A HISTORY OF THE SERVICE OF ETHNIC MINORITIES
IN THE U.S. ARMED FORCES
June 26, 2003
I. Introduction
In
debates concerning the U.S. military's ban on the open service of
sexual minorities, critics and proponents alike have used the integration
of African Americans after World War II in defense of their position.
Critics of the ban suggest that both groups have faced similar stigmatization
as disparaged minorities, and the success of military integration
for African Americans in spite of an absence of civilian support
indicates that effective inclusion is possible for gays and lesbians
as well. However, for proponents of the ban, perceived differences
in the causes of stigmatization and the specific circumstances surrounding
Truman's mandate underline the inappropriateness of removing restrictions
against sexual minorities.[1]
Because
analogies by their nature break down at some point, it is instructive
instead to look more broadly at the history of the U.S. military
for clues about how to properly contextualize the present debate.
The extensive focus on post-war desegregation in some sense overshadows
the multiplicity of challenges that the U.S. armed forces has historically
faced in managing and attenuating broad socio-cultural differences.
While racism against African Americans has been the deepest and
most repeated challenge to the U.S. military, we should not underestimate
the magnitude of prior struggles and divisions that have created
considerable organizational challenges for military leaders.
From
this country's inception, its armed forces has had to create effective
and cohesive fighting units from a fractious and heterogeneous population.
Successive large waves of European immigrants resulted in military
units with mixed English proficiency; the loyalty of immigrants
during times of war has repeatedly been a source of considerable
anxiety; and the inclusion of racial and religious minorities in
the military has occurred against a wider social backdrop of ethnic
hostility, harassment and violence.[2]
From a more expansive historical perspective, it is clear that the
U.S. military has repeatedly been forced to attenuate the divisions,
antagonisms and distrust that have troubled American culture more
broadly. This necessity has stemmed from the unique position of
the armed forces as both a defensive and a 'total' institution in
American civic life. Military service in defense of the nation has
historically been viewed as an essential means for immigrants and
other ethnic minorities to prove their loyalty to the U.S. and gain
entry into the American mainstream. Drafts that include newly naturalized
citizens (as well as those who have declared their intent to become
citizens) and high rates of volunteer enlistments among ethnic minorities
have led to a military that draws upon service members from a wide
variety of racial, religious and national backgrounds. Further,
the encompassing nature of the military environment is transformative:
in working to mold civilians into soldiers, the military strives
to forge a shared sense of purpose and inculcate service members
with collective values, norms and culture in the pursuit of common
goals.
As
with civil society, accommodations of diversity and difference within
the military have not occurred without substantial contention, suspicion
and even outright hostility. Each war has required adaptation to
a distinct combination of manpower needs, enemy characteristics,
and broad societal divisions; personnel lessons learned during one
war are often discarded once the danger has passed. But two mechanisms
have fostered integrative pressures in the U.S. armed forces in
spite of ethnic divisions and an often antagonistic military culture.
First, the military's subordinate position to the federal government
has necessitated a responsiveness to social pressures for inclusion.
The president, Congress and civilian Pentagon leaders have at times
officially mandated greater military inclusiveness, and such mandates
have often occurred as part of larger efforts to employ war as a
means to attain political ends. Demands for greater diversity have
been promoted to counteract enemy propaganda, in response to social
movement agitation, and in conjunction with larger public policy
goals.
Second,
manpower shortages due to the mobilization of large forces have
propelled military leaders to create a more diverse, inclusive military
in times of war. The use of the draft inevitably fosters a more
heterogeneous service than a volunteer army. Further, as wars progress,
military officers have often been forced to overturn conventions
of exclusion or division as a result of the pragmatic logic of numbers.
