The American Military - A Narrative History

by Brad D. Lookingbill

  The next summer, Colonel William S. Harney commanded more than 600 regulars in a retaliatory attack on a Sioux camp at Ash Hollow. His troops killed as many as 100 men, women, and children and took around 70 captives. Next, they pushed deeper into the western territories and established Fort Randall on the Missouri River. Crazy Horse, a young Sioux arriving at Ash Hollow after Harney's attack, found the bodies of his relatives hacked by swords and mangled by bullets. He vowed revenge, committing himself to war for the rest of his life.

  Disputes over promised annuities resulted in a war between the U.S. and the Dakota, also called the Santee or Eastern Sioux. During 1862, Little Crow and his warriors launched an insurgency at the Redwood Agency in Minnesota but were crushed by Colonel Henry Sibley's command at the Battle of Wood Lake. Many of the survivors fled westward to join their kinsmen in the Dakota Territory, while others relocated to the Crow Creek Reservation on the Missouri River. Following a series of war trials, the federal government hanged 38 in a mass execution at Mankato. The violence in Minnesota quickly came to an end.

  The violence spread elsewhere, as the Powder River country erupted into another war during 1866. Colonel Henry Carrington's regulars erected three outposts – Fort Reno, Fort Phil Kearny, and Fort C. F. Smith – to protect the overland traffic on the Bozeman Trail. Although not formally a chief until later, Red Cloud wielded enormous influence among the Lakota parties harassing the Americans.

  Figure 8.2 The Trans-Mississippi West, 1860–1890

  On December 21, 1866, Crazy Horse, one of Red Cloud's followers, encountered a detachment led by Captain William Fetterman near Fort Phil Kearny. He decoyed 80 men into an ambush, killing them all. On August 2, 1867, Captain James Powell and a small force of 31 soldiers from the 9th Infantry survived a five-hour attack by thousands of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. Known as the Wagon Box Fight, U.S. forces took refuge in a corral formed by laying 14 wagons end to end in an oval configuration.

  Red Cloud's raids intensified, forcing the U.S. to agree to the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1868. The federal government pledged to abandon the Bozeman Trail and the new outposts. In return, the Sioux pledged to accept a fixed boundary for “the Great Sioux reservation” but retained access to their hunting grounds in the Powder River country. In triumph, Red Cloud torched the abandoned forts on the Bozeman Trail and retired from battle.

  Thereafter, Sitting Bull, a powerful holy man, emerged as the primary leader of the Lakota. Joined by Crazy Horse and Gall, he denounced the wasichus, or greedy people, who encroached upon the hunting grounds between the Powder and Yellowstone Rivers. He vowed to defend the Paha Sapa, or the Sacred Black Hills, where military expeditions confirmed the presence of gold in 1874.

  Following the discovery of gold in the Sacred Black Hills, officials in Washington D.C. attempted to abrogate the Fort Laramie Treaty. After January 31, 1876, the Grant administration considered the Sioux off the reservation as “hostile” and deemed them subject to attack. Now the commander of the Division of the Missouri, Sheridan ordered a three-pronged offensive to converge on Sitting Bull's camp in the hunting grounds. One column, led by General George Crook, moved north from Fort Fetterman on the Platte River. Under Colonel John Gibbon, another column headed east from Fort Ellis in the Montana Territory. The third column, commanded by General Alfred Terry, marched westward from Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory.

  On June 6, 1876, Sitting Bull brought the “hostiles” together for a Sun Dance near the Rosebud Creek. After slashing his arms one hundred times, he received a vision that foretold of an attack by mounted bluecoats “as many as grasshoppers.” He envisioned them descending upside down, but they possessed no ears for listening. Undoubtedly, his vision aroused the fighting spirit of the warriors at the Sun Dance. On June 17, Crazy Horse surprised Crook's column in the Battle of the Rosebud. Crook fell back to Goose Creek, while Sitting Bull and more than 1,000 Lakota and Cheyenne decided to camp at the Little Bighorn River.

