two regiments since three cavalry regiments in a brigade required too much road space. The division's strength stood at 10,161, approximately 4,000 fewer men than the 1910 unit.[1]
To complement the 1914 tables of organization, Maj. James A. Logan revised the 1910 Field Service Regulations. The new edition emphasized the division as the basic organization for conducting offensive operations in a mobile army. Logan defined the division as "A self-contained unit made up of all necessary arms and services, and complete in itself with every requirement for independent action incident to its operations."[2] His definition became the customary description of a division.
Operations on the Mexican Border, 1913–1917
The Mexican border remained a troubled area. Following the mobilization of 1911, the Army patrolled the frontier with small units, but when insurrectionists overthrew the Mexican government in 1913, President Taft decided on a show of force similar to the earlier concentration of troops. On 21 February he ordered Maj. Gen. William H. Carter, commander of the Central Department, to assemble the most fully manned of the Army's divisions, the 2d, on the Gulf coast of Texas. Unlike its mobilization of the Maneuver Division in 1911, the War Department used a mere five-line telegram to deploy the unit. Carter, who arrived with his staff in Texas within three days, established the division headquarters and its 4th and 6th Brigades at Texas City and the 5th Brigade at Galveston. The division lacked, however, some field artillery, medical, signal, and engineer elements and all its trains.[3]
Tension remained high between the United States and Mexico in 1914, and in response President Woodrow Wilson adjusted the deployment of military units to protect American interests. United States naval forces occupied Vera Cruz, Mexico, and soldiers soon relieved the sailors ashore. On 30 April the 5th Brigade, 2d Division, augmented with cavalry, field artillery, engineer, signal, bakery, and aviation units, and almost the entire divisional staff took up positions in the city. To placate uneasy United States citizens along the border, the 2d and 8th Brigades, elements of the 1st and 3d Divisions, and some smaller units moved to the southern frontier. In November the crisis at Vera Cruz ended and the 5th Brigade returned to Galveston, but activity resumed the following month when the 6th Brigade, 2d Division, deployed to Naco, Arizona. For the next few months no major changes took place in the disposition of forces. Then, in August 1915, a hurricane hit Texas City and Galveston, killing thirteen enlisted men and causing considerable damage to the 2d Division's property. Officials in Washington decided that the division was no longer needed there and ordered its units moved to other posts in the Southern Department. The divisional headquarters was demobilized on 18 October 1915.[4]
Before the Vera Cruz expedition, General Carter had evaluated the 2d
- ↑ TO, 1914, pp. 14, 23; Report on the Organization of Land Forces, pp. 104–05.
- ↑ Field Service Regulations 1914, p. 10.
- ↑ Rpt of the Sec. of War, ARWD, 1912, pp. 13–14; Rpt of the Sec. of War and Rpt of the Second Division, ARWD, 1913, pp. 9–10, 113; Thomas P Burdett, "Mobilizations of 1911 and 1913," Military Review 53 (Jut 1974): 72.
- ↑ Frederic L. Huidekoper, Military Unpreparedness of the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1915), pp. 446–48; Rpt of the C of S, 1914, and Rpt of TAG, ARWD, 1914, pp. 135–36, 179; Rpt of the C of S and Rpt of TAG, ARWD, 1915, pp. 151–52, 211–12; Clendenen, Blood on the Border, p. 162; Burden, "Mobilizations of 1911 and 1913," p. 72: Rpt of TAG, ARWD, 1916, p. 278.
