Emory Upton V- General in Chief and Chief of Staff
After the euphoria of the Reed election died down MG Upton returned to his work running the Pacific department. He and his continued to work on identifying threats posed to the department and how best to overcome them. He continued to fixate on the British threat posed by their newly acquired Sandwich Islands. By January his staff 1889 together with Captain Dewey of the San Francisco Squadron completed a report on the state of the department and its suggestions for future defense. The report that proposed building a Pacific Fleet capable of seizing the Sandwich Islands. This would create a buffer between the US and other potential Pacific powers like Russia or France. (Japan at that time was not seen as possible threat). His report also showed the improbability of major attacks from Baja California or British Columbia, its suggestion was therefore to build a force capable of seizing the Sandwich Islands outright in case of war, after which it should be given a low priority for reinforcements and supplies.
Meanwhile Upton remained in close contact with President-elect Reed. After resigning from Congress Reed remained in the capital. What was becoming clear was that Upton’s nomination to General in Chief would be controversial. Upton’s views had made many enemies in the old army and many members of Congress uneasy, His outward admiration for the Prussian system made many fear that he wanted to establish military domination of the government, they way many perceived the Prussian system to be. Reed knew any attempts to make him GoC would be a battle.
In the mean time Reed was more interested in expanding the Navy. Though new navy bills had been passed funding and actual implementation had been slow. Most of the money had been used on Harbor defense. Reed wanted this augmented by a new all steel navy that could project US power beyond its coast. This being the priority, Reed warned Upton in early January that he might have to wait several months for his nomination.
Unexpectedly General in Chief Henry Hunt died on February 11, 1889. In the interim Inspector General John Schofield assumed the duties of Commanding General, however he was never nominated or approved. Many in the Army establishment wished to keep Schofield, as he was highly regarded veteran of both the War of Secession and the Mexican War. He also was excellent administrator and though a reformer he did not want to move to the extent that Upton did.
Thomas B Reed took the oath of office in March 4, 1889. Upton remained in San Francisco for the time being. Meanwhile Reed submitted his Cabinet Appointments for nomination, in it he attempted to build a team of both Remembrance and Bourbon Democrats; Ohio was represented by the anti-silver Mark Hanna as Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of the Navy William Collins Whitney of Massachusetts, Attorney General Richard Olney of Massachusetts and John W. Foster of Indiana as Secretary of State, and Secretary of War Daniel Sickles of New York.
Reed and his Staff quickly set to passing his all Steel Navy Bill, mobilizing a grass routes campaign of Navy Veterans and citizens of those cities which came under bombardment by the Royal Navy during the Second Mexican War. This new organization was christened the Navy League and it successfully lobbied Congress for the new Steel Navy Bill in April of 1889. The mobilization of the electorate became a pattern for the Remembrance movement. These grass roots leagues sprang out in support of many Remembrance causes, from supporting the invasion of Canada, the restoration of the union by force of arms, the construction of more military academies to providing pensions for veterans.
Reed used this same method to garner support for the Upton selection. Upton and Reed knew he had to overcome the influence of the old guard army officers, the army bureau chiefs, doughface democrats and importantly the state militias. Those in the State militias knew that Upton openly derided the Militias and wanted to replace it with a new Federal Reserve force. The State Militias were a powerful lobby in state and federal politics. Their champion was John Logan Senator from Illinois and former Secretary of War under Blaine. Despite moving over as a Remembrance Democrat, Logan led those that feared the elimination of the Militias would be a final death blow for state rights.
Reed and Upton countered the movement against Upton by the forming the New Army League, they also found financial backers for a republication of Upton’s Military Policy of the United States. The one two punch of The New Army League’s campaigning and increased popularity in his book smoothed over most opposition. Finally, a promise to retain the state’s militias, along side the Reserve force brought around Logan and the final holdouts. Reed informed Upton to be ready to return to Philadelphia as he was appointed. President Reed selected Emory Upton as Commanding General on April 4th, 1889. Emory Upton left the following day, however before he left he convinced Sherman to return with him. He promised Sherman a promotion to Brigadier General and a pledge that he would play an integral part in the reorganization of the Army. Sherman a recent widower saw no reason to remain in San Francisco and agreed.
