THE ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY
A partial course at the Military Academy, four years' experience as a citizen of Texas—there in contact with the Army during its sorest trials—and a service of thirty-six years as a commissioned officer both in the Cavalry and Infantry (in the field without leave or sickness during the War) and at twenty-five separate and independent posts during the subsequent years, with a fair share in Indian campaigns of this latter period, has convinced me—against my will and inclination—that the Army is not now and never has been organized or administered in its own interests, the interests of the people, nor in harmony with the other institutions (national, state, or corporate) of the Republic.
These pages are written with a view of making as full and free criticism and exposition of the faults and errors as they have occurred to me, and the remedies as they have suggested themselves, as is proper for me to do under paragraph 5 of the Army Regulations, with the full knowledge that the rôle of the innovator or reformer is generally obnoxious to mankind, so given to the worship of ancestral methods in all the affairs of life, but more markedly, perhaps, in the profession of arms, the very mission of which is to maintain the order of things as they exist, so that at present I can hardly hope to have the support of perhaps even a majority of my brother officers, for the reason that they are supposed (erroneously, I think) to be the beneficiaries of the system and methods here assailed.
With this prelude and the faithful promise to "Nothing extenuate nor set down aught in malice," I will proceed with my theme without apology.
A careful study of the history of our country will show that neither the great patriots and statesmen who founded andsecured our liberties, nor those who have followed and maintained them, have ever at any time seriously considered the subject ofa permanent military establishment, save to declare in the Constitution "That Congress shall have power * * * to raise and support armies," and that "a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free State," and providing at various and sundry times to this date by legislative enactments for the enrollment of "every male citizen between the ages of eighteen and forty-five" as the well regulated militia, and that each citizen so enrolled "shall within six months thereafter provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of the musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain the proper quantity of powder and ball; or, with a good rifle, knapsack, shot pouch and powder horn, twenty balls, suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed and accoutred, and provided, when called out into exercise, or into service; * * * that commissioned officers shall, severally, be armed with a sword or hanger,[1]and a spontoon; and that from and after five years from the passage of this act, all muskets for arming the militia, as herein required, shall be of bores sufficient for balls of the eighteenth part of a pound," and "for making farther and more effectual provisions for the protection of the frontiers of the United States."
[1]See Cullem's "Art of War," page 26, describing the "Frank" soldier of the Sixth Century.
[1]See Cullem's "Art of War," page 26, describing the "Frank" soldier of the Sixth Century.
In carrying out these projects they adopted for the government of the troops so authorized, with very little alteration, the Articles of War, Regulations, Pay and Allowances, and Systems of Organization, with the Laws, written and unwritten, then in force in Great Britain; and in the main the military establishment of the United States for both Regulars and Militia so remains to the present day.
Jefferson and his contemporaries had busied themselvesassiduously before, during, and after the Revolution, in erasing from the statute books of the Colonies and the Congress, all vestige or semblance of support of a personal and despotic government, such as titles of nobility, established church, primogeniture and the entailment of estates, all of which had played so great a part in upholding cruel and despotic governments of the great nations of civilization, to the end that freeing the people from the all-powerful influence of these ruling classes, they might establish a free and permanent government, where all just powers should be derived "from the consent of the governed"; so that by the time of the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 they had not only destroyed all these privileged classes, but had established a government so unique in all its leading characteristics that it differed in every feature save one,the War Department, from any great nation known to history; complicated, yet symmetrical; its executive, legislative, and judicial powers blending—both Federal and State—in harmonious whole.
