Category: American Civil War

From Across the Sea

Introduction

Nearly everyone recalls that the Seven Years’ War (1756 – 1763) was a global conflict that involved most of Europe’s great powers.  It was primarily fought in Europe, in the Americas, and the Asian Pacific — but there were concurrent conflicts that included the French and Indian War (1754 – 1763), the Carnatic Wars (a series of conflicts in India’s coastal Carnatic region, 1744 – 1763), and the Anglo-Spanish War (1762 – 1763).

Opposing European alliances were led by Great Britain and France, both of which were seeking to establish global pre-eminence at the expense of the other.  France and Spain opposed Great Britain in Europe and overseas with land armies, naval forces, and colonial forces.  Great Britain’s ally, Prussia, sought territorial expansion in Europe and consolidation of its power.  Great Britain also challenged France and Spain in the West Indies — with consequential results.  Prussia wanted greater influence in the German principalities, and Austria wanted to regain control of Silesia and contain Prussian influence.

The conflict forced the realignment of traditional alliances (known as the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756), where Prussia became part of the British coalition (which included a long-time competitor of Prussia, the principality of Hanover — which was in personal union with Britain).[1]  At the same time, Austria ended centuries of conflict between the Bourbon and Habsburg families by aligning itself with France, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia.  Spain also aligned with France (1761).  Smaller German states joined the war or supplied mercenaries to the parties involved.

Additionally, Anglo-French conflicts broke out in their North American colonies in 1754, when British and French colonial militias and their respective Native American allies engaged in small skirmishes and later full-scale colonial warfare.  These colonial conflicts became a theatre of the Seven Years’ War when war was officially declared two years later.  In the end, France lost most of its land on the Continent.  Some historians claim that it was the most important event to occur in North America during the 18th century — prior to the American Revolution.[2]

Spain entered the war on the side of France in 1762, but the effort to invade British ally Portugal was unsuccessful.  As it turned out, Spain’s alliance with France was a disaster because the British gained footholds in Havana, Cuba, and in Manila, The Philippines.

Inside Europe, the area that generated most of the conflict was Austria’s desire to recover Silesia from Prussia.  This contest was resolved in 1763, but more importantly, the war’s end signaled the beginning of Great Britain’s rise to become the world’s foremost colonial and naval power.  Until after its revolution, France had no chance of becoming a supreme power.  Prussia confirmed its status as a great power and, in doing so, altered the balance of power in Europe.

New Beginnings

What most people do not realize, however, is that The Seven Years’ War marked a new beginning in the art and science of warfare.  Frederick the Great embarked on land campaigns that later influenced Napoleon’s field commanders.  Such terms as command and control and maneuver warfare both belonged to Frederick the Great.  At sea, the British Royal Navy committed to decisive action under the leadership of Admiral Horatio Nelson.  His innovations gave us Rule Britannia and the British Way of War.

What sets the Seven Years’ War apart from all prior Anglo-French experiences is not in the evolution of its transatlantic maritime conduct but in the innovation of a distinct military theory: amphibious operations.

Central to this doctrinal leap was Sir Thomas More Molyneux’s 1759 masterpiece, titled Conjunct Expeditions.  It begins: “Happy for that People who are Sovereigns enough of the Sea to put [Littoral War] in Execution.  For it comes like Thunder and Lightning to some unprepared Part of the World.”

Sir Thomas was an Oxford-educated guards officer serving on half-pay and a member of Parliament.  His masterpiece was a unique addition to existing professional military literature.  But while certain accomplishments were recognized for their importance as strategic blows, Quebec for example, none have become as studied or analyzed as Molyneux’s dissertation on amphibious warfare.  The doctrine belongs to him alone. 

There were indeed insulated instances of tactical flag signals and landing schemes that pre-date Molyneux’s Conjunct Expeditions, but his effort was the first to codify methods for employment by both land and sea forces.

Although he was writing primarily for a military audience (his training was Army, after all) rather than to a naval assembly, he sought to reduce, “if possible, this amphibious kind of warfare to a safe and regular system and to leave as little as we can to fortune and her caprices.”  Sir Thomas was a brilliant man, an instinctive thinker who understood that every new expedition will, in all probability, produce some new improvement.  He knew that while theory informs practice, its execution demands good judgment.  His brilliance is illustrated by the fact that he placed “doctrine” second to the objectives and aims of the nation.  The purpose of doctrine was to serve the national interests — as was a knowledge of geography, proper utilization of resources, galvanized political will, individual courage, and devotion to the success of such operations. 

His understanding of the relationship between political ends and military means elevated his work to the level of that of Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz, who much later developed treatises on military theory incorporating the moral, psychological, and political aspects of war.  Molyneux understood the importance between strategic intent and doctrinal capability.  He knew that the disconnect between the two, or a failure to adapt to an evolving situation, brings forth the likelihood of defeat.  Such principles are observable during The Seven Years’ War: Great Britain adapted its war aims and methods — France did not.

Evolutionary Challenges

The world’s vast oceans presented Great Britain’s navy with significant challenges beyond navigation and regular seamanship.  There was a question of how best to project the Royal Navy’s power from sea to shore — a challenge that lasted two-hundred years.  Today, naval and military war planners give as much thought and consideration to warfare in the littoral (nearshore) regions as they do the deep blue sea.  But close-to-shore operations offer complex challenges that no one thought of in 1754.  And opportunities that no one imagined.  Molyneux indeed put in writing concepts that had never before been put to paper, but amphibious operations (without doctrine) had been a fact of warfare for three-thousand years.  It had simply not reached its full potential.

We believe that the ancient Greeks were the first to use amphibious warfare techniques.  This information was passed to us from Homer’s The Iliad and the Odyssey.  It is, of course, possible that such an operation may have occurred at an earlier time, at a different place, but was simply not recorded in history.  Still, according to the Iliad, Greek soldiers crossed the Aegean Sea and stormed ashore on the beaches near Troy, which began a siege lasting ten years.[3]  Then, in 499 B.C., the Persians launched a waterborne attack against the Greeks.  At the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. Persian forces established a beachhead in their attempt to invade Greece.  They employed ships specifically designed for off-loading ships near shore, and while the Persians successfully executed their amphibious operation, the Greeks defeated the Persian armies as they moved inland.

At the beginning of 56 B.C., Caesar split his army up and sent them out from their winter quarters to the various corners of Gaul.  He dispatched his lieutenant in charge of cavalry, Titus Labienus, to Belgae to fend off German tribalists at the Rhine.  To Quintus Titurius Sabinus and three legions, he assigned responsibility to pacify the Venelli on the northern coast.  He directed Publius Crassus to lead twelve cohorts to southeast Aquitania near Hispania to pacify the ancient Basque.  Caesar’s plan was intended to prevent rebellious tribes from joining forces against Roman authority.

In the winter of 57 BC, the tribes inhabiting the northern coast of Gaul surrendered their allegiance to Rome — and then, almost immediately raised an insurrection against their Roman governor, Julius Caesar.  The insurrection was led by Veneti (modern-day Brittany) and Venelli (modern-day Normandy).  There was no formal Roman government to rebel against, but as a matter of principle, the tribalists felt obliged to rebel against Roman authority.

With his remaining four legions, Caesar himself moved east from Belgae territory toward the Veneti on the eastern coast of Gaul.  In fear of Rome’s infantry, the Veneti began abandoning their villages to set up fortified strongholds along rivers and tributaries where tides made passage difficult.  None of those conditions stopped the Romans, however.  Having seized the Veneti strongholds, Caesar forced them toward the sea, where the rebels had collected a large naval force from among their fleets docked between Gaul and Britannia — about two hundred and twenty ships strong.

Caesar had no intention of allowing the Veneti to succeed in their rebellion.  He ordered assistance from the Roman navy in building ships, a project that took all summer.  A member of Brutus’s family was placed in command of this fleet while Julius Caesar stood aground with his land force on the coastline to observe the fight.

The challenge facing the Romans was not the size nor the skill of the enemy but the construction of their ships.  Roman ships were lighter with deeper hulls — ill-suited to traverse the rocky, shallow coastline.  The Veneti’s ships were constructed of heavy oak, flat-bottomed, and suitable for nearshore operations.  The strength of the oak and its thickness made the Roman technique of ramming ineffective.  But the Veneti ships were also slower.  The Romans were engineers.  They developed a long pole with a large hook fastened to its tip, which would be shot at the yards and masts of the Gallic ships.  The effect of such hooks destroyed the sails of the Veneti ships while keeping them afloat in the water.  The device used to project these poles was re-engineered ballistae.  After encircling the Veneti boats, Roman marines boarded them and put the crew to the sword.  From this experience, the Romans learned how to utilize boats to land on Britannia’s shore.  However, as a historical footnote, the tribes in Gaul were not, as they say, very fast learners.  See also: Mare Nostrum.

Beginning around 800 A.D., the Norsemen (Vikings) began their raids into Western Europe via major rivers and estuaries.  The people living along these rivers were so terrified of these raiders that even the lookout’s shout was enough to cause cardiac arrest in some people.  In 1066, William the Conqueror successfully invaded England from Normandy, and he successfully imposed his will upon the Angles and Saxons then living in what became known as Angle Land (England).  But other efforts to force a sea-to-shore landing weren’t as successful.  Spain’s Armada came to a disastrous result while attempting to land troops in England in the year 1588.

The Marines and their Corps

The first U.S. Navy amphibious landing occurred during the American Revolution when in 1776, sailors and Marines stormed ashore in the British Bahamas.  The Nassau landing wasn’t much to brag about (back then or now), but it was a start.  Among the more famous amphibious raids conducted by Marines assigned to ship’s detachments occurred during the Barbary Wars.

While Marines did conduct ship-to-shore raids during the American Civil War, the Union Army conducted most amphibious raids because, in those days, the principal mission of American Marines was to serve aboard ship, not conduct raids ashore.  Following the civil war, however, in the 1880s and 1890s, Navy squadron commanders occasionally dispatched their Marine Detachments ashore (augmented by ship’s company (called Bluejackets)) to emphasize Navy power in connection with U.S. gunboat diplomacy.  The reader will find an example of such “amphibious operations” in the story of Handsome Jack.

U.S. Marines became serious students of amphibious warfare beginning with the landing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 1898 — by every measure, a complete success and a demonstration to the nation that the Navy and Marine Corps had a unique skill set that might prove useful in future conflicts.  In 1910, the Marines moved one step closer to forming a Fleet Marine Force organization with its creation of an Advanced Base Force — a concept seeking to provide an adequate defense of naval bases and installations within the Pacific Rim.[4] 

Other countries attempted to employ amphibious operations, but mostly with disastrous results — such as during the Crimean War (1853) and the debacle at Gallipoli (1915 – 1916).  As a consequence of the Gallipoli disaster, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps began studying Amphibious Warfare in earnest in the 1920s and 1930s.

During the inter-war period (between world wars), international committees met to discuss how to achieve world peace.  Among the recommendations was an agreement to impose a reduction to naval armaments.  This effort was an unqualified disaster (and probably did as much to ignite World War II as the Allies’ unreasonable demand for reparations in 1919), but while government leaders hemmed and hawed, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps proceeded with the development of specialized amphibious warfare equipment and doctrine.

Additionally, new troop organizations, landing craft, amphibious tractors that could travel on water and land, and landing tactics were devised, tested, re-examined, and retested.  Training exercises emphasized using naval artillery and carrier-based aircraft to provide close fire support for assault troops.  Combat loading techniques were developed so that ships could quickly unload the equipment required first in an amphibious landing, accepting some reductions in cargo stowage efficiency in return for improved assault capabilities.

To facilitate training for officers and NCOs in these newly acquired capabilities, a Marine Corps School was established at Quantico, Virginia — where subject matter could not only be taught but rehearsed, as well.  In 1933, the Navy and Marines established the Fleet Marine Force (FMF) concept from what had been known as the Advance Base Force. The FMF became America’s quick-reaction force and became the standard vehicle through which emerging ideas about amphibious warfare could be tested through annual fleet landing exercises.

By 1934 Marine tacticians had developed effective amphibious techniques, and it was in that year the Marine Corps published its Tentative Landing Operations Manual, which today remains an important source of amphibious warfare doctrine.  These preparations proved invaluable in World War II when the Marines not only spearheaded many of the attacks against Japanese-held islands in the Pacific War but also trained U.S. Army divisions that also participated in the Atlantic theater as well as the island-hopping Pacific Campaigns.

After a succession of U.S. defeats by the Imperial Japanese Navy, the tide of war turned.  At Coral Sea in the southwest Pacific and Midway in the central Pacific, U.S. aircraft carriers stopped the Japanese advances in history’s first carrier-versus-carrier battles.  Quickly taking the initiative, the United States began its offensive campaigns against the Japanese when, on 7 August 1942, the 1st Marine Division assaulted Tulagi Island and invaded Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific.  For an account of this engagement, see the series: Guadalcanal: First to Fight.

In the European-Mediterranean theaters, the distances were shorter from allied bases to the assault beaches, but the demand for amphibious expertise was equally high.  Allied naval forces scrambled to secure amphibious shipping and landing craft to support the Atlantic-Mediterranean war effort.  Senior Marine officers assigned to Naval Planning Staffs played an important role in the success of the invasion of North Africa (1942), Sicily, and Salerno (1943).  The Atlantic War was challenging from several different aspects, and some of these efforts weren’t revealed until well after the end of the war.  Colonel Pierre Julien Ortiz served with the OSS behind the lines, and Hollywood actor Sterling Hayden served as a U.S. Marine captain with the OSS in the Aegean Sea.

When Germany surrendered to the allied powers on 7 May 1945, Pacific War planners were putting the final touches on their invasion plan for mainland Japan.  They were also awaiting the arrival of additional shipping and manpower from the European Theater.  No one with any brains was enthusiastic about the idea of having to invade Japan.

The Battles for Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Peleliu, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa established one painful reality: an invasion of mainland Japan would be costly.  Allied war planners had learned an important lesson from the Japanese during their island-hopping campaigns.  The Japanese were using a suicidal defensive strategy.  They realized they could not stop the Allied juggernaut — but they could certainly kill a lot of allied troops in their “defense in depth” strategy.  This fact led allied war planners to envision another one million allied infantry dead before Japan finally capitulated — that is … unless a miraculous alternative somehow presented itself.

And one did

Much has been written about the decision to drop (two) atomic bombs on Japanese cities.  Even General MacArthur argued that the Japanese were already beaten — that there was no justifiable reason to drop “the bomb.”

One can argue that General MacArthur was in a position to know whether atomic warfare was necessary, but in 1945, General MacArthur was 65 years old.  He was from the “old school” American military.  He did not believe that dropping nuclear weapons on innocent citizens was a moral course of action — and this was a fine argument.  But then, neither was sending another million men into harm’s way when there was an alternative course of action.  And, in any case, the Japanese themselves — by adopting their defense-in-depth strategy — signaled their understanding that they could not win the war.  If the Japanese had to die in the war, then by all means, take as many Allied troops as possible along.  This appalling (and incomprehensible) attitude pushed allied war planners into making that horrendous decision.

Two significant facts about this decision stand out.  First, Japanese arrogance did not allow senior Japanese officials to admit they were beaten.  They were happy to “fight on” until every Japanese man, woman, and child lay dead on the Japanese archipelago.  Second, it took two (not one) atomic bombs to convince the Japanese they were beaten.  Two.  There was no need for two, but the Japanese would not capitulate until the bombing of Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima.[5]

When the Japanese finally did surrender, on 2 September 1945, World War II ended.  The suffering of the Japanese people, however, continued for many years.  Between 1945 – 1948, thousands of people died from starvation or exposure to frigid weather every single night for nearly three years.  While this was happening, Allied forces had to manage the repatriation of Japanese Imperial forces throughout the Far East.  In 1946, the Chinese civil war resumed and continued through 1949.  In the face of all this, President Truman set into motion the deactivation of America’s wartime military (even though some of these men were still in harm’s way in China).

Following hostilities, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) reviewed all after-action reports from amphibious operations.  As expected, many landing craft and amphibious-vehicle casualties were due to enemy action — but many were also related to problems with tidal waves and rip currents caused by undersea mountains that contributed to capsizing, swamping, or broaching landing craft.

For example, the analysis revealed flaws involving amphibious boats and tracked vehicles operating on confined landing areas, the slope of the beach, water levels, and soil.  ONR found that saturated sand near the water’s edge would liquefy (and trap) landing vehicles due to the vibrations produced by an overabundance of vehicular traffic.  One of the reasons allied forces continued to conduct training exercises on war-torn beaches (such as Iwo Jima) was to observe these conditions in detail and prepare findings that would improve the capabilities of U.S. amphibious assault vehicles.

Truman’s Folly

When the Korean War exploded late in June 1950, America’s military hierarchy, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), had already made up its mind that amphibious warfare was a relic of the past.  They could not have been more wrong about that.  The North Korean attack was lightning quick, overwhelming, and entirely the fault of Mr. “The Buck Stops Here Truman.”  The poorly trained South Korean military was swept aside like a pile of autumn leaves — and the small American military advisory group with it.  Nor were any of General MacArthur’s occupation forces serving in Japan any help.  The only two services ready for this event were the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps — but only barely.

