History, who have used this book abroad with their students
and arranged to have it translated into Spanish, Japanese,
and Chinese.
The challenge of defending the United States of America will not
disappear, and all of us should try to understand the nation’s peculiar
exercise of military power for the common good. As I write this, the
nation is beginning celebrations (for lack of a better word) of the
bicentennial of the War of 1812, the sesquicentennial of the War of the
Rebellion (known in some areas as the War Between the States), the
seventieth anniversary of American participation in World War II, and the
sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Korean War. Will we celebrate the
commitment of ground troops to Vietnam in 2015, the fiftieth anniversary
of that perilous fight? I suspect so. One hopes that American students will
think long and hard about this nation’s wars and that this book will help
them deal with a past that will not go away.
Allan R. Millett

New Orleans, 2012

Introduction
Although we are pleased that the original 1984 edition and 1994 revised
edition of For the Common Defense have stood the test of time so well, the
ongoing important national defense issues of the last eighteen years and
the superb scholarship in military history since 1994 warrant this third
edition. We have been encouraged in our efforts by teachers who have
continued to use the second edition, even though American military
history took on new directions in the Balkans and Muslim world since its
publication.
We have reviewed all of the text for currency and accuracy. Where we
found errors of fact and printing, we have corrected them. We have made
the most changes in areas where our own research interests have taken us
in the last eighteen years. I rewrote the account of the Korean War to
reflect fifteen years of research. The Vietnam War is now divided into two
chapters written by Peter, a subject of his recent research. There are now
two chapters on the end of the Cold War and the new wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, 2001–2011, the decade characterized by the George W. Bush
administration as the “Global War on Terrorism.”
Readers will search in vain in this book for dramatic new
interpretations or radical departures in intellectual approach. We are
aware that others may take issue with our reluctance to add novel twists
and unexpected turns to our narrative. We have not taken the easy road of
alternative or counter-factual history. We have tried to maintain the
distinction between “what if” and “what was,” although “so what”
remains a matter of reasonable debate. We hope we have provided the
right balance of fact and interpretation to make any discussion of
American military history meaningful, whether the debate involves
contemporary defense policy or some aspect of American history, such as
race relations, in which military history provides relevant testimony.
Our bibliographic suggestions
(http://web.bvu.edu/faculty/feis/ftcd/FTCD_Bib.html and the Free Press

author pages at http://www.SimonandSchuster.com) require some
explanation. Except in special cases, we have omitted journal articles, for
several reasons. Many articles become books. Others are superseded by
other books. The availability of journal contents on the internet makes
finding an article by subject relatively easy. By stressing books, we have
chosen works that are current, reliable, tested, and probably available at
public and university libraries. We have leaned toward books that are in
print. We have chosen to make selections on the principles of “If you were
to read one book on . . . ,” although we know two or three books might be
useful. We apologize to those authors who feel ignored or aggrieved, but
modern technology has saved the works of the just and the unjust, so
everyone now has electronic immortality, or at least their books do.
Writing military history is an ancient craft, but since classical times
military historians have focused almost exclusively on battles and the
conduct of war. After World War II, however, American historians began
to treat military history in broad political, economic, social, and
institutional terms. Although retaining some elements of the “old”
military history, this book falls more clearly into the “new” military history
genre of the post–World War II era. Battle connoisseurs will sniff a hint of
gunpowder throughout the book, since it discusses the major campaigns
in all of America’s wars. The details of military operations and the
problems of combat leadership and tactics are limited to those
developments and events that demonstrate the capabilities and limitations
of the armed forces as they implement national policy. The primary
purposes of this book are to analyze the development of military policy
and to examine the characteristics of military policy as influenced by
America’s international relations and domestic development.
Six major themes place United States military history within the broad
context of American history. First, rational military considerations alone
have rarely shaped military policies and programs. The political system
and societal values have imposed constraints on defense affairs. A
preoccupation with private gain, a reluctance to pay taxes, a distaste for
military service, and a fear of large standing forces have at various times
imposed severe limitations on the availability of monetary and manpower
resources.

Second, American defense policy has traditionally been built upon
pluralistic military institutions, most noticeably a mixed force of
professionals and citizen-soldiers. These pluralistic institutions reflect the
diverse attitudes of professional soldiers, citizen-soldiers, and antimilitary
and pacifistic citizens about the role of state-sponsored force in the
nation’s life.
Third, despite the popular belief that the United States has generally
been unprepared for war, policymakers have done remarkably well in
preserving the nation’s security. For most of American history, especially
from the nineteenth century onward, policymakers realized that
geographic distance from dangerous adversaries, the European balance of
power, and growing material and manpower mobilization potential were
powerful assets. When gauging America’s strength against potential
enemies, policymakers realized that the nation could devote its energies
and financial resources to internal development rather than to maintaining
a large and expensive peacetime military establishment. However,
mobilizing simultaneously with a war’s outbreak has extracted high costs
in terms of speed and ease with each new mobilization.
Fourth, the nation’s firm commitment to civilian control of military
policy requires careful attention to civil-military relations. The
commitment to civilian control makes military policy a paramount
function of the federal government, where the executive branch and
Congress share the power to shape policy. The Constitution makes the
president commander in chief (Article II, Section 2) and gives Congress
the responsibility of organizing and funding the armed forces it creates, as
well as passing laws about what forces do and how they are managed
(Article I, Section 8). The Congress has the power to declare war, and it
can influence any military activity through the legislative and
appropriations process, should it choose to do so. The two branches are
supposed to work in concert for “the common defense.”
Although the influence of the federal system on military policy faded
by the end of the twentieth century, national-state-local relations have
defined much of defense policy for the preceding three centuries. While
the Constitution defines what the national government can do, the Bill of
Rights (the first ten amendments) tells the national government what it
cannot do, and one prohibition is that the national government cannot

monopolize military power. The Second Amendment permits other levels
of government, like a state or county, to form military forces to meet local
emergencies. In 1789 these crises might have included an invasion from
Canada or Florida, piracy, Native American raids, slave revolts, urban or
rural uprisings, political protests and election disruption, and ethnic and
family feuds. It was an era in which civilian policing was notoriously
ineffective in the hands of county sheriffs and urban constables.
Depending on the threat and the powers of “calling forth” authority,
citizens were supposed to arm themselves and be available for emergency
service as an obligation of citizenship. There are, of course, other more
novel interpretations of the Second Amendment.
Fifth, the armed forces have become progressively more nationalized
and professionalized. Beginning with the American Revolution, the
services have increasingly been raised and supported by the federal
government and used for purposes defined by the federal government.
Although civilians ultimately control military policy, the
professionalization of officership, a trend that has progressed rapidly since
the early nineteenth century, has had important consequences for the
conduct of military affairs, since career officers in the national service (as
opposed to officers appointed only in wartime) have progressively
monopolized high command positions and advisory positions.
Finally, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, but especially during
the twentieth century, industrialization has shaped the way the nation has
fought. In particular, the United States has used increasingly sophisticated
technology to overcome logistical limitations, primarily in transportation,
and to match enemy numbers with firepower. This dependence upon
industry and technology in executing military policy has placed enormous
burdens on career military officers and the defense industry, and it is very
costly.
Military history requires some attention to definitions. Policy is the sum
of the assumptions, plans, programs, and actions taken by the citizens of
the United States, principally through governmental action, to ensure the
physical security of their lives, property, and way of life from external
military attack and domestic insurrection. Although military force has
been used in both domestic and foreign crises that did not involve
national survival, the definition of policy remains rooted to the prevention

or termination of a military threat faced collectively by the American
people. War is a less elusive concept, since it enjoys centuries of political
and judicial definition. It is the application of state violence in the name of
policy. It involves killing and wounding people and destroying property
until the survivors abandon their military resistance or the belligerents
come to a negotiated agreement. War aims are the purposes for which
wars are fought. Strategy, the general concepts for the use of military
force, is derived from war aims. In wartime, strategy is normally expressed
in terms of missions, geographic areas of operations, the timing of
operations, and the allocation of forces.
Each element of the armed forces has an operational doctrine, which is
an institutional concept for planning and conducting operations. Taking
into account such factors as their mission, the enemy situation, the terrain,
and the combat and logistical capabilities of the available forces, service
leaders develop their organizations’ capabilities. For example, the U.S.
Army Air Forces of World War II expressed a strategic theory when
arguing that Nazi Germany could be bombed into submission. But when
the USAAF chose to conduct the bombing with massed bomber
formations in daylight raids against industrial targets, it defined an
operational doctrine. Tactics is the actual conduct of battle, the
application of fire and maneuver by fighting units in order to destroy the
physical ability and will of the enemy’s armed forces. To continue the
example of the bombing campaign against Germany, the USAAF
bombers grouped themselves in combat “boxes” to create overlapping
arcs of machine-gun fire against German fighters; their fighter escorts—
when they had them—attacked the German fighters before they reached
the bomber formations. In addition, the bombers varied their altitude and
direction to confuse antiaircraft artillery fire. They also dropped tons of
metallic chaff to foil enemy radar. These techniques were tactical, since
their goal was the immediate destruction or demoralization of a specific
enemy force.
Americans have had a peculiar ambivalence toward war. They have
traditionally and sincerely viewed themselves as a peaceful, unmilitaristic
people, and yet they have hardly been unwarlike. Statistics alone testify to
the pervasive presence of war in the nation’s history, for tens of millions of
Americans have served in wartime and more than a million have died in

uniform. Understanding both this paradoxical love-hate attitude toward
war and the relationship among military institutions, war, and society is
essential in comprehending America’s past, its present, and its future.
Of the authors of The Federalist Papers, James Madison could claim the
least familiarity with military affairs, for unlike Alexander Hamilton and
John Jay, he had known neither the sting of battle nor the tension of
international diplomacy during the American Revolution. In contrast to
Hamilton, who had conducted an inquiry on post-Revolution defense
policy, or Jay, who had directed the perilous diplomacy of the new nation
under the Articles of Confederation, Madison had made his postwar
reputation as a cerebral congressional surrogate for his famous Virginia
colleague Thomas Jefferson. During the Constitutional Convention,
however, Madison emerged as one of the architects of the Constitution
with which its framers hoped to reorganize the newly independent states.
Thus when the fight for ratification came to the crucial state of New York,
Madison was a natural choice to be one of the three authors of “Publius”
essays, advocating a stronger central government. Surprisingly, Madison
contributed an essay on Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, applying
his analytical skill to No. 41 of The Federalist Papers. The issue was
empowering the government to conduct the nation’s defense.
To Madison, the Constitution’s provisions for the central control of
military policy seemed self-evident. “Security against foreign danger is one
of the primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential object
of the American Union. The powers requisite for attaining it must be
effectually confided to the federal councils.” It was unthinkable to him
that defense would not be the domain of the national government. “Is the
power of raising armies and equipping fleets necessary?” Madison could
imagine no constitutional limits upon the government because there
would be no limits upon the nation’s potential enemies. “How could the
readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could
prohibit in like manner the preparations and establishments of every
hostile nation?” Perhaps he remembered George Washington’s quip that
the Constitution would not limit the size of other nations’ armies even if it
set a ceiling on America’s standing forces. “The means of security can only
be regulated by the means and danger of attack. They will, in fact, be ever
determined by these rules and no other. It is in vain to oppose

constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-preservation. It is worse than
in vain. . . . If one nation maintains constantly a disciplined army, ready
for service of ambition or revenge, it obliges the most pacific nations who
may be within the reach of its enterprises to take corresponding
precautions.”
Many seasons have passed and years have rolled by since Madison
argued that the Constitution provided the best hope for the common
defense, but his rationale stands intact. Although he could have foreseen
neither the global reach of American interests nor the intricacies of
dividing the responsibility for the common defense between the executive
and legislative branches, Madison would not have been surprised to see
the contentiousness with which the nation makes its decisions to spend
the lives and treasure of its citizens. Thus it has been since the first shots
on Lexington Green and at Concord Bridge. Madison understood that
the cost of defense would always compete with the individual and
collective “pursuit of happiness.” He could only hope that the innate
wisdom of the American citizenry would correctly evaluate the degree of
shared danger, the measure of ever-present risk, and allocate resources
accordingly.
The dominant leaders of Madison’s generation understood that moral
suasion alone could not guard the Republic. The question of national
survival is no less compelling now than it was in the nation’s infant years.
Whether or not the United States will rightly judge the delicate balance
between its internal development and its influence upon world affairs, still
shaped by the exercise of military power, remains a question that history
can only partially answer. Yet the history of American military policy
suggests that the dangers will not disappear. Neither will the political
responsibility to face them, for they will not evaporate with wishful
thinking. When the olive branches wilt, the arrows must be sturdy. Only
another history can answer whether the people of the United States in the
twenty-first century understand that constant vigilance is the price of
liberty.
Allan R. Millett

New Orleans, 2012

Chapter Bibliographies and General Bibliography

for the Third Edition

can be accessed online at

the Free Press author pages:

http://www.SimonandSchuster.com

and

Professor Feis’s webpage at Buena Vista University:

http://web.bvu.edu/faculty/feis/ftcd/FTCD_Bib.html

ONE
A Dangerous New World, 1607–1689
Crossing the Atlantic during the seventeenth century was a perilous
voyage, entailing weeks or months of cramped quarters, inadequate food,
and unsanitary conditions. Yet in the late 1500s Englishmen had begun to
hazard the venture, and in 1607 they planted their first permanent
settlement on the North American continent at Jamestown. By the early
1730s, thirteen separate colonies hugged the seaboard. Although great
diversity prevailed among the colonies, most colonists shared a common
English heritage and clung to it tenaciously. Their religious attitudes,
economic views, political thoughts, and military ideals and institutions
were all grounded in English history. In no aspect of colonial life was this
heritage more important than in regard to military matters. The colonists’
most revered military institution (the militia) and their most cherished
military tradition (fear of a standing army) both came from England.
The English Inheritance
The earliest English settlers arrived in a dangerous New World. The initial
colonies represented little more than amphibious landings on a hostile
coastline followed by the consolidation of small, insecure beachheads.
The settlers did not take possession of an uninhabited land, but settled in
regions controlled by various Native American tribes. Fortunately for the
colonists, they unwittingly landed in areas that had recently experienced
precipitous population losses among the Indians. Europeans made
periodic contact with the natives long before they established permanent
colonies. These transient visitors left a devastating legacy of smallpox,
Page 1

measles, and other European diseases, for which the natives had no built-
in immunities. But the colonists soon learned that the Indians, even in
their weakened state, were a formidable adversary. Nor were Indians the
only military threat. The English settled in lands also claimed by their
European rivals, and the memory of the raids conducted by the Spanish,
French, and English against each other’s outposts in the Caribbean and
along the Florida coast undoubtedly haunted many colonists. The fear of
pillaging buccaneers and pirates who infested coastal waterways
compounded the potential problem posed by European enemies.
Colonists faced these threats alone. Although the English monarch
authorized their expeditions and granted extensive lands for settlement,
the Crown expected the colonists to defend themselves. With few illusions
about their precarious position, colonists came to the New World armed
and, anticipating conflict, gave prompt attention to defense. Professional
soldiers accompanied the expeditions to Jamestown, Plymouth, and
succeeding colonies. Indeed, the first heroes in American history were far
from ordinary settlers. The profit-seeking Virginia Company hired
Captain John Smith, a veteran of Europe’s religious wars, to teach military
skills to the settlers at Jamestown in 1607. Other experienced soldiers,
such as Lord De La Warr, Sir Thomas Gates, and Sir Thomas Dale, soon
followed him. The pious Pilgrims wisely did not rely on God’s favor alone
for protection, but employed Captain Myles Standish, a veteran of the
Dutch wars for independence, to ensure Plymouth’s success. Although
Smith and Standish are the most famous of the soldier-settlers, practically
all the other colonies had similar veterans who provided military
leadership during the founding period. The importance placed on military
preparations could be seen in the attention given to fortifications. Less
than a month after their arrival, the settlers at Jamestown had constructed
a primitive, triangular fort, and by 1622 the Pilgrims had erected a 2,700-
foot-long defensive perimeter guarding their fledgling plantation.
The most important response to the dangerous military realities was
the creation of a militia system in each colony. The British military
heritage, the all-pervasive sense of military insecurity, and the inability of
the economically poor colonies to maintain an expensive professional
army all combined to guarantee that the Elizabethan militia would be
transplanted to the North American wilderness. No colonial institution
Page 2

was more complex than the militia. In many respects it was static and
homogenous, varying little from colony to colony and from generation to
generation. Yet the militia was also evolutionary and heterogeneous, as
diverse as the thirteen colonies and ever changing within individual
colonies.
At the heart of the militia was the principle of universal military
obligation for all able-bodied males. Colonial laws regularly declared that
all able-bodied men between certain ages automatically belonged to the
militia. Yet within the context of this immutable principle, variations
abounded. While the normal age limits were from sixteen to sixty, this was
not universal practice. Connecticut, for example, began with an upper age
limit of sixty but gradually reduced it to forty-five. Sometimes the lower
age limit was eighteen or even twenty-one. Each colony also established
occupational exemptions from militia training. Invariably the exemption
list began small but grew to become a seemingly endless list that reduced
the militia’s theoretical strength.
If a man was in the militia, he participated in periodic musters, or
training days, with the other members of his unit. Attendance at musters
was compulsory; militia laws levied fines for nonattendance. During the
initial years of settlement, when dangers seemed particularly acute,
musters were frequent. However, as the Indian threat receded, the trend
was toward fewer muster days, and by the early 1700s most colonies had
decided that four peacetime musters per year were sufficient. Whether
few or many, muster days helped forge a link between religious duty and
military service, particularly in New England. An integral part of each
training day (and of all military expeditions) was a sermon, which
invariably fostered an aggressive militancy by emphasizing that the Bible
sanctioned martial activity and that warfare was a true Christian’s sacred
duty. “Hence it is no wayes unbecoming a Christian to learn to be a
Souldier,” Chaplain Samuel Nowell preached to Massachusetts militiamen
in 1678, because being a soldier was “a Credit, a praise and a glory.”
When the colonists unsheathed their swords, they did so in God’s name,
serene in the belief that the Lord was on their side against their heathen
and Papist enemies and that whatever happened was God’s will.
Militiamen had to provide and maintain their own weapons. Militia
laws detailed the required weaponry, which underwent a rapid evolution

in the New World. Initially a militiaman was armed much like a European
soldier, laden with armor, equipped with either a pike or matchlock
musket, and carrying a sword. But Indian warfare was not European
warfare, and most of this weaponry proved of limited value. By the mid-
1670s colonial armaments had been revolutionized. Armor, which made it
difficult to traverse rugged terrain and pursue Indians, had disappeared.
Pikes were equally cumbersome and of little use against Indians, who
neither stood their ground when assaulted nor made massed charges. At
times the matchlock was superior to Indian bows and arrows, but its
disadvantages were many. It took two minutes to load, and it misfired
approximately three times in every ten shots. The weapon discharged
when a slow-burning match1 came in contact with the priming powder,
but keeping the match lit on rainy or windy days was difficult, and the
combination of a burning match and gunpowder in close proximity often
resulted in serious accidents. By the midseventeenth century, the
matchlock had given way to the flintlock musket. Depending on flint
scraping against steel for discharge, flintlocks could be loaded in thirty
seconds and misfired less often. Swords remained common weapons, but
colonists increasingly preferred hatchets for close-quarter combat.
Although both weapons were valuable in a melee, hatchets were also
useful for a variety of domestic purposes.
Militia laws emphasized the importance of a well-armed citizenry in
numerous ways. To ensure that each man had the requisite weapons and
accoutrements, colonies instituted a review of arms, imposing the duty of
conducting it on militia officers, muster masters, or other specially
appointed officials. Each colony’s law detailed how destitute citizens
could be armed at public expense, and legislatures provided for public
arsenals to supplement individually owned armaments. Colonies also
required that even men exempted from attending musters should be
completely armed and equipped. Although the basic tactical unit in all the
colonies was the company, or trainband, regional variations and changes
over time were as important as the superficial uniformity. No standardized
company size existed, some companies containing as few as sixty-five men
and others as many as two hundred. Some trainbands elected their
officers, but in others the governors appointed them. Southern colonies,
with widely dispersed populations, often organized companies on a

countywide basis; while in New England, with its towns and villages,
individual communities contained their own trainbands. As populations
increased and the number of trainbands grew, colonies organized
companies into regiments to preserve efficient management. As one last
example of the variety and change within militia units, the initial all-
infantry composition evolved into a mixture of infantry and mounted
units, the latter providing increased maneuverability and speed, which
were valuable assets in Indian warfare.
Militia officers, like colonial politicians, overwhelmingly came from the
upper classes, and men moved with ease from important political
positions into high military offices and vice versa. The practice of plural
officeholding, whereby a man simultaneously held political and military
office, epitomized the integration of political and military leadership. For
example, in Salem, Massachusetts, between 1765 and 1774, twelve of the
twenty-nine active militia officers also held important positions in the
municipal government. Similar instances could be cited for other colonies.
The militia was, above all else, a local institution, and officers rarely
ordered their men to serve far from home. Each colony organized its
militia for its own defense, a principle frequently embodied in legislation
prohibiting the militia’s use outside a colony’s boundaries. Every colony
faced Indian attacks, worried about rival Europeans, and experienced
financial stringencies. How could Virginia help South Carolina without
rendering itself less secure, or New York assist Pennsylvania without
subjecting itself to increased danger? It could not—or at least it believed
that it could not.
Within a colony civil authority controlled military matters, establishing
America’s revered tradition of civilian control over the military. However,
a shift occurred in the governmental branch exercising predominant
influence over the militia. Initially the governors dominated, often
receiving their power directly from the King, who gave them wide latitude
in appointing officers and waging war. But people considered the
governor analogous to the King, the colonial assemblies analogous to
Parliament. In England the King and Parliament, and in the colonies
governors and assemblies, battled for supremacy. The legislative branch
emerged triumphant in both Britain and America. By the mideighteenth
century a governor’s military authority lacked substance without the

cooperation of the legislature, which had gained almost exclusive control
over expenditures, including military appropriations. Using the power of
the purse as a lever, legislatures gradually assumed control of the militia.
By the Revolution, civilian authority over the military meant legislative
control.
As the frontier advanced, the militia decayed. The rot appeared first in
the more densely settled seaboard regions, where the Indian threat had
diminished by the waning years of the seventeenth century and spread
into the interior. Militia service became more of a social or ceremonial
function than a military function. The fewer muster days witnessed little
serious training and instead became occasions for picnics for the privates
and elegant dinners for the officers. Men clamored for more restricted age
limitations and an expanded exemption list and complained about the
burden of maintaining weapons and equipment. Increasingly men sought
militia officership not from a sense of duty but because, as one critic
wrote, they had “an amazing infatuation” with military titles as symbols of
social prominence. Authorities everywhere laxly enforced the militia laws.
As the common militia based on universal and obligatory service
deteriorated, a new phenomenon emerged, partially filling the military
void. In George Washington’s words, some men always had “a natural
fondness for Military parade,” enjoyed soldiering, and willingly devoted
time and money to it. Thus “volunteer militia” companies arose, distinct
from the common militia, with their own uniforms, equipment,
organization, and esprit de corps. Like so much of the American military
heritage, independent volunteer militia units traced their roots to
England, especially to London’s Honorable Artillery Company, chartered
in 1537. The first similar New World organization was the Ancient and
Honorable Artillery Company of Boston, founded in 1638. Exclusive little
societies of fifty to one hundred enthusiastic and relatively affluent men,
the volunteer organizations kept the martial spirit alive in regions more
and more remote from immediate danger.
The Diversity of Colonial Military Forces
Paradoxically, trainbands and regiments were not combat units, rarely
functioning in warfare as colonial assemblies organized them on paper. In

fact, legislatures did not design the common militia as a fighting force
except, perhaps, for extreme local emergencies. Instead it served primarily
as an induction center, a training school, and a reservoir of partially
trained manpower. Upon reaching the requisite age, a man automatically
joined his local trainband; then he underwent periodic training for the
next thirty years or so and acquired at least a rudimentary knowledge of
military practice. In wartime, authorities formed expeditions by tapping
this manpower pool, drawing men out of the trainbands on an individual
basis and organizing them into fighting units.
In theory the militia could provide local defense during an emergency,
such as an Indian or rival European assault on an exposed settlement.
During such crises settlers had little hope of assistance from the colonial
government. The unexpected nature of an attack and the poor
communications precluded an appeal to the government for timely aid.
And the nature of the resulting warfare—usually little more than guerrilla
skirmishes amidst the enveloping wilderness—placed a premium on local
self-reliance. Knowing they might be unable to exert much influence over
events in isolated areas, colonial officials delegated a great deal of power
to local officials, but this decentralization of authority was of questionable
value. Suppose an Indian war party suddenly descended upon a frontier
outpost. Even if word of the attack reached local militia officers, travel
was so slow that a complete trainband could not be mobilized and
dispatched in time to save the settlement. Nor would it have been wise to
send the trainband out: If all the able-bodied men in an area rushed to
one beleaguered location, the entire vicinity would be left unprotected
against further enemy depredations. Even for local defense the militia, as
organized on paper, was of limited effectiveness.
As a practical solution for the problem of local defense, pioneers
adopted a stronghold concept. Garrison houses, blockhouses, and
stockades dotted the frontier. When danger threatened, inhabitants
crowded into these fortified structures. The men at the loopholes were
militiamen, but, few in number, they acted as individuals rather than
members of a militia unit. The stronghold concept had disadvantages.
Maintaining a large number of people created logistical problems, not
only for arms and ammunition but also for food and water. Abandoning
homes and farms for the security of a garrison house or stockade left other

property vulnerable to destruction. The colonists, in effect, allowed
themselves to be surrounded, leaving no avenue for retreat. Fortunately
for them, Indians rarely conducted siege operations, and strongholds
could often survive. Strongholds may have preserved settlers’ lives, but
the smoky plumes from burning homes, the steady stream of refugees, and
the long roll call of abandoned settlements all attested to the militia’s
inability to provide defense when and where colonists most desperately
needed it. The militia failed to perform its theoretical local defense
function, and in a war’s early stages the frontier invariably retracted
toward the more heavily populated seaboard.
The militia was more effective as a local police force or as a standby
posse comitatus. It preserved the domestic peace, protected propertied
and privileged colonists from the disadvantaged elements within society,
and quelled movements against the established political order. Militiamen
frequently performed riot control duty. In the south, colonies merged
their slave patrols with the militia and converted it into an internal police
force to recover fugitive slaves and suppress slave insurrections. New
Englanders in essence converted their militia into a civil police by mating
it with the night watch. As a final example, when the Regulators of
western North Carolina demanded substantial local governmental reforms
and defied colonial authority during the late 1760s and early 1770s, the
governor mobilized a thousand militiamen, who routed the Regulators at
the Battle of Alamance in May 1771. Thus a sharp distinction arose
between the militia as a domestic police and a colony’s expeditionary
military forces.
When authorities launched a military expedition, they did not “call out
the militia” per se. Instead they commissioned officers specifically to
command the expedition and established manpower quotas for militia
districts. Sometimes the commanding officers appointed for an
expeditionary force were regular militia officers, but oftentimes they were
not. Based upon a formula related to population, the quotas demanded a
certain number of men from each affected trainband. Sound reasons
supported the quota system. A community needed most of its able-bodied
men to defend it from an enemy that often seemed to appear magically
where least expected. Settlements also required men at home to plant,
tend, and harvest the crops. What good would be accomplished by

creating a large army only to have the soldiers in the field and their
dependents at home face the grim specter of starvation?
Militia districts filled their quotas by a combination of volunteers,
draftees, substitutes, and hirelings, with volunteering being the preferred
method. To spur volunteering from among the men in the trainbands,
governments usually offered volunteers a bounty. Even lucrative bounties
rarely enticed sufficient volunteers, in which case militia officials drafted
men out of their trainbands. However, a draftee could avoid service by
obtaining a discharge from the governor or a high-ranking militia officer,
by providing a substitute, or by paying a commutation fine. Authorities
used the money collected from fines to hire additional men or to buy arms
and ammunition for destitute soldiers or the community arsenal. A draftee
unable to obtain a discharge or a substitute and too poor to pay the fine
had one last option to avoid soldiering: He could flee. Movement of men
from town to town evading wartime service was a common problem.
The men serving in expeditions increasingly came from society’s lower
classes. Individuals of wealth and status were often exempt and unlikely
to volunteer, and they could easily secure a discharge, find a substitute, or
pay the commutation fine. In fact, colonies sometimes consciously
excluded more prosperous citizens from active duty. For example, in the
mid-1750s Virginia sought to raise 1,270 men for service. Local justices of
the peace, field officers, and militia captains were to hold a court of
inquiry, examining the occupations of men between the ages of eighteen
and fifty on the muster rolls and making a list of all able-bodied men “as
shall be found loitering and neglecting to labor for reasonable wages; all
who run from their habitations, leaving wives or children without suitable
means for subsistence, and all other idle, vagrant, or dissolute persons,
wandering abroad without betaking themselves to some lawful
employment.” The court was also to list “such able-bodied men, not being
freeholders or housekeepers qualified to vote at an election of burgesses,
as they shall think proper. . . .” A second court would meet the quota by
drafting men from among those on the list, which automatically omitted
the colony’s best citizens.
Yet, as always, colonial military affairs were not subject to easy
generalizations, and an acute threat could result in an expeditionary force
that more nearly represented a colony’s social composition. For example,

at a time when Virginia was raising its army almost exclusively from
among the poorest elements of its population, Massachusetts was acting
quite differently. Far more immediately threatened by the French in
Canada than was Virginia, Massachusetts fielded military forces during
the 1750s that were not heavily weighted toward the permanently poor
and vagrants but instead reflected the colony’s overall social composition.
From whatever social class they came, once enlisted for an expedition
the men who filled the ranks believed they had a legal contract with the
provincial government that could not be breached without the mutual
consent of both parties. Their military ethos contained little of the
emphasis on loyalty, subordination, and discipline that characterized
European armies. When a colony failed to fulfill its legal obligations by
not providing sufficient rum and food, by forcing men to serve beyond the
expiration of their term of service, or by demanding additional duties not
covered in the initial contract, colonial soldiers felt that their contract was
void. Once authorities broke the contract, the troops felt no compunction
against staging a mutiny or deserting in mass, even in the midst of a
campaign. To the colonial soldiers these actions were legal and sensible,
but to British regulars serving alongside the provincials during the
colonial wars, such violations of military discipline were intolerable. No
wonder British Major General James Abercromby, who observed colonial
troops during the French and Indian War, complained that they were “the
rif-raf of the continent.” All too often they were! Not only were they
primarily indigents and down-and-outers, but they did not behave as
European professional soldiers thought they should behave.
Expeditions composed of militiamen drawn from the common militia’s
manpower reservoir represented only one type of military activity.
Sometimes authorities sanctioned the formation of ad hoc volunteer
companies bearing no official relationship to the militia. Two famous
examples occurred in New England during King Philip’s War. One
company, commanded by Captain Samuel Moseley, was a conglomeration
of apprentices, servants, seamen, and even a few convicted pirates who
had in fact been captured by Moseley and gained their release from prison
by agreeing to serve. Captain Benjamin Church, one of the most
remarkable Indian fighters in American history, led the other. In July
1676, the governor of Plymouth Colony authorized Church to raise a

volunteer company of about 200 men, consisting of not more than 60
whites augmented by approximately 140 friendly Indians. Volunteers,
who often came from the lowest social strata, were normally outside the
formal militia structure, which excluded Indians, criminals, servants, and
men on the move, such as seamen. Bold and aggressive, these men served
in anticipation of a rich reward of captured Indian booty and prisoners,
who could be sold as slaves.
Some colonies also periodically tried to develop a static defensive line
by building forts along the frontier. Virginia, for example, built four forts
in 1645–1646 and undertook similar projects throughout the colonial era.
Garrisons raised from the militia manned the strategically situated forts.
In contrast to typical militia expeditions, garrison troops served for
extended periods of time (up to a year in some cases) and in that respect
resembled temporary standing armies. Forts often created more problems
than they solved: The wooden structures decayed, they were expensive to
build and maintain, garrison troops inevitably suffered from low morale,
and, perhaps most important, Indians easily infiltrated between the forts.
To ameliorate this last problem, Virginia also created “scout” or “ranger”
units that patrolled the frontier between and beyond the forts on long-
range reconnaissance missions, hoping to expose or disrupt attacks before
they descended in full force upon settled areas. Thus colonial military
forces were extremely diverse. Supplementing the peacetime common
militia, from which authorities organized wartime expeditions through a
quota system, were volunteer militia units, garrison troops and rangers,
and volunteer companies completely outside the militia framework.
During the first seventy years of settlement a series of Indian wars
severely tested colonial military institutions. The natives’ overall initial
reaction to the pale-skinned arrivals was cautious hospitality, but within
two decades the whites’ land greed, plus a general cultural incompatibility,
created open hostility. Before considering the resulting wars, it is
necessary to understand Indian methods of warfare, the problems Indian
tactics posed for the whites, and the ways in which the Europeans
overcame these difficulties.
Before the white man’s arrival tribes living along the east coast engaged
in endemic warfare, but the fighting was seldom costly in lives or property.
To the first explorers and settlers, Indian warfare seemed almost playful or

sporting. Roger Williams observed that Indian warfare was less bloody
than European warfare, and many whites reacted contemptuously to the
mild manner in which Indians fought. For instance, John Underhill
affirmed that “they might fight seven years and not kill seven men. They
came not near to one another, but shot, remote, and not point-blank, as
we often do with our bullets, but at rovers, and then they gaze up in the
sky to see where the arrow falls, and not until it is fallen do they shoot
again. The fight is more for past-time, than to conquer and subdue
enemies.” That is, whites initially encountered Indians who did not wage
total war, rarely striking at noncombatants or engaging in the systematic
destruction of food supplies and property.
These original observations were not universally applicable. As with
conflicts among whites, the scope, intensity, and magnitude of Indian
warfare differed depending on prevailing conditions and ideas and hence
varied across time and geography. While some Indian “wars” consisted of
little more than persistent low-intensity raids to inflict revenge, acquire
plunder, or take captives, others were wars to the death, designed to
destroy an enemy, capture prime land, or at least establish hegemony over
other tribes. These wars had nothing sporting about them. Instead they
featured prolonged campaigns, strict military discipline, pitched battles,
fortified positions, sieges, and the unmerciful slaying of women and
children.
Native Americans were shrewd strategists, clever tacticians, and
resilient warriors. Since they had no written languages, Indian strategic
debates cannot be reconstructed from records housed in some repository
but must be inferred from their actions. As for their tactics, the eastern
woodland Indians generally fought in small war parties that kept on the
move, acted in isolation, and repeatedly conducted sophisticated
ambushes and raids. Warriors would move stealthily, spread out over a
considerable distance to avoid being ambushed themselves, and rapidly
concentrate for a whirling attack—often at night, during storms, or in
dense fog so as to catch their adversaries off guard and confuse them.
Then the Indians would vanish into the wilderness. Rarely would they
stand and fight if hard pressed; their warrior ethic lacked the European
concept of holding a piece of land no matter what the cost in casualties.
These hit-and-run tactics baffled and angered the English, who did not

lack “courage or resolution, but could not discern or find an enemy to
fight with, yet were galled by the enemy.”
Indian hit-and-run tactics were dangerous enough when executed with
bows and arrows but became even more deadly when mated with flintlock
muskets. Ironically, the Indians were more proficient than the colonists at
using flintlocks. Having been taught hunting skills and the use of aimed
fire with bows and arrows since childhood, the Indians readily adapted
flintlocks to their guerrilla warfare. Colonial legislatures passed laws
banning the firearms trade with the natives, at times even imposing the
death penalty for violators, but Indians managed to acquire European
weapons, often through illegal trade. And at least in New England, they
learned how to cast bullets, replace worn flints, restock muskets, and
make a variety of other repairs. Only one technical capability continued to
elude the Indians: They never mastered gunpowder production and
therefore experienced frequent powder shortages.
In contrast to the Indians, few whites had been hunters in the Old
World or knew how to shoot well. Moreover, the colonists were steeped in
formal battlefield tactics, which included firing unaimed mass volleys
rather than aiming at individual targets. These may have worked well on
Europe’s open plains but were virtually useless in the dense North
American forests against an enemy that neither launched nor endured
frontal assaults. Yet most colonists made little effort to adjust to Indian-
style warfare. On muster days militiamen practiced the complicated
motions and maneuvers prescribed by European drill manuals. One
commonly used drill book described fifty-six steps for loading and firing a
musket. In battle many militiamen never lived to crucial Step 43: “Give
fire breast high.” And despite blundering into ambush after ambush,
colonists persisted in marching in close order, so that, as one Indian said,
“It was as easy to hit them as to hit a house.” The settlers’ reluctance to
adjust to New World conditions was partly psychological. They
considered Indian warfare barbaric; if Europeans fought in the same way,
would they not also be barbarians?
The English compensated for the militia system’s weaknesses by
employing Indian allies, by waging ruthless warfare against the
foundations of Indian society, and at least in a few cases by adopting
Native American methods. Colonists learned—often the hard way—that

Indians were the only match for Indians. Whites were so inept at forest
warfare that launching an expedition without Indian allies invited disaster.
The English especially needed natives as scouts to keep from blundering
into an ambush, but native allies were also invaluable as spies, guides, and
sometimes fighters. Fortunately for the whites, Native Americans were not
united but consisted of tribes, subtribes, and quasi-independent bands.
Virtually every tribe considered itself “the People”—not “a People” but
“the People”—and various tribes and subtribes held such deep-seated
suspicions and hatreds toward one another that they constantly struggled
over territorial rights, power, and the loyalty of potential allies. This
intertribal enmity allowed the whites to divide and conquer, for they
invariably found Indians who wanted access to European goods and
welcomed Euro-American assistance in fighting traditional foes. When
Europeans paid their Indian allies, gave them weapons, and fought
alongside them, the recipients considered themselves fortunate. European
largess, firepower, and reinforcements allowed one tribe to strike more
effectively at another tribe with which it was already at war.
Rarely did whites fight Indians; instead, Indians killed Indians, or
whites and some Indians fought other Indians, or some whites and some
Indians battled other whites and Indians. Determining exactly who was
exploiting whom in these conflicts was difficult. Europeans, of course,
realized that intertribal tensions could be exploited. But many tribes
perceived that they could exploit animosities among white people and
cleverly manipulated the British, French, Spanish, and (eventually)
Americans against one another and against their native enemies for their
own purposes.
Even when augmented by friendly Indians, colonists had a difficult
time bringing the quick-moving warriors to decisive battle, and the real
objective of colonial strategy became enemy villages, food supplies,
clothing, and noncombatants. In a trend that continued for nearly three
hundred years, white settlers waged war against Native Americans with
remorseless, extravagant violence. Gratuitous devastation and killing was
not unique to North America; the English perpetrated similar atrocities in
Ireland, and the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) at times seemed to be little
more than a long roll call of atrocities. Nor were the Indians always on the
side of the angels; ferocity, savagery, and barbarous behavior were

common to both sides. Shepherded by Indian scouts, often guided by
Indian informers, and invariably accompanied by Indian warriors,
colonial forces struck at Indian villages, killing old men, women, and
children, scalping and raping, burning homes, and destroying crops and
food caches. Men who believed they were fighting to protect their own
homes and families from savage heathens eagerly torched Indian dwellings
and slaughtered noncombatants. They pursued survivors ruthlessly,
executing or enslaving captives, and many fugitives died of starvation and
exposure.
Along with Indian allies and their terror tactics, the settlers had
another advantage, one that nobody at the time understood: Disease.
Europeans spread Old World diseases such as typhus, cholera,
tuberculosis, measles, and smallpox. Because Native Americans had no
immunity against these unseen killers, a tribe was often reduced by 50 to
90 percent, leaving survivors demoralized, and sometimes even suicidal, as
they watched loved ones die painful, rotting deaths and their
communities, tightly woven together with bonds of kinship and clan,
disintegrate. As just one example, in 1633–1634 a smallpox epidemic
reduced the once-powerful Pequot tribe from 13,000 to 3,000, rendering
them vulnerable to retribution from Indian foes and conquest by the
Puritans.
Waging war against society rather than against warriors was new and
shocking to the Indians. Captain Underhill, who was so condescending
toward the gentleness of Indian warfare, recorded the reaction of native
allies who watched the English destroy an enemy Indian community. The
Indians expressed astonishment at the way the English fought, crying out
that it was wicked “because it is too furious, and slays too many men.”
Nevertheless, when Indian and European military cultures collided, an
acculturation process took place as the adversaries adjusted to each
other’s technology and methods. By the late 1600s the colonists had shed
such cumbersome accoutrements as armor, pikes, and swords. And while
formal militia training had not changed, some expeditionary forces began
to employ Indian guerrilla techniques, including the use of cover and
concealment and aimed fire. Meanwhile the Indians embraced certain
aspects of European technology, including the flintlock, and quickly
accepted the colonists’ “war to the death” mentality. Although Indians

had fought with each other long before whites arrived in the New World,
the newcomers taught them how to wage war more ruthlessly.
Fighting for Survival
At dawn on Good Friday, March 22, 1622, Virginia was at peace. Just a
few months before, Opechancanough, the chief of the Indian
confederation in the Tidewater area, had assured the whites that “he held
the peace so firme, the sky should fall [before] he dissolved it. . . .”
Relations between Indians and settlers seemed amiable. Suddenly the
Indians fell upon the unsuspecting whites and, as one contemporary put
it, “basely and barbarously” murdered them, “not sparing eyther age or
sex, man, woman, or childe.” This surprise attack was an excellent
example of Native American strategic thinking, as Opechancanough
orchestrated simultaneous assaults against farms and villages scattered for
eighty miles across the landscape, certainly no easy task in an era without
modern communications. Within hours the Indians had killed 25 percent
of Virginia’s population. Terrified survivors abandoned outlying
plantations and huddled together in fewer settlements, where they
planned a counterattack despite their meager resources. Fewer than two
hundred men remained for active service, and arms and ammunition were
in short supply.
The colonists enlisted the Potomack Indians’ aid against
Opechancanough’s warriors, appealed to the King for weapons, and
through a mighty effort launched military expeditions. For ten years the
First Tidewater War ravaged eastern Virginia. Throughout the hot, humid
summers and the cool, dreary winters the colonists, guided by Indian
allies and defectors from Opechancanough’s forces, struck at enemy
villages, cornfields, and fishing weirs. Although it inflicted severe
punishment on the Indians, this continual effort imposed tremendous
strains on colonial society. By the early 1630s both sides approached
exhaustion, and in 1632 the governor signed a peace treaty with the major
tribes in the enemy confederation.
The peace was short-lived. In 1644 Opechancanough, now nearly a
hundred years old, directed another surprise attack reminiscent of 1622.
His warriors killed nearly five hundred colonists during the first morning,

more than had fallen on Good Friday in 1622, but the effect was not as
devastating. Instead of striking a feeble outpost as they had two decades
before, the Indians now attacked a rapidly maturing society of some eight
thousand settlers with a much greater ability to defend itself. In the
Second Tidewater War, which lasted only two years, the Indians suffered a
decisive defeat, as colonists pursued their previous strategy of destroying
the foundations of Indian society. Colonists captured Opechancanough;
after he spent a short period in captivity, a soldier shot him. His death
symbolized the demise of any future resistance to white expansion in the
Tidewater area.
The importance of the Tidewater Wars transcended the fact of ultimate
Indian defeat. Equally significant was the resultant attitude toward the
natives. When Englishmen settled in America, they had a dual image of
Indians. Viewing the natives as noble savages, some settlers felt a sense of
mission to convert them to Christianity and bring them the blessings of
“civilization.” But other settlers considered the Indians ignoble savages,
brutal heathens prone to treachery and violence. Although some people
continued to advocate moderate treatment of the Indians, the 1622 attack,
seemingly without provocation, confirmed the ignoble savage image in the
minds of most settlers, ensuring that the predominant attitude toward
Indians would be hatred, mingled with fear and contempt. It also released
white inhibitions in waging war. Facing what they perceived as an
inhuman enemy, Englishmen responded with extreme measures. Many
spoke of exterminating the natives. For example, the Virginia Company
urged “a sharp revenge upon the bloody miscreantes, even to the measure
that they intended against us, the rooting them out from being longer a
people uppon the face of the Earth.” At the least, settlers wanted to
subjugate the Indians completely, since, as the Virginia assembly
repeatedly declared during the war, relations between whites and Indians
were irreconcilable and the natives were perpetual enemies.
After 1622, then, whites responded ruthlessly to any Indian
provocation. The colonists punished the offending tribe (or tribes)
severely and, just as important, terrified other tribes into submission by
setting a frightful example of what happened to natives who aroused
colonial wrath. A perfect illustration of this occurred in New England in
1637. In the early 1630s, before being devastated by new diseases, the

Pequots were the most powerful tribe in New England. They had a well-
deserved reputation for ferocity, gaining the enmity of both their white
and Indian neighbors. When a complex series of events led to war
between the Pequots and the English, practically all other natives in the
area joined with the whites.
The major “battle” of the Pequot War took place at a palisaded Pequot
fort along the Mystic River. Colonial troops commanded by Captain John
Mason of Connecticut and Captain Underhill of Massachusetts Bay,
accompanied by several hundred friendly Indians, attacked at dawn.
Barking dogs alerted the Pequots, many of them women and children,
who briefly put up a stout defense until Mason and Underhill personally
set fire to the wigwams inside the fort. Within half an hour all but a
handful of the Pequots had been put to the sword or had burned to
death, fouling the air with a sickly scent and, as Mason put it, “dunging
the Ground with their flesh.” Accounts differ as to how many Indians
perished, but the number probably approached four or five hundred. The
attackers lost only two dead and twenty wounded.
The slaughter at the Mystic River fort broke the back of Pequot
resistance, and survivors sought asylum with neighboring tribes or fled
northward toward the homeland of the Mohawk Indians. But mere
victory did not satisfy the colonists. Having learned from Virginia’s
misfortune in 1622, they thirsted for annihilation. Aided by Indian allies,
New Englanders systematically hunted down the fugitives. The Mohawks
were especially helpful, capturing the Pequot chief, Sassacus, and forty of
his warriors. The war reduced the once fearsome Pequot tribe to
impotence, and other tribes warily pondered the totality of the colonists’
victory that, ironically, they had helped achieve.
Following the Pequots’ destruction, New England experienced nearly
forty years of uneasy peace before King Philip’s War erupted in 1675. The
war took its name from the chief of the Wampanoag Indians, Metacomet,
upon whom the English had conferred the classical name of Philip as a
symbol of esteem and friendship. They treated Philip with respect because
he was the son of Massasoit, who had signed a peace treaty with the
English in 1621 and faithfully adhered to it until his death four decades
later. But Philip was not Massasoit. Seeing his people increasingly
subjected to English domination, he became restive, and gradually

Wampanoag hospitality turned into hostility. Some evidence indicates that
Philip tried to form an Indian confederation to launch a coordinated
attack against the whites, but whatever his intentions, the war began
before any widespread conspiracy had matured. Philip fought as one of
several important chieftains, not as the leader of an intertribal
confederation.
The war began in a small way in a limited area but eventually engulfed
New England, bringing suffering to nearly all its English and native
inhabitants. In June 1675, a few Wampanoags looted and burned several
abandoned buildings in a frontier community. The destruction was more
an act of vandalism than a military attack, but as so often in the relations
between whites and Indians, seemingly inconsequential events had
momentous consequences. Plymouth colonists mobilized to retaliate, the
Wampanoags prepared to defend themselves, and before long a war was
in progress. Almost immediately the conflict took an adverse turn for the
English when the Nipmuck tribe joined Philip’s warriors. Fearful colonists
wondered how many other tribes would join the Wampanoags and
especially worried about the Narragansetts, the most powerful tribe in the
area and the Wampanoags’ traditional enemies. In 1637 the Narragansetts
had helped eliminate the Pequots, but in the intervening years they
became truculent as whites encroached upon their Rhode Island
homeland. Now English efforts to elicit a firm pledge of friendship from
them gained only an equivocal response.
Rather than abide fickle friends, the colonists delivered a preemptive
strike against the Narragansetts, resulting in the war’s most famous battle,
the Great Swamp Fight of December 19, 1675. Many Narragansett
families had taken up winter residence in a secret fortified village in
Rhode Island’s Great Swamp. During the morning and early afternoon of
the 19th, a day memorable for its bitter cold and the tremendous snowfall
shrouding the land, an intercolonial army trudged the last few miles to the
Indian fort. The governor of Plymouth Colony, Josiah Winslow,
commanded the 1,100-man force, composed of soldiers from Plymouth,
Massachusetts, and Connecticut and a substantial contingent of Indian
allies, including a Narragansett defector who led the army to the
concealed encampment. The Narragansetts resisted with valor, but the
English gained the upper hand by resorting to fire, as they had previously

done along the Mystic River. The immediate Indian losses numbered in
the hundreds, but of equal importance was the destruction of the Indians’
clothing, housing, and winter food supply. Those Narragansetts fleeing
into the swamp carried practically nothing with them and faced the grim
prospect of freezing or starving to death.
The Narragansetts had suffered a stunning defeat, but the colonial
victory was not cause for unmitigated joy. Colonial casualties were about
20 percent of the army. Furthermore, the Narragansetts still had
considerable fighting power, and the preemptive attack pushed the
enraged tribe into the enemy camp. Still, though tainted by the casualty
list and the prospect of additional enemies, the victory bolstered sagging
morale. Until the Great Swamp Fight the colonial effort had been inept.
One explanation for the initial blunders was the failure to use Indian
allies. Despite many contemptible actions by whites toward even friendly
Indians, approximately half the natives of New England refused to join
the Wampanoags. However, when the war began, the settlers viewed
practically all Indians with suspicion, fearing they might be plotting to
repeat Good Friday of 1622 on a grander scale, and were reluctant to
employ them. By the spring of 1676 necessity overrode prejudice and
suspicion, and with Indian assistance the strategy of waging total war
against Indian society became more successful.
Two of New England’s most famous soldiers were William Turner and
Benjamin Church. Leading 150 volunteers, in May 1676 Turner attacked a
huge Indian base camp on the Connecticut River, killing hundreds of
women and children and destroying a large cache of ammunition and two
forges that the Indians used to repair firearms. Just as the colonists
completed their destruction, Indian warriors counterattacked and
inflicted severe losses on Turner’s command, but irreparable damage to
the Indians’ cause had already been done. Church, who used Indian
auxiliaries and imitated Indian methods, was New England’s foremost war
hero. He had participated in the Great Swamp Fight and then retired
from the war until the summer of 1676, when he offered to form a
volunteer company of Indians and whites and fight Indians by fighting
like Indians, emulating their stealthy guerrilla tactics. Church personally
persuaded the small Sakonnet tribe to abandon Philip and then enlisted
the Sakonnet warriors into his own company. His men captured Philip’s

wife and nine-year-old son and, guided by one of Philip’s own men turned
traitor, also killed the Wampanoag sachem on August 12, 1676. Church
ordered Philip’s head and hands cut off and had the body quartered; then
each quarter was hung from a separate tree.
Although the roundup of stragglers went on for several months,
Philip’s death marked the end of concerted Indian resistance. For the
English the war’s cost was grievous: expenses of £100,000 and debts larger
than the colony’s property value, three thousand fresh graves out of a
white population of only 52,000, hundreds of homes burned, thousands
of cattle killed. But white society recovered. The Indians did not. King
Philip’s War was analogous to the Second Tidewater War, as it settled the
question of whether Indians or whites would dominate the region. The
conflict reduced the once-proud Wampanoags, Nipmucks, and
Narragansetts to insignificance. Even tribes allied with the English
suffered acute degradation as the natives rapidly declined in the war’s
aftermath. A visitor to New England in 1687 noted: “There is Nothing to
fear from the Savages, for they are few in Number. The last Wars they had
with the English . . . have reduced them to a small number, and
consequently they are incapable of defending themselves.”
Simultaneously with this New England war, Virginia endured a curious
affair known as Bacon’s Rebellion, which was part Indian war, part civil
insurrection. The chain of events precipitating the rebellion would make
good comic opera, had the results not been so lethal. In 1675 whites
murdered some members of the friendly Susquehannock Indians, forcing
the tribe onto the warpath. When the Susquehannocks retaliated,
Virginians divided on how to respond. Governor William Berkeley
represented one viewpoint. For reasons of humanity and policy, he
believed colonists should differentiate between friendly and hostile
Indians, protecting the former and waging war only against the latter. The
governor knew of the recent upheaval in New England and wanted to
preserve the loyalty of neighboring Indians, whose help would be essential
if war broke out in Virginia too. To protect the frontier, Berkeley
proposed a series of forts manned by militiamen; to reassure Virginians of
the inability of subjugated Indians in their midst to do any harm, he
disarmed the natives. Nathaniel Bacon, Berkeley’s cousin by marriage,
symbolized the other perspective. Bacon believed all Indians were

enemies and launched a crusade to kill them without distinguishing
between hostile and loyal tribes. Bacon’s attitude represented the majority
of frontiersmen who, resenting the expense of maintaining Berkeley’s
forts, wanted to raise volunteer companies and slaughter Indians
indiscriminately. When Berkeley opposed the formation of volunteer
units, Bacon defied him, becoming an unofficial, uncommissioned
“General of Volunteers.” Thus a dispute over Indian policy bred civil
revolt.
Under Bacon’s leadership the volunteer frontiersmen did not kill a
single enemy Indian, contenting themselves with persecuting and
slaughtering innocents. Meantime, Bacon also waged civil war against
Governor Berkeley’s loyal forces. The whole sorry incident ended when
Bacon died of the “Bloody Flux” (dysentery) in October 1676. The
rebellion against constituted authority soon sputtered to a conclusion, and
in the spring authorities reached a peace agreement with the terrified
friendly tribes, whom Bacon’s volunteers had driven from their homes.
In the hundred years prior to the American Revolution, colonists
fought other wars strictly against Indians. For example, in 1711 the
Tuscarora Indians in North Carolina launched a surprise attack that began
the Tuscarora War (1711–1713). And in 1715 the Yamassee Indians staged
an attack in South Carolina, beginning the Yamassee War, which
intermittently sputtered on until 1728, with the Indians, as usual, being
defeated. But purely Indian wars were relatively unimportant following
King Philip’s War. After 1689 English colonists fought a series of wars
against rival European colonies in which both sides made liberal use of
Indian allies. By then the colonists had developed attitudes toward
military institutions and war that set them apart from the European
experience. First, unlike European nations, the colonies did not develop
professional armies, instead relying on a militia system. During the Indian
wars from 1622 to 1676, colonists gained confidence in this system and
romanticized it, believing that citizen-soldiers defending their homes were
far superior to an army of mercenaries. From their perspective they were
at least partially correct. The militia had its deficiencies, but it proved
adequate, since the Indians were the vanquished, not the whites. Second,
the colonists did not enjoy an “Age of Limited Warfare” like that which
prevailed in Europe from the midseventeenth to the mideighteenth

century. To the colonists (and to the Indians), war was a matter of
survival. Consequently, at the very time European nations strove to
restrain war’s destructiveness, the colonists waged it with ruthless ferocity,
purposefully striking at noncombatants and enemy property. The colonial
wars fought between 1689 and 1763 perpetuated the attitudes fostered by
the military experience between 1607 and 1676. Colonists remained
disdainful, even fearful, of professional soldiers and augmented their
quest for the Indians’ subjugation with an equally intense desire for the
complete removal of French influence from North America.

TWO
The Colonial Wars, 1689–1763
By the time Benjamin Church left King Philip’s butchered body hanging
from four trees, North America had become a divided continent, as three
imperial powers struggled for dominance. The English had established a
thin band of civilization along the eastern seaboard and also claimed the
shores of Hudson Bay. An even sparser line of French settlement thrust
along the St. Lawrence River into the Great Lakes region. The Spanish
claimed much of the Gulf coast, with its eastern anchor in Florida, where
they founded St. Augustine in 1565. However, Spanish power was waning,
leaving England and France as the primary competitors for an enormously
rich prize, the interior of North America drained by the Mississippi River
and its tributaries. Geography favored the French, since the St. Lawrence
gave them relatively easy access into the heart of the continent. By
contrast, with the Appalachian Mountains blocking their westward
advance, English colonists seemed doomed to occupy a coastal ribbon.
Only two major gaps breached the northern half of the Appalachians: In
central New York the Mohawk River pierced the mountains; farther north
a corridor, consisting of the Hudson River, Lakes George and Champlain,
and the Richelieu River, linked New France and the British colonies.
Along with the St. Lawrence itself, these gaps were practically the only
avenues over which the enemies could strike at each other.
Although nature had blessed New France, the British had two
compensating advantages, manpower and sea power. Throughout the
colonial wars, British colonists outnumbered French colonists by about
fifteen to one. Several factors somewhat reduced this disproportion in
manpower. Only New York and New England, containing about half the
Page 20

English North American population, consistently fought in the wars,
while France drew on all of Canada for support. The French colony also
contained a higher proportion of males. One government capable of
imposing unity of command ruled Canada, while the English, fighting
under their individual colonial governments, lacked overall coordination.
But would a single unified command be enough to overcome the British
numerical advantage on both land and sea?
Beginning in the late seventeenth century, the British navy increasingly
controlled the Atlantic Ocean. Reinforcing the Royal Navy were
privateers, which were merchant ships that their owners converted into
warships for the express purpose of raiding the enemy’s seaborne
commerce. Because a privateer’s owners and crew shared the proceeds
from any captured ships (called prizes), the prospect of substantial prize
money attracted thousands of colonial businessmen and mariners to the
enterprise, especially from the port cities of Newport, New York, and
Philadelphia. Since New France remained dependent on imports from the
mother country, it could be likened to a sapling striving to reach maturity
in a harsh environment. The sea lanes to France represented the roots, the
St. Lawrence was analogous to the trunk, and the Great Lakes were the
branches. Anything impeding the flow of supplies along the root system
stunted the growth of the trunk and foliage. In wartime the Royal Navy,
supplemented by numerous privateers, periodically severed these roots,
allowing British land forces to attack a foe suffering from malnutrition.
Euro-Indian Alliances and Early Conflicts
The colonial wars cannot be understood without recognizing the complex
relationship among Europeans, Indians, and the fur trade. Colonial
competition for mastery of the continent inevitably affected the native
tribes. Realizing that Indian alliances might ultimately determine which
nation prevailed, perceptive white men sought Indian allies as warriors
and as agents in the economically important fur trade. In the quest for
Indian allies the French had two advantages, the British one. Less race-
conscious than Englishmen, Frenchmen embraced Indian culture in ways
alien to the British, and the natives recognized the difference. Nor were
the French as greedy for Indian land as the British. Many French colonists

were single males (fur traders, priests, and soldiers) and required only a
few acres for their trading posts, missions, forts, and garden plots. But the
rapidly multiplying English came primarily in family units to farm. Their
thirst for land seemed unquenchable, and they frequently resorted to
unscrupulous methods to obtain it.
The British advantage was in the fur trade, which bound whites and
Indians in an interdependent relationship and brought the European
rivals into more direct competition. Colonists profited from the trade,
while the Indians, who exchanged pelts for manufactured goods,
gradually abandoned their self-sufficient existence as they became
dependent on these wares. Since English manufactured goods were better
and cheaper than French goods, Indians preferred to trade with the
British. Under intense pressure to procure pelts, Indians killed off the
nearby supply of fur-bearing animals and had to trap in more remote
areas. White traders followed them, pushing the frontiers of New France
and the English colonies closer together.

The crucial European-Indian alliances in the northeast emerged early
in the colonial era. Two major Indian cultures existed in the region, the
Iroquoian and the Algonquin. Not only were these groups hostile to each
other, but internal conflict among tribes belonging to the same group also
occurred. Various Algonquin tribes—such as the Abnakis, Montagnais,
and Ottawas—living in areas the French explored, welcomed the
newcomers as allies against their traditional enemies, the Five Nations of
the Iroquois confederacy (the Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, and
Mohawk tribes). The Five Nations occupied the territory from the
Hudson River and Lake Champlain westward to the Genesee River.2
Living in the Great Lakes region were the Hurons, Neutrals, and Eries, all
akin to the Iroquois but, like the Algonquin tribes, periodically at war
with the confederacy. South of the Five Nations were the
Susquehannocks, an Iroquoian tribe also in conflict with the confederacy.
When the French allied themselves with the Algonquins and Hurons to
ensure the safety of their settlements and to gain access to rich fur
sources, they automatically gained the enmity of the confederacy.
Although the Five Nations could never count on more than three
thousand warriors, they were aggressive fighters. The confederacy’s
geographic position also allowed it to control the economic and military
balance of power between Canada and the English colonies. Inhabiting
the Mohawk and Hudson River gaps, it sat astride the northern frontier’s
most vital crossroads of communications and trade. The Five Nations
served like a belt of armor that the French had to penetrate before
striking the English. The Iroquois were also in an ideal position to divert
the flow of pelts from the St. Lawrence to the Hudson River.
The Dutch settled the Hudson Valley, building Fort Orange (Albany)
nine miles below the mouth of the Mohawk River. The Iroquois, anxious
to acquire firearms to counter the French-Indian threat to their north, and
the Dutch, eager to profit from the fur trade, established cordial relations.
Seeking new access to furs, the Five Nations waged a series of
expansionist wars during the midseventeenth century. They defeated the
Hurons, Neutrals, and Eries and then turned against the Susquehannocks.
The Iroquois intrusion into the Great Lakes region disrupted New
France’s fur trade, threatening the colony with economic disaster. In 1664
the English conquered New Netherland, renaming it New York. Realizing

that friendship with the Five Nations was important for their economic
and military security, the conquerors preserved the Dutch relationship
with the Iroquois. Thus when the colonial wars began, the battle lines
were well formed. New France, the Algonquins, and remnants of the
Iroquoian tribes that had recently been defeated by the Five Nations
opposed the English colonists and the Iroquois. Although the northern
frontier ultimately would be decisive during the colonial wars, the
clashing interests of Spain, France, and England along the southern
frontier helped mold the final outcome. After the founding of Charleston
in 1670 and the subsequent growth of the Carolinas, a parallel search for
Indian trade and alliances developed in the south, where the
Appalachians tapered off in central Georgia. Settling in territory claimed
by Spain, the Carolinians struggled with the Spanish and their Indian
supporters. Forming alliances with various Indian tribes, the English
drove the Spanish frontier southward to the Florida peninsula. With the
Spanish barrier eliminated, Carolina traders penetrated into the interior,
where they established trading relations with the most important tribes of
the old southwest. In eastern Tennessee and western Carolina they
encountered the Cherokees. Further westward, in the Yazoo River valley
and along the upper reaches of the Tombigbee River, were the
Chickasaws. The Creeks inhabited western Georgia and eastern Alabama,
and the Choctaws lived west of the Tombigbee. Like the northern tribes,
these four powerful tribes frequently warred with each other.
The Anglo-French frontiers collided in Louisiana, as they had already
in the Great Lakes region. Both sides sought the allegiance of the four
primary tribes living between the Appalachians and the Mississippi. The
French had the advantage of easy water routes, while the Carolinians had
to rely on difficult overland trails. The French were also much less abusive
toward the Indians and did not traffic in Indian slaves, a practice the
English avidly pursued. However, the Carolina traders, like their northern
counterparts, sold better-quality goods more cheaply. The Indian alliance
system remained fluid during the early 1700s. The Choctaws were
generally in the French camp, while the Cherokees, Creeks, and
Chickasaws favored the Carolinians. However, diplomatic maneuvering,
trading opportunities, and strategic considerations made alliances

undependable. The only certainty was that Indian assistance in the south,
as in the north, would be vital in the wars for continental domination.
The colonial wars take their formal dates from simultaneous wars in
Europe, but the fighting between English and French colonists, and their
Indian proxies, often preceded the declarations of war and continued
after the signing of Old World peace treaties. Colonists had their own
reasons for fighting, reasons divorced from European diplomacy. Conflicts
over fishing rights, religious differences, and the desire for revenge
reinforced the struggle to dominate the fur trade and the western areas.
The colonial wars merely gave intermittent official sanction to the nearly
constant warfare that plagued North America between 1689 and 1763.
Although neither side was prepared for conflict in 1689, when King
William’s War began, the French reacted more quickly. Count Frontenac,
who became Canada’s governor in October of that year, understood the
importance of the Iroquois–New York alliance and brought from France a
plan for the conquest of New York, which would isolate the Five Nations
militarily, weaken the English colonies by cleaving them in two, and
safeguard the fur trade. However, the plan was too ambitious for Canada
to implement, and Frontenac settled for a loosely coordinated three-
pronged attack against the New England-New York frontier. In the first
half of 1690, combined forces of French and Indians inflicted massacres
on Schenectady, Salmon Falls, and Falmouth.
Even as Frontenac’s grisly offensive unfolded, Massachusetts was
preparing the first British colonial attack of the war, aimed at thinly
populated French Acadia. Leading the venture was Sir William Phips. In
May 1690, his 700-man force captured Port Royal, the principal outpost
in Acadia, subdued the remainder of the area, and returned to Boston in
triumph. Phips’s exploits were strategically insignificant, since the French
soon reoccupied Port Royal, but they bolstered morale throughout New
England.
Meanwhile, the northern colonies girded for a major effort. In late
April an intercolonial conference met in New York City, attended by
representatives from New York, Connecticut, Plymouth, and
Massachusetts. This conference demonstrated that some colonists realized
the problem posed by Canada was beyond the resources of any single
colony and required intercolonial cooperation. The delegates adopted a

sound plan that became a virtual blueprint for almost all subsequent
efforts against New France. The plan envisioned a dual thrust to sever the
vital artery of the St. Lawrence River. Moving overland from Albany, an
army would strike Montreal while a seaborne force ascended the St.
Lawrence and attacked Quebec. If the forces could converge on their
targets simultaneously, Canada’s sparse manpower would be divided
trying to defend both cities. Either Montreal or Quebec would capitulate,
making the other city easy prey once the attackers united their forces.
With the trunk severed, the colony’s roots and branches would wither and
die.
The proposal was good in theory but poorly executed. The colonies
raised fewer militiamen for the Montreal army than had been promised at
New York, and instead of the expected hundreds of Iroquois warriors,

only a few dozen met the militia at Wood Creek near Lake Champlain. A
smallpox epidemic swept the ranks, provisions were scarce, and too few
boats existed to transport the army down Lake Champlain. In late
summer the commander canceled the expedition. Meanwhile the Quebec
force, some 2,000 strong and commanded by Phips, departed late and
made slow progress, not arriving at its objective until early October, when
the nip of winter was already in the air. The city occupied a strong
defensive position atop steep cliffs, and with the threat to Montreal
evaporated, Frontenac had reinforced the garrison so that it now out-
numbered the attackers. Phips put a substantial force ashore, but it made
little headway against the French and suffered from inadequate supplies
and the bitter cold. Discouraged, Phips and his army headed home.
Exhausted in spirit and heavily in debt, the colonies made no effort
similar to the 1690 campaign during the remainder of the war. The
conflict became “a Tedious war” of frontier raids for the next seven years.
Canadian raiding parties, composed of a few coureurs de bois (woodsmen)
and militiamen and numerous Indians and perhaps commanded by a
French regular officer, struck outlying homesteads and settlements. These
war parties of “Half Indianized French and Half Frenchified Indians”
appeared suddenly, destroyed livestock and property, killed or captured
settlers, and then disappeared into the wilderness. The high success rate
of these assaults demonstrated—as had the previous Indian wars—the
militia’s inability to provide frontier protection. Relief columns usually
arrived only in time to bury the mutilated corpses. Unable to prevent
these calamities, the English retaliated with similar expeditions against the
Canadians. Both sides also urged their Indian allies on to the warpath;
acting independently, they added to the mayhem.
By 1697 the combatants in North America and in Europe had battered
each other into exhaustion without either side achieving an appreciable
advantage, and in September the European powers signed the Treaty of
Ryswick. Under its terms the situation on both continents essentially
reverted to the prewar condition. It did not take prophetic genius to
foresee that the conflict would soon be renewed. “For the present the
Indians have Done Murdering,” wrote a Puritan minister, adding “they’ll
Do so no more till next Time.”

In 1701 a new war erupted in Europe and spread to the colonies,
where it became known as Queen Anne’s War. During the brief interval
after the Treaty of Ryswick, New France had been able to view the future
with optimism. Emerging unbeaten from a decade of warfare against a
more numerous enemy, it built an outpost at Detroit and established
settlements in Louisiana. Most important, in 1701 the French achieved a
stunning diplomatic success. The Iroquois, who had suffered grievously in
King William’s War, resented the inability of the English to unite among
themselves and with the Iroquois confederacy in a concerted effort to
destroy New France, and in 1701 they signed a neutrality treaty with
Canada. British colonists feared encirclement by a French empire
stretching from Acadia up the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes and down
the Mississippi to the Gulf.
Fighting occurred in three regions in North America during Queen
Anne’s War. Since France and Spain were now allied, military operations
took place along the southern frontier. In the fall of 1702 South Carolina’s
governor, James Moore, conducted a campaign against St. Augustine. He
easily occupied the city, but when Spanish reinforcements arrived, his
army retreated to Charleston. The next year Moore, although no longer
governor, partially avenged his failure when his army devastated the
Apalachee region between Pensacola and St. Augustine. Encouraged by
Moore’s success, others undertook similar, though smaller, expeditions
into Spanish territory. The English also sent their Indian allies, notably the
Creeks, to attack the Choctaws and other French-aligned natives. The
only significant enemy effort came in 1706 when a Spanish-French force
unsuccessfully attacked Charleston. Indian allies of Spain and France,
bearing the brunt of English offensives and seeing the feebleness of
Spanish and French defenses, increasingly came under British influence.
By 1712 the English had, as one Carolinian asserted, “firm possession . . .
from Charles Town to Mobile Bay, excepting St. Augustine.”
While the southern frontier was a new arena of strife, New York, which
had been in the maelstrom of the previous conflict, did not become
involved in Queen Anne’s War until 1709. When the war began, Canada
and the Five Nations adhered to their neutrality treaty. Concerned for the
safety of its citizens and eager to profit from an uninterrupted fur trade,

New York’s government took no action that endangered the peace along
its border.
The entire war in the north fell upon the third region, New England.
As in King William’s War, New Englanders primarily fought “a barbarous
war with cruel and perfidious savages” rather than with Frenchmen. But
colonists realized that “the root of all our woe” was Canada, which
supplied the Indians with the necessities of war. New Englanders agreed
they could never live in safety as long as New France survived, but,
remembering Phips’s disaster, they believed the mother country must
assist them. England had viewed the war in North America as a sideshow
to the greater struggle in Europe, but in early 1709 the Queen approved a
plan reminiscent of the 1690 campaign. She pledged ships and men to a
dual thrust aimed at conquering Canada, one army moving through the
Champlain trough toward Montreal and another sailing up the St.
Lawrence to Quebec.
New Englanders believed these expeditions would be no repetition of
1690, since they would be well supplied and steeled by professionals.
Furthermore, New York could not refuse to participate in a campaign
sanctioned by the Queen. Forced to go to war, New Yorkers persuaded
the Iroquois to discard their neutrality pact with Canada. The colonies
responded to the opportunity to destroy Canada with unparalleled
cooperation and enthusiasm. By July, after great exertion and expense,
two forces stood poised to assault the archenemy. One army of more than
1,500 men, composed of militiamen from four colonies and several
hundred Iroquois, assembled at Wood Creek under the command of
Colonel Francis Nicholson. The other army, composed of more than 1,200
New England militiamen, gathered at Boston, ready to sail up the St.
Lawrence with the promised British armada when it arrived. But in early
summer England canceled its part of the bargain. Although the
government immediately dispatched a message informing the colonies, it
did not arrive until October. Militiamen had endured months of
deprivation for nothing, and the vast expenditures had been for naught.
Her Majesty partially redeemed herself in 1710 when British warships
and a regiment of marines aided a militia force in capturing Port Royal
and made Acadia a British province. Encouraged that the home
government had not forsaken them, colonists implored London to

resurrect the 1709 plan. In 1711 England again agreed to attempt the
pincer movement against New France. In late June a British fleet
commanded by Sir Hovenden Walker arrived at Boston, accompanied by
seven regular regiments and a marine battalion. Walker was in overall
command of the Quebec pincer, and Brigadier General John Hill
commanded the regulars, who were reinforced by thousands of
militiamen. Colonel Nicholson again commanded the western pincer of
more than 2,000 militiamen and Indians.
When the armada departed for the St. Lawrence, the northern colonies
exuded confidence. But Walker lacked the courage and determination
that allows great commanders to overcome adversity. He knew that fog,
storms, and uncertain currents and tides made the St. Lawrence difficult
to navigate, and he worried that his force might be trapped by ice and
forced to winter in Quebec, where resupply would be impossible. He
became obsessed with these problems. On the night of August 23, as his
fleet inched upriver in dense fog, it strayed against the north shore of the
river, several ships foundered, and almost a thousand men drowned. A
hastily convened council of war agreed to abandon the attempt on
Quebec. Walker believed the armada should attack a lesser target,
perhaps Placentia, but Hill disagreed. A second war council concurred
with Hill, and eventually the fleet returned to England without striking a
single blow against New France. Nicholson’s army, toiling through the
northern forests, was recalled far short of Montreal. Canada rejoiced, the
disillusioned Iroquois hastily renewed their neutrality treaty with the
French, and New England and New York brooded.
The fiascos of 1709 and 1711 had a significance beyond the simple fact
of failure. Both years witnessed extensive efforts at intercolonial
cooperation from Pennsylvania northward. The question of security had a
nationalizing influence, forging mutual military efforts on the stern anvil
of survival. As the colonies gained confidence in each other, the nonarrival
of one British fleet and the precipitous withdrawal of the other sowed a
sense of disgust with England and its professional military men. The
Walker expedition’s appearance in Boston especially strained relations
between professional soldiers and New Englanders. The colonists argued
that despite the imperious behavior of Her Majesty’s officers, they
themselves had done as much as possible to aid Walker, whom they

blamed for the expedition’s failure. Walker and his fellow officers
responded that citizens had provided insufficient provisions and inflated
the price of what they supplied, they sheltered deserters, and pilots
knowledgeable about the treacherous St. Lawrence refused to accompany
the fleet. In their opinion, the colonists had begged the Queen for help,
she had responded generously, and now the recipients of her kindness
were ungrateful. The British found such behavior incomprehensible and
reprehensible. Echoing his comrades, a colonel wrote that until England
placed the colonists under more stringent control “they will grow every
day more stiff and disobedient, more burthensome than advantageous to
Great Britain.” Lexington and Concord were years in the future, but the
events of 1709 and 1711 planted a seed of distrust in the imperial
relationship.
When the European combatants signed the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713,
New France, except for Acadia, remained unconquered. But at the
negotiating table France surrendered much of what its colony had
preserved by force of arms. The mother country, defeated in other areas of
the globe and economically exhausted, ceded to England the shores of
Hudson Bay, Acadia, and Newfoundland. The situation in the south
returned to the status quo antebellum, disappointing the Carolinians, who
had hoped to eliminate French control in Louisiana and Spanish
sovereignty in Florida. England’s territorial gains shifted the North
American balance of power in its favor, but New France, though
wounded, was far from moribund.
Struggling for Control of North America
The Treaty of Utrecht ushered in twenty-five years of uneasy peace
between England and the Bourbon powers (France and Spain). In North
America, however, relations among the colonists continued in turmoil.
One cause was the continuing quest for Indian allegiance. Indian
diplomacy heightened colonial anxieties. The apparently fickle natives,
squeezed by technologically and numerically superior white cultures and
striving to maintain their independence, played the Europeans off against
each other with consummate skill. A second, related, cause was the
colonists’ construction of outposts in strategic locations to improve

security and to exert influence on nearby natives. Located in the
unoccupied zones between expanding colonial frontiers, these forts
created new tensions.
Along the northern frontier, New France tried to bring the Iroquois
into its orbit. To upset French designs, the English established Fort
Oswego on the Great Lakes, but the French countered with a fort at
Crown Point, which was in territory claimed by New York and gave the
French access to the Mohawks. The French also worried about their
eastern flank, now vulnerable with Newfoundland and Acadia in British
hands. Fortunately for Canada, Cape Breton Island had not been ceded to
England, and here the French built Louisbourg, a formidable fortress that
guarded the mouth of the St. Lawrence.
In the south, the Carolinians suffered hard times after Utrecht. Their
desire to eliminate the Bourbon powers had been forestalled, and in
1711–1712 the French scored a diplomatic triumph akin to the Iroquois
treaty of 1701 when they made peace with Carolina’s foremost Indian
allies, the Creeks. Then in 1715 the Yamassee War stunned the English.
The origins of the war, which was a widespread revolt led by the Creeks
and other erstwhile friends, the Yamassees, involved callous actions by
Carolina traders, white land greed, and Spanish and French intrigue. To
the English the war was a classic example of the omnipresent danger they
faced as long as the Bourbons maintained a foothold in the region, and of
the Indians’ untrustworthy behavior. Carolina escaped a potentially
disastrous situation when the Cherokees refused to join the uprising and
instead aided the whites. Although Carolina won the war, its situation was
grim. As one man wrote, “We are just now the poorest Colony in all
America and have . . . very distracting appearances of ruine.”
Recognizing that the recent Indian war had weakened its North
American southern flank and worried that the prospect of French
encirclement was no idle nightmare, especially after the French
strengthened their hold on the lower Mississippi by founding New
Orleans, the British government responded vigorously. The English
established several new forts and in 1732 founded the colony of Georgia,
which was in part intended as a military buffer zone. Under James
Oglethorpe’s assertive leadership, Georgians constructed a series of
fortified outposts stretching southward into territory claimed by Spain

and coveted by France. When Oglethorpe built Fort St. George on the St.
Johns River, the gateway to Florida’s interior and the backdoor to St.
Augustine, passions flared and thick war clouds gathered.
Storms had also been brewing in Europe, and in 1739 the clouds burst
into a British-Spanish conflict known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear. What
began as a drizzle became a deluge when this war merged into the War of
the Austrian Succession, embroiling one European power after another
until 1744, when Britain and France declared war on each other. The war
in America—lasting from 1744 to 1748 and pitting English colonists
against those of France and Spain—was known as King George’s War, but
the entire conflict, first against Spain and then against the combined
Bourbon powers, can be labeled the War of the 1740s. From 1739 to 1744
the North American struggle centered around Spanish possessions; after
1744 the focus shifted to the north.
When Oglethorpe learned of the war with Spain, he tried to fulfill
Moore’s dream of capturing St. Augustine. Descending on Florida with a
force of Georgia and Carolina militiamen, Creek and Cherokee warriors, a
newly raised regular regiment, and a small British squadron, he hoped to
surprise St. Augustine and take it by storm. But the Spanish were alert,
and although Oglethorpe had proclaimed he would succeed or die trying,
he did neither, retreating ignominiously with his bedraggled army.
The next year Americans participated in the assault on Cartagena, the
most important port on the Spanish Main. In 1739 Admiral Edward
Vernon had captured Porto Bello, and the elated British government
reinforced his command so that he could make further conquests. A large
fleet and army left England to rendezvous with Vernon in Jamaica, while
for the first and only time the government asked the colonies to provide
troops for a campaign beyond the mainland. In early 1740 the call went
out for volunteers. To expedite volunteering, colonial governments
offered bounties and promised the troops a fair share of captured booty.
Eleven colonies provided thirty-six companies of a hundred men each,
organized into an “American Regiment” commanded by Virginia
Governor William Gooch. The regiment sailed to Jamaica, meeting
Vernon’s fleet and the British army under Brigadier General Thomas
Wentworth. The expedition then moved against Cartagena and met with a
disastrous repulse. Like Walker’s expedition thirty years earlier, Vernon’s

failure had long-term significance, spreading discord between Englishmen
living on opposite sides of the Atlantic. The soldiers in the American
Regiment fared badly at the hands of the British military establishment.
They ate “putrid beef, rusty pork, and bread swimming with maggots,”
did an inordinate amount of fatigue duty, were forced to serve on British
warships, and for their efforts received little but contempt. Thus
Cartagena further reduced British military prestige in America and
reinforced the emergent antagonism Americans felt toward regulars.
With the colonies weakened by their exertions at St. Augustine and
Cartagena, Spain struck back, attacking Frederica, Georgia, in 1742.
Although outnumbered more than four to one, Oglethorpe displayed
military capabilities conducting a defense that he had not exhibited while
on the offensive at St. Augustine and forced the Spanish to withdraw. The
war along the southern frontier then became little more than a series of
minor clashes.
As major campaigning petered out in the south, it commenced in the
north. In mid-January 1745 the Massachusetts general court met in secret
session to hear an extraordinary proposal from Governor William Shirley:
Massachusetts should mount an expedition to capture Louisbourg! Since
Louisbourg commanded navigation up the St. Lawrence, its capture
would ultimately mean the downfall of all of New France. If the prospect
was tempting, the dangers were great. From outward appearances the city
was impregnable. The channel into the harbor was narrow and guarded
by two supplemental fortifications, the Grand Battery and the Island
Battery, both bristling with cannons. On the land side, stout walls and a
wide trench protected the fortress. However, from exchanged prisoners
who had been held captive in Louisbourg, Shirley had learned that the
powder supply was low, the garrison was undermanned and mutinous, the
fortifications (especially the Grand Battery) were in disrepair, and
excellent landing sites existed along Gabarus Bay just west of the city.
The general court approved the expedition by only a single vote and on
the condition that other colonies participated. No doubt many people
feared this might be another Cartagena, but New England ministers
roused the populace, portraying the venture as a crusade against the
“stronghold of Satan.” William Pepperrell commanded the expedition,
which by any rational calculation should have failed. The badly trained

and poorly disciplined 4,000-man militia army was, as one professional
soldier wrote, led by “People totally Ignorant” of the military skills
“necessary in such an undertaking.” Yet after a siege of about seven
weeks, the fortress capitulated. The French had conducted an inept
defense, failing to contest the initial landing and then abandoning the
Grand Battery without a fight. The volunteers fought surprisingly well,
and a British naval squadron had blockaded the fortress, preventing
outside succor from relieving the city.
Louisbourg’s capture was the most brilliant military achievement by
the American colonies in the pre-Revolutionary era and had far-reaching
implications. Most New Englanders saw “the Finger of God” in their
success and believed more firmly than ever that they were His chosen
people, destined for some great purpose on earth. The capture also gave
colonists confidence in their martial abilities, particularly when they
contrasted their performance with the Cartagena affair. Citizen-soldiers
doing God’s will seemed infinitely superior to British regulars serving an
earthly sovereign.
After Louisbourg the fighting took on a pattern similar to previous
colonial wars. Hoping to capitalize on the victory by attacking Canada in
1746, Governor Shirley proposed the familiar two-pronged plan to the
British government. When the government tentatively approved, the
colonies raised an army and eagerly awaited the promised English force.
However, various delays and European commitments caused Britain to
abandon the campaign. Remembering the mother country’s failure in
1709, colonists pondered anew England’s solicitude for their well-being.
The colonists also tried to derail the Iroquois from their neutrality but
failed. Lacking support from both England and the Iroquois, colonists
launched no more major offensives. Meanwhile, the French perpetrated a
few massacres but mostly dispensed death in small doses.
By 1748 the war was a stalemate. France dominated the European
continent, but Britain controlled the seas and, having conquered
Louisbourg, held the advantage in North America. The Treaty of Aix-la-
Chapelle angered English colonists. The guiding principle was restoration
of the status quo antebellum, which meant that Britain returned
Louisbourg to France. In return, as a concession to England’s interests,
France withdrew from Flanders, but this did little to diminish colonial

anguish. Colonists believed the mother country had callously disregarded
their sacrifices and had sacrificed their security on the altar of England’s
own selfish interests.
The Great War for Empire
In June 1758 an army of more than 12,000 British regulars and colonial
troops commanded by the British commander in chief in North America,
James Abercromby, labored along Lake Champlain toward Fort
Ticonderoga, a French stronghold near the northern tip of Lake George.
He planned to smash Ticonderoga and Crown Point and move into the
St. Lawrence Valley. The French commander, the Marquis de Montcalm,
had fewer than 4,000 troops at Ticonderoga, but they had constructed a
log breastwork and covered the ground in front of it with sharpened
branches pointing outward. On July 8 Abercromby hurled his force
against this position in an ill-conceived frontal attack. Almost 400
Iroquois, who in their own form of warfare always tried to avoid excessive
casualties, had joined the British that morning and watched incredulously
as the white troops advanced into the bristling abatis and French guns.
For four hours the intrepid soldiers repeatedly attacked, recoiled,
reformed, and attacked again, reddening the battlefield with their scarlet
coats and their blood. Finally, mercifully, having lost more than 1,600
regulars and 300 provincials, Abercromby halted the assault. Although he
still possessed numerical superiority, the unnerved British commander
ordered a retreat.
For the English, Abercromby’s disaster was another loss in a series of
defeats in the renewed war between France and Britain. The war began in
1754 over control of the Ohio Valley. During the 1740s the English had
gained de facto sovereignty in the Ohio country, but their hold was
tenuous, and between 1749 and 1753 New France acquired superiority in
the area, thereby strengthening the link between Canada and Louisiana.
In 1754 a French expedition ousted a Virginia volunteer unit from the
most strategic position in the west, the forks of the Ohio, and began
building Fort Duquesne. Meanwhile, a second Virginia force, commanded
by a young George Washington, marched toward the forks with orders to
expel all Frenchmen from the area. But the French outnumbered

Washington’s men and forced the Virginians to surrender. By exerting
superior military power, New France possessed the Ohio Valley.
Although France and England remained officially at peace until 1756,
the last colonial war had begun. The sparks struck in the Ohio wilderness
ignited a conflagration that became the first true world war. Unlike the
previous wars that began in Europe and embroiled the colonies, the Great
War for Empire—also known as the French and Indian War—
commenced in the colonies and engulfed reluctant parent countries. Both
belligerents had been anxious to avoid another struggle while still
recuperating from the previous wars’ debilitating effects.
Even before England was formally at war with France, the British
ministry had ordered a series of preemptive strikes to drive back Canada’s
ever-advancing military frontier. The ministry hoped to present France
with such an overwhelming fait accompli that it would accept the
situation rather than risk an international confrontation. The positions
selected for elimination were Fort Duquesne, Niagara, Crown Point, and
Fort Beausejour. Success on all fronts would oust New France from the
Ohio country, sever communications between Quebec and the Great
Lakes (and hence Louisiana), force the Canadians back to the St.
Lawrence, and safeguard Nova Scotia.
The British government might have relied on colonists and their Indian
allies to carry the military burden of this far-flung campaign, but this
prospect inspired little optimism. The disunited colonies seemed
incapable of concerted action, either for defense or in Indian affairs. In
the summer of 1754, seven colonies sent representatives to Albany to
discuss defense problems and to entice the Six Nations out of their
neutrality. Although the Albany Conference proposed a Plan of Union
calling for united action in defense matters and Indian relations, no
colonial assembly approved the plan; and the Iroquois, far from being
receptive, inclined dangerously toward France. Thus the British ministry
was forced to commit regular troops to the enterprise and centralize
Indian affairs under imperial control.
Early in 1755 Major General Edward Braddock arrived in Virginia
with two understrength regular regiments that were to be recruited to full
strength in the colonies. The commander in chief also had authority to
raise two new regiments in America and to appoint qualified men to

superintend Indian affairs. The British government expected Braddock’s
four regiments, along with Nova Scotia’s permanent garrison, to conduct
the campaign with only minimal assistance from provincial troops.
However, since the colonies had begun raising men for attacks on Crown
Point and Fort Beausejour, Braddock integrated these forces into his
planning. A British regular officer commanded colonial troops in the Fort
Beausejour area, but the commander at Crown Point was New Yorker
William Johnson, whom Braddock also appointed as superintendent for
northern Indians. Leading the Niagara expedition was Governor Shirley,
Braddock’s second in command. The commander in chief personally
headed the Fort Duquesne prong of England’s fourfold advance against
Canada’s outer bastions.
The 1755 campaign resulted in one success, one semi-success, and two
failures. A combined force of regulars and militiamen easily captured Fort
Beausejour. Johnson’s army crawled northward and in early September
defeated a French army at the Battle of Lake George. Colonists naturally
lauded the victory, but Johnson failed to exploit his success and
abandoned the projected Crown Point attack. Ominously, with the
pressure relaxed, the French began building Fort Ticonderoga twelve
miles south of Crown Point. Meanwhile Shirley’s expedition got as far as
Oswego but did not advance farther before the campaigning season
ended.3 Braddock suffered a greater calamity. Hacking his way through a
hundred miles of uninhabited wilderness, Braddock achieved a logistical
masterpiece in getting his army to within a day’s march of Fort Duquesne.
But on July 9 near the Monongahela River, the British advance party
unexpectedly collided with an enemy army that was hurrying from the
fort to lay an ambush farther down the trail. The initial encounter
surprised both sides, but the French force recovered quickly, fanned out
along the flanks of Braddock’s column, and gained possession of a hill
dominating the British position. The English regulars in the vanguard fell
back on the main force advancing to the scene. Chaos and panic ensued as
the British fought an invisible enemy hidden in the dense foliage on either
side of the road. Before being fatally wounded, Braddock valiantly tried to
rally his men, but the remnants of his shattered army fled from the
battlefield.

