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 THE UNPOPULAR HISTORY 
 OF THE UNITED STATES
 
 THE 
 
 UNPOPULAR HISTORY 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES 
 BY UNCLE SAM HIMSELF 
 
 AS RECORDED IN UNCLE SAM'S OWN WORDS 
 BY 
 
 HARRIS DICKSON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 1917, by 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 AU rights reserved 
 
 Printed in the United States of Americ
 
 FOEEWOED 
 
 THIS is not a piece of literature, but merely 
 the straightforward heart-to-heart talk of one 
 American with other Americans. In the ulti- 
 mate we all love the truth, and dare to face 
 it. This is the truth as believed, and now 
 acted upon by the best minds in our coun- 
 try. 
 
 It was prepared in Washington City when 
 our capital was one of the most picturesque 
 and busy in the world. Khaki lads line the 
 streets ; officers come and go upon their silent 
 errands. Distinguished commissions from 
 our allies hold daily conference with Ameri- 
 can officials, welding our joint resources, and 
 warning us against their errors. 
 
 Thousands of private citizens able, self- 
 sacrificing, patriotic men have flocked to 
 Washington, placing their talents at the na- 
 tion's disposal. They are not glory seekers, 
 [v]
 
 Foreword 
 
 Few of their names are known. They only 
 ask to serve; and they do serve efficiently. 
 
 The net effect produced upon me and this 
 is what I want to tell you is that things are 
 being done, excellently well done. From our 
 manifold insufficiencies we have learned. 
 
 This is intended not as a slur, but as a 
 spur for us to do what the United States can 
 surely do, when once our people become 
 aroused. The United States needs our best, 
 humanity needs it ; ,nor shall we be weighed 
 in the balance and found wanting. 
 
 HABEIS DICKSOK. 
 
 Washington, D. C., 
 July 4th, 1917. 
 
 [vi]
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEB PACK 
 
 FOREWORD v 
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 I UNCLE SAM GETS STARTED . . 1 
 
 II UNCLE SAM KEEPS GOING . . 6 
 
 III THE FICTION OF INVINCIBLE MILITIA 12 
 
 IV THE RUSH THAT NEVER RUSHED . 17 
 V WHAT THE SHORT-TERM MILITIA Dm 24 
 
 VI PESTERING FATHER WITH POP-CALLS 30 
 
 VII THE RUNNING MILITIA . . .36 
 
 VIII A STRANGER COMES . . .42 
 
 IX THE BALANCE SHEET OF DISASTER . 47 
 
 X THE LITTLE WE LEARNED AND THE 
 
 MUCH WE DIDN'T . . .54 
 
 XI Lo, THE IMPOLITE INDIAN . . 60 
 
 XII GEORGE'S PET . . . .67 
 
 XIII "ON TO CANADA!" . . .74 
 
 XIV THE PRAIRIE FIRE PANIC . . 80 
 XV THE TIN HORN DEFENSE . . 90 
 
 XVI UNCLE SAM COUNTS THE COST . 98 
 
 XVII MORE FIGHTS FOR PEACEFUL FOLK 102 
 
 XVIII A LONESOME GENERAL . . .107 
 
 XIX THE MEXICAN PARADOX . . Ill 
 
 XX ADVANCE, HALT, AND GENTLEMEN 
 
 CHANGE 119 
 
 [vii]
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 XXI OPENING THE CIVIL WAR . . 124 
 
 XXII WHAT OF THE REGULARS? . . 130 
 
 XXIII THE CONFEDERACY FIRST SEES THE 
 
 LIGHT 136 
 
 XXIV DEMAGOGUES AND DISSENSION . 141 
 XXV To OUR MISTAUGHT MILLIONS . 147 
 
 XXVI THE WORK OF WARSMITHS . . 155 
 
 THE UNPOPULAR HISTORY . 161 
 
 [viii]
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 FOR three years the world has been talking 
 about war. So has Uncle Sam. Everybody 
 listens. So do I. Yet, while listening with 
 both ears, I fail to comprehend. I know ab- 
 solutely nothing of military science. Do you? 
 
 Highly specialized officers have explained 
 to me the object of certain mass formations, 
 problems of range and parabola, and remain- 
 ing velocities. All of which goes right over 
 my head. War news and technical discus- 
 sions produce little or no effect upon me ex- 
 cept that of helpless horror. And that is how 
 the average American feels, although dimly 
 realizing that the life or death of his coun- 
 try, and of world-wide republican institu- 
 tions, hang in the balance. The average 
 American is eager and anxious to know, so 
 he can do something, and do it well. 
 
 Our Uncle Sam, being a plain-spoken and 
 [ix]
 
 Introduction 
 
 practical person, admits that he generally 
 makes a muss of soldiering, and has set his 
 head to find out why. Uncle Sam has been 
 lying awake at nights ruminating over the 
 salty facts. Having learned better, he does 
 better. He is doing much better now, and 
 means to get ahead of the best before he 
 plows this furrow to the end. Uncle Sam 
 can accomplish whatever he tries, and, be- 
 lieve me, he is trying. 
 
 But he needs help, help from you and help 
 from me, from every loyal citizen in the 
 United States. Therefore Uncle Sam desires 
 that all of us should consider what has gone 
 wrong in the past, so that we may avoid the 
 same blunders in the future. Just now we 
 have the errors of our allies to warn us, and 
 no legislator with mule sense should set his 
 foot in a hole when there is a sign board 
 standing right before his nose to point it out. 
 
 The average American does not understand 
 war. This present affair is so prodigious that 
 it passes beyond his mental jurisdiction. As 
 for myself, martial science must be reduced
 
 Introduction 
 
 to words of one syllable, or I don't get it. 
 
 It goes against the grain to accept state- 
 ments that we hate to believe, facts that jostle 
 ns out of pet notions which are the pride and 
 heritage of every school boy. Patriotic speak- 
 ers are constantly declaiming "Paul Ee- 
 vere," "Ring Out for Liberty" and "Bar- 
 bara Frietchie," but never disturb the fakes 
 and the fabrications. 
 
 I was a grown man, thirty years old, strug- 
 gling to hoe off my beard with a safety razor, 
 before it dawned upon me that the military 
 history of my country had not been one long 
 unbroken series of Star Spangled victories. 
 Like all other school boys I had been fed up 
 on 4th of July orations. I believed in fairies, 
 in Jack the Giant Killer, in the Boys of '76. 
 I almost believed that a lone and gray-haired 
 farmer with a fife, and a bloody rag around 
 his head, flanked by two small drummer boys, 
 had chased the British army from off our 
 sacred continent. I half-way believed that. 
 Did you? 
 
 The truth is that Uncle Sam has abandoned 
 [xi]
 
 Introduction 
 
 the precarious system of volunteer militia, 
 which was born with this republic, and adopt- 
 ed the essentially democratic principle that 
 national defense is the paramount duty of 
 every citizen. Defense of the republic like 
 taxes and jury duty constitutes an obliga- 
 tion that cannot be laid upon the backs of a 
 few willing horses who would be ridden to 
 death. All must serve their turn ; each must 
 do his bit. 
 
 This fair and equal method has been put in 
 operation. It is working well, so well that we 
 Americans, without too greatly shocking our 
 national pride, can now turn back to the dis- 
 cards and discuss the reasons. 
 
 Patriotic school histories teach us that we 
 have been victorious in all our wars. Millions 
 of intelligent men accept these statements, 
 stand convinced of our natural prowess, and 
 see no cause for changing a method under 
 which we have apparently achieved success. 
 But the present war has overturned all 
 theories, established new standards, and the 
 triumph of yesterday becomes the inevitable 
 [xii]
 
 Introduction 
 
 failure of to-day. To provide against the pos- 
 sibility of failure Uncle Sam now pursues 
 the most business-like plan of organizing and 
 employing his enormous potential strength. 
 Things are being done, in "Washington and 
 throughout the country, competently done, 
 to build an army from the bottom up, and of 
 magnificent material. They are doing what 
 has never been done before, training forty 
 thousand officers forty thousand youngsters 
 who throw into their work every faculty of 
 nerve and brain and sinew that they possess. 
 "Whatever men may accomplish, that accom- 
 plishment will be theirs; of that the nation 
 can rest assured. Yet the bulk of our people, 
 no matter how wise and patriotic, are unedu- 
 cated in military details. The grim facts 
 of our blunders may startle you as they 
 startled me. You may be incredulous, just as 
 I refused to believe. Bear this in mind : No 
 statement is herein made except upon au- 
 thority of Brevet Major-General Emory Up- 
 ton, as contained in his "Military Policy of 
 the United States." These are no hostile 
 [xiii]
 
 Introduction 
 
 slanders to be resented and refuted, but are 
 expressly endorsed by our own government, 
 and furnish the most potent reasons for cast- 
 ing aside the volunteer system so prolific of 
 disaster. 
 
 Each detail might be verified by page refer- 
 ences to General Upton 's work, but it is con- 
 sidered better not to confuse and complicate 
 so brief a 'synopsis. 
 
 For the purpose of further informing the 
 people as to this radical change of their mili- 
 tary, system, Uncle Sam has given me his rea- 
 sons in language so simple and direct that 
 even you and I may understand. 
 
 [xiv]
 
 UNCLE SAM GETS STAETED 
 
 Now, my son Uncle Sam rolled up Ms 
 sleeves and started sit down and plug away 
 on that typewriter while I talk. Make your 
 machine rattle the same as chickens picking 
 corn off a tin roof. I'm a right tolerable 
 long-winded windmill, and sizzling with 
 things that must be got out of my system. 
 
 The woods are full of folks and the cities, 
 too full of good folks who don't realize that 
 [1]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 we are having a war, a strictly business war 
 that will spare no home in the land. They 
 must realize it, and realize it right now. I Ve 
 got a job for every man, woman and child in 
 America, a job to be learned and done ef- 
 ficiently. 
 
 They don't see it yet. They have got the 
 notion that nobody dares tackle them, that we 
 are some punkins in a scrap, and can whip 
 both sets of allies in our spare time, say, be- 
 tween breakfast and dinner, which makes a 
 fellow strut and feel good, but lays him liable 
 to a jolt. 
 
 Our folks have been thinking it was not 
 necessary for us to do anything, and of course 
 Congress trailed along behind. That is why 
 nothing had been done up to a year ago. But 
 the people are waking up, and putting alarm 
 clocks under Congress. Mind you I am not 
 blaming anybody in particular. I am just 
 saying what's what. 
 
 Our people don't know because they have 
 not been told at all, or been told wrong, and 
 that's the main trouble. School books teach 
 [2]
 
 Uncle Sam Gets Started 
 
 our children that we have won all of our wars, 
 just as easy as falling off a log, and if a for- 
 eign army invaded America, grandfather 
 would reach around, get his scythe blade, and 
 clean 'em up. 
 
 One time I knew a justice of the peace to 
 be elected on the platform that he could take 
 a lightning bug, on the end of a corn cob, and 
 bluff the machine-made armies of Europe into 
 the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe he could. But 
 machine-made armies won't fight with corn 
 cobs and lightning bugs. Rules have changed. 
 
 Plenty of grown men believe that still. It 
 is part of public opinion, and helps to shape 
 the policy of this nation. 
 
 Some of these days I am going to jump on 
 those " popular school histories" and put 
 them out of business. Publishers print 'em 
 to make money, and folks won't pay good 
 money for medicine that tastes bad. Just call 
 this the ''Unpopular History," and maybe 
 we can 't give it away. But I want to tell the 
 truth to every fifteen-year-old boy in the 
 United States, want to make every member 
 [3]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 of Congress read, mark, learn and inwardly 
 digest it. 
 
 Listen, my son, listen to a plain talk, 
 straight from the shoulder. 
 
 We Americans love bunk. I know what I 
 am talking about. We do love bunk. We just 
 nationally eat it up a stuff that's not too 
 bright or good for Yankee nature's daily 
 food. Of all the bunk that we are fed upon, 
 none is grabbed more greedily than the 4th 
 of July oration about our fighting citizenship, 
 and a rush to arms. We are the fighting 
 citizenship ; we are the patriotic rushers. We 
 are the original patentees, progenitors, and 
 extemporaneous guardians of freedom! We 
 are IT! 
 
 Nothing tickles our American vanity so 
 much as being patted on the back for natural 
 born warriors who can lick the world just for 
 pastime. The perspiring 4th of July orator 
 pumps us full of heroic hot air, which pleas- 
 ingly distends our hides with manhood, and 
 we elect the orator to Congress. He goes to 
 Congress on that platform, and sticks by it 
 [4]
 
 Uncle Sam Gets Started 
 
 which is good politics. Poets sing of trium- 
 phant liberty and school books teach of ty- 
 rants trembling before the musketry of em- 
 battled farmers. Thereupon the spectacled 
 historian comes along to clinch these patri- 
 otic fakes with unassailable statistics. All of 
 which is strictly for home consumption. Ex- 
 ported bunk does not pass at par. Soldiers 
 beyond the seas know a darn sight better, and 
 they'll show us better if we don't wake up. 
 
 [5]
 
 II 
 
 UNCLE SAM KEEPS GOING 
 
 THIS bluster and brag about licking the 
 world with both hands tied behind us is the 
 most dangerous sort of bunk. Every chan- 
 cellery in Europe smiles at it. 
 
 Suppose we start at the very beginning. 
 To the forefathers of this republic a standing 
 army typified all the oppression from which 
 they had escaped. Professional soldiers to 
 them represented the pomp of dynasties and 
 [6]
 
 Uncle Sam Keeps Going 
 
 the pride of kings, a class apart from, and 
 antagonistic to, the people a class that 
 marched at the nod of tyrannical monarchs. 
 None of that for us in free America. 
 
 We built our military fabric upon an en- 
 tirely different theory a small standing 
 army to be used as a nucleus around which 
 the aforesaid fighting citizenship would rally. 
 We believed implicitly in the volunteer. Up 
 to the passage of our present selective draft 
 law, we figured that our ranks would be 
 crowded with youngsters who were craving 
 to fight. 
 
 Now we have the selective draft upon our 
 statute books, but no law gets full force and 
 effect unless the people understand and ap- 
 prove. We have changed our entire military 
 system because we had started wrong, and the 
 people ought to know why. 
 
 At the beginning we planned that a small 
 body of volunteers should constitute our regu- 
 lar army ; the balance, held as a reserve force 
 or militia, remaining under control of the 
 states. Militiamen and officers alike are gen- 
 [7]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 erally untrained, the officers being popular 
 fellows elected by their comrades and com- 
 missioned by the Government. 
 
 I am not saying a word against these volun- 
 teers, the finest youngsters that ever trod 
 shoe leather, the best fighting material on 
 earth. But no matter how brave and patrio- 
 tic the individual lad may be, he needs long 
 and skillful training. 
 
 This, my son, was the germ of our military 
 policy. It has been tried for more than a 
 hundred years, in assorted wars, foreign, do- 
 mestic, Indian. Educated military men got 
 their dose of it by the painful method and 
 say it is the worst system ever devised. But 
 some way or other we have always managed, 
 by main strength and awkwardness, to scram- 
 ble out on top, which has made folks think 
 that as a nation we are invincible. My son, 
 the very surest way to get life pummeled out 
 of you is to feel that there's no use exerting 
 yourself. The other fellow exerts himself, 
 and it is all over but the ambulance. 
 
 Did you ever sit out in front of a cross- 
 [8]
 
 Uncle Sam Keeps Going 
 
 roads store and hear the boys talk? I mean 
 the boys with whiskers, whittling on a dry- 
 goods box? They are my kind of folks. I 
 was born with them, reared with them. I 
 know what kind of flapjacks his wife makes ; 
 know what kind of water he has in his well ; 
 I drink out of the same gourd, and know the 
 name of his dog. I deny flatfootedly that 
 there is any better American alive than the 
 Iowa farmer, or the Virginia farmer, or the 
 Texas farmer. I speak his language, I know 
 what he is thinking about, and I wish I could 
 talk to him face to face. 
 
 Most of them have got the same idea, not 
 only the boys at the crossroads store, but 
 business men, school teachers, lawyers. Just 
 hang around and listen to what they say: 
 "Look what we did to the British in the Rev- 
 olution a plenty." "How Old Hickory 
 cleaned 'em up at New Orleans. " " Over-ran 
 Mexico before you could say scat." 
 
 "Of course those foreign governments have 
 big armies, but we have individual initiative. 
 [9]
 
 The Unpopitlar History of the United States 
 
 Our lads know how to ride and shoot. That's 
 the thing that counts. ' ' 
 
 You hear that kind of talk all over the coun- 
 try especially about individual initiative. 
 
 Your Uncle Samuel used to think that same 
 way, until developments in modern warfare 
 knocked it out of his head. Modern warfare 
 is a question of team work. You can 't accom- 
 plish anything nowadays by every fellow 
 pulling his own way. Where would the 
 Giants, or the Phillies, or the Bed Sox be 
 without organization? You could put a thou- 
 sand fine individuals into the diamond, and 
 nine trained players plus team-work, would 
 play rings around them. Soldiers, like base- 
 ball teams, can't get anywhere on an individ- 
 ual basis. That 's another kink that we Amer- 
 icans must get out of our heads individual- 
 ism. We are habitually intolerant of re- 
 straint. We resent the slightest encroach- 
 ment upon our personal privilege to do as we 
 please. If the notion strikes us to play at 
 soldiering, very well, soldiers we will play 
 whenever we get ready and for just as long 
 [10]
 
 Uncle Sam Keeps Going 
 
 as it suits us. The average American having 
 volunteered for a few months, frequently car- 
 ries this idea with him and stops to ask ques- 
 tions, before he obeys an order. Individual- 
 ism is his most petted possession. He argues 
 that we have been victorious in five foreign 
 wars on this basis of individual initiative, 
 and sees no sense in quitting a good thing. 
 Lots of people talk that way. It's one of the 
 biggest troubles in this country. 
 
 [11]
 
 in 
 
 THE FICTION OF INVINCIBLE 
 MILITIA 
 
 I AM going to tell you some facts that will 
 make you think. I don't care a hang what you 
 think to begin with. I don't care what any 
 American thinks, if he will only think at all. 
 I've got a pig-headed faith that Americans 
 are going to think right before they get done 
 thinking. 
 
