Operational Art In The Sioux War Of 1876 by Major James W. Shufelt Jr

Author:Major James W. Shufelt Jr. [Shufelt, Major James W. Jr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Criminals & Outlaws, Rich & Famous, Social Science, Ethnic Studies, Native American Studies, History, United States, 19th Century
ISBN: 9781782899556
Google: 5CZvCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2015-11-06T05:22:28+00:00

Section 5—Operational Art and the Sioux War of 1876

Operational art was a key factor in the design of Sheridan’s initial plans and the Army’s final victory over the Sioux Indians. In addition, flaws in its application help explain the initial failures of the campaign in the winter of 1876 and the June 1876 defeats of Crook and Custer. Sheridan, of course, was not personally cognizant of this modem term or its application to campaign design and execution. However, just as Grant was not familiar with the terms of operational art in 1864 and 1865, yet planned and conducted operations against the Confederacy demonstrating the value of its tenets, so too did Sheridan utilize operational art in his 1876 campaign against the Sioux Indians and their allies.

Using the terminology of the doctrinal definition of operational art, Sheridan appreciated that President Grant’s strategic objective was government control of the Black Hills. In turn, the military end-state that Sheridan’s forces had to accomplish to satisfy the strategic objective was establishment of peaceful conditions in the unceded territory through the defeat of the non-reservation Sioux. This defeat had to be so decisive that it would encourage the acquiescence of the reservation Sioux to the government’s demands. The means available to Sheridan were the military forces in the vicinity of the Sioux reservation and the unceded territory, while his preferred method for accomplishing this end-state was winter attack by converging columns.

Evaluation of Sheridan’s initial campaign plan against the requirements for operational art contained in FM 100-5 is also favorable. Sheridan had a broad vision of what it would take to defeat the Indians. Sheridan understood that the base causes of Indian unhappiness at the Agencies—primarily the lack of adequate rations—must be addressed, which, in his mind, could only occur with military control. Similarly, Sheridan anticipated the difficulty of attacking the Indian camps in the winter and understood the number of forces required to accomplish the task: he did, however, fail to anticipate the magnitude and temperament of the summer migration off the Agencies, the logical result of the failure of the Army’s winter campaign against the Sioux.

Despite the aforementioned failure to anticipate, Sheridan did understand the relationship of ends to means and was convinced that he had adequate forces to accomplish the assigned task. The last requirement for operational art, effective joint and combined cooperation, was also satisfied by this campaign. Sheridan’s forces utilized Indian scouts and auxiliaries, although more by subordinate initiative than by Sheridan’s directives or plans. In addition, Sheridan’s forces relied substantially on riverborne logistics support throughout the campaign.

This campaign also satisfies the various components of operational art presented by Schneider. The operations of Sheridan’s converging columns were naturally distributed operations, although this was as much a function of their pre-campaign garrison locations as it was conscious design. Sheridan’s plan of operations envisioned a distributed campaign. Sheridan did not expect a single decisive battle against the Indians; rather he anticipated numerous small fights by any one of the separate columns, wherever they discovered the Indians.

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