The North Korean Army was stopped in August 1950, but it was an awful bloody event that Truman somewhat dismissively linked to police action.  It raged for three years and set into motion a series of armed conflicts that lasted twenty-five years.  What turned this looming disaster around was an amphibious assault — one that General Omar Bradley, the JCS Chairman, said couldn’t be done.  It took a Marine Corps two-star general to prove Bradley wrong.[6]  While the North Korean Army began its stranglehold of the Pusan Perimeter, Major General Oliver P. Smith was planning the invasion of Inchon, Korea.  On 16 September 1950, the amphibious assault that couldn’t be done had become a matter of history.

Following the Korean War, the United States permanently assigned naval task forces to the western Pacific and Mediterranean areas.  In each of these strategically vital locations, one or more reinforced Marine infantry battalions served as the special landing force within the fleet amphibious ready group.  The ARG/SLF provided quick responses to crises in Lebanon (1958), Laos (1961), Thailand (1962), the Dominican Republic (1965), and the Republic of Vietnam (1965).

More recently, 45 amphibious ships carried Marines to the Middle East and supported them in the late 1980s and 1990s — essentially, 75% of the Navy’s total active fleet.  Before 1991, generally regarded as the Cold War period, U.S. Marines responded to crises about three to four times a year.  Following Operation Desert Storm, the Marine Corps’ amphibious capabilities were called on roughly six times a year.  Why?  Because it is more cost-effective to maintain a rapid reaction force of Marines than to maintain the costs of maintaining American military bases overseas.

Today, the U.S. Marine Corps maintains three Marine Expeditionary Forces to respond to any crisis — no matter where in the world it might occur.  Each MEF, working alongside a U.S. Navy Fleet command, can deploy any size combat structure from battalion landing teams and Marine Expeditionary Units (air, ground, logistics support capabilities) to expeditionary brigades and reinforced MEFs.

During the Vietnam War, III MEF became the largest Marine Corps combat command in the entire history of the Corps — exercising command authority over 80,000 Marines assigned to the 1st Marine Division, 3rd Marine Division, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, the Force Logistics Command, and numerous U.S. Army and Vietnamese infantry organizations and their supporting elements.  Over a period of more than six years, III MEF participated in 400 combat operations.  Each Marine Expeditionary Force has the same quick-reaction capability.

No matter where these Marines might originate, there is one guarantee: when they arrive at their destination, they will be ready to fight a sustained engagement.  At that instant, when they bust down the enemy’s front door, the enemy will know that these Marines have come from across the sea — just as Sir Thomas More Molyneux envisioned that they should.

Sources:

  1. Anderson, F.  The War that Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War.  Penguin Books, 2006.
  2. Baden, C.  The Ottoman Crimean War (1853 – 1856).  Brill Publishing, 2010.
  3. Blanning, T.  Frederick the Great: King of Prussia.  Yale University, 2016.
  4. Fehrenbach, T. R.  This Kind of War.  Brassey’s Publications, 1963.
  5. Fowler, W. H.  Empires at War: The Seven Years’ War and the Struggle for North America.  Douglas & McIntyre, 2005.
  6. Heck, T. and B. A. Friedman, Eds., On Contested Shores: The Evolving Role of Amphibious Operations in the History of Warfare.  Marine Corps University, 2020.
  7. Marine Corps Publication: III Marine Expeditionary Force: Forward, Faithful, Focused, (2021).
  8. Ricks, T. E.  The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today.  Penguin Press, 2012.
  9. Savage, M.  U.S. Marines in the Civil War.  Warfare History Network, 2014.
  10. Taylor, A. J. P.  The Struggle for Mastery in Europe: 1848 – 1918.  Oxford Press, 1954.
  11. Vego, M. (2015) “On Littoral Warfare,” Naval War College Review: Vol. 68 : No. 2 , Article 4. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol68/iss2/4
  12. Willmott, H. P.  The Last Century of Sea Power: From Port Arthur to Chanak, 1894 – 1922.  Indiana University Press, 2009.

Endnotes:

[1] “Personal Union” simply means that two countries share the same head of state — in this case, the monarch, George II.

[2] Anderson, F.  Crucible of War: The Seven Years War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766.  Random House, 2007.

[3] The ancient city of Troy was called Ilion (hence, the poem called Iliad).  The city actually existed around 1,400 years B.C., and although the poem was believed written down around 800 B.C., it was carried down from one generation to the next as part of an oral tradition for several hundred years.  Homer, of course, receives credit as its author.  

[4] After full and frank discussions between the War and Navy departments, the Navy decided (and the War Department agreed) that there was no significant role for the U.S. Army in the matter of defending advanced naval bases/coaling stations in the Pacific Rim.  For one thing, the Navy envisioned a defense force that it actually owned/controlled.  That would be the Marines, of course.  For another (as reflected in the Army’s rather poor showing during the Spanish-American War), the Army is simply too large/too heavy to operate as a strike force.     

[5] For many years after the war, Japanese officials complained that ground zero at Nagasaki was an orphanage.  This may be true.  There were no “surgically precise” bombs in World War II.  On the other hand, why did it take two atomic bombs to convince Japanese officials that the war was over?  

[6] In 1946, General Bradley also predicted there would never again be a need for an amphibious operation. 

Marine Corps Artillery — Part 1

The Early Years

Mission

— Furnish close and continuous fire support by neutralizing, destroying, or suppressing targets that threaten the success of supported units.  To accomplish this mission, Marine Corps artillery (a) provides timely, close, accurate, and continuous fire support.  (b) Provides depth to combat by attacking hostile reserves, restricting movement, providing long-range support for reconnaissance forces, and disrupting enemy command and control systems and logistics installations.[1]  (c) Delivers counter-fire within the range of the weapon systems to ensure freedom of action by the ground forces.

Historical Note

For half of its 245-years, the U.S. Marine Corps has operated as a task-organized, mission-centered expeditionary force capable of quickly responding to any national emergency when so directed by the national military command authority.  The term “task organized” simply means that the size of a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) depends entirely on the mission assigned to it.  A Marine Corps combat team could range from a rifle company to a reinforced brigade.

Before the Spanish-American War, when the mission of the Marine Corps was limited to providing sea-going detachments of qualified riflemen, the size of the Corps depended on the number of ships that required Marine Detachments.[2]  The mission of the Marine Corps has changed considerably since the Spanish-American War.  The U.S. Navy’s evolving role is one factor in the changing Marine Corps mission, but so too is advancing technological development and a greater demand for the Corps’ unique mission capabilities.  One thing hasn’t changed: The Marine Corps has always been —and remains today— essentially a task-organized service.  Today, we refer to all forward-deployed Marine Corps combat forces as Marine Air-Ground Task Forces (MAGTFs).

The Basics

Artillery lends dignity to what would otherwise be an ugly brawl.

—Frederick the Great

Artillery is a weapons platform used for launching munitions beyond the range of infantry weapons.  Modern artillery evolved from much-simpler weapons in ancient times — used to breach fortifications and by defensive forces to withstand an enemy assault.  Although not referred to as artillery, siege engines such as the catapult have been around since around 400 BC.  Until the development of gunpowder, the effectiveness of artillery depended on mechanical energy.  If one wanted to increase the effectiveness of such weapons, then one would have to construct larger engines.  Gunpowder changed all that.  For instance, first-century Roman catapults launching a 14-pound stone could achieve kinetic energy of 16,000 joules.[3]  A 12-pound gun in the mid-19th century reached kinetic energy of 240,000 joules.

In the Middle Ages, artillerists adapted their weapons to support land armies.  They accomplished this by constructing horse-drawn wagons to provide mobility to heavy weapons.  Before the 20th century, when artillerists (gun crews) marched along beside the horse-drawn wagons, field artillery was commonly referred to as “foot artillery.”  There was also a distinction between field artillery and horse artillery; the latter was used to support cavalry units, employing lighter guns and, eventually, horse-mounted gun crews.  During World War I, technology changed horse-drawn artillery to wheeled or tracked vehicles.

Marine Corps Artillery: The Early Years

In addition to serving as shipboard riflemen, early Marines also manned naval guns.  This may be the Corps’ earliest connection to the use of artillery.  There are differences between the employment of naval vs. land artillery, but the fundamentals are similar.  Nevertheless, the evolution of Marine artillery is linked to the growth of the Corps, and the modern development of the Corps began at the outset of the Spanish-American War.  Marines have performed amphibious raids and assaults from its very beginning, but only as small detachments, often augmented by members of the ship’s crew (ship’s company).  The Marine Corps formed its first (task-organized) amphibious battalion in the Spanish-American War.  In that episode, the Corps distinguished itself as a naval assault force and proved its usefulness in projecting naval power ashore.  See also: The First Marine Battalion.

As the U.S. Navy grew into a global force, the Marine Corps grew with it.[4]  Within a few decades, the Marine Corps evolved from shipboard detachments and providing security for naval yards and stations to a force capable of seizing and defending advanced bases and forming and employing expeditionary assault forces.  Artillery played a vital role in this evolution. From that time on, innovative thinkers helped make the Marine Corps relevant to the ever-evolving nature of war and its usefulness to our national defense.

The Marine Corps developed tables of organization and equipment (TO/E) to standardize requirements for combat and combat support personnel and their equipment.  For example, all infantry, artillery, and combat support battalions are uniformly organized.  Artillery regiments (generally) have the same number of battalions, battalions have the same number of batteries, and all headquarters/firing batteries are likewise similar in composition.[5]  Organizational standardization remains a key element used by headquarters staff in determining whether or the extent to which Marine Corps units are combat-ready.

Infantry is the mission of the Marine Corps — projecting naval power ashore.  The mission for anyone who is not an infantryman is to support the infantryman.  The mission of Marine Corps artillery reflects this reality.

Following the Spanish-American War (1898), the Marine Corps developed the Advanced Base Force.  This was essentially a coastal and naval base defense battalion designed to establish mobile and fixed bases in the event of major landing operations outside the territorial limits of the United States.  The Advanced Base Force was a significant shift away from the Marine Corps’ mission up to that time.  It marked the beginning of Marine expeditionary forces.

The Advanced Base Force was useful because it enabled the Navy to meet the demands of maritime operations independent of the nation’s land force, the U.S. Army.  This decision was far more than an example of service rivalry; it was practical.  In many cases, troops, and supplies (as the Army might have provided) were simply unavailable at the time and place the Navy needed them.  The General Board of the Navy determined, at least initially, that no more than two regiments of Advance Base Forces would be required from the Marine Corps.[6]  In those days, Advanced Base Battalions had one artillery battery (to provide direct fire support to the battalion) and naval shore batteries to defend against hostile naval forces.

In July 1900, a typical Marine artillery unit was equipped with 3-inch guns and colt automatic weapons.  The Marine Corps organized its first artillery battalion in April 1914 at Vera Cruz, Mexico.  This battalion would become the foundation of the 10th Marine Regiment, which distinguished itself in combat in the Dominican Republic in 1916.

First World War

Global war didn’t just suddenly appear at America’s doorstep in 1917; it had as its beginnings the Congress of Vienna in 1814.  By the time the United States entered World War I,  the war to end all wars was already into its third year of bloody mayhem.  During those three years, the American press continually reported on such incidents as German submarine attacks on U.S. commercial shipping and a German proposal to Mexico for an invasion of states in the U.S. Southwest.  There is no evidence that Mexico ever gave serious consideration to Germany’s proposal.

To prepare for America’s “possible” involvement, Congress authorized an expansion of the Marine Corps to include two infantry brigades, two air squadrons, and three regiments of artillery.  The three artillery regiments and their initial date of activation were: the 11th Marines (3 January 1918), the 10th Marines (15 January 1918), and the 14th Marines (26 November 1918).

Major General Commandant George Barnett wanted to form a Marine infantry division for duty in France; General John J. Pershing, U.S. Army, commanding the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) not only opposed the formation of a Marine infantry division, but he also wasn’t fond of the idea of Marine Corps artillery regiments.[7], [8]

When the Commanding Officer of the 11th Marines became aware of Pershing’s objection to Marine artillery, he petitioned the Commandant to re-train his regiment as an infantry organization.  Thus, in September 1918, the 11th Marines deployed to France as an infantry regiment of the 5th Marine Brigade.  However, once the 5th Brigade arrived in France, General Pershing exercised his prerogative as overall American commander to break up the brigade and use these men as he saw fit.  Pershing assigned most of these Marines to non-combat or combat support duties.  Upon returning to the United States in August 1919, Headquarters Marine Corps (HQMC) deactivated the 11th Marines.

The Commanding Officer of the 10th Marines also pushed for service in France.  The regiment was equipped with 3-inch guns.  Since there were no 3-inch guns in France, the War Department (Army) barred the 10th Marines from European service.  When the Navy offered to convert 14-inch naval rifles for use as rail guns (mounted on train cars), the War Department conditionally approved the suggestion (along with a 7-inch weapon) — but only so long as the Navy used sailors to man the guns, not Marines.[9]  Eventually, the Navy negotiated a compromise with the Army: sailors would handle the 14-inch guns, and the 10th Marines would service the 7-inch guns.  The 10th Marines began training with the 7-inch guns in early October 1918.  The war ended on 11 November 1918.  On 1 April 1920, the 10th Marine regiment was re-designated as the 1st Separate Field Artillery Battalion, which had, by then, incorporated French 75-mm and 155-mm howitzers.

The 14th Marines, having been trained as both infantry and artillery, never deployed to Europe.  The result of political/in-service rivalry was that no Marine Corps artillery units participated in World War I.

(Continued next week)

Sources:

  1. Brown, R. J.  A Brief History of the 14th Marines.  Washington: Headquarters, US Marine Corps, 1990
  2. Buckner, D. N.  A Brief History of the 10th Marines.  Washington: US Marine Corps History Division, 1981
  3. Butler, M. D.  Evolution of Marine Artillery: A History of Versatility and Relevance.  Quantico: Command and Staff College, 2012.
  4. Emmet, R.  A Brief History of the 11th Marines.  Washington: Headquarters, U. S. Marine Corps, 1968
  5. Kummer, D. W.  U. S. Marines in Afghanistan, 2001-2009.  Quantico: U.S. Marine Corps History Division, 2014.
  6. Russ, M.  Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950.  Penguin Books, 1999.
  7. Shulimson, J., and C. M. Johnson.  U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Landing and the Buildup, 1965.  Washington: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1978.
  8. Smith, C. R.  A Brief History of the 12th Marines.  Washington: Headquarters, US Marine Corps, 1972.
  9. Strobridge, T. R.  History of the 9th Marines.  Quantico: Gray Research Center, 1961, 1967.

Endnotes:

[1] Also, shaping the battle space.

[2] The size of the detachment depended on the size of the ship.

[3] A measure of energy equal to the work done by a force of one newton when its point of application moves one meter in the direction of action of the force, equivalent to one 3600th of a watt hour.  A newton is equal to the force that would give a mass of one kilogram an acceleration of one meter per second – per second.

[4] If there is a “father of the modern navy,” then it must be Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914), whom historian John Keegan believes is the most important strategist of the 19th Century and, perhaps, the most influential American author of his time (1890).  Mahan’s writing so influenced Theodore Roosevelt that it led him to pursue modernization of the US Navy as the key to achieving America’s full potential as an actor on the world stage.

[5] Currently, infantry battalions consist of “lettered” rifle companies.  Artillery battalions consist of “lettered” firing batteries.  In the past, when the primary mission of a combat organization was infantry, subordinate units were generally referred to as companies, even when one of those subordinate units was an artillery unit.

[6] Established in 1900, the General Board of the Navy was tasked to anticipate and plan for future tasks,  missions, and strategic challenges and make recommendations to the Secretary of the Navy on matters of naval policy, including the task organization of naval expeditionary forces.

[7] Senior army officers had legitimate concerns with regard to the incorporation of Marines into field armies during World War I.  Beyond the fact that army officers did not see a need for a Corps of Marines, and regarded them as a “waste of manpower” that could be better utilized in the army, the naval forces operated under a different system of laws and regulations.  Perhaps the question in the minds of some senior army officers was whether the Marines would obey the orders of their army commanders.

[8] Prior to World War I, it was common practice for shipboard Marine Detachments to form provisional (temporary) organizations for specific purposes.  In most instances, such organizations involved provisional battalions, but occasionally the Marines also formed provisional regiments and brigades.  When the mission assigned to these provisional organizations was completed, brigades, regiments, and battalions would deactivate, and the Marines assigned to such organizations would return to their regular assignments.  Marine regiments did not have formally structured battalions until after World War I.  Instead, regiments were composed of numbered companies (e.g., 24th Company).  One of the army’s concerns was that the use of Marine formations within Army units would only confuse ground commanders and further complicate the battlefront.  It was during World War I that the Marine Corps adopted the Army’s regimental system.  Rifle companies were formed under battalions, and battalion commanders answered to their respective regimental commanders.

[9] Before 1947, the Secretary of War (Army) and Secretary of the Navy operated as co-equal cabinet posts.  After the creation of the Department of Defense, all military secretaries, service chiefs, and combat forces operated under the auspices of the Secretary of Defense (except the Coast Guard, which at first operated under the Treasury Department and now operates under the Department of Homeland Security).

That Splendid Little War

The seeds of the Spanish-American War

Background to the Modern Navy

There are naval historians who will tell you that the United States Navy never shined so brightly as it did during the American Civil War.  There may not be a better example of Navy innovation than its advancements in ship design, technology, medicine, and expeditionary (brown water) operations.  These innovations convince some that the Civil War must be regarded as the world’s first modern conflict.