Upton arrived back in Philadelphia and ready to take over the reins of the Army by June. On his arrival Reed pledged his support for the cause of army reform, however he told Upton to tread lightly at first, until they had more support in Congress. Upton agreed and at first asked congress for the creation of an Army War College, something the Navy operated since 1884. Congress readily established this with little opposition. Work began on the academy the next year outside Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. In the mean time Upton gathered the Staff for War College, selecting those soldiers he knew to be advocates of reform and experts in the operation and administration of foreign armies. Upton chose the newly promoted Brigadier General W. T. Sherman to organize the new body. These men would become the operations bureau of Upton’s new reorganized General Staff. He immediately set this ad hoc staff to report on the current state of the army and recommendations for the future. William Tecumseh Sherman would lead these studies.
War Department Report
The first prepared report was presented to the President and Secretary of War and Congress in October of 1889. A new report on the structure of the current War Department and the Army. In it he showed how after the War of 1812, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun established the basic structure of the War Department and the Army down to 1889. How there were essentially two separate elements. A departmental staff, serving directly under the Secretary of War, and the Army in the field, which was divided into geographical districts under professional military commanders.
As of 1889 the Field Army Departments were the Eastern Department responsible for all states east of the state of Ohio with its headquarters on Governors Island in New York Harbor. The Midwestern Department including Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Its headquarters was Evansville Indiana. The Department of the West all states and territories not included in the Midwestern or the Department of the Pacific, its headquarters was St. Louis Missouri. The Department of the Pacific included Washington, Oregon and California. Its Headquarters was the Presidium just North of San Francisco California.
The War Departmental staff from the beginning was called the War Department Staff. It consisted of a group of autonomous bureau chiefs, each responsible under the Secretary for the management of a specialized function or service. By the 1890s the principal bureaus were the judge Advocate General's Department, the Inspector General's Department, the Adjutant General's Department, the Quartermaster's Department, the Subsistence Department, the Pay Department, the Medical Department, the Corps of Engineers, the Ordnance Department, and the Signal Corps.
These agencies combined both staff and command functions. They acted as advisers to the Secretary of War and also directed the operations and the personnel involved in performing their assigned functions. Each had its own budget appropriated, specified, and were monitored in detail by Congress.
The Army in the field was organized in tactical units and stationed at posts throughout the country. The regiment was normally the largest unit and depending on the Department either centralized in one depot or scattered over a large area. Until 1886 the posts were grouped geographically into "departments" commanded by officers in the rank of colonel. After the expansion of the Army in the 1880’s the Departments were commanded by Major Generals and in event of war were to assemble the Regular and Militia Regiments into Field Armies. Above the geographical departments in the field the chain of command was confused and, in fact, fragmented. The military head of the Field Armies and Departments was the Commanding General or General in Chief, a position created by Secretary Calhoun. However no Congressional legislation ever described its duties and functions or defined its relations with the bureaus, the Secretary, and the President. This led to serious complication in both the War of Secession and Second Mexican War.
The Commanding General did not in fact or in law command the Army. War time Commanding Generals like McClellan, Halleck and Rosecrans repeatedly complained that in a proper military organization authority should be centralized in one individual through a direct chain of command. Instead the Secretaries of War like Edwin Stanton in the WoS and John Logan in the second half of the SMW repeatedly gave countermanding orders to Departmental Chiefs. In peacetime the bureau chiefs in Washington were constantly dealing directly with their own officers in the field at all levels of command, acting they insisted under the authority and direction of the Secretary of War. When the Commanding General protested such actions as violating the military principle of "unity of command," the Secretary of War generally supported the bureau chiefs.
