20 - The Infantry's Story

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The U.S. Army Infantry, which calls Fort Benning home, has born the brunt of every major conflict involving the nation's military. Yet developing a program for effective infantry training came neither quickly nor easily. The first movement to shape the country's foot soldiers into a superior force came more than 200 years ago at the request of the general who became the first president of the United States.

Revolutionary forces commanded by General George Washington were barely surviving as they camped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania during the dreary winter of 1777. Washington realized that his tattered and shivering legion needed better training if there were to be any hope of winning against the well-schooled British army. He sought advice from the respected Prussian general, Baron Friedreich Wilhelm von Steuben.

Von Steuben agreed to help, but recognized the huge challenge he faced to mold the loose band of rebels into a disciplined, cohesive force. As one observer at the time noted, the colonial army "was the finest body of troops he had ever seen out of step." Von Steuben's own assessment was that the Continental Army was a disgrace. "There was no uniformity of drill, no similarity of organization, and no teamwork of any kind," wrote Leroy Yarbrough, first lieutenant of infantry, in an unpublished 1931 history of Fort Benning. No two companies drilled alike, and they all drilled poorly.

But von Steuben was resourceful and energetic and known for his tact. He established standard drill exercises and taught them patiently, but relentlessly to the troops. Once he saw progress, he chose those most adept at military formations to demonstrate for the rest to emulate. This practice of using the best troops to model techniques and tactics became fundamental in military training, continuing long after the Revolutionary War. For his efforts, von Steuben is known as the "Father of the U.S. Infantry."

When the Revolutionary War ended and victory and freedom were assured, the public lost interest in the military. Funding was scarce for training as the new government struggled to organize, and the reforms begun by von Steuben were almost forgotten. Instruction became virtually nonexistent for military officers in how to lead and organize troops. By the time the War of 1812 began, the United States Army was as disorganized as before von Steuben arrived on the scene. There was little spirit and no unity.

The demands of the War of 1812 renewed efforts to increase military efficiency. The Army brass borrowed ideas from the French military about how to instill discipline throughout the ranks. By 1815, a board of officers, including General Winfield Scott, issued regulations to be followed by every infantry unit. But once again when the war ended, public interest faded in funding military training.

There were, however, voices arguing that military schooling should continue in peace times as well as during war. Major General Edmund P. Gaines, after a protracted effort to get the attention of officials in Washington, D.C., finally won permission from the War Department to open an infantry school in 1826 at St. Louis, Missouri. The school instructed both enlisted men and officers in tactics and military organization. Funding from the U.S. Congress was insufficient, however, and the facility closed within two years, doomed by lack of public support.

The next several decades found the Army in sporadic battles with Native Americans and waging a controversial war with Mexico. Elected officials made little effort to use the Army to restrain settlers from encroaching on land set aside by treaty for Indians. A repeated pattern occurred of whites settling in Indian territory, the Indians attacking, and then the military being ordered to intervene to protect settlers. The battles, spread out over hundreds of miles, dispersed Army units and resources. The military was too scattered and its energies too focused on immediate tasks to allow much improvement of overall training.

There were military schools, however. West Point, the Virginia Military Institute, and the Citadel trained officers including Robert B. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and others involved in the Mexican War, Civil War, or both.

Nonetheless, it took another conflict, the Civil War, to spur further infantry training. Union forces even published a manual on infantry tactics. Still, neither the Union nor the Confederacy established an infantry training school.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, during the last half of the 1800's, there were various attempts at upgrading infantry tactics and drills, usually in the form of government publications. Germany and France developed postgraduate military schools, and the United States followed suit in 1881, establishing a command and staff school at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. This gave way to the Riley Service School for Cavalry and Sill School for Field Artillery, but there was still no school for the infantry. Knowledge about effective use of the cavalry and artillery leaped forward, while information about the infantry lagged behind. The esprit de corps in both the cavalry and artillery units became the envy of the infantry.

Various military leaders recommended that a separate school be established for the infantry, but they were ignored, perhaps because there was a perception that Americans tended to be excellent shots before they entered the Army and therefore didn't need much additional instruction. However, by the turn of the century, this perception faded as marksmanship gradually began declining.

