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

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 ng the newspapers. I dont want newspapers saying u. S. Troops used Excessive Force against the cherokee. I dont want the cherokee to actually rebel, so you have to like intimidate them but not to the point where they actually rebel and we have an expensive war in georgia and there are a lot more cherokee. Probably at four times as many cherokee as there were seminole. The seminole was difficult enough and there would had been with the creek indians in alabama the same year. 1836, that depending on how you look at it, extended r for several years there after. So you tony want 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. Then were going to have a crisis on the kai ncanadian bor. So weve got a lot of deployments, very high operational tempo and a president whos very impatient, very short tempered. With his commanders. And very quick to criticize them if they either seem to use too much or too little force. They had to walk a fine line and most fell off the tight rope at some point in jacksons eyes. So here we have a couple of examples of that. Thats kind of the center of the story i think. On the left, we have john wool. Who had actually been something of a pop ulist democrat in the 1820s and 30s. He was charged with basically intimidating, pressuring, coercing, the cherokee into and just starting to move in 1836. He was unsuccessful. The cherokee dont move until 1838. Another commander follows him, then Winfield Scott. Hes the best example. Ive got apter in peace keepers and conquerers, where the jacksonians, his secretary of war are pressuring wool and wool is trying to explain well im trying to do this, but it didnt work. Trying to do that and it didnt work. So what if i disarm the cherokee. Take all their weapons. No, no, no, that might provoke them. Okay. They want to hold a counsel. Should i discourage them . Cherokee hold a counsel. Wool arrests some of them or detains some of the cherokee. Jackson says no, no, you werent supposed to actually detain them. Now the newspapers are going to say were pushing too hard. So wool like other officers, was constantly caught between sort of the demands between public relatio relations. The removal act passed by a single vote. The act said that indians would voluntarily remove, they had the choice to remove. That the u. S. Government would show them wonderful land out of the west and they would you know, probably want to move out there. And when they didnt, right, according to the legislation passed by congress, they should stay in georgia or alabama or florida, but that certainly wasnt jacksons intention and these officers are are caught in the middle. So here on the right, we have a rather younger version of duncan clinch, who was commanding in florida in 1835. Clinch is constantly sending messages, hey, the seminoles are unhappy. Theyre not going to leaf. 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. Maybe if you send me troops, i can intimidate them and we can keep the lid on here. That falls on deaf ears back in washington. Or you know, another way to put it would be the army was doing a lot of Different Things because of all the jacksons policies and so clinch at the end of the year when the war starts, clinch you know, complains, then gets in a newspaper war with the governor of florida. And retires soon after. And clinch then becomes a whig. In other words, an antijacksonian. Here we have Winfield Scott in his best portrait. This is from the army arts series of portraits of commanding generals of the r army. He wasnt the commanding general of the army at this point, but still, got to get good side burns here. And scott was also deployed down to florida. There were trying pretty much every Senior Commander in the army at that point. In 1836. Heres scotts rival, Edmond Gaines, a younger picture of gaines, probably lithograph from the war of 1812 or engrave fivi from the war of 1812. Gaines actually rushed to florida himself. Like frontier emergency, i must go there and command troops. Which caused all kinds of confusion. Jackson scott quickly got into a newspaper battle of sorts with people many florida and the south. Scott was diplomatic enough to sort of get himself out of it, but jackson with 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. So jacksons really unhappy with him. Gaines after hes not able to crush the semiknow, hes sent off to the texas border in 1836 and here again, jackson is saying well, its not really clear. I shouldnt say that. Its not clear exactly what jackson wanted, but we can infer that jackson wanted to put pressure on mexico. Historians debate this. And there are any number of conspiracy theorys. Gaines sent u. S. Troops into northeast texas. Nag doe nacogdoches in the theory he was protecting american citizens. In practice probably to try and intimidate mexico. Most of the battles in the war between the tex war between the whites in texas and mexico most of them was in southern texas. Its pretty far away from that. But once, again, gains became the subject of jacksons ire. They said why are you sending troops into texas . He pretty much wrote back saying i thought you were going to make an impression. Thats not the impression we want you to make. Thats get inning the newspapers. We dont want that. So, and gaines was definitely an in pet tu oust guy, so probably some fault on gaines part. But in all these cases, jackson had put his generals in difficult situations either denying them the troops or authority or the autonomy, right, first saying okay heres the mission, then trying to micro manage them in performing it. Then he would condemn them for not being a greaggressive enouge clinch or scott or too aggressive like wool and gaines. Actually wool got criticized for being too aggressive, not enough. And jackson and his i think we have to say his hen shall men criticized wool for essentially anything. Although wool repeatedly south reassignment, jackson kept him on through 1836. And jacksons secretary of war and especially politicians in georgia blamed wool for the cherokees refusal to move west. These dilemmas had consequences for Civil Military relations. Wool had been a pretty populous democrat. And gaines who was