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AMERICAN HISTORY |
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AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY Summary: This 2.5 page essay is an overview of American military history, analyzing its early development as an effective fighting force and reasons for this effectiveness. Intro: The American military, which is now undisputed as the most powerful and complex on earth, has a rich historical tradition and background. Historians and scholars assert the importance of an awareness of national military history for enlisted personnel and its contribution to leadership development. In this essay, we shall examine certain aspects of American military history, showing its role in the growth of the nation and its domestic and foreign policy. Analysis: The origins of the United States can be traced to English expansionism that occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the influence of Western European thinkers on early American leaders. British methods of institution dominated the administration of the new nation and the cultural diversity of the peoples constituting the new continent combined to give rise to a new identity altogether – that of the American people. In no area was the interaction of the two influences—European heredity and American environment—more apparent than in the shaping of the military institutions of the new nation. (Carp, 2002) The complex and diverse structure of European military systems provided early American military leaders with ample inspiration ranging from military tradition dating back to Roman times, through the often clumsy war machine of the Middle-Ages to the highly modernized approach of Western Europe in the eighteenth century. ... The cavalry formed an essential part of the early American military force breakup. ... The initial drawback was that very often, the Army would be called upon to battle Native American tribes, who neither knew the rules of formal warfare nor cared to learn them. ... Shrugging off the closed formations of European tactics, the American soldier learned to combine stealth and camouflage to increase his effectiveness on the battlefield. Likewise, the defects of Indian fighting methods taught early American military strategists the value of protection, fortification and intelligence. (Moser, 2000) Another step taken by early American military planners was that of an organized militia. ... The American continent was the scene of much conflict in the years before its independence and its military gained invaluable experience and expertise as a result of these wars. ... By the time socio-political factors had caused the American war of independence, the military had acquired enough knowledge to be acknowledged as a force to be reckoned with. This became evident when the American soldier took up arms against his erstwhile comrade, the British Regular, in the American Revolution. During the formative years of the American military, from 1783-1812, Congress subscribed to the prevailing view that the first line of defense should be a "well-regulated and disciplined militia sufficiently armed and accoutered. ... military, that took place after this early formation, were: The British –American war of 1812 and the Mexican War 1846-1848. (Macgregor, 2001) Adding to these conflicts were continuous wars against Native American tribes across the country. ... American mercenaries who traveled abroad to serve armies of different nations brought back invaluable information and ideas from which their own military gained strength. Simultaneous advances in warfare techniques in Europe and the refinement of the American military system intensified by the end of the nineteenth century. ... However, an analysis of the early development stages is necessary if one is to seriously determine the source of the superiority of the American military. When this development has been properly charted and the benefits of economic prosperity added to it, it becomes clear why the American military enjoys the reputation it has in today’s international arena. (Zakharenko, 2001) SOURCE 1: Many authors have written about an "American style" of warfare, but few have been terribly clear as to just what that style might be. ... Pearlman is the first to offer a complete account of how domestic politics have affected American military history during each of the major conflicts in U. ... history. ... Warmaking and American Democracy is an insightful and engaging work, and it renders a great service by making the "American style" of warfare comprehensible without oversimplifying. It does suffer from a number of minor, yet embarrassing, errors (such as repeated reference to "Fort Donaldson" instead of "Fort Donelson"), but on the whole it makes a worthy contribution to the fields of both political and military history. ... Moser University of Georgia Source 2: Men have fought to overturn their government on two major occasions in American history: the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. ... Many of them failed to return home--no other wars have inflicted as great a proportion of casualties on the American populace. ... Two periods of history inherently have such vastly different contexts, issues, and circumstances that they may be incommensurable; thus the specter of anachronism haunts every turn. We might argue that French aid was the only thing that saved the Revolutionaries, who had rapidly cobbled together their American unity and identity in the space of two years. ... The final section examines this political culture: its localism and the way in which nationalists transmitted ideas and cultivated a shared identity through networks of communication and the celebrated American institutions of federalism and the household. Theories of nationalism rarely mention the American Revolution or Civil War. ... Benedict Anderson, meanwhile, recognized that the efflorescence of nationalist ideology in creole Latin American societies has given nationalism a different cast in the Western Hemisphere. ... In general, virtually no theoretician of nationalism has sufficiently analyzed the North American setting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (2) As for the American historians who study these wars, most have ignored the question of nationalism among the Revolutionaries and differed over the idea of Confederate nationalism. ... It is easy to cite evidence of commitment among supporters of the two wars in the pamphlets, petitions, sermons, speeches, letters, and diaries that make up the American documentary heritage. ... People throughout history have quickly tired of wartime casualties and privations, and this has not