  At the same time, General Terry ordered Custer and the 7th Cavalry to undertake a reconnaissance along the Rosebud River. He expected Custer to enter the valley of the Little Bighorn from the south, as he and Gibbon entered with the main columns from the north. Unfortunately, Terry's orders also provided Custer a great deal of latitude in regard to his actions “when nearly in contact with the enemy.”

  With the help of Arikara and Crow scouts, Custer located Sitting Bull's camp on June 25. Directing his 750 men through a divide in the Wolf Mountains, he appeared over-anxious to engage the “hostiles” before they scattered. Like most of his fellow officers, he believed that the Indians would not stand and fight. The military problem, he assumed, would be catching, gathering, and marching them to the reservation. Because he feared that his command had been spotted and that the camp had begun to disperse, he decided to attack in broad daylight rather than to wait another day. Custer reformed the troops into three battalions, personally leading the largest with five companies toward the north end of the camp.

  Major Marcus Reno commanded a smaller battalion, which hit the camp on the south end to drive the Lakota and Cheyenne northward. His troops soon retreated, though many tried to make a stand in the timber along a bend in the river. A headlong rush across the river followed, in which a number perished before the rest reached the heights on the other side.

  Maneuvering on the left flank, Captain Frederick Benteen commanded another battalion. After scouting for villages down the valley, he returned to the heights in time to find Reno and his troops badly rattled. Despite hearing heavy gunfire to the north, they remained on “Reno's Hill” until June 26. No attempt to reinforce Custer's battalion followed.

  The Lakota and Cheyenne fought in small teams against Custer's battalion, which deployed in open skirmish order. U.S. soldiers carried single-shot Springfield Model 1873 carbines, but the Indian warriors fired muzzle-loaders and Sharps carbines with repeating action. A few employed Henry repeaters as well. Many brought traditional weapons such as bows and arrows, which permitted plunging fire over obstacles and into ravines.

  Custer committed a cardinal error in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, for he failed to gather sufficient intelligence about the numbers and the disposition of the enemy. Consequently, at least 268 of the bluecoats died and another 62 were wounded. Once Terry's column arrived on the morning of June 27, they found bodies stripped of clothing and mutilated. On the “Last Stand Hill,” they found the corpse of Custer with bullet wounds to his chest and to his head.

  The nation celebrated the centennial of American independence during the summer of 1876, even as the news about the “Last Stand” became public. In retaliation, Congress authorized Sheridan to launch a punitive expedition against the tribes. On September 9, Crook struck a Sioux village near the Black Hills and prevailed in the Battle of Slim Buttes. The Dull Knife Fight occurred on November 25 along the Red Fork of the Powder River, where Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie attacked the camp of a Cheyenne war party. As the regiments funneled into the war zone, they battered almost every Indian village they found.

  Although the Lakota and Cheyenne scattered, Colonel Nelson A. Miles relentlessly pursued them in a winter campaign. Miles began his military career as a volunteer infantryman during the Civil War, but he served thereafter in most major campaigns against the Indians. At the Tongue River, he attempted to negotiate an end to the fighting, but his Crow scouts attacked a party of Sioux on their way to the council. He marched his regulars to the foothills of the Wolf Mountains, establishing a defensive perimeter on a ridge line. On January 8, 1877, Crazy Horse charged against the blue-clad regiments in a futile attack. Miles skillfully shifted his reserves and ordered an advance, which secured a vital ridge for a successful artillery barrage in the Battle of the Wolf Mountains. Crazy Horse withdrew from the field of battle, as weather conditions worsened.

