Taking up its position astride the Peking-Mukden [Beijing-Shenyang] railway beginning in January, 1912, the United States Fifteenth Infantry Regiment was engaged in protecting American interests in China. The 1000 man force was especially challenged during the 1920s, those tumultuous years when warlords struggled to gain ascendancy in the Chinese Republic. Although Chiang Kai-shek established a measure of control in China by 1928, the regiment remained in China--partially to counter Japan's increasingly aggressive actions—despite considerable misgivings within and outside of the United States Army as to the feasibility, desirability, and ethical appropriateness of the policy retaining it there. The success of the Japanese in conquering much of eastern China finally compelled Washington to withdraw the regiment on March 2, 1938. This work recounts and assesses some aspects of the involvement and service of the Fifteenth Infantry Regiment during its fateful quarter of a century in the Orient between the World Wars. Also detailed is the Army's service in those years in general. Many insights are provided regarding the self-perceptions of a key generation of U.S. military personnel deployed there.

"Weaving together information from official sources and personal interviews, Barbara Tomblin gives the first full-length account of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in the Second World War. She describes how over 60,000 army nurses, all volunteers, cared for sick and wounded American soldiers in every theater of the war, serving in the jungles of the Southwest Pacific, the frozen reaches of Alaska and Iceland, the mud of Italy and northern Europe, or the heat and dust of the Middle East. Many of the women in the Army Nurse Corps served in dangerous hospitals near the front lines -- 201 nurses were killed by accident or enemy action, and another 1,600 won decorations for meritorious service. These nurses address the extreme difficulties of dealing with combat and its effects in World War II, and their stories are all the more valuable to women's and military historians because they tell of the war from a very different viewpoint than that of male officers. Although they were unable to achieve full equality for American women in the military during World War II, army nurses did secure equal pay allowances and full military rank, and they proved beyond a doubt their ability and willingness to serve and maintain excellent standards of nursing care under difficult and often dangerous conditions.

Prompted by the earnest entreaties of his friends rather than by any wish of his own to relate his experiences, Mr. Slatin wrote these chapters. The author held high posts in the Sudan, traveled throughout the length and breadth of the country and, a perfect master of the language, he had opportunities which few others had to accurately describe affairs such as they were in the last days of the Egyptian Administration. While his experiences during his cruel captivity place him in a perfectly unique position as the highest authority on the rise, progress and wane of that great religious movement which wrenched the country from its conquerors and dragged it back into an almost indescribable condition of religious and moral decadence.

The roots of American globalization can be found in the War of 1898. Then, as today, the United States actively engaged in globalizing its economic order, itspolitical institutions, and its values. Thomas Schoonover argues that this drive to expand political and cultural reach -- the quest for wealth, missionary fulfillment, security, power, and prestige -- was inherited by the United States from Europe, especially Spain and Great Britain. Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization is a pathbreaking work of history that examines U.S. growth from its early nationhood to its first major military conflict on the world stage, also known as the Spanish-American War. As the new nation's military, industrial, and economic strength developed, the United States created policies designed to protect itself from challenges beyond its borders. According to Schoonover, a surge in U.S. activity in the Gulf-Caribbean and in Central America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was catalyzed by the same avarice and competitiveness that motivated the European adventurers to seek a route to Asia centuries earlier. Addressing the basic chronology and themes of the first century of the nation's expansion, Schoonover locates the origins of the U.S. goal of globalization. U.S. involvement in the War of 1898 reflects many of the fundamental patterns in our national history -- exploration and discovery, labor exploitation, violence, racism, class conflict, and concern for security -- that many believe shaped America's course in the twentieth and twenty-first century.

" The Battle Rages Higher tells, for the first time, the story of the Fifteenth Kentucky Infantry, a hard-fighting Union regiment raised largely from Louisville and the Knob Creek valley where Abraham Lincoln lived as a child. Although recruited in a slave state where Lincoln received only 0.9 percent of the 1860 presidential vote, the men of the Fifteenth Kentucky fought and died for the Union for over three years, participating in all the battles of the Atlanta campaign, as well as the battles of Perryville, Stones River and Chickamauga. Using primary research, including soldiers' letters and diaries, hundreds of contemporary newspaper reports, official army records, and postwar memoirs, Kirk C. Jenkins vividly brings the Fifteenth Kentucky Infantry to life. The book also includes an extensive biographical roster summarizing the service record of each soldier in the thousand-member unit. Kirk C. Jenkins, a descendant of the Fifteenth Kentucky's Captain Smith Bayne, is a partner in a Chicago law firm. Click here for Kirk Jenkins' website and more information about the 15th Kentucky Infantry.

