Art of War Papers

Military Professionalism and the Early

American Officer Corps

1789-1796

Christopher W. Wingate, Major, US Army

Combat Studies Institute Press

US Army Combined Arms Center

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
The cover art is courtesy Center for Military History, Army Artwork and Photography, Prints and Posters, U.S. Army in Action 

series

http://www.history.army.mil/html/artphoto/pripos/usaia.html
Military Professionalism and the Early

American Officer Corps

1789-1796

Christopher W. Wingate, Major, US Army

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

2013

The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the student 

author and do not necessarily represent the views of the US Army 

Command and General Staff College or any other governmental agency. 

(References to this study should include the foregoing statement.)

Combat Studies Institute Press

US Army Combined Arms Center

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
ii

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wingate, Christopher W.

Military professionalism and the Early American Officer Corps, 

1789-1796 / Christopher W. Wingate, Major, US Army.

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

 1. United States. Continental Army--History. 2. United States. 

Continental Army--Officers. 3. Military art and science--United 

States--History--18th century. I. Title. 

 E259.W535 2013

 355.00973--dc23

 2013038283

Combat Studies Institute Press publications cover 

a wide variety of military history topics. The 

views expressed in this CSI Press publication are 

those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of 

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of Defense. A full list of CSI Press publications 

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The seal of the Combat Studies Institute authenticates this document as 

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Director of CSI.

Editor

Carl W. Fischer

2013
iii

Abstract

In September 2012, the Department of the Army published new 

capstone doctrine, Army Doctrine Publication 1 (ADP 1), The Army, in 

which the concept of military professionalism occupies an especially 

prominent place. Coinciding with the release of The Army, the Chief of 

Staff declared that 2013 features a focus on professionalism; entitled 

“America’s Army – Our Profession,” in an effort to better understand the 

idea of military professionalism.

Military history can and should contribute to an understanding 

of American military professionalism. Investigating the nature of 

professionalism in the officer corps serving during President George 

Washington’s administration, the central argument of this study is that 

early Army leaders demonstrated a particularly American style of military 

professionalism. The early officer corps grappled with the same elements 

described by the Army’s current doctrine as fundamentally characteristic of 

military professionalism: trust, expertise, service, esprit and stewardship. 

Understanding the strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and limitations of 

the early officer corps’ approach to professionalism in light of these five 

key characteristics provides important background and a useful conceptual 

framework to more fully understand the American military tradition and 

today’s doctrine concerning military professionalism. 

v

Acknowledgments

Undertaking a project of this magnitude during a full-time school year 

required the assistance and patience of multiple people. I especially 

appreciate the professional and kind help of my chair, Dr. Richard Barbuto, 

as well as the two readers, Dr. Joseph Fischer and Dr. Ethan Rafuse. In 

addition, I thank the Art of War Scholars Program instructors, Dr. Sean 

Kalic, Dr. Scott Stephenson, and Dr. Fischer, for their encouragement and 

assistance in setting up research trips in support of my paper. Special thanks 

are due to the library staff at the Combined Arms Research Library at Fort 

Leavenworth and to my father, Mr. Henry Wingate, for their tremendous 

help in tracking down and obtaining often obscure primary sources. Last, 

but not least, I am thankful to my wife Bethany and my children, Robert 

and Clara, for their patience when I disappeared into my office many an 

evening to work on this project. 

vii

Table of Contents

Abstract....................................................................................................iii

Acknowledgments..................................................................................... v

Table of Contents.................................................................................... vii

Chapter 1 Introduction .............................................................................. 1

Chapter 2 Historiography.........................................................................11

Chapter 3 Military Professionalism And Trust

In The Early American Army Officer Corps, 1789 - 1796...................... 23

Chapter 4 Military Professionalism And Military Expertise

In The Early American Army Officer Corps, 1789 – 1796..................... 41

Chapter 5 Military Professionalism And Honorable Service

In The Early American Army Officer Corps, 1789 - 1796...................... 67

Chapter 6 Military Professionalism And Esprit

In The Early American Army Officer Corps, 1789 – 1796..................... 83

Chapter 7 Military Professionalism And Stewardship In The Early 

American Army Officer Corps, 1789 – 1796.......................................... 99

Chapter 8 Conclusion............................................................................ 109

Bibliography ..........................................................................................117

1

Chapter 1

Introduction

As the United States Army emerges from over a decade of war, 

there is a renewed interest among Army leaders concerning the state 

of military professionalism and Officership. Thus, the Chief of Staff of 

the Army declared that the year 2013 features an emphasis on military 

professionalism, entitled “America’s Army – Our Profession” with the 

goal of promoting understanding of professionalism and encouraging 

dedication to its obligations. This year-long campaign emphasizes the 

prominent inclusion of a description of military professionalism in the 

service’s 2012 capstone doctrinal document, Army Doctrine Publication 

1 (ADP 1), The Army. In this manual and in supporting Department of the 

Army publications, professionalism is defined as “a vocation comprised of 

experts certified in the ethical design, generation, support, and application 

of land combat power, serving under Civilian authority, entrusted to defend 

the Constitution and the rights and interests of the American people.” The 

Army describes five essential characteristics of military professionalism: 

trust, military expertise, honorable service, esprit, and stewardship. 

In addition to these characteristics, authentic professionalism calls for 

competence, commitment and character.1

Military history can and should provide context for this renewed focus 

on professionalism. Historians and military practitioners have provided 

such context for over a century, yet surprisingly few have concentrated 

their efforts on the very first years of the United States Army, when the 

United States military establishment first formed and when the tradition 

and ethos of the nation’s Army were initially established. Instead, since 

the posthumous publication in 1904 of Brigadier General Emory Upton’s 

seminal work The Military Policy of the United States, many historians 

and theorists have accepted his argument that prior to the late 1800s; 

the American Army Officer Corps was largely composed of amateurs. 

Other prominent scholars look to the years following the War of 1812 

for indications of professional development. Few have looked earlier to 

investigate the development of professional characteristics; most scholars 

appear to regard pre-1812 Officers as amateurs.2

 This dismissal of the 

early American Army Officer Corps as unprofessional is unfortunate for 

two key reasons. First, such a dismissal is historically inaccurate. Second, 

this characterization of the early Officer Corps as unprofessional poses a 

danger to a thorough understanding of American military professionalism 

because it arbitrarily separates current perceptions of professionalism 

from the traditions of professionalism developed by the nation’s original 

Officer Corps. 
2

This study’s central argument is that during President George 

Washington’s administration, the Army Officer Corps developed a limited 

but very real and particularly American style of military professionalism. 

Contrary to the belief of most historians who disregard the notion of 

professionalism developing before the War of 1812, the early Officer 

Corps quickly developed significant professional characteristics. Such 

professionalism developed alongside the amateurism that was also 

evident during the officer corps’ first decades. Central to this argument 

is an acceptance of the broad definition of professionalism laid out in 

The Army. This broad description of military professionalism is valuable 

and important for it avoids much of the peripheral and semantic baggage 

raised by an anachronistic comparison between the modern use of the word 

professional and its earlier usage. The Army’s broad definition allows a 

focus on the core of the meaning of military professionalism, disallowing 

a hasty rejection of any professionalism within the early Officer Corps 

simply because, for instance, officers did not matriculate at a military 

academy. Instead, this definition encourages examining professionalism 

in light of the fundamental and enduring characteristics of trust, expertise, 

service, esprit, and stewardship. 

This thesis examines the nature of the professionalism of the Army’s 

officer corps from its establishment in 1789 with the ratification of the US 

Constitution, until 1796 as Washington’s presidency and the Northwest 

Indian War ended. This seven-year period was an extraordinary time 

for the nation’s young Army and its leadership as it confronted multiple 

simultaneous challenges to the development of officer professionalism. 

These included: deep-seated philosophical tensions between the new 

nation’s need for security and a suspicion of standing armies; a critical 

lack of government funds; a responsibility to provide security and assist 

in the governance of a vast frontier with extremely limited resources; the 

requirement to formulate appropriate civil-military relations; and a need 

to combine the military efforts of volunteer, militia and regular forces 

organizationally and operationally. The Officer Corps developed in the 

midst of simultaneously dealing with these challenges and confronting 

the new nation’s first military opponent – the Confederated Tribes of the 

Northwest Territory.

In order to examine the professionalism of the early American 

Officer Corps, this study employs a systematic methodology. After a brief 

historical overview of the Army’s history between 1789 and 1796 in the 

introduction, it examines the early American Officer Corps in relation to 

each characteristic of professionalism – trust, expertise, service, esprit, 
3

and stewardship. Because of the immense influence of Washington and the 

first Secretary of War, Henry Knox, each chapter investigates the nature 

of the pertinent characteristic from the senior leader level down to the 

junior officer level. The existence of a significant body of primary sources, 

backed by the use of secondary literature, allows for a direct examination 

of the nature of professionalism within the early American Officer Corps. 

The collections of the papers of both Washington and Knox are extensive, 

as are compendiums of the correspondence and orderly books of the three 

primary general officers during this era: Brevet Brigadier General Josiah 

Harmar, Major General Arthur St. Clair, and Major General Anthony 

Wayne.3 In addition, the court of inquiry and congressional inquiry held after 

the defeats suffered by Harmar and St. Clair provide valuable evidence as 

do various reports found in the American State Papers collection.4

 Extant 

orderly books from Fort Knox and from General Wayne’s command, as 

well as extensive correspondence between senior and military leaders, 

provide important help in understanding the daily challenges faced 

by the Officer Corps during this early period.5

 A substantial number of 

primary sources from field and junior officers provided critical insight 

into the Officer Corps. In total, this study examined 12 journals from 

officers serving during this period and several collections of letters and 

other correspondence. In addition to these primary sources, secondary 

sources, including both general histories of the period and biographies 

of critical figures, provide an essential background.6

 As in any historical 

inquiry, the type and source of available evidence limit and frame this 

work. In choosing representative figures and examples within the Officer 

Corps, this study attempts to retain a breadth of understanding of the entire 

Officer Corps so as not to generalize the state of the entire body by a few 

elite figures. 

Thus, this methodology seeks both breadth and depth in painting a 

collective portrait of the nature of the military professionalism of the early 

American Officer Corps by the combined use of primary and secondary 

sources. Before beginning a chapter-by-chapter examination of the five 

characteristics of military professionalism, a brief historical overview of 

the Army between 1789 and 1796 may be useful.

With the adoption of the Constitution in 1789, the new nation inherited 

from the Confederation a tiny regular force of 700 soldiers, spread 

throughout the American frontier, from Georgia to the Canadian border. 

Tasked with staffing the frontier forts that the British would be vacating in 

accordance with the 1783 Treaty of Paris, this small force also attempted 

to keep an uneasy peace between settlers and Indians, deter foreign 
4

infringement on national territory, and maintain a semblance of order 

in the absence of an adequate civil government. Led by Pennsylvanian 

Brevet Brigadier General Josiah Harmar, the force included 44 officers.7

Legally incorporated by Congress in August of 1789, the Army of 

700 regulars faced increasing levels of resistance from Indians of the 

Northwest Territory, consisting primarily of lands north and northwest of 

the Ohio River and consisting of present-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and 

parts of Michigan.8

 Prior to 1783, Britain claimed the area using allied 

tribes to limit American settlement. The Treaty of Paris of 1783, in ending 

the American Revolution, ceded these lands to the United States without 

considering tribal rights and claims to these same lands. Hungry for land 

and the financial benefits of it to the new nation, and mindful that the 

great majority of the Indian tribes had allied themselves with Britain in 

the Revolution, United States leaders largely considered these tribes as 

conquered nations and their lands as legitimately won in war and validated 

by the Treaty of Paris. With this attitude, conflict was perhaps inevitable as 

the lure of land increasingly drew American settlers westward. The postwar continuing presence of British forces in the area, reluctant to let go of 

the area’s lucrative fur trade, was legitimized by American delinquency 

in fulfilling treaty requirements pertaining to loyalist property and 

remuneration. In order to maintain this trade, British leaders in Canada 

ordered positions maintained in the Northwest Territory and encouraged 

and equipped Indian resistance to American settlers. Already having lost 

the rich hunting grounds of Kentucky to American settlers by 1789, Indian 

tribes needed little encouragement to strike at the increasing numbers of 

settlers north of the Ohio River. 

The Washington administration also wanted to avoid settlement north 

of the Ohio River but for different reasons.9

 These lands, claimed by the 

new American Government and by several States, were potentially a rich 

source of badly needed revenue, if sold to settlers or land companies, 

as well as a way to pay off debts owed to Revolutionary War veterans. 

Settlers moving in before the land could be surveyed and advertised and 

sold, threatened the land use envisioned by the Washington administration. 

Furthermore, such encroachment raised the risk of general conflict with 

the strong Miami and Shawnee tribes, a conflict which would likely 

require an expensive build-up of military forces in the region. Thus in 

1789, one of General Harmar’s missions was to keep American settlers 

from crossing north of the Ohio River to settle. With such a tiny force, 

this was doomed to failure and Indian raids repeatedly struck increasing 

numbers of settlements. These settlements and raids led to a vicious cycle 
5

of escalation, particularly due to the brutal methods used by both Indian 

raiding parties and volunteer and militia retaliatory expeditions. Harmar 

watched helplessly as the conflict escalated. The administration’s sincere 

attempts at peaceful conciliation with the tribes failed by late 1789 due 

to a striking variance in Indian and settler perceptions of land ownership. 

By late 1789, settlement cries for protection from Indian raids and a 

realization that peace talks were failing, spurred the United States Army’s 

first campaign. 

In late 1789, Northwest Territory Governor Arthur St. Clair requested 

federal help to resolve the “constant hostilities between the Indians who 

live upon the river Wabash and the people of Kentucky.”10 In response, 

Washington and Knox pushed through Congress a slight increase in the 

size of the regular Army, to 1,200 soldiers including 57 officers, organized 

in one United States Regiment of Infantry and an artillery battalion for a 

three-year period. In addition, Washington gave the governor permission 

to call forth necessary militia forces for the coming campaign.11 In early 

1790, Washington granted permission to St. Clair to mobilize these troops. 

Additionally, he ordered 1,500 militia from Kentucky and Pennsylvania 

to join regular forces consolidating at Fort Washington and Fort Knox. 

Giving wide latitude to Governor St. Clair and General Harmar to plan 

the campaign, Knox directed them to conduct rapid operations in order to 

“exhibit to the Wabash Indians our power to punish them for their positive 

depredations, for their conniving at the depredations of others, and for 

their refusing to treat with the United States when invited thereto.”12

Conceiving a two-column strike into the region bounded by the 

Wabash, Miamim, and St. Mary’s Rivers, St. Clair and Harmar initiated 

operations in September 1790.13 A diversionary threat northward along the 

Wabash River by Major Hamtramck’s force of approximately 350 soldiers 

(approximately half of whom were militia) would draw attention from the 

main effort by Harmar northward to the central Miami villages 150 miles 

north of Fort Washington. Some 1,300 militiamen under Kentucky Militia 

Colonel John Hardin joined the 350 regular troops under Harmar for this 

attack against hostile Indian villages. As the main body marched north, 

Indians under Miami Chief Little Turtle ambushed and badly defeated 

a raiding party with the loss of over 100 soldiers. Angered by this loss, 

Harmar responded by organizing an attack on the main enemy village 

of Kekionga. However, a second ambush by Little Turtle surprised the 

attackers while burning the village, and surrounded by approximately 1,000 

Indian warriors, the American force suffered another defeat, resulting in 

several hundred casualties. Faced with this defeat and low on food and 
6

supplies, Harmar ordered a retreat back to Fort Washington near the 

town of Cincinnati in late October 1790. Meanwhile, Hamtramck’s force 

had not encountered any hostile Indians, and beset by supply shortages 

returned to Fort Knox without engaging the enemy. While Harmar claimed 

to have accomplished part of his mission by burning a great quantity of 

enemy crops and villages, it was clear to both St. Clair and the Washington 

administration that the campaign had failed and only emboldened the 

hostile tribes. 

In early 1791, Washington and Knox pushed for another increase in the 

size of the regular Army to about 2,000 soldiers and 78 officers, organized 

into a first and second regiment of United States Infantry, supported by a 

battalion of artillery. The government intended to supplement this enlarged 

force with 1,500 militiamen from Kentucky for the next campaign. 

Unsatisfied by Harmar’s performance, Washington turned to veterans of the 

Revolutionary War, naming Arthur St. Clair the Army’s new commanding 

general and General Richard Butler as second-in-command in March of 

1791. Weak recruiting and supply efforts hampered preparations for this 

second campaign. Under pressure from the administration to act before 

some of the short-term soldiers’ enlistments expired, St. Clair ordered an 

advance in late 1791. 

This combined force, consisting of approximately 2,300 men, including 

about 700 militiamen under militia Colonel William Oldham, experienced 

tremendous logistical difficulties which caused great dissension within the 

force and led to high levels of desertion, demands to be let go as enlistment 

terms expired, and finally the defection of over half the militia halfway 

through the march north. St. Clair responded to this mutiny by ordering 

his Second US Regiment under Hamtramck to intercept the errant militia 

while continuing his march north with only approximately 1,400 soldiers. 

By early November, this diminished force led by an ill St. Clair pushed 

toward the site of Harmar’s defeat, burning villages and crops on the march. 

Led by chiefs Little Turtle and Blue Jacket, the estimated 1,200 warriors 

from various tribes of the region, supported by British military advisors, 

retired from the advancing American Army until reaching the northern 

reaches of the Wabash River. At dawn the next day, Indian warriors again 

badly surprised the American Army. Quickly demoralized and losing 

most sense of discipline, St. Clair’s surrounded force suffered appalling 

casualties, only escaping total annihilation by a sudden attack through the 

Indian lines and sudden retreat. One of the most decisive defeats in the 

history of the United States Army, St. Clair’s campaign resulted in the loss 

of 630 killed and hundreds more wounded and nearly all Army supplies 
7

lost. Casualties included 69 of the 124 officers present, including General 

Richard Butler. The impact of this loss was of course, the exact opposite 

of the intent, with the victorious tribes emboldened and growing in power 

and influence. 

In shock over the disaster, the Washington administration turned 

to a three-pronged strategy to counter the invigorated Indian enemy.14

First, intensified diplomatic efforts sought a negotiated peace with the 

hostile tribes. Second, through diplomacy, the government attempted to 

cut off British support for enemy tribes. Third, leaders reorganized and 

enlarged the Army. This last exertion involved the administration pushing 

through another slight increase in the size of the Army to approximately 

2,500 troops, now organized in a combined arms framework and called 

the Legion of the United States. After pushing St. Clair to resign his 

command, Washington and Knox turned to another Revolutionary War 

comrade, Major General Anthony Wayne, to command the newly built 

Legion. Assisting him would be his second in command, Major General 

Charles Scott, leading the Kentucky Militia and Brigadier General James 

Wilkinson, leading one of the regiments of the new American Army.

Intensive peace efforts in the latter parts of 1792 and throughout 1793 

provided Wayne time to build and train an effective force. When peace 

efforts finally failed in late 1793, Wayne initiated the third major campaign 

of the Northwest Indian War. Embarking on a northern march over the 

same ground of the two previous campaigns, Wayne led his combined 

Army of 2,500 regulars and 1,500 mounted Kentucky militia toward the 

hostile Indian villages, in order to destroy villages and crops and draw 

the Indians into a decisive battle. Despite supply shortages and sickness, 

Wayne’s Army continued past Kekionga and Grand Glaize in good shape, 

burning crops and villages along the way. Continuing northward toward 

Lake Erie and the British-held stronghold at Fort Miami, Wayne’s scouts 

identified the main Indian force of approximately 1,500 warriors, led by 

the Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket, and assisted by scores of Canadian militia 

and advised by British military agents. On the morning of 20 August 1794, 

Wayne ordered his combined force to attack the Indian warriors who were 

prepared in fallen trees along the Maumee River. The mixed attack of the 

regular infantry supported by artillery and the mounted militia soon broke 

the Indian forces which fled toward Fort Miami. The British regular forces 

manning Fort Miami refused admittance to the fleeing Indian warriors, 

ensuring a decisive victory for General Wayne’s Army. 

In the aftermath of the Battle of Fallen Timbers, the chastened Indian 

tribes, now understandably distrustful of their former British allies, 
8

accepted the peace proposals offered by Wayne and signed the Treaty of 

Greeneville in 1795. This treaty forced the Indians to accept American 

ownership of most of the lands of the Northwest Territory, consolidating 

Indian tribal lands to the area just south of the Great Lakes. One of the 

most decisive American Army victories, Wayne’s campaign opened the 

majority of the Northwest Territory to American settlement and led to 

peace with regional Indian tribes for over the next decade. Encouraged 

by this triumph, the administration and Congress agreed to continue the 

force structure and size of the Legion for an additional three years. For the 

first time, the United States Army gained acceptance as an expanded and 

regular peacetime force essential to national defense. 

One final introductory word may be useful. The intent of this thesis 

is not to investigate a possible direct link in the development from these 

early periods to the present day. Given the instability that characterized 

the Army in the initial decades, such a project is doubtful and is certainly 

beyond the scope of this thesis. Rather, this study proposes to examine 

the nature of military professionalism of the early American officer corps, 

focusing on the challenges and responses related to trust, expertise, 

service, esprit, and stewardship. In this way, this study may provide some 

insight into the overall conceptual framework and intentions, thoughts, 

desires, understandings, actions, tensions, problems, and solutions 

facing the leaders of the new American Army as they consciously and 

unconsciously formed the first United States military tradition. Such an 

understanding may inform today’s Officer Corps, the Army, and American 

society, providing all a better understanding of a shared heritage. This may 

prove useful in the pursuit of a deeper understanding of American military 

professionalism.
9

Notes

1. Military professionalism is described in Headquarters, Department 

of the Army, Army Doctrine Publication 1, The Army (Washington, DC: 

Government Printing Office, September, 2012), http://armypubs.army.mil/

doctrine/ADP_1.html (accessed 12 May 2013), ch 2. A supporting document is 

Headquarters, Army Training and Doctrine Command, The Army Profession: 

2012, After More than a Decade of Conflict, Center for the Army Profession and 

Ethic, October 2011, http://cape.army.mil/repository/ProArms/

Army%20Profession%20Pamphlet.pdf (accessed 12 May 2013). The purpose 

of the 2013 focus on Army professionalism is described in Headquarters, Army 

Training and Doctrine Command, America’s Army – Our Profession Information 

Paper, Center for the Army Profession and Ethic, October 2012, http://cape.

army.mil/AAOP/AAOP%20

Overview/repository/info%20paper/20121004_AA-OP_Information_Paper_

(Final_Approved_v2).pdf (accessed 12 May 2013).

2. See chapter two of this thesis for a historiographical review of the 

concept of military professionalism in the American military, starting with 

Upton’s influential work. 

3. Washington’s papers can be found almost in their entirety at George 

Washington, The George Washington Papers, Alderman Library, University 

of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, http://gwpapers.virginia.edu (accessed 7 May 

2013). Harmar’s correspondence as the commanding general from 1789 to 

1790 is reprinted in Gayle Thornbrough, ed., Outpost on the Wabash, 1787-

1791; Letters of Brigadier General Josiah Harmar and Major John Francis 

Hamtramck. and Other Letters and Documents (Indianapolis, IN: Indiana 

Historical Society, 1957. St. Clair’s papers are reprinted in William H. Smith, 

ed., The St. Clair Papers: The Life and Public Services of Arthur St. Clair : 

Soldier of the Revolutionary War, President of the Continental Congress ; and 

Governor of the North-Western Territory with His Correspondence and Other 

Papers, 2 vols. (Cincinnati, OH: R. Clarke, 1882). Wayne’s papers for the 

pertinent period are reprinted in Richard C. Knopf, ed., Anthony Wayne, a Name 

in Arms: Soldier, Diplomat, Defender of Expansion Westward of a Nation; the 

Wayne-Knox-Pickering-McHenry Correspondence (Westport, CT: Greenwood 

Press, 1975).

4. Records of Harmar’s court of inquiry and St. Clair’s congressional 

investigation are reprinted in United States, American State Papers, Military 

Affairs, Volume I (New York, NY: Arno, 1979). 

5. Milo M. Quaife, “Fort Knox Orderly Book, 1793-97,” Indiana 

Magazine of History 32, no. 2 (1936): 137-169 and Richard C. Knopf, ed. 

Orderly Books for the United States Legion Vols. I-IV Incl. (Columbus, OH: 

Anthony Wayne Parkway Board, Ohio State Museum, 1955).

6. The bibliography lists the journals, histories, and biographies employed 

by this study. 
10

7. Numbers and ranks of officers in this study generally derive from 

documents in United States, American State Papers: Military Affairs and 

the comprehensive and invaluable, Francis Heitman, Historical Register and 

Dictionary of the United States Army: from its Organization, September 29, 

1789, to March 2, 1903 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1903).

8. Especially helpful in the general history of the Northwest Territory and 

Indian-American affairs is R. Douglas Hurt, The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the 

Old Northwest, 1720-1830 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998).

9. The Washington administration’s struggles with the Indian tribes in the 

Northwest Territory are well described in Wiley Sword, President Washington’s 

Indian War: The Struggle for the Old Northwest, 1790-1795 (Norman, OK: 

Oklahoma University Press, 1985).

10. United States, American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Volume I (New 

York, NY: Arno, 1979), St. Clair to Washington, 58.

11. In addition to primary sources and Sword’s general history of the war, 

Harry Ward, The Department of War, 1781-1795 (Pittsburgh, PA: University 

of Pittsburgh Press, 1962) is especially useful for information on the army’s 

organization and structure throughout the war. 

12. William Smith, The St. Clair Papers, Knox to St. Clair, 19 September 

1790, 182.

13. In addition to primary sources and Sword’s general history of the war, 

William H. Guthman, March to Massacre: A History of the First Seven Years 

of the United States Army, 1784-1791 (New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1975) is 

useful for its coverage of both Harmar’s and St. Clair’s campaigns.

14. In addition to primary sources and the secondary sources already cited, 

Alan D. Gaff, Bayonets in the Wilderness: Anthony Wayne’s Legion in the Old 

Northwest (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004) is a valuable 

source for information on the final and decisive campaign of the Northwest 

Indian War. 
11

Chapter 2

Historiography

Stuck unobtrusively between the Armies of the Revolutionary War and 

the War of 1812, the 1790s United States Army has attracted relatively little 

direct attention from military historians. The professionalism of this force 

has been largely ignored or dismissed. Still, a survey in a historiography 

sense of pertinent scholarship since the late 19th century illustrates the 

scholarly understanding of the first American Army and is therefore useful 

in framing this thesis.1

The first influential historical work with a bearing on professionalism 

and the early American Army came from the pen of General Emory Upton, 

a decorated Union veteran of the Civil War and post-war commandant 

of the United States Military Academy. In 1875, US Army Commanding 

General William Sherman dispatched Upton on a wide-ranging foreign 

trip in order to bring home recommendations on improving the United 

States Army. This trip resulted in the 1878 publication of The Armies of 

Asia and Europe and included strong recommendations for changes to the 

American Army in order to capitalize on Upton’s observations abroad. 

Upton’s experiences and studies also led him to work on his historical 

Magnus opus, The Military Policy of the United States. This work, 

unfinished at his death in 1881, was ordered published by Secretary of War 

Elihu Root in 1904, as part of his Army reform program. Upton’s works 

clearly indicate a belief that the early American military establishment was 

characterized by a disastrous lack of military professionalism including 

officer incompetence, indiscipline, and confusion, and intermingling of 

civil and military responsibilities and spheres. 

