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Books > Humanities > History > World history > 1750 to 1900
The drums they roll, upon my soul, for that's the way we go,"" runs
the chorus in a Harrigan and Hart song from 1874. ""Forty miles a
day on beans and hay in the Regular Army O!"" The last three words
of that lyric aptly title Douglas C. McChristian's remarkable work
capturing the lot of soldiers posted to the West after the Civil
War. At once panoramic and intimate, Regular Army O! uses the
testimony of enlisted soldiers - drawn from more than 350 diaries,
letters, and memoirs - to create a vivid picture of life in an
evolving army on the western frontier. After the volunteer troops
that had garrisoned western forts and camps during the Civil War
were withdrawn in 1865, the regular army replaced them. In actions
involving American Indians between 1866 and 1891, 875 of these
soldiers were killed, mainly in minor skirmishes, while many more
died of disease, accident, or effects of the natural environment.
What induced these men to enlist for five years and to embrace the
grim prospect of combat is one of the enduring questions this book
explores. Going well beyond Don Rickey Jr.'s classic work Forty
Miles a Day on Beans and Hay (1963), McChristian plumbs the
regulars' accounts for frank descriptions of their training to be
soldiers; their daily routines, including what they ate, how they
kept clean, and what they did for amusement; the reasons a
disproportionate number occasionally deserted, while black soldiers
did so only rarely; how the men prepared for field service; and how
the majority who survived mustered out. In this richly drawn,
uniquely authentic view, men black and white, veteran and
tenderfoot, fill in the details of the frontier soldier's
experience, giving voice to history in the making.
Following the 1808 French invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, an
unprecedented political crisis threw the Spanish Monarchy into
turmoil. On the Caribbean coast of modern-day Colombia, the
important port town of Cartagena rejected Spanish authority,
finally declaring independence in 1811. With new leadership that
included free people of color, Cartagena welcomed merchants,
revolutionaries, and adventurers from Venezuela, the Antilles, the
United States, and Europe. Most importantly, independent Cartagena
opened its doors to privateers of color from the French Caribbean.
Hired mercenaries of the sea, privateers defended Cartagena's claim
to sovereignty, attacking Spanish ships and seizing Spanish
property, especially near Cuba, and establishing vibrant maritime
connections with Haiti. Most of Cartagena's privateers were people
of color and descendants of slaves who benefited from the relative
freedom and flexibility of life at sea, but also faced kidnapping,
enslavement, and brutality. Many came from Haiti and Guadeloupe;
some had been directly involved in the Haitian Revolution. While
their manpower proved crucial in the early Anti-Spanish struggles,
Afro-Caribbean privateers were also perceived as a threat,
suspected of holding questionable loyalties, disorderly tendencies,
and too strong a commitment to political and social privileges for
people of color. Based on handwritten and printed sources in
Spanish, English, and French, this book tells the story of
Cartagena's multinational and multicultural seafarers, revealing
the Trans-Atlantic and maritime dimensions of South American
independence.
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