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

Jackson. This event is about 1 50. Tonights speaker is sam watson, professor of United States and military history at the United States military academy at west point where he has taught for 18 years. Hes author of jacksons sword and peacekeepers on the nations borders and frontiers between the war of 1812 and the war with mexico. Published by united press of kansas which together won the distinguished book award from the society from military history. Incident h incidentally, of which we are a part. Professor watson is coeditor of the west point history of warfare which won the society for military history george c. Marshall Foundation Prize for the use of Digital Technology teaching military history. Hes the coed tore of the civil war which won the distinguished writing award and hes also coauthor of the american revolution. Forthcoming from simon and shuster this autumn, professor watson teaches courses at west point on 19th century warfare, 19th Century America and about the american frontier. Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, sam watson. Thank you, bob, and thanks to all of you. Bob mentioned that ive been teaching at west point for 18 years and also gave my first talk about 18 years ago in the fall of 1999 on Army Medical Officers kind of in the seminole war and do they see themselves as medical officers or as military officers and turns out they saw themselves as a bit of both. So im going to be talking to you about the war before and after focusing on before jacksons president , during his presidency and after his presidency. Before i do so, i have to give the standard disclaimer. I speak for myself, not for the military academy at west point, not for the department of army or department of defense or for any other agency of the United States government. So with that out of the way, ill try to say a few controversial things or a few things you might want to question or debate and give you some information and synthesis really about the army and jacksons fact or lack of fact on it. Im going to talk about four big topics here and the first is Civil Military relations, the armys view of politics or the view of Army Politics and the armys role in politics. Second, to balance between the National Standing army or the regular army, if you prefer. Its not really clear people didnt call it the regular army in capitals. Youll see it referred to as the regular army lower case or regulars. But in any case, talking here about that standing army, that more or less Permanent Army rather than the mass of intermittent volunteers. So four structures to question the balance between them to what extent the u. S. Employed the National Standing army, to what extent did it rely on militia of volunteers. Note, were talking the 1820s and 30s, so no really large wars. The third question is that of command. So when the United States deployed troops to, say, florida in the second seminole war or to georgia, to force the cherokee indians to move west or along the Canadian Border or the border with texas, who commanded the u. S. Troops. Was it regular officers or were the commanders, say, volunteer citizen soldiers, which we often tend to think they were. We think of jackson himself began as a militia general, right, and then was commissioned into the United States army during the war of 1812. And then the fourth question is kind of the effect and outcomes question. What about the armys capability performing the missions assigned to it . Did that increase, decrease, improve or degrade during and after jacksons presidency. And then within those four topics, Civil Military relations, forestructure, command of u. S. Forces and the forces capability, we have a perception versus reality, both for contemporaries and historians. People looking back and thinking that the United States and 19th century, its all citizen soldiers or all volunteers or all militia or all Andrew Jackson and then on the other hand we have emblazened on my tie, Winfield Scott leading the charge for the regular army and then theres also the question of change versus continuity. To what extent there was change, to what extent jackson was responsible for it and to what extent there were continuities across jacksons presidency. In other words, to what extent changes had already been made before jackson became president. The army that Andrew Jackson was commissioned as a general, a small Frontier Force between 1794 and 1812. It was not very active developing professional capability and it was not very accountable financially or in supplying its soldiers. Neither the soldiers nor their officers displayed the sort of discipline responsibility and subordination to authority we would expect or desire. Jackson himself repeatedly challenged, ignored and subverted civilian authority some dysfunctional dynamics that i explore in my book jacksons sword. And this book is really a story primarily of dysfunctions of jackson invading florida pretty much on his own initiative and his own authority and of problems some supplying the troops, paying the troops, other officers wanting to attack cuba. All kinds of either insubordination to the civilian authority to the constitutionally elected command authority or other forms of discipline. So jacksons victory in new orleans didnt really make a big difference to that army. It made a difference in how americans perceived military force. You have the hunters of kentucky, the volunteers and the militia to whom americans attributed the victory of new orleans and scholars would say certainly a lot of accurate riflemen but also a lot of powerful artillery in jacksons line of new orleans. Some of that was manned by pirates. But much was manned by regular army, artillery men and some u. S. Navy gunners as well. So theres sort of a myth of the battle of new orleans, but meanwhile, the regular army, that National Standing army is doing its own thing and during the 1820s, the army, after the war of 1812, but during the 1820s, the arm mey changed quit bit. There were a variety of forms initiated by the armys senior leaders. People like Winfield Scott. A variety of commanders, ill talk about here, supported by president james monroe and by secretary calhoon. And in effect, the National Standing army, that permanent and hopefully professional army became during the 1820s both a frontier sort of police force to guard the borders and to intimidate or to deter opponents and thus to keep the peace along the borders but also a kad dra of technical experts and educators for maintaining professional expertise and capability. So, for example, at west point but also at, say, the artillery near norfolk or the infantry in st. Louis. Now, that latter dimension to the army, that codray was drawn largely from graduates from the academy at west point to whom the president s secretary of war in the senate gave a virtual monopoly on commissions for more than a decade during the 1820s. During the 1820s, they practically supported president ial candidates like jackson, John Quincy Adams or john c. Calhoon who they knew through close personal association within the small government. So this is sort of