 Our tradition of the invincible militia and 
 the victorious Minutemen had its birth at 
 [12]
 
 The Fiction of Invincible Militia 
 
 Bunker Hill. Frenzied orators, fiery poets 
 and solemn school books have repeatedly as- 
 sured us that a few dozen stalwart plowboys 
 routed the redcoat army with a loss of about 
 1,054 men. This temporary success led to a 
 practically unbroken series of disasters. The 
 enthusiasm of Bunker Hill crystallized into a 
 complacent state of public mind, and one and 
 forty years of equally complacent military 
 laws. From that day forward our national 
 existence has depended upon a handful of 
 regulars and a hope a hope that, at the 
 sound of Freedom's bugle trump, vast num- 
 bers of conquering citizens would rush to 
 arms. 
 
 Eevolutionary leaders framed their plans 
 upon this rush, and, my son, the recruits 
 didn't rush. That's the truth about it. If 
 you don't believe me, just ask George Wash- 
 ington, who made quite a considerable repu- 
 tation in his neighborhood for telling the 
 truth. At the opening of the Revolution 
 Washington thought just like the balance of 
 us, that patriots would flock to the banners 
 [13]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 of freedom and hurl the tyrant's minions 
 from our shores. But the flocking and the 
 hurling went on mighty slow. 
 
 Some way or other the New England Min- 
 utemen contrived to get in the first lick, strik- 
 ing the British at Lexington and Concord 
 Bridge. Those wrathy farmers chased the 
 redcoats for more than twenty miles. Pick- 
 ing them off like robins from behind trees 
 and stone walls, they killed and wounded 223 
 soldiers, with a loss to themselves of 88 men. 
 That 's what started us down the wrong road ; 
 it looked too easy. 
 
 Three days later, April 22, 1775, the Con- 
 gress of Massachusetts resolved that an army 
 of 30,000 men was necessary for defense of 
 the Colony, and attempted to raise at once 
 thirteen thousand six hundred by voluntary 
 enlistments of men who had got a taste of 
 victory and ached to finish the job. 
 
 Eight here and now I want to call your at- 
 tention to the vicious practice which Massa- 
 chusetts then adopted of giving a Captain's 
 commission to any one who could enroll a 
 [14]
 
 The Fiction of Invincible Militia 
 
 company of 59 men, and making a Colonel of 
 the first politician who could get together ten 
 such companies. This system has been em- 
 ployed, without exception, at the beginning of 
 all our wars. You can easily see how that 
 works; a hail-fellow-well-met is put in com- 
 mand. The hustling life insurance agent 
 probably becomes Captain. The shrewd po- 
 litical boss gets a Colonel's commission, while 
 the educated officer, who is not a good mixer, 
 is elected to stay at home. And do you know, 
 my son, that we have never got away from 
 that system? 
 
 The victors of Concord and Lexington as- 
 sembled near Boston without organization, 
 and only by courtesy recognizing a common 
 commander. Old Israel Putnam had gump- 
 tion enough to protect his men behind rail 
 breastworks, saying: "These Americans are 
 never afraid for their heads : they only think 
 of their legs. Shelter their legs and they will 
 fight forever." 
 
 And they did fight ; they put up a powerful 
 hot scrap on a powerful hot day, June 17, 
 [15]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 beating off three assaults by British regu- 
 lars, who lost more than a thousand men. 
 
 Congress immediately authorized the en- 
 listment of 20,370 men for service in the 
 neighborhood of Boston. They apprehended 
 great trouble in keeping the patriot ranks 
 thinned down to that meager stand. The first 
 shot at Concord Bridge had rung around the 
 world, according to an optimistic poet. Co- 
 lonial martyrs lay dead. Redcoats went 
 tramping across the land, and the colonists 
 were supposed to be ablaze with indignation. 
 Yet, at the end of a month, only 966 volun- 
 teers had presented themselves. That was 
 not much of a rush. My son, you ought to 
 have seen how beautifully they restrained 
 their enthusiasm. Their rush was most de- 
 liberate and decorous. 
 
 Now don't get cranky, and suppose that I 
 am throwing rocks at anybody's venerable 
 New England ancestors. Your own venerable 
 ancestors in Virginia and Georgia did pre- 
 cisely the same thing. What I'm talking 
 about is the bad system. 
 [16]
 
 IV 
 THE BUSH THAT NEVER RUSHED 
 
 BY December 15, 1775, only 5,917 men had 
 enlisted, not quite a third. George Washing- 
 ton didn't like this and spoke his mind: "I 
 am sorry to mention the egregious want of 
 public spirit. Instead of pressing to be en- 
 gaged in the cause of their country, which I 
 vainly flattered myself would be the case, I 
 find we are likely to be deserted at the most 
 critical time." 
 
 [17]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 There were splendid examples of patriotic 
 unselfishness. Twelve companies of riflemen 
 reported near Boston, some of them having 
 marched a distance of 800 miles. These were 
 the first troops raised upon authority of the 
 Continental Congress, and were soon recog- 
 nized as the six best corps in the army. In 
 spite of cold and starvation and suffering 
 they fought throughout the war, and formed 
 the backbone of those gallant troops which 
 finally achieved our independence. But they 
 had eight years' service, my son, and became 
 veterans. 
 
 The Continental Congress, bear in mind, 
 had no authority whatever to raise or pay or 
 equip a single soldier. Congress could mere- 
 ly pass resolutions and appeal to the sover- 
 eign states. 
 
 Minutemen volunteered, quite a bunch of 
 them. They came in a minute and stayed 
 about a minute. Each day Washington had 
 a different army from the one of yesterday, 
 and generally smaller. Which explains his 
 letter of November 28, 1775: 
 [18]
 
 The Rush that Never Rushed 
 
 "After the last of this month our lines will 
 be so weakened that the Minntemen and mili- 
 tia must be called in for their defense. And 
 these, being under no kind of government 
 themselves, will destroy what little subordi- 
 nation I have been laboring to establish.*' 
 
 Recruiting went slower than cold molasses, 
 and Washington himself is authority for the 
 statement that men were "holding back to 
 see what advantages could be gained, and 
 whether or not they could extort a bounty. " 
 Every school boy will naturally spurn the 
 suggestion that patriots of the Eevolution 
 would put up their services at public auction. 
 But nobody has ever written for the school 
 boy a popular history of the bounty system. 
 
 That was not the worst of it. Most of those 
 volunteers engaged for short terms only, and 
 were so fidgety to return home, that some of 
 them left camp ahead of time ' ' getting away 
 with their arms and ammunition. ' ' 
 
 The Governor to whom Washington wrote 
 these facts expressed his great indignation, 
 adding this illuminating phrase : ' ' The pulse 
 [19]
 
 The Unpopidar History of the United States 
 
 of the New England man beats high for liber- 
 ty. His engagement in the service he thinks 
 purely voluntary, therefore, when the time 
 for enlistment is out, he thinks himself not 
 holden without further engagement." 
 
 Of course, that is the law, a perfectly legal 
 construction to put upon their contract of 
 employment. Nearly one hundred years later 
 we find a similar instance at the first battle 
 of Bull Kun. 
 
 School boys do not regard George Wash- 
 ington as a chronic complainer. Yet his let- 
 ters are full of paragraphs like this : ' * Noth- 
 ing can surpass the impatience of the troops 
 to get to their firesides. Nearly three hun- 
 dred of them arrived a few days ago unable 
 to do any duty. But as soon as I administered 
 that grand specific, a discharge, they instant- 
 ly acquired health, and rather than be de- 
 tained a few days to cross Lake George, un- 
 dertook a march of 200 miles with the great- 
 est alacrity." 
 
 Doesn't this jar upon your reverential 
 ideals, to picture 300 heroes of the Revolu- 
 [20]
 
 The Rush that Never Rushed 
 
 tion limping around camp until Washington 
 told them to go home, when they suddenly 
 became able to march the distance from New 
 York to Washington? 
 
 In consequence of slow voluntary enlist- 
 ments, and the promptitude with which the 
 short time recruit hiked himself homeward, 
 it was considered expedient to try the worst 
 possible makeshift a bounty. The unpalata- 
 ble truth is that by the middle of 1775, before 
 the glorious Declaration of Independence, it 
 had become necessary to pay men so much 
 money for volunteering, making mercenaries 
 of the first soldiers of this republic. On the 
 6th day of December, 1775, the Continental 
 Congress passed this resolution: 
 
 ' ' That the charge of bounty in the accounts 
 exhibited by the Colony of Ehode Island 
 against the United Colonies be not allowed." 
 
 Something had to be done. Washington 
 recognized the failure of the volunteer system 
 and suggested "coercive measures" to fill his 
 regiments. But feeble Congress was afraid 
 to take such a radical step ; instead of devis- 
 [21]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 ing a plan of universal service it tried the 
 more popular scheme of spurring patriotism 
 with cash, and began bidding for men under 
 the bounty system. Up, and up and up the 
 climbing prices went. Four dollars bid ! Six 
 dollars and sixty-six cents ! Ten dollars bid ! 
 By 1778 ruling quotations had reached $20 
 and 100 acres of land. But the rush did not 
 occur. Something else did occur. Bounties 
 made it impossible to get voluntary recruits, 
 and before the end of 1777 Virginia and Mas- 
 sachusetts both had recourse to the draft 
 conscription, compulsion, universal service, 
 or whatever you are pleased to call it. The 
 states bidding for men against the Congress 
 caused large numbers to desert and go home 
 to grab the greater bounty. By 1779 the 
 bounty had increased to $200 to any able bod- 
 ied recruit who would enlist for the war. 
 Then New Jersey offered $250, in addition to 
 the $200, the clothing and land allowed by 
 Congress. The Virginia Council raised the 
 limit to $750, in lieu of all other bounties. 
 This created great dissatisfaction among 
 [22]
 
 The Rush that Never Rushed 
 
 the men who had previously enlisted at the 
 cut rate of $4, $6.66 and $10. To keep them 
 in good humor, and in service, Congress 
 granted a back bounty of $100 each. 
 
 Under these increasing bounties our arm- 
 ies in the field steadily decreased from 89,661 
 in 1776 to 29,340 in 1781. During that period 
 we had employed nearly four hundred thou- 
 sand men. Fewer than 30,000 now remained 
 in the ranks. Desertions became so numer- 
 ous that early in 1779 it was necessary for 
 Congress to recommend a punishment of fine 
 and whipping, think of it whipping for 
 all who should knowingly harbor a deserter. 
 
 So much for this Revolutionary rush to 
 arms which didn't rush. The scramble for 
 men was like the Irishman's idea of a fox 
 hunt. Seeing the scarlet hunters racing and 
 chasing, and trying to catch the fox, he re- 
 marked, "Begod, the dom baste is hell to 
 catch, and ain't worth a dom after you catch 
 him." 
 
 [23]
 
 WHAT THE SHOET-TEEM MILITIA DID 
 
 IT was like pulling hen's teeth to secure 
 the short-term militiamen. Now we shall 
 see what they accomplished while actually 
 in service. And let me say again, over and 
 over, that I mean to cast no slur upon those 
 individual men; what they did was common 
 to short-term untrained recruits in all coun- 
 tries, at all times, among all peoples. 
 
 In 1775 "Washington had 17,000 men under 
 [24]
 
 What the Short Term Militia Did 
 
 his command, 14,500 of whom were fit for 
 duty. The effective redcoats did not exceed 
 6,500, yet the Father of His Country, with 
 twice their force, dared not hazard an at- 
 tack. Why? Because Washington was him- 
 self a soldier, and knew better. Although 
 having great advantage in quantity he was 
 over-matched in quality. The British were 
 trained and disciplined and organized a 
 compact force ; the Americans scarcely hung 
 together as a mob. Bear in mind, that one 
 group of men may be the lowest of cutthroats 
 and plunderers yet be soldiers. Another 
 group, inspired by lofty purposes and highest 
 ideals, may be no more than a mob. It is not 
 patriotism nor courage, but discipline and 
 training, that marks the distinction which 
 Washington so wisely recognized. 
 
 On account of short enlistments and the ir- 
 resistible homeward tendency of recruits, Rev- 
 olutionary leaders were repeatedly forced to 
 give battle under adverse circumstances be- 
 fore the terms of their men expired and left 
 them minus an army. This caused the disas- 
 [25]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 ter at Quebec. Impatient militiamen refused 
 to remain and take the fortress by siege, so 
 the gallant General Montgomery risked a 
 premature assault, lost his own life, had 
 sixty Americans killed, and three or four 
 hundred captured. 
 
 During 1775 the Colonies maintained at 
 public expense 37,623 men, a force which 
 from want of supplies and organization spent 
 the year in a state of demoralizing inactivity. 
 
 The campaign of 1776 opened under heart- 
 breaking conditions. General Washington 
 had entered the conflict with the buoyant hope 
 that his patriotic countrymen would swell 
 the armies of freedom. On January 14th, he 
 wrote : 
 
 " Search the volumes of history and I much 
 question whether a case similar to ours is to 
 be found, namely, to maintain a post against 
 the flower of the British troops for six months 
 together, without powder, and then to have 
 one army disbanded and another to be raised 
 within the same distance of a reenf orced en- 
 emy. The same desire to retire into the chim- 
 [26]
 
 What the Short Term Militia Did 
 
 ney corner seized the troops from New 
 Hampshire, Ehode Island and Massachu- 
 setts so soon as their time expired, as had 
 wrought upon those of Connecticut, notwith- 
 standing many of them made a tender of their 
 services to continue until the line could be 
 sufficiently strengthened. We are now left 
 with a good deal less than half-raised regi- 
 ments, and about 5,000 militia, who only 
 stand engaged to the middle of this month, 
 when according to custom they will retire, 
 whether the necessity for their staying be 
 ever so urgent." 
 
 What a sickening picture of the steadfast 
 Washington watching Freedom's army 
 dwindle away before his very eyes, shifting 
 and changing like the sands of the desert. 
 Believe me, my son, Father was having a 
 batch of trouble with the children. 
 
 Cordially as Washington detested the 
 bounty, which he regarded as the twin broth- 
 er of desertion, he was now forced to waive 
 all objections, nay, even to urge that $20 or 
 [27]
 
 Tlie Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 $30 be paid to "engage men to enlist until 
 January next. " 
 
 Hold still, my son, drive a peg down, right 
 here, and hitch to this idea : I am speaking 
 of raw militia and not of trained men. Plen- 
 ty of these recruits raw as green persim- 
 mons to begin with joined the standard of 
 liberty from the noblest motives. They were 
 brave fellows, with good sand in their craw 
 and could stand punishment individually. 
 Yet the individual must be trained to make a 
 soldier or a hoss doctor or anything else 
 I don't care a thrip how smart he is. Under- 
 stand me, I 'm not posted on military matters 
 myself. When somebody chases me up a tree 
 I call on George Washington. George says : 
 
 ' * To bring men to be well acquainted with 
 the duties of a soldier requires time. To 
 bring them under proper discipline and sub- 
 ordination, not only requires time, but is a 
 work of great difficulty; and in this army, 
 where there is so little distinction between 
 officers and soldiers, it requires an uncommon 
 [28]
 
 What the Short Term Militia Did 
 
 degree of attention. Men who are familiar- 
 ized with danger meet it without shrinking; 
 whereas troops unused to service, often ap- 
 prehend danger where no danger is." 
 
 [29]
 
 VI 
 
 PESTERING FATHER WITH POP- 
 CALLS 
 
 THE great human heart of Washington 
 beat sympathetically; with his people. He un- 
 derstood that men of kindly feelings, fresh 
 from all the tender associations of domestic 
 life, "are not sufficiently fortified to stand 
 the shocking scenes of war. To march over 
 dead men, to hear without concern the groans 
 of the wounded, few men can endure such 
 scenes unless steeled by habit or fortified by 
 military pride." 
 
 [30]
 
 Pestering Father with Pop-Calls 
 
 It pestered Father mightily to have these 
 pop-call volunteers blowing in on him and 
 blowing out again. Some of them never tar- 
 ried long enough to hang up their hats. They 
 had implicit confidence in George, and were 
 willing to leave it to George. But if George 
 ever got them haltered and tied, he made sol- 
 diers to brag of : " Our soldiers are as good 
 as ever were, and were the officers half as 
 good as the men they would beat any army 
 on the globe of equal number. But neither 
 officers nor men have the requisite subordi- 
 nation and discipline." His come-and-go 
 militia did not consider themselves bound by 
 the same restrictions as governed the Conti- 
 nental regulars, and destroyed what little 
 discipline Washington succeeded in hammer- 
 ing into his men. 
 
 Looking only at the cost, throughout the 
 Eevolution it would have been far cheaper to 
 maintain fifty or a hundred thousand Conti- 
 nentals, rather than half as many, and depend 
 for the balance upon hastily gathered militia. 
 Huge levies were employed, which accom- 
 [31]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 plished nothing, and cost more money than a 
 permanent establishment. 
 
 In those days folks held a powerful strong 
 prejudice against a standing army, as being 
 dangerous to liberty. A standing army may 
 be dangerous, but believe me, son, a running 
 militia is worse. 
 
 Now get this notion straight in your head : 
 As I have said and will say again, it is not 
 a question of the courage and patriotism of 
 the individual volunteer. Men who were not 
 hardened to seeing their friends shot down 
 beside them, not accustomed to hearing the 
 moans of wounded comrades, simply couldn't 
 stand it, no matter how great their individual 
 courage. Revolutionary volunteers were 
 brothers, sons, and fathers of the Continental 
 regulars, those sturdy and steadfast troops 
 who stuck through it all, from first to last; 
 they became veterans, as good as ever trod 
 shoe leather. Between eight and ten thou- 
 sand Continentals, starving, freezing, and 
 naked, never thought of giving up throughout 
 that terrible winter at Valley Forge. And 
 [32]
 
 Pestering Father with Pop-Calls 
 
 had it not been for this resolute group the 
 cause of libery was lost. 
 
 On the other hand, their inefficient brothers 
 of the militia generally spread disorder, mu- 
 tiny and panic until Washington said that 
 ' ' the militia was more hurtful than helpful to 
 the cause of independence." 
 
