Category: Military History

Now available in softcover:

American Military Cemeteries, 2d ed.
Dean W. Holt

This updated edition of the 1992 reference work (“exhaustive…fascinating”—Library Journal) contains comprehensive information about United States military cemeteries, including how each cemetery was chosen, why it was established, and notable individuals buried therein. Covered are cemeteries operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of the Army, the National Park Service, the American Battle Monuments Commission, and the various states, among others, along with smaller and “lost” cemeteries. Appendices provide lists of installations by state and by year of establishment, as well as information on headstones, markers and the Medal of Honor.

Now available in softcover:

Inside the Spanish-American War: A History Based on First-Person Accounts
James M. McCaffrey

This is the story of the Spanish-American War, told not from the perspective of generals, policy makers, or politicians, but from that of the soldiers, sailors and marines in the field and the reporters who covered their efforts. Concentration on the daily lives of these people provides insight into the often overlooked facets of a soldier’s life, detailing their training and interaction with weaponry, their food, clothing, and medical supplies, and their personal interactions and daily struggles. While the Spanish-American War set the stage for America’s emergence as a global power, this is its history on an individual scale, as seen through the eyes of those upon whom the war had the most immediate impact.

Now available in softcover:

Battle History of the United States Marine Corps, 1775–1945
George B. Clark

Designed as a reference work for those interested in the combat history of the U.S. Marine Corps, this book describes the engagements from the formation of the Continental Marines to the Corps’ great exercise at the Battle of Okinawa. Organized chronologically, the individual skirmishes illustrate how each of the Marine Corps’ engagements contributed to the formation and evolution of the United States. Persons and divisions of note are mentioned, including key players, commanders and medal recipients.

New on our bookshelf:

Lost to the Shoah: Eight Lives
Vera Schiff with Jeff McLaughlin

It is important to remember not just what the Holocaust was but the individuals who were the subjects of its unrelenting Nazi brutalities. Written by a survivor about the people she knew and cared for, these eight stories fight against the depiction of Jews as victims and victims only, and individualize a tragedy that is too often abstracted into dates and statistics.

Amidst the dramatic narrative, there is a brutal honesty and frankness that makes these stories far more infuriating, sad and shocking than any fictional attempt to convey what it was like to be human in such inhuman circumstances. These biographies remind readers of the consequences of hate upon the fragile beauty and complexity of human life.

New on our bookshelf:

American Zouaves, 1859–1959: An Illustrated History
Daniel J. Miller

The elite French Zouaves, with their distinctive, colorful uniforms, set an influential example for volunteer soldiers during the Civil War and continued to inspire American military units for a century. Hundreds of militia companies adopted the flamboyant uniform to emulate the gallantry and martial tradition of the Zouaves.

Drawing on fifty years of research, this volume provides a comprehensive state-by-state catalog of American Zouave units, richly illustrated with rare and previously unpublished photographs and drawings. The author dispels many misconceptions and errors that have persisted over the last 150 years.

New on our bookshelf:

4–31 Infantry in Iraq’s Triangle of Death
Darrell E. Fawley III

The Iraqi Triangle of Death, south of Baghdad, was a raging inferno of insurgent activity in August of 2006; by November 2007, attacks had been suppressed to such an extent as to return the area to near obscurity. In the intervening months, the U.S. Army 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry (“Polar Bears”) employed a counterinsurgency approach that set the conditions for a landmark peace agreement that has held to the present.

With a focus on counterinsurgency, this book is the first to look at the breadth of military operations in Yusifiyah, Iraq, and to analyze the methods the Polar Bears employed. It is a story not of those who fought in the Triangle of Death, but of how they fought.

New on our bookshelf:

Greene and Cornwallis in the Carolinas: The Pivotal Struggle in the American Revolution, 1780–1781
Jeffrey A. Denman and John F. Walsh

The story of the Revolutionary War in the Northern colonies is well known but the war that raged across the South in 1780–1781—considered by some the “unknown Revolution”—included some of the most important yet least studied engagements.