The failure to take Crown Point, the abortive Niagara venture, and
Braddock’s defeat established the pattern for Britain’s war effort during
the next two years. Ambitious plans produced meager results, while New
France seemed to succeed in every endeavor. The operations proposed by
Shirley for 1756 were almost a replica of 1755, but these grandiose plans
did not produce a single victory. Instead, the colonies endured a crippling
setback when Montcalm demolished Oswego, severing British access to
the Great Lakes. The next year was equally bad for the British. Montcalm
captured Fort William Henry, and, as he had at Oswego the previous year,
the French commander razed the fort and withdrew. Almost
simultaneously Lord Loudoun, the new British North American
commander in chief, canceled his major offensive, an assault on
Louisbourg, when he learned that a French naval squadron had
reinforced the harbor. British General John Forbes gloomily summarized
the situation at the end of 1757, writing that “the French have these
severall years by past, outwitted us with our Indian Neighbors, have
Baffled all our projects of Compelling them to do us justice, nay have
almost every where had the advantage over us, both in political and
military Genius, to our great loss, and I may say reproach.”
Despite the succession of losses, Britain had established the
preconditions for victory in North America. Beginning in midsummer
1758, its prospects brightened. Fundamental to this transformation was
William Pitt’s ascent to power within the British ministry. In June 1757 he
assumed control over the war effort, and by the next summer his strategic
concepts prevailed. Since the late 1730s a debate had raged over which
should dominate, a continental or a maritime and colonial strategy.
Continental advocates argued for a large-scale military commitment in
Europe. Devotees of a maritime and colonial strategy, including Pitt,
asserted that the Royal Navy should sweep enemy commerce from the
seas; then, using its seaborne freedom of movement to hurl superior
forces into the imperial domain, England should make its primary effort
against enemy colonies. In particular, Pitt believed that America was the
main prize. Under his leadership the war’s foremost objective was to
obtain security for the thirteen colonies. Realizing that this meant the
conquest of Canada, Pitt was prepared to commit vast resources to the
task.

Under Pitt’s guidance the British navy asserted its superiority in
numbers and spirit, blockading French ports to prevent the departure of
squadrons, reinforcements, and supplies. Since Canada depended on
constant transfusions from the mother country, the French position in
America became increasingly anemic. Starvation stalked the land, the
economy collapsed, and when Montcalm pleaded for more troops, he
received only token forces. France could not risk losing large numbers of
transports to British ships patrolling the North Atlantic. By 1758 Canada’s
resources were so limited that it adopted a defensive strategy, and the
initiative passed to the Anglo-Americans.
In late December 1757, Pitt wrote to the colonial governors assuring
them that England had “nothing more at Heart, than to repair the Losses
and Disappointments of the last inactive, and unhappy Campaign.” To
ensure future success Pitt dispatched massive reinforcements of regulars,
and to inspire the colonists to greater efforts he promised to repay most of
their expenses. His objectives for 1758 included Ticonderoga and Crown
Point, Louisbourg, Fort Duquesne, and, if conditions permitted, Quebec.
Abercromby failed at Ticonderoga, but other British endeavors met
with success. The Louisbourg expedition, commanded by Jeffery
Amherst, succeeded. In early June he sent his men toward shore against
stout defensive positions at Gabarus Bay. Brigadier General James Wolfe,
leading four companies of regulars, made a lodgment and audaciously
ordered his outnumbered men to attack, surprising the French and
establishing a small beachhead. The defenders scurried into Louisbourg
and the siege began, ending with the stronghold’s capitulation in late July.
Since it was late in the campaign season, Amherst decided against
attacking Quebec. Meanwhile Abercromby, following his defeat by
Montcalm in July, destroyed Fort Frontenac in late August. Several
months later General Forbes approached Fort Duquesne, haunted by the
memory of Braddock’s defeat, hindered by transportation problems, and
handicapped by difficulties with Indian allies. But when he arrived at the
fort, he found it abandoned.
Although the central approach to Canada remained blocked, England
had penetrated its perimeter defenses in the east and west. British targets
for the next year were obvious: Niagara, to remove the last French bastion

in the west; Ticonderoga and Crown Point, to open the way to Montreal;
and Quebec, to rip the heart out of Canada.
British arms won victories on all fronts in 1759. The Niagara
expedition captured the French position in late July, and Amherst
succeeded where Abercromby had failed. With an 11,000-man army he
approached Ticonderoga and Crown Point. Since the French commander
in the area had only 3,000 men, Montcalm ordered him to delay the
British but to retreat northward rather than lose his army in a futile
defense. By early August both strongholds were in British hands. Amherst
entrusted the crucial Quebec operation to Wolfe, who had performed so
nobly at Louisbourg. Learning of the expedition in advance, Montcalm
concentrated most of Canada’s manpower there. With an army 8,500
strong, supported by about one-fourth of the British navy, Wolfe arrived
at Quebec in late June. Once he was there his real problems began. The
city’s natural strength and large garrison confronted him with “such a
Choice of Difficultys, that I own myself at a Loss how to [proceed].” By
early September, after several unsuccessful attempts to breach Montcalm’s
defenses, Wolfe was pessimistic. Deciding on a last desperate gamble, in
the early-morning hours of September 13 he landed an elite force at the
base of steep cliffs barely two miles from the city. In the darkness the
infantry struggled hand over hand up the precipitous slope and
overwhelmed a French outpost. Within hours 4,500 redcoats had
assembled on the Plains of Abraham just west of Quebec, while
Montcalm hastened his regulars to the scene. In a brief midmorning
battle, fought in accordance with accepted European standards, the
British routed the French army. Four days later the citadel surrendered,
although the French army’s escape to Montreal prevented the victory
from being decisive.
The once expansive Canadian domain now consisted only of Montreal,
and the stricken colony’s only chance for survival was the recapture of
Quebec. In the spring of 1760 a French force made a gallant effort to
reclaim the city but failed. The pitiful remnants of Canada’s army then
huddled in Montreal as powerful British forces converged on it from
Quebec, Lake Ontario, and Crown Point. When all three armies arrived
simultaneously in early September, the Canadian governor had to
surrender.

Montreal’s capitulation ended the war in North America, but it
continued on the seas, in Europe, in the West Indies, and in Asia until
February 1763, when the combatants signed the Peace of Paris. British
arms were victorious everywhere. Even Spain’s entry into the war against
England in January 1762 could not save France from a humiliating defeat.
Territory around the globe changed hands, but the treaty’s most
momentous provisions concerned America, where France lost all its
territory except for two small islands off the Newfoundland coast. To
England it ceded Canada, Cape Breton Island, and all its land claims east
of the Mississippi except for New Orleans. France ceded this city and all
its territorial claims west of the Mississippi to Spain, which in turn gave
Florida to Britain. From St. Augustine to Hudson Bay, from the Atlantic
to the Mississippi, England reigned supreme.
British Regulars and Colonial Militias at War
Colonial troops and, to a lesser extent, Indians contributed to Canada’s
defeat, but British regulars bore the brunt of the fighting. The
relationships among redcoats, colonials, and Indians were strained, but
the developing rift between British officers and colonial civilians was even
more ominous. Regular officers believed colonial troops had no merits.
They were, wrote one of Braddock’s subordinates, “totally ignorant of
Military Affairs.” They were ill disciplined and lazy and, lacking even
elementary knowledge of camp sanitation, suffered an appalling rate of
sickness. Colonies never fielded as many men as the legislatures voted,
officers failed to report accurately their unit’s strength, and men deserted
in droves, so the number of colonial troops was always uncertain. The
large enlistment bounties that were needed also made colonial recruits
exorbitantly expensive.
This catalog of shortcomings was true in many respects, and
understanding why is important. The Great War for Empire was a war of
conquest, requiring extended offensives far from the homes of most
militiamen. But the militia was a system for local defense. Large numbers
of militiamen could not be absent long without leaving their colonies
vulnerable to enemy raids and without dislocating the local economy.
Militiamen were part-time citizen-soldiers who had to run businesses, tend

crops, and conduct the fishing and fur trades. Consequently, authorities
hesitated to impose militia drafts and instead relied on volunteers, who
came primarily from the lowest social strata. In the few cases when a
colony resorted to a draft, the sending of substitutes and paying of
commutation fines ensured that few middle- or upper-class citizens
served. But of all the high-ranking British officers serving in North
America, Lord Loudoun alone seemed to realize that colonists marching
with English regulars against some distant fort were different from the
men enrolled on militia musters. “The Militia,” he wrote, “are the real
Inhabitants; Stout able Men, and for a brush, much better than their
Provincial Troops, whom they hire whenever they can get them, and at
any price.” Almost all other British officers confused the expeditionary
forces with the actual militia, thus misjudging the militia’s military
potential in defense of its own terrain.
Holding such a low opinion of colonial soldiers, British officers
relegated them to auxiliary functions. They built roads, served as
wagoners and boatmen, and repaired and constructed forts. With their
aristocratic ties and long years of experience, English officers were
reluctant to treat American officers, who were usually young and newly
commissioned, as equals. While provincial officers had traditionally relied
on exhortation and admonishment to maintain discipline, English officers
inflicted ferocious punishment upon enlisted men, including liberal use of
the lash and, for serious offenses, execution by hanging or firing squad. To
colonial soldiers, whippings and executions were horrific and unnecessary.
And because the redcoats engaged in swearing, excessive drinking, and
whoring, the colonists also condemned them as profane, irreligious, and
immoral—pollutants in a pure land. And initial British defeats mingled
with earlier memories, making a lasting impression. The Walker
expedition, Cartagena, Braddock, Loudoun at Louisbourg—what right
did professionals have to claim superiority? All in all, serving with British
regulars graphically reminded colonists of a standing army’s threat to free
people living in a free society, and persuaded them that their own military
institutions were morally and militarily superior.
British officers also considered Indians questionable allies. Amherst
described them as “a pack of lazy, rum-drinking people, and little good,”
and Forbes accused them of being “more infamous cowards than any

other race of mankind” and having a “natural fickle disposition.” These
impressions flowed in part from cultural ethnocentrism, but also from the
natives’ difficult position in the white rivalry swirling around them.
Between 1748 and 1760 England and France negotiated constantly with
the Indians and tried to buy their allegiance through lavish gift giving.
While the natives listened to, and took presents from, both French and
English ambassadors, they were naturally anxious to be on the winning
side. Inactivity, duplicity, and hesitancy to go on the warpath were
stratagems to buy time until a clear-cut winner emerged. But these traits
exasperated British professionals, who demanded unwavering
commitment.
Initially, with English arms suffering reverses, Indians tended to
support the French, and the British maintained the neutrality of
important tribes, such as the Creeks and Iroquois, only through astute
diplomacy coupled with large expenditures for gifts. The turning point in
Indian relations, as in the war itself, came in 1758 when a reversal of
battlefield fortunes occurred and the naval blockade prevented French
goods from reaching Canada. Addicted to European products through
the fur trade and white gift giving, French-aligned natives suffered. The
tide of allegiance shifted to England.
Although the British found that friendly Indians were useful, in the
final analysis they were not essential. To combat American conditions and
the enemy’s guerrilla methods, the British recruited white frontiersmen
and organized them into ranger companies to perform duties traditionally
done by natives. Regulars also made certain tactical adaptations. They
formed light infantry companies composed of agile, lightly armed men
who received training in irregular warfare tactics. Some units learned to
deliver aimed fire rather than volleys, to maneuver by companies instead
of battalions, and to march single file to lessen the impact of an ambush.
These modifications, however, were not widespread, and the British
army’s success depended on standard European practices. The regulars’
discipline and organized persistence counterbalanced the virtues of
Indian-style warfare.
Relations between British regulars and colonial civilians were a
reenactment of the Walker expedition performed on a continent-wide
stage. Conflicts over recruitment, quarters, transportation, and provisions

fueled mutual resentment. To fill understrength regiments and raise new
ones, the British hoped to tap the colonial manpower reservoir. In 1755
and 1756 they met considerable success, enlisting some 7,500 colonists,
but thereafter the number of recruits dwindled. One reason was that men
had a choice: long-term service in the regulars with low pay and harsh
discipline, or short-term service in a provincial unit with an enlistment
bounty, higher pay, and lax discipline. Another reason was the often
violent opposition to the unscrupulous methods British recruiters used.
For example, they recruited heavily among indentured servants, a practice
that colonists considered “an unconstitutional and arbitrary Invasion of
our Rights and Properties” that cast suspicion on all recruiting. By 1757
mobs regularly harassed recruiters and “rescued” men whom they
assumed had been illegally recruited. The inability to find men outraged
professionals and forced Pitt to rely on full-strength regiments from the
home islands.
Redcoats needed quarters, especially during winter, but America had
few public buildings that could serve as barracks. The only option was to
quarter them in private houses, but citizens argued that soldiers could not
be quartered in a private home without the owner’s consent. Civilians had
the law on their side, but Loudoun insisted that “Whilst the War lasts,
Necessity, will Justify exceeding” normal quartering procedures. He told
the Albany city government “that if they did not give Quarters, I would
take them” by force. Albany officials maintained that Loudoun “assumed
a Power over us Very inconsistent with the Liberties of a free and Loyal
People. . . .” Civilians and soldiers invariably reached an accommodation
over quarters, but only at a high cost in mutual trust.
The British government also counted on colonial assemblies to provide
adequate provisions and timely transportation, but the colonies proved
stingy and dilatory—at least in the opinion of regular officers. Every
British officer complained about the reluctance of assemblies to comply
“with the just and equitable demands of their King and Country,” but
legislators acted at their own deliberate pace. They were so slow in
fulfilling requests that the British frequently impressed or seized what they
needed, which was an unjustified exercise of arbitrary power from the
colonial perspective.

British officers thought they perceived sinister motives in the colonials,
who seemed “bent upon our ruin, and destruction,” working tirelessly “to
disappoint every Plan of the Government.” Professional soldiers simply
misunderstood colonial institutions and political philosophies. England’s
appointment of a commander in chief for North America imposed
centralized military control on a decentralized political system. Each
colony considered itself sovereign and was anxious to maintain its
freedom of action in military affairs. Allowing the Crown’s representative,
who was also a high-ranking officer in a suspect standing army, to direct
the war effort would reduce every colony’s independence. Furthermore,
many colonists accepted radical Whig ideology, which preached a
dichotomy between power and liberty. Every accretion of power reduced
freedom’s sphere. When the British army recruited fraudulently, quartered
men illegally, impressed property, and tried to bully assemblies, colonists
feared that growing military power threatened their liberty. Colonial
legislatures believed they were fighting two wars of equal importance, one
against France and one for liberty.
Several important themes emerged from the colonial wars. First, most
Americans gained a high opinion of their martial abilities and a low
opinion of British professionals. Colonists typically emphasized British
defeats and insufficiently praised the triumphs of Amherst, Forbes, and
Wolfe. Such attitudes were a tribute to the colonists’ selective military
memory and help explain colonial confidence in 1775. Second, the wars
had a nationalizing impact. In 1763 each colony still jealously protected its
sovereignty, yet during the wars against New France important
experiments in cooperation had occurred. The Albany Plan, though
rejected, was an evolutionary step leading to the First Continental
Congress. During the colonial wars English colonists became Americans.
Finally, a growing estrangement between England and the colonies
emerged. Many Englishmen agreed with Loudoun that the colonies
assumed “to themselves, what they call Rights and Privileges, Totally
unknown in the Mother Country.” Many colonists concurred with the
Albany city council, which stated that “Upon the Whole we conceive that
his Majesties Paternal Cares to Release us [from the threat of France]
have in a Great Measure been Made use of to oppress us.” The Peace of

Paris, which should have pleased Englishmen everywhere, left a bitter
heritage.

THREE
The American Revolution, 1763–1783
Britain’s triumph in the Great War for Empire contained the seeds of the
American Revolution. England emerged from the war with an expanded
empire and a staggering national debt, much of it resulting from the
struggle in North America. Britain wanted to administer its new empire
with maximum efficiency, which in part meant enforcing the Navigation
Acts, a series of laws designed to regulate colonial trade for the mother
country’s benefit. Americans had consistently violated laws through
smuggling and bribery. Strict enforcement would help alleviate England’s
financial distress but would crimp the colonial economy.
The North American interior also concerned Britain. It had fought the
war primarily to ensure colonial security; the interior had been wrested
from France for that purpose. But even as the Canadian menace waned, it
became apparent that the colonies were still not secure. During the war
settlers and speculators continued to push westward, threatening to oust
the Indians from their hunting grounds. In the spring of 1763 an Ottawa
chief named Pontiac led a coalition of tribes against whites in the Old
Northwest. Pontiac represented a new type of Indian leader who emerged
from the colonial wars. By the 1740s some sachems had concluded that all
Indians were a single people, united by their “color” or race, with a
mutual interest in halting British-American expansion. These “nativists”
attempted to overcome traditional Indian localism and ethnic rivalries and
advocated unified action against the advancing whites. Although efforts to
forge a pan-Indian movement persisted into the early nineteenth century,
neither Pontiac nor his nativist successors could overcome Indian
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factionalism or the influence of “accommodationist” leaders who believed
that the whites were too strong to be resisted effectively.
Under Pontiac’s direction, Indians attacked frontier posts from
Pennsylvania to Virginia, captured or forced the abandonment of almost a
dozen forts, and besieged Fort Pitt and Detroit. However, neither siege
was successful, and the Indians’ campaign perceptibly slowed. In 1764
General Thomas Gage, Amherst’s successor, launched an offensive that
pacified many of the tribes that had supported Pontiac. As more and more
of his followers submitted to the British, Pontiac’s cause became hopeless,
and in July 1765 he agreed to preliminary peace terms. A year later the
Ottawa chief signed a final agreement, formally ending the war.
Pontiac’s rebellion demonstrated the need for a British policy that
would keep peace on the frontier. England responded by adopting three
interrelated measures. It established the Proclamation Line of October
1763 that temporarily closed the area beyond the Appalachians to white
settlement, thus removing Indian fears of illegal land purchases and
encroachments. Britain also decided to garrison the west with regulars to
enforce the Proclamation Line and regulate the fur trade equitably,
thereby eliminating abuses that fueled Indian resentment. Finally,
England began taxing the colonies to help pay for the army in America.
From the British government’s perspective, these actions represented a
tidy package that would protect the colonists, prevent the outbreak of
costly Indian wars, and help meet the expenses of administering the
empire. And, a few officials noted, if the colonists misbehaved, the army
would be conveniently located to compel obedience to imperial rule.
Every element in England’s postwar policy rankled the colonists.
Efforts to enforce the Navigation Acts threatened the colonial desire for
economic growth. With France’s removal from the continent, land
speculators, fur traders, and frontiersmen anticipated an unhindered
westward surge. It seemed inexplicable that England should prevent them
from exploiting the resources of the west. And why was a standing army
needed now? Colonists had always defended themselves against Indians,
and they could continue to do so. Some people suspected that the army
was intended to coerce the colonies into obeying unpopular Parliamentary
laws. As if to confirm the suspicion, in 1765 England passed two laws—
the Stamp and Quartering Acts—that Americans considered illegal

because they taxed the colonies. Colonists asserted that only their own
legislatures could tax them, that Parliament had no right to levy any direct
taxes on the colonies.
The imperial program sparked colonial resistance. In the west,
Americans refused to conform to the Proclamation Line or obey the trade
regulations. But on the seaboard resistance was more ominous, as
colonists defiantly challenged Parliament’s authority to impose taxes,
especially the Stamp Act. An intercolonial Stamp Act Congress met in
New York and issued protests. People adopted nonimportation
agreements, uniting most Americans in an attempt to put economic
pressure on England to repeal the act. Most important, colonists
responded with violence. Groups calling themselves “Sons of Liberty”
enforced the nonimportation agreements, forced stamp agents to resign,
and mobilized mobs to ransack the homes of unpopular Crown officials.
The Connecticut and New York Sons of Liberty even signed a treaty
pledging mutual aid if British troops tried to enforce the Stamp Act. In
the face of this opposition, Parliament repealed the act but passed a
Declaratory Act proclaiming Parliament’s right “to bind” the colonies “in
all cases whatsoever.”
The series of events that led the colonies from resistance to
Parliamentary sovereignty in 1765 to outright rebellion in 1775 cannot be
recapitulated here. But two points need to be made. First, the crisis
represented a clash between a mature colonial society and a mother
country anxious to assert parental authority. Britain had previously never
exercised much direct control over the colonies. Prospering under this
“salutary neglect,” the colonies enjoyed de facto independence and
developed a remarkable degree of self-reliance. Colonial aspirations thus
collided with England’s desire to enforce subordination and diminish
colonial autonomy.
Second, the Revolution began in 1765, not 1775. The events of 1765–
1775 marked the first phase in a colonial war of national liberation. Only a
handful of colonists advocated outright independence in 1765, but they
vigorously championed their cause and slowly gained adherents over the
next decade. During this initial stage colonial leaders organized
themselves politically while subverting the established government’s
authority through terrorism and propaganda. The Stamp Act Congress,

followed by the two Continental Congresses, reflected the emergence of a
national political organization. At the local level the Sons of Liberty
evolved into a network of committees of correspondence and of safety.
These extralegal bodies coordinated the opposition against Parliament,
prevented the Revolutionary movement from degenerating into anarchy,
and intimidated individuals who supported England. Radical leaders also
organized riots against important symbols of British rule. Mob actions
were not spontaneous but instead represented purposeful violence by
what were, in essence, urban volunteer militia units. Supplementing the
violence was a propaganda campaign portraying every English action in
the darkest hues.
The violence and nonviolent protests had the cumulative effect of
undermining confidence in the British government. Frightened Loyalists
found the government unable to protect them, while other colonists were
persuaded that the ministry and Parliament were despotic. Either way,
Americans lost faith in England. Mistrust bred contempt, creating a
political vacuum that was filled by radical political agencies. John Adams
correctly observed that “the Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the
people, and in the union of the colonies; both of which were substantially
effected before hostilities commenced.” By 1775 many colonists were
convinced, as one town meeting stated, that the British government had
“a design to take away our liberties and properties and enslave us
forever.” Rather than submit to what they perceived to be an iniquitous
government, the colonies united through the Continental Congress to
defend themselves against England’s alleged schemes.
As resistance broadened, England’s attitude toward the colonies
hardened. In late 1774 King George III stated that the New England
colonies, which were at the center of colonial turmoil, were in rebellion
and that “blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this
country or independent.” Both sides were determined to fight rather than
retreat over the issue of Parliament’s authority. The stage was set for
Lexington and Concord, which did not begin the Revolution, but only
escalated the war to a higher level of violence.
The Strategic Balance

By the spring of 1775 colonial leaders and the British commander in chief,
General Gage, were expecting a fight. In September 1774, Congress
recommended that the colonies begin military preparations, and many of
them stockpiled supplies and undertook militia training with a long-
absent seriousness. Activity was particularly feverish in New England,
where the British army was concentrated. After the Stamp Act crisis, the
turbulence in the seaboard cities had replaced the frontier as the primary
concern of the ministry, which had ordered Gage to redeploy most of the
army eastward. Gage had a large garrison in Boston, where he fortified the
city’s approaches, trained his troops rigorously, and gathered intelligence
from spies, including Dr. Benjamin Church, a trusted member of the
Revolutionary inner circle. Church informed Gage of the buildup of
military supplies in Concord. When Gage received secret instructions to
restore royal rule in Massachusetts through force, Concord was the logical
target.
On April 18, 1775, Gage dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith
to destroy the Concord supplies. In the early-morning hours of the 19th,
as Smith’s men tramped down the road, rebels alerted the countryside.
Irritated by the slow advance and worried by the prospect of resistance,
Smith sent Major John Pitcairn ahead with six light companies and asked
Gage for reinforcements. Pitcairn arrived at Lexington as the rising sun
revealed about seventy militiamen in martial array. No one knows who
fired first, but in a brief confrontation eight Americans died and another
ten were wounded. The British pushed on to Concord, where a skirmish
with several hundred militiamen occurred, resulting in casualties on both
sides.
The fighting at Lexington and Concord did not last five minutes, but as
the British withdrew from Concord a real battle began. Responding in a
massive popular uprising, thousands of irate militiamen hemmed in the
redcoats and fired at them from concealed positions. By the time Smith
reached Lexington, his men were panicked, and only the arrival of
reinforcements saved them. The reinforced column fought its way back to
Boston, but about 20 percent of the 1,500 regulars engaged were
casualties. Worse yet, 20,000 New England militiamen soon besieged
Gage. For the first time, the British had experienced the damage that an

armed and angry populace employing irregular tactics could inflict on a
conventional military organization.
It looked as if the colonies were embarked upon an unequal war. A
population of two and a half million (20 percent of whom were slaves),
without an army, navy, or adequate financial resources, confronted a
nation of eight million with a professional army, large navy, and vast
wealth. Yet many colonists were confident and determined. They believed
in the “natural courage” of Americans and in God’s divine protection.
Congress admitted that colonial soldiers lacked experience and discipline
but insisted that “facts have shown, that native Courage warmed with
Patriotism is sufficient to counterbalance these Advantages.” And a
British captain wrote that Americans “are just now worked up to such a
degree of enthusiasm and madness that they are easily persuaded the Lord
is to assist them in whatever they undertake, and that they must be
invincible.” Colonists were determined because they struggled for high
stakes, summed up by George Washington: “Remember, officers and
soldiers, that you are freemen, fighting for the blessings of liberty; that
slavery will be your portion and that of your posterity if you do not acquit
yourselves like men.” The Revolution was no European dynastic
squabble, but a war involving an ideological question that affected the
population far more than did the kingly quarrels of the age of limited
warfare. Large numbers of colonists ardently believed freedom was the
issue, not only for themselves but for generations yet unborn.
While Americans claimed natural courage, God, freedom, and
posterity as invisible allies, Britain encountered difficulties that negated its
advantages in men, ships, and money. England had underestimated the
militia’s military potential and rebel numerical strength. Officials,
remembering the pathetic provincial soldiers of the last war and ignorant
of the distinction between the wartime units and the actual militia,
believed sustained resistance was impossible. Compounding this
misunderstanding was England’s belief that the rebels were a small
minority. British hopes for Loyalist support were high, but Loyalist
strength was an illusion: Tories represented less than 20 percent of all
white Americans.
Britain also misunderstood the difficulties of conquering a localized,
thinly populated society. Colonial decentralization meant the colonies had

no strategic heart. To win the war, England had to occupy vast expanses
of territory, a task beyond its military resources because of logistical
problems and manpower shortages. The British never solved the
difficulties involved in waging war across three thousand miles of ocean in
a relatively primitive country. Part of the problem was England’s
cumbersome administrative machinery, staffed with incompetent
patronage appointees, and the lack of coordination among departments.
Uncertain communications across the Atlantic and over crude North
American roads hindered every military operation. During the Great War
for Empire, America had for the most part fed the British army, but now
rations had to come primarily from the mother country. They often
arrived moldy, sour, rancid, or maggoty; even worse, many ships fell victim
to storms or hostile craft. No matter how many supplies came from
England, the army still foraged in America for hay, firewood, and some
fresh food. But foraging often became indiscriminate plundering, which
alienated colonials and drove many of them into the rebel camp. The
rebels also tried to deny the enemy access to supplies by conducting
guerrilla operations against foraging parties.
The British populace at home was not united behind the war because
some people doubted its wisdom and justness. One result of the antiwar
sentiment was difficulty in recruiting troops, a difficulty aggravated by
George III’s reluctance to incur the huge expenses necessary to expand
the army. To fill the ranks, England hired German soldiers, collectively
known as Hessians, and sent almost 30,000 of them to America. But
Hessians alone were insufficient, and England also enlisted slaves,
mobilized Indians, and depended on Loyalist soldiers. England still
suffered manpower shortages, and these expedients were also partially
counterproductive. Hiring mercenaries, using slaves, inciting “savages,”
and fomenting a civil war within a civil war heightened colonial
disaffection.
Perhaps England’s fundamental error was its inability to implement an
unambiguous strategy early in the war. Although most authorities believed
the rebellion could be crushed by brute force, some questioned the
expediency of ramming Parliamentary supremacy down the colonists’
throats. Unable to form a consensus on this question, England wavered
between coercion and conciliation, vacillating between a punitive war to

impose peace and an attempt to negotiate a settlement through
appeasement. Unclear about its objectives, Britain inspired neither fear
nor affection in the colonies.
Finally, England had no William Pitt to rally the population and direct
the war effort. The two men most responsible for conducting the war
were Prime Minister Sir Frederick North and Lord George Germain, the
secretary of state for the American colonies. Neither possessed a
charismatic personality or an abundance of wisdom. As for the generals,
no one would mistake any of them for another Frederick the Great or, for
that matter, George Washington. A series of cautious and weak
commanders plagued British strategy. The odds against the colonists were
not as great as they appeared. Britain’s difficulties in projecting military
power into the colonies offset America’s obvious deficiencies. The war
began as a balance of military weakness, ensuring a long conflict despite
optimistic expectations by both sides that the war would be short.
The “Dual Army”
The Revolution created a “dual army” tradition that combined a citizen-
soldier reserve (the militia), which supplied large numbers of partially
trained soldiers, with a small professional force that provided military
expertise and staying power. As much as Americans mistrusted a standing
army, Congress realized one was necessary and created the Continental
Army. By establishing this national regular army, Congress implicitly
accepted the ideology of English moderate Whigs, who had argued that a
regular force under firm legislative control was not only consistent with
constitutional freedoms but also essential to preserve those liberties.
Throughout the war the Continental Army complemented rather than
supplanted the state militias, and at practically every critical juncture these
disparate forces acted in concert.
Even before Lexington and Concord, the colonial assemblies had
revitalized the militia system by increasing the number of training days,
stiffening punishment for missing musters, tightening exemption lists,
stockpiling powder and shot, and, in some colonies, creating a distinction
between militiamen and minutemen. The latter were generally younger
men who received special training and took the field on short notice.

Rebels also purified the militia by purging Tory officers, ensuring that only
“the inflexible friends to the rights of the people” held commissions. The
militia’s renaissance had a profound impact. With every colony’s military
establishment under rebel control, British armies encountered an
unfriendly reception wherever they went. Loyalists were immediately on
the defensive and never gained the initiative, as rebel militias beat down
counterrevolutionary uprisings. For example, Lord Dunmore, Virginia’s
royal governor, tried to mobilize Loyalists and appealed to runaway slaves,
but in December 1775 the Virginia militia, reinforced by 200
Continentals, defeated Dunmore at the Battle of Great Bridge. Two
months later a similar fate befell Josiah Martin, the royal governor of
North Carolina, when the North Carolina militia defeated his Loyalist
forces at the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge. In both states the militia had
extinguished Loyalist power and expelled royal authority. Greeting enemy
forces with small-scale warfare and maintaining internal security were only
two of the militia’s functions. Militiamen patrolled against slave
insurrections, fought Indians, repelled seaborne raiding parties,
garrisoned forts, guarded prisoners of war, collected intelligence, rallied
the war-weary, transported supplies, and battled British foragers.
One thing the militia usually could not do was stand alone against large
numbers of enemy regulars. But in most battles militiamen did fight
alongside Continental troops. The militia had a mixed battlefield record.
Sometimes it behaved shamefully, sometimes valiantly. The militia’s
performance often depended on the commanding officer; one who
understood its limitations against disciplined regulars could utilize
militiamen with surprising effectiveness. A British general, while barely
suppressing his distaste for such undisciplined irregulars, perhaps best
assessed the militia’s battlefield contribution. “I will not say much in
praise of the militia of the Southern Colonies,” Lord Cornwallis wrote,
“but the list of British officers and soldiers killed and wounded by them . .
. proves but too fatally they are not wholly contemptible.”
Although many men shirked militia duty by paying commutation fees,
hiring substitutes, or running away, a large percentage of adult males did
some service because few localities escaped mobilizing their militias. Units
formed quickly, executed their short-term tasks, and vanished. British
commanders never understood how these militia forces proliferated.

Steeped in the traditions of limited warfare, they did not perceive that the
Revolutionary War was one in which military service was being
democratized and nationalized. Military authority no longer resided in a
sovereign, but in the people and their chosen representatives. War aims
were not tangible and limited but abstract and not easily compromised—
the colonies could not be half independent—and the politically alert
population cared about the outcome.
Since the militia generally adhered to its parochial traditions, Congress
realized it needed a national army that could be kept in the field and sent
to fight beyond the boundaries of any particular colony. It was for this
purpose that it organized the Continental Army, which initially consisted
of the New England militiamen penning Gage’s force inside Boston. In
mid-June 1775, Congress adopted the besieging throng and then voted to
raise ten companies of riflemen from Virginia, Maryland, and
Pennsylvania to give the army a more “continental” flavor. Having formed
an army, Congress selected George Washington to command it.
Washington had been with Braddock and with Forbes’s expedition to
Fort Duquesne, and in between service with the regulars he had
commanded the Virginia militia. As the crisis with England worsened,
Washington played an active role in Virginia’s evolution from resistance to
revolution, and he attended both the First and Second Continental
Congresses. He was the only delegate attending the deliberations in
Philadelphia attired in a military uniform, perhaps symbolizing his
readiness to fight for American rights. Washington was a reasonably
experienced soldier, a firm advocate of American liberties, impressive in
looks, and articulate without being flamboyant. Equally important, he was
a Virginian whose appointment, like the rifle companies, gave the army a
continental appearance.
“I declare with the utmost sincerity,” Washington wrote the president
of Congress, “I do not think myself equal to the Command I am honoured
with.” He probably meant it, since his frontier service had given him no
opportunity to become acquainted with cavalry tactics, massed artillery, or
the deployment of large forces. Yet Washington eventually embodied the
Revolution, with the cause and the commander so intertwined in rebel
eyes that they became synonymous.

During the war with France, Washington had developed an aversion to
militiamen and an appreciation for British professionals. He had
experienced nothing but problems with the Virginia militia. They never
turned out in sufficient numbers, and those who did he considered
insolent and prone to panic and desertion. His opinion did not change
during the Revolution, and most Continental officers shared his
conviction that “to place any dependence upon Militia, is, assuredly,
resting upon a broken staff.” Paradoxically, Washington repeatedly
depended on the militia to buttress the Continental Army during
innumerable crises. If the militia dismayed Washington, British regulars
impressed him, and he strove to mold the Continental Army into a mirror
image of Britain’s army. He insisted it should be “a respectable Army,” not
only well organized and disciplined but also officered by “Gentlemen, and
Men of Character.” He believed the prospect of such an army
endangering civilian supremacy was remote; the slight risk was necessary
because the consequence of fighting without a regular army was “certain,
and inevitable Ruin.”
Although Washington intended to fight the British as they had fought
the French, employing a regular army commanded by long-serving
officers and using citizen-soldiers only as auxiliaries, he never quite
succeeded. The reasons were a dearth of competent officers and too few
Continentals. America had no reservoir of men experienced in
conventional warfare, and it took long years and hard trials to develop
effective battlefield leadership. The consistent shortage of Continental
soldiers forced militiamen to fill gaps in the fighting line. Ironically, the
militia’s existence was one reason regulars were so few: Given the choice
between a militia unit or a Continental regiment, most men chose the
former. Militia duty carried no stigma, being patriotic, necessary, and
often dangerous. But brief militia service entailed little of the long-term
misery Continentals experienced. The high wages paid laborers and the
possibility of profit from privateering also retarded recruiting. Despite
land and monetary bounties, despite the resort to state militia drafts to fill
manpower quotas set by Congress, and despite varied enlistment terms—
from one year to the duration of the war—the army never approached its
authorized strength. For example, in the fall of 1775 Congress voted for
an army of 28 regiments (20,000 men), and a year later it increased this to

88 regiments (75,000 men), but the army’s actual size was invariably less
than half, and frequently less than a third, of its paper strength.
In terms of social composition the rank and file approximated that of
the British army. The ranks contained some farmers, tradesmen, and
mechanics, but they included many more recent immigrants, enemy
deserters and prisoners of war, Loyalists and criminals (both of whom
sometimes had the option of joining or hanging), vagrants, indentured
servants, apprentices, free black men, and slaves. The soldiers thus
overwhelmingly came from the bottom strata of society. Although the
social origins of many Continentals resembled those of British regulars,
the similarity fades when one asks why men served. Obviously, some
Continentals, like their British counterparts, had little choice. But most
American recruits served willingly. The methods of avoiding service were
so numerous that few people became regulars against their will. Poor and
propertyless men may have found substitute payments, bounties, and
army pay attractive, but less dangerous ways to make money and acquire
land abounded in American society. Financial benefits simply reinforced
the primary motivation to serve, which was probably ideological. Appeals
to freedom and liberty—and the vision of a better future these
abstractions conveyed—could strike an especially intense chord in men of
humble means and origins. One soldiers’ song emphasized this ideological
motivation:
No Foreign Slaves shall give us Laws, No Brittish Tyrant
Reign
Tis Independence made us Free and Freedom We’ll Maintain.
Proof of the Continentals’ willing service was the way so many of them
endured continuous hardships with a fortitude that made foreign
observers marvel. Baron von Closen of the French army exclaimed: “I
admire the American troops tremendously! It is incredible that soldiers
composed of men of every age, even children of fifteen, of whites and
blacks, almost naked, unpaid, and rather poorly fed, can march so well
and withstand fire so steadfastly.” And a Hessian captain asked in
wonderment:

With what soldiers in the world could one do what was done by these
men, who go about nearly naked and in the greatest privation? Deny
the best-disciplined soldiers of Europe what is due them and they will
run away in droves, and the general will soon be alone. But from this
one can perceive what an enthusiasm—which these poor fellows call
“Liberty”—can do!
Money could not buy, and discipline could not instill, the Continentals’
type of loyalty; an ideological motivation that promised a better life for
themselves and their posterity held them in the ranks. Of course, not
every Continental could tolerate prolonged deprivation, and many
deserted. But the desertion rate declined as the war progressed, and the
army became the heart of resistance.
Shouldering arms freely and believing freedom was the issue,
Continentals never became regulars in the European sense. They became
good soldiers, but they remained citizens who refused to surrender their
individuality. They asserted their personal independence by wearing
jaunty hats and long hair despite (or perhaps to spite) their officers’
insistence upon conformity in dress and appearance. Furthermore, they
were only temporary regulars. Unlike European professionals, they
understood the war’s goals and would fight until they were achieved, but
then they intended to return to civilian life.
Congress was mindful of the irony in creating a standing army.
Americans had consistently inveighed against regulars, their threat to
liberty, and the taxes necessary to maintain them. Now Congress, having
established its own regular army, shouldered two onerous burdens. First,
as Samuel Adams said, since a “Standing Army, however necessary it may
be at some times, is always dangerous to the Liberties of the People,” it
had to “be watched with a jealous Eye.” Congress was careful to keep the
army subservient to civil authority. It enjoined Washington to “observe
and follow” all orders from Congress and to report regularly to the
legislature, and appointed all subordinate generals, who would look to
Congress, not Washington, for preferment. It also determined the war’s
objectives, controlled the army’s size and composition, provided money
and resources for its maintenance, established disciplinary regulations,

and conducted foreign affairs. At times Congress even directly guided
strategy.
Considering the hypersensitive fear of military ascendancy, Congress’s
selection of Washington was fortuitous. He repeatedly stated his belief in
civil supremacy, remaining deferential to Congress even when its
inefficiency threatened the army’s survival. Having served in the Virginia
assembly and in Congress, he understood the often maddeningly slow
political process in representative governments and the nation’s
inadequate administrative machinery for conducting a large-scale war. By
reporting to Congress on all matters great or trivial, by religiously
adhering to congressional dictates, and through his immense patience in
the face of nearly unbearable frustrations, Washington alleviated concern
that he would capitalize on his growing military reputation to become a
dictator. Although revolutions have frequently given birth to permanent
presidents, kings, and emperors, Washington had no desire to become an
American Cromwell. Like the men he commanded, he never forgot that
he was a citizen first and only second a soldier.
The second congressional burden was furnishing logistical support for
the army. The fundamental difficulties were insufficient financial
resources, inadequate administrative organization, and primitive
transportation facilities. War is never cheap: As General Jedediah
Huntington observed, “Money is the Sinews of war.” But the colonists,
having rebelled against English taxation, refused to give Congress the
power to tax. To finance the war, Congress resorted to the printing press,
emitting $200 million worth of paper money by the fall of 1779, when it
ceased printing money. Since Congress had no source of revenue from
taxation, the value of Continental bills depreciated rapidly, reducing their
purchasing power. With the states also issuing paper money and many
counterfeit bills in circulation, the nation wallowed in worthless paper. As
the currency depreciated, inflation soared, further fueled by war-induced
dislocations in agriculture and commerce and by shortages of
manufactured goods. Only foreign loans, primarily from France, allowed
Congress to muddle through.
To administer the army, Congress initially relied on ad hoc committees
to deal with problems as they arose. Not until June 1776 did it form a five-
member Board of War and Ordnance to give continuity to army

administration. But board members devoted only a fraction of their time
to army matters, since congressmen serving on the board usually sat on
several other committees and also attended to their regular congressional
duties. Congressional membership also changed rapidly, and few delegates
remained long enough to comprehend the army’s needs. Thus in October
1777 Congress reconstituted the board to include military officers.
Congress also created rudimentary staff departments such as a
commissary general of stores and provisions and a quartermaster general.
Neither the board nor the supply departments were efficient. They never
attained institutional stability because of frequent reorganizations and
changes in both civilian and military personnel as Congress strove to find
a combination that would produce results. Finding good men was not
easy. The United States had few men experienced in large-scale logistical
management. Like battlefield officers, staff officers had to be nurtured,
and they made mistakes as they matured. Many appointees proved to be
incompetent or corrupt; others were simply overwhelmed by the
magnitude of their responsibilities contrasted with the meager resources
at their disposal. Persuading talented officers to forsake field command
for a desk job was especially difficult. Soldiers knew that their way to
glory and historical immortality lay with the sword, not the pen. Another
problem was the feeble coordination among the staff departments, which
often competed with each other—and with state logistical agencies and
civilians—for scarce goods, driving prices up. Worst of all, the perpetual
financial crisis made supplying the army virtually impossible. Supply
officers had too many items to buy and too little money to pay for them.

By the winter of 1779–1780, with the treasury depleted and army
storehouses empty, Congress abdicated much of its responsibility for the
army to the states. It asked each state to pay its own troops in the
Continental Army and adopted a system of requisitioning the states for
“specific supplies.” Under this plan Congress apportioned quotas of food,
clothing, fodder, and other necessities among the states according to their
special resources. Unfortunately for the starving Continentals, the
situation did not improve. States did not have adequate administrative
machinery and were reluctant to commandeer supplies from their citizens.
Almost every state argued that its quota was unfairly high and refused to
cooperate until Congress made adjustments—which never quite met all
the objections. The requisition system’s failure compelled Congress to
reassert its own authority, and in 1781 it centralized the management of

financial and military matters in executive departments. But by then active
hostilities were drawing to a close.
Even if Congress had enjoyed unlimited funds and an efficient
logistical organization, the army’s supply situation would have remained
precarious because of the nation’s underdeveloped transportation
network. The British blockade hampered coastal trade, forcing reliance on
land transportation. But roads were few and all but impassible during
inclement weather, wagons were in short supply, and horses and oxen
were scarce. At times the army nearly perished in the midst of plenty
when supplies could not be moved from wharves and warehouses to the
famished troops. Unpaid, unfed, unclothed, and unsheltered, many
Continentals became stoical, viewing themselves as martyrs to the
“glorious cause.” As one colonel wrote, “We have this consolation,
however, that it cannot be said that we are bought or bribed into the
service.”
The militia and the Continental Army were two sides of a double-
edged sword. Neither blade was keenly honed, and even in combination
they usually did not make a lethal weapon. Washington’s task was never
easy, but without either army it would have been impossible.
The Militia’s War, 1775–1776
The majority of men who took up arms during the “popular uprising”
phase of the war in 1775–1776 were not fighting for independence, but
for their rights as Englishmen within the empire. Although a growing
number believed independence inevitable, most maintained allegiance to
George III, who, they assumed, was being misled by corrupt ministers
conspiring to enslave the colonies. Congress insisted that the colonies
were only protecting themselves from these conspirators, that
reconciliation would occur as soon as the King restrained his advisers.
Although colonists issued proclamations portraying the English as
aggressors and themselves as aggrieved defenders, rebel forces quickly
assumed the offensive. On May 10, 1775, frontiersmen under Ethan Allen
and Benedict Arnold overwhelmed the British garrison at Ticonderoga,
and two days later another rebel force captured Crown Point. Meanwhile,
the New Englanders around Boston were organized into a makeshift army,

with the men enlisted until the end of the year. British General Gage
considered their entrenched positions strong and pleaded for more men.
Instead of reinforcements, the government sent Major Generals William
Howe, Henry Clinton, and John Burgoyne to act as advisers. They
demanded that Gage take the offensive. In mid-June, when colonists
ordered to entrench on Bunker Hill mistakenly dug in on Breed’s Hill, he
consented to let Howe oust them. When Howe’s effort to outflank the
colonial position failed, he believed that he had no choice but to make a
frontal assault. Three times the redcoats advanced, and twice the colonists
hurled them off the hill. On the third try, with the colonists weary and
short of ammunition, the British swarmed over the parapet and the
Americans fled.
British success at the misnamed Battle of Bunker Hill was costly; more
than 1,000 of the 2,500 regulars engaged were casualties. If the immediate
price of victory was exorbitant, even more disturbing for British prospects
was the fighting spirit Americans displayed. Gage recognized that
opinions formed during the French and Indian War were wrong, and he
advised the ministry to “proceed in earnest or give the business up.” The
government, realizing that it faced a genuine war requiring a regular
campaign, replaced Gage with Howe and began to plan for 1776.
When Washington took command of the Continental Army on July 2,
he was eager to pursue an aggressive strategy. But he could do little
immediately. A severe shortage of weapons and powder prevented him
from attacking the British army, and his own army appalled him. The New
Englanders struck him as “exceedingly dirty and nasty people”
characterized by “an unaccountable kind of stupidity” and a lack of
discipline. Knowing the eyes of the continent were upon him and
expecting some momentous event, Washington found the inactivity
around Boston galling, so in late summer 1775 he ordered Arnold to
advance through the Maine wilderness to capture Quebec. Unknown to
Washington, Congress had meanwhile ordered General Philip Schuyler to
attack Montreal. Americans hoped the invasion would incite a Canadian
revolt against Britain and convert the region into the fourteenth colony.
Washington also struggled to discipline the army, but before he could
achieve much success, that army almost disappeared. When enlistments
expired at year’s end, most men refused to reenlist. Washington had to

discharge one army and recruit another while the enemy was only a
musket shot away. He did it by calling on militiamen to fill the gaps until
new Continental recruits arrived.
In November 1775 the novice commander sent Henry Knox, a self-
taught soldier, to Ticonderoga to fetch the artillery captured there. Knox
dragged the ordnance across three hundred miles of ice and snow,
arriving back at Boston in January 1776, and Washington shrewdly placed
it behind hastily constructed entrenchments atop Dorchester Heights
outside Boston. American artillery now dominated the British position,
and Howe, unwilling to fight another Bunker Hill to dislodge the guns,
had to evacuate the city. On March 17, 1776, the enemy army sailed for
Halifax, leaving no British force anywhere on American soil.
Grim news from Canada offset the good news from Boston. Schuyler
had relinquished command to General Richard Montgomery, who had
occupied Montreal in mid-November. Arnold’s men, reduced to walking
skeletons by their arduous trek, reached the St. Lawrence simultaneously,
and Montgomery hastened downriver to unite forces. The commanders
audaciously stormed Quebec in late December during a raging blizzard,
but when Montgomery fell dead and Arnold was wounded, the attack
fizzled. Arnold doggedly directed a siege from his hospital cot, but when
British reinforcements arrived in May, the demoralized Americans
retreated in disorder to Ticonderoga.
Even as the invasion force retreated, sentiment for independence
advanced. On balance, the first year of fighting went to the Americans.
The British retreat from Concord, the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown
Point, the militia successes at Great Bridge and Moore’s Creek Bridge,
and the evacuation of Boston all augured well for American success. But
although doing tolerably well on their own, Americans believed they
needed assistance to win. However, neither France nor Spain was likely to
aid them openly unless independence, rather than reconciliation, was the
American goal. English actions also alienated Americans. Both King and
Parliament rejected conciliatory appeals for redress of grievances and
instead showed a determination to conquer the colonies. Employing
mercenaries, instigating Indians, and appealing to slaves to join royal
armies angered men who previously favored reconciliation, as did the

senseless destruction of Falmouth, Maine, in October 1775, and Norfolk,
Virginia, four months later.
When Thomas Paine’s Common Sense excoriated monarchy in
principle and George III in person and declared that “the weeping voice
of nature cries, ’Tis time to part,” it found a receptive audience. Jefferson’s
famous document severed the last strand of colonial allegiance. Americans
had already rejected Parliamentary sovereignty, and now the Declaration
renounced fealty to the King. Americans were aware, as John Adams said,
“of the toil and blood and treasure” entailed in maintaining
independence. “Yet,” Adams continued, “through all the gloom I can see
the rays of ravishing light and glory.”
From Disaster to Victory, 1776–1781
By July 1776 the war’s “uprising” phase had ended and the last stage of
the war of liberation had begun. In this phase rebels fielded their own
regular army, which represented a new government claiming sovereign
status. Although conventional operations never fully replaced guerrilla
activity, the roles of opposing regular forces became increasingly
important. The conventional war consisted of a northern period that
climaxed at Saratoga in 1777 and a southern period that culminated at
Yorktown in 1781.
Both the Continental Army and America’s very claim to sovereignty
received a severe test in 1776 when the ministry made its largest effort of
the war, hurling 32,000 troops and almost half the Royal Navy against
New York City. Howe commanded the land forces; his brother, Richard,
Lord Howe, commanded the naval component. Down from Canada came
Sir Guy Carleton with 13,500 men, following the Richelieu River–Lake
Champlain route. England aimed these formidable forces against the
Hudson River for strategic reasons. New York was a superb harbor from
which the navy could conduct operations. Control of the Hudson would
link British forces in Canada and those in the colonies and split America’s
resources and population by isolating New England. The middle colonies
reportedly teemed with Loyalists, who would provide manpower and
logistical support.

Washington brought the army from Boston to defend New York,
splitting his forces between Manhattan Island and Long Island. To the
latter’s defense he committed about half his 20,000 fit soldiers (mostly raw
Continentals and even rawer militia), under the command of General
Israel Putnam. The Americans entrenched on Brooklyn Heights, hoping
Howe would attempt a frontal assault, but Putnam also deployed about
4,000 men in forward positions. On August 27 the British general, who
had landed more than 20,000 British and Hessian troops on Long Island,
moved around the left flank of the advanced units and routed them. But
Howe failed to smash the rebels by assailing Brooklyn Heights and
instead began a formal siege of the American position. His caution
allowed the Americans to escape to Manhattan, uniting the two wings of
Washington’s army.
The American situation was still desperate. Thousands of dejected
militiamen deserted, and the army’s position in New York City could be
outflanked by a British amphibious landing anywhere farther north on
Manhattan. On September 15 the enemy landed at Kip’s Bay, threatening
to trap the American army. But Howe moved across the island
lethargically, and Washington escaped. The Americans took up a prepared
defensive position at Harlem Heights near the northern tip of Manhattan
Island, leaving New York City to the British, who made it their
headquarters for the remainder of the war. Howe sent a probing party
against Washington’s defenses, but in the Battle of Harlem Heights that
followed the Americans repulsed the enemy and the campaign settled into
another prolonged lull.
Washington’s new position was no safer than Brooklyn or New York.
As long as the British could ferry men up the Hudson or East Rivers, they
could outflank the Americans. A month after Kip’s Bay, Howe did just
that with disembarkations at Throg’s Neck and then Pell’s Point. Had the
British made a rapid thrust inland, they could have cut off Washington’s
retreat from Manhattan Island. But Howe again acted with caution,
allowing the Americans to escape and assume another strong defensive
position at White Plains, where Washington again hoped Howe would
make a frontal attack. At the Battle of White Plains, Howe refused to
accept the bait and instead executed a flanking movement, forcing the
Americans to retreat and presenting the British with still another

opportunity to annihilate Washington. But Howe again dallied, and
Washington withdrew five miles to North Plains.
Throughout the entire New York campaign, Howe never utilized his
maneuverability—which command of the waterways in the area gave him
—to trap and destroy the Continental Army. He has been criticized for his
failure to do so, but he faced at least two constraints. Howe fought
according to the precepts of eighteenth-century warfare, which
emphasized avoiding battles and deemphasized ruthless exploitation of
success. Furthermore, as members of a peace commission that
accompanied the military forces, the Howe brothers had a dual role as
soldiers and diplomats. Sympathetic to America, they hoped to end the
rebellion with a minimum of bloodshed by a judicious combination of the
sword and the olive branch. Their peacemaking faltered because the
United States had declared independence, which the Howes could not
concede. Their warmaking failed because they allowed Washington to
escape when he should have been crushed.
The British had nevertheless jostled Washington’s army from
Manhattan. As the Americans withdrew northward, Washington left
garrisons at Forts Washington and Lee, on opposite banks of the Hudson.
Rather than pursue Washington to North Plains, Howe suddenly turned
southward, captured Fort Washington and its garrison, and forced the
evacuation of Fort Lee. Howe then dispatched Clinton to capture
Newport, Rhode Island, while the remainder of his army fanned out into
New Jersey. Washington fled across the Delaware River, trying to stay
between the advancing enemy and the rebel capital at Philadelphia.
With Washington’s army numbering fewer than 3,000 men, the
Revolution seemed about to expire. However, one bit of success pierced
the gloom: The British advance from the north had failed. Arnold,
recovered from his wound sustained at Quebec, built a flotilla of small
ships on Lake Champlain, and Carleton paused to construct his own fleet.
At the Battle of Valcour Island, Arnold’s outgunned fleet fought a stout
delaying action that unnerved Carleton, who retired northward.
Washington saw other possibilities for successful operations. Howe’s army
was scattered throughout New Jersey in winter quarters. Perhaps one or
more of these encampments could be surprised. Washington knew it
would be a daring enterprise, but something had to be attempted “or we

must give up the cause.” With an unorthodoxy born of desperation, he
began a winter campaign. On Christmas night his men crossed the
Delaware and assaulted the Hessian outpost at Trenton, capturing or
killing almost 1,000 men. He retreated back behind the Delaware, called
up militia reinforcements, recrossed the river, and occupied Trenton.
When Cornwallis approached with 6,000 troops, Washington sidestepped
them and attacked Princeton, inflicting another 400 casualties. The
Americans then took refuge near Morristown. Trenton and Princeton
revived the Revolutionary cause, and Howe, twice stung, withdrew his
garrisons from almost all New Jersey. The 1776 campaign ended with the
Continental Army small but intact and with the British in control of only
New York City and Newport, which were minimal gains for England’s
maximum effort.
The British had learned a sobering lesson. Washington was a clever
commander whose army could fight well, even though the men were so ill-
shod that they left bloody footprints in the snow. Henceforth the
American commander would be an even more formidable adversary, for
Washington had gained great insights from the 1776 campaign. He knew
he was fortunate to have survived his eagerness to fight around New York.
And he realized that the Revolution would continue as long as the
Continental Army, the backbone of the Revolution, existed. Since his
army was inferior to the enemy’s, it should not be risked except in an
emergency. No city, except perhaps Philadelphia, could warrant hazarding
the army because, said Washington, “it is our arms, not defenceless towns,
they have to subdue.” After 1776 Washington assumed the strategic
defensive and became determined to win the war by not losing the
Continental Army in battle, fighting only when conditions were
extraordinarily advantageous. He would frustrate the British by raids,
continual skirmishing, and removing supplies from their vicinity, always
staying just beyond the enemy’s potentially lethal grasp. This strategy
entailed risks. Americans might interpret it as cowardice or weakness, and
since defensive war meant protracted war, they might lose heart. But
Washington believed he could be active enough to prevent excessive war-
weariness. Prolonged resistance would also fuel opposition to the conflict
in England, as well as strengthen America’s hand in European diplomacy.

England made its second greatest effort in 1777, but the campaign
demonstrated the government’s inability to provide coherent strategic
guidance. When operations began, the men who played major roles in the
planning—Germain, Howe, and Burgoyne—were unsure of each other’s
precise orders and intentions, resulting in two uncoordinated expeditions.
Burgoyne followed the Champlain route southward while a secondary
force under Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger moved eastward along the
Mohawk River. These forces were to unite on the Hudson and capture
Albany, where, Burgoyne assumed, they would cooperate with Howe. But
Howe left a garrison in New York and took 13,000 troops to capture
Philadelphia. Instead of marching overland, he went by sea, which
ensured that he and Burgoyne would be incapable of mutual assistance.
The movement baffled Washington, who mistakenly believed British plans
would be logical. Britain’s flawed strategy allowed Washington to plan
wisely. He accurately estimated Burgoyne’s strength and calculated that
the Continentals in upstate New York, reinforced by militia, would stop
him. He also guessed Howe’s destination and wheeled his army toward
Philadelphia.
For political and psychological reasons Washington had to defend the
capital. He took up a position behind Brandywine Creek, but Howe
outflanked him and defeated, but once again did not destroy, the army.
Howe garrisoned Philadelphia, but he quartered part of his army at
nearby Germantown and used another detachment to reconnoiter Forts
Mercer and Mifflin on the Delaware, which had to be cleared so the army
could be supplied. Noting the dispersed deployments, Washington
attacked Germantown. His army again fought hard but lost, and by mid-
November Howe had also captured the Delaware River forts.
Washington’s twin defeats and the capital’s loss were troublesome but not
disheartening. The army had performed well and rapidly replaced its
losses, and word from the north was joyous.
Burgoyne had started his campaign successfully by capturing
Ticonderoga. From there he inched forward, burdened by an enormous
artillery and baggage train. The troops under Philip Schuyler, commander
of the American forces in upstate New York, hampered the advance by
felling trees into a tangled labyrinth and hastening crops and cattle out of
Burgoyne’s reach. In mid-August, Burgoyne sent a detachment to

Bennington, Vermont, to raid a rebel supply depot. Angered by atrocities
committed by Burgoyne’s Indian allies and elated that Horatio Gates had
replaced the hated Schuyler, militiamen annihilated the column. At almost
the same time St. Leger turned back after an unsuccessful siege of Fort
Stanwix. The arrival of Continental reinforcements, especially a corps of
riflemen, made Burgoyne’s situation worse. The riflemen drove his scouts
inside their own lines, leaving the British blind in a swelling sea of
militiamen. “Wherever the King’s forces point,” moaned Burgoyne,
“militia, to the amount of three or four thousand assemble in twenty-four
hours.” Reinforced by the militia, Gates’s regulars fortified a position on
Bemis Heights, on the west bank of the Hudson, barring the route south.
At the Battles of Freeman’s Farm and Bemis Heights the English failed to
penetrate this barrier and Burgoyne retreated to Saratoga, where
militiamen and Continentals hovered about his dying army like vultures.
On October 17 he surrendered.
After two mighty exertions England was no closer to victory than it
had been at Lexington and Concord, and support for the war plummeted.
British forces held enclaves at New York, Newport, and Philadelphia, but
the Continental Army and rebel militias controlled the countryside. As the
rival armies entered winter quarters, their mutual weakness remained in
equilibrium.
The winter at Valley Forge was one of discontent and privation.
Rumors about a plot to replace Washington with Gates, although without
foundation, kept the commander in ill humor. The troops’ plight did not
improve his disposition. Without adequate shelter, food, or clothing, they
huddled around their campfires exercising a soldier’s inalienable right to
complain. In particular the forlorn men cursed Congress, which they
blamed for their distress. In truth, Congress was doing the best it could.
The soldiers’ condition was caused by soaring inflation, currency
depreciation, the scarcity of goods, primitive transportation, and a
rudimentary administrative organization. These were beyond the control
of Congress, which was a weak central government that could neither tax
nor enforce its requests to the states for resources.
But Valley Forge was not entirely bleak, and the army emerged a better
fighting force and with high morale. Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a
former captain in the Prussian army, introduced a training system

emphasizing simplicity and standardization in drill and musketry, and the
men, who had experienced enough confusion under the old system,
responded readily. In February, Nathanael Greene, one of Washington’s
best subordinates, became quartermaster general and miraculously
improved the logistical system. The soldiers, tempered in the fires of
adversity, developed a common pride in their military proficiency and
ability to survive.
Best of all, in February 1778, France, convinced by Saratoga that
America could win the war, signed a treaty of alliance. France had been
providing covert aid, but America could now anticipate far greater
assistance. In 1779 Spain also declared war on England, and in 1780 so
did the Dutch. Thus a colonial rebellion had expanded into a world war, a
development that was essential to the American cause. After 1778
England’s European enemies diverted British resources from North
America, disrupted British operations there, and provided loans and
equipment that helped sustain the rebels during some of the war’s darkest
periods. Equally important, a French army and fleet eventually deployed
in North America, providing direct support to Washington’s army. After
the French alliance the scales of weakness became unbalanced in
America’s favor, although it would be three years before the tilt brought
conclusive results.
After 1778 England considered America a secondary theater and
consequently reevaluated its strategy there, resulting in a shift in strategic
focus to the south. It would be necessary to coordinate operations on the
mainland and in the Caribbean, where the French threat was acute. Some
officials believed southerners would not be as intransigent as New
Englanders because “their numerous slaves in the bowells of their
country, and the Indians at their backs will always keep them quiet.” But
the most compelling factor was the belief in widespread Loyalism in the
region. The ministry pinned its hopes on the existence of southern
Loyalists, who would have to carry the burden of the fighting, since
Parliament refused to send many reinforcements.
As a prelude to southern operations Clinton, who replaced Howe as
commander in chief, abandoned Philadelphia and consolidated his forces
at New York. As he marched north with 10,000 men, the New Jersey
militia mobilized to resist the advance, so that, as a Hessian officer

succinctly phrased it, “Each step cost human blood.” Washington also
attacked the rear of the extended British column near Monmouth
Courthouse. He entrusted the initial assault to General Charles Lee, a
retired British major who had settled in America and adopted the rebel
cause, but Lee’s halfhearted assault soon fell back in disorder. Riding to
the sound of the guns, Washington rallied the men, and in weather so hot
that soldiers died from heatstroke, the armies exchanged volleys and
bayonet charges in European fashion. The Continentals, displaying the
benefits of von Steuben’s training, more than matched the British for five
hours until darkness ended the battle. Washington resolved to renew the
assault in the morning, but Clinton escaped during the night. Monmouth
Courthouse was the last major battle in the north. For the next three years
the British remained in New York City and Washington’s army kept watch
on them from an arc of defensive positions in the Hudson Highlands
above the city. The armies skirmished and raided constantly, but they
engaged in no battles. At least Washington had the satisfaction of
knowing that after two years of maneuvers and battles in the north, “both
Armies are brought back to the very point they set out from.”
England’s southern strategy began in November 1778 when Clinton
embarked 3,500 men under Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell to
attack Savannah, which was easily captured. A full year elapsed before
Clinton followed up the initial success by investing Charleston from its
landward side. In May 1780 the city surrendered, including the entire
American army in the south. Two weeks later Lieutenant Colonel Banastre
Tarleton, commanding the Loyalist British Legion, defeated South
Carolina’s last organized rebel force at the Waxhaws, killing those soldiers
who surrendered. The British quickly established posts throughout the
state. In June Clinton departed, leaving Cornwallis to consolidate British
gains by protecting and encouraging Loyalists. Hundreds of men renewed
their allegiance to the Crown, and Major Patrick Ferguson organized a
potent Loyalist militia force. Rebel resistance in South Carolina and
Georgia had apparently collapsed.

The Charleston and Waxhaws disasters capped a very bad winter and
spring for the Americans. The army, which had its 1779–1780 winter
quarters at Morristown, had endured a more miserable experience than it
had at Valley Forge, since the weather was colder with more snow, and
most of the causes of privation at Valley Forge had grown worse. On three
occasions between January and June, Continental units mutinied. The
men were incapable of suffering further misery and believed that the
populace had betrayed the foremost defenders of the Revolution by failing
to support them. The wonder is that no mutinies occurred sooner.
Because the soldiers wanted to continue to serve the Revolutionary cause
and mutinied only as a means of self-preservation, officers quickly quelled
the outbreaks. But the mutinies were an ominous sign that the Revolution
had reached its lowest point since Washington’s flight across New Jersey
in 1776.

The rebel situation deteriorated further when Congress, against
Washington’s wishes, appointed Gates to command a new southern army
formed around 1,400 Continentals, reinforced by militiamen. In August
Gates marched into South Carolina, met Cornwallis’s advancing army at
Camden, and deployed his regulars on his right wing while entrusting his
left to militiamen alone. When Cornwallis attacked, the militiamen threw
down their weapons and fled. The outnumbered Continentals fought
valiantly but were overwhelmed. In just three months, two American
armies had disappeared.
Compounding the agony was the treason of Benedict Arnold, who
conspired to sell the plans of West Point—the crucial fortress in
Washington’s Hudson Highlands defense system—to the British. While
some Americans believed the conspiracy’s failure afforded, as Greene
said, “the most convincing proofs that the liberties of America are the
object of divine protection,” others wondered whether the cause would
survive. If Arnold, who served so nobly at Quebec, at Valcour Island, and
during the Saratoga campaign, had lost all sense of honor and patriotism,
how many others might follow his treasonous path?
Despite Morristown, the southern calamities, and Arnold’s defection,
three factors furthered the American cause in 1780. First, in July a 5,000-
man French expeditionary force commanded by the Comte de
Rochambeau and accompanied by a small fleet arrived at Newport, which
the British had evacuated. Second, the Revolutionary spirit revived in the
south. British troops and Loyalists plundered and raped, and they
angered the neutral Scotch-Irish by persecuting the Presbyterian Church.
The British decreed that anyone who failed to take an oath of allegiance
would be considered in rebellion. Men who had adopted a passive stance
had to choose collaboration or resistance, and many chose the latter. The
dying embers of the Revolution ignited in guerrilla warfare under men like
Thomas Sumter, Francis Marion, and Andrew Pickens. Convincing proof
of resurgent resistance came at King’s Mountain, where five backcountry
partisan bands coalesced against Ferguson’s Loyalist militia and
annihilated it. Finally, bowing to Washington’s request, Congress
appointed Greene to replace Gates. Greene found the difficulties of his
command “infinitely exceed what I apprehended.” His minuscule army
was in wretched condition, and the bonds of society had disintegrated as

rebels and Tories committed “dreadful, wanton Mischiefs, Murders, and
Violences of every kind, unheard of before.” But Greene skillfully
coordinated rebel maraudings with the activities of his army, which slowly
grew larger and stronger. Greene was especially heartened by the arrival
of Daniel Morgan, who had commanded the rifle corps that had fought so
well against Burgoyne.
Greene was an unorthodox strategist who took grave risks that yielded
great dividends. He assumed command in December 1780 and divided
his outnumbered army between himself and Morgan, inviting defeat in
detail. Somewhat mystified, Cornwallis split his own army, sending
Tarleton directly after Morgan while he took a circuitous route to cut off
Morgan’s retreat. Morgan stopped retreating at Cowpens. Shrewdly
deploying his mixed force of Continentals, cavalry, and militiamen, he
inflicted a crushing defeat on the British, and 90 percent of Tarleton’s
1,100 men became casualties or prisoners.
After Cowpens, Morgan hastened to join Greene. Anxious to refurbish
British prestige, Cornwallis gave chase. A game of hounds and hare
ensued, with Greene playing the rabbit’s role willingly. By luring
Cornwallis away from South Carolina, the partisans could harass enemy
outposts with relative impunity. Still, the race was desperate. Frequently
the American rear guard skirmished with the British van, but Greene
always eluded the main body and finally crossed the Dan River into
Virginia. His men exhausted, Cornwallis reversed course to Hillsborough
to refit his army, but Greene decided the time to fight had arrived and
recrossed the Dan. The armies met at Guilford Courthouse in a furious
battle in which the British won a Pyrrhic victory. Cornwallis’s losses were
so severe that he moved to Wilmington, where he could recuperate and be
resupplied by sea. Soon he marched into Virginia, which he believed was
the Revolution’s southern center. The move betrayed southern Loyalists,
who had offered support and in return expected protection.
When Cornwallis entered the Old Dominion, Greene marched
southward to reclaim the Carolinas and Georgia, where 8,000 enemy
troops under Francis Lord Rawdon remained in scattered garrisons. At
Hobkirk’s Hill, Greene fought Rawdon, who won another hollow British
victory. While the American main army kept Rawdon occupied, guerrillas
picked off isolated British posts. In early September, Greene tangled with

Rawdon’s successor, Alexander Stewart, at Eutaw Springs in a three-hour
slugfest. If the militia failed at Camden, it now redeemed itself by fighting
splendidly. As at Guilford Courthouse and Hobkirk’s Hill, the British
won the battlefield but suffered irreplaceable losses. Eutaw Springs was
Greene’s last battle. He could not claim a single victory—Morgan
deserves credit for Cowpens—but he and the partisans had reconquered
all the south except Savannah and Charleston. Greene’s operations rank
with Washington’s performance at Trenton and Princeton as the war’s
most brilliant campaigns.
As Greene’s activities diminished, the war’s final drama unfolded in
Virginia. In December 1780, Clinton sent Benedict Arnold—now a British
general after his treason—to Virginia with 1,200 men, and Washington
countered by dispatching the Marquis de Lafayette’s division. Like a
magnet Virginia attracted reinforcements on both sides, and when
Cornwallis arrived in the spring of 1781, he assumed command of the
British forces there. As Lafayette’s army expanded, Cornwallis fortified
Yorktown in order to have access to the sea should he need to receive
reinforcements—or escape.
Far to the north the French expeditionary force finally left Newport
and united with the Continental Army in July 1781. Washington and
Rochambeau knew that a powerful fleet commanded by the Comte de
Grasse had departed France under orders to cooperate with them.
Washington hoped de Grasse would come to New York and seal it off so
that the Franco-American army could capture Clinton, but on August 14
Washington received a message from de Grasse saying he was sailing for
Chesapeake Bay. Bagging Clinton was thus impossible, but perhaps
Cornwallis could be cornered. Washington ordered the army southward
and directed the French naval squadron still at Newport to bring siege
artillery and provisions.
The movement of land and naval forces to Yorktown was unique in the
war because nothing went wrong. Lafayette kept Cornwallis from fleeing
to the Carolinas; de Grasse fended off a British fleet at the Battle of the
Virginia Capes, preventing seaborne succor from reaching the garrison at
Yorktown; the Newport fleet arrived unscathed; and the army rapidly
reached Virginia. The concentration of two naval squadrons and 5,700
Continentals, 3,100 militiamen, and 7,000 French troops at Yorktown was

a tour de force that trapped Cornwallis, whose situation was hopeless. On
the fourth anniversary of Burgoyne’s capitulation, surrender negotiations
began, and two days later 8,000 British troops marched out of Yorktown
and stacked arms. The southern phase of the war ended with a British
disaster comparable to Saratoga.
Fighting on the Frontier and at Sea
Like the colonial wars, the American Revolution involved the Indians,
although they played a minor role compared to the main armies.
Resenting the aggressive expansionism of Americans and desiring English
trade goods, Native Americans generally supported the British. Frontier
warfare took place in three distinct theaters: a central front in the Ohio
Valley and Kentucky, a southern front in the Carolina and Georgia
backcountry, and a northern front in western New York and northern
Pennsylvania. Indian wars in the Ohio country actually began in 1774
when the Shawnees resisted the land encroachments of Virginia settlers.
In order to force the Indians to cede their lands, Lord Dunmore, the
governor of Virginia, organized an expedition into Shawnee territory.
Lord Dunmore’s War involved only one battle, when 1,000 Indians
attacked an equal number of militiamen at Point Pleasant on the Ohio.
The assault failed to prevent Dunmore’s column from penetrating to the
Shawnee villages, which compelled the Indians to give up extensive land
claims. An uneasy peace prevailed until 1777, when the British
commander at Detroit, Henry Hamilton, dispatched raiding parties to
Kentucky to divert American attention from Burgoyne, forcing the
Kentucky pioneers to huddle together in Harrodsburg, Boonesborough,
and other strongholds. The Indian raids continued into 1778, making life
on the Kentucky frontier dangerous and miserable.
George Rogers Clark proposed to end the Indian menace by first
attacking British-controlled settlements in the Illinois country, then
assaulting Detroit. Virginia, the parent state of Kentucky, authorized the
expedition, and in 1778 Clark captured Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and
Vincennes. With a small force that included Indians allied to the British,
Hamilton marched from Detroit and recaptured Vincennes in December.
Clark immediately left Kaskaskia to retake the town. To discourage

Hamilton’s Indian allies, Clark had six captured Indians tomahawked to
death in sight of the British defenses. “It had,” he said, “the effect that I
expected.” Vincennes surrendered, but it was Clark’s last important
triumph. He never received enough reinforcements to attack Detroit, and
Kentucky was on the defensive after 1779, as intermittent Indian raids
scourged the Ohio Valley.
In the south, the Cherokees rose against white settlers in May 1776, but
the uprising was ill-timed. With no British forces in the region, Georgia
and the two Carolinas could concentrate on subduing the Indians. The
three states committed 4,500 militiamen to a three-pronged campaign that
inflicted severe devastation on the Cherokees, forcing them to sue for
peace. The display of American might dampened the warlike ardor of
other southern tribes, and for the next two years England received much
sympathy but little military aid from them. With the capture of Savannah
and the subsequent British conquests in the south, England persuaded a
few Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws to assist them. The
rebels responded in late 1780 with a punitive expedition against the
Cherokees, who again endured the loss of villages and crops. This second
chastisement of the Cherokees, combined with England’s deteriorating
position in the south throughout 1781, ended Indian participation in the
southern war.
In the New York–Pennsylvania region the war shattered the Iroquois
Confederacy, as the Oneidas and Tuscaroras supported the United States
and the other four tribes assisted the British. Joseph Brant, a well-
educated Mohawk chief, led the pro-British Iroquois and worked closely
with Loyalist leaders. In 1778 Tory-Indian raiding parties operating out of
Niagara terrorized the frontier, destroying the communities of Wyoming
Valley, German Flats, and Cherry Valley. Pleas for protection resulted in
General John Sullivan’s 1779 expedition. Washington told Sullivan he
wanted Iroquois country not “merely overrun, but destroyed.” Aside from
punishing the Indians, Washington had a second motive: He did not want
the United States confined to the seaboard, and Sullivan’s activities, like
Clark’s, might allow America to acquire the west during peace
negotiations. Sullivan’s force was powerful, consisting of some of the best
Continentals and commanded by excellent officers. Unprepared for such
a massive invasion, Brant and the Loyalists made only one effort to stop

Sullivan. At the Battle of Newton they fought briefly before fleeing,
leaving Iroquois territory open to the invaders. Although Sullivan inflicted
extensive damage, the campaign was not decisive. As one participant
observed, “The nests are destroyed, but the birds are still on the wing.”
They roosted that winter at Niagara, more dependent than ever on British
aid, and in the spring they returned to the frontier bent on revenge.
Northern wilderness warfare pitting rebels against Loyalists and Indians
continued until the war’s end, although it never again matched the scope
of 1778–1779.
If frontier warfare saw the repetition of a familiar—and frightening—
theme, Americans also fought on a new frontier, the sea. During the
colonial wars Americans helped man the Royal Navy and served as
privateers, but they never tried to maintain a separate navy. As soon as the
Revolution began, some men contemplated confronting Britain on the
ocean as well as on land. No one advocated building a fleet to challenge
British supremacy, since in 1775 the British navy included 270 ships of the
line, frigates, and sloops (the three largest categories of warships), while
America did not have a single warship. Although the Royal Navy could
not be directly challenged, an American naval effort could still hurt
England by attacking its lucrative seaborne commerce and disrupting its
military lines of supply and communication. Drawing upon its extensive
shipbuilding experience, vast timber supplies, large seafaring population,
substantial merchant and fishing fleets, and strong maritime tradition, the
United States floated not just one navy, but four distinct types.
Washington created a private navy during the siege of Boston. His
army was destitute, while the besieged enemy received ample supplies via
the sea. Capturing supply ships would reduce American distress and
increase enemy logistical problems. In September 1775 Washington
chartered the schooner Hannah, put a few cannons and a volunteer crew
aboard, and sent it into Massachusetts Bay. During the next few months
he chartered another half-dozen small ships. Before the enemy evacuated
Boston, Washington’s ships had captured fifty-five prizes, providing
valuable cargoes of muskets, gunpowder, flints, and artillery to the rebel
army.
All the colonies except for New Jersey and Delaware organized state
navies, primarily for coastal defense. The state navies generally consisted

of shallow-draft barges, galleys, and gunboats, but a few states, such as
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, also commissioned small deep-water
vessels that could prey upon British merchantmen. Often the navies acted
as maritime militia, fending off British naval raids to gather provisions and
preventing Loyalists from supplying ships lying offshore. Occasionally a
state navy saw more dangerous action. Pennsylvania’s navy, for instance,
participated in the defense of Forts Mercer and Mifflin during Howe’s
Philadelphia campaign in 1777.
A third type of navy consisted of privateers, which were privately
owned armed ships sailing under a commission or letter of marque
authorizing the vessel to attack enemy merchantmen. Privateering was
licensed piracy, and it had great appeal. The proceeds from the sale of
captured ships and cargoes went to the privateer’s owner, officers, and
crew, so the capture of a few merchantmen could make everyone rich.
Before the war ended, an estimated 2,000 privateers had sailed under
commissions from Congress, state governments, and diplomats abroad.
They harmed Britain more than any other facet of the American naval
war. England’s losses exceeded $65 million; maritime insurance rates
skyrocketed; and to protect merchantmen, England resorted to convoys,
which siphoned warships from other vital tasks. The privateers also
disrupted communications between England and its forces in America.
The fourth navy was the Continental Navy, established by Congress in
the autumn of 1775, when it created a Naval Committee and authorized
the acquisition of armed ships. The first were eight converted
merchantmen commanded by Esek Hopkins, who had limited
qualifications but was the brother of a member of the Naval Committee.
Nepotism played a role in the selection of commanding officers for all the
vessels. Symptomatic of the officers’ questionable competence was the
infant fleet’s first voyage, which, as it turned out, was the only fleet
operation by the Continental Navy during the war. Hopkins disobeyed
orders to cruise in Chesapeake Bay and instead raided Nassau in the
Bahamas. On the return voyage the fleet encountered HMS Glasgow,
which, though outnumbered and outgunned, outfought the Americans.
Congress was not content to rely on converted merchantmen. In
December 1775 it voted to build thirteen frigates and eventually
authorized construction of approximately thirty more vessels. But

shipyards, hindered by shortages of cannons, iron, canvas, and seasoned
timber, never completed the authorized vessels, and the fate of most ships
that slid down the ways was dismal. For example, of the thirteen frigates,
the Americans burned three to keep them out of enemy hands, the British
burned two and captured seven, and one sank in battle.
The Continental Navy’s worst handicap was a shortage of trained
seamen. Privateering was more attractive than naval service because crews
received a greater share of prize money, discipline was lax, and it was
relatively danger-free, since privateers avoided enemy warships.
Continental ships often sat in port for lack of crewmen, and squadron
operations became difficult. Thus ships usually sailed alone and, like
privateers, concentrated on commerce raiding. Several captains carried
the commerce war to European waters with spectacular success. Lambert
Wickes and Gustavus Conyngham captured dozens of ships at England’s
doorstep, and John Paul Jones won his renowned victory over Serapis
while trying to plunder a convoy off Britain’s coast.
One aspect of the naval war deserves special mention. In 1772 David
Bushnell, a brilliant mathematics student at Yale, proved that gunpowder
would explode underwater, and by 1774 he had developed a submarine
mine. He then designed and built the Turtle, the world’s first submarine.
This one-man craft could be used to deliver a mine to an enemy warship’s
hull. When Howe’s force appeared at New York in 1776, Washington
consented to let Bushnell try the Turtle against Eagle, Lord Howe’s
flagship. Although Ezra Lee, who operated Turtle, positioned the
submarine under Eagle, he was unable to attach the mine to the hull. Two
subsequent efforts against other ships also failed. Despite the Turtle’s
failure, Bushnell’s efforts foretold the future. Not only did submarines
eventually become potent weapons, but Bushnell had also mated
engineering science to war.
Approximately fifty ships saw service in the Continental Navy, most of
them small and of limited usefulness. By 1780, with only five warships in
commission, the navy had practically disappeared and America was
relying totally on privateers and the French navy. Indicative of the navy’s
negligible role was Yorktown, where de Grasse had forty ships of the line
and the United States did not have a single ship. Had there been no
national navy, its absence would not have affected the war’s outcome.

