The text of this book represents not a catalogue of names, dates, and statistics of the war between the United States and Mexico but an attempt to tell the story of that conflict and to depict its color, drama, tragedy, and meaning mainly through the use of ten principal characters who participated in the war and who left behind written accounts.
Some men in government during the administration of James K. Polk used a four-word maxim to describe the goal of the United States in the war against Mexico, which resulted from years of bickering and bitterness between the two nations. A...

Confederate General Thomas Jonathan Jackson was undoubtedly one of the most influential military commanders of the Civil War. Had he not met his death early in May, 1863, his influence could well have changed the course of the war. Frank E. Vandiver's detailed research and zestful writing style provide a vivid description of Stonewall's boyhood, West Point training, early career, years of teaching at the Virginia Military Institute, and Civil War campaigns. Here, too, are insights into Jackson's personal life and his deep religious feelings, which were so influential on his military thought...

In Artillery Hell Curt Johnson and Richard C. Anderson, Jr., provide a detailed examination of the role of field artillery in the Battle of Antietam. Johnson sets the context with an overview of organizational problems confronting the senior artillerists on the eve of a great battle. Anderson's clear and concise discussion of different types of artillery guns and their capabilities and ammunition is presented in language accessible not only to military historians but to all those interested in the war and its deadliest single day of battle.

Recounts the last high-casualty US action in the Vietnam War. This work presents a look at soldiers who performed in exemplary fashion under terrible circumstances.

For three years during the American Civil War an oddly assorted brigade of Texans served the Confederacy in the Trans-Mississippi theater and then, for one hundred years, disappeared from history. Some five thousand men, raised largely from the communities and farmsteads of North Texas, served in cavalry and infantry units, and were commanded for part of that time by the only foreign general of the Confederacy, Prince Camille de Polignac.
This group of soldiers fought in numerous skirmishes from Missouri to Louisiana. They endured a fearfully cold winter march through Indian Territory,...

In the shadow of Monte Cassino on January 21-22, 1944, the U.S. Army's 36th "Texas" Division tried to cross Italy's Rapido River. The rout of this former National Guard unit from Texas was one of the worst defeats Americans suffered on the battlefields of World War II, one that prompted veterans to present charges of incompetent leadership before Congress.
In "Bloody""""River," first published in 1970, Martin Blumenson presents his view of how the "personal equation" figured into the debacle. Focusing on the generals responsible for the ill-fated attack, Blumenson traces key points in...

"I shall return " It was the most memorable phrase of the war for the Pacific in the 1940s. For many people, Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur's vow to recapture the Philippines and the footage of him wading ashore with the troops were all that was needed to characterize him as egotistical and severe.
"Flying MacArthur to Victory" is the World War II diary of the general's personal pilot, Weldon E. ("Dusty") Rhoades. Rhoades's days as a transport pilot ended when he got the assignment to deliver documents marked "For MacArthur's Eyes Only." After the documents changed hands the general invited...

As war spread across the world at the end of 1941, the Soviet Union found itself between a rock known as Nazi Germany and a hard place called imperial Japan. With all its forces battling Germany in the west, the Soviet Union had to keep peace on its isolated and vulnerable eastern borders. To avoid risking its status as a neutral country in the war between the United States and Japan, the Soviet Union interned many American flyers who crashed or made emergency landings in Soviet territory after bombing Japanese targets.
This is the long-secret and nearly forgotten story of how the Soviet...

The 344 days of combat of the 88th Infantry Division were part of the bitterly contested struggle for supremacy in Italy during the Second World War. Here is the gripping story of the first selective service division committed to battle in the European Theater, seen from the unique vantage point of a battalion physician.

Using notes hastily scribbled on the backs of maps and finished out whenever he was rotated to rear areas for rest, Dr. Klaus Huebner captured in his diary the frustration, fear, boredom, devotion, and anger that were the daily portion of combat infantrymen. The result...

Drawing on numerous diaries, journals, and reminiscences, Richard Bruce Winders presents the daily life of soldiers at war; links the army to the society that produced it; shares his impressions of the soldiers he "met" along the way; and concludes that American participants in the Mexican War shared a common experiemce, no matter their rank or place of service.
In addition to the soldiers' mundane complaints--bad food, hard marches, and long periods of incredible boredom--Winders discovers a political awareness among the soldiers that, with some, led to displaying their political...