Those Who Have Borne the Battle (12 page)

At the time of this speech, fifty-two years after the end of the Revolution, attitudes had changed thoroughly. The democratization of heroic memory and the practical need to mobilize sailors and soldiers for the War of 1812 had engendered a more conscious effort to celebrate the heroes
who had served—and increasingly Americans defined
all
who served as heroic.

Effectively, this inclusive embrace constituted an unspoken commitment to those who would serve. The nationalist
Port Folio
celebrated the 1815 dedication of the monument to those who fell defending Baltimore in 1814, noting that such a thing was a “public act of justice and honour to those who have fallen in defence of their country and it sets forth an example that is altogether invaluable.” The editor insisted that this example, if followed, would “soon wipe from the page of history one of the foulest charges against republics—that of ingratitude to their best benefactors.” Nations who “honour the fallen and perpetuate the memory and achievements of the valiant will never want heroes to fight their battles.”
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But it would take another war to finally pull all of these themes into the dominant public history and memory.

During the Mexican War (1846–1848) the government continued to distinguish between regulars and militia, yet this distinction was less clear in the public mind. The two different forces, different institutions, merged in the telling as the “citizen soldiers” of democracy's wars. Historian Robert Johannsen concludes, “It was the image of the citizen soldier, the individual who turned from peaceful civilian pursuits to the defense of his country, that captivated the popular mind and confirmed the nation's republican mission.” There continued to be tension between volunteers and regulars, but praise for “the military achievements in Mexico” did not distinguish between them. “The victories belonged solely to neither group, and the more perceptive observers saw the results as an example of democracy's ability to coordinate regulars and volunteers in a single cause.”
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A new spirit of nationalism marked the Mexican War. Johannsen describes the symbols of this sense of national identity that were widely embraced, for the first time so comprehensively, such as the American flag, along with what he called the “national airs”—music such as “Yankee Doodle,” “Hail Columbia,” and, to a lesser extent, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” as well as the symbolic American eagle. These things tangibly represented a sense of nationhood and, perhaps implicitly, now a proud continental empire. These unifying symbols and this confident mood
“lent impetus to the patriotism of both the soldiers in Mexico and those who remained behind.”
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This new narrative, weaving together military service and its sacrifice with the values of democracy, a proud legacy, and unwavering confidence, was fully set by the 1850s. Yet during that very decade, the narrative would falter and be insufficient to summon national unity. Slavery and its political tensions would overcome this sense of shared history and common values. The hypocrisy of democratic rhetoric and the acceptances of human slavery became heavier. In the Civil War, the narrative would be tested in some difficult and emotional ways.

 

 

On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln assumed the presidency of a nation now fully splintered as a consequence of Southern reaction to his election. In his inaugural address, he embraced the interpretation of the country's shared and proud history, tying patriotism to military sacrifice as both a unifying appeal to the seceding South and, as necessary, a call to the Northern states to be prepared to affirm their responsibility for the dearly bought heritage of the Republic: “Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

The national narrative had by 1861 incorporated fully and warmly this mystic memory of citizen soldiers defending the land. The narrative encompassed fundamental principles believed to be, perhaps uniquely, American: avoiding large military establishments, depending upon the commitment of the citizens to protect the Republic in which they had a stake, and insisting that the United States was a peaceful nation—but one that could mobilize quickly for war and engage effectively in battle.

There is another significant thread to this story. By 1861 rhetorical recognition and salutes to veterans had proved important but not sufficient. Veterans and their families pressed for a reciprocation of their service to the government, especially as they dealt with misfortune or the problems of aging. They had stepped forward as young volunteers, and
now the Republic needed to provide for them. Washington had warned in the 1770s that patriotic enthusiasm could not sustain an army in the field. In the nineteenth century it became clear that patriotic celebration was inadequate to sustain the needs of old soldiers.

In 1817 when the Congressional Committee on Claims rejected several individual pension applications with the observation that soldiers need serve out of a sense of patriotism rather than expectations of a public sinecure, New York publisher Mordecai Noah spoke to the Tammany Society in New York City on the Fourth of July. He said of the revolutionary generation, “The fire of patriotism burned bright in their hearts; it warmed them to deeds of heroism never exceeded in the annals of the world; they struggled and conquered—they suffered but were victorious.” He insisted that the obligation now was not upon these men but upon their society: “Never let us forget the gratitude we owe to the noble spirits who died in this contest nor neglect the war-worn soldier or Patriot of the Revolution. We have but few left—let us cherish them in their declining years and smooth their passage to the grave by the liberality and confidence of a free and enlightened people.”
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In the 1790s the new Congress had assumed the state obligations for payments due to Revolutionary War veterans, but this was based more on the objective of establishing the authority of the new national government than it was an expression of gratitude or an affirmation of obligation. During the Revolution significant land bounties for enlistees had been provided by the states and by the Confederation Congress, serving as recruiting tools in the challenge of maintaining an army. Virginia even proposed giving slaves to volunteers, a remarkably cruel irony in a war for liberty. Virginian James Madison proposed instead that the Old Dominion might liberate slaves to fight.
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The new government continued the policy of extending land grants as incentives to enlist as well as to advance the nation's strategic interest in the settlement of the western territories. In 1787 the Confederation approved the Northwest Ordinance, providing for the transfer of lands and a process for statehood in the large territory north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi. It provided land for Revolutionary War veterans. Five midwestern states would finally be carved out of this vast expanse.
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Whether placating veterans was an act of political wisdom or an act of national gratitude, in the early years of the nineteenth century the nation would establish new patterns of support for veterans. As age took its toll, and the number of veterans shrank, public programs recognizing them became more generous. By 1818, caught up in the patriotic enthusiasm for the founding generation, Congress, after great debate, expanded pensions for Revolutionary War veterans, not restricting this support only to those who had suffered disabling injuries in military service. Some congressmen wanted to make the benefits available only for those who had served an extended tour of duty, essentially restricting the pensions to veterans of the Continental army. The short-term militia enlistees would be largely ineligible.