 Washington had about 8,000 militia of this 
 kind to oppose Lord Howe on Long Island. 
 The British outnumbered him two to one. 
 Washington was beaten. A repulse does not 
 necessarily destroy an army of trained sol- 
 diers. A good drubbing may only make a 
 bunch of veterans grit their teeth and stand 
 firmer. It riles 'em. But if you defeat the 
 militia and start 'em to turning tail, they take 
 the route to scatteration. It is mighty pitiful 
 to hear the old General telling about how 
 his troops behaved on this humiliating day. 
 Washington heard the first shots of the bat- 
 tle and galloped to the front. Instead of find- 
 ing his men fighting valiantly on the battle 
 line, they were flying in every direction, with 
 their officers striving in vain to rally them. 
 [331
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 Washington succeeded in stopping the rout 
 for a minute, until a squad of 60 or 70 red- 
 coats appeared in the distance. Then the 
 panic-stricken militia bolted away from their 
 Commander-in-Chief and hustled hot-foot 
 through the woods without even remembering 
 that they carried guns. 
 
 A standing army might have stood, but the 
 running militia didn't. They got started, and 
 kept going, going, gone never halting this 
 side of home. They deserted Washington by 
 companies, by half regiments, almost by 
 whole regiments. On account of their lack of 
 discipline and refusal to submit to any kind of 
 restraint, Father at this time admitted that he 
 had lost confidence in the generality of his 
 troops. As a result of which the British oc- 
 cupied the City of New York. 
 
 Washington immediately wrote to Con- 
 gress that "our liberties must be greatly 
 handicapped, if not entirely lost, if their de- 
 fense is left to anything but a permanent 
 standing army. I mean, one to exist during 
 the war. " 
 
 [34]
 
 Pestering Father with Pop-Calls 
 
 The Commander-in-Chief now faced an en- 
 tire dissolution of his army, which congre- 
 gated and separated like the crowds in a mov- 
 ing picture show. 
 
 [35]
 
 vn 
 
 THE EUNNING MILITIA 
 
 LISTEN to your Uncle Samuel ! Human na- 
 ture does not change. We are mighty near 
 the same kind of white folks to-day. When 
 men get hot in the collar they'll reach around 
 and grab the first weapon they can lay hands 
 on to fight with. After scrapping awhile they 
 get tired and want to quit. That's where dis- 
 cipline comes in. Father used to talk like a 
 Dutch uncle to his children, arguing about 
 [36]
 
 The Running Militia 
 
 the "nobility of the cause of freedom," 
 "come on boys," all that sort of thing. No- 
 body disputed a word he said. "Yep, it's a 
 bully good cause ; everybody ought to be free. 
 But 'tain't my business to fight no more than 
 that other fellow's." They left it pretty 
 much to George. 
 
 Now if you've got it well planted in your 
 head, the kind of militia we used during the 
 Eevolution, I'll tell you what they did just 
 a few things. 
 
 At Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill 
 they fought like thunderation, on the inde- 
 pendent plan. But volunteers and militia are 
 always shortwinded. After that most of 'em 
 sat down for a spell to stretch out and talk 
 it over. 
 
 At Quebec, when their terms were expiring, 
 they got so fidgety to go home and look after 
 the crops that they caused the loss of the ex- 
 pedition and the death of General Montgom- 
 ery. 
 
 They scattered on Long Island before Lord 
 Howe like leaves before the wind. 
 [37]
 
 The Unpopular History of tJie United States 
 
 Washington retired from White Plains be- 
 cause he had no dependable troops. The Brit- 
 ish on their return to New York incidentally 
 captured Fort Washington with 2,000 Ameri- 
 can prisoners. General Washington was com- 
 pelled to cross the Delaware with 5,000 troops 
 because his militiamen were disbanding, and 
 he was powerless to make even a show of re- 
 sistance. 
 
 Yet on the 26th of December, by a brilliant 
 surprise of the Hessians at Trenton, Wash- 
 ington with a force of 2,400, captured 900 
 prisoners without losing a man. 
 
 His victory at Princeton ended the cam- 
 paign with a loss to the British of 400 killed, 
 wounded and prisoners. 
 
 My son, folks brag mightily on their Uncle 
 Samuel for a sharp horse trader and tight- 
 fisted Yankee. Maybe so, maybe so, but it 
 appears to me that in managing my army I 
 have been saving at the spigot and losing at 
 the bung. In 1776 I was paying a force of 
 Continentals and militia numbering 89,661 
 [38]
 
 The Running Militia 
 
 men. My biggest guess at the redcoats is 
 34,000 men. 
 
 With all that force I should have been able 
 to do something. But my fellows were picked 
 up here and there and yonder; and I never 
 kept them hired long enough to get them field 
 broke. There was no way to swarm a big 
 enough bunch in one place at one time to hit 
 the British. The only offensive operations 
 that we felt sufficiently strong to undertake 
 were in the vicinity of Boston, at Trenton and 
 at Princeton. I squandered millions upon 
 millions on short-term recruits who never 
 stayed in ranks long enough to learn which 
 was hay-foot and which was straw-foot, and 
 were not worth their board and keep. 
 
 Throughout the Revolution these raw re- 
 cruits generally had their running gear set 
 on the hair trigger. Our mistakes in the be- 
 ginning of the war were repeated over and 
 over again, always the same sad story: at 
 Camden the hasty levies stampeded and ran 
 from the first shot, leaving their steadfast 
 Continental comrades to be slaughtered, the 
 [39]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 latter losing seventy officers and 2,000 men. 
 This crushing defeat, and the surrender of 
 5,000 Americans at Charleston which cost 
 us nearly the whole of North Carolina, South 
 Carolina and Georgia were not compensated 
 for by the minor exploits of Marion and Sum- 
 ter. 
 
 Eeferring to Camden, General Washington 
 wrote: "This event shows the fatal conse- 
 quences of depending on militia. Eegular 
 troops alone are equal to the exigencies of 
 modern war. No militia will ever acquire the 
 habits necessary to resist a regular force. The 
 firmness requisite for the real business of 
 fighting is only to be attained by a constant 
 course of discipline and training." 
 
 Excuse me, son, if I cuss once in a while ; 
 don't put that down. But I get mad every 
 time I think of General Stevens, at the battle 
 of Cowpens, being forced to place a guard 
 behind his militiamen with orders to shoot 
 the first recruit who left his post. Isn't that 
 a disgraceful proposition for patriots fighting 
 in the cause of freedom? 
 [401
 
 The Running Militia 
 
 My boy, I Ve made a lot of mistakes that I 
 had rather forget. But we are now engaged 
 in a war of such magnitude, such devilish in- 
 genuity, that we must look facts squarely in 
 the face. They are ugly facts, yet you can't 
 blink at 'em, or hide your head in the sand 
 like an ostrich. The ostrich lays himself 
 mighty liable to a rear-end collision. I wish 
 you would tell these facts to every young 
 militiaman in the United States. It won't 
 hurt their feelings. They are beginning to 
 understand. Every youngster who has spent 
 a few weeks in training camp comes to realize 
 that courage, willingness, and the basic qual- 
 ities of manhood are insufficient he must 
 learn how to handle himself. 
 
 The famous Light Horse Harry Lee was a 
 great soldier, and he manfully insisted that 
 "that Government is the murderer of its citi- 
 zens who sends them into the field uninformed 
 and untaught." 
 
 [41]
 
 vm 
 
 A STBANGEE COMES 
 
 DURING the entire Kevolutionary War of 
 eight long years, we never whipped the Brit- 
 ish in bnt two fights which had the slightest 
 effect in driving them from this continent. 
 Only one of these battles did we gain unaided. 
 At Stillwater we captured General Burgoyne 
 with 5,791 men, the Continentals and militia 
 numbering about 17,000, with a total force 
 present and fit for duty of 13,020. Of these 
 [42]
 
 A Stranger Comes 
 
 ?,090 were regular Continental soldiers. So 
 that we outnumbered the British at Stillwater 
 about two and a half or three to one. Our 
 only other decisive victory was the surrender 
 of Cornwallis at Yorktown, which we shall 
 discuss presently. 
 
 In spite of increasing bounties, and Wash- 
 ington's constant pleading for a good army, 
 his force in New Jersey when the campaign 
 opened in March, 1777, was reduced to 3,000 
 men of whom 2,000 were militia engaged for 
 no longer than the last of March. And yet 
 the total forces of men employed by us dur- 
 ing that year was 68,720 men. 
 
 Our wrangling, disjointed Government was 
 just about as futile and disorganized as were 
 our forces in the field. The Articles of Con- 
 federation, which created a loosely hung part- 
 nership of Colonies, went into effect in July, 
 1778. This formed a League of Friendship 
 for common defense, the jealous purpose of 
 which was evidently to safeguard the sover- 
 eignty of the States, and not to provide a 
 strong Federal government. Individualism 
 [43]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 again, and not team work. The Continental 
 Congress had no power to carry on war, to en- 
 list a soldier, to levy taxes, nor to enforce 
 a requisition for money or for men. Instead 
 of vesting the war power in a central govern- 
 ment, which alone could insure its vigorous 
 exercise, Congress was nothing more than a 
 consulting body of diplomats with authority 
 to entreat but not to compel. No measures 
 could be taken for common defense except 
 such as were separately sanctioned by nine of 
 the allied sovereignties. My son, I have al- 
 ways heard that a kind-hearted Providence 
 watched over children and fools and the 
 United States. We needed it. But, listen to 
 your Uncle Samuel. Providence has a mighty 
 big job on its hands right now, and we had 
 better learn to crawl and stand ourselves. 
 
 Just imagine what a gabfest the Congress 
 and state legislatures must have had when to 
 the vacillations and delays of Congress itself 
 were added the interminable debates of nine 
 State legislatures. It makes me cuss to think 
 about it. That's why our impotent Congress 
 [44]
 
 A Stranger Comes 
 
 passed the buck to George, appointing George 
 Military Dictator. It is not strength, but 
 weakness, which creates dictators over a 
 republic. Here was Washington, preaching 
 the equal rights of all men, yet by his soli- 
 tary power raising armies and paying them, 
 ruling millions of free men who struggled to 
 attain an ideal of constitutional liberty. 
 Mighty bad precedent, wasn't it, my son? 
 But it was up to somebody to do something, 
 and Congress couldn't. 
 
 They got their business in such a jam, be- 
 fore making Washington dictator, that the 
 Commander-in-Chief could not even secure 
 the promotion of an officer serving under him, 
 an officer of known ability and skill. It was 
 a marvel that his army muddled along at all. 
 The Washington monument ought to be twice 
 as high. 
 
 This year of '78 brought a very significant 
 factor to our shores, far more significant than 
 anybody dreamed of at the time. A stranger 
 came, the Prussian Baron Steuben, ex-officer 
 of Frederick the Great. Steuben brought a 
 [45]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 knowledge of organization and discipline 
 gained from his great master. He was ap- 
 pointed Inspector-General of the army, and 
 set about getting things into shape. A fluent 
 linguist, Steuben swore in fourteen different 
 languages, which was none too many for those 
 recruits. He straightened out even the three 
 months' men, put them under rules and kept 
 them under. He boiled and stewed and roast- 
 ed those raw recruits until your Uncle Sam- 
 uel began to get action for the money he was 
 paying. And, my son, we are using to-day 
 much of what we learned from Baron Steu- 
 ben, using it to fight against the Prussian 
 system which Frederick the Great created. 
 
 [46]
 
 IX 
 
 THE BALANCE SHEET OF DISASTER 
 
 THE plan of voluntary enlistments, even 
 when puffed up by outrageous bounties, hav- 
 ing failed to raise the necessary men, Con- 
 gress was forced to recommend the draft 
 a draft for the armies of freedom. Then what 
 happened? To escape conscription shifty 
 patriots began hiring substitutes, hiding be- 
 hind any old scarecrow that they could shove 
 into the ranks. They even traded for a job 
 [47]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 lot of deserters from Burgoyne's army. 
 Think of it! Bnying and paying liberty's 
 money to skulkers who had sneaked out of 
 British regiments ! Thereupon Father wrote 
 letters and told these proxy patriots exactly 
 what he thought about them, and especially 
 about the dangers of substituting as soldiers 
 of the infant republic men who had already 
 given proof of their treacherous dispositions. 
 One of his colonels backed up Father with 
 the proof that every British deserter, except 
 one, had in turn deserted him, stealing prop- 
 erties and accouterments as they left. Any- 
 way, they were impartial deserters. 
 
 My son, let me beat into your head some- 
 thing else about this whirligig of volunteer 
 militia. It did not produce an army of sol- 
 diers. But as a mill for turning out pen- 
 sioners it went on grinding day and night. 
 The greatest force of soldiers that Washing- 
 ton could ever get together in one command 
 was 17,000. But after the smoke blew away 
 I had on my hands, in one bunch, an army of 
 95,753 pensioners. 
 
 [48]
 
 The Balance Sheet of Disaster 
 
 Let us pass over, charitably, a multitude of 
 such errors, insufficiencies and humiliations, 
 coming to the victory which decided the war. 
 Lord Cornwallis surrendered 7,000 men at 
 Yorktown. The allied French and Americans 
 numbered 16,000 strong, 4,000 of whom were 
 French veterans. Besides, we had 21 French 
 ships of the line. So that in this affair we 
 outnumbered the enemy by nearly two and a 
 half to one, without counting the fleet. 
 
 I hate to harp and harp on such discordant 
 strings, but our people ought to know. Plen- 
 ty of good folks in the towns stick to it that 
 one American patriot can lick ten soldiers of 
 any foreign nation. I think they say ten. 
 We can't do it, and the sooner we learn that, 
 the quicker we'll put ourselves in shape to 
 make the Stars and Stripes respected. 
 
 The record of short-term volunteer militia 
 throughout the Revolution was an almost 
 continuous performance of inefficiency, de- 
 sertions, mutinies, and that particular brand 
 of cowardice which comes from lack of disci- 
 pline and organization. Not that the recruits 
 [49]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 were personal cowards. They had merely 
 failed to learn the lesson of cohesive courage. 
 During those eight disastrous years we em- 
 ployed nearly 400,000 men practically ten 
 times the redcoats gaining only two vic- 
 tories of consequence Stillwater and York- 
 town. With overwhelming numbers in our 
 favor, fighting on our own soil, we failed and 
 continued to fail. Why? Because the indi- 
 vidual American is inferior to the individual 
 Britisher? Not a bit of it. No American is 
 willing to admit that. It is not true. But 
 the Briton was a trained soldier who knew his 
 trade. Our volunteers and militia got into 
 each other's way. They had no conception 
 of team work, and refused to learn. They 
 were possessed of a mob spirit, time after 
 time breaking into defiant insubordination 
 and mutiny, even killing their own officers 
 who attempted to enforce a semblance of dis- 
 cipline. For example: After the war was 
 over some eighty recruits mutinied at Lancas- 
 ter, and marched to Philadelphia. Here they 
 were joined by about 200 comrades from the 
 [50]
 
 The Balance Sheet of Disaster 
 
 barracks. Proceeding with music and fixed 
 bayonets to the State House, where Congress 
 and the Council of Pennsylvania were in ses- 
 sion, they stationed sentinels at every door 
 to prevent egress, and then served upon both 
 bodies a written demand for the redress of 
 their grievances, threatening military vio- 
 lence in case their wrongs were not righted 
 within the brief space of twenty minutes. For 
 several hours Congress and the Pennsylvania 
 Council found themselves at the mercy of an 
 armed and undisciplined soldiery. In this ex- 
 tremity, fearing that the State of Pennsyl- 
 vania could not furnish adequate protection, 
 Congress called for regular troops, aban- 
 doned the Capital and adjourned to meet at 
 Princeton. Thus a few rioting recruits forced 
 the flight of Congress. These were mere re- 
 cruits, soldiers of a day who had not borne the 
 heat and burden of the war. As against their 
 behavior contrast the veteran Continentals. 
 All honor to them, sturdy and steadfast, who 
 patiently endured hunger, danger and cold; 
 who suffered and bled without a murmur; 
 [51]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 who in perfect good order retired to their 
 homes without a settlement of their accounts 
 or a farthing of money in their pockets. 
 "What an absolutely convincing parallel ! On 
 the one hand the turbulent and rebellious 
 spirit of the mob, utterly barren of results 
 upon the battlefield, but ready to follow the 
 dictates of passion and the mouthings of a 
 demagogue. On the other hand, the self- 
 restraint, the effective and competent conduct 
 of the Continental regulars. Bear in mind, 
 my son, keep bearing it in mind, never forget, 
 that they were precisely the same individual 
 men to begin with ; they came from the same 
 homes, the same families and the same blood. 
 The only difference between them lay in their 
 training. Let me say it again, we Americans 
 pride ourselves upon our individualism. We 
 love to do just as we darn please, and hate 
 anybody to give us orders. This brand of in- 
 efficiency is part of the price we pay for de- 
 mocracy. 
 
 Someway or other, by the help of Provi- 
 dence and the French, in some kind of fash- 
 [521
 
 The Balance Sheet of Disaster 
 
 ion, by main strength and awkwardness, we 
 managed to stumble through the Eevolution 
 to a successful if not a triumphant conclusion. 
 It was the French, however, who finally 
 achieved our independence, and we can never 
 repay them.' 
 
 We could not have won without the French. 
 After eight years of fighting for freedom, 
 eight years of Washington's begging and 
 pleading, we now had about one-third the 
 number of men with which we had begun the 
 war. It means something more : Altogether 
 we had employed near 400,000. Eliminating 
 possible killed and wounded, it means that 
 many thousands of the volunteers who began 
 fighting simply got tired and quit with their 
 bounties, perhaps more than 300,000 of them. 
 Think of that, 300,000 soldiers of the young 
 republic who had once been under arms, 
 had now quietly retired to their homes be- 
 cause they were willing to fight no longer. 
 