Upton scathingly wrote that an unreasonable fear of standing armies 

and military professionalism, and a corresponding reliance upon amateur 

militia and volunteer units in the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary 

years, condemned the United States to long and expensive wars and “almost 

wrought the ruin of our cause.”2

 Citing George Washington’s statement in 

the aftermath of the 1776 Long Island debacle that placing “dependence 

upon militia is assuredly resting upon a broken staff,” Upton claimed that 

“up to the Mexican War there was little that was glorious in our military 

history” due to a lack of American military professionalism.3 Rejecting 

the idea that militia or volunteer officers were able to lead modern armies 

effectively, Upton urged that all of American military history through the 

Civil War showed the dangers of relying on any but regular and professional 

military leadership. In doing so, he advocated absorbing lessons especially 
12

from the Prussian model of officer professionalism with a corresponding 

clear division between civilian and military spheres of authority. This 

latter conclusion led directly to his recommendation for broader military 

authority in executing military operations.4

Upton’s historical interpretation, championed by Root and successive 

Army leaders in the early 20th century, had a profound influence on future 

scholars. Discussions of professionalism have often been framed by 

acceptance or rejection of his theses regarding the nature of early American 

military professionalism. His interpretation was largely accepted in the 

early 20th century. For example, Charles and Mary Beard in their influential 

work The Rise of American Civilization, cite Upton while claiming the 

American Revolution illustrated the incompetence of unprofessional 

military forces.5

 Other early proponents of Upton’s interpretation that the 

early American military establishment suffered from a lack of military 

professionalism included influential officer-scholars William Ganoe and 

Trevor Depuy.6

The first significant challenge to Upton’s claims came from another 

officer-historian, General John McCauley Palmer. A World War I veteran, 

close advisor to General John Pershing in the aftermath of the war and 

later an advisor to General George Marshall during World War II, Palmer 

rejected Upton’s conclusions that the citizen-soldier was unreliable. Palmer 

argued that with some amount of training and discipline, non-regular 

American military forces showed an ability to quickly become highly 

efficient. While accepting the need for some of Upton’s recommendations, 

such as a better trained militia and the creation of a general staff, Palmer 

rejected Upton’s conclusions that only full-time regular Army officers 

could be relied upon to effectively lead American armies. In the midst of 

World War II, Palmer argued that giving active-duty professional soldiers a 

monopoly on military leadership was a dramatic and dangerous departure 

from American military tradition and that such a monopoly would lead to 

the establishment of the large standing Army so feared by the founders 

of the United States. Such a monopoly, said Palmer, would repudiate the 

type of Army founded by Washington in the early republic, one that relied 

upon citizen-soldiers closely tied to American society. Palmer emphasized 

that “an enduring government by the people must include an Army of the 

people among its institutions.”7

By World War II, Palmer and Marshall were convinced of the need 

to reiterate that the American military establishment was founded on the 

citizen-soldier concept and not the Prusso-German model championed by 

Upton’s followers. With Marshall’s backing, in 1943 Palmer published 
13

America in Arms, urging a historical interpretation in which early 

American military history did not prove that militia forces were inevitably 

ineffective, but rather that an adequately trained body of citizen-soldiers 

had in the past, and could in the future, win the nation’s wars.8 Victory 

could thus be obtained, said Palmer, as it had in all former American 

wars – with a small force of regulars providing oversight for training and 

administration during peacetime and a large militia and volunteer force 

called out as needed for national defense. In this work, Palmer emphasized 

George Washington’s proposals for the post-Revolutionary American 

military in his 1783 “Sentiments on a Peace Establishment” in which 

the retiring Revolutionary War commander in chief called for a small 

“regular and standing force” to supplement a large and well-organized 

militia, which Washington termed the “great bulwark of our Liberties and 

independence.” 9

In his rejection of what he termed the Sherman-Upton doctrine that 

only a larger and regular force was a reliable foundation for defense, 

Palmer warned that establishing a European-style professional military 

would entail a sharp departure from the practice of the early republic’s 

military establishment. A large standing Army would tend to lead to a 

strict separation of professional regular officers from the larger society, 

which would violate the citizen-soldier concept articulated by Washington 

in his famous statement that “when we assumed the soldier, we did not lay 

aside the citizen.”10 Finally, a strictly professional military establishment 

threatened to compromise the nation’s heritage of civilian control over the 

military.11

In the second half of the 20th century, academic historians began to more 

thoroughly investigate the nature of American military professionalism, 

which until this time had been dominated by officer-scholars like Upton 

and Palmer. Yet, as historian E. Wayne Carp persuasively notes, such 

was the influence of these two generals that throughout the 20th century, 

military historians continually responded to their arguments, often being 

placed into “Uptonian” or “Palmerian” camps.12

In 1957, Samuel Huntington established himself as a firm proponent 

of many aspects of Upton’s thought with the publication of his hugely 

influential The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of CivilMilitary Relations.

13 Huntington, a political theorist, claimed that “prior 

to 1800 there was no such thing as a professional officer corps.”14 This 

was particularly true in America where, according to Huntington, the 

liberal political thought of the founders with their fear of a standing Army 

and separate professional body of military officers, ensured a reliance on 
14

amateur military leaders and establishments. Huntington believed that the 

United States military was only able to professionalize the officer corps 

in the aftermath of the Civil War, when leaders like Sherman and Upton 

took advantage of the relative isolation of the officer corps from society 

to inculcate a professional subculture distinct from the larger American 

society. He argued that only after 1865 did the American Army finally 

follow in the footsteps of the Prussian model. Prior to this, the American 

military establishment was distracted by an unprofessional focus on purely 

technical and populist concerns, like exploration or popular engineering 

projects. In addition, the citizen-soldier concept so dear to the founders led 

to high levels of political involvement by military leaders (and seemingly 

a correspondingly high level of military involvement by political leaders), 

which delayed the American establishment of military professionalism.15

Huntington advocated a rather narrow view of professionalism, viewing 

the profession of arms as being properly limited to three key defining 

characteristics: military expertise, responsibility, and what he termed as 

corporateness. Rejecting the notion of early American military leaders as 

professionals of any kind, he argues the true military professional is not 

a “temporary citizen-soldier inspired by intense momentary patriotism 

and duty” but is devoted to the “permanent desire to perfect himself in 

the management of violence.”16 Further, unlike the citizen-soldiers and 

amateurs of the 1700s, the military professional must regard himself as 

somewhat set apart from the rest of society and operates within a very 

clearly defined sphere, separate from other jurisdictions. While not a 

historian, Huntington’s contributions to the historical understanding 

of the state of professionalism in early America were profound and 

further developed the theme of the sharp distinction between the military 

professional and the citizen-soldier of the early republic.17

In the 1960s, Russell Weigley published two critical works, Towards 

an American Army: Military Thought from Washington to Marshall and 

History of the United States Army, which for the first time provided 

an academic military historian’s interpretation of the nature of early 

American military professionalism.18 Weigley carved out a somewhat 

middle course between Upton and Palmer, arguing that the American 

military historical experience was “a history of two armies . . . a Regular 

Army of professional Soldiers and a citizen Army of various components 

variously known as militia, National Guards, Organized Reserves, 

selectees.”19 Acknowledging Washington’s military preference for regular 

professionals, Weigley indicates that through experience and extensive 

training and discipline, both Washington’s Continental Army after 1778 
15

and Wayne’s Army of 1792-1794 were at least semi-professional armies. 

In fact, says Weigley, “Wayne deserves to be called the father of the 

Regular Army for his creation of a well-trained and disciplined army that 

defeated the Northwest Indians at the battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.”20

At the same time, Weigley insists that leaders like Washington understood 

that military effectiveness must be balanced by political concerns over the 

dangers of militarism resulting from a corruptive standing Army. Weigley 

rejected Upton’s criticisms, arguing that the Prussian model urged by 

Upton and his adherents was antithetical to the American tradition of strict 

civilian control of the military and reservations regarding the establishment 

of an elitist officer corps.21 Weigley argues that achieving an acceptable 

balance between trained regulars and militia took considerable time to be 

established. While he perceived the stirrings of military professionals in 

the immediate aftermath of the nation’s founding, Weigley argued that 

the regular forces temporarily built by Washington and Wayne in the 

1790s were vulnerable and often fell prey to unprofessional influences 

of partisanship, self-serving greed, and the government’s unwillingness 

(or inability) to consistently provide necessary resources. Thus, he 

approvingly quotes Winfield Scott’s well-known characterization of his 

fellow officers in the early 1800s as “swaggerers, dependents, decayed 

gentlemen, and others fit for nothing else.”22

Following in Weigley’s footsteps, historian Edward Coffman also 

posited a dual American military tradition composed of a smaller 

regular force of professionals slowly and painfully established in the 

Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary years as well as a larger body of 

militia and other non-regular forces. Coffman skillfully describes the way 

in which these two traditions “have been interwoven with tension and 

cooperation” from the very beginning of the nation.23 By the mid-1790s, 

he argues, there was a growing consensus of the need for a mix of these 

two traditions and an acceptance that the military establishment needed 

both a small professional Army and a much larger body of non-regulars. 

While acknowledging this growing and sometimes grudging acceptance, 

Coffman also points out the tremendous challenges the regular Army 

faced before becoming a reliably professional asset: the often catastrophic 

state of logistical support to the Army and to individual soldiers in terms 

of food, clothing, equipment and pay; the lack of internal cohesion among 

the officer corps (often characterized by divisions and even dueling); and 

a lack of professional focus by leaders distracted by the recurring cycle of 

draw-downs and build-ups which characterized the regular Army during 

the years between the Revolution and the War of 1812. Thus, Coffman 
16

argued that professionalism developed only after the War of 1812, 

following transformational reforms in the officer corps.24

British historian Marcus Cunliffe was less convinced than Weigley and 

Coffman that the late 18th century saw military professionalism starting 

to stir. In Soldiers and Civilians: The Martial Spirit in America, 1775-

1865, Cunliffe discarded the notion that men such as Washington, Wayne, 

Nathaniel Greene, or Henry Knox were developing into professionals, 

calling them “amateur generals” compared to the professional generals 

they faced in the British Army.

25 Like Huntington, Cunliffe claimed that 

anti-militarism was dominant in American ideology, restraining any real 

development of military professionalism until decades after the war of 1812. 

According to Cunliffe, weak and unreliable militia forces, organizational 

failure, and chaos caused by recurring draw-downs in the military 

establishment characterized the first United States Officer Corps. Cunliffe 

ultimately argued that the dualism in the American military establishment, 

which he terms civilianness and militarism, is a “problem without a perfect 

solution” and one which until after the Civil War plagued the United States.26

Unlike Weigley and Coffman who argued that ultimately this dualism 

was strength, Cunliffe’s writings stress the way this dualism delayed the 

establishment of consistent American military professionalism. In his 

view, the American military establishment was dominated by amateurism 

and politics through the War of 1812. Only in the post-war years would 

professional officers begin to assert a significant influence. By the 1840s, 

he argued “the American Regular Army had developed professional

styles . . . [and] the principle of professionalism had gained a footing and 

was not to be dislodged.”27

Richard Kohn, military historian and author of The Eagle and Sword: 

The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 

1783-1802, expresses overall skepticism about any late 18th century 

American military professionalism.28 Kohn emphasizes Washington’s 

influence in forming the early American understanding and practice of 

military professionalism, arguing that the first president, aided particularly 

by fellow Federalists Henry Knox and Alexander Hamilton, continually 

strove throughout the 1790s against the anti-militarist tradition in the 

young republic in order to create a small “professional army composed 

of career officers trained in the science of warfare.”29 These efforts, 

according to Kohn, bore some fruit particularly during General Wayne’s 

campaign against the Northwest Indians, culminating in victory in 1794, 

but eventually foundered on the shoals of philosophical anti-militarism 

particularly emphasized by Jeffersonian Republicans, lack of resources 
17

necessary to fund a truly professional army, and a lack of a substantial 

foreign threat warranting a professional force.30

One key outcome related to future American military professionalism, 

according to Kohn, resulted from the centrality of Washington’s 

unswerving devotion to the concept of civilian control of the military. This 

was most spectacularly demonstrated during Washington’s neutralization 

of the potentially mutinous 1783 Newburgh incident at the end of the 

Revolutionary War, but Kohn convincingly argues that such a devotion 

to civilian control was demonstrated by Washington throughout his entire 

career as military commander and president. This example and influence, 

says Kohn, was inculcated deeply into the entire American military 

establishment from the beginning and was accepted from the nation’s 

beginning as the basis of American military professionalism and civilmilitary relations.31

In contrast to Kohn’s focus on senior leaders within the American 

political and military establishments, William Skelton’s publication of 

An American Profession of Arms: the Army Officer Corps, 1784-1861

marked an attempt to understand the Army not solely through the vision 

or leadership of senior leaders but through the internal experience within 

the Army itself.32 Diving deeply into the lives of officers at all levels of 

the officer corps, Skelton concludes that the professionalization of the 

American officer corps occurred in the immediate aftermath of the War 

of 1812, earlier than had often been accepted by some historians. Skelton 

argues that the late 18th century Army Officer Corps was defined by 

instability, heterogeneity, and steady attrition. Thoroughly mining Army 

records, journals, letters, and memoirs, Skelton provides both an in-depth 

and sweeping portrait of an officer corps struggling to survive a volatile 

social and political environment suspicious of military professionalism. 

Skelton concludes that these factors severely limited military professional 

development before the War of 1812.33 After 1815, Skelton argues that 

professionalism grew quickly, nurtured by a growing practice of lifelong 

officers educated at West Point, the development of officer cohesion, and 

public acknowledgement of the need for professional military service.34

Other more in-depth works, focusing more specifically on American 

late 18th century campaigns and the development of the early American 

Army, provide valuable in-depth discussions. These include Wiley Sword’s 

overview of the Northwest Indian War in his work President Washington’s 

Indian War, 1790-1795.

35 March to Massacre: A History of the First 

Seven Years of the United States Army, 1784-1791 by William Guthman, 

convincingly relates the immense struggles of the emerging nation and 
18

its military ending in the catastrophes experienced in the Harmar and St. 

Clair-led campaigns.36 In Bayonets in the Wilderness: Anthony Wayne’s 

Legion in the Old Northwest, Alan Gaff provides a detailed and thorough 

description and analysis of Anthony Wayne’s victorious campaign against 

the confederation of American Indians in 1794, ending with the battle 

of Fallen Timbers and the Treaty of Greeneville in 1795. In this work, 

following the detailed example of Skelton, Gaff deeply describes the 

internal life of Wayne’s Army between 1792 and 1795.37

The themes developed by these important scholars in the field of 

early American military history help to frame this study of the nature of 

professionalism in the early officers. This study examines the principle 

themes developed by these scholars. This thesis pays special attention to 

the enduring themes treated by these scholars, including a focus on the 

officer corps’ response to challenges related to trust, expertise, service, 

esprit, and stewardship.
19

Notes

1. Especially useful in the development of this historiographical essay 

were historical reviews in Don Higginbotham, “The Early American Way of 

War: Reconnaissance and Appraisal,” The William and Mary Quarterly 44, no. 2 

(April 1987): 230-273 and Wayne E. Lee, “Early American Ways of War: A New 

Reconnaissance, 1600-1815,” The Historical Journal 44, I (2001): 269-289.

2. Emory Upton, The Military Policy of the United States (Washington 

DC: Government Printing Office, 1904), 16.

3. Upton, xi, 17.

4. For varied interpretations of Upton, see Russell Weigley, Towards an 

American Army: Military Thought form Washington to Marshall (New York:. 

NY Columbia University Press, 1962); Stephen Ambrose, Upton and the Army 

(Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana University Press, 1964); and David Fitzpatrick’s 

“Emory Upton and the Citizen Soldier” The Journal of Military History 65 

(April 2001): 355-389.

5. Quoted in the helpful survey, Don Higginbotham, “American 

Historians and the Military History of the American Revolution,” The American 

Historical Review 70 (October 1964): 18-34. 

6. William Ganoe, History of the United States Army (New York, NY: 

D-Appleton Century Co., 1942); and Trevor Depuy and R. Ernest Depuy, 

Military Heritage of America (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1956).

7. John McAuley Palmer, Statesmanship or War (Garden City, NY: 

Doubleday, 1927), 74.

8. John McAuley Palmer, America in Arms: The Experience of the United 

States with Military Organization (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 

1941).

9. George Washington, “Sentiments on a Peace Establishment,” The 

George Washington Papers, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, 

Charlottesville, VA, 2 May 1783, http://gwpapers.virginia.edu (accessed 7 May 

2013).

10. George Washington, “Address to the New York Provincial Congress,” 

The George Washington Papers, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, 

Charlottesville, VA, 26 June 1775, http://gwpapers.virginia.edu (accessed 7 May 

2013).

11. On Palmer’s scholarship and influence, see Weigley, Towards an 

American Army. 

12. E. Wayne Carp, “The Problem of National Defense in the Early 

American Republic” in The American Revolution: Its Character and Limits, ed. 

Jack Green (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1987), 18.
20

13. Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and 

Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard 

University, 1957).

14. Huntington, 19.

15. Huntington, 226-237.

16. Huntington, 15.

17. On Huntington’s influence, see William Skelton, “Samuel P. 

Huntington and the Roots of the American Military Tradition” The Journal of 

Military History 60 (April, 1996): 325-338.

18. Weigley, Towards an American Army; and Russel F. Weigley, History of 

the United States Army (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1967).

19. Weigley, History of the United States Army, xi.

20. Weigley, 93.

21. For a good discussion of Weigley’s view of Upton and a pro-Upton 

interpretation, see Fitzpatrick, 355-389.

22. Weigley, History of the United States Army, 107.

23. Edward M. Coffman, “The Duality of the American Military Tradition” 

Journal of Military History 64 (October 2000): 969.

24. Edward M. Coffman, The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army 

in Peacetime, 1784-1898 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1986); and 

Coffman, “The Duality of the American Military Tradition: A Commentary,” 

967-980.

25. Marcus Cunliffe, Soldiers and Civilians: The Martial Spirit in America, 

1775-1865 (Boston, MA: Little and Brown, 1968), 42. 

26. Cunliffe, 334.

27. Cunliffe, 149, 151.

28. Richard Kohn, Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of 

the Military Establishment in America, 1783-1802 (New York, NY: Free Press, 

1975).

29. Kohn, 44.

30. Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 54.

31. Kohn, 88.

32. William Skelton, An American Profession of Arms: The Army Officer 

Corps, 1784-1861 (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1992).

33. Skelton, An American Profession of Arms:, 87-88.

34. Skelton, 119.

35. Sword.
21

36. Guthman.

37. Gaff. 

23

Chapter 3

Military Professionalism and Trust in the Early

American Army officer corps, 1789 - 1796

Before discussing the nature of the relationship between military 

professionalism and trust in the Army officer corps of the early American 

republic, it may be useful to briefly summarize the key elements of current 

doctrine concerning this critical relationship. Chapter 2 of The Army

emphasizes that military professionalism is built upon the concept of trust, 

which supports the four other essential characteristics of the profession of 

arms.1

Trust is described as the bedrock of professionalism and the “core 

intangible needed by the Army inside and outside the profession.”2

According to this capstone manual, trust at the most fundamental level 

relies on the Army being worthy of the faith of the American people that it 

will always serve the Constitution and nation before all other considerations 

and thus will not permit the inherent power of a military force to ever 

threaten constitutional liberty. Absolutely central to the development of 

this trust is military subordination to civilian authority, by which the Army 

proves itself a trusted servant of the nation without ulterior or selfish goals. 

A second aspect of trust emphasized in the Army’s professionalism 

doctrine concerns trust up and down the chain of command between 

superiors and subordinates at all levels. This trust is critical to mission 

effectiveness, stimulating individual and collective commitment to 

mission accomplishment. Such trust is also required for the effective use 

of the concept of mission command, the Army’s fundamental doctrine for 

command. 

The third aspect of trust involves mutual trust among Soldiers, 

establishing the unit cohesion necessary to accomplish demanding 

missions. The Army notes that the “level of resilience and cohesion within 

an Army unit correlates directly to trust between Soldiers in that unit.”3

The fourth and final key aspect of trust described in the Army’s doctrine on 

professionalism is that between the Army and Soldiers and their Families. 

Such trust is essential to the building of a supportive environment that 

enhances family strength and resilience.4

As in today’s doctrine on military professionalism, early leaders of 

the nation’s Army focused on trust as a key element of the military’s 

relationship to society. The building of societal trust in the Army, and 

particularly the officer corps, was essential because of the wide-spread and 

significant skepticism in American society that professional armies were 
24

compatible with republican liberty. Drawing upon both classical Whig 

thought and the American pre-Revolutionary experience with British 

Regulars enforcing curbs on colonial freedom, there was consensus across 

American society that large European-style professional armies were 

antithetical to American ideological, political, and social values.5

President George Washington, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and the 

senior military leaders of the new nation understood the critical need to 

build a military that met both the military and political requirements of 

the young republic. These leaders turned to a twofold strategy to fashion 

an effective and trustworthy force. First, the state militias, and not fulltime regular forces, were placed at the very heart of the nation’s defense 

establishment.6

 Terming the militia the “great bulwark of our liberties and 

independence,” Washington rejected a large standing Army as too costly 

in both financial and ideological terms.7 This prefigured the language used 

by Knox and Washington in their 1790 proposal for the organization and 

training of the state militias, arguing, “an energetic national militia is to be 

regarded as the capital security of a free Republic and not a standing army, 

forming a distinct class in the community.”8

 Finally, such language was 

consistent with Washington’s warning in his presidential farewell address 

to “avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, 

under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty and which are 

to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.”9

 Accepting 

the centrality of militia to the nation’s defense, Washington and Knox 

fought hard to transform the often fickle and undisciplined militia of their 

Revolutionary War and post-war experience into a more reliable force 

overseen by federal inspectors with nationally standardized organizations, 

equipment, and training.10 Largely unsuccessful in this effort due to 

financial constraints and jealousy of federal oversight over state militias, 

some reforms were incorporated into the Militia Law passed in 1792, 

which provided the framework for militia involvement with the Army for 

the next century.11

The second element of the Washington administration’s twofold 

effort to build an effective military that was compatible with republican 

ideology, was the building of a small regular Army led by a professional 

corps of officer deemed acceptable by the American people through an 

unquestionably trustworthy performance. It is this effort that is the focus 

of this study, for it was primarily in the small officer corps of the nation’s 

early federal Army that the nature of military professionalism is observable. 

The fundamental vehicle by which the Army’s leadership sought to 

build societal trust in the Army was an emphasis on civil-military relations 
25

characterized by military subordination to civil authority. Central to this 

deferential attitude was the respect of the officer corps for the service, 

stature, and example of the first president. Gordon Wood persuasively 

argues that Washington’s example selflessly subordinating himself and his 

immediate position to the greater good of American society was of great 

power and was, in fact, the most important legacy ever left by an American 

leader.12 All of the general officers, nearly all of the field grade officers, 

and some of the junior officers holding such rank in the 1790s during 

the Washington administration were Revolutionary War veterans and 

therefore close witnesses of Washington’s most striking examples of the 

subordination of self and Army to the greater good of the new republic.13

These included his consistent deference to Congressional authority during 

the Revolution, his voluntary resignation at the conclusion of the war, 

and his strong refusal during the 1783 Newburgh incident to endanger the 

principle of military subordination by permitting the Army to subvert civil 

government.14

Washington’s influence on the officer corps, including his shaping of 

their acceptance of military subordination, is indicated by the tremendous 

affection and respect which pours forth from the letters, journals, and other 

papers of the officer corps during the early to mid-1790s. In an age of strong 

opinions and differences among officers, there is a rare near unanimity of 

thought concerning the Army’s commander in chief. Representative of this 

is Major General Anthony Wayne’s recurring allusion to Washington as 

“that great and good man” whose approbation “has been my constant study 

and highest ambition,” his 1795 confidence in the midst of political strife 

that “our Great and virtuous President will once more save this country 

from ruin,” and his 1796 praise of Washington’s “wisdom and patriotism . 

. . for which he is so universally and justly celebrated.”15

The near-universal acceptance of military subordination amidst 

the officer corps during Washington’s presidency is similarly striking, 

especially given the many military frustrations involved in the Northwest 

Indian conflict which dominated the work of the American Army during 

Washington’s presidency. Aside from a few anomalous examples, both the 

official and private papers from Army leaders and officers attest to the full 

acceptance of the idea that the Army ought to act in selfless accord, in line 

with the guidance given by the president and his civilian aides, indicating the 

Army’s status as a servant of the American people.16 All three commanding 

generals during the Northwest Indian War which include Brevet Brigadier 

General Josiah Harmar, Major General Arthur St. Clair, and Major General 

Anthony Wayne, continually sought administration approval for the 
26

Army’s major actions and each acquiesced with administration guidance to 

delay offensive operations pending the results of peace negotiations with 

hostile Indian tribes despite strident demands from frontier populations 

for aggressive Army action. Civil-military relations in Wayne’s 1792–

1794 campaign are particularly revealing of this dynamic. Having been 

ordered by Washington and Knox to carefully prepare a campaign that 

would avoid the disasters of the previous two efforts, Wayne spent great 

effort in 1792 and 1793 preparing logistical support and forward depots 

in hostile territory to support the Army’s planned offensive maneuvers.17

When Indian leaders engaged in peace negotiations complained of this, 

citing it as evidence of bad faith negotiating, the administration firmly 

directed Wayne to cease all such action in forward areas.18 In response, 

Wayne candidly laid out the consequences of failing to supply these depots 

and strongly urged permission to continue logistical preparations, which 

he saw as necessary for a successful future campaign.19 When he was still 

ordered to desist, Wayne respectfully obeyed, fully accepting the concept 

of civilian control of his Army, asking Knox that “orders may be always 

as explicit as those . . . (and) I pledge you my honor they shall be obeyed 

with equal promptitude if in my power.”20

Fortunately, senior officers’ respect for civilian control over the 

Army during Washington’s administration was coupled with the gradual 

development of a high level of candor and effective communication 

between the civilian leadership and Army leaders. In examining the 

correspondence between these leaders, it is evident that the principle 

of what is today known as mission command, where superiors “trust 

subordinates and empower them to accomplish missions within their 

intent” while subordinates respect superiors’ guidance and “trust superiors 

to give them the freedom to execute intent,” gradually became a reality 

during this period.21

This development came only after significant struggle. In the 1790 

campaign led by General Harmar, the civilian leaders’ responsibility to 

provide strategic direction appeared to be overwhelmed by the crush of 

other business as the nation’s first presidential administration got underway. 

Washington and Knox appear guilty of allowing the newly named governor 

of the Northwest Territory, Governor St. Clair, and General Harmar to 

make operational decisions concerning the use and timing of military 

force against hostile tribes that undermined the administration’s strategic 

goal of peaceful negotiation with potentially hostile Indian tribes.22

Throughout the early 1790s, both Washington and Knox insisted that the 

strategic priority was a negotiated settlement. They argues that, “the best 
27

foundation for peace with the Indians is by establishing just and liberal 

treaties with them” while attempting through diplomacy to cut off British 

efforts to provoke Indian resistance to American demands.23

Unfortunately, both the president and his secretary failed in 1790 to 

ensure that their subordinates in both the territorial government and the 

Army devised a plan supportive of this strategy. Despite Knox’s original 

guidance permitting a very limited strike using at most 400 Soldiers to 

punish a much targeted group of “banditti” for their raids on frontier 

settlements, St. Clair and Harmar cajoled a reluctant administration into 

authorizing a far larger and more general mission using a combined Army 

and a militia force of 1,500 Soldiers.24 That Washington and Knox allowed 

“the mantle of deciding war or peace in the Northwest” to fall on Harmar 

indicates the administration’s irresponsibility in allowing a gap between 

tactical means and strategic ends.25 Predictably, given this disconnect as 

well as organizational, training, and leadership deficiencies, the Harmarled expedition of 1790 ended in military defeat at the hands of the Miami 

Chief Little Turtle and his confederation of British-supported tribes. Thus, 

a campaign mounted to deter Indian aggression resulted instead in a far 

more confident and belligerent confederation of hostile tribes, bent on 

obstructing further white encroachment on their claimed territory.26

Having replaced Harmar with the newly minted Major General Arthur 

St. Clair, the Washington administration learned from the 1790 error of its 

ways, providing St. Clair direction that is far more concrete and attempting 

to better synchronize military and diplomatic efforts. A comparison of the 

guidance given to Harmar in 1790 and St. Clair in 1791 is evidence of 

the administration “finally assuming control over its army and all military 

operations, an elementary procedure that was crucial in the creation of 

the American military establishment.”27 However, a thorough look at the 

correspondence between Washington, Knox and St. Clair also reveals a 

level of inflexibility and one-way communication, as the administration 

provided firm guidance but neither sought nor particularly welcomed St. 

Clair’s cautions that the Army suffered from a lack of training, organization, 

and logistical readiness for an offensive. The administration’s systematic 

and firm guidance on the requirement to build a chain of forts along the 

intended axis of advance, on the application of force and especially on the 

timing of the offensive indicated a lack of trust in St. Clair’s generalship 

and limited his flexibility and initiative.28

In the aftermath of his disastrous defeat by allied tribes again led by 

Little Turtle and supported by British and Canadian advisors, St. Clair, in 

that the administration’s failure to empower him to use his judgment to 
28

determine the timing and details of the offensive, was partially responsible 

for the defeat. This seems somewhat self-serving in light of the many errors 

in judgment made by St. Clair and his subordinates. However, given the 

poor state of training, logistical, and organizational readiness of his force 

and the administration’s determination to execute the campaign before the 

winter of 1791, St. Clair’s complaint of a breakdown in civil-military trust 

seems justified.29

Having swung to opposite extremes during the 1790 and 1791 

campaigns, by 1792 the nation’s civil and military leaders developed 

a generally healthy level of trust characterized by a strikingly high 

degree of candor and respect for each other. Despite the delay in 

communications caused by an up to eight-week turnaround time for 

correspondence, Washington, Knox and their new commander, Major 

General Anthony Wayne, managed to synchronize strategic and tactical 

ends, ways, and means remarkably well. The free flow of information 

and respectful seeking and giving of advice, especially when compared 

to previous civil-military communication, is immediately apparent in the 

correspondence between these leaders. Washington and Knox focused on 

synchronizing strategy and military operations, firmly ordering Wayne 

to delay offensive operations throughout late 1792 and 1793 in order 

to allow peace negotiations a chance to achieve national goals.30 At the 

same time, the administration focused diplomatic efforts in London on 

splitting the heretofore tightly-allied British and Indian tribes of the 

Northwest Territory. The administration granted Wayne authorization 

to initiate offensive operations only when American negotiations with 

Indian leadership proved unsuccessful in 1793, and when an emerging 

sense developed that a treaty with Britain was possible, promising British 

vacating disputed forts on the frontier with a corresponding abandonment 

of their Indian allies in America. The synchronization of diplomatic and 

military efforts in 1793 and 1794 indicated an administration capable of 

learning lessons from the immediate past and a military senior leadership 

able to function efficiently in an environment conducive to honest and 

candid civil-military dialogue.31

Firmly establishing the broad strategic outline and nesting diplomatic 

and military operations, the administration entrusted and empowered 

Wayne with “plenary powers” within the confines of this broad guidance, 

noting that:

general ideas have been heretofore pointed out to you, which the 

Government are desirous of having executed, the practicability 

of which and the means of accomplishment must be left to your 
29

discretion. Your nearer view of the business will enable you to 

discover advantages or disadvantages which cannot be perceived 

at this distance. Your judgment must therefore be confided

in . . .32

Responding eagerly to such empowerment, Wayne provided Knox and 

Washington with frequent and detailed recommendations and reports on 

his Army’s training, readiness, and plans coupled with repeated assertions 

of openness to administration guidance.33 This led to a steadily increasing 

level of candor, trust, and transparency even amidst contentious issues. 