an elite politics of government officials who already know each other and as such they would write letters to each other privately, what do you think of calhoon, jackson, who do you think is going to be better for the army. Remember how calhoon supported us on this, remember what jackson said about that. So there was a lot of behind the scenes politicking. Not really anything public but in 1828, 1829, many of the Senior Officers, albeit within a small Senior Office court, Senior Officers welcomed jacksons president ial victory, seeing him as a former comrade who would support more troops and more funding for the army. And thats usually the main thing that army leaders wanted at that point in time was, hey, we dont think we have enough troops for the Canadian Border if things break out with the british again for indians in the southeast and for the coastal fortifications and the indians on the plains. When the army when army Staff Officers made plans, they would say, we need three or four regiments for each of those. So we need 20 or 25 regiments to perform our missions and the army at that point in time had 11 regiments so that they perceived that they were always under strength. Fortunately, usually the crises that break out sort of break out one at a time in one place at a time and they can redeploy their forces around to the different to meet the different crises. But its fair to say that in 1828 and owe 29, a lot of Army Officers saw jackson as sort of someone who would favor the army. Now, during jacksons administration, funding remained pretty tight. Jacksonians talked a lot about keeping spending down and not raising taxes or other avenues. So the army didnt get a lot more funding but did grow under jacksons administration. A nearly 20 increase from 11 to 13 regiments to an army that was only about 5,000 soldiers when jackson entered office. Both those regiments were mounted regiments, the first and second lagoons which you can see here on the cover of my second book and this was an important step in making the army more capable of performing its missions. For two decades, the army had not had any calvary. The u. S. Army had although the american officers will like to think of charging on their horses with sabers. But the u. S. Had had grigoons in the revolution and had them on a very small scale with Anthony Waynes legion in the 1790s and then those were disbanded and alexander hamilton, George Washington wanted gragoons at the end of the decade and never really built that force and then during the war of 1812, there were a couple of drigoons, like the kentuckians but horses cost money and you have to feed the horses, and cutting back between 1815 and 1832, 1833, the u. S. Army didnt have any calvary. Sometimes they would mount infantry soldiers on horses to conduct patrols but you can imagine those soldiers werent very good horsemen and werent very experienced and werent about to go chasing and catching them. So the army had not had much ability to pursue indians west of the mississippi. You know, if the indians raided or the army wanted to catch them to try to intimidate them or force them to sign the treaty or something. And so these drigoon regiments would prove crucial to a projection on the plains and to new mexico and california during the war with mexico. The first technically and the second spent time in florida mostly dismounted because its often swampy there but clearly there were needed troops in florida. Other changes in the army during the Jackson Administration included more nutritious rations for the soldiers food which significantly improved Soldier Health and reduced mortality. And what we mean here is adding more vegetables, adding beans and legumes and different unlike your classic salt pork, salt beef, you know, a lot of dry food. And abol learning abolishing the liquor. The Navy Officers and civilians with an interest, civilian publishers also created professional journals. I dont have a picture of the ration. I probably should have pulled one off the web. They probably have ones in the museum and what a ration would look like. But during the early and mid1830s, officers began to write in sufficient amount that civilian publishers, this is benjamin homans who was a baltimore publisher, created in this case a monthly magazine or journal, if youd like, and in this case a weekly for the army and these became these became centers for debate about military professionals and Civil Military relations, military capability, reform tactics in like 1834, 1835 and then when the second seminole war began in 1835 and early 1836, by that point the military and naval magazine was starting to fade and the army and Navy Chronicle sort of became the standard and its just chocked full. If you want to study the second seminole war like the american periodical stories that database has at least the army and Navy Chronicle and you can just write a war on the seminole war largely from that. Now, in terms of our question today, Andrew Jackson didnt really have anything to do with this. You know, a civilian publisher responding to a demand by Army Officers wanting to write and being willing to buy and, in fact, the army Navy Chronicle disappears after the second seminole war. They change it to the army Navy Chronicle and the scientific suppository, 1842 to 1844. But theres just not enough interest once the war is over and so it goes out of business in 1844. So the changes that occur to the army that i mentioned so far were during jacksons administration were still largely changes initiated by Army Officers, the same as the changes in the 1820s. You had political leaders, whether it had been president monroe or now president jackson or secretary calhoon among the secretaries of war who had supported the army doing so but by and large Army Officers would be talking among themselves and writing letters back and forth and saying we really need an Infantry School and calhoon would say, yeah, it sounds like a good idea and then monroe or at that point John Quincy Adams would say, yes, good, well try to fund that. But most of this reform was coming from the inside. The actual ideas for the reform with a supportive political climate. But the 1830s were also difficult years for the army so that jacksons administration from 1829 to the beginning of 1837, these were also difficult years for the army brought on by resurgence largely in the form of jacksons policy of forcing indians to leave the land east of mississippi. We know from the title of the legislation as indian removal. Nowadays that sounds a little harsh, but and it was harsh, so we might say the ethic cleansing. If this happened in europe, you would say its ethnic cleansing and people would say, yeah, those europeans, they are like that. But while officers had professional journals to debate reforms, the infantry and Artillery Schools and this is an image of obviously a later painting, a 20th century painting but an image of drill at the Artillery School in the 1820s and 1827. Those schools had to close, reducing officers opportunities to train larger units of soldiers and this was because army unit, artillery units were deployed from the Artillery School to deter