Drawing extensively on their letters, this book follows the campaigns of General Nathanael Greene and Lord Charles Cornwallis as they fought across the Carolinas, and offers a compelling look at their leadership. The theater of war in which the two commanders operated was populated by various ethnic and religious groups and separated geographically, economically and politically into the low country and the simmering backcountry, setting the stage for what was to come.

New on our bookshelf:

Disputed Decisions of World War II: Decision Science and Game Theory Perspectives
Mark Thompson

A former Harvard professor of decision science and game theory draws on those disciplines in this review of controversial strategic and tactical decisions of World War II.

Allied leaders—although outstanding in many ways—sometimes botched what now is termed meta-decision making or deciding how to decide. Operation Jubilee, a single-division raid on Dieppe, France, in August 1942, for example, illustrated the pitfalls of groupthink. In the Allied invasion of North Africa three months later, American and British leaders fell victim to the planning fallacy: having unrealistically rosy expectations of an easy victory. In Sicily in the summer of 1943, they violated the millennia-old principle of command unity—now re-endorsed and elaborated on by modern theorists. Had Allied strategists understood the game theory of bluffing, in January 1944 they might well not have landed two-plus divisions at Anzio in Italy.

New on our bookshelf:

Formula for Failure in Vietnam: The Folly of Limited Warfare
William Hamilton

Drawing on a range of sources, including original interviews with the commanders ordered to fight a land war in Southeast Asia, former U.S. Army infantry officer recounts his experiences in Vietnam as a company commander and as a battalion- and division-level operations officer carrying out those orders. The crucial flaws of the Johnson Administration’s strategy of attrition are analyzed—the failure to seal off the theater of battle from Chinese and Soviet resupply, and allowing North Vietnamese forces to maintain sanctuaries in Laos, Cambodia and even North Vietnam.

New on our bookshelf:

Seabee 71 in Chu Lai: Memoir of a Navy Journalist with a Mobile Construction Battalion, 1967
David H. Lyman

Hoping to stay out of Vietnam, David Lyman joined the U.S. Naval Reserve to avoid the draft. By summer 1967 he was with a SeaBee unit on a beach in Chu Lai. A reporter in civilian life, Lyman was assigned to Military Construction Battalion 71 as a photojournalist. He documented the lives of the hard-working and hard-drinking SeaBees as they engineered roads, runways, heliports and base camps for the troops.

The author was shot at, almost blown up by a road mine, and spent nights in a mortar pit as rockets bombarded a nearby Marine runway. He rode on convoys through Viet Cong territory to photograph villages outside “The Wire.” The stories and photographs Lyman published as editor of the battalion’s newspaper, The Transit, form the basis of this memoir.

New on our bookshelf:

Rhode Island’s Civil War Dead: A Complete Roster
Robert Grandchamp

Rhode Island sent 23,236 men to fight in the Civil War. They served in eight infantry regiments, three heavy artillery regiments, three regiments and one battalion of cavalry, a company of hospital guards and 10 batteries of light artillery. Hundreds more served in the U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps. Rhode Islanders participated in nearly every major battle of the war, firing the first volleys at Bull Run, and some of the last at Appomattox.

How many died in the Civil War is a question that has long eluded historians. Drawing on a 20-year study of regimental histories, pension files, letters, diaries, and visits to every cemetery in the state, award-winning Civil War historian Robert Grandchamp documents 2,217 Rhode Islanders who died as a direct result of military service. Each regiment is identified, followed by the name, rank and place of residence for each soldier, the details of their deaths and, where known, their final resting places.

Today only, get 30% off all Civil War titles with the coupon code CIVILWAR30!

