You are cordially invited to a lecture on the topic of
Andrew Jackson and America’s Civil-Military Relations
with
Samuel Watson
Professor of History at the United States Military Academy
Friday, April 28
12:00 PM
The Institute of World Politics
1521 16th Street NW • Washington, D.C.
Parking
This event is co-sponsored by the FPI Center for Military and Diplomatic History.
About the lecture: While Andrew Jackson is often viewed as a citizen-soldier and a leader of volunteers, he actually held the regular army in high esteem and had little regard for the processes of civilian control over military institutions and operations, particularly operations aimed at national territorial expansion. Officers under his command quickly adopted his views on civil-military relations and expansion. Between 1815 and 1821, the U.S. Army officer corps was Jackson’s sword, but after 1821, the army officer corps began to act as a force for restraint in American foreign relations. Dr. Watson will explain Jackson’s usurpations of civilian authority as a general, the transformation of the officer corps’ attitudes after 1821, and military subordination to civilian authority during Jackson’s Presidency.
About the speaker: Samuel Watson is professor of history at the United States Military Academy, where he teaches the full range of U.S. and military history. His research focuses on the U.S. Army between the Revolution and the war with Mexico. He is co-editor of the electronic textbook, The West Point History of Warfare, which won the 2016 Society for Military History/George C. Marshall Foundation Prize for the Use of Digital Technology Teaching Military History, and co-editor of The West Point History of the Civil War, which won the 2014 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award, and forthcoming The West Point History of the American Revolution. His books, Jackson’s Sword: The Army Officer Corps on the American Frontier, 1810-1821, and Peacekeepers and Conquerors: The Army Officer Corps on the American Frontier, 1821-1846,published by the University Press of Kansas, won the Society for Military History’s Distinguished Book Award in 2014.
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