The United States Soldier Between Two Wars: Army Life and Reforms, 1865-1898
New York: Humanities Press, 1970. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. iv, 229, [3] pages. Chart. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Appendix. Index. Jack Donald Foner (December 14, 1910 – December 10, 1999) was an American historian best known for his work on the labor movement and the struggle for African-American civil rights. A professor of American history with a doctorate from Columbia University, he established one of the first programs in black studies in the United States at Colby College. He was fired from his job at City College of New York and blacklisted in academia from the 1940s through much of the 1960s after being investigated in 1941 by a New York State legislative committee for his suspected former membership in the Communist Party, which he officially refused to either confirm or deny. In 1979, the New York State Board of Education officially apologized to Foner and other teachers and staff who were fired and whose lives were disrupted by the activities of the Rapp-Coudert Committee, which it described as having egregiously violated academic freedom. He was the twin brother of historian Philip S. Foner and the father of historian Eric Foner. Jack Foner taught history in 1935 at Baruch College (then called the downtown branch of the City College of New York). He actively supported the Spanish Republic against fascism, and stood for the rights of African Americans. Foner also worked with Paul Robeson and Harry Belafonte, and maintained a friendship with W. E. B. Du Bois, all of whom similarly suffered blacklisting. His best-known book is Blacks and the Military in American History. Following the Civil War, the U.S. Army fought a series of wars with Native Americans, who resisted U.S. expansion into the center of the continent. By the 1890s the U.S. saw itself as a potential international player. The Army played a central role in winning the Spanish–American War of 1898 and the less well known Philippine–American War of 1899–1901. As settlement sped up across the West after the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, clashes with Native Americans of the Plains and southwest reached a final phase. The military's mission was to clear the land of free-roaming Indians and put them onto reservations. The stiff resistance of battle-hardened, well-armed mounted Indian warriors resulted in the Indian Wars. In the Apache and Navajo Wars, Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson forced the Mescalero Apache onto a reservation in 1862. Skirmishes between Americans and Apaches continued until after the turn of the century. In 1863–1864, Carson used a scorched earth policy in the Navajo campaign, burning Navajo fields and homes, and capturing or killing their livestock. He was aided by other Indian tribes with long-standing enmity toward the Navajos, chiefly the Utes. Later in 1864, he fought a combined force of more than one thousand Kiowa, Comanche, and Plains Apache at the First Battle of Adobe Walls. Carson retreated but he managed to destroy an Indian village and winter supplies. In the Red River War which followed the U.S. army systematically destroyed Comanche property, horses, and livelihood in the Texas panhandle, resulting in the surrender of the last Comanche war chief, Quanah Parker, in June 1875. In June 1877, in the Nez Perce War the Nez Perce under Chief Joseph, unwilling to give up their traditional lands and move to a reservation, undertook a 1,200 mile fighting retreat from Oregon to near the Canada–US border in Montana. Numbering only 200 warriors, the Nez Perce battled some 2,000 American regulars and volunteers in a total of eighteen engagements, including four major battles and at least four fiercely contested skirmishes." The Nez Perce were finally surrounded at the Battle of Bear Paw and surrendered. The Great Sioux War of 1876–77 was conducted by the Lakota under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. The conflict began after repeated violations of the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) once gold was discovered in the hills. By far the most famous battle was the one-sided Indian victory at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, in which combined Sioux and Cheyenne forces defeated the 7th Cavalry, led by General George Armstrong Custer. The West was largely pacified by 1890, apart from small Indian raids along the Mexican border. Combat in the Indian wars resulted in the deaths of about 4,340 people, including soldiers, civilians and Native Americans. In all the Indian wars combined from 1790 to 1910, regular cavalry units fought in about 1000 engagements and suffered more than 2000 total killed and wounded. Disease and accidents caused far more Army casualties than combat; annually, eight soldiers per 1000 died from disease, and five per 1000 died from battle wounds or accidents. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Enlisted Soldier, Army's Legal System, Officers, Army Community, Army Reform, Negro, African-American, Post-Civil War, Courts-Martial, Military Posts, Desertion, Housing, John Kelton, African-Americans, Redfield Proctor, John Schofield, War Departmen
ISBN: 9780391000063
[Book #82094]
Price: $100.00