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Birth of the U.S. Cavalry" examines the founding and initial operations of the U.S. Regiment of Dragoons, forebear of the First Cavalry Regiment and thus the army's first permanent mounted unit. The dragoons escorted traders along the Santa Fe Trail and projected American authority by visiting the villages of many Plains Indian nations. Dragoon officers and men made the first contacts between the U.S. government and the Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita nations. They also helped negotiate a treaty that cleared the way for the completion of Jacksonian Indian Removal. The appointment of dragoon officers and recruitment of their enlisted subordinates reflect diverging military cultures in Jacksonian America. Approximately half of the officers served as volunteer officers during the Black Hawk War. These men clashed with the regiment's regular officers, who viewed themselves as members of a nascent profession. Analysis of government records and army registers shows that the regulars emphasized the need for military education, sought to exclude partisan politics from the appointment process, and served longer on average than the ex-volunteers. The army, expressing concerns over the quality of infantry and artillery rank and file, wanted healthy, native-born citizens for the dragoons. It departed from established recruiting practices and recruited the dragoons from all over the country, including rural areas. These novel efforts attained the desired results. Enlistment records reveal that dragoons tended to be younger than other recruits, to hail from all regions of the country, and to have been farmers or skilled tradesmen in civil life. Obtaining these men came at a price. Dragoons saw themselves as virtuous citizens and did not like regular discipline or performing the mundane tasks of frontier regulars. Many expressed dissatisfaction by deserting, making dragoon desertion rates higher than those of the army as a whole. / History

Prior to World War II, the typical American Soldier was young and unmarried. As the old saying in the service went: if they wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued one to you. Today’s servicemember is most likely married and we customarily thank our military families in the same breath as those who wear the uniform. This dissertation is the story of how “support our troops” came to encompass the broader community of military families and how this fundamentally changed the military. Rooted in cultural and gender history, my dissertation argues that changing gender roles in the domestic sphere (i.e., fatherhood, motherhood, breadwinner, and homemaker) had a profound impact on martial roles in the military world, and vice versa. In the postwar era, as domestic roles were beginning to change, more and more married men enlisted in the Army and the Marine Corps, forcing the services to craft policies to accommodate families. Large numbers of married men in uniform was a new development in the United States, and my dissertation shows how marriage transformed civil-military relations. My dissertations addresses questions that are crucial to both the history of the military as well as American cultural life in the second half of the twentieth century. Just as military life became more family friendly, and as the services expanded opportunities for women, far fewer Americans overall chose to share in the burden of national service. Although military policymakers crafted policies to make military life more attractive, they contributed to its further isolation from the broader population by providing generous social services for military families increasingly inaccessible to other American families. Embedded within these contradictions is the story of what it meant to be an American after the Vietnam War. / History

The impressment of American seamen by the Royal Navy was one of the most serious dilemmas faced by the United States during the early republic. Thousands of American citizens were forced into British naval service between 1793 and 1812. This dissertation uses a wide-variety of sources including seamen’s letters, newspapers, almshouse records, US Navy officer’s correspondence, and diplomatic communiqués, to demonstrate the widespread impact impressment had on American society. A sizable database on impressed Americans was created for this dissertation. The database was instrumental in some of this work’s most important theses. Drawing on an array of sources, such as newspaper reports, seamen appeals, and State Department reports, the database contains detailed information on thousands of men. Far more Americans were pressed in the Royal Navy than previously believed. While historians have long accepted that New England suffered most from impressment, in fact it was the mid-Atlantic states that lost the most mariners to the Royal Navy. Southern states were also impacted by impressment far more than anybody has realized. Seaman abductions profoundly affected American domestic, foreign, and naval affairs. Impressment influenced American culture and played a role in the African slavery debate of the early republic. Impressment also exacted a heavy toll on waterfront communities as wives and children struggled to adjust to life during the prolonged absence of the primary wage earner. Although the federal government attempted repeatedly to either legislate or negotiate a resolution to the impressment issue, all efforts were in vain. When James Madison prepared to lead the United States to war against Great Britain in 1812, the belligerence of impressment figured largely in his decision, as well as in Congressional support for war. Impressment has often been viewed as an issue of minor importance, confined largely to New England. In actuality, impressment was a national concern that impinged on a myriad of issues during the early American republic. / History

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Call number: LD2668 .T4 1979 S75 / Master of Arts

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