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The Army in Reconstruction and The Indian Wars. Copyright 1993, 1996 by Mark Grimsley
A. After the Civil War the army faced two main tasks: first, frontier constabulary operations against Indians; second, the military occupation of the defeated South. (A third task--massing at the Texas border to warn off the adventurism of Napoleon III, was achieved by 1867.) B. Of the two main missions, the Army regarded the frontier mission as its own. The tasks of Reconstruction was not to its liking--too political. C. Today we'll discuss both roles, taking Reconstruction first. II. The Army and Reconstruction, 1863-1868 A. The Army's experience with Reconstruction began during the war itself. In rear areas the Army was largely responsible for the maintenance of order, the subjugation of guerrillas, etc. Its tasks also included giving food and aid to white Southerners. In northern Virginia and southeastern Tennessee, for example, white Southerners came to depend on Federal rations to a considerable degree. B. The Army also--reluctantly--took responsibility for employing the freedmen. Put them to work, sometimes on military projects, but often on cotton plantations where they grew cotton for the Federal Treasury. (e.g. SC, MS) 1. Grant, for example, placed Chaplain John Eaton (27th Ohio) in charge of freedmen within his dept. 2. In SC, the Army guarded the Port Royal experiment. 3. 1865--Bedeviled by huge numbers of black refugees, Sherman issued S.O. 15, which gave land in the SC lowcountry to slaves. a. Done at Stanton's urging. b. Set aside Sea Islands and a 30-mile coastal strip for blacks; families would get 40 acres and WTS promised to help with army mules. (1) Probable origin of "40 acres and a mule." c. Wartime expedient only. Gov't later rescinded it, gave land back to orig. owners. Sherman didn't care. C. After the war the Army became intimately involved with Reconstruction--first because of the Freedmen's Bureau and later because of Military Reconstruction. 1. Throughout, the Army's role was characterized by 1) distaste for its political role, and 2) an institutional desire to protect itself and its officers. 2. Initially military depts. had control of South; chief instruments--provost marshals. D. Freedmen's Bureau, auth. 3 March 1865 and placed under Major General Oliver O. Howard, a professional officer known for his deep religious convictions and opposition to slavery. 1. Principal lieutenants were officers with convictions similar to his own; also several civilian antislavery leaders. 2. Bureau fed, clothed, tried to find work for, and otherwise assisted needy freedmen. Took control of confiscated and abandoned lands. 3. Over time, the Freedmen's Bureau acquired broader latitude in South, so that by late 1865 it had acquired most of the gov't functions of the provost marshal. E. In the meantime, Andrew Johnson's lenient policies began to alienate the Army as it became apparent that they encouraged Southern arrogance, contempt for Army. 1. Johnson offered easy pardons for former Confederate officers. 2. He permitted restored Southern state gov'ts to reconstitute their militias. a. Troops were largely Confederate veterans and even wore Confederate gray. 3. In state courts, southern citizens instituted scores of suits against soldiers, asking damages for actions taken under martial law during and after the war. a. Johnson refused to support Army. 4. Weigley says this "forced it officers into a political partisanship unparalleled since the formative years of the republic." 5. Army officers increasingly threw their support to Congress, which became sharply opposed to Johnson's policies. a. Grant issued orders that permitted soldiers, civil officers and negroes to transfer their cases to federal or Freedmen's Bureau courts if they felt they could not get a fair hearing otherwise. b. Congress renewed Freedmen's Bureau Act over Johnson's veto. c. Although Johnson, in May 1866, proclaimed the rebellion at an end and restored full state authority, Stanton and Grant issued a secret circular to military commanders in the South, instructing them to comply with Johnson's proclamation by reminding them of Grant's general orders. (1) Congress continued to uphold Freedmen's Bureau courts. d. July 1866--Grant issues a new general order that empowers all Army commanders in South (down to post and company level) to arrest civilians charged with crimes against federal gov't or Negroes when necessary for protection of justice. F. In general, Grant tried to act so as to support Congress without an open rift with Johnson. Stanton, still SecWar, did the same. 1. Over time, Johnson tried to get rid of both. 2. Rumors that he would do so spurred Congress to pass the Command of the Army Act and Tenure of Office Act in March 1867. 3. Command of the Army Act--constitutionally dubious; made commanding general rather than President the effective head of the army. All orders from Pres. or SecWar had to be issued through CG, who would have HQ in Wash. and who could not be removed without Senate approval. 4. Tenure of Office Act--Cabinet officials could not be removed without Senate approval. G. Congress also passed First Reconstruction Act, which enhanced power of Grant's Army in the South by dividing the South (except Tennessee) into 5 military districts. 1. Commanders were authorized to oversee the processes of civil government. 2. Reorganize southern state gov't on basis of negro suffrage and exclusion of Confederate leaders. H. In case Johnson should displace him or Stanton, Grant instructed the district commanders that they should follow the direction of Congress, not the President. 1. Third Reconstruction Act (July 1867) cemented this policy; virtually made army in South subject to Congress alone. I. Tenure of Office Act controversy leads to Johnson's impeachment. 1. This fails, but Army continues to remain instrument of Congress for rest of Johnson's term. Then Grant himself becomes President. III. The Army and Reconstruction, 1869-1877 A. Eventually, however, Congressional will to continue Reconstruction began to fade. This was okay with the Army. It was much more concerned with the safety of its officers and men and the restablishment of order than with any specific social or political agenda. 