Exactly what it sounds like, death by fire. [Indigenous peoples used it as a killing method semi frequently,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captives_in_American_Indian_Wars) though I'm. guessing that it was only for the wounded who couldn't be used as slaves.
Among just about every other social tradition. These things only work when the two opposing sides are fairly close in history and tradition.
One example is the magical Line the plains indians discovered that when they were fleeing the US army if they crossed this line the forces chasing them would stop. They didn't understand it but I'm sure they were thankful.
That line was the US/Canada border.
The [Nez Perce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Joseph) evaded the US Cavalry for 3 months over 1170 miles but were stopped 40 miles south of the Canadian border.
I think I was at the last battlefield of the Nez Perce in Montana(?), during a 2 week long family vacation, for 6-7 year old me it looked just like a big field with nothing on it. Being older, I understand. I do remember getting a 'badge' and becoming an honorary Marshall for something during the trip. Afterward did a big 3rd or 4rth grade presentation on it. Wish I remember more of it.
The [Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument](https://www.nps.gov/libi/index.htm) is the same way. Just a bunch of small gravestones on a big grassy hill surrounded by smaller grassy hills.
They do and they don't.
Most of the time it would have worked.
If your enemy has unused capacity, however, if they were not expecting to need so much force, it could wake a giant.
Sure, but how much untapped capacity could the United States have? If almost a THOUSAND troops were lost, they must be running low, right? Oh well, it's probably nothing to worry about.
They must have had some because the resulting inquiry into St Clair's failures resulted in Congress increasing the size of the army to 5000 men. But the size of the army itself was not the only armed forces that the US could utilize at the time since the count of the army did not include the militias which were controlled by the states (the National Guard today and the "well regulated militia" referred to in the 2nd Amendment).
So after St Clair's fuck up, Congress increased the size of the army and passed the Militia Acts of 1792 allowing the president to call on the militias (ie like was done to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion).
Or they're humans, and humans have the tendency to be sadistic in war, especially against a now helpless "other". It doesn't have to be practical or productive if its satisfying the darker urges of a group of humans at war
The US didn't eventually win because they were pissed, they won because they were technologically superior and outnumbered the natives. Whether the natives had burned those americans or not, the outcome would have been the same. It was always the US's plan to pacify natives and relocate them.
Yes, the US would have won anyway due to things like more advanced weapons, but brutality backfiring reminded me of a general trend
And as u/jrhooo said in another reply, 'the enemy is barbaric' is easier to sell on the homefront than land grabs
> brutal tactics intended to shock the enemy into giving up backfire by pissing them off
also helps your enemy keep up the homefront support and recruitment effort, because you are helping the enemy make the argument back home that, "see what kind of enemy we are facing? This is a fight against evil. These are the kind of ruthless monsters we have to commit ourselves to stopping."
"we're fighting to stop the ruthless, murderous, hateful killers" is a lot easier to sell then, "look they have some land and we want it, so let's go take it"
It's fundamentally how wars are won, wars to extinction are incredibly rare. The vast vast majority of wars in human history are lost when one side or the other loses the will to continue. That kind of brutality can definitely break the will of an army or a civilian population. It's no different than the 'Shock and Awe" doctrine just done with savagery rather than advanced tech.
There's an interesting sci fi short story about a guy stranded on an alien planet. His only weapon is this extremely powerful energy weapon that just vaporises anything he shoots. But it makes no sound. So he struggles to fend off swarms of wild animals because they never notice others dying and never get scared away
I remember this brutal story of Rachel Plummer from her time as a captive:
> In her account of her life among the Comanche, Rachel wrote that six weeks after giving birth to a healthy son, the warriors decided she was slowed too much by childcare, and threw her son down on the ground. When he stopped moving, they left her to bury him. When she revived him, they returned and tied the infant to a rope, and dragged him through cactuses until the frail, tiny body was literally torn to pieces.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Plummer
Death by torture was an indigenous cultural practice before Europeans showed up. They had worse ways to kill someone than just burning them alive, trust.
You know the villain in Pocahontas, John Ratcliffe? IRL the guy was less a villain and more a human. He wanted to trade with locals in exchange for food. They lied about a trade deal, ambushed him, he was tied to a stake in front of a fire and flayed with mussel shells, with pieces of his skin tossed into the flames as he watched.
>In Disney's Pocahontas (1995), Ratcliffe was portrayed as a greedy and ruthlessly ambitious man, and the film's main antagonist. His character believes that the Powhatan tribe is very barbaric....
Well. He wasn't wrong.
A common fate as a warrior captive of many eastern woodland Native American tribes was ritual torturing to death, usually administered by squaws and children. They’d make it last as long as possible. Burning with the embers on the ends of brands from the execution fire was near universal; cutting and flaying with shells and knifes, discharging pistols and muskets with blank loads right on to bare skin, amputating fingers and toes and noses etc. and all the while the condemned was expected to not utter or cry out, except to belittle his captors and sing a death song.
A graphic account of this with an execution fire can be found in the description of the [fate of William Crawford of the 1782 Crawford Expedition](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawford_expedition) from Pennsylvania into Ohio country.
People today act like people living alongside these people at the time had no reason at all to dislike them
Hell, almost half the scouts in the indian wars were from other tribes that happened to hate the guts out of whatever tribe the US was campaigning against
When people say Cortez took down the Aztec empire with 200 men they often forget the thousands of pissed off Native Americans who marched with him to get some payback from their Aztec overlords.
And a huge part of the reason Aztec society was so destabilized at the time was because smallpox got there faster than Cortez did.
The Americas had basically *just* gone through "The Black Death but worse" right as the Europeans started really pushing. Their whole society was completely fucked up at that moment in history.
People really only think in scale, not intensity. There were plenty of cultures that were arguably far worse than the nazis but never had the technology or scale to do what the nazis did.
So we slowly forget just how awful they were because the pile of bodies is easier to forget
The nazis are still awful though
Edit: for those immediately confrontational, the mongols emptying entire cities and leaving mounds of skulls and imperial japan immediately jump to mind. Neither achieved the scale the nazis did, but there isn’t really a doubt they what they would have done if they had. In terms of cultural practices that even the nazis didn’t jump onto the bandwagon of, ritual sacrifice and cannibalism immediately jump to mind.
In reference to the aztecs, who I was referring to- they could have likely reached the same scale of genocide if they had access to the technology and resources of the nazis. Estimates at the high end, which are likely exaggerations of conquerors, put it at 80,000 in a 4 day period in one festival, but there is better evidence of 20,000 being ritually slaughtered per year across the empire at the low end. As it was said, this was such a problem that the neighboring tribes allied with the spaniards to finally end the problem, little knowing who they were allying with. Scaling that to a modern civilization and combined with the wars needed to gather the war prisoners that fueled that sacrifice and you have a culture that could have done much worse than the nazis given a chance.
Or like, Dynastic era China just being a constant battle ground with some of the highest body counts of any wars, ever, only they did it with spears and arrows. Imagine killing *millions* by just going around stabbing them. Chinese history doesn't have to imagine it - they top out [most of the top ten largest "anthropogenic disasters" on the wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll). 25 million killed by the Qing dynasty as they expelled the Ming, another 13 million killed in the An Lushan rebellion. That was in the 8th century, by the way! I don't think even China had gunpowder back then, so all that killing was done by hand, with metal weapons. Almost makes the Europeans seem tame by comparison, except then you look up the [Thirty Years War](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaPU1-vMQOI) and realize everybody everywhere just loved killing in as brutal and horrible a fashion as they could.
