“TO SAVE THE COUNTRY IS PARAMOUNT TO ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS”: THE DEVELOPMENT OF US ARMY SMALL WARS DOCTRINE FROM THE PLAINS TO THE PHILIPPINES by Owen Willis Berger A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of George Mason University in Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts History Committee: ___________________________________________ Director ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Department Chairperson ___________________________________________ Dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences Date: _____________________________________ Summer Semester 2015 George Mason University Fairfax, VA “To Save the Country is Paramount to All Other Considerations”: The Development of US Army Small Wars Doctrine from the Plains to the Philippines A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at George Mason University by Owen Willis Berger Bachelor of Arts George Mason University, 1987 Director: Christopher H. Hamner, Associate Professor Department of History Summer Semester 2015 George Mason University Fairfax, VA This work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noderivs 3.0 unported license. ii DEDICATION This is dedicated to my mom, Powell, and to my dad, Darrell, for all of their support and encouragement throughout this process. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the many friends and relatives who have supported me as a graduate student at George Mason. My mother, Powell, nurtured my passion for reading and writing, and was a source of constant support. My father, Darrell, sparked my interest in history as a child and provided me with housing and support as a student. My brother and sister, Austin and Emmi, were always available as sounding boards and friends. Dr. Christopher Hamner has been an invaluable mentor and advisor, and an excellent committee chair. Dr. Benjamin Cowan has been an inspiring teacher and excellent committee member. Dr. Randolph Scully proved immensely helpful in his guidance and understanding as the M.A. program director. My thanks as well to the entire history department faculty and staff, in particular the graduate program coordinator Nicole Roth for all of her help and for her patience in answering my often-dumb questions. I would also like to thank my many friends and colleagues studying in the history department at George Mason, in particular Benjamin Brands. Additionally, my thanks to Mr. John Ashford, who provided me with gainful employment during my career as a graduate student. Finally, my thanks to the Fenwick Library for processing my every book request, and to George Mason University, from which I have earned two degrees and countless memories and friends. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract .............................................................................................................................. vi “To Save the Country Is Paramount to All Other Considerations”: The Development of U.S. Army Small Wars Doctrine from the Plains to the Philippines .................................. 1 Appendix A: Domestic Use of United States Federal Military Forces, 1877-1917 ......... 46 Appendix B: United States Overseas Military Deployments, 1877-1917 ........................ 48 References ......................................................................................................................... 54 v ABSTRACT TO SAVE THE COUNTRY IS PARAMOUNT TO ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS”: THE DEVELOPMENT OF US ARMY SMALL WARS DOCTRINE FROM THE PLAINS TO THE PHILIPPINES Owen Willis Berger George Mason University, 2015 Thesis Director: Dr. Christopher H. Hamner This thesis describes the ways in which the United States Army developed a doctrine to fight the imperial “small wars” of the early twentieth century across Latin America and the Pacific. That doctrine was largely based upon decades of experience fighting Native Americans, Confederates, Klansmen, and striking union members, and refined by experience during the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars. Furthermore, the ways army officers discussed and approached their opponents on the imperial frontier often mirrored past discussions of Native Americans and, as often, organized labor in North America. Finally, this doctrine proved remarkably resilient, and formed the foundation for later American counterinsurgency theory, and was even incorporated into some aspects of international military law in the later twentieth century. vi “TO SAVE THE COUNTRY IS PARAMOUNT TO ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS”: THE DEVELOPMENT OF U.S. ARMY SMALL WARS DOCTRINE FROM THE PLAINS TO THE PHILIPPINES In the weeks leading up to the 1902 midterm elections, United States Secretary of War Elihu Root arrived in Peoria, Illinois, to campaign for a Republican congressional candidate and to celebrate the U.S. Army’s recent declaration of victory in the so-called Philippine Insurrection. When the secretary described the archipelago’s inhabitants as “millions of men of alien races… most of them ignorant, most of them suspicious,” and all needing to be “pacified and reconciled and taught self-government,” he, in a sentence, summarized the fundamental assumptions and goals of American policy towards its new imperial possessions in the early twentieth century. Heralding the army’s work in putting down the insurrection, Root continued that, to accomplish the task, “New experiments in government were to be tried. There were no precedents, and precedents were to be made.” 1 In his official report on the conflict, Root made much the same point as he had on the stump. Describing the “unfamiliar ground” of the creation of civil governments in American possessions, he wrote that the army, “had no precedents, save the simple and meager proceedings under the occupation of California and New Mexico, more than half 1 Elihu Root, “American Policies in the Philippines: Address of the Secretary of War at Peoria, Illinois, September 24, 1902,” in eds. Robert Bacon and James Brown Scott, The Military and Colonial Policy of the United States; Addresses and Reports by Elihu Root (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1916), 68-69. 1 a century ago, and it has been necessary to decide every question upon its own merits and to make our own precedents for the future.” 2 In the century since, historians have largely taken Root at his word. When he told a crowd of Peoria Republicans that, in the Philippines, “the principles of American liberty were to be applied to new and strange conditions among peoples who hardly knew the alphabet of freedom,” Root was accurately capturing the mood of his peers in the age of “the White Man’s Burden.” Root’s second assertion, however, deserves greater scrutiny. Was the army’s effort in the Philippines – and in Cuba and in Puerto Rico – truly without “precedent” in American history, beyond the experiences of the Mexican- American War? Prior to 1898, the United States Army’s primary mission had been on the frontier, protecting settlers and subjugating Native Americans. For a period, it had also been in the South, defeating a rebellion and facilitating the process of Reconstruction – another military occupation of a defeated nation. Finally, in the later decades of the nineteenth century, the army became heavily involved in the growing number of incidents of domestic unrest, particularly racial unrest and labor disputes. These sets of experiences would prove remarkably instructive to military leaders tasked with policing the new American empire. In the Philippines, in the midst of a protracted guerrilla war, commanding general Arthur MacArthur re-issued an order from 1863, General Order 100, or Lieber’s Code after its author, to guide pacification efforts. Likewise, in the Philippines and in Cuba, the army drew from its Indian-fighting 2 Elihu Root, “The Beginnings of Civil Government: Extract from the Report of the Secretary of War for 1900,” in eds. Robert Bacon and James Brown Scott; The Military and Colonial Policy of the United States; Addresses and Reports by Elihu Root (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1916), 286. 2 experience to wage guerrilla war. The creation of “scout” units, comprised of loyal indigenous soldiers with white American officers, long a tactic in the Indian Wars, was quickly revived across America’s overseas possessions. Thus, in the two decades between the war with Spain and the American entry into the First World War, the United States military found itself serving across the Caribbean, Central America, and the Pacific in a series of irregular wars, policing actions, and occupations not at all dissimilar to its domestic duties between the Civil War and 1898. Indeed, contra Root, throughout those two decades, the American military found plenty of “precedent” for its occupation, pacification, and nation-building duties, and indeed, used that precedent to develop a doctrine of imperial control and small wars. This doctrine proved surprisingly resilient, and was even partially codified into international law with the First and Second Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, traces of which can be found in the Geneva Conventions, and even in today’s counterinsurgency theories. Nevertheless, military historians have largely agreed that 1898 represented a sharp departure in American military policy and practices. The preeminent historian of the United States Army, Edward Coffman, in fact separates his two-volume history of the institution at 1898,