John Adams, one of the navy’s earliest proponents, provided its epitaph
when he wrote that, looking back “over the long list of vessels belonging
to the United States taken and destroyed, and recollecting the whole
history of the rise and progress of our navy, it is very difficult to avoid
tears.”
After Yorktown
Although no one was thinking about the navy, few dry eyes could be seen
in Fraunces Tavern in New York during the afternoon of December 4,
1783. Washington had assembled a small group of officers to bid farewell
before departing for Congress to submit his resignation. The commander
offered a brief toast to his subordinates, thanking them and wishing them
well. Then, one by one, the battle-hardened veterans filed by to embrace
Washington in an emotional scene suffused with that special affection that
develops among soldiers who have triumphed against seemingly
impossible odds. Washington did not greatly exaggerate the sense of
wonderment at their own success that many of the revolutionaries felt
when he wrote to Nathanael Greene:
If Historiographers should be hardy enough to fill the page of History
with the advantages that have been gained with unequal numbers (on
the part of America) in the course of this contest, and attempt to relate
the distressing circumstances under which they have been obtained, it
is more than probable that Posterity will bestow on their labors the
epithet and marks of fiction: for it will not be believed that such a
force as Great Britain has employed for eight years in this Country
could be baffled in their plan of Subjugating it by numbers infinitely
less, composed of Men sometimes half starved; always in Rags, without
pay, and experiencing, at times, every species of distress which human
nature is capable of undergoing.
The fighting had ended unexpectedly. No one, least of all Washington,
believed Yorktown would be the war’s last campaign. The British had
already lost one army at Saratoga and the Americans two armies in the
south, yet both sides were able to persist. England still held Charleston,

Savannah, and New York with more than 20,000 troops, which was more
men than Washington had. He expected that the spring of 1782 would see
new campaigns, but none took place in America. The war was going badly
for England around the globe. In the Caribbean, the French captured
several important islands and threatened Jamaica. Minorca in the
Mediterranean fell to the French, Gibraltar was under siege, Spain
conquered West Florida, and in India the British precariously held on in
the face of intense French pressure. Yorktown broke Parliament’s will to
continue the American war, thereby reducing a drain on England’s
resources that could be used to preserve the rest of its empire. Carleton,
who replaced Clinton, received orders to remain on the defensive. Peace
negotiations, which began in 1780, intensified, and on September 3, 1783,
the combatants signed the Peace of Paris. The liberal terms England
granted the United States astounded Europeans and Americans alike. The
former colonies achieved not only independence but also the right of
navigation on the Mississippi, access to the Newfoundland fisheries, and
enormous territorial acquisitions in the west.
It had been a long and costly war, resulting in at least 25,000 American
war-related deaths, which represented almost 1 percent of the entire
population. Except for the Civil War, which killed 2 percent of the
population, no other United States war took such a frightful toll.4 Like
most revolutionaries, Americans improvised with extraordinary ingenuity.
Starting from scratch they organized a government, a navy, and an army,
and they conducted diplomacy with an astuteness that achieved the
indispensable French alliance and an incredibly favorable peace. Even
though England confronted great difficulties fighting in its distant
colonies, especially after 1778, the American performance was still
remarkable.
Equally remarkable was the Revolution’s impact on political and
military affairs. Politically, it sparked the feeling in Europe that a new era
was dawning. News of American events and institutions filtered into
Europe through the press, the efforts of American propagandists,
discussions in literary clubs, and reports of returning soldiers. The
Enlightenment’s liberal philosophical ideas lost their abstractness as
Americans seemingly put them into practice, thereby intensifying the
revolutionary and democratic spirit in Europe. In France the new spirit

mingled with rising discontent fomented by a soaring cost of living and a
bankrupt treasury, both of which resulted primarily from France’s support
of the United States. Six years after the Treaty of Paris, France exploded
in its own revolution, plunging Europe into a generation of nearly
ceaseless violence.
War after 1789 was radically different from what it had been during the
age of limited warfare. Restraints on warfare began eroding during the
American Revolution, and the French Revolution completely washed
them away. Americans reintroduced ideology into warfare, fought for the
unlimited goal of independence, and mobilized citizen-soldiers rather
than professionals. In the spring of 1783, Washington summarized the
drastic implications of these changes. “It may be laid down as a primary
position, and the basis of our system,” he wrote, “that every Citizen who
enjoys the protection of a free Government, owes not only a proportion of
his property, but even of his personal service to the defense of it.” To
protect the nation, “the Total strength of the Country might be called
forth.” Mass citizen-soldier armies would be motivated by patriotic zeal as
they fought for freedom, equality, and other abstract ideological virtues.
The French followed Washington’s prescription for national defense
when the government issued a levee en masse in 1793, theoretically
conscripting the entire population. France’s national mobilization
portended a new, more destructive type of warfare that would culminate
in the twentieth century. Huge armies required large-scale production to
equip, feed, and transport them, which in turn necessitated economic
regimentation. The line between soldiers and civilians, both indispensable
to the war effort, became blurred. To sustain the patriotic ardor of troops
and workers, governments resorted to mass indoctrination. And since
national survival seemed at stake, nations fought with grim determination,
surrendering only when battered into abject helplessness. The American
and French Revolutions, politically and militarily, transformed Western
civilization.

FOUR
Preserving the New Republic’s Independence,
1783–1815
The post-Revolutionary era, which was one of serious peril for the infant
republic, necessitated the development of a military policy that reconciled
ideological concerns for liberty with military effectiveness. Complicating
the task of devising an appropriate policy were three events during 1783
that reawakened traditional fears of a standing army and poisoned civil-
military relations. The first episode leading to this crisis in civil-military
relations was the Newburgh Conspiracy. Early in the war Continental
Army officers began demanding half pay for life as a postwar pension, a
tradition in European armies. Despite opposition to the creation of a
favored class, in 1780 the Continental Congress promised the officers half
pay for life. But by the winter of 1782–1783, when the army was at
Newburgh, New York, nothing had been done to implement the promise.
Officers feared their service was going to go uncompensated and that the
new Confederation Congress, which assumed authority after the
ratification of the Articles of Confederation in 1781, would repudiate that
pledge as it disbanded the army.
The officers drew up a petition offering to have half pay for life
commutated into a lump-sum payment, and a committee, headed by
General Alexander McDougall, carried it to Congress. The army
delegation played into the hands of those congressmen, known as
nationalists, who desired a stronger central government. They especially
wanted the government to have the power to tax, a function that public
creditors also favored. The nationalists tried to combine the army’s
Page 77

discontent with the civilian creditors’ clamor to secure a permanent taxing
power for Congress and thereby strengthen the government. McDougall
and the nationalists implied that if the officers’ demands were not met, the
army might defy congressional control over the military. Despite the threat
of a mutiny, Congress refused to capitulate to the commutation proposal
and the nationalists’ demands.
To intensify pressure on recalcitrant congressmen, the nationalists
fomented further demonstrations among the officers at Newburgh.
Whether or not some officers actually contemplated a coup d’état remains
unclear, but two anonymous documents, known as the Newburgh
Addresses, circulated in camp. One called for a meeting to discuss means
for obtaining redress; since Washington had not been consulted, such a
meeting was against regulations. The other denounced Congress and
threatened its supremacy over the military.
These documents shocked Washington, though perhaps they did not
surprise him. He shared the officers’ belief that their valorous service had
been rewarded by ingratitude and injustice, and he received hints that
nationalists were using the army as a lobby group. Washington adhered
religiously to civilian rule, believing that “the Army was a dangerous
Engine to Work with.” He acted quickly to stop the growing protest by
calling his own meeting, at which he warned the men against impassioned
actions and argued that an attempted coup would tarnish the army’s
reputation and “open the flood Gates of Civil discord.” With a touch of
theatrics, he recalled his own sacrifices, noting he had grown gray and
nearly blind in the service. Pledging to do everything he could in their
behalf, he implored the officers to continue their “unexampled patriotism
and patient virtue.” Washington’s virtuoso performance undermined
whatever scheme was afoot. When he departed, the officers adopted a
memorial affirming their “unshaken confidence” in Congress and
deploring the Newburgh Addresses. Meanwhile, under the pressure of the
threats and unaware of the dramatic reversal at Newburgh, Congress
enacted a plan commutating half pay for life into full pay for five years.
The crisis was over, but many people considered the episode a frightening
example of a standing army’s potentially subversive nature.
As winter yielded to spring, another cloud drifted out of Newburgh to
cast a shadow on the army. In mid-May, Henry Knox formed the Society

of the Cincinnati to unite army officers in a fraternal and charitable
organization. But outsiders saw sinister designs in the Cincinnati’s
constitution. Membership was hereditary: Was this a step toward an
American nobility? The society also permitted honorary memberships:
Would it become a powerful pressure group by adding important
politicians to its ranks? Each officer contributed to a charitable fund:
Could this be a war chest to finance diabolical plots? Auxiliary state
societies were to correspond through circular letters discussing, among
other things, “the general union of the states”: Did this imply a political
purpose, perhaps to overthrow the Confederation? Washington’s
acceptance of the Cincinnati’s presidency indicated that the organization
had none of these corrupt motives, but the public furor against the society
was nonetheless intense.
As critics pilloried the Cincinnati, another thunderbolt was brewing.
On April 11, 1783, Congress proclaimed an end to hostilities, even though
no definitive peace treaty had been signed. Men wanted to be discharged
and paid immediately, but Congress was reluctant to do the former until
final peace was achieved, and it lacked the money to do the latter. Troops
became riotous, and in mid-June some of the Pennsylvania troops in the
Continental Army mutinied. The men marched on the Pennsylvania State
House, where both Congress and the state government were meeting, and
sent in a message threatening “to let loose an enraged soldiery on them” if
their demands were not met. The legislators refused to comply and
courageously left the building to a flurry of insults; but Congress moved to
Princeton as a precaution.
These ominous events overshadowed the Confederation’s efforts to
devise an effective postwar military policy. In April 1783, Congress
appointed a committee to study future policy. Alexander Hamilton, one of
Washington’s former aides and an ardent nationalist, chaired the
committee and sought advice from the commander in chief, who
responded with his “Sentiments on a Peace Establishment.” The general
mentioned the need for a navy and seacoast fortification but emphasized
four necessities. First, the country should have a regular army to garrison
the west, “awe the Indians,” and guard against attacks from Spanish
Florida or British Canada. Considering the nation’s poverty, its distance
from Europe, and the widespread prejudice against professional military

forces, Washington proposed a small regular army—specifically, 2,631
officers and men. Second, with the army so tiny, the nation required a
“respectable and well established Militia.” Contrary to the colonial
system, Washington insisted the militia should be nationalized, with the
central government imposing uniformity in arms, organization, and
training. In particular, within each state he wanted “a kind of Continental
Militia,” modeled after the war’s minutemen, under stringent national
control. Thus Washington proposed a three-tiered land force: A regular
army, a ready reserve similar to the volunteer militia, and an improved
common militia. Third, he suggested arsenals and manufactories to
support these armies. Fourth, he wanted military academies to foster the
study of military science.
Washington later wrote that his “Sentiments” conveyed what he
thought would be politically acceptable, not what he “conceived ought to
be a proper peace Establishment.” Considering his distaste for the militia,
he undoubtedly preferred to minimize its role and depend on regulars.
But he was aware of the resurgence of the pre-Revolutionary fear of a
permanent army and knew a large army would be unacceptable.
Paradoxically, although militia and regulars complemented one another in
the Revolution, proponents of each now viewed them as rival defense
systems. Regular army advocates stressed militia debacles, while militia
enthusiasts eulogized Concord and Bunker Hill and emphasized the
compatibility of radical Whig ideology and the militia system.
Hamilton’s committee report followed most of Washington’s
recommendations, although it put less emphasis on the militia and
stressed a greater reliance on a standing army. But antinationalists rejected
as unnecessary the arguments in favor of peacetime preparedness at the
national level. After all, the colonies had had virtually no organized
military strength in 1775, yet they had prevailed against the British. So
why was more strength necessary now? Moreover, the antinationalists
believed that a strong central government and a regular army went hand
in glove, and they wanted neither, preferring a decentralized system of
sovereign states each exercising complete control over its own militia.
Because antinationalists were in the ascendancy in Congress, the
legislature rejected Hamilton’s report and on June 2, 1784, disbanded all
but eighty men and a few officers of the Continental Army.

Having discarded Hamilton’s plan, Congress had to do something to
meet the urgent military problems in the west. The British refused to
evacuate their western posts, from which they controlled the fur trade,
subverted the Indians, and threatened to contain American expansion. In
the southwest, Spain exerted similar influences, though not as strongly.
The nation had to preserve peace with the Indians, if for no other reason
than Congress lacked the funds to fight a war. Somebody had to protect
envoys to the Indians, evict squatters on Indian lands, and defend
surveyors and settlers. Since the states had ceded their land claims in the
Northwest Territory to the Confederation, these problems were beyond
the scope of any individual state militia. They were also beyond the
capacity of eighty soldiers.
Congress recognized its military challenges, and the day after
disbanding the Continental Army it created the 1st American Regiment—
the first national peacetime force in American history—by calling on four
states to raise 700 militiamen for one year. The regiment was a hybrid,
neither strictly militia nor regular. Its formation depended on the states’
goodwill to provide men, but Congress organized, paid, and disciplined
the regiment, and the commander, Josiah Harmar of Pennsylvania,
reported to both Congress and the Pennsylvania state government. When
enlistments expired in 1785, Congress continued the regiment but made it
a regular force by calling for three-year recruits and omitting all reference
to the militia. When the end of this enlistment period approached,
Congress again authorized the same number of men for three years. Thus
the Confederation created a very small standing force. Like the prewar
British garrison, the regiment failed to police the west effectively. Harmar
never received enough men to “awe” the Indians, with whom relations
continued to deteriorate, or the white squatters, who encroached on
Indian territory with impunity. And least of all did Harmar’s troops awe
the British. To nationalists, the regiment’s ineffectiveness symbolized the
Confederation’s weakness.
Events in Massachusetts in 1786 dismayed nationalists even more than
the precarious frontier situation. Burdened by debts and taxes, farmers
led by Daniel Shays rebelled against the government. Publicly hiding
behind the subterfuge of preparing for frontier defense, Congress voted to
expand the army to 2,040 men but could raise only two artillery

companies and was powerless to intervene. Eventually Massachusetts
volunteers quelled the rebellion, but this did not lessen the nationalists’
sense of humiliation and fear. In their minds Shays’ Rebellion proved the
impotence of the Confederation Congress and seemed to be the first
stumble toward anarchy.
The Confederation’s military weakness on the frontier and in
Massachusetts was one of the primary reasons for the Constitutional
Convention. Nationalists believed that unless the government was
strengthened, the United States would remain weak at home and
contemptible abroad. Since they had a vision of a great nation that would
protect life, liberty, and property and be respected in foreign councils, the
situation was intolerable.
The Constitution, the “Dual Army,” and the Navy
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention generally agreed that the
government needed enhanced coercive powers. “But the kind of coercion
you may ask?” Washington wrote to James Madison. “This indeed will
require thought.” And indeed it did, since military force is the essential
concomitant of governmental authority. The extent of the government’s
military power had profound ramifications, affecting not only the
distribution of power between the states and the central government but
also perceptions of the relationship between security and liberty. Was it
possible to invest sufficient power in the government to defend against
foreign and domestic enemies without transforming it into an oppressive
instrument? The Constitution tried to create a delicate balance in which
the central government received enough power to “provide for the
common defense” and “insure domestic tranquility,” without
extinguishing state sovereignty and individual liberty. The document
divided military power between the federal government and the states,
giving paramount power to the former while guarding against excessive
centralized authority by sharing national power between Congress and the
president.
Congress could “provide and maintain a navy” and “raise and support
armies”; to ensure money for these purposes, it could levy and collect
taxes and borrow funds. However, since the Constitution limited Army

appropriations to two years, a permanent standing army was possible only
with Congress’s continuing consent. Congress was to provide for calling
forth the militia “to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections,
and repel invasions,” as well as establish regulations “for organizing,
arming, and disciplining the militia” and for governing the militia when in
national service. Congress also had the power to declare war.
Congressional tyranny was unlikely, since the president was not only the
commander in chief of the Army and Navy, but the militia “when called
into the actual service of the United States.” He also appointed military
officers, with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Constitution thus
gave national military forces two masters, neither of which could attain a
despotic preeminence.
As for the states, the Constitution guaranteed them a republican form
of government and promised them protection from invasion or domestic
violence. The states could not form alliances, authorize privateers, keep
nonmilitia troops or warships in peacetime without Congress’s consent, or
engage in war “unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will
not admit of delay.” But they retained their own militias. The right to do
so was not explicitly stated in the Constitution proper, but it was implicit
in the states’ authority to appoint militia officers and train the militia
“according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.” The Second
Amendment made the states’ militia authority explicit.
The Constitution institutionalized the dual-army tradition. The historic
militias remained, and the new government had ample authority to
establish a regular Army. Since one of the nationalists’ primary goals had
been to permit the central government to maintain a peacetime army, they
had achieved an impressive victory. Nationalists also wanted a
nationalized militia, but in this they were only potentially successful and
were dependent on the laws that Congress would pass implementing its
authority over the militia. Despite the careful restraints on military power,
many antinationalists inveighed against the proposed government’s
despotic potential. Unlike nationalists, they were less concerned with
military effectiveness than they were with maintaining a proper
constitutional balance between the states and the federal government.
They disliked the new government’s concurrent power over the militia, a
dramatic departure from past practice that might diminish state autonomy

and undermine the militia’s local nature. Fearing “the natural propensity
of rulers to oppress the people,” they were also alarmed by the prospect
of a standing army. But with painstaking thoroughness the nationalists
parried every antinationalistic thrust, and the Constitution took effect on
June 21, 1788, after the ninth state had ratified it.
When the new government assembled in 1789, it had to translate the
Constitution’s military provisions into actual policy. Action was necessary
in three areas: The government needed an agency to administer military
affairs, implement its militia responsibilities, and decide whether to create
an army and, if so, how large it should be. The legislature acted upon the
first issue expeditiously. Under the Confederation, a War Department
headed by a “secretary at war” (Henry Knox since 1785) administered
military matters. In August 1789 Congress maintained continuity by
creating a Department of War, and in September it confirmed
Washington’s nomination of Knox as the first secretary of war.
In regard to the militia, Congress foiled nationalist aspirations.
Washington and Knox urged Congress to reorganize the militia into an
effective force under national control, but militia legislation was a touchy
political question. It struck at the root of state versus federal power and
had a direct impact on every citizen. Congress delayed acting until the
spring of 1792, when it passed the Calling Forth Act and the Uniform
Militia Act. The former implemented the constitutional provision allowing
Congress to call forth the militia by delegating that authority to the
president. In case of invasion, Congress gave the executive a relatively free
hand, since both nationalists and antinationalists feared foreign invasion.
However, antinationalist fears of a despotic central government hedged
the president’s authority to summon the militia to execute the laws or
suppress insurrections. Before he could do so, a federal judge had to
certify that civil authority was powerless to meet the crisis, and then the
president formally had to order the insurgents to disperse and give them
an opportunity to disband. In no case could a militiaman be mobilized for
more than three months in any one year.
The Uniform Militia Act, which remained the basic militia law until the
twentieth century, enshrined the concept of universal military service,
requiring the enrollment of all able-bodied white men between the ages of
eighteen and forty-five. It contained an exemption list (to which the states

could add), required men to arm and equip themselves, and outlined a
tactical organization that states were to adopt only if “convenient.” From
a nationalist perspective, the law had severe shortcomings. It did not
provide for a select corps in each state or for federal control over
officership and training, and it imposed no penalties on either the states or
individuals for noncompliance, thus representing little more than a
recommendation to the states. The government virtually abdicated
responsibility over the militia; the states were free to respond to the law
according to their diverse impulses—which they did. The Uniform Militia
Act killed the nationalized militia concept by failing to establish uniform,
interchangeable units, a prerequisite for a national reserve force. What
little vitality the militia retained reposed in volunteer units forming a de
facto elite corps; this was far from what Washington visualized, because
the units were neither standardized nor nationalized.
The failure to forge reliable state militias made a standing army
imperative, and Congress slowly moved toward that goal. In September

1789 it adopted the 1st American Regiment and the artillery battalion
raised during Shays’ Rebellion. Six months later Congress added four
companies to the regiment, bringing the total authorized force to 1,216
men, but this minuscule Army proved inadequate to the challenge of an
Indian war. In Indian relations the administration preferred diplomacy
over war. The government secured a precarious formal peace south of the
Ohio River through the Treaty of New York (1790), and Secretary of War
Knox worked diligently to restrain Tennessee frontiersmen who opposed
the peace policy. Although Tennesseans occasionally ignored his pleas and
conducted unauthorized campaigns, the intermittent fighting between
settlers and Indians fortunately never escalated into genuine war. Neither
militarily nor monetarily could the nation afford confrontations on two
fronts, and north of the Ohio the situation had reached a crisis.
In the Northwest the Indians, determined to make the Ohio the
boundary between the races, tried to form a confederacy to stop white
migration across the river. In these efforts they received British support.
By 1790 the violence between settlers and Native Americans assumed
near-war proportions, and westerners cried for federal assistance. In June
1790 Knox ordered Harmar and Arthur St. Clair, the governor of the
Northwest Territory, to organize an expedition into hostile territory along
the Wabash and Maumee Rivers. The two-pronged campaign was a
disaster. One wing departed Fort Knox and headed for the upper Wabash
but turned back far short of its objective. The other, led by Harmar and
consisting of 320 regulars and 1,133 militiamen, managed to reach its
objective. Harmar’s force destroyed a few villages along the Maumee, but
the Indians ambushed two substantial detachments, and the column
retreated in disorder. The regulars fought well, but the militiamen acted
disgracefully. Most of them were substitutes who were at best disobedient,
at worst mutinous, and in battle they followed the principle of fleeing
before fighting.
Having failed to chastise the Indians with one understrength
expedition, the government organized another—with even worse results.
Congress added another regiment to the Army, authorized the president
to call out militiamen, and allowed him to enlist 2,000 “levies” for six
months. The levies were an innovation, a method of manpower
mobilization halfway between regulars and militia. They were federal

volunteers raised and officered by the national government, but like
militia, they served only a short term. In the nineteenth century federal
volunteers became the normal method of utilizing citizen-soldiers.
Washington appointed St. Clair to command the mixed force of militia
and levies that assembled near Fort Washington (now Cincinnati, Ohio)
during the summer. The militia again consisted mostly of substitutes, and
the levies were little better. Neither type of citizen-soldier got along with
the regulars. The composite “army” was little more than a rabble, and St.
Clair had no time to train it properly because Washington had urged him
by “every principle that is sacred” to march as soon as possible. When the
horde moved northward, one veteran prayed that “the Enemy may not be
disposed to give us battle,” but his prayers were not answered. On
November 3 the army camped along the Wabash. As the 1,400 men began
their morning routine on the 4th, 1,000 Indians attacked and inflicted
over 900 casualties—the worst defeat ever suffered by an American Army
against Native Americans.
In response to this new calamity, the administration followed a dual
policy. It reopened Indian negotiations to appease easterners, who
believed aggressive frontiersmen caused the violence, and to save the
country from bankruptcy. But the government also began building a
capable Army. Congress authorized three more regiments, and Knox
reorganized the expanded Army into the Legion of the United States,
composed of 5,280 officers and men divided into four equal sublegions.
The president pondered over a commander, finally selecting Anthony
Wayne, who had a reputation for being courageous and offensive-minded.
For two years, while negotiations continued, Wayne drilled the Legion,
molding it into a disciplined force. In September 1793, after the
diplomatic effort failed to dissuade the Indians from their insistence on
the Ohio River boundary, Knox ordered Wayne to use the Legion “to
make those audacious savages feel our superiority in Arms.”
Wayne’s campaign was an enormous success. He built Fort Greenville,
where most of his Army overwintered, and Fort Recovery, which was on
the site of St. Clair’s defeat. In response to Wayne’s presence the British
established Fort Miami at the Maumee rapids, and by June 1794 some
2,000 Indians gathered nearby, confidently expecting British aid. On June
30 and July 1 the Indians, reinforced by some Canadians, attacked Fort

Recovery, but the defenders (outnumbered ten to one) repulsed them.
Meanwhile, deploring the government’s inability to recruit the Legion to
full strength, Wayne called on Kentucky for mounted volunteers. When
1,500 of them arrived in late July, the reinforced Legion moved out.
Wayne expected to meet “a Heterogeneous Army composed of British
troops the Militia of Detroit & all the Hostile Indians N W of the Ohio,”
but at the Battle of Fallen Timbers he fought a mere 500 Indians. The
Legion routed the Indians, who fled toward Fort Miami, where, to their
chagrin, the British refused to help them. Indian losses in the battle were
small, but the psychological shock of England’s broken promises was
great. Defeated and dismayed, the Indians had no hope of maintaining the
Ohio boundary, and in the Treaty of Greenville they ceded most of Ohio
and a sliver of Indiana. The victory also lessened British influence in the
Northwest and convinced the English to relinquish the posts they had
garrisoned since 1783. Finally, the Legion had demonstrated the
government’s ability to maintain an Army that could “provide for the
common defense,” at least to the extent of waging a successful Indian
campaign.
Simultaneously with the Indians’ defeat, the government also proved it
could “insure domestic tranquility.” The Whiskey Rebellion erupted in
western Pennsylvania as a protest against an excise tax on distilled spirits.
Discontent also flared in western Maryland, Kentucky, Georgia, and the
Carolinas. Washington initially acted cautiously. He feared the use of force
without an effort at conciliation might precipitate rebellion throughout
the west, and with the Legion committed against the Indians, he would
have to rely on the militia, which might not mobilize to suppress the
tumults. But when negotiations with the whiskey rebels broke down and
they defied a presidential proclamation to disperse, the administration
believed that “the crisis was arrived when it must be determined whether
the Government can maintain itself.” Washington sent orders to the
governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia for 12,500
militiamen, and to his gratification the states’ forces assembled. Never
before had the militia functioned as a national, rather than a local,
institution. Rebel leaders swore they would resist, but as the massive posse
comitatus crossed the mountains, the rebellion evaporated.

By applying two kinds of force—regulars and militia—in two different
situations—against Indians and domestic insurrection—Federalists
(formerly “nationalists) believed the government had demonstrated it
deserved respect. However, the Federalist utilization of force showed how
thoroughly military policy had been politicized. The coercive power that
comforted Federalists frightened Republicans, the newly emerged
opposition political party. While Federalists applauded the Whiskey
Rebellion’s demise, Republicans viewed the episode as an example of a
strong government’s armed tyranny. Republicans also cast an anxious eye
toward the Legion, believing it should be drastically reduced. The Treaty
of Greenville and England’s promise to evacuate the western forts, they
argued, made such a substantial Army unnecessary. An armed populace
could provide frontier defense more cheaply than regulars and with less
danger to liberty. Republicans especially feared that Federalists might use
the Legion for despotic domestic purposes. Administration spokesmen
asserted that any reduction was inadvisable. The nation needed the
regular Army to garrison western posts, deter aggression, and preserve “a
model and school for an army, and experienced officers to form it, in case
of war.” Furthermore, the militia’s deplorable condition made the Legion
doubly necessary.
In 1796 Republicans apparently won the argument when Congress
abolished the Legion and reorganized the Army into a reduced force of
two light dragoon companies and four infantry regiments. Yet, in a sense,
Federalists had also won. A peacetime standing Army did survive, and
ever since Washington presented his “Sentiments” to Hamilton’s
committee, this had been a major objective of Federalist military policy.
The 1796 legislation irrevocably committed the nation to the maintenance
of a frontier constabulary that spearheaded western expansion for the
next century.
Federalists not only established an American Army, but a Navy as well.
The Confederation sold the Continental Navy’s last ship in 1785, and the
nation had no Navy when trouble at sea loomed on two fronts in 1793.
The French Revolution exploded into a world war when France declared
war on England, Spain, and Holland. The belligerents, especially
England, began interfering with American neutral commerce, which also
suffered from Algerine corsairs. The Barbary States—Algiers, Morocco,

Tunis, and Tripoli—traditionally engaged in piracy, but the European
powers bottled up their activities within the Mediterranean Sea. After
1793, with the Europeans preoccupied, corsairs from Algiers, the most
powerful of the petty North African nations, entered the Atlantic and
preyed upon American shipping.
Washington’s administration thus confronted a major crisis with a
formidable enemy and a minor crisis with a weak adversary. It responded
to England’s challenge by passive defensive measures and negotiations. In
1794 Congress voted to create four arsenals, to build coastal fortifications
protecting important seaports, and to form a Corps of Artillerists and
Engineers to garrison the seaboard forts. Americans assumed the forts
would prevent an enemy coup de main, giving land forces time to assemble
to repel an invasion at a nonvital location. The president also dispatched
John Jay to London to resolve Anglo-American differences, resulting in
Jay’s Treaty, which temporarily restored amicable relations. To combat the
Algerians, Congress passed the Naval Act of 1794, authorizing the
construction of six frigates but providing that the act would be suspended
if Algiers agreed to peace. In 1796, before completion of any of the
frigates, the United States negotiated a treaty with Algiers. Rather than
stop construction, Washington asked Congress for further guidance, and
it agreed to continue building three of the ships.
Like the Army, the Navy became entangled in partisan politics.
Support for a navy came from the commerce-oriented North Atlantic
seaboard and parts of the tidewater south, the strongholds of Federalism,
while opposition came from agrarian areas and the interior states, the
bastions of Republicanism. Believing that preparedness deterred war,
Federalists wanted a standing Navy to match the standing Army. A Navy
was necessary to protect maritime commerce, the whaling and fishing
fleets, and the territorial waters. It would also be a unifying force
benefiting the whole country, drawing timber and naval stores from the
south, iron from the middle Atlantic states, and shipbuilders and seamen
from the north. Even a small fleet, said Hamilton, would allow the United
States to “become the arbiter of Europe in America, and be able to incline
the balance of European competitions in this part of the world as our
interests may dictate.” A squadron capable of decisive intervention in the
West Indies would guarantee American neutrality during a European war;

no nation would risk its New World interests by alienating the United
States. Finally, Federalists envisioned the country as a future world power
and were concerned about prestige and diplomatic leverage. A Navy, they
asserted, symbolized national strength, ensuring European respect.
Republicans argued that instead of deterring war, a navy might provoke
it. The prospect of a growing navy might so alarm a European power that,
said one Republican, it “would crush us in our infancy.” A navy might be
an invitation to imperialism and adventurism abroad. No European
nation would attack the United States, unless provoked by a naval
challenge, because of the predatory European balance of power and the
difficulty of bridging the Atlantic moat. Far from benefiting all sections of
the country, the Navy would primarily aid New England merchants and
shippers. Yet a fleet would be expensive, imposing an oppressive tax
burden on the entire country and increasing the national debt.
Republicans did not relish a role in European affairs, preferring to direct
national energies toward developing the west. Thus while Federalists
hoped to parlay the small Army and the tiny kernel of a Navy into military
greatness, Republicans wanted to limit future armed forces expansion.
The debate over military policy soon reached a furious crescendo.
Federalists and Republicans in Peace and at War
When France and England went to war in 1793, the American political
elite fractured along party lines. Federalists were pro-British, emphasizing
a common heritage and the commercial connections between England
and America. Republicans sided with France, stressing the 1778 treaty
that bound the two nations in “perpetual friendship and alliance” and the
French Revolution’s antimonarchical aspect. Washington decreed, and
Congress sanctioned, a neutrality policy, but perfect neutrality in an
imperfect warring world was impossible. Jay’s Treaty, which prevented
war with England, outraged the French, who viewed it as establishing an
Anglo-American alliance. In retaliation, France increased its depredations
against American shipping and refused to receive a new American
minister. In 1797 President John Adams sent a special commission to
avert war, but France rebuffed it in the notorious “XYZ affair,” in which
the French foreign minister demanded a huge bribe before he would even

open negotiations with the commission. The result was the Quasi-War
with France.
In the spring of 1798 war hysteria engulfed the nation, especially
Federalists, who believed the nation faced both a foreign threat and a
domestic menace. They feared French agents were subverting the country
from within and that Republicans were eager to foment civil war if the
United States and France went to war. Viewing themselves as defenders of
constitutional liberty, Federalists considered Republicans disloyal,
domestic Jacobins conspiring to convert the country into a French
province. To deal with the dual danger of French invasion and French-
inspired insurrection, Federalists enacted a preparedness program that
Republicans opposed, providing, said Federalists, further proof of their
treason.
Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts to suppress internal
opposition; to enforce the laws and meet the anticipated invasion, it
enacted a welter of Army legislation. It created a 10,000-man Provisional
Army to be raised in the event of war and empowered the president to
accept volunteer companies into national service. Four months later it
authorized the president to raise immediately a New Army of twelve
infantry regiments and six troops of dragoons. Congress also provided for
a massive Eventual Army that, like the Provisional Army, the president
could mobilize only in an actual emergency. Legally the United States had
five distinct armies: the “old” Army on the frontier, the Provisional Army,
the volunteer corps, the New Army, and the Eventual Army.
The government organized only the New Army for the crisis. The old
Army remained in the west, and the War Department practically ignored
the Provisional, volunteer, and Eventual Armies. Washington agreed to
command the combined old and New armies, but he would not take the
field until war commenced. Hamilton, who was his ranking subordinate,
really commanded the New Army. President Adams disliked and
distrusted the New Yorker, but he appointed him second in command
upon Washington’s insistence. Hamilton craved military glory and
devoted his considerable skill to mobilizing the New Army, believing he
could use it to quell Republican rebellion, repel French invasion, and—so
he dreamed—conquer the Floridas, Louisiana, and perhaps all South

America. Naturally, Hamilton excluded Republicans from the officer
corps, making this the only wholly political army in American history.
The New Army never matched Hamilton’s grandiose expectations.
War fever ebbed before serious recruiting began, supplies were
inadequate, and, most important, Adams undermined Hamilton’s efforts,
believing he was a truly dangerous man. The only opportunity to utilize
the Army came in 1799, when farmers in eastern Pennsylvania, led by
John Fries, resisted the taxes levied to pay for the new military
establishment. Adams proclaimed the area in rebellion and ordered 500
New Army regulars and several volunteer militia companies to restore
peace. Hamilton applauded the action, but when the Army arrived on the
scene, all was quiet. Federalists thought they had nipped a budding
revolution, while Republicans asserted that the massive response to Fries’
Rebellion was another example of Federalist military despotism.
The Federalists also pursued a naval expansion program. Congress
appropriated money to send the three nearly completed frigates to sea, to
build the other three authorized in 1794, and to acquire another twenty-
four warships. The Marine Corps, which functioned during the
Revolution but expired in the postwar demobilization, was revived to
provide ships’ guards, who could also be ordered to serve on shore. As a
maritime reinforcement, Congress permitted merchant vessels to arm
themselves and attack armed French ships. The burgeoning land and
naval forces imposed an onerous burden on Secretary of War James
McHenry, and in April 1798 Congress cleaved his workload in half by
creating the Department of the Navy. As the first secretary of the navy,
Adams selected Benjamin Stoddert, who requested a building program of
twelve 74-gun ships of the line, an equal number of frigates, and twenty or
thirty smaller warships, all supported by a system of shipyards and dry
docks. Not even the Federalist-dominated legislature could swallow that
many masts without choking, but in 1799 it authorized construction of six
74-gun ships and two dry docks, and the purchase of timber lands for
naval use.
The first clash in the Quasi-War occurred in July 1798, when the
converted merchantman Delaware captured Croyable; the last encounter
took place in October 1800 when the frigate Boston defeated LeBerceau.
In between these two engagements the Navy escorted merchant convoys

in the West Indies, hunted enemy privateers infesting the area, and
occasionally fought the few warships France sent to the Caribbean. More
than a thousand armed merchantmen augmented the fifty-four warships
Stoddert assembled, and they had hundreds of encounters with French
privateers. Throughout the conflict the Americans enjoyed considerable
success, due in large part to British assistance. The Royal Navy aided in
convoy duty, freeing American ships for other tasks, and controlled the
Atlantic, preventing substantial French forces from sailing to the New
World. American ships used British guns, supplies, and Caribbean bases.
The Quasi-War remained limited and undeclared. When Adams
received French assurances that a new peace mission would be properly
received, he dispatched another commission, which negotiated the
Convention of 1800 ending the Quasi-War. Congress soon dismantled the
wartime military establishment, disbanding the New Army and
authorizing the president to sell all the ships except for thirteen frigates,
only six of which would remain in active service. The convention also
aided Jefferson’s election in 1800. The Hamiltonian wing of the Federalist
Party refused to support Adams’s reelection bid, having never forgiven
him for choosing peace over war and robbing it of an opportunity to
crush the Republicans, defeat the French, and conquer a vast American
empire. The sudden end to the crisis also gave Republicans an armory of
political ammunition by making Federalist preparedness measures appear
despotic.
As the Federalist era ended, the party of Washington and Hamilton
had not infused as much military strength into the republic as they
desired. Yet military policy as it evolved during the 1790s basically
remained intact for a century. The nation would keep a small professional
Army, augmented by militia and federal volunteers during wartime. The
embryonic system of arsenals, shipyards, dry docks, and coastal
fortifications would be expanded. The nation would rely on a small navy
to show the flag in peacetime and to protect American shipping while
plundering enemy commerce during wartime. In essence, a passive
defense policy emerged that theoretically would preserve the country
during a crisis until its latent strength could be mobilized.
The survival of the Federalist-established military institutions initially
depended on their acceptance by the new president. Jefferson had a

defensive conception of United States military power and advocated
noninvolvement in foreign affairs, governmental economy, and reduction
of the national debt. In his mind none of these goals accorded with a
substantial peacetime establishment. But he also believed the international
arena was predatory and that military weakness invited aggression, and he
had no intention of completely dismantling the Federalist military
apparatus. Although Jefferson viewed the militia as the first line of
defense, its purpose was to buy “time for raising regular forces after the
necessity of them shall become certain.” He urged Congress to reform the
militia, making it an effective immediate defense force so that the regulars
could be safely reduced, but not abolished.
The Republican-controlled Congress refused to tamper with the
Uniform Militia Act, but on March 16, 1802, it passed the Military Peace
Establishment Act, which demonstrated Jefferson’s commitment to a
regular Army, but one that was “Republicanized.” The administration
inherited a Federalist-dominated Army, and Jefferson believed he needed
to ensure that it would respond to Republican direction. The 1802 act
provided the mechanisms for breaking Federalist control and creating a
source of Republican officers. Under the guise of an economy measure,
the act “reduced” and reorganized the Army. The reduction was cosmetic.
The Army had never attained its authorized strength under the
Federalists, and the Republicans simply cut the Army’s authorized size to
approximately its actual strength. The reorganization eliminated eighty-
eight officers’ positions, allowing Jefferson to remove officers who had
been Federalist partisans, but also added about twenty ensigns. The
president appointed Republicans to these new positions.
The 1802 act also established the Military Academy at West Point,
creating a Corps of Engineers distinct from the artillery and stating that
“the said corps . . . shall constitute a military academy.” The president
received exceptional powers over the Corps of Engineers and the Military
Academy, permitting him to select the officers who would establish the
academy and teach there, and the cadets who would attend it. Ironically,
since the early 1780s Federalists had supported such an institution, while
Jefferson had always opposed this idea. He reversed his position for two
reasons. First, the president had wanted a national school that would
emphasize the sciences and produce graduates useful to society. Officers

trained as scientists and engineers would, for example, benefit the nation
as explorers and roadbuilders. Equally important, West Point would be a
Republican avenue into the officer corps. In selecting faculty and cadets,
Jefferson searched for eligible Republicans and avoided Federalists,
furthering the process of “Republicanizing” the Army that would
continue throughout his years in office.
Naval retrenchment under Jefferson initially bordered on liquidation,
but when war with Tripoli appeared likely, the administration lifted its
budgetary ax from the Navy’s neck. At first Republicans discontinued
work on the 74s, the dry docks, and the navy yards, discharged officers
and men, and sold ships as rapidly as possible. However, the pasha of
Tripoli threatened to unleash his pirates if he did not receive increased
tribute, which the United States had been paying since the 1780s. The
president detested Barbary corsairs more than an expensive Navy, and in
June 1801 he dispatched a small squadron under Commodore Richard
Dale with orders to “protect our commerce and chastise their insolence”
if Tripoli declared war. Dale learned that the pasha had done so, but
neither he nor Commodore Richard Morris, who arrived with a
replacement squadron in 1802, was very aggressive, and they
accomplished little. In 1803 Jefferson sent a third squadron under
Commodore Edward Preble, who clamped a tight blockade on the city of
Tripoli and subjected it to naval assaults that damaged the town, its
fortifications, and enemy ships in the harbor. A fourth squadron under
Commodore Samuel Barron followed up Preble’s work with a combined
land-naval expedition that forced the pasha to sign a peace treaty in June
1805.
The Tripolitan War spurred Jefferson’s fascination with gunboats,
which had been useful in the shallow North African waters. Congress
authorized construction of fifteen gunboats in 1803, and eight of them
crossed the Atlantic to serve in the Mediterranean. In the postwar period
the president embraced them as the heart of his naval policy, and by 1807
Congress had authorized another 263 of them. The gunboats were cheap
to build, were so simple to operate that maritime militiamen could man
them—which coincided with Jefferson’s preference for citizen-soldiers
over professionals—and were incontrovertibly defensive. Combined with
stationary batteries at strategic coastal locations, mobile land batteries,

and floating batteries, he believed gunboats would protect the country
from invasion by even the strongest maritime power.
What the gunboats could not do was protect seaborne commerce,
which badly needed protection. In 1803, after the brief Peace of Amiens,
Napoleon declared war on England, reigniting the contest for European
supremacy. Both combatants struck at American neutral trade, trying to
strangle each other economically. Having gained command of the sea at
the Battle of Trafalgar, Britain was the worst offender. The Royal Navy
seized more than 500 American vessels between 1803 and 1807, hovered
off the coast imposing a virtual blockade, and impressed American
seamen. The ultimate indignity came in June 1807, when the British
frigate Leopard fired on the Chesapeake, killing and wounding twenty-one
men and impressing four alleged deserters.
Jefferson’s administration responded to these provocations in several
ways. It launched an intensive diplomatic effort and supported it with
several defensive measures: Increasing the Army’s authorized strength to
10,000 men; appropriating money to complete, repair, and build coastal
fortifications; and authorizing $200,000 annually for arming the militia.
Diplomacy failed to budge England on the crucial questions of neutral
rights and impressment, but rather than go to war, Jefferson undertook an
experiment in economic coercion. In December 1807 Congress passed an
Embargo Act that prohibited all exports. Jefferson hoped that by
depriving the belligerents of American products, he could wring
concessions from them regarding neutral rights, but he was wrong. The
embargo had little effect on the European antagonists, and British
impressment and neutral rights infringements continued unabated.
Although the embargo did not deter the Europeans, it brought the
United States to the verge of civil war. Federalist New England mercantile
interests saw their local economy ruined, as ships rotted at their wharves
and seaborne commerce languished. The Francophobe Federalists also
believed the embargo hurt England far more than France. They so
strenuously opposed the law that Jefferson had to use both regulars and
militia to enforce it, employing military force domestically at least as
readily as Federalists had done during the Whiskey and Fries Rebellions.
Now it was Jeffersonians who spoke glowingly about the necessity of
preserving orderly government and Federalists who screamed about

tyranny. Thus the embargo sapped internal unity without alleviating the
war-provoking problems with England.
Western concerns as well as maritime grievances pushed the United
States toward war. Farmers believed British commercial restrictions
depressed grain prices, and some westerners squinted at Canada and
Florida with expansionist greed. Most important, although the English
had withdrawn across the Canadian border, they continued to aid the
Indians, especially Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief who tried to revitalize the
Indian confederacy quashed at Fallen Timbers. In 1811 the governor of
the Indiana Territory, William Henry Harrison, defeated the Indians at the
Battle of Tippecanoe; when British-supplied equipment was found nearby,
frontiersmen seethed with anger at British treachery.
By 1812 many Americans believed the country’s options were either to
fight or surrender national honor and sovereignty. A group of young
congressmen, known as the War Hawks, voiced the public’s frustration
over relations with England. Led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, the
War Hawks, tired of wordy diplomacy and spineless economic sanctions,
waxed belligerent in their advocacy of strong war measures. Even
Jefferson admitted that “every hope from time, patience, and love of
peace are exhausted and war or abject submission are the only alternatives
left to us.” His successor as president, James Madison, submitted a war
message to Congress on June 1 and, after favorable votes of only 79–49 in
the House and 19–13 in the Senate, signed it on June 18.
The War of 1812
Rarely have nations gone to war so reluctantly. At war with Napoleonic
France, the British did not want a North American conflict. Despite the
War Hawks’ verbal bellicosity and a decade of acute tension, the United
States had made few warlike preparations, so the declaration of war and
preparations for war came almost simultaneously. Legislation enacted
early in 1812 increased the Army to 35,000 and provided for 50,000
volunteers and 100,000 militia. While these numbers were awesome on
paper, when war began the regulars numbered only 12,000 and the
volunteers and militia remained unorganized. The Navy consisted of only
sixteen ships, seven of them frigates inherited from the Federalists,

including three superb heavy frigates.5 By contrast, the Royal Navy had
about 1,000 warships.
Aside from its tardy preparations, the country had four other
handicaps. Madison was a weak commander in chief. A poor judge of
men, he filled many positions with incompetents. For example, his general
officers were Revolutionary veterans, now averaging sixty years of age.
Although they had been good soldiers in their youth, time had sapped
their vigor and ability. Also, Madison claimed to govern by Republican
principles, including minimal government cheaply run, a distaste for
standing forces, and opposition to a national debt. The war made all three
principles impossible to follow, but the Madison administration never
quite adjusted to this reality and, for instance, failed to formulate an
adequate taxation system. Therefore the nation went to war on a financial
shoestring, resulting in inadequate logistical support for the armed forces.
A third difficulty was the factionalism that pervaded all aspects of
waging the war. In the field, generals rarely cooperated with one another,
and Navy and Army officers paid little attention to each other’s concerns.
No government agency existed to plan, much less impose, intra- and
interservice coordination. Personal and political rivalries rent Madison’s
cabinet, reflecting the deep divisions even among Republicans as to the
war’s wisdom and the most effective measures for waging it; meanwhile
the Federalists opposed the war almost unanimously.
Finally, conflict between national and regional strategic concerns also
hampered the war effort. From the administration’s perspective, the
crucial strategic task was to conquer Canada in the hope that Britain
would make concessions on the maritime issues to regain it. Though a
Canadian offensive was Madison’s primary goal, American coastal
localities were more concerned about naval raids, the southwest
considered the Creek Indians a primary threat, and the northwest
believed Tecumseh’s confederacy to be the foremost security problem.
The government’s weakness and the slow, primitive means of
transportation and communication resulted in the war becoming so
regionally oriented that national strategy was often irrelevant. Imposing
the administration’s will on the war effort was impossible; local leaders
simply ignored its injunctions. But regionalism could be a strength as well
as a weakness. Local strategists understood regional realities and could

adopt appropriate measures; and because they were so autonomous,
defeats in other theaters did not shatter their morale.
Factionalism and regionalism united in Federalist-dominated New
England, where the war’s unpopularity not only hamstrung the war effort
but threatened national unity. Every Federalist in Congress voted against
the declaration of war. Traditionally pro-British, the Federalists believed
that the United States should help, not hinder, Britain against France. In
the fall of 1814 the Federalist governor of Massachusetts sent an agent to
Halifax to probe for prospects of a separate peace; the Federalists’
collective disaffection culminated in December at the Hartford
Convention, a conclave that seemed so ominous the Madison
administration prepared to use force to crush any secessionist movement
that might burst from behind the meeting’s closed doors. Although the
convention only proposed certain defensive measures and a series of
constitutional amendments that would strengthen New England’s position
in national affairs, it implied that if the demands were not met New
England might secede from the Union.
Deleterious consequences flowed from Federalist opposition. New
England Federalists (and even some Republicans) carried on illicit trade
with England, providing supplies to enemy armies in Canada, and
withheld financial assistance for “Mr. Madison’s war.” Since Republicans
failed to impose sufficient taxes, they resorted to loans and borrowed $40
million, of which less than $3 million came from New England, the
nation’s richest section. Federalist governors also refused to mobilize their
militias when Madison called for them. Under the Constitution the militia
could be called into national service only for specific purposes. The
governors insisted that they, not the president, had the right to determine
when these exigencies existed, and they denied their existence.6 They also
argued that militia could not be used outside the country for a Canadian
invasion. Since New England’s militia system was the country’s best, the
obvious invasion route via Lake Champlain bordered New England, and
the small Army needed militia reinforcements to conduct an invasion, the
governors’ refusal to cooperate was near crippling.
In broad terms, fighting occurred in four theaters. The northeast
encompassed the Canadian border from the Niagara River and Lake
Ontario to the Richelieu River and Lake Champlain, while the northwest

stretched from Lake Erie to the northern reaches of Lake Huron. A
southern theater included the Gulf coast from New Orleans to Pensacola
and jutted inland along the Alabama River and its tributaries. The fourth
theater was the eastern seaboard and the Atlantic Ocean.
Neither England nor America had thought about the strategy they
would employ, but the initiative belonged to the United States. England
could devote few resources to the New World and assumed the defensive
in Canada, where 7,000 regulars garrisoned the border. The commander
in chief for Canada, Lieutenant General Sir George Prevost, could also
call on the militia, but this was scant comfort. He described it as “a mere
posse, ill arm’d and without discipline,” and he worried about its loyalty
because of the numerous former French citizens and American
immigrants in the population. Aid might come from the Indians—if
American control in the Northwest could be neutralized.
Correctly assuming that Canada was vulnerable, the administration
prepared to attack it. The obvious strategy was to capture Montreal.
Madison preferred a powerful thrust along the traditional invasion route,
but New England’s lethargy made such a movement difficult. On the
other hand, war fervor in the west beckoned for offensives in the Great
Lakes region. From these considerations emerged a three-pronged
offensive, one prong moving from Detroit, another attacking along the
Niagara River, and a third marching toward Montreal. Attacks on three
fronts should have stretched British resources to the snapping point, but
failure to coordinate the advances allowed the English to meet each one in
turn.

Begun with confident expectations, the campaign yielded dismal
results. General William Hull entered Canada from Detroit in mid-July
intent on capturing Fort Malden, but he encountered logistical
difficulties. The enemy controlled Lakes Erie and Ontario, preventing
easy supply by water, and Indian ambushes cut his overland supply line.
Then came word that the British had captured Fort Michilimackinac.
Fearing that thousands of Indians would descend on him from the north,
Hull timidly pulled back to Detroit, where he surrendered in mid-August
to a British force of regulars, militia, and Tecumseh’s Indians. The
previous day the Fort Dearborn garrison evacuated its post on Hull’s
orders, only to be slaughtered by Indians. Hull’s successor, William Henry
Harrison, tried to redeem the situation with a winter campaign to
recapture Detroit, but the British surprised an advance detachment at

Frenchtown and annihilated it. The debacle in the northwestern theater
was complete.
On the Niagara front General Stephen Van Rensselaer, a political
appointee with no military experience, commanded an army of regulars
and militia. In mid-October he attacked Queenston, achieving initial
success. But when militia reinforcements refused to cross the Niagara
River into a foreign country, the British counterattacked and won the
Battle of Queenston Heights. Van Rensselaer was replaced by General
Alexander Smyth, who excelled at issuing bombastic proclamations to
“plant the American standard in Canada.” Unfortunately his words spoke
louder than his actions, and the American standard remained in America.
Despite the Detroit and Niagara failures, if General Henry Dearborn’s
offensive could capture Montreal the United States would still gain a
decisive advantage. He moved slowly northward to the Canadian border
where, as on the Niagara front, the militiamen would go no further. So
Dearborn returned to winter quarters and all Canada was safe—at least
until spring.
While the effort on land was a demoralizing tale of poor strategy and
weak leadership, the opening sea campaign was as refreshing as a cool
ocean breeze. Americans had several advantages. The Federalist heavy
frigates were the finest ships of their class in the world. Unlike the Army
commanders, who had earned their reputations in the Revolution, ranking
naval officers were generally young and had developed professional skills
and attitudes during the Quasi- and Tripolitan Wars. Moreover, the
British navy could commit only a fraction of its strength to American
waters.
The administration contemplated deploying the Navy in a single fleet,
but this proved impractical. However, a squadron commanded by John
Rodgers did get to sea, while other ships cruised alone to prey on British
commerce or fight enemy warships. The result was a series of spectacular
single-ship victories, with Constitution destroying the frigate Guerriere
and then later defeating the frigate Java, and United States capturing the
frigate Macedonian. In all these actions the American ship was larger and
more heavily gunned, but knowledge of this did not detract from the
celebrations following the news of each victory.

These encounters persuaded Congress to authorize new ships: four 74s
and six 44-gun frigates in January 1813, and six sloops in March. But the
Navy’s glory days were over. Stung by the defeats, the British Admiralty
ordered its frigates to avoid single-ship engagements and sent more ships
to blockade the coast, trapping the American frigates in port. The few
American warships that got to sea after 1812 could not repeat earlier
successes because the British no longer underestimated them. When, for
example, the frigate Shannon disobeyed orders and fought USS
Chesapeake, the British vessel prevailed. However, the Chesapeake’s
captain, James Lawrence, exemplified the Navy’s fighting tradition. When
he was mortally wounded he told his subordinates, “Don’t give up the
ship. Fight her till she sinks.” Although the ship did not sink, the English
captured it only after boarding it and engaging in savage hand-to-hand
combat.
Meanwhile, the blockade became a noose, choking American
commerce. By 1814 merchant trade was about 17 percent of what it had
been in 1811. Beginning in 1813 the Royal Navy also made punitive
coastal raids, and Jefferson’s gunboats, designed to prevent such
excursions, proved ineffectual. Although the blockade penned up the
frigates and crushed seaborne and coastal trade, it could not prevent
privateers and small warships from slipping out of port. What success
Americans enjoyed on the ocean after 1812 came from privateers and the
sloops authorized in 1813. Five hundred privateers received commissions
and took 1,300 prizes, and the sloops captured numerous merchantmen
and a few small warships. But neither the 1812 frigate victories nor the
depredations by privateers and sloops significantly altered the war’s
course.
Despite the setbacks on land in 1812 the United States remained on
the offensive in 1813. Since the failures had been more the consequence
of American ineptitude than British skill, optimism still prevailed. But the
United States again dissipated its strength in several disjointed assaults on
Canada. The Americans had limited success on the Detroit front when
Oliver H. Perry’s ships destroyed a British squadron on Lake Erie on
September 10. Perry scribbled a hasty report to Harrison on the back of
an old letter: “Dear Gen’l:—We have met the enemy and they are ours;
two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop. Yours with great

respect and esteem. O. H. Perry.” His communique was a model—
perhaps unique—battle report, being both accurate and brief!
The Battle of Lake Erie forced both British General Henry Proctor and
Harrison into action. With his supply line across the lake cut, Proctor
retreated eastward along the Thames River and Harrison pursued.
Proctor confronted his pursuers two miles west of Moraviantown with
about 1,000 regulars and Native-American allies. Harrison had thrice that
many men, including 1,000 mounted riflemen from Kentucky, whom
Colonel Richard M. Johnson had trained more rigorously than was usual
for citizen-soldiers. In the Battle of the Thames the Americans won a
smashing victory, killing Tecumseh and capturing most of Proctor’s army.
With Tecumseh’s death the Indian confederacy collapsed, fulfilling a vital
northwestern war objective. But, although satisfying a regional war aim,
the campaign did little to advance the national war effort, since Harrison’s
front was subsidiary to the more important front further east.
Secretary of War John Armstrong, who believed that the Lake
Champlain force was too weak to attack Montreal directly, instead
proposed thrusts against Kingston, York, and Forts George and Erie.
Triple success would make all British positions west of Kingston
untenable. The campaign began well. In late April General Zebulon Pike
—of Pikes Peak fame—raided York against minimal resistance. A month
later General Henry Dearborn attacked Fort George and the British
commander, General John Vincent, retreated, taking the Chippewa and
Fort Erie garrisons with him. So far so good, but the tide of war soon
flowed against the Americans when Vincent routed a pursuing force at
Stoney Creek and compelled the Americans to abandon Chippewa and
Fort Erie. The American commander at Fort George tried to strike one of
Vincent’s advanced posts, but the enemy captured the entire column at
the Battle of the Beaver Dams, a defeat that left the Americans
precariously isolated in Fort George.
At this point Secretary Armstrong replaced Dearborn with General
James Wilkinson, who had become the Army’s ranking officer when
Wayne died in 1796. Wilkinson proposed that Kingston be bypassed and
that he and General Wade Hampton, commanding at Plattsburgh, attack
Montreal, with each army approaching the city from a different direction.
Command disputes foiled the plan. Unfortunately, despite Wilkinson’s call

for a coordinated dual advance, he and Hampton so detested one another
that bickering rather than cooperation was the hallmark of the campaign.
Armstrong came to the front to placate his feuding generals, but his
presence only muddled an already tangled problem when he tried to
exercise direct field command. British forces turned back Hampton at the
Battle of Chateauguay and Wilkinson at the Battle of Chrysler’s Farm. In
mid-December the Americans evacuated Fort George, unleashing a
British offensive that captured or burned Fort Niagara, Lewiston, Black
Rock, and Buffalo. These enemy successes canceled out the earlier
American victories, leaving the Niagara front in British hands.
After two campaigning seasons the United States was no closer to
victory than it had been when the war began. It had frittered away
precious opportunities to invade Canada while England fought for
survival against Napoleon. Now news from Europe indicated that it
would be an entirely new war in 1814, with the United States on the
defensive. France collapsed in the winter of 1813–1814, Napoleon
abdicated in April, and a victorious England could send reinforcements to
America, transforming its war there from a desperate defensive to a
punishing offensive. The British planned offensives from Canada, in
Chesapeake Bay, and at New Orleans, and they were as confident as the
Americans had been two years earlier. Yet the same obstacles that
England had encountered in fighting the Revolution remained, especially
America’s sponge-like nature. As the Duke of Wellington said, he could
perceive no operation that would so badly injure America that it would be
forced to sue for peace. Furthermore, by 1814 aggressive younger men
had replaced the Army’s original commanders. Coming to the fore were
Jacob Brown, Edmund R Gaines, Alexander Macomb, Winfield Scott,
and Andrew Jackson. These men would direct the nation’s military
fortunes for decades to come.
Before British reinforcements could cross the Atlantic the United
States launched two offensives. Wilkinson moved northward from Lake
Champlain to La Colle Creek, where a stone mill occupied by fewer than
200 British soldiers blocked the advance. An artillery bombardment
consumed all the American ammunition without damaging the mill, and
Wilkinson retreated. On the Niagara front, Jacob Brown commanded an
army of two regular brigades and one militia brigade. After capturing Fort

Erie he moved northward, while General Phineas Riall, the enemy
commander at Fort George, marched south. The armies collided at
Chippewa, where they engaged in a classic eighteenth-century battle
featuring close-range volleys and bayonet charges. The British broke the
militia but then ran into a regular brigade under Winfield Scott, which
fought back fiercely. At one point, as Scott’s brigade deployed into a battle
line, Riall exclaimed, “Those are regulars, by God!” Technically he was
correct, but Scott’s “regulars” were mostly recent recruits whom he had
converted into disciplined troops in just a few months. An avid student of
the history and theory of war, Scott had established a training camp where
he drilled recruits intensely, proving that under competent officers citizen-
soldiers could become quality troops without years of rigorous
instruction.
After Chippewa, General Gordon Drummond assumed command of
the British force shortly before the armies clashed at the Battle of Lundy’s
Lane, which was more fierce than Chippewa, with opposing lines firing
volleys almost muzzle to muzzle. The battle was a tactical standoff, but
with both Brown and Scott wounded the Americans withdrew to Fort
Erie, which they soon blew up just before returning to American soil. As
usual, the Montreal and Niagara fronts were indecisive.
As the rival armies battered each other along the Niagara, the British
offensives began elsewhere. General Prevost advanced down the
Richelieu, arriving at Plattsburgh in early September with 10,000 men and
a flotilla under George Downie to guard his left flank and maintain his
supply line along the lake. Opposing him were Alexander Macomb with
3,400 men and Thomas Macdonough’s squadron anchored in Plattsburgh
Bay. Prevost decided to attack simultaneously on land and water. On
September 11 Downie’s ships sailed into the bay, and a furious naval
battle resulted. When the lake breezes wafted away the acrid smoke, the
British flotilla was in ruins. Meanwhile Prevost’s land assault had
developed slowly, and when he realized Downie was beaten he ordered a
halt. His magnificent army was still intact, but he believed that loss of
control on the lake made his logistical situation hopeless. The next day he
retreated.
The British Chesapeake Bay offensive began in August with Vice
Admiral Alexander Cochrane commanding the naval element and

General Robert Ross the land forces. The ministry had authorized them to
undertake punitive raids against seaboard cities to divert American
attention from Prevost’s offensive. As Cochrane sailed up the bay Joshua
Barney’s gunboat flotilla fled up the Patuxent River. The British anchored
at Benedict, disembarked 4,500 men to march along the river banks, and
sent some small craft upstream. Trapped, Barney destroyed his gunboats.
Ross now marched toward Washington, which Armstrong had never
fortified, considering it strategically insignificant. The administration
hastily organized a predominantly militia force under General William H.
Winder, but he neglected even obvious delaying tactics such as destroying
bridges and sniping at the redcoats as they traversed dense forests.
Winder established a three-line defensive position at Bladensburg, but the
first two lines quickly collapsed, the soldiers departing at sprint speed.
Barney’s 500 sailors, footsore from the unaccustomed marching, stood in
the third line. Here hard fighting occurred, as Barney’s men fended off
attacks and, crying “Board ’em, board ’em!” counterattacked. When the
British outflanked their position the seamen finally retreated, ending the
Battle of Bladensburg and opening the way to the capital. There the
British burned the public buildings, including the White House and the
Capitol.
The next target, Baltimore, disappointed British hopes of another easy
victory. The American commander, Samuel Smith, was a determined
fighter, and militiamen rallied to his standard. In a testimonial to aching
muscles and blistered hands, the city’s citizens fortified defensive
positions. Guarding the harbor was Fort McHenry, one of the
fortifications authorized in 1794. As Ross’s army marched from North
Point, militia blocked the route about halfway to Baltimore. Although the
British punched through the force, a sniper killed Ross. His replacement,
Colonel Arthur Brooke, pushed on but halted before the city’s
entrenchments. At dawn on September 13, Cochrane began a twenty-
four-hour bombardment of Fort McHenry. A Washington lawyer, Francis
Scott Key, watched the rockets’ red glare and the bombs bursting in air,
saw the flag flying proudly over the fort in the dawn’s early light, and was
mightily inspired. He jotted down some verses, later revised, that became
“The Star-Spangled Banner.” But what was inspirational to Key was

disheartening to Cochrane and Brooke, who withdrew on September 14.
The second of Britain’s three offensives had now been blunted.
The United States not only repulsed but shattered the New Orleans
offensive, primarily because of Andrew Jackson’s cyclonic energy and
iron-willed determination. Jackson became a hero after he won the Creek
War of 1813–1814, a conflict in which he was virtually an independent
warlord, often acting on his own authority and sometimes contrary to the
secretary of war’s orders. In 1813 a large portion of the Creek nation,
seizing the opportunity presented by the Americans’ war with England,
went on the warpath and killed more than 200 whites at Fort Mims,
Alabama. With concentrated loathing the entire southwest struck back.
When word of Fort Mims reached Tennessee, Jackson, a state militia
general even though he had never led troops in battle, was recuperating
from a wound suffered in a frontier brawl. With a bullet lodged close to
his heart and his arm in a sling, he struggled from bed, summoned
volunteers, and won the Battles of Tallushatchee and Talladega. Other
columns from east Tennessee, Georgia, and Mississippi Territory also
defeated the Creeks in isolated engagements. Lacking centralized
direction, the campaign failed to end the Creek War, but the Creeks had
lost at least 20 percent of their warriors.
As the year ended Jackson’s army disintegrated when the volunteers’
enlistments expired and the men returned home. But reinforcements
arrived in early 1814, and Jackson invaded Creek territory a second time.
With incredible tenacity considering their reduced manpower, the Indians
attacked three times, forcing Jackson to retreat. However, when he
learned that more than 1,000 Creeks had fortified a bend in the
Tallapoosa River, the Tennessean invaded a third time. At the peninsula’s
neck the Creeks had a log breastwork, and at the far end they had canoes
to flee in if hard pressed. Jackson sent his Cherokee allies and mounted
volunteers to seal the escape hatch and stormed the barricade, pushing
the Indians back in savage combat. Even Jackson admitted “the carnage
was dreadfull” as the Creek nation’s fighting strength expired in a hundred
acres of gullied terrain. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend ended the Creek
War.
In May, Jackson became a regular Army major general commanding
the 7th Military District, which included Louisiana. His responsibility was

to stop Britain’s New Orleans venture, a responsibility he shouldered
alone, since time and distance prevented the national government from
affording him timely assistance.
Admiral Cochrane, who had gone to Jamaica after his exploits on
Chesapeake Bay, planned to capture New Orleans by taking Mobile,
marching an army from there to the Mississippi, and then moving
downriver to the Crescent City. While a roundabout approach, it was the
easiest route, since New Orleans was a hundred miles up the Mississippi,
situated amid a maze of bayous, swamps, and flesh-rending reeds. It could
be attacked directly, said a British officer, only if troops were “assisted by
the aerial flight of the bird of prey, or astride the alligator’s scaly back.”
The ministry appointed Sir Edward Pakenham to command the army, but
he did not reach Jamaica before the armada departed and General John
Keane became acting commander.
Jackson suspected that the British might use an overland route, and
when they attacked Fort Bowyer, Mobile’s main defensive work, his alert
men repelled them. Three weeks later he counterattacked, capturing
Pensacola. His vigilance foreclosed Cochrane’s preferred route and
doomed British hopes of recruiting legions of Indians and Spaniards to
assist them. Having blocked the land route to the city, Jackson hastened to
New Orleans. He was not well, but those who glimpsed his fierce,
hawklike eyes sensed that the emaciated exterior belied his inner strength.
Jackson ordered the likely approaches to the city guarded, and to defend
it he assembled a large amount of artillery and a cosmopolitan force that
included sailors, a few marines, several regular regiments, Tennessee and
Kentucky militia and volunteers, the Louisiana militia, two brigades of
New Orleans free black men, some Choctaw Indians, and Jean Lafitte’s
800 pirates.
“By the Eternal, they shall not sleep on our soil!” thundered Jackson
on December 23 when he learned that British troops were only nine miles
from the city. They had arrived undetected by coming across Lake Borgne
and using an unaccountably unguarded bayou leading inland. The
Americans made a night attack on Keane’s position; it became a melee
pitting British bayonets against American hatchets and knives. After this
First Battle of New Orleans, Jackson withdrew two miles, assuming a
defensive position behind the wide but dry Rodriguez Canal. On the right

was the Mississippi and on the left a cypress swamp, making enemy flank
attacks difficult. In front was a plain dominated by Jackson’s parapet.
Pakenham, who arrived on Christmas Day, probed the American
defenses on December 28 and on New Year’s Day—the Second and Third
Battles of New Orleans. The Fourth (and main) Battle came on January 8.
Although Pakenham probed Jackson’s flanks, sending a West Indian black
regiment through the swamp and dispatching another force across the
Mississippi to assail the American forces there, his major assault was on
the broad plain toward Jackson’s main position. The British general
planned to attack at night, but the advance was delayed until morning. It
appeared that fortune might shine on the British as fog shrouded the
plain, but the fog suddenly lifted and the slaughter began. By eight-thirty
the battle was over, with 500 prisoners in American hands and another
1,500 British dead and wounded littering the plain, most of them victims
of Jackson’s artillery. American casualties numbered about 70.
Ironically the victory had no influence on the Treaty of Ghent, which
had been signed on Christmas Eve, 1814. Efforts at negotiations had
begun almost as soon as the war commenced. Allied with England in the
war against Napoleon, Russia offered to mediate the dispute. Having
bungled the 1812 campaign, the United States accepted Russia’s offer, but
England did not. The British, however, suggested direct negotiations and
Madison agreed. By the time the negotiators met, England was in no
hurry to conclude a peace, believing its 1814 offensives would improve its
bargaining position. Still, Britain was not prepared to fight a prolonged
war for New World territory or for the benefit of its Indian allies. Not
only was England’s population war-weary after two decades of continuous
strife but, with the French population seething with discontent and
Britain squabbling with its allies, England feared a renewed European
war.
After Prevost’s retreat and Cochrane’s repulse at Baltimore, Wellington
in essence advised the British government to settle the war. These defeats
indicated that England could not project power into North America any
more effectively in 1814 than during the Revolution—a fact confirmed by
New Orleans. As in that earlier war, both combatants were militarily weak
in America, with the United States being just barely strong enough to
stave off defeat.

Britain agreed to terms based on the status quo ante bellum. The treaty
was a cessation of hostilities that mentioned none of the war’s causes. Of
course, with the European war over, British violations of neutral rights
ceased and they were no longer an urgent issue. Although the United
States did not acquire Canada and annexed only part of Florida, it
escaped territorial losses. For the west and south the defeat of Tecumseh’s
confederation and the Creeks signified clear-cut gains. Perhaps New
England “lost” the war, since its influence in national affairs waned
rapidly after 1815. And from a national perspective even a stalemate
against Napoleon’s conquerors was no embarrassment. By fighting
England a second time and surviving intact, the United States had
preserved its independence and gained new respect in the international
arena.
In early February 1815, three messages converged on Washington from
separate locations. News of Jackson’s victory came from New Orleans,
quickly followed by the treaty from Ghent. The two announcements set
off national rejoicing, erasing grim memories of earlier defeats. Amidst
this euphoria the third communication arrived, borne by a committee
from the Hartford Convention. The Federalists’ veiled threat of New
England secession tainted the party with treason, and they never
recovered from the stigma—a sad end for the party that a quarter-century
earlier had laid the foundations for the republic’s future growth.
The nearly simultaneous arrival of the glad tidings from Louisiana and
Ghent made it appear as if the United States had defeated Britain again, a
myth Americans willingly embraced. New Orleans had a further
importance: It enshrined the western hunter-soldiers who had supposedly
mowed down England’s veterans (artillery inflicted most of the casualties)
and glorified the militia at a time when the militia system was virtually
dead. The Treaty of Ghent was also significant in that it marked the end of
an epoch in American history. For more than a century, the large wars
wracking the Old World had become the New World’s wars as well. But
for a century afterward no general conflict afflicted Europe, and the
United States avoided the Continent’s numerous smaller wars. Hence the
nation turned inward, devoting its energies to domestic development and
territorial expansion. America’s armed forces played vital roles in both
activities.

FIVE
The Armed Forces and National Expansion,
1815–1860
During the War of 1812 the Republican Party converted to Federalist
military policy. In the war’s aftermath, amid fervid nationalism and with
full Republican support, the armed forces prospered. But by the 1820s the
magnified nationalism waned, and the Army and Navy entered an era of
neglect. Yet these poorly financed and undermanned forces participated
in three significant developments. First, the Industrial Revolution’s
technological advances transformed the conduct of war. Second, the
postwar decades witnessed the beginnings of military professionalization.
Finally, the armed forces aided the nation’s territorial expansion and
economic development. The Army explored the wilderness, built
transportation networks, guarded settlers, and fought wars against Indians
who resisted President Andrew Jackson’s removal policy and against
Mexico, which contested America’s claim to a “Manifest Destiny.” The
Navy, too, advanced national interests by protecting foreign trade and
conducting diplomatic-commercial missions abroad.
Postwar Nationalism and Military Policy
In early 1815, in words that Alexander Hamilton might have written,
President James Madison told Congress that experience “demonstrates
that a certain degree of preparation for war is not only indispensable to
avert disasters in the onset, but affords also the best security for the
continuance of peace.” The president asked Congress to maintain a
defense establishment similar to the one Federalists had long advocated: a
page 108

strong Navy to protect commerce, fortifications to defend the coast, and a
substantial regular Army and a reformed militia to guard the frontiers and
repel invaders. Although Congress had no desire to tamper with the
militia, it responded favorably to the other items.
In 1816, for the first time, the United States established a peacetime
long-range naval building program. Congress voted $1 million annually
for eight years to build nine 74-gun ships of the line, twelve 44-gun
frigates, and three coastal defense steam batteries—a larger building
program than ever before. But by 1820 a movement toward naval
retrenchment, spurred by the Panic of 1819, was underway, and in 1821
Congress cut the appropriation in half, although it extended this reduced
annual outlay for three years beyond the original 1824 termination date.
In 1827 and in 1833 Congress continued the $500,000 expenditure for six
more years. Slowly, most of the ships authorized in 1816 were completed,
but the Navy Department took many of them out of active service (“laid
them up in ordinary,” in the terminology of the time) and depended to a
great extent on smaller warships periodically authorized by Congress.
The reliance on small ships was not ill-founded. The Navy’s primary
responsibility was to protect America’s expanding commerce. No great
nation threatened this trade, but pirates and irregular privateers
employing small, fast ships did. Trying to catch these buccaneers with
ships of the line and frigates was futile. Thus instead of forming a
battlefleet, the Navy Department divided its ships into squadrons that
sailed in geographic areas called stations. A squadron normally consisted
of one or two frigates or ships of the line and a larger number of smaller
but swifter vessels. The first squadron established was in the
Mediterranean, where in 1812 Algiers had renewed its depredations.
Shortly after Congress ratified the Treaty of Ghent, it declared war on
Algiers. After the Navy had subdued the petty state, a squadron remained
on station in the Mediterranean, and the department periodically
established other squadrons in trouble spots around the globe. By 1843
six squadrons existed.7
Between 1815 and 1842 a Board of Navy Commissioners helped the
secretary of the navy administer the squadrons. Since the Navy
Department’s founding, a civilian secretary, aided by a few clerks, had
directed all naval activities. Some experts had urged formation of a

professional board to help the secretary, and the War of 1812
demonstrated the navy’s poor administration. Consisting of three captains,
the board had authority in such specialized duties as the procurement of
naval stores and materials, and the building, repairing, and equipping of
ships. The board provided the secretary with technical assistance without
impinging on civilian control, since the secretary retained control of
policy.
The board had two defects. Its collective nature was, as one secretary
said, “extremely unfavorable to that individual responsibility, which it is
so necessary to impose upon every public officer.” The board was also
extremely conservative and opposed maritime technological innovations.
Aware of these problems, Congress abolished the board in 1842, replacing
it with five bureaus: Yards and Docks; Construction, Equipment, and
Repair; Medicine and Surgery; Provisions and Clothing; and Ordnance
and Hydrography. The bureaus inaugurated an era of specialized
management, with each bureau chief acting independently and reporting
to the secretary. Congress also established a Corps of Engineers to service
the Navy’s few steam warships, thereby acknowledging the growing
importance of the new motive power, which the Board of Navy
Commissioners had been slow to accept.
The bureaus and the Corps of Engineers, while reformist in intent,
created problems that bedeviled the Navy for decades. The bureaus
carried individual responsibility too far. Without any compulsion to
cooperate, they rarely coordinated their activities, resulting in fragmented
management. Conflict arose between line and staff officers. Line officers
viewed staff officers, such as paymasters, surgeons, and engineers, as
socially and professionally inferior and not entitled to equal rank and the
privileges and esteem that went with it. Staff officers disliked the line
officers’ assumed superiority. Engineers, for example, designed, directed
the manufacture of, installed, and operated steam machinery on warships.
These were taxing and dangerous tasks, and the men who performed
them demanded equal rank and pay.
The Republicans were as favorably inclined toward coastal
fortifications—few could forget Fort McHenry—as they were toward the
Navy. The new ships would be the nation’s sword, new fortifications its
shield. During war scares in 1794 and 1807 the country began

fortifications systems, but most of the structures rapidly decayed. In 1816
Congress appropriated more than $800,000 for a fortifications program.
Begun after the crisis had passed, the new system, like the new Navy, was
to proceed methodically during peacetime and be permanent. Madison
appointed a Board of Engineers for Fortifications to deal with seacoast
defense. Its first report (February 1821), combined with a supplemental
report five years later, outlined a theory of defense that remained in vogue
until the 1880s. The board declared that the first line of defense was the
Navy, but since it was likely to remain small, it must be supported by
seacoast fortifications, an interior communications network, a regular
Army, and a well-organized militia. The 1821 report suggested 50 sites for
defensive works, and by 1850 the board had recommended nearly 150
more. Long before then, however, congressional enthusiasm for the
program had diminished, and the gap between fortifications projected
and those completed became a chasm.
The Army also benefited from the postwar nationalism. Not only was
its peacetime strength increased, but the army’s bureaucracy underwent
an important reorganization. In March 1815 Congress established an
Army of 12,000, dwarfing any army the United States had maintained
except in wartime or acute crisis. Bureaucratic reforms consisted of the
creation of a General Staff and the position of commanding general of the
Army. The United States had been no better prepared for war in 1812
than it had been in 1775, and the Revolution’s logistical deficiencies had
soon reappeared. Part of the problem stemmed from Republican
unwillingness to use the taxing power, but much of the difficulty lay
within the War Department, which had developed no support service
administrative machinery. An overburdened secretary, aided by a handful
of clerks, usually acted as quartermaster general and commissary general,
along with all his other duties. At best the department exercised loose
supervision over logistical matters, and what services existed were small
and decentralized. The casual administration of logistics, troubling in
peace, was intolerable in war. In 1812 Congress revived several staff
offices that had sporadically existed since the Revolution, such as a
quartermaster general and a commissary general of purchases. However,
confusion reigned due to overlapping responsibilities. In 1813 the
legislature tried to bring order from chaos by creating a General Staff,

which was a group of autonomous bureau chiefs, such as an adjutant and
inspector general and quartermaster general, with each chief reporting to
the secretary of war.8
The General Staff was unable to improve logistical support appreciably
during the conflict. But two postwar secretaries—William H. Crawford
(1815–1816) and John C. Calhoun (1817–1825)—realized that a
peacetime staff organization was essential preparation for war. Two acts,
one in 1816 and the other in 1818, expanded and improved the staff and
ensured the staff’s permanence; it remained essentially intact until the
twentieth century.
Operational command had been as dismal as logistical support
throughout the War of 1812. No single officer commanded the entire
Army. The War Department divided the Army into districts and
departments, with each commander acting independently, coordinated
only by the secretary of war. A commanding officer such as Andrew
Jackson often failed to cooperate with other commanders and invariably
resented the secretary’s “interference” in military matters. In 1821, when
Congress reduced the Army’s high command to one major general and
two brigadier generals, Calhoun seized the opportunity to create a
centralized command system, which might prevent the emergence of a
Jacksonian-style warlord in any future war. He ordered the sole major
general, Jacob Brown, to Washington and designated him the
commanding general.
Most officials considered the Army’s new institutions important
reforms. In theory the War Department now had a balanced organization.
For technical advice the secretary called on the General Staff, while he
directed military operations through the commanding general. In practice
three problems arose. First, the commanding general’s responsibilities
were unclear. Could he really command the Army? If he did, he would
usurp the secretary of war’s constitutional duty as the president’s
appointed deputy; but if he did not, his position was meaningless. A
strained relationship between the commanding general and the secretary
resulted. Second, a line-staff rivalry developed. Line officers wanted
preferential treatment because they believed they endured privation while
staff officers lived a soft life. Line officers also insisted on the right to
command staff personnel in their district, but bureau chiefs asserted that

staff officers in the field were responsible only to their superiors in
Washington. Finally, Army bureau chiefs did not cooperate among
themselves, and even the secretary was often unable to control them.
Secretaries rarely stayed in office more than a few years, so power
gravitated to the bureau chiefs, who held commissions for life. Chiefs
became consummate bureaucrats and extremely knowledgeable about
their specialized functions, but they often confused their own bureau’s
well-being with the Army’s welfare.
Congressional goodwill toward the Army evaporated during the Panic
of 1819. In 1820 the House told Calhoun to prepare a plan for reducing
the Army to 6,000, and in response he submitted one of the most
important military papers in American history. Declaring that reliance on
militia was foolhardy and that the nation must depend on regulars,
Calhoun proposed a peacetime “expansible” Army that could readily
expand in war without diluting its capabilities. His fundamental principle
was that when war came, “there should be nothing either to new model or
to create.” In peacetime the Army should maintain a complete
organization of companies and regiments and full complements of both
line and staff officers but a reduced number of privates. In wartime
preexisting units would be augmented by recruiting privates, who would
be trained by experienced officers. The transition from peace to war,
wrote Calhoun, could “be made without confusion or disorder; and the
weakness and danger, which otherwise would be inevitable, be avoided.”
Calhoun suggested an Army of 6,316, expansible to 11,558 without
adding a single officer or company. With only 288 additional officers the
Army could expand to more than 19,000. Calhoun’s proposal made no
headway against congressmen such as Charles Fisher, who said he “always
thought, that one of the best features of our Government is its unfitness
for war.” In March 1821 Congress rejected Calhoun’s expansible Army
concept, slashing the Army’s strength to 6,183 by eliminating regiments
and reducing the number of officers. Yet the idea lived on, advocated by
those who believed regulars should be the foundation for war planning.
Several postwar trends were clear. The armed forces enjoyed a few
years of unprecedented peacetime support before economic ills and
fading memories of the war led to cutbacks. Both services experienced
bureaucratic growth in an effort to give civilian secretaries ready access to

professional advice; to ensure long-term institutional stability in technical
and logistical functions; and, in the Army, to impose centralized command
on a previously decentralized system that had been a breeding ground for
disaster. Although the bureau system represented an important
administrative development, it ushered in new problems. Extreme
specialization within the bureaus and lack of cooperation among them
often hamstrung effective management, staff-line squabbles afflicted both
services, and the commanding general’s ambiguous position created
turmoil in the War Department.
Technology and War
“What hath God wrought?” asked Samuel F.B. Morse in May 1844 in the
first message transmitted over the telegraph, a device he had invented.
Whether the invention was God’s creation or man’s was debatable, but
what had been wrought was a communications miracle that diminished
time and distance in the transmission of information. Military
communications—for centuries tied to a messenger’s uncertain speed—
became almost instantaneous. Dramatic as it was, Morse’s telegraph was
only one of the technological innovations that so profoundly influenced
warfare as to constitute a military revolution, inducing acute anxiety
among strategists needing to discern the impact of a bewildering range of
developments. Not the least of the policymakers’ problems was the
tremendous expense involved in keeping pace with new technologies. So
rapidly did innovations appear, wrote one secretary of war, that a mere
decade marked “an epoch in the onward progress of modern invention
and improvement. Even five years may modify, materially, plans of defense
now reputed wisest and most indispensable.”
During the first half of the nineteenth century armies harnessed the
Industrial Revolution’s technology, resulting in dramatic increases in
mobility and firepower. Enhanced mobility came from the steamship and
the railroad. In 1789 John Fitch built the first successful steamboat, in
1807 Robert Fulton’s Clermont began commercial operations, and by the
1830s hundreds of steamers plied inland waters. Steamboats could defy
currents and wind, but low water or ice brought them to a halt, and they
had to go where rivers went. Neither drought nor winter stopped the

railroads, which had the additional advantage of going anywhere people
chose to lay tracks. A group of New Yorkers organized the first railroad
company in 1826, and by 1860 there were 30,000 miles of track traversing
the United States. Although developed for commercial purposes,
steamboats and railroads had benefits equally important for commerce
and war: Travel was faster and cheaper.
Increased firepower came from innovations that made infantry
weapons dramatically more lethal. The flintlock mechanism gave way to
percussion caps, cylindro-conoidal bullets replaced spherical lead balls,
rifles superseded smoothbores, and breechloaders and repeaters
competed with single-shot muzzleloaders. The development of fulminates
in the 1790s led to a replacement system for the notoriously unreliable
flintlock mechanism. By 1820 Joshua Shaw of Philadelphia had perfected
a copper percussion cap containing mercuric fulminate. An infantryman
placed a percussion cap on a hollow cone connected to the breech; when
the hammer struck the cap, the fulminate exploded, sending flame
through the cone to the main charge. The percussion cap, being simpler
and more reliable than the flintlock, meant infantrymen fired at a faster
rate than ever before.
Rifles had greater range and accuracy than smoothbores. Yet in 1815
no army had more than a few elite rifle units because rifles were slower to
load than smoothbores. In a smoothbore the ball did not have to fit tightly
in the barrel, but for a rifle to work, the bullet had to “grip” the rifling
inside the barrel. The only way to achieve this “grip” in muzzleloading
weapons firing round lead bullets was to force the projectile down the
barrel—sometimes by pounding a steel ramrod with a mallet—so that it fit
snugly against the rifling. The perfection of the elongated cylindro-
conoidal bullet by a French army captain, Claude E. Minie, made it
feasible to load rifles quickly. The so-called “Minie ball” slipped easily
down the barrel but had a hollow base that expanded under the impact of
the powder charge’s explosion, causing the projectile to grip the rifling. In
the mid-1850s the Army adopted as its standard weapon a .58-caliber,
percussion-cap, muzzleloading rifle firing cylindro-conoidal bullets.
Smoothbores were accurate to only about fifty yards, but the new weapon
could be deadly at ten times that distance.

By 1861 arms makers had developed breechloaders and repeaters. In
1811 John H. Hall patented a breechloading rifle, and in 1819 he signed a
contract to produce his guns at the Harpers Ferry Armory. In
manufacturing these rifles, Hall attained the goal Eli Whitney popularized
but never achieved: Mass production using precision machine tools that
resulted in interchangeable parts. Hall’s production system rapidly spread,
spurring America’s economic growth, but his rifle had a fundamental
problem. Gas and flame leaked from the breech, which detracted from
the bullet’s velocity and endangered the soldier. The self-contained
metallic cartridge, developed during the 1850s, solved the difficulty. The
thin metal shell casing possessed the property of obturation (when the
powder detonated, the casing expanded, sealing the breech). The new
cartridge made possible effective breechloaders and repeating rifles. Prior
to the Civil War, Samuel Colt, Christopher M. Spencer, and others had
patented repeaters; and in 1862 Richard Gatling produced the first
machine gun.
Railroads, steamboats, and rapid-fire rifles transformed land warfare.
Strategically, armies could be transported long distances with
unprecedented speed and be supported logistically with relative ease at a
reasonable cost. They could also be controlled from afar by telegraph. At
the same time the tactical system utilized by Napoleon lost its ability to
achieve decisive battlefield results. Napoleon generally concentrated his
artillery close to the enemy lines and, following a furious barrage, sent his
massed infantry and cavalry forward in frontal assaults. By 1860 these
tactics were suicidal. The longer range, better accuracy, and increased rate
of fire of infantry weapons made it difficult to bring artillery near the
enemy lines, potentially converting mass attacks into mass butchery.
Changes in naval warfare were no less startling, as steam and iron
began to replace sails and wood. Indeed, naval technology seemed to be
changing so swiftly that one congressional committee even suggested
building a throw-away Navy. Instead of expensive iron construction, the
Navy should rely on cheaply built vessels of white oak, sell them when
they decayed, and build new ships “so as to keep the Navy up with all the
improvements of the day, and in a condition to introduce, without
sacrifice, any new invention.”

