Conclusive as these figures should be, a more exact idea of the penalty inflicted on the people through the neglect of military preparation, may be formed by a reference to the gross expenditures of the Government from the year 1811 to 1823. These show that, beginning with the year 1811, when the annual expenditures including all departments of the Government, averaged $13,000,000, they jumped to $39,000,000 in 1813; $48,000,000 in 1816, and then declining to $35,000,000 in 1818, only reached the normal limit in 1823, when, through the natural development of the country, they amounted to $15,300,000. During the intervening eleven years, allowing a progressive increase of $200,000 for national growth, the difference between the normal and actual expenditures of the Government amounted to more than $198,000,000. These figures, which do not embrace the millions paid for pensions since 1823, may be accepted with slight variation as the immediate cost of the war. Had Congress from 1808 to 1811 applied one-fourth of this sum to the maintenance of an army of 15,000 men, so organized as to have been capable of expansion by the aid of voluntary enlistments and obligatory service to double or triple its numbers, there is little reason to doubt that Canada would have been ours, and the war brought to a close on a single campaign. LESSONS OF THE WAR. The lessons of the war are so obvious that they need not be stated. Nearly all the blunders committed were repetitions in an aggravated form of the same blunders in the Revolution, and like them had their origin either in the mistakes or omissions of military legislation. In the war under the Confederation Congress in its own name could not raise a dollar, nor arm and equip a single soldier. Under the Constitution, it had the sovereign authority to call forth the entire financial and military resources of the people. In one war, with a debt of $200,000,000 the nation became bankrupt at the end of five years; in the other, a debt of nearly equal magnitude was contracted in two and one-half years. In the first war, notwithstanding the steady decline of our military strength two British armies of more than 6,000 men each, were made captive; in the other, less than 5,000 men, for the period of two years brought war and devastation into our territory, and successfully withstood the misapplied power of 7,000,000 of people." a The following pencil notes of Gen. James A. Garfield and Gen. William T. Sherman, on General Upton's original manuscripts, are added as being of interest.-Editors. "I renew the suggestion that a further statement of the composition of the British forces against us ought to be made. "J. A. G." "A compliance with General Garfield's suggestion will strengthen your argument. Many strong men will contest your conclusions by charging the lamentable failure of the war of 1812 to other causes than false legislation; to want of skill by generals and officers, such as the want of concert of action and dispersion of our strength, the want of men of action as leaders, rather than want of wisdom in council. I doubt if you will convince the powers that be, but the facts stated, the references from authority, and the military conclusions are most valuable, and should be printed and made accessible. The time may not be now, but will come, when these will be appreciated, and may bear fruit even in our day. "W. T. SHERMAN." CHAPTER XIII. MILITARY POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES FROM THE WAR OF 1812 TO THE FLORIDA WAR. REORGANIZATION OF 1815. As soon as hostilities ceased the Army was reduced, and the peace establishment fixed by the act of March 3, 1815. The first three sections of the act were as follows: 1. That the military peace establishment of the United States shall consist of such proportions of artillery, infantry, and riflemen, not exceeding, in the whole, ten thousand men, as the President of the United States shall judge proper, and that the Corps of Engineers, as at present established, be retained. 2. That the corps of artillery shall have the same organization as is prescribed by the act passed the 30th of March, 1814, and the regiment of light artillery the same organization as is prescribed by the act passed the 12th day of April, 1808; and that each regiment of infantry and riflemen shall consist of one colonel, one lieutenantcolonel, one major, one adjutant, one quartermaster, one paymaster, one surgeon, and two surgeon's mates, one sergeant-major, one quartermaster-sergeant, two principal musicians, and ten companies; each company to consist of one captain, one first lieutenant, and one second lieutenant, four sergeants, four corporals, two musicians, and sixty-eight privates. 3. That there shall be two major-generals and four brigadier-generals; the majorgenerals to be entitled to two aids-de-camp, and the brigadier-generals to one aid-decamp; each to be taken from the subalterns of the line; four brigade inspectors and four brigade quartermasters, and such number of hospital surgeons and surgeon's mates as the service may require, not exceeding five surgeons and fifteen mates, with one steward and one ward master to each hospital. The brigade inspectors appointed under this act shall be taken from the line, and the brigade quartermasters, the adjutants, regimental quartermasters, and paymasters, from the subalterns of the line.a * * * * * So far as the line of the Army was concerned, a marked contrast will be observed between the laws of 1815 and those immediately subsequent to the Revolution. By the latter, all knowledge of the military art was practically extinguished, by