One of the most important factors to consider when discussing the military in early North America is that each colony had its own militia organization that theoretically was supposed to include all able-bodied white males who were generally expected to provide their own weapons. These militias were also called up in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War and the Civil War, as well as the various wars against the Native Americans. In a country that had a weak central government—and none at all during the colonial era—along with a string distrust of standing armies of the European type, these colonial and state militias formed the backbone of the military. Compared to the professionals of the regular army, their performance and leadership was often poor, especially in pitched battles against other regular forces, but they were far more successful in their tasks of guerilla and irregular warfare.
No centralized government or military administration existed at all before the American Revolution, so it is hardly possible to speak of an American Army before 1776. Nevertheless, certain military traditions and experiences did develop during the colonial era that had a most definite impact on the Revolution and on later American military doctrine. This was particularly so with the long experience in frontier and woodland warfare against Native Americans, which began in the early-17th Century and continued long after independence. During the 17th and 18th Centuries, there were four major wars between Britain and its North American colonial allies against the French and Native Americans, as well as a number of smaller regional and local conflicts, and it was in these that the early American military doctrine, organization, strategy and tactics were formed, designed for a country that normally did not have a large standing army. Over time, the American colonists overcame the traditional fears of the wilderness that was common among Europeans, and learned to fight in the Native American style: guerilla warfare, rapid mobility, ambushes, and hit-and-run tactics. Units like the Rangers, led by Major Robert Rogers, knew how to fight this way for prolonged periods behind enemy lines in ways that the British and most European armies could not match.
This was not the only type of military experience Americans had, since they could and did fight in pitched battles and sieges against regular French forces as well, such as the capture of the fortress at Louisbourg in 1745. There were always some battles like these in the colonial wars between France and Britain in the 17th and 18th Centuries, but they were not the norm or the typical warfare on the North American continent at that time. To be sure, British complaints about the indiscipline and disobedience of American colonials were chronic long before the American Revolution, although they learned to their cost that they needed these units to guard their flanks against ambush by the French and their Native American allies any time the ventured deep into the American wilderness. General Edward Braddock learned this lesson to his cost in 1755, for example, when he and his entire army were wiped out in an ambush near Ft. Duquesne (Pittsburgh). He had been warned of this danger by colonial leaders like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, but chose to disregard their advice, and during the American Revolution the next generation of British officers kept repeating his errors.
During the American Revolution, this extensive experience in irregular and unconventional warfare, or what in more recent times would be called guerilla warfare, proved very useful against the British and their Loyalist allies in all regions of the country. Although the Americans organized a much larger standing army than they had ever even imagined in the colonial period, and about 200,000 men served in it from 1775-83, the state and local militia forces were even larger than the Continental Army. These could not win pitched battles with the British regular troops, nor were they ever expected to, but rather their purpose was to use terror, intimidation, and irregular warfare to make the countryside dangerous and ungovernable for the British and their allies (Shy 1973). Britain found that it could control large towns and garrisons, but the rural areas were generally not secure at all unless large military forces were physically present. Not even the British Empire had the resources to create the huge army necessary that would have been able to ‘pacify’ such an extensive area, nor did its leaders have the political skills to bring about reconciliation with the colonists. All over North America, the British faced skirmishes, ambushes and raids that made movement in the interior extremely dangerous, and even though they could win large-scale battles, they still lost the war (Rauch 2007). These guerilla forces did not require the active and enthusiastic cooperation of the whole population to be successful, but simply had to discourage Loyalism and cooperation with the British enough to make their administration impossible. They did not have to defeat the enemy in every engagement, only make the British doubt that victory was possible, weaken their morale and resolve and grow weary of the high cost of the war, until they finally gave up.
This pattern of a small and weak standing army that was used mainly for frontier duty and wars with the Native Americans continued throughout the 19th Century. In major conflicts like the War of 1812, the Mexican War and the Civil War, it was supplemented by call-ups of the state militias, volunteers and draftees, although their training and performance certainly left something to be desired. In the War of 1812, the militias were also more effective against Native Americans and fighting defensive battles like New Orleans in 1815 than on the offensive. They suffered humiliating defeats in three attempts to invade Canada and in the loss of Washington in 1814. Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison emerged from the war as genuine heroes, but their most successful offensive victories had been against the Native Americans rather than the regular British Army. As in the American Revolution, however, Britain could occupy territory in the U.S. and destroy towns, but had no hope at all of conquering and subduing the country (Black 2007). In the Mexican War of 1846-48, the tiny regular army was again supplemented by volunteers and state militias, and these were well-enough trained and equipped to inflict a series of humiliating defeats on a very poorly-led and poorly-trained and equipped Mexican Army. Here again, the war produced two generals with presidential ambitions, Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, whose two-front strategy defeated Mexico very quickly (Bauer 1974/1992). As with the wars against the Native Americans, this had been initiated by the U.S. as a war of aggression, but was spectacularly successful from the U.S. point of view since it resulted in the annexation of half of Mexico in 1848. After this episode of Manifest Destiny, the U.S. was truly a continental power with bases on the Atlantic and Pacific, although the conflict over the status of slavery in the new territories nearly split the Union at that time. Prior to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, though, the U.S. army reverted back to its traditional role of small garrison and frontier force, mostly engaged in conflicts with the Native Americans. After 1812, in fact, the U.S. did not again engage a foreign opponent with a first-rate military until the First World War, so the old system of a very tiny standing army suited its needs well enough..
WORKS CITED
Bauer, Karl Jack. The Mexican War, 1846-48. University of Nebraska Press, 1974, 1992.
Black, J. European Warfare in a Global Context, 1660-1815. Routledge, 2007.
Remini, Robert. The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and America's First Military Victory. Penguin Books, 1999.
Rauch, Steven J. "Southern (Dis) Comfort: British Phase IV Operations in South Carolina and Georgia, May-September 1780." in Richard G. Davis (ed) The U.S. Army and Irregular Warfare, 1775-2007. Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 2007, pp. 33-58.
Shy, John. "The Military Conflict Considered as a Revolutionary War” in Stephen G. Kurtz and James H. Hutson (eds) Essays on the American Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1973. pp. 121-156.
