Towards An American Army

Military Thought From Washington To Marshall

Russell F. Weigley

• Publisher: Golden Springs Publishing
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781786258229
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

This book is a history of controversies that have surrounded the growth of the United States Army, controversies that have flared over the inextricably related questions of how to attain maximum military security for the United States and how to form an army that will be appropriate to and not subversive of American democratic society.This book offers some measure of information on the attitudes and thought processes that have been traditional and habitual among American professional soldiers. Especially, it reveals something of their customary approach to issues of military policy where such issues merge with those of national policy in general. And to know something about the customary approach of military men to the broadest issues of military and national policy is also of manifest value to the present.

EPILOGUE

THOSE Americans who sought the way towards an American army often had been vague in their descriptions of the military necessities for which the army was intended. The principal reason for their vagueness was that through most of the history of the United States it was difficult to envision the war and the enemy that the American army would fight. Through most of the nineteenth century, the continental isolation of the United States and a foreign policy that accentuated that isolation made foreign war seem unlikely. This was one of the facts that kept Emory Upton and his followers isolated from the thought of most of their fellow Americans.

Despite American vagueness about the identity of future antagonists and about the situations which might call forth conflict, however, one thing seemed clear. If the United States fought a major war against a major power, it would be a war of continental defense, fought in North America. No one planned American forays into Europe or Asia. Jeffersonians, Washingtonians, and Uptonians all sought to construct an army to defend America against foreign invasion.

The Uptonians gradually lost ground even within the regular officer corps during the twentieth century, largely because a change in the probable functions of an American army found them less able than rival theorists to adjust. The acquisition of overseas territories through the Spanish War and the subsequent entrance of the United States into world politics made continental defense no longer the sole likely function of the United States Army in a war against a great power. The dispatch of an American expeditionary force overseas became an increasing possibility.

General Peyton C. March supported his Uptonian army plans with a conviction that the principal mission of the American army was still continental defense even after World War I. Even John M. Palmer in his Statesmanship or War of the 1920s discussed the mission of the army primarily in terms of continental defense.{511} But from the beginning of the twentieth century the dispatch overseas of an American army large enough to cope with European armies was a possibility, and after 1917 it was no longer simply a possibility. Although John M. Palmer in the 1920s might write in terms of continental defense, his attacks on Uptonian theory gained conviction because he offered a better method than the Uptonians of fashioning an army capable of exerting itse...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• PREFACE
• I-THE DUAL MILITARY LEGACY OF THE REVOLUTION
• II-GEORGE WASHINGTON AND ALEXANDER HAMILTON-Military Professionalism In Early Republican Style
• III-JOHN C. CALHOUN-The Expansible Army Plan
• IV-DENNIS HART MAHAN-The Professionalism Of West Point
• V-HENRY W. HALLECK AND GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN-The Disciples Of Dennis Mahan
• VI-WILLIAM T. SHERMAN AND ULYSSES S. GRANT-The Rise Of Total War
• VII-EMORY UPTON-The Major Prophet Of Professionalism
• VIII-JOHN A. LOGAN-The Rebuttal For A Citizen Army
• IX-THE DISCIPLES OF EMORY UPTON
• X-JOHN M. SCHOFIELD-An American Plan Of Command
• XI-R. M. JOHNSTON-The Search For An Escape From Uptonian Despair
• XII-LEONARD WOOD-The Inevitability Of A Citizen Army
• XII-JOHN MCAULEY PALMER AND GEORGE C. MARSHALL-Universal Military Training
• EPILOGUE