Swirling Cavalry Fight at Trevilian Station

By Arnold Blumberg

Despite costing the Union Army 55,000 men in five weeks of hard marching and grueling combat, Lt. Gen. Read more

The 1st and 2nd Cavalry Regiments: Jefferson Davis’s Pet Project

By Cowan Brew

Under a bright, high sun in a pale blue Midwestern sky, six companies of the United States Cavalry’s 1st Regiment rode into a grassy valley bordering the south fork of the Solomon River in northwestern Kansas on the afternoon of July 29, 1857. Read more

Battle of Antietam: Clash in the Cornfield

By Michael E. Haskew

The White House was a somber place in the summer of 1862. The Civil War was in the midst of its second costly year, and the Union armies had yet to win a significant victory in the eastern theater. Read more

Morgan’s Ohio Raid

By Joshua Shepherd

“It was a sad, sorrowful day,” recalled Confederate Major James McCreary, “and more tears of grief rolled over my weather beaten cheeks on this mournful occasion than have before for years.” Read more

The Final Offensive

By David H. Lippman

“It is very difficult to be an openly declared, courageous Nazi today, and to express one’s faith freely,” read the editorial in the Völkischer Beobachter newspaper, which further added, “We have no illusions now.” Read more

­Battle of Nijmegen Bridge: Taking the Crossings Over the Waal

By Jan Bos

The city of Nijmegen, in the southeastern part of Holland and about six miles from the Dutch-German border, is believed to be Holland’s oldest city, going back some 2,000 years. Read more

Daylight Precision Bombing: Dangerous Doctrine of the Eighth Air Force

By Herb Kugel

The Eighth Air Force—the “Mighty Eighth”—became the stuff of U.S. Air Force legend when its fleets of unprotected Boeing B-17 “Flying Fortress” heavy bombers flew massive air raids against the heavily guarded German industrial heartland during the period between the end of January through the middle of October 1943. Read more

Kerama Retto: Key to Victory at Okinawa

 By Pierre V. Comtois

Close to the northern end of the island of Tokashiki, the largest member of a tiny group of islands called Kerama Retto, located 15 miles west of Okinawa and hardly 400 miles from the Japanese home islands, Corporal Alexander Roberts and the rest of the 306th Regimental Combat Team rested for the night beneath the starry skies of the northern Pacific. Read more

Airborne at La Fière: Slugfest in Normandy

By Flint Whitlock

The night of June 5, 1944, and the morning of June 6 were without a doubt some of the most pivotal hours in the history of the 20th century. Read more

The 1st Commando Brigade’s Invasion of Germany

By Mark Simmons

“The big day came and we moved off to our positions. Shortly a huge bombing raid commenced on the town of Wesel, followed by an artillery barrage which virtually shook the very ground under us. Read more

USS Seawolf at the Battle of Christmas Island

By John Domagalski

The early months of 1942 were dark days for the United States Asiatic Fleet. Much smaller than the Pacific Fleet, and equipped with mostly outdated surface ships, the fleet was in no way capable of winning a serious confrontation with the Imperial Japanese Navy. Read more

The Murder of Bull Nelson

By Stuart W. Sanders

Few Civil War officers, in either army, were as polarizing as Union Maj. Gen. William “Bull” Nelson. Read more

Combat Horror On Saipan

By David H. Lippman

In the high summer of 1944, the United States was coiling a massive fist in the Central Pacific aimed directly at the Mariana Islands, specifically Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. Read more

First Battle of Savo Island: The U.S. Navy’s Worst Defeat

By Eric Hammel

A United States naval task force bearing the U.S. 1st Marine Division arrived off Guadalcanal, in the eastern Solomon Islands, on the morning of August 7, 1942, and launched the first American offensive operation of World War II. Read more

Battle of the Hemp Bales

By Steve Lilley

Brigadier General James S. Rains’s Confederate cavalry rode confidently toward the prosperous little town of Lexington, Missouri. Dressed in Missouri homespun, Rains’s men hardly looked the part of a flying military column, but most of the hard-riding horsemen had known only victory during their short service. Read more

4th U.S. Regulars at Gettysburg

By Donald McConnell & Gustav Person

When the Civil War erupted in April 1861, the 10 companies of the 4th U.S. Read more

WWII Online: Battleground Europe

By Joseph Luster

We may not think too much about the arrival of a new online shooter nowadays, but back when World War II Online first launched in 2001, the concept was still pretty novel. Read more

Operation Long Jump: The Nazi Assassination Attempt on the “Big Three”

By Mason B. Webb

In German it was called Operation Rösselsprung, which translates to “Long Jump.” Its goal was to kill or kidnap the Allies’ “Big Three” leaders––Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston S. Read more

Opening the Venona Files

By Peter Kross

On February 1, 1943, a group called the U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Service, the forerunner of the modern-day National Security Agency (NSA), began a project to intercept and analyze diplomatic signal traffic sent by an ally of the United States: the Soviet Union. Read more

Patton in Lorraine: Breaking the Moselle Line

By William E. Welsh

By mid-September 1944, the U.S. Third Army was poised to strike at the soft underbelly of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich along a fabled corridor in northeastern France used for centuries by armies tramping across Europe. Read more