In the aftermath of Wayne’s victory at Fallen Timbers in the fall of 1794, 

the administration’s confidence and trust in Wayne rose to new heights, 

illustrating both the power of success and the current Army doctrinal 

understanding that “cementing trust depends on fulfilling commitments.”34

This trust and confidence between the nation’s top civil and military 

leaders continued in the aftermath of Fallen Timbers, resulting in 

Washington providing broad outlines of his desired strategic direction for 

negotiations with the defeated Indian confederacy and Wayne being given 

a significant degree of discretion as the government’s senior negotiator.35

The resulting Treaty of Greeneville, signed in the fall of 1795, was rapidly 

accepted by the Washington administration and Congress, having achieved 

nearly all of the stated strategic goals of President Washington.36

Closely coupled with the Army’s acceptance of civilian control over the 

military and an emphasis on positive civil-military relations, was a desire 

throughout the 1790s officer corps to show that the Army was worthy of the 

trust of the American people and that skeptics’ concerns about an Army’s 

tendency to infringe upon free citizens were unwarranted. In constant 

battle with political foes to maintain both a reliable militia improved by 

federal oversight and a small and permanent Army, Washington and Knox 

consistently emphasized the need for the Army to act in such a way as to 

engender trust by the people. It was especially important in this regard 

to prove to Americans that the Army served society and thus reflected 

the requirements and needs of society. Thus, in 1792, Knox reminded 

Brigadier General James Wilkinson of the difficulty in establishing even a 

small permanent Army in the United States, noting that in order to mollify 

republican suspicion that “the seeds of a standing army (were) designed to 

overturn the liberties of the country,” it was necessary that “the Officers, 

who possess extensive minds must inculcate those principles of economy, 

obedience to orders, habitual vigilance and sobriety and good morals, 

so essential to perfect discipline and a dignified military reputation 

subservient to the Laws.”37 With rare exceptions, the young officer corps 
30

during Washington’s presidency understood this and fought hard to 

establish a “good reputation” for the Army among the American people.38

This determination is evident in representative actions like that of 

Captain and Revolutionary War veteran Samuel Newman. Marching his 

newly formed company west to join the 1791 campaign, the company 

commander reminded his troops that: 

It is at all times necessary to the Honour, Comfort, and 

happiness of a Soldier, to conduct himself with decency and good 

order . . . Any Soldier who may so far forget he is at all times 

amenable to the Civil Authority, as to wantonly abuse or ill-treat 

any of the inhabitants of the United States, or is so lost to the 

Character of a Soldier as to disgrace this detachment by plundering, 

or Stealing even the smallest article from the Good People of the 

Country, may depend on being immediately punished on the Spot 

and that too in a severe and exemplary Manner.39

Several weeks later, as his company approached the town of Lancaster, 

Pennsylvania, Newman ordered his company to halt and to “prepare Clean 

Shirts, Jackets and Overalls, and to Reserve some of their flour (to powder 

their hair), that our entrance into the Town may be respectable.”40

Newman’s concern for the Army’s reputation and for happy relations 

between the military and civilians was characteristic of many officers. 

Garrison orderly books from frontier posts are full of commanders’ efforts 

to limit the impact on civilian communities of disorderly Soldiers’ actions.41

For instance, while serving as commandants at Fort Knox, both Lieutenant 

Colonel John Francis Hamtramck and Captain Thomas Pasteur ordered 

and enforced curfews in an attempt to limit complaints from citizens from 

the nearby town of Vincennes along the Wabash River. When that failed, 

Pasteur ordered “that the North side of the Street, running East and West 

by Mrs. Busrones’ house to be the limited line between the Garrison and 

Village, and any Soldier found in any part of the Said Street, or to the South 

of it, without regular permission, will be deemed Guilty of disobedience of 

orders, and punished accordingly.”42 Later, Pasteur ordered 100 lashes and 

reduction in rank for a sergeant who endeavored “to defame the Character 

of a Young Lady of the Village and for behaving in a seditious manner.”43

That such punishments continued indicate both the challenge of reining in 

unruly Soldiers and the officers’ commitment to building and preserving 

civilian trust of the Army.

Leaders in the officer corps addressed the perception of Army 

encroachment on civilian prerogatives very cautiously. Serving as both 

Northwest Territory Governor and commanding general, St. Clair showed 
31

the officer corps’ reluctance to impinge on the territory of civilian authority, 

stating in the aftermath of a local controversy regarding the use of the Army 

to enforce civil law and to punish infractions that “it is not the business of a 

military servant of the sovereign authority to take cognizance of breaches 

of the law, neither has he anything to do with the confinement or release of 

such persons as may offend therein.”44 Similarly, Anthony Wayne arrived 

at Fort Pitt in 1792 as the Army’s new commander and quickly assured the 

civilian population of western Pennsylvania that he had neither mandate 

nor intent to involve the Army in enforcing civilian law, especially the 

contentious tax on whiskey production. Wayne, with no demurral from the 

Washington administration, insisted that his Army would not enforce tax 

collection “for his task was to protect the people and not oppress them.”45

One wonders if the administration appreciated Wayne’s choice of words, 

but it did recognize the threat to civil-military trust posed by the Army’s 

potential involvement in an internal political matter, choosing to instead 

use the militia to handle the politically sensitive task of quelling the 1794 

Whiskey Rebellion.46

One final example is also representative of the officer corps’ struggle 

to establish a workable and trustworthy relationship with civilian 

communities. While commanding the garrison at Fort Washington outside 

the growing town of Cincinnati, General Wilkinson grew concerned about 

deteriorating local civil-military relations and restricted Soldiers without 

permission from the town, on pain of immediate punishment. In May 

1792, newly arrived Lieutenant William Henry Harrison and a squad of 

Soldiers were ordered to conduct a patrol to enforce Wilkinson’s restriction 

and found two artisans (civilian employees of the Army) in town, one of 

whom was very drunk. Harrison ordered the inebriated artisan whipped 

on the spot, despite the artisan’s protest that he was not subject to military 

justice. When the other artisan tried to intervene, Harrison ordered him 

whipped also. The punished artisans accused Harrison of assault and town 

authorities issued a warrant for Harrison’s arrest. Desiring to protect a 

young officer making a seemingly honest mistake in confusing Soldiers 

and civilian employees, Wilkinson lightly reprimanded Harrison but 

refused entry to the fort for local authorities bent on arresting Harrison. 

At the same time, Wilkinson understood the need to placate the frustrated 

civilian authorities and thus clarified his order, exempting civilian 

employees both from his order and from the application of military justice. 

When this failed to appease the local judge and sheriff who promised to 

arrest Harrison the moment he entered Cincinnati, Wilkinson craftily sent 

Harrison to Philadelphia, to escort Wilkinson’s wife in her travels there 
32

and as courier carrying papers to the War Department. This seemed to 

solve the issue. When the lieutenant returned to Fort Washington during 

preparations for the 1794 campaign, local authorities no longer sought his 

apprehension.47

By 1794, it is clear that the young republic’s leaders had established 

generally positive and professional civil-military relations concerning the 

shared pursuit of national and military missions and the Army’s selfless 

commitment to “putting the nation first, above all other considerations.”48

Other aspects of the civil-military relationship however, were neither so 

positive nor so encouraging to the development of a professional officer 

corps. Specifically, political and financial tensions within the nation led 

to a significant lack of stability within the Army and particularly in the 

officer corps. This instability greatly impeded the development of trust 

among officers that the country valued professional military officership. 

Emerging partisanship and political party development, continuing 

skepticism about the compatibility of a professional officer corps leading 

a standing Army, and the continuing financial weakness of the young 

nation resulted in recurring efforts in Congress to weaken the regular 

Army. Wayne’s admonition to Knox regarding this situation was ominous, 

warning in early 1793 that Congressional attempts to decrease the size of 

the Army and the officer corps resulted in officers perceiving “that they 

hold their Commissions on a very precarious tenor,” which “has had a very 

visible and injurious effect upon the minds of the Officers, many of whom 

have already resigned and others are determined to follow their example, 

and therefore feel neither interest or pride in the discipline or appearance 

of their men.”49

While significant force structure cuts were largely avoided during 

Washington’s presidency, recurring attempts by Congress to reduce the 

Army took a serious toll on the Army officer corps. In particular, these 

attempts undermined the officers’ trust that Congress and the American 

people understood what The Army refers to as the need among Soldiers for 

society to remember the sacrifice of Soldiers, “with respect and appreciation 

for having done their duty.”50 The damaging impact of instability and 

the related perceived lack of societal appreciation introduced a hint of 

resentment into the officer corps.51 Harmar, writing sarcastically to Major 

Hamtramck in 1789, reminded his subordinate and Fort Knox Commander 

to adhere to the requirement to send detailed rosters four times a year as 

“these frequent musters will serve to refresh the memory of government, 

and to let them know that they have a regiment upon the frontiers.”52 In 

late 1795, Lieutenant William Clark complained to his brother “the army 
33

has become disagreeable to me and could I get into any business in a 

civil capacity I would bid adieu to this unthankful unpolish’d service.”53

The timing of this assertion, made at the height of political attempts 

to cut the size and influence of the regular Army, and the reference to 

a lack of thanks for his service makes it likely that Clark resented the 

instability of the young Army. Similarly, Lieutenant William H. Harrison 

was dismayed by rumors in 1796 that the Army officer corps would be 

cut in half and angrily submitted his letter of resignation, explaining that 

“the very illiberal treatment which I have met with from the government 

has determined me to abandon the profession of arms entirely in a short 

time.”54 Wayne managed to deter the promising and well-connected captain 

from immediate resignation but Harrison began searching for alternate 

opportunities and when the position of Northwest Territory Secretary 

opened, Harrison resigned his commission and took up his new station.55

Such feelings of resentment were tempered in the 1790s by periods 

of strong societal appreciation for the Army. Unsurprisingly, this was 

especially true in moments when communities perceived an urgent need 

for protection from threats or in the aftermath of victory. Thus in 1793, 

with frontier settlements dismayed by two unsuccessful campaigns and 

suffering increasing Indian raids, Army officers remarked with great 

satisfaction the boisterous welcome by citizens of Cincinnati when the 

Legion arrived to begin offensive operations against hostile tribes. 

Similarly, Philadelphia society welcomed Anthony Wayne and his officers 

home from the successful Fallen Timbers campaign with honorary cavalry 

escorts, artillery salutes, parades, and multiple dinners in honor of Wayne 

and his victorious Army.56

The next discussion regarding trust and professionalism in The Army

involves trust between Soldiers. The tendency for the characteristics 

of professionalism to overlap in the Army’s current doctrine on 

professionalism is especially pronounced here, as the importance of trust 

between Soldiers is emphasized in both the sections on trust and on esprit. 

This thesis discusses such trust in the later chapter on esprit, as it seems to 

better fit the doctrinal emphasis on the intimate connection between esprit, 

cohesion, teamwork and trust within the Army.57

The final element of trust as described in The Army, involves the 

relationship between Soldiers and their families with the Army. It is in 

this area that, by current standards, the Army of the 1790s failed most 

decisively. There was neither the political will nor the financial resources 

to consistently provide a supportive environment that enhanced “familial 

strength and resilience.58 The intensity of the 1780s opposition to the 
34

granting of promised half-pay to Revolutionary War officers is indicative 

of society’s unease with the idea of wholeheartedly endorsing the modern 

concept of military professionals trading expertise and service for financial 

and societal benefits. Neither society, government, nor the institutional 

Army was necessarily uncaring about family needs as efforts were made 

to care for families in difficult situations. In 1794, having experienced 

a significant number of killed or wounded officers, Congress did enact 

half-pay pensions for widows of officers killed in action and a stipend 

for families of disabled veteran officers.59 Discipline was sometimes 

enforced against Soldiers who failed to support their families, with Wayne 

directing that payment and rations of Soldiers not in compliance with this 

requirement go directly to their dependents.60

Aside from cases involving catastrophic loss or disability, the basic 

idea of a family covenant as understood in current doctrine concerning 

families and trust was relatively unfamiliar. This was not unique to the 

Army; late eighteenth century American society appears not to have 

consistently recognized modern day expectations for an environment 

especially supportive of family cohesion and resilience. 

In conclusion, during the early 1790s, the Washington administration 

developed a holistic approach to the nation’s defense establishment which 

attempted to meet both the political and military needs of the young 

republic. The president and his aides, with only partial success, sought 

to form a strong and reliable militia reformed by federal oversight and 

standardized organization, equipment, and training. Simultaneous with 

this effort, Washington and Knox, in coordination with the Army’s senior 

leaders, attempted to build a small and permanent force led by professional 

officers committed to selflessly serving the nation and earning the trust of 

an American society prone to view military professionalism with some 

degree of skepticism. In the course of the development of this latter 

force, the Army’s commanding officers developed strong civil-military 

relationships with the executive branch, characterized in 1792 by a full 

acceptance of the notion of military subordination to civil authority, by 

vigorous and productive interplay and dialogue between senior civilmilitary leaders, and by a determination among Army officers to earn 

civilian society’s respect and trust. At the same time, the officer corps 

struggled with building trusting relationships internal to the officer corps. 

This is examined at length in a later chapter. Finally, neither the political 

nor the military leadership of the 1790s military could reasonably be 

expected to transcend the age and focus on a modern and covenantal-type 

trust between serving families and the Army.
35

Simultaneous to the struggle to build trusting relationships as 

professional officers, the Army officer corps of the early 1790s sought to 

foster the development of military expertise which is the subject of the 

next chapter. The integration of trust with military expertise was at the 

heart of the challenge to develop a professional American officer corps.
36

Notes

1. This summary is drawn from Headquarters, Department of the Army, 

ADP 1, ch. 2; Headquarters, Department of the Army, Whitepaper - Our Army 

Profession (Draft) (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 24 March 

2012), 3; training support literature in Headquarters, Army Training and 

Doctrine Command, America’s Army, 9.

2. Headquarters, Department of the Army, ADP 1, sect. 2-1.

3. Headquarters, Department of the Army, ADP 1, sect. 2-2.

4. ADP 1, sect. 2-7.

5. The two most insightful and balanced descriptions of the influence 

of classical Whig thought concerning the troubled relationship between 

republicanism and professional militaries and American responses to this tension 

are Lawrence D. Cress, Citizens in Arms: The Army and the Militia in American 

Society to the War of 1812 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 

1982) and Don Higginbotham, George Washington and the American Military 

Tradition (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1985).

6. Influential historical works like the posthumous Upton, The Military 

Policy of the United States and Kohn, Eagle and Sword argue that Washington 

and Knox sought to build as large a permanent force as politically possible 

but historians like Cress and Higginbotham (see footnote five above) better 

understand that while President Washington and aides like Knox certainly fought 

for a permanent force to counter threats to the frontier and seaboard and wanted 

a professional establishment, their desired regular force was always strictly 

limited, especially compared to the militia.

7. Washington, “Sentiments on a Peace Establishment,” published in May 

1783 after a request for his views on the Confederation’s military need, shows 

an early consistency to his presidential acceptance of the militia as the primary 

mechanism for national defense.

8. Knox’s Militia Act of 1790 proposal, approved by Washington and sent 

to Congress. United States, American State Papers, Military Affairs, 7.

9. George Washington, “Farewell Address,” The George Washington 

Papers, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 26 

September 1796, http://gwpapers.virginia.edu (accessed 7 May 2013).

10. This is what both Washington’s plan, expressed in his “Sentiments 

on a Peace Establishment,” and the administration’s 1790 Militia Act proposal 

advocated.

11. Especially helpful in describing administration attempts to establish a 

more stable and better organized and trained militia are Kohn, Eagle and Sword

and Ward, The Department of War.

12. Gordon S. Wood makes this argument in the essay “The Greatness 

of George Washington,” in Don Higginbotham, ed., George Washington 

Reconsidered (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2001), 309-324.
37

13. The primary source for biographical data on officers in the 1790s is 

Heitman.

14. Higginbotham, George Washington and the American Military 

Tradition, 69-105.

15. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 7 May 1794, 322; Knopf, 

Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Secretary of War Thomas Pickering, 9 August 

1795, 442; and Paul D. Nelson, Anthony Wayne: Soldier of the Early Republic

(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), Wayne to Major William 

Winston, 5 September 1796, 297. In addition, respect for Washington is evident 

in the annual boisterous celebrations at multiple frontier posts of the president’s 

birthday in Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 22 February 1793, 192.

16. Specific examples are cited in the following text of this thesis and 

analogous footnotes, but correspondence between the War Department and all 

three of the commanders of the Army during this period – Harmar, St. Clair 

and Wayne – reveal the full acceptance of military deference to executive 

office strategic guidance. The one glaring example of a kind of military 

insubordination from senior Army leaders was the conduct of Brigadier General 

James Wilkinson. His case and influence is discussed later in this thesis but his 

treasonous actions as a secret Spanish agent while serving as the second ranking 

regular Army general under Wayne were not conducive to the establishment of 

healthy civil-military relations, but were an anomaly in the general pattern.

17. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 27 May 1793, 242.

18. Knopf, Knox to Wayne, 20 July 1793, 256-257.

19. Knopf., Wayne to Knox, 27 April 1793, 228-230.

20. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 8 August 1793, 265.

21. This description of mission command comes from the Headquarters, 

Department of the Army, Whitepaper - Our Army Profession, 5.

22. Primary source evidence found in correspondence between Harmar, 

St. Clair, Knox and Washington supports Richard Kohn’s claim that in 1790 

“military strategy now controlled the Indian policy which it was supposed to 

serve.” Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 104.

23. Thornbrough, Outpost on the Wabash, Knox to Harmar, 19 December 

1889, 211.

24. United States, American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Knox to Harmar, 

24 August 1790, 99; and William Smith, St. Clair Papers, Knox to St. Clair, 23 

August 1790, 162.

25. Ward, The Department of War, 107.

26. Sword, President Washington’s Indian War provides a good overview 

of Harmar’s campaign and the negative results.

27. Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 111.
38

28. William Smith, St. Clair Papers, Knox to St. Clair, 25 August 1791, 

232.

29. These claims were made during the Congressional inquiry into the 

defeat and published in United States, American State Papers, Military Affairs, 

36-39, as well as in Arthur St. Clair, A Narrative of the Manner in Which the 

Campaign Against the Indians, in the Year One Thousand, Seven Hundred and 

Ninety one, Was Conducted, Under the Command of Major-General St. Clair

(Philadelphia, PA: Jane Aitken, 1812).

30. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Knox to Wayne, 20 July 1793, 256-257.

31. Sword, President Washington’s Indian War, and Kohn, Eagle and Sword

are persuasive that the Washington administration and senior Army leaders 

greatly improved their performance between 1789 and 1794, synchronizing 

elements of national power and diplomacy to achieve strategic goals. 

32. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Knox to Wayne, 17 May 1793, 239.

33. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, 27 April 1793, 230.

34. Headquarters, Department of the Army, Whitepaper - Our Army 

Profession, 5.

35. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, 8 April 1795, 393-407.

36. Knopf., Pickering to Wayne, 3 October 1795, 462-463.

37. Ward, The Department of War, Knox to Wilkinson, 17 July 1792, 147.

38. This was a difficult mission, for the enlisted Soldiers of the 1790s 

Army were often quite disorderly with a great affection for alcohol, as is quickly 

evident in an examination of the period’s order and garrison book. The tendency 

toward disorder among 1790s Soldiers is also well-documented in James Ripley 

Jacobs, The Beginning of the US Army, 1783-1812 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton 

University Press, 1947) and Coffman, The Old Army.

39. Samuel Newman, “A Picture of the First United States Army: The 

Journal of Captain Samuel Newman,” ed. Milo M. Quaife, Wisconsin Magazine 

of History 2 (September 1918): journal entry of 31 July 1791, 44. Newman was 

later killed in the campaign.

40. Newman, Journal entry of 3 August 1791, 46.

41. Especially valuable for providing insight into civil-military relations in 

garrison environments are Newman; Richard C. Knopf, ed., A Surgeon’s Mate 

at Fort Defiance: The Journal of Joseph Gardner Andrews for the Year 1795

(Columbus, OH: Ohio Historical Society, 1957); and Consul W butterfield, 

ed., Journal of Capt. Jonathan Heart on the March with His Company from 

Connecticut to Fort Pitt, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from the Seventh of 

September, to the Twelfth of October, 1785 (Albany, NY: J. Munsell’s Sons, 

1885).

42. Newman, 31 December 1795 entry, 157.
39

43. Newman., 19 April 1796 entry, 162.

44. Smith, St. Clair Papers, St. Clair to Judge Turner, 19 June 1791, 218.

45. Nelson, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 15 June 1792, 228.

46. Washington insisted on the need for a very sensitive approach to this 

revolt, carefully selecting militia units considered to be both reliable and less 

inflammatory to the rebels, while at the same time ordering officers commanding 

the militia marching to western Pennsylvania to quiet the revolt to operate with 

a light and disciplined hand in order to limit civilian harm or local outrage. See 

for instance, George Washington, “Washington’s Guidance to General Henry 

Lee,” George Washington Papers, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, 

Charlottesville, VA, 20 October 1794, http://rotunda.

upress.virginia.edu/founders/GEWN (accessed 7 May 2013). This again 

indicates Washington’s constant desire to build civilian trust not just of the 

regular Army but also of militia forces. 

47. This incident is most fully described in a biography of the young 

William Henry Harrison in Hendrik Booraem, A Child of the Revolution: 

William Henry Harrison and His World, 1773-1798 (Kent, OH: Kent State 

University Press, 2012), 94-96.

48. Headquarters, Department of the Army, Whitepaper - Our Army 

Profession, 2. 

49. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 15 January 1793, 171.

50. Headquarters, Department of the Army, ADP 1, sect. 2-7.

51. This limited but real sense of estrangement was not new to the early 

republic; as Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War (Chapel Hill, NC: 

University of North Carolina Press, 1979) argues convincingly, the Continental 

Army during the Revolutionary War developed a sense of resentment toward 

civilians often seen by the Army as indifferent to the sacrificial service of 

devoted patriot-Soldiers.

52. Thornbrough, Outpost on the Wabash, Harmar to Hamtramck, 15 

February 1789, 155.

53. Landon Y. Jones, William Clark and the Shaping of the West (New 

York, NY: Hill and Wang, 2004), Clark to Jonathon Clark, 25 November 1794, 

81.

54. Booraem, Harrison to Wayne, 11 July 1796, 163.

55. Booraem, 164-165. 

56. Wayne and his fellow officers’ homecoming is described in Nelson, 

Anthony Wayne, 240, 287-288.

57. Headquarters, Department of the Army, ADP 1, sect. 2-23.

58. ADP 1, sect. 2-25. 
40

59. Coffman, Old Army, 37-38.

60. Knopf, Orderly Books of the United States Legion, 43.
41

Chapter 4

Military Professionalism and Military Expertise in the Early 

American Army Officer Corps, 1789 – 1796

Following The Army’s description of trust and its relationship to 

military professionalism, the capstone manual turns to the principle of 

military expertise, which it defines as the employment of “a high level of 

skill in applying knowledge in actual situations.”1

Professionalism, according to this 2012 doctrine, requires knowledge 

gained and maintained across four broad fields. Military-technical 

knowledge involves a doctrinal understanding of the Army’s use of 

landpower, including the organization of units, the planning and execution 

of operations, and the use and adaptation of technology. Moral-ethical 

knowledge provides an awareness of the relationship between military 

force and moral, ethical and legal concerns. Political-cultural understanding 

discerns the interplay between effective operations of Soldiers and units in 

relation to the larger society, including both foreign and domestic groups 

and institutions. Finally, leader development and knowledge are intimately 

linked, with ongoing education ensuring that military professionals possess 

the unique knowledge required to provide dynamic leadership in a military 

environment.2 The application of knowledge is most effectively done in 

an environment emphasizing the concept of mission command, in which 

“competent leaders apply their expertise to the situation as it exists on the 

ground and accomplish the mission based on their commander’s intent.”3

This chapter considers the nature of the expertise of the early American 

officer corps in light of these general themes concerning professionalism. 

First, this chapter examines the nature of the development of military 

knowledge in the officer corps, including a look at both the type of 

knowledge sought and the manner knowledge was imparted. Second, it 

turns to a discussion of the way in which military knowledge was applied 

with a focus on the three critical actions involving the American Army 

during this time period, those of the 1790, 1791, and the 1792-1794 

campaigns against hostile tribes north of the Ohio River.

The lack of any formal system of military education is one of the 

striking characteristics of the American Army during its formative years. 

In the 1790s, officers received no formal schooling either prior to or after 

commissioning. The experience of new officers like Ensign William 

Henry Harrison is representative of the lack of any formal education in the 

1790s Army. The 18-year-old Harrison sought and earned a commission 

in August 1791 without any previous exposure to the military, aided by 
42

his family connections and the influence of Governor Richard Henry 

Lee, a confidante of Washington.4 The lack of any preparation must 

have been at least slightly jarring to Harrison, as he later wrote that after 

requesting his commission through Lee, “in twenty four hours . . . I was 

an ensign in the 1st U. S. Regt of Infantry.”5

 Harrison, like nearly all other 

newly commissioned officers, received no officer training but undertook 

recruiting duty immediately after commissioning.6

The lack of any institutional forum for leader education was not a result 

of any dismissal of the importance of military knowledge by Army leaders 

themselves. Senior leaders like President Washington and Secretary Knox 

had a long record appreciating the value of formal military schooling for 

officers. During the Revolution, Knox spearheaded the 1778 establishment 

of a winter-camp academy at Pluckemin, New Jersey for artillery officers, 

which in addition to artillery-focused topics, taught “battle tactics and 

logistics, military principles, the considerations a commander had to 

make before engaging the enemy, (and) the common errors and traps that 

officers fell into on the battlefield.”7

 Washington insisted again and again 

in the post-Revolution period on the need for formal military schooling, 

culminating with his urge in a farewell address to Congress in 1796 that 

the “art of war is at once comprehensive and complicated, that it demands 

much previous study, and that the possession of it in its most improved 

and perfect state is always of great moment to the security of a nation. 

This, therefore, ought to be a serious care of every government, and for 

this purpose an academy where a regular course of instruction is given is 

an obvious expedient . . .”8

Washington’s sense of the value of formal schooling for young 

officers is evident in his acquiescing to Senator Ralph Izard’s request 

for a commission for his son George Izard in 1794 and the president’s 

advice that the best way to prepare the 18-year-old for military service was 

to “send him to France and place him in a school of engineers” at Metz 

commonly attended by French military officers.9

 Thus, on the advice of 

Washington (though through the financial support of his family), between 

1795 and 1797, Lieutenant Izard studied alongside French officers, likely 

the first newly commissioned American officer in the new republic to 

receive formal military education.10

In 1795, Washington and Knox established a school at West Point 

for the military education of officers assigned to the Army’s Corps of 

Artillerists and Engineers, newly formed in 1794. Three French officers 

- Lieutenant Colonel and Commandant Stephen Rochefontaine, Major J. 

Ulrich Rivardi, and Major Louis Tousard – were commissioned to establish 
43

and teach officers the basics of artillery and military engineering. While 

some education took place, personal rivalry among the French officers, 

resistance to the foreign instructors, lack of financial support spurred by 

continued Congressional ideological opposition, and the need for officers 

to garrison frontier posts vacated by the British, led to the end of the shortlived school at West Point by 1797.11

Appreciation for the importance of formal military schooling was 

not limited to civilian Army leadership. The example of Henry Burbeck 

illustrates this point. A veteran of the Revolutionary War during which 

he served as an officer in Knox’s Artillery, Captain Burbeck rejoined the 

Army in 1786 and served as the commander of the West Point garrison 

from 1787 to 1789. During his command, he unsuccessfully urged the 

government to immediately create a military academy at West Point. 

Following service on the southwest frontier, Major Burbeck led Wayne’s 

artillery in the Fallen Timbers campaign from 1792 to 1794, followed by 

command of Fort Mackinac on the Great Lakes from 1796 to 1799.12

It is obvious that Lieutenant Colonel Burbeck continued his earlier 

interest in military schooling for in 1800, newly promoted to the command 

of the Army’s corps of artillery and engineers, he submitted a proposal 

to Secretary of War Samuel Dexter, outlining his recommendation for 

a “Military School, for instructing the arts of gunnery, fortifications, 

pyrotechny, and everything relative to the art of war.”13 In 1801, 

temporarily unsuccessful in this attempt, Burbeck outlined his plan to his 

long-time friend and fellow Revolutionary veteran, the new Secretary of 

War Henry Dearborn. With the approval of a modified plan for the creation 

of an academy at West Point, Colonel Burbeck, now commandant of 

the re-organized Army’s regiment of artillery, continued to play a vital 

role in its establishment, directing operations through subordinates like 

Lieutenant Colonel Tousard and Major Jonathon Williams. In the eyes of 

one scholar, Burbeck “may justly be regarded as the founder of the United 

States Military Academy.”14 While an overstatement, such claims do show 

Burbeck’s commitment to the vision of Washington and Knox and reveal 

that an understanding of the need for formal military education developed 

within the officer corps and ultimately supported the creation of the United 

States Military Academy at West Point in 1802.

