Civil War

A Well Dressed Johnny Reb (Confederate Infantry)

Confederate Infantry

A Well Dressed Johnny Reb (Confederate Infantry)

The photo above is a representation of what a regular Confederate Infantry Soldier would have looked like. Notice the nice clean uniform. The musket, canteen, nice hat, bayonet hanging from his belt. There is even a backpack to hold rations and personal belongings. Wow. Looking at this you would think that this fellow was part of a well supplied and outfitted army.

Of course everyone started off with a nice clean uniform. There were a number of regulations that attempted to standardize the type of shirt and pants, the color of the fabric and the hat that should be worn. Unfortunately the South had a difficult time with the mass fabrication of uniforms.  There ended up being a lot of variety.

Once the Southern industrial base caught up to war effort the uniforms became more standardized and better supplied. Being able to access cloth imported from Britain also helped. Some of the CSA units at the end of the war were better uniformed than at the start.

The hat worn here is not the regulation Kepi, but a wide brimmed usually wool hat that provided much more protection from the weather. These hats were popular among the enlisted and officers and were almost always of civilian origin.

Colors

The grey color of the uniforms was chosen for a number of reasons. First, many of the state militias uniforms were of that color. Or at least a shade or two off. Secondly, is was a cheap color to dye the cloth. Third, even though not actually intentional, the grey provided a basic level of camouflage against the tree lines.

Uniforms that came out of the the Richmond facilities maintained their color.  The grey uniforms that were made in the Western and Deep South facilities often faded to a brown or tan color.  Sometimes homespun fabric was used that was a similar color. This “butternut” color became almost as iconic as the grey you see above.

 

Word and Phrases, WWII

Wednesday Words and Phrases: Dear John Letter

Dear John Letter

Dear John Letter

Let’s hope that none of you have received (or have sent) a Dear John letter. You probably already know that it usually means a break up that is carried out via the US Post Office.

The origin of the Dear John specifically could be traced back to WWII. An era when men and their families were separated by vast distances. For long periods of times. Normally when the men received their mail the letters would start with something recalling the emotion and longing of the long separation, “Dear Johnny”, “My Dearest Johnny” and sometimes just “Darling” or “My Love”. Something that showed familiarity. If one opened a letter and saw simply, “Dear John” the cold and formal heading would usually give the purpose of the letter away.

By the end of the war people had begun referring to any sort of break up letter as a Dear John. One of the first recorded uses of the phrase was in the March 21st, 1944 St. Petersburg Times where a down and out soldier was described as having just received a “Dear John” letter. Pretty cool how a little turn of phrase has lasted this long as part of our language.

 

American Revolution

By the Ledger Book

By the Ledger Book

By the Ledger Book

What you see above is a ledger from a small colonial business in Virginia. If you looked close you would see all the normal debits and credits that you would expect in a ledger. Now imagine if instead of a wallet you carried your own personal ledger book? Not so far-fetched.

In a time before ATMs and banks hard currency was very hard to find and when you did find it parting with it was not something you enjoyed doing. In New England people used a sort of ledger system for most personal and business transactions, sort of like using Bitcoin. Here is how it worked.

Let’s say you were a young man who decided to do some work on your neighbors farm. You work ten hours. When the day was over you would both take out your ledger books, you would write down that Farmer John owed you for ten hours of work. Farmer John would write in his book that he owed you for ten hours of work. On the way home you stop at the butchers to buy some dinner and decide on a nice ham. The butcher may want to sell you the ham for $5 (just an example), well you don’t have any hard currency but you and the butcher agree that since Farmer John owes you for ten hours, the butcher can lay claim to five of those. You both makes the notes in your ledgers and you have dinner.

Sometime later the butcher needs help with rounding up sheep for the slaughter. He looks in his ledger and sees that now Farmer John owes him that five hours, so he goes and collects by having Farmer John help him for five hours. All accounts are square and not a single piece of copper or paper has actually changed hands.

Simpler? No, not really but when everyone is on the same page it can be effective.

 

 

American Revolution

Up and Over at Yorktown

Up and Over at Yorktown

Up and Over at Yorktown

This picture is from the Yorktown Battlefield park and was taken from the American and French lines on the right side of the battlefield, not far from Redoubts 9 and 10.

