United States Exploring Expedition

“ The reception to General Pershing and the Medical branch was, however, nothing as compared to the popular demonstration which marked the arrival of the first of the American armed forces on European shores to participate in war. The vanguard of the army reached France on June 27. No official announcement was ever made of the number of men in the first expeditionary force, but it is an incident of modern history that the United States made a record for the transportation of troops across the seas scarcely equalled by that of any other country. ”

“ All the documents in reference to the war in America agree in stating that the relations of our troops with the army and population of the United States were excellent, and that the discipline of the auxiliary corps was admirable; every one in fact seems to have carried away the most favorable impressions of the expedition. ”

“ Having given important facts developed by the explorations of the French and Canadians, we may now turn our attention to the Americans. The next year after Lewis and Clark started with their world-renowned expedition to the Pacific coast. Lieutenant Zebulon Pike of the United States army was ordered by the U. S. government to explore the sources of the Mississippi river, and established friendly relations with the Indians whose territory had but lately been included within the boundaries of the new born republic. ”

“ From the men of the first group so enrolled were chosen by lot the soldiers for the World War who, with the regular army and the national guard, formed the American Expeditionary Force upholding the American cause on the battlefields of Europe. "The whole nation," said the President, "must be a team in which each man shall play the part for which he is best fitted." ”

“ Such were the men we had as recruits: soldiers ready made, as far as concerned their capacity as individual fighters. What was necessary was to teach them to act together, and to obey orders. Our special task was to make them ready for action in the shortest possible time. We were bound to see fighting, and therefore to be with the first expedition that left the United States ”

“ Here I would glean what tidings I could of the progress of the Expedition, from whose base at Fort William, I would be only 100 miles distant, as well as examine the% chances of Fenian intervention, so much talked of in the American newspapers, as likely to place in peril the flank of the expeditionary force as it followed the devious track of swamp and forest which has on one side Minnesota, and on the other the Canadian Dominion. ”

“ In all the movements which tend to bring nations closer together, America has ever taken the lead. A thrill of brotherly feeling passed through the English nation when an American expedition went in search of Sir John Franklin; and America in turn felt herself drawn closer to the mother country when the British Government gave its best Arctic ship to aid in the rescue of the Greely party. The world will ring with applause, and the growing sense of brotherhood among the nations will receive an additional impulse, if an American expedition brings back the lost sons of Sweden. ”

“ To command this great army, the government built officers' camps where men best fitted were trained to be officers, and were then sent to the cantonments to help in changing the American citizen into a soldier. War was declared in April, and by the hot weather of summer America was sending troops by the tens of thousands to Europe. The wonderful way in which American shipbuilders had made it possible to transport these soldiers is told later. But before leaving the subject of raising an army, let us first see by means of figures just what the United States had accomplished in this work. ”

“ But sentiment could not fight battles, unless backed by material equipment. The nation was preparing for war. From all parts of the United States the troops of the regular army were hurried by special trains southeastward to camps at Chickamauga and Tampa. In every navy yard work was hurried night and day upon all incomplete battleships and cruisers. Already the fleets of the American navy had been concentrated at points of vantage so that little was left to be done on that score. ”

“ Inform our troops that all America resounds with praise of the splendid record that the American Expeditionary Forces have made. The reputation of the American soldier for valor and for splendid discipline under the most trying conditions has endeared every member of the Expeditionary Forces not only to his relatives and friends but to all Americans. Their comrades in France have not forgotten that the Americans in Northern Russia are part of the American Expeditionary Forces, and we are proud to transmit to you the generous praise of the American people. ”

“ Within the past century no American explorer has contributed more materially to the welfare of the United States and to its maritime glory than Captain Robert Gray, the discoverer of the Columbia River and the first circumnavigator who carried the flag of the United States around the world. ”

“ Two million American fighting men were safely landed in France. To do this the transport force of the Atlantic fleet of the United States had to be utilized. At the outbreak of the war the transport force was small, but it now comprises twenty-four cruisers, forty-two troop transports, and scores of other vessels, manned by three thousand officers and forty-one thousand enlisted men, two thousand of whom are Negroes. ”

“ On the Pacific, our commerce has much increased, and on that coast, as well as on that sea, the United States have many important interests which require attention and protection. It is thought that all the considerations which suggested the expediency of placing a squadron on that sea operate with augmented force for maintaining it there, at least in equal extent. ”

“ America responded and mobilized our forces to fight side-by-side with our allies in the European, Atlantic, and Pacific theaters. The United States Navy engaged in epic sea battles, such as Midway, and our Armed Forces fought extraordinary land battles for the possession of occupied islands. ”

“ At the end of hostilities it had overseas over 7,000 workers, of whom 1,600 were women; in the American Expeditionary Forces it had 1,900 war service centers, nearly 1,500 in the French armies, several hundred in Italy, with more in Russia and Siberia; in the United States it had 950 of these centers and 6,000 workers and it was represented in every cantonment and training camp for Army or Navy from end to end of the country. ”

“ If Germany begins preparing a fleet of transports and troops for landing purposes at the moment when the battle fleet steams out of our harbours, we may conclude that operations on the American soil can begin after about four weeks, and it cannot be doubted that the United States will not be able to oppose to us within that time an army equivalent to our own. ”

