William Henry Harrison Clayton was one of nearly 75,000 soldiers from Iowa to join the Union ranks during the Civil War. Possessing a high school education and superior penmanship, Clayton served as a company clerk in the 19th Infantry, witnessing battles in the Trans-Mississippi theater. His diary and his correspondence with his family in Van Buren County form a unique narrative of the day-to-day soldier life as well as an eyewitness account of critical battles and a prisoner-of-war camp.
Clayton participated in the siege of Vicksburg and took part in operations against Mobile, but his writings are unique for the descriptions he gives of lesser-known but pivotal battles of the Civil War in the West. Fighting in the Battle of Prairie Grove, the 19th Infantry sustained the highest casualties of any federal regiment on the field. Clayton survived that battle with only minor injuries, but he was later captured at the Battle of Stirling's Plantation and served a period of ten months in captivity at Camp Ford, Texas.
Clayton's writing reveals the complicated sympathies and prejudices prevalent among Union soldiers and civilians of that period in the country's history. He observes with great sadness the brutal effects of war on the South, sympathizing with the plight of refugees and lamenting the destruction of property. He excoriates draft evaders and Copperheads back home, conveying the intra-sectional acrimony wrought by civil war. Finally, his racist views toward blacks demonstrate a common but ironic attitude among Union soldiers whose efforts helped lead to the abolition of slavery in the United States.
D-Day, the Allied invasion of northwestern France in June 1944, has remained in the forefront of American memories of the Second World War to this day. Depictions in books, news stories, documentaries, museums, monuments, memorial celebrations, speeches, games, and Hollywood spectaculars have overwhelmingly romanticized the assault as an event in which citizen-soldiers—the everyday heroes of democracy—engaged evil foes in a decisive clash fought for liberty, national redemption, and world salvation.
In D-Day Remembered, Michael R. Dolski explores the evolution of American D-Day tales over the course of the past seven decades. He shows the ways in which that particular episode came to overshadow so many others in portraying the twentieth century’s most devastating cataclysm as “the Good War.” With depth and insight, he analyzes how depictions in various media, such as the popular histories of Stephen Ambrose and films like The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan, have time and again reaffirmed cherished American notions of democracy, fair play, moral order, and the militant, yet non-militaristic, use of power for divinely sanctioned purposes. Only during the Vietnam era, when Americans had to confront an especially stark challenge to their pietistic sense of nationhood, did memories of D-Day momentarily fade. They soon reemerged, however, as the country sought to move beyond the lamentable conflict in Southeast Asia.
Even as portrayals of D-Day have gone from sanitized early versions to more realistic acknowledgments of tactical mistakes and the horrific costs of the battle, the overarching story continues to be, for many, a powerful reminder of moral rectitude, military skill, and world mission. While the time to historicize this morality tale more fully and honestly has long since come, Dolski observes, the lingering positive connotations of D-Day indicate that the story is not yet finished.
In the fall of 1862, after a leadership shake-up initiated by Lincoln, Gen. Ambrose Burnside assumed command of the Army of the Potomac and developed an aggressive plan to attack the Confederate capital of Richmond. However, in order to reach Richmond, Burnside had to march through Fredericksburg, where Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was well entrenched. After crossing the Rappahannock River under enemy fire, Burnside and his troops engaged Lee’s army within the city, then launched a futile frontal assault against a heavily fortified ridge west of Fredericksburg. The end result was a decisive victory for the Confederacy, as the Union army suffered more than double the number of casualties as its foes. Burnside would resign a month later but would resurface as war in the Western Theater grew heated.
Decisions at Fredericksburg explores the critical decisions made by Confederate and Union commanders during the battle and how these decisions shaped its outcome. Rather than offering a history of the battle, Chris Mackowski hones in on a sequence of critical decisions made by commanders on both sides of the contest to provide a blueprint of the Battle of Fredericksburg at its tactical core. Identifying and exploring the critical decisions in this way allows students of the battle to progress from knowledge of what happened to a mature grasp of why events happened.
Complete with maps and a driving tour, Decisions at Fredericksburg is an indispensable primer, and readers looking for a concise introduction to the battle can tour this sacred ground—or read about it at their leisure—with key insights into the campaign and a deeper understanding of the Civil War itself.
Decisions at Fredericksburg is the eleventh in a series of books that will explore the critical decisions of major campaigns and battles of the Civil War.
The largest battle fought in Kentucky during the American Civil War occurred at a small, crossroads town named Perryville. As Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Confederate Heartland Offensive sputtered through Kentucky, Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s reformed Army of the Ohio pursued the Army of the Mississippi and clashed with its rearguard just outside Perryville. Believing that he faced only a part of Buell’s army, Bragg ordered an assault on the Union left flank which resulted in Confederate victory. However, that evening Bragg determined the Army of the Ohio outnumbered him three to one and quickly decided to retreat. Outmanned, outmaneuvered, and lacking supplies and reinforcements, Bragg retreated through the Cumberland Gap into East Tennessee, and Kentucky remained in Union control for the rest of the Civil War.
Decisions at Perryville explores the critical decisions made by Confederate and Union commanders during the battle and how these decisions shaped its outcome. Rather than offering a history of the battle, Larry Peterson hones in on a sequence of critical decisions made by commanders on both sides of the contest to provide a blueprint of the Battle of Perryville at its tactical core. Identifying and exploring the critical decisions in this way allows students of the battle to progress from a knowledge of what happened to a mature grasp of why events happened.
Complete with maps and a driving tour, Decisions at Perryville is an indispensable primer, and readers looking for a concise introduction to the battle can tour this sacred ground—or read about it at their leisure—with key insights into the campaign and a deeper understanding of the Civil War itself.
