From Class and Race in the Frontier Army, by Kevin Adams
The Civil War jumble society more than perhaps we are
willing to admit. A new order arose, it seems, and work lost its “moral” value.
Oh yes, lip service was paid to the “dignity and nobility of work” but, says
Adams, it grew more and more painful to look closely at labor itself.
In the U.S. Army, institutions harkened back to the 18th
century. It’s aristocratic ethos created a labor system that divided officers
from enlisted men. One indication is the fact that officers’ written words were
frequently in the passive voice. Says Adams, “The use of the passive voice to
describe physical labor powerfully demonstrates frontier officers’ attitudes
about work, as class politics suffused their language, even at the level of
verb and subject choice. . . scholars have unwittingly extended the lifespan of
officers’ attitudes toward enlisted men and, by extension, the Victorian
classism that fueled them.
I do love so much to be waited on you know. –New army bride,
Jennie Barniz, to her parents
Homework has nothing
to do with schools
In the days before washing machines and gas ranges, keeping
house required cooking, cleaning, and detailed work usually done by women. For
most American males of the time, American culture and political ideology said
this is how it should be. The domestic sphere was woman’s work.
Immediately after the Civil War, Army regulations allowed
officers and their families to use “servant soldiers.” These “strikers” and
“dog-robbers” were paid extra for the extra work. The practice was banned by
Congress in 1870, but officers and their wives, desperate for domestic help,
meant that enlisted soldiers were still assigned to these duties. In Adams’ words,
“. . . even as officers preached the imperative of absolute obedience, some
were subverting the will of Congress.”
Custer and wife Elizabeth |
Officers believed that their standing and lifestyle made
servants indispensible, Adams writes. He quotes Elizabeth Custer as saying, “Nothing
seemed to annoy my husband more than to find me in the kitchen.”
Still, civilians began to fill the ranks of officers
servants. Mostly they were mentioned only by the job they did. My black boy has
also caught several messes of delicious fish, for example. Adams writes:
Reconstruction duty allowed officers to bring southern blacks seeking greater
opportunities to the frontier to work as servants, thus fusing racialist
thinking with economic opportunity.
Blacks were not the only nonwhite groups employed. In
California, “digger Indians” were often hired. Whites put them at the bottom of
the labor market. One wife hired “an old Indian buy the name of Tom” for board
and old clothes because “that’s all a Digger Indian’s labor is worth. . . .
They don’t know much, though they look very sober and knowing sometimes.”
Army posts all had Chinese servants, too, at least the
western ones did. And in the southwest, the servants tended to be Mexican, as
the border meant little. Elizabeth Custer referred to the Mexican wife of a 7th
Cavalry soldier as a member of
“that hairy race” and thought she was savage looking.
Summerhayes' book |
The Chinese were considered “devoted,” but also “queer. Most
Americans thought they belonged to an “inferior, corrupt, and decaying
civilization.” They were mistreated inside and outside the army. Martha
Summerhayes wrote, “I secured a Chinaman of good caste for a servant, and by
deceiving him (also my aunt’s advice) with the idea we were going only as far
as Sacramento, succeeded in making him willing to accompany us.”
Adams’ conclusion is thus: “The one place where whiteness
truly mattered, it turns out, was in relation to nonwhites.” He continues to
speak of the “laborer” enlisted men. “White enlisted men may have been
subordinate to officers . . . they enjoyed the privileges that white skin
bestowed on Euro-Americans.”
The army tried to get the so-called Striker Law repealed in
1881, eleven years after it was passed. Adams quotes General William T.
Sherman’s argument for its appeal: “I honor labor as much as any man, and never
was ashamed to cook my own meal or saddle my own horse, but no officer can
habitually do this work and properly supervise his command and company.” The
author says, “Officers expected and felt that they deserved both high military
rank and social esteem. . . . In short, officers understood themselves and
their surroundings in terms of class, a worldview strengthened by nineteenth-century
military culture. The patronizing, condescending, and cruel potential of such
bias was sometimes expressed when officers interacted closely with working
enlisted men.”
General Sherman 1888 |
For nearly a hundred years, Americans had been suspicious of
a standing army, and they held a negative view of men who volunteered in time
of peace. Adams quotes a New York newspaper: “The Regular Army is composed of
bummers, loafers, and foreign paupers.” Indeed, the United States soldier was
looked upon as an idler—too lazy to work. In other words, the frontier army
transformed enlisted men into poorly paid laborers, something that ordinary
soldiers recognized and castigated. No wonder nearly one-third of army
enlistees deserted.
Perhaps the most surprising thing to me (Charlie Whipple)
was the fact that “fatique duty” seemed more important that soldierly training.
In 1868, the surgeon at Fort Laramie recorded in his diary, “There has been no
drill this month.” So what were they doing? Cutting wood, running the sawmill,
and burning lime and charcoal. In addition, some 50 men were detailed for duty
with the Quartermaster as teamsters, carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, laborers,
and clerks. . . . Sunday eventually became the preferred day for drills.
Barnitz and wife Jennie |
Adams continues: Not even troops stationed on the front
lines along the Bozeman Trail in 1866-7 received rudimentary training. . . .
Cavalry captain Albert Barnitz bluntly put it in a letter to his wife from the
field, “our men are in the main a set of uninstructed recruits who can’t hit a
barn door at 300 yards, with a carbine, and much less an Indian.”
Barnitz was with Custer’s 7th at Washita.
Next month, we’ll have a look at Work and Leisure Culture
Thousands have now read The Snake Den. Have you?
Fascinating, glad you are working your way through this and sharing. Looking forward to the next installment. It would be interesting to read a contra opinion. Will look into that, for this is a good topic for research. Doris
ReplyDeleteCharlie, what an EXCELLENT post! I am fascinated by these ideas that people 'back in the day' had about other cultures that were non-white. And what an eye opener about the soldiers and them not having any drills, etc. I've been watching too many movies...LOL
ReplyDeleteCheryl
Cheryl, I had just watched She Wore a Yellow Ribbon for the umpteenth time. I also wondered the state of Custer's troops at Little Big Horn, because apparently he was top dog amongst the elitists, which would have meant his troops were undertrained.
DeleteThanks for inviting me along.
ReplyDelete