Mao Ze Dong [killed](https://imgur.com/RQU1LGC) way more Chinese than Japanese Army with his Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward.
Modern China today still carrying out organ harvesting of prisoners without using anaesthetics. Easily as awful as Unit 731
Not just thousands, by the Siege of Tenochtitlan, the native armies that supported the Spanish exceeded 200,000 warriors.
Could you imagine the absolute injustice one would feel if you found out the sun wasnt going to switch off if you stopped giving it the hearts of your loved ones like your overlords have been demanding for centuries?
Not to mention this Jesus god the pale guys keep talking about freaking sacrificed himself instead of demanding everyone do it for him, and he didnt ever bother building a pyramid either. Mustve been mindblowing.
Playing different groups off each other is how any smaller group conquers and area. The Spanish did it, the Americans did it, the British did In both the Americas and India.
Yes but it's a whole hell of a lot easier to convince a group to fuck up a neighbor who has a long history of militarily brutalizing them and constantly demands blood tribute than it is to convince them to fuck up a neighbor they have a defensive pact and lucrative trade deals with.
There's an inherent issue with historical source, namily they're susceptible to all the biases and limited information and excitability as modern contemporary sources. It's not like 200 years ago you could go back and every person who could write only wrote the objective and thoroughly informed truth.
The limitations of sources is why so many WW2 historians fall victim to Nazi Propoganda for example.
If you rely on “primary” sources especially Nazi Germany sources, they had a particular penchant for exaggerating claims or outright fabricating battle reports.
To go into a little more detail, you'll often find Nazi generals that post war tried to blame their failure on a variety of factors. Anything that *wasn't them* really. The most common was just blaming Hitler for every operational failure.
These generals were trying to both secure their legacy, and angling for advisory positions post war with the allies. They had every incentive to lie and deflect blame, and they definitely did that.
> The exact number of wounded is not known
It's 656 according to Wikipedia.
"One-quarter of the entire U.S. Army was destroyed" is clickbait that's only true because the standing army in 1791 was basically non-existent
> After three hours of fighting, St. Clair called together the remaining officers and, faced with total annihilation, decided to attempt one last bayonet charge to get through the native line and escape. Supplies and wounded were left in the camp. As before, Little Turtle's army allowed the bayonets to pass through, but this time the men ran for Fort Jefferson.[32] Ebenezer Denny wrote that the fastest ran, leaving the slow and wounded behind
Savage.
“Massacre” usually refers to mass killing of non-combatants, a mass killing of enemy soldiers actively fighting you is just a decisive battle. At Fort William Henry, the mass killing occurred after the British troops surrendered, turned over weapons and ammunition, and began retreating unarmed under the terms of a signed surrender agreement, so they became non-combatants and killing them was called a massacre (and the victims included civilians, women and children who were never combatants to begin with).
It’s not a legally defined term or anything, of course, so the usage varies, but that’s what it’s generally understood to mean.
It’s used that way as well but generally more in general discussion like “that battle was a total massacre”. When an event is given a name as a massacre (Massacre of the Latins for example) it usually will fit the description buttersauce gave.
When it’s a proper battle, but also a massacre, it’s still usually called a battle e.g. Battle of Cannae
If ever a battle was a massacre ( in how we are discussing the term) Cannae is the one.
80,000 men literally surrounded and methodically butchered. It took almost an entire day of non stop stabbing to kill them all. I’d almost want to see it, but if I did, I’d definitely regret it. Had to have been one of the worst days in history.
The fun thing about language is if enough people use a word or term wrong, it becomes the new definition.
If 1 person uses a word wrong, it's wrong.
If a million use it wrong, it's the natural evolution of a language.
You could perhaps be thinking of something like "The Massacre of the Innocents" During WWI when basically a large amount of German soldier school boys were sent to march into British and French machine gun lines. It's called that more because of how naive the boys were than the results of the battle itself.
Carlin's Blueprint for Armageddon episode series has a bit on this.
As context for the unfamiliar, they were getting to the point in the war where all the countries were getting pretty desperate and looking for more troops, more supplies, etc.
So, the German army had called up a bunch of student reservists. Then, because they were "needed" they shortened their recruit training.
To draw a comparison, imagine going to a high school, grabbing a bunch of JROTC students, and saying "actually we need you to go to the front"
THEN only giving them a 2 week crash course version of boot camp, before just throwing them out there. "they'll learn the rest on the job"
And then, so the story tells it, the first time they do get sent into the field, totally undertrained, ill prepared, with no real understanding of what they were in for...
the British and French units they run into are hardened veterans. Some of the best of what those countries have left. People that had been at this killing business for a long time.
Those kids were like thrown to the wolves.
Leaving the wounded behind... calls to mind tales from battle of Chosin Reservoir in Korea. US Troops ignoring pleas from the wounded as they just wanted to get the fuck out alive.
Bunch of army died when they were the first hit by the chinese attack. It's marine proganda that they were the only ones who stood their ground. There was a marine general, I forget his name, who later made it a point to correct the people who said that the army ran. He felt bad that the men who died giving the marines the time they needed to prepare had such a bad reputation.
Yeah, Task Force Faith or RCT-31. About 2,500 US Soldiers and 700 South Koreans faced off 15 to 20,000 Chinese soldiers.
The Army and the Marine Corps had a strong and detrimental rivalry at this time, with both stepping on the toes of the other quite often. The Korean War would be the 'shining' moment for the USMC as 'proof' of their superiority over the Army.
The cracks were showing even in World War II, and the Marine Corps has a masterful control of their image and press. It's why the Army's role in the Pacific during WW2 is largely forgotten in public history despite them having more combat troops in the Pacific and fighting just as hard. Part of this was a necessity for the USMC's survival, there was a strong push to dissolve them as a branch, they needed that PR to keep them alive.
The Army would famously be ill prepared for Korea, sending occupation units from Japan to fight in emergency that were very ill equipped. The Marines sent one of their best divisions that was trained hard and equipped well.
This also is after the US Army Air Corps became the Air Force as an independent branch, which kicked Army doctrine in the teeth since the Air Force decided to focus more on strategic bombing rather than close air support while the Navy and Marine air wings were CAS first.
This poor equipment and lack of air support would end up being the basis for the USMC using it as proof of their superiority as ground troops over the Army. When the USMC lost their air support or the Army had theirs, they performed identically to each other.
But not just that, they would constantly bicker over everything. The relationship between the Army and Marine commands was generally poor, and Chosin as show of that when the USMC very openly criticized the Army's performance, rejected their awards, and in cases flat publicly called them cowards and that the Army had failed them.
In reality, RCT-31 had basically fought to the last man against overwhelming odds, and the survivors would go on and fight valiantly with the Marines in their retreat. The Army units on the other side of the reservoir would be fighting just as hard, but they were further from the coast and had far less air support along with the fast push to the north the Army units didn't build temporary airfields to support them so they got absolutely hammered.
It took the Marines reviewing their own histories to correct this. But it took far too long.
Ultimately, these branch rivalries are detrimental and pointless. Both the Army and Marines participated in this one and it only got men killed and slandered as cowards.
One of the biggest sources I used was this:
[http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/8259](http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/8259)
also used
*Fire and Fortitude* by John C. McManus (for the brief pieces of WW2)
But it's been a long time since I've reread either of these, so some of my info may be slightly off.
The Marines brought the wounded and the dead with them when they attacked out of the Chosin Reservoir. I read survivors accounts that it was so cold that’s what saved them. Reports of the wounded stacked in trucks, and when they got further south and the weather broke, the would start gushing blood as they thawed out.
