On June 14 the nation observes the Army's 231st birthday. Soldiers are serving all over the globe, just as they have been on the Army's special day for so many years in the past. When we reflect on the years 1806, 1866, 1906 and 1956, choosing a few milestones when the Army wasn't actually at war, we get a sense of the wide variety of service the Army has always performed, and we can perceive a few themes that provide perspective on the political and military context within which the Army celebrates this birthday.
In 1806 the U.S. Army had 142 officers and 2,511 enlisted men, for a total strength of 2,653. Most of the senior officers were veterans of the Revolutionary War with little interest in training or sustaining capable small units in a period of extremely tight budgets. Even though the Army was tiny, it was split between frontier duties and harbor defense-neither of which could be performed adequately. State militias were neglected, and there had been little political impetus for improvement. But that was changing. Napoleon's rise to power in Europe had been accompanied by increases in the British military establishment. Coming years would see increases in the Regular Army and legislation that began to attempt to increase the military capabilities of the militia. Historians look back to 1806 for the big event that occurred on September 23, when Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis after their great Voyage of Discovery. Their success set the framework for the Army's role in exploring the continent that would continue for a century.
In 1866 the million-man Army that had prevailed in the War of the Rebellion had shrunk to a total strength of slightly more than 57,000. The frontier had shifted far to the West in 50 years, but a large part of the Army was still engaged there in small detachments. Harbor defense still absorbed a large portion of the Army budget, and the Corps of Engineers took on ever larger projects to improve ports and waterways. But the new mission for the still dwindling Army of 1866 was support for the civil authorities-and in some cases, exercise of martial law-in the territory of the recently defeated Confederacy. In the spring of 1866 Congress passed (over presidential veto) a Civil Rights Act that prohibited racial discrimination by state or local authorities, placed enforcement in the federal courts and explicitly empowered U.S. marshals to call to their aid "such portion of the land or naval forces of the United States, or of the militia, as may be necessary." When Afro-American citizens of Norfolk, Va., attempted to march in celebration of the Act, more than 1OO armed men, many dressed in Confederate grey, contested the march and fired on a battalion commander of the 12th Infantry-the unit that had been called to maintain order. Casualties were light in Norfolk, but in early May a much more violent conflict erupted in Memphis, Tenn. Memphis had been the central depot for U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) during the Civil War, and the only wartime unit still on duty there in the spring of 1866 was the 3rd Heavy Artillery (USCT). Those troops were mustered out of service on April 30, did a little celebrating, and police fired on some troublemakers. Little blood was shed in the first encounter, but whites went on a rampage that night, killing and burning. Four companies of the 16th Infantry were sent to restore order, but the fact that they could muster only about 120 men is a measure of the weakness of the U.S. Army of the time. Violence against persons and property persisted until May 5, when reinforcements arrived from Nashville. In response to this bloody event, the commanding general of the Army issued General Order No. 44 on July 6:
Department, district and post commanders in the states lately in rebellion are hereby directed to arrest all ... persons charged with ... crimes and offenses against officers, agents, citizens and inhabitants of the United States, irrespective of color, in cases where the civil authorities had failed, neglected, or are unable to arrest and bring such parties to trial, and to detain them in military confinement until such time as a proper judicial tribunal is ready and willing to try them. A strict and prompt enforcement of order is required.
When violence broke out in New Orleans on July 30, the local commander had the 1st (white) and 41st (USCT) regiments ready for action, but violence was severe before order was restored. Gen. Philip Sheridan, commanding general, Division of the Gulf, telegraphed to Gen. Grant: "The mayor of the city, during my absence, suppressed the convention and a party of 200 Negroes with firearms, clubs and knives in a mariner so unnecessary and atrocious as to compel me to say that it was murder. ... Everything is now quiet, but I deem it best to maintain military supremacy in the city for a few days until the affair is fully investigated."
The backlash from these riots led Congress to take control of policy in the South, ending "Presidential Reconstruction" and passing the First Reconstruction Act in March 1867.
