In 1832, President Jackson called in the regular army to assist in driving Black Hawk and his band of Sauk and Fox Indian known as the British Band out of the Illinois territory. Where the militia struggled, the U.S. army was able to succeed. Today, we know the war ended in a massacre of the Sauk Indians, but then the mission was viewed as a tremendous success. A success that made it plainly seen that a regular army was so much more efficient than the present militia system. But that was not the lesson that Jackson wanted the nation to learn.
In the Black Hawk war, the United States mobilized over 6,000 militiamen along with 630 army regulars and 700 Native Americans. It was a mostly one-sided war against Sauk and Fox Indians led by Black Hawk. It is believed that up to 600 were killed including women and Children in the war which culminated in what historians call the Bad Axe Massacre. The massacre took place at the mouth of the bad axe river where militia led by General Atkinson slaughtered the Sauk Indians while trying to cross the Mississippi river. The war made it painfully clear to our nation that an unorganized and all volunteer system of state militia was fraught with issues. At one point in the war, a group of militia men that had not been properly mustered were sent off on a scouting mission. The group of men were itching for a fight and imprisoned some of Black Hawk's men carrying a white truce flag. Black Hawk's warriors retaliated, and the militia chose to flee rather than fight. 12 militia men were killed in the chase. Stories of Indian skirmishes in the frontiers of the Illinois Territory were filled with the bad and the ugly and both current and new settlers were looking to the United States army for some relief.
Andrew Jackson wrote in 1832 State of the Union Address, "This campaign has evinced the efficient organization of the Army and its capacity for prompt and active service." In other words, the Black Hawk war made it plainly clear the need for a regular army. What is not clear, is what details of the Black Axe massacre were known to Jackson. Jackson did not mention the one-sided victory of the war, nor did he mention that many non-combatants were killed. What Jackson did say is that "several departments have performed their functions with energy and dispatch, and the general movement was satisfactory." It was generally accepted that the Army had achieved a great victory over the Indians in the Illinois Territory and achieved what the militia could not do alone. There are so many lessons we can learn from the Black Hawk war, but here I want to focus on Jackson's warning against a standing army. Given what at the time seemed like a huge success by the army, many were looking to the federal government to increase their dependence on the regular army rather than the militia system. Despite Jackson's past as General and war hero in the War of 1812, his words here evince a fear of a large standing army.
Jackson suggested that what was needed was better organization of our militia system, rather a reliance on a standing army. According to Jackson, "[n]either our situation nor our institutions require or permit the maintenance of a large regular force." He pointed out not only the expense, but the "obvious tendency" that to employ a large army will lead to "unnecessary wars" and ultimately could put an end to our own public liberty. Jackson believed that the regular army should serve only as a nucleus to build around in times of war but should not be used to defend our country under normal circumstances. Under normal circumstances, Jackson believed that the nation should rely on the "electors of the country". Whether it was defending our borders from the Indian tribes, or keeping our waterways open, Jackson looked to the state militia, not a standing army. In 1832, the U.S. Army had just over 6,000 regular troops plus another 6,000 men in the Navy and Marine Corp. Relative to the population, the size of the military in 1832 was about one-fifth of what it is today, making one wonder if Jackson's warning of unnecessary wars and loss of public liberty has been proven true.
"This campaign has evinced the efficient organization of the Army and its capacity for prompt and active service. Its several departments have performed their functions with energy and dispatch, and the general movement was satisfactory.
Our fellow citizens upon the frontiers were ready, as they always are, in the tender of their services in the hour of danger. But a more efficient organization of our militia system is essential to that security which is one of the principal objects of all governments. Neither our situation nor our institutions require or permit the maintenance of a large regular force. History offers too many lessons of the fatal result of such a measure not to warn us against its adoption here. The expense which attends it, the obvious tendency to employ it because it exists and thus to engage in unnecessary wars, and its ultimate danger to public liberty will lead us, I trust, to place our principal dependence for protection upon the great body of the citizens of the Republic. If in asserting rights or in repelling wrongs war should come upon us, our regular force should be increased to an extent proportional to the emergency, and our present small Army is a nucleus around which such force could be formed and embodied. But for the purposes of defense under ordinary circumstances we must rely upon the electors of the country. Those by whom and for whom the Government was instituted and is supported will constitute its protection in the hour of danger as they do its check in the hour of safety.
But it is obvious that the militia system is imperfect. Much time is lost, much unnecessary expense incurred, and much public property wasted under the present arrangement. Little useful knowledge is gained by the musters and drills as now established, and the whole subject evidently requires a thorough examination. Whether a plan of classification remedying these defects and providing for a system of instruction might not be adopted is submitted to the consideration of Congress. The Constitution has vested in the General Government an independent authority upon the subject of the militia which renders its action essential to the establishment or improvement of the system, and I recommend the matter to your consideration in the conviction that the state of this important arm of the public defense requires your attention."References
Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2019). Fourth Annual Message | The American Presidency Project. [online] Available at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fourth-annual-message-3 [Accessed 12 Dec. 2019].
Lambert, Joseph I. “The Black Hawk War: A Military Analysis.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1908-1984), vol. 32, no. 4, 1939, pp. 442–473. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40187918.
En.wikipedia.org. (2019). Battle of Bad Axe. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bad_Axe [Accessed 12 Dec. 2019].
En.wikipedia.org. (2019). Battle of Wisconsin Heights. [onlineonsin_Height] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wiscs [Accessed 12 Dec. 2019].
En.wikipedia.org. (2019). Black Hawk War. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_War# [Accessed 12 Dec. 2019].
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