New on our bookshelf:

The Cossack Struggle Against Communism, 1917–1945
Brent Mueggenberg

The downfall of tsarism in 1917 left the peoples of Russia facing an uncertain future. Nowhere were those anxieties felt more than among the Cossacks. The steppe horsemen had famously guarded the empire’s frontiers, stampeded demonstrators in its cities, suppressed peasant revolts in the countryside and served as bodyguards to its rulers. Their way of life, intricately bound to the old order, seemed imperiled by the revolution and especially by the Bolshevik seizure of power.

Many Cossacks took up arms against the Soviet regime, providing the anticommunist cause with some of its best warriors—as well as its most notorious bandits. This book chronicles their decades-long campaign against the Bolsheviks, from the tumultuous days of the Russian Civil War through the doldrums of foreign exile and finally to their fateful collaboration with the Third Reich.

New on our bookshelf:

The British Military Revolution of the 19th Century: “The Great Gun Question” and the Modernization of Ordnance and Administration
Daniel R. LeClair

From the Crimean War through the Second Boer War, the British Empire sought to solve the “Great Gun Question”—to harness improvements to ordnance, small arms, explosives and mechanization made possible by the Industrial Revolution. The British public played a surprising but overlooked role, offering myriad suggestions for improvements to the civilian-led War Office.

Meanwhile, politicians and army leaders argued over control of the country’s ground forces in a decades-long struggle that did not end until reforms of 1904 put the military under the Secretary of State for War. Following the debate in the press, voters put pressure on both Parliament and the War Office to modernize ordnance and military administration. The “Great Gun Question” was as much about weaponry as about who ultimately controlled military power.

Drawing on ordnance committee records and contemporary news reports, this book fills a gap in the history of British military technology and army modernization prior to World War I.

New on our bookshelf:

The United States and the Rise of Tyrants: Diplomatic Relations with Nationalist Dictatorships Between the World Wars
Lawrence E. Gelfand and John Day Tully

Nationalist dictatorships proliferated around the world during the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s. Policymakers in Washington, D.C., reasoning that non-Communist regimes were not necessarily a threat to democracy or national interests, found it expedient to support them. People living under these governments associated the United States with their oppressors, with long-term negative consequences for U.S. policy.

American policymakers were primarily concerned with fostering stability in these countries. The dictatorships, eager to maintain political order and create economic growth, looked to American corporations and bankers, whose heavy investments cemented the need to support the regimes. Through an examination of consular records in nine countries, the author describes the logistics and consequences of these relationships.

New on our bookshelf:

Colonels in Blue—Missouri and the Western States and Territories: A Civil War Biographical Dictionary
Roger D. Hunt

This biographical dictionary catalogs the Union army colonels who commanded regiments from Missouri and the western States and Territories during the Civil War. The seventh volume in a series documenting Union army colonels, this book details the lives of officers who did not advance beyond that rank. Included for each colonel are brief biographical excerpts and any available photographs, many of them published for the first time.

New on our bookshelf:

George Humphrey, Charles Wilson and Eisenhower’s War on Spending
James Worthen

The first Republican president since the Great Depression, Dwight Eisenhower was the victorious supreme allied commander of World War II’s European theater, but a political novice when he moved into the White House in 1953. To help make domestic policy, he recruited two of the country’s richest businessmen—Cleveland industrialist George Humphrey and General Motors president Charles Wilson—with the goals of ensuring American postwar prosperity and developing a defense posture against the nuclear threat of the Soviet Union.

This book provides the first detailed examination of how Humphrey and Wilson helped shape Eisenhower’s policies and priorities. Persuasive and charming, Treasury Secretary Humphrey was obsessed with cutting spending. Defense Secretary Wilson—whose departmental funding comprised most of the federal budget—bore the brunt of Humphrey’s anti-spending campaign, while struggling to master his brief and control the restive military bureaucracy. The frugality of the Humphrey-Wilson years manifested in an unambitious domestic agenda and a military that seemed to lag behind the Soviets in key areas, leading to disastrous Republican losses in the elections of 1958 and 1960.

New on our bookshelf:

Elbridge Durbrow’s War in Vietnam: The Ambassador’s Influence on American Involvement, 1957–1961
Ronald Bruce Frankum, Jr.

