The Commanders
Page 24
A department commander’s measure of success lay in four major factors. First, smooth relations with his division commander ensured a healthy working atmosphere. Antagonism on the part of either superior or subordinate disturbed military order in the department. Second, a department commander’s administrative ability governed how smoothly the large and small complexities of a sprawling department functioned. Administrative competence, as revealed to superiors and to all subordinate personnel, was an imperative quality in anyone who commanded people and managed systems. Third, interaction with department staff officers influenced subsistence, personnel, paper flow, transportation, medicine and hygiene, ordnance, and other functions critical to a military organization. Often staff officers had loyalties divided between their staff chiefs in Washington and division headquarters and their immediate commanding general. Dealing with such conflicts when they occurred affected the working relationships and morale of the department headquarters. Especially revealing was the quality of logistics, the feature most vital to a functioning military organization. Finally, for the twenty-five years after the Civil War all the departments contended with Indian warfare. How well a department commander performed in fighting Indians, either in the field or from a desk in headquarters, defined his standing in the military hierarchy.
Only one of the seven generals—George Crook—grasped the essence of Indian warfare and devised unconventional techniques to cope with it. As a field general rather than a desk general, Crook pioneered reliance on pack mules rather than wagon trains for logistical purposes. This enhanced his mobility and allowed him to operate in terrain unsuited for wagons. Another Crook hallmark was extensive use of Indian scouts, preferably from the tribe against which he was operating. Not only did the scouts know the country and the adversary, but their employment devastated the morale of their kin. Crook’s tactical approach was to operate with small commands and, once on the trail, follow it despite obstacles until he overtook the quarry. Crook’s methods proved effective against Apaches in the Southwest in 1872–73 and 1882–86. On the northern plains in 1876–78, however, he largely failed. Indian scouts gave way to Crow and Shoshone auxiliaries, pack mules replaced wagons for only part of his operations, his command was far too large, the expanses of the terrain were too great, the weather was brutal, and his decisions reflected poor judgment.
Crook’s relations with his division commander, General Philip Sheridan, were ostensibly amicable. Smoldering beneath the surface, however, was Crook’s bitter resentment of a perceived Civil War wrong inflicted by Sheridan. It manifested itself in the 1876 Sioux campaign, when Sheridan berated Crook’s performance, and again in the Apache campaigns of 1883–86, when Sheridan’s dissatisfaction led to Crook’s relief from command. Crook’s headquarters seems to have functioned smoothly largely because his staff adored him. As an Indian fighter, he reveled in the public reputation as the army’s best. He was not.
Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie, Fourth Cavalry.
Brady Collection, U.S. Signal Corps (photo SC-87407), National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
The best Indian fighter was Nelson A. Miles, although he achieved this record as a colonel rather than as a brigadier. His role in the Red River War of 1874–75, in the operations against the Sioux after the Custer disaster of 1876, and in the Nez Perce War of 1877 all record a chain of successes without parallel in the Indian fighting army. Although Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie is regarded by many authorities as the best, his victories fail to match Miles’s. As a brigadier commanding the Department of Arizona in 1886, Miles brought the Apache wars to a close, although he did this by covertly resorting to Crook’s method while heaping public credit on the Regulars. Miles conducted this campaign mainly by traveling by rail around his department and leaving field operations to subordinates. The Apache campaign was Miles’s only Indian action as a department commander rather than as a regimental colonel.
Miles’s first command as a brigadier had been the Department of the Columbia, where he served from 1881 to 1885. No Indian troubles disturbed the department during his tenure. It fared well in routine duties and received little scrutiny from the chief. His only notable achievement was in dispatching exploring expeditions to Alaska. Miles preferred a less remote station, however, where he could better seek preferment. The Department of the Platte in 1885–86 afforded a more visible headquarters, from which he shortly departed for his Arizona assignment and the campaign against the Apaches.