"[W]e began our advance toward the Mokmer Airstrip. . . . The road climbed a ridge 15 or 20 feet high and we found ourselves on a flat coral plateau sparsely covered by small trees and scrub growth. . . . As we moved westward along the road, two of our destroyers were sailing abreast of the lead elements of the advancing column. The first indication of trouble was the roar of heavy artillery shells sailing over our heads . . . aimed at our destroyers. . . . Shortly after that our forward movement stopped, and we heard heavy firing from the head of the column. . . . As we waited, we began to hear heavy fire from the rear. . . . We were cut off and surrounded!" In the enormous literature of the Second World War, there are surprisingly few accounts of fighting in the southwest Pacific, fewer still by common infantrymen. This memoir, written with a simple and direct honesty that is rare indeed, follows a foot soldier's career from basic training to mustering out. It takes the reader into the jungles and caves of New Guinea and the Philippines during the long campaign to win the war against Japan. From basic training at Camp Roberts through combat, occupation, and the long journey home, Francis Catanzaro's account tells of the excitement, misery, cruelty, and terror of combat, and of the uneasy boredom of jungle camp life. A member of the famed 41st Infantry Brigade, the "Jungleers," Catanzaro saw combat at Hollandia, Biak, Zamboanga, and Mindanao. He was a part of the Japanese occupation force and writes with feeling about living among his former enemies and of the decision to drop the atom bomb. With the 41st Division in the Southwest Pacific is a powerful, gritty, and moving narrative of the life of a soldier during some of the most difficult fighting of World War II.

In August 1914 the mobilization of Imperial Germany's 800,000-strong army ushered in the first great war of the modern age - a war which still stands as the greatest slaughter of soldiers in history. That German Army is also the best example of a particular period of military thought, when virtually the whole manpower of the European nations was integrated into mass conscript armies, supported by several age categories of reservists and by dedicated industrial and transport systems. In this first of three volumes the author offers an extraordinary mass of information, in text and tables, illustrated by photographs and colour plates.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Cossacks were Russia's unique and plentiful supply of irregular cavalry. They were employed as skirmishers, raiders and scouts, and their tactics of harassment and harrying caused great problems for Napoleon's Grand Armee as it retreated through Russia in 1812. This title shows how, although labelled as rapacious, lascivious, mercenary and ill-disciplined on the field by their detractors, they laid claim to being the finest light cavalry in Europe. This book also details the various tribes that made up the Cossack nation, the social structure of Cossack life, and how they were organised and employed in war.

The Confederate armies included in their ranks a remarkable range of nationalities--among them Germans, Irish, Italians, French, Poles, Mexicans, Cubans, Hungarians, Russians, Swedes, Danes, and Chinese. Covering the complete story of the activities of the foreigners in the Confederacy--in both military and civil service--this book recognizes their many contributions to the cause of the South. First published in 1940, it remains the only work on the subject.

Pressed by advancing enemy armies on both fronts, Adolf Hitler played his final card in World War II by mobilizing all German civilian males between sixteen and sixty and indoctrinating them for a final apocalyptic defense of the Reich. The Volkssturm, created as much to boost national morale as to bolster sagging defenses, has been viewed as a negligible factor in the war. David Yelton counters that view with new insights into why the German high command sought this means to prolong an unwinnable war-and why so many civilians chose to fight to the bitter end.

"Hitler's Volkssturm" is the only book in English-and the most comprehensive in any language-on the German militia, illuminating its role and contributions to the Nazi war effort and shedding new light on the last days of the Third Reich. It examines the militia's strategic purpose, organization, training, and combat performance on both war fronts and explores factors contributing to its sporadic tactical successes and its overall failure.

Yelton reveals why the Nazi leadership chose to assemble such last-ditch units rather than negotiating for peace and also why civilians in these units were more than willing to serve. The Volkssturm was, in fact, part of a broader, ideologically based strategy intended to turn the tide of the war. Yelton tracks the impact of this ideology on Nazi decision-making throughout the war's final year and illustrates how ideological assumptions were often a major reason for the failure of Nazi policies and strategies.

