The Commanders Read online

  THE COMMANDERS

  CIVIL WAR GENERALS WHO SHAPED THE AMERICAN WEST

  ROBERT M. UTLEY

  UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS

  NORMAN

  2800 Venture Drive

  Norman, Oklahoma 73069

  www.oupress.com

  Copyright © 2018 Robert M. Utley. Published by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. Manufactured in the U.S.A.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act—without the prior permission of the University of Oklahoma Press.

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, University of Oklahoma Press, 2800 Venture Drive, Norman, Oklahoma 73069 or email [email protected].

  ISBN 978-0-8061-5978-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978-0-8061-6090-0 (ebook : mobipocket)

  ISBN 978-0-8061-6091-7 (ebook : epub)

  This eBook was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [email protected].

  For Jerry Greene ever helpful friend

  CONTENTS

  List of Illustrations

  Preface

  1. The Postwar U.S. Army

  2. Christopher C. Augur

  3. George Crook

  4. Oliver O. Howard

  5. Nelson A. Miles

  6. Edward O. C. Ord

  7. John Pope

  8. Alfred H. Terry

  9. Evaluating the Commanders

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  FIGURES

  Lieutenant General Philip H. Sheridan

  Major General Irvin McDowell

  Brigadier General Christopher C. Augur

  The Indian Peace Commission at Fort Laramie, 1868

  Brigadier General George Crook

  Brigadier General Oliver O. Howard

  Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles

  Brigadier General Edward O. C. Ord

  Brigadier General John Pope

  Brigadier General Alfred H. Terry

  Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer

  Colonel John Gibbon

  Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie

  MAPS

  Cartography by Peter H. Dana

  The Military Geography of the West in the 1870s

  The Northern Plains, 1866–1870

  Crook’s Tonto Basin Campaign, 1872–1873

  General Howard and the Nez Perces, 1877

  The Red River War, 1874–1875

  Border Skirmishes, 1873–1880

  General Pope and the Sioux, 1862–1864

  General Pope and the Sioux, 1865

  The Southern Plains, 1869–1875

  The Sioux War of 1876

  PREFACE

  The inspiration for this work comes from a book by Thomas Ricks, The Generals (2012), an analysis of U.S. Army generals from World War II until that time. On a more modest scale, I attempt to do the same thing here for a cadre of Civil War generals who served in strategic positions in the American West after the war. In combat and command positions, these generals distinguished themselves in the Civil War. In the shrunken postwar Regular Army, they brought the same talents to the West—a field of operations starkly different from the wartime theaters and battlefields. The Indians of the plains and mountains did not fight like the Confederate armies. Adaptation to unconventional war proved difficult for most. Did they make a difference in the opening of the West?

  Those chosen for my examination served at the department level, the crucial unit between the division commander and the troops in the field. Each approached his duties in a different way. Some took to the field and led combat commands. Others preferred to command from department headquarters, overseeing more active officers who were leading the field operations. Only one, George Crook, adapted to the changed circumstances. He had learned Indian fighting in the West before the Civil War. So had Generals Augur and Ord, yet they failed to adapt. Despite the army’s inability to free itself from orthodox measures, it drove the Indians to collapse within twenty-five years.

  In the chapters that follow, after sketching the postwar army, I narrate the history of each of the seven generals, both in the Civil War and in the West. I evaluate each as a department commander, both in Indian affairs and in management of the department. Finally, I appraise them all in a concluding chapter and end by ranking them according to their effectiveness as department commanders.

  I have studied and published works on the frontier army for half a century. It is one of several subjects to which I have devoted my professional career as a historian. Much of what is contained in this volume is distilled from the knowledge and insights that I gained in this endeavor. The books most notable in underlying the substance of this book are Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848–1865 (1967), Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866–1891 (1973), The Indian Frontier, 1846–1890 (1984, 2003), and Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier (1988, 2001). My works on Indians, most importantly biographies of Sitting Bull and Geronimo, have contributed to my understanding of the soldiers who fought them.

  Three friends and colleagues who have broadened my view of the frontier army and its leaders should be mentioned: Paul Andrew Hutton, Jerome A. Greene, and Paul Hedren. They have not reviewed this manuscript, but they are published experts in this field. I want to credit their contribution to my career.

  Chuck Rankin at the University of Oklahoma Press has been more instrumental in shaping this book than the ordinary press editor. The concept of the book owes much to his thought and urging. His recommendations played a major role in determining the content, and his editing skills greatly improved the narrative. Thanks, Chuck.

  Finally, as in my previous books, Peter Dana has crafted his usual excellent maps. The shaded relief maps are a product of his exceptional cartographical mastery and computer skills.

  Scottsdale, Arizona

  October 2016

  Lieutenant General Philip H. Sheridan, commanding Military Division of the Missouri, 1869–1883; commanding U.S. Army, 1884–1888.

