The commander of the three-hundred-wagon Union supply train never expected a large ragtag group of Texans and Native Americans to attack during the dark of night in Union-held territory. But Brigadier Generals Richard Gano and Stand Watie defeated the unsuspecting Federals in the early morning hours of September 19, 1864, at Cabin Creek in the Cherokee nation. The legendary Watie, the only Native American general on either side, planned details of the raid for months. His preparation paid off--the Confederate troops captured wagons with supplies that would be worth more than $75 million today. Writer, producer and historian Steve Warren uncovers the untold story of the last raid at Cabin Creek in this Jefferson Davis Historical Gold Medal-winning history.
From a celebrated military historian, a powerful, “highly recommended” (Library Journal, starred review) account of the most pivotal year of the Vietnam War—the cataclysm that “continues to haunt American politics and culture” (Publishers Weekly). The Vietnam War was the greatest disaster in the history of American foreign policy. The conflict shook the nation to its foundations, exacerbating already deep cleavages in American society, and left the country baffled and ambivalent about its role in the world. Year of the Hawk is a military and political history of the war in Vietnam during 1965—the pivotal first year of the American conflict, when the United States decided to intervene directly with combat units in a struggle between communist and pro-Western forces in South Vietnam that had raged on and off for twenty years. By December 1965, a powerful communist offensive had been turned back, and the US Army had prevailed in one of the most dramatic battles in American military history, but nonetheless there were many signs and portents that US involvement would soon slide toward the tipping point of tragedy. Vividly interweaving events in the US capital with action in Southeast Asia, historian James A. Warren explores the mindsets and strategies of the adversaries and concludes that, in the end, Washington was not so much outfought in Vietnam as outthought by revolutionaries pursuing a brilliant, protracted war strategy. Based on new research, Year of the Hawk offers fresh insight into how a nationalist movement led by communists in a small country defeated the most powerful nation on earth and is “a well-researched overview of how America got into Vietnam—and why it shouldn’t have” (Kirkus Reviews).
Published under the auspices of the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati, Freedom: The Enduring Importance of the American Revolution is a narrative history of the War for Independence. It tells the pivotal story of the courageous men and women who risked their lives to create a new nation based on the idea that government should serve people and protect their freedom. Written for Americans intent on understanding our national origins, but also appropriate for teachers and secondary classrooms, Freedom argues that the American Revolution is the central event in our history: the turning point between our colonial origins and our national experience. This volume includes 167 full-color paintings, maps, illustrations, and photos—many of them seen only in historical institutions across the country! The Freedom narrative spans from the American Revolution’s origins in the nature of colonial British America—a society in which freedom was limited and in which everyone was the subject of a distant monarch—through the crisis in the British Empire that followed the French and Indian War, to the events of the War for Independence itself, and ultimately to the creation of the first great republic in modern history. This is the story of how Americans came to fight for their freedom and became a united people, with a shared history and national identity, and how a generation of founders expressed ideals of liberty, equality, natural and civil rights, and responsible citizenship: ideals that have shaped our history and will shape our future—and the future of the world.
During the Civil War, only Virginia and Tennessee saw more action than Missouri. Ulysses S. Grant first proved his ability there. Sterling Price, a former governor of Missouri, sided with the Confederacy, raised an army and led it in battle all over the state. Notorious guerrilla warriors "Bloody" Bill Anderson and William Quantrill terrorized communities and confounded Union military commanders. Brian Warren and Joseph "Whit" McCoskrie provide a chronological overview of more than three hundred of the documented engagements that took place within Missouri's borders, furnishing photos, maps, biographical sketches and military tactics.
In this first authorized biography of former Alabama governor John Patterson, he is revealed as a complex and likeable politician and jurist whose career was unfortunately blighted by decisions he later regretted on racial issues.