slave rebellions between 1829 and 1831. Now, this was actually from the outside of the second seminole war but sort of is this standard and you can see over here the image of slaves, you know, rising up and attacking slaveholders and between 1829 and 1831 there was a wave of slave unrest or rumors of slave unrest culminates, for example, in southampton virginia but for several years, governors, mayors, state legislators, congressmen from throughout the south, from virginia and north carolina, South Carolina, mostly eastern seaboard states but also louisiana, they were constantly sending letters to army commanders. There are rumors of they wouldnt say slave, right . They would say savage unrest in our neighborhood and there t was pretty clear they meant slaves. And so the army forces were constantly small detachments and constantly being dispatched from the coastal fortifications, manned by the artillery to try to deter any slave unrest. Now, when they actually get to the rebellion, the army is not involved in repressing that. The army did conduct a lot of patrols and kind of showing force in the weeks and months after that rebellion. But not only that, weve also got the black hawk war in 1832. And black hawk had almost gone to war or the United States had almost gone to war against blackhawk the Previous Year in 1832. The situation exploded with a lot of miscommunication but certainly exploded and you add infantry units in the region but they ultimately brought the artillery units from the Artillery School near norfolk and as far as i can tell, the First Movement of soldiers by train in the United States. They took them by train part of the way to chicago, part of way by steamboat, part of the way by train and then they all caught chole cholera in the course of doing that. But these kind of pressures, then the artillery had to go back down to the eastern seaboard, back to down in South Carolina to try to intimidate a nullification advocates in South Carolina and so by the time you got to the end of 1832, it was pretty clear that they werent going to be able to sustain an Artillery School anymore. The Infantry School, which had been designed in part as a Strategic Reserve at st. Louis, you know, kind of half in the middle of the frontier, the Infantry School had already kind of lost most of its school purpose. And its hard to say, you can probably say it closed in 1834 but it had not been very active for several years before that. So what we today call off tempo, right, the frequency of deployments and again this army thats maybe grown from well, at that point it hadnt really grown, about 5,000, this small army couldnt really sustain training at the Infantry School, training at the Artillery School and intimidating slave unrest, intimidating native americans and ultimately conducting indian removal, this is the year before the indian removal act but trying to keep the peace between the cherokee and whites invading the cherokee land when gold was discovered on cherokee land in northwest georgia or trying to keep the peace between the creek indians and mostly in alabama and whites invading their land and ultimately the seminole war in the 1830s. This is an image that is supposed to be Edmond Gaines and his staff and his troops at the site of the day battlefield, one of the first battlefields where 100 u. S. Soldiers had been ambushed and wiped out. And that sort of extension of the army meant that it was torn between some Reform Efforts and the actual deployments. Not all combat operations. Most of the time it is spent intimidating people or trying to either push them to do something the u. S. Wanted or deter them from doing something that the u. S. Didnt want but, still, lots and lots of lots of deployments not just on the western frontier where would you think where we got the image of lets say they are chasing indians but most of the indian removal, jacksons policy is east of the mississippi to force the indians to move west of the mississippi and most of the troop deployments are in alabama and georgia and then florida. So this is a very widely stretched and overextended army. And it gets worse for the army because Andrew Jackson did not permit his commanders the autonomy he sought and practiced, what he commanded in florida a generation before. Instead, king andrew this is probably a wig cartoon. So a political opposition cartoon. So i use it to make the point that, you know, a lot of people saw Andrew Jackson as a fairly authoritarian leader. He had a mandate for the majority. Other people would call that the tyranny of the majority. For the army, jackson tried to compel those that he sent to troubled spots to repress whatever resistance there was but to do so without embarrassing him or increasing opposition to his policies. So its, you know, i want you to crack down on the cherokee. I want you to make it clear to the cherokee that they have to move west. But i dont really want this getting in the newspapers. Right . So i dont want newspapers saying, you know, u. S. Troops use Excessive Force against the cherokee or i dont want the cherokee to actually rebel so you have to like intimidate them but not to the point that they actually rebel and we have an expensive war in georgia and there are a lot more cherokee. Probably four times as many cherokee as seminole. Seminole war was difficult enough and there had been a war with the creek indians in alabama the same year, 1836, that depending on how you looked at it extended to several years after so you dont want to have wars with the creek, the cherokee, the seminole at the same time that, you know, the americans, whites in texas are rebelling against mexico and the army is deploying troops to that border and well have a crisis on the Canadian Border. So weve got a lot of deployments of very high operational tempo and a president who is very shorttempered with his commanders and very quick to criticize him if they either seem to use too much or too little force. So the commanders had a they had to walk a very fine line and most of them fell off in jacksons eyes. So here we have a couple of examples of that because thats kind of the center of the story, i think. On the left, we have john wohl who had been a populous democratic in the 1820s and 1830s. He was charged with basically intimidating, pressuring, coercing the cherokee into starting to move in 1836. He was unsuccessful. The cherokee dont move until 1838. Another commander follows him and then finally Winfield Scott but hes the best example ive got pretty much a whole chapter in peacekeepers and conquerers where they are pressuring wohl and wohl is trying to explain, do but that didnt work and i tried to do that but it didnt work. So what if i disarm the cherokee. What if i take all their weapons . No. That might provoke them. The cherokee want to hold a council. You should discourage them from holding a council. Wohl actually arrests some of them or has his troops detain some of the cherokee. Jackson says no, you werent supposed to actually detain them. Now the newspapers are going to say, you know, that were pushing too hard. Wool was caught between the demands of public relations. The indian removal act said the indians would voluntarily remove, that they had the choice to remove. That we would show the u. S. Government would show them the wonderful land in the west and they would probably want to move out there. When they didnt, according to the legislation passed by congress, well, they could stay in georgia or 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 clench who was commanding in florida in 1835. Clench 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, send me more troops, make i can intimidate them and keep the lid on. That falls on deaf ears back in washington. Or another way to put it would be the army was busy doing a lot of Different Things because of all the jacksons policies. So clench at the end of the year when the war starts clench complains. Gets in the newspaper war with the governor of florida. And retires soon after. Clench then becomes a wig, in other words an antijacksonian. So 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 i think youve got to get good sideburns here. And scott was also deployed down to florida. 