At the conclusion of the Civil War, the U.S. Navy had 6,700 officers, and around 52,000 enlisted men serving aboard 670 ships.  The Navy Department consisted of 89 individuals, including the Secretary of the Navy.  But for the twenty following years, the U.S. Navy entered a period of steady decline.  The Navy’s decline was not due to the inattention of any naval officer or senior official; it was simply the result of a Congress that did not believe the nation could afford a standing navy.  Within a decade following the Civil war, all but a few navy ships had been sold off, scrapped, or mothballed for some future crisis.

In February 1880, the U.S. Navy had 65 operating steam vessels, 22 ships under sail, and 26 old ironclad vessels.  Five years later Admiral David D. Porter noted, “It would be much better to have no navy at all than one like the present, half-armed with only half-speed unless we inform the world that our establishment is only intended for times of peace, and to protect missionaries against the South Sea savages and eastern fanatics.  One such ship as the British ironclad Invincible could put our fleet ‘hor de combat’ in a short time.”

The concept of a peacetime navy was finally embraced with Congressional approval for new battleships in 1890.  Within four years, the United States Navy ranked sixth in naval power behind Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia, and Germany.  Both political parties may claim credit for restoring the U.S. Navy, but in reality, it was all due to the attention and diligence of one man: Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt.

Background to Cuba and the Spanish Empire

Cuba, derived from the native Taino word Coabaña (Great Land), had been part of the Spanish Empire since 1494 when Columbus landed to carry out the Papal Bull of 1493, to conquer and convert West Indies pagans to Catholicism.

Inspired by the American and French Revolutions, the early 19th century witnessed three movements in Cuba: reformation, annexation, and independence.  After the removal of Ferdinand VII from the Spanish throne in 1808, Cuban creoles rebelled against Spanish authority and declared Cuba a sovereign state.  It was a brief period of independence because everyone involved was either executed or sent to prison in Spain.  The effects of Spanish authoritarianism were the development of several secret societies, all of which sought independence from Spain and all of whom became the focus of brutal suppression by Spain’s executive military commission.

 In 1868, Cuba was one of the few remaining locations of legalized slavery in the Western Hemisphere.  Cuban intellectuals felt terrible about that, of course.  Still, slavery was how Cubans achieved and maintained their vast wealth from sugar production, which explains slavery in Cuba.

The Plot to Aid Cubans

On 10 October 1868, certain landowners rallied the Cuban people to demand their independence from Spain; it later began the Ten Year’s War.  True to form, Spain employed its military to suppress the movement.  In the United States, President Ulysses S. Grant wondered if the United States should intervene; Secretary of State Hamilton Fish urged Grant to pursue a hands-off policy with Cuba.

As the insurrection continued, however, there developed an international sympathy for the Cuban people — including the empathy of the American press.  The American people responded to these press reports by actively supporting the Cuban people by purchasing bonds to help raise money for Cuban insurgents.  One patron of the Cuban insurgency was John F. Patterson, who was acting on behalf of the rebels when he purchased the former Confederate ship Virgin, lying idle in the Washington Navy Yard.  The ship was a side-wheeler designed as a blockade runner.  Patterson registered the ship in New York and renamed her Virginius.

At the same time, the United States had a vibrant business arrangement with Cuba, the consequence of which was the presence of U.S. Navy vessels charged with ensuring the protection of American citizens (and their business interests).  While in Cuban waters, the USS Kansas and USS Canandaigua protected Virginius, an American-flagged ship, from Spanish seizure. The ship operated for three years, funneling weapons, munitions, and men into Cuba.

In 1873, Patterson hired Joseph Fry as Master of Virginius.[1] Fry was an experienced seaman with fifteen years of service in the U.S. Navy before resigning in 1861 to join the Confederate States Navy.  After the war, Commodore Fry struggled to find worthwhile employment, so he understandably jumped at the opportunity to serve as the ships’ captain.

At the time Fry accepted his appointment, Virginius was moored in Kingston, Jamaica undergoing repairs.  Virginius was a tired ship in need of substantial rework, but Patterson and his Cuban allies could only afford to maintain essential seaworthiness.  The boilers were shot, but those repairs were far too expensive.  Fry discovered that most of the crew had deserted upon arriving in Jamaica, so he initiated a recruiting effort.

Of the 52 men hired, most were either American or British.  Many of these men were inexperienced seamen; most did not realize that the ship supported the Cuban rebellion.  Some of the crew were still boys, aged 13 and 14.  In those days, child labor was not an issue, and no one gave a second thought to youngsters taking on dangerous work.  While in Jamaica, the U.S. Consul met with Fry and warned him that if Spanish authorities ever captured him,  they would very likely have him executed.  Captain Fry did not believe the Spanish would execute a mere blockade runner and dismissed the warning out of hand.

The Executions

In mid-October 1873, Captain Fry and four mercenaries took the ship to Haiti, where Fry loaded ammunition and around 100 Cuban nationals.  A spy informed the Spanish when Virginius left port, and Spanish authorities dispatched the warship Tornado to capture her.  On 30 October, Tornado spotted Virginius approximately six miles off the Cuban coast and gave chase.  Virginius was heavily laden; the stress applied to barely adequate boilers made the vessel sluggish, and the ship began taking on water.  Tornado was a much faster ship — and heavily armed.  After sustaining some damage from Tornado’s guns, Fry surrendered the ship.  Spanish officers apprehended Fry, his crew, and all other passengers and transported them to Santiago de Cuba, where the Spanish military governor ordered them court-martialed for piracy.  The four mercenaries were put to death immediately, without trial.

The Executions

The Spanish court-martial found Fry and his crewmen guilty as charged.  Every man received a death sentence. U.S. Consul to Cuba, Henry C. Hall, protested the court-martial and imposed sentence, but the Spanish military authority ignored him.  As it happened, one of these condemned men claimed British citizenship.  Upon learning this, the British Consul to Cuba wired Jamaica and asked for the assistance of the Royal Navy to intervene in the scheduled executions.

The execution of Captain Fry and 37 of his crewman took place on 7 November.  If that wasn’t bad enough, the Spanish mutilated their remains and decapitated them to warn others.  An additional eight men were executed on 8 November.  However, the executions came to a halt when HMS Noble arrived and threatened to bombard Santiago — by this time, the Spanish had executed 53 men.

Until this time, the American press was reasonably conservative in reporting the Virginius incident, but when news of the executions became common knowledge, the press became aggressive in promoting the Cuban rebel’s position.  The New York Times, and other newspapers, urged war and demanded an end to Spanish colonies in the Americas.  Protests broke out all across the United States, with people demanding vengeance on Spain.  The British Ambassador to the United States even publicly opined that the American public was ready for war with Spain (which is by itself thought-provoking) and may suggest a British interest in such a confrontation.

The United States’ Response

After Consul Hall notified the State Department of Captain Fry’s arrest and court-martial on 4 November, Secretary Fish believed that it was simply another ship captured while aiding the Cuban rebellion, but at a cabinet meeting with the President on 7 November, the execution of the four mercenaries headed the agenda.  Present Grant determined that the United States would regard these executions as “an inhuman act not in accordance with the spirit of civilization of the nineteenth century.”  On the following day, Secretary Fish met with Spanish Ambassador Don José Polo de Barnabé to discuss the legality of Spain’s capture of a US-flagged ship.

At the next cabinet meeting on 11 November, President Grant (with the advice of his cabinet) determined that war with Spain was not desirable, but Cuban intervention was possible.  Then, on the following day, Secretary Fish learned that Spanish officials executed Captain Fry and 37 of his crew.  He cabled U.S. Minister Daniel Sickles in Spain, directing that he protest the executions and demand reparations for any American citizen killed.  On 13 November, Fish informed Spanish minister Polo that the United States would exercise a “freehand” in Cuba vis-à-vis the Virginius affair.  On 14 November, Grant’s cabinet agreed to close the Spanish legation unless Spain met U.S. demands for reparations.  Reports of other executions found their way into the White House.

On 15 November, Minister Polo visited Secretary Fish to inform him that Virginius was a pirate ship, that the crew posed a threat to the security of Spanish territory, and assured him that Spain would continue to act in its own national interests in this manner.  On that same day, Fish cabled Sickles again and instructed him as follows: (1) demand the return of Virginius to the United States, (2) release surviving crewmen, (3) offer a salute to the Flag of the United States, (4) punish the perpetrators of the inhuman crimes, and (5) pay an indemnity to the survivors of those killed.

The conversation between Sickles and Spanish Minister of State José Carvajal became testy, and Sickles concluded that an amicable settlement was not likely.  The Spanish press attacked the United States, Mr. Sickles, the British government and urged war with the United States.  Spanish President Emilio Castelar maintained a more relaxed attitude and resolved to settle the matter reasonably.

On 27 November, Minister Polo visited with Secretary Fish and proposed that Spain would relinquish Virginius and the remaining crew if the United States would agree to investigate the legal status of the ship’s ownership.  President Grant directed Fish to accept Spain’s proposals.  Grant suggested that the United States dispense with its demand that Spain render honors to the American flag if investigators determined that Virginius had no legal U.S. ownership.  A formal agreement to this effect was signed on 28 November — both governments would investigate the proprietorship of Virginius and any crimes perpetrated by any Spanish volunteers.

On 5 December, Fish and Polo signed an agreement that Spanish authorities would turn Virginius over to the U.S. Navy, with U.S. flag aloft, effective on 16 December at the port of Bahiá Honda.  Upon learning of this arrangement, Daniel Sickles resigned his post in protest.[2], [3]

Virginius

Virginius was returned to U.S. control as agreed on 17 December.  Spanish vessels towed Virginius to sea and turned her over to the U.S. Navy.  The ship was in complete disrepair and taking on water.  On the same day, U.S. Attorney George H. Williams determined that ownership of Virginius was fraudulent and that she was not entitled to fly the U.S. flag.  He also decided that Spain had every right to capture the ship on the open sea.

In January 1874, Spanish President Castelar was voted out of office and replaced by Francisco Serrano.  Sickle’s replacement was Caleb Cushing, a well-known attorney and Spanish scholar known for his calm demeanor.  Cushing opined that the U.S. was fortunate that Castelar had been Spain’s president up to that time because otherwise, Serrano’s temperament would have led to war between the U.S. and Spain.  Cushing’s primary duty involved obtaining reparations for the families of murdered crewmen and punishment for the official who ordered their executions.  By May 1874, Cushing had established himself with Spanish authorities as a reasonable and respectable man.

In June, Cushing notified Fish that the Spanish had agreed to proceed with negotiations for reparations.  In October, Cushing learned that President Castelar had secretly agreed to pay the British £7,700.  When President Grant learned of this agreement, he demanded $2,500 for each crewman executed. Each crewman not already identified as a British citizen would be regarded as an American.  Minister Polo’s replacement, Antonio Mantilla, agreed to the demand.  However, the actual payment was placed “on hold” when, in December, Spain reverted to a monarchy, and Alfonso XII became King of Spain.

Under an agreement on 7 February 1875, signed on 5 March, Spain paid the United States $80,000.00 for the killing of the American crewmen.  Spain’s case against General Don Juan Burriel, the officer who ordered the executions, which the Spanish government judged illegal, was taken up by the Spanish Tribunal of the Navy in June 1876, but Burriel died in December 1877 before any trial convened.

At the time of the Virginius Affair, the Spanish ironclad Arapiles anchored at New York Harbor for repairs.  During this visitation, the U.S. Navy realized that it had no ship that could defeat Arapiles; it was an awareness that prompted Secretary of War George M. Robeson to urge the modernization of the American fleet.  Congress subsequently authorized the construction of five new ironclad ships — all five of these ships participated in the Spanish-American War of 1898.

War with Spain (1898)

In 1898, the Spanish Empire was in decline.  It had experienced the Peninsular War (1807-1814), the loss of most of its colonies during the independence movements of the early 1800s, and three civil wars between 1832-1876.  Liberal Spanish elites, including Emilio Castelar, undertook efforts to bring the Old Empire into the age of New Nationalism.  Spanish conservatives, on the other hand, a prideful lot, sought to maintain their traditional sense of Spanish Imperial superiority.

In 1823, President James Monroe published his doctrine, which served as notice to European powers that the United States would not tolerate the expansion of European interests in the Western Hemisphere, nor their interference in newly independent states.  The U.S. would, however, respect the status of existing European colonies.  Before the Civil War, certain southern interests encouraged the U.S. government to purchase Cuba from Spain; they envisioned, of course, a slave state.  Known as the Ostend Manifesto, proposed in 1854, anti-slavery interests vigorously opposed it.

After the Civil War, U.S. business interests began monopolizing sugar markets in Cuba.  In 1894, 90% of Cuba’s total exports went to the United States, approximately 12 times its exports to Spain.  Thus, Spain may have exercised suzerainty over Cuba, but economic power fell within the realm of the United States.

Meanwhile, before he died in 1894, Jose Marti established “Cuba Libre” movement offices in Florida to help influence U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba.  The face of Cuban nationalism was vested in Tomas Estrada Palma.  His junta organized fund-raising events in the United States established relationships with the American press and helped organize the smuggling of weapons and munitions into Cuba.  Palma’s propaganda campaign generated enormous support for Cuba’s resistance to Spanish authoritarianism.  No one in the U.S. at the time had any interest in Spain’s other colonies in the Philippines, Guam, or Puerto Rico.  There was also no demand for an American overseas empire.

In 1895, Marti organized an invasion of Cuba from three locations — Costa Rica, Santo Domingo, and the United States.  The latter effort was stopped by U.S. authorities when they became aware of it.  The plan was sound, but its execution failed to deliver the victory promised by Marti.  Revolutionaries settled into another protracted insurrection.

In the minds of Spanish officials, the Cuban insurrection was an assault on Spain because Cuba was an off-shore province of Spain (not a colony), which was why Spanish officials resisted the insurrection with every drop of blood needed to accomplish it.  Spanish General Valeriano Weyler was both clever and ruthless in his efforts to contain the rebellion.  President McKinley regarded Weyler’s efforts as a campaign of human extermination.

No one was more effective in promoting Cuban nationalism than Joseph Pulitzer (New York Post) and William Randolph Hearts (New York Journal).  They became the face of America’s “yellow journalism.”[4]  Both papers regularly denounced Spain but had little influence outside New York.  As Cuban insurrection and suppression continued, American business interests suffered to such an extent that they petitioned President McKinley to end the revolt.  Concurrently, European businessmen petitioned Spain to restore order.

The American people overwhelmingly supported Cuban rebels.  For his part, McKinley wanted to end the insurrection peacefully — and opened negotiations with the Spanish government to accomplish it.  Initially, Spanish authorities dismissed McKinley’s efforts but offered the possibility of negotiation at some unspecified future date.

As a demonstration of the United States’ guarantee for the safety of Americans living in Cuba, President McKinley ordered the USS Maine to Havana Harbor.  Less visible to the American people, McKinley also directed additional ships of the Atlantic Squadron to take up station in Key West, Florida.  Other U.S. Navy ships quietly moved to Lisbon, Portugal, and Hong Kong.

At around 21:40 on 15 February 1898, USS Maine blew up and sank.  Two hundred fifty sailors and Marines lost their lives.  Yellow journalists told the American people that the Spanish destroyed Maine while at anchor — an overt act of war.  All Spain could do was deny the allegation, but the more they denied any involvement, the less anyone in the United States believed them.  Somewhat panicked, the Spanish government turned to other European powers to intercede with the United States.  Most of these European powers advised the Spanish government to accept U.S. conditions for Cuba.  Only Germany urged a united European confrontation with the United States.

The U. S. Navy’s investigation of the sinking of the Maine concluded that the ship’s powder magazines ignited under the ship’s hull.  No one was interested in this finding, however, including Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt.

So, America went to war.

Sources:

  1. Allin, L. C.  The First Cubic War: The Virginius Affair.  American Neptune, 1978.
  2. Auxier, G. W.  The Propaganda Activities of the Cuban Junta in Precipitating the Spanish American War 1895-1898.  Hispanic American Historical Review, 1939.
  3. Bradford, R. H.  The Virginius Affair.  Colorado Associate University Press, 1980.
  4. Calhoun, C. W.  The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant in War and Peace.  University Press of Kansas, 2017.
  5. Campbell, W. J.  Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies.  Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001.
  6. Carr, R.  Spain: 1808-1975.  Clarendon Press, 1982.
  7. Hudson, R. A.  Cuba: A Country Study.  Library of Congress, 2001.
  8. Karnow, St.  In our Image.  Century Publishing, 1990.
  9. Nofi, A. A.  The Spanish-American War, 1898.  Combined Books, 1998.
  10. Soodalter, R.  To the Brink in Cuba, 1873.  Military History Press, 2009.

Endnotes:

[1] While we do not hear much about Joseph Fry (1826-1873) in history, this Florida-born lad graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1846.  In 1841, the 15-year old Fry traveled to Washington, made a call on the President of the United States (John Tyler), and asked for his patronage for admission to the US Naval Academy.  Tyler granted the appointment and Fry entered the Academy on 15 September 1841.  Fry had a distinguished career in the Navy, attaining the rank of Captain before 1861.  He resigned from the Navy to serve the state of Florida.  During the Civil War, while serving as a Commodore, Fry earned an exceptional reputation for his fighting spirit and combat seamanship.

