CHAPTER 1
1
The fullest discussions of the Newburgh events are in Richard H. Kohn,
Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783â1802
, esp. Chapter 2. See also Kohn, “The Inside History of the Newburgh
Conspiracy: America and the Coup d'Etat,” and later articles with Kohn rebuttals in the
William and Mary Quarterly
, by Paul David Nelson, vol. 29, no. 1 (1972): 143â158, and C. Edward Skeen, vol. 31, no. 2 (1974): 273â298. See also Joseph J. Ellis,
His Excellency: George Washington
; and Marcus Cunliffe,
Soldiers and Civilians: The Martial Spirit in America, 1775â1865
.
2
J. J. Ellis,
His Excellency: George Washington
, 144.
4
Minor Myers Jr.,
Liberty Without Anarchy: A History of the Society of the Cincinnati
, 14.
5
J. J. Ellis,
His Excellency: George Washington
, 141; Kohn,
Eagle and Sword
, 38.
6
Kohn,
Eagle and Sword
, 39.
7
Military historian Richard Kohn has described the tension: “No principle of government was more widely understood or more completely accepted by the generation of Americans that established the United States than the danger of a standing army in peacetime. Because a standing army represented the ultimate in uncontrolled and uncontrollable power, any nation that maintained permanent forces surely risked the overthrow of legitimate government and the introduction of tyranny and despotism. Composed of officers from the aristocracy and soldiers from the bottom of society brutalized by harsh discipline, isolated from the rest of society, loyal not to an ideal or to an government but to a commander and to its own traditions, the standing army could not be fettered by any of the traditional checks that preserved liberty.” Ibid., 2.
8
For Massachusetts during the French and Indian War, see Fred Anderson,
A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War
. See also Cunliffe,
Soldiers and Civilians
, for example, 40.
9
Anderson,
People's Army
, Chapter 2.
10
Adams quoted in Charles Royster,
A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775â1783
, 37; Washington quoted in Allan Millett, “The Constitution and the Citizen-Soldier,” in
The United States Military Under the Constitution of the United States, 1789â1989
, edited by Richard Kohn, 100.
11
Royster,
Revolutionary People,
12. David McCullough discusses some of these problems in his book
1776
. See, for example, pp. 225â228 for Washington's frustrations.
12
Royster,
Revolutionary People
, 25.
13
Jerry Cooper,
The Rise of the National Guard: The Evolution of the American Militia, 1865â1920
, 6.
15
Royster,
Revolutionary People
, 67, 68. See also Don Higginbotham,
George Washington and the American Military Tradition
, 102.
16
John Phillips Resch,
Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War Veterans, Moral Sentiment, and Political Culture in the Early Republic
, Chapter 1.
17
Higginbotham,
George Washington
, 12.
18
See Eliot Cohen,
Citizens and Soldiers: The Dilemmas of Military Service
, 118â121, for a discussion of Adam Smith and military service.
19
Cunliffe,
Soldiers and Civilians
, quotes on 235, 248.
20
Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski,
For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America
, 129. Edward M. Coffman in his major study of the nineteenth-century US Army notes, “The American Army was a permanent institution in 1812 but not a popular one.” The situation involved a complicated balance of rhetoric and readiness. President Jefferson's secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, said, “The distribution of our little army to distant garrisons where hardly any other inhabitant is to be found is the most eligible arrangement of that perhaps necessary evil that can be contrived. But I never want to see the face of one in our cities and intermixed with the people.” Gallatin was not asserting a simple repugnance he may have felt toward the sight of the military; it was an assertion that whereas in despotic countries the military is a tool used to rule, in this republic their only role is to protect the country. They are to be out of the way and out of sight except when needed. See Coffman,
The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784â1898
, 38.
21
For a recent analysis of Shays's Rebellion, see Leonard Richards,
Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle
.
23
I have calculated these percentages using the nearest decennial census figures (1860 for the Civil War, 1920 for World War I, 1940 for World War II, 1950 for the Korean War, and 1970 for the Vietnam War) and Department of Veterans Affairs figures for total service during war. The VA acknowledges that the Confederate figures are estimates. See David R. Segal and Mady Wechsler Segal, “America's Military Population,” 5. Their lower estimates appear to be based on lower military figures. The VA numbers are cumulativeâany who served at any time during the war. My calculations better summarize the impact of war service on the population.
24
See Donald R. Hickey,
The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict
; Robert V. Remini,
The Battle of New Orleans
; Millett and Maslowski,
For the Common Defense
; as well as Coffman,
Old Army
.
25
Hickey,
War of 1812
, 73.
28
Richard Bruce Winders,
Mr. Polk's Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War
, 81, Chapters 1 and 5.
29
Millett and Maslowski,
For the Common Defense
, 142â143, 147â148.
30
Cunliffe,
Soldiers and Civilians
, 119â120; Peter Karsten,
Soldiers and Society: The Effects of Military Service and War on American Life
, 11.
32
Winders,
Mr. Polk's Army
, 60.
33
William B. Skelton,
An American Profession of Arms: The Army Officer Corps, 1784â1861
, xvi.
34
Harry S. Stout,
Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the American Civil War
, 21â22.
