ABSTRACT
As this phase of military history commenced (1850-1900), the army was preoccupied with the safeguarding of the western acquisitions and the protection of the settlers in these lands from native threats (Report of the Secretary of War, 1850). In the wake of the defeat of our bordering neighbors in the Mexican-American War, the administrative efforts of the military shifted focus. With the close of the century, America had emerged as a world power with the effective defeat of the Spanish on the field of battle (Annual Report of the War Department, 1900). Though the United States remained engaged in the suppression of an insurrection in the Philippines, this new found status would help to usher in yet another phase of administrative changes. Through the years 1850 to 1900, military administration met with unique challenges. The United States engaged not only in her solitary experience of a Civil War and the aftermath of reconstructing the nation into a whole once again, as well as defeating foreign powers, but also brought to rest an issue that had plagued White America from her origins-the systematic demise of the American Indian. The great precedence established by Secretary of War John C. Calhoun (1817-1825) guided American military administration through the remainder of the nineteenth century.
