ABSTRACT
The chapter explains the appeal of filibustering to men in the United States Army and explains why army personnel joined or aided filibustering expeditions in contravention of their obligation to uphold the Neutrality Act. The army held up a cultural mirror to its nation. To understand the army's place in the story of filibustering is to render more comprehensible the meaning of filibustering to America's civilians. Filibustering reached its apex before the Civil War, when thousands of Americans risked their lives in expeditions. To antebellum males coming of age, filibustering seemed less bizarre than it does to the modern mind. Accustomed to changing home and occupation, young American males found it easy to regard filibustering as just another move. Manifest Destiny convictions made some officers receptive to filibustering. The difference was that the age of Manifest Destiny had dissolved into new forms of expansion, and filibustering itself had a greatly reduced hold on the American scene.