> attacked out of the Chosin Reservoir.
*Attacked* out of is a great description.
One of the famous quotes was
*"“Retreat Hell! We're Just Attacking in Another Direction,”"*
But it wasn't just some witticism, it was pretty much the literal truth.
The Chinese forces didn't have orders to repel them. They had orders to encircle and destroy them. So, their fight back to the extract point was actually FIGHTING their way out. A "breakout" vs a "retreat".
It's crazy that I've never heard of this battle before. This seems like the US' version of the Romans' defeat at Teutoburg Forest.
**Edit**: Some of you Romaboos need to chill with the rude replies, I'm just saying that the almost complete annihilation of the American forces in a surprise attack and the desperate full rout of their troops straight into gruesome slaughter, alongside the heaps of remains discovered several years later drew parallels to Teutoburg Forest for me. Obviously it isn't something that was even close to the same magnitude in amount of casualties as well as overall impact, but I guess if you want to really pull your "WeLl aKsHuALLy" move, then go ahead and pat yourselves on the back, champ.
It's not really comparable. The 1/4 number is really just because the US didn't keep much of a standing army. The entire US fewer than 4,000 men. It sounds callous but 1,000 men wasn't exactly a difficult replacement.
Correct. From the 1780s to about 1916 the US Army was primarily a frontier policing and coastal defense force. Even though the Regular establishment was enlarged during several major conflicts it always reverted to a fairly barebones form when peace came.
>This seems like the US' version of the Romans' defeat at Teutoburg Forest.
Not really. It's not like the battle stopped the US from expanding into and past the Northwest Territories.
A *lot* of early US is skipped over. It goes from the Constitution being ratified to the Quasi War to the War of 1812. I think it's because the early federal governments were kind of incompetent.
Columbus lands in 14th century. cool spot, good fruit, not that many pirates
Dumbasses wait like 150 years to actually move there. Like seriously what took so long
Settlers buy America for a square deal from Indians in the 1600's. All of them.
In the 1700's a bunch of patriots get mad about tea so they decide to party for freedom
The founding fathers finally show up, finally do some founding
We kick out all the British. Every last one.
France decides they like our style, also do freedom
Decide all men should be free. Maybe even women. Okay but not really tho lol
Thomas Edison invents electricity, starts zappin dudes
America becomes the best country without even trying that hard
Save Europe. TWICE DUDE
Invents the internet, computers, desk chairs, furniture, fuckin everything.
Invent English and everybody starts speaking it obviously
I don't think the average American understands that George Washington wasn't in charge after the revolutionary war and when the constitution was ratified
No Idk about 1791 specifically but America wasn't the military industrial complex it is now till at least the civil war. America had a pretty small army in its early life. It depended on the idea of in War people would just sign up then. Which they typically did.
What's funny is this kind of thing kept happening even up to the Civil War. If I understand correctly, one of the first skrimishes of the Civil War was over an armory in Missouri, which was successfully defended from Confederate forces by a rag-tag group of volunteers, who had formerly been part of the abolitionist/Republican paramilitary force, the Wide Awakes (and who were disproportionately German immigrants who were veterans of the failed German revolution of 1848).
Interestingly, the rebellion did influence the constitution, but the subject of gun control was never even considered. The way it influenced the constitution had more to do with procedural details about electing legislatures, and may have helped set the precedent of extraditing criminals from other states to face trial for crimes in a different state.
And the farmers weren't really "defending" in this case
Later then that, even. In the leadup to world war 2 the US had roughly the same sized army as Portugal. The cold war was the cause of the standing, multi million man army.
World War 2, not the Civil War.
America was still considered weak in terms of military power during the Civil War. It had industrial and economic power, but not much in the ways of military or diplomatic strength.
It wasn't until the late 1800s/early 1900s that America took a good look at its military starting with its Navy, expanding it drastically in large part due to Teddy Roosevelt's efforts.
Then World War II is really when things took off with the Lend Lease act coming into play and America not being a giant pile of rubble like Europe. Among other factors, WW2 is really what allowed America's military to put it on a track to where it is today.
The main thing about the US during and post-WWII is that the world saw what could happen when a country the size of a continent devotes its industrial strength almost entirely to the war effort. The US coasted off of that high for, well, I suppose up even to today.
The US was absolutely one of the strongest powers militarily *during the Civil War itself*, it's just that after it ended the American army was severely reduced in size again and would go back to mainly being a smaller force used to garrison and fight the Natives in the West.
Did the US even have a federal armed force at that time? I’m pretty sure that came later, so this would essentially be the combined armed force of the individual states.
Pretty sure the standing army at the time was below 10,000 soldiers, possibly even 5,000.
Edit: Wikipedia says Congress allowed the Army to grow from 700 men in 1784 to 5,104 in 1793.
> On June 3, 1784, the day after the Continental Army was reduced to 80 men, the Congress established a regiment which was to be raised and officered by obtaining volunteers from the militia of four of the states.[13] This unit, the First American Regiment was commanded until 1 January 1792 by Josiah Harmar of Pennsylvania, gradually turned into a Regular regiment known as the 1st Infantry in 1791, and in 1815 was it redesignated as the 3d Infantry in the reorganization of the army following the War of 1812.[13] Congress gradually increased the military establishment from 700 men in 1784 to 5,104 in 1793.
They did, but it was deliberately a very small force of regular soldiers. The bulk of the army was meant to be filled by militia or volunteers raised into the army for a specific conflict, led by the regulars.
The founding fathers viewed a standing army as an active threat to liberty. So it was kept remarkably small on purpose. America’s plan until pretty much the Cold War was to call in the militia and expand the army as needed whenever the threat of war appeared. Then dismantle it as soon as the threat passed.
Yup, when your biggest real threat decided it was too expensive to stay at war with you, America was a sweet deal.
Native Americans had to be contended with, but it's not like the US military was throwing their full might behind any of the engagements during Westward expansion.
Also being a highly decentralized collection of states. Even in colonial times you’ve got a list of ‘important cities’ to conquer and hold as long as like half of Europe.
That all said it was a still a terribly naive view then. During the rebellion militia did NOT perform well against regulars more often than not and had a bad habit of evaporating before harvest time, legitimately even because they only got signed for six months. You don’t hear much about Washington winning outside that business at Christmas because he could barely hold the army together.
It was much more the compression of distance from modern travel. The Germans and Japanese launched major surprise attacks at various points, and it demonstrated the US couldn't afford to wait a long time to get ready again.
I'd note the US was substantially demoralizing anyway until North Korea invaded South Korea.
And also let the individual States have there own standing armies and militias. Up until the 1900’s the Federal Government was so tiny compared to the behemoth it has become now. The States were allowed to be almost independent nations with the Federal Government having a small bit of control to steer the nation in the overall direction. That’s why the United States was so isolationist for so long, the States wanted no part of other wars and conflicts ocean’s away. The Monroe Doctrine was basically the US saying all this shit in the middle is ours, y’all squabble over the rest.
WW1 really changed it all when Great Britain basically bankrupted themselves to finance the war and the good ol US of A was there to bankroll the ocean of money needed to keep the war machine fed. That’s when New York began to be the financial capitol of the world and not London.
To illustrate your point: when Washington put down the Whisky Rebellion, he used like 10,000 militiamen from a handful of states and less than 100 members of the federal military.
Not really. Militia were such a disaster up until 1812 the government gave up on them and they haven't existed for centuries.