facing similar mixed messages and criticism from the president , gaines had been jacksons closest subordinate when he was in florida 20 years before. Scott was probably already a wig, because of his views on society and the economy, and duncan clinch and Zachary Taylor either were wigs, again, their views on society and the economy, or became wigs, clinch probably definitely became a wig later, served as a wig congressman in part of his reaction to the criticism that he had received from jackson and the jack sonnian newspapers. This is a time when newspapers were partisan, either jacksonian or antijacksonian. So when you say jackson criticized or the secretary of war, those criticisms were being echoed and letters being leaked into newspapers, then you have what i call a newspaper war. So this is thomas sydney jess up, and by the time that jackson left office, early in 1837, jess upwas the only senior officer. Remember, i said 1828, 1829 the armys didnt have a lot of generals, but senior 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. Now, jess up is a very capable officer, but not so much part of my story here. He was the Quarter Master general for 42 years from 1818 to 1860. And reformed army of logistics, made them much more efficient and effective. He also saw himself as a combat leader. His hand was crippled in 1814 and his right hand was crippled and he used to learn his left hand without typewriters, hes constantly writing. He has some officers he can dictate too, but he probably wrote more correspondence than anyone else in the army, so learns to use his left hand to write. Then during the second seminole war hes leading troops in battle and actually gets hess eyeglasses shattered by a bullet in which i guess fortunately managed to go this way rather than this way early in 1837. But there is kind of a sunny side to this story. Because the Civil Military friction encouraged most army leaders to avoid partisan politics. Obviously Winfield Scott is the great exception since hes going to run for president in 1852 and really as early as 1840 wig leaders were talking about him as president ial candidate and he was pretty clearly demonstrating his interest in running for the presidency. But apart from scott, most Army Officers 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 1820s when officers wrote to their officer, yeah, i liked calhoun, remember how he supported the military school, and they pretty much stopped doing that. And thats probably a good thing they withdrew, even privately from partisan politics. So, 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 con continuities. And this is where i think perceptions and realities both contemporary among historians clash the most. Im sorry, i think the con continuities were greater than 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 will that old army that wasnt very disciplined, wasnt very well organized and well supplied, wasnt very accountable, wasnt 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 1820 it s after jackson had retired and entered politics. The most foundational continuity was the dominance at west point. And this is the monument to ellis r wood who was an early graduate, a 1806 graduate of west point. And he was an engineer through jacob brown on the Niagara Frontier in 1814. He was mortally wounded from fort eerie of september of 1814. 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 in the West Point Cemetery today. And west point remained the primary commissioning source for new officers. Throughout the jacksonian era. So usually we think other jacksonians they are small d democrat, egalitarian, they are populouse populous, they are pretty radical. They talked a lot about west point as an aristocracy or the standing army, or like a british standing army, you would have an american cromwell, you can say we had one, it was Andrew Jackson, but jacksonian rhetoric was very antistanding army, very antiwest point, very antiauthority, very antiofficer corp. So jacksonian writers, newspaper men, propaganda would say, get rid of west point, you know, all the officers should be promoted from enlisted soldiers. First be privates, then sergeants, then be officers. Or the officers should come from the militia. They should be citizen soldiers. Not people paid by the government for 10, 20, 30 years. And they would draw all these per parallels to britain, semiretired and can be called back in the army. Jacksonian would say thats government privilege. The government is giving these officers money and therefore of course the officers will support the government, right, and it will be sort of like a military industrial complex. So there might be some foresight there, but whether n it came do it the jacksonians did none of the things i suggested. Despite all the rhetoric, west point was abolished, new militaries were not created. There were state academies like virginia institute, 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 well connected 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, or i think maybe the number of bill skeleton came up with was 7, so 7 enlisted soldiers were ploe d promoted to become officers during the seminole war. So the jacksonian did not change the commissioning source. They did with the first and second dragoons they did appoint probably say about 20 to 30 new officers from civilian life. But thats 20 to 30 out of officer corp. , right, of small though it is, out of five or six hundred. So the vast majority of the army core were west point corp. , if they were younger, then the majors, 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 core could be basically the war of 1812 veterans, younger west point, and in theory the jacksonians would put in a bunch of maybe democratic partisans. They would use the army for spoils in the spoils system to reward their supporters. They did a little bit of that. And Army Officers thought that that was shocking and they thought it was terrible. But if we look at it with a little bit of critical distance, it didnt reshape the officer co core. Although jackson did not foster partisanship. So two possibilities here. It could be that maybe like with Winfield Scott or duncan clinch to some extent, it could be that Army Officers, it could be that the faculty and staff