No, technically, it’s not over, though overt hostilities stopped 70 years ago.  

On June 25, 1950, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) invaded the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea), sparking the first hot conflict of the Cold War—a proxy war between China and the Soviet Union in support of the north, and the United States and its United Nations allies in the south. Crossing the 38th parallel, the DPRK’s Korean People’s Army (KPA) pushed ROK and U.S. forces south, trapping them behind the 140-mile Pusan Perimeter. In response, the U.N. sent troops, 21 nations ultimately contributing to the effort.  

Assuming command of U.N. forces, General Douglas MacArthur turned the tide with Operation Chromite, the amphibious landing of troops at Inchon, southwest of Seoul. Reinforced U.N. forces also broke out of the Pusan Perimeter, pushing the KPA back across the 38th parallel. Coalition forces then invaded North Korea, aiming to reunify the Korean Peninsula, with leading elements reaching the Yalu River border with China.  

At that imminent threat, Chinese troops poured into North Korea and launched a series of offensives against ROK and U.N. forces. The fighting was fierce as combatant forces seesawed back and forth. Notable battles included those on the Chosin Reservoir and the Chongchon River. Eventually, the front lines stabilized along the 38th parallel and a long stalemate ensued, though where fighting broke out, such as the three Battles of the Hook, it proved especially bitter.  

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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Peace talks began in July 1951, but disagreement over the repatriation of POWs led to protracted negotiations. The conflict dragged on, claiming the lives of as many as 5 million civilians and military personnel, until the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement at Panmunjom on July 27, 1953. Tensions remain.  

In the mid to late 1960s a series of incidents threatened the armistice, including armed clashes along the DMZ separating north and south, the attempted assassination of South Korean President Park Chung Hee (amid the January 1968 Blue House Raid), the capture of the U.S. spy ship Pueblo that same month and North Korea’s 1969 shootdown of a U.S. Lockheed EC-121M Warning Star spy plane over the Sea of Japan, killing 31 crewmen.  

North Korea has become increasingly isolated on the world stage, particularly in the wake of the Cold War. In 1994 President Bill Clinton, on receiving intel that North Korea was developing nuclear weapons, weighed bombing its nuclear reactor at Nyongbyon. In 2002, in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush included North Korea in his “axis of evil” list of states sponsoring terrorism. In June 2019 Donald Trump tried a different tack, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea when he stepped into the DMZ to shake hands with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. Despite such overtures, Kim has recently stepped up the rhetoric and since resumed the missile tests.    

Lessons

Beware short-term commitments: The United States occupied South Korea at war’s end in 1945 and withdrew three years later, leaving South Korea weak and ill prepared to resist a North Korean invasion, once again necessitating military intervention.

Ignore intelligence at your own peril: In October 1950 MacArthur dismissed information regarding Chinese troop movements and assured Washington that Beijing would not intervene.
Chinese troops crossed the Yalu on the 19th and attacked on the 25th.

Sometimes divorce is inevitable: Today South Korea is a thriving, modern republic, while North Korea remains a communist backwater. Reconciliation seems unlikely.

This story appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of Military History magazine.

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For the Union Army of the Potomac and its commander, Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, the early winter of 1862-63 proved extremely taxing. First, they suffered through the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg, fought on Dec. 13. After the army retired back across the Rappahannock River, regimental musters revealed a staggering loss of 12,653 casualties. Nothing had been gained. It had all been for naught. Army morale plummeted, and desertions soared, eventually reaching 200 per day. Tens of thousands of men were listed as “not present”: thousands of others were sick due to inadequate food and the army’s abysmally filthy camps.

Then came Burnside’s infamous “Mud March.” In an attempt to flank the opposing Army of Northern Virginia out of its positions behind the Rappahannock, Burnside ordered an upriver movement via Banks’ Ford. It began on Jan. 20, but that night, the heavens opened up. In the following two-day deluge, small streams became raging torrents. Roads turned into muck-filled quagmires choked with stalled wagons, pontoons, artillery pieces, and hundreds of buried horses and mules. Drenched, freezing, exhausted—feeling as if the very fates were against them—the rank and file dragged themselves back to their encampments at Falmouth. Everyone realized the army was dispirited; many believed it was “all played out.” For the Army of the Potomac, the early winter of 1862-63 was indeed the Valley Forge of the Civil War.

Enter the army’s next head, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker. Most often remembered as the bombastic commander who lost the subsequent Battle of Chancellorsville (May 1-4), despite outnumbering his opponent two to one, Hooker, nonetheless, possessed admirable administrative and organizational skills. And what’s little remembered is that—in the three months leading up to Chancellorsville—he did a fantastic job restoring the army’s morale and preparing it for the upcoming campaign. Maj. Gen. George Brinton McClellan built the Army of the Potomac, but Maj. Gen. Hooker rehabilitated it.

