Chapter 2 shows how officers and enlisted men related to one another. Both groups were white, but where many officers were middle class, enlisted men were often poor immigrants with unstable access to white men’s privileges in the Jacksonian Era. Officers had to hold the army together to fight a war, and they could not do it by punishment alone. Much as officers sought to tame the Florida wilderness and the Seminole people, they sought to gentle their soldiers. As the regulars fought their enemies and struggled with each other, a shared culture emerged, premised on the common ideal that regulars should protect women. Hierarchical white male unity – based on the concept of the army family in which all military men protected and subordinated all women – helped the army function. This framework appealed to paternalistic officers because it allowed for intense distinctions (of rank) between white men. In this climate, although rhetoric rooted in the need to protect women could bolster army cohesion, it could also serve as a weapon. Soldiers used such language to rebut officers’ claims of superiority.