Transcripts For CSPAN3 The U.S. Army Before And After Andrew Jackson 20171229

Hes author of jacksons sword and peacekeepers and conquerors about the u. S. Armys Officers Corps on the borders and frontiers between 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. Professor watson is coeddy tore of the history of warfare which won the society for military history george c. Marshall Foundation Prize for the use of Digital Technology teaching military history. He is coeditor of the west point history of the civil war which won the distinguished writing award. And he is also a coauthor of the west point history of the american revolution. Forthcoming from simon shuster, this autumn. Professor watson teaches courses at westpoint on 19th century warfare and 19th Century America and about the american frontier. Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, sam watson. [ applause ] thank you. Bob. Thanks to all of you. Bob noted ive been teaching west point for 18 years and gave my first talk at my maps 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. He was only in the army for a short period of time. Before i do so, i have to give the standard disclaimer. I speak for myself. Not from the department of the army. Not or the department of defense and not for any other agency of the United States government. With that out of the way, i will try to say a few controversial things or few things that you might want to question and debate, and give you some information in the synthesis, really, about the army and jacksons a factor, lack of of a factor on it. Ill talk about four big topics here. The first is Civil Military relations. The armys view of 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 in capitals, capital a back then. Youll see it referred to the army in lower case or regulars, but in any case, but talking about that Standing Army, moreorless Permanent Army rather than the mass of intermittent militia and volunteers. So four structures the balance between theme. To what extent did the u. S. Employ the National Standing army to what extent volunteers. To what extent did it employ militia and volunteers. The third question is that of command. When they deployed troops to florida in the second seminole war or to georgia, to force the cherokee indians to move west or along the Canadian Border or 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. And then was commissioned into the United States army during the war of 1812. The fourth question is 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 . Within those four topic, Civil Military relations, forced structure, command of u. S. Forces, and the forces cape 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 militia or all Andrew Jackson. And then on the other hand, we have my tie, Winfield Scott leading the charge for the regular army. Then, theres also question of change versus continuity. To what extent there was change to what extent there was changes had already been made before jackson became president. The army that Andrew Jackson was commissioned as a general had been a small frontier force, between 1874 and 1812. It was not very active developing profession capability. It was not very accountable financially or in supplying its soldiers. Neither the soldiers nor their officers displayed the sort of discipline and responsibility to authority we would expect or desire. Jackson himself repeatedly challenged, ignored and subverted 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 on his own initiative and on his own authority. Of problems supplying the troops, problems paying the troops, other officers wanting to attack cuba, all kinds of insubordination to the authority to the elected command authority. Or other forms of indiscipline. 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. The hunters of kentucky to whom they contributed. Scholars would say certainly a lot of accurate rifle men but also a lot of powerful artillery in jacksons line in new orleans. Some of that artillery was manned by pirates. You may have heard the story of general lafitte. Much of that was manned by 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, the 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 variety of forums initiated by the senior leaders. People liked scott. It is supported by james monroe and secretary john c. Calhoun. In effect, that National Standing army, that permanent and hopefully professional army became during the 1820s, both a frontier constabulary, meaning a sort of police force to guard the borders and to intimidate and deter opponents and thus to keep the peace along the borders, but also a cadre of technical experts and educators for developing and maintaining professional expertise and capability. For example, at west point, but also say the Artillery School at fortress monroe near norfolk or Infantry School at Jefferson Barracks in st. Louis. Now that ladder to mention to the army was drawn largely from those from Westpoint Academy at westpoint to whom the president secretary of war gave monopolies on commissions for more than a decade during the 1820s. During the 1820s Army Officers were politically attuned. They privately supported president ial candidates like jackson, John Quincy Adams or john c. Calhoun, whom they knew through close personal association within the small government. So this is sort of an elite politics of general men and government officials who already know each other and as such they would write a lot of letters to one another privately. What do you think of calhoun . What do you think of jackson . Who do you think will 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 public but in 1828 and 1829, many of the Senior Officers, albeit within a small senior officer corps, many of that small number of Senior Officers welcomed jacksons president ial victory seeing him as a former comrade 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 for the Canadian Border. 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 regiments for each of those. We need 20 or 25 regiments to perform our missions. The army at that point in time had 11 regiments. They perceived they are always under strength. Fortunately usually the crises that break out break out one place at a time and they can redeploy their forces one place at a time to meet the different crises. It is fair to say that in 1828 and 29, a lot saw him like that. Now during jacksons administration, funding remained tight. Jacksonians talked about keeping spending down. Not raising taxes or other avenues. So the army didnt get a lot more funding. But it did grow by two regiments under jacksons administration. A nearly 20 increase, 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 officers 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 1790s. 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 kentuckians, fighting to come to the british in 1813. But at the end of the war of 1812, dragoons, forces cost money you have to feed the horses. Cost money. Congress not willing pay for that, cutting back. Between 1815 and 1833, the u. S. Army didnt have any cavalry. Sometimes, they would mount infantry soldiers. To conduct patrols and you can imagine the soldiers werent very good horsemen. They werent about to mount the horses and go catch them. So the army had not 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 in particular would spend 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 nutritious rations. Which significantly improved soldiers health and mortality. Adding more vegetables, beans, legumes, different element to a diet that had been like classic salt park, salt beef, you know, a lot of tried food. Dried 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 professionalism, Civil Military relations, military capability. Reform. Tactics. In 1834, 1835, then when the second seminole war began in 1835 and early 1836, by that point the military naval magazine was saturdaying to fade and the chronicle was becoming the standard and it is just chockfull. 