In 1888, still a brigadier, Miles took command of the Division of the Pacific and began his ascent to the top rank in the U.S. Army. The only basis for judging Miles as a department commander, other than Indian combat, lies in his four years in the Department of the Columbia and two years after the Apaches surrendered in 1886. No viable evidence bears on his headquarters composition at Fort Vancouver. General Sherman retired in 1883, which deprived Miles of his conduit to influence. He grew restless enough largely to ignore routine department duties. He spent most of his time traveling, revisiting old controversies, and lobbying for his own preferment. As an Indian fighter, therefore, Miles ranks at the top; as a department commander he sinks below mediocrity.
General Oliver O. Howard had long experience as a department commander, four years in the Department of the Columbia and four in the Department of the Platte. In the Nez Perce War of 1877 he functioned as an Indian-fighting combat commander. His reputation rests almost entirely on that experience. He handled it so badly in the early phases that he came close to being relieved. Afterward he fought a victorious battle at the Clearwater but failed to follow up, leaving the Nez Perces to trudge across the Bitterroot Mountains in search of refuge in Montana or Canada. Howard’s pursuit so exhausted him and his command that he had resolved to turn back when General Sherman humiliated him into continuing. To compound the humiliation, Colonel Nelson A. Miles won the final victory. Considering the obstacles, Howard probably did as well as other generals might have, but his mistakes detract from his record. Using the Nez Perce War as the only basis for judging him as an Indian fighter, the verdict would be barely satisfactory. However, his operations in 1878 against the Bannocks, Paiutes, Shoshones, Umatillas, and Sheepeaters were so successful that they should have redeemed his reputation. They didn’t.
General Howard’s departmental headquarters seems notable for one thing: his extreme Christian faith. In Portland he spent much of his time in biblical pursuits, such as faithfully attending church, teaching a Bible class, and lecturing in various venues. His staff seems to have functioned adequately and probably, as in all other of Howard’s stations, bridled at overt piety in headquarters. He traveled extensively in his department, including Alaska. As for his relations with his division commander, Major General Irvin McDowell joined General Sherman in scolding Howard for wanting to call off the pursuit of the Nez Perces and had not objected to the president’s proposal to relieve Howard at the beginning of the campaign. That hardly promoted harmonious relations. Transfer to the Department of the Platte in 1882 brought Howard under the command of General Sheridan; but the department was quiet, and he and Sheridan seem not to have experienced any friction.
Both as a field general and as a headquarters general, Oliver O. Howard may be judged a moderate success.
Alfred H. Terry presents a strange case. He was a desk general who administered his department quietly and competently. His staff worked smoothly because he was such a kind and considerate superior. He got along with General Sheridan simply by carrying out Sheridan’s orders. Yet on one occasion he became a field general not by choice but by Sheridan’s orders. Because of Custer’s political indiscretions, Terry had to lead the command that he had intended for his subordinate. Thus he headed the Dakota column in the Sioux War of 1876. In that capacity he invites scrutiny as an Indian fighter.
Terry did not intend to become an Indian fighter. He was content to oversee any such operations in his department from his St. Paul headquarters. In the Sioux expedition, h
owever, his command suffered the loss of five troops of the Seventh Cavalry. Whether he shares blame for that is still highly controversial. More obvious is his joint operation with General Crook, which, as Sheridan noted, was an abject failure for both Crook and Terry. No other field service fell to Terry, who retained the respect and affection of the army’s top ranks.
As a department commander, Terry rates low marks as an Indian fighter and high marks as a headquarters general.
The remaining three department commanders—Augur, Pope, and Ord—were headquarters generals who oversaw Indian operations conducted by subordinates.