[2] Daniel Edgar Sickles (1819-1914) was a member of the US House of Representatives, served as a New York State Senator, a Civil War major general, and was the recipient of the Medal of Honor.  He served as US Minister to Spain from 1869 to 1874.  While serving in the New York Assembly, Sickles received a reprimand for escorting a prostitute, one Miss Fanny White, into its chambers.  He also reportedly took her to England in 1853 while serving as a secretary to the US Legation in London and upon introducing her to Queen Victoria, used the name of one of his New York political opponents.

[3] In February 1859, when Sickles discovered that his wife, Teresa Bagioli (aged 21, half her husband’s age) was having an affair with Washington DC district attorney Philip Barton Key III, Sickles shot Key dead in the street across from the White House.  Philip Key was the son of Francis Scott Key.  Authorities charged Sickles with premeditated murder.  His attorney, Edwin M. Stanton (later, Secretary of War Stanton) won an acquittal on the basis of Sickles’ “temporary insanity.”  The plea was the first time it was used in an American courtroom.

[4] Journalism that was based on sensationalism and crude exaggeration, which continues to characterize the American media today.

Christmas Back When

In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.  This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.  And everyone went to their own town to register.

So, Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the line of David.  He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her first born, a son.  She wrapped him in cloth and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.  Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.  This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger.”

–Luke 2:1-12

Our understanding of tradition in Judea in the year 3 B.C., the time of the reign of Caesar Augustus, is that shepherds put their flocks of sheep out to pasture in the early spring (March-April) and returned them to their pens in the late fall (November-December).  If the shepherds were in the fields when an angel of the Lord visited them, it would have been between March and December.  It would not be a precise date if one were looking for the actual date of Christ’s birth.  But there was a star — a very bright star, and more than a few people living back then took note of it.

Modern scientists tell us it’s probably true.  Having studied this phenomenon, some modern scientists believe that the story of the Christmas Star actually happened and is explained by the phenomenon called planetary conjunction.  Such events occur when two planets seem to pass close to each other in the night sky.  Relying on modern technology, interested scientists were able to “rewind” the movement of the planets to where they were (or should have been) in the year 3 B.C.  Scientists believe there were several conjunctions and that, back then, astrologers would have noticed them, recorded them, and tried to make some sense of them.

In the year 7 B.C., Jupiter, and Saturn had three conjunctions.  The planets, of course, occupy different orbits in the solar system and proceed around the sun at different speeds.  With rudimentary telescopes, they occasionally appear to pass one another in the night sky.  Their perceived nearness also gives the impression that they’ve stopped moving.

Four years passed.  In the summer of 3 B.C. Jupiter and Venus met in a conjunctive event that would have looked much like the Christmas Star.  On the morning of 12 August, 3 B.C. Jupiter and Venus would have occupied a position in space merely 1/10th of a degree apart in the dawn sky.  Visually, scientists tell us that it would have appeared to be one-fifth the diameter of the full moon in Bethlehem.  We don’t know how long (days or months) such a vision would have lasted.

In any case, in the absence of written records, we can deduce that the event likely took place between June and September.  But why do we celebrate Christ’s birth in December?  The key here is how we choose to describe the occasion.  We do not think that 25 December is the birthdate of Jesus of Nazareth; it is, instead, the date we celebrate His birth according to the Gregorian Calendar.  To understand why Church officials decided on December, we have to look to the ancient Greco-Roman period because the celebration didn’t begin until the second century A.D.

The Roman Christian historian/scholar Sextus Julius Africanus decided that Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary on 25 March.  If Jesus were born precisely nine months later, then His birthdate would have been 25 December.  No one today thinks that Sextus put much effort into his estimate, but it does provide one possible explanation.  I do admit that I’m puzzled about how Sextus knew the date of Jesus’ conception.

In the third century Roman Empire, which had yet to adopt Christianity, Romans still celebrated their “re-birth” of the Unconquered Sun on 25 December.  This celebration marked the winter solstice and a popular Roman festival called Saturnalia (during which time Romans feasted and exchanged gifts).  It was also the birthday of the Indo-European deity Mithra, the god of light and loyalty.  This was a widespread belief among Roman soldiers.

The Roman Catholic Church formally began celebrating Christmas on 25 December 336 A.D. during the reign of Emperor Constantine.  By then, Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.  In those days, Church leaders frequently selected celebratory dates to coincide with traditional (pagan) festivities — because people were used to those observances.  Church leaders in Rome and Constantinople disagreed over the date, but they hardly agreed on anything.  Still, the Christmas celebration did not become a significant Church event until the 9th century.

Not every Christian group celebrated Christmas.  In the mid-1600s, English Puritans tried to suppress both religious and secular observances of Christmas.  John Knox condemned all Church festivals, most likely because he stood in opposition to the Roman Church and also because in some celebrations, people engaged in what the Puritans called “pagan dancing.”

It wasn’t until the 1800s that Christmas celebrations began to look similar to our modern versions of them.  There were feasts, of course.  Mince pies took some time to mature, so homemakers began their preparations earlier.  People decorated their homes in red and green, symbolic of the life of Jesus and red for the bloodshed at his crucifixion.  People began exchanging Christmas greetings (cards) in the 1840s, and we Americans copied the Christmas Tree idea from Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, who installed a tree at Windsor Castle in 1841.  This was a long-held German tradition.

Christmas Eve was a Church night.  Afterward, children would return home and hang stockings so that Father Christmas would leave them treats — if they’d been good.  The celebration occurred more often among people in the rural south than in the industrial north, probably due to the Yankee’s Puritan roots; the northerners preferred Thanksgiving to Christmas.  The first three US states to declare Christmas an official holiday were Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas.

Following the Civil War, Christmas became more popular because of children’s books about Christmas trees and gifts from St. Nicholas (who became Santa Claus).  Women’s magazines and Sunday School classes encouraged the celebration, as well.  Arguably, no one did more to perpetuate Christmas than authors Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, and cartoonist Thomas Nast.

We inherited Santa from the Dutch, whose word for St. Nicholas was Sinterklaas.  In 1809, Washington Irving published in A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (attributing it to Diedrich Knickerbocker).  Diedrich was one of Washington’s early hoaxes, a man he claimed was a “missing” Dutch historian.  In his book, he introduced his readers to Sinterklaas, who owned a wagon that could fly over the tops of trees as he brought yearly presents to good children.

Sinterklaas transitioned to Santa Claus in William Gilley’s 1821 poem, changing Santa’s wagon to a sled, pulled by a single reindeer.  In 1823, Clement Clarke Moore gave us A Visit from St. Nicholas.  We know the poem today as “The Night Before Christmas.”  Moore added seven additional reindeer to Santa’s retinue and gave them each a unique name.  One of those was Rudolph.  Of the gift-giving, Moore moved it from 5 December (St. Nicholas Day) to 25 December.

Charles Dickens, of course, told us the story of Ebenezer Scrooge in 1843; it transitioned to America in the following year.  But if we wanted to know what Santa Claus looked like, we would have had to wait until 1863, when Thomas Nast drew Santa’s image for a Christmas season edition of Harper’s Weekly.  Santa was pictured in his sleigh arriving at a Union Army camp distributing gifts to soldiers.  Nast’s work was so popular that he continued his drawings for several decades.  From Nast, we learned that Santa Claus lived at the North Pole where he kept his workshop, manned by elves.

So, then, who was St. Nicholas?  He was Nicholas of Bari (also St. Nicholas of Myra), who we believe lived from 270-343 A.D., an early Christian bishop of Greek descent from the port city of Myra (Asia Minor) (modern-day Turkey).  The Church attributes many miracles to St. Nicholas, and for that reason, he is sometimes known as the “Wonderworker.”  He is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, prostitutes, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, and unmarried people.  He is said to have started “secret gift-giving.”  We’ve adopted him as the model for our Santa Claus.  [Below image attributed to Mark Spears].

In the mid-1800s, Santa Claus was a kindly man who gifted valuable things to children, veterans, first responders — such as a new pair of socks.  Modern Santa brings out the worst of us, beginning with the spoiled-rotten child who sulks because they didn’t get the $1,200 iPhone or a pair of Michael Jordon shoes by Gucci that cost well over $3,000.00.

Well — maybe what we’ve turned into, as a people, has less to do with Santa Clause and more to do with social evolution.  We’ve made the transition from people who were grateful for a pair of socks to extraordinarily self-centered, materialistic, shallow creatures.  We care far less about others than we do ourselves.  Our appreciation of gifts received seems to depend more on their retail price than the heartfelt love of the gift giver.  Since around 1945, the end of World War II, this shallowness has only worsened in America.  Today, the Christmas season begins in July and August, when merchants start putting up their displays of Chinese-made goods.  We’ve spiraled into what we are.  Where will we be when, in the future, no “gift” is good enough for the spoiled child?

There may be some hope for us, though … but, if there is, it will probably come from a bright star in the sky that may lead us to the humble beginnings of the Son of God, whom we know as Jesus of Nazareth, who gave us the greatest gift of all: we get to choose for ourselves the kind of people we become.

Merry Christmas, Everyone

By Presidential Decree — Part II

America in 1940

Following the Meiji Restoration in Japan and a devastating economic recession, people began migrating from the Japanese Islands because they needed jobs.  Between 1869 and 1924, some 200,000 Japanese arrived in the Hawaiian Islands.  An additional 180,000 migrated to the US mainland and the majority of those settled on the West Coast.  Many of these people started small businesses and farms.  Most arrived on the mainland before 1908.  In that year, the United States banned the immigration of unskilled workers.  A loophole in the law allowed the wives of men living in the United States to join their husbands — from this, the practice of women marrying by proxy and immigrating to the US, which resulted in a significant increase in the number of picture brides.

The increase of Japanese living in California resulted in steady resistance by European-Americans living on the West Coast.  It was purely and simply racialism, as evidenced by the Asiatic Exclusion League, California Joint Immigration Committee, and Native Sons of the Golden West — all organized in response to the so-called “yellow peril.”  These groups quite effectively influenced politicians to restrict Japanese immigrants’ property and citizenship rights in a manner similar to anti-Chinese migration.  The Immigration Act of 1924 restricted the Japanese in the same way as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

One effect of the 1924 ban is that it produced unusually well-defined generational groups within the Japanese-American community.  The Issei, for example, were exclusively those who immigrated before the ban, some of whom elected to return to Japan.  Because the United States placed a moratorium on Japanese immigration.  Within Japanese-American communities, they were called Nisei.  They were distinct from the Issei cohort — generally 15-20 years older than their wives.

Nisei were English speakers; Issei were generally not.  Because the 1924 law prohibited Japanese immigrants from becoming naturalized citizens, the Issei became dependent upon their children whenever they rented or purchased property. By 1940, most Nisei had married and started their own families.  Despite these handicaps, Japanese-Americans made significant contributions to California agriculture (and in other Western states), but overt racism forced them into establishing unique communities.  The communities were, in turn, divided into Japanese prefecture groups.  They also created Buddhist women’s associations, set up businesses to provide loans and financial assistance, and started Japanese language schools.

The rise of fascism in Japan in the 1930s prompted the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) to begin monitoring and surveilling Japanese-American communities in Hawaii.  In 1936, under the direction of Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the ONI began compiling “suspect lists” of Japanese-Americans — citizens of the United States whom Roosevelt intended to place in “concentration” camps in the event of war with Imperial Japan.

The FBI began working with ONI in 1939.  FDR commissioned a Detroit businessman named Curtis Munson to coordinate these efforts.  In 1941, Munson informed the President that the so-called Japanese-American problem was “non-existent.”  He reported “an extraordinary” degree of loyalty to the United States within Japanese-American communities.  ONI Director Kenneth Ringle made a similar report to the President in 1942.

Still, six weeks after Japan’s “sneak attack” on Pearl Harbor, Army Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt openly questioned the loyalty of Japanese-Americans and proclaimed, “A Jap’s a Jap.”  The State of California vigorously joined DeWitt in questioning Japanese-American loyalty by claiming that persons of Japanese ancestry were “totally unassimilable.”

FDR’s Executive Order 9066 (signed on 19 February 1942) authorized military commanders to designate military exclusion zones at their discretion.  DeWitt did precisely that on 2 March 1942, ordering all Japanese-Americans living within those zones to depart immediately.  Within a few weeks, however, DeWitt reversed himself.  After that, he prohibited Japanese-Americans from leaving these exclusion zones, imposed curfews, and placed restrictions on their freedom of movement.

Only one civilian official protested this treatment: Colorado governor Ralph Lawrence Carr.[1]  Meanwhile, DeWitt issued more than a hundred exclusion orders over the next five months.  By August 1942, federal officials moved American citizens of Japanese ancestry to far distant/remote locations.[2]

Toward the end of the war, the relocation centers began to close.  Of more than 70,000 Japanese-American internees, only three (3) challenged the constitutionality of Roosevelt’s order.  

America Today

Threats to American Constitutional guarantees and liberties continue today.  If the reader believes these historical examples were severe, some today argue that it’s getting even worse.  Certain political groups, activists, and other morons demand restrictions on freedoms of speech, association, and pamphleteering.  Political militants aside, there is no more significant threat to individual liberty than that imposed by the United States government, which conspires to undermine the rights and privileges of American citizenship.

The government’s intrusion into our private lives, as demonstrated by the so-called Patriot Act, the creation of secret courts, the policy of intercepting, reading, and storing data obtained from electronic media, and the government dictate that we (a free people) remain under arrest in our quarters — threatens our American Republic.  The preceding “case histories” serve as warnings to us about presidents and their henchmen who not only think they have extraordinary power over us — they do.

The Supreme Court may safeguard the Constitution, but it does nothing to safeguard the rights of citizens who became victims of the government’s unconstitutional overreach.  It did nothing to free those who sat in isolated cells while remaining uncharged, unindicted, and untried by a jury of their peers.  The high court did not prevent Woodrow Wilson from targeting Americans for expressing their dissenting opinions, and it did nothing to protect Japanese-Americans from President Roosevelt’s Gestapo.

We know what the federal government is capable of doing.  With this knowledge, every American must view politicians, bureaucrats, and government policy with deep suspicion.  No government is trustworthy.  After all, the government reintroduced blacks to the slavery of low expectation and government subsidy; in the same way, the government destroyed the American Indians.  It remains up to people who value their liberty to refuse to relinquish their human rights, their rights as citizens.  No one in the government will protect us.  Preserving our freedom is OUR duty.

Sources:

  1. Connell, T.  America’s Japanese Hostages: The US Plan for a Japanese Free Hemisphere.  Praeger-Greenwood, 2002.
  2. McGinty, B.  The Body of John Merryman: Abraham Lincoln and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus.  Harvard University Press, 2011.
  3. Hall, K. L. (Ed.)  The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States.  Oxford University, 1992.
  4. Lewis, W.  Without Fear or Favor: A Biography of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney.  Houghton Mifflin, 1965.
  5. Robinson, G.  By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans.  Harvard University Press, 2009.

Notes:

[1] Carr also lost his bid for reelection because of his stance.

[2] Tule Lake, California, Minidoka, Idaho, Manzanar, California, Topaz, Utah, Jerome, Arkansas, Heart Mountain, Wyoming, Poston, Arizona, Granada, Colorado, and Rohwer, Arkansas.

My thanks to Mr. Koji KANEMOTO for his much-valued assistance and participation in the research, preparation, and editing of this post.

By Presidential Decree — Part I

America in 1860

No one can say that Abraham Lincoln didn’t have a full plate during the American Civil War and filling up that plate began even before he assumed office.  No one should have to endure that kind of stress — tensions that lasted for four long years — but it was Lincoln himself who signed up for that slog-fest.  In 1861, the nation’s capital lay in the center of southeastern slave territories.  Although Maryland didn’t secede from the Union, Southern sympathies were widespread in that state.  Maryland’s possible secession was one of many factors Lincoln had to consider in defining his domestic agenda.

John Merryman (1824-1881) was the father of eleven children, a farmer in Cockeysville, Maryland, and a president of the Board of County Commissioners of Baltimore County.  Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Merryman also served as Third Lieutenant of Baltimore County Troops.  In 1861, he served as First Lieutenant in the Baltimore County Horse Guards.  On Friday, 19 April 1861, anti-war Democrats (calling themselves Copperheads) joined with other Southern sympathizers to oppose certain Massachusetts and Pennsylvania militia members.  They were mobilizing in Baltimore as a defense force for the city of Washington.  Hostilities erupted when the Copperheads attempted to prevent the aforementioned Yankee militia from moving to Washington.

On 20 April, Maryland’s governor Thomas H. Hicks (a pro-slave/anti-secession Democrat) and Baltimore mayor George W. Brown dispatched Maryland State Militia to disable the railroad tracks and bridges leading out of Baltimore.  Hicks later denied issuing any such order.  In any case, one of the low-level Maryland militia leaders was none other than John Merryman.

On 27 April, President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus.  This Latin phrase means, “We command that you must produce the body at court.”  The writ prohibits unlawful detention or imprisonment and compels “government authority” to produce a prisoner to the court so that the accused can appear before a jurist.  It is a mechanism for ensuring the right of an accused to have his day in court.

In suspending the writ, Lincoln’s purpose was to give military authorities power to arrest, detain, and silence dissenters and rebels.  Was Lincoln’s act lawful?  According to experts in Constitutional law — yes.  A president may suspend the Constitution when rebellion or invasion occurs, and public safety requires it.  

