The Nephite Art of War

Cover illustration found at http://www.authenticmaya.com/maya_warfare.htm, and is within the scope of fair use. Graphic design by Mary V. Kammeyer. Ms. Kammeyer’s website can be found at http://www.kammeyerdesigns.com.

The maps were scanned from An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, John L. Sorenson, (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1985). Used with permission of Professor Sorenson.

Chapter 1, Joseph Smith and the Art of War: Portrait of Joseph Smith by Sutcliffe Maudsley, 1842. Sketch of Nauvoo Legion by Robert Campbell, 1845. In the public domain.

Chapter 7, A World at War: Picture of Aztec nobles taken from Codex Mendoza, folio 67r. Image in public domain, but found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_clothing.

Chapter 9, Weapons: Picture of Aztec nobleman taken from Codex Ixtlilxochitl. Image in public domain, but taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_clothing.

Picture of Mayan warrior taken from page 413 of Warfare in the Book of Mormon. Used with permission of Professor Ricks.

Chapter 11, Fortifications: Reconstruction of Mayan fortress taken from John L. Sorenson, Images of Central America: Visualizing Book of Mormon Life, (Provo: Research Press, 1997), 133. Used with permission of Professor Sorenson.

Chapter 14, Israelite Battle Standards: Islamic flag was taken from the website http://www.fotw.net/flags/islam.html and falls under the doctrine of fair use.

Chapter 17: Kali’s Butter: Photo of imprint of dead German airman courtesy Imperial War Museum, 1916. In the public domain. Found at the Google entry on Heinrich Mathy.

Photos of dead British and German soldiers found at website: The Heritage of the Great War, at http://www.greatwar.nl. In the public domain.

Chapter 18, Blessed are the Dead: Photo of British gas casualties, 1918, courtesy Imperial War Museum. In the public domain.

Photo of American burial parties, US Army Signal Corps, 1918. In the public domain.

Chapter 21, Clausewitz on War: Picture of Clausewitz taken from the von Clausewitz Homepage, at http://www.clausewitz.com.

Chapter 22, The Imperatives of Command: Picture of Mayan warrior taken from page 411 of Warfare in the Book of Mormon. Used with permission of Professor Ricks.

Chapter 24, Mormon and the Imperatives of Command: Photo of Officers conducting operations from a bombproof bunker, by Frank Hurley, found at website: The Heritage of the Great War, at http://www.greatwar.nl. In the public domain.

Back cover: Drawing taken from page 402 of Warfare in the Book of Mormon. Used with permission of Professor Ricks.

Dedication

To our fallen comrades:

The officers and men of the Nephite armies.

They were not fighting for monarchy nor power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church. And they were doing that which they felt was the duty which they owed to their God; for the Lord had said unto them, and also unto their fathers, that: Inasmuch as ye are not guilty of the first offense, neither the second, ye shall not suffer yourselves to be slain by the hands of your enemies.

(Alma 43:45-46)

Preface

For many years, in college and the Reserves, the U.S. Army was an important part of my life and permanently colored my view of the world. This background led me to wonder about the constant warfare depicted in the Book of Mormon, particularly after Warfare in the Book of Mormon was published in 1990.

This book has another inspiration: The Mask of Command, by John Keegan, in an effort to study the nature of military leadership in the Book of Mormon. My commentary is admittedly speculative, but it is educated speculation based, first, on what we know about Mesoamerican geography and Book of Mormon societies. Second, it is based on what we know about the basic principles of ancient and modern warfare.

Armies are very systematic and cling tenaciously to predictable patterns of organization and behavior. This is called doctrine. If you can find one piece of an army, you can find the rest, and predict how the entire army will behave. It is a matter of fill-in-the-blanks. In my MIOBC, we learned that if we found a Soviet recon battalion, we could predict where to look on the map for the rest of the division, including its regiments, artillery and supporting units.

If we know Israelite military doctrine, and find evidence of it in the Book of Mormon, we can likewise fill in the gaps in Nephite doctrine, even if something is not referred to in the text. This worked out unexpectedly when I was studying the Battle of Cumorah. All I had to do was remember how the Nephites had made war for the past 500 years, and then the scanty details in the text told me how they had defended themselves.

A Note on Directions:

In 1985, Professor John Sorenson wrote a classic treatise on Book of Mormon geography. (1) His proposed maps have been the gold standard ever since, and were some of only a few that could be taken seriously. Every other location—New York, North America, Peru, Chile, the Amazon Basin, Narnia, Middle Earth, and the dark side of the Moon, etc.—could be quickly dismissed.

