may require it. This would secure all the advantages of the present peace establishment and enable the Executive on any "sudden emergency to place the Army on a respectable footing of defense.' Like the General in Chief, he recommended a permanent increase of the staff corps, arguing that: As the Army is now constituted, officers are drawn off for staff duties, to the great injury of the service of the line, and these duties are by no means so well performed as they would be by officers properly instructed and entirely devoted to them. The present organization does not give to regiments or companies any supernumerary officers. There are no more officers than the performance of the various duties of their military command actually requires, and to reduce the number must weaken the Army, render it irregular and inefficient in its operations, and greatly impair its discipline.b In concluding his arguments in favor of the increase of the rank and file and staff of the Army, Mr. Poinsett thought it necessary, like Washington, to advert to the jealousy of a standing army: When in 1821 the Army was reduced to 6,127 men, the extent of our frontier did not exceed 6,373 miles. * * * Since that period its extent has been increased by the acquisition of Florida, and other causes, to 8,500 miles; most of our principal harbors and bays have been fortified by extensive works, and the Indians concentrated upon the western line so as to present a front of not less than 45,000 warriors. The protection due by the Government, to the inhabitants of this extensive and exposed portion of our country, would require a much larger force than is here proposed, if their safety were made to depend entirely upon the Regular Army; and I would respectfully recommend the construction of a chain of permanent fortresses along that line, and a competent organization of the frontier States, as important and necessary auxiliaries for this purpose. If any danger is to be apprehended from an army of 15,000 men, scattered along a frontier of more than 8,000 miles and commanded by officers educated to reverence the laws and cherish the freedom of their country, it is effectually to be guarded against by a proper organization of the militia. Their aggregate force now is little short of a million and a half of men, and whatever may be their efficiency against a foreign enemy, they may always be relied upon when the liberties of the country are assailed, c Had Mr. Poinsett remembered the ineffectual efforts of Congress on the 21st of June, 1783, to disperse the handful of armed recruits who surrounded it and demanded a redress of grievances, he probably would not have expressed the opinion, that in any emergency, an undisciplined militia would be found more reliable for the defense of our liberties, than disciplined troops. When this mutiny occurred, Congress requested the executive council of Pennsylvania, then sitting under the same roof, to call out the militia. The president of the council at once expressed his doubts as to the propriety of such a course. In the evening, therefore, Congress again met and resolved: That the executive council should be informed that, in their opinion, effectual measures ought to be immediately taken for suppressing the mutiny and supporting the public authority; that a committee should confer with the Executive, and, in case no satisfactory grounds should appear of adequate and prompt exertions for those purposes, the President should, with the advice of the committee, be authorized to summon the members to meet at Trenton or Princeton, in New Jersey; that an express be sent to General Washington for a detachment of regular troops. The conference with the Executive produced nothing but doubts concerning the disposition of the militia to act, unless some actual outrages were offered to persons or property. They even doubted whether a repetition of the insult to Congress would be a sufficient provocation. Neither the exhortations of the friends of President a American State Papers, vol. 7, pp. 572, 573. c American State Papers, vol. 7, p. 574. Dickinson, nor the reproaches of his enemies could obtain an experiment on the temper of the militia. Self-evident as were the reasons advanced by the Secretary of War, the General in Chief, and the officers responsible for military administration, it was not until the 5th of July, 1838, more than two years and a half after the commencement of the war, that they produced the desired effect. The first section of the law of that date increased the regiments of infantry from 7 to 8, and added a company to each regiment of artillery. The same section raised the enlisted strength of each company of artillery to 77, the infantry to 90, and reduced the second lieutenants of artillery in each company from 2 to 1. The second section added to the Corps of Engineers 1 lieutenantcolonel, 2 majors, 6 captains, 6 first lieutenants, and 6 second lieu tenants. The fourth section made the corps of topographical engineers consist of 1 colonel, 1 lieutenant-colonel, 4 majors, 10 captains, 10 first lieutenants, and 10 second lieutenants. The seventh section authorized the President to appoint not exceeding 2 Assistant Adjutants-General, with the brevet rank and pay of major, and 4 with the brevet rank and pay of captain of cavalry, who were to be transferred from the line, without vacating their commissions or losing promotion therein, and who, in addition to the duties of their new offices, were, when necessary, to perform the duty of Assistant Inspector-General. The ninth section authorized the President to add to the Quartermaster's Department not to exceed 2 Assistant Quartermasters-General with the rank of colonel, 2 Deputy