Social history of soldiers and veterans in the United States
[4][5] In the late 1680s Governor Edmund Andros, representing King James II and the Catholic faction in power in London, consolidated the northern colonies into the Dominion of New England.
When rumors reached New York in 1689, the anti-Catholic Yankees on Long Island were energized, and at one point sent their militia units on a march to the city to oust the pro-Catholic element.
Historian G. Kurt Piehler observes that in 1783 the formation of the first organization for veterans, the Society of the Cincinnati, highlighted the stark social divide that existed within the military.
It deliberately excluded enlisted soldiers from membership and appeared to critics as an effort to impose on the new nation the worst features of the rigid European class system.
While the officer corps was largely drawn from the landowning gentry, the enlisted ranks were predominantly composed of less privileged groups, including the landless poor, indentured servants and African American slaves.
Paradoxically, despite the colonies' abundant agricultural resources and sizable population, the Continental Army struggled constantly with manpower shortages and logistical failures.
Robert Morris, in charge of finances, faced a complex of issues, according to Kenneth R. Bowling, the solution finally arrived at took into account the various laws and processes of the states, Congress, and different Army divisions.
Besides overdue wages and bounties, both the national government and the individual states had to factor in tax-exempt land titles, clothing stipends, and additional provisions when making calculations.
Morris understood that reaching a resolution would take years, and he firmly maintained his stance, emphasizing that the longer the Army remained, the less probable it would be that they would return home peacefully.
[43] A massive regional insurrection took place in Western Massachusetts as embittered farmers and small town businessmen were badly indebted by statewide taxation, banking, and economic policies imposed from Boston.
[50] In the Western territories, the chief military role was to keep the main travel routes open; keep the Indians on reservations where they were supposed to become “civilized” by becoming farmers; and prevent the tribes from raiding settlements or fighting each other.
Congress and the governing Democratic-Republican Party was hostile to a standing army but put its trust in the state militia for ideological reasons unrelated to the needs of fighting a major war.
Some had no military experience prior to 1846, but others had graduated from West Point, served in the regular army, seen combat in war or on the frontier, or held rank in a state militia.
[81] This was a common scenario in wars from time immemorial, and conditions faced by the Confederate army were even worse since the blockade sharply reduced medical supplies.
Throughout the course of the war, black soldiers served in forty major battles and hundreds of more minor skirmishes; sixteen African Americans received the Medal of Honor.
The difficult conditions at small remote forts led to poor morale and high desertion rates by enlisted men who joined primarily to escape personal problems back East.
[92][93][94] Career soldiers, on the other hand, developed a strong sense of camaraderie as the isolation created a unique military culture separate from civilian society.
Furthermore In the 1870s the Army's visionary leaders William Tecumseh Sherman and Emory Upton planned for systematic professionalization, which was finally implemented by President Theodore Roosevelt and his Secretary of War Elihu Root in the first decade of the 20th century.
[95][96][97] According to historian Gregory Michno, Army records show that bloody confrontations in the West were most common in Arizona (with Apaches) and Texas (with Comanches).
Thousands of posts across the North and West carried the message that the veterans had saved the Union and America should be forever grateful by celebrating the achievement and honoring the heroes with commemorations and monuments.
[102] According to Stuart McConnell, the GAR, "was the most powerful single-issue political lobby of the late nineteenth century, securing massive pensions for veterans and helping to elect five postwar presidents from its own membership [Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Harrison and McKinley].
In the 1880s Grover Cleveland, the only postwar Democrat to reach the White House, became famous for his sarcastic vetoes of pension bills for individual veterans passed by Congress, arguing that many were fraudulent attempts to cheat the government.
Southern educator Jabez L. M. Curry told the 1896 national convention of the United Confederate Veterans that their organization was not formed, "in malice or in mischief, in disaffection, or in rebellion, nor to keep alive sectional hates, nor to awaken revenge for defeat, nor to kindle disloyalty to the Union."
With no humble apologies, no unmanly servility, no petty spite, no sullen treachery, he is a cheerful, frank citizen of the United States, accepting the present, trusting the future, and proud of the past.
The Army's long experience in tiny isolated western forts led to a lack of awareness of the urgent need for sewage control in large camps.
[113][114] The decision to stay was denounced by leading Democrats in the 1900 presidential election, but McKinley won in a landslide on the basis of restoring prosperity, and winning a popular war against Spain.
[116][117] American forces were composed primarily of state National Guard units that were untrained in guerrilla warfare, unaccustomed to the disease-ridden tropical environment, and unfamiliar with the language and customs of the islands.
Rural pacification will be better affected by cheaper indigenous units with aid from American forces when necessary.Aguinaldo responded by raiding the home town of the Macabebes, locking 300 civilians into a church, then burning it down on April 27, 1899.
The result was the transformation of the Army from a motley collection of small frontier outposts and coastal defense units into a modern, professionally organized, military machine comparable to the best in Europe.
The popular impact came through national attention generated by POW/MIA movement and veterans’ mental health crises to Rambo films with Sylvester Stallone and “Born in the U.S.A.” with Bruce Springsteen.