In an unprecedented examination of the Volkssturm at the local level, Yelton also shows the negative impact of national power struggles and demonstrates how the Wehrmacht, industry, and public opinion exerted influence on the militia in ways often contrary to its official objectives. His extensive and insightful analysis illuminates German mobilization priorities, reveals that a substantial number of its commanders had experience in both the military and the Nazi Party, and clarifies the impact of Volkssturm mobilizations on the overall German war economy.

Pathbreaking in both scope and depth, "Hitler's Volkssturm" stresses the factional lines and conflicting centers of power within the Nazi bureaucracy, clarifies policy formulation and implementation in the late Third Reich, and assesses the shifting power relationships among various groups and individuals. Ultimately, it gives us a more complete portrait of the Third Reich during the final phase of a devastating war and conveys important lessons about the use of militia forces in modern warfare.

When "citizen-soldier" Alvin Coe Voris wrote his first letter to his beloved wife, Lydia, in 1861, he embarked on a correspondence that would span the duration of the Civil War. A former Ohio legislator, Voris filled his letters with keen insights into the daily life of soldiers, army politics, and such issues as the morality of combat and the evils of slavery. Often heartwrenching and invariably gripping, the 428 letters collected in this volume form an unbroken and unique Civil War chronicle. Voris's personal merit and political influence earned him the rank of brevet major general of volunteers. Known among his men as "Old Promptly," he strongly emphasized the soldierly precepts of order and duty on the battlefield. As leader of the 67th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Voris fought in the First Battle of Kernstown, Stonewall Jackson's only defeat. Though wounded in the attack on Fort Wagner during the siege of Charleston, he served in northern Virginia until General Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. Some of Voris's most impassioned letters depict his firsthand observations of slavery's effects on the nation as he condemned the cruelty of slaveowners and agonized over the predicament of his fellow man. At one point, Voris led an African American brigade consisting of nearly 3,000 soldiers, and soon after their first combat he wrote Lydia to praise the men's valor and fighting spirit. Discharged from military command in 1865, he remained an active, dedicated supporter of equal rights for African Americans. Edited and annotated by Jerome Mushkat, this exceptionally complete collection of letters reveals not only the daily life of a Civil War soldier but also the ideals and aspirations of a man of conscience whom duty called to the battlefield.

Defiance against Chinese oppression has been a defining characteristic of Tibetan life for more than four decades, symbolized most visibly by the much revered Dalai Lama. But the story of Tibetan resistance weaves a far richer tapestry than anyone might have imagined.
Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison reveal how America's Central Intelligence Agency encouraged Tibet's revolt against China-and eventually came to control its fledgling resistance movement. While the CIA's presence in Tibet has been alluded to in other works, the authors provide the first comprehensive, as well as most compelling account of this little known agency enterprise.

The CIA's Secret War in Tibet takes readers from training camps in the Colorado Rockies to the scene of clandestine operations in the Himalayas, chronicling the agency's help in securing the Dalai Lama's safe passage to India and subsequent initiation of one of the most remote covert campaigns of the Cold War. Establishing a rebel army in the northern Nepali kingdom of Mustang and a para-commando force in India designed to operate behind Chinese lines, Conboy and Morrison provide previously unreported details about secret missions undertaken in extraordinarily harsh conditions. Their book greatly expands on previous memoirs by CIA officials by putting virtually every major agency participant on record with details of clandestine operations. It also calls as witnesses the people who managed and fought in the program-including Tibetan and Nepalese agents, Indian intelligence officers, and even mission aircrews.

Conboy and Morrison take pains to tell the story from all perspectives, particularly that of the former Tibetan guerrillas, many of whom have gone on record here for the first time. The authors also tell how Tibet led America and India to become secret partners over the course of several presidential administrations and cite dozens of Indian and Tibetan intelligence documents directly related to these covert operations. Ultimately, they are persuasive that the Himalayan operations were far more successful as a proving ground for CIA agents who were later reassigned to southeast Asia than as a staging ground for armed rebellion.

As the movement for Tibetan liberation continues to attract international support, Tibet's status remains a contentious issue in both Washington and Beijing. This book takes readers inside a covert war fought with Tibetan blood and U. S. sponsorship and allows us to better understand the true nature of that controversy.

California Sabers is the story of the California Battalion and Hundred, a group of 500 select men who were the only organized group of Californians to fight in the East during the Civil War. They volunteered their enlistment bounty to pay their passage across Panama and on to
Massachusetts, where they became the cadre of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry.