Moving through the jungle near the Cambodian border on May 18, 1967, a company of American infantry observed three North Vietnamese Army regulars, AK-47s slung over their shoulders, walking down a well-worn trail in the rugged Central Highlands. Startled by shouts of “Lai day, lai day” (“Come here, come here”), the three men dropped their packs and fled. The company commander, a young lieutenant, sent a platoon down the trail to investigate. Those few men soon found themselves outnumbered, surrounded, and fighting for their lives. Their first desperate moments marked the beginning of a series of bloody battles that lasted more than a week, one that survivors would later call “the nine days in May border battles.” Nine Days in May is the first full account of these bitterly contested battles. Part of Operation Francis Marion, they took place in the Ia Tchar Valley and the remote jungle west of Pleiku. Fought between three American battalions and two North Vietnamese Army regiments, this prolonged, deadly encounter was one of the largest, most savage actions seen by elements of the storied 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. Drawing on interviews with the participants, Warren K. Wilkins recreates the vicious fighting in gripping detail. This is a story of extraordinary courage and sacrifice displayed in a series of battles that were fought and won within the context of a broader, intractable strategic stalemate. When the guns finally fell silent, an unheralded American brigade received a Presidential Unit Citation and earned three of the twelve Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam.
This book argues that Jane Austin did know of the French Revolution and its effects on the European world, even though she never refers to it directly in her writing.
‘The Battle of April 19, 1775’ obviously deals with the fights in Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville and Charlestown, Massachusetts. The book contains one of the most comprehensive accounts of the battle ever printed. The narrative is based on official reports, sworn statements, diaries, letters, accounts given by participants and witnesses, and every other available source.
In North Carolina’s Free People of Color, 1715–1885, Warren Eugene Milteer Jr. examines the lives of free persons categorized by their communities as “negroes,” “mulattoes,” “mustees,” “Indians,” “mixed-bloods,” or simply “free people of color.” From the colonial period through Reconstruction, lawmakers passed legislation that curbed the rights and privileges of these non-enslaved residents, from prohibiting their testimony against whites to barring them from the ballot box. While such laws suggest that most white North Carolinians desired to limit the freedoms and civil liberties enjoyed by free people of color, Milteer reveals that the two groups often interacted—praying together, working the same land, and occasionally sharing households and starting families. Some free people of color also rose to prominence in their communities, becoming successful businesspeople and winning the respect of their white neighbors. Milteer’s innovative study moves beyond depictions of the American South as a region controlled by a strict racial hierarchy. He contends that although North Carolinians frequently sorted themselves into races imbued with legal and social entitlements—with whites placing themselves above persons of color—those efforts regularly clashed with their concurrent recognition of class, gender, kinship, and occupational distinctions. Whites often determined the position of free nonwhites by designating them as either valuable or expendable members of society. In early North Carolina, free people of color of certain statuses enjoyed access to institutions unavailable even to some whites. Prior to 1835, for instance, some free men of color possessed the right to vote while the law disenfranchised all women, white and nonwhite included. North Carolina’s Free People of Color, 1715–1885 demonstrates that conceptions of race were complex and fluid, defying easy characterization. Despite the reductive labels often assigned to them by whites, free people of color in the state emerged from an array of backgrounds, lived widely varied lives, and created distinct cultures—all of which, Milteer suggests, allowed them to adjust to and counter ever-evolving forms of racial discrimination.
In the 1970s, when most people thought about curling they thought it was just a game, something that could never be a real sport. Warren Hansen, a top curler in the seventies, felt curling wasn’t viewed fairly by the sports world. That needed to change. Hansen joined forces with Ray Kingsmith in the late 1970s to change this, setting out to get curling into the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary as a demonstration sport. They succeeded, but then it seemed like curling would never go beyond that demonstration. Three times curling applied to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for Olympic medal status. And three times, the IOC turned them down. Finally in June of 1992, at the IOC General Assembly in Barcelona, Spain, curling received the blessing of the executive committee as a full medal sport. Sticks ‘n’ Stones reveals what it took for curling to gain full medal sport status, from sheer determination to navigating the murky waters of politics of amateur, international and Olympic sport.
Hassler manages to bring the reader to the front without much delay and the action gets right to the point. Common among other 1st Day books in regards to Gettysburg are sometimes boring biographies of people involved. This book is a rather quick study of the general events that played out on July 1st, 1863.
