Army Response    
Serving in the final year of his presidency, Jackson took a personal, almost obsessive hand in strategy. In memos,
he dictated an array of tactics, from how to deal with the enemy's captured horses to the importance of finding "the deposit for their
women," which Jackson considered paramount. On the subject of fugitive slaves, his orders were explicit, as Cass later recounted:
"General Scott was directed to allow no pacification with the Indians while a living slave belonging to a white man remained in their possession."
The President had charged the Army with hunting down and recovering fugitive slaves. The task would eventually blacken the corps and, in retrospect, push the country down the long path toward civil war.
  
Sources:
ASPMA 6: 56-58, 439, Remini 3: 310-11. ©
Part 2, War: l |