Robert Fulton built the world’s first steam warship, Fulton, completed
in 1814 to defend New York harbor. Although entrepreneurs quickly
adopted steam for commercial purposes, the Navy did not rush to
embrace it. During the reign of the Board of Navy Commissioners the
Navy built only four steamships. In the mid-1830s Secretary of the Navy
Mahlon Dickerson partially implemented the 1816 congressional
authorization for three steam batteries when he ordered construction of
one steamer, a new Fulton, completed in 1837. Two years later Congress
authorized three additional steam warships. One of these never performed
well, but the other two, Mississippi and Missouri (both completed in
1842), were seagoing paddlewheelers representing a high state of technical
proficiency.
Why was the Navy so reluctant to convert to steam? Part of the answer
was naval conservatism regarding innovations. Many officers viewed the
noisy, dirty steamships as ungainly sea monsters. Practical problems also
delayed the acceptance of steam. Engines were bulky, weak, and
unreliable. It took about one ton of machinery to generate one
horsepower, and engines consumed coal voraciously, limiting a vessel’s
range. The exposed paddlewheels made the vessel vulnerable, since a
single shot into them would be crippling. The paddlewheels and the
cumbersome steam machinery also left little room for broadside guns,
reducing a ship’s own firepower.
Experimentation gradually produced more efficient engines, and the
introduction of the screw propeller to replace the paddlewheels solved the
problems of vulnerability and firepower. Placed underwater at the stern,
the propeller was secure from enemy fire, allowed the ship’s vital
machinery to be placed below the waterline, and freed the broadside for
guns. The first screw-propeller warship was Princeton, launched in 1843.
Its design made steamships equal to sailing vessels in fighting power, with
the additional advantage of machine propulsion, and in the fifteen years
preceding the Civil War the Navy increasingly converted to steam.
The steam warships built before the Civil War were actually obsolete.
They had unprotected wooden hulls that could absorb a terrific pounding
from solid shot, but explosive shells splintered the hulls and set wooden
ships afire. Shells had long been used in land artillery because howitzers
and mortars, fired at relatively high angles, required low projectile

velocities. But naval guns required a flat trajectory to hull enemy ships and
hence high velocity and breech pressures. In 1823 a French artillery
officer, Henri-Joseph Paixhans, solved the technical difficulties in firing
shells from naval guns. In the late 1830s France and England adopted the
shell gun, as did the United States.
The answer to incendiary shell guns was iron. Two related innovations
occurred simultaneously: iron construction and the use of iron plates as
armor. The first armed vessel built of iron was Michigan, launched on the
Great Lakes in 1843. The previous year Congress authorized Robert L.
Stevens to build a “shot and shell proof” ironclad screw-propelled
warship, the first modern ironclad9 authorized for any navy. Initially the
vessel was to have 4 to 6 inches of armor, but inventors soon built guns
that could penetrate it. Designers planned to install thicker armor, but
even more powerful ordnance was soon available. The metallurgical
advances permitting thicker, more resistant armor could also be used to
build stronger guns capable of hurling larger projectiles at greater velocity.
Stevens never filled his contract, and France launched the first seagoing
ironclad, La Gloire, in 1859. The British countered the next year with
Warrior, the first seagoing iron-hulled ironclad. Both ships were
theoretically obsolete, since they carried only four and a half inches of
armor. The fate of Stevens’s ship and the instant obsolescence of La Gloire
and Warrior were indicative of the “race” between guns and armor—
between penetration and protection—that lasted into the post–Civil War
era.
The ascendancy of steam over sail and iron over wood had not been
achieved by 1860. Steam warships carried full sail rigging, and most naval
officers considered steam auxiliary to sails. The American Navy boasted
no large iron-hulled ships or ironclads. Yet the implications of iron and
steam were discernible. Steam completely altered maritime strategy and
tactics. Ships could travel in direct lines rather than in sweeping
deviations necessitated by prevailing winds and currents. Steam increased
travel speed, allowed for a precise calculation of how long a voyage would
take, and made in-shore maneuvering easier. However, steam also acted as
a tether, binding warships to their coal bases. Previously the wind had
been all-important in battle, but now its influence was negligible and
speed became a more significant factor. The effects of iron construction

were equally profound. It made possible ships that were larger, stronger,
and more variable in design than wooden-hulled ships, providing more
stable gun platforms capable of carrying enormous weapons. Iron hulls
were more durable than wood and could be divided into watertight
compartments that contained damage. In terms of initial cost and
economy in repairs, iron was also cheaper than wood.
Schools of War
On September 16, 1871, an elderly man committed suicide by leaping into
the paddlewheel of a Hudson River steamer. Melancholy for some time,
Dennis Hart Mahan became morbid when the Military Academy’s Board
of Visitors recommended his mandatory retirement from the West Point
faculty. For Mahan, life without the Academy was not worth living. He
had arrived at West Point in 1820 as a cadet, graduated first in the class of
1824, and served as an instructor there for two years. Then
Superintendent Sylvanus Thayer sent him to France to study military
engineering and fortifications. He resumed teaching duties at the
Academy in 1830—and left again only in death. During his more than
four decades at West Point, no one was more influential than Mahan in
the transition of officership from a craft into a profession.
All professions exhibit three characteristics: specialized expertise
attained by prolonged education and experience; a responsibility to
perform functions beneficial to society; and a sense of corporateness, a
collective self-consciousness that sets professionals apart from the rest of
society. A professional officer’s expertise is the management of violence,
and his responsibility is to provide national security. A sense of
corporateness flows from the educational process, the customs and
traditions that develop within the profession, and the unique expertise
and responsibility shared by group members.
No nation had a professional officer corps in 1800, but all the
European powers and the United States did by 1900. The impetus for
professionalization came from changes in warfare foreshadowed by the
American Revolution but made more obvious by the French Revolution
and the Napoleonic Wars. Fundamentally, as armies became larger, they
created new administrative, operational, and tactical problems and

possibilities. To deal with these, an ever-larger number of more highly
skilled officers was necessary. Thus the magnitude and complexity of
Napoleonic warfare gave birth to two elements essential for training such
professional officer-specialists: military schools and a literature on warfare
to guide officers in their studies. These developments appeared first in
Prussia, crushed by Napoleon in 1806–1807. Lacking a genius like
Frederick the Great to counter the French genius Napoleon, Prussian
leaders established a school system—culminating in the Kriegsakademie—
to forge the nation’s officers into collective competence. From the
Kriegsakademie and lesser schools came studies dealing with the theory
and principles of war. The most important was Karl von Clausewitz’s
abstract commentary on the Napoleonic Wars, On War (1831). Although
the most profound treatise on war ever written, Clausewitz’s book
remained unknown to Americans until translated into English in 1873.
France emulated the Prussian schools, since military genius appeared
so erratically that France could not depend on the timely arrival of
another Napoleon. But the French and Prussian institutions had
important differences. Prussian officers studied strategy and its
relationship to policy, while the French emphasized military engineering,
fortifications, and tactics. The Prussians wrestled with Clausewitz’s
metaphysical discourse, while the French studied Baron Antoine Henri de
Jomini’s The Art of War (1838). Clausewitz and Jomini, the two major
commentators on Napoleonic warfare, tried to discover universal
elements in war. They examined the same campaigns but presented
different interpretations. Clausewitz understood the bloody, violent, and
often chaotic style of war unleashed by the French Revolution and
Napoleon. Jomini, however, found unrestrained war repellent and
stressed decisive geographic points, speed, movement, and lines of supply
and communication. These concerns missed the central point of
Napoleonic warfare: the quest for decisive battle.
West Point followed the French example. The most obvious
deficiencies during the War of 1812 had been well-trained officers and
basic strategy. The two were not unrelated, since able officers could devise
appropriate strategy, which required competent officers to implement.
Thus postwar Republicans supported improvements at the Military
Academy, which was near extinction in 1815. The revival began in July

1817, when President James Monroe ordered Captain Sylvanus Thayer,
who had studied French military schools and fortifications, to become
superintendent. During his superintendency (1817–1833), Thayer sought
to transplant French professional standards to the banks of the Hudson,
using Mahan as his conveyor. Mahan was professor of civil and military
engineering and—as he insisted on adding to his title—of “the Art of
War.” Textbooks were not available for either the engineering or the
warfare course, so Mahan wrote his own. Known as Outpost (1847),10 his
military text was a pioneering American study of war that relied on
Napoleon (as interpreted by Jomini) to convey its lessons. In 1846
Mahan’s former student Henry W. Halleck had written Elements of
Military Art and Science, a more original discussion of military theory than
his mentor’s book, although still dependent on Jomini’s (and Mahan’s)
portrayal of Napoleon. Mahan and Halleck initiated American strategic
studies and consciously promoted professionalism, arguing that military
science was a specialized body of knowledge understandable only through
intense study, especially of military history.
Devoting only a fraction of the curriculum to military theory and
history, West Point could instill only a limited professionalism in officers.
A complete professional education required higher military schools. West
Point would introduce cadets to military art and science, but graduate
schools would give special preparation for service in the three line
branches (infantry, cavalry, artillery) and in staff positions. In 1824
Calhoun established the Army’s first postgraduate school, the Artillery
School of Practice at Fortress Monroe, and three years later his successor
founded an Infantry School of Practice at Jefferson Barracks. But the
movement was abortive. The Artillery School closed in 1835, and the
Infantry School existed in name only. A permanent postgraduate system
emerged only after the Civil War.
The Navy had no West Point equivalent until 1845, when Secretary of
the Navy George Bancroft, temporarily also serving as secretary of war,
transferred Fort Severn, Annapolis, from the Army to the Navy. Bancroft
then ordered midshipmen returning from sea, as well as a small
instructional and administrative staff, to report there. The new school
began to nurture naval professionalization and in 1850 was named the

Naval Academy. However, the Navy also lacked postgraduate schools to
hone its officer corps’ expertise, responsibility, and corporateness.
Despite savage criticism of West Point (and later the Naval Academy),
professionalization continued during the age of Jackson, an era known for
its emphasis upon egalitarianism and amateurism. Critics deemed the
Academy unnecessary and extolled the natural martial ability of citizen-
soldiers—a trait personified by Jackson himself. They denounced the
Academy as un-American, claiming it established a military aristocracy
that monopolized the officer corps and degraded enlisted men. Critics
also charged that West Point was expensive and produced more officers
than the Army needed.
The clamor against West Point had little effect, as the proportion of
West Point graduates in the officer corps grew from less than 15 percent
in 1817 to more than 76 percent in 1860. And because of accelerating
professionalization, the officer corps in 1860 was far different from what it
had been a generation earlier. Between the 1st American Regiment’s
formation in 1784 and the end of the War of 1812, the officer corps had
been characterized by administrative instability, amateurism, high
turnover (because men considered military service little more than a brief
interruption in their civil careers), and internal dissension. Indeed, few
armies had ever been led by such an unruly, contentious group of officers;
as one general wrote in 1797, the Army was an “Augean stable of anarchy
and confusion.”
But after 1815 a distinct military subculture emerged, aided by the
comparative political harmony that prevailed immediately after the War of
1812. Military careers became dramatically longer as men increasingly
viewed officership as a lifelong commitment; in 1797 the median career
length for all officers was only ten years but by 1830 it had extended to
twenty-two years. The expanded, permanent General Staff developed
formal regulations and methodical procedures that brought stability to
military administration, a structure later emulated by private corporations.
The nascent educational system socialized aspiring officers into their craft
and instilled values that united men from different regions and social
classes. Professional officers believed that the Army should avoid strident
political partisanship and instead be a neutral instrument of government
policy. Perceiving themselves as distinct from the civilian world, they

developed a near-unanimous contempt for citizen-soldiers and collectively
wallowed in self-pity, convinced that the public showed little appreciation
(but much apathy) for the Army’s difficult and dangerous task of policing
the Indian frontier.
After the War of 1812 military planners realized that no matter how
often politicians glorified citizen-soldiers or how severely Congress cut the
Army, regulars would provide the first line of land defense. They also
knew that reliance on the common militia to reinforce the regular Army
was chimerical. In 1808 Congressman Jabez Upham had argued that the
notion of prosecuting a war with militia “will do very well on paper; it
sounds well in the war speeches on this floor. To talk about every soldier
being a citizen, and every citizen being a soldier, and to declaim that the
militia of our country is the bulwark of our liberty is very captivating. All
this will figure to advantage in history. But it will not do at all in practice.”
The War of 1812 proved Upham a prophet. Aside from Baltimore and
New Orleans, the militia performed badly, and after the war it lived on
only in Fourth of July oratory. Presidents stopped urging, and Congress
ceased debating, militia reform, and the number of states submitting
militia returns to the War Department declined precipitously.
Volunteer militia units partially filled the void left by the common
militia’s demise. To preserve the Ancient and Honorable Artillery
Company and other traditional volunteer units, a section of the Uniform
Militia Act permitted states to incorporate volunteer companies. Under
this clause a volunteer militia movement swept the country after 1815,
providing an outlet for men who still took citizen-soldiering seriously.
Despite the myth of a “militant south,” the volunteer phenomenon was
particularly strong in the north, with earnest amateurs in New York,
Massachusetts, and Connecticut representing a substantial military force.
In his second annual message President Franklin Pierce praised “the
valuable services constantly rendered by the Army and its inestimable
importance as the nucleus around which the volunteer force of the nation
can promptly gather in the hour of danger.” Perhaps unknowingly the
president acknowledged that a crucial change in military policy had
occurred since the War of 1812. Militia no longer figured in the
commander in chief’s calculations, an admission no president would have
made just a generation earlier. Professionalized regulars reinforced by

enthusiastic volunteers had replaced the common militia as the
foundation for national defense.
Military Forces and National Development
The hallmarks of the age were territorial expansion and the westward
movement. Florida, Texas, Oregon, the Mexican Cession, and the
Gadsden Purchase increased the national domain, and settlement reached
the Pacific. In this surge of national development, the Army served as an
advance agent of a continental empire. Soldiers explored the west and
built, improved, and protected transportation networks. Communities
arose in the vicinity of forts where bluecoats provided security and
consumed goods and services. The Army was also a law enforcement
agency, especially in Indian affairs. West Point graduates were well suited
for developmental activities. Under Thayer’s guidance the Academy not
only produced officers with professional ideals but also became the
nation’s finest scientific and engineering school, and graduates readily
utilized their scientific and engineering skills for national development.
Army explorations began before the War of 1812, halted during the
war, and then scoured the west after 1815. Captain Meriwether Lewis and
Lieutenant William Clark led the most noteworthy prewar expedition,
which departed St. Louis in 1804, crossed the continent to the Pacific,
and returned in 1806. The expedition was the first direct federal aid in
developing the west, setting a precedent for the future. Perhaps the most
famous postwar army explorer was Lieutenant John C. Fremont, whose
three long reconnaissances, between 1842 and 1845, won him the
nickname “the Pathfinder.” But Fremont was only one of dozens of
officers who helped unlock the region’s geographic mysteries. The Army
also cooperated with civilians. Scientists, scholars, and artists normally
traveled with Army expeditions, and civilian-led parties depended upon
Army assistance. Although the trans-Mississippi west was unknown to
Americans in 1800, sixty years later people understood its geography and
knew much about its geology, flora and fauna, and native peoples.
Pioneers did not blindly enter the wilderness.
Army personnel made the west increasingly accessible by assisting with
internal improvements. Distinguishing the military from the commercial

significance of roads, improved rivers, canals, and railroads was
impossible, and in the General Survey Act of 1824 Congress authorized
the use of military engineers for transportation improvements of
commercial or military importance. Under this act Army engineers
worked on state and private projects as well as federally sponsored
improvements. The War of 1812 had demonstrated the handicaps
imposed by inadequate transportation, and Army efforts to remedy the
situation began immediately after the war. Soldiers began work where the
war had shown the greatest need, building, for example, “Jackson’s
Military Road” from Tennessee to New Orleans. As the nation expanded,
the soldier-roadbuilders followed the moving frontier. In many cases
troops did the construction, but in other instances military engineers
supervised civilian crews working under War Department contracts. Army
engineers improved rivers and harbors and assisted in the construction of
canals, such as the Chesapeake and Ohio. They worked with railroad
companies, beginning in 1827, when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
Company asked for and received government engineering aid. By the mid-
1830s, between ten and twenty companies were receiving Army
engineering assistance every year.
Army posts offered economic opportunity, often making the difference
between a stagnant local economy and a prosperous one. Although
soldiers spent much of their time farming, building barracks, doing
maintenance work, and cutting firewood, few forts achieved self-
sufficiency. They depended on the local community for building materials,
corn, beef, hay, and firewood. Garrisons employed civilians as clerks,
teamsters, and skilled laborers, and soldiers primed the economy by
spending their pay in the immediate vicinity.
Troops made the west reasonably safe. Since colonial times forts had
been built to control the fur trade, impress the Indians, deter potential
foreign enemies, and protect settlers. The fur trade remained profitable
and the Indians belligerent, Britain retained Canada, Spain held the
southwest, and settlers wanted to keep their hair. Thus the War
Department built new forts at strategic locations as the frontier swept
westward. In 1817 a loose cordon of forts ran from Fort Mackinac at Lake
Michigan’s eastern tip, to Fort Howard on Green Bay, to Forts Crawford,
Armstrong, and Edwards on the Mississippi, and to a post at

Natchitoches in central Louisiana. By the early 1850s the military frontier
ran along the Columbia River, the California coast, and the Rio Grande.
Army posts dotted the west, leaving only a handful of troops east of the
1817 perimeter.
One of the Army’s most onerous duties was enforcing the trade and
intercourse laws in Indian country. Beginning in 1790 Congress passed a
series of acts, codified in 1834, to regulate trade with the Indians and
preserve peace by eliminating Indian grievances. The laws forbade
settlement on Indian lands, licensed the Indian trade, and prohibited
liquor in Indian Territory. Upholding the law’s majesty made the Army
unpopular with avaricious settlers, traders, and whiskey vendors. Troops
were too few, lawbreakers too numerous, and the frontier too vast for
bluecoats to be effective policemen. Violators could not be tried by
courts-martial but had to be remanded to civil courts, which rarely
convicted alleged offenders. When the Army expelled intruders and
seized liquor, aggrieved parties frequently filed civil suits against
commanding officers, and the prospect of court actions deterred rigorous
enforcement.
The Navy played a vital role in national development by laying the
foundations for America’s overseas commercial and territorial empire.
Antebellum naval missions presaged a post–Civil War global commitment,
especially to the Pacific. Between 1838 and 1861 maritime expeditions
combining scientific objectives with commercial and diplomatic purposes
explored the Amazon River and the Rio de la Plata, searched the Isthmus
of Darien for an interoceanic canal site, reconnoitered the River Jordan
and the Dead Sea, sailed the Arctic seas, charted Africa’s west coast, and
ranged over the Pacific.
The most spectacular examples of the Navy’s commercial-diplomatic
role concerned China and Japan. Although the United States remained
neutral during the Opium War in China (1839–1842), a naval squadron
commanded by Lawrence Kearny was posted to protect American
merchants. Kearny’s astute diplomacy paved the way for the Treaty of
Wanghia (1844), which opened five ports to American merchants on a
most-favored-nation basis. The treaty placed American economic relations
with China under diplomatic protection for the first time and heralded an
American entrance into Far Eastern international politics. Equally

significant was Matthew C. Perry’s expedition to Japan in 1853–1854.
Perry purchased land for a coaling station at Port Lloyd in the Bonin
Islands and negotiated the Treaty of Kanagawa (1854), which opened two
Japanese ports to American commerce, promised humane treatment to
shipwrecked sailors, and permitted an American consul to reside at
Shimoda. This treaty was Japan’s first step in a meteoric ascent from
feudal isolation to great power status.
The Navy also participated in numerous punitive expeditions to
protect American lives and property, suppress piracy, uphold national
honor, and enforce treaties. During the antebellum era dozens of landing
parties composed of sailors and marines supported American interests in
Asia, in the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas, along both coasts of
South America, and along the East African coast. Most of the expeditions
were brief and bloodless, but occasionally fighting did occur. For
example, the first official American armed intervention in Asia took place
in February 1832 at Quallah Battoo, Sumatra, to avenge an attack on a
merchant vessel. President Jackson, who feared the incident might
presage other attacks on America’s growing Asian commerce, ordered
John Downes, commanding the frigate Potomac, to the scene. After a
cursory investigation, Downes sent sailors and marines ashore, where they
destroyed the town and several forts and probably killed at least 100
Sumatrans.
The unofficial alliance between the Navy and American commercial
interests produced astounding results. Between 1790 and 1860 total
exports (including reexports) increased from $20 million to $334 million;
this helped to transform the United States into one of the world’s
foremost economic powers by the end of the nineteenth century. So
stupendous was this antebellum maritime commercial expansion that one
astute foreign observer, contemplating “the ardor with which the Anglo-
Americans prosecute commerce,” predicted that America would “one day
become the foremost maritime power of the globe.”
The armed forces played indispensable roles in national development
despite acute manpower problems. Conditions in both services were often
deplorable, featuring low pay, coarse and monotonous rations, primitive
medical facilities, and near-sadistic discipline. Army recruits were
predominantly northern laborers or immigrants, many of the latter unable

to speak or understand English. In 1840, for example, only four recruits
came from the Deep South but 1,444 came from New York alone, and
between 1850 and 1859 two-thirds of the enlisted men were foreign born.
Economic factors were often foremost in a man’s decision to enlist.
Laborers who lost their jobs during economic depressions sometimes
turned to the Army in desperation, while immigrants were frequently
destitute when they arrived at a seaport. Isolated in small frontier posts,
many with fewer than 100 officers and men, soldiers had few
opportunities for martial glory and none for becoming officers. Instead,
they performed manual labor, building and maintaining forts and roads,
farming, caring for livestock, and cutting wood. Since they had enlisted to
be soldiers rather than laborers, they found these conditions onerous,
often resorting to the bottle and to desertion to escape them. Deserting
sometimes reached absurd proportions: In 1830 1,251 out of 5,231 men
fled the Army!
Conditions in the Navy were no better. Like soldiers, sailors were
isolated, floating on distant stations in tiny, cramped warships where the
work was hard, life was boring, and an atmosphere of brutality prevailed.
Common punishments included confinement in irons, informal floggings
with the end of a rope, and formal lashings with a cat-o’-nine-tails that
could leave the flesh “fairly hanging in strips” on a man’s back. Such
conditions attracted few high-quality American citizens, and by 1860 the
Navy’s foreign-born component approached 50 percent. Those Americans
who did enlist, said one naval officer, came from “the most worthless class
of our native population.” As in the Army, drunkenness and desertion
were frequent occurrences; charges relating to these crimes composed 25
percent of all charges at Navy courts-martial between 1799 and 1861.
Reform movements tried to ameliorate conditions, especially in the
Navy. Humanitarians, who often unfavorably compared sailors to slaves,
focused on the abolition of flogging and the grog ration. The Army
abolished flogging in 1812, though it was reinstated as punishment for
desertion in 1833, and ended the daily liquor ration in 1830. The Navy
clung to both. Most naval officers and their conservative congressional
allies argued against “hyperphilanthropy,” maintaining that the lash held
crews in line and the grog ration was healthful. Although reformers

eventually achieved success against flogging in 1850 and against liquor in
1862, overall conditions aboard ship improved only slightly.
Officers had to deal with truculent men and endured the same general
milieu, but they also had a special problem. Guided only by seniority,
promotion was slow. It often took twenty or thirty years for an Army
officer to become a major, and fifty-year-old naval lieutenants were
commonplace. Shut away in frontier posts or distant ships, scanning the
news for deaths or resignations among more senior officers, men became
quarrelsome and inordinately sensitive about personal honor. To escape
the boredom, low pay, lack of esteem, and pettiness, many officers
resigned, especially from the Army, because they could exploit their West
Point education in civilian pursuits. Yet some good officers remained,
proud of their profession and their role in national development.
The Army and Indian Removal
In the west, President Jackson told the Indians, “Your white brothers will
not trouble you; they will have no claim to the land, and you can live upon
it, you and all your children, as long as the grass grows or the water runs,
in peace and plenty. It will be yours forever.” The president’s promise of a
permanent Indian Territory was important in Indian removal, which
meant trading land in the Louisiana Purchase to Indians living east of the
Mississippi in exchange for their traditional homelands. After the War of
1812 the government informally pursued a removal policy until 1830,
when Congress finally authorized the president to negotiate land-
exchange treaties. Four years later Congress defined Indian country as
land west of the Mississippi except for Louisiana, Missouri, and Arkansas.
The government adopted removal as official policy for several reasons.
Increased trans-Appalachian settlement made eastern territory more
desirable, while humanitarians, motivated by an arrogant paternalism,
argued that removal would save the Indians from extinction, the
inevitable fate for people who resisted “superior” white civilization.
The Army had several duties under the removal policy. Initially civilian
contractors organized Indian traveling parties, but they were so corrupt
that in 1832 the secretary of war assigned these tasks to the Army. Army
personnel helped the emigrants settle in their new lands and protected

them from the Plains Indians. Operating from forts along the border of
Indian country, the bluecoats tried to preserve peace between whites and
Indians. Most important, when Indians resisted removal, the Army went
to war. Removal was supposedly voluntary and a few tribes went west
without opposition, but most preferred to remain. To persuade them to
emigrate, Jackson employed wholesale fraud and deception, and when
chicanery failed, he used force. In 1836 three Creek bands went on the
warpath, but more than 11,000 regulars, citizen-soldiers, and friendly
Creeks quickly ended the resistance. When most Cherokees also opposed
removal, force again compelled submission.
Although the Creek and Cherokee troubles were hardly wars, removal
did provoke two genuine conflicts, the Black Hawk War and the Second
Seminole War. The Sac and Fox tribes occupied prime Illinois real estate,
and in 1827 the state petitioned the War Department for the Indians’
removal. When nothing had been done by 1831, Governor John Reynolds
mobilized volunteers and forced Black Hawk, an aged Sac chief, to sign
an agreement to stay west of the Mississippi. But during the winter Black
Hawk received false assurances of assistance from Canada and from other
tribes. In April 1832 he and his followers, including women and children,
recrossed the river. The resulting war was a deadly farce, “a tissue of
blunders,” as one colonel called it. Learning that he would receive no
British or Indian support, Black Hawk tried to surrender three times, but
on each occasion the whites rejected the peace overture. The Black Hawk
War ended in early August at the so-called “Battle of Bad Axe,” where the
whites slaughtered men, women, and children.
Seminole removal was more difficult. The United States first tangled
with the Seminoles in 1817–1818 when Jackson, under War Department
orders, invaded Florida. The motives behind the invasion were complex.
Seminoles were raiding the Georgia frontier and escaping to safety under
the Spanish flag, and Spanish authorities appeared powerless to restrain
them. Florida was also a sanctuary for escaped slaves, who participated in
the Indian forays. The hope of extending United States territory and
removing a proximate foreign influence reinforced the desire to eliminate
the sanctuary and recapture the slaves. With typical zeal, Jackson
destroyed Indian villages, captured Spanish towns, and deposed the
Spanish governor. Although Jackson eventually withdrew from Florida,

Spain realized it would ultimately lose the territory and decided to
negotiate. The Adams-Onis Treaty, ratified in 1821, ceded Florida to the
United States. The Seminoles also negotiated, signing a treaty in 1823
calling for them to concentrate on a reservation in central Florida. Few
had done so by the early 1830s, and Jackson’s administration negotiated
new treaties, which it claimed obligated the Seminoles to emigrate. The
Indians maintained the treaties were invalid.
When the Second Seminole War began in December 1835, defeating
the Seminoles seemed relatively easy. Fewer than 5,000 Indians lived in
Florida, and the 1,200 warriors often fought with bows and arrows.
Several factors made the task difficult, and the war became the Army’s
longest, most costly Indian conflict. The terrain and climate proved
formidable, and the black fugitives stiffened Seminole resistance. Removal
for the Indians meant a new western home, but blacks feared they would
be returned to slavery. The Seminoles and their black allies were adept
guerrillas. A frustrated War Department even authorized the use of
bloodhounds to track the elusive Indians, prompting an antiwar
congressman to ask for a report on the “natural, political, and martial
history of bloodhounds, showing the peculiar fitness of that class of
warriors to be associates of the gallant army of the United States.”
Eight commanders tried to remove the Seminoles. Although their
cumulative effect was to sap Seminole strength, by the time the eighth
commander, Colonel William J. Worth, took charge in April 1841 the war
seemed interminable. Determined to end the conflict, Worth conducted
the war ruthlessly. With more than 5,000 regulars under his command, he
launched the war’s first summer campaign, preventing the Seminoles from
raising and harvesting their crops. The regulars suffered a high incidence
of disease, but striking at the Indians’ villages and means of subsistence
reduced the Seminole population to about 250 by the next spring.
President John Tyler sent Congress a special message saying “further
pursuit of these miserable beings by a large military force seems to be as
injudicious as it is unavailing.” He authorized Worth to proclaim the war
ended, which the colonel did in August 1842. The original goal of
complete removal had not been achieved despite great manpower and
monetary costs. Approximately 10,000 regulars and 30,000 citizen-
soldiers served, at a cost of more than 1,500 deaths and $20 million. Yet

enough Seminoles remained to wage a comparatively minor Third
Seminole War during the 1850s.
By the mid-1840s Indian removal was nearly completed. In 1820 an
estimated 125,000 Indians were living east of the Mississippi; twenty-five
years later fewer than 30,000 remained. But removal of the eastern Indians
did not end Indian-white conflicts. After the Mexican War white
settlement reached the Great Plains and leaped across the Rocky
Mountains to the Pacific coast, igniting new confrontations. Between 1850
and 1861 the Army clashed with the Sioux, Cheyennes, Kiowas, and
Comanches on the Plains; with the Apaches, Navajos, and Utes in the
deserts and mountains of the southwest; and with the Yakimas, Rogues,
Walla Wallas, and other small tribes in the Pacific northwest. Despite
Jackson’s promise, no Indian territory was permanent. Most whites
believed they needed the entire west in order to fulfill the nation’s
Manifest Destiny.
The Mexican War, 1846–1848
The “re-occupation of Oregon and the re-annexation of Texas at the
earliest practicable period,” read the 1844 Democratic Party platform,
“are great American measures.” This shrewdly contrived plank appealed
to both southern and northern expansionists and averted charges of
imperialism by implying that the United States had once occupied Oregon
and owned Texas, neither of which was true. Despite the political
opportunism and historical fabrication, the plank captured the spirit of
Manifest Destiny sweeping the nation and expressed the avid
expansionism of the Democratic presidential candidate, James K. Polk.
Polk interpreted his narrow election victory as a mandate to acquire
Oregon and Texas, as well as California and New Mexico. Pursuit of these
territorial ambitions almost provoked a two-front war. Britain, whose
claim to Oregon was as good as America’s, resented Polk’s assertion that
the United States had a “clear and unquestionable” right to all Oregon. It
seemed that a third Anglo-American war might explode over Oregon, but
a powerful England could accept a compromise without loss of dignity
and, despite some vociferous Democratic sentiment for all Oregon, so

could Polk. In June 1846 the two nations split Oregon by extending the
49th Parallel to the Pacific.
The settlement with England was fortunate because the United States
had gone to war with Mexico the previous month. Many issues soured
United States-Mexican relations, but the war began over Texas, which had
gained independence in a brief but bitter war in 1835–1836. The United
States and other nations recognized the new country, but Mexico refused
to accept the results of the Texas revolution and warned the United States
that it would consider annexation an act of war. When the United States
annexed Texas in 1845, Mexico broke diplomatic relations and threatened
reprisals against Texas. A final diplomatic effort by Polk delayed
hostilities, but war was inevitable after annexation. Mexico believed it
could not accept territorial dismemberment and maintain national honor.
Determined to have Texas and the Mexican provinces of New Mexico and
California, Polk was willing to fight for them.
The question of Texas’s southern boundary aggravated the annexation
issue. Texas claimed the Rio Grande, but Mexico insisted the Nueces
River was the border. Accepting the Texans’ interpretation, Polk ordered
Brigadier General Zachary Taylor to assume a position “on or near” the
Rio Grande. Taylor stopped at Corpus Christi at the mouth of the Nueces,
which was neither on nor very near the Rio Grande, but Polk acquiesced.
However, on January 12, 1846, Polk learned his special envoy had failed
to persuade Mexico to accept the Rio Grande boundary and to sell New
Mexico and California. The next day he ordered Taylor to the Rio
Grande. By late March the general’s Army of Occupation had
concentrated opposite Matamoros. From Polk’s perspective Taylor had
assumed a forward defensive position; the Mexicans considered Taylor’s
advance an invasion.
In late April the Mexican commander, Major General Mariano Arista,
sent his cavalry across the Rio Grande, and some of his horsemen
ambushed two dragoon squadrons. Unbeknownst to either Arista or
Taylor, Mexico’s president had already declared a “defensive war,” and
even before Polk learned of the incident, he had also decided on war. On
May 9 Polk told his cabinet that he wanted to send Congress a war
message. Taylor’s report of the ambush arrived that evening, and with
unanimous cabinet approval Polk delivered his message on May 11.

Mexico, he said, “has passed the boundary of the United States, has
invaded our territory, and shed American blood on American soil.” War,
Polk insisted, “exists by the act of Mexico herself.” Although these
assertions were half-truths, the United States declared war on May 13.
Two major battles had already occurred. On the last day of April
Arista’s army crossed the Rio Grande, and on May 8 it confronted Taylor
at Palo Alto. Taylor told his men “that their main dependence must be in
the bayonet,” but American artillery bore the brunt of the battle and
forced the Mexicans to withdraw. Just south of Palo Alto the open prairie
gave way to dense chaparral sliced by ancient river beds known as resacas.
At Resaca de la Palma, Arista’s army assumed a strong defensive position.
The tangled growth made it difficult for American artillery to deploy, and
the resaca formed a natural breastwork. The battle was a melee as the
chaparral shattered unit cohesion. The Mexicans again lost and were sent
fleeing across the Rio Grande. In two battles Taylor’s smaller army had
inflicted 800 casualties and sustained fewer than 200.
The battles stunned Mexico, which believed it would win the war.
Many leading Mexicans judged the United States politically and militarily
weak. Slavery and the tariff were such divisive issues that some Mexicans
thought that northern states would not aid the south in a war against
Mexico. Two fifth-column elements would make a war difficult for the
gringos: Slaves would rebel, and Indians would seek revenge for removal.
The U.S. regular Army was small, and Mexican officials considered
citizen-soldiers worthless. Even if Americans mounted an offensive,
logistical support would be impossible across Mexico’s arid expanses. An
amphibious invasion would confront tempestuous waters, bad roads
leading inland, and Mexico’s staunch lowland ally, yellow fever. By
contrast, Mexico seemed powerful. European observers considered its
armed forces superb, an opinion shared by most Mexicans. Privateers
would swarm to sea, feasting upon American commerce. Mexico also
believed it would receive European aid, especially from England, since an
Anglo-American war over Oregon seemed imminent. “We have more than
enough strength to make war,” exhorted the editors of La Vox del Pueblo.
“Let us make it, then, and victory will perch upon our banners.”
The only accurate aspect of Mexico’s assessment was its belief that the
war would divide American society. Antiwar movements—Loyalists

during the Revolution, Republicans in the Quasi-War, and Federalists in
1812—had become traditional, and the Mexican War was no exception.
Four major groups criticized the conflict. Abolitionists believed the war
was a southern plot to extend slavery. Pacifists argued that war violated
every Christian principle and that “false and pernicious principles,” such
as “our country, right or wrong,” had subverted the people’s moral
character. Whig politicians believed Polk had provoked Mexico in order
to launch an imperialistic invasion. A small group of “Conscience” Whigs
voted against military appropriations, but the larger number of “Cotton”
Whigs, though critical of the war, affirmed their loyalty by praising
American soldiers, eulogizing their commanders, and voting for the men
and money Polk requested. By denouncing “Mr. Polk’s War” while loyally
supporting it, the Whig Party avoided political suicide. Democratic
followers of expresident Martin Van Buren and of John C. Calhoun, now
a South Carolina senator, joined their Whig opponents in castigating the
war. Van Burenites disliked Polk and opposed the expansion of slavery.
Calhoun hoped his stand would lead to the presidency in 1848 but feared
the impact of slavery’s expansion on the nation’s political stability. He also
thought the seemingly unrestrained war power Polk exercised was
unconstitutional, presaging a dangerous consolidation of power in the
executive branch.
The antiwar movement had little impact. Diverse critics never united,
and no civil rights issue allowed militant dissenters to become martyrs.
Since military service was voluntary and government loans rather than
direct federal taxes financed the war, activists could not resist a draft or
refuse to pay taxes. Nor could they decry government censorship: Polk
never suppressed critics despite their vicious attacks on him. However, the
president questioned his critics’ loyalty. He referred to the Whigs as
“Federalists” and claimed the antiwar agitation encouraged the enemy,
thus protracting the war.
Although Polk had no military experience, he acted as not only
commander in chief but also as coordinator in chief for the war effort. In
the country’s first example of prewar strategic planning, after consulting
with his cabinet Polk had contingency war plans drafted more than six
months before Arista’s cavalry attacked Taylor’s dragoons north of the Rio
Grande. Once the war began he exercised tight control over every aspect

of it, setting precedents that subsequent presidents built upon to make the
White House, not the Capitol, the center of wartime authority. No
problem perplexed Polk as much as the senior Army commanders, Scott
and Taylor, who were as different as their nicknames implied. “Old Rough
and Ready” Taylor rarely wore a uniform and had limited strategic and
tactical abilities. His interest in military intelligence and planning for
campaigns was so deficient that Scott assigned Captain William W. S. Bliss
as his chief staff officer. Considered the Army’s brightest intellect,
“Perfect” Bliss would compensate for Taylor’s own conception of warfare,
which rarely went beyond marching, firing, and charging. Taylor’s
strength was his battlefield imperturbability. Sitting atop Old Whitey, one
leg crossed over the pommel and chewing on a straw, he never panicked.
“Old Fuss and Feathers” Scott, who became the commanding general in
1841, loved fancy uniforms and had considerable strategic and tactical
abilities. Although not a West Pointer, he had a keen interest in military
affairs, read widely on the subject, and wrote tactical manuals. A
meticulous planner, he insisted upon a thorough military reconnaissance
before maneuvering or fighting.

Taylor and Scott were both Whigs with presidential ambitions. Since
Polk had no desire to win the war with a Whig general who might
capitalize on his military reputation to become president, he tried to
circumvent them. He proposed creating the position of lieutenant general,
last held by Washington, and intended to nominate an ardent Democrat
for the post. But Congress refused to establish the lieutenant generalcy,
and so Polk waged war with commanding officers whom he distrusted.
The generals feared a conspiracy to deprive them of success and felt, as
Scott put it, doubly endangered by “a fire upon my rear, from Washington,
and the fire, in front, from the Mexicans.”
Polk oversaw many details of manpower mobilization. Three options
were available, one being to call out the common militia. When the war
began, Taylor, with War Department authorization, called out 1,390 three-
month militia; and General Edmund P. Gaines, without authority,
mobilized 11,211 more for six months. Also, on May 13, 1846, Congress
extended the militia’s term of service from three to six months and
authorized the president to call militiamen into service, although no one
believed the nation could rely on common militia. Even a six-month term
was too brief for a distant conflict, and the constitutional question about
foreign service remained. Most of the militiamen mobilized by Taylor and
Gaines were demobilized before they did any fighting.
Another possibility was to increase the regular Army. In the War of
1812 Congress created many new regiments, forming an impressive paper
army. However, the understrength units composed of raw men and
officers usually lacked proficiency. The government avoided repeating this
mistake because after the Seminole War the Army had been reduced to
8,600 men along expansible lines, eliminating privates but not regiments.
In May 1846 Congress authorized Polk to increase the number of
privates, doubling the Army’s authorized strength. New recruits, placed
among veteran soldiers and under experienced officers, soon marched and
fought like veterans themselves. Only in February 1847 did Congress vote
for ten additional regiments.
The final option was to mobilize the volunteer militia, and on May 13,
1846, Congress called for 50,000 volunteers to serve for twelve months or
the duration of the war at the president’s discretion. The War Department
understood that it was to enlist volunteer militia units under the call for

50,000 volunteers. The president erred when he delegated to the states, or
even to the units, the decision of whether the newly raised troops would
serve for a year or the duration; states and volunteer units almost
unanimously chose the former. The mass infusion of volunteers led to
traditional problems associated with citizen-soldiers. Ill-disciplined, they
murdered, robbed, rioted, and raped with such abandon that Mexicans
considered them “Vandals vomited from Hell.” Regulars and volunteers
viewed each other with contempt. A regular described Louisiana
volunteers as “lawless drunken rabble” who emulated “each other in
making beasts of themselves.” In turn, a volunteer complained that even if
he captured the entire enemy army single-handedly, “it would not be
deemed a deed worthy of remark, being done as it would be, by a man not
a graduate of West Point.” Volunteer regiments drained recruits from the
regulars. Finally, volunteers were expensive since, invariably, land and
monetary bounties had to be offered in order to entice them to enlist.
It became harder to fill the ranks as the war progressed. Antiwar
criticism dissuaded some potential recruits, but increased knowledge of
conditions in Mexico did more to dampen enthusiasm. Said one young
man:
No sir-ee! As long as I can work, beg, or go to the poor house, I won’t
go to Mexico, to be lodged on the damp ground, half starved, half
roasted, bitten by mosquetoes and centipedes, stung by scorpions and
tarantulas—marched, drilled, and flogged, and then stuck up to be
shot at, for eight dollars a month and putrid rations.
Compensating for the lack of quantity was the troops’ fighting quality,
which resulted primarily from competent officers, especially West
Pointers. Academy graduates did not dominate the regular Army high
command but served brilliantly in the junior ranks as skillful troop
instructors, combat leaders, and military engineers. Professionally
educated officers also served with the volunteers. Many West Point
graduates who had resigned received volunteer commissions, as did men
who had attended the Academy but never graduated. Mexican War
volunteers occasionally performed badly, but normally they fought as
tenaciously as regulars, demonstrating anew what Scott had proved at

Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane: that good leaders could quickly transform
ordinary citizens into excellent soldiers.
No matter how brave and well led, troops need logistical support to
fight effectively. Three staff departments shared logistics responsibility.
The Ordnance Department provided weapons, the Subsistence
Department rations, and the Quartermaster Department clothing,
equipment, and transportation. No one (except staff officers) thought the
supply bureaus worked efficiently. Polk believed staff officers had become
too accustomed to easy living, displayed little energy but great
extravagance, and were “Federalists.” He held numerous conferences
with staff officers, maintaining that he and Secretary of War William L.
Marcy had to “look after them, even in the performance of the ordinary
routine details in their offices.” Taylor and Scott agreed with Polk about
the staff’s incompetence. Both generals complained about inadequate
logistical support, as did nearly every private. Suppliers joined in the
critical chorus because staff officers sliced profit margins too thin.
Most of the complainants hindered rather than helped the supply
bureaus. Polk, who wanted to conquer an enormous empire at small cost,
followed a parsimonious policy that crippled procurement and
transportation. Taylor was usually tardy in submitting requisitions, and
Scott demanded more of everything no matter how much he already had.
Wastefulness characterized the troops, and contractors engaged in
unscrupulous price gouging, made doubly criminal by the shoddy goods
they often supplied. In truth, logistical support excelled that of any
previous war. Steamships and railroads helped make the logistical effort
reasonably successful. Wherever possible the railroads moved supplies
and troops to ports, and steamboats ferried them to Mexico. Although
room for improvement existed, the bureaus performed creditably
considering the vast distances and difficult geographic and climatic
conditions.
Initial strategy, which Polk discussed with his cabinet and Scott, was
obvious: blockade Mexico’s east coast and seize the provinces west and
south of Texas, including Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Chihuahua, New
Mexico, and California. Economic pressure and conquest, Polk hoped,
would force Mexico to yield to his territorial demands. The Home
Squadron, commanded by David Conner and his successor, Matthew C.

Perry, conducted the blockade. From a strictly military viewpoint
blockade duty was not dangerous, since the United States enjoyed
unchallenged naval superiority. Not a single enemy warship entered the
Gulf, and the privateering threat never materialized. Yet the duty was not
easy. Men and ships were in short supply, scurvy struck many sailors,
vicious northerly gales appeared between October and April, and yellow
fever raged from April to October. Boredom reigned most of the time,
except during infrequent moments when lookouts spotted a strange sail or
when naval forces attacked enemy ports in an effort to make the blockade
more effective. The Navy unsuccessfully assaulted Alvarado twice but
captured Frontera and Tampico.
Taylor’s army invaded Nuevo Leon after occupying Matamoros
without a fight. Old Rough and Ready’s objective was the capital of
Monterrey, but he advanced slowly, not arriving there until September 19.
Monterrey stood on high ground on the north bank of the Rio Santa
Catarina, which effectively guarded its rear. To the west were two fortified
hills. The citadel, an uncompleted cathedral surrounded by bastioned
walls, protected the city from the north, and two smaller fortifications
anchored the defenses on the east. The stone houses were loopholed, the
streets barricaded, and General Pedro de Ampudia, who had replaced
Arista, had 7,500 men and forty-two artillery pieces to defend the city.
Monterrey’s defenses would have given pause to a less resolute
commander than Taylor, who had only 6,200 men and lacked proper siege
guns. But Taylor, displaying serene confidence, ordered a daring double
envelopment. He sent Colonel William J. Worth’s division around the city
to the west; the army’s other two divisions would batter into Monterrey
from the east. Aside from the problem of coordinating the two wings,
Taylor’s plan invited defeat in detail. But the Mexican commander failed
to grasp the opportunity, and between September 21 and 24 Taylor’s
forces fought their way into the city. Ampudia and Taylor then signed an
eight-week armistice, allowing the Mexican army to withdraw intact and
giving the Americans Monterrey without further bloodshed.
When Polk learned of the armistice, he was irate. Had Taylor
persevered, captured Ampudia’s army, and pushed farther into the
country, “it would have probably ended the war with Mexico.” He
obviously did not understand Taylor’s critical situation. The enemy army

could not be captured without vicious street fighting and heavy casualties.
Taylor’s army had already suffered more than 500 casualties and was tired
and demoralized, barely capable of further combat. Ammunition was in
short supply, and Taylor had no plans for restocking. In any event,
convinced of Taylor’s ineptitude, Polk ordered the armistice abrogated.
Old Rough and Ready wondered whether Polk was trying to discredit him
for political reasons, but he followed the order and marched to Saltillo,
the capital of Coahuila. Taylor had no desire to advance farther, since San
Luis Potosí, the next potential target, was 300 miles to the south across
rugged terrain.
In both New Mexico and California the pattern was one of conquest,
revolt, and reconquest. Commanding the Army of the West, Stephen W.
Kearny departed Fort Leavenworth in June, marched 850 miles in less
than two months, and took Santa Fe without firing a shot. Kearny then
continued westward with 300 men to aid in California’s conquest. En
route he met Kit Carson, who reported that California was already in
American hands. The conquest involved American settlers engaged in the
Bear Flag Revolt, the navy’s Pacific Squadron, and John C. Fremont’s
“exploring” party of sixty-two heavily armed men. Kearny sent most of his
command back to Santa Fe and marched westward with a mere hundred
men. Unbeknownst to Carson or Kearny, Californians loyal to Mexico
revolted against the American conquerors in late September, as did loyal
New Mexicans in mid-December. Kearny’s weary troopers arrived in
California just in time to help Fremont and the Pacific Squadron quell the
rebellion in late December and early January. Colonel Sterling Price,
Kearny’s successor at Santa Fe, defeated the New Mexicans at Taos in
early February 1847, ending their uprising. In neither province was
American authority challenged again.
Meanwhile, two columns advanced on Chihuahua, the capital of
Chihuahua Province. Commanding three volunteer regiments and a few
regulars, John E. Wool departed San Antonio in late September, and
Alexander W Doniphan’s 850-man 1st Missouri Mounted Volunteers left
Valverde, New Mexico, in mid-December. Wool occupied Monclova,
where he received reports that Chihuahua’s garrison had fled. Since he
believed it made little sense to continue toward Chihuahua, Wool asked
for and received permission to advance farther south. When Wool’s men

eventually joined Old Rough and Ready in late December 1846, they had
marched 900 miles and not fired a shot. Doniphan’s horsemen traveled
more than twice as far and won two battles: El Brazito, just north of El
Paso; and Rio Sacramento, fifteen miles from Chihuahua. Upon entering
the city they found themselves isolated in a hostile community. Doniphan
wrote Wool asking for instructions and received orders to join the main
army. The Missourians reached Taylor in mid-May; thus they had missed
the Battle of Buena Vista. Wool’s men had not been so lucky.
Buena Vista resulted from Polk’s new strategic approach. During the
summer and fall of 1846 he received good news from the war zones. The
blockade grew tighter, Taylor was deep into enemy territory, and initially
New Mexico and California easily succumbed. Yet Mexico rebuffed peace
initiatives. Successful on the battlefield, the initial strategy failed because
it did not bring Mexico to terms. Polk and his advisers rethought their
strategy and in October 1846 decided to capture Veracruz and send an
expedition from there to Mexico City.
Designed to force Mexico to the negotiating table, the new strategy
raised two difficult questions: Who should command the expedition, and
where could the troops be found? The invasion of the enemy heartland
would make the commander a war hero and a presidential prospect. Polk
considered five men for the position. Congress prevented Democratic
Senator Thomas H. Benton from being named the commander when it
refused to establish the rank of lieutenant general. Major Generals Robert
Patterson and William O. Butler were Democrats and thus potentially
excellent choices; but Patterson was ineligible for the presidency because
of foreign birth, and Polk did not know Butler very well. Taylor was a
winning general, but the cabinet agreed with Polk “that he was unfit for
the chief command, that he had not mind enough for the station, that he
was a bitter political partisan and had no sympathies with the
administration.” By process of elimination the command devolved on
Scott, who at least would keep all the glory from Taylor.
Scott was an excellent choice. Since the war began he had argued that
only a repetition of Cortes’s march to the Valley of Mexico would end the
war. When the administration first contemplated the expedition, Scott
wrote the planning papers detailing the military requirements and
establishing the operation’s feasibility. He estimated that 4,000 regulars

and 10,000 volunteers would be needed and insisted that the Veracruz
assault had to take place before the yellow fever season began. Since little
time remained to raise new regiments, Scott took more than half Taylor’s
men, including almost all his regulars, and prudently ordered Old Rough
and Ready to remain on the defensive. The expedition was a double blow
to Taylor. Denied the opportunity to command it, he also lost most of his
army. Polk and Scott, he fumed, had conspired to cut short his military
career and deprive him of the 1848 Whig nomination.
A copy of Scott’s order listing the troops withdrawn from Taylor fell
into enemy hands. Santa Anna, the new Mexican commander, decided to
attack the weakened army at Saltillo; he massed an army at San Luis
Potosí and trekked across the desert wastelands. Taylor did not believe
Santa Anna would attempt such an arduous march, and to demonstrate
his confidence he advanced to Agua Nueva, disobeying Scott’s defensive
orders. By February 20 Santa Anna’s 15,000-man army reached
Encarnacion, thirty-five miles from Taylor’s army. Major Ben McCulloch
of the Texas Rangers infiltrated the Mexican encampment, accurately
estimated enemy numbers, and hastened to Taylor with the bad news.
Taylor immediately retreated from Agua Nueva to a strong defensive site
just south of Buena Vista. He had only 4,500 men, almost 90 percent of
them volunteers who had never been in battle.
On February 22 Santa Anna sent Taylor a message inviting him to
surrender, since he could “not in any human probability avoid suffering a
rout, and being cut to pieces.” When Taylor declined, the Mexicans
attacked late in the afternoon and some inconclusive skirmishing resulted.
Santa Anna renewed the attack early the next morning, and by nine
o’clock the American situation was critical. Taylor assumed a conspicuous
position near the center of the battlefield, while Bliss reconnoitered the
deteriorating American lines. The battle, Bliss reported, was lost. “I know
it,” replied Taylor, “but the volunteers don’t know it. Let them alone,
we’ll see what they do.” What they did was fight like veteran regulars.
Everywhere the Mexicans outflanked or staved in the defenses, but the
volunteers repeatedly rallied, oftentimes behind regular artillery batteries
that heroically supported the citizen-soldiers throughout the day. By
nightfall Taylor’s army had not been routed, but it had been cut to pieces.
About 14 percent of his men were dead, wounded, or missing. Although

Mexican losses had been severe and Santa Anna retreated, Old Rough
and Ready took little joy in the victory. “The great loss on both sides,” he
wrote, “has deprived me of everything like pleasure.”
The day before Buena Vista began, Old Fuss and Feathers arrived at
Lobos Island, staging area for the Veracruz assault. By early March
enough troops, transports, and naval vessels had reached the island, and
the expedition commenced. On March 9 Scott made the first major
amphibious landing in American history, the troops going ashore in
surfboats specially requested by Scott. The Mexicans did not contest the
landing, and 10,000 troops came ashore without loss of life. In less than a
week siege lines spanned the city’s landward side, while the Home
Squadron maintained a sea blockade. Isolated and defended by only 4,500
men, Veracruz capitulated on March 29. The surrender was not a day too
soon, as Scott expected the dreaded vomito (yellow fever) to strike soon.
He had the bulk of his men heading inland on the national highway
during early April.
Fifty miles from the coast the highway ran through a rocky defile at
Cerro Gordo. Here Santa Anna, who had traveled a thousand miles and
raised a new army since Buena Vista, established defenses manned by
12,000 soldiers. If he stopped the advance, the Yankees would have to
remain in the vomito-ridden lowlands. For the Americans to attack the
fortifications head-on would be bloody business. Captain Robert E. Lee
found a path skirting the Mexican left flank, and on April 18 the
Americans attacked it. After three hours of tough fighting the Mexicans
fled, and the next day the Americans entered picturesque Jalapa above the
yellow fever zone.
At Jalapa the enlistment of 3,700 twelve-month volunteers expired.
Apparently without a qualm about leaving a depleted army deep inside
enemy territory, they refused to reenlist and marched back to the
transports at Veracruz. Scott now had only 7,100 men left, but he
continued to Puebla, where he paused to await reinforcements. By early
August he had 10,700 effectives, and the advance toward Mexico City
began. Resolving “to render my little army a self-sustaining machine,”
Scott abandoned his supply and communication lines, a sensible though
risky solution to a difficult situation. Guerrillas infested the region
between Veracruz and Puebla, and Scott did not have spare manpower to

guard the road. Following the war from afar, the Duke of Wellington said
that “Scott is lost. . . . He can’t take the city, and he can’t fall back upon
his base.”
The indefatigable Santa Anna raised 30,000 men to defend the capital
and built strong fortifications facing eastward, assuming Scott would
attack along the road from Puebla. Scott reconnoitered the city’s various
approaches and, as at Cerro Gordo, executed a flanking maneuver that
promised success without an all-out battle. He avoided Santa Anna’s
prepared defenses by assaulting Mexico City from the south. The
Mexican commander rushed troops into new positions, resulting in the
Battles of Contreras and Churubusco. The Mexicans lost 10,000 men;
Scott’s casualties were a tenth that many.
Having twice battered the enemy, Scott agreed to an armistice,
believing Mexico would negotiate a favorable peace rather than allow the
invaders into the capital. But Santa Anna used the cessation of hostilities
to revitalize his shattered army. Realizing he had been duped, Scott
renewed his offensive in September, defeating the Mexicans at Molino del
Rey and Chapultepec. Molino del Rey was particularly costly for Scott,
who had received reports that it contained a cannon foundry. Contrary to
his normal flanking tactics, he ordered a headlong assault by Worth’s
division. Two hours and 781 casualties later, Worth captured Molino del
Rey only to learn that Scott’s intelligence about a cannon foundry was
erroneous. Chapultepec fell after an artillery bombardment on September
12 and a well-planned hour-long attack on the 13th. Seeing the American
flag flying over Chapultepec, Santa Anna exclaimed that “if we were to
plant our batteries in Hell the damned Yankees would take them from
us.” Meanwhile, American troops rushed down two narrow causeways
toward Mexico City and captured the Belen and San Cosme Garitas
(gates), thereby gaining access to the city. The next day Scott’s army,
numbering fewer than 7,000 effectives, occupied the Mexican capital.
When Wellington learned of Scott’s victory, he declared that the
American commander was “the greatest living soldier” and urged young
English officers to study the Veracruz–Mexico City campaign, which he
considered “unsurpassed in military annals.” Old Fuss and Feathers
deserved the praise, having brilliantly conducted an audacious campaign.
Yet, like Taylor’s victories, Scott’s expedition did not result in immediate

peace. Mexican national pride made it difficult to accept defeat, and
political turmoil frustrated the government’s decision-making process.
The growing American antiwar movement also indicated that continued
resistance might secure more favorable terms. Intense guerrilla warfare,
the traditional recourse for a nation with limited conventional military
power, involved the occupation forces in constant patrolling and
numerous clashes.
With its armies defeated in every battle, its northern provinces
conquered, and its capital occupied, Mexico’s refusal to negotiate
frustrated Polk and his supporters. As the war’s toll in blood and treasure
had increased, Polk believed the United States should take as an
indemnity more territory than he originally demanded. Some Democrats
even demanded “All Mexico.” In April 1847 Polk had dispatched the
State Department’s chief clerk, Nicholas E Trist, to accompany Scott’s
army with an offer to the Mexican government to negotiate. Trist’s
instructions embodied Polk’s original territorial goals. By October 1847
the president not only wanted more land but also believed Trist had
performed badly and, even worse, had become Scott’s political ally. Polk
recalled Trist, but the diplomat refused to obey. On February 2, 1848,
Trist signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which he negotiated on the
basis of his original instructions. Under the treaty’s provisions the United
States would pay Mexico $15 million and assume the damage claims of its
own citizens against Mexico totaling $3.25 million. In return Mexico
would recognize the Rio Grande boundary and cede New Mexico and
California.
Few people liked the treaty. Polk was appalled that Trist had ignored
his recall, avid expansionists believed the United States would gain too
little territory, and war opponents thought the country had taken too
much land. Yet on March 10 the Senate ratified the treaty. “The desire for
peace, and not the approbation of its terms,” wrote Calhoun, “induces the
Senate to yield its consent.” Direct war costs amounted to $58 million,
plus the money paid under the treaty’s terms. The human price was also
high: American deaths were approximately 14,700. As usual, disease and
accidents, not bullets and bayonets, were the big killers: Only 1,733 men
were killed in action or died of wounds.

Like most wars, the conflict with Mexico yielded glaring ironies. Polk,
the staunch Democratic partisan, waged war both militarily and
politically. In military terms he was spectacularly successful against
Mexico, but he lost the political battle against popular Whig generals. In
1848 the Whigs nominated for the presidency Old Rough and Ready, who
led them to victory. More fundamentally, the vast territorial expansion of
America’s western empire precipitated the Civil War. Although historians
do not agree on all the war’s fundamental causes, few deny that the
immediate question of whether the newly acquired land would be slave or
free played a significant role in shattering the nation. Manifest Destiny
had made disunity manifest.

SIX
The Civil War, 1861–1862
At 4:30 A.M. on April 12, 1861, a lightning-like flash and thunderous roar
shattered the predawn stillness at Charleston, South Carolina. A mortar
shell arced across the sky, its burning fuse etching a parabolic path toward
Fort Sumter. Moments after the shell exploded, guns ringing the harbor
began battering the fort as if “an army of devils were swooping around it.”
For thirty-four hours artillery commanded by General Pierre Gustave
Toutant Beauregard fired at Sumter, setting numerous fires and knocking
huge masonry flakes in all directions. Miraculously, the seemingly
murderous barrage killed none of the fort’s soldiers or workmen. But the
commanding officer, Major Robert Anderson, who had been Beauregard’s
artillery instructor at West Point, knew the good luck could not continue.
Having satisfied the demands of duty and honor, he ordered the Stars and
Stripes lowered and the white flag raised. The Civil War had begun.
Decades of sectional disagreements over the expansion of slavery into
the territories and, for a small minority of northerners, the moral
implications of the institution, fueled sharp differences over states’ rights
versus national authority and propelled the divided nation toward that
fateful moment in Charleston Harbor. Once war became a reality, many
people on both sides offered predictions regarding its probable duration
and who would triumph. Few, however, foresaw exactly what the war
would be like. Most people optimistically predicted a brief conflict waged
with the romantic heroism of a Sir Walter Scott novel. Instead, the
outlines of modern total warfare emerged during a four-year ordeal. Since
both sides fought for unlimited objectives—the North for reunion and
(eventually) emancipation, the South for independence and slavery’s

preservation—a compromise solution was impossible. No short,
restrained war would convince either side to yield; only a prolonged and
brutal struggle would resolve the issue.
As the North and South pursued their objectives, sheer numbers of
men and industrial capacity became extremely significant. One
Confederate general wrote that the war became one “in which the whole
population and whole production of a country (the soldiers and the
subsistence of armies) are to be put on a war footing, where every
institution is to be made auxiliary to war, where every citizen and every
industry is to have for the time but the one attribute—that of contributing
to the public defense.” Neither belligerent could depend upon improvised
measures to equip, feed, and transport its huge armies. Men with
administrative skills working behind the lines were equal in importance to
men at the front. Furthermore, the coordination of logistical and strategic
matters on a vast scale could not be left to individual states. Massive
mobilization required an unprecedented degree of centralized national
control over military policy.
Mobilizing for War
The North’s warmaking resources were much greater than the
Confederacy’s. Roughly speaking, in 1861 the Union could draw upon a
white population of 20 million, the South upon 6 million. Two other
demographic factors influenced the numerical balance. First, the South
contained nearly 4 million slaves who were initially a military asset,
laboring in fields and factories and thereby releasing a high percentage of
white males for military service. However, after 1862–1863, when the
North began enlisting black troops, the slaves progressively became a
northern asset. Second, between 1861 and 1865 more than 800,000
immigrants arrived in the North, including a high proportion of males
liable for military service. Approximately 20 to 25 percent of the Union
Army’s men were foreign-born. Ultimately more than 2 million men
served in the Union Army, which reached its peak strength of about 1
million late in the war. Perhaps 750,000 men fought in the Confederate
Army, which had a maximum strength of 464,500 in late 1863.11 This
nearly total mobilization of southern white males created a dilemma:

Fattening the thin gray ranks limited the number of workers in
agriculture, mines, foundries, and supply bureaus, risking such reduced
output that the soldiers could not be fed and supplied.
The Confederacy did not have the financial structure to wage a long
war. It had few banking experts and institutions, had very little specie at
its disposal, and had its wealth invested primarily in land and slaves,
which were hard to convert into liquid capital. For income the South
traditionally sold cotton to the North and to Europe, but the war
interrupted this trade. These financial weaknesses undermined the South’s
ability to pay for the war by fiscally responsible means. Taxation produced
less than 5 percent of the Confederacy’s income. The Confederate
constitution prohibited protective tariffs, and although the congress
enacted a variety of tax measures, they produced little revenue. The South
also tried to borrow money at home and abroad, but few southerners had
money to invest, and foreigners had doubts about the new nation’s
survival. In all, bonds produced less than 33 percent of government
income. By necessity rather than choice, Secretary of the Treasury
Christopher Memminger turned to the printing press, churning out more
than $1.5 billion in paper money, which represented approximately two-
thirds of Confederate wartime revenue. As in the Revolution,
overabundant paper money combined with severe commodity shortages
to create rampant inflation.
Compared to the South, inflation was not so severe in the North, which
also financed the war through taxation, loans, and paper money. However,
drawing upon its superior fiscal strength, the Union relied primarily upon
taxes and borrowing, the former yielding approximately 21 percent of
government income, the latter 63 percent. Beginning in 1862 Congress
also authorized the Treasury Department to print paper money, called
“greenbacks.” During the war it issued $450 million in greenbacks, but
this represented only one-sixth of government expenditures.
The North’s industrial superiority was also impressive. In 1860 the
northern states had 110,000 manufacturing establishments, while the
southern states had only 18,000. The total value of manufactured goods in
Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi was less than $85 million,
but New York’s alone was almost $380 million. However, these numbers
do not completely reveal the South’s industrial weakness. Southern states

relied on northern technological know-how and skilled labor, and many
skilled laborers went back north. The Confederacy’s raw-materials base
could not support needed industrial expansion. For instance, during the
year ending June 1, 1860, the states forming the Confederacy produced
36,790 tons of pig iron, while the figure for Pennsylvania alone was
580,049 tons. Furthermore, Confederate mines and factories, clustered in
the upper south and in coastal cities, were vulnerable to enemy assault.
Railroads were the indispensable element in Civil War transportation,
but the South contained only 9,000 of the 30,000 miles of track in 1860.
Again, these figures do not fully expose the disparity. Most southern lines
were short and single track. The numerous and competitive railroad
companies used different track gauges, and when rival lines entered a city,
they invariably remained unconnected. Gaps existed in seemingly
continuous lines, tracks and bridges were often poorly constructed, and
repair facilities were negligible. Locomotives, rolling stock, and rails were
scarce, and the South could not produce them during the war. The
government’s reluctance to supervise the railroads compounded all these
problems. In May 1863 the Confederate congress granted the government
broad authority over the railroads, but President Jefferson Davis hesitated
to wield the power. Not until early 1865, far too late, did the Confederacy
finally take control of the railroads.
The South did not have a railroad network that tied its scant industrial
base together or readily permitted long-distance strategic movements.
Only one genuine trunk line, running from Memphis through Corinth,
Chattanooga, and Lynchburg to Richmond, linked the Mississippi Valley
with Virginia. A second trunk line from Vicksburg to Atlanta, where it
branched to Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah, remained unfinished.
Four lateral lines crossed those two “main” railroads. One ran from
Memphis to Jackson to New Orleans; another stretched from Columbus,
Kentucky, through Corinth to Mobile; a third connected Louisville,
Nashville, Chattanooga, and Atlanta; the fourth hopscotched along the
seaboard from Savannah to Charleston to Wilmington, then ran north to
Petersburg and Richmond. Should the North sever any of these fragile
arteries, the result would be disastrous.
Northern railroads formed a much better network and suffered less
than their southern counterparts from different gauges, poor terminal

facilities, gaps, shoddy workmanship, and shortages. The North’s
industrial facilities allowed it to produce ample rolling stock and rails.
Equally important, President Abraham Lincoln did not share Davis’s
sensitivity about government interference with railroads. In January 1862
Congress authorized Lincoln to take possession of any railroads whenever
public safety warranted it and place them under military control. The next
month Lincoln appointed Daniel C. McCallum director of the United
States Military Railroads, and in May the president took formal possession
of all railroads. However, he intimated that provided a company sustained
the war effort, he would not actually seize the railroad and direct its
internal affairs. The president also saw to it that cooperative lines received
government aid. He secured such a high degree of cooperation that
McCallum’s organization, with but a few exceptions, operated only
railroads captured or built in Confederate territory.
Northern water and wagon transportation was also better. Yankee sea
power restricted Confederate coastal traffic, and Union gunboats soon

plied most of the great western rivers. The South had few barges and
steamboats and could not build very many; the North’s situation was the
opposite. While railroads and steamboats were vitally important, armies
straying from the railhead and wharf depended upon horse- and mule-
drawn wagons. When Confederate wagons fell into disrepair, shortages of
iron tires and leather goods delayed or prevented repair or replacement.
When Union wagons broke down, quartermasters simply requisitioned
new ones.
Divisiveness within southern society exacerbated its manpower and
resource problems. Southern Unionists were especially numerous in the
Appalachian highlands, where, vowed a Knoxville newspaper editor, they
would “fight secession leaders till Hell froze over, and then fight them on
the ice.” This was no idle boast. Viewing the mountain Unionists as a
traitorous wedge thrusting into the Confederacy’s heartland, the South
conducted military operations into the region but could not eradicate the
loyalists. Two mounted regiments escaped from North Carolina to fight
for the Union, thousands of east Tennesseans joined bluecoated units, and
northern Alabama Unionists formed the Federal 1st Alabama Cavalry. In
all, more than 100,000 southern Unionists fought for the North, with
every Confederate state except South Carolina providing at least a
battalion of white soldiers for the Union Army. Given the South’s limited
manpower and the North’s seemingly insatiable need for soldiers, this
“missing” southern army that turned up in the enemy’s ranks was a crucial
element in the ultimate Confederate defeat.
States’ rights enthusiasts also disrupted southern harmony. The
Confederate constitution guaranteed state sovereignty. Unwilling to
surrender much state power, prominent politicians such as Vice President
Alexander H. Stephens and Governors Joseph E. Brown of Georgia and
Zebulon B. Vance of North Carolina resisted the centralization of
authority necessary for efficient warmaking.
Although facing long odds, the Confederate cause was far from
hopeless. Many imponderables made northern advantages less imposing
than they seemed. One of the greatest uncertainties was the fate of four
border slave states that had not seceded. Delaware’s resources were
minimal, but Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri contained 2.5 million
whites and extensive agriculture and industrial resources. Should these

states join the Confederacy, the manpower and resources imbalance
would be partially addressed. Another unknown was the war’s duration.
The North required considerable time to convert its warmaking potential
into actual military power. A short war would render the North’s
manpower and industrial superiority superfluous. Foreign intervention
was also possible; the South expected English and perhaps French
assistance. Because it supplied four-fifths of the cotton used in European
mills, the South felt confident that the English and French economies
would falter without its raw material. When war began, the Confederacy,
by popular consensus rather than government decree, imposed a cotton
embargo, anticipating European recognition and aid in return for
renewed cotton shipments.
High-level leadership could also make a difference, and a comparison
of the commanders in chief seemingly favored the South. An 1828 West
Point graduate, Jefferson Davis performed gallant Mexican War service
and served in both houses of Congress before becoming President
Franklin Pierce’s secretary of war, a position he administered with
considerable skill. Lincoln served four terms in the Illinois legislature and
one term in the House of Representatives and was best remembered for
his humorous yarns and great strength. He was ignorant of the theory and
history of war, and his own military experience was a fifty-day militia stint
during the Black Hawk War, when, he said only half-jokingly, he led
charges against wild onion beds and lost blood battling mosquitoes. By
training and experience Davis seemed ideally qualified to lead a nation at
war; Lincoln appeared equally unqualified.
And, finally, what of morale? Statistics and accounting ledgers do not
win wars, but courage and tenacity at home and at the front are often
decisive. The South’s determination seemed more certain than the
North’s. Men on both sides viewed the situation through the past’s prism,
and history apparently favored the Confederacy. Southerners considered
themselves akin to their Revolutionary forefathers, fighting for lofty
principles against a tyrannical government and in defense of home and
hearth. On the other hand, cast in the conqueror’s role, the North had a
task similar to Britain’s during the Revolution. How long would
northerners sustain a war to force southern states back into a Union they
hated, especially if the cost in blood and treasure became high? From the

first some northerners, especially Peace Democrats, urged the Lincoln
administration to let the South go.
The widespread sentiment that southerners were more militarily
inclined than Yankees reinforced the South’s sense of invincibility.
Whether Confederates were more militant is debatable, but large
numbers of people on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line thought they
were. Many antebellum Americans believed that northeastern
commercialism sapped manly virtues, while plantation life accustomed
young men to live outdoors, to ride and shoot, and to enjoy violence.
Thus in the eastern theater where Union armies came from the northeast,
southerners may have had a psychological edge. When a Confederate
boasted that he could whip ten Yankees, many Yankees believed him.
War Aims and Strategies
As telegraph lines spread the news of Fort Sumter across the sundered
nation, the Lincoln and Davis administrations pondered their strategic
options. Strategy flows from an amalgam of factors. National policy is of
primary importance, but strategists must also consider geography, local
political pressure, military theory and training, resources and logistics,
foreign opinion, and enemy intentions. The North’s initial policy objective
was to reunite the Union by conquest and subjugation if necessary, which
required offensive operations and complete military victory. For the
South, which only needed to defend itself, a stalemated war that eroded
northern determination and brought foreign assistance would suffice.
Thus the strategic equation was simply stated: Could the North conquer
the Confederacy before the South convinced the northern populace and
the British government that it was unconquerable?
As the combatants surveyed the battleline, stretching from the Atlantic
Ocean to the Kansas prairies and more than 3,500 miles along the coast,
four main theaters were evident. Compressed between Chesapeake Bay
and the Appalachians, the eastern theater consisted of two subtheaters:
The Shenandoah Valley, and the remainder of Virginia east of the
mountains. The Shenandoah was a bountiful southern granary and an
excellent invasion route into the North, allowing Confederate forces to
threaten Washington and other cities, as well as two vital northern

transportation systems, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. By contrast, the Valley was a strategic dead
end for northern forces, channeling them deeper into the mountains. In
eastern Virginia, four large rivers (the James, York, Rappahannock, and
Potomac) and several lesser streams flowed west to east, dividing the
region between Washington and Richmond. These waterways made
superb defensive positions against an army coming overland but provided
penetration routes deep into the interior if northern invaders came by sea.
Thus while each combatant had inviting possibilities for conducting end
runs around the enemy’s right flank, a direct approach toward Richmond
or Washington would involve desperate fighting. With both capitals
located in the eastern theater, events there exerted an especially strong
pull on national emotions and strategy.
Lying between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River, the
expansive western theater also had two subtheaters: Middle and east
Tennessee, and the Mississippi River line. Here geography favored the
Union, since no natural barriers—unless Kentucky seceded—barred an
advance. The Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers ran north
and south, puncturing any defensive line. The third theater was the trans-
Mississippi region, equally vast but not as important, and events in the
eastern and western theaters determined its fate. The last theater was the
sea, controlled by the North. What happened on the oceans and along the
Confederate seaboard greatly influenced the war in the two critical land
theaters.
Union strategy evolved gradually, ultimately combining a strategy of
exhaustion with one of annihilation. In the broadest terms, the North’s
high command emphasized an exhaustion strategy in the western theater,
where the rivers provided penetration routes into the South’s most
important resource areas, and emphasized annihilation in the constricted
eastern theater, where Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia blocked
any southward advance. The strategies interacted in a cycle that, for the
South, was vicious. West of the Appalachians the Union exhausted the
South’s warmaking capacity by conquering territory, crippling its railroad
system, and capturing cities possessing logistical and political significance.
The North thereby deprived Confederate armies of logistical resources
and cut them off from their manpower pool, while sapping the southern

populace’s will to continue resistance. In the process the North also
practically annihilated the enemy’s main field armies both in the west and
in Virginia. As the Union battered the weakening gray armies in battle and
Confederate morale cracked, the South was less able to defend its
remaining resources and communications networks. By late 1864 the
South’s capacity for defense had been so reduced that the Union could
send massive raids into the enemy’s shrinking domain with virtual
impunity.
Commanding General Winfield Scott made the first coherent strategic
proposal, the so-called Anaconda Plan, named after the South American
snake that slowly crushes its victims. Scott’s plan was essentially a strategy
of exhaustion. He wanted to impose a naval blockade to seal the
Confederacy off from Europe and thrust down the Mississippi to isolate
the trans-Mississippi west. The eastern half of the Confederacy would
become a peninsula surrounded on three sides by Yankee naval power
and bottled up on the landward side by massive armies. Having grasped
the victim in the reptile’s constricting coil, the North would wait for
suffocation to begin, allowing southern Unionists to reassert control and
bring the seceded states back into the Union. In focusing attention on the
blockade and the Mississippi, Scott highlighted two essential elements of
northern strategy. However, his plan contained a fundamental weakness:
The anaconda dealt death slowly, and the public and prominent
politicians wanted a rattlesnake-quick strike at Richmond.
Many generals also wanted more decisive action than what Scott
proposed, and they spoke of ending the rebellion by destroying enemy
armies in great battles. Lincoln realized that Confederate armies were vital
Union objectives, urging his generals to “destroy the rebel army if
possible” and expressing disappointment when they failed to do so.
However, tactical problems made annihilation of an army in a single battle
virtually impossible. As Union armies marched south, their numerical
superiority dissipated as commanders had to detach troops for garrison
duty and to guard ever-lengthening supply lines. Although generally
outnumbering the South, the North rarely had overwhelming numerical
superiority on the battlefield. And if Confederates assumed the tactical
defensive, they could fight on more than equal terms, since the rifle made
one entrenched defender worth several attackers. Ideally northern

generals should combine a strategic offensive with the tactical defensive,
but this prescription was easier stated than filled.
Even if the Union mauled a Confederate army, pursuit of the beaten
foe was difficult. The retreating army moved through friendly country and
along its lines of communications, destroying the railroads and bridges,
denuding the region of supplies, and leaving rear guards to hinder the
pursuer. Aside from having to reorganize after sustaining heavy casualties,
the victorious army had to rebuild the communications lines, bring
supplies forward, and frequently pause to deploy against the enemy rear
guards. Even an army that was grievously hurt in battle usually managed
to escape, rebuild, and fight again. An army could eventually be
destroyed, but only through the cumulative effects of logistical
deprivation and attrition in numerous battles.
To Scott’s concepts regarding the blockade and the Mississippi and to
the desire for war-ending climactic battles, Lincoln added an astute
perception. He realized the Confederacy would be hard pressed to resist
constant, simultaneous advances, which the North’s greater manpower
and material made possible. As he wrote to General Don Carlos Buell, the
North must menace the enemy “with superior forces at different points, at
the same time; so that we can safely attack one, or both, if he makes no
change; and if he weakens one to strengthen the other, forbear to attack
the strengthened one, but seize and hold the weakened one, gaining so
much.” However, the concept of simultaneous advances had two
impediments, one conceptual and the other geographic. The president’s
strategic insight ran counter to the prevailing military principles of
concentration and mass, which demanded only one offensive at a time.
For example, in the winter of 1861–1862 the Army of the Potomac’s
commander developed a plan that called for a single army of 273,000 men
and 600 artillery pieces to operate as a juggernaut that would flatten the
South in one campaign. Any other operations would be decidedly
secondary, designed solely to support this massive force. The geographic
constraint was that although rivers were relatively secure routes of
invasion, once the North reached the source of the Cumberland and
Tennessee and controlled the Mississippi, it would have to depend on
railroads, which were fragile; wherever they supported Union
penetrations, Confederate cavalry units and guerrilla bands raided the

vulnerable tracks and bridges, creating nearly insuperable logistical
problems.
Late in the war Ulysses S. Grant added one last element to Union
strategy: Sending army-sized raids to devastate the rebels’ remaining
logistical base. The raiding strategy not only eliminated the necessity to
garrison more territory and to protect supply lines, but it also meant
Union forces could avoid costly battles against Confederate armies
deployed on the tactical defensive. The raiding force departed one point
in occupied territory, moved rapidly through a region living primarily off
the land, destroyed everything of military value in its path, and emerged at
a different locale. Grant’s foremost subordinate, William T. Sherman,
perceived that these raids also had a psychological impact, undermining
the South’s morale by demonstrating its incapacity for effective defense.
By 1865 the Union had virtually ceased trying to capture more Southern
territory and instead relied almost exclusively on raids against enemy
logistics.
Four key tasks dominated northern strategy after the war’s first year.
Control of the Mississippi would deprive the Confederacy of valuable
supplies, such as Texas beef and grain. An offensive through middle and
east Tennessee and then along the Chattanooga-Atlanta axis would
liberate loyal east Tennesseans, deny the rebels access to Tennessee’s
resources, cut the South’s best east-west railroad, and make possible a
further movement toward Mobile or Savannah, slicing the Confederacy
again and further disrupting its communications routes. Incessant military
activity in Virginia would destroy Lee’s army and, secondarily, capture the
enemy capital. Finally, as land forces opened the Mississippi, cracked the
Appalachian barrier, ravaged southern logistics, and hammered Lee’s
army, the Union Navy would tighten the blockade and support
amphibious coastal assaults.
With limited resources to protect an enormous country, how could the
Confederacy forestall a northern victory? In trying to answer this
question, Confederate strategists wrestled with two fundamental
problems. One was a matter of priorities. With enemy pressure in several
places at once, which area was most crucial for survival, the eastern or
western theater—and within the broad spaces of the latter, the Mississippi
line or Tennessee? Since both theaters had prominent advocates,

especially Lee for the eastern and Beauregard for the western, the Davis
administration vacillated instead of making hard choices. The other
question was whether the South should invade the North or stand behind
its borders fending off Union assaults. Lee was the foremost proponent of
an offensive defensive, arguing that winning battles on northern soil
would hasten enemy demoralization and European intervention, allow
hungry southern armies to feast on northern crops, and bolster home-
front morale. A passive defensive policy would yield the initiative by
giving the Union time to mobilize and the choice of when and where to
fight. Others disagreed. Invasion might rally the northern population to
the war effort and weaken the South’s appeal to world opinion by making
the Confederacy seem the aggressor. Tenacious defense better served
Confederate purposes, particularly considering the advantage firepower
conferred on the defense. Buffeted by conflicting advice, Davis advocated
defending southern boundaries, but on three occasions he sanctioned
invasions.
For defense Davis adopted the traditional American system of
geographic departmental commands. The system, which the president
hoped would reconcile the needs for both local and national defense,
meshed with Confederate political and logistical realities. Every
Confederate state felt threatened, since each one faced potential invasion
from either the land or sea. States’ rights oratory aside, all the southern
states wanted the central government to bear the major defense burden.
Wide distribution of Confederate forces placated state and local
politicians. Since the South’s transportation network made the
centralization of logistical resources difficult, Davis’s system required each
department to protect the resources of its geographic area, and it gave the
department a virtual monopoly on that region’s raw materials, munitions,
factory production, and food.
The departmental system also permitted strategic flexibility, since
boundaries could be redrawn as the logistical and strategic situation
changed. In 1861, for example, when military intelligence regarding the
strength and objectives of Union forces was often inaccurate, Davis
created a patchwork of small departments. However, as the strategic
picture clarified in 1862–1863, Davis consolidated the departments into
four major regional commands: the trans-Mississippi; the Department of

the West, embracing the Mississippi and Tennessee subtheaters; the
Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; and Lee’s command
in Virginia and North Carolina. No matter what the departmental
boundaries were, the Confederate high command could conduct an active
defense through interdepartmental troop concentrations, either to exploit
strategic opportunities or to parry enemy thrusts. To facilitate these
periodic concentrations, the government maintained a railroad pipeline at
least partially filled with reserves. The pipeline concept involved sending
troops from garrisons nearest the point of concentration and replacing
them with units from more distant garrisons.
Although essentially sound, Davis’s departmental system and the
strategy of dispersed forces capable of concentration contained flaws. One
problem was that Davis granted departmental commanders considerable
autonomy on the assumption that they best understood the local situation.
Having drawn the boundaries, selected the commanders, and granted
discretion, Davis usually refused to order interdepartmental cooperation,
relying instead on requests and friendly collaboration. All too often,
however, departmental commanders became possessive of their men and
resources and, without positive orders, refused to cooperate. Sometimes
department boundaries were inappropriate. As one example, the belief
that the Mississippi marked a natural division between departments
ensnared the Confederacy’s river defense in command squabbles. Finally,
the South had to preserve its rail lines to maintain the ability to deploy
reserves between departments rapidly.
Even as the belligerent governments grappled with strategic problems,
troops were mobilizing. On March 6, 1861, the Confederate Provisional
Congress authorized Davis to call out the militia for six months and to
accept 100,000 twelve-month volunteers. Between March 9 and April 16
Davis called for 60,200 volunteers. Responding to Fort Sumter, the
Confederate congress passed several laws authorizing more volunteers,
some for “any length of time” the president prescribed and others for the
war’s duration. Under these various measures six-month, one-year, and
long-term recruits entered Confederate service. Meanwhile, on April 15
Lincoln called for 75,000 three-month militia, basing his proclamation on
the Militia Act of 1792. Throughout the North most states responded
with alacrity to the quotas assigned by the War Department and

overrecruited. The government accepted 91,816 men, but governors
clamored for the War Department to take still more troops. Acting
without legal authority, Lincoln increased the regular Army by 22,714
men and the Navy by 18,000 and called for 42,034 three-year volunteers.
Again more men responded than the government called for, and
governors urged the administration to increase their troop quotas. When
Congress convened on July 4, the president asked sanction for his
extralegal action and for authority to raise at least another 400,000 three-
year volunteers. Congress assented to both requests, even raising the
president’s figure to 500,000 men.
Early northern and southern manpower mobilization was similar in
four respects. First, both sides relied on newly raised volunteer armies
rather than existing military institutions. The northern regular Army,
which remained a distinct organization from the volunteers, expanded
very little during the war. The Confederacy established a regular army that
attained an authorized strength of 15,000, but few men ever enlisted in it.
Most northern states refurbished their militias, which served as internal
security forces, garrisoned forts and prisoner-of-war camps, guarded
communications lines and industries, and patrolled the Canadian and
Indian frontiers. During invasion scares states mobilized thousands of
militiamen. But the militia’s primary role was, as the Indiana adjutant
general admitted, to serve “as the nursery from which the old regiments
and batteries of volunteers were to be recruited and new ones organized.”
Southern militias performed similar functions in some states. However,
they also played a harmful role that had no northern equivalent: States’
rights governors utilized their state forces to challenge Richmond’s
centralized authority, hindering efficient manpower mobilization.
Second, prewar volunteer militia units supplied many recruits, giving
each side a core of partially trained and equipped men. Third, the states,
not the national governments, controlled mobilization, exhibiting far
more vigor than the overburdened, understaffed war departments. State
authorities and, in some cases, glory-seeking individuals enlisted the men,
formed the regiments, and sent them off to war. Finally, more troops
rallied to the colors faster than the governments (state or national) could
provide for them. As one Indiana volunteer remembered, all his
“regiment lacked of being a good fighting machine was guns, ammunition,

cartridge boxes, canteens, haversacks, knapsacks, blankets, etc., with a
proper knowledge of how all these equipments could be used with
effect.”
Amid massive administrative confusion, with both sides trying to
organize and provision hectically raised troops, the war’s first skirmishes
occurred. The South’s victory at Fort Sumter was largely symbolic, but
within a few days it gained two more substantive successes; and to the
worried Lincoln administration Confederate forces appeared close to an
even greater achievement, the capture of Washington. Confronted by
Virginia militiamen on April 18, the small Union garrison guarding
Harpers Ferry abandoned the arsenal. The Yankees left it ablaze, but
southerners salvaged much priceless equipment before they withdrew
farther up the Shenandoah to Winchester. Three days later Virginia
militiamen occupied the Norfolk Navy Yard, gaining intact the nation’s
largest naval base, with hundreds of modern artillery pieces, construction
and repair facilities, and several ships under repair, including the
Merrimack, which burned to the waterline during the Yankee evacuation.
Teeming with Confederate sympathizers and situated between slave states,
Washington was practically defenseless. Fearing an enemy coup d’état,
Lincoln waited with mounting anxiety for militia to arrive. Fortunately,
less than forty-eight hours after receiving his call, Massachusetts Governor
John Andrew had four regiments commanded by Benjamin F. Butler
heading for Washington. No state had a better volunteer militia, and on
April 19 the 6th Massachusetts Regiment arrived. Other units quickly
followed, and on May 24 troops undertook the North’s first southward
advance. Crossing the Potomac, they occupied Alexandria and Arlington
Heights.
The Union had not only saved the capital but gained western Virginia.
In late May General George B. McClellan, commanding the Department
of the Ohio, ordered a force to aid the area’s Unionists and protect the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In a six-week campaign, McClellan’s men
maneuvered the Confederates out of western Virginia. McClellan’s
reputation soared, and with Federal guns inspiring confidence, the loyal
mountaineers eventually formed a separate state (West Virginia), which
entered the Union in 1863. Three months of war produced no big battles,
and neither side gained an appreciable advantage. The preservation of

Washington and the occupation of western Virginia counterbalanced the
South’s successes at Fort Sumter, Harpers Ferry, and Norfolk. However,
within a three-week midsummer span the Confederacy won two stunning
victories, one on the banks of a meandering Virginia stream, the other 800
miles to the west along a Missouri creek. Yet in 1861 the South would lose
the most important struggle, the struggle for the border states.
Early Battles
General Irvin McDowell, a husky man with a prodigious appetite, was not
yet hungry for a battle. He had never commanded so much as a regiment
in action, yet he now led 35,000 officers and men stationed at Alexandria.
Organizing the mixture of militia, three-year volunteers, and a few
regulars took time, and like most professional soldiers, McDowell
believed troops should be thoroughly trained and disciplined. The general
did not want to fight, but he could not avoid it. Sentiment increased daily
for an offensive, and Lincoln felt the pressure. The ninety-day militia
enlistments expired soon, a demonstration of northern vigor would
discourage European intervention, and northern morale needed a boost.
Although General Scott supported his subordinate in counseling delay,
general impatience overrode the generals’ prudence. The president
ordered McDowell to advance, resulting in the First Battle of Bull Run (or
First Manassas) on July 21.
McDowell’s objective was Richmond, but first he had to get through
Manassas Junction, where Beauregard had 22,000 Confederates posted
behind Bull Run. The southerners had several advantages. First, the rebel
general learned when Lincoln had ordered McDowell to move forward.
Thus alerted, Beauregard received reinforcements from Joseph E.
Johnston’s Army of Shenandoah, which was able to elude a larger Union
army commanded by Robert Patterson and withdraw from the valley via
the Manassas Gap Railroad. This was the first time railroads played an
important role in a strategic maneuver. Although the Confederates were as
untrained as their opponents, they fought on the defensive. Tired and
thirsty after their long march, northern troops became disorganized as
they attacked. Despite these southern advantages, McDowell’s battle plan
almost produced a Union victory. An assault on the enemy left flank

initially drove the gray line back. But resistance stiffened around the
Henry House Hill, where one of Johnston’s brigades, commanded by
Thomas J. Jackson, fought ferociously. “Look!” cried a fellow general to
rebel stragglers. “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall! Rally behind
the Virginians!” Jackson bought enough time for Beauregard to bring
reinforcements from his right flank and for Johnston’s last brigade to
arrive. Literally stepping out of the railroad cars and into the battle,
Edmund Kirby Smith’s troops spearheaded a counterattack. The
bluecoats gave ground grudgingly at first, but the retreat became a rout,
the jaded men fleeing toward Washington. Disorganized by their own
attack, the Confederates could not immediately pursue. That night it
rained, turning the roads to mud and making an advance toward
Washington impossible.
While Confederates in Virginia were mired in mud and dispirited
Yankees huddled behind the capital’s defenses, armies were on the move
in Missouri. A whirlwind campaign by Nathaniel Lyon, the commander of
the St. Louis federal arsenal, saved St. Louis from militia raised by
secessionist Governor Claiborne Jackson and drove an enemy army
commanded by Sterling Price out of Jefferson City. Retreating into the
southwest corner of the state, Price received reinforcements and turned
northward. Having advanced to Springfield with 6,000 men, Lyon found
himself outnumbered at least two to one. Rather than retreat, he launched
a dawn attack on August 10. Catching the Confederates by surprise along
Wilson’s Creek, Union forces achieved initial success. However, the
Confederates rallied, and when Lyon took a bullet through his heart the
leaderless bluecoats retreated. Lacking sufficient strength to attack St.
Louis, Price marched due north, placing the western half of Missouri in
Confederate hands.
The casualty figures from the war’s first major battles sent a shudder
across the land. At Bull Run the North had about 3,000 casualties, the
South 2,000. Wilson’s Creek produced another 1,317 Union and 1,230
Confederate casualties. Small by later standards, these figures seemed
ghastly. For southerners, success took the sting out of the losses, and they
crowed about their martial ability. But the Confederacy was unable to
capitalize on its victories. The capture of Washington and St. Louis might
have produced a decisive political and diplomatic impact, but tactical

battlefield successes without permanent strategic implications did not
shatter northern morale or earn European recognition. Although some
northerners believed Bull Run proved enemy invincibility, the defeat
spurred Congress to greater war preparations. It passed a bill for another
500,000 volunteers. Added to the 500,000 authorized earlier in the month,
Congress had voted for a million-man volunteer army! In response,
Confederate legislators authorized 400,000 volunteers.
While weathering battlefield setbacks, the North achieved an
important strategic victory by keeping the three crucial border states out
of the Confederacy. The Lincoln administration prevailed in each state by
a different course of events. The government used drastic measures in
Maryland, suspending the writ of habeas corpus in parts of the state,
occupying Baltimore and other pro-South areas, and arbitrarily arresting

hundreds of citizens. If Lincoln’s iron hand grasped Maryland, the
president put on a velvet glove for Kentucky. Hoping to avoid a painful
choice between North and South, Kentucky formally proclaimed
neutrality in mid-May. Initially both belligerents respected Kentucky’s
neutrality. But a Union force at Cairo under Ulysses S. Grant alarmed
Confederate General Leonidas Polk, who feared the Federals would
occupy the strategic bluffs at Columbus, Kentucky. Grant had orders to
take the city on September 5, but Polk moved faster, occupying it on
September 3. Grant then took Paducah and Smithland at the mouths of
the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. In rapid sequence both sides had
violated Kentucky neutrality, but the South had done so first. The angry
state legislature demanded Confederate withdrawal and openly sided with
the Union.
Lyon’s offensive had shattered Missouri’s efforts to achieve a Kentucky-
like neutrality and plunged the state into four years of civil war within the
larger Civil War. When Lyon drove Confederate forces into the state’s far
corner, a Unionist-dominated state convention met in Jefferson City and
appointed Hamilton R. Gamble as governor. In retaliation, Governor
Jackson’s government passed a secession ordinance—and in November
the Confederacy admitted Missouri—but the secessionists lacked
sufficient military power to control the state. Baffled by Missouri’s
politics, distracted by its rampant lawlessness, and surrounded by a
fawning staff, John C. Fremont, who commanded the Western
Department, brought little stability to the chaotic situation. The
renowned Pathfinder was also unable to launch a thrust down the
Mississippi as Lincoln had hoped, but in October he finally mounted an
offensive that pushed Price toward the Arkansas border. As in Maryland,
superior military strength kept Missouri in the Union.
Union control could not save the border areas from the special agony
of a true brothers’ war, as approximately 160,000 whites from Maryland,
Kentucky, and Missouri served in Union blue and perhaps 85,000 in
Confederate gray. Moreover, especially in regions where Unionists and
secessionists lived side by side, guerrilla warfare ravaged the land as both
vied for control over local communities. Although few in numbers, the
irregulars cast a squalid pall of barbarism wherever they roamed, fighting
with malignant fury for the Union or the Confederacy but also for

personal gain, revenge, and other parochial agendas. The guerrilla conflict
blurred the distinction between war and murder and soldier and civilian
and brought terror and misery to those caught in its path.
Guerrillas were of two types. The Confederacy organized some units
under the Partisan Ranger Act of April 1862. With a guerrilla warfare
tradition dating from the Revolution and an exaggerated notion of the
romanticism associated with irregular operations, southerners formed
dozens of ranger units. The most famous was John S. Mosby’s. Operating
in Union-occupied areas of Virginia, the “Gray Ghost” kept his men
under military discipline and bedeviled the Yankee invaders. But most
rangers were less disciplined and less effective. Other guerrillas arose
spontaneously in response to local conditions, especially in the Kansas-
Missouri region. For the Confederacy William C. Quantrill deservedly

earned an infamous reputation. But he was not alone. Among many
others, “Bloody Bill” Anderson rode with enemy scalps dangling from his
horse’s bridle, and Coleman Younger and Frank and Jesse James
displayed the thuggery that made them postwar outlaws. Nor did
southern supporters have a monopoly on bestiality. Unionist Jayhawkers
such as James H. Lane, Charles R. Jennison, and James Montgomery and
Tennessee loyalists under Fielding Hurst matched them atrocity for
atrocity. Other irregulars like Champ Ferguson, “Tinker Dave” Beatty,
and Martin Hart terrorized enemy soldiers and civilians alike and brought
the war to doorsteps far removed from conventional battlefields.
Although they maintained a rebel presence in border areas,
Confederate guerrillas could not win Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, or
western Virginia for the South, and this northern domination of the
border had momentous consequences. It deprived the South of men and
resources. Washington remained linked with the North, and southern
armies were stretched across southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee
rather than along the Ohio River’s south bank, which would have been a
more easily defended border. Had the South controlled Missouri, it would
have outflanked the Old Northwest and dominated a much longer stretch
of the Mississippi. In winning the border, the Union established essential
preconditions for ultimate success.
By late fall the North also had an array of new commanders.
McDowell’s defeat, Patterson’s incompetence, and Fremont’s ineptitude
demanded changes. The day after Bull Run a telegram summoned
McClellan to Washington to succeed McDowell; Nathaniel Banks soon
replaced Patterson; and in late October David Hunter took Fremont’s
place. After his ungracious maneuvering forced Winfield Scott’s
retirement, McClellan also became commanding general. When Lincoln
wondered whether his duties as an army commander and as the
commanding general of the army might be too burdensome, McClellan
assured him that “I can do it all.” One of his first acts was to reorganize
the high command west of the Appalachians. Henry W. Halleck replaced
Hunter in the Department of the West, and Buell assumed command of
the Department of the Ohio. Their principal subordinates were,
respectively, Grant at Cairo and George H. Thomas at Lebanon,
Kentucky.

