"Look There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians " With these words General Bee ensured the reputation of Thomas Jonathan Jackson and his troops who were fighting alongside him at the battle of the First Bull Run (July 1861). This reputation was enhanced in Jackson's Shenandoah Valley campaign and other operations where the Stonewall Brigade 's actions gained the praise of their Confederate compatriots and the respect of their enemies. This book examines the uniforms, equipment, history and organization of the Brigade and its combat experience during the...

The Sarmatians - one of the many nomadic groups to emerge from the great Eurasian Steppe - crossed the Don in about the 3rd century BC to displace their western neighbours, the Scythians, in the lands north of the Black Sea. Later they burst into Asia Minor and Rome's Danube provinces, becoming famous for the prowess of their lance-armed cavalry - first as enemies, and later as allies of Rome. They influenced Rome's adoption of heavy armoured cavalry, and in Roman service they were even posted to Britain. Drawing upon a wide reading of Classical authors and of Russian archaeological...

Although the war of 1870-71 has gone down in history as the 'Franco-Prussian War', nearly half of the German troops sent to the frontier were from other German states - both the willing members of the North German Confederation and the southern states who were in some cases more hesitant about accepting Prussian domination. Some contingents had only one or two regiments - though these might be of high quality, like the 'Black Brunswickers'; others provided whole army corps, like Bavaria and Saxony. This book lists and illustrates the organization and varied uniforms of all these allied...

The beginning of the 19th century saw the rise of a remarkable Sikh leader in the Punjab province of north-west India. Unifying the feudal rulers under his authority, the conquering Maharaja Ranjit Singh pursued campaigns of expansion for nearly 40 years, creating for the purpose a new regular army on the Western model. His death in 1839 found the frontiers of Sikh and British power in confrontation; in the 1840s the inevitable trial of strength brought British crown and East India Company troops into battle against the most formidable Indian army they ever faced. Its story is told here in...

The history of Poland is a fascinating study of a people struggling to achieve nationhood in the face of internal and external enemies. Poland became a unified Christian state in AD 966 and by the 12th century a knightly class had emerged - a force that was integral to the defense of Poland against increasingly frequent foreign invasions. Intent on crushing rival Christian states, the Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights all mounted attacks but were beaten back by the Poles, as were invading Mongols and Turks. This book reveals the organization, equipment and battle histories of the...

Despite modern perceptions of the overwhelming image of Confederate soldiers dressed in their classic battledress gray, the Southern states of the Confederacy fielded many units of volunteer troops wearing a remarkably wide variety of uniforms, often reflecting foreign influences. In a spirit of independence many states also issued their own uniform regulations on the outbreak of the War Between the States; and these non-standard uniforms were often retained until well into the course of the Civil War (1861-1865). The regulation patterns centrally prescribed by the Confederate Army were only...

The wartime Police were headed by Himmler as chief of the SS; and throughout the occupied nations the regional SS commanders were specifically termed 'Higher SS and Police Leaders'. Hitler's police was not a single service, but a vast machinery which included many special categories ranging from conventional criminal detectives, and municipal and rural police to combat battalions sent to Russia, and from border and customs police to special railway and waterway departments, fire brigades and emergency engineer squads, and even a colonial service for North Africa. The author explains the...

The common image of the Confederate Army during the Civil War (1861-1865) is dominated by a limited number of early photographs of troops wearing the grey and butternut of the CS regulations and quartermaster issues. By contrast, this book examines the variety of uniforms worn by the Tennessee and North Carolina militia and volunteers brought together in the Confederate field armies, and the continuing efforts to clothe them as wear-and-tear gradually reduced this wide range of uniforms. A mass of information from contemporary documents is illustrated with rare early photographs and...

Herod was Rome's most important and powerful ally at the end of the Republic and during the first years of Augustus' principate. He has entered posterity as a ruthless ruler against both his own family and, according to the gospel of Matthew, as the instigator of the slaughter of the innocents. He was also an able administrator, however, and succeeded in developing a powerful army. At its peak, Herod's army could field approximately 40,000 men. This book offers a fascinating look at this ancient army using the latest Israeli archaeological reports and finds, including weapons and armor...