 [53]
 
 THE LITTLE WE LEARNED AND THE 
 MUCH WE DIDN'T 
 
 MY son, we ought to have learned something 
 from all this tragedy of errors. We didn't. 
 Folks just said, "We licked the entire British 
 Empire, ' ' and let it go at that. The real facts 
 never leaked into their noggins, that the Rev- 
 olution had been prolonged to eight disas- 
 trous years, when by the intelligent and com- 
 pact use of our resources, it might have been 
 [54]
 
 Little We Learned and Much We Didn't 
 
 ended by a single campaign. Of course a few 
 men mighty scarce and nobody listened 
 a few men sat down and figured out the rea- 
 sons. Of course the Continental Congress 
 was not to blame for the errors and left- 
 handed inefficiencies of our military estab- 
 lishment. As I told you before, the Conti- 
 nental Congress had no power to raise a dol- 
 lar or to enlist a man. It was nothing but a 
 sterilized debating society, with power to say 
 "Whereas" and "Besolved" and "Will you 
 please" to the sovereign states. But the 
 Federal Constitution, adopted in March, 1789, 
 gave to the Congress of the young republic 
 a giant's authority to raise and support arm- 
 ies, to provide and maintain a navy, to levy 
 taxes; so your Uncle Samuel is now clothed 
 with every war power that the most despotic 
 emperor could ask. Whatever now goes 
 wrong with our scheme of national defense 
 is directly chargeable to the United States 
 Congress and to your Uncle Samuel. But, 
 my son, remember this and never forget, that 
 neither Congress nor Uncle Sam can turn a 
 [55]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 wheel unless we are backed up by public sen- 
 timent. It's the public sentiment of the coun- 
 try which makes Congress act. That's why I 
 am so anxious to have all the country folks 
 and all the city folks know exactly where we 
 stand. There 's no forty-seven different ways 
 about what we've got to do. Do you suppose 
 I'm talking to you just to hear my tongue rat- 
 tle? No, siree. I'm busier than a bumblebee 
 in a bucket of tar, but can't accomplish a 
 thing unless the people get busy, too. Our 
 folks have got plenty of sense if we can just 
 make them dive down in their think-tanks and 
 use it. 
 
 It's as plain as the nose on your face what 
 we should have learned from the Eevolution : 
 
 First: That nearly all the dangers that 
 threatened the cause of independence may 
 be traced to the total inexperience of our 
 statesmen in regard to military affairs, which 
 led to vital mistakes in army legislation. 
 
 Second : That, for waging war, a Confed- 
 eration is the weakest of all governments. 
 
 Third : That neither voluntary enlistments 
 [56]
 
 Little We Learned and Much We Didn't 
 
 based on patriotism, nor a bounty, can be re- 
 lied upon to supply men for a prolonged war. 
 
 Fourth: That the draft, selective or not 
 selective, with voluntary enlistments and 
 bounties, is the only sure reliance of the gov- 
 ernment in time of war. 
 
 Fifth : That short enlistments are destruc- 
 tive of discipline, tend to disgust men with 
 the service, and force the government to re- 
 sort to either a bounty or the draft. 
 
 Sixth: That when a nation attempts to 
 combat disciplined troops with raw levies, it 
 must maintain an army of at least twice the 
 size of the enemy, and even then have no 
 guarantee of success. 
 
 These facts are the A. B. C. of military 
 horse sense and likewise the X. Y. Z. 
 
 The Continental government acted without 
 foresight in creating a system of volunteer 
 militia, and the new Federal government dis- 
 played no hindsight by continuing it. Look- 
 ing backward, and with complete power to 
 remedy evils, it disbanded our regular army 
 except 80 men and raised 700 men to serve 
 [57]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 for one year. Bevolutionary failures had 
 taught nothing to the Congress which re- 
 fused to be weaned away from its militia de- 
 lusion. 
 
 By this time, my son, you must have grown 
 tired of hearing about our militia fading 
 away into thin mists when confronted by the 
 rock-like ranks of regular troops. But 
 doesn't it give you a pain to know that they 
 did precisely the same thing when Lo, the 
 poor Indian, let loose a war whoop? Our 
 first military expedition after the Revolution 
 was led by General Joseph Harmar against 
 the Miami Indians 320 regulars and 1,133 
 militia. Sixty regulars and 330 militia at- 
 tacked the Indian village, losing 183 killed and 
 31 wounded. The humiliating details were 
 developed at the coroner's inquest other- 
 wise called Congressional investigation. Con- 
 gress had a way of probing calamities after 
 their occurrence, instead of preventing them 
 in advance. Naturally they probed General 
 Harmar 's conduct, and judicially determined 
 that ''amongst the militia were a great many 
 T58]
 
 Little We Learned and Much We Didn't 
 
 hardly able to bear arms, such as old, infirm 
 men, and young boys ; they were not such as 
 might be expected from a frontier; viz., 
 strong, active woodsmen well accustomed to 
 arms, eager and alert to avenge injuries 
 done. ' ' Also, many of the militia were sub- 
 stitutes. 
 
 Congress utterly failed to detect the milk in 
 the cocoanut, that even if the men had been 
 "active woodsmen well accustomed to arms," 
 without discipline they might be worthless 
 as soldiers. A few months later 4,000 of such 
 woodsmen actually ran away from a prairie 
 fire. 
 
 [59J
 
 XI 
 
 LO, THE IMPOLITE INDIAN 
 
 WHILE investigating the preventable trag- 
 edy of Harmar, everybody did a lot of talk- 
 ing according to Congressional precedent. 
 The evidence showed that on attacking the 
 village the " militia behaved badly, disobeyed 
 orders, and left the regular troops to be sac- 
 rificed." The Investigating Committee after 
 weighing all testimony finally and solemnly 
 concluded "that the conduct of the said Brig- 
 [60]
 
 Lo, the Impolite Indian 
 
 adier General Joseph A. Hannar merits our 
 approbation." I wonder what the 183 dead 
 men thought about it. 
 
 It would seem that foresights and hind- 
 sights, working together would sidetrack any 
 future chance for such a catastrophe. Not a 
 bit. One year later the same thing happened, 
 only worse. General St. Clair, with 1,400 
 regulars and militia, was attacked by a nearly 
 equal force of Indians, and routed. Think 
 
 of that, by a nearly equal force. They were 
 not overpowered, not outnumbered. Man to 
 man the Indians beat the militia, St. Glair's 
 army was destroyed, with a loss of 632 killed 
 and 264 wounded, which exceeds the total 
 killed at the battles of Long Island and Cam- 
 den, the two bloodiest affairs of the Revolu- 
 tionary War. This wasn't a fight, it was a 
 massacre. 
 
 The House of Representatives immediately 
 appointed another committee for another in- 
 vestigation. Foreseeing the future after it 
 had occurred, this Committee reported that 
 "the militia appeared to have been composed 
 [61]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 principally of substitutes, totally ungoverna- 
 ble, regardless of military duty and subordi- 
 nation. ' ' 
 
 That was no news. Our militia had rarely 
 been anything else. They were individual 
 Americans. But Congress added an apology 
 which explained everything: "The attack 
 was unexpected, the troops having just been 
 dismissed from morning parade. The militia 
 were in advance and fled through the main 
 army without firing a gun. This circum- 
 stance threw the troops into some disorder, 
 from which it appears that they never re- 
 covered. ' ' Under such plainly mitigating cir- 
 cumstances the militiamen pleaded that the 
 Indians had attacked unexpectedly, as In- 
 dians had no legal right to do. Indians are 
 not submarines. Nobody was looking for 
 Indians. Nobody was thinking of Indians. 
 Nobody was meddling with Indians. A per- 
 fectly nice Indian should never jump on a 
 mob of substitutes just after they had been 
 dismissed from morning parade. And the 
 militia, strictly according to Hoyle, turned 
 [62]
 
 Lo, the Impolite Indian 
 
 tail without firing, and ran backward through 
 the regulars. The Congressional Report con- 
 cludes with: "In justice to the Commander- 
 in-Chief we say that the failure of the 
 late expedition can in no respect be imputed 
 to his conduct, either at any time before, or 
 during the action." It became quite a con- 
 ventional phrase to speak of any militia ex- 
 pedition as "the late expedition." 
 
 Now it was squarely up to Congress to do 
 something, and Congress did. 
 
 My son, did you ever observe a dominecker 
 hen setting on a china doorknob? Ever try 
 to argue with her? It's no use. She will get 
 off the nest, scratch gravel backwards, turn 
 over the doorknob, investigate investigate, 
 and go to setting some more. Isn't she the 
 perforated pattern of undiscouraged opti- 
 mism? Well, Congress was just that stubborn 
 about trying to hatch a brood of winners 
 from this volunteer militia egg. Having of- 
 ficially settled the fact that the militia was an 
 insubordinate, undisciplined and ineffective 
 force, they immediately set to work to break 
 [63]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 it up? Oh dear, no. They built it up. They 
 made it bigger and clumsier and worse. As 
 the militia method was so bad to begin with, 
 they went the limit, and converted everybody 
 into militiamen. By Act of May 8, 1792, 
 every free, able-bodied white male citizen be- 
 tween the ages of 18 and 45, was required to 
 be enrolled in the militia of the United States, 
 and served with notice of his enrollment. 
 After that, every citizen should, within six 
 months, provide himself with a good musket, 
 or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two 
 soft flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box 
 therein to contain not less than 24 cartridges 
 suited to the bore of his musket, etc., etc. 
 Ah ha! Congress is learning; they specify 
 by law that the cartridge should fit the gun. 
 It now becomes the citizen's duty to appear 
 for exercise or duty when called upon. How- 
 ever cumbersome this legal contraption, it 
 was the first step ever taken by the United 
 States Government towards universal mili- 
 tary service. 
 
 One glaring defect of the law if your Un- 
 [64]
 
 Lo, the Impolite Indian 
 
 cle Samuel may be respectfully permitted to 
 select any particular defect was that it left 
 the militia at the command of the state gov- 
 ernments. This statute remained dead on the 
 statute books, there being no penalties pro- 
 vided for its violation. 
 
 Instead of creating one efficient national 
 army, we became possessed of thirteen inde- 
 pendent and disconnected state mobs. But it 
 was a beautifully free mob of freeborn citi- 
 zens. They could either get together and act 
 as mob if they chose, or they could remain at 
 home. There was no method of forcing them. 
 
 On this occasion I rise to remark : We must 
 not forget that certain provision in the first 
 section of the act which laid down the truly 
 democratic doctrine that every able-bodied 
 male citizen owes military service to his coun- 
 try. 
 
 It further provided for a system of enroll- 
 ment and territorial recruiting. All the rest 
 of the law was bad, hopelessly bad. 
 
 As a balm laid upon the soreness of Har- 
 mar's and St. Glair's defeats, in June, 1795, 
 [65]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 General Wayne attacked and dispersed the 
 Miami Indians. But in his force there was 
 a very large preponderance of disciplined 
 regulars, and it was their attack with the bay- 
 onet which scattered the savages. 
 
 [66]
 
 xn 
 
 GEORGE'S PET 
 
 MY son, I was speaking to you awhile ago 
 about George Washington. Well, George had 
 a pet scheme in the back part of his head, the 
 foundation of a Military Academy. Only 
 three days before his death he wrote to Alex- 
 ander Hamilton : ' ' The establishment of an 
 institution of this kind has ever been consid- 
 ered by me as an object of primary impor- 
 tance for this country. When I was in the 
 [67]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 chair of Government I omitted no proper op- 
 portunity of recommending it." Mr. Mc- 
 Henry, Secretary of War in 1805, submitted 
 his views to Congress and said: "It cannot 
 be forgotten that in our Revolutionary War it 
 was not until after several years ' practice 
 with arms, that our soldiers became at all 
 qualified to meet on the field of battle those 
 to whom they were opposed. Occasional bril- 
 liant and justly celebrated acts of some of our 
 militia detract nothing from this dearly 
 bought truth." 
 
 By Act of 1805 Congress authorized the 
 President to establish a Corps of Engineers, 
 with a cadre of not over 20 officers and ca- 
 dets, "which shall be stationed at West Point 
 in the State of New York, and shall constitute 
 a Military Academy." 
 
 Mighty small potatoes to begin with, but it 
 grew. 
 
 During this period between the Revolution 
 and the War of 1812 we had the Shay Rebel- 
 lion, the Whiskey Rebellion, complications 
 with England and also with the Republic of 
 [68]
 
 George's Pet 
 
 France. Congress appropriated money to 
 fortify the coast and authorized the Presi- 
 dent to raise a provincial army of 10,000 
 men, in case of a declaration of war against 
 the United States. They meant to wait, how- 
 ever, until war was actually declared against 
 us. This army was never called into service. 
 Later on further preparations were made for 
 conflict with Great Britain, but Congress, 
 with full power to maintain a real army, still 
 clung to its militia delusion, and even ree'n- 
 acted the odious and ineffective bounty pro- 
 visions. 
 
 Bounty attractions drew precisely the same 
 results or rather lack of results. The army, 
 which in 1810 numbered 2,765, had only in- 
 creased to 6,686 in July, 1812. On paper we 
 were supposed to muster 35,603 men. It 
 passes human belief that our muddle-headed 
 mistakes should be repeated and made more 
 glaring by a return to short-term enlistments 
 so appalling in the Eevolution. But that is 
 exactly what Congress did, by reducing the 
 term of enlistment from five years to 18 
 [69]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 months. As a further and ghastlier joke the 
 President was empowered to require the gov- 
 ernors of the States to hold in readiness to 
 march at a moment's notice a detachment of 
 militia not exceeding 80,000 officers and men. 
 The trouble is that such militia marched back- 
 wards much more fluently than they ever ad- 
 vanced forward. I'm going to tell you more 
 about this presently, the harrowing story of 
 how the capital of this nation fell. 
 
 When our relations with England and 
 France were such that we only maintained 
 an army of 2,000 to 3,000 men, it did not need 
 officers. And for a dead certainty we did not 
 have them. But when war stared us again in 
 the face it was more than criminal neglect to 
 find that after 25 years of independence we 
 were entering another great struggle with of- 
 ficers scarcely more efficient than those whom 
 Washington had deplored in the first years of 
 the Eevolution. Up to 1812 only 71 cadets 
 had graduated from the Military Academy. 
 
 Then, although we had been expecting it for 
 [70]
 
 George's Pet 
 
 fourteen years, the War of 1812 sneaked up 
 behind us. Remember the ostrich? 
 
 Whether we saw it coming or not, we had 
 another big war on our hands. In spite of 
 the fact that six months previously Congress 
 had increased, on paper, the regular estab- 
 lishment to 35,000 men, only 6,744 were actu- 
 ally present and ready for service. 
 
 Manifestly if we were going to strike Eng- 
 land it must be through Canada. Our Secre- 
 tary of War gained the information that 
 Great Britain's regular forces in Canada did 
 not exceed 6,000 men. Reliable English writ- 
 ers of the time say that their force numbered 
 4,450, largely composed "of old men and in- 
 valids fit only for barracks duty." My son, 
 I don't know exactly what they were fit for, 
 but they were fit. I can prove that by various 
 American expeditions that were dispatched 
 against them. 
 
 You cannot understand the situation unless 
 
 you recall that we were working under the 
 
 military laws of May, 1792. Congress had the 
 
 theoretical right to call together an army, but 
 
 [71]
 
 The Unpopidar History of the United States 
 
 it was like calling spirits from the vasty deep 
 anybody can call the spirits but they won't 
 come. 
 
 The Governors of Massachusetts and Con- 
 necticut positively refused to furnish their 
 quotas of the 100,000 militia authorized by 
 the Act of April 10, 1812. They claimed that 
 state militia could only be employed in the 
 service of the United States for three pur- 
 poses executing the laws of the Union, sup- 
 pressing insurrection, and repelling inva- 
 sion. These governors wanted to know pre- 
 cisely where their men were to be used, and 
 how. President Madison could not order the 
 state militia into national service without 
 forcing individual men to become deserters 
 from their states, because the law made no 
 exception if a man left the state service to 
 enter the service of the nation. These gover- 
 nors were able to paralyze for the time be- 
 ing the military power of their respective 
 states, and defeat the plans of the general 
 government. Every wheel had to stop while 
 the Supreme Judicial Court solemnly liti- 
 [72]
 
 George's Pet 
 
 gated the wrangle. This learned debate com- 
 plicated the enlistment proposition, and the 
 men themselves took it up, discussing the 
 question at their camp fire courts. Presently 
 we'll see what effect this had at Queenstown. 
 It hurts mightily to rake all these skeletons 
 out of my family closet, but I couldn't stand 
 to look at them if we had not through later 
 years absolutely demonstrated the courage 
 and capacity of American volunteers once 
 they had been trained and are under rigid dis- 
 cipline. I merely want to impress upon you 
 the fact that our boys need work and steady 
 training before they're worth a hang as sol- 
 diers. 
 
 [73]
 
 xrn 
 
 "ON TO CANADA!" 
 
 EVERY freeborn American has an inaliena- 
 ble and constitutional right to shoot off his 
 mouth whenever he gets ready, loaded with 
 cannister, shrapnel or blanks generally 
 blanks. Immediately the War of 1812 broke 
 out, satchel-mouthed patriots raised the cry 
 of "On to Canada I" 
 
 "On to Canada!" "On to Canada!" they 
 shouted at every crossroads and every street 
 [741
 
 On to Canada!' 
 
 corner. Passionate orators, who meant to 
 stay at home, demanded instant invasion. Our 
 statesmen on the hill, profoundly blind as to 
 what was needed against the disciplined foe, 
 decided offhand that a small body of volun- 
 teers and militia would suffice. Kittens get 
 their eyes open at the end of nine days. 
 Statesmen are not kittens. 
 
 General Isaac Hull must have known bet- 
 ter. He was a tried hero of the Eevolution, 
 an experienced veteran, and close personal 
 friend of George Washington. Yet in July, 
 General Hull, with a picked force of 300 reg- 
 ulars and 1,500 militia started "On to Can- 
 ada ! " He crossed over from Detroit to the 
 Canadian side. The populace behind him 
 clamored "On to Canada!" so General Hull 
 went on. But he returned instantly, without 
 inflicting the slightest damage or accomplish- 
 ing a solitary result. Having regained his 
 own side of the river, he took shelter in the 
 American fort at Detroit. The British force 
 could not comprehend his subtle strategy. It 
 roused their curiosity. They wanted to find 
 [75]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 out why. So the British General Brock, be- 
 ing an inquisitive person, followed General 
 Hull, invaded our territory and bottled up 
 Hull in his fort at Detroit. Now remember, my 
 son, General Hull lay snug, in a well fortified 
 position, with some 1,800 men. The British 
 commander having landed on American soil, 
 with 1,320 men, refused to believe his own 
 eyes when the Americans hoisted a white flag 
 over their fort, and surrendered a superior 
 force inside to an inferior force outside 
 and without even popping a cap. By this fi- 
 asco we Americans lost control of the entire 
 northwest country, together with all the ad- 
 vantage of the initiative, which passed into 
 British hands. Furthermore, their unex- 
 pected and easy success brought to the Brit- 
 ish standard nearly every Indian in all that 
 region. 
 
 My son, what are you beginning to think 
 about this proposition of a single-handed 
 American farmer licking ten of any other na- 
 tion on the globe? 
 
