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4. The Revolutionary War to the Mexican War
- Georgetown University Press
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4 The Revolutionary War to the Mexican War War is not, as some seem to suppose, a mere game of chance. Its principles constitute one of the most intricate of modern sciences. The general who rightly understands the art of applying its rules . . . may be morally certain of success. Henry W. Halleck, Elements of Military Art and Science, 1846 Henry WaGer Halleck, a US Army engineer officer by commission and a lawyer by trade, was prone to seeing the conduct of war as governed by discernible rules. The word intricate, under his pen in 1846, meant interwoven and inviolable. That description might well have held true for the engineering and logistical aspects of war but certainly not for the rest. Even then warfare was not the rigid, predictive science Halleck wished it to be. Moreover, at no point in the nineteenth century did Americans fight as if it were. Halleck translated Jomini’s Art of War, embellished it with specifics relevant to the American experience, published it as Elements of Military Art and Science, and in the process earned for himself a reputation as the army’s foremost military scientist.1 However, “Old Brains,” as he was called, failed to honor his own critical distinction between science, which “investigates general principles and institutes an analysis of military operations,” and art, which is the application of “practical rules for conducting campaigns, sieges, battles, etc.”2 Halleck inverted the two and treated the art itself as a prescribed science. Analysis, so essential to genuine science, was not encouraged when he later commanded the Army of the Ohio in 1862 during the Civil War. For Halleck, once the art was established, the purpose of science was to reaffirm it through historical examples, not to reassess it in light of new evidence or changed circumstances. Fortunately for American strategic and operational practice in the nineteenth century, reassessments did occur. Many American officers—both before and after 1846—analyzed their situations well enough to make adjustments that helped achieve favorable outcomes in campaigns, sieges, or 64 American Military Practice battles. To be sure, they did not do so as often or as thoroughly as they might have. Nonetheless, as the following chapters show, American military strategy , as put into practice, went beyond Halleck’s Jominian definition of “directing masses on decisive points.” It was more akin to what Moltke famously referred to as a system of expedients, the success of which depended upon practical logic rather than pure reason. From the Revolutionary War to the Spanish–American War, American military strategy was, in truth, an ad hoc combination of the Jominian ideal of controlling strategic points, the Clausewitzian use of combats, and the proverbial carrot-and-stick approach long familiar to diplomats. American land operations in the nineteenth century were frequently expeditionary in nature. That was true largely because many of them took place over distances routinely two or three times greater on average than those with which European armies had to reckon. Logistical planning thus became all the more important to American operational practice. Unfortunately, appreciation of that bit of operational science would occur only in fits and starts, until the beginning of the twentieth century when American operational practice truly became established. The Revolutionary War For most of the War of Independence, American military leaders practiced a strategy of exhaustion, though they did not refer to it as such. Still, Nathanael Greene came close, stating, “General Washington, as every defender ought, has . . . [been] endeavoring to skirmish with the enemy at all times and avoid a general engagement.”3 Greene himself would follow the same strategy in South Carolina later in the war, writing in 1780, “Everything here depends upon opinion. If you lose the confidence of the people, you lose all support.”4 After their successes in 1775, the Americans in theory ought to have enjoyed all the advantages Clausewitz said were inherent in the nature of the defense: (a) the defender’s ability to win by merely surviving, (b) physical advantages in terms of shorter lines of supply and familiarity with the terrain, (c) psychological advantages derived from having been wronged by an act of aggression, which might thus result in outside support, and (d) time.5 However, in practice, only the first advantage—needing merely to survive —was truly on the side of the Americans. Independence, finally declared in 1776, was clearly not a limited aim. Yet it was possible to achieve it without conquering Britain, destroying its army or navy...