“The Handsome Captain”

Born in Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1814—the grandson of a Continental Army captain—Hooker graduated from West Point in 1837. Commissioned 2nd Lt. in the 1st U.S. Artillery, he first served brief stints in Florida, on the frontier, and as adjutant at his alma mater. During the Mexican-American War (1846-48), Hooker proved an able and courageous staff officer, winning three brevet promotions. It was in Mexico, too, that the well-proportioned six-foot-tall officer first became known as a ladies’ man: the señoritas there nicknamed him the “handsome captain.” 

In California after the war, Hooker served briefly as assistant adjutant general of the Army’s Pacific Division, then, following a leave of absence, resigned his commission to work the land. Unsuccessful as a farmer, he moved to Oregon, where he held the position of superintendent of the territory’s military roads for two years. The last years of the 1850s found Hooker serving as a colonel in the California State Militia. When the Civil War exploded onto center stage in 1861, he raised a regiment of Union volunteers to bring east but was extremely disappointed to learn that California units weren’t eligible for such service. He was determined to travel east and renew his affiliation with the Army, but high living had reduced him to poverty. Thankfully, his friends—among them a San Francisco tavernkeeper—staked him $1,000 and sent him off by steamboat.

In Washington, Hooker presented his credentials to President Abraham Lincoln and 75-year-old Winfield Scott, the Army’s commanding general. But there was a snag. At the termination of the war with Mexico, Hooker had testified in defense of an officer Scott had charged with disloyalty. This had angered Scott, and unfortunately, Scott still remembered. Forced to cool his heels in the War Department anterooms, Hooker nonetheless witnessed the First Battle of Bull Run as a civilian.

Soon thereafter, in an audience with Lincoln, Hooker first complained that, evidently, the Army didn’t want him back. Then he boldly asserted: “I was at Bull Run, the other day, Mr. President, and it is no vanity or boasting in me to say that I am a damned sight better General than you, Sir, had on that field!”

Made a brigadier general on Aug. 3, 1861, his commission backdated to May 17; he was first posted to the fortifications northeast of Washington City, where he drilled his regiments rigorously. In October, Brig. Gen. Hooker was put in charge of a 10,000-man division and charged with defending the lower Potomac River. This exceedingly dull duty involved primarily the interdiction of illicit mail and trade. 

The following year, in mid-March, Hooker’s division was assigned to the III Corps of Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. Landing on the Virginia Peninsula in April, Hooker’s men dug in opposite the Confederate position at Yorktown.

During the subsequent Peninsula Campaign, Hooker, now a major general, frequently displayed his aggressive and boastful nature—rashly attacking the superior forces of the enemy rearguard at the Battle of Williamsburg on May 5, for example, and later confidently messaging McClellan that he could hold his position in front of Richmond “against 100,000 men.”

Fighting Joe

It was during the Peninsula Campaign that Hooker received his enduring nickname. The standard tale was that a New York newspaper’s compositor accidentally set a telegraphed headline reading “Fighting—Joe Hooker” (meaning it was a continuation of a previous piece) as “Fighting Joe Hooker.” That story now appears apocryphal—several historians have searched archives in vain for said headline. “A reasonable conclusion,” wrote biographer Walter H. Hebert, “is that in some spontaneous manner it was applied to Hooker after Williamsburg.” Perhaps surprisingly, Joseph Hooker was mortified by the name, saying that people would think him “a highwayman or bandit.” (And, to debunk another nickname associated with Hooker: There’s no truth to the story that ladies of the night became known as “hookers” because so many swarmed around Fighting Joe’s encampments. The first known use of “hooker” for prostitute dates to 1845, 16 years before he became a public figure.)

Hooker fought at the Second Battle of Bull Run (August 29-30), and when the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia crossed the Potomac River into Maryland—Lee’s first invasion of the North—Lincoln and a few of his Cabinet officers considered appointing him to command the Army of the Potomac. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair ended the discussion, however, with the blunt condemnation that Hooker was “too great a friend of John Barleycorn.”

At the beginning of the Maryland Campaign, Hooker was put in charge of the army’s V Corps, a sizeable 15,000-man force. Soon redesignated as the I Corps of Gen. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, Hooker’s command fought at Turner’s Gap (on Sept.14) and the Battle of Antietam three days later. There, during the desperate fighting in the Miller cornfield, Fighting Joe’s divisions were shattered, the general himself receiving an incapacitating wound to the foot. While convalescing, he was visited by numerous government officials, including President Abraham Lincoln. Hearing rumors that he was again being considered for army command, Hooker—never shy about self-promotion—pressed his case by attacking McClellan’s generalship.

Lincoln’s Choice

Instead, of course, Lincoln replaced McClellan with Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, an 1847 West Point graduate with a somewhat checkered battlefield résumé. Taking over in November 1862, Burnside reorganized the Army of the Potomac into four massive “grand divisions,” each comprising two army corps as well as attached artillery and cavalry. Hooker’s Center Grand Division, totaling about 40,000 men, contained Maj. Gen. George Stoneman’s III Corps and the V Corps under Maj. Gen. Daniel Butterfield.