These officers represented almost a typology of Civil War generalship.
All but Banks were West Pointers, and Academy-trained officers
dominated high command positions, North and South. Although some
officers of southern background put nation above state—Scott and
Thomas were Virginians—many resigned their United States commissions
to receive new ones from the Confederate States. Lee was only the most
famous of 313 regular Army officers (and more than 300 Navy officers)
who joined the Confederacy. While professionals monopolized the highest
levels of command, the majority of generals were nonprofessionals
appointed for their political influence or—at least in the North, with its
more heterogeneous population—their leadership of ethnic groups. For
the Union, Banks, Butler, and John A. McClernand were powerful
politicians, Franz Sigel and Carl Schurz were prominent German-
Americans, and Thomas Meagher was an important Irish-American.
Confederate politician-generals included John Floyd, Gideon Pillow, and
Robert Toombs. West Pointers detested the nonprofessionals. As Halleck
wrote, “It seems but little better than murder to give important
commands to such men.” Although most nonprofessional generals were
inept, this had not always been true: Pepperrell, Washington, Greene,
Jackson, Taylor—none had professional training. Furthermore, numerous
Civil War professionals were also incompetent, while some amateurs, such
as John A. Logan and Benjamin M. Prentiss for the North and Nathan B.
Forrest for the South, performed creditably. Even had the failure of many
nonprofessionals been predictable, neither Lincoln nor Davis would have
dispensed with them. In a people’s war requiring mass armies and high
morale, using popular leaders made military and political sense. Rallying
diverse constituencies, they strengthened national cohesion and
determination.
Broadly speaking, two types of Union generals emerged. Some
emphasized their difficulties and the enemy’s opportunities and had little
stomach for fighting. They often made their opponents look better than
they were. Although unique in several respects—no other general had
such a well-developed messianic complex or such an aura of patronizing
arrogance—McClellan epitomized this category. McClellan was generally
overcautious. A superb organizer and administrator, he strove for perfect
arrangements down to the last percussion cap before beginning a

campaign. Since perfection could never be achieved, he always planned to
move but rarely did so—and then only slowly. McClellan chronically
overestimated enemy strength, another deterrent to precipitate activity.
He seemed to believe that the South, being more militant and led by a
West Pointer, must be better prepared than the North.
McClellan was also reluctant to fight battles. Perhaps he recognized
that technological developments made battlefield decisiveness difficult.
Maybe he sincerely believed that maneuvering against the enemy’s
communications and occupying enemy terrain would win the war without
much fighting. More likely McClellan feared taking risks and was
paralyzed by the prospect of carnage. As he wrote to his wife, “I am tired
of the sickening sight of the battlefield, with its mangled corpses and poor
suffering wounded!” Although admirable humanity, this attitude often
makes for poor generalship. Finally, the “Young Napoleon” despised
political “interference” in military affairs, especially by such amateurs as
Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. By mid-1862 McClellan
regarded both men with contempt. Ignoring the nation’s civilian
leadership as much as possible, he misunderstood the political currents
that drove and shaped a people’s war, especially when Lincoln considered
adding the destruction of slavery as an official Union war aim. Rejecting
any shift toward a “hard war” policy of confiscation and emancipation,
McClellan remained wedded to a war of moderation and conciliation
toward the South, even as events were revealing the inadequacies of that
approach.
In his defense, McClellan may have suffered from rising too high too
fast. Caught in the transition from the limited war of 1861 to the total war
of 1862 and organizing a truly large army for the first time, he lacked
precedents. Staff, communications, and logistical techniques had not yet
adjusted to the new complexities posed by mass and distance. Only trial
and error, under circumstances in which error could be fatal, produced
the necessary adjustments. Furthermore, he commanded at a time when
Confederate armies were at their peak in strength and spirit.
Generals in the second category, personified by Grant, saw their
opportunities and their opponent’s problems and, while not exactly
relishing battle, never hesitated to fight. Grant had the advantage of
moving gradually up the chain of command, but he also exhibited

intellectual flexibility and learned from mistakes, including his own. He
realized that only complete conquest—including the destruction of slavery
—would subdue the South, and he was determined to get on with the
task. His philosophy left little time for perfecting arrangements. What
counted was marching and fighting, even if it involved great risks. Unlike
McClellan, who fluctuated between excessive optimism and acute
pessimism in a crisis, Grant remained calm. His humility equaled
McClellan’s arrogance. He engaged in none of McClellan’s peacock-like
displays, preferring to sit quietly on a stump whittling sticks or smoking a
cigar. Yet this ordinary-looking midwesterner waged war with a
relentlessness beyond McClellan’s ken.
But McClellan, Halleck, and Buell commanded in 1861, and
northerners who expected decisive action did not get much. McClellan
rejuvenated the Army of the Potomac and put it on display at public
reviews. The well-ordered columns and bustling staff officers inspired
confidence—and questioning. When would McClellan hurl his impressive
host toward Richmond? Not this year, as it turned out. However,
McClellan did order a reconnaissance in force toward Leesburg, resulting
in a humiliating defeat at Ball’s Bluff on October 21. Insignificant
militarily, the battle had important political consequences. Radical
Republican congressmen were demanding a stern war, including
emancipation and arming of the slaves, that would fundamentally
reconstruct southern society. McClellan’s inactivity, proslavery sentiments,
and Democratic politics aroused their suspicions. Would he fight their
kind of war? Was he even loyal to the Union? Dismayed by Ball’s Bluff,
Radicals convinced Congress to create a Committee on the Conduct of the
War. Using secretive procedures, the committee asserted Congress’s right
to exercise war powers, praising generals who agreed with the Radicals’
philosophy and badgering those who seemed unwilling to wage war to the
hilt.
Halleck and Buell also failed to make progress. Lincoln wanted
Halleck to open the Mississippi line, Buell to invade east Tennessee.
Considering the logistical problems in east Tennessee insurmountable,
Buell eyed Nashville and asked Halleck to cooperate in an advance on the
city. Preoccupied with the chaos in Missouri, Halleck declined. Nor
would Buell assist Halleck. Refusing to cooperate with each other, neither

achieved Lincoln’s objectives, though Halleck made major strides in
pacifying Missouri. As in the East, only one minor battle occurred. On
November 7 Grant led a 3,100-man force down the Mississippi in
transports to attack Belmont, Missouri, across the river from Columbus.
In a repetition of Bull Run and Wilson’s Creek, Union retreat followed
initial success, the Federals barely escaping to their transports. While
other Union forces were immobile, Grant had fought hard, demonstrating
remarkable poise despite his army’s perilous escape.
Still, Belmont was a loss, reinforcing the North’s sense of failure as the
South won every battle. Yet the northern situation was promising.
Although its successes were less spectacular, they had greater long-term
potential. Along with holding the border states, the Union began to
benefit from its sea power, blockading the South and, in cooperation with
the Army, cleaving coastal enclaves out of enemy territory. Lincoln
proclaimed the blockade in April, but the Navy had only forty-two ships
in commission, and all but fourteen were on foreign stations. Secretary of
the Navy Gideon Welles undertook an expansion program, recalling the
distant ships, refitting old vessels, building new ones, and buying or
chartering merchantmen for conversion to warships. Welles also
appointed a Strategy Board that considered ways to make the blockade
more effective. It recommended the capture of advanced bases to
supplement the Navy’s existing southern bases at Hampton Roads and
Key West. In late August a joint Army-Navy expedition captured Hatteras
Inlet, two weeks later the Navy took Ship Island in the Gulf, and in early
November another combined operation captured Port Royal between
Charleston and Savannah. By December the blockade still leaked, but
with more ships becoming available and the southern coast proving
vulnerable, it promised to become much tighter. As 1861 ended, the war
had already lasted longer than most people expected, and it showed signs
of becoming much larger and longer. Neither side was winning, and
neither was quitting.
A Year of Indecisive Battles
Frequent and generally inconclusive battles, several of monstrous
proportions, characterized 1862. From January to June dramatic Union

victories occurred in all four theaters, and Confederate defeat appeared
certain. But inept Union generalship and better southern leadership
halted the Federal advances. The Confederacy launched late-summer
counteroffensives that the North blunted during September and October.
Then late in the year the South smashed renewed Union offensives on
three fronts.
As the year began, gloom pervaded the Confederate high command. In
Virginia a few small forces guarded the Shenandoah Valley and Joseph E.
Johnston, wondering if he could stop an offensive by McClellan’s 150,000-
man army, commanded 50,000 men at Centerville. Equally anxious was
Albert S. Johnston, who commanded all forces from the Appalachians to
Indian Territory, a vast domain containing only a few widely dispersed
troops over whom Johnston exercised only nominal control. His
subordinate in the trans-Mississippi, Earl Van Dorn, had 20,000 men to
oppose 30,000 Federals. In the western theater Johnston had troops at
four positions. Polk held the Mississippi line with 17,000 men at
Columbus, confronting Grant’s 20,000 at Cairo. Anchoring the right
flank, Felix K. Zollicoffer commanded 4,000 men in front of Cumberland
Gap, watching Thomas’s 8,000 at Barbourville. In the center the North
could invade along the Louisville & Nashville Railroad or up the
Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers. William J. Hardee at Bowling Green
with 25,000 troops sat astride the railroad, facing Buell’s 60,000 soldiers
stationed southwest of Louisville. Perhaps 5,000 men garrisoned Fort
Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland.
Confederate defenses in the middle and east Tennessee subtheater
collapsed first. Prodded by McClellan, Buell ordered Thomas to attack
Zollicoffer. At the Battle of Mill Springs (or Fishing Creek) on January 19,
the South suffered its first significant battlefield defeat. In late January
Grant suggested that he could capture Fort Henry, and Halleck consented
to the expedition. The next day Grant was underway with 15,000 troops
and the Western Flotilla, which consisted of river steamers covered with
heavy wooden planking (timberclads) and ironclad gunboats. A Navy
captain, Andrew H. Foote, commanded the flotilla, although it was under
Army control until transferred to the Navy Department in October. When
Foote’s gunboats attacked on February 6, the Confederates surrendered
even before Grant’s infantry arrived. With Foote’s gunboats roaming up

the Tennessee, the Federals had cut Johnston’s army in half and
outflanked both wings. Johnston retreated from Bowling Green, sending
half his men to Donelson and the rest to Nashville. He also dispatched
Beauregard to Columbus to withdraw that wing of the army, leaving only
enough men to garrison New Madrid, Island No. 10, and Fort Pillow.
Meanwhile, Halleck ordered Grant to move against Fort Donelson, a
more formidable position than Fort Henry. The Confederates repulsed
attacks by Grant’s infantry on February 13 and Foote’s flotilla on the 14th,
and the next day attempted a breakout, tearing a gap in Grant’s right
flank. With the door to Nashville wide open, Gideon Pillow, who
commanded the attack, inexplicably ordered the troops back to their
original positions. With sure instinct Grant counterattacked, breaching
the enemy lines. The next day the fort surrendered. Grant’s victories were
a disaster for the South. The loss of men and material in the forts was
serious, and Donelson’s capitulation made Nashville untenable, forcing
Johnston to retreat again. He established a new defensive line from
Memphis through Corinth to Chattanooga that, like his original positions,
lacked natural defensive barriers. Worse, it left the region drained by the
Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers in Union hands, crippling Confederate
logistics.
Southern woes increased when Van Dorn lost the Battle of Pea Ridge.
During a winter campaign Samuel Curtis’s 12,000-man Union army
pushed Price into Arkansas, where he received reinforcements. Before he
could attempt another Missouri invasion, all Confederates in the trans-
Mississippi came under Van Dorn’s command. Leading 20,000 men
northward, Van Dorn attacked Curtis at Pea Ridge. The Confederates
mauled the Federals on March 7, but Curtis counterattacked the next
morning, shattering Van Dorn’s army. The battle secured the North’s hold
on Missouri and made Arkansas vulnerable to invasion.
The southern situation was desperate, but the Union was unable to
exploit its successes, giving Johnston time to rally his demoralized forces
and to receive reinforcements. Halleck, whom Lincoln promoted to
overall western commander on March 11, had ordered Grant up the
Tennessee River but warned him not to fight a battle until Buell joined
him. With his 40,000 men concentrated near Shiloh, Grant waited as
Buell advanced from Nashville with 35,000 soldiers. While the Federals

wasted most of March, Johnston benefited from the South’s first great
strategic concentration in the west. Braxton Bragg brought 10,000 men
from Mobile and Pensacola, and Daniel Ruggles came from New Orleans
with 5,000 more. Combining the reinforcements with the troops from
Columbus and Bowling Green, Johnston had 45,000 men. He had also
ordered Van Dorn to cross the Mississippi, but he could not wait for him
since the Confederates had to strike Grant before Buell arrived. The
twenty-mile march to Shiloh was mass confusion, and although the
Confederate plan depended on surprise, troops test-fired their rifles and
buglers practiced their calls. Yet when the rebels came screaming out of
the woodlands on April 6, they achieved surprise. Grant’s overall
assessment of the situation was so deeply flawed that on the previous day
he assured Halleck no attack was imminent.
The attack smashed into divisions commanded by Sherman,
McClernand, and Prentiss, driving them back. However, Prentiss’s men
reformed along a sunken country lane, where the Union line held
temporarily. Absent when the attack began, Grant reached the scene to
find his army apparently wrecked. Coolly he organized ammunition trains,
ordered Lew Wallace, whose division was camped five miles away, to
come immediately, and requested Buell’s advance elements to hurry.
Recognizing the importance of Prentiss’s position, dubbed the Hornets’
Nest, he ordered the former militia colonel to hold at all costs. Prentiss
did so, aided by a serious tactical error by the Confederate generals:
Instead of outflanking the Hornets’ Nest, they sent repeated frontal
charges against it, in effect killing off their own men. Not until early
evening did they force Prentiss to surrender, and the Confederate advance
soon halted due to darkness, ammunition shortages, and disorganization.
That night Beauregard, who succeeded the fatally wounded Johnston,
telegraphed Richmond that the South had won “a complete victory.” It
had—almost. But Grant used the time bought with blood to organize a
new line closer to the river. During the night Wallace arrived, and 20,000
of Buell’s men crossed the Tennessee. Grant had more men at dawn on
April 7 than when the battle began, and after a morning of hard fighting
the southern forces retreated. Like the Confederates after Bull Run,
Grant’s victorious soldiers, as disorganized and exhausted by the fighting

as the vanquished, were unable to pursue. The inability to follow tactical
success with effective pursuit characterized almost every Civil War battle.
“War,” as Confederate cavalryman Nathan B. Forrest observed,
“means fighting. And fighting means killing.” Shiloh proved it. The first
massive battle, Shiloh dwarfed every previous engagement. Minimally
trained citizen-soldiers fought with a savage tenacity befitting veteran
regulars. Each side had more than 1,700 killed and 8,000 wounded, but
Confederate losses were harder to bear. The South not only lost
irreplaceable men but also failed to restore the balance of power in the
middle and east Tennessee subtheater.
Serious southern losses occurred almost simultaneously along the
Mississippi, where John Pope captured the Confederate garrison at New
Madrid on March 13 and, with help from Foote’s gunboats, Island No. 10
on April 7. Foote turned the Western Flotilla over to Captain Charles H.
Davis in early May. A month later the gunboats caused the evacuation of
Fort Pillow, and on June 6 Memphis fell. Southern defenders on the
Mississippi were driven to Vicksburg, which in midsummer 1862 was
vulnerable from both directions since the Union had also captured New
Orleans.
While Confederate defenses in the trans-Mississippi and western
theaters crumbled, Federal operations along the coast achieved victories
at Roanoke Island, Fort Pulaski, and New Orleans. On February 8 an
expedition commanded by Ambrose Burnside and supported by the Navy
overran Roanoke Island and, in the next few weeks, captured North
Carolina’s inland seaports, depriving the South of blockade-running
outlets. Two months later Fort Pulaski, guarding the entrance to
Savannah, Georgia, surrendered, and the blockading fleet had one less
port to watch. The North won an even greater triumph at New Orleans,
the South’s most vital port. Forts Jackson and St. Philip, located seventy
miles below New Orleans, protected the city. Just below the forts a
submerged barrier of hulks and logs would supposedly stop approaching
ships, giving the forts’ artillerymen stationary targets. Gunboats and fire
rafts supplemented these defenses. The citizens of New Orleans believed
they lived in the Confederacy’s safest city, but they did not reckon with
David G. Farragut.

Commanding eighteen warships and twenty mortar schooners and
accompanied by Butler’s 18,000 soldiers aboard transports, Farragut
sailed up the Mississippi. On April 18 the mortar schooners opened fire
on Forts Jackson and St. Philip, but after six days of constant shelling the
defenses remained virtually intact. Rather than admit failure, Farragut
decided on a daring plan. Northern gunboats punched a hole in the
barrier, and in the predawn hours of April 24 his warships steamed past
the forts. The enemy bombardment was so fierce the water seemed ablaze
and the Southern gunboats fought heroically, but the Union fleet endured
the artillery fire, fought off the enemy gunboats, and dodged the fire rafts.
About noon the next day Yankee warships arrived at New Orleans, which
was defenseless since most of its garrison had joined Johnston. A naval
landing party accepted the city’s surrender, and on May 1 Butler’s
occupation troops arrived.
The loss of New Orleans, with its factories, ordnance complex, and
shipbuilding facilities, was worse than the loss of Nashville. Another
entryway for blockade-runners was slammed shut, and the South lost
control of the lower Mississippi, allowing Farragut to take Baton Rouge
and Natchez without resistance and steam to Vicksburg before going back
downriver. In June Farragut brought his saltwater fleet back upriver,
meeting Davis’s freshwater ironclads a few miles above Vicksburg. The
entire Mississippi was in Union hands, but only briefly. Although the
combined naval forces pounded Vicksburg, the city could not be captured
without a large land force. Farragut appealed in vain to Halleck for
assistance, and the North lost an opportunity to gain permanent control
of the river. Instead, Davis returned to Memphis, Farragut dropped
downriver to New Orleans, the Confederates turned Vicksburg into a
bastion and fortified Port Hudson further to the south, and the Yankees
frittered away the summer.
Arriving at Shiloh after the battle, Halleck spent three weeks amassing
a 120,000-man army. Intent on avoiding a Shiloh-like surprise, he moved
toward Corinth at a snail’s pace, averaging about a mile a day. When the
Federals reached Corinth in late May, Beauregard retreated to Tupelo
without giving battle. Halleck had excellent possibilities for further
action. He could pursue the Confederate army or, holding a vital railroad
crossroads, he could strike toward Vicksburg, Mobile, or Chattanooga.

“Old Brains” chose Chattanooga as the next target. He retained a
substantial force at Corinth, used aggressive Grant to occupy territory
northward to Memphis, and sent cautious Buell toward Chattanooga.
Entrusted with Halleck’s sole offensive mission, Buell moved slowly, and
enemy cavalry raids by John H. Morgan and Forrest caused further delays
as they destroyed supply dumps and railroad bridges, tore up track, and
captured Union outposts. Buell’s unhurried pace, rebel depredations
against his communications lines, and Halleck’s passive strategy in west
Tennessee forfeited the initiative to the South.
Just as improbably, the Confederacy gained the initiative in the eastern
theater after McClellan’s spring campaign carried his army to within sight
of Richmond’s church spires. Throughout the fall and winter McClellan’s
inactivity and reticence in divulging his plans strained the president’s
patience. When McClellan finally explained his strategy, Lincoln did not
like it. The general proposed a waterborne movement to Urbana, which
would place his army behind Johnston’s. McClellan would defeat the
enemy force as it retreated to protect Richmond and then occupy the city,
ending the war. Lincoln preferred an overland advance to shield
Washington with the army and more readily force Johnston to fight. But
McClellan was a professional and Lincoln an amateur. Reluctantly, the
president accepted McClellan’s plan.
However, Lincoln issued several orders indicating his distrust of the
general and his strategy. On March 8 he divided the Army of the Potomac
into four corps, a reorganization McClellan opposed, and appointed the
corps commanders. Three of them favored Lincoln’s overland approach,
and as a group they leaned toward the Radicals in Congress, who despised
McClellan. The president also ordered McClellan to leave Washington
“entirely secure” and insisted that the movement down Chesapeake Bay
begin by March 18. With bold action tearing open Confederate defenses
in the west, Lincoln demanded a simultaneous advance in the eastern
theater. On March 11 he demoted McClellan by removing him from the
position of commanding general. The president named no replacement;
he and Stanton would perform the commanding general’s duties. Finally,
Lincoln created a Mountain Department embracing western Virginia and
east Tennessee, commanded by Fremont. Since the Radicals supported
Fremont, his resurrection after his Missouri fiasco indicated the prevailing

political currents, especially when viewed in conjunction with McClellan’s
demotion. During the upcoming campaign McClellan became convinced
that he confronted two enemies: The gray army in his front and politicians
to his rear. Lincoln and Stanton, he feared, had joined the Radicals in a
conspiracy to engineer his downfall.
While still reeling from Lincoln’s unsettling orders, the Union
commander received more dismaying news. On March 9 McClellan
learned the Confederates had fallen back to Culpeper, a move that
dislocated his Urbana scheme, since a landing there would no longer be in
Johnston’s rear. However, McClellan decided he could still go by sea,
landing at Fort Monroe and marching toward Richmond up the
Peninsula, the southeastern Virginia district formed by the York and
James Rivers. As he examined this prospect, McClellan preferred it.
Union troops already held Fort Monroe, and the Navy could protect both
flanks. Lincoln did not like this amphibious operation any better than the
Urbana plan, but he acceded to it.
An armada of 400 vessels had barely started transporting troops to Fort
Monroe when McClellan’s army began to shrink. As Banks’s army
redeployed from the Valley to protect Washington, Stonewall Jackson’s
3,500-man army attacked Banks’s last remaining unit, James Shields’s
9,000-man division, at Kernstown. Although Shields defeated Jackson,
who had underestimated enemy strength, the Confederacy won a strategic
victory, for the attack deranged Union troop movements. Would Jackson
have attacked Shields without an equal or larger force? Were the
Confederates preparing a thrust at Harpers Ferry, or even Washington?
The War Department ordered Banks back to the Valley and detached a
division from McClellan’s command, sending it to Fremont. And what
troops remained to protect Washington? In Lincoln’s estimation, not
enough. Stanton ordered McDowell’s corps not to move to the Peninsula.
Believing that Union forces were on the verge of winning the war, Stanton
also closed the volunteer recruiting service. McClellan lost not only a third
of his men but also the prospect of receiving replacements. Yet McClellan
still outnumbered Johnston about two to one, though he refused to
believe it.
Advancing in early April, the Union army encountered the rebels’
Yorktown line. Defended by a minimal force and fake cannons, the line

appeared strong to McClellan, who considered a frontal assault risky. He
resorted to siege operations, which consumed a month. Just when
McClellan was ready to smash Yorktown with enormous siege guns, the
Confederates withdrew. As they retreated, they had to abandon Norfolk, a
severe blow to the Confederate navy. Plodding up the Peninsula,
McClellan found that the Chickahominy River presented a problem. With
his base at White House on the York River, the Union commander kept
his army north of the Chickahominy, but he would have to cross it to
attack Richmond. He also believed he would need reinforcements and
beseeched Lincoln for McDowell’s corps, stationed at Fredericksburg. On
May 17 the president agreed, but he insisted that McDowell move
overland. Stanton ordered McClellan to extend his right flank to meet
McDowell. Thus McClellan had to straddle the Chickahominy,
maintaining communications with his base and awaiting McDowell while
at the same time advancing on the Confederate capital.
The Confederates considered McDowell’s movement a potential
calamity, as Johnston could be crushed between McClellan and
McDowell. In desperation Johnston planned to attack McClellan, who
had reorganized his army into five corps, before McDowell arrived.
McClellan had pushed two corps across the Chickahominy, which,
swollen by recent rains, separated the unequal halves of his army.
Johnston would strike the three corps on the north bank to drive them
away from McDowell. Meanwhile, acting as Davis’s military adviser,
Robert E. Lee proposed sidetracking McDowell by unleashing Jackson in
the Shenandoah. Lee’s advice initiated one of the war’s most brilliant
campaigns.
On May 23 Jackson pounded a Union garrison at Front Royal and
moved down the Valley, simulating an advance on Washington. After
momentary panic Lincoln recognized Jackson’s thrust as a diversion, not
an invasion. He also realized the North had an opportunity to trap
Stonewall’s 17,000-man army between Fremont, Banks, and McDowell.
Ordering McDowell to countermarch away from McClellan toward the
upper Shenandoah, Lincoln urged the three commanders to move swiftly
and cooperate fully. They did neither, and Jackson, combining knowledge
of the terrain with rapid marching, foiled the efforts of 60,000 Federals to
spring the trap. Jackson’s Valley campaign allowed Johnston to reorient

his attack against McClellan. When news arrived that McDowell had
reversed directions, Johnston decided to assault McClellan’s weaker south
wing. At the Battle of Fair Oaks (or Seven Pines) on May 31 the South
came close to victory, but Union reinforcements crossed the
Chickahominy on one half-destroyed bridge, and the advance stalled. The
next day the Yankees pushed the rebels back to their starting point.
The strategically insignificant battle had momentous consequences.
Johnston was badly wounded, and on June 1 Davis appointed Lee to
replace him. Nothing in the new commander’s previous Civil War
experience foretold the fame he would achieve leading the Army of
Northern Virginia to destruction, and to immortality in military annals.
Like Grant at Belmont, Lee began on an unpromising note. He was sent
to oust the Federals from western Virginia; his strategy miscarried, and
troops derisively called him “Granny Lee” and “Evacuating Lee.” While
commanding the southern Atlantic coast, he earned another unflattering
nickname, “the King of Spades,” by ordering his men to dig
entrenchments. No nicknames could have been less apt, because Lee’s
early wartime activities concealed his true character. No general surpassed
him in audacity and aggressiveness. If McClellan took no risks, Lee
perhaps took too many. He preferred the bold offensive, seeking in true
Napoleonic fashion to destroy, not merely defeat, the enemy army.
Dedicated to winning a battle of annihilation, he sometimes imprudently
continued attacking beyond any reasonable prospect of success. Lee also
needed to broaden his view of the war. Exhibiting a narrow parochialism,
he believed Virginia was the most important war zone. He underestimated
the problems Confederate commanders faced in the western and trans-
Mississippi theaters and the significance of those theaters for southern
survival. Yet Lee served the South well. Although costing the Confederacy
dearly, his victories against great odds buoyed Confederate morale and
depressed the North. Furthermore, Lee’s emphasis on his native state was
not entirely emotional. Richmond, the South’s primary industrial center,
acquired great symbolic value, and the Virginia countryside furnished
men, mounts, food, and other logistical assets.
Lee’s defense of Virginia through daring offensive operations began
shortly after he assumed command. During June McClellan shifted all but
Fitz-John Porter’s 30,000-man corps south of the Chickahominy and

repeatedly promised he would attack—as soon as he received more
reinforcements. Although Lee had 85,000 men, McClellan thought he had
200,000. Not until June 25 did the Union commander launch a
reconnaissance in force, but by then Lee had the Confederate army poised
to strike. Learning from his cavalry commander, Jeb Stuart, that Porter’s
corps was vulnerable, Lee proposed holding off McClellan’s four corps
(70,000 men) with 30,000 soldiers and attacking Porter with 55,000,
including Jackson’s command. With Porter destroyed, McClellan would
be cut off from White House. Lee believed McClellan would retreat
toward the York River to protect his lines of supply and communications.
The Confederates would then shred the Union army with constant
attacks.
On June 26 the Confederates initiated the Seven Days Battles, which
consisted of five engagements: Mechanicsville (June 26), Gaines’ Mill
(June 27), Savage Station (June 29), Glendale, or Frayser’s Farm (June
30), and Malvern Hill (July 1). Throughout the week few things went right
for Lee. Jackson invariably attacked late. Poor maps, deplorable
intelligence, and inadequate staff work resulted in uncoordinated assaults.
McClellan did not do what Lee expected. Instead of fighting toward
White House, he shifted to Harrison’s Landing on the James, executing a
midcampaign change of base. Lee lost every battle except Gaines’ Mill
and failed to annihilate the Army of the Potomac. Particularly at Gaines’
Mill and Malvern Hill he hurled his men against formidable defenses. As
one division commander said after Malvern Hill, “It was not war—it was
murder.” The Seven Days cost the South more than 20,500 casualties, the
North about 16,500. Yet Lee became a hero. His offensive battered the
Federals away from Richmond and wrenched the initiative from the
enemy. McClellan, who did not consider his change of base a retreat,
believed he had conducted a brilliant campaign, especially since he
thought he was fighting against a larger army without any help from the
Lincoln administration. “If I save this army now,” he wrote to Stanton
during the furious combat, “I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you
or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to
sacrifice this army.”
Lee soon gave the South more reason to believe in him. On the day Lee
attacked at Mechanicsville, Lincoln consolidated the commands of Banks,

Fremont, and McDowell into the Army of Virginia under Pope. On July
11 the president brought another westerner east, elevating Halleck, who
had been so successful in the west, to the post of commanding general (or,
as it was also called, general in chief). Lincoln had hoped Halleck would
take responsibility for command and strategic decisions, but Halleck
disappointed him, refusing to give orders on his own authority since he
considered himself as “simply a military adviser to the Secretary of War
and the President,” who “must obey and carry out what they decide upon,
whether I concur with their decisions or not.” However, Halleck was an
efficient administrator, a valuable talent in mass total war, and generally a
source of sound advice. The first major question Lincoln asked Halleck
was what to do with the armies of Pope and McClellan. Should they be
concentrated? If so, on the James under McClellan or the Rappahannock
under Pope? Acting on Halleck’s recommendation, Lincoln decided that
McClellan should evacuate the Peninsula. Bitterly resenting this decision,
detesting Pope, and convinced “that the dolts in Washington are bent on
my destruction,” McClellan moved with inexcusable slowness, wasting
more time than Pope had to spare, for Lee was hurrying north.
Having organized his army into corps commanded by Jackson and
James Longstreet, Lee moved toward Pope before McClellan’s withdrawal
began, leaving Richmond sparsely defended but confident that McClellan
would miss the opportunity. Jackson led the advance, defeating Banks’s
corps at Cedar Mountain on August 9, and within two weeks Lee’s 55,000
men faced Pope’s 65,000 across the Rappahannock. Violating every
military maxim, Lee divided his army, sending Jackson with 23,000 men
far to the west around Pope’s right flank and into his rear. Jackson
destroyed the Union supply depot at Manassas Junction and assumed a
defensive position near the First Bull Run battlefield. Pope found Jackson
late on August 28 and erroneously assumed that the retreating
Confederates were trapped. Longstreet and Lee were following in the
footsteps of Jackson, whose task was to hold on until they arrived. As the
Yankees assaulted Jackson on the 29th, Lee and Longstreet reached the
battlefield and took up a position lurking on Pope’s left flank. The next
afternoon, when renewed enemy attacks nearly overwhelmed Stonewall’s
position, Longstreet crushed the Union flank and sent Pope in disarray
toward Washington. Another humiliating defeat, the Second Battle of Bull

Run (or Second Manassas) cost the Yankees 16,000 casualties. But Lee,
whose casualties were 9,200, had failed to destroy Pope’s army.
After his successive victories over McClellan and Pope pushed the
invaders out of most of Virginia, Lee prepared to carry the war into
enemy territory. But he would not move northward alone. During the fall
the South made its only coordinated offensive of the war, attempting
simultaneous invasions of Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and western
Tennessee. The Confederacy wanted to “liberate” Maryland and
Kentucky and allow its armies to live off the enemy countryside. Many
southerners believed victories beyond the Potomac and along the Ohio
would foster northern war-weariness and inspire British intervention. The
prospect of foreign aid was not fanciful. In May 1861 the British
government had issued a neutrality proclamation granting the
Confederacy belligerent status. In mid-July 1862, Parliament debated a
motion for Confederate recognition, and two months later Foreign
Secretary Lord Russell and Prime Minister Palmerston considered
offering to mediate the conflict. But as the North’s ambassador to the
Court of St. James noted, “Great Britain always looks to her own interest
as a paramount law of her action in foreign affairs.” Recognition would
best serve British interests if the Confederacy looked like a sure winner.
As Palmerston told Lord Russell, “The Iron should be struck while it is
hot” if “the Federals sustain a great Defeat.”
As it splashed across the Potomac in early September, Lee’s 50,000-
man army was not in good condition. Many soldiers suffered acute
diarrhea from eating green corn; others hobbled on shoeless sore feet. The
high command was also in poor health. Lee’s hands were in splints,
Jackson had a sore spine, and Longstreet was in pain from a raw heel
blister. With this bedraggled force Lee planned to sever the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad and destroy the Union army.
He was sanguine, for he knew that Lincoln had reappointed McClellan to
command. McClellan’s behavior during Second Bull Run incensed the
president, who believed McClellan wanted Pope to fail. Yet Lincoln
needed someone who could whip Pope’s dispirited troops into fighting
shape, and, he said, if McClellan “can’t fight himself, he excels in making
others ready to fight.” “Little Mac” felt vindicated, writing that “I have
been called upon to save the country” again, just as after First Bull Run.

McClellan actually did have the chance to save the country. When the
Federals did not evacuate Harpers Ferry as Lee expected, the
Confederate commander decided to eliminate this potential trouble spot
threatening his lines of supply and communication. In Special Order No.
191 he detailed a daring dispersion of his army. Under Jackson’s overall
command, three columns would converge on Harpers Ferry while
Longstreet remained at Boonsboro just west of South Mountain. On
September 13 Union soldiers found a copy of Lee’s order, which they sent
to McClellan. Few generals have had so much good luck and done so little
with it. With exact knowledge of Lee’s deployments and with his own
88,000-man army at Frederick, McClellan could crush the enemy
piecemeal if he moved rapidly. Unbeknownst to the Union commander,
the situation was even more favorable, because Lee had sent Longstreet to
Hagerstown, leaving only Daniel H. Hill’s division at Boonsboro. Instead
of marching immediately, McClellan waited until the 14th, when, despite a
Thermopylae-like fight by the rebels, the Union army gained two gaps in
South Mountain. Lee, who had recalled Longstreet, contemplated retreat.
But the next day, learning that Jackson had captured Harpers Ferry, he
decided to fight. Assuming a position behind Antietam Creek, he awaited
Jackson, who arrived on the 16th. Straggling had thinned Lee’s ranks to
about 40,000 men. Believing Lee had at least 100,000, McClellan spent a
day and a half preparing to attack, giving Lee’s army time to concentrate.
The Battle of Antietam (or Sharpsburg) on September 17 unfolded
from north to south. Initially Joseph Hooker’s command struck the
Confederate left, where the fighting raged with demoniacal fury, men
screaming and laughing hysterically at the frenzy of death. Then Edwin V.
Sumner’s corps smashed into the southern center, where, wrote a Union
colonel, “it seemed as if heaven and earth vibrated with the stunning
roar” of battle. Finally Ambrose Burnside’s corps crunched Lee’s right,
breaking the Confederate line. Dramatically, Jackson’s last division arrived
on the double-quick after a grueling forced march from Harpers Ferry,
filling the breach and hurling the Yankees back. The disjointed attacks
negated Union numerical superiority, allowing Lee to shift men from one
threatened sector to another. Furthermore, McClellan refused to commit
20,000 reserves, fearful that somewhere out there Lee was massing the rest
of his troops for a counterattack. Actually, every Confederate division was

on the firing line. Antietam was the war’s bloodiest day. As darkness
encased the melancholy field, more than 24,000 men lay dead and
wounded, 13,000 of them in gray. Despite his severe losses, Lee not only
held his position on the 18th but contemplated an attack! However, his
discouraged subordinates convinced him that an offensive would be
foolhardy. Even more incredibly, McClellan did not attack. That evening
Lee retreated, and McClellan did not pursue. The Federal commander
took complete pride in his success, but Lincoln was angry that
McClellan’s success was not more complete.
Although tactically indecisive, Antietam had important consequences.
Five days after the battle Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation
Proclamation, transforming a war for the Union into a war for freedom.
The basic document was ready in July, but Lincoln delayed issuing it until
the Union cause looked more hopeful, as it did after the Antietam half-
victory. Paradoxically, in July McClellan had urged the president to follow
a moderate policy, arguing that neither the confiscation of rebel property
nor political executions nor “forcible abolition of slavery should be
contemplated for a moment.” Contrary to the Lincoln administration’s
expectations, the emancipation policy initially increased the chances of
British intervention. Several leading British statesmen believed that the
Union’s conversion to emancipation was hypocritical, a desperate move to
salvage victory by inciting servile insurrections throughout the
Confederacy. Appalled by the prospect of a brutal race war, they argued
that England should intervene not only to preserve its economic interests
but also for humanitarian reasons. But in early November, the British
secretary for war explained to the ministry the dire consequences for
England if war erupted with the Union, and interventionist sentiment
quickly abated. By early 1863, with the British population increasingly
supporting the North’s antislavery position, an alliance between England
and the South was most unlikely.
The western theater invasions also ended in repulses. Angered by
Beauregard’s retreat to Tupelo, Davis replaced him with Braxton Bragg,
an excellent organizer but a poor tactician. Watching Buell’s slow progress
toward Chattanooga, Bragg left Van Dorn holding Vicksburg with 16,000
soldiers and Price at Tupelo with another 16,000. With 32,000 men Bragg
“raced” Buell to Chattanooga. The Yankees had a six-week head start, but

by utilizing a circuitous railroad route to Mobile, Montgomery, and
Atlanta, Bragg got there first. In conjunction with Edmund Kirby Smith,
commanding a smaller force at Knoxville, Bragg planned a Kentucky
invasion. Since each commanded a separate department, neither could
command the other. In mid-August Smith moved into central Kentucky,
capturing Lexington and Frankfort. Bragg entered Kentucky in late
August along a more westerly parallel track, getting ahead of Buell, who
was hurrying toward Louisville. Capturing Munfordsville, Bragg stood
between Buell and the Ohio and was astride the Federals’ supply and
communications lines. However, Bragg foolishly moved to Bardstown,
allowing the Union army to slip past him to Louisville.
In early October Buell headed southeast, stumbling into a Confederate
force at Perryville on the 8th. Buell thought he faced Bragg’s entire army,
but only three gray divisions were on hand. Bragg, meanwhile, believed he
confronted only a small Federal force, but almost 40,000 bluecoats were
on the field. The rebel commander attacked and outfought Buell, but he
retreated after learning the enemy’s true strength and linked up with
Smith at Harrodsburg. The failure to coordinate operations earlier in the
campaign may have deprived the Confederates of success. Now Smith
wanted to fight, but Bragg retreated to Chattanooga. Coming on the heels
of Antietam, Perryville depressed the South and boosted northern morale,
but Lincoln felt frustrated. Emulating McClellan, Buell went to Nashville
instead of pursuing the enemy. Based on past performance he would be
there for some time, reorganizing and preparing, before moving again.
Bragg wanted Van Dorn and Price to strike northward in conjunction
with his invasion but allowed them to work out the details. Commanding
separate departments, they could not agree on joint plans. Price preferred
an advance toward Nashville and perhaps Paducah, while Van Dorn
looked toward Memphis and St. Louis. Price captured Iuka, but Grant
counterattacked with converging columns under Edward O.C. Ord and
William S. Rosecrans. Price narrowly escaped on September 19, his
invasion plans foiled. He joined Van Dorn for an attack on Corinth,
commanded by Rosecrans, where a savage battle occurred on October 3–
4. As at Antietam and Perryville, an indecisive struggle ended with a
Confederate retreat.

After repelling the Confederates on three fronts, the Yankees renewed
their advances, stalled since spring, in Virginia and in both western
subtheaters. As Lincoln perceived the strategic situation, the North
needed unrelenting simultaneous offensives against three cities: Richmond
to destroy Lee’s army; Chattanooga to protect Kentucky and Tennessee
and open the gateway into the South’s interior; and Vicksburg to secure
the Mississippi. The president believed McClellan and Buell would never
do the hard fighting necessary to achieve these objectives. They feared
defeat more than they craved victory, detested emancipation, and, as
Lincoln said about McClellan, “did not want to hurt the enemy.”
Burnside replaced McClellan, and Rosecrans replaced Buell. The
commander in chief made one other change, sending Banks to New
Orleans to succeed Butler. The one Army commander who remained in
his post was Grant, about whom Lincoln said, “I can’t spare this man. He
fights.” Both Banks and Grant had Vicksburg as their target. Unknown
(at least officially) to Grant or Banks, a third force would also converge on
the South’s river Gibraltar. In October Lincoln secretly gave John
McClernand, one of Grant’s divisional commanders and a powerful
prewar Democrat, authority to recruit an army in Indiana, Illinois, and
Iowa. With the assistance of Davis’s gunboats, he would move downriver
against Vicksburg.
Although proclaiming his own incapacity for high command, Burnside
seemed an admirable choice. Personally brave, he had conquered
Roanoke Island and fought at Antietam, where he urged McClellan to
renew the battle on September 18. Tragically, he assessed his abilities
accurately. When he assumed command, the Union army was at
Warrenton. Instead of advancing against Lee’s forces at Culpeper,
Burnside proposed an eastward movement to Fredericksburg followed by
a drive on Richmond. While Lincoln opposed substituting the capital for
Lee’s army as the main objective, he approved the plan. Success depended
on rapid marching to sidestep Lee and the timely arrival of pontoon
bridges to cross the Rappahannock. Burnside’s army covered forty miles
in two days, leaving Lee temporarily baffled as to its destination.
However, unpardonable errors caused by Halleck delayed the pontoons a
week. By then Lee had reacted, getting his army into a stout defensive
position along a series of ridges west and south of Fredericksburg. On the

left, Longstreet held Marye’s Heights; on the right, Jackson’s corps
occupied Prospect Hill. Recovered from Antietam, the Army of Northern
Virginia numbered 75,000 men.
Burnside’s army, 113,000 strong and divided into grand divisions under
Sumner, Hooker, and William B. Franklin, crossed the Rappahannock on
December 11–12. Franklin’s division opened the battle on the 13th,
temporarily breaching Jackson’s line before a furious counterattack closed
the gap. Meanwhile Sumner’s men hurled themselves futilely against
Marye’s Heights. With Sumner’s division wrecked, Burnside ordered
Hooker to storm the Heights. Hooker, known as “Fighting Joe,”
prophetically protested that the task was suicidal, but Burnside would not
retract the order, and the Yankees, said Longstreet, “were swept from the
field like chaff before the wind.” Darkness finally ended the massacre. In
the one-sided killing match the North suffered 12,600 casualties, the
South fewer than 5,000. This was not Lincoln’s idea of hard fighting. “If
there is a worse place than Hell, I am in it,” he said when told of the
battle’s outcome.
News from the Mississippi River did not elevate Lincoln from the
nether world. While McClernand recruited his army and forwarded
regiments to Memphis, Grant began an overland advance on Vicksburg.
But, suspicious of McClernand’s activities, he requested clarification of his
authority. Halleck, who favored professionals over nonprofessionals,
replied that Grant had “command of all troops sent to your Department,
and have permission to fight the enemy where you please.” Grant
immediately ordered Sherman to Memphis, where he commandeered
McClernand’s troops and made a riverborne descent to Vicksburg. Both
prongs of Grant’s offensive ended badly. Forrest destroyed long stretches
of Grant’s main rail line, and on December 20 Van Dorn wrecked his
supply base at Holly Springs. His communications with the North broken
and deprived of supplies, Grant withdrew to Memphis, abandoning
forever any idea of taking Vicksburg by the overland route. The frailty of
railroads made prolonged campaigning deep in enemy territory too
difficult. Without Grant to worry about, the Confederates easily repulsed
Sherman’s assault against Chickasaw Bayou on December 29. Meanwhile,
snarled in Louisiana’s administrative problems and confronted by

Confederates at Port Hudson, Banks came upriver no farther than Baton
Rouge.
Rosecrans also failed to attain his objective, though at least he won a
battle. On December 26 his 44,000-man Army of the Cumberland moved
from Nashville toward Murfreesboro, where Bragg had concentrated his
36,000-man Army of Tennessee. The night of December 30 found the
armies encamped within earshot of each other. Southern bands blared
“Dixie,” Federals countered with “Yankee Doodle,” and then one band
struck up “Home Sweet Home.” Soon the cedar thickets rang with
dozens of bands playing the tune, accompanied by thousands of voices
with southern drawls and northwestern twangs. In the morning the killing
began. Bragg crumpled the Union right, the combat roar becoming so
loud that men paused in midcharge to stuff their ears with cotton plucked
from open bolls. Although jackknifed into a tortured position, the Union
lines held. Neither side attacked on New Year’s Day, but on the 2d Bragg
tried to settle the issue, hitting the Union left. After initial success the
attack stalled, and on the evening of the 3d Bragg withdrew to Tullahoma.
Approximately one-third of the men on each side were casualties. For the
North the Battle of Stones River (or Murfreesboro) helped offset the
Fredericksburg disaster and Vicksburg debacle and gave Lincoln a much-
needed win to coincide with the official enactment of the Emancipation
Proclamation on January 1. But the victory was not decisive. Success so
mangled Rosecrans’s army that it would remain at Murfreesboro for six
months recuperating. Bragg’s army, battered but intact, still blocked the
pathway to Chattanooga.
The year of nearly continuous indecisive battles that ended at Stones
River proved one point decisively: The war would not be short. Neither
side derived comfort from this realization. The North’s inability to make
better progress in subduing the South fostered discontent across the
political spectrum. Radicals demanded harsher war, while Peace
Democrats preached conciliation. Antiwar sentiment was particularly
strong in the northwest, where some Democrats came close to treason in
their criticism of the administration’s war effort. Actually the North had
made considerable progress during the year, especially in the west. When
1861 ended, Union forces were poised along a line from southern
Missouri to Cairo and up the Ohio to western Virginia. As 1863 began,

Union armies held new positions from northern Arkansas to Memphis,
Corinth, and Murfreesboro. Although the Yankees were still at bay, a
ripple of defeatism twinged the South. The western territorial losses and
the death and maiming of tens of thousands of the Confederacy’s bravest
men discouraged even the most resolute rebels. A drastic decline in the
home-front standard of living resulting from the twin evils of commodity
shortages and monetary inflation fueled the discontent. As the South
assessed its prospects for independence, the future was perhaps more
discouraging than the past. No one perceived this more clearly than
Davis. “Our maximum strength has been mobilized,” he told the secretary
of war, “while the enemy is just beginning to put forth his might.”

SEVEN
The Civil War, 1863–1865
“In considering the policy to be adopted for suppressing the
insurrection,” Lincoln wrote in December 1861, “I have been anxious and
careful that the inevitable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate
into a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle.” Yet the president
always emphasized that he would employ “all indispensable means” to
preserve the Union and that he would “not surrender this game leaving
any available cards unplayed.” By the winter of 1862–1863 his conciliatory
policies had failed to preserve the Union, and Lincoln began laying his
unplayed cards on the table. He issued the final Emancipation
Proclamation, armed black troops, supported conscription, and
continued to suppress civil liberties in the North in order to control
antiwar activities. The war’s length and intensity had spawned the “violent
and remorseless revolutionary struggle” that Lincoln wanted no more
than did McClellan.
Black Recruitment and Conscription
January 1, 1863, was a Day of Jubilee. One hundred days earlier Lincoln
had issued a Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation promising to release
a final Emancipation Proclamation on this date. But would he? Pressure
to rescind the promise was intense, and the president’s racial views
remained ambiguous. True to his word, Lincoln signed the final
Proclamation, basing it on his war powers as commander in chief rather
than on humanitarian grounds. The president took grave risks issuing the
document. Fighting for the Union and emancipation might fragment

northern support for the war while uniting southerners behind the
Confederate cause. Conservatives in the North considered the
Proclamation unconstitutional and feared it would precipitate a race war.
The new war aim might provoke even fiercer southern resistance, push
the border slave states into the Confederacy, and alienate southern
Unionists. Yet few other acts had such important military advantages. The
prospect of European intervention ultimately waned further. If
emancipation outraged some northerners, others considered freedom a
great moral battle cry, infusing new vigor into the war effort. Since slavery
supported the South’s economy and social system, freeing the slaves was
an excellent method of economic and psychological warfare. As the trickle
of slaves responding to freedom’s lure by crossing over behind Union lines
became a torrent, southern white men had to serve in agriculture and
industry instead of in the ranks. “Every slave withdrawn from the enemy,”
Halleck wrote Grant, “is the equivalent of a white man put hors de
combat.”
Perhaps the greatest military asset flowing from the Proclamation was
the large-scale recruitment of black men. Utilizing blacks for military
purposes was not unprecedented. The Navy had always employed blacks,
and black soldiers served in the colonial wars, the Revolution, and the
War of 1812. Furthermore, by 1862 the Union Army was exploiting black
labor, and some generals, without official approval, had organized black
regiments. In occupied territory Union officers acted virtually as new
masters over fugitive slaves, forcing them to build fortifications and
abusing them unmercifully. Black people also aided the Army in less
onerous ways—as scouts and spies, teamsters and carpenters, cooks and
nurses. Meanwhile, ignoring government policy, James H. Lane organized
the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers, composed of Missouri fugitive slaves
and northern free blacks; Butler raised the 1st, 2d, and 3d Louisiana
Native Guards from among the free blacks and escaped slaves in New
Orleans; and Hunter recruited the 1st Regiment of South Carolina
Volunteers from blacks on the Sea Islands.
The government hesitantly moved toward black recruitment during the
last half of 1862. The Second Confiscation and Militia Acts of July 17,
1862, authorized the president to employ black soldiers at his discretion,
and on August 25 Stanton officially sanctioned raising black troops for the

first time. The secretary of war ordered Rufus Saxton, who had replaced
Hunter in South Carolina, to arm and equip up to 5,000 former slaves.
The Emancipation Proclamation was the final step, indicating Lincoln’s
intention to employ black soldiers to the maximum extent. Dual motives
of exploitation and idealism had irresistibly converted a white man’s war
into a black man’s war as well. “The colored population is the great
available and yet unavailed of, force for restoring the Union,” Lincoln
wrote. A song written by a Union staff officer best expressed the element
of crass exploitation in black manpower mobilization:
Some tell us ’tis a burnin’ shame
To make the naygers fight;
An’ that the thrade of bein’ kilt
Belongs but to the white:
But as for me, upon my sowl!
So liberal are we here,
I’ll let Sambo be murthered instad of myself
On every day in the year.
Yet many people supported black recruitment for noble reasons.
Soldiering would give blacks a claim to not just freedom but also equality.
“Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S.; let
him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets
in his pocket,” said the black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, “and there
is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to
citizenship in the United States.”
The organization of black regiments began in earnest during the first
half of 1863. Initially the War Department authorized state governors and
enterprising citizens to enlist regiments, just as they had organized white
units. However, the national government soon exercised a near monopoly
over black recruitment. In March it sent Adjutant General Lorenzo
Thomas to the Mississippi Valley to organize as many black regiments as
possible, and in May it established the Bureau of Colored Troops in the
War Department to administer recruitment nationwide. Officially 178,892
blacks, commanded by approximately 7,000 white officers, served in the
Army and at least 10,000 more in the Navy. Approximately 9 percent of

all men fighting for the Union were black. Although black army units did
a disproportionate share of fatigue duty, they bore an increasing combat
responsibility as the war neared its end, fighting in thirty-nine major
battles and dispelling the myth of black docility and cowardice.
National conscription was an even more profound assertion of
centralized authority. On April 16, 1862, the Confederacy enacted the first
national draft law in American history. Fighting for freedom and states’
rights, the South paradoxically forced individuals to serve under central
authority. The Confederate congress understood that conscription,
although distasteful, was necessary. Casualties were high, few men
volunteered, and the 1861 one-year enlistments soon expired. The law
made all white males between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five
members of the army for three years, automatically reenlisting the one-
year volunteers for two more years. Subsequent legislation extended the
age limits to seventeen and fifty, and in February 1864 the congress
ordered all men already in the army to serve for the duration. Compulsory
reenlistment meant that southerners served until they were killed or
discharged due to disability, they deserted, or the war ended.
Two features weakened Confederate conscription. First, the law
permitted substitutes. The substitute market was discriminatory and
fraudulent. Prices soared to more than $5,000, which only the rich could
pay, and many substitutes were unfit or soon deserted. When the
Confederate congress later abolished substitution and made men who had
provided substitutes liable for service, the rich felt betrayed. Second,
although the original law contained no exemptions, a mere five days later
congress began to correct this “oversight” by providing for several exempt
categories; subsequent legislation expanded the exemption list.
Exemptions included a large number of state and national government
officials, militia officers, workers in critical war-production occupations,
professional men, and one white man for every twenty slaves. Southerners
abused many of these categories, and ultimately the Confederacy
exempted about 50 percent of the men called out by conscription.
The North also felt a manpower squeeze during 1862. Realizing his
error, Stanton reestablished Federal recruiting in June, and on July 2
Lincoln called for 300,000 three-year volunteers, but the response was
slow. Like the South, the North turned to compulsion, though less

directly. The Militia Act of July 17, 1862, authorized the president to
“make all necessary rules and regulations” for states without adequate
militia laws. Broadly interpreting that provision, on August 4 the
government called for a draft of 300,000 nine-month militia. A proviso
stated that a special militia draft would be conducted to meet the
deficiency of three-year volunteers in those states failing to reach their
quotas. Governors protested their quotas were too high and that the date
for the special draft was too soon, and antidraft disturbances occurred in
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Under pressure Stanton postponed the
militia draft, which never went into effect. However, the threat of
conscription brought forth 421,000 volunteers and 87,500 militiamen.
Since the government considered one volunteer equivalent to four nine-
month militiamen, the states more than met the July and August calls. But
it had not been easy.
Confronted with the grievous casualties of the 1862 fall and winter
campaigns, the likelihood of even greater losses in the upcoming
campaigns, and the growing reluctance of volunteers to come forward, the
North needed a more certain method of obtaining men. On March 3,
1863, Congress adopted a Conscription Act (also known as the
Enrollment Act) based on the constitutional clause permitting the
government “to raise and support armies.” The law established a
bureaucracy for administering and enforcing the draft that gave primary
responsibility to military officers. At the apex was another new War
Department bureau, the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau headed by
James B. Fry. At the base were 185 enrollment boards, one for each
congressional district. To compile a list of eligible men, a board divided its
district into subdistricts and for each one appointed an enrollment officer
who went from house to house writing down the names and addresses of
draft-age men. Between the apex and the base Fry appointed one or more
acting assistant provost marshal generals for each state who would
coordinate district affairs and serve as intermediaries between himself and
local officials.
In important respects the Conscription Act contained features similar
to militia laws. First, it maintained the principle of universal military
obligation, imposing it on all able-bodied male citizens and alien
declarants between the ages of twenty and forty-five. It divided enrollees

into two classes: Class I, including all men between twenty and thirty-five
and unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five; and Class II,
containing all men not in Class I. No Class II enrollees would be drafted
until the Class I pool was exhausted. If a man was drafted, the term of
service was three years or the duration, whichever ended first. However,
as in militia laws, universal military service was theoretical, not actual.
Congress intended to raise men indirectly, using the threat of conscription
to spur volunteering. The president set draft quotas for each enrollment
district based on population and the number of men from a district
already in service. Districts had about fifty days to fill their quotas with
volunteers. If too few volunteers entered service, a draft would be held to
meet the deficiency. Ironically, Confederate conscription was a more
forthright exertion of national authority. Southern lawmakers designed
their act to raise troops directly, not to stimulate volunteering.
Second, the northern law contained exemptions. The list was unusually
brief, consisting of the physically or mentally unfit, convicted felons, a
restricted number of state and national officials, only sons of dependent
widows, and sole supporters of infirm parents or orphaned children. The
North did not allow the occupational exemptions that southerners so
successfully manipulated to evade the draft. However, more than 50
percent of northern draftees found a way to gain an exemption, with
physical disability being a sure avenue of escape. Some men practiced self-
mutilation, while other draftees fabricated disabilities, buttressing their
claims with testimonials from unscrupulous friends and doctors.
Third, a drafted man who was ineligible for an exemption, legal or
otherwise, had two traditional means of evading service. He could provide
a substitute or pay a $300 commutation fee. By setting a fixed
commutation rate, Congress kept the price of substitutes under $300,
since no one would pay more than that for a substitute. As in the South,
substitutes were often of poor quality and likely to desert at the first
opportunity; but unlike the Confederacy the North did not abolish the
practice. However, in July 1864 it abolished commutation for everyone
but conscientious objectors, and substitute prices rapidly increased. Since
the South needed men more than money, Confederate conscription
contained no provision for commutation.

Finally, to entice volunteers, the North resorted to the traditional
method of offering bounties. Although providing a substitute or
commuting carried no stigma, being conscripted did for both the draftee
and his community. Wards, cities, and counties collected money for
bounties through voluntary contributions, real estate taxes, and special
fundraising events. States tacked on an additional bounty, as did the
national government. The nation spent more than $700 million on
bounties, which equaled the entire wartime pay for the Army! Since
localities competed for volunteers, local bounty rates spiraled upward,
giving richer cities and counties an advantage in avoiding the draft. With
bounty piled upon bounty, a man could collect a substantial sum for
volunteering, and he could become even richer if he volunteered more
than once. “Bounty jumping” became a national scandal. A man would
volunteer, collect the bounties, desert, volunteer in another district
collecting more bounties, and so on. Not all volunteers were jumpers, but
there were so many that the Army detailed armed squads to escort groups
of them to the front. The Confederacy, with its more direct method of
raising men and its limited financial resources, avoided the bounty
problem.
Surprisingly, among those who volunteered, both North and South,
were hundreds of women who—for reasons including the desire to be
near a husband or brother in the ranks, patriotism, love of adventure, or
the lure of a soldier’s paycheck—rejected the battlefield exclusion that
being female ordinarily provided them. Moreover, women who had been
living as men before the war may have felt the pressure to enlist to prove
their “manhood.” In an age when medical exams were cursory and
superficial, and when individuals did not carry personal identification
papers (such as a driver’s license), enlisting was fairly easy. Hiding one’s
identity could be more challenging as a woman made the difficult dual
transition from a female to a male persona, and from a civilian to a soldier.
Some women were discovered when hospitalized for illnesses or wounds
and some when they had babies. At the Battle of Antietam, for example,
two were killed in action and three more suffered wounds, including one
who had to have an arm amputated. “There was an orderly in one of our
regiments & he & the Corporal always slept together,” wrote a soldier in a
Massachusetts regiment. “Well, the other night the Corporal had a baby,

for the Corporal turned out to be a woman! She has been in 3 or 4 fights
[battles].” Many females served lengthy enlistments without being
discovered and, at least in some cases, continued living as men long after
the war. When an accident in 1911 required “his” hospitalization, it
turned out that Albert Cashier, who had served in the 95th Illinois
Regiment, was really Jennie Hodgers.12
If northern conscription remained dependent on the colonial past for
some of its operative features, it also represented a radical change from
previous manpower mobilization policies. The draft law made the
principle of universal military service an obligation to the national
government rather than the states. Both in the Confederacy and in the
Union the conscription procedure ignored the states. Another significant
change was from voluntary to compulsory enlistments as the basis for
mobilization. In one respect these changes weakened the war efforts of
both North and South. With their intense localism and a strong tradition
of voluntary associations, Americans identified with and took pride in
regiments drawn from a limited geographic area. These bonds of kinship
and friendship between the folks at home and the regiment in the field
began to dissolve as the national government put conscripted “outsiders”
into the ranks. However, the changes permitted more efficient use of
manpower. States had rarely channeled volunteers into old regiments,
since governors preferred to create new regiments, earning the loyalty of
men appointed as officers. As a unit in the field became more
experienced, it shrank from battlefield losses and disease, the numerical
decline offsetting any increase in military skills. At Stones River, for
example, Rosecrans commanded 139 regiments, representing a theoretical
strength of approximately 139,000 men, but he actually had only one-
third that many soldiers. Commanders believed that one new man in an
old regiment was worth two or three in a new regiment, for, as Sherman
wrote, “the former, by association with good experienced captains,
lieutenants, and non-commissioned officers, soon became veterans,
whereas the latter were generally unavailable for a year.” Although the
North and South continued to form new volunteer units, by assigning at
least some draftees to experienced regiments both governments increased
the fighting effectiveness of their units.

In October 1863, Halleck wrote to Sherman regarding the
Conscription Act. “A more complicated, defective, and impracticable law
could scarcely have been framed,” he said. Twentieth-century authorities
agreed and revamped the process in 1917. The act of 1863 showed them
what to do fifty years later: omit substitution and commutation; outlaw
bounties; increase civilian participation in administration; and instead of
using enrolling officers, make it an obligation of citizenship for men to
come forward to enroll. Despite the judgment of the general in chief that
northern conscription was a failure, it worked exactly as its authors
intended. The government held four drafts, and altogether enrollment
boards examined 522,187 men, exempting 315,509 of them. Of the
206,678 men held to service, 86,724 commuted, 44,403 hired substitutes
before they were drafted, 73,607 furnished substitutes after being drafted,
and only 46,347 were actually drafted. Combining all substitutes and
draftees, only 13 percent of Union Army enlistments came directly from
the draft. Yet during the war’s last two years the North enlisted more than
1 million men. Some of these were veterans who reenlisted, but most were
new volunteers motivated in varying degrees by the fear of conscription
and the lure of bounties. Southern conscription more directly augmented
the gray armies. It kept veterans in the ranks and produced approximately
120,000 draftees and 70,000 substitutes, representing 20 percent of
Confederate manpower. Inevitably the South’s draft also had an indirect
effect: Anxious to avoid the odium associated with conscription, an
undetermined number of Confederates volunteered.
Although conscription filled the ranks, it also created internal
dissension. Long accustomed to limited government, people in both
sections considered conscription an un-American and despotic exercise of
national power. To the lower classes it seemed especially unfair, since
exemptions, substitution, and commutation appeared to make the conflict
a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight. Although opponents of the Davis
and Lincoln administrations vigorously cultivated the charge of class
favoritism for political purposes, this accusation was unfair. The
Confederate and Union armies rather accurately mirrored their respective
populations. If anything, unskilled laborers were proportionally
underrepresented and white-collar workers proportionally
overrepresented. To states’ rights adherents, conscription was

unconstitutional. In the South, Governors Brown and Vance obstructed
its enforcement by expanding the number of civil and militia offices that
qualified for exemption, and state judges issued writs of habeas corpus
preventing the arrest of unwilling draftees. Northern Peace Democrats,
often as state-oriented as southerners, fanned antidraft sentiment,
sparking widespread evasion, bitter hostility to draft officials, and riots.
More than 161,000 men who were not exempt and did not provide a
substitute or commute failed to report when summoned by their local
enrollment boards. The number of these illegal draft evaders nearly
equaled those who obtained substitutes or paid the commutation fee.
Enrollment officers discovered their duty was dangerous, since they were
assaulted by irate individuals and mobs, threatened and intimidated,
attacked by dogs, scalded with boiling water, and bombarded with
everything from eggs to bricks. The worst antidraft riot (which included a
strong element of racist, antiblack sentiment) occurred in New York City,
where four days of arson, looting, lynching, and shooting erupted in mid-
July 1863, resulting in about 120 deaths. Grim troops coming from the
Gettysburg battlefield finally quelled the outbreak. Lesser mob violence
against the draft took place throughout the North.
The Lincoln administration not only freed and armed the slaves and
countenanced conscription but also suppressed civil liberties, permitting
the occasional repression of newspapers, the censorship of reporters’
telegraphic dispatches, and the military arrest of perhaps as many as
15,000 people. The vast majority of those arrested were from the border
states or the Confederacy and included blockade-runners, smugglers,
spies, defectors, and refugees. The only large group of Northerners
arrested came in the wake of the militia draft and the Preliminary
Emancipation Proclamation, which generated tremendous opposition
among Peace Democrats (reproachfully known as Copperheads). These
antiwar advocates urged resistance to both emancipation and the draft,
discouraged volunteering, and encouraged desertion. Primarily to deal
with resistance to the militia draft, the administration suspended the writ
of habeas corpus nationwide. Suspension of the writ, the final
Emancipation Proclamation, and the Conscription Act intensified
opposition to the government’s war policies. Copperheads accused “King
Lincoln” of military despotism and vowed they would not support his

“wicked abolition crusade against the South,” but would “resist to the
death all attempts to draft any of our citizens into the army.” But
Republicans countered charges of tyranny with accusations of treason.
Congress passed a Habeas Corpus Act in March 1863 sanctioning the
practices established by the executive branch, and the president
vigorously defended his administration’s actions. Under the guise of
freedom of speech and press and the right of habeas corpus, he said, the
Confederacy “hoped to keep on foot amongst us a most efficient corps of
spies, informers, supplyers, and aiders and abettors of their cause in a
thousand ways.” Ordinary legal processes did not restrain these disloyal
persons, but courts-martial and military commissions would.
Furthermore, the infringements were only temporary. Military arrests
during the rebellion did not mean that Americans would be denied their
constitutional liberties “throughout the indefinite peaceful future which I
trust lies before them.”
Drawing the line between disloyalty and legitimate expressions of free
speech, press, and assembly is not easy, and Lincoln did not draw it
perfectly. Although innocent men suffered injustice, the administration’s
use of the Army against civilians resulted in no reign of terror. Moreover,
just as Polk established bold precedents of strong executive wartime
leadership, Lincoln created equally far-reaching precedents for the
wartime interference with basic civil liberties. To conquer the South, he
exercised new presidential powers that many people believed he did not
and should not have, for liberty squelched in war might be lost in peace.
1863: Year of Decision
As the 1863 campaigning season approached, Union forces stood poised
at five critical points. The Army of the Potomac, under a new commander,
held the Rappahannock line. Following Fredericksburg, Burnside tried to
redeem his reputation with a mid-January movement around Lee’s left
flank, but torrential rains turned the countryside into a swamp and the
army sank to its knees and axles in muck. The “Mud March” destroyed
what little confidence the army still had in Burnside, and on January 25
Lincoln replaced him with “Fighting Joe” Hooker. In the western theater
Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland occupied Murfreesboro, Grant’s

Army of the Tennessee was north of Vicksburg, and Banks’s Army of the
Gulf held the lower Mississippi. At sea Samuel DuPont had an ironclad
squadron off Charleston. The South viewed these enemy hosts with alarm
but for the first half of 1863 had reason to be optimistic. Northern antiwar
sentiment surged, the drive to clear the Mississippi seemed stalled,
Rosecrans remained inert, and the Confederacy won victories at
Charleston and Chancellorsville. Then in midsummer and fall disaster
struck. The North mangled Lee’s army at Gettysburg, captured Vicksburg
and Port Hudson, and expelled the rebels from Tennessee.
The Union public expected DuPont to achieve a victory at Charleston
akin to Farragut’s at New Orleans. But the tactical problems were not
comparable. Once beyond the river forts Farragut could continue
upstream, but Charleston was a cul-de-sac protected by powerful
batteries. DuPont had a mere thirty-two guns on his eight monitors and
the flagship New Ironsides. Moving on the noontime ebb tide of April 7,
the vessels came within range of enemy batteries about three o’clock. To
DuPont’s chief of staff, “It seemed as if the fires of hell were turned upon
the Union fleet,” as Confederate gunners badly damaged all the ships. The
repulse was a naval Fredericksburg, and its impact on northern morale
was similarly depressing.
Surely Hooker would redeem Union fortunes! Fighting Joe performed
wonders in reviving the dispirited army. For example, he abolished the
“grand divisions” and reestablished the old corps, insisting that the men
of each wear a distinctive insignia to enhance esprit de corps. Hooker also
reorganized the cavalry into a single corps. Previous commanders assigned
cavalry regiments individually to infantry divisions, a practice that
hampered Union cavalry operations, since Lee and Stuart kept their
cavalry concentrated. Properly organized and, after midsummer,
increasingly armed with Spencer repeating carbines, Union troopers soon
demonstrated that they were not inferior to their Confederate
counterparts. Finally, the general’s fighting spirit was contagious. When he
proclaimed that he commanded “the finest army on the planet,” people
expected imminent victory.
Hooker was a skillful commander as well as a proficient organizer.
Outnumbering Lee two to one, he planned to leave 40,000 men under
John Sedgwick at Fredericksburg and take the remainder of the army

upstream to turn the enemy left flank. Crossing the Rappahannock River
simultaneously, the two wings would crush the Army of Northern
Virginia. Initially the plan went well. By April 30 both Sedgwick and
Hooker were across the river, the latter near Chancellorsville, a crossroads
in an extensive area of tangled brush and second-growth timber called the
Wilderness. “The rebel army,” exulted Hooker, “is now the legitimate
property of the Army of the Potomac.”
Hooker’s strategy placed Lee in a precarious position, but he
responded with tactical daring. As he had done against Pope, the
Confederate general divided his army, containing Sedgwick with 10,000
men and taking 50,000 troops to assail Hooker. Lee then further divided
his army, sending Jackson’s corps around Hooker’s right flank on May 2.
A vigilant commander would have crushed Lee’s scattered army. Hooker,
however, lost his nerve. When Jackson’s men smashed the Union flank,
Lee also attacked and the southerners initially drove the Yankees back.
But stiffening resistance and nightfall halted the attacks, with Lee’s army
still divided. Most of Hooker’s subordinates urged him to counterattack
on May 3, but he refused. Instead, Lee attacked again, reuniting his army’s
wings after fierce fighting. Meanwhile, Sedgwick seized Marye’s Heights
and advanced toward Chancellorsville. Running another incalculable risk,
Lee divided his army yet again. A fraction watched Hooker while the
remainder assaulted Sedgwick on May 3–4, forcing him north of the
Rappahannock. Lee then returned to confront Fighting Joe, who ordered
his army to recross the river on the night of May 5–6.
Although the Battle of Chancellorsville was Lee’s most dazzling victory,
two factors tempered the rejoicing. First, Lee’s 13,000 casualties, while
fewer than the North’s 17,000, represented a much higher proportion of
his army. One of those casualties was especially costly: In the twilight after
his flank attack, Jackson rode beyond his lines to survey the situation. As
he returned, a jittery Confederate unit fired, fatally wounding him. His
death forced Lee to reorganize the army, from the successful two-corps
structure into three corps under Longstreet, Ambrose P. Hill, and Richard
Ewell. Whether Hill or Ewell could match Jackson’s genius for long
marching and tough fighting was questionable. Second, the Union army
had again been humiliated and hurt but not destroyed. Accustomed to

suffering and surviving, the Army of the Potomac still manned the
Rappahannock line.
Lee was eager to capitalize on his latest success by carrying the war into
the North. Since early spring he had asked for permission to invade, but a
great strategic debate snared his request. With the Yankees pressing hard
on all fronts, which front was most vital for Confederate survival? The
investment of Vicksburg, where Grant was closing in on John
Pemberton’s garrison, caused special concern. Some men suggested that
Lee send reinforcements to Bragg, so that the Army of Tennessee could
defeat Rosecrans, threaten Kentucky and Ohio, and save Vicksburg. Lee
opposed any scheme for western reinforcement, however, because he
could not reduce his army without sacrificing Virginia. Southern railroads
were so dilapidated that the North could shift troops more rapidly than
the Confederacy; Confederate reinforcements would always arrive too
late. Lee also argued that since northerners could not survive a deep south
summer, Grant would soon retreat anyway. The solution to Confederate
difficulties was an invasion of Pennsylvania, which would dislocate
Federal plans, force Grant and Rosecrans to send reinforcements
eastward, save Virginia, and allow Confederates to obtain supplies from
northern farms and storehouses. Victories on northern soil might gain
foreign recognition and foster Copperhead sentiment. Lee’s arguments
convinced Davis that southerners should again wade the Potomac.
On June 9, as Lee shifted his 75,000 troops toward the Shenandoah,
Union cavalry surprised Stuart at Brandy Station, resulting in the war’s
largest cavalry action. Although Confederate troopers forced the
bluecoats to retreat, the victory margin was thin. Eager to refurbish his
reputation, Stuart suggested a raid into Hooker’s rear, and Lee consented.
Departing on June 25, Stuart promised to rejoin the army in a few days,
but unexpected difficulties delayed the cavalry’s return a week and Lee
advanced blindly. With his men at York, Carlisle, and Chambersburg in
Pennsylvania, Lee still believed Hooker was in Virginia. The Federal army
was actually at Frederick, and Fighting Joe no longer commanded it.
Hooker’s unwillingness to tangle with Lee as the gray column marched
from the Rappahannock to Pennsylvania dismayed Lincoln, and on June
27 the president replaced him with George G. Meade. The new
commander believed he could stand on the tactical defensive, since Lee

would not retreat into Virginia without fighting. Meanwhile, learning that
the Federals were dangerously close, on June 28 Lee ordered his forces to
concentrate at Cashtown. Three days later men from James J. Pettigrew’s
brigade went to seize a supply of shoes in Gettysburg. They bumped into
a Yankee advance unit, John Buford’s cavalry division, which held off the
graycoats until infantry support arrived. Although nobody planned to
fight at Gettysburg, once the shooting began both armies converged there.
Fighting on the first day was chaotic and fierce, as the Union I and XI
Corps tried to hold ground west and north of Gettysburg, but the
Confederates drove them through the town and onto Cemetery Hill and
Culp’s Hill. As more Federals arrived, the line extended southward along
Cemetery Ridge to Little Round Top and Round Top. The position
resembled a four-mile-long inverted fishhook running from the barb at
Culp’s Hill, along the shank of Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge, to the
eye at the Round Tops. The Confederate line ran roughly parallel from
east of Gettysburg, through the town, then south along Seminary Ridge.
Not only were the Federals dug in on high ground, but in terms of
maneuver and communications they held interior lines. Reaching the
battlefield at midnight, Meade saw enough by moonlight to know his
88,000-man army held formidable terrain. If only Lee would attack!
Longstreet opposed fighting at Gettysburg. The army, he told Lee,
should slide around the Federal left flank, get between Meade and
Washington, find good defensive terrain, and force the Army of the
Potomac to attack. Rejecting the advice, Lee issued attack orders for
Longstreet to deliver the primary blow against Meade’s southern flank
and Ewell to launch a secondary assault against Culp’s Hill and Cemetery
Hill. Longstreet hammered but did not break the main Union line, and
Ewell made only slight headway, securing a lodgment on the lower slope
of Culp’s Hill. That evening Meade met with his subordinates to decide
whether the army should retreat, attack, or hold its ground. Almost all
agreed that the Federals should maintain their defensive posture. Where
was Lee most likely to hit? Meade reasoned that the enemy, having tested
the flanks, would attack the center. He was correct. Lee planned an
assault, preceded by a massive barrage, aimed at the middle of the
fishhook. The striking force would consist of approximately 13,500 men
stretching across a mile-long front. Lee again entrusted the attack to