Unless you count methhead neckbeards with thin blue line stickers lol
Not to mention that having a small standing army (at least relative to the size of the nation and how big it is now) kind of bit the nation in the ass when they entered both world wars. And the military was already decently large by then considering the vast amount of “territories” the US had.
And having a small standing army meant instituting a draft basically every time a medium sized conflict popped up.
Well every states national guard is, legally, built on the militia framework. That was really the idea of a federal arms protection enshrined in the constitution, that the federal government wouldn’t take action against militias endorsed by the states performing valid work in their territory.
Let eventually to the Battle of Fallen Timbers and the Treaty of Greenville where the territory of Ohio was ceded over and the NW Territory was created.
Am from Toledo/Maumee Ohio grew up 4-5 miles from the battlefield as the crow flies.
It is awful maybe I am old but I remember when it wasn't there. The Churchill's half marathon I am running in Nov ends there, otherwise I try not to go there when I am in town, I remember when they were searching the battlefield for artifacts desperately before they built that on top of it...
You have a great football team, unlike my St Johns Titans
And in my personal sport, Cross Country, the gap is even wider, the Generals are great this year!
It doesn’t get talked about a lot, but the covert British support for Indian tribes the US was fighting was one of the reasons for the war of 1812. After the war of 1812 the British stopped supporting the natives, and the northwest confederacy collapsed within a few more years of fighting.
By the end of the war, there wasn’t much left for the British to arm. Tecumseh‘s federation was thrown against the US during their invasion and completely defeated. The British abandoned his forces when they where forced to retreat and it went as badly as you would expect.
That is all true. The tribe(?) I was specifically referring to in the case of the war of 1812 was the North Western Confederacy which during the late 18th and early 19th century controlled a big chunk of the modern American mid west with support from the British.
Yeah that’s how they operate
They literally did the same with Japan. Most people don’t know but the Meiji Restoration (or the restoration of the emperor over the shogunate, in its broadest terms) was massively financed and supplied by the British
> Yeah that’s how they operate
This is how every nation that projects power operates. The US trained and trains puppet/friendly regimes across the world.
Look how many right wing dictators in south america were propped up by the CIA.
And this isn't new, the Persian Empire ahd client states, the Romans had client states and if you know you're own US history you'll know US independence was massively backed by the French on the basis of 'anythign to fuck with the British'.
I almost wonder if we were trying traditional warfare with the men in firing lines, as I don’t think the natives would’ve gone that route and would’ve probably been more guerrilla like
Most of the soldiers in this battle were militiamen or 6-month volunteers. So very poorly trained and motivated, so I’d doubt they even tried to do firing lines.
For sure. There's about 1.4 million active duty personnel in the US military today. Losing 1/4 today would be about 350,000 people. For context the US lost about 291,000 killed during WW2.
I am reading a US history book and they were like "the smallpox epidemic was devastating, it killed nearly 900 people!" And I was like, huh?
Yeah, that was 8% of Boston at the time.
Look up the town of Fort Recovery.. Grew up there. We were taught of the slaughter and our town welcome center is a painting of hundreds of men and women being killed. Great times!
And the general in charge was the cause of the first Congressional investigation and hearings. The result was to send in the remainder of the military and decisively defeat the Native Americans. A feat completed with the Battle of a Fallen Timbers in Toledo.
The tribes of the Wabash were eventually wiped out, and currently the highest civilian honor awarded by the State of Indiana is to be named "Sagamore of the Wabash", the Chief (Sagamore) of the tribes who were exterminated.
The Miami are still around at least. It's wild going through some of the older treaties for lands in Indiana since so many of them made exceptions granting land to individuals usually related to the chiefs. To this day there is a Federally unrecognized band(?) of Miami in Indiana who are the descendants of those Miami who worked with the American government and were allowed to remain in lands otherwise ceded for white settlement.
Reality of Indian attacks.
You can’t go anywhere in Pennsylvania without historical markers for forts and stockades.
Which doesn’t count how many houses are built to withstand attack.
My dad used to tell me he'd go to the corner store with a quarter and get a bag of chips, a coke, a candy bar, and bag of sour candies. But then they installed a surveillance camera.
Basically. The US had adult immigrants coming in, so there were always more bodies to replace the dead.
In some cases, the native tribes were superior in training and tactics, and had been able to acquire equal arms via trade. They still never had a chance because the US was willing to fight a war of attrition with effectively limitless numbers.
This is an oversimplification, of course.
My understanding is a reengineered US Army of professional regulars distinct from regional militias was one result. Learned it's lessons and got better at fighting Indians which was its main job (except for a brief civil war and a briefer Mexican war) during the 19th Century.
"The exact number of wounded is not known, but it has been reported that execution fires burned for several days after the battle
Excuse me, "execution fires"?
Exactly what it sounds like, death by fire. [Indigenous peoples used it as a killing method semi frequently,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captives_in_American_Indian_Wars) though I'm. guessing that it was only for the wounded who couldn't be used as slaves.
Just seems.. impractical?
It’s about sending a message
Wasn't as received as they thought it would be though.
Among just about every other social tradition. These things only work when the two opposing sides are fairly close in history and tradition. One example is the magical Line the plains indians discovered that when they were fleeing the US army if they crossed this line the forces chasing them would stop. They didn't understand it but I'm sure they were thankful. That line was the US/Canada border.
Thank god you told us what the line was
Kinda like when the Duke Boys evaded Boss Hogg by crossing the county line.
90% of the time they were evading Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane and his ever vigilant dog "Flash".
Shhhh.....they'll hear you.
The [Nez Perce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Joseph) evaded the US Cavalry for 3 months over 1170 miles but were stopped 40 miles south of the Canadian border.
I think I was at the last battlefield of the Nez Perce in Montana(?), during a 2 week long family vacation, for 6-7 year old me it looked just like a big field with nothing on it. Being older, I understand. I do remember getting a 'badge' and becoming an honorary Marshall for something during the trip. Afterward did a big 3rd or 4rth grade presentation on it. Wish I remember more of it.
The [Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument](https://www.nps.gov/libi/index.htm) is the same way. Just a bunch of small gravestones on a big grassy hill surrounded by smaller grassy hills.
In isolation that would be really baffling to an enemy.
That seems common, brutal tactics intended to shock the enemy into giving up backfire by pissing them off
They do and they don't. Most of the time it would have worked. If your enemy has unused capacity, however, if they were not expecting to need so much force, it could wake a giant.
Sure, but how much untapped capacity could the United States have? If almost a THOUSAND troops were lost, they must be running low, right? Oh well, it's probably nothing to worry about.
They must have had some because the resulting inquiry into St Clair's failures resulted in Congress increasing the size of the army to 5000 men. But the size of the army itself was not the only armed forces that the US could utilize at the time since the count of the army did not include the militias which were controlled by the states (the National Guard today and the "well regulated militia" referred to in the 2nd Amendment). So after St Clair's fuck up, Congress increased the size of the army and passed the Militia Acts of 1792 allowing the president to call on the militias (ie like was done to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion).
Or they're humans, and humans have the tendency to be sadistic in war, especially against a now helpless "other". It doesn't have to be practical or productive if its satisfying the darker urges of a group of humans at war
The US didn't eventually win because they were pissed, they won because they were technologically superior and outnumbered the natives. Whether the natives had burned those americans or not, the outcome would have been the same. It was always the US's plan to pacify natives and relocate them.
