Frederick Marryat – The Complete Collection

Chapter 49

The American army is not a favourite service, and this is not to be wondered at. It is ill-treated in every way; the people have a great dislike to them, which is natural enough in a Democracy; but what is worse, to curry favour with the people, the government very often do not support the officers in the execution of their duty. Their furloughs are very limited, and they have their choice of the outposts, where they live out of the world, or the Florida war, when they go out of it. But the greatest injustice is, that they have no half-pay: if not wishing to be employed they must resign their commissions and live as they can. In this point there is a great partiality shown to the navy, who have such excellent half-pay, although to prevent remarks at such glaring injustice to the other service, another term is given to the naval half-pay, and the naval officers are supposed to be always on service.

The officers of the army are paid a certain sum, and allowed a certain number of rations per month; for instance, a major-general has two hundred dollars per month, and fifteen rations: According to the estimated value of the rations, as given to me by one of the officers, the annual pay of the different grades will be, in our money, nearly as follows:--

Army.

+==================+======+=========+======+ ÝArmy ÝpoundsÝNavy ÝpoundsÝ +------------------+------+---------+------+ ÝMajor-General Ý 850Ý Ý Ý +------------------+------+---------+------+ ÝBrigadier-General Ý 570ÝSame rankÝ 960Ý +------------------+------+---------+------+ ÝColonel Ý 340ÝDo. Ý 830Ý +------------------+------+---------+------+ ÝLieutenant-ColonelÝ 280Ý Ý Ý +------------------+------+---------+------+ ÝMajor Ý 225ÝDo. Ý 525Ý +------------------+------+---------+------+ ÝCaptain Ý 200ÝDo. Ý 380Ý +------------------+------+---------+------+ ÝFirst Lieutenant Ý 150Ý Ý Ý +------------------+------+---------+------+ ÝSecond Lieutenant Ý 140Ý Ý Ý +------------------+------+---------+------+ ÝCadet Ý 90ÝDo. Ý 156Ý +==================+======+=========+======+

The cavalry officers have a slight increase of pay.

The privates of the American regular army are not the most creditable soldiers in the world; they are chiefly composed of Irish emigrants, Germans, and deserters from the English regiments in Canada. Americans are very rare; only those who can find nothing else to do, and have to choose between enlistment and starvation, will enter into the American army. They do not, however, enlist for longer than three years. There is not much discipline, and occasionally a great deal of insolence, as might be expected from such a collection. Corporal punishment has been abolished in the American army except for desertion; and if ever there was a proof of the necessity of punishment to enforce discipline, it is the many substitutes in lieu of it, to which the officers are compelled to resort--all of them more severe than flogging. The most common is that of loading a man with thirty-six pounds of shot in his knapsack, and making him walk three hours out of four, day and night without intermission, with this weight on his shoulders, for six days and six nights; that is, he is compelled to walk three hours with the weight, and then is suffered to sit down one . Towards the close this punishment becomes very severe; the feet of the men are so sore and swelled, that they cannot move for some days afterwards. I inquired what would be the consequence if a man were to throw down his knapsack and refuse to walk. The commanding-officer of one of the forts replied, that he would be hung up by the thumbs till he fainted--a variety of piquetting. Surely these punishments savour quite as much of severity, and are quite as degrading as flogging.

The pay of an American private is good--fourteen dollars a month, out of which his rations and regimentals take eight dollars, leaving him six dollars a month for pleasure. Deserters are punished by being made to drag a heavy ball and chain after them, which is never removed day or night. If discharged, they are flogged, their heads shaved, and they are drummed out at the point of the bayonet.

From the conversations I have had with many deserters from our army, who were residing in the United States or were in the American service, I am convinced that it would be a very well-judged measure to offer a free pardon to all those who would return to Canada and re-enter the English service. I think that a good effective regiment would soon be collected, and one that you might trust on the frontiers without any fear of their deserting again; and it would have another good effect, that is, that their statements would prevent the desertion of others.

America, and its supposed freedom, is, to the British soldiers, an Utopia in every sense of the word. They revel in the idea; they seek it and it is not to be found. The greatest desertion from the English regiments is among the musicians composing the bands. There are so many theatres in America, and so few musicians, except coloured people, that instrumental performers of all kinds are in great demand. People are sent over to Canada, and the other British provinces to persuade these poor fellows to desert, promising them very large salaries, and pointing out to them the difference between being a gentleman in America and a slave in the English service. The temptation is too strong; they desert; and when they strive, they soon learn the value of the promises made to them, and find how cruelly they have been deceived.

The Florida war has been a source of dreadful vexation and expense to the United States, having already cost them between 20,000,000 and 30,000,000 of dollars, without any apparent prospect of its coming to a satisfactory conclusion. The American government has also very much injured its character, by the treachery and disregard of honour shown by it to the Indians, who have been, most of them, captured under a flag of truce. I have heard so much indignation expressed by the Americans themselves at this conduct that I shall not comment farther upon it. It is the Federal government, and not the officers employed, who must bear the onus . But this war has been mortifying, and even dangerous to the Americans in another point. It has now lasted three years and more. General after general has been superseded, because they have not been able to bring it to a conclusion; and the Indians have proved, to themselves and to the Americans, that they can defy them when they once get them among the swamps and morasses. There has not been one hundred Indians killed, although many of them have been treacherously kidnapped, by a violation of honour; and it is supposed that the United States have already lost one thousand men, if not more, in this protracted conflict.