at west point could say, oh, jackson is attacking us, we hate jackson. We will try to undermine jackson. And subvert civilian authority over the military. But they didnt do that. And so although the superintendent did request reassignment, he didnt resign from the army, he requested reassignment, and he went off to build cotastal fortifications. So he requested and received 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. What was his name . Sill ven a stair. Ill tell you after. Thair. Thair, yeah. The second continuity is with forced structure and command. Remember, i said we had forced structure, regular versus militia, who commands, then we have the army capability. And in all of these deployments, whether they were actually wars or more like intimidation or in some cases i call them peacekeeping, in all these cases its really the regular army that leads. So like in the second seminole war they call up a lot of florida calls up a lot of militia. And 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 1836 under Martin Van Buren, the u. S. Government says, wait, these militia, these volunteers they cost too much, not very disciplined, they lose a lot of their equipment. There is a lot of what they called wastage, so again they are very expensive, they are not well trained, they are not very effective, and the u. S. Government by and large tried to minimize the call up of militia and volunteer and increase the troops in florida. So relied on them to fight the seminole war which you can see in the casualties statistics. So these guys are examples of jacksonian patronage. This is henry dodge who i suppose is related to dodge motor company, but henry dodge who had been invading indians land in wisconsin became the leader of mounted rangers in the black hawk 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 point more than 20 years in the regular army. This guy had entered the army after the war of 1812. He is sort of an example of a more rough and ready less professional army officer. But when we think of the dragoons, or when we think of the army in the 1830s, its not the militia, like this caricature. And ill jump past them to here we have, right, our dragoons. And then here we have this is steven w carney, the very professional who commanded the dragoons. So jackson relied on the National Standing army, not those militia. But he relied on the National Standing army to impress, deter, and intimidate native americans, mexico and european powers. And the army performed these missions effectively. So the seminole war proved very difficult. Also frequently criticized by officers as unwise, unnecessary, or even immoral. But then john wool, this is a later picture of wool, john wool helped to avert a war with the cherokee. So this is john vos of the cherokee, leader of the opposition to moving west. Wool helped prevent a possible war with the cherokee. Edmond gaines, pretty impetuous, but did not, in part due to diplomacy by Winfield Scott and other officers. In both the cherokee and the Canadian Border crisis the u. S. Played a Peace Keeping roll trying to prevent violence, and preventing potential atrocities against the cherokee, and providing the most demonstration of american good faith to the british on the Canadian Border at a time when american citizens were launching raids into canadian acanada and they were threatening to do that and it could have escalated and become a disastrous war, so although diplomacy, ultimately the treaty in 1832, but the prelude to that diplomacy is scott and wool and some of the subordinate officers like worth talking with their british counterparts and cooperate wg the british to keep american citizens from invading canada and sparking a war. Steven w carney here would lead the first dragoons to california about a decade after he became their commander. Now, history or historians or textbooks may better remember john c. Fremont, you think in 1836 antislavery and abolitions. In the 1840s, hes the path finder who is trying to find ways to invade mexican territory. Fremont was 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 clash go over who would command in california. Carney had the rank and he had kind of the letter of you are going to command American Forces in california. Fremont said hey, i got here first and im a jacksonian guy and my fatherinlaw is senator so ill do what i want to do. And carney was able to get Fremont Court martialed, and the court, which is bunch of regular army guys, they found fremont guilty and sentenced him to be dismissed from the army. President james polk who was known as young hickory, 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 largely insulated from the demands of jacksonian democracy in its internal procedures, especially defacto control over officer education, training, and commissioning. So officer solution 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 for other citizen soldiers to lead the expansion and again to do so without the masa trosties that sit sen soldiers often inflicted on native americans and other people of color. Jackson chose known Winfield Scott to do this. Chose scott, a wig, to intimidate the cherokee and deter the british. After john wool left the Cherokee Country unhappily after all the difficulty he had had, more difficulty he felt with jackson and the jacksonians and the cherokee. He felt he could get along and come to agreement with them. But after he left the Cherokee Country, van buren allowed wool to seek a court of inquiry to validate his conduct there. Winfield scott led the court of inquirery. And the court of inquirery publicly praised wool and basically criticized wools accusers, particularly some alabama politicians, and in fact the governor of alabama. And wool used the opportunity of this court of inquirey, this public forum to condemn jacksonian policy. Wool basically got it put in the record that i think this was unconstitutional, et cetera, which you can view as really insubordinate, and also view it as this is the army taking care of its own, protecting itself, which is in one way what the jacksonians were afraid of, 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 wool criticizing indian removal than it would be to have a bunch of militia and volunteers raping and massacring the