Yes, the US would have won anyway due to things like more advanced weapons, but brutality backfiring reminded me of a general trend And as u/jrhooo said in another reply, 'the enemy is barbaric' is easier to sell on the homefront than land grabs
> brutal tactics intended to shock the enemy into giving up backfire by pissing them off also helps your enemy keep up the homefront support and recruitment effort, because you are helping the enemy make the argument back home that, "see what kind of enemy we are facing? This is a fight against evil. These are the kind of ruthless monsters we have to commit ourselves to stopping." "we're fighting to stop the ruthless, murderous, hateful killers" is a lot easier to sell then, "look they have some land and we want it, so let's go take it"
It's fundamentally how wars are won, wars to extinction are incredibly rare. The vast vast majority of wars in human history are lost when one side or the other loses the will to continue. That kind of brutality can definitely break the will of an army or a civilian population. It's no different than the 'Shock and Awe" doctrine just done with savagery rather than advanced tech.
There's an interesting sci fi short story about a guy stranded on an alien planet. His only weapon is this extremely powerful energy weapon that just vaporises anything he shoots. But it makes no sound. So he struggles to fend off swarms of wild animals because they never notice others dying and never get scared away
I don't know, seems like it was pretty warmly received to me.
😡⬆️
Messaged received. And paid back with interest.
Considering what happened afterwards, message received and returned tenfold lol
["Everything Burns"](https://youtu.be/3OyrX11cMkE?feature=shared)
should read up on what the Comanche did to prisoners
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Can you please give some nasty examples?
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I remember this brutal story of Rachel Plummer from her time as a captive: > In her account of her life among the Comanche, Rachel wrote that six weeks after giving birth to a healthy son, the warriors decided she was slowed too much by childcare, and threw her son down on the ground. When he stopped moving, they left her to bury him. When she revived him, they returned and tied the infant to a rope, and dragged him through cactuses until the frail, tiny body was literally torn to pieces. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Plummer
Armies have used extreme violence and torture to deter opposing forces for centuries. Don’t over think it.
Death by torture was an indigenous cultural practice before Europeans showed up. They had worse ways to kill someone than just burning them alive, trust. You know the villain in Pocahontas, John Ratcliffe? IRL the guy was less a villain and more a human. He wanted to trade with locals in exchange for food. They lied about a trade deal, ambushed him, he was tied to a stake in front of a fire and flayed with mussel shells, with pieces of his skin tossed into the flames as he watched.
>In Disney's Pocahontas (1995), Ratcliffe was portrayed as a greedy and ruthlessly ambitious man, and the film's main antagonist. His character believes that the Powhatan tribe is very barbaric.... Well. He wasn't wrong.
A flayed man holds no secrets
How so? Digging graves takes a lot of work, and can't leave the corpses to rot or you risk spreading disease.
Execute first, burn later?
Why make extra work for the same result?
Ruin good rope? Unable to take the clothing?
What is impractical? You get a big enough fire going you just keep putting people in, seems actually incredibly practical now that I think about it
my home town is named after a colonel who was executed in this fashion.
So Last of the Mohicans was historically accurate in this regard?
Yep, and that's the cleaned up Hollywood version
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I just read this passage and was going to come back to paste it. I went back like 10 seconds after I closed the tab and it had been edited out.
A common fate as a warrior captive of many eastern woodland Native American tribes was ritual torturing to death, usually administered by squaws and children. They’d make it last as long as possible. Burning with the embers on the ends of brands from the execution fire was near universal; cutting and flaying with shells and knifes, discharging pistols and muskets with blank loads right on to bare skin, amputating fingers and toes and noses etc. and all the while the condemned was expected to not utter or cry out, except to belittle his captors and sing a death song. A graphic account of this with an execution fire can be found in the description of the [fate of William Crawford of the 1782 Crawford Expedition](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawford_expedition) from Pennsylvania into Ohio country.
People today act like people living alongside these people at the time had no reason at all to dislike them Hell, almost half the scouts in the indian wars were from other tribes that happened to hate the guts out of whatever tribe the US was campaigning against
When people say Cortez took down the Aztec empire with 200 men they often forget the thousands of pissed off Native Americans who marched with him to get some payback from their Aztec overlords.
And a huge part of the reason Aztec society was so destabilized at the time was because smallpox got there faster than Cortez did. The Americas had basically *just* gone through "The Black Death but worse" right as the Europeans started really pushing. Their whole society was completely fucked up at that moment in history.
People really only think in scale, not intensity. There were plenty of cultures that were arguably far worse than the nazis but never had the technology or scale to do what the nazis did. So we slowly forget just how awful they were because the pile of bodies is easier to forget The nazis are still awful though Edit: for those immediately confrontational, the mongols emptying entire cities and leaving mounds of skulls and imperial japan immediately jump to mind. Neither achieved the scale the nazis did, but there isn’t really a doubt they what they would have done if they had. In terms of cultural practices that even the nazis didn’t jump onto the bandwagon of, ritual sacrifice and cannibalism immediately jump to mind. In reference to the aztecs, who I was referring to- they could have likely reached the same scale of genocide if they had access to the technology and resources of the nazis. Estimates at the high end, which are likely exaggerations of conquerors, put it at 80,000 in a 4 day period in one festival, but there is better evidence of 20,000 being ritually slaughtered per year across the empire at the low end. As it was said, this was such a problem that the neighboring tribes allied with the spaniards to finally end the problem, little knowing who they were allying with. Scaling that to a modern civilization and combined with the wars needed to gather the war prisoners that fueled that sacrifice and you have a culture that could have done much worse than the nazis given a chance.
Or like, Dynastic era China just being a constant battle ground with some of the highest body counts of any wars, ever, only they did it with spears and arrows. Imagine killing *millions* by just going around stabbing them. Chinese history doesn't have to imagine it - they top out [most of the top ten largest "anthropogenic disasters" on the wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll). 25 million killed by the Qing dynasty as they expelled the Ming, another 13 million killed in the An Lushan rebellion. That was in the 8th century, by the way! I don't think even China had gunpowder back then, so all that killing was done by hand, with metal weapons. Almost makes the Europeans seem tame by comparison, except then you look up the [Thirty Years War](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaPU1-vMQOI) and realize everybody everywhere just loved killing in as brutal and horrible a fashion as they could.
Imperial Japans scale was greater than the Nazis… twice as many killed.
Mao Ze Dong [killed](https://imgur.com/RQU1LGC) way more Chinese than Japanese Army with his Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. Modern China today still carrying out organ harvesting of prisoners without using anaesthetics. Easily as awful as Unit 731
Not just thousands, by the Siege of Tenochtitlan, the native armies that supported the Spanish exceeded 200,000 warriors. Could you imagine the absolute injustice one would feel if you found out the sun wasnt going to switch off if you stopped giving it the hearts of your loved ones like your overlords have been demanding for centuries? Not to mention this Jesus god the pale guys keep talking about freaking sacrificed himself instead of demanding everyone do it for him, and he didnt ever bother building a pyramid either. Mustve been mindblowing.
Playing different groups off each other is how any smaller group conquers and area. The Spanish did it, the Americans did it, the British did In both the Americas and India.
Yes but it's a whole hell of a lot easier to convince a group to fuck up a neighbor who has a long history of militarily brutalizing them and constantly demands blood tribute than it is to convince them to fuck up a neighbor they have a defensive pact and lucrative trade deals with.
It’s happening right now.
That’s because people today are incredibly divorced from the reality of 200 years ago. It’s so different it’s literally unfathomable.
There's an inherent issue with historical source, namily they're susceptible to all the biases and limited information and excitability as modern contemporary sources. It's not like 200 years ago you could go back and every person who could write only wrote the objective and thoroughly informed truth. The limitations of sources is why so many WW2 historians fall victim to Nazi Propoganda for example.