During the catastrophic Battle of Fredericksburg, Fighting Joe’s Center Grand Division was at first held in reserve, then sent in piecemeal. One of his divisions suffered twenty-five percent casualties in a useless assault against Marye’s Heights (quite possibly the Civil War’s strongest defensive position). On Dec. 13, the Confederates at Marye’s Heights—infantry sheltered behind a stonewall along the base of the rise, dug-in artillery on top—easily annihilated fourteen separate Federal attacks. Seven thousand Union casualties were needlessly lost on this part of the battlefield.

Angered over Burnside’s mishandling of the army, Hooker attacked him unsparingly, telling the Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, for example, that the strength of the Confederate position had been well-known beforehand. There had been no excuse for the bloodletting at Marye’s Heights. Burnside, exasperated by Hooker’s numerous machinations—his denunciations, his flagrant self-promotion, and his call for a dictatorship to save the republic—drafted for Lincoln’s signature an extraordinary document, General Order No. 8.18. It stated in part: “General Joseph Hooker… having been guilty of unjust and unnecessary criticisms of the actions of his superior officers… and having… endeavored to create distrust in the minds of officers who have associated with him, and having… made reports and statements which were calculated to create false impressions… is hereby dismissed from the service of the United States as a man unfit to hold an important commission. …” Additionally, two major generals and five brigadiers, accused of similar military indiscretions, were also to be relieved from duty.

In Washington, Burnside presented General Order No. 8, along with his resignation, to the much-beleaguered Abraham Lincoln, asking him to either approve the order or accept his stepping down. Lincoln replied that he needed time to consult with his advisers. During those deliberations, several officers were considered for the Army of the Potomac’s top slot (although all agreed that Burnside was out). In the end—and despite the strenuous objections of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and General in Chief Henry Halleck—Lincoln chose Fighting Joe.  

On Jan. 25, 1863, news of Hooker’s appointment reached the Army of the Potomac, where it was fairly well received by the rank and file. They saw him as a fighting general. And, thanks to their fondness for Fighting Joe, they were more than willing to overlook his infighting, intemperance, and reportedly low moral character. Many in the army’s highest ranks, however, were not so sanguine. Two of the army’s grand division commanders—major generals Edwin V. Sumner and William B. Franklin—refused to serve under Hooker and were summarily banished from the Army of the Potomac. Burnside was given a leave of absence.

Fresh Veggies

Soon thereafter, Hooker received the famous Jan. 26 letter from President Lincoln. It opened with a listing of the general’s positive qualities—his bravery, his confidence, his ambition. Then the president admonished Hooker for thwarting Burnside at every turn. Next followed an incredible passage: “I have heard, in such way as to believe it,” Honest Abe had written, “of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator. Of course, it was not for this but in spite of it that I have given you the command. Only those Generals who gain successes, can set up Dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.” The president then promised the government’s utmost support.

On Jan. 28, after a face-to-face with Lincoln in the White House, Hooker returned to his army’s headquarters at Falmouth, just across the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg, to take command. But, as noted above, the Army of the Potomac was in a deplorable state, both physically and mentally. In letters to their families and hometown newspapers, the soldiers grumbled, detailing their woes. One feared they were “fast approaching a mob.” Another, advocating the army’s breakup, wrote that they “may as well abandon this part of Virginia’s bloody soil.”

Despite the task’s enormity, the 48-year-old Joseph Hooker dove into his new responsibilities with a passion. First, he needed a right-hand man, a chief of staff. In General Order No. 2, dated Jan. 29, Hooker appointed Maj. Gen. Daniel Butterfield. (His first choice for the position, Brig. Gen. Charles P. Stone, was still under suspicion thanks to his bungling of the Battle of Ball’s Bluff in October 1861.)

Although not a West Pointer, New Yorker Butterfield—best known as the supposed composer of “Taps”—had risen quickly through the ranks and was part of Hooker’s inner circle, having led the V Corps in Hooker’s Center Grand Division. He possessed solid organizational skills. Retained as chief of artillery was Brig. Gen. Henry J. Hunt (although he was unfortunately limited to administrative responsibilities). The other staff appointments were adjutants and aides-de-camp from Hooker’s earlier commands.

Early on, Hooker tackled the problem most dear to the men in the ranks—food. Rations for an encamped army were supposed to include fresh vegetables, “desiccated” (or dried) vegetables—derisively called “desecrated” by the soldiers—hardtack, salt pork, and coffee. But much of this good food was being sold for cash by the regimental commissaries to people outside the army. The hungry foot soldiers—even some officers—simply went without. To counteract this profiteering, Hooker ordered that henceforth the men would receive fresh vegetables twice and dried legumes once per week.