This was further confounded after the Second Mexican War when Rosecrans created an ad hoc general Staff to help with his administration and reorganization of the army. This added a new body that lent him advice but had no access to the bureaus information or authority over them. Any attempts by Rosecrans and later by Hunt to empower this group was thwarted by the bureau chiefs.
As a result an informal alliance developed between the civilian secretaries and the bureau chiefs, which hamstrung the Commanding General's control over the Army. The departmental staff's responsibility for logistics and support also diluted his authority over the territorial departments. Several commanding generals in protest moved their headquarters from Washington. Since secretaries came and went, power gravitated to the bureau chiefs, who, in the absence of any retirement system, remained in office for life or until they resigned. Bureau chiefs in office for life also had greater Congressional influence than passing secretaries or line officers.
The proposal argued that a modern army required intelligent planning for possible future military operations and effective executive control over current ones. Intelligent planning required an agency similar to the General Board of the Navy or the Great German General Staff. Control over current operations required a professional military adviser to act as the department's general manager with a staff to assist him along the lines of modern industrial corporations. The report proposed that Congress provide by law for a Chief of Staff as general manager with a General Staff, which would assist him both in planning future operations and in supervising and coordinating current ones.
This proposal represented a major break with War Department tradition. To facilitate this he would need support of the Secretary of War. He had to convince Secretary of War Daniel Sickles to abandon the alliance between the Secretary and the bureau chiefs, replacing it by an alliance with line officers through the Office of the Chief of Staff. This would not be easy as Secretary Sickles was generally apathetic to work that did not result in patronage for himself or his allies. Luckily Upton found an ally in the new Assistant Secretary of War Theodore Roosevelt.
Roosevelt had previously been serving as a member of the New York state legislator, where he wrote more bills than any other legislator during his short time in office, and acquired a reputation as a progressive and independent-minded Democrat. Roosevelt was recommended to President Reed by their mutual friend and Massachusetts’s. Roosevelt and Upton quickly hit it off, the two were prodigious workers and both believed in Upton’s reforms. Sickles for the most part was happy to let Roosevelt run the War Department while he enjoyed Washington’s social life. Roosevelt was happy to lead the War Department at 32 years old and promote change as long as it flew under the radar of his superior.
Creation of the General Staff
To achieve these goals Upton first had to abolish the position of Commanding General. He made it clear to Congress that the Chief of Staff would act under the authority and direction of the Secretary of War and the President as constitutional Commander in Chief. He would not "command" the Army or be designated as the Commanding General because command implied an authority independent of the Secretary and the President. This change in title would avoid the repeated conflicts that had arisen between successive commanding generals and the Secretary or the President during the previous century. At the same time he wanted the Chief of Staff to be the principal military adviser of the Secretary and President. Under the Constitution there was only one Commander in Chief, the President, acting through the Secretary of War, and there should be only one principal military adviser for the Army, the Chief of Staff, to whom all other Army officers would be subordinate.
Upton of course saw himself in this role, superior to all other army officers including the bureau chiefs. The need for firm executive control over the bureaus, Upton told Congress, was obvious. The bureaus overlapped and duplicated one another's functions up and down the line. Their traditional mutual antagonism caused disagreements, no matter how petty, to come all the way up to the Secretary personally for resolution.
In his report he gave as an example the problems with supplying electricity for new coastal defense fortifications. At least five overlapping bureaus were involved in supplying some part of the electricity needed to build or operate the fortifications, the Engineers in construction, the Quartermaster for lighting the posts, the Signal Corps for communications, the Ordnance for ammunition hoists, and the Artillery, which had to use the guns. If the Secretary acted on the request of one bureau, the others immediately complained of interference with their work.
In Upton’s scheme the Chief of Staff, assisted by the General Staff, would investigate and recommend to the Secretary solutions to such technical problems. Upton also wanted all Army supply operations consolidated in one bureau. The report argued that this was the way modern industrial corporations did business. Certainly the army should benefit from the example of the US corporations, the model of management copied throughout the world. This played well to the more business minded Republicans like Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island and Democrats like George Hearst of California.