The waning rifle skills didn't alarm everyone within the Army, but Lieutenant General Arthur MacArthur grew concerned. MacArthur, commander of the Army's Pacific Division, including California, Oregon, and Washington, pushed for and obtained permission to open the School of Musketry to train soldiers stationed on the West Coast. The school opened in 1907 at the Presidio in San Francisco and became a key forerunner for Fort Benning's development.

Instructors taught officers and enlisted personnel shooting skills. They also shared theory about the use of rifles, pistols, and machine guns, and showed how different weapons were made. In particular, they demonstrated the paths different kinds of bullets might take and how various types of ammunition should be carried into battle.

Training was intensive. In their first trips to the firing range, everyone had a coach, a teaching method that became a staple of military instruction. Classroom work was also exhaustive. In one course, for example, everyone was issued different weapons used by soldiers of other countries. They were told to learn everything they could about the weapons, including the names of every part. Each student then had to lecture the class about the weapons he was assigned and disassemble and reassemble them, another example of students teaching one another. Graduates then returned to their respective units to teach their fellow troops.

The Army now had within its arsenal high-powered, small-caliber rifles, but little study had been done on their potential impact on battle tactics. General Arthur MacArthur envisioned that the School of Musketry would be used for such research and for wide-ranging experimentation. Everything from rifle sights, to targets, to silencers, to machine-gun cooling devices was tested at the school.

One officer testing a new Colt pistol discovered he could shoot the gun without touching the trigger simply by moving the safety, a switch designed to prevent the gun from firing accidentally. However, Colonel Marion Maus, president of the school's testing board, didn't believe it was possible to shoot a gun that way and tried to prove it. But when he jiggled the safety, the gun went off firing right at Maus' foot. The bullet ricocheted off his boot toe, leaving an impressive nick, but no wound.

Particular attention was paid to experimenting with and teaching about the machine gun, a weapon many in the Army still thought would never have much practical use. President Theodore Roosevelt recommended that Captain John H. Parker be assigned to the Presidio in 1908. Known as "Gatling-Gun Parker," he fought beside Roosevelt during the charge up Cuba's San Juan Hill in the Spanish American War of 1898. Parker commanded a Gatling-gun platoon during the battle. The conflict made Roosevelt a national hero, eventually helping propel him to the White House.

Many of Parker's theories about how the weapon would affect strategies proved accurate in World War I. His job at the Presidio was to cooperate with instructors in the School of Musketry while writing a booklet on machine-gun use.

There were many tests made on machine-gun capacity at the School of Musketry, but skepticism about the weapon persisted in the Army. Critics scoffed at the weapon, saying it was too complicated ever to be much use. Some argued that the machine gun was being promoted by "youthful cranks" whose ideas were "absolutely nutty."

Even by 1914, Army regulations recognized the machine gun as merely a weapon for emergencies. But in 1917, when the country became engulfed in World War I, the machine gun had already proved deadly effective for Europeans in trench warfare. Experimentation carried on at the School of Musketry had been ahead of its time and probably saved American lives. Knowledge gained at the school about the machine gun was used in training troops before they headed overseas.

Staff members at the School of Musketry were also among the first to anticipate that the airplane would be significant in combat and seriously menace ground troops, predictions that came true in World War I. Students experimented at the school in ways to ward off attack from above by firing rifles and machine guns at high-flying box kites, stand-ins for airplanes.

The School of Musketry succeeded so well that within a few years there were powerful voices urging that the sch6ol be moved to a more central location and made national in scope, which happened in 1913 when the school relocated to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The new site was open only a short while when President Woodrow Wilson ordered a massing of troops in Texas because of civil war in Mexico. Efforts to improve infantry training were again set aside for two years, and the school closed.