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 gains, probably a lithograph from the war of 1812. Gains actually rushed to florida himself. Frontier emergency, i must go there and command the troops which caused all kinds of confusion. Jacksons 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. Then that summer 1836 scott is sent to try and crush the creeks. Hes not able to do that. Jacksons really unhappy with him. Gains after hes not able to crush the seminole, hes sent off to the texas border in 1836 and here again jackson is saying well, its not really fair, 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. There are any number of conspiracy theories. Gains sent u. S. Troops into northeast texas in the theory that he was protecting american citizens. In practice probably to try and 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. San jacinto is pretty far away. Once again gains became the subject of jacksons ire. Jackson, his secretary of war s said what are you doing, why are you sending troop sbs into texa and gains wrote back and said 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 gains was an impettous guy. Theres probably some fault on gains side. But in all these cases jackson had put his generals in difficult situations either denying them enough troops or denying them the authority or denying them the autonomy. First saying heres the mission and then trying to micromanage them in performing it. And then he would condemn them either for not being aggressive enough like clench and scott or for being too aggressive like wohl and gains. Actually, wohl got criticized for being too aggressive, not aggressive enough. Jackson and his i think we have to say his henchmen were criticized for virtually anything and everything. Although wohl repeatedly sought, lets go back to him, wohl repeatedly sought reassignment. Jackson kept him on through 1836. Jacksons secretary of war and especially politicians in georgia blamed wohl for the cherokees refusal to move west. These dilemmas had consequences for military relations. Wohl had been a pretty populaced democrat and gains had been jacksons closest subordinate when he 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 clench and Zachary Taylor either were wigs, again, their views on society and the economy, or became wigs. Clench probably definitely became a wig later. Served as a wig congressman in part as reaction to the criticism that he had received from jackson and the jacksonian newspapers. Remember, this is also a period when newspapers were usually partisan, so newspapers were pretty much jacksonian or antijacksonian. When i say jackson criticized war, the secretary of war criticized, you know, those criticisms were being echoed and sometimes were being published, the letters were being leaked into newspapers. Then you have what i called a newspaper war. So this is thomas jessop. By the time jackson left office early in 1837 jessop was the only Senior Officer in the army who remained a democratic partisan. Remember earlier i said that in 1828, 1829 a lot of armies, they didnt have 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 pushed too hard and had not given them the professional autonomy that they needed to find the best way to perform their missions. Jessop is a very capable officer but hes not really so much a part of my story here. He was the Quarter Master general for 42 years from 1818 to 1860. And reformed the army logistics, made them much more efficient, much more effective. He also saw himself as a combat leader. His hand was crippled in 1814 and he his right hand was crippled and he learned to use his left hand, Quarter Master general without typewriters. Hes constantly writing. He has some officers he can dictate to, but he probably wrote more correspondence than anybody else in the army. He learns to use his left hand to write and then here during the second seminole war hes leading troops in battle and actually gets his eyeglasses shattered by a bullet in which i guess fortunately 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 wig leaders are talking about him as the president ial candidate and he is clearly demonstrating his interest in running for the presidency. Apart from scott, most Army Officers, at least most 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. But the situation they had in the 1820s when officers often wrote to each other, yeah, i like john c. Calhoun, remember how he supported the Artillery School. They pretty much stopped doing that. Thats probably a good thing that they kind of withdrew even privately from partisan politics. So far ive been talking about changes. Good changes although mostly not due to jackson and some bad changes mostly due to jackson. But there were also some significant continuities. And this is where i think perceptions in realities both contemporary and among historians clash the most. Ultimately i think that 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. So we had that old army that wasnt very disciplined and wasnt very well organized, wasnt very well supplied, wasnt very accountable, wasnt really very effective before the war of 1812 extending into the war of 1812. The army did become more effective during and after the war of 1812 but still had a lot of these problems with financial accountability, soldier discipline, officer discipline, Andrew Jackson discipline. But they had remedied a lot of that during the 1820s after jackson had retired and entered politics. The most important and foundational continuity was the dominance of the National Military academy at west point. This is the monument to ellis wood who was an early graduate, an 1806 graduate of west point and he was an engineer for jacob brown on the Niagara Frontier in 1814. He was mortally wounded from ft. Erie in 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, but this is still on the West Point Cemetery today. West point remained a primary commissioning source for new officers throughout the jacksonian era. Usually we think other jacksonians, but theyre democratic, theyre populists, theyre often pretty impetuous. They