National Affairs: SIX WHO TALKED BACK

Six times in U.S. history, high-ranking generals have defied the Administration or their military superiors in such terms as to cause public furors. Four of the generals were later nominated for the presidency—and two were elected. The six:

Andrew Jackson, the nettle-tempered hero of the War of 1812, clashed with the Administration of President Monroe during the First Seminole War (1818). Jackson was given permission to pursue warring Indians across the border into Spanish Florida, but because of strained relations with Spain and England had orders to seize no Spanish military posts. He ignored orders, stormed the forts of St. Marks and Pensacola, and for good measure twisted the British lion’s tail by executing two British subjects who were aiding the Indians. For a time, the U.S. tottered on the brink of war, and Monroe’s Cabinet said Jackson had “committed war upon Spain . . . which, if not disavowed,” would ruin the Administration. Jackson’s actions were popular with the country and with history, and when Spain ceded Florida to the U.S. a year later, he was even more firmly established as a hero. Nine years later (1828), Jackson was elected President. (He is Harry Truman’s favorite President.)

Zachary Taylor, known as “Old Rough and Ready” in his 40-year military career, was considered a poor tactician, but this was offset by a redeeming quality: he won battles. His early victories in the Mexican War (1846) made him a national hero, but President Polk and his Cabinet were critical of surrender terms granted Mexicans after the Battle of Monterrey. Taylor not only hotly defended his actions, but wrote a scathing letter criticizing the Administration. The letter was made public and Taylor was reprimanded. He refused to be silenced. He sent off another bitter letter of protest, which was later widely distributed. While still in a huff, Taylor refused to meet with the general in chief, Winfield Scott, who was planning a Mexican expedition and wanted to use some of Taylor’s troops. In retaliation, Scott stripped Taylor of most of his command. With his remaining troops, Taylor went on. to win a resounding victory at Buena Vista in 1847. Two years later, he was in the White House.

Winfield Scott first attracted public attention as a major general when he strongly criticized General Andrew Jackson. The hotheaded Jackson challenged him to a duel, but Scott declined. In 1828, he was back in the public eye when he was relieved of his command after repeatedly threatening to disobey the orders of the general in chief, Alexander Macomb. Despite his many squabbles and reprimands, Scott himself became general in chief in 1841. True to form, he clashed with Secretary of War William Marcy over conduct of the Mexican War, wrote in one blistering letter: “I do not desire to place myself in the most perilous of all positions: a fire upon my rear, from Washington, and the fire, in front, from the Mexicans.” President Polk finally managed to gag Scott, who went on to conquer Mexico City, return a hero, be nominated for President by the Whigs in 1852. He lost to Franklin Pierce. He continued in the service, was Abraham Lincoln’s ranking general until he was retired in November 1861, aged 75.

George B. McClellan, only 34 and commanding the Department of the Ohio, shot to immediate popularity at the outbreak of the Civil War. Dubbed “Little Mac—the Young Napoleon,” West Pointer McClellan soon commanded the Army of the Potomac, and by June 1862 was only four miles from Richmond when a strong force led by General Robert E. Lee caused him to retreat from his ill-starred Peninsular Campaign. Bitter because he had not been given reinforcements, McClellan telegraphed Secretary of War Stanton: IF I SAVE THIS ARMY NOW, I TELL YOU PLAINLY THAT I OWE NO THANKS TO YOU OR TO ANY OTHER PERSON IN WASHINGTON. YOU HAVE DONE YOUR BEST TO SACRIFICE THIS ARMY. McClellan Was Soon openly antagonistic toward President Lincoln and his Administration and his criticisms became a major scandal. Lincoln removed McClellan from command in November 1862, after McClellan failed to crush Lee at Antietam. In 1864, McClellan became Democratic candidate for President. He was overwhelmingly defeated by Lincoln and resigned from the Army.

Leonard Wood joined the Army in 1885 as a contract surgeon after graduating from Harvard Medical School, became a cavalry colonel in the Spanish-American War, later rose to be the Army’s Chief of Staff (1910-14). A longtime outspoken advocate of preparedness, Wood was frequently embroiled with his superiors. In 1917, he went to France as an observer; on his return home, he was invited to appear before the Senate Military Affairs Committee. He used the occasion to denounce the Army’s ordnance bureau and supply system and to charge Secretary of War Newton D. Baker and the Army Chief of Staff with inefficiency and incompetency. As a result, he was barred from overseas combat command in World War I by Secretary Baker and the A.E.F. commander, John J. Pershing. Wood’s views had won him wide popularity, however, and in 1920 he was the favorite to get the Republican nomination. But in a convention deadlock, a group of men in a smoke-filled room brought forth Warren G. Harding instead. Wood retired in 1921, became Governor General of the Philippines.

William Lendrum Mitchell was a 1st lieutenant at 19 and the youngest officer in the U.S. Army. At the end of World War I, he was a brigadier general and chief of the infant A.E.F. Air Service. In 1920, as assistant chief of the Air Service, spectacular Billy Mitchell launched a campaign to make Army and Navy brass see the need for an independent air force. Mitchell and his young hell-for-leather fellow pilots fought the Navy to get a bombing demonstration arranged, sank a captured German dreadnought and a cruiser. Despite warnings from his superiors, he continuously aired his views on air power—in the press, before congressional committees and investigating boards. He was finally reduced in rank and sent to Texas. A short time later, the crash of the dirigible Shenandoah and the near loss of a Navy seaplane brought him to the climax of his fight. Mitchell charged that the accidents were “the direct result of incompetency, criminal negligence and almost treasonable administration … by the War and Navy Departments.” He was court-martialed, found guilty of “conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the military service,” suspended from duty for five years. Mitchell resigned, a hero to airmen and the bulk of the U.S. public. He died in 1936. Ten years later, vindicated by history, he was posthumously awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor. Sitting on the court-martial that tried Mitchell was a boyhood friend, Douglas MacArthur—the only man who voted Mitchell “not guilty” of misconduct.