A couple of things to point out in this photo.

First thing. Notice the path and how it seemingly goes between two huge mounds of dirt off into the distance? That is the result of digging the siege lines. The dirt that was moved was used to create the large berms. So digging down not only made it safer, but provided the material needed to make the fortifications. The American forces during the Revolution were very good at digging these fortifications and many times amazing works like this would be created over night, leaving the British dumbfounded.

Second thing. The cannons closest to us are mortars. During a siege the enemy usually were behind some kind of fortifications. Sometimes stronger than any artillery you may have on hand. Mortars are designed to lob shells over the fortifications and into the enemy or the civilians behind the lines. They can be very effective but were not used in regular field battles.

The cannons in the background would be used for direct fire, aimed at a target and fired at it. During a siege, they would batter the fortifications hoping to break them down so the infantry could take a run at it. In normal field battles these would be used to great effect. We will see many more of these on the site and get into their uses. It was just neat to see bot types of artillery in one picture.

 

Word and Phrases

Wednesday Words & Phrases: Soldier

Roman Soldier

Soldier

A solider is someone who serves in the armed forces, but the origin of the word is kind of neat.

The most direct connection for the origin we have is circa 1300 from the Old French soudier, “one who serves in the army for pay”.

That seems to connect to the Medieval Latin soldarius, which means literally “one having pay”. That Latin phrase seems to be the source of the Spanish term for soldier, solodado and the Italian soldato.

That Medieval Latin term can find its root in the Latin solidus, which the term for a Roman gold coin and means, “coin of thick or solid metal” or not of thin plate, you know solid. Yes, the odds are good that soldier can trace a line to the word solid. Pretty cool.

At least that is one theory. Here is the other…

During the Roman Empire men in the army were sometimes paid in salt The Roman word for salt was sal. This payment became known as a salary and gave rise to the phrases “worth his salt”

Sal in Latin eventually became solde in French and eventually became soldier. Again, one who serves in the army for pay. Or for a salary.

One more quick one. Ancient Romans enjoyed eating their greens with a little bit of  salt to bring out the flavor. Remember that the Roman word for salt was sal? Well that dish of vegetables with salt became known as salad.  Thank you Rome.

Vietnam

In The Thick of Battle

In The Thick of Battle

In The Thick of Battle

 

This picture is from the personal collection of my father, William Hatfield and below is the story that he told me about it. This would have been taken during one of his several tours in Vietnam where he served with the US Navy as a Hospital Corpsman. For those that don’t know the US Marines had no medical corp of its own, so they use Navy Corpsmen as their medics. So my father spent a lot of time in country with the Marines and in the thick of it.

Scattered around the country of Vietnam during our involvement were a number of what were called “Fire Bases“. These bases served as forward positions that were often way out in the boondocks. They served as an extension of the “zone of control” for the US military. They provided the front line troops somewhere to rest. Most importantly they housed much of the heavy artillery that provided support for troops in the field.  To the Vietnamese they were huge targets.

Time for a Picture?

The picture above was taken at approximately 2am and captures the opening of an attack on the base by enemy forces. Usually they would start with mortar fire, sometimes heavier ordinance if they had it. Usually once the mortar fire started the enemy positions would be located and devastated with artillery or in most cases troops would be sent to clear out the nests.

Most attacks consisted of the mortars and on occasion enemy troops would try to infiltrate the base. Their goal to kill and destroy as much as possible then disappear in to the night. Sometimes these attacks would occur on subsequent nights. Every now then they would get lucky and a shell would fall on a stash of ammunition or even fuel. When that happened you would end up with an explosion, much like you see above.

And there was William Hatfield, taking time to snap a quick picture before he got to work on the wounded. In the thick of it indeed.

 

Word and Phrases

Wednesday Words and Phrases: Sarcasm

Image result for sarcasm

Sarcasm

Yes sarcasm the judicious employment of a biting wit. Bet you didn’t know that it also has a military origin.

The word is based on the Greek sarkasmos which means “flesh-tearing”. It was used in reference to a particularly brutal attack made on the battle field that involved wild hacking and slashing that tore and shredded the enemies flesh.