  The days of battle in the Great Sioux War came to an end. Many of Crazy Horse's allies began dispersing or submitting to federal authorities. On M
ay 6, 1877, Crazy Horse surrendered at Camp Robinson, where four months later he died following a bayonetting in the back. By the end of summer, most of the “hostiles” had capitulated. Nevertheless, Sitting Bull and about 2,000 followers fled beyond the reach of the Army into Canada. Suffering from hunger and cold, Sitting Bull eventually returned to the U.S. and surrendered at Fort Buford on July 19, 1881. Dispatched to Fort Yates and then to Fort Randall, he remained a prisoner of war for nearly two years before resettling on the Standing Rock reservation. Owing to the efforts of the Manypenny Commission, Congress seized millions of acres from the Lakota Sioux and annexed the Sacred Black Hills. The American military made certain that the Sioux never regained their power.

  The Old Army

  Given the constraints imposed by Washington D.C., the armed forces struggled to maintain readiness. The federal government resolved to cut taxes, to reduce spending, and to balance budgets, which lowered expenditures for military affairs. At the same time, the War Department assigned more tasks to Americans in uniform than they could possibly handle. The regular Army faced a state of crisis, because an old organization had withered away but a new one was yet unborn.

  During 1877, strikes and disturbances in the North necessitated Army intervention. President Hayes sent nearly 2,000 regulars to quell the labor unrest, particularly when the disruption of railroad service affected mail delivery. The next year, Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act to prevent military personnel from acting as law enforcement agents. States continued to call out the militia and erected large and elaborate armories, often built to resemble medieval castles. Founded in 1879, the National Guard Association appealed to Congress for federal funds to train the best units as reserve forces. Although the War Department discounted them, the National Guard evolved into an “at the ready” force for use domestically. State legislatures began to revise the militia codes to draw new enlistments from the middle class. A decade later, more than 100,000 men served in the National Guard – a figure that surpassed the size of the regular Army at the time.

  The conditions for the officers and enlisted men in the regular Army grew woeful. Few encountered an Indian in battle while performing tedious duties in the western territories. In addition to policing Indian reservations, the Army deployed regiments to range over federal properties such as Yellowstone Park. Typically, the regulars slept in crowded, unsanitary barracks. Commanders organized small detachments for operating in the field. Families often traveled with the officers to remote outposts and on long campaigns. Given the social obligations of domesticity, wives accepted the directives, customs, and hardships of military service along with their husbands.

  The rank and file of the Army included recent immigrants, although some became naturalized citizens. Fugitive criminals or unemployed drifters served side by side with patriotic volunteers. They performed manual labor, building or repairing fortifications, roads, and bridges. They earned around $13 a month for their toil. Their diet consisted of beef, beans, stew, bacon, and hardtack. Morale was low. Desertion rates were high. For relief from depression, troopers all too often resorted to watered whiskey and wayward women.

  Figure 8.3 C Troop at supper, 1895. Indian War Widows Project Records Collection, U.S. National Park Service, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial

  On duty, troopers operated weaponry designed for ruggedness and efficiency. Many bore single-shot small arms. While the infantry carried rifles, the cavalry was issued the 0.45-inch caliber breech-loading Springfield carbines. Additionally, cavalrymen carried 0.45-inch caliber Colt or Schofield revolvers. For the major campaigns, the artillery consisted of 12-pounder mountain howitzers, 12-pounder Napoleon cannons, M1851 ordnance rifles, and Gatling guns. Eventually, regiments fielded 1.5-inch caliber breech-loading Hotchkiss cannons. The superiority of U.S. firepower assured success in most fights against Indian tribes, although some warriors acquired repeaters such as the Winchester.

  According to legend, Indian tribes referred to a handful of regiments in the American West as the “Buffalo Soldiers.” After 1869, African Americans served in the 9th and 10th Cavalry and in the 24th and 25th Infantry. Blacks sought new opportunities for social and economic advancement in the Army, although discrimination barred most from the officer class. By 1877, Henry O. Flipper of Thomasville, Georgia, became the first African American graduate of West Point. With 13 recipients of the Medal of Honor among the enlisted ranks, the four black regiments of the Army earned high regard for their service.