cherokee, as volunteers and militia and sig lan tees had done to the creek during the creek removal. Vigilantes. And so, finally in 1846, president polk sent Zachary Taylor on the left here, a known wig, to intimidate mexico along the rio grand border, up by corpus crisp corpus christi, so he doesnt send fremont, fremont was busy trying to over throw the Mexican Government in california. When tailors campaign in northern mexico had gone as far as it could because of supply problems moving across the mountains and the desserts, polk tried to get senator benton, 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. So the young hickory, james k polk in some ways the most jacksonian 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 before him, believed that he could rely on the army to do what polk and jackson wanted. Right. Even knowing that tailor in particular seems to have disagreed with the war with mexico. But still tailor despite his politics would subordinately execute the policies made by the constitutionally elected civilian authority. Jackson and his supporters often cr criticized them but gave the authority to them and generally 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. 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 for . How long did they stay in the service for . And in general how the ranwho t file were . The enlisted soldiers mostly the soldiers enlisted mostly as far as we can tell for economic reasons. Obviously, there were a wide range 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 pret t prestigious occupation. It was seen as you were subordinating yourself to someone else. And particularly in the United States with the Racial Attitudes in the United States for one white guy to let another white guy boss him around all the time, what was seen as subservient or slaveish. So the political culture also saw enlisted soldiers that way. And the result was a real divide between the officers and the soldiers. And there was a lot of brutality by the officers, a lot of violence by the officers towards the soldiers. Some of that had been legal, right, like 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 and kick them to whack them with the flat of their swords to push them, shove them. And then sometimes as punishments to do things that we would recognize ast torture, to have them sit on a saw horse, or stiemts to hang them up by their thumbs, so things well would all today would recognize ast as torture. Now what this did is intensified that perception. So it became harder, the army wanted, in theory, they wanted to find native born americans. Not immigrants. To be in the army. But native born americans would say, oh, wait, the army, isnt that where they treat white guys like slaves. Im not going to do that. So increasingly they had to find recruits among people who really didnt have other opportunities. And then that also meant that most of the soldiers did not remain, enlisted soldiers did not remain in the army for 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 is that officers and politicians didnt really take much account of them. They sort of only got noticed when they became a problem, you know, if they 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 mutinies or more resistance by the soldiers, but this is a period when, even the noncommissioned officers, even the sergeants only average about five years of service. So you dont have like a long service noncommission officer core the way we do today or the way even we might think for the wars with the indians after the civil war. And even the jacksonians didnt really do much about this. Periodically the Army High Command would try to launch sort of drives to reduce officers violence against soldiers. So like the early 1820s, Jackson Brown who was the commanding general and Winfield Scott, they Court Martialed soldiers, and went hand in hand for that with drunkeness. But in other cases Court Martial, its basically you have a jury, right, in other cases the jury would be here are all these captains and lieutenants, and they are looking at me, captain lieutenant, tan they are accused and they are worried they would get accused so they would find their peer not guilty. And they tried that again in the 1830s, and early 1840s, so about every ten years or so the army would try to reduce that violence by officers against soldiers. But without much success. And Andrew Jackson didnt step up. Jacksonians in congress didnt step up and say, this really shows you these are brute tal martin ets. They could have made that case, but they didnt. So its ironic, but there is a strand in the history, most of them were from pretty elite background. Jacksonian leaders were not ordinary working men or farmers. They owned plantations in the south. Or they owned businesses in the north. And in practice, you know, didnt show a whole lot of concern for these enlisted soldiers. I have two questions. Number one, you showed a picture of general horny. Decades ago i read a book called, compact history of the American Indian wars and mentioned something about in the 1850s general horny was involved in some sort of squirmish or whatever and it was rather humiliating defeat for him. It wasnt disastrous in the worst possible way, but it made him look silly. And then a few years later, as the way the book expressed it, that he got his revenge and he led a pretty terrible massacre. Now, number one, is that true . And if it is, id like to hear more about it. And my second question is, when you are talking about how the regular army was less likely, not all the time, but less likely to commit massacres against indians than the local militias, is the sand creek massacre led by sheriffiifg tond example of that . Yes. So har horney here he was not himself humiliated. I think 1854 there is the grat ton, there is a lieutenant grat ton, grattan, and hes the one defeated, kind of became over confident, pushed too hard, and the indians are you calling it cow . Im not sure. A cow maybe. Or probably a horse. But, yeah, harney did see that as. So you have harney here, he actually fled indictment for murdering a slave woman in st. Louis in about 1834, 1835. And harney was later reprimanded for pressuring soldiers to fight each other, like, you know, bare knuckle for his amusement or for discipline. A and was accused to having slaves fight soldiers. So looks like your grandfather or uncle here, this guy was a pretty brutal fellow. And in the seminole war, there are two things, we have the 1850s but back in the seminole war in 1849, he was rough and ready and good active soldier. He was leading a small part down in south florida, a group of indians surprised his camp at night, and he had to flee in his under wear, so he was swimming through the swamp in his under wear. So when he caught several of those indians a couple of months later, he promptly hung them from a tree. So rather than taking them prisoner, or taking them back to sort of prisoner of war camps. And then thats 1839. So hes got at least indicted for murdering a slave women in early 1839. 