had talked a lot about west point as an airs tock rassy. You would have an american cromwell. You could say we had an american cromwell. It was Andrew Jackson. But jacksonian rhetoric was very antistanding army, very antiwest point, very antiauthority. So jacksonian writers, newspaper men, propaganda would say, you know, get rid of west point, you know, all the officers should be promoted from enlisted soldiers. First be privates, thenni be sergeants, then be officers. They should be militia soldiers, not paid by the government for 10, 20, 30 years. They would draw all the parallels to britain, where you had half pay officers, officers on the half pay list, retired sort of getting a pension of half their pay and could be called back into the army. And jacksonians will say thats like a government monopoly. Thats like government privilege. The government is giving these officers money and therefore of course the officers will support the government and it will be sort of like a military central complex. So there might be some foresight there. But when it came down to it, the jacksonians did none of the things i just suggested. Despite all that rhetoric, west point wasnt abolished. New military academies were not created to train officers for the national army. Like there were state academies like, say, Virginia Military institute. There were several state academies, but their officers by and large didnt go into the army. They went to the state militias or they went into civilian life. They were usually from wellconnected families and were able to make their way in politics or in business in virginia or alabama or whatever state they were from. So during jacksons administration, despite all that rhetoric, jackson did not promote enlisted soldiers to become officers. I think maybe there were i think the number bill came up with was seven. So seven enlisted soldiers were promoted to become officers during the seminole war. So the jacksonians did not change the commissioning source. They did with the first and the second dragoons, they did appoint probably id say about 20, 20 to 30 new officers from civilian life. But thats 20 to 30 out of an office core of small though it is out of 500 or 600. The vast majority of the officer corp were still west point graduates if they were younger, the lieutenants and the captains, and then the senior captains and then the majors, the colonels, the feel good officers. West point hadnt really been very effective when they had been coming up. They were mostly war of 1812 veterans. So your officer corp could be basically the war of 1812 veterans, the younger west point graduates and in theory the jacksonians were put in a bunch of maybe democratic partisans. They would use the army for spoils and the spoil system to reward their supporters. They did a little bit of that. Army officers thought that was shocking and they thought it was terrible. But if we look at it with a little bit of critical distance, it doesnt reshape the officer corp. Although jackson intervened in academy discipline it did not foster partisanship. Theres two possibilities. It could be that maybe like with Winfield Scott or duncan clench to some extent, it could be that Army Officers, it could be that the faculty and the staff at west point could say jackson is attacking us, we hate jackson, we will try to undermine jackson. And exert civilian authority over the military. But they didnt do that. And solo the superintendent did request reassignment. He didnt resign from the army. He requested reassignment and he went off to go coastal fortify indications. He requested reassignment but his reforms, great master 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. The second big continuity is with force structure and command. We had force structure, regulars versus militia, who commands, then we have the armys capability. And in all of these deployments, all these, whether they were actually wars or whether they were more like intimidation or in some cases you might i call them Peace Keeping, in all these cases, its really the regular army that leads. So in the second seminole war, they call up a lot of florida calls up a lot of militia. 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 actually in 1836 under jackson, but then particularly in 1837 under Martin Van Buren, the u. S. Government says wait, these volunteers, they cost too much, theyre not very disciplined, they lose a lot of their equipment, theres a lot of what they call wastage. Theyre have been expensive. Theyre not well trained. Theyre not very effective and the u. S. Government by and large tried to minimize the callups of militia and volunteer and increase the number of regular army troops in florida and really relied on the regular army to fight the seminole war which you can see in the casualty statistics. So these guys are examples of kind of jacksonian patronage. This is henry dodge who had been invadi invading indians land in wisconsin, became the leader of the battalion of mounted rangers in the blackhawk war in 1832 and then jackson appointed him straight from there to command the first dragoons in 1833. 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 at that. 20 years in the more than 20 years in the regular army. 24 guy here had entered the army after the war of 1812. Hes sort of an example of a rough and ready 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 character. Ill just past them to here we have our dragoons and then here we have steven w carney, the professional who commanded the dragoons. So jackson relied on the National Standing army. Not those militia. He relied on the National Standing army to 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 wohl and so this is a later picture of wohl, he helped to avert a war with the charity. This is john boss of the cherokee, the leader of the opposition. Wohl helped prevent a possible war with the cherokee. Edmund gains, pretty impetuous, did not cause war over texas and a potential war over britain was avoided in part due to diplomacy along the Canadian Border by Winfield Scott and other officers. In both of cherokee and the Canadian Border crises the u. S. Army served a Peace Keeping role trying to prevent violence between antagonistic groups. 