Longstreet, who again protested his superior’s plan. But the southern
commander waved off his subordinate. “The enemy is there, General
Longstreet,” said Lee, indicating Cemetery Ridge, “and I am going to
strike him.”
Lee’s plan was almost Burnside-like in its simplicity, and it produced a
Fredericksburg with the roles reversed. The artillery barrage shattered the
sultry stillness at one o’clock and continued for almost two hours before
the Confederates emerged from the woods on Seminary Ridge and
advanced as if on a parade ground. Pickett’s Charge, named after George
Pickett, who commanded the largest of the three attacking divisions,
pitted gallantry against firepower. Forty minutes decided the issue. Yankee
batteries rained grapeshot and canister on the exposed ranks. Federal
infantry unloosed volley after volley, while punishing fire from the flanks
engulfed the column. The storm of hot metal shredded the attacking
column, which suffered 50 percent casualties.
“It is all my fault,” Lee told the survivors, urging them to rally in case
Meade counterattacked. Within a few hours the Army of Northern
Virginia had regrouped, but Meade did not leave his lines. As after
Antietam, Lee held his ground for a day before retreating. Battle
casualties amounted to one-third of his army, and thousands of men
straggled during the withdrawal. Meade did not pursue vigorously. With
his army having suffered 23,000 casualties, he seemed content to escort
the invaders off northern soil. By late July both armies were again on the
Rappahannock, and a long stalemate ensued in the eastern theater.
Lincoln was disconsolate when he learned that Lee’s army had reached
Virginia soil, and he penned a harsh letter to Meade, which he never
actually sent. “I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the
misfortune involved in Lee’s escape,” the president wrote. “He was within
your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with
our other late successes, have ended the war.” The “other late successes”
occurred in the western theater, where Vicksburg and Port Hudson
surrendered and Bragg was in retreat.
A muddled command system exacerbated normal Confederate
problems in the west: Too many places to defend, too few troops, and too
little logistical support. In November 1862 Davis appointed Joseph E.
Johnston, recovered from his wound at Fair Oaks, to command a newly

formed Department of the West that included the armies of Bragg in
Tennessee and Pemberton in Mississippi. The command difficulties were
threefold. First, the extent of Johnston’s authority was unclear. Retaining
the right to correspond directly with Richmond, Bragg and Pemberton
could circumvent him. Second, Johnston could not effectively coordinate
the two armies due to the distance between them, the South’s primitive
transportation system, and Federal control of the Tennessee River. Third,
Johnston and Davis disagreed on a fundamental issue. The department
commander believed middle and east Tennessee were more important
than the Mississippi, but Davis stressed holding the river.
Following his unsuccessful overland campaign toward Vicksburg,
Grant went to Young’s Point to oversee the river campaign. Both
geography and man had made Vicksburg difficult to attack. Only the high
ground south and east of the city offered suitable terrain for military
operations. Grant’s problem was to get there. The bayou country fanning
northward from Vicksburg was impenetrable, as Grant learned after
months of searching for a feasible route. Powerful batteries lining the
river presented a barrier seemingly as impassable as the bayous. Grant
admitted that the “strategical way according to the rule” would be to
return to Memphis and try the overland route again. But in the Union’s
grim springtime mood people would have interpreted the move as
another defeat, so Grant determined upon a plan as daring as any that Lee
devised. His army would slog down the Mississippi’s west side and cross
below the city. David D. Porter, commanding the river flotilla, would
simply have to run the gauntlet with gunboats and transports. Grant knew
he might have a difficult logistical problem once he left his supply base
north of Vicksburg. For supplies he would depend in part on a wagon
road coming down the river’s west bank and on the Navy’s ability to run
additional transports past the Confederate batteries. But the road was
tenuous and the Navy’s task risky, and Grant would have to live primarily
off the country until he got back to the Mississippi above Vicksburg—if
he could.
In early April Grant started his men marching south, and on the night
of April 16–17 a dozen of Porter’s ships slipped downriver. Confederate
gunners hit all twelve ships, but only one sank, and on April 30 the army
crossed at Bruinsburg. The next day Grant brushed aside rebels at Port

Gibson and then paused for more than a week to stockpile supplies and
organize a wagon train before resuming his advance. His first task was to
keep Pemberton and Johnston, who had patched together a force near
Jackson, from uniting. Grant headed for Jackson, winning another minor
battle at Raymond and forcing Johnston to retreat. Then Grant turned
toward Vicksburg, defeating Pemberton’s main force at Champion Hill
and his rear guard at the Big Black River. The Confederate commander
retreated into Vicksburg’s earthworks. Reluctant to undertake a siege
during the summer months, Grant twice stormed the fortress, but the
Confederates bloodily repulsed the assaults. The only way to take the city
was by siege.
Throughout the campaign Johnston and Pemberton never agreed on a
common strategy. Johnston had urged Pemberton to abandon Vicksburg
and join him for a joint attack on Grant, but Pemberton refused, since he
believed Vicksburg was a “vital point, indispensable to be held.” Thus
Grant was successful even though Confederates in the vicinity
outnumbered him until mid-June. By then, however, he had 71,000 troops
closing in on Vicksburg. Shelling went on night and day as the inhabitants
huddled in basements or caves, subsisting on mule meat and rats, and on
July 4 Pemberton surrendered. Four days later Port Hudson capitulated
to Banks, who had besieged it since mid-May. “The Father of Waters,”
Lincoln happily wrote, “again goes unvexed to the sea.”
As the Vicksburg siege entered its final stage, Rosecrans launched an
offensive with his 60,000-man army. Moving with speed and skill, he
maneuvered Bragg out of middle Tennessee. Bragg took refuge in
Chattanooga, and Rosecrans paused to regroup. When he resumed his
advance in mid-August, Burnside’s Army of the Ohio marched
simultaneously from Kentucky toward Knoxville. Burnside forced Simon
B. Buckner’s Knoxville defenders to withdraw and entered the city on
September 3. Six days later Rosecrans took Chattanooga after clever
maneuvering again forced Bragg to retreat. Rosecrans plunged southward
in pursuit, each of his three corps pouring through mountain gaps twenty
miles apart. Bragg prepared to pounce as the South effected another far-
flung strategic concentration similar to the one preceding Shiloh. He
received reinforcements from Buckner and Johnston, and he anxiously
awaited two divisions under Longstreet coming from Lee’s army. But the

Union occupation of Knoxville severed the direct rail link between
Virginia and Bragg, compelling Longstreet to take a roundabout route.
Before he arrived, Bragg tried three times to strike Rosecrans’s dispersed
forces. The attempts miscarried but alerted Rosecrans, who hastily
concentrated his army along Chickamauga Creek. At the ensuing Battle of
Chickamauga, the Confederates had a numerical advantage of about
10,000 men. On September 18, as Longstreet’s first troops detrained, the
Confederates fought their way across the creek. The next day Bragg
delivered an all-out attack but made little progress. He renewed the attack
the next morning and rolled up the Union right flank. One-third of the
army, including Rosecrans, fled to Chattanooga, and it appeared Bragg
might annihilate the remaining two-thirds. But George H. Thomas rallied
the Federals and repulsed attacks until dark, earning the sobriquet “the
Rock of Chickamauga.” That night Thomas retreated to Chattanooga.
Chickamauga was another dearly bought Confederate victory devoid of
strategic consequences. The rebels suffered 18,400 casualties, the Yankees
16,100. Furthermore, the Union army retained Chattanooga even though
Bragg besieged it. Since the only supply route Rosecrans utilized was
circuitous and subjected to rebel cavalry raids, by mid-October his army
was starving. With Rosecrans acting, in Lincoln’s memorable phrase,
“confused and stunned like a duck hit upon the head,” the administration
responded decisively by sending reinforcements and changing the
command structure. Stanton ordered two corps from the Army of the
Potomac under Hooker to Chattanooga. In the war’s greatest railroad
operation, 23,000 men covered 1,200 miles in twelve days. The War
Department also ordered four divisions under Sherman to the
beleaguered city. On October 17 Lincoln appointed Grant as commander
of all forces (except Banks’s army) between the Appalachians and the
Mississippi and directed him to assume personal control at Chattanooga.
He replaced Rosecrans with Thomas, opened up a direct supply route,
and developed plans to break the siege. Meanwhile, Bragg committed a
blunder. At Davis’s behest he sent Longstreet to recapture Knoxville just
as the Union army was seizing the initiative under Grant’s energetic
generalship. On November 24–25 Union attacks drove the Confederates
from their siege positions, forcing the Confederates to retreat to Dalton.
Shortly thereafter Longstreet retreated from Knoxville, although he

remained in a position to menace east Tennessee. Bragg admitted that
Davis had erred in keeping him in command, since, as both men knew, he
had lost the confidence of his generals. In October Davis had visited
Bragg’s headquarters and in the commander’s presence asked each
subordinate whether the army needed a new leader. All said yes, yet Davis
retained Bragg! Now, after one failure too many, Davis replaced Bragg
with Johnston.
Grant planned for a significant winter campaign, hoping for permission
to advance from New Orleans to Mobile and then to “make a campaign
into the interior of Alabama, and, possibly, Georgia.” Concern in
Washington for the security of east and middle Tennessee prevented
Grant from undertaking the campaign. Lincoln and Halleck wanted him
to drive Longstreet completely out of east Tennessee and to push
Johnston farther back into Georgia. Although unable to undertake his
Mobile campaign, Grant did send Sherman from Vicksburg to Meridian,
Mississippi, in what was the first example of his raiding strategy.
Departing Vicksburg in early February 1864 with 25,000 men, Sherman
devastated the railroads and resources of central Mississippi and then
withdrew to Canton before returning to Vicksburg in early March.
The North’s achievements during the last half of 1863 gave it a firm
strategic position for winning the war. Augmenting the substantial gains in
the eastern and western theaters was a success along the coast. Following
DuPont’s failure, Lincoln replaced him with John A. Dahlgren, who
cooperated with Quincy A. Gillmore’s army forces to seal off Charleston
by capturing Morris Island. Although the city remained in Confederate
hands, blockade-running became doubly dangerous since ships had to
escape Dahlgren’s cordon and avoid Union artillery on Morris Island. The
North had tightened the blockade one more notch. Indeed, less
spectacularly than the land battles but more steadily, the blockade was
strangling the Confederacy.
The Civil War at Sea
The most important aspect of the sea war was the blockade, which the
North tried to tighten and the South struggled to break. The blockade’s
architects were Secretary of the Navy Welles and his assistant secretary,

Gustavus V. Fox. They helped plan and organize the amphibious
operations that captured bases in enemy territory and closed southern
ports, and oversaw the Navy’s expansion to 671 ships by December 1864,
including 236 steam vessels built during the war. With steam dominating
the building program, in July 1862 Congress restructured the five naval
bureaus into a new system of eight bureaus. The most significant change
was the addition of a Bureau of Steam Engineering, headed by Benjamin
F. Isherwood. Working closely with John Lenthall, chief of the Bureau of
Construction and Repair, Isherwood did more than any other individual
to design the Union’s steam navy.
The steam navy’s growth created special problems. Prices for labor and
materials rose during the war, and cost overruns played havoc with the
Navy Department budget. As Isherwood and Lenthall supervised the
construction of vessels, they often changed specifications, leading to what
Fox called “those horrible bills for additions and improvements and
everlasting alterations.” The biggest problem, however, was finding
capable steam engineers. Although their numbers increased from 192 to
1,805, many were inexperienced. To compensate for the novices,
Isherwood designed power plants for simplicity, reliability, and durability.
But he achieved these admirable qualities by building machinery that was
often heavy, underpowered, and inefficient, resulting in many slow, deep-
draft ships with limited cruising ranges.
Whatever problems the Union Navy encountered, they were minor
compared to those of the Confederate navy. Secretary of the Navy
Stephen R. Mallory faced obstacles that made even a modest naval effort
appear impossible. The southern population contained few sailors, and at
its peak naval manpower was 25 percent below requirements. The South
suffered more than the North from a shortage of engineers, and many of
the skilled workers went into the army. Fuel, lubricants, iron, and other
raw materials were scarce. The Confederacy initially had major naval
facilities at Norfolk, Pensacola, and New Orleans, but the Union captured
them in 1862, forcing the South to utilize small yards or build new ones in
isolated locations beyond the reach of enemy amphibious operations. The
transportation system often could not get even small quantities of
materials to these far-flung facilities. Since Davis favored the army, the
navy received inadequate funding. Money shortages crippled the effort to

purchase foreign-built ships. Furthermore, constructing warships for a
belligerent violated the neutrality laws of various European nations. The
South’s achievement was remarkable, considering the difficulties, for it
built or acquired at least 130 ships.
The Confederate navy undertook two major activities intended to
weaken the blockade. First, utilizing an array of technological innovations,
the navy tried to protect southern harbors. With technology in rapid flux,
Mallory hoped to pit southern ingenuity against northern ships. The navy
department had a Torpedo Bureau and a Naval Submarine Battery Service
to develop torpedoes (mines). Specially designed fifty-foot-long, cigar-
shaped boats called “Davids” carried contact mines at the end of bow-
mounted spars. Torpedoes sank or damaged forty-three Union warships.
The Confederacy built the world’s first successful submarine, CSS Hunley,
which destroyed USS Housatonic off Charleston in February 1864, though
Hunley also sank after the explosion. Torpedoes, “Davids,” and
submarines induced a well-founded fear in Union naval officers, who
approached enemy harbors and river mouths with increasing caution.
The most ambitious effort to utilize new technology was the ironclad
program. Prompted by Mallory, the government converted the captured
Merrimack into the ironclad Virginia, authorized construction of two
ironclads at Memphis and two at New Orleans, and appropriated $2
million to purchase ironclads abroad. The original purpose of the
ironclads was to raise the blockade by sinking the Union’s wooden ships
and challenging the Federal Navy for control of the southern coast. The
Virginia started the process spectacularly. On March 8, 1862, it steamed
out of the Norfolk Navy Yard, destroying Cumberland and Congress.
Three other Union ships ran aground trying to escape the iron-skinned
beast. The day’s events demonstrated that an unarmored ship could not
fight an armored one. Fortunately for the Union, it had an antidote. When
Welles learned of enemy plans for Merrimack, he appointed an Ironclad
Board to study the problem. It recommended that the Navy Department
authorize contracts for three different experimental ironclads, one of
them designed by John Ericsson and known as Monitor. The Monitor’s
most revolutionary feature was a revolving gun turret: Only the turret, not
the ship, need turn in battle. On the night of March 8 Monitor arrived at
Hampton Roads, and the next day, when Merrimack ventured forth to

finish off the blockading squadron, the world’s first fight between
ironclads occurred. Armor against armor produced a tactical stalemate
that worked to the North’s strategic advantage. Union ironclads could
prevent southern armored ships from directly lifting the blockade.
Henceforth, the South primarily used ironclads to supplement harbor
defenses, leaving Yankee sea power unchallenged along the seaboard.
The Battle of Hampton Roads touched off a Monitor-mania in the
North and convinced the South that it should devote a major portion of
its naval energies to acquiring ironclads. However, the Confederate
ironclad program was not successful. The effort to buy foreign armored
vessels yielded minimal results, and the domestic building program fared
little better, as indicated by the fate of the four armored ships authorized
in 1861. The two at New Orleans fell into Union hands after Farragut’s
triumph, the rebels destroyed one of the Memphis ironclads in August
1862 to prevent its capture, and the Federals captured the other one two
years later. Although the South laid down or contracted for about fifty
armored ships, only twenty-two ever became operational. Moreover, the
South learned that once it built a novel weapon, the North, with its
superior industrial capacity, could produce more of them. Before the war
ended, the North had seventy ironclads in service.
The other Confederate naval activity was commerce raiding, which the
South hoped would hurt the northern economy so badly that Welles
would withdraw ships from the blockade to hunt down the raiders.
Commerce raiders included privateers, converted merchantmen, and
English-built steam cruisers. Davis issued a call for privateers in April
1861, and the government granted the first commission to the schooner
Triton on May 10. A few more ships received commissions, but
privateering soon ceased, since privateers had no place to take prizes. The
blockade closed off southern ports, and the major European nations had
signed the Declaration of Paris of 1856, outlawing the practice. The South
possessed few merchant ships, but the government refitted about a dozen
and commissioned them as regular navy vessels. But far more important
than privateers or refitted merchantmen were three specially built cruisers
bought in England. The CSS Alabama covered 75,000 miles under sail
and steam in less than two years, capturing sixty-four prizes before the
Kearsarge sank it. Its sister ship, Florida, took thirty-eight prizes before the

sloop Wachusett captured the vessel as it refitted in a neutral port in
Brazil. The South purchased the Shenandoah to replace the Alabama, and
it practically destroyed the Yankee whaling fleet in the Bering Sea during
the summer of 1865 before learning the war was over.
The direct losses from Confederate raiders amounted to about 250
ships, but the indirect costs were much higher. Hundreds of vessels lay in
port fearing to put to sea, and shipowners transferred at least 700 more to
foreign registry to avoid rebel depredations. Insurance rates skyrocketed
for those ships brave enough to put to sea flying the American flag.
However, though the commerce raiders practically drove the United
States merchant marine from the oceans, they did not affect the war’s
outcome. Foreign shipping carried northern commerce, and Welles,
recognizing the blockade’s cardinal role in the war effort, refused to divert
many ships from the southern coast.
Unable to weaken seriously the blockade with ironclads or commerce
raiders, the South relied on blockade-running, an enterprise involving
private individuals, foreigners, state governments, and the Confederate
government. The allures of the business were adventure, patriotism, and
money. Initially blockade-running was dominated by opportunistic
captains, primarily interested in profit, who brought in high-value, low-
bulk items such as perfume and silk that civilians craved but that did not
noticeably help the army. In 1863–1864 the Confederate government
began regulating the business by buying blockade-runners, taking control
of half the cargo space on other ships, and banning a long list of
nonessential goods. As the blockade tightened, blockade-running became
more skillful and organized. The British yards at Clydeside built special
ships. Fast, drably painted, and burning practically smokeless anthracite
coal, they were nearly invisible during nighttime runs in and out of port.
The business centered in Bermuda, Nassau, Havana, and the Mexican
cities of Tampico and Veracruz, where cargoes shipped in bulk from
Europe arrived for transshipment to blockade-runners.
In the deadly hide-and-seek game played nightly along the coast the
blockade-runners had great advantages. They chose the port, time,
weather, and other circumstances to maximize their chances, and even if
spotted they were invariably faster than the blockaders. However, the
number of ships penetrating the blockade declined as Federal warships

became more numerous and amphibious operations closed Confederate
ports, until by 1864 only Mobile and Wilmington remained open. In 1861
nine out of ten blockade-runners were successful, but by 1865 only one
out of two made it. These ships brought in impressive quantities of war
materials, such as 600,000 small arms, 624,000 pairs of boots, and millions
of pounds of lead and meat. Yet this supply line was always tenuous:
Union blockaders, storms, mangled propellers, blown cylinders, cracked
steam pipes, limited cargo space, and intense competition made it
unpredictable and expensive, vastly complicating the Confederate war
effort. And, of course, the important question is not how much got
through, but did enough? The answer is no. Although leaky, the blockade
was one of the Union’s most effective weapons, contributing significantly
to the decline in the South’s home-front standard of living and in the
Confederate army’s logistical support.
The Sinews of War
By the winter of 1863–1864 the disparity in strength was obvious, as the
Union became stronger while the Confederacy, besieged by land and sea,
grew weaker. In the North, order and organization replaced the chaos of
1861, manpower and material resources appeared inexhaustible, and
industrial and agricultural output increased. In the South, raw materials
were difficult to obtain, industrial production lagged, facilities
deteriorated, the armies shrank, famine conditions occurred, and
defeatism stalked the land. Compared to the Union, the Confederacy
faced grave crises in supply, transportation, manpower, and home-front
morale.
In the North an improvised logistical effort characterized by shortages
and corruption soon gave way to a centralized, organized mobilization
that abundantly supplied the Army. When the war began, the Army’s
rapid expansion overwhelmed the War Department’s supply bureaus.
Understaffed, headed by aged officers, dedicated to technical routine, and
uncoordinated, the bureaus were initially as much hindrance as help. As
expedients the North depended on cities and states to supply the men
they raised and turned to foreign markets. Federal, state, and local
purchasing agents and private speculators competed feverishly at home

and abroad (where they also bid against southern agents), buying an
assortment of arms and equipment. With a desperate demand for great
quantities, buyers paid too little attention to quality—and to honest
dealings. Lobbyists, contractors, and speculators descended on
Washington and the state capitals like a cloud of locusts, devouring the
national and state treasuries. Although the Army’s unprecedented
expansion made some logistical chaos inevitable, Lincoln’s original
secretary of war, Simon Cameron, contributed to the frenzy and
corruption with deplorably lax administration.
By mid-1862, however, most of the inefficiency and deficiencies had
disappeared. Congress established investigative committees to uncover
fraud and passed laws regulating the letting of contracts. The forces of
centralizing nationalism that brought manpower mobilization under
federal control also returned logistical mobilization to the War
Department’s Ordnance, Subsistence, and Quartermaster Departments.
The personnel in these bureaus expanded dramatically. For example,
when Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs assumed office in
June 1861, he had only thirteen clerks, but by 1865 he had almost 600
civilian employees. War Department organization also became more
elaborate. To use the same example, the Quartermaster Department
initially had one subdivision (clothing), but Meigs created eight more,
dealing with specialized logistical functions such as forage and fuel,
barracks and hospitals, and wagon transportation. At a higher
administrative level Stanton established a War Board composed of the
bureau heads and chaired by Major General Ethan Allen Hitchcock,
whom Lincoln and Stanton appointed as their personal military adviser.
Acting as an embryonic American-style general staff, the board facilitated
logistical coordination. Although it soon ceased meeting formally, Halleck
inherited a budding tradition of interbureau cooperation when he became
commanding general, which made his task easier. The Union was also
blessed with honest administrators in high places, particularly Secretary of
War Stanton, who replaced Cameron in January 1862, and Meigs, who
spent $1.5 billion and could account for every penny.
Industry responded to the necessity and opportunity presented by the
war, quickly converting to wartime production and expanding its output.
The war demanded plan, order, and system, transforming what historian

Allan Nevins called “a loose, inchoate, uncrystallized society” into an
organized one. The war intensified business trends already evident in the
antebellum era as industries became increasingly concentrated and
coordinated. Truly national industries arose that utilized mass,
mechanized production techniques and more sophisticated managerial
methods. Without any economic controls, American industry geared up
so successfully that foreign purchases ceased in mid-1862, and surpluses
rather than shortages became the rule. By the end of 1862 Lincoln
believed logistical excess hampered the war effort. “My dear General,” he
wrote in exasperation to Banks, “this expanding, and piling up of
impedimenta, has been, so far, almost our ruin, and will be our final ruin if
it is not abandoned.”
Northern acquisition of weapons exemplified the evolution from hectic
improvisation to an efficient system. When the war commenced, the
North turned to European markets, buying 738,000 firearms in fifteen
months. Most of the foreign weapons were dependable but some were
inferior, and agents scouring the Continent paid premium prices for all of
them. Meanwhile, the government stimulated the private arms industry by
offering profitable contracts, and it increased production at government
arsenals. The private and public armaments industries that produced
fewer than 50,000 firearms in 1860 turned out more than 2.5 million
during the war, and after 1862 foreign purchasing stopped.
While the North’s logistical mobilization expanded, the South’s peaked
in early 1863 and then declined. Fundamental interlocking problems
beset southern logistics. The Confederacy had few preexisting industries
to expand and lacked sufficient raw materials upon which to build an
industrial base. The South did have an existing agricultural foundation,
dominated by tobacco and cotton. Efforts to convert to grain and meat
production did not completely succeed. Northern conquests eroded the
South’s ability to make a sustained logistical effort, forcing it to draw raw
materials and food from an ever-smaller area. The inability to meet the
army’s needs from domestic sources increased Confederate dependence
on hazardous blockade-running. Economic difficulties, produced in large
part by inflation, crippled both domestic and foreign procurement.
Skilled labor remained scarce, and the transportation system faltered,
ruining the essential link between procurement and timely distribution.

While the North added 4,000 miles of track, increased its rolling stock,
and captured or disrupted critical southern railroad lines, the South
barely kept a few lines operating by cannibalizing less important lines, and
it could not replace worn-out rolling stock. Furthermore, the Union
occupied the upper south horse- and mule-breeding region, making
wagon transport difficult.
Nothing hurt the supply services as much as the failure of decisive
action and hard-headed planning by the Davis administration. The South
needed a careful weighing of assets and liabilities, the setting of strict
priorities, and centralized direction in order to use its resources efficiently.
But Confederate leaders allowed events to control planning, resulting in
uncoordinated, tardy, and generally impotent centralization of the
logistical effort. The government gave no overall direction to the supply
bureaus, which often bid against each other for materials and labor. Davis
never permitted the military to utilize the railroads to best advantage and
was slow to exert even moderate control over blockade-running. The
Confederacy could have developed an extensive trade through Union
lines, but the president at first prohibited it and then shackled the trade
with so many regulations that it never fully developed. In sum, Davis’s
defective supply management made unavoidable problems worse.
The efforts of Lucius B. Northrop, the Commissary General of
Subsistence, and Josiah Gorgas, chief of the Bureau of Ordnance,
illustrate Confederate problems. In a rich agricultural region like the
South, food should have been the least of difficulties. But the North soon
overran or isolated its most productive areas, such as Tennessee, and in
states remaining under rebel control labor shortages appeared as white
men went into the army and slaves fled to Union lines. Farm machinery
broke down, with no spare parts available. As Confederate currency
depreciated, farmers became less willing to sell, since they rightly believed
future prices would be higher. Confronted by massive hoarding, the
government resorted to impressment and a tax in kind. The War
Department published a price schedule for impressed goods, but the
prices were far below prevailing market rates. Under the tax in kind the
Subsistence Bureau confiscated one-tenth of a farmer’s produce. The
forcible seizures of food caused outraged protests, especially when much
of the produce rotted before the transportation system could move it to

the army. Evasion and outright resistance became common. In
desperation Northrop tried to import meat—a bulky and hence expensive
item—adding to the bureau’s financial woes. By the spring of 1863 the
food situation was critical. Lee’s pickets along the Rappahannock shouted
to their enemy counterparts that they had a new, tough general. When the
Yankees asked for his name, the pickets replied, “General Starvation, by
God.”
Gorgas performed wonders in arming the South from three sources:
Blockade-running, battlefield captures, and domestic manufacturing. He
bought blockade-runners for his bureau’s use, importing large quantities
of firearms, saltpeter, lead, and percussion caps. Organized battlefield
scavenging yielded about 80,000 weapons during the 1862 spring and
summer campaigns alone. But the domestic arms industry was Gorgas’s
most remarkable accomplishment, as he expanded or constructed
armories, arsenals, and depots throughout the South. Yet shortages
prevented Gorgas from doing more. Lack of money retarded the work of
his European purchasing agent, Caleb Huse. Minerals remained scarce
despite the abilities of Isaac M. St. John, who headed the bureau’s Nitre
and Mining corps, which became a separate bureau in April 1863.
Charged with finding and developing mineral resources, St. John strove
imaginatively to supply them. For example, when Bragg withdrew from
Tennessee, losing the mines that produced 90 percent of the South’s
copper, St. John salvaged copper from apple-brandy stills. But he could
not perform miracles. The scarcity of pig iron, for instance, prevented the
South’s largest manufacturing establishment, the Tredegar Iron Works in
Richmond, Virginia, from operating at more than one-third capacity. The
loss of a single skilled worker could be disastrous. When Yankee raiders
killed John Jones, an expert barrel straightener, the Richmond Armory’s
production dropped by 369 rifles per month, and it took several months
to train a replacement. Finally, Gorgas wanted to centralize operations at a
few secure locations, but the railroads could not haul raw materials or
finished products great distances.
If Confederate logistical support diminished after 1863, so did
southern armies, and the two phenomena were not unrelated. The
“present for duty” total was 253,208 on January 1, 1863, but only 154,910
two years later. Casualties and disease accounted for part of the shrinkage,

but two other factors were more important in the Confederate army’s
disintegration. The feeble conscription enforcement machinery all but
collapsed and was unable to provide a steady flow of new recruits.
Meanwhile, the number of deserters, which would total more than
100,000 during the war, increased dramatically. Although the Union Army
had twice as many deserters, the effect on the larger Federal force was less
severe. To the South the absence of 100,000 men was of paramount
importance, especially since the army had to detail men to track down the
deserters, further reducing available manpower. Deserters also invariably
took their arms and equipment, which the South could ill afford to
replace.
Both sides tried to control desertion by similar means: Stationing
guards at fords, ferries, and bridges; offering rewards for capturing
deserters; appeals by officers, politicians, and editors; amnesty offers; and
drastic punishment. Nothing worked. Many Confederate deserters
entered Union lines, but most took to the hills, caves, and swamps, often
joining draft dodgers to form armed bands that defied authorities. A few
Federal deserters went over to the enemy, some fled to Canada or Mexico,
but like southern deserters most sought refuge in inaccessible areas in
their home section. Why did men desert? Some reasons were exactly the
same for Billy Yank and Johnny Reb, such as cowardice before a battle or
lack of devotion to the cause among conscripts and substitutes. Other
reasons, although similar, varied in degree. The hardships of soldiering
and worry about the family back home influenced men in both armies,
but more so in the Confederacy, where the privations were much greater
in the service and behind the lines. Some causes were unique to each
army. The northern bounty system encouraged desertion, while rising
defeatism on the southern home front, conveyed to soldiers through
letters and rumors, motivated deserters, who knew they would get a
sympathetic reception from their families and friends.
“The people are soul-sick and heartily tired of the hateful, hopeless
strife,” wrote a prominent Georgian. “We have had enough of want and
woe, of cruelty and carnage, enough of cripples and corpses. There is an
abundance of weeping parents, bereaved widows, and orphaned children
in the land.” Such sentiments represented the collapse of civilian morale
that preceded, and contributed to, the army’s defeat. Between 1861 and

1864 the South managed to maintain effective armies, but it failed to
preserve the population’s well-being. Shortages and inflation, the fear of a
centralized government impinging on individual and state liberty, and the
hopelessness arising from losses on the battlefield and in the international
arena fostered a southern peace movement. People carried money to
market in a basket and brought home their purchases in a purse—or so
people said—and when Davis called for a day of fasting and prayer in
March 1863, one man wrote that the president had asked for “fasting in
the midst of famine!” That spring bread riots occurred in five cities, and
everywhere gaunt-looking people wore dingy clothes. The knowledge that
the North was virtually untouched by the war’s ravages made the
privations especially unbearable. The contrast was so stark that some
southerners urged soldiers to desert to the Yankees “whear you can get
plenty and not stay in this one-horse barefooted naked and famine
stricken Southern Confederacy.”
The Confederate government, wrote a North Carolina congressman in
1863, is becoming “a consolidated military despotism.” Defining liberty as
freedom from an arbitrary government, many southerners agreed with
him. For popular liberty to survive, civil power must control the military,
and state governments must protect the populace from the inevitable
authoritarian tendencies of a central government. Yet the dual safeguards
of civilian control and strong states seemed to be disappearing.
Conscription, the periodic suspension of the writ of habeas corpus,
arbitrary arrests, the impressment of private property, and novel taxes all
spurred doubts about the justness of the Confederate cause. The
government defended its actions on the grounds of temporary military
necessity, but more and more civilians attested to the evils without
acknowledging the necessity.
Had the South been winning, the privations and infringements might
have been endurable. But even when the South won a battle the North
became more powerful, and when the North won a battle the South
became permanently weaker. By 1864 all hope that foreign aid would
redress the imbalance was gone. Skillful northern diplomacy prevented an
internal conflict from becoming an international war. Many reasons
accounted for British nonintervention: English dependence on northern
foodstuffs, access to new cotton supplies, turmoil in Europe, fear of what

might happen to Canada and to British commerce in a war with the
Union, and an unwillingness to side with slavery. The British government
also wanted to establish precedents by respecting the blockade, a weapon
that it often used. Most important, the South did not earn recognition on
the battlefield. Realizing that England would never intervene, in August
1863 Davis canceled the diplomatic mission to London, and in December
he told the Confederate Congress that European powers had become
“positively unfriendly.”
Incipient peace sentiment found organized expression in the Peace and
Constitutional Society, the Peace Society, the Order of the Heroes of
America, and other smaller societies. Dedicated to ending the war, these
organizations resisted Confederate authority, discouraged enlistments, and
assisted invading Union armies. Yet if some southerners despaired, most
remained committed to independence. Tenacity among civilian leaders,
the fighting prowess of rebel soldiers, and a dash of luck might reverse the
war’s adverse course. Northern Copperhead sentiment was by no means
dead, and although the South could no longer win an outright military
victory, it might forestall Union conquest long enough that the Yankees
would give up in frustration.
The Final Campaigns, 1864–1865
“There is no enthusiasm for Gen. Grant; and on the other hand, there is
no prejudice against him. We are prepared to throw up our hats when he
shows himself the great soldier in Virginia against Lee and the best troops
of the rebels.” So wrote a colonel in the Army of the Potomac upon
learning that Grant had been commissioned a lieutenant general on
March 9, 1864, and replaced Halleck as general in chief. Eastern soldiers
were skeptical about this westerner who now held a rank that only George
Washington had previously held on a permanent basis. Yet they were
ready to embrace him if he could duplicate his western successes against
the Army of Northern Virginia, which they thought superior to any army
that Grant had defeated beyond the Appalachians.
With Grant’s promotion an awkward but workable command system
with modern overtones emerged. To facilitate communications between
Lincoln and Grant and between the commanding general and his

department commanders, the War Department established the position of
chief of staff. Halleck, who had been functioning informally as chief of
staff since the summer of 1862, filled the new post. His ability to translate
civilian thoughts into military language and vice versa ensured that
Lincoln and Grant never misunderstood each other. The chief of staff also
relieved Grant of the burden of personally corresponding with his
department commanders. Halleck’s position was especially important
since Grant did not establish his headquarters in Washington but took the
field with the Army of the Potomac, though he left Meade in tactical
command of the Army.
Grant’s plan for the spring campaign demonstrated a grand strategic
design that would put simultaneous pressure on as many fronts as
possible, working “all parts of the Army to-gether, and, somewhat towards
a common center.” In the east, Meade would assail the Army of Northern
Virginia, assisted by smaller forces operating on the strategic flanks.
Moving from Fort Monroe toward Richmond via the James River, Butler’s
Army of the James would capture the capital if possible but at least sever
Lee’s supply lines running south to Petersburg. Franz Sigel would move
up the Shenandoah, depriving the south of the Valley’s resources. Without
supplies and threatened in the rear and on the flanks, Lee would have to
move into the open to fight. In the west, Grant wanted Banks to move
against Mobile and then thrust toward Georgia to cooperate with
Sherman, whose task was to move against Johnston’s army and then “to
get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all
the damage you can upon their War resources.” While ravaging the
countryside Sherman was also determined to strike at civilian morale. “My
aim, then,” he wrote, “was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to
follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us.”
From the start the plan went awry. Banks did not advance toward
Mobile. Instead, Lincoln ordered him up the Red River to shore up the
reconstructed pro-Unionist governments that had been organized in
occupied portions of Arkansas and Louisiana, to warn the French in
Mexico not to become too ambitious, and to seize the region’s cotton
supplies. Since it pointed away from Sherman and Grant, the Red River
campaign was a strategic blunder, made worse by Banks’s inept
generalship. When a Confederate army defeated his advance divisions at

Mansfield on April 8, Banks retreated to New Orleans. The two other
political generals performed no better. Sigel confronted an outnumbered
Confederate force at New Market on May 15. When the rebels attacked,
Sigel excitedly issued orders in German to his English-speaking staff,
contributing to a Union debacle. Butler initially outnumbered the scratch
force facing him by six or seven to one, but he avoided capturing
Richmond or Petersburg or cutting the vital rail lines. The Confederates
penned up his army inside Bermuda Hundred, “as completely shut off
from further operations directly against Richmond,” wrote Grant, “as if it
had been in a bottle strongly corked.”
Grant had a very costly encounter with Lee. As the Army of the
Potomac moved into the Wilderness on May 4, the commanding general
believed he could defeat the Confederates somewhere between the
Rapidan and the James. He had a two-to-one numerical superiority, the
subsidiary attacks by Butler and Sigel would supposedly provide
diversions, and the Federals had the initiative. Lee, however, also had
advantages. The terrain provided defensive positions, morale remained
reasonably high despite austere conditions and civilian backsliding, and a
sense of desperation honed his fighting instincts. “We must destroy this
army of Grant’s before he gets to the James River,” Lee wrote. “If he gets
there, it will become a siege, and then it will be a mere question of time.”
Lee awaited Grant not far from where he had humiliated Hooker a year
earlier, and on May 5 the Battle of the Wilderness began. After two days
17,000 Federals and 11,000 rebels were casualties. Grant had been jolted
as badly as Hooker, and when the wagons moved rearward, soldiers
thought that, as usual, they were retreating. But orders came for the army
to move south. No retreat! Troops sang with joy, even though another
cauldron awaited them in the near future.
What followed was a five-week ordeal in which a battle and a campaign
became synonymous. Previous battles lasted several days and then the
armies disengaged to recuperate. Now the fighting was continuous.
Incessant skirmishing and shelling accompanied the almost weekly battles.
Grant kept moving southeast, trying to outflank Lee, but the Army of
Northern Virginia anticipated each move, raced along interior lines, and
repeatedly blocked the way. The first flanking movement brought the
armies to Spotsylvania Court House, where ferocious fighting occurred on

May 10 and 12. Then Grant looped to the southeast, but Lee met him on
the North Anna; the Federals again shifted, only to run into the rebels at
Totopotomy Creek; still another flanking movement ended at Cold
Harbor, where Grant launched an all-out attack on June 3. Grant always
regretted ordering this ill-conceived frontal assault, which gained little but
cost thousands in dead and wounded.
After more than a week of nasty trench warfare around Cold Harbor,
on the night of June 12–13 Grant crossed the James heading for
Petersburg, the railroad hub serving the capital. Seize Petersburg and Lee
would have to come out from behind his entrenchments to fight for his
supply lines. Grant conducted the maneuver brilliantly, leaving Lee
mystified as to his destination and intentions. By June 15 the Federal army
was below the James, while Lee was still north of it, and only a thin gray
line manned the Petersburg defenses. But Beauregard’s heroic defense,
and the Union forces’ conflicting orders and ill-coordinated attacks,
allowed the rebels to hold the city until Lee awoke to his danger and
moved the Army of Northern Virginia into the defenses. The armies then
settled into a siege that would last nine months.
The Wilderness-to-Petersburg campaign earned Grant the reputation
of a plodding butcher who resorted to slaughterhouse tactics, knowing
that even if he lost two men to every rebel, the North would still win.
True, the campaign extracted a terrible toll: 64,000 Union and 30,000
Confederate casualties. But Grant did not want a head-on killing match.
With skill and ingenuity he tried to flush Lee into the open, but
subordinates poorly executed good orders, and Lee parried each thrust by
waging a stolid defensive struggle, refusing to risk his dwindling
manpower outside the protecting trenches. Although Grant did not
destroy Lee, he pinned the Army of Northern Virginia down in the
strategic arena. Unlike Pope or Hooker, Grant did not disengage and let
Lee seize the initiative. Remorselessly and at great cost he prevented Lee
from launching an offensive that could restore the strategic balance.
Lincoln recognized this considerable achievement and urged Grant to
“Hold on with a bull-dog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.”
Grant needed no special prompting as he sought to snap Lee’s defenses
either by a breakthrough or by overextending them. The most famous
breakthrough attempt was the Battle of the Crater on July 30. The

Yankees dug a long tunnel and placed tons of powder under a
Confederate redoubt. When the explosion went off, the position
disappeared in a geyser of mud, timbers, and mangled Confederates,
creating an enormous gap in Lee’s lines. However, tragic blundering,
including sending men into the crater instead of around it, gave Lee time
to recover. “Such opportunity for carrying fortifications I have never
seen,” Grant sadly wired to Washington, “and do not expect again to
have.” Meanwhile, Grant pushed his lines westward, trying to cut Lee’s
supply arteries, spreading the Confederate defenders more thinly in the
ever-extending trenchworks.
While Grant fought to Petersburg, Sherman maneuvered to Atlanta.
Coordinating his offensive with Grant’s, Sherman faced difficult
problems. Supply depended on the railroad back to Nashville, which, said
Sherman, “takes a whole army to guard, each foot of rail being essential to
the whole.” The rugged terrain, which Johnston knew how to utilize, was
ideal for defense. Rather than attack at every opportunity, Johnston
preferred to concede territory and conserve manpower. He wanted to
draw the Federals deep into southern territory, inviting them to make
frontal assaults against prepared positions, and await that supreme
moment to unleash a lethal counterstroke. But Sherman refused to attack
and instead flanked the Confederate left, never leaving an opening for
Johnston to exploit. The armies engaged in a minuet, dancing from
Johnston’s initial position along Rocky Face Ridge to Kennesaw
Mountain, where, mistakenly assuming Johnston had overextended his
lines and left his center vulnerable, Sherman attacked on June 27.
Suffering 3,000 casualties for his effort, he resumed the indirect approach,
inducing Johnston to withdraw behind the Chattahoochee River. Then for
the first time the Yankees flanked to the east and Johnston fell back to
Peach Tree Creek.
President Davis watched the campaign with dismay. He had opposed
retreating, and his confidence in Johnston waned in proportion to the
length of the retreat. When the commander refused to give a firm
commitment to defend Atlanta, Davis’s tolerance snapped. The city had a
symbolic significance second only to Richmond’s, contained invaluable
war industries, and was the last important railroad link between the west
and Virginia. Losing it, especially without a fight, would be a severe blow,

and on July 17 Davis placed John B. Hood in command of the Army of
Tennessee. Hood had an arm mangled at Gettysburg and lost a leg at
Chickamauga, but his fighting spirit remained intact. As both Sherman
and Davis expected, Hood assailed the Federals. At the Battles of Peach
Tree Creek, Atlanta, and Ezra Church, fought between July 20 and 28,
Union troops had the advantage of entrenchments and inflicted 13,000
casualties at a cost of 6,000. Hood poured out the army’s lifeblood to no
effect, except to decrease morale and increase desertions. Davis ordered
him not to attack again, and the army assumed a defensive stance in the
trenches surrounding Atlanta. Like Grant at Petersburg, Sherman
undertook a siege.
With the war degenerating into a protracted siege in both theaters and
apparently stalemated, the northern public’s determination wavered. The
North expected imminent victory, anticipating that the Confederacy could
not survive for long after the 1863 defeats; but instead of collapsing, the
South seemed capable of prolonging the war indefinitely. Lincoln knew
that the enemy armies retained little of their former striking power, but
most people did not share his appreciation for his generals’
accomplishments. Civilians saw that Meade and Sherman had failed to
crush Lee and Johnston or to capture Richmond and Atlanta. They also
saw the grisly casualty lists, especially from Grant’s theater, and the
South’s ability to fight back: In July, Jubal Early’s corps rampaged down
the Valley, unbeknown to Grant for several weeks, reaching the outskirts
of Washington on July 11. Early soon withdrew, but he did not go far and
remained a threat.
As frustration increased, the 1864 election became a referendum on the
war. The Democrats, who nominated McClellan, adopted an anti-
emancipation, pro-peace platform. As the public feeling that the South
could never be defeated increased, Lincoln received such pessimistic
reports that he predicted his own defeat. Ironically, a dramatic reversal in
the war was already underway; it began at Mobile Bay in a three-week
August campaign. Farragut led a fleet through the minefields and past the
forts protecting the bay’s entrance, defeated an enemy naval squadron,
and helped capture the forts, sealing Mobile off from the outside world. A
week after the last fort capitulated, Sherman captured Atlanta. Although
Hood’s army escaped, the North exploded in celebrations. Further good

news came from the Valley, where Grant ordered Philip H. Sheridan to
destroy Early’s army and turn the Shenandoah into “a barren waste.”
With a large numerical advantage, Sheridan defeated Early at Opequon,
Fisher’s Hill, and Cedar Creek and systematically destroyed the
Shenandoah’s resources, ending organized military operations in the
Valley. Military success paved the way for Lincoln’s overwhelming
reelection, dashing southern hopes that McClellan’s election meant
independence. People everywhere realized that the election demonstrated
the North’s resurrected dedication to victory.
Although the South had no chance of winning after Lincoln’s
reelection, the war continued for another six months. In Georgia the
armies that had waltzed together for months parted company. After he
evacuated Atlanta, Hood moved north, threatening Sherman’s railroad
line, and for a month the Federals futilely chased him. Sherman finally
decided to avoid dependence on vulnerable supply lines and undertake a
massive raid through Georgia, while Hood planned an invasion into
Tennessee. Sherman’s purpose was primarily logistical and psychological:
To cripple southern resources and to show even diehard rebels that the
Confederacy was powerless. He left Atlanta with 62,000 men in mid-
November. Foraging off the land, they cut a 250-mile swath against token
resistance and captured Savannah on December 21. Only the veteran
character of Sherman’s army allowed it to complete the march. Nearly
four out of five enlisted men and nearly 100 percent of the
noncommissioned officers had been in service since 1862. Consequently
they were campaign-toughened, inured to hardship and disease, self-
reliant, and deeply committed to Union victory. They had also developed
a ruthless, callous attitude toward enemy civilians that characterized so
many experienced troops on both sides by 1864–1865, so they embraced
their commander’s goal of instilling fear in noncombatants as a means to
hasten the war’s end.
While Sherman’s veterans advanced through the Confederate
heartland, the Army of Tennessee marched to its death. At the Battle of
Franklin on November 30, Hood made another suicidal Confederate
assault against an entrenched force under John M. Schofield, losing 6,252
men to Schofield’s 2,326. When Schofield pulled back to Nashville to join
Thomas’s army, Hood pursued and nominally besieged the strongly

fortified city. In mid-December Thomas attacked and virtually annihilated
Hood’s army, which by then numbered only 25,000 demoralized men.
As the 1865 campaigns began, northern morale was unshakable,
Federals controlled the Shenandoah, Sherman’s march to the sea had
bisected the Confederacy again, and one of the South’s two major field
armies had been obliterated. Furthermore, in January Union forces
captured Fort Fisher on the Cape Fear River, bottling up Wilmington,
which had been the last blockade-running port. All that remained of the
shriveled Confederacy was Lee’s army manning the Richmond-Petersburg
trenches and a small army forming in North Carolina under Johnston,
who was recalled to duty. Yet hardened rebels such as Davis and Lee were
unwilling to quit. An indication of their determination and desperation
was the South’s decision in March to arm its slaves. Aside from the
question of whether blacks would fight for the South, the law authorizing
black enlistments came too late to do any good. The final acts already
unfolding were not heroic drama, but needless tragedy.
In early February Sherman resumed his campaign against the South’s
resources and morale, heading north through the Carolinas. Though less
well known than the march to the sea, the Carolinas trek was a more
stunning accomplishment. The journey was longer, the terrain and
weather were worse, and resistance was stiffer. Since the army burned
“with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina,” the
birthplace of secession, the devastation was greater and more vindictively
inflicted than in Georgia. On February 17 the army entered Columbia,
causing the Confederates to evacuate Charleston, since the Federals had
severed its communications to the interior. A month later the combatants
fought the campaign’s one large battle at Bentonville. Johnston tried to
rout Sherman’s left wing but failed, and on March 23 the Yankees entered
Goldsboro, where they found Schofield’s corps, which Grant had
transferred from Tennessee, awaiting them. Although Sherman refitted for
an advance against Lee’s rear, it was unnecessary, for Grant drove the
Army of Northern Virginia from its trenches and forced it to capitulate.
During the winter Grant undertook no major offensives, letting disease
and desertion weaken Lee’s army. Lee’s only hope was to unite with
Johnston, for combined they might push back Sherman, then turn on
Grant. To make Grant contract his left flank and thereby open an escape

hatch, on March 25 Lee struck at Fort Stedman in the Union center.
Disastrous failure followed initial success, and Grant seized the initiative,
massing Sheridan’s cavalry and 43,000 infantry against 11,000
Confederates at Five Forks on Lee’s extreme right. When the Federals
routed the rebels on April 1, Grant ordered an attack against the
Petersburg line on April 2, which overran long stretches of Confederate
trenches. That night Lee abandoned Richmond and retreated westward,
with Sheridan and several infantry corps in pursuit. Sheridan got in front
of Lee’s dwindling band on April 8, and after an unsuccessful breakout
attempt on the 9th Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House. Like
the Army of Tennessee, the Army of Northern Virginia had been
practically annihilated. Offering rations for Lee’s starving army, Grant
asked if 25,000 would be enough. “Plenty; plenty; an abundance,” replied
Lee, for he had fewer than 8,000 effectives.
Recalling the night of April 9, a Union cavalryman wrote that the
“thought that I was certain, yes, certain of having a quiet night, the idea of
security, was ineffable.” All over the South, men soon experienced the
same sense of relief, for by late May all other Confederate armies had
surrendered. The immediate fears of neither the South nor the North
came true. Southerners thought the victors might engage in mass reprisals,
but no postwar bloodletting occurred. Grant, Sherman, and others
worried that Confederates would form guerrilla bands and continue
fighting, but this did not happen either. Many southern officers advised
against it. No place existed for guerrillas to use as bases, since the North
occupied much of the South, and Unionists and deserters ruled the
mountains and swamps. Partisan bands would get little sympathy from
the population, whose morale had cracked long before the army’s. Finally,
the average soldier was sick of war. The troops knew better than anyone
that by force majeure the North had crushed the Confederacy.
The Final Reckoning
In Margaret Mitchell’s famous novel Gone With the Wind, heroine
Scarlett O’Hara’s first husband, Charles Hamilton, rushes off to war in
1861 with romantic visions of glory. In less than two months he is dead—
from measles followed by pneumonia. While hardly heroic, Charles’s

death was typical, since twice as many soldiers died from disease as from
battle. Diseases swept through regiments in two waves. Shortly after a unit
assembled, infectious childhood diseases such as measles and mumps
thinned the ranks. Those who survived this wave then endured the camp
diseases, primarily dysentery, malaria, and typhoid fever. Since these often
occurred in epidemics, leading to unexpected reductions in fighting force,
camp diseases were of great military significance.
The number of battle casualties was enormous, even though the
theoretical long-range killing power of rifled weapons rarely came into
play. Two significant factors limited the rifle’s impact. One was that few
troops received training in estimating ranges, setting rifle sights, and firing
live ammunition. Yet such practice was essential if a soldier hoped to hit a
target—especially one that was moving—at more than a hundred yards.
To counter both the minie ball’s low velocity and gravity’s tug at that
distance, a shot would have to be aimed well above the target and come
plunging down at a steep angle. If a rifleman aimed at the target, the
bullet would plow into the ground well short of the intended victim. The
second limiting factor was that many battles occurred in places like
Chickamauga and the Wilderness, where the rugged terrain and dense
foliage greatly reduced the killing range because combatants could not see
each other at more than a few dozen yards’ distance. Only in a few
engagements such as Pickett’s Charge, when a massed force advanced
over a long expanse of relatively open ground, did rifled firepower and
artillery quickly inflict fearsome losses.
Unlike Pickett’s Charge, most battles rapidly degenerated into
prolonged firefights between two “entrenched” forces, which were often
so close to each other that old-fashioned smoothbores would have been
just about as effective as rifles. The close-order ranks that an attacking
army used so that soldiers could hear or see their officers giving orders
rarely survived the opening moments of combat. Traversing stream-laced,
heavily forested, steep terrain in tight formations was impossible. And the
first few shots frequently impelled the attackers to take cover, since they
invariably confronted defenders who enjoyed both the physical and
psychological advantages of being protected by entrenchments and field
fortifications. “The truth is,” wrote one soldier, “when bullets are
whacking against tree-trunks and solid shot are cracking skulls like egg-

shells, the consuming passion in the breast of the average man is to get out
of the way.” But how? Fear of death or injury told a soldier he should not
go forward; fear of being considered a coward restrained him from
retreating. So an attacking force simply stopped, with each soldier seeking
safety behind a nearby fence, rock, or tree stump or else digging a shallow,
sheltering hole. Casualties accumulated slowly because the soldiers on
both sides were dug in, but the final toll could be quite large, since these
slugging matches often lasted for hours.
For attackers and defenders, losers and winners, a battlefield was a
melancholy scene. Hundreds of men would be blasted into shapeless
masses of pulpy gore. In warm weather the bodies and parts of bodies
bloated, turned black, and putrefied rapidly, filling the air with a pungent
stench. Though the guns might be still, the battlefield remained noisy with
the anguish of the wounded. Perhaps the most chilling description came
from Joshua Chamberlain, commander of the 20th Maine Volunteers,
regarding the night of December 13–14 at Fredericksburg:
But out of that silence from the battle’s crash and roar rose new
sounds more appalling still; rose or fell, you knew not which, or
whether from the earth or air; a strange ventriloquism, of which you
could not locate the source, a smothered moan that seemed to come
from distances beyond the reach of the natural sense, a wail so far and
deep and wide, as if a thousand discords were flowing together into a
key-note weird, unearthly, terrible to hear and bear, yet startling with
its nearness; the writhing concord broken by cries for help, pierced by
shrieks of paroxysm; some begging for a drop of water; some calling
on God for pity; and some on friendly hands to finish what the enemy
had so horribly begun; some with delirious, dreamy voices murmuring
loved names, as if the dearest were bending over them; some gathering
their last strength to fire a musket to call attention to them where they
lay helpless and deserted; and underneath, all the time, that deep bass
note from closed lips too hopeless or too heroic to articulate their
agony.
And in the rear of each army the same grisly scene took place:
temporary hospitals where bare-armed surgeons in blood-stained aprons

and with bloody instruments worked to save the gashed and dying,
invariably creating a mound of amputated limbs, the slicing and sawing
more often than not done without the benefit of anesthetics.
Using round figures that are educated estimates, total Civil War
casualties for soldiers and sailors on both sides were 1,095,000. Of these,
640,000 were Federals: 112,000 killed or mortally wounded in action;
227,500 dead of disease; 277,500 wounded; and 23,000 dead from
miscellaneous causes such as drowning, murder, execution, sunstroke, and
suicide. The remaining 455,000 were Confederates: 94,000 killed or
mortally wounded in action; 164,000 dead of diseases; 194,000 wounded;
and at least 3,000 deaths from miscellaneous causes. To put these figures
in perspective, American deaths in World War I, World War II, and
Korea totaled 564,000, but still do not reach the Civil War total of
620,000.13
Although war involves killing, killing is not the object of war. Men fight
for vital reasons, as defined by their country’s political leadership. The
North fought for the preservation of the Union and the destruction of
slavery, while the South fought for independence and the preservation of
its “peculiar institution.” In saving the Union and freeing the slaves,
Lincoln believed the North would be achieving goals of cosmic
significance, transcending national boundaries into the infinite future.
Like many of America’s leaders, he thought the United States had a
special destiny to safeguard and foster its democratic institutions as an
example for the world. The North, he said in December 1862, “shall
nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.” And in the
Gettysburg Address he urged his fellow citizens to take increased resolve
from the northern soldiers who had given “the last full measure of
devotion” on the battlefield. Let us ensure “that these dead shall not have
died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Those northerners who fell at Gettysburg and elsewhere did not die in
vain, since the North achieved its dual war aims. The conflict delivered a
deathblow to the doctrine of secession and considerably weakened
(though it did not destroy) the idea of states’ rights. Within the American
federal system, the balance of power shifted from the states to the national

government. People no longer said “the United States are” but instead
“the United States is.” In the process of saving the Union, the North also
destroyed slavery. Advancing Union armies and the Emancipation
Proclamation undermined the institution, and the Thirteenth Amendment
killed it.
Southerners had seemingly died in vain, since the Confederacy
achieved neither of its war aims. And yet merely saying that the Union
lived and slavery died left several crucial questions unanswered. What was
the status of the defeated states? How and when were they to return to
“their proper practical relation with the Union”? Who would control the
restored states, former secessionists or southern Unionists, perhaps in
league with the freedmen? And what was the status of the former slaves?
Although pledged to black freedom, the North had not adopted a third
war aim of equality, and between freedom and equality lay a vast middle
ground. As solutions to these perplexing problems emerged during
Reconstruction, southerners salvaged much that looked like victory from
their apparent defeat. Former secessionists regained effective control over
the former Confederate States and maintained unquestioned white
supremacy. Furthermore, southerners soon took as much pride in the
legend of the Lost Cause as northerners did in the fact of Appomattox.
Ironically, even perversely, by 1877 both North and South could proclaim
success. How and why the North lost so many of the fruits of victory is a
complex story in which the Army played a central role.

EIGHT
From Postwar Demobilization Toward Great
Power Status, 1865–1898
The weather on May 23 was beautiful for campaigning, and the Army of
the Potomac was on the move. Under cloudless skies the soft spring sun
glinted off the steel sabers and bayonets of 100,000 men. But this was May
of 1865, the war was over, and the Union’s saviors were marching down
Pennsylvania Avenue to the cheers of jubilant spectators. Meade’s cavalry
stretched seven miles and took more than an hour to pass the reviewing
stand. Marching twelve abreast, the general’s infantry consumed another
five hours. The next day six corps from Sherman’s army repeated the
performance, the rangy westerners swaggering past the crowds “like the
lords of the world!”
Following the two-day victory festivities the Union military forces
underwent a rapid demobilization. By November 1866, only 11,043 of the
1,034,064 volunteers in the service in May 1865 were still in uniform. As
the volunteers departed, the regular Army remained. It temporarily
benefited from lingering martial enthusiasm when, in July 1866, Congress
authorized a peacetime strength of 54,302. Included in the table of
organization were four black infantry regiments (reduced to two in 1869),
two black cavalry regiments, and 1,000 Indian scouts. Although these
black units and Indian scouts were an innovation in the peacetime Army,
which historically had been composed exclusively of whites, they became
a permanent feature of the postwar military establishment. However,
Congress soon slashed the Army’s overall size, and by 1876 the maximum
strength was 27,442.

The Navy also underwent drastic reduction. Within five years it
declined from a wartime peak of about 700 ships to 52. By European
standards most of the ships were obsolete, for they were made of wood,
moved by sails, and carried muzzleloading smoothbores. The mobilization
accompanying the Virginius crisis showed how far the Navy had
deteriorated. After war broke out in Cuba in 1868, Virginius made
repeated voyages to the island carrying contraband to the revolutionaries
fighting against Spanish rule. Although it sailed under the U.S. flag, the
Spanish captured the ship in October 1873 and executed approximately
fifty crewmen and passengers, many of them Americans. The result was a
war scare with Spain. The Navy concentrated all available ships at Key
West, but the assembled fleet (about two dozen ships, only six of them
ironclads) was feeble compared to that of any major naval power, and
diplomacy soon eliminated the likelihood of war. In early 1874 the fleet
held maneuvers, which were unimpressive. Logistical support was nil,
gunnery training was inadequate, and the ships’ boilers were so decrepit
that the fleet’s top speed was only 4.5 knots. The fleet, declared one
newspaper, was “almost useless for military purposes” because the vessels
belonged “to a class of ships which other governments have sold or are
selling for firewood.”
Although Army and Navy officers naturally lamented the extent of the
demobilization, the reductions actually made sense considering the
nation’s relative security and the missions that American policymakers
wanted the armed forces to undertake. As even Generals Sherman and
Sheridan realized, an invasion was unlikely. No European nation had a
navy capable of transporting and sustaining a substantial expeditionary
force across the Atlantic. Continental rivalries restrained any of the great
powers from making a significant New World military commitment, and
America’s vast size and immense military potential made foreign conquest
impossible. Geography and European balance-of-power considerations
gave the United States virtually total security. Moreover, through the
1880s a foreign policy with limited goals required little mobilized military
power.
The Postwar Navy

In the post–Civil War era the Navy and Army returned to their traditional
missions in support of national policy. Two aspects of postwar policy
particularly affected the Navy. First, since “continentalist” assumptions
dominated thinking about the national interest into the 1880s, the United
States did not need a large, modern navy. Lacking a desire to compete
with Europeans in an imperialistic struggle, the nation needed no navy to
challenge them. Defense of the continental domain dictated only a modest
naval force that in wartime could raid enemy commerce and supplement
the fortifications protecting the coast. Secretary of the Navy George M.
Robeson correctly noted that the small and outdated postwar Navy was
sufficient for the “defensive purposes of a peaceful people, without
colonies, with a dangerous coast, and shallow harbors, separated from
warlike naval powers” by the Atlantic.
Policy also required that the Navy protect lives and property abroad
and, especially, foster trade by maintaining unimpeded access to foreign
markets. Thus the Navy Department revived its prewar system of distant
patrols. Although the European Squadron (successor to the old
Mediterranean Squadron) had often been paramount in Navy planning, it
declined in importance. Since European navies ensured stability in the
Mediterranean, the United States made its major naval commitment to
Latin America and Asia, where chronic instability provided ample
opportunity for “gunboat diplomacy.” The Navy suppressed piracy,
transported diplomats, stopped vessels flying the American flag to verify
their nationality, provided a haven for missionaries threatened by
“savages,” evacuated citizens endangered by war or epidemic diseases,
and dispatched landing parties to deal with recalcitrant “barbarous
tribes.” On numerous occasions marines and sailors went ashore to
protect American merchants, investments, and strategic interests in Asia
and in South and Central America. Naval officers also continued a
diplomatic-commercial role, in the image of Matthew C. Perry. For
example, in 1882 Commodore Robert W. Shufeldt negotiated the first
treaty between Korea and a Western nation. Officers performed these
missions partly to achieve personal glory and to preserve national
“honor,” but they also shared the policymakers’ belief that expanding
commerce and the nation’s welfare were inseparable.

The Navy’s deployment on distant stations required a return to
wooden sailing ships. Advances in armor, rifled guns, and marine engines
appeared with dizzying rapidity, but the debt-ridden U.S. government was
not inclined to expensive naval experiments. Prolonged voyages could not
be made with steam-powered vessels. Since even engineers did not
perfectly understand thermodynamics, costly steam engines remained
inefficient and consumed enormous amounts of expensive coal. Ships
could not carry much coal and still have room for the crew and supplies.
Although European navies could refuel at their colonial stations, the
United States had few such bases. Finally, obsolete ships were sufficient to
intimidate most Asians and Latin Americans, who were even less well
armed.
Reinforcing these technological, financial, and military imperatives
were sociological and psychological factors. The struggle between staff
and line officers raged with new intensity, and steam symbolized the
conflict. Believing they had made a substantial contribution to Union
victory and that steamships would rule the oceans, engineers demanded
equal rank with line officers. Considering the extreme flux in naval
technology, engineers often uncritically hailed innovations in steam
engineering to enhance their position. But line officers were not eager to
share their authority aboard ships, and they opposed steam to assure their
own prominence. Still, they were not blind reactionaries; most realized
that ultimately steam would replace sails. They also understood an
important political and strategic factor: National policy made steam
ironclads temporarily unnecessary. Line officers prevailed, and in 1869
Vice Admiral David D. Porter, acting in the secretary of the navy’s name,
ordered that all vessels “be fitted out with full-sail power” and that ships’
commanders justify any use of auxiliary steam power. He also dismissed
Benjamin F. Isherwood, the chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering, and
reduced the relative rank of other engineers.
The Frontier “Constabulary”
After a hasty post–Civil War concentration in Texas to help convince the
French to withdraw from Mexico, the Army, like the Navy, resumed its
traditional tasks. Taking advantage of America’s domestic war, French

Emperor Napoleon III had established the Archduke Maximilian of
Austria as the Emperor of Mexico in 1864 and supported him with an
army. The Union ineffectually responded with diplomatic protests against
this violation of the Monroe Doctrine. When the Civil War ended, the
government dispatched General Schofield to Paris to demand withdrawal,
and, before the volunteer armies dissolved, 52,000 troops mobilized in
Texas to buttress the demand. Faced with continuing guerrilla warfare in
Mexico, with fear of Prussian ambitions in Europe, and with the military
might of a reunited United States, Napoleon withdrew in 1867.
With the continent saved from monarchy and the volunteers returned
to their homes, the regulars aided the nation’s territorial and economic
growth, manned the coastal forts, and fought Indians. The Army
protected railroad construction crews, opened new roads, charted
unexplored regions, briefly occupied Alaska, and improved rivers and
harbors. The coast artillery stood guard in old masonry forts that rifled
guns had made obsolete. The War Department planned a postwar
program of earth, brick, and concrete barbette batteries, but reduced
funding, and the relentless technical advances in artillery, soon killed the
program. Given the country’s security, why waste money on unnecessary
defenses?
Regulars redeploying to the west found Indian wars engulfing the
Great Plains. When the regulars marched eastward in 1861, western state
and territorial militia and volunteers assumed the frontier constabulary
mission. Indian-white conflict actually intensified, since citizen-soldiers
were often extremely brutal toward both hostile and friendly Indians.
Violence first flared in August 1862 with an uprising among the Santee
Sioux of Minnesota, who had endured years of insults, greed, and deceit
from whites. Erroneously believing that Confederate agents had provoked
the outbreak, the Lincoln administration dispatched General Pope, fresh
from his humiliation at Second Bull Run, to the scene. But Pope was no
more successful against the Indians than he had been against Lee. The
war spread westward into the Dakota and Montana Territories, engulfing
all the powerful Sioux tribes, and merged with other conflicts that flared
across the prairies farther south. The situation in the west became so
critical that the Union had to divert troops, including six regiments
composed of former Confederate soldiers, from the major battlefields east

of the Mississippi. The worst incidents occurred in 1863 at the “Battle” of
Bear River, near the present-day Utah-Idaho border, and in 1864 at the
“Battle” of Sand Creek. California volunteers launched a near-dawn
surprise attack on Chief Bear Hunter’s Shoshone village camped along
Bear River, killing approximately 250 men, women, and children. At Sand
Creek, Colorado volunteers attacked Black Kettle’s Southern Cheyenne
village. An advocate of peace, Black Kettle raised American and white
flags over his tepee, but this did not prevent the whites from massacring
200 Cheyennes, mostly women and children. As one observer wrote, the
Indians “were scalped, their brains knocked out; the men used their
knives, ripped open women, clubbed little children, knocked them in the
head with their guns, beat their brains out, mutilated their bodies in every
sense of the word.”
The government signed a series of Indian treaties in 1865, blanketing
the West in temporary peace. But gold and silver strikes, the Homestead
Act, and railroad construction quickened the pace of settlement even
during the Civil War. The idea of a permanent Indian frontier died under
the deluge of land-hungry and gold-seeking whites, so the government
devised a policy of concentrating the Indians on reservations, usually in
areas that whites did not covet—at least immediately. The reservation
system combined blatant greed and misguided philanthropy. Confined to
unwanted land, the thinking went, the Indians would not interfere with
white settlement. Denied their nomadic lifestyle, they could be
“civilized”—taught the white man’s language, turned into sedentary
agriculturalists, and Christianized. The policy’s flaw was that many tribes
or tribal factions hated reservation life and rebelled against it. Then the
Army had to force compliance.
The Army’s task was thankless and difficult. One problem was white
society’s ambivalence about Indians. The opinions of frontiersmen and
eastern humanitarians highlighted the ambiguity. “There are two classes of
people,” Sherman wrote, “one demanding the utter extinction of the
Indians, and the other full of love for their conversion to civilization and
Christianity. Unfortunately the army stands between them and gets the
cuff from both sides.” If the Army killed too many Indians, humanitarians
cried “Butchery!” But if it killed too few, frontiersmen scorned the troops
as cowards. Yet philanthropists demanded the forced acculturation that

drove Indians onto the warpath, and westerners demanding “protection”
often provoked violence by insisting that Indians move to smaller
reservations.
Reflecting society, Army officers were often ambivalent about fighting
for “civilization” against the “savages.” Many of them despised
pontificating humanitarians, disliked rapacious frontiersmen, and
lamented their government’s record of broken treaties. They viewed some
aspects of Indian behavior (torturing captives and mutilating the dead)
with revulsion. Yet they found much about the Indians commendable and
commiserated with their fate. They lauded the Indians’ fighting abilities.
Such praise served professional and psychic needs, since the Indians’
superb skills justified the Army’s frequent failures, but many officers
genuinely admired the Indians as warriors. They also praised the Indians’
defiant fight for freedom. “We took away their country and their means of
support, broke up their mode of living, their habits of life, introduced
disease and decay among them and it was for this and against this they
made war,” wrote Sheridan. “Could anyone expect less?” Holding such
sentiments, many officers preferred negotiations to bloodshed and took an
active interest in Indian welfare. However, officers fulfilled national policy,
insisting that Indians stay on their reservations and fighting them when
they did not.
Divided responsibility for Indian affairs was another difficulty. The
Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs administered the
reservation system, but the War Department enforced it, leading to
confusion over the respective roles of civil and military officials. The
government never imposed a clear solution to this problem, but the Army
inevitably assumed increased authority because of Indian resistance.
“Peace by kindness” could not make them accept the reservations.
It did not help that the Army campaigned at the outer rim of the
American empire; projecting military power at an empire’s edge is never
easy. In the hostile western environment, the small number of troops and
their inadequate training and weapons were severe handicaps. Extremes
in topography, drought, cold, and vast distances made campaigning an
ordeal. The lack of navigable rivers and the rugged terrain created
logistical problems that the extension of the railroads only partially eased.
The Army relied on wagons, horses, and mules, but boulders and gullies

shattered axles and wheels, forage was scarce, and animals collapsed from
hard usage. Always too few to police the west properly, regulars were
often poorly trained and armed. Based on European-style tactical
manuals, what little training they received left them ill-prepared to fight
an unconventional foe who sometimes had superior shoulder arms. In
1873 the Army adopted the single-shot, breechloading, black-powder
Springfield rifle. Not until 1892, when the Indian campaigns were over,
did it adopt a repeating rifle, the smokeless-powder Krag-Jorgensen. Long
before then some Indians had acquired repeaters, especially Winchesters.
Whether armed with repeaters or bows, the Indians were worthy
adversaries. In the east Indians moved on foot, but in the west they rode
ponies, giving them greater mobility. With no towns to defend, no
encumbering supply trains, and an uncanny ability to live off the land, the
western Indians were adept at guerrilla warfare. Relying on stealth and
ambushes, they appeared to be everywhere without being anywhere and
generally refused to engage in pitched battles. On those few occasions
when they did stand and fight, the Army had its hands full.
The factors that shaped colonial Indian wars, and the subsequent two
centuries of native-white conflict, still prevailed. First, microbes continued
to inflict a biological catastrophe, killing far more Indians than bullets did
and thereby eroding their ability to resist. Since diseases were recurring—
in the northern Plains an epidemic occurred about every six years in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—a tribe barely recovered from one
epidemic before a new wave of death and anguish swept over it. The
Comanche population, for example, peaked at 40,000 in the 1770s but,
ravaged by periodic outbreaks of smallpox and cholera, dwindled to no
more than 10,000 by the 1850s. Second, whites retained an advantage in
their superior discipline and organization. While Native Americans were
excellent strategists and tacticians, they primarily relied on transitory
cooperation among tribes and tribal factions to achieve their goals. On the
other hand, the Army’s high command planned comparatively far ahead
and campaigned relentlessly. Third, the primary problem was making the
Indians stand and fight. The Army utilized converging columns, sending
several forces into an area simultaneously, which occasionally forced the
Indians into battle. Although the columns invited defeat in detail, officers
assumed they would not encounter a large enemy force. The grass and

game in any one region would normally not support substantial Indian
concentrations.
A fourth theme was that to achieve decisive results, whites had to wage
ruthless total war against the Indians’ fixed camps. Since Indians
dispersed into hunting and war parties during the summer, this often
required winter campaigns. When the regulars found a winter
encampment, the occupants were doomed. The Army invariably surprised
the Indians, who were notorious for their lax security and thus could not
put up a successful defense. The elements, the grass-fed ponies’ weakened
condition, and the presence of women and children made escape difficult.
If the Indians fled, the Army destroyed their shelter and food supplies,
leading to death from starvation and exposure.
Finally, the Army compensated for its weaknesses by the time-honored
method of employing friendly Indians. At times the Army linked a tribe to
a fort, forming a symbiotic military colony. The Tonkawas at Fort Griffin,
Texas, and the Northern Cheyennes at Fort Keogh, Montana, were
examples of this. Friendly Indians represented at least half the Army’s
strength in some encounters, and in a few instances the only U.S. soldiers
engaged with the enemy were Indian allies. A general estimated that one
Indian scout unit was more valuable than six cavalry companies. Yet many
officers hesitated to rely on Indians. Within the context of American-style
war they were not good soldiers, lacking discipline and refusing to
sacrifice themselves in mini-Gettysburgs. Doubts lingered about their
loyalty, though scouts turned on white soldiers only once, at the Battle of
Cibicu Creek in 1881. Depending on Indians reflected badly on the Army,
tainting the regulars’ prestige. But the most successful officers utilized
Indian allies.
For three centuries the conflict between whites and Native Americans
followed the course of white settlement, which is why the final campaigns
occurred on the Great Plains and in the intermountain west rather than
the west coast. The tide of white settlement flowed steadily westward to
the Mississippi, then inched across that mighty waterway to form a belt of
well-watered states running from Minnesota to Louisiana. From there the
Americans jumped across the west’s interior and settled in California and
Oregon. Only as the Civil War came to an end and in the succeeding

quarter century did they backfill the Great Plains and intermountain west,
and they did so by approaching from both the east and west.
The Indian “wars” between 1866 and 1890 consisted of little more
than pursuits and skirmishes; only an occasional incident involved enough
men to classify it as a “battle.” Conflict flared intermittently in three
zones. The regulars’ nemesis in the arid southwest was the Apaches. In
the Rocky Mountains and the northwest, the foremost adversaries were
Utes, Bannocks, Sheepeaters, Paiutes, Shoshones, Modocs, and Nez
Perce. And on the Plains the Army fought Comanches, Cheyennes,
Arapahos, Kiowas, and, especially, Sioux.
The most deadly conflict in the final stage of the Native Americans’
defeat throughout the continental U.S. was the so-called Snake War, a
dreary, sputtering guerrilla conflict against Shoshones, Northern Paiutes,
and Bannocks (whites collectively referred to these groups as “Snakes”)
who roamed the Great Basin where Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada
converge. Lasting from 1864 to 1868, the war claimed 378 soldiers,
civilians, and Indian scouts, while 1,254 Indians died or were wounded.
Although the Snake War was the deadliest, the Great Sioux War was the
most famous, even though it had only about half the Snake War’s total
casualties. Among the Army’s approximately 950 engagements in the
post–Civil War West, the best known, by far, occurred during the Great
Sioux War: The Battle of the Little Bighorn (known to the Indians as the
Battle of the Greasy Grass), where the Sioux, reinforced by Northern
Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho allies, defeated George A. Custer’s 7th
Cavalry.
Conquering the Sioux was not easy because they were stronger than
many other tribes. Not only did their nomadic lifestyle protect them from
the worst ravages of the epidemics that swept the Great Plains, but the
government had also inoculated some Sioux bands against smallpox in
1832. Fortunately for the whites, the Sioux had been such aggressive
expansionists that they alienated many weaker tribes; before the Great
Sioux War ended, Crows, Assiniboines, Shoshones, Arikaras, Pawnees,
Utes, and Bannocks fought for the Americans. Moreover, by the early
1870s the Sioux and their Northern Cheyenne allies had purposefully
shifted from an offensive to a defensive strategy. They would no longer
attack whites outside the region between the Yellowstone River and the

Black Hills, but they would do all they could to defend themselves if the
whites invaded that area. In order to put up the most effectual defense,
they tinkered with new forms of centralized command to overcome the
factionalism that so often sundered tribes. Sitting Bull became the
foremost chief, with Gall and Crazy Horse his foremost subordinates.
Perfect unity among the Sioux remained impossible to achieve, but
strategic thinking underlay the effort.
The Custer fight demonstrated most of the themes of Indian warfare
but also had unique features. Provoked by treaty violations and angered
by efforts to confine them to reservations, large numbers of reservation
Sioux joined the so-called “hunting bands” of Sitting Bull, which had
never been on a reservation. In 1876 Sheridan planned an expedition of
three converging columns to force all of the Sioux onto their reservation.
Commanding more than 1,000 troops and 262 Crow and Shoshone allies,
George Crook marched north from Fort Fetterman. John Gibbon with
450 soldiers and 25 Crow auxiliaries moved east from Forts Shaw and
Ellis. Westward from Fort Abraham Lincoln came Alfred H. Terry
leading 925 soldiers, including the 7th Cavalry, and 40 Arikara scouts. The
commanders directed their attention to catching the enemy, giving little
thought to then defeating him, since each column could deal with more
warriors than anyone expected to fight in any single encounter. However,
the Indians were concentrated in unprecedented numbers, perhaps 1,000
lodges (wigwams) in all, which meant about 2,000 warriors. They had no
intention of fleeing, and many carried repeaters. They attacked Crook’s
column on June 17 at the Battle of the Rosebud, where fighting raged for
six hours, with Crook’s Indian allies repeatedly saving his position from
being overrun. The battle badly mauled Crook’s command and forced it
to retreat.
Unaware of the Indians’ uncommon determination and of Crook’s
repulse, Gibbon, Terry, and Custer planned to trap the Indians in the
Little Bighorn Valley. Custer would ascend the Rosebud, cross to the
Little Bighorn, and descend it. Gibbon and Terry would go up the
Bighorn River and assume a blocking position at the Little Bighorn’s
mouth, bottling up the enemy. As soon as either force encountered
Indians, it should give battle to prevent them from escaping. Custer
declined to take a Gatling gun platoon, which would limit his mobility,

and refused 2d Cavalry reinforcements, believing that he could “whip all
the Indians on the Continent with the Seventh Cavalry.”
Approaching the Little Bighorn on June 25, the day before Gibbon
and Terry could be in position, Custer fragmented his regiment into four
battalions. He sent Captain Frederick W. Benteen off to the south with
three companies to ensure the Indians did not flee in that direction.
Locating a village, he ordered Major Marcus A. Reno’s three-company
battalion to charge it immediately, perhaps assuming the Indians were
surprised. Directly commanding five companies, Custer moved to the
north, and one company stayed to the rear with the pack train. But
instead of running, the Indians attacked, forcing Reno to withdraw and
dig in and wiping out Custer’s battalion. Reinforced by Benteen and the
pack train, Reno held out until the Gibbon-Terry column arrived on the
27th. The post-battle reactions of Indians and whites showed much about
their respective warmaking abilities. The Indians were unable to sustain
collective action, drifting apart into bands to celebrate, hunt buffalo, and
find fresh grass for their ponies. But the Army poured troops into Sioux
country by rail, steamer, foot, and horse. Crook and Nelson A. Miles,
aided by Indian spies and scouts, spearheaded a winter campaign that
ferreted out enemy camps and virtually ended Indian resistance.
Although the Army’s role in subduing the Indians should not be
minimized, other factors were perhaps more important. By 1890 railroads
crisscrossed the west, bringing new settlers. In 1866 fewer than 2 million
whites lived in the west; twenty-five years later there were 8.5 million,
planting crops, raising cattle, and depleting the timber, grass, and game
that sustained Indian society. For the Plains Indians the buffalo’s
destruction was especially harmful, for they depended on its hide and
meat for almost every want. By the late 1880s commercial hunters had
reduced the buffalo herds from 13 million to a thousand, and Sheridan
believed that did more than the Army to pacify the Indians. In other
regions of the west, white settlement and activity also severely reduced
other types of game. The frontier was gone, and Indians had nowhere to
go but the reservations.
The conquest of the Indians ended an era in the Army’s history. Indian
fighting had been its primary function since the formation of the 1st
American Regiment. Now the Army no longer needed to remain in the

far-flung garrisons, and consolidation took place rapidly. By 1891 the
Army had abandoned one-fourth of the posts occupied in 1889. Even
before the troops settled into their fewer, more permanent installations,
officers began debating a disturbing question: What was the Army’s
purpose now that its foremost traditional mission was gone?
The Army and Reconstruction
“Of the slain there were enough to furnish forth a battlefield . . . all killed
with deliberation,” wrote Albion W Tourgee in his 1879 novel A Fool’s
Errand, “shot, stabbed, hanged, drowned, mutilated beyond description,
tortured beyond conception.” Tourgee was not describing a frontier
massacre. Having been a Republican judge during Reconstruction, he was
explaining the fate of many blacks and their white political allies.
Allowing for literary license, the judge told the truth. Appomattox was
only a truce that ushered in two years of nominal peace before the south
renewed the conflict at a guerrilla level. President Grant refought many of
the men he had already defeated once and whose purpose had been little
changed by Lee’s surrender. Confederate veterans dominated the irregular
warfare between 1867 and 1877, continuing the struggle against federal
authority in order to preserve white supremacy and regional political
powers. The renewed war forced the Army to participate in low-intensity
military operations and to assume an untraditional duty. Garrisoning the
south during Reconstruction was a deviation from its customary apolitical
role.
During the Civil War the Army became involved in developing loyal
governments in the seceded states and working out the freedmen’s place
in society. Lincoln appointed military governors with civil and military
powers for occupied states, hoping they could mobilize loyal electorates,
and Army officers initiated educational and free labor programs for
exslaves. To support the Army’s work with blacks, in March 1865
Congress created the Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees, and Abandoned
Lands (Freedmen’s Bureau) in the War Department. Staffed primarily by
Army personnel, the bureau represented a unique social welfare
experiment and an unprecedented extension of federal power into the

states, since it had authority over the economic, legal, and political affairs
of the former slaves.
Northerners assumed that martial law and the military’s role in the
south would end in 1865. They expected southerners to acknowledge
defeat by treating blacks justly, rejecting Confederate leaders, and
embracing southern Unionists. None of these things happened.
Encouraged by President Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction policy, which
imposed no severe penalties on the south, unrepentant southerners
elected former Confederates to state, local, and national offices, formed
militia units composed of exsoldiers, passed “black codes” restricting the
freedmen’s rights, slaughtered blacks in race riots, refused to ratify the
Fourteenth Amendment, and bullied loyalists. Most important from the
Army’s viewpoint, southerners frequently insulted and sometimes
assaulted soldiers and filed scores of damage suits in state courts against
federal military personnel. In these suits claimants asked for damages for
actions that the soldiers had taken under martial law during and after the
war. Since the claimants, judges, and jurors were inevitably former rebels,
the courts were unsympathetic to the defendants. Army personnel, whose
legal status in the south from 1865 to early 1867 was ambiguous, were
reluctant to exercise authority under martial law or support the
Freedmen’s Bureau for fear of provoking damage suits.
The problem of protecting the Army from vengeful southerners and
establishing its legal position was one of the main factors that drove a
wedge between Johnson, on the one hand, and Congress, Secretary of
War Stanton, and Commanding General Grant, on the other. Johnson’s
position, expressed in proclamations issued in April and August of 1866,
was that the rebellion was over, the southern states were restored to the
Union under his lenient policy, and the civil authority was ascendant over
the military. He wanted the Army out of the reconstructed states since, he
said, “standing armies, military occupation, martial law, military tribunals,
and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus are in time of peace
dangerous to public liberty” and incompatible with free institutions. In
the Milligan, Garland, and Cummings decisions, the Supreme Court
agreed with him that continued martial law was unconstitutional. But
from the perspective of the Army and a growing number of Republican
congressmen, if prevailing conditions did not change, the wartime

sacrifices would have been in vain, for only loyal people would suffer any
penalties.
Rather than see Appomattox reversed, Army personnel and white
Unionists suffer further abuse, and blacks returned to virtual slavery,
Stanton and Grant defied the president and turned to Congress for help,
resulting in an alliance between the Army and Congress that wrested
Reconstruction policy from Johnson’s hands. In 1866 Grant, with
Stanton’s concurrence, issued orders permitting military personnel who
believed the south’s civil courts denied them justice to have suits
transferred to federal courts or the Freedmen’s Bureau’s tribunals. He also
issued a secret circular urging commanders to act discreetly but
authorizing them to employ martial law when necessary despite Johnson’s
proclamations. Congress further protected the Army by amending the
1863 Habeas Corpus Act to provide for federal jurisdiction in suits
against soldiers and to assist the defendants with government legal aid.
Laws passed in March 1867 signaled a complete victory for the
Congress-Army alliance over the president and in essence established a
separate army for Reconstruction duty. The Command of the Army Act
and the Tenure of Office Act kept Grant and Stanton in their positions
and enhanced the commanding general’s authority over the entire Army.
Although frontier garrisons remained under executive control and the
precise extent of the president’s loss of authority over the occupation
forces remains subject to debate, Grant and Stanton, acting in concert
with Congress, were the dominant voices affecting the Army in the south.
To prevent organized resistance, Congress disbanded southern militia
units and prohibited new ones from being raised without its approval.
Finally, Congress passed the First Reconstruction Act setting forth its
own policy. The act legalized Army occupation, reinstated martial law, and
divided the south into five military districts, each commanded by a
general. The Army became a political instrument, a role that it did not
relish but undertook as a means of self-preservation. Under the act the
Army had the power to remove and appoint officials, register voters, hold
elections, regulate court proceedings, and approve state constitutions.
Grant interpreted the law to mean that commanders had “entire control
over the civil governments” and were not responsible to any United States
civil officer, and Congress agreed. Thus a general’s political inclinations

were important. A few lacked zeal for the goals of congressional
Reconstruction and worked with Conservatives (Democrats) to limit its
impact. But others favored the Republican Party, and their tutelage
fostered Radical Republican governments. By 1871 Congress had
readmitted most of the states, Conservative or Republican. After a state’s
restoration military rule ended and civil government began. However,
southerners so detested most of the new regimes that, having created
Republican governments, the Army had to help defend them.
White racists considered three organizations besides the Army
provocative. Although the Freedmen’s Bureau helped plantation owners
by keeping blacks tied to the land as agrarian laborers, it also enhanced
the freedmen’s political and civil rights. The Union League, a northern
patriotic society, spread to the south, where freedmen comprised the bulk
of its membership and its main purpose was to mobilize black voters. To
provide for local protection, most of the governments received
congressional permission to raise militias. Composed of both blacks and
white Unionists, the militias undertook general police and specific election
duties, ensuring that freedmen voted and that ineligible former rebels did
not. Paradoxically, the militias weakened rather than strengthened the
Republicans. Congress used their formation as a pretext to reduce the
Army, and the sight of armed black men intensified the white southerners’
reaction to Republican rule.
The southerners’ violent answer to Reconstruction was the Ku Klux
Klan. Begun as a social fraternity in Tennessee, that state’s leaders made it
into a paramilitary arm of the Conservative Party. The Klan spread to
every state between the Potomac and the Rio Grande and spawned a host
of similar organizations, such as the Knights of the Rising Sun and the
Knights of the White Camellia. Manned by undemocratic Democrats and
racist reactionaries, the terrorist groups beat, whipped, raped, and
murdered lone blacks and white Republicans, especially those active in
the Freedmen’s Bureau, Union League, and militias. Many incidents were
simple brutality. But the violence also served a counterrevolutionary
purpose, undermining the reconstructed governments by inducing some
Republicans to leave the South and assassinating and intimidating others.
Wherever the terrorists were active, Republican voting drastically
declined.