  Author’s collection.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE POSTWAR U.S. ARMY

  Spring 1866. The Civil War had ended a year earlier at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, yet only now had all the members of the Volunteer Army that had fought the war been mustered out of federal service and sent back to their states. The Regular Army, in its prewar form, waited impatiently for Congress to fix the size and composition of the postwar army. Not until the end of July 1866 did Congress send an act to President Andrew Johnson for his signature.1

  The three generals who had emerged from the war with the greatest combat record and highest public esteem were Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and Philip H. Sheridan. Three days before Congress passed the army act, it also passed an act elevating Grant to four-star rank as General of the Army.2 That slipped Grant’s three stars as lieutenant general to Sherman. Sheridan retained his two-star rank as major general.

  Instead of fixing a numerical size, the army act authorized the president to vary the number of men in a company between 50 and 100. When the War Department set the number of privates per company at 64, the postwar army emerged with a strength of 54,000. This figure would not endure, however, even with the increased demands of Reconstruction in the South and settlement
and development in the West. An economizing Congress pared the strength in 1869 to 37,313 and in 1870 to 30,000. In 1874 Congress set a figure of 27,000 officers and enlisted men, which remained stable.3

  The 1866 act also specified the composition of line and staff. In reducing the army strength in 1869, however, Congress left the army with ten cavalry regiments, five artillery regiments, and twenty-five infantry regiments for the next three decades. The Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Infantry were composed of black soldiers with white officers. To lead this army Congress reduced the number of generals to one full general (William T. Sherman, Grant having been elected president), one lieutenant general (Philip H. Sheridan), three major generals, and eight brigadier generals. When Sherman and Sheridan retired, their grades also retired.

  The act provided that the officers of the line would consist half of regulars and half of former volunteer officers who wished to apply for a regular commission. Two of the generals treated in following chapters fell into this category: Nelson A. Miles and Alfred H. Terry.

  Complicating the issue of rank was the system of brevets. In the absence of medals to recognize outstanding battlefield performance, brevets were awarded in the next higher rank than then occupied. A captain displaying “gallant and meritorious conduct” could be breveted major. Few generals during the war failed to win brevets in the Volunteers, and many did in the Regular Army. Customarily, as a courtesy, officers were addressed by their brevet rank and wore the uniforms, or at least the insignia, of their brevet rank for the first few years after the war. The system became so confusing that the War Department issued orders to abolish the practice, but officers continued to be addressed by their brevets even while ridding their uniforms of evidence of brevet rank.4

  Existing brevets, of course, endured throughout the postwar decades. For years, the system sparked controversy in the officer corps. As Colonel John Gibbon advised General Sherman in 1877, “So long as the present system of brevets is maintained the delusion will be kept up, not only in the minds of the officers themselves, but of the people at large, that our army is largely composed of generals and colonels; and I can see but one remedy for the evil, a total abolishment of all brevets in the Army, a return to a solid basis in military rank, by its complete annulment of all brevet commissions.”5

  The staff, separate from the line, experienced few changes under the 1866 act and subsequent acts. In fact, the department chiefs (all but two of whom were brigadier generals) were a power unto themselves, protecting and enhancing their turf, cultivating congressional committees, and recognizing no other authority than the secretary of war, to whom they reported directly without officially acknowledging the existence of a commanding general.

  The staff consisted of the Adjutant General’s Department, which processed and dispatched commands and kept the archives; the Inspector General’s Department, which kept tabs on the army leadership as well as arms, clothing, quarters, and all other matters essential to an army’s functioning; the Judge Advocate General’s Department, which reviewed the operation of military courts and advised the secretary on all legal matters; the Quartermaster General’s Department, which had charge of housing, supplies, and transportation both of personnel and materiel; the Subsistence Department, charged with feeding the army; the Medical Department, responsible for health and hygiene of the army; the Pay Department, whose paymasters circulated among the posts dispensing pay; the Corps of Engineers, which constructed works and mapped the country; the Ordnance Department, which armed the troops; and the Signal Corps, which experimented with flags, telegraphy, meteorology, and other means of communication.

  The staff chiefs also had subordinates assigned to the lower division and department commands. These officers reported to their respective line commanders, but their principal loyalty was to their staff chief in Washington. In the lower commands, therefore, the line general, contending with mixed loyalties, often lacked the power to control his own logistics—a crippling effect in field operations.

  Despite isolation from the staff departments and arrogation of the power to order troop and personnel assignments to the secretary of war, the commanding general still exercised large influence on subordinate commands. This was especially true during the tenure of William T. Sherman, who served from 1869 to 1883. Such was his wartime stature and friendship with subordinate generals that he exerted immense influence on their thinking and actions while constantly feuding with the secretary of war.