Elbridge Durbrow served as the third United States ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam from 1957 to 1961. His relationships with Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm and members of the Military Assistance Advisory Group in Saigon helped to shape his tenure in office, which ultimately concluded with his decision to end his support for the Vietnamese leader as well as turn away from the American military representatives who had earned Ngô Đình Diệm’s trust.

This triangular relationship was mired in clashes of ego and personality that often interfered with the American decision making process. Durbrow and his embassy staff, rather than work with the Vietnamese leadership, chose to focus on the negative and reported to Washington only those items that reinforced this perspective. They created an atmosphere of distrust and anxiety that neither the Americans nor Vietnamese could overcome in the 1960s and helped to create the conditions for greater United States involvement in Southeast Asia.

New on our bookshelf:

Civil War Taxes: A Documentary History, 1861–1900
John Martin Davis, Jr.

During the Civil War, both the North and South were challenged by fiscal and monetary needs, but physical differences such as gold reserves, industrialization and the blockade largely predicted the war’s outcome from the onset. To raise revenue for the war effort, every possible person, business, activity and property was assessed, but projections and collections were seldom up to expectations, and waste, fraud and ineffectiveness in the administration of the tax systems plagued both sides. This economic history uses forensic examination of actual documents to discover the various taxes that developed from the Civil War, including the direct and poll taxes, which were dropped; the income tax, which stands today; and the war tax, which was effective for only a short time.

Plants Go to War: A Botanical History of World War II
Judith Sumner

“In this impressively researched exploration, esteemed ethnobotanist Sumner takes a scholarly yet totally accessible approach to the myriad ways plant materials were critical to both Allied and Axis war efforts. With balanced attention to domestic sacrifices and ingenuity, Sumner’s astonishing discoveries make this a fascinating read for botany buffs and those steeped in military history.”—Booklist

Browse our latest catalog of Vietnam War memoirs, and, through August 31, get 20% off your order with coupon code VIETNAM19!

New on our bookshelf:

Pinkertons, Prostitutes and Spies: The Civil War Adventures of Secret Agents Timothy Webster and Hattie Lawton
John Stewart

Hattie Lawton was a young Pinkerton detective who with her partner, Timothy Webster, spied for the U.S. Secret Service during the Civil War. Working in Richmond, the two posed as husband and wife. A dazzling blonde from New York and a handsome Englishman, both with checkered pasts, they were matched in charm, cunning, duplicity and boldness. Betrayed by their own spymaster, Allan Pinkerton, they fell into the hands of the dictator of Richmond, the notorious General John H. “Hog” Winder.

This lively history, scrupulously researched from all available sources, corrects the record on many points and definitively answers the long-standing question of Hattie Lawton’s true identity.

New on our bookshelf:

Opdycke’s Tigers in the Civil War: A History of the 125th Ohio Volunteer Infantry
Thomas Crowl

Organized in the fall of 1862, the 125th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was commanded by the aggressive and ambitious Colonel Emerson Opdycke, a citizen-soldier with no military experience who rose to brevet major general.

Part of the Army of the Cumberland, the 125th first saw combat at Chickamauga. Charging into Dyer’s cornfield to blunt a rebel breakthrough, the Buckeyes pressed forward and, despite heavy casualties, drove the enemy back, buying time for the fractured Union army to rally. Impressed by the heroic charge of an untested regiment, Union General Thomas Wood labeled them “Opdycke’s Tigers.”

After losing a third of their men at Chickamauga, the 125th fought engagements across Tennessee and Georgia during 1864, and took part in the decisive battles at Franklin and Nashville.
Drawing on both primary sources and recent scholarship, this is the first full-length history of the regiment in more than 120 years.

New on our bookshelf:

The Civil War from Its Origins to Reconstruction
James S. Pula

The period of Sectionalism, Civil War and Reconstruction was the most traumatic in American history. The outcome changed the foundations of the nation, with effects still felt today. While most Civil War histories focus on specific topics―military history, economics, politics―this book presents the narrative as it unfolded against a broader historical background. Drawing on direct quotations from actual participants, the author provides an interpretive overview of the issues and events that divided and then devastated the United States.

