Transcripts For CSPAN3 The U.S. Army Before And After Andrew Jackson 20171228

Academy professor. It is titled the army before and afterandr aft after Andrew Jackson. This is about an hour and 50 minutes. Tonights speaker is sam watson, professor of United States and military history at the United States military academy at west point. He has taught for 18 years. He is author of jacksons sword and peace keepers and conquerers on the nations borders and frontiers between the war of 1812 and the war with mexico. It is published by united press of kansas which together won the distinguished book award for the society of military history. Incidentally it is which we are part. He is coed to of the west point history of warfare which won the society for military history he is coed to of the history of the civil war which won the Army Historical foin dags writing award. She also coauthor of the west point history of the american revolution. He teaches on 19th sefcentury warfare and about the american frontier. Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, sam watson. [ applause ] thank you. Do they see themselves as medical officers or military officers in it turned out they saw themselves as a bit of both. I have to give the standard disclaimer that i speak for myself not for the military academy at west point, not for the department of defense and not for any other agency of the United States government. With that out of the way i will try to say a few controversial things or a few things you might want to question your debate and give you some information the armys view of politics and the armys role in politics. Second, the balance between the National Standing army, its not really clear. People department really call it the regular amprmy. Youll see it as army lower case or regulars. Well talk about the Standing Army rather than the mass of malitia and volunteers. So the question of the ball lants between them, the National Standing army to what exat the present time id dit rely on are short volunteers. Here we are talking 1820s and 30s. No really large wars that would employee lots of malitia. The third is that of kmacommand. When they deployed troops to force the cherokee indians to move west or along the border with texas, who commanded the troops . Were they volunteer citizen solarsol solarie solariesol soldiers. He was commissioned during the war of 1812. Then the fourth question is kind of like the armys capability assigned to it. 2k did it increase during and after jacksons presidency . And then within those four topi topics command of forces capabilities. We have perception versus reality. People looking back and thinking the United States in the 19th sefr century, its all malitia or all Andrew Jackson. Then on the other hand we have it which one can never see it. We have scott leaving the charge for the regular army. There is also the question of change versus continuity. It was not very active and not very accountable financially. Neither soldiers or officers displayed the sort of discipline to authority we would expect or desire. Jackson repeatedly challenged dysfunctional dynamics that i explore in my book jack softens sword. All kinds of either insubordination or other forps of displip. So jacksons victory at new or leaps department really make a big difference to that army. It made a difference in how americans perceived military force. The hunters of kentucky to whom they contributed. Scholars would say certainly a lot of accurate rifle mep bn bu some of that artillery was manned by pirates. Much of that was manned by artillery men and some u. S. Navy as well. So theres sort of a myth of the battle of new orleans. The regular army, that National Standing army is kind of doing its own thing. And during the 1820s the army changed quite a bit. There were a variety of favorite pipgtured. It is sported by james monroe. In fact that National Standing army and hopefully professional army, meaning a sort of police force to deter opponents to keep the peace along the borders. But also it is technical experts and educators for maintaining expertise chl expertise. It is also at the Artillery School near the Infantry School in st. Louis. Now that ladder to mention to the army was drawn largely from those to whom the president , secretary of war gave monopolies for more than a decade during the 1820s. During the 1820s Army Officers were politically attuned. They supported president ial candidates like jackson orac or calhoun. So this is sort of an elite politics of general men and government officials. They would write a lot of letters to one another privately. Who do you think is going to be better for the army . Remember how calhoun supported us on this . Remember what jackson said about that . It is a lot of behind the sacens polit politicking. Not really anything but in 1829 many of the Senior Officers, many of that small number of Senior Officers reck plepdommen that. Seeing him that would support more funding for the army. That is usually the main thing that army leaders wanted at that time. We dont think we have enough troops if things break out with the british again for the border with mexico, for the coastal fortifications. When the army when army Staff Officers made plans they would say we need three or four for each of those. They perceived they are always under. Usually they sort of break out one place at a time and they can redeploy to meet the different crises. It is fair to say that in 1828 and 29 a lot saw him like that. Fupding remained pretty tight. An army was only about 5,000 soldiers when jackson entered officer. Both of those regiments were mounted regiments. The american officers would often like to think of charges on their horses with sabers. It was on a very small scale and then those were disbanded. At the end of the decade never really built that force. During the war of 1812 there were a couple and a lot of voluntee volunteers. But at the end of the war of 1812 horses kaug money. The army zlpt any value var by cht they would conduct patrols be you you can imagine they with respect very speerped and not ability to go chasing aptd camping them. So the army had not had much ability to pursue indians west of the mississippi. If the army wanted to catch them to try to intimidate them or force them to sign a treaty or something. So these would prove crucial to new mexico and california. They spent a lot of time mostly d d d d dismounted. Other changes in the army during the Jackson Administration included more nutritious for the soldiers food which reduced mortality. What we mean sheer ahere is adde vegetables and adding different elements to a diet that had been like your classic salt pork, salt beef, you floknow, a lot o dried food and abolishing the liquor. This was a balt plimore publish. They created a weekly for the army. These became centers about military professionalism, military capability, reform tactics. In 1834 or 1835 and then when the second seminole war began, by that point the military magazine was starting to fade. They became sort of the standard. It is if you want to study the second seminole war, that database has army and navy chronical. You could write a book on the seminole war largely from that. Andrew Jackson Department have anythi didnt have anything to do with this. These are really initiatives within the army or responding to a demapd by our you know, Army Officers wanting to write and being willing to buy. They changed it for a couple of years. There is just not enough interest once the war is over. It goes out of business in 1844. So the changes that occurred to the army that i mentioned so far were still largely charges initiated by Army Officers. You had political leaders whether it had been monroe or now president jackson or secretary of war calhoun who had supported the army doing so. They would be saying that. They would say, yeah, sounds like a good idea. But most of this reform was coming from the inside, the actual ideas for the reform with a support of political climate. These were brought on by resur gents largely in the form of jacksons policy of forcing iin indians to leave their land. The schools had to close reducing opportunities to practice and to train larger units of soldiers. This is because they were deployed from the Artillery School it is sort