Military History Archives

Military History

Uniform: Private in the 4th New York Regiment

By Don Troiani & William E. Welsh

Headgear: Since leather caps were unavailable, the regiment was outfitted with felt hats trimmed with hair crests. Read more

Bare-headed, French King John II leads a swirling melee at the climax of the Battle of Poitiers in this 1830 painting by Eugene Delacroix.

Military History

Death at the Hawthorn Hedge: Poitiers, 1356

By William E. Welsh

The Black Death that ravaged England and France for a half-dozen years in the mid-14th century served merely as a brief intermission between the first and second acts of the painfully protracted struggle known as the Hundred Years’ War. Read more

Military History

The Troublesome Ross Rifle of WWI

By Jerome Baldwin

At the turn of the 20th century, Canada was dependent on Great Britain for rifles to equip her army. Read more

Marcus Licinius Crassus sought glory on the battlefield by following in the footsteps of his idol, Alexander III. It all came crashing down at Carrhae (in modern-day Turkey) at the hands of the Parthian Empire in 53 BCE.

Military History

Marcus Crassus, Alexander and the Battle of Carrhae

By Glenn Barnett

Alexander of Macedon, called “the Great,” died in June of 323 BCE having conquered the mightiest empire yet seen on earth. Read more

Military History

The Sand Creek Massacre of 1864.

Major John M. Chivington, Colorado’s “fighting parson,” played a large role in the Union victory at Glorieta Pass, New Mexico, in 1862. Read more

Using wheeled carriers on the jungle track was generally impossible, so the wounded had to be carried out on stretchers, here by natives.

Military History

The Miserable Kokoda Track

By A.B. Feuer

The Papuan peninsula is a lush, tropical rainforest on the southeast end of New Guinea populated by Melanesian natives. Read more

Military History

Ambush at Morgarten

By Victor Kamenir

The logs and boulders came tumbling downhill, gaining speed before they reached the bottom of the hillsides in the mountain pass. Read more

A U.S. Navy River Patrol Boat (PBR) of River Patrol Force 116 moves at high speed down the Saigon River in Vietnam, November 1967.

Military History

Navy Cross in Vietnam

By Kevin Seabrooke

As darkness fell along the upper Saigon River in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region, one of two River Patrol boats of the U.S. Read more

Under General Benedict Arnold, Patriot forces drive off Hessian mercenaries at Breyman’s Redoubt during the Battle of Saratoga.

Military History

The Hessians Are Coming!

By Joseph C. Salamida

“He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny,” Thomas Jefferson said of King George III in the Declaration of Independence. Read more

Military History

101st Airborne fight for Hamburger Hill

By Robert L. Durham

Lieutenant Frank Boccia could hear the platoon ahead moving forward, reconnoitering by fire, spraying the trail and the jungle alongside it with M16 and M60 fire. Read more

Military History

The Japanese Swords of World War II

By Peter Suciu

Aprevalent image of the Japanese NCO or Officer in World War II is that of rushing the Allied lines with his “samurai” sword drawn, swinging in the air. Read more

Military History

Uniform: Prussian Grenadier of the 12th Regiment, 1755-1756

By William Welsh

Miter Helmet: The tall miter design dated from the 17th century, when grenadiers threw grenades and needed a hat that would not impede their throwing arm. Read more

Military History

Charlemagne: Warlord of the Franks

By Ludwig Dyck

On Christmas morning, 800 ad, a tall, powerfully built man walked up the steps of Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome. Read more

An 1804 political cartoon lampoons President Thomas Jefferson for his unsuccessful attempt to include West Florida in the Louisiana Purchase.

Military History

The Florida Annexation

By Peter Kross

Almost a decade after winning the Revolutionary War against Great Britain, the youthful United States was determined to expand its territorial boundaries and become a truly continental nation. Read more

Military History

Cold War Spies: General Reinhard Gehlen

By Peter Kross

By 1944, many top generals in Adolf Hitler’s army understood the war was lost and that they had better make arrangements to ensure their safety. Read more

Military History

Allan Pinkerton

By Clark Larsen

“Early in the year 1861, I was at my headquarters in the city of Chicago, attending to the manifold duties of my profession. Read more

A 19th-century painting by Charles de Lariviere shows the fatal wounding of white-haired Lord Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury, at the climax of the Battle of Castillon.

Military History

Castillon: Last Battle of the Hundred Years’ War

By William E. Welsh

England’s long downward slide to defeat in the Hundred Years’ War began with the failed siege of Orleans in 1428. Read more

At the battle of Bladensburg, Maryland, U.S. Marines helped stop the British attack as American militia fled the field. The “greatest disgrace ever dealt to American arms” allowed British forces to capture and burn Washington, D.C.

Military History

The Tragic Story of Mordecai Booth and the Burning of the Washington Navy Yard.

By Robert P. Watson, Ph.D.

News arrived in the capital city that the British army had defeated a hastily-gathered and rag-tag collection of American soldiers, sailors, militiamen, and government clerks in Maryland at Bladensburg. Read more

Military History

Canadian Valor at the Battle of Amiens

By Mike Phifer

The drone of a Royal Air Force bomber could be heard overhead in the early morning of August 8, 1918, as it flew up and down the Allied line near Amiens, France. Read more

A Soviet admiral—medals at his left breast—kneels in tribute to a fallen heroic Soviet sailor of World War II. Many Soviet medals were adaptations of Czarist medals.

Military History

Soviet Memorabilia

By Peter Suciu

In 1917, after almost three years of hard fighting in World War I, the Romanov dynasty came to an end with the abdication of Czar Nicolas II of Russia. Read more

Military History

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