New on our bookshelf:

Mass Suicides on Saipan and Tinian, 1944: An Examination of the Civilian Deaths in Historical Context
Alexander Astroth

When the Americans invaded the Japanese-controlled islands of Saipan and Tinian in 1944, civilians and combatants committed mass suicide to avoid being captured. Though these mass suicides have been mentioned in documentary films, they have received scant scholarly attention. This book draws on United States National Archives documents and photographs, as well as veteran and survivor testimonies, to provide readers with a better understanding of what happened on the two islands and why. The author details the experiences of the people of the islands from prehistoric times to the present, with an emphasis on the Japanese, Okinawan, Korean, Chamorro and Carolinian civilians during invasion and occupation.

New on our bookshelf:

Longstreet at Gettysburg: A Critical Reassessment
Cory M. Pfarr

This is the first book-length, critical analysis of Lieutenant General James Longstreet’s actions at the Battle of Gettysburg. The author argues that Longstreet’s record has been discredited unfairly, beginning with character assassination by his contemporaries after the war and, persistently, by historians in the decades since. By closely studying the three-day battle, and conducting an incisive historiographical inquiry into Longstreet’s treatment by scholars, this book presents an alternative view of Longstreet as an effective military leader, and refutes over a century of negative evaluations of his performance.

Now available in softcover:

The Texas Rangers: A Registry and History
Darren L. Ivey

The Texas Ranger law enforcement agency features so prominently in Texan and Wild West folklore that its accomplishments have been featured in everything from pulp novels to popular television. After a brief overview of the Texas Rangers’ formation, this book provides an exhaustive account of every known Ranger unit from 1823 to the present. Each chapter provides a brief contextual explanation of the time period covered and features entries on each unit’s commanders, periods of service, activities, and supervising authorities. Appendices include an account of the Rangers’ battle record, a history of the illustrious badge, documents relating to the Rangers, and lists of Rangers who have died in service, been inducted into the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame, or received the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Medal of Valor.

New on our bookshelf:

Valor of Many Stripes: Remarkable Americans in World War II
Scott Baron

The award of a military decoration does not define valor—it only recognizes it. Many acts of notable courage and self-sacrifice occur on the battlefield but are often obscured in the fog of battle or lost to history, unrecognized and unheralded.

The largely overlooked men and women in this volume did incredible things in dire circumstances. Although in some cases decorations were awarded—including several Medals of Honor—their stories remain unknown.

New on our bookshelf:

A Burned Land: The Trans-Mississippi in the Civil War
Robert R. Laven

Often neglected by historians, actions in Missouri and Kansas had an important influence on the course of the Civil War, with profound effects for the communities and people in the region. Outside of Virginia and Tennessee, Missouri was perhaps the most hotly contested territory during the war. The fighting in Missouri culminated with an expedition that re-wrote the books on tactics and the use of mounted infantry.

This book focuses on the experiences of the soldiers, officers and civilians on both sides. The author brings to life the events in the region that contributed to the internecine strife in the Western Theater.

New on our bookshelf:

A Bloody Day at Gaines’ Mill: The Battlefield Debut of the Army of Northern Virginia, June 27, 1862
Elmer R. Woodard, III

In the summer of 1862, two great armies met outside of Richmond in a series of battles that would determine the course of the Civil War. The Union had time, men and materiel on its side, while the Confederates had mobility, esprit de corps and aggressive leadership. Untried General Robert E. Lee was tasked with driving the Yankees from their almost impregnable positions to save Richmond and end the war.

Lee planned to isolate part of the Union Army, crush it, and then destroy the only supply base the remaining Federals had. To do so, he had to move thousands of troops hundreds of miles, bringing multiple forces together with intricate timing, all without the Yankees or their spies finding out. The largest and most important of these battles occurred at Gaines’ Mill.

