BELIEF AND BELONGING

Volunteers who served in the state militias of the southwestern frontier of the young United States were motivated by complex cultural, military, and even religious traditions; some new, the others reaching back thousands of years.

As previously noted, the settlers who lived along the southwestern frontier were largely descended from those who had emigrated – by choice or unwillingly – from Scotland, Ireland, and to a lesser degree, England. For various reasons few had cause to love the English Crown.

When the colonies rebelled in 1776, they were already divided into two largely separate cultures: the citizens of the long-settled coastal regions and cities, and the citizens of the Appalachian frontier. Both groups shared a common pride in their success in overthrowing colonial rule by the most powerful nation on earth, but it was in reality still a weak bond of nationalism.

In most military forces, soldiers bond through shared experience and suffering, and the ties to a soldier’s comrades often become stronger than those to a family distant in both time and space. The soldier’s loyalties tend to become weaker with distance; his primary loyalties are to his immediate comrades, his unit, his branch of service, and his country, in that order. Shared experience and suffering (real or imagined) are the fundamental basis for morale in many military organizations, and these bonds by their nature develop only through long service and isolation from society as a whole.

For the state militiaman along the frontier the short terms of enlistment did not encourage such bonding within units. Men might serve in units that were recruited from defined geographic districts, but there was little else to bond them together. Ties to families left behind on isolated farms and in small towns, themselves sometimes at risk of attack by the enemy, exerted a stronger pull upon the militiaman’s loyalties than his immediate comrades.

HARSH DISCIPLINE Throughout the war short-service militiamen were notorious for poor discipline and desertion. At times even Jackson turned a blind eye to desertion; before the final campaign against the Red Sticks he tacitly encouraged desertion as a means of trimming down his bloated force to one he could support with is limited logistics. At other times desertion, and particularly insubordination, were brutally punished. In December 1814 Col. Philip Pipkin’s 1st Regiment of West Tennessee militia garrisoned forts in southern Alabama. Disease and desertion were rampant, and in December 1814 a court martial at Mobile convicted six militiamen of disobedience. The men were executed on February 21, 1815 – the day before word of the Treaty of Ghent reached Mobile. One other militiaman and one Army regular were also executed during Jackson’s period of command. In 1828 Congress re-examined the courts martial, a political attack on Jackson who was then seeking election to the Presidency.

The short terms of service also discouraged development of a habit of obedience to orders among men who tended by nature to be independent minded and argumentative. As citizens of the new democracy, militiamen often felt free to dispute orders they thought unjust or ill advised. Leaders were usually elected, which provided some degree of coherency, but also led subordinates to openly question the ability of leaders they did not personally respect.

One of the few issues that could unite the men in a militia unit was a disagreement over terms of service. Disputes with superiors over terms of service were astonishingly common, and on many occasions led to mass desertions and the disintegration of the assembled army.

Typical of such disputes was one over the terms for the very first units of Tennessee militia to be called to service. The men in some units who served in the 1813 Natchez Expedition had enlisted in December 1812 for one year of service – an unusually long period in itself. The units were released after the expedition and later recalled for the first campaign against the Red Sticks in late-1813. Jackson interpreted their terms of enlistment to be one year of active service, but most of the men interpreted the term to be one calendar year.

Militiamen zealously counted the days until their term of service expired and did not tend to stay one day longer than required. The departure of masses of men also aggravated the chronic logistical problems experienced along the frontier, as departing men usually felt free to help themselves to any supplies they thought necessary to sustain them on their trip home. Chronic supply problems that left men ill equipped and frequently starving did little to improve morale.

The confusion and ineptitude that marked the early campaigns also contributed to poor morale. Soldiers by their nature tend to be proud of accomplishments, either of endurance or victory, but the early campaigns provided little to be proud of. Jackson’s ability to actually fight and win battles was a major factor in uniting his troops.

The final battles against the British around New Orleans united the soldiers of Jackson’s patchwork force as the struggle against the Creeks never did. Hatred of the Crown, aggravated by British support for the hostile tribes along the frontier, finally provided a strong unifying force for an army now accustomed to victory. At New Orleans the militiamen and others actually wanted to engage the British army, aggressively sought battle, and on the climactic day actually cheered the British attack.

Ironically the militiamen and other members of Jackson’s army were more united after the war than during. The victory at New Orleans quickly became a major point of pride that united not just the militiamen but also the entire nation.