This thesis extracts organizational lessons from the U.S. Army's Human Terrain Teams. In the past, the Human Terrain Teams have been the topic of various debates, but none discussed their performance. Studying what influences how Human Terrain Teams perform is important to the National Security System to improve its use of socio-cultural knowledge during conflicts. A contextual narrative of team members formally involved with Human Terrain Teams and information from journalistic articles tells the story of what organizational characteristics affected the performance of the U.S. Army's Human Terrain Teams. / Master of Arts

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This study examined Scottish Highlanders who defended the southern border of British territory in the North American theater of the War of the Austrian Succession (1739-1748). A framework was established to show how Highlanders were deployed by the English between 1745 and 1815 as a way of eradicating radical Jacobite elements from the Scottish Highlands and utilizing their supposed natural superiority in combat. The case study of these Highlanders who fought in Georgia and Florida demonstrated that the English were already employing Highlanders in a similar fashion in North America during the 1730s and 1740s. British government sources and correspondence of colonial officials and military officers were used to find the common Highlander's reactions to fighting on this particular frontier of the Empire. It was discovered that by reading against what these officials wrote and said was the voice of the Highlander found, in addition to confirming a period of misrepresentation of Highland manpower in the colony of Georgia during the War of Jenkins' Ear that adhered to the analytical framework established.

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The dissertation argues that the United States Army was a slaveholding institution. It explains how the military, the central instrument of statecraft in the 19th century, evolved as a national establishment while condoning and promoting slavery in its ranks. An empirical study of often ignored military pay records reveals that from the army’s foundation to the abolition of slavery, thousands of enslaved people served as officers’ servants and became integral to the military. In 1816, Congress authorized allowances, rations, and clothing for officers’ private servants while prohibiting the former custom of taking soldiers as servants. By reimbursing officers who held or hired enslaved servants, Congress not only sanctioned slavery but also subsidized and created incentives for officers to own, utilize and trade enslaved people. The dissertation shows that over three-quarters of officers, southerners and northerners alike, held slaves as servants during their military careers. Over 9,000 enslaved people were forced into the army, nearly three times more than the number of officers. The dissertation investigates the origins and scope of slavery within the army, the legal, fiscal, and violent mechanisms that sustained it, and the profound impact slavery had on the American military establishment. By analyzing the U.S. Army, the most dominant national establishment, as a slaveholding institution, this project adds to the expanding literature on the “slaveholding republic.” The dissertation goes beyond merely illustrating “slave power” in the federal army by offering a ground-level investigation into how slavery got its foothold in an important national organization. Virtually unnoticed by prior historians, some 180,000 payrolls in the National Archives reveal the mundane realities of enslaved military servants and their enslavers. Each document included servants’ names, physical descriptions, locations, and allowances paid for their subsistence. The dissertation utilizes an original database of thousands of payrolls identified, sampled, and digitized, particularly for this project. The database has over two million data points, which enable grasping the phenomena of military slavery and tracking down individual servants’ and enslavers’ trajectories. The data shows that officers carried enslaved servants wherever they went, regardless of local laws forbidding it – even in so-called “free states” in the continental United States, Mexico, and Europe. Nearly 13% of all officers’ pay expenses went directly to subsidize slavery. Ratio analysis demonstrates that the bureaucracy and funding mechanisms that evolved before 1816 kept enslaved servitude stable. Thus, until the Civil War (1861-1865) and the unmaking of slavery, the army – which expanded and protected the frontiers of an empire in the making – not only benefited from the slave market but was a significant force in its expansion. Moreover, permitting and subsidizing slavery in the army made the U.S. government complicit in its brutalities, including forced removals, human trafficking, and the separation of families. Military slavery developed gradually with the foundation, bureaucratization, and professionalization of an American military peace establishment. It evolved from 1797 to 1816 through competing policy objectives, resulting in an enduring bureaucratic (and euphemistic) workaround: “servants not soldiers.” Facing public criticism over officers’ abuse of soldiers’ labor, the army gradually “outsourced” officers’ servants through a dual process of privatization and racialization of military labor, differentiating between “public” and “private” service; between free, white soldiers and enslaved, black servants. Though serving slaveholders’ interests, the adopted solution of “Servants not soldiers” was a product of bureaucratic contingencies and ad-hoc decision-making and not a top-down policy orchestrated by a cabal of enslavers. Interestingly, a simple, basic question of reimbursement led somewhere perhaps unanticipated, ending in government-sponsored enslaved servitude. To add this level of contingency is not to make excuses, not to pose something akin to an “unthinking decision,” but to make us aware of the degree to which “the problem of slavery” was most frequently “solved” by accommodating it institutionally, rather than contesting it politically or morally. Thus, the dissertation illuminates an often-ignored aspect of the United States as a “slaveholding republic.”

This is an analysis of combat operations of US First Army under the command of Courtney Hodges, between August 1 and September 12, 1944, with an emphasis upon 1st, 4th, 9th, and 30th Divisions. However, other formations are necessarily discussed in order to maintain context. Indeed, many historians have failed to emphasize the complex interdependent nature of these efforts, and the traditional narrative has been distorted by inadequate situational awareness. This study argues that the army's operations were exceedingly difficult, resulting in approximately 40,000 casualties over a six week period. Although historians claim that the Germans were essentially defeated by the end of July, and that the Allied advance was subsequently halted by logistical difficulties, the official combat records clarify that logistical shortages were a tertiary factor, as the enemy remained capable of strong resistance. Consequently, defensive efforts were the primary factor hindering the advance, in conjunction with deteriorating weather conditions, rugged terrain, and surprisingly severe traffic congestion. Although this was mobile warfare, military theorists have overestimated the effectiveness of mechanization and underestimated the potential for antitank defenses. Ultimately, this study asserts that First Army was the primary American combat formation, and historians have exaggerated the importance of George Patton's Third Army. Therefore, in order to understand an American way of war, the combat operations of First Army deserve far more attention than they have previously received. This narrative thus emphasizes forgotten battles, including: Tessy, St. Sever, Tete, Perriers, Mayenne, Ranes, Flers, Mace, Elbeuf, Mantes, Corbeil, Sevran, Mons, Cambrai, Philippeville, Dinant, and Aubel.

From 1689 through 1746 the supporters of the deposed House of Stuart, known as Jacobites and composed largely of Highland Scots, staged periodic rebellions against the new Hanoverian rulers in London. During this period, the Highlanders of Scotland experienced a period of military triumph unlike any other in their history. Through the combination of the ancient tactic of the charge, the use of the broadsword as their primary weapon, and the implementation of the musket, the Highlanders blended the best elements of the ancient and early modern military tactics and technology to develop a unique tactic, the Highland Charge. Essentially, the Highlanders would assemble preferably on high ground, charge down upon their enemy, fire their muskets and throw them to the ground, regroup into wedge shaped formations behind the musket-fire smokescreen, and then charge sword-in-hand into the opposing army's lines. The Highland Charge repeatedly defeated the British forces, which should have been superior in virtually every respect. The British army was an early modern force using the latest tactics and technology. The British forces that fought the Highlanders were a mix of militiamen and seasoned veterans of the continental wars. In essence the military engagements between the Jacobites and British were a contest between an undisciplined archaic force and a disciplined thoroughly modern force. The combination of ancient and early modern elements, the change in formation, and the great success of the Highland Charge generates immense interest in this subject. / Master of Arts