  Initially organized during the Civil War, the Signal Corps continued to serve with distinction in the American West. Noted for developing a visual communications system called “wig-wag,” or aerial telegraphy, they utilized electric field telegraphy after 1867. They devised a new flying or field telegraph train, using batteries, sounders, and insulated wire. Fulfilling a congressional mandate, they provided facilities for transmitting weather reports nationally. By the 1880s, the Signal Corps maintained and operated more than 5,000 miles of telegraph lines that connected the isolated military posts.

  While isolated from the main currents of American life, many Army officers embraced the prevailing trends toward professionalism. In 1881, the School of Application for Cavalry and Infantry was established at Fort Leavenworth. It began as a training school for lieutenants stationed at the Army's scattered garrisons and evolved later into the Command and General Staff College. By employing new and innovative methods of instruction, the map and tactical exercises stressed analytical approaches to military operations at the unit level. The Leavenworth schools helped to make postgraduate education the principal means by which officers developed professional expertise.

  The emergence of associations and journals represented another significant aspect of professionalization. Founded in 1878, the Military Service Institution constituted a professional society for officers with a common interest in discussing specialized knowledge. To disseminate news, articles, and information regarding military affairs, the Institution began publishing a journal. Moreover, it facilitated the creation of branch associations for the infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Though largely divorced from civil society, the nascent publications of the “Old Army” helped to bind the men in uniform together to form a common professional fraternity.

  No individual influenced military professionalism more than Emory Upton, who desired to transform the “Old Army” into a force more powerful than a frontier constabulary. An 1861 graduate of West Point, he mastered all three combat arms on the front lines of the Civil War. Colleagues observed that he possessed “a real genius for war.” Remarkably, he received the brevet rank of major general before reaching the age of 25. He wrote Infantry Tactics (1867), which the War Department adopted as a guidebook. From 1870 to 1875, he served as the commandant of cadets at West Point. To study foreign military organizations, he toured overseas. Upon his return to the U.S., he authored The Armies of Asia and Europe (1878). Appointed as the superintendent of theoretical instruction for the Artillery School of Practice at Fort Monroe, he taught combined arms tactics. He then took command of the 4th Artillery stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco, California, where he crafted his most significant work.

  Although his earlier works merited attention, none stirred as much controversy as his unpublished manuscript called “The Military Policy of the United States.” Excessive civilian control over military affairs constituted a fundamental flaw of the armed forces, or so Upton opined. He admired the German military system, but he lamented that Americans paid a heavy price for neglecting military policy until wartime. In particular, he noted the absence of strategic thought in the U.S. high command. As he revised the pages of his manuscript for publication, he suffered from severe headaches – possibly caused by a brain tumor. On March 15, 1881, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Posthumously, the pages of his manuscript circulated widely among Army officers before eventual publication in 1904.

  Fight or Flight

  Across the Ame
rican West, the U.S. responded forcefully to a different kind of civil war. To support the goals of the Indian Bureau in the Interior Department, military personnel endeavored to keep tribes docile and to track down renegades. Whenever fighting erupted, the Army maneuvered columns to trap the war parties or to create a decisive battle.

  Lacking the regiments, weaponry, and supplies of the Army, Indians employed surprise attacks and sudden withdrawals in an armed conflict. The practice of “counting coup” remained paramount, which meant that a warrior achieved honors by striking or touching an enemy without taking losses. Since sustained or symmetrical engagements rarely occurred, skirmishes often seemed nasty, brutish, and short. Avoiding direct combat, Indians preferred guerrilla tactics to frontal assaults.

  Near Tule Lake along the California and Oregon border, the Modoc demonstrated the effectiveness of guerrilla tactics against Army regulars. Kintpuash, also known as Captain Jack, led his band of Modoc to the Lost River valley, where he attempted to extort food and money from settlers in the area. He briefly returned to the reservation in 1869 but left again in 1870. Soldiers tangled with his band during late 1872. After an exchange of fire, the Modoc took refuge in lava beds south of Tule Lake. They remained in the Stronghold, a rocky fortress honeycombed with outcroppings, caves, and caverns. Although the Modoc band numbered fewer than 60, they were surrounded by more than 1,000 troops.