America has always preferred “traditional” warfare: valiant charges, columns crashing into one another in brute force survival, the dashing young officer/martyr; this is the kind of war America craves. During the nineteenth century, America was given few opportunities for battles such as these, and as such, hungered for more, especially after the Civil War. Unfortunately for the traditionalist fighters, another realm beckoned, a realm that the American soldier had ventured through time and time again. The Indians had grown restless and it was time to subdue them once more. While some historical writers such as Max Boot believe that the US Army “viewed the Indian Wars as a temporary diversion from their ‘real’ job” (Boot, 283), meaning that the Army ignored tactical lessons in warfare that it could have used in other campaigns, the truth of the matter is that not only did the US Army remember what it had learned, but continued to use the lessons throughout its campaigns in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Mexico.

The Indian Wars officially began in 1865, although the US Army and certain Native American tribes had skirmished for years. With over 1,000,000 commissioned soldiers and the hostile Indian tribes “[t]otaling less than one hundred thousand people” (Utley, 5), the war looked to be quick and simple. What the Army hadn’t planned for however, was the American’s people’s desire to put the bloodshed behind them and Reconstruction in the South. Not only would the Army have to deal with the Indian threat in the West, but it would have to handle the hostilities while under going massive decommissions and the large remainder of its troops being sent to the southern states. To subdue the Indians, it would have to adapt to its situation quickly and remember what it had learned. Ironically, the Army went through decades of stagnation during this critical period of development, with soldiers having no hope of promotion for years.  As bad as it sounds on the surface, the heart of the matter is that if the Army had grown as

rapidly as it had in the Civil War, with new officers being created with reckless abandon, the Indian Wars may not have been won as quickly.

First, what made the Indian Wars so different than its contemporary counterparts? According to Utley, there were “three special conditions” (Utley, 45) that set it apart. One of these conditions was the Indians’ penchant to change “from friend to foe to neutral” (Utley, 45) with sudden alacrity. Another was the opposing view of the Indians themselves. After all, it was hard to look at an Indian as a human when you had seen the mutilations and torture they had inflicted; it was hard to look at an Indian as a monster once you became familiar with why they were fighting. The third reason that the Indian Wars were so different than what the US Army had encountered was because the Indians were unconventional in their tactics. Instead of waiting to be shot at, the Indians attacked on their own terms. In fact, unless forced to battle due to circumstances beyond their control, they only fought when the situation was stacked in their favor. These three facts, while unremarkable at the time, resurfaced over and over again in the small wars to follow.

What exactly did the US Army learn from the Indian Wars? The most obvious lesson was to think outside of the box, to not be restrained by conventional rules when one’s enemy certainly wasn’t. One example of this was during the first major Apache uprising in 1880. Colonel Benjamin Grierson had been ordered to stop the leader of the Apache uprising, Victorio, but didn’t have enough troops to order a full-on assault. Moving quickly, he spread his troops around the known water holes of the area, stopping Victorio’s attack, and forcing him to retreat to Mexico, where he was later killed. Another lesson was to use different factions/tribes against one another. For example, Crow guides were used to find Sioux camps because of the traditional hatred between the two tribes and the Crow’s familiarity with the land. The greatest lesson learned, however, was that if one demoralizes one’s enemy, it won’t matter how many numbers they have. The best example of this was the decimation of the buffalo on the Plains. In a short summary, the buffalo were everything to the Sioux Indians: food, shelter, weapons, and it held a revered status throughout the tribe. Some estimates place the number of buffalo on the Plains in the 1860’s to be over forty million. Due to the US Government’s support of the wholesale slaughter of the buffalo and the great demand for buffalo pelts, by 1880, there were less than one thousand buffalo left. The loss of their food sources and the demoralizing factor of seeing their revered creatures rotting across the Plains gave the Sioux no choice but to head towards the reservations in order to survive. By 1890, the Indian Wars were over and peace could resume once again, right?