1832, 44 is when he seems to have enlisted soldiers fighting each other, fighting slaves, whatnot. 1850s there is this incident with the bull sioux, in 1854, and then i think its 55 he leads an expedition out which then attacks the Sioux Village and sort of just precip continuoususually attacks it without any regard for the civilians in the village. So hes a very vengeful guy. But then more generally, like your question about creek and sheriff inc. T sheriffing ton, hes a wartime volunteer. And so most, right, this is it a difficult subject, because one can say, hey, any atrocity is an astrosty. But if you were to make a list of atrocities, and especially of like out and out atrocities, you do find like lets say the bear river massacre with the shoshone in 1863, you generally find it is volunteer troops. Or you find that sort of volunteers who are almost v vigilantes or bullies, what term you like, you find them attacking, i referred to the creek camps, when they were being escorted west by Army Officers in 1834, the officers write in the journals these guys attacked the camp last night because really not enlisted soldiers like a couple of supply officers trying to make sure the creeks get fed. And at night these volunteer vig lanty, not sure what you call them, criminals, would go into the crete camps and attack the woman and rob the cretes. What usually happens for the army i would say is you get people, like a ronald mckenzie, and they will say whats the best way to catch the indians is to attack them at dawn, right, in their village, right, in their winter camp, right, its hard for us to chase them all around the plains. They are better horse men than we do. We have a hard time catching them. But throughout American History, and really this is kind of true in the counter in surge begincy if y insurgency, where will the indians be . Theyll be in the villages. So theyll have to either defend the village or kill them or theyll run away and we can burn the village and food supply and theyll starve. So its a very brutal form of warfare whether you call that atrocity or not i think depends on historic context. People today would call it that. In world war i we would would call tt british blockade of germany. And we call it economic warfare. But the result then is that people like say custer in 1868 hires the indian village, its dawn, we can surprise them, hit the village, of course the village is full of women and children. Now the soldiers arent being ordered to kill the women and children, and by and large they arent trying to kill the women and children, otherwise you would see a lot more killed. If you have several hundred women and children in the village and 10 anza get killed, thats tragic and regrettable, but its not the same thing as lining up two or three hundred women and children and killing them. So its kind of like in terms of prisoners, right, so we talk about atrocities in taking prisoners. When are prisoners most vulnerable is the moment when they surrender. So i have my machine gun, firing down your buddies, fine will you you get up close to me you surrender, okay, do you go thats the rules or do you get awningry and shoot me. Do we blame that as an atrocity, or your general, at that point things get a little less black and white. Thank you. By the time of the civil war, a lot of the enlisted soldiers spoke english as a second language. Was this a problem at this point . And the other quiestion i have, there was never a lasting treaty with the seminoles, was there . Thats what i understand. So their tactics were fairly simple. It was basically drill. It was basically stand in line shoulder to shoulder. So i dont know the lack of facility with english was that much of a problem. It did definitely aggravate or deepen that gulf because you would have your native born american officers and they would disdain the immigrant soldiers who couldnt speak english. There is the anecdote where Zachary Taylor doesnt understand the soldier, or the soldier understand tailor, a german soldier, and taylor pulls him by his nose, and you can see that as brutality. So i dont think it was too much of a problem for the armys effectiveness but certainly aggravated that division between soldiers and officers. For ending the seminole war, it really ended gradually by a whole series of agreements. In peacekeepers and con kwer ors i called it something, where the war is very difficult, we are hiding out in the swamps, we 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 seminaole 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, not even declaring that, but just there are still actually combat operations into 1843. There are patrols. Collection down at princeton that has a lot of accounts of small scale patrols into 1843. And then there is that sort of gap from about 1843, 44 through the mid 50s where they would withdraw into the everglades and dont want to deal with white people and hide out down here. But as White Settlement was expanding, they run up against seminoles. So in the 1850s we have sometimes called the third seminole war. Aen that one ends the same way, 1858ish sort of peters out and the seminoles go deeper into the swamps, numbers probably being only two or three hundred in florida. And sort of a long period, not maybe until 1890s until you start to see, i guess, sustained contacts between whites anse and seminoles again. So 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, but they did prove effective through attrition, we