Additionally, the new commander ordered the erection of camp bakeries, mandating that his soldiers be issued soft bread, or flour, at least four times a week. Commissary officers who failed to comply were required to file a written explanation. Thanks to this new system of accountability, the men quickly noticed an improvement in both the quality and quantity of their rations. “Whatever they thought of Hooker’s other qualities,” wrote historian Bell Wiley, “soldiers highly approved his competency as a provider.”

Teaching the Men To Bathe?

Orders were also issued to improve the vast camps around Falmouth. When first laid out in early winter, little thought had been given to proper sanitation. The foul odors that emanated from the countless log-and-canvas huts are best left undescribed. Now headquarters required the men to bury their garbage every day and dig drainage ditches around every cabin. Latrines were relocated farther from the company streets. Blankets and bedding were to be aired daily, and the canvas roofs removed often so that the sun, and fresh air, might enter. Unimprovable campsites were abandoned. Attention was also paid to the men’s personal hygiene: They were ordered to cut their hair short, bathe twice a week, and change their underclothing at least once every seven days.

Cleaning up brought about quick and noticeable changes. The army’s medical director, Maj. Jonathan Lettermen, reported that in February, cases of potentially fatal diarrhea dropped 32 percent. Cases of typhoid fever—which had run rampant through the filthy encampments—were down twenty-eight percent. By April, scurvy was almost eliminated. Under Letterman’s direction, army hospitals were aired out and renovated. New hospitals were built. Drunken surgeons were discharged. The ill and the slightly wounded were quickly patched up and returned to the ranks.

As the men’s health improved, Fighting Joe took steps to keep them occupied. A hectic daily regime of drills and inspections was reinstituted. Company, regimental, and brigade officers studied the manuals by candlelight and put their men through the complicated battlefield evolutions the following day. Of course, the men at first complained—one called the drilling “constant and severe”—but they quickly began to take pride in their improved capabilities. The Falmouth drill fields now witnessed large-scale reviews like those once staged by McClellan.

During these special ceremonies, Fighting Joe Hooker would smile approvingly as the infantrymen marched past him in columns of companies—the men in clean uniforms, their rifled muskets bright. “I believe that the army was never in better condition … than it is now,” noted one Bay Stater, “very different from what it was a month ago.”

Hooker went after the horrendous desertion problem with a carrot-and-stick approach. More than anything else, the soldiers wanted to visit their families back home. Now came a new system—the carrot—under which each company was allowed one ten-day furlough at a time. Additionally, President Lincoln issued an order granting amnesty to absentees who returned to the Army of the Potomac by April. Then there was the stick—programs designed to make desertion difficult and more dangerous. Up to this time, homefolks frequently assisted desertion by simply shipping civilian duds to their soldier boys. Now army-bound packages were under the purview of the provost marshals, and none was allowed past without certification from the shipping agent that it was clothing-free.  

Under orders from Hooker, the Army of the Potomac now began stringently enforcing army regulations. Groups of soldiers claiming to be telegraph-repair details needed passes, as did wagons headed north to Washington. Each military unit was ordered to name and physically describe every member who was absent without leave. The outlying picket lines were greatly reinforced—the pickets themselves now ordered to shoot individuals refusing to halt when challenged. Men caught deserting were executed in front of their comrades.

Cheerful Spirits in Camp

Formerly called a “mob,” the Army of the Potomac—thanks to Fighting Joe’s improvements—once again resembled an army. “[C]heerfulness, good order, and military discipline,” wrote one soldier, “at once took the place of grumbling, depression, and want of confidence.” One new development that didn’t sit well with the rank and file, however, was the banishing of liquor from the camps. (And naturally, the officers were excluded from this regulation.) Now the regimental sutlers witnessed booming sales of such items as canned “brandied peaches.” At Washington, bridge guards started seizing five hundred dollars’ worth of alcoholic beverages each and every day.

The most significant structural change to the Army of the Potomac under Hooker was the breaking up of Burnside’s “grand division” formations (of two infantry corps each). As noted above, two of the four grand division heads, major generals Sumner and Franklin, had already departed. (Hooker himself had been another.) The fourth, Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel, took leave of the army at this time due to poor health (and dissatisfaction). Now, army headquarters would issue orders directly to seven infantry corps commanders. (The eighth infantry corps, Burnside’s old IX Corps, still fiercely loyal to “Old Burn,” was ordered away under the command of Maj. Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith, whom Hooker considered a bad influence.)

While historians have called this reordering detrimental to the army’s success—after all, in 1864, the Army of the Potomac would be reorganized into fewer, larger formations—Hooker’s reasoning at the time appears sound. Based on his Fredericksburg experience, Fighting Joe called the grand divisions cumbersome, predicting that the upcoming campaign would prove “adverse to the movement and operations of heavy columns.” Grand divisions also added another layer to the army’s military hierarchy—meaning orders took longer to filter down to the frontlines.