This bill's opponents insisted that military service was but a necessary cost of residing in a democracy and should not encumber any public preferences. They were unable to block passage. The final legislation provided for pensions for those who had served for nine months during the Revolution and were “in reduced circumstances.” This was an important step toward the embrace of national gratitude: “As young soldiers, once treated with suspicion and hostility, aged veterans had come to be cherished as the spiritual relics of the Revolution whose emergence and reward uplifted the nation's public morality and dignity.”
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Under the 1818 Pension Act, veterans filed significantly more claims than the advocates and lawmakers had predicted. Some 25,000 veterans submitted claims under the law. The expectation had been that the number would be 3,000. Some of these represented fraudulent claims, which caused the old Republicans to insist that their predictions had come true. However, over the next years, as the numbers of remaining veterans continued to decline, a new political commitment to the survivors took hold. In 1832 Congress extended coverage of the 1818 legislation, providing for a pension payment to all surviving veterans who had served at least six months during the Revolution.

This 1832 legislation transferred authority over pensions from the Treasury Department to the War Department; Congress assumed that this cabinet office would validate claims for service more effectively than Treasury had. As in 1818, the number of claims far exceeded expectations.
By early 1833, more than 24,000 veterans submitted claims. Nonetheless, in 1836 Congress also extended the pension to surviving widows. For nearly the next half century, Congress extended definitions of service and of the marriage dates of the widows so that when the last veteran pensioner, Daniel Bakeman, died in 1869 at the age of 109, 887 widows still remained on the rolls.
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By these cumulative actions, the national embrace of war veterans
and their families
became complete. This was a specific program for the Revolutionary War veterans, but a pattern had been established. If the American Revolution had a privileged place in the nation's memory, those who served the Republic in subsequent wars would now move into the same patriot's band that came to define those who served in the Revolutionary War. Their service became special, exemplary, and by definition heroic, as their numbers became a smaller proportion of the population. A grateful nation would look after them as they aged and, following their deaths, would attend to the surviving spouses.

It was not clear that any political leaders in the early nineteenth century ever developed a political philosophy that affirmed this principle, but through a series of incremental actions, the idea of the debt of a grateful nation became a part of this narrative. Ironically, even as the concept of every citizen being obliged to serve in wartime remained a critical part of the narrative, the recognition that in fact every citizen was not serving embedded further the sense of the nation's obligation to those who actually did serve. The iconic “everyman” in war became the venerated “hero” in peace.

 

 

When the War of 1812 began, the formerly inconsistent interplay between colonial and Continental governments no longer prevailed. At the outset of this second war with the British, enlisted men who were disabled qualified for a pension of five dollars a month; officers were eligible for half pay. Widows and orphans received a pension for five years, a period later extended. No uniform pension for all surviving veterans of the War of 1812 existed until 1871, at which time about 25,000 survivors became eligible. As part of the declaration of war with Mexico in 1846, Congress made provision for disability and widow and orphan pensions,
the terms of which were extended in later years. Congress approved comprehensive pensions for all Mexican War veterans in 1887.

Throughout the nineteenth century, as Congress considered these various pension laws and their enhancements, they introduced new categories of survivors of the Indian Wars. These allowed pensions for “invalids” and for widows and survivors. Congress authorized in 1902 the first comprehensive pensions for surviving veterans of those Indian Wars fought prior to 1858; in 1917 they extended these to the survivors of the remaining campaigns.
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Having fought in wars that were less popular, veterans of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War never attained the heroic cultural status of veterans of the American Revolution. Nonetheless, as time passed, Americans developed a willingness to assist these veterans and their survivors. And as they had for veterans of the Revolution, Congress also provided for young and healthy veterans with land grants. This peaked between 1847 and 1855 when Congress approved several bills that provided 60 million acres of federal land warrants to a half-million veterans, widows, or heirs of all conflicts from the American Revolution to the Mexican War.

Legislators supported these land grants because they rewarded veterans and facilitated settlement of the West, with no government cash appropriation required. It seemed a win all the way around.
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Veterans were seldom the final users of these government land warrants—they or their heirs typically sold them and at a deep discount. Nonetheless, these federal grants became part of a historic legacy of support for veterans—and the political power of veterans as well as their natural appeal to a broader group of citizens set a precedent that few could ignore.

 

 

If the American Revolution framed the Republic, the Civil War forged it. This war was unique in American history in terms of massive military mobilization, its bloody battles on US soil, the extent of carnage, and the far-reaching sacrifice, loss, and emotional toll. The war's outcome affirmed the strength of the Union and the basic principles of the Declaration of Independence. Extending those affirmed principles to all citizens would be a far more lengthy process.