The U.S. Army, 1783–1811: Defending a New Nation by John R. Maass (born 1965) is a reprint of his earlier work for the United States Army Center of Military History (CMH). Maass, who received his doctorate from Ohio State University, is an educator at the National Museum of the U.S. Army in Virginia.

The major difference between the packaging in Maass’s CMH Publication 74-1 and this new layout is in the rich visual materials available to the reader. The CMH edition contains many illustrations, but this new edition from Casemate is packed with timelines, sidebars, and many, many more line drawings, paintings, and visuals. This repackaging adds many maps that are very useful to the reader to follow his narrative.

Maass is clearly extremely knowledgeable about the early history of the United States Army, and anyone interested in this period would enjoy this book. The idea that immediately after the American Revolution, only eighty regular infantry soldiers were remaining for garrison duties, is mind boggling given our huge military-industrial complex today. The Army stayed that size for less than a year, when Congress called for seven hundred troops in 1785; they needed to guard a few national armories around the new country.

Maass traces events familiar to any high school student of American history - in October 1786, Daniel Shay’s rebellion in Massachusetts had to be put down by thirteen hundred militia from six states. Congress, fearing more rebellions, asks them to stay in federal service for three years. A standing national army was seen by some founding fathers, like Elbridge Gerry, as a danger and an expense the new nation could little afford. But Washington argued for a small standing army, and the rebellions needed a response of constant presence of arms.

Thus the U.S. Army’s legacy begins - born out of citizen soldiers called to fight rebels and, later, Native Americans. Even after General Arthur St. Clair suffered grievous losses at the hands of Indians at the Battle of the Wabash – or perhaps because of it – and further rebellions caused Congress to give Washington the authority to create a larger standing army on March 5, 1792. Over five thousand men were enlisted into “the Legion,” which becomes the United States Army in 1796.

Early wars expanded the Army, according to Maass. The Quasi-War with France from 1798-1800 led to the idea that 30,000 men were needed. By 1802 separate specialties like the Corps of Engineers were created, and authorized for both military and civil projects.

Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase in 1803 doubled the land area of the United States. The United States Army was expected to secure the new territory, and it was military officers Lewis and Clark who mapped the area that was virtually unknown to Anglo Americans. By 1811, The Battle of Tippecanoe proved a major defeat for a Native American confederacy in Indiana, consolidating U.S. control over the Indiana Territory.

A central character of Maass’s narrative is Brevet Brigadier General Josiah Harmar (November 10, 1753 – August 20, 1813) who doggedly sticks to the Army’s “Blue Book,” Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States by Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben. Written for European line armies, Steuben’s manual of arms was outmoded in frontier fighting. As a modern reader, I saw interesting parallels between the Indian Wars of the late 18th century and the recent Iran-Iraq War, but Maass chose not to explore that possible comparison in depth. Harmar lost the Battle of the Miami Towns in 1790 to the Miami Indians, and was court-martialed in disgrace.

Tensions throughout this period were escalating with the mother country, Great Britain. With war threatening, Congress voted to raise twenty-five thousand new men for the Regular Army in thirteen regiments of two thousand men each in January 1812. It also approved the creation of a volunteer force of 30,000 men.

The War of 1812 is beyond the scope of Maas’s work, but he ably sketches the lead up to that conflict. The U.S. Army, 1783–1811, may not be a new text, with its content directly lifted from CMH 74-1, but the striking visuals and graphic design make it a better read than the earlier version.

While Maass is not driven by individual stories of post-revolutionary war soldiers, and virtually ignores the experiences of the rebels and Native Americans, he has innumerable details packed into ninety-six pages. He clearly has done phenomenal research into the early American military period, and is rightfully hailed as one of the best historians of that era.

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Our Reviewer: Jason McDonald teaches at The Grace Church School, in Manhattan, and is a specialist in technology integration in education. 

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Note: The U.S. Army, 1783–1811 is also available in e-editions.

StrategyPage reviews are published in cooperation with The New York Military Affairs Symposium