always indicated a lack of support for a given cause. ... Throughout the eighteenth century, most American colonists had looked across the Atlantic to Great Britain for their metropolitan culture, and on the eve of Revolution they became quite touchy about their perceived social and cultural deficiency as creoles. (8) In the decades that followed, Southerners often celebrated a shared American cultural heritage with their Northern brethren, and they, too, ultimately believed that their culture and society were under threat from Republicans and abolitionists. ... The unrestricted activity of private interests in the marketplace would promote the colonies common interest and "public welfare," concepts that were increasingly phrased in American terms. ... Regarded as subordinate by their own governments, American colonists and antebellum Southerners attempted to share in a wider nationalism and grew tired of nursing their wounded pride. ... American colonists had struggled to find an identity within the burgeoning British nationalism of the eighteenth century. They had assumed that their fight against the French during the Seven Years War and their support of the British constitution gave them almost equal standing in the empire; instead British colonial policy was evidence that the mother country regarded the American colonists as inferior. (16) Antebellum Southerners since the founding had celebrated their nascent American identity, loudly proclaimed their equal status in the United States, and even enjoyed periods of dominance over the three branches of government; ultimately they too came to see that Northern policy-making was subordinating Southern interests. ... Reaction to British and Northern encroachment also fed on suspicions and fears inherent in a particularly American republicanism. ... Thus desertion did not necessarily indicate a lack of commitment to the nation, and may instead have reflected the voluntaristic, republican, and localist character of American troops. ... In the process of developing national sentiment, young civilians and soldiers often formulated a distinct interpretation of history. Scholars have long been aware of nationalists use of history--Americans as nation-builders were pioneers in this field. ... Confederates drew in turn on the American Revolution and Constitution and reveled in the prominent role that Southerners had played. ... Not content to see theft struggle merely in continental terms, Revolutionaries and Confederates infused theft history with global or divine significance. ... (26) Living in societies where the clergy were crucial shapers of public opinion, American nationalists adopted the language of millennialism. ... (27) Inherent in this debt to history was a sense of duty to future generations. ... This is why a sense of past and future was so important--the nation had to have a history in order to justify a national identity, and it had to separate from a government that betrayed popular sovereignty in order to protect the rights of future generations. ... Devoid of a national history or culture, Patriots based their nation on a political framework that derived its "just powers from the consent of the governed. ... (Map I3) Located on American Map 13 [104] territory south of the boundary established by the peace treaty of 1783, the posts were in the hands of British troops when the war ended, but by the terms of the treaty they were to be turned over to the United States as speedily as possible. ... In 1794 Jays treaty eased the mounting crisis in Anglo-American relations. ... Regarding Jays treaty as evidence of a pro-British policy on the part of the United States, France retaliated by seizing American vessels that were trading with the British, by sending secret agents to stir up the Creek Indians along the southern frontier, and by meddling in American politics in an attempt to bring about the defeat of the "pro-British" administration. ... The Quasi War With France When the French continued to attack American vessels and refused to receive the newly appointed American Minister, President Adams called Congress into special session to consider national defense. ... On September 30, 1800, a treaty was signed in which France agreed to recognize American neutrality, thus formally ending the alliance of 1778, and [117] to refrain from seizing American vessels that were not carrying contraband. ... With Europe at peace and American relations with France and England better than they had been for ten years past, Congress proceeded to economize. ... Up to this time the problem of frontier defense had been chiefly one of pacifying the Indians, keeping the western territories from breaking away, and preventing American settlers from molesting the Spanish. ... The transfer of Louisiana to France also marked the beginning of restraints on American trade down the Mississippi. In the past, Spain had permitted American settlers to send their goods down the river and to deposit them at New Orleans. Just before transferring the colony, however, it revoked the American right of deposit, an action which made it almost impossible for Americans to send goods out by this route. ... From there the Spanish took the Americans into Mexico and then back across Texas to Natchitoches, once more in American territory. ... The rumors proved unfounded; at no time did the Spanish outnumber the American forces in the area. ... American Reaction to the Napoleonic Wars The second round of the great conflict between England and France began in 1803, shortly after the purchase of Louisiana. ... Both Britain and France adopted policies under which American merchant shipping, whether carrying contraband or not, was subject to search and seizure. The Napoleonic Wars and the consequent depredations on American commerce were less a threat to national security than a blow to national pride. Jefferson responded to the challenge by withdrawing American shipping from the seas. ... Neither Jefferson nor Madison recognized that under the new scheme of economic warfare being waged by both England and France the American measures were in effect provocative acts, likely to bring the United States into the war on one side or the other. The Embargo Act and, to a lesser extent, the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809 did cripple American trade, something [121] that neither Britain nor France had succeeded in doing. As a result, the American people, already divided by sectional jealousies and by the French crisis during Adams administration, were so thoroughly disunited that the government could not count on the loyalty and support of a sizable part of the population. |
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