My experience with war-gaming the Book of Mormon seems to indicate his maps work extremely well. There was only one major problem, and that was in orienting the compass. To get his map to work seemed to require tilting directions about 90˚ counterclockwise from our own. (2) Their north was our west, etc. This would seem to make the sun come up in the south instead of the east. (3)

Professor Brant A. Gardner has recently published an article which suggests an ingenious solution. Mesoamerican directions, he writes, were not linear. (4) Europeans, he writes, visualize directions like points on a cross, N,S,E, and W. Mesoamericans tended to view directions like arcs on an X. North, for example, would be on the arc between what we would call NW to NE. (5) This is greatly simplifying the concept, but the X was defined by the arc of the sun, through the year, as it passed overhead from east to west, and thus the part of the X allotted to north and south, the less important directions, was smaller. (6)

Dr Gardner goes on to discuss Mesoamerican spatial concepts, but that would take us too far from our topic area. His treatise can be found at the Interpreter.com website.

In our discussion of Nephite warfare, I use the directions as given in the Book of Mormon so as to not conflict with the text. However, for the layman who doesn’t know his upslope hand from his downslope, it will help (although it is not strictly correct) to visualize the maps with north tilted counterclockwise.

Endnotes:

1. John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, (Salt Lake, Deseret, 1985).

2. Sorenson, Ancient American Setting, 38-42.

3. Brant A. Gardner, From the East to the West: The Problem of Directions in the Book of Mormon. Interpreter 3 (2013), 119-153, at 121.

4. Gardner, 123-125.

5. Gardner, 125-6.

6. Gardner, 126.

Introduction: The Nephite Art of War

It seems to me that in these days of increasing wars and rumors of wars a book showing how the Nephites coped with war would be both timely and useful. Academically, I come from the Political Science department, so I take a Poly Sci approach in analyzing Nephite warfare: how was it organized, how did it function systemically, what other forms of warfare did it resemble?

This book rests on the assumption that the Book of Mormon is a historical document proceeding from a specific time and place. It is not a history in the modern sense. Hugh Nibley wrote that one of the most popular forms of literature in 600 BC was the biography. (1) The intent was to show one had lived righteously and done his duty to God and his fellow man. It wasn’t, in the modern sense, an account showing chronologically everything he’d done in life. The Book of Mormon tends to be a series of biographies strung together, one prominent person after another. The war chapters of the book are part and parcel with the non-war chapters; they are all biographies.

Structurally, the Book of Mormon is a study in leadership, or failure of leadership. Often leaders are offered in pairs of antagonists: Nephi and his brothers; Jacob and Sherem; Noah and Abinadi; Alma and Korihor; Moroni and Amalickiah, and so forth. Indeed, to Mormon, the lives of Nephite leaders were more interesting than the details of Nephite history.

Militarily, he depicts the Nephite and Lamanite commanders he found the most interesting, which means those who contributed most to his own professional education: Gideon, Alma the Younger, Moroni, Amalickiah, Lehi, Teancum, Moronihah and Gidgiddoni.

The Book of Mormon has echoes of Clausewitz in that it is a study of warfare as a phenomenon, and not just as an event, and therefore has lessons and principles that transcend any one period of time. Mormon was interested in the interface between professionalism and righteousness in the commanders, and the interplay of politics, (or in his terms righteousness and wickedness) in the people, and how these affected the outcome of war.

Endnote:

Hugh W. Nibley,Since Cumorah, (Salt Lake, Deseret, 1968), 42-3 and 170-1.

Chapter 1: Joseph Smith and the Art of War

The recruit having received his necessaries, should in the first place learn to dress himself with a soldier-like air; to place his effects properly in his knapsack, so as to carry them with ease and convenience; how to salute his officers when he meets them; to clean his arms, wash his linen and cook his provisions. He should early accustom himself to dress in the night; and for that purpose always have his effects in his knapsack, and that placed where he can put his hand on it in a moment, that in case of alarm he may repair with the greatest alertness to the parade.

(Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, 1779.)

