ABSTRACT
The emergence of America as a great industrial power, combined with the growing popularity of imperialist ideas that called for a greater American role in global affairs, bolstered arguments for a larger, more modern, and more powerful fleet. The spring of 1867 marks the transition from Presidential Reconstruction to Congressional Reconstruction. In a sense, the army's duties during Reconstruction constituted its largest occupation mission before the twentieth century. During both Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction, one of the army's most important duties was maintaining peace and order. Violence was endemic in the American South following the Civil War, partly because law and order had broken down at war's end. The Southern insurgencies of the Reconstruction period were unique, though, in their political and racial objectives. During Reconstruction, the West absorbed most of the United States (US) Army's attention. Policing the frontier was the US Army's primary peacetime mission in the nineteenth century.