The report was well received among reform minded Democrats and Republicans, but immediately raised the ire of the bureau chiefs. Because their positions were lifetime they had cultivated many allies in Congress, often through promises to supply contracts to campaign providers.
It was this report that raised the attention of Secretary Sickles who perceived a threat to his ability to gain patronage from facilitating contracts with the bureau chiefs. Luckily Roosevelt knew how to handle this issue. Roosevelt had known Sickles through his Uncle Robert Roosevelt a former Democratic Congressman from New York City, who worked closely with the Tammany Hall Machine and Sickles. So despite their mutual antagonistic views on government Sickles trusted Roosevelt. He promised that the General Staff Bill was only the beginning, that if Upton was allowed to go forward hundreds of millions of dollars would be flowing through the war department. Future Army Bills Upton would dramatically increase the Armies budget and provide for the construction of dozens of new bases. Sickles who always had his eye on the long con promised to support the bill. This would break the traditional bureau chief/secretary alliance and support the bill.
Instead of making it seem that he was recommending the Bill, Upton instead asked Secretary Sickles to present his recommendations. This helped to corral many of the older Congressmen, and smooth over those who feared the bill threatened to undermine civilian oversight of the military. Sickles emphasized that the Secretary of War would still retain control of Army purchasing however it would be done through the Staff Department, which could better coordinate the Armies resources. After Sickles presentation to Congress and its main sponsored by Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge. From there on out Sickles largely left the picture, except to worker over Senators and Congressman in late night poker games. Meanwhile the New Army League worked a grass roots campaign. Roosevelt even went around to Veterans Group meetings, trying to whip up support for the Bill. After a three-month campaign the forces of reform were vindicated.
Accepting Sickles’ recommendations, Congress in the Act of 10 December 1889 provided for a Chief of Staff assisted by a General Staff, with the bureaus under the control of the General Staff. On December 15th, President Reed signed the Bill into law abolishing the position of Commanding General of the Army. Emory Upton had the privilege of being the last Commanding General of the Army and its first Chief of Staff.
Organizing the Staff
The General Staff itself, as initially organized, consisted of eight committees designated as divisions; the divisions were administration and personnel, military intelligence and information, operations, command and control, planning, history and fortifications. It was given a budget to retain 100 officers and NCO’s. The bill also drastically increased the pay of its top officers making an army career more attractive to the most capable citizens. As his first Deputy Chief of Staff he selected John Schofield, as much for his talents as his reputation among Army traditionalists.
Now that he had his General Staff it was time to put it to work. Upton wanted nothing less then a complete re-envisioning of the army, impliedly along the lines set out in the Military Policy of the United States. Again Sherman was tapped to head the history section to re-evaluate the War of Secession and Second Mexican War to see what lessons could be learned and create an base plan for the next war.
Meanwhile Upton would go about recruiting some of the most talented men in the country to make up his Staff. Upton believed if he could get West Point trained veterans with distinguished external military careers he could make military life more attractive. He specifically zeroed in on those who held political office and worked for the nations railroad corporations. Rail Road corporations being the largest most complicated corporations at the time. His first stop was his best friend Henry A. Du Pont, his former roommate at West Point and currently the President and General Manager of Wilmington & Northern Railroad Company. Upton knew Du Pont was an excellent manager and abreast on military innovations going on overseas. Du Pont after much cajoling agreed. Next he recruited Charles Francis Adams Jr, another railroad manager and politician. Adams had proven to be a capable artillery officer in the War of Secession and logistics officer in the Second Mexican War. He recruited Charles to head the Railroad Office of the new logistics division. Despite a few other non west point veterans like Francis C. Barlow, a former Attorney General for New York State and his former subordinate now returned to civilian life Ulric Dalhgren, Upton mainly selected West Point Graduates and career army officers to posts on the staff.