Battlefield attrition has encouraged greater integration of previously
segregated or underutilized troops as commanders respond creatively
to manpower shortages. The history of the U.S. military attests
to its success in overcoming skepticism and suspicion within its
own ranks when compelled to do so by political mandate or practical
dictates. Despite repeated resistance, the U.S. military has throughout
its history created cohesive and effective fighting units out of
a fractious and diverse collection of civilians, integrating service
members with vast differences in cultural background, religious
practices, language and belief systems. In an effort to detail these
lessons of successful integration of diverse military personnel,
this paper will explore the U.S. armed forces' personnel policies
during the major periods of the Civil War, World War I, World War
II, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
II. The Civil War
The
Civil War marked a decisive turning point in the development of
the young nation; it forged a country ruled by a more powerful federal
government out of the ashes of the old collection of states.[3]
By the end of the war, after four years of fighting and with casualty
rates that approached 30%, service members and civilians alike would
find themselves transformed by the dislocations that the war had
wrought (World Almanac, 2000).[4] For many, the war took them out of their home states for the
first time. The geographic mobility of soldiers worked to lessen
their provincialism, and the ethnic diversity of front-line troops
would further dampen nativist instincts. It would primarily be a
war of volunteers,[5] and
the entrepreneurial nature of regiment formation in the early years
of the war profoundly shaped both the composition of troops and
accommodations to their diversity. The first modern war on U.S.
soil[6] brought the incorporation of large numbers of
immigrant soldiers, acceptance of the idea of religious pluralism
within the military, and the highly visible use of African American
troops. Social protest would play a key role in the acceptance of
Jewish chaplains in the Union Army. African American inclusion would
be promoted by Republican abolitionists for political reasons and
encouraged by the on-the-ground realities of the deadly war. And
the question of whether former slaves could become competent soldiers
would be answered strongly in the affirmative. In the face of devastating
losses, even Confederates would be forced to concede the capabilities
of black soldiers by the end of the conflict.
Prior
to the onset of the war, immigration had already radically transformed
the social landscape of the U.S. Between 1820 and 1860, over 5 million
immigrants landed on America's shores - a sum that equaled fully
half of the entire U.S. population before the migration wave had
begun (Parillo, 1997; Barkan, 1999). Irish and Germans accounted
for the largest number of immigrants, with the Irish alone comprising
49% of all immigrants in the 1840s (Parrillo, 1997; see also Bergquist,
1999). This surge of immigration would lead to a bitter nativist
backlash. For many native-born Americans, the large influx of immigrants
posed a threat to the existing social order, and by the 1830s a
"native"American uprising began to coalesce. Advocating
violence and destruction of the property of Irish, Germans and African
Americans, these outbursts would develop into the Know-Nothing Movement
of the 1850s. The movement was sufficiently popular to result in
the election of 75 Congress members allied with the movement in
1854, along with a sizeable number of city, county and state officials
(Parrillo, 1997).[7]
Closely
linked to anti-Catholicism, anti-Irish sentiment was particularly
strong, and mobs at times torched Catholic churches and convents
(Parrillo, 1997; see also Wittke, 1956; Gleeson, 2001; Ignatiev,
1995). Nativists would "speak of the Irish as a separate race,
genetically fixed in their ignorance and moral dissolution"(Meagher,
1999, p. 284). They occupied the bottom rung of the employment ladder,
and nativism within unions was rampant (Takaki, 1993, Ignatiev,
1995). In response, immigrants in urban communities established
ethnic enclaves and sought political access through machine politics.
The Democratic party would reject nativism in support of ethnic
voters (Ignatiev, 1995). The ethnic identity of national origins,
which was understood at the time in racial terms, provided a filter
through which Americans made sense of U.S. social life and its divisions.
