The American Military Frontiers: The United States Army in the West, 1783-1900

10: The Regulars Return

188 As Washington demobilized the armies that had preserved the Union and helped to end slavery, regulars replaced volunteers and resumed their vital role in western nation building. With them came a renewed infusion of federal dollars in military and ancillary projects, as well as the expansion in infrastructure, the emergence of long-term business opportunities, and the return of “normalcy” that so many Americans desired after their bloody civil war. Confident that his soldiers would restore order, Major general William t. Sherman assured his friend and superior Lieutenant general Ulysses S. grant, that “as soon as the indians see that we have Regular Cavalry among them they will realize that we are in condition to punish them for any murders or robberies.”1 Cognizant of the army’s varied services, in 1866 Congress increased the number of cavalry regiments from six to ten and infantry regiments from nineteen to forty-five. A fifth artillery regiment, created at the outbreak of the Civil War, was also retained. in the process, officers who wanted to remain in military service reluctantly exchanged their elevated Civil War volunteer status (many had accepted appointments in volunteer units) for lower regular army ranks. the War Department staff now included ten bureaus: Adjutant general, inspector general, Medical, ordnance, Pay, quartermaster, and Subsistence departments; the bureau of Military Justice; the Corps of engineers; and the Chief +t e n∂ The regulars return the regulars return 189 Signal officer. Although the system made organizational sense, line officers charged that their cousins on the bureau staffs unfairly dominated plum jobs on the east Coast. As Zachary taylor had lamented a quarter century earlier, “Most of them have been stationed there [in Washington, D.C.] so long that they have lost sight of, & know almost nothing of the wants of troops in the field or on the frontiers.” in all, the new army could muster 54,302 officers and men, three times more than that of 1860.2 the majority of enlisted personnel continued to be immigrants or sons of immigrants (most had irish or german roots), were recruited in northern cities, and came from marginal economic backgrounds. “the large majority are driven to enlistment by absolute want,” explained one veteran officer. Although it appears there was little in the way of ethnic tensions within the ranks, class-conscious officers and public elites held the men in little esteem. economically, enlisted personnel did less well than their antebellum predecessors, as a private’s base pay ($192 per year before 1871 and $156 per year after that, the latter representing just over $2,600 in 2006 values) was only a fraction of that of a civilian laborer. the disparity was especially pronounced in the borderlands, where prices and wages tended to be higher. Small supplements allotted to soldiers working on extra duty assignments (typically fifty to seventyfive cents per diem) were useful but had the unintended consequence of reinforcing the chasm between civilian and military labor. the results were predictable: in 1874 and 1875, the army calculated that whereas 7,126 soldiers deserted, only 2,685 reenlisted.3 the racial composition of the regulars in blue, however, underwent significant change. in recognition of the contributions of 180,000 black soldiers during the Civil War, Congress reserved two cavalry and four (reduced to two in 1869) infantry regiments for African American enlisted personnel, almost all of whom were stationed in the West. Although historians William A. Dobak and thomas D. Phillips have shown the army to be “one of the most impartial institutions of the day,” the black men who joined in the ninth and tenth cavalries and twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth infantry regiments faced considerable segregation and personal discrimination. “We are not treated as . . . Soldiers but as a lot of dogs,” protested one twenty-fifth infantry correspondent . Another regular stationed at fort Shaw, Montana, complained 190 chapter ten that officers “treat enlisted men worse than slaves because they are colored .” And general Sherman’s confession that the black infantry regiments had been sent to southern texas and new Mexico “on the theory that that race can better stand that extreme southern climate than our white troops” helped to fuel suspicions that the army deliberately stationed them at unfavorable posts.4 African Americans nonetheless saw much to gain from their military service. With sharply restricted opportunities in the civilian sector, the army, with its equal pay and guaranteed food, housing...