Quartermasters-General with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and 8 assistant quartermasters with the rank of captain. The last part of this section contained the proviso: That all appointments in the Quartermaster's Department shall be made from the Army, and when officers taken for such appointments hold rank in the line, they shall thereupon relinquish said rank and be separated from the line of the Army, and that promotion in said department shall take place as in regiments and corps. The eleventh section added to the Commissary Department 1 Assistant Commissary-General of Subsistence, with the rank and pay of a lieutenant-colonel of cavalry; 1 commissary of subsistence, with the rank and pay of quartermaster of the Army, and 3 commissaries of subsistence, with rank and pay of assistant quartermaster of the Army. The thirteenth section authorized the President to add to the Òrdnance Department, 2 majors and empowered him to transfer from the artillery to the ordnance, 10 first lieutenants and 10 second lieutenants. The fifteenth section gave every officer of the line and staff of the Army, exclusive of general officers, an extra ration per day, for every five years' service. The sixteenth section fixed the monthly pay of the rank and file as follows: sergeant-majors or ordnance sergeants, $17; first sergeants, $16; other sergeants, $13; artificers, $11; corporals, $9; privates, $8. From each of the above grades $2 per month was retained, till the expiration of the soldier's term of service. The twenty-second section authorized two of the regiments of a The Madison Papers, vol. 1, pp. 551-553, letter to Edmund Randolph. infantry to be armed and equipped as riflemen, and one regiment as light infantry. The twenty-fifth section alone, recognized the principle of expansion, by authorizing the President, whenever volunteers or militia were called into the service, to appoint, if necessary, one additional paymaster for each two regiments, provided that paymasters so appointed should continue in service, only so long as they were required to pay volunteers and militia. The twenty-eighth section required cadets on entering the United States Military Academy, to engage to serve the Government eight years, unless sooner discharged. The twenty-ninth section gave three months' extra pay to reenlisted soldiers, and accorded a bounty of 160 acres of land to every soldier, discharged after ten years' faithful service. The thirty-first section prohibited the detail of officers of the line, on works of internal improvements, in the service of incorporated companies, or as disbursing agents for the Indian Department, whenever such detail would separate them from their regiment or companies. The thirty-third and last section authorized the appointment of 7 additional surgeons. This law, evidently passed in considerable haste, was modified in several important particulars by the act of July 7. The third section of this act repealed so much of the ninth section of the preceding law, as prescribed that assistant quartermasters should be separated from the line. The fourth limited the lieutenants of artillery to be transferred to the ordnance, to 12. The fifth section reduced the pay of a private from $8 to $7 per month, of which $1 was to be retained. The seventh section prescribed that the 3 commissaries of subsistence should not be separated from the line. The eighth section repealed the bounty of 160 acres to be granted, for ten years' faithful service. The following tables show the organization of the Army, before and after the passage of the acts of 1838, viz: It will be observed that the ills springing from detached service were but partially cured. In failing to provide supernumeraries in the Quartermaster's and Commissary's Departments, two most important branches of the staff, as in the past, could only be made efficient at the expense of the line. To the prejudice of true economy, the other great defect of the law of 1821, the nonexpansion of the rank and file, was also only remedied in part. Instead of authorizing the President to expand the Army to a given limit, with like power to reduce it by a mere Executive order, the moment the public interest would permit, Congress prescribed a war maximum which might continue months after the emergency had ceased and could only be lessened by the slow and uncertain process of legislation. COMPLICATIONS WITH GREAT BRITAIN. During the years 1838 and 1839, serious complications arose along the Niagara frontier, portending a third war with Great Britain. The first difficulty occurred on the 29th of December, 1837, when an expedition from Canada crossed over to the American side and killed several persons, setting the steamer Caroline on fire and sending her adrift over the falls. The object of the expedition was to cut off communication with a small body of Americans, who had invaded British territory and were holding forcible possession of Navy Island. Partly to resist further aggression, but more especially to enforce the neutrality of more than 200,000 of our citizens, who had banded together under the name of "Canadian Patriots," with the object of invading and annexing Canada, General Scott was despatched to the frontier, with full authority to call on the governors of all the border States, including Virginia and Kentucky, for such a force of militia as he might deem expedient. In addressing the excited crowds along the border, General Scott, making a virtue of necessity, was compelled to inform the people: I stand before you without troops, and without arms save the sword at my side. ¿ At this critical moment 9 of the 13 regiments of the Army, including @Scott's Autobiography, vol. 1, p. 305. |