In 1906 the big, violent event that resulted in massive military aid to civil authorities was the San Francisco earthquake. Gen. Frederick Funston was the senior Army officer on the scene when disaster struck, and he immediately dispatched a runner with orders for the garrison at the Presidio to report to the mayor. More than 6,000 Regulars eventually were involved in disaster relief, supporting a much larger contingent of California Guardsmen and providing rations, transportation, medical supplies and communications equipment, as well as expert leadership to establish aid stations, feeding centers and supply depots. Even though the earthquake struck in April, a large Army contingent was still on duty in San Francisco in June. The Army of 1906 totaled only about 69,000 officers and men-about one-third the size it had been during the Spanish-American War in 1898. More than 10,000 troops were still stationed in the Philippines. Some of these were directly involved in counterinsurgency operations, but the bulk were assisting civil authorities, training the constabulary and developing civil works. Editorials were questioning the need for permanent camps at places such as Fort Stotsenburg (later Clark Air Force Base), but few questioned the need for new Coast Artillery installations to extend homeland defense in Manila Harbor and elsewhere in newly acquired territories such as Puerto Rico and Hawaii. An uprising against the new government in Cuba required an Army deployment (and a supplemental), and a movement of heavily armed Utes from their reservation caused alarm, but Army interventions restored peaceful order in both cases.
During the course of 1906 more than 20,000 regulars and 30,000 militiamen participated in training encampments where they hiked in full combat gear and learned to conduct livefire exercises as skirmishers. These encampments gave additional impetus to new legislation for bringing volunteers into active service and helped build the case for strong National Guard units-a case being made daily by the service of California Guardsmen in the San Francisco relief and recovery effort.
Fifty years later, the National Guard was a veteran participant in the nation's wars as well as its support to civil authorities. In 1956 Congress created Title 10, U.S. Code to contain all laws pertaining to federal military forces (including the modern U.S. Army Reserve as we know it, which had been placed on new footing in 1952) and Title 32, U.S. Code to govern administration of the National Guard in state service. The Army National Guard numbered 405,000 soldiers, making up nine armored cavalry regiments, 6 armored divisions and 21 infantry divisions, and contributing a large number of anti-aircraft artillery battalions to the Army Air Defense Command while Nike-Ajax missiles were being deployed and homeland defense was largely defined in terms of protection from attack by Soviet bombers carrying nuclear weapons. The communist threat seemed so serious that the active Army still numbered nearly 1,026,000-nearly twice the size it had been before the invasion of South Korea in 1955. But that force seemed miniscule when compared to the ground forces available to the communist powers, and progressive U.S. Army leaders set out to transform America's Army to optimize its capabilities on the nuclear battlefield in a version of "fight outnumbered and win" in which friendly forces would use tactical nuclear weapons.
The most obvious element of this transformation was the development and fielding of those tactical nuclear weapons-the Red stone and Corporal surface-to-surface guided missiles, Honest John and Little John Rockets, and the 280 mm "Atomic Cannon,'' all of which had been fielded by 1956, with more to follow. While fielding weapons that soldiers could use against massed infantry and armor targets, the Army also began to reorganize its divisions to improve survivability on the nuclear battlefield. The key was thought to lie in the ability of autonomous combined arms teams to operate while dispersed. This notion resulted in divisions that were organized into battle groups composed of five companies each, having five platoons-more capable of 360-degree defense and sustained operations. Since the division would have five battle groups and the organization was designed for nuclear warfare, the name Pentomic division entered the lexicon. With its missiles, helicopters and modern Army green uniforms, the U.S. Army was clearly on the move into a new era.
Old-timers reading this article will remember that the U.S. Army of the Eisenhower years saw itself fighting for survival as ever-increasing portions of the Defense budget went to modernizing the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy and equipping both forces for strategic nuclear warfare. Since part of the battle was building public support, the Association of the United States Army took an important leadership role. AUSA held its first Annual Meeting in the form of a convention in 1955. The organization's ability to bring together policy makers, active duty military leaders, outstanding soldiers and representatives of the many defense-related industries supporting the Army was recognized as a unique asset. So as the Army celebrated its 181st birthday, the planners at AUSA were putting together a bigger and better Annual Meeting for 1956 that would do an even better job of telling the Army story.
These little vignettes remind us that the Army has been doing many different things to maintain, restore or defend democracy in its 231 years of service. We often focus on the dramatic wartime contributions, and we should never forget them. But the forgotten chapters from periods with less drama are equally important: families were separated, soldiers were uncertain about their futures, leaders were having a tough time gaining support for necessary investments. It all sounds familiar, and we can take both comfort and pride from the knowledge that each generation of leaders-and each generation of citizens-has made the Army a successful participant in building a stronger nation.
[Author Affiliation]
By Brig. Gen. Harold Nelson
U.S. Army retired
[Author Affiliation]
BRiG. GEN. HAROLD W. NELSON, USA Ret., is a former U.S. Army Chief of Military History. He has served on the faculties of the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the U.S. Army War College.