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. This probably would have escalated, could easily become a disastrous war. And although there was diplomacy, ultimately the treaty in 1842, but the prelude is that Winfield Scott and eventually john wohl and some of the subordinate 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 would lead after he became commander. Historians may better remember john c. Fremont. If theres fremont in 1856, the Republican Party candidate and antislavery and in some ways an abolitionist. In the 1840s john free front is the path finder who is essentially 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 the rank and he had kind of the letter of youre going to command in california. Fremont basically said i got here first and im a real jacksonian guy and my fatherinlaw is a senator and im going to do what i want to do. Carney was able to get Fremont Court martialed and the court found fremont guilty and sentenced him to be dismissed from the army. President james k. Polk didnt want that but in the end polk let the army dismiss fremont. So in the end during jacksons presidency the army built on previous reforms from the 1820s to become more capable. The army remained insulated from the demanding of jacksonian democracy in its internal procedures, especially 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 citizen soldiers to lead the nations territorial expansion and to do so without the mass atrocities that soldiers often inflicted on native americans and other people of color. Jackson chose known wig Winfield Scott. Martin van buren chose scott to intimidate the british. After john wohl left the cheer key country unhappily after all the difficulty he had had, more difficulty he felt with jackson and the jacksonians than with the cherokee, right . Wohl felt rightly or wrongly he could get along with the cherokee and come to an agreement with them. But after he left the cherokee country, van bur ren allowed wo to do a court of inquiry. They publicly praised wohl and criticized his accusers, particularly some alabama politicians and in fact the governor of alabama and wohl used this opportunity in the court of inquiry, this public forum to condemn jacksonian policy. He basically got it put in the record that i think indian removal is unconstitutional, seet cetera, which you can view as insubordinate or you can view it as the army taking care of its own, protecting itself which in pop way is what they were afraid of and warned about. But in practice what it means is a lot of jacksonian smoke, not much jacksonian fire. And i would say that its better to have john wohl criticizing indian removal than it would be to have a bunch of militia and volunteers raping and massacring the cherokee as volunteers in i militia and vigilantes had done during the creek removal. So finally in 1846 president polk sent jack Zachary Taylor o left here, a known wig, to intimidate mexico along the rio grand border or along considered the border up by corpus christi. He doesnt send a democrat. He doesnt send a militia man. He doesnt send john c. Fremont. He was busy trying to over throw the government in california. When the campaign in northern mexico had gone as far as it could because of supply problems moving across the mountains and deserts, polk tried to get john c. Fremonts fatherinlaw to command the army that would attack mexico city. But the senate demurred and polk had to turn to the wig Winfield Scott. The young hickory, james k. Polk ends up using two wigs plus carney who its not so clear but he definitely wasnt a jacksonian. Uses them to fight his war in mexico. So clearly polk like jackson ever him thought he could rely on the army to do what he wanted. Even knowing that 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, its officers and commanders and west point. But they relied on that army to achieve their objectives and they gave it the authority and generally speaking the resources to do so. Despite some friction, the army did so effectively and subordinately. Thank you. [ applause ] and im supposed to wait for someone else to choose you for questions. You 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 . In general an understanding of who the rank and file of the regular army were during the period youre discussing. The enlisted soldiers mostly the soldiers enlisted mostly as far as we can tell for economic reasons, obviously there are a wide ranges of reasons, personal individual ones, but mostly economic reasons. So by and large they came from either farmers or increasingly from people in the cities. Increasingly from 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 with its with the Racial Attitudes in the United States for one white guy to let another white guy boss him around all the time, you know, what was seen as subservient or slavish. So the political culture also saw enlisted soldiers that way and the result was a real divide between the officers and the soldiers. There was a lot of brutality by the officers toward the soldiers. Some of that had been legal. Flogging had been legal at least up to the war of 1812. Then it was made illegal but it was still common for officers to kind of casually strike soldiers to hit them, to kick them, to whack them with the flat of their swords, to push them, shove them. And then sometimes as punishment to do things that we would recognize as torture. You know, to have them sit on a sawhorse, you know, kind of uncomfortable position. Or sometimes actually to hang them up by their thumbs. The things we all today would recognize as torture. What this meant was it aggravated, it intensified that perception. So it became harder. The army wanted to find, you know, native foreign americans, not immigrants to be in the army. But native foreign 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 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 term of service varied from three to five years depending on the law at what point in time and most of them did not reenlist. And so 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. 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 mutinys or resistance. This was a period where the sergeants only had five years of service. You didnt have a long Service Officer Commission Corp like we do today or the way we might think for the wars with the indians after the civil war. Even the jacksonians didnt really did much about this. Periodically the Army High Command would try to launch sort of drives to reduce officers violence against soldiers, so in the early 1820s jacob brown, who was the commanding general and Winfield Scott, they Court Martialed some officers for brutality against soldiers. Usually it went hand in hand with drunkenness. And they got guilty verdicts against some of those officers but in other cases the Court Martial, because the Court Martial is basically youve got a jury. In other cases the jury would be here are all these captains and lieutenants and theyre looking at me, captain and lieutenant and im accused and theyre worried theyre going to get accused, and so they would find their peer not guilty. They tried that again in the 1830s. They tried it again in the early 1840s. 