Against
this backdrop of ethic transformation and the rapid absorption of
foreign nationals, the Civil War would pit old and new countrymen
against countrymen, and it was in the Union Army that foreign nationals
maintained a decisive presence.[8] The
Union Army has been called "an amalgam of nations" (Wittke,
1956, p. 135); out of a total of 2.2 million Union soldiers that
served during the war, more than 400,000 of them were foreign-born
(Wittke, 1956).[9] Immigrants
as a whole responded positively to the Union response to secessionist
upheaval, and the foreign-born of every nationality enlisted in
proportions that exceeded their relative numbers in the population
at large (Rippley, 1976; see also White, 1990).[10] The harassment and discrimination that the Irish faced in civilian
life did not preclude their enlistment as soldiers. The Union Army
went to considerable lengths to attract Irish immigrants in particular,
including enrolling eligible men as soon as they disembarked onto
American shores. The Union even sent recruiters to Ireland, and
the Confederate Army countered by sending special envoys to Ireland
to stop the recruiting. The centrality of Irish immigrants would
be commented upon in The New York Times
in the early stages of the war:
"[W]hile
the alacrity with which [the Irish] have rushed to the defense of
free institutions, and the valor with which they have illustrated
our battles, have done much to extinguish ancient prejudices and
teach us what genuine and noble human qualities underlie the surface-characteristics
of the fine old Irish stock." (The New York Times, August
11 1861, p 3)
Prior
to the war, immigrants in some areas had faced restrictions on their
service in militias, and immigrants had formed their own militia
companies in response (White, 1999).[11] Every major foreign-born group in America's larger cities maintained
distinct militia units, which were both social in nature and a component
of ethnic political organizing. When the Civil War began, many of
the ethnic militia companies were transferred directly into the
Union Army, and new ethnic regiments were also established (see
White, 1999; Burton, 1998; Wittke, 1956; and Kauffman, 1999).[12]
The entrepreneurial approach to raising troops through volunteer
militias in the first eighteen months of the war encouraged the
emergence of ethnically oriented regiments, as potential regiment
and company leaders used local networks, ethnic rivalries and rhetorical
exhortations of nationalism to form military units with explicitly
ethnic identities (Burton, 1998).[13]
These included such units as the "Steuben Rifles," "DeKalb
Regiment," "Ulster Guards," "Irish Brigade,"
"Wild Irish Regiment," "Irish Rifles," "Corcoran's
Fighting Irish," "Cameron Highlanders," "Garibaldi
Guards," "Swiss Rifles," "Koerner Regiment,"
"First German Rifles," and "Die Neuner" (Wittke,
1956; Kauffman, 1999).[14]
While
service in ethnic regiments stemmed largely from neighborhood or
network affiliations, religion and language also played an important
role. Among the Irish, ethnic units had access to Catholic priests
rather than Protestant ministers (Burton, 1998). Further, such regiments
enabled immigrants to serve in regiments dominated by languages
other than English. When the War Department declared in July of
1861 that, "In the future, no volunteer will be mustered into
the service who is unable to speak the English language,"(cited
in Burton, 1998, p. 220) the order met with vehement opposition
among immigrant communities and led to a dramatic curtailment of
enlistment among the foreign-born. The War Department quickly backed
down from its original stand with a clarification that the order
did not apply to individuals serving in companies and regiments
of foreigners (Burton, 1998). The volunteer nature of service at
the outset of the war necessitated that leaders remain responsive
to concerns that could dramatically curtail enlistments. Thirty
German regiments, in which German was the primary language spoken,
participated in the war (Rippley, 1976).
However,
while ethnic units were highly visible during the first eighteen
months of the Civil War, the majority of immigrants fought in integrated
regiments.[15]
Out of 216,000 Germans who fought for the Union, only 36,000 served
in ethnic units (Kaufmann, 1999; Burton, 1998). Interestingly, New
York State fielded the only regiment that was composed entirely
of native-born Americans. As an expert on ethnic service has concluded
on integrated units, "Problems of bias and prejudice were minimal
and relations between the various groups were good" (Burton,
1998, p. 208). But the bloody toll of the war and the need for new
bodies would encourage the diffusion and desegregation of even those
who initially sought out ethnic units:
Long
before the end of the Civil War, however, the many German units
were scattered, regrouped, or reorganized out of existence, and
in fact they were being reconstituted all along by incoming non-German
recruits. Diffusion rendered it almost impossible to trace the performance
of the Germans in later war records (Rippley, 1976, p. 70).
Saving
regiments from destruction through attrition took priority over
retaining an ethnic identity as the war proceeded, and unit identities
were diluted through the replacement of casualties with native-born
soldiers. In the last two years of the war, unique ethnic regiments
"were reorganized out of existence" (Burton, 1998, p.