Why this Matters: Critics take as irrefutable the assumption that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, the unacceptable alternative being that he was inspired to translate the book. This begs the question as to whether he actually knew enough to write a book like this. The Book of Mormon bristles with military details, and a study of warfare can test his credentials. (1)

Joseph Smith’s Education: He was literate, in that he could read fairly well and do basic arithmetic, but his daily labors did not require writing, and his wife stated he was incapable of composing a coherent letter. He had never been out of rural Palmyra since he was ten years old, had no exposure to the wider world. There is nothing in Joseph Smith’s life-history to indicate he had had any worthwhile military exposure in 1828. He was a rustic in the most absolute sense of the term. Assuming he wanted to study military science in 1828, where would he have turned?

The Bible: The first place he could have turned to was the Bible. Could he have written a detailed account of Iron Age warfare out of the Bible? No. The Bible is full of accounts of battles, but nowhere does it give the technical data necessary for organizing an army. It says nothing about how to equip and train soldiers. Nothing about organizing companies, battalions and regiments, nothing about maneuvering them on the battlefield, or how to build a fortress. As a manual on military science, the Bible is useless.

Classical Literature: There are many treatises on military science dating from ancient times. A few examples from antiquity include:

Sun Tzu: The Art of War (4th Cen BC)

Xenophon: Anabasis (4th Cen BC)

Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War (4th Cen BC)

Polybius: The Histories (1st Cen BC)

Caesar: Commentaries on the Gallic Wars (1st Cen BC)

Vegetius: De Re Militari (4th Cen AD)

These would have taught him about the Iron Age warfare characteristic of the Book of Mormon. Skipping ahead a thousand years, we find:

Machiavelli: L’arte della Guerra (1521)

There is no evidence Joseph Smith had any access to these, or even had any idea they existed. Sun Tzu didn’t have an English translation until the 20th Century. The nearest public library was in Albany, New York, some days’ journey from Palmyra for the young Prophet. Most of these texts would have been available at the US Military Academy, at West Point, New York. There is no evidence he resorted to either place in search of military lore.

Contemporary Military Literature: The most influential military texts in Joseph Smith’s day were:

Marschal de Saxe:

Mes Reveries (1757)

Archduke Charles of Austria:

Grundsätze der Kriegskunst für die Generale (1806)

Grundsätze der Strategie erläutert durch die Darstellung des Feldzugs 1796 (1814)

Geschichte des Feldzugs von 1799 in Deutschland und in der Schweiz (1819) (2)

Also in print in 1828 were the early writings of Antoine-Henri, baron Jomini, but these were not available in English. The writings of Carl von Clausewitz were not published until after his death in 1831, and not translated into English until much, much later. Assuming Joseph Smith could have found versions in English, they would have taught him about the gunpowder warfare of his own era.

What about American literature? There was a great deal of American military literature afloat in 1828. Possibly the first treatise on warfare written by an American was the Plan of Discipline of Major Robert Rogers, who led the legendary Rogers’ Rangers in the French and Indian War and published his journal in Europe in 1769.

One of the most prolific military writers during the American Revolution was a British officer, Captain Thomas Simes. Between 1767 and 1785, he published some eight books of military instruction, including The Military Guide for Young Officers. This was reprinted in the US in a pirated edition in 1775 and was apparently quite popular among American officers, Washington himself having a copy.

The first indigenous textbook on warfare published in the US was the Blue Book, or Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, of Baron Friedrich von Steuben, published in 1779. It was the standard US Army operating manual until 1812, and all manuals since then are derived from it. I’ve read it. The Blue Book was primarily a staff-officers’ guide as to how to organize and administrate an army and was derived from Prussian practice. It dealt with elementary tactics, such as teaching the soldiers to march, and not with grand tactics, or how to operate armies on the field of battle. It is very basic instruction on how to be a soldier and how to organize up to the regimental level. As such, it is immensely useful, but does not specify how to conduct operations.

It was officially replaced in 1812 by the Regulations for the Field Exercise, Manoeuvres, and Conduct of the Infantry of the United States, Drawn up and Adapted to the Organization of the Militia and Regular Troops. This, in turn, was replaced in 1830 by a manual based heavily on Jomini.

