PIN : 079240–000
U.S. Army

Counterinsurgency and

Contingency

Operations Doctrine

1860–1941

by

Andrew J. Birtle

CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY

UNITED STATES ARMY

WASHINGTON, D.C., 2009
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Birtle, A. J. (Andrew James) 

U. S. Army counterinsurgency and contingency 

operations doctrine, 1860–1941 / by Andrew J. Birtle.

 p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. United States. Army—Operations other than war—History.

2. Military doctrine—United States—History. I. Title.

UA25.B57 1998

355.3’4’0973—dc21 97–26216

 CIP

First Printed 1998—CMH Pub 70–66–1
iii

Foreword

Throughout its history, the U.S. Army has conducted a wide variety 

of military operations in service to the nation. Over the past two centuries, America’s soldiers have served the Republic as governors, constables, judges, diplomats, explorers, colonizers, educators, administrators, 

and engineers. These myriad missions have often been overlooked as 

soldiers and scholars alike focused their studies on major wars and on 

the strategic and tactical doctrines that governed them. Comparatively 

little attention has been paid to the underlying theories, concepts, and 

methods that American soldiers have employed in the conduct of their 

many less “conventional,” yet exceedingly traditional, missions.

Over the years the Center of Military History has attempted to rectify this omission in military historiography. Center publications such 

as Soldier-Statesmen of the Constitution; Military Government in the 

Ryukyu Islands, 1945–1950; The U.S. Army in the Occupation of 

Germany, 1944–1946; United States Army Unilateral and Coalition 

Operations in the 1965 Dominican Republic Intervention; the multivolume Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders; and 

The Demands of Humanity: Army Medical Disaster Relief have examined some of the many roles the U.S. Army has played off the conventional battlefield. U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency 

Operations Doctrine, 1860–1941, adds to this body of literature on the 

Army’s experience in operations other than war. It is the first of a twovolume work examining how the Army has performed two of its most 

important unconventional missions: the suppression of insurgent or 

other irregular forces and the conduct of overseas constabulary and 

contingency operations. The second volume will carry the story of the 

evolution of Army doctrine for counterinsurgency and contingency 

operations up through the end of the Vietnam War. 

Although the events discussed in this volume occurred long ago, 

many of the issues raised in it have enduring relevance for today’s 

Army. People, places, and events may change, but the fundamental 

questions involved in suppressing insurrections, fighting irregulars, 

administering civilian populations, and conducting foreign interventions remain surprisingly constant. By studying how American soldiers 

dealt with these complex issues in the past, this book offers valuable 
iv

insights to guide current and future soldiers when called upon to conduct similar operations. 

Washington, D.C. JOHN W. MOUNTCASTLE

10 October 1997 Brigadier General, USA

 Chief of Military History
v

The Author

Andrew J. Birtle received a B.A. degree in history from Saint 

Lawrence University in 1979 and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in military 

history from Ohio State University in 1981 and 1985, respectively. He 

worked for the U.S. Air Force as a historian for approximately three 

years before joining the U.S. Army Center of Military History in 1987. 

He is the author of a number of articles and monographs as well as a 

book on American military assistance to the Federal Republic of 

Germany. He is currently writing the second volume in his study of the 

development of U.S. Army counterinsurgency and contingency operations doctrine.

vii

Preface

It has long been accepted that the U.S. Army did not have an official, codified, written doctrine for the conduct of counterguerrilla, 

pacification, and nation-building activities prior to World War II. The 

absence of a formal, written doctrine, however, does not mean that 

American soldiers did not develop concepts and theories about such 

activities, some of which became enduring principles that guided 

Army operations for decades despite their meager mention in the 

manuals of the day. It is the contention of this book that there was a 

strong continuity in the manner in which the U.S. Army performed 

counterinsurgency and overseas constabulary missions in the century 

that preceded the outbreak of World War II and that some of the central 

principles governing the conduct of such operations were indeed 

incorporated into official Army doctrinal literature prior to America’s 

entry into that conflict. 

Intellectual history—the tracing of the evolution of thought and 

ideas over time—is a tricky business. Showing continuity and change 

in thought and action is difficult, but explaining how it came about is 

even tougher. Writers studying the evolution of military doctrine are 

usually aided in their endeavors by the existence of official manuals 

that codify the state of military thinking at a particular point in time. 

Unfortunately, such manuals are often silent on the less conventional 

aspects of the military art. Moreover, one must remember that a system 

of comprehensive doctrinal manuals in the modern sense did not exist 

in the nineteenth century and was still in its infancy during the early 

decades of the twentieth. Consequently, the student of military theory 

is forced to cast a wider net, studying not only manuals, but curricular 

materials, textbooks, war plans, and the less official publications of 

individual soldiers. Murkier still, but no less real, is the realm of personal experience, folkways, and institutional norms that can be acquired 

and passed down over time. Anthropologists maintain that oral tradition 

can be a powerful force governing the conduct of human cultures and 

institutions. The fact that such traditions are not written down denies 

neither their existence nor their significance. Students of military 

thought, therefore, must look at deeds as well as words, because by 

studying the actions of past soldiers, we may gain insight into the prin-
viii

ciples and beliefs underlying their behavior. I examined all such 

sources then, official and unofficial, words as well as deeds, to gain 

insights into the Army’s approach to counterinsurgency and contingency operations.

This volume covers a lot of ground—nearly a century of time and 

occurrences that span the globe. Although many different events are 

mentioned, this book is not intended to be an operational history. 

Similarly, while the volume touches upon subjects as diverse as military government, military law, and tactics, it does not present a comprehensive review of each of these distinct doctrinal areas. Rather, it 

examines these and other subjects selectively to gain insight into what 

the pre–World War II Army came to call “small wars”—the interrelated 

fields of counterguerrilla warfare, pacification, and overseas constabulary and contingency operations. Though never credited with a manual 

of its own, during the century that preceded the outbreak of World War 

II a loose body of theory, doctrine, thought, and precedent gradually 

evolved within the U.S. Army into what one might call, to paraphrase 

Russell Weigley, an American way of small wars. 

Many people, far too many to name, assisted in the production of 

this volume. I would like to extend a general word of appreciation to 

the staffs of the National Archives and Records Administration, the 

Library of Congress, the U.S. Army Center of Military History (CMH), 

the U.S. Army Military History Institute (MHI), and the Pentagon, 

Infantry School, and Command and General Staff College libraries. 

Individuals worthy of special mention are Wilbert Mahoney of the 

National Archives; Richard J. Sommers, David Keough, and Pamela 

Cheney at MHI; and at CMH, Albert Cowdrey, James Knight, Hannah 

Zeidlik, Geraldine Harcarik, Catherine Heerin, W. Scott Janes, Arthur 

Hardyman, S. L. Dowdy, Beth MacKenzie, and indexer Florence 

Brodkey. I am especially grateful to Diane Arms, who edited the book. 

Thanks also go to the panel of scholars who reviewed the manuscript 

and made many helpful suggestions: Edward Coffman, Timothy 

Nenninger, Lawrence Yates, Allan Millett, Brian Linn, Jeffrey Clarke, 

and Mary Gillett. Finally, I would like to thank my parents and my 

wife, without whose support this work would not have been possible. 

Though many people contributed to this volume, the author alone 

is responsible for all interpretations and conclusions, as well as for any 

errors that may appear.

Washington, D.C. ANDREW J. BIRTLE

10 October 1997
ix

Contents

Chapter Page

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Concepts and Doctrine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Antebellum Antecedents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2. The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Pacification, 1861–1863 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Francis Lieber and General Orders 100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Pacification, 1863–1865 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Tactics and Techniques of the Counterguerrilla War . . . . . . . . . 40

The Legacy of the War of the Rebellion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

3. The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Reconstruction, 1865–1877 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Constabulary Duty on the Western Frontier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Indian Warfare and Military Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

U.S. Army Counterguerrilla Operations on the Western 

 Frontier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

The Army and Indian Pacification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

The New Professionalism and the Legacy of the 

 Constabulary Army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

4. Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

The Army’s Approach to Overseas Nation Building . . . . . . . . . 100

The Military Government of Cuba, 1898–1902 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

The Philippine War, 1899–1902 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

5. The Imperial Constabulary Years, 1900–1913 . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

The Peking Relief Expedition, 1900–1901 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Policing the Philippines, 1902–1907 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Governing the Moros, 1900–1913 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

The Second Cuban Intervention, 1906–1909 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

The Imperial Constabulary Mission and Army Doctrine . . . . . 174
x

Chapter Page

6. Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 

1914–1920 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Vera Cruz, 1914 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

The Mexican Punitive Expedition, 1916–1917 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Wilson and Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Panama, 1918–1920 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

Army Doctrine and the Wilson Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

7. The Interwar Years, 1920–1941 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Overseas Duty in Panama, Germany, and China . . . . . . . . . . . 240

The Sources of U.S. Army Small Wars Doctrine . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

U.S. Army Small Wars Doctrine in the Interwar Period . . . . . 247

Theory Into Practice—Small War Exercises and Plans . . . . . . . 256

Army Doctrine on the Eve of World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

8. Conclusion: The Development of Small Wars Doctrine in 

Retrospect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Select Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Maps

No.

1. U.S. Army Small War Activities, 1861–1938 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2. The Philippines, 1899 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

3. China, 1900–1938 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

4. Mexico, 1914–1916 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

5. U.S. Army Expeditions in the Union of Soviet Socialist 

Republics, 1918–1920 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

6. Panama, 1918 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

Illustrations

Confederate Cavalry, Partisan Rangers, and Guerrillas Attack a 

Supply Train . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Lt. Gen. Henry W. Halleck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
xi

 Page

A Blockhouse and Encampment Protect a Railroad Bridge . . . . . . 42

Dismounted Skirmish Drill Given to Cadets at West Point . . . . . . 62

The Army Protecting the Overland Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

A Unit of Apache Indian Scouts Camps Near the Mexican 

Border . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

The Army Used Soldiers, Civilians, and Indians as Scouts . . . . . 70

Maj. Gen. George Crook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

The Cavalry Was the Army’s Primary Offensive Weapon During 

the Pacification of America’s Inland Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Capt. Henry W. Lawton’s Mixed Column of Cavalry, Scouts, and 

Pack Mules on Geronimo’s Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Geronimo and His Apache Warriors Shortly After Surrender . . . . 76

Indian Company Practices Saber Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Indian Irrigation Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Operations During the Philippine Rainy Season . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Soldiers of the Philippine Insurgent Army on a Firing Line . . . . . 111

Infantry Unit on a Hike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

American Infantrymen on Patrol Riding Native Ponies . . . . . . . . . 115

A Detachment of Macabebe Scouts in American Service . . . . . . . . 117

American Infantrymen Advance in Single-File Formation Down 

a Filipino Road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

American Soldiers Feed Filipino Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

American Soldiers Detailed as Teachers With Their Filipino 

Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

U.S. Army Band Serenades Filipino Civilians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Infantry Unit Forms Up After Destroying a Barrio . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

U.S. Infantrymen Demonstrate the Water Cure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

A Surrender Ceremony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Soldiers and Civilians Intermingle in the Philippines . . . . . . . . . . . 137

U.S. Troops Guard Boxer Prisoners at Tientsin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

American Soldiers on Police Detail During the Occupation of 

Peking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Chinese Village Lies in Ruins After a Visitation by Allied Forces . . . . 152

The Philippine Constabulary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Moro Soldiers of the U.S. Army’s Philippine Scouts . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Moro Warrior in Full Armor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Maj. Hugh L. Scott and the Sultan of Jolo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

American Soldiers Storm the Moro Cotta of Fort Bacolod . . . . . 165

An Elite Provo Company Crosses the Rio Grande River on 

Mindinao . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
xii

 Page

U.S. Artillery Bombards Dato Ali’s Fort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

One-Room Schoolhouse Built by the Army of Cuban

Pacification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Road-Building Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Street Improvements Instituted by the U.S. Army in Vera Cruz . . 197

Maj. Frank Tompkins’ Cavalry Column Searches for Pancho 

Villa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

U.S. Army Indian Scouts Who Participated in the Punitive 

Expedition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

The Wagons of the Old Army Seem To Have an Edge Over 

Newer Forms of Transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

An Infantry Regiment Disembarks at Archangel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Small American Outpost in North Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

American Convoy Winds Its Way Along a Forest Road in North 

Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

American Soldiers Guard Bolshevik Prisoners at Archangel . . . . . 215

American Soldiers Share Their Rations With the Children of

Archangel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

American Soldiers in Winter Camouflage Clothing in North 

Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

This American Blockhouse Withstood Several Communist 

Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Camouflaged Train of the Czech Legion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Cossack Commander Ataman Semenoff and Maj. Gen. William 

S. Graves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Suchan Mining District in Eastern Siberia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

American, French, British, and Italian Soldiers of the

International Military Guard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Spit and Polish Was the Credo of the 15th Infantry in Tientsin . . . 242

Soldiers of the 31st Infantry Defend Shanghai’s Foreign 

Quarter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Illustrations courtesy of the following sources: cover, The Long 

Column, by Frank C. McCarthy © 1974 The Greenwich Workshop, Inc.; 

pp. 24, 29, 32, 37, 38, 42, 64, 68, 71, 75, 76, 81, 84, 111, 115 (top/bottom), 117, 118, 121, 124, 133, 134, 157, 160, 163, 165, 166, 197, 206, 

207, 214, 215 (top/bottom), 217, 218, 219, 221, 224, 241, 242, 243, 

National Archives; 62, Special Collections Division, United States 

Military Academy Library, West Point, New York; 70, 73, 110, 120, 137, 

151 (top/bottom), 152, 155, 161, 167, 172, 173, 204, Library of 

Congress; and 127, 211, 216, U.S. Army Military History Institute.
U.S. Army

Counterinsurgency and

Contingency

Operations Doctrine

1860–1941

3

1

Introduction

Throughout its history, the U.S. Army has focused most of its organizational and doctrinal energies preparing for conventional warfare 

against a similarly armed opponent. Nevertheless, the Army has spent 

the majority of its time not on the conventional battlefield, but in the 

performance of myriad operations other than war. In the century and a 

half between the founding of the Republic and America’s entry into 

World War II, the Army conducted explorations, governed territories, 

guarded national parks, engaged in public works, provided disaster 

relief, quelled domestic disturbances, and supported American foreign 

policy short of engaging in open warfare. Similarly, much of the 

Army’s combat experience prior to World War II was gained not in 

conventional battles against regular opponents, but in unconventional 

conflicts against a bewildering array of irregulars, from American 

Indians to Bolshevik partisans. 

Despite the Army’s continuous engagement in operations other 

than war, relatively little has been written about the Army’s conceptual 

and doctrinal approach to “unconventional” situations prior to World 

War II.1

 This study partially addresses that gap by examining how the 

Army performed two of its many traditional, yet unconventional, functions—counterinsurgency and contingency operations.

Concepts and Doctrine

For the purposes of this book, the term counterinsurgency

embraces all of the political, economic, social, and military actions 

taken by a government for the suppression of insurgent, resistance, and 

revolutionary movements. Contingency operations, on the other hand, 

are limited operations undertaken in areas where the Army initially 

lacks, or has a very limited, base of operations. Although contingency 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

4

operations can be undertaken for any number of political, humanitarian, or punitive purposes, this monograph confines itself to two circumstances: operations of interposition, in which Army forces are 

inserted into a foreign country for the purpose of protecting American 

lives and property during a period of instability, and operations of 

intervention, in which the Army seeks to alter the political behavior of 

another country, either by restoring order, quelling an insurrection, 

imposing punitive measures, recasting institutions, or enforcing a 

change in government. 

Although counterinsurgency and contingency operations can be 

quite diverse, they often share several underlying factors that permit 

them to be considered as an entity. First, such missions frequently 

occur in relatively underdeveloped areas where transportation systems 

are rudimentary, and topographical and climatic conditions pose significant obstacles to the conduct of operations. Second, combat in such 

situations usually pits the Army against irregular or semi-irregular 

forces that employ guerrilla warfare. Finally, and most importantly, 

political considerations play a central role in these activities at both the 

operational and tactical levels. Not only is the close coordination of 

political, diplomatic, and military measures crucial during counterinsurgency and contingency operations, but the ultimate success of these 

operations often depends on the interaction of soldiers with indigenous 

civilian populations. Consequently, soldiers engaged in these areas 

have to exercise political and diplomatic skills above and beyond the 

martial arts normally required on the conventional battlefield.2

In the decades prior to the outbreak of World War II, the Army borrowed the term small wars from British soldier-author Sir Charles E. 

Callwell to describe the type of actions encompassed by the more contemporary terms counterinsurgency and contingency operations. Small 

wars, as the pre–World War II Army defined them, were operations 

undertaken for the purpose of suppressing an insurrection, establishing 

order, or dispensing punishment in which the Army usually faced a 

poorly trained or irregular foe. However, since small wars were often 

peacetime affairs of a quasi-police nature, the term constabulary operations is perhaps equally appropriate. 

The U.S. Army’s constabulary and small wars operations were 

inherently civil-military in scope and frequently required that the military undertake what officers in the early twentieth century called pacification. In the broadest sense, pacification encompassed all actions 

taken to establish or maintain peace, order, and government authority 

in an area that was either openly or potentially hostile. It had two main 

features: military operations against irregulars and civil operations. The 
Introduction

5

relative balance between these two components fluctuated from situation to situation. Similarly, the exact nature of the Army’s civil involvement varied widely depending on the purpose of the operation. At a 

minimum, it entailed developing working relationships with local civil 

authorities. In more extreme cases, it encompassed the establishment of 

military government, the imposition of controls of varying severity 

over the population, and the introduction of measures designed to ameliorate the conditions that precipitated the unrest. Finally, the military’s 

civil actions sometimes became programs of social engineering 

designed to reshape the subject society. 

Although civil and military activities were inexorably linked in 

most counterinsurgency and constabulary operations, for the sake of 

analysis the monograph separates the purely military aspects of counterguerrilla tactics from measures directed at the civilian population, 

which the study treats under the heading of “pacification.” By examining the evolution of the Army’s doctrinal approach to the interrelated 

areas of counterirregular warfare and pacification, the book focuses on 

a genre of military activity that constituted much of the Army’s operational employment not only before World War II, but thereafter as well. 

Indeed, the Army’s experience in constabulary and small war operations during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is particularly relevant in the post–Cold War world, where every crisis is no 

longer colored by the brush of Marxist-Leninist doctrine and Maoist 

revolutionary theory.

One last term, doctrine, must be defined to understand the focus of 

this history. There are probably as many definitions of the word as there 

are soldiers and military theorists. For the purpose of this study, doctrine is that body of knowledge disseminated through officially 

approved publications, school curriculums, and textbooks that represents an army’s approach to war and the conduct of military operations. 

Doctrine offers a distillation of experience, furnishing a guide to methods that have generally worked in the past and which are thought to be 

of some enduring utility. By providing a common orientation, language, and conceptual framework, doctrine helps soldiers navigate 

through the fog of war.3

For most of the century and a half prior to America’s entry into 

World War II, the U.S. Army lacked an extensive, formal, written doctrine for the conduct of small wars. Nevertheless, during this period 

the Army evolved what might be termed an “informal” doctrine comprised of custom, tradition, and accumulated experience that was 

transmitted from one generation of soldiers to the next through a combination of official and unofficial writings, curricular materials, con-
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

6

versations, and individual memories. This process, while somewhat 

haphazard, was not unusual, especially since the Army lacked any 

formal system for generating doctrine for much of the period covered 

by this study. Moreover, while some doctrinal developments may be 

revolutionary, the process of creating and changing doctrine is for the 

most part an evolutionary one, in which field experience is gradually 

distilled and codified, only to be eventually modified and replaced 

after new experiences have demonstrated the inadequacy of existing 

thought. This study, therefore, approaches the development of Army 

small wars doctrine by examining both the formal and informal evolution of Army thought and practice with regards to the conduct of 

counterguerrilla and pacification campaigns.

After taking a cursory look at the antebellum period, the book 

focuses on the largest insurrection that has ever faced the United 

States government, the War of the Rebellion. During this conflict the 

Army developed policies governing the treatment of guerrillas and 

hostile populations that would serve as guides into the twentieth century. The monograph then takes a look at the Army’s extensive experience in irregular warfare and constabulary operations during the post–

Civil War Indian campaigns. Less than a decade after the conclusion 

of these campaigns, the Army found itself performing politico-military 

constabulary functions once again, this time overseas in Cuba, Puerto 

Rico, the Philippines, and China. During the first decade of the twentieth century, the U.S. Army gained a wealth of experience in counterinsurgency and population management from operations in these 

areas. Next, the history examines the Army’s growing role as an 

instrument of foreign policy during President Woodrow Wilson’s 

Mexican and Russian interventions, before concluding with a discussion of the state of Army thinking about small wars on the eve of 

World War II. (Map 1)

Although the book reviews “internal” conflicts such as the Indian 

and Civil Wars and Reconstruction, it generally does not address riot 

duty or the utilization of military force in domestic disturbances. 

Similarly, while the broad outline of civil affairs and military government doctrine is of great importance to the study of pacification, the 

monograph makes no attempt to examine in detail the technical and 

administrative aspects of military government doctrine. Finally, this 

work is not meant to be a narrative history of the Army’s many small 

wars and constabulary operations. Rather, it conveys only those facts 

necessary to provide the reader with a sufficient background with 

which to understand the evolution of theory and practice. Readers who 

are interested in obtaining a more detailed understanding of the events 
Introduction

7

touched upon in this volume can find many sources in the footnotes and 

bibliography to help them do so.

Antebellum Antecedents

The U.S. Army’s approach to pacification and counterguerrilla 

operations during the nineteenth century stemmed from three sources—

frontier experience, antebellum instruction given at the U.S. Military 

Academy at West Point concerning the art and conduct of war, and the 

application of those principles by Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott during the 

Mexican War. 

The U.S. Army was in many ways the child of the frontier. With the 

exception of a few brief interludes of conventional warfare against the 

British and Mexicans, the antebellum Army spent the bulk of its time 

policing the nation’s ever-changing western boundary. Overworked, 

underfunded, and dispersed among many small posts, the nation’s tiny 

Army struggled to enforce laws and treaties, explore and govern new 

territories, punish hostile aggression, and regulate Indian-white contact. Prior to 1822, the Army operated government trading houses, or 

“factories,” in an effort to smooth Indian-white relations through equitable commercial dealings between the two societies. Even after the 

full privatization of Indian commerce, the War Department retained 

control over Indian policy until 1849, when the government transferred 

that responsibility to the Department of the Interior. The frontier was 

thus an integral part of the antebellum Army’s existence, and consequently it inherited a rich heritage of Indian warfare experience that 

dated back to the colonial era.

In their campaigns against the Eastern woodland Indians during the 

eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, British colonists and their 

American descendants had learned that the best way to bring their elusive opponents to a decisive engagement was to attack their villages. 

Sometimes this was done using a single force, as Maj. Gen. Anthony 

Wayne employed in 1794, while at others multiple, converging columns 

were employed, as during the Sullivan-Clinton campaign of 1779. In 

either case, expeditions of this nature, if well conceived and carefully 

organized, compelled the Indians either to abandon their villages, with 

the loss of crops, property, and prestige, or to stand and fight on 

European terms. Moreover, as adept as the Indians were in ambushing 

their enemies, they were notoriously lax when it came to guarding their 

own camps and settlements, thereby giving their adversaries a chance to 

turn the tables on them. Such expeditions were not easy, as they usually 

involved marching long distances over difficult and unfamiliar terrain. 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

8

Logistical problems were numerous, as were the difficulties presented 

by the low caliber of soldiers and militiamen upon whom commanders 

had to rely. To make up for these deficiencies, Anglo-American commanders of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries adopted several expedients. They lightened their columns as much as possible, 

improved training, developed march and camp procedures to minimize 

the danger of ambush, organized special corps of light infantry and riflemen skilled in open order combat, and augmented their forces with 

small bodies of irregulars—frontiersmen, rangers, and Indians—for use 

180o 150oW 120o 90o 60o 30o 0o 

A t l a n t i c O c e a n

A r c t i c O c e a n

P a c i  c O c e a n

P a c i  c O c e a n

A t l a n t i c O c e a n

Indian Wars

Mexican Punitive Expedition

Vera Cruz

Panama

Civil War and Reconstruction

Cuba

Puerto Rico

Rhineland

1866–1898

1916–1917

 1914

1918–1920 1921

1925

1861–1877

1898–1902

1906–1909

1898–1900

1918–1923

1:14,500,00

U.S. ARMY SMALL WAR ACTIVITIES

1861–1938

Map 1
Introduction

9

as guides and auxiliaries. Rather than abandoning traditional European 

methods of warfare for Indian ways, they blended the strong points of 

each, combining European-style discipline, organization, and firepower 

with Indian-style raiding. It was through the use of such columns, conventionally based but modified to meet the circumstances of the North 

American wilderness, that the British and Americans had broken the 

back of Indian resistance east of the Mississippi.4

One reason behind Anglo-American success was the fact that most 

Eastern tribes were fairly sedentary, and their villages were readily 

30o 60o 90o 120o 150oE

40o

20oS

0o

20oN

40o

60o

80o

I n d i a n O c e a n

P a c i  c O c e a n

A r c t i c O c e a n

North Russia

Siberia

China

Philippines

Shanghai

1918–1919

1918–1920

1900–1905

1912–1938

1898–1913

1932
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

10

identifiable. The U.S. Army was not so fortunate during the Second 

Seminole War of 1835–1842. During this conflict, the Army faced a 

relatively small band of Indian and black guerrilla warriors in an extensive tract of uncharted and nearly impenetrable swampland in central 

and southern Florida. The Seminoles exploited the terrain to the utmost, 

hiding their villages and crops deep in the interior. Weakened by heat 

and disease, the government’s undersupplied and overextended forces 

spent the first few years of the war stumbling around Florida in several 

cumbersome, converging columns in a vain attempt to catch their elusive foe. Although the Army came close to success on several occasions, it was not until it modified its traditional tactics that it finally was 

able to draw the war to a close. The Army’s ultimate strategy consisted 

of two elements. First, it impeded the free movement of Seminole raiders and provided increased security to white settlements in northern 

Florida by establishing a cordon of small posts. Patrols radiated out 

from these strongpoints every other day, scouring the countryside for 

guerrilla infiltrators. Second, it launched an aggressive summer campaign to seek out and destroy Seminole villages and food supplies at a 

time when they were most vulnerable. Previously the Army had avoided campaigning in the Florida summer due to the ravages of heat and 

disease, thereby providing the Seminoles with an important respite 

each year. By launching an “off-season” campaign the Army caught the 

Indians by surprise and was able to locate and destroy their villages and 

crops before they had sufficient time to react. With these modifications, 

the Army brought the war to a successful, albeit expensive, conclusion.5

Unfortunately, neither the British nor the Americans made much 

of an attempt to preserve the lessons of these early campaigns in any 

formal fashion, with the result that successive military leaders often 

had to relearn the art of Indian campaigning through the hard school 

of experience. The general immaturity of the educational and doctrinal 

development systems of the day, the tendency of soldiers to dismiss 

“savage” warfare as a form of conflict less worthy of study than 

“civilized” wars, and the universal reluctance of legislatures, be they 

located in London, Philadelphia, New York, or Washington, to allocate 

sufficient funds for the establishment of stable, professional military 

forces, contributed to this shortcoming. So too did the fact that all 

Indian conflicts were not alike, amply illustrated by the Seminole War, 

and that methods that worked in one would not necessarily work in 

another. Indeed, the essential irregularity of irregular warfare and the 

multiplicity of political, military, and geographical contexts in which 

it occurred has always been a factor that has retarded the development 

of any formal, detailed doctrine for operations of this type. Nevertheless, 
Introduction

11

some of the lessons of these early campaigns were institutionalized. 

One needs only to compare the organizational, march, and security 

procedures employed by Anglo-American armies in the wilderness 

between 1755 and 1795, for example, to see that certain fundamentals 

about Indian campaigning were preserved and transmitted. Similarly, 

the organization of the United States Army between 1792 and 1796 

into the Legion of the United States, the only time the entire U.S. 

Army was structured specifically for counter-Indian warfare, marked 

a deliberate application of previous lessons learned, as did the somewhat unsuccessful employment of the old converging column technique during the Seminole War.6

Several factors contributed to the transmission of frontier experience within American military forces from the colonial and early 

national periods. Many soldiers served in more than one campaign and 

were able to apply lessons from one to another. Thus Brig. Gen. William 

Henry Harrison employed many of the methods he had learned as an 

aide to General Wayne during the 1790s to his own operations after 

1810. Knowledge was also passed by word and example from one generation of soldiers to the next. When, during an 1858 war with the 

Indians of Washington Territory, Col. George Wright applied techniques 

of devastation and retribution that he had first observed in the Second 

Seminole War, his actions were not lost upon young 2d Lt. Philip H. 

Sheridan, who would himself employ devastation as a weapon against 

Southern and Native American irregulars over the next thirty years.7

Finally, literature also played a role. The orderly books and official 

correspondence of Anglo-American frontier veterans, such as John 

Forbes, Henry Bouquet, James Wolf, Robert Rogers, George 

Washington, John Sullivan, and Anthony Wayne helped preserve irregular warfare experience. So too did unofficial treatises, like Bouquet’s 

“Reflections on War With the Savages,” which was contained as an 

appendix to William Smith’s frequently reprinted An Historical 

Account of the Expedition Against the Ohio Indians, in the Year 1764. 

Another unofficial work, James Smith’s A Treatise on the Mode and 

Manner of Indian War, published in 1812, perpetuated many of 

Bouquet’s teachings into the early national period. Nor were more conventional European and American manuals necessarily irrelevant, as 

they sometimes contained sections on partisan warfare and the movement of troops through difficult terrain that were applicable to frontier 

conditions. Thus, through a combination of personal experience, word 

of mouth, and the written word, enough frontier lessons were preserved 

to produce a basic continuity in the Anglo-American approach to Indian 

warfare during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.8
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

12

The movement of the frontier out of the Eastern woodlands and 

into the vast, open expanses of the trans–Mississippi West, where the 

indigenous population was often less sedentary and infinitely more 

mobile than the Eastern tribes, somewhat negated the value of this 

inheritance. Still, certain underlying principles would remain relevant, 

while early experiences gained among the Western tribes during the 

1840s and 1850s established precedents that post–Civil War soldiers—

some of whom had served in the trans–Mississippi West either before 

or during the Civil War—were destined to follow.9

While informal methods were the predominant agents in the preservation and transmission of frontier experience, the U.S. Military 

Academy also played a role, albeit a limited one. Prior to the Second 

Seminole War, the academy did not address Indian warfare at all, partly 

because the subject did not fit the school’s conventional focus, and 

partly because the academy during its early years taught virtually nothing 

at all about the military art, its curriculum being devoted almost exclusively to engineering. Dennis Hart Mahan first introduced Indian warfare 

into West Point’s curriculum in 1835, when he printed a lithographic note 

on the subject. Between 1836 and 1840, Indian warfare was a standard 

part of his lecture series on the science of war, and there is some evidence 

that he continued to address the subject sporadically throughout his forty 

years as an instructor at the school (1830–1870).

Mahan’s teachings encapsulated the major lessons of a century’s 

worth of American frontier experience. He instructed cadets on march, 

convoy, and signaling procedures suitable for irregular warfare, 

described how to construct a blockhouse, and gave tips on ways a 

beleaguered patrol could convert a farmhouse into a fortress. For the 

most part, however, he confined his lectures to the principles of Indian 

warfare rather than the specifics. The single most important principle 

Mahan taught the nation’s young officers was that good soldiers adapted their methods to the characteristics of their enemies. 

In the case of Indian warfare, he advised cadets to employ frontiersmen and friendly Indians as auxiliaries and scouts, to take extra 

precautions with regard to camp and march security, and to gather intelligence for the purpose of exploiting intertribal tensions. Adapting to 

frontier conditions did not mean, however, that the United States should 

blindly adopt Indian methods of warfare. Doing so would clearly be 

disadvantageous to the Army, whose soldiers were man-for-man inferior to the tribesmen in the realms of marksmanship and fieldcraft. Nor 

would engaging in the Indians’ brand of desultory guerrilla warfare 

achieve the decisive results that the United States desired. Rather than 

trying to beat the Indian at his own game, Mahan believed the Army 
Introduction

13

should employ science and strategy to force the Indian to fight on the 

white man’s terms. The best way to achieve this end was to send a column deep into enemy territory to destroy the Indians’ villages and food 

supplies. Only by striking at the foundations of Indian society could the 

Army compel its elusive opponents either to capitulate or to stand and 

fight on terms favorable to the Army. This was how the nation had 

defeated the Eastern woodland Indians in its earlier frontier conflicts, 

and this was the recipe Mahan recommended be employed in the 

Second Seminole War—a war that the Army eventually won along 

Mahanian lines.10

Despite West Point’s rather meager treatment of Indian warfare, 

there were other elements of the curriculum that illuminated the nature 

of irregular warfare and pacification activities. Prior to the outbreak of 

the Civil War, the U.S. Military Academy provided formal training on 

the conduct of war through a series of classes in ethics commonly 

referred to as the chaplain’s course. Included in the curriculum were the 

study of international law and the laws of war, both of which were less 

formal codes than loose bodies of precedents and principles that had 

evolved over the centuries. One of the more important theorists in this 

field was the eighteenth-century Swiss diplomat and jurist Emmerich 

Vattel, whose thoughts on the laws of war were employed in the chaplain’s course either directly or through the works of others.11

In The Law of Nations, Vattel argued that wars should be conducted with as much justice and humanity as possible. He urged soldiers to treat civilians with every consideration, so as to shield them 

from the lawlessness and disruption that normally accompanies war. 

Looting and wanton destruction were strictly forbidden, as were any 

acts that unnecessarily harmed the inhabitants of a disputed region or 

disrupted normal life. Vattel and other writers on international law 

believed that prudent conduct on the part of an occupying army both 

protected civilization and facilitated the restoration of peace. Moreover, 

moderation redounded to an army’s benefit, for by maintaining discipline over its soldiers, an army reduced the chances that the inhabitants 

would take up arms against it.12

Although he conceded that international law did not apply to internal conflicts, such as civil wars and insurrections, Vattel counseled 

moderation in these circumstances as well. He urged that both sides in 

a civil war avoid becoming trapped in an escalation of reprisal, execution, and destruction, recommending instead that the government speed 

reconciliation by granting rebels amnesty. 

There was, however, a caveat to Vattel’s prescription for humane 

wars. Relations between the army and the people were not one-sided. 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

14

Rather, the laws of war treated the relationship between occupier and 

occupied as a contract, in which the army offered fair treatment in return 

for obedience on the part of the people. Should the people fail to live up 

to their part of the bargain, and instead of submitting, actively resist the 

occupier, then the contract was broken and the military was free to crush 

resistance by extraordinary means. Although Vattel hoped commanders 

would use prudence in exercising the right of retaliation, he conceded 

that it remained an essential ingredient in the arsenal of war.13

The evolution of disciplined armies during the eighteenth century 

had made Vattel’s humane policies a practical possibility in that era. 

Regular armies were not only more manageable than the armed rabble 

of centuries past, but the logistical organization that supported them 

also reduced the necessity for soldiers to forage—one of the activities 

most likely to arouse hostility among civilians. Uniformed armies were 

readily distinguishable from the population at large, and the entire philosophy of the humane conduct of war was based upon the possibility 

of differentiating clearly between combatant and noncombatant. For 

that reason the laws of war reserved the harshest punishments for 

actions that blurred the line between soldiers and noncombatants. Little 

mercy was accorded to armed civilian irregulars who fought in mufti as 

guerrillas. They were to be treated not as soldiers but as bandits and 

punished by imprisonment or death.14

Just as Vattel’s precepts on the laws of war formed the basis of the 

Army’s approach to pacification, the theory of war as taught at West 

Point rested in large part upon the work of another Swiss writer, Baron 

Antoine Henri Jomini, a veteran of Napoleon’s perilous guerrilla war in 

Spain. Jomini shared Vattel’s distaste for guerrilla warfare on the 

grounds that it tore the fabric of society and exposed soldier and civilian alike to an endless cycle of lawlessness and retaliation. Like most 

professional soldiers of his day, Jomini did not believe that undisciplined guerrillas could, by themselves, achieve victory. However, he 

conceded that partisans represented a serious threat to conventional 

military forces, especially when used in combination with regular 

troops. In The Art of War, Jomini warned his readers of the difficulties 

regular armies faced when combating guerrillas:

Each armed inhabitant knows the smallest paths and their connections; he 

finds everywhere a relative or friend who aids him; the commanders also 

know the country, and, learning immediately the slightest movement on the 

part of the invader, can adopt the best measures to defeat his projects; while 

the latter, without information of their movements . . . is like a blind man: his 

combinations are failures; and when, after the most carefully concentrated 

movements and the most rapid and fatiguing marches, he thinks he is about 
Introduction

15

to accomplish his aim and deal a terrible blow, he finds no signs of the enemy 

but his campfires.15

Jomini offered no easy solution to the problem, other than inundating the country with troops and carrying on an aggressive hunt for the 

guerrillas. However, like Vattel, he also recognized the political side of 

pacification, and he counseled his readers to “calm popular passions in 

every possible way, exhaust them by time and patience, display courtesy, gentleness, and severity united, and, particularly, deal justly.”16

While The Art of War provided insights into the nature of guerrilla 

warfare, it would be to West Point’s don of military science, Dennis 

Hart Mahan, that mid-nineteenth–century officers would turn for an 

introduction into the tactics and techniques most frequently employed 

in irregular conflicts. A disciple of Jomini, Mahan shared the conventional view that partisans were a valuable adjunct to regular forces, and 

consequently he included partisan warfare as one of the ten major subjects covered in the academy’s science of war course.17

Mahan focused his discussion of partisan warfare not on how to 

counter guerrillas but rather on how to use partisans and small bodies 

of regular troops to conduct what eighteenth- and nineteenth-century 

military theorists commonly referred to as petite guerre (“small war”). 

Petite guerre essentially referred to small-unit actions involving outposts, patrols, raids, and reconnaissances conducted for the purpose of 

gaining information and keeping an enemy off balance. Guerrilla-style 

tactics of ambush, surprise, and stratagem formed an integral part of 

such missions. Mahan deemed the study of this kind of action so important that he dedicated his most significant work, An Elementary 

Treatise on Advanced-Guard, Out-Post, and Detachment Service of 

Troops, to the exposition of its basic principles. As the basic military 

textbook employed at the U.S. Military Academy during the midnineteenth century, Out-Post (as the book was commonly known) dispensed advice on the conduct of pickets and patrols, established march 

security procedures, and laid out the basic principles to be followed in 

conducting and defending against ambushes and surprise attacks. The 

book particularly warned its readers of the danger partisans posed to 

supply convoys. By explaining the tactics and techniques of petite 

guerre, Out-Post helped prepare the nation’s young officers for the 

conduct of the type of small-unit operations typically employed in both 

conventional and unconventional warfare.18

The antebellum Army shared Mahan’s interest in partisan operations. Washington had employed a number of rifle, legionary, and partisan corps during the Revolution, and the 1857 regulations recom-
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

16

mended that field commanders create similar bodies of partisan troops 

during hostilities. The partisans would harass the enemy and maintain 

control over the countryside by fostering the goodwill of friendly 

inhabitants and by intimidating those who were not. Deception, secrecy, speed, espionage, and ambuscade were all prescribed as tools of the 

partisan’s trade. The regulations described partisan warfare in terms 

that accurately portrayed its later conduct during the Civil War.19

Besides classroom instruction and regulations, the antebellum officer corps received “real life” experience in the problems of pacification 

and irregular warfare not only on the frontier, but also during the 

Mexican War of 1846–1848. Although he had not attended West Point, 

the commanding general of the Army at the time of the Mexican War, 

Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott, had had some legal training before entering 

the Army and was a devoted student of European military thought and 

practice. During his campaign against Mexico City, Scott formulated 

specific policies for the conduct of counterguerrilla and pacification 

operations that gave tangible expression to the precepts of Vattel and 

Jomini.

Toward the people of Mexico, Scott held out the hand of reconciliation. No sooner did he begin his campaign than he issued proclamations pledging to protect the lives and property of Mexican citizens. He 

courted the favor of the Mexican Catholic Church, attending mass himself and ordering his soldiers to salute priests. He encouraged municipal officials to remain in office and did everything in his power to 

restore to normal the economic and social life of the country. Under 

Scott’s guidance, American military governors distributed free rations 

to the poor, employed natives to clean the streets, and maintained 

schools, hospitals, and other public institutions. In addition, Scott 

demanded impeccable conduct from his soldiers in an effort to minimize friction with the Mexican population. He ignored the War 

Department’s instructions to requisition supplies from the population, 

preferring to pay for supplies rather than risk alienating the people 

through harsh extractions. So beneficent was Scott that Ulysses S. 

Grant stated afterwards that “I question whether the great majority of 

the Mexican people did not regret our departure as much as they had 

regretted our coming.”20

Unfortunately, Scott’s benevolent policies did not prevent significant 

outbreaks of guerrilla warfare. Mixed bands of Mexican patriots, soldiers, and outlaws descended upon his supply lines, ambushing convoys 

and harassing patrols. Scott took a dim view of these raiders, as did 

Secretary of War William L. Marcy, who advised the commanding general that guerrilla warfare was “hardly recognized as a legitimate 
Introduction

17

mode of warfare, and should be met with the utmost allowable severity.” 

Scott did just that, announcing a war of extermination against the 

Mexican irregulars. He denied guerrillas quarter and directed that those 

who were “accidentally” taken prisoner be held only as long as necessary 

for a summary court to order their execution. Nor was he much kinder to 

civilians whom he suspected of aiding the irregulars. Scott held local 

officials personally responsible for guerrilla acts committed in their districts and confiscated their property whenever they failed to help apprehend the guilty parties. When this did not work, he cast a wider net, fining and burning villages suspected of harboring guerrillas. Scott used the 

torch with such liberality that the road between Vera Cruz and Mexico 

City was marked by a black swath of devastation several miles wide. 

Although the U.S. Army never completely subdued the guerrillas, Scott 

kept them sufficiently in check to accomplish his mission, in part because 

he was able to demonstrate to the Mexican people that they had more to 

lose than to gain by resisting U.S. authority.21

Reconciliation and retribution formed the twin policies that governed 

Army conduct during the Mexican War. The overall success of these policies impressed many younger officers, including several who would later 

rise to high rank during the War of the Rebellion. One veteran who remembered what Scott had done was Henry W. Halleck. An avid student of 

military and legal theory, Halleck in 1861 published the book International 

Law, which drew upon Scott’s actions in Mexico as well as the writings of 

a large number of European and American scholars. Halleck reiterated the 

dual principles of moderation and retaliation that had been taught at West 

Point and implemented by Scott. On the one hand, he urged armies to treat 

the inhabitants of an occupied country well, warning that the “inevitable 

consequences” of indiscipline and unbridled foraging were the “massacre 

of straggling parties” and the conversion of “the ordinary peaceful and 

non-combatant inhabitants . . . into bitter and implacable foes.” On the 

other, he maintained that self-appointed bands of guerrillas were not 

legitimate belligerents and should be treated as criminals. Communities 

that harbored such individuals were, in Halleck’s opinion, collectively 

responsible for their actions, and generals were free to punish them as Scott 

had in Mexico. However, while the Army had the right to deal harshly with 

insurgents and their supporters, Halleck, like Vattel, believed that morality 

demanded that it resort to such extreme measures only when they were 

absolutely necessary.22

International Law represented views that were widely held, and 

Halleck’s promotion to the post of commanding general of the U.S. 

Army in mid-1862 ensured that they would strongly influence Army 

policy. By the time of the Civil War, the legacies of the Indian and 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

18

Mexican Wars, combined with the works of Vattel, Jomini, Mahan, 

Scott, and Halleck, provided the U.S. Army with the conceptual foundation upon which it would build its pacification and counterguerrilla 

policies. The Civil War would add a significant amount of practical 

experience to these precepts, experience which would in turn influence 

the Army’s conduct of operations for the next hundred years.
19

Notes

1

 Some works that do address the subject in various ways are Sam Sarkesian, 

America’s Forgotten Wars (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984); John Waghelstein, 

“Preparing for the Wrong War: The United States Army and Low Intensity Conflict, 

1755–1890” (Ph.D. diss., Temple University, 1990); John Gates, “Indians and Insurrectos: 

The U.S. Army’s Experience With Insurgency,” Parameters 13 (March 1983): 59–68; 

Robert Asprey, War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History, 2 vols. (Garden City, N.Y.: 

Doubleday, 1975); Ian Beckett, ed., The Roots of Counter-Insurgency: Armies and 

Guerrilla Warfare, 1900–45 (New York: Blandford Press, 1988). 2

 Todd Greentree, The United States and the Politics of Conflict in the Developing 

World (Langley Air Force Base, Va.: Army-Air Force Center for Low Intensity 

Conflict, 1990); William Olson, “The Concept of Small Wars,” Small Wars and 

Insurgencies 1 (April 1990): 39–46; Michael Klare, “The Interventionist Impulse: U.S. 

Military Doctrine for Low-Intensity Warfare,” in Low-Intensity Warfare, ed. Michael 

Klare and Peter Kornbluh (New York: Pantheon, 1988), pp. 49–79. 3

 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, JCS Publication 

1 (1987), p. 118; U.S. Army, Field Manual (FM) 100–5, Operations, 1986, p. 6; E. S. 

Johnston, “A Science of War,” in Art of War Colloquium (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Army 

War College, November 1983), pp. 63–64, 50; Robert Doughty, The Evolution of U.S. 

Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946–76 (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. Army Command and 

General Staff College, 1979), p. 1; Jay Shafritz et al., Dictionary of Military Science

(New York: Facts on File, 1989), pp. 148–49; Vardell Nesmith, “The Quiet Paradigm 

Change: The Evolution of the Field Artillery Doctrine of the United States Army, 

1861–1905” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1977), pp. 1–3; Wayne Hall, “A Critique of 

the Doctrine-Training Fit,” Military Review (June 1985): 34. 4

 Examples of such campaigns include those of Maj. Gen. John Sullivan in 1779, 

Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne in 1794, Brig. Gen. William Henry Harrison in 1811, and 

Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson in 1813–1814 and 1817. Of course, not all expeditions 

succeeded, as Maj. Gen. Arthur St. Clair and Bvt. Brig. Gen. Josiah Harmar demonstrated. For a discussion of how Anglo-American armies adapted (or sometimes 

failed to adapt) to frontier conditions, see Peter Russell, “Redcoats in the Wilderness: 

British Officers and Irregular Warfare in Europe and America, 1740–1760,” William 

and Mary Quarterly 35 (October 1978): 629–52; Mott Hooton, “Certain Historical 

Data Regarding Extended Order,” Journal of the Military Service Institution of the 

United States 16 (1895): 550 (hereafter cited as JMSIUS); John Mahon, “AngloAmerican Methods of Indian Warfare, 1676–1794,” Mississippi Valley Historical 

Review 45 (September 1958): 254–75; King L. Parker, “Anglo-American Wilderness 

Campaigning, 1754–64: Logistical and Tactical Developments” (Ph.D. diss., 

Columbia University, 1970); Asprey, War in the Shadows, pp. 101–04; John Dederer, 

“The Origins and Development of American Conceptions of War to 1775” (Ph.D. 

diss., University of Alabama, 1988), pp. 27, 160, 170; Russell Weigley, History of the 

United States Army (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), pp. 24–27; 

William Guthman, March to Massacre (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975), pp. 11, 

94–96, 127; Russell Weigley, The American Way of War (Bloomington: Indiana 

University Press, 1973), pp. 67–68.
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

20

5

 John Trussell, “Seminoles in the Everglades,” Army 12 (December 1961): 41–45; 

Eben Swift, “Services of Graduates of West Point in Indian Wars,” in The Centennial 

of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, 2 vols. (Washington, 

D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904), 1:526. For a comprehensive account of the 

Seminole War, see John Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War (Gainesville: 

University of Florida Press, 1967). 6

 Mahon, Seminole War, p. 320; Weigley, History of the U.S. Army, pp. 92–93; 

Francis Prucha, The Sword of the Republic (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 

1969), pp. 30–38; Fletcher Pratt, Eleven Generals: Studies in American Command

(New York: Sloane, 1949), pp. 37–58. 7

 Dennis Vetock, Lessons Learned: A History of United States Army Lesson 

Learning (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army Military History Institute, 1988), pp. 

13–14, 16. 8

 Henry Bouquet, “Reflections on War With the Savages of North America,” app. 

to William Smith, An Historical Account of the Expedition Against the Ohio Indians, 

in the Year 1764 (Philadelphia: W. Bradford, 1765); James Smith, A Treatise on the 

Mode and Manner of Indian War (Paris, Ky.: Joel R. Lyle, 1812); Parker, “AngloAmerican Campaigning,” pp. 301–30; O. L. Spaulding, “The Military Studies of 

George Washington,” American Historical Review 29 (July 1929): 678–79; Edward 

Williams, ed., The Orderly Book of Colonel Henry Bouquet’s Expedition Against the 

Ohio Indians, 1764 (Pittsburgh, 1960); Anthony Wayne, “General Wayne’s Orderly 

Book,” Michigan Pioneer Historical Society Collection 34 (1904): 341–733. For 

examples of early military texts that contained discussions of partisan warfare that 

could be applied to the frontier, see De Jeney, The Partisan (London, 1760); William 

Young, Manoeuvers, or Practical Observations on the Art of War (1771); Roger 

Stevenson, Military Instructions for Officers Detached in the Field; Containing a 

Scheme for Forming a Corps of a Partisan, Illustrated With Plans of the Manoeuvers 

Necessary in Carrying on Petite Guerre (Philadelphia: Aitken, 1775); Epaphras Hoyt, 

Practical Instructions for Military Officers (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 

1971). 9

 Robert Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 

1848–65 (New York: Macmillan, 1967), pp. 342–46. 10 Vetock, Lessons Learned, p. 24; Thomas Griess, “Dennis Hart Mahan: West Point 

Professor and Advocate of Military Professionalism, 1830–1871” (Ph.D. diss., Duke 

University, 1968), pp. 306–07; John Brinsfield, “The Military Ethics of General 

William T. Sherman: A Reassessment,” Parameters 12 (June 1982): 37; Robert 

Wooster, The Military and United States Indian Policy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale 

University Press, 1988), pp. 56–57; Stephen Ambrose, “Dennis Hart Mahan,” Civil 

War Times 2 (November 1963): 35; Trussell, “Seminoles in the Everglades,” pp. 41–45; 

Swift, “Services of Graduates,” p. 526; Thomas Smith, “West Point and the Indian 

Wars,” presentation at the U.S. Military Academy, Sep 93, pp. 18–22, copy in 

Historians files, CMH; Dennis Hart Mahan, “Composition of Armies,” lithographic 

text, 1836, pp. 33–36, George L. Welker Papers, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, 

N.Y.11 Brinsfield, “Military Ethics,” p. 38; Ralph Gabriel, “American Experience With 

Military Government,” American Historical Review 49 (July 1944): 631–32; Robert 

Futrell, “Federal Military Government in the South, 1861–65,” Military Affairs 15 

(Winter 1951): 181.
Introduction

21

12 Emmerich Vattel, The Law of Nations (Philadelphia: T. & J. W. Johnson, 1863), 

pp. 348–66; James Kent, Commentaries on American Law, 2 vols. (New York: O. 

Halsted, 1826), 1:85–87. 13 Vattel, Law of Nations, pp. 352, 366, 422–25. 14 Kent, Commentaries on American Law, 1:89; Brinsfield, “Military Ethics,” p. 38. 

For the continuity in the laws of war as they were taught at West Point, see The 

Centennial of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, 1:440–41; Vattel, 

Law of Nations; Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law (Philadelphia: Lea & 

Blanchard, 1846); Theodore Woolsey, Introduction to the Study of International Law

(Boston: James Monroe, 1864); Henry W. Halleck, International Law; or, Rules 

Regulating the Intercourse of States in Peace and War (New York: Van Nostrand, 

1861); George B. Davis, Outlines of International Law (London: Sampson, Low, 

Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1888). 15 Antoine Henri Jomini, The Art of War (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1862), pp. 

29–34. 16 Ibid., p. 33. The Art of War was first published in French in 1838 and republished 

in English in the United States in 1854 and 1862. Only a handful of antebellum officers 

formally studied The Art of War at West Point, since the class of 1859–1860 was the 

only one which used this work as a textbook. Nevertheless, many officers were 

exposed to Jomini’s ideas, either through lectures on partisan warfare presented by 

Dennis Hart Mahan or through individual study. George Winton, “Ante-Bellum 

Military Instruction of West Point Officers and Its Influence Upon Confederate 

Military Organization and Operations” (Ph.D. diss., University of South Carolina, 

1972), p. 50; Centennial of the U.S. Military Academy, 1:464; Richard Beringer et al., 

Why the South Lost the Civil War (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986), pp. 

17–18; Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones, How the North Won (Chicago: University 

of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 12–13; T. Harry Williams, The History of American Wars 

From Colonial Times to World War I (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1981), pp. 195–96; 

Griess, “Mahan,” p. 366. 17 Griess, “Mahan,” pp. 222, 366.

18 Dennis Hart Mahan, An Elementary Treatise on Advanced-Guard, Out-Post, and 

Detachment Service of Troops With the Essential Principles of Strategy and Grand 

Tactics (New York, 1847 edition), preface, and (New York: John Wiley, 1863 edition), 

pp. 42, 155, 166-68. For background on partisan and guerrilla warfare in Western 

military thought prior to the Civil War, see Beringer et al., Why the South Lost, pp. 171, 

340–41, 437; Henry W. Halleck, Elements of the Military Art (New York, 1846), p. 43; 

Peter Paret, “Colonial Experience and European Military Reform at the End of the 

Eighteenth Century,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 37 (May 1964): 

53–58; Russell, “Redcoats in the Wilderness,” pp. 630–41; Stevenson, Military 

Instructions for Officers; Hoyt, Practical Instructions for Military Officers, pp. vi, 78, 

221.19 War Department, Regulations for the Army of the United States, 1857 (New York: 

Harper & Brothers, 1857), pp. 86–87; War Department, Revised United States Army 

Regulations of 1861 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1863), pp. 

95–96. 20 Justin Smith, The War With Mexico, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1919), 2:210, 

220–21, 229; Gabriel, “Military Government,” pp. 633–36. Grant quote from Justin 

Smith, “American Rule in Mexico,” American Historical Review 23 (January 1918): 
301, and see also 287–88, 291–98. Provost Marshal General’s School, Military 

Government Under Winfield Scott, Training Packet 58, n.d., pp. 15–17, 26–27, 72–73, 

copy in Historians files, CMH. 21 Quote from Smith, War With Mexico, 2:423, and see also 2:170–73, 421. 

Headquarters of the Army, Mexico, GO 372, 12 Dec 1847; Headquarters of the Army, 

Jalapa, GO 127, 29 Apr 1847; Smith, “American Rule in Mexico,” pp. 289–90. Other 

American commanders in Mexico, including Maj. Gen. Zachary Taylor, adopted policies similar to Scott’s. See Waghelstein, “Wrong War,” pp. 171–77; K. Jack Bauer, The 

Mexican War, 1846–48 (New York: Macmillan, 1974), pp. 220–23, 269, 333–34. 22 Gabriel, “Military Government,” p. 637; Provost Marshal General’s School, 

Military Government, An Historical Approach, Training Packet 9, n.d., p. 112. Quotes 

from Halleck, International Law, pp. 458–61, and see also pp. 386–88, 796–97.

Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

22
23

2

TheWar of theRebellion

1861–1865

In 1861 Southern nationalists launched an insurrection to liberate 

themselves from United States authority. As in many modern insurrections, the rebels pursued independence on a multiplicity of fronts. They 

organized governments, launched political campaigns to undermine the 

Northern war effort and win foreign recognition, and employed a mix 

of regular and irregular forces to combat government troops and maintain control over those Southerners who did not share their goals. 

Though the rebels focused their military energies on the creation 

and employment of conventional forces, Southern irregulars made significant contributions to the secessionist war effort. As federal troops 

advanced into the South, rebel guerrillas sniped at pickets, ambushed 

patrols, harried detachments, and disrupted lines of communications 

and supply. Employing classic techniques of stealth, surprise, speed, 

and deception, mounted irregulars avoided federal concentrations and 

sought out weak points, striking their targets quickly before melting 

back into forest, mountain, and swamp. 

Initially, such actions were performed by individuals (“bushwhackers”) and small, self-constituted bands of secessionist sympathizers. As 

the war progressed, rebel authorities reinforced these bands with regularly constituted units of Partisan Rangers and cavalry detached for “partisan service.” These irregulars were so effective that they tied down as 

much as one-third of the U.S. Army at certain stages of the war, rendering Union forces too weak to defeat decisively rebel main force units 

like the Army of Northern Virginia. Moreover, rebel irregulars, supported by sympathetic elements of the population, effectively undermined 

federal authority throughout the southern and border states by terrorizing loyal citizens and disrupting efforts to restore the legitimate gov-
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

24

Confederate cavalry, partisan rangers, and guerrillas posed a constant 

threat to federal rear areas and supply columns.

ernment. “In no other way,” wrote President Abraham Lincoln, “does the 

enemy give us so much trouble, at so little expense to himself.”1

The Army responded to the challenges posed by rebel irregulars 

and disloyal citizens in a variety of ways. As the Army occupied disaffected territory, federal officers acted as constables, governors, jurists, 

and lawmakers. They chased guerrillas, restored government authority, 

and implemented a host of other measures designed to pacify disaffected regions. The Army’s experience in conducting occupation and 

counterguerrilla operations during the War of the Rebellion established 

important precedents that would influence its approach to counterinsurgency situations far into the future. 

Pacification, 1861–1863

President Lincoln set the tone of federal pacification endeavors 

during the Civil War. A humane man, Lincoln favored mild and conciliatory policies on both moral and political grounds. A moderate course, 

he felt, would help bind the wounds created by the conflict and mollify 
The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

25

those in the southern and border states who were not entirely hostile to 

the Union. The president believed that most Southerners did not really 

want to leave the Union but rather had been duped into supporting 

secession by a few fire-eating demagogues. A firm display of the government’s martial prowess, coupled with leniency, would, in his estimation, quickly reconvert most Southerners into loyal citizens. Besides, 

the conquered rebel would soon become a voter, on whom the postwar 

government of the South would ultimately depend, and the president—

a subtle and accomplished politician—was well aware that in a few 

years his party might need the ballots of those who were currently in 

rebellion against the Union. The president’s mild policies complemented the precepts on the conduct of war as taught at West Point, and 

together they became the basis of the Army’s approach to the pacification of the South.2

One of the first Army officers to establish concrete pacification 

measures was Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan. In May 1861, when the 

rebellion was but a few weeks old, McClellan sent a small army into 

western Virginia to reassert federal authority. A West Point graduate 

and a veteran of the Mexican War, McClellan shared Lincoln’s hope 

that the insurrection could be put down with as little disruption as possible. Recognizing that Virginians were deeply divided over secession, 

McClellan attempted to win support by adopting a moderate course. In 

a series of proclamations issued in May and June, he promised to protect the rights and property of the people of western Virginia, including 

their right to own slaves. He reinforced these promises by exhorting his 

soldiers to “use every effort to conciliate the people and strengthen 

Union feeling.”3

 “Bear in mind,” he continued, “that you are in the 

country of friends, not of enemies, that you are here to protect, not to 

destroy. Take nothing, destroy nothing . . . respect the right of private 

opinion; you will punish no man for opinion’s sake. Show to the world 

that . . . we inaugurate no reign of terror where we go.”4

Other commanders entering disaffected territory in 1861–1862 followed a similar course. Lincoln reinforced this approach by reprimanding and occasionally replacing commanders whose actions undercut his 

moderate policies. In addition, the president moved to impose quasicivilian government in occupied areas. Although the federal government 

controlled little territory south of the Mason-Dixon line during the first 

year of the rebellion, Lincoln desired to demonstrate to Southerners his 

determination to restore quickly some semblance of normalcy wherever federal forces had made some headway. In 1862 he appointed 

military governors for North Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and 

Tennessee. For the most part, Lincoln chose politicians and lawyers 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

26

who he believed would be better suited for the task than professional 

soldiers. The following year he took these measures a step further by 

establishing a generous amnesty program and by promising to restore 

full civil government in any rebellious state where a mere 10 percent of 

the electorate had taken oaths of loyalty to the federal government.5

The Army’s responsibilities in administering occupied regions during the insurrection were complex. The initial task was to reestablish 

order by creating new police and judicial authorities. In some areas the 

Army reestablished the civil courts, while in others military commissions and provost courts functioned. Some military courts presided 

over purely civil and criminal matters, handling everything from fraud 

to divorce.6

With the basic mechanisms of order in place, the military governments turned to civil administration. The Army removed patently disloyal officials and appointed others, relying wherever possible upon 

civilians to conduct the daily business of local government. When this 

was not possible, the Army stepped in, providing essential services and 

issuing ordinances that governed every aspect of public life. Military 

officials supervised elections; collected taxes; fed, clothed, and sheltered the destitute; and regulated economic and business affairs. 

In New Orleans Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler imposed strict sanitary controls in the hope of preventing epidemics. He paid the poor to 

clean the streets, flushed drainage ditches daily, instituted regular trash 

collection, and ordered all dwellings and businesses to remain tidy. 

Army commanders showed similar concerns for health and sanitation 

in other parts of the South as well. In Virginia, Tennessee, and 

Mississippi, the Army instituted compulsory inoculations for smallpox, 

while in North Carolina one stickler for cleanliness issued an ordinance 

forbidding people to allow their hogs to roam freely in the streets. The 

officer was overruled by his superior, however, on the grounds that 

meandering hogs were “an old custom of the place.” 

Many measures instituted by the Army were done in its own interest. Fire departments created by the military helped protect military 

property, labor laws ensured military access to civilian labor, and regulations aimed at suppressing disease, vice, and alcohol safeguarded the 

health of the soldiery. Nonetheless, such measures benefited the community as well and served the Lincoln administration’s goal of restoring goodwill in the South.7

The linchpin of the Army’s administration of civil affairs was the 

provost marshal. The Army established provosts in every district under 

martial law, and in many areas they represented the only governmental 

authority. They maintained order and monitored the activities of the dis-
The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

27

loyal, administering loyalty oaths, collecting fines, arresting rebels, 

prosecuting criminals, and distributing food and material to the needy. 

By and large the provosts operated fairly, although there were cases of 

corruption and abuse, especially when they were local men who bore 

grudges against their secessionist neighbors.8

Despite much effort and goodwill, however, benevolent pacification proved less than successful. In part, this was because federal commanders were never able to stamp out unauthorized foraging, looting, 

and other acts of petty criminality on the part of their troops that alienated the Southern population and undermined government efforts to 

win popular support. More fundamental, however, was the fact that 

benevolent pacification rested upon a faulty premise. Lincoln’s estimation that the mass of Southerners were latently pro-Union proved to be 

incorrect. Confederate loyalties were deeply held by many, while 

Lincoln’s concessions were often misinterpreted by Southerners as a 

sign of weakness. Complicating matters, federal defeats in the field 

steadily forced Lincoln to adopt more stringent measures, including in 

September 1862 the emancipation of slaves. This measure alone irrevocably alienated the mass of white Southerners and doomed any hope for 

reconciliation. Consequently, secessionists held fast to the hope of victory and refused to return their allegiance to the Union as long as 

Southern armies remained in the field. Until federal forces could defeat 

the main rebel armies, the government could only attempt to control, 

rather than convert, the disaffected.9

But victory remained elusive. The constant ebb and flow of the 

battle lines meant that federal officials rarely controlled any part of the 

South long enough to establish solid military or civil governments. The 

Army occupied so little territory in Texas and North Carolina that the 

Lincoln military governorships had little real authority, while effective 

federal rule in Arkansas was delayed until late in the war. Even in 

southern and border state areas that were generally under federal control, raids and incursions from adjacent rebel-dominated regions seriously disrupted pacification efforts. 

Particularly effective were the numerous bands of rebel irregulars 

that prowled behind federal lines both in the South and in loyal border 

states that contained significant pro-Southern populations, most notably Missouri, Kentucky, and the newly created states of Kansas and 

West Virginia. Though it is difficult to determine the number of secessionist sympathizers that served in irregular capacities during the rebellion, there was hardly a theater of the war where federal soldiers and 

Unionist civilians were not harassed by rebel bushwhackers and partisans. Guerrillas kidnapped and assassinated government officials, 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

28

attacked economic targets, and attempted to enforce Confederate edicts 

in federally controlled areas. The favorite targets of the irregulars were 

the provost marshals. Although most partisans were content to kill provosts, the rebel cavalryman Col. John H. Morgan preferred to subvert 

them instead, by kidnaping and terrorizing them into agreeing to protect, rather than persecute, secessionist civilians.10

Against Unionist civilians, rebel partisans waged similar terror 

campaigns. Using a mixture of threats and violence, the guerrillas 

either intimidated the neutral and pro-government population into submission or forced them to flee, often burning their homes and robbing 

them in the process. Federal officials understood that their inability to 

protect the population from the guerrillas on account of troop shortages 

essentially doomed progress in pacification. As General Butler 

explained in June 1862, 

in the present temper of the country here it is cruel to take possession of any 

point unless we continue to hold it with an armed force, because when we take 

possession of any place those well disposed will show us kindness and good 

wishes; the moment we leave, a few ruffians come in and maltreat every person 

who has not scowled at the Yankees. Therefore it is that I have been very chary 

of possessing myself of various small points which could easily be taken.11

More than any other factor, it was the political and military disruption created by the guerrillas and their civilian sympathizers that led the 

Army to stiffen its pacification policies in 1861 and 1862. Army officers responded in line with their education and experience, refusing to 

treat bushwhackers or their civilian allies as legitimate combatants. In 

western Virginia General McClellan took the first step in this regard in 

June 1861 by threatening to treat guerrillas and their civilian accomplices “according to the severest rules of military law.” Two months 

later Maj. Gen. John C. Fremont, the Army’s senior commander in 

Missouri, resurrected Scott’s military commissions, declaring that he 

would execute anyone found guilty of bearing arms in the state. Henry 

W. Halleck, Fremont’s successor as commander of the Department of 

the Missouri, placed the military commissions on a more formal basis 

later that year, and by 1862 military tribunals were widely employed in 

all theaters as a standard weapon in the counterguerrilla war.12

Halleck, however, did not consider military commissions as his only 

means of punishing the guerrillas, and in December 1861 he adopted 

Winfield Scott’s policy of authorizing soldiers to shoot down guerrillas 

who were caught in the act of burning bridges and destroying telegraph 

lines. In a passage that could have been taken from his recently published book, Halleck explained to his soldiers that “it is a well-
established principle that insurgents, not militarily organized under 

the laws of the State, predatory partisans, and guerrilla bands are . . . 

not legitimately in arms. . . . They 

are, in a legal sense, mere freebooters and banditti, and are liable to 

the same punishment which was 

imposed upon guerrilla bands by 

Napoleon in Spain and by Scott in 

Mexico.”13

Halleck reiterated his “noquarter” policy in the spring of 

1862 just before President Lincoln 

elevated him to be commanding 

general of the Army. From his 

new post he disseminated his 

views on guerrilla warfare to the 

Army as a whole. He found a 

receptive audience. Already the 

War Department had announced that guerrillas were “the common 

enemies of mankind, and should be hunted and shot without challenge 

wherever found.” Halleck encouraged this view, and as the war progressed an increasing number of officers either denied the guerrillas 

quarter or tried them by military commissions. But in doing so they ran 

afoul both of the president’s soft heart and of his acute political sense.14

Lincoln undermined the effectiveness of military commissions 

when, in the fall of 1861, he insisted upon personally reviewing all 

death sentences imposed by military courts, in part out of concern that 

the Confederates would execute federal prisoners in retaliation. 

Lincoln’s action greatly agitated Army officers. General Butler felt that 

the delay created by having to send cases to Washington for review 

undermined any deterrent effect that an execution might have, while 

Halleck estimated that the odds were seven to one in favor of a guilty 

party escaping punishment. Lincoln worsened the situation in 1862 

when, in the interests of reconciliation, he announced a general amnesty for all civilian prisoners.15

In practice, the president’s leniency backfired. By releasing suspects and overturning convictions, he created a revolving door through 

which suspects were released with nothing more than a loyalty oath to 

ensure their future good conduct. In most cases, those set free were no 

more loyal than when they were arrested, and many resumed their old 

The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

29

General Halleck
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

30

habits. The natural reaction of the frustrated and harried soldiers in the 

field was to adopt a no-quarter policy of their own. Col. George 

Crook, the commander of the 36th Ohio Volunteer Infantry that was 

stationed in West Virginia on counterguerrilla duty during the fall and 

winter of 1861–1862, recollected that “when an officer returned from 

a scout he would report that they had caught so-and-so, but in bringing him in he slipped off a log while crossing a stream and broke his 

neck, or that he was killed by an accidental discharge of one of the 

men’s guns, and many like reports. But they never brought back any 

more prisoners.”16

Unit commanders winked at the practice, which quickly became 

common regardless of whether department commanders approved or 

disapproved of denying quarter to guerrillas. Congress came to the aid 

of frustrated officers in 1864 by passing an act that permitted department commanders to execute guerrillas convicted by military commissions, without referring the cases to Washington. By that time, however, 

the issue was almost moot, for no-quarter policies were already widely 

in force.17

Federal officers also turned against the civilian population that 

abetted the irregulars. Recognizing that “the mild and indulgent 

course heretofore pursued” had failed to deter the secessionists, 

General Halleck in the winter of 1861–1862 called for the adoption of 

a more severe policy designed to make secessionist civilians “begin 

to feel the presence of the war.” The most common method of control 

adopted by the Army was administering loyalty oaths. Initially, the 

government required only office holders and former Confederate soldiers to take the oath, but over time it extended the practice to nearly 

everyone living in the southern and border states. The Army usually 

demanded that people taking the oath put up a bond guaranteeing 

their good conduct. Violation of the oath resulted in forfeiture plus 

other unpleasant consequences, ranging from confiscation to exile, 

imprisonment, and even death.18

Life was still less pleasant for those who candidly registered themselves as disloyal. Such individuals lost the right to participate in local 

politics and bore the brunt of special levies imposed by the government. 

Even so, many resisted taking the oath, prompting some officers to 

devise special incentives. In Tennessee, for example, Maj. Gen. William 

S. Rosecrans threatened to ship anyone who refused to take the oath 

beyond government lines. When the threat failed to make any converts, 

he arrested 100 leading secessionist citizens. Soon thereafter, 10,000 

Tennesseans rushed to profess their loyalty and to post bonds ranging 

from $1,000 to $5,000 as proof of their sincerity. Although many indi-
The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

31

viduals took the oath purely out of expediency, the stiff punishments 

inflicted for violations probably acted as somewhat of a deterrent.19

The Army supplemented loyalty oaths by punishing whole communities for the activities of guerrillas. Federal forces first resorted to 

such measures during the summer of 1861 in western Virginia and 

Missouri. Brig. Gen. John Pope, a Mexican War veteran, announced 

a policy of fining Missouri towns within a five-mile radius of any 

guerrilla attack, unless the inhabitants could prove that they had 

attempted to prevent the deed. He employed a similar policy a year 

later in the East, as commander of the Army of Virginia. Brig. Gen. 

John Wool, commander of the Department of Virginia, reinforced 

Pope’s action. During the Mexican War, Wool had adopted a policy of 

holding communities responsible for the damages done by guerrillas. 

Now, fifteen years later, he reinstated those same policies, proclaiming in July 1862 that he would hold civilians accountable not just for 

guerrilla actions, but also for failing to notify the Army of the presence of guerrillas. Other commanders followed suit, and the imposition of fines and assessments quickly became a common feature of 

the war.20

When assessments proved insufficient or impractical, the Army 

turned to more drastic measures, confiscating property and arresting 

thousands of civilians. Individuals suspected of aiding the insurgents 

were tried by military commissions and, if convicted, sentenced to 

imprisonment or (with Lincoln’s rare approval) death. Many were not 

charged but were held for various lengths of time and then released. 

Union officers also arrested individuals for use as hostages, holding 

them until such time as the community paid a fine or helped apprehend 

local irregulars. Hostages and other detainees could also expect to be 

banished, as the Army forced thousands of civilians to leave their 

homes for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the rationale was to punish 

especially recalcitrant citizens, like five women who walked out of a 

Vicksburg church when the minister read a prayer for Lincoln. More 

often, civilians were banished in retaliation for guerrilla attacks, as was 

the case in the fall of 1862 when Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman exiled 

ten secessionist families for every boat on the Mississippi River that 

came under rebel fire.21

The net effect of all these actions—oaths and bonds, fines and 

assessments, arrests and banishments—was to give officers charged 

with pacification duties the muscle they felt they needed to motivate the 

population to abandon the insurrection and partake of the administration’s generous terms of reconciliation. Although a few extremists 

believed that nothing short of the most stringent measures would suc-
ceed in crushing the rebellion, 

most officers by the end of the 

war’s second year still believed 

that a judicious mixture of moderation and severity would eventually bring Southerners to see the 

error of their ways. Maj. Gen. 

John M. Schofield, who spent a 

good deal of his Civil War career 

fighting guerrillas and their prosecessionist allies in Missouri, 

was typical. While he took a hard 

line toward active secessionists by 

imposing fines, confiscating property, and denying quarter to bushwhackers, he ordered his subordinates to treat the population with 

respect on the grounds that “many 

may be reclaimed by justice mingled with kindness.” In the winter 

and spring of 1862–1863, the War Department reaffirmed this dual 

approach to pacification by distributing two documents that attempted 

to clarify the issue for commanders in the field.22

Francis Lieber and General Orders 100

The first document, Guerrilla Parties Considered With Reference 

to the Laws and Usages of War, originated as a response to the creation 

of the Partisan Rangers in the spring of 1862. The rangers represented 

an attempt by rebel authorities to legitimize and gain greater control 

over their guerrilla warriors by formally making them a part of the 

Confederate Army. The creation of this new class of irregular forced the 

federal government to reassess its own policy. What troubled 

Commanding General Halleck was not the concept of formal partisan 

troops, which had long been accepted in European and American military circles, but whether the rebels could extend the cloak of legitimacy 

to the many less formally organized bushwhacker and guerrilla bands 

that operated in civilian dress. In August 1862 he asked Dr. Francis 

Lieber, a noted legal scholar, for his views on the subject. Lieber 

responded by writing Guerrilla Parties.

In his pamphlet, Lieber attempted to dispel the confusion over the 

treatment of rebel irregulars by dividing them into several categories: 

Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

32

General Sherman
The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

33

the partisan, the guerrilla, the “war-rebel,” and the armed prowler (or 

bushwhacker). He essentially agreed with Confederate authorities 

that Partisan Rangers were legitimate combatants, as long as they 

were regularly enrolled, paid, officered, uniformed, and subordinated 

to proper authority. Such partisans, he maintained, were fully entitled 

to the protection of the laws of war, as long as they themselves did 

not violate them.23

Lieber took a dimmer view of guerrilla bands. He defined them as 

self-constituted groups, not formally tied to the organization and 

administration of an army, which carried on a “petty war . . . by raids, 

extortion, destruction, and massacre, and who . . . generally give no 

quarter.” He regarded guerrillas of this type to be “particularly dangerous because they easily evade pursuit, and by laying down their arms 

become insidious enemies.” For this reason, Lieber opined that the 

government had the right to deal with guerrillas harshly. Nevertheless, 

he recommended in the interest of humanity that the government treat 

captured guerrillas as regular prisoners of war unless specific crimes 

could be proved against them.24

Lieber was less generous to the other categories of irregulars—the 

war-rebel and the armed prowler. War-rebel was a label Lieber assigned 

to civilians in occupied areas who took up arms against an occupying 

power, while the armed prowler or bushwhacker was merely an individual who took it upon himself to shoot down sentinels. By wearing 

civilian dress and taking shelter amongst the population, war-rebels and 

bushwhackers undermined the distinction between combatant and noncombatant that was the foundation upon which the laws of war rested, 

and consequently, Lieber believed the Army should treat them as brigands. Civilians who provided information and assistance to the irregulars were equally subject to harsh treatment. Essentially, Lieber advocated treating irregulars according to their deeds. Those who abided by 

the rules of war deserved humane treatment, while those who did not 

were to be treated severely, regardless of whether they were regular 

soldiers, partisans, guerrillas, or civilians.25

The government took Lieber’s advice and in November 1862 

declared that it would treat partisans who abided by the laws of war as 

legitimate combatants. Halleck was so pleased with Lieber’s approach 

that he ordered 5,000 copies of the pamphlet distributed throughout the 

Army. Encouraged by the response, Lieber suggested that the government publish a more formal code governing the conduct of federal 

forces in the field. Recognizing the merit of the proposal, Halleck commissioned a panel consisting of Lieber, Maj. Gen. Ethan Allan 

Hitchcock, and three other officers to draft such a document, which the 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

34

War Department published under Lincoln’s signature on 24 April 1863 

as General Orders (GO) 100, Instructions for the Government of Armies 

of the United States in the Field.

26

General Orders 100 provided a practical synthesis of the laws of 

war as they had evolved by the mid-nineteenth century. Like those 

laws, GO 100 attempted to ameliorate the harshness of war by striking 

a balance between humanitarian impulses and brutal necessity. Lieber 

reminded American soldiers that “men who take up arms against one 

another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, 

responsible to one another and to God.”27

Since the object of war was not the death of one’s foe but rather the 

restoration of peace, the code exhorted soldiers not to do anything that 

would impede the achievement of that end. Moderation was especially 

needed in occupation duty, and the order admonished soldiers to 

respect the personal and property rights of unarmed citizens, as well as 

their religious and social customs. The order strictly forbade all forms 

of wanton destruction, looting, and pillaging, as well as acts of cruelty, 

torture, or revenge. Although General Orders 100 recognized that military necessity sometimes required stern measures, including the 

destruction of property, Lieber reminded officers that “unjust or inconsiderate retaliation removes the belligerents farther and farther from the 

mitigating rules of regular war, and by rapid steps leads them nearer to 

the internecine wars of savages.”28

Although moderation and conciliation were his central themes, 

Lieber’s tolerance had limits. Like his predecessors in the realm of 

international law, Lieber considered the relationship between soldier 

and civilian to be reciprocal in nature. Should the civilian population 

spurn the hand of reconciliation by taking up arms and supporting 

guerrillas, then military necessity required that the Army adopt stern 

measures. As in Lieber’s earlier pamphlet, General Orders 100 maintained that partisans were legitimate combatants only when they wore 

uniforms and were an integral part of a larger army. Irregulars who 

masked their true nature by assuming “the semblance of peaceful 

pursuits, divesting themselves of the character or appearance of soldiers,” were engaging in private, rather than public, war and were to 

be treated summarily as pirates, rather than as legitimate combatants. 

Among the punishments the orders prescribed for disloyal civilians 

during an insurrection were expulsion, relocation, imprisonment, 

fines, and confiscation.29

General Orders 100 was a landmark document because it marked 

the first time a government had issued official guidelines regulating 

how its army should conduct itself in relation to an enemy’s army and 
The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

35

civilian population. Prior works on the laws of war, including those 

studied at the academy, had been of a theoretical and scholarly nature 

that lacked the compulsion of state policy. What Lieber had done was 

to assemble into a concise and practical guide the loose collection of 

theory and precedent that made up the laws of war.

The code had a profound impact on the development of military 

policy and legal theory both at home and abroad. GO 100 caused a 

sensation in Europe, as Prussia, France, and Great Britain all used it as 

a model to develop similar codes for their own armies. Moreover, the 

code became one of the pillars upon which the first formal international agreements on the laws of war, the Hague Conventions of 1899 

and 1907, were based. General Orders 100 was equally revered at 

home. In 1875 the U.S. Military Academy made a systematic study of 

the code mandatory for cadets, and it remained an integral part of the 

U.S. military doctrine until the Army issued its first field manual on the 

laws of war in 1914. Even then, the 1863 code lived on, as both the new 

manual and its successor, Field Manual 27–10, Rules of Land Warfare, 

published in 1940, incorporated many of its ideas. GO 100 thus 

enshrined in American military policy a practical blend of moderation 

and stringency that would characterize the Army’s approach to military 

government, counterguerrilla, and pacification operations for the next 

one hundred years. 

Yet for all of its influence upon future generations of Army leaders, 

General Orders 100 had surprisingly little impact on the conduct of the 

Civil War itself. One reason was that it was issued only as guidance, 

since the War Department believed that local commanders were best 

equipped to decide the proper boundary between leniency and severity. 