 Eemember this British officer's name, Gen- 
 [76]
 
 On to Canada! '" 
 
 eral Brock. You'll hear of Mm again. At 
 that time he had only 1,320 regulars. Yet he 
 very easily got Detroit, and the whole north- 
 western country, for a Christmas gift. Pres- 
 ently we shall count the cost, in men and 
 money, to dislodge the redcoats. 
 
 What a howl went up from "On to Can- 
 ada!" promoters. Every crossroads oracle 
 expressed his opinion, his personal opinion. 
 They accused General Hull of treason, they 
 charged him with cowardice, they called him 
 bad names, and convened a court martial to 
 prove it. In spite of the Bevomtionary 
 hero's vigorous defense, the court martial 
 actually convicted him of cowardice, although 
 acquitting him of the treason. 
 
 How did General Hull explain it? By say- 
 ing that he began his march with the Fourth 
 United States Eegiment, consisting of 300 ef- 
 fective men, and was joined by 1,200 militia 
 at Urbana. "After the disposition was made 
 for the march, I was informed that part of the 
 militia refused to obey the order. I directed 
 their own officers to give them positive orders 
 [77]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 to march, and informed them if they did not 
 obey, the Fourth United States Eegiment 
 would be sent to compel them. They still re- 
 fused, and a part of the Fourth Eegiment was 
 marched to their station. Then they obeyed. ' ' 
 
 Fair-minded men were convinced that 
 Hull's surrender was caused by the fact that 
 the larger portion of his recruits were unfit, 
 unreliable and insubordinate. A mutinous 
 spirit prevailed among the men, the authority 
 of their officers was not sufficient to command 
 obedience, and nothing but the bayonets of 
 the Fourth Regular Eegiment could have any 
 effect. 
 
 It was considered that General Hull's long 
 and disheartening experience with raw mi- 
 litia preyed upon his mind and might possi- 
 bly have caused him to surrender when there 
 was no real necessity. If so, what a travesty, 
 that the gray-haired and gallant officer should 
 be placed in such position. 
 
 Were it not so humiliating, the details of 
 this blunder would be amusing. One hundred 
 and eighty of Hull's recruits, who had so 
 [78]
 
 On to Canada!' 
 
 gayly started "On to Canada!" balked at 
 their own side of the river, because it was un- 
 constitutional for militia to serve outside the 
 United States, which recalls the sensible old 
 song, 
 
 "Mother, may I go in to swim? 
 
 Yes, my darling daughter. 
 Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, 
 
 But don't go near the water." 
 
 That's an American joke and everybody 
 can understand it. But what the British did 
 to the recruits who were captured was no joke 
 to Americans. General Brock added the 
 stinging insult to Hull's surrender by send- 
 ing all United States regulars as prisoners to 
 Montreal. The volunteers and militia he sim- 
 ply turned loose. Why shouldn't he turn 
 loose such harmless persons? Volunteers 
 and militia were utterly useless to their own 
 government, constituted no peril to the Brit- 
 ish, and were not worth feeding in captivity. 
 This contempt subsequently reacted upon the 
 British at New Orleans. 
 [79]
 
 XIV 
 THE PEAIEIE FIRE PANIC 
 
 Huu/s inglorious finish riled the Ameri- 
 cans. They got their dander up, especially 
 some high-tempered mountaineers in Tennes- 
 see and Kentucky, where General Hopkins 
 raised 4,000 mounted militia. They treated 
 America to the spectacle of a genuine rush 
 the real thing a rush which measured up to 
 every optimistic prediction of those who 
 placed their faith in militia 4,000 fiery cava- 
 [80]
 
 The Prairie Fire Panic 
 
 liers, " smart and active woodsmen," eager 
 for revenge, sniffing the battle from afar 
 4,000 mounted frontiersmen rode, furiously, 
 upon what developed into the wittiest cam- 
 paign of any war if brevity be the soul of 
 wit. Their whirlwind campaign lasted five 
 days. Once on the march the ardor of the 
 troops began to cool, and the leaven of mu- 
 tiny wrought disintegration. On the fourth 
 day a prairie fire was mistaken for some 
 cunning ruse of the enemy. Panic-stricken and 
 totally ignoring the authority of their officers, 
 the disorderly rabble abandoned their jour- 
 ney. Incredible as it may sound, it is yet the 
 sober truth, that 4,000 hardy pioneers scur- 
 ried back again to their mountains, hysterical- 
 ly frightened by an anonymous and serenely 
 innocent prairie fire. Their officers ordered 
 and pleaded and raved and swore; nothing 
 could stop such an unreasoning and undisci- 
 plined rabble. 
 
 Every fellow for himself, and the devil take 
 the hindmost, they scattered to their homes, 
 each with a gory and imaginative tale to tell. 
 [81]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 This is just another illustration of individual 
 initiative working backwards. 
 
 It is perfectly possible to take a thousand 
 individuals, each of whom is individually 
 fearless, form them hastily into a regiment, 
 and collectively they will not stand fire. A 
 thousand individual heroes may easily make 
 one collective regimental coward. Such is the 
 incomprehensible psychology of the mob. 
 
 But the point to be emphasized is this: 
 Nobody seemed to learn anything from these 
 staggering stampedes. Even General Wil- 
 liam Henry Harrison, who had sense enough 
 to become President of the United States 
 some years later, tried his hand at the same 
 game. He selected another army for the ex- 
 press, sworn and heralded purpose of wip- 
 ing out the stain of Hull's surrender. Again 
 it was militia frontiersmen from Ken- 
 tucky, Virginia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania. 
 Volunteers surged forward with the greatest 
 enthusiasm, and offered themselves in such 
 numbers that General Harrison could only 
 take a chosen few, and leave the disappointed 
 [82]
 
 The Prairie Fire Panic 
 
 many. These were not old men and weak- 
 lings and substitutes ; they were Indian-fight- 
 ing sons of the border stout bodies and 
 brave souls, but undisciplined. 
 
 The militia of Kentucky and Tennessee as- 
 sembled at Louisville and Newport; those 
 from Virginia mobilized at Urbana ; and the 
 Pennsylvania crowd gathered at Erie. They 
 were to march in three columns with a sup- 
 posed total of not less than ten thousand men. 
 Think of it! Ten thousand Daniel Boones, 
 Simon Kentons and Buffalo Bills! What 
 glory a school boy would expect from such an 
 expedition, which trailed through the forest, 
 registering oaths against the savage redskins, 
 and swearing to make the British sweat for 
 their capture of Detroit. 
 
 It ended as was foreordained, in the same 
 old, sad old way. No sooner had the several 
 columns began to move than they began to 
 strike the truly American stumbling blocks of 
 mutiny and disobedience. Eaw militia stand 
 hard work with no better grace than they 
 will stand a steady hammering. The left 
 [83]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 column from Kentucky, when only a few days 
 out, had to be argued and pleaded with, re- 
 maining only in response to the personal en- 
 treaties of General Harrison. The middle col- 
 umn, from Urbana, after a slight skirmish 
 with Indians, flatly refused to obey orders for 
 a further pursuit, and returned to their camp. 
 This ended the autumn campaign, and repre- 
 sented the total accomplishments of ten thou- 
 sand men, frontiersmen at that, engaged in 
 the very kind of warfare for which they were 
 supposed to be peculiarly adapted. Once 
 again they demonstrated the undependable- 
 ness of men who were not trained to control 
 and obedience, no matter what may be their 
 patriotism and courage. Nothing, absolutely 
 nothing, was done until January 22, 1813, 
 when a forward movement under General 
 Winchester was defeated and captured at 
 Frenchtown with a loss of 397 killed, 27 
 wounded and 526 prisoners. The British 
 force was the same that had, under General 
 Brock, captured Detroit, and were now com- 
 manded by Proctor who terrorized the north- 
 [84]
 
 The Prairie Fire Panic 
 
 west. The American loss at Frenchtown was 
 a natural sequence of Hull's surrender, and 
 a further installment of the price that we 
 were continually paying for the insubordina- 
 tion of our militia. 
 
 But, my son, let me impress upon you, let 
 me tell you over and over again, the shame of 
 it is that these same militiamen who run 
 away, mutiny, and surrender, represent A 
 No. 1 military material which we lose for lack 
 of training, discipline and organization. 
 
 For a moment now turn back to the begin- 
 ning of the war. You will remember that 
 President Madison had an argument with va- 
 rious governors and lawyers as to whether 
 the state militia could be employed outside of 
 the United States. That powwow raged in 
 the capitol and continued in the camp, to this 
 distressing outcome: On October 12, 1812, 
 General Van Rensselaer, commanding 900 
 regulars and 2,270 militia, held Fort Niagara ; 
 225 American regulars crossed the river into 
 Canada and by a brilliant assault captured 
 the British heights at Queenstown. General 
 [85]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 Brock, the British commander who had taken 
 Detroit, at once saw the importance of dis- 
 lodging these troops, and was killed while 
 leading an unsuccessful assault. In the mean- 
 time most of the militia detachment which 
 was to have taken part of the original move- 
 ment, as well as the remainder of the regu- 
 lars, had crossed the Niagara to help defend 
 the heights. But the rest of the militia on our 
 side of the river, although ordered and im- 
 plored by their commander, absolutely re- 
 fused to pass beyond the borders of the 
 United States. Stubborn as mules, they balked 
 within plain sight and watched their com- 
 rades being slaughtered, while they debated 
 a high point of law whereas, viz, to wit: 
 whether or not under the Constitution of the 
 United States duly adopted in May, 1787, 
 they as militiamen of the sovereign States, 
 temporarily in the service of the National 
 Government, could be called out for any ser- 
 vice other than to resist invasion. Manifestly 
 this was not resisting an invasion, they were 
 safely on their own side of the river, within 
 [86]
 
 The Prairie Fire Panic 
 
 the United States while their friends and 
 kinsmen beyond the river were dying in for- 
 eign territory. The militia won their argu- 
 ment, while every solitary American who had 
 already crossed the river was either killed or 
 forced to surrender 250 killed and wounded, 
 and 700 prisoners. The British lost 16 killed 
 and 69 wounded. The total British force was 
 estimated at 600 regulars with 500 militia 
 and Indians. The Americans had 900 regu- 
 lars and 2,270 militia. 
 
 A little later Gen. Proctor, who apparently 
 succeeded Gen. Brock in command of the Brit- 
 ish, had penned up Gen. Harrison in Fort 
 Meigs on the east bank of the Miami River. 
 Proctor's 983 regulars and militia with 
 twelve hundred Indians, occupied both banks 
 of the river. Twelve hundred Kentucky mi- 
 litia under Gen. Clay were moving down the 
 Miami to Harrison's support. Harrison sent 
 orders for Clay to land eight hundred men on 
 the west bank, spike the enemy's cannon, and 
 return to their boats which eight hundred 
 Americans easily accomplished. But instead 
 [87]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 of returning to their boats, they stormed the 
 British camp result: 45 killed, 605 prison- 
 ers, 150 escaped. The other detachment, 
 thanks to a vigorous sortie by the regulars, 
 succeeded in entering the fort. One-half the 
 command had been lost by disobedience and 
 individual initiative. 
 
 One bright spot showed in the whole cam- 
 paign. Fort Stephenson was garrisoned by 
 160 American regulars, under command of 
 Major Croghan, a lad of less than twenty-one. 
 Through his successes Proctor had grown au- 
 dacious. He assaulted the fort with 391 Brit- 
 ish regulars, losing 96. The garrison casual- 
 ties were 1 killed and 7 slightly wounded. 
 Why the difference? Easy to answer. Ma- 
 jor Croghan 's Americans were regulars, and 
 knew how to obey. 
 
 There is no sense in piling up instances. 
 The War of 1812 bristled with calamities 
 caused by our 'unmanageable, disorganized 
 and inefficient militia. Throughout that war 
 the British regulars held Canada with prob- 
 ably 5,000 men. Against them we sent expe- 
 [88]
 
 The Prairie Fire Panic 
 
 dition after expedition, losing 5,614 in killed 
 and wounded 614 more, possibly a thousand 
 more than the entire British force, and we 
 never budged them. They continued to hold 
 Canada. Undisciplined courage hurled itself 
 in vain against their organized and immova- 
 ble ranks. 
 
 [89]
 
 XV 
 
 THE TIN HORN DEFENSE 
 
 LOOKING back at our catalogue of adversi- 
 ties, I get mighty darn hot in the collar to 
 hear some well-meaning and loudly-vocal 
 person go careering around the country and 
 orate as per this formula: "Should foreign 
 hirelings assail the integrity of this Repub- 
 lic, one blast upon the bugle trump of Free- 
 dom and a million patriots will spring to 
 arms over night I" Spring to arms. What 
 [90]
 
 The Tin Horn Defense 
 
 arms? Where? Not this Spring. But the 
 worst of it is that thousands of sensible folks 
 believe that rot. It's a shame to puncture 
 such a pretty noise, but in 1814 this bugle 
 trump experiment this tin horn scheme of 
 defense was actually tested. A British 
 fleet carrying 3,000 troops threatened Wash- 
 ington City. On July 4 President Madison 
 sounded the bugle trump, day of all days 
 when Freedom's blast should have been heard 
 and answered by Freedom's warriors. Va- 
 rious governors were ordered "to hold in 
 readiness for immediate service a corps of 
 93,500." We had these warriors on paper, 
 upwards of ninety thousand, and their num- 
 bers seemed exuberantly ample to beat off 
 3,000 regulars. Besides, we had the bugle 
 trump. Yet, heedless of that talismanic blast, 
 the redcoats landed. On August 24th every 
 solitary mother's son of our 93,500 warriors 
 sprang to arms every one of them, except 
 88,099. For defense of the Capital, 5,041 men 
 actually assembled, without organization, 
 discipline or skilled leadership. To render 
 [91]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 the spectacle more splendidly humiliating, 
 President Madison and his Cabinet rode out 
 to witness the battle of Bladensburg. 
 
 The British only employed 1,500 men, but 
 they were trained men; 1,500 real soldiers 
 marched through our paper forces of 93,500, 
 just as if they had been paper wet tissue 
 paper. After a loss of eight men killed and 
 eleven wounded, Freedom's warriors scat- 
 tered, abandoning their Capital to the British 
 torch, and yet, according to most conserva- 
 tive estimates, our 5,401 patriots should have 
 easily licked a hireling army of 54,000 men. 
 
 Remember, this British fleet had been hov- 
 ering along the Chesapeake for more than a 
 year. Congress had ample time to get ready, 
 and Congress possessed unlimited power to 
 raise armies. Yet the administration paid 
 no attention to the danger until June. Then 
 they began to inquire of each other through 
 the routine red tape channels, <r What force 
 have we!" Answer, returning by devious 
 paths, "2,208 men," mostly recruits, dis- 
 [92]
 
 The Tin Horn Defense 
 
 persed at various points along the Chesa- 
 peake, from Baltimore to Norfolk. 
 
 My son, we 've tried the bugle-trump and it 
 gives me a shiver to think of relying wholly 
 upon such a tin horn scheme of defense. It's 
 just a little worse than the ten-to-one shot. 
 
 After the capture and burning of Washing- 
 ton had been so smoothly accomplished, our 
 people got wrathy, and howled. The Secre- 
 tary of War was chased out of the Capital, 
 and not permitted to return, even for the 
 pious purpose of handing in his most urgently 
 demanded resignation. Washington City had 
 fallen, and the popular indignation fell upon 
 the Secretary. It was possibly no more his 
 fault than the surrender of Detroit had been 
 the fault of General Hull. He had relied upon 
 the state governors to send 93,500 militia to 
 protect the National Capital. But the 93,500 
 didn't come. As a result of his depending 
 upon a rush of patriots who failed to rush, 
 the Secretary was compelled to fly, "hissed 
 and hunted" to his home in Virginia. 
 
 Now, let's skip a lot of bungles, and go 
 
 [93]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 south, to something that looks better, the bat- 
 tle of New Orleans. 
 
 At Bunker Hill, if you remember, our farm- 
 ers fired from behind rail breastworks and 
 justified Israel Putnam's prediction that 
 "these Americans will fight forever if you 
 protect their legs." At New Orleans our po- 
 sition was far stronger, a line of defense well 
 chosen and fortified by impervious cotton 
 bales. Yet British officers and regulars had 
 acquired such contempt for our militia that 
 General Pakenham ordered the impossible. 
 Long afterwards a British officer told me 
 that if Pakenham hadn't been killed he would 
 have been courtmartialed for his folly. 
 
 The British were beaten with terrific loss. 
 Yet one little fly the same busy and buzzing 
 little fly got into the ointment of our jubi- 
 lation. On the west bank of the river the 
 American breastworks with the exception 
 of a single battery manned by sailors were 
 defended exclusively by militia. At the very 
 moment of a victory unparalleled in our his- 
 tory, Old Hickory had the mortification of 
 [94]
 
 The Tin Horn Defense 
 
 seeing his division on the west bank "aban- 
 don their position and run in headlong flight 
 towards the city." Old Hickory naturally 
 cussed 'em out for their disobedience, insub- 
 ordination and cowardice. 
 
 The Battle of New Orleans occurred two 
 weeks after a treaty of peace had been signed 
 at Ghent, and before the news reached this 
 country. Now suppose this unnecessary bat- 
 tle had never been fought, my son, can you 
 point to a single big victory that we gained 
 upon the land? Yet we outnumbered the 
 British more than 32 to 1. 
 
 Our navy, on the contrary, waged a bold 
 and successful warfare. But they were sea- 
 faring men, trained, skillful and obedient., All 
 of which further emphasizes the point that I 
 have been trying to make clear the trans- 
 formation which can be accomplished by dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 Let me throw at you one more big detail, 
 
 then I'm done with the War of 1812. In that 
 
 war, by the same wasteful militia system, we 
 
 employed first and last 527,654 men more 
 
 [95]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 than half a million, which included 33,481 in- 
 experienced officers. During 1814 alone we 
 paid for and maintained more than 235,000 
 men under arms. In contrast with our reck- 
 less extravagance let me impress upon you the 
 fact that, according to the best figures obtain- 
 able, the largest force of British ever opposed 
 to us was 16,500. And yet with all this pre- 
 ponderance of numbers more than thirty- 
 two Americans to one British regular we 
 achieved only a single decisive victory be- 
 fore the treaty of peace. Does that sound 
 like Americans licking ten to one? 
 
