Book Reviews, Civil War, Frontier, Mexican-American War

Book Review: Frontiersmen in Blue

Robert Utley is by far one of the most accomplished experts in his field and that shows in the composition of this book. Dealing with the years between the Mexican War and the Civil War, Utley provides several different views of the period and the task in front of the men in blue.

From the end of the Mexican War, the role of the US Army was focused on expansion of existing trading routs and helping to create settlements that would soon be feeding the great westward migration. At the same time they had to secure much of the vast new mineral wealth that was gained from the war. The men that undertook this task were a special breed and were not always fitted to the role.’

Of course at the center of the story is the many Indian tribes that already lived out on the plains. These people lived a different sort of life, one that was so different from the Americans that the two sides were never going to be able to coexist. Utley spends a lot of time on these conflicts, societal and military that lead to atrocities on both sides of the equation. Once the two groups came into conflict and the Eastern politicians got involved, things became even more messy.

The final sections of the book deal with the coming Civil War and how this small frontier force of regulars would take in and integrate the huge number of “volunteers” that would swell its ranks.

The most interesting aspect of this book is that it sets the stage for the plains wars of the post Civil War era which most people are much more familiar with. In the end it is a good read and is highly recommended.

 

Modern, Space

Red Rover, Red Rover, Send Sojourner On Over

 

We established in a previous post that the space program and NASA will fall under the purview of this blog. Many of the advances made by the program benefit both the military side of the country as well a the civilian side, and without one there would not be the other. That said, above is a picture of the Mars rover, Sojourner which for many years served as our eyes on the planet Mars. Yeah, you got me I wanted to write about this because of The Martian, great movie and great book.

Sojourner was named via a completion that NASA held asking  students up to 18 years old to submit essays that pitched a name of a historic heroine, and a description of why that name would be fitting for the rover. The winner chose the name Sojourner Truth, an African-American woman from the Civil War era that traveled the land seeking to advocate equal rights for all men. It probably didn’t hurt that Sojourner also means traveler, a perfect name for the little robot.

Among the runner ups were such luminaries as Marie Curie, Harriet Tubman, Sacagawea, Amelia Earhart, Athena, Minerva, Atalanta and Thumbelina.

All said that above is a model of the little bugger. Originally they planned for that little bugger to wander Mars for approximately a month, and it lasted for over three. During that time it provided very valuable information on the Red Planet which set the stage for subsequent missions. I would recommend checking out the original NASA page on the mission for a couple of reasons. One, it is fascinating to see what the web looked like in 1996 (wow!) the other is for the pictures of Mars that are still on the site.

Writing about war and conflict and those things is needed. To help shape the future we need to understand the past. Sometimes though it is nice just to see what we can do when we let our natural inclination to explore take the wheel.

Cold War

All That’s Old Is New Again

In the GR Ford Presidential Museum hangs this interesting piece from New York magazine. In it President Ford is shown storming the beaches alongside Henry Kissinger with US troops and oil rigs in the background. The headline reads, Would We Really Kill for Oil?

It would not be out of place to see something similar in most modern magazines or websites, regardless of who our leadership is and should serve as a reminder that what is old usually becomes new again.

In this case the illustration above is referencing our involvement with the Middle East, an area of the world that just happened to have very large oil deposits that are necessary to run the engines of the world economy. That oil has tied us (the world) to this region and has made it a focal point of our foreign policy for a very long time. National interest has dragged us into a number of wars, questionable alliances and quite frankly a continuation of the Crusades from which Western Civilization may very well not be able to survive.

Back under the Ford the question was, “Would We Kill For Oil?” Forty years later we know the answer to that question is still being debated. The irony is that in the last decade oil reserves that dwarf those in Iran and Iraq have been found much closer to home which should mean the answer is a resounding no.

Alas, we have embroiled ourselves so deep in that region that we may never be able to get untangled. Luckily though Ford and Kissinger never had to storm that beach as depicted in the magazine, which was good, but perhaps if they had we would be asking a different question now.

 

Book Reviews, Civil War

Book Review: After Lincoln

 

In the book After Lincoln: How the North Won the Civil War and Lost the Peace, the author A. J. Langguth brings forward two truths about the Civil War that not a lot of people will be willing to face.