More important was the fact that Lieber’s code was based upon the 

same concepts that federal commanders had used to govern their 

actions from the beginning of the war. The orders heightened awareness 

of these principles and provided a useful guide for applying them but 

did not essentially change them. What GO 100 really did was to sanction virtually everything federal commanders had done prior to its 

publication. Lieber’s guerrilla pamphlet and the general orders codified 

what Halleck and most of his officers already believed to be the proper 

policies. The imposition of fines and assessments on the disloyal; the 

imprisonment and possible execution of civilians who aided the enemy; 

the denial of quarter to guerrillas who themselves took no prisoners or 

who disguised themselves as civilians; and the dispensing of summary 

justice for certain violations of the laws of war—all were sanctioned by 

GO 100. The degree to which any or all of these measures were 

imposed was left to the discretion of individual commanders. But all 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

36

were included in the commander’s arsenal and, as the war grew ever 

harsher, were applied with an unsparing hand.30

Pacification, 1863–1865

After the publication of General Orders 100, the War Department 

reaffirmed its November 1862 decision to treat captured guerrillas as 

prisoners of war, even to the extent of including them in regular prisoner exchanges. Many guerrillas were exchanged, especially if they 

were caught wearing uniforms or were not known to have committed 

any particularly heinous act. However, the War Department attached so 

many caveats to this policy that it was never consistently carried out. 

For one thing, guerrillas taken in border states could only be 

released with the approval of the governor, a clear recognition of the 

fact that guerrilla warfare was as much political in its effects as it was 

military. For another, commanders were allowed to try captured guerrillas whom they believed had committed crimes, and some commanders put virtually all guerrilla prisoners on trial. Even when guerrilla 

prisoners were not charged with any specific offense, the Army 

reserved the right to withhold them from routine exchanges. Finally, the 

War Department continued to permit commanders to refuse quarter to 

guerrillas who had violated the rules of war. Halleck’s successor as 

commanding general of the Army, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, himself 

ordered Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan to “hang without trial” members 

of Col. John S. Mosby’s battalion of Virginia Partisan Rangers, who 

routinely donned civilian garb to escape capture. 

The effect of all these qualifications was that guerrillas received 

treatment as prisoners of war only when and where local commanders 

deemed such a policy advisable. As the war progressed, fewer and 

fewer commanders chose to grant such favors. No-quarter policies, 

either official or unofficial, became increasingly common. So too did 

mass arrests, banishments, and the confiscation and destruction of 

property, as the Army turned increasingly to heavy-handed tactics in 

dealing with the recalcitrant population. Indeed, the last two years of 

the war, from the publication of General Orders 100 in April 1863 to 

Lee’s surrender at Appomattox in April 1865, witnessed growing severity on the part of federal forces.31

The greatest spokesman for the “hard war” approach was General 

Sherman. Sherman realized that the Army was “not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and 

poor, feel the hard hand of war.” Since Southerners “could not be made 

to love us,” he theorized, then they should be made to “fear us and 
dread the passage of troops 

through their country.” “Fear,” he 

concluded, “is the beginning of 

wisdom.” Halleck agreed. So too 

did General Grant, who “understood that he was engaged in a 

people’s war and that the people 

as well as the armies of the South 

must be conquered, before the war 

could end.” By striking at the 

people themselves, the Army 

hoped to undermine their willingness to support the insurrection in 

general and the guerrillas in particular.32

The harshest measures 

employed by the government in 

the counterguerrilla war involved 

the confiscation or destruction of 

property and the wholesale removal of civilians from guerrilla-infested areas. Although the Army experimented with population removal early in the war, the first major 

removal scheme surfaced in the fall of 1862, when Halleck authorized 

Grant to confiscate property and deport all active secessionists living in 

western Tennessee and northern Mississippi. A year later Brig. Gen. 

Thomas Ewing, Jr., removed nearly the entire population of three and a 

half western Missouri counties where guerrilla warfare was particularly 

rife. Halleck eventually rescinded the order, on the grounds that it 

harmed the loyal as well as the disloyal. 

Nevertheless, over the next two years the Army occasionally used 

a combination of mass arrests and banishments to attack the informal 

network of active civilian sympathizers upon which the guerrillas relied 

for food, shelter, and information. One of the more notable efforts 

occurred in Virginia in 1864, when General Grant ordered the arrest of 

the families of known guerrillas as well as “all able-bodied male citizens under the age of fifty . . . suspected of aiding, assisting, or belonging to guerrilla bands” in the area between Harper’s Ferry, West 

Virginia, and Washington, D.C. When this did not succeed in rooting 

out the guerrillas, Grant contemplated removing the entire population 

of northern Virginia living east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, due to 

“the necessity of cleaning out that country so that it will not support 

Mosby’s gang” of partisans.33

The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

37

General Sheridan
Federal forces supplemented 

depopulation with devastation. 

The Army had begun confiscating 

or destroying private property in 

retaliation for guerrilla activities 

in 1861. Initially it destroyed only 

well-defined targets, such as the 

houses of known guerrillas or 

buildings from which sniper fire 

emanated. However, as the war 

progressed, some officers began 

to press for a more liberal use of 

the torch. Colonel Crook, whose 

regiment was assigned to counterguerrilla duty in western Virginia 

in the winter and spring of 1861–

1862, was one of the first to do so. 

Crook found the situation in 

Webster County to be “so bad that 

we had to burn out the entire 

county to prevent the people from harboring” the guerrillas. Other commanders followed suit. Beginning in 1862, the Army and the Navy 

adopted the policy of destroying towns and farms as retaliation for 

guerrilla attacks on shipping along the Mississippi River. The Army 

implemented a similar policy to protect vital railroads. By 1863 a growing consensus existed within the Army that the way to eliminate the 

guerrillas was, in the words of Col. W. R. Penick, “to destroy all subsistence [in] the country and send off their wives and children.” 

Ewing’s depopulation program reflected this trend, as did the actions of 

commanders in virtually every part of the South in 1863 and 1864.34

In North Carolina Brig. Gen. Edward A. Wild, a Harvard-educated 

physician dubbed the “cousin of Beelzebub” by the inhabitants, 

destroyed houses, barns, and livestock, took hostages, and hanged captured guerrillas in an effort to pacify the state. In Missouri a combination 

of banishments and incendiarism left wide areas of the state deserted 

and desolate, while in Arkansas Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele ordered his 

troops to make areas infested with guerrillas “uninhabitable.” The Army 

adopted a similar course in West Virginia in 1864, as Maj. Gens. David 

Hunter and George Crook burned out sections of the Kanawha Valley, 

destroying crops, livestock, and buildings. Generals Grant and Sheridan 

took a similar view in neighboring Virginia. Unable to secure the rich 

and strategically important Shenandoah Valley from the combined 

Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

38

General Grant
The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

39

threat of rebel main forces, partisans, and bushwhackers, Grant ordered 

Sheridan to destroy all the crops and seize all the livestock in the valley. 

Sheridan put the valley to the torch, sparing only houses for humanitarian reasons, although his troopers sometimes burned even these in 

retaliation for guerrilla attacks. 

Having laid waste to the Shenandoah, Sheridan turned his attention 

to neighboring Loudoun County, the base area of the highly successful 

rebel partisan, Colonel Mosby. In late November 1864 Sheridan struck 

at the civilian infrastructure that supported Mosby, destroying or confiscating all forage, livestock, barns, and mills in the county. Though 

the guerrillas continued to operate, they did so with increasing difficulty and with dwindling support from the war-ravaged inhabitants.35

Perhaps the greatest practitioner of devastation was its greatest 

spokesman, General Sherman. As commander of the Department of the 

Tennessee in January 1864, he authorized his soldiers to confiscate the 

livestock of all but proven Unionists to “punish the country well for 

permitting the guerrillas among them.” He took this policy a step further several months later when, as commander of all federal armies in 

the West, he cut a swath of devastation through the heart of the 

Confederacy, destroying anything that could conceivably be of use to 

the rebel military, both to weaken the Confederacy materially and to 

demoralize the population which formed the underpinning of the insurrection. Although he attempted to respect Southerners’ personal and 

property rights, he did not hesitate to strike even these when guerrillas 

were afoot. Thus he directed that

in districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested, no destruction 

of [private] property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bush 

whackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct 

roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should 

order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless, according to the measure of such hostility.36

The extent to which the policy of destruction was successful in 

rooting out the guerrillas varied depending upon the circumstances. 

Nevertheless, commanders had enough success that by 1865 devastation rather than moderation had become the guiding principle of federal armies in suppressing the insurrection. This did not mean that the 

Army had abandoned moderation entirely. Many officers felt uncomfortable about denying quarter and burning farms and crops, and even 

those who endorsed the harshest measures endeavored to prevent their 

soldiers from degenerating into the kind of lawlessness that they so 

despised in the guerrillas. Indeed, many of the same officers who 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

40

declared a “war of extermination” against the guerrillas offered generous terms of amnesty to those who voluntarily laid down their arms. 

Nor did the Army act indiscriminately, for while excesses did occur, for 

the most part federal actions represented what one historian has 

described as a “directed severity” that was aimed at specific targets 

(most notably upper-class secessionists, guerrillas, and military resources) than at Southern society as a whole.37

Nevertheless, over the course of four years the balance between 

moderation and retaliation shifted decisively toward the more radical 

pole. Even Lincoln, who continuously strove to moderate the actions of 

his field commanders, accepted the necessity of using “hard” policies 

in overcoming the insurrection. Although commanders felt uncomfortable with the extreme measures to which they were driven, they 

assuaged their consciences by holding the Southerners themselves 

responsible. As Sheridan explained, “The ultimate result of the guerrilla system of warfare is the total destruction of all private rights in the 

country occupied by such parties.”38

Tactics and Techniques of the Counterguerrilla War

While the government endeavored to undermine popular support for 

the insurrection through a combination of moderation and retaliation, 

the Army struggled with the difficult job of suppressing rebel irregulars 

in the field. It was a daunting task, for as Crook observed, “it is impossible for any body of troops to march on them without their being 

apprised of it, and it is impossible to force them to fight unless they want 

to, for they carry little or no baggage, and can live on little or nothing. 

When approached they disintegrate and hide in the mountains until all 

danger is over, when they again reassemble for fresh depredations.”39

What made the guerrillas particularly difficult to destroy was their 

ability to blend in with the population at large. Fed, clothed, housed, 

and informed by civilian sympathizers, the guerrillas assumed a chameleon-like quality, a trait enhanced by their frequent adoption of civilian 

dress.40

If the advantages the irregulars enjoyed in terms of surprise, initiative, mobility, terrain, and intelligence were not enough, the Union 

Army labored under several additional handicaps. Deficiencies in 

equipment and shortages of trained cavalry contributed to the difficulties, but a primary problem was an overall dearth of manpower. The 

Army was whipsawed between Confederate main force units on the one 

hand and the irregulars on the other. While the guerrillas sapped the 

Army of the strength it needed to defeat rebel main forces decisively, 
The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

41

Confederate regulars had the same effect on the Army’s counterguerrilla campaign. By compelling the Army to concentrate the majority of 

its resources on the conventional battlefield, the Confederate Army 

ensured that the U.S. Army would never have enough troops to firmly 

secure its rear. In addition, many of the troops assigned to rear area 

security and counterguerrilla work were second-echelon units that were 

poorly trained, badly equipped, and deficient in morale.41

 The Army’s most common counterguerrilla technique was to 

establish small posts in the major towns of a disorderly region, with 

mobile reserves stationed at county seats and other key locations. 

These posts both protected local populations and resources and served 

as bases from which patrols radiated out to scour the countryside for 

guerrillas. The number and size of the posts were contingent upon the 

available manpower and the nature of the threat. Whether or not such 

systems worked depended to a great degree on the balance of forces 

and the initiative demonstrated by local commanders. In Missouri, for 

example, guerrillas were usually able to infiltrate the strongpoints to 

strike at less protected targets, keeping federal cavalry in a reactive 

mode. Moreover, most posts were so small that garrison commanders 

risked being overrun whenever they split their forces to conduct 

patrols. Provisioning the many small posts also proved to be a logistical nightmare, since each had to be supplied by convoys that were 

highly vulnerable to guerrilla attack. Nevertheless, the fortified posts 

did prove to be of some utility, and throughout 1864 their tiny garrisons repeatedly beat off guerrilla attacks.42

The Army particularly favored static defenses for the protection of 

railroads, the lifelines of Civil War armies, and erected blockhouses to 

protect bridges and other key points. Some of these defenses evolved 

into extensive networks of stockades and outposts all carefully connected by systems of patrols. Armored trains and gunboats provided 

additional firepower. When these failed to work, the Army took more 

drastic measures. It defoliated the ground on either side of the tracks 

and at times removed the population as well. It placed civilian hostages 

on board trains and threatened to hold the local population responsible 

for any damage done to the line. Although the success of such measures 

varied, they tied down tens of thousands of government soldiers. 

Herman Haupt, the U.S. superintendent of railways, ultimately concluded that it was impossible to protect the railroads completely from 

irregular attack; instead, he perfected rapid repair techniques that 

enabled the government to reopen damaged facilities quickly.43

Federal forces supplemented these passive measures with a variety 

of patrols, scouts, raids, and sweeps. Most operations were conducted 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

42

A blockhouse and encampment typical of many such posts established by 

the Army to protect important railroad bridges from Confederate raiders.

by small bodies of men that rarely exceeded a regiment in size. At 

times, however, the Army even conducted division-size sweeps 

designed to clear areas of guerrilla concentrations. What usually determined the success or failure of these operations was not their size, but 

the amount of drive and ingenuity exhibited by the commanders. 

Unfortunately, too many officers demonstrated more complacency than 

initiative in conducting counterguerrilla operations. That many units 

employed in rear area work were second-line formations undoubtedly 

contributed to this problem. So, too, did the desultory nature of guerrilla warfare, which made for many long and uneventful days of 

monotonous garrison duty and routine patrolling that inevitably took 

the edge off units. All too often, federal units stuck to the main roads 

and camped in towns rather than take to the “bush.” Nevertheless, there 

were many resourceful and aggressive officers who rose to the challenge and turned in creditable performances during the counterguerrilla 

war. Some were veterans of prewar Indian campaigns, while others 

learned their trade by trial and error.44

One of the more successful was George Crook, a West Pointer who 

arrived in West Virginia in the fall of 1861 after nearly a decade of 

service fighting Indians in the Pacific Northwest. Crook immediately 

saw the parallels between Indian and guerrilla warfare and went about 
The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

43

applying the techniques that would later become his trademark. His 

first step was to send some of his most intelligent officers into the countryside to learn as much as they could about the land and its people, 

paying particular attention to the haunts and habits of the bushwhackers. He supplemented these efforts by recruiting local Unionists to 

serve as guides. Once this was done, he launched an aggressive campaign in which he used small, flying columns to hunt down the guerrillas and drive them toward other detachments waiting in ambush. He 

supplemented these activities by burning out disaffected areas and permitting his men to execute captured guerrillas. Crook employed these 

techniques throughout the war with some success, eventually adding a 

specially formed scouting unit to his counterguerrilla repertoire.45

Many commanders shared Crook’s belief that continuous, aggressive small-unit action would eventually wear down the guerrillas. One 

such person was Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, a veteran of counterguerrilla operations in Mexico, who urged his subordinates to relentlessly “pursue, strike, and destroy the reptiles.” Another was Col. 

Henry M. Lazelle who, like Crook, had extensive experience in Indian 

warfare prior to the outbreak of the rebellion. Lazelle argued cogently 

that the way to defeat the guerrilla was to beat him at his own game. 

Rather than sending out large bodies of regular cavalry, Lazelle 

believed that the Army should employ small groups of specially 

selected men who would travel by night and hide by day, while spies 

and friendly residents ferreted out information as to the guerrillas’ 

whereabouts. Once this information was obtained, the scout units 

would ambush the irregulars.46

Many officers did just that and adopted the techniques of the 

guerrillas, moving at night, setting up ambushes, and launching surprise raids on towns and houses to arrest suspected bushwhackers. In 

some cases they employed spies and “secret service” men to gather 

information. Others dressed their men as rebels to ferret out the clandestine civilian network that supported the guerrillas. Throughout the 

South, federal officers learned to increase their effectiveness by traveling light, avoiding the main roads, and employing unobtrusive 

advance parties of scouts and Unionists to pave the way for counterguerrilla expeditions.47

The 13th Indiana Volunteer Infantry provides an example of the 

flexibility and inventiveness with which federal units approached the 

guerrilla problem as early as 1861. Like Crook’s 36th Ohio, the 13th 

Indiana spent a portion of the first year of the war on counterguerrilla 

duty in western Virginia. Not content to patrol the highways, the 13th 

took to the hills to strike the bushwhackers on their home turf. The unit 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

44

replaced its conventional wagon train with pack mules to increase its 

mobility in the back country and developed a patrol system that used 

small groups of three to six men under the command of a noncommissioned officer. The patrols stayed out in the bush for ten to twelve days 

at a time, engaging in frequent skirmishes with bushwhackers. The 

regiment was fairly effective and, on at least one occasion, masqueraded as a rebel unit to penetrate deep into secessionist territory.48

Security proved a constant source of worry for federal counterguerrilla units, as the rebels were particularly fond of laying ambushes and 

picking off sentinels. Federal officers responded by tightening camp 

and march security and, in some cases, by changing picket procedures 

so that outpost lines could be more quickly reinforced in case of partisan attack. Local commanders instituted pass systems to control the 

flow of civilians, and hence information, to the guerrillas. Since rebel 

irregulars achieved some of their most notable successes by impersonating federal soldiers, some commands adopted recognition signals or 

wore distinctive pieces of clothing.49

Another way in which the Army responded to the challenges of the 

guerrilla war was through the employment of a variety of special units 

for counterguerrilla service. One of the most common adaptations was 

the creation of bodies of mounted infantry to make up for the Army’s 

perennial shortage of cavalry. For the most part mounted infantrymen 

were handpicked and exempted from normal infantry duty. Instead, 

they devoted themselves exclusively to reconnaissance, escort, and 

counterguerrilla work, providing their regimental commanders with an 

elite, mobile strike force. Most regiments mustered no more than a 

company’s worth of mounted scouts, usually less than a hundred men, 

although the Army did occasionally convert entire regiments into 

mounted infantry organizations in an effort to counter the superior 

mobility enjoyed by mounted rebel raiders.50

A second type of unit employed primarily for counterguerrilla and 

security work were local units recruited in the southern and border 

states. There were actually several kinds of locally based formations. 

The first and most common type were militia and home guard organizations. These units often represented the first line of defense against 

bushwhackers in the border states. Second, the Army occasionally 

employed independent bands of Unionist guerrillas as guides and saboteurs. More common than Unionist guerrillas were locally raised companies of scouts, which the Army used either as independent counterguerrilla units or as guides for regular troops. Finally, the Army also 

recruited regular units in the southern and border states. For example, 

three regiments of Tennessee mounted infantry were raised under the 
The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

45

command of Brig. Gen. Alvan Gillem and collectively known as 

Gillem’s Cossacks. Although given line designations, Gillem’s Cossacks 

were regular in name only. They received virtually no conventional 

training and were employed almost exclusively as raiders and counterguerrillas in eastern Tennessee and North Carolina. They were assisted 

in these endeavors by two regiments of North Carolina mounted infantry raised by the noted Unionist guerrilla George Kirk. Kirk’s regiments 

were even less “regular” than Gillem’s, as many of his men lived at 

home and only assembled when called. Units like Gillem’s and Kirk’s 

were in fact the federal equivalent of the Confederacy’s Partisan 

Rangers, and they proved quite effective in that role.51

Relying on local formations for counterguerrilla work had distinct 

advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, locally raised units 

freed the Army’s line troops for active service against rebel main 

forces. Such “native” troops were also familiar with the terrain and 

people, helping to narrow the advantages the irregulars enjoyed over 

conventional units. For this reason some commanders preferred them 

over the regulars for counterguerrilla work. On the other hand, most 

local units suffered from serious discipline problems, not only because 

they were poorly trained, but also because of their animosity toward 

their pro-secessionist neighbors, who had persecuted their families and 

friends. Needless to say, the excesses committed by the Army’s “native” 

troops did not help reestablish peace in the southern and border states.52

Finally, during the course of the war the Army raised a few units 

specifically for counterguerrilla work. Such experiments met with 

mixed success. One of the first and least successful of the counterguerrilla units was the Jesse Scouts created by General Fremont upon his 

arrival in West Virginia in April 1862. Commanded by Capt. J. 

Carpenter, a veteran of both the prewar guerrilla conflict in Kansas and 

of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, the unit spent most of its time 

strutting up and down the streets of West Virginia in outlandish costumes and was eventually disbanded in 1863.

A more reputable outfit was the Loudoun County Rangers, which 

Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton created in 1862 for the purpose of 

protecting Unionist citizens and countering guerrillas in northern 

Virginia. The rangers had a checkered career, suffering several significant defeats at the hands of rebel partisans. Nevertheless, the organization played an active role in many reconnaissance and counterguerrilla 

operations during the war.53

The government had a more promising start when it created the 1st 

District of Columbia (D.C.) Volunteer Cavalry. This unit, dubbed the 

“Terror to Evildoers,” had its origins as the military arm of the National 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

46

Detectives, a police and counterintelligence organization set up by 

Lafayette Baker to help rid the Washington, D.C., area of traitors and 

spies. Baker convinced Lincoln and Stanton in the spring of 1863 that 

he needed a military force to aid his police operations, and the War 

Department authorized him to raise four companies of cavalry for that 

purpose. The 1st D.C. Volunteer Cavalry quickly became an elite formation. Not only was it composed of specially selected men and horses, 

but it was the only cavalry regiment during the war to be outfitted with 

the magnificent Henry repeating rifle. The unit specialized in making 

day and night raids to arrest spies and guerrillas in the capital area. 

Eventually, Stanton’s concerns over the partisan threat led him to double the size of Baker’s cavalry arm. Like many elite units, however, 

success had its price. No sooner had the 1st D.C. been increased to a 

full regiment in 1864 than the Army shipped it south for conventional 

cavalry duty.54

The guerrillas did not go away, and in the summer of 1864 Sheridan 

began to search for a way to destroy the most effective of northern 

Virginia’s irregulars, Colonel Mosby’s battalion of Partisan Rangers. In 

August Maj. Gen. George Crook, in command of the Army of West 

Virginia, offered Sheridan the use of one of his elite counterguerrilla 

units for the purpose of hunting down Mosby. Crook had formed the 

company-size unit, known as the Legion of Honor, earlier that year by 

taking select men from a number of regiments in his army and putting 

them under the command of veteran Indian fighter Capt. Richard 

Blazer. Sheridan accepted Crook’s offer and armed Blazer’s Scouts 

with Spencer repeaters. Blazer’s small band arrived in the Shenandoah 

Valley in mid-August and immediately went to work against Mosby 

and other guerrilla bands. During his first two months in the valley, 

Blazer killed, wounded, or captured sixty-eight guerrillas. His success 

was due not only to his military talents, but also to his public relations 

skills. One guerrilla complained that Captain Blazer “by his humane 

and kindly treatment, in striking contrast with the usual conduct of our 

enemies, had so disarmed our citizens that instead of fleeing on his 

approach and notifying all soldiers, thus giving them a chance to 

escape, little notice was taken of him. Consequently, many of our men 

were ‘gobbled up’ before they were aware of his presence.” 

Unfortunately, Blazer’s success spelled his doom. He became such an 

annoyance that Mosby targeted him for destruction, and in midNovember Mosby trapped and destroyed the unit, capturing Blazer in 

the process.55

No sooner had Blazer fallen than Sheridan created a new special 

unit under the command of Maj. Henry Young. Young’s men served as 
The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

47

scouts and spies for Sheridan’s cavalry, often operating in Confederate 

dress. Sheridan considered Young’s Scouts to be quite useful in the 

counterguerrilla war, and they succeeded in capturing the noted partisan leader Harry Gilmore.56

The employment of special counterguerrilla units was not limited to 

the Virginia theater, as commanders in other areas also dabbled with 

unconventional measures. Perhaps the most remarkable counterguerrilla 

unit was the Mississippi Marine Brigade, an amphibious organization 

created in November 1862 in response to guerrilla attacks on federal 

shipping along the Mississippi River. Over the course of the next two 

years the “marines” led an active life, skirmishing with rebel guerrillas, 

conducting raids, and participating in conventional operations. Although 

effective, the unit was troubled by morale and discipline problems and 

soon developed a reputation for robbery and arson as it steamed up and 

down the Mississippi burning towns, destroying plantations, and carting 

off loot. Some of this destruction was authorized in line with the Army’s 

tough retaliatory policies, but the brigade exercised little discretion in 

picking its targets. Moreover, the unit’s special boats were costly to maintain, and considerations of economy and reputation eventually led the 

Army to disband the marine brigade in 1864.57

All in all, the Army proved to be fairly adaptable in addressing the 

tactical aspects of the guerrilla problem. Not every officer was a Crook 

or a Lazelle, nor did every experiment bear fruit. Nevertheless, the 

Army demonstrated a willingness to employ a wide variety of methods. 

It failed, however, to codify the special tactics, with the result that 

knowledge of these techniques was confined to the memories of veterans. Most practitioners agreed that successful counterguerrilla operations depended on aggressive and innovative officers who knew how to 

adapt the basic principles of combat and petite guerre to the circumstances of guerrilla warfare. That the Army never managed to eliminate 

the guerrillas completely was due more to larger problems inherent in 

the nature of the war itself than to any major deficiencies in its methods. In the end, the Army was able to contain the guerrilla threat sufficiently to permit the conventional war to move forward to victory. 

The Legacy of the War of the Rebellion

With its armies collapsing, its guerrillas harried, and its population 

demoralized, the South finally abandoned its quest for independence in 

April 1865. By adopting measures of “total” warfare, the federal government had raised the price of secession to a level that the South was 

either unwilling or unable to pay.58
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

48

In many respects the War of the Rebellion was a defining experience for the U.S. Army—its leaders and campaigns became the object 

of veneration and study for generations of future American soldiers. In 

the realm of irregular warfare, the exploits of cavalry raiders on both 

sides and the measures undertaken by federal authorities to protect 

railroads from partisan attack were frequently studied, while during the 

Philippine War (1899–1902) the War Department compiled a thick 

portfolio on Union counterguerrilla measures to justify similar actions 

taken against Filipino insurgents.59 Nevertheless, the post–Civil War 

Army spent little effort analyzing the counterguerrilla and pacification 

aspects of the war. Not only had pacification duty proved to be difficult 

and unrewarding, but the highly political content of the work made the 

subject unappealing to most soldiers. Moreover, what lessons the Army 

might have derived from its counterguerrilla experiences were overshadowed by the conventional aspects of the conflict. In the end, it had 

been the conventional and not the unconventional war that had proved 

decisive, and it was upon this facet of the rebellion that the postwar 

Army naturally turned when it came time to derive the tactical and 

operational lessons of the war. 

But perhaps the most fundamental reason why the Army did not 

reappraise its approach to guerrilla warfare and pacification was that 

the war had essentially validated the officer corps’ preexisting beliefs. 

This was true not only in tactics, where postwar textbooks used at 

West Point perpetuated Mahan’s contention that conventional, smallunit tactics were essentially applicable to partisan and antipartisan 

warfare, but more importantly, in policy.60 Indeed, the greatest contribution of the Civil War to the development of Army doctrine was not 

in the charting of new ideas but in the validation and sanctification of 

old ones. Nevertheless, two new and important formulations of old 

ideas had emerged from the struggle. The first, General Orders 100, 

codified the dual policies of moderation and retaliation that had served 

as the basis for the Army’s “firm-but-fair” approach to pacification 

throughout the insurrection and the period of reconstruction that followed. The second was the “hard war” policy advocated by Grant and 

Sherman. Sherman’s march to the sea and Sheridan’s devastation of 

the Shenandoah and Loudoun valleys were particularly emblazoned in 

the Army’s collective consciousness as examples of the extreme measures that the Army could legitimately employ when more temperate 

policies failed to suppress an insurrection. Together, the words of 

Francis Lieber and the deeds of General Sherman would become the 

precepts upon which the U.S. Army would base its pacification policies into the twentieth century.
49

Notes

1

 Quote from Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, p. 356, and see also pp. 233, 

250, 300, 330, 357, 684, 721. Ulysses Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, 2 vols. 

(New York: Charles Webster, 1886), 2:504–05; Archer Jones, Civil War Command and 

Strategy (New York: Free Press, 1992), pp. 151, 234. 2

 Peter Maslowski, Treason Must Be Made Odious (Millwood, N.Y.: Kto Press, 

1978), pp. 19, 28; Christopher Grimsley, “A Directed Severity: The Evolution of 

Federal Policy Toward Southern Civilians and Property” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State 

University, 1992), pp. 37, 136. 3 The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and 

Confederate Armies, 53 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880–

1901), ser. 1, 2:46. Hereafter cited as OR. 4

 Ibid., ser. 1, 2:196–97.

5

 Frank Freidel, “General Orders 100 and Military Government,” Mississippi Valley 

Historical Review 32 (March 1946): 546; William Russ, “Administrative Activities of 

the Union Army During and After the Civil War,” Mississippi Law Journal 17 (May 

1945): 81–82; Gerald Capers, Occupied City: New Orleans Under the Federals

(Manhattan: University of Kansas Press, 1965), pp. 106–07; Brinsfield, “Military 

Ethics,” p. 41; OR, ser. 1, 8:381; Allen Carpenter, “Military Government of Southern 

Territory, 1861–65,” in American Historical Association, Annual Report for the Year 

1900 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1901), pp. 477–78; Futrell, 

“Federal Military Government,” p. 182. 6

 Carpenter, “Military Government of Southern Territory,” pp. 483–85.

7

 Hog quote from Futrell, “Federal Military Government,” p. 191. Carpenter, 

“Military Government of Southern Territory,” pp. 496–98; Maslowski, Treason, pp. 

126–36; Howard Nash, Stormy Petrel: The Life and Times of General Benjamin F. 

Butler, 1818–93 (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1969), pp. 

149–59; Capers, Occupied City, pp. 72, 88. 8

 Benjamin Thomas and Harold Hyman, Stanton (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 

1962), pp. 306, 360–62; Richard Brownlee, Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy: Guerrilla 

Warfare in the West, 1861–65 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1958), pp. 

151–52; Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the 

American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 42. 9

 Maslowski, Treason, pp. 74, 76, 80, 147–48; Capers, Occupied City, pp. 107–11; 

Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, p. 49; James Reston, Sherman’s March and Vietnam (New 

York: Macmillan, 1984), p. 59; Grimsley, “Directed Severity,” pp. 225, 231; Bruce 

Catton, Grant Moves South (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1960), pp. 291–92. 10 Carpenter, “Military Government of Southern Territory,” p. 477; Russ, 

“Administrative Activities of the Union Army,” pp. 82–85; Maslowski, Treason, pp. 

35–37; James Ramage, Rebel Raider: The Life of General John Hunt Morgan

(Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1986), p. 100; Richard Curry and F. Gerald 

Ham, “The Bushwhacker’s War: Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in West Virginia,” 

Civil War History 10 (1964): 431; Jones, Strategy, pp. 147–49. 11 Quote from James Parton, General Butler in New Orleans (Boston: Ticknor & 

Fields, 1866), p. 560. For similar problems elsewhere, see Maslowski, Treason, p. 37; 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

50

Charles Morse, “The Relief of Chattanooga, October 1863, and Guerrilla Operations in 

Tennessee,” in Civil War and Miscellaneous Papers, Papers of the Military Historical 

Society of Massachusetts (Boston: Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, 1918), 

14:74. 12 McClellan quote from OR, ser. 1, 2:196. OR, ser. 1, 3:467; OR, ser. 1, 8:405–06, 

477; Futrell, “Federal Military Government,” p. 186. 13 Quote from OR, ser. 1, 8:477–78, and see also 8:439. OR, ser. 2, 1:237. 14 Fellman, Inside War, p. 87. Quote from OR, ser. 1, vol. 12, pt. 3, p. 169. OR, ser. 

1, vol. 27, pt. 2, p. 69; OR, ser. 1, vol. 16, pt. 2, p. 141. 15 Carl Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters: Eastern Theater Union Counterguerrilla 

Operations in the Civil War, 1861–65” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1988), p. 99; 

Parton, Butler in New Orleans, p. 561; Futrell, “Federal Military Government,” p. 187; 

OR, ser. 1, 3:466–69.

16 Quote from George Crook, General George Crook: His Autobiography (Norman: 

University of Oklahoma Press, 1960), p. 87. Curry and Ham, “Bushwhacker’s War,” p. 

418; Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” p. 34. 17 Futrell, “Federal Military Government,” p. 187; OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 4, p. 261; 

War Department GO 231, 18 Jul 1864, p. 4. 18 First quote from OR, ser. 1, 8:405, and see also 8:439. Second quote from 

Brinsfield, “Military Ethics,” p. 42. Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” pp. 69, 160; 

Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, pp. 157–58. 19 Maslowski, Treason, p. 61; Carpenter, “Military Government of Southern 

Territory,” p. 495; OR, ser. 2, 4:47; OR, ser. 1, 8:439. 20 OR, ser. 1, 3:403–04, 421–24; OR, ser. 1, vol. 27, pt. 2, p. 69; Wayne Smith, “An 

Experiment in Counterinsurgency: The Assessment of Confederate Sympathizers in 

Missouri,” Journal of Southern History 35 (August 1969): 362; Beamer, “Gray 

Ghostbusters,” pp. 32, 63–65; Smith, War With Mexico, pp. 170–71. 21 Futrell, “Federal Military Government,” pp. 187–88; OR, ser. 1, vol. 31, pt. 3, p. 

58; OR, ser. 1, 13:741–43; OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 4, pp. 224–25. The Army refused to 

sanction the execution of civilian hostages and was even squeamish about executing 

guerrilla hostages. Nevertheless, the latter was occasionally done. Albert Castel, “The 

Guerrilla War, 1861–65,” Civil War Times Illustrated 13 (October 1974): 30; James 

Prichard, “General Orders No. 59: Kentucky’s Reign of Terror,” Civil War Quarterly

10 (1987): 32–34; OR, ser. 1, 4:290–91; OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 2, pp. 136, 174; OR, ser. 

1, vol. 47, pt. 2, p. 50. 22 OR, ser. 1, 8:607. 23 Ramage, Rebel Raider, p. 67; Carl Grant, “Partisan Warfare, Model 1861–65,” 

Military Review (November 1958): 42–43; Richard Hartigan, Lieber’s Code and the 

Law of War (Chicago: Precedent, 1983), pp. 35–36, 78; Virgil Jones, Gray Ghosts and 

Rebel Raiders (New York: Henry Holt, 1956), pp. 89–95. 24 Hartigan, Lieber’s Code, pp. 33, 41–42. 25 Brainerd Dyer, “Francis Lieber and the American Civil War,” Huntington Library 

Quarterly 2 (July 1939): 453; Hartigan, Lieber’s Code, pp. 316–44. 26 Hartigan, Lieber’s Code, pp. 13, 78, 92; Dyer, “Francis Lieber,” pp. 454–56; 

Freidel, “General Orders 100,” pp. 547–48; OR, ser. 1, vol. 22, pt. 2, pp. 237–44. 27 Quote from Hartigan, Lieber’s Code, p. 48, and see also p. 46. 28 Quote from ibid., p. 50, and see also pp. 52, 54. OR, ser. 3, 3:148–64. 29 Doris Graber, The Development of the Law of Belligerent Occupation, 
The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

51

1863–1914, Columbia Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law 543 (New York: 

Columbia University Press, 1949), p. 71. Quote from Hartigan, Lieber’s Code, p. 60, 

and see also p. 71. 30 Hartigan, Lieber’s Code, pp. 1–2, 5, 23; Graber, Belligerent Occupation, pp. 14, 

20, 38; Freidel, “General Orders 100,” pp. 555–56; Centennial of the U.S. Military 

Academy, 1:369; Futrell, “Federal Military Government,” p. 181. 31 OR, ser. 2, 5:289, 537–39, 592; OR, ser. 2, 8:201, 317, 360; OR, ser. 1, vol. 30, pt. 

3, p. 34, 106; OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 3, p. 216; OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 4, p. 218; OR, ser. 

1, vol. 39, pt. 2, pp. 135, 362; OR, ser. 1, vol. 41, pt. 2, p. 422; OR, ser. 1, vol. 41, pt. 

4, p. 631; Prichard, “General Orders No. 59,” p. 34; Edward Stackpole, Sheridan in the 

Shenandoah (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1961), pp. 377–79; Stephen Starr, The 

Union Cavalry in the Civil War, 3 vols. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University 

Press, 1979), 2:344–47, 362; Jones, Gray Ghosts, pp. 181, 308; John Joyce, “Burnside 

in East Tennessee, Mountain Scenery and Guerrillas,” United Service (August 1893): 

128; Morse, “Relief of Chattanooga,” p. 81; Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, p. 112; James 

Williamson, Mosby’s Rangers (New York: Sturgis & Walton, 1909), p. 421. 32 First and third quotes from Russell Weigley, Towards an American Army (New 

York: Columbia University Press, 1962), both on p. 86, and see also p. 91. Fourth quote 

from ibid., p. 93. Stephen Ambrose, Halleck: Lincoln’s Chief of Staff (Baton Rouge: 

Louisiana State Press, 1962), pp. 181, 187. Second quote from Hattaway and Jones, 

How the North Won, p. 251. 33 OR, ser. 1, 8:495; Brinsfield, “Military Ethics,” p. 42; OR, ser. 1, vol. 22, pt. 2, pp. 

428–29, 460–61; Fellman, Inside War, pp. 96, 127; John Schofield, Forty-Six Years in 

the Army (New York: Century Co., 1897), pp. 78–79, 82–84, 97; Castel, “Guerrilla 

War,” pp. 19–23; Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, pp. 115–16, 120, 126; Ann Niepman, 

“General Orders No. 11 and Border Warfare During the Civil War,” Missouri Historical 

Review 66 (January 1972): 185–210. First quote from Jones, Gray Ghosts, p. 286. OR, 

ser. 1, vol. 41, pt. 4, p. 276. Second quote from Philip Sheridan, Personal Memoirs of 

P.H. Sheridan (New York: Charles Webster, 1888), p. 487. 34 First quote from Crook, Autobiography, p. 88. OR, ser. 1, 13:741–43, 747–49; 

Castel, “Guerrilla War,” p. 33. Second quote from Fellman, Inside War, pp. 126–27. 

Reston, Sherman’s March, p. 30; Jones, Gray Ghosts, pp. 246–48, 281–82, 296–301, 

321; OR, ser. 1, vol. 43, pt. 2, pp. 345, 348, 565; Starr, Union Cavalry, 2:50 and 

3:256–57; O. O. Howard, “Is Cruelty Inseparable From War?” Independent 54 (15 May 

1902): 1162; Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” pp. 63–64, 186, 190, 225–29; Parton, 

Butler in New Orleans, pp. 563–64; OR, ser. 1, vol. 30, pt. 3, p. 106; OR, ser. 1, vol. 

29, pt. 1, p. 90. 35 John Barrett, The Civil War in North Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North 

Carolina Press, 1963), pp. 152, 178–81; Fellman, Inside War, pp. 125–28; OR, ser. 1, 

vol. 34, pt. 2, p. 616; Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” p. 230; OR, ser. 1, vol. 43, pt. 1, 

p. 32, and pt. 2, pp. 496–97; OR, ser. 1, vol. 37, pt. 1, p. 557; Sheridan, Memoirs, p. 

484; Stackpole, Sheridan in the Shenandoah, pp. 163–64; Jeffrey Wert, Mosby’s 

Rangers (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), p. 260. 36 First quote from Grant, “Partisan Warfare,” p. 54. Second quote from Brinsfield, 

“Military Ethics,” p. 44. 37 Wert, Mosby’s Rangers, pp. 199, 275; Sheridan, Memoirs, pp. 99–100; Barrett, 

Civil War in North Carolina, pp. 178–81; Castel, “Guerrilla War,” p. 33; Crook, 

Autobiography, p. 88; Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” p. 230; Starr, Union Cavalry, 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

52

2:50; Grimsley, “Directed Severity,” pp. 31, 406–24; Waghelstein, “Wrong War,” p. 

189; Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, pp. 47, 49; Reston, Sherman’s March, pp. 57, 94; William 

Sherman, Personal Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman (New York, 1890), pp. 175–76; 

OR, ser. 2, 5:560, 571; OR, ser. 1, 13:402; OR, ser. 1, 33:397; OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 2, 

pp. 616–17; OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 4, pp. 225–26; OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 2, p. 136; OR, 

ser. 1, vol. 41, pt. 4, pp. 262, 918, 928–29; OR, ser. 1, vol. 43, pt. 2, pp. 768, 775, 810. 38 Quote from Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” pp. 212–14. Schofield, Forty-Six Years, 

p. 92; James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (New York: Ballantine, 1988), p. 809. 39 OR, ser. 1, vol. 12, pt. 3, p. 84. 40 OR, ser. 1, vol. 29, pt. 2, p. 397. 41 Rick Gutwald, “Low Intensity Conflict as Practiced by John Singleton Mosby in 

the American Civil War” (Master’s thesis, U.S. Army Command and General Staff 

College, 1986), pp. 32, 122, 145; Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” pp. 54, 68, 272; Starr, 

Union Cavalry, 3:423. 42 Jones, Gray Ghosts, p. 79; OR, ser. 1, 8:493–94; Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, pp. 183, 

185, 187. 43 Morse, “Relief of Chattanooga,” p. 73; Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” pp. 117, 

128, 225–29; William Nichols, “Fighting Guerrillas in West Virginia,” Civil War Times 

Illustrated 6 (April 1967): 21; Jones, Gray Ghosts, pp. 296–302, 321; OR, ser. 1, vol. 

43, pt. 2, p. 565; Howard, “Cruelty,” p. 1162; Reston, Sherman’s March, p. 30; Castel, 

“Guerrilla War,” p. 18. 44 Fellman, Inside War, pp. 82, 167; Brownlee, Gray Ghosts, p. 192; OR, ser. 1, vol. 

43, pt. 2, p. 688; Williamson, Mosby’s Rangers, pp. 427–29; OR, ser. 1, vol. 29, pt. 1, 

p. 90. 45 Crook, Autobiography, pp. 85–88; Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” pp. 219, 230. 46 Quote from OR, ser. 1, 13:689. OR, ser. 1, vol. 37, pt. 2, pp. 389–90. 47 OR, ser. 1, 8:493–94; OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 4, p. 221; Fellman, Inside War, pp. 

121–22, 166–69; Jones, Gray Ghosts, p. 79; Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” p. 55; 

Frederick Mitchell, “Fighting Guerrillas on the La Forche,” in Military Order of the 

Loyal Legion of the United States, Commandery of the District of Columbia, War 

Papers (1905), 56:3–16; Williamson, Mosby’s Rangers, pp. 427, 429; Henry Romeyn, 

“Scouting in Tennessee,” in Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, 

Commandery of the District of Columbia, War Papers (1905), 59:3–24; John Forsythe, 

Guerrilla Warfare and Life in Libby Prison (Annandale, Va.: Turnpike Press, 1967), p. 

13. 48 Charles Ross, “Scouting for Bushwhackers in West Virginia in 1861,” in War 

Papers Read Before the Commandery of Wisconsin, Military Order of the Loyal Legion 

of the United States (Milwaukee: Burdick & Allen, 1903), 3:400–412. 49 Starr, Union Cavalry, 3:311; Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” p. 140; Ross, 

“Scouting for Bushwhackers,” p. 401; OR, ser. 1, vol. 37, pt. 2, pp. 388–89. 50 Starr, Union Cavalry, 3:416; Romeyn, “Scouting in Tennessee,” pp. 3–24. 51 Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” p. 30; Curry and Ham, “Bushwhacker’s War,” pp. 

421–22; Castel, “Guerrilla War,” pp. 9, 33–36, 38; William Trotter, Bushwhackers! The 

Civil War in North Carolina, vol. 2, The Mountains (Greensboro, N.C.: Signal 

Research, 1988), pp. 113–15, 251, 258, 281–84; Starr, Union Cavalry, 3:402–03. 52 OR, ser. 1, vol. 43, pt. 2, pp. 738–39; Maslowski, Treason, p. 42; Beamer, “Gray 

Ghostbusters,” p. 272; Ross, “Scouting for Bushwhackers,” p. 411; Fellman, Inside 

War, pp. 54, 87, 112, 169–72; OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 2, p. 776.
53 Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” pp. 56, 71; Jones, Gray Ghosts, pp. 81, 109–10, 

132, 366; Forsythe, Guerrilla Warfare, p. 4; Briscoe Goodhart, History of the 

Independent Loudoun Virginia Rangers (Washington, D.C.: McGill & Wallace, 1896), 

pp. viii, 32, 44, 90, 128–29, 132, 173. 54 Starr, Union Cavalry, 2:399; Robert Mangrum, “Edwin M. Stanton’s Special 

Military Units and the Prosecution of the War, 1862–65” (Ph.D. diss., North Texas 

State University, 1978), pp. 252, 257–61. 55 Quote from Beamer, “Gray Ghostbusters,” pp. 219–20. Stackpole, Sheridan in the 

Shenandoah, pp. 376–77; Wert, Mosby’s Rangers, pp. 202–03, 251; John Mosby, 

“Captain Blazer,” Harper’s Weekly 22 (May 1897): 519. 56 Sheridan, Memoirs, p. 106; Richard Weinert, “The South Had Mosby; The Union, 

Major Henry Young,” Civil War Times Illustrated 3 (April 1964): 39–40. 57 Castel, “Guerrilla War,” p. 49; Starr, Union Cavalry, 3:200–204; Mangrum, 

“Special Military Units,” pp. 145–50, 152, 155, 185, 187, 200, 206, 210, 213–14; 

Warren Crandall and Isaac Newell, History of the Ram Fleet and the Mississippi 

Marine Brigade in the War for the Union on the Mississippi and Its Tributaries (St. 

Louis, 1907), pp. 252, 315. 58 Beringer et al., Why the South Lost, pp. 342–46, 437–39; Hattaway and Jones, 

How the North Won, pp. 686–87. 59 U.S. Congress, Senate, Philippine Committee, Hearings Before the Committee on 

the Philippines, 57th Cong., 1st sess., 1902, S. Doc. 331, pt. 2, pp. 2789–820. 60 James Mercur, Elements of the Art of War (West Point, N.Y.: U.S. Military 

Academy Press, 1889), pp. 239–46.

The War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865

53

55

3

The ConstabularyYears

1865–1898

“In reality,” wrote an officer of the late nineteenth century, “the 

Army is now a gendarmery—a national police.” His observation 

reflected the reality of postwar America as well as its army. Blessed 

with weak neighbors and wide ocean buffers and as yet unentangled 

with significant overseas interests, the nation faced no important military threats during the three decades between the end of the Civil War 

and the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. As they had before 

1861, Americans looked upon their Army as the national jack-of-alltrades, assigning soldiers, in addition to their military duties, the roles 

of engineer, laborer, policeman, border guard, explorer, administrator, 

and governor. Of these many responsibilities, two—the Army’s occupation of the South following the War of the Rebellion, and its policing 

of the American West—bear some examination for the insights they 

provide into the Army’s experience with counterguerrilla warfare, 

pacification, and nation building.1

Reconstruction, 1865–1877

The Confederacy’s surrender in the spring of 1865 did not end the 

Army’s pacification responsibilities in the South. Between 1865 and 

1877 the Army devoted as much as one-third of its strength to supporting the federal government’s effort to “reconstruct” Southern society. 

Reconstruction passed through several phases. Initially, the Army operated military governments throughout the South until such time as state 

governments were restored under the generous terms offered by 

President Lincoln and his successor, Andrew Johnson. As during the 

Mexican and Civil Wars, the Army adopted a firm-but-fair approach to 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

56

its administration of government, eschewing vengeance in favor of 

sympathetic policies aimed at restoring tranquility and economic stability. Whenever possible, the Army relied on local civilians to administer 

civil affairs, both to minimize its own burdens and to speed the restoration of normal civil life. Many commanders also went beyond the basic 

requirements of maintaining order, suppressing banditry, and administering government and followed wartime precedents by feeding the 

destitute, enforcing sanitary regulations, and organizing schools. They 

were assisted in their efforts by the Freedmen’s Bureau, which Congress 

established under the War Department in 1865. Under the leadership of 

Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, the bureau provided vital medical, educational, legal, social, and political services to tens of thousands of 

destitute Southerners, black and white.2

Reconstruction entered a second phase in 1867, when a Radical 

Republican Congress replaced the generous Lincoln-Johnson program 

with more rigorous policies. Motivated by a complex mixture of vindictiveness, idealism, political partisanship, and humanitarian concern, 

Congress abolished all but one of the South’s civilian governments, 

restored military rule, disenfranchised many former secessionists, and 

established new requirements for readmission into the Union that 

included Negro suffrage. The Radicals’ goal was to impose a political 

and social revolution on the South. The task plunged Army officers into 

a political whirlpool, as they once again administered governments and 

assisted in the formulation of new state constitutions. 

By 1870 all of the formerly rebellious states had been readmitted to 

the Union under the Radical program. In most cases the new state governments were dominated by white Republicans bolstered by the new 

black electorate. Still, the Army’s work was not done, for over the next 

seven years it was repeatedly called upon to supervise elections, maintain order, and otherwise protect the Republican governments from the 

mass of white Southerners who resented the imposition of “alien” 

Northern policies. Ultimately, however, the Radicals’ efforts at revolutionizing Southern society failed. Using a combination of political 

action and terror, Southern whites succeeded in “redeeming” one state 

after another, replacing the Republican governments with conservative 

Democratic ones that erased all vestiges of “black rule.” Having lost 

their bid for independence, white Southerners won their battle to preserve their political and cultural autonomy at the expense of Southern 

blacks.

The Radicals’ attempt to “reconstruct” Southern society failed 

because it alienated the mass of Southern whites while simultaneously 

failing to give blacks the political, economic, and social tools they 
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

57

needed to exercise their newly won freedoms. Although some soldiers 

and Northern politicians had recommended that Southern land be redistributed to give the freedmen a firm socioeconomic base, ultimately 

schemes of land reform ran afoul of several American shibboleths, such 

as notions of personal responsibility, the sanctity of private property, 

and lingering aversions to “big government” activism. Once Congress 

abolished the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1872, Southern blacks had nothing 

more than the right to vote to assert their interests, a right that was of 

little use without the presence of federal bayonets to uphold it. 

Unfortunately, there was little the Army could do to halt the counterrevolutionary movement waged by Southern conservatives against 

black rights. By 1872 postwar manpower reductions and the requirements of the frontier had reduced the Army’s presence in the old 

Confederacy (excluding Texas) to about 3,500 men. With most of the 

Army’s cavalry called off to police the West, those troops left in the 

South lacked the mobility to control effectively the many clandestine 

societies and paramilitary groups, like the Ku Klux Klan and the Red 

Shirts, that intimidated and terrorized Republicans, Unionists, and 

freedmen alike. Frustrated by Southern opposition and anxious to put 

the bitterness engendered by the war and subsequent occupation behind 

it, a disenchanted nation abandoned the quest for racial justice in return 

for national harmony and in 1877 withdrew the last regular troops from 

the South.3

Though he had advocated using “hard war” measures to crush the 

rebellion, General Sherman had recognized as early as September 1865 

that “no matter what change we may desire in the feelings and thoughts 

of the people [in the] South, we cannot accomplish it by force.” 

Military power might be able to suppress an insurrection, but it could 

not easily crush its spirit. The course of Reconstruction verified 

Sherman’s view and demonstrated the hazards of using military force 

to impose fundamental changes in social values and institutions, no 

matter how virtuous those changes might be. This was a cautionary lesson for any future soldier or politician charged with such a mission, 

whether it be in the realm of social engineering at home or nation building abroad. 

Most officers agreed with Sherman as to the ultimate folly of 

Reconstruction, yet the Army derived no formal doctrines from its 

sojourn in the South. Officers regarded their experience as an aberration, so unique that it was unlikely to arise again. Although many officers assembled creditable records in attempting to negotiate the byzantine world of Reconstruction politics, the political nature of their 

experience defied easy codification into rules and precepts, even if they 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

58

had been inclined to formulate such doctrines, which they were not. 

Rather, Reconstruction’s primary impact was to reinforce the officer 

corps’ traditional aversion for political involvements of any type. 

Speaking of his transfer to the Western frontier after several years of 

service in the Freedmen’s Bureau, Lt. Gen. Nelson A. Miles recalled 

that “it was a pleasure to be relieved of the anxieties and responsibilities of civil affairs, to hear nothing of the controversies incident to race 

prejudice, and to be once more engaged in strictly military duties.” 

There were few officers who did not share his sentiments and who did 

not gladly forget about the entire ordeal when it was over.4

Constabulary Duty on the Western Frontier

Miles and his fellow officers may have looked forward to their 

transfer to the frontier, but the job that awaited them was no less challenging. By mid-century the Native American population west of the 

Mississippi numbered about 270,000 people divided into over 125 distinct tribal, linguistic, and cultural groups. Although the Army tried to 

shield the Indians from illegal white encroachment, its primary mission 

was to pursue Indian raiders, punish recalcitrant tribes, and confine the 

indigenous population to an ever-dwindling area “reserved” for their 

use. Conflict was the inevitable result of this process. From the signing 

of a flurry of abortive peace treaties in October 1865 until the suppression of the last Indian uprising at Leech Lake, Minnesota, in October 

1898, the Army engaged in over a thousand combats as part of its forcible pacification of the Western Indians.5

The nature of the Western Indian tribes, their mode of warfare, and 

the terrain that they inhabited greatly complicated the Army’s task. 

Unlike the more sedentary Eastern woodland tribes, most Indians on 

the Great Plains were nomadic hunter-gatherers, inured to the hardships 

of long treks and uncertain food supplies and possessed with a mobility and knowledge of the terrain that permitted them easily to escape 

discovery or pursuit. Indian males were trained from childhood in 

tracking, hunting, horsemanship, and other martial arts, including the 

use of camouflage. As individual warriors they were superb, man for 

man superior to the average American soldier. Their method of warfare 

maximized these advantages. For the most part they avoided set piece 

battles and waged a guerrilla war of raids, ambushes, and surprise 

attacks. Traveling light, unincumbered by fixed settlements or supply 

trains, they struck soldier and settler alike only when they perceived 

that they had an advantage. After raiding a homestead or ambushing a 

convoy, they quickly submerged themselves into the security of the 
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

59

endless expanse of arid deserts, roadless mountains, and featureless 

prairies that constituted the American West. All of this made the task of 

subduing the Indians, in the words of William T. Sherman, the Army’s 

commanding general for much of the Indian wars period, “the hardest 

kind of war.”6

As if the advantages the Indians enjoyed in terms of mobility, skill, 

and terrain were not enough, the Army labored under a set of equally 

debilitating burdens. Congressional cuts reduced the size of the Army 

to 27,442 in 1874, a level that left the Military Division of the Missouri, 

one of the two major theaters of operations west of the Mississippi, 

with a ratio of one soldier for every 100 square miles of area. The 

necessity of providing at least a modicum of protection to all areas of 

white settlement and travel meant that by 1868 the Army had 116 posts 

on the frontier, most of which mustered no more than a few skeletonized companies. Commands were so small that post commanders 

placed themselves at risk every time they divided their paltry garrisons 

for the purpose of providing an escort or conducting a patrol or pursuit. 

The only way departmental commanders could undertake effective 

operations was by pulling together an impromptu force from a variety 

of posts and units, an arrangement that inevitably lacked cohesiveness. 

The Army recognized that overdispersion increased logistical costs and 

impeded sound administration and training, but it was never able to 

remedy the situation. It simply had too few men to do the job. Moreover, 

the Army found that it was almost impossible to close a post once it had 

been established, primarily because forts represented markets and jobs, 

perks that the local inhabitants and their representatives in Congress 

were reluctant to give up. Railroads offered some relief, but it was not 

until the Army had already broken the main Indian powers and forced 

them onto reservations that it was able to gradually concentrate its 

forces during the 1880s and 1890s.7

Finally, the Army’s manpower shortage was complicated by significant problems in the quality of the men available. The Army usually sent 

recruits to their units with little or no training. Nor did they receive much 

once they had arrived. Most units were so understrength that all hands 

had to be employed just to perform the many routine chores of Army 

life, such as building, maintaining, and guarding posts, chopping firewood, tending gardens, and caring for livestock, not to mention active 

service escorting wagon trains, mounting patrols, and protecting construction crews. Even if time had not been a problem, financial constraints limited the Army to allocating ten rounds of ammunition per 

man per month for target practice, hardly enough to turn unskilled 

shooters into marksmen. More often than not training in marksmanship, 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

60

horsemanship, and maneuvers could be had only on the job, sometimes 

with disastrous results. Not surprisingly, the boredom and hardships of 

frontier duty created a huge turnover in the ranks, and the Army lost 

between 25 and 40 percent of its enlisted force annually to death, discharge, and desertion. Given these handicaps, it is remarkable that the 

frontier Army was as successful as it was in Indian warfare.8

Indian Warfare and Military Thought

The post–Civil War Army inherited a rich heritage in Indian warfare that dated back to the colonial era. The value of this heritage was 

mitigated, however, by the absence of a formal system to preserve the 

lessons of the past, as well as by the difficulty in applying those lessons 

to the many different environments in which the Army had to operate, 

from the Pennsylvania woodlands to the Florida swamps, Kansas prairies, New Mexican deserts, and Colorado mountains. Political and 

cultural differences between tribes further complicated the application 

of any fixed methods, although sufficient similarities did exist to permit 

the formulation of some broad principles. 

As noted in Chapter 1, while the Army had never developed a formal doctrine for Indian warfare, it had gradually evolved a theory that 

blended conventional with unconventional techniques to attack the 

social and economic resources upon which Indian power rested. 

Essentially, this amounted to an offensive strategy in which one or 

more columns of regular troops, augmented by small bodies of civilian 

irregulars and Indian auxiliaries, would drive into Indian territory in an 

effort either to force the Indians to battle or to destroy Indian homes and 

food supplies, thereby compelling them to sue for peace. These were 

the principles inherited from antebellum campaigns and passed down 

by experienced soldiers by word, deed, and memory. They were also 

the principles that Dennis Mahan occasionally related to his students at 

the Military Academy.9

Mahan’s approach to Indian warfare was reinforced in the minds of 

officers by the Army’s experience in the Civil War. Many soldiers 

emerged from the rebellion convinced that the best way to win a “peoples” war was to strike at the foundation of resistance—the enemy 

population. Now, with the rebellion crushed, these officers were prepared to apply the same strategy of destruction to undermine the 

American Indians’ physical and moral ability to resist.10

While Mahan’s lectures on Indian warfare represented the most 

direct way in which the academy prepared its charges for frontier duty, 

it was not the only way. In his teachings on conventional warfare, 
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

61

Mahan stressed the value of reconnaissance, security, skirmishing, and 

other aspects of petite guerre that, coincidentally, were also valuable in 

Indian warfare. Moreover, tactical instruction at West Point focused not 

upon the maneuver of large formations, but rather on small, companysize units, the level at which most frontier operations were conducted. 

Of course, the basic principles of small-unit tactics taught at the 

Military Academy regarding raids and ambushes, camp and march 

security, and outpost duty were to a large extent applicable to unconventional as well as conventional warfare.

Although the textbooks employed at the academy contained virtually no references to Indian warfare per se, they did in fact convey concepts that were highly relevant to the subject. Throughout the nineteenth 

century, standard West Point texts like Mahan’s Out-Post and Col. J. B. 

Wheeler’s A Course of Instruction in the Elements of the Art and Science 

of War for the Use of the Cadets of the United States Military Academy

endorsed the use of winter operations, night marches, and dawn raids to 

surprise enemy encampments. Thus Mahan wrote that 

winter and bad weather are most favorable [for launching a surprise attack], as 

the enemy’s sentinels and outposts will then, in all probability, be less on alert. 

. . . The best positions are those where the enemy is inclosed in a defile, or village, and has not taken the proper precautions to secure himself from an attack. 

By seizing the outlets of the defile by infantry, in such cases, and making an 

impetuous charge of cavalry into it, the enemy may be completely routed.

Wheeler offered similar advice, and though neither text mentioned 

Indians specifically, the tactics well described any number of the 

Army’s frontier operations. Winter campaigns, night marches, and 

dawn raids would all become standard operational techniques employed 

by the Army on the frontier with great effect.11

Occasionally, the academy supplemented these generic tactical 

discussions with more specific treatment of frontier warfare. A case in 

point occurred in the late 1870s, when the Army’s lackluster performance during the Sioux and Nez Perce campaigns prompted the academy’s commandant, Maj. Gen. John Schofield, to conclude that the 

school should provide “more extended instruction in the cavalry service 

required by our young officers on the frontier.” Although the content of 

the “extended instruction” is not known, a clue to its nature can be 

gleaned from the fact that the Army posted an experienced frontier 

campaigner, Medal of Honor recipient Capt. Edward S. Godfrey, to 

West Point in 1879 to serve as the school’s instructor of horsemanship 

and cavalry tactics. Moreover, it is likely that other frontier veterans 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

62

Dismounted skirmish drill given to cadets at West Point helped prepare 

young officers for frontier combat.

assigned to West Point as instructors and commandants passed on their 

hard won lessons to cadets, at least informally.12

The academy addressed Indian warfare in one other part of its curriculum, the law course. International law as taught at West Point 

approached the subject of Indian warfare in somewhat the same manner 

as it did the treatment of guerrillas and actively hostile civilian populations in civilized warfare. On the one hand, it maintained that the laws 

of war did not apply to aboriginal peoples—just as they did not apply 

to guerrillas—for the simple reason that “savages” did not abide by 

those laws. This meant that soldiers were free to employ the harshest 

measures necessary to subdue them.

Yet academy textbooks also taught that principles of humanity and 

Christian charity demanded that soldiers employ stringent measures 

only when they were absolutely necessary. In fact, West Point encouraged the nation’s young officers to respect the civil rights of aboriginal 

peoples and to treat native prisoners well, for by doing otherwise they 

risked descending to the level of their enemies. The result was the 

adoption of a dual approach to frontier warfare identical to that established in General Orders 100. The destruction of property and food 

supplies, the imposition of communal punishments, and the execution of 
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

63

particularly incorrigible individuals were all acceptable, just as they 

were in counterguerrilla warfare against a civilized foe, if such measures were compelled by military necessity. The wanton slaughter of 

Indian men, women, and children was not. The vast majority of officers 

followed this creed, and while a few exterminationists existed in the 

Army, such individuals were a distinct minority.13

The Military Academy thus imparted to its students an intellectual 

foundation from which to approach their frontier duties. But beyond this 

it did not go. There was little time in the academy’s already cramped curriculum to explore Indian warfare in greater depth, nor did there appear 

to be a pressing need to do so, as the Army’s casualties were remarkably 

low during the Indian wars. Besides, experienced soldiers recognized 

that these small conflicts, like most forms of guerrilla warfare, were 

highly localized affairs, in which unique factors of geography, climate, 

and culture weighed heavily upon the conduct of the campaign. Given 

this diversity, Mahan’s approach of laying down a few broad principles 

relevant to most Indian war situations made sense.14

Perhaps West Point’s greatest omission lay not in the realm of strategy, but in fieldcraft. Officers newly posted to the West often were 

unequipped to survive on the open plains, arid deserts, and rugged 

mountains. They had to learn how to follow a trail and how to maintain 

their mounts over long and difficult journeys. Finally, they had to learn 

the peculiar habits of the Indians with whom they had to deal. Indeed, 

subjects of this nature formed to a great extent the very heart of frontier 

service, as actual combat with Indians was rare.

Officers obtained this type of information largely through experience and conversations with frontier veterans. Although such informal 

methods were irregular at best, they should not be discounted. Frontier 

service had been the Army’s primary duty since the foundation of the 

Republic, and many officers served ten, twenty, or more years on the 

frontier. Inadequate pensions and slow promotion rates in the postwar 

Army further facilitated the retention and transmission of experience. 

By the time of the last major Indian “war,” the Ghost Dance uprising of 

1890–1891, the average age of a first lieutenant was forty-five and that 

of a captain fifty. The Army thus had a solid cadre of long service veterans which it could tap to teach its younger officers the tricks of the 

frontier trade. By word and deed, these men passed along a portion of 

their experience to each succeeding generation of Indian fighters.15

While personal experience and word of mouth were the primary 

mediums through which the Army sought to preserve frontier lessons, 

the Army also provided some written guidance on certain aspects of 

frontier service. One of the War Department’s many responsibilities in 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

64

One of the Army’s many duties on the frontier was protecting civilian 

transportation and commerce.

relation to the settlement of the American West lay in the organization 

of civilian wagon trains. Local commanders were required to make sure 

that Western emigrants did not venture forth on their journey across the 

Plains without adequate supplies, equipment, and knowledge. In an 

effort to meet this obligation, the War Department asked an experienced frontier officer, Capt. Randolph Marcy, to prepare a manual on 

the ways and means of traveling across the Great Plains. Marcy agreed, 

and in 1859 he published The Prairie Traveler under the authority of 

the War Department.

The Prairie Traveler was nothing less than the Baedeker of the 

American West. It described in detail the primary trails and wagon 

routes and how to travel them. It also provided a treasure trove of information about the practical aspects of crossing the Plains, including 

what to bring and how to pack it, how to repair a wagon and make 

camp, first aid, hunting and tracking techniques, and the nature and 

habits of Indians. 

But The Prairie Traveler was much more than a guidebook; it was 

also a primer on the conduct of military operations on the Great Plains. 

Recognizing that West Point’s conventionally focused curriculum did 

not provide sufficient training in the many practical aspects of “border 

service,” Marcy prepared the manual explicitly “to establish a more 

uniform system of marching and campaigning in the Indian country.” 

In addition to providing many useful tips on traveling and fieldcraft, the 
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

65

manual discussed military march and camp procedures, weaponry and 

equipment, and native cultural and martial practices. It described measures that columns could take to protect themselves against guerrilla 

action and endorsed the use of Indian guides.16

In analyzing the military problems of the frontier, Marcy not only 

tapped his own experience but looked abroad, citing French and 

Turkish operations in North Africa. During the first half of the century 

both of these nations had waged pacification campaigns against nomadic tribesmen, and Marcy believed that French and Turkish experiences 

were sufficiently analogous to America’s situation on the Great Plains 

to merit study. Based on his readings of several French tracts, Marcy 

derived three lessons from these foreign campaigns: first, that overdispersion stripped a counterguerrilla Army of initiative, increased its 

vulnerability, sapped morale, and impeded training; second, that mobility was at a premium, and that one way to increase the utility of infantry formations was to mount them on mules; and third, that the best way 

to come to grips with an elusive, nomadic foe was to employ mounted 

forces in a night march for the purpose of surprising the enemy in his 

encampment at dawn. This last point was, in Marcy’s opinion, the key 

to successful offensive action against tribal irregulars, be they Arab or 

American Indian. Ultimately, Marcy’s message was very much like 

Mahan’s in that he urged soldiers to adapt themselves to the conditions 

in which they were operating by combining conventional “discipline 

with the individuality, self-reliance, and rapidity of locomotion of the 

savage.”17

The Prairie Traveler was perhaps the single most important work 

on the conduct of frontier expeditions published under the aegis of the 

War Department. It was not, however, the only such work. Over the 

next several decades a few officers, either on their own or with the 

sponsorship of the department, produced guides on various aspects of 

frontier service. In 1881 2d Lt. Edward Farrow published a manual 

titled Mountain Scouting as a companion to The Prairie Traveler. In the 

same year Lt. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan directed Capt. W. P. Clark to prepare a manual on Indian sign language, a subject of great utility to frontier officers. The Indian Sign Language, published in 1885, discussed 

not only sign language, but also contained some insights into Indian 

culture and military methods. The following year, one of the Army’s 

leading counterguerrilla experts, General Crook, put pen to paper on 

two occasions for the purpose of disseminating what he regarded to be 

the lessons of his Indian warfare experiences. Both “The Apache 

Problem,” published by the Journal of the Military Service Institution 

of the United States, and Resume of Operations Against Apache 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

66

Indians, 1882 to 1886, published by the Army, provided significant 

insights into Crook’s fighting and pacification techniques.18

Semiofficial works like these, together with other articles that occasionally appeared in military journals, played an important role in disseminating information on the practical side of frontier campaigning. 

That most of these works focused upon fieldcraft rather than tactics 

reflected the fact that, like most guerrilla, colonial, and small war campaigns, the Indian wars were to a large extent wars against nature. 

Weather, terrain, and the elusiveness of the enemy, rather than combat, 

posed the greatest challenges to the Army, and the writings of officers 

reflected that fact.

So, too, did Army regulations, which contained only a modicum of 

frontier information. Their utility was enhanced somewhat by changes 

on the conventional battlefield that were leading the Army to adopt 

more flexible tactical formations. By happy coincidence, those formations were equally suitable for the type of skirmishing that typified 

frontier operations. For example, the Army’s basic infantry manual during the post–Civil War period, Emory Upton’s A New System of Infantry 

Tactics for Double and Single Rank Adapted to American Topography 

and Improved Fire-Arms, advocated that soldiers make greater use of 

cover, aimed fire, and extended order formations, all of which were 

fully compatible with Indian warfare. In fact, frontier conditions reinforced these trends, and Brig. Gen. John Gibbon credited the Army’s 

frontier experience with facilitating the adoption of more modern, open 

order formations throughout the Army.19

The frontier’s influence was somewhat more evident in the Army’s 

cavalry manuals. The first U.S. Army manual to incorporate the lessons 

of the frontier was Brig. Gen. Philip St. George Cooke’s Cavalry Tactics, 

officially adopted by the War Department in November 1861. Cooke’s 

Tactics differed in two respects from previous manuals. First, it included 

a short chapter on “Special Service of Cavalry in the West,” which discussed march, camp, and security procedures. Second, Cooke replaced 

the standard two-rank formation with a single rank that was more suitable 

for irregular warfare. When the Army replaced Cooke’s Tactics with 

Upton’s Cavalry Tactics in the early 1870s, it retained both the discussion 

of frontier procedures and the single-rank formation in the new manual. 

The Army also added a second type of formation, mounted skirmish 

order, which, like the single-rank line, was designed primarily for 

employment in partisan and Indian warfare. By the end of the century the 

U.S. Army was the only “European” power to employ the single-rank 

cavalry formation, despite the warnings of traditionalists who argued that 

the formation was unsuited to conventional warfare.20
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

67

Mahan’s teachings, Marcy’s writings, and Cooke’s and Upton’s 

tactics, in combination with the personal experiences of veteran soldiers, provided the basis upon which the Army waged the Indian wars 

of the late nineteenth century. Taken together, they supplied the Army 

with an overall philosophy, a basic tactical system, and a body of practical fieldcraft that was extremely valuable. Yet they did not constitute 

a fixed doctrine for Indian warfare, and it remained for frontier officers 

to devise innovative solutions to their own Indian problems by combining conventional forces with slightly unconventional techniques to 

frame the contest in terms most favorable to the Army. 

U.S. Army Counterguerrilla Operations on the Western Frontier 

One of the first ways in which officers endeavored to overcome 

their irregular opponents in the trans–Mississippi West was by employing the traditional column method. As in the Second Seminole War, 

however, commanders soon found that the vastness of the terrain and 

the nomadic nature of Plains tribes often made it impossible for solitary 

columns to strike with effect. The Army, therefore, turned to multiple 

columns, which converged on a given area in an effort to prevent the 

Indians from escaping. Although this technique met with some success, 

more often than not the Indians still managed to outmaneuver their 

pursuers and slip the trap. The converging column method was also 

dangerous, as coordination between columns was difficult and each 

was exposed to being defeated in detail. The most notable example of 

this occurred in 1876, when the Sioux and Cheyenne first repulsed one 

of three converging columns (General Crook’s) before annihilating a 

portion of a second (Lt. Col. George A. Custer’s) at Little Big Horn.21

As in the antebellum period, the primary purpose of the converging 

columns was to destroy the Indians’ food supply in the hope that the 

deprivations caused by the loss of food and shelter would break their 

morale and compel them to surrender. Commanders therefore tried to 

time their expeditions for late summer and early fall to disrupt end-ofseason hunts and destroy winter food stocks. When this was not possible, they struck in early spring, before enough new grass had appeared 

to strengthen the Indians’ ponies after a long and sparse winter. Neither 

of these methods proved entirely satisfactory, however, as the tribesmen usually retained sufficient mobility to evade Army columns. 

Consequently, the Army took to launching its major offensives during 

the winter, when the Indians were most vulnerable. Winter campaigns also had the advantage of transforming the Army’s traditional 

weakness—its ponderous logistical tail—into a strength, for it was the 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

68

A unit of Apache Indian scouts camps near the Mexican border in 1883.

Army’s ability to assemble large quantities of food, clothing, and animals which allowed it to campaign at a time when the Indians were 

relatively dormant. The winter campaign was a classic example of 

Mahan’s dictum that the way to defeat the Indians was by adapting the 

Army’s conventional strengths to the circumstances at hand to frame 

the struggle in terms most favorable to the Army.22

Despite some significant successes, however, winter campaigning 

was not a panacea. Weather and terrain made it difficult, dangerous, and 

expensive, and the politico-military situation did not always afford the 

Army the luxury of waiting for the onset of winter before undertaking 

operations. Besides, attacks on Indian encampments inevitably resulted 

in casualties among Indian women and children, while many more died 

of starvation, disease, and exposure brought on by the campaign. 

Deaths among Indian noncombatants brought down upon the Army the 

wrath of Eastern newspapers and philanthropists who chastised it for 

waging barbaric campaigns of extermination. The Army resented such 

criticism, considering it both unfair and hypocritical. The criticism 

embittered many officers who, like future generations of American 

soldiers, were dismayed to discover that the public was often critical 

of military action during small wars, when the nation’s security was 
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

69

not at stake but in which the Army was brought into direct conflict with 

a hostile civil population.23

Public criticism notwithstanding, converging columns and winter 

campaigning were the mainstays of Army operations on the Western 

frontier. Yet neither method could have worked had the Army not 

adapted to frontier conditions in many other ways. The essence of a 

successful Indian campaign, wrote veteran Indian campaigner General 

Miles, was to “find, follow, and defeat” the enemy wherever he might 

be. Over the course of its service on the frontier, Army officers adopted 

innovative measures for the conduct of each of these three phases.24

The first challenge of an Indian campaign was locating the small 

bands of raiders and nomadic tribesmen as they flitted across the vast 

Western landscape. Typically, local commanders attempted to monitor 

the indigenous population’s activities through patrols. These patrols 

were usually conducted by company-size formations and took the form 

of an armed reconnaissance, sometimes staying out for weeks or 

months at a time. Indeed, scouting assumed such importance with the 

frontier Army that it employed the term scout as a noun to describe any 

type of patrol or reconnaissance mission.25

The vast majority of scouts were uneventful, in part because the 

average soldier was neither familiar enough with the terrain nor sufficiently trained in the art of tracking to locate the Indians. Consequently, 

in 1866 the War Department obtained congressional authorization for 

the inclusion of up to 1,000 Indian scouts as part of the regular establishment of the Army. The scouts proved highly effective both as individual guides and as forward reconnaissance units. They provided the 

Army with a knowledge of tracking, local geography, and Indian habits 

that was truly invaluable. Rare was the column of regular soldiers that 

successfully made contact with a band of hostile Indians without the aid 

of at least a few Indian guides.26

One of the leading exponents of Indian scouts was General Crook. 

Crook used his scouts not only as guides but as combat auxiliaries. 

Although he usually employed scouts in combination with regular 

troops, he also sent them on independent missions. Crook attributed his 

success to proper leadership. He carefully selected young, aggressive, 

and open-minded officers who, in the opinion of one observer, were not 

so much “Indian fighters” as “Indian thinkers.” Recognizing the highly 

individualistic and personal nature of Indian warrior culture, Crook 

insisted that his officers build a personal bond with their scouts, based 

on mutual trust and respect. Above all, he demanded that officers not 

stifle the scouts’ individuality. Not only did the Indians know their business better than their white superiors, he maintained, but their very 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

70

The Army used soldiers, civilians, and Indians to fill its need 

for qualified scouts.

value stemmed from their “wildness.” Imposing conventional drill and 

discipline upon them would only rob them of the very characteristics 

that made them so valuable. As frontier veteran Capt. John Bigelow 

observed, “General Crook makes of his Indian auxiliaries, not soldiers, 

but more formidable Indians.”27

Crook’s idea of using Indians in a combat role was not unique, and 

several other officers also employed natives successfully as auxiliaries. 

Nevertheless, professional opinion remained divided on this score. 

Many officers, including General Sheridan, believed that Indians were 

not sufficiently reliable to serve as combat auxiliaries, and consequently most commanders elected to employ their scouts primarily to find, 

rather than fight, the enemy.28

Assuming the Army had an idea of where the Indians were, the next 

hurdle—following them—was no easy task. The tribesmen moved so 

quickly that one officer estimated the chances of catching them to be 

less than twenty to one if they enjoyed a 24-hour head start. Mobility 

was the key to following the Indians, and the Army pursued it with a 

vengeance. It jettisoned much of the impediments normally carried on 

conventional operations, including bayonets, knapsacks, sabers, and 

even artillery. By the 1880s the load carried by an American cavalry 
horse on campaign was fortytwo pounds lighter than the 

weight typically carried by 

horses in European armies. The 

most notable way in which the 

Army modified its logistical system to frontier conditions, however, was by substituting pack 

mules for wagons.29

Pack mules moved faster and 

traversed difficult terrain more 

readily than wagons, and consequently they offered a partial remedy for the Army’s mobility problem. Marcy and Farrow recognized the mule’s utility and 

included packing in their campaign guidebooks, but it was 

Crook who elevated packing into 

a science. Crook considered the 

mule essential to any counterguerrilla campaign, and his writings on the 

subject became the foundation of Army pack logistics doctrine in the 

twentieth century. 

Dispensing with wagons altogether proved impractical, however, as 

pack trains were more expensive and less efficient than conventional 

methods of transportation. Consequently, the Army employed wagons for 

routine hauling and reserved the mules for active service with flying 

columns of cavalry. The typical expeditionary force was thus divided into 

two parts: a heavy section of wagons escorted by infantrymen, which 

bore the bulk of the supplies, and a lighter strike force of cavalry and 

pack animals, which ranged ahead in search of the enemy. Should the 

cavalry require resupply or suffer a reverse, it could fall back upon the 

reserves of the infantry and wagon column. Conversely, should the cavalry require reinforcement to overcome a particularly difficult obstacle, it 

could hold its position until the infantry arrived.

The utility of the pack mule made a deep impression on the Army. 

By the end of the century the mule had become a standard element in 

its logistical approach to irregular operations, so much so that the 

Military Academy acquired a mule train for the purpose of instructing 

cadets in the fine art of packing. Thereafter, wherever the Army went 

on its small war assignments, from Cuba to China, the Philippines, and 

Mexico, the mule was sure to follow.30

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General Crook
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While the mule won wide acceptance as a partial substitute for the 

wagon, the Army had a more difficult time deciding upon the best type 

of horse for frontier operations. Army horses were larger and heavier than 

the ponies of the Plains Indians and were therefore both faster and stronger than their Indian counterparts, at least in theory. In practice, Indian 

ponies often proved superior to cavalry horses because they were accustomed to subsisting on native plants, while the Army horse required 

premium fodder to maintain its health and stamina. This, coupled with 

the fact that most Indians had several ponies, gave them a significant 

advantage over the typical cavalryman who, for reasons of economy, was 

issued only one horse. Cavalry officers were faced with the choice of 

tying themselves down to the slow moving grain wagons or cutting loose 

and grazing their horses off the land in Indian fashion, thereby risking the 

health of their mounts. The solution, at least in the minds of some officers, was for the Army to replace its costly “high technology” horses with 

hardy native ponies. This idea was never officially adopted, in part 

because the scrawny range pony did not fit the image many officers had 

of what a proper cavalry mount should be. On the other hand, many commanders did adapt to the challenge. Some found that they could acclimate their horses to frontier conditions through careful management, and 

manuals like Marcy’s and Cooke’s helped them do so. Other officers 

abandoned their prejudices and purchased local animals for their units. 

An equally innovative approach involved swapping animals between 

regiments. An example of this occurred in 1875, when the 6th U.S. 

Cavalry replaced the 5th U.S. Cavalry in Arizona. Upon arrival in the 

Southwest, the 6th traded its Kentucky- and Missouri-bred horses for the 

5th Cavalry’s California mustangs, which were fully acclimated to 

Arizona conditions and accustomed to grazing on native plants.31

The mobility requirements of the frontier also affected the Army’s 

organization and force structure. During the late nineteenth century, the 

U.S. Army maintained its cavalry regiments at greater strength than its 

infantry regiments and sheltered the cavalry from force structure reductions. Moreover, unlike European armies, which contained “heavy” 

shock cavalry designed to overthrow enemy formations by massed 

charges, all American cavalry units were “light” cavalry, designed for 

the conduct of raids and reconnaissances. Nevertheless, the Army never 

had enough cavalry to meet frontier demands, and like counterguerrilla 

commanders during the Civil War, several officers followed Marcy’s 

advice and mounted a portion of their infantry on native ponies and 

mules in an effort to gain greater mobility. The most notable example 

of this was the 5th U.S. Infantry, a regiment that operated as mounted 

infantry between 1877 and 1881.32
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73

Cavalry, often operating in small company-size units, was the 

Army’s primary offensive weapon during the conquest and 

pacification of America’s inland empire.