of this you can see here the image of slaifslaifves rising up and attacking the slave holders. There was rumors of slave unrest in 1831. For several years there governors, mayors, state legislate tos, congressmen from throughout the south, mostly the eastern sea board states but also louisiana, they were constantly sending letters to army commanders. There were rumors of savage unrest in our neighborhood. It is to deter any slave unrest. Now, when they actually get rebellion is army is not involved. It did conduct a lot of patrols and kind of showing force in the weeks and months after that they took them part of the way by train and part of the way by steam boat then they all caught cholera in the courseov of doin that. The artillery had to go back doin down to South Carolina to try to in and so by 1832 it was clear they with respect going to be able to an artillery anymore. So what we today call off te tempo well, the army hadnt really grown, so about 5,000. Ultimately conducting indian remove this is the year before the indian removal act but trying to keep the peace or trying to keep the peace between the ipd yans and most indians and whites invading their land and ultimately the seminole war in the 1830s. This is supposed to be james and his troops. Most were trying to deter them from doing something the u. S. Wants. Not just on the western frontier you would think. We have the image of them chasing indians but most of the indian removal and most of the troop deployments are in alabama and georgia and then florida. So this is a very widely stretched and over extepnded army. It gets worse for the army because Andrew Jackson did not permit his kmacommanders when h had commanded a generation. Instead king andrew i used it to make the point that, you know, a lot of people saw Andrew Jackson as a fairly authoritarian leader. He had a mandate from the majority. So i want you to crack down on cherokee and make it clear that, you know, they have to move west, but i dont really want this getting in the newspapers. So i dont want newspapers saying, you know, u. S. Troops use Excessive Force against the cherokee. I dont want the clherokee to actually rebel. It is not to the point they actually repbel. There were a lot more as that were seminole. So the seminole war is difficult enough and there had been a war with the creek indians in alabama we have a high operational tempo and a president who is very impatient, very short tempered with his kma commanders and quick to criticize them. The commanders had to walk a very fine line. Most of them fell off the tight rope in jacksons eyes. So here we have a couple of examples of that. That is kind of the sercenter o the story i would think. On the left we have john. He was charged with basically intimidating, pressuring, coercing the cherokee into starting the move in 1836. He was unsuccessful. Another kmacommander follows hi. He is the best example. It is a conquerors where the ja se jacksonians are pressuring wool and wool is, you know, trying to explain, well, im trying to do that and it didnt work and trying to do this and it didnt work. So, what if i disown the cherokee . What if i take all the weapons . No, no, that might provoke them. Okay. The cherokee want to hold a counsci council . Cherokee hold a council will actually arrest some of them or troops detain some of the cherokee. Son says, no, no, you werent supposed to detain them. Now the newspapers say were pushing too hard. So, wool, like these other officers, was constantly caught between the demands of Public Relations because, remember, the indian removal act had passed by a single vote. The indians would voluntarily remove that they had the choice to remove. Basically, we would show, the u. S. Government would show them wonderful land out in the west and promptly want to move out there and when they didnt, right, according to the legislation pased by congress, well, they could stay and enjoy alabama or florida, but that certainly wasnt jacksons intention and these officers are caught in the middle. So, here on the right we have a rather younger version of duncan clinch who was commanding in florida in 1835. Clinch is constantly sending messages, hey, the seminoles are unhappy. Theyre not going to leave. They do not intend to move west. I dont care if some of their leaders signed a treaty. Most of them arent going to leave. Theres going to be a war. Maybe if you send me troops i can intimidate them and we can keep the lid on here. That falls on deaf ears back in washington. Or, you know, another way to put it it would be the army was busy doing a lot of Different Things because all of jacksons policies so clinch at the end of the year when the war starts clinch complains and gets in a newspaper war with the governor of florida and retires soon after. And clinch then becomes a wig, in other words, an antijacksonian. Here we have Winfield Scott in what i think is probably his best portrait. This is from the army art series of portraits of commanding generals of the army. He wasnt the commanding general of the army at this point, but, still, i think, you have to get good sideburns here. And, you know, scott was also deployed down to florida. Right. They were trying pretty much every Senior Commander in the army at that point in 1836. Heres scotts rival edmund gains, a younger picture of gaines. Probably a lithograph or an engraving from the war of 1812 and gaines, gaines actually rushed to florida himself. Like frontier emergency, i must go there and command the troops. Which caused all kinds of confusion. Jackson scott quickly got into a newspaper battle of sorts with people in florida and the south. Scott was diplomatic enough to sort of get himself out of it, but jackson was unhappy that scott had to crush the seminoles and in that summer 1836, scott is sent to try to cross the creeks. Hes not able to do that. Jacksons really unhappy with him. Gaines, after hes not able to cross the seminole. Hes sent off to the texas border in 1836 and here, again, jackson is saying, well, well its not really clear, we shouldnt say. I shouldnt say that. Its not clear exactly what jackson wanted, but we can infer that jackson wanted to put pressure on mexico. Historians debate this and any number of conspiracy theories. Gaines cept u. S. Troops into northeast, northeast texas like nack doesh he was trying to intimidate mexico. Most of the battles in the war between the texans, the whites in texas and mexico, most of those were in southern texas. Gaines became the esubject. Why are you sending troops into texas . And gaines pretty much wrote back, well, i thought you wanted me to make an impression. Thats not the impression we wanted you to make. Thats getting in the newspapers. We dont want that. So, and gaines was definitely an impetuous guy. So, theres probably some fault on gaines side. But, but in all these cases, jackson had put his generals in difficult situations either denying them of troops or denying them the authority or denying them the autonomy. First saying, okay, heres the mission and then try to micromanage them in performing it. And then he would condemn the media for not being aggressive enough like clinch and scott or for being too aggressive like wool and gaines. Actually, wool got criticized for being too aggressive, not aggressive enough and jackson and his, i think we have to say his henchmen were criticized wool for virtually anything and everything. Although wool repeatedly sought lets go back to wool. Wool here repeatedly sought reassignment, jackson came him on through 1836. And jacksons secretary of war and especially politicians in georgia blamed wool for the cherokees refusal to move west. These had consequences. Wool had been a democrat and gaines who was facing similar mixed criticism from the president and jackson commanded the army in florida 20 years before. Scott was probably already a wig because of his views on society and the economy. And duncan clinch or Zachary Taylor and their views on the society or became, clinch, clinch probably, definitely became a week later served as a congressmen in part of the reaction to the criticism that he had received from jackson and the jacksonian newspapers. Remember this was a period when newspapers were partisan. Newspapers were jacksonian or antijacksonian. When