On 25 May, Union military forces arrested Mr. Merryman for his role in destroying railroad tracks and bridges and escorted him to a cell at Fort McHenry.  Merryman remained there for several months.  If it were up to President Lincoln, Merryman would stay in that cell to this very day.  Some would argue that the federal government violated Mr. Merryman’s constitutional rights.  Through his lawyer, Merryman petitioned the court for a writ of habeas corpus.  The petition was presented to, of all people, the Chief Justice of the United States, Roger B. Taney — a native of Maryland and the federal circuit court judge for Maryland.

We know from history that Lincoln’s election to the presidency led several states to secede from the Union.  We also know that the first hostile act of the Civil War occurred in Baltimore, which means that the bombardment of Fort Sumter was not the initiating action of the Civil War — so we should stop saying that.

Roger B. Taney was an anti-Lincoln jurist who saw it as his duty to remain seated on the high court rather than resigning his appointment to serve the Confederacy.  As with Governor Hicks (and many others of his day), Taney was a pro-slavery anti-secessionist.  As a jurist, he believed that states had a Constitutional right to secede from the Union.  As a man, he detested Lincoln, believing that he was responsible for destroying the Union.  From his position on the high court, Taney would challenge Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, arguing that only Congress could do that.  And he loathed Lincoln’s interference with civil liberties.

Through non-acquiescence (where one branch of the government refuses to acknowledge the authority of another branch of government), Lincoln ignored Taney’s ruling.  Lincoln nevertheless addressed the issue in a message to Congress in July 1861.  In his letter, Lincoln cited Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution (previously mentioned).

Eventually, Lincoln doubled down on suspending habeas corpus by extending it on a much larger scale, which some would argue violated the rights of citizens throughout the war.  Eventually, Lincoln’s policy softened somewhat in Maryland, but only out of concern that Maryland might also secede from the Union.  After the Merryman arrest, however, Lincoln channeled such actions through Congress.  It was a workable arrangement because, in 1863, Congress passed the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act.

Chief Justice Taney passed away in 1864, aged 87 years.  He served as Chief Justice of the United States for 28 years, 198 days — the second-longest tenure of any chief justice and the oldest ever serving Chief Justice in United States’ history.

Ultimately, John Merryman was turned over to civilian authorities and allowed to post bail.  The government finally dropped its treason charges against Merryman in 1867; he was never brought to trial.  Six years later, in a case unrelated to Merryman’s, the high court ruled that civilians were not subject to military courts even in times of war.  As it turned out, the Merryman case was not the last time the federal government suspended American civil rights.

America in 1916

Americans saw no reason to involve themselves in Europe’s “great war” of 1914.  Few people knew where the Austro-Hungarian Empire was, much less who was in charge of it, so the assassination of the heir to the throne was a non-event.  Nor did many Americans care about the wartime alliances.  The whole affair, in the mind of most Americans, was none of our business.  President Woodrow Wilson, a progressive Democrat, proclaimed United States’ neutrality — a view widely supported by the American people — including many immigrants from the belligerent countries.

Yet, despite Wilson’s claim of neutrality, American capitalists were quick to take advantage of war-related opportunities.  Europeans needed food, materials, and American-made munitions.  Not only were American companies happy to sell these goods to the Europeans, but American banks were also happy to loan money to the Europeans so that they could purchase those goods.  This financial involvement gave the United States a stake in the winner of the Great War.  The trick for the Americans was to find a way to safely send American-made goods to the allied powers — through seas patrolled by German submarines.

When RMS Lusitania was laid down in 1904, the British government decided to subsidize its construction costs, provided that the Cunard Line agreed to allow Lusitania to serve as an Armed Merchant Cruiser (AMC) should Great Britain need her in time of war or other national emergencies.  The British government placed Lusitania on its list of AMCs in 1914, but Lusitania’s exorbitant operating costs caused the government to reverse that decision.  Whether the British ever got around to informing the Germans of this decision is unknown.

For their part, Imperial Germany gave due notice and warning to anyone booking passage on Lusitania: since a state of war existed between Germany and Great Britain, all Allied vessels were targets of the German Imperial Navy.  From Germany’s point of view, knowing full well that Lusitania’s holds contained U. S. manufactured war materials intended to aid the Allied powers, Lusitania became a legitimate target.  After all, Britain’s decision to allow passengers on a de facto AMC vessel wasn’t Germany’s problem — and besides — the United States’ claim of neutrality was laughable.[1]

It was no surprise to anyone in the hierarchy of either government when a German submarine torpedoed Lusitania on 7 May 1915.  Twelve hundred people lost their lives, including 128 Americans.  By this time, anti-German war propaganda was in full swing.  Stories of German military atrocities targeting civilians appeared regularly in the American press, such as the Rape of Belgium, which claimed that the German army was responsible for the death or injury to 46,000 innocents.  Even though President Wilson maintained his non-intervention policy, anti-German passions increased throughout the United States.

Meanwhile, the Mexican Revolution (1910-1921) was in full swing.  Mexican bandits attacked, murdered, and looted American homesteaders living along the US/Mexican border with increasing regularity.  In 1916, Wilson dispatched US troops to the southern border and ordered General “Black Jack” Pershing into Mexico to capture or kill Pancho Villa.  Anticipating conflict on two fronts, President Wilson asked for and gained congressional authority to increase the size of the U. S. Army, National Guard, and U. S. Navy.

American voters reelected Wilson to a second term in November 1916.  By this time, the anti-German passions led some Americans to join the French Army, French Foreign Legion, and French Air Service.

After the German Imperial government announced its intent to resume unrestricted submarine warfare, President Wilson severed diplomatic relations with Germany.  Germany responded by targeting American merchant ships in the North Atlantic.

In January 1917, British codebreakers intercepted an encrypted German telegram addressed to the German Ambassador to Mexico.  The telegram instructed the Ambassador to propose an alliance between Germany and Mexico against the United States.  In essence, should the United States join the allied war effort, Germany suggested a pact with Mexico with military assistance regaining the territory lost to the United States during the Mexican-American War (1848): Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.  History recalls this communique as the Zimmerman Telegram.

British diplomats handed the Zimmerman Telegram to Wilson on 24 February, and Wilson released it to the American press on 1 March.  The effect of publishing this information was, as anticipated, wide-scale public outrage toward both Germany and Mexico (even though Mexico never officially acknowledged the proffered alliance).  The United States declared war on Germany on 4 April 1917.

After declaring war, Wilson focused almost exclusively on his foreign policy agenda — leaving domestic affairs to his “war cabinet.”  The cabinet’s chief concern was the expansion of the military, food distribution, fuel rationing, and consumer conservation.  Within three years, America’s annual budget exploded from around $1 billion in 1916 to nearly $20 billion in 1920.  Congress raised taxes through the War Revenue Act of 1917 and the Revenue Act of 1918, increasing the top tax rate to 77% and expanding the number of citizens subject to personal income taxes.

Wilson’s tax scheme was unsettling from several points of view.  Because tax increases were by themselves insufficient, the federal government began issuing low-interest war bonds.  To encourage investment, Congress made the interest paid on these bonds tax-free.  One consequence of this policy was that it encouraged citizens to borrow money for the purchase of bonds.  This, in turn, produced two additional effects: an increase in inflation and (by 1929) the Stock Market crash.[2]

Not everyone was pleased with Wilson’s decision to enter World War I.  Without realizing their country’s economic involvement with European nations at war, many Americans demanded that the United States maintain its neutrality.  Other groups opposed the military draft (the first of its kind in the world).  Other opposition groups included pacifists, anarchists, socialists, labor union workers, Christians, anti-militarists, the so-called “Old Right,” and women’s peace groups.  Among the socialists were Irish, German, and Russian immigrants whose “loyalty” to the United States Wilson always questioned. While young Americans were fighting and dying for the American way, Wilson, fearing that dissidents would undermine his war effort, signed the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918.[3]  Both acts criminalized disloyal, profane, scurrilous, and abusive language toward the United States government, the military, or any speech or language intended to incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of conscription.  They were among the most egregious of the government’s violations of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  The Supreme Court upheld several convictions based on “limitations of free speech in a time of war.”  See also Schenck v. United States and Note 4.[4]

(Continued next week)

Sources:

  1. Connell, T.  America’s Japanese Hostages: The US Plan for a Japanese Free Hemisphere.  Praeger-Greenwood, 2002.
  2. McGinty, B.  The Body of John Merryman: Abraham Lincoln and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus.  Harvard University Press, 2011.
  3. Hall, K. L. (Ed.)  The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States.  Oxford University, 1992.
  4. Lewis, W.  Without Fear or Favor: A Biography of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney.  Houghton Mifflin, 1965.
  5. Robinson, G. By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans. Harvard University Press, 2009.

Endnotes:

[1] The sinking of the Lusitania underscored Germany’s success in espionage, and America’s failure in counter-espionage.

[2] Wall Street investors were making large profits from their arrangement with the Allied Powers — even after federal taxes, but they would make a lot more money by investing in post-war reconstruction.  This would become part of the post-war boom that was so profitable, people borrowed money to invest in the stock market.  When the Stock Market crashed in 1929, due to the over-valuation of stocks, people not only lost their investments, they also became indebted with no way to repay their personal loans.  It was a behavior that caused investors to throw themselves off buildings.

[3] Later, partially in reaction against the Bolshevik Revolution and the rising tide of socialism in Europe, a more general anti-immigrant sentiment gripped America.  For example, through the Palmer Raids of the 1920s, the Department of Justice rounded up thousands of foreigners who were alleged communists, anarchists, labor reformers, or otherwise menaces to society. Many were forcibly deported.

[4] The years surrounding America’s involvement in World War I were a watershed for how the United States treated foreigners within its borders during wartime. Immigrants had flooded the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. When the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, almost a third of Americans were either first or second-generation immigrants. Those born in Germany and even American-born citizens of German descent fell under suspicion of being disloyal.

My thanks to Mr. Koji KANEMOTO for his much-valued assistance and participation in the research, preparation, and editing of this post.

Battle of the Generals

Introduction

Seniority in the United States Armed Forces is determined by rank, date of rank, and in the case of two officers promoted to the same rank on the same date, by the last lineal number.  It sounds confusing, but it isn’t.  And it’s important because seniority determines assignments, tactical commands, promotions, and general courtesy.  In the early days, seniority determined appropriate honors rendered to senior officers (generally, field grade and flag rank officers).

In the modern-day, seniority works on two different levels.  For officers serving at different ranks, seniority is determined by rank.  An Army colonel is senior to an Army captain, and the captain is senior to a lieutenant.  The system extends across the armed services.  An Army major is senior to an Air Force captain, and a Navy commander is senior to both.  Whenever officers serve at the same rank, their seniority is determined by their date of promotion to that rank.  If two officers advance to the same rank on the same day, seniority is determined by the date of promotion to their previously held rank.

Seniority in the Civil War

Officer seniority was an issue in both the United States Army and Confederate States Army.  Some modern historians credibly argue that the pettiness of seniority and military etiquette did as much to damage the internal efficiency of the Confederate States Army as did any battle in which the Union won.  The Union Army experienced similar problems among its senior officers, of course, but in the Confederacy, the animosity and rancor among senior officers was debilitating.[1]

The Confederacy’s problem in this regard may have started with Confederate President Jefferson F. Davis, who always had a high opinion of himself — a man who also graduated from the U. S. Military Academy (Class of 1828) and who distinguished himself in combat in the Mexican-American War.

Synopsis

Jefferson Davis

Davis (USMA Class of 1828) (23/33) was more politician than a soldier.  He resigned from the Army in 1835 to pursue plantation farming in Mississippi.  In that same year, both he and his wife Susan (a daughter of Zachary Taylor) contracted either yellow fever or malaria.  Susan died in 1835, and Jeff was slow to recover.  From 1836-1840, a somewhat reclusive Davis confined himself to the plantation.  He first entered Mississippi politics in 1840, serving as a state convention delegate through 1844.  As presidential elector in 1844, he campaigned vigorously for James K. Polk.  In 1844, he won a seat in the U. S. Congress.

In 1846, while still serving in the House of Representatives, Davis raised a volunteer regiment for service in the Mexican-American War and commanded it as a US Volunteer Colonel. However, he distinguished himself in combat during the war — at least sufficiently to convince President Polk to offer him a commission as a brigadier general, but Davis respectfully declined. His insistence on replacing his regiment’s muskets with the M1841 rifle caused a life-long feud with the U. S. Army’s Commanding General, Winfield Scott. He had a broader vision.

Following the war, Davis served as a U. S. Senator (1847-1851), as Secretary of War (1853-1857), and again in the Senate (1857-1861).

When Mississippi seceded from the Union on 9 January 1861, Davis sent a telegram to Governor John J. Pettus, offering his services as the pleasure of his home state.  On 23 January, Pettus appointed Davis to serve as major general of the Army of Mississippi.  At the constitutional convention (of southern states) in early February, delegates considered both Davis and Robert Toombs (Alabama) as a possible Confederacy president; Davis won handily, assuming his office on 18 February 1861.  Davis, himself, did not believe anyone was more qualified to serve the Commander-in-Chief of the Confederacy’s armed forces.

Creating the Confederated States of America was no easy task.  Established on 8 February 1861, the Confederacy initially included seven Southern states: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas — soon joined by Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.  Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland may have joined the Confederacy had it not been for the rapid occupation of those states by the Union Army.  President Jefferson Davis had his hands full trying to organize an effective government.  Of course, he needed an army, and he needed good men to lead it — and this is where the trouble began.

In selecting his most senior generals, the men who would lead the Confederate States Army, he chose Samuel Cooper, Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and P. G. T. Beauregard.  He would eventually choose another two to serve as full-general, but these were Davis’ initial selections.[2]

Samuel Cooper

Sam Cooper (USMA Class of 1815) (36/40), whom almost no one knows anything about, was, despite his northern roots (New York), an advocate of states’ rights.  His service in the U. S. Army was primarily that of a staff officer who eventually attained the rank of colonel.  He briefly served as interim Secretary of War in 1857 and, in this capacity, first formed a strong friendship with Jefferson Davis.  Cooper received two general officer appointments on the same day, first to brigadier general, and full general, on 16 May 1861.  Davis appointed Cooper as Adjutant General and Inspector-General of the Confederate States Army.[3]

Albert Sidney Johnston

Albert S. Johnson (USMA Class of 1828) (8/41) had a most colorful background.  Davis regarded him as the nation’s finest field commander.  In addition to his service in the U. S. Army, Johnston served as a general officer in the Republic of Texas, as the Texas Republic’s Secretary of War, as a colonel in the U. S. Army during the Mexican-American War, and as a brevet brigadier general (permanent rank colonel) during the Utah War and commander of the Military Department of the Pacific.  He resigned his commission at the outbreak of the Civil War, initially enlisting as a private in the Los Angeles Rifles, a secessionist group in Southern California.

Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee (USMA Class of 1829) (2/46) was a Virginia aristocrat and an Army engineer of some distinction who served 26 years in that capacity before transferring to the Cavalry in 1855 as a lieutenant colonel.  Lee was prominent during the Mexican-American War as a staff officer and engineer.  He served in command of the Army detachment sent to quell disturbances at Harpers Ferry in 1859, and he commanded Fort Brown, Texas, in 1860-61.  When General David E. Twiggs surrendered U. S. forces to Texas after its secession, Lee returned to Washington, where he was appointed to command the 1st Cavalry Regiment and promoted to Colonel.  Two weeks later, President Lincoln offered Lee advancement to major general.  Lee declined the promotion and, upon the secession of Virginia, resigned from the U. S. Army.[4]

Joseph E. Johnston

Joseph Eggleston Johnston (USMA Class of 1829) (13/46) was from a distinguished family of Scots whose grandfather and father both served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.  With his mother being the niece of Patrick Henry and his brother and father-in-law being members of the U. S. Congress, Johnston was politically well-connected.  Joe Johnston was the only Confederate general to have served as a general officer in the Union Army before his resignation to join secession.  This is important because Johnston, although in the same graduating class as Lee, was Lee’s senior officer in the Union Army.

When he returned home to Virginia, the governor offered him an appointment to the Virginia State Army as a major general.  Shortly after that, state officials notified him that Virginia only needed one major general, and so they decided to offer that commission to Robert E. Lee.  He could have, however, an appointment as a brigadier general, serving under Lee.  Given that Lee was junior to him in the Union Army, his proposal was unacceptable, and he declined the offer.

Jeff Davis thereafter offered Johnston a commission as brigadier general in the CSA, which he accepted.  Initially, Johnston’s assignment was command of the CSA forces at Harper’s Ferry.  Shortly thereafter, he assumed command of the Army of Shenandoah.

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

P. G. T. Beauregard (USMA Class of 1838) (2/45) was an Army engineer, brevetted to Captain in 1847 for excellence as a staff officer (planning officer) under General Winfield Scott during the Mexican-American War.  He served as an engineer for the next 13 years, repairing old forts and building new ones in Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana.  Beauregard was born in Louisiana to an aristocratic French-Creole family.  Well-educated in private schools, Beauregard was brought up speaking French, never learning English until he was twelve years old.