“The Ku Klux organization is so extensive, and so well organized and
armed, that it is beyond the power of any one to exert any moral influence
over them,” wrote a general serving in Tennessee. “Powder and ball is the
only thing that will put them down.” But who would supply the powder
and ball? The reign of terror was so extensive that state governments were
powerless to control it. Only the national government and its Army had
the resources to quell the south’s challenge to federal policy. Most Army
officers were willing to engage the rebels again—even those who
sympathized with southern goals deplored the lawless terrorists—and
whenever the beleaguered state governments requested aid, they
responded as best they could. But severe problems hampered the Army’s
war against the Klan. Too few regulars were available. In 1868 only 17,657
men were on occupation duty, and three years later the number was only
8,038. While numbers are not necessarily an indication of power, the
Army was nevertheless too small to quash the violence. Constitutional and
legal safeguards against military power also restricted the Army. When
Congress readmitted a state, the Army could intervene only upon the
application of, and in subordination to, state civil authorities. These
officials, either afraid of or in sympathy with the terrorists, often inhibited
effective action. Moreover, even when officials called upon the Army to
assist in enforcing the law, its legal authority was as murky as it had been
in 1865–1867. Thus officers facing a delicate political situation often
hesitated to act decisively.
Perhaps the most fundamental problem was the north’s flagging
determination. Representing a minority in each southern state and utterly
dependent on federal support, were the Republican governments worth
saving? Increasing numbers of northerners thought not, and erstwhile
backers of congressional policy gradually retreated. An important test
between northern resolve and southern resistance came in the early 1870s,
when Congress passed the Enforcement Acts. The most important one,
called the Ku Klux Klan Act, outlawed the Klan and similar groups,
permitted President Grant to declare martial law and suspend the writ of
habeas corpus, and gave federal officials and troops unprecedented
authority of enforcement. However, the enforcement record in the south
was pitiable, and by 1874 the program retained little vitality. In nine South
Carolina counties, where Grant for the first and only time suspended the

writ of habeas corpus, the act did achieve measurable success and
demonstrated what might have been achieved. The commander there,
Major Lewis M. Merrill, deployed the 7th Cavalry so effectively that he
broke the Klan’s grip on the state. But South Carolina was the exception.
Despite the Enforcement Acts, not because of them, the Klan’s activity
declined as it lost the community support essential for irregular
operations. The grosser Klan outrages repelled simple humanity, and the
exile and demoralization of the black labor force hurt the economy. More
important, Democratic leaders, unable to control the Klan, could not
mobilize it to help them win elections. With the KKK, violence spawned
violence, all too often unharnessed to political purpose.
But southerners did not give up their war for white supremacy and
home rule. The north’s obvious desire for peace and its growing
indifference to the fate of southern Republicans encouraged Democrats to
act boldly. In the mid-1870s a new white terror arose to “redeem” those
states still under Republican rule. Openly directed by Democratic leaders,
such well-armed organizations as the White League of Louisiana and the
Red Shirts of South Carolina were essentially Conservative militias formed
to counter Republican militias. Although relying heavily on economic
pressure and threats, which were unlikely to provoke federal intervention,
they resorted to violence when it served political purposes. Democrats
planned race riots and battled Republican militias prior to elections, in
time to keep Republicans from the polls but too late for Washington to
send regulars to police the voting. What occurred between 1874 and 1877
was not indiscriminate Klan-style violence, but a calculated insurrection as
the last unredeemed states fell to Democrats.
One unexpected result of Reconstruction was the difficulty in enacting
legislation to reform and modernize the armed forces. The Democratic
triumph in the south led to a reunited national Democratic Party. Based
on its experiences between 1861 and 1877, it became an antimilitary party,
giving new birth to the attitudes of the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian eras.
For the next generation congressional Democrats, especially those from
the south, generally opposed forward-looking military legislation. At times
Democratic intransigence threatened the Army’s operational ability. For
example, in 1877 Congress appropriated no money for the Army until
November 30, forcing soldiers to rely on loans from bankers, who were

often usurious. Frequently joining the antireformist Democrats were the
War Department’s bureau chiefs, whose political power had been
enhanced during Reconstruction. With the Army responsive to Congress’s
direction, the chiefs exerted even greater independence from their
traditional superior, the secretary of war, and developed closer ties to
Congress, thus gaining political leverage in fighting line-sponsored
reforms.
In 1865 Sherman predicted that “no matter what change we may desire
in the feelings and thoughts of people [in the] South, we cannot
accomplish it by force. Nor can we afford to maintain there an army large
enough to hold them in subjugation.” He was right. Force failed to
transform southerners. But northern public opinion never permitted the
use of much force. A massive, sustained intervention might have
produced more favorable results. But budgetary restraints, fear of
standing armies, and concern for the consent of the governed (as long as
they were white) prevented a significant commitment of indefinite
duration. By 1877 the north was so anxious for sectional reconciliation
that it gave up the effort to preserve the gains of 1865. It had won the
conventional war but lost the unconventional war of 1867–1877. White
supremacy prevailed, and the south’s wartime leaders dominated a distinct
section within the United States. As one man wrote in 1877, “Status quo
ante bellum or things as they were before Lincoln, slavery excepted: such
is the tendency everywhere.” True, formal slavery died, but whites
imposed informal servitude on blacks, making them the most cruelly
deceived of all by Appomattox. The north got peace in 1877, but the
peace lacked justice.
The Army’s duty in the south was onerous. Subjected to political
crossfires, it turned in a performance that seemingly pleased no one, north
or south. Radicals argued that it did too little to support the congressional
program, while Conservatives complained that it did too much. As the
Army redeployed, most men were probably glad to leave the south.
Avenging Custer or chasing the Nez Perce would surely be more satisfying
(if also more deadly) than playing a thankless political and civil role. But
the Army was about to march into another civil-military cauldron, for in
1877 a nationwide labor strike rocked the government, which ordered the
Army to undertake another untraditional task: policing labor strikes.

The Army and Strikebreaking
In the last half of the century American society underwent rapid change.
Immigration threatened its identity, urban growth compromised its
agrarian past, and the rise of corporate capitalism altered the relationship
between management and labor. Hard hit by recurrent depressions and
stressing the rights and needs of individuals, laborers went on strike,
raising the specter of class warfare. Capitalists demanded that the
government intervene to preserve order, and presidents responded by
ordering the Army to enforce the law. Essentially middle class by birth,
Army officers shared the capitalists’ ideology. Both groups were
concerned about social stability and the sanctity of private property but
little understood the conditions that drove workers to strike.
The 1877 strike began with railroad workers, but coal miners and the
urban unemployed soon made common cause with them. Local law
enforcement agencies and private industrial police were unable to restore
order. Management appealed to governors for National Guard (militia)
assistance, but some states found they had no militia, and those that did
discovered their Guardsmen often sympathized with the strikers. Worried
state officials and capitalists called for federal aid, and President
Rutherford B. Hayes sent about 2,000 regulars to troubled areas, some
arriving after forced marches from Indian country, “all tanned and
grizzled, and with unwashed faces and unkempt hair, and their clothes
covered with dust an inch thick in some places.”
Military intervention in labor disputes was not unprecedented (in 1834
President Jackson used troops in a labor disturbance), and Reconstruction
familiarized Americans with using regulars upon a governor’s application.
Still, Hayes’s action marked the beginning of a wrenching experience for
the Army. During the next twenty years it participated in several other
shattering labor upheavals and several minor ones. Three characteristics
marked the Army’s role in labor troubles. First, in each situation the
government and Army responded on an ad hoc basis. The government
devised no policy, and the Army no contingency plans, for strike duty.
Second, despite this handicap, the Army was effective. It not only restored
order but also broke strikes, to the dismay of workers and the delight of
capitalists. Third, the Army acted with restraint. Although sometimes met

with abuse and rocks, regulars refused to respond with violence. In 1877,
for instance, local police, hired guards, and National Guardsmen killed
100 strikers, but regulars did not kill a single man.
“In reality, the Army is now a gendarmery—a national police,” wrote a
colonel in 1895. The Army’s participation in labor strife apparently
convinced a few officers that this was true. Arguing that the nation needed
an enlarged Army to restrain the industrial proletariat, they requested
increased appropriations and manpower. Actually, such appeals may have
been consciously spurious. By 1890 the thrust of professionalization was
toward creating a modern Army prepared for war, and the money and
men allegedly needed to control “white savages” could be used for this
primary mission. Strikebreaking was no more edifying than
Reconstruction duty: One alienated southerners and the other
antagonized labor, which trumpeted the old arguments against a standing
army. In any event, the officers’ appeals did not work. Southern
congressmen, remembering the army’s “tyranny,” obstructed Army
legislation, and many other Americans were receptive to labor’s warning
about despotism. Moreover, state officials no longer needed to rely on
regulars. After an inept start in 1877, National Guard units became more
efficient and assumed a greater role in quelling labor strife.
The need for a police force for strike duty was only one stimulus that
revived the volunteer militia, which almost universally assumed the name
National Guard in the postwar era. After the war southern militias, first
Democratic and then Republican, reformed immediately, but northern
units briefly deteriorated. The exhaustion with war and the sense of
security that led to the Army’s reduction also sapped militia vitality. But
by the early 1870s the traditional attractions of militia service began to
resuscitate the institution. Spontaneous martial enthusiasm, the social
prestige of belonging to an elite group, and the appeal to physical fitness,
discipline, and duty sparked the renaissance.
Following the 1877 debacle the pace of the National Guard’s revival
quickened. Between 1881 and 1892 every state revised its militia code,
and in 1879 militia leaders formed the National Guard Association to
lobby Congress for favorable legislation. However, the association’s only
success came in 1887, when Congress doubled the annual appropriation
begun in 1808 to $400,000. By the early 1890s the Guard contained more

than 100,000 men, predominantly from the middle class. Its foremost
activity was preserving order in industrial disputes. Between 1877 and
1903 governors called out the Guard more than 700 times, and about half
of the calls were for the Guard to perform strike police duty. Since many
working people viewed the Guard as a capitalist tool and disliked it
intensely, serving as strike police was no more rewarding for Guardsmen
than for regulars. Indeed, when the National Guard Association asked for
federal aid, it emphasized the Guard’s role as a reserve force, not as
policemen. Thus neither regulars nor citizen-soldiers avidly pursued strike
duty as a primary mission. But both groups sought other missions that
armed forces modernization and professionalization offered.
Imperialism and Naval Modernization
Stimulated by America’s emerging imperialist impulse, technological
developments, and officers’ career concerns, the armed forces started to
modernize during the 1880s. A steam and steel “new navy” eased down
the slips and onto the seas, and Congress appropriated funds to
commence a new coastal fortifications program. To build ordnance and
armor for the modern ships and coastal defenses, linkages developed
among the military, government, and industry. During the century’s last
two decades, America shifted from isolation to imperialism, its outward
thrust combining idealism, cultural arrogance, and economic expediency.
A resurgent Manifest Destiny proclaimed the white man’s moral
responsibility to spread civilization, and Social Darwinists gave Manifest
Destiny a “scientific” veneer, arguing that nations behaved like biological
organisms. Only the fittest survived, so strong nations inevitably extended
their power over weaker ones. And since Darwin described a struggle for
survival, a nation must be prepared to fight. Some civil and military
leaders actually glorified war. One congressman announced that “there
are no great nations of Quakers,” and a naval officer wrote an essay in the
North American Review extolling “The Benefits of War.”
The fusion of destiny, Darwinism, and a glorification of war was not the
only cause of American imperialism. Some people thought the closing of
the frontier, industrial overproduction, and labor unrest portended a
crisis. They believed that America’s history was one of expansion, the

frontier (in theory) providing a “safety valve” for the discontented, raw
materials, and a market for manufactured goods. With the frontier gone,
was it coincidence that the nation suffered from excess production,
depressions, and labor unrest? Policymakers sought a new frontier,
primarily commercial rather than territorial, by channeling expansionist
energies into an aggressive search for overseas markets to absorb the
industrial glut, restore prosperity, and preserve domestic tranquility. The
United States, however, did not have unfettered access to foreign markets.
European empires controlled much of Asia and Africa, and some
Europeans cast covetous eyes upon Latin America. President Chester A.
Arthur had defined America as the “chief Pacific power” and the U.S.
considered the Caribbean its private lake, but if the country did not enter
the imperial quest, the great powers might foreclose its opportunities to
sell exports in either region. Thus policymakers urged a strategy of
preemptive imperialism: The United States should seize or dominate
desirable areas before rivals gobbled them up.
Two imperatives flowed from the search for foreign markets. First,
America must acquire more bases as trading and naval way stations to
protect its interests and encourage commerce. Between 1867 and 1889 the
United States purchased Alaska, occupied Midway, and acquired the right
to build naval bases at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Pago Pago, Samoa.
(Few expansionists thought this was enough.) Second, the country must
strengthen its coastal defenses and Navy, and broaden its definition of
national security. Since the U.S. was becoming part of an interdependent
world economic and political system, a commercial struggle might flash
into an outright war, necessitating the protection of the continental
domain and its overseas interests.
Rearmament advocates initially stressed traditional defensive strategies.
An expanded Navy and modern fortifications would prevent an enemy
from raiding the coast, bombarding wealthy port cities, and effecting a
close blockade. By the mid-1880s the increased capabilities of European
steam fleets made these prospects seem frightening. The Navy would also
engage in single-ship operations, defending the merchant marine and
foreign bases and destroying enemy commerce. However, a growing
number of strategists questioned the viability of the traditional maritime
strategies. They perceived that the telegraph and fast steam cruisers would

make commerce raiding difficult. Moreover, instead of sailing singly or
hovering near the coast to defend important harbors, the ships of a
modern Navy might be massed for offensive fleet actions at sea. As one
congressman said in 1887, we want a Navy “with which we may meet the
foe away from our coast when he comes.”
Technology joined imperialism as a spur to modernization. For twenty
years Americans congratulated themselves for not following European
nations that built the costly experimental weapons that soon became
outmoded. But the technological advances had been tremendous.
Delaying modernization much longer might mean falling irretrievably
behind in the technological race. More important, European naval
architects had eliminated much technical confusion, blending steam,
armor, and improved guns into acceptable ship standards. Navies could
dispense with full sail rigging, since better engines increased speed and
range. Steel was superior to iron for hulls and armor, and hull
compartmentalization would keep a damaged ship afloat. Guns came to
be breechloading rifles using slow-burning powder that enhanced velocity.
Compound barrels permitted lighter yet stronger guns, which hydraulic
recoil mechanisms automatically returned to their firing position. In 1883
a naval commander summed up an increasingly universal feeling: “The
present time is very favorable; it is possible after twenty years of
experiments, mainly by foreign nations, the results of which are known to
us, to build a fine fleet, of such numbers as may be judged necessary, and
equal to performance and wants now well understood; a fleet that shall be
superior ship for ship to the same kind of vessels elsewhere.”
Army and Navy officers, particularly junior ones, pushed
modernization for national security reasons, but also for narrow career
interests. Promotion remained slow; larger, modern forces with important
missions would break the logjam. With the ending of the Indian wars, the
Army had lost its most active mission. Police duty was an unsatisfactory
substitute, and no strategists envisioned sending large expeditionary
forces abroad. At most the nation might require small Army forces to help
the Navy temporarily defend a few points on foreign soil. The Army
embraced a new fortifications program, for coastal defense seemed its sole
remaining significant function. While reminding the public of the Navy’s
role in aiding businessmen abroad, naval officers propagandized for the

new Navy among selected groups. They lobbied among shipbuilders, steel
firms, and weapons manufacturers who would benefit from naval
construction. Navalists also supported an expanded merchant marine,
hoping they could convince the business community that more commerce
justified more warships.
Ever since the Virginius affair of 1873–1874, navalists had lobbied
intensively for a revitalized Navy, but it took a decade for them to achieve
even modest results. The Navy’s serious rebuilding effort began in 1882–
1883 under Secretary of the Navy William H. Hunt, who persuaded
President Chester A. Arthur that new construction was necessary. “Every
condition of national safety, economy, and honor demands a thorough
rehabilitation of the Navy,” the president told Congress, which responded
in 1882 with an act authorizing two steel cruisers, though it failed to
appropriate funds to build them. The same law limited repairs on existing
ships, which ensured an early retirement for the “old navy,” and
authorized the secretary to appoint a Naval Advisory Board, which
recommended four steel cruisers and a dispatch boat. Congress
eliminated one cruiser and in the Naval Appropriations Act of 1883
authorized and funded the protected (armored) cruisers Atlanta, Boston,
and Chicago and the dispatch vessel Dolphin (known as the ABCD ships).
The cruisers were transitional vessels, sail-rigged but with steel hulls,
compartmentalization, steam engines, screw propellers, electric power
plants, and breechloading rifles using slow-burning powder. Between
1884 and 1889 Congress authorized eight more protected cruisers
(including Charleston, the first modern U.S. ship without sails), three
unprotected cruisers, six steel gunboats, three armored cruisers (two of
them, Maine and Texas, were originally classified as second-class
battleships), and a few monitors. The new Navy initially remained wedded
to the old mission of showing the flag and protecting commerce. The
ships still lacked the armor and armaments to engage European fleets, yet
they were ideal for intimidating nonindustrialized peoples and could carry
out attacks on enemy commerce.
A fundamental change in naval policy occurred in the early 1890s,
prompted by Secretary of the Navy Benjamin R. Tracy, who believed that
the “sea will be the future seat of empire. And we shall rule it as certainly
as the sun doth rise!” To do so, the United States needed bases (perhaps

even colonies) and a great Navy, and Tracy was an avid expansionist and
an ardent navalist. He cast his imperialist eye on several islands, but all his
schemes failed. He had more success with the development of the Navy.
His first annual report in November 1889, which reflected increasingly
widespread professional naval thought, represented a clear break with
past strategy. Instead of emphasizing coastal defense and commerce
protection and raiding, he called for a new doctrine of command of the
sea based on battleships capable of destroying an enemy’s fleet in
midocean. “The country,” he said, “needs a navy that will exempt it from
war, but the only navy that will accomplish this is a navy that can wage
war.” The present force of cruisers and gunboats did “not constitute a
fighting force.” He recommended building eight battleships for the
Pacific and twelve for the Atlantic, all of them “the best of their class in
four leading characteristics: armament, armor, structural strength, and
speed.” He also suggested a complementary force of sixty cruisers (thirty-
one of which were already built or authorized) and twenty coastal defense
vessels. He believed the U.S. could easily afford such a Navy and that its
construction would benefit labor.
Tracy’s recommendations for 100 modern warships might have seemed
excessive had not the Policy Board’s report of January 1890 been leaked
to the press. Appointed by Tracy to study naval requirements and prepare
a long-range plan, the board called for more than 200 ships! With the
Tracy and Policy Board reports before them, congressmen engaged in an
acrimonious debate. Many recognized that battleships marked a radical
departure and hesitated to embark on an uncharted voyage. Some wanted
only monitors and coastal fortifications, others preferred cruisers and
gunboats. The resulting naval bill was a compromise. It authorized three
battleships, but designated them “sea-going coastal battleships” and
limited them to a 4,500-mile range. Traditionalists could thus consider
Oregon, Indiana, and Massachusetts as little more than updated monitors
with an enhanced ability to break a blockade. Yet the battleships did mark
a departure, the starting point for a new maritime strategy that strove to
gain command of the sea. Once begun, Congress did not reverse the
trend. In 1892 it funded Iowa, a battleship with no statutory range limit;
in 1895 it authorized two more battleships and in 1896 another three.

Tracy not only introduced battleships into the Navy but also formed a
“squadron of evolution” in 1889 that was the precursor of a concentrated
battlefleet. Comprised of the ABC cruisers and a steel gunboat, it
practiced steaming in formation and tactical maneuvers, which were faster
and more complex than under sail. In 1892 the Navy Department merged
the squadron into the North Atlantic Squadron, which by 1897 developed
into a fighting fleet. With good reason Tracy could claim in 1892 that
progress made during his tenure marked “an epoch in the naval
development, not only of this country, but of the world.”
A well-defended coast was an essential adjunct to a strong navy. Both
Army and Navy officers realized that “the navy is the aggressive arm of the
national military power.” However, it could undertake an offensive
mission only if it had secure home ports and if relieved of defensive
duties. The Chilean bombardment of Callao, Peru, in 1880 and the British
bombardment of Alexandria, Egypt, in 1882 were vivid reminders of an
undefended port’s fate. American cities must be secure from similar
attacks and from the prospect of a squadron holding them ransom,
extracting money and exerting diplomatic leverage in return for immunity
from shellings. In 1883 President Arthur called congressional attention to
the obsolete coastal defenses, and the next year Commanding General
Schofield’s annual report spoke of “the perfectly defenseless condition of
our seaboard cities.” Sparked to action, in the Fortifications
Appropriations Act of March 1885 Congress directed the president to
appoint an Army-Navy civilian board, headed by Secretary of War
William C. Endicott, to investigate the problem.
The Endicott Board report of 1886 painted a grim picture of the
seaport defenses and proposed a massive fortress program estimated at
$127 million. It recommended large numbers of breechloading rifles and
rifled mortars, supported by floating batteries, submarine mines, torpedo
boats, rapid-firing guns, machine guns, and electric searchlights, for
twenty-six coastal localities and three Great Lakes sites. In 1888 Congress
created a permanent Army Board of Ordnance and Fortifications to test
weapons and make proposals for implementing the program. Funding for
construction began in 1890, though at a more modest level than the
Endicott Board had suggested. The work fell behind the original

projections from the start, yet new defenses to match the new Navy were
underway.
Building the ships and ordnance inextricably linked the government,
the military, and industry. When the new Navy began, a fundamental
question arose: How should the nation acquire the tools of war? Should it
rely upon the private economic sector, which might lead to monopolies
with respect to designs and prices? Or should it depend on government
arsenals, an arrangement that smacked of socialism and might be less
efficient than profit-motivated private enterprise? Or would some
combination of private and public facilities be better? To study this
problem, the Naval Appropriations Act of 1883 created a Gun Foundry
Board composed of six Army and Navy officers. After investigating arms
manufacturing in Europe, the board recommended a mixed system. The
government should offer contracts to private firms to supply basic steels
and forgings, which government-owned plants would fabricate into
finished guns and ships. The officers suggested the Army’s Watervliet
Arsenal and the Washington Navy Yard as excellent assembly plants.
The government accepted the Gun Foundry Board’s report. The 1886
law authorizing Texas and Maine stipulated that they be built with
domestic steel and machinery, and that at least one of the ships be
constructed in a navy yard. To entice firms to bid, the secretary of the
navy pooled orders for Texas, Maine, and four monitors into one $4
million contract, and in mid-1887 awarded it to the Bethlehem Iron (later
Steel) Company. Subsequent contracts also went to Carnegie, Phipps and
Company (later Carnegie Steel).
By the mid-1890s construction of the Navy and the coastal
fortifications had intertwined private and public policy in a mutually
beneficial relationship. Manufacturing armor and ordnance required
expensive plants employing skilled workmen; to cease construction would
idle the factories and create unemployment or disperse the workers into
other endeavors. Thus economic depressions no longer meant decreased
government expenditures but increased expenditures to keep factories
operating and workers employed. This motive may have influenced the
1895–1896 battleship authorizations during the depression that began in
1893. Military contracts certainly allowed the Bethlehem and Carnegie
firms, and their supporting subcontractors and shipbuilders, to survive

while other establishments went bankrupt. In short, armed forces
modernization bound together the public welfare, private interest, and
national security.
Reforming the Armed Forces
“History does not countenance the idea that an untroubled assurance of
peace is a guarantee that war will not come,” wrote a naval essayist in
1879. “Lessons” drawn from history often rest upon feeble analysis and
faulty analogy, but the writer had a point. Sooner or later, war came. To
military reformers viewing the global great power rivalry, progressively
involving the United States, a big war against a powerful adversary was
not impossible. Indeed, the central theme in late-nineteenth-century
military theorizing was that in peace the armed forces should prepare for
war against even the most formidable potential enemy. While seemingly a
truism, this postulate represented a rejection of past policy.
Traditionally the nation maintained small peacetime constabularies—
the Army on the frontier and the Navy on its stations—and then
extemporized fighting forces during wartime. Such a policy, professionals
argued, would no longer suffice. The potential foes were too strong, the
lead time in producing modern weapons was too long, and warfare had
become so complex that hastily mobilized amateurs could not master it.
In determining the composition and strength of the Army and Navy, the
U.S. should look beyond Indians and pirates to the leading European
nations, especially Germany and England. Officers also thought that
preparing for war required the ability to wage it “scientifically.” In their
quest for efficiency they reflected a societal trend. During the initial stages
of the Progressive movement in America, captains of industry applied
scientific managerial techniques to the problems of production.
“Progressives in uniform” sought similar expertise and bureaucratic
forms, which would allow them to utilize prewar preparations in the most
“scientific” wartime manner.
The reformers’ greatest success was creating a more complete
educational system. This success was due in large part to General
Sherman (the commanding general between 1869 and 1883) and Rear
Admiral Stephen B. Luce, two men who epitomized the professional

spirit. Each was responsible for establishing an important school and both
supported other schools, journals, and institutes, all fostering the
expertise and corporate spirit essential for professional identity. Sherman
and Luce also each nurtured a protégé (Emory Upton and Alfred Thayer
Mahan, respectively) whose writings profoundly influenced military
affairs.
A man of great intellect, Sherman vigorously pushed for Army
education. He believed West Point was only the beginning of military
education, envisioning it at the base of a pyramid consisting of advanced
schools where officers gained specialized knowledge; at the apex he hoped
for a “war college.” Sherman sustained the 1868 revival of Calhoun’s old
Artillery School, encouraged the development of an Engineering School
of Application, and, most important, founded the School of Application
for Infantry and Cavalry at Fort Leavenworth. It began as a training
school for junior officers that emphasized small-unit tactics, but two
outstanding officer-instructors, Eben Swift and Arthur L. Wagner,
stressed an analytical approach to learning rather than rote memorization
and redirected the school toward a true staff college devoted, as Sherman
said, to “the science and practice of war.” Meanwhile, creative officers
formed additional schools for the field artillery and cavalry combined, the
Signal Corps, and the Hospital Corps, plus an Army Medical School.
Sherman was also instrumental in the founding of the Military Service
Institution in 1878, a professional society that brought together officers
with a common interest in acquiring specialized knowledge. The
Institution promoted writing and discussion about military science by
publishing a bimonthly journal. It also spawned the formation of branch
associations for the infantry, cavalry, artillery, and military surgeons, each
publishing its own journal.
Perhaps Sherman’s greatest contribution to military education was the
encouragement he gave to Emory Upton, whose writings dominated Army
thought well into the twentieth century. An 1861 West Point graduate,
Upton had a meteoric Civil War career. Beginning as a second lieutenant,
he was a brevet major general before his twenty-fifth birthday. Yet the war
disturbed him. “I am disgusted with the generalship displayed,” he wrote
during the Wilderness campaign. Too many men had been “wantonly
sacrificed” in frontal assaults. “Thousands of lives might have been

spared,” he continued, “by the exercise of a little skill; but, as it is, the
courage of the poor man is expected to obviate all difficulties.” In 1867 he
published Infantry Tactics, which adapted tactics to rifled and
breechloading shoulder arms, and the War Department immediately
adopted the book for use in the Army and militia. The book emphasized
simplicity in drill, specially trained and more numerous skirmishers, less
dense attacking formations, and the need for soldiers to exhibit an
intelligent initiative.
Upton, however, believed the major problem was a defective military
policy. Appointed commandant of cadets at West Point, Upton developed
a close relationship with Sherman, who, in 1875, appointed Upton to a
commission assigned to propose Army reforms based upon its studies of
foreign military systems. After the world tour Upton wrote two books,
The Armies of Asia and Europe and The Military Policy of the United
States. The latter, one of the most significant books in American military
history, was a clarion call for drastic policy changes.
As Upton perceived it, U.S. policy contained near-fatal weaknesses.
Excessive civilian control was a fundamental flaw, since most
congressmen, presidents, and secretaries of war were inexperienced in
military matters. The nation as a whole had an “unfounded jealousy of not
a large, but even a small standing army.” Thus America relied upon
unreliable citizen-soldiers. Although volunteers and militiamen could be
brave, Upton considered their short enlistments, lack of discipline, dual
state-federal control, and untrained officers as crushing liabilities, making
them useless as a reserve force. Since these defects prevented adequate
preparations, the country’s wars usually began with failures, were longer
than they should have been, and entailed “enormous and unnecessary
sacrifices of life and treasure.” “Ultimate success in all our wars,” warned
Upton, “has steeped the people in the delusion that our military policy is
correct and that any departure from it would be no less difficult than
dangerous.” Nothing, he argued, could be further from the truth.
While in Europe, Upton studied the German military, which offered a
stark contrast. The Germans had a General Staff that operated in
comparative freedom from civilian restraint. Unlike America’s staff, which
was simply an aggregation of the bureau chiefs, the German staff made
peacetime preparations for war, gathering information about foreign

armies, drawing up war plans, and controlling an educational system that
ensured competent collective leadership. The regular Army was large and
proficient and organized on the cadre, or expansible, principle. Germany
relied on conscription and assigned its veterans to seven years’ service in
the reserves, which were under national control. With these sound
practices, Upton said, Germany defeated Austria in six weeks and
humbled the vaunted French in just three and a half months.
Upton proposed revolutionary reforms to prevent a repetition of
America’s past folly. Although he claimed that the United States “can not
Germanize” and that it would not be desirable to do so, Upton’s reforms
had a definite Teutonic ring. The country should abolish its present
General Staff and create a Germanic one, enhancing the powers of
professionals relative to the president and secretary of war. An enlarged
regular Army, organized on the expansible principle, should be at the
center of military planning. To flesh out the Army in wartime, the United
States should rely on “National Volunteers” controlled and led by
regulars. Although he admired conscription and considered it a “truly
democratic doctrine,” Upton only obliquely advocated it, knowing the
public would not accept peacetime conscription. The militia would be a
force of last resort, used solely to execute the laws, suppress insurrections,
and repel invasions.
Upton’s ideas collided with America’s most revered traditions, ran
counter to the prevailing aversion to spending more money on an Army
already performing its duties satisfactorily, and suffered from problems as
fundamental as those he thought existed in America’s policy. In
unreservedly praising regulars and denigrating militiamen and volunteers,
Upton misused history. Regulars were not uniformly successful, and
citizen-soldiers were not always pathetic. As Washington, Jackson,
Forrest, Lincoln, and others demonstrated, superb leaders could be
created in arenas other than the Army. Nor did Upton understand that
policy cannot be judged by any absolute standard. It reflects a nation’s
characteristics, habits of thought, geographic location, and historical
development. Built upon the genius, traditions, and location of Germany,
the system he admired could not be grafted onto America. In essence,
Upton wrote in a vacuum. He began with a fixed view of the policy he
thought the U.S. needed, and he wanted the rest of society to change to

meet his demands, which it sensibly declined to do. Thus, for example, his
plan for a large expansible Army faltered for obvious reasons. No
peacetime nucleus big enough to avoid being swamped by a wartime
influx of citizen-soldiers was politically, economically, or strategically
feasible or necessary.
Despite the fallacies in his reasoning, Upton spoke for a generation of
officers. He simply presented the ideas in systematic form, buttressed
them with “scholarship,” and “proved” the professionals’ case. However,
the Burnside Committee of 1878 showed how unrealistic the Upton
reforms were within the context of late-nineteenth-century American
society. Established by Congress to study Army reform and chaired by
former general (now senator) Ambrose Burnside, the committee heard
testimony from generals as diverse as McClellan and Sherman. All but one
urged the expansible Army plan and other Upton proposals. Yet Congress
defeated a bill incorporating these suggestions. Discouraged by his
professional failures and suffering from violent headaches (for which
doctors could find neither a cause nor a cure), Upton committed suicide
in 1881. Many officers, realizing that the United States would not soon
change its command and manpower policies, viewed the future
pessimistically. But some began searching for sounder policy alternatives
that would strengthen the Army without Germanizing it.
While the army had Sherman and Upton, the Navy had Luce and
Mahan. Encouraged by Sherman and Upton, Luce was the foremost
proponent of naval education and the driving force behind the formation
of the United States Naval Institute in 1873. Analogous to the Army’s
Military Service Institution, the Naval Institute began publishing its
Proceedings on a regular basis in 1879. But Luce’s greatest achievement
was persuading Secretary of the Navy William E. Chandler to begin the
Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1884. “No less a task is
proposed,” wrote Luce, who was the college’s first president, “than to
apply modern scientific methods to the study and raise naval warfare from
the empirical stage to the dignity of a science.” Since the Navy had no
authoritative treatise on naval warfare fought under steam power, he
proposed to discover the requisite principles through a comparative
approach. By studying the conduct of warfare on land, he believed that
naval officers could establish parallel principles for sea warfare. Realizing

that the key faculty member would be the lecturer on naval history, Luce
looked “for that master mind” who would do for naval science “what
Jomini has done for military science.” As he later wrote, “He appeared in
the person of Captain A.T. Mahan, U.S.N.”
Nothing in his previous career foretold greatness for Mahan. The son
of West Point’s Dennis H. Mahan, he attended the Naval Academy
against his father’s wishes, graduating in 1859. During the following years
of uneventful service, he developed a hatred of the sea and maneuvered
for shore duty whenever possible. He hoped to win renown through
intellectual performance, and in 1883 he published a competent study of
the Civil War Navy. Accepting Luce’s offer to teach at the Naval War
College, he spent the winter of 1885–1886 preparing his lectures.
Published in 1890 as The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783,
the lectures established his reputation as the world’s foremost naval
historian.
The book, supplemented by Mahan’s article titled “The United States
Looking Outward” that also appeared in 1890, set forth a philosophy of
sea power linking national greatness, prosperity, and commerce to
imperialism and navalism. From his research Mahan concluded that
England became a great nation by controlling the seas and the commerce
they bore. Britain could attack an enemy’s colonies, blockade its ports,
and choke off its trade routes. Enumerating six elements of sea power
based primarily on England’s experience, Mahan emphasized the
applicability of these factors to the U.S. and concluded that it possessed
the ingredients to become a world sea power.
To achieve greatness, the United States must abandon its
“continentalist” policy in favor of more aggressive competition for world
trade, which required a strong merchant marine, colonies, and a big navy.
The merchant marine would carry foreign trade and serve “as the nursery
of naval attitudes,” while colonies provided raw materials, markets, and
naval bases. Mahan especially wanted to annex Hawaii as a bridge to Asia
and to control any future Central American canal, which would be a
funnel for world trade and inevitably attract Europeans bent on defiling
the Monroe Doctrine. An avowed missionary for Manifest Destiny, Mahan
also perceived colonies as toeholds for extending Western civilization. A
powerful navy would protect the merchant marine and colonies, but not

by the traditional guerre de course. Mahan considered it useless as a
primary strategy, since history “taught” him that commerce raiding never
won a war. A navy’s purpose was to gain “command of the sea” by
defeating the enemy fleet in a decisive battle. Only battleships, not
cruisers and destroyers, could fight such battles. A concentrated
battleship fleet was “the arm of offensive power, which alone enables a
country to extend its influence outward.”
Mahan preached a gospel of armed aggressiveness that won him world
acclaim (and healthy royalties). His writings took England by storm. He
received honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, dined with the
First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, and was the first foreigner ever
entertained at the Royal Navy Club. Germany’s Kaiser tried to learn
Mahan’s book by heart and ordered translations put aboard every ship in
the Imperial fleet. In Japan the Emperor, government leaders, and the
officer corps received copies. In the United States Navy his writings
became holy writ, sanctifying its requests for more and better ships.
Mahan’s main purpose in writing The Influence was to provide a rationale
for naval expansion, and he succeeded admirably.
Like Upton, Mahan achieved fame even though his ideas were not
novel and his arguments contained weaknesses. Numerous officers and
informed civilians had understood the sea power concept before Mahan
put pen to paper. During the late 1870s and 1880s, Porter, Schufeldt,
Luce, and many other officers expressed Mahanian ideas, as did
expansionist civilians such as Tracy. Mahan merely codified the big-navy
philosophy of his age, but he had the advantages of writing eloquently and
at the moment when imperialism and navalism were in full flower. Mahan
also used history as badly as Upton and drew a false analogy between the
U.S. and a European country. Relying on the Royal Navy’s example, he
believed that a similar American navy would yield comparable diplomatic
and military benefits. However, Mahan was careless with his facts, studied
a unique era when no rival navy matched England’s, and only paid lip
service to Britain’s geographic position and fortuitous control of crucial
narrow seas. He never really understood that America was a continent not
an island, that the Atlantic was not the Channel, and that the Caribbean
was not the Mediterranean. Intellectually rooted in the age of sail and
convinced that the principles of strategy did not change despite evolving

technology, Mahan ignored technological developments, such as
submarines, self-propelled torpedoes, floating mines, airplanes, and
expanding networks of railroads and all-weather roads, all of which in
part modified his battleship/command-of-the-sea thesis. Although some
of these innovations were not evident in 1890, most were by Mahan’s
death in 1914. Immensely influential yet doctrinally conservative, Mahan
hastened the building of a battleship navy designed to fight decisive
battles for “command of the sea.”
Along with the growing sophistication of military education, another
professional triumph for the reformers was the creation of embryonic
intelligence organizations. In 1882 the Navy Department established the
Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), and in 1885 the War Department
formed a similar organization, eventually known as the Military
Information Division (MID). These groups served almost as European-
style general staffs, creating at least a rudimentary foundation for rational
planning. Through Washington-based staffs and attachés assigned to
America’s principal embassies, ONI and MID gathered data about foreign
military affairs, began to prepare war mobilization plans, and
disseminated maps, charts, and specialized military reports. Predictably, a
rivalry developed between ONI and MID. When ONI’s chief discovered
an Army intelligence officer borrowing a report, he was incensed. “Such
an incident as this served to make me doubly cautious,” he wrote,
“especially in dealing with these army people, who in matters of tact or
discretion seem to me to be a lower order of intellect than the mule.” In
spite of the bickering, ONI and MID were vital steps toward the
professional’s foremost objective, the preparation for war in time of peace.
Armed forces progressives had mixed success in reforming their
personnel, reserve forces, and command systems. Since conditions for
enlisted men had not improved since before the Civil War, few well-
adjusted, native-born Americans enlisted, and the services included many
criminals, outcasts, and foreigners. At times more than 50 percent of the
men in both services were foreign-born, though some were naturalized
citizens. For relief, enlisted personnel resorted to “watered whiskey and
wayward women,” suicide, and especially desertion. At times the Army’s
desertion rate climbed as high as 33 percent. The Navy averaged 1,000

desertions a year out of an authorized strength of 8,000, which made its
manpower problems acute since naval modernization required more men.
By the late nineteenth century authorities were so concerned about the
large number of foreigners in the Army and the high desertion rate that
they made a conscious effort to Americanize the Army and improve the
living conditions of enlisted men. The adjutant general ordered recruiters
into rural areas to reduce the proportion of enlistees from northern cities
with large immigrant populations, which were the Army’s traditional
recruiting grounds. And Congress passed a law declaring that enlistees
must be citizens (or have made a legal declaration of their intent to
become citizens) and know how to read, write, and speak English.
Moreover, reformers in both services maintained that tolerable treatment
of enlisted personnel would attract better men and reduce the desertion
rate. They proposed a number of improvements, such as better food,
clothing, and living quarters, higher pay, greater promotion opportunities,
and an equitable legal system. But progress was slow and uneven,
hampered by public apathy, congressional economy, and opposition from
conservative officers who believed these changes ruined discipline.
Personnel reform extended to the officer corps, where reformers also
achieved modest progress. One demand was for promotion on ability
rather than seniority. To determine ability, reformers suggested rigorous
examinations and annual fitness reports. Although conservatives argued
that politics and social influence would pervert selective promotion, in
1890 the Army required examinations for officers below the rank of
major, and in the mid-1890s it instituted efficiency reports for all officers.
In 1899 the Navy acquired a rudimentary system of promotion by merit
that allowed for the “selecting out” of ineffective officers reaching the
grade of captain. Neither service’s promotion system worked very
effectively, but the systems established the principle of selection by merit.
Reformers also wanted a compulsory retirement system, on the
assumption that aged officers lost their initiative and energy. Older
officers disagreed, but in 1882 Congress enacted mandatory retirement at
age sixty-four.
One of the Army’s most troublesome problems was whether a national
reserve or the state-controlled National Guard would be its first line of
support. Almost all regulars preferred an Upton-style national reserve,

separate from the militias and under federal control. They wanted militias
to perform auxiliary duties as short-term local defense units and to serve
as manpower reservoirs for national forces. In the regulars’ eyes the
Guard was not battle-ready, and its mobilization would raise perplexing
questions: Could federalized militias serve more than three months, and
could they serve overseas? State authorities and National Guardsmen
opposed a federal reserve, but Guardsmen disagreed on what their role
was. Militiamen from the Atlantic coast and Canadian border states
accepted the Army’s definition of their function, since proximity to
important ports and fortifications guaranteed them a vital local defense
role. However, they were reluctant to serve for more than a few months
and opposed overseas service. Guardsmen from inland states, whose
homes would not be threatened, rejected the regulars’ definition. Wanting
recognition as the organized cadre of any wartime volunteer force, they
were willing to undertake extended campaigns, even overseas. Despite
their differences over the composition and control of reserve forces,
regulars and Guardsmen moved toward closer cooperation. The Army
loaned cannons and mortars to militia units, detailed officers to inspect
National Guard encampments and assist in training, and occasionally
participated in joint maneuvers. However, the basic issue of the Guard’s
military function remained unresolved.
The Navy faced a similar problem concerning the naval militia.
Encouraged by the National Guard’s example, in 1888 Massachusetts
established the first naval militia, and by 1898 fifteen state militias had a
combined strength of 4,215. Many professionals viewed the new
organizations warily, preferring a national naval reserve. Since militias
were under state control and had elected officers, the Navy could not
ensure their quality. Officers also questioned whether technology had not
made amateur sailors an anachronism and feared that the naval militia
might distract attention from more important matters, like building
battleships. Still, in the absence of a national reserve, militias provided a
second-line force that might be useful for coastal defense. Federal and
state forces began to cooperate, beginning in 1891 with an annual $25,000
appropriation for the “arming and equipping of the Naval Militia.” The
Navy loaned warships for militia training and conducted joint summer
cruises, a few militia officers attended the Naval War College, and the

Navy Department created an Office of Naval Militia. But as with the
Guard, the fundamental question of the naval militia’s role in national
defense remained unanswered.
The progressives’ biggest failure in the last third of the nineteenth
century was their inability to reform the military’s command structure.
The Army discarded the Civil War chief of staff and Army Board, leaving
the prewar structure intact. At the top was the secretary, usually a civilian
lacking military knowledge and burdened with routine detail. Below the
secretary were the bureaus, each headed by an independent Army chief.
Although proficient and even progressive within their own individual
areas of highly technical activity, the bureaus remained woefully deficient
in overall planning and coordination. Standing somewhere in the
organizational chart (no one knew exactly where) was the commanding
general, whose authority was uncertain. Having achieved his position
through seniority, he and the secretary were often incompatible. These
three disconnected power centers spent much time in bureaucratic
conflict at the expense of coordinated effort, the strife manifesting itself in
the ongoing line-staff feud. The secretary received no united professional
advice, and no agency had clear responsibility for studying problems of
wartime high command and mobilization. The Navy Department lacked a
position analogous to the commanding general, but the secretary and
bureau chiefs managed to foster similar bureaucratic confusion.
Both services tried expedients to solve their command problems.
When Sherman became commanding general, President Grant promised
that he would be the Army’s professional head and ordered all segments
of the Army to report to Sherman. However, Grant soon rescinded the
order when the bureau chiefs rebelled and Congress complained that
subordinating the bureaus to the commanding general violated the law.
When Schofield became commanding general in 1888, he solved the
problem by relinquishing all pretense of commanding the Army. Realizing
that Upton’s call for military independence from civilian control was
unacceptable, he served the secretary as a military adviser, or de facto
chief of staff. Schofield’s solution worked well, but his successor, Nelson
A. Miles, refused to subordinate himself to anyone. His ambitions
shattered the harmony of the Schofield years and revived the command
muddle. Navy secretaries sought control over their bureaus by creating ad

hoc boards. Usually formed for a specific purpose, the boards reported
and then dissolved, leaving no permanent imprint.
By the 1890s progressive officers, usually from the line, unanimously
wanted a general staff for each service and rotation between staff and line.
The staffs would undertake planning and coordinating functions, while
rotation would temper the line-staff imbroglio. But the reformers failed.
Congress had scant interest in reform, bureau chiefs resisted, and
conservative officers objected. Under the current system the United States
had won its wars, so why change?
In 1897 the German General Staff published a survey of world military
forces. Although it detailed such “powers” as Portugal and Montenegro,
the study excluded the United States Army. The omission was logical;
compared to European armies, the Americans’ 28,000 officers and men
did not represent an “army” in any operational sense of the word. Yet the
Army was not somnolent. Its external appearance was little changed, but
reformist officers had established the basis for a modern force. If
Europeans could safely ignore the Army, the United States Navy was
another matter. By 1898, with four first-class battleships (and five more
building), two second-class battleships, two armored cruisers, and more
than a dozen protected cruisers, the Navy was ascending toward
European standards. Supported by the new seacoast emplacements, an
expanding specialized industrial base, and the writings of Mahan, the
Navy was on the brink of its debut as a world sea power.

NINE
The Birth of an American Empire, 1898–
1902
On the night of February 15, 1898, a Marine bugler played “Taps”
aboard USS Maine, anchored in Havana’s harbor since late January.
Captain Charles D. Sigsbee, the ship’s commander, finished writing a
letter as the notes drifted off into the evening stillness. Just as he reached
for an envelope, “a bursting, rending, and crashing roar of immense
volume” rocked the ship, which trembled, listed to port, and settled into
the mud. Out of 354 officers and men on board, 266 died in the
explosion. What caused the disaster? No one knew for sure, but one thing
was certain: The incident made war between the United States and Spain
more likely.
Relations between the two countries had gradually deteriorated after
the Cuban Revolution began in 1895. Commanded by Maximo Gomez,
the revolutionary army relied on guerrilla warfare and devastation of the
island’s economy to expel the Spanish. Eventually, Gomez thought, either
Spain would cede independence or the U.S. would intervene on the
rebels’ behalf. But Spain had no intention of granting independence to the
last remnant of its New World empire and poured troops into the island.
A “reconcentration” policy, initiated by Governor General Valeriano
Weyler, involved herding the rural population into specified towns and
areas while Spanish forces systematically devastated the countryside.
Weyler hoped that the rebels, deprived of food, recruits, and timely
information regarding enemy movements, would capitulate.

Americans watched the savage war with growing concern.
Humanitarianism swelled for the Cubans’ suffering, as thousands died
under Weyler’s reconcentration program. By disrupting trade with Cuba
and threatening American investments there, the war touched not only
Americans’ hearts but also their pocketbooks. The U.S. proclaimed
neutrality in the summer of 1895, but enforcing it was hard, and
maintaining coastal patrols and prosecuting offenders was expensive.
Moreover, American expansionists considered Cuba in a larger
perspective. Stressing the virtues of world power, they were eager to
intervene as a means of propelling the nation into an active international
role.
Imperialist aspirations collided with President William McKinley’s
aversion to war and emphasis on domestic economic affairs. Having
served in the Civil War, the president had seen enough death and
destruction. With the country in a depression, he concentrated on tariff
reform and maintaining a sound currency. Desiring a diplomatic solution,
he refused to recognize Cuban belligerency or make preparations for
possible intervention. Yet McKinley hinted that his patience was not
inexhaustible and that Spain must end the suffering in the “near future.”
He was also an astute politician who valued public opinion, which became
increasingly pro-intervention. Pressed by McKinley, in late 1897 Spain
initiated reforms, suspending the reconcentration policy, granting amnesty
to political prisoners, and adopting an autonomy plan that gave Cuba
greater home rule but left Spanish sovereignty intact. But the rebels
rejected the scheme, and the Spanish garrison in Havana rioted in protest
against it. The war continued, with neither side able to win.
Events in early 1898 drove Spain and the U.S. to war. On February 9 a
stolen letter from the Spanish minister in Washington appeared in the
press. It contained insulting comments about McKinley and revealed that
Spain was not serious about its reformist policy. A week later Maine sank.
Although an accidental internal explosion probably destroyed the ship,
many Americans blamed Spain for the disaster, an impression heightened
when a naval board of inquiry—hardly an objective group of inquisitors—
concluded that a submarine mine had caused the ship’s forward
magazines to explode. Just prior to the board’s report, Senator Redfield
Proctor recounted his impressions from a recent tour of Cuba, detailing

the human tragedy with dispassionate yet compelling language. Vividly
described in the press, these events created a “sort of bellicose fury”
among the public, which demanded intervention.
Ultimately responsive to public opinion, in late March McKinley
informed Spain that it must grant Cuban independence. Confronted with
this ultimatum, Spain stalled for time, hoping to avoid a crisis by
indefinitely delaying it and trying (unsuccessfully) to mobilize European
support to deter American intervention. Spain also made further
concessions, declaring an armistice on April 10. But it would not concede
independence. On April 11 McKinley asked Congress for authority to
intervene to stop the misery and death, protect American lives and
property in Cuba, curtail the damage to commerce, and end the onerous
task of enforcing neutrality. Congress responded with a joint resolution
that called for independence, immediate Spanish withdrawal, and, if
necessary, use of armed force to attain these goals. The Teller Amendment
to the resolution disclaimed any intention of annexing Cuba. On April 23
Spain declared war, as did the United States two days later.
Mobilizing for War
Although he went to war reluctantly, McKinley was a strong commander
in chief. He controlled strategy and diplomacy through a White House
“war room” replete with large-scale maps studded with colored flags
showing the location of troops and ships, telephones linking McKinley to
cabinet officers and Congress, and telegraphic hookups giving him rapid
overseas communications. The president devised an appropriate, limited-
war strategy that effectively utilized force to further the nation’s limited
political objective of compelling Spain to grant Cuban independence. He
pursued a peripheral strategy, directing attacks against Spain’s colonies,
hoping that many small victories, even if far from the enemy homeland,
would have a cumulative effect. The president also served as liaison man
between the Army and Navy and became involved in the details of Army
operations. Understanding that overseas operations required joint
planning, Secretary of War Russell A. Alger and Secretary of the Navy
John D. Long organized an Army-Navy Board, composed of one officer

from each service. However, the board was ineffectual, leaving McKinley
as the interservice mediator.
The personalities of Alger and Commanding General Miles
exacerbated the inherent difficulties in the command structure. Affable
yet egotistical, Alger knew little about modern warfare, while Miles’s
vanity, political ambitions, and desire to control Army operations made
him ill-suited for his position. Alger and Miles quarreled incessantly, and
McKinley learned to distrust them. For professional advice, the president
initially turned to Schofield, who had retired in 1895, but increasingly
relied on Adjutant General Henry C. Corbin. Discreet and committed to
civilian control, Corbin became the president’s de facto chief of staff,
assisting him with decisions that Alger and Miles should have made but
did not.
Spain was poorly prepared for war, both militarily and psychologically.
It had a large army, with 150,000 regulars in Cuba, 8,000 in Puerto Rico,
20,000 in the Philippines, and another 150,000 at home, but the figures
were deceptive. Hard fighting against Cuban and Filipino revolutionaries,
plus the debilitating effects of tropical diseases, had drained the colonial
forces. The home army could not be deployed unless Spain controlled the
seas, and its navy was small, in serious disrepair, and lacked trained crews.
In the Atlantic, Spain kept part of its navy at Cadiz and assembled a
squadron, commanded by Admiral Pascual de Cervera, at the Cape Verde
Islands. Its destination was the Caribbean, but each of America’s
battleships was capable of single-handedly defeating the squadron. In the
Philippines, Spain had another antique squadron, commanded by
Admiral Patricio Montojo. Many Spanish statesmen and officers were
pessimistic, knowing they had little chance to win. At best, they hoped for
a gallant and resourceful defeat.
The initial strategic principle for United States military preparations
was that the war would be mainly a naval conflict, with little Army activity.
The Navy would destroy enemy squadrons and merchant shipping, and
perhaps bombard or blockade Spanish cities and colonies. No one
contemplated dispatching large expeditionary armies to invade Spain or
to conquer its colonies, although almost everyone assumed that the Army
would send small forces to aid the Cubans. The Army’s paramount duty
would probably be manning the coastal fortifications against possible

enemy raids. The disposition of a $50 million military appropriation,
approved by Congress on March 9, reflected strategic thinking: The Navy
received three-fifths of the funds.
With their share of the appropriation, Long and Assistant Secretary of
the Navy Theodore Roosevelt readied the naval forces. Orders went out
for commanders to retain men whose enlistments were about to expire,
and the Navy stockpiled ammunition and fuel. The Navy Department
ordered the battleship Oregon from the Pacific coast to the Caribbean.
Rear Admiral Horace Eban received orders to prepare for the
mobilization of a “mosquito flotilla” (later called the Auxiliary Naval
Force) manned by the naval militia, which provided 4,000 officers and
men during the war. The Navy also purchased or chartered warships and
suitable merchant vessels and pleasure boats. In late February, Roosevelt
sent orders to the European and Asiatic Squadron commanders to
prepare for war. Finally, in March Long established a three-man Naval
War Board, which included Mahan, to give him strategic advice.
All of these preparations had a sharp focus, for beginning in the mid-
1890s the Navy had developed war plans against Spain. At Luce’s
suggestion, the Naval War College began studying the strategic
implications of a war with Spain, and in 1896 Lieutenant William W.
Kimball completed a document titled “War with Spain.” Although several
subsequent plans materialized, the basic features of the Kimball plan
remained intact. Kimball assumed that the war would be fought to
achieve independence for Cuba, that the U.S. did not contemplate major
territorial acquisitions, and that command of the sea would determine the
outcome. The main objective should be Spanish forces in and around
Cuba, with attacks on the Philippines and Puerto Rico being secondary.
Only if these assaults against the Spanish empire failed to achieve results
would the Navy shift its attention to the Iberian peninsula. Kimball
envisioned limited land operations only in the Caribbean, where the Army
would assist Cuban rebels and perhaps attack Havana and occupy Puerto
Rico. However, expeditionary forces would not be dispatched until the
Navy had gained mastery in the Atlantic.
Acting in accordance with these plans, modified by public concern for
coastal protection, Long and Roosevelt deployed the Navy in five
squadrons. The Asiatic Squadron, commanded by George Dewey, was at

Hong Kong poised to descend on the Philippines. A Northern Patrol
Squadron guarded the waters between Maine and the Delaware capes, the
Auxiliary Naval Force watched numerous ports, and a Flying Squadron,
based at Hampton Roads under Winfield Scott Schley, provided
additional protection for the east coast. The bulk of the North Atlantic
Squadron was at Key West under the command of William T. Sampson.
On April 23 Sampson began a blockade of Cuba, initially concentrating
on Havana, other points on the northwest coast, and Cienfuegos on the
south shore, in order to prevent Spain from resupplying and reinforcing
its largest troop concentration on the island. Almost all naval leaders
opposed the division of the Atlantic fleet, wanting it concentrated for
blockade duty and to defeat a Spanish naval relief expedition in a decisive
battle. As one officer complained, the fragmentation “was the badge of
democracy, the sop to the quaking laymen whose knowledge of strategy
derived solely from their terror of a sudden attack by Cervera.”
Compared to the Navy’s preparations, the Army’s initial mobilization
was chaotic. One problem was the diffusion of responsibility within the
War Department. A second difficulty was that the Army lacked the money
and streamlined procedures for advance preparations. The Army spent
most of its share of the $50 million appropriation to improve the coastal
fortifications. Only small amounts went to the Medical, Quartermaster,
and Signal Departments. With their meager allotment, these departments
began to stockpile supplies, but congressional regulations choked their
activities in red tape. The Army’s greatest handicap was the belief that it
would need only about 100,000 men under professional command to
serve as a compact striking force for its limited overseas missions. The
War Department assumed that once the Navy controlled the Caribbean, it
would send a small force to secure a Cuban beachhead and perhaps
dispatch smaller forces to attack other Spanish possessions. If these
measures did not secure peace, then the Army might attack Havana with
50,000 men.
To meet the contingencies, the Army had Representative John A.T.
Hull introduce a bill in Congress. Intended as a permanent reform, the
Hull bill proposed an expansible 104,000-man Army that would eliminate
the need for state manpower. The National Guard would simply garrison
coastal defenses and serve as a manpower pool. Eastern Guardsmen

supported the measure, but unfortunately for the Army’s hopes for a
modest but orderly mobilization, inland Guardsmen protested. Joined by
southern Democrats, Populists who feared the Army, and a few regular
officers with technical objections to the legislation, they defeated the Hull
bill. Bowing to this strong indication that any manpower legislation must
fully utilize the Guard, the administration introduced a new bill to create
a volunteer army. Passed on April 22, the law permitted the president to
limit an initial call-up of volunteers to National Guard members, with
state quotas based on population. McKinley could appoint all volunteer
staff officers and general officers, but governors would appoint lesser
officers. The law also forbade states from sending new regiments into
federal service under a second call unless their existing units were at full
strength. With their position secure, Guardsmen did not oppose an April
26 law establishing a 65,700-man regular Army. New recruits would
augment existing units and serve only for the duration of the war. As
usual, the regular Army could not compete against volunteer service and
remained below authorized strength.
Despite the necessity of mobilizing state volunteer regiments, the Army
achieved some success in establishing an Upton-styled federally controlled
volunteer force. The April 22 law authorized 3,000 federal volunteers
(three cavalry regiments). Subsequent legislation established a 3,500-man
brigade of federal Volunteer Engineers, a 10,000-man force of Volunteer
Infantry (ten regiments in all) with presumed immunity to tropical
diseases and known as the “Immunes,” and a Volunteer Signal Corps. The
most famous of these federal volunteer units was the 1st United States
Volunteer Cavalry, popularly known as the Rough Riders. Its commander
was Colonel Leonard Wood, and its lieutenant colonel was Roosevelt,
who resigned from the Navy Department. Combining the regulars and the
state and federal volunteers, the Army contained 11,108 officers and
263,609 men when the war ended. All of the new troops were to be
discharged upon the proclamation of peace, leaving just the 28,000-man
prewar Army.
Manpower mobilization began before anyone had a clear idea of how
many troops would actually be needed, and it was on a far larger scale
than the War Department anticipated. Expecting McKinley to call out
60,000 Guardsmen, Army planners were shocked on April 23 when he

called for 125,000! The president wanted to avoid Lincoln’s mistake of
mobilizing too few troops at the outset and hoped that the spectacle of an
arming host might break Spain’s will to resist. More important, the
125,000 figure was close to existing National Guard strength. Calling out
fewer troops would alienate those Guardsmen unable to volunteer,
dampening martial enthusiasm and courting political disaster. In late May,
with most of the initial 125,000 men in the service, McKinley called for
another 75,000 volunteers, 40,000 of whom were used to fill existing
regiments.
Miles proposed that volunteers remain in state camps for prolonged
training, but this was impractical. Too few regulars were available to
supervise training at scattered locations, troops and officers needed
practice in large-scale management and maneuver, and the War
Department was anxious to avoid the “disturbing influences of home
locality” that interrupted serious preparations. The War Department had
already ordered the regular Army concentrated at Tampa and Camp
Thomas at Chickamauga Park, Tennessee; and now as fast as volunteers
could be sworn into federal service (as individuals, not as units, to bypass
the constitutional uncertainty about overseas service), they moved to large
camps. Many joined the regulars’ encampments, while others moved to
San Francisco, Key West, New Orleans, Mobile, and Camp Alger near
Washington. As the Army concentrated, the War Department completed
its command structure, organizing seven corps, each commanded by a
major general. In June it created an eighth corps.
As in past wars, manpower mobilization preceded logistical
mobilization. Combined with the magnitude of the call-up and the
Guard’s lack of readiness, the emphasis on men over material created
difficulties for the supply bureaus. Assurances from state and Guard
officials led federal authorities to believe Guardsmen would have basic
drill and musketry skills and would be equipped by the states. But the
states and Guard failed to fulfill their promises. On the average, one-third
to one-half of the men in peacetime Guard units refused to enlist or failed
their physical examinations. The Guard regiments filling the volunteer
army contained many new recruits “who fancied they were soldiers
because they could get across a level piece of ground without stepping on
their own feet.” Volunteers were also unequipped, streaming into the

camps without basic items such as tents and mess kits. What equipment
they had was broken or obsolete. Ill-prepared in almost every respect,
save for typical volunteer enthusiasm, 125,000 men arrived within six
weeks of McKinley’s call.
The National Guard mobilization temporarily overwhelmed the Army’s
supply capacity. Confusion should not have been unexpected, since the
bureaus were geared to supply only the small peacetime Army. Moreover,
line officers and civilian policymakers had not consulted the chiefs
regarding mobilization plans. In coping with the crisis, the bureaus
encountered fundamental problems, none of them the War Department’s
fault. It took time for government arsenals and private industries to retool
to manufacture large orders for specialized equipment. The number of
regular staff officers was inadequate, and many newly appointed volunteer
staff officers did not arrive at the camps until midsummer, requiring
additional weeks to learn their jobs. Cumbersome procedures for making
contracts and regulating funds, which Congress had designed to prevent
peacetime fraud, inhibited the bureaus’ wartime efforts. One crippling
procedural difficulty was the bureaus’ reliance on requisitions from unit
commanders before forwarding supplies, which precipitated a flood of
paperwork and caused interminable delays. Poor transportation facilities
hindered distribution. Camps lacked adequate sidings, resulting in
railroad traffic jams. A mid-1890s government economy drive had forced
the Army to sell its six-mule wagons, which it now needed to move
material in the sprawling camps. Finally, the bureaus’ task of
simultaneously preparing small expeditions and a large volunteer force
was difficult, especially since policymakers gave them no guidance on
which had priority.
The War Department struggled rather successfully to overcome the
logistical problems. Alger met daily with the bureau chiefs to coordinate
activities and pressed for freer spending and the suspension of restricting
rules. The bureaus improvised, and when one expedient failed, they tried
another. Everyone labored long hours, somehow getting done what
needed to get done. Chaos yielded to order, system, and purpose as
arsenals and industries geared up, new staff officers learned the ropes, red
tape got snipped, and transportation snarls were disentangled. Within
three months material mobilization caught up with manpower

mobilization. Meanwhile, the War Department also launched expeditions
on opposite sides of the globe. Considering the conditions prevailing in
April and May, its achievement in equipping a quarter of a million men
was remarkable. Unfortunately for Alger, the administration dispatched
the expeditionary forces before the mobilization crisis had been resolved
and before the improvements became apparent. Thus, to the press and
public, which were caught up in the muckraking of the Progressive era,
bungling and inefficiency seemed the War Department’s hallmarks.
The Spanish-American War, 1898
George Dewey hoped to attend West Point, but no vacancy was available
so he went to Annapolis. Neither Civil War service nor his postwar duties
distinguished him from dozens of other officers. Although he idolized
Farragut, four decades of naval life gave him no opportunity to emulate
his hero. One thing Dewey did was to acquire powerful friends, such as
Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Redfield Proctor. His political
connections gained him command of the Asiatic Squadron, which was at
Hong Kong when Roosevelt’s late-February message warned Dewey to
prepare for war. On April 24, when McKinley sanctioned an attack on
Manila, Dewey was ready.

With orders to destroy the Spanish fleet, Dewey entered Manila Bay
before dawn on May 1. His squadron had far greater firepower than
Montojo’s ships, which lay at anchor off the Cavite naval base. Just as light
was breaking, Dewey gave the order to fire, and in the next few hours the
Asiatic Squadron demolished Spanish sea power in the Pacific with naval-
review efficiency. The next day the Cavite garrison surrendered, but
Spanish forces still held Manila and the rest of the Philippines. Naval
power, said Dewey, could “reach no further ashore. For tenure of the land
you must have the man with a rifle.” Alerted to Dewey’s predicament, the
McKinley administration devised plans to send 5,000 volunteers to the
Philippines.
Meanwhile, as a virtual hysteria of Dewey hero worship swept the
country, strategic attention shifted from the Far East to the Caribbean,
where, as in the Philippines, naval action prepared the way for Army
operations. Gloomily expecting total destruction, on April 29 Cervera left
the Cape Verde Islands, heading west. Thinking that Cervera would steam
to San Juan, Sampson proceeded there with the bulk of his squadron. But
the Spanish admiral, learning of Sampson’s movements, went to
Martinique and Curaçao before steaming to Santiago Bay. By June 1

Sampson’s squadron, united with the Flying Squadron, had clamped a
blockade on Santiago harbor. Although bottled up, Cervera’s ships
constituted a fleet-in-being that restrained other American land and sea
operations for fear they might escape. With orders not to risk his armored
vessels against land batteries, Sampson could not go in and attack
Cervera: Spanish forts guarded the harbor mouth, and two lines of
electrical mines blocked the channel, which was so tortuous that ships
could enter it only in single file. Another option was to sink a ship in the
channel so that the Spaniards could not come out. Sampson tried, but the
effort failed. A third course of action was to rely on Army assistance,
which the Navy requested. If troops captured the forts, the Navy could
sweep up the mines and venture into the harbor. While awaiting the
Army’s arrival, the Navy maintained a tight blockade. To establish a
nearby coaling base, Sampson sent a battalion of Marines to seize
Guantanamo Bay. Aided by eighty Cuban insurgents, they captured it
after four days of sporadic combat in mid-June, the first fighting by
Americans on Cuban soil.
Before it received the Navy’s request, the Army’s strategic planning
evolved through two stages. Initial strategy was to supply the Cubans and
annoy the Spanish with small incursions. On April 29 the War
Department ordered Major General William R. Shafter to Tampa, where
he assumed command of the nearly all-regular 5th Corps. He was to
organize a brief reconnaissance in force to the south side of Cuba,
designed to carry arms and supplies to Gomez. This strategy avoided a
large commitment during the rainy yellow fever season and did not make
undue demands on the volunteer army. But Cervera’s departure from the
Cape Verdes forced cancellation of the reconnaissance, and in its second
stage Army strategy focused on Cuba’s north coast. With McKinley
anxious to exert pressure on Spain, a White House conference on May 2
recommended attacking Havana with 50,000 men no later than mid-June,
without regard for the rainy season. Shafter continued preparations for
this new task. However, reacting to the Navy’s need for assistance, another
war council again modified Army strategy, deciding on May 26 to send the
5th Corps to Santiago.
The decision set off feverish activity at Tampa. Shafter assured
Washington that “I will not delay a minute longer than absolutely

necessary to get my command in condition,” but readying the command
was difficult. The obese Shafter, who looked like “a floating tent,” had no
experience in organizing a large force. The expedition’s size depended on
the number and capacity of transports, but the quartermaster general
could not find many. The Navy had acquired most available auxiliary
cruisers, shallow Cuban waters precluded use of deep-draft ships, and
international law forbade the transfer of foreign vessels to American
registry. The Army had to rely on small, run-down coastal steamers.
Tampa had only two rail connections to the north and lacked storage
facilities. Railroad cars were backed up as far as Columbia, South
Carolina. Boxcars reaching Tampa arrived before the bills of lading, so no
one knew what they contained, and the 5th Corps had too few staff
officers to sort out the mess. Only one rail line ran from Tampa to the
embarkation point at Port Tampa, creating an even narrower bottleneck.
His patience worn thin by the delays, on June 7 McKinley ordered
Shafter “to sail at once with what force you have ready.” The next day,
after a disorganized scramble to get aboard ships, the expedition was
nearly out to sea when an urgent War Department message stopped it. An
erroneous report of two Spanish warships near Cuba caused the halt. For
a week the Navy searched for the ghost ships while the soldiers remained
on the transports, living in compartments “unpleasantly suggestive of the
Black Hole of Calcutta.” The convoy finally sailed on June 14. Although
expected to number 25,000 men, the expedition contained just under
17,000 soldiers, dangerously overcrowded aboard the miserable
transports. The troops consisted primarily of regulars, plus the Rough
Riders and two volunteer regiments.
The disembarkation might have been a disaster without assistance from
the Cubans and the Navy. After conferring with Sampson and Calixto
Garcia, the insurgent commander in the area, on June 22–23 Shafter
landed at Daiquiri and Siboney. Although still in reasonably good health,
the Americans had spent nineteen days on the transports, sweltering in
blue woolen uniforms and eating unappetizing travel rations. They were
not in the best condition to fight their way ashore. Fortunately, the Navy
provided small boats for the landings and naval gunfire support.
Moreover, Miles had initiated contact with Garcia in early April, and by
mid-June cooperation between Americans and Cubans was routine. Now

Garcia’s men and the Navy’s guns drove the few and scattered defenders
away from the landing beaches. The Cubans also besieged every major
Spanish garrison in eastern Cuba, preventing the Spanish commander,
Arsenio Linares, from reinforcing Santiago.
Shafter and Sampson held divergent views of the expedition’s purpose.
The naval commander saw it as a limited operation to capture the
batteries at the harbor entrance. But Shafter’s orders were discretionary,
authorizing him to move against the forts or toward Santiago. The orders
also specified two tasks for his command: capturing the Spanish garrison
and assisting the Navy against Cervera, listed in that order. Reading
between the lines, Shafter realized that the War Department expected a
major land campaign, and he made Santiago his objective. Once ashore,
he virtually ignored the Navy, striking obliquely inland along the road
from Siboney to Santiago.
Three miles northwest of Siboney, 1,500 Spaniards occupied Las
Guásimas, a strategic gap on the Santiago road. On June 24, Major
General Joseph Wheeler, a former Confederate general now commanding
Shafter’s dismounted cavalry division, attacked the position with 1,000
men. After a sharp fight the Spanish “retreated”; unbeknownst to the
Americans, Linares had previously ordered his men to withdraw. The
skirmish had several important effects. The Americans assumed they had
routed the foe, and their morale soared. Control of Las Guásimas allowed
the Army to reach Sevilla, the only good camp site near Santiago. Finally,
the skirmish opened the way to the main enemy position just east of the
city.
After Las Guásimas, Shafter planned a delay to make preparations for
a final assault, but an immediate attack became essential. On June 28 he
learned that Spanish reinforcements had broken through a Cuban
covering force and would soon reach Santiago. Shafter had to race not
only against the arrival of enemy reinforcements but also against a collapse
of his logistical “system.” The entire 5th Corps relied on one lighter to
move supplies from the transports to the beaches. Although food had
priority, Shafter had difficulty stockpiling more than one day’s supply.
Many vital items, such as medical stores, remained aboard ship. If supply
from the transports to the beaches was bad, supply from the beaches to
the soldiers was worse. The road to Santiago was little more than a rutted

trail. Hemmed in by the jungle, the path was barely wide enough for a
single wagon and passed through deep ravines and across several
unbridged streams. Streams flooded and the soil turned to mud when it
rained, which it did often. Wagons got stuck and broke down, pack trains
could not ford the swollen streams, and tropical diseases incapacitated
teamsters and packers. Gaining access to Santiago’s wharves to ease the
logistical crisis reinforced Shafter’s primary concern over enemy
reinforcements, prompting him to attack sooner than he had planned.
The campaign’s one hard day of fighting came on July 1, when Shafter’s
troops attacked El Caney, a hamlet to the northeast of Santiago, and the
San Juan Heights, which rise along the Santiago road east of the city.
Flanking the road were Kettle Hill to the north and San Juan Hill to the
south. Although the enemy positions were within range of Sampson’s
naval guns, Shafter did not ask the admiral for fire support.
Shafter’s attack plan unraveled from the start. Troops were slow getting
into position, and some high-ranking commanders, including Shafter,
were too ill to participate. El Caney’s 500 defenders tied down more than
5,000 Americans for the entire day instead of the two hours Shafter
expected. Planned to commence when El Caney fell, the attack on the
heights began late and took place without assistance from the division
engaged at El Caney. While deploying in the jungle terrain, the two
divisions assigned to storm the heights endured a galling fire that caused
many casualties and demoralized the troops. The movement up Kettle and
San Juan Hills was no romantic charge, with streaming flags and cheering
men. A few brave soldiers led the advance into the hailstorm of Mauser
bullets, which went “chug” when they found flesh. Behind these stalwarts
came two single lines of men, spreading out like a fan, who drove the
badly outnumbered defenders from the heights.
“Another such victory as that of July 1,” wrote correspondent Richard
H. Davis, “and our troops must retreat.” Davis expressed the belief of
many officers and men that the Battles of El Caney and San Juan Heights
had brought the 5th Corps to the edge of disaster. After the unopposed
landings and success at Las Guásimas, Americans assumed the Spanish
would not fight well. The battles of July 1 proved otherwise, as enemy
troops, outnumbered more than ten to one, held back the Army’s best
corps for the better part of a day, inflicting 1,385 casualties. Among many

others, the normally irrepressible Roosevelt, who led the Rough Riders up
Kettle Hill, felt discouraged. “We have won so far at a heavy cost, but the
Spaniards fight very hard and charging these entrenchments against
modern rifles is terrible,” he wrote. “We must have help—thousands of
men, batteries, and food and ammunition.” Even more dismaying, El
Caney and San Juan Heights were mere outposts in advance of the main
defensive position.
Believing the situation was desperate, Shafter telegraphed Washington
that he was considering a withdrawal to a position where he could be
supplied by railroad. Preoccupied with his difficulties, the 5th Corps
commander overlooked his adversary’s even worse condition. Coming on
top of three years of warfare against the insurgents, the 600 Spanish
casualties were a severe loss. Short of ammunition, food, and water, the
Santiago garrison was near collapse. Shafter also failed to understand the
implications of a retreat. Depending on a strong show of force,
McKinley’s peripheral strategy could not stand such a setback. Thus
Shafter’s retreat message created consternation in Washington. Although
leaving the final decision to Shafter, his civilian superiors tried to stiffen
the general’s resolve, urging him to hold his position, promising
reinforcements, and ordering Miles to Cuba should a change in command
be necessary.
On July 3, the day Shafter sent his alarming telegram, the situation
changed dramatically. First, convinced that Santiago was about to
capitulate, the Cuban governor general ordered Cervera to make a sortie
rather than surrender. Cervera’s escape attempt surprised the blockading
squadron, which was below full strength and under Schley’s immediate
command. One cruiser had taken Sampson to Siboney to confer with
Shafter, and other ships were refueling at Guantanamo. Still, Schley’s
broadside was triple the weight of Cervera’s, and the Americans easily
destroyed the enemy squadron. The victory produced no hero
comparable to Dewey. An acrimonious debate soon developed over
whether Sampson, who commanded the squadron, or Schley, who was in
tactical control during the battle, deserved paramount credit. The
squabble tainted both their reputations.
One important result of Cervera’s defeat was the Spanish government’s
recall of Admiral Manuel de la Camara’s squadron. Spain had sent

Camara toward the Philippines after Dewey’s victory, creating a strategic
dilemma of whether to save Dewey or maintain unchallenged superiority
in the main theater of war. Including a battleship and an armored cruiser,
Camara’s force would be a stern challenge for the Asiatic Squadron. With
all its battleships and armored cruisers committed in the Caribbean, the
Navy Department ordered two powerfully armored monitors from the
west coast to Manila, but strategists worried whether they could beat
Camara to the Philippines. The department also organized the Eastern
Squadron from Sampson’s fleet to pursue Camara or, by attacking the
Spanish coast, force his recall. However, dispatching the Eastern
Squadron would weaken Sampson, perhaps allowing Cervera to escape.
Fortunately, Cervera’s defeat resolved the knotty problem. Recognizing
that the Battle of Santiago Bay freed the Eastern Squadron to sail without
endangering Sampson, Spain recalled Camara. The Navy Department
never sent the Eastern Squadron to European waters but held it in
readiness, exerting pressure on Spain to come to an agreement.
July 3 was also important because even as Shafter contemplated retreat,
he boldly demanded Santiago’s surrender. General Jose Toral, who
replaced the wounded Linares, refused but indicated an interest in further
discussions. Buoyed by Cervera’s defeat and the prospect of negotiations,
Shafter wired Washington that he would not retreat. During the talks
between Shafter and Toral, which went on for two weeks, the rivalry
between Sampson and Shafter sank to the nadir. Shafter urged the Navy
to attack the harbor entrance forts and steam into the bay, taking the
Spanish garrison in the rear. Sampson would gladly oblige, if only the
Army would capture the forts. Claiming he needed all his men for the
siege, Shafter refused. Although the stalemate with Sampson continued,
Shafter achieved a breakthrough with Toral, who formally capitulated on
July 17. Since he surrendered all the troops under his command, not just
those inside Santiago, Spanish resistance in eastern Cuba ended.
In his moment of glory, Shafter was petty. He allowed no naval officer
to sign the capitulation document. In callous disregard of the Cubans’
contribution, he did not permit them to participate in the surrender
negotiations or ceremonies. Shafter’s ungracious behavior marked the
final stage in the deterioration of Cuban-American relations that began
immediately after the landings. The Americans’ prewar image of the

Cuban army was that it fought in conventional style and contained many
whites. But black men filled the ranks, kindling race prejudice, and
without their rifles and cartridge belts the rebels “would have looked like
a horde of dirty Cuban beggars and ragamuffins on the tramp.”
Forgetting the privation Cuban soldiers had endured, American soldiers
considered them “human vultures” when they begged or stole food and
other items. Yet without the Cubans, Shafter probably could not have
taken Santiago. Not only were they valuable allies in an immediate sense
—helping at Guantanamo, covering the landings, preventing or delaying
the arrival of reinforcements, digging trenches, and acting as scouts and
guides—but they had also severely weakened Spain before America
entered the war.
The day after Toral’s surrender, the War Department authorized Miles
to launch his long-contemplated invasion of Puerto Rico. Departing on
July 21, he landed at Guánica four days later and on August 9 launched a
four-column offensive toward San Juan. Unlike Shafter’s hastily
dispatched expedition, Miles’s had excellent logistical support and
encountered little resistance. Events at Santiago sapped the enemy’s will
to resist, the Puerto Rican militia deserted in droves, and civilians
cheerfully cooperated with Miles. In six minor engagements the
Americans suffered forty-one casualties before Miles received an August
12 telegram informing him that the U.S. and Spain had signed a peace
protocol.
The peace message did not reach the Philippines in time to prevent a
“battle” after the war was over. McKinley selected Major General Wesley
Merritt to command the 5,000 volunteers that the administration planned
to send to Manila. Merritt insisted that the expedition be enlarged and
include regulars, and the War Department agreed, assigning him 20,000
men, including regulars. Designated the 8th Corps, the expedition
assembled at San Francisco and deployed to Manila with little confusion.
A more skilled administrator than Shafter, Merritt also had the advantage
of time to prepare methodically and benefited from a more complete
logistical mobilization. The general’s first contingent departed on May 25,
captured Guam in the Spanish-held Marianas on the way, and arrived at
Cavite on June 30. Another contingent left on June 15, a third later that
month, and two more in July.

Merritt departed without a clear understanding of his purpose and
entered into a confused political and military situation created by the
presence of a Filipino army. “I do not yet know whether it is your desire,”
Merritt wrote to McKinley, “to subdue and hold all of the Spanish
territory in the islands, or merely seize and hold the capital.” The
president’s formal instructions did not clarify the matter, although they
implied an extensive campaign. The Filipino army resulted from a
revolution against Spain, similar to the Cuban insurrection, that began in
1896. The Spanish had forced the revolutionary leader, Emilio Aguinaldo,
into exile, but with the encouragement of Dewey and American consuls at
Hong Kong and Singapore, he returned. Reorganizing his army, he soon
controlled most of the Philippines, besieged Manila, issued a declaration
of independence, and established an American-style Philippine Republic
—all before American troops arrived. Dewey and Merritt had instructions
to avoid entangling alliances with the insurgents “that would incur our
liability to maintain their cause in the future.” Aguinaldo initially viewed
the Americans as friends, but he became suspicious that the U.S. might
annex the islands when soldiers arrived and officials refused to recognize
his government.
The “Battle” of Manila exacerbated tensions between Americans and
Filipinos. Knowing the futility of resistance, Governor General Don
Fermin Jáudenes negotiated with Dewey and Merritt to surrender Manila
after a mock battle that would save Jáudenes’s reputation and Spain’s
honor. His troops would defend only the outer line of trenches and
blockhouses, not the inner citadel, and would not use their heavy guns. In
return the Americans agreed not to blast Manila with naval gunfire and to
keep the Filipinos out of the city, for Jáudenes feared they might retaliate
for past Spanish atrocities. After this collusion with an enemy against a
presumed friend, the play unfolded pretty much according to the script.
Some fighting occurred along the outer defenses, but the Spanish caused
less trouble than the betrayed insurgents. Serious conflict threatened
when Filipinos spontaneously joined in the attack and occupied several
suburbs. However, both sides wanted to avoid an open break, and at the
end of the day Americans controlled most of the city. But they faced
outward, surrounded by angry Filipinos demanding joint occupation.