Four of the army’s infantry corps were given new leaders: Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles—another Hooker crony—assumed command of the III Corps; the V Corps head became Maj. Gen. George G. Meade; Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick was transferred from the exiting IX Corps to lead the VI Corps; and Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard eventually took command of the XI Corps. Four new division heads and nineteen new brigade commanders were appointed. Several of these new leaders were controversial, but nobody could deny that Hooker was breathing new life into the Army of the Potomac.

A huge improvement was now made to the cavalry arm. Under previous commanders, the much-maligned Federal horsemen had been frittered away in inappreciable detachments. Outpost duty, dispatch delivery, and the escorting of general officers had been their lot. Consolidated, they now became a powerful Cavalry Corps under the command of Maj. Gen. George Stoneman. Comprising three divisions of two brigades each, supported by a brigade-sized reserve, this force of over 11,000 proved more than equal to the much-vaunted Confederate cavalrymen at the Battle of Brandy Station on June 9. “From the day of its reorganization under Hooker,” noted an appreciative dragoon, “the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac commenced a new life.”

Expanding on an idea first concocted by Maj. Gen. Philip Kearny (who’d had his soldiers wear squares of red cloth), Chief of Staff Butterfield devised a corps badge system that proved immensely popular. Each corps was assigned a unique emblem—a circle, trefoil, diamond, Maltese cross, St. Andrew’s cross, crescent, or star—that the men attached to their caps. Following the colors of the Stars and Stripes, a corps’ first division wore badges in red, the second division white, and the third blue. The system fostered corps pride and was later invaluable for identifying units in combat.

Joseph Hooker’s leadership transformed the Army of the Potomac. Greatly appreciative, the enlisted personnel began cheering him whenever he rode by on his white charger. As one soldier remembered years later: “Ah! the furloughs and vegetables he gave! How he did understand the road to the soldier’s heart! How he made out of defeated, discouraged, and demoralized men a cheerful, plucky, and defiant army, ready to follow him everywhere!”

President Lincoln’s letter of Jan. 26, 1863 had concluded with a brief warning: “Beware of rashness,” Old Abe had written, “but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories.” To Lincoln’s great dismay, however, Fighting Joe went forward and gave the nation the Battle of Chancellorsville, the worst defeat ever suffered by the Army of the Potomac. “My God! My God!” moaned the chief executive, his ashen face filled with sorrow and dread. “What will the country say?”

Under Arrest!

The country had plenty to say—especially when the losses, over 17,000, began to sink in. The New York Herald, for example, worrying about the battle’s “fearful consequences,” blasted Lincoln and his advisers for their “ruinous policy of underrating the enemy. …” And Washington was abuzz with wild rumors: Lee had destroyed Hooker’s army and was advancing on the capital; Fighting Joe was under arrest; McClellan would return to command. 

Abraham Lincoln, however, decided to keep Hooker in charge. But when General Lee launched his second invasion of the North and Hooker got into a squabble with the War Department over the status of the Union garrison at Harpers Ferry, Lincoln replaced him with Maj. Gen. George Meade on June 28 (only three days before the commencement of the Battle of Gettysburg).

Despite the career black mark that was Chancellorsville, Hooker was sent west to Chattanooga, Tennessee, in command of the Army of the Potomac’s XI and XII Corps. There he performed admirably at Lookout Mountain on Nov. 24, 1863. The two eastern corps were combined in April 1864 as the XX Corps, Army of the Cumberland, and subsequently, under Hooker’s leadership, participated in the Atlanta Campaign. Passed over for promotion, Hooker submitted his resignation to army head Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman on August 27. “I will not object,” was Sherman’s reaction. “He is not indispensable to our success.”

Hooker sat out the rest of the war in Cincinnati, Ohio, in charge of the army’s Northern Department (which comprised the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan). The boredom of this duty—securing the Ohio River and the northern frontier—Fighting Joe alleviated by making speeches and wooing Olivia Groesbeck of Cincinnati, whom he married once the fighting was over. Hooker led Lincoln’s funeral procession in Springfield, Illinois, on May 4, 1865, and was greatly heartened that same year when the report of the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War exonerated him for the devastating defeat at Chancellorsville.

After the war, he oversaw two of the Army’s large administrative districts: the Department of the East and the Department of the Lakes. Retiring on Oct. 15, 1868, he spent his last decade traveling, attending reunions, and threatening to publish his memoirs. Joseph Hooker—the pompous, hard-drinking officer whose leadership, in only three months, completely revitalized the Army of the Potomac—died suddenly on Oct. 31, 1879. He was buried in Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery.

