In the war of 1812 and the war with mexico. Which together won the distinguished book award from the society for military history. Incidentally cited military history of which we are a part. He is coed tor of the history of warfare which won the society for military history george c. Marshall Foundation Prize for the use of teaching military history. The west point history of the sieve war, which won the distinguished writing award. She also coauthor of the west point history of the american revolution. He teaches on 19th century warfare and about the american frontier. Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, sam watson. [ applause ] thank you. Bob noted ive been teaching west point for 18 years and gave my last talk about 18 years ago. In the fall of 1999 on Army Medical Officers in the war and do they see themselves as medical officers or military officers and turned out they saw themselves as a bit of both. Im going to be talking to you about the army before and after jackson, focusing primarily on before jacksons presidency during his presidency and then after his presidency. Only in the army for a short period of time. I have to give the standard disclaimer, i speak for myself. Not from the department of the army. Or defense and not for any other agency of the United States government. With that out of the way, i will try to say a few controversial things or few things that you might want to question today. And give you some information, really about the army and jacksons a factor, lack of effect on it. Ill talk about four topics here. The first is Civil Military relations. The armys vuf politics or view of Army Officers of politics. And the armys role in politics. Second structure between the army or the army if you prefer, its not clear, people havent called it the regular army. Youll see it referred to the army in lower case or regulars, but in any case, but talking about the standing army, rather than the mass of interit tant militia volunteers. So what did the u. S. Employ the National Standing army to what extent. No really volunteers. The third question is that of command. When they deployed troops to florida and georgia, to force the cherokee indians to move west or along the Canadian Border or border with texas, who commanded the u. S. Troops is this was it regular officers or were the commanders say volunteer citizen soldiers. Can which we often tend to think they were. We think of jackson himself began as a militia general. And then commissioned. The fourth, what about the capability performing the missions assigned to it. Did that increase, decrease. Improve or degrade. Within those four topic, Civil Military relations, forced structure, command of u. S. Forces, and the forces cape bable theties, within those, we have questions of perception versus reality. Both for contemporaries and historians. People looking back thinks the United States in the 19th century its all citizen soldiers, all volunteers or all michelle or its all Andrew Jackson. And then on the other hand, we have my tie, Winfield Scott leading the charge for the regular army. Then question of change versus continuity. In other words, to what extent changes had already been made before jackson became president. The army had been a small force. It was not very active developing profess sal capable thety and it was not very accountable financially or in supplying its soldiers. Neither displayed to authority as we would desire. Jackson challenged, ignored and subverted authority some dysfunctional dynamics that i explore in my book. This is a story of dysfunctions, of jackson invading florida on his own initiative and authority. All kinds of insubordination to the authority to the elected command authority. So jacksons victory at new or orleans didnt really make a big difference to that army. It made a difference in how americans perceived military force. The hunters of kentucky to whom they contributed. Scholars would say certainly a lot of accurate rifle men but some of that artillery was manned by pirates. Much of that was manned by artillery men and some u. S. Navy as well. So theres sort of a myth of the battle of new orleans. The regular army, that National Standing army is kind of doing its own thing. And during the 1820s the army changed quite a bit. There were a variety of favorite. It is sported by james monroe. And secretary john c. Calhoun. In effect, that National Standing army, that permanent and hopefully froprofessional a became during the 1820s, became a sort of police fort to guard the borders and to intim tate or deter opponents and keep the peace along the borders. But also educators for maintaining professional expertise. For example, at west point, but also say the Artillery School at fortress monroe or Infantry School at jefferson barricks in st. Louis. Now that ladder to mention to the army was drawn largely from those to whom the president , secretary of war gave monopolies for more than a decade during the 1820s. During the 1820s Army Officers were politically attuned. They supported president ial candidates like jackson or calhoun. So this is sort of an elite politics of general men and government officials. They would write a lot of letters to one another privately. Who do you think is going to be better for the army . Remember how calhoun supported us on this . Remember what jackson said about that . It is a lot of