Christopher C. Augur held command of the Department of the Platte from 1867 to 1871 but devoted two years of that time to the Indian Peace Commission. That experience gave him opinions on Indian affairs, which General Sherman characterized as “forbearance and moderation.” Even so, Augur organized and oversaw from headquarters Major Eugene A. Carr’s successful Republican River Expedition of 1869 against the Sioux and Cheyennes. In the Department of Texas from 1871 to 1875 Augur dealt with more compelling Indian hostilities. He contended with raids against Texas ranchers by tribesmen living in Mexico. Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie’s thrust across the border in 1873, however, was carried out under General Sheridan’s personal direction. More directly, Augur organized two of the five converging columns that conquered the Cheyennes and Comanches in the Red River War of 1874–75. Even though he was a desk general, his Indian record deserves high marks.
Augur’s headquarters appears to have been tranquil both in Omaha and San Antonio. He administered it efficiently, maintained excellent relations with General Sheridan, and endeared himself to the army top command by gaining the affection of Texans who had only recently fought for the South. This in turn translated into Texan political support for the army in Congress.
C. C. Augur’s quiet, modest demeanor deprived him of public visibility, but even so he ranks as one of the best department commanders.
Despite his failed Civil War career, John Pope did well as a department commander in the Indian country. First on the northern plains and then on the central plains, he redeemed his Civil War reputation as a competent, if sometimes difficult, leader. Like others, he was a desk general. He organized and oversaw operations in his jurisdiction and closely monitored the conduct of his subordinate commanders. His Sioux campaigns of 1863 and 1864 achieved success, in large part because of competent field commanders. The campaign of 1865 failed because of conditions beyond his control. His two field columns in the Red River War of 1874–75 also performed well and won two important victories. As a headquarters Indian fighter, John Pope prevailed. At the same time, his efforts on behalf of the Indians earned him the sobriquet of “humanitarian general.”
Commanding the Department of the Northwest in the waning days of the Civil War, Pope performed well as an administrator and avoided friction with superiors, largely because the Civil War focused attention elsewhere. As the longtime commander of the Department of the Missouri, however, he made such a nuisance of himself by prodding General Sheridan to adopt unwanted measures that he suffered a rocky relationship with his division commander. His proposals made sense, which only exacerbated the friction. During the Red River War, logistics presented a severe problem and strained staff relations as well as relations with both Sheridan and his field commander Nelson Miles. Both Pope and Miles, of course, were prolific wordsmiths, whose verbal outpourings contributed to logistical as well as strategic difficulties.
Edward O. C. Ord commanded the Departments of California, the Platte, and Texas. California and the Platte offered little challenge, either in the field or in headquarters. Texas, however, was apparently another matter. To his credit, Ord continued the effort of his predecessor, General Augur, to befriend Texans and help mobilize the support of the state’s congressional delegation to save the army from drastic cuts. He succeeded admirably.
Citizen friendship for Ord derived in large part from his aggressive offensives against tribal raids across the Mexican border into Texas. His border commanders were Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie and Lieutenant Colonel William R. Shafter. Both violated the border with expeditions taunting Mexico as much as seeking Indian raiders. The invasions did succeed in alleviating the cross-border raids, although at the price of damaged relations with Mexico. The Hayes administration fostered such incursions, which Ord loyally supported. In the process, however, Ord repeatedly addressed letters to his prewar comrade and friend General Sherman. Bypassing the chain of command angered General Sheridan, whose enmity deepened as he discovered faulty departmental administration, what he and Sherman labeled “eccentricity,” and Ord’s tendency to follow his own instincts, however unwise. Both Sheridan and Sherman felt so strongly about Ord’s unfitness for the Texas command that they wished to move him quietly aside. That was not possible, and the problem only vanished when the president forcibly retired Ord.
Although General Ord’s tenure in the Departments of California and the Platte passed quietly, his record in Texas is a more accurate basis for judging him. His performance there does not stamp him as a satisfactory department commander.