The Oklahoma School of Musketry reopened in 1915, but operated sporadically as American soldiers were again called into action because of trouble in Mexico. Francisco (Pancho) Villa, a rebel and bandit, captured a train in northern Mexico in 1916, seized 16 Americans, and ordered them shot. His aim was to provoke war between the United States and his country, headed by a former Villa ally who had turned against him. Then Villa brazenly invaded the United States with a force of about 400 men. They attacked Columbus, New Mexico, partially burning the town and killing 19 people before fleeing back into northern Mexico. American troops hurriedly gathered along the border to protect residents. Other soldiers, lead by General John J. Pershing, pursued Villa into Mexico. Although they didn't capture the guerilla leader, his attacks across the border ceased.

Training for American troops continued to have a tenuous foothold. Any time there was a flare-up of tensions in Mexico, the War Department suspended operations at military schools. When the School of Musketry did operate, conditions for the officers stationed there were far from ideal. They lived in cold stone buildings in the winter of 1915-1916 that were in "terrible shape," according to one of the faculty. Repairs made to the housing that winter only seemed to make matters worse.

As one officer recalled, "They tore off the porches [and] built new ones. [They] tore down kitchens [and] built new ones. [They] took out the windows and put in new ones." The officer added, "I had two small children and my poor wife had a terrible time the first winter we were there. I remember one day she telephoned me frantically to come to the house, as the workmen had both front and back of the house in such shape that she and the children were prisoners... All the other officers had the same experience."

The entry of the United States into World War I caused major changes at the School of Musketry. The United States, led by President Woodrow Wilson, had repeatedly tried to steer clear of the conflict that erupted in 1914 between the Allies, primarily armies of France, England, and Russia, against forces aligned with Germany. The neutrality began to unravel on May 7, 1915, when a German submarine fired a torpedo into a British passenger ship, the Lusitania, which sank in 18 minutes off the coast of Ireland. There were 128 Americans among the 1,198 people who drowned.

The Germans used submarine warfare sporadically after that against American shipping. They stopped their attacks briefly each time President Wilson expressed dismay at the killing of innocents and threatened to break off diplomatic relations. England, with its powerful navy, was blockading Germany, squeezing its economy, while England continued to receive trade goods from the United States.

In 1917, the German high command took a calculated gamble to unleash unrestrained submarine warfare against all shipping in the Atlantic Ocean and risk bringing the United States into the war. By launching repeated attacks, the Germans thought that they could cut off crucial supplies from reaching England, causing it to pull out of the war before the Americans could marshal enough forces in Europe.

The strategy almost worked. In April, President Wilson delivered his message of war to Congress. In the same month, German submarines sank a number of ships weighing nearly 900,000 tons. Whether the United States and its allies could win the war hinged on whether the frightening loss of shipping could be stemmed and if Americans could train enough soldiers quickly to blunt the German offensive in Western Europe.

The solution to the shipping problem was to group tankers and cargo ships into convoys protected by warships. Within six months after the United States entered the war, the tonnage sunk by German submarines reduced to a third of what it had been. The United States also began mobilizing an army. General John J. Pershing set a goal of having a million American soldiers in Europe by the summer of 1918.

Against this backdrop, the School of Musketry at Fort Sill, Oklahoma was renamed the Infantry School of Arms. The change was significant. For the first time, the school was officially an institution of the infantry. The use of the word "arms" in the title was also important recognition that the single shot rifle was no longer the dominating infantry weapon. There was a whole host of new warfare technology. Now on equal footing with the rifle were machine guns, automatic rifles, grenades, and mortars. Students now also learned how to protect themselves from poison gas, already being used in Europe.

The Infantry School of Arms expanded rapidly. The contingent of soldiers assigned to help maintain the facility jumped from 94 to 428. The number of instructors and students ballooned as well. Hundreds of officers were trained during the first year. They hailed from every state of the country and represented virtually every background. These were soldiers who once worked as bank presidents, farmers, industrial leaders, and laborers. Former noncommissioned officers from African-American regiments were among the students.

Discipline was rigorous and the hours long, underscoring the urgency pushing the entire Army. Class time normally lasted ten hours a day, but sometimes work extended to as much as 14 hours. One observer remembered, "An instructor rose at six and retired at eleven [at night], [but only] if his papers were corrected and he had the programs and schedules prepared."