35
Skelton,
American Profession of Arms
, 362. Skelton's study is a careful and thorough look at the evolution of the army officer corps. It is a fine overview of this entire period.
36
Stout,
Upon the Altar
, 24.
37
Ramsay quote in Richard Kohn, “The Constitution and National Security,” in
United States Military Under the Constitution
, edited by Kohn, 66.
38
For studies of the navy, see Robert W. Love Jr.,
History of the U.S. Navy, 1775â1941
, vol. 1; Millett and Maslowski,
For the Common Defense
; and Russell F. Weigley,
The American Way of War
:
A History of United States Military Policy and Strategy
.
39
Allan R. Millett,
Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps
, is a solid history of the Marine Corps.
40
Edward Hagerman,
The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare: Ideas, Organization, and Field Command
, is a good summary of the fundamental shifts in organization, armaments, strategy, and killing power that marked this war.
41
James M. McPherson,
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War
, 16, 17, 23.
42
Ibid., 6, 13. For a different view on religion, see David Goldfield,
America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation
, which emphasizes the role of evangelical Protestantism in shaping, and inflaming, the positions of both North and South.
43
Hamner,
Enduring Battle
, 17â18.
44
McPherson,
For Cause and Comrades
, 91â92, 103, 167â171.
45
See Chandra Manning,
What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War
.
46
John Whiteclay Chambers,
To Raise an Army: The Draft Comes to Modern America
, 46.
47
Iver Bernstein,
The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War
, is a full look at the complicated factors leading to this public revolt. These involved not only the draft but also a range of partisan, economic, class, and racial tensions and issues.
48
Chambers,
To Raise an Army
, Chapter 2, is a good summary of the Civil War draft.
49
Lawrence Delbert Cress,
Citizens in Arms: The Army and the Militia in American Society to the War of 1812
, 71, 72â73.
50
McPherson,
For Cause and Comrades
, 173, 176â178.
51
See Benjamin Apthorp Gould,
Investigations in the Military and Anthropological Statistics of American Soldiers
, published by the US Sanitary Commission in 1869, as well as McPherson,
For Cause and Comrades
, appendix, esp. 179â182.
52
See Joseph T. Wilson,
The Black Phalanx: A History of the Negro Soldiers of the United States in the Wars of 1775â1812, 1861â'65
.
53
A remarkable resource is the statistical study of the Civil War military forces by Gould,
Investigations in the Military.
54
Coffman,
Old Army
, 215ff.
55
Robert Wooster,
The American Military Frontiers: The United States Army in the West, 1783â1900
, Chapter 10, summary on p. 215.
57
A good summary of the army in the 1890s leading up to the war is in Edward M. Coffman,
The Regulars: The American Army, 1898â1941
, Chapter 1; reference to black regiments on p. 12. The most comprehensive and informative study of the army during the Spanish-American War is Graham A. Cosmas,
An Army for Empire: The United States Army in the Spanish-American War
. For a discussion of the consequences of this war for the Filipinos, see Ken De Bevoise,
Agents of Apocalypse: Epidemic Disease in the Colonial Philippines
. See, for example, pp. 63â66.
58
Cosmas,
Army for Empire
, passim (quote on 257); Millett and Maslowski,
For the Common Defense
, Chapter 9; and Coffman,
Regulars
, Chapter 1.
59
Galena Gazette
, September 22, 1898.
60
See John K. Mahon,
History of the Militia and the National Guard
, Chapter 10; Cooper,
Rise of the National Guard
, Chapter 6.
61
See Coffman,
Regulars
, Chapter 2.
63
For a discussion of the mobilization of the World War I army, see Jennifer D. Keene,
Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America
, 10â11. For the draft, see Christopher Capozzola,
Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen
; Chambers,
To Raise an Army,
Chapter 7; Keene,
Doughboys
; and Edward M. Coffman,
The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I
, Chapter 2.
64
Capozzola,
Uncle Sam
, 24 for quotes and Chapters 2â5; Chambers,
To Raise an Army
, 205.
65
Keene,
Doughboys
, 35 and Chapter 2. See also David M. Kennedy,
Over Here: The First World War and American Society
, esp. Chapter 3.
66
Keene,
Doughboys
, Chapter 1.
67
Chambers,
To Raise an Army
, 222â226.
68
Keene,
Doughboys
, Chapter 1; Coffman,
War to End All Wars
, Chapter 3.
70
Frederick S. Harrod,
Manning the New Navy: The Development of a Modern Naval Enlisted Force, 1899â1940
, esp. Chapter 4.
71
Millett,
Semper Fidelis
, Chapter 11.
72
Steven A. Bank, Kirk J. Stark, and Joseph J. Thorndike,
War and Taxes
, 23.
73
Ibid., 34. Chapter 2 of this book is a good summary of Civil War finance and taxation.
77
David E. Johnson,
Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917â1945
.
78
Coffman,
Regulars
, Chapters 6 and 7, quote on 228.
CHAPTER 2
1
In Haswell's 1800 almanac, quoted in Sarah J. Purcell,
Sealed with Blood: War, Sacrifice, and Memory in Revolutionary America
, 114.