The aggregate force under General Jessup, in Florida, in November, 1837, was stated to be as follows:--

+==========+=====+ ÝRegulars Ý4,637Ý +----------+-----+ ÝVolunteersÝ4,078Ý +----------+-----+ ÝSeamen Ý 100Ý +----------+-----+ ÝIndians Ý 178Ý +----------+-----+ Ý Ý8,893Ý +==========+=====+

It is supposed that the number of Indians remaining in Florida do not amount, men, women, and children, to more than 1,500 and General Jessup has declared to the government that the war is impracticable .

Militia.--The return of the militia of the United States, for the year 1837, is as follows:--

The number of Militia in the several states and territories, according to the statement of George Bomford, Colonel of Ordnance, dated 20th November, 1837.

+======================+==============+=================+ ÝStates and TerritoriesÝDate of ReturnÝNumber of MilitiaÝ +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝMaine Ý 1836Ý 42,468Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝNew Hampshire Ý 1836Ý 27,473Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝMassachusetts Ý 1836Ý 44,911Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝLouisiana Ý 1830Ý 14,808Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝMississippi Ý 1830Ý 13,724Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝTennessee Ý 1830Ý 60,982Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝVermont Ý 1824Ý 25,581Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝRhode Island Ý 1832Ý 1,377Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝConnecticut Ý 1836Ý 23,826Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝNew York Ý 1836Ý 184,728Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝNew Jersey Ý 1829Ý 39,171Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝPennsylvania Ý 1834Ý 202,281Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝDelaware Ý 1827Ý 9,229Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝMaryland Ý 1836Ý 46,854Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝVirginia Ý 1836Ý 101,838Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝNorth Carolina Ý 1835Ý 64,415Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝSouth Carolina Ý 1833Ý 51,112Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝGeorgia Ý 1834Ý 48,461Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝAlabama Ý 1829Ý 14,892Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝKentucky Ý 1836Ý 71,483Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝOhio Ý 1836Ý 146,428Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝIndiana Ý 1833Ý 53,913Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝIllinois Ý 1831Ý 27,386Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝMissouri Ý 1835Ý 6,170Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝArkansas Ý 1825Ý 2,028Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝMichigan Ý 1831Ý 5,478Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝFlorida Territory Ý 1831Ý 827Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝWisconsin Territory Ý --Ý --Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ ÝDistrict of Columbia Ý 1832Ý 1,249Ý +----------------------+--------------+-----------------+ Ý Ý Ý 1,333,091Ý +======================+==============+=================+

This is an enormous force, but at the commencement of a war not a very effective one. In fact, there is no country in the world so defenceless as the United States, but, once roused up, no country more formidable if any (attempt) is made to invade its territories. At the outbreak of a war, the states have almost everything to provide; and although the Americans are well adapted as materials for soldiers, still they have to be levied and disciplined. At the commencement of hostilities, it is not improbable that a well-organised force of 30,000 men might walk through the whole of the Union, from Maine to Georgia; but it is almost certain that not one man would ever get back again, as by that time the people would have been roused and excited, armed and sufficiently disciplined; and their numbers, independent of their bravery, would overwhelm three or four times the number I have mentioned.

Another point must not pass unnoticed, which is, that in America, the major part of which is still an uncleared country, the system of warfare naturally partakes much of the Indian practices of surprise and ambuscade; and the invaders will always have to labour under the great disadvantage of the Americans having that perfect knowledge of the country which the former have not.

Most of the defeats of the British troops have been occasioned by this advantage on the part of the Americans, added to the impracticability of the country rendering the superior discipline of the British of no avail. Indeed the great advantages of knowing the country were proved by the American attempts to invade Canada during the last war, and which ended in the capitulation of General Hull. In an uncleared country, even where large forces meet, each man, to a certain degree, acts independently, taking his position, perhaps, behind a tree (treeing it, as they term it in America), or any other defence which may offer. Now, it is evident that, skilled as all the Americans are in fire-arms, and generally using rifles, a disciplined English soldier, with his clumsy musket, fights at a disadvantage; and, therefore, with due submission to his Grace, the Duke of Wellington was very wrong when he stated, the other day in the House of Lords, that the militia of Canada should be disbanded, and their place supplied by regular troops from England. The militia of Upper Canada are quite as good men as the Americans, and can meet them after their own fashion. A certain proportion of regulars are advantageous, as they are more steady, and in case of a check can be more depended upon; but it is not once in five times that they will, either in America or Canada, be able to bring their concentrated discipline into play. But if the Americans have not the discipline of our troops, their courage is undoubted, and even upon a clear plain the palm of victory will always be severely disputed. A Vermonter, surprised for a moment at finding himself in a charge of bayonets, with the English troops, eyed his opponents, and said, "Well I calculate my piece of iron is as good as yourn , anyhow," and then rushed to the attack. People who "calculate" in that way are not to be trifled with, as the annals of history fully demonstrate.

A war between America and England is always to be deprecated. Notwithstanding that the countries are severed, still the Americans are our descendants; they speak the same language, and (although they do not readily admit it) still look up to us as their mother country. It is true that this feeling is fast wearing away, but still it is not yet effaced. It is true also that, in their ambition and their covetousness, they would destroy the mutual advantages derived by both countries from our commercial relations, that they might, by manufacturing as well as producing, secure the whole profits to themselves. But they are wrong; for great as America is becoming, the time is not yet arrived when she can compete with English capital, or work for herself without it. But there is another reason why a war between the two countries is so much to be deprecated, which is, that is must ever be a cruel and an irritating war. To attack the Americans by invasion will always be hazardous, and must ultimately prove disastrous. In what manner, then, is England to avenge any aggression that may be committed by the Americans? All she can do is to ravage, burn, and destroy; to carry the horrors of war along their whole extended line of coast, distressing the non-combatants, and wreaking vengeance upon the defenceless.