New on our bookshelf:

The 22nd Michigan Infantry and the Road to Chickamauga
John Cohassey

Called upon to take a hill at the 1863 Battle of Chickamauga, the untested 22nd Michigan Infantry helped to save General George H. Thomas’ right flank. Formed in 1862, the regiment witnessed slavery and encountered runaways in the border state of Kentucky, faced near starvation during the siege of Chattanooga and marched to Atlanta as General Thomas’ provost guard.

This history explores the 22nd’s day-to-day experiences in Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia. The author describes the challenges faced by volunteer farm boys, shopkeepers, school teachers and lawyers as they faced death, disease and starvation on battlefields and in Confederate prisons.

New on our bookshelf:

America’s “Foreign Legion”: Immigrant Soldiers in the Great War
Dennis A. Connole

Immigrant American soldiers played an important, often underrated role in World War I. Those who were non-citizens had no obligation to participate in the war, though many volunteered. Due to language barriers that prevented them from receiving proper training, they were often given the most dangerous and dirty jobs.

The impetus for this book was the story of Matthew Guerra (the author’s great-uncle). He immigrated to America from Italy around age 12. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1918 and shipped to France, where he joined the 58th Infantry Regiment of the 4th “Ivy” Division and participated in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives. Wounded in the Bois de Fays, the 22-year-old Guerra died in a field hospital.

New on our bookshelf:

The Vermont Brigade in the Seven Days: The Battles and Their Personal Aftermath
Paul G. Zeller

The Vermont Brigade, sometimes referred to as the “First Vermont Brigade” or the “Old Brigade,” fought its first full-brigade engagement in the Seven Days’ battles. The leaders, as well as the rank and file, were inexperienced in warfare, but through sheer grit and determination they made a name for themselves as one of the hardest-fighting units in the Army of the Potomac.

Using soldiers’ letters, diaries, and service and pension records, this book gives a soldier’s-eye-view of the Virginia summer heat, days of marching with very little rest or nourishment, and the fear and exhilaration of combat. Also included are the stories of 29 men that were wounded or killed and how the tragedies affected their families.

New on our bookshelf:

Eisenhower’s Nuclear Calculus in Europe: The Politics of IRBM Deployment in NATO Nations
Gates Brown

Through a reliance on nuclear weapons, President Eisenhower hoped to provide a defense strategy that would allow the U.S. to maintain its security requirements without creating an economic burden. This defense strategy, known as the New Look, benefited the U.S. Air Force with its focus on strategic bombing. The U.S. also required European missile bases to deploy its intermediate range ballistic missiles, while efforts continued to develop U.S. based intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Deploying such missiles to Europe required balancing regional European concerns with U.S. domestic security priorities. In the wake of the Soviet Sputnik launch in 1957, the U.S. began to fear Soviet missile capabilities. Using European missile bases would mitigate this domestic security issue, but convincing NATO allies to base the missiles in their countries raised issues of sovereignty and weapons control and ran the risk of creating divisions in the NATO alliance.

New on our bookshelf today:

Rebel Guerrillas: Mosby, Quantrill and Anderson
Paul Williams

From the hills and valleys of the eastern Confederate states to the sun-drenched plains of Missouri and “Bleeding Kansas,” a vicious, clandestine war was fought behind the big-battle clashes of the American Civil War. In the east, John Singleton Mosby became renowned for the daring hit-and-run tactics of his rebel horsemen. Here a relatively civilized war was fought; women and children usually left with a roof over their heads. But along the Kansas-Missouri border it was a far more brutal clash; no quarter given. William Clarke Quantrill and William “Bloody Bill” Anderson became notorious for their savagery.

New on our bookshelf today:

A Spear-Carrier in Viet Nam: Memoir of an American Civilian in Country, 1967 and 1970–1972
Michael E. Tolle

There was another war in Vietnam, one that mostly did not make the headlines: the campaign to “win the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese people.