By adapting its logistical system and force structure to the requirements of the frontier, the Army achieved a degree of mobility that, if 

still inferior to that of the Indians, was sufficient to keep them on the 

run and eventually wear them down. Defeating the enemy was in some 

ways less difficult for the Army, especially if he could be taken unaware 

in his encampment. To achieve this, officers followed the suggestions 

of West Point textbooks and employed night marches and dawn raids. 

They supplemented these tactics with ruses, leaving camp fires burning 

at night after the troops had moved, or deliberately hanging back to 

give the Indians the impression that they had given up the chase, 

thereby lulling them into a false sense of security.33

To be successful, tactics such as these required training and preparation, which were not easy to achieve given the heavy burdens of 

frontier service. Although few soldiers reached the level of individual 

proficiency exhibited by Indian warriors, many commanders endeavored to increase the overall efficiency of their commands. Not only did 

they tailor their training regimens to the type of small-unit marching 

and skirmishing typical of frontier conditions, but the most successful 

field commanders habitually put their men through intensive rounds of 

rifle, riding, and endurance training before undertaking a campaign. 

The successes achieved by these men, as well as the litany of failures 

racked up by less ably prepared troops, convinced officers of the benefits 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

74

of improved training, and during the last decades of the century the 

Army took significant steps to improve the level of skill of its soldiers, 

especially in the areas of physical fitness and marksmanship.34

One of the most progressive thinkers in this regard was General 

Miles. During the winter of 1873–1874, he opened a “military gymnasium” at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he introduced his men to a 

rigorous course of calisthenics, field exercises, and long-range marksmanship. Later, during the Geronimo campaign, he instituted another 

rigorous program, requiring that the cavalry in the Department of 

Arizona be capable of marching up to two hundred miles in forty-eight 

hours. The successful conclusion of the Geronimo campaign in 1886 

brought no relaxation in Miles’ efforts. The following year he initiated 

a series of training maneuvers explicitly intended to hone the irregular 

warfare skills of the troops in his department. He divided his command 

into two forces: “raiders” and “pursuers.” The raiders simulated Indians 

and bandits, while the pursuers played the cavalry’s traditional role. 

During the exercises, troops practiced skills frequently required in 

Indian warfare, including stealth and deception, long-distance marching, skirmishing, signaling, navigation, fieldcraft, scouting, and security. One participant, 2d Lt. John J. Pershing, found the exercises to be 

excellent training.35

In addition to improving the performance of their commands, several officers experimented with the idea of pooling their best men into 

elite counterguerrilla organizations. One experiment along these lines 

occurred in 1868, when Sheridan created a fifty-man scout unit under 

the command of Maj. George Forsyth. Sheridan had employed two 

such units four years earlier in the Shenandoah Valley to counter rebel 

guerrillas, and he thought that the experiment was worth repeating 

against his new irregular opponents. Like Blazer’s and Young’s Scouts, 

Forsyth’s unit was handpicked and specially armed. Unfortunately, the 

parallels were all too close, for like Blazer’s organization, Forsyth’s 

Scouts were doomed to have a short, meteoric career. No sooner had 

Forsyth taken to the field than his unit was severely mauled by Sioux 

and Cheyenne warriors in a desperate fight at Beecher’s Island, and it 

never again undertook independent operations.36

Major Forsyth’s unfortunate experience did not stop other commanders from experimenting with special counterguerrilla units. Both 

Generals Crook and Miles employed such units during the 1870s and 

1880s, teaming their best soldiers with units of Indian scouts to form 

small, mobile strike forces. Although Crook found even his best men to 

be inferior to his native scouts, Miles put great stock in the idea that 

carefully chosen troops could at least approximate the level of skill 
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Captain Lawton’s mixed column of cavalry, scouts, and pack mules 

on Geronimo’s trail

exhibited by native warriors. In 1886 he attempted to prove it by forming an elite force of cavalry, mounted infantry, and Indian auxiliaries 

under the command of Capt. Henry W. Lawton and Army surgeon Capt. 

Leonard Wood. Miles sent the unit into Mexico for the purpose of 

apprehending the Apache renegade Geronimo. After four months and 

4,000 miles, two-thirds of Lawton’s original complement had dropped 

out. Although Lawton never caught his quarry, his relentless pursuit 
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76

Geronimo (standing to the right of the horse) and his Apache 

warriors shortly after their surrender to Brig. Gen. Nelson A. Miles 

in March 1886

contributed to Geronimo’s decision to surrender. Miles considered the 

experiment a success, as did Lawton and Wood, who in later years 

formed similar units for counterguerrilla work in the Philippines.37

Pulling all of these adaptations together—finding the enemy with 

Indian scouts, following him with flying columns of light cavalry, 

mounted infantry, and mules, and defeating him with aggressive, smallunit tactics—was easier said than done. Not all commanders could do 

it, but the Army possessed enough talented, experienced, and resourceful officers and men who could and did rise to the occasion. By flexibly 

adapting conventional structures to fit unconventional situations, the 

Army managed to find, follow, and defeat the American Indians of the 

trans–Mississippi West.38

The Army and Indian Pacification

The conquest of the American West was not just a question of bullets and mules. It was, in fact, a complex politico-military problem that 

went beyond the physical subjugation of the indigenous inhabitants. 

The status of Native Americans was an anomalous one. Most Indians 

were not considered to be American citizens since they owed their 

political allegiance to their respective tribes rather than to the United 

States. Although the United States claimed suzerainty over tribes living 

in what it considered to be its territorial boundaries, it generally accorded the Indians sovereignty over their lands and internal affairs. 

Relations between the United States government and the various tribes 
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77

were governed by treaties and agreements, which over time were progressively redrawn so as to circumscribe increasingly the power, 

autonomy, and geographical extent of the tribes. Throughout, the 

United States sought to achieve two goals. The first was to open as 

much Western land as possible to white settlement with a minimum of 

bloodshed. The second was eventually to assimilate Native American 

peoples into American culture and society. Together, these goals 

formed the foundation on which the Army based its pacification activities in the West. Unfortunately, the two goals were not necessarily 

compatible, nor did everyone, Indian or white, share them.39

Responsibility for the formulation and administration of the nation’s 

Indian policy after the Mexican War resided with the Department of the 

Interior’s Indian Bureau. Nevertheless, the Army was intimately 

involved in many aspects of Indian affairs. In addition to providing the 

muscle needed to enforce government policies, Army officers negotiated treaties with the Indians, disbursed annuities when Congress considered the Indian Bureau too inept to do so, and assisted in the administration of Indian reservations. Sometimes the government turned over 

particularly difficult reservations to the Army. More frequently, officers 

served as Indian agents under Interior Department control. The latter 

practice was widespread prior to 1870, a year in which Army officers 

accounted for no fewer than thirty-one of the fifty-two Indian agents and 

superintendents in the Division of the Missouri.

The situation changed somewhat thereafter, when Congress reacted 

to an Army-perpetrated massacre of Piegan Indians in Montana by banning officers from serving in civil posts. Nevertheless, the government 

continued to turn reservations over to the Army in emergencies, and in 

1892 Congress officially lifted the ban on officers serving as Indian 

agents. Some of the Army’s most distinguished frontier soldiers served 

in some capacity as Indian administrators, including Philip H. Sheridan, 

George Crook, William B. Hazen, Frank D. Baldwin, Ranald S. 

Mackenzie, and Adna R. Chaffee. Still others, like John J. Pershing and 

Hugh L. Scott, gained firsthand knowledge of Indian affairs by serving 

as commanders of companies of Indian scouts and soldiers, and virtually every frontier officer was concerned to one degree or another with 

what was commonly referred to as the “Indian question.”40

Most officers believed the government’s Indian policy to be a miserable failure. They deplored the way in which the government broke its 

promises to the Indians and chafed at the shortsightedness and corruption 

that characterized the administration of Indian affairs. Federal Indian 

policy represented a schizophrenic blend of ignorance, apathy, greed, 

altruism, and, perhaps most of all, expediency. That this was true was 
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78

largely due to deep divisions within the body politic. Many Westerners 

believed the final solution to the Indian question was genocide. Eastern 

philanthropists talked of achieving a “conquest by kindness” rather than 

by bullets, in which the preacher, the teacher, and the social worker 

would achieve the cultural, rather than physical, extermination of the 

Indian race. The government muddled along a middle course, refusing to 

sanction all-out war, while doing virtually everything in its power—

sometimes by design but more often by incompetence—to ensure that 

conflict was all but inevitable. The Army was the inevitable loser in this 

process. If it killed Indians, it was chastised by Easterners. If it failed to 

kill Indians, it was hanged in effigy by Westerners.41

The sad and sometimes confused state of the nation’s Indian policy 

was greatly exacerbated by flaws in its administration. Interagency 

coordination on frontier-related matters was poor. General Sherman 

complained that government agencies constantly embarked upon projects that required military protection without consulting the Army, and 

it was not unknown for the Indian Bureau to negotiate treaties without 

informing local commanders. Although a certain amount of miscommunication and bureaucratic rivalry is normal in government, the relationship between the Indian Bureau and the Army was particularly 

poor. The lack of coordination between the civil and military agents of 

pacification inevitably robbed the Army of the initiative and forced it 

into a reactive mode that placed it at a great disadvantage. The Indians 

were aware of the bureaucratic disconnect and sometimes exploited it, 

using the civilian-controlled reservations as base camps and sanctuaries, knowing that the reservation agents, either out of kindheartedness 

or jealousy for their own authority, often denied the Army the right to 

enter the reservations in pursuit of marauding warriors.42

The military’s solution to this problem was to urge Congress to 

transfer responsibility for Indian affairs back to the War Department 

where it had resided prior to 1849. It argued that the Indian Bureau was 

riddled with corruption, naivete, and incompetence, and it blamed 

many of the injustices that drove the Indians to war on the avarice and 

blunders of the bureau’s agents. In contrast, the Army held that military 

officers were not only honest and capable administrators, but were also 

well acquainted with the Indian character. Most important, placing 

Indian affairs under the War Department would cut through the bureaucratic mess that entangled the management of Indian affairs and guarantee the full coordination of the political and military aspects of pacification, something the Army believed was desperately needed.43

The Indian Bureau and its supporters among Eastern philanthropists did not agree. Playing upon the nation’s traditional antimilitarism, 
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79

the bureau’s defenders argued that military men had neither the skills 

nor the proper mindset to be entrusted with bringing civilization to the 

Indians. “Will you send professional soldiers, sword in one hand, musket in the other, and tactics on the brain, to teach the wards of the nation 

agriculture, the mechanical arts, theology, and peace?” queried the 

commissioner of Indian affairs. The debate coursed through Washington 

for years, but in the end the bureau won the argument.44

The fact that the military’s influence over federal Indian policy was 

distinctly limited did not deter officers from paying serious attention to 

the subject and, when opportunity presented itself, of doing something 

about it. Leading frontier commanders, including Generals Miles, 

Gibbon, Pope, Howard, and Crook, wrote insightful commentaries on 

Indian affairs that were widely distributed in the form of reports, books, 

and journal articles. Although each officer approached the Indian question slightly differently, several themes dominated the Army’s approach 

to the problem.

Most officers began their analysis from the premise that force was 

the sine qua non of Indian pacification. This view stemmed less from 

vindictiveness than acceptance of the brutal fact that government 

policy ultimately entailed the destruction of the Indians’ traditional 

way of life, something many Native Americans were unwilling to 

accept without a fight. Before any progress could be made, reasoned 

Army leaders, it would first be necessary to break the Indians’ will to 

resist. Many officers believed that it would be more effective, more 

humane, and more forthright simply to conquer the Indians outright 

and compel their compliance than to draw the process out through a 

series of misguided concessions, broken treaties, and desultory warfare, all of which created a tremendous amount of suffering and 

expense without changing the result.45

Conquest, however, was only the beginning of the Army’s prescription for pacification. Most officers who wrote on the Indian question 

believed that the Indians’ acculturation would be a long and gradual 

process. Cultures were complex entities that took centuries to evolve, 

wrote Lt. Col. Elwell S. Otis in his 1878 book, The Indian Question, 

and it would be naive to expect that the Indians would be able to make 

the transition into the “white man’s” world overnight. General Gibbon 

agreed. Like many academics of his day, he maintained that human 

progress was evolutionary in nature and that there were several welldefined stages through which all human societies had to pass before 

they could progress to the next level of development. These stages were 

defined by the way man obtained his sustenance, beginning with primitive hunter-gatherers and gradually moving up the evolutionary scale 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

80

to include herders, farmers, and finally, modern agriculturists and 

industrialists. If the Indians were going to be assimilated into modern 

American culture, they would first have to progress through the intermediary stages of development. Any attempt to skip a stage and propel 

them into sedentary forms of agriculture and industry before they had 

had a chance to develop the social and cultural infrastructure necessary 

to sustain that level of development would, in Gibbon’s opinion, be 

doomed to failure.46

The nomadic tribes of the Great Plains were a case in point. For 

years the Indian Bureau had tried to turn them into farmers without 

success. Nor would it succeed, Gibbon argued, because the Indians 

were unready for that stage of development. Most of the Plains tribes 

were still in the hunter-gatherer stage, and thus their most natural 

course of development was to become herders, not farmers. General 

Pope, the commander of the Department of the Missouri, concurred in 

this assessment, and during the mid-1870s he put the pastoral theory to 

the test by authorizing Colonel Mackenzie to use the proceeds from the 

sale of captured Indian ponies to purchase cattle and sheep for the 

Kiowa and Comanche Indians at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The tribesmen 

did not take to shepherding, nor did they like the taste of mutton, but 

the cattle program was a great success, thereby vindicating, at least in 

part, the pastoralist approach.47

Treating each tribe according to its particular level of cultural 

development was only one of the theories espoused by Army officers 

concerning Indian pacification. Some officers believed that acculturation could best be achieved by organizing the nomadic Plains tribes into 

military colonies similar to the cossacks of Russia. Each “colony” 

would be under the control of an officer and would supply the army 

with a steady source of irregular auxiliaries. Over time, the Army 

would gradually introduce the “colonists” to a more civilized and sedentary lifestyle, thereby achieving acculturation in a practical and less 

culturally disruptive way than the government’s usual methods. The 

idea had merit but was never implemented, largely because Eastern 

philanthropists were appalled by the thought of building the road to 

civilization upon a foundation of military virtues.48

The demise of the cossack idea did not prevent the Army from 

endeavoring to promote assimilation through military service, at first in 

a limited way through the Indian scouts, and later more directly through 

the establishment of companies of Indian soldiers. In 1891 Secretary of 

War Redfield Proctor and Commanding General John Schofield added 

a company of Indian soldiers to fourteen of the Army’s thirty-five regiments as an experiment in using the Army as a school for the assimila-
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81

An Indian company practices saber exercises.

tion of the American Indian. In addition to introducing the Indians to a 

good dose of discipline, the Army provided its native soldiery with 

classes in English and some civilian job training as well. The experiment lasted until 1897, when the Army, unable to recruit enough 

Indians to keep the program alive, disbanded the last company of regular Indian soldiers. Ultimately, the experiment failed because the 

Indians found formal Army life unappealing and incongruous with their 

traditional cultural values.49

Another concept espoused by the Army was the replacement of 

trading posts with government-operated trading houses. Trading posts 

were privately owned commercial institutions established under government license. They acted as the primary means of economic 

exchange between the two societies. They were established under the 

theory that honest trade would not only foster good relations, but also 

expose the Indians to Western goods and methods in such a way as to 

further eventual assimilation. In reality, private stores cheated Indians 

and acted as focal points for friction between the two races. By operating the trading posts itself, as the War Department had done under the 

old factory system, the government would ensure that the Indians were 

treated fairly. Moreover, it would also gain greater control over the flow 
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82

of arms and alcohol onto the reservations, thereby transforming the 

posts from flash points into centers of honest commerce and “civilization.” Unfortunately, the Indian Bureau and the civilian contractors 

who owned the trading posts blocked this suggestion.50

Whereas cattle ranches, Indian soldiers, and government trading 

houses were some of the unique methods Army officers proposed to 

facilitate assimilation, military officers recognized that such measures 

were only stations along the road to civilization. They agreed with 

civilian philanthropists that land and education were the ultimate solutions to the Indian question. In the estimation of many officers, the 

private ownership of agricultural land would not only provide the 

Indians with an economic base, but would also foster a spirit of individualism that would help break down the old tribal institutions that 

officers regarded as obstacles to the integration of Native Americans 

into white culture. Likewise, officers placed great faith in the notion 

that education would solve many of the Indians’ problems by driving 

out ignorance and opening the gates to the intellectual and material 

bounty of Western civilization. In this, the Army’s approach to pacification was quintessentially American, for individualism, education, and 

the ownership of private property were the sacred tenets of the 

American creed. Nothing could have been more Jeffersonian than 

advocating that the Indians be transformed into a community of small 

farmers, the spiritual bedrock of American democracy.51

The Army’s limited role in the formulation of Indian policy prevented it from having much of an impact upon the course of Indian 

pacification. Nevertheless, officers endeavored to put their ideas into 

practice whenever they had the opportunity to do so. Schofield’s 

attempt at using the Army as a socializing agent and Pope’s and 

Mackenzie’s introduction of cattle ranching to the Comanches were 

only some of the ways the Army dabbled in this area. During the 1860s 

Brig. Gen. James H. Carlton established a military-controlled reservation at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico, to protect the Navajos from 

persecution by their white neighbors. General Howard, the former 

director of the Army’s Freedmen’s Bureau, played a similar role keeping the peace with the Apaches ten years later. So, too, did many other 

officers who, during the Army’s many years on the frontier, performed 

their constabulary duties as humanely and fairly as possible. Capt. 

Adna R. Chaffee, one of the Army’s toughest Indian fighters, campaigned just as hard for the Indians while serving as an Indian agent in 

1879–1880 as he had against them in the field, moving aggressively to 

stamp out corruption on the reservation and improve the Indians’ irrigation system. Another veteran campaigner, Capt. Frank D. Baldwin, 
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

83

was no less vigorous in defending Indian rights while serving as an 

Indian agent between 1894–1898, while 1st Lt. Richard H. Pratt established a major school for Indians at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. 

But perhaps the best example of the Army’s approach to the Indian 

question was General Crook’s pacification of the Apaches during two 

tours as commander of the Department of Arizona, in 1871–1875 and 

1882–1886.52

Crook enjoyed one significant advantage that was the envy of 

many of his fellow officers. Due to the seriousness of the Apache problem, he was able to persuade the government to give him extended 

control over several reservations during his tours as departmental commander. This enabled him to implement a more unified civil and military pacification effort than was normally possible in view of the incessant infighting between the War Department and the Indian Bureau.

Like his fellow officers, Crook regarded pacification as a two-stage 

process. The first was to break the Apaches. The second, beginning 

while the first was still in progress, was to remold them gradually in the 

white man’s image. He approached the first stage in much the same 

way as he had undertaken the pacification of West Virginia during the 

Civil War. In Arizona, as in West Virginia, he spent a considerable 

amount of time familiarizing himself with the land and the temper of its 

inhabitants. Having acclimated himself and his troops, he launched a 

relentless campaign, in which small, mobile columns adopted the guerrillas’ own tactics of surprise and ambush. Crook took a hard line 

toward his irregular opponents and the population that supported them, 

putting their property and foodstuffs to the torch just as readily as he 

had when his adversaries had been secessionists.53

Yet Crook recognized that pacification entailed more than just 

bloodshed, and he skillfully wove political measures into his Apache 

campaigns. Like American commanders during the Mexican and Civil 

Wars, he began his operations with promises of good treatment for 

those who acquiesced to his rule and of stiff penalties for those who did 

not. He also followed Mexican and Civil War precedents by ordering 

his soldiers to conduct themselves in a manner that would enhance his 

pacification efforts. He directed his subordinates to redress Indian 

grievances, to treat Indian prisoners well, and to avoid killing women 

and children whenever possible.54

Crook extended his control over the Apache in a variety of ways. 

He met all the key tribal leaders and endeavored to persuade them to 

help maintain order. He made extensive use of spies, whom he termed 

“confidential Indians” and “secret service scouts” and through whom 

he monitored the pulse and temper of the tribe. When crimes were com-
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84

An officer of the 10th Cavalry supervises Apache laborers digging an irrigation canal at the San Carlos Indian Agency, Arizona, in 1886.

mitted, he employed Indian scouts and policemen to apprehend the 

criminals and Indian juries to convict them, thereby further integrating 

the Indians into his system of control, as well as introducing them to 

concepts of American jurisprudence. He supplemented this system by 

issuing all Apache males metal identification tags and introducing a 

program of daily roll calls through which he was able to verify the 

identity and location of every warrior.55

Through all that he did, Crook endeavored to promote the disintegration of tribal bonds and loyalties. He adopted a divide-and-conquer 

strategy, employing Indian collaborators to infiltrate hostile bands to 

persuade at least a portion of the people to surrender. This, reported 

Crook, “at once divided the hostiles into two parties and broke up the 

band. The fact that this had been effected through the personal efforts 

of their own people, had an effect not only of a peculiarly demoralizing 

nature upon the hostiles, but also upon all others of the tribe, and rendered their subsequent management anywhere, an easy matter.”56

Having divided the Indians, Crook sent Indian scouts to conquer the 
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

85

still recalcitrant factions, noting that the employment of scouts was 

“not merely a question of catching them better with Indians, but of a 

broader and more enduring aim—their disintegration.”57

While Crook busied himself with subjugating the Apaches, he did 

not neglect the second phase of his pacification program, for he recognized that the “most permanent and satisfactory way” of resolving the 

Apache problem was “to raise and elevate the condition of the Indian 

himself.” During his years in Apacheria, Crook governed the tribesmen 

with a paternalistic blend of firmness, fairness, patience, and tact. The 

single most important element of his program was that of compensated 

labor. Crook put the Indians to work building irrigation canals and 

planting crops. Work projects of this nature not only kept what would 

otherwise have been idle and potentially mischievous hands busy, but 

also set the Apaches on the road toward “civilization.” He reinforced 

these endeavors by establishing a complementary economic relationship between the Indians and the Army, paying the tribesmen to raise 

hay and cattle, which the Army then purchased for its own use. In this 

manner, he sought to demonstrate to the Apaches in an immediate and 

materialistic way the advantages of cooperation. He supplemented his 

economic program by establishing educational institutions on the reservations, hoping that, as the Apaches gained in prosperity and knowledge, they would gradually cast off their “primitive” tribalism and 

assimilate into mainstream American culture.58

Crook achieved much during his two tours in Arizona, but like 

most of the Army’s other ventures into the political aspects of Indian 

pacification, the long-term effects were limited. The problems were too 

great, and the Army’s control over the reservations too brief to make a 

significant impact on the course of the government’s Indian program. 

Besides, while Army officers may have had a more realistic understanding of the Indian situation than many Eastern philanthropists, their 

approaches were stained by the same virulent ethnocentrism that weakened the government’s Indian policy as a whole. Nevertheless, the 

Army’s long experience in wrestling with the Indian question endowed 

it with an important legacy, a loose body of principles, assumptions, 

and beliefs concerning the pacification of “less developed” peoples. 

Included among these were the necessity of close civil-military coordination of a pacification campaign (preferably under military control), 

the establishment of a firm-but-fair paternalistic government, and the 

introduction of economic and educational reforms to uplift a benighted 

people. These principles would guide the actions of Army officers 

when the nation asked them to shoulder the “white man’s burden” once 

again, in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.
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The New Professionalism and the Legacy of the 

Constabulary Army

By the time Crook stepped down as commander of the Department 

of Arizona in 1886 the Indian wars were virtually over. The Army continued to perform constabulary duties in the West for the remainder of 

the century, arresting criminals, evicting white squatters and rum runners from Indian lands, and quelling an occasional small uprising. Yet 

the days of the old constabulary Army were clearly numbered. The 

nation and the world were changing, and astute Army officers recognized that the Army would have to change with them if it was to survive 

the pacification of the frontier.

Many officers believed that the Army’s long spell of constabulary 

service had rendered it ineffective as a conventional military force. As 

reform advocate 1st Lt. John Bigelow explained, an army’s true function was to prepare for war.

Other work than waging war may incidentally devolve upon an Army without 

derogating from its efficiency, but when other work is its only work, and the 

only one for which it is fitted, the so-called Army is but a police force. 

Preserving the peace is not preparing for war, and to prepare for war should in 

time of peace, be the constant effort of our Army.59

The increasing scope and complexity of modern, conventional warfare 

made it imperative, reformers argued, that the American officer corps 

become a truly professional body dedicated to the study and practice 

of the science of war. To achieve this end, the Army’s “young Turks” 

instituted a host of reforms during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, all of which were designed to make the Army a more 

effective, modern, and thoroughly professional institution. They published professional journals to promote the study of war, pushed 

through reforms in Army administration, and introduced more realistic 

and comprehensive troop-training programs. Finally, they established 

educational institutions to indoctrinate the officer corps in the new 

military intellectualism. The most important of these academies was 

the School of Application for Infantry and Cavalry at Fort Leavenworth, 

a school, in the words of one officer, “whose teachings were turning 

the army away from a mere Indian police force to its true function, the 

art of war.”60

Indian warfare received little consideration in all this. It was, after 

all, a dying mission. Nor did broader questions of irregular warfare and 

pacification receive much attention. Both were out of the conventional 

mainstream. Moreover, the new professional ethos appeared in the 
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

87

minds of many officers to leave little room for such subjects. In elevating officership to the status of a profession, many officers insisted that 

they must devote themselves exclusively to purely military subjects to 

the exclusion of all others, especially those tainted by politics.61

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to conclude that the conventional thrust of the professionalism movement led the Army to ignore 

the lessons of its constabulary past or rendered it unfit for the conduct 

of future irregular operations. The Army was the “child of the frontier,” 

and like a child grown to adulthood, its experiences during its formative years lingered on to shape some of its most basic attitudes and 

philosophies. The “old Army” bequeathed to its turn-of-the-century 

heir a deep appreciation for the value of mobility; a rich heritage of 

small-unit leadership that stressed self-reliance; aggressive, independent action and open order tactics; a near obsession with individual 

marksmanship that at times approached the status of a cult; and a force 

structure unusually strong in cavalry. Even the push that emerged during the 1880s and 1890s to improve the level of training of the individual soldier, while clearly oriented toward the conventional battlefield, owed a heavy debt to the frontier experience.62

Although the thrust of the reform movement was incontrovertibly 

toward conventional warfare, there were a few officers who applied the 

tools of the new professionalism to preserve and consolidate the lessons 

of the Army’s constabulary past and to study less conventional subjects. 

During the 1880s officers like Farrow and Clark published useful frontier manuals, while the Army’s new professional journals printed a 

variety of articles recounting Indian campaigns, explaining frontier 

fieldcraft, and debating Indian policy.

Yet, the writings of individual officers were not the only way in 

which the Army distilled and passed on its frontier experiences. 

General Miles’ 1887 counterguerrilla maneuvers were one example of 

how commanders occasionally applied progressive techniques—in this 

case realistic field exercises—for the purpose of improving the Army’s 

unconventional warfare skills. Another medium was the Army’s grassroots educational institution, the post lyceum. During the late nineteenth century the Army encouraged post commanders to establish 

lyceums for the purpose of furthering the educational and professional 

development of their junior officers. The lyceums became forums in 

which officers applied the new tools of the professionalization movement—map exercises, colloquia, and group study sessions—to analyze 

military problems. Although conventional warfare topics naturally 

dominated lyceum discussions, participants also examined subjects 

pertaining to the frontier. 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

88

During the winter of 1897–1898, for example, 1st Lt. J. Franklin 

Bell, a future chief of staff of the Army, led the lyceum at Fort Apache, 

Arizona, in considering problems in Indian warfare. Bell crafted the 

problems to reflect the type of situation that troops at Fort Apache 

would most likely face should they be called upon in an Indian emergency. The scenarios postulated that a band of reservation Indians had 

rustled some cattle from a nearby rancher and refused to make reparations, causing a confrontation which neither the Indian police nor the 

scouts were capable of resolving. Bell required that, in solving the 

problems, the officers not only formulate military plans, but also outline how they would attempt to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the 

situation before resorting to force.63

The lyceum at Fort Grant, Arizona, adopted a similar approach. 

During 1896–1900 it featured discussions of such frontier-related topics as the conduct of convoys, outpost duty, Indian scouting, and a 

“Historical Sketch of Indian Warfare,” the latter presented by a veteran 

Indian campaigner, Col. E. V. Sumner. The officers at Fort Grant also 

undertook problems relating to the administration of Indian scouts, the 

transfer of government supplies to Indian reservations, and the protection of reservations from white encroachment.64

Frontier lyceums studied constabulary-related subjects up to the 

end of the century because those subjects were still relevant to the missions of the posts concerned. The Army’s institutions of higher learning, such as the School of Application for Infantry and Cavalry, concerned themselves with more universal subjects and were less likely to 

devote much attention to constabulary matters. Nevertheless, even 

Leavenworth was not entirely oblivious to the subject of irregular 

warfare. In fact, in 1897 the school conducted three counterguerrilla 

field exercises. One revolved around the protection of a convoy 

against partisan attack, another considered the defense of a rail line 

from raids by partisan cavalry and guerrillas, while a third involved a 

battalion-size sweep to root out forty partisans hidden in a forest. (The 

last proved to be somewhat of a disappointment, as half of the “partisans” escaped the dragnet.)65

Nor was the rest of Leavenworth’s conventionally oriented curriculum necessarily irrelevant to irregular warfare concerns. Although the 

school eventually evolved into an institution dedicated to the higher arts 

of war and staff duty, during its first two decades Leavenworth’s curriculum consisted largely of instruction in small-unit tactics and “minor 

operations,” much of which was equally applicable to conventional and 

unconventional warfare. So too were some of the principles taught at the 

School of Application. Arthur Wagner, a veteran of several Indian 
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

89

campaigns and one of Leavenworth’s top instructors during 1886–1898, 

emphasized to his students, as Mahan had done years before, that good 

soldiers adapted conventional tactics to the terrain and the nature of 

their opponents. The Army’s educational system focused upon conventional warfare, he explained, because this was the type of warfare that 

it believed was both the most dangerous and the most likely for the 

future. But the “normal formations” prescribed by the Army were 

intended only to provide its officers with a common base from which 

they would be expected to develop their own, situation-specific solutions. This was a lesson that officers could apply with profit to all forms 

of warfare.66

Wagner wrote two major textbooks during his tenure at Fort 

Leavenworth: The Service of Security and Information, first published 

in 1893, and Organization and Tactics, which came out the following 

year. Neither volume discussed irregular warfare in any depth. 

Organization and Tactics confined its discussion of irregular warfare 

to a review of the role of partisan cavalry during the Civil War. The 

Service of Security and Information, on the other hand, covered subjects like reconnaissance, patrol, and security, all of which had been of 

prime importance to the Army during its long service on the frontier. 

Wagner pointed out to his readers that “many of the features of the 

service of security and information are common to both hemispheres 

and to all armed forces, whether savage hordes or highly organized 

armies.” He also included a chapter on Indian scouting, in which he 

described native techniques, as well as the typical methods employed 

by a company of Indian scouts. Wagner’s message was that the 

Indians’ skill in reconnaissance was a learned rather than innate quality, and that, with proper training, American soldiers could emulate 

Indian methods and apply them with equal faculty in both conventional and unconventional settings.67

Another textbook that combined the new professionalism with the 

best lessons of the nation’s irregular warfare experiences was Capt. 

John Bigelow’s The Principles of Strategy (1894). Bigelow, a frontier 

veteran and West Point instructor, discussed the nature of Indian warfare and recounted some of the stratagems commonly employed by the 

Army, including night marches and surprise attacks. He also included a 

discussion of the most suitable march and combat formations for 

irregular warfare, echoing Miles’ dictum that the proper march formation for irregular operations provide four things: all-round security, 

efficiency of command and administration, mutual support, and celerity of movement. Bigelow believed that some form of square formation 

best met these criteria. Miles had employed a square against the Sioux 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

90

in 1876, and Bigelow explained how the 7th U.S. Cavalry routinely 

marched in a loose, rectangular formation that provided all-round security while in Indian country. He further described how both the French 

and British had employed squares as march and combat formations 

against irregular opponents in Africa. Although squares of this nature 

were clearly obsolete in modern warfare, Bigelow included them as 

examples of old ideas that were still of great utility in waging small 

wars against poorly armed, but highly mobile and impetuous, natives.68

In recounting the Army’s experience on the frontier, Bigelow 

outlined the three most common approaches to countering Indians: 

chasing them, surprising them, and wearing them down. “What 

decides the campaign . . .,” he concluded, “is not so much [the 

Indians’] physical exhaustion from long marches or scanty nourishment as their mental weariness from constant watching and devising 

and planning, and their final despair of ever thoroughly resting or 

returning to wives, children, and sweethearts, unless it be as prisoners.” He offered as an example of this principle Miles’ campaign 

against Geronimo, in which the Army wore the renegades down by 

combining a relentless pursuit with the “novel stratagem” of removing the Chiricahua population from the zone of operations, denying 

Geronimo a base of moral and logistical support.69

Bigelow heartily endorsed the “hard war” policies that Generals 

Sherman and Sheridan had adopted against Southern insurrectionists 

and Indians alike. He approved of Sheridan’s destruction of the 

Shenandoah and Loudoun valleys to root out guerrillas and deny the 

rebels access to vital supplies, just as he approved of Miles’ scheme of 

population removal. Enemy civilians were a decisive objective in warfare, Bigelow maintained, and therefore armies were entitled to deprive 

them of their rights, privileges, comforts, and even sustenance for the 

purpose of breaking their will to resist. He also recommended that commanders create dissension among the enemy population and exploit the 

resulting division by recruiting disaffected elements as auxiliaries, just 

as Crook had done in Apacheria.70

Coercion was a tricky instrument, however, and Bigelow cautioned 

officers to use it carefully. Should a people be willing to endure hardship, the application of pressure might only embitter them and stiffen, 

rather than weaken, their resistance. Consequently, he concluded that 

inflicting inadequate suffering was a cruel mistake. On the other hand, 

he recognized that public opinion, national and international law, and 

the personal scruples of the commander would affect the degree to 

which the Army could chastise a hostile population. Moreover, he conceded that to be effective a pacification campaign must include at least 
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

91

some positive inducements, for “the maintenance of military despotism 

in the rear of an invading army must generally prove a waste of manpower.” He therefore concluded that no hard and fast rules were possible, 

and that officers must govern their pacification campaigns largely by 

their judgment of the particular situation, the temper and nature of the 

population, and the climate of opinion both at home and abroad.71

Bigelow ended his consideration of irregular warfare and pacification by examining Britain’s operations in the Southern colonies during 

the American Revolution as a case study of a counterinsurgency campaign. He derived two principal conclusions from this study. First, an 

occupying army should not expect to receive much assistance from the 

population unless it can clearly demonstrate an ability to protect the 

people from guerrilla intimidation; and second, relatively undisciplined 

units of militia and partisans posed a serious threat to regular armies. 

Partisans, he warned, had become more dangerous since the American 

Revolution due to advances in weapons technology and explosives. He 

stressed the importance of march security to protect columns from 

“bushwhackers,” and recounted with approval how the Army had combined blockhouse lines and rapid repair techniques to keep vital railroads open during the Civil War, despite the best efforts of rebel partisans to shut them down.72

The Principles of Strategy was a well-known textbook and is perhaps 

the best example of how Army officers sometimes employed the new 

intellectualism to capture the broad lessons of a half century of irregular 

warfare experience. Through a combination of formal and informal 

methods, the Army managed to preserve some key principles that would 

shape its approach to counterinsurgency situations into the next century. 

These included a general counterguerrilla strategy built upon aggressive 

small-unit action, relentless pursuit, and the destruction of enemy 

resources in an effort to destroy his will to resist. In terms of pacification, 

the Army continued to abide by the twin principles of moderation and 

retaliation laid down by international law and General Orders 100, to 

which were added a philosophy concerning the management of benighted peoples gained from a century of service on the frontier.

Finally, it should be noted that the Army’s approach to pacification 

was also influenced by broader trends in American society as a whole. 

America in the late nineteenth century was becoming a more organized 

and rationalistic society, a society that was increasingly fascinated by 

science and the potential application of its methods to the questions of 

everyday life. Politically, this trend was represented by the Progressive 

movement—a loose confederation of political and social reformers 

who strove to harness the new forces of social organization for the bet-
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

92

terment of society. Central to progressivism was the notion that 

informed and enlightened professionals, be they doctors, engineers, or 

bureaucrats, could improve society from the top down by applying their 

specialized knowledge to create more rational and efficient institutions. 

Army officers shared the Progressive values of their society, and, 

indeed, the military reform movement was itself a part of the Progressive 

impulse, as it attempted to apply rational principles to improve the management and organization of violence. But progressivism had an even 

more profound influence upon the Army’s approach to the nonviolent 

applications of military force. Not only did it endow the officer corps as 

a whole with an underlying philosophy about social organization and 

reform, but it also provided a rationale for those officers who were disposed to taking a more active role in social and political affairs. 

These “Armed Progressives” challenged the traditionally narrow 

conception of officership that espoused a rigid separation of military 

from nonmilitary affairs, maintaining instead that the Army’s expertise in 

human leadership and management made it an ideal instrument for social 

engineering. Reconstruction played virtually no role in the thinking of 

the Army’s new breed of social activists, it being relegated to the position 

of an increasingly dim, if unpleasant, memory. Rather, progressivism’s 

philosophy of government by enlightened experts dovetailed quite nicely 

with the Army’s own brand of firm, yet benevolent, paternalism that it 

had applied on the frontier. As Col. Elwell Otis, the first commandant of 

the School of Application for Infantry and Cavalry and the author of The 

Indian Question, advised the West Point graduating class of 1882: 

Be not deceived and accept the foolish delusion . . . that the soldier’s obligations only begin when summoned to meet a foreign enemy or to put down 

armed resistance which has overthrown civil power. . . . A soldier is now 

expected to exert himself within proper limits to preserve and organize peace. 

He should labor, in unison with the citizen and philanthropist, to impress and 

extend our civilization. So vast is the field of operations of our small army, and 

so scattered are the troops, it is possible, if not extremely probable, that in a 

few short years, whatever may be your age and rank, you may be obliged to 

administer affairs wherein considerable knowledge of civil matters may be 

necessary.73

Otis could not have guessed how right he would be.
93

Notes

1

 Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense (New York: Free 

Press, 1984), p. 248. 2

 James Sefton, The U.S. Army and Reconstruction, 1865–77 (Baton Rouge: 

Louisiana University Press, 1967), p. 9; Robert Coakley, The Role of Federal Military 

Forces in Domestic Disorders, 1789–1878 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, Government Printing Office, 1988), pp. 268–341; Paul Pierce, The 

Freedmen’s Bureau (New York: Haskell, 1971). 3

 Richard Zuczek, “State of Rebellion: People’s War in Reconstruction South 

Carolina, 1865–77” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1993), pp. 534–36. 4

 Sherman quote from Millett and Maslowski, Common Defense, p. 246. Miles quote 

from Nelson Miles, Serving the Republic (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1911), p. 111. 

Harry Pfanz, “Soldiering in the South During the Reconstruction Period, 1865–77” 

(Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1958), pp. 488, 497, 536; Peter DeMontravel, “The 

Career of Lieutenant General Nelson A. Miles From the Civil War Through the Indian 

Wars” (Ph.D. diss., St. Johns University, 1983), pp. 130–31, 134; Edward Coffman, The 

Old Army (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 240; William Ulrich, “The 

Northern Military Mind in Regard to Reconstruction, 1865–72: The Attitude of Ten 

Leading Union Generals” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1959), pp. 207, 365; Joseph 

Dawson, Army Generals and Reconstruction: Louisiana, 1862–77 (Baton Rouge: 

Louisiana State University, 1982), pp. 1, 262; Sefton, Reconstruction, pp. 252–53. 5

 Robert Utley, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866–

1890 (New York: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 3–4; Robert Utley, The Indian Frontier of the 

American West (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984), p. 4. 6

 John Gibbon, “Our Indian Question,” JMSIUS 2 (1881): 117–18; Nelson Miles, 

“Rising From the Ruins of War,” Cosmopolitan 50 (April 1911): 658. Quote from 

Thomas Leonard, Above the Battle: War Making in America From Appomattox to 

Versailles (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 215. 7

 Larry Roberts, “The Artillery With the Regular Army in the West From 1866 to 

1890” (Ph.D. diss., Oklahoma State University, 1981), p. 17; Utley, Frontier Regulars, 

pp. 16–18, 47–48; Raymond Welty, “The Western Army Frontier, 1860–70” (Ph.D. 

diss., University of Iowa, 1924), pp. 33, 77, 102, 122–23, 378–79; Wooster, Indian 

Policy, p. 15; Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue, p. 348; Neil Thompson, Crazy Horse Called 

Them Walk-a-Heaps (St. Cloud, Minn.: North Star Press, 1979), p. 127. 8

 Roberts, “Artillery in the West,” p. 21; Utley, Frontier Regulars, pp. 23–25; 

Coffman, Old Army, p. 371; Albert Brackett, “Our Cavalry: Its Duties, Hardships, and 

Necessities at Our Frontier Posts,” JMSIUS 4 (1883): 397–400; Wesley Merritt, “Some 

Defects in Our Cavalry System,” United Service 1 (October 1879): 559–60; James 

Hutchins, “Mounted Riflemen: The Real Role of Cavalry in the Indian Wars,” in 

Probing the American West, ed. K. Ross Toole (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico 

Press, 1962), pp. 79–85; Ltr, O. O. Howard to Military Division of the Pacific, 19 Jan 

1878, in Joseph Sladen, Service With General Howard, Nez Perce War, Correspondence 

Among Howard, Sheridan, Terry, and Miles, Assessments of the Performance of the 1st 

U.S. Cavalry Regiment, 1877, box 3, Sladen Family Papers, U.S. Army Military 

History Institute (MHI), Carlisle Barracks, Pa.
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

94

9

 Perry Jamieson, Crossing the Deadly Ground: U.S. Army Tactics, 1865–1899

(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994), p. 37; Vetock, Lessons Learned, p. 

24; Griess, “Mahan,” pp. 306–07; Brinsfield, “Military Ethics,” p. 37; Wooster, Indian 

Policy, pp. 56–57; Ambrose, “Mahan,” p. 35; Smith, “West Point and the Indian Wars,” 

Sep 93, pp. 18–22; Mahan, “Composition of Armies,” lithographic text, 1836, pp. 

33–36, Welker Papers. 10 Sheridan, Memoirs, p. 488; Paul Hutton, “General Philip H. Sheridan and the 

Army in the West, 1867–88” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1981), pp. 20, 54, 294; 

Wooster, Indian Policy, p. 127. 11 Quote from Mahan, Out-Post, pp. 166–68. J. B. Wheeler, A Course of Instruction 

in the Elements of the Art and Science of War for the Use of the Cadets of the United 

States Military Academy (New York: Van Nostrand, 1893), pp. 271–80 (see also 1879 

edition); Centennial of the U.S. Military Academy, 2:107, 131; Griess, “Mahan,” pp. 

312–13. 12 Quote from Wooster, Indian Policy, p. 57; Smith, “West Point and the Indian 

Wars,” Sep 93, pp. 11, 14–18. 13 Vattel, Law of Nations, p. 348; Woolsey, International Law, pp. 230–32; George 

B. Davis, The Elements of International Law (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1903), p. 

215; John Schofield, “Notes on ‘The Legitimate in War,’” JMSIUS 2 (1881): 2; Sherry 

Smith, “Civilization’s Guardians: Army Officers’ Reflections on Indians and the Indian 

Wars in the Trans–Mississippi West, 1848–1890” (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 

1984), p. 303; Utley, Frontier Regulars, p. 53; Thomas Dunlay, Wolves for the Blue 

Soldiers (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), pp. 47, 204. 14 Ambrose, “Mahan,” p. 100; Griess, “Mahan,” p. 223; Utley, Frontier Regulars, p. 

420; Swift, “Services of Graduates,” pp. 570, 579; Robert Utley, “The Contribution of 

the Frontier to the American Military Tradition,” in Harmon Memorial Lectures in 

Military History 19 (Boulder, Colo.: U.S. Air Force Academy, 1977), p. 6; Wooster, 

Indian Policy, p. 12. 15 Coffman, Old Army, p. 230; Peter Karsten, “Armed Progressives: The Military 

Reorganizes for the American Century,” in Building the Organizational Society, ed. 

Jerry Israel (New York: Free Press, 1972), p. 217. 16 Quote from Randolph Marcy, The Prairie Traveler, A Hand-book for Overland 

Expeditions (Williamstown, Mass.: Corner House, 1978), pp. xi–xii, and see also editor’s notes, 41–42, 55–57, 64–70, 92, 98, 111, 155, 183, 196–229. 17 Marcy, The Prairie Traveler, pp. 201–05, 224; Randolph Marcy, Thirty Years of 

Army Life on the Border (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1866), pp. 67–71, 77. Quote 

from Dunlay, Wolves for the Blue Soldiers, p. 76. 18 Edward Farrow, Mountain Scouting (New York, 1881), pp. 76, 85–86, 148, 227, 

230, 239, 243–48; W. P. Clark, The Indian Sign Language (Philadelphia: L. R. 

Hamesly, 1885), pp. 5–6; George Crook, “The Apache Problem,” JMSIUS 7 (1886): 

257–69; George Crook, Resume of Operations Against Apache Indians, 1882 to 1886

(Washington, D.C.: War Department, 1886). 19 Stephen Ambrose, Upton and the Army (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University 

Press, 1964), pp. 62–64; Virgil Ney, Evolution of the U.S. Army Field Manual, Valley 

Forge to Vietnam (Combat Operations Research Group, CORG Memorandum 244, 

January 1966), p. 43; William Crites, “The Development of Infantry Tactical Doctrine 

in the U.S. Army, 1865–1898” (Master’s thesis, Duke University, 1968), pp. 29, 34, 89; 

Jamieson, Deadly Ground, p. 44.
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

95

20 Philip St. George Cooke, Cavalry Tactics, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 

1862), 2:67–71; E. Lisle Reedstrom, Apache Wars (New York: Sterling Publishing, 

1990), pp. 148–51; Fred Ward, “Single or Double Rank for Cavalry,” Cavalry Journal

12 (1899): 139; James Parker, “Cavalry in Extended Order Formation,” Cavalry 

Journal 7 (1894): 61. 21 Swift, “Services of Graduates,” p. 526; Williams, The History of American Wars 

From Colonial Times to World War I, pp. 312–15. 22 Weigley, American Way of War, pp. 159–62; Carl Rister, Border Command: 

General Phil Sheridan in the West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1944), pp. 

92–96; Paul Hutton, ed., Soldiers West: Biographies From the Military Frontier

(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), pp. 51, 182–85, 216–19; Utley, Indian 

Frontier, pp. 71, 84, 92; Jamieson, Deadly Ground, pp. 37–38. 23 Hutton, “Sheridan,” pp. 150–52, 344–45, 351; Hutton, Soldiers West, pp. 86–87, 

173, 417, 439; Richard Ellis, General Pope and U.S. Indian Policy (Albuquerque: 

University of New Mexico Press, 1970), p. 240; Thomas Leonard, “The Reluctant 

Conquerors,” American Heritage 27 (August 1976): 35. 24 Utley, Frontier Regulars, p. 285. 25 Dunlay, Wolves for the Blue Soldiers, p. 77; Welty, “Western Army,” pp. 336–37. 26 Dunlay, Wolves for the Blue Soldiers, pp. 2, 11, 44, 50–51, 55–56, 106. 27 Indian thinkers quote from Utley, Frontier Regulars, p. 55. Bigelow quote from 

Dunlay, Wolves for the Blue Soldiers, pp. 93–95. 28 Utley, Frontier Regulars, p. 54; Hutton, “Sheridan,” pp. 423, 532; Crook, 

Autobiography, p. 214; John Bourke, “Crook in Indian Country,” Century Magazine 4 

(March 1891): 657; Dunlay, Wolves for the Blue Soldiers, pp. 11, 24, 46, 61–63, 67; 

Joyce Mason, “The Use of Indian Scouts in the Apache Wars, 1870–86” (Ph.D. diss., 

Indiana University, 1970), p. 359. 29 Brackett, “Our Cavalry,” pp. 385–86; Archibald Forbes, “The U.S. Army,” North 

American Review 135 (1882): 144–45. 30 Crook, Autobiography, p. 213; H. W. Daly, Manual of Pack Transportation

(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1910), pp. 11–12, 17–18; Hugh Scott, 

Some Memories of a Soldier (New York: Century, 1928), pp. 91, 387; Welty, “Western 

Army,” p. 294; Forbes, “U.S. Army,” p. 144; Centennial of the U.S. Military Academy, 

1:400, 403. 31 Marcy, The Prairie Traveler, p. 111; William H. Carter, The Life of Lieutenant 

General Chaffee (Chicago, 1917), pp. 77–78; James Hutchins, Use of Range-Bred 

Horses by the U.S. Cavalry, 11 Mar 61, Guy V. Henry Papers, MHI. 32 G. W. Baird, “General Miles’ Indian Campaigns,” Century Magazine 42 (1891): 

359; Julius Penn, “Mounted Infantry,” JMSIUS 12 (November 1891): 1128, 1136; 

Weigley, Towards an American Army, pp. 69–70; Utley, Frontier Regulars, pp. 12, 

16–17. 33 Hutton, Soldiers West, pp. 50, 182–83, 185, 218–19; Crook, Autobiography, pp. 

38, 46, 48, 177; Clarence Clendenen, Blood on the Border: The U.S. Army and the 

Mexican Irregulars (London: Macmillan, 1969), p. 68; Alice Baldwin, Memoirs of the 

Late Frank D. Baldwin, Major General, U.S. Army (Los Angeles, 1929), p. 92; John 

Bigelow, The Principles of Strategy, Illustrated Mainly From American Campaigns

(New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), pp. 103–04. 34 John Bourke, “Crook in Indian Country,” p. 656; Smith, “Civilization’s 

Guardians,” pp. 149, 181; Wooster, Indian Policy, p. 38; Russell Gilmore, “‘The New 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

96

Courage’: Rifles and Soldier Individualism, 1876–1918,” Military Affairs 40 (October 

1976): 98–99; Edward Coffman, “Army Life on the Frontier, 1865–98,” Military 

Affairs 20 (Winter 1956): 197; Welty, “Western Army,” p. 327; Rister, Border 

Command, p. 96; Clendenen, Blood on the Border, pp. 66–67. 35 Miles, Serving the Republic, pp. 141, 143, 221; DeMontravel, “Nelson A. Miles,” 

p. 199; Donald Smythe, Guerrilla Warrior: The Early Life of J.J. Pershing (New York: 

Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973), p. 16; War Department, War Department Annual 

Report, 1888 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1888), 1:125–27; 

George MacAdam, “The Life of General Pershing,” Worlds Work 37 (January 1919): 

291–92. 36 Thomas Crittenden, “Marches,” JMSIUS 1 (1879): 37–38; Brackett, “Our 

Cavalry,” p. 395; Hutton, Soldiers West, pp. 62, 65. 37 Crook, Resume of Operations, p. 21; Utley, Frontier Regulars, pp. 397, 402; 

DeMontravel, “Nelson A. Miles,” pp. 307–14. 38 Utley, Frontier Regulars, p. 178. 39 Felix Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law (Washington, D.C.: Department of 

the Interior, 1945), pp. viii–xi, 34, 40–41, 66–67, 94, 153–55, 170; Wilcomb E. 

Washburn, Red Man’s Land—White Man’s Law: A Study of the Past and Present Status 

of the American Indian (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), pp. 53–59, 73, 79, 

173, 182; Utley, Frontier Regulars, pp. 7–8. 40 War Department, Quartermaster General’s Office, Outline Description of U.S. 

Military Posts and Stations in the Year 1871 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing 

Office, 1872), pp. 194–95; Utley, Frontier Regulars, pp. 141, 197; Wooster, Indian 

Policy, p. 145; Hutton, Soldiers West, p. 237; Smythe, Guerrilla Warrior, p. 24; Smith, 

“Civilization’s Guardians,” p. 181. 41 Ellis, General Pope, p. 240; Leonard, “Reluctant Conquerors,” p. 35; Hutton, 

Soldiers West, pp. 86–87; Hutton, “Sheridan,” pp. 150–52, 344, 351. 42 Wooster, Indian Policy, p. 39; Raymond Welty, “The Indian Policy of the Army, 

1860–70,” Cavalry Journal 36 (July 1927): 374; Welty, “Western Army,” pp. 127–28, 

155; Ellis, General Pope, p. 233. 43 Swift, “Services of Graduates,” p. 572; Welty, “Indian Policy,” p. 375; 

DeMontravel, “Nelson A. Miles,” p. 356; Smith, “Civilization’s Guardians,” pp. 283, 

291, 295–96; Ellis, General Pope, pp. 33, 38, 39–46, 199–201; Gibbon, “Our Indian 

Question,” p. 117. 44 Wooster, Indian Policy, pp. 81–82. Quote from Richard Ellis, “The Humanitarian 

Generals,” Western Historical Quarterly 3 (April 1972): 170. 45 Welty, “Indian Policy,” p. 371; Marcy, The Prairie Traveler, p. 211; Utley, 

Frontier Regulars, p. 201; Brinsfield, “Military Ethics,” p. 40; Dunlay, Wolves for the 

Blue Soldiers, p. 83; Sheridan, Memoirs, pp. 115–16; Baldwin, Memoirs of Frank 

Baldwin, p. 94; DeMontravel, “Nelson A. Miles,” pp. 190–91, 248, 324; Scott, 

Memories, pp. 112–20; Hutton, Soldiers West, pp. 119, 197, 387; Nelson Miles, “My 

First Fights on the Plains,” Cosmopolitan 50 (May 1911): 801–02. 46 Elwell Otis, The Indian Question (New York, 1878), p. 222; Gibbon, “Our Indian 

Question,” pp. 113, 115; Miles, Serving the Republic, pp. 197, 202–06; Nelson Miles, 

“Our Indian Question,” JMSIUS 2 (1881): 285; Ellis, General Pope, p. 234. 47 Hutton, Soldiers West, p. 184; Ellis, “Humanitarian Generals,” pp. 176–77. 48 Dunlay, Wolves for the Blue Soldiers, pp. 191–92; H. C. Cushing, “Military 

Colonization of the Indians,” United Service (September 1880): 370–75.
The Constabulary Years, 1865–1898

97

49 Michael Tate, “Soldiers of the Line, Apache Companies in the U.S. Army, 1891–

97,” Arizona and the West 16 (Winter 1974): 343–64; W. Bruce White, “The American 

Indian as Soldier, 1890–1919,” Canadian Review of American Studies 7 (Spring 1976): 

15–23. 50 Welty, “Indian Policy,” p. 375.

51 Otis, Indian Question, pp. 158, 196–97, 257–58, 266–67, 270–77; Crook, 

Autobiography, p. 229; Miles, Serving the Republic, pp. 200–206; Gibbon, “Our Indian 

Question,” pp. 113–15; C. E. Wood, “Our Indian Question,” JMSIUS 2 (1881): 149–53; 

H. O. P., “Dodge’s ‘Our Wild Indians,’” JMSIUS 3 (1882): 287; John Carpenter, Sword 

and Olive Branch: Oliver Otis Howard (Pittsburgh, 1964), pp. 267–68; Richard Pratt, 

“Violated Principles, The Cause of Failure in Indian Civilization,” JMSIUS 7 (1886): 

46–60. 52 Gerald Thompson, The Army and the Navajo: The Bosque Redondo Reservation 

Experiment, 1863–68 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976), pp. ix–x, 158–65; 

Paul Wellman, Death in the Desert (New York: Macmillan, 1935), p. 94; Carter, 

Chaffee, pp. 66, 84–89; Hutton, Soldiers West, pp. 231, 233, 237–38; Oliver Howard, 

My Life and Experiences Among Our Hostile Indians (Hartford, Conn., 1907), pp. 

186–225; Ernest Wallace, Ranald S. Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier (College Station: 

Texas A&M University Press, 1993), pp. 170–71. 53 Utley, Frontier Regulars, p. 387; Smith, “Civilization’s Guardians,” p. 293; Hutton, 

Soldiers West, p. 119; Crook, Autobiography, p. 181; Donald Rattan, “Counterguerrilla 

Operations: A Case Study,” in U.S. Army Office of Chief of Information, Special 

Warfare, U.S. Army (U.S. Army, 1962), pp. 47–49; John Gates, “General George Crook’s 

First Apache Campaign,” Journal of the West 6 (April 1967): 310–18. 54 John Bourke, On the Border With Crook (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 

1971), pp. 142–43; Crook, Resume of Operations, p. 2. Crook employed a similar 

approach during the Sioux campaign of 1876. See John Bourke, “Mackenzie’s Last 

Fight With the Cheyennes: A Winter Campaign in Wyoming and Montana,” JMSIUS

11 (1890): 29–49. 55 Crook, Resume of Operations, pp. 4–5; Wesley Merritt, Merritt and the Indian 

Wars (London, 1972), p. 19; Bourke, On the Border, pp. 213, 219. 56 Crook, Resume of Operations, p. 9. 57 Quote from Utley, “Contribution of the Frontier,” p. 7; Crook, Autobiography, pp. 

213–14; Crook, “Apache Problem,” p. 267. 58 Quote from Crook, Resume of Operations, p. 2. Crook, “Apache Problem,” pp. 

267–68; Utley, Frontier Regulars, p. 388; Bourke, On the Border, pp. 213–18, 225–29; 

Crook, Autobiography, p. 229. 59 Quote from Brackett, “Our Cavalry,” p. 406. Ambrose, Upton, p. 106. 60 Allan Millett, The General, Robert L. Bullard and Officership in the U.S. Army, 

1881–1925 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1975), p. 75. 61 Millett and Maslowski, Common Defense, pp. 255–58; Weigley, Towards an 

American Army, pp. 272–92. 62 Russell Weigley, “The Long Death of the Indian-Fighting Army,” in Soldiers and 

Civilians: The U.S. Army and the American People, ed. Garry Ryan and Timothy 

Nenninger (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1987), 

pp. 27–37; Samuel Huntington, “Equilibrium and Disequilibrium in American Military 

Policy,” Political Science Quarterly 76 (December 1961): 490; Thompson, Crazy 

Horse, pp. 123–24; Gilmore, “New Courage,” pp. 98–99.
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

98

63 George Rodney, “Shall Subordinate Officers Learn the Business of Generals?” 

Cavalry Journal 15 (1905): 538, 542. 64 Records of the Officers Lyceum, 1896–1902, Records of the U.S. Army 

Continental Commands, pt. 5, Fort Grant, Arizona, Record Group (RG) 393, National 

Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington, D.C. 65 U.S. Infantry and Cavalry School, Annual Report, June 30, 1897, app. B, 

Department of the Military Art, Exercise 3 (pp. 18, 19, 29); Exercise 5 (p. 24); and 

Exercise 6 (p. 28). 66 Timothy Nenninger, The Leavenworth Schools and the Old Army (Westport, 

Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978), pp. 1, 25–26, 30–31, 36, 43, 87, 92; Arthur Wagner, 

Organization and Tactics (Kansas City: Franklin Hudson Publishing Company, 1906), 

pp. vii–viii. 67 Quote from Arthur Wagner, The Service of Security and Information (Kansas City: 

Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Company, 1903), preface to 1893 edition, and see also 

pp. 242–48. 68 Bigelow, The Principles of Strategy, pp. 21–26, 82, 103–04, 139, 149; Miles, 

Serving the Republic, p. 151; DeMontravel, “Nelson A. Miles,” p. 159. 69 Bigelow, The Principles of Strategy, pp. 149–51. 70 Ibid., pp. 228, 232–33.

71 Quote from John Gates, Schoolbooks and Krags (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood 

Press, 1973), pp. 83–84. Bigelow, The Principles of Strategy, pp. 228, 232–33. 72 Bigelow, The Principles of Strategy, pp. 31, 114–15, 119, 257–58. 73 Quote from Heath Twichell, Allen: The Biography of an Army Officer, 1859–1930

(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1974), p. 24. Jack Lane, Armed 

Progressive: General Leonard Wood (San Rafael, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1978); John 

Gates, “The Alleged Isolation of U.S. Army Officers in the Late Nineteenth Century,” 

Parameters 10 (September 1980): 32–45; Howard Gillette, “The Military Occupation 

of Cuba, 1899–1902: Workshop for American Progressivism,” American Quarterly 25 

(1973): 410–25.
99

4

Cuba and the Philippines

1898–1902

In October 1898 the 3d U.S. and 14th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry 

regiments suppressed a minor Indian uprising at Leech Lake, Minnesota. 

Government forces suffered twenty casualties during this constabulary 

operation, yet the event passed largely unnoticed. Six months earlier 

the United States had gone to war with Spain, and the nation’s attention 

was riveted to the process of carving out new empires rather than policing old ones. In a “splendid little war” of only eight months duration, 

the United States successfully invaded Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the 

Philippines, although by the time peace was declared in December 

1898, it controlled only small portions of those islands. In the treaty of 

Paris, Spain ceded to the United States the islands of Guam and Puerto 

Rico and relinquished its claim to Cuba, placing it under American 

control. Spain also sold the Philippines to the United States for $20 

million. With little preparation or forethought, the United States found 

itself responsible for the governance of over ten million Cubans, Puerto 

Ricans, Filipinos, and Guamanians.

Because the United States had acquired Spain’s former colonies by 

force of arms, the Army initially governed these territories until 

Congress and the president provided for their ultimate disposition. 

Washington sought to replace the military governments in the two territories actually ceded to the United States—Puerto Rico and the 

Philippines—with civilian officials as soon as possible. In Puerto Rico, 

civilians replaced uniformed administrators in the spring of 1900, but 

an insurrection against American authority in the Philippines delayed 

full implementation of civilian rule there until 1902.1

The situation was somewhat different in Cuba. Cuba had been in a 

state of revolt against Spain since 1895, and prior to the outbreak of the 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

100

Spanish-American War, Congress had opined that Cuba should be a 

free, independent country. There were, however, many Americans who 

felt otherwise, especially after American soldiers had gone ashore. 

After much deliberation, Washington opted against annexation, but not 

until it had given Cuba a crash course in American-style government. 

Because of the uncertain and transitory nature of American rule in 

Cuba, Washington kept the military government there in place until the 

termination of Cuba’s period of tutelage in 1902. 

Virtually every officer in the Army served in either Cuba, Puerto 

Rico, or the Philippines between 1898 and 1902, and the experiences 

they gained in nation building, pacification, and, in the case of the 

Philippines, counterguerrilla warfare, became the models on which the 

Army would base its approach to these issues for the next forty years. 

After reviewing the philosophical basis upon which the Army approached 

its overseas duties, this chapter examines the Army’s experiences in the 

two largest occupations, those of Cuba and the Philippines.2

The Army’s Approach to Overseas Nation Building

Although each of the territories of which the United States found 

itself in control at the end of 1898 was unique, they all shared a common heritage of exploitative colonial rule that had produced oligarchical societies in which a small class of wealthy, hispanicized planters 

and merchants held sway over masses of poor, uneducated, subsistence 

farmers and agricultural laborers. Socioeconomic mobility and democracy were virtually unknown in Spain’s former colonies, where patronclient relationships dictated socioeconomic affairs, and politics was 

regarded as little more than a vehicle through which elements of the 

ruling classes competed among themselves for the spoils that political 

power could offer. 

President William McKinley believed that the United States had a 

duty not just to liberate the “benighted” peoples of Spain’s former colonies, but to guide them toward obtaining the fruits of Western—and 

particularly American—civilization. He therefore directed that the Army 

conduct its occupations as benevolently as possible with an eye toward 

establishing prosperous, self-governing (though perhaps not independent) democratic societies. The president refrained, however, from providing the Army with concrete guidance on how it was to achieve these 

goals, leaving the War Department and its proconsuls in the field to 

formulate occupation policies as they saw fit. Though individual officers 

did not always agree on specific methods and programs, several broad 

concepts shaped the Army’s approach to its nation-building duties.3
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

101

The Army based its occupation policies upon the principles of 

international law and General Orders 100 of 1863. Fundamental to 

these legal doctrines was the notion that an occupier had a moral obligation to protect the people under its control from undue hardship and 

to provide them with basic governmental services. In pursuit of these 

goals, the laws of war discouraged commanders from radically altering 

the laws and customs of an occupied territory unless military necessity 

mandated such changes. These prescriptions were based on a combination of ethics and enlightened self-interest, as it was generally recognized that a contented population was easier to control than a hostile 

one, and that civil upheaval merely hindered the successful prosecution 

of military operations. Only if the occupier contemplated annexation of 

the occupied territory did the laws of war sanction the introduction of 

significant changes in the subject society, although even then such 

alterations were to be undertaken with prudence.

Most regular officers were well acquainted with these concepts, as 

both the laws of war and Lieber’s code were an integral part of the 

Army’s educational curriculum during the latter half of the nineteenth 

century. Standard textbooks such as Henry Halleck’s International Law

(1861), Theodore Woolsey’s Introduction to the Study of International 

Law (1864), George B. Davis’ Outlines of International Law (1888), 

and William E. Birkhimer’s Military Government and Martial Law

(1892) all relayed the same basic principles and illustrated them with 

examples from European and American conflicts. Consequently, it was 

no accident that when the time came to formulate occupation policy in 

1898 the Army republished General Orders 100 and adopted procedures patterned upon those first employed by the Army in Mexico during the 1840s.4

While the basic tenets of international law and Lieber’s code served 

as the framework for American occupation policy, Army officers were 

also influenced by several other intellectual and historical precepts. 

From American society at large, they brought with them a deep faith in 

America’s political and economic system, a system that they generally 

believed the rest of the world would do well to emulate. Other elements 

that made up the typical Army officer’s intellectual baggage included 

Protestant ethics, racist attitudes, social Darwinistic theories, and vague 

notions of the white man’s burden, all of which were prevalent in turnof-the-century America. To these the officer corps added its own particular conservative creed based upon a respect for authority, a fondness for efficiency and order, and a high regard for such public virtues 

as honesty, honor, and self-sacrifice. Finally, the Army’s approach to 

“uplifting” benighted peoples was heavily influenced by its own expe-
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

102

rience in “civilizing” the American Indian and by the reform impulses 

of contemporary American progressivism. From the former, the Army 

derived lessons in benevolent paternalism and the firm-but-fair 

approach to governing “less civilized” peoples. From the latter, it drew 

a rough blueprint for social engineering in which well-meaning experts, 

in the guise of Army officers, would bestow upon a grateful society a 

host of social, political, and economic reforms designed to produce a 

more efficient and honest government and a more modern, rational, and 

organized society.5

In bringing reform to Spain’s former colonies, the Army not only 

implemented the Progressive impulse, but blazed new trails in government activism that Progressives at home were destined to follow. 

On the other hand, while progressivism and the military’s own “can 

do” spirit inspired the aggressive way in which it tackled nationbuilding tasks, there were other American values that acted as equally 

strong constraints upon Army activities. Thus, while the Army provided free emergency assistance to the needy, it preferred that recipients be made to work for their dole. In economic matters, the Army’s 

activities were both shaped and limited by the standards of laissezfaire capitalism, while its respect for private property, one of the most 

sacrosanct of American tenets, prevented officers from dabbling in 

schemes of land redistribution and agrarian reform that might have 

helped redress some of the deepest social and economic inequities of 

the islands, just as similar attitudes had limited federal action during 

Reconstruction.

Insightful officers realized that drastic changes were necessary to 

transform the exploitative oligarchies of Spain’s former colonies into 

open societies, but they wanted change to be a quiet, evolutionary 

process, one in which the government would provide as much of a 

level playing field as possible without infringing upon anyone’s personal or property rights. After that, it would be up to the people to pull 

themselves up “by their bootstraps” in the finest American tradition. 

Whether such a program could succeed, given the socioeconomic conditions of the islands, remained to be seen. Nevertheless, it is questionable whether the Army could have taken a more activist stand than it 

did under the prevailing values and philosophies of turn-of-the-century America.6

One thing upon which all officers agreed was that educational 

reform was the key to the success or failure of the entire nation-building program. Not only did they consider public education to be vital for 

the maintenance of efficient public and private institutions, but they 

regarded it as the fount of individual self-improvement, economic pros-
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

103

perity, and social mobility. Public education was the ultimate solution 

to breaking down the economic and political domination of the old 

colonial oligarchies and opening the island societies up to an everincreasing level of social and political democracy. By planting the seed 

of universal public education, the Army believed it was laying the 

groundwork for a gradual evolution in the political, social, and economic structure of Spain’s former colonies.

Achieving such changes was not simply a matter of teaching the 

inhabitants reading, writing, and arithmetic. Rather, education’s 

greatest mission was to inculcate civic virtues. Both Secretary of War 

Elihu Root and his uniformed subordinates believed that the most difficult obstacle to introducing American-style democracy was the 

absence of any sense of civic responsibility among the majority of 

Spain’s former subjects. Centuries of colonial government had 

imbued them with the notion that government was naturally corrupt 

and exploitative and that its prime purpose was to dole out patronage 

and protect the existing sociopolitical structure. This heritage, combined with the excitable temper supposedly exhibited by Latin cultures, were the primary causes, in Root’s opinion, for the “continual 

revolutions” that racked Latin American countries. Only by inculcating a sense of civic responsibility and self-control could the islanders 

be saved from themselves.7

Root believed that it would take years—if not generations—of 

“tuition under a strong and guiding hand” to instill a sense of civic virtue 

in America’s insular wards because “it is a matter not of intellectual 

apprehension, but of character and of acquired habits of thought and 

feeling.”8

 The Army’s frontier veterans concurred in this assessment, for 

they fully appreciated the difficulties inherent in trying to alter an alien 

culture. But while they believed that achieving a change in values was 

the sine qua non of the entire nation-building process, they were also 

cognizant of the fact that such changes could not be achieved by riding 

roughshod over the customs and traditions of the indigenous population. 

The Army and Navy Journal advised its readers in 1899, 

We must rid ourselves of the prejudices of race, of religion and of social 

customs and the disposition to deal as “niggers” with people we consider 

inferior because they are different, and thus plant in their breasts the seeds 

of undying prejudice and race antagonisms. . . . Putting Cubans, Porto 

Ricans [sic], or Filipinos into panatoons and pantalettes and teaching them 

the catechism does not transform them into Americans, and interference with 

their customs and habits of living is only to be tolerated when the change is 

so obviously an improvement that this will in the end be so recognized by 

the subjects of reform.9
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

104

Root agreed, informing his subordinates to 

bear in mind that the government which they are establishing is designed not 

for our satisfaction or for the expression of our theoretical views, but for the 

happiness, peace, and prosperity of the people . . . and the measures adopted 

should be made to conform to their customs, their habits, and even their prejudices, to the fullest extent consistent with the accomplishment of the indispensable requisites of just and effective government.10

Rather than rushing to impose contemporary American institutions 

for which the people were unprepared, the nation’s military leaders preferred to work through intermediary stages, much as they had proposed 

for the American Indian. The Army’s theory of nation building thus 

rested upon an ability to respect native customs while gradually inculcating new values that would be more supportive of modern, democratic 

institutions. In practice, it proved to be an almost impossible task.

The Military Government of Cuba, 1898–1902

Cuba was in shambles when Maj. Gen. John R. Brooke officially 

took control of the island from departing Spanish officials in January 

1899. Three years of rebellion and eight months of war had left the 

country impoverished. Commerce was at a standstill, agriculture in 

disarray, and many homes and villages had either been abandoned or 

destroyed. Driven by poverty and unemployment, bandits roamed 

freely throughout the countryside. Nor did the political situation offer 

much solace. Although Cuba’s political and administrative institutions 

were woefully inadequate for the task, many Cubans were anxious to 

obtain the independence for which they had sacrificed so much, and the 

presence of 50,000 guerrilla fighters of the Cuban Army of Liberation 

outside of Havana gave weight to their sentiments. The outbreak of an 

insurrection against American authority in the Philippines under similar 

circumstances gave Brooke, who had only 11,000 American soldiers at 

his disposal, further cause for caution. With Washington still undecided 

over annexation, Brooke felt constrained to adopt a moderate path, 

establishing American control without taking any action that would 

irrevocably commit the United States to any particular course of action 

in regard to Cuba’s future. 

Brooke’s first task was to establish the machinery of military government. For the most part he preferred to rule through civil, rather than 

military, channels. Cubans, assisted by U.S. military and civilian personnel, headed most of the departments of the central government. In 

the countryside, Brooke created four geographical departments headed 
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

105

by general officers who wielded much authority, but whose civil affairs 

role gradually diminished as the Army established native provincial 

governors who were responsible directly to Havana. Nevertheless, 

while the Army governed largely through native officials, there never 

was any doubt that it was the Americans who were making all of the 

policy decisions.

Having created the framework of government, Brooke defused the 

potentially explosive situation around Havana by getting the Cuban 

revolutionary army to demobilize. He achieved this by paying the soldiers’ wages, handing out bonuses for surrendered arms, and giving 

several thousand discharged veterans jobs either in the military government or in the newly formed Rural Guard, which, with American 

advisers, was given primary responsibility for maintaining law and 

order in the countryside.11

Over the course of his year-long tenure as governor, Brooke provided efficient government services to Cuba. He maintained law and 

order, gave wartime refugees emergency assistance, enforced new 

sanitation codes, and built roads, sewers, and schools. Following legal 

precedent as well as the evolutionary principles of nation building 

widely espoused throughout the Army, he instituted incremental 

changes in Cuban law and government, rather than trying to rapidly 

make over Cuba on the American model. Nevertheless, his cautious 

approach attracted criticism from ambitious subordinates who wished 

not only to have his job, but to use it to promote more aggressive measures aimed at furthering the Americanization, and possibly annexation, of Cuba. These criticisms eventually influenced the McKinley 

administration which, while it had finally decided against annexation, 

firmly believed that the soon-to-be independent island would benefit 

from a greater dose of American values and methods. Consequently, in 

December 1899 Secretary Root replaced Brooke with one of the 

Army’s leading Armed Progressives, Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood.

Wood brought a new spirit to the governorship, one that embraced 

a greater degree of government activism for the purpose of uplifting and 

reforming Cuban society. Though mindful of the obstacles inherent in 

trying to instill foreign values and institutions into an indigenous culture, a combination of personal ambition, ethnocentrism, and a philosophical commitment to the Progressive creed drove Wood to bestow 

upon Cuba as many of the fruits of American civilization as possible 

before Washington ended the occupation. Building upon many of 

Brooke’s initiatives, Wood turned Cuba into a “workshop for American 

progressivism.” Between 1900 and 1902 he spent $15 million on public 

works, paving streets, erecting buildings, and refurbishing harbors. In 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

106

doing so, he not only improved the island’s economic infrastructure, 

but put thousands of unemployed men to work, thereby helping to dissipate potential social unrest. In line with the military’s prevailing 

philosophy that education and the inculcation of Western values held 

the key to political, cultural, and economic regeneration, Wood established Cuba’s first public library and built thousands of schools, organized according to the laws of the state of Ohio and partially staffed 

with American-trained Cuban teachers. He continued Brooke’s efforts 

in health and sanitation reform, attacking dangerous diseases and overhauling Cuba’s medical and mental health care systems. Finally, the 

military government gradually modernized and liberalized Cuba’s legal 

and administrative system. It attacked graft and corruption and established more vigorous local governments in the belief that democracy 

naturally developed first at the grass-roots level. Though still adhering 

to many Spanish forms, the Army introduced several key American 

legal concepts, such as habeas corpus and trial by jury, while crafting 

municipal charters that would have gladdened the heart of many an 

urban reformer at home.12

The U.S. Army achieved much before it handed the reins of government over to the Cuban Republic and set sail for home in May 1902. 

Wood was hailed as the very embodiment of a modern major general, 

one who could not only destroy nations, but build them. Yet many of 

the Army’s achievements proved superficial. No sooner had the 

Americans left than matters rapidly began to deteriorate. The roads 

were not maintained, public services declined, and democratic institutions decayed. Rather than transform Cuba, all the Army had really 

done was to impose a thin veneer of American-style institutions for 

which there was very little support from within Cuban society itself.

Many factors contributed to the failure of the Army’s nation-building programs to take root. Part of the problem was that Wood had 

attempted to move too quickly. Nor had the Army always been successful in adhering to its enlightened policy of respecting native culture. 

Ethnocentrism proved to be a powerful force, and all too often 

American soldiers used their position of authority to impose their moral 

and ethical values upon a resentful people. But cultural arrogance on 

the part of American officials was not the only problem. Traditions of 

patronage, corruption, and authoritarianism created an unfavorable 

climate for political reforms that required a certain level of civic 

responsibility to flourish. Even the most fundamental concepts, such as 

habeas corpus and trial by jury, quickly withered in Cuba because they 

did not fit easily into traditional Roman law. A similar fate befell many 

of the Army’s health and sanitation programs, which the Cubans read-
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

107

ily abandoned as soon as the Army had withdrawn. Ultimately, history 

and culture conspired to make Cuba infertile ground for many transplanted institutions, regardless of their particular merits. Cultural barriers on both sides thus contributed to the demise of many of the Army’s 

best-intentioned works.

The Army had unwittingly contributed to the shallowness of the 

institutions it planted in Cuba, for its top-down management style had 

given the indigenous population very little say over fundamental policy 

decisions. Moreover, frustration with corrupt and incompetent native 

officials had eventually led Wood to consolidate power in the hands of 

the central government to ensure that his programs were carried out as 

intended. This response, while both understandable and perhaps inevitable, undermined efforts to establish independent local governments 

and grass-roots democratic institutions. Moreover, the prevailing conservatism of American social and political philosophy ended up 

strengthening, rather than weakening, the power and position of the 

traditional elites, to whom American soldiers and politicians with 

middle- and upper-class values instinctively turned for the provision of 

stable political and economic leadership. Despite a greater openness to 

embrace government activism, neither American politicians nor their 

military proconsuls were any more willing than their Reconstructionera predecessors to fundamentally alter existing patterns of land and 

property ownership, patterns that perpetuated conditions of poverty and 

exploitation throughout much of rural Cuba. In the end, the educational reforms proved to be too modest, the economic conditions in the 

islands too oppressive, and the newly transplanted democratic institutions too weak and unfamiliar to allow the type of bootstrap social, 

political, and economic “revolution” that American officers had hoped 

would occur. Instead, the old social and political culture, in which 

patron-client relationships governed the way people lived, worked, and 

voted and government posts were regarded as sinecures, continued to 

shape the reality of insular life despite the veneer of republican institutions erected by the United States.13

America’s first venture into overseas nation building thus proved to 

be a disappointment. Nor did it prove any easier in Puerto Rico and the 

Philippines, where civilian colonial administrators labored for decades 

to create stable and economically prosperous democratic societies on 

the American model.14 In fairness, it should be remembered that Army 

leaders had always recognized that the new institutions they brought to 

the tropical isles could never survive unless accompanied by a corresponding change in cultural values, something they believed would 

take generations to achieve. Time, however, was a luxury the Army did 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

108

not have. The continuous agitation of the Cubans, Filipinos, and Puerto 

Ricans for greater independence received a receptive hearing from 

many Americans. Steeped in the principles of liberty and self-determination, much of the American public felt uncomfortable at the prospect 

of maintaining the type of lengthy stewardship necessary to fundamentally change Cuban society, if such a change was possible at all. Nor 

was an antimilitaristic nation any more willing to trust the long-term 

tutelage of Cubans to uniformed officers than it had been in the case of 

the American Indian. Even in the Philippines and Puerto Rico, the U.S. 

government moved rapidly to create local civilian self-rule, albeit 

under American governors. Under such circumstances, Army officers 

found that they had very little leverage. 

Ultimately, the nation’s soldier-administrators had but two methods 

they could use in uplifting America’s insular wards. Persuasion and 

incrementalism, though the more enlightened strategy, proved frustrating, time consuming, and offered no guarantee of success. Compulsion, 

while certainly quicker and easier, often bred hostility and rejection. 

These were the horns of a dilemma on which American officials, both 

within the military and without, were destined to find themselves in 

many of the country’s future nation-building endeavors.