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, in terms of our question now the terms of our question today, Andrew Jackson didnt really have anything to do with this. These are changes that occur under Andrew Jacksons administration but 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. 184244, but theres just not enough interest once the war is over 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 or now president jackson or 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 in the form of 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 expropriation of the announced. Of the indians. 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 for example 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 seaboard database 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. It was 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 the artillery units from 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 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 in tim dating native americans and ultimately conducting the indian removal. This is the year before the indian removal act, but trying to keep the peace between the cherokee and whites invading the cherokee land when gold was discovered on cherokee land in northwest georgia. For trying to keep the peace between the creek indians and mostly in alabama and whites invading their land and ultimately the seminole war in the 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 have the image 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 Andrew Jackson as, 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 tried 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 getting in 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 had been a war with the creek indians in alabama the same year. 1836, that depending on how you look at it, extended for several years thereafter. 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 Canadian Border. 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 populist democrat during the 1820s and 1830s. 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 quo got pretty much whole chapter in peacekeepers and conquerors, 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. What if i take all the weapons . No, no, no, that might provoke them. Okay. Cherokee wants to hold a couple. Should i let them hold a council . 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 of public relations. The removal act passed by a single vote. The act said that indians would voluntarily remove, they had the choice to remove. Basically the u. S. Government would show them wonderful land out in 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 leave. They do not intend to move west. I dont care if some of their leaders signed a treaty. Most of them arent going to leave. Theres going to be a war. Send me more troops. 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 army. He wasnt the commanding general of the army at this point, but still, got do get good sideburns 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 engraving 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 in florida in 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 seminoles, 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. 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 texans, whites in texas and mexico, most of those were in southern texas. Its pretty far away from nacogdoches. James became the subject of jacksons ire. His secretary of war said, wait, gains, why are you sending troops into texas . Gaines pretty much wrote back, i thought you wanted me to make an impression. Thats not the impression we wanted you to make. Thats getting in the newspapers, we dont want that. So and gaines was definitely an impetuous guy. Theres probably fault on gaines side. In all these cases, jackson had put them in difficult situations, denying them troops or authority or denying them the autonomy, first saying, okay, heres the mission and trying to micromanage them. He would condemn them either for not being aggressive enough like scott or too aggressive like wool and gaines. Actually, wool got criticized for being too aggressive or not aggressive enough and i think we have to say his henchmen criticized wolfe for anything an everything. Wool. Although wool repeatedly sought reassignment, jackson kept him on through 1836. And jacksons secretary of war, especially politics in georgia, blamed wool for the cherokees refusal to move west. These dilemmas had consequences for Civil Military relations. Wool had been a pretty populist democrat. Gaines, who was facing similar mixed messages and criticisms from the president , gaines had been jacksons closest subordinate when jackson commanded the army in florida 20 years before. Scott was probably already a whig because of his views on society and the economy. Duncan clinch and Zachary Taylor either were whigs on their views on society and florida or became whigs, clinch definitely became a whig later and served as a whig congressman, part of the criticism he received. This was a period when newspapers were usually partisan. They were pretty much jacksonian or antijacksonian. When i say jackson criticized war, the letters were being leaked into newspapers and you have what i call a newspaper war. So this is Thomas Sidney jessup. By the time jackson left office in early 1837, he was the only senior officer in the army who remained a democratic partisan. In 18281829, a lot of armies didnt have many generals, a lot of senior colonels and generals thought jackson would be good for the army. By the time jackson left office, most of the armys commanders felt jackson had pushed too hard and not given them the professional autonomy they needed to find the best way to perform their missions. Jacksons very capable but not so much a part of my story here. He was the quartermaster general 42 years from 1818 to 1860 and reformed army logistics, made them much more effective. He also saw himself as a combat leader. His hand was crippled in 1814 and his right hand was crippled and he learned to use his left hand, quartermaster general, without typewriters, hes constantly writing and had officers he can dictate to. He probably wrote more correspondence than anybody else in the army and learned to use his right hand to right. Hes leading troops in battle and actually gets his eyeglasses shattered by a bullet and forces them to go this way rather than this way. Early in 1837. But theres kind of theres a sunny side to this story because to this story because the Civil Military friction encouraged most army leaders to avoid partisan politics. Obviously Winfield Scott the great exception since hes going to run for president in 1852, and really as early as 1840 whig leaders were talking about him as a president