While leaders like Washington, Knox, and Burbeck thus clearly valued 

formal military education, financial weaknesses and ideological concerns 

prevented any such significant development until the next decade. Some 

influential scholars like Samuel Huntington and Alan Millett draw upon 

this fact in arguing that military professionalism in the American Army 
44

only developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century, as educational 

institutions like West Point and the School of Application for Infantry 

and Cavalry at Fort Leavenworth (forerunner to today’s Command and 

General Staff College) increasingly focused military professionals on the 

theory of war.15 But these scholars fail to recognize that leaders of the early 

Army possessed other means by which the desired and necessary military 

knowledge could be developed. The two primary means utilized by the 

early officer corps to develop knowledge were self-development through 

reading and by leveraging military experience. This mirrored conventional 

eighteenth century patterns of skilled vocational development, which relied 

on individual study often coupled with an apprentice type experience or on 

the job training.16

The existence and use of Frederick William Baron Von Steuben’s 

Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United 

States, popularly known as the Blue Book because of the blue material 

with which it was commonly bound, was critical to the development of 

standardized military knowledge among officers. Originally published at 

the request of Washington and approved by Congress in 1779, this manual 

is often mistaken for a simple manual of drill but it was far more. Divided 

into 25 chapters, the regulation contains eight chapters focused on drill, 

seven chapters on platoon, company, battalion, and regimental offensive 

and defensive maneuvers as well as the use of artillery and cavalry, six 

chapters on camp discipline and order, and ends with four chapters on 

specific leader responsibilities, ranging from the regimental commander 

down to the newly minted ensign.17 Heavily focused on officer duties, 

the regulation included practical guidance like a detailed description of 

overseeing sentry operations as well as more general counsel. For instance, 

the manual directed that the company commander must “pay the greatest 

attention to the health of his men, their discipline, arms, accoutrements, 

ammunition, clothes and necessaries.”18

In an Army officer corps devoid of any formal educational system, the 

Blue Book was relied upon heavily by Army leaders; as Walter Kretchik 

convincingly argues, it became the Army’s foundational doctrine for the 

1790s officer corps.19 Brevet Brigadier General Josiah Harmar carried his 

own copy throughout his 1790 campaign, while consistently directing 

his officers’ attention to Steuben’s Regulations.20 In 1792, Major General 

Anthony Wayne expressed dismay at the lack of available copies for his 

new officers and asked and received enough copies of the Blue Book 

and the Army’s Articles of War for all of the Army’s officers.21 Wayne’s 

campaign in particular reveals the use of the Regulations to standardize 
45

camp order, discipline, and training.22 Of course, it is difficult to know how 

extensively the available Regulations was used by more junior officers, 

though there are indications that by 1792, younger officers also accepted 

the fundamental importance of the early doctrine. On Christmas day in 

1792, Ensign Hugh Brady performed his first duty as an officer overseeing 

the Army’s picket guard. In his memoirs, Brady wrote of this first duty 

that “I had Baron Steuben’s Tactics, and a good old sergeant, and was 

pretty well prepared to receive the rounds (of more senior officers) when 

they approached.”23 Ensign Harrison reported that he spent much of his 

time as a brand new officer studying the Blue Book, in addition to other 

martial literature.24 During the Lewis and Clark expedition the following 

decade, Captain William Clark and Captain Meriwether Lewis employed 

Steuben’s directions in ordering camp life and establishing guards, having 

learning these guiding principles during their service as junior officers 

under Wayne in the mid-1790s.25

Washington and Knox, by personal example and in their direction to 

subordinates, emphasized the importance of self-development through 

further individual military reading. Washington was convinced of the 

importance of such reading for military expertise, consistently urging this 

practice on his officers from the 1750s as a young colonel of Virginia 

forces to his time as commanding general during the Revolution.26 Knox, 

a pre-Revolution owner of a book shop in Boston, was well-known for his 

intensive study on the art and science of war which led in part to his rapid 

rise to command the Army’s artillery in the Revolution.27

All three commanding generals of the Army during Washington’s 

presidency were committed to self-development in military expertise 

through studying military literature. In the late 1780s, General Harmar was 

reported to have studied “European treatises” on regimental operations, 

envisioning his small force as a regiment.28 During his 1790 campaign, he 

referenced the writings of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Bouquet, a successful 

British officer in the French and Indian War, and evidently adjusted his 

plans to accord with Bouquet’s counsel on adapting standard European 

practices to forest warfare.29 General Arthur St. Clair and General James 

Wilkinson shared multiple volumes on military theory and application, 

including Julius Caesar’s Commentaries and Lancelot Turpin de Crisse’s 

Essay on the Art of War.

30 General Wayne, according to his biographer, 

“devoured every piece of martial literature he could lay his hands on,” 

paying special attention to Marshal Maurice Saxe’s Reveries upon the 

Art of War and Caesar’s Gallic Wars.”31 Wayne often referenced these 

favorites in explaining his approach to both leadership and operations, 
46

once writing to Washington that he modeled operations after the example 

of “Caesar at Amiens (and) at Alesia,” and citing the power of surprise 

which “Marshal Saxe Justly Observes proceeds from the Consternation 

which is the Unavoidable effect of Sudden and unexpected Events.”32

It is uncertain how seriously more junior officers reflected the example 

and counsel of the Army’s senior leaders and focused on individual selfdevelopment through reading. A survey of available journals and diaries of 

these officers indicates that at least several availed themselves of military 

histories, theory, and tactics, but in a majority of these primary sources, 

there is no record of such self-study.33

It is clear that senior Army leaders and field grade officers during 

Washington’s presidency possessed a vast amount of military experience, 

which they perceived to be the foundation for military expertise. Along 

with character, Washington and his cabinet considered military experience 

to be of the utmost significance in the selection of the Army’s senior 

leaders. Washington asked St. Clair to take command of the Army in 1791, 

citing the latter’s knowledge of the frontier and his Revolutionary War 

experience as a senior leader. Similarly in 1792, the president selected 

Wayne for command of the Army based on his experience as a commander 

against the British, and due to his acceptability to a wide swath of political 

leaders.34 A brief survey of all three of the Army’s commanding generals 

during Washington’s presidency reveals extensive military experience. 

Pennsylvanian Josiah Harmar, while least prominent of the three 

commanders of the Army during this period, was an experienced veteran. 

Entering the officer corps as a captain in 1775, Harmar rose to the rank 

of lieutenant colonel in the Revolution, seeing action as a regimental 

commander and staff officer in many of the war’s leading campaigns. 

Influenced by Washington’s recommendation and his state’s leading role 

in furnishing troops to the miniscule Army, in 1784 the Confederation 

Congress chose Harmar to command the existing 700-man force. In this 

role, he served as the Army’s senior commander and as a brevet brigadier 

general through the 1790 campaign.35

Arthur St. Clair was an even more experienced veteran. A native of 

Scotland, he served five years as a junior officer in the British Army’s 

Royal American Regiment during the French and Indian War, taking part 

in the 1758 Nova Scotia offensive and in the 1759 battle for Quebec. 

Resigning his commission in 1762, St. Clair settled in Pennsylvania. 

With the outbreak of war in 1775, St. Clair took sides with his adopted 

land and received a commission as colonel. Participating in most of the 
47

major campaigns of the war as a commander of a regiment and later of the 

Pennsylvania Line, he rose to major general by 1783. Leaving the Army 

at the end of the war to serve in senior civil positions culminating in his 

appointment as Governor of the Northwest Territory, St. Clair was called 

back by Washington in 1791 as the Army’s commanding general in the 

aftermath of Harmar’s unsuccessful campaign.36

Anthony Wayne also served throughout the Revolution, joining the 

Continental Army as a lieutenant colonel. Serving as a commander of a 

Pennsylvania regiment, the Continental Corps of Light Infantry, and the 

Pennsylvania Line, Wayne fought in most of the war’s major campaigns 

and ended the war in 1783 as a major general. Washington recalled him 

to active service as a major general, replacing St. Clair after his disastrous 

defeat along the Wabash in 1791. Wayne served as the Army’s senior 

officer from 1792 until his death in late 1796.37

Like their three commanders, the Army’s field grade officers were 

experienced officers. Of 39 field grade officers identified as serving in 

the regular Army between 1789 and 1796, 36 were Revolutionary War 

veterans, most with extensive and lengthy combat service as officers. All 

of the regular officers serving as field grade commanders under Harmar, 

St. Clair, and Wayne possessed significant Revolutionary War experience. 

A significant minority of captains serving from 1789 to 1796 were also 

veterans of the Revolution.38

Junior officers without such combat experience were expected to 

rapidly gain experience by active duty, described by Wayne as a new 

officer’s “Military school.”39 One of the most striking characteristics of 

the acquisition of experience by junior officers during this time is the 

broadness of quickly-earned experiences within the officer corps. This 

indicates several essential elements of the nature of military expertise in 

the early American officer corps. First, military officers were expected 

to possess knowledge and competence in a very wide-ranging number 

of activities including, in addition to combat operations, recruitment 

of Soldiers, diplomacy with tribal leaders, fortification construction, 

exploration, civil government administration in the absence of civil 

institutions, and foreign government liaison. Such a breadth of duties 

clearly indicates a belief among Army leaders that officers required the 

broad military, technical, political, and cultural knowledge referenced 

in current doctrine, as articulated by today’s The Army. Second, officers 

were expected to rapidly gain knowledge and expertise, often being given 

significant levels of responsibility and autonomy in executing critical 

missions. Several representative examples illustrate these characteristics 
48

that were repeated again and again in the experiences of officers between 

1789 and 1796. These examples are framed by a description of Lieutenant 

William Clark’s representative activities as an officer in Wayne’s Legion.

Already a veteran of three punitive militia raids across the Ohio River 

in 1789 and 1791, Clark gained a federal Army commission in early 1792. 

The 21-year-old officer spent the summer near his home in Kentucky, 

seeking to fill his quota of 30 enlisted recruits for Wayne’s newly organized 

Legion. In November of 1792, Clark was ordered to lead a detachment 

carrying military supplies via the Ohio and Wabash Rivers 375 miles from 

Fort Steuben near present day Louisville to Fort Knox, near present day 

Vincennes, Indiana. The rivers having frozen shortly after his arrival at 

Fort Knox, Clark safely led his detachment overland back through territory 

dominated by hostile Indians.40 Junior officers were commonly sent off 

on such long-range expeditions, often through and by hostile territory, to 

supply the far-flung forts that marked the 1790s frontier.41

Once back at Fort Steuben, Clark was directed from Fort Washington 

to the mouth of the Kentucky River to build a small fort for defense of 

river travel and as a depositary for corn for the Army. Responsible for 

selecting the construction site and designing and overseeing his Soldiers’ 

construction of several blockhouses, a storage barn, and a stockade, 

Clark completed the duty in one month.42 Fortification construction was 

a common duty for the young Army and the design and oversight fell to 

the officer corps. The Army constructed Fort Washington in 1790, Fort 

Hamilton and Fort Jefferson in 1791, Fort Greeneville and Fort Recovery 

in 1793, and Fort Defiance and Fort Wayne in 1794, in addition to 

numerous smaller blockhouses along the area’s river network. General St. 

Clair’s detailed description of the construction of Fort Hamilton illustrates 

the amount of design and work required to build such wilderness forts, 

including clearing the ground, building a fifty-yard wide stockade, four 

bastions with platforms for artillery, a guard house, a store house, and a 

barracks each for enlisted men and officers.43 Recognizing the challenge 

such construction offered, Harmar commended the “indefatigable industry 

and attention” of Captain William Ferguson and Lieutenant John Pratt in 

overseeing the 1790 construction of Fort Washington.44

Having completed the construction of the riverside blockhouse in 

the spring of 1793, Lieutenant Clark received summer-time orders from 

Wayne to lead a detachment of 24 men and three armed flatboats filled 

with corn, weapons and other goods from Fort Washington down the Ohio 

and Mississippi Rivers to deliver materials promised by treaty to friendly 

Chickasaw Indians near present day Memphis, Tennessee. Traveling at 
49

night to avoid Spanish posts along the Mississippi that might be tempted 

to seize the valuable cargo, Clark successfully delivered his goods and 

managed to recruit nine Chickasaw scouts for the Legion, returning 

overland along the Natchez Trace.45 This earned Wayne’s attention, noting 

to Knox that Clark “executed his orders . . . with a promptitude & address 

that does him honor & which merits my highest appropriation!”46

In 1795, Clark was again dispatched by barge with a small detachment 

on a diplomatic mission, this time to demand the vacating of a Spanish 

outpost encroaching on the eastern (American) side of the Mississippi 

River at Chickasaw Bluffs. After delivering his message to the Spanish 

commandant, Clark brought his men back overland. En route, he 

demonstrated his hunting prowess by killing 11 bears in one nine-day 

period to supply his small party!47

Such diplomatic missions were commonly directed toward officers 

of the young Army. Missions to potentially hostile Indian tribes were 

especially risky; Major Alexander Trueman bravely volunteered to act as 

an emissary to the Miami tribes in 1792, but demonstrating a stunning 

naivety regarding the Indian threat, was killed by hostile Miami warriors 

after agreeing to tie up his servant at night to demonstrate friendly 

intentions.48 In light of such incidents, knowledge of Indian culture and 

language was especially valued. Junior officers like Captain Ebenezer 

Denny, a student of languages spoken by Delaware and Shawnee tribes, 

were prized and kept close to headquarters, serving as staff officers to the 

commanding general.49

Perhaps no officer was as important to the diplomatic effort on the 

frontier as Major John F. Hamtramck, commander of Fort Knox on the 

Wabash River from 1787 to 1793. A native Canadian who joined the 

American Army in the Revolution to fight the British, Hamtramck’s 

Catholic faith, fluency in French, and overall care for the civilian populace 

endeared him to the largely French-descended people of the area. Illustrating 

such respect, local civilian leaders sent a commendatory letter to the newly 

arrived American civilian leadership in 1790, noting “the just and humane 

attention paid by Major Hamtramck during his whole command” which 

merits the “gratitude and esteem (of) every citizen of Vincennes.”50 Such 

positive relations between the local people and Hamtramck were likely 

indispensable to the relatively smooth transition to American rule in the 

area around 1790. Hamtramck played an important role negotiating with 

tribes along the Wabash, attempting to prevent the Wea, Potawatomie, 

and related tribes from joining an anti-United States coalition coalesced 

around the generally more hostile Miami and Shawnee people. His limited 
50

achievement in this was overshadowed by British success, prior to 1794, 

in fermenting and guiding Indian anger against the growing American 

settler population.51

The breadth of Hamtramck’s duties as an officer is especially striking 

in his involvement in the framing of civil laws, as the only real federal 

official in the area, for the far west frontier until the arrival of territorial 

government officials in 1790. Hamtramck reported to Harmar that he had 

drawn up simple laws and overseen the election of civil officers for the 

Vincennes region around Fort Knox at the request of the townspeople. 

Hamtramck rather ruefully noted to his approving superior “my code of 

laws will make you laugh, but I hope you will consider I am neither a 

lawyer or a legislator. I have done it for the best.”52

Lieutenant Clark executed his final mission during his 1795 expedition 

to the encroaching Spanish fort along the Mississippi, fulfilling Wayne’s 

request for maps and information on the disposition of Spanish posts on 

the Mississippi, distances, and navigational hazards. Wayne, recognizing 

the skill behind the valuable reports and maps, forwarded them to 

Washington.53 Shortly afterwards, Clark resigned his commission to seek 

a greater fortune, but in this final mission again executed a task commonly 

directed to Army officers. 

President Washington and Secretary Knox were ever eager for 

cartographic and navigational information, as well as descriptions of 

activities of Indian tribes and agents and outposts of the British, Spanish, 

and French governments along the frontier. Acting on such orders, Harmar 

sent Ensign Nathan McDowell on an exploration toward Lake Erie, 

directing the young officer to “ascertain the navigation down the Lake, 

estimating as accurately as possible, the distances from remarkable places 

in both waters, noting particularly all obstructions . . . You will continue 

to transmit me all the Indian news which you can gather.”54 Similarly, 

Lieutenant John Armstrong was dispatched in 1789 on a secret mission 

into Spanish-owned land to explore the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. 

Ordered to dress like Indians and to disavow any connection with the 

United States if caught, Armstrong’s small party reached only to the mouth 

of the Missouri River but did provide maps of the Missouri River environs, 

based on French and Spanish maps discovered in St. Louis.55 Army officers 

repeatedly performed such exploring missions, establishing a tradition 

more famously illustrated by Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery and 

Lieutenant Zebulon Pike’s expeditions the following decade.

Clearly, early American officers possessed extensive and broad 
51

experience, whether gained through the Revolution or developed through 

the widely-varied challenges demanded by frontier operations. Experience 

of course, does not guarantee military expertise. In the final analysis, as 

The Army recognizes, expertise is not judged by knowledge or experience 

but by competence, or the application of knowledge and experience. In 

order to characterize the nature of military expertise in the early Army 

officer corps, it is therefore necessary to evaluate the competence of the 

officer corps during the three major campaigns during Washington’s 

administration. The following pages examine officer expertise in several 

of the most critical areas, including an ability to link campaign goals 

with national strategy, an understanding of the operational environment, 

operations and training, intelligence, and logistics. 

The Washington administration’s original strategic plan for the 

frontier focused on setting conditions for continued white settlement free 

from Indian raids, while seeking to eliminate critical British support to 

tribes hostile to the United States. Realizing that both justice and economy 

indicated this was best done by diplomatic means, with both British 

and tribal leaders, Washington and Knox initially tried to limit white 

aggression toward Indian tribes, even using the young Army to destroy 

illegal white settlements north of the Ohio River.56 By 1790, it was clear 

that raids and atrocities by both British-supported Indians and Kentucky 

settlers, required a response by the administration. Knox therefore called 

on Harmar, overseen by Northwest Territory Governor St. Clair, to execute 

a raid focused on punishing tribes guilty of raids along the Ohio River. 

Knox outlined a very limited and relatively small raid of a suggested 

force of 400 men, composed of both regulars and militiamen. Failing to 

understand or appreciate the administration’s wider goal of avoiding larger 

conflict, and urged on by vengeful frontier settlers, St. Clair and Harmar 

planned an expedition of approximately 1,500 men that in size and scope 

went well beyond Knox’s direction for a limited raid. This larger force 

and slow rate of advance northwards inspired greater Indian hostility, the 

exact opposite result intended by the administration. Thus in 1790, both 

St. Clair and Harmar failed to adequately link campaign goals with the 

overall strategy, while Washington and Knox failed to ensure that their 

leaders on the frontier adhered to their overall policy.57

The failure of the 1790 offensive focused the administration’s 

attention on the importance of linking campaign ends with the overall 

strategy. Consequently, Knox’s directives to St. Clair were much more 

direct than those of the previous year. Political fallout over the failure 

of Harmar’s expedition, combined with heightened Indian aggression due 
52

to their victory, forced Washington and Knox to abandon their primarily 

diplomatic focus and urge St. Clair to accomplish a quick and decisive 

victory over the victorious and growing Indian coalition. Over-reacting to 

the previous year’s failure, the administration failed to give St. Clair, now 

serving simultaneously as territorial governor and commanding general, 

with much room to practice operational art, pushing him to initiate 

operations before the winter of 1791 regardless of his force’s readiness. 

This clearly frustrated St. Clair, yet he failed to adequately understand or 

articulate to the administration that the greater strategy was placed in far 

greater jeopardy by his untrained mix of militia and regulars advancing 

before they were ready, than by a slight delay in initiating the offensive. 

This operational failure, influenced by both civilian and military leaders, 

led to the near-destruction of St. Clair’s Army in September of 1791, 

and again resulted in the exact opposite of the strategic intent behind the 

campaign, leading to an increase in Indian attacks and a strengthening of 

the hostile tribal confederacy.58

After the debacle overseen by St. Clair, both the administration and the 

new commander, General Wayne, demonstrated a far greater appreciation 

for the importance of linking campaign goals with national strategy. 

The much improved relationship between civilian and military leaders 

in the Fallen Timbers campaign resulted from both civil and military 

leaders finally realizing the essential need for such political-military 

synchronization. By 1792, the Washington administration and Wayne 

recognized the importance of balancing the empowerment of senior Army 

leaders with ensuring those leaders understood and supported national 

policy. Correspondence between Wayne and Knox, despite the four- to 

10-week turnaround time for communications, was consistently candid; 

such honest dialogue was of fundamental importance in the skillful 

synchronization of Wayne’s plans and actions with diplomatic overtures 

in a coordinated pursuit of prioritized objectives.59

While frustrated at times by the political-inspired limitations placed 

upon his Legion, Wayne clearly understood the critical need to ensure 

Army actions supported the overall strategy. Thus in August 1792, Wayne 

dismissed a plan by Indian agent Israel Putnam to conduct operations along 

the Great Lakes, fearing that such an action would cause the heretofore 

covert British assistance to become open, while undermining ongoing 

diplomatic and political efforts to cajole England into stopping support 

to tribes hostile to the United States.60 Having failed to link campaign and 

strategic goals prior to 1792, civil and military leaders thus learned to 

skillfully coordinate plans and goals. Wayne’s Fallen Timbers campaign 
53

benefited mightily from such synchronization, with British support to 

hostile tribes minimized by the administration’s diplomatic efforts. The 

expertise shown by Wayne in adapting his campaign to national policy 

played an especially vital role in the profound consequences of the victory 

at Fallen Timbers, so evident in the sweeping concessions gained in the 

subsequent Treaty of Greeneville.61

Linked to this appreciation for the strategic situation, Wayne and his 

officer corps developed a much-improved understanding of the operational 

environment following the disastrous campaigns of 1790 and 1791. Harmar 

and St. Clair clearly underestimated the enemy during these offensives, 

failing to comprehend that the hostile confederation was a dangerous 

enemy. As described in the introduction of this study, Harmar’s foolish 

division of his Army into multiple columns operating beyond the support of 

his main force demonstrated a fatal overconfidence, resulting in the loss of 

over 150 men and a retreat to Fort Washington.62 To an even greater extent, 

St. Clair failed to perceive the danger of his position during his campaign 

of 1791. He clearly perceived the poor training and the overall weakness of 

his mixed force of regular and militia forces. Multiple subordinate officers 

demonstrated in their journals a growing unease of the Army’s dangerous 

predicament of being deep in enemy territory, without clear knowledge 

of the enemy and supported poorly by tenuous lines of support. St. Clair 

however, continued his offensive, relying on a faulty confidence based on 

an unfounded dismissal of the willingness of the Indians to confront his 

relatively large Army.63 The rout of his Army, described in chapter 1 of 

this paper, thus resulted in large part from a complete failure to understand 

his perilous operational environment. In contrast, Wayne declaring that 

his foe was “an artful enemy,” skilled at ambush, surprise and striking at 

the most favorable moment, built his campaign on a respect for the tribal 

confederation’s dangerous abilities.64 Wayne’s focus on intelligence and 

security – described later in this chapter - contrast sharply with St. Clair’s 

failure to adequately attend to such matters, and clearly demonstrates St. 

Clair’s mediocrity as a battlefield commander, while showing Wayne’s 

expert understanding of the environment. 

Expertise in conducting operations and in a focus on effective training 

in support of such operations was limited during the early years of the 

Northwest Indian War. Training failures, so evident in the undisciplined 

and unreliable troops of the 1790 and 1791 campaigns, were not the 

exclusive faults of the Army’s leadership. Throughout the Northwest 

Indian War, financial concerns led to the militia and volunteer forces 

joining regular forces at the very last moment before campaign initiation. 
54

For instance, General Scott’s 1,500 Kentuckians fully arrived in camp on 

27 July 1794 and the combined Army of regulars and these mounted troops 

began their offensive on the very next day!65 It is therefore not surprising 

that one of the most constant trends among regular officers during this 

period was disappointment over the indiscipline and unreliability of state 

troops. More fully explored in this study’s later chapter on esprit, it is 

evident that suspicion, discord, animosity, and confusion characterized 

Army-militia relations during both the 1790 and 1791 offensives. Given 

this inability to focus on combined training, it was imperative that leaders 

utilize components of their force in such a way that leveraged strengths 

while minimizing weaknesses. Both Harmar and St. Clair utterly failed to 

accomplish this. 

During the 1790 campaign, Harmar showed a real lack of expertise in 

his operational planning and leadership. Clearly realizing that the militia 

was poorly trained, he failed to leverage the greater discipline and training 

of his regulars, employing only 20 percent of his more disciplined and 

trained regulars against the enemy while allowing nearly all of his state 

forces to engage hostile Indians. His piecemeal deployment of large 

militia columns supported by small federal detachments far from the main 

body of regulars allowed Indian ambushes free from the fear of pursuit by 

the main body. Finally, the continuous splitting of his forces into smaller 

and smaller columns provided the enemy with superb opportunities to 

sequentially ambush and defeat each column.66

St. Clair’s efforts also suffered from a failure to leverage the strengths 

of his mixed force. Beset by supply problems throughout the campaign, 

the commander made a critical error shortly before the decisive battle, 

sending one of his Army’s two regular regiments, under the command of 

Lieutenant Colonel Hamtramck, to protect a supply convoy. This decision 

resulted in this entire regiment missing the catastrophic battle several 

days later. While St. Clair refused to blame this decision for the ensuing 

defeat, sending half of his regular Army strength away on the eve of the 

battle , while continuing his offensive, seems a clear operational error.67

St. Clair compounded his predicament by a poor use of his militia forces 

on the eve of the battle, failing to use them to adequately reconnoiter and 

positioning them across a creek from the main Army, again denying these 

less disciplined forces the immediate support of regular troops. Little 

Turtle’s surprise attack early the next morning struck these separated 

militia, routing them directly into the main camp and throwing the entire 

Army into a confusion from which it never recovered.68
55

General Wayne’s operations benefited from far more preparatory 

time than was granted to previous commanders. Starting in 1792, Wayne’ 

officer corps focused on training for the coming offensive, two years in the 

future. Individual, collective, combined arms, and Army-militia training 

and war games were all stressed. At the heart of all training were officers 

who were required to attend morning and evening parade and to pay the 

most “assiduous attention” to the “maneuvering and perfecting (of) the 

Troops.”69 Again and again, Wayne ordered his officers to lead training, 

directing that “officers be always with their sub-legions . . . to the end that 

the Soldiery may be under their eye and acquainted with their voice.”70

The reorganization of the federal Army under Wayne’s officer corps into a 

Legion consisting of four sub-legions, each consisting of two battalions of 

infantry and a third of riflemen, supported by organic dragoons and tasked 

artillery units, supported the vision of effective combined arms operations. 

Wayne articulated this vision, explaining to Knox that all training was 

directed to operational readiness in which “the riflemen believe in that 

arm, the Infantry in heavy buck shot and the bayonet, the Dragoons in the 

sword, & the Legion in their United prowess.”71

In the field, Wayne and his subordinates demonstrated an improved 

operational ability. On the march, Wayne skillfully leveraged the strengths 

of non-regular forces, using them for constant scouting missions and 

screening operations. Wayne’s devotion to the idea gleaned from Caesar’s 

Commentaries that the wise commander positioned his force relative 

to the enemy in a way that all but ensured success was coupled with an 

understanding from his Revolutionary War experiences about the power 

of the disciplined use of the bayonet, and the exploitation potential of 

encircling cavalry. By August 1794, Wayne had positioned his combined 

forces in such a way that ensured all elements were within supporting 

distance of one another, while ensuring freedom of maneuver and initiative 

was enjoyed by his forces and denied to hostile Indians. At Fallen Timbers, 

the officer corps’ ability to synchronize infantry and cavalry maneuvers 

in the tangled woods of the battlefield clearly indicated the growing 

expertise of the young Army’s officer corps.72 By 1794, the confidence of 

Wayne’s subordinate officers, especially when compared to the unease of 

subordinates in the previous campaigns, is striking and reveals Wayne’s 

successful focus on training and operational skill.73

Supporting the greater leveraging of both federal and state forces, 

Wayne’ officer corps developed a far greater level of coordination and 

respect with the Kentucky mounted volunteers than in previous campaigns. 

As described in greater detail in chapter 6 of this thesis, Wayne rejected 
56

the level of militia autonomy maintained in earlier offensives, successfully 

demanded that Knox establish a distinct chain of command, with Wayne 

as the clear commander in chief of the mixed force. For the first time, 

the Department of War established a clear relationship among regular and 

state officers, with militia officers made subordinate to federal officers 

of comparative or senior rank, and with regular officers subordinate to 

militia officers of senior rank.74 Wayne’s measured and integrated use 

of the Kentucky volunteers and other irregular assets, employed for 

reconnaissance and scouting missions well within range of the Legion’s 

support, points to a vastly improved appreciation for both the strengths 

and weaknesses of non-regular elements in the Army.75

Expertise in operational skill was closely tied to the able use of 

intelligence and appropriate security measures to protect the Army against 

a foe often focused on the use of surprise and ambush. During the 1790 

campaign, Harmar and his fellow officers demonstrated an insightful 

grasp of the importance of intelligence and the protection of the main body 

from surprise during the approximately 160-mile advance to Kekionga. 

Travelling cautiously, covering an average of 12 miles a day, Harmar and 

his officers insisted on the nightly establishment of breastworks and the 

formation of a square to prevent infiltration or surprise, as well as the 

daily use of scouts to reconnoiter well ahead of the main body.76 Harmar’s 

fusing of principles from both Steuben and Bouquet show an ability to 

take the Army’s doctrine and apply it to the environment, an important 

element of military expertise for any senior officer.77

As previously noted, St. Clair’s directive ordering one of his two 

regiments away from the main Army while deep in hostile territory 

indicates the atrocious nature and use of intelligence during his campaign. 

