The American Military

by Brad D. Lookingbill

  The difficulty of supplying military outposts across the American deserts led to an experiment with exotic pack animals in 1855. As directed by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, the Army purchased 75 camels from North Africa and sent them to Texas. They carried heavy loads, walked difficult terrain, and consumed little water. However, their appearance on the trails stampeded horses, mules, and cattle. Once Army officers began complaining to the War Department, the camel experiment ended.

  The most important innovation by the War Department involved combat arms. National armories at Springfield, Massachusetts, and Harpers Ferry, Virginia, began manufacturing a new type of muzzle-loading rifle, which spun a Minié ball through a grooved barrel to achieve an effective range of 400 to 600 yards. With proper training, U.S. soldiers achieved a rate of fire measured at three rounds per minute. Furthermore, the introduction of rifling into field and coastal artillery pieces enhanced the accuracy and range of U.S. batteries. The Army organized its first cavalry regiments by 1855, which increased the total number of combat regiments in federal service to 19. Consequently, the next generation of West Point cadets came to terms with the tactical implications of massive firepower.

  Meanwhile, the Navy rode a wave of maritime enthusiasm to become the fifth-largest force in the world. As the age of steam began to eclipse the age of sail, the Navy Department authorized more expeditions that went beyond the continental U.S. While venturing abroad, naval professionals delicately balanced economic, scientific, diplomatic, and military objectives. Crews explored the Amazon River, the Brazilian coast, the Rio de la Plata, the Rio Paraguay, the Bering Strait, and the China Sea. In retaliation for an attack on U.S. citizens residing in Nicaragua, the sloop-of-war Cyane bombarded the port of San Juan del Norte during 1854. Surveying rivers inside South America a year later, the U.S.S. Water Witch, a steam-powered gunboat, was attacked by Paraguayans. Afterward, a naval expedition returned to Paraguay and obtained a formal apology along with a commercial treaty from the government.

  Another naval expedition during the 1850s involved Commodore Perry, who steamed toward Asia to demonstrate “our pacific intentions.” Called the “Father of the Steam Navy,” he took charge of the effort to open Japan to the U.S. His dark-hulled sidewheel steamer, the U.S.S. Mississippi, served as the flagship for a small squadron that entered Tokyo Bay. After consulting with the Secretary of the Navy, John P. Kennedy, he threatened to use force if the Tokugawa Shogunate denied him permission to come ashore. Using a combination of persuasion and imposition, his parlays produced the Treaty of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854. He returned to the U.S. a hero, which prompted Congress to vote him a $20,000 bonus.

  The U.S. possessed deep-water ports on the East and West Coasts, while exports flowed in all directions. Rich with revenue streams, the federal government enjoyed a treasury surplus that amounted to millions of dollars. However, a designing generation grew less willing to compromise in regard to the expansion of slavery across the North American continent. Though Americans expected the dismemberment of Mexico to enhance national security, few anticipated the internal conflicts within their own country that erupted as a legacy of conquest.

  Conclusion

  The armed forces of the U.S. transformed the nation into a colossus that sprawled across lands claimed in previous centuries by the European powers. With American troops moving into Texas and Oregon in 1846, they set off a boundary dispute with Mexico. They repulsed Mexican regiments along the Rio Grande and took the initiative in decisive battles. After Congress declared war on the Mexican government, naval actions secured key ports on the Pacific Coast of North America. The New Mexico and California provinces fell quickly to lightning strikes on the periphery, while Santa Anna resolved to defend the centers of power around Mexico. The intense fighting culminated with the occupation of Mexico City, which produced the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. In the wake of the Mexican War, the Monroe Doctrine broadly defined the operational theaters of the American military within the western hemisphere.

  The Mexican War represented the first time in history that the American military conquered a foreign country. U.S. operations against Santa Anna's defenses appeared both innovative and bold, especially during the amphibious assault at Veracruz. Nevertheless, the successful campaigns resonated with the conventional doctrines of Napoleonic warfare. Despite the terrible price associated with combat, the armies in the field typically approached their enemies with restraint and civility. In fact, Scott's strategy to “conquer a peace” revealed his study of Francis Patrick Napier's three-volume History of the War in the Peninsula (1835). Grasping more than mere tactics, U.S. commanders possessed an extraordinary degree of physical and moral courage. Soldiers and sailors demonstrated a level of competence that greatly surpassed that of their predecessors in uniform. Ultimately, the display of the Stars and Stripes over the Palace of the Montezumas signaled U.S. dominance in the Americas for years to come.

  Though acknowledging the power of the U.S., the people of Mexico bitterly remembered the war between the two nations. As a central event of their own national history, generations resented the fact that the “damned Yankees” invaded their homeland. Moreover, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo allowed the invaders to absorb approximately one-third of Mexico's land base. Areas linked together for centuries were broken apart, which rendered Hispanic and Indian communities within the American West more vulnerable to the abuses of outsiders. The state-sponsored violence imparted greater stridency to the concept of race, which cast a pall over relations along the border for decades. “Poor Mexico,” an old Mexican proverb lamented, “so far from God and so close to the United States.”