i say jackson criticized or the secretary of war criticized, you know, those criticisms were being echoed and sometimes were being published. The letters were being leaked into newspapers and then you have, you know, what i called a newspaper war. This is thomas sydney jessup. By the time he left office in early 1837, jessup was the only senior officer in the army that remained a democratic partisan. Remember earlier i said in 1828, 1829, many of the armies, didnt have many generals, but senior colonels and a couple generals, they thought jackson would be good for the army. By the time jackson left office, most of the armys commanders felt that jackson had, you know, had pushed too hard and had not given them the professional oug oughtonomy the best way to perform their missions. Very capable officer, but hes not really so much part of my story here. He was the Quarter Master general for 42 years. From 1818 to 1860. And made them much more efficient and effective. He also saw himself as a combat leader. His hand was crippled in 1814 and his right hand was crippled and he used to use his left hand and Quarter Master general without typewriters. Hes constantly writing. He has some officers he can dictate to, but he probably wrote more correspondents than anybody in the army. He learned to use his left hand to write and here during the second war he is leading troops in battle and actually gets his eye glasses shattered by a bullet in, which i guess, managed to go this way rather than this way early in 1837. But, theres kind of a sunny side to this story because the Civil Military friction encouraged most army leaders to avoid partisan politics. Now, obviously, Winfield Scott is the great exception since he is going to run for president in 1852. And, really, as early as 1840 leaders were talking about him as president ial candidate and he was pretty clearly demonstrating his interest in running for the presidency. But apart from scott, most Army Officers, senior Army Officers stopped writing about who will be the next president . What do you think of this guy . You know, would you vote for him . Its not clear to what extent they voted or not. The situation they had in 1820s when officers often wrote to each other i like john c. Calhoun, i liked Andrew Jackson remember how he won the battle of new orleans. They pretty much stopped doing that. That is probably a good thing that they kind of withdrew even privately from partisan politics. So far i have been talking about changes. Some good changes, although mostly not due to jackson and some bad changes, mostly due to jackson. There were also some significant continuities. And this is where y think, perceptions and realities both contemporary and among historians clash the most. Ultimately, i think the changes were greater than, im sorry, i think that the continuities were greater than the changes. In other words, the crucial changes that promoted the armys capability that made the army more professional had occurred during the 1820s before jacksons presidency and after jackson left the army. Right. So, we had that old army that wasnt very disciplined, wasnt very well organized, wasnt very well supplied and wasnt very accountable and wasnt really very effective before the war of 1812, extending into the war of 1812. The army did become more effective before and after the war of 1812, but still had problems with financial accountability, soldier discipline, officer discipline, Andrew Jackson discipline. But they had remied a lot of that during the 1820s after jackson had retired and entered politics. The most important and foundational is the academy at west point. This is the monument to ward who was an early graduate, an 1806 graduate at west point and he was an engineer for jacob brown. On the Niagara Frontier in 1918. He was portally wounded in t september of 1814 and, so, this style is still at west point. Here is sort of the plain and then i think it must have been moved or maybe they filled in some of this depression here. This is still in the West Point Cemetery today. West point remained the primary commissioning source for new officers throughout the jacksonian era. Usually we think other jacksonians and theyre popul t populists and they are often pretty impetuous, pretty radical. They had talked a lot about, you know, west point as the Standing Army as an aristocracy or american chromwel it was Andrew Jackson. But, you know, jacksonian rhetoric was very antiwest point, very antiyou know, authority, very antiofficer corcor corps. So, jacksonian writers, newspaper men, propaganda would say, you know, get rid of west point. You know, all the officers should be promoted unless its soldiers. First be privates and th soldie. They should be citizen soldiers. Not people paid by the government for 10, 20, 30 years. They withdrawal all these parallels to britain. You had officers who were on the half pay list that were semiretired sort of getting a pension of half their pay and be called back into the army and jacksonians would say that is like a government monopoly. That is government privilege. The government is giving these officers money and, therefore, of course, the officers will support the government, right. It will be sort of like a military industrial complex. So, there might be some foresight there. But when it came down to it, the jacksonians did nothing i just suggested. Despite all that rhetoric, west point was abolished. New military academies were not created to train officers for the national army. There were state academies like Virginia Military institute. Several state academies, but, their officers, by and large, didnt go into the army. They went into civilian life. They were usually from wellconnected families and were able to, you know, make their way in politics or in business in virginia or alabama or whatever state they were from. So, during jacksons administration, you know, despite all that rhetoric, jackson did not promote enlisted soldiers to become officers. I think maybe the number bill scoltin came up with was seven. So, you know, the jacksonians did not change the commissioning source. They did with the first and the second dragoons they did appoint, probably say 20 to 30 new officers from civilian life. But that is 20 to 30 out of an officer corps, right, of, 500 or 600. Right. So, the vast majority of the officer corps were still either west point graduates, if they were younger. Right. The lieutenants and the captains and then the senior captains and the majors, the colonels, the feelgood officers. We westpoint hadnt been really effective when they had been coming up. They were mostly war of 1812 veterans. Your officer corps could be the war of 1812 and the younger west point graduates and in theory the jacksonians put in a bunch of maybe democratic partisans. They would use the army for spoils in the spoil system, right, to award their supporters. They did a little bit of that. Army officers thought that they was shocking and they thought it was terrible. But, you know, if we look at it with a little bit of critical distance, it didnt reshape the officer corps. Although jackson intervened in academy discipline, his partisanship did not foster partisanship among the officer, staff and faculty at west point. Again, two possibilities here. It could be that maybe like with scott or clinch to some extent, it could be that Army Officers, it could be the faculty and the staff at west point could say, jackson is attacking us. We hate jackson. We will try to undermine jackson. And subvert civilian authority over the military. But they didnt do that. And, so, although the superintendent did request reassignment. He didnt resign from the army. He requested reassignment and he went off to build coastal fortifications to defend against possible attacks by the british navy. So, he requested and received reassignment but his reforms reforms that basically made the military academy effective and made it something where you would want the majority of officers to come from. Those reforms endured. Ill tell you after. Yeah. The second big continuity is with force structure and command. Forced structure, regulars versus militia and who commands and then the armys capability. In all these deployments whether they were wars or more like intimidation or in some cases i