 The solitary victory which we gained was 
 the battle of the Thames, where the British 
 regulars, dispersed and captured, numbered 
 834; in addition to this, General Proctor 
 the same Proctor who had been raising so 
 much sand in the northwest had a force of 
 Indians estimated at twelve hundred. Thir- 
 ty-three of their warriors were left dead on 
 the field, including the famous Tecumseh, 
 General Harrison estimated his American 
 forces at a little over three thousand. 
 [96]
 
 The Tin Horn Defense 
 
 During this War of 1812 no fewer than 
 5,000 British soldiers for a period of two 
 years, brought war and devastation into our 
 territory, and successfully withstood the mis- 
 applied power of seven million people. 
 
 [971
 
 XVI 
 UNCLE SAM COUNTS THE COST 
 
 FOLKS say that we Americans can squeeze 
 a dollar until the eagle squawks. Maybe so, 
 but we begin squeezing at the wrong end of 
 the military eagle. For instance: What 
 do you suppose it cost to disperse those 800 
 British regulars who from first to last made 
 prisoners of Hull's army at Detroit, let loose 
 the Northwestern Indians, routed and cap- 
 tured Winchester's command at Frenchtown, 
 [98]
 
 Uncle Sam Counts the Cost 
 
 besieged Fort Meigs, were repulsed at Fort 
 Stephenson, twice invaded Ohio, and played 
 the devil generally? "What did it cost us to 
 get rid of them? Tabulated totals would 
 make the tight-fisted Yankee squawk. Here's 
 a rough estimate of the human effort: Be- 
 sides our hastily organized and half filled reg- 
 iments of regulars sent to the West, about 
 50,000 militia were called out in the years of 
 1812 and 1813 from Ohio, Tennessee, Ken- 
 tucky, Pennsylvania and Virginia for serv- 
 ice against those 800 British regulars. It 
 finally required General Harrison with more 
 than three thousand men to disperse and cap- 
 ture them at the Battle of the Thames. All 
 of which means, that during the time they 
 were ravaging our country we employed a 
 force of more than sixty men against one 
 and employed it ineffectually for upwards of 
 two years. This does not include the unnec- 
 essary loss of life, nor property destroyed 
 by the Brock and Proctor command. Did you 
 ever read that in a popular school history? 
 Ever hear any Fourth of July orator tell that 
 [99]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 in a frenzied speech? No sir, no politician 
 would dare run for constable on that plat- 
 form. 
 
 Now, my son, can you partially understand 
 why I want to quit that expensive form of 
 suicide, and get down to brass tacks? Yet 
 our folks keep on insisting, "Didn't we beat 
 the whole British Empire in 1812?" 
 
 France helped us in the Eevolution and 
 helped us again in 1812, by making it neces- 
 sary for Great Britain to withdraw her red- 
 coats in order to combat the Emperor Na- 
 poleon. The very troops which Andrew Jack- 
 son defeated, on January 8th at New Or- 
 leans, were immediately transferred to the 
 fields of France and contributed to Na- 
 poleon's downfall at Waterloo. 
 
 When I sit down and think it all over, it 
 hits me square between the eyes that we 
 Americans must be gluttons for punishment. 
 Those nauseous doses that we were forced 
 to take during the War of 1812 ought to have 
 had some effect. But Congressmen can swal- 
 [100]
 
 Uncle Sam Counts the Cost 
 
 low a heap of bad medicine, if they continue 
 to get elected right straight along. 
 
 After the Kevolution you will remember 
 that all knowledge of the military art was 
 practically extinguished by reducing our 
 army to eighty persons, not enough for supe 
 soldiers in a comic opera. 
 
 After the War of 1812 Congress provided 
 for a permanent peace establishment of 10,- 
 000 men, somewhat more than 1,000 to each 
 million of population and fairly proportioned 
 to the needs of the country. Nearly all of its 
 higher grades were filled by officers who had 
 acquired competent training in the war, while 
 by the increase of the Corps of Cadets in 1812, 
 the lower grades were in future to be filled by 
 young men who had been carefully " trained 
 and taught all the duties of a private, non- 
 commissioned officer and officer." Since this 
 time, whenever our regular army has met an 
 enemy, the conduct of officers and men has 
 merited and received the applause of their 
 countrymen. More than this it has preserved 
 to us the military art. 
 
 [101]
 
 XVII 
 MORE FIGHTS FOE PEACEFUL FOLK 
 
 MY son, you skirmish around the country 
 right smart and you'll hear folks talk about 
 us being a peaceful people. As a matter of 
 fact, we have had a tolerable thick sprinkling 
 of wars. The Seminole War broke out in 
 1817; the Black Hawk War in 1832, and the 
 Florida War in 1835. 
 
 Suppose we take a look at that Florida 
 War. In 1835, although our population ex- 
 [102]
 
 More Fights for Peaceful Folk 
 
 ceeded fifteen millions, less than 4,000 sol- 
 diers were supposed to guard the sea coast, 
 the Canadian frontier, and a vast territory 
 which swarmed with hostile Indians. We 
 must have opened that Florida War with a 
 left-handed can opener, so awkwardly and 
 negligently that it spun out to interminable 
 length, with an utterly unnecessary loss of 
 life and property. Major Bade and his com- 
 mand of 110 men were massacred by the 
 Seminoles; only three escaped. That hap- 
 pened on the 28th day of December, 1835. 
 The next day General Clinch, with about 200 
 regular troops, proceeded to attack the Semi- 
 noles on the Withlacoochee Eiver. Governor 
 Call of Florida marched out to help him, with 
 between 400 and 500 volunteers. On Decem- 
 ber 31st General Clinch crossed the Withla- 
 coochee Eiver and was attacked by a large 
 body of Indians, whom he defeated. Out of 
 the 200 regulars 67 were killed or wounded, 
 including four officers 33^3 per cent. What 
 about the volunteers f Of them 400 or 500 had 
 joined General Clinch for the avowed pur- 
 [103]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 pose of pulverizing the Indians, yet only 27 
 volunteers and 3 officers took part in the en- 
 gagement. "Why so many volunteers re- 
 mained out of action is not explained. Had 
 they displayed the same zeal and bravery as 
 the regulars, the Seminole War would have 
 ended right there. But it did not end for 
 seven years. 
 
 Instead of employing regular soldiers who 
 were hardened to such work, the Secretary of 
 War ordered the Governors of South Caro- 
 lina, Georgia and Alabama to call out their 
 militia "to serve for at least three months 
 after arriving at the place of rendezvous." 
 Year after year, through war after war, we 
 have repeated over and over again the same 
 stupidities that have inevitably led to the 
 same disasters. We had forgotten the lessons 
 of the Revolution, the terrible defeats of Har- 
 mar and St. Clair, and the monumental inef- 
 ficiency of our militia in the war of 1812. 
 
 The Seminole Indians were supposed to 
 number not more than 1,200 or at the wild- 
 est guess 2,000 yet this war dragged on 
 [104]
 
 More Fights for Peaceful Folk 
 
 from 1835 to 1842, during which years we em- 
 ployed 41,122 men. In the regular army 
 alone our losses from killed, and soldiers who 
 died of wounds, were 1,466. Add to this the 
 losses of volunteers and militia, for whom 
 there are no available statistics. No well- 
 informed man doubts that the Seminoles 
 killed more Americans than they had war- 
 riors. The British had massacred us just as 
 badly in our assaults upon Canada, which we 
 satisfactorily explained by saying that the 
 British were regulars. Here were Indians 
 doing the same thing. The Florida War, about 
 which so little is said, became our bloodiest 
 and costliest affair, proportionately ; yet com- 
 petent troops could have ended it with the 
 first battle. Indian resistance would have 
 been paralyzed at the Withlacoochee, if the 
 volunteers and militia had been trained men 
 and properly handled. The raw militia called 
 out at the beginning of this war were only 
 supposed to serve for three months. I am 
 not going into details of those heart-breaking 
 seven years, seven years of wading through 
 [105]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 morasses of brave men fighting with the 
 fevers and dying like flies. A single regiment 
 lost 217 men from disease. Think of the ter- 
 rific death rate. Our little army, whose max- 
 imum strength was 4,191, suffered a death 
 rate that fell only 411 men short of the total 
 number killed in the War of 1812 in which 
 we employed more than half a million men. 
 All of which could have been avoided by ef- 
 fective action at the start. 
 
 During two years of this period, 1836-1838, 
 we were also engaged in the Creek War, and 
 the Cherokee War. 
 
 The total troops employed, volunteers, 
 militia and regulars from 1835 to 1842 
 which included the Creek War and the Cher- 
 okee War, amounted to 60,691 all of these 
 against a mere handful of Indians. What do 
 you think now of the 10 to 1 proposition ! 
 
 [106]
 
 xvni 
 
 A LONESOME GENERAL 
 
 DURING 1838 and 1839 we had another seri- 
 ous complication with Great Britain along the 
 Niagara frontier which seemed to foreshadow 
 a third great war. There were armed inva- 
 sions of British territory by Americans; an 
 expedition crossed from Canada to our side, 
 killed several persons, set the steamer Caro- 
 line on fire, and drifted her over the falls. 
 200,000 Americans banded themselves to- 
 [107]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 gether under the name of "Canadian Patri- 
 ots" with the avowed object of invading and 
 annexing Canada. At this critical juncture 
 General Scott was dispatched to the frontier, 
 with full authority to call on the governors 
 of all the border States, including Virginia 
 and Kentucky, for such force of militia as he 
 might deem expedient. Here we were again, 
 blindly trying the same militia experiment. 
 
 In addressing excited crowds along the bor- 
 der, General Scott was obliged to inform the 
 people : "I stand before you without troops, 
 and without arms, save the sword at my 
 side." Which would make a wonderful his- 
 torical painting, a dramatic and spectacular 
 opera bouffe, but is no businesslike method 
 of conducting a modern campaign. 
 
 We patched up our squabble with Great 
 Britain to renew it next year in a dispute 
 over the boundaries of the State of Maine. 
 There is no guessing when the most peaceable 
 chap is going to mix up in a scrap with neigh- 
 bors. All this time the Florida War was 
 likewise dragging along. We never brought 
 [108]
 
 A Lonesome General 
 
 it to a close until 1842, and, after seven years 
 of fruitless fighting, had to give the Indians 
 their own way to get peace. Didn't know 
 that, did you? That's torn out of the popu- 
 lar histories. 
 
 Here is what we should have learned from 
 these Indian wars: 
 
 First. That the expense was tripled, if not 
 quadrupled, by that feature of the law of 
 1821 which gave the Government, in times of 
 emergency, no discretion to increase the num- 
 ber of enlisted men in the army. 
 
 Second. That, after successfully employ- 
 ing militia and volunteers for short periods 
 of service, and exhausting their enthusiasm, 
 Congress found it more humane and economi- 
 cal to continue operations with regular troops 
 enlisted for the period of five years. 
 
 Third. That for want of a well-defined 
 peace organization, a nation of seventeen 
 millions of people contended for seven years 
 with 1,200 warriors, and finally closed the 
 struggle without accomplishing the forcible 
 [109]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 emigration of the Indians which was the 
 original and sole cause of the war. 
 
 These were the lessons which Congress 
 and our people failed to learn. 
 
 [110]
 
 XIX 
 THE MEXICAN PAKADOX 
 
 BEGINNING in 1845, the Mexican War was 
 a series of unexampled victories, from Palo 
 Alto to Buena Vista on the North, from Vera 
 Cruz and Cerro Gordo to the Mexican Capi- 
 tal on the South. 
 
 Successes so brilliant would apparently de- 
 note the perfection of military policy, yet 
 paradoxical as it may seem, they were 
 achieved under the same system of laws and 
 [111]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 Executive Orders which in the preceding 
 foreign war had led to a succession of calami- 
 ties, terminating in the capture of "Washing- 
 ton City. The explanation of this paradox 
 is found in the different character of our ad- 
 versaries, but more particularly the differ- 
 ence in the quality of the army with which we 
 began the two wars. 
 
 The Mexican War broke out three years 
 after the Florida War ended, when we had 
 a large number of well-trained men. Com- 
 paring it with the War of 1812 we find that 
 in the War of 1812 the combined force of 
 regulars, and volunteers of one year or 
 more of service, was but 12 per cent of the 
 total troops employed, while 88 per cent were 
 raw recruits. In the Mexican War these fig- 
 ures were exactly reversed 88 per cent of 
 our troops were either regulars, or volun- 
 teers who had seen at least twelve months' 
 service. In the one war an army of 5,401 
 raw troops fighting in defense of our Na- 
 tional Capital, fled before 1,500 redcoats, 
 with a loss of 19 killed and wounded. In the 
 [112]
 
 The Mexican Paradox 
 
 other, a force of less than 5,000 trained vol- 
 unteers, supported by a few regular troops, 
 overthrew the Mexican army of four times 
 their number. 
 
 In the one war 5,000 regulars held Canada, 
 baffling all of our efforts at invasion; in the 
 other our army numbering 6,000 combatants 
 triumphantly entered the enemy's Capital. 
 
 There is still another reason, growing out 
 of the foresight of George Washington in es- 
 tablishing the military academy at West 
 Point. General Scott himself has forcibly 
 stated this reason, "I give it as my fixed 
 opinion that but for our graduated cadets 
 the war between the United States and Mex- 
 ico might, and probably would, have lasted 
 some four or five years, with, in its first half, 
 more defeats than victories falling to our 
 share. Whereas, in less than two campaigns, 
 we conquered a great country and a peace 
 without the loss of a single battle or skir- 
 mish." 
 
 That 's fine ! That 's the way I want my sol- 
 diers to talk and fight. But we had our worri- 
 [113]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 merits during that Mexican War, mostly 
 growing out of the same old muddle of militia 
 and short-term enlistments. And, also, out 
 of the military innocence cherished by our 
 friends the statesmen on Capitol Hill. 
 
 In order to avoid any possible variation in 
 our method of courting calamity, General 
 Taylor, who commanded on the Texas border, 
 was instructed to resist invasion, and if ex- 
 pedient to carry the war into Mexico. For 
 this purpose he was empowered to call upon 
 the militia of the surrounding states, and par- 
 ticularly the Texans. 
 
 Here we go again, limping off on the same 
 old crippled foot, trying to do again the very 
 thing which caused the loss of an army at 
 Queenstown, where our militia refused to 
 serve outside the United States. Of course, 
 it was a palpable violation of the Constitution 
 to send militia on a foreign invasion. Our 
 regular force at that time, on paper, was 
 about 4,000 men. By actual figures this 
 "army of occupation" on the frontiers of 
 Texas, in May, 1846, numbered 73 companies, 
 [114]
 
 The Mexican Paradox 
 
 with 209 officers and 2,839 men actually pres- 
 ent. Each of these companies, but for a de- 
 fect in the law, should have mustered 100 
 men ; which would have raised the total force 
 to about 8,000. 
 
 His numerical weakness, however, did not 
 bluff General Taylor. "What he had was good. 
 Four-fifths of his officers were West Pointers, 
 trained to their trade. Six months in a camp 
 of instruction at Corpus Christi had brought 
 his troops to the highest point of discipline 
 and esprit de corps. 
 
 On the 25th of April Thornton 's Dragoons, 
 in a skirmish on the east bank of the river 
 lost 16 killed and 11 wounded. The emer- 
 gency had arisen, and Taylor promptly 
 called upon the Governors of Louisiana and 
 Texas for 5,000 volunteers. But the call 
 came too late. Volunteers could not reach 
 him. 
 
 On April 26th the enemy crossed the Rio 
 
 Grande in large force, and next day Taylor 
 
 accepted their challenge at Palo Alto. The 
 
 fight began at two o'clock in the afternoon, 
 
 [115]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 and by dark the Americans were masters of 
 the field. The following day Taylor routed 
 the Mexicans at Resaca de la Palma and 
 drove them across the Eio Grande. Now, 
 here's the point. Instead of having 8,000 
 men, General Taylor's force numbered 173 
 officers and 2,049 men, of whom 1,700 were 
 engaged. His loss was 10 per cent 170 killed 
 and wounded. The enemy's force was estir 
 mated at 6,000 with a loss of 1,000. Keen- 
 f orcements reached the Americans three days 
 too late for salvation, if General Taylor had 
 been overwhelmed. 
 
 In response to Taylor's call the veteran 
 General Gaines at New Orleans promptly set 
 to work organizing and equipping an army 
 on his own responsibility. So rapidly did he 
 proceed, calling on the Governors of Ala- 
 bama, Mississippi and Missouri, that he sent 
 8,000 troops to General Taylor before he 
 could be relieved of command and stopped. 
 
 And thereby hangs another distressing 
 tale; 5,389 men were sent from Louisiana to 
 General Taylor after the emergency had 
 [116]
 
 The Mexican Paradox 
 
 passed. Destitute of equipment and trans- 
 portation, they were compelled to fret in idle- 
 ness until discharged. Called out for three 
 months they returned home without the sat- 
 isfaction of having fired a shot. Their losses 
 by death were 145 just 25 less than were 
 killed and wounded in the battles of Palo 
 Alto and Kesaca de la Palma. Casualties of 
 carelessness nearly equaled those of bat- 
 tle. "Which is a mighty good reason why men 
 should hate to volunteer, and expose them- 
 selves to a futile death. 
 
 Now think of this : While some 20,000 vol- 
 unteers were hastily dispatched to the the- 
 ater of war, not a solitary wagon reached 
 General Taylor until after his capture of 
 Monterey. The fact of it is, there was neither 
 gossip nor information on file at Washington 
 as to whether or not wagons could be used in 
 Mexico. We had no Bureau of Military Sta- 
 tistics. When Taylor began his march on 
 Monterey with 6,000 men, for lack of trans- 
 portation and subsistence he was compelled 
 to leave behind him 6,000 other men. 
 [117]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 Providence condones the blunders of these 
 United States, and this wagon oversight 
 switched round to our advantage. It enabled 
 General Taylor to form the volunteers who 
 were left behind into an army of the second 
 line, to drill and prepare them for future 
 campaigns. Those whom he carried with 
 him, he put through a course of six hours* 
 drilling per day. Never was the value of 
 disciplined men more triumphantly demon- 
 strated; 4,759 men, of whom but 517 were 
 regulars, at the battle of Buena Vista, de- 
 feated the entire Mexican army of 18,133 men, 
 with 20 pieces of artillery. General Taylor, 
 in his official report, comments upon the 
 "high state of discipline and instruction of 
 several of the volunteer regiments." 
 