1. Many officers agreed with Sherman (who succeeded Grant as CG from 1869 through 1883): "No matter what change we may desire in the feelings and thoughts of people. . . we cannot accomplish it by force. Nor can we afford to maintain. . . an army large enough to hold them in subjugation." 2. Sherman was also disgusted with party politics. Neither Republican nor Democrat party "seems to care a damn for the service of the country." B. John M. Schofield, military governor of Virginia and North Carolina and later SecWar, referred to Reconstruction as "twelve years of misrule." 1. His agenda reflected the basic sentiment of the Army. Priority was stability. a. Civil rights for freedmen was okay, but not at expense of prolonged unrest. b. Many officers were skeptical of black suffrage. Custer: "As to trusting the negro in the Southern states with the most sacred and responsible privilege--the right of suffrage--I should as soon think of elevating an Indian chief to the Popedom of Rome." c. Meade: "I am for conciliation as the policy most likely to effect a speedy reunion. If we are going to punish treason... we shall have to shed almost as much blood as has already been poured out in this terrible war." C. Sheridan (cdr. in Texas and Louisiana) was more severe, but that was because of greater violence on part of Southerners in his region. 1. New Orleans riot, 1866. D. KKK --formed 1866. Together with other similar organizations, used terrorist tactics against black political participation. In some areas the Army fought a low intensity conflict against them, assisted by Enforcement Acts and Grant's suspension of habeas corpus in SC upcountry. By and large, however, this conflict was waged without real success. When KKK faded, it did so because of its own repulsive excesses--and because Redeemers were beginning to achieve success through more political means. 1. KKK activism cost Grant the electoral votes of Louisiana and Georgia. 2. 1,000 lives in Louisiana lost to political violence. 3. 200 Arkansas Republicans (inc. Congressmen) assassinated. 4. Virtual insurrections against Republican state governments in Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina upcountry. 5. Force Acts, 1870-1871--Among other things, empowered Grant to call up troops and suspend habeas corpus (which he did in parts of SC). 6. Force used for last time in 1874--against White League in Louisiana. 7. But Grant declined to call out troops to quell similar disturbances in 1875; supposedly feared he would lose Ohio in the 1875 off-year election. 8. Illustrates decline of will of Northern society, government to continue with Reconstruction. a. Abandonment of blacks. E. Ultimately, the Army's stance in Reconstruction reflected that of the nation as a whole. 1. Constitution as a limit to change. 2. Laissez-faire as a limit to change. 3. Racism as a limit to change. 4. Army officers essentially conservative; not wedded to radical agenda. For some white Southerners, Reconstruction yet remains a raw wound, interpreted in ways little different from Schofield, above. Check out these websites: A. Until the end of the Civil War, one basic objective had defined American military policy toward Native Americans--to push them beyond the "pale of settlement." 1. Implicit in this objective had been the assumption that at some point, white settlement would cease and the Native Americans would be left with a large chunk of territory--a permanent "Indian Country." 2. This notion dovetailed nicely with the common elief that the Great Plains comprised a "Great American Desert"--a vast ocean of grass, blessed with scanty rainfall, that would forever be unsuited to major agriculture. a. This would be the "Indian Country." B. Jackson, of course, instituted a policy of Indian removal to this region (particularly, in the case of the five civilized tribes, modern Oklahoma). There the cis-Mississippi Indians would live alongside the indigenous Great Plains Indians. 1. This setting aside of Indian Country was done in basic good faith. 2. 1832-an office of Commissioner of Indian Affairs established under War Dept. auspices. Transferred to Dept. of the Interior seventeen years later. 3. The Indian Intercourse Act of 1834 forbade unauthorized whites to enter Indian Country. It also provided gov't agencies and schools to assist the Indians. 4. By 1840 the boundary of the Indian Country was reasonably well fixed, and the Army guarded it almost as it would a de facto international frontier. C. This state of affairs lasted only about 25 years. After the Civil War Americans began to conquer the "Great American Desert" with railroads and telegraph lines. Encroachments by cattlemen, sheepherders, miners--and increasingly, dryland farmers. 1. Inevitably, frictions between Indians and whites increased. The Army drew the task of policing their interactions--which, in practice, ultimately meant the invasion of "Indian Country" and the destruction of the Native American way of life, except as it might survive on reservations. 2. The first round of fighting occurred in 1862-1865, when Native Americans took advantage of the Civil War to roll back white settlement. a. Sioux Uprising, 1862--Minnesota. b. Texas, 1862-1865--frontier rolled back as much as 150 miles. c. Colorado--Sand Creek massacre, 1864. (Made worse by fact that Indians faced volunteers who were, if anything, more antipathetic toward Indians than Regular Army. V. The Army v. Indians, 1866-1890. A. Militarily, this was not much of a contest. The outcome was never in doubt and indeed, the encroachments of settlers themselves formed a major contributor to ultimate Indian defeat. Indians were too few, too fragmented, too poorly-organized, and their way of life too fragile for successful resistence. B. The Army's role remained basically that of a frontier police force--herding the Indians onto ever-smaller reservations and bringing them to bay when they tried to break out. C. Common method of warfare--several converging columns that would enter Indian Country by different trails, sweep through Native American villages to destroy supplies, and converge where the main body of enemy warriors was suspected to be located. If you like, read "Hard War in the West," a paper given by Prof. Grimsley at the 1996 Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. See also a somewhat expanded version of the Final Indian Wars lecture. Check out an account of the Wounded Knee massacre in December 1890.
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