reducing the Army to 80 persons, after which a small force of less than 1,000 men was created, whose doubtful existence was prolonged for successive periods of three years. The law of 1815, on the contrary, at once declared in favor of a permanent peace establishment of not less than 10,000 men. Great as was this advance for the time, the organization was still radically defective. The law totally suppressed the Adjutant-General's and Topographical Department: abolished the Inspector-General's Department, substituting therefor 4 brigade inspectors; also abolished the "Callan's Military Laws of the United States, 1776 to 1863, secs. 1, 2, 3, p. 266. Quartermaster-General's Department, substituting in its place 4 brigade quartermasters, who, like the brigade inspectors, were, from motives of economy, to be selected from the line." These defects were partially remedied by the construction that the law did not apply to the Ordnance, Purchasing, and Pay departments, as also to judge-advocates and chaplains. The evils were still further diminished by the authority of the President, who ordered the provisional retention of 1 adjutant and inspector-general, 2 adjutants-general, 1 quartermaster-general, and 2 deputy quartermasters-general. These temporary measures were superseded by the general reorganization of the staff, by the act of April 24, 1816, which made the General Staff consist of 1 Adjutant and Inspector-General; 1 AdjutantGeneral: 1 Inspector-General; 3 topographical engineers; 1 Quartermaster-General; 1 Deputy Quartermaster-General to a division; 1 assistant of each to every brigade (to "supersede the brigade quartermasters and inspector now existing"); 1 Commissary-General of Purchases; 1 Deputy Commissary to each division; 6 Assistant Commissaries of Issues, and as many military storekeepers as the service might require, their pay and emoluments to be regulated by the Secretary of War, not to exceed that of a captain of infantry; 1 PaymasterGeneral; 1 paymaster to each battalion of the corps of artillery who, as well as the regimental paymasters, in addition to paying their respective regiments or corps, were required to act as district pay masters. Ordnance Department as already existing by act of February 8, 1815, viz: 1 colonel, 1 lieutenant-colonel, 2 majors, 10 captains, 10 first lieutenants, 10 second lieutenants, 10 third lieutenants, 3 judgeadvocates to each division, 1 chaplain to each division, 4 hospital surgeons and 8 hospital surgeon's mates to each division, post surgeons not to exceed 12 to each division, 1 Apothecary-General, and 2 assistant apothecaries. No rank was prescribed for any of the officers of the Commissary Department. The Commissary-General received $3,000 per annum; the deputies, $2,000; the Assistant Commissaries of Issues, $1,300. The regimental and battalion paymasters received the pay and emoluments of majors of infantry and were selected either from the subalterns of the line or from civil life. The law did not stop merely with the appointment of citizens as paymasters. It went far beyond, and, failing entirely to recognize the value of special and professional training in any of the staff departments, prescribed in the tenth section that "hereafter the staff of the Army may be taken from the line of the Army or from citizens."a With all of its imperfections, however, the law of 1816 marked an important advance in our military system. In connection with the law of 1815 it gave us, as Washington had recommended more than thirty years before, our first permanent peace establishment, in which both the line and staff were represented. The size, too, of the Army-fixed at 10,000, or in the ratio of little more than 1,000 men to each 1,000,000 of population was fairly proportioned to the wants of the country. Nearly all of its higher grades were filled by officers who had acquired practical training in the war, a Callan's Military Laws of the United States, p. 276. while through the wisdom of Congress, in increasing the Corps of Cadets in 1812, the lower grades were in future to be filled by young men who had been carefully trained and taught all the duties of a private, noncommissioned officer, and officer." 66 From this moment, wherever the Regular Army has met the enemy, the conduct of the officers and men has merited and received the applause of their countrymen. It has rendered the country vastly more important service than by merely sustaining the national honor in battle. It has preserved, and still preserves, to us the military art; has formed the standard of discipline for the vast number of brave volunteers of our late wars, and, while averting disaster and bloodshed, has furnished us with military commanders to lead armies of citizen soldiers, whose exploits are now famous in the history of the world. TRANSMISSION OF THE PRESIDENT'S ORDERS TO THE ARMY. The undefined relation of the Secretary of War, to the Army, and the consequent irregularity in issuing and transmitting orders, were the cause of much unnecessary confusion, not only during the War of 1812, but also after its close. These irregularities, however, were not prominently brought out until General Jackson took action, in 1817. The trouble began in 1814, when an order was issued from the War Department, signed by a Deputy Inspector-General, which, without being transmitted through the division commander, directed Colonel Sparks, Major Laurence, and some officers of the Second Infantry to proceed on recruiting service. Upon receipt of the order, Colonel Sparks was in command at Mobile and Major Laurence at Fort Boyer, at the entrance of the