Beauregard’s brother-in-law was John Slidell, a prominent attorney, politician, and former United States Minister to Mexico (1844-46).  In January 1861, the War Department appointed Beauregard to serve as Superintendent of the U. S. Military Academy.  Before assuming office, however, Louisiana seceded from the Union, and the War Department canceled his appointment.  Incensed, Beauregard promptly resigned his commission and returned home to Louisiana.

With his political connections, Beauregard expected the Governor of Louisiana to appoint him as the general officer commanding Louisiana state militia.  The appointment, instead, went to Braxton Bragg, who in turn offered Beauregard a colonelcy.[5]  Instead, Beauregard enlisted as a private in the New Orleans Guards but at the same time wrote to Jeff Davis offering his services as a general officer in the CSA.  A common rumor was that Davis was considering him as the Commanding General of the CSA — which infuriated Bragg to no end.  On 1 March 1861, Davis appointed Beauregard a brigadier general, the first general appointee in the CSA.  His first assignment was the command of Charleston harbor.  

Essentially, General Beauregard was the officer who initiated hostilities with the United States on 12 April 1861. After negotiations failed to convince the Commanding Officer, Fort Sumter, Major Robert Anderson, to surrender to Confederate authority, Beauregard ordered his artillery to bombard the fort — an assault lasting 34 hours. Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter on 14 April.  

Shortly after ordered Beauregard to assume command of the Alexandria Line at Manassas.  In July, Davis promoted Beauregard to full general, with seniority behind Joseph E. Johnston.

Back to Joe Johnston

Joseph Eggleston Johnston (1807-1891) came from a distinguished family of Scots.  Both his grandfather and father fought in the American Revolution.  His mother was a niece of Patrick Henry.  His brother, Charles, served as a Congressman from Virginia.  He married Lydia McLane, whose father was a Congressman from Delaware.[6]  He was politically well-connected, an aristocrat of sorts and perhaps, full of himself.

Despite Johnston’s promotion to full general in August 1861, he stewed over his lack of seniority.  On 12 September 1861, Johnston wrote a letter to President Davis to explain his point of view:

“It (the ranking of senior generals) seeks to tarnish my fair fame as a soldier and as a man, earned by more than thirty years of laborious and perilous service.  I had but this, the scars of many wounds, all honestly taken in my front and in the front of battle, and my father’s Revolutionary sword.  It was delivered to me from his venerated hand, without a stain of dishonor.  Its blade is still unblemished as when it passed from his hand to mine.  I drew it in the war, not for rank or fame, but to defend the sacred soil, the homes and hearths, the women, and children — aye, and the men of my mother Virginia, my native South.”[7]

Johnston additionally complained to Davis that the president’s rankings were “in violation of my rights as an officer, of the plighted faith of the Confederacy and the Constitution and the laws of the land. […] I now and here declare my claim that I still rightfully hold the rank of first general in the armies of the Southern Confederacy.”  President Davis responded to Johnston’s letter, accusing the general of being “one-sided” whose complaints were “as unfounded as they are unbecoming.”  President Davis did nothing to resolve this problem, and, to be honest, I’m not sure why Davis kept him on the payroll.

The long-held system of seniority and etiquette explains why Johnston refused to subordinate himself to Robert E. Lee and others.  At the time he resigned from the U. S. Army, Johnston was a regular Army brigadier general.  Lee, upon his resignation, was a colonel.  Ultimately, however, both Lee and Johnston ended up as generals in the Confederate States Army — and Lee ended up being senior to Johnson because he had served, albeit briefly, as a Confederate major general.

As for trying to understand Johnston’s pettiness, there are several possibilities to consider.  Johnston was obviously a prideful man and mindful (possibly obsessed) with his prerogatives as a senior military commander. There are no small egos among high-ranking military officers. The concept of teamwork probably didn’t apply so much during the Civil War as it does today.  Still, there were other issues, such as Johnston’s unwillingness to listen to the advice and recommendations of his subordinate commanders, his ability to admit to or take responsibility for serious errors in planning, judgment, and his inability to acknowledge that in some cases, he was out of his depth.

However, commanding a field army well is a gargantuan task.  It’s more than directing maneuver elements; there is also the question of logistics, which along with weather, is a war-stopper.  On the one hand, he must win the battles and do it with whatever manpower he has available to him.  Excessive battlefield casualties limit his next moves.  He has to control the battlespace, which means choosing the time and place to fight as much as he is able.  During the Civil War period, rural Virginia was still a wilderness.  Having only one plan up his sleeve simply won’t do.

A series of small battles took place in Virginia following the First Battle of Bull Run (also, First Battle of Manassas), many of which resulted in inconclusive outcomes: Greenbrier River, Camp Allegheny, Cockpit Point, Hampton Roads, Yorktown, Williamsburg, Eltham’s Landing, and Seven Pines.

Command and control were quite difficult in 1862. At Seven Pines on 31 May – 1 June 1862, General Joseph E. Johnston attempted to overwhelm two Federal corps that he thought were isolated south of the Chickahominy River.  Although Johnston’s Confederates did succeed in driving General McClellan’s forces back, as well as inflicting heavy casualties, his assaults were not well-coordinated.  

On 1 June 1862, Johnston was seriously wounded and evacuated from the field, relinquishing command to Major General Gustavus Woodson Smith.  President Davis rushed Robert E. Lee to assume command of Johnston’s Army of Northern Virginia within a day.[8]

In 1862, it was not likely that Johnston had a “deputy commander,” so the next senior general would usually “take charge” should the commanding general become a casualty.  Here’s the problem, though: Before Smith became a major general, he was a U. S. Army captain.  No general can effectively lead an army that has not led or fought a division — which goes a long way in explaining General Smith’s nervous breakdown on 1 June 1862.  President Davis’ decision was a good one, and General Lee retained command of the Army of Northern Virginia until the war’s end.

But Johnston’s problem wasn’t only with President Davis and General Lee; he had little regard for Braxton Bragg and John Bell Hood, as well.

In the spring of 1864, while in command of the Army of Tennessee, Johnston engaged William T. Sherman between Chattanooga and Atlanta.  By this time, John Bell Hood had lost two of his limbs and yet could ride twenty miles a day while strapped to his saddle.  General Hood was a fire-eater and had little patience with Johnston’s apparent timidity.  He may have wondered why a senior general needed so much encouragement to act.  It wasn’t that Johnston was afraid of being injured; he had more than a few scars from battle wounds — it was, instead, that Johnston was afraid to fail.  It made Johnston, in Hood’s view, far too cautious.  Ironically, on one of the rare occasions when Johnston acted decisively at the Battle of Cassville, General Hood demurred on the battlefield.

Johnston’s strategy involved a series of delaying withdrawals.  Force withdrawal is, on occasion, a worthwhile strategy if its purpose is to maneuver the enemy into a position of disadvantage.  Johnston, however, seemed to focus his efforts on avoiding battle rather than engaging the enemy.  Over several weeks, General Hood sent messages to Richmond that criticized Johnston’s behavior.  The issue came to a head when President Davis ordered General Bragg to travel to Atlanta to investigate Hood’s claims.

After meeting with Johnston, Bragg interviewed Hood and General Joseph Wheeler, who testified that they had urged Johnston to attack rather than withdraw.  Hood claimed that Johnston was ineffective, timid, and weak-willed, saying, “I have, general, so often urged that we should force the enemy to give us battle as to almost be regarded reckless by the officers high in rank in this army [Johnston and Corps commander, William J. Hardee] since their views have been so directly opposite.”

Of course, Hood’s letters were insubordinate and subversive, but at least in Hood’s mind, necessary if the purpose of the war was to win important battles.  Historians today claim that Hood’s letters were self-serving and not entirely honest.[9]

But Hood was not alone in his criticism.  General Hardee reported to Bragg, “If the present system continues, we may find ourselves at Atlanta before a serious battle is fought.”  Presented with the facts of Johnston’s behavior, nearly every Confederate general agreed with Hood, Wheeler, and Hardee.

On 17 July 1864, President Davis relieved Johnston of his command.  Davis initially planned to replace Johnston with Hardee, but Bragg urged that he give control of the Army of Tennessee to Hood.  While it was true that Hood had impressed Bragg, it was also accurate that Bragg harbored ill feelings toward Johnston from bitter disagreements during earlier campaigns.

Davis temporarily promoted Hood to full general and gave him command of the army just outside Atlanta.  The Confederate Senate never confirmed hood’s appointment.  The 33-year old John Bell Hood was the youngest man on either side to command an army.  In Lee’s opinion, Hood was “a bold fighter on the field, but careless off.”  But Hood was well known by his Yankee classmates as temperamentally reckless and rash; they would use that knowledge to their advantage.  Davis’ decision to relieve Johnston was controversial and unpopular — besides which, Hood could no more hold Atlanta than Johnston.

In Johnston’s letter to Davis after his relief, he remarked of Hood, “Confident language by a military commander is not usually regarded as evidence of competency.”  Of this incident, Mary Chestnut recorded, “We thought this was a struggle for independence.  Now it seems it is only a fight between Joe Johnston and Jeff Davis.”[10]  Even though eventually restored to command, Johnston could never forget the perfidy of Davis, Bragg, and Hood.  Johnston later wrote, “I know Mr. Davis thinks he can do a great many things other men would hesitate to attempt.  For instance, he tried to do what God failed to do — make a soldier out of Braxton Bragg.”

Johnston’s End

History remembers Joe Johnston kindly.  His battle history is second to none: Manassas, Seven Pines, Vicksburg, Dalton, Resaca, Adairsville, New Hope Church, Dallas, Picket’s Mill, Kolb Farm, Kennesaw Mountain, Peachtree Creek, Averasboro, Bentonville, Morrisville Station, and the Bennett Place.  For him, it was a long war.  He afterward published his memoirs in Narrative of Military Operations, which was highly critical of Jefferson Davis, John Bell Hood, and Braxton Bragg.

He also built a life-long friendship with his former enemy, William T. Sherman — the officer to whom he surrendered in 1865.  Sherman once opined, “No officer or soldier who ever served under me will question the generalship of Joseph E. Johnston.  His retreats were timely, in good order, and he left nothing behind.”  Afterward, because of Johnston’s gentlemanly behavior, he would not tolerate anyone speaking ill of Sherman in his presence.  When Sherman passed away on 14 February 1891, Johnston served as an honorary pallbearer at his funeral, keeping his hat off during the burial rites to show his respect.  The weather was cold and rainy, and Johnston caught a cold, which developed into pneumonia.  Joseph E. Johnston died ten days later.  He was 84 years old.

Sources:

  1. Bonds, R. S.  War Like the Thunderbolt: The Battle and Burning of Atlanta.  Westholme Publishing, 2009.
  2. Bowman, S. M., and R. B. Irwin: Sherman and His Campaigns: A military biography.  Richardson Publishing, 1865.
  3. Davis, S.  Texas Brigadier to the fall of Atlanta: John Bell Hood.  Mercer University Press, 2019.
  4. Johnston, J. E.  Narrative of Military Operations: Directed, During the Late War between the States.  Appleton & Co., 1874.
  5. Jones, W. L.  Generals in Blue and Gray: Davis’s Generals.  Stackpole Books, 2006.
  6. Miller, W. J.  The Battles for Richmond, 1862.  National Park Service Civil War Series, 1996.
  7. Symonds, C.  Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography.  Norton, 1992.
  8. Woodworth, S.  Jefferson Davis, and His Generals: A Failure of Confederate Command in the West.  University of Kansas Press, 1990.

Endnotes:

[1] All senior officers in both the Union and Confederacy attended the same school, used the same textbooks, had the same teachers, and graduated within a few years of each other.  They served together in the various military departments, in the Indian wars, and in one capacity or another, in the Mexican-American War (1846-48).  Later, as senior field commanders, they all knew what their opponents were likely to do.  With few exceptions, they all had inflated egos.

[2] Prior to the Civil War, the senior rank of the Army (discounting George Washington) was Major General, although the position was often filled by brigadier generals.  With the expansion of the military during the Civil War, as massive number of combat commands, both Union and Confederate armies expanded their command structure to accommodate much larger units.  Depending on circumstances and the availability of general officers, Brigadier Generals commanded brigades (consisting of from three to five regiments); major generals commanded divisions (three or four brigades); lieutenant generals commanded corps (three to four divisions), and generals command armies (three to four corps).

[3] What we know about the internal workings of the Confederacy today we owe in large measure to Sam Cooper, who maintained concise records and later turned these documents over to the U. S.  government at war’s end.  

[4] Robert E. Lee was an intellectual, a gentleman, and a pro-Union southerner whose final decision to resign his commission and join with his state was prompted by his loyalty to his home state.  His last US Army rank was colonel, and that is the insignia he wore on his uniform throughout the Civil War, rather than the insignia of a full general.  In Lee’s opinion, he had done nothing to warrant his full-general rank. 

[5] Braxton Bragg may have been the worst general officer on either side of the Civil War.  He lost nearly every engagement, shifted responsibility for his failures to junior officers, excessively disciplined subordinates.  He detested LtGen Leonidas Polk, a subordinate, who had a close relationship with President Jefferson Davis.  Bragg’s failures as a field general are among the primary reasons for the ultimate defeat of the Confederacy.

[6] Joseph and Lydia Johnston had no children.  Lydia passed away in 1887; Johnston passed away of a heart attack on 21 March 1891.  

[7] Craig L. Symonds book, Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography, W. W. Norton, 1992. 

[8] Union armies were named after rivers; Confederate armies were named after the places where the fought.  Earlier, however, both the Union and Confederates has an “Army of the Potomac.”  The confusion of this forced the Confederates to adopt a different naming convention.  

[9] Steven E. Woodworth wrote that Hood had, more than General Hardee, urged Johnston to withdraw his force.

[10] Mary Boykin Miller Chestnut, A Diary from Dixie.

This post previously published at Old West Tales.

Inglorious

Introduction

On 15 April 1861, two days after South Carolina militia bombarded Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring an insurrection against the laws of the United States.  In total, there were only 15,000 men in U. S. Army uniform —  hardly enough men to impose Lincoln’s will on eight seceding states, so to suppress the Confederacy and restore federal authority, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers for 90-days service.  Apparently, Mr. Lincoln was thinking that forcing southern states into compliance would be an abbreviated affair.  He later accepted the voluntary service of 40,000 additional troops with three-year enlistments.  These combined actions increased the strength of the Army to around 200,000.  Whether prudent, Mr. Lincoln’s actions prompted four other states to secede.

In the North

During April, thousands of bright-eyed, excited, adventurous young men streamed into the nation’s capital to join the fight and defend the nation’s capital.  The Army’s General-in-Chief was Lieutenant General Winfield Scott.  His plan for suppressing the rebels was to send an army of 80,000 men down the Mississippi River and capture New Orleans.  As the Army strangled the southern economy, the Navy would blockade all Southern ports along the eastern United States and western Gulf Coast of Florida.  The press was not particularly kind to General Scott or his scheme of maneuver.

In July 1861, thousands of young men were wearing army uniforms and encamped at various locations around the city of Washington.  With members of the press and politicians wagging their tongues daily, political pressure was building for Mr. Lincoln to do something.  Lincoln’s problem was that his Army Commanding General was 75-years-old.  Who would lead these young men into battle?  The president’s ultimate selection was both political and expedient.

Irvin McDowell was a graduate of the United States Military Academy, class of 1838.  McDowell was a competent staff officer with limited command experience.  In April 1861, McDowell was an Army major assigned to the office of the Adjutant General.  In less than a month, McDowell advanced from Major to brigadier general.  The staff officer suddenly found himself in command of the Military Department of Northeast Virginia and Army of Northern Virginia — on paper, around 35,000 men organized into five infantry divisions.  No one knew better than McDowell that he was entirely out of his depth.

Politics ruled the day, however.  With everyone clamoring for Lincoln to do something, he did.  He placed 35,000 men in uniform.  There was no time for much combat training, of course, and McDowell was at least smart enough to realize that this was a problem.  After voicing his concerns to Lincoln, the president told McDowell, “You are green, but they are green also; you are all green alike.” One can only imagine what McDowell was thinking about that sage advice.  But McDowell was more than out of his depth as a field commander.  Thanks to Confederate spy/socialite Rose O’Neal Greenhow, the Confederacy had a copy of McDowell’s battle plan for Manassas.

In any case, Brigadier General McDowell’s battle plan was exceedingly ambitious.  He intended to make a diversionary attack with two divisions, send a third against the Confederate flank, cut off the railway line to Richmond, push the rebels out of Manassas and save the city of Washington.  After reading McDowell’s battle plan, Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard, commanding the Alexandria Line, must have laughed.  McDowell couldn’t have accomplished that even with an experienced army.  He would be facing around 24,000 Confederate and state militia.

In The South

In 1861, Brigadier General Joseph E. Johnson served as Quartermaster General of the U. S. Army.  When his home state seceded from the Union, Johnson resigned his commission and returned to Virginia.  Initially, Virginia officials offered Johnson a commission as a major general in the state militia but later rescinded it and instead offered him a commission as a brigadier general.  Virginia only needed one major general, and they preferred Robert E. Lee to Johnson.  Johnson’s problem was that in the Union Army, he was a brigadier general, while Lee was only a colonel.  Seniority matters, so, rather than serving under someone junior in rank, Johnson accepted a commission as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army.