 [1181
 
 XX 
 
 ADVANCE, HALT, AND GENTLEMEN 
 CHANGE 
 
 DESPITE these dazzling American successes 
 at the North the Mexicans refused to sue for 
 peace, so General Scott was ordered to cap- 
 ture the City of Mexico itself with fewer 
 than 12,000 men. Vera Cruz surrendered to 
 him on the 29th of March, 1847. On the 8th 
 of April he began his march into the interior. 
 On the 18th at Cerro Gordo, he attacked and 
 overthrew the Mexican army, capturing 3,- 
 [119]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 000 prisoners and 43 pieces of artillery. So 
 complete was their annihilation that Mexico 
 no longer had an army and the road to the 
 Capital lay open. But the American gen- 
 eral had to stop, solely and simply because of 
 an error committed under the dome of our 
 Capitol at Washington. Here he was, com- 
 manding a handful of men, in the heart of a 
 hostile country, with troops that were en- 
 listed, not "for the war," but with the op- 
 tion' "to serve twelve months" or "to the 
 end of the war." " 
 
 There was absolutely no excuse for this; 
 it could have been prevented if a solitary 
 member of Congress, familiar with the mili- 
 tary history of his country, had moved to 
 strike out the loophole option. But there it 
 was, left in the law by the ignorance and the 
 haste of legislators. National enthusiasm 
 would have supplied men for the war, as 
 bountifully as for twelve months. The term 
 of Scott's twelve months men was about to 
 expire. They wanted to go home, and had 
 the unquestioned legal right. So on the 4th 
 [120]
 
 Advance, Halt, and Gentlemen Change 
 
 of May, almost immediately after his triumph 
 at Cerro Gordo, he was compelled to part 
 with seven out of his eleven regiments of vol- 
 unteers, numbering in the aggregate 4,000 
 men. 
 
 Which left him confronting a precarious 
 situation : Scott was now at Puebla, within 
 two days' march of Mexico City, his army 
 being reduced to 5,820 effective men. He 
 must sit tight and if possible cling to what he 
 had conquered, while the enemy, profiting by 
 our numskullery and ftelay, reorganized an 
 army of five times his number. Abandoning 
 Jalapa, cut off from his base of supplies, 
 Scott's marvelous victories were about to go 
 for nothing, and his campaign seemed on the 
 verge of collapse. 
 
 Army officers to-day insist that if General 
 Scott's small force of regulars had then been 
 captured, 100,000 recruits and inexperienced 
 officers would not have been sufficient to re- 
 trieve the disaster. 
 
 Scott's little army lay at Puebla for more 
 than two months, while regiments were being 
 [121]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 raised in the United States to take the places 
 of those who had returned home. Three and 
 one-half months after the battle of Cerro 
 Gordo reinforcements raised his total to 10,- 
 276 men, of whom nearly one-fourth were 
 sick. On August 6th other reinforcements 
 brought their numbers up to nearly 14,000, 
 of whom 3,000 were sick or in the hospitals. 
 Compelled still further to weaken himself by 
 guarding his line of communications, Scott 
 resumed the offensive, against an army esti- 
 mated by the Mexicans themselves at 36,000 
 men, with 100 pieces of cannon. But General 
 Scott had exceeding confidence in the charac- 
 ter of his troops and fearlessly led them to 
 a succession of brilliant victories. Begin- 
 ning on the 20th of August our largest force 
 engaged was 8,479 men, of whom he lost, in 
 the series of battles, 2,703. So that on Sep- 
 tember 14th, he entered the City of Mexico 
 with fewer than 6,000 men. 
 
 But and here is a great big but, but for 
 a defect in legislation at Washington we 
 would have captured the City of Mexico with- 
 [122]
 
 Advance, Halt, and Gentlemen Change 
 
 out resistance, directly after the battle of 
 Cerro Gordo, saving thousands of heroic lives 
 and enormous expenditures of money. This 
 particular exhibition of inefficiency is wholly 
 chargeable to Congress. Yet, even now, when 
 an army officer goes before that body and 
 asks for essential betterments, he may be met 
 with the insinuation of selfish lobbying for 
 personal advancement. 
 
 However, we won't cry over spilt milk. 
 But you and I, and the folks back home, must 
 see that such blunders do not occur in the 
 future. 
 
 [123]
 
 OPENING THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 AT the beginning of the War of 1812, as you 
 remember, we maintained no regular army. 
 We started from the bottom and built new to 
 the top. Volunteers and militia found no 
 grizzled veterans to show them what to do, 
 or to set the pace for obedience and efficiency. 
 Throughout the Mexican War our regulars 
 not only bore the brunt of fighting, and sus- 
 tained the heaviest losses, but they furnished 
 [124]
 
 Openvng the Civil War 
 
 able commanders to the militia and to the 
 volunteers, holding up magnificent examples 
 of skill, fortitude and courage. 
 
 After the Mexican War Congress immedi- 
 ately reduced the army from 30,890 men to 
 10,320. Here we have the same old policy of 
 dismissing our trained soldiers the minute 
 fighting time had passed. When we wanted 
 them again, mighty bad and mighty quick, we 
 didn't have any. Congress has always fig- 
 ured that a considerate enemy would always 
 permit us an abundance of leisure to begin 
 preparations after the actual fighting has 
 commenced plenty of time to apply for in- 
 surance after the house catches fire. 
 
 Therefore, at the close of 1860, with a pop- 
 ulation of 31,000,000 and 3,000,000 square 
 miles of territory, we were practically desti- 
 tute of military force. The regular army in 
 fact numbered 16,367, scattered along our in- 
 terminable frontiers, stationed at isolated 
 western posts, and guarding the Atlantic 
 Coast from Maine to Florida. Imagine try- 
 [125]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 ing to cover the Sahara Desert with a dime's 
 worth of butter. 
 
 And, considering what happened during the 
 Civil War from a strictly military viewpoint, 
 we find that our standards of comparison are 
 wholly different from those of previous wars, 
 for here the great bulk of soldiers on both 
 sides were raw recruits at the beginning. On 
 both sides, however, they got such a hard 
 and continuous service as to weld them into 
 iron veterans, equal to the Old Guard of Na- 
 poleon. So I shall merely give a few in- 
 stances to prove that the same faults and in- 
 efficiencies observable from Eevolutionary 
 times had not disappeared. 
 
 On March 26, 1861, the Confederate Presi- 
 dent called for 100,000 men to take the field 
 for the period of one year under his unques- 
 tioned and supreme command. The few 
 United States regulars were scattered from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific, too far away to 
 participate in the first shock of arms. Presi- 
 dent Lincoln, of course, called for militia, 
 President and Cabinet showing a fatuous con- 
 [126]
 
 Opening the Civil War 
 
 fidence in raw troops, wholly unshaken by 
 all their feeble tragedies. There was noth- 
 ing else to do. Eegulars simply did not ex- 
 ist. 
 
 The first Federal call was for 75,000 militia 
 to serve a period of three months. In the 
 light of history it is almost incredible that 
 the Federal Government should attempt the 
 reconquest of 560,000 miles of Southern ter- 
 ritory, with raw recruits, and in the brief 
 space of three months. The South, as I am 
 reliably informed, likewise did a little sup- 
 posing, that one Southerner could lick ten 
 Yankees, and the war would be a brief and 
 happy picnic. 
 
 Here's an example: The District of Co- 
 lumbia was called upon to supply ten com- 
 panies. All but three of these companies 
 mustered into the service for three months, 
 with the stipulation to serve within the Dis- 
 trict, and not to go out of it. As a matter of 
 fact many of these men afterwards served 
 outside of the District without protest; I 
 mention the incident merely to prove the rule, 
 [127]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 that it is only raw troops who presume to dic- 
 tate to their lawful commanders. 
 
 In the North volunteers rushed to arms in 
 numbers far exceeding the needs of the gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Both the Union and Confederacy repeated 
 the plunder of short enlistments. Confeder- 
 ate troops began pouring into Virginia and 
 moving towards the Potomac. Washington 
 City was practically in a state of siege. Ow- 
 ing to the weakness of the Federal military 
 system, President Lincoln made of himself a 
 virtual dictator, and assumed to exercise the 
 war powers of Congress. By proclamation 
 on the 3rd of May he increased the land and 
 naval forces by more than 80,000 men. 
 
 My son, folks in this country do a lot 
 of gossiping about military dictatorships 
 which might result from a competent stand- 
 ing army. Dictatorships do not come that 
 way, Twice in similar circumstances, when 
 Congress has been too feeble or negligent 
 to provide a competent national defense, dic- 
 tatorial powers were conferred upon George 
 [128]
 
 Opening the Civil War 
 
 Washington ; and now Lincoln assumed them 
 himself. Thus we see a President who had 
 sworn to defend and protect the Constitution, 
 knowingly overriding the law to save the 
 Union. 
 
 When Congress assembled in extra session 
 on July 4, 1861, it found that its power to 
 "raise and support armies" had already 
 been exercised by the President to the extent 
 of 230,000 men, an usurpation which met with 
 the approval of Congress and the people. 
 
 [129]
 
 xxn 
 
 WHAT OF THE KEGULAES? 
 
 AT the outset there was considerable dis- 
 cussion as to what should be done with the 
 regular army, whether it were not wise to 
 abolish it altogether, and assign the trained 
 officers to such duties with volunteer regi- 
 ments as their talents fitted them to dis- 
 charge. But as the volunteers themselves 
 began to get a smattering of kindergarten 
 tactics, when they learned to distinguish 
 [130]
 
 What of the Regulars 
 
 which end of a musket should properly be 
 held to the shoulder, they concluded that they 
 could get along without West Point dudes to 
 chaperon their martial activities. 
 
 As a curious bit of history : In 1861 a cer- 
 tain U. S. Grant volunteered the service of 
 his military education, but no notice was ever 
 taken of it. His letter was not thought of 
 sufficient importance to be preserved. 
 
 Five weeks later, placed at the head of a 
 regiment by Governor Yates of Illinois, he 
 began the career which led to supreme com- 
 mand of the Union army and to the Presi- 
 dency. 
 
 At this time there were 741 graduates of 
 the Military Academy. 168 Southern officers 
 resigned and went to their home states, while 
 92 ex-graduates, who had gone out of the 
 service in 1861, also joined the Confeder- 
 acy, providing the Southern army with 260 
 trained officers. 
 
 Five hundred and fifty-six West Pointers 
 remained with the Union, while 102 ex-gradu- 
 ates reentered service, thus giving the Fed- 
 [131]
 
 The Unpopular History of tine United, States 
 
 era! Government 658 educated soldiers to di- 
 rect its campaigns. 
 
 Singularly enough the operations imme- 
 diately prior to the first battle of Bull Kun 
 presented the same difficulties as those which 
 destroyed the ill-starred Montgomery at his 
 assault upon Quebec the Union command- 
 er's plans were disarranged by the impending 
 dissolution of his army because of short-term 
 enlistments. On June 16th, Gen. Patterson, 
 commanding the Army of the Shenandoah, 
 advanced within ten miles of Winchester, Va., 
 then occupied by the Confederates. From 
 that point he wrote: "I have to report that 
 the term of service of a very large portion of 
 this force will expire in a few days. From 
 the undercurrent of feeling I am confident 
 that many will be inclined to lay down their 
 arms on the day their time expires. Active 
 operations towards Winchester cannot be 
 thought of until they are replaced by three- 
 year men." 
 
 A few days later, having transferred his 
 forces to Charlestown, near Harpers Ferry, 
 [1321
 
 What of the Regulars? 
 
 Patterson telegraphed the Adjutant General : 
 "With the existing feeling and determina- 
 tion of the three-months men to return home, 
 it would be ruinous to advance or even to stay 
 here." 
 
 The three-months volunteers expressed 
 determination not to serve one hour after 
 their time expired. General Patterson began 
 a movement to the front, and was assailed 
 with earnest remonstrances against being de- 
 tained beyond their terms of service. Even 
 if he should capture Winchester he would be 
 without men, and compelled to retreat. He 
 appealed to the regiments to stand by their 
 country for a week or ten days. History was 
 repeating itself, as Col. Biddle subsequently 
 testified. General Patterson had seen pre- 
 cisely the same thing happen to General Scott 
 at Puebla, Mexico. After making fruitless 
 appeals to his men, one-half to two-thirds of 
 them refused to remain. Three days after- 
 wards, July 21, 1861, on the morning of the 
 battle of Bull Eun, while the Secretary of 
 War and the commanding General vainly im- 
 [133]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 plored them, a regiment of infantry and a 
 battery of artillery whose time had expired 
 began their homeward march to the sound of 
 the enemy's guns. That same day the Fed- 
 eral army was totally defeated. 
 
 Standing like a guide post above the rout, 
 discipline and organization again proved 
 their value. The battalion of regulars which 
 covered the retreat was last to leave the field, 
 checked the enemy's pursuit, and retired in 
 perfect order. According to official reports, 
 all of the Federal troops, except 800, were 
 volunteers and militia, Some of the volun- 
 teers had been mustered into the service less 
 than a month. The time of service of all the 
 regiments of militia was about to expire. 
 Any educated officers, knowing these condi- 
 tions, must have seen the inevitable defeat 
 which occurred at Bull Run. 
 
 There was no such thing as discipline. 
 General Heintzleman, after passionate fail- 
 ures to rally his broken regiments, expressed 
 himself as to their conduct: "The want of 
 discipline in these regiments was so great 
 [134]
 
 What of the Regulars? 
 
 that most of the men would run from fifty to 
 several hundred yards to the rear and con- 
 tinue to fire, fortunately for the braver ones 
 very high in the air. ' ' 
 
 The Confederate forces were estimated at 
 29,949, and the Federals at 28,568. 
 
 Military men now say, quite impartially, 
 that a well trained army, half the size of 
 either, could probably have beaten them both 
 combined. 
 
 [135]
 
 xxm 
 
 THE CONFEDERACY FIRST SEES THE 
 LIGHT 
 
 VOLTJNTEEKS will never provide a certain 
 and dependable supply of man-power to main- 
 tain a long war. It 's like this : On the first 
 chill day of winter you start your furnace to 
 warm the house. It won't do just to light a 
 fire, throw on some coal, slam the furnace 
 door and let her heat up. That might be all 
 sufficient if the cold spell only lasted a couple 
 of hours. But the winter runs on, and bliz- 
 [136]
 
 The Confederacy First Sees the Light 
 
 zards get worse. To keep that furnace going 
 full blast you must have plenty more coal, 
 right handy in your cellar. No man is fool 
 enough to light one fire, then sit down and 
 depend upon voluntary contributions of coal 
 that the neighbors may send in. Not much ! 
 Your full supply must be steady, reliable, con- 
 venient where it may be shoveled into the 
 proper place at the proper time. 
 
 It's exactly like that with an army during 
 a protracted war you must know where the 
 supply of man-power is coming from. Vol- 
 unteers will never maintain a uniform supply 
 of the numbers needed and, above all, when 
 needed. 
 
 At the opening of the Civil War, both the 
 Union and Confederate governments pursued 
 the same temporizing and uncertain policy 
 of relying upon voluntary enlistments for 
 short terms. After the Confederate defeat 
 at Fort Donelson, the evacuation of Kentucky 
 and Tennessee, and the battle of Shiloh, the 
 Confederate Congress first displayed to the 
 world the full meaning and extent of the pow- 
 [137]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 er to "raise and support armies." By act of 
 April 16, 1862, the Confederate States totally 
 abandoned the principle of voluntary enlist- 
 ment, authorizing President Davis to call out 
 and place in the military service all white men 
 between the ages of 18 and 35. The draft had 
 already been adopted by the State of Virginia 
 in February, 1862, with the effect of immedi- 
 ately adding nearly 30,000 men to the Vir- 
 ginia contingent. Conscripts were fitted into 
 old organizations, and three months' drilling 
 made them effective. 
 
 This Confederate Act of 1862, was, appar- 
 ently, the first declaration on this continent 
 of equal and universal military service. One 
 year later the Federal Congress was forced 
 into the same policy by declaring every man 
 between 18 and 35 to be a soldier. Every well- 
 informed American knows the result of this 
 legislation, North and South. It filled the 
 army, and kept men continuously in the field, 
 until long service and habits of steady obedi- 
 ence transformed raw and rabbit-legged re- 
 cruits into veterans, as capable and efficient 
 [138]
 
 The Confederacy First Sees the Light 
 
 as ever shouldered a musket. The same faint- 
 hearted individuals who fled from the first 
 battle of Bull Eun, afterwards became the 
 sturdiest troops who were finally victorious 
 at Appomattox. 
 
 In passing let us note a singular and sig- 
 nificant state of affairs. The South stood 
 largely upon the doctrine of States Eights, 
 which the North repudiated. Yet during the 
 second period of the war, the Union fought 
 as a co-partnership of States, while the Con- 
 federacy fought as a nation. The Union ap- 
 pealed to the States, adhered to voluntary 
 enlistments, and left the Governors with 
 power to appoint commissioned officers. The 
 Confederacy appealed directly to the people, 
 President Davis appointed the officers, they 
 abandoned voluntary enlistment, and first 
 adopted the republican principle that every 
 citizen owes his country military service. 
 
 To illustrate the extravagant use of men 
 under this haphazard volunteer system, and 
 as a fact interesting in itself, it may be men- 
 tioned that in 1861 the total force of the 
 [139]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 Federal Government exceeded the total field 
 army of Germany by nearly 120,000 men. Our 
 infantry of volunteer forces exceeded the 
 Eussian field army on a war footing by 237 
 battalions. Our cavalry, which was practi- 
 cally useless until 1863, exceeded the total 
 cavalry of the Eussian regular army by 965 
 squadrons. Of course we saved money in 
 times of peace, but in war times we spent by 
 billions, when it was too late, and got nothing 
 for it. 
 