Evaluating the seven generals treated in this book calls for ranking them on their merits as department commanders. This requires judging them only in that capacity and disregarding their combat records in lower ranks, both prewar and postwar. It also requires judging them on the other elements of command—smooth relations with the division commander, administrative ability, and a harmonious staff. Fighting Indians was not their only mission. Based on those criteria, I offer the following ranking:
1. Christopher C. Augur
2. George Crook
3. John Pope
4. Alfred H. Terry
5. Oliver O. Howard
6. Nelson A. Miles
7. Edward O. C. Ord
Basing the ranking exclusively on their combat record as department commanders, whether in the field or at headquarters, the order could change to Crook, Augur, Pope, Howard, Ord, and Miles. Despite Miles’s successful campaigns as a colonel, he rates the bottom slot only by virtue of the Apache campaign of 1886.
Finally, in a larger sense than the strictly military, all the generals played a part in “shaping” the American West. By virtue of their military role, they impacted the western tribes. Crook takes first rank, for his direct interaction, both in war and in peace, with Apaches, Sioux, Crows, Shoshones, and Poncas. Beyond his influence on Indians, Crook yields the issue of seeking to advance western settlement to Augur and Pope. Both Augur and Pope consciously aimed at protecting and aiding the civilian population and favored opening the West. In his 1896 book Nelson Miles created a sense of awe at the great West and the opportunities that it held for all white Americans. He influenced the settlement of the West far less than his grand hyperbole would suggest. General Howard, in association with Colonel Miles, effectively reduced the Nez Perce to a hapless tribe scattered beyond unity. As a department commander, Ord did much to make the Texas border habitable for whites.
In short, the commanders, with varying impact, influenced what the West had become by the beginning of the twentieth century.
NOTES
Abbreviations
AGO Adjutant General’s Office
NARA National Archives and Records Administration
OR Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies
RG Record Group
Stat. U.S. Statutes at Large, vols. 14–18
Chapter 1. The Postwar U.S. Army
1. 14 Stat. 332–38 (July 28, 1866).
2. 14 Stat. 223 (July 25, 1866).
3. 15 Stat. 315–18 (March 3, 1869); 16 Stat. 315–21 (July 15, 1870); 18 Stat. 72 (June 16, 1874).
4. James B. Fry, The History and Legal Effect of Brevets in the Armies of Great Britain and the United States (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1877). Throughout this book, when an officer is awarded a brevet (whether in quotation marks or not) the source is Francis B. Heitman, comp., Historic
al Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1903; facsimile, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965). Officers’ names are arranged alphabetically.
5. Col. John Gibbon, 7th Infantry, to Sherman, Fort Shaw, Mont., March 15, 1877, U.S. House Misc. Doc. No. 56, 45th Cong., 2nd sess., pp. 124–28.
6. Sherman to Sheridan, Washington, October 7, 1872, Sherman-Sheridan Papers, Library of Congress.
7. Ibid., April 1, 1876.
8. Special Session Message of President R. B. Hayes, October 15, 1877, in James D. Richardson, comp. A Compilation of Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1897, 10 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1897), 7:452–54.
9. Army and Navy Journal 14 (May 12, 1877): 640.
10. In U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report (1872), p. 53.
11. William A. Dobak and Thomas D. Phillips, The Black Regulars, 1866–1898 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001).
12. Quoted in Army and Navy Journal 14 (August 12, 1876): 4.
13. Lansing B. Bloom, “Bourke on the Southwest,” New Mexico Historical Review 9 (1934): 52.
14. Charles Braden, “The Yellowstone Expedition of 1873,” Journal of the U.S. Cavalry Association 16 (1905): 240–41.
15. Throughout his journal, Dr. John Vance Lauderdale has much to say about both sanitation and women. Robert M. Utley, ed., An Army Doctor on the Western Frontier: Journals and Letters of John Vance Lauderdale, 1864–1890 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2014).
16. Army and Navy Journal 15 (September 8, 1877): 73.
17. U.S. House Misc. Doc. No. 56, 45th Cong., 2nd sess., p. 34.
Chapter 2. Christopher C. Augur
1. Sherman to S. F. Tappan, St. Louis, September 26, 1868, Sherman Papers, vol. 89, Library of Congress.