would call it through attrition in achieving their assigned mission. You talked about the intellectual development of u. S. Military, and im wondering whats the european influence . Because as i understand it, they are largely copying french doctrine in terms of tactics, and if thats correct, i wonder if you have anything more on that . Yeah. By and large they are copying french tactical doctrine. They are aware of british doctrine, you know, from napoleon, most military officers at the time tended to think of the french as most professional. So this was before prussia. But they are aware of british tactics. They are aware to some extent of prussian tactics. And like in 1835, 1836 they have a big debate. And its well informed and constantly citing 20, 30, 40 year old tactical regulations from these different countries. Now a larger question implied in that might be, how much of an affect did that have on the army. There are people that argue basically makes the American Army copy of the french army. What i would say deeper argument in both my books is although the u. S. Army saw itself preparing to fight with europeans, like repeat of the war of 1812, and so they tried to prepare for that, but in practice most of what they did was to intimidate or to deter native americans or mexicans or canadians or american citizens so that whatever extent their technical doctrine was french or british in some sense isnt 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 with the war with mexico, to have a mobile field artillery, that plays a big role in like palo alto, buena vista, those are sort of the combination. They had a board and they had officers who had traveled to europe and so they had french tactics, they had british tactics and a whole range. And they synthesized there. So the infantry tactics were french, artillery was less french, and i would give them credit for putting that effort to consider the different tactic toss go to europe to look what was being done in europe to put together a board of officers to study at and talk about it, right, and come up with a new and very effective tactics. Thank you very much for the talk, sam, we havent seen you around here for a while. Its been quite a while. I missed the first part of the talk, so hopefully i dont know if you spoke about this. There was a series of books put out in history on United States and one was about the army between 1814 and 1816. And they had a lot of stuff involved in not only exploratory aspects of the United States army, fremont and others, but pike and others, but they also had on road building. We all know general mead built the lighthouse at Long Beach Island and obviously other lighthouses. And lee and jackson were involved in the Harbor Defense of new york city. I think there is it a whole controversy now about Fort Hamilton the street named after lee, i believe. The thing 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, i know other officers involved in lighthouse building. Was west point more engineer oriented than i would think maybe the navy should be more involved in lighthouse building, but it seems maybe because of the engineering at west point, did west point put more emphasis in engineering than Naval Academy at that time . Im just wondering about that. If you could talk about those things. Thank you. Well, the Naval Academy wasnt founded until 1845. So we have 25, 30 year period here when naval officers were trained basically on the job at sea. And so you could say their training or education wasnt as scientific or it was definitely more ad hoc. West point then certainly 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 have a large civil service. The government didnt have a lot of civilian employees. And so there was, what do they call it, i cant remember now, but there was sort of an ancestor of the u. S. Geological survey. And basically they are the guys who do the lighthouses. But they really only had like heres the head of the agency, and heres his clerk, right. And so the u. S. Government, because there was so much antagonism to having a large government because of emphasis on limited government, low taxes, right, the government didnt have a lot of revenues, and didnt have a lot of employees, and certainly didnt have a lot of ways to train them. But 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 training in the classics in latin and greek and rhetoric. So west point hers thad scienti training where they could do surveying for roads and rail roads and canals, and building infrastructure. And because they were in the army, in essence, the government could say, hey, we have these guys for national defense. But while they are not out fighting, right, this is a period, a 30year period we are not facing a war against another nation state, during that period there would be a lot of demand, a lot of pressure to, hey, lets use some of those west pointers to survey canals or roads or explore out west. So they did that,is in the 1820s and 30s. During the 1830s that started to become a bit of an issue because some people would say, hey, wait, the government basically paid this army officer to go and survey a rail road on a route that goes through the town that competes with my town. Right. So the government is favoring that town at the expense of my town by sending an army officer pat public expense, taxpayer expense to go and survey that road. And the army would generally say, oh, well, you know, there is military necessity, its national defense. But 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. And then one of them would be off on the attached duty surveying for rail roads and canals. So in the army a lot of unhappiness, hey, im supposed to have five officers in this company, i only have two, you no he you know, maybe i have four, but one is sick or on leave. But where is the other guy . So both political pressure and a lot of at least the commanders in the army werent very happy with this. And they basically put an end to the government sponsored surveys in 1838. They come back a little bit, especially for harbors and especially for clearing obstacles in rivers, you know, like when debris and lumber and whatnot buildup in a river. So that kind of reappeared in the 1850s. And then the topographical engineers doing