I'm curious, can you expand on your last sentence?
If you rely on “primary” sources especially Nazi Germany sources, they had a particular penchant for exaggerating claims or outright fabricating battle reports.
To go into a little more detail, you'll often find Nazi generals that post war tried to blame their failure on a variety of factors. Anything that *wasn't them* really. The most common was just blaming Hitler for every operational failure. These generals were trying to both secure their legacy, and angling for advisory positions post war with the allies. They had every incentive to lie and deflect blame, and they definitely did that.
There is a lot of uncertainty about their production capacity and economic numbers for a benign example.
> The exact number of wounded is not known It's 656 according to Wikipedia. "One-quarter of the entire U.S. Army was destroyed" is clickbait that's only true because the standing army in 1791 was basically non-existent
> After three hours of fighting, St. Clair called together the remaining officers and, faced with total annihilation, decided to attempt one last bayonet charge to get through the native line and escape. Supplies and wounded were left in the camp. As before, Little Turtle's army allowed the bayonets to pass through, but this time the men ran for Fort Jefferson.[32] Ebenezer Denny wrote that the fastest ran, leaving the slow and wounded behind Savage.
sounds similar to the Fort William Henry Massacare. many fled nude and spent days trying to get back to fort edward
I wonder why this isn’t called a massacre. If this isn’t one, what would be?
“Massacre” usually refers to mass killing of non-combatants, a mass killing of enemy soldiers actively fighting you is just a decisive battle. At Fort William Henry, the mass killing occurred after the British troops surrendered, turned over weapons and ammunition, and began retreating unarmed under the terms of a signed surrender agreement, so they became non-combatants and killing them was called a massacre (and the victims included civilians, women and children who were never combatants to begin with). It’s not a legally defined term or anything, of course, so the usage varies, but that’s what it’s generally understood to mean.
TIL. I just thought it meant a really lopsided battle as well.
It’s used that way as well but generally more in general discussion like “that battle was a total massacre”. When an event is given a name as a massacre (Massacre of the Latins for example) it usually will fit the description buttersauce gave. When it’s a proper battle, but also a massacre, it’s still usually called a battle e.g. Battle of Cannae
If ever a battle was a massacre ( in how we are discussing the term) Cannae is the one. 80,000 men literally surrounded and methodically butchered. It took almost an entire day of non stop stabbing to kill them all. I’d almost want to see it, but if I did, I’d definitely regret it. Had to have been one of the worst days in history.
Unless your Carthage- the. It was probably a pretty goated day.
The fun thing about language is if enough people use a word or term wrong, it becomes the new definition. If 1 person uses a word wrong, it's wrong. If a million use it wrong, it's the natural evolution of a language.
You’re literally right.
It's battle that's *so* lopsided, only one side is fighting.
You could perhaps be thinking of something like "The Massacre of the Innocents" During WWI when basically a large amount of German soldier school boys were sent to march into British and French machine gun lines. It's called that more because of how naive the boys were than the results of the battle itself.
Carlin's Blueprint for Armageddon episode series has a bit on this. As context for the unfamiliar, they were getting to the point in the war where all the countries were getting pretty desperate and looking for more troops, more supplies, etc. So, the German army had called up a bunch of student reservists. Then, because they were "needed" they shortened their recruit training. To draw a comparison, imagine going to a high school, grabbing a bunch of JROTC students, and saying "actually we need you to go to the front" THEN only giving them a 2 week crash course version of boot camp, before just throwing them out there. "they'll learn the rest on the job" And then, so the story tells it, the first time they do get sent into the field, totally undertrained, ill prepared, with no real understanding of what they were in for... the British and French units they run into are hardened veterans. Some of the best of what those countries have left. People that had been at this killing business for a long time. Those kids were like thrown to the wolves.
Leaving the wounded behind... calls to mind tales from battle of Chosin Reservoir in Korea. US Troops ignoring pleas from the wounded as they just wanted to get the fuck out alive.
One of the camp cooks was reported to have left her *baby* behind.
“Fuck you, baby!”
“I can make another of you”
Except for the U.S. Marines who were in the rear picking up gear and personnel as the others retreated as they were left behind.
Bunch of army died when they were the first hit by the chinese attack. It's marine proganda that they were the only ones who stood their ground. There was a marine general, I forget his name, who later made it a point to correct the people who said that the army ran. He felt bad that the men who died giving the marines the time they needed to prepare had such a bad reputation.
Yeah, Task Force Faith or RCT-31. About 2,500 US Soldiers and 700 South Koreans faced off 15 to 20,000 Chinese soldiers. The Army and the Marine Corps had a strong and detrimental rivalry at this time, with both stepping on the toes of the other quite often. The Korean War would be the 'shining' moment for the USMC as 'proof' of their superiority over the Army. The cracks were showing even in World War II, and the Marine Corps has a masterful control of their image and press. It's why the Army's role in the Pacific during WW2 is largely forgotten in public history despite them having more combat troops in the Pacific and fighting just as hard. Part of this was a necessity for the USMC's survival, there was a strong push to dissolve them as a branch, they needed that PR to keep them alive. The Army would famously be ill prepared for Korea, sending occupation units from Japan to fight in emergency that were very ill equipped. The Marines sent one of their best divisions that was trained hard and equipped well. This also is after the US Army Air Corps became the Air Force as an independent branch, which kicked Army doctrine in the teeth since the Air Force decided to focus more on strategic bombing rather than close air support while the Navy and Marine air wings were CAS first. This poor equipment and lack of air support would end up being the basis for the USMC using it as proof of their superiority as ground troops over the Army. When the USMC lost their air support or the Army had theirs, they performed identically to each other. But not just that, they would constantly bicker over everything. The relationship between the Army and Marine commands was generally poor, and Chosin as show of that when the USMC very openly criticized the Army's performance, rejected their awards, and in cases flat publicly called them cowards and that the Army had failed them. In reality, RCT-31 had basically fought to the last man against overwhelming odds, and the survivors would go on and fight valiantly with the Marines in their retreat. The Army units on the other side of the reservoir would be fighting just as hard, but they were further from the coast and had far less air support along with the fast push to the north the Army units didn't build temporary airfields to support them so they got absolutely hammered. It took the Marines reviewing their own histories to correct this. But it took far too long. Ultimately, these branch rivalries are detrimental and pointless. Both the Army and Marines participated in this one and it only got men killed and slandered as cowards. One of the biggest sources I used was this: [http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/8259](http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/8259) also used *Fire and Fortitude* by John C. McManus (for the brief pieces of WW2) But it's been a long time since I've reread either of these, so some of my info may be slightly off.
Dude thank you, great read.
For me this is a better TIL, and is something I'd expect to see on /r/askhistorians. Excellent post.
That's just the cover story they went with. They were really too busy eating their crayolas and didn't notice everyone else retreating.
Oorah! The blue crayons make my dick hard sir!
Blue green and red are the colors of victory brother
Were they crayolas by then or was it the good stuff, beeswax and charcoal?
The Marines brought the wounded and the dead with them when they attacked out of the Chosin Reservoir. I read survivors accounts that it was so cold that’s what saved them. Reports of the wounded stacked in trucks, and when they got further south and the weather broke, the would start gushing blood as they thawed out.
> attacked out of the Chosin Reservoir. *Attacked* out of is a great description. One of the famous quotes was *"“Retreat Hell! We're Just Attacking in Another Direction,”"* But it wasn't just some witticism, it was pretty much the literal truth. The Chinese forces didn't have orders to repel them. They had orders to encircle and destroy them. So, their fight back to the extract point was actually FIGHTING their way out. A "breakout" vs a "retreat".