Unlike Harmar, who repeatedly stressed the importance of finding and 

describing the enemy, St. Clair seemed sanguine even while admitting 

just days before the battle that he thought his “force sufficient, though I 

have no manner of information as to the force collected to oppose us.”78

Misusing valuable intelligence assets like a friendly band of Chickasaw 

scouts by sending them on a 10-day mission that took them far from his 

force, St. Clair seems to have paid little attention to the urgent need to 

locate his enemy, who in fact were over 1,000 strong, were less than 75 

miles away, and were fully apprised of the strength and disposition of St. 

Clair’s Army. St. Clair’s aide, Captain Denny, acknowledged this powerful 

failure, noting in his journal that “one most important object was wanting; 

can’t say neglected, but more might have been done toward obtaining it; 

this was, a knowledge of the collected force and situation of the enemy; of 

this (we) were perfectly ignorant.”79
57

In addition to the great weaknesses in terms of intelligence expertise, 

Army leaders in 1791 inexplicably allowed poor levels of security deep in 

the heart of hostile territory. On the evening of 2 November 1791, after a 

mix-up regarding the intended camp site for the night, the Army arrived at 

their designated camp site at dusk. Due to tiredness and lack of discipline, 

coupled with no perceived eminent threat, little effort was made to ensure 

that normal standards of security were established. At dawn the next 

day, Little Turtle’s warriors struck with great ferocity and with near total 

surprise, overwhelming St. Clair’s little Army. In the ensuing rout, the 

worst defeat at the hands of American Indians in United States history, 

over 650 Soldiers were killed and over 270 wounded. 

The understanding and use of intelligence were vastly improved by 

Wayne and his officer corps after 1792. Wayne’s innovative use of scouts 

led by proven frontiersman Ephraim Kibby and the half-Indian William 

Wells, the utilization of secret agents seeking information on British 

involvement and plans, the heavy use of the mounted volunteers from 

Kentucky to screen the main body, and a focus on counter-intelligence 

skillfully leveraged skills possessed by elements within the force. 

Wayne’s careful advance, so noted by multiple journals and diaries from 

subordinate officers, was marked by constant reconnaissance parties sent 

in all directions and careful daily securing of camps. Revealingly, Wayne’s 

officer corps anticipated to the very day the timing of the decisive battle, 

ensuring all was in absolute readiness for the decisive battle and that 

hostile Indians were denied opportunities for ambush and surprise.80 Thus, 

Wayne’s success in limiting the enemy’s initiative is strikingly revealed in 

the hostile tribes’ respectful nick-naming Wayne ‘Blacksnake’ and ‘he who 

never sleeps.’81 Thus, the drastic improvement in the use of intelligence 

and careful security precautions under General Wayne is impressive and 

reveals the development of a high level of expertise by Wayne and his 

officers that led to the decisive victory at Fallen Timbers. 

Unlike the vast improvements developed in the officer corps in terms 

of operational art, training and battlefield leadership, intelligence and 

security, logistical expertise bedeviled Army leaders from 1789 to 1796. In 

all three campaigns, difficulties in adequately supplying a large and mobile 

force significantly impacted operations. During Harmar’s campaign, one 

of the two arms of the planned pincer movement failed due to supply 

problems. This arm under Hamtramck, intended to draw pressure from 

Harmar’s main effort, came to an abrupt halt only two weeks into the 

campaign, when Army contractors failed to provide adequate rations, and 

the militia attached to his command refused to continue without full rations. 
58

The supporting column therefore returned to Fort Knox, having failed to 

accomplish their primary purpose because of a failure of logistics.82

Similarly, during St. Clair’s offensive in 1791, supply difficulties 

negatively influenced operations. As noted earlier, shortages led to 

desertions and forced the Army to wait for supply convoys to catch up 

to the main body; St. Clair felt forced to dispatch a regiment to protect 

supplies on the eve of battle, when these regulars were desperately 

needed.83 Supply difficulties increased as the Army proceeded farther from 

the base of supply at Fort Washington. According to Denny’s journal entry 

for late October 1791, logistical failures made it impracticable to continue 

operations, noting in his journal: “forage entirely destroyed; horses failing 

and cannot be kept up; provisions from hand to mouth.”84

Logistical failures continued to plague the Army after St. Clair’s defeat. 

Multiple journals from Wayne’s officers of all ranks decry the consistent 

failure of the contractors to supply flour, meat, and forage for the horses 

and cattle accompanying the Army.85 The extension of the campaign 

into 1794 resulted in large part from Wayne’s refusal to advance deep 

into hostile territory until some of the critical shortages were supplied. 

Wayne attempted to resolve some of the earlier issues, establishing a 

quartermaster department led by Lieutenant Colonel James O’Hara and 

Major Isaac Craig but deeper institutional weaknesses continued to strain 

logistical problems.86 The final decisive victory in 1794 occurred in spite 

of the amateurish nature of logistics support to the Army. Throughout this 

period, the lack of logistical specialists within the officer corps left the 

entire Army at the mercy of contractors largely unwilling or unable to 

adhere to their contracts. The Army’s total lack of any organic support 

infrastructure resulted in a total reliance on contract supply and again 

and again, the contractors failed to meet their requirements. This reality 

consistently and severely limited the officer corps’ flexibility and freedom 

of maneuver during operations. 

In summary, it is clear that despite the lack of any formal system 

of military education available to the officer corps of the early Army, 

alternative means were utilized to gain valued military knowledge. Such 

self-development was likely spotty with some officers probably eschewing 

self-development through study. Yet the belief and example of senior 

leaders like Washington, Knox, Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne ensured that 

military knowledge was pursued by a significant number of Army officers. 

Perhaps even more importantly, the broad and demanding experiences 

challenging the officer corps between 1789 and 1796 led to significant 

levels of the broad knowledge described in today’s ADP 1, The Army. 
59

These experiences, ranging from battlefield combat to Indian diplomacy 

to liaising with civil government agencies to exploration expeditions, 

clearly produced a significant number of officers skilled at applying 

their knowledge to actual situations. Amateurish levels of leadership and 

institutional weaknesses, particularly in terms of logistical operations, 

continued throughout the period; however after 1792, operations were 

commonly characterized by the skillful application of military knowledge 

and understanding. In other words, judged by the standards described 

by the current doctrine on professionalism, many officers developed a 

substantial level of military expertise by 1796. 
60

Notes

1. Headquarters, Department of the Army, ADP 1, para. 2-10.

2. Headquarters, Department of the Army, ADP 1, para. 2-9; and 

Headquarters, Department of the Army, Whitepaper - Our Army Profession, 6.

3. Headquarters, Department of the Army, ADP 1, para. 2-11.

4. Booraem, 41-44. In the case of young men like Harrison, powerful 

family connections provided for an exception to Washington’s normal policy of 

restricting commissions to those at least 21 years old because “the lives of men 

are of too much importance to be confided to a raw youth.” Knopf, Anthony 

Wayne, Knox to Wayne, 28 September 1792, 110.

5. Harrison quoted from his correspondence in Gunderson, 3.

6. For Harrison’s experience see Booraem and Gunderson. That such 

an experience was representative is evident in multiple other journals by new 

officers like William Clark, William Eaton, Thomas Underhill, and Hugh Brady. 

7. Mark Puls, Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American 

Revolution. (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 136.

8. George Washington, “Washington’s Eighth Annual Message to 

Congress, 7 December 1796,” The George Washington Papers, Alderman 

Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 26 September 1796, http://

gwpapers.virginia.edu (accessed 7 May 2013). 

9. Senator Ralph Izard quoted Washington in a 2 January 1795 letter to his 

wife in John C. Fredriksen, “A Tempered Sword Untested: the Military Career of 

General George Izard (Part I),” The Journal of America’s Military Past 25, no. 2 

(Fall, 1998): 7.

10. Izard.

11. Arthur P. Wade, “Artillerists and Engineers: The Beginnings of 

American Seacoast Fortifications, 1794-1815” (Ph.D. diss., Kansas State 

University, Manhattan, KS, 1977), 39-69 is valuable for its discussion of the 

obscure attempts by the Washington administration to establish an academy at 

West Point in the mid-1790s.

12. John Fredriksen, The United States Army in the War of 1812: Concise 

Biographies of Commanders and Operational Histories of Regiments with 

Bibliographies of Published and Primary Resources (Jefferson, NC: McFarland 

and Company), 79.

13. Asa Bird Gairdner, “Henry Burbeck: Brevet Brigadier-General United 

States Army—Founder of the United States Military Academy,” The Magazine 

of American History 9 (January, 1883): 258.

14. Gairdner, 262. Fredriksen’s brief biography of Burbeck in The United 

States Army in the War of 1812: Concise Biographies, 79, is more measured 

about such a title for Burbeck but accepts that he is entitled to “some credit” for 

the creation of the academy at West Point.
61

15. See Huntington, 19-20, 237-241; and Allan R. Millett, Military 

Professionalism and Officership in America (Columbus, OH: Mershon Center of 

the Ohio State University, 1977), 2-3.

16. Huntington, The Soldier and the State, convincingly describes these 

vocational patterns of the eighteenth century, though he draws the unfortunate 

conclusion that such patterns necessarily precluded the development of military 

professionalism.

17. Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin Steuben, Baron Von 

Steuben’s Revolutionary War Drill Manual. 1794. Reprint, New York, NY: 

Dover Publications, 1985.

18. Steuben, 103, 134. 

19. Walter Kretchik, US Army Doctrine: From the American Revolution to 

the War on Terror (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2011), 25-33.

20. Guthman, 9-20.

21. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 13 September 1792, 94.

22. Knopf, Orderly Books of the United States Legion reveal this 

consistent focus on standardizing order and discipline in Wayne’s Legion in 

accordance with Steuben, Baron Von Steuben’s Revolutionary War Drill Manual.

Regulations. 

23. John B. Linn, ed., “Reminiscences of Hugh Brady,” in Annals of 

Buffalo Valley, Pennsylvania, 1755-1855 (Harrisburg, PA: L. S. Hart, printer, 

1877), 178.

24. Booraem, 86, 108.

25. Jones, 126.

26. Higginbotham, George Washington and the American Military 

Tradition, 14-18, 78.

27. Puls, 14-21; and Sandra Powers, “Studying the Art of War: Military 

Books Known to American Officers and Their French Counterparts during the 

Second Half of the Eighteenth Century,” The Journal of Military History 70 

(July, 2006): 781-814, persuasively argues for Knox’s extensive knowledge of 

martial works, including familiarity with thinkers like Saxe, Vauban, Blondel, 

and Muller.

28. John Mahon, “Pennsylvania and the Beginnings of the Regular Army,” 

Pennsylvania History 21 (January 1954): 42.

29. John Steinle, “Unlucky Soldier: Josiah Harmar’s Frontier Struggle,” 

Timeline 8 (April/May 1991): 9.

30. Frazer E. Wilson, Arthur St. Clair: Rugged Ruler of the Northwest

(Richmond, VA: Garrett and Massie, 1944), 21.

31. Nelson, Anthony Wayne, 15.
62

32. Nelson, Wayne to Washington, 2 September 1777, 50.

33. Indications of attention to self-development through reading is 

evident in William Henry Harrison’s appreciation for military history in 

his correspondence as a junior officer (Booraem, 108) and in Colonel John 

F. Hamtramck’s small library of military tactics as related by F. Clever 

Bald, “Colonel John Francis Hamtramck,” Indiana Magazine of History 44 

(December, 1948) 353.

34. Washington revealed his reasons for St. Clair’s selection in a letter to 

St. Clair reprinted in Smith, The St. Clair Papers, 283; the rationale behind the 

selection of Wayne in 1792 is ably described in Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 125-

126.

35. Harmar’s biographical information is drawn primarily from Steinle, 

2-17.

36. St. Clair’s biographical information is drawn primarily from Wilson, 

Arthur St. Clair. 

37. Wayne’s biographical information is drawn primarily from Nelson, 

Anthony Wayne.

38. Figures are drawn from biographical entries in Heitman. 

39. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 21 September 1792, 107.

40. Jones, 62-67.

41. The papers and journals of officers like Ensign Jacob Melcher, 

Lieutenants William Henry Harrison, John Armstrong, and William Peters, and 

Captains Jonathon Heart and William Ferguson reveal how common such duty 

was for young officers. 

42. Jones, 68.

43. St. Clair, 152-154.

44. Smith, The St. Clair Papers, Harmar to Knox, 14 January 1790, 129.

45. Jones, 71.

46. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 17 September 1793, 272.

47. Jones, 86-89. 

48. Sword, 212.

49. Ebenezer Denny studied these languages during his service in the 

Confederation Army in the 1780s, compiling a nearly 800 word vocabulary 

which was included in the publication Ebenezer Denny, Military Journal of 

Major Ebenezer Denny (Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1860), 274-

281.

50. Thornbrough, Outpost on the Wabash Letters, 19, 241.
63

51. During his six-year command at Fort Knox, Hamtramck was constantly 

engaged in trying to negotiate alliances with various Indian tribes, based on 

guidance received from both civilian and military superiors. For example, see 

letters between Governor of the Northwest Territory St. Clair, General Harmar 

and Hamtramck in 1790 in Thornbrough, Outpost on the Wabash Letters, 222-

247.

52. Thornbrough, Hamtramck to Harmar, 13 April 1788, 71.

53. Jones, 92.

54. Guthman, Harmar to McDowell, 4 February 1790, 83.

55. Colton Storm, “Lieutenant Armstrong’s Expedition to the Missouri 

River,” Mid-America: An Historical Review 14, no. 3 (1943): 181.

56. In the late 1780s, Harmar sent out detachments to destroy illegal 

white settlements north of the Ohio River, as described by Jacobs, 22-23. This 

supported the original desire by Washington and Knox for a peaceful resolution 

to the crisis between whites and Indians, ending in the gradual absorption of 

peaceful Indians into white society. The constant pressure from white settlers 

for more land claimed by tribes and the vicious cycle of brutal raids from both 

sides doomed their vision. Both sides consistently violated the Ohio River 

divide, agreed upon earlier, leading to ever-greater tensions along the northwest 

frontier. The administration’s hope of “humanity and absorption” is evident in 

Washington’s and Knox’s correspondence and is well described in Ward, The 

Department of the Army, 142.

57. The best source for a discussion of the coordination between the 

Washington administration and the Army’s leaders is Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 

100-108.

58. Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 100-108, convincingly describes St. Clair’s 

failures to adequately understand his operating environment, as does his 

correspondence in the post-defeat publication of St. Clair.

59. The impressive level of candor, respect, and trust between Knox and 

Wayne is evident throughout their correspondence, reprinted in Knopf, Anthony 

Wayne.

60. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 24 August 1792, 73.

61. In addition to the impressive coordination evident in the letters between 

Knox and Wayne found throughout Knopf, Anthony Wayne; both Sword, 

and Kohn, Eagle and Sword ably describe the dense political and military 

coordination that occurred during Wayne’s campaign, as well as the failed 

synchronization during earlier efforts. 

62. Michael Warner, “General Josiah Harmar’s Campaign Reconsidered: 

How the Americans Lost the Battle of Kekionga,” Indiana Magazine of History 

83, no. 1 (March 1987): 47-55.
64

63. Sword, St. Clair to Knox, 4 September 1791, 168.

64. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 27 April 1793, 229-230.

65. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 27 July 1794, 349-350. 

Financial concerns were based on the federal government funding the cost of 

mobilizing and utilizing the militia and volunteer troops during the campaigns. 

66. Warner, 47-64.

67. St. Clair penned A Narrative of the Manner in Which the Campaign 

Against the Indians following his defeat, including his reasoning behind his 

operational plan and execution of the campaign.

68. Descriptions of St. Clair’s battlefield leadership are drawn from James 

Currie, “The First Congressional Investigation: St. Clair’s Military Disaster of 

1791,” Parameters 20 (December 1990): 95-102 and Sword.

69. Knopf, Orderly Books of the United States Legion, 16 August 1792, 12.

70. Knopf, July 1793, 49.

71. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 9 May 1893, 235.

72. For Wayne’s battlefield expertise during the Fallen Timbers campaign, 

see Allen Millett, “Caesar and the Northwest: The Wayne Campaign 1792-

1795,” Timeline 14, no. 3 (May/June 1997): 2-21.

73. The unease of officers in previous campaigns is revealed in the journals 

of Lieutenant Ebenezer Denny, Major Jonathon Heart, and Colonel Winthrop 

Sargent, while the confidence felt by officers on the eve of Fallen Timbers is 

evident in the journals of officers like Lieutenants Boyer and William Clark and 

Major John Buell. 

74. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, 20 June 1793 and Knox to Wayne, 16 May 

1794, 244-245, 327-329.

75. Paul D. Nelson, “General Charles Scott, The Kentucky Mounted 

Volunteers, and the Northwest Indian Wars, 1784-1794,” Journal of the Early 

Republic 6, no. 3 (Fall, 1986): 219-251.

76. Denny, 141-144.

77. For this fusion, see Allan Brown, “The Role of the Army in Western 

Settlement: Josiah Harmar’s Command, 1785-1790,” Pennsylvania Magazine of 

History and Biography 93 (April 1969): 161-178.

78. St. Clair, A Narrative of the Manner in Which the Campaign Against 

the Indians, 224.

79. Denny, 171.

80. Lieutenant William Clark’s journal is representative of the confidence 

and readiness of Wayne’s Army as it accurately prepared to meet the enemy the 

day before the battle. See William Clark, “William Clark’s Journal of General 

Wayne’s Campaign,” ed. R. C. McGrane, Mississippi Valley Historical Review 1 

(December 1914): 428.
65

81. The leader of the hostile Indian confederation facing Wayne, the 

Shawnee chief Blue Jacket, referred to Wayne in these names based on his 

careful watchfulness and constant preparedness for Indian attacks. See John G. 

Heckewelder, History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations who Once 

Inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighboring States (New York, NY: Arno Press, 

1971), 192.

82. The supply difficulties during the 1790 campaign are demonstrated 

throughout Josiah Harmar, The Proceedings of a Court of Inquiry, held at the 

special request of Brigadier General Josiah Harmar, Commanding Officer of 

the Expedition against the Miami Indians, 1790 (Philadelphia, PA: Jehn Fenno, 

1791) as well as in the journals of officers like Captain Samuel Newman and 

Lieutenant Ebenezer Denny.

83. Smith, The St. Clair Papers, Clair to Knox, 1 November 1791, 251.

84. Denny, 160.

85. See, for example, Lieutenant Thomas Underwood’s repetitive entries 

in his journal about half-rations in Thomas T. Underwood, Journal of Thomas 

Taylor Underwood, March 26, 1792 to March 18, 1800: An Old Soldier in 

Wayne’s Army (Cincinnati, OH: Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Ohio, 

1945).

86. The depth of Wayne’s realization of the importance of logistics in 

the aftermath of the campaign is revealed in his nomination of Captain Henry 

DeButts to succeed the retiring O’Hara in 1795, noting to Knox that “as the 

Quarter Master General of this Army is an Officer of the first consequence and 

Confidence,” the best officer to take the position is DeButts, naming him “the 

most competent Officer belonging to this Army.” Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne 

to Knox, 19 September 1795, 460.

67

Chapter 5

Military Professionalism and Honorable Service in the Early 

American Army Officer Corps, 1789 - 1796

Following descriptions of trust and military expertise, The Army turns 

to a discussion of the concept of honorable service. Adhering closely 

to the ideal expressed by the current Army value of selfless service, the 

manual explains that military professionals commit by public oath to the 

idea of “unlimited liability.” This idea calls for a readiness to sacrifice 

personal interests in order to support and defend the Constitution while 

accomplishing assigned missions. Inherent to honorable and selfless 

service is a willingness to accept the “risk of serious personal harm or 

death.” Service by military professionals is honorable both because it 

pursues the worthy goal of protecting the United States and its interests, 

and because such professionals perform their duty in an ethical manner 

with integrity and respect for Army and American values.1

 The Army’s new doctrine on professionalism closely relates authentic 

honorable service to the concept of commitment, defined as “being 

primarily motivated by the intrinsic factors of sacrifice and service to 

others and to the Nation, rather than being motivated by the extrinsic 

factors related to a job.”2

This chapter describes the way officers in the early American Army 

understood the concept of selfless and honorable service and how they 

carried out its demands. A variety of tremendous hardships challenged 

Army officers during this period, demanding considerable sacrifice. 

This chapter describes those challenges and officers’ responses to them, 

including the development by the officer corps of major patterns of service. 

It also depicts the way the officer corps grappled with understanding and 

developing the relationship of their patriotic sacrifice to their own selfinterest as well as to American society. A later chapter on stewardship, 

examines the relationship between military service, professionalism, and 

ethics. 

During the earliest years of the United States Army, officers 

understood the concept of sacrifice in an immediate and powerful way. 

Overwhelmingly stationed on the frontier during this period, officers and 

their Soldiers faced relatively austere living conditions coupled with nearconstant danger from hostile Indians. Available garrison orderly books 

and journals maintained by officers during this time period describe the 

common recurrence of supply problems, especially food shortage during 

winter months. Responding to a complaint from Major Hamtramck 
68

regarding food shortages at Fort Knox in January 1790, Brigadier General 

Harmar helplessly noted, “I am truly sorry to hear of the great scarcity of 

provisions with you, but all the posts are equally distressed in that respect. 

We have been on the point of starvation here ever since my arrival.”3

Shortages of uniforms, tools, medicine, whiskey and such common 

necessities as needles and paper frequently populate primary sources and 

indicate the relative difficulty of life in frontier garrisons.4

 Pay was often 

in arrears, sometimes by over a year. Difficulties in obtaining funding for 

pay from Congress and problems in safely transporting cash to the frontier 

in a timely manner frequent Knox’s correspondence with his Army 

leaders.5 The nation’s fragile economic condition forced Washington and 

Knox to admonish Army leaders to be frugal. Knox’s reminder to Major 

Henry Gaither in 1793 to manage all operations “with a truly republican 

economy” was emblematic of frequent warnings and led, at least in part, 

to the austere living conditions experienced by the Army.6

Coupled with such living conditions, the presence of wide-ranging 

and dangerous Indian tribes demanded courage and a readiness to sacrifice 

personal comfort and safety. Danger threatened even the most mundane 

duties. While on a hunting trip in early 1792, Captain Joseph Shaylor – 

commander of Fort Jefferson – and his small group suffered at the hands 

of a Shawnee ambush, resulting in the death of Shaylor’s son and a painful 

wound for Shaylor.7

 On a mission bringing supplies to Cherokee tribes 

along the Tennessee River in March of 1790, Indians attacked Major 

John Doughty’s small detachment of 15 men, resulting in the loss of six 

killed and five wounded.8

 In the summer of 1790, Ensign Jacob Melcher 

reported, “the waters are fairly alive with savages;” his experience leading 

supply expeditions on the Ohio River supported such a claim. Indians 

attacked his small one-boat detachment in July 1790, killing one and 

wounding two Soldiers. Less than a year later in the same area, a hostile 

war-party again struck Melcher’s small unit resulting in several Soldiers 

killed. Melcher, reported Hamtramck, “had the good fortune to escape but 

lost everything.”9

 Such representative experiences indicate the danger that 

faced officers whenever they left the relative safety of their fortifications. 

These dangers and sacrifices paled in comparison to those experienced 

during combat operations. Enlisted Soldiers in the young Army were 

generally inexperienced with relatively few veteran non-commissioned 

officers and they relied especially on the leadership and example of officers 

during combat. In operations large and small during the Northwest Indian 

War, officers of all ranks almost always led from the very front. Fighting 

in the woods and small clearings along the frontier demanded physical 
69

courage in facing a fearsome enemy, often in hand-to-hand combat or at 

extremely close range.10

The officer corps generally met this challenge with tremendous 

bravery. Captain Thomas Underwood’s journal recounts the representative 

bravery of Captain Asa Hartshorne during a 1794 attack on Fort Recovery. 

When a surprise attack by Miami warriors against a convoy resupplying 

the fort threatened the caravan escorts, Hartshorne rode out of the fort at 

the head of a small relief party. Hartshorne’s detachment relieved their 

comrades, driving the Indians into the woods. In the aftermath of this 

charge however, Indians surrounded and wounded him badly. Ordering his 

detachment to leave him and escape to the relative safety of the fort’s walls, 

Hartshorne died, sacrificing himself for the survival of his comrades.11

Major Alexander Trueman accepted his mission as an emissary to the 

volatile and dangerously unpredictable Miami tribes in early 1792 with 

great “patriotism and cheerfulness” according to Knox.12 His death at the 

hands of the Indians indicates the dangerous nature of officers’ service in 

the old Northwest Territory. 

During Harmar’s 1790 campaign, regular Army officers engaged 

against the enemy distinguished themselves by their bravery. Captain John 

Armstrong’s detachment of 30 regulars accompanied several hundred 

militiamen on a raid. When surprised by an Indian war-party, Armstrong’s 

battlefield leadership kept his men on the field after the rapid retreat of 

most of the militiamen, slowing the Indian attack but leading to the death 

of 23 of his detachment. A few days later, the personal bravery of Major 

John Wyllys steadied his men in fighting off an ambush, though it resulted 

in his death with almost all of his 60 men.13

Great courage by officers characterized St. Clair’s 1791 campaign 

as well. During the decisive battle along the Wabash River, survivors 

recounted the impressive bravery of leaders. General Richard Butler 

refused to leave the field after his first wound and when struck down a 

second time, declined to retreat, ordering others to leave him to his 

near certain death and to save themselves in the Army’s rushed retreat 

to the south.14 Acting Adjutant General Winthrop Sargent (not given to 

undeserved praise), described with few exceptions the overwhelming 

bravery of the 95 regular officers involved in the battle, illustrating his 

depiction with the example of Captain John Crawford. Early in the battle, 

Crawford “received a brace of balls in his body, but that notwithstanding 

he continued with cheerfulness and spirit to discharge his duty during the 

service, on foot, in bad roads, without a murmur or complaint, and scarcely 

ever betraying the symptoms of fatigue or that he was wounded.”15
70

Statistics reveal the battlefield presence and sacrifice of officers. 

At the disaster along the Wabash River in 1791, the regular Army 

officer corps suffered a 58 percent casualty (killed and wounded) rate, 

considerably higher than that of militia officers and just slightly higher 

than the rates experienced by enlisted Soldiers.16 Such figures support the 

claim by soldier-participants like Sergeant Jackson Johonnot, writing in 

the aftermath of the battle, “our officers, rendered conspicuous by their 

exertions to stimulate the men, became victims of savage ingenuity.”17

Very few instances of a lack of such bravery seem to exist. Critics 

strikingly charged Harmar with cowardice and drunkenness following his 

disappointing campaign of 1790, pointing to his failure to lead from the 

front during any of the several engagements during the campaign. The 

Army’s subsequent court of inquiry called to investigate the campaign’s 

failure found no evidence of such faults in the commanding general, but 

the leveling of such accusations indicates the existence of significant 

expectations regarding officer courage.18 Assessed as a whole, the actions 

of the officer corps during this early period reveal the development of a 

strong tradition of officer bravery and selfless service in the field. 

The living conditions, financial foundation of the Army, danger, and 

casualties suffered by the officer corps seriously influenced the nature of 

officers’ service to the republic, leading to a significant level of instability. 

In early 1793, General Wayne complained to the Secretary of War that 

Congressional attempts to reduce the size of the Army and reduce the pay 

of both officers and men resulted in “a very visible and injurious effect 

upon the minds of the Officers, many of whom have already resigned and 

others are determined to follow their example . . . in fact those who wish 

to continue in the service conceive that they hold their Commissions, on 

a very precarious tenor.”19 Historian William Skelton’s scholarship rightly 

emphasizes instability within the officer corps, noting for example, that 

61 percent of officers in the service in 1789 no longer held commissions 

in 1795. Skelton’s argument that “for the thirty years following the 

Revolution, the most important characteristic of the Army officer corps 

was the instability of its membership” is overstated, as this thesis seeks 

to show, but instability within the officer corps was a constant reality.20

Representative examples from the early officer corps clearly reveal this 

volatility. 

Ebenezer Denny seemed intent upon a military career from a young 

age. As a teenager, he served on an American privateer preying on British 

merchant ships until gaining a commission as a 19-year-old ensign in the 

Continental Army in 1780. Following the war, Denny remained in the 
71

service as General Harmar’s aide and acting adjutant in the 1790 campaign 

and earning praise from Governor St. Clair that the young officer “had 

every quality that I could wish a young man to possess, who meant to 

make the army a profession.”21 By 1791, Denny evidently had changed 

his mind about his profession, noting in the aftermath of the St. Clair-led 

debacle and after nearly seven years spent in frontier warfare that “I feel 

perfectly weary and sick of the noise and bustle of a military life.”22

The example of Captain Erskurius Beatty reveals the corrosive results 

of a lack of a sound financial footing for the Army. A six-year Revolutionary 

War veteran, Beatty’s commitment to the military profession led to his 

rejoining the Army as a lieutenant and the service’s paymaster in 1784. In 

this role, his difficulties in acquiring necessary funds to support the Army 

resulted in tremendous frustration and seem eventually to have led to his 

resignation in 1792. Beatty declared after a particularly unsuccessful trip to 

Philadelphia to gather funds from the government, that the Army’s shaky 

financial situation “makes me wish the devil had them all, and sincerely 

curse the day that ever induced me again to enter in such a rascally service, 

when cringing sycophants in the midst of plenty, kick the poor worn out 

soldier out of the door.”23

Similarly, Lieutenant William Henry Harrison, after early declarations 

of contentment with a military career, grew frustrated with the instability 

that characterized the early Army. Commissioned in 1792, Harrison 

focused diligently on becoming a military professional and his hard work 

and dedication bore fruit; his service and his family connections led to a 

place on Wayne’s staff during the Fallen Timbers campaign, followed by 

selection to command the Army’s premier frontier post at Fort Washington. 