The Philippine War, 1899–1902

The Army’s efforts at nation building in Cuba and Puerto Rico were 

relatively peaceful affairs. Such was not the case in the Philippines, an 

archipelago of 7,000 islands and over seven million people divided 

among a patchwork of tribal, linguistic, and religious groups, many of 

which disliked the other. (Map 2) At the time Spain ceded the Philippines 

to the United States in December 1898, the Army actually controlled only 

the colony’s capital city, Manila. The remainder of the archipelago was 

dominated by Filipino revolutionaries, primarily of the Tagalog tribe, 

who, with some assistance from the United States, had seized the opportunity provided by the Spanish-American War to rise up against their 

Spanish overlords. Unlike Cuba, where the United States had been able 

to persuade the indigenous rebel forces to disband, the Filipino revolutionaries refused to acknowledge American authority over the islands. 

Instead, under the leadership of Emilio Aguinaldo, they proclaimed their 

own government and surrounded Manila with an army. In February 1899 

fighting erupted on the outskirts of Manila, while Filipino fifth columnists staged an abortive uprising inside the city itself. The Philippine War 

was on, a war that would last over three years and cost the United States 

$400 million and over seven thousand casualties.15
B A B U Y A N I S .

LUZON

Manila

BATAAN

CAVITE

BATANGAS TAYABAS

Zamboanga

M I N D O R O

P A N A Y

NEGROS

DINAGAT

HOMONHON

M I N D A N A O

PALAWAN

MARINDUQUE

CATANDUANES

S A M A R

MASBATE

V I S A Y A N I S L A N D S

LEYTE

CEBU

BOHOL

Iloilo

Jolo

S u l u A r c h i p e l a g o

N O R T H

B O R N E O C E L E B E S S E A

S U L U S E A

S O U T H

C H I N A

S E A 

P H I L I P P I N E

S E A

THE PHILIPPINES

1899

Areas Discussed

0 150

Miles

Map 2
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

110

Operations during the Philippine rainy season were particularly difficult.

Aguinaldo initially opted to fight a conventional war, but by 

November 1899 U.S. forces under the command of Maj. Gen. Elwell 

Otis had crushed his army and forced him to flee into the mountains of 

northern Luzon. Rather than surrender, Aguinaldo abandoned the conventional approach in favor of guerrilla warfare. The switch was a wellconsidered one. The Philippine Islands were a labyrinth of rice paddies, 

mountains, jungles, and dense stretches of towering cogon grass 

pierced only by rough trails and a few primitive roads. In this arena, the 

Filipino guerrillas enjoyed numerous advantages over their American 

opponent, not the least of which were their familiarity with the terrain 

and people and their acclimation to the region’s tropical climate. 

Moreover, several Filipino commanders had employed guerrilla tactics 

in an unsuccessful revolution against Spain in 1896–1897 and were 

therefore somewhat experienced in the intricacies of this type of warfare. The revolutionary command reinforced this capability by issuing 

instructions explaining the hit-and-run philosophy of guerrilla warfare 

and the tactical methods to be employed in waging it.16

Aguinaldo organized his forces into a number of highly autonomous regional commands, each of which included a core of fulltime “regular” guerrillas backed by part-time militiamen. Together, 

these forces waged a war of ambushes, raids, and surprise attacks 
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

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Soldiers of the Philippine insurgent army on a firing line

designed to keep the Americans off-balance. Although some guerrillas wore uniforms, many did not, and even those who did freely 

changed into civilian clothes and hid their weapons to disguise their 

true identity from American patrols. This “chameleon act,” whereby 

the guerrillas transformed themselves into obsequious “amigos” in 

the blink of an eye, made them difficult to counter, especially given 

the Army’s lack of familiarity with Filipino language and customs.17

Complementing the guerrillas in the field was a clandestine civilmilitary organization or infrastructure that acted as a shadow government in the villages, enforcing insurgent edicts, raising recruits, collecting supplies and “taxes,” and gathering intelligence on American 

activities. In some areas the infrastructure was based on secret societies 

that dated back to Spanish days, like the revolutionary Katipunan society, or mystic religious sects like the Colorum. Since many of the leaders of the resistance were from the middle- and upper-class elite (principales), they were able to exploit the oligarchical nature of Philippine 

society and the system of patron-client relationships upon which it was 

based to further the movement’s influence over the people. Using a 

complex mixture of genuine nationalism, paternalism, xenophobic propaganda, superstition, and terror (including the assassination of 

“Americanistas”), the leaders of the resistance maintained their control 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

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over the population despite their inability to defeat the American Army 

in the field.18

In fact, military victory was never the aim of Filipino leaders after 

1899. Instead, they hoped to undermine America’s will to continue the 

struggle by harassing U.S. military forces. The Filipinos were well 

aware that many Americans opposed the government’s adventure in 

imperialism, and they consciously played to this audience, timing their 

offensives to coincide with the presidential election of November 1900 

in the hope that a disenchanted electorate would replace McKinley with 

the avowed anti-imperialist, William Jennings Bryan.19

Thus the U.S. Army faced a formidable challenge in the Filipino 

resistance movement, incorporating as it did many of the characteristics 

of a modern guerrilla movement, including a politico-military organization, military and paramilitary units, and a strategy of political and 

guerrilla warfare. Although poorly armed and lacking a revolutionary 

ideology to mobilize fully the masses in its support, the movement’s 

dexterous employment of patriotic appeals, terror, propaganda, and 

patron-client relationships enabled it to keep the insurrection alive for 

several years.

Counterinsurgency Techniques of the Philippine War

Faced with the task of conquering and civilizing a “savage” foe, the 

Army’s senior leadership naturally turned to those principles that had 

long guided the old frontier constabulary. The Filipinos, wrote Brig. 

Gen. Theodore Schwan in the fall of 1899, “are in identically the same 

position as the Indians of our country have been for many years, and in 

my opinion must be subdued in much the same way, by such convincing conquest as shall make them realize fully the futility of armed 

resistance, and then win them by fair and just treatment.”20

Achieving a “convincing conquest” over an irregular foe in a 

strange land required the Army to demonstrate the same type of adaptability with which it had approached irregular warfare on the western 

frontier. In this it was highly successful, despite the fact that most 

junior officers had never seen combat prior to 1898. The key to the 

Army’s successful performance during the war stemmed from two factors. At the junior officer level, officers demonstrated a willingness to 

learn by trial and error that enabled them to adjust their methods 

according to the situations that they faced, much as Wagner and other 

prewar instructors had hoped they would. At the senior levels of command, most division, department, brigade, and regimental commanders 

were old Army hands who brought to the islands experience in either 

the Civil or Indian Wars, if not both. While neither experience was 
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

113

directly applicable to the situation in the Philippines, both endowed the 

Army with important legacies that would shape the conduct of the war. 

From the Civil War, veterans and young officers alike drew inspiration 

and guidance from Lieber’s code and Sherman’s deeds, both of which 

had been emblazoned in the Army’s collective consciousness. From the 

frontier, the men who directed the operational level of the Philippine 

War brought with them a mind-set that was accustomed to conducting 

small-unit constabulary operations from dispersed posts and that 

encouraged adaptability, individual initiative, and aggressiveness. 

These attributes contributed much more to the Army’s success than did 

the transference of any specific techniques of Indian-fighting or prairie 

fieldcraft, few of which could be directly applied in the Philippine’s 

tropical jungles. By blending old concepts with techniques adapted to 

the situation at hand, the old frontier Army successfully adjusted to the 

demands of overseas constabulary service.

One feature of frontier service that had applicability to the 

Philippines was the necessity of dispersing one’s forces for the purpose 

of protecting the population, maintaining a presence in troubled areas, 

and providing bases for prompt, offensive action. Although Otis underestimated the depth of Filipino opposition, ascribing the resistance that 

followed the destruction of the Filipino Army to the work of bandits 

and the machinations of a few unprincipled leaders, he nevertheless 

recognized that true pacification could only be achieved by controlling 

the people and isolating them from the militants. Consequently, he 

responded to Aguinaldo’s switch from conventional to guerrilla warfare 

by dispersing his forces as well. As on the western frontier, the dispersal was not undertaken without significant costs in terms of logistics, 

administration, communications, and security, but the Army’s senior 

leadership, accustomed to such deployments, instinctively recognized 

the necessity. As the Army spread its control over the archipelago, the 

number of posts grew exponentially from several dozen at the outbreak 

of the guerrilla phase in December 1899 to 639 two years later.21

Dispersion did not mean, however, the adoption of a defensive 

posture. Rather, the Army used its many posts as bases from which to 

launch an aggressive campaign reminiscent of its counterguerrilla 

operations of the previous century. Col. William E. Birkhimer expressed 

the Army’s basic strategy in words that could just have easily been 

spoken by Miles or Crook twenty years before.

The object was to make things as uncomfortable as possible for the enemy, 

thus pursuing the policy which alone, apparently, will break down the rebel 

resistance, namely, the wearing-out policy; pounding away until the bandit 
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chiefs get tired of living in hiding in the far distant mountains, and the people 

wearying of their importunate demands for money and their impotent military 

efforts, withdraw their material and moral support for them.22

The insistence with which field commanders pushed their subordinates into taking the offensive rested partially on the belief that psychological factors played an especially important role in irregular warfare. 

“Savage” races were particularly excitable, went the conventional wisdom, and the worst thing soldiers could do was to show any sign of 

weakness or hesitancy, for such displays would only encourage the 

inhabitants to redouble their efforts. On the other hand, a clear and 

convincing display of military superiority and confidence by the Army, 

it was believed, would dispirit the impressionable natives and speed 

their eventual submission.23

Operationally, the Army conducted itself in much the same way as 

it had against irregular opponents during the Civil and Indian Wars. 

Although it occasionally engaged in large-scale cordon-and-sweep 

campaigns, the most common operation of the Philippine War was the 

“hike,” a combination of what would later be termed reconnaissancein-force and search-and-destroy missions. Similar to the “scout” of the 

Plains wars, most hikes featured small columns of fifty to a hundred 

men that combed the countryside for signs of guerrillas and their base 

camps (cuartels), which were destroyed on discovery. In performing 

these missions, the Army demonstrated the same willingness to adapt 

to unconventional conditions which it had shown on the Plains and 

which the advocates of the “new” military science like Bigelow and 

Wagner found so admirable. It quickly modified conventional tactics to 

take advantage of Filipino weaknesses and developed new march, 

camp, and outpost procedures to meet the exigencies of guerrilla and 

jungle warfare. Within a few months after the Filipinos had switched to 

guerrilla warfare, many American commands were already operating at 

night, laying ambushes and launching expeditions for the purpose of 

surrounding and surprising an insurgent encampment or village at 

dawn. Raids of this nature were commonly referred to as “roundups” 

and quickly became standard throughout the Philippines.24

Army commanders soon discovered that mobility was just as 

important in this irregular conflict as in those of the past, and they pursued it with the same aggressiveness. By the winter of 1899 commanders had begun to jettison heavy packs and other impediments, establish 

mule pack trains, and employ indigenous means of transport like water 

buffalos (carabaos) and native bearers (cagadores). The search for 

mobility also led the Army to increase the number of cavalry serving in 
An infantry unit on a hike. Forces of this size were the standard 

operational element during the war; below, American infantrymen 

on patrol riding native ponies.
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

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the Philippines and to create special detachments of mounted infantry 

and scouts. Virtually every infantry regiment in the Philippines raised 

such detachments. As in the Civil and Indian Wars, these units consisted of handpicked men who were accorded elite status and spared 

routine chores. They bore the brunt of the counterguerrilla war, acting 

in reconnaissance, strike, and mobile reserve capacities, functions in 

which they quickly developed an expertise.25

One of the best methods of opposing partisan forces, opined one 

West Point text, was to employ “forces of a similar character,” and 

most officers readily agreed.26 Old frontier hands recognized that the 

native soldiers’ familiarity with the terrain, people, and language of the 

region gave them an edge over American troops in constabulary 

operations. They also appreciated, as had Crook and Bigelow, that the 

recruitment of native auxiliaries facilitated the implementation of a 

divide-and-conquer strategy, especially since the Filipino insurgents, 

like the American Indian before them, found it particularly demoralizing to learn that their own people had turned against them. European 

employment of native soldiers in overseas colonies, the relative inexpensiveness of native troops as opposed to American soldiers, the 

baleful effects that tropical service had on the health of white soldiers, 

and serious manpower shortages also contributed to the Army’s willingness to employ Filipino soldiers. 

Although the Army began recruiting Filipino auxiliaries before the 

outbreak of the insurrection, it moved cautiously. Operating in an unfamiliar environment against enemies whose true allegiances were not 

always readily apparent, prudence dictated that only the most reliable 

individuals be enrolled in American service. This not only slowed 

recruitment, but meant that the Army frequently restricted enlistments 

to groups deemed especially loyal. Most notable among these were the 

Macabebes, a tribe whose long-standing hatred for the largely prorevolutionary Tagalog tribe was well known. 

Recruiting Macabebes and similar groups had the additional benefit of undermining Filipino unity by exploiting preexisting fractures in 

Filipino society. This advantage was not obtained without cost, however. As in America’s previous irregular conflicts, local auxiliaries were 

prone to committing acts of brutality that contravened the achievement 

of pacification. Indeed, it was primarily for this reason that Otis 

restricted the growth of Filipino troops. Eventually, however, the Army 

decided that the advantages to be gained by employing Filipinos outweighed the drawbacks, and by the end of the war the government had 

at its disposal over fifteen thousand native auxiliaries organized into 

units of light infantry (Philippine Scouts), paramilitary police 
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

117

A detachment of Macabebe scouts in American service

(Philippine Constabulary), and local police, not to mention a number 

of volunteer militia organizations.27

The adaptations which the Army made in the Philippines and the 

aggressiveness with which it operated made it a highly capable and 

dangerous opponent. Yet it soon found that relentless military activity 

was not sufficient to overcome the guerrillas. Most hikes failed to come 

to grips with the enemy as the guerrillas’ superior intelligence system 

kept them well informed of American activities. The more astute officers realized relatively early in the war that they would have to crack 

the insurgents’ clandestine infrastructure if they were ever to have a 

chance at apprehending the guerrillas and breaking their control over 

the population. Toward this end, local commanders began establishing 

networks of secret agents as early as the winter of 1899, and by the 

spring of 1900 the practice was becoming increasingly common. 

As the war progressed, the Army devoted an ever-increasing 

amount of attention to intelligence and counterinfrastructure activities. 

It used Philippine Scouts, spies, and informants to gather information 

and identify suspects. It conducted frequent roundups of villages suspected of harboring guerrillas, created a special agency to translate 

captured guerrilla documents, and employed a number of techniques to 
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118

American infantrymen advance in standard single-file 

formation down a Filipino road.

monitor the movement and activities of the population. Included among 

these techniques were the issuance of identity cards and travel passes, 

the compilation of census records, and the development of intelligence 

files bearing, when available, photographs of key insurgent leaders.28

As in the Mexican and Civil Wars, military commissions and provost courts played an integral role in the battle against the guerrilla 

infrastructure, and consequently it was the local provost officer who 

often bore primary responsibility for intelligence and counterinfrastructure operations. Some officers, like 1st Lt. William T. Johnston and 

Maj. Edwin F. Glenn, developed reputations as specialists in this line 

of work. They shuttled around the Philippines, undertaking especially 

difficult cases and giving seminars in their methods. The Army gradually augmented its local intelligence efforts by creating regional and 

eventually “national” systems, yet the real heart of the Army’s intelli-
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

119

gence effort remained at the local level. This decentralized approach 

worked well, given the fact that the resistance movement was itself 

largely decentralized in nature.29

Pacification: The Policy of Attraction

By blending a recognition for the need to control and protect the 

population with an aggressive counterguerrilla and intelligence campaign, the Army performed ably with regard to the military aspects of 

the Philippine War. Yet, achieving a “convincing conquest” was only 

half of the Army’s strategy for winning the conflict. U.S. military and 

political authorities had recognized from the start that political affairs 

would play an important role in achieving the final pacification of the 

Philippines—a point President McKinley made clear in the winter of 

1898 when he directed General Otis to “win the confidence, respect, 

and admiration of the inhabitants of the Philippines.” 

In executing these instructions, Otis, a graduate of the Harvard Law 

School, an expert on the Indian question, and one of the Army’s Armed 

Progressives, was influenced by the same set of factors that shaped 

Army policies in the Caribbean. While the principles of contemporary 

progressivism provided inspiration, Otis’ basic formula for dealing 

with the Filipinos—“simply to keep scrupulous faith with these people 

and teach them to trust us”—was clearly a legacy of the frontier. 

Similarly, Otis followed the course laid out by Birkhimer’s Military 

Government and Martial Law, which noted that in the Mexican and 

Civil Wars the United States had endeavored to avoid resorting to the 

harshest of measures permitted by the laws of war because “by a policy 

of forbearance it was hoped ultimately to convert the people, including 

the insurgents, into loyal citizens.” Such a policy seemed natural, for as 

Brig. Gen. J. Franklin Bell explained, “Government by force alone cannot be satisfactory to Americans. It is desirable that a Government be 

established in time which is based upon the will of the governed. This 

can be accomplished satisfactorily only by obtaining and retaining the 

good will of the people.” A confluence of enlightened self-interest, 

historical precedent, genuine humanity, progressive reform impulses, 

and traditional American ideals lay behind the Army’s commitment to 

benevolent pacification in the Philippines.30

As the Army spread out over the Philippine archipelago, Otis and 

his commanders in the field followed these precepts closely. Ordering 

their men to respect the people and their customs, they imposed strict 

discipline, forbidding looting and wanton destruction and punishing 

those who committed such crimes. They paid in cash for supplies requisitioned from the populace, in an effort to win its favor and counter 
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120

The policy of attraction: American soldiers feeding Filipino children.

the mistrust engendered by insurgent propaganda. They opened schools 

staffed with soldier volunteers, built roads, refurbished markets and 

other public facilities, and inaugurated a general effort to sanitize towns 

across the Philippines. Finally, the Army established municipal governments under native officials that were largely based upon Spanish traditions, both to provide basic governmental services to the community 

and to demonstrate America’s commitment to political autonomy for 

the Philippines at the local level.31

Maj. Gen. Arthur MacArthur, who succeeded Otis as military 

governor and commander of the Department of the Philippines in 

May 1900, continued his predecessor’s campaign of benevolent pacification. As Otis had done, MacArthur instructed his subordinates to 

release Filipino soldiers soon after their capture. He instituted a generous amnesty program, offering thirty pesos to anyone who voluntarily surrendered a rifle. Although the Army could have brought 

every Filipino combatant and every civilian who actively aided the 

resistance before a military commission as insurgents, guerrillas, and 

war rebels, it preferred to try only the major leaders and those suspected of committing major crimes. Even those who were placed on 

trial had little to fear, as reviewing officials in Manila habitually overturned death sentences and reduced prison terms handed out by local 
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

121

American soldiers detailed as teachers with their Filipino students

military commissions. Indeed, the Army treated guerrillas so leniently that common bandits hastened to claim that they too were guerrillas, deserving similar treatment.32

As in the Caribbean, the nation’s Asian proconsuls firmly believed 

that public education was the ultimate solution to the problem of transforming societies, and consequently they moved ahead with an aggressive education program despite the continuance of hostilities. By 

August 1900 the Army had established no fewer than 1,000 schools 

and had spent $100,000 on pedagogical supplies and facilities. General 

MacArthur justified such endeavors as not only a step in the long-term 

elevation of Philippine society, but also as “an adjunct to military 

operations, calculated to pacify the people and procure and expedite 

the restoration of tranquility throughout the archipelago.” He considered the “rapid extension of educational facilities as an exclusively 

military measure.”33

The Army’s many pacification programs placed heavy burdens on 

small-unit commanders who, without the benefit of additional staff, had 

to oversee local governments and orchestrate civil affairs activities 

while attending to routine administrative and operational duties. Many 

had neither the ability nor the desire to do all these things, and under 

such leaders the management of civil affairs invariably suffered. On the 
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122

other hand, there were many officers, perhaps the majority during 

1899–1900, who put in an honest effort in the hope that, by demonstrating to the Filipinos the benefits of American rule, they could hasten the 

end of the insurrection. Such men often supplemented the general policies emanating from Manila with programs of their own. Maj. Henry T. 

Allen not only established schools in his district but also solicited 

schoolbooks by making a private appeal through a New York newspaper. Others detailed their surgeons to look after the local populace 

because they, like Col. Cornelius Gardener, believed that “just mere 

pills will be more effective than bullets in undermining the insurgent 

leaders’ authority.”34

Yet, extraordinary measures were not necessary to make benevolent pacification work. American officials liked to talk about how new 

roads, schools, and governments were making mass conversions 

among the populace, but in fact what lay at the heart of the policy was 

much simpler than that. As Capt. John R. M. Taylor, the author of the 

Army’s official history of the Philippine War, conceded, it was not the 

allure of democratic ideology or even the promise of a bright and prosperous future that won over the people in the barrios. Rather, it was the 

local garrison commander’s force of character that won or lost the day. 

Where he spoke with authority and governed like a benevolent patron, 

he acted in ways which the people could understand and respect. Only 

when they were convinced that the American officer had the character, 

the will, and the means to protect them did they begin to submit themselves to American authority. In this sense, pacification was a very 

personal affair, in which the “allegiance of whole communities was 

transferred from the guerrillas to a young American, not because he 

represented principles of which they knew nothing, of which it was 

impossible for them to know anything, but because he was a man.”35

While overburdened young officers wrestled with the many military and civil aspects of pacification in the backcountry, the McKinley 

administration decided to enhance the appeal of American rule even 

further by moving to replace the military government in Manila with a 

civilian one. In the fall of 1900 Washington transferred legislative powers in the Philippines from the military to a body of civilian commissioners, thereby splitting authority in the islands. Full civilian government was instituted throughout most of the archipelago in mid-1901, 

when William Howard Taft assumed the post of governor general, 

although the Army retained control over a few of the most recalcitrant 

areas for an additional year. 

The civilian government complemented the Army’s pacification 

efforts in many ways. Building upon Army initiatives, it passed a vari-
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

123

ety of legislation designed to improve the economic and social conditions on the islands. It instituted civil courts, revamped municipal 

governments, and created new provincial-level governments as well. 

The civilian commissioners were also instrumental in promoting the 

development of the Federal Party, a political organization of Filipino 

collaborators whose mission was to spark a “counterrevolution” that 

would mobilize the population in support of American rule.36

For all of its good work, Army officers deeply resented the establishment of civilian government in the Philippines prior to the termination of the insurrection. Most officers held the principle of unity of 

command to be sacrosanct and objected vehemently to the intrusion of 

civilians into an active theater of operations. Although the new civilian 

government remained under the overall control of the War Department 

in Washington, relieving some of the friction that had characterized the 

management of Indian affairs, personal and bureaucratic rivalries 

inevitably arose between soldiers and civilians, neither of whom particularly trusted the other. The Army further complained that the shift 

to civilian rule was premature and that it needlessly complicated military operations by imposing not only a new layer of bureaucracy, but 

peacetime restrictions, such as habeas corpus, which were inappropriate during an insurrection. The progressive establishment of civilian 

rule in 1900–1901 had less to do with a well-considered pacification 

strategy, they argued, than with domestic politics, for by shifting power 

to civilians the government deflected a certain amount of criticism of 

the war and created the impression that all was going well in the 

Philippines. And this, the Army knew, was not entirely true.37

The Army’s benevolent policies had achieved some positive results 

during the early stages of the war, especially in those parts of the archipelago that had never been firmly committed to the rebellion. Indeed, 

the war was only a few months old when Filipino resistance leaders 

openly began to worry that America’s “policy of attraction” might 

undermine the commitment of the population to the insurgent cause. 

Yet, by the spring of 1900 it was already becoming evident that the 

policy of attraction was not powerful enough to win the war by itself. 

There were several reasons why this was the case. To begin with, 

U.S. military authorities were never able to stamp out completely 

instances of unauthorized foraging, drunkenness, and disorderly conduct among their own men—actions that, no matter how minor, created 

an undercurrent of tension between Americans and Filipinos. FilipinoAmerican relations were further complicated by linguistic and cultural 

barriers, not to mention the virulent racism which Americans of all 

ranks brought with them from their parent society. Some officers 
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124

Army bands frequently put on concerts for the local population as 

part of the policy of attraction.

recognized the corrosive effects of what Brig. Gen. Thomas M. 

Anderson called “good natured condescension,” but they were unable 

to change those attitudes. The best they could do was to enforce strict 

discipline to minimize the potential ill effects of racially or criminally 

motivated conduct.38

Although racist attitudes and individual misconduct doubtlessly 

aggravated relations between soldiers and Filipino civilians, such 

behavior did not prove fatal to the pacification campaign, if for no other 

reason than the conduct of Filipino guerrillas was often equally deplorable. As in the American Army, many Filipino commanders demanded 

impeccable conduct on behalf of their men. Yet loose supervision, an 

irregular commissary, tensions between differing Filipino social and 

tribal groups, and in some cases outright banditry, all reduced guerrilla 

relations with the population to a level that was not much better than 

Filipino-American relations. 

Ironically, another reason why U.S. benevolence failed to win 

over the population was the guerrillas’ willingness to use intimidation, violence, and terror in their dealings with civilians. “Nothing 

that we can offer in the way of peace or prosperity weighs against 
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

125

their fear of assassination which is prosecuted with relentless vigor 

against any one giving aid or information to the government,” lamented Brig. Gen. Samuel S. Sumner. Although the Army endeavored to 

protect the population from terrorism, the rebel infrastructure was 

often too deep, the people too afraid, and the Army’s resources too 

slim to accomplish this effectively. Moreover, the meekness with 

which the Army punished insurgents—setting prisoners free and 

engaging in cumbersome legal procedures in which superior authorities often downgraded court sentences—appeared to the ordinary 

Filipino as the epitome of folly compared to the swift, uncompromising justice meted out to Americanistas by the guerrillas. Until the 

Americans could convince the people that they were strong enough to 

protect their friends and punish their enemies, the Filipinos saw little 

reason to risk their lives for “Uncle Sam.”39

Perhaps the most important reason why the policy of attraction 

failed to end the war was that American officials had made a twin miscalculation. On the one hand, Otis greatly underestimated the depth of 

the rebellion. Like Lincoln during the Civil War, he made the mistake 

of believing that the rebellion rested solely upon a small coterie of selfinterested oligarchs, unscrupulous demagogues, and bandit chieftains. 

These few individuals, he thought, had duped and terrorized the people 

into following them in their misguided quest for independence. 

Overthrow the leaders and demonstrate to the masses the benefits of 

American rule and the revolt, Otis and his subordinates believed, would 

quickly collapse. Although Otis was correct in thinking that much of 

the revolutionary leadership came from the dominant social classes and 

that large segments of the Filipino population were not truly committed 

to independence or any other ideology, he miscalculated the appeal and 

power of the resistance movement. Some Filipinos, including much of 

the educated elite that provided the bulk of the insurgency’s leadership, 

were truly nationalistic in sentiment, while others found it difficult to 

overcome their suspicions of American intentions, no matter what protestations of goodwill the Americans might make. Moreover, the very 

political inertness of the mass of Filipino people and their subordination to their socioeconomic betters meant that they would follow their 

leaders almost instinctively, regardless of the temptations American 

officials dangled in front of them. General Bell put the case rather 

bluntly:

The common hombre is dominated body and soul by his master, the principale. 

He is simply a blind tool, a poor down-trodden ignoramus, who does not know 

what is good for him and cannot believe an American. We cannot appeal to 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

126

him direct. It is impossible. You can no more influence him by benevolent 

persuasion than you can a fly. He is going to do whatever he is told to do by 

his master or his leaders, because he is incapable of doing anything else.40

American promises of moderate political reforms, economic 

growth, and good government made little impression upon the peasant, 

who could not quite fathom how all this had any immediate relevance 

to his day-to-day existence. Schools seemed like a nice idea, but many 

of the other programs that touched him, such as enforced vaccinations 

and stringent sanitary codes, violated traditional norms and appeared 

rather Draconian. Some elements of the upper classes found the 

American program more appealing, for it corresponded with many of 

their own aspirations, and the program did in fact win converts to the 

American cause. Yet, the majority of the leaders of the resistance saw 

no reason why they could not achieve modernization on their own without the help of the United States. Consequently, the rebellion would 

drag on until the leaders of the resistance were given some compelling 

incentives to discontinue their activities. When the policy of attraction 

failed to provide such incentives, the U.S. Army was forced, as it had 

been in the Mexican and Civil Wars, to turn to more severe methods to 

crush the insurgency. 

Pacification: The Policy of Chastisement

Officers in the field began to pressure authorities in Manila to 

adopt less benign measures almost immediately after the Filipinos 

adopted guerrilla warfare. They were well aware that the laws of war 

took a dim view of this form of conflict. Moreover, textbooks, such 

as Birkhimer’s Military Government and Martial Law, made clear 

that should a population repay an occupier’s benevolent deeds with 

“overt acts or secret plottings,” then the military was entitled to take 

vigorous repressive measures. Among the suitable responses enumerated by GO 100 and military texts were the imposition of fines and 

communal punishments, the destruction of private property, the exile 

of individuals and the relocation of populations, imprisonment, and, 

in the case of guerrillas and their closest civilian allies, execution. 

During the course of the war the Army eventually resorted to all of 

these options.41

The shift toward more repressive forms of pacification did not 

occur all at once. Some officers adopted a policy of burning homes and 

villages in retaliation for Filipino ambuscades during the first days of 

the war, but instances were relatively rare in 1899 because Otis clearly 

frowned on such activities. His replacement, General MacArthur, was 
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127

The policy of chastisement: A company of the 44th U.S. Volunteer 

Infantry forms up after destroying a barrio.

more willing to consider stern measures, but he too wanted to give the 

policy of attraction a chance. Moreover, he was keenly aware that a 

major change in the direction of Army policy was impolitic during an 

election year, for it would fuel anti-imperialist criticism and jeopardize 

the McKinley administration’s chances of reelection in November. 

Consequently, he carefully delayed taking any significant steps toward 

stiffening Army policy until after the fall vote.42

While officials in Manila delayed, officers in the field acted. As the 

year 1900 progressed, a growing number of local commanders took 

matters into their own hands, tempering Manila’s lenient policies with 

increasingly punitive measures. One of the first to make the transition 

was Major Allen. In early 1900 Allen won high praise from his superiors for his adherence to the policy of attraction. Yet, after only a few 

months he came to the realization that benevolence was not working, 

for the people regarded American leniency as weakness and were overawed by the guerrillas’ ability to strike down their foes. Like Sherman 

before him, Allen reluctantly came to the conclusion that people were 

motivated “by fear more than by any other impulse and that I propose 

to profit by that fact.” He decided to stiffen the policy of attraction with 

what he called the “policy of chastisement.” He banned the importation 

of food into rebel controlled areas and launched punitive campaigns in 
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128

which he put villages and crops to the torch, punishing the hostile 

population while destroying the rebels’ logistical base.43

The policy of chastisement manifested itself in many forms during 

1900 as local commanders, impatient with Manila’s reluctance to take 

decisive action, implemented on their own authority the more punitive 

clauses of General Orders 100. As their predecessors had done in prior 

conflicts, American field commanders held local officials responsible 

for insurgent activities and punished communities for failing to notify 

the Army of the presence of guerrillas. They fined villages for damage 

done to public property and burned both individual homes and entire 

villages in retaliation for guerrilla actions. In some districts Army officers supplemented these measures by establishing Draconian curfews 

that authorized the killing of any man found near a telegraph line or out 

on the roads at night.44

Degrees of retaliation varied greatly from district to district, depending upon the temperament of the commander and the particular politicomilitary situation in which he found himself. Some commanders held to 

fairly high standards throughout the conflict. On the island of Mindanao, 

for example, Maj. E. F. Taggart refused to destroy captured stocks of 

guerrilla uniforms “for fear that some [clothes] of innocent persons 

might be among them.” Most officers were not so accommodating. Sgt. 

Mark Evans estimated that by June 1900 the Army had already burnt 

between 10 to 15 percent of the houses in the province of Bataan, and 

as the war dragged on other areas received similar treatment.45

By the fall of 1900 the policy of attraction had clearly given way to 

a new and sterner one, if not in theory, then in practice. Even those who 

had been strong supporters of benevolence now believed that the “milk 

and water” system of pacification would have to be discarded if the 

Army was to crush the insurrection, and they clamored for Manila to 

send a clear signal authorizing the hard war approach.

They did not have long to wait. Once the election was safely behind 

him, MacArthur formally embraced the policy of chastisement. On 20 

December 1900, he issued a proclamation that officially put into effect 

those sections of General Orders 100 authorizing stern measures 

against guerrillas and civilian insurgents. He exiled a group of prominent Filipino leaders, terminated the policy of automatically releasing 

prisoners (although he still exchanged prisoners for guns), and authorized commanders to destroy towns harboring guerrillas and confiscate 

the property of rebel sympathizers. The Manila command likewise 

loosened the restraints over the judicial system by authorizing provosts 

to arrest and detain suspects without evidence and by permitting many 

condemned prisoners to be executed.46
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129

The clear thrust of all of these programs was to give commanders 

in the field the tools they needed to strike not at the guerrillas in the 

field, who were kept at bay by the Army’s vigorous tactical initiatives, 

but at the clandestine infrastructure that lay at the heart of the insurrection. Of special interest to MacArthur were the upper classes, for they 

were the ones who provided much of the insurgent leadership and who, 

by their status and economic power, dominated Philippine society at 

large. By making them feel the costs of the war directly—by placing 

them in jail and threatening them with prosecution as war rebels, by 

confiscating their property and destroying their crops—MacArthur and 

his subordinates planned to undermine the Filipino people’s will to 

resist. Thus the Army countered the guerrilla’s terror with some intimidation of its own to make “compliance with insurgent demands . . . as 

dangerous as a refusal.”47

MacArthur coupled the announcement of the new policies with a 

fresh offensive. The initiative could not have been better timed. The 

rainy season had passed, and MacArthur had on hand 70,000 veteran 

troops, the highest troop level of the war. Moreover, McKinley’s reelection had proved a severe blow to the morale of Filipino nationalists 

whose hopes for independence had been riding on a Bryan victory in 

November. Disheartened by the election results and wearied by two 

years of war, the leaders of the rebellion now had to face a new and 

vigorous offensive aimed directly at them. The number of arrests 

increased and the number of executions soared. So too did the amount 

of property destruction, as officers demonstrated an increasing willingness to burn barrios tainted by association with the insurrection. 

Indeed, devastation, not just selective retaliatory burnings but the 

complete destruction of sections of countryside, soon became a hallmark of the counterinsurgency campaign. The scope and intensity of 

Army incendiary operations varied throughout the archipelago depending on the degree of resistance and the inclinations of local commanders. 

In their most extreme form they entailed the obliteration of entire areas 

deemed to be under guerrilla control or strongly sympathetic to the 

resistance. In such sectors the Army put to the torch homes, villages, 

storehouses, orchards, crops, livestock, boats, and even fishing nets. By 

destroying entire areas, field commanders hoped to give the surrounding 

regions an object lesson in American power that would encourage insurgent collaborators to reconsider their position. More important, devastation was part of a wider military strategy to beat the guerrillas into 

submission by eliminating all food and shelter in their base areas.48

In many cases the Army linked its incineration campaigns with 

measures designed to increase its control over the civilian population 
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130

and to deny the guerrillas access to the villages upon which they had 

always depended for information, recruits, and supplies. U.S. forces 

imposed land and sea blockades to prevent the movement of food to and 

from insurgent-dominated regions. In some areas, American commanders confiscated all the food in a district, then doled it out to the local 

inhabitants to ensure that they would have little left over to pass on to 

the starving guerrillas in the hills. In others, they regulated the flow of 

food into the countryside by limiting the amount of hemp or other cash 

crops each peasant could deliver into town for sale. As conditions worsened in the countryside, refugees flowed into American-controlled 

towns, and in some cases villagers volunteered to build stockades to 

keep out the increasingly desperate bands of guerrillas and bandits.49

Beginning in late 1900, commanders in several parts of the 

Philippines also began to experiment with a technique known as concentration, in which they relocated the population to a location where 

the Army could more readily protect the people from guerrilla intimidation, as well as prevent them from giving the rebels material aid. One 

early advocate of concentration compared it to the nation’s policy of 

concentrating American Indians on reservations, for it had the same 

effect of increasing government control and making clear the distinction between friend and foe.

Concentration came in various shapes and sizes, as commanders 

tailored it to local circumstances. Sometimes the Army forced the 

people to relocate, but in most cases it made relocation “voluntary.” 

The Army gave people little incentive to stay behind, however, as it 

made life miserable for those who did by classifying them as enemies 

and destroying their homes and crops. In one particular section of 

Cavite Province the Army rounded up all the families of insurgents and 

relocated them to a town where they could be watched. On the island 

of Marinduque the Army took a dual approach, first attempting to 

deport all males of military age, and then concentrating the entire civilian population. On the island of Mindanao, Brig. Gen. William A. 

Kobbe and Colonel Birkhimer experimented with a type of reverse 

concentration, in which they expelled all males of military age from 

towns along the Tagaloan River. Patterns of concentration were equally 

diverse in the other provinces where the Army employed population 

relocation during 1900 and 1901.50

Regardless of the way in which it was done, the Army treated concentration with extreme delicacy. Stories of the horrible conditions in 

Spanish concentration camps in Cuba had been one of the factors that 

had motivated the American people to support the war with Spain. 

President McKinley had roundly criticized Spain’s “cruel policy of con-
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131

centration.” Consequently, Army commanders did not launch any significant concentration campaigns until after the November 1900 elections, and even then they employed euphemisms such as “colonies” and 

“zones of protection” to masquerade the true nature of their activities. 

The issue was so sensitive that when Maj. Gen. Adna R. Chaffee forwarded to Adjutant General of the Army Brig. Gen. Henry C. Corbin a 

plan for a major concentration campaign in southern Luzon in December 

1901, he requested that Corbin “hand it to the Secretary to read and then 

destroy it. I don’t care to place on file in the Department any paper of 

the kind, which would be evidence of what may be considered in the 

United States as harsh measures or treatment of the people.”51

Although the Army’s methods were severe, its actions generally 

fell within the parameters permitted by the laws of war. MacArthur 

insisted that his subordinates stay within the bounds of General Orders 

100. Prisoners were still to be well treated, looting and other transgressions by the soldiery punished, and the people treated as kindly as 

circumstances and their behavior warranted. Yet there is no doubt that 

as the war progressed American servicemen acted in increasingly callous and sometimes brutal ways. Such behavior was perhaps inevitable, given the circumstances. Deployed in small, isolated detachments 

under the command of inexperienced junior officers, surrounded by an 

alien and untrustworthy population with whom they could not communicate, and frustrated by their inability to come to grips with an 

elusive foe, American soldiers felt the war’s corrosive effects both on 

their morale and their morals. The overly benign policies that had 

emanated out of Manila during the early stages of the war had unwittingly contributed to the growing harshness by spawning a backlash 

among the frustrated soldiery.52

As their forbearers had done during the Civil War, American soldiers in the Philippines redressed what they regarded as the government’s unwarranted leniency by adopting a rough justice of their own. 

Although they usually treated Filipinos who surrendered on their own 

accord relatively well, they did not always spare guerrillas met on the 

field of battle. Moreover, some commanders freely shot unarmed men 

who ran at the approach of an American column since, in the words of 

Maj. George S. Anderson, “they probably all deserved it.” Soldiers 

were particularly ill disposed to show leniency after one of their comrades had been murdered. Under such circumstances it was not 

unknown for columns to deny quarter, summarily execute prisoners, 

and engage in indiscriminate acts of killing and destruction.53

American soldiers and their Filipino auxiliaries also employed torture and other coercive measures to extract information from captured 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

132

guerrillas and their civilian allies. Only a small percentage of all Filipinos 

taken prisoner or interrogated by the U.S. Army underwent any form of 

physical or mental abuse. On the other hand, practices such as forcing 

large quantities of water down the throats of uncooperative natives (the 

“water cure”), hanging suspects by ropes (the “rope cure”), denying prisoners food or water, penning prisoners in overcrowded cells, and administering dunkings and beatings occurred more frequently than American 

authorities cared to admit. Officially, the Army condemned the water 

cure, which fell under GO 100’s proscription of torture. Unofficially, 

many officers winked at the practice, and military courts proved exceedingly reluctant to punish officers charged with applying coercive methods. As the war progressed the number of incidences of abuse grew as 

officers, disenchanted by the failure of benevolent policies, came to 

believe that the “cure” was the only effective way to uproot the guerrilla 

infrastructure. Even well-known champions of the policy of attraction, 

like Col. Arthur Murray, eventually conceded that the water cure “might 

be a good thing if judiciously administered in occasional doses, provided 

that the antis [anti-imperialists] at home did not find it out.”54

Although officers can justly be criticized for giving in to the frustrations of the guerrilla campaign and employing unsavory interrogation methods, many of those techniques did not differ materially from 

the “third degree” commonly practiced by police departments in the 

United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

In beating, grilling, and otherwise abusing certain captives, the Army 

was imitating law enforcement procedures widely employed in the 

United States at the same time.55

For the most part the campaigns of the winter of 1900 and spring 

of 1901 were highly successful. With their troops relentlessly hounded 

by mobile columns of soldiers and Philippine Scouts, their civilian 

infrastructure picked apart by increasingly effective American intelligence and judicial systems, and portions of the countryside in flames, 

one major guerrilla commander after another surrendered during the 

spring of 1901. By the time the United States announced the formation 

of a civilian government under Taft in July 1901, only two major guerrilla leaders remained at large, General Miguel Malvar, whose base of 

operations included the provinces of Batangas and Tayabas in southern 

Luzon, and General Vincente Lukban, who made his home on the 

island bastion of Samar. Other areas remained troubled, but it was clear 

that MacArthur’s offensive, backed by extensive coercive measures, 

had turned the tide of the Philippine War. 

The task of bringing the war to a close fell upon General Chaffee, 

who replaced MacArthur as commander of the Department of the 
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

133

Men of the 35th U.S. Volunteer Infantry demonstrate the water cure.

Philippines in mid-1901. As a young officer, Chaffee had served under 

Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864 and was well aware of how 

the Army had treated guerrillas and their civilian allies in the past. He 

had participated in the great sweep of December 1864 when Sheridan’s 

cavalry had put much of the Loudoun Valley to the torch in an effort to 

root out Mosby’s Partisan Rangers. What had been good for American 

secessionists, Chaffee held, was certainly good for Asians who, in his 

opinion, placed so little value upon human life that they could be 

brought to their senses only by a strong demonstration of force. Chaffee 

not only approved of the use of extreme measures, but replaced squeamish officers with those who were not afraid to “make a wilderness” 

out of guerrilla-infested regions. The most notable example of this 

occurred in the fall of 1901 when Chaffee shuffled the command system to place several noted “hardliners” in command of those few provinces that were still in a state of rebellion. He assigned General Bell to 

overcome Malvar’s guerrilla army in Batangas, and Brig. Gen. Jacob 

H. Smith to oversee the reduction of the island of Samar.56

The final campaigns in Batangas and Samar represented the culmination of the policy of chastisement. Like the majority of their colleagues, Bell and Smith had come to the conclusion that the United 

States had made a great mistake in not making the Filipino people feel 
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134

American soldiers and Filipino civilians witness a formal 

surrender ceremony.

the burdens of war during the early part of the insurrection. Rather than 

bringing about the end of the rebellion, such “coddling” had only 

encouraged the unrepentant natives to continue the struggle. Believing, 

as Sherman had, that “a short and severe war creates, in the aggregate, 

less loss and suffering than a benevolent war indefinitely prolonged,” 

they set out to create conditions that would keep “the minds of the 

people in such a state of anxiety and apprehension that living under 

such conditions will soon become unbearable.”57

Both Smith and Bell waged particularly ruthless campaigns of concentration and mass destruction. On Samar, Smith established “colonies” along the coast while sending columns of soldiers, marines, and 

scouts to devastate the island’s interior. In southern Luzon, Bell set out 

“to destroy everything I find outside towns[;] all able-bodied men will 

be killed or captured.” After concentrating several hundred thousand 

people in “zones of protection,” he put the province of Batangas to the 

torch.

Of the two campaigns, Bell’s was better organized and quickly won 

acclaim throughout the Army as a model counterinsurgency operation. 

Smith’s operations were less well coordinated and were tainted with 

murky allegations of atrocities that eventually led the Army, under 

great public pressure, to court-martial him. Nevertheless, both men had 
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

135

been successful despite the human suffering caused by their methods. 

Smith captured General Lukban in February 1902, and the majority of 

insurgents on Samar capitulated soon thereafter, while Malvar surrendered to Bell in April. With the last two major figures of the resistance 

movement in captivity, the United States declared the Philippine War to 

be officially over on 4 July 1902.58

The Legacies of the Philippine War

“It is evident that the insurrection has been brought to an end both 

by making a war distressing and hopeless on the one hand and by making peace attractive,” concluded Secretary of War Root in his official 

report upon the conclusion of the war. As in the Civil War, the Army 

had ultimately adopted a carrot-and-stick approach in which it alternately enticed and beat a hostile population into submission. But it had 

not settled upon any set mix of “positive” and “negative” incentives, 

preferring to allow local commanders to respond to situations as they 

saw fit.59

One thing most officers firmly believed, however, was that positive 

incentives alone could not overcome a strong rebellion. “You can’t put 

down a rebellion by throwing confetti and sprinkling perfumery,” wrote 

Maj. Gen. Loyd Wheaton in 1900, and by the end of the Philippine War 

there were few American soldiers who would have argued with him. 

For many if not most, the principal lesson of the war had been that 

decisive military action and the policies of chastisement, rather than 

policies of attraction, were the ultimate keys to a successful counterinsurgency campaign. Indeed, most officers believed, like Col. Robert L. 

Bullard, that “our aversion and long failure to use the justifiable and 

necessary severity against insurgents prolonged the war.”60

The students and, at least in Chaffee’s case, the veterans of 

Sherman’s and Sheridan’s campaigns realized that ultimately the followers of Emilio Aguinaldo had laid down their arms for the same reason 

that the followers of Jefferson Davis had—because they had been beaten 

and were no longer willing to endure the pain and suffering that continued resistance would bring. It was only when they had been pushed to 

the brink that the policy of attraction had played a significant role in 

bringing about the end of the insurrection, for at this point benevolence 

helped to reconcile the remaining insurgents to defeat. This was especially so because, by accident rather than by design, America’s program 

of moderate political reforms, economic growth, and education, 

appealed to the conservative leaders of the Filipino insurrection.61

That the policy of attraction had failed to win the war did not mean 

that American authorities dismissed its usefulness entirely. Most Army 
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136

leaders recognized that benevolent policies had a positive role to play. 

They realized that personal misconduct on the part of American soldiers could only exacerbate what was already a delicate situation, and 

that morality, military efficiency, and simple prudence demanded that 

the Army maintain strict discipline. They conceded that benevolence 

had won some adherents among the Filipino population and that it was 

therefore a useful tool in promoting the fragmentation and disintegration of the resistance movement. Besides, insofar as the war had been 

“a contest for the adherence of the people of the archipelago,” most 

officers understood that good conduct and constructive U.S. programs 

contributed to American success, while destructive acts, if not carefully 

controlled, made the guerrilla cause more attractive.

But the hard school of experience had led them to doubt that 

benevolence alone could subdue a strong insurgent movement, and it 

was foolish, if not inhumane, they believed, to blindly adhere to such 

policies and not to avail themselves of the sterner measures permitted 

by General Orders 100 and the laws of war. “Doubtless there will continue to be Americans who think that the milk and water policy is best, 

because that is the system that we would like to apply,” wrote Major 

Allen. But in reality, he said, the best policy was to treat “the good man 

very well indeed and the bad man very harshly.”62

The Army thus emerged from the Philippine War in much the same 

way as it had entered it—dedicated to the mixed policy of benevolence 

and retaliation that had been laid out in the texts of Halleck, Lieber, 

Birkhimer, and Bigelow, but without a fixed formula for the mixture. 

Pacification had proved to be more alchemy than science. And it was 

perhaps for this reason that the Army continued to shy away from writing a formal doctrine on the subject. Textbooks employed by the Army 

changed very little as a result of the Philippine experience. Judge 

Advocate General George B. Davis’ The Elements of International 

Law (1903), which replaced Davis’ Outlines of International Law as a 

West Point textbook, differed from the earlier work only in that it contained a new section justifying the practice of “laying waste a portion 

of the territory of the enemy.” The changes in Colonel Birkhimer’s 

Military Government and Martial Law were more extensive and more 

important, given the fact that the Army would use it as a text and reference work for decades. Birkhimer expanded coverage of such issues 

as the governance of occupied areas, pacification, and guerrilla warfare and illustrated these topics with examples from the Philippine 

War. Yet he did not materially alter any of his previous interpretations. 

He praised what he regarded as America’s traditional approach of trying to win the confidence of a hostile population while giving his 
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

137

Soldiers and civilians intermingle in the Philippines.

approval to the employment, when necessary, of such measures as the 

taking of hostages, the levying of fines and other forms of communal 

punishments, destruction, concentration, and the execution of particularly recalcitrant guerrillas and their civilian aides. Birkhimer’s work 

stood as an endorsement of the Army’s dual approach to pacification 

in the Philippines.63

Operationally, the Army learned, or at least reaffirmed, several useful lessons as well. Its leaders emerged from the conflict convinced of 

the importance of separating the population from the guerrillas through 

a combination of population control and counterinfrastructure measures. 

The importance of mobility, scouting, march security, native auxiliaries, 

and aggressive, small-unit action were well understood. The officer 

corps especially appreciated the important roles that military commissions and intelligence networks played in counterinsurgency operations, 

although the question of torture remained a gray area. Although the 

Army officially condemned it, several officers defended the practice, 

and textbooks employed at West Point after the war, while forbidding 

torture and discouraging coercion, conceded that it was sometimes useful to rough up uncooperative civilians to gain information.64
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

138

The veterans of the Philippine War passed on the lessons they had 

learned in terms of fieldcraft, tactics, and pacification through articles 

in professional journals and, to a lesser extent, military textbooks. 

Postwar editions of Wagner’s The Service of Security and Information, 

for example, incorporated Philippine situations to illustrate tactical 

points and to reassert Wagner’s prewar contention that good soldiers 

adapted their methods to the circumstances in which they found themselves. Wagner discussed modifications American officers had made to 

standard skirmish, outpost, and march formations to deal with jungle 

conditions and briefly described Filipino ambush techniques. Since The 

Service of Security and Information was widely used in the Army’s 

educational system, these lessons made their way into the lexicon of 

Army tactical doctrine.65

Yet as important as these writings were in distilling and passing on 

doctrinal lessons, the discussions were limited, and the Army’s official 

manuals and drill regulations contained only a few references to jungle 

and guerrilla warfare. This was partially due to the Army’s belief that 

the war had largely vindicated prewar small-unit tactical doctrine, only 

minor modifications being required to meet the peculiar aspects of 

Philippine service. Moreover, the successful outcome of the war had 

reaffirmed the military’s traditional view that guerrilla warfare, while 

often frustrating and sometimes dangerous, was not in and of itself 

capable of producing victory. The Army, therefore, continued to relegate the study of partisan operations to the fringes of military science.66

There was, however, another reason why some of the Army’s 

actions went unrecorded. The Philippine War had been an unpopular 

war, both at home and within the Army itself. Most soldiers were 

reluctant to expose the seamier side of the war to public scrutiny or 

even to record the lessons of these experiences. Indeed, it was somewhat dangerous to do so, as allegations of abuse and torture led to the 

convening of a Senate investigation and a flurry of courts-martial at 

the end of the war. Even the commanding general of the Army, veteran 

Indian fighter Nelson Miles, publicly accused his subordinates of committing atrocities. All of this discouraged a full airing of the Philippine 

experience. 

One of the most serious casualties in this process was the 

Telegraphic Circulars, a compilation of the orders that General Bell 

had issued during the final Batangas campaign. The pamphlet was a 

gem reminiscent of Crook’s Resume of Operations Against Apache 

Indians in that it contained not only Bell’s orders, but also a discussion 

of his counterinsurgency philosophy. Although the pamphlet was 

inserted into the record by a congressional committee investigating the 
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

139

war, the Army itself did not distribute it beyond the archipelago, allegedly because of the sensitivity of the subject matter. Similarly, the 

Army declined to publish its own official record of the Philippine War, 

Capt. John R. M. Taylor’s The Philippine Insurrection Against the 

United States, which reviewers alternately lambasted either as too 

candid about sensitive issues or as a whitewash of American conduct. 

Consequently, the Army was compelled to rely upon the memories of 

its soldiers to preserve many of the lessons from the war, just as it had 

during the previous century of Indian warfare. This was a precious 

asset, for the next twenty years were destined to be some of the most 

active ones for the Army in terms of pacification and small war operations, and it would be the veterans of the insurrection in the Philippines 

who would guide the Army through these many and diversified 

challenges.67
140

Notes

1

 Guam was initially administered by the Navy.

2

 The military government of Puerto Rico offers few insights that can not be gained 

by studying the larger occupations, and consequently it will not be discussed here. For 

information on Puerto Rico, see P. E. Pierce, “Puerto Rico, A Short History of the 

Military Occupation and Government by the United States,” JMSIUS 49 (1911): 74–89, 

232–47; F. W. Mansfield, “Puerto Rico,” JMSIUS 27 (1900): 30–52; “The American 

Army,” Outlook 74 (July 1903): 643–45; War Department, Annual Reports of the War 

Department for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1900 (Washington, D.C.: War 

Department, 1900), vol. 1, pts. 3 and 13 (hereafter cited as WDAR accompanied by the 

fiscal year covered in the volume); WDAR, 1899, vol. 1, pts. 3 and 6; WDAR, 1901, vol. 

1, pts. 3 and 13. 3

 David Healy, The United States in Cuba, 1898–1902: Generals, Politicians, and 

the Search for Policy (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963), pp. 55–56; 

Gillette, “Occupation of Cuba,” pp. 412–13. 4

 Davis, Outlines of International Law, pp. 248–49; War Department GO 101, 18 Jul 

1898; Healy, United States in Cuba, p. 55; War Department, Correspondence Relating 

to the War With Spain, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1902), 

2:858–59. 5

 Gates, “Alleged Isolation,” pp. 32–45; Allan Millett, The Politics of Intervention: 

The Military Occupation of Cuba, 1906–1909 (Columbus: Ohio State University, 

1968), p. 13. 6

 Gillette, “Occupation of Cuba,” pp. 410, 423–25; Millett, Politics of Intervention, 

p. 14; Robert Bacon and James Scott, eds., The Military and Colonial Policy of the 

United States: Addresses and Reports by Elihu Root (Cambridge, Mass., 1916), pp. 

164–68; Lane, Armed Progressive, p. 97. 7

 W. Cameron Forbes, The Philippine Islands, 2 vols. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 

1928), 1:423; Richard Brown, “Social Attitudes of American Generals, 1898–1940” 

(Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1951), pp. 78–79; Bacon and Scott, Military and 

Colonial Policy, pp. 164–65, 168. 8

 Bacon and Scott, Military and Colonial Policy, pp. 165–69. 9 Army and Navy Journal (15 July 1899): 1097. 10 WDAR, 1901, vol. 10, pt. 1, p. 8. 11 Louis Perez, Army Politics in Cuba, 1898–1956 (Pittsburgh: University of 

Pittsburgh Press, 1976), pp. 6–7. 12 Healy, United States in Cuba, pp. 179–86; WDAR, 1901, vol. 10, pt. 1, p. 8; 

Gillette, “Occupation of Cuba,” pp. 410–25; Scott, Memories, pp. 232–49; Lane, 

Armed Progressive, pp. 91–99. 13 Gillette, “Occupation of Cuba,” pp. 414, 418–22; Lane, Armed Progressive, pp. 

95, 100–104; Healy, United States in Cuba, pp. 147, 183–84, 186–88; Millett, Politics 

of Intervention, p. 43. 14 Norman Owen, ed., Compadre Colonialism: Studies on the Philippines Under 

American Rule (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1971), pp. 4, 25–26; Glenn 

May, Social Engineering in the Philippines (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980), 

pp. 180–81; John Gates, “The Limits of Power: The U.S. Conquest of the Philippines,” 
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

141

in Great Powers and Little Wars: The Limits of Power, ed. A. Hamish Ion and E. J. 

Errington (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1993), pp. 136–41. 15 Brian Linn, The U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, 1899–

1902 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), p. 3.

16 Glenn May, Battle for Batangas (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 

1991), pp. 99, 169; Linn, Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, pp. 12–17; Charles 

J. Crane, “The Fighting Tactics of Filipinos,” JMSIUS 31 (1902): 496–505; Gates, 

Schoolbooks, pp. 157–58; John R. M. Taylor, “The Spanish Campaign in the 

Philippines,” JMSIUS 33 (1903): 139. 17 Twichell, Allen, p. 109; William Scott, Ilocano Responses to American Aggression, 

1900–1901 (Quezon City, Philippines: New Day Publishers, 1986), p. 59; Thaddeus 

Sexton, Soldiers in the Sun (Harrisburg, Pa.: Military Service Publishers, 1939), p. 239; 

John R. M. Taylor, The Philippine Insurrection Against the United States, 5 vols. (Pasay 

City, Philippines: Eugenio Lopez Foundation, 1971), 5:142–45, 581–91, 596–97. 18 Glenn May, “Why the United States Won the Philippine-American War, 1899–

1902,” Pacific Historical Review 52 (1983): 365–66, 369; Linn, Counterinsurgency in 

the Philippine War, pp. 17–18, 167; Glenn May, “Resistance and Collaboration in the 

Philippine-American War: The Case of Batangas,” Journal of Southeast Asia Studies

15 (March 1984): 69–90. 19 Gates, Schoolbooks, pp. 163–64. 20 Quote from May, Battle for Batangas, p. 95. Gates, Schoolbooks, p. 113; Wooster, 

Indian Policy, pp. 198–99. 21 Taylor, Philippine Insurrection, 2:285, 288; War Department, Report of Major 

General E.S. Otis, USA, Commanding General of the Philippines, Military Governor

(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1900), pp. 194, 252, 364 (hereafter 

cited as Otis Report); Gerald Early, “The U.S. Army in the Philippine Insurrection, 

1899–1902” (Master’s thesis, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1975), 

pp. 79–80; WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 8, pp. 68, 322–25, 331–32; Gates, Schoolbooks, p. 

108; Correspondence Relating to the War With Spain, 2:1070. 22 Quote from WDAR, 1901, vol. 1, pt. 6, p. 306. Otis Report, p. 252. 23 Otis Report, pp. 127, 131; Cirs 3 and 12, in Telegraphic Circulars and General 

Orders, Regulating Campaign Against Insurgents and Proclamations and Circular 

Letters Relating to Reconstruction After the Close of War in the Provinces of Batangas, 

Laguna, and Mindoro, Philippine Islands, Issued by Brigadier General J. Franklin 

Bell, Batangas, Philippine Islands (HQ, 3d Separate Brigade, 1902), Adjutant 

General’s Office (AGO) 415839, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, RG 94, 

NARA (hereafter cited as Telegraphic Circulars). 24 Wagner, Service of Security, p. 14; Millett, Bullard, p. 142; Sand-30, “Trench, 

Parapet, or ‘the Open,’” JMSIUS 30 (July 1902): 481; Ewing Booth, My Observations 

and Experiences in the U.S. Army (1944), p. 47; Charles J. Crane, The Experiences of 

a Colonel of Infantry (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1923), pp. 502–07; Edgar 

Raines, “Major General J. Franklin Bell, U.S.A.: The Education of a Soldier, 1856–

1899,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 83 (Autumn 1985): 341–43; James 

Parker, “Some Random Notes on the Fighting in the Philippines,” JMSIUS 27 

(November 1900): 317–40; Louis Hamilton, “Jungle Tactics,” JMSIUS 37 (1906): 

23–28; Otis Report, p. 198; Ltrs, John L. Jordan to mother, 28 Apr 1900 and 11 Jul 

1900, Spanish American War Survey (SPAWS), 38th Infantry, MHI; Ltr, George 

Gelbach to father, 31 May 1900, SPAWS, 46th Infantry, MHI; Ltrs, Samuel Lyon to 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

142

wife, 30 Jul 1900, 15 Nov 1900, and 27 Nov 1900, Samuel Lyon Papers, MHI; Linn, 

Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, p. 112; WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 5, p. 191; 

John Nankivell, History of the Twenty-Fifth Regiment, U.S. Infantry (1927), p. 112; 

Glenn May, “Filipino Resistance to American Occupation: Batangas, 1899–1902,” 

Pacific Historical Review 48 (1979): 547. 25 WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 4, pp. 280–81, 657; Thomas Crouch, “The Making of a 

Soldier: The Career of Frederick Funston, 1865–1902” (Ph.D. diss., University of 

Texas at Austin, 1969), pp. 389–90, 395; Allan Marple, “The Philippine Scouts: A Case 

Study in the Use of Indigenous Soldiers, Northern Luzon, the Philippine Islands, 1899” 

(Master’s thesis, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1983), pp. 53–54, 

68–70, 74, 79, 90; Parker, “Random Notes,” pp. 327–28, 336–39; Senate, Philippine 

Committee, Hearings Before the Committee on the Philippines, 57th Cong., 1st sess., 

1902, S. Doc. 331, pt. 2, p. 882; J. A. Augur, “The Cavalry in Southern Luzon,” Journal 

of the U.S. Cavalry Association 13 (1903): 530, 532; WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 8, pp. 

346–47; Kirby Walker, “Cavalry Experiences From 1898–1901,” Journal of the U.S. 

Cavalry Association 13 (1902): 42. 26 Davis, Outlines of International Law, p. 242. 27 Marple, “Philippine Scouts,” pp. 5–6, 93–96; Louis Seaman, “Native Troops for 

Our Colonial Possessions,” North American Review 171 (1900): 847, 859–60; J. N. 

Munro, “The Native Scout Organization,” Cavalry Journal 20 (1910): 178–79; John 

Ward, “The Use of Native Troops in Our New Possessions,” JMSIUS 31 (1902): 797–

98, 804; WDAR, 1902, vol. 1, pt. 9, p. 234; Otis Report, pp. 13, 204, 365; 

Correspondence Relating to the War With Spain, 2:969; WDAR, 1901, vol. 1, pt. 5, p. 

39; WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 8, p. 14. 28 William Kobbe, Service in the Philippines, p. 160, William A. Kobbe Papers, 

MHI; Otis Report, pp. 131, 134; Millett, Bullard, p. 139; WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 8, pp. 

260, 332; Charles J. Crane, “The Filipinos’ War Contribution,” JMSIUS 29 (1901): 270; 

Fred Brown, History of the Ninth U.S. Infantry, 1799–1909 (R. R. Donnelly, 1909), pp. 

359–60, 364; Linn, Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, p. 42. 29 Brian Linn, “Intelligence and Low Intensity Conflict in the Philippine War, 

1899–1902,” Intelligence and National Security 6 (1991): 90–114; William T. Johnston, 

A Brief Record of Services Since 1898, c. 1902, 4625ACP91, RG 94, NARA. Ltrs, 

Chaffee to Corbin, 25 Oct 01 and 9 Dec 01, both in Henry C. Corbin Papers, Library 

of Congress (LC). D. H. Boughton, “How Soldiers Have Ruled in the Philippines,” 

International Quarterly 6 (September 1902–March 1903): 227–28; William Bisbee, 

Through Four American Wars (Boston: Meador Publishing Co., 1931), p. 261; U. G. 

McAlexander, History of the Thirteenth Regiment, U.S. Infantry (Fort McDowell 

Regimental Press, 1905), pp. 190–92, 196. 30 McKinley quote from Correspondence Relating to the War With Spain, 2:859. 

Otis quote from Gates, Schoolbooks, p. 149, and see also p. 83. Bell quote from ibid., 

p. 215. Birkhimer quote from William Birkhimer, Military Government and Martial 

Law (Washington, D.C.: James Chapman, 1892), p. 236. Otis Report, pp. 111, 122, 242; 

WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 8, pp. 80, 235, 257–65. 31 U.S. Congress, Senate, Philippine Committee, Charges of Cruelty, etc., to the 

Natives of the Philippines, 57th Cong., 1st sess., 1902, S. Doc. 205, pp. 34–38; Virginia 

Mulrooney, “No Victor, No Vanquished: U.S. Military Government in the Philippine 

Islands, 1898–1901” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1975), pp. 

168–79, 234–35.
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

143

32 Linn, Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, pp. 21, 51; Gates, Schoolbooks, 

pp. 139, 216–17; Sexton, Soldiers in the Sun, pp. 247–48; WDAR, 1901, vol. 1, pt. 5, 

p. 38; WDAR, 1901, vol. 1, pt. 4, p. 141. 33 First quote from Gates, Schoolbooks, p. 199, and see also pp. 137–39. Second 

quote from Forbes, Philippine Islands, 1:422–23. 34 Quote from Linn, Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, p. 128. Millett, 

Bullard, p. 147; WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 4, pp. 657, 668, 794, 798; Senate, Philippine 

Committee, Charges of Cruelty, 57th Cong., 1st sess., 1902, S. Doc. 205, p. 40; Gates, 

Schoolbooks, pp. 113–14; Twichell, Allen, p. 112. 35 Taylor, Philippine Insurrection, 2:306. 36 Gates, Schoolbooks, pp. 196, 219. 37 Mulrooney, “No Victor, No Vanquished,” pp. 200–204, 210–21; WDAR, 1902, 

9:188, 216, 222; James Blount, The American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898–

1912 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912), pp. 382, 385, 393.

38 Taylor, Philippine Insurrection, 5:775. Quote from Thomas Anderson, “Our Rule 

in the Philippines,” North American Review 170 (1900): 282. 39 Sumner quote from Linn, “Intelligence in Low Intensity Conflict,” p. 10. Taylor, 

Philippine Insurrection, 5:228–29, 647–48, 797–98. 40 Quote from Telegraphic Circulars, p. iii. WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 8, pp. 259–60. 41 Davis, Outlines of International Law, p. 242; Birkhimer, Military Government

(1892), pp. 75–82, 233–36; Bigelow, The Principles of Strategy, pp. 228–33; Senate, 

Philippine Committee, Charges of Cruelty, 57th Cong., 1st sess., 1902, S. Doc. 205, pp. 

19, 37; Mercur, Art of War, pp. 244–45. 42 Otis Report, pp. 80, 90; Correspondence Relating to the War With Spain, 2:1175–

78; Sexton, Soldiers in the Sun, pp. 247–48; Crane, Experiences of a Colonel, p. 321; 

Leon Wolff, Little Brown Brother (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), p. 237; Stuart 

Miller, ‘Benevolent Assimilation’: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–

1903 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982), pp. 69, 182–83.

43 Ltrs, Allen to wife, 16 Apr 1900 and 20 Apr 1900 and quote from 25 Apr 1900, 

box 7; Ltrs, Allen to Adj Gen, Military District of Albay, 15 Apr 1900 and 21 May 

1900, box 32; Ltr, Maj J. C. Gilmore to Allen, 26 May 1900, box 32. All in the Henry 

Allen Papers, LC. 44 Nankivell, Twenty-Fifth Regiment, p. 103; William C. Brown Diary, 1 Jun 1900, 

William C. Brown Papers, MHI; Correspondence Relating to the War With Spain, 

2:1123; Sexton, Soldiers in the Sun, pp. 243–44; Ltr, Lt Samuel Lyon to wife, 30 Jul 

1900, Samuel Lyon Papers, MHI; WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 8, p. 162; Scott, Ilocano 

Responses, pp. 31, 33; Linn, Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, p. 46. 45 Quote from WDAR, 1901, vol. 1, pt. 6, p. 313, and see also pp. 312–15. David 

Fritz, “The Philippine Question: American Civil/Military Policy in the Philippines, 

1898–1905” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1977), p. 428; Charles D. 

Rhodes Diary of the Philippine Insurrection, p. 9, Charles D. Rhodes Papers, MHI; 

WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 5, p. 317; William C. Brown Diary, 1 Jun 1900, Brown Papers; 

Senate, Philippine Committee, Hearings Before the Committee on the Philippines, 57th 

Cong., 1st sess., 1902, S. Doc. 331, pt. 3, pp. 2893–94. 46 Gates, Schoolbooks, pp. 187–93, 206–07; John H. Parker, Conditions in the 

Philippines in October 1900, p. 6, attached to Ltr, Theodore Roosevelt to Root, 24 Nov 

1900, box 162, Elihu Root Papers, LC; U.S. Congress, Senate, Philippine Committee, 

Conditions in the Philippines, 56th Cong., 2d sess., 1901, S. Doc. 167, pp. 201–04; 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

144

Forbes, Philippine Islands, 1:107; Taylor, Philippine Insurrection, 2:279–80; Richard 

Welch, Response to Imperialism: The United States and the Philippine-American War, 

1899–1902 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), p. 37. 47 Quote from Gates, Schoolbooks, p. 207. May, Battle for Batangas, p. 149. 48 WDAR, 1901, vol. 1, pt. 4, pp. 140–41; Elkanah Babcock, A War History of the 

6th U.S. Infantry (Kansas City, Mo.: Hudson-Kimberly, 1903), p. 85. Ltrs, Henry to 

Seton, 6 Aug 1900; Henry to mother, 7 Dec 1900; Henry to mother, 19 Feb 1901; all in 

Henry Papers. HQ, Island of Marinduque, GO 1, 8 Dec 1900, 4th District Department 

of Southern Luzon (DSL), unregistered correspondence, 2458, Records of U.S. Army 

Overseas Operations and Commands, RG 395, NARA; Linn, Counterinsurgency in the 

Philippine War, pp. 60, 117; Frederick Presher Diary, vol. 1, p. 98, SPAWS, 1st 

Cavalry, MHI; WDAR, 1902, 9:432–33, 438–43, 447–49, 454–56, 461–62, 595, 605, 

616–17; Ltr, Lt Charles Clifton, in The Rensselaer, 3 Apr 02, SPAWS, 43d Infantry, 

MHI; W. A. Damon, Record of Events, Co. ‘E,’ 2d Infantry, p. 4, SPAWS, 2d Infantry, 

MHI; Brown, Ninth Infantry, pp. 562, 571. 49 Brown, Ninth Infantry, p. 600; WDAR, 1902, 9:432; Joseph Schott, The Ordeal of 

Samar (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964), p. 77; Clarence Tenney, Official History of 

the 46th Regiment, pp. 78–79, SPAWS, 46th Infantry, MHI. 50 Tenney, Official History of the 46th Regiment, pp. 78–79; Brown, Ninth Infantry, 

pp. 562, 571–73; WDAR, 1902, 9:594–95, 603–06; Senate, Philippine Committee, 

Hearings Before the Committee on the Philippines, 57th Cong., 1st sess., 1902, S. Doc. 

331, pt. 2, pp. 554–56, 2443–44; Scott, Ilocano Responses, pp. 34, 142–44; Taylor, 

Philippine Insurrection, 5:200, 287; WDAR, 1901, vol. 1, pt. 5, p. 37; May, Battle for 

Batangas, pp. 246–47; Historical Sketch of the Twentieth United States Infantry, 

1861–1919 (1920), p. 41; HQ, Island of Marinduque, GO 10, 7 Feb 01, 2458, RG 395, 

NARA; Irving Heaslip, Hike Book, pp. 43, 46, 68, SPAWS, 2d Infantry, MHI; Kobbe, 

Service in the Philippines, pp. 273–75, Kobbe Papers. 51 First quote from Welch, Response to Imperialism, p. 138. Second quote from Ltr, 

Chaffee to Corbin, 10 Jan 02, box 1, Corbin Papers. 52 “Insular Notes,” JMSIUS 29 (1901): 448; Ltr, George Gelbach to father, 30 Nov 

1900, SPAWS, 46th Infantry, MHI; Frederick Palmer, The Real Situation in the 

Philippines, c. 1900, Kobbe Papers. 53 U.S. Congress, Senate, Philippine Committee, Trials or Court-Martial in the 

Philippine Islands in Consequence of Certain Instructions, 57th Cong., 2d sess., 3 

March 1903, S. Doc. 213, pp. 14–15. Anderson quote from Senate, Philippine 

Committee, Charges of Cruelty, 57th Cong., 1st sess., 1902, S. Doc. 205, p. 21. Ltr, 

William Eggenberger to mother, 25 Mar 01, SPAWS, 3d Infantry, MHI; Ltrs, George 

Gelbach to father, 31 May 1900, and to brother, 16 Jun 1900, both in SPAWS, 46th 

Infantry, MHI; Wolff, Little Brown Brother, p. 318; Schott, Ordeal of Samar, pp. 80, 

84; Russell Roth, Muddy Glory: America’s ‘Indian Wars’ in the Philippines, 1899–1935

(W. Hanover, Mass.: Christopher Publishing, 1981), pp. 53–54; B. O. Flower, “Some 

Dead Sea Fruit of Our War of Subjugation,” Arena 27 (June 1902): 650; Nankivell, 

Twenty-Fifth Regiment, pp. 102–03; Miller, Benevolent Assimilation, p. 188; Fritz, 

“Philippine Question,” pp. 439–40; Blount, American Occupation, pp. 200–201; Ltr, 

Allen to Col Clarence R. Edwards, 8 Apr 02, box 7, Allen Papers. 54 Murray quote from Ltr, Arthur Murray to Henry Allen, 21 May 02, box 7, Allen 

Papers. Richard Welch, “American Atrocities in the Philippines: The Indictment and 

the Response,” Pacific Historical Review 43 (1974): 235–36; May, Battle for Batangas, 
Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1902

145

pp. 147, 257–59, 262; Augustus Blocksom, “A Retrospect and Prospect of War,” 

JMSIUS 35 (1904): 215; Frederick Presher Diary, vol. 1, p. 95, SPAWS, 1st Cavalry, 

MHI; Charles Clifton questionnaire, SPAWS, 43d Infantry, MHI; Ltr, Samuel Lyon to 

wife, 13 Jan 01, Lyon Papers; Henry Graff, American Imperialism and the Philippine 

Insurrection (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1969), pp. 74–81, 97–107; Blount, 

American Occupation, pp. 204–05; Senate, Philippine Committee, Hearings Before the 

Committee on the Philippines, 57th Cong., 1st sess., 1902, S. Doc. 331, pt. 3, pp. 1979, 

2061–63, 2236, 2243, 2251, 2896. 55 The term third degree referred broadly to the use of intense physical or psychological pressure for the purpose of extracting a confession. There has never been a 

formal definition as to exactly what measures constituted the third degree, but beatings, 

the deprivation of food and sleep, long interrogations, and other actions taken to terrorize, intimidate, or demoralize the subject generally fall within its parameters. Ernest 

Hopkins, Our Lawless Police (New York: Viking, 1931), pp. 189–211, 324–25, 328–

29; Samuel Walker, A Critical History of Police Reform (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. 

Heath, 1977), pp. 15–16, 58, 132–35. 56 Carter, Chaffee, pp. 45, 47, 66, 84, 89; Ltr, Chaffee to Corbin, 18 Dec 01, Corbin 

Papers. 57 First quote from Edward Filiberti, “The Roots of U.S. Counterinsurgency 

Doctrine,” Military Review 68 (January 1988): 54, and see also p. 56. Second quote 

from Roth, Muddy Glory, pp. 84–85. 58 Quote from May, Battle for Batangas, pp. 253–56. Herbert White, “The 

Pacification of Batangas,” in Centennial of the U.S. Military Academy, 1:789; WDAR, 

1902, 9:228–36, 263–75; Telegraphic Circulars. 59 Forbes, Philippine Islands, 1:107. 60 First quote from Stanley Karnow, In Our Image: America’s Empire in the 

Philippines (New York: Ballantine Books, 1979), p. 179. Second quote from Robert 

Bullard, Why Has the Philippine War Lasted So Long? c. 1901, p. 4, box 9, Robert 

Bullard Papers, LC. 61 May, Battle for Batangas, pp. 99–100; May, “Filipino Resistance,” pp. 553–54; 

Taylor, Philippine Insurrection, 5:315–18; Norman Owen, “Winding Down the War in 

Albay,” Pacific Historical Review 48 (1979): 581–82, 587. 62 First quote from Taylor, Philippine Insurrection, 2:304. Second quote from Ltr, 

Allen to wife, 10 Feb 01, box 7, Allen Papers. Third quote from Gates, Schoolbooks, p. 

200.63 Fort Leavenworth and other Army schools used Birkhimer’s work as a textbook 

during the early twentieth century, while the Office of the Judge Advocate of the Army 

continued to rely on it as late as 1943. Davis, Elements of International Law, p. 304. 

Quote from William Birkhimer, Military Government and Martial Law (Kansas City, 

Mo.: Frank Hudson, 1904), p. 204, and see also pp. 101–11, 120, 124, 202–04, 310, 

312. Dan Campbell, William E. Birkhimer, Colonel, 28th U.S. Volunteer Infantry, A 

Brief Sketch, 4 Aug 43, pp. 21–23, William E. Birkhimer Papers, MHI; John Clous, 

“Military Government and Martial Law,” JMSIUS 38 (1906): 147. 64 Charles D. Rhodes, “The Experiences of Our Army Since the Outbreak of the War 

With Spain: What Practical Use Has Been Made of Them and How May They Be 

Further Utilized To Improve Its Fighting Efficiency,” JMSIUS 36 (1905): 216; Celwyn 

Hampton, “The Experiences of Our Army Since the Outbreak of the War With Spain: 

What Practical Use Has Been Made of Them and How May They Be Further Utilized 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

146

To Improve Its Fighting Efficiency,” JMSIUS 36 (1905): 414; Parker, “Random Notes,” 

pp. 317–40; John H. Parker, “The Last Phase of the Philippine Rebellion and the 

Problems Resulting Therefrom,” Review of Reviews 21 (October 1901): 562–67; James 

Parker, “Notes on Field Duties. The Attack by Ambush,” JMSIUS 32 (1903): 374–75; 

Crane, “Fighting Tactics,” pp. 496–505; Filiberti, “U.S. Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” 

pp. 51–61; Hamilton, “Jungle Tactics,” pp. 23–28; Charles J. Crane, “Paragraphs 93, 

97, and 88, of General Orders 100,” JMSIUS 32 (1902): 254–56; E. J. McClernand, 

“Our Philippine Problem,” JMSIUS 29 (1901): 327–32; Wagner, Service of Security, p. 

100.65 Wagner, Service of Security, pp. 17–18, 34–35, 66–67, 101, 105. 66 Ibid., preface to 1903 edition; Birkhimer, Military Government (1904), pp. 78, 

308.67 Telegraphic Circulars; Gates, Schoolbooks, pp. 287–88; Taylor, Philippine 

Insurrection, 1:xi; Fritz, “Philippine Question,” pp. 16–18; James Biedzynski, “Frank 

McIntyre and the Philippines” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio University, 1990), pp. 103–18.
147

5

The Imperial ConstabularyYears

1900–1913

America’s victory over Spain in 1898 inaugurated a new era in the 

nation’s history. Pursuing the status of a great power, the United States 

arbitrated international disputes, established a protectorate over the 

Republic of Panama, built a canal across the isthmus, and sent a fleet 

of warships around the world to herald America’s coming of age. In 

1904 President Theodore Roosevelt issued a “corollary” to the Monroe 

Doctrine, in which he declared that the United States had the right to 

intervene in the internal affairs of any nation in the Western Hemisphere 

when public discord or mismanagement adversely affected American 

interests. The burden of carrying out his ambitious policies fell upon 

the military. While the Navy cruised the seas, occasionally landing 

marines and sailors to protect American lives and property, the Army 

undertook a host of constabulary duties in the newly created empire 

and adjacent areas. Its experiences added steadily to a growing store of 

knowledge and informal doctrine about the conduct of small wars and 

interventions.