The Spanish-American War began in 1898 supposedly due to the US Government’s urge to free Cuba from its Spanish oppressors. While no attacks occurred on Cuban soil until June, by May 1, Admiral George Dewey had destroyed the Spanish fleet in the Philippines. The leader for Philippine independence, Emilio Aguinaldo, met with Dewey and received permission to lay siege to Manila. Once again, using local factions against one another proved to be effective and by August the Spanish were ready to capitulate. Refusing to yield to Aguinaldo, the Spanish commander instead turned to the American forces sitting outside of Manila and surrendered to Dewey.  The Filipino soldiers, who had shed blood for their own liberation while the Americans had shed none, were angered when they were given no part in the surrender ceremonies. In the Treaty of Paris of 1898, Spain gave America the Philippines, Cuba, Guam, and Puerto Rico; America gave Spain 20 million dollars. Unfortunately, while America attempted to improve the Filipinos’ way of life, they did not take the Filipinos’ request for independence seriously. In 1899, Emilio Aguinaldo declared the Filipinos free and proceeded to attack the US.

The Battle of Manila began on February 4, 1898 and if one went by the sheer number of troops, the Filipinos should have defeated the Americans easily. Although the Americans were untrained, however, the Filipinos were poorly equipped, “not hav[ing] enough shoes, let alone rifles, to go around.” (Boot, 108) Not only were the Filipinos ill-equipped, they were unprepared for battle. “Many of those who had rifles did not know how to use their sights,” (Boot, 108) and in the battle, the Filipinos were routed quite easily, with 700 of them dying in the first day’s battle alone. In the course of the year, the Americans defeated Aguinaldo’s troops, finally bringing down most of his army. Aguinaldo himself continued to elude capture, but with the majority of his army dead or defeated, there wasn’t much he could do militarily.

In November 1899, he and his cabinet decided to dissolve the Filipino Army and he began a series of hit-and-run attacks. At first, the guerrilla attacks were successful, due to the efficiency and the independent nature of the attacks. In 1900, the US general in charge of the campaign stepped down and was replaced by General Arthur MacArthur, who immediately began recruiting natives who were against Aguinaldo and used them as scouts. Once again, the US Army used local factions against one another and they were incredibly successful. The definitive blow in the US-Filipino War, however, came from an unorthodox plan by Frederick Funston. Instead of playing by conventional rules of war, Funston and four other US troops pretended to be prisoners, and with the help of the native people who created a diversion, he stormed Aguinaldo’s quarters and captured him. In the months after his capture, thousands of Filipinos gave up their weapons, and while there were one or two more definitive guerrilla attacks, by 1902, the war was over. Once again, basic lessons learned in the Indian Wars were used in a different country with the same successful results.

The US-Filipino war was not the only incident in Southeast Asia that America was involved with during this time period, however. China’s Ching dynasty had been steadily declining since the 1700’s, but their demise was hastened by the appearance of Jesuit missionaries and European merchants who, at first, claimed a small foothold in China, but steadily cultivated their influence and power, until China was practically a European colony. Since the vast majority of Chinese did not want to become a part of European imperialism, it is not surprising that a group would attempt to take China back. The Righteous and Harmonious Fists, or Boxers, “fed off hopelessness and despair,” (Boot, 72) which was in abundance at this time. In 1900, they erupted in rebellion. The Boxers were not a large force, and although the Empress was convinced to support them, they still did not have enough people to directly attack the European and American forces that had been summoned. Because of this, the Boxers reverted to guerilla tactics to bring down their oppressors. While the operations to suppress the Boxers were, for the most part, a comedy of errors, this was mostly due to the fact that there were so many divided factions within the European and American coalition of troops. When the Americans were left to their own devices, they were efficient and quickly proved that they knew what they were doing in guerilla combat. This was in no small part due to the fact that copious amounts of the American soldiers were Philippine and Indian War veterans, and because their commanding general, Adna Chaffee, had spent the vast majority of his Army career fighting Indians. Without the American influence, the Boxers would have still been suppressed, but it would have taken much longer and would have cost many more lives. This is yet another example of the Army using what they had learned from previous combat experience.

