to go to Washington and return, he resolved to settle the difficulty in his own way, and therefore issued the following order: ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, HEADQUARTERS DIVISION OF THE SOUTH, Nashville, April 22, 1817. The commanding general considers it due to the principles of subordination, which ought and must exist in our Army, to prohibit the obedience of any order emanating from the Department of War to officers of this division who have been reported and been assigned to duty, unless coming through him as the proper organ of communication. The object of this order is to prevent the recurrence of a circumstance which removed an important officer from the division without the knowledge of the commanding general, and, indeed, when he supposed that officer engaged in his official duties and anticipated hourly the receipt of his official reports on a subject of great importance to his command; also to prevent the topographical reports from being made public through the medium of the newspapers, as was done in the case alluded to, thereby enabling the enemy to obtain the benefit of our topograhical researches as soon as the general commanding, who is responsible for the division. Superior officers having commands assigned them are held responsible to the Government for the character and conduct of that command, and it might as well be justified in an officer senior in command to give orders to a guard on duty without passing that order through the officer of that guard, as that the Department of War should countermand the arrangements of commanding generals, without giving their orders through the proper channel. To acquiesce in such a course would be a tame surrender of military rights and etiquette and at once subvert the established principles of subordination and good order. Obedience to the lawful commands of supe rior officers is constitutionally and morally required, but there is a chain of communication that binds the military compact which, if broken, opens the door to disobedience and disrespect, and gives loose to the turbulent spirits who are ever ready to excite to mutiny. All physicians able to perform duty, who are absent on furlough, will forthwith repair to their respective posts. Commanding officers of regiments and corps are ordered to report specially, all officers absent from duty on the 30th of June next, and their cause of absence. The Army is too small to tolerate idlers, and they will be dismissed the service.a By order of Major-General Jackson: ROBERT BUTLER, This order excited universal comment, but still the President, upon whom devolved by law the responsibility of prescribing the manner in which the business of the War Department should be conducted, came to no decision. Two months later a final issue was presented. General Ripley, at New Orleans, received an order direct from the War Department, which, in obedience to the order of his division commander, he declined to obey. The responsibility for his action was immediately assumed by General Jackson, who, in a letter to the President, dated August 12, 1817, commended the "proper disobedience" of his subordinate. He then in justification continued: In the view I took of this subject on the 4th of March, I had flattered myself you would coincide, and had hoped to receive your answer before a recurrence of a similar infringement of military rule rendered it necessary for me to call your attention thereto. None are infallible in their opinions, but it is nevertheless necessary that all should act agreeably to their convictions of right. My convictions in favor of the course I have pursued are strong, and should it become necessary, I will willingly meet a fair investigation before a military tribunal. The good of the service and the dignity of the commission I hold alone actuate me. My wishes for retirement have already been made known to you; but, under existing circumstances, my duty to the officers of my division forbids it until this subject is fairly understood. a Parton's Life of Andrew Jackson, vol. 2, p. 373. The receipt of this letter was followed in October by the appointment of Mr. Calhoun as Secretary of War, who promptly decided that on ordinary occasions, orders from that Department would issue only to the commanding generals of the divisions, and in cases where the service required a different course, the General in Chief would be notified of the order with as little delay as possible.a In putting an end, for the time, to this abuse so pernicious to good order and military discipline, the new Secretary of War laid aside every personal consideration and, as clearly appears from the following private letter to General Jackson, was influenced by no other motive than "regard to the public interest:" * * * I am aware the subject is delicate and important, but I trust that in practice no inconvenience under their present form will be experienced. The general rule is that all orders in the first instance will issue to commanders of division; and this rule to be deviated from only when the public interest may require it. The correctness of the rule itself can not be doubted. Order, discipline, and responsibility all concur in establishing it. But that there are