The Peking Relief Expedition, 1900–1901

The twentieth century hardly had begun when an American force 

was dispatched to China. Although the expedition was small in military 

terms, it revealed the nation’s growing role in the world. The expedition 

marked the Army’s first overseas contingency operation and its first venture in coalition warfare since the American Revolution. In addition to 

being a historic watershed, the China experience also seems to have 

influenced how the expedition commander, General Chaffee, would 

eventually approach the problem of pacifying the Philippines. (Map 3)
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

148

During the last half of the nineteenth century, Japan and a number of 

Western powers sought to carve up the ailing Chinese empire into a series 

of colonies, protectorates, and spheres of influence. This predatory 

behavior eventually sparked a wave of nationalistic and xenophobic sentiment in China that took the form of an antiforeign and anti-Christian 

movement known to westerners as the Boxer movement. Chinese authorities had little success in suppressing the Boxers, in part because elements 

of the imperial court sympathized with their goals. In June 1900 a large 

force of Boxers entered the imperial capital of Peking, burning churches 

and killing Chinese Christians. Many Chinese Christians and most foreigners took refuge behind the walls of the city’s legation quarter, where 

foreign embassies and residences were located. Since the Chinese government was reticent to protect them, the leaders of the foreign diplomatic community in Peking called on their governments for aid, a request 

that assumed additional urgency after the Chinese government openly 

sided with the Boxers and declared war on all the nations that had legations in Peking, including the United States. The United States responded 

by earmarking nearly 15,000 men from garrisons in the United States, 

Cuba, and the Philippines for service in China. Time was of the essence, 

however, and ultimately only a few thousand American soldiers and 

marines actually reached China in time to participate in the campaign. In 

June an international force of 2,100 men (including 100 U.S. marines but 

no American soldiers) under the command of British Admiral Sir Edward 

Seymour failed to break the siege of Peking’s foreign community. A second force of 19,000 European, Japanese, and American troops (the latter 

commanded by General Chaffee and numbering 2,500 soldiers), successfully relieved the legation quarter in August 1900. A year of parleying 

followed, during which China agreed to a huge indemnity and accepted 

serious limitations on its sovereignty.1

Meanwhile, the allies divided Peking into several zones, each ruled 

by one of the foreign powers that had participated in the expedition. 

Decisions affecting the entire city were made by committee. The 

American zone consisted of several square miles and roughly 50,000 

inhabitants. General Chaffee and his second in command, Brig. Gen. 

James H. Wilson, were well prepared for the job of civil administration. 

Chaffee had served a stint as an Indian agent, while Wilson had exercised military government responsibilities during Reconstruction. More 

importantly, both men came to China fresh from significant military 

government duties in Cuba. Together, they set about governing the 

American zone in much the same way as the Army was administering 

Havana, San Juan, and Manila. They restored law and order, first by 

using American troops and military courts, and later by reestablishing 
The Imperial Constabulary Years, 1900–1913

149

Hwang Ho (Yellow River)

Y E L L O W

S E A

G U L F O F

P O H A I

Yangtze Ri ver

PEKING

Paoting

Tientsin

Shanhaikwan

Port Arthur

Chefoo

Tsingtao

Tsinan

Kaifeng

Han–kow

Hangchow

SHANGHAI

NANKING

Suchow

CHINA

1900–1938

0 150

Miles

ELEVATION IN FEET

0 600 1500 3000 and Above

Map 3

Chinese police and judicial institutions. They imposed a rigorous regimen of sanitation and inoculated the population against disease. They 

repaired roads and public buildings, installed street lighting, established 

hospitals and schools, opened charity kitchens to feed the destitute, and 

closed gambling houses and opium dens. Although some of these mea-
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

150

sures—especially those relating to sanitation—were enforced with an 

iron hand, Chaffee endeavored to rule as benignly as possible, taking 

care to respect traditional customs. The American quarter was governed 

so well that it was not long before people began to flock to it from other 

sections of the city. Even the criminals preferred American rule due to 

Chaffee’s ban on executions, a ban he eventually had to rescind to stop 

the flow of undesirables into the U.S. zone. With the exception of the 

Japanese zone, which was equally well managed, the American quarter 

was universally regarded as the best-run section of Peking.2

Most American officers were appalled by their first experience in 

coalition warfare. The conduct of the other powers—especially Russia, 

France, and Germany—was exceedingly brutal. They looted and 

burned without restraint, and gunned down thousands of Chinese civilians. American conduct, by contrast, was restrained. Mindful that 

unadulterated terrorism would only delay the restoration of peace and 

good relations, Chaffee imposed strict discipline. He forbade looting 

and ordered his troops not to fire unless fired upon. Although he authorized the destruction of homes and villages suspected of harboring 

Boxer irregulars, he generally refrained from participating in the vindictive raids and punitive operations that typified coalition operations 

after the capture of Peking. Thanks to his efforts, the U.S. Army 

emerged from the Boxer affair with its reputation enhanced rather than 

sullied, although personal misconduct on the part of American soldiers 

was not unknown.3

From the beginning of the multinational effort, command and control had been a recurring problem that greatly complicated coalition 

operations and logistics. Poor coordination and miscommunication 

contributed directly to a disastrous attack on Tientsin, in which the 9th 

U.S. Infantry suffered 20 percent casualties. Later, “friendly fire” from 

a Russian battery caused fifteen American casualties at Yang-ts’un. Not 

until Peking had fallen did the coalition institute a single, overall command, and even then the U.S. government, jealous of its national sovereignty and suspicious of European motives, refused to place its 

forces under international control. Consequently, while American officers recognized the utility of combined command in operations of this 

nature, they made no effort to craft a doctrine for multinational operations. Nor would such a system be easy to achieve, as demonstrated by 

World War I. During that conflict the same countries that had participated in the China expedition were unwilling to commit themselves to 

a combined command until late in the war.4

Other than giving the Army some expeditionary experience and an 

opportunity to observe the workings of foreign armies, the Peking 
U.S. troops guard Boxer prisoners at Tientsin; below, American soldiers 

on police detail during the occupation of Peking.
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

152

A Chinese village lies in ruins after a visitation by allied forces.

Relief Expedition had little impact on Army doctrine. With the 

Philippine War in full swing, the War Department withdrew most 

American troops from China in the fall of 1900. Chaffee and the 

remaining troops left the following spring. Only a 150-man detachment 

from the 9th Infantry stayed behind to guard the American legation in 

Peking, a duty that it performed until the Marine Corps assumed that 

function in 1905. Nevertheless, the expedition had made an impression 

on at least one important Army officer, General Chaffee. During his 

stay in China, Chaffee noted the harshness with which the European 

powers approached Asian warfare, as well as what he perceived to be 

the relatively low status accorded to individual human life by oriental 

society. From these observations he drew the conclusion that while 

brutality and wanton destruction had no place in the conduct of war, 

stern measures were necessary in subjugating rebellious Asians. 

Benevolence of the kind he had shown to the conquered people of 

Peking was possible once the enemy had been subjugated, but it was 

folly to attempt to win a war over such a people by kindness alone. 

These ideas were not new to Chaffee, a man familiar with the exigencies of irregular warfare. Rather they reinforced in his mind the traditional view that stubborn rebels and “semi-civilized” peoples must be 
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managed with a firm hand. It was a lesson Chaffee applied when he left 

China for the Philippines in mid-1901.5

Policing the Philippines, 1902–1907

By July 1902 Chaffee’s hard war policies had succeeded in crushing the last major bastions of Filipino resistance. But the Army’s role 

in the Philippines did not end with his victories over Malvar and 

Lukban. Three and a half years of war and insurrection had left many 

areas in shambles—homes destroyed, crops ruined, and populations 

uprooted. The chaos of war was further aggravated by disease, which 

swept through the Philippines killing tens of thousands of Filipinos and 

the carabao they relied upon for agricultural labor. Such conditions 

proved fertile ground for ladrones—organized bands of bandits that 

plundered and terrorized the countryside.

Although many ladrones were little more than brigands, a few 

aspired to higher ideals. Some were genuine insurgents who refused to 

accede to U.S. authority. Others fought to redress perceived injustices in 

Filipino society or were members of mystical and often fanatical religious sects that preached the coming of a new era, free of American 

devils. Taken together, these roaming bands posed a significant threat to 

the internal stability of the Philippines for several years after the “official” termination of the insurrection. Not only did the ladrones employ 

the same guerrilla techniques used by Aguinaldo and his commanders, 

but they also maintained quasi-political structures that resembled those 

established during the war. The religious cults were usually based upon 

secret societies, while even the bandits had sophisticated intelligence and 

support networks among the population. Some ladrones were “social 

bandits” of the “Robin Hood” variety who enjoyed a genuine popularity 

among the people, while others had extensive contacts with town merchants and municipal officials through whom they marketed stolen 

goods. All freely used terror to strengthen their control over the population and to punish informers. Moreover, unlike the insurgents of 1899–

1902, who were usually under the firm control of middle- and upper-class 

Filipinos, the ladrone movements of the postwar period were often 

peasant-based and hostile to the basic socioeconomic order. Deep ethnic, 

regional, and social fissures in Philippine society fueled many of these 

movements and gave them a strong flavor of civil and class warfare. 

When mixed with religious mysticism and its promise of a socialistic 

paradise, some of the postwar resistance movements achieved both a 

mass base and a revolutionary fervor that the earlier insurrection had 

lacked and that U.S. authorities found difficult to uproot.6
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154

Civil and military officials alike recognized that the ultimate solution to the problem of postwar banditry was to eliminate the social and 

economic conditions that bred it. Consequently, the civil government 

followed the course charted by the Army, sponsoring a host of economic, educational, and governmental programs designed, in the words 

of one provincial governor, to win the “heart and mind” of the Filipino 

people. Nevertheless, while American officials hoped that economic 

development would eventually eliminate social unrest, many reluctantly agreed with Brig. Gen. Henry T. Allen that “the only immediate 

remedy is killing and for the same reason that a rabid dog must be disposed of. Education and roads will effect what is desired, but while 

awaiting these, drastic measures are obligatory.”7

As chief of the Philippine Constabulary, Allen bore primary 

responsibility for completing the pacification of the Philippines. 

Governor Taft had created the Constabulary in July 1901 to give the 

civil government its own counterinsurgency capability. Relying on the 

Army to perform this function after peace had been restored was 

impolitic, Taft believed, because it would indicate that many parts of 

the Philippines were not truly pacified, thereby strengthening the hands 

of his two major critics—the anti-imperialists at home and Army officers who advocated a return to military government until stability had 

been entirely restored. Better, reasoned Taft, to create a “civil” counterinsurgency force that was made up of natives whose activities would 

arouse less public scrutiny and that could be safely controlled by the 

civil government without having to rely upon the military. By the time 

the U.S. government proclaimed the war to be over in mid-1902, the 

Constabulary numbered around 5,000 men and was put to work dousing the remaining embers of the insurrection.8

Although the Philippine Constabulary was an arm of the civil government, the U.S. Army profoundly influenced it during its formative 

years. Allen, who served as the organization’s chief until 1907, staffed 

the Constabulary’s officer corps almost entirely with officers and 

NCOs from the Army. Constabulary service was credited toward service in the Regular Army, and it was common for Constabulary officers 

to return to the Army after a few tours with the police organization. In 

fact, rather than being a dead-end assignment, Constabulary service 

attracted ambitious officers who sought to enhance their reputations 

with some combat duty during peacetime. No fewer than twenty-five 

Constabulary officers went on to achieve general officer rank in the 

U.S. Army.9

In picking his subordinates, Allen used the same criteria that Crook 

had employed in selecting officers to lead his Indian Scouts. He sought 
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155

The Philippine Constabulary

bright, ambitious, and physically robust men who could not only withstand the rigors of bush service, but who were also sensitive to the local 

sociopolitical environment. Whether in the American Southwest, the 

Caribbean, or the Philippines, the leaders of America’s native auxiliaries all agreed that the successful leader of native troops had to exhibit 

the traits of a paternal strongman, sufficiently aloof from his charges to 

gain their allegiance while demonstrating a genuine concern for their 

welfare and a respect for their cultural idiosyncracies.10

Using the organization and administration of the U.S. Army as a 

guide, Allen and his handpicked assistants crafted the Constabulary 

into a capable organization. They trained their “soldiers” as light infantrymen, using the Army’s own drill regulations as the basis for tactical 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

156

instruction. Supplementing this instruction were lessons from the 

Philippine War compiled in the Manual for the Philippine Constabulary, 

first published in 1906. The manual’s discussions of small-unit, irregular operations were similar in many ways to those that had long graced 

the pages of Mahan, Marcy, Wagner, and Bigelow. The guide prescribed vigorous action in battle and described various counterambush 

techniques. It recommended that columns operate at night and during 

the rainy season, when they had the best chance of catching their 

irregular opponents off guard. Like its predecessors, the book suggested various techniques to deceive the enemy, such as doubling back, 

padding equipment to dampen noise, and relocating campsites at night 

to foil surprise attacks.11

But the manual was more than a tactical supplement for irregular 

warfare. It contained a great deal of information pertaining to the 

Constabulary’s police functions, describing court and legal matters, 

arrest procedures, and the collection of evidence. It directed constables 

to monitor closely the mood of the population and gave tips on how to 

accomplish this end. Officers were required not only to know Spanish, 

but also to learn the dialects and customs of the regions where they 

were posted. More than mere policemen, the government regarded the 

constables as key agents in civilizing the islands. Consequently, the 

manual enjoined Constabulary officers to employ minimal force and to 

conduct themselves “with justice and kindness,” so as to win the population’s allegiance.12

Although the Constabulary bore primary responsibility for pacifying the postwar Philippines, it could not do the job alone. It lacked the 

manpower, the administrative and logistical infrastructure, and to some 

degree the combat skills required to deal with the larger and more virulent insurgent movements. Consequently, during the five years that followed Malvar’s surrender, the Philippine government was compelled to 

call upon the U.S. Army on numerous occasions for assistance in maintaining order and suppressing banditry. In most cases support came in 

the form of the Philippine Scouts, whose cultural attributes made them 

more suitable for peacetime pacification work than regular soldiers. By 

mid-1903 no fewer than thirty of the Scouts’ fifty companies were serving with the Constabulary. U.S. Army regulars, on the other hand, participated in only a half-dozen counterinsurgency operations during 

1902–1907. Nevertheless, the campaigns in which regulars participated 

were usually the most difficult and dangerous of the period.13

In setting out to restore order and tranquility to the troubled districts of the Philippines, American security forces applied the same 

blend of carrot-and-stick policies that had become standard fare in 
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157

Moro soldiers of the U.S. Army’s Philippine Scouts in 1904

American pacification campaigns. On the one hand, Constabulary and 

Army officers exhorted their men to treat the population kindly, banned 

torture, and initiated such civil activities as building roads, providing 

free medical care, and establishing work programs. On the other, they 

vigorously prosecuted the military campaign. In the process they followed Constabulary Chief Allen’s old formula of stiffening the policy 

of attraction with the policy of chastisement. Indeed, Constabulary 

operations during the immediate postwar period were sometimes ugly 

affairs, in which quarter was neither expected nor given. Villages and 

crops were burnt, suspects tortured despite Constabulary regulations, 

and ladrone leaders gunned down by special assassination squads.14

Operationally, the counterguerrilla campaigns of the postwar years 

were virtually identical to those conducted during the Philippine War. 

Roundups, cordon-and-sweep operations, and hikes proved to be the 

mainstay of the security forces’ tactical arsenal, while spies and informants helped root out ladrone infrastructures. Perhaps the major difference in tactics between the campaigns of 1899–1902 and those that followed stemmed from the ladrone’s greater reliance on hand to hand 
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158

combat. This was especially true of religious insurgents like the redclothed pulahans of Samar and the Visayas, who used mass charges by 

sword-wielding fanatics to overcome their foes. This contrasted sharply 

with Aguinaldo’s guerrillas, who had been more apt to carry firearms and 

who had exhibited less determination in driving home machete (bolo) 

attacks. To counter the new threat, American forces developed special 

march and camp procedures designed to provide all-round security. The 

Army also adjusted to the threat of fanatical charges by outfitting the 

regulars with special weapons, most notably repeating shotguns and 

heavy-caliber revolvers. Financial considerations limited the Scouts and 

Constabulary to older, slower-firing black powder weapons that made 

them somewhat more vulnerable. On the other hand, the single-shot shotguns with which the Constabulary was equipped were more suited to 

close-in jungle fighting than the Army’s standard long-range rifles.15

Perhaps the most drastic and effective counterinsurgency measure 

employed by U.S. security forces during the postinsurrection years was 

concentration. In 1903 the Philippine government passed a law permitting the use of concentration in ladrone-infested areas, provided that 

officials gave the concentrated populations adequate food, shelter, and 

health care. Between the end of the Philippine War and 1907, American 

security forces imposed concentration or other population relocation 

programs in nearly a dozen Philippine provinces. 

As in the war, the manner in which concentration was applied varied widely. In Albay, for example, Col. Harry H. Bandholtz, a veteran 

of several concentration campaigns during the Philippine War, concentrated nearly 125,000 people in towns and camps that, despite government efforts, were wracked by “disease and suffering for want of food 

and ordinary living accommodations.” In the province of Cavite, the 

government concentrated about a third of the population, partially relocated another third, and left the remainder alone, preferring instead to 

concentrate the food supply in protected areas rather than the people 

themselves. The Constabulary also created “death zones” in Cavite, 

where anyone found by the troops was liable to be shot.16

Using a mixture of civil enticements, concentration, and aggressive 

action in the field, the Constabulary, backed by the regulars and the 

Scouts, consolidated America’s victory in the Philippine War through a 

series of hard campaigns between 1902 and 1907. By 1908—the first 

year in which the Constabulary did not have to call upon either the 

Army or the Scouts for support—the work was largely done. Although 

the Philippine Constabulary would continue to combat the last vestiges 

of the ladrones and pulahans for several more years, the Regular 

Army’s role in pacifying the Philippines had finally come to an end.
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159

Governing the Moros, 1900–1913

There was one exception to the Army’s general disengagement 

from Philippine internal affairs after 1907, and this had to do with the 

management of a portion of the Philippines colloquially referred to as 

“Moroland.” Moroland consisted of the large island of Mindanao and 

the Sulu archipelago, the Philippine Islands’ southernmost appendage. 

This area differed significantly from the rest of the Philippines in that 

it was dominated by a Muslim people, the fiercely independent Moros, 

who had never submitted fully to Spanish rule. In recognition of the 

special difficulties involved in pacifying the Moros, the government 

charged the Army with responsibility for governing them until 1914. 

Not only religious beliefs differentiated the Moros from other 

Filipinos. Moro laws, customs, and language (of which there were a 

variety of dialects) differed fundamentally from those of the 

Christianized north. Slavery and piracy were common features of Moro 

life, while politically Moroland was divided into a bewildering patchwork of feuding tribes and clans, each led by a hereditary chieftain 

(dato) and linked by a complex web of familial and semifeudal ties. 

Moreover, the Moros were a xenophobic and warlike people whose 

religious fervor only intensified their dislike for outsiders in general 

and Christians in particular. It was not uncommon for Moros, either as 

individuals or in small groups, to launch murderous rampages against 

infidels with the assurance that death for the juramentado, as the religious kamikaze was called, guaranteed his entry into paradise. 

In approaching the “Moro question,” military leaders were greatly 

influenced by the Army’s experiences with the “Indian question” of the 

previous century. Many of the officers who played a role in shaping 

Moro policy shared General Otis’ belief that cultural change could only 

be achieved by evolution rather than revolution and that the best way 

to guide a warlike and “primitive” race through the progressive stages 

of civilization was by exercising a strong, paternal hand. They urged 

that the Army be given exclusive control over the Moros, not only 

because it had the prerequisite experience to do the job, but also to 

avoid the type of bureaucratic muddle that had plagued pacification 

efforts during the Indian and Philippine Wars. They were quite determined not to repeat what they considered to have been the tragic flaws 

of America’s Indian policy—divided authority, vacillating policies, 

corrupt officials, and unrealistic expectations.17

Although the frontier experience had endowed the officer corps with 

a broad philosophy concerning the management of aboriginal peoples, 

Army leaders still had to formulate a specific policy for governing the 
Moros. Two approaches suggested 

themselves. The United States 

could either strengthen the sultan 

of Sulu—the titular head of Islam 

in the Philippines—and rule 

Moroland indirectly, as the British 

and Dutch did in their Malaysian 

colonies, or it could attempt to rule 

directly. Ultimately, American officials opted for direct rule. Neither 

the sultan nor any other dato had 

sufficient prestige to rule all of 

Moroland, and any effort to elevate 

one Moro leader over his peers 

would undoubtedly have resulted 

in civil war. If violence was inevitable, reasoned officers, it made 

more sense to establish direct 

American rule than to uphold some 

native autocrat. Besides, the notion 

of ruling through a despotic Asian 

potentate was distasteful to 

Americans. As on the Great Plains, 

officers believed that progress 

toward political and economic democracy could only be achieved by 

replacing tribalism with individualism—a goal that appeared incompatible with the perpetuation of despotic datos.

18

The American colonial government in Manila took the first step 

toward asserting direct control by announcing the formation of Moro 

Province in 1903. Mimicking the system used by Spain and the 

Netherlands in governing Asian Muslims, Manila endowed the province’s governor with special powers, including direct command over all 

military forces in the area. Since all three provincial governors between 

1903 and 1913 were general officers, and many of the province’s lower-ranking officials were soldiers as well, Moro Province became the 

domain of the Army. This politico-military form of government was 

designed to give provincial authorities the unity of effort and the muscle that the Army believed were essential for the civilization of a “savage” race.

Army officers were not so naive, however, as to believe that they 

could rule the Moros without the assistance of the traditional ruling 

class. Throwing out the datos would only create confusion and resentCounterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

160

A Moro warrior in full armor
ment, and for this reason the Army 

chose a gradual approach in tune 

with its evolutionary philosophy. 

Rather than imposing a democratic system for which the people 

were unprepared, General Wood, 

the former governor of occupied 

Cuba and the first governor of 

Moro Province, crafted a paternal 

system of government that blended Moro traditions with Western 

institutions. He divided the province into districts and appointed 

American officers as their governors. He further subdivided the 

districts into tribal wards, each of 

which was headed by the principal dato of the region. Lesser 

datos served as deputies. Although 

the datos continued to govern at 

the local level, they did so now as American civil servants who had to 

conform their behavior to American-dictated standards. The tribal ward 

system thus tapped the datos’ power and prestige but circumscribed 

their authority and laid the groundwork for their ultimate demise as 

autonomous, hereditary chieftains. Though not flawless, the system 

proved a practical compromise between modernization and tradition 

that served America’s long-term interests without overly disrupting 

Moro society.19

Having established a basic governmental framework, Army officers introduced the same set of institutional reforms that were now 

standard features of the American way of pacification. They cleaned 

the streets (where there were streets), inoculated the population, and 

provided free medical care. They regularized the administration of 

government, courts, and taxes; established schools; and where civilian 

teachers were not available, detailed soldiers to serve as instructors. 

They introduced a number of measures designed to enhance both the 

prosperity of Moro Province in general and the socioeconomic standing of the individual Moro in particular. They built roads and improved 

harbors. They established experimental farms and agricultural colonies to promote diversification and modernization. Finally, they distributed small plots of public land to homesteaders in an effort to 

promote the development of that class of independent yeoman farmer 

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161

General Wood
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

162

that Americans have traditionally regarded as the bedrock of a democratic society.20

Of all of their endeavors, officers considered the promotion of education and commerce to be the most important. Education, however, was 

a long-term proposition, and consequently the Army regarded economic 

development as the primary engine for the immediate pacification of the 

Moros. From the beginning, garrison commanders encouraged the 

development of marketplaces near their posts, both to meet the needs of 

the troops and to foster better relations with the Moros. The business 

generated by the soldiers and the security that they offered local merchants provided a conducive environment for economic growth, and 

soon the markets became thriving centers of trade and “civilization.” In 

September 1904 the district governor of Zamboanga, Maj. John P. 

Finley, systematized the marketplace concept by creating the first Moro 

Exchange—a cooperative market and commodity exchange complete 

with storage facilities and accommodations for those bringing their 

wares to market. General Wood enthusiastically embraced the exchange 

concept, and by 1910 the Army had established thirty-two such markets. 

In 1911 Moro Governor Brig. Gen. John J. Pershing supplemented the 

largely coastal-based exchanges with a new kind of government-controlled market, the Industrial Trading Station, which he established deep 

in the interior of Moroland. He complemented the expanded trade network by building more roads and by stationing small detachments of 

Scouts and Constabulary in the backcountry. These outposts became 

islands of security and influence that, together with the markets, greatly 

enhanced the pacification of the province.21

While roads, markets, clinics, and schools formed the basis of the 

Army’s nation-building campaign, ultimately the success or failure of 

the Army’s activities rested on the ability of officers in the field to win 

the trust and confidence of the Moros. “The personal equation in the 

government of a semibarbarous people such as this is everything,” 

wrote General Wood. Consequently, the Army attempted to fill civil 

posts in Moro Province with officers known for their intelligence, character, tact, and prior pacification achievements. 

Officers of this caliber were rare, and many of those who served in 

the province—especially those assigned to military units as opposed to 

civil posts—were ill suited for the work. The Army’s efforts to select 

appropriate people for pacification service was complicated by its personnel system, which routinely rotated individuals and units in and out 

of Moroland. The average tour of an officer in a civil post was only 

fourteen months, an inadequate time in which to build any lasting rapport with the inhabitants. The Army realized that frequent rotations 
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163

Major Scott, district governor of Moro Province’s Sulu archipelago, 

and the sultan of Jolo

harmed its pacification efforts, yet it was unable to solve the problems 

created by a system designed to meet the larger needs of the Army and 

not the narrow mission of pacification. Congress dealt the Army’s 

efforts to maintain at least a modicum of continuity in Moro civil posts 

a final blow in 1912 when it mandated that officers spend four out of 

every six years with their regiments. The “Manchu Law” convinced 

Pershing that the Army was an inappropriate tool for long-term pacification work. It was one of the factors that led to the termination of the 

Army’s reign in Moro Province in December 1913.22

The most important functionaries in Moro Province were the U.S. 

officers who served as district governors, for they were the pointmen of 

the pacification campaign. These officials supervised local nationbuilding activities, adjudicated disputes, enforced the laws, and punished recalcitrants. In many respects they became datos themselves, 

political strongmen who ruled through a mixture of charisma and acumen, backed by the ever-present threat of force. It was a difficult and 

often frustrating task. The most successful were those who were openminded enough to learn the local language and customs and who 

endeavored to achieve their ends by working through, rather than 

against, the indigenous culture. In governing Moro Province, Army 
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164

officers strove to find that delicate and often illusive balance between 

modernization and tradition. They tailored nation-building activities so 

as not to violate native beliefs, and they made extensive efforts to 

soften changes in policy to avoid unnecessary conflict. Some district 

governors, like Majs. Hugh L. Scott and Robert L. Bullard, complemented their efforts to build good relations with the natives by holding 

orientation programs for units newly posted in the province. Even 

General Wood, whose ethnocentrism sometimes led him to impose 

American concepts too quickly in Moroland as it had in Cuba, recognized that certain aspects of Moro society had to be respected if the 

United States was to succeed in pacifying the province.23

Yet for all of the Army’s efforts to avoid conflict, violence occurred, 

necessitating the presence of approximately five thousand troops in the 

province between 1902 and 1913. Although traditional banditry, piracy, 

personal rivalries, and intertribal conflicts caused much of the violence, 

America’s soldier-governors also contributed, either through unwise 

actions or, more often, through the adoption of policies which attempted to move the Moros too fast down the road of “progress.” 

Nevertheless, a certain amount of conflict was probably inevitable, 

given the basic differences between the two cultures.24

Most of the serious fighting in Moroland occurred between 1903 

and 1906 as the United States moved to consolidate its hold over the 

region during Wood’s governorship. A veteran of the Indian wars, 

Wood was imbued with the old Army ethos that the best way to subjugate an aboriginal foe was through a short, sharp campaign. During his 

tenure, the Army employed the type of slash-and-burn methods that it 

had used in earlier counterguerrilla operations, destroying the forts, 

homes, and crops of those who resisted U.S. authority. Where the opposition was particularly obstinate, the Army occasionally resorted to the 

techniques of population relocation and concentration.25

The Moros certainly were dangerous, but they never posed a serious 

military threat to American authorities. They were poorly armed and 

even poorer shots. Although they staged ambushes and fanatical attacks, 

they were not as fond of making mass charges as the pulahans to the 

north. Instead, the Moros preferred to fight from fixed fortifications, 

called cottas. These works were vulnerable to American firepower, and 

by taking to their cottas, the Moros facilitated their own conquest.

Regiments newly arrived in Moroland were given briefings in Moro 

tactics and trained in the best ways to counter them. As it had done elsewhere in the Philippines, the Army modified conventional procedures to 

meet jungle conditions and the threat of ambush. Following advice given 

by Bigelow in The Principles of Strategy, military commanders in Moro 
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165

American soldiers stormed the Moro cotta of Fort Bacolod in April 1903 

by using bamboo poles to bridge the fort’s deep moat.

Province resurrected the time-honored square formation and successfully employed it to fend off Moro sword attacks. Night marches for the 

purpose of making surprise dawn raids on hostile camps and cottas were 

standard tactics during the Army’s constabulary operations there. Where 

the terrain was suitable, the Army maintained garrisons of mounted 

troops both for their mobility and for their psychological effect on the 

population. It also endeavored to deter juramentados by burying dead 

fanatics with a pig, an act of defamation that Moros believed prevented 

the passage of the warrior’s soul to heaven.26

Chasing bandits and renegades through steaming tropical jungles 

was enervating work that required a level of stamina and skill for which 

not all Americans were prepared. As in the past, the Army responded to 

the special demands of irregular warfare by creating groups of specialists from within its own ranks. In addition to permanently assigning a 

few men of each company to reconnaissance and point duty, field commanders also created specialized units in Moro Province, designated 

provisional, or provo, companies. 

General Wood was the leading exponent of the specialist approach. 

As a young surgeon, he had served in such a unit created by General 

Miles for the purpose of catching Geronimo. Wood shared Miles’ opinion that a body of highly skilled, physically fit regulars could beat 
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166

Men of the 23d U.S. Infantry’s elite provo company cross the Rio 

Grande River, Mindanao Island, in 1904.

native irregulars at their own game, and when in 1904 he was confronted by an especially elusive opponent of American authority, Dato

Ali, he naturally turned to the lessons of his frontier experiences. In 

August he created four provisional companies, one from each of the 

four regular regiments under his command. Standards in the provo 

companies were tough. To qualify, soldiers had to be able to swim 100 

yards without clothes, 75 yards with clothes, and 50 yards in heavy 

marching gear. They also had to meet certain standards of health and 

physical conditioning and demonstrate proficiency in handling a native 

boat, first aid, signals, and marksmanship. Unlike line companies, 

which were often reduced to half strength from illness and expired 

enlistments, provo companies were always kept up to full strength. 

Assignment to provo units was permanent, and the soldiers who joined 

them quickly developed a special esprit de corps. There was even an 

elite within the elite, as one squad within the company always took the 

point. The provisional companies carried the brunt of the Dato Ali 

campaign, and it was a provo unit under the command of Capt. Frank 

R. McCoy that finally killed the elusive chieftain. Provo units remained 

in use in Moroland until the end of the Army’s rule there.27

Perhaps the thorniest aspect of Moro warfare was not killing Moros 

but keeping them alive. The problem stemmed from the Moro warriors’ 
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167

U.S. artillery bombards Dato Ali’s fort at Siranaya, 

Mindanao Island.

habit of bringing their women and children with them into their cottas, 

a practice that inevitably resulted in high civilian casualties, especially 

given the Moros’ proclivity for fighting to the death. American officers 

usually attempted to persuade the defenders of a cotta either to surrender or to send out their women and children before a battle. More often 

than not, the Moros refused to do either, and the Army was compelled 

to assault the fort with the civilians inside. The resultant noncombatant 

casualties generated a storm of public disapproval back home that 

resembled the criticism leveled at the Army during the Indian wars. 

Similar too was the Army’s response to such criticism, for while officers deeply regretted civilian casualties, they considered such losses as 

the unfortunate price of victory in a struggle for which the Moros, 

rather than the soldiers, were responsible.

Nevertheless, public scrutiny did affect Army operations. On the 

one hand, it made commanders more cautious and gave them an added 

incentive to try and minimize civilian casualties, either through negotiation or by besieging, rather than assaulting, Moro strongholds. Some 

operations were even canceled, due to the administration’s fear that its 

political opponents would convert stories of civilian deaths into political capital. On the other hand, the situation also led officers to cover up 

operations that might otherwise have aroused public condemnation. 

General Wood did just that in 1904 when he made sure that no journalists were present before embarking upon a punitive expedition in the 

Taraca region of Mindanao that “laid waste” the countryside.28
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168

Through a combination of punitive campaigns, “cotta-busting,” 

provo units, and diplomacy, Wood broke the back of Moro resistance 

by the end of 1906. Operations to stamp out banditry and piracy continued, and occasionally a small punitive campaign was needed to put 

a recalcitrant dato in his place, but Wood had secured American sovereignty. As in the rest of the Philippines, the Constabulary and Scouts 

carried the main burden for maintaining order in Moro Province after 

1906. They were well adapted to the demands of the work, somewhat 

more mobile than regulars, and, from a political standpoint, infinitely 

more discreet—an important consideration, given the sensitivity of 

both Moro and American publics to military activities. For the most 

part, therefore, the Army confined its regulars in the post-1906 period 

to garrisoning towns, conducting practice marches, and assisting the 

auxiliaries during particularly difficult operations. As conditions stabilized, the possibility of transferring Moro Province from military to 

civilian control grew stronger, an event that finally occurred in 

December 1913.29

By and large, the Army wrote a creditable record in the subjugation 

and pacification of the Moros. Building upon their previous experiences on the western frontier, in the Caribbean, and in other parts of the 

Philippine archipelago, American officers applied the well-worn creed 

of firm-but-fair treatment to establish a paternal regime that attempted 

to uplift the Moros without completely disregarding their political, 

economic, and religious heritage. Although relations had not always 

been smooth, many Moros regretted the departure of the soldier-administrators, whom they considered to be more sensitive to their concerns 

than the Christian Filipinos who increasingly dominated provincial 

affairs after the Army’s departure.

But while the Army had succeeded in “pacifying” the Moros, it had 

been much less successful in “civilizing” them. Social, economic, and 

political changes came with painful slowness to Moroland, while a lack 

of resources and the Moros’ own suspicion of Westernized education 

meant that few Moro children ever attended school during the period of 

military rule. The Army could leave Moro Province justifiably proud of 

its achievements, yet mindful of the tremendous difficulties inherent in 

pacification and nation building. It was a lesson the Army was destined 

to learn and relearn during the imperial constabulary years.30

The Second Cuban Intervention, 1906–1909

While the Army worked to complete the pacification of the 

Philippines, President Theodore Roosevelt saddled it with another 
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169

major constabulary mission in September 1906, when he ordered 

troops to resume nation-building activities in Cuba. The island was in 

the throes of a revolution that had begun when the opposition Liberal 

Party refused to accept the results of an election rigged by the ruling 

Moderate Party. Both sides appealed for American aid, but in the end 

Roosevelt decided to take control of Cuba himself, a decision that represented a victory for the liberals. He opted for this course because he 

wanted to avoid embroiling the United States in another frustrating 

guerrilla conflict like the Philippine War. By pledging to act as an honest broker, the president hoped to defuse rather than suppress the insurrection. In this he was successful. The “revolutionaries” welcomed the 

intervention, and U.S. military forces were able to occupy the country 

without incident. Secretary of War William Howard Taft, whom 

Roosevelt put in temporary charge of the island until a full-time 

American administrator could be found, offered a blanket amnesty to 

all insurgents and, with the help of U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers, successfully disarmed and disbanded the insurgent military forces. 

By the end of October the immediate crisis had passed, and occupation 

officials could devote themselves to the job of rebuilding the Cuban 

political system.31

In organizing the second occupation, Secretary Taft selected civilian Charles Magoon, former governor of the Panama Canal Zone, to 

head the provisional government of Cuba. To command U.S. military 

forces on the island, Taft appointed Brig. Gen. Frederick Funston, a 

veteran of the Philippine War who also had served as a volunteer in the 

Cuban revolutionary movement prior to the Spanish-American War. 

Funston’s command was designated the Army of Cuban Pacification. 

Although both the provisional government and the Army of Cuban 

Pacification operated under the rubric of the War Department, the division of authority violated the Army’s cherished creed of unified command and military control during an occupation. Fortunately, civilmilitary relations were relatively harmonious, in large part because the 

occupation was essentially peaceful. 

The absence of open warfare notwithstanding, banditry plagued certain sections of the country. President Roosevelt insisted that Cuban security forces shoulder the entire burden of policing the island, lest clashes 

between Cubans and American soldiers spark an insurrection against U.S. 

authority in Cuba and a storm of public anger at home. Therefore, the 

6,000 soldiers and marines of the Army of Cuban Pacification maintained 

a low profile, acting more as a deterrent than as an active agent in the 

island’s pacification. Its passive posture, however, did not mean that it 

lacked a positive role in helping the provisional government to achieve its 
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objectives. General Bell, Funston’s successor, exhorted his men to be on 

their best behavior, imposed strict limits on fraternization, and forbade 

officers to become involved in partisan politics. Meanwhile, the Army 

took steps both to discourage insurrectionary plotting should the populace 

come to resent America’s presence in Cuba and to prepare itself for active 

operations, should deterrence fail.32

The Army made its presence felt most demonstrably through practice marches. As in the Philippines, practice marches served the dual 

purpose of familiarizing the troops with the countryside while showing 

the flag in a nonconfrontational way. The Army also launched an 

elaborate mapping program. Previous experience had made officers 

painfully aware of the importance of good maps to offset the superior 

topographical knowledge that guerrillas usually enjoyed. Consequently, 

the Army sent out numerous parties to map every inch of the island. 

Not only did the surveyors compile an impressive amount of information, but their activities also had a positive effect, signaling Cubans 

who might be tempted to rebel that they would have no place to hide. 

In a quieter manner, Bell concentrated his mobile counterguerrilla 

forces in areas deemed to be the most potentially dangerous. Plans were 

drawn up to supplement the initial occupation force with significant 

numbers of cavalry, often the Army’s most effective counterguerrilla 

agent. The Army of Cuban Pacification also applied a lesson from the 

Philippine experience by establishing an extensive intelligence network 

of spies, informers, and local intelligence officers, all under the supervision of a central intelligence office in Havana. The network gathered 

information on the social, political, and economic situation in Cuba, 

amassed an impressive amount of data on the physical features of the 

island, and compiled dossiers on all politically active Cubans. The 

Army rounded off its preparations by assigning Capt. John W. Furlong 

to prepare a counterinsurgency guide for commanders should the 

Cubans revolt against the occupation.33

Furlong’s work, “Notes on Field Service in Cuba,” identified three 

primary missions for American forces during a potential insurrection—identifying, isolating, and destroying the enemy. The first and 

most important mission was to create a first-rate intelligence organization to identify and eliminate the clandestine civil-military infrastructure that an insurgent movement would doubtlessly establish. Having 

served as a provost and intelligence officer in southern Luzon during 

the Philippine War, Furlong was well aware that guerrilla warfare 

tends to be highly contingent upon local factors. Thus, while he 

encouraged the creation of a “national” intelligence system, he emphasized that the heart of intelligence operations was at the local level. In 
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171

fact, the Army of Cuban Pacification had already divided Cuba into 

military districts, each with its own intelligence office, with just this 

thought in mind. Should the Cubans rise in revolt, the district intelligence offices were expected to break the insurgents’ clandestine civilmilitary command and control structure by bribing informers, translating captured documents, and interrogating suspects. Although 

Furlong’s guide forbade torture, it encouraged American interrogators 

to employ “police methods” in questioning suspects, a term that was 

hardly benign. Furlong also counseled American interrogators that 

“the accused should not be allowed to sleep until he confesses all he 

knows,” and that captured insurgent leaders should be placed on a 

strict regimen of hard labor and bread-and-water diets until all the 

insurgents in the area surrendered. Should these measures fail to 

uproot the local infrastructure, he advised trying suspected insurgent 

leaders before military commissions, citing his own experience that 

the accused often confessed to avoid a death sentence.

While the Army’s intelligence and judicial systems were busy 

cracking the hypothetical insurgency’s command, control, and supply 

system, the soldiers in the field were to execute the other major missions of the counterinsurgency war—separating the population from 

the guerrillas and destroying the insurgent combat forces. Furlong 

believed the former mission could best be accomplished by concentrating the civilian population and destroying the food supply in the countryside, just as Bell had done in Batangas. To defeat the guerrillas in the 

field, Furlong prescribed an active campaign in which mobile columns 

would relentlessly hound the insurgents. If all went well, the campaign 

would be short, sharp, and decisive—the type of conflict the Army 

desperately wanted so as to avoid a long, enervating guerrilla war.34

Armed with a blueprint for the conduct of a counterinsurgency 

campaign, the Army of Cuban Pacification proceeded to take the preliminary steps needed to implement the plan, including an active 

training program. Training in Cuba focused on “minor tactics,” smallunit maneuvers characteristic of counterguerrilla operations such as 

the conduct of patrols, camp and outpost security, convoys, and 

ambushes. Field exercises similar to General Miles’ old game of 

“raiders and pursuers” were common, as were exercises simulating 

the protection of railroads from guerrilla attack, the relief of beleaguered outposts, the interception of mounted raiding forces, and the 

conduct of counterguerrilla patrols. Many of these exercises were 

conducted at night, using pack trains for mobility—standard U.S. 

counterinsurgency procedures for nearly a half century. These measures, in conjunction with frequent practice marches, transformed the 
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172

A one-room schoolhouse built by the Army of Cuban Pacification 

during the second Cuban occupation

Army of Cuban Pacification into a potentially strong counterguerrilla 

force.35

While the Army prepared for the possibility of active operations, 

the provisional government undertook the difficult task of reforming 

Cuba’s political system. Magoon was fortunate in having the assistance 

of officers who had served in similar administrations in Asia and the 

Caribbean; indeed, Army officers filled a considerable number of posts 

in his technically civilian government. Yet the task he and his assistants 

faced was formidable. In the four years since the end of the first occupation (1898–1902), many of General Wood’s achievements had failed 

to bear fruit. Political reforms had withered on the vine, roads had 

fallen into disrepair, and sanitary measures had been neglected.

Using Cuban revenues (most of America’s nation-building activities prior to World War II were funded not by the American taxpayer, 

but by the indigenous peoples themselves via taxes and tariffs), 

Magoon launched an ambitious program of civic action crafted in the 

tradition of American progressivism. He improved Cuba’s educational 

facilities and filled the new schoolhouses by hiring more faculty and 

introducing mandatory attendance for children. He attacked deficiencies in Cuba’s health and sanitation systems with such vigor that by 

1909 the island had one of the lowest death rates in the world. With the 
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173

Road-building projects, like this one in Cuba, were an integral part of all 

U.S. Army nation-building and pacification endeavors.

assistance of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, he increased pavedroad mileage on the island by 125 percent, halving the cost of transporting sugar and tobacco to market in the improved areas. The provisional 

government spent large sums on these and other public works projects, 

not only to improve Cuba’s long-term infrastructure, but also to provide 

relief during the growing season, when unemployment and public discontent traditionally peaked. U.S. military advisers supported the government’s quest for internal order by endeavoring to create a nonpartisan paramilitary force, the Rural Guard, that was similar in many 

respects to the Philippine Constabulary. Most important, the Magoon 

administration revamped Cuba’s political order, crafting under the 

guidance of Col. Enoch Crowder a set of legal and constitutional 

reforms designed to put Cuba back on the democratic track. After holding free elections under the new rules, U.S. officials judged the island 

sufficiently stable to return governmental authority to the Cubans. The 

Army of Cuban Pacification withdrew in January 1909.36

The War Department achieved many positive things in Cuba 

between 1906–1909. Yet in the end America’s second foray into 

Caribbean nation building was no more successful than the first and for 

essentially the same reasons. Turn-of-the-century Americans were 
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174

ideologically too conservative to undertake the type of sweeping 

reforms necessary to address the fundamental socioeconomic problems 

facing Cuban society. The Army’s bootstrap approach to development—sponsoring public education and providing “workfare” programs for the unemployed—only scratched the surface of the problems 

of social stratification and rural poverty. Moreover, as during the first 

occupation, the Army failed to change Cuba’s political culture. In consequence, many of the new, progressive institutions introduced by the 

War Department, including the majority of Colonel Crowder’s reforms, 

were doomed to fall on infertile soil, while those that survived often 

mutated in ways that America’s social engineers had not intended.37

In fact, most Army officers familiar with Cuban society disapproved of the provisional government’s tendency to focus on shortrange solutions to Cuba’s political problems. Real change, they recognized, could not be achieved without a fundamental overhaul of Cuba’s 

political culture, something that would take many years to achieve. Yet 

neither the nation’s political leaders nor the public at large was willing 

to make such a commitment. Army officers left Cuba in 1909 with little 

confidence that they had achieved any lasting improvements, and 

rightly so, as the country gradually fell under the spell of corrupt and 

dictatorial regimes.38

The Imperial Constabulary Mission and Army Doctrine

The imperial constabulary mission had a mixed impact upon the 

Army. On the one hand, fighting ill-armed Filipinos and building roads 

in Moroland may have sharpened the leadership skills of the Army’s 

junior officers. But these and other constabulary experiences greatly 

interfered with the Army’s ability to prepare itself, both organizationally and intellectually, for modern warfare. Even the finest officers of 

the time, including Generals Wood and Pershing, openly worried about 

the diversion and pressed for a reorientation of Army training toward 

conventional operations. The outbreak of World War I dramatized their 

concerns and reinforced the Army’s traditional inclination to relegate 

constabulary functions to a distinctly secondary status.39

The harsh methods that were sometimes necessary in pacification, 

and the public criticism that followed, also served to dampen the 

Army’s interest and to discourage frank analysis of its experiences. 

Army leaders, for example, deemed it “inadvisable” to publish Captain 

Furlong’s primer on counterguerrilla warfare in Cuba because of the 

sensitivity of the subject matter. Similarly, as late as 1938 the chief of 

the Chemical War Service opposed the publication of an examination 
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175

of whether the use of nonlethal gas could have prevented civilian casualties during some of the Army’s assaults on Moro strongholds because 

“discussion of these actions may revive public attention to military 

operations that might well remain forgotten.” Such squeamishness stifled the development of a formal small wars doctrine.40

Another reason why imperial policing had only a marginal impact 

upon tactical doctrine was that the Army’s conventional small-unit tactics had proved sufficiently adaptable for counterguerrilla work to obviate any major change. Consequently, both the 1905 Field Service 

Regulations and the 1911 Infantry Drill Regulations confined their 

discussions of irregular, “minor,” warfare to reviewing the nature of 

guerrilla conflicts and enumerating some of the countermeasures that 

had proved effective in the past. Neither manual, however, provided 

details on the conduct of counterguerrilla operations, preferring instead 

to follow Mahan and Wagner in encouraging readers to apply innovatively the general principles contained within their pages.41

Although the Army did not develop formal doctrines for waging 

small wars, neither did it completely ignore the subject. At Leavenworth, 

Philippine veterans occasionally instructed their students in methods 

designed to defeat charging fanatics and partisans, while the U.S. 

Military Academy continued to instruct its pupils in the management of 

pack trains and pack artillery. Moreover, several officers encouraged 

their colleagues to examine recent small war campaigns to gain insights 

into this type of warfare. Capt. Matthew F. Steele’s Leavenworth lectures included discussions of European colonial campaigns, while Col. 

Arthur Wagner published a reading list for officers that, while heavily 

oriented toward conventional operations, included a section on “minor 

wars.” Included were histories of the Seminole and Plains Indian wars, 

the Boxer Rebellion, and works on Britain’s colonial campaigns in 

Africa and Asia.42

As in the nineteenth century, many of the most practical and 

immediate lessons from the Army’s experiences were preserved 

through less formal methods. One of the most important was the 

development of “field service notes”—short articles or pamphlets 

written by veteran officers detailing campaign experiences. Such notes 

usually blended tactical, operational, and logistical advice with information on the terrain, climate, and inhabitants of the area in question. 

The notes, which were either published in professional journals or 

distributed internally within the Army, served as primers on some of 

the Army’s more exotic postings.43

Army leaders supplemented this informal transmission system by 

permitting local commanders to modify conventional training pro-
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176

grams for local conditions. The Army of Cuban Pacification’s counterguerrilla training program was by no means an exception. Troops in 

Moro Province likewise trained to meet local conditions, while units 

stationed in the Panama Canal Zone received special training in jungle 

and guerrilla warfare based upon lessons derived from conflicts in the 

Philippines and European experience in Africa.44

Another way in which the Army attempted to encourage the accumulation of expertise for imperial constabulary duty was through the 

“colonial army” system, inaugurated by Army Chief of Staff General 

Leonard Wood in 1912. Under this system, certain regiments were permanently assigned to overseas garrison and constabulary work. The 

Army hoped that the system would reduce the costs associated with 

rotating units to and from the United States and produce colonial garrisons that were fully acclimated and trained to meet local conditions. 

In the Philippines, for example, such special knowledge included 

“training and acquiring knowledge of the native population that would 

be of service in quelling a native uprising or insurrection.”

In practice, the colonial army system did not work well. From the 

beginning, short, congressionally mandated tour lengths undermined the 

anticipated benefits. Moreover, as the threat of internal insurrection 

receded, the Army in the Philippines increasingly neglected counterguerrilla training in favor of measures designed to protect the islands from 

external threats. Ironically, the policy of making native auxiliaries the 

first line of defense against internal upheaval merely accelerated this 

trend, for if pacification was truly the responsibility of the Constabulary, 

there seemed little reason for the Army to devote much of its precious 

training time preparing for the remote possibility of another insurrection. 

Nevertheless, the colonial army system represented an attempt by the 

Army’s senior leadership to keep alive those skills it had found to be 

valuable in successful constabulary operations.45

While the Army attempted to preserve some of the tactical and 

operational lessons of the imperial constabulary experience, it did not 

neglect the other half of the constabulary equation—pacification and 

military government. As the Army moved from one constabulary mission to the next, several officials, including Secretary of War Root, 

urged the military educational system to better prepare the nation’s 

officers for overseas duty. Col. Charles W. Miner, commandant of the 

General Service and Staff College (as the Leavenworth school was then 

known), and his assistant Colonel Wagner responded by expanding 

Leavenworth’s curriculum to include such topics as the geography of 

potential intervention sites, the government of occupied territories, the 

treatment of civilian populations, the use of military commissions, 
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177

“guerrilla warfare,” and concentration. By 1909 Leavenworth’s course 

in martial law and military government was considered to be the most 

exhaustive of its kind in the world.46

West Point matched Leavenworth’s curricular changes stride for 

stride. In 1906 one of the Army’s most experienced constabulary warriors, Col. Hugh L. Scott, returned from his tour as a district governor 

in Moro Province to assume the superintendency of West Point. Scott 

shared Root’s conviction that the Army’s young officers needed to be 

better prepared for assuming the many civil functions characteristic of 

imperial constabulary duty. To accomplish this, he moved to increase 

the amount of liberal arts instruction at the academy, especially in the 

areas of history, geography, economics, and political science. Although 

the academy’s curriculum continued to be heavily technical in focus, 

Scott had taken the first step toward providing the type of intellectual 

training that American officers required to meet the increasingly complex politico-military challenges of the modern world.47

The Army also encouraged officers to study Spanish. The movement to promote Spanish actually began prior to the Spanish-American 

War, when several officers, including 1st Lt. Matthew F. Steele, argued 

against replacing Spanish with German at West Point. Steele maintained that Spanish was a much more practical language for officers to 

master than German, given the likelihood of “future contingencies” 

under the Monroe Doctrine. His foresight quickly became evident, and 

after 1902 the Army dramatically increased its support of Spanishlanguage instruction. Field commanders in Cuba and the Philippines 

directed their subordinates to study Spanish, while the Military 

Academy devoted increased attention to it as well. Meanwhile, 

Leavenworth not only created a Department of Spanish in 1904, but 

made the study of the language mandatory in 1906, while French and 

German remained only electives. For the next several decades, Spanish 

remained an integral part of the curriculums of both institutions in 

recognition of its utility in civil-military missions in the Western 

Hemisphere.48

One of the more vocal proponents for the study of pacification in 

the Army’s educational system was Lt. Col. Robert L. Bullard. A veteran of the Philippines, Moro Province, and Cuba, Bullard wrote a 

series of articles during the first decade of the twentieth century analyzing the Army’s experiences in those campaigns. The most important, 

“Military Pacification,” appeared in the January 1910 edition of the 

Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States.

49

Bullard defined pacification as “all means, short of actual war, 

used by the dominating power in the operation of bringing back to a 
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178

state of peace and order the inhabitants of a district lately in hostilities.” Since unadulterated repression was unpalatable to a democratic 

nation like the United States, he urged the Army to adopt enlightened 

and benevolent policies when undertaking pacification or nation-building tasks. Though he shared the racial prejudices of the day, he stressed 

that troops on pacification duty had to have “sympathy with the people,” for there was “no greater marplot, no worse troublemaker than the 

officer or soldier to whom ‘all coons look alike.’” He recommended 

that officers learn the language, customs, and history of the indigenous 

population so that they might avoid doing anything that ran counter to 

the inhabitants’ core cultural and religious beliefs. Following the tenets 

of international law and the Army’s traditional notion of the evolutionary nature of cultural development, he counseled against trying to revolutionize backward societies overnight. Rather, soldiers on pacification 

assignments had to exercise patience and tact as they alternately enticed 

and prodded benighted peoples down the “road of progress.”50

Although Bullard stressed the importance of benevolence in a successful pacification program, he never forgot that force had an equally 

legitimate role to play. Persuasion alone was usually insufficient to 

quell an uprising or to govern a less civilized people, he argued, and 

consequently force—applied not in passion but as the result of reasoned 

calculation—was indispensable for the successful prosecution of a 

pacification campaign. Like Bigelow and Bell, Bullard believed that 

being too gentle could prove to be just as harmful as being too harsh, 

and he endorsed the employment of punitive measures, trials by military commissions, and concentration, for “without them there is no 

pacification.” In the final analysis, Bullard echoed Jomini in concluding that pacification could only be achieved through “a judicious mixture of force and persuasion, of severity and moderation.”51

“Military Pacification” was one of the most significant pieces written by an American officer on the subject prior to World War II. Its 

importance lay not so much in charting new ground, but in giving 

cogent expression to widely shared views regarding the lessons of the 

Army’s experiences. Yet, while Bullard urged the Army to take the 

pacification mission seriously, he stopped short of advocating the 

development of a formal doctrine on the subject. Pacification, he wrote, 

was “largely personal,” for it depended “more upon the wisdom, tact, 

personality, and disposition of the officials applying it than upon any 

defined governmental policy or definite legislative acts.” Although 

officers needed a general philosophy and a set of guiding principles, 

Bullard, like Bigelow, believed that no hard and fast rules were possible. The Army agreed, and neither in its classrooms nor in its official 
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179

publications did it attempt to dictate a formula for subduing and governing foreign populations. Rather, official doctrine, as expressed in the 

Rules of Land Warfare (1914) compiled by pacification veteran and 

former “water cure” enthusiast Col. Edwin F. Glenn, reaffirmed the 

principles of GO 100 and the Army’s traditional carrot-and-stick philosophy, while declining to prescribe specific programs.52

Army leaders did, however, put the lessons of the past to practical 

use, as evidenced by the war plans written at the Army War College 

during the decade between 1904 and 1914. Most of these plans concerned peacetime contingency operations to protect American lives, 

property, and interests abroad. By far the most detailed dealt with the 

nation’s revolution-wracked southern neighbor, Mexico. 

No one in the U.S. Army was particularly eager to take on the job 

of restoring order in Mexico, a country of 15 million people whose 

animosity toward “gringos” transcended political affiliations. Although 

the Mexican government only had a little over 30,000 regulars under 

arms, American military planners believed they would need between 

400,000 to 550,000 men to pacify the country. The Army based these 

figures on studies of the Philippine and Boer Wars, Mexico’s long history of irregular conflict, and the fact that the Mexicans were both better armed and imbued with a much deeper hatred of Americans than the 

Filipinos. Occupying Mexico would be easy, a matter of a few months, 

the Army imagined, but it would take three to four years to pacify the 

country. These estimates were enough to frighten any American politician, and based on them President William Howard Taft prudently 

decided against intervening in Mexico’s domestic troubles.53

Although never used, the Army’s approach to intervention in 

Mexican affairs reflected its internal civil-military operational doctrine. 

Its plans envisioned a two-phase campaign—an initial period of conventional military operations aimed at the capture of Mexico City and 

the destruction of organized Mexican forces; “and a second period of 

pacification, during which our military forces are employed, incidentally, in stamping out guerrillas, and principally in an extensive occupation of municipalities for the restoration of law and order and the resurrection or creation of civil government.”54

Military operations during the second phase were to be characterized by small, mobile columns of mounted troops and pack mules 

which would wage a “merciless crusade against bandits and guerrillas” 

in the finest tradition of Generals Crook, Miles, and Bell. Military 

courts and an elaborate intelligence network would reinforce the 

Army’s efforts in the field and strike at the guerrillas’ politico-military 

infrastructure. In accordance with what had now become standard 
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180

American practice, the Army hoped to place “the dirty job of re-establishing order in the provinces” squarely upon a native constabulary that 

it planned to organize soon after the occupation began. Not only would 

such a corps of native auxiliaries be perfectly suited for performing 

counterguerrilla tasks, but, as Capt. Andrew J. Dougherty explained, “a 

force of Rural Guards can clean up a band of insurgents or ladrones as 

a police measure without exciting comment; whereas, should the same 

thing be done by regular troops every newspaper will have columns 

about the latest insurrection.”55

The Army complemented its plans for the military suppression of 

Mexican irregulars with plans for reestablishing civil government. The 

core of these plans, “A Study of the Pacification of Mexico and 

Establishment of Civil Government,” was developed by a committee of 

four officers at the Army War College, all veterans of America’s overseas constabulary operations. Essentially, the planners wanted to replace 

Mexico’s corrupt and inefficient administration with an efficient, modern bureaucracy, while carefully retaining as many indigenous legal and 

institutional forms as possible to minimize the danger of the Mexican 

body politic rejecting the transplanted organs of Anglo-Saxon efficiency. To accomplish this, most burdens were to fall on field commanders, 

who would be urged “to be as mild and humane as the necessities of the 

situation permit” to “convince the mass of inhabitants that our purpose 

is just and our desire is to be as humane as possible.” “Arbitrary or needless use of any armed force” would be proscribed and the confidence of 

the people won by courting the Catholic Church, respecting local customs, and initiating a series of programs designed to improve socioeconomic conditions throughout the country. Included among these were 

the construction of roads and other infrastructure facilities and the institution of reforms in charitable, penal, health, and educational systems. 

Free medical care was to be provided to the masses, “but as few governmental acts can be more vicious and more debasing to the public morale 

than wholesale gratuities,” the planners espoused a program of public 

works to reduce Mexico’s unemployment rolls.56

Although the Army’s social engineers continued to prefer “workfare” to “welfare,” they also recognized that fundamental changes 

would have to be effected in Mexico’s basic socioeconomic structure if 

the traditional American slate of progressive reforms was going to have 

a chance of succeeding. Committee members judged the underlying 

cause of poverty and unrest in Mexico to be its system of peonage and 

therefore declared “it is the policy of our administration to discourage 

peonage and to assist in every legitimate way the building up of a 

middle class in Mexico.” To accomplish this task, the committee proposed 
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181

that the Army distribute land to the peasantry, both by parceling out 

vacant public lands and by breaking up some of the largest private 

estates. Nevertheless, the committee was not optimistic about the 

Army’s chances of overhauling Mexico’s socioeconomic structure. 

Fundamental reform takes time, yet military governments were by their 

very nature of short duration, and “hence measures of reform that might 

be undertaken with great advantage to the country may have to be put 

aside because the time indispensable to their inception and to their 

prosecution to a successful finish is denied.” Besides, noted one committee member, 

it is their government, not ours (except for the moment), and if organic or 

radical change be desirable, the right and duty of making them belong to the 

people of the country, not to the United States. And it may well be doubted if 

great changes imposed by us, even though theoretically in the direction of 

reform, would serve any good purpose or last long after our departure. In 

national, as in private life, people must, to a great extent, work out their own 

salvation and build their own careers.57

In the end, the best the Army could hope to do was to repeat what it had 

done in Cuba—give the Mexicans an object lesson in good government 

in the hopes of inspiring them to emulation. But nobody was particularly confident that the Army would be able to work any lasting changes 

in Mexican society. 

The skepticism and ambivalence exhibited by the authors of the 

Mexican pacification study reflected the attitudes of the Army as a 

whole. Ten years of nation building in Asia and the Caribbean had tarnished the optimism with which many officers had embraced social 

engineering and international activism at the turn of the century. 

Perhaps the best indicator of how the Army felt about the overseas 

constabulary mission is the degree to which it increasingly tried to 

avoid it. In 1905, when the Roosevelt administration was considering 

sending troops to China to break a Chinese boycott of American goods, 

General Wood begged the president to give the mission to the Army and 

not the Marine Corps. Such bellicosity was short lived. In 1906 the 

Army General Staff was wary about intervening in Cuba out of fear of 

becoming embroiled in another Philippine-type guerrilla war. In 1911 

the Army counseled against participating in another international intervention in China. The following year it balked twice more at undertaking interventionist missions. Chief of Staff Wood labeled President 

Taft’s suggestion that the Army intervene in yet another Cuban revolution 

“extreme and foolish,” while Secretary of War Henry Stimson objected 

to Taft’s order to send soldiers to intervene in a revolution in Nicaragua 
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182

on the grounds it was an inappropriate mission for the U.S. Army. The 

Army represented the full power of the nation, he argued, and therefore 

using soldiers to intervene in the affairs of other nations would have a 

much greater negative impact on public opinion at home and abroad 

than if Taft sent in marines. Taft agreed and sent marines rather than 

soldiers into both Cuba and Nicaragua.

The Army’s attitude reflected the lessons it had learned about such 

operations: they were messy, trying, and institutionally unrewarding. 

While the Army realized that it had to be prepared to meet such contingencies, it did not seek them out. Better to let the Marine Corps do it. 

And the marines did take up the constabulary mission, not so much 

because they wanted to but because they lacked the institutional 

strength to avoid it. The Marine Corps quickly became the government’s instrument of choice to execute contingency operations for the 

protection of American interests overseas, and the corps soon earned 

the nickname “State Department troops” for its efforts. It was an appellation the U.S. Army was happy to let the marines have.58
183

Notes

1

 Victor Purcell, The Boxer Uprising (London: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 

pp. 124–25, 248–52, 260–61; Chester Tan, The Boxer Catastrophe (New York: 

Columbia, 1955), pp. 71–73. 2

 Michael Hunt, “The Forgotten Occupation: Peking, 1900–01,” Pacific Historical 

Review 48 (1979): 518; War Department, Adjutant General, “Extracts From the Report 

of Major General Adna R. Chaffee, Commanding U.S. Troops in China, on Military 

Operations in China,” in Reports on Military Operations in South Africa and China

(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1901), p. 340 (hereafter cited as 

Chaffee Report); Carleton Waite, Some Elements of International Military Cooperation 

in the Suppression of the 1900 Antiforeign Rising in China With Special Reference to 

the Forces of the United States (Los Angeles: University of Southern California Press, 

1935), pp. 33–34. 3 Chaffee Report, pp. 332, 334, 345, 502, 577; WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 9, pp. 113, 

138–39; WDAR, 1901, vol. 1, pt. 6, pp. 510–12. 4

 At Tientsin, coalition commanders committed the 9th Infantry into making an 

attack without first reconnoitering the ground. The 9th Infantry advanced into a swamp, 

where heavy Chinese fire pinned it down for the remainder of the day. Seventeen 

Americans (including the regiment’s commander, Col. Emerson H. Liscum) were killed 

and seventy-one wounded. At Yang-ts’un, the problem was interoperability. The 

Russian battery commander obtained the range to a Chinese target from a British officer, who expressed the distance in yards. The Russian, however, assumed the numbers 

were in metric. He fired his guns accordingly, with the result that the shells fell short 

into American lines. Purcell, Boxer Uprising, p. 259; Richard O’Connor, The Spirit 

Soldiers (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1973), p. 223; Benjamin Pope, “The Causes 

of the Boxer Uprising and the Battle of Tientsin,” in Monographs of the World War

(Fort Benning, Ga.: Infantry School, c. 1922–23), pp. 660–65. 5

 Hunt, “Forgotten Occupation,” p. 529.

6

 Twichell, Allen, p. 137; War Department, Philippine Commission Annual Report

(hereafter cited as PCAR), 1904 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 

1905), 3:67–68; ibid., 1905, 10:50, 212; George Coats, “The Philippine Constabulary, 

1901–17” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1968), pp. 198–200; Charles Elliott, The 

Philippines to the End of Commission Government (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 

Company, 1917), pp. 21, 24. 7

 First quote from PCAR, 1904, 1:387. Second quote from Ltr, Allen to Luke Wright, 

19 Nov 02, box 7, Allen Papers. 8

 Coats, “Philippine Constabulary,” p. 5; Forbes, Philippine Islands, 1:203; James 

Woolard, “The Philippine Scouts: The Development of America’s Colonial Army” 

(Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1975), pp. 89–91. 9

 Sexton, Soldiers in the Sun, pp. 283–84; Harold Elarth, The Story of the Philippine 

Constabulary (Los Angeles: Globe Printing, 1949), pp. 15–16. 10 Eben Swift, “Peon or Soldier,” JMSIUS 30 (1902): 229; Ward, “Uses of Native 

Troops,” p. 799; Ltr, Allen to Corbin, 24 Mar 03, box 8, Allen Papers. 11 Richard Smith, “Philippine Constabulary,” Military Review 48 (May 1968): 

73–80; Philippine Constabulary, Manual for the Philippine Constabulary, 1907
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

184

(Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1906), pp. 122, 125–30. 12 Quote from Manual for the Philippine Constabulary, 1907, pp. 145–46, and see 

also pp. 23–26, 37. 13 Twichell, Allen, p. 131; Coats, “Philippine Constabulary,” p. 397. 14 Vic Hurley, Jungle Patrol (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1938), p. 50; Twichell, Allen, 

p. 143; Stanley Hyatt, The Diary of a Soldier of Fortune (New York: John Lane, 1909), 

p. 331; WDAR, 1903, vol. 1, pt. 3, p. 248; Coats, “Philippine Constabulary,” pp. 62–63, 

246, 253, 274–76; Fritz, “The Philippine Question,” pp. 533–34; PCAR, 1905, vol. 12, 

pt. 3, pp. 92–93, 97–98; PCAR, 1905, vol. 19, pt. 1, pp. 402–03; WDAR, 1905, vol. 1, 

pt. 3, pp. 292–93. 15 WDAR, 1903, vol. 5, pt. 1, pp. 33–34, 141; Hurley, Jungle Patrol, pp. 144–45, 

283–84; Elarth, Story of the Philippine Constabulary, p. 22; Coats, “Philippine 

Constabulary,” pp. 115, 141–44; Hamilton, “Jungle Tactics,” pp. 23–28; Ltr, Capt 

Stacey to Maj H. L. Leonhaeuser, 21 Apr 05, General Correspondence, Department of 

the Visayas, 3412, RG 395, NARA. 16 WDAR, 1902, vol. 10, pt. 1, pp. 205–10; WDAR, 1903, vol. 5, pt. 1, p. 141; WDAR, 

1905, 3:262–64, 285–96. Quote from PCAR, 1904, 1:365–66. PCAR, 1905, 10:52–58, 

210–13; PCAR, 1905, 12:138; Elliott, The Philippines, pp. 25, 29, 31–34; Twichell, 

Allen, pp. 138–40; Roth, Muddy Glory, pp. 104–11; Owen, “War in Albay,” p. 580; 

Blount, American Occupation, pp. 417–18; Coats, “Philippine Constabulary,” pp. 59, 

71–72, 92, 95, 122, 124, 132, 141, 160–81, 263, 311–51. 17 George Jornacion, “The Time of the Eagles: U.S. Army Officers and the 

Pacification of the Philippine Moros, 1899–1913” (Ph.D. diss., University of Maine, 

1973), pp. 29, 48, 62, 70, 252, 277, 293–94; Peter Gowing, Mandate in Moroland

(Quezon City: Philippine Center for Advanced Studies, 1977), pp. 38, 49, 104–05, 151; 

WDAR, 1902, vol. 1, pt. 9, pp. 560, 563, 565; John Finley, “Race Development by 

Industrial Means Among the Moros and Pagans of the Southern Philippines,” Journal 

of Race Development 3 (January 1913): 353, 360. 18 Scott, Memories, p. 273; Samuel Tan, “Sulu Under American Military Rule, 

1899–1913,” Philippine Social Sciences and Humanities Review 32 (March 1967): 

103–04; WDAR, 1902, vol. 1, pt. 9, p. 561; Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, p. 115; 

PCAR, 1904, 1:6–8. 19 Herman Hagedorn, Leonard Wood (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1931), pp. 8, 

39; Ltr, Wood to Taft, 7 Oct 03, box 33, Leonard Wood Papers, LC; Senate, Philippine 

Committee, Hearings Before the Committee on the Philippines, 57th Cong., 1st sess., 

1902, S. Doc. 331, pt. 2, pp. 2121–29; Jornacion, “Time of the Eagles,” pp. 56–57. 20 WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 5, pp. 255–68; Tan, “Sulu Under American Rule,” pp. 

116–18; Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, pp. 57–62, 134–38, 201, 217–18; Robert 

Bullard, “Preparing Our Moros for Government,” Atlantic Monthly 97 (March 1906): 

385–94; Ltr, John McAuley Palmer to Governor of Moro Province, 18 Jan 08, box 1, 

John McAuley Palmer Papers, LC; Ltrs, Edwin F. Glenn to Tasker Bliss, 10 Feb and 15 

Mar 09, pp. 19997, 20044, Tasker Bliss Papers, LC. 21 Senate, Philippine Committee, Hearings Before the Committee on the Philippines, 

57th Cong., 1st sess., 1902, S. Doc. 331, pt. 2, p. 5; WDAR, 1900, vol. 1, pt. 5, p. 260; 

WDAR, 1901, vol. 1, pt. 6, p. 262; Atherton Brownell, “Turning Savages Into Citizens,” 

Outlook 96 (September–December 1910): 922–23, 928; Finley, “Race Development,” 

pp. 346–53; John Finley, “The Mohammedan Problem in the Philippines,” Journal of 

Race Development 5 (April 1915): 353–63; Smythe, Guerrilla Warrior, pp. 145, 150, 
The Imperial Constabulary Years, 1900–1913

185

152; Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, pp. 127, 228–30; Ltr, Pershing to Bell, 2 Apr 11, 

box 371, John J. Pershing Papers, LC. 22 Quote from PCAR, 1904, 1:11–12. Other factors that led toward the termination 

of military rule in Moro Province included the desire of civil authorities to place the 

province on a more normal governmental footing, the military’s wish to consolidate its 

forces to better defend the Philippines from external attack, and the civil government’s 

desire gradually to turn the job of governing the Philippines over to the Filipinos, a 

movement that gained momentum after the election of Woodrow Wilson as president 

in 1912. Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, pp. 248–49; Jornacion, “Time of the Eagles,” 

p. 230; WDAR, 1902, vol. 1, pt. 9, p. 566. 23 Bullard, “Preparing Our Moros,” p. 388; Scott, Memories, pp. 307, 313, 321; 

Brownell, “Savages Into Citizens,” p. 931; Sydney Cloman, Myself and a Few Moros

(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1923), p. 40; Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, p. 322; 

Smythe, Guerrilla Warrior, p. 149; Robert Bullard Diary, bk. 2, pp. 183–87, box 1, 

Robert Bullard Papers, LC. 24 Richard Kolb, “Campaign in Moroland: A War the World Forgot,” Army 33 

(September 1983): 52; Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, pp. 4, 56–67, 132, 139–45, 170, 

231, 332–33; Samuel Tan, “The Muslim Armed Struggle in the Philippines, 1900–41” 

(Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1973), p. 54; Bacon and Scott, Military and Colonial 

Policy, p. 324; Scott, Memories, pp. 289, 320; Robert Bullard, “Road Building Among 

the Moros,” Atlantic Monthly 92 (December 1903): 825. 25 Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, p. 151; C. C. Bateman, “Military Road Making 

in Mindanao,” JMSIUS 33 (1903): 192; C. C. Smith, “The Mindanao Moro,” Cavalry 

Journal 17 (1906): 288; Bullard Diary, 29 Nov 03, bk. 2, pp. 179–80, box 1, Bullard 

Papers; Ltr, Hobbs to sister, 17 Apr 05, and Horace Hobbs, History of the 3d Squadron, 

14th U.S. Cavalry Regiment, pp. 18–19, both in Horace Hobbs Papers, MHI; Charles 

D. Rhodes, Diary of Pirate-Hunting in the Sulu Archipelago, pp. 28–29, Rhodes 

Papers; Tan, “Sulu Under American Rule,” p. 67; Ltr, Wood to Maj H. J. Slocum, 29 

Aug 04, box 34, Wood Papers. 26 Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, pp. 94–96; I. B. Holley, General John M. Palmer, 

Citizen Soldiers, and the Army of a Democracy (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 

1982), pp. 154, 161–62, 173; Lieutenant L. B., “The Regular and the Savage,” 

Lippincott’s Magazine 74 (December 1904): 732–36; Robert Bullard Notebook 12, pp. 

89–94, box 4, Bullard Papers; John J. Pershing Notebook 11, Apr 03, box 1, Pershing 

Papers; R. O. Van Horn, “Notes on Field Service in the District of Cotabato, Mindanao, 

PI,” Infantry Journal 2 (1906): 119, 125–26; Rhodes, Diary of Pirate-Hunting in the 

Sulu Archipelago, pp. 29, 36, Rhodes Papers; Robert Bullard, “Field Service,” JMSIUS

48 (January–February 1911): 73–74; John J. Pershing, Field Notes Among the Moros, 

Pershing Papers; Millett, Bullard, p. 174; Hobbs, History of the 3d Squadron, 14th U.S. 

Cavalry Regiment, Hobbs Papers; John Palmer, Report on a Scheme for a Well 

Balanced Army, 31 Oct 11, p. 7, War College Division (WCD), 6358–41, Records of 

the War Department General Staff, RG 165, NARA. 27 WDAR, 1905, vol. 1, pt. 3, p. 312; H. S. Howland, “Field Service in Mindanao,” 

Infantry Journal 2 (October 1905): 36, 78–79; Jornacion, “Time of the Eagles,” p. 145; 

Holley, John Palmer, p. 173. 28 Robert Bullard, “Among the Savage Moros,” Metropolitan Magazine 24 (June 

1906): 268; Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, pp. 160–63, 236; Donald Smythe, 

“Pershing and Counterinsurgency,” Military Review 46 (September 1966): 85–92; Eli 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

186

Helmick Autobiography, p. 144, Eli Helmick Papers, MHI; Smythe, Guerrilla Warrior, 

pp. 169–73; Hagedorn, Leonard Wood, p. 43; Bullard Diary, 7 Apr 04, bk. 3, pp. 9–10, 

Bullard Papers. 29 Coats, “Philippine Constabulary,” p. 372; Donald Smythe, “Pershing and the 

Disarmament of the Moros,” Pacific Historical Review 31 (1962): 241–56; Wayne 

Thompson, “Governors of the Moro Province: Wood, Bliss, and Pershing in the 

Southern Philippines, 1903–13” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, San Diego, 

1975), pp. 202, 211. 30 Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, pp. 337–40; Tan, “Armed Struggle,” pp. 102–03. 31 Millett, Politics of Intervention, pp. 40–41, 58–61, 68, 80; WDAR, 1906, 1:454–

55, 528–30; David Lockmiller, Magoon in Cuba: A History of the Second Intervention, 

1906–09 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1938), p. 67. 32 HQ, Army of Cuban Pacification, GO 17, 3 Nov 06; Millett, Politics of 

Intervention, pp. 122–23; Robert Bullard, “The Army in Cuba,” JMSIUS 41 

(September–October 1907): 154. 33 Bullard, “Army in Cuba,” p. 156; Allan Millett, “The General Staff and the Cuban 

Intervention of 1906,” Military Affairs 31 (Fall 1967): 113–19; Cuba, Army War 

College (AWC) 11, 3 Sep 06, AWC Monographs, Reports, Studies, RG 165; Ltrs, Bell 

to Roosevelt, 30 Aug and 22 Sep 06, Theodore Roosevelt Papers, LC; Millett, Politics 

of Intervention, pp. 66–67, 125, 130–31. 34 Quote from Rpt, Furlong to Chief of Staff, Military Information and Intelligence 

Office, 26 May 08, p. 10, WCD, 4352, RG 165, NARA. John W. Furlong, Notes on 

Field Service in Cuba, 2 Nov 07, pp. 30–41, 45–49, WCD, 4352, RG 165, NARA; 

Millett, Politics of Intervention, pp. 14–15, 91. 35 28th Inf, Problems 1 and 2, atchmt to Proceedings of a Board of Officers 

Convened Pursuant to the Following Order, 9 Aug 07; 15th Cav, Santa Clara, Cuba, 

Field Exercises Numbers 1, 2, and 3, Sep 07; 15th Cav, Problems in Connection With 

Practical Instruction in Field Training; Ltr, Col Parker to Adj Gen, Army of Cuban 

Pacification, 27 Aug 07; Ltr, Col Parker to Chief of Staff, Army of Cuban Pacification, 

19 Dec 07; Ltr, Lt Overton to Adj Gen, Army of Cuban Pacification, 4 Sep 07. All in 

Records of the Army of Cuban Pacification (ACP), 2029, RG 395, NARA. James 

Parker, The Old Army Memories (Philadelphia: Dorrance & Company, 1929), pp. 

400–401; HQ, Army of Cuban Pacification, GO 50, 23 May 07; Cir 11, Camp Ciego 

de Avila, 20 Sep 07, General Orders and Special Orders, Post of Ciego de Avila, Cuba, 

ACP, RG 395, NARA. 36 Lockmiller, Magoon in Cuba, pp. 90, 100, 111–15, 133; Millett, Politics of 

Intervention, pp. 125, 198–200, 206. 37 The evolution of Cuban security forces into a corrupt and repressive institution 

best illustrates how U.S.-imposed institutional reforms sometimes had unintended 

consequences. See Millett, Politics of Intervention, pp. 198–200, 222–38, 260–67; 

Allan Millett, “The Rise and Fall of the Cuban Rural Guard, 1898–1912,” Americas 29 

(October 1972): 191–96, 200–202, 206–12; Freddy Polk, “Building Armies for 

Democracy: U.S. Attempts To Reform the Armed Forces of Cuba (1906–09) and 

Nicaragua (1927–33)” (Master’s thesis, Command and General Staff College, 1987), 

pp. 1–4, 45–50, 90; Perez, Army Politics in Cuba, pp. xv–xvi, 23, 29–30. 38 Bullard Notebook 15, pp. 38–39, box 4, Bullard Papers; Millett, Politics of 

Intervention, pp. 154–56, 205, 213–15. 39 Millett and Maslowski, Common Defense, p. 317; Frank Vandiver, Black Jack: 
The Imperial Constabulary Years, 1900–1913

187

The Life and Times of John J. Pershing, 2 vols. (College Station: Texas A&M 

University Press, 1977), 1:419; WDAR, 1913, 1:22. 40 Ltr, Adj Gen to Brig Gen Thomas Barry, 5 Dec 07, ACP, 4192, RG 395, NARA; 

Millett, Politics of Intervention, p. 141. Quote from Smythe, Guerrilla Warrior, p. 203. 41 War Department, Field Service Regulations, 1905 (Washington, D.C.: 

Government Printing Office, 1905), pp. 206–09, 210, 217; War Department, Infantry 

Drill Regulations, 1911 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1917), pp. 

139–40. 42 Annual Report of the Infantry and Cavalry School and Staff College, 1904–05, pp. 

4, 11, 17; Annual Report, U.S. Infantry and Cavalry School, U.S. Signal School, and 

Staff College, 1906, p. 12; Lecture, Joseph Dickman, “Modern Improvements in Fire 

Arms and Their Tactical Effects,” General Service and Staff College, 20 Sep 02, p. 9, 

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) Library, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans.; Lecture 5, Malin Craig, “Cavalry on the Offensive,” in Course in Organization 

and Tactics, Infantry and Cavalry School and Staff College, 30 Nov 04, pp. 18–19, 

CGSC Library; Annual Report, U.S. Military Academy, 1910, p. 39 (hereafter cited as 

Annual Report, USMA, 1910); Carol Reardon, “The Study of Military History and the 

Growth of Professionalism in the United States Army Before World War I” (Ph.D. diss., 

University of Kentucky, 1987), p. 248; “From the U.S. Military Academy, April 1903,” 

Cavalry Journal 14 (1903): 150–55. 43 Hamilton, “Jungle Tactics,” pp. 23–28; Parker, “Notes on Field Duties,” p. 374; 

Hugh Wise, “Notes on Field Service in Samar,” Infantry Journal 4 (July 1907): 3–58; 

Philip Reade, “The Cargador in Mindanao,” JMSIUS 37 (1905): 114–20; C. C. 