Two authorities on trends in warfare join forces to create a taut, convincing novel set in the near future in which a besieged America battles for its very existence
Battle diaries are essential for understanding what generals are thinking as they work their way through the fog of battle. Nicholas Sarantakes juxtaposes the diaries of two very different generals who both fought at Okinawa: Lt. Gen. Buckner, a by-the-numbers man who favored the use of artillery and tanks to reduce entrenched positions, and Gen. Stilwell, a prickly outsider who preferred maneuver to set-piece battles. Sarantakes identifies individuals, includes explanations of important events alluded to by the generals and provides glossaries of main characters and military terms. The result is a record of how Buckner and Stilwell came to grips with the problems of command on a war-torn island at the end of a long logistical tether. With the background information provided by Sarantakes, the diaries of these men become accessible to the reader. Buckner is the more restrained, a southern gentleman whose career was average and whose diary entries are interspersed with letters to his wife. He shuttles between forward command posts and shipboard conferences, noting how much rain has fallen, how many enemy have been killed, and how many aircraft have been shot down. Stilwell is a self-styled outsider, a brilliant warrior with the social graces of a porcupine. He dislikes Buckner and has little patience for his irreverent humor. Stilwell writes, "Buckner is tiresome. I tried to tell him what I had seen, but he knew it all. Keeps repeating his wise-cracks. 'The Lord said let there be mud,' etc. etc." ( June 5, 1944). Stilwell's entries are peppered with frank and often acrid observations about everything and everybody. He dismisses the British as "hoggish, inconsiderate" Limeys and atomic scientists as "temperamental bugs." The battle for Okinawa was a pivotal event in World War II and has the distinction of being the single bloodiest conflict in the history of the United States Navy. The diaries of these two men provide a new perspective from which to evaluate the events. This book is a fascinating exploration of the art of leading troops in battle and will interest scholars and students of the Pacific War.
The military toll of World War I is widely known: millions of Britons were mobilised, many thousands killed or wounded, and the landscape of British society changed forever. But how was the conflict experienced by the people of Surrey on the home front? Surrey Heritage's project Surrey in the Great War: A County Remembers has, over the four-year centenary commemoration, explored the wartime stories of Surrey's people and places. The project's discoveries are here captured through text, case studies and images. This book chronicles the mobilisation of Surrey men, the training of foreign troops in the county, objection to military service, defence against invasion, voluntary work and fundraising, the experiences of women and children, shortages, industrial supply to the armed forces and the commemoration of Surrey's dead. Drawing heavily on the rich archives of Surrey Heritage, it is an engaging exploration of a county in the shadow of the first globalised war between industrialised nations.
Winston Churchill began his career as a junior officer and war correspondent in the North West borderlands of British India, and this experience was the beginning of his long relationship with the Islamic world. Overturning the widely-accepted consensus that Churchill was indifferent to, and even contemptuous of, matters concerning the Middle East, this book unravels Churchill's nuanced understanding of the edges of the British Empire. Warren Dockter analyses the future Prime Minister's experiences of the East, including his work as Colonial Under-Secretary in the early 1900s, his relations with the Ottomans and conduct during the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915-16, his arguments with David Lloyd- George over Turkey, and his pragmatic support of Syria and Saudi Arabia during World War II.Challenging the popular depiction of Churchill as an ignorant imperialist when it came to the Middle East, Dockter suggests that his policy making was often more informed and relatively progressive when compared to the Orientalist prejudices of many of his contemporaries.
In his study of the Vicksburg campaign, the author begins on March 29, 1863, when Ulysses S. Grant made his fateful decision to find an undefended landing spot on the Mississipi shore somewhere to the south of the city. In supporting the idea that the campaign grew out of a maze of interacting political, social, economic, geographic, military, and emotional considerations, he maintains that geography does not define who wins or loses, but only influences the ways in which campaigns and battles are waged. He illuminates the factors which participants weighed in making their decisions, thus providing insight on the decision-making process itself. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR
Drawing from a wealth of historic documents and personal papers, William Warren Rogers, Jr., provides a detailed political, economic, social, and commercial history of Montgomery, Alabama, from 1860 to 1865. Rogers's account begins with an examination of daily life in the city before the war and ends with the situation in Montgomery as set against a disintegrating Confederacy and the city's surrender to Union troops.
John Hay's distinguished national service began when he was Lincoln's private secretary and continued until up to his death as Secretary of State for two presidents. This book discusses Hay's own battles with depression and how he believed his condition to be similar to Samuel Johnson's in the 18th century as well as to his chief, Abraham Lincoln.
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