The letters in this collection were written mostly by British military officers and diplomats reporting directly to their superiors in London. Many of the writers were actively engaged in fighting the Americans from 1775 until 1783; others were colonial administrators traveling through North America assessing the progress of British troops.
As a married man and Stanford graduate student nearing thirty, Christopher Donner would likely have qualified for an exemption from the draft. Like most of his generation, however, he responded promptly to the call to arms after Pearl Harbor. His wartime experiences in the Pacific Theater were seared into his consciousness, and in early 1946 he set out to preserve those memories while they were still fresh. Sixty-five years later, Donner’s memoir is now available to the public.
The Battle of Antietam, fought in Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 7, 1862, was the bloodiest single day of the Civil War, with 23,000 casualties on both sides. While the battle was tactically inconclusive, it resulted in two significant milestones. First, because Robert E. Lee failed to carry the war successfully into the North, Great Britain was dissuaded from recognizing the Confederate States of America diplomatically. Second, the battle gave President Abraham Lincoln the confidence to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
Written at the behest of his former comrades in the 105th Ohio, The Story of a Thousand draws on Tourgée’s own wartime papers, as well as diaries, letters, and recollections of other veterans, to detail the remarkable story of the regiment during its campaigns in Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and Sherman’s March to the Sea. Tourgée concentrates on the lives and experiences of the enlisted soldiers, describing the backgrounds of the men and how they rallied around the Union flag as citizen soldiers and also on discussions about the role of slavery as the impetus of the war. Tourgée’s concern for the common soldier prefigures the scholarship of twentieth-century historians, such as Bell Irvin Wiley, who devoted attention to the men in the ranks rather than the generals and politicians in charge.
Vourlojianis examines the history of the Grays from its founding in 1837, through military service in three wars, to its modern incarnation as a social and philanthropic group. While the nature of the organization has changed, the Grays still maintain a proud tradition of service to their city. Primarily a social group with strong philanthropic and educational interests, the expanded membership of the modern Grays continues to add to and participate in the rich, colorful history of Cleveland.
Winner of the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Book Award, The Eyes of Orion is a highly personal account of the day-to-day experiences of five platoon leaders who served in the same tank battalion in the 24th Infantry Division during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. While professional soldiers and historians will undoubtedly glean much from this narrative, the heart of the account concerns the experiences of the five young lieutenants as they prepared for and served in combat—from their deployment to Saudi Arabia through their six months in the desert training for war, their four days in combat and several weeks of occupation in Iraq, and finally their homecoming.
Perhaps the most easily recognized military helmet of the 20th century is the German Stahlhel. In the revised and expanded edition of this classic, Floyd R. Tubbs and Robert w. Clawson identify and classify the Stahlhelm and relate its history, designs, features, and uses. As the only book on the German combat helmet currently in print, this edition, with its detailed drawings and illustrative photographs, will appeal to the collector as well as the military historian.
Captain Simon Perkins Jr. and his fellow quartermasters helped make the Union’s victory possible by providing the Federal army with clothing and camp equipment, livestock and forage, wagon and railroad transportation, offices, warehouses, and hospitals, despite bad weather, unserviceable railroads, and lack of transportation. “The Supply for Tomorrow Must Not Fail” examines Perkins’s responsibilities, the difficult situations he encountered and overcame, and the successes he achieved as part of a team of determined and dependable supply officers, whose duties were critical to successful Union military operations.
Phelps, a native of Chardon, Ohio, was a prolific and observant correspondent. His private letters, to his wife, his father, and to political patrons and other naval officers, are among the most compelling and descriptive extant. The heart of Ironclad Captain are these letters, which Jay Slagle has set in context through the judicious use of published documents, memoirs, and scholarly histories of the navy. The result is a small history of the navy and its officer corps for the middle third of the nineteenth century.
Comrades-In-Arms is a powerful and passionate account by a French cavalry officer of daily life on the Western Front from January 1915 to August 1916. Lécluse commanded an elite cavalry unit during campaigns in Artois, Champagne, and Alsace. He regarded the men who served under him as comrades and heroes, and the memoir was written to memorialize those who had fallen in combat.
