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