  For most Americans, however, the conquest of Mexico marked the high tide of Manifest Destiny. As the U.S. population surged to 22 million during wartime, well over 60,000 volunteered for military service. Wearing the uniform had never seemed more romantic, even if some congressmen in Washington D.C. criticized the war effort. Designed in the 1850s, the Statue of Freedom atop the dome of the Capitol included a military helmet as well as a sword and a shield. While their anthem noted “the Halls of Montezuma,” the Marine Corps added a red stripe to their dress-uniform trousers to commemorate the storming of Chapultepec. The distant battlefields constituted a training ground for scores of West Point graduates, who came of age while marching on foreign soil. American warriors fondly recalled the education of their senses in Mexico, but the acquisition of new lands intensified the sectional discord that eventually plunged them into a civil war.

  Essential Questions

  1 What did the American military accomplish in the Mexican War?

  2 Which U.S. commanders showed exemplary leadership? Which ones did not?

  3 Why were the American people divided by the war and its consequences?

  Suggested Readings

  Bauer, Jack. The Mexican War, 1846–1848. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1974.

  Bauer, Jack. Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985.

  Clayton, Lawrence R., and Joseph E. Chance, eds. The March to Monterrey: The Diary of Lieutenant Rankin Dilworth, U.S. Army. El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1996.

  DeLay, Brian. War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.–Mexican War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.

  Dugard, Martin. The Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846–1848. New York: Little, Brown, 2008.

  Eisenhower, John S. D. So Far From God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846–1848. New York: Random House, 1989.

  Foos, Paul. “A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair”: Soldiers and Social Conflict during the Mexican–American War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

  Greenberg, Amy S. Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

  Heidler, David S., and Jeanne T. Heidler. The Mexican War. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006.

 
Henderson, Timothy J. A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and its War with the United States. New York: Hill & Wang, 2007.

  Hietala, Thomas. Manifest Design: American Exceptionalism and Empire. Revised edition. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003.

  Johannsen, Robert Walter. To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

  Johnson, Timothy D. Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998.

  McCaffrey, James M. Army of Manifest Destiny: The American Soldier in the Mexican War, 1846–1848. New York: New York University Press, 1992.

  Pinheiro, John C. Manifest Ambition: James K. Polk and Civil–Military Relations During the Mexican War. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007.

  Wilentz, Sean. The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.

  Wiley, Peter Booth. Yankees in the Land of the Gods: Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan. New York: Penguin, 1990.

  Winders, Richard Bruce. Mr. Polk's Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997.

  7

  The Blue and the Gray (1860–1865)

  Introduction

  “Previous to the formation of colored troops,” recalled Sergeant William H. Carney, “I had a strong inclination to prepare myself for the ministry.” He was born a slave in Norfolk, Virginia, but became a soldier in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he volunteered for military service in 1863. After donning the blue uniform, the 23-year-old believed that he could best serve God by “serving my country and my oppressed brothers.”

  Carney served in Company C of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, one of the first “colored troops” in the U.S. Army. Commanded by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, they traveled to South Carolina to fight against the slaveholders. At first, they performed fatigue work reminiscent of slave labor. Eventually, the 600 men of the regiment saw their first action at Hilton Head, St. Simon's Island, Darien, and James Island.

  On July 18, 1863, Carney gazed upon Fort Wagner, a Confederate post on Morris Island at the entrance to Charleston Harbor. From the cover of a sand dune, he and his comrades watched a day-long bombardment by Union cannons and warships. By nightfall, they stood up, dressed ranks, and formed two columns of five companies each.

  The 54th Massachusetts rushed to the ramparts, advancing 1,500 yards through a barrage of artillery shells, grapeshot canisters, and volley fire. With smoke enveloping the battlefield, hand-to-hand combat raged for more than two hours. Severed limbs and mangled bodies covered the ground. In a hailstorm of bullets, the regimental color bearer fell to his knees near Carney.

  Carney seized the American flag from his fallen comrade, holding the staff high for all to see. He urged the regiment forward to face another volley from the long gray line. As he moved through a muddy ditch, two bullets pierced his body. Two more grazed his arm and head, forcing him to crawl. He found his way to a field hospital but refused to leave the colors behind. Before collapsing from the loss of blood, he declared: “Boys, the old flag never touched the ground!” He recovered from his wounds and later received the Medal of Honor for his actions at Fort Wagner, though he insisted that “I only did my duty.”