call them peacekeeping. In all these cases, its really the regular army that leads. Right. So, in the second seminole war, they call up a lot of florida calls up a lot of militia. And then all across the south, People Volunteer to fight in florida, but by 1837, after about a year, year and a half in the war, the u. S. Government in 1836 under jackson these volunteers cost too much, theyre not very disciplined, they lose a lot of their equipment. Theres a lot of what they call wastage. So, again, theyre very expensive. Theyre not well trained. You know, theyre not very effective. And the u. S. Government, by and large, try to minimize the call ups of Militia Volunteer and increase the regular number of army troops in florida. Relied on the regular army to fight the seminole war, which you could see in the casualty statistics. So, these guys are examples of kind of jacksonian patronage. This is henry dodge that some believe hes related to dodge motor company, but henry dodge who had been innovating indians land in wisconsin became the leader of the battalion of mounted rangers in the blackhawk war in 1832 and then jackson appointed him, you know, straight from there to command the first dragoons. But the key thing is that in 1836, he resigned, went to become the first territorial governor of wisconsin and his position was taken by a very professionally minded veteran of, you know, at that point, you know 20 years in the, more than 20 years in the regular army. This guy here, william s. Harny had entered the army after the war of 1812. He is sort of an example of a more rough and ready, less professional officer. But when we think of the dragoons or when we think of the army in the 1830s, its not the militia, like this caricature. And ill jump past them. To, here we have, right, our dragoons and then we have steven w. Carney, very professional who commanded the dragoons. Jackson relied on the National Standing army, not those militia. But he relied on the National Standing army to impress, deter and intimidate native americans, mexico and european powers. And the army performed these missions effectively. So, the seminole war proved very difficult. Was also frequently criticized by officers as unwise, unnecessary or even immoral. But then john wool and, so, this is a later picture of wool. John wool helped to avert a war with the cherokee. So, this is john voss of the cherokee, the leader of the opposition to moving west. Wool helped prevent a possible war with the cherokee. Edwin gaines did not cause war over texas and a potential war with britain was avoided in 18378 a1838 and 1840 in part two to diplomacy along the Canadian Border by Winfield Scott and other officers. In both the cherokee and the Canadian Border crises, the u. S. Army served a peacekeeping role trying to prevent violence between antagonistic groups. Deterring potential mass atrocity against the cherokee that militia may have committed and, in often case, often did commit. And providing the most concrete demonstration of american good faith to the british on the Canadian Border at a time when american citizens were launching raids into canada and the british were threatening to retaliate and send their troops to chase those americans back into the u. S. Right, this probably would have escalated and could easily become a disastrous war, right . And, although there was diplomacy, ultimately, the treaty in 1842 but the prelude to all that diplomacy is Winfield Scott and eventually john wool and some of the subordinant officers like William Worth talking with the british counterparts and really, in effect, cooperating with the british to keep american citizens from invading canada and sparking a war. Steven w. Carney here will lead the first dragoons to california about a decade after he became their commander. Now, history or historians or textbooks may better remember john c. Freeman. You think freeman in 1856 the Republican Party candidate and antislivery and, in some ways, an abolitionist. In 1840s john c. Fremont is the pathfinder who is, essentially, you know, trying to find ways to invade mexican territory. Fremont was a political appointee married to a senators daughter. And he helped lead americans in what they call the bare flag rebellion against Mexican Authority in california. But im not showing you a picture of fremont because carney got fremont kicked out of the army. For insubordination and basically clashing over who would command in california. Carney had, you know, he had the rank and he had kind of the letter of youre going to command American Forces in california. Fremont basically said, hey, i got here first and im a real jacksonian guy and my fatherinlaw is a senator, im going to do what im going to do. Carney was able to get fremont courtmartialed and the court, which was a bunch of regular army guys they found fremont guilty and sentenced him to be dismissed from the army. President james k. Polk, who was also known as the Young Hickory because he was such a jacksonian, polk tried, he didnt want that. But in the end, polk let the army, you know, dismiss fremont. So, in the end, during jacksons presidency, the army built on previous reforms, reforms from the 1820s to become more capable. The army remained largely insulated from the demands of jacks jacksonian democracy from its procedures especially de facto control over officer training and commission. So, officer selection through west point. And despite jacksons criticism of the commanders he assigned to clean up the messes that his policies made, jackson and his successors, again and again, pretty much every time, chose the National Standing army and the national Army Officers, not the militia or the volunteers or rather citizen soldiers to lead the nations territorial expansion. Again, to do so without the mass astrosities that citizen officers often inflicted on people of color. Chose scott to intimidate the cherokee and deter the british. After john wool left the cherokee country, you know, unhappily after all the difficulty he had had more difficulty he felt with jackson and the jack sewnian than he did, wool felt rightly or wrongly that he could get along with the cherokee and come to an agreement with them. But after he left the cherokee country, van buren allowed wool to seek a court of inquiry to validate his conduct there. Winfield scott led the court of inquiry. The court of inquiry publicly praised wool, right, and basically criticized wools accusers, particularly some alabama, some alabama politicians and, in fact, the governor of alabama. And wool used the opportunity of this court of inquiry, this public forum to condemn jacksonian policy. Wool got it put in the record that, i think, unconstitutional, et cetera. Right. Which you could view as really insubordinate and also view this is the army taking care of its own, protecting itself, which in one way is what the jacksonian warned about. What it means in practice, a lot of jacksonian smoke and not much jacksonian fire. I would say its better to have john wool criticizing indian removal than it would be to have a bunch of militia and volunteers, you know, raping and massacring the cherokee, as volunteers and militias and vigil antes had done during the creek removal. And, so, finally, in 1846 president polk, the Young Hickory, sent Zachary Taylor on the left here to intimidate mexico along the rio grande border, along corpus christi. So, he doesnt send a democrat, but he doesnt send a volunteer and he doesnt send a militia man or john c. Fremont. I guess fremont was busy trying to overthrow the Mexican Government in california. When taylors campaign in northern mexico had gone as far as it could, you know, because of supply problems moving across the mountains and the deserts, polk tried to get john c. Calhouns father, im sorry, john c. Fremonts fatherinlaw to command the army that would attack mexico city. But the senate demured and polk had to Winfield Scott. So, the Young Hickory, james k. Polk, the most, in some ways the most jacksonian of jacksonians uses two plus carney, its not so clear, but he definitely was not a jacksonian uses him to fight his war in mexico. So, clearly, polk, like jackson before him, believed that he could rely on the army to do what polk and jackson wanted. Right. Even knowing that, you