ial candidate, and he was clearly demonstrating his interest in running for presidency. But apart from scott, most senior Army Officers stopped writing about who will be the next president , what do you think of this guy, you know, would you vote for him. Its not clear to what extent they voted or not. But the situation they had in the 1820s when officers wrote to each other oh, yeah i like john c. Calhoun, oh, i liked Andrew Jackson, remember how he won the battle of new orleans, they pretty much stopped that. And thats kind of a good thing they withdrew even privately from partisan politics. So so far ive been talking about changes, although good changes not due to jackson and bad changes mostly due to jackson, but there were also some significant continuities. And this is where, i think, perceptions and realities both contemporary and among historians clash the most. Ultimately i think that the changes were greater than im sorry i think the continuities were greater than changes. In other words, the usual changes that promoted the armys capability, that made the army more professional had occurred during the 1820s, before jacksons presidency and after jackson left the army, right . So we had that old army that wasnt very disciplined, wasnt very well organized, wasnt well supplied, wasnt accountable, wasnt effective before the war of 1812 extending into the war of 1812. The army did become more effective during and after the war of 1812 but still had a lot of these problems with financial accountability, soldier discipline, officer discipline, Andrew Jackson discipline. But they had remedied a lot of that during the 1820s after Andrew Jackson had retired and entered politics. The most important and foundational continuity was the dominance of the National Military academy at west point. And this is the monument to ellis r. Wood who was an early graduate, an 1806 graduate of west point. And he was an engineer from jacob brown on the Niagara Frontier in 1814. He was mort tale wounded in 1814, and so this style is still at west point. Here is sort of the plain, and then i think it must have been moved or maybe they filled in some of this depression here. But this is still in the West Point Cemetery today. And west point remained the primary commissioning source for new officers throughout the jack sewnian era. Usually we think them small democrats, but theyre democratic, populists. Theyre often pretty impetuous, pretty radical. They had talked a lot about, you know, west point as an aristocracy or the Standing Army as an aristocracy, or it would be like the british Standing Army would have an american cdr kromwell. Sa jacksonian writers would say get rid of west point. Or the officers should come from the militia, they should be citizen soldiers, you know, not people paid by the government for, you know, 10, 20, 30 years. And they would draw all these parallels to britain, where you had half pay officers, you had officers on the half pay list that were sort of semiretired getting sort of a pension of half their pay and could be called back into the army. And the jacksonians would say thats like a government monopoly. The government is giving these officers money and therefore of course the officers will support the government, right, and itll be sort of like a military industrial complex. So, you know, there might be some foresight there, but when it came down to it the jacksonians did none of the things i just suggest. Despite all that rhetoric west point wasnt abolished, new military academies werent created to train the army. They were several state academies, but their officers by and large didnt go into the army. Right, they went to the state militias or they went just into civilian life. They were usually from wellconnected families and were able to make their way in politics or business in virginia or alabama or whatever state that you were from. So during jacksons administration despite all that rhetoric, jackson did not promote enlisted soldiers to become officers. I think the number bill scullten came up with was seven. So the jacksonians did not change the commissioning source. With the first and second, they did appoint probably 20 to 30 new officers from civilian life. But thats 20 to 30 out of an score of 5 or 600. So a vast majority were either west point if they were younger and then the senior captains, west point hadnt really been very effective when they had been coming up. They were mostly war of 1812 veterans. So your officer corp could be basically the war of 1812 veterans, the west point and in theory they would use the army for spoils, the spoil system to reward their supporters. They did a little bit of that and Army Officers thought that was shocking and terrible, but, you know, if we look at it with a little bit of critical distance it didnt reshape the officer corp. Although jackson intervened in academy discipline, his partisanship did not foster partisanship with the officers and staff at west point. Theres two factors here. It could be that maybe life with Winfield Scott, it could be that army officer, the staff at west point could say oh, jackson is attacking us, we hate jackson, we will try to undermine jackson and civilian authority over the military. But they didnt do that. And so although the super intendant did request reassignment, he requested reassignment and he went off to build coastal fortifications to defend against possible attacks by the british navy. So he requested and received reassignment but his reforms, great massive reforms basically made the military academy effective and made it something where you would want the majority of officers to come from, those reforms endured. Ill tell you after. The second big continuity is with force structure and chand. And in all of these deployments, all these whether they were actually wars or whether they were more like intimidation or in some cases i call them peacekeeping, it in all these cases its really the regular army that leads. So, like, in the second seminole war florida calls up a lot of militia and then all across the south People Volunteer to fight in florida. But by 1837 after about a year, year and a half of the war the u. S. Government actually in 1836 under jackson but then particularly in 1837 the u. S. Government says wait, these citizen soldiers, these militias, these volunteers cost too much. Theyre not very disciplined, they lose a lot of their equipment. Theres a lot of wastage. Theyre not well trained, not very effective. And the u. S. Government by and large tried to minimize the call of Militia Volunteer and increase the number of regular army troops in florida. So really relied on the regular army to fight the seminole war, which you can see in casualty statistics. So these guys are examples of kind of jacksonian patronage. This is henry dodge who had been invading indians land in wisconsin, became the leader of the battalion of mounted rangers and jackson appointed straight from there 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, you know, at that point more than 20 years in the regular army. This guy here, william s. Harny, had entered the army and after the war of 1812 sort of an example of a more roughandready less professional officer. But when we think of the lagoons or the army in the 1830s, its not the militia like this caricature, and ill jump past them. Here we have 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 