  Figure 7.1 “To Colored Men!”, 1863. Record Group 94: Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1762–1984, National Archives

  Spearheading the assault on Fort Wagner, the 54th Massachusetts elicited great pride in African American communities. With Union casualties mounting in a two-month siege, the regiment lost 272 killed, wounded, and missing in action before their withdrawal. Afterward, Confederate gravediggers hurled the regimental commander, who perished near the ramparts, into a pit with other slain men. However, the news of black gallantry electrified those still in bondage and inspired many to set out for Union lines. In spite of pervasive discrimination, the courage and the skill of the men in uniform began to dispel lingering doubts about their fighting abilities. Their actions helped to liberate almost 4 million slaves, who wanted nothing but freedom. They constituted a powerful instrument, as abolitionist Frederick Douglass put it, to “raise aloft their country's flag.”

  Individuals from all walks of life served with distinction in the American Civil War, although they disagreed violently about the principles associated with “their country's flag.” What began as an effort by the North to preserve the Union became a struggle to end slavery in the South. Given the moral dimensions of the military objectives, many considered it a second American Revolution. Patriotic gore eclipsed the doctrines of Napoleonic warfare, which long punctuated the discourse of West Point. Generals named Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Jackson became legendary commanders for their exploits in fields of battle. From Fort Sumter to Appomattox Station, the duel between the men in blue and gray redefined America.

  America's bloodiest war involved dueling ideologies as well as arms, which determined whose vision of the Constitution defined the U.S. during the nineteenth century. On the one hand, slaveholders asserted that no federal restrictions legitimately prevented them from exercising their property rights in the western territories. On the other hand, their opponents worried that the extension of slaveholding undermined the viability of free labor. For decades, the sectional orientation of civilian authorities created friction between the states of the North and the South. When the differences threatened the nation with disunion, the opposing forces formed massive armies and built ironclad navies. Once mobilized, their destructive energies killed more participants than all of the previous wars combined. Warfare itself became the only guiding principle, eventually making everything subservient to winning at all costs.

  Secession

  After the war against Mexico ended, the U.S. divided along sectional lines. For years, industrialization in the northern states sustained a manufacturing sector and free labor. At the same time, southern states largely depended upon plantation agriculture and slave labor for growth. The rapid expansion of the nation intensified the fearsome competition between the North and the South.

  As the population in the western territories began to surge, the question for the nation was: Would new states enter the Union “free” or “slave”? The Compromise of 1850 permitted California to enter as a free state while making several concessions to southern congressmen in respect to other contentious issues. For example, the Fugitive Slave Act made the federal government responsible for apprehending runaway slaves. Rather than easing the sectional tensions caused by black chattel slavery, the politics of compromise infuriated northern abolitionists.

  With American corporations developing a transcontinental railroad, the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 led to another dispute between the sections. According to the law's concept of popular sovereignty, the settlers of each territory would decide for themselves whether or not to permit slaveholding. Antislavery members of Congress denounced it as an effort to turn the Trans-Mississippi West into “a dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves.” Groups of “free soilers” set out to save Kansas from a “slave power conspiracy.” In the town of Lawrence, they clashed with “border ruffians” from neighboring Missouri. An abolitionist named John Brown attacked opponents at Pottawatomie Creek, where his party dragged five men from their houses, split open their skulls, cut off their hands, and laid out their entrails. Two separate governments organized in Lecompton and in Topeka, each vying for federal recognition. Army regulars attempted to restore order among the partisan bands without success. For years, fighting between proslavery and antislavery forces raged in “bleeding Kansas.”

  Democrat James Buchanan became president in 1857 but failed to stop the forces of disunion. The Republican Party, which northerners organized to promote the “free soil” doctrine, opposed the extension of slavery into the western territories. Amid the rancor, the Supreme Court opined that Congress lacked the authority to restrict the property rights of slaveholders. A financial panic ups
et southern “fire-eaters,” who blamed the economic downturn on “Yankee” businesses and high tariffs. Abraham Lincoln, a Republican candidate for the Senate the next year, intoned: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

  The partisanship of the Republicans and the Democrats exacerbated the quarrels between the North and the South, which made the ideological disagreements almost impossible to resolve. Heading east from Kansas, the fanatical Brown attempted to foment a slave insurrection inside Virginia. On October 16, 1859, he seized the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in a forlorn effort to distribute arms to slaves. Along with 20 accomplices, he anticipated waging a “holy war” in the mountains. After taking hostages, they hid in a fire-engine house adjacent to the armory. Militiamen surrounded them, as Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived on the scene with a detachment of marines. Brown was captured, tried, and hanged for treason. Consequently, abolitionists referred to him as a martyr.

  In the wake of the raid, Lincoln narrowly won the presidential election on November 6, 1860. Assuming that the president-elect threatened slavery, South Carolina quickly passed an ordinance declaring that the Union “is hereby dissolved.” Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas soon joined the secessionist movement. On February 7, 1861, the seceding states established a provisional framework for the Confederate States of America. The Confederates seized arsenals, forts, mints, and other property of the federal government within their borders – save Fort Pickens outside Pensacola and Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. While a “lame duck” in office, Buchanan did almost nothing to stop the rebellion.