By the late 16th century the word shows up in English meaning a brutal and withering  verbal attack.

Modern

What Makes a Tomcat Go?

An f-14 Tomcat Engine

What Makes a Tomcat Go?

Why these of course.

The Grumman f-14 Tomcat has been one of the most iconic Navy fighters of the modern age. Sure they are long in the tooth and are pretty much passed by now, but thanks to Top Gun they will always have a special place in our collective hearts, and that above is what made them go.

The Pratt & Whitney TF30 was first put into production in 1964 and were being built up until 1986 and while they functioned well in other aircraft, in the F-14 that had some issues with compression stalls at high angles of attack when the throttles were moved aggressively.

In other aircraft these stalls were able to be compensated for, but in the Tomcat, because the two engines were so widely spaced apart it could cause the plane to go into a spin that was VERY difficult to recover from. Just ask Goose. The major issues were finally resolved in a new version of the engine that started seeing service in the F-14A in the late 80’s.

The engine was used in the following aircraft models:

  •  F-111 (General Dynamics)
  •  F-111C (General Dynamics)
  • EF-111A Raven (General Dynamics/Grumman)
  • F-111B (General Dynamics/Grumman)
  • F-111K  (General Dynamics)
  • F-14A Tomcat  (General Dynamics)
  • LTV A-7A/B/C Corsair II

If you are curious you can find out some more about the engine at the Pratt & Whitney site here.

Word and Phrases

Wednesday Words and Phrases: Freelance

We are going to branch out from American Military History for today’s word: Freelance.

Now, as you might expect the word freelance does have a root in the old men in armor on horse using lances to beat on each other. It is a term that was first used to describe knights for hire, or mercenaries. The men were free to use their lances for the highest bidders.  So yes all the you “freelancers” out there are basically mercenaries. Welcome to the club.

Now the really cool part. When do you think the term first came into use? I’ll give you ten seconds…….

Nope. You guessed the Middle Ages (or Dark Ages) or threw out a random century. The fact is the term was first coined my Sir Walter Scott in his 1820 classic Ivanhoe which took place in 12th century England. He decided that the term was much friendlier (less friendlier?) than the actual name for those mercenaries, free companion. The fact that your snickering right now shows he was probably right.

Book Reviews, Frontier, War of 1812

Book Review: Illinois in the War of 1812

Review: Illinois in the War of 1812

 

It is actually quite a shame that the War of 1812 does not get more focus outside the hallowed halls of academia. It was a war that didn’t need fought, was almost lost and the most famous battle was fought after the treaty was signed. Some very interesting stuff. Most of the time the focus of studies of the war deal with the fight for Canada and the Great Lakes, or the sack of Washington DC or the Battle fo New Orleans. This book by Gillum Ferguson forgoes all that t do with one certain aspect of the larger war, the frontier war in Illinois.

For the most part this was a side of the war fought between the Native Americans and the American settlers. What few regular troops were engaged by the US and the British had an impact but never enough to sway the outcome one way or the other. No, this was a war fought against the old by the new. As such the topic is one that can a little difficult because we know the ending.

Ferguson, to his credit. does not shy away from the brutality on either side.  For every Native village burned a dead settler family can be found. For every attempt at justice there was an ambush. This was not so much war as it was a contest to see who would be standing at the end.

One of the most fascinating aspects was learning about some of the Native leaders, the ones who knew that siding with the US was in their best interest, but took up the fight against them anyway. Some of the leaders, such as Gomo of the Potowatami was one of these that would do whatever was needed to protect his people. the political interplay between the tribes is something in this book that brought a new aspect to the time and struggle.

The other really great thing about the book was the author’s use of primary sources to “debunk” local legends. Some communities claim to have been the site of a famous battle, yet oddly no records of the fight exists.  Or even using sources from the time to locate where battles actually occurred in a frontier that no longer exists.

The down side is that it can be a little dry. Keeping track of the names and the geography can get a little overwhelming. It’s not a long book, but it is a meaty read. Don’t take this one lightly.

I recommend this book for anyone that more insight into the frontier wars and the impact of British and Native interactions in the period. If that sounds interesting dig in.

As always you can get a copy of the book from Amazon by clicking on the cover image above.

 

 

People, Places and Things from US Military History

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