know, taylor, in particular, seems to have disagreed with the war with mexico. But, still, taylor, despite his politics, would subordinately execute the policies made by the constitutionally elected civilian authority. Jackson and his supporters often criticized the National Standing army and commanders at west point, but they relied on that army to achieve their objectives and gave it the authority and, generally speaking, the resources to do so. Despite some friction, the army did so effectively and subordinately. Thank you. And i am supposed to wait for someone else to choose you for questions. Certainly gave an excellent and detailed presentation about the commanders, the officers. Im curious, though, about the rank and file. The troops in the regular army. Who were they . How well were they treated . Why did they enlist . How long did they stay in service for. And, in general, an understanding of who the rank and file of the regular army were during the period youre discussing. The soldiers enlisted mostly as far as we can tell for economic reasons, obviously a wide range of reasons, personal, individual ones, but mostly economic reasons. So by and large they came from farmers or immigrants. It was not regarded as a prestigious occupation. It was seen generally as you were subordinating yourself to somebody else. And, in particular, in the United States, you know, with its the racial attitude in the United States, what weve seen as subserveiant. So, the political culture also saw soldiers that way and the result was a real divide between the officers and the soldiers. And there was a lot of brutality by the officers to the soldiers. Some of that had been legal, like flogging had been legal at least to the war of 1812. Then it was made illegal, but it was still common for officers to casually strike soldiers to hit them, kick them, whack them with the flat of their swords to push them, shove them. And then sometimes as punishments to do things that we would recognize as torture. You know, to have them sit on a saw horse, you know, kind of uncomfortable position. Or sometimes to hang them up by their thumbthumbs. Things we would recognize today as torture. What this meant it aggravated, it intensified that, that perception. So, it became harder. The army wanted, in theory, they wanted to find, you know, native born americans. You know, not immigrants to be in the army. But native born americans would say, oh, wait, the army, isnt that where they treat white guys like slaves . Im not going to do that. So, increasingly, they had to find recruits among, you know, people who really didnt have other opportunities. And then that also meant that most of the soldiers did not remain, the enlisted soldiers did not remain in the army for an extended period of time. The enlisted soldiers, their turn of service varied from three to five years, depending on the law at one point in time and most of them did not reenli reenlist. One reason i didnt discuss them is that officers and politicians didnt really take much account of them. They sort of only got noticed when they became a problem. You know, if they, if they resisted officers violence, that would be a problem for the officer. That would be a larger problem for discipline. So, you might say its surprising they didnt have more resistance by the soldiers. But, this is a period when, you know, even the noncommissioned officers, even the sergeants only average about five years of service. You dont have like a long service, noncommission officer like the way we do today or the way we might think for the war with the indians after the civil war. So, and even the jacksonians didnt really do much about this. You know, periodically the Army High Command would try to launch sort of drives to reduce officers violence against soldiers. So like in the early 180s, jacob brown who is the commanding general and Winfield Scott, they courtmartialed some officers for brutality against soldiers. Usually it went hand in hand in temperance, which is their word for drunkenness. And they got guilty verdicts against some of those officers, but in other cases, the courtmartial, right, the courtmartial is basically you have a jury, right. In other cases, the jury would be, hear all these captains and lieutenants and theyre looking at me, the captain lieutenant and im accused and theyre worried theyre going to get accused. They would find their peer not guilty. And they tried that again in the 1830s. They tried it again in the early 1840s. So about every ten years or so the army would try to, the Army High Command would try to reduce that violence by officers against soldiers. But without much success. And Andrew Jackson didnt step up, the jacksonians in congress didnt step up and say, look, this really shows you. These Army Officers are brutal. They could have made that case, but they didnt. So its ironic, but a strand in the historography that most jacksonian leaders themselves were men from pretty elite backgrounds. Jacksonian leaders were not like ordinary working men or farmers. They own plantations in the south, right. Or they owned businesses in the nor north. And, you know, in practice, you know, didnt show a whole lot of concern for these enlisted soldiers. I have two questions. Number one, sorry. You showed a picture of general harny. Decades ago, i read a book called the compact history of the American Indian wars. And mention something about in the 1850s general harny was involved in some sort of squirmish or whatever and it was a rather humiliating defeat for him. It wasnt disastrous in the worst possible way, but it made him look silly. And then a few years later as the way the book expressed it, that he got his revenge and he led a pretty terrible massacre. Now, number one, is that true . And if it is, id like to hear more about it. And my second question is when youre talking about how the regular army was less likely, not all the time, but less likely to commit massacres against indians than the local militias. Is the sand creek massacre led byshivington a good example of that . Yes. So, harny here, he was not himself humiliated. I think its 1854 the gratin. A lieutenant grattan. He was the one defeated. Sort of became overconfident, you know rsh puxwoknow, pushed a stolen cow . Maybe. Im not sure. But, cow, horse, you know, buffalo. Probably a horse. People would steal horses back and forth. But, harny did see that as a humiliation of the army. And harny, who was much less restrained than, lets say, carney, so, you have harny here. Harny actually fled indictment for murdering a slave woman in st. Louis in the, about 1834, 35 and harny was later reprimanded for pressuring soldiers to fight each other like, you know, bare knuckle for his amusement or for discipline and was accused of having soldiers fight slaves to punish the soldiers. So, this guy is, you know, looks like your grandfather or your uncle here. This guy was a pretty brutal fellow. In the seminole war, maybe this is kind of there are two things. Weve got the 1850s. But back in the seminole war in 1839, he was, you know, he was rough and ready. He was a good, you know, active soldier. He was leading a small party down in south florida, a group of indians surprised his camp at night and he had to flee in his underwear. So, hes swimming through the swamp in his underwear. When he caught several of those indians couple months later, he promptly just hung them from a tree. So, rather than taking them prisoner, you know, taking them back to, you know, sort of prisoner war camps. And then in the 18 so, thats 1839. So, hes got at least indicted for murdering a slave woman in the early 1830s. 1839. 