America had proven itself overseas and now could confidently turn back to another pressing issue: the Caribbean. Since 1898, the US Army had ruled Cuba without major incident. Although the US Government intended to give Cuba its independence as a Machiavellian political move, they wanted to make sure that they could still control Cuba. To this effect, the Platt Amendment was passed, letting the US Government dabble in Cuban political affairs indefinitely.

Another immediate situation in the Caribbean was the situation in Colombia. For years, America had desired a canal through Colombia, because it would allow the US Navy easy access to its coastlines as opposed to having to go around the entire continent of South America. Colombia refused the canal treaty because they wanted more money for their land, not knowing the lengths the US Government would go to get it. In short, the Secretary of State encouraged local plotters in their plans for revolution, and with American military intervention, the plotters succeeded and created the new country of Panama, which of course, signed a treaty to let America build a canal. From 1902 to 1913, the US Military staged numerous “interventions” and continually used the Monroe Doctrine in correlation with the Roosevelt Corollary in order to justify their continued presence in Caribbean and South American countries. Without their training in the Philippines, China, and the Indian Wars, the US Government could not have continued their protection of the aforementioned countries. This course of “gunboat diplomacy” (Boot, 148) may have remained unbroken except for one thing: 1912 brought the election of a new President, Woodrow Wilson. His election changed the course of International-American relations for the next eight years.

Pershing’s Punitive Expedition was six years in the making when it occurred in 1916. To understand why the US Government felt that it had to take that step, one must have a general understanding of Mexican history. Perferio Diaz had ruled Mexico for thirty-five years and had decided to give up his power by holding an election. This election was to be held in 1910, but instead of giving up his control, he cancelled the elections and decided to continue to exert his influence on Mexico. A front-runner in the cancelled election, Francisco Madero, decided that it was time to have a new leader and with help from Pasquale Orozco and Pancho Villa, he took the city of Juarez. Another revolutionary, Emilio Zapata, was closer to Mexico City, and with all of the pressure, Diaz finally gave up power and went into exile in 1911. Madero held an election that same year and was overwhelmingly elected President of Mexico. For one brief second, it looked like peace would be spread over Mexico, but things fell apart shortly after the elections. Orozco and Villa fought amongst themselves; Zapata fought Madero because he did not believe that Madero would follow through on his promises of reform. The US government would have intervened but 1912 was an election year and as such, they would have to wait for whoever was elected. Once the US had finally elected their new President, the Ambassador to Mexico decided to meddle, telling Madero’s general, Victorio Huerta, that if he overthrew Madero and was willing to have a pro-US government, the United States would support him. Under this assumption, Huerta attacked Madero, imprisoning and later killing him. He then assumed the presidency, but surprisingly, the US government refused to recognize him. The American Ambassador had disregarded the fact that Woodrow Wilson would not recognize anyone who had assumed power illegally. Because of this action, revolution once again raged throughout Mexico. Villa and a new associate, Carranza rebelled against Huerta. At first, the US backed the revolutionaries, but once he and Carranza began fighting amongst themselves, the government had to choose which one to support. While Wilson wanted Villa, the government finally forced him to select Carranza. Villa saw this as a betrayal and once Carranza became President, Villa launched a personal vendetta against the ones he thought responsible for his election: the US government. On March 9, 1916, he led a mostly unsuccessful attack against Columbus, New Mexico that accomplished one thing: it irritated the US Government enough to send an expedition after him.

On March 15, 1916, General “Black Jack” Pershing led the Punitive Expedition into Mexico. In this final small war before World War I, both old and new techniques were used. For instance, local Apache scouts familiar with the land were used, a final nod to the Indian Wars, but instead of numerous wagon trains, supplies were brought to the front in trucks and automobiles. While the Expedition was a failure, it still proves the fact that the US Army continued to evolve and use what it had learned from previous incidents.

In conclusion, Max Boot’s comment that “the army never bothered to develop a doctrine of anti-guerilla warfare” (Boot, 283) is false and should be disregarded. Not only did the Army develop a plan, but used it efficiently, improving upon it as the years and small wars continued.