From mid-1863 to July 1864, the Second Massachusetts fought a bloody guerilla war in northern Virginia against John S. Mosby, the confederacy s "Gray Ghost." In July 1864 the regiment became part of Sheridan s Army of the Shenandoah, and that fall it played a major role in the decisive battles of Winchester, Toms Run, and Cedar Creek.

In early 1865 the regiment was in the column that marched across Virginia destroying the vital railroad and canal that carried supplies from the Shenandoah Valley to the besieged Army of Northern Virginia. In late March, the Second Massachusetts was in the forefront of the battles at Dinwiddie Courthouse and Five Forks, the two actions that finally broke the stalemate at Petersburg and forced Lee to retreat to the west. In the ensuing chase, the regiment was the part of the cavalry spearhead that finally blocked Lee s army at Appomattox Courthouse.

This work, based on extensive research, is the first comprehensive history of this relatively unknown group and will be of great interest to Civil War enthusiasts and historians."

Ulysses S. Grant did more than any other single Union general to secure the North's victory in the Civil War, but he did not achieve that victory alone. Grant's ability to inspire and cultivate the talents of the officers serving under him was a key factor in his remarkable military success. Steven Woodworth and his fellow authors provide ample evidence for that in this first of a two-volume reassessment of Grant's officer corps from Cairo to Appomattox.

Covering the war's western theater through July 1863, Woodworth et al. highlight the character and accomplishments of these men and show how their individual relationships with Grant helped pave the way to Union victory. They demonstrate how each officer's service contributed to Grant's success and development as a general, how interaction with Grant affected each officer's career, and how the relationship ultimately contributed to the course of battle and the war's final outcome.

These portraits include the most important of Grant's lieutenants as well as some who are representative of various officer types. Here are William T. Sherman and Grant's other trusted commanders from the Army of the Tennessee, revered mentor Charles F. Smith, and difficult subordinate William S. Rosecrans. Here too are such citizen soldiers as Lew "Ben Hur" Wallace and Peter Osterhaus, de facto intelligence chief Grenville Dodge, and naval officers Andrew Foote and David Dixon Porter, whose relationships with Grant proved crucial to the war effort.

Full of revealing insights regarding military leadership and the special problems of Civil War command, Grant's Lieutenants adds a new dimension to our understanding of the Union road to victory and gives usthe true measure of these dedicated men.

In one of the very few balanced accounts of Texas's epic struggle for independence from Mexico, Albert Nofi provides a chronicle of the events and personalities of the war. He includes readable and accessible maps of military movements and a strategic and tactical analysis of each battle, supplemented with technical information about the weapons used, casulty data, orders of battle, finances, and the story of a little-known war at sea. Prominent personalities of the was are profiled in sidebars, and maps of military movements are included. Nofi also addresses the extraordinary number of myths that the Alamo has engendered and exposes the truth about a conflict that has taken on legendary proportions.

Since 1983 journalist Bill Berkeley has traveled through Africa's most troubled lands-Rwanda, Liberia, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, and Zaire-seeking out the tyrants and military leaders who orchestrate seemingly intractable wars. Shattering the myth that ancient tribal hatred lies at the heart of the continent's troubles, Berkeley instead holds accountable the "Big Men" who came to power during this period, describing the very rational methods behind their apparent madness. A New Republic Book

James W. Johnston was a self-confessed small-town youth, who like so many others patriotically stopped what he was doing and enlisted shortly after Pearl Harbor. Johnston chose the Marines, a decision that sent him to years of bloody combat through the Pacific as Allied troops fought their way toward the Japanese home islands. Many did not come back; of those who did, very few have told us what it was like. Johnston tells us directly and honestly, taking us with his First Marine Division through New Guinea, New Britain, Peleliu, and Okinawa.

Behind Japanese Lines has a great deal to say about the relations with the Filipinos and about the problems of dealing with and fighting the Hukbalahaps, the communist guerrillas or, indeed, in opposing the Japanese. This book adds considerable insights into the significance of guerrilla warfare as it relates to modern warfare in general.

Craig Chapman presents the definitive history of the First North Carolina Volunteers/11th Regiment North Carolina Troops--the legendary Bethel Regiment.