111).[16]
That this would further help to foster a common American identity
is evident in the words of Carl Shurtz, a German ethnic politician,
who noted after the war that, "The German spirit fades away,
and the American spirit triumphs" (Burton, 1998, p. 111).[17]
Or as Civil War historian Hattaway (1997) explains more generally,
"Brave deeds, and above all a shared military experience, bred
a potent brotherly affinity"(p. 185).
As
a result of greater heterogeneity within units and among the population
more generally, the Civil War also marked a change from the Revolutionary
War in the need to accommodate individuals from different religions.
Because many service members enlisted in their hometowns and with
people they knew, units often included multiple members of religious
minorities. General Order Number 15 in 1861 provided for chaplains
chosen by vote in volunteer regiments. The concentration of Catholics
in ethnic regiments and the later segregation of African American
troops also therefore promoted the inclusion of minority chaplains.
The Civil War would mark the first time that large numbers of Catholic
priests served as military chaplains (Slomovitz, 1999; see also
U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School, 2003), and the first African
American and Native American chaplains also served during the war
(U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School, 2003; Brinsfield, 1999).
By the end of the war, fourteen African American chaplains and forty
Catholic priests served with the Union army. An additional 28 priests
served with the Confederates (U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School,
2003; Redkey, 2002).
Congress
initially mandated that chaplains for the Union be "regularly
ordained ministers of some Christian denomination" (cited in
U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School, 2003; see also Herspring,
2001; Budd, 2002). In contrast, the Confederate Congress made no
distinction between religions and opened the service of chaplains
to "every minister of religion" (cited in Rosen, 2000,
p. 209).[18]
A Jewish chaplain appointed by the 65th Regiment of the
Fifth Pennsylvania Calvary was told to resign due to his non-qualified
status (Slomovitz, 1999; Herspring, 2001). In response, a broad-based
movement in favor of the inclusion of Jewish chaplains on constitutional
grounds supported the test case of the subsequent appointment of
Rabbi Fischel to the same 65th Regiment. The movement
endeavored to obtain publicity, develop a petition campaign, and
employ lobbying efforts, and it gained support from the popular
press (Slomovitz, 1999). One editor of the Boston Clipper
reminded his readers that a rabbi opened the congressional legislative
session with prayer. He asked, "How was it that the same body
could deny Jewish soldiers the right to share the prayers of the
same clergyman?"(cited in Slomovitz, 1999, p. 16) As a result
of these efforts, hundreds of petitions were sent to Congress, and
Rabbi Fischel, backed by the Board of Delegates of American Israelites,
lobbied the president directly for the inclusion of Jewish chaplains.
Lincoln was receptive to his arguments,[19]
and in July of 1862 the law limiting service to Christians was amended
(Slomovitz, 1999; see also U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School,
2003). The first rabbis entered the chaplaincy through positions
at military hospitals; two rabbis served as hospital chaplains during
the war.[20]
In April of 1863, a third rabbi began serving as the chaplain for
the 54th New York Volunteer Regiment (Slomovitz, 1999).[21]
Although
African Americans had served during the American Revolution and
the War of 1812, [22]
their service during the Civil War was authorized only after considerable
controversy in both the North and the South. The centrality of slavery
to the conflict created political concerns over the use of African
American troops. President Lincoln feared the loss of the border
states over the issue, and the moral justification for slavery as
the benevolent guardianship of an inferior people made black service
a threat to the existing Southern social order. As Georgian Howell
Cobb argued to the Confederate Secretary of War, "the day you
make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution.
If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is
wrong" (cited in Glatthaas, 1997, p. 203). A New York Times article listed the following reasons given by Union
opponents to the use of African American soldiers:
"1) That the negro will not fight;
2) It is said that whites will not fight with them, - that the
prejudice against them is so strong that our own citizens will
not enlist, or will quit the service, if compelled to fight by
their side, - and that we shall thus lose two white soldiers for
every black one that we gain;3) It is said we shall get no negroes;or
not enough to prove of any service; 4) The use of negroes will
exasperate the South: and some of our Peace Democrats make that
an objection to the measure." (New York Times,
February 16 1863, p. 4)[23]
However,
from the onset of hostilities, African Americans themselves would
agitate for the opportunity to fight. Through the first fifteen
months of the war, the War Department received a barrage of entreaties
for the right to raise black troops or simply for people to fight
themselves; editorials in newspapers with a black readership trumpeted
the cause, and political leaders pressed for inclusion.