After close to a year of battling with Congress, Upton took a five-month tour of the nations military instillations. From April to September 1890, Upton and a small Staff toured the nations new training grounds, barracks and fortifications. All the while documenting the waste created by the current system and observing the state of training and drill of the new enlarged army, reserves and militia.
By January 1891 the new War College had been completed. Its main function was to train officers for General Staff duties and commanding army components of a regiment or larger. In the practice of learning by doing, instead of becoming exclusively an academic institution the War College became part of the General Staff, concentrating on military intelligence, Congressional liaison, and war planning. That left the rest of the General Staff to supervise the bureaus. Students at the War College prepared most of the Army's war plans. These new students often were given over to BG Sherman to work on his reports for Congress.
After more than a year of work Sherman’s report was ready, he placed it on the desk of Chief of Staff Emory Upton on June 3rd, 1891. Sherman however would not live to see its presentation to the President or Congress. He would die of a heart attack days later, many attributed it to the stress of compiling the report and helping to organize the General Staff.
War of Secession and Second Mexican Study and Future Recommendations Report
Brigadier General Sherman and his team examined hundreds of communications after battle reports and army records. What they came up with was a thorough analysis of the War of Secession, inter-war period and the Second Mexican War. The armies success and failures and what lessons should be applied to the Armies future.
War of Secession
First the report examined the overall strategy of the Union Army. As soldier with strong political connections Sherman had met and actually discussed the Unions Strategy with Winfield Scott at the out break of the war. Scott had proposed the Anaconda plan which’s strategy was to divide the confederacy through a blockade and allow time for Southern Unionists to assert their influence and bring the war to an end with as little blood shed as possible. This plan failed because it overestimated the overall strength of southern unionist sentiment. Next it analyzed General McClellan’s strategy, which called for the build up of the army to effect simultaneous invasion of Tennessee, Virginia and the Confederate Sea coast preventing the CS Army from reinforcing the capitol. While it was a good strategy it concentrated to much on the seizure of enemy territory and not the destruction of rebel armies, which was the CSA’s true center of gravity. Further McClellan and his subordinate commanders acted to slow, always overestimating the enemy. This allowed the CSA only to grow in strength and pass the initiative to the enemy. This ultimately proved fatal to the Union war effort, because the CSA’s army in Virginia possessed a superior commander in Robert E. Lee.
As for the Confederate war effort, it was seriously hampered by Jefferson Davis acting as his own Secretary of War and General in Chief. This prevented him from fully mobilizing the CSA’s resources. By 1862 the CSA was facing catastrophic defeats in the West which were only saved by Robert E. Lees brilliant campaign in the east. Robert E. Lee was the only true commander that understood strategy, specifically that operations and battles should only be carried out if the support the overall political objective, independence. Lee knew that CSA’s policy was to maintain its independence, its required forcing the US to recognize that independence so Lee launched a strategic offensive in an effort to accomplish this aim; his strategy was to destroy the North’s will to fight by decisively defeating it the union in its own territory. His operational goal included engaging the US Army in Pennsylvania, defeating it “in detail” and occupying a major northern city. The tactics he would use would be defeating the US Army in piece meal so it could not concentrate.
Both sides were undermined by their General’s prewar educations at west point where the emphasis was put on the study of Jomini and decisive battle doctrines. President Davis habitually pushed his men to engage in a “decisive battle” which often undermined the Confederacy’s ability to defend in the west. Both Halleck and McClellan often were paralyzed under the belief that the Confederacy, which occupied the interior positions would be able to move reinforcements more quickly to blunt Union advances. In fact the opposite was true the CS’s lack of railroad infrastructure meant the US could actually move reinforcements faster than the CS.
While McClellan could think strategically he often allowed operational concerns to undermine his strategy. He began to concentrate more on securing Richmond then defeating the Confederate Army, which ultimately destroyed his army. Further in the US General Halleck focused primarily on operations to secure the Mississippi and failed to realize that the conquest of Tennessee was more important to the overall strategic objective, destroying the CSA’s ability to resist US armies. The focus of attack should not have been the Mississippi but Chattanooga.
Inter-Period
The US behaved as catastrophically in the interwar period. Despite its many defeats, at the end of the War the US had the makings of a great army. Many of the less aggressive commanders had been weeded out through battle field defeats and it had ample supplies of capable experienced veteran enlisted men and NCO’s. In its remaining time left the Lincoln administration attempted to retain as much of the Army as possible using it to defeat plains Indians and consolidating what remained of the Union. Unfortunately successive democratic Congress’s and Military tribunals undermined these efforts.
Further Halleck despite his being considered one of the best strategies of the age failed to draft any strategy for a renewed war or attempt to determine what he needed to fight it. After Lincoln’s dismissal the Army was returned to it pre-war state, that of a small constabulary force to fight Indians and protect settlers. Aggressive commanders like Meade, Sheridan, Grant or Sherman were either dismissed from the service or relegated to backwater positions. The Army also began to become highly politicized where commanding officers were selected for their political leanings and not there ability. This would lead to disaster in the Second Mexican War.
Second Mexican War
When the Chihuahua and Sonora crises began the US Army remained unchanged since the end of the Lincoln administration. The Army was undermanned and strung out across a hand full of fortifications primarily in the West. No attempt was made by the President or Congress to increase its size. Neither did Rosencrans make any attempt to plan for a future war with the CSA. War came there was no stated war aim or overall strategy on how to implement any aim. Instead General in Chief Rosencrans relied on War of Secession plans to create a force structure identical to the armies that lost the War of Secession. Concentrating a force in Maryland for operations against Virginia, a second force based out of Ohio for operations in Kentucky, A third in St. Louis for actions against the Mississippi and a fourth based out of Fort Leavenworth for operations in the west. No force was organized to defend against a Canadian incursion.
Here unlike the War of Secession forces moved to fast, a US invasion of the Shenandoah was easily turned back then the US invasion of Kentucky was checked at Louisville. There was no attempt to coordinate these two invasions. This allowed the CS Army to concentrate its artillery in the Kentucky Theater and denude the Army of Northern Virginia with no consequences. No time was given either to consolidate the army or ensure they were properly supplied and trained on there equipment. Further the overreliance on the Militias meant that there was no consistency in training or equipment of the different Union regiments. Reliance on the Militias also meant the army was led by a mix of professionals and political appointees much like in the War of Secession. Finally the war effort was hampered by the system of choosing generals based on their political affiliations over their ability. Blaine chose Rosecrans, a War Democrat over the more competent and aggressive commanders like Ord, Schofield and McPherson.
Future War
To prevent future disaster like the War of Secession and Second Mexican War. The army needed to use this peacetime to strengthen and totally reorganize the way it fights and plans for future engagements.
New Army Command Structure
First the army needed to reform the way it commanded and controlled it's forces. The new method would be based on Prussian and Clausewitzian principles, now war is to be fought for political objectives set by the President and Secretary of War. The General Staff then devises a strategy to implement those objectives and the Chief of Staff advises the President on which is the best strategy to implement. President then decides which strategy is best, based on Chief of Staff recommendations. The General Staff then develops multiple plans of operations to implement this strategy. Army commanders decide which operational plan is best to implement based upon the conditions on the ground. Field Commanders also decided what tactics to use based upon approved military doctrine. The General Staff coordinated between the different Armies; to ensure that army attacks are for the purpose of the overall strategy.
The Army also needed to reorganize to how it will fight wars. The army needed to end the departmental structure and reorganize it into four field armies, based upon where they would operate at the out break of war. First Army based in St. Louis for operations against the CS Armies west of the Mississippi. Second Army Based in Indiana and Ohio for operations against CS Armies in Kentucky and Tennessee. Third Army based in Southern Pennsylvania for operations against CS Armies in the Eastern Sea Board. Fourth Army based in upstate New York for operations against Canadian Armies in Quebec and Ontario. Other smaller Division and Corp sized elements would be created for operations against the Western Canadian Provinces.
The structure of the Army divisions needed to be reorganized. The new division would adopt the four-square formation: two infantry brigades, with one of cavalry and one of artillery. This meant the average US division was 16,000 men. Larger than the European standard, but comparable to their Confederate counterpart. Brigades would also be mixed Regular and reserve regiments, while militia regiments would not be activated as needed. The Reserve regiments staff would be full time and reserve officers. Their soldiers would be made up of soldiers who finished their active duty.
To effectuate this plan the US Army must grow the regular Army from 200,000 to 300,000 men with another 300,000 in reserve and militia. The Current Reserve force was two small. To make it effective it would need to be expanded, creating a mobilization depots in each congressional district, its location to be determined by the Secretary of War and not the State in which it was located.
While most of the report was widely disseminated to Congress, the report also included plans for future operations against Canada and the Confederacy. These were kept secret to the President and Congress. Here the report recommended the creation of standing executable operations plans to fight the CSA to prevent the problems the same paralysis and failures that were seen in the previous wars. The plans needed adhere to an overall strategy, which accomplishes the presidents political objectives. Future wars in all likelihood would be of two types; An unlimited war that ends with the US conquest of Canada and the CSA or a limited War for a political aim like the capture of territory of the disarmament of an enemy.
The report recommended three possible overall strategic plans, which could be used based on the policy of the President at that time. These would play to the overall US strength over their enemies. Case Red called for a massive invasion of Virginia, however the narrow terrain would bottleneck US and CS armies which would almost immediately end a war of maneuver, precipitating a war of attrition. Case White, which called for an invasion of Canada, inorder to quickly defeat that nation, freeing up resources for the war in the south. However this would give the initiative to the CSA possibly resulting in a defeat similar to the War of Secession. Case Blue, called for a weighted blow through Kentucky and Tennessee, with an overall objective of capturing Chattanooga and splitting the CSA’s more industrialized east from the resources of the West. It was the recommendation of the report that this is the best strategy for both a limited and unlimited war as it would render the CSA unable to defend itself and forced to submit to any desired US political Aim.
After years of practice the Remembrance movement had finally honed its supporters into an unstoppable lobbying machine. After the release of the report Roosevelt and Lodge quickly drafted a bill that would implement both reserve expansion and the reserve forces expansion. From the moment it was published members of the New Army League and Veterans groups began hounding there Congressman to support it. The knew mobilization depots were widely popular in Congress, there biggest issue would be with the Senate and its more physically conservative senators. This too was overcome thanks to the power of its lobbying group and the ardent desire of the border states now comprising those that bordered Canada as well, for a larger army to carry the fight into enemy territory and away from their citizens. The 1891 Army Bill passed on the first ballot.
Over the next four years Upton oversaw the enlargement of both the Army and the General Staff. As Philadelphia grew into its role as the nation’s capitol. Army administration buildings began to take a more permanent role. The General Staff building was installed in the mansion of north of Franklin Square.
The greatly increased size of the US army required that it train a larger more competent pool of officers, beyond that which West Point could produce. This was only exacerbated by the US reforms along the German model, which required more officers than its French or British systems. Thanks to work by Emory Upton the Federal government sponsored ROTC program in most major universities, but also the construction of military academies in each state. These programs were open to young conscripts who applied and passed admissions test. This provided free graduate level education to working and middle class young men who would other wise not be able to afford a college education. This program was incredibly popular and eventually became the foundation for the state university systems that exploded thanks to the post Second Great War G.I. Bill. By providing its graduates with military and engineering degrees. It greatly increased the number of college-educated men in the country. It also increased the pool of available officers for the Army Reserve System.