Writing basic military manuals seems to have been something of a cottage industry in the early days of the American Republic; with a heavy reliance on amateur soldiers, there was a desperate need for written material. Every state had its favorite tactical manual, and sometimes several, depending on what part of a state we are considering. Among these was The American Military Library; or, Compendium of the Modern Tactics, by William Duane, printed in Philadelphia in 1809. Another, published in 1811, was the Practical Instructions for Military Officers: Comprehending a Concise System of Military Geometry, Field Fortifications, and Tactics of Riflemen and Light Infantry, by Epaphras Hoyt. Hoyt, according to Kent J. Goff, (3) aimed his treatise at militia leaders and was written on a basic level. (4)

There is no evidence Joseph Smith was familiar with any of these in 1828. And even he were, they would not have helped him write the Book of Mormon. The tactics, unit organization, rank structure, logistics, and fortifications of the Book of Mormon are completely different from anything he could have learned from contemporary sources. There is scarcely a single term-of-art in the Book of Mormon that matches modern usage. Writing this book has given me something of a grip on Book of Mormon warfare, but only after hunting down some fairly exotic references, none of them being modern military field manuals.

Military Schools: What formal military training would have been available to him, had he so desired? The US Military Academy at West Point, New York, was established in 1802 as a school for military engineers, not a school for training combat commanders. The early influence of West Point lay in engineering and the teachings of Dennis Hart Mahan. Mahan graduated from West Point in 1824, and taught mathematics and engineering from 1821 until the 1860’s. He wrote three standard treatises on field fortifications and defensive tactics, in 1836, 1850 and 1866-67. All field fortifications, on both sides of the Civil War, were based on Mahan’s principals.

Beginning in the 1840’s, Mahan began to teach basic courses on tactics, and the cadets established the Napoleon Society to discuss battles and tactics. According to Kent J. Goff:

Mahan also taught the course on military science taken by virtually every West Pointer who fought in the Civil War. Despite its odd title, his textbook, Elementary Treatise on Advance-Guard, Out-Post, and Detachment Service of Troops (1847, often reprinted), was America’s first comprehensive work on tactics and strategy. (5)

Goff goes on to state that:

Outpost was a manual for junior officers teaching them how to use skirmish troops and tactics to conduct detached operations, patrols, reconnaissances, convoys, and advanced guard operations. (6)

Formal tactical doctrine was left to field commanders and the War Department. Tactics and regulations were in flux, changing every twenty years. Scott’s Infantry Tactics, published in 1835, in turn replaced the manuals of 1812 and 1830.

Scott's tactics emphasized massed infantry concentrated on the march and on the battlefield, to maximize the effect of relatively inaccurate musket fire. (7)

Before Mahan’s work, written with a heavy European influence, there was no general treatise on grand tactics written by an American before the Civil War period, i.e., a study of what war is and how to conduct it. Indeed, there was no formal professional staff and command training in the US at all before the end of the Civil War. According to Goff:

The small prewar army was at a disadvantage in there being little military literature in English to use in the education of the officers and other ranks in the art of war. But it was an advantage in that a new system could be developed and distributed without having a body of knowledge to displace. Without a ready source of tactical doctrine, therefore, tactics would have to be originally developed, or the tactics of another major power could be adapted. (8)

On a professional level, the Summary of the Art of War, by the French theoretician Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini, first published in the US in 1854, was extremely influential.

The formal military education of 1828 would not have helped Joseph Smith write the Book of Mormon for the same reasons the available military treatises would not have—it taught 19th Century military science. It would not have told him how to fight Iron Age battles.

The Nauvoo Legion: So what formal training did the Prophet have? (Recognizing that it occurred long after the publication of the Book of Mormon.) I don’t know what treatises he read, but it would have been the same genre listed above.

The Nauvoo Legion was organized in 1840, as part of the Illinois state militia, and was authorized up to 5,000 men. At its peak it had perhaps 3,000. The term legion referred to a combined-arms unit, made up of two cohorts, one each of infantry and cavalry. (9) In practice, however, the Legion was almost entirely infantry.

Since about one-quarter of the adult population was active in the Legion, there was a confusing overlap between civilian and military status. It was hard to tell when someone was acting in one role or the other, and nearly all the Mormon leaders were also leaders in the Legion. Anti-Mormons scoff at the militarism in Nauvoo, as if Joseph Smith thought himself some reincarnation of Napoleon. There were certainly some over-inflated egos in the Legion, such as John C. Bennett, who thought himself a military genius. But, in general, it was typical of the patriotic militarism of the era, and the highfalutin’ titles and overheated rhetoric.

Joseph Smith’s potential as a military leader cannot be lightly dismissed. He was very bright, a voracious reader and quick study. He spent four years drilling with the Legion before his death, and many successful commanders (e.g., Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain) went into battle with far less experience. Even if Joseph Smith was a dunce-in-uniform, which he was not, there were a lot of West Pointers who were no better.

