The Fourth at War - Part II
- Ray Via II
- 7 hours ago
- 8 min read
4th of July from Frontier Army to Global Superpower (1865–1945)
By Ray Via II
When the Civil War ended in 1865, the United States had built up one of the world’s largest armies. Within a few months, though, most volunteers returned home, leaving behind a smaller professional force stationed at remote frontier posts. To many Americans, it seemed like the last major conflict was finally over.
But for those who stayed in the Army, it signified the start of a new era of military campaigns.
In the next eighty years, American troops spent many Independence Days riding horseback across the Great Plains, storming beaches in Cuba, fighting in the Philippines, crossing trenches in France, landing on Pacific islands, and moving through Europe toward Nazi Germany.
By 1945, the nation that started on the Atlantic coast had become the world’s leading military power.
The Frontier Army and the Indian Wars
The post-Civil War Army bore little resemblance to the massive forces that had defeated the Confederacy.
By 1870, the Regular Army had around 37,000 officers and soldiers. They were stationed in forts from Texas to Montana and from Kansas to Arizona. Rather than facing large armies, they conducted long patrols, escorted settlers, protected railroads, guarded stage routes, and fought Native American tribes that resisted westward expansion.
Independence Day celebrations on the frontier were often brief affairs.
A small parade inside a fort.
A firing salute from the post artillery.
Perhaps a baseball game or horse race if operational demands allowed.
Beyond the stockade walls, patrols continued as they had the day before.
Four African American regiments created by Congress in 1866, the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry, became some of the Army’s most respected units. Native American tribes are said to have called these soldiers “Buffalo Soldiers,” a name that came to represent professionalism, endurance, and discipline.
Soldiers from these regiments spent many Independence Days riding across Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and the Dakota Territory. They escorted wagon trains, chased raiding parties, built roads, set up telegraph lines, and protected remote settlements.
Their efforts helped the federal government gain lasting control over the expanding American West.
The Spanish-American War
On April 25, 1898, the United States declared war on Spain.
Only ten weeks later, Independence Day arrived while American forces were fighting in Cuba and the Caribbean.
The centerpiece of the campaign was the drive against Santiago de Cuba.
On July 1, Major General William R. Shafter’s V Corps assaulted the Spanish defensive positions surrounding the city. Among the attacking units were the famed 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, better known as the Rough Riders under Colonel Leonard Wood and Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt.
Popular memory often places the Rough Riders at the center of the battle.
But the full history is more complex.
The key attacks on Kettle Hill and San Juan Heights relied heavily on the experienced regulars of Brigadier General Hamilton Hawkins’ 1st Infantry Brigade and the African American soldiers of the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments. Their disciplined advance under heavy fire helped capture the heights.
By July 4, Spanish forces remained trapped inside Santiago while Rear Admiral William T. Sampson’s North Atlantic Squadron maintained a naval blockade offshore. Only one day earlier, on July 3, Admiral Pascual Cervera had attempted to break out of the harbor.
The outcome was disastrous for Spain.
Commodore Winfield Scott Schley’s Flying Squadron and Sampson’s battleships destroyed or forced aground every major Spanish cruiser that tried to escape. The destruction of Cervera’s fleet ended Spanish naval power in the Caribbean and led to Santiago’s surrender on July 17.
The Fourth of July, 1898, therefore found American soldiers tightening the siege around Santiago while the smoking wrecks of Spain’s fleet continued to burn along the Cuban coast.
The Philippine-American War
Even after defeating Spain, American military operations continued.
Instead, a new conflict began in the Philippine Islands.
At first, American troops fought regular forces loyal to Emilio Aguinaldo, but the war soon turned into a long counterinsurgency across thousands of islands.
Unlike the campaigns in Cuba, operations in the Philippines seldom involved massive armies.
Small groups of soldiers patrolled jungles, mountains, villages, and coastlines. Officers often had to make decisions on their own, far from headquarters, based on local information and quick action rather than overwhelming firepower.
During these years, Independence Day often found American soldiers occupying isolated garrisons hundreds of miles apart.
The war also accelerated important changes in how the military was organized, supplied, and communicated, as well as advances in tropical medicine. These improvements later proved vital in the Pacific.
July 4, 1917: America’s First Independence Day at World War
When Congress declared war on Germany in April 1917, the United States had fewer than 130,000 Regular soldiers.
Just over a year later, the United States would have more than two million men serving in France.
On July 4, 1917, General John J. Pershing reviewed elements of the American Expeditionary Forces in Paris. During ceremonies at the tomb of the Marquis de Lafayette, Colonel Charles E. Stanton delivered words that entered American military history:
“Lafayette, we are here.”
Historians still debate the exact words and context of this famous phrase, but its meaning is clear.