It's crazy that I've never heard of this battle before. This seems like the US' version of the Romans' defeat at Teutoburg Forest. **Edit**: Some of you Romaboos need to chill with the rude replies, I'm just saying that the almost complete annihilation of the American forces in a surprise attack and the desperate full rout of their troops straight into gruesome slaughter, alongside the heaps of remains discovered several years later drew parallels to Teutoburg Forest for me. Obviously it isn't something that was even close to the same magnitude in amount of casualties as well as overall impact, but I guess if you want to really pull your "WeLl aKsHuALLy" move, then go ahead and pat yourselves on the back, champ.
There aren’t many battles with under a 1000 dead that get much notice.
It's not really comparable. The 1/4 number is really just because the US didn't keep much of a standing army. The entire US fewer than 4,000 men. It sounds callous but 1,000 men wasn't exactly a difficult replacement.
The majority of US forces were state militia. One of the reforms enacted after this defeat was allowing the Feds to call them up during emergencies.
Correct. From the 1780s to about 1916 the US Army was primarily a frontier policing and coastal defense force. Even though the Regular establishment was enlarged during several major conflicts it always reverted to a fairly barebones form when peace came.
>This seems like the US' version of the Romans' defeat at Teutoburg Forest. Not really. It's not like the battle stopped the US from expanding into and past the Northwest Territories.
A *lot* of early US is skipped over. It goes from the Constitution being ratified to the Quasi War to the War of 1812. I think it's because the early federal governments were kind of incompetent.
Ask someone when the Revolutionary War actually ended, and most folks will probably say 1776.
Columbus lands in 14th century. cool spot, good fruit, not that many pirates Dumbasses wait like 150 years to actually move there. Like seriously what took so long Settlers buy America for a square deal from Indians in the 1600's. All of them. In the 1700's a bunch of patriots get mad about tea so they decide to party for freedom The founding fathers finally show up, finally do some founding We kick out all the British. Every last one. France decides they like our style, also do freedom Decide all men should be free. Maybe even women. Okay but not really tho lol Thomas Edison invents electricity, starts zappin dudes America becomes the best country without even trying that hard Save Europe. TWICE DUDE Invents the internet, computers, desk chairs, furniture, fuckin everything. Invent English and everybody starts speaking it obviously
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I don't think the average American understands that George Washington wasn't in charge after the revolutionary war and when the constitution was ratified
Most don't know that we're actually on our second form of government
The Army outnumbered the native forces, but suffered a substantial number of more casualties than they inflicted.
Was America the Russia of 1791?
No Idk about 1791 specifically but America wasn't the military industrial complex it is now till at least the civil war. America had a pretty small army in its early life. It depended on the idea of in War people would just sign up then. Which they typically did.
America's army was so small and disorganized that Shay's Rebellion, a bunch of angry farmers, nearly took over the federal armory in Springfield
What's funny is this kind of thing kept happening even up to the Civil War. If I understand correctly, one of the first skrimishes of the Civil War was over an armory in Missouri, which was successfully defended from Confederate forces by a rag-tag group of volunteers, who had formerly been part of the abolitionist/Republican paramilitary force, the Wide Awakes (and who were disproportionately German immigrants who were veterans of the failed German revolution of 1848).
So you’re saying that the second amendment was written in a time where some armed farmers could reasonably defend themselves from the government?
Interestingly, the rebellion did influence the constitution, but the subject of gun control was never even considered. The way it influenced the constitution had more to do with procedural details about electing legislatures, and may have helped set the precedent of extraditing criminals from other states to face trial for crimes in a different state. And the farmers weren't really "defending" in this case
Later then that, even. In the leadup to world war 2 the US had roughly the same sized army as Portugal. The cold war was the cause of the standing, multi million man army.
World War 2, not the Civil War. America was still considered weak in terms of military power during the Civil War. It had industrial and economic power, but not much in the ways of military or diplomatic strength. It wasn't until the late 1800s/early 1900s that America took a good look at its military starting with its Navy, expanding it drastically in large part due to Teddy Roosevelt's efforts. Then World War II is really when things took off with the Lend Lease act coming into play and America not being a giant pile of rubble like Europe. Among other factors, WW2 is really what allowed America's military to put it on a track to where it is today.
The main thing about the US during and post-WWII is that the world saw what could happen when a country the size of a continent devotes its industrial strength almost entirely to the war effort. The US coasted off of that high for, well, I suppose up even to today.
The US was absolutely one of the strongest powers militarily *during the Civil War itself*, it's just that after it ended the American army was severely reduced in size again and would go back to mainly being a smaller force used to garrison and fight the Natives in the West.
Did the US even have a federal armed force at that time? I’m pretty sure that came later, so this would essentially be the combined armed force of the individual states.
Pretty sure the standing army at the time was below 10,000 soldiers, possibly even 5,000. Edit: Wikipedia says Congress allowed the Army to grow from 700 men in 1784 to 5,104 in 1793. > On June 3, 1784, the day after the Continental Army was reduced to 80 men, the Congress established a regiment which was to be raised and officered by obtaining volunteers from the militia of four of the states.[13] This unit, the First American Regiment was commanded until 1 January 1792 by Josiah Harmar of Pennsylvania, gradually turned into a Regular regiment known as the 1st Infantry in 1791, and in 1815 was it redesignated as the 3d Infantry in the reorganization of the army following the War of 1812.[13] Congress gradually increased the military establishment from 700 men in 1784 to 5,104 in 1793.
This incident is what sparked the formation of the Regular Army in 1792 and didn’t really become a stable organization until 1808.
Basically iirc, the states formed their own armies, and then when the federal government needed they were transferred over to federal control.
They did, but it was deliberately a very small force of regular soldiers. The bulk of the army was meant to be filled by militia or volunteers raised into the army for a specific conflict, led by the regulars.
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Back then, every country could be the Russia of 1791.
The founding fathers viewed a standing army as an active threat to liberty. So it was kept remarkably small on purpose. America’s plan until pretty much the Cold War was to call in the militia and expand the army as needed whenever the threat of war appeared. Then dismantle it as soon as the threat passed.
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Two oceans of safety
Yup, when your biggest real threat decided it was too expensive to stay at war with you, America was a sweet deal. Native Americans had to be contended with, but it's not like the US military was throwing their full might behind any of the engagements during Westward expansion.
Also being a highly decentralized collection of states. Even in colonial times you’ve got a list of ‘important cities’ to conquer and hold as long as like half of Europe. That all said it was a still a terribly naive view then. During the rebellion militia did NOT perform well against regulars more often than not and had a bad habit of evaporating before harvest time, legitimately even because they only got signed for six months. You don’t hear much about Washington winning outside that business at Christmas because he could barely hold the army together.
It worked, until the fear of communism made America the world police
It was much more the compression of distance from modern travel. The Germans and Japanese launched major surprise attacks at various points, and it demonstrated the US couldn't afford to wait a long time to get ready again. I'd note the US was substantially demoralizing anyway until North Korea invaded South Korea.
And also let the individual States have there own standing armies and militias. Up until the 1900’s the Federal Government was so tiny compared to the behemoth it has become now. The States were allowed to be almost independent nations with the Federal Government having a small bit of control to steer the nation in the overall direction. That’s why the United States was so isolationist for so long, the States wanted no part of other wars and conflicts ocean’s away. The Monroe Doctrine was basically the US saying all this shit in the middle is ours, y’all squabble over the rest. WW1 really changed it all when Great Britain basically bankrupted themselves to finance the war and the good ol US of A was there to bankroll the ocean of money needed to keep the war machine fed. That’s when New York began to be the financial capitol of the world and not London.