The people who dismiss Joseph Smith as a military leader are the same ones who characterize him as a charismatic buffoon, as a dull-witted superman, as Hugh Nibley put it, ignoring his very real achievements as a leader. Getting the Saints from Ohio to Missouri, and then to Illinois, required real talent on the part of the Prophet for organizing manpower and material resources and motivating people into action. His real achievements in practical leadership, under extremely trying conditions, were very great.

Critics also sneer at the Prophet’s supposed egomania in offering to lead 100,000 armed volunteers to explore the American west. In fact, he anticipated, without a war in sight, the manpower that would be sent to the Mexican War two years after his death. How much does a prophet know? Likewise, at his death, he was planning to send 500 Mormon volunteers to explore the Great Basin, which anticipates, again without a war in sight, the Mormon Battalion. How much did he know? Joseph Smith’s potential as a national leader should not be lightly dismissed.

I don’t know what drill manuals were used by the Nauvoo Legion—Scott’s Infantry Tactics of 1835 would have been state of the art. The uniforms, assuming they even had any, were circa 1815. Contemporary pictures show the Legion in uniform; contemporary descriptions say they drilled in hunting shirts and civilian clothing. (10)

The sham battles the Legion engaged in sound like a lot of parade-ground maneuvers. Equipment lists show the Legion had the standard mix of smoothbore muskets, for the line infantry, and a small number of rifles for the light infantry, the skirmishers. It also had three state-issued cannons. It was definitely an old-fashioned organization, before the début of the rifled musket ten years later. (11) Most of the Legionnaires would have been armed with anything they could get, from Hawken rifles to 100-year-old Brown Besses.

The history of the Nauvoo Legion again underscores that the military science Joseph Smith knew was that of his own era. The Iron Age warfare of the Book of Mormon was something completely different.

Conclusion: There was, during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, no indigenous American treatise on the nature of warfare. Manuals, such as the Blue Book, could have told him how to organize an army, but there was nothing to tell how to fight wars except to read about old battles. And even if he had had extensive military education and experience, it would have been in the warfare of his day. Searching for Book of Mormon warfare in Joseph Smith’s environment—or in his supposed study of the Old Testament—is a dead end. Therefore let us turn to what we now know about Old Testament warfare.

Endnotes:

1. Some critics argue the Book of Mormon is a manuscript stolen from Solomon Spaulding. Spauldings’only known writing, the Manuscript Found, actually makes an excellent test of what would have resulted had Joseph Smith tried to write the Book of Mormon based on his own knowledge. It’s pathetic. Anything Joseph Smith could have written would have been no better, and probably much worse, given his 3rd grade education.

2. Just try and find English translations, even today!

3. Website West Point in the History of the Making of America, Americanhistory.Si.Edu/Westpoint/History

4. For many additional American military texts from this period, see the bibliography to Roundshot and Rammers, Harold L. Peterson, (New York, Bonanza, 1969.)

5. Kent J. Goff, The Evolution of Skirmish Tactics in the U.S. Civil War, Mississippi Valley Educational Programs, Http:/www/mvep.org.

6. Goff.

7. A Brief History of U.S. Infantry Tactics (1855-1865), Http:/www.Usregulars.com/Drill_History.html

8. Goff.

9. See also Brigham Young University Studies 35/2 (1995), Officers and Arms: The 1843 General Return of the Nauvoo Legion’s Second Cohort, by Richard L. Saunders: 138-51.

10. Brigham Young University Studies 35/2 (1995),Picturing the Nauvoo Legion, by Glen M. Leonard: 94-115.

11. Among the weapons confiscated by the State of Illinois in June 1844 were 300 M1816 muskets, 67 rifles, 39 pairs of pistols, 67 sabers, and assorted pioneer tools, wagons and harness.

Part 1: The Book of Mormon and War

Chapter 2: Book of Mormon Warfare

Now, they were sorry to take up arms against the Lamanites, because they did not delight in the shedding of blood; yea, and this was not all—they were sorry to be the means of sending so many of their brethren out of this world into an eternal world, unprepared to meet their God. Nevertheless, they could not suffer to lay down their lives, that their wives and their children should be massacred by the barbarous cruelty of those who were once their brethren, yea, and had dissented from their church, and had left them and