Promotion seemed close with Wayne recommending Harrison as “a Young 

Gentleman of family, Education, and merit.”24 In 1796, in the aftermath of 

the victory over hostile Indians in the Northwest Indian War, Congress reorganized the Army, only slightly reducing the total number of officers but 

more substantially limiting prospects for increased pay and promotions 

within the officer corps. Like many others, this legislative reaction to the 

victory gained by the Army angered Lieutenant Harrison and he declared, 

“the very illiberal treatment with which I have met from the government 

has determined me to abandon the profession of arms entirely in a short 

time.”25 Harrison remained in the service until he was able to find a suitable 

next career, resigning in early 1798 after six years of service.

Other causes of instability, examined in the following two chapters, 

included friction and animosity within the officer corps and a drive by 

senior leaders to purge the corps of unprofessional officers. These factors, 
72

combined with the common occurrence of officer deaths in battle, the 

constant danger and poor living conditions on the frontier, and a lack 

of consistent governmental support related to prospects for pay and 

promotion, seriously undermined the commitment of many officers for 

long-term service. 

A significant number of officers, however, successfully navigated 

these impediments and served as officers for a full career, with some 

fighting in three major wars. For instance, Henry Burbeck served as an 

officer for 37, from 1775 to 1815, with only a three-year hiatus in the 

1780s, rising to the rank of brevet brigadier general. From his service as an 

ensign in 1777, until his death while serving as a brevet brigadier general 

in 1822, Moses Porter’s career as an officer spanned 45 years with only a 

brief break under the Confederation government. Jacob Kingsbury started 

his service as a private in 1775, earning a commission in 1780. He later 

served as an officer from 1787 to 1815, ending his career as a colonel 

after 36 years of military service. Commissioned in 1792, Daniel Bissell 

served continuously for 30 years until 1821, rising to the rank of brevet 

brigadier general.26 Such examples are unusual but not especially rare. Of 

the approximately 190 Army officers identified as serving between 1789 

and 1795, at least 19 served over 20 years as regular Army officers with 

a significantly larger number serving over 10 years.27 These examples of 

long service indicate the emerging development, despite serious obstacles, 

of the presence of career officers within the Army and a resulting island of 

stability among the volatility of service life. 

All officers, regardless of the length of their service, confronted strong 

obstacles to professional service. In their response to such impediments, 

the officer corps began to develop significant patterns in the nature of 

their military service. One such feature was a belief that professional and 

patriotic service did not preclude an element of self-interest. This was 

not a new realization. After the decline of popular support for service in 

the Continental Army in the Revolution, General Washington ruefully 

concluded, “few men are capable of making a continual sacrifice of . . . 

private interest or advantage, to the common good.”28 Thus, Washington 

urged Congress to provide officers with half-pay after the Revolution, in 

order to encourage leaders to serve. During the 1790s, officers focused 

on receiving the recognition, respect and gratitude that they felt their 

honorable service deserved. On the eve of Wayne’s 1794 offensive, newly 

promoted and 17-year veteran Lieutenant Colonel Hamtramck insisted 

to General Harmar “if I had not been promoted I should have resigned 

this spring.”29 While the Army’s adherence to a system of promotion by 
73

seniority generally limited disagreements within the regular officer corps, 

officers resented any perceived encroachments on their honor, reputation, 

or standing as military gentlemen. In 1794, Lieutenant Harrison responded 

to familial doubts about his long-term prospects in the Army, proudly 

noting to his brother “while I wear an officer’s sword and the livery of 

my country I will not disgrace them by owning myself inferior to any 

person.”30

The career of Major Thomas Butler perhaps best exemplifies this 

tendency to fuse a concern for an officer’s individual honor and rights 

with a devotion to honorable service to the republic. Brother to General 

Richard Butler and two other officer-brothers and a highly regarded sevenyear Revolutionary War veteran, Major Butler rejoined the Army in 1791 

for St. Clair’s campaign. Badly wounded in the Army’s defeat along the 

Wabash, he served throughout the 1790s, earning promotion to lieutenant 

colonel in 1795 and then to colonel in 1799. A long running dispute with 

the ranking Army officer, Brigadier General James Wilkinson, escalated 

in 1801 when Butler refused to cut his hair queue in accordance with 

Wilkinson’s Army-wide order. Calling the order “impertinent, arbitrary, 

and illegal,” Butler insisted his superior officer had no right to dictate 

an order intruding upon his personal rights, writing to his friend Andrew 

Jackson that he intended to “adhere to my old principles, the laws of my 

country.”31 Wilkinson responded by suspending Butler from command and 

ordering a court martial, though Butler died of natural causes before it 

concluded butler’s final act was to order a hole to be cut into his coffin, 

allowing his illegal queue to hang out of it, so that “the damned old rascal 

(Wilkinson) will see that, even when dead, I refuse to obey his order.”32

Obviously, a somewhat bizarre case, it is revealing. It illustrates, in an 

admittedly extreme manner, the way the young officer corps struggled to 

maintain a sense of personal honor and respect for the individual officer 

with the demands of long-term service devoted to sacrificial service for a 

greater good.33

The officer corps’ insistence on respect, both for the individual officer 

and the officer corps as a whole, led to regular officers often rejecting the 

idea of serving under militia officers. Captain John Armstrong felt a sense 

of “humiliation” when directed to serve under a senior militia officer in 

late 1788; in the aftermath of Harmar’s campaign, Armstrong vowed never 

to fight with or be commanded by militia officers.34 Harmar approved of 

his subordinate’s perspective, noting in 1789 “no person can hold a more 

contemptible opinion of the militia than I do.”35 This common view and 

the struggle to develop a working relationship between regular, militia, and 
74

volunteer forces persisted throughout this period. The following chapter, 

on esprit within the officer corps, examines this in more detail, but the 

representative attitude of officers like Armstrong indicates both a sense 

of pride in the regular service of the officer corps and the need to grapple 

with tense relations among regular and non-regular officers. 

Officers were not the only Soldiers experiencing a sense of volatility 

in the Army; enlisted men likely suffered even more due to organizational 

instability. The officer corps’ reaction to this reality reveals a struggle to 

develop a paternal sense of care for enlisted Soldiers. As in so many other 

instances, Revolutionary War tradition proved important as a precedent. 

Washington’s vision for officer-enlisted relations insisted on a relationship 

balanced between Soldiers’ need to respect discipline and hierarchical 

authority and the necessity for officers to understand they were leading free 

citizen-Soldiers. This vision, which Washington strove to inculcate in his 

Revolutionary officer corps, deeply informed Steuben’s Regulations and 

many senior officers who continued their Revolutionary War service into 

the 1790s. Washington’s famous and superb example of selfless service in 

the Revolution and his vision outlined in the Army’s Regulations therefore 

provided a blueprint and an ideal for the Army’s young officer corps’ 

understanding of service-oriented leaders.36

Emphasizing to officers that a leader’s first object was “to gain the love 

of his men, by treating them with every possible kindness and humanity,” 

the early Army’s doctrinal manual also insisted that commanders “must 

preserve the strictest discipline and order.”37 This dual charge, generally 

accepted by officers of the new republic, reflected an understanding 

of leadership focused on paternal-like service. Further reflecting an 

important tradition carried over from the Revolution to the 1790s Army, 

the Regulations insisted that an officer always accompany his unit during 

operations and that “there is no fatigue the Soldiers go through that the 

officers should not share; and on all occasions they should set them 

examples of patience and perseverance.”38

With very few officers devoted to staff-work and with nearly all 

officers deployed on the frontier, leading from the front and sharing 

hardships with enlisted Soldiers was somewhat natural. Senior officers 

like Wayne sought to ensure such conduct by continually reminding 

officers of his expectation that they would train, inspect, and accompany 

their Soldiers at all times.39 Wayne commended selfless service, such as 

the “example and unremitting industry of the Officers, who nobly and 

generously submitted to every inconvenience and inclemency of weather 

living (or rather existing in cold linen tents) until their men are rendered 
75

comfortable.”40 Wayne’s daily orders to officers reminded them to visit 

their sick Soldiers, insisting, “the health and Compact of the Soldiers are 

objects of the first consideration in which both duty and humanity unite.”41

Illustrative of both an attitude of selfless service and continued failures 

within the logistical system, officers stationed at Fort Defiance in 1795 

combined their personal money to purchase hospital stores and liquor for 

wounded and sick Soldiers. General Harmar, Major Doughty, and Major 

Hamtramck also reportedly used their personal funds to buy badly needed 

supplies for Soldiers.42

The officer corps’ struggle to serve their Soldiers ought not to 

be mistaken for any sense of professional equality, for most officers 

perceived their service in a distinctly different manner than the service 

of enlisted Soldiers. Unlike today’s doctrine which implies Soldiers of all 

ranks can and ought to be professionals, the early officer corps reserved 

such status to officer ranks. The divide between enlisted and officer was 

wide and officers generally strove to maintain that separation. Officers 

typically earned between seven and 20 times the pay of a private.43 An 

examination of various orderly books reveals distinctly different standards 

of discipline afforded enlisted Soldiers and commissioned officers; while 

ferocious corporal punishment was common for enlisted infractions like 

desertion and drunkenness, officer crimes like drunkenness and conduct 

unbecoming an officer usually resulted only in reprimands, suspension, 

and in rare instances, dismissal from the officer corps.44 The case of 

Private Henry Hamilton reveals both this divide and the emerging sense 

of paternal care for Soldiers. In June of 1792, Hamilton was arrested 

and court martialed for armed resistance to the orders of Ensign William 

Divan, evidently threatening the young officer with his bayonet. The court 

recommended and Wayne approved Hamilton’s death sentence to impress 

upon Soldiers that “a crime of so deep a die, a Soldier who lifts his arm 

against his Officer ought not to be permitted to live.” At the last moment 

however, upon the intervention of Divan, Hamilton’s life was spared.”45

This perception of distinction from both enlisted Soldiers and 

militiamen, combined with a partial sense of isolation stemming from the 

officer corps’ frustration with a perceived lack of societal appreciation 

for the Army’s sufferings, marks another significant element in the early 

officer corps’ perception of service. The drawing of such distinctions 

demonstrates an emerging sense of being different and somehow set apart. 

While not explicitly a feature of professional military service as described 

in today’s doctrine on professionalism, such a setting apart has commonly 

been an important component of a definition of military professionalism.46
76

In the 1790s officer corps, this distinction was not definite; a strong 

tension remained between this sense of separateness and a need to preserve 

societal trust by remaining true to the concept of the citizen-soldier. A 

tendency among officers to see themselves as societal leaders first and 

commissioned officers second, limited a sense of isolation from American 

society; one of the striking aspects of officer service during this period is 

how frequently officers practiced service and leadership in roles outside 

the Army. At times, this pattern took the form of repeated service in the 

Army, separated by leadership positions outside the Army. Whatever the 

specific details, early Army officers very frequently devoted themselves 

to long careers of public service, both in and out of uniform. Lieutenant 

William Henry Harrison is probably the most famous such example, 

serving over 40 years as a junior officer, Northwest Territory Secretary 

and Governor, general officer in the War of 1812, member of Congress, 

and ambassador to Columbia, before his service as US President. Major 

General Hugh Brady surpassed even Harrison in time public office, 

serving as a lieutenant during the Fallen Timbers campaign, an officer 

in the Virginia Militia, followed by a remarkable 39 straight years as an 

Army officer, from 1812 to 1851. Major Solomon Van Rensselaer served 

for 40 years in public roles, as an eight-year veteran of the 1790s Army, 

New York militia leader, member of Congress and Postmaster in New 

York. Such examples abound; other officers served as justices, mayors, 

Indian agents, lawmen, and senior militia leaders, both before and after 

their military service. Such ties to civilian society were important, limiting 

the tendency to view officership as an isolated profession. Rather, officers 

tended to view military leadership as part of a larger societal leadership 

role. Arthur St. Clair’s declaration that “no man has a right to withhold 

his services when his country needs them . . . Be the sacrifices ever so 

great, it must be yielded upon the altar of patriotism” evidently spoke for 

many military officers of the period.47 St. Clair’s example supported his 

words; he served 39 years in public service as county surveyor and local 

politician, Revolutionary War general, Confederation Congress member 

and president, and territorial secretary and governor. 

Poor living conditions and meager prospects for increased pay and 

promotion and the temptation to leverage position for selfish advantage 

provided a significant challenge not just in the aftermath of defeat but 

throughout the period. In 1790, rumors circulated that several captains at 

Fort Knox had established stores for their own profit, providing credit to 

Soldiers while charging exorbitant prices for necessary goods and then 

withholding Soldiers’ pay in payment. Senior leaders’ response to such 
77

rumors indicates that these Army leaders understood the threat such actions 

posed to the principle of selfless service within the Army itself. Harmar 

condemned any such profiteering at Soldiers’ expense, charging the post 

commander to immediately investigate such rumors and take action to 

stop any such “dishonorable speculation” and vowing, “if I find any officer 

is concerned in it, he shall be called to a strict and severe account for such 

unmilitary proceedings.”48

The danger posed to honorable service by avarice and selfishness is 

especially evident in the extraordinary career of Major Butler’s nemesis, 

General James Wilkinson.49 A Revolutionary veteran and well-connected 

leader in Kentucky, Wilkinson gained a federal commission as a lieutenant 

colonel in 1792 and served as Wayne’s senior regular officer until the 

latter’s death in 1796. Dissatisfaction with his personal financial prospects 

led Wilkinson to secure a second career as a paid agent of Spain, in direct 

contradiction of his oath of office. By 1794, Wayne and senior government 

officials rightly suspected Wilkinson of a multitude of nefarious schemes 

placing himself and his prospects ahead of the good of the Army or the 

country, including the gathering of a coterie of officers in an attempt to 

undermine Wayne’s authority. Called a “vile assassin” by Wayne and 

convincingly judged as the most “despicable character” in all of American 

history by Theodore Roosevelt, Wilkinson escaped conviction by a 

remarkable mix of cleverness, luck, and political connections.50 As will be 

seen in the following chapter on esprit, Wilkinson’s selfish service resulted 

in tremendous dissension within the officer corps, damaging attempts 

to establish a strong tradition of selfless service in the early republic’s 

Army officer corps. A comprehensive study of the officer corps during 

Washington’s presidency does reveal that Wilkinson was highly unusual 

in his absolute rejection of the concept of selfless service.

It is clear however, that strong obstacles impeded the early officer 

corps’ development and practice of honorable selfless service. The young 

republic’s shaky economic footing, coupled with continued ideological 

resistance to the establishment of a permanent professional officer corps 

even in the face of a dangerous Indian foe resulted in a largely unstable 

organizational foundation. Yet even in the midst of such instability and 

even under the negative influence of such unusual officers as Wilkinson, 

the early officer corps exhibited patterns of service generally characterized 

by strong and resilient commitment to the idea of sacrifice. This sacrificial 

service combined a readiness to die for the mission and for the country, 

even while demanding a healthy level of respect for the officer as an 

individual and for the officer corps as a body. Overwhelmingly committed 
78

to battlefield bravery and leading from the front, to enduring austere living 

conditions far from home, and to paternal-like service toward the enlisted 

soldier, most American Army officers between 1789 and 1796 served their 

new country with honor and commitment.
79

Notes

1. Headquarters, Department of the Army, ADP 1, sect. 2-18 and 2-19. 

2. Headquarters, Department of the Army, Whitepaper - Our Army 

Profession, 8.

3. Thornbrough, Outpost on the Wabash, Harmar to Hamtramck, 20 

February 1790, 221.

4. The correspondence of all three commanders reveal a near-constant 

shortage of basic supplies, as do such orderly books as those from Fort Knox 

and the diaries of such officers as Major Jonathon Heart, Captain Samuel 

Newman, Captain John Buell among others. 

5. In multiple letters, Knox continuously stressed the need for paymasters 

to ensure accountability while Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne repeatedly 

emphasized the need for on-time delivery of funds to pay Soldiers. 

6. United States, American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Knox to Gaither, 

17 July 1793, 367. Washington advised General Wayne a few months earlier 

to spend money only on “what is indispensably necessary to cover and service 

the Officers and Soldiers from the weather, avoiding all decorations, and as 

much as possible all conveniences.” George Washington, “Observations on 

General Wayne’s Letters,” 23 November 1792, The George Washington Papers, 

Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 26 September 

1796, http://gwpapers.virginia.edu (accessed 7 May 2013).

7. Gaff, 12.

8. Smith, The St. Clair Papers, Doughty to Major Wyllys, 25 March 1790, 

134.

9. Thornbrough, Outpost on the Wabash, Melcher to Hamtramck, 28 July 

1790, 238 and Hamtramck to Harmar, 15 June 1791, 283.

10. As described in previous chapters, most useful for a history of the 

campaigns and the actions of officers in combat are Sword and Gaff.

11. Underwood, 13.

12. Knox correspondence in United States, American State Papers, Indian 

Affairs, 234.

13. Sword, 113-114.

14. General Butler’s ensuing death was a particularly gruesome one, 

with Indians tomahawking him and then opening his chest to take his heart 

before cutting it in pieces and sharing it to eat, apparently in order to capture 

the general’s brave spirit. The brave death of Butler, and the bravery of other 

officers, is described in Jacob, 107-108.

15. Winthrop Sargent, Diary of Colonel Winthrop Sargent, Adjutant 

General of the United States’ Army, During the Campaign of 1791 (Wormsloe, 

GA: 1851), 68.
80

16. Statistics are drawn from the Army Adjutant General’s count in 

Sargent, Diary of Colonel Winthrop Sargent, 260.

17. Jackson Johonnet, The Remarkable Adventures of Jackson Johonnet 

of Massachusetts, Who Served as a Soldier in the Western Army, in the 

Massachusetts Line, in the Expedition under General Harmar, and the 

Unfortunate General St. Clair, Containing an Account of His Captivity, 

Sufferings, and Escape from the Kickapoo Indians (Boston, MA: S. Hall, 1793), 

15.

18. Harmar, The Proceedings of a Court of Enquiry.

19. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 15 January 1793, 171.

20. Skelton, An American Profession of Arms, 34-35.

21. Denny, 15.

22. Denny, 177.

23. Joseph M. Beatty, ed., “Letters of the Four Beatty Brothers,” 

Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 44, no. 3 (1920): 192-263.

24. Booraem, 159.

25. Booraem, 162.

26. Data gleaned from Heitman as well as Fredriksen. 

27. Years of service calculated from officer biographical entries in 

Heitman.

28. George Washington, “Washington to Continental Congress,” 29 

January 1778, The George Washington Papers, Alderman Library, University of 

Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 26 September 1796, http://gwpapers.virginia.edu 

(accessed 7 May 2013).

29. Gaff, Hamtramck to Harmar, 7 July 1793, 123.

30. Booraem, William Henry Harrison to brother, 27 November 1794, 109.

31. Detailed information on Major Butler was drawn from J. A. Murray, 

“The Butlers of Cumberland Valley,” Historical Register: Notes and Queries I 

(January 1883); and J. A. Murray, “The Butler Family of the Pennsylvania Line” 

The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 7, no. 1 (1883): 1-6.

32. Murray, “The Butler Family of the Pennsylvania Line,” 7.

33. The bizarre nature of this case was subjected to lampoon in a short 

story by Washington Irving entitled “General Von Poffenburgh.”

34. Thornbrough, Outpost on the Wabash, Captain John Armstrong to 

Harmar, 29 December 1788, 143; and Harmar, The Proceedings of a Court of 

Inquiry, 27.

35. John Armstrong, The John Armstrong Papers (Indianapolis, IN: Indiana 

Historical Society, n.d.), Harmar to Armstrong, 28 July 1789.
81

36. The incorporation of Washington’s vision into Steuben’s understanding 

of drill, maneuver, and administration is convincingly described in Paul D. 

Lockhart, The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the 

Making of the American Army (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 2008), 169-196; 

Washington’s influence on Revolutionary War officers is convincingly described 

in Higginbotham, George Washington and the American Military Tradition.

37. Steuben, 128, 135. 

38. Steuben, 127-128.

39. Knopf, Orderly Books of the United States Legion, 16 August 1792, 11.

40. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 6 December 1792, 147-148.

41. Knopf, Orderly Books of the United States Legion, 16 August 1792, 11.

42. Guthman, 67; and Smith, The St. Clair Papers, St. Clair to Knox, 1 

May 1790, 140.

43. Pay scales for the 1780s and 1790s are given in Guthman, 6, 145.

44. See, for instance, Knopf, Orderly Books for the United States Legion; 

Quaife, “Fort Knox Orderly Books.”

45. Knopf, Orderly Books for the United States Legion, 9.

46. See for example, Huntington, Cunliffe, and Millett, Military 

Professionalism and Officership in America.

47. Wilson, Arthur St. Clair, St. Clair to James Wilkinson, 23.

48. Thornbrough, Outpost on the Wabash, Harmar to Captain James 

Bradford, 3 September 1790, 257; and Harmar to Hamtramck, 27 August 1790, 

252-253. See also Denny, Harmar to Joseph Howell, 9 June 1890, 252-253.

49. The latest and most thorough account of Wilkinson’s life is Andro 

Linklater, An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General 

James Wilkinson (New York, NY: Walker Publishing, 2009). 

50. Wayne’ characterization is found in Richard Kohn, “General 

Wilkinson’s Vendetta with General Wayne: Politics and Command in the 

American Army, 1791-1796” The Filson Club Quarterly 45, no. 4 (Fall, 1971): 

366; Roosevelt’s conclusion is in Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, 

vol. III (New York, NY: Putnam, 1889), 124.

83

Chapter 6

Military Professionalism and Esprit in the Early

American Army Officer Corps, 1789 – 1796

The Army depicts esprit de corps as the fourth of the five characteristics 

central to military professionalism. According to this doctrinal manual, 

esprit provides a shared sense of purpose in the pursuit of the common 

goal of excellence, strong bonds of loyalty and pride, and a winning and 

disciplined spirit. It reflects the acceptance and internalization of the ‘band 

of brothers’ concept in which “spirited and dedicated professionals” are 

“bonded together in cohesive units and organizations.”1

 Esprit is grounded in a respect for the history and tradition of the Army 

and its mission and purpose, as well as in the shared experiences of Soldiers 

working and training together in an atmosphere of mutual respect. The 

Army’s dedication to organizational customs, traditions, and ceremonies 

emphasizes and supports this shared respect for the Army’s history and 

tradition. A positive command climate, characterized by candor, trust, and 

leader concern, supports the development of esprit within units. Finally, 

Army doctrine depicts esprit existing at multiple levels, including among 

small groups of individuals, within small elements and large units, and in 

the Army as a whole.2

This chapter describes the nature of esprit de corps in the early Army 

officer corps. It describes the character and quality of cohesion among 

officers within the Army, while also examining the way in which the officer 

corps relates to militia and volunteer forces. In doing so, this chapter 

discusses the way in which officers understood and practiced concepts of 

loyalty, pride, discipline, command climate, and respect, at both the team 

and larger organizational level. 

Three general patterns emerge from this study of cohesion within the 

American officer corps during Washington’s presidency. First, high levels 

of friendship, camaraderie and esprit frequently developed among small 

clusters of leaders and within sub-units and modest-sized organizations 

of officers. These small pockets of unified officers often shared a similar 

background, experience, or concern. Though limited, the presence of such 

clusters of officers sharing bonds of communal loyalty and pride was an 

important and positive element that promoted esprit and cohesion within 

the officer corps. Second, despite cohesion among clusters of officers, 

strong internal officer corps dissension and bickering developed as the 

Army expanded and the relatively harmonious group of officers that saw 

service under the Confederation, gave way to a much larger and more 
84

contentious body of officers by 1792. Officers’ internal disputes threatened 

all attempts to inculcate an authentic sense of esprit and organizational and 

unit cohesion. Caused by a loss of widely shared formative experiences 

among younger officers and a series of divisive splits among senior 

officers, this dissension led to greater levels of instability and damaged 

officer corps esprit. Third, given the nature of the early American military 

establishment, the regular Army-militia relationship was of critical 

importance and provided a severe challenge to the regular Army officer 

corps, with high levels of distrust impeding any real esprit between 

regular and militia or volunteer forces. Between 1792 and 1794 however, 

a measured and limited sense of cohesion and esprit developed gradually, 

and to a limited extent, but that development and the successful use of a 

combined force was one of the most important aspects of the Northwest 

Indian War. 

American officers emerged from the Revolutionary War with a 

general vision of their officer corps as a cohesive band of brothers-inarms. Internal dissension and the formation of coteries of officers around 

powerful generals existed, yet the long years of war and the dramatic 

victory, coupled with a generally fervent devotion to their commanding 

general, resulted in a tight-knit group of officers with a high level of esprit. 

The founding of the Society of the Cincinnati in 1783 illustrates the overall 

unity within the officer corps. With over 350 founding members and state 

societies that rapidly included a majority of officers serving at the end of 

the war, the Society was both a vehicle to seek post-war compensation 

for their services and a way to express the esprit and camaraderie that 

the officer corps had formed during long years of service under General 

Washington.3

The small group of 44 officers that comprised the officer corps of 

1789, inherited from the group of officers serving under the Articles of 

Confederation, consisted overwhelmingly of Revolutionary War veterans 

and most had served together for at least several years in the late 1780s.4

General Harmar seems to have done little to explicitly target a continued 

sense of esprit, but with a group of officers who largely shared a powerful 

formative foundation, perhaps there seemed little need to focus particularly 

on esprit among federal officers. Available journals, orderly books and 

other correspondence indicate few instances of dissension or conflict 

within this officer corps and a substantial evidence of a shared commitment 

to group values and loyalty. For instance, most demonstrated some sense 

of communal pride and cohesion by membership in the Society of the 

Cincinnati.5

 High levels of trust, respect and loyalty are very evident in the 
85

correspondence between Harmar and most of his officers. For example, a 

series of letters between June 1790 and January 1791, involving rumors 

of officer speculation using government funds, is impressive for the 

candor and respect it displays among such long-time Revolutionary and 

Confederation comrades as General Harmar and Majors Hamtramck 

and Wyllys.6 Letters between Captain John Armstrong, Hamtramck and 

Harmar point to a high level of confidence, dedication to the mission, 

and trust in one another, resulting in an evident strong level of esprit.7

Perhaps the most telling indicator of a high level of esprit occurred in the 

aftermath of Harmar’s disappointing 1790 campaign, for which he was 

relieved of command. In his 1791 court of inquiry, the investigating board 

called 15 of his officers to testify; every single one of them professed 

great respect, loyalty and confidence in their former commanding officer 

and the campaign’s goal of punishing hostile Indian tribes.8 Harmar’s 

small group of officers certainly suffered some internal dissension. Majors 

Hamtramck and John Doughty disputed over rank throughout the 1780s 

until 1789 when the War Department definitely ruled on their dates of 

rank, but in general, evidence indicates a high level of cohesion, sense of 

shared purpose, and esprit among the small group of federal officers in 

1789.9

A strong sense of esprit also prospered among slightly smaller clusters 

of officers throughout this period. For instance, an especially high level of 

cohesion existed among a small number of mostly cavalry officers serving 

in General Wayne’s Legion. Existing letters between Captains Solomon 

Van Rensselaer, Edward Turner, John Webb, and Robert MisCampbell and 

Lieutenants Campbell Smith and Nanning Vissher reveal a tightly knit band 

of junior officers.10 One 1794 exchange between Captain Rensselaer and 

Lieutenant Vissher shows a particularly powerful sense of camaraderie and 

a shared dedication to duty. Writing with black and characteristic humor 

on the eve of the campaign’s decisive battle, Vissher asked Rensselaer 

to “inform me whether you have yet had an opportunity of slashing with 

temporary advantages; if not, I hope you soon may, and that you may even 

be honorably killed!! To hear of your death would be a good story for me 

to carry home, and would so well please all your friends.”11 Rensselaer’s 

playful yet poignant response two days after the battle, addressed to “my 

dear Van Munickhousen,” informs his friend of the battle, including news 

of his serious chest wound. Rensselaer asks Vissher to avoid alarming 

friends by telling them of the wound, noting that if he does die, he hopes 

others “will not repine at my lot, as I will die in the arms of victory and 

in a glorious cause.” Rensselaer concludes with news of the death of their 
86

fellow friend: “the gallant Campbell is no More; perhaps I shall soon lay 

with him in the grave. My aged Parents will grieve. Adieu, Adieu my 

dear Vissher, may you be well and happy is the wish (and perhaps the 

last one) of your sincere friend.”12 Captain MisCampbell’s will, executed 

upon his death mentioned here, included a provision stating, “My Silver 

Hilted Sword I give to my beloved friend Capt. Soln. Van Rensselaer in 

confidence that he will never disgrace it.”13 Rensselaer’s reaction to his 

life-threatening wound suffered at Fallen Timbers reveals this developing 

pride in the cavalry branch and in the officer corps. Questioned for his 

refusal to resort to a stretcher to depart the field, the 20-year-old dragoon 

officer proudly declared, “I am an officer of the cavalry, and shall go on 

horseback.”14 The interactions between these six junior officers reveal a 

spirited and dedicated service, founded at least in part upon a resilient 

small-group esprit de corps. 

