Peacekeepers and Conquerors: The Army Officer Corps on the American Frontier, 1821-1846
654
Peacekeepers and Conquerors: The Army Officer Corps on the American Frontier, 1821-1846
654Hardcover
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Overview
Watson now focuses on the quarter-century between the Army's reduction in force in 1821 and the Mexican War. He examines a broad swath of military activity beginning with campaigns against southeastern Indians, notably the dispossession of the Creeks remaining in Georgia and Alabama from 1825 to 1834; the expropriation of the Cherokee between 1836 and 1838; and the Second Seminole War. He also explores peacekeeping on the Canadian border, which exploded in rebellion against British rule at the end of 1837, prompting British officials to applaud the U.S. Army for calming tensions and demonstrating its government's support for the international state system. He then follows the gradual extension of U.S. sovereignty in the Southwest through military operations west of the Missouri River and along the Louisiana-Texas border from 1821 to 1838 and through dragoon expeditions onto the central and southern Plains between 1834 and 1845.
Throughout his account, Watson shows how military professionalism did not develop independent of civilian society, nor was it simply a matter of growing expertise in the art of conventional warfare. Indeed, the government trusted career army officers to serve as federal, international, and interethnic mediators, national law enforcers, and de facto intercultural and international peacekeepers. He also explores officers' attitudes toward Britain, Oregon, Texas, and Mexico to assess their values and priorities on the eve of the first conventional war the United States had fought in more than three decades.
Watson's detailed study delves deeply into sources that reveal what officers actually thought, wrote, and did in the frontier and border regions. By examining the range of operations over the course of this quarter-century, he shows that the processes of peacekeeping, coercive diplomacy, and conquest were intricately and inextricably woven together.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780700619153 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University Press of Kansas |
| Publication date: | 04/23/2013 |
| Series: | Modern War Studies |
| Pages: | 654 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.70(d) |
Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments1. National Military Expansion on the Western Frontier: Contexts, Comparisons, and Outcomes
2. Subordination and Discretion: The Dilemmas of Expansion, Peacekeeping, and Civil-Military Relations on the Northwestern Frontier
3. Federal Authority under Attack: The Army, Southern States, and Citizens during the Adams Administration
4. The Army and Jacksonians Tangle on the Southern Frontier: Indian Removal and Civil-Military Relations, 1831-1834
5. The Army and Cherokee Removal: Coercive Diplomacy, Peacekeeping, and Preventing Mass Atrocity amid Civil-Military Tension, 1836-1838
6. “This Thankless . . . Unholy War”: The Crisis of Military Reactions to Removal in the Second Seminole War
7. “The Duty of a Soldier to Obey”: Disenchantment, Dissent, and the Crucible of Professional Accountability in the Second Seminole War
8. Changing Attitudes toward Foreign Relations: The Dilemmas of Discipline and International Order along the Canadian Border, 1815-1838
9. Maintaining National Sovereignty and Keeping International Peace: Operations to Suppress American Filibusters against Canada, 1838-1841
10. The Dilemmas of Sovereignty and Expansion: Peacekeeping and Law Enforcement along the Texas Border, 1821-1838
11. Cautious Interventions and Power Projection: Southern Plains Diplomacy, Dragoon Expeditions, and the Initial Move into Texas
12. Manifest Destiny Meets Military Professionalism: The Army Faces Britain and Mexico, 1844-1846
Conclusion. Army, State, and Profession in Nineteenth-Century American History
Appendices
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index