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 this really shows you, these Army Officers are brutal. They could have made that case but they didnt. So its ironic but theres a strand in the history, the interpretation of the jacksonians that most jacksonian leaders themselves were men from pretty elite backgrounds. Jacksonian leaders by and large were not ordinary working men or farmers. They owned plantations in the south, right . Or they owned businesses in the north. In practice didnt show a whole lot of concern for these enlist enlisted soldiers. I have two questions. Number one, sorry, you showed a picture of general harney. Decades ago i read a book called the compact history of the American Indian wars and it mentioned something about in the 1850s general harney was involved in some sort of squirmish and it was a rather humiliating defeat for him. It wasnt disastrous in the worst possible way but it made him look silly. Then a few years later the way the book expressed it, he got his revenge and he led a pretty terrible massacre. Number one, is that true p a . And if it is, id like to hear more about it. My second question is when you were 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 a good example of that . Yes. Harney here, he was not himself humiliated. I think its 1854, theres a lieutenant grattan and hes the one who was defeated kind of became overconfident, pushed too hard and the indians [ inaudible question ] maybe. Im not sure. Cow. Horse. Buffalo. Probably a horse. Thats usually people would steal horses back and forth. But harney did see that as a humiliation of the army. Harney who was much less restrained than carney. So youve got harney here. He actually pled giemt findictm murdering a slave woman in st. Louis in about 1834, 35. And harney was later reprimanded for pressuring soldiers to fight each other like bare knuckle for his amusement or for discipline and was accused of having soldiers fight slaves to punish the soldiers. So this guy is looks like your grandfather or your uncle. 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. Hes swimming through the swamp in his underwear. When he caught several of those indians a couple months later, he promptly hung them from a tree. Rather than taking a prisoner or taking them back to sort of prisoner of war camps. And then in the thats 1839 so he got indicted for murdering a slave woman in the early 1830s, 1839. 1842, 44 is when he seems to have had enlisted soldiers fighting each other, fighting slaves, what not. 1850s theres the grattan incident in 1854 and then i think its 55 he leads an expedition out which then attacks the Sioux Village and sort of just attacks it really without any regard for the civilians in the village. So hes a very vengeful guy. Then more generally your question about sand creek and schiffington, hes a volunteer. Hes a civil war volunteer. This is a difficult subject because anyone can say an atrocity is an atrocity. But if you were to make a list of atrocities, you do find lets say that the bear river massacre or you find the volunteers who are almost vigilantes or bullies or what term youd like, you find them like attacking that. 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 really arent any enlisted soldiers. Its like a couple supply officers who are trying to make sure the creeks get fed. At night these volunteer vigilante, not sure what you want, criminals, these guys would go into the creek camps and attack the women and rob the creeks. What usually happens for the army is that you get people like kuster, but also mckenzie and they will say whats the best way to catch the indians is to attack them at dawn in their village, in their winter camp. We dont want to its hard for us to chase them all around the plains. Theyre better horse men than we are. They know the land better than we do. We have a hard time catching them. Throughout American History and really this is kind of true in count Counter Insurgency in general, but certainly in American History, where will the indians be . Theyll be in their villages. So theyre going to have to defend their village in which case we can kill them or kill the warriors or theyre going to run away and then we can burn the village and burn the food supply and theyre going to starve. Its a brutal form of warfare. Whether you call that atrocity or not depends on your historic context. People today would call it that. In world war i we would call it the british blockade of germany. The result is people like custer in 1868, heres the indian village, its dawn, the indians are sleepy, we can surprise them. We hit the village. Of course the village is full of women and children. The soldiers arent being ordered to kill the women and children. By and large the soldiers arent trying to kill the women and children. If youve got several hundred women and children in the village and 10 or 15 get killed, thats tragic and regrettable. But its not the same thing as lining up 300 women and children and killing them. Kind of like in terms of prisoners. We talked about atrocities in taking prisoners. When are prisoners most vulnerable is the moment when they surrender. So ive had my machine gun. Ive been shooting down your buddies for the last five minutes. Finally you get up close to me, i surrender. Do you surrender or do you get angry and youre probably already pretty angry and you shoot me. Do we call that an atrocity . Do we blame you . Do we blame your commander because your commander wasnt there with his hand on your shoulder, holdup, this guys 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 only as a second language if that. Was that much of a problem at this time . And the other point or question i have, there never was an effective lasting treaty with the seminoles, was that their . Thats what i understand. Their tactics were fairly simple. It was basically drill. Stand in line shoulder to shoulder. So i dont know that the lack of facility with english was that much of a problem. It did definitely aggravator deepen that gulf because you would have your native born american officers and they would disdain the immigrant soldiers who couldnt speak english. The anecdote where Zachary Taylor doesnt understand the soldier, a german soldier and taylor pulls him by his ears or pulls him by his nose. You view that as brutality or Zachary Taylor being rough and ready. I dont think it was too much of a problem for the armys effectiveness but it certainly aggravated that division between soldiers and officers. For ending the seminole war t ended by a whole series of agreements. In peace keepers and conquerers, i called it family diplomacy. Basically the army would try to convince some seminoles to move and then sometimes they would send those seminoles out to their families to try and persuade their families, hey, look, i realize the americans have a point, you know, the war is really difficult, were hiding out in 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. If you 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, not even really declaring that, but just theyre actually still combat operations into 1843. There are a lot of patrols. Theres a collection down eight princeton that has a lot of accounts of small scale paroles into 1843. And then theres that sort of gap from about from 1843, 44 to the mid 1850s where basically the seminoles at this point they have withdrawn down into the evergl everglades, were going to hide out down here. As White Settlement was expanding southward, they start to run up against the seminoles. In the mid to late 1850s you have what we sometimes call the third seminole war. That one kind of ends the same way. 1858ish it sort of peters out. The seminoles retreat deeper into the swamps. The seminole numbers at that point being only 200 to 300 in florida. Theres sort of a long period. Its not really maybe until about the 1890s until you start seeing i guess sustained contacts between what whites and seminoles again. What i usually say there is that 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. For better or worse. 