Johnson was a talented officer with considerable experience throughout his tenure in the U. S. Army, but there was between him and Confederate President Jefferson Davis a strained relationship.  Initially, Davis appointed Brigadier General Johnson to relieve Colonel Thomas J.  Jackson of his command at Harpers Ferry; he later ordered Johnson to assume command of the Army of Shenandoah.  In this capacity, Johnson would be in a position to support Brigadier General Beauregard at Manassas.

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard (also known as P. G T. Beauregard) was the brother-in-law of John Slidell, a lawyer, politician, and businessman.  Slidell previously served as U. S. Minister to Mexico (1844-45).  In January 1861, the War Department appointed Beauregard to serve as Superintendent of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point.  Five days later, Louisiana seceded from the Union, and the War Department revoked Beauregard’s appointment.  Beauregard vigorously protested such treatment and soon after resigned from the U. S. Army and returned to his home in Louisiana.  Beauregard anticipated that the governor of Louisiana would offer him command of the state militia, but that position was instead offered to and accepted by General Braxton Bragg.  Bragg offered Beauregard a colonelcy, but there was an issue of pride once again, and Beauregard instead enlisted as a private in the Orleans Guards.

Again, President Davis came to the rescue and, on 1 March 1861, appointed Beauregard a Brigadier General and placed him in command of the defenses at Charleston, South Carolina.  Beauregard was the first general officer appointment of the Confederacy, but the process of general officer appointments was haphazard.  In a few months, Beauregard would become a full (four-star) general, one of only seven promoted to that rank, but he would end up junior to four others: Samuel Cooper, Albert S. Johnson, Robert E. Lee, and Joseph E. Johnson.

On 12 April, Beauregard ordered the commencement of hostilities with Fort Sumter, a bombardment lasting 34 hours.  President Davis later summoned Beauregard to Richmond for a new assignment.  He would assume command of the Alexandria Line.[1]  Beauregard immediately began planning for the defense of Manassas, including a concentration of forces along with those of General Johnson at Harpers Ferry.  Johnson was senior to Beauregard, but he was unfamiliar with the Manassas area and ceded tactical planning to Beauregard.  President Davis had great confidence in Beauregard as a field commander, but less with his ability as an operational planner.  Beauregard tended to formulate overly complicated schemes of maneuver without due consideration for logistics, intelligence, and political realities.

Bull Run

There is nothing particularly glorious about battle except, perhaps, in the minds of those who’ve never experienced it.  When the fighting is finally over, there is, of course, deep gratitude among survivors, and a peculiar bonding takes place among those survivors — for a little while — until everyone returns home and the nightmares and guilt arrive.  The guilt isn’t reflective of what combatants had to do in combat.  It’s for having the audacity (or luck) of living through it.  Many of their friends didn’t.

No doubt, the young men of both armies, whether officer or enlisted, had similar thoughts.  Aside from the excitement of a great undertaking, no doubt caused by increased adrenalin, there was also fear — a fear so palpable, one can smell it. Ordinary people fear death, of course, but what concerned these youngsters most was the prospect that fear would paralyze them.  Fear is a powerful thing — no one wants to be a coward.  Youngsters worry about such things.  They fear that in an unannounced split second when it occurs to them that running away offers life and remaining behind guarantees death, they will choose to run away.  A reasonable person will conclude that remaining behind in a fight that they’re losing is an irrational response to utter chaos — but there is nothing rational about combat, and adrenalin is an equally powerful antidote.

Two untrained armies began moving toward one another in mid-July 1861.  Oh, they may have had enough training to know how to line up, and maybe even how to wheel right or left, but they didn’t know (or trust) their officers, they barely knew their NCOs, and they may not have known the name of the man standing next to them.  The bonding process among combatants had yet to take hold.  It was a time when there was no leadership — only followership.  How the man standing next to them reacted to gunfire or exploding artillery influenced how they, themselves, responded to such trauma.  Watching someone running to the rear was a powerful incentive to join him — and so too was witnessing the decapitation of the next man in line.  Panic in the ranks can arrive as fast as flood water, and no one is immune to its effects without intense training and prior experience on the line.

The morning of 16 July began shaping up as a genuine goat-rope; it only got worse as the day progressed.  Formed regiments milled around along the roads while their officers tried to organize them into a line of march, and the men waited patiently while their officers and NCOs struggled to figure it out.  Hurry up and wait is an American military tradition.

After hours of fumbling about, General McDowell finally led his army out of Washington.  It was the largest army ever formed on the North American continent —  around 28,000 men (18,000 infantry) present.  Army commanders mustered everyone they could get their hands on — even Marines.

With pressure from the War Department to bolster McDowell’s army, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wells ordered the Commandant of the Marine Corps to form a battalion of “disposable” Marines for duty in the field.  In 1861, U. S. Marines were seagoing infantry; they were not trained for field duty.  Major John G. Reynolds assumed command of the Marine battalion and reported to McDowell.  None of the Marines had any field equipment — all of them were raw recruits.  The best they could do in the upcoming fight was to help resupply artillery units with powder and shot.

McDowell hoped to have his army at Centerville by 17 July, but the troops were unaccustomed to marching long distances.  The distance from Washington to Manassas was 30 miles.  En route, formations would bunch up along the road, stop, wait, and start again.  Some soldiers, bored with the walk (it was hardly a march), would break formation to wander off into an orchard to rest and pick apples from the trees.  They were an undisciplined lot and largely ignored the orders of their officers and NCOs to “get back in ranks.”

On 17 July, Beauregard encamped his army near Manassas — the men busily preparing their defenses along the south bank of Bull Run.  His left flank, under Brigadier General Evans, blocked the stone bridge.  General McDowell was initially confident that he would overwhelm a numerically inferior enemy and equally optimistic that Brigadier General Robert Patterson, whose orders were to engage General Johnson’s Army of the Shenandoah, would prevent Johnson from reinforcing Beauregard.

Weather and climate are among the more critical factors of warfare because it affects both strategy and tactics. July in Northern Virginia is hot and humid, and that’s what it was on 21 July 1861. Rain-swollen rivers impede the flow of troops and supplies.  Muddy roads bring everything to a halt.  Rain prevents muskets from firing — which often necessitated bayonets and hand-to-hand combat.  Wind and rain made everyone miserable.  The exposure to the elements made people sick.  Heat and humidity cause heat casualties.  In short, weather can be a war stopper.

By the time McDowell reached Manassas, he was under a great deal of stress.  The ninety-day enlistments of several regiments were about to expire.  He also received word from Patterson that General Johnson had slipped out of the Shenandoah Valley.  If true, McDowell would face 34,000 rebels rather than 22,000.  On the morning of 22 July, two of McDowell’s commands, their enlistments having expired, left the field.  Despite his pleadings, the soldiers had no interest in remaining on the field.  In McDowell’s mind, time was running out.  He began making rash decisions.  He was starting to panic, and his subordinate commander’s lost confidence in his leadership.

By the time the shooting started, Beauregard’s and Johnson’s armies were tied in with one another, and more reinforcements were on the way.  McDowell received a string of faulty intelligence.

The Battle

The Union forces began their day at 02:30 when two divisions under Hunter and Heintzelman (12,000 men) marched from Centerville toward Sudley Springs.  General Tyler’s division (8,000 men) marched toward Stone Bridge.  In many places, the road approach to Sudley Springs was inadequate for so many men, artillery, and supply wagons in many places being no more than rutted footpaths.  The Union advance slowed to a crawl.  Fording Bull Run did not begin until 09:30, and the Union advance was no surprise to the Confederates.  When the two forces finally engaged that morning, it was more of an exercise in maneuver warfare than frontal assault or envelopment.  McDowell’s commanders struggled to get their men in position.

However, when the Union forces finally did strike the Confederate line, the rebel line collapsed, sending inexperienced boys into a panicked retreat.  The Union might have pursued them were it not for the exceptional artillery support from men like Captain John D. Imboden.  McDowell’s failure to press his advantage gave the Confederates time to reform their line.

At this time, Brigadier General Thomas J. Jackson’s Virginia Brigade came forward in support of the re-organizing Confederate defense.  Jackson, accompanied by J. E. B. Stuart’s cavalry and Wade Hampton’s Legion, quickly set up a defensive line along the Henry House Hill ridgeline.  Hampton’s Legion thoroughly decimated the New York 79th, whose troops began a helter-skelter retreat.  The only Union soldier from the NY 79th who advanced under Hampton’s withering fire was Colonel James Cameron, the regimental commander.[2]  As Cameron advanced, his men abandoned him and ran to the rear.   Cameron was soon killed.

To shield his men from the Union’s direct fire, Jackson posted his five regiments on the reverse slope of Henry House Hill.  Jackson then placed thirteen artillery pieces to best defend the line, all out of sight of the Union troops.  The Confederate’s smooth-bore guns gave them an advantage over the Union artillery’s rifled guns because the Union guns were too close to their enemy’s positions and fired their more powerful pieces over the heads of the Confederate troops.[3]

Stonewall Jackson

When Confederate Brigadier General Barnard E. Bee (Commanding 3rd Brigade) complained to Jackson that the Union was driving them (forcing them back), Jackson calmly replied, “Then, sir, we will give them the bayonet.”  Bee then returned to his brigade and exhorted them, “There [pointing] is Jackson standing like a stone wall.  Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer.  Let us rally behind the Virginians!”   

It was Jackson’s refusal to yield the line that gave him the nickname Stonewall Jackson.  Afterward, Jackson’s brigade launched a crushing assault against the Union line, capturing Union artillery and quickly sending hundreds of Union soldiers to the rear.  Jackson’s brigade devastated these troops with fire and bayonet.  Still, nothing spooked the Yankees more than the rebel yell, which Jackson (a college professor at the Virginia Military Institute) knew it would.  It was the first time Union troops heard the rebel yell, but it would not be the last time.  It was this daring assault that changed the course of the Battle of Bull Run.

At about 16:00, two Confederate Brigades (Early’s and Smith’s) assaulted Howard’s Union Brigade on Chinn Ridge and pushed it off the hill, delivering devastating casualties.  It was not long before the young boys dressed in Union uniforms decided to live another day.

McDowell’s decision to withdraw was anything but orderly.  Rather than controlling their men and easing their panic, Union officers were running foot races with their soldiers to see who could get back to the city of Washington first.  McDowell ordered Miles’ division to form a rearguard, but those troops were only interested in protecting themselves.  McDowell’s army didn’t rally until they reached the outskirts of Washington.  To President Davis’ great dismay, neither Johnson nor Beauregard pressed their advantage on the retreating Union.[4]  Had they done so, Washington might have fallen to the Confederates at the beginning of the war.

That evening, President Lincoln received his much-awaited report on the battle of Manassas, but it wasn’t what he was hoping to hear.  The message, in abbreviated form, was: “The day is lost.  Save Washington.”

Conclusion

This is the story of two numerically powerful armies, both untrained, both (for the most part) poorly led, and both leaving behind a large number of casualties.  McDowell lost 2,708 men (481 killed, 1,011 wounded, and 1,216 missing).  Generals Johnson and Beauregard lost 1,982 men (387 killed, 1,582 wounded, 13 missing).  On the morning of 21 July 1861, the ranks of both armies contained young boys who were excited beyond measure and full of vinegar.  At the end of the day, some of those boys were broken, discouraged, or dead.  In one single day, the survivors had learned all they would ever need to know about combat.  It would never get any better, but it would get worse.  Whether north or south, everyone who fought that day knew that this one battle was only the beginning of unspeakable carnage.

There would be a second battle at Manassas — in about a year.

Sources:

  1. Alexander, E. P.  Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander.  Gary W. Gallagher, ed.  University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
  2. Beatie, R. H.  Army of the Potomac: Birth of Command, November 1860-September 1861.  Da Capo Press, 2002.
  3. Detzer, D.  Donnybrook: The Battle of Bull Run, 1861.  Simon & Schuster, 2001.
  4. Longstreet, J.  From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War in America.  Da Capo Press, 1992.

Endnotes:

[1] The Orange and Alexandria Railroad linked markets in northern and central Virginia.  Construction of the railroad began in 1850 and extended to Manassas and Gordonsville in 1851 and 1853.  It was a primary communication route between Richmond and northern Virginia.  The Alexandria Line became a strategic prize coveted by both Union and Confederate forces at Manassas, Bristoe Station, and Brandy Station.

[2] Brother of U. S. Secretary of War Simon Cameron.

[3] One casualty of the Union artillery was 89-year-old Judith Carter, an invalid, who was confined to her bed inside Henry House.  Miss Carter was killed when Union artillery targeted the house, thinking that rebel snipers were shooting from upstairs windows.

[4] Jefferson Davis observed the fight from the battlefield, arriving at around 15:00 that afternoon.  

Naval Intelligence — Agents of Change

The early days

By 1861, America’s military traditions were already well established.  When America needed an armed force, it recruited one.  When the United States no longer needed an armed force, they disbanded it.  In the minds of our founding fathers, there was no reason to maintain a standing military force.  Why?  Because in the experience of American colonists, the British used its standing army to enforce tyrannical edicts from the Parliament.[1]

By 1875, a decade after the end of the American Civil War, the United States Navy had deteriorated due to the neglect of Congress and the Navy’s senior leadership.  The Navy’s ships were rusting away, its officers had grown apathetic and unprofessional, and (when compared to the other significant navies of the world — Britain, France, Russia, Japan) the US Navy appeared in last place.  It took the United States government another five years to realize that the condition of the Navy demanded a national discussion.  One of the young officers to lead this discussion was Lieutenant Theodorus B. M. Mason.  He was one of the Navy’s early agents of change.

Born in New York in 1848, Theodorus came from a distinguished family.  His father was a prominent attorney and a former colonel in the U. S. Army during the Civil War.  His uncle was Rear Admiral Theodorus Baily.  He adopted Mason’s surname in deference to his maternal grandfather Sidney, who had no male heirs to carry on the family name.

Mason graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy in 1868.  He was known for his intellect, his linguistic ability, and his foresight.  After serving with the Navy’s hydrographic office, he traveled extensively in Europe and South America as a naval observer charged with collecting information about foreign navies.[2]  Mason knew what information was available and how to obtain it. He recognized that for the U. S. Navy to compete with foreign navies, the United States would have to develop capacities in naval science and technology.  Mason became convinced that the U. S. Navy would require a unified intelligence agency to gather, analyze, catalog, and disseminate foreign naval developments to achieve modernization.

From the report, Mason wrote of his travels and discoveries, William H. Hunt, the Secretary of the Navy, on 23 March 1882, directed the establishment of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) with the Bureau of Navigation.[3]  Hunt appointed Mason as its first director.  Mason assumed his new post, Chief Intelligence Officer, in June 1882.  The Navy assigned him to a small office in what was once known as the State, War, and Navy Building, which is now the Old Executive Office Building.

Initially, the heads of the various sections of the Bureau of Navigation paid Mason little mind.  He was a comparatively junior officer, a lieutenant, and the ONI was a fledgling undertaking.  However, Mason began providing information that the various bureaus could use to justify the funds needed to expand and modernize the Navy.

His primary work, however, may not seem like much of an accomplishment today.  Titled Information from Abroad: The War on the Pacific Coast of South America Between Chile and the Allied Republics of Peru and Bolivia, 1879-81, Mason’s work in 1883 was little more than a chronology of events incorporating his and the observations of other naval officers on a singular event.  After 77 pages, Mason concluded, “Since the fall of Lima, there has been no battle of importance; many skirmishes have taken place between portions of the army of occupation and small bodies of Peruvians.  There has also been a large amount of diplomatic maneuvering, which, although belonging to history, conveys no lesson of value to the naval or military student.”

The Navy transferred Lieutenant Mason to other duties three years later, replacing him with Lieutenant Raymond P. Rodgers in April 1885.  In January 1894, the Navy promoted Mason to lieutenant commander and retired him due to ill-health in December.

The War Years

It wasn’t until 1916 when Congress authorized the first significant expansion of ONI, an increase in funding to support domestic security operations in advance of World War I.  Two years into the war, Congress was finally convinced that someone should be looking after America’s ports, harbors, and defense plants.  Germany, by then, had embarked on a significant spying operation in the United States, and subversion and sabotage had become a valid concern.  ONI worked closely with the Departments of State,  War, Justice, Commerce, and Labor to help prevent unauthorized disclosure of sensitive defense information.  The number of ONI agents employed to accomplish such a feat was undoubtedly substantial.

ONI agents continued their counter-intelligence investigations throughout World War II — a mission assigned to its Special Activities Branch.  ONI also expanded its efforts to discover critical intelligence on German submarine operations, tactics, and technologies.  Most of this information came from interrogations of captured German submariners.  Within this period, ONI produced thousands of ship and aircraft recognition manuals for front-line forces.  Also initiated during this period was a sophisticated photo-interpretation effort and a related topographical model section that aided in the planning for combat operations by amphibious planners of the Navy, Army, and Marine Corps.  ONI also established two schools for the training of fleet intelligence officers.

In 1945, the Navy began hiring civilian scientists and technologists to guide advancements in a wide range of fields.  The Sound Surveillance System, acoustic intelligence, the Navy Scientific and Technical Intelligence Center, and the Navy Reconnaissance and Technical Support Center came from this effort.

In 1946, ONI established the Office of Operational Intelligence.  This particular office inherited the mission of the Navy’s Combat Intelligence Division, created by Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King during World War II.  Its “Special Section,” known as Y1, evolved from the Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean area (JICPOA) that successfully operated against the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War.