The relatively common tendency of families developing a tradition 

of officer service also provided an immediate infusion of small-group 

camaraderie. The Butler family of Pennsylvania is probably the most 

striking example of this. After five sons of the family served as officers 

in the Revolutionary War, General Richard Butler, Major Thomas Butler, 

and Captain Edward Butler continued to serve together in the Northwest 

Indian War. In addition, nephew Lieutenant Richard Butler served as a 

staff officer under Wayne. During the 1791 defeat at the hands of the Indian 

confederation, Edward saved the life of the severely wounded Thomas.15

A brief perusal of officer lists during Washington’s presidency reveals at 

least 13 families with close relatives serving together in the federal officer 

corps.16 In a small body of officers, such family member groups and their 

associates within the young officer corps provided important clusters likely 

to have high levels of esprit and a shared sense of purpose and service.

At an even lower level, strong friendships between officers sharing a 

sense of dedication to the mission provided an important and productive 

esprit within the officer corps. The shared experiences and dangers 

that challenged officers on the frontier led to influential and resilient 

friendships that promoted powerful bonds of loyalty and respect. For 

example, Lieutenant William Clark’s bonds of friendship with fellow 

officers exemplified this common dynamic. While commanding a rifle 

company in 1795, Clark met newly commissioned Ensign Meriwether 

Lewis. Sharing a Virginia Piedmont boyhood, avidity for adventure, and an 

obvious interest in military affairs, the two developed a strong friendship 

founded on respect and affection. When tasked by President Jefferson to 

explore the west in 1803, Captain Lewis turned to his friend, asking Clark 
87

to co-lead the exploring party. Their strong and professionally constructive 

relationship continued to bear fruit after the famous expedition; in 1807, 

Lewis resigned from the Army to take the governorship of the new 

Louisiana Territory and he asked Clark to share his St. Louis headquarters 

as the head of the territorial militia. Letters between Clark and Lewis 

throughout this period reveal an intimate friendship, further evident in the 

name chosen for Clark’s eldest son: Meriwether Lewis Clark. Clark’s close 

friendship with another veteran Legion officer, Captain Peter Grayson, led 

to Clark’s marriage to Grayson’s sister-in-law in 1808.17

Similar strong friendships appear often within the officer corps, built 

on shared experiences and camaraderie. For instance, Lieutenant Cornelius 

Sedan and Captain David Ziegler served together under Wayne, resulting 

in a lifetime friendship testified to by the name of Sedan’s future son, 

David Zeigler Sedan.18 Lieutenant William H. Harrison’s friendship with 

Winthrop Sargent began with their common service as officers in 1792 and 

continued throughout the decade, resulting in Harrison earning Sargent’s 

recommendation and then job, succeeding his friend as territorial secretary 

in 1798.19

One last representative example reveals the type and existence of 

small-group cohesion so important to the officer corps’ development as 

a resilient force, while at the same time providing a sense of the internal 

dissension that threatened esprit across the corps as a whole. Surgeon Mate 

Joseph Andrews maintained a gossipy diary during his assignment as one 

of a group of eight officers at Fort Defiance in 1795. One of Andrews’ 

favorite topics concerns food, and his diary entries frequently note the 

officers of the garrison trading and combining their culinary fare. His 

depiction of Christmas day festivities in 1795 includes a description of an 

all-day convivial gathering among the officers, focusing on smoking and 

the sharing of duck, raccoon, pudding, jellies, chicken, squirrels, rabbit, 

and venison as well as apple toddies and whiskey.20 Andrews describes the 

fort’s officers continually dining together, banding together to buy barrels 

of cider and hospital stores to replace needed supplies and of collaborating 

in a “co-partnership to manufacture maple sugar.”21 This and his depiction 

of the officers’ sorrowful and communal reaction to the death of an 

unnamed ensign in 1795 indicates a real sense of community and shared 

reaction to the challenges of serving in an isolated garrison.22

Thus, while primary sources reveal strong bonds between small 

groups of officers, the same documents often evince an extensive number 

of officer disputes that threatened to poison relations in the officer corps 

and overwhelm the small building blocks of esprit demonstrated in the 
88

previous pages. The diary of Surgeon Mate Andrews reveals the way in 

which this small community of officers grappled with internal tensions that 

posed such a threat to the early officer corps’ esprit. In late 1795, Andrews 

relates that Major Thomas Cushing and Lieutenant Piercy Pope quarreled 

for an unspecified reason, threatening accord among the post’s officers. 

In response, the remaining officers present, Major Thomas Hunt, Captain 

Bernard Gaines, Ensign George Strother and Andrews, intervened and 

reconciled the disputants.23 Such reconciliations were required startlingly 

often due to the ongoing problem of disputes between officers. A diary 

entry from another Legion officer, Lieutenant Boyer, describes a recurring 

experience: “Lieutenant Blue of the dragoons was this day arrested by 

ensign Johnson of the 4th Sub Legion, but a number of their friends 

interfering the dispute was settled upon Lieutenant Blue’s asking Ensign 

Johnson’s pardon.”24 While most officer disputes ended peacefully, often 

through the successful interventions of other officers, sometimes disputes 

escalated with a corrosive effect on officer corps esprit.

This was particularly true of the officer corps in Wayne’s Legion, 

between 1792 and 1796, in which according to Major Buell’s journal entry 

for 23 February 1793, “there was the most quarreling . . . throughout the 

whole legion that I ever knew in any army.”25 Multiple primary sources 

support this claim, recording over 15 duels fought between officers in 

1793-1794 alone.26 During this time, the officer corps rapidly expanded 

and a large number of young officers entered the service, without the 

shared experiences that characterized older officers bonded by service 

during the Revolutionary War or Confederation era. This likely had a heavy 

influence on the significant increase in the number of officer disputes in 

Wayne’s officer corps. Without a foundation of past cohesion or shared 

experiences, these young officers allowed minor disputes to escalate into 

violence. Buell recorded the details of a duel that killed both participants, 

Lieutenant Nathaniel Huston and Lieutenant John Bradshaw, noting that 

the two fought over a petty dispute when the latter was drunk.27 At least 

four officers of the Legion died in duels, with others wounded and many 

more involved in duels settled or fought without injury.28 The practice of 

dueling by itself, especially those decided without serious injury, may 

not have been as deadly to esprit as it likely appears at first glance, for 

there was consensus that a limited amount of dueling served a useful and 

honorable service.29 General Wayne had ambiguous feelings about the 

practice, seeing it as a way to avoid time-consuming courts-martials, while 

lamenting the toll it took on his officers, especially those of junior status.30
89

A backdrop of bitter and divisive splits among senior officers however, 

invested officer duels and other disputes with a special intensity and 

partisan character which threatened to corrode the developing sense of 

esprit throughout the officer corps. In fact, the caustic relationship that 

developed between the two senior regular officers in the Legion, Generals 

Wayne and Wilkinson, was behind much of the tension and discord that is so 

strikingly evident within the Legion’s officer corps. Bitterly disappointed 

after being passed over for the job of commanding general in 1792, the 

ambitious and ever-unscrupulous Wilkinson immediately schemed to 

undermine and replace Wayne. As part of his multi-pronged plan to do so, 

Wilkinson castigated Wayne to political allies, wrote anonymous letters 

to newspapers charging Wayne with incompetence and ignorance, and 

gathered officers like Major Cushing, Captain Isaac Guion, and Lieutenant 

Clark into his anti-Wayne camp. Wilkinson openly condemned Wayne to 

these officers throughout the Fallen Timbers campaign, complaining to 

them about Wayne’s arrogance, favoritism, and unwillingness to listen to 

his ideas.31

Such actions bore divisive fruit among officers. Clark served under 

General Wilkinson upon his entry to the Legion in 1792 and quickly 

succumbed to his superior’s campaign to discredit Wayne. At the very most 

decisive point of the Fallen Timbers campaign, Clark’s journal reveals the 

consequences of such machinations by Wilkinson. Noting that Wayne had 

ignored Wilkinson’s recommendation to forsake his slow and systematic 

advance for a sudden strike against the Miami Indian villages, Clark angrily 

condemned Wayne and his supporters who “forego such opportunities 

of rendering their Country a service and absolutely so far neglect their 

duty.”32 In the available orderly books recording the recurring disputes 

between officers, one notes that usually each disputant belonged to one of 

these two rival camps. Officers like Cushing, Guion, and Lieutenant Blue 

clashed with pro-Wayne officers like Major Buell, Major Thomas Doyle, 

and Captain John Webb. All evidence supports the 1795 diary record of 

Surgeon Mate Andrews that most officers assumed that Wilkinson had 

“endeavored to raise a party in opposition to the Commander in Chief.” 

Such actions resulted in a situation where “there was no expression more 

common than such an officer in is favor of Wayne; such a one in favor of 

Wilkinson.”33

It is difficult to overstate the damage done by Wilkinson to the overall 

state of cohesion among Army officers. A brief letter from Lieutenant 

Blue to Captain Van Rensselaer is a final powerful example of the damage 

done to officer unity and sense of shared purpose by Wilkinson’s habit of 
90

supporting favored officers while denigrating others. After a dispute of 

some kind with his commanding officer, Major William Winston, Blue 

crowed to his fellow officer “the Major and his friendship may both go to 

hell. I have a better, a more powerful and a more confidential friend in my 

General (Wilkinson), and while I can maintain his good will, I feel easy . 

. .“34

In addition to corrupting cohesion within the officer corps, Wilkinson’s 

actions pushed out veteran and competent officers with strong ties to 

others in the officer corps and who had revealed a dedication to the Army’s 

mission and to a professional development of esprit. For example, Captain 

John Armstrong refused to join the anti-Wayne cabal gathered around 

Wilkinson. In return, Wilkinson pushed Armstrong out of the Army in 

1793, on trumped up charges designed to embarrass both Armstrong and 

Wayne.35 Thus because of Wilkinson’s bad influence, the Army lost a 

Revolutionary War veteran with over 16 years of service to the nation and 

with an outstanding record of achievement. Similarly, Revolutionary War 

veteran Major David Ziegler resigned his commission in 1792 after he 

tired of Wilkinson’s “schemes and machinations.”36

This situation, so obviously damaging to cohesion within the officer 

corps, persisted until Wayne’s death in 1796. One of the greatest failures 

of the Washington administration’s oversight of the Army was a failure 

to resolve the tension created by this divide amongst senior officers. Well 

aware of the rancor between Wayne and Wilkinson by 1794, the failure by 

Washington and Knox to take decisive action to resolve such divides will 

be examined in the next chapter on stewardship, for it not only impacted 

the esprit of the officer corps but also its long-term health.

Never able to fully overcome the heavy internal dissension that 

bedeviled the officer corps during his four-year command, General Wayne 

experienced greater success in instilling a generally confident and winning 

spirit among his officers. In fact, the development of a ‘winning spirit’ 

advocated by The Army was one of the greatest achievements of the officer 

corps during the latter half of Washington’s term. This accomplishment 

was especially important in the face of two disheartening Army failures 

under Generals Harmar and St. Clair. 

Before St. Clair’s campaign in 1791, Harmar represented the lack 

of confidence and defeatism shared by many when he urged Lieutenant 

Denny not to resign but urged, “You must go on the campaign; some will 

escape, and you may be among the number.”37 As St. Clair’s offensive 

pushed forward amidst crippling logistical, intelligence and regular-militia 
91

relationship issues, the sense of unease shared by numerous officers only 

deepened.38 Several years later, Wayne fought hard to avoid such defeatism 

and to promote unit pride, camaraderie and a sense of shared purpose in 

accomplishing the mission. Unlike Harmar, commanding a generally 

cohesive body of officers, and St. Clair, leading an officer corps on such 

a short timeline that it seems there was little time for real attention to the 

development of officer esprit, Wayne had the need, time and inclination to 

comprehensively tackle esprit development by focusing on individual and 

unit pride, discipline and cohesion. 

Soon after taking command, Wayne collaborated with Secretary Knox 

to devise distinctive markings for his newly organized Legion. Each of the 

four sub-legions received white, red, yellow, or black hat bindings with 

similarly colored plumes, and a Legionary standard and sub-legionary 

colors were devised and delivered to the Army.39 The training regimen 

instituted by Wayne included a heavy focus on building sub-unit bonds 

and camaraderie, offering rewards (usually in the form of an extra ration 

of whiskey) for top shooting marksmen and small groups. Wayne even 

had a fives court (similar to a handball court) built for officers, to promote 

esprit.40 Continually reiterating that officers must be decisively engaged in 

training to build trust, Wayne sought to build confidence among officers 

and across the Legion as a whole.41 Through strong improvements in 

discipline, training, intelligence, and regular-militia coordination and 

slight logistical improvements, Legion officers soon developed a shared 

sense of confidence. Journals and correspondence prior to Fallen Timbers 

records this new belief and sense of self-assurance. On the eve of the battle, 

Captain William Eaton asserted with representative confidence, “we are 

well disciplined and well reconciled to the expedition, and whatever may 

be our success, I will venture to assure you, that we shall not fly.”42

The third key development concerning esprit and cohesion within 

the officer corps in the early Army involves the relationship between 

regular and militia or volunteer forces. As noted in the previous thesis 

chapter on trust, senior national leaders fully accepted that non-regular 

forces (defined as militia or volunteer organizations) were central to 

military operations. All significant operations across the frontier during 

Washington’s presidency were either combined efforts with regular and 

non-regular units or conducted exclusively by militia or volunteers. This 

reality habitually forced federal officers to coordinate operations with 

non-regular units. Unfortunately from the very beginning, there was 

a tremendous lack of cohesion between the federal officer corps and 

other military forces, limiting the effectiveness of the combined force’s 

operations during the Harmar and St. Clair campaigns. 
92

From the perspective of the federal officers perspective, this lack 

of cohesion resulted from a near absolute lack of trust in the militia and 

volunteers. Officers’ scorn for the militia emanated from regular officers’ 

correspondence. Such notes from officers consistently decried the state 

forces’ amateurism, lack of dedication, and unwillingness to sacrifice. 

Harmar’s representative statement to Captain Armstrong in 1789 that 

“no person can hold a more contemptible opinion of the militia than I 

do” indicates how a concern for esprit and cohesion among Harmar’s 

officers was limited to federal officers and not the combined military 

establishment.43 Similarly, federal officers serving under General St. 

Clair evinced scant regard for any sense of the need for esprit or cohesion 

between their forces and the militia units involved in the campaign. 

St. Clair himself bitterly castigated the efforts of militia forces, largely 

blaming them for the Army’s rout.44 Regular officers like Major Sargent 

and Captain Armstrong blamed militia cowardice and incompetence for 

the defeat, vowing never again to serve with such non-regular elements.45

It is evident that the almost visceral reaction of many regular officers to 

the obvious weakness of militia organizations blinded officers to the fact 

that effective combined operations, so necessary given the nature of the 

country’s military establishment, cried out for serious attention to the 

development of some level of regular and militia cooperation. 

Another of General Wayne’s important accomplishments was 

his recognition and management of this reality. As wide-eyed as his 

predecessors, Wayne recognized the many weaknesses of non-regular 

forces and imposed directives to account for these and to limit corrosive 

consequences to the Army’s overall esprit. In a strongly worded letter to 

Secretary Knox, Wayne refused to operate with either militia or volunteer 

elements unless all parties clearly accepted that Wayne was the commander 

in chief of all American forces in the offensive, with non-regulars being 

fully “amenable to my orders and directions.”46 Unlike previous campaigns 

where command authority of the regular Army commander relating to 

state forces was ambiguous, Washington and Knox ensured that in the 

Fallen Timbers campaign, there was no doubt that in Knox’s words, “every 

part of the arrangements is under your (Wayne’s) control.”47 At the same 

time, Wayne acknowledged the particular worth of the Kentucky mounted 

volunteers that combined with regular units to form the American Army in 

1794. In fact, Wayne successfully lobbied Washington and Knox to name 

the commander of the 1,500 Kentucky volunteers, Major General Charles 

Scott, as the combined Army’s second in command, ahead of all other 

regular Army officers. The high level of respect, esprit and determination 
93

shared by Wayne and Scott is evident and formed an important ingredient 

in the much improved nature of the coordination and common pursuit of 

the overall goal. Scott was an experienced veteran of the French and Indian 

War and the American Revolution and shared with Wayne the experience 

of serving as a brigade commander under Washington. The resulting sense 

of trust and respect between these commanders, one a regular and one a 

state officer, highlights the possibility afforded by shared service.48

Wayne’s integration of the militia into the scheme of operations, to 

a much greater extent than had been done under the two previous Army 

commanders, further indicates his acceptance of the importance of effective 

cohesion and cooperation. Employing the Kentuckians as spies, scouts, 

supply escorts, screens, reserves, and a counterattacking force, Wayne and 

Scott integrated regular and volunteer units as had not happened since 

the Revolution.49 Perhaps most indicative of the vastly improved dynamic 

between regular and non-regular forces and their leaders is Wayne’s 

General Order of 28 August 1794. This order stated, “the commanderin-chief wishes it to be fairly understood that when he mentioned or may 

mention the Federal army in general orders, that term comprehends and 

includes the legion and mounted volunteers as one compound army.”50

Complaints by federal officers about the capability and spirit of nonregular forces remained, but for the first time in the United States Army, 

regular and non-regular forces performed combined large-scale operations 

in an effective manner. There is no doubt that regular Army officers 

followed Wayne’s lead and recognized this; primary sources during the 

Fallen Timbers campaign are far more complimentary to non-regulars and 

their leaders than in past campaigns.51

George Washington and Henry Knox insisted throughout the 1780s 

and 1790s that combined operations with regulars and well-trained and led 

militia or volunteers could form a basis for an effective American military 

establishment. In light of the failures of 1790 and 1791, this claim was 

often doubted until it was validated by Wayne’s decisive victory at Fallen 

Timbers. Supported by General Scott, Wayne’s dedication to cohesion 

across the entire force and the victory of Fallen Timbers thus validated 

Washington’s vision and was therefore one of the most profound of 

Wayne’s contributions to the early American military tradition. 

Thus, the early American officer corps experienced tremendous 

challenges in developing authentic cohesion and esprit. Officer disputes, 

founded upon a sensitive regard for personal honor, an increasing number 

of junior officers without a shared experience in past conflicts, and 

especially divisive conflict between senior officers, resulted in a failure 
94

to establish a high sense of shared loyalty or purpose across the officer 

corps as a whole. At the same time, officers did develop and demonstrate 

substantial camaraderie, a shared commitment to mission and a communal 

sense of loyalty and unit pride. As might be expected, this was especially 

true among officers sharing profound experiences of some kind. Towards 

the latter part of Washington’s presidency, Army leaders increasingly 

focused on improving cohesion within the military establishment, and 

regular and non-regular military leaders made substantial strides toward 

more cohesive relations. These actions targeted increased levels of esprit 

as well as positive stewardship, the topic of the next chapter. 
95

Notes

1. Headquarters, Department of the Army, Whitepaper - Our Army 

Profession, 11.

2. Headquarters, Department of the Army, ADP 1, sect. 2-20 to 2-24. 

3. Data on the Society and the Cincinnati and its members was drawn 

primarily from primary sources in the first two boxes of the “Proceedings of 

the General Society of the Cincinnati, 1783-1902,” Society of Cincinnati’s 

Headquarters, Washington DC; as well as from Minor Myers, Liberty without 

Anarchy: A History of the Society of the Cincinnati (Charlottesville, VA: 

University of Virginia Press, 1983). 

4. Identifying all 44 of these officers is difficult, yet a fairly 

comprehensive list can be gathered by combining lists found in Heitman, 

various lists found in United States, American State Papers, Military Affairs, 

and the journal kept by Harmar’s adjutant, Denny, in his Military Journal.

5. It appears from society rosters (see footnote 243 above for sources) that 

over 20 of the original 44 1789 officers were founding members of the society, 

with more joining later in the 1780s. 

6. Series of letters between the three on this topic commences with a 

letter from Hamtramck to Harmar on 24 June 1790 and ends on 25 January 

1791. During this time, Harmar’s force suffered its defeat with the loss of many 

men including several officers, causing Hamtramck to note to Harmar that “I 

very lament the loss of so many men but particularly that of my excellent friend 

Wyllys,” (2 December 1790). These letters are printed in Thornbrough, Outpost 

on the Wabash Letters, 235-276.

7. Letters between these officers are found loose in Armstrong and 

Thornbrough, Outpost on the Wabash Letters, 173–198.

8. Testimony given throughout Harmar, The Proceedings of a Court of 

Inquiry.

9. Correspondence between Knox, Harmar, and Captain Bradshaw in 

1789 indicates this dispute over rank; see letters in Thornbrough, Outpost on the 

Wabash Letters, 164-165.

10. Series of letters between these officers in 1794 and 1795 is reprinted in 

Catharina Vissher Bonney, A Legacy of Historical Gleanings I (Albany, NY: J. 

Munsell, 1875), 96-146.

11. Bonney, Vissher to Rensselaer, 1 August 1794, 101.

12. Bonney, Rensselaer to Vissher, 22 August 1794, 104.

13. Bonney, Captain MisCampbell’s will, 102.

14. Bonney. 

15. Murray, “The Butler Family of the Pennsylvania Line,” 1-6.
96

16. There are likely others, but families with relatives serving together 

include the Butlers, Harrisons, Poseys, Pikes, Smiths, Strothers, Bradys, 

Graysons, Mills, Bissells, Freemans, Sloughs and Strongs.

17. The continuing influence of Clark’s Army officer friendships is evident 

throughout Jones.

18. Emma Backus, “Cornelius Sedam and his Friends in Washington’s 

Time,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 41, no. 1 (January 1932): 

44.

19. Booraem, 86, 165.

20. Knopf, A Surgeon’s Mate at Fort Defiance, 65.

21. Knopf, 54, 45, 14.

22. Knopf, 52.

23. Knopf, A Surgeon’s Mate at Fort Defiance, 50.

24. Lieutenant Boyer, A Journal of Wayne’s Campaign. Being an 

Authenthic Daily Record of the Most Important Occurrences During the 

Campaign of Major General Anthony Wayne, against the Northwestern Indians 

(Cincinnati, OH: Printed for W. Dodge by J. F. Uhlhorn, 1866), 18. The word 

“arrest” meant in this context not necessarily a legal action but a reproof or 

challenge to provide redress of some sort for a perceived act of wrongdoing, 

injustice or insult.

25. John Hutchinson Buell, The Diary of John Hutchison Buell, ed. Richard 

Knopf (Columbus, OH: Anthony Wayne Parkway Board, Ohio State Museum, 

1957), 5.

26. Both Lieutenant William Henry Harrison and Major John Buell record 

at least 15 duels fought, most without casualties, during 1793 and 1794. For 

Harrison’s claim, see Booraem, 109; for Buell’s claim, see Buell, 5.

27. Buell, 5.

28. Gaff; Ensign William Gassaway, Lieutenant Huston, Lieutenant John 

Bradshaw and Lieutenant George Dunn were four Legion officers known to 

have been killed via duel.

29. The practice of dueling demonstrates the continued tension within 

the officer corps between a high sense of personal honor and a dedication 

to honorable service as a military officer. For instance Lieutenant William 

Harrison’s acceptance of dueling as a useful social practice was relatively 

common and accepted; Booraem.

30. The Army’s Articles of War made dueling illegal and punishable but 

no legal action was taken against those generally viewed as taking part in a 

legitimate and sometimes necessary activity of honor. Wayne himself seems 

to have condoned dueling, noting in his orderly book in June, 1793 that “some 

other mode than of a general court martial” should settle personal disputes. 

Knopf, Orderly Books of the US Legion, 58.
97

31. While evident throughout available primary sources, the most succinct 

and useful summary of the bitter divide between Wayne and Wilkinson is Kohn, 

“General Wilkinson’s Vendetta with General Wayne,” 361-372.

32. Clark, 425.

33. Knopf, A Surgeon’s Mate at Fort Defiance, 55.

34. Bonney, Blue to Rensselaer, 21 May 96, 123. 

35. See Kohn, “General Wilkinson’s Vendetta with General Wayne,” 363, 

as well as documents in Armstrong.

36. George A. Katzenberger, “Major David Ziegler,” Ohio Archaeological 

and Historical Quarterly 21 (April-July 1912): 156.

37. Denny, Harmar 25 September 1791 journal entry, 153.

38. Lieutenant Colonel Sargent, Captain Newman and Lieutenant Denny 

make this very clear in their individual journal entries in the weeks prior to the 

battle fought on 4 November 1791.

39. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Knox to Wayne, 27 July 1792 and Wayne to 

Knox, 30 March 1793, 51, 212.

40. Booraem, 139.

41. Gaff, 62-63.

42. Captain Eaton quoted in Gaff, 156. Other officers’ journals noting 

confidence on the eve of the battle included those of Lieutenant Clark and 

Lieutenant Boyer.

43. Thornbrough, Outpost on the Wabash, Harmar to Armstrong, 28 July 

1789, 345.

44. United States, American State Papers, Indian Affairs, 136.

45. Reactions to St. Clair’s defeat are recorded in Kohn, Eagle and Sword, 

114-115.

46. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 20 June 1793, 244-245.

47. Knopf., Knox to Wayne, 16 May 1794, 329.

48. For Scott’s extensive service as an officer, see Harry Ward, Charles 

Scott and the Spirit of ’76 (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 

1988); see also Nelson, “General Charles Scott, the Kentucky Volunteers, and 

the Northwest Indian Wars, 1784-1794,” 245. Wilkinson’s unsurprising reaction 

to being passed over by Scott was to mount an attack on the Kentuckian, calling 

him a “fool, a scoundrel, and a poltroon.”

49. Two good accounts of the integration of regulars and volunteers under 

Wayne are Millett, “Caesar and the Northwest: The Wayne Campaign, 1792-

1795,” 2-21 and Gaff.

50. General Order copied in Boyer, 11.
98

51. Several federal officer journals evince substantial respect for General 

Scott and many of his officers.
99

Chapter 7

Military Professionalism and Stewardship in the Early American 

Army Officer Corps, 1789 – 1796

Stewardship of the profession of arms is the fifth and final characteristic 

demanded of the military professional according to The Army. Professionals 

act as stewards of the Army by focusing on building “a better Army for 

tomorrow.”1

Leaders accomplish this by protecting and promoting authentic 

trust, expertise, service and esprit in order to ensure the long-term 

effectiveness and health of the Army and the military profession. Through 

stewardship, professionals safeguard a long-term relationship with 

American society consistent with national values. Critical to stewardship 

is the self-regulation of members of the profession and a focus on 

leader development. Stewardship, according to Army doctrine, ensures 

disciplined development of Army professionals and leaders with the 

requisite competence, commitment, and character to apply land combat 

power while “exemplifying the ideals espoused by our ethos.”2

This chapter describes the nature of stewardship in the early American 

officer corps between 1789 and 1796. Included is a description of the way 

leaders of the early military establishment understood stewardship and 

the strong challenges the environment of the 1790s presented to effective 

long-term care of the Army’s corporate leadership. This discussion 

depicts officers’ responses to these challenges and the resulting patterns of 

stewardship that developed within the officer corps. In seeking to shape the 

future Army and officer corps amidst these conditions, officers emphasized 

the importance of personal leadership, self-regulation and discipline of 

the officer corps, and an intimate connection among character, leadership, 

and stewardship. Convinced that only officers practiced the profession of 

arms, leaders of the early Army focused stewarding efforts on officers.3

Powerful challenges to an authentic sense of officer corps stewardship 

faced leaders between 1789 and 1796. First, the very real danger of an 

active and enterprising enemy along the northwest frontier and the need 

to garrison frontier posts preoccupied the Army and its officer corps. 

Throughout this period, and especially until the Treaty of Greeneville in 

1796, combat operations and near-constant irregular warfare dominated 

Army efforts; this operational focus limited opportunities for the 

development of a long-term strategy for stewardship. Attempts to shape 

the future officer corps often quickly met the reality of a severe shortage 

of resources. For example, requests for federal forces along the southwest 
100

frontier went largely unmet until 1795 due to the Army’s heavy focus 

on the Northwest Indian War.4 Though leaders in the war department 

sought to shelter young officers slated to attend the fledgling artillery 

and engineering school at West Point in 1795, General Wayne’s request 

for all available officers and the need to garrison forts finally vacated by 

the British in 1796, eventually stripped the school of its instructors and 

students.5 Operating in an environment of tight fiscal constraints and in 

the face of a dangerous foe, this representative example demonstrates the 

officer corps’ tendency to forsake long-term stewardship through education 

in favor of short-term execution of pressing and demanding missions. 

Second, the organization and officer corps quickly and frequently 

swelled in accordance with the demands of wartime conflict; contraction 

was also a significant threat throughout this period, with congressional 

attempts to decrease the size, cost, and influence of the Army. In 1792 

for instance, Congress attempted to undo the recent expansion of the 

Army, with a derogatory impact on officers’ sense of stewardship.6

 Wayne 

reported that such attempts demoralized his officer corps, forcing them 

to consider that their efforts and sacrifice might not endure, and thus 

many officers, upon learning of such attempts, lose all “interest or pride 

in the discipline or appearance of their men.”7

 Thus, officers’ sense of 

responsibility toward the Army seemed to weaken in the face of uncertainty 

over both the Army’s future and their own place within the organization. 