1842, 44, is when he seems to have enlisted soldiers fighting each other and fighting slaves, what not. 1850s, theres this grattan incident in 1854 and then i think its 55 he leads an exhibition that attacks the Sioux Village and sort of just precipitously attacks it, gra gratuitously attacks it really without any regard for the civilians in the village. So, hes a very vengeful guy. But then more generally like your question about sand creek, chivington is a wartime volunteer and, so, most this is a difficult subject because one can say, hey, any atrocity is an atrocity. But if you could make a list of atrocities and especially like out and out atrocities, you do find, like lets say the bear river massacre in 1863, you generally find that it is, you know, it is volunteer troops. Or you find that sort of volunteers who are almost vigil antes or bullies or, you know, what term youd like. You find them like attacking. I referred to the creek camps. When the creek were being escorted west by Army Officers in 1834, the Army Officers write in their journals about how these guys attacked the camp last night because there arent really enlisted soldiers. Just like a couple supply officers who are trying to make sure the creeks got fed. At night, these volunteer vigil ante, not sure what you want to criminals. These guys would go into the creek camps and attack the women and, you know, rob the creeks. What usually happens for the army, i would say, is that you get people like a custard, but also a mckenzie and they will say, you know, what is the best way to catch the indians . Is to attack them at dawn. Right. In their village. In their winter camp. Right. We dont want to its hard for us to chase them all around the plains. Theyre better horsemen than we are. They know the land better than we do. We have a hard time catching them. But throughout American History, and really this is, well, kind of true in counterinsurgency if you like in general. But certainly in American History, where will the indians be . Theyll be in their villages. Theyre either going to have to defend their village in which case we can kill them or kill the warriors, at least. Or theyre going to run away and then burn their village and burn the fruit supply and theyre going to starve. Its a very, a brutal form of warfare whether you call that atrocity or not i think depends on your historic context. People will call it that. One we economic warfare. But people like custer in 1868, you know, like heres the indian village, its dawn. The indians are sleepy, right . We can surprise them. They hit the village. Of course, the village is full of women and children. Now, the soldiers arent being ordered to kill women and children. By and large, the soldiers arent ordered to kill the women and children. I mean, if youve got several hundred women and children in a village and 10 or 15 get killed, thats, you know, tragic and regrettable, but, you know, its not the same thing as lining up 200, 300 women and children and killing them. Kind of like in terms of prisoners, right . We talked about atrocities in taking prisoners. When are prisoners most vulnerable is the moment when they surrender. I had my machine gun and i have been shooting down your buddies for the last five minutes. Finally you get up close to me, i surrender and now to you, you surrender, right . All right, thats the rules or do you get angry and, you know, youre probably already pretty angry and you shoot me. Right. And then do we call that an atrocity and do we blame you and your commander because your commander was not like right there with his hand on your shoulder. Hold up, this guy is a prisoner now. At that point things get a little less black and white. Thank you. By the time of the civil war, a lot of the enlisted soldiers spoke english as a second language. Was that much of a problem at this time . And the other question i have, there never was an effective, lasting treaty with the seminoles, was there . Thats what i understand. So, their tactics were fairly simple. I mean, its basically drill. Stay in the line, shoulder to shoulder. So, i dont know the lack of facility with english was that much of a problem. It did definitely aggravate or deepen that gulf because you would have your native born american officers and they would, you know, they would disdain the immigrant soldiers who couldnt speak english. You know, the anecdote where Zachary Taylor doesnt understand the soldier or the soldier doesnt understand taylor, a german soldier and taylor like pulls him by his ears or pulls him by his nose. You can view that as brutality. You could view that as Zachary Taylor being rough and ready. So, i dont think it was too much of a problem for the armys effectiveness. But certainly aggravated that division between soldiers and officer os. For ending the seminole war, you know, really ended gradually by a whole series of agreements. In peacekeepers and conquerors i called it family diplomacy in which the army would try to convince some seminoles to move and then sometimes they would send those seminoles out to their families to try to persway their families. Hey, look, i realize the americans have a point. You know, the war is really difficult. Were hiding out of the swamps. We really dont want to do that. So, rather than the Army Officers themselves doing most of the persuading or the negotiating, they would try to get seminoles to do it. You know, if you just want to say divide and conquer. And the war basically comes to an end in 1842, just the u. S. Saying, hey, we won. You know, theres no not even really declaring that. But just there are actually still combat operations into 1843. There are a lot of patrols. Theres a collection down in princeton that has a lot of accounts of smallscale patrols in 1843. And then theres that sort of gap from about 1843, 44 into the mid1850s where basically the seminoles, you know, at this point, they were drawn down in the everglades and, hey, we dont want to deal were going to hide out down here. But, as White Settlement was expanding southward, they started to run up against the seminoles. So in the mid late 1850s the third seminole war and that one ends the same way. 1858sh it peters out and retreat deepner er into the swaps. Being 200 or 300 in florida. And, you know, sort of a long period and maybe not until 1890s that you start seeing, i guess, sustained contacts between whites and seminoles, again. So, you know, what i usually say there is in effect some historians will say, okay, so, the army never conquered the seminoles. But, in effect, the army forced the seminoles out of florida. So, you know, for better or worse. But, you know, they, they did prove effective through attrition. We would call it through attrition in achieving their assigned mission. You talked about the intellectual development of u. S. Military. And im wondering, what is the european influence on, you xwkn. They are largely copying french document. Is that correct and if you have anything more on that. By and large, they are copying french doctrine. They are aware of british doctrine. From napoleon, most military officers at the time tended to think of the french as, you know, as kind of the most Capable Military professionals. You know, this is before prussia war. So, prussia was not known for the general staff. But theyre aware of british tactics. Theyre aware of some extent of prussian tactics and, like in 1835, 36 they have a big, long debate in the navy quantical of infantry tactics and its very well informed. Theyre constantly citing 20, 30, 40yearold tactical regulations from these different countries. Now, a larger question implied in that might be, how much effect should that have on the army . There are some people who argue and basically makes the American Army a copy of the french army. What i would say in a deeper argument in both my books is although the u. S. Army saw itself preparing to fight with europeans, like a repeat of the war of 1812 and so they tried to prepare for that. But in practice, most of what they did, you know, was to intimidate or to deter native americans or mexicans or canadians or american citizens, right. So that, you know, whatever extent that their tactical doctrine was french or british. In some sense i dont think is as important as we think because that wasnt their primary mission. What i would say in terms of their developing tactics is that the tactics that really counted. Lets say the horse artillery tactics to have a mobile Field Artillery that plays a big role like palo alto, buena vista. Those are sort of a combination. They had a board and they had officers who would travel to europe. And so they had french tactics. They had british tactics and a whole range. And they actually kind of synthesize there. So the infantry tactics were very french and they were less french and i would give them credit for having put that effort to consider the different tactics to go to europe, to look at what