From its Supreme Court at the Nation's Capital down through its inferior auxiliaries in the districts of all the States and Territories, and in each State and Territory on down through their Supreme Courts with their auxiliaries, and still on down through the county, corporate and justices' courts in the counties and cities, there is no cause of action, civil or criminal, possessed by any party—individual or corporate—but there is a well-defined and easily accessible remedy in original, appellate, and final jurisdiction; so simple that the young lawyer just entering upon practice can, without hesitation, file his complaint in the proper direction; when once filed, though it may proceed to that of last resort—the Federal Supreme Court—there is no confusion or conflict between the judges, marshals, sheriffs, or constables, county, State, or Federal. But when these legal authorities have exhausted their power to suppress the lawless and make their call upon the executive of the nation to protect the lives and property of the law-abiding (their dearest and most sacred rights),neither the President nor the Governor, the Marshal nor the Sheriff, the officer commanding the Federal troops nor the officer commanding the State troops have any rules of law for their mutual and common guidance and government; too often local passion and political prejudice blind a just conception in otherwise good men and endanger the public safety. The Army (and its supplement—the Navy) being the only unimproved inheritance left us from Great Britain.
This Organization and Administration for the British Army was developed during the four of five centuries preceding our Revolution, for the purpose of maintaining the alleged God-given right of dynasties to rule the people without "The consent of the governed," to support large royal families, a large line of nobility with attendant trains, entailed estates, a numerous line of army officers—the latter supplanting the knights errant—who together constituted the ruling classes, distinguished from tradespeople and toilers as were the patricians of Rome from plebeians.
Earlier the armies were raised by the knights and barons; the officers from sons of the nobility who were admitted to the pomp and circumstance of regal courts; the men from the lowest class (often foreign mercenaries) hardly any of whom could read, or had any conception of individual, much less political rights, just emerging from barbarism and trained for wars where plunder was the main incentive to courage in battle.
These were men to be governed by fear alone, and not by the love of order and personal interest in its maintenance as Americans now govern themselves. With such people, rigid personal government and rules of discipline were necessary and accepted; with Americans, they are not only unnecessary, but abhorrent.
To comport, then, with the surroundings in the ruling classes and with the necessity for discipline among men so base in mercenary wars for the benefit of the ruling classes alone, the Organization and Administration were made to consist of twoclasses—officers and men—as widely separated as master and slave; the officer became by laws, written and unwritten, despotic and supercilious, with power even to take life without responsibility; the man servile and blindly obedient in the most abject sense, without remedies against his cruel wrongs.
It is true that at the time of our Revolution popular liberty had greatly advanced in England, but as the pay of the men was very small and the most of the service required in distant colonies, many of which were barbarous, and few equally advanced with England in civil liberties, few but the idle and vicious could be induced to surrender the rights then dawning upon them at home, and separate themselves for years from civilization, friends, and kindred; so, of necessity still, the unwritten laws were maintained, and those written did not keep abreast with those pertaining to civil liberties at home. To the officer, though a stripling, the soldier, though aged and battle-scarred, was always "My man," and he, in servile response, considered it a privilege if not an honor to black his master's boots. He was made to spend much time in acquiring a knowledge of the proper dress, manner, and deportment necessary to approach the presence of any one holding a commission. All this we inherited—much is unnecessarily perpetuated.
Until recently a similar unfortunate condition has confronted our army since its organization, in the fact that nine-tenths of it was compelled to abandon civilized association, going to the wilds to war with the North American savage, more dreadful than any with which the British Army has had to contend; only the poorest material could be induced to enlist, and the officers had at least a partial justification in maintaining the written and unwritten laws inherited from the British Army. But the cessation of these wars—now never to be resumed—and the transfer of the greater part of the army to the East, near the great cities, bringing both men and officers in contact with the people of the greatest civilization and also in direct association with the National Guards of States, who aredirectly from and with the people, has, within the last ten years, induced a great change in material of the enlisted men, so that now there can be no just reason why they should not be placed on a level as to pay, government, and promotion with other public employees in similar service, such as letter-carriers, city policemen, and others.