exceptions to the rule is to my mind not less clear. The very principles on which it is established point out the exception. Why maintain order, discipline, and responsibility, but to give to the movements of the Army promptitude and success? When, then, they can only be had by deviating from the established rule, the exception becomes the rule. That such cases must occur, a mere reference to the great extent of the divisions furnishes incontestible proof. I will not press the subject further, for I perceive, by looking over the correspondence with the President, the orders accord substantially with your view in relation to this subject. You insist on the rule that orders ought to issue to the commanders of divisions, as they are responsible. This rule is the basis of the orders which have been adopted. You admit that necessity may cause exceptions to it, and it is the only cause of exception recognized by the orders; for, I presume, when we speake of necessity in this case, we only mean a due regard to the public interests.a * * * SEMINOLE WAR. The management of this war, which began in 1817, strictly conformed to the mixed policy pursued during the Revolution and the War of 1812. For want of enough regular troops, the military commanders assumed the responsibility of organizing a force of volunteers and Indians, whom they caused to be formally mustered into the service of the United States. These measures, as well as the military operations of the war, became the subject of Congressional investigation and were reported and commented upon by a committee of the Senate, as follows: From this time [alluding to the massacre of a detachment of about 40 men and 7 women under Lieutenant Scott of the Seventh Infantry] the war became more serious, the Indians in considerable numbers were embodied and an open attack made on Fort Scott. General Gaines with about 600 regular soldiers was confined to the garrison. In this state of things, information having been communicated to the War Department, General Jackson was ordered to take the field. He was advised of the regular and militia force, amounting to 1,800 men, provided for that service, and the estimated force, by General Gaines of the enemy, said to be 2,800 strong, and directed, if he should consider the force provided insufficient to beat the enemy, to call on the governors of the adjoining States for such portions of the militia as he might think requisite. On the receipt of this order, General Jackson, instead of observing the orders of the Department of War, by calling on the governor of Tennessee, then in Nashville, near the place of his residence, chose to appeal, to use his own expression, to the patriotism of the West Tennesseeans who had served under him in the last war. a Parton's Life of Andrew Jackson, vol. 2, p. 374. One thousand mounted gun men, and two companies of what were called life guards, with the utmost alacrity, volunteered their services from the States of Tennessee and Kentucky, and repaired to his standard. Officers were appointed to command this corps by the general himself, or by other persons acting under his authority. Thus organized they were mustered into the service of the United States. About the time General Jackson was organizing this detachment of volunteers in the State of Tennessee, or perhaps previously thereto, General Gaines was likewise employed in raising forces among the Creek Indians. There was this difference in the two cases: General Jackson raised his army in disregard of positive orders; General Gaines, without orders, took upon himself the authority of raising an army of at least 1,600 Creek Indians, appointing their officers, with a brigadier-general at their head, and likewise mustering this force into the service of the United States. While your committee feel a pleasure in applauding the zeal and promptness that have marked the military conduct of these general officers on many former occasions, they would feel themselves wanting in their duty to the Senate and the nation if they did not express their decided disapprobation of the conduct of the commanding generals in the steps they took to raise and organize the force employed on this occasion. There was no law in existence that authorized even the President of the United States to raise or accept of the services of volunteers. The law passed for that purpose had expired in the year 1815. * * * It is with regret that the committee are compelled to declare that they conceive General Jackson to have disregarded the positive orders of the Department of War, the Constitution, and laws. That he has taken upon himself not only the exercise of those powers delegated to Congress as the sole législative authority of the nation, and to the President and Senate, as it relates to the appointments, but of the power which had been expressly reserved to the States in the appointment of the officers of the militia-a power the more valuable to the States because, as they had surrendered to the General Government the revenue and physical force of the nation, they could only look to the officers of the militia as a security against the possible abuse of the delegated power. The committee find the melancholy fact before them, that military