 [140]
 
 XXIV 
 DEMAGOGUES AND DISSENSION 
 
 1862 was a period of confusion and turmoil. 
 Cabals, intrigues and wirepulling permeated 
 every department at Washington, spreading 
 dissension, insubordination and distrust 
 amongst the army. Efforts of commanding 
 officers were neutralized and change followed 
 change. As an instance : General Burnside, 
 when at the head of the Army of the Potomac, 
 resolved to suppress insubordination, and 
 [141]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 had actually written out General Orders No. 
 8, dismissing from the service Generals Hook- 
 er, Brooks, Cochrane and Newton. Instead, 
 however, of publishing these orders Burn- 
 side went to Washington to confer with the 
 President. As an outcome of their inter- 
 view Lincoln relieved Burnside of command, 
 and appointed Hooker, in this characteristic 
 letter: 
 
 EXECUTIVE MANSION, 
 
 Washington, D. 0., 
 
 January 26, 1863. 
 MAJOR-GENERAL HOOKER: 
 General: 
 
 I have placed you at the head of the Army 
 of the Potomac. Of course I have done this 
 upon what appears to me to be sufficient rea- 
 son, and yet I think it best for you to know 
 that there are some things with regard to 
 which I am not satisfied with you. I believe 
 you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which 
 of course I like. I also believe you do not 
 mix politics with your profession, in which 
 you are right. You have confidence in your- 
 [142]
 
 Demagogues and Dissension 
 
 self, which is a valuable if not an indispensa- 
 ble quality. You are ambitious, which, within 
 reasonable bounds, does good rather than 
 harm ; but I think that during General Burn- 
 side 's command of the army you have taken 
 counsel of your ambition and thwarted him 
 as much as you could, in which you did a 
 great wrong to the country and to a most 
 meritorious and honorable brother officer. I 
 have heard in such a way as to believe it, of 
 your recent saying, that both the army and 
 the Government needed a dictator. Of course 
 it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I 
 have given you the command. Only those 
 generals who gain success can set up dicta- 
 tors. What I now ask of you is military suc- 
 cess, and I will risk the dictatorship. The 
 Government will support you to the utmost of 
 its ability, which is neither more or less than 
 it will do for all commanders. I much fear 
 the spirit which you have aided to infuse into 
 the army, of criticizing their commander and 
 withholding confidence from him, will now 
 turn upon you. I shall assist you so far as I 
 [143]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 can to put it down. Neither you, nor Na- 
 poleon, if he were alive again, could get any 
 good out of an army while such a spirit pre- 
 vails in it. And now beware of rashness. Be- 
 ware of rashness, but with energy and sleep- 
 less vigilance go forward and give us vic- 
 tories. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 A. LINCOLN. 
 
 Politics and demagoguery contributed their 
 sinister influence to weaken the forces in the 
 field. It grew and blossomed and bore evil 
 fruit. Various states assumed the care of 
 their own sick and wounded by sending agents 
 to the front and bringing home the soldiers, 
 causing hundreds of deaths, against the ad- 
 vice and over the protest of military sur- 
 geons. Thousands of men who were slightly 
 ill, and thousands of malingerers, were pro- 
 vided an easy means to get entirely out of the 
 service. Had they remained at the front, in 
 care of regimental surgeons, most of them 
 would have been returned to duty in a few 
 days. 
 
 [144]
 
 Demagogues and Dissension 
 
 Politicians, anxious to curry favor and 
 make votes, withdrew soldiers from the 
 breastworks to be used at the polls. 
 
 Once safely at home, if a man wanted to 
 stay there, he could secure a discharge by 
 getting any physician ''in good standing" to 
 sign a certificate of disability. And these cer- 
 tificates soon acquired a commercial value 
 as was inevitable under the temptation. Mi- 
 litiamen learned the art of feigning every dis- 
 ease suggested by patent medicine advertise- 
 ments. Impositions became so frequent that 
 discharges for rheumatics were absolutely 
 barred that was too easy. Records of the 
 War Department show that disability certifi- 
 cates were subjects of barter and sale. Medi- 
 cal officers of character and patriotism were 
 exposed to every kind of bribery. Thousands 
 and thousands of men never returned to the 
 ranks. General McClellan mentioned a single 
 regiment, which sent 506 men to the rear, of 
 whom only 15 or 20 reported again for duty. 
 By reason of "chronic absenteeism" and de- 
 [145]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 sertion, the Federal army at Antietam had 
 101,756 absentees, with 87,164 present. 
 
 Out of a certain army corps 13,000 were in 
 ranks, while 15,000 were absent. Not more 
 than one-tenth of the sick who were left be- 
 hind ever rejoined their regiments. 
 
 My son, listen to your Uncle Samuel, and 
 get this straight. I am not trying to hurt 
 anybody's feelings, but merely showing you 
 how a bad system can destroy the usefulness 
 of good men. Much of this was caused by a 
 state hospital system, which grew out of poli- 
 tics, and politics won't mix with soldiering. 
 
 [146]
 
 XXV 
 
 TO OUR MISTAUGHT MILLIONS 
 
 Now, let's put the Civil "War behind us 
 except for its lesson. We've got a mighty 
 uncivil war ahead of us which demands atten- 
 tion. 
 
 I want all the mistaught and misled mil- 
 lions of this nation to know at least part of 
 the reasons why we chucked that old volun- 
 teer system into the junk heap. Every 
 mother and father in this country, when their 
 [147]
 
 The Unpopulalr History of the United States 
 
 son goes off to war, has got a right to know. 
 I believe in explaining things. Folks might 
 think that we are sending their boys across 
 the ocean to fight some other fellow's war. 
 That's not so. This is our war. It was our 
 war from the very beginning, but we didn't 
 see it, not then. 
 
 Five hundred years ago the English people 
 bluffed and bulldozed their Magna Charta out 
 of King John, which laid the foundation of 
 British liberty, and the foundation of Ameri- 
 can responsibility in the present struggle. 
 Five hundred years is a long distance to 
 travel backwards. It's true, just the same. 
 But a great Big Idea started then, and has 
 been traveling forward ever since. After- 
 wards the English secured the Habeas Corpus 
 Act, the Bill of Eights, and other guarantees 
 of personal liberty. We brought those same 
 rights with us to America, and we think a 
 heap of 'em. They're what built our govern- 
 ment. I've been finding some faults with our 
 Government but you can bet your bottom 
 dollar I love it. Pretty soon that Big Idea 
 [148]
 
 To Our MistaugJit Millions 
 
 spread over the entire western hemisphere, 
 and became firmly imbedded in most of the 
 older countries. It means that every fellow 
 must have an equal show a fair shake, a 
 square deal, a chance for his white alley. Do 
 I put it plain? We Americans are powerful 
 sot in our notion of sticking to that Big Idea. 
 We won't give it up, not without a fight. 
 
 About the time our forefathers were sign- 
 ing the Declaration of Independence, and de- 
 fending it, Frederick the Great, of Prussia, 
 was lifting his obscure kingdom to the posi- 
 tion of a world power, based upon a totally 
 different idea, the Divine Eight of Kings, the 
 right of a solitary man to rule other men 
 whether they want him to or not. Sometimes 
 it was more fun for Frederick when they 
 didn 't want him. The Divine Right of Kings 
 likes to boss the plain folks, keep 'em down, 
 beat 'em down and then make 'em love it. 
 
 Frederick built, Bismarck perfected, and 
 
 the present Emperor William II said at 
 
 Frankfort that his "grandfather had by his 
 
 own right placed upon his head the crown of 
 
 [149]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 the kings of Prussia," and that he was re- 
 sponsible to no man, to no legislative body, to 
 no gathering of the people, and he didn't 
 care a rap whether folks liked it or not. That 
 was his way of doing, and he had the army 
 behind him. 
 
 That 's all right, if a man gets away with it, 
 and holds his job ; he will build the strongest 
 possible government, for a despot centers in 
 his own hand all the legislative and execu- 
 tive powers. At his nod war is declared, the 
 army is launched, and the cannons roar. It 
 is a marvelously, terribly, brutally efficient 
 scheme of running a government. It can do 
 things do them right now. 
 
 We Americans are mighty proud of the fact 
 that our Declaration of Independence, and 
 our Constitution have become a pattern for 
 nearly all the world all that part of the 
 world which is not controlled by the Prussian 
 Idea. New republics, springing up in every 
 quarter of the globe, have followed our lead. 
 We stand for that Big Idea, and we have to 
 [150]
 
 To Our Mistaught Millions 
 
 stand loy it that common folks have some 
 rights, which even emperors must respect. 
 
 * ' My will is the supreme law ! " so proclaim- 
 eth the German Kaiser. 
 
 "All power is derived from the people!'* 
 which the republics of this earth are pledged 
 to maintain or they die. Don't you see that 
 the Prussian Idea and the American Idea can 
 never march down the big road together, side 
 by side, and at peace I Both of us are now in 
 the big road. One or the other has to get out. 
 That's all there is about it. 
 
 Once upon a time old Abe Lincoln said: 
 * ' This nation cannot endure half-slave, half- 
 free" nor can the world. Some folks say 
 we ought to stand aside and let Europe fight 
 it out. Stand aside? Where? There's no 
 place for us to stand without stepping off the 
 earth. 
 
 Before we are done with it, I look for a 
 grand alliance, a brotherhood of all the re- 
 publics of the world, marching magnificently, 
 shoulder to shoulder, with clear eye and 
 [151]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 steady tread, moving forward, forward, for- 
 ward, to the final triumph of mankind. 
 
 Did you ever hear this piece of poetry by 
 a country editor in Mississippi? 
 
 ' ' Onward, upward, press the peoples 
 To that pure, exalted plane, 
 
 Where no throne shall cast a shadow 
 And no slave shall wear a chain. 
 
 "They are lighting fires of freedom 
 
 On a million altar stones, 
 "With the torches they have kindled 
 
 At the blaze of burning thrones." 
 
 We couldn't keep our hands off this war. 
 This war would not keep hands off us. I'm 
 perfectly willing to hoe my own row, and let 
 the other fellow hoe his. But Divine Eight 
 wants to cultivate the whole field, and makes 
 no bones about it. I'm nothing but a hard- 
 headed, striped-pants Yankee, but some facts 
 are so plain that you can't shut your eyes to 
 'em. If we sit down, with both hands in our 
 pockets, and let Divine Bight organize all Eu- 
 [152]
 
 To Our Mistaught Millions 
 
 rope, 'twon 't be long before Europe gets too 
 small for their Welt Politik or World Kultur 
 whatever they call it. They say it's better 
 for us like Belgium to have Divine Right 
 straddling our necks then we can tote a heap 
 bigger skillet-load of Efficiency. Of course, it 
 cuts no ice with Divine Eight, whether that 
 suits us or not. 
 
 So, you see, the Prussian military idea must 
 be destroyed by democracy, or it will destroy 
 all democracy. Now, as we've got to fight, 
 we'd better go in strong while we have allies, 
 rather than wait and fight it out alone. 
 Doesn't that sound to you like hoss sense? 
 
 And, mind you, I say this in the most pro- 
 found conviction, we are bound to win that 
 war on the soil of Europe, or we may expect 
 to lose it on the soil of America. There's no 
 way of sidestepping. We've got to roll up 
 our sleeves and make the world so free that a 
 couple of emperors can't whisper to each 
 other and touch the button for a war that has 
 already slaughtered forty-five millions of hu- 
 [153]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 man beings folks like you and me and wives 
 and babies. 
 
 We are too deep in this war, and are going 
 to make a business of it. It takes soldiers to 
 fight battles, preachers to preach sermons, 
 and jawsmiths to wrangle before justices of 
 the peace. 
 
 We Ve got to turn out soldiers. I want my 
 boy in khaki to be just a little better than any 
 boy that our allies can send better trained, 
 better equipped, a better shot and better paid. 
 I can't bear the idea of sending a single brave 
 lad over there into a deadly peril that he 
 knows nothing about. That's rank murder, 
 as old Light Horse Harry said. 
 
 I have been trying to make you understand 
 the difference between soldiers and raw re- 
 cruits. A raw recruit is of no more use in the 
 trenches of France than a left-handed black- 
 smith in a watchmaker's shop strong and 
 willing, but liable to smash things. 
 
 [154]
 
 XXVI 
 THE WORK OF WARSMITHS 
 
 THOUSANDS of years ago every able-bodied 
 man was naturally a soldier; now he is not, 
 not by a jugful. When primeval men con- 
 tended amongst themselves, they used the 
 same weapons with which they fought the 
 beasts the stone ax, and the club, which 
 fitted easily to their hands. In their tribal 
 conflicts any group of men, however hastily 
 assembled, constituted an army, employing 
 [155]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 the same simple weapons and requiring no 
 discipline or tactics. Through the evolution- 
 ary processes of time, special weapons were 
 devised by men for use against men. As these 
 implements became more and more elaborate, 
 they necessitated a greater and greater edu- 
 cation in their use. War has now evolved 
 into a science, most complex, many-sided, and 
 embracing practically all the other sciences. 
 As instruments of warfare become more and 
 more intricate, volunteer forces become less 
 and less efficient. 
 
 In this complicated and highly specialized 
 modern warfare, it requires a regular army 
 of seasoned and disciplined troops to defend 
 our country. In the tribal ages there were 
 no standing armies and no peace ; every male 
 was a soldier, to be called upon at any mo- 
 ment, waiting with weapons ready. The en- 
 tire nation stood always in martial array. 
 When gunpowder was invented, war was be- 
 coming a profession, and men must be espe- 
 cially educated for it. A small fraction of 
 the male population was then set aside for 
 [156]
 
 The Work of Warsmiths 
 
 soldiers, leaving merchants, artisans and 
 fanners to pursue the arts of peace. Com- 
 merce flourished, universities sprang up, and 
 civilization throbbed at the pulses of the 
 world. 
 
 To-day, with the submarine, the aeroplane, 
 huge cannon, abstruse mathematical calcula- 
 tions of range, electrical appliances, scientific 
 explosives the thousand and one inventions 
 now adapted to the trade of war to-day it is 
 quite inconceivable for a raw recruit to be of 
 the slightest service. We must have men who 
 know exactly what they are doing, else our 
 republic passes into ancient history with the 
 graves of Greece and the ruins of fallen 
 Borne. 
 
 Yet, in spite of this, some residue of preju- 
 dice yet remains against a powerful standing 
 army, it being feared as a tool that might be 
 used by selfish ambition. In the old coun- 
 tries standing armies originally flaunted the 
 banners of great feudal houses Bourbon, 
 Hohenzollern, Romanoff, Hapsburg. But the 
 free soldiers of a Republic, fathers, brothers, 
 [157]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 sons of the people, created by the people and 
 responsible to the people such an army in 
 a pure democracy must prove the bulwark, 
 the safeguard, and not a menace to the state. 
 All these considerations, and a blamed 
 sight more, kept buzzing around in my head, 
 and absolutely convinced me that our old 
 come-and-go-as-you-please volunteer militia 
 wouldn't do. The shamefullest crime is 
 against the boys themselves putting them 
 up to be shot down without a chance. Sup- 
 pose you run over some day and see those 
 youngsters drilling at Fort Myer. The eter- 
 nal sunshine never lighted up a finer lot of 
 faces, frank of soul, clean of heart and stout 
 of limb. You can't chuck a brick bat in that 
 crowd anywhere and hit a boy that you 
 wouldn't trust. They are good boys, they are 
 my boys, and by the grace o' God I'm going 
 to give 'em a chance. If I do my part, they'll 
 do the rest. And the best way to fix that is 
 by the Selective Draft we've got it on the 
 statute books right now. But we also have 
 in these United States a system of Selective 
 [158]
 
 The Work of War smiths 
 
 Obedience. Folks pick out the law they like 
 and obey that. I 'm telling them why I passed 
 the Selective Draft so they'll understand it, 
 so they'll like it, so they'll get behind it and 
 push. You see it makes every fellow equal, 
 treats 'em all just alike. The rich man and 
 the poor man stand side by side, each of them 
 doing a man's bit. That's good solid Ameri- 
 can doctrine-, it goes way back to Magna 
 Charta, and is the very idea we are fighting 
 for. Not long ago a young French officer ex- 
 plained to me that universal military service 
 is the very essence of democracy. The prince 
 and the peasant rub shoulders in the ranks. 
 The millionaire and the milkman perform 
 the same duties. Wealth, power, political or 
 social position nothing can excuse the 
 slacker. Each must serve his turn, each must 
 do his bit. The very essence of democracy, 
 yes ; the prince comes to realize that the peas- 
 ant lad is a pretty stalwart sort; while the 
 milkman revises his prejudices concerning 
 the millionaire, who endures every hardship 
 and faces every peril without complaint. This 
 [159]
 
 The Unpopular History of the United States 
 
 democracy of ditch digging, this f raternalism 
 of the firing line, has glorified the spirit of a 
 rejuvenated France. Nobody believed that 
 France could fight as she has done, fought at 
 the first a dogged retreating, step by step 
 then forward with a rush and her old-time 
 spirit. Observant men assert that the level- 
 ing of ranks has done it. 
 
 That's just the way our folks in the coun- 
 try like to feel about the public service and 
 I want 'em to know. Believe me, I trust my 
 folks when they know. 
 
 [160]
 
 THE UNPOPULAR HISTORY 
 
 THIS is not a complete history. If it were 
 more complete it would be less popular. I 
 know that, for I published it once in full, for 
 free distribution, and I could not get anybody 
 to read a word. 
 
 This is not nearly all I want to say. I 
 have just gone over the rough ground, and 
 occasionally hit the high places, giving you 
 as much as one healthy young fellow can be- 
 lieve all at once. The fact is, I did not be- 
 lieve it myself, and never paid a bit of atten- 
 tion to General Upton when he first wrote his 
 "Military Policy of the United States.' I 
 never caught the idea that we had a Military 
 Policy, or needed one. 
 
 General Emory Upton was a West Pointer, 
 and while no more than a boy, became one of 
 the most distinguished officers in our Civil 
 War. Afterwards, on the recommendation of 
 General Sherman, I sent him to study the 
 [161]
 
 The Unpopular History 
 
 armies of Europe and Asia. What he wrote 
 in the year 1880 embodied the practical les- 
 sons of the Civil War, and the results of mili- 
 tary science throughout the world. It never 
 touched me. Ifdid not even print his book. 
 His manuscript was filed and forgotten 
 amongst the millions of documents in the ar- 
 chives of the War Department. The General 
 printed some of it himself, through a private 
 publisher, but it wouldn 't sell. 
 
 Nearly 25 years later, long after his death, 
 other officers investigated the subject and 
 made me realize how true were his conclu- 
 sions. Thereupon I published ' l Upton 's Mil- 
 itary Policy of the United States." 
 
 Every word that I have spoken here you 
 will find in there ; it has my official endorse- 
 ment, printed on my presses, franked through 
 my mails, and sent free to my people. 
 
 It's true as gospel, but folks say it doesn't 
 taste good. 
 
 That's why I call these few brief extracts 
 from Upton "The Unpopular History^of the 
 United States, " by Uncle Sam Himself. 
 [162] P
 
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