Army Life on the Western Frontier

Army Life on the Western Frontier PDF Author: George Croghan
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806146400
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
From Fort Snelling on the upper Mississippi and Fort Leavenworth on the Missouri to Fort St. Philip below New Orleans, the string of military bases along the western frontier of the United States played an essential part in the orderly advance of settlement following the War of 1812. Small, isolated , and insignificant in terms of fortification—after all, the authorized strength of the whole army was only 6,000 men—they were nevertheless the stabilizing and moderating force in the dramatic "rise of the new West." For twenty years prior to the Mexican War, Colonel George Croghan, as inspector general of the army, examined these frontier garrisons with a critical eye. His reports give an intimate, firsthand picture of what the western outposts were really like. Moreover, whether lashing out at the unreasonable discipline prescribed for privates or quietly commending an officer's good work, he wrote with a warmth and vitality seldom found in government documents. Arranged topically with brief introductions by the editor, the reports cover all phases of army life: quarters, clothing, the mess, hospitals and medical care, army chaplains, quartermaster supplies, the small arms of the troops, instruction, fatigue duties, military discipline, recruiting, and army sutlers. They also contain much additional information on roads, frontier conditions, Indian affairs, and related matters. George Croghan was a perceptive reporter, and his account of life and conditions at the western forts will prove valuable and interesting to the western Americana enthusiast as well as to the student of western history.

Army Life on the Western Frontier

Army Life on the Western Frontier PDF Author: George Croghan
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806146400
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Get Book

Book Description
From Fort Snelling on the upper Mississippi and Fort Leavenworth on the Missouri to Fort St. Philip below New Orleans, the string of military bases along the western frontier of the United States played an essential part in the orderly advance of settlement following the War of 1812. Small, isolated , and insignificant in terms of fortification—after all, the authorized strength of the whole army was only 6,000 men—they were nevertheless the stabilizing and moderating force in the dramatic "rise of the new West." For twenty years prior to the Mexican War, Colonel George Croghan, as inspector general of the army, examined these frontier garrisons with a critical eye. His reports give an intimate, firsthand picture of what the western outposts were really like. Moreover, whether lashing out at the unreasonable discipline prescribed for privates or quietly commending an officer's good work, he wrote with a warmth and vitality seldom found in government documents. Arranged topically with brief introductions by the editor, the reports cover all phases of army life: quarters, clothing, the mess, hospitals and medical care, army chaplains, quartermaster supplies, the small arms of the troops, instruction, fatigue duties, military discipline, recruiting, and army sutlers. They also contain much additional information on roads, frontier conditions, Indian affairs, and related matters. George Croghan was a perceptive reporter, and his account of life and conditions at the western forts will prove valuable and interesting to the western Americana enthusiast as well as to the student of western history.

Class and Race in the Frontier Army

Class and Race in the Frontier Army PDF Author: Kevin Adams
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806185139
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Historians have long assumed that ethnic and racial divisions in post–Civil War America were reflected in the U.S. Army, of whose enlistees 40 percent were foreign-born. Now Kevin Adams shows that the frontier army was characterized by a “Victorian class divide” that overshadowed ethnic prejudices. Class and Race in the Frontier Army marks the first application of recent research on class, race, and ethnicity to the social and cultural history of military life on the western frontier. Adams draws on a wealth of military records and soldiers’ diaries and letters to reconstruct everyday army life—from work and leisure to consumption, intellectual pursuits, and political activity—and shows that an inflexible class barrier stood between officers and enlisted men. As Adams relates, officers lived in relative opulence while enlistees suffered poverty, neglect, and abuse. Although racism was ingrained in official policy and informal behavior, no similar prejudice colored the experience of soldiers who were immigrants. Officers and enlisted men paid much less attention to ethnic differences than to social class—officers flaunting and protecting their status, enlisted men seething with class resentment. Treating the army as a laboratory to better understand American society in the Gilded Age, Adams suggests that military attitudes mirrored civilian life in that era—with enlisted men, especially, illustrating the emerging class-consciousness among the working poor. Class and Race in the Frontier Army offers fresh insight into the interplay of class, race, and ethnicity in late-nineteenth-century America.

Life of a Soldier on the Western Frontier

Life of a Soldier on the Western Frontier PDF Author: Jeremy Agnew
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Focusing on the Indian Wars period of the 1840s through the 1890s, Life of a Soldier on the Western Frontier captures the daily challenges faced by the typical enlisted man and explores the role soldiers played in the conquering of the American frontier.

Regular Army O!

Regular Army O! PDF Author: Douglas C. McChristian
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806159022
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 784

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Book Description
“The drums they roll, upon my soul, for that’s the way we go,” runs the chorus in a Harrigan and Hart song from 1874. “Forty miles a day on beans and hay in the Regular Army O!” The last three words of that lyric aptly title Douglas C. McChristian’s remarkable work capturing the lot of soldiers posted to the West after the Civil War. At once panoramic and intimate, Regular Army O! uses the testimony of enlisted soldiers—drawn from more than 350 diaries, letters, and memoirs—to create a vivid picture of life in an evolving army on the western frontier. After the volunteer troops that had garrisoned western forts and camps during the Civil War were withdrawn in 1865, the regular army replaced them. In actions involving American Indians between 1866 and 1891, 875 of these soldiers were killed, mainly in minor skirmishes, while many more died of disease, accident, or effects of the natural environment. What induced these men to enlist for five years and to embrace the grim prospect of combat is one of the enduring questions this book explores. Going well beyond Don Rickey Jr.’s classic work Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay (1963), McChristian plumbs the regulars’ accounts for frank descriptions of their training to be soldiers; their daily routines, including what they ate, how they kept clean, and what they did for amusement; the reasons a disproportionate number occasionally deserted, while black soldiers did so only rarely; how the men prepared for field service; and how the majority who survived mustered out. In this richly drawn, uniquely authentic view, men black and white, veteran and tenderfoot, fill in the details of the frontier soldier’s experience, giving voice to history in the making.

Frontier Life in the Army, 1854-1861

Frontier Life in the Army, 1854-1861 PDF Author: Eugene Bandel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Frontier and pioneer life
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description


Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier

Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier PDF Author: Charles King
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier" by Charles King. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 1848-1861

Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 1848-1861 PDF Author: Durwood Ball
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806133126
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Unlike previous histories, this book argues that the politics of slavery profoundly influenced the western mission of the regular army - affecting the hearts and minds of officers and enlisted men both as the nation plummented toward civil war."--BOOK JACKET.

Five Years a Cavalryman : Or, Sketches of Regular Army Life on the Texas Frontier, Twenty Odd Years Ago

Five Years a Cavalryman : Or, Sketches of Regular Army Life on the Texas Frontier, Twenty Odd Years Ago PDF Author: H. H. McConnell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Frontier and pioneer life
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Personal narrative of army life from approximately 1867-1871. Includes appendices: The cowboy's verdict, by R.G. Carter (pages 301-306) and Cattle-thieving in Texas, by WWW (pages 307-313).

Frontier Regulars

Frontier Regulars PDF Author: Robert Marshall Utley
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803295513
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
Details the U.S. Army's campaign in the years following the Civil War to contain the American Indian and promote Western expansion

Army Wives on the American Frontier

Army Wives on the American Frontier PDF Author: Anne Bruner Eales
Publisher: Big Earth Publishing
ISBN: 9781555661663
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
"No one interested in the history of the American West or in women's history should miss this well-written, carefully researched, comprehensive treatment of a subject that previous scholars have largely ignored. Based on the writings of more than fifty women who accompanied their husbands to remote duty posts in the far west.