Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1977 John C. Calhoun as Secretary of War, 1817-1825. Roger Joseph Spiller Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Spiller, Roger Joseph, "John C. Calhoun as Secretary of War, 1817-1825." (1977). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 3169. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/3169 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. 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University Microfilms International 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 USA St. John’s Road, Tyler’s Green High Wycombe, Bucks, England HP10 8HR Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78-7560 SPILLER, Roger Joseph, 1944- JOHN C. CALHOUN AS SECRETARY OF WAR, 1817 - 1825. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1977 History, United States University Microfilms International,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 © 1978 ROGER JOSEPH SPILLER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. JOHN C. CALHOUN AS SECRETARY OF WAR, 1817 - 1825 A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy m The Department of History by Roger J. Spiller B. A., Southwest Texas State University, 1969 M. A., Southwest Texas State University, 1971 December, 1977 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS John C. Calhoun's severe ghost intruded upon my thoughts several years ago. He has been a dreadful companion to me since. I have spent much time with him, and I have never been comfortable in his presence. This is not surprising. Those who counted themselves among his closest friends often said that this brilliant man, so complex and intense, was too much for their feeble constitutions. Calhoun's ardent confidant, Richard Cralle, once complained, "When I seek relaxation with him, he screws me only the higher in some sort of excitement." Another well- disposed supporter, who was anxious to meet the famous South Carolinian, came away from their first talk saying, "I hate a man who makes me feel my own inferiority." I have much in common with those men. One can only imagine what tolls my excitements have taken from my supporters. At Louisiana State University, Professor T. Harry Williams watched over my work much longer than simple duty required and entertained throughout an absurdly high opinion of my abilities when he had evidence to the contrary. His skills as a historian need no acco­ lades from me, and whatever quality is betrayed in the following pages comes from my fortunate association with him. My friends and colleagues in the Department of History at Southwest Texas State University have likewise stood by me and have borne my importunities with cheerful good will for a very long time. Without their support at important moments, I doubt very much that this work would be finished yet. ii with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. After doing a study of this kind, it is impossible to entertain any notion of scholarly independence. Too much of what follows is based upon the works of earlier students, and I should not have been able to begin this study without their pointing my way. Because so much of this study has been done with the direct help of various librarians and archi­ vists, I feel that I owe them a special debt. Two of these professionals deserve particular mention. Mrs. Marie Capps of the Library of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and Dr. John C. Dann of the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan gave me vital assistance and willingly tolerated my intrusions upon their time. When we were together, the only, other person for whom John C. Calhoun would ungrudgingly step aside was my wife, Irene Nicholis Spiller. Everything was easier because of her. Calhoun may have felt the same way too. I could almost see him take a stately bow, his visage relax, and his troubles subside when she came into view. He was, after all, a southern gentleman. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION..........................................................vii CHAPTER I. 1817: THE NATION, THE SECRETARIAT, AND MR. CALHOUN .... 1 II. NATIONAL MILITARY POLICY: TRADITIONS AND AMBITIONS .... 48 III. THE TRANSIT OF MILITARY NATIONALISM ....................... 113 IV. "TELLING WELL IN HISTORY": CALHOUN AND AMERICAN INDIAN POLICY .............................................. 178 V. THE WAR DEPARTMENT UNDER SIEGE.........................244 VI. "THE SPLENDID PHANTOM": CALHOUN AND THE ELECTION OF 1824 .................................................. 300 EPILOGUE: CALHOUN AND THE FUTURE ................................. 362 BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................... 370 VITA.................................................................. 388 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT The biography of John C. Calhoun published in 1843 with his sanction was intended to assist in Calhoun's election to the presidency in 1844. Only a few pages of this work were devoted to an accounting of Calhoun’s career as President James Monroe's Secretary of War from 1817 to 1825. Scholarship has generally reflected this biography's lack of detail concerning this part of Calhoun's official life, and yet it was while he was Secretary of War that Calhoun first became a presidential contender in the hard-fought campaign of 1824. Not only his participa­ tion in that campaign, but indeed his every activity during this period provided Calhoun with a practical education in the relationships between politics and military policy in America. The fact that Calhoun made his first attempt to become President while he was a Secretary of War had salient consequences for the American military establishment also. Among military historians Calhoun has been well regarded for his attempts to modernize the War Department and the American Army, but the political context in which Calhoun's reforms were attempted rarely has entered into historical evaluations; the result has been the considerable distortion of the origins and meaning of these reforms. Thus the major aims of this study are an examination of the confluence of Calhoun's political and official roles, the impact his association with the War Department had upon his career, and the Regular Army's reaction to the political attention which Calhoun attracted to it. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Because the clash between Calhoun's ambitions for political advance­ ment and military reform exposed the military establishment to considerable stress, an attempt has been made to examine the inner workings of the War Department in order to evaluate the impact of politics upon this institu­ tion. Subjects of particular