After World War II (faced with ongoing budget cuts), the ONI returned to its somewhat abbreviated peacetime mission.  This changed with the beginning of the Korean War in 1950.  ONI began a significant buildup of special agents whose principal mission was the security of Naval facilities and personnel and criminal investigations involving Navy and Marine Corps personnel.

In 1957, ONI incorporated a signals intelligence effort under the Navy’s Field Operational Intelligence section.  This group provided real-time information about the disposition of foreign naval and military forces during the Cold War.

In 1966, a special investigative unit was formed and named the Naval Investigative Service (NIS).  NIS became the primary investigative agency of the Department of the Navy for counter-intelligence and criminal activities.  In 1982, NIS assumed responsibility for the Navy’s Law Enforcement and Physical Security mission.  Following the Beirut bombing in 1983, NIS established the Navy Anti-terrorist Alert Center.  One notable employee of ATAC was a civilian analyst named Jonathan Pollard, convicted of spying for Israel in 1987.  Pollard was released from prison in 2015 and now lives in Israel.

Following the so-called “Tailhook Scandal” in 1991 (with pressure from the Chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Committee (Senator Sam Nunn)), the Naval Investigative Service was re-named Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).  It concurrently became a federal law enforcement agency under civilian leadership within the Department of the Navy.

Post-Cold War

Between 1988-93, ONI joined the U. S. Coast Guard Intelligence Coordination Center and the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity supporting domestic maritime and expeditionary and littoral intelligence collection missions.  This newest facility is called the National Maritime Intelligence Center.  In 2009, the Chief of Naval Operations directed the transformation of ONI into a major naval command which included four subordinate components: scientific and technical intelligence, operational intelligence, information services technology, and expeditionary/special warfare intelligence support.

The Navy’s intelligence mission is evolving, providing critical support to national and global governments and industrial partners.  In 2016, the “Information Warfare Community,” which operates under the supervision of the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations, became the Navy’s primary conduit for global information systems.  Its primary function is command and control systems, battlespace and adversary management, and power projection.  It is an effort that employs around 52,000 military, civilian, and civilian contract employees in warfare, cryptographic, meteorological, and oceanographic disciplines.  Today, there are five separate organizations within the Office of Naval Intelligence: The Nimitz Operation Intelligence Center, Farragut Technical Analysis Center, Kennedy Irregular Warfare Center, Hopper Information Services Center, and the Brooks Center for Maritime Engagement.

The Office of Naval Intelligence is not without its critics, however.  Those who suspect the existence of a “deep state” within the U. S. government point to former ONI officer Robert Woodward and his journalistic sidekick Carl Bernstein as willing participants of a deep-state plot organized to bring down President Richard Nixon in the so-called Watergate Affair.  If true, it may have been the first time that manufactured materials targeted high-ranking US officials.  Such accusations are easier made than proved, which goes to the secrecy of official intelligence operations and ONI’s long involvement in domestic spying operations.

Giving some credence to the concerns of “deep state” theorists, in the aftermath of President Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Director of Naval Intelligence recently warned active duty and retired military personnel that any criticism made by them toward the President of the United States, Vice President, cabinet officials, and members of congress may subject them to court-martial proceedings for violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and a warning to civilian employees that they may be censored pursuant to Department of Defense Instruction 1344.10.  It is enough to cause one to wonder how far the role of ONI now extends into matters of America’s Constitutional guarantee of expressing personal opinions.

I have no answers.

Sources:

  1. O’Brien, P. P.  British, and American Naval Power: Politics and Policy, 1900-1936.  Greenwood, 1998. 
  2. “Our Heritage,” The Office of Naval Intelligence online.

Endnotes:

[1] After the revolutionary war, Congress disbanded America’s land and naval forces.  At the end of World War I, the United States demobilized the US armed forces.  President Truman ordered the demobilization of the armed forces in 1946.  Truman saw the error of his ways in late June 1950 when the United States came within a hair’s width of being physically thrown off the Korean Peninsula.

[2] Hydrographic is the study and process of measuring the physical characteristics of waters and marginal land

[3] Secretary Hunt served only briefly as Secretary of the Navy, under President James Garfield.  His one enduring achievement, beyond creating the ONI, was a Naval Advisory Board, which he tasked with reviewing and evaluating suggestions for rebuilding the U. S. Navy.  It wasn’t until 1915 that Secretary Josephus Daniels established a permanent advisory board — a suggestion by famed inventor Thomas A. Edison.  

Our Secret Fighting Women

American intelligence-gathering and analysis before World War II was a function performed by four separate departments: the Navy Department, War Department, Treasury Department, and the State Department.  In the Navy, for example, the Office of Naval Intelligence (established in 1882) fell under the Bureau of Navigation.  ONI’s mission was to collect and record such information as may be useful to the Department of the Navy in both war and peace.  It was a mission that remained unchanged for sixty-two years.  Over time, ONI would expand their activities to include both foreign and domestic espionage whenever such operations were beneficial to the mission of the Navy.  Similarly, the State Department had its cipher bureau (MI-8) (which was shut down in 1929), and the Army had its Signal Intelligence Service.  None of these activities were coordinated, and seldom did the agencies share information between them.

Out of concern for this lack of coordination, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed his friend of many years, William J. Donovan, to devise a plan for a coordinated intelligence service modeled on the British Intelligence Service (MI-6) and the British Special Operations Executive (SOE).  Donovan called his organization the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).  Eventually, OSS would manage 24,000 intelligence agents, 13,000 of which were American employees, between 1941-1945.

Donovan was looking for a unique sort of individual — a person with a doctorate who could win in a bar fight.  Some were academics, some were military officers and enlisted men, some were athletes, filmmakers, and a few were convicts.  Donovan employed them as spies, saboteurs, code breakers, analysts, map makers, forgers, and propagandists.  They became expert in penetrating enemy territory by parachute and from the sea.  They kidnapped people, blew up bridges and railroad yards, stole secrets, and put together the networks that did all of those things.

One-third of these people were women.  One of them was an actress named Marlene Dietrich; another was a woman named Margaret Mead, a pioneering anthropologist. Julia McWilliams developed a shark repellent.  Julia is more famously known as Julia Childs.  Another, Jean Wallace, was the daughter of the Vice President of the United States.  Several of these women were killed in the line of duty, such as Jane Wallis Burrell in 1948.

Virginia Stuart served the OSS in Egypt, Italy, and China.  At first, Virginia wasn’t sure what the OSS did, but she wanted to serve her country, and someone directed her to the “Q Building” (OSS headquarters in Washington where the Kennedy Center now stands).  Armed with a bachelor’s degree from Skidmore College, Virginia applied to the OSS in November 1943.  She was naturally adventurous, but there was a war on and most of her friends were participating in it in one form or another.  Her older sister, Edith, had joined the Navy as a chemist.  Virginia thought she might do that as well, but in 1943 the Navy was looking for scientists and medical personnel, not liberal arts majors.  Ultimately, the OSS hired Miss Stuart.  She was simply told, “Work hard, get the job done no matter what it takes, and keep your mouth shut.”

Stuart later recalled that the work in the Secret Intelligence Branch was grueling, the environment uncomfortable, the hours long, and that everyone became addicted to the caffeine in Coca Cola.  Initially, her job included assembling and making sense of hundreds of reports submitted in abbreviated form from secret agents in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.  Everyone had a sense of urgency, and everyone realized that the information they were receiving was important, no matter how insignificant it may have seemed when it first arrived — everything from troop movements and decoded radio messages to logistics issues and plans for secret penetrations of enemy held territory.  The longer the war went on, the more information there was to analyze and categorize.  What stood out in Virginia’s memory from those days was that there were no “men’s jobs and women’s jobs.”  There was only the one job, and everyone did it.

All the information was classified, of course, but some of it was more secret than other.  She recalled that “Eyes Alone” material was quickly delivered to Colonel Donovan’s desk.  It was the “most important” because of its sensitivity or timing.

When an opportunity presented itself, Virginia requested overseas service.  After eight months of waiting, she was sent to work in Cairo.  She and three other women dressed in khaki uniforms boarded a ship, along with Red Cross workers and war correspondents.  No one was to know who they were, what they did, or where they were going.  Virginia was going to Cairo because that was the OSS forward headquarters for Middle Eastern operations.

Cairo was a place where one could hear dozens of languages: English, Italian, French, Yugoslav, and Turkish among them.  In addition to military personnel, there were politicians, academics with expertise in the economy, logisticians, and yes — even German spies.  OSS headquarters in Cairo was a converted villa with a secure code room in the basement.  It was a place where newspapers and magazines from around the world were read and analyzed.  The analysis required men and women who were not only fluent in several languages but also familiar with cultural nuances, which made the work even more challenging.  This unusual library of information had a wide range of uses, from people who needed to manufacture official-looking fake documents, to others who were looking for a slip of the teletype (so to speak).  Sometimes, OSS received information coded in classified advertisements.

A year later, the OSS dispatched Virginia Stuart to China.  A week later, Virginia learned that the United States had dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan.  There was no detailed information about the event, of course, and no one was sure what an atomic bomb was.  But while the world was focused on the bomb, secret agents parachuted into Manchuria dressed as Chinese Nationalist officers to conduct guerrilla raids against Japanese occupation forces there, and to help plan for the liberation of Japanese POW camps.  Eventually, Virginia married one of these men, a British-Australian colonel attached to MI-6.  Virginia Stuart, after her stint with OSS, married and raised a family in such places as the Philippine Islands, Honduras, and later became a news anchor in Rhode Island.

The end of the war signaled the end of OSS.  Few of the uniformed services chiefs appreciated Roosevelt’s OSS (General MacArthur and others) who felt that intelligence gathering, and analysis, belonged within their purview.  President Truman, an old Army hand from World War II, agreed with his generals.  Of course, none of these generals (or even Truman) seemed to understand that the OSS provided vital intelligence from a vast network of sources they could not have managed on their own.  Despite the fact that OSS technically worked for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Truman wanted the OSS to disappear.  He made that happen in July 1945.

But not even Truman on his silliest day was stupid enough to do away with the assets created by OSS over nearly five years.  At the end of World War II, the OSS continued to collect valuable intelligence information about the Soviet Union, which almost immediately began working against the interests of the free world.  Over a period of two years, what was once the OSS , transitioned into the CIA, and many of the people who worked for OSS found themselves doing essentially the same tasks for the renamed spy agency.

The contribution of our women to America’s secret service didn’t begin or end with World War II.  During the Revolutionary War, a woman known only to history as Agent 355, served as part of the Culper Spy Ring, and played a pivotal role in the arrest of British spy, Major John Andrew and the infamous traitor, Benedict Arnold.  Anna Smith, living in Long Island, helped communicate information to General Washington through a code system that depended on the way she hung her laundry to dry.[1]  It may not seem like much of an effort, but that is the nature of the clandestine service: vital information in drips and drabs, funneled to the people best positioned to make sense of it.

Women made ideal spies simply because men didn’t think they were capable of it.  Most of these women are unknown to us today precisely because they were very good at what they did, and also because once they had achieved such remarkable results, men simply forgot about them.

During the Civil War, Pauline Cushman, an actress, was a Union spy discovered by the Confederacy.  She was saved from hanging by the arrival of the Union Army mere days before her execution.  Sarah Emma Edmonds also served the Union cause, disguising herself as a male soldier, sometimes as a black man, at other times as an old woman, to spy on the Confederacy.  Harriet Tubman, in addition to helping to free enslaved blacks, served the Union Army in South Carolina by organizing a spy network and occasionally leading raids and spying expeditions.  Elizabeth Van Lew was an anti-slavery Virginian who smuggled food and clothing to Union prisoners and provided information about Confederate activities to Union officials.  It was this woman who cleverly placed Mary Elizabeth Bowser as a spy in the home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Not all the ladies were in the trenches during World War II, but this one was.  Virginia Hall was an American spy with the British SOE and about as tough as they come.  While on a hunting trip in Turkey, a gun accident caused her to lose her leg.  She named her prosthetic device “Cuthbert.”  In connection with the SOE and OSS, Hall led networks of agents in various specialized missions, rescued prisoners of war, and recruited hundreds of spies to work against the Nazis.  Her quick wit kept her two paces ahead of the Gestapo, who spent a lot of time and effort trying to find out who she was.  Hall was able to outpace the Gestapo because she was a master of disguise, and Germany lost the war knowing that whoever this woman was, she was the most dangerous of all Allied spies.  Virginia Hall is the only civilian woman to receive the Distinguished Service Cross.

Marion Frieswyk was a cartographer, who along with others in the OSS, produced three dimensional topographic maps of such places as Sicily in advance of the allied landings there in 1943.  Marion was a country girl with a knack for numbers.  At the age of 21 years, her ambition was to become a school teacher after graduating from Potsdam Teacher’s College in 1942, but the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii changed her plans.  A college geography professor encouraged her to apply to a summer graduate school course in cartography at Clark University; he told her that the war effort would demand trained map makers.  Out of her class of thirty students, the OSS recruited only two: Marion and a fellow named Henry.  The OSS offered to pay her $1,800 a year and she was soon off to the nation’s capital.

Customized map making was a new innovation in 1942.  The OSS spared no expense sending civilian employees around the world to procure existing maps; geographic researchers and draftsmen transformed these maps into detailed representations of places where the Allies would fight their battles.  As in the case of Sicily, Marion and others produced a number of topographic models —  it was a combination between artists’ studios and woodworking shops, where jigsaws were employed to produce precise 3-dimensional changes in elevation beginning at sea level.  The Sicily map was the first custom made topographic map ever made in the United States.

In 1943, Marion married her classmate from Clark University, Henry, the other student hired by OSS.  She and Henry were married for 64 years.  After the war, when Truman disbanded the OSS, Marion and Henry transferred to the State Department where they worked until the creation of the CIA.  Marion stayed with the CIA until 1952, resigning so that Henry could accept an assignment in London.  In recognition of Henry’s 25 years of government service in cartography, the CIA presented him with the Sicily Map that he had helped produce in 1943.

Most of these stalwart women from World War II have passed on, but courageous, hardworking, thoroughly dedicated women continue to serve the United States in the Central Intelligence Agency.  Gina Barrett, for example, is a 25-year veteran intelligence analyst with the CIA, who wrote the first report warning US officials about Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s — she was one of a team of six other women focused on the Middle East’s merchants of death, but Ms. Barrett is quick to point out that women have always played a role in America’s clandestine services.  Maja Lehnus is another woman, who in over twenty-nine years of CIA service, held six different leadership positions in the field of chemical, biological, and nuclear armaments.  Lehnus is the woman at CIA who does the worrying for things that most people don’t even know about — or even want to know about.

The CIA’s clandestine mission for women include a wide range of projects, from counter-terrorism to field operations, the technical aspects of bombs, and space weapons developments.  Most of these women are married with children and none of them look anything like an Albert R. Broccoli spy.  But the clandestine service is a tough row to hoe and the work can wear anyone down.  One such clandestine professional, whose identity is secret, is an explosives expert.  The job, she says, is unrelenting, and if someone working in this field doesn’t find a way to step away from it, it will eventually kill them.

There are no seductresses at the CIA, reports one woman.  That’s all Hollywood stuff.  There is no erratic behavior.  What there is, and has always been in the American secret services, are women like Virginia Hall, who are prepared to do whatever it takes to accomplish their vital (to the United States) missions.

Eloise Page was one of 4,500 women employed by the OSS.  She began her career as a secretary; she retired as the third-highest ranking officer in the CIA’s operations directorate.  In the operations section, she had responsibility for planning and directing covert operations and recruiting foreign spies.  Page was the CIA’s first female station chief.  Suzanne Matthews followed Page’s pathway.  She joined the CIA as a secretary in 1975 and worked her way up to case officer.

Janine Brookner was another of the CIA’s shining stars.  She joined the agency in 1968.  The CIA offered her an analytical position, but she was adamant about wanting an assignment in operations.  Ultimately, as a senior case officer, Brookner infiltrated the Communist Party and recruited a highly placed Soviet bloc agent.  Today, Brookner is a Washington, D. C. lawyer.

Female employees of the CIA continue saving American lives every day.  Completing this daunting task requires constant vigilance and attention to detail.  The demand associated with this work requires compartmentalization, checking one’s emotions, and keeping a cool head under intense pressure.  Currently, women make up around 45% of the CIA’s workforce and 34% of the agency’s senior leadership.  The third and fourth most senior positions in the CIA are held by women.

Currently, there are 137 gold stars affixed to the CIA’s Memorial Wall, signifying CIA personnel killed in the line of duty.  Thirty-seven of these stars do not identify the name of the veterans because their names remain classified.  Eleven of those stars are for women, such as Barbara Robbins who died in Vietnam in 1963,  Monique Lewis who was killed in Beirut in 1983 and  Jennifer Matthews who was killed in Afghanistan in 2009.  Some of the women who lost their lives (as with their male counterparts) had a spouse and children at home.  Working insane hours protecting the homeland is one kind of sacrifice — giving up their life for the homeland is the ultimate sacrifice.

Endnotes:

[1] The British had their spies, as well.  Anna Bates disguised herself as a peddler of knives, needles, and other dry goods to the Continental army.  While she was doing that, she took careful note of the soldiers weapons, which the British believed was useful information.