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On June 8, 1969, U.S. President Richard Nixon and Republic of Vietnam (RVN) President Nguyen Van Thieu stood side-by-side at Midway Island and formally launched Vietnamization. The goal was to allow U.S. operational combat forces to depart South Vietnam as quickly as possible before the next U.S. presidential election, leaving South Vietnam able to defend itself. Seven months after this announcement, I arrived in Cam Ranh Bay as a replacement headed for the U.S. Army’s 1st Signal Brigade. I was about to have a front row seat on Vietnamization in practice as a quality assurance NCO. Communication technology is an essential combat support function, which Gen. Creighton Abrams, U.S. commander in South Vietnam, had identified from the beginning as critical if South Vietnam’s Armed Forces were to defend their country on their own.

The short time projected for Vietnamization was inadequate for the South to build an effective national defense force with sufficient training to wage modern warfare effectively. Such a project can require years—especially when the local government’s social, economic, and political foundations have been stunted by a century of colonialism and nearly two decades of violent internal turmoil. From my vantage point in South Vietnam throughout most of 1970, these obstacles to rapid Vietnamization appeared insurmountable.

Insurmountable Obstacles

I reported for induction on Oct. 14, 1968, went through basic training at Fort Bliss, Texas, and received orders for advanced training at the Electronic Warfare School at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. Completing the high frequency radio operator course (MOS 05B) in five weeks, I remained at Fort Huachuca as an instructor. With controversy over the war growing, the Army was having trouble getting junior NCOs to reenlist. Instructors were needed. On Nov. 14, 1969, after only 13 months in service, I was promoted to Sergeant E-5. Near the end of November, the training company’s first sergeant called me into the orderly room, looked across his desk, and said, “Congratulations, Sgt. Anderson, you’re going to Vietnam.”

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I landed at Cam Ranh Bay on Jan. 6, 1970, with orders to report to Company C, 43rd Signal Battalion at An Khe in the Central Highlands. The 1st Signal Brigade’s clerk at the 22nd Replacement Battalion, a buck sergeant like me, modified the original orders. I literally went up the hill from the replacement center to the 361st Signal Battalion. I could not believe my luck. Cam Ranh was a large and secure combat base. In the evenings off duty, we wore civilian clothes, and there were a lot of creature comforts with barracks, hot showers, mess halls, snack bars, clubs, a big PX, and a beach just over the hill.

There was a problem, however. My MOS was 05B4H: high frequency radio operator, NCO, instructor. My personnel folder also listed college graduate, high-speed code intercept operator, French linguist (based upon Army testing and six semesters of college French), and a secret-cryptology clearance from my work at Fort Huachuca. The 361st operated tropospheric scatter microwave facilities, and the Table of Organization and Equipment (TOE) of this high technology installation that could transmit almost 200 miles did not include any slots for high-frequency radio operators.

The operations sergeant was on his third straight tour in Vietnam, all at the same job. We called him “Grandpa” behind his back, which was a term of respect because it sure looked like he ran the whole battalion. I knew virtually nothing about tropospheric scatter communication, but Grandpa was pleased to have me, mainly because I was a college graduate who could type and compose a complete sentence. I soon discovered that everyone in the office except the sarge were college graduates. He immediately put me to work as the author of various monthly and quarterly reports but soon realized that I had a more valuable skill—French language ability.

Vietnamization had created an urgent need for a linguist. The operations officer was a signal corps major with an ARVN signal captain as a counterpart. The ARVN officer was in the battalion to learn to manage this integrated wideband communication site. The American officer had studied Portuguese at West Point and didn’t know any Vietnamese. The South Vietnamese captain spoke French but little English. With no training as an interpreter and only basic conversational French, it became my job to help the two officers communicate.

In the 361st Signal Battalion, Vietnamization in 1970 hinged on an American officer mentoring an ARVN officer to take command of a highly technical facility through the hand gestures and college French of a sergeant whose expertise was tactical, not long-range communication, and whose French was better suited to translating Molière than to conveying military technology. The mentoring process was slow and not, I am sure, what Washington envisioned Vietnamization to be. As bad as the situation was for efforts to Vietnamize the 361st Signal Battalion across a serious language divide, the ad hoc process received a further setback with my sudden transfer out with no apparent way to bridge the language gap. The commander of the 1st Signal Brigade later acknowledged in his lessons-learned study that the language barrier hampered training.

A Daunting Task

Brigade headquarters at Long Binh refused to issue permanent orders assigning me to the 361st because my MOS was not authorized for that type of unit. It transferred me to 12th Signal Group at Phu Bai for assignment somewhere in I Corps, the five northern provinces of the Republic of Vietnam. On Feb. 9, I got off a C-130 at Phu Bai airport. I waited in the transient hooch at Headquarters, Headquarters Detachment, 12th Signal Group with my duffle bag packed. I could be off to any of the radio telephone/teletype sites the brigade operated in support of the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile); 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized); III Marine Amphibious Force (MAF); 1st ARVN Division; 2nd ARVN Division; or Republic of Korea Marine Brigade. I could expect to spend the next seven months at a division or battalion headquarters, if I was lucky, or a small remote site if I was less fortunate.