  Sherman explained his dilemma in a letter to Sheridan in 1872:

  As you say [General John] Pope ought not to fuss about Staff. He has a staff and I have none. He can give an order and enforce its execution, and I can not give an order. . . . I am sometimes consulted, but my inferiors in rank can take my advice or not as they please, whilst I possess no military status. I will endeavor to help department and division commanders in the maintenance of discipline; and in preserving the semblance of an army. Maybe after General Grant’s reelection he may feel disposed to give us some of his sympathy and help. But I know that leading politicians are jealous of military fame and will secretly aid to destroy General Grant, so as to prove that military men do not make good Presidents.6

  So disgusted with his status did Sherman become that in 1874, over the vigorous protests of Sheridan, he moved his headquarters to St. Louis and essentially abdicated command. With the impeachment and ouster of Secretary of War William W. Belknap in 1876, however, the new secretary, Alfonso Taft, persuaded Sherman to return to Washington and granted him authority over the adjutant general and the inspector general. Subsequent secretaries continued the system.7

  Two divisions and seven departments made up the organization of the army in the American West. The Military Division of the Missouri, commanded from his Chicago headquarters by Lieutenant General Philip H. Sheridan, encompassed the plains and mountains east of the continental divide.

  The division was organized into four departments: the Department of Dakota, headquartered in St. Paul (Minnesota, Dakota, and Montana); the Department of the Platte, headquartered in Omaha (Iowa, Nebraska, Utah, and part of Dakota and Montana); the Department of the Missouri, headquartered at Fort Leavenworth (Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico); and the Department of Texas, headquartered in San Antonio (Texas and the Indian Territory).

  The Division on the Pacific, headquartered in San Francisco, comprised all the territory west of the continental divide. While Sheridan enjoyed a long tenure, the Division of the Pacific had a succession of leaders, notably John M. Schofield and Irvin McDowell. The Division of the Pacific embraced the Department of California, also headquartered in San Francisco (California and Nevada); the Department of the Columbia, headquartered at Portland, Oregon (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska); and the Department of Arizona, headquartered at Prescott (Arizona).

  Pay and promotion preoccupied the officer corps. In each session of Congress, members sought and sometimes succeeded in reducing officer pay. Worse than low pay was no pay. At midnight on March 3, 1877, the congressional session expired before appropriations could be made for the army. Not until a special session opened on October 15 was a bill passed and pay restored.8

  Commented the Army and Navy Journal: “On the postponement of the extra session of Congress to the 15th of October the officers of the Army and Navy may say to the Administration, as the frogs did to the boy in the fable, ‘this may be fun for you, but it is death to us.’”9

  The promotion system rewarded some officers and penalized others. Strict seniority governed promotion from lieutenant through colonel. Junior officers assigned to their regiment advanced from lieutenant to captain only when senior officers transferred or died. This meant that in regiments with a high turnover a lieutenant might reach captain quickly, whereas in regiments with low turnover a lieutenant might serve in grade for years—as many as twenty—before donning a captain’s shoulder straps. In 1876 the Battle of the Little Bighorn removed so many officers fr
om the Seventh Cavalry’s rolls that promotion came quickly.

  Promotion from major through colonel occurred within the arm (infantry, cavalry, artillery); so when a major’s vacancy occurred in one of the cavalry regiments, the senior captain of cavalry moved up to major in the regiment where the vacancy existed. The system prevailed through the grade of colonel.

  Major General Irvin McDowell, commanding Division of the Pacific, 1876–1882.

  Brady Collection, U.S. Signal Corps (photo B-5799), National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

  All general officers were appointed by the president, often without regard to seniority. A vacancy in a general officer’s grade triggered a storm of influence-peddling as candidates, including colonels, mustered all the influence that they could find from friends in the army or in Congress or even from prominent civilians. The system, of course, led to rivalries, sometimes bitter, among colonels and generals.

  Despite the enmity between staff and line, line officers, confronted with the prospect of years in the same grade and life in an isolated frontier post, mustered all the influence that they could find to wangle a staff appointment. Staff officers lived a much more comfortable and stable life than line officers, for a staff assignment meant living in or near a city and avoiding repeated transfers.

  Officers who had led the Volunteer Army during the Civil War found themselves commanding a far different enlisted complement. The Regular Army could not recruit the motivated young men who had rushed to save the Union. Recruits came from every background, beginning with a lower order of intelligence. As Brigadier General Edward O. C. Ord observed in 1872, while the government had developed a greatly improved rifle, “I rather think we have a much less intelligent soldier to handle it.”10 Some were fugitives from justice, others from a shrewish wife, still others from poverty, and many were hopeless drunks (as were some of their officers). Most listed their occupation as “unskilled laborer.” The “foreign paupers” decried by a New York newspaper were a burden to the army but included some (mainly Irish and German) who rose to be first-rate noncommissioned officers. Not to be discounted, in addition, were the young men who sought adventure and proved to be good soldiers.