bay, both of which points were in danger of immediate occupation by the British. Both officers declined to obey the order, while soon after Major Laurence was called upon to defend his post from a combined land and naval attack, in which he repulsed the enemy with great gallantry. The manifest peril to the country occasioned by the irregular transmission of an order, whereby, at a critical moment, two important posts might have been deprived of their commanders, drew from General Jackson an energetic remonstrance; nevertheless no answer was returned, neither was the abuse corrected. Another case occurred in 1817 which, while it did not jeopardize the national cause, nor the lives of our soldiers, brought the authority of the commanding general into direct conflict with the War Department. A Major Long, who for military reasons had been specially detailed by General Jackson to make a topographical survey of part of the Mississippi River, was relieved and ordered to New York, where the report of his survey was made public and conveyed to the division commander through the newspapers. In this change of station, the commander had not been consulted, nor was he informed of the order detaching his subordinate. Exasperated by this discovery, he wrote to the President on the very day of his inauguration, strongly setting forth the serious consequences involved in such irregularities; but this letter, like his former remonstrance, elicited no reply. After waiting for nine or ten days longer than the time required for communications 15836-04 -10 to go to Washington and return, he resolved to settle the difficulty in his own way, and therefore issued the following order: ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, HEADQUARTERS DIVISION OF THE SOUTH, Nashville, April 22, 1817. The commanding general considers it due to the principles of subordination, which ought and must exist in our Army, to prohibit the obedience of any order emanating from the Department of War to officers of this division who have been reported and been assigned to duty, unless coming through him as the proper organ of communication. The object of this order is to prevent the recurrence of a circumstance which removed an important officer from the division without the knowledge of the commanding general, and, indeed, when he supposed that officer engaged in his official duties and anticipated hourly the receipt of his official reports on a subject of great importance to his command; also to prevent the topographical reports from being made public through the medium of the newspapers, as was done in the case alluded to, thereby enabling the enemy to obtain the benefit of our topograhical researches as soon as the general commanding, who is responsible for the division. Superior officers having commands assigned them are held responsible to the Government for the character and conduct of that command, and it might as well be justified in an officer senior in command to give orders to a guard on duty without passing that order through the officer of that guard, as that the Department of War should countermand the arrangements of commanding generals, without giving their orders through the proper channel. To acquiesce in such a course would be a tame surrender of military rights and etiquette and at once subvert the established principles of subordination and good order. Obedience to the lawful commands of superior officers is constitutionally and morally required, but there is a chain of communication that binds the military compact which, if broken, opens the door to disobedience and disrespect, and gives loose to the turbulent spirits who are ever ready to excite to mutiny. All physicians able to perform duty, who are absent on furlough, will forthwith repair to their respective posts. Commanding officers of regiments and corps are ordered to report specially, all officers absent from duty on the 30th of June next, and their cause of absence. The Army is too small to tolerate idlers, and they will be dismissed the service, a By order of Major-General Jackson: ROBERT BUTLER, This order excited universal comment, but still the President, upon whom devolved by law the responsibility of prescribing the manner in which the business of the War Department should be conducted, came to no decision. Two months later a final issue was presented. General Ripley, at New Orleans, received an order direct from the War Department, which, in obedience to the order of his division commander, he declined to obey. The responsibility for his action was immediately assumed by General Jackson, who, in a letter to the President, dated August 12, 1817, commended the "proper disobedience" of his subordinate. He then in justification continued: In the view I took of this subject on the 4th of March, I had flattered myself you would coincide, and had hoped to receive your answer before a recurrence of a similar infringement of military rule rendered it necessary for me to call your attention thereto. None are infallible in their opinions, but it is nevertheless necessary that all should act agreeably to their convictions of right. My convictions in favor of the course I have pursued are strong, and should it become necessary, I will willingly meet a fair investigation before a military tribunal. The good of the service and the dignity of the commission I hold alone actuate me. My wishes for retirement have already been made known to you; but, under existing circumstances, my duty to the officers of my division forbids it until this subject is fairly understood. a Parton's Life of Andrew Jackson, vol. 2, p. 373. |