the exploring, like fremont, had a similar situation where the armys idea was, hey, these guys are basically going to do reconnaissance for us, make maps of the routes that well march on, well advance on. And then theyll work with the Quarter Master, theyll 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 was, again, the government kind of using the army, because the army was there, and they didnt have civilians available to do that. So then there was kind of a backlash within the army, again, like with carney and fremont, right, and they kind of ended up with a compromise. And thats sort of a good story of american government, in general, that we often have a juxtaposition or contradiction between things that our citizens want. They want a lot of Different Things. Tan th and they are not always willing to pay for those Different Things, or at least 20 politicians out there saying, no, you know, you dont want to pay taxes, but still want to do all these things. So in the 1800s, kind of the way around that, the work around, was, okay, we are not going to raise your taxes to pay a bunch of civilian bureau ccrats to do those thiepg things. Well get the army to do it. And if we could say it is National Security, awesome. It is like the national highways, the interstate highways in the 1950s. They are justifieds a National Security measure, if the soviets attack, we could use the highways to shuttle around the country. But what most congressmen Congress People wanted from the interstate highway system was faster commerce and faster transportation. I have two. First of all, were blacks fighting for the seminole treated differently than seminoles and were they simmen ols and seminoles and at what point did west Point Institute the loyalty oath. That is during this time period. The question about the loyalty is easier. That is at the time of the civil war. During the nullification crisis the War Department did direct some Commanding Officers to administer loyalty oaths in cases where they were concerned about the loyalty of some of the officers in some places or maybe of cadets from at west point from certain states. But it is basically a civil war thing. And then for the for the i guess the best term would be the refugees from american slavery, among the seminoles because it is 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 rehyphenslaved. And they said if you resurrender or if we capture, but particularly if you surrender, we will not reenslave you. So guys like jessup and jessup was a slave owner. Most of the Senior Officers, Zachary Taylor what was a was a slave holder and zack was a slave holder but in his case a couple of personal servants rather than a plantation. But Zachary Taylor had a plantation in louisiana. Lets see. Wool was a new yorker. He was from troy so there is a like a a monument to wool up in troy. But harney was a slave holder. But jessup here gains his second marriage was to a wealthy woman who had a number of slaves. Clinch acquired a plantation as part of his role in the conquest of florida and getting florida from the spanish back in the 18tens and then moves into northern florida, became the commander already tl and married and got a plantation. But jessup here now jessup was from kentucky. And jessup had had plantations in kentucky. He had overseers running them while he was in washington 90 of the time. But jessup is really the architect of the policy here of divide and conquer and peace keepers and conquers, i called that freedom diplomacy where he promised the black seminoles, he promised them freedom, hes going to give them papers quote, freedom papers, that they could take with them to the west rather than turning them over to americans who are coming to army headquarters, saying, hey, i hear you captured a bunch of black people among the seminoles, some of them are my slaves. And that was a real a real issue. And of course the War Department by enlarge said, hey, you have to turn over these former slaves or these fugitives from slavery to their owners. This is when we had a fugitive slave law. But the army pretty much said, um, yeah, we captured these guys, they are 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. Now, that is not because jessop is an abolitionist. He is a slave holder. Or the black seminoles or maroons. M. A. R. O. O. N. , meaning people who with flee from slavery and hideout in the mountains and sometimes fight wars to stay free. And there are some historians who see the seminole war and jessup said this is as much a negro as an indian war. Now the problem is that there are historians who say that oh, the seminole was really a war over slavery. And then seminoles, modern day seminoles will say, the seminoles wars that the u. S. Trying to take our land and make us move. And it is a bit of both. But the effect of this was to save the freedom of several hundred refugees from slavery that they were that the army basically shipped them west, over to new orleans and then up the red river into oklahoma and then they were free there. Or at least free for a time. The creek indians at least the creek indian leaders have adopted plantation slavery and so you find the creeks in the 1840s in what we call oklahoma, the creeks trying to seize these we called them free people. Like free people in the freemans bureau and jessop writes a couple of letters in 1844 to the secretary of war, 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 we have to be realistic, probably the outcome was a number of them were reenslaved. Others of them eventually go down to the texasmexico border and into mexico to to try and maintain their freedom there. But another jessup quote, another fairly wellknown among scholars quote is jessup said, we will not make slave catchers or i think he may have said negro catchers, but we will not make negro catchers of the army. His view was, okay, you told me im supposed to get the seminoles out of florida. Right. That is. What im going to do. I dont want to deal with you know, with slavery. Time for two very quick questions and answers. Im interested in the violence, the war that didnt happen. The main it seems to be the main security is britain. So the Canadian Border is really interesting at this point. Particularly the carolina incident, et cetera. Could