Hostile Americans and Filipinos still glared at each other on August 16
when word arrived that the war had ended four days earlier.
Aftermath of the “Splendid Little War”
As prewar strategists predicted, the war at sea was decisive. When Spain
signed the August 12 protocol its main garrisons at San Juan, Havana, and
Manila were intact, but with the losses at Manila Bay and Santiago Bay
they could no longer be maintained. Under the protocol’s terms, hostilities
ended, Spain granted Cuban independence and ceded Puerto Rico and
Guam, and the combatants agreed to decide the Philippines’ fate at a
postwar peace conference, which began at Paris on October 1. The
United States had many options regarding the islands: Grant
independence, return them to Spain, acquire only a naval base, annex only
Luzon, establish some form of protectorate, or annex the entire
archipelago. For moral, economic, political, and military reasons,
McKinley decided on complete annexation, and by the Treaty of Paris of
December 10, 1898, Spain ceded the Philippines.
The decision to annex the Philippines touched off a wave of protest,
spearheaded by the Anti-Imperialist League. Most anti-imperialists were
not against expansion, favoring acquisitions within the Western
Hemisphere and the retention of naval bases elsewhere. But the
annexation of a distant, sprawling archipelago inhabited by diverse and
alien peoples aroused their opposition, for it represented a clear break
with past policies. The U.S. had never acquired territory that could not be
eventually admitted as states, and if it meddled in the Far East, it could
not reasonably forbid others from meddling in the Americas. Defending
the colony would be difficult and costly, creating a large military
establishment and leading to militarism abroad and despotism at home. A
huge land grab tarnished the crusade to liberate Cuba. Despite these
arguments, on February 6, 1899, the Senate consented to the treaty. Spain
and the U.S. exchanged ratifications on April 11, 1899.
“No war in history,” exalted one American, “has accomplished so
much in so short a time with so little loss.” The United States acquired a
colonial empire, annexing Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines and
establishing a limited protectorate over Cuba. During the imperial

outburst, it also annexed Hawaii, Samoa, and Wake Island. A nation born
more than a century earlier in a reaction to imperial domination had
become an imperial power, joining the maelstrom of international politics.
During the 1880s, Europeans spoke of six great powers (France,
Germany, England, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy). They now added a
seventh, computing the United States into balance-of-power
combinations. A German cartoon expressed the new sentiment, showing
Uncle Sam reaching out to encircle the globe, saying, “I can’t quite reach
around—but that may come later.”
Yet for the Army it had been far from “a splendid little war,” as
Secretary of State John Hay called it. A storm of controversy caused by
medical disasters in the 5th Corps and in the volunteer camps engulfed
the War Department as the war ended. The death toll explained the
calamity’s magnitude: Out of 5,462 deaths in the armed services in 1898,
only 379 resulted from combat. The 5th Corps’ ordeal was severe. During
the siege men lay in their tents, which were steaming mudholes during
downpours and ovens when the sun blazed down, without adequate food.
Exhausted and filthy, they were susceptible to disease even as the opening
of Santiago Bay remedied their material deficiencies. Malaria, dysentery,
and typhoid began their death march through the ranks. The Americans
also greatly feared an outbreak of yellow fever, although doubts remain as
to whether it actually afflicted any of the troops.
By late July almost a quarter of the men were sick, and so many died
that Shafter suspended rifle volleys and bugle calls at burials for fear of
undermining morale. On August 3, with the concurrence of his general
officers and medical staff, Shafter finally alerted the War Department,
writing that he commanded “an army of convalescents.” The corps must
be immediately transferred home, or it would perish. When the news
leaked to the press, it further discredited the War Department, already
under mounting criticism for its seeming ineptitude in preparing for war,
threatened to undermine the peace negotiations then underway, and
hastened the corps’ withdrawal to Camp Wikoff at Montauk Point, New
York. By August 25 the veterans had departed, replaced by volunteer
regiments and “Immunes” who, as it turned out, were not immune.
The survivors arrived at Montauk “mere shadows of their former
selves,” with pale faces, sunken eyes, staggering gaits, and emaciated

forms, many of them candidates for premature graves. They wobbled
ashore into a welter of confusion. Alger had planned a reception camp
before he received Shafter’s August 3 report, and given enough time a fine
facility would have awaited the troops. But the sudden emergency caught
the camp with inadequate transportation and shortages of equipment,
medical supplies, and laborers. As during the mobilization in April and
May, the War Department’s heroic efforts, plus the goodwill of private
relief agencies, resulted in rapid improvements. However, the press and
private citizens had flooded into the camp in its early weeks and spread
tales of suffering, convincing citizens that the government had neglected
the victors of Santiago.
Events in the volunteer camps reinforced the belief that the War
Department had ill-used its soldiers. Most volunteers remained in camp
for the duration, bored and homesick, engaging in endless military
routine, enduring shortages of all types since overseas expeditions had
supply priority, and wallowing in pervasive filth caused by their own
carelessness and indiscipline. Under these conditions epidemic diseases
swept the camps. In combating them, the Medical Department labored
under crippling handicaps. It had little prestige or authority, low priority
in terms of men and money, too few trained personnel, no power to
enforce its recommendations (which were often excellent but ignored by
the volunteers), and, like medical science as a whole, it did not know how
the killer diseases were transmitted. Only when the crisis was at hand did
the Army react, rushing doctors and supplies to the camps and ordering a
massive redeployment that placed the men in healthful new camps where
officers enforced strict cleanliness. The improvements, plus the onset of
winter, rapidly dropped the disease mortality rate, but the public did not
easily forget the sight of hundreds of men dying on home soil.
Demobilization and an investigation of the War Department’s alleged
mismanagement began almost simultaneously. In October Shafter
formally disbanded the 5th Corps, and in May 1899 the last of the original
seven corps was demobilized. Spurred by the outcry caused by the Army’s
chaotic mobilization and the tragedies in the 5th Corps and the volunteer
camps, on September 26 McKinley appointed a commission, chaired by
Grenville M. Dodge, to investigate Army administration. The commission
questioned numerous witnesses, including Alger, the bureau chiefs,

officers of every grade, enlisted men, nurses, and concerned citizens. Miles
was the most spectacular witness, charging that troops had been fed beef
injected with harmful chemicals, causing much of the sickness. The
commission thoroughly studied the “embalmed beef” issue and, when it
reported on February 9, 1899, correctly pronounced Miles’s accusations
as false. When Miles persisted in his charges, McKinley appointed a
military board of inquiry that came to the same conclusion.
The Dodge report also exonerated the War Department of charges of
stupidity, deliberate negligence, and major corruption, drawing a picture
of conscientious officers struggling “with earnestness and energy” to
overcome problems primarily not of their own making. However, it did
indict the department for excess paperwork and declared, in a tactful
criticism of Alger, that “there was lacking in the general administration of
the War Department . . . that complete grasp of the situation which was
essential to the highest efficiency and discipline of the Army.” Although
Alger was not a strong secretary, and inefficiency and poor coordination
dogged the war effort, the real causes of the War Department’s difficulties
were the hasty mobilization of too many men, primitive medical
knowledge, and the country’s long neglect of the Army.
Most citizens found the Dodge report’s detailed analysis of staff
organization and Army administration boring and did not want the facts
to interfere with their perceptions. They were sure something was rotten
in the War Department, and Alger became the scapegoat; “Algerism”
became synonymous with government corruption and incompetence.
Despite the public’s lack of confidence in the secretary, McKinley owed
Alger a moral debt, knowing that he had loyally followed orders and was
taking the blame for decisions imposed upon him. McKinley also worried
that firing Alger would be an admission of military mismanagement,
which would reflect badly on his presidency. Not until Alger sided with an
anti-administration senatorial candidate did McKinley ask for his
resignation; on August 1, 1899, Elihu Root replaced him. The widespread
sentiment that the war had been conducted unscientifically, the lack of
interservice cooperation, and the new international responsibilities
allowed Root to institute Army reforms.
Most of the overseas acquisitions posed few problems. The Navy
Department governed Samoa, Guam, and Wake without difficulty. Puerto

Rico remained under military government only until May 1900, when the
first American civil governor assumed his duties, and Hawaii was quickly
placed on the road to eventual statehood. But Cuba was different. The
United States had never recognized the Cuban Republic. Now the
question was whether it should grant independence, establish a
protectorate, or annex the island despite the Teller Amendment, which
imperialists argued had been a great mistake. While the nation wrestled
with this problem, Cuba remained under military government, headed by
Major General John R. Brooke until December 1899, when Wood
succeeded him. Wood tried to Americanize the island, hoping to pave the
way for eventual annexation. A man of great administrative talent and
imbued with Progressive ideals, he did much to rebuild the devastated
island and restore its economy, and he promoted reforms in education,
municipal government, the legal system, and sanitation and health care.
Although his emphasis on centralization and urban development ran
counter to the Cubans’ desire for more local autonomy and rural
traditions, many of Wood’s programs were of lasting value.

In May 1902 the United States recognized Cuban independence.
Expansionists could not overcome the idealism expressed in the Teller
Amendment or the fear that Cubans might rebel against annexation.
However, the U.S. established a semiprotectorate and maintained de facto
dominance through the Platt Amendment and the Reciprocal Trade
Treaty of 1902. Incorporated into the Cuban constitution, the amendment
was a compromise between altruism and annexation, allowing Cuban
internal self-government while protecting America’s special interests. It
forbade Cuba to sign treaties that might infringe its independence, limited
its capacity to get into debt, preserved America’s right to intervene to
maintain stability, and forced Cuba to sell or lease naval stations to the
U.S. The trade treaty tied Cuba’s principal export, sugar, to the American
market, thus giving the United States considerable economic influence.

Cuba, however, was not the most troublesome of the overseas
possessions, for in annexing the Philippines the United States annexed a
war.
War in the Philippines, 1899–1902
“Is Government willing to use all means to make the natives submit to the
authority of the United States?” Merritt and Dewey asked Washington as
the Filipinos pressed for the joint occupation of Manila. McKinley replied
that there must be no joint occupation, that the insurgents must recognize
U.S. authority, and that Merritt could “use whatever means in your
judgment are necessary to this end.” The president realized that war was
possible, although he sincerely wanted to avoid fighting the Filipinos.
While awaiting the outcome of the Paris peace conference, the Filipinos
also prepared for war. Merritt’s successor, Elwell S. Otis, convinced the
Filipinos to withdraw from the suburbs they had occupied, but
Aguinaldo’s men strengthened their besieging positions and their
sandatahan (militia) inside Manila. In this festering situation the American
troops began referring to Filipinos with derogatory terms, such as
“niggers” and “gugus,” and the number of violent incidents increased.
Since the United States was determined to exercise sovereignty and the
Filipinos were equally determined to be independent, the Treaty of Paris
created an impasse solvable only through war. Fighting began on the night
of February 4–5, 1899, along the Manila perimeter. Aided by gunfire from
Dewey’s squadron and gunboats on the Pasig River, the next morning the
Army attacked, driving the Filipinos from their trenches after several days
of combat. Later in the month the Manila sandatahan rose in rebellion,
but the Americans quashed it. In March and April, Otis launched attacks
north and east from Manila, continually defeating the Filipinos.
Aguinaldo favored guerrilla warfare but one of his generals, the
European-educated Antonio Luna, persuaded him to fight in
conventional style; this ill-suited the Filipinos, who lacked artillery and
sufficient modern rifles. However, Otis’s spring offensive achieved few
permanent results before the rainy season began in May, halting large-
scale campaigning.

As Otis waited for better weather he confronted severe problems. The
Eighth Corps had an unprecedented task, for Americans had never before
engaged in a colonial war of conquest. The Indian wars were not
analogous: Indian resistance was always on a smaller scale, and the Army
had the assistance of railroads, settlers, and buffalo hunters. Once
defeated, Indians could be confined to reservations, but no Philippine
reservation system was feasible. For pacification to succeed, the Army had
not only to defeat Aguinaldo’s army but also to make Filipinos want
American rule or at least tolerate it peacefully. But the proper mix
between coercion and benevolence was not easily discovered.
Another difficulty was that Otis underestimated Aguinaldo’s support,
the fierce resentment against Americans, and the Filipinos’ fighting skills.
Consequently, he sent Washington optimistic assessments that slowed the
necessary troop buildup. After ratification of the Treaty of Paris most of
his soldiers were eligible for discharge, and McKinley insisted they be
returned home as soon as possible. Foreseeing this demobilization, the
administration introduced a bill calling for a 100,000-man regular Army.
On March 2, 1899, Congress passed a bill keeping the regular Army at
65,000 but authorizing the president to enlist 35,000 volunteers,
organized into twenty-five regiments and recruited from the country at
large, for the Philippine emergency. The volunteer enlistments expired
July 1, 1901; on the same date the regular Army would shrink to 28,000.
In contrast to his actions during the war with Spain, McKinley wanted
the force sent to the Philippines kept “within actual military needs.” For
immediate reinforcements he dispatched regular regiments. But since Otis
claimed he needed only 30,000 men, which could be drawn entirely from
regulars, the president delayed organizing the volunteers. Responding to
an upward revision by Otis, in late June McKinley authorized the creation
of twelve volunteer regiments, and another increased estimate from Otis
soon prompted organization of the remainder. Largely due to his own
misjudgment, Otis endured what Washington and Scott had experienced:
exchanging one army for another in the face of the enemy. Fortunately,
War Department procedures perfected during the war with Spain
permitted the expeditious shipment of well-equipped volunteers; by
February 1900 all of them were in the Philippines.

In November 1899, as the first volunteer regiments arrived, Otis
attacked Aguinaldo’s main army on the Luzon plains, shattered it, and
drove Aguinaldo into northern Luzon’s mountainous wilderness. Otis
then sent a secondary thrust into Cavite Province and the Laguna de Bay
region, which fragmented the Filipino forces there. As soldiers marched
over Luzon from one end to the other and then occupied virtually every
other island of consequence in the archipelago, Otis reported to
Washington that “we no longer deal with organized insurrection, but
brigandage.”
While smashing the Filipinos’ conventional forces the Army also
instituted civic action programs similar to Wood’s in Cuba. Wanting
Filipinos to “bless the American republic,” McKinley ordered the Army
to prove “to them that the mission of the United States is one of
benevolent assimilation, substituting the mild sway of justice and right for
arbitrary rule.” Recognizing the value of benevolence as a pacification
technique, officers undertook the task with enthusiasm. Beginning in
Manila and then fanning outward, they inaugurated reforms, especially in
transportation, education, and public health, to convince the Filipinos
that the Americans would raise their standard of living. New railroads,
bridges, highways, and telegraph and telephone lines strengthened the
economy and forged a new interdependence among the islands.
Convinced that education “can be more beneficial than troops in
preventing future revolutions,” the Army created a school system, which
reduced illiteracy. The military’s public-health assault on disease virtually
eliminated smallpox and the plague and reduced the infant mortality rate.
Although conducted with an arrogant ethnocentrism and often interfering
with local customs, these (and other) programs gained an increasing
number of Filipino collaborators, reinforcing Otis’s perception that the
war was over.
But instead of being over, the war entered a new phase. With their
army shattered, the Filipinos turned to guerrilla warfare to counter
America’s conventional firepower. Although they had used guerrilla tactics
before, these now became the primary means of resistance. What Otis
thought was the enemy’s collapse was simply a reorganization into small
units at the local level. Instead of a single nationalist struggle directed by
one commander, Aguinaldo, the conflict became decentralized, a

collection of local conflicts that varied from region to region depending
on ethnic and religious differences, the terrain, and the revolutionary
leadership’s caliber. During this phase local guerrilla officers were much
like Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812, acting like regional warlords
who obeyed higher authorities only when it suited their region’s needs.
Most leaders came from the economic and political elite rather than the
masses; many of the latter loathed Americans but also had scant
enthusiasm for a war directed by the prewar Filipino upper class, which
had demonstrated little interest in social justice or land redistribution.
In some cases guerrilla warfare merged with the traditional banditry
that Filipino ladrones had perpetrated since time immemorial, the political
“cause” of independence merely providing a cover for age-old practices.
Indeed, many U.S. Army officers initially underestimated the guerrilla
threat because they blamed the endemic violence wholly on ladrones and
other social outcasts. Yet leading Filipinos such as Aguinaldo and Miguel
Malvar, a high-ranking officer in Batangas Province, understood guerrilla-
warfare techniques and strategy. They believed that a protracted war
might result in two possible favorable outcomes. It might undermine the
morale of the American Army and populace, leading to victory for the
anti-imperialist Democratic Party in the presidential election of 1900.
Filipino propagandists attached great importance to this eventuality. As
one American officer noted, the insurgents watched American politics
closely, and “every disloyal sentiment uttered by a man of prominence in
the United States is repeatedly broadcast through the islands and greatly
magnified.” Or the Filipinos might receive foreign aid, perhaps from a
European nation but more likely from Chinese republicans or Japanese
pan-Asianists.
Guerrillas increasingly fought only when victory was certain, usually
ambushing small patrols. When confronted by a superior force they hid
their weapons and dispersed to their homes, where they greeted
Americans with a friendly smile and a hearty “Amigo!” They also engaged
in sniping and sabotage, inflicted hideous tortures on prisoners, and set
trail-way traps, such as pits filled with sharpened stakes. Soldiers learned
that a “pacified” area extended no further than the range of a Krag-
Jorgensen.

While their guerrilla operations nullified America’s earlier military
success, the insurgents employed terrorism to defeat what they called the
enemy’s “policy of attraction.” Directed primarily against Filipinos
holding positions in American-sponsored municipal governments,
terrorism (the guerrillas called it “exemplary punishment on traitors to
prevent the people of the towns from unworthily selling themselves for
the gold of the invader”) took many forms. Lucky “traitors” were fined or
had their property destroyed; unlucky ones were hacked to death with
bolos or buried alive. To mete out punishment and control the villagers,
the insurgents established shadow governments in the barrios. Many
officials who worked openly with the Americans for civic improvements
also worked secretly for the insurgents, spying on their townsmen,
collecting taxes, recruiting men, and supplying information. The system of
terror and invisible governments was successful in many locales, where
fewer and fewer people cooperated with the Americans.
The deteriorating situation provoked an ugly reaction among some
American soldiers, who committed atrocities such as torturing prisoners.
Official policy forbade these cruelties. But authorities argued, with some
plausibility, that the very nature of guerrilla warfare led to excesses, and
imperialists insisted that anti-imperialists exaggerated troop misconduct
for political purposes; indeed, the number of verifiable atrocities was only
fifty-seven. However, since soldiers do not publicize their illegal acts, the
actual number of misdeeds was certainly higher.
By May 1900, when Arthur MacArthur succeeded Otis, the military
situation had become frustrating. Although the Americans were not in
immediate danger of losing the war, the guerrillas were holding their own
and Filipino terror sapped much of the civic action program’s appeal.
Furthermore, although MacArthur needed more troops, he was obliged to
send men to China to help suppress the anti-Christian and antiforeign
Boxer Rebellion. When the Boxers besieged the Legation Quarter in
Peking, McKinley ordered U.S. forces to participate, for the first time, in
an international relief expedition. He wanted to save the beleaguered
Americans in the Legation Quarter and to protect national interests as
expressed in the “Open Door” policy, which called for equal trade
privileges in China for the major European powers, Japan, and the United
States, as well as the maintenance of Chinese sovereignty. A small naval

squadron assembled and the U.S. committed 10,000 men commanded by
Adna R. Chaffee to the relief force, which included troops from several
European nations, Russia, and Japan. Prior to the legations’ mid-August
relief, Secretary of War Root got 5,000 troops to China, and more were on
the way. Some went directly from the U.S. and others from Cuba, but
many came from MacArthur’s command. When the crisis ended Root
ordered those soldiers en route to China to proceed to Manila instead,
and most of the men already in China eventually followed them.
Meanwhile the American position in the islands had deteriorated.
Making matters ever more difficult, at least from MacArthur’s perspective,
was the arrival of the Taft Commission, headed by William Howard Taft.
McKinley ordered the commission to establish civil government in the
Philippines, and in September 1900 it began exercising legislative
authority, while MacArthur exercised executive power. Since the
president had failed to define the division of authority between
MacArthur and Taft, jurisdictional squabbles soon arose.
Unlike Otis, MacArthur realistically assessed the war and devised an
appropriate strategy that combined “a more rigid policy” toward
guerrillas, greater efforts to protect the civilian population from insurgent
terrorism, and continuing benevolence. In December 1900 he invoked
General Orders No. 100. Issued during the Civil War, the orders had
gained international acceptance as an ethical code for the conduct of
warfare. War should be fought in conventional style between uniformed
armies; guerrillas deserved little mercy, being subject to imprisonment,
deportation, or execution. Although an army should respect the rights of
civilians, two loopholes—“military necessity” and “retaliation”—allowed
commanders to employ harsh measures against those who continued to
resist. MacArthur also insisted on vigorous offensive action, and to carry it
out his troop strength approached 70,000 by early 1901. Before the 1899
enlistments expired, Congress passed a bill in February 1901 increasing
the regular Army to 100,000 men. For the second time a veteran volunteer
force departed while a new force, this one of regulars, arrived. But close
coordination between MacArthur and the War Department allowed the
drawdown and buildup to occur simultaneously without hindering the
war effort.

MacArthur also pursued an old Indian-fighting tactic by recruiting pro-
American Filipinos, emphasized military intelligence, and called on the
Navy for greater assistance. Otis had recruited a few Philippine scout
companies but MacArthur expanded the program to compensate for the
Americans’ inadequate knowledge of local languages, customs, and
terrain. As had many officers in the American west who had worked with
Indian scouts, MacArthur turned to indigenous soldiers reluctantly. By
June 1901 he had organized 5,400 scouts (plus 6,000 Filipino police who
performed semimilitary duties), but the February 1901 Army Act had
authorized more than double that number. The Army organized a
Division of Military Information in Manila to collect and disseminate
timely intelligence data. MacArthur asked the Navy to intensify its
patrolling to sever the insurgents’ interisland communications and the
flow of arms from abroad.
While stressing more vigorous military measures, MacArthur realized
that government based on force alone was not sufficient, that permanent
pacification required the consent of the governed. Thus he continued the
benevolent action program. To nurture pro-American sentiment, officials
formed the Filipino Federal Party, which offered a political alternative to
Aguinaldo’s independence movement. Working closely with the Taft
Commission, the new party organized village committees to combat the
influence of the guerrillas’ shadow governments and helped to pave the
way for civil rule.
Between the fall of 1900 and the spring of 1901, the guerrillas suffered
three stunning blows. In a spirited campaign in which anti-imperialists
accused him of conducting an undeclared (and hence unconstitutional)
war of “bare-faced, cynical conquest,” McKinley won reelection against
anti-imperialist William Jennings Bryan. His victory demoralized the
guerrillas, who could no longer hope that America would soon withdraw.
With carefully calculated timing, MacArthur then initiated his stiffer
policy. Instead of releasing guerrilla leaders, the Americans deported,
imprisoned, or executed them. In the field, Army patrols hounded
insurgent bands, allowing them no rest or sanctuary and isolating them
from their village bases, where larger and better-organized garrisons
provided security. Finally, in March 1901 General Frederick Funston,
leading a company of Filipino scouts, staged a daring raid that captured

Aguinaldo. The next month Aguinaldo issued a proclamation accepting
American sovereignty and calling on his compatriots to end resistance.
Thousands of guerrillas began surrendering monthly, while others simply
gave up the fight and went home. By summer only two sizable guerrilla
units remained active, Malvar’s in Batangas and Vicente Lukban’s on
Samar.
Capitalizing on the insurgent collapse, on July 1 McKinley transferred
executive authority from the military governor to civil authority,
designating Taft as the civil governor; legislative power remained with the
commission, which now included three Filipinos. Concurrently, Chaffee
replaced MacArthur as commanding general and continued to exercise
control in the remaining unpacified areas. One of the civil government’s
first acts was to establish a Philippine Constabulary, officered by
Americans but manned by Filipinos and separate from the Army’s scouts
and the municipal police. By January 1902 the constabulary had 3,000
enlisted men, who maintained order in pacified regions and allowed the
Army to concentrate where guerrilla bands were still active.
The final pacification campaigns on Samar and in Batangas were brutal.
The ghastly massacre of a U.S. infantry company at Balangiga, Samar, in
September 1901 whipped Americans into a vengeful fury. Chaffee
believed that “false humanitarianism” was responsible for the massacre;
now, he said, if the troops followed his instructions “they will start a few
cemeteries for hombres in Southern Samar.” The commanding general
gave the pacification task to Jacob H. Smith, known for good reason as
“Hell Roarin’ Jake.” Smoke from burning villages and crops marked the
progress of Smith’s troops on the island. Meanwhile Chaffee ordered J.
Franklin Bell to pacify Batangas. Believing that “it is an inevitable
consequence of war that the innocent must generally suffer with the
guilty,” Bell rigidly enforced General Orders No. 100 and kept up to
4,000 troops scouring the province, fighting Malvar’s men, destroying
crops and livestock, and herding more than 300,000 civilians into
concentration zones. “General Bell does not propose to starve these
people as Weyler did the Cuban reconcentrados,” editorialized a pro-
administration newspaper, and imperialists echoed the theme. But one
commander called the zones “suburbs of hell,” and widespread suffering

occurred in them as people lived without adequate food and shelter and
thousands died of disease.
By April 1902, Lukban and Malvar had surrendered and Samar and
Batangas had been pacified. These final campaigns were atypical of the
pacification effort, which, like the Filipinos’ guerrilla warfare, varied from
place to place. While none were pretty, no previous regional pacification
efforts rivaled this late-war ugliness.
However, persistent charges throughout the war that American troops
had committed atrocities, reinforced by the Samar and Batangas episodes,
provoked an anti-imperialist backlash and prompted Senator George F.
Hoar to request a special investigating committee. The Republican
majority persuaded him that the Senate’s standing committee on the
Philippines should undertake the investigation. Chaired by the imperialist
Henry Cabot Lodge, who had faint patience with those who criticized
American soldiers, the committee held sporadic hearings between January
and June 1902. The committee ensured that friendly witnesses
predominated, badgered hostile witnesses, barred the public, issued no
final report, and allowed only pet reporters access to its findings. The
hearings did expose some instances of American misconduct, as even
friendly witnesses sometimes made damaging admissions, but Lodge was
generally successful in limiting the investigation’s scope in order to
prevent a full-scale review of the administration’s war policy, and the
antiwar furor quickly subsided. An era of romantic nationalism made
sustained criticism of the nation’s “duty” to spread civilization difficult,
and most Americans had trouble remaining morally indignant about
events seven thousand miles away involving a nonwhite race. People also
found it difficult to criticize success, and on July 4, 1902, President
Roosevelt proclaimed a successful end to the war.
The United States had crushed Aguinaldo’s dream of an independent
republic. The successful conquest resulted from a combination of strong
military force and wise political action. As American soldiers soundly
defeated the guerrillas, benevolence and the Federal Party won popular
support. The Americans swiftly integrated the revolutionary leadership
into the civil government, while the constabulary, assisted by the scouts
and the greatly reduced American garrisons, maintained peace. But the
cost had been high. The financial tab was $400 million, twenty times the

price paid to Spain for the islands. More than 125,000 troops saw service,
of whom approximately 4,200 died (approximately 1,000 of them in
action) and another 2,900 were wounded. Approximately 20,000 Filipino
soldiers also died.
Combatants were not the only ones who suffered. Civilians in certain
regions, such as Batangas, endured a demographic catastrophe for which
the war was only partly responsible. An outbreak of rinderpest (a disease
that killed cattle and carabaos) not only reduced the number of
agricultural workbeasts but also compelled malaria-carrying mosquitoes
that preferred bovine-blood meals to bite humans instead. The workbeast
shortage and wartime disruptions reduced rice production, so the people
ate imported thiamine-deficient polished rice rather than nutritious home-
grown varieties. Malnourishment weakened their immune systems,
making the populace unusually susceptible to malaria and other
potentially fatal diseases. Bell’s concentration policy fueled the death rate,
since microparasites were rapidly transmitted from one host to another in
the overcrowded conditions.
Although most officers wholeheartedly embraced the war, a few
questioned its justness and wisdom. One general referred to it as an
“unholy war” and another believed that the United States had “ruthlessly
suppressed in the Philippines an insurrection better justified than was our
Revolution of glorious memory.” Others feared that expansion weakened
rather than strengthened American security, and the question of how to
defend the islands baffled strategists for decades to come. Even Teddy
Roosevelt soon perceived that the Philippines were America’s “heel of
Achilles.”

TEN
Building the Military Forces of a World
Power, 1899–1917
With uncharacteristic restraint, Theodore Roosevelt assessed American
military policy at the dawn of a new century: “I believe we intend to build
up a good navy, but whether we build up even a respectable little army or
not I do not know; and if we fail to do so, it may well be that a few years
hence . . . we shall have to learn a bitter lesson. . . .” Even though he had
more insight into world politics than most of his countrymen, Roosevelt
could not have predicted in 1900 that in less than two decades the United
States would be embroiled in a world war or even that the nation would
enter that war with standing forces beyond the imagination of
policymakers in the nineteenth century.
However inadequate those forces were, they represented a
fundamental change in American policy. The shift in policy produced an
essential dependence upon a standing battlefleet to protect the United
States from foreign invasion and reduced dependence upon coastal
defense artillery and fortifications, backed by military forces. It also
increased dependence upon the Navy and the regular Army for military
tasks beyond the continental United States. At the same time, the political
elite gained increased confidence in the skill and political neutrality of the
Army and Navy officer corps and became more willing to institutionalize
military advice and accept military professionalism as compatible with
civilian control. Both groups shared an interest in the reform of the militia
as the nation’s reserve force for land operations and the creation of federal
reserve forces for both naval and military mobilization in case of a major

war. They also urged the accelerated application of new technology to
military operations, especially improved ordnance, the internal
combustion engine, the airplane, and electronic communications. The
reasons for increased American military preparedness in the early
twentieth century can be reconstructed with some certainty. The nation’s
political elite feared that great power international competition (largely,
but not completely, economic) had increased the likelihood of war.
Imperial rivalries around the globe threatened to involve any number of
major nations. Although such rivalries were hardly new, the introduction
of efficient steam-powered warships and large passenger liners and
merchant vessels made transoceanic military operations a possibility. In an
era of rampant nationalism when “insults” to the flag, the destruction of
private property, and physical assault upon foreign citizens could stir both
elite and popular demands for punitive military action, small conflicts in
Asia, Africa, and Latin America became more common and carried the
seeds of larger wars. Imperial rivalries over the creation and protection of
colonies offered similar perils.
The cornerstone of American military policy remained, however, the
defense of the United States. Unlike their European contemporaries,
American policymakers did not worry excessively about land invasions,
since the United States enjoyed amicable relations with Great Britain,
which meant that the Canadian border did not require more than routine
policing. Mexico until 1910 was ruled by a friendly dictator, Porfirio Diaz;
when his regime collapsed, so too did the Mexican armed forces. Even
though the Mexican revolutionaries bore no love for the United States,
they used their limited military forces against one another with few
exceptions. Whatever major threats the United States faced had to come
from the sea and from naval powers like Great Britain, Germany, and
Japan. The worst threat (but least likely) was that a major power would
launch a naval assault, perhaps accompanied by a limited land campaign,
against a major American seaport city like San Francisco or New York and
then hold the city for diplomatic advantage. The more likely threat was
that a major power would penetrate the northern half of the Western
Hemisphere, a fear traditionally expressed in the Monroe Doctrine. In
specific geographic terms, American policymakers worried about the
newly annexed Hawaiian Islands, the Isthmus of Panama, where they

intended to build a canal, and the unstable nations of the Caribbean. They
saw Alaska as relatively safe, since its weather and terrain made it
unappealing to foreign powers searching for bases. Revolutionary Mexico
drew more concern because various Mexican factions flirted with
Germany as a source of military support against possible American
intervention.
The defense of the continental United States, then, seemed to rest on
the ability to mount immediate military operations to defend Hawaii, the
Canal Zone, and Puerto Rico or to preempt any foreign power that
attempted to establish a new military presence in places like the Virgin
Islands, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. Entangled with issues
of economic advantage, republican sentiment, and the belief in national
self-determination, the policy of the United States toward nations of the
hemisphere did not rest entirely upon military considerations.
Nevertheless, it required military forces that did not depend upon
mobilization and formal declarations of war. Therefore, the American
government had to assume that military action beyond the nation’s
borders—whether those operations were limited or became the opening
moves of a general war—would require larger and more effective regular
forces. One of the primary concerns of American defense policy before
World War I became the creation of a ready reserve force that could be
sent beyond the nation’s borders.
American military policy in the Far East had two challenges: The
defense of the newly annexed Philippine Islands and support of the
“Open Door” diplomacy designed to preserve the political and territorial
integrity of China. In the face of European competition and the militancy
of a modernizing Japan, the two concerns were linked. Although
American policymakers viewed Russia, Great Britain, and Germany as
diplomatic problems in Asia, they were most concerned with Japan,
especially after the Japanese upset the balance of power by signing a
mutual security treaty with Great Britain in 1902 and then defeated Russia
in the war of 1904–1905. Adopting British and German military
equipment and techniques but grafting these modern military capabilities
upon modified samurai traditions, Japan defined its new international role
as one of economic expansion in China and the liberation of Asia from
European (and American) colonialism. The mistreatment of Japanese

immigrants in the United States provided an additional irritant. The
United States, on the other hand, viewed itself as the champion of an
independent and reformed China. It also had no intention of surrendering
the Philippines to another foreign power, Asian or not, particularly after
making sizable financial, human, and emotional investments in governing
the islands. American imperial impulses—a strange amalgam of
humanitarianism and cultural arrogance—dictated that the future of
China and the Philippines follow an American path.
The difficulty with backing the “Open Door” policy with military
forces stationed in the Philippines and China was that the national stake
in Asia did not seem worth the cost. At least, so it seemed to a substantial
portion of Congress, the attentive public, and the officer corps of the
Army and Navy. Since the United States could not find a suitable way to
divest itself of the Philippines or to sever its missionary and economic ties
with China, it faced an unsolvable strategic problem: How could it extend
its limited military forces-in-being across six thousand miles of ocean to
defend interests its citizens probably regarded as insufficient to fight for?
The “Philippine problem” was to distress military planners for decades to
come.
The Rise of American Military Strength 1899–1917
Department of the Navy
  EXPENDITURES (IN
MILLIONS)
STRENGTH NAVY STRENGTH MARINE
CORPS
MAJOR COMBATANT
VESSELS*
1899 $64 16,354 3,142 36
1904 $102 32,158 7,584 29
1908 $118 42,322 9,236 62
1912 $135 51,357 9,696 64
1916 $153 60,376 10,601 77
War Department
  EXPENDITURES (IN
MILLIONS)**
STRENGTH U.S.
ARMY
STRENGTH NATIONAL
GUARD
 
1899 $299 80,670 100,000 est.  
1904 $165 70,387 115,937  

1908 $175 76,942 111,000  
1912 $184 92,121 121,852  
1916 $183 108,399 132,194  
*Battleships and cruisers with 6-inch or larger main batteries. Monitors not included.
**Civil projects by the Corps of Engineers included in the budget.
The United States probably would have had to readjust its military
policies without the war with Spain in 1898 and the territorial annexations
that accompanied the war, but the nation’s imperial spasm dramatized
both the utility of military force and the nation’s relative unpreparedness
to face any state more formidable than Spain. The defense of the
Philippines and the Caribbean (and the projected canal) demanded that
military reform come quickly. Certainly, the new possessions complicated
defense planning and forced the pace of naval expansion and the
emphasis on ready land forces. The result was two decades of accelerated
military change.
Building a Great Power Navy
Halfway through the nation’s two-decade drive toward “a Navy second to
none,” President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907–1909 sent the American
“Great White Fleet” on a dramatic, globe-circling cruise. Although the
voyage had some bearing upon America’s disputes with Japan and the
president’s request for more battleships, the cruise had greater symbolic
purposes. Although TR’s sixteen battleships did not send up the
appropriate signal flags, the message to the world could not have been
clearer: The United States had come of age as a world naval power and
viewed the battlefleet as the nation’s first line of defense and primary
military instrument of great power diplomacy.
Like its potential adversaries, the United States Navy was a battleship
navy. By the outbreak of World War I, the American battlefleet, which
had undergone both modernization and expansion, was superior to all
other naval forces except the Royal Navy and the German High Seas
Fleet. From a force of eleven battleships in 1898, the battleline of the U.S.
fleet had increased to thirty-six vessels by 1913. With fluctuations tied to

congressional perceptions of the available money and the international
situation, American battleship building held a relatively steady course for
almost twenty years. During Roosevelt’s administration, Congress
normally authorized at least two new battleships a year. It cut the program
to one ship only once and often authorized as many as four (and once five)
new vessels. During the presidencies of William Howard Taft and
Woodrow Wilson the authorizations up to 1916 focused on replacing the
older battleships at a rate of one or two a year, which stabilized battleship
numbers but increased the fleet’s capability.
Battleship construction in the same period reflected the quickening
pace of technological progress, especially in the strength of armor plating,
the fabrication of heavy naval guns, the destructiveness of explosives, and
the power of marine engines. Battleships became larger, more lethal, and
more expensive. In size American battleships began the century in the
10,000- to 15,000-ton range but reached 31,000 tons in 1914; their cost
soared from $5 million to $15–20 million each. With larger bunker
capacity (first for coal, then oil), their ranges became transoceanic. Their
main batteries increased in numbers and caliber until the standard
battleship mounted ten or twelve guns of 12 or 14 inches in diameter; the
larger guns both increased the weight of a broadside and improved ranges
from 6,000 to 20,000 yards. Since the technological improvements of the
era were shared by all the naval powers, the American building program
also shared the universal insecurity about obsolescence and relative
effectiveness. This insecurity was fed in 1906 when Great Britain
launched the first true all-big-gun capital ship, HMS Dreadnought.
Demonstrating dramatic improvements in speed, firepower, and armoring,
Dreadnought accelerated the naval arms race. Naval analysts divided the
world’s battlefleets into pre-Dreadnought and post-Dreadnought
categories. The United States, which was already shifting to the all-big-
gun ship in 1906, more than kept pace. In 1914 the American fleet
boasted fourteen post -Dreadnought battleships.
The growth of the American battlefleet also demonstrated significant
changes in the political and strategic foundations of American naval
policy. The political coalition that supported the “new Navy” of the 1890s
broadened and deepened in the federal government and the public. At
the point of political attack strode Roosevelt (and, more reluctantly, Taft

and Wilson), a coalition of internationalist Republican and Democratic
senators and congressmen, industrialists with an economic stake in
navalism, Navy officers, and several public interest groups, especially the
Navy League, formed in 1903.
Of particular significance within the Navy Department was the
institutionalization of professional advice from line officers, who were
enthusiastic naval builders but also critics of many aspects of fleet
modernization. Before 1898 and to some degree thereafter, such long-
range planning as occurred came from officers assigned to the Naval War
College, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and the Bureau of Navigation.
In 1900 Secretary of the Navy John D. Long created a General Board of
senior officers to consolidate professional advice, and the General Board
became the central agency for coordinating war-planning and building
programs. The General Board consistently requested more vessels than its
civilian superiors would approve; between 1900 and 1914 it asked for 340
vessels but received only 181. In 1910–1913 it caused a public stir by
setting American modern battleship strength at forty-eight, more ships
than the government thought it needed or could afford. Presided over by
Admiral George Dewey, the hero of Manila Bay, the board emerged as a
force for fleet modernization and expansion.
To some Navy officers, collectively labeled the “Young Turks,” the
General Board did not provide sufficient line influence over Navy policy,
and the period of naval expansion was accompanied by bitter arguments
over Navy Department organization. On some issues there was consensus.
The naval reformers, for example, agreed that sea power meant a battle-
fleet-in-being, ready for a decisive ocean duel with its enemy. By 1907, the
Navy had abandoned its traditional far-flung squadron deployments and
concentrated most of its battleships in Atlantic waters. The only units
deployed outside the hemisphere had old battleships, a few cruisers, and
smaller vessels.
The Young Turks, led by such aggressive officers as Henry C. Taylor, A.
O. Key, William S. Sims, William F. Fullam, Bradley Fiske, Ridley
McLean, and Washington I. Chambers, lobbied for line-reformer
influence. By 1915 the organizational reformers had made some limited
progress in the face of civilian skepticism and Navy conservatism. In 1909
they scored a minor victory when Secretary of the Navy George von

Lengerke Meyer created a group of “naval aids,” staffed with Young
Turks, to give advice, spur the General Board, and evaluate fleet
readiness. Meyer’s Democratic successor, Josephus Daniels, reluctantly
approved the creation of the post of chief of naval operations to replace
the aids in 1915, but he filled the job with a traditionalist admiral, William
S. Benson. Nevertheless, the CNO’s immediate staff continued to be a
focal point for improved fleet efficiency and replaced a system of personal
influence with bureaucratized policy advising.
The reformers’ demand that the line officers who would command the
fleet in war receive more power reflected concern about real problems.
For all its dramatic appearance, the Great White Fleet was not as effective
as it might have to be. The battleships themselves showed distressing
technical deficiencies. Their armor was often placed too low on the hull,
and turrets received too little protection. The vessels had too little
freeboard, which meant that heavy seas made manning the lower turrets
and aiming guns difficult. The turrets did not have effective baffles to
keep burning debris from reaching the powder magazines below;
catastrophic explosions in 1904 and 1906 on American battleships caused
a clamor for naval reform and temporarily threatened TR’s building
program. Line officers were equally aware that the fleet lacked adequate
numbers of sailors to man the new vessels. Despite a dramatic increase in
the size of the Navy from 16,354 (1899) to 60,376 (1916), each ship
normally lacked about 10 percent of its complement. The shortages were
especially acute among petty officers and the skilled technicians needed to
operate the new machinery. The recruiting service did not have enough
manpower, money, or authority; the efforts of Secretary Daniels to sell the
Navy as a great vocational education school and laboratory for social
uplift did make recruiting somewhat easier. Naval planners also worried
that the Navy did not have a “balanced” fleet for wartime operations.
Although Congress would buy battleships, it would not fund adequate
numbers of smaller vessels. By 1916 the General Board calculated the fleet
was short 125 cruisers, destroyers, and auxiliary vessels.
The whole question of battlefleet support—especially the issue of bases
—demonstrated the political limits to naval planning. In sum, the Navy
had too many bases in the United States and too few bases abroad,
measured by the projected war plans. Traditionally, a major naval base had

the necessary dry docks, machinery, and workshops needed to overhaul a
battleship completely. By such criteria, the United States had ten major
continental bases before World War I, while the much larger Royal Navy
had only six. Navy planners knew that American facilities were excessive,
but Congress regarded base building and manning as attractive patronage.
New bases at Charleston and Bremerton, Washington, supplemented by
smaller facilities at San Pedro and San Diego, California, gave the Navy
more than enough shore support by 1916. The continental base structure
was dramatically enhanced in 1914 when the Panama Canal opened, since
the canal cut transit time from coast to coast by two-thirds.
The Navy’s search for bases abroad was frustrated by the State
Department, which thought base building bad diplomacy, and Congress,
which thought base building bad spending. Although the Navy sought a
base in China, the diplomats ruled that this policy did not conform to the
Open Door and stopped the movement. Interservice disputes stopped
plans to build a major base in the Philippines. The Navy chose Subic Bay
on the west coast of Luzon as its preferred site. The Army reported that it
could not defend the base from a land attack; Subic Bay would be another
Port Arthur, the “impregnable” Russian port in Manchuria that had fallen
to the Japanese army in 1905. The Navy rejected the Army’s choice,
Cavite peninsula in Manila Bay, since the old Spanish base had neither
adequate base facilities nor anchorages for the fleet. Although the Navy
eventually maintained facilities at both Subic and Cavite, it agreed in 1909
to build its major Pacific base at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii. This
decision did not immediately loosen congressional purse strings, and it
further limited the Navy’s enthusiasm for defending the Philippines.
Since the Caribbean was close enough to the Navy’s Atlantic coast
yards to make major bases unnecessary, the Navy sought instead a system
of operating bases and stations there that would support wartime
operations against either Britain or Germany. It was only partially
successful in enacting its plans. Although the United States had the rights
to two bases in Cuba, it built only one at isolated Guantanamo Bay, since
the diplomats vetoed as too provocative plans for another at Havana.
Diplomatic considerations also stopped plans for a base in Haiti or Santo
Domingo. The annexation of Puerto Rico in 1899 and the Virgin Islands
in 1915 gave the United States uncontested access to base sites in the

eastern Caribbean, but the harbor at San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the
Virgin Islands’ coves were not suitable for major fleet use.
Unable to secure forward bases in either the Pacific or the Caribbean,
the Navy considered an alternative tactic, establishing temporary, or
“advanced,” bases in the early stages of a naval campaign. Although the
Navy was not satisfied with the numbers or sizes of its auxiliaries (colliers
and oilers, ammunition ships, supply vessels, transports, and floating
tenders and machine shops), it thought it might find such vessels in
wartime in the American merchant fleet. It could not, however,
completely extemporize a force to defend a forward operating base. In
1900 the General Board turned to the Navy’s sister service, the Marine
Corps, and asked that the Corps reorganize and train for advanced base
operations. Despite some modest experiments in emplacing harbor
defenses, the Corps did not establish an Advanced Base Force until 1910,
and it did not conduct major exercises until 1912. Marine traditionalism
and the manpower and financial demands of garrisoning the increased
number of naval stations abroad dampened Corps interest. The limited
exercises and theoretical studies done by Navy and Marine officers,
however, demonstrated the need for such a force. In theory, the Advanced
Base Force would occupy an undefended harbor and then defend it from
sea attack with stationary heavy guns and mines. Its mobile infantry and
artillery would stop a land attack. The Navy would provide monitors,
torpedo boats, and a few cruisers to assist the sea defenses. Convinced
that the advanced base concept offered the Corps an important wartime
role, a cadre of Marine officers became articulate spokesmen for
improving the Navy’s ability to establish forward operating bases, but the
actual forces for such operations did not develop rapidly.
Elsewhere in the Navy, other officers and civilian innovators examined
the potential of new technology to reshape naval operations. Two novel
developments—the submarine and the airplane—suggested that future
naval warfare might occur above and beneath the seas, not just between
rival battlefleets dueling upon the ocean’s surface. Although the first
submarines appeared in experimental form in the late eighteenth century
and the first successful submarine attack on a warship occurred in 1864
during the American Civil War, the Navy did not commission its first
submarine until 1900. Naval conservatism in this case did not rest on a

lack of mission, since the submarine (more properly, the “submersible”)
was an attractive weapon for close-to-shore coast defense. The difficulties
were largely technological, primarily the development of adequate
powerplants and torpedoes. The difficulty was that technological progress
depended upon government funding, since submarines had no special
commercial attractions. In the United States the submarine champion, the
aging eccentric John R. Holland, took some twenty years and six models
to prove that he had an answer to the propulsion problem. Essentially,
Holland coupled the internal-combustion engine for surface cruising with
battery-powered electric engines for submerged attacks. Attendant
problems in designing pressure hulls and ventilation systems slowed
adoption of the submarine; early crews seemed to have little choice
between carbon monoxide and chlorine gas asphyxiation. Submariners
were constantly in fear of a break in their hull, which could submerge
their vessel permanently. Nevertheless, the submarine remained a
relatively cheap coastal defense weapon, and the Navy had thirty-four
boats by 1914, twelve of them modern diesel-powered vessels of 500 to
700 tons, or five times larger than Holland’s experimental boats. At the
time, the United States was the world’s fourth-strongest submarine power.
Although the Navy watched the often comical and futile efforts to fly
with detachment, its interest increased after the Wright brothers’ flight in
1903 and flowered in 1910 when Captain Washington I. Chambers and
inventor Glenn Curtiss formed an effective coalition of naval aviation
enthusiasts. In terms of mission, the aviation champions thought of
airplanes as reconnaissance and naval gunfire scouting craft. Technically,
this role meant that some method had to be found to fly an airplane off a
ship and then recover it. In 1911 Congress gave the Navy $25,000 for its
first three experimental planes after a civilian test pilot successfully flew a
Curtiss aircraft off a warship the year before. With pontoons and a hoist,
an airplane could also be recovered. Nevertheless, the “hydroaeroplane”
force developed slowly because aircraft themselves were expensive, and
the development of a force of pilots, bases, and supporting establishment
suggested costs that naval planners and Congress were not willing to pay.
Part of their reluctance stemmed from the fact that the airplanes of the
day did not have the power to drop bombs that would sink a warship.
Although experiments with the electric torpedo (used by both surface

ships and submarines) suggested that an airplane might someday have an
attack capability, aviation enthusiasts did not have much success in selling
the airplane as the future ultimate weapon of naval warfare. Even though
they proved that an airplane could land on a warship with the help of
arresting gear, which suggested that heavy bomb carriers could be
developed free of the seaplane-hoist mode, naval aviators could muster
support only for an aviation force linked to the reconnaissance mission.
On the eve of World War I the Navy had only eight aircraft and thirteen
officer-pilots. In fact, public and official interest supported the use of
dirigibles for naval aviation tasks. With the responsibility for aviation
policy divided between several of the traditional technical bureaus, the
future of Navy flying ranked well below other Navy Department concerns.
In 1915, however, the Navy’s aviators and their civilian colleagues had
made sufficient progress to win General Board and congressional support
for a more ambitious commitment to naval aviation. Its interest
heightened by the world war, Congress appropriated $1 million to create
and support a force of fifty airplanes and three dirigibles. This program
was still in its earliest stages when the U.S. Navy went to war in 1917.
The U.S. Navy between 1898 and 1917 increased its capability to
engage the fleet of any other major power, but it could do so only if the
decisive fleet action occurred north of the equator, close to the Navy’s
bases in the continental United States. The United States did not have the
resources to conduct major wartime naval operations in the western
Pacific, and its dominance in the Caribbean might be secure in peacetime
but not, perhaps, in wartime. Holding the Panama Canal remained critical
to operations in either ocean. In addition, the Navy retained its battleship
orientation, since naval politics within the service and the federal
government produced no other consensus. The fleet-in-being was not
balanced for wartime needs and required augmentation with merchant
vessels and wartime construction in order to provide sufficient numbers of
cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and auxiliaries. Neither submarine nor
aviation development had yet reached the point of challenging the great
fleet engagement as the essence of naval warfare. While the Navy’s line
officers, whose principal interest was war preparedness, had gained some
influence in the Navy Department, they did not yet dominate

policymaking. The Navy of Manila Bay and Santiago had changed, but so
had its potential adversaries and missions.
Reforming the Land Forces
Despite its victory in “the splendid little war” against Spain, the U.S.
Army entered the new century conscious that its campaigns in 1898 were
“within measurable distance of a military disaster,” as Theodore Roosevelt
characterized the siege of Santiago. For the public, the press, and much of
the Army officer corps the war felt like a defeat, for it had revealed all the
flaws of American land force policy and had dramatized the institutional
weaknesses of the regular Army and the militia (or National Guard) of the
states. Both major components of the wartime Army showed they had not
made the transition from frontier constabulary and strike police. Nor had
the War Department yet reorganized in order to make the wartime
mobilization of citizen-volunteers more efficient. Although the War
Department’s failure, investigated by a special presidential commission
headed by railroader and former general Grenville Dodge, seemed worse
than it really was, most War Department officials and critics believed that
some reform was necessary. Over the content of the reform movement
there was continuous disagreement. Nevertheless, by 1917 the reform
movement had worked fundamental changes in American land force
policy.
Assisted by a close group of Army officer-advisers, Secretary of War
Elihu Root (1899–1904) led the reform movement, which rallied sufficient
congressional and Army supporters to give it momentum beyond Root’s
tenure. Upon taking office, Root accepted the key concept of military
professionalism: “The real object of having an army is to provide for war.”
This axiom became the basic measure of land force reform. Giving this
idea institutional expression proved far more difficult, for the American
political tradition remained hostile to increased military preparedness and
professionalism. An astute negotiator and corporation lawyer, Root knew
and the Army was to learn that the sense of disaster was short-lived.
Before the impetus for reform ebbed, only to be stimulated again by
World War I, the reformers had scored several limited victories in the
name of mobilization readiness.

Coached by Adjutant General Henry C. Corbin and Major William H.
Carter, Root quickly learned that the War Department had to become a
unified center of policy direction rather than three conflicting alliances
based upon the office of the Secretary of War, the office of the
commanding general, and the heads of the various administrative,
technical, and logistical departments and bureaus. Until the War
Department had a single “brain of the army,” as British writer Spencer
Wilkinson characterized a general staff, the planning for war and the
direction of war when it came would continue to be plagued by poor
coordination, jurisdictional battles, and inertia. In an ideal sense, the
model for military management was the German Grosse Generalstab, or
Great General Staff, which military analysts credited for the German
victories in the wars of unification in the 1860s and 1870s. Such a staff,
dominated by line officers, would advise the president and secretary of
war, prepare Army legislation and policies, supervise the activities of the
departments and bureaus, and direct training. Politically, however, a
general staff conjured up visions of German militarism, regular Army
arrogance, and executive branch tyranny.
Outflanking his opponents, Secretary Root advanced steadily toward a
general staff until Congress accepted the organization in limited form in
the General Staff Act of 1903. Aware that the general staff concept had
powerful enemies within the Army, especially Lieutenant General Nelson
A. Miles, the commanding general, and Brigadier General Fred C.
Ainsworth, chief of the Record and Pension Office, Root moved with
caution. First, he had a board of officers study the question of establishing
an Army War College; the board’s positive report was endorsed and the
war college created in 1900. Root immediately assigned the war college
faculty duties much like those of a general staff and used its officers to
develop and advocate the general staff concept. Then, mustering support
from Roosevelt, a prestigious group of Civil War generals, and reformist
civilians, Root persuaded Congress to accept an Americanized version of
the Great General Staff. The new law replaced the commanding general
with a chief of staff, who would rotate in office every four years, and a
staff of forty-five officers. Some of these General Staff officers, who would
also rotate, would serve in Washington while others served in the
headquarters of the Army’s geographic departments, which supervised the

field forces. The law, however, gave the General Staff only “supervisory”
and “coordinating” authority over the War Department departments and
bureaus, and it did not consolidate the logistical bureaus as Root
advocated. In fact, the law and its subsequent implementation and
modification gave Ainsworth, who became the adjutant general, real
power equal to the chief of staff’s.
Once established, the General Staff did bring some improvements to
the Army’s organization for wartime mobilization, but its power did not
increase rapidly enough to please Army reformers. Among the staff’s
accomplishments were the improvement of officer education, field
maneuvers, contingency planning, intelligence collection and analysis,
tactical organization, and theoretical mobilization planning. When the
United States sent regular troops to the Mexican border in 1911, the
movement was not especially well organized; a similar deployment in 1913
went much more smoothly. An expedition to Cuba in 1906 by 5,000
regulars showed a managerial competence absent in 1898.
Nevertheless, the General Staff suffered many wounds in its early days,
some from enemies, some self-inflicted. For example, the bureau chiefs
still proved fractious and insubordinate, encouraged by their Army
friends and congressional allies. Several chiefs of staff had great difficulty
enforcing policy until Chief of Staff Leonard Wood (1910–1914) and
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (1911–1913) challenged General
Ainsworth’s power in 1912. Maneuvering Ainsworth into retirement with
the threat of a court-martial for insubordination, the imperious Wood and
Stimson seem to have established the chief of staff’s position as the
principal source of professional advice and command authority, but
Ainsworth and Congress immediately curbed Wood and the staff with
inhibiting legislation. When Wood’s tenure ended, he was replaced by less
assertive generals. With the Wilson administration and Congress hostile to
the General Staff, the “brain of the Army” did not prosper. When the
United States entered World War I, the staff had only twenty-two officers
in Washington, mired in routine paperwork and theoretical war plans of
limited usefulness.
If the Army’s “brain” needed fresh blood, its body—the tactical units
with which it would fight future wars—needed more muscle, principally
manpower. Postponing permanent legislation until the end of the

Philippine insurrection was in sight, Congress waited until 1901 to enlarge
the regular Army to 3,820 officers and 84,799 men, and it did not
appropriate enough money to maintain even this force, which fell below
War Department estimates. Clearly some sort of reserve force would be
required to reinforce the regulars in the early stages of war while the
United States mobilized and trained a citizen-soldier army. The
reinforcement mission meant that the first-line reserves would have to
mobilize quickly and be available legally for expeditionary duty abroad.
Ideally, the War Department preferred a reserve force raised, organized,
and controlled only by the national government. Its model was the
German system, which required conscripts to serve first with the standing
army and then in various reserve units for a total of twelve years.
Americans, however, thought compulsory service militaristic and foreign
to their society and institutions, whatever its military benefits. As
Secretary Root and his advisers realized, any reserve system had to rely on
volunteers, and the only expression of military voluntarism in peacetime
was the National Guard.
As it proved in 1898 when it served as the principal recruiting base for
volunteers, the National Guard could provide ardent recruits for wartime
service and some existing tactical structure for their training and
employment. In 1899 Congress rewarded the Guard by increasing its
annual subsidy from $400,000 to $1 million. The Guard’s shortcomings
were equally obvious. Politically, there were as many National Guards as
there were states and territories, all influenced more or less by state
patronage politics, which tolerated aged, infirm, and incompetent officers
to a degree the regular Army (at least the reformers) would not. In terms
of mission and political theory, the Guard tended to fall into four camps:
states’ rights units, “social” units, “law and order” units, and reservists-
for-war units. For two decades, National Guard reformers, represented by
the National Guard Association of the United States, had attempted to
persuade state legislatures to increase Guard subsidies for military
training unrelated to state missions, which were principally suppressing
labor and racial violence. Although the governments of New York,
Pennsylvania, and New England proved supportive, reform at the state
level did not flourish. Disappointed at the limits of state support for the

wartime reserve mission, the Guard reformers turned to the federal
government and found the War Department and Congress sympathetic.
From 1903 to 1912, militia reform flourished in Washington, spurred
by Roosevelt (an ex-Guard officer), Root, Assistant Secretary of War
William Cary Sanger (also an ex-Guardsman), the National Guard
Association, part of Congress, and even regular Army officers. The final
laws disappointed uncompromising Uptonian officers, states’ righters, and
the antimilitary clique in Congress, but they did provide the foundation
for an improved Guard for the reinforcement mission. In 1903 Congress
passed a new Militia Act, whose principal legislative sponsor was
Representative Charles W. Dick, an Ohio Republican and Guard general.
The Dick Act essentially exchanged federal dollars and equipment for
increased Army control of the Guard’s training and organization. The law
recognized two militias: the Organized Militia (National Guard) under
dual federal-state control, and the unorganized mass of males (ages
eighteen to forty-five) that retained both national and state military
obligations in emergencies. Only the Organized Militia, however, would
receive federal monies and then only in relationship to the degree that its
units met federal standards in commissioning officers, recruiting enlisted
men to Army physical and mental standards, organizing units like their
Army counterparts, and undergoing field training. For example, Guard
units could increase federal support by going to summer camp and
participating in maneuvers with the regular Army. Under a complex
funding formula, the more the Guard trained, the more money it received
to pay the trainees and the more free arms and equipment it could
requisition through the Army. In addition, the president could call up the
Guard for nine months rather than three months, but the geographic
limitation to continental service remained. As a beginning, however,
especially when the Guard subsidy increased to $2 million in 1906, the
Dick Act heartened the reformers.
The Dick Act left many issues unresolved, but a second Militia Act of
1908 appeared to address most of the remaining problems. The most
important change was that the time and geographic limits for Guard
service disappeared, but only in return for a provision that Guardsmen
would go to war as units, not individual replacements for Army regiments.
One might have interpreted the original Dick Act to mean that Guard

regiments might be federalized as units, then reorganized as federal
volunteers for overseas service. Guardsmen argued persuasively that
hometown officers and local loyalties gave the Guard its peacetime vitality
and wartime mobilization potential. To check Guard fears that the
General Staff saw it primarily as a pool of individual replacements,
Congress established a National Guard Bureau in the War Department,
whose chief reported directly to the secretary of war, not to the General
Staff.
The Guard reform movement, however, slowed in 1912 when the
attorney general ruled that the provision for compulsory overseas service
included in the 1908 law was unconstitutional. Ironically, the ruling
actually came from the office of the judge advocate general, the Army’s
chief lawyer. Reflecting General Staff–bureau antagonisms, the
conservatism of the Taft administration, and the Uptonianism of regular
officers, the ruling turned attention away from the Guard and back to the
issue of an independent federal reserve force. One effort at this
alternative, the Reserve Act of 1912, allowed regulars to shorten their
obligated active service by joining a federal reserve. Two years later this
“force” numbered sixteen enlisted men. Clearly the United States did not
have an adequate system for wartime mobilization.
The General Staff and reserve force issues tended to dominate land
force policymaking, especially in the civil-military political arena, but the
Army at the same time made halting steps to organize itself for modern
warfare and to come to grips with the new military technology offered by
a mighty host of civilians and its own uniformed inventors. Although
America was rich in inventors, the absence of external threat and public
urgency limited the Army to experimentation and testing. Spurred by the
world war, the European armed forces soon took the lead in finding more
efficient ways to destroy each other with new weapons and organizational
techniques. The U.S. Army shared the exploration for new ways to wage
war.
Organizationally, modernization took many forms. The tactical units of
the Army, principally the thirty infantry and fifteen cavalry regiments,
gradually shifted to posts that could accommodate a regiment or more in
order to improve training. Congressional reluctance to close bases,
however, impeded troop concentration. On paper—and occasionally for

maneuvers and service on the Mexican border—the Army formed
brigades (two or more regiments) and divisions (two or more brigades),
and even the National Guard had a theoretical grouping of twelve
divisions, organized on a regional basis. The Army school system
proliferated in order to accommodate more detailed technical training for
regular officers and enlisted men. After much debate and political
infighting, the artillery separated in 1907 into two separate arms, field
artillery and coast artillery. Field artillery regiments reappeared on
maneuvers, while the new Coast Artillery Corps enjoyed its status by
establishing a separate staff in Washington and successfully lobbying for
increased money for new guns and fortifications. In 1912 Congress finally
accepted the wisdom of logistical consolidation and created a
Quartermaster Department that absorbed the functions of the Subsistence
and Paymaster Departments. The law also provided for a separate Service
Corps of 6,000 men for field and base operations.
To some degree the growing revolution in military technology posed a
bewildering range of organizational and doctrinal problems. Like other
armies, the U.S. Army experienced an era of technical anxiety. In terms of
ordnance, improved metallurgy, machine tooling, and chemistry made it
possible for small arms and artillery to increase their ranges, rates of fire,
and accuracy by a factor of three. In rifles and field guns, the United
States kept pace by adopting the Springfield M 1903 and the M 1902 3-
inch gun. The artillery piece had shells, a recoil mechanism, and optical
sights comparable with the French 75-mm gun, the premier European
fieldpiece. In 1905 the Army opened its first plant to produce the most
advanced smokeless powder. The Ordnance Department also tested a
wide variety of machine guns, including the models offered by John M.
Browning, Hiram Maxim, and I.N. Lewis. Emphasizing the need for light
weight for field mobility, the Army adopted a substandard automatic
weapon, the Benet-Mercie, primarily because it thought the inventors
would soon produce lighter models of their machine guns. In the
meantime, Browning, Maxim, and Lewis guns turned the Western Front
of World War I into a slaughter pit.
The revolution in military firepower posed serious problems for the
battlefield control of tactical units, but the changes in communications
did not keep pace. The telegraph, telephone, and radio had already

improved administrative and strategic communications, but tactical
communications depended upon visual signals and written messages until
the Army adopted battery-powered field phones. With the development
of an indirect fire capability, the artillery led the way in creating phone
systems to link its forward observers, fire detection centers, and firing
batteries. Wire, however, could be laid only as fast as men could walk or
drive (both slow under fire), and it was vulnerable to enemy fire and
careless teamsters.
The smell of oil and exhaust fumes around a few posts announced, too,
that the Army had begun its love affair with the automobile. The military
advantages of marrying the internal combustion engine to wheeled
carriages had impressed the Army as early as the 1890s, but only after two
years of limited tests did the Quartermaster Department in 1906 purchase
its first six cars. More experiments followed, now including the use of
trucks and cars in the field. When one colonel covered the same distance
in three hours by car that he had traveled on horseback in three days, he
vowed he would never again get into a saddle when a car was available. In
1912 an auto-truck test unit drove 1,500 miles and proved that it could
average speeds twice those of mule-drawn wagons. Nevertheless,
motorization faced substantial barriers. Army conservatives feared that
their soldiers would use the vehicles for personal errands and would not
maintain them properly. These proved reasonable concerns. The tradeoffs
in cost and availability of gasoline and spare parts versus forage and
harness perplexed quartermaster planning. Given the primitive state of
American roads, horses looked like a better option than trucks, especially
in the west, where much of the Army still trained and patrolled the
borders. In addition, War Department requirements for field cars and
trucks discouraged commercial builders, who saw no future in small Army
orders. Nevertheless, the field experiments continued until 1916, when
Army trucks got their first real test during the Punitive Expedition into
Mexico. In a daring buy of 500 commercial vehicles valued at $450,000,
the War Department formed twenty-two truck companies, which proved
their worth carrying supplies. The Army stood on the curb of the motor
age.
Like the motorization movement, the Army’s earliest experiences with
airplanes were long on promise and short on performance, but the

operations of 1916 in Mexico revived a flagging commitment.
Discouraged by its fruitless donations to aerial inventor Dr. Samuel
Langley, the War Department’s Board of Ordnance and Fortification
avoided subsidizing the Wright brothers even after 1903 and believed that
dirigibles offered more military potential than rigid-wing aircraft. In 1907,
however, with President Roosevelt’s encouragement, the Signal Corps
formed an aeronautical division and reopened negotiations for a test
aircraft, which the Wrights eventually delivered in 1909. Army-dictated
performance standards proved difficult to meet, but the potential use of
the airplane for reconnaissance purposes kept Army interest alive. The
Army demanded an aircraft powerful enough to carry two persons (one to
fly, one to observe) for 125 miles at 40 miles an hour. Deterred by the cost
and danger of manned flight (the first American fatality was an Army
lieutenant), the Signal Corps conducted its tests cautiously in both the
financial and operational sense. Although Army officers successfully
rigged primitive bombing systems and machine guns on the test planes,
most aviation pioneers (including Billy Mitchell) did not think aviation
technology would soon produce anything other than reconnaissance
planes. Nevertheless, by 1913 the Army could organize a 1st Aero
Squadron in Texas, equipped with eight primitive Curtiss biplanes. In
1916 the squadron deployed into Mexico and performed yeoman service
conducting scouting missions and carrying messages, but soon lost all its
aircraft to crashes or maintenance problems. The squadron’s
performance, however, broadened support for a more ambitious Army
aviation program.
Aviation experimentation, funded by congressional appropriations for
the Army and Navy, sailed along with relative safety and success, then
crashed in both aircraft and funding terms. No one considered pioneer
flying risk-free. Between 1903 and 1910 thirty-four pilots died in flying
accidents. In one two-year period, 1911–1912, however, more than 200
pilots died, many of them pioneers. Control systems and engine
mountings did not keep pace with engine power and the aerodynamics of
faster flight. Aviation development in the United States stalled as Congress
and aircraft designers became risk-averse. The opportunity to exploit the
Lewis machine gun, Speery gyroscopes, and optical bombsights passed.

Between 1909 and 1925 no American aircraft or aviation technology won
a prize at the Paris air show, the showcase of international aviation.
Even without the stimulus of the world war, the Army and the National
Guard by 1916 showed distinct signs of modernity despite the absence of
a significant threat or any widespread public interest in military affairs.
There was no “Great Khaki Army” to excite support, like the Great
White Fleet. With the exception of a few civilian military enthusiasts, the
heart of modernization was the regular Army officer corps, which
depended upon fragile coalitions with civilian political leaders and
technologists to make organizational changes. Modernization, moreover,
could not break free from the expectation that the only war the United
States would fight would occur either in the Pacific or in the Western
Hemisphere. In either theater the enemies could be defeated by the
regular Army and National Guard in the war’s early stages or
overwhelmed eventually by America’s vast industrial and manpower
resources. In any event, the battlefleet might decide the issue before the
land forces even became engaged. While such assumptions proved naïve
in 1917, they rested on political realities that Army officers themselves
shared. In the face of such popular notions, the wonder is not that land
force reform accomplished so little, but that it accomplished so much.
The Armed Forces and Imperial Defense
A major barrier to the modernization of the American armed forces
before World War I was the military’s constant involvement with overseas
interventions. Despite the fact that reformers argued that the Army, Navy,
and Marine Corps should concentrate upon their wartime missions, all the
armed forces found themselves busy with constabulary duties beyond the
borders of the United States. These duties may have provided some
favorable publicity, usually romantic nonsense, but by and large they
distracted the armed forces from training for modern war. As European
military observers noted, the United States had a declaratory policy of
military modernization and national defense, but it had a military
establishment still wedded to imperial policing.
Surveying the wreckage of the Spanish empire in the Caribbean, to
which the United States had administered the coup de grace in 1898,

American policymakers committed their own armed forces in order to
reshape the destiny of the nations in “the American lake.” In the strictest
terms of self-interest, the primary concern was building and protecting an
isthmian canal. But this self-interest did not exclude other rationales for
interventionism, which included curbing European influence, protecting
American loans, stimulating economic growth and international trade
(primarily for American merchants), and encouraging the development of
republican, democratic governments and private and public institutions
much like those in the United States. Although American cultural
imperialism fell short in reality, it kept substantial portions of the armed
forces occupied in reformist occupations.
After the Treaty of Paris in 1898, the Army made Cuba and Puerto
Rico its laboratory for reform but soon surrendered its mission to the
Marine Corps. Since Puerto Rico was an annexed territory, the Army’s
administrative functions passed quickly to a civilian government, but not
before Army officers had begun to reshape the island’s public services. In
addition, the War Department formed the Puerto Rican Regiment, a
regular Army infantry regiment, to provide federal authorities with a
military response to civil disturbances and minor foreign threats. In Cuba
the War Department ran a military government from 1898 until 1902,
when Cuba officially became an independent nation. During the transition
period the Army successfully found a way to curb yellow fever, pioneered
public health and public works projects, reformed the island’s educational
system, and introduced novel governmental practices like efficiency,
justice, and honesty. None of these accomplishments proved transferable,
however, and in 1906 the United States again assumed control of the
island’s government when corrupt elections sparked a civil war. Again,
Army officers led a drive for administrative reform, which ended with the
American withdrawal in 1909. Disillusioned with the tool of reformist
military occupation, the United States took a more limited role in
subsequent Cuban civil wars.
The military also served as the spearhead of American action in
Panama. When the Roosevelt administration decided to exploit
Panamanian nationalism and investors’ cupidity in 1903 and take direct
control of the isthmian canal route and construction, it blocked
Colombian military intervention with Navy squadrons at Colon and

Panama City and landed Marines to protect the Panamanian
revolutionaries. When a highly favorable treaty created the Canal Zone
and heralded the beginning of American construction, the Roosevelt
administration gave the military principal roles in making the canal
program work. The Corps of Engineers—under the eventual guidance of
Brigadier General George W. Goethals—and the Medical Department,
represented by Colonel William C. Gorgas, received the mission to
overcome the engineering and disease problems that had frustrated earlier
canal builders. Both groups of officers succeeded, and the canal opened in
1914. Small naval units and a Marine regiment assumed the initial
responsibility for ensuring order and defense, but the Marines were
replaced by World War I with a mix of Army coastal defense and mobile
troops. In the meantime, the Marines and Navy supported State
Department policies in nearby Nicaragua, another possible canal location
and site of American political and financial commitments. In 1912
American expeditionary forces intervened in a Nicaraguan civil war and
waged active military operations to crush the revolt. A Marine legation
guard remained in Managua to dramatize American concern with
Nicaraguan politics.
Across the sun-kissed Caribbean, the green island of Hispaniola also
concerned the State Department, primarily because its governments
courted foreign intervention and failed to establish effective, democratic
administrations. The neighboring countries of Haiti and Santo Domingo
both proved running sores in American Caribbean policy. Justified by the
Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the United
States would intervene to preempt European intervention, various
formulas for diplomatic pressure and fiscal supervision for both countries
proved unsuccessful in reducing governmental instability. Civil wars in
Haiti in 1915 and the Dominican Republic in 1916 drew Navy squadrons
and Marine expeditionary brigades to both countries, first to break up the
rebel armies and then to impose reformist occupations. In both countries
Marine units, assisted marginally by Marine-created native constabularies,
fought vicious guerrilla wars with rural terrorists. The twin occupations,
which lasted in the Dominican Republic until 1924 and in Haiti until
1934, absorbed many of the Marine units assigned to Advanced Base
Force training and brought no special credit to the Corps, which was

accused of atrocities. The general effectiveness of American military
administration in both countries did not prove publicly appealing or
lasting, and both nations lapsed into dictatorships after American
withdrawal.
Willingly ceding the pacification mission in the Caribbean to the
Marine Corps (“State Department troops,” soldiers called Marines), the
Army did not escape the toils of America’s Latin diplomacy, for from 1911
until 1917 much of the Army’s attention focused upon the possibility of
war with Mexico. While the Mexican Revolution twisted its way to
eventual success, American diplomacy followed the same complex path.
Under the Taft administration, the government tried to seal the border to
gun-runners and guerrilla organizers with scant success. When cavalry
patrols proved insufficiently impressive to the Mexicans, the
administration in 1911 and 1913 formed an entire division of combined
arms in Texas. The first mobilization had little clear direction, but the
second was the first stage in War Plan Green, which included an overland
campaign (à la 1847) from Veracruz to Mexico City. The Wilson
administration considered military intervention seriously, since it feared
German and Japanese penetration in Mexico and found the
counterrevolutionary Heurta regime (1911–1914) distasteful. Favoring a
rebel victory, Wilson committed a Navy-Marine task force to Veracruz in
1914, where the Americans fought their way through the city and
established an occupation zone. An Army brigade from Texas soon
followed, but, assessing the unexpected bloodshed, the Wilson
administration chose to talk, not fight. The American forces withdrew by
the end of the year, but not before the Huerta regime had collapsed.
The Veracruz expedition did not end the Mexican deployment, since
the civil war—now waged between two revolutionary factions led by
Venustiano Carranza and Pancho Villa—spilled over the American border
and spawned lesser political and racial violence along the Rio Grande.
Frustrated by American support for Carranza, Villa’s band raided
Columbus, New Mexico, in March 1916, and killed fifteen American
civilians and soldiers. Wilson ordered the Punitive Expedition of 10,000
soldiers under the command of Brigadier General John J. Pershing, a very
hard taskmaster, into Mexico to destroy Villa’s army. When the Mexican
government sent troops to seal the flanks of the expedition, which it had

tacitly accepted but disliked, Wilson mobilized most of the regular Army
along the border and reinforced it with 112,000 National Guardsmen.
Despite two battles between American and Mexican regulars, both
nations backed away from war, since the Americans had also dispersed
Villa’s mounted columns. As the threat of war with Germany mounted in
early 1917, the Punitive Expedition returned across the international
border, rich in field experience and disgruntled with the ambiguities of
Wilsonian diplomacy.
Across the Pacific other American soldiers guarded the Philippines
from external attack (an unlikely threat) and internal violence (an ever-
present possibility). To discourage any invader, Army engineers began to
fortify and arm the islands at the mouth of Manila Bay, principally
Corregidor and El Fraile, which became the “concrete battleship” known
as Fort Drum. North of Manila, the Army formed a composite brigade of
two infantry regiments, two cavalry squadrons, an artillery battery, and an
engineer detachment as its mobile defense force. These troops, however,
did not bear much of the burden of insular peacekeeping, which fell to
the American-officered regiment of Philippine scouts and the paramilitary
Philippine Constabulary. The most active operations occurred on the
Moro islands of Mindanao and the Jolo archipelago, where Muslim
Filipinos resisted civilization American style. Unassociated with the
insurrectos of 1899–1902, the Moros defended their traditions of slavery,
tribal warfare, and religious frenzies. Some American generals like
Leonard Wood and John J. Pershing enhanced their reputations as the
civil governors and military commanders of the Moro territory, largely by
conducting campaigns to disarm the Moros or to break up dissident
bands. The American “bamboo army”—usually a combination of regular
Army, Scout, and Constabulary companies—began operations against the
Moros in 1902 and fought them through a series of arduous campaigns:
Lake Lanao and Jolo (1903), the Cotabato Valley (1905), Bud Dajo
Mountain (1906 and 1911), and Bud Bagsak Mountain (1911 and 1913).
While these campaigns tempered a whole generation of Army officers, the
battles with the Moros harked back to the nineteenth-century clashes with
the American Indians.

The World War and the Preparedness Movement
The roar of the guns of August 1914 reached the United States in
indistinct tones, but a year after the outbreak of World War I, the
European conflict brought a major reconsideration of American military
policy. By the autumn of 1916 the Preparedness Movement had become a
force in a presidential election and had produced ambitious legislation
that reshaped naval and land force policy. Like all American mass political
phenomena, the Preparedness Movement contained policy contradictions
and antagonistic goals and represented the diverse interests of many
political groups. Nevertheless, it represented the first time that defense
policy in peacetime influenced American politics and involved more
people than a limited policymaking elite. On the other hand, its legislative
products came too late to have any substantial impact on American
military readiness, either to fight World War I or to avoid intervention by
imposing a peace before American entry into the war.
Concerned by the early indecisiveness of the European war and the
German conduct of submarine warfare, American internationalists
(largely eastern, Republican, and pro-Allied) formed a complex network
of preparedness lobbies and began propaganda programs in order to
build support for increased military spending. The Germans cooperated
in the organizing phase of the movement by sinking the British liner
Lusitania in May 1915 and killing over 100 Americans. The Lusitania
crisis shifted American animus toward Germany, awakened a larger
audience to military affairs, and converted President Wilson to
preparedness, if only to stay in front of public opinion. German
submarine warfare also focused public and congressional attention upon
American naval policy, since freedom of the seas was a concept relatively
free of political division that transcended the wisdom of intervention.
Americans who found no attractions in aiding the Allies could support
naval preparedness because a larger fleet could still be an instrument of
unilateral action, foreign trade, and protection of the Western
Hemisphere during and after the war. Interventionists, on the other hand,
saw a new building program as a useful way to mobilize public opinion,
coerce Germany, and hearten the Allies. Building upon a generation of
public faith that the fleet would protect the United States from foreign

unpleasantness, the uneasy coalition of navalists fashioned an ambitious
new plan to give the nation a “Navy second to none.”
As pressure for some sort of naval legislation increased, the Wilson
administration and Congress designed a new fleet-building program.
Abandoning 1914 plans to modernize but not enlarge the fleet, the
administration essentially proposed a five-year program drafted by the
General Board that would have brought the fleet by 1925 to numbers
second only to the Royal Navy and in quality superior to even the British.
After much internal bargaining, Congress approved the General Board’s
plan in August 1916, with the major change that the shipbuilding should
be completely started within a three-year period, thus ensuring a “Navy
second to none” earlier than 1925. Approved by the Senate by a vote of
71 to 8 and by the House by 283 to 50, the Naval Act of 1916 provided
for the construction of ten battleships, sixteen cruisers, fifty destroyers,
seventy-two submarines, and fourteen auxiliaries. The strategic rationale
for the program did not depart from the assumptions of prewar
contingency plans, largely focused on deterring or fighting Japan in the
Pacific and Germany in the Caribbean. The law, however, stated that the
United States would forgo the program if it could find some way to
negotiate freedom of the seas and secure its interests in the Western
Hemisphere and the Pacific through mutual nonaggression pacts. Given
the development of the naval campaigns of World War I, the act had little
relevance to the war itself, since it paid no special attention to
antisubmarine warfare.
Land force reform followed a more controversial course. Discouraged
by the limits of National Guard reconstruction and encouraged by the
enthusiasm of Secretary of War Stimson and Chief of Staff Wood, the
General Staff completed a comprehensive analysis of land force policy in
1912, released in an executive document, The Organization of the Land
Forces of the United States. The General Staff study had two novel aspects:
It was made public, and it focused on the lack of an adequate reserve
force with prewar training. Reflecting Stimson’s and Wood’s faith in the
effectiveness of the American citizen-soldier, the report stressed that the
United States could not fight a major war without reserves drawn from the
citizenry, but it warned that the nation might not be granted sufficient
time to train volunteer forces in a future war. But the idea of voluntary

peacetime training in a federally sponsored reserve system found no
champions in an election year despite its military wisdom.
Coming to office in 1913, the Wilson administration and its
Democratic Congress did not view land force reform as a pressing
national issue. Recognizing General Wood’s preference for the
Republicans and professional commitment to reserve reform, the
administration nevertheless allowed the aggressive Rough Rider to finish
his full term as chief of staff. Wood used the opportunity to sponsor a pet
project: summer military training camps for college students. Surveying
the public sentiment for voluntary peacetime training, Wood saw hopeful
signs in the cadet training programs of the land-grant colleges established
by the Morrill Act of 1862. Even without any promise of a postgraduation
commission, such programs in 1911 had 29,000 male participants. Wood
also knew that the most critical shortage of soldiers in the wartime
volunteer armies was company-grade officers. Therefore, he established
two summer camps for college students in 1913. So successful was the
response from students and educators that Wood held four camps in the
summer of 1914, enrolling nearly 1,000 students. Not accidentally, the
summer trainees, who paid their own expenses, represented the elite of
the east coast and received as much citizenship and policy indoctrination
as technical military training.
The outbreak of World War I gave the voluntary training movement a
welcome stimulus, and Secretary of War Lindley M. Garrison and Wood,
now commander of the Eastern Department, exploited the new sense of
urgency in land force reform. Converted to preparedness by the General
Staff, Garrison sponsored an updated report on readiness, Statement of a
Proper Military Policy for the United States (1915), which proposed the
creation of a federal volunteer reserve force of 250,000 men trained before
war broke out. But Garrison’s “Continental Army Plan” did not impress
Congress, since it smacked of intervention in the world war and relegated
the National Guard to a lower order of federal support. Both
characteristics were politically unattractive, even to preparedness
advocates. In the meantime Wood, manfully supported by new Chief of
Staff Hugh L. Scott, enlarged the summer training program to include
college students and civic-minded business and professional men from the
east coast. Although the summer camp movement took its name from

Wood’s encampment at Plattsburgh, New York, the 1915 camps were
held at four different locations and enrolled nearly 4,000 volunteers.
Despite official and Democratic criticism that the camps were a hotbed of
Republican interventionism, the summer camp movement prospered
under the sponsorship of an impressive array of business, labor,
professional, and religious groups. As Wood himself became more
controversial and outspoken on the issue of compulsory military training,
the leadership of the movement shifted to civilians, especially the Military
Training Camp Association (1916), led by New York lawyer Grenville
Clark.
Nourished by Clark’s astute guidance and heightened public concern
for military preparedness, the Plattsburg Movement reached a new
apogee of popularity in the summer of 1916, when 10,000 volunteers
attended ten different camps held across the country. Although the War
Department supported the camps with training cadres and equipment,
the trainees still paid their own way or received “scholarships” and had no
guarantee that they would be commissioned in wartime. Nevertheless, the
Plattsburg Movement demonstrated the depth of interest in military
training and presented Congress with irrefutable proof that influential
portions of the public were willing to make personal commitments to
peacetime preparedness. In addition, the movement stressed values that
no true Progressive could reject: Increased civic awareness and public
responsibility; the role of military service in reducing class, ethnic, and
regional antagonisms; and the preparation of American youth for
leadership.
Having scuttled the “Continental Army Plan” and thrown Wilson’s
War Department into disarray when Garrison and his assistant resigned,
Congress seized the initiative in drafting new land force legislation.
Correctly reading public sentiment toward some form of peacetime
training, Congress patched together a set of proposals drawn from the
General Staff, the National Guard lobby, citizen preparedness groups,
and a technical-corporate elite concerned about economic mobilization.
The intense cloakroom bargaining reflected not only ideas about
preparedness but also Democratic determination to seize the military
reform issue away from the Republicans and to accommodate the
National Guard. As passed finally on June 3, the National Defense Act of

1916 represented the most comprehensive effort to organize a land force
structure for future mobilization, but it made no special provisions for a
crash preparedness program. Any reform hinting at intervention in the
European war was still too controversial. To interventionists, the act was
“either a comedy or a tragedy,” as one critic described it.
The National Defense Act of 1916, however, contained ambitious plans
for future land force expansion. The regular Army was to grow to 175,000
over a five-year period. Its first-line reserve force would be the National
Guard, which was supposed to grow with the aid of federal drill pay to a
maximum of 400,000. By taking a dual oath (federal and state) upon
enlistment, Guardsmen could be compelled to serve abroad for unlimited
periods of time in a national emergency, but they would go to war as
Guard units, not as individuals. Guard units, however, would not receive
federal subsidies unless they drilled forty-eight times a year at their
armories and attended a two-week summer camp. The War Department
would establish physical and mental standards for Guard enlistees and
retained the right to screen Guard officers for fitness. Behind the Guard
the law did not establish a federal reserve like the “Continental Army,”
but it did provide opportunities for college students and Plattsburg
enthusiasts to receive reserve commissions through the Reserve Officers
Training Corps at universities and through summer training. The reserve
officers would form an Officers Reserve Corps prepared to provide junior
line officers and technical specialists for the enlarged wartime Army.
The new law for the first time also recognized that the federal
government required substantial emergency powers over industry and
transportation if it was to supply a mass wartime Army. The president
could compel any business to give government orders first priority in
wartime. In the meantime, he should begin to study the problems of
economic mobilization, a charge further strengthened with additional
legislation that created a Council of National Defense from within the
cabinet. Although Wilson did not use the council, he permitted Secretary
of War Newton D. Baker to appoint an advisory committee of industrial
experts in December 1916. This committee provided the early direction of
mobilization planning upon America’s entry into World War I.
Together the Naval Act of 1916 and the National Defense Act of 1916
culminated two decades of unsteady but consistent growth and

modernization of the American armed forces. Certainly the two acts
appalled antimilitarists and noninterventionists, primarily because they
believed the legislation was a frightening national affirmation of
bellicosity. Some believed peacetime compulsory service would soon
follow. On the other hand, militants like Theodore Roosevelt and Leonard
Wood recognized that paper reform did not mean real increases in
military capability unless Congress funded the shipbuilding plans and the
expanded, improved Army and Guard. Whether or not Congress would
do so depended upon political events beyond the control of the military
establishment. As commentators of all persuasions debated the meaning
of the acts, German submarines prepared to resume unrestricted warfare
against Allied and neutral shipping. As silent and deadly as a running
torpedo, the European war approached a United States rich with paper
plans and woefully unprepared for the one war it had not foreseen.