First is that the war did not end after the fighting was over. The only thing that changed was the conflict moved away from armies and into the arms of the politicians. In a very good and easily read way Langguth takes you behind the scenes of Reconstruction in a way that makes you realize how much Lincoln was missed on this process and that without his vision, lesser men were allowed to shape the future. Regardless of what you know about the Civil War or Reconstruction, this is book will have you shaking your head at the realization that even good men like Grant were completely overwhelmed with the prospect of reuniting the country while not losing surrendering the gains that were made.

The second truth that comes out of this book is that in many, many ways Reconstruction is still going on. The process never truly ended and the descendants of the  different sides still find themselves searching for meaning. In many ways the Civil Rights movement saw its origins in the years after the Civil War, but Reconstruction set the movement back almost a hundred years.

A good book, but two issues keep it from being great. The author has organized the book with each chapter focusing on a certain personality. Which is fine with the exception that the chapter often meanders away from that personality so it is easy to lose your place. It would have been much better presented in a chronological format, but the timeline shucks and jives. The second issue is that near the end when it does a good job of tying the events to the modern struggle for equality, it makes the case, but the book ends before truly delving deep. If ever a book could have used fifty more pages, this is one.

All said though, well done. If you are curious about the period of Reconstruction, this is an excellent book.

 

Uncategorized

Welcome!

We have had a lot of new people join us on Facebook the last couple of weeks. Thanks for coming out and “Liking” the page.

If you get the time come on over to the website to see even more.

In fact you will find a lot of articles that were not posted to Facebook because of a technical glitch for a couple of months. Plus you can also take a look at the Gallery and our book recommendations in the Gift Shop.

Most importantly on the Images & Credits page you will find links to all the wonderful museums, historic sites and institutions where many of the pictures were taken at. Supporting them makes sure we all have places to go on our vacations.

Thanks and again and enjoy. Remember, new posts come out Tuesday and Thursday around noon.

 

SDHatfield

Modern, WWII

100th Post Old Glory

This the monumental 100th post on this blog. That means we have reached almost a year of telling stories and sharing some of the military of this great nation. Thank you all for your support.

Flags have been in the news a lot lately, and oddly enough  if you look back through you will see that we have been talking about flags before it became fashionable. See, flags have meaning, they are symbols. The problem is that sometimes the symbols don’t mean the same thing to everyone.

The flag in this photo above should be very familiar to you. Take a close look though and you will that it is a little different.

Did you see it?

There are 48 stars. See this flag is from the WWII era and for the most part during that time if you saw this flag it meant one of two things.

To our friends it was a symbol of hope, it was a symbol that the big dog had entered the fight and we were going to be doing everything possible to win the war. For ourselves, for our friends and for the sake of the world. Many Americans and our allies died for that flag and many more since have for the very same reasons.

To our enemies it was a symbol of dread. They say the flag and knew that the fight was on. We would not quit, we would not stop until they were defeated. Early in the war our enemies underestimated us and that was to their detriment. Many enemies died in the shadow of that flag, and they still do today.

So same flag different meanings. Weird how that happens, eh?

Thanks for the first 100. Stay tuned for the next 100.

American Revolution, Book Reviews

Book Review: Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring

 

I come to this book with a confession. After seeing the first several episodes of the AMC series TURN, I wanted to know everything I could about the characters. So I came to this book to find out more. What I found was a bit surprising, but in the end I guess the show did its job by getting to find this book.

Now, to the book. Rose tells a gripping tale of intrigue as Washington attempts to build an intelligence service that will give him an edge against the British.  Reading the tale it is surprising that what he built was not only effective but vital in winning the revolution.

While it would be easy to try to read this as a spy novel, it is not. It is the story of real and flawed men that have to make decisions that literally could mean life or death. Abraham Woodhull, who is the main character in the show and one of the focuses in this book, is not an irreproachable patriot that will do anything for the cause.  He is man who argues with Washington over wages, and expenses and actual quits his post several times.

Even so, the way that Rose presents this man you feel for him. The pressure he is under is real and palpable, and because of that you tend to want to forgive him and by the end tend to admire him somewhat. It is to the author’s credit that he can capture the insecurity and uncertainty of the time, while at the same time humanize those that may tend to have history do otherwise to them.