The rigorousness undoubtedly contributed to successes on the battlefields and saved American lives. The school was so successful that top military brass wanted to expand the concept. The only question was where to move the school. Fort Still was seriously over crowded. Students were wedged together in cramped barracks where there was barely enough space for all the beds and lockers.

The school's machine gun training was ordered to move in the summer of 1918 to Camp Hancock, near Augusta, Georgia. The Army also opened a school at Camp Perry, Ohio to train instructors in marksmanship. Both schools would soon be located at Fort Benning.

At the same time, several Army committees began searching for a new, more spacious location for the Infantry School of Arms. Eventually, the Army high command selected Columbus, Georgia.

The Infantry School of Arms left Oklahoma by early October 1918, heading for its new home, about three miles from downtown Columbus, near what today is a large shopping center-the Columbus Square Mall on Macon Road. (A sign commemorates the original camp at the intersection of Mimosa and Dixon roads.)

On October 19, this temporary camp was officially named Camp Benning. Anna Caroline Benning, daughter of Confederate General Henry Benning, raised the first American flag over the post.

Army leaders quickly concluded that Camp Benning's location wasn't large enough to accommodate the infantry school. They decided to move about nine miles from the city into an area dominated by an 1,800 acre plantation owned by Arthur Bussey. This new site for Camp Benning was primarily south and east of the intersection of Upatoi Creek and the Chattahoochee River.

At the same time, however, World War I, was drawing to a close. The war's conclusion would imperil Camp Benning's existence and change some local residents' favorable perceptions about the military reservation.

By the end of 1917, Russia had left the war, and revolution had brought Nikolai Lenin and the Communist Party to power. The German army withdrew from the eastern front, moving a vast army into western Europe. In early 1918, German leaders began a massive offensive they hoped would crush the Allies before many American soldiers could arrive to help.

In March, German forces crashed through French and British forces near the Somme River, not far from the Normandy Coast. Allied armies staggered back under the fierce attack, but somehow managed to reorganize their defenses and prevent a complete collapse. The situation seemed desperate. The Allied armies were outnumbered by 300,000 men.

American soldiers had begun streaming into France, at times at a rate of more than 250,000 per month. Still, the momentum was with the Germans. By late May, German forces drove to within 50 miles of Paris, pounding French and American armies. After a week of bitter fighting, however, the Allies held their ground. Then the Americans counter attacked, recapturing an area known as Belleau Wood.

By mid summer, the Americans had more than a million soldiers in France, just as General John J. Pershing had wanted. By August, his forces began a major assault near the French town of Verdun. An American soldier described the battle in his diary. "Bullets, millions of them, flying like rain drops. Rockets and flares in all directions. Shrapnel bursting the air and sending down its deadly iron.... Every minute looking for the next to be gone to the great beyond.

"A mad dash for 50 feet and then look for cover. A stop for a minute and then the barrage would lift.. and then another mad rush. Always leaving some of your comrades cold in the face of death... The field of dead a terrible sight. Both Americans and German. A day never to be forgotten."

In September, the Americans surged forward again in the Argonne Forest, not far from France's border with Belgium. The assault, along a 24-mile front, bogged down in difficult terrain in the face of fierce German resistance.

The Americans reorganized and then surged forward again. General Pershing later said that the battlefield was "a vast network of uncut barbwire, [with] deep ravines, dense woods, myriads of shell craters, and a heavy fog." The American campaign lasted 47 days.

Somehow the Americans endured and kept moving forward, surprising even leaders of Allied forces who didn't think it possible to make progress against such a formidable defense.

The battle for control of the Argonne Forest was the largest ever fought by Americans. More than a million soldiers were involved. The Americans expended more ammunition and explosives than Union forces used in the entire Civil War.

The Americans and other Allies were poised to invade Germany. German leaders, realizing the fight was hopeless, negotiated an armistice on November 11, 1918, effectively ending the war.

About 100,000 Americans had died, victims of enemy shells or disease. European casualties were much higher. More than one million French were killed and 900,000 British. Germany suffered similar losses.

With the war over, powerful voices urged that the infantry training center near Columbus should be closed and abandoned. A new fight was about to begin for the survival of Camp Benning.

Chapter 21: Politics and Persistence

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