officers, even at this early stage of this Republic, have, without the shadow of authority, raised an army of at least 2,500 men and mustered them into the service of the United States. Two hundred and thirty officers have been appointed and their rank established from an Indian brigadier-general down to the lowest subaltern of a company. To whom were those officers accountable for their conduct? Not to the President of the United States, for it will be found that it was not considered necessary, even to furnish him with a list of their names; and not until the pay rolls were made out and payment demanded, were the persons known to the Department of War. And in this place it is proper to observe that General Jackson seemed to consider those officers of his own creation, competent to discharge all the functions of officers appointed by the authority of the General or State governments; for we find five of them detailed afterwards to sit on a general court-martial on a trial of life and death. Might not, on the same principles, General Jackson have tried, condemned, and executed any officer of the Georgia militia by the sentence of a court-martial composed of officers created by him and holding their assumed authority by the tenure of his will? The committee will next take notice of the operations of the army in the Floridas. * * * It appears that General Jackson advanced into Florida with a force of 1,800 men, composed of regulars, volunteers, and the Georgia militia, and afterwards, on the 1st day of April, was joined by General McIntosh and his brigade of 1,500 Indians, who had been previously organized by General Gaines, opposed to whom, it appears from the report of Captain Young, topographical engineer, and other evidence, the whole forces of the fugitive Seminole Indians and runaway negroes, had they all been embodied, could not have exceeded 900 or 1,000 men, and at no time did half that number present themselves to oppose his march. Of course little or no resistance was made. The Mikasuky towns were first taken and destroyed. The army marched upon St. Marks, a feeble Spanish garrison, which was surrendered "without firing a gun” and then occupied as an American post. * * * This being done and St. Marks garrisoned by American troops, the army pursued their march eastward to Suwanee River, on which they found a large Indian village, which was consumed, and the Indians and negroes were dispersed, after which the army returned to St. Marks. * * * Having made these arrangements, the army marched to Fort Gadsden, on the Appalachicola River. "From Fort Gadsden," the report continues, “and after a march of about twenty days, having met his artillery, General Jackson, with about 1,200 men, the rest having been discharged, appeared before Pensacola, the capital of the province. The place was taken with scarcely the show of resistance. The governor had escaped and taken refuge in the fort of the Barancas, to which place, distant about 6 miles, the army marched, and the fortress was invested on the 25th of May, and a demand being made for its surrender and refused, the attack on the fortress was made by land and water. And, after the bombardment and cannonading had been kept up for a part of two days and some lives lost, the fortress was surrendered, and the garrison made prisoners of war, and the officers of the government, civil and military, transported to the Havana, agreeably to the terms of the capitulation. * a * From this report of the Senate committee it appears that General Jackson, after collecting his forces, brought the war to a close in a single campaign of less than three months. In accomplishing this result against a "miserable, undisciplined banditti of deluded Indians and fugitive slaves, their whole strength when combined not exceeding 1,000 men," the force of regulars, volunteers, and militia called into the service numbered 5,911 men. this number should be added nearly 1,600 subsidized Indians, making the total force exceed 7,500. To The regular troops serving under General Jackson consisted of the Fourth and Seventh Infantry and the Fourth Battalion of Artillery, whose united strength, by increasing the companies to 100 men each, could have been raised to more than 2,000 combatants. But needless extravagance is not the valuable lesson to be drawn from this war. It lies in the proof, recorded by a committee of the Senate, that the greatest dangers to which our liberties have thus far been exposed have occurred in time of war, not through the presence, but for the want of, a sufficient disciplined army. REORGANIZATION OF 1821. This reorganization was preceded on the 11th of May, 1820, by a resolution of the House of Representatives directing the Secretary of War to report at the next session "a plan for the reduction of the Army to 6,000 noncommissioned officers and privates, and preserving such parts of the Corps of Engineers as, in his opinion, without regard to that number, it may be for the public interest to retain." In presenting his plan in December, 1820, Mr. Calhoun stated: If our liberty should ever be endangered by the military power gaining the ascendancy, it will be from the necessity of making those mighty and irregular efforts to retrieve our