Additionally, senior Army leaders, so important to stewardship, changed 

frequently, undermining that stability that seems so conducive to charting 

a steady course for the future. General Harmar’s command of the United 

States Army lasted less than two years, while General St. Clair served as 

commanding general for only about one year. General Wayne’s four-year 

command offered the Army for the first time a stable and relatively longserving chief. Unfortunately, the internal officer dissension discussed in the 

previous chapter, ongoing attempts to decrease the size of the Army and its 

officer corps, and a steady turnover in field grade officers threatened the 

establishment and implementation of a clear vision for long-term Army 

and officer corps development.

 A third challenge to effective stewardship involved the fact that 

throughout this era officers were scattered in small numbers across a great 

swath of territory, ranging from the Great Lakes to the Georgia frontier, 

with a few sprinkled along the eastern seaboard. In 1789, the officer corps 

served at nine forts, primarily along the frontier. Three years later, officers 

served at 14 posts, with staff sizes ranging from two at Fort Fayette and 

Fort Steuben to nine at Fort Washington. By 1796, due to construction and 
101

assumption of posts vacated by British troops, federal officers staffed 19 

posts. The three major campaigns of 1790, 1791, and 1793-1794 offered 

most of the Army an opportunity to interact as a whole, but a majority 

of an officer’s time was spent at largely isolated outposts with only a 

limited number of officers. While major posts like Fort Washington held 

a substantial number of officers, the majority of garrisons held fewer than 

five officers. Focused on particular duties in a garrison far from other 

Army posts or officers, it was difficult to develop a real long-term plan for 

stewarding the profession.8

Fourth, the lack of institutional means by which a sense of stewardship 

might be nourished handicapped the officer corps. The aforementioned 

1795 military school at West Point failed to develop until the following 

decade; all officer training continued to be on-the-job, received upon arrival 

to the assigned unit. Without a general staff and with a war department 

consisting of a staff which never rose above a total of seven officials during 

Washington’s administration, the Army as an institution lacked depth. This 

jeopardized all attempts to implement Army-wide structural programs for 

the long-term good of the officer corps.9

 

Finally, the tremendous partisanship developed toward the latter 

half of the 1790s spilled over into the officer corps, with Wilkinson 

successfully seeking powerful political allies to promote his agenda of 

undermining the Federalist-leaning Wayne and his allies. Because of this, 

political calculations by leaders tended to compete with just demands 

for accountability. By 1795, the president and his administration were 

aware of Wilkinson’s self-serving schemes, yet without hard proof, 

chose to ignore his behavior in hopes of avoiding the political fallout any 

prosecution of the general would likely incur.10 From the very beginning 

of the nation, political pressures and calculations sometimes trumped the 

need for principled stewardship of the profession. Despite all these strong 

challenges, Army leaders did what they believed possible to ensure the 

long-term effectiveness of the Army officer corps and the Army profession, 

developing some vital patterns of stewardship during the first years of the 

republic.

At the very heart of officers’ conceptions of stewardship was the 

realization that officers needed to reflect and perpetuate the values of 

the American republic, in order to ensure the long-term trustworthiness 

of the Army. Seeking to avoid the abuse of power so inimical to the 

fundamental American values of liberty and equal justice under the law, 

senior leaders emphasized officer accountability and adherence to selfless 

service. President Washington’s influence seems especially powerful here; 
102

he consistently emphasized to his subordinates that officers failing to live 

up to a decent standard of character and behavior set an insidious example 

that threatened the long-term health and trustworthiness of the officer 

corps. Throughout the Revolution, he insisted to his officers that leaders 

set a strong example, arguing, “when Officers set good Examples, it may 

be expected that the Men will with zeal and alacrity follow them . . . nor 

can they (officers) with any kind of propriety, or good Conscience, set in 

Judgment upon a Soldier for disobeying an order, which they themselves 

are everyday breaking.”11 As commanding general of the Continental 

Army, Washington consistently stressed the relationship between perceived 

character failings and an inability to fulfill the high calling of a leader, 

dismissing officers for drunkenness, perjury, slander, being absent without 

leave, refusing duties, homosexual acts, and cowardice.12 As president, 

Washington directed his Army leaders to continue dismissing officers for 

such issues, advising Wayne in 1792, “so long as the vice of drunkenness 

exists in the Army so long I hope ejections of those Officers who are 

found guilty will continue, for that and gaming will debilitate and render 

unfit for active service any army whatever.”13 The president’s example of 

demanding professional accountability, demonstrated by his swift removal 

from command of Harmar and St. Clair in the aftermath of their campaign 

failures, sent a powerful message to his senior Army leaders.

Leaders of the early Army took such guidance seriously, filling their 

orderly books and correspondence with records of officer punishment and 

dismissals as they sought to implement accountability across the officer 

corps. Commanding officers seemed especially intent upon quashing 

the development of aggrandizement based on position or rank. The 

unprincipled use of power over time threatened to lead to a sense of officer 

entitlement – the very opposite of the ideal of selfless service so critical 

to Army trustworthiness and long-term effectiveness and organizational 

health. For instance, hearing rumors of a leader at Fort Franklin employing 

Soldiers on the officer’s personal business, General Harmar sent a terse 

note to Ensign John Jeffers at Fort Franklin that he was disappointed to 

hear that in the past, Soldiers at the post had been “almost continually 

employed on fatigue, and principally for (the officer’s) own private 

emolument . . . Such conduct is a disgrace to the regiment, and any officer 

acting in like manner in future, shall be called to a severe account for it.”14

A focus on developing accountability in the officer corps was especially 

evident in the Legion, as Wayne concentrated his efforts on incorporating 

Washington’s emphasis on discipline as a critical component of shaping 

the future force. An examination of the Legion’s orderly books reveals a 
103

constant grappling with issues of officer misconduct and strenuous efforts 

to dismiss the worst offenders while reprimanding those considered 

worthy of another opportunity. In the summer of 1792, Wayne approved 

the dismissal of Captain John Platt from the Army for drunkenness 

and conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman, noting it was a 

senior officer’s duty “not to permit such unworthy conduct to pass with 

impunity.”15 In order to steward the officer corps, Wayne also approved 

the dismissal of Lieutenants St. Thomas Jenifer and Hastings Marks as 

well as Captain John Sullivan for issues dealing with drunkenness. Wayne 

dismissed Lieutenant William Smith for repeatedly being absent from 

parade and for treating a superior with contempt. Captain Joseph Shaylor 

suffered dismissal for an unspecified “breach of military propriety.” 

Captain Jacob Melcher resigned in lieu of dismissal for dereliction of duty 

after abandoning the supply convoy he commanded, and Ensign William 

Gassaway received a reprimand for “wearing clothing not uniform at 

the head of his guard.”16 Captain Ballard Smith received a six-month 

suspension for conduct “unlike a Gentleman and Officer and repugnant 

to the dignity of the army” by keeping a sergeant’s wife in his own tent; 

failing to learn his lesson, Smith was dismissed from the Legion less than 

a year later for intoxication while on duty and related offenses.17

Accountability became real enough within the officer corps that 

Lieutenant William Clark bemoaned to his journal the risk of being 

“ruined forever” by a single mistake, noting shortly after the battle of 

Fallen Timbers that the officer of the day had discovered his (Clark) 

forgetting to issue countersigns to his sentries. If this officer, noted Clark, 

“had me arrested, I should have been Broke, unquestionably. I can but be 

astonished to View what a little fault will ruin an officer in the Army.”18

Such representative cases indicate both how serious Army senior leaders 

were about developing an officer corps that could be trusted to lead the 

nation’s Army and what a struggle it was to develop such a body of officers 

in the 1790’s environment. 

Officers throughout the Army hierarchy needed to accept and embrace 

the requirement to self-regulate the profession if the vision of an officer 

corps comprised of leaders of character and ability was to be implemented. 

There are strong indications that many officers did exactly that. The 

frequent intervention by small groups of officers in disputes between fellow 

officers indicates a concern for the long-term good of the organization.19

Captain Samuel Newman’s representative journal entry while on St. Clair’s 

1791 campaign demonstrates such internalization. Newman regrets that 

“a too strong propensity to liquor, has repeatedly prevented my placing 
104

the confidence I ever wish to repose” in a soldier unsuccessfully seeking 

the captain’s support in earning an officer’s commission.20 The recurring 

presence of these types of incidents in primary sources indicates, of course, 

both a failure to live up to this ideal and a dedication by leaders to root out 

such violations.

The second major pattern demonstrated by the early officer corps in 

terms of stewardship was an evident concern in mentoring and developing 

young officers through the personal involvement of more senior officers. In 

an era when leader development commenced only with the arrival of a new 

officer to the unit, such personal leadership and mentorship was essential 

to stewardship of the officer corps. It is difficult to know how frequently 

or how well this took place; primary sources tend not to focus on such 

matters. However, there are indications that some leaders understood the 

critical need to develop younger officers through personal engagement. 

Ensign Hugh Brady related one such incident shortly after his arrival as a 

new officer of the Legion. Describing his first duty, commanding a guard 

of pickets, Brady wrote, “The officer of the day, Major Mills, saw, at guard 

mounting, that I was very green, and when he visited my guard, at twelve 

o’clock, he took much pains to instruct me. . . The major complimented 

me, and remained with me for some time. His treatment had the effect to 

inspire me with the confidence which is indispensable in a young officer, 

to enable him to perform any duty in a suitable manner.”21

Both Harmar and St. Clair clearly mentored their fellow Pennsylvanian, 

Lieutenant Ebenezer Denny, taking a long-term interest in the young 

officer dating from his service in the Revolutionary War as a teenage 

ensign. In fact, it seems likely that they were involved in selecting Denny 

for the honor of planting the flag atop a British redoubt after the victory at 

Yorktown in 1781.22 Harmar selected Denny as his adjutant for the 1790 

offensive; writing to Knox in its aftermath, Harmar demonstrated his care 

for an officer he highly valued, noting, “It will afford me great satisfaction 

to know that some mark of honor will be shown to him (Denny).”23 Upon 

Harmar’s recommendation, Denny became St. Clair’s aide-de-camp for the 

1791 campaign, during which he continued to provide advice and counsel 

to the lieutenant. Denny’s almost filial respect and devotion to Harmar 

emerges from his letters, indicating the close and influential relationship 

between the two officers, further demonstrated by Denny naming two of 

his sons, Harmar and St. Clair.24

Similarly, Harmar identified Captain John Armstrong as an especially 

able and effective junior officer, taking a special interest in the development 

of his fellow Revolutionary War veteran. Harmar selected Armstrong for 
105

progressively more demanding missions between 1788 and 1790, offering 

advice and assistance throughout, while ensuring that the young officer 

received notice at high levels for his contributions to the Army.25 Though 

driven from the officer corps by Wilkinson in 1791, Armstrong’s continued 

correspondence with Harmar also indicates a filial devotion and respect 

for his former commander.26 Harmar’s continued interest and intervention 

on behalf of Armstrong indicates Harmar’s mentorship and sense of 

stewardship for both an individual and for the officer corps.27

General Wayne developed close and mentoring relationships with 

young officers like Lieutenant William Henry Harrison. Recognizing 

the junior officer’s education, dedication, and bravery, Wayne plucked 

Harrison from a detachment command to serve as his aide-de-camp in 

1793. Following the battle of Fallen Timbers, Wayne singled Harrison 

out for praise to Knox, before granting the future president the muchdesired assignment as Fort Washington commander in 1795. Wayne’s 

“deep fondness” for Harrison manifested itself in assurances of the latter’s 

prospects in the Army – promises which kept him in the Army until after 

Wayne’s 1796 death. 28 Other officers, like Captains Henry DeButts and 

William Clark became Wayne protégées, developing strong relationships 

with the commanding general demonstrated by his continued interventions 

in their careers until his death.29

It is probably dangerous to draw from these few examples generalities 

concerning concepts of mentorship across the officer corps, but they do 

indicate an understanding by some senior officers of the importance of 

personal leadership in identifying and guiding promising officers. At the 

same time, these examples indicate patterns of junior officers looking for 

mentors to guide and direct their continued progression in the profession. 

Stewardship in the early American officer corps drew heavily from the 

example and input of George Washington. Senior Army leaders during his 

presidency adopted his concern for the power of officers’ examples and in 

a satisfactory level of military performance and ethical character within the 

officer corps. Focusing on accountability and discipline, the officer corps 

attempted with some degree of success to regulate and police members, 

trying to ensure that only those deserving the title of officer served in 

that role. Lacking any institutional means of leader development, leaders 

turned to personal relationships to develop promising officers. Substantial 

obstacles, many not of the officers corps’ making, yet real nonetheless, 

limited all of these efforts at effectively shaping the officer corps of the 

future. Thus, stewardship remained a work in progress for the republic’s 

early officer corps. 
106

Notes

1. Headquarters, Department of the Army, ADP 1, para. 2-24; discussion 

of stewardship that follows this note comes from paras. 2-24 through 2-27, 

as well as Headquarters, Department of the Army, Whitepaper - Our Army 

Profession, 13.

2. Headquarters, Department of the Army, ADP 1, para. 2-26.

3. See the chapter in this thesis on service for a description of the way 

officers restricted their view of professionalism to the officer corps.

4. Ward, The Department of War, describes the competing demands for a 

very limited force. 

5. See description of difficulty of protecting students and negative impact 

on the West Point school in Wade, 59-61 and in correspondence between Wayne 

and Secretary of War Timothy Pickering in June 1795, found in Knopf, Anthony 

Wayne, 429, 434.

6. The best and most comprehensive source for a discussion of the process 

of Army expansion and contraction throughout Washington’s presidency is 

Kohn, Eagle and Sword.

7. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Knox, 15 January 1793, 171.

8. Data on fort staffing is drawn from various officer reports in official 

correspondence, from officer journals stationed at particular posts, and from 

reports quoted in Guthman and Gaff.

9. Ward, The Department of War, convincingly describes the institutional 

limitations of the department during this period.

10. Correspondence between Wayne and Knox and Pickering clearly show 

all were aware of Wilkinson’s secret and treasonous conniving with Spanish 

authorities and suspected him of attempting to undermine the effectiveness 

of the Legion by interfering with logistical operations. The administration’s 

response to ignore such actions is at first glance inexplicable. Yet, as both 

Linklater and Kohn, “General Wilkinson’s Vendetta with General Wayne” 

convincingly argue, Washington and his officials reasoned that political 

necessities, including keeping Wilkinson relatively quiet, overrode demands for 

justice and accountability. 

11. John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington, vol. III 

(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1944), 441.

12. Examples of officer dismissal for perceived misconduct drawn from 

a sample from George Washington, “Washington’s General Orders,” George 

Washington Papers, Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 

VA, 14 March 1778, http://gwpapers.virginia.edu (accessed 7 May 2013) and 

from Stuart Bernath, “George Washington and the Genesis of American Military 

Discipline,” Mid-America: An Historical Review 49, no. 2 (April 1967): 90. 
107

13. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Knox to Wayne, 7 August 1792, 63.

14. Thornbrough, Outpost on the Wabash, Harmar to Jeffers, 27 August 

1790, 253.

15. Knopf, Orderly Books for the United States Legion, July, 1792, 6.

16. Knopf, various entries between 1792 and 1794, 6-88.

17. Gaff, 65, 160-162.

18. Clark, 441. The number of second chances offered to officers is striking 

and indicates Clark’s claim here is overstated, yet his concern in his journal 

describes an important perception.

19. The previous chapter of this thesis, on esprit, describes such 

interventions. 

20. Newman, 6.

21. Brady’s history and reminisces recounted in Linn, 222.

22. Colonel Richard Butler selected Denny but it seems as officers in the 

same Pennsylvania Line, both Harmar and St. Clair were at least aware, if not 

involved. See Denny, 10.

23. Denny, intro. 16.

24. Denny, 15-16, 28, 257-273.

25. See series of letters from 1789-1790 between Harmar, Armstrong and 

Hamtramck indicating this type of relationship in Thornbrough, Outpost on the 

Wabash, 173-177, 196.

26. Correspondence in Armstrong reveals his sense of persecution, 

stemming from his refusal to join the coterie of officers around Wilkinson. Kohn 

comes to the same conclusion, that Armstrong was unfairly driven from the 

officer corps by a vengeful Wilkinson in Eagle and Sword, 179.

27. In Armstrong, multiple original letters between Harmar and Armstrong 

reveal this close relationship.

28. Booraem, 137, 159.

29. Knopf, Anthony Wayne, Wayne to Pickering, 19 September 1795, 460; 

and Jones, 88.

109

Chapter 8

Conclusion

In the summer of 1792, Captain Henry Carbery issued written guidance 

to Lieutenant Benjamin Price as the lieutenant marched a detachment of 

newly recruited Soldiers off to join the Army as it prepared for offensive 

operations. Carbery wrote:

I recommend to you the most kind and gentle treatment to 

your men, and the most unexceptionable conduct towards the 

inhabitants of the country, through which you may pass – the first, 

are your brother Soldiers, with whom, in all probability, you will 

have to encounter savages and perhaps, to bleed again in defense 

of the helpless – the others, peaceful citizens, who will treat 

you with civility, if they are not afraid of your company . . . My 

utmost exertions have been used to accommodate the men, under 

your command, to military order and discipline – and to impress 

them, by every means in my power, with a proper sense of their 

important duty, and a ready and willing obedience to the dictates 

of their officers.1

In this one short missive, Carbery demonstrated a profound 

understanding of the demands placed upon an officer corps serving the 

new American republic. His guidance reveals a strong appreciation for the 

critical importance of a profession of arms based upon civil-military and 

internal-Army trust, military order and discipline, selfless service, and a 

sense of both esprit and stewardship. 

A similar and generally widespread appreciation developed within the 

early officer corps between 1789 and 1796, revealing a real anticipation of 

the Army’s current doctrine on military professionalism, with its focus on 

trust, expertise, service, esprit, and stewardship as the key characteristics 

of an Army professional. This similarity refutes the notion, implied by 

some scholars, that the experience of the officer corps of the late eighteenth 

century has little relevance for understanding the challenges facing the 

modern American military professional.2

 Therefore the early officer corps, 

sharing an appreciation for these five key characteristics of professionalism 

and facing some of the same fundamental challenges confronting officers 

today, can and should provide historical insight into a deep understanding 

of military professionalism. 

Among the many possible syntheses able to be drawn from this study 

of the early officer corps, five are particularly relevant today, for they are 

extracted from the officer corps in the 1790s grappling with realities or 
110

tensions still challenging the modern military professional. First, Army 

leaders emerged from the Revolutionary War and Confederation era 

convinced of the need for a reliable military establishment able to fully 

meet security requirements without sacrificing the ideological values of the 

American republic. The need to ensure ideological reliability committed 

Washington and Knox, and nearly all other national leaders, to a central 

role for trained state militia forces in ensuring American national security. 

The requirement for military expertise, so evident in the Revolution and 

in frontier conflicts in the decade following the 1783 Treaty of Paris, led 

leaders like Washington and Knox to simultaneously emphasize the value 

and need of a regular and permanent body of regulars, led by officers “well 

skilled in the Theory and Art of War, who will be ready on any occasion, to 

mix and diffuse their knowledge of Discipline to other Corps . . .”3

This mixed force, composed of both federal and state forces, operated 

together throughout the Northwest Indian War. Its drastic failures early 

in the war led some to doubt the vision of trained state units integrated 

with regular forces, providing a reliable and effective Army. Many in the 

federal Army officer corps possessed such doubts, just as they had during 

the Revolution, especially in the aftermath of the disastrous 1790 and 

1791 offensives against the confederation of hostile northwest area tribes.4

Yet in the end, these struggles failed to shake the idea of a need for a 

mixed military establishment comprised of both federal and state military 

forces. In fact, the victory at Fallen Timbers reinforced the widely-shared 

perception that a well-led non-regular force could be effective, especially 

when acting in conjunction with federal elements. Through the course 

of this campaign, General Wayne’s officer corps developed a grudging 

appreciation for the contribution from the Kentucky mounted volunteers. 

To many Americans, the skillful synchronization of forces by Wayne 

and Kentucky’s General Charles Scott ultimately validated the vision of 

Washington and Knox - that an effective militia force joined cohesively 

with regulars was the military establishment best suited to meet both the 

security and ideological needs of the American republic. Secretary of 

War James McHenry articulated this understanding in 1796, arguing to 

Congress that militia formations, central to the nation’s defense, benefited 

deeply from a regular Army that ought to serve as “a model and school 

for an army, (with) experienced officers to form it, in case of war.”5

 By 

the conclusion of the war in 1795, a general willingness developed, across 

the mainstream political spectrum, to accept the legitimacy of this mixed 

force concept. This critical development obviously provides insight into 

the modern Army’s total force concept, in which active Army, National 

Guard, and Army reserve forces constitute one Army.
111

Second, led by President George Washington and Secretary Henry 

Knox, the Army officer corps fully accepted and internalized the need to 

find a balance between the potentially conflicting principles of civil-military 

trust and military expertise. Only socially and politically trustworthy 

officers could be depended upon to use the military expertise and power 

gathered in the federal officer corps. Only such officers could be trusted to 

act in defense of, and never in undermining, American values of individual 

liberty and justice. Officers proved their trustworthiness not by their rank 

or position, but by their demonstration of selfless service, commitment to 

the greater cause of the republic, their military ability, and care for those 

whose lives were entrusted to them. Only after officers demonstrated the 

competence, commitment and character worthy of the role of leading free 

American citizens, could they demand the discipline, order, and deference 

required of an effective Army. This key realization among early Army 

leaders and officers led directly to the push to implement high standards 

of leader accountability and a focus on the importance of strong character 

among Army officers. Thus, officers during Washington’s presidency 

sought to seamlessly integrate and synchronize trust and expertise, 

realizing that the existence of one of these characteristics without the other 

failed to meet both the security and ideological needs of the American 

republic. The need to balance trust and expertise, as The Army emphasizes, 

remains today.

Third, Army officers considered their military officership as an 

extension of their role as societal leaders. Largely rejecting the more 

modern notion of the professional benefits of at least some separation from 

the larger society, early American Army officers engaged with society both 

in width and depth.6

 As described earlier in this thesis, military officers 

participated deeply in their society while often practicing a wide variety 

of leadership roles outside the officer corps. William Henry Harrison is a 

superb example of this. While stationed at Fort Washington just outside 

the town of Cincinnati, Lieutenant Harrison remained deeply engaged in 

civilian society, supporting the building of a town church, partnering with 

local civilians to form a distillery business, and courting and marrying 

a local woman.7 After his service as a junior officer between 1792 and 

1798, Harrison gained fame holding leadership position as territorial 

secretary and governor, War of 1812 general, congressman, ambassador, 

and finally president. While the level of Harrison’s leadership roles was 

obviously unusual, officers of the Army of the 1790s commonly held 

leadership positions outside of their Army service. This connection to 

civilian society was crucial to the sense of trust deemed so necessary by 
112

Army leaders during this era. Officers that were engaged as American 

citizens and active in civilian affairs proved the legitimacy of their claim 

to be faithful citizen-Soldiers. Such officer engagement in the larger 

society resulted in a network of citizen-Soldiers interwoven into American 

society, simultaneously focused on protecting the country and establishing 

a foundation of trust between the military and American society. In the 

current age, many worry about a widening gap between the military and 

American society while others express concern about the involvement of 

officers in political affairs. In light of the continued requirement to think 

through the American military officer’s place in the larger society, the 

early officer corps’ approach to issues related to trust and service may 

provide important insights.8

Fourth, a sense of instability and a lack of resources in the early 

officer corps limited consistent career-service, a winning spirit, and the 

development of institutional vehicles by which principles of expertise, 

esprit, and stewardship could be especially nourished. The political and 

economic environment of the 1790s had a profound influence on the 

development of the early Army officer corps, limiting stability and the 

manpower, talent, time, and financial resources available to the officer 

corps between 1789 and 1796. Army leaders responded to this reality by 

consistently prioritizing the immediate mission requirements of defeating 

hostile Indian tribes over a longer-term focus on promoting military 

expertise, stable patterns of service, and shaping the officer corps of the 

future through stewardship. As discussed in the previous chapter, attempts 

by the Washington administration and the Army to found an institution 

devoted to the education of future artillery and engineer officers withered 

in the face of an unstable and constraining environment. The near-constant 

threat of reductions in the officer corps and slight reductions in the number 

and rank of officers in the aftermath of the Fallen Timbers victory decreased 

esprit and motivation for both career-service and serious dedication to 

stewardship among Army leaders. A lack of stability within the Army 

over the last decade is now joined by an environment characterized by 

constrained resources, potentially impacting levels of expertise, esprit, and 

stewardship among Army officers. Facing similar types of issues in the 

1790s, the response of Army officers may provide historically relevant 

insights. 

Finally, it is important to recognize that the influence of George 

Washington on the officer corps in the 1790s was profound and farreaching. In many ways, the story of the officer corps during his presidency 

is a tale of the organization seeking to implement Washington’s vision for 
113

officers. Through his Revolutionary War leadership, so intimately familiar 

to almost all of the field grade officers serving the country in the 1790s, his 

example and his guidance, the president focused the attention of civilian 

and military leaders on his vision for American officership. Washington 

erected this vision on a foundation of respect for the need to form a 

particularly American Army officer corps, acceptable to the ideals of a 

free people, while still being able to provide military expertise in leading 

an effective defense establishment. His ideal and example of selfless 

service reverberated throughout the military establishment, decisively 

impacting the ethos of the officer corps of the 1790s. Washington’s 

Revolutionary War leadership of officers centered on forming a band of 

brothers-in-arms, with powerful ties of loyalty and a commitment to the 

cause. His devotion to civil control of the military decisively implemented 

an enduring and foundational American military and political principle. 

Finally, his emphasis on officer character and accountability provided an 

enduring example for officers in the 1790s.9 Because of Washington’s 

powerful influence, it is no real surprise that the five elements chosen 

by current Army leaders to characterize today’s military professional 

were critical elements of Washington’s example and vision for American 

officership. While the study of such figures as Carl Von Clausewitz and 

Antoine-Henri Jomini remains important, it may be useful to consider 

equally Washington’s understanding of warfare and his deep influence 

on American military thought. Without peer in inspiring the development 

of the American military tradition, Washington, and his understanding of 

trust, expertise, service, esprit, and stewardship, seems highly worthy of 

the attention of officers seeking to better comprehend American military 

professionalism. 

Scholars have expended much effort in disputes regarding when 

military professionalism developed in the United States military. Some 

have disputed whether or not officers of the late eighteenth century deserve 

the appellation of military professional.10 In the end, it matters little how 

the Army officer corps of the 1790s is defined, whether they are depicted 

as military professionals, semi-professionals, or amateurs. A focus on the 

professional status of these officers is likely to revolve around semantic 

distinctions and misses the larger point. What is historically important and 

relevant is the recognition that in its most formative years, between 1789 

and 1796, the officer corps of the United States confronted issues relating 

to trust, military expertise, honorable service, esprit, and stewardship. 

In doing so, officers often developed patterns and practices that were 

legitimate expressions of a profession of arms, expressing and revealing 
114

growing competence, dedicated commitment, and a striving to live up to 

the demands of character. These expressions, while developed over 200 

years ago, still provide a useful background for military professionals 

today. 

A study of the early officer corps is especially relevant to American 

military officers, for these officers developed a sense of professionalism 

that was, in some ways, uniquely American. Developed in the early 

national period, and deeply influenced by the Revolutionary War heritage, 

the officer corps’ expressions of professionalism confronted and ultimately 

accepted the ideological, political, and social concerns of the young 

American republic. Sharing with today’s officer corps a requirement to 

grapple with the inherent tensions and necessary balances relating to trust, 

expertise, service, esprit, and stewardship, the experience of officers like 

Captain Henry Carbery, like those serving at Kekionga in 1790, along the 

Wabash in 1791 and at Fallen Timbers in 1794, provide a useful framework 

to better grasp the core meaning of American military professionalism. 
115

Notes

1. Gaff, Carbery to Price, 3 July 1792, 38.

2. For instance, Huntington judges that before the mid-nineteenth century, 

the amateurism of the officer corps negates any real relevance to the modern 

military professional.

3. Washington, “Sentiments on a Peace Establishment.”

4. See the chapter in this thesis on military expertise for a discussion of 

the regular officer corps’ perception of state militia and volunteers units. 

5. United States, American State Papers, Military Affairs, McHenry 

Report to Congressional Committee, 14 March 1796, 112.

6. For a strong depiction of this modern idea, see the argument that the 

relative isolation of the American officer corps in the decades following the 

Civil War was highly beneficial to the development of military professionalism 

in Huntington. 

7. Booraem, 90, 159-161, 164.

8. Many influential scholars and observers have relatively recently 

commented on a growing civil-military gap. Included among such are Richard 

Kohn and Peter Feaver, Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and 

American National Security, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001) and Tom 

Ricks, “The Widening Gap between Military and Society,” The Atlantic, 1 July, 

1997, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/

archive/1997/07/the-widening-gap-between-military-and-society/306158/ (8 

May 2013). The current Chairman of the JCS, General Martin Dempsey, has 

consistently expressed concerns about the need for the officer corps to remain 

apolitical.

9. Washington’s vision and influence on the later officer corps is described 

throughout this thesis. I have drawn my understanding of Washington from 

his papers and multiple secondary sources. Most influential of the latter, and 

I think the best single discussion of Washington’s sense of leadership and 

professionalism, is Higginbotham, George Washington and the American 

Military Tradition.

10. See the historiography in this thesis for a description of these 

discussions.

117

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