August 2008

Volume 10, No. 1

COVER: John Gilbert’s 1890 painting Onward depicts a victorious medieval knight on horseback. Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library/©Manchester Art Gallery, UK.

Military Heritage

The Penobscot Expedition: A Terrible Day for the Patriots

By William H. Langenberg

By early 1779, the American Revolution had been under way for more than three years, with no end in sight. Read more

Military Heritage

Amphibious Landing at Anzio

By Mike Haskew

As the last days of 1943 slipped away, World War II in Italy ground to a miserable stalemate. Read more

Military Heritage

The Battle of Brice’s Cross Roads

By John Walker

After critical victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga in 1863, the Union high command had ambitious plans for the Civil War’s vast western theater in the spring of 1864. Read more

On December 30, 1460, the heirs to the Lancastrian nobles killed at St. Albans five years earlier at last had their revenge, trapping the Duke of York and the Earl of Salisbury near Wakefield. Painting by Graham Turner.

Military Heritage

The War of the Roses: A Red Storm Rising

By William E. Welsh

Indolent, weak-willed, and prone to periodic fits of madness, King Henry VI had let England slide downhill since coming of age in 1437. Read more

Military Heritage

Costly British Victory at Ferozeshah

By John Brown

A little over five centuries ago, a guru named Nanak founded a new faith among the Hindu communities that farmed the rich agricultural areas of northern India known as the Punjab, the Land of the Five Rivers. Read more

Military Heritage, Editorial

Bill Mauldin’s Willie and Joe

Roy Morris Jr.

Among the thousands of American soldiers slogging through the miserable winter of 1944 in southern Italy after the Allied landing at Anzio were two GIs who existed only on paper, but who became as real to their readers as the mud-covered, K-ration-eating guys sitting next to them in their foxholes. Read more

Military Heritage, Weapons

The Krag Jorgensen Rifle: How it Defined the Future of American Warfare

By Christopher Miskimon

During the era in which the Krag Jorgensen rifle came into its own, an arms race was in effect among the nations of Europe. Read more

Five submarines built by the Holland Torpedo Boat Company ride at anchor at a New York dock in 1902. Plunger, center, was an improved version of Holland.

Military Heritage, Intelligence

The Holland Submarine

By Chuck Lyons

By the 1870s, the agitation for Irish independence, already centuries old, had spread to America. The revolutionary Irish Republican Brotherhood, known as the Fenians, began organizing thousands of Irish immigrants trained on both sides during the recent Civil War into its own army. Read more

A Turkish standard-bearer rides into battle. It was a sight all too familiar to Russian general Mikhail Kutusov, who lost an eye to a Turkish rifleman.

Military Heritage, Soldiers

General Mikhail Kutuzov and the Battle of the Danube

By Victor Kamenir

On April 1, 1811, one-eyed General Mikhail Kutuzov arrived in the Romanian capital of Bucharest to take command of Russia’s Moldavian army. Read more

Military Heritage, Militaria

Avoiding the Nameless Grave—Civil War ID Tags

By Don Troiani

The American Civil War may well have been the first major conflict in which soldiers felt the need to wear some sort of a personal identification badge in the event that they were killed or wounded in battle. Read more

Military Heritage, Books

Revolution in the South

By Al Hemingway

When historians discuss the American Revolution, they give scant attention to the hard fighting that occurred in the southern states. Read more

August 2008

From Around the Network

When War Came Home

Military Vehicles: German Motorcycles in WWII

Sir George Pomeroy Colley’s Failed Boer Wars Campaign

Nuclear Submarine Disaster