Read the book for the truth, watch the show for the drama.

Book Reviews, Civil War

Book Review: The Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846-1848

 

The Mexican War is one of those often overlooked conflicts in American history, almost always overshadowed by the Civil War almost twenty years later. It is however a very important piece of history that should not be overlooked by those studying our past.

See in this conflict you get introduced to many of the major players from the next war. Grant, Lee, Sherman, Davis, Jackson, Longstreet are just a few. They are all here, though younger and perhaps a little less world-weary. It is through their eyes that the author brings the war to life.

Where many historians tend to approach the Mexican War from the top down, delving into the politics and manipulations that brought it about. Dugard instead deals with the officers and specifically those that were schooled at West Point and who shared that bond.

It is through their eyes that the war unfolds. A lust for action, and a desire to seek glory and fame, tempered only by the need to see their homes and loved ones again. The story told is not the war, but how it effected those that fought. Through out the interactions of the men you can’t help but feel a sense of foreboding as you know what the future holds for many of those that survive, and how the lessons they learned in Mexico would be applied in their only country.

Dugard tells the story well and includes many bits from the journals letters and reminiscences of the men involved. At times the writing feels a bit rushed and it seems as if there were bits glossed over. Which takes nothing away from the book, but leaves you wanting more if you are looking for the op down. If you want to get to know the men, then this is a great place to start.

 

Modern, WWII

So That Happened…

 

That is a Nazi armband. It was worn by an actual Nazi soldier during an actual war. Very seldom in the course of writing for this blog have I allowed much in the way of personal feelings, but there is something going that just needs stopped. People here and elsewhere are going through an unbelievable amount of effort to pretend that the Nazis never happened and by doing so allowing them to be swept under the rug.

Last summer a 93-year-old man in Germany was charged as an accessory in 300,000 murders for his role as a prison guard at Auschwitz. That trial is currently under way. but it is getting less press, especially in the United States than the Apple iWatch (or whatever they are calling it). This man was a Nazi, this country went to war to stop them from carrying out their plans. That man, even at 93, is only coming to justice because what we did to end the war and end the regime that he was a part of.  and this story gets barely a mention.

This is the thing. What they did was terrible and that sort of thing, not just in terms of the Holocaust, not just in the number of Jewish, Romanian, Polish, Russian, and all other races they felt unclean must never be allowed to happen again. The way to stop it i not through laws, nothing international agreements, not through erasing part of our collective history, but through remembering what they did. As each generation gets farther and farther from that truth, from that evil, it will take work to remember.

See that symbol in the picture above. That is the Nazi symbol. That armband was real and was worn by a real person that carried out their evil. we must never forget.

American Revolution

Monumental (Part Four)

 

Nothing like a monument to victory.

This one stands at Yorktown were the last major battle of the American Revolution was fought. The French fleet paved the way by running of the British Navy from the Chesapeake Capes and preventing them from either supplying, reinforcing or evacuating the British forces under General Cornwallis that were cornered in Yorktown.

With the British Navy unable to render assistance the combined forces of the French and American armies surrounded the British army and placed them under siege. After several weeks, on October 19, 1781 General Cornwallis had no choice but to surrender. With the loss of another army to the rebels and facing continued conflict with the French and Spanish as well as declining public sentiment at home, peach negotiations were started in earnest. The war would continue for several more years, but for the most part the major fighting would be elsewhere.

The monument above commemorates not only that victory but also the alliance with the French. The monument was designed by Richard Morris Hunt, a New York architect, and was installed in 1884. On the top perched a sculpture of Victory, designed and sculpted by John Quincy Adams Ward.

In 1942 the monument was struck by lightning, destroying the figure of Victory. In 1957 the figure was replaced by a sculpture of Liberty designed by Oskar J. W. Hansen.

The day that this picture was taken was overcast, rain and wind made for a long day, but the walk from the visitor center to the monument was worth it once you crested the ridge and saw the monument standing guard over the battlefield and the memories of that day in October in 1781 when all fear and wonder of doubt of whether or not we could win the war was removed for good.

 

 

 

People, Places and Things from US Military History

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