nativeamericans, mexico and european powers. And the army performed these missions effectively. So the seminole war proved very difficult, was also frequently criticized by officers as unwise, unnecessary and even immoral. But then john woole, and so this a later picture of woole. He helped to overt a war to with the cherokee. So this is john moss of the cherokee, the leader of the opposition to moving west. Woole helped prevent a possible war with the cherokee. Edmund gains, pretty impetuous. A war was avoided in part due to diplomacy along the Canadian Border due to winfield cannot and other officers. The u. S. Army served a peacekeeping role trying to prevent violence between antagonistic groups, deterring potential mass atrocities and providing the most concrete demonstration of american good faith to the british on the Canadian Border at a time where canadian citizens were launching attacks on the border and they were retaliating and chase their troops back into the u. S. , this probably could have escalated, could easily become a disastrous war, right . And although there was diplomacy, ultimately they retreated in 1814, but the prelude to all that diplomacy is Winfield Scott and eventually john woole and some of the subordinate officers like william worth, talking with their british counter parts and really in effect cooperate wg t the british to keep american citizens from invading canada and sparking a war. Steven w. Carny 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. Freemont. In 1866, the Republican Party candidate and antislavery and in some ways an abolitionist. In the 1840s hes the pathfinder hes essentially trying to find ways to invade mexican territory. Freemont was married to a senators daughter. And he helped lead americans in what they call the bear flag rebellion against Mexican Authority in california. But im not showing you a picture of freemont because carny got freemont kicked out of the army for insubordination, basically clashing over who would command in california. Carny had you know the world lead rank and the letter of you are to command inamerican force in california. Freemont basically said, hey, i got here first and im a real jacksonian guy and my fatherinlaws a senator, so im going to do what i do. So carny was able to get freemont courtmartialed. And the court found freemont guilty and sentenced him to be dismissed from the army. President james k. Polk, he didnt want that, but in the end he let the army dismiss freemont. 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 in its de facto control over officer education, training and commissioning. So officer selection through west point. And despite jacksons criticism of the commanders he assigned to cleanup the messes that his policies made, jackson and his successors again and again pretty much every time chose the National Standing army and the national Army Officers, not the militia or the volunteers or rather citizen soldiers, to lead the nations territorial expansion. And again to do so without the mass atrocities that citizen soldiers often inflicted on nativeamericans and other people of color. Jackson chose Winfield Scott to intimidate and martin to intimidate the cherokee and the british. After john woole left the Cherokee Country unhappily after all the difficulty he had had, more difficulty he felt with jackson than the cherokee, winfield felt he could get along with the cherokee and get along with them. After he left, van buren alilowd woole to seek a court of inquiry. And the court of inquiry publicly praised woole and basically criticized wooles accusers, particularly some alabama politicians, and in fact the governor of alabama. And woole used the opportunity of this court of inquiry, this public forum to condemn jacksonian policy. Woole basically got it put in the record i think its unconstitutional, et cetera. Which you can view it as insubordinate, but you can also view it as the army taking care of its own, protecting itself. In practice what it means is a lot of jacksonian smoke, not much jacksonian fire. And i would say its better to have john woole criticizing indian removal than it would be to have a bunch of militia and volunteers, you know, raping and massacring the cherokee as volunteers and militia and citizen soldiers and vigilantes had done to the creek during the creek removal. And so finally in 1846 president polk, the Young Hickory sent Zachary Taylor on the left here, a known whig to intimidate along the rio grande border. So he doesnt send a democrat. He doesnt send a volunteer. He doesnt send a militia man or john c. Freemont. I guess freemont was busy trying to overthrow the government in mexican california. When the campaign in california had gone as far as it could as far as the supplies moving across the mountains and deserts, polk tried to get john c. Freemonts fatherinlaw to command the army that could attack mexico city. But the senate demurred and polk had to turn to the whig Winfield Scott. So the Young Hickory ends up using two whigs plus carny who its not so clear, but he definitely wasnt a jacksonian uses them to fight his war in mexico. So clearly polk with jackson before him believed he could rely on the army to do what polk and jackson wanted. Ven though taylor in particular seemed to have disagreed with the war. But still taylor despite his politics would subordinately execute the policies made by the constitutionally elected civilian authority. Jackson and his supporters often criticized the National Standing army, its officers and commanders in west point. But they relied on that army to achieve their objectives. And they gave it the authority, and generally speaking the resources to do so. Despite some friction the army did sell effectively and subordinantly. Thank you. [ applause ] and im supposed to wait for someone else to choose you for questions. You certainly gave an excellent and detailed presentation about the commanders, the officers. Im curious, though, about the rank and file. The troops in the regular army, who were they . How well were they treated . Why did they enlist . How long did they stay in service for, and in general an understanding of who the rank and file of the regular army were during the period youre discussing. The enlisted soldiers the soldiers enlisted mostly as far as we can tell for economic reasons. Obviously there are 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 and increasingly from immigrants. It was not regarded as a prestigious occupation. It was seen generally as you were subordinating yourself to somebody else, and in particular in the United States, you know, with its, with the Racial Attitudes in the United States for one white guy to let another white guy boss him around all the time, what was seen as s subserveiant or, you know, slavish. So the political culture also saw enlisted soldiers that way, the result was a real divide between the officer and the soldiers. And there was a lot of brutality by the officer, a lot of violence by the officers towards the soldiers. Some of that had been legal, 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 commonly strike soldiers, to hit them, kick them, whack them with the flat of their swords, push them, shove them. And then sometimes as punishments to do things that we would recognize as torture. You know, to have them sit on a sawhorse, you know, kind of an uncomfortable position