As it turned out, I soon learned that I was going to be the group’s quality assurance NCO in charge of a small team of three or four currently being assembled. Col. D.W. Ogden Jr., the group commander, had created the team and its “communication evaluation” mission because, I was told, he was tired of complaints from the combat commanders (termed “customers”) about the quality of signal support from 1st Signal Brigade. The combat commands had their own signal assets, but depended on the 12th Signal Group to link their tactical networks to others in the corps tactical zone and from there to the Integrated Communication System [ICS], Southeast Asia and to worldwide networks operated by the Strategic Communications Command at Fort Huachuca. The technology of this vast system—sometimes referred to as the AT&T of Southeast Asia—was powerful. Through tropospheric scatter, line-of-sight microwave, cable, and other electronic assets, a commander could connect securely by voice, teletype, or data from a combat bunker to anywhere in the world as long as 1st Signal Brigade units in the field kept the complex system up and working.

It was a daunting task for well-educated and thoroughly trained signal soldiers with access to reliable equipment. Would the ARVN be able to manage this critical military infrastructure on its own, especially in the short time that Washington had allowed to accomplish Vietnamization? A new brigade regulation had created Buddies Together (Cung Than-Thien) to train Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces signalmen in highly technical communications skills. Units like ours were also expected to conduct surveys by special teams in each corps tactical zone to determine where American operators could turn over equipment and operations to the South Vietnamese.

My team consisted of an electric generator mechanic (another sergeant), a radio operator (one of my students at Fort Huachuca), and a draftsman. The latter two were SP4s and served as drivers or guards or were assigned other tasks. We usually traveled with the group’s engineering officer and the sergeant major from his office. The colonel had wanted a sergeant first class (E-7) to be the NCO, but senior NCOs were in short supply. He settled for me because of my education and instructor experience, and my rank was at least a hard stripe NCO. There were fewer than 10 E-5 and E-6 NCOs in the group headquarters. The team’s sergeant major (E-9) traveled with us primarily to back me up if the issues at the site turned out to be related to command or personnel problems.

Inexperienced Operations

The U.S. Army history of military communications in Vietnam describes the urgency of the task at hand. The recently completed Automatic Digital Network (AUTODIN) could transmit an average of 1,500 words per minute, but the tactical teletype circuits to which it was connected passed traffic at 60 to 100 words per minute. Signal operators experienced continuous maintenance problems with their overextended machines. In the summer of 1970, the Da Nang tape relay received 20 flash messages (highest precedence) in a 20-minute period from the AUTODIN. This signal company had to relay these messages to the tactical units on its circuits at 100 words per minute, which required about 20 minutes per message. This volume of traffic overheated the recipients’ equipment, requiring transmission to be slowed to 60 words per minute. As the official history records, “Besides such technical problems, tactical operators lacking special training on the operation of the new Automatic Digital Network were bewildered by its formats and procedures. The 1st Signal Brigade had to keep troubleshooting teams constantly on the road to help inexperienced operators.”

The group’s Operational Report-Lessons Learned (ORLL) for July and October 1970 recorded major emphasis on improved communications through quality assurance inspections. Working seven days a week, we were responsible for maintaining the efficient and effective performance of installations operated by 17 units in 5 provinces. The QA team conducted 57 site inspections in six months to improve equipment maintenance, operator efficiency, site operating procedures, and customer satisfaction. According to the ORLLs, “Partly due to the effort of the Quality Assurance team the high standards of customer service provided by units of the 12th Signal Group were maintained or bettered.”

The smallest detail could become significant when dealing with modern electronics. In northern I Corps the soil was red clay (red mud in the rainy season and red dust other times), which made it extremely difficult to establish a working electrical ground for the system. In some cases, poor signal quality or even interrupted transmission was owing to where and how deep the metal grounding rods were installed. Without this basic setup at a tactical location, all the immense technical power to connect the corps level and global system was of no use. It was a variation on the “for want of a nail” adage. In this case, for want of a ground, the message was lost; for want of a message, the battle was lost.

My job took me to signal sites from the DMZ southward to the Batangan Peninsula. Traveling usually by UH-1 Huey helicopters, we went to Camp Carroll (the 1st ARVN Division’s forward command post just south of the DMZ), Quang Tri, Dong Ha, Tan My, Hai Van Pass, Da Nang, Hoi An, Tam Ky, Chu Lai, Duc Pho, and Quang Ngai. Our work also included small fire bases and landing zones: Hawk Hill (5 miles northwest of Tam Ky), LZ Sharon (between Quang Tri and Dong Ha), and FB Birmingham (southwest of Camp Eagle, headquarters of the 101st Airborne, about 5 miles from Phu Bai). We went by road to sites in Phu Bai, Hue, and Camp Eagle.