affairs, after a series of disasters, caused by the want of adequate military knowledge, just as in our physical system a state of the most dangerous excitement and paroxysm follows that of the greatest debility and prostration. To avoid these dangerous consequences, and to prepare the country to meet a state of war, particularly at its commencement, with honor and safety, much must depend on the organization of our military peace establishment, and I have accordingly, in a plan about to be proposed for the reduction of the Army, directed my attention mainly to that point, believing it to be of the greatest importance. To give such an organization, the leading principles in its formation ought to be, that at the commencement of hostilities there should be nothing either to new model or to create. The only difference, consequently, between the peace and the war formation of the Army, ought to be in the increased magnitude of the latter, and the only change in passing from the former to the latter should consist in giving to it the augmentation which will then be necessary. a American State Papers, vol. 2, pp. 739, 740, 741. For further information on the organization of troops without the consent of Congress see report of committee of the House of Representatives, American State Papers, vol. 2, p. 99. It is thus, and thus only, the dangerous transition from peace to war may be made without confusion or disorder and the weakness and danger which otherwise would be inevitable, be avoided. Two consequences result from this principle: First, the organization of the staff in a peace establishment ought to be such that every branch of it should be completely formed, with such extension as the number of troops and posts occupied may render necessary; and, secondly, that the organization of the fine ought, as far as practicable, to be such that in passing from the peace to the war formation, the force may be sufficiently augmented without adding new regiments or battalions, thus raising the war, on the basis of the peace establishment, instead of creating a new army to be added to the old, as at the commencement of the late war. a It will be perceived from the above, that nearly sixty years ago one of our leading statesmen strongly urged the expansive organization which now prevails in every army of Europe. His plan, in brief, for the Adjutant-General's, Quartermaster's, and Commissary's Departments consisted in having a permanent chief for each, nearly all of the subordinate grades being filled by details from the line." The ordnance, light artillery, and artillery were to be united into one corps of artillery of 5 battalions of 8 foot and 1 light battery each, with a colonel as commandant; the Ordnance Department thereafter to consist of 1 colonel, 1 lieutenant-colonel, 2 majors, and 7 captains. The captains of ordnance were to be supernumerary officers of artillery, "for if their number did not pass that of the companies of artillery, it would be impossible to spare a captain of artillery from his company." The lieutenants of ordnance were to be detailed from the lieutenants of artillery, of whom 4 were allowed to each company and battery. The peace footing of each light battery consisted of 5 officers and 74 enlisted men; each foot battery, 5 officers and 64 enlisted men. The war footing of each light and foot battery was to consist of 5 officers and 95 enlisted men. The infantry was to consist of 9 regiments of 10 companies each, with 3 field officers to each regiment. The peace footing of each company was 3 officers and 37 men per company. Total 9 regiments, 3,627. cavalry was provided for. The total enlisted of artillery and infantry was to be 6,316. Without adding an additional officer or a single company, they may be augmented, should a just precaution growing out of our foreign relations render it necessary, to 11,558; and pending hostilities, by adding 288 officers, the two corps, on the maximum of the war formation, may be raised to the respectable force of 4,545 of the artillery and 14,490 of the infantry, making in the aggregate 19,035 officers, noncommissioned officers, and privates.d The increase of the two arms to 19,035 men, a force more than three times that of the peace footing, involved doubling the number of battalions of infantry. a American State Papers, vol. 2, p. 189. Under an act of Congress introduced at the suggestion of the Secretary of War and approved February 2, 1901, the President has been given authority to increase the number of enlisted men in each troop of cavalry to 100, in each company of infantry to 150, and in the artillery to an aggregate not to exceed 18,920 men, exclusive of electrician sargeants.-EDITORS. In his revised scheme for the reorganization of the Army, transmitted to Congress December 20, 1820, Secretary Calhoun proposed to have six Assistant Adjutants-General and six Assistant Inspectors-General, all but three of whom were to be detailed from the line of the Army, and eventually all to be so detailed as vacancies might occur. Also to have sixteen Deputy Quartermasters-General, eight of whom were to be detailed from the line, and similarly all to be so detailed as vacancies occurred.— EDITORS. d American State Papers, vol. 2, p. 190. |