Decisions at Perryville is the eleventh in a series of books that will explore the critical decisions of major campaigns and battles of the Civil War.
The successive battles of The Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House opened Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s 1864 Overland Campaign. As the first confrontation between Union and Confederate leaders Grant and Gen. Robert E. Lee, these two bloody battles signaled the new reality of war. The fighting at the Battle of The Wilderness, immediately followed by the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, was costly for both sides, and while the Union army could replace its losses, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia could not. It would be exactly one year from Grant’s orders to Gen. George G. Meade stating that Lee’s army would be his objective until the surrender at Appomattox.
Decisions at The Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House introduces readers to critical decisions made by Confederate and Union commanders throughout the two costly meetings. Dave Townsend examines the decisions that prefigured the action and shaped the course of each battle as it unfolded. Rather than a linear history of the battles, Townsend’s discussion of the critical decisions presents readers with a vivid blueprint of the battles’ developments. Exploring the critical decisions in this way allows the reader to progress from a sense of what happened in these battles to why they happened as they did.
Complete with maps and a guided tour, Decisions at The Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House is an indispensable primer, and readers looking for concise introductions to the battles can tour this sacred ground—or read about it at their leisure—with key insights into the battles and a deeper understanding of the Civil War itself.
Decisions at The Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House is the seventh in a series of books that will explore the critical decisions of major campaigns and battles of the Civil War.
From June 25 to July 1, 1862, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia engaged Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac in a series of battles at the end of the Peninsula Campaign that would collectively become known as the Seven Days Battles. Beginning with the fighting at the Battle of Beaver Dam Creek, Lee consistently maneuvered against and attacked McClellan’s Army of the Potomac as it retreated south across the Virginia Peninsula to the James River. At the conclusion of the Battle of Malvern Hill, Lee’s second most costly battle, where McClellan’s strong defensive position of infantry and artillery repelled multiple frontal assaults by Lee’s troops, the Federal army slipped from Lee’s grasp and brought the Seven Days to an end. The Seven Days was a clear Confederate victory that drove the Union army away from the capital at Richmond, began the ascendancy of Robert E. Lee, and commenced a change in the war in the Eastern Theater. It set the stage for the Second Manassas Campaign followed by the Maryland Campaign of 1862.
Decisions of the Seven Days explores the critical decisions made by Confederate and Union commanders during the Seven Days Battles and how these decisions shaped the outcome. Rather than offering a history of the battles, Matt Spruill hones in on a sequence of critical decisions made by commanders on both sides of the contests to provide a blueprint of the Seven Days at its tactical core. Identifying and exploring the critical decisions in this way allows students of the battles to progress from knowledge of what happened to a mature grasp of why events happened.
Complete with maps and a driving tour, Decisions of the Seven Days is an indispensable primer, and readers looking for a concise introduction to the battles can tour this sacred ground—or read about it at their leisure—with key insights into the campaign and a deeper understanding of the Civil War itself.
Decisions of the Seven Days is the tenth in a series of books that will explore the critical decisions of major campaigns and battles of the Civil War.
The U.S.-led conquest and occupation of Iraq have kept that troubled country in international headlines since 2003. For America’s major Coalition ally, Great Britain, however, this latest incursion into the region played out against the dramatic backdrop of imperial history: Britain’s fateful invasion of Mesopotamia in 1914 and the creation of a new nation from the shards of war.
The objectives of the expedition sent by the British Government of India were primarily strategic: to protect the Raj, impress Britain’s military power upon Arabs chafing under Ottoman rule, and secure the Persian oil supply. But over the course of the Mesopotamian campaign, these goals expanded, and by the end of World War I Britain was committed to controlling the entire region from Suez to India. The conquest of Mesopotamia and the creation of Iraq were the central acts in this boldly opportunistic bid for supremacy. Charles Townshend provides a compelling account of the atrocious, unnecessary suffering inflicted on the expedition’s mostly Indian troops, which set the pattern for Britain’s follow-up campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next seven years. He chronicles the overconfidence, incompetence, and dangerously vague policy that distorted the mission, and examines the steps by which an initially cautious strategic operation led to imperial expansion on a vast scale.
Desert Hell is a cautionary tale for makers of national policy. And for those with an interest in imperial history, it raises searching questions about Britain’s quest for global power and the indelible consequences of those actions for the Middle East and the world.
Analyzes the link between “civilized warfare” and the American self-image
Linda R. Robertson argues that the development of the United States as a global military power arose from the influence of an image of air combat carefully constructed during World War I to mask the sordid realities of modern ground warfare. The Dream of Civilized Warfare carries this trajectory to its logical end, tracing the long history of the American desire to exert the nation’s will throughout the world without having to risk the lives of ground soldiers—a theme that continues to reverberate in public discussions, media portrayals, and policy decisions today.
Histories of American air power usually focus on World War II, when the air force became the foundation for the military strength of the United States. The equally fascinating story of World War I air combat is often relegated to a footnote, but it was the earlier war that first inspired the vision of the United States attaining dominance in world affairs through a massive air force. In The Dream of Civilized Warfare, Robertson presents the compelling story of the creation of the first American air force—and how, through the propaganda of the flying ace, a vision of “clean” or civilized combat was sold to politicians and the public. During World War I, air combat came to epitomize American ingenuity, technological superiority, adventure, leadership, and teamwork. Robertson reveals how the romantic and chivalric imagery associated with flying aces was a product of intentional propaganda and popular culture. Examining aviation history, military battles, films, literature, and political events, she looks at how the American public’s imagination was shaped—how flying aces offered not only a symbol of warfare in stark contrast to the muddy, brutal world of the trenches, but also a distraction to an American public resistant to both intervention in a European conflict and the new practice of conscription.READERS
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