or, you know, sometimes to actually hang them up by their thumbs. Things today we all would recognize as torture. What this then meant was it aggravated it intensified that perception. So it became harder. The army in theory wanted to find native born americans, you know, not immigrants to be in the army. But native born americans would say, oh, 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 didnt really have other opportunities. And then that also meant that most of soldiers, the enlisted soldiers did not remain in the army for an extended period of time. The enlisted soldiers, their term of service varied from 3 to 5 years depending on the law, and most of them did not reenlist. And so one reason i didnt discuss them is that officers and politicians didnt really take much account of them. They only sort of 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 period even the noncommission officers, even the sergeants average about five years of service. So you dont have a kmegz board like the way we do today or even we might think with the indians after the civil war. And even the jacksonians didnt really do much about this. Periodically the Army High Command would sort of launch drives to reduce officers violence against soldiers in the early 1820s jacob brown and Winfield Scott, they courtmartialed the officers for brutally against soldiers. Usually went hand in hand with intemperance, which is their word for drunkenness. And they got guilty verdicts for some of those officers, but in other cases the courtmartialed because in a courtmartial youve got a xi, theyre captains and lieutenants, and im accused and theyre worried theyre going to get accused so they would find their peer not guilty. They tried it again in the 1830s and tried it again in the 1840s. So about every ten years or so the Army High Command would try to reduce that violence by officers against soldiers but without much success. And Andrew Jackson didnt step up. The jacksonians in congress didnt step up and say, look, this really shows you these Army Officers are brutal martinets. They could have made that case, but they didnt. Its ironic, but theres a strand in the historography interpretation that most jacksonian leaders themselves were men from pretty elite backgrounds. Jacksonian leaders by and large were not like ordinary working men or farmers. They owned plantations in the south, right, or they owned businesses in the north. And, you know, in practice, you know, didnt show a whole lot of concern for these enlisted soldiers. I have two questions. Number one sorry you showed a picture of general carny. Decades ago i read a book of the compact history of the indian wars. And it mentioned something about in the 1850s general carny was involved in some sort of skirmish or whatever and it was a rather humiliating defeat for him. It wasnt disastrous montana worst possible way, but it made him look silly. And then a few years later and a few years later as the book discussed it, he got his revenge and lead a pretty terrible massacre. Now, number one is that true, and if it it is id like to hear more about it. And my second question is when youre talking about how the regular army was less likely, not all the time, but less likely to commit massacres against indians than the local militias, is the sand creek massacre led by shivington a good example of that . Yes, so harny here he was not himself humiliated. I think in 1865 theres a lieutenant gratin. And he became overconfident, pushed too hard the indians [ inaudible ]. Maybe, im not sure. But cow, horse, buffalo, probably a horse. Thats usually but harny did see that as a humiliation of the army. And harny who was much less restrained than lets say carny so youve got harny here. He actually fled indictment for murdering a slave woman in st. Louis in about 1834, 35. And harny was later reprimanded for pressuring soldiers to fight soldiers, you know, bear knuckle for his amusement or discipline. And he was accused of having soldiers fight slaves to punish the soldiers. So this guy looks like your grandfather or uncle here, this guy was a pretty brutal fellow. And in the seminole war. There are two things. Weve got the 1850s, but back in the seminole war in 1849 he was a good active soldier, he was leading a small party down in south florida. A group of indians surprised his camp at night, and he had to flee in his underwear. So hes swimming through the swamp in his underwear. He, when he caught several of those indians a couple months later he probably just hung them from a tree rather than taking them prisoner or taking them back to, you know, sort of prisoner war camps. And then thats in 1839. 1842 is when he seems to have enlisted soldiers fighting each other, slaves and whatnot. And in 1854 and then i think its 55 he leads an expedition out which then attacks a Sioux Village and then sort of just precipitously attacks it, gratuitously 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 sand creek and sievingten, hes a civil wartime volunteer. And so most this is difficult subject because one could say, hey, an atraesty ocity is an at. But if you were to make a list of atrocities lets say the bear river massacre in 1863, you generally find that it is you know, it is volunteer troops. Or you find that sort of volunteers who are almost vigilantes or ruffians or bullies, or whatever term you like you find them attacking i would refer to the creek camps. The Army Officers write in their journals about how, like, these guys attacked the camp last night because there really arent any enlisted soldiers. Its like a couple of supply officers who are trying to make sure the creeks get fed. And at night these volunteer vigilante, criminals, these guys would go into the creek camps and attack the women and rob the creeks. What usually happens for the army i would say is that you get like mccaster and they would say whats the best way to attack the indians, in their village, in their winter camp. Its hard for us to chase them all around the plains. Theyre better horsemen than we are, they know the land better than we do. We have a hard time catching them. But throughout American History, and this is kind of true in the Counter Insurgency in history its like where will the indians pea, well theyll be in their villages. So theyre either going to have to defend their village, which we can kill the warriors at least, or theyre going to run away and we can burn the village and the food supply and theyll starve. So its a brutal form of w warfare. In world war ii in world war i wed call it the british blockade of germany. You know, we call it economic warfare. The result is that people like custer in 1868, like heres the indian village, its dawn, the indians are sleepy, you can surprise them, they hit the village. Of course the village is full of women and children. Now, the soldiers arent being ordered to kill the women and children. And by and large the soldiers arent trying to kill the women and children or i think youd see a lot more women and children killed. If youve got several hundred women and children in the village and 10 or 15 get killed thats tragic or regrettable, but its not the same thing as lining up 2 or 300 women and children and killing them. So its kind of like in terms of prisoners. We talked about the atrocities in taking prisoners. When are prisoners most vulnerable . Its the moment when they surrender, right . So ive had my machine gun, ive been shooting down your buddies for last fbi minutes, and finally you get up close to me and surrender. Do you like you surrender, thats the rules or do you shoot me, and do we call it an atrocity and blame you or do we blame the commander because he didnt have his hand on your shoulder saying hold up. Its black and white. At the time of the civil war a lot of the enlisted soldiers spoke english only as a second language if that. Was that much of a problem at this time . And the other point question i have, there never was an effective treaty with the seminoles was there . Thats what i understand. So their tactics were fairly simple. It was basically drill, stand in a line shoulder to shoulder. So i dont know that the lack of facility with english was that much of a problem. It did definitely aggravate or deepen that gulf because you would have, you know, your native born american officers and they would, you know, disdain the immigrant soldiers who couldnt speak english. The antidote where Zachary Taylor who doesnt understand the or the soldier doesnt understand taylor, a german soldier, and taylor like pulls him by his ears or pulls him by his nose. Now, you can view that as brutality, but i dont think it was too much of a problem for the armys effectiveness, but it certainly aggravated that division between soldiers and officers. For ending the seminole war its really ended gradually by a whole series of agreements. In peace keepers and conquers i called family diplomacy, that basically the army would try to convince some seminoles to move, and then sometimes they would send those seminoles out to their families to try and persuade their families hey, look, i realize the americans have point, the war is really difficult, were hiding out in swamps, we really dont want to do that. So rather than the Army Officers themselves doing most of the persuading or negotiating, they would try to get the seminoles to do it, if you want to say divide and conquer. And the war basically comes to an end in 1842, just the u. S. Saying, hey, we won and not even really declaring that. There are actually still combat operations in 1843. There are a lot of patrols. Theres a collection debt down in princeton that has a lot of patrols in 1843. And theres that sort of gap where basically the seminoles at this point theyve withdrawn down into the everglades and theyre like we dont want to deal with white people anymore, were going to hideout down here. But as the White Settlement was expanding southward, they start to run up against the seminoles and in the midlate 1850s you have what we sometimes call the third seminole war. And that one kind of ends the same way, it sort of peters out, and again the seminoles retreat deeper into the swamp. The seminole numbers at that point probably being 2 or 300 in florida. And theres sort of a long period. Its not really until the 1890s where you start seeing sustained contacts between whites and seminoles again. So what i usually say there in effect some historians would say 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 the u. S. Military, and im wondering whats the european influence on because as i understand it, theyre largely copying french doctrine especially in terms of tactics. Im wondering if thats correct or if you have more on that. Yeah, by and large theyre copying french tactical doctrine. They do theyre aware of british doctrine. From napoleon, post military officers at the time tended to th tri tri think of the french as the most capable officers. The prussian was not yet known for, say, the general staff. But theyre aware of british tactics. Theyre aware to some extent of prussian tactics. And like in 1835, 36 they have a big long debate in the army about infantry tactics. Theyre constantly citing 20, 30, 40yearold tactical regulations from these different countries. Now, a larger question implied in that might be how much of an effect did that have on the army. There are some people that basically think it makes the American Army a copy of it the french army. I would say that although the u. S. Army saw itself prepared to fight with europeans like a repeated war of 1812 and so they tried to repair for that, but in practice most of what they did was to intimidate or to deter nativeamericans or mexicans or canadians or american citizens so that, you know, whatever extent their tactical doctrine was french or british, in some senses i dont think is as porn as we often think because that really wasnt their primary mission. What i would say in terms of their developing tactics is that the tactics like lets say the horse tactics with mexico, to have a mobile Field Artillery that plays a big role like palo alto, vista, those are sort of a combination. That they had aboard and had officers that would travel to europe. They had french tactics, british tactics, a whole range. The infantry tactics were french and artillery tactics were less french. And i would give them credit to put that effort to consider different tactics, go to europe, put together a board of officers to study it 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 i dont know if you spoke about this. Theres a series of books put out on the United States history with the army. And they had a lot of stuff involved not only with the exploratory aspects but they also had on road building. The army was doing road building. We all know about general mead built the lighthouse on Long Beach Island and obviously other lighthouses. And lee and jackson were involved in the Harbor Defense of new york city. Theres a whole controversy now at Fort Hamilton about a street named after lee, i believe. The thing is first of all im wondering if you can talk about those things but also speak about im just wondering mead was involved and i know other officers were involved with lighthouse building. Was west point engineer oriented i would think the that the navy would be involved with lighthouse building. But it seems engineer, did west point put more emphasis on lighthouse building at that time . Well, the Naval Academy wasnt founded until 1845. So weve got a 30, 40 year period where naval officers were basically trained at sea. So you can say their training or education wasnt as scientific or definitely more ad hoc. West point was certainly more focused on engineering and math. And i think the case of whi lighthouses and road building, those were examples where the United States didnt really have a large civil service. The government didnt have a lot of civilian employees. So there was a what do they call it . I cant remember now, but there was sort of an ancestor of the u. S. Geological survey. And basically theyre the guys who do the lighthouses. But they really they only had essentially like heres the head of the agency and heres his clerk. And so the u. S. Government because there was so much antagonism to having a large government, because of the emphasis on limited government, decentralization, low taxes, right, the government didnt have a lot of revenues and didnt have a lot of employees and certainly didnt have a lot of ways to train them. But, you know, going all the way back to jefferson, they could say, okay, here from west point we have people who are sin typically trained. Remember its at a time when most colleges were training in the classics and greek and rhetoric. So west pointers had that scientific and