Fought not with artillery and helicopters but with food, medicine and shelter for civilians devastated by the conflict, the effort was unprecedented in U.S. history, involving both military and civilian personnel working together in widely spread areas of the countryside.

Part history and part memoir, this book chronicles an overlooked aspect of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, with a focus on the war victims and refugees who were most tragically affected by the carnage. The author recounts his two years “in-country” as an aid worker and tells how the humanitarian effort was conducted and why it failed.

New on our bookshelf today:

“My brothers have my back”: Inside the November 1969 Battle on the Vietnamese DMZ
Lou Pepi

In November 1969, what Time Magazine called the “largest battle of the year” took place less than two miles from the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. Three companies of Task Force 1-61 met 2,000–3,000 North Vietnamese. American forces fought for two days, inflicting heavy casualties and suffering eight killed.

Late on November 12, it became evident that the American position could be overrun. Alpha Company was airlifted in darkness to reinforce a small hill in the jungle. Three hours later, well past midnight, the Americans were attacked by 1,500 NVA.
There was a twist: A secret Vietcong document captured near Saigon urged intense action before November 14 in anticipation of the Vietnam War Moratorium Demonstrations set for November 15 in many cities in America. The Vietcong planned to inflict a stunning defeat in “an effort to get the fighting in step with the peace marchers.”

The author, a member of Alpha Company who rode in on the last helicopter, offers unique insights into the story of the men who fought those three days in 1969.

New on our bookshelf today:

Movements and Positions in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain: The Memoir of Colonel James T. Holmes, 52d Ohio Volunteer Infantry
James T. Holmes

Published here for the first time, the Civil War combat memoir of Lieutenant Colonel James Taylor Holmes of the 52nd Ohio Volunteers presents a richly detailed firsthand account of the action on Cheatham’s Hill during the June 1864 Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. Written in 1915, Holmes’ insightful narrative, with original hand-drawn diagrams, differs on key points from the accepted scholarship on troop movements and positions at Kennesaw, and contests the legitimacy of a battlefield monument. An extensive introduction and annotations by historian Mark A. Smith provide a brief yet comprehensive overview of the battle and places Holmes’ document in historical context.

New on our bookshelf today:

Under Fire with ARVN Infantry: Memoir of a Combat Advisor in Vietnam, 1966–1967
Bob Worthington

From 1945 to 1973, more than 100,000 members of the U.S. military were advisors in Vietnam. Of these, 66,399 were combat advisors. Eleven were awarded the Medal of Honor, 378 were killed and 1393 were wounded. Combat advisors lived and fought with South Vietnamese combat units, advising on tactics and weapons and liaising with local U.S. military support.

Bob Worthington’s first tour (1966–1967) began with training at the Army Special Warfare School in unconventional warfare, Vietnamese culture and customs, advisor responsibilities and Vietnamese language. Once in-country, he acted as senior advisor to infantry defense forces and then an infantry mobile rapid reaction force.

Worthington worked alongside ARVN forces, staging operations against Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army units and coordinated actions with the U.S. Marines. He describes a night helicopter assault by 320-man ARVN battalion against a 1,200-man NVA regiment. On another night, the Vietcong ceased fire while Worthington arranged a Marine helicopter to medevac a wounded baby.

New on our bookshelf today:

An American Town and the Vietnam War: Stories of Service from Stamford, Connecticut
Tony Pavia and Matt Pavia

Hundreds of young Americans from the town of Stamford, Connecticut, fought in the Vietnam War. These men and women came from all corners of the town. They were white and black, poor and wealthy. Some had not finished high school; others had graduate degrees. They served as grunts and helicopter pilots, battlefield surgeons and nurses, combat engineers and mine sweepers. Greeted with indifference and sometimes hostility upon their return home, Stamford’s veterans learned to suppress their memories in a nation fraught with political, economic and racial tensions. Now in their late 60s and 70s, these veterans have begun to tell their stories.