This illustration by Alfred R. Waud shows Custer (with staff at right) and his division burning farms and fields near Mt. Jackson, Virginia, on October 7. Sheridan would report to Grant that day that “I have destroyed over 2,000 barns filled with wheat, hay and farming implements; over 70 mills, filled with flour and wheat; have driven in front of the army over 4,000 head of stock, and have killed and issued to the troops not less than 3,000 sheep.”
Military Heritage

Fall 2023

Volume 25, No. 3

Cover: An injured U.S. Marine carries an M1 Thompson submachine gun during the battle for Hue City, Vietnam, February 1968. See story page 24. Photo: National Archives.

“Battle of Cedar Creek,” chromolithograph by Kurz & Allison of Chicago, December 12, 1890.

Fall 2023

Military Heritage

‘A Bad Place for a Fight’

By Mike Phifer

In the early hours of October 19, 1864, fog blanketed the hills and fields along the meandering Cedar Creek in the northern Shenandoah Valley. Read more

American soldiers rush to cross the captured Ludendorff railroad bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany, captured largely intact, by Combat Command B from the 9th Armored Division. The German officers in charge of defending, then destroying, the bridge at Remagen were court martialed and shot.

Fall 2023

Military Heritage

The Bridge at Remagen

By Victor Kamenir

By the end of January 1945, Hitler’s desperate Ardennes Offensive had ground to a halt. Though the last-ditch push to the west had inflicted heavy casualties on American forces, it was the German army that suffered irreplaceable losses in men, equipment, and materiel and was no longer capable of offensive operations. Read more

Portrait of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, painted c. 1618 by Peter Paul Rubens.

Fall 2023

Military Heritage

The Battle of Grandson

By Eric Niderost

On Friday, September 28, 1473, Charles, Duke of Burgundy arrived at Trier to meet with the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III. Read more

The “Alexander mosaic” on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, Italy. From Pompeii, c.100 BCE, the floor mosaic is believed to be a copy of a lost Hellenistic Greek painting by Philoxenos of Eretria from the 4th century BCE , depicting Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia at the Battle of Issus (333 BCE).

Fall 2023

Military Heritage

Alexander: What Made Him Great

By Kelly Bell

He was the first Caucasian many of his conquered subjects had ever seen. The empire he established during his short life stretched from Greece to the Indus River in modern Pakistan, an area of about 2 million square miles—more than twice the size of the Louisiana Purchase. Read more

Israeli tanks led the lightning-fast thrust across the Sinai Peninsula to a point only 18 miles from the Suez Canal.

Fall 2023

Military Heritage

Misadventure in the Sinai

By Eric Hammel

Many historians consider the Suez-Sinai campaign in the autumn of 1956 the last hurrah for British and French colonialist efforts in the Middle East. Read more

Fall 2023

Military Heritage

Roncesvalles and the Birth of Chivalry

By Don Hollway

The Age of Chivalry brings to mind knights in shining armor and damsels in distress, along with traveling troubadours and minstrels singing chansons de geste, “songs of deeds,” telling of feats of arms and labors of love. 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.

Fall 2023

Military Heritage, Valor

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

French surgeon Dominique Jean, Baron Larrey distinguished himself in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. This 1850 wax painting by Charles Louis Müller in the National Academy of Medicine shows “Larrey Operating on the Battlefield.”

Fall 2023

Military Heritage, Soldiers

Dominique Jean, Baron Larrey

By Eric Niderost

It was late November, 1812, and the fate of Napoleon’s Grande Armee hung in the balance. Several Russian armies were closing in, but if the French crossed the 300-foot-wide Berezina River, the bedraggled survivors of a once great army might still manage to escape the trap. Read more

Fall 2023

Military Heritage, Uniform

Noble Celtic Warrior, 1st Century, B.C.

The Gauls were Celtic people who lived in much of Europe from the 5th century BC. They were described by Greek and Roman historians as tall, muscular, fair-skinned, with long blonde, or reddish hair. Read more

A Sea Harrier takes off from the airfield at Port Stanley during Falklands war. In the background is a destroyed Argentinian Air Force IA 58 Pucará counter-insurgency (COIN) aircraft.

Fall 2023

Military Heritage, Weapons

The BAe Sea Harrier

By John E. Spindler

At 1:25 p.m. on May 1, 1982, the Sea Harrier naval jet fighter became the symbol of British resolve. Read more

Fall 2023

Military Heritage, Games

Last Train Home

By Joseph Luster

When it comes to war games, there’s no situation that can truly be described as anything but bleak and unforgiving, though we often see all the shades imaginable in the various era-spanning depictions across many genres. Read more

Fall 2023

Military Heritage, Games

Stronghold: Definitive Edition

By Joseph Luster

Those looking to relive—or try for the very first time—one of the more celebrated real-time strategy war games of the last couple decades will soon be able to do so in the form of Stronghold: Definitive Edition. Read more

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    Military History

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  • Russian infantry advance behind T-34 tanks during the counterattack that began on July 12, one day before Hitler called off the attack. From that point on, the strategic initiative shifted irreversibly to the Soviet Union, and by the end of the year they had liberated the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.

    WWII

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