engineering training that they could do things like surveying for roads, surveying for railroads, surveying for canals, you know, building lighthouses, you know, infrastructure. And because they were in the army in essence the government could say, hey, we have these guys for national defense. But while theyre not out fighting, and this is period when you know, a 30year period where were not fighting a war against a conventional army, against another nation state, there would be a lot of demand to say hey, lets use those army tuesday survey canals or railroads or explore out west. So they did that especially during the 1830s. During the 1830s that started to become more of an issue because some people would say, hey, wait the government basically paid this government officer to serve a railroad on a route that competes my town. So the government is favoring that town at the expense of my town by sending an army officer at public expense, at taxpayer expense to go in, survey that route, right . And the army would gerally say, oh, well, its military necessity, 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 courtmartial duty. One of them would be maybe sick and then one of them would be off on this detached duty surveying railroads and canals. And so within the army there was a lot of unhappiness that, you know, hey, im supposed to have five officers within this company, ive only got two. Maybe one is sick and another on leave. But still wheres the other guy . Why is an officer working for a Railroad Company . So there was political pressure and at least a lot of commanders in the army werent very happy to 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 build up in a river. So that kind of reappeared in the 1850s. And then the topographical engineers during the exploring like fremont had a similar situation where the armys idea was hey, these guys are basically do a recognizance force. Theyre going to make maps of the routes were going to advance on, and then theyll work the Quarter Masters. And the Quarter Masters will figure out how much food is available and whether we can move on this axis against the enemy or this axis. The topographical engineer explorrers is again the government kind of using the army because the army was there and they didnt have civilians to do that. So there was kind of a backlash within the army again with carny and with freemont, 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 our citizens want, they want a lot of Different Things and theyre not always willing to pay for all those Different Things, or at least there are plenty of politicians who are out there saying, no, you know, you dont want to pay taxes, but you still want to do all these things. And so, you know, in the 1800s, kind of the way around that, the work around was, okay, were not going to raise your taxes to pay a bunch of civilian bureaucrats to do these things. Well get the army to these things. Theyre already in the army, already there, already getting paid. And if we can say its National Security, awesome. Its kind of like the interstate highways in the 1950s. Theyre justified as a National Security measure. You know, if the soviets attacks, we can use the highways to shuttle around the country. But what most congressman Congress People wanted from the highway system was faster commerce, faster transportation. I have two. Okay, first of all, were blacks fighting for the seminoles treated differently . Were they officially seminoles at that point or were they return today slavery . And second at point was west point instituted the loyalty oath . The question about the loyalty oath is a little easier. Thats basically at the time of the civil war. During the nullification crisis the War Department did direct some Commanding Officers to administer loyalty oaths i think in cases where they were concerned about the loyalties of some of the officers in some places or maybe of cadets at website point from certain states. But its basically a civil war thing. And then for the i guess the best term would be the refugees for american slavery among the seminoles because its a highly contested issue, the army saw them as first they were very dedicated to not being reenslaved. So they were fighting very hard against the u. S. Because they figured pretty accurately if the army captured them, they would be enslaved. So the armys response on the whole was to say, okay, if you surrender or if we capture you, but particularly if you surrender, we will not enslave you. Most of the Senior Officers, Zachary Taylor was a slaveholder, scott was probably a slaveholder. In his case probably more of a couple of personal servants rather than a plantation. But Zachary Taylor had a plantation in louisiana. Woole he was from troy, so theres actually, you know, like a monument to woole up in troy. But harney was obviously a slaveholder. But jessup here, his second marriage was to a wealthy woman who had a number of slaves. Clench basically acquired a plantation as part of his role in the onquest of florida and getting florida back. He then moved to the florida, became a commander there but also got a plantation. But jessup here, now jessup was from kentucky and he had plantations in kentucky. You know, he had overseers running them while he was in washington 90 of the time. But jessup is really the architect hero of the conquering. And in my book i call that freedom diplomacy where essentially he promises the black seminoles, he promises them freedom. Hes going to give them papers, right, quote freedom papers, that they can take with them to the west rather than turning them over to americans who are coming to Army Headquarters saying, hey, i hear you captured a bunch of black people among the seminole, some of them are my slaves. And that was a real issue. And the War Department by and large said, hey, you have to turn over these former slaves or these fugitives from slavery to their owners, right . This is when we had a fugitive slave law. But the army pretty much said, yeah, we captured these guys, theyre prisoners of war so under law were treating them as prisoners of war, and were going to diz pose them through our military authority rather than turning them over to the people who claim them as property. Now thats not because jessup is an abolitionist. Again, hes a slaveholder. But its for jessup the black seminoles or sometimes we called them maroons is basically in caribbean history means people who would 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 at one point said this is as much a negro as an indian war. The problem there is that there are historians who say the seminole war was really a war of slavery, and then seminoles modern day seminoles would say hold up, the seminole war was the u. S. Trying to take our lan both. But the fact of this what was to save the freedom of several hundred refugees from slavery that they were that the army basically shipped them west, shipped them to new orleans and up 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 had pretty much adopted slavery and plantation slavery. So you find the creeks, like in the 1840s, in what we call oklahoma, the creeks trying to seize these you know, we can call them freedmen, free people in the freedmens bureau. And jessup writes a couple 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, you know, really disturbing rumors that they are being seized and, you know, taken