Nearly 140 years after French soldiers crossed the Atlantic to aid the American Revolution, American soldiers had returned to Europe to defend France.
Most combat units had not yet entered the trenches.
The hard work of building, training, moving, and supplying such a large army still remained.
July 4, 1918: Fighting Beside the Marne
One year later, Independence Day looked entirely different.
American divisions now occupied active sectors of the Western Front.
Just weeks earlier, the 2nd Division, which included the 4th Marine Brigade and the Army’s 3rd Infantry Brigade, had fought one of the war’s key battles at Belleau Wood. Their determined defense helped stop the last major German offensive toward Paris.
Nearby, the 1st Infantry Division, 3rd Division, 26th “Yankee” Division, 42nd “Rainbow” Division, and numerous National Guard formations prepared for the offensives that would culminate at Saint-Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne later that year.
Independence Day was no longer purely a distant American holiday.
It had become simply another day in the trenches for American soldiers.
July 4, 1942: A Nation at Global War
No Americans faced more pressure on Independence Day than those serving during World War II.
By July 4, 1942, only seven months had passed since the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Yet the strategic situation had already begun to change.
Only weeks earlier, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz’s Pacific Fleet had defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy at Midway, sinking four Japanese fleet carriers while preserving America’s remaining carrier force.
Although this victory shifted the course of the Pacific War, both sides were still fighting for control.
On Independence Day, preparations for Operation Watchtower, the invasion of Guadalcanal, accelerated.
The 1st Marine Division under Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift trained intensively in New Zealand before embarking for what would become the first major Allied offensive against Japan.
Across the Atlantic, General Dwight D. Eisenhower assumed command of the European Theater of Operations.
American forces continued arriving in Britain as the Eighth Air Force prepared for the strategic bombing campaign that would eventually cripple German industry.
By this time, the United States had become a global military power.
July 4, 1943: Toward Sicily
By the next Independence Day, the Allies had improved significantly.
In North Africa, the Axis surrender in Tunisia had resulted in the capture of more than 250,000 German and Italian troops.
The next objective was Sicily.
Operation Husky, scheduled to begin on July 9, assembled one of the largest amphibious invasion forces in history.
General George S. Patton’s Seventh Army prepared to land along Sicily’s southern coast while General Bernard Montgomery’s British Eighth Army assaulted farther east.
American divisions such as the 1st, 3rd, and 45th Infantry and the 82nd Airborne completed their final practice runs over the Fourth of July weekend.
Thousands of soldiers celebrated Independence Day aboard crowded transport ships preparing to enter combat within days.
July 4, 1944: Across Two Oceans
July 4, 1944, might best show how America had become a global superpower.
In Europe, Allied armies remained locked in the Battle of Normandy.
Less than one month after D-Day, nearly one million Allied soldiers had landed in France.
General Omar Bradley’s First Army continued expanding the Normandy lodgment while General George S. Patton waited to unleash the newly activated Third Army during Operation Cobra later that month.
Divisions such as the 1st Infantry Division, 4th Infantry Division, 29th Infantry Division, 30th Infantry Division, 79th Infantry Division, 82nd Airborne Division, and 101st Airborne Division fought through the dense hedgerows of Normandy against determined German resistance.
Across the Pacific, another campaign approached its conclusion.
U.S. Marines and Army divisions fought hard to capture Saipan after weeks of intense combat. Taking Saipan put the Japanese home islands within reach of the new B-29 bombers and shifted the balance of power in the Pacific.
At the same time, American submarines kept up their unrelenting attacks on Japanese merchant ships, while carrier task forces moved across the Central Pacific after their decisive victory in the Battle of the Philippine Sea just weeks earlier.
By July 4, 1944, American military power reached across Europe, Asia, Africa, the Atlantic, and the Pacific all at once.
The country that once struggled to defend New York in 1776 now had millions of service members operating on every major ocean and continent.
The Fourth Becomes a Global Military Tradition
From Appomattox to the end of World War II, Independence Day changed along with the nation itself.
Buffalo Soldiers celebrated it from isolated frontier forts.
Regular Army regiments carried it into Cuba.
Volunteers and professionals observed it from remote Philippine outposts.
Doughboys marked it in the trenches of France.
Marines raised the flag during island campaigns thousands of miles from home.
Airmen flew bombing missions over occupied Europe.
Sailors steamed across oceans that earlier generations could scarcely have imagined crossing.
Each conflict expanded America’s military reach and its strategic responsibilities.
The Fourth of July turned out to be more than the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
It became a yearly reminder that American forces were now defending national interests far beyond the country’s borders.
In Part III, we’ll wrap up the series by looking at the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, the Global War on Terror, and the thousands of American service members who still stand watch around the world as the United States marks its 250th birthday.
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