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NUMBER OF TROOPS EMPLOYED IN THE FLORIDA WAR.

The number of troops at the commencement of active operations each year, from 1836 to 1841, was as follows:

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The number of volunteers and militia called into the service from 1835 to 1842 was as follows: '

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More than 24,500 officers and men were called out during the year 1836.

If to 48,152 be added 12,539, the largest figures for the Regular Army at any time during the war, the total number of troops in the service at different times from 1835 tc 1842 amounts to 60,691.

LOSSES OF THE WAR.

The bad policy of depending upon war levies engaged for brief terms of service, greatly protracted the long struggle with the Seminoles. The prolongation of war, inhuman at best, became, in the deadly climate of Florida, an act of absolute cruelty.

In the Regular Army alone, there being no statistics available for the volunteers and militia, the number of men killed or died of wounds was:

Officers.
Enlisted men

Total.....

74

1,392

d 1, 466

The loss by death alone, in a portion of our Army, whose maximum strength during this seven years' contest was 4,191, fell but 411 short.

a Figures furnished by Adjutant-General's Office.

The troops for the Cherokee War did not engage in active hostilities. They were called out to enforce the emigration of the Cherokees west of the Mississippi. This was peacefully accomplished by General Scott, during the interval between the affair of the Caroline and the dispute as to the Maine boundary.

The Commissioner of Pensions gives the number of soldiers in the service from 1836 to 1843 as follows:

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of the total number of killed in the War of 1812, in which we had more than half a million of men.

The following figures show the casualties by death in several of the regular regiments: "

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These figures, without parallel in our history, may be accepted as a test of the sacrifices which an American army will cheerfully undergo, when disciplined and commanded by officers of military experience and training.

COST OF THE WAR.

Leaving out of consideration the loss of life along the frontiers, as well as to the pecuniary damage incident to the destruction or forced abandonment of property, and without computing the losses due to the calling away from their active industries, the thousands of citizens who were summoned to the field, at the beginning of the Indian hostilities in 1835 and 1836, the subjoined tables demonstrate with how little success the Government economized, from the close of the War of 1812 to the end of the Florida campaign.

The first table gives the expenditures of the United States for the War and Navy Departments from 1817, when the Army reduction of 1815 took effect, to the reduction of the Army in 1821; the second gives the same expenditures from the reduction of the Army in 1821, to the year 1835; the third, the expenditures for all Indian disturbances in Florida and elsewhere, during the seven years' war with the Seminoles."

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Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury for 1877, p. 14.

The expenditures for the year 1816 were: War, $16,012,096.80; Navy, $3,908,278.30.

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We see from the second table that by maintaining a nonexpansive Army of less than 4,000 combatants, for fourteen years the expenditures from 1821 to 1836 were $63,000,000.

The third table shows that as a consequence of this economy, expenditures for the next seven years were $69,000,000.

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To fully appreciate the cost of unwise legislation it must be remembered-

First. That as the President could not add an enlisted man to the Army, he was forced to call upon the governors for militia, and that the number who rushed to arms in 1835 approached 25,000.

Second. That Congress in 1836, contrary to the reiterated recommendations of the Secretary of War and the military commanders, expressed its preference for raw levies, not only by refusing to increase the enlisted men in the skeleton companies of the Regular Army, but more markedly still, by authorizing the President to accept the services of 10,000 volunteers, enlisted not for the war but for the period of six or twelve months.

Third. That it was not till 1838, or until after the militia enthusiasm had subsided and the law authorizing the employment of volunteers had expired, that Congress could be induced to increase the Army to 12,539 men.

With these peculiarities of legislation before us, if we recur to the table, it will appear that the expenditures for the first three years of the war were $38,327,300.21, while for the last four years they were $31,424,311.29, which was equivalent to a saving of nearly $5,000,000

a year.

The following statement called for by Congress, March 22, 1838, and submitted to it May 8, nearly two months before the increase of the Army, exhibits the comparative cost of a company of regulars, of volunteers, and of militia:

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In this table are included expenses for traveling to and from rendezvous, hire of horses, indemnity for same, as also clothing, etc. The amount of money disbursed through the Pay Department to

troops in Florida from the commencement of hostilities to the 1st of October, 1840, was as follows:

Regular Army:

Officers, embracing their pay, rations, forage, and clothing for servants

Men, embracing pay and clothing.

Total.....

Militia:

Officers.
Men

Total......

$692, 076.20 1, 135, 459. 09

1,827, 535. 29

743, 360. 88 2, 332, 663. 41

a3, 076, 024. 29

In comparing the amount actually paid to the two classes of troops, and which combined was less than one-twelfth of the total war expenditures, it should be observed that the regular troops, who were continuously in service for the whole five years, received one-third less than the raw troops, whose average service did not exceed three months.

REDUCTION OF THE ARMY.

On the 23d day of August, 1842, nine days after the official announcement of the cessation of hostilities, an act of Congress reduced the Army from 12.539 officers and men to 8,613.

This result in the line, was wisely effected without disbanding any regiments, by simply converting the second regiment of dragoons into a regiment of riflemen and by reducing the rank and file of each company in the different arms of service as follows: dragoons, from 71 to 61; artillery, from 71 to 54; infantry, from 90 to 52.

The reduction in each company was in private soldiers alone, except in the artillery, where the artificers were reduced from 3 to 2.

The third section of the law abolished the office of CommissaryGeneral of Purchases; his duties were devolved on the Quartermaster's Department.

The fourth section reduced the Inspectors-General from 2 to 1, the paymasters from 18 to 15, surgeons from 22 to 20, and assistantsurgeons from 60 to 50.

No other changes were made in the line or staff, as organized by the law of 1838.

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The second regiment of dragoons was not to be dismounted and converted into riflemen, till after the 4th of March, 1843.

The wisdom of not disbanding this regiment soon became apparent, and the law of April 4, 1844, remounted it with its former designation. The population of the United States at the date of the above army reduction exceeded 17,000,000.

LESSONS OF THE WAR.

The lessons taught by this war are:

First. That its expense was tripled, if not quadrupled, by that feature of the law of 1821 which gave the President, in times of emergency, no discretion to increase the enlisted men of the Army.

Second. That, as in every previous war, after successfully employing for short periods of service militia and volunteers, and exhausting their enthusiasm, Congress found it more humane and economical to continue hostilities with regular troops, enlisted for the period of five years.

Third. That for want of a well-defined peace organization, a nation of 17,000,000 of people contended for seven years with 1,200 warriors and finally closed the struggle without accomplishing the forcible emigration of the Indians, which was the original and sole cause of the war.

Without dwelling on the needless sacrifice of life, these hard lessons would have been cheaply learned, could Congress, at the end of the conflict, have appreciated the value of expansive organization. By withholding from the President authority to add a few enlisted men to the Army, it committed the same great error as in 1821. We shall see that this error more than doubled the cost and length of another war, which despite the mistakes of military legislation, was soon to add to the luster of our arms.

a The 28 officers detailed on the staff being included in their regiments, do not appear in the aggregate, 8,613.

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