you talk a little bit more in detail about the role the army here. Yeah i had only mentioned it briefly, but this in 1837, after a number of after several years of unrest, two rebellions broke out in canada. There was rebellion in what was called lower canada, meaning lower down the Saint Lawrence river, so essentially montreal and quebec, and so in the countryside there among the french speaking canadians, and then there was rebellion in upper canada which is basically meaning ontario among English Speaking canadians who wanted more democracy, maybe self rule but probably not independence but at that point you had a british governor general who was a military governor and 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 self government. Both of those rebellions were crushed quickly by not so much British Forces but by loyal canadians. There was a Strong Canadian militia that was loyal to britain. And that the frenchcanadian rebellion then pretty much fizzled out. There was some some lowlevel guerilla warfare and some raids and ambushes. But the leaders of the of the upper canadian rebellion fled to the u. S. And in the u. S. They went around saying, look, were fighting for democracy, right. Against the british. And the american revolution, war of 1812. So this could be the third war of in dependence and the u. S. Could get canada. And a lot of americans now this was at the beginning of the economic panic, the panic of 1837 and became a depression that lasted for almost a decade. So there were a lot of essentially unemployed americans in this is like michigan, northern ohio, along the new york border, along the vermont border, who saw an opportunity or were inspired by the rhetoric and they began to form these organizations. We call them filibusters, not like in the senate but back then it comes from a dutch word i mispronounce it, but free booter. So a filibuster is a it is a private citizen who goes and attacks another country with which were at peace. So the u. S. And canada and britain were at peace but these guys started invading canada. Were talking 50 or a hundred people and they would go and basically they would attack something or burn something. But the british were saying, americans, if you cant control your board, were going to control it for you. Which is what Andrew Jackson kept saying to the spanish when he invaded florida. So the americans, particularly Martin Van Buren was a jacksony an, but he was the sly fox. He is very crafty, hes very smart. And yeah, pretty moderate on the whole. And then van buren said we dont want a war with britain in the middle of an economic depression and the british navy will roll up and bombard new york city and ft. Hamilton didnt have all of the guns, didnt have its artillery men. Ft. Hamilton wouldnt stop the british and burn new york city and we dont want that. So he sends windfield scott and some other officers an they go up and first they go around and they detain it is kind of tricky legally, this is not clear they had the authority but in 1838 Congress Passed laws to give them the authority that they could you would find people crossing the board with weapons an borders and you could stop them and take their weapons. Or they would tell the british. These filibusters are going to cross the river. We know we know where they are going to cross the river and the british could stop them and so that 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. One last question quickly. I was fascinated to hear the story about how jackson was such a micromanager with his military leaders, in an era of relatively poor communications. Other american president s have indulged in this pass time, maybe to a greater or lesser extent on occasion, technology, communication is continues to improve. And in your opinion, what are the lessons that history has to teach us about this issue of micro management from afar. Well, the interesting thing for me with jackson is that he himself had sought had you could see usurped the authority. He certainly had sought the oug autonomy, like im the commander on the spot and i know the situation and what is best. And then reversed himself when his i would say the lesson, like the policy lesson is that jackson was to impatient. It is not you need some oversight. You need it constitutionally and strategically, and you need to make sure youre aligning your actions with your objectives. But i think the problem with jackson was he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He was saying, look, i want you to get the indians out of the south, i want you to do it fast, and i want you to do it really cheap and i dont want anybody to notice it. You just want the indians to sort of disappear and the taxpayers dont spend any money, right, and it is too good to be true. And then he gets upset when the army nobody could achieve that. So i would say sort of knowing the limb ate ises of policy and knowing that there are going to be dilemmas, and there are tradeoffs and that there are costs to any policy. Dr. Sam watson, thank you. [ applause ] in fact, thank you all for having me here again. Congress is on break for the holidays. Members will be back next week. The senate is back on the 3rd and will welcome two new democratic lawmakers, Alabamas Doug Jones and minnesotas teena smith. The house returns in a few days later on the 8th. Some of the issues at hand in the new year, government funding as temporary Spending Authority runs out january 19th. Also on the calendar, this years state of the union address. The House Speaker invited President Trump to address a joint session of congress on the 30th. As always, you could watch the house live on cspan and the senate live on cspan 2. Next on cspan 3, American History tv takes you to the classroom now for a lecture by Arizona State University Professor jonathan barge. He teaches a class about the rise of Andrew Jackson and his presidency, with a focus on jacksons clashes with whig Party Members such as henry clay and daniel webster. His class is 55 minutes. Good morning everybody and welcome to American History. My name is jonathan barth. You all know me as professor barth and i am a history professor at Arizona State university in conjunction with two very stellar world class programs. There they are on the screen