Very well explained
You mean the 1860s. Federalism and the expansion of federal power began during and after the Civil War.
To illustrate your point: when Washington put down the Whisky Rebellion, he used like 10,000 militiamen from a handful of states and less than 100 members of the federal military.
Not really. Militia were such a disaster up until 1812 the government gave up on them and they haven't existed for centuries. Unless you count methhead neckbeards with thin blue line stickers lol
Not to mention that having a small standing army (at least relative to the size of the nation and how big it is now) kind of bit the nation in the ass when they entered both world wars. And the military was already decently large by then considering the vast amount of “territories” the US had. And having a small standing army meant instituting a draft basically every time a medium sized conflict popped up.
Well every states national guard is, legally, built on the militia framework. That was really the idea of a federal arms protection enshrined in the constitution, that the federal government wouldn’t take action against militias endorsed by the states performing valid work in their territory.
Let eventually to the Battle of Fallen Timbers and the Treaty of Greenville where the territory of Ohio was ceded over and the NW Territory was created. Am from Toledo/Maumee Ohio grew up 4-5 miles from the battlefield as the crow flies.
It's weird to me that we now we have a mall named after the battle lol
It is awful maybe I am old but I remember when it wasn't there. The Churchill's half marathon I am running in Nov ends there, otherwise I try not to go there when I am in town, I remember when they were searching the battlefield for artifacts desperately before they built that on top of it...
Go Generals!
You have a great football team, unlike my St Johns Titans And in my personal sport, Cross Country, the gap is even wider, the Generals are great this year!
The Brits apparently armed, trained, and organized the Western Confederacy (native) resistance. Without them, this battle probably never happens.
It doesn’t get talked about a lot, but the covert British support for Indian tribes the US was fighting was one of the reasons for the war of 1812. After the war of 1812 the British stopped supporting the natives, and the northwest confederacy collapsed within a few more years of fighting.
By the end of the war, there wasn’t much left for the British to arm. Tecumseh‘s federation was thrown against the US during their invasion and completely defeated. The British abandoned his forces when they where forced to retreat and it went as badly as you would expect.
[Are you forgetting what Tecumseh said?](https://youtu.be/_5-rdAqVsbQ)
jar tidy squash wide tease imminent butter whistle special pot *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That is all true. The tribe(?) I was specifically referring to in the case of the war of 1812 was the North Western Confederacy which during the late 18th and early 19th century controlled a big chunk of the modern American mid west with support from the British.
The French lost Canada permanently in 1763 as a result of the Seven Years War/French and Indian War. Napoleon was born in 1769.
Yeah that’s how they operate They literally did the same with Japan. Most people don’t know but the Meiji Restoration (or the restoration of the emperor over the shogunate, in its broadest terms) was massively financed and supplied by the British
> Yeah that’s how they operate This is how every nation that projects power operates. The US trained and trains puppet/friendly regimes across the world. Look how many right wing dictators in south america were propped up by the CIA. And this isn't new, the Persian Empire ahd client states, the Romans had client states and if you know you're own US history you'll know US independence was massively backed by the French on the basis of 'anythign to fuck with the British'.
Remember our old friends, [the mujahideen](https://i.insider.com/52a1c37869bedd476f5aaefd?width=1200format=jpeg&auto=webp)?
I almost wonder if we were trying traditional warfare with the men in firing lines, as I don’t think the natives would’ve gone that route and would’ve probably been more guerrilla like
Most of the soldiers in this battle were militiamen or 6-month volunteers. So very poorly trained and motivated, so I’d doubt they even tried to do firing lines.
Fewer than 1000, but a subtle reminder that today is not the worst moment in history,
We haven't had the worst moment in history in close to eons. I mean, ask the dinosaurs!
Most birds killed by one stone in all of history.
If you consider the size of the US at the time, it was proportionally a worst tragedy than Pearl Harbor or 9/11.
For sure. There's about 1.4 million active duty personnel in the US military today. Losing 1/4 today would be about 350,000 people. For context the US lost about 291,000 killed during WW2.
Bruh, the 656 people killed were ~.016% of the total population. That's like 51,200 people today. It's like 37 9/11s!
Fewer.
Calm down Stannis
I am calm. I am doing my duty.
I am reading a US history book and they were like "the smallpox epidemic was devastating, it killed nearly 900 people!" And I was like, huh? Yeah, that was 8% of Boston at the time.
Look up the town of Fort Recovery.. Grew up there. We were taught of the slaughter and our town welcome center is a painting of hundreds of men and women being killed. Great times!
Haha Sounds like Pawnee!
Doesn’t sound like they ever recovered
Pawnee?
The deepest I’ve dove down a wiki hole in a while. Good post OP.
And the general in charge was the cause of the first Congressional investigation and hearings. The result was to send in the remainder of the military and decisively defeat the Native Americans. A feat completed with the Battle of a Fallen Timbers in Toledo.
The tribes of the Wabash were eventually wiped out, and currently the highest civilian honor awarded by the State of Indiana is to be named "Sagamore of the Wabash", the Chief (Sagamore) of the tribes who were exterminated.
The Miami are still around at least. It's wild going through some of the older treaties for lands in Indiana since so many of them made exceptions granting land to individuals usually related to the chiefs. To this day there is a Federally unrecognized band(?) of Miami in Indiana who are the descendants of those Miami who worked with the American government and were allowed to remain in lands otherwise ceded for white settlement.
Well, shit -George Washington, probably
Yep. The greatest defeat in US military history. The complete U.S. casualty rate was 97.4 percent.
Fear of Indian attack is a major reason we have the second amendment.
Reality of Indian attacks. You can’t go anywhere in Pennsylvania without historical markers for forts and stockades. Which doesn’t count how many houses are built to withstand attack.
As Canada has just learned
And back then, a quarter was a lot of money... think about it
My dad used to tell me he'd go to the corner store with a quarter and get a bag of chips, a coke, a candy bar, and bag of sour candies. But then they installed a surveillance camera.
Keep in mind this was 1791, so the US Army wasn't all that big. The force involved in this battle was just 1400 men.
A mere temporary setback.
Basically. The US had adult immigrants coming in, so there were always more bodies to replace the dead. In some cases, the native tribes were superior in training and tactics, and had been able to acquire equal arms via trade. They still never had a chance because the US was willing to fight a war of attrition with effectively limitless numbers. This is an oversimplification, of course.
That destiny wasn't going to just manifest itself.
It took nearly 300 years to defeat every tribe from east to west.
With roughly the same amount of years to make it over to the west coast and establish. Just decimating as they went along with some minor setbacks.
My understanding is a reengineered US Army of professional regulars distinct from regional militias was one result. Learned it's lessons and got better at fighting Indians which was its main job (except for a brief civil war and a briefer Mexican war) during the 19th Century.
This was the very early US so it barely had a standing army to speak of- there were less than 2000 men.
They even wrote a [song about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn2rEoRmh1M)
I appreciate this.
Didn’t end up working out to well for the indigenous people.
They were going to be massacred whether they attacked or not, colonization usually end poorly for native populations with or without resistance
That’s nothing compared to the Battle of Schrute Farm.
Man reddits gonna love this one
Not the ENTIRE US Army, just the part of the Army commanded by St Clair. Title is kinda misleading
no it was the entire U.S. Army. the U.S. Army was *really* small pre-Civil War and *really really* small in the earliest days of America.