Bateman, “Military Taming of the Moro,” JMSIUS 34 (1904): 259–66; Van Horn, 

“Field Service,” pp. 115–27; Howland, “Field Service,” pp. 36–80; Furlong, Notes on 

Field Service in Cuba, 2 Nov 07; Pershing, Field Notes Among the Moros, Pershing 

Papers; Cir, HQ, Department of the Visayas, 20 Oct 06, sub: Distribution of Capt Frank 

R. McCoy’s “Notes on Field Service in the Cotabato Valley,” Dept of the Visayas, 

Island of Samar, Second District, RG 395, NARA; Ltr, Maj Hutton to Military 

Secretary, Department of the Visayas, 3 Dec 06, sub: Submits Information for the 

Compilation of “Notes” on Service in Samar, Dept of the Visayas, Island of Samar, 

Second District, General Correspondence, RG 395, NARA. 44 Rhodes, Diary of Pirate-Hunting in the Sulu Archipelago, pp. 4–6, 21, 24, Rhodes 

Papers; James Collins, “The Battle of Bud Bagsak and the Part Played by the Mountain 

Guns Therein,” Field Artillery Journal 15 (November–December 1925): 569–70; Dana 

T. Merrill, Notes on Jungle Warfare, c. 1912–16, Joseph A. Harmon Papers, MHI. 45 Quote from Memo, Brig Gen M. M. Macomb, Chief, WCD, for Chief of Staff, 

Army (CSA), 2 Apr 15, sub: Policy To Be Followed in Returning Troops From Foreign 

Service, WCD, 9047–1, RG 165, NARA. WDAR, 1903, 3:136–37; WDAR, 1911, 1:13; 

WDAR, 1912, 1:23, 94–98; WDAR, 1916, 1:48; Ltr, Harbord to Wood, 6 May 09, vol. 3, 

p. 272, James Harbord Papers, LC; Forbes, Philippine Islands, 1:227; Elliott, The 

Philippines, p. 163; Memo, Brig Gen Joseph Kuhm, Chief, WCD, for CSA, 7 Jul 17, sub: 

Training of Cavalry in the Philippine Islands and Policy To Be Pursued in Determining 

Force To Be Kept in Those Islands, w/atchmts, WCD, 8438–16, RG 165, NARA. 46 Bacon and Scott, Military and Colonial Policy, p. 389; F. M. Beall, “Custom of 

War in Like Cases,” Infantry Journal 3 (January 1907): 96; Bullard, “Army in Cuba,” 

p. 157; WDAR, 1903, 1:104; Annual Report, General Service and Staff College, 

1903–04, pp. 74, 94, 132; Annual Report of the Army Service Schools, 1909, p. 67; 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

188

Nenninger, Leavenworth Schools, p. 102; Army Staff College, Department of Law, Law 

Theses of the Staff Class, vol. 2, 1910–11 (1911); U.S. Infantry and Cavalry School, 

Annual Report, 1898, app. A—Department of Law, p. 1; Lecture 14, W. B. Reynolds, 

“Intervention,” Mar 1898, in Infantry and Cavalry School Lectures, 1893–1898. 47 Annual Report, USMA, 1910, p. 13. 48 R. G. Hill, “The Proper Military Instruction for Our Officers; the Method To Be 

Employed; Its Scope and Full Development,” JMSIUS 20 (1897): 470; Matthew Steele, 

“Proper Military Instruction,” JMSIUS 20 (1897): 430–31; HQ, Division of the 

Philippines, GO 134, 21 Jun 02; WDAR, 1902, 9:205; Robert Doherty, “Foreign 

Language Study at U.S. Service Academies: Evolution and Current Issues” (Ed.D. 

diss., Columbia University Teachers College, 1983), pp. 22, 24, 26; Annual Report, 

USMA, 1902, p. 7; Annual Report, USMA, 1907, p. 16; Annual Report, USMA, 1912, 

p. 21; Annual Report, USMA, 1920, p. 23; Annual Report, General Service and Staff 

College, 1903–04, pp. 95–96; Annual Report of the Command and General Staff 

School, 1930–31, p. 6; Nenninger, Leavenworth Schools, p. 102. 49 Robert Bullard, “Military Pacification,” JMSIUS 46 (January–February 1910): 

1–24. 50 First quote from Bullard, “Military Pacification,” p. 4, and see also pp. 5–6, 

12–13, 20. Second quote from ibid., p. 14. Third quote from Robert Bullard, “The 

Military Study of Men,” Infantry Journal 8 (November–December 1911): 320. 51 First quote from Bullard, “Military Pacification,” p. 17, and see also pp. 18–19. 

Second quote from ibid., p. 4. 52 Quote from Bullard, “Military Pacification,” p. 3; Field Service Regulations, 

1905, pp. 206–08, 210, 217; War Department, Rules of Land Warfare (Washington, 

D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1917), pp. 21–24, 64–65, 105–17, 130–34; Army 

Staff College, Department of Law, Military Government, Papers Prepared by the Class 

of 1908 (Fort Leavenworth, Kans., March 1908), pp. 23–24. 53 Harry Ball, Of Responsible Command: A History of the Army War College

(Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Alumni Association of the U.S. Army War College, 1983), pp. 

95, 126; George Ahern, A Chronicle of the Army War College, 1899–1918 [Washington, 

D.C.: Army War College, 24 Jul 19], pp. 34, 50, 52, 58; Lecture, “Military Monograph 

on Mexico,” in AWC Course 1909–10, vol. 14, pp. 355–58, MHI; Parker, Old Army, p. 

410; Memo, Brig Gen A. L. Mills, Chief, WCD, for CSA, 13 Feb 12, WCD, 6474–25, 

RG 165, NARA; Maj Melvin W. Rowell, The Military Strength for Armed Intervention 

in Mexico, 4 Mar 16, WCD, 6474–372, RG 165, NARA. 54 Rowell, Intervention in Mexico, p. 1.

55 First quote from C. A. Flagler, A Study of the Pacification and the Establishment 

of Civil Government in the Area Occupied by the 4th Field Army, 1914, pp. 52–53, and 

see also pp. 32, 57, WCD, 8334–3, RG 165, NARA. Second quote from Parker, Old 

Army, p. 413. Third quote from A. J. Dougherty, Strength of Rural Guards Necessary 

for Occupation of Mexico, 1911, p. 1, Military Intelligence Division (MID), 5761–149, 

RG 165, NARA. 56 All quotes from Francis Kernan, A Study of the Pacification of Mexico and 

Establishment of Civil Government in the Area Occupied by the First Army, 1914, pp. 

6, 11–12, 36, and 9, respectively, and see also pp. 3–5, 10, 13–14, 36–37, WCD, 

8334–1, RG 165, NARA. George Read, A Study of the Pacification of Mexico and 

Establishment of Civil Government in the Area Occupied by the Second Field Army, 

1914, pp. 21, 29–32, 35, 42, WCD, 8334–2, RG 165, NARA.
The Imperial Constabulary Years, 1900–1913

189

57 First quote from Read, A Study of Pacification, p. 42. Second and third quotes 

from Kernan, A Study of Pacification, pp. 43–44 and p. 17, respectively. 58 Thompson, “Governors of Moro Province,” pp. 21, 75. Quote from Ball, 

Responsible Command, p. 126. Richard Challener, Admirals, Generals, and American 

Foreign Policy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973), pp. 285–86; Memo 

for CSA, The Role of the Army for the Protection of Foreigners in China . . ., 14 Nov 

11, AWC, 6790–15, RG 165, NARA; Allan Millett, Semper Fidelis: The History of the 

United States Marine Corps (New York: Macmillan, 1980), pp. 150, 164, 174, 261.

191

6

Military Interventions During

theWilson Administration

1914–1920

Though the Army might disdain international constabulary duty, it 

could not avoid such work altogether. The nation’s growing overseas 

interests prohibited the Army’s disengagement from world affairs. This 

was especially true during Woodrow Wilson’s tenure as president of the 

United States from 1913 to 1920. Wilson fervently believed that the 

United States had a moral obligation to spread its concepts of individual freedom, self-government, and political democracy to the world at 

large. A humanitarian idealist who disliked soldiers and abhorred violence, Wilson’s evangelical idealism nevertheless led him to embrace 

the use of force as a means to achieve his greater ends. As he explained, 

“If I cannot retain my moral influence over a man except by occasionally knocking him down, if that is the only basis upon which he will 

respect me, then for the sake of his soul I have got occasionally to 

knock him down. If a man will not listen to you quietly in a seat, sit on 

his neck and make him listen.”1

Woodrow Wilson sat on a lot of necks during his eight years as 

president. Driven by a curious mixture of moral imperialism and pragmatic self-interest, Wilson deployed naval and Marine forces to Cuba, 

Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Russia, Mexico, Honduras, and 

Guatemala, not to mention China and Nicaragua, where he inherited 

deployments initiated by his predecessor. Though the Marine Corps 

proved to be his instrument of choice, the Army did not escape its share 

of duty. In addition to sharing China garrison duty with the marines, the 

Army participated in military interventions in Mexico (1914, 1916), 

north Russia (1918–1919), Siberia (1918–1920), and Panama 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

192

(1918–1920). All five of these operations proved trying experiences in 

which the Army fulfilled its specific and limited objectives while failing to achieve the president’s long-term goals. These interventions 

highlighted for American soldiers the difficulties in coordinating politico-military policy during contingency operations. They also reaffirmed the officer corps’ already widespread impression regarding the 

disagreeable nature of foreign constabulary duty.2

Vera Cruz, 1914

“I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good 

men!” Wilson proclaimed, and it was no idle remark. High on his list 

of prospective pupils was Mexico, a country mired in a seemingly 

endless cycle of poverty, revolution, and oppression. Convinced that 

social and political justice were impossible under the latest usurper of 

the Mexican presidency, Victoriano Huerta, Wilson became obsessed 

with the notion of ousting Huerta and redirecting the Mexican 

Revolution along liberal, constitutional channels. After diplomatic 

pressure failed to achieve these ends, the president turned to more 

forceful measures. He provided 10,000 rifles to Huerta’s leading 

opponent, Venustiano Carranza, and when this gesture failed to produce results, sought an excuse to intervene directly in Mexican 

affairs. On 9 April 1914, a patrol of Huerta’s soldiers arrested several 

American sailors in the Mexican port of Tampico. (Map 4) The incident gave Wilson the pretext for which he was looking. Although 

Mexican authorities quickly released the sailors and apologized for 

the incident, the president was determined to exploit the episode. The 

United States admiral on the scene demanded that Mexico affirm its 

apology by firing a 21-gun salute to the American flag. When Huerta 

refused, Wilson made his move.3

On 21 April U.S. marines seized the wharves at Vera Cruz, the 

maritime gateway to Mexico City. The action was designed to weaken 

Huerta, both by blocking the delivery of foreign arms bound for his 

army and by denying him access to the important revenues generated 

from the city’s dockside customs house. Much to the president’s chagrin, the Mexicans refused to accept the indignity. Although the majority of the city’s garrison obligingly withdrew, a motley assemblage of 

policemen, released convicts, naval cadets, and patriotic citizens 

opened fire on the wharves, making the marines’ position on the docks 

untenable and compelling them to occupy the entire town. Assisted by 

naval gunfire, approximately 6,000 U.S. sailors and marines seized the 

rest of the city the following day. By the time the fighting had stopped, 
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

193

over a hundred and thirty Americans and several hundred Mexicans lay 

dead or wounded.4

The president was devastated by the news. He had hoped to discomfit Huerta without loss of life on either side. Instead, he was in 

possession of a city of 40,000 hostile people and perilously close to the 

outbreak of an all-out war he did not want. Both the Army and the Navy 

clamored for Wilson to take the next step and initiate a full occupation 

of Mexico as envisioned by the official war plans. Although mindful of 

the hardships to be incurred in pacifying Mexico, the nation’s military 

leaders believed that war was now inevitable and that it would be the 

height of folly to give Mexico the time to mobilize and concentrate its 

forces. Like their counterparts in Europe, America’s military leaders of 

1914 believed that war plans and mobilization timetables were finely 

crafted mechanisms that had to be executed completely and without 

interruption once they had been put into motion. Failing to do so—to 

delay the call-up of reserves and impede the planned deployment of 

men and materiel—would create chaos in the rear echelons and court 

disaster at the front. The die was cast, they argued, and it was time for 

the politicians to step aside.

Wilson, however, refused to step aside. He agreed to replace the 

naval assault force in Vera Cruz with Army troops in preparation for a 

thrust on Mexico City but declined to authorize the drive itself. War 

was not what the president wanted, and he rejected the military’s pleas 

for action and its dire predictions of disaster. Rather than becoming the 

launch point for the subjugation and pacification of Mexico, Vera Cruz 

was merely to be a fulcrum from which Wilson could exercise additional pressure on the Huerta regime. It was a limited role of which the 

nation’s military leaders did not approve.5

Wilson’s stubborn adherence to the notion of a limited intervention 

threw the Army’s war plans into disarray, so much so that Brig. Gen. 

Tasker H. Bliss, the commander of U.S. forces along the TexasMexican border, roundly denounced the War College’s failure to 

develop flexible plans for contingencies short of a full-scale intervention. The criticism was justified, yet in fairness to the Army it should 

be pointed out that the nation’s war planners had indeed considered the 

problem. In the spring of 1911 the president of the War College, Brig. 

Gen. William W. Wotherspoon, had urged Army Chief of Staff Leonard 

Wood to have the State Department clarify American objectives in the 

event of an intervention in Mexico. He pointed out that while the Army 

had a plan for the occupation of all of Mexico, it could not prepare for 

lesser contingencies unless it knew what those contingencies might be. 

Unfortunately, neither the nation’s diplomats nor Presidents Taft and 
P A C I F I C

O C E A N 

G U L F O F

C A L I F O R N I A

Cuidad Juarez El Paso

Columbus

Carrizal

Agua Prieta

Chihuahua

Parral

Durango

San 

Guadalajara

Hermosillo

Mazatlan

U N I T E D 

S I E

R

R

A

M

A

D

R

E

O

C

C I D

E

N

T

A

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Map 4
Rio Gra nde River

G U L F

O F

M E X I C O

 Lius Potosi

Acapulco Tehuantepec

Meirda

Monterrey

Tampico

Brownsville

Mexico City Vera Cruz

G U A T E M A L A

H O N D U R A S

E L S A LV A D O R

S T A T E S 

B R I T I S H

H O N D U R AS

S I E

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R I E N T A L

S I E R R A M A D R E D E L S U R

Battle Site

1914–1916

MEXICO

ELEVATION IN FEET

0 1500 3000 6000 and Above

0 300

Miles
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

196

Wilson provided such guidance, and consequently, the Army had never 

bothered to develop plans for the type of limited contingency it now 

faced. It would not be the last time that such operations would be 

bedeviled by poor civil-military communication.6

On 30 April Maj. Gen. Frederick Funston led approximately 4,000 

soldiers ashore at Vera Cruz to relieve the Navy, which left behind 

3,000 marines—nearly half the U.S. Marine Corps—to assist him. 

Although the Navy wished to retain control of the marines, President 

Wilson saw the wisdom of a unified command and followed the precedents established in earlier joint operations by placing the marines 

under Funston’s command.7

With the city secured, Funston turned to the thorny question of civil 

administration. Mexican law prohibited its citizens from working for an 

occupying power, and this made it difficult for the military to employ 

its traditional method of incorporating indigenous officials into the 

occupation regime. Using the Army’s administration of the Philippines 

as an example, Funston established a civil administration staffed with 

veterans of the Army’s previous governments in the Philippines, Cuba, 

and Puerto Rico. In addition to the usual departments like education, 

finance, and public works, he created an Office of Civil Affairs whose 

head served as his chief adviser on civil matters. He did not, however, 

reestablish Mexican civil courts, not only because most native judges 

refused to serve, but also because he realized that the Mexican government would not recognize the judgments handed down by occupation 

courts after the Americans had left. The Army therefore encouraged 

civil plaintiffs to settle their disputes out of court, while confining the 

activities of U.S. military courts to the adjudication of criminal cases.8

Having established the basic machinery of government, Funston 

followed precedent by inaugurating a vigorous civil affairs campaign, 

both to demonstrate America’s benevolent intentions and to establish 

precedents he hoped the Mexicans would emulate after the Americans 

had gone. There was much to be done. Vera Cruz’s government was 

notably corrupt and inefficient. The sorry state of municipal affairs was 

best illustrated by the city’s trash disposal system, which relied entirely 

upon the appetites of the huge, black vultures that adorned city edifices. 

Like Hercules in the Augean stables, Funston threw himself into the 

work. He imposed strict sanitary codes, established refuse collection 

services, paved streets, installed sidewalks, began vaccination programs, improved the prisons, reformed the city’s finances, and eliminated government corruption. At his direction schools were reopened, 

new teachers recruited, and a teacher’s institute established to improve 

the overall quality of instruction. He launched a campaign against vice, 
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

197

Street improvements instituted by the U.S. Army in Vera Cruz in 1914

banning gambling and the sale of marijuana and cocaine, and regulating, but not prohibiting, prostitution. At times Funston’s reforms 

strayed into the realm of the puritanical, as in the case of his banning 

bullfighting and cockfighting, prohibitions that violated deeply rooted 

traditions. For the most part, however, he tried to respect native institutions as called for by Army doctrine. By the time he was done, the city 

was virtually unrecognizable. Governmental administration was efficient, while the death rate had dropped by 25 percent. Even the vultures 

had left town for better pickings elsewhere. Funston reinforced his 

civic program by enforcing strict discipline among his men, so much so 

that nearly half the garrison had been court-martialed by the end of the 

occupation. “This government is too pious . . . to suit me,” grumbled 

one marine, Maj. Smedley Butler.9

The most important item of tactical doctrine to emerge from the 

Army’s Mexican sojourn was a pamphlet compiled by the headquarters 

of the Vera Cruz expedition titled “Memorandum in Reference to the 

Methods To Be Employed in the Capture and Occupation of Latin-
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

198

American Cities.” The essay was prompted by the recognition that any 

campaign to pacify Mexico or any other Latin American country would 

most likely entail episodes of urban irregular warfare similar to the 

Navy’s recent experience. The pamphlet prescribed methods for fighting in cities and became the basis for U.S. Army tactical doctrine on the 

subject for years to come, as the Army periodically reissued the work 

whenever intervention into a Latin state was imminent.10

While Army officers in Vera Cruz busied themselves with administering the city and developing street-fighting doctrine, pressure continued to mount on the Huerta regime. Defeated by Carranza in the field 

and denied access to the customs revenues from Vera Cruz, Huerta 

resigned from the presidency in mid-July. Although the intervention 

had only been one factor in Huerta’s downfall, Wilson was elated by the 

success of his experiment in the limited use of military power. But the 

euphoria was short-lived. Carranza ignored Wilson’s call for elections, 

insisting instead that the United States evacuate Vera Cruz immediately. 

After hesitating for two months, Wilson acceded to Carranza’s demand 

and ordered American forces to withdraw in mid-September.

General Funston promptly protested the evacuation order on the 

grounds that a quick departure would undermine all the good work he 

had accomplished. He proposed that the United States retain control 

over the city through a transition period during which representatives 

from the Carranza regime could visit and learn American administrative methods. He also argued that it would be immoral for the United 

States to leave Vera Cruz without first being assured that Carranza 

would not retaliate against Mexican nationals who had worked for the 

U.S. military government as policemen, teachers, clerks, and maintenance workers. Washington accepted his proposals, but Carranza 

balked, and another two-month stalemate ensued. Ultimately, it was 

Carranza who backed down. With his domestic enemies closing in 

around him, he needed to gain control of Vera Cruz’s valuable wharves 

and customs house, and on 9 November he issued a blanket amnesty for 

all Americanistas. Two weeks later, on 23 November 1914, Funston’s 

expeditionary force loaded onto transports and sailed over the horizon, 

leaving the city to Carranza.11

Vera Cruz was the Army’s first venture in the Wilson administration’s brand of limited military intervention, and the experience had 

proved to be an uncomfortable one. Although the operation had contributed to Huerta’s downfall, it had also highlighted underlying tensions between civil and military policy makers over the use of the Army 

as a tool of American diplomacy. Moreover, Wilson’s success had been 

only superficial. Huerta was gone, but internecine warfare continued in 
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

199

Mexico, with constitutional democracy and social justice a distant 

dream. No sooner had the Army departed than Carranza repudiated his 

pledge and purged everyone who had worked for the Americans during 

the occupation. As the Mexicans regained control over Vera Cruz, they 

ignored nearly all of Funston’s reforms. They rapidly reintroduced corruption and inefficiency to government, neglected the sanitary codes, 

and allowed municipal facilities to deteriorate. Within a few months 

virtually every vestige of the Army’s presence in Vera Cruz had been 

expunged—much to the relief of the vultures, which happily returned 

to their roosts.

Rather than help foster democracy, all Wilson had accomplished 

was to further alienate Mexicans of all political stripes, from Huerta 

supporters to Carrancistas, who resented the arrogance with which the 

United States had meddled in their internal affairs. Only one major 

Mexican political leader had openly supported the intervention—a 

revolutionary general named Francisco “Pancho” Villa. It was a name 

Americans were not soon to forget.12

The Mexican Punitive Expedition, 1916–1917

The withdrawal from Vera Cruz did not mark the end of Wilson’s 

meddling in Mexico’s internal affairs. Carranza was soon faced with a 

major insurgency in northern Mexico led by General Villa. Though he 

favored Carranza, President Wilson refused to acknowledge the 

Carrancista regime as the legitimate government of Mexico. Instead, he 

withheld formal recognition in the hope of pressuring Carranza to make 

more democratic reforms. Carranza struck back by applying a little 

pressure of his own. In the summer of 1915 he orchestrated a covert 

campaign of bandit raids and guerrilla attacks in southern Texas. 

Integral to this campaign was a document circulated in the borderland 

in early 1915 called the Plan of San Diego, after the Texas town in 

which it was said to have originated. The plan called for an insurrection 

by Hispanics, Indians, and blacks against United States authority in the 

American Southwest and the establishment of an independent republic 

there. Although fantastic in conception, it represented an attempt to tap 

the resentment which the Mexican-American majority in southern 

Texas felt toward the ruling Anglo minority.13

As summer faded into fall, the situation along the border became 

critical. Encouraged by the Mexican press and supported by Carrancista 

soldiers stationed along the banks of the Rio Grande, MexicanAmerican bandits and guerrillas waged a low-level insurgency against 

U.S. authority in southern Texas. Occasionally led by Carrancista offi-
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

200

cers, the raiders attacked U.S. Army outposts, looted ranches and 

stores, burnt bridges, and cut telegraph lines. By October 1915 twentyeight U.S. soldiers and fourteen civilians had become casualties at the 

hands of Carranza’s proxy war against the Wilson administration.14

Efforts to control the bandit problem were hampered by the U.S. 

government’s refusal to declare martial law and by its inability to coordinate effectively the efforts of competing federal, state, and local law 

enforcement agencies. General Funston, the commander of the Army’s 

Southern Department headquartered at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, initially responded to the crisis by spreading his troops out in penny packets in an effort to protect every small community. In doing so he overextended his forces to such an extent that many outposts were too weak 

either to defend themselves or to hunt the bandits aggressively. The 

general soon realized his error and reconcentrated his forces into fewer 

but stronger mixed detachments of infantry and cavalry. The infantry 

provided point defense and patrolled the local area at night while the 

cavalry performed long-range daytime patrols and special night operations. He then waged an aggressive constabulary campaign modeled on 

the Army’s previous counterguerrilla operations. 

Colonel Bullard, who commanded a regiment as part of Funston’s 

border constabulary, likened the operation to the Philippine War, for in 

both cases the Army was confronted with elusive irregulars harbored 

by a restive population. Cognizant that they could not overcome the 

bandits without the assistance of the inhabitants, Philippine veterans 

urged their troops “to deal with both Mexicans and Americans with 

diplomacy and tact, to make them realize that the troops are their best 

friends and protectors, and thus to gain not only their sympathy, but 

their active co-operation.”15

As the banditry continued, Funston also sought to apply some of 

the sterner lessons of the Philippines, requesting among other things 

that he be allowed to deny the bandits quarter. Washington recoiled at 

the suggestion, but it had little control over the many state and local 

organizations of Rangers, police, and vigilantes that waged a terror 

campaign of their own against the Mexican-American community. By 

the fall of 1915 nonfederal security forces had executed hundreds of 

Mexican-Americans, often with little or no judicial procedure. 

Nevertheless, the solution to the bandit problem ultimately proved to be 

political, rather than military. In October Wilson backed down and recognized Carranza as the de facto ruler of Mexico. The bandit raids 

ceased immediately. Carranza’s proxy war had achieved its purpose.16

President Wilson solidified the deal with Carranza by allowing him 

to send troops through U.S. territory to reinforce the Mexican border 
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

201

town of Agua Prieta, which was besieged by Villista forces. The reinforcements inflicted a decisive defeat upon Villa and further consolidated 

Carranza’s hold over the country. Yet the change in U.S. policy also 

bought Wilson a new and dangerous foe. Angered by the Agua Prieta 

affair, and perhaps hoping to spark a crisis that might ultimately topple 

Carranza, Villa attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico, on the 

night of 8–9 March 1916. The raiders killed or wounded about thirty 

Americans and looted part of the town before being driven off with the 

loss of approximately a hundred and fifty. Goaded by Villa’s raid, Wilson 

moved once again to intervene in Mexico’s internal affairs.17

On 10 March the president ordered General Funston to organize a 

punitive expedition “with the sole object of capturing Villa and preventing any further raids by his bands.” Army Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. 

Hugh L. Scott recognized the fallacy of the order. “Suppose he [Villa] 

should get on the train and go to Guatemala, Yucatan or South America. 

Are you going to go after him?” queried Scott of Secretary of War 

Newton D. Baker. Baker saw the point, and the War Department 

revised the orders so as to instruct the expedition’s commander, General 

Pershing, to pursue Villa until either his “band or bands are known to 

be broken up” or “the de facto government of Mexico is able to relieve 

them of this work.” Nevertheless, Wilson’s earlier instructions had been 

widely publicized and gave American people the incorrect impression 

that the expedition’s sole purpose was to “get” Villa personally. This 

unfortunate misapprehension contributed to the widespread belief that 

the expedition was a failure when it ultimately failed to capture the 

elusive guerrilla chieftain.18

The Army entertained no illusions about the hazards of the undertaking. The Mexican province of Chihuahua, where Villa made his 

home, was an arid plateau whose western fringes rose gradually into 

the Sierra Madre Mountains—a rugged jumble of narrow canyons, 

watered valleys, and jagged rock outcroppings 10,000 feet above sea 

level. Roads were poor, food and forage scarce, and the sparse population united in their dislike of “gringos.” Clearly, finding Villa and his 

mounted guerrillas under such conditions would be difficult. Moreover, 

by inserting American troops into Mexico, Wilson once again risked 

sparking a general war between the two nations. 

The president tried to minimize the threat of war in two ways. First, 

he ordered Pershing to avoid confrontations with Carrancista soldiers 

and officials at all costs. Second, he negotiated an agreement with the 

Mexican government permitting the United States to pursue bandits 

across the border into Mexico. Unfortunately, the United States misinterpreted the agreement, which in actuality applied only to future con-
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

202

tingencies, not to incidents that had occurred prior to its consummation, 

such as the Columbus raid. The Carranza government therefore considered Pershing’s expedition to be a violation of Mexican sovereignty and 

responded accordingly.19

The U.S. Army was thoroughly alarmed by the whole affair. It estimated that Carranza, Villa, and Mexico’s various other revolutionary 

chieftains had 180,000 men under arms, and that there was a very real 

danger that they would put aside their internecine squabbles and unite 

to crush Pershing’s force, which at its peak numbered no more than 

12,000 men. To the Army’s senior leaders, sending Pershing’s tiny column into the midst of Mexico’s revolutionary ferment seemed to be an 

ill-conceived half-measure a la Vera Cruz, an exercise in the limited 

use of force that they found distinctly unappetizing. In the words of a 

War College report written five days before Villa raided Columbus, 

In an armed intervention it is axiomatic that an overwhelming force used in 

vigorous field operations without costly pauses and directed straight and continuously at the organized field forces and centers of resources will most 

effectively and economically overcome organized resistance and make possible a more orderly and more economical period of pacification. . . . Our war 

plans accept this axiom. . . . To reject these plans, to use only a part of the 

plans, or to curtail the forces outlined in the plans, can but invite local disasters 

and delays, lengthening the period of military operations, and make more 

costly in lives and treasure both this period and the period of pacification.20

Army leaders still preferred an all-or-nothing approach when intervening in the affairs of other nations. Even General Bliss—the advocate 

of flexible plans for limited contingencies—was uncomfortable with 

Wilson’s second experiment in limited interventionism. It was one 

thing to seize and hold a port, quite another to launch a column of 

troops deep into the interior of a hostile country. Moreover, catching 

Villa’s mobile bands would take time, and the longer the operation 

lasted and the deeper Pershing drove into Mexico, the greater the 

chance for an incident that might escalate into a war between the two 

nations. Bliss therefore joined other senior military officers in urging 

the president to authorize preparations for the full-scale invasion and 

pacification of Mexico. Wilson refused, and the State Department, anxious not to antagonize Carranza further, rejected the War Department’s 

request to pressure the Mexican government to permit Pershing to use 

Mexican railroads to keep his far-flung columns supplied. Pershing was 

to be on his own. Chief of Staff Scott was so infuriated by the administration’s unwillingness to back Pershing that he later remarked, “I 

could have burned down the State Department with everybody in it.”21
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

203

General Pershing began his difficult mission on 15 March 1916, 

when he led a mixed force of cavalry, infantry, and support troops 

across the border in what was termed a “hot pursuit” of Villa’s nearly 

week-old trail. While the infantry guarded his line of communications 

and supply back to the United States, the cavalry, divided into three 

major and four minor columns, scoured Chihuahua in search of Villa’s 

irregulars. It was grueling work reminiscent of the Indian campaigns of 

the previous century. Pershing—himself a veteran of the Indian wars 

and a graduate of General Miles’ “raiders and pursuers” training 

course—was fortunate to have among his subordinates a large cadre of 

officers experienced in frontier and imperial constabulary work. These 

veterans of the Indian, Philippine, and Moro wars were well prepared 

to meet the physical and operational challenges inherent in chasing 

bandits and guerrillas over inhospitable terrain under the most adverse 

conditions. They performed exceedingly well. Under their guidance, 

the expedition pressed the chase in the finest constabulary tradition, 

marching light, traveling at night, and taking their adversaries by surprise in dawn raids. Their aggressive action soon forced Villa to scamper deeper into Mexico, dispersing his guerrillas as he went in the hope 

that they might better evade the hard-riding Americans.22

As the days progressed, however, the obstacles facing the Punitive 

Expedition steadily mounted. The Mexican population—motivated by 

admiration and fear of Villa and by hatred of Americans—aided Villa’s 

escape. Mexicans sheltered the guerrillas and either withheld or passed 

erroneous information to Pershing’s troopers. Meanwhile, the cavalry 

columns quickly outran their supply lines and were in desperate need 

of food, forage, and replacements. The Army unwittingly exacerbated 

their plight by issuing the cavalrymen paper vouchers rather than hard 

currency to purchase supplies from Mexican farmers. Although the 

Mexicans were always willing to trade supplies for cash, they were 

suspicious of the vouchers and refused to accept them, compounding 

the cavalry’s resupply problems. One officer, Col. William C. Brown, 

spent $1,600 of his own money to procure supplies for his men.23

Pershing made every effort to overcome these obstacles. He 

sought to win the population’s favor, or at least tolerance, by avoiding 

Mexican towns and insisting that his men take nothing from the people 

without compensation. At the same time, he gained War Department 

approval to issue hard currency to the cavalry columns for the procurement of food and forage. To overcome the paucity of local intelligence, Pershing established an elaborate information network under 

Maj. James Ryan, a former commander of Apache Scouts who had 

been court-martialed during the Philippine War for employing the water 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

204

Major Tompkins’ cavalry column searches for Pancho Villa 

during the Punitive Expedition.

cure. The Punitive Expedition’s intelligence office interrogated prisoners, recruited guides, interpreters, and informers, and organized a 

secret service of Mexican expatriates to get Villa. The organization 

performed valuable service during the campaign, though it never managed to apprehend the elusive general.24

There was one obstacle that Pershing could not overcome, however, and that was the growing hostility of the Carranza regime to his 

presence in Mexico. The deeper he pushed, the more antagonistic the 

Mexican government became. Despite the Army’s best efforts to avoid 

a confrontation, Carrancista forces instigated a number of incidents in 

early April in which several American and Mexican soldiers were 

killed. Then, on 12 April, a large force of Mexican civilians and 

Carrancista soldiers attacked a column of the 13th U.S. Cavalry in the 

city of Parral, approximately 400 miles south of Columbus, New 

Mexico. The clash marked the turning point of the expedition. Pershing 

requested authorization to seize the entire state of Chihuahua as the 

precursor to the full-scale pacification of Mexico. Wilson demurred. 

War was exactly what he did not want, and instead he directed Pershing 

to fall back. After a month of rigorous campaigning, the hunt for Villa 

was effectively over.25
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

205

Washington instructed Pershing to consolidate his position so as to 

create an American-patrolled “Villa-free” zone in northern and western 

Chihuahua. The redeployment reflected a change in strategy by the 

Wilson administration, for while Pershing still prowled for guerrillas 

within the new zone, he realized that the president had effectively converted the Punitive Expedition from an anti-Villa operation into “something of a club that the administration can use over the Mexican government.” Indeed, the expedition now became another Vera Cruz, with 

Wilson endeavoring to extort concessions from Mexico by occupying a 

portion of its territory. 

At first the president merely requested that Carranza effectively 

police the border as the condition for Pershing’s withdrawal. When 

Carranza demanded that the United States commit itself to a fixed withdrawal timetable, Wilson countered with additional conditions, insisting that the Mexican government guarantee religious toleration, protect 

the property rights of foreigners, and concede to the United States the 

right to provide humanitarian relief within Mexico. Carranza steadfastly refused to bow to these demands, and a stalemate ensued.26

Meanwhile the two sides engaged in brinkmanship. Carranza resurrected the Plan of San Diego, encouraged cross-border bandit raids, and 

organized a special covert brigade whose mission was to spark a 

Mexican-American insurrection in southern Texas. The United States 

responded in May by authorizing additional cross-border pursuits and 

by ordering a partial mobilization of the National Guard to protect the 

border. Meantime, Carranza poured troops into Chihuahua, boxing 

Pershing in from the south, east, and west and threatening his lines of 

communications. As tensions mounted, Pershing decided to test 

Carranza’s intentions by sending a patrol to probe Mexican positions on 

his flank. He gave the patrol commander, Capt. Charles T. Boyd, strict 

instructions to avoid a confrontation with the Mexicans. Nevertheless, 

on 21 June the impetuous captain disobeyed orders and attacked a 

detachment of Mexican soldiers at the town of Carrizal. In the ensuing 

fight the Mexicans killed Captain Boyd and routed his command.27

The battle at Carrizal brought the United States and Mexico to the 

brink of war. But once again they refused to take the plunge. Although 

neither Wilson nor Carranza were willing to compromise, neither 

wanted war. The stalemate thus continued. Meanwhile, Pershing’s 

command languished under the hot Mexican sun, hamstrung from 

making any progress against Villa by the combined efforts of 

Presidents Wilson and Carranza. “I feel like a man looking for a needle 

in a hay stack with an armed guard standing over the stack forbidding 

you to look in the hay,” Pershing ruefully remarked. Frustrated by 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

206

U.S. Army Indian scouts who participated in the Punitive Expedition

Wilson’s caution and Carranza’s obstinacy, Pershing recommended 

that the expedition be recalled. However, the president preferred to 

keep him across the border as a thorn in Carranza’s side. All Pershing 

could do was to patrol the occupied zone and wait for the diplomats to 

find a way out of the dilemma.28

In the meantime, Pershing registered some progress toward clearing the occupied area of Villistas. He reorganized his command into 

five geographical districts, each with its own intelligence network and 

cavalry regiment responsible for conducting an elaborate system of 

counterbandit patrols. Pershing also instituted a rigorous training program reminiscent of the one set up by the Army of Cuban Pacification.

Though the program included conventional warfare, much of the 

training focused upon the tactics and techniques to be employed 

against Mexican irregulars. Pershing drilled his command in the arts 

of countering ambushes, escorting convoys, scouting, raiding, and 

patrolling. Throughout, he emphasized the old axiom that good commanders modified doctrine to meet the exigencies of the moment. In 

the Mexican case, this translated into adopting a more aggressive and 

vigorous posture than would have normally been acceptable. 

Aggressiveness was fundamental, Pershing believed, to win not only 

the physical, but also the moral and psychological battle against his 

irregular foe, a doctrine entirely in keeping with the Army’s tradi-
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

207

During the Punitive Expedition, the tried and true wagons of the old 

Army seem to have an edge over the newer forms of transportation.

tional philosophy for dealing with “less civilized” races, whether 

Indian, Filipino, or Latin American.29

Army officers stationed along the Mexican border provided similar 

training to their troops as well, introducing their young soldiers to the 

time-honored skills of frontier service. In the process, the Army also 

experimented with new methods. It introduced more systematic training programs to improve the proficiency of the cavalry in their traditional skills, while applying new technology to the old problems of 

constabulary duty. The Punitive Expedition and related border operations represented the first time the U.S. Army employed aeroplanes, 

trucks, and armored cars in active operations. When 1st Lt. George S. 

Patton roared into a Villista hacienda in a motor car, pistols blazing, to 

gun down one of Villa’s top lieutenants, he heralded the dawn of a new 

era in counterguerrilla warfare.30

While the Army relearned old constabulary skills and experimented with new ones during the fall and winter of 1916, Villa staged 

a resurgence. With Pershing safely tethered, the renegade general 

came out from hiding and inflicted several embarrassing defeats on 

Carrancista forces. Pershing longed to go after him, but the president 

refused. The United States was drifting toward entering World War I, 

and Wilson needed to extricate himself from the Mexican quagmire. 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

208

Fortunately, Carranza handed him the opportunity by decisively defeating Villa in a major battle in January 1917. With Villa weakened, 

Wilson dropped all his extraneous demands and pulled Pershing out of 

Mexico the following month. Two months later the United States 

declared war on Germany, and Pershing was on his way to France.

The U.S. Army performed extremely well in northern Mexico in 

1916–1917, given the arduous circumstances under which it operated. 

It skillfully used constabulary-style tactics, while employing tact and 

discretion to minimize confrontations with the Mexican population. In 

the process it fulfilled its original mission by dispersing Villa’s forces 

and killing three of his top generals, although it never managed either 

to get Villa or destroy his guerrilla band. While pleased with the Army’s 

handling of the bandit problem, military leaders remained unhappy 

with Wilson’s second venture into the realm of limited intervention. 

The president may have been correct in avoiding a war with Mexico, 

officers conceded, but his policies had placed Pershing in an untenable 

position, made worse by Wilson’s decision to recast Pershing’s mission 

from the pursuit of Villa into a means of pressuring Carranza. The limited application of force for diplomatic purposes was no more palatable 

to soldiers in 1917 than it had been in 1914. Nevertheless, it was a role 

that Wilson would insist the Army continue to play for the remainder of 

his presidency.31

Wilson and Russia

America’s entry into World War I in April 1917 gave the Army its 

first taste of sustained conventional warfare after a half century of constabulary service at home and abroad. Yet even as America’s soldiers 

entered the largest military conflict the world had ever known, they 

could not escape from performing the type of unconventional, politicomilitary operations that typify small wars and contingency operations. 

Nowhere was this more apparent than in Russia, where the Army 

became enmeshed in the murky world of the Russian Revolution and 

Civil War.

In the winter of 1917–1918 Bolshevik revolutionaries seized control of the Russian government and withdrew Russia from the Allied 

coalition. Its departure left the Allies in dire straits by permitting 

Germany to concentrate all its combat power on the Western Front. 

Desperate for some way to reestablish an Eastern Front against 

Germany, Britain and France proposed that the Allies seize the Russian 

ports of Murmansk, Archangel, and Vladivostok. Tons of Allied war 

materiel originally intended for the pre-Bolshevik government lay 
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209

stockpiled in these ports, and the Allies were anxious that the supplies 

not fall into either German or Bolshevik hands. Next, Anglo-French 

planners proposed that the Allies clear the rail lines emanating out of 

these ports to open lines of communications with the Czech Legion—

over 50,000 Czech and Slovak soldiers who had been fighting for 

Russia prior to the Bolshevik takeover but now found themselves at 

odds with the Communist, or Red, government. Once the ports and rail 

lines were secured, the British and French hoped to use the legion as a 

nucleus around which non-Communist, or White, Russian political and 

military organizations might coalesce to sweep the Bolsheviks from 

power and resume the war in the east.32

Army Chief of Staff General Peyton C. March strenuously objected 

to the Anglo-French scheme. France, not Russia, was the decisive theater of the war, and he opposed any diversion of Allied strength from 

Western Europe. Besides, the Army considered the political, military, 

and logistical problems of establishing a second front thousands of 

miles inside a nation wracked by political upheaval and civil war to be 

insurmountable. President Wilson concurred, for he had serious reservations of his own. He feared that the British and French would support 

any non-Communist regime that protected their own economic and 

political interests, regardless of whether it was committed to improving 

the lot of the Russian people. Although he had no love for the 

Bolsheviks, Wilson did not wish to support any White leader not dedicated to the establishment of a progressive, democratic society in 

Russia. Similarly, he worried that Japan, whose assistance was essential 

for the Far Eastern element of the plan, would use the intervention as 

an excuse to gain control over Siberia’s vast natural resources. The 

president thus stood firmly behind the principles of national self-determination and territorial integrity.

In time, however, Wilson felt compelled to modify his position. 

Britain and France were adamant about the expedition, and he was 

loath to alienate them as their cooperation would be vital in reconstructing the postwar world. Besides, American participation would at least 

ensure that the United States had some leverage over the situation in 

Russia. Hence, in July 1918 the president announced that the United 

States would provide contingents for the two major multinational expeditions called for by the Anglo-French plan: the expedition in north 

Russia at Archangel and the expedition in Siberia at Vladivostok.33

The ambivalence with which Wilson undertook these twin operations was reflected in the instructions he gave the two men selected to 

command America’s contribution to the operations in Russia, Col. 

George E. Stewart (north Russia) and Maj. Gen. William S. Graves 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

210

(Siberia). Wilson ordered them to remain strictly neutral in Russia’s 

internal political squabbles and to confine their activities to the relatively passive tasks of guarding the military stockpiles and keeping 

communications open with the Czech Legion. Yet he also authorized 

them “to steady any efforts at self-government or self-defense in which 

the Russians themselves may be willing to accept assistance,” including “such aid as may be acceptable to the Russians in the organization 

of their own self-defense.” These instructions failed to address one 

crucial question—who were “the Russians” whom American forces 

were supposed to aid? Were they the Reds or the Whites? And if they 

were the Whites (as most presumed), which of the various anti-Communist factions were the Americans to aid? The president did not provide any guidance on these points, either before or during the interventions. The vague and somewhat conflicting orders placed his field 

commanders in a difficult position.34

The Allied intervention began in August 1918, when British and 

Japanese forces landed at Archangel and Vladivostok, respectively. The 

first U.S. Army troops arrived at both ports the following month. 

Despite the fact that they shared a common mission, there was no coordination between the Allied expeditionary forces in north Russia and 

Siberia. (Map 5) Nearly 4,000 miles of wilderness separated the two 

forces, while the political and military circumstances in which the two 

expeditions found themselves differed dramatically. Consequently, 

each of these interventions must be examined separately.

North Russia, 1918–1919

The mission assigned by the Allied Supreme War Council to the 

north Russia expeditionary force was to secure “bridgeheads into 

Russia from the north from which forces can eventually advance rapidly to the center of Russia.” British Maj. Gen. Frederick C. Poole, the 

commander of Allied forces in northern Russia, intended to implement 

these instructions by pushing his troops 400 miles south of Archangel 

to Vologda and Viatka, where he planned to effect a linkage with the 

Czechs. Wilson had hoped that America’s 5,500-man contingent would 

restrict itself to guarding Archangel and avoid direct participation in the 

Supreme War Council’s offensive. But that was not to be. No sooner 

had the Americans disembarked than General Poole rushed them to the 

front as the spearhead of his anti-Bolshevik offensive.35

Colonel Stewart bore some of the responsibility for the subversion 

of Wilson’s intentions, for he failed to stand up to Poole, preferring 

instead to comply passively with the British general’s demands. In fact, 

Stewart showed little signs of leadership at all, and he so removed him-
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211

The 339th U.S. Infantry disembarks at Archangel, September 1918. 

The regiment was equipped with poor quality Russian rifles, British clothing, and water-cooled Vickers machine guns that frequently 

froze up under arctic conditions.

self from operational matters that the British soon ignored him altogether and routinely ordered American units about without troubling to 

notify the American headquarters. Nevertheless, Washington must bear 

much of the blame for Stewart’s predicament. Wilson’s vague instructions and his decision to place the north Russia expeditionary force 

under foreign command, despite his misgivings about British intentions, left Stewart vulnerable to manipulation. Armed, clothed, and fed 

by the British and dispersed by them in penny packets along the entire 

front, the American force lacked the cohesiveness and autonomy needed to make it an effective tool of American policy. 

Ironically, the president’s one attempt to rectify the situation 

backfired when he ordered Stewart—over the strenuous objections of 

the War Department—to subordinate himself to the American ambassador to Russia, David R. Francis, who happened to be residing at 

Archangel. Francis was a strong anti-Communist, who believed 

Wilson was too timid in confronting the Communists. Rather than 

pull the Americans out of the front line, Francis assured General 

Poole that he favored a liberal interpretation of Washington’s instructions and encouraged Stewart to commit his men to the British offen-
A R C T I C 

N O RT H

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North Russia Expedition

Siberian Expedition

1918–1920

U.S. ARMY EXPEDITIONS IN THE

UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

214

A small American outpost in north Russia

sive. Besides, Francis argued, there was little else the Americans 

could do; the Bolsheviks had already removed the majority of the 

supplies stockpiled at Archangel before the Allies had arrived. Since 

Stewart was charged with the mission of protecting those supplies, 

would he not be complying with his instructions if he pushed south to 

recover the misappropriated materiel? Subordinated to two strongwilled men, torn between vague and contradictory instructions from 

his government, and abandoned by the War Department (General 

March was so disgusted that he “washed [his] hands of the whole 

matter”), Stewart permitted the American contingent to become a 

direct—and, like the other allied forces, an unsuccessful—participant 

in Russia’s civil war.36

Logistical problems and opposition from the more numerous 

Communist forces prevented the north Russia expedition from linking 

up with the Czechs or establishing an Eastern Front against the Central 

Powers before the Great War ended on 11 November 1918. But the 

termination of hostilities brought no relief to the soldiers in north 

Russia, for whom the enemy had always been the Bolsheviks and not 

the Germans. Disenchanted with the situation at Archangel, Washington 

wanted to withdraw the American contingent. But the onset of winter 
An American convoy winds its way through northern Russia’s 

heavily forested terrain; below, American soldiers guard Bolshevik 

prisoners at Archangel.
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

216

American soldiers share their rations with the children of Archangel.

weather made evacuation impossible, and the doughboys were compelled to fight for their lives against a series of Bolshevik counteroffensives during the long arctic winter that followed. 

Meanwhile, the British moved forward with the second element of 

the intervention—the establishment of a non-Communist government 

designed to carry the anti-Bolshevik crusade forward into central Russia. 

The U.S. Army played virtually no role in this political effort that was 

largely mishandled by the Anglo-White leadership. Most British and 

White officers exhibited little sympathy for the peasants and workers on 

which Bolshevik power rested, and their propaganda campaigns proved 

heavy-handed and ineffective. In contrast, American soldiers, who were 

not only less class conscious but in many cases also of Slavic descent, 

usually worked well with the common man. In some localities U.S. officers ran successful public relations campaigns that won not only the 

affection, but also the material support of the local population. 

Nevertheless, such endeavors were not sufficient to overcome the overall 

ineptitude of the Allied civil affairs effort. As Ralph Albertson, a YMCA 

worker who accompanied the American contingent, recalled, 

The expedition called for military skill and it called for leadership, sympathy, 

social skill. There was a sad failure to realize that an expedition of this sort is 
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

217

American soldiers in winter camouflage clothing on patrol

in north Russia

bound to run into social and political problems that are quite as important, 

perhaps more so, than mere military practice. The management of this campaign has ignored all social and political considerations that might have contributed to its success or failure and has blundered stupidly whenever these 

matters have forced themselves to the front.
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

218

This American blockhouse withstood several Communist attacks 

during the winter of 1918–1919.

Consequently, Albertson noted, “We failed to win their hearts or their 

confidence.”37

Having failed to defeat the Bolsheviks on either the military or 

political fronts, there was little the Allied soldiers could do but to hold 

on to the enclave they had carved out of the arctic tundra until their 

home governments decided to withdraw them. Ignoring British pressure to stay the course, President Wilson acted as soon as the winter’s 

ice and snow had melted sufficiently to make an evacuation possible. 

In mid-1919 the last American soldier bid farewell to Archangel. The 

British attempted to go it alone a bit longer, but by year’s end they too 

elected to depart. Secretary of War Baker pronounced a suitable epitaph 

to the Allied intervention in north Russia, stating that “the expedition 

was nonsense from the beginning.” For the U.S. Army, the north Russia 

expedition had dramatized once again the worst aspects of Wilson’s 

penchant for ill-conceived politico-military interventions.38

Siberia, 1918–1920

Just about the time Colonel Stewart’s north Russia expeditionary 

force landed at Archangel, a second, larger American expedition under 

the command of General Graves disembarked at Vladivostok, nearly 
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

219

A camouflaged train of the Czech Legion

4,000 miles away. Like Stewart, Graves had instructions to use his 

10,000-man expeditionary force to guard military stockpiles, secure 

communications with the Czech Legion, and assist in bringing stability 

to Russia without embroiling his force in partisan political and military 

struggles. The first two tasks were relatively easy, since the legion 

already controlled the port and the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The third 

task, however, proved to be impossible. 

As in north Russia, both Allied and U.S. State Department representatives in Siberia endeavored to persuade Graves to commit 

American forces against the Bolsheviks. Graves, however, had both the 

rank and the mettle to stand up to these pressures, and he firmly 

adhered to the letter of Wilson’s neutrality instructions. He forbid the 

transfer of arms to a non-Communist Russian force under British control. He not only declined to participate in any anti-Bolshevik operations, but refused to confiscate the weapons of suspected Communists. 

Instead, he released Red prisoners, forbade American soldiers to fire 

unless fired upon, and instructed his subordinates to avoid becoming 

entangled in partisan political questions.

Graves’ determination to remain neutral also led him to refuse to 

subordinate himself to the senior Allied commander in Siberia, 

Japanese General Otani Kikuzo. Incredibly, President Wilson had 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

220

agreed to place Graves under General Otani’s command without 

informing either the War Department or Graves of this decision. 

Fortunately, Graves wisely declined to participate in the schemes of 

foreign powers.39

Yet his insistence on strict neutrality was not without its price. His 

subordinates were obliged to adhere to a policy of noninterference that 

was extremely difficult to maintain, especially on humanitarian issues. 

Moreover, many officers chafed at headquarters’ restrictive rules of 

engagement, which they believed placed them in untenable positions. 

Finally, Graves’ stance greatly aggravated relations with the other members of the multinational expedition, especially the British and Japanese, 

both of whom were committed to driving the Bolsheviks out of eastern 

Siberia. The non-Communist government in Siberia, led by Admiral 

Alexander Kolchak, was similarly annoyed by Graves’ behavior. 

Consequently, the Kolchak, Japanese, and British governments, 

aided by pro-Kolchak members of the U.S. State Department, all lobbied for Graves’ removal. In Siberia the Japanese and their allies 

among the Russian Cossack troops that Kolchak had sent to control 

eastern Siberia orchestrated an anti-American propaganda campaign 

designed to turn the population against the United States and force the 

Americans to withdraw, giving Japan a freer hand in Siberian affairs. 

By 1919 tensions between the so-called Allies were so high that a 

number of incidents occurred between U.S. forces on the one hand 

and the Japanese and Cossacks on the other, including one clash 

between American and Japanese patrols. Graves was unshakable in 

his adherence to the letter of his instructions, however, and the War 

Department backed him up.40

One reason why Graves refused to provide more assistance to the 

Whites was that he was appalled by their conduct. Kolchak governed 

by force and intimidation, while the behavior of his Cossacks appeared 

to Graves to be nothing less than barbarous. Misdeeds by the 

Communists were not unknown, but they paled in comparison with the 

atrocities committed against the Russian peasantry by the non-Communists, who, with Japanese support, instituted a reign of terror over large 

areas of eastern Siberia.

General Graves realized that Kolchak’s misrule alienated the mass 

of the Russian people and severely damaged their cause. A veteran of 

several counterinsurgency campaigns in the Philippines, he fully understood that a policy of unremitting repression would only undermine the 

Allies’ position. His views were shared by the president, as well as 

other high-ranking constabulary veterans like Generals March and 

Bliss, all of whom believed that it was futile to attempt to stem the tide 
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

221

One of the principal antagonists in Siberia, Cossack commander 

Ataman Semenoff, meets with General Graves (right).

of revolution with bayonets alone. As in north Russia, the American 

Expeditionary Force, Siberia (AEFS), actively attempted to win popular approval by following the Army’s traditional creed of fair dealing 

and good conduct. Americans paid for everything they needed, occupied buildings only with the owner’s consent, and detailed their doctors 

to attend local populations. AEFS soldiers organized local entertainment programs and delivered Christmas trees to brighten an otherwise 

bleak Siberian winter.41

Graves’ good deeds, however, were insufficient to counteract the ill 

will generated by the actions of America’s Allies. He lacked both the 

authority and the resources to correct their errors. Wilson’s neutrality 

edict prevented him from instituting a full-fledged civil affairs/pacification campaign, nor is there any evidence that the non-Communists 

would have accepted such a program. Instead they demanded more 

guns, not more humanitarian assistance. Although President Wilson 

announced his intention to establish a civilian commission to organize 

the delivery of socioeconomic aid and advice to Russia, he never fol-
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

222

lowed through, partly because he was unwilling to undertake a large aid 

program until he had found a Russian regime he deemed worthy of his 

support and partly because the proposal became ensnared in a battle for 

control between the Departments of State and Commerce. The bureaucratic donnybrook led the president to dump the idea altogether, assuring that what little civil aid the United States provided, largely through 

the works of private agencies, would be uncoordinated.42

As in north Russia, the end of World War I brought no relief to the 

Siberia expedition. The Czechs, whom the United States was committed to support, were still deep inside Russia. So too were the Japanese, 

against whose machinations Washington found the AEFS to be a useful counterweight. Moreover, as time passed the president found himself under growing diplomatic pressure to provide more direct assistance to Kolchak’s regime at Omsk, 3,000 miles west of Vladivostok. 

Though he refused to provide the non-Communists with direct combat 

support, the president took a tentative step toward helping Kolchak in 

February 1919, when he ordered the AEFS to protect several sections 

of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, Kolchak’s logistical lifeline. 

Theoretically, the soldiers were to keep the railroad open for all 

Russians to use, regardless of ideology. In reality, the line operated for 

the exclusive benefit of the non-Communists, since all of the railroad 

officials were Kolchak appointees.43

Graves realized that the arrangement dangerously compromised his 

nonpartisan position, and he immediately cabled the War Department 

“to ask if my policy in considering the Bolshevik trouble in Siberia an 

internal trouble in which I should take no part is the policy the 

Department desires me to continue to follow.” No new guidance emanated from Washington until a few months later, when the president 

further eroded America’s neutrality by ordering Graves to deliver a 

large quantity of arms to Kolchak, who in return promised to establish 

a progressive, democratic government in Russia. Graves, who knew the 

true mettle of Kolchak and his supporters, protested the order but complied when Washington overruled his objections. 

Yet the situation remained muddled, for while the president had 

moved to prop up the Kolchak regime, he remained skeptical about its 

viability and refused to commit the United States entirely behind it. He 

not only declined to recognize Kolchak as the legitimate ruler of 

Russia, but insisted on maintaining the image of neutrality, informing 

the Senate only two weeks after authorizing the arms delivery that “the 

instructions to General Graves direct him not to interfere in Russian 

affairs.” The president was strangely silent on how one could deliver 

arms to one faction and protect that faction’s lines of communications 
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

223

at the expense of another and not interfere in Russian affairs. 

Nevertheless, that is what he expected Graves to do, and the general 

endeavored to comply as best he could.44

Graves implemented the president’s new policy by establishing 

outposts along the Trans-Siberian and by threatening to hold local 

populations responsible for acts committed against the line by Red 

partisans. He also ordered villagers to turn in their firearms and promised to treat anyone found with a weapon as an enemy. In practice, he 

took a milder course. He refrained from resorting to harsh, collective 

punishments and treated all captives as legitimate prisoners of war. To 

some extent the Army’s reputation for fair play yielded benefits, as the 

Bolsheviks preferred to attack those sections of the Trans-Siberian that 

were manned by the Whites and Japanese than those guarded by the 

more benevolent Americans. Nevertheless, Graves’ position was precarious, for in protecting Kolchak’s lifeline, he had crossed the threshold from being an observer to a participant in the Russian Civil War. By 

the spring of 1919 American garrisons along the Trans-Siberian found 

themselves drawn inextricably into a desultory game of cat and mouse 

against small groups of bandits and Communist partisans who sought 

to disrupt railroad traffic.45

The situation came to a head in the Suchan Valley, a mining district 

seventy-five miles east of Vladivostok. Suchan’s coal was vital for the 

operation of the Trans-Siberian, and consequently General Graves had 

tried to cast a blanket of neutrality over the region by negotiating an 

agreement between White and Red leaders to keep their troops out of 

the area. The agreement quickly unraveled, as excesses by White 

forces on the outskirts of the district, as well as the rather callous labor 

practices of the mines’ pro-Kolchak management, alienated the local 

population. Besides, the Suchan mines were too important a target for 

the Bolsheviks to ignore for long, and they soon initiated hostilities 

against American troops stationed in the region. After a slow start, the 

guerrilla campaign exploded when, on 25 June, Red partisans surprised 

a small American outpost at Romanovka, killing or wounding fortyfour of the garrison’s seventy-two men.46

The Romanovka raid compelled Graves to drop all pretense of 

neutrality and to wage an active campaign against the Communists in 

the Suchan region. His first step was to intern all males in the district 

who were not either manifestly pro-Allied or gainfully employed in the 

mines. Then, in July, he joined Japanese and Kolchak’s forces in 

launching a coordinated sweep of the Suchan region. Cooperation 

between American and White forces was particularly close. Joint 

patrols were common, and local U.S. commanders routinely turned 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

224

The vital Suchan mining district in eastern Siberia, where the Army conducted counterguerrilla operations against Bolshevik partisans

Russian prisoners over to non-Communist authorities for disposition. 

Using traditional counterguerrilla methods, the Army first employed 

large-scale sweeps to disperse Communist concentrations before breaking down into progressively smaller patrols that scoured the countryside in search of Red guerrillas. In the process, Army commanders 

made frequent use of the time-honored tactic of making night marches 

for the purpose of surprising guerrilla encampments and searching villages for Communist collaborators and illicit arms.47

As in all of the Army’s previous experiences in irregular warfare, 

tracking down the poorly armed but elusive partisans, rather than 

defeating them in battle, proved to be the real challenge of the campaign. The Communists enjoyed all of the advantages traditionally 

accorded to guerrillas, including mobility, familiarity with the terrain, a 

superior intelligence network that kept them apprised of Allied movements, and an ability to blend in with the surrounding population. 
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

225

Intelligence was the key to overcoming these advantages, and the 

AEFS took special measures to obtain it. In addition to maintaining a 

central intelligence office at AEFS headquarters, General Graves had 

directed in 1918 that every post and detachment have an intelligence 

officer. These officers gathered information on the surrounding terrain 

as well as the local political, military, and economic situation, to 

include barometers of local sentiment and loyalties.

During 1918–1919 the 27th U.S. Infantry created battalion intelligence sections modeled closely upon the Czech Legion’s highly successful intelligence system. Meanwhile the 31st U.S. Infantry, whose 

men patrolled the Suchan, established an intelligence school that gave 

selected NCOs an intense course in interrogation and investigatory 

techniques, scouting and reconnaissance, and small-unit tactics, as well 

as an introduction to Russian language, geography, and politics. The 

graduates of this school were designated “intelligence scouts” and 

played a key role in the Suchan counterinsurgency campaign, serving 

in small detachments as guides, interpreters, liaisons, and agents. With 

their help, Allied forces cleared the Suchan Valley of Communists in 

just two months, killing 500 guerrillas in the process.48

The Allied victory in Suchan was a Pyrrhic one, however, for the 

guerrillas had managed to wreck several key railway facilities, preventing the movement of coal to the main railroad line. Realizing that the 

mines had been crippled, and anxious to escape the partisan fray, 

Graves removed all American forces from the Suchan district in 

September 1919. The withdrawal virtually ended active U.S. participation in counter-Bolshevik operations. Minor clashes between American 

soldiers and Communist partisans continued through the remainder of 

the year along the Trans-Siberian Railroad, but they were the exception 

rather than the rule. Once out of the Suchan Valley, Graves sharply 

curtailed cooperation with the non-Communists and terminated the 

procedure of turning over Communist prisoners to government authorities. Some American commanders even went so far as to negotiate 

“live and let live” agreements with local Communists, although Graves 

frowned on the practice.49

Despite the Allies’ deployment of about 160,000 men to Siberia, 

they could not keep the feeble and unpopular Kolchak regime afloat. In 

November 1919 the Bolsheviks crushed Kolchak’s armies and captured 

his capital at Omsk. Two months later the admiral was dead, and with 

him the hopes for a non-Communist victory in Siberia. In February 

1920 the Czech Legion began to evacuate Siberia via Vladivostok. 

American forces remained in position long enough to cover the legion’s 

withdrawal and then withdrew also. The last American troops embarked 
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226

at Vladivostok in June 1920, bringing to a close nearly two years of 

difficult service in Russia. 

By every measure, President Wilson’s interventions in Russia had 

failed. The Eastern Front had not been reestablished, the war supplies 

stockpiled in Russian ports had not been saved, and no popular, progressive, non-Communist government had been established. The 

Japanese continued to meddle in Siberian affairs for another two years 

in a futile effort to carve out a puppet state. Even the successful extrication of the Czech Legion had little to do with Graves’ small expedition, 

as the legion’s 50,000 hardened veterans were more than capable of 

fending for themselves. In the words of Chief of Staff March, the expeditions in Russia had been little more than “a military crime.”50

Panama, 1918–1920

Just as it was about to commit U.S. troops to the two expeditions in 

Russia, the Wilson administration launched its longest and by far the 

smallest U.S. Army intervention into the affairs of a foreign country, 

this time in Panama. Panama had been an American protectorate since 

1903, when President Theodore Roosevelt had helped engineer its successful revolution against its then parent state, Colombia. Since that 

time, the United States had built a canal across the isthmus on land 

ceded to it by Panama. It had also occasionally employed military 

forces based in the Canal Zone to influence Panamanian affairs, under 

provisions sanctified by treaty and clauses of Panama’s own constitution. When in the summer of 1918 the Panamanian government threatened to postpone elections, American troops from the Canal Zone 

seized the cities of Panama and Colon and compelled the government 

to move ahead with the elections. While U.S. Army units maintained 

order in Panama’s two principal cities, another 200 soldiers spread out 

over the rest of the country to monitor polling places. After the conclusion of the voting, the Army withdrew its troops back to the Canal 

Zone, all except for a small detachment of men in the city of David, the 

capital of Panama’s Chiriqui Province.51 (Map 6)

Chiriqui was Panama’s richest province, the home of large plantations and cattle ranches, many of which were owned by American and 

European citizens. Unfortunately, the province also had a reputation for 

lawlessness and corruption. Cattle rustling and land disputes were common, with the foreign community obtaining little redress from the 

province’s government. When in July 1918 the foreign community 

appealed to the United States for relief, the American minister to 

Panama asked Brig. Gen. Richard M. Blatchford, the commander of 
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227

U.S. forces in the Canal Zone, to keep the election-monitoring detail in 

David until the Panamanian government corrected the situation in 

Chiriqui. General Blatchford complied.52

The Chiriqui detachment was small, fluctuating between fifty and 

seventy men from the 33d U.S. Infantry, supplemented by a few soldiers from the Puerto Rican Regiment who acted as interpreters and 

intelligence officers. Nevertheless, the detachment was quite active 

during its first few months in the province. Under the leadership of 

Maj. Herbert E. Pace, American soldiers crisscrossed the countryside to 

demonstrate their presence and discourage the further persecution of 

foreigners. Although Major Pace had absolutely no police authority, he 

detached men to assist the Panamanian police force in the performance 

of its duties. This assistance, coupled with the appointment of a new 

police chief in the province, resulted in the arrest of nearly a hundred 

cattle thieves, many of whom had previously enjoyed virtual immunity 

from the law.53

In addition to assisting the Panamanian police, the Chiriqui detachment performed the State Department’s bidding by gathering intelligence on conditions in the province and by intervening in local political 

and judicial proceedings on behalf of American landowners. But the 

detachment lacked any official authority over the provincial government and had to achieve its aims purely through persuasion. This naturally limited the detachment’s ability to improve provincial affairs, 

once criminals and officials alike realized that the troops lacked the 

authority to use force. Corruption and petty criminality soon resumed, 

undisturbed by the detail’s admonitions. It quickly became apparent 

that the only real leverage the detachment gave the United States over 

the Panamanian government was that derived from its physical presence inside Chiriqui.

As in 1914 and 1916, the Army chafed at having to play the heavy 

in the State Department’s game of coercive diplomacy. The 

Panamanians liked the Army’s presence even less, and they bombarded the U.S. government with demands for the detachment’s withdrawal. The State Department ignored both sides, refusing to withdraw the 

troops until Panama had made some material progress in addressing 

American concerns in the province. Meanwhile, the soldiers at David 

languished. Lacking a clear mission and denied any authority to affect 

the situation, the detachment gradually fell victim to all the vices one 

might expect from sleepy garrison duty in a remote Central American 

town. By July 1919 discipline and morale had become so bad at David 

that the new commander of the Panama Canal Zone, Maj. Gen. Chase 

W. Kennedy, replaced the entire garrison and brought back the ener-
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

228

Golfe de los 

Mosquitos

P A C I F I 

C A R I B 

Bocas del Toro

C H I R I Q U I

David

C O C L É

C O L O N

V E R A G U A S

HERRERA

Chitré

L O S

S A N T O S

Las Ta

C O S T A

R I C A

Penonomé

Santiago

B O C A S D E L T O R O

0 75

Miles

PANAMA

1918

Panama Canal

Map 6

getic Major Pace, who had previously left Chiriqui, to revitalize the 

detachment.54

The change of personnel improved the administration of the 

detachment but could not alter the difficulty of the situation. When in 

early 1920 the population rallied behind a member of an influential 

anti-American family who had assassinated the reform-minded governor of the province, the frustrated major rashly issued a handbill declaring that the U.S. Army would remain in Chiriqui forever unless the 

Panamanians changed their ways. The handbill created a stir in Panama, 

embarrassing the State Department, which demanded that the Army 

replace Major Pace. Secretary of War Baker, however, refused to make 
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

229

G U L F O F P A N A M A

Bay of Panama

C O C E A N

B E A N S E A

blas

Colón

Balboa

El Porvenir

PANAMA CITY

P A N A M A

La Palma

S A N

B L A S

D A R I É N

C O L O M B I A

the major a scapegoat for what he regarded as the folly of the State 

Department’s policy in Chiriqui. Pace may have been guilty of a 

momentary lapse of judgment, Baker conceded, but he was the best 

man the Army had for the job, and if the State Department did not like 

him, it should replace the military detachment with its own personnel. 

The department declined the offer, and Major Pace and his small band 

of soldiers, now down to about twenty men, continued their uncomfortable vigil in David.55

The standoff continued until August 1920, when General Kennedy 

saw an opportunity to extricate his men. Recent Panamanian elections 

had passed without incident, while the outstanding problems in 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

230

Chiriqui seemed relatively trivial. Moreover, a momentary lull in the 

Panamanian government’s political offensive to oust the Americans 

gave Kennedy the chance to pull the detachment out with minimal 

loss of face. Last, but certainly not least, the American minister to 

Panama, who had steadfastly opposed the withdrawal of the troops, 

happened to be out of the country on leave. Seizing the moment, the 

War Department unilaterally withdrew the troops from Chiriqui 

before the minister returned, confronting the State Department with a 

fait accompli. After two years of uncomfortable and often frustrating 

duty, the last of the Army’s interventions under the Wilson administration had come to an end.56

Army Doctrine and the Wilson Interventions

The military interventions of the Wilson administration had relatively little impact upon the development of military doctrine in those 

areas most closely identified with the small wars experience—irregular 

warfare, pacification, and civil affairs. True, the Army’s two sojourns 

into Mexico had given it the opportunity to brush up on some old constabulary skills and experiment with new ones, while the Army’s 

adventures in Russia had provided challenges in cold weather operations. Yet on the whole, the various forays abroad had produced few 

tactical innovations, and whatever lessons might have been derived 

were overshadowed by those of the Great War. Unlike the previous fifty 

years, when constabulary operations were the Army’s bread and butter, 

the interventions of 1914–1920 affected a progressively smaller percentage of an Army thronged with young officers whose primary military experience was conventional combat on the Western Front. 

The interventions under President Wilson made equally little mark 

on the development of civil affairs doctrine, primarily because their 

limited nature did not permit extensive civil activities. Within the narrow confines of their missions, American officers had applied their now 

time-honored nostrums to civil-military questions, but they neither 

developed new concepts nor modified the Army’s traditional thinking.

The true significance of the experience under Wilson lay not in the 

realm of doctrine, but in matters of policy. Prior to 1914, the U.S. 

Army’s constabulary operations on foreign soil had been all-or-nothing 

affairs, in which the Army occupied and administered the entire area in 

question. President Wilson added a new dimension to the Army’s small 

wars experience, for he was the first American president to extensively 

employ limited force for the pursuit of equally limited diplomatic 

objectives. In the process, the interventions of 1914–1920 demonstrat-
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

231

ed both the utility and the limitations of using force as an instrument of 

foreign policy. Among the latter were the dangers of committing troops 

into nebulous politico-military situations without sufficient information, clear mission statements, or feasible objectives—as well as the 

difficulty of extracting such troops once they had been committed.57

Army leadership derived two principal lessons from the experience. The first was the need for greater coordination of civil and military policy both before and during an intervention. Never before had 

the Army had to cooperate with, and subordinate itself to, the State 

Department as extensively as during the contingency operations during 

the Wilson administration. It found the experience no more pleasant 

than its dealings with the Interior Department during the previous century. By championing closer civil-military coordination, Army leaders 

henceforth sought to wrest clear statements of mission and policy from 

their civilian superiors. The Army’s experiences during 1914–1920 also 

reinforced the sense of caution and disenchantment toward overseas 

constabulary work that already existed in the officer corps, as a result 

of earlier travails in Cuba and the Philippines. Over the next two 

decades these lessons became cardinal tenets of Army thinking with 

regard to the execution of overseas contingency operations. 
232

Notes

1

 Quote from Frederick Calhoun, “The Wilsonian Way of War: American Armed 

Power From Veracruz to Vladivostok” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1983), p. 

35. Edward Haley, Revolution and Intervention: The Diplomacy of Taft and Wilson 

With Mexico, 1910–17 (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] 

Press, 1970), p. 138. 2

 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Background Information on 

the Use of United States Armed Forces in Foreign Countries, 91st Cong., 2d sess., 

1970, pp. 55–56; Lester Langley, The Banana Wars: United States Intervention in the 

Caribbean, 1898–1934 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1983); Calhoun, 

“Wilsonian Way of War,” pp. 8–9; Richard Kolb, “‘Restoring Order’ South of the 

Border,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 110 (July 1984): 56–61. The Army contributed to the Marine Corps’ intervention in Cuba between 1917–1922 by sending one 

man—Maj. Gen. Enoch Crowder, the 1906–1909 author of Cuba’s electoral system. 

Crowder spent the years 1921–1922 directing political reforms in Cuba. The Army also 

staffed a number of international fact-finding, relief, and truce observation missions in 

Eastern Europe. Included among these were Col. William Haskell’s Allied High 

Commission for Armenia, Maj. Gen. James G. Harbord’s fact-finding mission to 

Turkey and the Caucus, Brig. Gen. Harry Bandholtz’s Inter-Allied Military Commission 

to Hungary, a Baltic Military Mission to observe German troop withdrawals from 

Courland and Latvia, and a medical aid mission to Poland. On the last named event, see 

Alfred Cornebise, Typhus and Doughboys: The American Polish Relief Expedition, 

1919–21 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1982). 3

 Quote from Marlin Forster, “U.S. Intervention in Mexico: The 1914 Occupation of 

Veracruz,” Military Review 57 (August 1977): 89; Robert Quirk, An Affair of Honor: 

Woodrow Wilson and the Occupation of Veracruz (Lexington: University of Kentucky 

Press, 1962), pp. 20–25, 54–56, 60; Edward Haley, “Comparative Intervention: Mexico 

in 1914 and Dominica in 1965,” in Intervention or Abstention: The Dilemma of 

American Foreign Policy, ed. Robin Higham (Lexington: University of Kentucky 

Press, 1975), pp. 42–43; Haley, Revolution and Intervention, pp. 131, 134. 4

 Forster, “Intervention in Mexico,” pp. 90–91; Jack Sweetman, The Landing at 

Veracruz (Annapolis, Md.: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1968), pp. 103–15, 138, 140; 

Quirk, Affair of Honor, pp. 95–96. 5

 Calhoun, “Wilsonian Way of War,” pp. 72–73, 81.

6

 Challener, Admirals, Generals, and American Foreign Policy, p. 395; Ltr, Brig 

Gen W. W. Wotherspoon to General Leonard Wood, 11 Apr 11, MID, 5761–114, RG 

165, NARA. 7

 Clendenen, Blood on the Border, p. 162; Calhoun, “Wilsonian Way of War,” pp. 

67–68; Quirk, Affair of Honor, pp. 106–07. 8

 Quirk, Affair of Honor, pp. 105, 141; Sweetman, Landing at Veracruz, p. 139; 

Forster, “Intervention in Mexico,” p. 93; Frederick Funston, Report of Operations of 

U.S. Expeditionary Forces (War Department, n.d.), p. 24; War Department Bulletin 24, 

Secy of War Garrison to Funston, 4 May 14, Records of the Judge Advocate General’s 

Office, 99–415, RG 153, NARA; Guy Donnell, “U.S. Intervention in Mexico, 1914” 

(Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1951), pp. 241–42; Lecture, “Legal Principles,” in 
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

233

Command and General Staff School (CGS), 2d Year Course, 1931–32, lecture series on 

military government. Rear Adm. Frank Fletcher, Funston’s predecessor, had responded 

to the vacuum of authority created by Mexico’s anti-collaboration law by assuming 

direct control of local governmental machinery. He also recruited American civilians 

living in Mexico to oversee the effort. Funston acquiesced in the admiral’s approach, 

and the two officers selected Robert Kerr, a civilian lawyer with extensive experience 

in Mexico, to serve as a civil governor under Funston’s overall authority. Kerr proved 

to be a poor choice, for he was an outspoken critic of the Wilson administration, and 

Washington quickly removed him on this account. In his stead, Secretary of War 

Lindley M. Garrison directed that Funston establish a traditional military government 

with Funston at its head. 9

 Quote from Sweetman, Landing at Veracruz, p. 158. Funston, Report of 

Operations, pp. 38–39; Quirk, Affair of Honor, pp. 132, 144; Donnell, “Intervention in 

Mexico,” pp. 249–53. 10 HQ, U.S. Expeditionary Forces, Vera Cruz, Mexico, Memorandum in Reference 

to the Methods To Be Employed in the Capture and Occupation of Latin-American 

Cities, 10 Aug 14, WCD, 8699–2; Memo, Brig Gen Charles Treat, Chief, WCD, for 

Chief of Staff, Southern Department, 11 Nov 16, sub: Memo in Reference to the 

Methods To Be Employed in the Capture and Occupation of Latin-American Cities, 

WCD, 8699–7. Both in RG 165, NARA. 11 Sweetman, Landing at Veracruz, p. 164; Forster, “Intervention in Mexico,” p. 95; 

Quirk, Affair of Honor, pp. 160–65. 12 Sweetman, Landing at Veracruz, p. 167; Quirk, Affair of Honor, pp. v–vi, 117, 

171; Forster, “Intervention in Mexico,” p. 95. 13 Charles Harris and Louis Sadler, “The Plan of San Diego and the Mexican-U.S. 

War Crisis of 1916: A Reexamination,” Hispanic-American Historical Review 58 

(1978): 381–408. 14 Ibid.

15 Quote from Frank McCoy, “Patrolling the Rio Grande,” Military Historian and 

Economist 2 (January 1917): 92. Robert Bullard, Mexican Bandit Service on the Lower 

Rio Grande, c. 1916, pp. 4–5, box 7, Bullard Papers. 16 George Marvin, “Bandits and the Borderland,” World’s Work 32 (October 1916): 

663; Harris and Sadler, “Plan of San Diego,” pp. 391–92; Charles Cumberland, 

“Border Raids in the Lower Rio Grande Valley—1915,” Southwestern Historical 

Quarterly 57 (January 1954): 301, 304–08. 17 Clendenen, Blood on the Border, pp. 208–10; Haldeen Braddy, Pershing’s Mission 

in Mexico (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1973), p. 4. 18 Quotes from Herbert Mason, The Great Pursuit (New York: Random House, 

1970), pp. 69–70. Calhoun, “Wilsonian Way of War,” p. 93; Robert Thomas and Inez 

Allen, The Mexican Punitive Expedition Under Brigadier General John J. Pershing, 

1916–17 [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1954], pp. II-4, 

V-9.19 Haley, Revolution and Intervention, p. 206; Smythe, Guerrilla Warrior, p. 224. 20 Quote from Calhoun, “Wilsonian Way of War,” p. 90. George H. Cameron, 

“Lecture on the Mexican War Plan,” AWC session 1915–16, Mar 16, WCD, 6474–377, 

RG 165, NARA. 21 Memo, Maj Gen Bliss for CSA Hugh Scott, 10 Mar 16, sub: Expedition Into 

Mexico, WCD, 6474–374, RG 165, NARA; Calhoun, “Wilsonian Way of War,” pp. 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

234

90–96. Scott quote from Mason, Great Pursuit, p. 144. As noted earlier, the Army did 

not take the prospect of pacifying Mexico lightly, believing that the task would last 

several years and require nearly a half million men to do the job. Any failure to be fully 

prepared, should Pershing’s expedition spark a war, would add greatly to the pacification problem, and it was for this reason that the Army urged the president to prepare in 

earnest for the outbreak of war with Mexico. See Rowell, Intervention in Mexico; 

Memo, Brig Gen M. Macomb, Chief, WCD, for CSA, 13 Mar 16, sub: A Call for 

Volunteers, WCD, 6474–375, RG 165, NARA. 22 Not only were approximately two-thirds of Pershing’s officers veterans of the 

Philippine War, but his command included a surprising number of veterans of the 

Indian wars, many of whom were assigned key roles in the expedition. Constabulary 

service veterans who served with the expedition included General Pershing, expedition 

commander (Indian, Philippine, and Moro Wars); Lt. Col. DeRosey Cabell, expedition 

chief of staff (Geronimo campaign); Col. George Dodd, cavalry brigade commander 

(Indian and Philippine Wars) (and former commander of Indian Scouts); Col. James B. 

Erwin, cavalry column commander (anti-pulahan campaign); Lt. Col. Henry T. Allen, 

cavalry column commander (Philippine War) (and former chief of Philippine 

Constabulary); Col. William C. Brown, cavalry column commander (Indian and 

Philippine Wars) (and former commander of Indian Scouts); Col. Herbert J. Slocum, 

cavalry column commander (Indian, Philippine, and Moro Wars) (and former adviser 

to Cuban Rural Guard); Maj. Frank Tompkins, cavalry column commander (Philippines 

and Texas border patrol); and Col. Robert Howze, cavalry column commander (former 

commander of Indian Scouts and the Puerto Rican Regiment). Thomas and Allen, 

Mexican Punitive Expedition, pp. II-19, II-20; James Sandos, “Prostitution and Drugs: 

The U.S. Army on the Mexican-American Border, 1916–17,” Pacific Historical Review

49 (1980): 624; Harry Toulmin, With Pershing in Mexico (Harrisburg, Pa.: Military 

Service Publishing Co., 1935), p. 97; Smythe, Guerrilla Warrior, p. 226; John Porter, 

“The Punitive Expedition,” Quartermaster Review 12 (January–February 1933): 23; 

Clendenen, Blood on the Border, pp. 239–40, 358. On tactics, see Stuart Cramer, “The 

Punitive Expedition From Boquillas,” Cavalry Journal 27 (November 1916): 213; S. 