was being done in europe, to put together a board of officers to study at and talk about it and come up with a new and very effective tactics. Thank you very much for the talk, sam. We havent seen you around here for a while. Its been quite a while. I missed the first part of the talk, so, hopefully i dont know if you mentioned, spoke about this. A series of books put out on the United States army and one of them was about the army between 1814 and 1816. And they had a lot of stuff involved in not only the exploratory aspects of the United States army, fremont and others, but also had on road building. You know, the army was doing road building all along. We all know about general meade who built the lighthouse of Long Beach Island and, obviously, other lighthouses and lee and jackson were involved in the Harbor Defense of new york city. I think there is a whole controversy now about ft. Hamilton about the street named after lee, i believe. The thing is that first of all, im wondering about, if you could talk about those things. But, also, speak about why im just wondering. Meade was involved and i know other officers involved in lighthouse building. Was west point more engineer oriented than the than i would think maybe the navy more involved in lighthouse building but it seems maybe because of the engineering at west point, did west point put more emphasis on engineering at that time . Im just wondering about that. If you could talk about those things. Thank you. The Naval Academy wasnt founded until 1845. We have a 25, 30year period here when naval officers were trained basically on the job at sea. And, so, you could say their training or their education wasnt as scientific or definitely more ad hoc. At west point certainly it was focused on engineering and math. Math supporting engineering. And i think the case of lighthouses and road building and exploration, those are examples where the United States didnt really have a large civil service. It didnt, the government didnt have a lot of civilian employees, right. So, there was a what do they call it . I cant remember now. But there was sort of an ancest ruof the u. S. Geological survey and basically theyre the guys who do the lighthouses. But they really, they only had, you know, essentially like, heres the head of the agency and heres his clerk. Right. And, so, the u. S. Government because there was so much antagonism to having a large government because of the emphasis on limited government, decentralization, low taxes, right. The government didnt have a lot of revenues and didnt have a lot of employees and certainly didnt have a lot of ways to train them. But, you know, going all the way back to jefferson, they could say, okay, here from west point we have people who are scientifically people who are scientifically trained. Remember, at a time when most colleges were still training in the classics in latin and greek and rhetoric. So west pointers had that scientific and that engineering training that they could do things like surveying for roads, surveying for railroads, surveying for canals, you know, building lighthouses, infrastructure. Because they were in the army, in essence, the government could say, hey, we have these guys for national defense. But while theyre not out fighting and this is a 30year period when were not fighting a major war against a conventional adversary during that period, there would be a lot of demand, a lot of pressure to use some of those west pointers to survey canals or to explore out west. During the 1830s that became a bit of an issue because some people would say the government basically paid this officer to build a railroad that competes with my town. The government is favoring that town at the expense of my town by sending an army officer at public expense to go and survey that route. The army itself wasnt terribly committed to this. This often meant that lets say you would have five officers in an Artillery Company and one of them would be off on leave or recruiting duty or Court Martial duty. One of them would be sick or and then one of them would be on this detached duty surveying railroads and canals. There was a lot of unhappiness that, hey, im supposed to have five officers in this company, ive only got two. It was both political pressure and at least the commanders in the army werent very happy with this. They basically put an end to the government sponsored surveys in 1838. They come back a little bit for clearing obstacles in rivers, you know, like when debris and lumber build up in a bend in the river. So that kind of reappears in the 1850s. And then the topographical engineers, these guys are going to make maps of the routes were going to advance on and then theyll work with the Quarter Masters. The Quarter Masters will figure out how much food is available and together we can decide whether we should move on this axis against the enemy or on this axis. The topographical engineers as explorers because again the government kind of using the army because the army was there and they didnt have civilians available to do that. There was a backlash in the army and they kind of ended up with a compromise. We often have a juxtaposition or contradiction between things that our citizens want they want a lot of Different Things, and theyre not always willing to pay for all those Different Things, or at least there are plenty of politicians who are out there saying, no, you dont want to pay taxes, but you still want to do all these things. So in the 1800s kind of the workaround was, okay, were not going to raise your taxes to pay a bunch of civilian bureaucrats to do these things. Well get the army to do these things. If we can say its National Security, awesome. Its kind of like the interstate highways of the 1950s. Theyre justified as a National Security measure. If the societies attack, we can use the highways to shuttle around the country. But what most Congress People wanted from the interstate highway system was faster commerce, faster transportation. I have two. First of all, were blacks fighting for the seminoles treated differently . For they officially seminoles at that point or were they returned to slavery . Second, at what point did west Point Institute a loyalty oath . The question about the loyalty oath is a little easier. Thats basically at the time of the civil war. During the nullification crisis the War Department did direct some Commanding Officers to administer loyalty oaths i think in cases were they were concerned about the loyalties of some of the officers in some places or maybe cadets at west point from certain states. But its basically a civil war thing. And then for the i guess the best term would be the refugees from american slavery among the seminoles because its a highly contested issue. The army saw them as first they were very dedicated to not being reenslaved, so they were fighting very hard against the u. S. Because they figured pretty accurately that if the u. S. Captured them, they might be reenslaved. So the armys response on the whole was to say, okay, if you surrend surrender, we will not reenslave you. Jessup was a dlaslave holder. Most of these guys Zachary Taylor had a plantation in louisiana. He was from troy so theres a monument up in troy. Jessup, his second marriage was to a very wealthy woman who had a number of slaves. Clinch basically acquired a plantation as part of his role in the conquest of florida, in getting florida from the spanish back in the 18 teens. He also married, got a plantation. Jessup was from kentucky. He had plantations in kentucky. He had overseers running them while he was in washington 90 of the time. But jessup really is the architect here of divide and conquer. I called that freedom diplomacy in my book where essentially he promises the black seminoles freedom. Hes going to give them papers, quote, freedom papers that they can take with them to the west rather than turning them over to americans who are coming to Army Headquarters saying, hey, you know, i hear you captured a bunch of black people among the seminoles, some of them are my slaves. That was a real issue. The War Department by and large said of to turn over these fugitives from slavery to their owners. But the army pretty much said, yeah, we captured these guys, theyre prisoners of war. So under