“ If the war had continued until the next summer, as it was then universally believed it would, the United States would have had ready for service at the front, within two years of its declaration of war, an army of between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 men, taken from civilian life, trained, equipped and transported across the Atlantic Ocean within that time. ”

“ When one reflects that the coast-line of the great Republic, along the Atlantic and Pacific shores of the Americas, embraces fully 34,000 miles, every mile of which was entitled to our national defence, it will be recognized that the American Navy in 1999 was barely in keeping with the vast proportions of the Republic it had been created to defend. ”

“ I want each man to realize the part he has played in bringing glory to American arms and to understand both my pride and the pride of their fellows throughout the American Expeditionary Forces in their record. My good wishes accompany your command on its return to the United States, and my interest will remain with its members in their future careers. ”

“ The Americans were not slow in perceiving the dangers that threatened their north-western frontier, and began to prepare for its defence most energetically at the first declaration of war. It was a work that taxed to the utmost the resources of the young country. ”

“ Two days later wireless messages received in Buffalo informed us that German transports, with accompanying battleships, had been located off the banks of Newfoundland and on February 1st our main fleet of aeroboats, a hundred huge seaplanes, equipped with Widding-Edison torpedoes, sailed away over Lake Erie in line of battle, flying towards the northeast at the height of half a mile, ready for the struggle that was to settle the fate of the United States. The prayers of a hundred million Americans went with them. ”

“ For this purpose, they sent out fleets of ships across the Atlantic to these distant shores, laden with multitudes of men, who brought with them all manner of tools and implements wherewith to clear away the forests, till the soil, and build forts and cities, and arms to defend themselves against the [Pg 109] attacks of the war-like savages. Thus, for example, Spain colonized Mexico; France, Canada; and England, that strip of the North-American continent, lying between the Alleghany Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, now known as the eastern coast of the United States. ”

“ If, as soon as the fleet is repaired, which (in case they are treated as one is in a country one is not at war with,) would be done in three weeks from this time, the Count d'Estaing was to come around, the expedition seems to offer a very good prospect. If the enemy evacuates New York, we have the whole continental army, if not, we might perhaps have some more men, what number, however, I cannot pretend to judge. All that I know is, that I shall be very happy to see the fleet cooperating with General Washington himself. ”

“ The hardships and perils encountered by the members of the overland expedition in their great journey through an almost uninhabited region, a barren waste of ice and snow, facing death itself every day for nearly four months, over a route never before traveled by white men, with no refuge but at the end of the journey, carrying relief and cheer to 275 distressed citizens of our country, all make another glorious page in the history of American seamen. They reflect by their heroic and gallant struggles the highest credit upon themselves and the Government which they faithfully served. ”

“ The importance of a maritime force to the military operations of a country possessing an immense extent of sea coast must always be sensibly felt; and, in an early stage of the contest, the particular attention of the United Colonies was directed more immediately to this interesting object, by an event not very unusual in war, but which, at this time, excited no ordinary degree of resentment. ”

“ The United States understand that the purpose of the building, armament and equipment, and expedition of the vessel was one single criminal intent, running equally through the building and the equipment and the expedition, and fully completed and executed when the Alabama was finally despatched ”

“ The Navy has cooperated with the Army and rendered important services; if not so brilliant, it is because the enemy had no force to meet them on their own element and because of the defenses which nature has interposed in the difficulties of the navigation on the Mexican coast. Our squadron in the Pacific, with the cooperation of a gallant officer of the Army and a small force hastily collected in that distant country, has acquired bloodless possession of the Californias, and the American flag has been raised at every important point in that Province. ”

“ Two German officers detailed to topographical duty, who had spent years mapping Japan, and were engaged in the same work in British Columbia, jumped the border to the United States, taking with them their families, their information and their fine surveying and photographic instruments, and in the blocking out of the country which the wise men in the East were performing, were assigned to the White Mountains. Railroads and ships to the Atlantic seaboard bore every day new groups of reserve officers from the [Pg 31] Orient and South America to New York for sailing orders. ”

“ For the continued occupation of as large a territory as the United States, if they can oppose us for any length of time, [90] an important fighting force will be necessary, to protect the operating lines and to carry on a successful warfare. An invading operation will be difficult to reenforce, in that a second trip of the transport fleet will be required, in order to despatch the necessary number of troops, at such a great distance.
It is upon the whole questionable whether there is anything to be gained in occupying for any length of time so large a stretch of land as the United States. ”

“ President Jefferson accepted the estimate of $2500, and in his message of January 18, 1803, to Congress, he proposed the expedition. He urged that at this small expense a party of soldiers, well led, could in two summers map a trail clear to the western ocean; bring back valuable information upon climate, soil and peoples, and make Americans better acquainted with their own continent; also encourage the traders and trappers to use the Missouri River as a highway to and from the Indians, thus competing with the British of Canada. ”

“ Little indeed are the public aware of the difficulties and responsibilities attached to the command of an expedition of exploration;--the incessant toil, the sleepless hours, the anxious thoughts that necessarily fall to the share of the leader of a party under circumstances of difficulty or danger, are but imperfectly understood and less appreciated by the world at large. ”