behind the scenes politicking. Not really anything but in 1829 many of the Senior Officers, many of that small number of Senior Officers recommended that. Seeing him that would support more funding for the army. That is usually the main thing that army leaders wanted at that time. We dont think we have enough troops if things break out with the british again for the border with mexico, for the coastal fortifications. For the indians on the plains. When the army when army Staff Officers made plans they would say we need three or four for each of those. We need 20 or 25 regiments to perform our missions. The army at that point had 11 regiments. So they p perceived they are always under strength. Usually the crises break out at one place at a time and they can redeploy their forces under to the different, to meet the different crisis. It is fair to say that in 1828 and 29 a lot saw him like that. Now during jacksons administration, fund iing remaid tight. Jacksonians jacksonians talk ed about keepig spending down. Not raising taxes or other avenues, so they didnt get more funding, but it did grow by two regiments under jacksons administration. A nearly 20 increase right from 11 to 13 regiments to an army that was about 5,000 soldiers. 5,000. When jackson entered office. Both those regiments were mounted regiments. The first and second which you can of who can you can see an camera principle here on the cover of my second book. This was an important step in making the army more capable of performing its missions. For two decades, the army had not had any cavalry. The u. S. Army had dragoons. Cavalry that can dismount to fight on foot. Although the american officer often like to think of charging you know, on their horses with sabers. But u. S. Had them in revolution. They had them on a very small scale with Anthony Waynes legion of the United States in 17 0i9s. And then those were disbanded alexander hamilton, george washington, wanted to have some at the end of the decade. Never really built that force and then during war of 1812, there were a couple of regiments of dragoons and there were a lot of volunteers. Like the kentucky. But at the end of the war of 1812, horses cost money. You have to feed the horses. Cost money. Congress not willing pay for that. Between 1815 and 1833, the u. S. Army didnt have any cavalry. Sometimes, they would mount infantry soldiers. You can imagine the soldiers were very good horse men. They werent about so the army had not had much ability to pursue indians west of the mississippi. If the army just wanted to catch them or intimidate them or sign a treaty or something. So these dragoons, the first in 1833 and second would prove crucial to effective power to mexico and california during the war of mexico. The first dragoons would spent time mostly dismounted. Because its often forested and swampy there. But clearly, there were needed troops in florida. Other changes in the army during the Jackson Administration included more nutritiknenutrit n rations. And reduced mortality. Adding more ve ining more vegeta gums, different element to a diet that had been like classic salt park, salt beef, you know, a lot of tried food. And abolishing liquor ration. During the Jackson Administration, the Navy Officers and civilians with an interest, civilian publishers also created professional journals. I dont have a picture of the ration. Probably i should have pulled one off the web. They probably have one in some of the Different Army museums of what a ration would look like. But during the early 1830s, officers began to write in sufficient amount that publishers, benjamin homens, a baltimore publisher, created in this case, a monthly magazine or journal if you like and in this case, a weekly for the army. And these became centers for debate about military profession professionalism, Civil Military relations, military capability. Reform. Tactics. In 134, 1835, then when the second seminole war began in 1835 and early 1836, by that point, the military became sort of the standard and is just chock full. If you want to study the second seminole war, like the american periodical series that that database has the army and Navy Chronicle and you can write a book on the seminole war. Largely from that. Now the terms of our question today, Andrew Jackson candidn really have anything to do with this. These are really initiatives within the army or you know, civilian publisher responding to a demand by you know, 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 repository for a couple of years. But theres just not enough interest once the war is over and so it goes out of business in 1844. So the changes that occurred to the army that i mentioned so far were during jacksons administration largely changes initiated by Army Officers. The same as the changes in the 1810s and 1820s. You had political leaders, whether it had been president monroe of jackson, secretary calhoun in particular, among the secretaries of war. Who had supported the army doipg so. But by and large, Army Officers would you know, be talking among themselves, writing letters back and forth saying you know, we really need an Infantry School. And calhoun would say yeah, sounds like a good idea and you know, then monroe or John Quincy Adams would say yes, good, go. 