M. Williams, “The Cavalry Fight at Ojos Azules,” Cavalry Journal 27 (January 1917): 

406; James Shannon, “With the Apache Scouts in Mexico,” Cavalry Journal 27 (1917): 

539–57; Frank Tompkins, Chasing Villa: The Story Behind the Story of Pershing’s 

Expedition Into Mexico (Harrisburg, Pa.: Military Service Publishing Co., 1934), p. 

126.23 Porter, “Punitive Expedition,” pp. 24, 28; O. C. Troxel, “The Tenth Cavalry in 

Mexico,” Cavalry Journal 28 (1917): 201. 24 “Messages from Mexico,” World’s Work 32 (August 1916): 435; HQ, Punitive 

Expedition, GO 14, 31 Mar 16, Records of American Expeditionary Forces, 1917–20, 

RG 120, NARA; Richard McMaster, An Artilleryman in Mexico, 1916, Extracts from 

the Diary of Maj R. H. McMaster, 4th F.A., p. 8, Richard H. McMaster Papers, MHI; 

Clendenen, Blood on the Border, pp. 331, 333; Toulmin, With Pershing in Mexico, p. 

113.25 Mason, Great Pursuit, p. 131; Porter, “Punitive Expedition,” pp. 23–26; Smythe, 

Guerrilla Warrior, p. 246; Toulmin, With Pershing in Mexico, pp. 59–61; WDAR, 1916, 

1:6–7. 26 Quote from Calhoun, “Wilsonian Way of War,” p. 115. Haley, Revolution and 

Intervention, pp. 208–11, 236.
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

235

27 Thomas and Allen, Mexican Punitive Expedition, pp. I-9, I-10, IV-24–IV-28; 

Annual Report, Commanding General, Southern Department, Fiscal Year 1916, p. 15, 

2480591, RG 94, NARA; Harris and Sadler, “Plan of San Diego,” pp. 392–402; 

Cramer, “Punitive Expedition,” pp. 200–227; Porter, “Punitive Expedition,” p. 25; 

Joseph McDonough, “The Political and Military Background of the Mexican Punitive 

Expedition” (Master’s thesis, Georgetown University, April 1957), p. 90. 28 Calhoun, “Wilsonian Way of War,” p. 98.

29 Company Problems no. 3 & 4, 2d Battalion, 6th Infantry, 14 Sep 16; Ltr, Col 

Nicholson to Pershing, 10 Sep 16, sub: Field Exercises; Ltr, Maj M. W. Rowell to 

Commanding Officer, 11th Cav, 3 Sep 16, sub: Troop Problems—Tactical Exercises; 

Ltr, Lt Col Evans to Camp Commander, 4 Sep 16, sub: Field Problems; Ltr, Col S. R. 

H. Tompkins to Camp Commander, 7 Sep 16, sub: Problems; Ltr, Maj Wilcox to 

Division Adjutant, 21 Sep 16; Ltr, Maj Elleuill to Commanding General (CG), Punitive 

Expedition, 7 Sep 16; Memo, Maj S. Rutherford for Chief of Staff, Punitive Expedition, 

3 Dec 16. All in 1207, Records of the Punitive Expedition, Records of American 

Expeditionary Forces, 1917–1920, RG 120, NARA. Rpt, CG, Punitive Expedition, to 

CG, Southern Department, 7 Oct 16, sub: Report of Operations of Punitive Expedition 

to June 30, 1916, box 32, Allen Papers; LeRoy Eltinge, Psychology of War (Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans.: Army Service Schools, 1911), p. 42; HQ, Punitive Expedition, 

GO 42, 17 Jun 16, RG 120, NARA. 30 “Cavalry Training,” Cavalry Journal 27 (1917): 508–17; George Patton, “Cavalry 

Work of the Punitive Expedition,” Cavalry Journal 27 (1917): 426–33; H. S. Hawkins, 

“The Pistol Attack,” Cavalry Journal 20 (October 1915): 179–82; DeRosey Cabell, 

“Field Training for Cavalry,” Cavalry Journal 26 (October 1915): 197–202; Bullard, 

Mexican Bandit Service, p. 5; Harry Smith, “The Texas Bandit Problem,” Infantry 

Journal 12 (March 1916): 845–52; McCoy, “Patrolling the Rio Grande,” p. 90; James 

Parker, “Cavalry and Auto Trucks,” Cavalry Journal 27 (1917): 348–60; “Here and 

There,” Infantry Journal (January 1917): 407; John Madden, “Thanks to Villa,” 

Quartermaster Review 1 (September–October 1921): 27–31; George Millard, “U.S. 

Army Logistics During the Mexican Punitive Expedition of 1916,” Military Review 60 

(October 1980): 58–68; Robert Sawyer, “Viva Villa,” Military Review 41 (August 

1961): 65–75; Toulmin, With Pershing in Mexico, pp. xiv–xv, 24–25, 113, 131–40; 

“Some Cavalry Lessons of the Mexican Punitive Expedition,” app. A, in Tompkins, 

Chasing Villa, pp. 231–32. 31 Villa continued to wage a low-level guerrilla war against Carranza until 1920 

when he finally “surrendered” in return for a 25,000-acre ranch. The continued instability in Mexico meant that the border remained troubled as well. Between 1917 and 1919 

the U.S. Army established an aerial border patrol and staged nearly a dozen crossborder punitive operations, including one last major clash with Villista forces in June 

1919. Not till the Mexican revolution finally petered out in the early 1920s would the 

border return to a more normal, though never entirely tranquil, state. Mason, Great 

Pursuit, pp. 223–31, 236–37; Stacy Hinkle, Wings and Saddles: The Air and Cavalry 

Punitive Expedition of 1919 (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1967); Clendenen, Blood 

on the Border, pp. 337, 343–44. 32 Carl Richard, “‘The Shadow of a Plan’: The Rationale Behind Wilson’s 1918 

Siberian Intervention,” Historian 49 (1986): 83. 33 Calhoun, “Wilsonian Way of War,” p. 365; Richard Goldhurst, The Midnight War: 

The American Intervention in Russia, 1918–20 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978), p. 78.
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

236

34 Quotes from William Graves, America’s Siberian Adventure, 1918–20 (New York: 

Jonathan Cope and Harrison Smith, 1931), pp. 7–8. Edward Coffman, “The Intervention 

in Russia, 1918–21,” Military Review 68 (September 1988): 62. 35 Quote from Goldhurst, Midnight War, p. 86. Daniel Bolger, “Cruel Russian 

Winter,” Military Review 67 (June 1987): 65; Benjamin Rhodes, The Anglo-American 

Winter War With Russia, 1918–19 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), p. 42. An 

American engineer contingent also participated in Allied operations out of Murmansk. 

The Murmansk expedition is not covered in this text. 36 Harry Costello, Why Did We Go to Russia? (Detroit, Mich.: Harry J. Costello, 

1920), p. 22; Joel Moore et al., The History of the American Expedition Fighting the 

Bolsheviki (Detroit, Mich.: Polar Bear Publishing, 1920), pp. 44–45; Rhodes, AngloAmerican Winter War, pp. 42–45. Quote from Coffman, “Intervention in Russia,” p. 63. 37 First quote from Ralph Albertson, Fighting Without a War (New York: Harcourt, 

Brace & Howe, 1920), pp. 77–78, and see also pp. 51–52, 67–72, 74, 79–81, 103–07. 

Second quote from ibid., p. 73. Costello, Why Did We Go? pp. 37–39, 46; Samuel 

Honaker, Memories of World War I, pp. 6–8, Samuel Honaker Papers, MHI; Elliot 

Macmorland, “Talk on North Russia,” 7 Mar 77, p. 2, Elliot Macmorland Papers, MHI; 

Moore, History of the American Expedition, pp. 151–52, 155. 38 Bruce Beals, “Coalition Warfare During the Allied Intervention in North Russia, 

1918–19” (Master’s thesis, Command and General Staff College, 1981), p. 24. 39 Msg, Graves to Styer, 25 Dec 18, 000.2, World War I Organizational Records, 

AEF, Siberia, Records of U.S. Army Overseas Operations and Commands, RG 395, 

NARA; Memo, Maj R. E. Eichelberger for Adj Gen, HQ, AEFS, 16 Sep 18, General 

Correspondence, WWI Organizational Records, AEF, Siberia, RG 395, NARA; 

Goldhurst, Midnight War, pp. 123, 214; Carl Ackerman, Trailing the Bolsheviki (New 

York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1919), pp. 186–89; Sylvian Kindall, American Soldiers 

in Siberia (New York: Richard Smith, 1945), pp. 85, 88; Memo, Adj Gen, HQ, AEFS, 

for All Commanding Officers, 7 Sep 18, sub: Factional Controversies Between 

Russians, General Correspondence, WWI Organizational Records, AEFS, RG 395, 

NARA; Betty Unterberger, America’s Siberian Expedition, 1918–20 (Durham, N.C.: 

Duke University Press, 1956), p. 76. 40 Kindall, American Soldiers in Siberia, pp. 155–60, 189, 209–10; Telg 26, Col O. 

P. Robinson to Col Williams, 29 Jan 19, Historical file, AEFS, RG 395, NARA; 

Unterberger, America’s Siberian Expedition, pp. 124–25; Graves, Siberian Adventure, 

pp. 193–94; Calhoun, “Wilsonian Way of War,” p. 412. Quote from Ltr, Fred Bugbee 

to wife, 7 Sep 19, Joseph Longuevan Papers, MHI. 41 Richard O’Connor, “Yanks in Siberia,” American Heritage 25 (August 1974): 16; 

Intelligence Summary 118, Maj R. L. Eichelberger, 24 Mar 19, Historical file, AEFS 

War Diary, RG 395, NARA; Calhoun, “Wilsonian Way of War,” pp. 419, 433; 

Unterberger, America’s Siberian Expedition, p. 164; Kindall, American Soldiers in 

Siberia, pp. 101, 133. 42 L. B. Packard, The American Expeditionary Forces in Siberia, 1918–19, Apr 19, 

pp. 84–86, Historical file, AEFS, RG 395, NARA; Telg, Consul Harris to State, 26 Sep 

18, Historical file, AEFS War Diary, RG 395, NARA; George Kennan, Soviet-American 

Relations, 1917–20, vol. 2, The Decision To Intervene (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton 

University Press, 1958), pp. 399–400. 43 Coffman, “Intervention in Russia,” p. 69; Clarence Manning, The Siberian Fiasco

(New York: Library Publishing, 1952), pp. 118–19.
Military Interventions During the Wilson Administration, 1914–1920

237

44 Graves quote from Msg 200, Graves to Adjutant General, War Department 

(AGWAR), 5 Mar 19, Cablegrams to/from AGWAR, AEFS, RG 395, NARA. 

Goldhurst, Midnight War, p. 205; Unterberger, America’s Siberian Expedition, p. 156. 

Wilson quote from Graves, Siberian Adventure, p. 355. 45 Rpt, Commanding Officer, Provisional Bn, 31st Inf, to Commanding Officer, U.S. 

Troops, Shkotovo, 23 May 19, sub: Report of Expedition to Maichi, Siberia, AEFS, RG 

395, NARA. 46 L. L. Pendleton, “With the Siberian AEF,” Coast Artillery Journal 62 (May 1925): 

408–15; Rpt, Graves to Adj Gen, 25 Sep 19, sub: Operations to June 30, 1919, p. 20, 

Historical file, AEFS, RG 395, NARA. 47 Telg 84, Col Robinson to Col Williams, 27 Jun 19, General Correspondence, 

Organizational Records, AEFS, RG 395, NARA; Maj Gen William Graves, Report of 

Operations, July 1, 1919 to March 31, 1920, pp. 3–4, Historical file, AEFS, RG 395, 

NARA; Rpt, Sgt Herman Roush, 21 Jul 19, sub: Report of Intelligence Patrol no. 1, 

LeRoy Yarborough Papers, MHI; Rpt, Lt Col Eichelberger to Chief of Staff, AEFS, 10 

Jul 19, sub: Conditions in the Suchan Mine District From June 27 Until July 7, 

Historical file, AEFS, RG 395, NARA; John White, The Siberian Intervention

(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1950), pp. 276–83. 48 Schedule of Instruction Regimental Intelligence School, 31st Infantry, AEF 

Siberia; Digest of Instruction, Intelligence School, 31st Infantry, AEF, Siberia, April 21, 

1919; Diary of Course—Military Intelligence—31st Infantry, April 22, 1919 to May 

18, 1919. All in Yarborough Papers. Kindall, American Soldiers in Siberia, pp. 132, 

139; Goldhurst, Midnight War, pp. 219–20; Rpt, Lt Col David P. Barrows to CG, 10 

Jan 19, sub: Report in Detail of Operations of the Intelligence Section in Compliance 

With Memo No. 48, HQ AEF, Siberia, Series of 1918; Rpt, Lt Col R. L. Eichelberger 

to Chief of Staff, AEFS, 1 Jul 19, sub: Report of the Operations of the Intelligence 

Section, January 1–June 30, 1919; Memo, Chief of Staff, AEFS, for All Commanding 

Officers, 2 Sep 19, sub: Officers for Special Intelligence Work; Rpt, Capt Frank A. Paul 

to Commanding Officer, 31st Inf, 1 Jul 19. All in History file, AEFS, RG 395, NARA. 49 Memo for file, Col O. P. Robinson, Chief of Staff, AEFS, 21 Aug 19, 383.6, WWI 

Organizational Records, AEFS, RG 395, NARA; Kindall, American Soldiers in 

Siberia, p. 247. 50 Richard Luckett, The White Generals: An Account of the White Movement and the 

Russian Civil War (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987), p. 62. 51 William McCain, The United States and the Republic of Panama (New York: 

Russell and Russell, 1965), p. 74. 52 Elbridge Colby, “Panamanian-American Relations in Chiriqui,” Current History

12 (July 1920): 683. 53 Ibid., p. 683; Elbridge Colby, “American Powers in Panama,” Current History 13 

(March 1921): 450. Major Pace’s efforts to stiffen the backbone of the local Panamanian 

police were reinforced by an American advisory mission to the Panamanian National 

Police. Sheldon Liss, The Canal (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 

1967), p. 32. 54 Memo, Maj Gen C. W. Kennedy for Casper Y. Offutt, Charge d’Affaires, 

American Legation, Panama, 31 Jul 19, 370.6, 6083, Panama Canal Department, RG 

395, NARA. 55 Ltr, Maj Gen C. W. Kennedy to Maj H. E. Pace, 6 Apr 20, 370.6, 6083, Panama 

Canal Department, RG 395, NARA.
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

238

56 Msg 747, Maj Gen Kennedy to AGWAR, 4 Aug 20, 370.5, 6083, Panama Canal 

Department, RG 395, NARA. 57 Coffman, “Intervention in Russia,” p. 70.

238
239

7

The InterwarYears

1920–1941

The two decades between the end of World War I and America’s 

entry into World War II were relatively quiet ones for the U.S. Army. 

With few exceptions the government did not call upon the Army to 

undertake any foreign operations during this period. Such was not the 

case with the U.S. Marine Corps, which pulled constabulary duty in 

Santo Domingo (1916–1924), Haiti (1915–1934), and Nicaragua 

(1926–1933). The interwar years marked the zenith of the trend that 

had begun around the turn of the century of regarding the Marine Corps 

as the service of choice for the conduct of peacetime contingency 

operations. The American military establishment formally assigned 

intervention duty to the marines in 1927, when the Army and the Navy 

drew up the first joint document defining their roles and missions.

Under the agreement, the Marine Corps bore primary responsibility “for emergency service in time of peace for protection of the interests of the United States in foreign countries.” Conversely, the Army 

was expected “to furnish land forces for occupation of foreign territory 

in protection of the interests of the United States” only “in exceptional 

cases.” The 1927 agreement thus formalized what had already come to 

pass as the Marine Corps’ preeminence in peacetime contingency 

operations.1

The Marine Corps’ numerous experiences in overseas interventions 

during the first half of the twentieth century led it to publish the first 

American military manual devoted exclusively to the subject, the Small 

Wars Manual of 1935, revised and republished in 1940. Yet the marines 

were not alone in considering the problems associated with irregular 

conflict. Despite the 1927 agreement, these years also witnessed the 

development of small wars doctrine in the U.S. Army. Though the 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

240

Army’s efforts in this regard were not as extensive as those of the 

Marine Corps, the principles that it codified during this period represented the culmination of a century of constabulary service at home and 

abroad.2

Overseas Duty in Panama, Germany, and China

The Army participated in only a few overseas operations of a constabulary nature during the interwar years. In Panama, U.S. military 

police deployed for two weeks in February 1921 to protect the residence of the country’s president from angry mobs. Four years later, the 

Army sent troops twice more into Panama, first to supervise elections 

and then to quell rent riots in Panama City. Both operations were brief 

and had little impact other than to ensure that riot duty would remain a 

staple part of the Canal Zone garrison’s training. The only other places 

where the Army saw external duty during the period were Germany and 

China. In Germany, the Army participated in the postwar occupation of 

the Rhineland. Although largely uneventful, the Army’s five-year stay, 

1918–1923, stimulated interest in military government matters, especially from an organizational and administrative standpoint. China, 

however, represented by far the Army’s longest stint at overseas constabulary duty.3

The Army’s presence in China stemmed from the Peking Relief 

Expedition of 1900. One consequence of the Boxer Rebellion was that 

the Western powers forced the Chinese government to permit them to 

station troops along the line of communications linking Peking to the 

sea whenever internal instability threatened either the lives or property 

of foreigners in China. In 1911 the foreign powers invoked that treaty 

when revolution swept the old Manchu dynasty from power. America’s 

contribution to the international security detail consisted of the 15th 

U.S. Infantry, which arrived in China in January 1912 for what would 

ultimately turn out to be a 26-year stay. 

For most of those years the 15th Infantry maintained a peaceful and 

leisurely lifestyle garrisoning the international quarter of Tientsin. 

During periods of civil war the regiment manned outposts along the 

Peking–Tientsin–Shanhaikwan railroad and contributed personnel for 

the “international trains” that patrolled the line. (See Map 3.) Each train 

carried a smorgasbord of American, British, French, Japanese, Italian, 

and, prior to World War I, German soldiers, as well as a contingent of 

Chinese chefs. The entire cavalcade had a comic opera flavor not unlike 

that which characterized similar duty along the Trans-Siberian Railroad, 

although the proceedings could turn deadly serious if a disgruntled 
The Interwar Years, 1920–1941

241

American (15th Infantry), French (Annamite), British, and Italian 

soldiers of the International Military Guard stand in front of their

armored train on the Peking-Mukden Railroad in 1929.

warlord appeared astride the tracks. Fortunately, through a combination 

of luck, pluck, and a policy of permitting all sides use of the railroad, 

American soldiers were able to avoid becoming combatants in China’s 

intermittent civil wars.4

Too small to be militarily effective, the 15th Infantry recognized 

that its primary function was symbolic, and it responded to the demands 

of China service accordingly. Although the regiment at times undertook 

field training to prepare for the possibility of another relief expedition 

to Peking, it focused most of its attention on spit and polish. Tailored 

uniforms and swagger sticks were the norm; one commander went so 

far as to replace all the pistols with wooden ones whose weight would 

not cause an unseemly crease in the men’s uniforms. Though a bit 

extreme, the 15th’s eccentricities were designed to help it fulfill its mission by inspiring awe and admiration on the part of the Chinese population. Bluff and swagger carried the 15th through more than one crisis 

during its long sojourn in China.5

Nevertheless, there was a limit to what the regiment could do, and 

as China’s internal situation deteriorated the position of the U.S. troops 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

242

Spit and polish was the credo of the 15th Infantry in Tientsin.

became increasingly precarious. The Army repeatedly requested permission to withdraw the force, but to no avail, for the State Department 

feared that withdrawal would send the wrong signal, especially to 

imperialistic Japan. Even so, the Army’s presence in Tientsin utterly 

failed to deter the Japanese from their aggressive designs. As the war 

between China and Japan escalated in the late 1930s, the State 

Department issued increasingly unsettling directives to the Tientsin 

garrison, including one that permitted the regiment to defend itself 

from assaults by disorganized soldiery but not from an attack made by 

organized units. Although the War Department protested bitterly, the 

15th remained a hostage to the United States’ China policy until 1938, 

when American diplomats finally decided to withdraw the soldiers lest 

they be caught in the advancing tide of the Sino-Japanese War.6

Sino-Japanese tensions also caused the one contingency deployment 

undertaken by the Army in China during the interwar years. When, in 
The Interwar Years, 1920–1941

243

Soldiers of the 31st Infantry defend the perimeter of Shanghai’s 

foreign quarter in March 1932.

early 1932, fighting erupted between Chinese and Japanese troops in 

Shanghai, the United States sent the 31st U.S. Infantry from the 

Philippines to reinforce the U.S. marines and the European troops stationed in the city’s international settlement. The regiment was poorly 

prepared for the mission. Fully one-quarter of the men had never fired 

their weapons, and the unit had rarely practiced civil disturbance duty. 

Shipped out with little information as to the situation in China, the regiment initiated a crash training program in riot and guard duty while en 

route, a program it continued once ashore at Shanghai. Upon debarkation 

the unit was placed under the control of the local U.S. Marine commander and given the task of guarding a segment of the international 

settlement’s perimeter. The troops served as a neutral force, protecting 

foreign lives and property from both internal disorder and the fighting 

that swirled outside the boundaries of the Western enclave. Operating 

under strict rules of engagement, the infantrymen endeavored to achieve 

their objectives through tact, conciliation, and intimidation rather than by 

force. In this they were successful. During its four months in Shanghai, 

the 31st performed its duties without firing a shot or taking a casualty.
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

244

As the fighting outside the settlement died down, the Army requested permission to withdraw its men but—as in Mexico, Russia, and 

Panama—found that embarking upon an overseas expedition was easier 

than ending it. Uneasy about Japanese intentions, the State Department 

insisted that the 31st Infantry remain in China. The War Department 

countered that the regiment was not adequately trained for police work 

and was needed for Philippine defense. The Army might have found 

itself “shanghaied” by the diplomatic corps once again had not the Navy 

come to its aid. Disenchanted with the experience of having to work in 

close conjunction with its sister service and anxious to return Shanghai 

to its own exclusive preserve, the Navy generously offered to replace the 

soldiers with additional marines. The State Department accepted the 

offer and the 31st returned to the Philippines, never to see China again. 

In fact, when the Sino-Japanese conflict threatened to engulf Shanghai 

once more in 1937, the Navy insisted upon waiting for Marine reinforcements from California rather than accept more immediate assistance 

from Army forces in the Philippines.7

The Sources of U.S. Army Small Wars Doctrine

Given the Army’s limited engagement in overseas constabulary 

operations during the 1920s and 1930s, one would not expect it to have 

devoted much attention to the subject during the interwar era. In fact, 

the Army’s training, doctrine, and educational systems remained firmly 

oriented toward conventional warfare. And yet during the interwar 

years, the Army actually increased the amount of attention devoted to 

matters that lay at the core of the small wars experience, such as military government, overseas expeditions, and irregular warfare. 

In part, the added emphasis was the natural consequence of the rising level of professional and educational standards throughout the 

Army during the early twentieth century. The complexities of modern 

warfare inculcated a dedication to continuous professional development. While this preparedness ethos was directed primarily at the 

Army’s “core” responsibility of defending the nation in a major conflict, it spilled over into the “peripheral” areas of military science, like 

military government and guerrilla warfare—subjects that progressive 

military officers felt compelled to include as a part of a well-rounded 

professional education.

But the formulation of small wars doctrine was more than a mere 

academic exercise, for the military recognized that there were practical 

benefits to be derived from such study. The Army’s five-year occupation of the Rhineland reemphasized the importance of military govern-
The Interwar Years, 1920–1941

245

ment as an integral part of the military art. Moreover, as Lt. Col. Ward 

Schrantz noted, “more than once in years gone by, American troops 

have been called upon to wage war against savage or semi-civilized 

foes and it is reasonable to suppose that the future may not be entirely 

devoid of such instances.” World War I had shaken the industrialized 

West’s domination of the less-developed world, thereby raising the 

specter of nationalistic uprisings. In the words of Capt. Charles A. 

Willoughby, 

With the spread of democratic doctrine, half civilized people have promptly 

taken advantage of the magic formula of self-determination and flaunt it with 

great effect. Every colonial struggle becomes a struggle for ‘freedom’; every 

unwashed savage becomes a potential hero of a war for independence. . . . From 

China to Mexico, the conception of government by the people, with the observance of certain outwardly republican forms, has repeatedly become a cloak for 

absolute anarchy, hopeless administrative mismanagement, or civil war.8

Although the United States was not a major colonial power, it did 

have significant interests in Asia and Latin America that, together with 

the interventionist policies espoused by the Roosevelt corollary to the 

Monroe Doctrine, dictated that the Army should be prepared to undertake occasional constabulary operations abroad, even if the Marine 

Corps had to carry most of the interventionist load. Nowhere was this 

truer than in Mexico, where any potential intervention was bound to 

involve significant numbers of Army troops. Indeed, it was the prospect 

of having to wage an extensive pacification campaign in Mexico that 

provided the greatest stimulus for the study of irregular warfare during 

the interwar period. 

The Army drew upon a variety of sources in formulating its irregular warfare and pacification doctrines. Past Army policies and experiences, as recorded in textbooks and manuals, gave it a basis on which 

to build. Unfortunately, the relatively slight written record, coupled 

with the loss of constabulary veterans to death or retirement, meant that 

the Army was not able to tap the full richness of its own tradition. 

Nevertheless, the past contributed an essential ingredient to the Army’s 

doctrinal efforts of the 1920s and 1930s, and fading memories were 

supplemented by historical research projects undertaken by officers at 

military schools.9

The Army also studied the experiences of others. During the 1920s 

and 1930s, several European nations confronted sporadic outbreaks of 

internal unrest and irregular warfare in their colonies and protectorates. 

The U.S. Army looked upon these irregular operations with some interest, because it believed that its own experiences in the Indian and 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

246

Philippine Wars were inadequate guides for the formulation of tactics 

and techniques utilizing modern weapons. Consequently, while students 

at Army schools occasionally studied small war operations of previous 

eras for wisdom on the conduct of irregular operations, they tended to 

focus their attention on more recent events. Of special interest were 

Thomas E. Lawrence’s and Lettow von Vorbeck’s guerrilla actions during World War I, and the postwar pacification campaigns waged by the 

French and Spanish in Morocco and by the British in Iraq and India.10

Professional military journals provided an excellent source of 

information about foreign experiences. During the 1920s and 1930s the 

Command and General Staff School regularly included a section on 

small wars and special warfare as part of its periodic review of articles 

published in American and foreign journals. Instructors and students 

sometimes even translated foreign works on irregular warfare. This 

material was then incorporated into the Army’s small wars curriculum. 

The Army Air Corps, for example, based much of the content of the 

small wars instruction given at the Air Corps Tactical School upon the 

use of aircraft in Morocco and India, as well as the Royal Air Force’s 

experiments with “air control” in the Middle East. Similarly, the 

Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, studied Anglo-French uses of 

armored vehicles against tribal irregulars to learn what role modern 

weapons played in constabulary warfare. Such studies kept the Army 

abreast of contemporary European thinking.11

Given the Army’s interest, it is somewhat curious that it did not 

expend an equal amount of attention on the activities of the U.S. Marine 

Corps. Part of the reason would seem to have been that the marines were 

not much further along than the Army in developing small wars doctrinal 

and curricular materials, at least during the 1920s.12 There is also some 

evidence that the Army was not overly impressed with the performance of 

the marines in Central America. Capt. Matthew B. Ridgway’s report on 

Marine operations in Nicaragua, which he compiled while serving on a 

commission created to supervise the Nicaraguan elections of 1928, contained some interesting observations but nothing that was startlingly new 

to the Army, and the report does not appear to have had any impact on the 

land service. Moreover, the head of the electoral commission, Army Brig. 

Gen. Frank R. McCoy, was extremely critical of the way the marines were 

conducting themselves in Nicaragua. A veteran of General Wood’s campaigns in Moro Province, McCoy felt that the marines lacked aggressiveness and suffered from an inadequate intelligence service. He also 

believed that their efforts in the field were handicapped by an insufficient 

emphasis on civil programs, which he maintained should strive for “the 

development of communications, . . . the elimination of widespread cor-
The Interwar Years, 1920–1941

247

ruption of the government, the improvement of health conditions and the 

extension and modernization of schools.”13

McCoy’s criticisms notwithstanding, there was some cross fertilization between the two services. Marine Corps officers drew upon a 

variety of Army writings in formulating their Small Wars Manual. 

Conversely, although the Army generally ignored Marine operations in 

detail, it benefited from those experiences to a modest degree by inviting Marine Corps officers to U.S. Army schools, either as students or 

lecturers. Marine officers in these capacities often presented papers on 

the corps’ small wars experience, some of which, together with articles 

written by marines in professional journals, were used in formulating 

small wars instruction at Army service schools. Whether a greater 

exchange might have significantly altered either services’ doctrine is 

somewhat problematical, as the emerging doctrines were virtually identical—not by virtue of coordination, but rather because the two had 

similar experiences and had independently derived similar lessons from 

the same basic sources.14

U.S. Army Small Wars Doctrine in the Interwar Period

During the 1920s and 1930s irregular warfare was incorporated 

into the course work of some of the Army’s service schools, including 

the largest such institution, the Infantry School. Coverage of small wars 

at Fort Benning was generally confined to one or two conferences and 

several problems a year, just a fraction of the overall curriculum. 

Nevertheless, the courses conveyed the fundamental principles governing operations of an unconventional or counterguerrilla nature. 

Initially, the basis for irregular warfare instruction in the Army was 

a brief three-page section on “minor warfare” in Training Regulation 

(TR) 15–70, Field Service Regulations—Special Operations, of 1922. 

Although similar in scope to earlier writings contained in the Field 

Service Regulations of 1905 and the Infantry Drill Regulations of 1911, 

TR 15–70 reflected a significant foreign influence, with many sections 

lifted almost verbatim from the British Army’s Field Service Regulations. 

Similarly, much of the instructional material employed at the service 

schools was derived from another British source, Col. Charles E. 

Callwell’s manual Small Wars, a classic distillation of European colonial warfare against the peoples of Africa and Asia.15

Following Callwell, the Army defined small or minor wars as

all campaigns other than those when both the opposing sides consist of regular troops. It comprises the expeditions against savages and semi-civilized 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

248

races by disciplined soldiers; it comprises campaigns undertaken to suppress 

rebellions and guerrilla warfare in all parts of the world where organized 

armies are struggling against opponents who will not meet them in the open 

field. It thus obviously covers operations varying greatly in their scope and in 

their conditions. . . . The expression minor war, has in reality no particular 

connection with the scale on which any campaign may be carried out; it is 

simply used to denote, in default of a better term, operations of regular armies 

against irregular, or comparatively speaking irregular, forces.16

The Army included under this rubric campaigns of conquest or 

annexation, operations designed to suppress an insurrection or pacify 

an area, and punitive expeditions. Though Army writers believed that 

the principles of war were universally applicable to conventional and 

unconventional operations alike, they conceded that experience had 

shown small wars to be a distinct genre within the broader art of war. 

On the other hand, the Army also believed that the variety of small war 

campaigns made it impossible to draft any detailed instructions for their 

conduct. Consequently, it adhered to the approach laid down by Mahan 

a century earlier of explaining the nature of this type of warfare and 

outlining some of the principles governing its conduct without trying to 

formulate a completely autonomous small wars doctrine.17

Like Mahan before them, military instructors at the Infantry School 

taught their pupils that, to be successful at countering irregulars, they 

would have to adopt some of the enemy’s tactics and discard aspects of 

conventional military science that were inappropriate to the situation. 

At the same time, they would have to capitalize on those features of 

modern military organization that could successfully be adapted to 

offset the enemy’s advantages. Among the well-tried approaches 

endorsed by the Army were the development of march and camp procedures to foil ambushes and surprise attacks, the recruitment of 

friendly natives as scouts and auxiliaries, the establishment of a firstrate intelligence service to gather information on both the physical and 

political topography of the theater, and the formation of special units 

for reconnaissance and strike missions.18

Noting that undisciplined irregulars often neglected to take proper 

security precautions, Army texts endorsed the use of ambushes, night 

marches, and dawn raids to catch the guerrillas off guard. As in the past, 

the Army considered mobility to be of paramount importance in counterinsurgency operations, and it justified the continuation of horse 

cavalry in the force structure for that very reason. Use of artillery, on 

the other hand, was discouraged, in part because the advantages it conferred against a mobile and irregular foe were outweighed by its relative ponderousness. Moreover, artillery fire tended to disperse the 
The Interwar Years, 1920–1941

249

enemy before the Army had a chance to come to grips with him. Unlike 

conventional warfare, the Army recognized that it benefited when its 

irregular foes were concentrated, for only then could Army regulars 

bring their superior firepower and training fully to bear. Consequently, 

unless it was needed to eject irregulars from mountain strongholds or 

entrenchments, heavy artillery was to be left at home in favor of light, 

pack-borne guns.19

Like its European counterparts, the U.S. Army believed that “in 

small wars the psychological factor is preeminent” because “all savage 

people respect power and are quick to detect weakness.” Consequently, 

Army curricular materials echoed the long-established view that campaigns against semi-civilized peoples had to be prosecuted with vigor, 

both to wear down the guerrillas and to demoralize the population from 

whom the guerrillas drew their strength. Undertaking operations with 

insufficient forces, adopting a defensive posture, or otherwise yielding 

the initiative was deemed fatal, for the smallest guerrilla success would 

inflame popular passions and indefinitely prolong and complicate the 

struggle. The best course was to strike hard with a force adequate for 

the undertaking and to prosecute the war relentlessly to crush resistance 

before the enemy developed the will and the capability to engage in a 

prolonged, desultory guerrilla conflict.20

While the Army focused much of its attention upon the tactical and 

operational aspects of small wars, it recognized that combat was only 

part of the problem. In the words of one Command and General Staff 

School text, “Any officer can rapidly adapt himself to the [military] 

details of this type of warfare. What is more difficult is to understand 

the exact relation between the political and the military action, and the 

amount of each that should be used as the operation progresses.”21

Army texts urged small war commanders to obtain detailed knowledge 

of the political and cultural conditions under which they were operating. Aided by a well-organized intelligence service, the commander of 

a pacification campaign was expected to craft an operational plan that 

closely coordinated political and military factors for maximum advantage. Noting that “studiously prepared and well executed political plans 

. . . will often pave the way for military success,” the Army urged its 

officers to presage any military operation with “a slow and methodical 

political preparation.” By removing the causes of unrest, by reconciling 

the discontented population and inducing the irregular combatants to 

surrender, and by splitting the opposition into rival factions, “political 

action” was deemed essential to success.22

Nevertheless, Army texts followed the pattern established in the 

tactical realm by refraining from detailing precisely how “political 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

250

action” programs were to be conducted. Variations in culture, custom, 

and circumstance made any fixed set of procedures for “political 

action” inappropriate. In fact, the Army believed that the delicate combination of political and military action necessary for the successful 

prosecution of a pacification campaign was only possible at the local 

level, and for that reason, interwar texts reiterated the Army’s traditional insistence on decentralized command in operations of this type. 

The man on the spot was to be given the greatest possible leeway in 

tailoring his pacification and counterguerrilla programs to the exigencies of the moment.23

Traditionally, civil affairs lay within the domain of military law and 

government in the Army’s doctrinal system.24 This was no less true of 

the interwar era. The Army’s experience in operating a military government in the Rhineland after World War I proved the catalyst for greater 

attention to civil affairs questions during the interwar years. Officers 

involved in the administration of occupied Germany complained that 

many soldiers were unprepared for their duties. This perception led 

Secretary of War Baker in late 1919 to direct the Army to publish an 

official military government manual. The Army balked, in part because 

it believed that the newly chartered League of Nations might radically 

alter the parameters of international law that governed the conduct of 

military occupations. More fundamentally, officers like Maj. Gen. 

James W. McAndrew, the commandant of the General Staff College, 

argued that the subject of administering foreign peoples was so varied 

that any attempt to codify procedures in a manual would be more misleading than helpful. Consequently, twenty years would pass before the 

Army finally published Field Manual (FM) 27–5, Basic Field Manual, 

Military Government, in 1940.25

The Army’s procrastination did not mean that it ignored the subject 

of military government. Central to its approach to civil affairs during 

the interwar period was Col. Harry A. Smith’s textbook Military 

Government, published in 1920. A veteran of the Philippine War, the 

occupation of Vera Cruz, the Mexican border crisis, and the occupation 

of Germany, Colonel Smith was well qualified to comment upon the 

subject of civil affairs. He took a historical approach, examining various applications of military government by the U.S. Army, as well as 

several military governments established by European powers. From 

these he derived principles that he hoped would guide officers charged 

with civil affairs responsibilities in the future. This method, traditional 

in the field of law where precedent is given great weight, ensured a high 

degree of continuity in the Army’s approach to the administration of 

civil affairs. Consequently, the basic principles imparted by Smith and 
The Interwar Years, 1920–1941

251

other experts of the interwar years (like Col. Irwin L. Hunt, Maj. 

Cassius Dowell, and Capt. Elbridge Colby) were virtually unchanged 

from those of Scott and Lieber nearly a century before.26

Colonel Smith and the rest of the Army’s legal establishment based 

their analysis upon the prescription in GO 100 that occupiers “be 

strictly guided by the principles of justice, honor, and humanity.” 

Morality and self-interest alike dictated this course, for as the 1940 

field manual on military government explained, 

A military occupation marked by harshness, injustice, or oppression leaves 

lasting resentment against the occupying power in the hearts of the people of 

the occupied territory and sows the seeds of future war by them against the 

occupying power when circumstances shall make that possible; whereas just, 

considerate, and mild treatment of the governed by the occupying army will 

convert enemies into friends.27

Following this line of argument, the Army elevated into formal 

doctrine those enlightened yet self-interested practices which it had 

always attempted to follow in the administration of occupied territory. 

Among these were the rapid restoration of normal social and economic 

life, the protection of personal and property rights, the inculcation 

among the troops of respect for social and religious customs, the perpetuation of indigenous law and administrative forms, and the retention 

of native officials in their posts. Of course, military necessity took precedence over all of these matters, but these precepts remained the ideals 

toward which an occupation government should aspire.28

Army doctrine held that a greater degree of social engineering was 

permissible during an intervention designed to correct the internal 

problems of a wayward state than might normally be tolerated during a 

more conventional occupation. Nevertheless, even under these conditions, Colonel Smith emphasized that nothing should be done that 

would significantly alter the subject society until close and careful 

examination had determined that the proposed measure was of such 

obvious benefit to the recipient as to override the prime directive of 

minimal interference. Smith warned his students of the perils of the 

ethnocentric tendency to make everything run as it did in the United 

States. “There should be no attempt to Anglo-Saxonize what cannot be 

Anglo-Saxonized,” he wrote. “Do not try to make over the people, to 

change their habits or customs, nor to bend them to our way of thinking.” This, of course, was easier said than done, for the process of 

changing or even assisting a culture, without alienating it, had always 

been the central dilemma of pacification and nation-building endeavors. Other than being aware of the problem, Smith, who was himself 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

252

strongly paternalistic, had no pat solution to this difficult and perhaps 

insoluble aspect of overseas constabulary duty.29

Like his counterparts in the realm of irregular warfare, Smith recognized that psychological factors played a central part in the outcome 

of any military government operation. He therefore counseled that 

military governors make extensive efforts to acquaint themselves with 

the nature of their wards, not only to win their support, but to help the 

Army win acceptance of its actions from the American public at home 

and the international community abroad. Smith was well aware how the 

American public tended to react to stories of repressive measures 

against civilian populations, whether imposed by the Army in the West 

and the Philippines or, more recently, by the marines in the Caribbean. 

As another commentator noted, “what with political investigations, 

sobsters, and foreign ranters against our so-called imperialistic tendencies, [the Army officer] may find himself under surprising and peculiar 

cross fire.”30

Based on historical experience, the interwar Army defined and disseminated guidelines regarding the mechanics of military government—guidance that eventually coalesced into doctrine with the publication of FM 27–5. Since the Spanish-American War, commanders 

charged with occupation responsibilities had established on an ad hoc 

basis special staff elements under such designations as the “Military 

Secretary for Civil Affairs,” the “Office of Civil Affairs,” or the 

“Officer in Charge of Civil Affairs,” to help them perform these duties. 

Beginning in the 1920s, the Army directed that all war plans include a 

chapter devoted to military government and encouraged commanders 

to start planning for civil affairs early in a campaign. FM 27–5 went 

further, mandating that theater commanders establish civil affairs sections within their headquarters staffs whenever there was a prospect of 

occupation duty. Parallel offices were to be established at lower echelons of command. Whenever possible, officers (especially reserve officers) with prior military government experience or other civil expertise 

were to be assigned to civil affairs positions. These specialists were to 

bear the primary burden for planning and executing the Army’s civil 

responsibilities within each echelon of command down to the tactical 

level. By creating staff positions dedicated to discharging such functions, the Army hoped to avoid two problems that had hampered past 

American military governments. First, the officers were to relieve overburdened tactical commanders of much (though not all) of the civil 

affairs burden. Second, by assigning military government staffs to geographical rather than tactical commands, the Army hoped to promote 

the continuity necessary for effective administration despite the con-
The Interwar Years, 1920–1941

253

stant relocation of tactical units. For the same reason, rotation of civil 

affairs personnel was to be kept to a minimum to maximize their expertise in a particular field or geographical area.31

To avoid the kind of civil-military disputes that had arisen during 

past pacification operations, Army officers attempted to make unity of 

command a sacrosanct tenet of military government doctrine. Civil and 

military functions were to be united in the commanding general, and 

while knowledgeable civilians might be consulted in the formulation of 

civil affairs plans, the execution of those plans was to remain exclusively in the hands of military personnel. Such a procedure would 

ensure close coordination of military and political action, preclude 

civil-military tensions, and ensure a “clean” government devoid of the 

type of unscrupulous civilian “carpetbaggers” who customarily sought 

to exploit occupation and pacification regimes for personal gain. 

Experience in the Caribbean and Siberia had demonstrated the necessity of close coordination of civil-military policy, however, and for that 

reason, some officers believed that the commander’s staff should contain a representative from the State Department. But there was no 

doubt, at least insofar as the Army was concerned, that the State 

Department representative would be there purely to advise and coordinate, not dictate, policy.32

Once the machinery was in place, the Army planned to administer 

civil affairs according to the pattern established during the Progressive 

era. This was especially true in cases where the military government 

was established for the purpose of pacifying a disaffected area or intervening in the internal affairs of a “benighted” nation. Road-building 

and infrastructure programs would provide immediate “workfare” 

relief to the destitute, while laying the groundwork for future economic 

development. Sanitation and health care would be improved, prisons 

reformed, and antiquated governmental systems overhauled “in such 

manner as to constitute an object lesson in clean, economical and efficient government.” A nonpoliticized civil service and a constabulary 

skilled in counterinsurgency work would be created to assist the occupation regime and carry its reforms forward once the Army had left. 

Finally, a revitalized system of primary and vocational education would 

be established because officers remained wedded to the notion that 

education was the ultimate fount of progress.33

Several studies undertaken at the Army War College during the 

1930s concerning the internal stability of nations reinforced the traditional prescription for nation building. Based on analyses of upheavals 

like the French (1789), Russian (1917), and German (1918) Revolutions, 

War College committees charged with studying counterrevolutionary 
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254

techniques advocated the concentration of power in the executive to 

smooth the coordination and execution of emergency measures, just as 

the Army favored centralizing all civil and military functions in the 

commanding general during a military government. Moreover, the War 

College concluded that to be successful a counterrevolutionary campaign had to be waged on a number of fronts simultaneously—educational, social, economic, political, and military. Socioeconomic reforms 

were considered particularly potent weapons if enacted in time, but 

often, the War College noted, governments implemented them too late. 

Ultimately, the Army recognized that political repression and military 

action, unsupported by at least a modicum of positive measures, were 

insufficient to stem the tide of revolution.34

Moderate policies and enlightened reforms were only half of the 

interwar Army’s prescription for the suppression of insurrection and 

the administration of alien peoples. Instruction during the interwar 

years perpetuated the notion that the stick was still an important ingredient in the pacification of disaffected areas. Moreover, the Army 

continued to adhere to its traditional view that guerrilla warfare often 

violated the laws of war and was therefore punishable by extraordinary 

means. Army legal theoretician Elbridge Colby, for example, argued 

that warfare against guerrillas and semi-civilized peoples was qualitatively different from civilized warfare because of the difficulty of 

distinguishing combatant from noncombatant; consequently, stringent 

methods were entirely justified from both a practical and a legal viewpoint. Following Bell’s dictum that “a short and severe war creates in 

the aggregate less loss and suffering than benevolent war indefinitely 

prolonged,” Colby maintained that “excessive humanitarian ideas 

should not prevent harshness against those who use harsh methods, for 

in being overkind to one’s enemies, a commander is simply being 

unkind to his own people.”35

Based on such reasoning, the interwar Army continued to sanction 

many of the harsh methods traditionally associated with the repression 

of civilian and irregular resistance. Although the Army frowned upon 

executions and the employment of the “third degree,” FM 27–10, 

Rules of Land Warfare, published in 1940, permitted methods such as 

communal retaliation, the confiscation or destruction of property, the 

taking of hostages, the levying of fines, the employment of military 

courts to bring guerrillas and their civilian allies to justice, the issuance of identity cards, and the imposition of restrictions on speech, 

press, assembly, and movement. Curricular materials, like those used 

at the Infantry School, also endorsed concentration as an effective 

population control and counterguerrilla measure, citing Bell’s 
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255

Batangas campaign as the model counterinsurgency operation. Of 

course, even Colby admitted that humanity and morality (not to mention questions of internal discipline and political sensitivity) mandated 

restraint upon the Army’s conduct, and the Infantry School warned its 

pupils that concentration required extensive planning so as to minimize human suffering. Nevertheless, despite the fact that stringent 

measures such as concentration or the destruction of the enemy’s food 

supply “are perhaps not to our taste,” the Army refused to proscribe 

such methods, insisting that “each case must be judged on its merits 

and that course chosen which promises the best results.” The carrot 

and the stick remained inextricably intertwined in a somewhat uneasy, 

yet symbiotic, relationship.36

Army writers often turned to contemporary examples to illustrate 

how modern armies integrated political and military action in the prosecution of pacification campaigns. Of all the small war operations of 

the interwar years, those conducted by France and Spain against the 

Berber tribesmen of the Moroccan Rif attracted the most interest in 

U.S. military circles. Army officers saw in the Moroccan conflict, 

which involved a combination of regular and irregular warfare waged 

in an arid and mountainous region, conditions similar to those they 

believed the United States would face should it ever attempt to pacify 

Mexico. Consequently, the United States sent observers to Morocco on 

several occasions, while professional military journals covered the 

course of the campaign with some interest.37

U.S. military texts noted with approval how France tailored its 

conventional military forces to meet the unique circumstances of 

irregular warfare in Morocco. The French blended new weapons such 

as aircraft and tanks with more traditional techniques, including the 

extensive use of native auxiliaries, a general lightening of an otherwise 

heavy logistical system, the establishment of an efficient intelligence 

service, and a dedication to vigorous offensive action. In fact, French 

use of encirclement and cordon and sweep operations to clear areas of 

Rif rebels was probably the inspiration for the inclusion of similar 

tactics in the counterguerrilla sections of the U.S. Field Service 

Regulations of 1939 and 1941.38

American authors also noted with approval how Marshal Hubert 

Lyautey, France’s proconsul in Morocco during the first quarter of the 

twentieth century and one of that nation’s ablest counterinsurgency 

experts, skillfully interwove political programs with punitive measures, 

such as the destruction of villages, fields, and flocks, to produce a highly 

effective pacification campaign. Under Lyautey the French followed a 

course similar to that employed by the U.S. Army in Moro Province, 
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256

building roads and markets and instituting improved forms of governmental administration, while carefully respecting certain fundamental 

social and religious customs indigenous to the region. Political and intelligence sections, staffed by experts in Moroccan culture, helped integrate 

the political and military aspects of the pacification effort into a cohesive 

whole. Indeed, American officers held France’s use of “progressive military operations, closely seconded by liberal, economic policies” to be the 

very model of a modern pacification campaign.39

Theory Into Practice—Small War Exercises and Plans

In an era of relative inactivity, the only way in which officers could 

put doctrinal teachings into practice was through training problems and 

war plans. For the most part these exercises put participants into situations that Army leaders believed they might someday have to face, 

given foreseeable circumstances and the nature of U.S. policy. For 

example, one small wars problem used at the Infantry School during 

the 1920s and 1930s asked students how they would conduct a small, 

cross-border punitive expedition against bandits using a column of 

cavalry supplemented by armored cars, pack trains, and pack artillery. 

Another involved the suppression of an Indian revolt in the American 

Southwest using a similar force augmented by a detachment of Indian 

Scouts. Still other Infantry School problems, based on British experience policing the northwest frontier of India, tested officers’ intellectual skills in convoy and march security operations against irregulars in 

an arid and mountainous environment, while a problem taken from 

Marine operations in Nicaragua examined similar questions under 

jungle conditions. Meanwhile, troops assigned to the Panama Canal 

Zone regularly trained in guerrilla and counterguerrilla tactics to be 

employed in the region’s jungles. Included in these exercises were 

experiments in the employment of tanks in counterguerrilla operations—experiments that demonstrated the utility of armor both offensively and defensively in a tropical environment.40

While branch and garrison schools tested the tactical skills of their 

students, higher-level institutions, like the Command and General Staff 

School and the Army War College, focused on larger questions, such as 

the organization and transportation of the kind of small expeditionary 

force typically used in limited interventions and peacetime contingency 

operations. These exercises not only helped prepare students for the 

logistical aspects of expeditionary work, but introduced them to the 

notion that expeditionary forces had to be tailored to meet the circumstances under which they were to operate. In most cases, this amounted 
The Interwar Years, 1920–1941

257

to eliminating heavy equipment and other impediments normally 

employed in conventional operations and using unconventional methods of transportation. Sometimes these studies and exercises also considered the civil and military policy questions likely to be encountered 

in such operations. Thus Leavenworth’s offering on the subject of small 

expeditionary forces in 1921–1922 included a problem in “the organization of military government and the suppression of guerrilla warfare.” Ten years later, Leavenworth students were working on similar 

problems, including one that postulated an American intervention in 

Cuba “to suppress the revolution, pacify the country and reestablish the 

constitutional government.” Another problem, an intervention in a 

hypothetical country that looked suspiciously like Mexico, required 

students to organize a military government that would implement a 

progressive nation-building program.41

Officers transferred the lessons they had learned from classroom 

instruction and exercises into war plans. As was the case prior to World 

War I, most of the Army’s interwar planning involved peacetime contingencies for the protection of U.S. interests abroad. As a rule, the 

studies were general in nature, providing little more than a foundation 

upon which more detailed plans could be based, should the necessity 

arise. Nevertheless, they offer concrete evidence of how the Army put 

classroom theory into practice. 

War Plan Brown, for example, outlined how the Army would 

approach a counterinsurgency situation in the Philippines. It called for 

the use of both propaganda and genuine reform to retain the loyalty of 

the population at large and the native troops in particular. Propaganda 

was also to play a key role at home, as Plan Brown established a special 

office which, in cooperation with various patriotic societies, would 

conduct an “educational campaign for the purpose of crystallizing and 

holding public sentiment favorable to the policies of the government in 

relation to the suppression of the insurrection.”42

In line with existing doctrine, Plan Brown envisioned a vigorous 

campaign in which native auxiliaries, infantry, and as many mounted 

troops as possible would relentlessly hunt down the insurgents. It also 

echoed doctrine in warning that with less civilized peoples like the 

Filipinos, “an act of generosity or plain justice is oftentimes regarded 

as a sign of weakness. They feign friendship but have little loyalty.” An 

elaborate intelligence and counterespionage service was the proposed 

remedy to this situation. Finally, War Plan Brown required that troops 

bound for the Philippines be given an intensive course in “guerrilla 

warfare, bush and jungle fighting, sniping, scouting and patrolling, and 

leadership of small units.” The plan placed special emphasis on foster-
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258

ing the type of individual initiative and self-reliance that was “so necessary in the type of warfare encountered in the Philippines.”43

Although the Army prepared for contingencies in Asia, it focused 

most of its small war planning on Mexico and Central and South 

America, where the Monroe Doctrine and America’s history of interventionist actions, at least up to the inauguration of the “Good 

Neighbor” policy in the mid-1930s, dictated that the Army be prepared 

to conduct similar operations in the future. Essentially, the Army envisioned three types of operations south of the border. The first consisted 

of a Vera Cruz–type landing and the seizure of a key port for the purpose of coercing the nation in question. Army planners were not overly 

confident, however, that such arm-twisting would have the desired 

effect, given the alleged mercurial nature of Latin society. Consequently, 

the Vera Cruz–style plan was reserved for interventions in Latin 

American countries where America’s interests were unlikely to warrant 

resorting to a full-scale war and occupation.44

The second type of intervention was the “support” operation, in 

which the United States would launch a preemptive strike into a 

Caribbean Basin state for the purpose of thwarting a potential coup by 

pro-Axis “fifth columnists.” The support plans anticipated that the host 

government would welcome the Army’s arrival and that there would be 

little or no fighting as U.S. airborne and seaborne forces quickly 

secured airfields, ports, and critical government facilities. In accordance with the Army’s small war teachings, the support plans recognized that commanders would have to be fully briefed on the historical, 

cultural, and political conditions of the nation in question and that “successful command in the area will therefore require not only military 

skill but also a high degree of political sagacity so that the commanders 

will be able to combine effectively diplomatic measures with the 

amount of force necessary.” In fact, the Army deemed coordination of 

political and military affairs to be paramount and instructed intervention commanders to consult closely with foreign leaders and local 

American diplomatic representatives. The plans made equally clear, 

however, that the commander was not to be subordinated to the State 

Department, reiterating the Army’s traditional insistence on autonomy 

and control during politico-military operations.45

The third and most traditional of the Army’s small war plans 

involved the employment of military forces to enforce the Roosevelt 

corollary of the Monroe Doctrine. Based on prior Army and Marine 

experiences, the Army crafted a series of plans for the occupation, 

pacification, and administration of a number of Caribbean and Central 

American republics during the interwar period. Most of these plans 
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259

assumed that these interventions would follow the pattern established 

in the past—that is, that the United States would effectively displace an 

existing foreign government for the purpose of restoring order and 

introducing political and administrative reforms. As in the Philippine 

plan, pacification entailed blending moderate policies and carefully 

considered reforms with an aggressive propaganda campaign and bold 

military action. While civil affairs personnel established a benign and 

paternal regime, U.S. military units would crush whatever guerrilla 

resistance materialized to the intervention by “taking to the bush in 

small patrols, ambushing the native troops in turn, learning how to live 

off the country, while holding all settlements and communications in 

sufficient force to make attack unprofitable.”46

As was the case prior to World War I, the Army’s most extensive intervention plan dealt with Mexico. Operationally, “Strategical Plan Green for 

the Occupation and Pacification of Mexico” called for the employment of 

massive numbers of American troops to overawe the population and secure 

the countryside from guerrillas and bandits. Infantry and especially cavalry, 

backed by pack trains and light trucks, were to bear the primary burdens of 

the counterguerrilla campaign, while heavy artillery, large vehicles, and 

other impediments were to be left behind. Forces earmarked for Mexican 

operations were to receive special training in security, as well as urban and 

irregular warfare. They would then sally forth to wage a relentless counterguerrilla campaign in the tradition of Crook, Bell, and Pershing, breaking 

down into small, mobile detachments for the conduct of night marches, 

ambushes, raids, and sweeps.47

War planners cautioned that Mexican irregulars would employ the 

“Amigo system,” hiding their weapons and assuming the guise of 

peaceful inhabitants whenever it suited their purposes, just as Filipino 

insurgents had done at the turn of the century. To counter mufti-clad 

irregulars and their civilian allies, Plan Green called for the establishment of military tribunals, an elaborate intelligence system, and a 

30,000-man native constabulary, whose familiarity with local terrain, 

customs, and language would greatly facilitate the pacification campaign. Officered by Americans experienced in constabulary work and 

trained according to the Manual for the Philippine Constabulary, the 

constabulary would not only play a central role in the pacification campaign, but would become the bulwark of the new government once 

sovereignty was restored. Consequently, its personnel were to be carefully picked and inculcated with a loyalty to the Mexican constitution 

rather than to any one person or political party.48

Following doctrine, Plan Green complemented the efforts of the 

troops in the field with a vigorous political campaign managed by a 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

260

cadre of uniformed civil affairs experts. Proclamations and propaganda 

materials would be prepared, pledging minimal interference in Mexican 

customs and offering generous terms to those who laid down their arms. 

Civic action measures traditionally associated with U.S. pacification 

campaigns, such as cleaning the streets, improving government services, 

and feeding the destitute, would back these words with deeds. The plan 

further directed commanders to be “as mild and humane as the military 

necessities of the situation permit, in order not to prejudice the accomplishment of the primary object of the intervention,” and expected 

“exemplary personal conduct . . . [by] all of the American forces.” This 

combination of vigorous military action with “firm but just treatment” 

was, the planners hoped, “likely to have a great psychological effect, 

making the average Mexican realize quickly the hopelessness of resistance, and the advantages accruing from submission, and thus increasing 

the probability of a rapid and complete pacification.”49

Although moderation was the predominant theme, a Plan Green 

document also counseled that “if Mexicans are treated with too much 

consideration, they think the cause for the good treatment is that they 

are feared and, once they think they are feared, they take every advantage. It is probably better to be firm and a little unjust than to be overindulgent.” Proclamations drawn up in preparation for a possible intervention thus warned the Mexican populace that “acts of hostility or 

guerrilla warfare against us will lead to sharp reprisals, and we cannot 

be blamed for your consequent suffering.” While the Army hoped that 

the intervention would be “as free from severity as possible,” it continued to recognize the age-old truth that moderation alone was often 

insufficient to win a pacification campaign.50

Army Doctrine on the Eve of World War II

War Plan Green and similar exercises demonstrated that the U.S. 

Army had institutionalized many of the lessons learned from a century 

of constabulary service. By the eve of America’s entry into World War 

II, it had developed doctrinal materials for the conduct of small war and 

civil affairs operations that synthesized European and American experience into a traditional carrot-and-stick doctrine—a doctrine that 

attempted to balance aggressive military action with nonmilitary programs designed to appease the civilian population and, if possible, to 

address some of its needs.51 True, the study of small wars and civil 

affairs made up only a small part of the Army’s overall training and 

doctrinal program, yet the material was there, ready to be tapped should 

the Army be called upon to perform such missions. If there were short-
The Interwar Years, 1920–1941

261

comings in this doctrine, they stemmed from two sources. First, the 

doctrine was long on principles and concepts and short on details. 

Second, the doctrine tended to be scattered among a number of subject 

areas—small wars, military government, and expeditionary forces—

rather than integrated into a single, cohesive body such as the marines 

achieved with the publication of their Small Wars Manual. Nevertheless, 

while not as sophisticated in terms of organization and packaging, in 

content the Army’s small wars doctrine equaled that produced by the 

marines. Moreover, some of the doctrine’s vagueness was by design, as 

the Army recognized that each pacification situation was unique and 

required its own carefully tailored solution. By explaining the basic 

features of small wars and military governments, Army doctrinal materials in the form of lectures, texts, and manuals preserved the core elements of its traditional approach to irregular warfare and provided the 

interwar officer corps with the tools to construct situation-specific programs should it be called to perform pacification duties.52

There were, however, two major storm clouds on the horizon that 

threatened to have an impact on the Army’s approach to small wars. 

The first was America’s entry into World War II. While the war would 

ultimately give the Army the opportunity both to test its military government doctrine and to experiment with partisan and special operations, the onset of the largest conventional military conflagration the 

world had ever known threatened to swamp the tiny boat of small wars 

doctrine and send it to oblivion. 

The second challenge stemmed from the rise of communism. 

Guerrilla warfare had never figured prominently in the thinking of 

Marx, Engels, Lenin, or Trotsky. In fact, the one insurrectionary manual 

issued by the Soviet state during the interwar period contained only a 

single chapter on guerrilla warfare, written not by a Russian, but by an 

obscure Vietnamese Communist, Ho Chi Minh. Yet a new model of 

Communist warfare was being developed in Asia during the interwar 

period, a model that blended Communist principles of party organization and mass action with rising third-world nationalism and techniques 

of guerrilla warfare to produce what threatened to be a more virulent 

strain of revolutionary war. In 1941 a Marine officer warned his Army 

colleagues in an article carried by the Cavalry Journal that the Chinese 

Communist leader Mao Tse-tung was introducing a new sophistication 

to the art of revolutionary guerrilla warfare. Only time would tell whether the doctrines used to defeat tribal irregulars and Filipino guerrillas 

would work against this more sophisticated species of insurgency.53
262

Notes

1

 Although the two services had signed an agreement on Army-Navy responsibilities 

for coastal defense in 1920, the 1927 document was the first joint statement on the 

broader roles and missions of the U.S. armed forces. Quotes from Joint Board, Joint 

Action of the Army and the Navy (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 

1927), pp. 2–3. Millett, Semper Fidelis, pp. 150, 174, 261; Challener, Admirals, 

Generals, and American Foreign Policy, p. 304. 2

 In addition to numerous articles in the Marine Corps Gazette during the 1920s and 

1930s, see the following on the development of Marine Corps doctrine: U.S. Marine 

Corps, Small Wars Manual (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1940); 

Ronald Schaffer, “The 1940 Small Wars Manual and the ‘Lessons of History,’” Military 

Affairs 36 (April 1972): 46–51. 3

 McCain, United States and Panama, pp. 87–89; Liss, The Canal, p. 34; Memo, 

Maj Gen William Lassiter for Adj Gen, 4 Nov 25, sub: Intervention in Panama, 

Republic of Panama; Rpt, Maj Gen Charles Martin to CG, Panama Canal Department, 

24 Oct 25, sub: Report of the Occupation of the City of Panama by the Panama Canal 

Division, October 12 to October 23, 1925. Both in 370.61, Panama Canal Department, 

RG 395, NARA. 4

 Jesse Cope, “American Troops in China—Their Mission,” Infantry Journal 38 

(1931): 178; Louis Morton, “Army and Marines on the China Station: A Study in 

Military and Political Rivalry,” Pacific Historical Review 29 (February 1960): 52–53. 5

 Dennis Noble, The Eagle and the Dragon: The United States Military in China, 

1901–37 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990), pp. 92, 103, 194–95; Charles Finney, 

Old China Hands (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), p. 103. 6

 Morton, “Army and Marines on the China Station,” pp. 68, 71.

7

 William Nolan, “America’s Participation in the Military Defense of Shanghai, 

1931–41” (Ph.D. diss., St. Louis University, 1978), pp. 88–90, 94, 104; W. H. Langdon, 

The Shanghai Operation, February–July 1932 [historical tactical study, Infantry 

School, Regular Course, 1936–37], pp. 9, 14; Howard Cahill, “The 31st Infantry in 

Shanghai,” Infantry Journal 39 (1932): 165–75; Joseph Greene, The Occupation of the 

Shanghai Foreign Defenses, With Particular Reference to the 31st U.S. Infantry 

Expedition From Manila, January–July 1932 [Infantry School, Regular Course, 1936–

37], p. 33. 8

 Ward Schrantz, “A Minor Operation in Morocco,” Infantry Journal 33 (August 

1928): 148; Charles A. Willoughby, “The French in Morocco,” Infantry Journal 28 

(January 1926): 7. 9

 For examples of research projects that endeavored to extract lessons from previous 

small war operations, see Benjamin Pope, “The Causes of the Boxer Uprising and the 

Battle of Tientsin,” in Monographs of the World War (Fort Benning, Ga.: Infantry 

School, 1923), pp. 660–65; Langdon, Shanghai Operation; Greene, Occupation of 

Shanghai; C. T. Alden, The Engagement at Saahipa’s Cota #1 on the Island of Jolo, P.I., 

in 1913, Advanced Course, 4th Section, Committee H, Infantry School, 1928–29; Fred 

Bugbee, “The AEF in Siberia,” in Monographs of the World War; A Study of the Supply 

of the 31st Infantry, AEF, n.d., Longuevan Papers; Owen Rhoads, A Study of the 

Operations and Supply of the American Forces in the Suchan Mine Area, Siberia, 
The Interwar Years, 1920–1941

263

September 1918–January 1920, Individual Research Study (IRS) 90, CGS, 1932, 

Combined Arms Research Library (CARL), Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; I. C. Nicholas, 

A Critical Analysis of the AEF, Siberia, Including Relations With Other Allies, IRS 80, 

CGS, 1932, CARL. 10 Maj Wallace, A Study of the Defeat of General Braddock on 9 July 1755, IRS 93, 

CGS, 1931; Capt Arthur, USMC, A Study of the War in German East Africa, 1914–18, 

IRS 33, CGS, 1930; G. G. Parks, A Critical Analysis of the Operations in German East 

Africa, 1914–18, IRS 94, CGS, 1934; G. L. McEntee, A Critical Analysis of the 

Campaign in the Soudan From a Supply Point of View, Army War College (AWC), G–4 

Committee 1, 1922–23, AWC 253–1, MHI; George King, Outline of the Boer War in 

South Africa, 1899–1901, IRS 2, CGS, 1930; Hoffman Nickerson, “Irregular Warfare: 

The Role of Irregular Troops in Modern Conflict,” Army Ordnance 22 (November–

December 1941): 381–85; A. Stuart Daley, “Twentieth-Century Irregulars,” Infantry 

Journal 48 (June 1941): 37–42; H. A. DeWeerd, “Was Lawrence a Great Soldier?” 

Infantry Journal 44 (May–June 1937): 197–204; Strategy of the South African and 

Russo-Japanese Wars, Rpt of Committee 6, AWC, 1926–27, AWC 338–6, MHI. That 

the study of old campaigns could still prove valuable was attested to by Maj. (future Lt. 

Gen.) Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., who wrote in 1937 that France’s campaign against 

irregulars in Algeria during the 1830s and 1840s was “worthy of study because it illustrates and emphasizes many of the principles that are applicable to this special operation even in the modern age.” L. K. Truscott, Jr., “Revue de Cavalerie,” Command and 

General Staff School Review of Military Literature 17 (September 1937): 172. 11 “British Operations Against Tribesmen on the Northwest Frontier of India,” in 

Infantry School Academic Department Instructional Matter, 1934–35, 2d sec., vol. 5; 

“Tanks in Morocco,” Infantry Journal 28 (May 1926): 560–61; Walter Muller, 

Historical Tactical Study. Light Tanks in Desert Operations—Morocco [student paper, 

Infantry School, Tank Course, 1936–37], p. 9; Richard Steinbach, Employment of 

Tanks and Armored Cars in India [student paper, Infantry School, Tank Course, 1938–

39]; William Due, Plan and Conduct of Attack, A Special Operation—Mountain 

Warfare. Action of 1st Abbottabad Infantry Brigade (British) Near Damdil, India, 29th 

of March, 1937 [student paper, Infantry School, Regular Course, 1938–39]; Lecture, 

“Air Force in Minor Wars,” in Air Force Course, 1929–30, Army Air Corps Tactical 

School, May 30, pp. 2, 14; Infantry School, Infantry in Special Operations, Special 

Text 13, Army Extension Courses (Fort Benning, Ga.: Infantry School, 1937); 

Command and General Staff School, Mountain Warfare (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: 

Command and General Staff School Press, 1935); “Desert Warfare,” Infantry School 

Mailing List 13 (January 1937): 65–99. For examples of foreign translations done at the 

Command and General Staff School, see W. O. Butler and H. M. Melasky, Some 

Lessons in Aviation Matters From the Riff Campaign (1925–26), IRS 14, CGS, 1935; 

Arthur Ehrhardt, Guerrilla Warfare: Lessons of the Past and Possibilities of the Future

(Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Command and General Staff School, 1936). 12 The Marine Corps introduced small wars training into the curriculum of its Field 

Officers School at Quantico, Virginia, in 1926, four years after the Infantry School. 

Eventually, however, the marines surpassed the Army, culminating in the publication of 

the corps’ Small Wars Manual in 1940. 13 McCoy was instrumental in increasing the size and activity of the Marine contingent and in reorienting the Nicaraguan military away from being a conventional force 

and into a constabulary organization more appropriate for the task at hand. He also 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

264

added a public relations adviser to his personal staff to help defuse criticism of the war 

at home. Yet he was unable to get the home government to approve a more comprehensive civic action campaign, and in the end the United States withdrew the marines in 

1933 with the rebel movement, led by a defiant Augusto Sandino, still intact. Matthew 

B. Ridgway, Notes on Military Operations of United States Naval Forces in Nicaragua, 

July 1927–October 1928, 30 Oct 28, box 2, Matthew B. Ridgway Papers, MHI; Msg, 

Brig Gen McCoy to Secy of State, 111, 5 Mar 28, pp. 4–6, 817.00/5450, Records of the 

State Department, RG 59, NARA. Quote from A. J. Bacevich, Diplomat in Khaki: 

Major General Frank Ross McCoy and American Foreign Policy (Manhattan: 

University of Kansas Press, 1989), pp. 129, 131. 14 For evidence that the founders of Marine doctrine consulted Army sources, see 

Schaffer, “The 1940 Small Wars Manual,” p. 46, and the bibliography of Harold Utley, 

Tactics and Techniques of Small Wars, Harold H. Utley Papers, USMC Historical 

Center, Washington, D.C. Many of the basic technical elements contained in the Marine 

Corps Small Wars Manual, such as small-unit infantry tactics, the use of pack transportation, etc., were essentially based on U.S. Army doctrines in those areas, leavened by 

the Marine Corps’ own experience. For examples of papers given by marines attending 

Army schools, as well as articles written by marines that appeared in Army periodicals, 

see C. S. Baker, Supply and Evacuation in Minor Warfare, IRS 4, CGS, 1932; M. L. 

Curry, “Jungle Warfare Weapons,” Chemical Warfare 20 (October 1934): 1444–48; 

AWC Rpt, Henry C. Davis, Military Government for a Latin-American Country in the 

Light of Our Santo Domingo Experience, 22 Jan 24, AWC 264–65, MHI; William 

Evans, Task Force and the Use of Aviation in Minor Wars, IRS 41, CGS, 1934; Roger 

Peard, “The Tactics of Bush Warfare,” Infantry Journal 38 (1931): 409 (the same article also appeared in the Cavalry Journal Mailing List [15 March 1932]); G. C. Reid, 

Principles Deducible From Military Government of Haiti and Santo Domingo, Rpt of 

Committee 6, Sub-Committee 2, pt. 2, G–1 Course 16, AWC, 1924–25, AWC 287–6, 

MHI; Ross Rowell, Aircraft in Bush Warfare [student paper, Army Air Corps Tactical 

School, 1931]; H. Schmidt, Operations of the Intelligence Section of the 2d Brigade in 

Nicaragua, 1928–29, IRS 95, CGS, 1932; John Wood, Operations of the 9th Company, 

Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua, 11–17 April 1931 [student paper, Infantry School, 

Advanced Course, 1932–33]; Maurice Holmes, “With Horse Marines in Nicaragua,” 

Cavalry Journal 39 (1930): 209–33. For examples of how Marine writings sometimes 

affected Army small wars instruction, see Infantry School, Infantry in Special 

Operations, p. 27; Lecture, “Air Force in Minor Wars,” in Air Force Course, 1929–30, 

Army Air Corps Tactical School, May 30, p. 17; “A Skirmish in Nicaragua,” Infantry 

School Mailing List 11 (January 1936): 231–49; General Service Schools, Instructors’ 

Summary of Military Articles for March 1922, 10 April 1922, pp. 3–4. For examples of 

Army examinations of Marine operations, see Memos, Maj A. G. Campbell for Asst 

Commandant, AWC, 1 Apr 28, sub: U.S. Intervention in Haiti, and Col F. L. Bradman 

for Commandant, AWC, 31 Mar 28, sub: U.S. Intervention in Santo Domingo, both in 

AWC Course 1927–28, AWC 349–4, MHI. 15 Compare the British Field Service Regulations. I. Operations (London: His 

Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1909), pp. 196–97, with War Department, Training 

Regulation (TR) 15–70, Field Service Regulations—Special Operations, c. 1922, pp. 

305–07, pars. 23b, 23c, 24b. 16 Lecture, “Air Force in Minor Wars,” in Air Force course, 1929–30, Army Air 

Corps Tactical School, May 30, p. 1.
The Interwar Years, 1920–1941

265

17 Infantry School, Infantry in Special Operations, pp. 24–25; Charles Callwell, 

Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (London: Harrison & Sons, 1906), pp. 21, 

25–27; Lecture, “Small Wars and Punitive Expeditions,” in Instructional Material, 

Infantry School, 1925–26, vol. 2, Tactics; CGS, Mountain Warfare, p. 23; Parks, A 

Critical Analysis of the Operations in German East Africa, p. 27; War Department, FM 

100–5, Tentative Field Service Regulations, Operations, Oct 39 (hereafter cited as FM 

100–5, Oct 39), pp. 228–31; War Department, FM 100–5, Field Service Regulations, 

Operations, 22 May 41 (hereafter cited as FM 100–5, 22 May 41), pp. 238–40. 18 TR 15–70, Field Service Regulations—Special Operations, c. 1922, p. 306; 

Lecture, “Minor Warfare,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1922–23, 1st 

sec., vol. 3; Lecture, “Minor Warfare,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 

1923–24, vol. 1, Special Operations; Lecture, “Small Wars and Punitive Expeditions,” 

in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1925–26, vol. 2, Tactics; Lecture, “Small 

Wars,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1930–31, vol. 3; CGS, Mountain 

Warfare, pp. 38–39. 19 Lecture, “The Role of Cavalry,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1921–

22, p. 5; Hamilton Hawkins, “The Role of Cavalry,” Cavalry Journal 29 (1920): 264; 

Lecture, “Small Wars,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1930–31, vol. 3. 20 Lecture, “Small Wars and Punitive Expeditions,” in Instructional Material, 

Infantry School, 1925–26, vol. 2, Tactics. Quotes from Lecture, “Small Wars,” in 

Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1930–31, vol. 3; CGS, Mountain Warfare, p. 

24. 21 CGS, Mountain Warfare, p. 40. 22 Quotes from Infantry School, Infantry in Special Operations, p. 59. CGS, 

Mountain Warfare, p. 40. 23 CGS, Mountain Warfare, p. 25; Infantry School, Infantry in Special Operations, 

p. 26. 24 Although the Army drew a distinction between the terms military government and 

civil affairs during World War II, prior to that conflict military writers used the terms 

interchangeably to refer to the conduct of civil functions in areas under Army jurisdiction, regardless of the circumstances. 25 Harry Coles, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors (Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Army Center of Military History, Government Printing Office, 1964), p. 6; Memo, Maj 

Gen W. G. Haan, Dir, WPD, for Adj Gen, 4 Nov 19, sub: Manual of Military 

Government, WCD, 8334–5, RG 165, NARA. 26 Harry Smith, Military Government (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Command and 

General Staff School, 1920); Harry Smith, “Four Interventions in Mexico. A Study in 

Military Government,” Infantry Journal 17 (1920): 30–34, 125–31, 372–80. For other 

examples of how the Army employed historical analysis for the derivation of military 

government doctrine, see “Lecture Outline—Caribbean Policy of the United States,” in 

CGS, 1st Year Course, 1930–31; Lecture, “Legal Principles,” in CGS, 2d Year Course, 

1931–32; Principles Deducible From Military Government of Porto Rico [sic] and 

Philippines, Rpt of Committee 6, Sub-Committee 1, pt. 2, G–1 Course 16, AWC, 

1924–25, pp. 12–13, AWC 287–6, MHI; The Administration of Civil Affairs by 

Military Authority in Occupied Territory, Rpt of Committee 11, G–1 Course, AWC, 

1927–28, AWC 341–11, MHI; “Military Government,” Mailing List of the General 

Service Schools 2 (February–March 1923); Military Government, Supplement 1 to Rpt 

of Committee 5, G–1 Course, AWC, 1939–40, p. 9, AWC 1–1940.5A, MHI; 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

266

Administration of Civil Affairs in Occupied Territory, Rpt of Committee 9, G–1 Course 

14, AWC, 1928–29, AWC 350–9, MHI. 27 Smith, Military Government, p. 12. First quote from Col Irwin L. Hunt, Some 

Principles of Military Government, 28 Feb 33, G–1 Course 7, 1932–33, AWC, p. 5, 

AWC 391–A–7, MHI. “Military Government,” Mailing List of the General Service 

Schools 2 (February–March 1923): 41–43. Second quote from War Department, FM 

27–5, Basic Field Manual, Military Government, 30 Jul 40 (hereafter cited as FM 27–5, 

30 Jul 40), p. 4. 28 “Military Government,” Mailing List of the General Service Schools 2 (February–

March 1923): 41–43, 48; Smith, Military Government, p. 12; Lecture, Cassius Dowell, 

“Legal Principles,” in General Staff School Course, 1922–23, p. 327. 29 The Administration of Civil Affairs by Military Authority in Occupied Territory, 

Rpt of Committee 11, G–1 Course, AWC, 1927–28, pp. 4, 10. Quote from Smith, 

Military Government, pp. 9–11. Provost Marshal General’s Plan. Military Government, 

Rpt of Committee 6, G–1 Course, AWC, 1934–35, app. to Committee Rpt, p. 43, AWC 

1–1935–6, MHI. 30 Smith, Military Government, pp. 7–8; “Military Government,” Mailing List of the 

General Service Schools 2 (February–March 1923): 48. Quote from Burgo Gill, 

“Guerrilla Warfare,” Quartermaster Review 13 (September–October 1933): 29. 31 The Army spent much time weighing the optimum organization for a civil affairs 

operation. It never fully resolved this question prior to World War II, in part because it 

recognized that each operation was unique and required tailored solutions. FM 27–5 

attempted to provide a basic conceptual and organizational framework without overly 

constricting the local commander. “Military Government,” Mailing List of the General 

Service Schools 2 (February–March 1923): 45–46; Smith, Military Government, p. 78; 

The Administration of Civil Affairs by Military Authority in Occupied Territory, Rpt of 

Committee 11, G–1 Course, AWC, 1927–28, pp. 11–12; Administration of Civil Affairs 

in Occupied Territory, Rpt of Committee 9, G–1 Course 14, AWC, 1928–29, pp. 1–3; 

Hunt, Some Principles of Military Government, 28 Feb 33, G–1 Course 7, 1932–33, 

AWC; Military Government, Supplement 1 to Rpt of Committee 5, G–1 Course, AWC, 

1939–40, p. 89; Contributions by G–1 to the Various War Plans; Duties of G–1 at GHQ 

and on Higher Staffs; Problems of G–1 in War Games, Maneuvers, and on 

Reconnaissances; Staff Administration of Civil Affairs in Occupied Territory, Rpt of 

Committee 3, G–1 Course 5, AWC, 1925–26, AWC 311–3, MHI; FM 27–5, 30 Jul 40, 

pp. 3–12. 32 FM 27–5, 30 Jul 40, pp. 4–5; Principles Deducible From Military Government of 

Porto Rico [sic] and Philippines, Rpt of Committee 6, Sub-Committee 1, pt. 2, G–1 

Course 16, AWC, 1924–25, pp. 12–13; Smith, Military Government, p. 80; Provost 

Marshal General’s Plan. Military Government, Rpt of Committee 6, G–1 Course, 

AWC, 1933–34, AWC 401–6, MHI; Lecture, H. H. Slaughter, “The American 

Expeditionary Force in Siberia as a Part of Allied Intervention in 1918,” in War Plans 

Course 21, 1933–34, pp. 23–24, AWC 405–A–21, MHI. 33 Quote from Lecture, “Legal Principles,” in CGS, 2d Year Course, 1931–32. 