The
importance of military service to an African American struggle for
enfranchisement informed much of this political activity. As Frederick
Douglass stated at the time, “…let [an African American]
get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets
in his pocket, there is no power on earth which can deny that he
has earned the right to citizenship in the United States”
(cited in Glatthaar, 1997, p. 211). But it would be with their feet
that Southern slaves would create both the greatest pressure and
the sharpest incentives for African American military service. The
refusal of Major General Butler in May of 1861 to return escaped
slaves under the fugitive slave laws was supported by the War Department;
Butler put them to work instead as laborers for the Army. [24] In August, Congress passed the First Confiscation
Act, which enabled federal officers to seize Confederate property,
including slaves, to be used “in aid of the rebellion”
(cited in Glatthaar, 1997, p. 204; see also Smith, 2002; Ramold,
2002). The trickle of African Americans to federal encampments soon
became a flood,[25] and in July of 1862 Congress awarded freedom
to all slaves entering federal lines and made them subject to the
draft under the Second Confiscation Act (Smith, 2002). As Glatthaar
(1997) notes, “By acting on their own behalf, slaves also
challenged Federal authorities to reexamine their approach to the
war. The unanticipated black response compelled Northern officials
to adapt their policies to meet wartime exigencies” (p. 206;
see also Glaathaar, 1990).
Congress
also authorized the president to use African Americans in any military
service “for which they may be found competent,” and
Lincoln used the opportunity of the final[26]
Emancipation Proclamation to authorize the general enlistment of
black troops in 1863 (Glatthaar, 1997, p. 210; Smith, 2002).[27]
Approximately 179,000 African Americans served in segregated units
as combat soldiers in the Civil War, and another 20,000 held noncombatant
positions. African American soldiers comprised approximately one-tenth
of total Union Army forces, while black sailors accounted for approximately
16% of total naval strength[28] (Ramold, 20002; Smith, 2002; see also Walker,
1999; and Young, 1982).[29]
Further, 200,000 additional African Americans labored for the Union
in other capacities (Walker, 1999; Young, 1982; Glaathaar, 1997;
Hattaway, 1997). African American service members participated in
41 major battles and 449 smaller engagements during the Civil War.
Higgenson, the Colonel of the 1st South Carolina Colored
Volunteers, a unit comprised almost entirely of former slaves, describes
the first time he commanded a mix of black and white regiments on
regular military duty. While he was originally concerned about mishaps,
he explains:
It is almost impossible for us now to
remember in what a delicate balance then hung the whole question
of negro enlistments, and consequently of Slavery. Fortunately,
for my own serenity, I had great faith in the intrinsic power
of military discipline, and also knew that a common service would
soon produce mutual respect among good soldiers; and so it proved.
(Higgenson, 1870, p. 123)
Twenty-three
African American service members would win the Congressional Medal
of Honor for their efforts during the war (Office of the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Civilian Personnel Policy/Equal
Opportunity, 1991; U.S. Army, 2003).[30][31]
The
effective, albeit delayed, use of African Americans in the military
conflict dealt a harsh blow to the Confederate states. African American
soldiers replenished depleted troop strength in the Union military,
deprived the Confederacy of needed labor as slaves deserted to Federal
lines, and contributed to Southern demoralization by overturning
the established racial order. By early 1864, a small number of high-ranking
Confederate officers began to view continued slavery as one the
South’s primary sources of military weakness. In addition
to the diminishment of essential labor power as a result of Union
actions, continued support of slavery precluded desperately needed
assistance from European nations. While these Confederate officers
advocated the arming of African Americans for use as Confederate
soldiers, Confederate law at the time precluded black military service
(Glatthaar, 1997; see also Smith, 2002). As the situation grew desperate,
the Confederate Congress passed legislation allowing for the service
of African Americans.[32] However, the war ended before the Confederate Army could raise
African American troops for combat (see Glatthaar, 1997; Young,
1982).
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