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. Im wondering whats the european influence on it . As i understand it, theyre largely copying french doctrine, especially in terms of tactics and im wondering if thats correct and if you have anything more on that . By and large theyre copying french tactical doctrine. They do theyre aware of british doctrine. From napoleon, most military officers at the time tended to think of the french as kind of the most Capable Military professionals. This is before the oppression war. It was not known for the general staff. Theyre aware of british tactics. Theyre aware to some extent of prussian tactics and they have a big long debate about infantry tactics and its very wellinformed. Theyre constantly citing regulations from these different will countries. A larger question implied in that might be how much effect did that have on the army. There are some people who argue so this basically make the American Army a copy of the french army. What i would say in kind of a deeper argument in both my books is although the u. S. Army saw itself preparing to fight with europeans like a repeated war of 1812 and so they tried to prepare for that, but in practice most of what they did, you know, was to intimidator to deter native americans or mexicans or canadians or american citizens so that, you know, to whatever extent their tactical doctrine was french or british, in some senses i dont think is as important as we often think because that wasnt really their primary mission. What i would say in terms of their developing tactics is that the tactics that really counted like, lets say the horse artillery tactics with the war with mexico, mobile Field Artillery that plays a big role in the palo alto, those are sort of a combination that they had aboard and they had officers who would travel to europe and so they had french tactics, they had british tactics, they had a whole range. They actually signed of sin the size there. The infantry tactics were very french. The artillery tactics were less french. 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 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. I missed the first part of the talk so hopefully, i dont know if you spoke about this. There was a series of books put out on the history and one of them was about the army between 1814 and 1816. They had a lot of stuff involved in not only the explore tore aspects of the United States army, fremont and others, but also pike and others, but they also had on row building. We all know about the general that built the lighthouse on Long Beach Island and obviously other lighthouses and lee and jackson were involved in the Harbor Defense of new york city. I think they were theres a whole controversy now about ft. Hamilton and about the street named after lee i believe. The thing is is that first of all, im wondering about, if you can talk about those things but also speak about why im just wondering, mead was involved and others were involved in lighthouse building. Was west point more engineer oriented than that . I would think the navy should be more involved in lighthouse building but maybe because of the engineering at west point, but did west point put more emphasis on engineering than the Naval Academy at that time . Im just wondering about that and if you could talk about those things. Thank you. The Naval Academy wasnt founded until 1845 so weve got sort of a 25, 30 year 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 it was definitely more ad hoc. West point 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. So there was a, what do they call it . I cant remember now. There was sort of an ancestor of the u. S. Geological survey and basically theyre the guy whose do the lighthouses. But they really only had, you know, essentially, like, heres the head of the agency and heres his clerk. And so the u. S. Government, because there was so much antagonism to having a large government, because the emphasis on limited government, decentralization, low taxes, right . The government didnt have a lot of revenues and didnt have a lot of employees. Certainly didnt have a lot of ways to train them. But going all the way back to jefferson, they could say okay, here from west point we have people who are scientifically trained and remember at a time when most colleges were still training in the classics in latin and greek and rhetoric. R. 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 harbors and clear obstacles in rivers like when debris and lumber built up in a bend of 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 . Was that in this time period or during the civil war . Thank you. 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 surrender, we will not reenslave you. Jessup was a slave 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 canadians looking for 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 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, 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 dilemmas and tradeoffs. Thank you so much. [ applause ]. Thank you all for having me here again. With the new movie, the post, opening the month, well show you an interview with the late publisher of the washington post, catherine graham. Talks about her book, personal ry. An autobiography on theory of the washington post. Other topics include the watergate scandal, pentagon papers, and a journalist strike from 1997. Watch the interview today, 5 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Coming up new years weekend on cspan. Saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. North Korean Refugees describe life under the kim regime. In china, tens of thousands or north korean detectors are leaving without papers and are being physically or sexually exploited while the u. S. Should continue urging china and russia to support more economic sanctions, it should also do more to stop beijing repate rating defectors back to north korea. Sunday at 6 30 p. M. Eastern, James Clapper on his career in the intelligence community. We call that new paradigm ela immaculate collection. About being so precise, given the global interconnection represented by the internet, which is the way everybody communicates. The difficulty of sorting out you know, good people and bad people. And on monday, new years day at 10 00 a. M. Eastern, a tech summit on the south driving revolution u and at noon, former Clinton Administration officials on the legacy of bill clinton. He knew who he was fighting for. He got there every day. He knew the people he wanted to help. Through thick and then, when times were good and bad, all he cared about was could he deliver for the people who needed the government to be on their side. Watch this new years weekend on cspan. Next on cspan 3. American history tv takes you to the classroom now for a lek canture by Arizona State university professor, jonathan barth. He teaches a class about the rise of Andrew Jackson and his presidency with a focus on jacksons clashes with whig party members. His class is 55 minutes. Well, good morning, everybody. And welcome to American History. My name is jonathan barth. You know me as professor barth. I am a