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 jacksons administration from 1829 to the beginning of 1837, these were difficult years for the army brought on by resurgence in u. S. Territorial expansion. Largely by jacksons policy of forcing indians to leave their land east of the mississippi. What we know from the title of the legislation as indian reform. Nowadays, that you know, that sounds a little harsh, but and it was harsh, so we might say the exappropriation of the indian. We might say ethnic cleansing. So in europe, we would, if this happened in europe, you would say it was ethnic cleansing and everybody was like, yeah, those europeans, theyre like that. While officers had professionals journeys to debate reforms in the Artillery Schools, this is an image of a later painting, a 20th century painting, but an image of drill at the Artillery School in the 1820s. In 1827. Those schools had to close, reducing officers opportunities to practice drill and tactics and to train larger units of soldiers. This was because army, artillery units were deployed from the Artillery School at fortress monroe to deter slave rebellions between 1829 and 1831. Now this is actually from the outside of the second seminole war, but its sort of this standard iconography. You can see here the image of slaves. You know, rising up and attacking slave holders. And between 1829 and 1831, there was, a wave of slave unrest of rumors of slave unrest and you know, culminating in nat turners rebellion in 1831. But for several years there, governors, mayors, state legislators, congressmen from throughout the south, virginia, north carolina, South Carolina, mostly the eastern sea board states, but also louisiana, they were constantly sending letters to army commanders. There are rumors of they wouldnt say slave. They usually conceal that. Savage unrest in our neighborhood. They were pretty clear they meant slaves and so the army forces were constantly small detachments were being dispatched from usually from the coastal fortifications. Manned by the artillery. To try to deter any slave unrest. Now when they actually get to nat turners 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 nat turners rebellion. But not only that, weve also got the blackhawk war in 1832. And blackhawk had almost gone to war or the United States had almost gone to war against blackhawk the Previous Year in 1832, situation exploded. With a lot of miscommunication, but certainly exploded. And you add infantry units in the region, but they ultimately brought artillery unit frs the Artillery School near norfolk. Actually 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 the way by steam boat. Part of the way by train. And then they all caught cholera in the course of doing that. But these kind of pressures then the artillery had to go back to the eastern seaboard back to South Carolina to try to intimidate the nullification advocates in South Carolina. And so by the time he got to the end of 1832, it was pretty clear that they werent going to be able to sustain an Artillery School anymore. The infanry school which had been designed as a Strategic Reserve at st. Louis in the mild middle of the frontier, had lost most of its school purpose. And its hard to say, you can probably say it closed in 1834, but had not been very active for several years before that. So what we today call off tempo, right, the frequency of d deployments and again, this army that thats maybe grown from at that point, hadnt really grown, about 5,000. Small army couldnt really sustain training at the Infantry School. And intimidating slave unrest and native americans. And ultimately conduct iing the indian removal. This is the year before the indian removal act, but trying to keep the peace from cherokee and whites. For trying to keep the peace between the creek indians and mostly in alabama and whats white in maryland. And a war in the mid 1830s. This is an image of supposed to be Edmond Gaines and his staff, his troops at the site of the battlefield, one of the first battles of the war where about 100 u. S. Soldiers had been ambush and wiped out. And that sort of frequency of deployment, that overextension of the army meant that it was torn by some Reform Efforts and the actual deployments. Not all combat operations. Most of the time is spent intimidating people or trying to either push them to do something the u. S. Wanted or deter them from doing something the u. S. Didnt want. But still, lots and lots of deployments. Not just on the western frontier where you would think. Where we got the imaung of you know, say those dragoons 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 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 had sought and prak the tised when he had commanded in florida a generation before. Instead, king andrew, this is a probably a whig cartoon. Political opposition cartoon. But i use it to make the point that you know, a lot of people saw jackson as a you know, fairly authoritarian leader, right. He would say it was, he had the, he had a mandate for the majority. Other people would call that the tyranny of the majority. For the army, jackson trieded to compel those that he sent to trouble spots to repress whatever resistance there was, but to do so without embarrassing him or increasing opposition to his policy. So i want you to crack down on cherokee. I want you to make it clear to the cherokee that you know, they have to move west. But i dont know really want this get