Did the Vietnam War have to happen? And why couldn't it have ended earlier? These are among the questions that Robert McNamara and his collaborators ask in "Argument Without End," a book that will stand as a major contribution to what we know about the Vietnam War. Drawing on a series of meetings that brought together, for the first time ever, senior American and Vietnamese officials who had served during the war, the book looks at the many instances in which one side, or both, made crucial mistakes that led to the war and its duration. Using Vietnamese and Chinese documents, many never before made public, McNamara reveals both American and Vietnamese blunders, and points out ways in which such mistakes can be avoided in the future. He also shows conclusively that war could not be won militarily by the United States.McNamara's last book on Vietnam was one of the most controversial books ever published in this country. This book will reignite the passionate debate about the war, about McNamara, and about the lessons we can take away from the tragedy.

When brothers William and John Wright arrived in the United States from Ireland in 1850 and could find no other suitable employment, they joined the U.S. Armys Regiment of Mounted Rifles, which served on the Texas frontier. Their description of their experiences is unusual on several counts: it is a view of Texas in the 1850s, when personal accounts were rare, and it is written from the point of view of visitors to this nation. And because the Wrights published their book in 1857, only three years after they left the army, their story has an immediacy lacking in many memoirs. He was a man in the prime of life, tall and slender, with black plaited hair descending all the way down his back, and a countenance, whose handsome, intelligent, and dignified expression, was scarcely concealed by the red streaks of war-paint that covered it. Little mercy is shown to an Indian in war, and especially by the Texan rangers, who are scarcely, if at all, advanced beyond the savage state themselves. So the prisoner was immediately tied to a tree, and a number of men were selected to shoot him. On ascertaining his fate, he instantly commenced singing his death-song...which vibrated like the notes of a clarion on the air of early night. ..until his voice was lost in the fatal volley, and all was over. This softcover facsimile of the Book Club of Texas' 1995 fine limited edition of 300 copies makes this classic firsthand account available to a broad audience for the first time since 1857. It is illustrated with wood engravings from William H. Emorys Report of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey.

Relying on extensive candid interviews from members of Congress and staff on defense authorization committees and senior Army general officers, Scroggs provides a strong insider analysis with recommendations. He examines the impact of culture on the varying abilities of public agencies, specifically the Army, to pursue its organizational interests through lobbying or liaising Congress. Scroggs argues that despite structural similarities in how the four military services approach Congress, differences in service culture affect their relative success in achieving their goals on the Hill.

Scroggs draws four major conclusions. First, despite a law prohibiting lobbying of Congress by public agencies, Congress views lobbying or liaising by public entities, especially the military services, not only as a legitimate activity, but essential to Members carrying out their constitutional responsibilities. Second, relative to the other services, the Army is viewed by Congress as the least effective in its lobbying. Third, the Army's patterned approach with Congress is largely a function of its unrecognized and uncompensated culture in the unique terrain of the nation's capital. Fourth, because of the need for balanced service representation to Congress, relatively less effective Army efforts have troubling implications for national security and Army self-interest.

John Spaul continues his up-dating of Conrad Cichorius' articles in Real-encyclopadie der Altertumswissenschaft with this complete documentation of the epigraphic sources for cohorts of the Roman army. His complementary volume Ala 2 is still available. Contents: Cohortes Ciuium Romanorum; Cohortes Provinciae Sardiniae, Lusitaniae, Hispaniae, Galliae, Britanniae, Germaniae, Alpium, Raetiae & Norici, Dalmatiae, Pannoniae, Moesiae & Macedoniae, Senatus, Orientis, Australia, Aliae & Alienae. The catalogue is followed by a broad discussion of cohorts and their deployment around the Roman Empire.

The young daughter of an English-born U. S. infantry officer on the post-Civil War frontier, Mary Leefe Laurence had the childhood of an army nomad, accompanying the regiment from south Texas to the Canadian border. In faithfully recording her travels, she offers extensive and unique insight into life as a child and adolescent in the twilight of the Indian-fighting army.

"Editors Alan Nolan and Sharon Eggleston Vipond's insightful essays provide fresh perspectives on the Iron Brigade's exploits, detailing military and political events in the words of actual combatants." Military Review

Originally called "The Black Hat Brigade" because the soldiers wore the regular army s dress black hat instead of the more typical blue cap, the Iron Brigade was the only all-Western brigade in the Eastern armies of the Union. From Brawner Farm and Second Bull Run to Chancellorsville and Gettysburg the Western soldiers earned and justified the proud name Iron Brigade. And when the war was over, the records showed that it led all federal brigades in percentage of deaths in battle. These essays, by some of the best known historians of the brigade, spotlight significant moments in the history of the Civil War s most celebrated unit."