back into slavery. Im not sure what the outcome of that was. Probably, you know, 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 even into mexico 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 he may have said neg row catchers, we will not make negro catchers of the army. Im supposed to get the seminols to florida. I dont want to deal with sam, time for two more very quick questions and answers, please. Okay. Im interested in the violence, the war that didnt happen. The main seems to be the main Security Threat at this point is britain. So the Canadian Border is really interesting at this point, particularly the carolinas and et cetera. Can you talk more detail about the role of the army here . Yeah. I had only mentioned it briefly, but this in 1837 after a number after several years of unrest, two rebellions broke out in canada. There was a rebellion in what was called lower canada, meaning lower like down the st. Lawrence river. So essentially montreal and quebec. So in the countryside there among the french speaking canadians. And then there was a rebellion in upper canada, basically meaning ontario, among englishspeaking canadians who wanted more democracy, maybe not independence, but at that point you had a british governor general whos pretty much a military governor. There was some representation. Some of the cities had city government. But canadians in general, ordinary canadians looking for more more of a role in their own selfgovernment. Both of those rebellions were crushed very quickly by not so much british forces, but by loyal canadians. There was a pretty strong canadi canadian militia that was loyal to britain. The french canadian rebellion fizzled out. There was some lowlevel guerrilla warfare insurgencies and raids and ambushes. The upper canadian fled to the u. S. They went around the u. S. Saying were fighting for democracy against the british, so this could be like the third war of independence. And the u. S. Could get canada. And so a lot of americans, and now this was at the beginning of an economic panic, the panic of 1837 that became a depression that lasted for almost a decade. So there were a lot of essentially unemployed americans in like michigan, northern ohio, along the new york border, along the vermont border who saw an opportunity, or were inspired by the rhetoric and they began to form these organizations. We call them filibuster, not like the senate, but like a private citizen who goes and attacks another country with which were at peace. So the u. S. And canada were at peace, the u. S. And britain were at peace. These guys started invading canada, in small scale raids, 50 or 100 people. They would go and basically attack something or burn something. But the british are saying hey, americans, if you cant control your border, were going to control it for you. Andrew jackson kept saying that to the spanish when he invaded florida. The americans, martin van buren, was a jacksonian, but he was a sly fox, very crafty and smart. And pretty moderate on the whole. And van buren says, okay, yeah, we dont want a war with britain in the middle of an economic depression. The british navy will roll up and bombard new york city. Fort hamilton didnt have all its guns and artillerymen. Fort hamilton wont stop the british. Theyll burn new york city. We dont want that. He sends Winfield Scott and some other officers and they go up and first they go around and they detain its kind of tricky, legally, not clear they had the authority. But in 1838 Congress Passed laws to give them the authority to basically find people crossing the border with weapons or about to cross the border and you could stop them and, you know, arrest them for a while and take their weapons. Or they would tell the british, hey, these filibusters are going to cross the river and the british could stop them. 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. Last quick question. I was fascinated to hear the story about how jackson was such a micromanager with his military leaders, especially in an era of relatively poor communications, other american president s have indulged in this pastime, maybe to a greater or lesser extent to an occasion. Communication technology as continued to improve. In your opinion what are the lessons history has to teach us about this issue of micromanagement from afar. Well, the interesting thing for me with jackson is that he himself had sought you know, had you could say usurped the authority. He had sought the autonomy, im the commander on the spot, i know the situation and know whats best. And then, you know, reversed himself when his i would say the policy lesson is that jackson was too impatient. Its not that you need oversight, you need constitutionally, you probably need it strategically, 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 do it really cheap. And i dont want anybody to notice it. I want the indians to disappear and the taxpayers dont spend any money. Its 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 limitations of policy, knowing that there are going to be dilemmas, that there are going to be tradeoffs and there are costs to any policy. Dr. Sam, thank you so much. Thank you all for having me here again. Ive been attacked by everybody. Ive been attacked by the right wing, attacked by the russians, attacked by the Trump Campaign and the Sanders Campaign and now i can add to that list the clinton campaign. Announcer sunday on donna br sil talking about her life in politics and her memoir, hacks. Hillary was very excited. She had met this young state senator who was running, you know, shes she has roots in illinois. She met this young statesman and told my good friend minion, we were on the third floor she knew barack obama. I knew bobby rush and a lot of other people, and danny davis and carters collins and i never heard of barack obama. We met him spring of 2003. Let me just say this, the rest is history. Q a, sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspan. Well, every month for the past 20 years one of the nations top nonfiction authors has joined us on our in Depth Program for a fascinating threehour conversation about their work. Now, just for 2018 in depth is changing course. Weve invited 12 fiction authors onto our set, authors of historical fiction, National Security thrillers, science writers, social commentators like Geraldine Brooks and many others. Their books have been read by millions around the country and around the world. If you are a reading, plan to join us for in depth on book tv. Its an Interactive Program the first sunday of every month and lets you call in and talk directly to your favorite authors. And it all kicks off on sunday, january 7th at noon with david ignatius, a columnist, and the author of ten National Security thrillers. Join us live on sunday, january 7th or watch it on demand at booktv. Org. The cspan bus tour continues its 50 capitals bus tour with stops in raleigh, montgomery and follow the tour and join us on january 16th at 9 30 a. M. Eastern for our stop in raleigh, North Carolina when our washington journal guest is North Carolina attorney general josh stein. Announcer next on cspan 3, American History tv now presents a lecture by Arizona State University Professor jonathan barth. He teaches a class about the rise of Andrew Jackson in his presidency. Whig party members, henry clay and daniel webster. This is 55 minutes