Timothy O’Sullivan photographed the massive Union pontoon bridge over the James River at Weyanoke Point. Anchoring schooners can be seen in the background.

Union Army Engineers

By Gustav Person

The Union Army’s ambitious Overland Campaign began on May 4, 1864. It was the fourth year of the Civil War, and Lt. Read more

British Disaster at Saratoga

By David A. Norris

Four months earlier Major General John Burgoyne had left Canada with a large army. He intended to deliver a fatal blow to the colonial revolt that had begun on April 19, 1775. Read more

Emelian Pugachev: Master Imposter of a Russian Czar

By Blaine Taylor

On August 12, 1772, a wandering Don Cossack named Emelian Pugachev crossed the Polish frontier into Imperial Russia on an official passport that entitled him, after spending six weeks in quarantine, to resettle as a free citizen on the Irgiz River in southeast Russia. Read more

Flourishing his famous red-and-white headquarters flag, Union General Phil Sheridan rides along the front ranks after his dramatic return to the battlefield at Cedar Creek. Painting by Thure de Thulstrup.

Glory Enough for One Day: Phil Sheridan’s Victory at Cedar Creek

By Roy Morris Jr.

Phil Sheridan had a bad feeling. The bantam-sized Union general always trusted his instincts, and now, in mid-October 1864, those instincts were telling him that trouble was brewing back at the front, where his Army of the Shenandoah was encamped near Cedar Creek, Virginia, resting and relaxing after a busy few weeks burning civilian farms and slaughtering thousands of head of livestock from Staunton north to Woodstock. Read more

A soldier from the 172nd Stryker Brigade fires an illumination flare over Mosul, Iraq, from the vehicle’s 120mm mortar. Flares are used to spot terrorists emplacing roadside bombs.

Famous Military Weapons: Mortars

By William McPeak

The mortar is perhaps the oldest surviving ordnance piece developed during the Middle Ages. The earliest known forerunner to the mortar, introduced by Spanish Muslims about ad 1250, was essentially an iron-reinforced bucket that hurled stones with gunpowder. Read more

Moe Berg (right) during his 1932 visit to Japan, pictured with fellow baseball instructor Lefty O’Doul and host Sataro Suzuki.

WWII Spies: Morris “Moe” Berg

By Eric Niderost

Morris “Moe” Berg was a man of many talents: linguist, lawyer, baseball player, spy. Although this Renaissance man gained a modicum of celebrity on the baseball diamond, Berg is best remembered as an operative for the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), a World War II forerunner of the U.S. Read more

Nuclear Submarine Disaster

By Mark Carlson

Even in the age of ultra-sophisticated nuclear submarines, with their advanced computers, sonar, navigation, and communication systems, the hard truth is inescapable: the sea is the most hostile environment on Earth. Read more

A British soldier searches for a dead comrade’s identity disc after the disastrous attack at the Somme. Painting by Frank Crozier, who also took part in a similar British rout at Gallipoli.

A Hobbit on the Somme

By O’Brien Browne

Smoke and ash drifted across the shattered ground. Dead faces peered up with lidless eyes from pools of stagnant water. Read more

On the morning of December 7, 1941, a U.S. Army Air Force B-17 bomber seeks a place to land after flying into the midst of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and other military installations on the island of Oahu. A flight of 12 B-17s—in transit from California to the Philippines—had taken off from Hamilton Field the previous evening for the 14-hour night flight.

B-17s at Pearl Harbor

By Mark Carlson

Lieutenant Commander Shigeru Itaya, sitting in his gray Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero, led two other fighters on another strafing run on the parking ramps and hangars of Hickam Army Air Base on Oahu. Read more

Russian model builder Alex Shlakhter poses with his 1/16 scale Panther tank.

Mobile Models

By Peter Suciu

Almost as long as there have been history buffs there have been scale models. Toy soldiers have been popular among children for hundreds of years, but it was the introduction of specialized military vehicles that really gave birth to scale models after World War I. Read more

The American Air Museum in Duxford

By Roy Stevenson

In the lush, green rural community of Duxford, a 20-minute bus ride from the university town of Cambridge, the American Air Museum in Britain houses the finest collection of historic American combat aircraft outside the United States. Read more

Residents of Warsaw search for the bodies of their neighbors in the rubble of an apartment building destroyed by a German bombing raid in September 1939.

Warsaw Witness

By Peter Zablocki

The large lamp shone down at him from the top of the ladder, the only light in the room of this bombed-out building. Read more

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