Smith, Military Government, pp. 78–80, 85–86; Brown, “Social Attitudes of American 

Generals,” pp. 78–79. The creation of a constabulary organized and equipped for internal security and counterinsurgency duty a la the Philippine Constabulary or the Cuban 

Rural Guard was given special importance, not only by the Army, but also by the State 

Department. In 1923 the department insisted that all Central American countries estab-
The Interwar Years, 1920–1941

267

lish American-trained constabularies as part of the United States’ general policy of 

bringing improved government and internal stability to the region. Richard Millett, 

Guardians of the Dynasty (Orbis Books, 1977), p. 43. 34 Internal Stability of Nations, Rpt of Committee 8, Conduct of War Course, AWC, 

1934–35, p. 2, AWC 6–1935–8, MHI; Internal Stability of Nations, Rpt of Committee 

8, Conduct of War Course, AWC, 1935–36, pp. 3–4, AWC 6–1936–8, MHI. 35 Military Government, Supplement 1 to Rpt of Committee 5, G–1 Course, AWC, 

1939–40, p. 89. Colby quote from Elbridge Colby, “How To Fight Savages,” American 

Journal of International Law (April 1927): 285, and see also p. 287. Bell quote from 

Telegraphic Circulars, p. 3. 36 Quotes from Lecture, “Small Wars,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 

1930–31, vol. 3. War Department, FM 30–15, Basic Field Manual—Military 

Intelligence, 1940, pp. 4–5; Lecture, “Small Wars and Punitive Expeditions,” in 

Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1925–26, vol. 2, Tactics; Military Government, 

Supplement 1 to Rpt of Committee 5, G–1 Course, AWC, 1939–40, p. 89; Cassius 

Dowell, Military Aid to Civil Power (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: General Service 

Schools, 1925), pp. 44–45, 48, 52–53; Joseph Baker and Henry Crocker, The Laws of 

Land Warfare Concerning the Rights and Duties of Belligerents (Washington, D.C.: 

Government Printing Office, 1919), pp. 12–13, 18–19, 31, 131, 367–71; War 

Department, FM 27–10, Rules of Land Warfare, 1940, pp. 4–5, 7, 85–90; Lecture, 

“Minor Warfare,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1922–23, 1st sec., vol. 3; 

Gill, “Guerrilla Warfare,” pp. 27–29; Burgo Gill, “This Guerrilla Warfare,” Military 

Engineer 32 (November–December 1940): 442. 37 McEntee, A Critical Analysis of the Campaign in the Soudan, AWC, G–4 

Committee 1, 1922–23; Charles A. Willoughby, “Spanish Campaigns in Morocco,” 

Infantry Journal 27 (August 1925): 126. For examples of Army interest in the 

Moroccan campaign, see C. B. Stone, “The Moroccan Campaign of 1925,” Infantry 

Journal 28 (January 1926): 20–23; Maurice de la Rue-Barneville, “A Study of the 

Conditions of Warfare in Northeastern Morocco,” Journal of the Military Service 

Institution of the United States 42 (March–April 1908): 211–18; Maurice de la RueBarneville, “Lessons From Moroccan Campaign,” Infantry Journal 28 (April 1926): 

472–75; “Tanks in Morocco,” Infantry Journal 28 (May 1926): 560–61; Schrantz, 

“Operation in Morocco,” pp. 148–54; Butler and Melasky, Some Lessons in Aviation 

Matters From the Riff Campaign. 38 Infantry School, Infantry in Special Operations, pp. 40–43, 94; “Desert Warfare,” 

Infantry School Mailing List 13 (January 1937): 84–98; CGS, Mountain Warfare, pp. 

38; FM 100–5, Oct 39, pp. 228–31; FM 100–5, 22 May 41, pp. 238–40. 39 Beckett, Roots of Counter-Insurgency, pp. 57–58; Douglas Porch, “Bugeaud, 

Gallieni, Lyautey: The Development of French Colonial Warfare,” in Makers of 

Modern Strategy, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), 

pp. 391–94. Quote from Willoughby, “French in Morocco,” p. 9. CGS, Mountain 

Warfare, pp. 25–26; Nelson Margetts, “Extracts From the Diary of an American 

Observer in Morocco,” Field Artillery Journal 16 (March–April 1926): 130–31, 137, 

147; Nelson Margetts, “Modern Warfare Versus the Riffians,” Army Ordnance 6 (May–

June 1926): 433–34. In contrast, Americans deplored Spain’s lackluster counterinsurgency campaign in Morocco. Willoughby, “Spanish Campaigns,” pp. 127–29. 40 Training Orders 1, HQ, Panama Canal Division, 19 Feb 27; Training Memo 2, 

HQ, Panama Canal Department, 12 Mar 30; Program of Instruction, Panama Canal 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

268

Department; Field Training Period, January 1 to June 30, 1918, pp. 4, 7–8. All in 353, 

General Correspondence, Panama Department, RG 395, NARA. Lecture, “Small 

Wars—Desert Fighting,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1929–30, 1st sec., 

vol. 3; Lecture, “Mountain Warfare,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 

1929–30, 1st sec., vol. 2; Lecture, “Small Wars, Marked Problem No. 45—Advanced 

Course,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1929–30, 1st sec., vol. 3; Lecture, 

“Mountain Warfare,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1930–31, vol. 3; 

Lecture, “Small Wars—Desert Fighting,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 

1930–31, vol. 3; Lecture, “Tanks in Special Operations, Problem No. 14—Warfare 

Against Poorly Equipped Forces,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1933–34, 

vol. 2; Lecture, “Tanks in Security and Special Operations,” in Illustrative Problem, 

sec. 13, Thirteenth Situation, The Infantry School Academic Department Instructional 

Matter, 1934–35, 1st sec., vol. 3; Lecture, “British Operations Against Tribesmen on 

the Northwest Frontier of India,” The Infantry School Academic Department 

Instructional Matter, 1934–35, 2d sec., vol. 5; “A Skirmish in Nicaragua,” Infantry 

School Mailing List 11 (January 1936): 231–49; Charles Howland, “The Infantry in the 

Canal Zone,” Infantry Journal 26 (April 1925): 384; John Johnson, “Tanks in the 

Jungles,” Infantry Journal 27 (September 1925): 268; Thomas White, “Jungle 

Fighting,” Infantry Journal 29 (July 1926): 65–66; J. C. McArthur, “Jungle Warfare in 

Panama,” Infantry Journal 10 (May–June 1914): 855–60; “Infantry in Jungle Combat,” 

Infantry School Mailing List 12 (July 1936): 253–66; Lessons From the Experiences of 

the Fourteenth Infantry, 1937, Infantry School library; Infantry School, Infantry in 

Special Operations, pp. 77–86. 41 Annual Report, General Service Schools, 1921, pp. 21, 23. First quote from 

Annual Report of the Commandant of the General Service Schools, 1921–22, Program 

of Instruction. Annual Report of the Director of the General Service School, 1922–23, 

p. 33; General Service Schools, “Expeditionary Force,” Command, Staff and Logistics, 

A Tentative Text (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: General Service Schools, 1929). Second 

quote from Lecture, “Legal Principles—Military Government Map Problem no. 2—

Series 10, 8 Feb 1932,” CGS, 1931–32. Lecture, General Service Schools, School of 

the Line, “Logistics,” 1920–21, p. 585, CARL; A Study of the Supply of the 31st 

Infantry, AEF, n.d., Longuevan Papers; A Study of the Outstanding G–4 Features in 

War and Expeditions, With Conclusions as to Lessons That May Be Applicable to the 

Present Time: Mexican War, Mexican Punitive Expedition, Vera Cruz Expedition, 

Boxer Relief Expedition, Siberian Expedition, Russo-Japanese War, Tsingtao 

Expedition, World War, G–4 Course 15, AWC, 1927–28, Expeditions, AWC 344–6, 

MHI; Plans, Lessons, and Principles Deducible From British Campaigns the Iberian 

and Crimean Peninsulas, Sudan, South Africa, France, and Palestine, Rpt of Committee 

6, G–4 Course 15, AWC, 1922–23, AWC 253–1, MHI; A Study of the Outstanding 

Features in the Following Wars and Expeditions, With Conclusions as to Lessons That 

May Be Applicable at the Present Time: The Mexican War, Civil War, China Expedition 

in 1900, Cuba and Philippines, 1898–1901, Mexican Punitive Expedition, 1916, World 

War, Siberia, 1918–19, Rpt of Committee 5, G–4 Course, AWC, 1926–27, pp. 4, 8, 

AWC 334–5, MHI; Memo, Lt Col D. A. Robinson for Asst Commandant, AWC, 29 Apr 

33, sub: The Cavalry Division, p. 2, MHI; Smith, Military Government, pp. 75f. 42 App. 2, Special Plan Brown, n.d., p. 3, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 

Administrative Services Division, Operations Branch, Special Projects, War Plans—

Color, 1920–48, 323, RG 407, NARA. 
The Interwar Years, 1920–1941

269

43 First quote from Basic Plan—Brown, Philippine Department, 1923, 321. 

Philippine Department Plan Brown 1932, 313. Remaining quotes from Brown Plan, 

Hawaiian Department, Revision 1932, app. 3, Training, 31 Oct 32, 310. Brown Plan—

Hawaiian Department, 1932, G–3 app., 312. All in RG 407, NARA. 44 Army Strategical Plan Purple, 1928, 356; Memorandum for the Record (MFR), Lt 

Col Charles W. Furlong, c. 1930, sub: Comments on Strategical Plan Purple, 355. Both 

in RG 407, NARA. 45 Quote from HQ, Caribbean Defense Command, Operation Plan of Caribbean 

Theater, 1 Dec 41, an. 1e, p. 7, RG 407, NARA. Caribbean Defense Command, Plan 

for Support of Costa Rica, Jul 41, 46, RG 407, NARA; John Child, “From ‘Color’ to 

‘Rainbow’: U.S. Strategic Planning for Latin America, 1919–45,” Journal of 

InterAmerican Studies and World Affairs 21 (May 1979): 255. 46 Quote from Memo for Chairman, Subcommittee 2, A Succinct Account of the 

Economic, Political, Naval, and Military Situation in Central America With Particular 

Reference to the Causes That May Lead to Intervention on the Part of the US, in G–2 

Course, AWC, 1929–30, p. 5, AWC 362–6, MHI. Plan for Intervention in Cuba, 9 Oct 

20, 53, RG 407, NARA; Special Plan Tan (1924), app. WPD, pp. 10–11, 30–31, RG 

407, NARA; Army Strategical Plan, Tan (1930 Revision), RG 407, NARA. 47 Survey of the Vital Strategic Areas of the U.S. and Its Possessions. War Plans 

Division, War Plan Green, Committee 1, War Plans Division Course 6, AWC, 1921–22, 

p. 50, MHI; Strategical Plan Green for the Occupation and Pacification of Mexico 

(hereafter cited as Strategical Plan Green), Mar 26, pp. 3, 5, 259, RG 407, NARA; AEF 

Plan—Green, app. G–3, pt. 2, Organization, Training, Concentration, 1927, p. 3, 337, 

RG 407, NARA; App. WPD to Strategical Plan Green, Special Plan Green, 1926, p. 28, 

269, RG 407, NARA; War Plan Green, War Plans Group 1, Preparation for War Course, 

AWC, 1935–36, p. 208, AWC 5–1936–18, MHI; War Department, MID, Situation 

Monograph, Special Plan Green, vol. 2, 31 Dec 28, AWC III–2.9B, MHI; Memo, 

Robinson for Asst Commandant, AWC, 29 Apr 33, sub: The Cavalry Division, p. 1; 

Memo, Army G–2 for WPD, 21 Jun 27, sub: Strategical Plan 2, Special Plan Green, 

Development file, Army Strategical Plan Green no. 2. Steps in the Development of the 

Plan, RG 407, NARA. 48 War Department, MID, Special Plan Green, vol. 2, 1929, pars. 6180, 6700, AWC 

111–2.9B, MHI; Memo, WPD for II and VIII Corps, 4 Sep 23, 1424, RG 165, NARA. 49 First quote from Strategical Plan Green, Mar 26, pp. 20–21 and second quote from 

p. 4. War Department, MID, Situation Monograph, Special Plan Green, vol. 2, 31 Dec 

28; Theater of Operations Plan—Green 2, an. 7, Plan for Military Government, 

Proclamations, Translations, etc., 1930, 265, RG 407, NARA. 50 First quote from War Department, MID, Special Plan Green, vol. 2, 1929, par. 

8000 (c)(2). Lecture, “War Plan Green,” War Plans Group 1, Preparation for War 

Course, AWC, 1935–36, p. 146. Second quote from Theater of Operations Plan—Green 

2, an. 7, Plan for Military Government, Proclamations, Translations, etc., 1930. Third 

quote from Strategical Plan Green, Mar 26, p. 21. 51 The Army also experienced an awakening of interest in the utilization of partisan techniques during the late 1930s and early 1940s, as it observed one country after 

another turn to guerrilla or partisan tactics to resist Axis aggression. For insights into 

the Army’s budding interest in partisan warfare, see Fred Wilkins, “The Guerrilla,” 

Cavalry Journal (September–October 1941): 22–25; Cavalry School, Cavalry 

Combat (Cavalry School, 1937), pp. 13–15; “Partisan Warfare,” Cavalry Journal
(September–October 1941): 31; Wilber Burton, “Guerrilla Warfare in China,” Coast 

Artillery Journal 83 (March–April 1940): 120–24; “Soviet Guerrilla Warfare,” 

Cavalry Journal (September–October 1941): 2–10; Bert Levy, “Guerrilla Warfare,” 

in The Infantry Journal Reader, ed. Joseph Greene (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 

Doran & Company, 1943), pp. 5–6, 9–11; Nickerson, “Irregular Warfare,” pp. 381–

85; George Haig, “Guerrilla Warfare,” Field Artillery Journal (February 1941): 

110–14; George Haig, “Organization of a Guerrilla or Raider Unit,” Cavalry Journal

(September–October 1941): 26–29; Gill, “Guerrilla Warfare,” pp. 27–29; Gill, “This 

Guerrilla Warfare,” pp. 440–42; Daley, “Twentieth Century Irregulars,” pp. 37–42; 

FM 100–5, Oct 39, pp. 228–31; FM 100–5, 22 May 41, pp. 238–40. 52 The Administration of Civil Affairs by Military Authority in Occupied Territory, 

Rpt of Committee 11, G–1 Course, AWC, 1927–28, pp. 4, 10, 14–15, 17; Lecture, 

“Minor Warfare,” in Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1922–23, 1st sec., vol. 3; 

Langley, The Banana Wars, pp. 222–23; Allan Millett, “‘Cleansing the Augean 

Stables’: The American Armed Forces in the Caribbean, 1898–1914,” in Essays in 

Some Dimensions of Military History (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army Military 

History Institute, n.d.), 4:123–41; Richard Millett, “Useful Lessons of the Caribbean 

Interventions,” in Essays in Some Dimensions of Military History, 4:142–57. 53 Beckett, Roots of Counter-Insurgency, p. 84; Walter Laqueur, The Guerrilla 

Reader: A Historical Anthology (New York: Meridan, 1977), pp. 151–52; Harold 

Nelson, Leon Trotsky and the Art of Insurrection, 1905–17 (London: Frank Cass, 

1988), pp. 14–15, 24–25, 31, 126; Lecture, “Capture and Occupation of Towns,” in 

Instructional Material, Infantry School, 1922–23, 1st sec., vol. 4; Conrad Lanza, 

Communist Warfare, General Staff School, 1919–20; James Griffith, “Guerrilla 

Warfare in China,” Cavalry Journal (September–October 1941): 12.

Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

270
271

8

Conclusion: The Development

of SmallWars Doctrine

inRetrospect

Despite the fact that constabulary work was the U.S. Army’s main 

source of employment prior to World War II, the Army never considered such duty to be of more than secondary importance when compared to major conventional operations. At first glance, the Army’s 

preoccupation with one form of warfare while performing another 

seems incongruous, but there were several reasons why this was true.

Most of the Army’s small war experiences occurred when the service was just beginning to evolve into a doctrinal-bound entity. The old 

Army believed that soldiers learned their trade best through experience, 

and prior to the twentieth century its publications rarely related more 

than the technicalities of drill, formation, and administration. Not until 

1905 did the Army publish its first authoritative “doctrinal” manual in 

the modern sense, Field Service Regulations, and not until World War 

I did it establish a formal procedure for capturing “lessons learned.” 

Consequently, when considering the state of small wars doctrine in the 

century between the Mexican War and World War II, it should be born 

in mind that the Army had little formal doctrine for any type of operation—conventional or unconventional—during about half that period.1

When the Army attended to doctrine, it focused primarily on conventional warfare because it considered major wars against modern, 

industrialized states to be more serious threats to national survival than 

desultory conflicts with irregular warriors. Although guerrilla warfare 

could prove nasty, most soldiers believed that regularly organized and 

disciplined troops would inevitably triumph over an irregular opponent. 

That the Army sometimes suffered from its “big war” fixation when 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

272

engaging in irregular conflicts is indisputable. But without the impetus 

of a significant threat, counterinsurgency doctrine languished.2

The nature of the Army’s small wars experience further discouraged officers from undertaking a coherent study of the subject. Unlike 

conventional warfare, where the enemy’s military system roughly paralleled the Army’s, America’s small wars had occurred under an incredible variety of climatic, topographical, political, cultural, and tactical 

conditions. This diversity hindered a systematic approach to the study 

of small wars.3

 So too did the fact that counterguerrilla warfare consisted largely of small-unit actions, in which captains often played a 

more important role than generals. In the opinion of many officers, 

basic military skills were all that was required to combat guerrillas. 

Consequently, guerrilla warfare was not as attractive a field of inquiry 

to military theorists as the grandeur of Napoleonic-style campaigns. 

Nor was it as rewarding. Counterinsurgency and occupation duty 

had generally proved to be an onerous and thankless undertaking. 

Whether on the Great Plains or in the jungles of Samar, the American 

public felt uneasy with some of the stringent measures the Army 

employed to pacify hostile populations. Such measures ran counter to 

American ideals and challenged the image of the United States as the 

personification of freedom and enlightenment. There has been internal 

opposition to most American wars, but the fact that small war and contingency operations typically occurred in peacetime, when the life of 

the nation was not directly threatened, heightened their divisiveness. 

The unpleasant nature of counterinsurgency operations and the criticisms they generated not only dampened the military’s enthusiasm for 

this particular form of warfare, but contributed to a degree of amnesia 

within the military’s corporate memory by discouraging frank and open 

examinations of the Army’s experiences.

Ideology also contributed to the Army’s uneasiness. Since the 

founding of the Republic, civilians and soldiers alike have shared a 

deep commitment to the principle of civil supremacy over military 

power. In practice, of course, the distinction between civil and military 

roles was dynamic and led to continuous friction between soldiers and 

statesmen over the control of military government and civil affairs 

functions. Nevertheless, the universal acceptance of the concept of civil 

supremacy created an intellectual bifurcation of state affairs that discouraged the institutionalization of the Army’s experiences in sociopolitical matters into formal doctrine. 

A final influence upon the position of small wars in Army thought 

was the officer corps’ own self-image. American political philosophy 

was one factor that shaped this image. Another was the concept of offi-
Conclusion: The Development of Small Wars Doctrine in Retrospect

273

cer professionalism that arose during the nineteenth century. Many 

officers believed that soldiers should devote themselves exclusively to 

purely military subjects to the exclusion of nonmilitary activities, especially politics. Such an attitude reinforced the Army’s predisposition to 

relegate the highly political realm of small wars to the periphery of 

professional thought.4

The impact of professionalization, however, was mixed. Inherent in 

it was the idea that the professional must study all facets of his occupation, and, since the nation continued to require its soldiers to perform 

many nonmilitary roles, some officers applied the new professional 

methodology to the study of military government and irregular warfare. 

Moreover, there were officers, like Leonard Wood, who believed that 

the Army should play an active role in national affairs. Rather than seeing professionalism as a means of segregating the military from social 

and political life, Wood and his followers thought the Army’s expertise 

in human leadership made it an ideal instrument for social engineering 

at home and abroad. These Armed Progressives had a major impact 

upon the way in which the Army conducted its overseas interventions 

and contributed to a gradual broadening of the concept of officership to 

include knowledge of political and social affairs. In fact, it was the 

many political requirements placed on officers as a consequence of 

their duties as pacifiers and administrators of America’s overseas colonies and protectorates that stimulated the Army to expand gradually 

military curriculums to include subjects like history, government, language, and other liberal arts. The professionalization movement’s effect 

on the Army’s approach to the employment of military resources to 

political and social problems was therefore ambiguous, at once excluding and embracing it, depending upon the individual’s conception of 

what “professionalism” meant. Yet the overall trend was toward a more 

encompassing definition.

The relative paucity of formal, written doctrine for counterinsurgency and military interventions notwithstanding, a striking continuity 

existed in the manner in which the Army performed operations of this 

type prior to World War II. Many factors contributed to this continuity. 

Perhaps the most important was the existence of broad, fundamental 

values, both in American society in general and in the military in particular. From the former, American soldiers drew upon a cultural heritage that included Judeo-Christian morality, the Protestant work ethic, 

and an espousal of the virtues of liberty, civic responsibility, representative government, social and economic opportunity, individualism, 

equality before the law, and the sanctity of private property. Less 

redeeming attributes, such as racism and ethnocentrism, also made up 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

274

the cultural baggage of many American officers, as did the more positive impulses of American progressivism, a movement whose apogee 

(1900–1919) coincided with the Army’s most intense period of overseas nation building. To these broad cultural and intellectual concepts, 

the Army as an institution added a generally conservative philosophy 

that cherished order, organization, efficiency, and a respect for authority. This is not to say that individual officers did not differ, at times 

profoundly, on the proper conduct of sociopolitical affairs. But ultimately American soldiers reflected the society and institutions from 

which they came, and they could not help but be influenced by the 

underlying currents of American civilization when called to administer 

foreign populations.5

Strong trends in the evolution of Western concepts of law and war 

also contributed to the continuity of Army actions. The official codification of these precepts by the U.S. Army through GO 100 (1863) and 

by the international community through the Hague Conferences of 

1899 and 1907 provided the conceptual foundation upon which the 

Army based its treatment of guerrillas and occupied populations.

Another factor behind the continuity of Army actions was simply 

that similar situations tended to evoke similar responses. Although 

each operation was unique, sufficient similarities existed to encourage 

analogous actions. Whether in Mexico, Cuba, or the Philippines, the 

act of occupying a country and administering a foreign people generated many of the same types of issues. Order had to be imposed, the 

ravages of war and disease minimized, and the fabric of civil, political, 

and economic life restored. How the Army addressed these problems 

varied based on the exigencies of the moment, the policy aims of the 

U.S. government, the climate of public opinion at home and abroad, 

the personalities of the principal actors, and the internal dynamics of 

the occupied area, but many of the core questions were inherent in the 

nature of civil affairs and pacification. The same was true of counterguerrilla operations. Cheyenne warriors, Filipino guerrillas, and 

Bolshevik partisans may have operated within vastly different cultural, 

environmental, and military contexts, but all were governed by the 

same fundamental principles that have characterized guerrilla warfare 

for thousands of years. In all cases speed, stealth, surprise, intelligence, and civilian support were key to the irregular’s survival, and in 

all cases the Army had to devise measures to counter these attributes—

measures which, while they may have been situation-specific, reflected the essential truths of guerrilla warfare. Thus the nature of the 

events themselves contributed to the continuity of Army actions, at 

least at the broad, conceptual level, and it is no accident that this is 
Conclusion: The Development of Small Wars Doctrine in Retrospect

275

exactly the level at which Army counterguerrilla and pacification doctrine was eventually written.6

Constabulary service played such a central part in military life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that the Army 

nearly always had on hand a significant cadre of veterans who were 

able to apply their knowledge to subsequent operations. Officers who 

first became acquainted with counterguerrilla and pacification techniques during antebellum Indian conflicts and the Mexican War later 

applied those same techniques during the Civil War, Reconstruction, 

and the post-1865 Indian wars. Long-service officers of the post–Civil 

War Army had multiple opportunities over the course of several 

decades to hone their frontier constabulary skills, and many of these 

men, together with a few veterans of the Civil War, went on to provide 

the Army’s senior leadership during the Spanish-American and 

Philippine Wars. These conflicts, and subsequent operations in Cuba, 

China, and the Philippines, spawned an entirely new generation of constabulary veterans who collectively dominated the Army into the 1920s 

and 1930s. The career of General Pershing, who spent his first thirty 

years of service chasing Indian, Filipino, Moro, and Mexican irregulars, amply demonstrates the depth of experience available to the Army 

in the early twentieth century. The memories of such long-service constabulary veterans were invaluable assets and produced continuity in 

both operational thought and in the Army’s approach to the management of semi-civilized peoples.7

 Moreover, although difficult to document and never formally institutionalized, it is reasonable to assume 

that older, experienced officers passed on to their less experienced colleagues the benefit of their experiences. The fact that personnel of different generations served side by side produced an overlap of experience and the opportunity for veterans to endow their younger contemporaries with some degree of accumulated wisdom, whether it be in the 

form of tactics and fieldcraft or more general lore about the nature of 

such operations. Although informal and irregular at best, such methods 

of transmission should not be discounted.

Finally, the Army did in fact institutionalize some of the fundamental tenets of small war and military government operations through 

a variety of mediums—articles, pamphlets, field notes, textbooks, 

classroom instruction, training problems, war plans, and manuals. 

Nowhere was this more evident than in the Army’s approach to the 

administration of occupied populations and the treatment of irregulars, 

which was laid down in a chain of official publications beginning with 

GO 100 (1863) and continuing through the Field Service Regulations

of 1905; the Rules of Land Warfare (1914, 1917); The Laws of Land 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

276

Warfare Concerning the Rights and Duties of Belligerents (1919); FM 

27–10, Rules of Land Warfare (1940); and FM 27–5, Basic Field 

Manual, Military Government (1940). 

One factor that is difficult to determine is the degree to which 

European precedents shaped American policies and programs. There 

were always individual officers who were cognizant of the way in 

which European powers conducted military operations. Most American 

manuals prior to the Civil War were adaptations of European manuals, 

while GO 100 creatively distilled and codified European concepts 

regarding the laws and customs of war. The writings of such men as 

Halleck and Marcy were influenced by European example, while the 

professional journals that emerged toward the end of the nineteenth 

century all carried reviews and reprints of foreign publications concerning irregular warfare. During the Philippine War, techniques like concentration and the water cure were clearly derived from Spanish and 

Filipino precedents, and several officers are known to have studied 

foreign treatises on the conduct of European colonial wars.8

It was not until after this war, however, that the Army began to 

study European example more closely, especially in regard to colonial 

affairs. Secretary Root amassed a library on European colonial administration to help guide him in the management of America’s newfound 

insular empire. Similarly, while en route to assume the governorship of 

Moro Province, Leonard Wood stopped to discuss colonial administrative techniques with his counterparts in Egypt, Aden, India, Singapore, 

and the East Indies. Other Moro administrators likewise visited and 

studied neighboring British and Dutch colonies that had large Muslim 

populations. The War Department also compiled information on the 

way European armies organized their colonial military establishments, 

while military students occasionally studied European colonial campaigns, from Braddock’s defeat and the Boer War to the Italian conquest of Ethiopia. For the most part, however, American soldiers 

derived their counterinsurgency and nation-building programs from 

experience, trial and error, and American tradition rather than any slavish adaptation of European procedure. In fact, American officers sometimes specifically rejected what they believed to be the European way 

of doing things. That certain parallels existed between American, 

British, and French counterguerrilla and colonial administrative policies had more to do with the common Western heritage shared by these 

nations and the similar problems such endeavors posed than any direct, 

causal relationship.9

Perhaps Europe’s greatest influence on American doctrine, outside 

the realm of international law, occurred during the 1920s and 1930s, 
Conclusion: The Development of Small Wars Doctrine in Retrospect

277

after most of the Army’s imperial constabulary veterans had passed 

from the ranks. Both because the Army had failed to preserve fully its 

own rich heritage and because officers believed that technological 

advancements rendered past wars inadequate guides to the conduct of 

modern campaigns, Army writers after World War I relied heavily on 

Anglo-French experience in formulating doctrinal materials. Foremost 

among these were the writings of the British soldier Charles Callwell, 

from whom the U.S. Army derived the very term small wars, and the 

contemporary actions of the French in Morocco. While these provided 

valuable guides, there was little in them that American soldiers could 

not have derived from their own heritage, had they only bothered to 

preserve it in a more comprehensive form.

The doctrinal approach that emerged from the Army’s counterinsurgency and intervention operations and its study of similar European 

experiences blended aggressive military action with nonmilitary incentives designed to control, pacify, and, if possible, “uplift” the population. 

This method can be best summarized as a carrot-and-stick approach.

Military action represented the “stick” side of Army small war 

campaigns. In counterguerrilla warfare, the Army’s modus operandi

was based upon continuous, aggressive small-unit action. Constant 

patrol work, offensive tactics, and night marches leading to dawn 

roundups characterized this method. Mobility, flexibility, logistical 

adaptation, and personal initiative were stressed. Passive measures, 

though sometimes necessary, were discouraged, not only because they 

gave the enemy the initiative, but also because of their adverse psychological effect on soldier and civilian alike. The Army recognized the 

importance of intelligence and the necessity of separating the population—both physically and mentally—from the influence of the militant 

elements, though it often had difficulty finding the right balance 

between the need to protect the population and the dangers of overdispersion. Specialist units, composed of either specially trained regulars, 

mounted scouts, or native auxiliaries, were also standard elements in 

the Army’s counterguerrilla repertoire. Though few in number, specialist units provided the Army with vitally important reconnaissance, 

strike, and police capabilities. Both on the frontier and in the 

Philippines, native auxiliaries also played an integral part in the implementation of the ancient strategy of divide and conquer, as the Army 

successfully exploited ethnic, religious, or social fissures to undermine 

resistance. Such a strategy had to be handled with care, however, since 

the U.S. government’s ultimate aim was peace and tranquility, not the 

promotion of permanent civil strife. Since experience had shown that 

native auxiliaries were prone to committing acts of atrocity and revenge 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

278

that detracted from their usefulness as agents of pacification, most officers believed they should be employed with care. 

The military recognized that small wars, like all human contests, 

were essentially struggles of will. However, it considered the question 

of will to be especially important in counterinsurgencies because they 

were peoples’ wars in which the Army had to overcome not only an 

enemy army, but a hostile society as well. In wars of this kind, the 

conventional distinction between combatant and noncombatant was 

blurred. Once a popularly based insurgency had set in, many officers 

deemed it essential to strike not just at the enemy’s military forces, but 

at the society that was sustaining them. Only in this way could the 

military bring the cost of war home to the people and discourage further resistance. This did not mean that the Army advocated improper 

behavior on the part of its soldiers toward civilians, but it did mean 

that it was willing to punish civilians for supporting insurgents. 

Punitive measures, such as the destruction of food and shelter, the 

imprisonment of guerrilla sympathizers, and the forced relocation of 

populations were employed not only for their military effect in denying these resources to the enemy, but for their moral effect. Genuine 

humanitarian concerns, as well as a recognition of the fickle nature of 

American public opinion, meant that the Army preferred not to employ 

stringent methods. Nevertheless, when faced with intractable guerrilla 

warfare, the Army repeatedly resorted to such measures to heighten 

the price of resistance so that people would lose heart and submit. 

Such an approach became an American tradition enshrined in the 

words and deeds of Washington, Mahan, Scott, Halleck, Grant, 

Sherman, Sheridan, Crook, Miles, Bigelow, Bell, Birkhimer, and 

Chaffee among others. 

While the Army used combat operations and punitive measures as 

a “stick” to beat the heart out of the resistance, it also appealed to the 

minds of its enemies by offering them positive incentives to cease 

their resistance. The nature of the “carrots” proffered by the military 

varied under the circumstances. Invariably, the Army’s first step was 

to soothe the inhabitants by promising peace, security, and a return to 

normal conditions of daily life. But that was only a start. In many 

cases officers looked beyond the immediate questions of law and 

order and sought to address what they regarded as the fundamental 

causes of unrest—ignorance, poverty, corruption, and injustice. They 

attempted to slay these dragons by establishing schools, modernizing 

economic infrastructures, imposing “clean” and efficient governments, and rewriting legal codes. These measures, firmly grounded 

on broad American values, Progressive impulses, and the tenets of 
Conclusion: The Development of Small Wars Doctrine in Retrospect

279

GO 100, produced an American way of waging small wars and pacification operations.

Although the Army recognized the dual politico-military nature of 

small wars, it never quite settled upon the proper mixture of “carrot” 

and “stick” when dealing with an insurgency. The primary reason for 

this was that the Army realized that pacification was more alchemy 

than science, in which the policy of attraction and the policy of chastisement had to be blended in differing proportions to best meet the 

political, cultural, and military circumstances at hand. Nevertheless, 

most counterinsurgency veterans believed that experience had proved 

that sociopolitical measures could not beat an insurgency unless they 

were tied to strong military actions. Whether it was in Mexico, Georgia, 

Luzon, or the Sulu archipelago, Army officers had been forced to 

employ hard and sometimes unsavory measures after more benign 

methods had failed to achieve the desired results. Consequently, constabulary veterans believed that programs intended to win the favor of 

the populace could at best supplement, not supplant, military action.10

Unfortunately, this was one lesson that tended to become clouded 

with the passage of time. The Army’s reluctance to record the degree to 

which hard measures had been responsible for its pacification successes, the gradual disappearance from the officer corps of experienced 

veterans, and the natural appeal of following a benevolent course, 

meant that Army texts during the interwar era tended to gloss over the 

harsh realities and to emphasize moderation above punitive action. 

While the adoption of moderate policies was both admirable and capable of producing positive results under the right circumstances, failing 

to give a full account of how firm, and occasionally hard, measures had 

proved to be equally necessary raised the danger that subsequent generations of soldiers might enter the small wars of the future with unrealistic expectations about the ability of benevolence alone to overcome 

an entrenched insurgency. 

Another area that interwar doctrine failed to adequately address 

was that of civil-military coordination. Although they did not challenge 

the right of civilians to make policy, most officers questioned the wisdom of interjecting the restraints of civil and diplomatic life into the 

conduct of operations. They were especially disturbed when civil 

authorities provided unclear or vacillating instructions, as during the 

Mexican and Russian interventions, and when they violated the principle of unity of command by creating separate civil and military jurisdictions, as happened during the Civil, Indian, and Philippine Wars. 

Such actions placed commanders in untenable situations and produced 

power struggles between competing bureaucracies that hindered pacifi-
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

280

cation operations. The Army, therefore, favored total unity of political 

and military effort, preferably under the command of a military officer. 

Civilian policy makers did not share this conclusion, however, and the 

problem of civil-military coordination was never resolved during the 

period covered by this study. Nor perhaps could it have been, for even 

if the bureaucratic relationships had been resolved, the very nature of 

politico-military operations mitigated against a set doctrinal solution to 

this problem. Soldiers can demand clear guidance, but the nature of 

politics is such that civilian leaders must be able to respond to the everchanging political and diplomatic landscape. Clarifying bureaucratic 

lines of responsibility and making political leaders aware of the many 

pitfalls inherent in overseas contingency operations can help, but ultimately there is no organizational or doctrinal solution to the fact that 

the country will inevitably call upon soldiers to undertake politicomilitary tasks under difficult and ambiguous circumstances. The best 

preparation officers can have for such duty, baring personal experience, 

is to study previous historical situations to sensitize themselves to the 

kinds of dilemmas that counterguerrilla, civil affairs, and contingency 

operations typically pose.

The legacy of the Army’s experience in small wars prior to World 

War II is thus somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, the Army was 

generally successful in the military aspects of small wars. Naturally, 

every operation was not a success, nor was every commander equally 

gifted in conducting counterguerrilla campaigns. But by and large the 

Army proved flexible enough to adapt to the many challenges of the 

small wars environment, despite the relative paucity of formal, written 

doctrine for these operations. Although the Army undoubtedly would 

have been better served had it studied the problems associated with 

small wars and interventions more closely, the absence of formal doctrine had a positive side, in that commanders were free to adjust to 

local conditions and employ whatever methods worked best. Since 

guerrilla warfare is heavily influenced by local factors and since the 

irregulars America faced prior to World War II were not highly organized themselves, the absence of formal doctrine did not prove to be a 

major handicap. When the Army finally began putting small wars doctrine on a more formal basis in the 1920s and 1930s, it preserved the 

flexibility that had become characteristic of the Army’s approach to 

these operations.11

The Army was less successful, however, in recasting the societies 

it came into contact with during the course of its pacification and intervention operations. Social engineering had proved to be a more difficult task than America’s Armed Progressives had thought. Despite the 
Conclusion: The Development of Small Wars Doctrine in Retrospect

281

military’s many positive achievements in the area of civil affairs, often 

all it had really done was to superimpose American institutions on 

societies that were neither prepared nor entirely willing to accept 

them. Form proved easier to change than substance, for behind the 

facade of “modern” institutions there remained strong social and cultural forces that resisted change. Without the necessary value system 

to nurture them, American-based institutions either withered or 

became perverted.12

Changing values, however, was not an easy task. Values could not 

be changed by bayonets, as the nation learned during Reconstruction. 

Nor could they be imposed quickly, as dabblers in the Indian, Cuban, 

and Moro questions well knew. Most officers realized that U.S. policy 

was unrealistic in expecting the Army to apply “quick fixes” to deeply 

rooted social problems. Indeed, Army doctrine acknowledged the complexity of nation building and the perils of ethnocentrism by counseling 

officers to take a “go slow” approach that considered the cultural attributes of the indigenous population. Frequently, however, officers had 

difficulty following such instructions, in part because ethnocentrism is 

inherent in the very concept of nation building. No matter how sensitive soldiers may try to be to the needs of an indigenous culture—and 

such sensitivity is vital if soldiers are to successfully perform advisory 

and nation-building tasks—any effort to modernize, reform, or uplift a 

foreign society will inevitably lead to clashes of culture, values, and 

traditions that are not easily resolved. Internally generated changes in 

social, political, and economic institutions often produce great tension 

and stress. When such changes are imposed by an outside agent, the 

effect can be traumatic. Time after time, the United States found that 

indigenous body politics rejected transplanted American social and 

political institutions.

One way in which the Army tried to reduce the likelihood of rejection, as well as ease its administrative burdens, was by working 

through indigenous leaders and institutions. Unfortunately, the Army’s 

limited and evolutionary approach to nation building, while perhaps 

pragmatic, also lessened its ability to transform what were often colonial, oligarchical, and exploitative systems into truly open, democratic 

societies. Although some, like the authors of the Plan Green pacification studies, may have believed that a radical redistribution of land or 

wealth might be necessary to break the grip of the traditional elites that 

dominated many “less developed” societies, most turn-of-the-century 

Americans were prepared neither philosophically nor politically to 

undertake such measures. Moreover, by rapidly restoring local selfgovernment, the United States lacked the leverage to compel those 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

282

elites to undertake anything that would fundamentally challenge their 

privileged position. The inability of the United States to compel the 

adoption of reforms that the indigenous elite viewed as inimical to its 

interests was a dilemma that the U.S. government faced in Mexico, 

Cuba, Russia, the Philippines, and in a different context, in the 

American South, and it would be a dilemma that the United States 

would face again in the post–World War II era.

The realization that militant progressivism had its limits left many 

turn-of-the-century officers ambivalent toward nation building as a 

whole. They were proud of the Army’s accomplishments, yet unsure if 

their efforts would have any long-term effect. Nor did they ever find 

any alternative solutions to the perplexities of social engineering. Both 

government policy and national culture demanded that American soldiers continue to approach pacification with the same troika of moderate educational, economic, and governmental reforms that American 

society valued so highly. Similarly, while it may have made sense from 

a practical standpoint to refrain from thrusting American-style democratic institutions upon a society unaccustomed to these procedures, 

such restraint was difficult to effect, given the sentiments of the 

American public. Nor was there any likelihood that officers would be 

given the time they knew was needed to affect the cultural changes 

necessary to support modern democratic institutions. The result was 

that the military’s basic approach to nation building remained 

unchanged, despite having proved only moderately successful in 

achieving long-term national policy aims. The difficulty of implementing a successful nation-building program was an important lesson 

that future policy makers, both inside the military and without, would 

ignore only at their peril.
283

Notes

1

 Nesmith, “Quiet Paradigm,” pp. 1–3; Ney, Evolution of the U.S. Army Field 

Manual, pp. 47, 50–56; Crites, “Infantry Tactical Doctrine,” pp. 12–14; Vetock, 

Lessons Learned, pp. 13, 16–17, 30, 37. 2

 Beckett, Roots of Counter-Insurgency, p. 109; “The Place of Doctrine in War,” 

Infantry Journal 9 (July–August 1912): 136. 3

 Gates, “Indians and Insurrectos,” p. 59.

4

 Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of CivilMilitary Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957), p. 255; Allan 

Millett, Military Professionalism and Officership in America, Mershon Center Briefing 

Paper 2 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977). 5

 Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (New 

York: Free Press, 1960), pp. 233–55; Brown, “Social Attitudes of American Generals,” 

pp. 30, 78–79, 212; Millett, Politics of Intervention, pp. 12–13; Lane, Armed 

Progressive, pp. 91–97; Gates, “Alleged Isolation,” pp. 32–45; Gillette, “Occupation of 

Cuba,” pp. 410–25; Bacevich, Diplomat in Khaki, pp. 15, 18. 6

 Gates, “Indians and Insurrectos,” p. 63.

7

 Millett, Politics of Intervention, p. 7. 8

 Miller, Benevolent Assimilation, p. 162; Efficiency Reports for James A. Ryan, 

1891, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 6509 ACP–1890, RG 94, NARA. 9

 Bacevich, Diplomat in Khaki, p. 26; Gates, Schoolbooks, pp. 279–80. 10 Gates, “Indians and Insurrectos,” p. 65.

11 Linn, Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, p. 169. 12 Langley, The Banana Wars, pp. 222–23; Millett, “‘Cleansing the Augean 

Stables,’” 4:123–41; Millett, “Useful Lessons of the Caribbean Interventions,” 4:142–

57.

285

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The extensive number of materials used makes a complete bibliography impossible. The following is a partial listing of the sources 

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In addition to the articles listed below, the following periodicals 

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Artillery Journal, Journal of the Military Service Institution of the 

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. “Panamanian-American Relations in Chiriqui.” Current

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1954): 285–311.

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Ellis, Richard. “The Humanitarian Generals.” Western Historical 

Quarterly 3 (April 1972): 169–78. 

Evans, Frank. “The French Campaign in Morocco.” U.S. Naval 

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. “A Model Moroccan Operation.” U.S. Naval Institute

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Finley, John. “The Mohammedan Problem in the Philippines.” Journal 

of Race Development 5 (April 1915): 353–63. 

. “Race Development by Industrial Means Among the

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Development 3 (January 1913): 343–68. 

Freidel, Frank. “General Orders 100 and Military Government.” 

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Nineteenth Century.” Parameters 10 (September 1980): 32–45. 

. “General George Crook’s First Apache Campaign.”

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Workshop for American Progressivism.” American Quarterly 25 

(1973): 410–25. 

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Historical Review 48 (1979): 501–29. 

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Journal of History 27 (January–December 1982): 67–79. 

Kennon, L. W. “The Katipunan of the Philippines.” North American 
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307

Review 173 (August 1901): 208–20.

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Institute Proceedings 110 (July 1984): 56–61.

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(August 1976): 34–41.

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1914): 233–34.

McCoy, Frank. “Patrolling the Rio Grande.” Military Historian and 

Economist 2 (January 1917): 87–93. 

McGinnis, Anthony. “Intertribal Conflict on the Northern Plains and Its 

Suppression, 1738–1889.” Journal of the West 18 (April 1979): 

49–60.

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1794.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 45 (September 1958): 

254–75.

Marvin, George. “Bandits and the Borderland.” World’s Work 32 

(October 1916): 656–63. 

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1899–1902.” Pacific Historical Review 48 (1979): 531–56.

. “Resistance and Collaboration in the PhilippineAmerican War: The Case of Batangas.” Journal of Southeast Asia 

Studies 15 (March 1984): 69–90.

. “Why the United States Won the Philippine-American

War, 1899–1902.” Pacific Historical Review 52 (1983): 353–77.

“Messages From Mexico.” World’s Work 32 (August 1916): 430–36. 

Miles, Nelson. “My First Fights on the Plains.” Cosmopolitan 50 (May 

1911): 792–802. 

. “On the Trail of Geronimo.” Cosmopolitan 51 (July

1911): 249–62.

“Military Government.” Mailing List of the General Service Schools 2 

(February–March 1923): 37–50. 

Millett, Allan. “The General Staff and the Cuban Intervention of 1906.” 

Military Affairs 31 (Fall 1967): 113–19. 

. “The Rise and Fall of the Cuban Rural Guard,

1898–1912.” Americas 29 (October 1972): 191–213.

Morton, Louis. “Army and Marines on the China Station: A Study in 

Military and Political Rivalry.” Pacific Historical Review 29 

(February 1960): 51–73. 

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519–20.

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Military Affairs 51 (October 1987): 177–81.
Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

308

Nichols, William. “Fighting Guerrillas in West Virginia.” Civil War 

Times Illustrated 6 (April 1967): 20–25.

Niepman, Ann. “General Orders No. 11 and Border Warfare During the 

Civil War.” Missouri Historical Review 66 (January 1972): 185–

210.

O’Connor, Richard. “Yanks in Siberia.” American Heritage 25 (August 

1974): 10–17, 80–83.

Offutt, Milton. “The Protection of Citizens Abroad by the Armed 

Forces of the United States.” Johns Hopkins University Studies in 

Historical and Political Science 46 (1928): 409–579.

Olson, William. “The Concept of Small Wars.” Small Wars and 

Insurgencies 1 (April 1990): 39–46. 

Owen, Norman. “Winding Down the War in Albay.” Pacific Historical 

Review 48 (1979): 557–89. 

Palmer, Frederick. “Mexico.” Everybody’s Magazine 30 (June 1914): 

806–20; 31 (July 1914): 65–74; 31 (August 1914): 198–205.

. “With the Little Brother of the Navy.” Everybody’s 

Magazine 30 (June 1914): 810. 

Palmer, John. “Railroad Building as a Model of Warfare.” North 

American Review 175 (December 1902): 844–52.

Paret, Peter. “Colonial Experience and European Military Reform at the 

End of the Eighteenth Century.” Bulletin of the Institute of 

Historical Research 37 (May 1964): 47–59.

Parker, John. “The Last Phase of the Philippine Rebellion and the 

Problems Resulting Therefrom.” Review of Reviews 21 (October 

1901): 522–67.

Paschall, Rod. “Low-Intensity Conflict Doctrine: Who Needs It?” 

Parameters 15 (Autumn 1985): 33f.

Porter, Kenneth. “The Seminole Negro-Indian Scouts, 1870–1881.” 

Southwestern Historical Quarterly 60 (January 1952): 358–77.

Prichard, James. “General Orders No. 59: Kentucky’s Reign of Terror.” 

Civil War Quarterly 10 (1987): 32–34. 

Raines, Edgar. “Major General J. Franklin Bell, U.S.A.: The Education 

of a Soldier, 1856–1899.” Register of the Kentucky Historical 

Society 83 (Autumn 1985): 315–46.

Remington, Frederick. “Indians as Irregular Cavalry.” Harper’s Weekly

31 (27 December 1890): 1004–06.

Richard, Carl. “‘The Shadow of a Plan’: The Rationale Behind Wilson’s 

1918 Siberian Intervention.” Historian 49 (1986): 64–84.

Russ, William. “Administrative Activities of the Union Army During 

and After the Civil War.” Mississippi Law Journal 17 (May 1945): 

71–89. 
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Russell, Peter. “Redcoats in the Wilderness: British Officers and 

Irregular Warfare in Europe and America, 1740–1760.” William 

and Mary Quarterly 35 (October 1978): 630–41. 

Sageser, Adelbert. “Military Occupation of the Confederate States: 

Historical Lesson.” Current History 9 (September 1945): 227–34.

Schaffer, Ronald. “The 1940 Small Wars Manual and the ‘Lessons of 

History.’” Military Affairs 36 (April 1972): 46–51. 

Seaman, Louis. “Native Troops for Our Colonial Possessions.” North 

American Review 171 (1900): 847–60. 

Smith, C. C. “An Expedition in Mindanao.” Army and Navy Courier 4 

(July 1928): 3–5; (August 1928): 7–9.

Smith, Justin. “American Rule in Mexico.” American Historical 

Review 23 (January 1918): 287–302.

Smith, Wayne. “An Experiment in Counterinsurgency: The Assessment 

of Confederate Sympathizers in Missouri.” Journal of Southern 

History 35 (August 1969): 361–80.

Smythe, Donald. “Pershing and the Disarmament of the Moros.” 

Pacific Historical Review 31 (1962): 241–56. 

Stegmaier, Robert. “Artillery Helped Win the West.” Kansas Quarterly

10 (Summer 1978): 59–74.

Tan, Samuel. “Sulu Under American Military Rule, 1899–1913.” 

Philippine Social Sciences and Humanities Review 32 (March 

1967): 100–104.

Tate, Michael. “John P. Clum and the Origins of an Apache 

Constabulary, 1874–77.” American Indian Quarterly 3 (Summer 

1977): 99–120.

. “Soldiers of the Line, Apache Companies in the U.S.

Army, 1891–97.” Arizona and the West 16 (Winter 1974): 343–64.

Townsend, Henry. “Civil Government in the ‘Moro Province.’” Forum

36 (July 1904): 138–49.

Trussell, John. “Seminoles in the Everglades.” Army 12 (December 

1961): 41–45. 

Tyler, Ronnie. “The Little Punitive Expedition in the Big Bend.” 

Southwestern Historical Quarterly 78 (1975): 271–91.

Utley, Robert. “Crook and Miles Fighting and Feuding on the Indian 

Frontier.” Military History Quarterly 2 (Autumn 1989): 81–91.

Weinert, Richard. “The South Had Mosby; The Union, Major Henry 

Young.” Civil War Times Illustrated 3 (April 1964): 38–42.

Welch, Richard. “American Atrocities in the Philippines: The Indictment 

and the Response.” Pacific Historical Review 43 (1974): 233–53. 

“What War With Mexico Means.” World’s Work 32 (August 1916): 

424–30.
White, W. Bruce. “The American Indian as Soldier, 1890–1919.” 

Canadian Review of American Studies 7 (Spring 1976): 15–25. 

Worcester, Dean. “The Mexican Question in the Light of Philippine 

Experience.” Outlook 107 (11 July 1914): 602–08.

Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

310
Aeroplanes, use in irregular operations, 207, 

246, 255

Agua Prieta, 200–201

Aguinaldo, Emilio, 108–10, 113, 135

Allen, Brig. Gen. Henry T., 122, 127, 136, 

154–56

Allied Supreme War Council, mission assignment to north Russia expedition, 210

American Expeditionary Force, Siberia 

(AEFS). See Siberia.

Amnesty programs, 26, 29, 40, 120, 260

Anderson, Maj. George S., 131

Anderson, Brig. Gen. Thomas M., 124

Apaches, 74–76, 82–85

Archangel, 208–09, 210

Armored vehicles, use in irregular operations, 

207, 246, 255–56

Army

challenges on the Western frontier, 58–59

continuity in constabulary service, 275

doctrine development, 230–31

field code of conduct, 33

institutionalization of small war tenets, 

275–76

involvement with Indian Bureau, 77–79

irregular warfare instruction, 247, 273

lessons from the Philippine War, 136–39

modernization through frontier experience, 66

Philippine Constabulary service versus 

Regular, 154, 176, 271

public criticism against the, 68–69, 167, 

252

reforms and adaptation to modern warfare, 

86–87

study and influence of foreign counterinsurgency methods, 245–47, 255, 276–

77

Army of Cuban Pacification, 169–73, 176

Army of Northern Virginia, 23

The Art of War, 14–15

Artillery, 248–49

Attraction, policy of

failure and usefulness of, 135–36

pacification of the Philippines and, 119, 

157

Attraction, policy of—Continued

versus policy of chastisement, 126–27, 279

Baker, Lafayette, National Detectives set up 

by, 46

Baker, Newton D., 201, 218, 228–29, 250

Baldwin, Capt. Frank D., 77

Indian pacification and, 82–83

Bandholtz, Col. Harry H., 158

Basic Field Manual, Military Government,

Field Manual (FM) 27–5, 250, 252, 

276

Batangas, 132–35

Bell, Brig. Gen. J. Franklin, 133–34, 278. See 

also Colby, Capt. Elbridge.

appointment to Army of Cuban 

Pacification, 170

lyceum discussion on frontier experience, 

88

Philippine pacification and, 119, 125

Telegraphic Circulars, 138–39

Bigelow, Capt. John, 278. See also Bullard, 

Col. Robert L.

Army reform advocate, 86

The Principles of Strategy, 89, 91, 164

teachings from Indian warfare, 89–91

Birkhimer, Col. William E., 113, 130, 278

Military Government and Martial Law,

101, 119, 126, 136–37

Blatchford, Brig. Gen. Richard M., commander of U.S. Canal Zone forces, 226–27

Blazer, Capt. Richard, 46. See also Forsyth, 

Maj. George.

Bliss, Brig. Gen. Tasker H., 193, 202

Bolshevik Revolution, 208

Bosque Redondo, 82–83

Bouquet, Henry, 11

Boxer Rebellion, 148, 240

Boyd, Capt. Charles T., 205

Brooke, Maj. Gen. John R., Governor of 

Cuba, 104–05

Brown, Col. William C., 203

Bryan, William Jennings, 112

Bullard, Col. Robert L., 135, 164, 200

publication of Military Pacification by, 

177–78

311

Index
Butler, Maj. Gen. Benjamin F., 26, 28–29

Callwell, Col. Charles E., 4, 277

Small Wars, 247

Carlton, Brig. Gen. James H., establishment 

of military-controlled reservation by, 

82

Carpenter, Capt. J., 45

Carranza, Venustiano, 192, 198–99, 200, 204–

05

Carrizal, 205

Cavalry. See also School of Application for 

Infantry and Cavalry.

logistical adaptation, 70–71

role in Mexican Punitive Expedition, 200, 

203

role in Philippine War, 115

tactics. See Cooke, Brig. Gen. Philip St. 

George, Cavalry Tactics.

use of horses versus Indian ponies, 72, 

248

Cavalry regiments

1st District of Columbia (D.C.), 45–46

5th, 72

6th, 72

7th, 89–90

13th, 204

Cavite Province, 130, 158

Chaffee, Maj. Gen. Adna R., 77, 132–33, 147, 

148, 278. See also Boxer Rebellion.

Indian pacification and, 82

Peking Relief Expedition and, 150

Philippine population concentration, 131

policing of the Philippines, 153

Charity kitchens, 149

Chastisement, policy of, versus policy of 

attraction, 126–27, 279

Cheyenne, 67, 74

Chihuahua, 201, 203, 204, 205

China. See also Boxer Rebellion.

interwar years Army operations in, 240

U.S. expedition to, 147

Chiriqui Province, 226–29

Civil administration

coordination with military jurisdictions, 

279–80

military government and, 26–27, 253

military government and Philippine, 154

Southern Reconstruction and, 56

Vera Cruz, 196

Civil involvement, 5, 37. See also

Pacification.

Civil War

contribution to Army doctrine, 48

counterguerrilla warfare, 40

GO 100 and, 35

Civil War—Continued

pacification policies, 24, 36

Civilians. See also Population.

loyalty oath, 30–31

prisoners and Lincoln, 29

relationship with the army, 34, 278

treatment of, 13, 16–17, 33, 101, 130, 

157, 167, 178, 180, 200, 216, 220–21, 

251–55, 259–60, 278

Clark, Capt. W. P., 87

The Indian Sign Language, 65

Colby, Capt. Elbridge, 250–51, 254–55

Colon, 226

Columbus, New Mexico, raid, 200–202

Communists, 211, 214

guerrilla warfare and, 261

Confederate Army, U.S. Army against, 41

Contingency operations

definition of, 3–4

factors of, 4

political considerations in, 4

Cooke, Brig. Gen. Philip St. George, Cavalry 

Tactics, 66

Corbin, Brig. Gen. Henry C., 131

Counterguerrilla war. See also Army; Tactics 

and techniques, counterguerrilla.

Army ruse in, 73

creation of special units for, 45–47, 

74–75, 116, 165

moderation versus retaliation in, 40

officer education and, 12, 60–63, 88–90, 

136–38, 247–50, 256

principles of, 247

security concerns, 44

strategic defense, 41

strategies, 15, 37, 248

tactics, 43–44, 277

unconventional transportation in, 71

Counterinsurgency

campaign example, 91

definition of, 3

factors of, 4

foreign countries methods in, 152, 245–

46, 255

guide for commanders, 170

political considerations in, 4

reflection of American society values in, 

273–74

wills, a contest of, as an element in, 278

A Course of Instruction in the Elements of Art 

and Science of War for the Use of the 

Cadets of the United States Military 

Academy, 61

Crook, General George, 30, 38, 46, 71, 278. 

See also Forsyth, Maj. George; Indian 

Bureau, Department of the Interior’s.

Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

312
Crook, General George—Continued

counterguerrilla war and, 42–43

Indian pacification and, 83–84

Indian scouts and, 69–70

lessons from Indian warfare, 65

Resume of Operations Against Apache 

Indians, 138

Crowder, Col. Enoch, 173

Cuba. See also Army of Cuban Pacification.

American occupation of, 104, 169

American progressivism in, 105–06, 172

counterinsurgency plans for, 170–71

demobilization of revolutionary army, 

105, 169

establishment of American military government in, 104–05

nation-building problems, 106–08

political system’s reform, 169, 172, 174

treaty of Paris and, 99

Curtis, Maj. Gen. Samuel R., 43

Czech Legion, 208–10, 219, 225–26

David, 226, 227–29

Davis, George B.

The Elements of International Law, 136

Outlines of International Law, 101, 136

Davis, Jefferson, 135

Destruction

Chinese property, 150

food supply, 67, 171

Indian property, 60, 62

policy of, 39, 129

of property in the Philippines, 128, 129–

30

Southern property, 36–40

Doctrine, definition of, 5–6

Dougherty, Capt. Andrew J., 180

Dowell, Maj. Cassius, 250–51

Economic program

Cuba and, 106, 172–73

Indian pacification and, 85

Moro pacification and, 162

Philippines and, 154

role in nation building, 102, 180–81, 254

Education programs, 253

in Cuba, 106, 172

establishment of school for Indians, 83, 

85

establishment of schools in China, 149

in Mexico, 196

in Moro Province, 163

nation building and public, 102–03, 254

in the Philippines, 121. See also Allen, 

Brig. Gen. Henry T.

Reconstruction and, 55–56

An Elementary Treatise on Advanced-Guard, 

Out-Post, and Detachment Service of 

Troops, 15, 61

The Elements of International Law, George B. 

Davis, 136

Ewing, Brig. Gen. Thomas, Jr., 37

Farrow, 2d Lt. Edward, 71, 87

Mountain Scouting, 65

Field service notes, 175

Field Service Regulations, 175, 247, 255, 271, 

275

Field Service Regulations—Special 

Operations, Training Regulation (TR) 

15–70, 247

Finley, Maj. John P., 162

Food control, 129–30

Forsyth, Maj. George, 74

Francis, David R., 211–12, 214

Freedmen’s Bureau, 55–57

Fremont, Maj. Gen. John C., 28, 45

Frontier experience, 7

lessons from, 11–13, 65–67

Funston, Maj. Gen. Frederick, 169

response to bandits’ insurgency in southern Texas, 200–201

Vera Cruz operations’ commander, 196–

97

Furlong, Capt. John W., Notes on Field 

Service in Cuba, 170–71, 174

Gardener, Col. Cornelius, 122

General Orders (GO) 100, 34–35, 48, 136, 

251, 274

application to Philippine pacification, 126, 

128, 131

occupation policies and, 101

Geronimo, 75–76, 90

Gibbon, Brig. Gen. John, 66, 79–80

Gillem, Brig. Gen. Alvan, 45

Gillem’s Cossacks, 45

Gilmore, Harry, 47

Glenn, Col. Edwin F., 179

role in Philippine War, 118

Godfrey, Capt. Edward S., 61

Grant, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S., 36, 278

contribution to Army doctrine, 48

Graves, Maj. Gen. William S. See also

Kolchak, Admiral Alexander.

commander of U.S. Siberia expedition, 

209, 218–20

dissension with allies in Siberia expedition, 220

post–World War I U.S. policy implementation, 222–23

Suchan Valley campaign, 223–25

Index

313
Guam, treaty of Paris and, 99

Guerrilla

population at large and, 40, 111, 129, 171

techniques and counterguerrilla war, 

42–44

treatment of, 36. See also General Orders 

(GO) 100; Hague Conventions.

versus partisan/war-rebel/bushwhacker, 33

Guerrilla Parties Considered With Reference 

to the Laws and Usages of War, 32

Guerrilla warfare. See also Counterguerrilla 

war; Counterinsurgency; MexicanAmerican War; Small wars; Vattel, 

Emmerich.

challenge and strategies, 10–11, 27–28. 

See also Jomini, Baron Antoine 

Henri.

laws of war versus, 254

mapping program and, 170

pacification policies and, 28

Philippine, 110–11

Habeas corpus, 106

Philippine pacification and, 123

Hague Conventions, 35, 274

Haiti, 191, 239

Halleck, Henry W., 17, 28–29, 32–33, 37, 

276, 278

International Law, 17, 101

Harrison, Brig. Gen. William Henry, 11

Hazen, William B., 77

Health and sanitation, 26, 253

in China, 149–50

in Cuba, 106, 172

in Mexico, 196

in the Philippines, 120, 161

Hitchcock, Maj. Gen. Ethan Allan, 33

Ho Chi Minh, 261

Howard, Maj. Gen. Oliver O., 56, 79. See 

also Indian Bureau, Department of the 

Interior’s.

Indian pacification and, 82

Huerta, Victoriano, 192, 198

Hunt, Col. Irwin L., 250–51

Hunter, Maj. Gen. David, 38

Ideology, civil/military roles, 272, 279–80

Indian Bureau, Department of the Interior’s

administration of the U.S. Indian policy 

by, 77–78

nomadic tribes of the Great Plains and, 

80

trading posts and, 81–82

transfer of responsibilities to War 

Department, 78–79

The Indian Question, 79

The Indian Sign Language, 65

Indian warfare, 7–9. See also Moro Province; 

The Prairie Traveler.

Army fieldcraft in, 63

Army’s multiple column method against, 

67, 69

Army techniques for, 60

Army winter campaign in, 67–68

challenge and strategies, 10–11, 58–59, 69

establishment of reservations and pacification, 82–83

politico-military problem, 76–77

teachings from, 88–89

trading houses and pacification, 81–82

U.S. Military Academy curriculum and, 

12–13, 60–61

Indigenous auxiliary troop, 248, 277

employment in Civil War, 44–45

employment in Philippine War, 116, 131–

32, 176

Indian scouts as, 69–70, 83

plans for, 180, 248, 257, 259

Industrial Trading Station, 162

Infantry. See also Infantry regiments.

detail to China, 243

mounted. See also School of Application 

for Infantry and Cavalry.

role in counterguerrilla war, 44–45, 72

role in Mexican Punitive Expedition, 200, 

203

role in Philippine War, 116

Infantry Drill Regulations, 175, 247

Infantry regiments

3d U.S., 99

9th U.S., 150–52

13th Indiana Volunteer, 43–44

14th Minnesota Volunteer, 99

15th U.S., 240–42

27th U.S., 225

31st U.S., 225, 243 

33d U.S., 227

36th Ohio Volunteer, 29–30, 43–44

Infantry School

irregular warfare curriculum, 247–48, 

254–55

small wars exercises, 256–57

study of foreign constabulary warfare 

experiences, 246

Intelligence, 179, 248, 277

Mexican Punitive Expedition, 203–04

in Panama, 227

use in Cuba, 170

use in Philippine War, 117–18, 132

use in Siberia, 225

International internal disputes, United States 

arbitration of, 147

Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

314
International Law, 17

Irregular warfare doctrine, 245

Irregulars. See also Guerrilla.

ambush of, 43

Philippine ladrone, 157–58

treatment of, 33

Japan 

in Siberia, 219–20

war with China, 242

Jesse Scouts, 45

Johnston, 1st Lt. William T., role in Philippine 

War, 118

Jomini, Baron Antoine Henri, 14–15. See also

Bullard, Col. Robert L.

Judicial issues

Apache Indians and, 84

in Cuba, 106

Philippine Constabulary functions and, 

156

in the Philippines, 123

at Vera Cruz, 196

Kanawha Valley, 38–39

Kennedy, Maj. Gen. Chase W., 227, 229

Kikuzo, Japanese General Otani, 219–20

Kirk, George, 45

Kobbe, Brig. Gen. William A., 130

Kolchak, Admiral Alexander, 220

Bolshevik victory over, 225

Wilson administration’s support of, 222–

23

The Law of Nations, 13–14

Lawrence, Thomas E., 246

Lawton, Capt. Henry W., 74–76

Lazelle, Col. Henry M., 43

Leavenworth. See School of Application for 

Infantry and Cavalry.

Leech Lake, Minnesota, uprising at, 58

Legion of Honor, 46

Lieber, Francis, 32, 48. See also General 

Orders (GO) 100.

Lieber’s code, 101

Lincoln, Abraham, 24–25

military commissions and, 29

pacification endeavors, 24–25

Little Big Horn, 67

Local units, role in counterguerrilla war, 

44–45

Loudoun County, 39

Loudoun County Rangers, 45

Loudoun Valley, 133

Loyalty oath, 30–31

Lukban, General Vincente, 132

Lyautey, Marshal Hubert, 255–56

Macabebe scouts, 116–17

McAndrew, Maj. Gen. James W., 250

MacArthur, Maj. Gen. Arthur, role in 

Philippine pacification, 120–21, 128–

29, 131

McClellan, Maj. Gen. George B., 25

guerrillas and, 28

McCoy, Brig. Gen. Frank R., 166

critique of the Marine Corps, 246–47

Mackenzie, Col. Ranald D., 77, 80, 82

McKinley, William, 112, 129, 130

guidelines to Army’s occupation, 100

pacification of the Philippines and, 119

Magoon, Charles, 169, 172

Mahan, Dennis Hart, 12, 15–16, 278

approach to Indian warfare, 60–61, 63

Malvar, General Miguel, 132, 133

Manual for the Philippine Constabulary, 156, 

259

Manuals and military textbooks, 15, 61, 

64–66, 89, 136–37, 155–56, 175, 247, 

250–52, 254–55, 271, 275. See also

The Art of War; International Law;

The Law of Nations.

integration of foreign countries methods 

in, 255

international law, 101

Mao Tse-tung, 261

March, General Peyton C., 209, 214, 220–21, 

226

Marcy, Capt. Randolph, 64–65, 71, 276. See 

also The Prairie Traveler.

Marinduque, 130

Marine Corps

development of small wars doctrine, 246

interwar years constabulary duty, 191–92, 

239

Memorandum in Reference to the Methods To 

Be Employed in the Capture and 

Occupation of Latin American Cities,

197–98

Mexican-American War, 16–17 

Mexican Punitive Expedition, 203–08

Mexico. See also Carranza, Venustiano; 

Huerta, Victoriano; Mexican-American 

War; “Strategical Plan Green for the 

Occupation and Pacification of 

Mexico”; Vera Cruz, American intervention in; Villa, General Francisco 

“Pancho.”

American war plans for, 179, 193–94. See 

also A Study of the Pacification of 

Mexico and Establishment of Civil 

Government.

application of Philippine War lessons, 

200

Index

315
Miles, Lt. Gen. Nelson A., 58, 89, 138, 165, 

171, 278. See also Geronimo; Indian 

Bureau, Department of the Interior’s.

counterguerrilla maneuvers, 87

opening of military gymnasium by, 74

raiders and pursuers exercise, 74, 171, 203

Military commissions

in Civil War, 28–30

in Philippines, 121, 128–29

Military government, 26–27. See also Basic 

Field Manual, Military Government, 

Field Manual (FM) 27–5; Birkhimer, 

Col. William E.; Smith, Col. Harry A., 

Military Government.

civil administration and, 26–27, 250

doctrine, 230–31, 244, 252–53

principles of, 251

psychological factor in, 252

study of, 273

Mindanao, 128, 130, 159, 167

Miner, Col. Charles W., 176

Minor wars. See Small wars.

Mississippi Marine Brigade, 47

Mobility, 114

Monroe Doctrine, 147, 245, 258

Morgan, Col. John H., 28

Moro Exchange, 162

Moro Province, 160–65, 175–76, 177

application of Indian warfare experience 

to, 159

counterguerrilla tactics in, 164–65

government organization in, 161

population’s makeup, 159

U.S. district governors in, 163–64. See 

also Pershing, Brig. Gen. John J.; 

Wood, General Leonard.

U.S. strategy in, 160–61

Mosby, Col. John S., 36, 39, 46, 133

Mountain Scouting, 65

Murmansk, 208–09

Murray, Col. Arthur, 132

Nation building

agricultural transformation and, 161–62

Army’s approach to, 101, 162

commerce and, 7, 81–82, 162, 255–56

governmental reforms, 103, 122–23, 161, 

180

land redistribution as part of, 181

problems experienced in, 281

public works and, 105–06, 161, 173, 253

social transformation and, 55–58, 102–03, 

161, 180, 196–99, 251

traditional prescription for, 253–54

Navajos, 82–83

Nicaragua, 181–82, 191, 239, 246–47, 256

No-quarter policies, 28–30, 36, 157, 200

Organization and Tactics, Arthur Wagner’s, 89

Otis, Maj. Gen. Elwell S., 92, 159

The Indian Question, 79

pacification of the Philippines and, 119, 

125

Philippine War and, 110, 113

Pace, Maj. Herbert E., 227, 228–29

Pacification. See also Army of Cuban 

Pacification; Bullard, Col. Robert L.; 

General Orders (GO) 100; Jomini, 

Baron Antoine Henri; Military government; Nation building; A Study of the 

Pacification of Mexico and 

Establishment of Civil Government;

Vattel, Emmerich.

acculturation and Indian, 79–80

Army’s approach to, 26–27, 32–35, 176–

78, 249–55

conventional war versus, 48

coordination of political and military factors in, 250

definition of, 4–5

doctrine, 245, 249–55

influence of society’s trends on, 91–92

lessons from Philippine, 136

Lincoln’s endeavors, 24–26

Philippine Constabulary and postwar 

Philippines, 156–57, 162

political obstacles to, 27–28

in the South, 55

Panama

interwar years Army operations in, 240

U.S. Chiriqui detachment in, 227–30

Panama City, 226, 240

Parral, 204

Partisan

forces in Philippine war, 116

forces in Siberia, 224

treatment of, 33–34

versus guerrilla/war-rebel/bushwhacker, 33

warfare. See Guerrilla warfare.

warfare strategies, 16

Partisan Rangers, 23, 33, 51. See also Mosby, 

Col. John S.

creation of, 32

Patton, 1st Lt. George S., 207

Peking Relief Expedition, 148–53, 240

Penick, Col. W. R., 38

Pershing, Brig. Gen. John J., 74, 174. See also

Indian Bureau, Department of the 

Interior’s.

Mexican Punitive Expedition and, 201–08

Moro Governor, 162, 163

Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

316
Petite guerre. See Small wars.

Philippine Constabulary, 116–17, 154–58

Philippine Scouts, 116–18, 132, 156, 157–58

Philippine War. See also Taylor, Capt. John R. 

M.

Army tactics in, 114

Civil War precedents, 48, 133

frontier service experience and, 113

lessons from, 136–38

Philippine Constabulary service during, 

116–17

Philippines. See also Moro Province.

civilian government and pacification, 

122–23

counterguerrilla principles applied in the, 

85

counterinsurgency campaign in the, 129, 

134, 158

guerrilla warfare in the, 110–12

indigenous rebel forces in the, 108, 153

pacification, 119–20, 147. See also Otis, 

Maj. Gen. Elwell S.

post–Philippine War policing by United 

States of, 153–58

treaty of Paris and the, 99

Plan Brown, 257–58

Plan of San Diego, 199, 205

Political considerations

counterinsurgency/contingency operations, 

4

development of Philippine Federal Party, 

123

Poole, Maj. Gen. Frederick C., commander of 

Allied forces in north Russia, 210

Pope, Brig. Gen. John, 31, 80, 82. See also

Indian Bureau, Department of the 

Interior’s.

Population. See also Civilians; Military government; Nation building; Pacification. 

concentration in the Philippines, 130–31, 

158, 255

control, 254

demoralization of, 39

establishment of reservations for Indian, 

82

Filipino organized brigands and, 153

monitoring of Indian, 69

occupation and respect of subject, 101

Philippine guerrillas and, 125

removal of, 37, 90

support of guerrillas, 40, 111–12, 129, 

171, 203, 277

treatment of Indian tribes, 79–81

The Prairie Traveler, 64–65. See also

Mountain Scouting.

Pratt, 1st Lt. Richard H., establishment of 

school for Indians by, 83

President, U.S. See Lincoln, Abraham; 

McKinley, William; Roosevelt, 

Theodore; Wilson, Woodrow.

The Principles of Strategy, Capt. John 

Bigelow, 89, 91, 164

Prisoners

Communist, 225

treatment of, 29, 33, 223

treatment of Filipino, 131–32

treatment of guerrilla, 36

treatment of native, 62, 83

Proctor, Redfield, establishment of Indian soldier companies, 80–81

Progressive movement, 91–92

pacification and, 280–82

Spain’s former colonies and, 102

Property

confiscation, 31–32

destruction of, 7, 36–38, 60, 128–29, 134, 

150, 157, 164, 254

Indian ownership of private, 82

protection of military, 26

respect of, 34

Provost marshal, 26–27

Puerto Rican Regiment, 227

Puerto Rico, 99

Racist attitudes, 124

Radical program, readmission of states to 

Union and, 56

Railroad

protection, 41

protection of the Peking–Tientsin–Shanhaikwan, 240–41

protection of Trans-Siberian, 222–23

Reconstruction

Army’s approach to Southern, 55–56

education programs and, 56

land reform schemes and, 57

military rule versus civilian governments, 

56, 58

Progressive movement and, 92

radical/social programs and, 56

Ridgway, Capt. Matthew B., 246

Road building, 253

in China, 149

in Cuba, 173

in Moro Province, 161

in the Philippines, 120

Romanovka, 223–24

Roosevelt, Theodore, 147, 168–69, 226, 245

Root, Elihu, 103–04, 105, 135, 176, 276

Rosecrans, Maj. Gen. William S., loyalty oath 

and, 30

Index

317
Rules of Land Warfare, Field Manual (FM) 

27–10, 35, 179, 254, 275

Russia. See also Bolshevik Revolution; 

Siberia.

allied intervention in, 210

American contingent to northern, 210–11, 

214

attempt at non-Communist government in 

northern, 216, 218

logistical problems of Allied expedition to 

north, 214

pacification attempts in, 216–17, 221

Ryan, Maj. James, 203

Samar, 132–35

Schofield, Maj. Gen. John M., 32, 61, 82

establishment of Indian soldier companies, 

80–81

School of Application for Infantry and 

Cavalry, 175

curriculum of, 88–89, 176

establishment of, 86

Spanish-language instruction at, 177

Schwan, Brig. Gen. Theodore, counterinsurgency in the Philippines and, 112

Scott, Maj. Gen. Hugh L., 77, 164, 201, 202, 

278

appointment to West Point, 177

Scott, Maj. Gen. Winfield, 7, 16

military commissions against guerrillas, 

28

Secretary of War, U.S. See Baker, Newton D.; 

Proctor, Redfield; Root, Elihu; 

Stanton, Edwin M.; Stimson, Henry; 

Taft, William Howard.

Seminole War, Second, 10, 11, 12–13, 67

The Service of Security and Information,

Arthur Wagner’s, 89, 138

Seymour, British Admiral Sir Edward, 148

Shanghai, 242–44

Shenandoah Valley, 38–39, 46, 74, 133

Sheridan, Lt. Gen. Philip H., 11, 36, 46, 

65–66, 70, 74, 133, 278. See also

Indian Bureau, Department of the 

Interior’s.

property devastation and, 38–39

Sherman, Maj. Gen. William T., 31, 36, 134, 

278

contribution to Army doctrine, 48

Indian wars and, 58–59

Reconstruction and views of, 57

Siberia. See also Russia.

Allied expedition to, 218–22

counterguerrilla war strategies in, 224–

25

Sioux, 61, 67, 74, 89–90

Small wars. See also Counterguerrilla war; 

Counterinsurgency; Military government.

concept of, 4

conduct of, 5

definition of, 15, 247–48

doctrine, 244–45

doctrine versus conventional warfare, 

271–72

experience under President Wilson, 230–

31

guerrilla warfare and, 47

Infantry School exercises, 256–57

lesson from, 175

plans, 258–59

psychological factor in, 249

Small Wars Manual, 239, 247. See also

Marine Corps.

Smith, Col. Harry A., Military Government,

250–52

Smith, Brig. Gen. Jacob H., 133–34

Spanish-American War, 99–100, 108, 275

Special units, creation of counterguerrilla, 

45–47, 74–75, 116, 165

Stanton, Edwin M., 45–46

State government, 56

Steele, Maj. Gen. Frederick, 38

Steele, Capt. Matthew F., 175

Spanish-language instruction and, 177

Stewart, Col. George E., commander of U.S. 

north Russia expedition, 209–11, 214

Stimson, Henry, 181

“Strategical Plan Green for the Occupation 

and Pacification of Mexico,” 259–60, 

281

A Study of the Pacification of Mexico and 

Establishment of Civil Government,

180–81

Suchan Valley, 223–24, 225

Sullivan-Clinton campaign, 7

Sulu archipelago, 159

Sumner, Col. E. V., 88

Sumner, Brig. Gen. Samuel S., 125

Tactics and techniques, counterguerrilla

in Civil War, 40–47

against Indians, 12–13, 58, 67–76, 90

interwar doctrine, 248–49

in Philippines, 112–17, 128–30, 137, 157–

58, 165

urban, 197–98

Taft, William Howard, 122, 154, 169, 179, 

181–82

Philippine civilian government, 132

Taggart, Maj. E. F., 128

Tampico, 192

Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1860–1941

318
Tayabas, 132

Taylor, Capt. John R. M.

history of the Philippine War, 122

The Philippine Insurrection Against the 

United States, 139

Telegraphic Circulars, General Bell’s, 138–39

Tientsin, 150, 240–42

Torture, 131–32, 170–71, 203–04

Trading posts, 81–82. See also Industrial 

Trading Station.

Training. See also Field service notes.

comprehensive program of troop, 86

counterguerrilla warfare, 73–74, 171, 176, 

206–07 

Transportation, pack mules as, 71

Upton, Emory. See also Cooke, Brig. Gen. 

Philip St. George, Cavalry Tactics.

A New System of Infantry Tactics for 

Double and Single Rank Adapted to 

American Topography and Improved 

Fire-Arms, 66

U.S. Military Academy

curriculum, 7, 35, 177

curriculum and Indian warfare, 12–13, 

60–61

international law curriculum and Indian 

warfare, 62

role in preservation and transmission of 

frontier experience, 11, 61, 63

Spanish instruction at, 177

Vattel, Emmerich, 13–14

Vera Cruz, American intervention in, 192–93, 

196–99

Viatka, 210

Villa, General Francisco “Pancho,” 199, 200, 

205–08

punitive expedition against, 201–04

Vladivostok, 208–09, 210, 218–19, 225–26

Vologda, 210

von Vorbeck, Lettow, 246

Wagner, Col. Arthur, 112, 175

instructor at Leavenworth, 89, 176

Organization and Tactics, 89

The Service of Security and Information,

89, 138

War plans. See also Monroe Doctrine.

War plans—Continued

coordination of political and military factors in small, 249–50

inclusion of military government in, 252

Mexico and, 179, 193–94. See also

“Strategical Plan Green for the 

Occupation and Pacification of 

Mexico”; A Study of the Pacification 

of Mexico and Establishment of Civil 

Government.

Philippines and. See Plan Brown.

World War I allies, 209

War-rebel. See Irregulars.

War of the Rebellion, 48

Wayne, Maj. Gen. Anthony, 7, 11

West Point. See U.S. Military Academy.

Wheaton, Maj. Gen. Loyd, 135

Wheeler, Col. J. B., 61

Wild, Brig. Gen. Edward A., 38

Wilson, Brig. Gen. James H., 148

Wilson, Woodrow, 222

Army’s small wars experience under, 230–

31

contribution of U.S. troops to operations 

in Russia, 209–10, 218–19

intervention at Vera Cruz, 192–93, 196–99

order for expedition against General Villa, 

200–204

relationship with World War I allies, 209

U.S. overseas interests under, 191–92

Wood, General Leonard, 75, 162, 164, 172, 

174, 181, 193, 276

Armed Progressives and, 273

“colonial army” system, 176

Moro Province governor, 161

Progressivist governor of Cuba, 105–06

strategy against the Moros, 165–68

Wool, Brig. Gen. John, 31

Woolsey, Theodore, Introduction to the Study 

of International Law, 101

World War I, 207–08

Wotherspoon, Brig. Gen. William W., 193

Wright, Col. George, 11

Yang-ts’un, 150

Young, Maj. Henry, 46. See also Forsyth, 

Maj. George.

Zamboanga, 162

Index

319

PIN : 079240–000