Right here it should be said, however, that the faults do not lie with the officers; as a rule they are blameless in these matters, as it is their sworn duty to maintain the unwritten laws, the customs of the service as they find them—which they have done, often knowing themselves to be the sufferers in alienation from the sympathies of the volunteers and the people in our greater wars—and at times impairing their usefulness for larger commands, by prejudices thus engendered. The material in officers is as good as any in the world, but there is little incentive to ambitious effort. The too certain tenure of office and the legal right to promotion by seniority are destructive of individuality and self-reliance (the distinctive characteristics of the American people) and subversive of ambitious efforts in time of peace, and in another decade the Army will degenerate into that state of imbecility and helplessness in which the great emergency of the Rebellion of 1861 found it. Neither is it the fault of the enlisted men.
Nothing, however, in our Republic, is so un-American as the great gulf that is maintained by laws, written and unwritten, between the commissioned and non-commissioned; a similar unfortunate gulf has also heretofore separated the Regular Peace Establishment from the Militia. Neither was intended by the Constitution nor its framers. The fault lies with the legislators, who should have perceived that our Government, founded on principles the reverse of those cited above, without classes, save as graded by worth, required an essentially different organization and administration, and they should have provided it, but they did not and have not to this day. They have practically kept up a small Army, generally qualified, however, by declaring the purposes temporary, but neverseriously attempting a remodeling of its organization and administration, as was done in all other branches of the Government. They had suffered so much from the British soldier in Colonial times and had been able to vanquish him in battle with their citizen soldiery on such memorable occasions as "Saratoga" and "Yorktown" that they had contempt and hatred for anything in his semblance, and afterwards probably feared a permanent organization as menacing to the liberties they had wrested with such great sacrifice from its like, and repudiated it in spirit.
There are, however, two other alleged reasons which may have had a leading part in preventing politicians and statesmen from entering upon the necessary legislation. The first is the hazard or imagined peril to the safety of the Republic from "The Man on Horseback," a military leader placed officially at the head of a large body of well organized troops. This might be briefly answered with the truthful statement that at least two such men—Washington and Grant, and perhaps a third, Jackson—have had it clearly within their power to become dictators, and that the Republic as long as it survives will always regard them as the very safest of the many custodians of its liberties, while other leaders in the forum have attempted in vain their destruction.
The second is the great and lapsing question of "State's Rights," which at first had much force and reason, but is now fast losing all possibility of maintenance, and must eventually give way to the changed conditions and the much greater mutual interests of the States involved.
This doctrine had much right and reason in the earlier days of the Republic, because the States then, by reason of the comparative non-migration of their citizens and the transportation of products and commodities from one to the other, and the distinct characteristics of their people in habits and customs of business, might almost be said to differ from each other as did the baronies of Scotland in the Middle Ages, and required almost as autonomous laws for their government.But gradually their wonderfully increased population, the unparalleled advances in steam transportation, the great multiplication of their products and commodities (in one part or another of the Republic almost everything useful being produced) have so stimulated travel and commerce that they have so far lost their original individuality, that the individual citizen of each State in his daily wants and affairs, is quite as much interested in the laws, customs and business of other States, as in those of his own. Judging by the past, within the next half century the Republic will contain over 200,000,000 people and scores of cities of over a million inhabitants; greater and broader-tracked railroads with easier grades and curves and swifter speed, interchanging swiftly and cheaply the commodities of Florida with Alaska, and California with Maine; great ocean ship-canals with single locks connecting the Great Lakes with the ocean via the Hudson and Mississippi rivers.
The humblest citizen of the Republic will then have a daily interest in the protection of these great properties and the lives of the men who maintain them in operation, which can only be accomplished by a strong, united and well-sustained Federal force supported by the States.
The Regular Army is now smaller in proportion to the population and wealth of the nation than it has ever been at any period since the organization of the Government; the number of the lawless, the facility for their organization, armament and concentration has on the other hand largely increased, with greater power to do harm by reason of the newly invented destructive and terrible explosives.
An organization and administration after the skeleton plan which is briefly outlined below would modify much that is evil and bring the military in harmony with the other democratic institutions of the Republic: