BOOK REVIEWS
The Beginnings of the U. S. Army
1783-1812. By James Ripley
Jacobs. (Princeton, New Jersey,
Princeton University Press, 1947.
497p. including bibliography and index.
$5.00.)
This handsomely bound, beautifully
printed, and heavily foot-
noted volume relates in considerable
detail and in extremely read-
able form the military history of the
United States from the end of
hostilities with Britain in 1783 to
their outbreak again in 1812. It
is the first of several volumes that
will carry the story down to at
least 1846.
In fourteen well-organized chapters
Major Jacobs depicts a
period of our military history never
hitherto covered so well. His
interesting narrative, shot through with
picturesque phraseology
and salty details, makes the period live
in a manner which may
rouse the jealousy of professional
historians. The bibliography is
good and the index adequate.
Jacobs' first two chapters are devoted
to picturing the demobi-
lization of the young nation's army
following the Treaty of Paris in
1783, when congress retained but eighty
soldiers on the payroll, and
to depicting the enormous task facing
this corporal's guard in pro-
tecting and advancing the frontier. He
pushes rapidly ahead, then,
to discuss the tragic expeditions of
Generals Harmar and St. Clair
against the Indians of the Old Northwest
and the more successful
one of Anthony Wayne. Ohioans will
particularly enjoy the in-
teresting and detailed account of these
three campaigns, told with
all the enthusiasm of a participant. In
this connection it may be
mentioned that so much of the volume
deals with the Ohio Valley
that its readers in that area should be
legion. The omission of a map
showing the routes followed by Clark,
Harmar, St. Clair, Wayne,
and Harrison is partly compensated for
by three battle maps.
The second half of the volume is built
around James Wilkinson,
the commander of the army in 1797. Since
Wilkinson was a partici-
pant in the Revolution and in the whole
of the period covered by
this book, it is natural for Major
Jacobs to utilize the same canvas,
103
l04 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
colors, and characters which he used so
effectively in his Tarnished
Warrior, supplementing and broadening his perspective to include
the whole cyclorama of the military
establishment and its activities
during the period.
With Wilkinson, then, as the major
military figure the reader
is given interesting short accounts of
the naval war with France in
1798, the purchase, occupation, and
policing of Louisiana, the Burr
conspiracy, the exploration of the Missouri
by Lewis and Clark, the
travels of Pike up the Mississippi and
into Mexico, the history of
the founding of the military academy at
West Point, and finally the
drift into war as grievances against the
British, French, and Indians
accumulate.
Major Jacobs appears to have examined
the principal sources
for his study in all their diverse and
devious repositories. He is
familiar with the best general works and
monographs covering the
period. It is regrettable, though
perhaps inevitable, that he has not
been able to live up to the promise in
his preface to make "speeches,
letters, and diaries . . . the fabric of
this book." Too often a single
biography, monograph, or diary seems to
have been the only source
utilized in telling his story to the
length of several pages. If judged
by the footnotes, it is astonishing how
little of his material is
drawn from the twenty newspapers he
lists, from the mass of un-
published manuscript collections in his
bibliography, or from the
Territorial Papers of the United States
(Clarence E. Carter, editor).
The McHenry papers are not even listed.
In this connection it may
be mentioned that his use of Callan's
abridgment of the military
legislation of congress (published in
1863), instead of the readily
accessible Statutes at Large, seems
unfortunate.
The author excels when it comes to
characterization, for in-
stance in picturing the army leadership
on the eve of war in 1812
(chap. 14), or in depicting the
incapacity and inefficiency of Secre-
tary of War Eustis in providing for
Wilkinson's troops at New
Orleans in 1809-10 (chap. 13).
Events and episodes are interestingly
related and enhance
the narrative even if the interpretation
is sometimes subject to
question: how Wayne's relatives removed
his body from Presque
Isle, where it was first buried,
"to a Pennsylvania church yard so
that they might lie beside him in
adjacent glory" (p. 188); how
BOOK REVIEWS
"when [in 1786] officers [from Fort
Finney] visited Louisville . . .
they carried a pistol or dirk under
their coat [sic], for there were
many bullies who gloated on their
prowess. One of them boasted that
he had gouged out five eyes, that he had
bitten off two or three noses
and spat them back in the faces of the
beaten. Once the very same
ruffian attacked an officer and, though
knocked down three or four
times, did succeed in leaving on his
nose a permanent scar" (p. 15).
Yet despite the interesting style, the
descriptive power, and the
excellent organization of Major Jacobs'
book, this volume does not
promise to make him the Fortescue of the
American army. The
reader sees portions of the American
army, but he never sees it as
an organization, or as an institution,
or as a whole; there is no
marshalling of its total strength or no
account of how it was dis-
posed or equipped at various times.
Certainly a military history
should at no time leave these features
in doubt.
Perhaps the most serious criticisms of
Major Jacobs are his
credulity and his extravagance of
statement. These two faults mar
the usefulness of his book for the
serious scholar and necessitate
a careful check to validate his
representations. A few examples
will suffice to illustrate these points:
It is difficult to see how Wil-
kinson's expedition of January 1792 to
the site of St. Clair's defeat
was able to find and bury the bones of
the dead when they were
covered by twenty inches of snow; or to
recognize the "distorted
faces of former friends" after
twelve weeks of exposure to the
weather and the beasts of the forest (p.
144).
Thirty-three camp
followers--washerwomen, by Sargent's first-
hand account--accompanied St. Clair's
army, but the author accepts
the dubious figures of Caleb Atwater's
secondary account and swells
this number into "two-hundred or
more," some carrying babies and
others pregnant. "Drunkenness and
carnal sin were their frequent
diversions" but, he hastens to add,
not by habit or profession. They
were brave and loyal, "well knowing
that, if captured, roasting or
crucifixion might be their fate"
(p. 89-90). When, the reader may
ask, did the Ohio Indians roast women or
crucify anyone?
These passages are extravagances:
"Natchez [in 1798] was a
lawless place . . . where frontier
riff-raff concentrated . . . [and]
filled with taffia or corn whiskey, men,
roaring drunk, cut and
gouged each other over snaggle-toothed
whores covered with sores
106
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
and vermin" (p. 214). "Some
[of General Harmar's militia] were
so stricken with terror that they did
not halt their flight until they
reached Kentucky" (p. 57). As early
as 1793 Ohio river towns are
very wicked--"the Sodom and Gomorah
of Cincinnati" (p. 156); at
the same city to heighten the effect,
Major Jacobs fills the New
Light Presbyterians--failing to mention
the Methodists-with
"grunts and groans," and has
them "raving and roaring like so
many bulls," a full ten years too
soon (p. 75). When Wayne's men
were at Pittsburgh, "the
inhabitants found profit in pandering to
the lowest wants of the soldier. Liquor
and women became the
most important articles. . . . Everybody
knew that squaws were
cheap and that other women were only
passably high. . . . Even
Wayne was erroneously reputed to have a
mistress who lived in a
neighboring orchard" (p. 129).
Such extravagances make good reading but
they are not good
history. Nor are these; Fugitives from
justice "escaped into Rhode
Island and found asylum among the
pothouse dotards who were
constantly proposing noxious methods of
economic reform" (p. 14).
The Continental Congress "was rent
by selfish interest" (p. 34);
"even on great occasions no more
than a mere handful huddled
forelornly together to legislate"
(p. 13).
Author Jacobs seems to approve of St.
Clair's and Winthrop
Sargent's aristocratic disdain for the
dirty frontier democrat. He
feels Harmar's campaign was doomed from
the start, for he had but
320 regulars plus 1,133 stupid
"riff-raff." Harmar's
subsequent
exoneration by a court martial he,
therefore, heartily approves
(p. 53-65). Jacobs speaks of St. Clair's
militia as "aimless drifters
at best-ignorant, shiftless, and with
little sense of responsibility. . .
dregs of the population . . . Irish
immigrants . . . sailors who had
missed their ships by lying too long
with their doxies . . . farmer
boys or apprentices already broken on
the wheel of toil . . .
[habitues of] noisome inns and . . .
whorehouses" (p. 78-79).
Wayne's men "were mostly waifs of
misfortune that had been little
used to the cleanliness and neatness
Wayne demanded" (p. 131);
"chronic thieves" and other
"undesirables" were "branded" and
"drummed out of camp . . . to find
their way back to the dunghills
from which they had been recently
recruited. There or in prison
they soon rotted away" (p. 138).
BOOK REVIEWS 107
A few errors of fact have been
noticed-there may be others.
Casualties at Fallen Timbers among the
Indians were certainly
more than nineteen killed and two
wounded (p. 175); in fact
Jacobs sites Wayne's estimate of 266
Indian casualties in his
Tarnished Warrior (p. 142). To accept Alexander McKee's report
of the smaller number without
qualification is misleading to the
reader, especially when Wayne reported
133 casualties among his
own men and yet claimed an important
victory.
The population of Canada was nearer
315,000 in 1812 than the
author's figure of 500,000 (p. 373). The
Giles bill of January 11,
1812, authorized 25,000 regulars, not
35,000 (p. 380). It is at
least misleading to speak of the Indians
of the Old Northwest
as having surrendered their claims to
lands west of the Ohio by the
1784 treaty of Fort Stanwix (p. 24). St.
Clair's troops reached
the banks of the Great Miami on
September 15, not the 19th (p. 87).
Some glaring typographical errors in
footnotes should have
been caught. "Mississippi
Historical Review" should be Missis-
sippi Valley Historical Review (p. 176, n. 48); Freeman Cleaves's
name is repeatedly spelled Cleves (chap.
13); "Smith, op. cit., p.
11, 253-255," should be Smith, op.
cit., II, 248 (p. 95); and the cita-
tions in this whole chapter (5) are very
faulty-see especially notes
11, 19, 20, 27, 41, 55, 58.
Despite the adverse criticisms herein
noted, Major Jacobs' book
is an extremely interesting narrative
and a contribution to the
literature of the period. He has filled
out that great gap in our
military history left by Ganoe and
Spaulding. Students of military
history will look forward with no little
interest to his ensuing
volumes.
ALFRED B. SEARS, Chairman
Department of History
University of Oklahoma
Pontiac and the Indian Uprising. By Howard H. Peckham.
(Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton
University Press, 1947. 346p.,
maps and illustrations. Cloth, $4.50.)
The author, who is director of the
Indiana Historical Bureau,
was formerly curator at the William L.
Clements Library at the
108
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
University of Michigan. Thus he became
acquainted with many
manuscripts which were unknown to
scholars of previous genera-
tions. New materials resulted in new
viewpoints, and an interest in
the life and times of Pontiac stimulated
a desire to write the first
book-length biography of the famed
Indian chieftain.
As early as 1821 Lewis Cass had gathered
material preparatory
to the writing of such a volume, but
apparently it was never written.
A descendant of Pontiac was said in 1825
to have been engaged in
dictating a biography of his forbear,
but seemingly it was never
completed. Prior to 1850, in fact,
published accounts of Pontiac's
life were limited to brief sketches in
two books of Indian biography.
Then, in 1851, Francis Parkman's famed History
of the Conspiracy
of Pontiac, based on painstaking research and written in attractive
style, came from the press. Since that
time other writers have
leaned heavily on Parkman for facts
concerning Pontiac, though the
volume is a history rather than a
biography. Historical scholars,
anthropologists, and others, moreover,
have published the results
of later investigations.
The present author has not endeavored to
"rewrite Parkman."
Rather, by examining the written sources
used by Parkman, by
utilizing pertinent manuscript and
archival materials in numerous
libraries, by studying extensive
published works, and by "covering
the ground of Pontiac's activities in
seven states and the province
of Ontario," he has presented in
readable style what is now known
of the life and influence of Pontiac.
In facing this task the author
recognized three difficulties: (1)
Pontiac could not write, hence only a
few contemporary manu-
scripts, dictated by him or containing
speeches delivered by him
have come down to the present
generation; (2) his contemporaries
who wrote about him were invariably his
enemies; (3) legends
about him grew up rapidly, requiring
careful critical discrimination.
Much of our information concerning
Pontiac is indeed shadowy.
The place and date of his birth, the
incidents of his childhood and
early manhood (p. 18), the exact meaning
of his name (p. 19), his
physical appearance (p. 27-28), the
question whether--as Parkman
asserts--he led the Ottawas at
Braddock's defeat (p. 44 note), the
exact place of his burial (p. 312-315),
and facts concerning his
BOOK REVIEWS 109
descendants (p. 317-318) are not
established beyond reasonable
doubt.
Although a long-established tradition,
coming down from the
Miami Chief Richardville, places the
birthplace of Pontiac at the
present site of Defiance, Ohio, the
author questions this because
of the lack of documentary or
archaeological evidence that Ottawas
resided along the Maumee before 1748 (p.
15-18).
A principal variation in the
interpretations of Peckham from
those of Parkman is indicated in the
difference between the title
of Parkman's History of the
Conspiracy of Pontiac and the present
title, Pontiac and the Indian
Uprising. Peckham contends that the
Ottawa chieftain, far from engineering a
general and simultaneous
uprising among the western Indians in
1762-63, actually found his
abilities taxed "in uniting his
immediate neighbors and devising a
surprise attack on one fort" (p.
108). The net effect however may
not have been different, for, after the
initial failure at Detroit,
Pontiac "improvised a more general
uprising" which nearly suc-
ceeded in loosening the British hold
upon the West (p. 111).
Peckham traces with meticulous care
Pontiac's part in this up-
rising, which resulted in the capture of
nine British forts, the
abandonment of a tenth, and the
besieging of two others. Special
attention is of course given to the
unsuccessful siege of Detroit
with which Pontiac was intimately
connected, Pontiac's later "re-
luctant submission," and the events
that ultimately led to his assas-
sination in 1769. Peckham believes that
Pontiac was killed in the
village of Cahokia (in the present state
of Illinois) rather than in
the adjoining forest, as Parkman
relates.
Peckham concludes that Pontiac's
historical significance is
"not alone that he was a warrior of
heroic proportions who set in
motion the most formidable Indian
resistance the English-speaking
people had faced, or ever would face, on
this continent." More im-
portant, he asserts, is the fact that
Pontiac "proved that savages
could not defeat civilized men or hold
back their settlement of a
rich land hunted on by aborigines"
(p. 322).
The volume is worthy of the careful
perusal of all students
of American history. Incidentally, it
may be pointed out that the
Miami town of Pickawillany was not on
the present "site" of Piqua,
110
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Ohio (p. 35), but about three miles to
the north, and that Lower
Shawnee Town was not "near
Chillicothe, Ohio" (p. 304) but at
the site of the present city of
Portsmouth.
FRANCIS PHELPS WEISENBURGER
Professor of History
Ohio State University
BOOK REVIEWS
The Beginnings of the U. S. Army
1783-1812. By James Ripley
Jacobs. (Princeton, New Jersey,
Princeton University Press, 1947.
497p. including bibliography and index.
$5.00.)
This handsomely bound, beautifully
printed, and heavily foot-
noted volume relates in considerable
detail and in extremely read-
able form the military history of the
United States from the end of
hostilities with Britain in 1783 to
their outbreak again in 1812. It
is the first of several volumes that
will carry the story down to at
least 1846.
In fourteen well-organized chapters
Major Jacobs depicts a
period of our military history never
hitherto covered so well. His
interesting narrative, shot through with
picturesque phraseology
and salty details, makes the period live
in a manner which may
rouse the jealousy of professional
historians. The bibliography is
good and the index adequate.
Jacobs' first two chapters are devoted
to picturing the demobi-
lization of the young nation's army
following the Treaty of Paris in
1783, when congress retained but eighty
soldiers on the payroll, and
to depicting the enormous task facing
this corporal's guard in pro-
tecting and advancing the frontier. He
pushes rapidly ahead, then,
to discuss the tragic expeditions of
Generals Harmar and St. Clair
against the Indians of the Old Northwest
and the more successful
one of Anthony Wayne. Ohioans will
particularly enjoy the in-
teresting and detailed account of these
three campaigns, told with
all the enthusiasm of a participant. In
this connection it may be
mentioned that so much of the volume
deals with the Ohio Valley
that its readers in that area should be
legion. The omission of a map
showing the routes followed by Clark,
Harmar, St. Clair, Wayne,
and Harrison is partly compensated for
by three battle maps.
The second half of the volume is built
around James Wilkinson,
the commander of the army in 1797. Since
Wilkinson was a partici-
pant in the Revolution and in the whole
of the period covered by
this book, it is natural for Major
Jacobs to utilize the same canvas,
103