The Delafield Commission and the American Military Profession

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Texas A&M University Press, 2000 - 270 Seiten
In 1855, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis dispatched Maj. Richard Delafield, Maj. Alfred Mordecai, and Capt. George B. McClellan to the battlefields of Crimea to observe the European military in action. American military commanders had studied European armies before, but the Delafield Commission was the most ambitious military observation mission up to that time, and the first to observe an on-going war. Although historically underrated, the commission and the members' reports constituted an important step in the development of U.S. military professionalism. In The Delafield Commission and the American Military Profession, Matthew Moten is the first to explore in detail this connection between the commission and military professionalization.

Moten begins with an overview of the definition of military professionalism and what other scholars have said about when and why American military professionalism developed. Part One examines the U.S. Military Academy, the development of the army officer corps, and the influence of the West Point "system and habit of thought" on the antebellum army. The second section follows the actions of the Delafield Commission and places the commission in the context of the military profession of the 1850s. The final section analyzes the commission's reports and their effects on the American military profession. Here, Moten assesses what the commissioners saw and wrote, as well as what they did not see and write.

The Delafield Commission and the American Military Profession provides in-depth analysis to military historians and other readers interested in the development of the professional army in antebellum America.

 

Inhalt

Sylvanus Thayers West Point A System and Habit of Thought
25
The Jacksonian Officer Corps Gods Demigods and the Line
39
Antebellum Military Thought
54
The Delafield Commission
73
Jefferson Davis and The Commission A Tour of Many Miles and Many Months
77
Through the Meshes of Diplomacy
108
A Purely Professional View
142
To Impart Information to the Profession
171
The Delafield Commission and American Military Professionalism
205
Notes
213
Bibliography
241
Index
249
Urheberrecht

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Seite 47 - I give it as my fixed opinion that, but for our graduated cadets, the war between the United States and Mexico might, and probably would, have lasted some four or five years, with, in its first half, more defeats than victories falling to our share ; whereas, in less than two campaigns, we conquered a great country and a peace, without the loss of a single battle or skirmish.
Seite 242 - States cavalry,) [sic] one of the officers sent to the seat of war in Europe, in 1855 and 1856.
Seite 4 - According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to; three duties of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common understandings: first, the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice;...
Seite 33 - Orderly, or his servant, none of whom ever gives me my letters. I sometimes think he takes a pleasure in doing it himself, — at any rate, he always calls me by my Christian name when he brings them. Breakfast precisely at seven ; then we have all the newspapers, and, a little before eight o'clock, Thayer puts on his full-dress coat and sword, and when the bugle sounds we are always at Mr. Cozzens's, where Thayer takes off his hat and inquires if the President of the Board is ready to attend at...
Seite 40 - To give such an organization, the leading principles in its formation ought to be, that at the commencement of hostilities there should be nothing either to new model or to create. The only difference, consequently, between the peace and the war formation of the Army, ought to be in the increased magnitude of the latter, and the only change in passing from the former to the latter should consist in giving to it the augmentation which will then be necessary.
Seite 4 - The state of the mechanical, as well as of some other arts with which it is necessarily connected, determines the degree of perfection to which it is capable of being carried at any particular time. But in order to carry it to this degree of perfection, it is necessary that it should become the sole or principal occupation of a particular class of citizens, and the division of labour is as necessary for the improvement of this as of every other art.
Seite 5 - ... citizens of the military age, or a certain number of them, to join in some measure the trade of a soldier to whatever other trade or profession they may happen to carry on.
Seite 48 - ... but they were brave men, and then drill and discipline brought out all there was in them. A better army, man for man, probably never faced an enemy than the one commanded by General Taylor in the earliest two engagements of the Mexican war. The volunteers who followed were of better material, but without drill or discipline at the start. They were associated with so many disciplined men and professionally educated officers, that when they went into engagements it was with a confidence they would...

Autoren-Profil (2000)

Matthew Moten, a U.S. Army lieutenant, received his Ph.D. in history from Rice University. A graduate from West Point, he has served in armor and armored cavalry units in Europe and the United States, taught history at the Military Academy, been a military advisor in Kuwait, and served as a congressional strategist for the army. He is currently a speechwriter for the Chief of Staff, Army.

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