law, were treating them as prisoners of war and were going to dispose of them through our military authority rather than turning them over to the people who claim them as property. Thats not because jessup is an abolitionist. Again, hes a slave holder. Its because for jessup the black seminoles are people who would flee from slavery and hide out in the mountains and sometimes fight wars to stay free. Jessup himself at one point said this is as much as a negro as an indian war. The problem there is there are historians who say is seminole war was really a war over slavery. And modern day seminoles will say, the seminole war was the u. S. Trying to take our land and make us move. Of course, its a bit of both. The effect of this, what was to save the freedom of several hundred refugees from slavery that the army basically shipped them west, shipped them over to new orleans and shipped them up the red river into oklahoma. And then they were free there. Or at least free for a time. The creek indian leaders had pretty much adopted slavery. So you find the creeks like in the 1840s in what we call oklahoma. The creeks trying to seize these freed people. And jessup writes a couple letters like in 1844 to the secretary of war and other people in the government saying, hey, wait, you know, i put my name on these freedom papers. I pledged my honor that these people would be free in the west. And im hearing these really disturbing rumors that they are being seized and taken back into slavery. Im not sure what the outcome of that was. Probably the outcome was that a number of them were reenslaved. Others of them eventually go down like to the texas mexico border and even into mexico to try and maintain their freedom there. Another jessup quote is, we will not make slave catchers of the army. His view was, okay, you told me im supposed to get the seminoles out of florida. Thats what im going to do. I dont want to deal with slavery. Im interested in the violence, the war that didnt happen. Seems to me the main Security Threat at this point is britain. So the Canadian Border is really interesting at this point. Can you talk a little bit more in detail about the role of the army here . I only mentioned it briefly, but this in 1837 after several years of unrest, two rebellions broke out in canada. There was the rebellion in what was called lower canada like down the st. Lawrence river, essentially montreal and quebec. So in the countryside there among the french speaking canadians. And then there was rebellion in upper canada in ontario among English Speaking canadians who wanted more democracy. At that point you had a british governor general whos pretty much a military governor. There was some representation. Some of the cities had city government. But canadians in general, ordinary can snadians looking f more of a role in their own selfgovernment. Both were crushed pretty quickly by loyal canadians. There was a pretty Strong Canadian militia that was loyal to britain. And the french canadian rebellion then pretty much fizzled out. There was some low level guerilla warfare, but the leaders of the upper canadian rebellion fled to the u. S. And in the u. S. They went around saying, look, were fighting for democracy against the british. So this could be like the third war of independence and the u. S. Could get canada. So a lot of americans and now this was at the beginning of an economic panic, the panic of 1837 that became a depression that lasted for almost a decade. So there were a lot of essentially unemployed americans in like michigan, northern ohio, along the new york border, along the vermont border who saw an opportunity or were inspired by the rhetoric. They began to form these organizations. We call them filibusters, not like in the senate. But back then it comes from a dutch word, basically free booter. A filibuster is basically a private citizen who goes and attacks another country with which were at peace. The u. S. And canada were at peace. But these guys starting invading canada in small scale raids, usually 50 or 100 people. They would go and basically attack something or burn something. But the british were saying, hey americans, if you cant control your border, were going to control it for you, which is what Andrew Jackson kept saying to the spanish when he invaded florida. The americans, particularly Martin Van Buren was a jacksonian, but the sly fox. Hes very crafty and smart and pretty moderate on the whole. He says, okay, we dont want a war with britain in the middle of an economic depression. Fort hamilton wont stop the british. Theyll burn new york city. We dont want that. So he sends Winfield Scott and some other officers. First they go around and detain its kind of tricky legally, but in 1838 Congress Passed laws to give them the authority that you would find people crossing the border with weapons and you could stop them and arrest them for a while and take their weapons. Or they would tell the british, hey, these filibusters are going to cross the river. And the british could stop them. The British Ambassador to the United States credited the army and credited Winfield Scott with having helped to prevent a war by showing good faith, by showing that the u. S. Government wasnt just letting these people invade canada. Very last quick question. I was fascinated to hear the story about how jackson was such a micro manager with his military leaders, especially in an era of relatively poor communications. Other american president s have indulged in this pastime on occasion. Communication technology has continued to improve. In your opinion, what are the lessons that history has to teach us about the issue of micro management from afar . The interesting thing with jackson is he himself had usurped the authority. He certainly had sought the autono autonomy, like i know the situation, i know whats best. I would say the policy lesson is that jackson was too impatient. You need some oversight, constitution constitutionally. You need to make sure youre aligning your actions with your objections. The problem with jackson was he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Look, i want you to get the indians out of the south, fast and really cheap and i dont want anybody to notice it. I just want the indians to sort of disappear and the taxpayers dont spend any money. He gets upset when nobody would achieve that. So i would say sort of knowing the limitations of policy, knowing there are going to be dpel l dilemmas and tradeoffs. Thank you so much. [ applause ]. Thank you all for having me here again. Tomorrow night, American History tv is in prime time. Well look at the vietnam war, including an interview from senator and former president ial candidate john mccain on the 50th anniversary of his plane being shot down and his capture in north vietnam. Well also show you this years veterans day ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans memorial. And then after, a round table discussion on the state of the vietnam war in 1967. American history tv prime time begins at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Cspan cities tour takes you to springfield, missouri, on january 6th and 7th. Were working with mediacom to explore the birthplace of route 66 in missouri. We talk about the conflict occurring along the kansas missouri border in his book the border between them. In 1858 john brown comes back to the territory and begins a series of raids into western missouri during which his men will liberate enslaenslaved peo from missouri. The notoriety of john brown really grows as part of this struggle that people locally understand is really the beginning of the civil war. Then sunday january 7th Theodore Roosevelt was a very avid hunter. First thing he did when he left office was organize and go on a very large hunting safari to africa. Now, this particular rifle was prepared specifically for roosevelt. It has the president ial seal engraved on the breach and of course roosevelt was famous for the Bull Moose Party and there is a bull moose engraved on the side plate of this gun. Watch january 6th7th on cspan 2s book tv. Next on cspan 3 American History tv takes you to the classroom now for a lecture by Arizona State University Professor jonathan barth. He teaches a class about the rise of Andrew Jackson and his