We tried to get into and out of a site (especially remote ones) in one day without having to stay overnight. On one occasion, because helicopters were unavailable and a signal problem at III MAF needed urgent attention, I went from Phu Bai to Da Nang in an open jeep along Route 1 over Hai Van Pass with only one other soldier to ride shotgun. That we could make that drive at all indicated that by 1970 the level of enemy activity along this key road had declined significantly. My sense was that the enemy was not deterred by the growing size of the ARVN but was waiting for U.S. troop withdrawals to continue. Unknown to me was the CIA’s Special National Intelligence Estimate of Feb. 5 that “Hanoi may be waiting until more US units have departed, in the expectation that this will provide better opportunities with lesser risks, and that Communist forces will be better prepared to strike.”

Phu Bai was a large and relatively secure base. It was not Cam Ranh Bay, but there was a sign at the front gate proclaiming, “Phu Bai is Allright.” It received periodic mortar and rocket bombardment, especially aimed at runways, helipads, and signal towers. Signalmen are soldier-communicators who provide specialized skills and defend their installations against enemy attack. Our detachment had responsibility for about five perimeter bunkers and had a quick reaction team in the event of an assault on the base. With the shortage of junior NCOs in the detachment, I drew the duty as sergeant of the guard, reserve force NCO, or staff duty NCO at least one night a week.

Vietnamization

Most nights were uneventful, but occasionally I was NCOIC during probes of the perimeter or other imminent threats. One occurred during my last month in Vietnam. Perhaps Charlie knew I was short, because enemy bombardments and ground probes of Camp Eagle, nearby Camp Evans, and Phu Bai increased markedly in July and August 1970. Actually, the enemy was testing the progress of Vietnamization and not targeting me specifically.

There were ARVN troops at many of our bases, but most of them provided perimeter security, manned artillery pieces, or handled supplies—not operating signal equipment. Similar to what I had witnessed at the 361st Signal Battalion, there were a few ARVN officers and NCOs shadowing American counterparts, but I observed little interaction or hands-on communication activity by Vietnamese.

Aware of Vietnamization goals, I wrote to my parents: “The Vietnamization program is really going on in earnest over here.… Even 12th Sig. Gp. is getting in on the ARVN training program. We have about 20 ARVN at various sites in the Group receiving on-the-job training on a buddy system basis.” In retrospect, my estimate of 20 ARVN signalmen over a five-province area suggests that the number being trained was woefully small. With the exception of Camp Carroll, an ARVN command post, I seldom heard Vietnamese spoken at signal facilities.

An exception came when my team worked at a line-of-sight microwave installation near Chu Lai. A group of American military and civilian officials appeared. There were ARVN signal soldiers at the site. A high-ranking U.S. officer asked the American signal officer escorting them how long it would be before the Vietnamese would be ready to assume operation of this station on their own. After a long pause, he reasonably estimated about eight years. Enlisted ARVN signalmen had an approximately sixth-grade education. It required two years or more of hands-on experience for American soldiers with high school diplomas to develop the technical knowledge and problem-solving skills needed for this military occupation. The Nixon administration’s timetable for Vietnamization and turning over the defense of the RVN to its own military was measured in months—not years.

Lt. Gen. Walter Kerwin, a senior U.S. adviser, had estimated in 1969 that it would take five years for the ARVN to be self-sufficient. Washington’s goal was to have Vietnamization completed by January 1973. My former unit, the 361st Signal Battalion, had been designated as a test of 1st Signal Brigade’s buddy effort to turn over the fixed communication system to the South Vietnamese Signal Directorate. That initiative explains the presence of the ARVN captain in the battalion S-3 while I was there. That unit’s 1969 ORLLs assessed that South Vietnam’s armed forces lacked the “broad scientific and technical education base…to allow takeover of the ICS in [a] short time frame.” This study projected a minimum of four years for the South Vietnamese to take control and more realistically eight to 10 years.

 As my return to the United States neared, entire U.S. combat units were leaving the RVN. The 1st Signal Brigade’s primary mission of support for U.S. forces was narrowing. Gen. Abrams had wanted to keep a residual U.S. combat support element to bolster Vietnamization, but the Pentagon mandated sweeping reductions.

I left Vietnam on Sept. 8, after 1 year, 10 months, and 26 days active duty and 8 months and 5 days in Vietnam. The 12th Signal Group soon afterward relocated to Da Nang, as U.S. commanders consolidated their remaining strength and transferred their signal assets to the ARVN. American aid paid private contractors to operate the network as a stopgap to meet the South’s military communication requirements, but the days were almost gone when the U.S. Congress and public would pay the bill.

In my two assignments as an impromptu interpreter and as a quality assurance NCO, I experienced some of the problems with Vietnamization. Studies of combat support at the time and soon after the war frequently referenced what I personally witnessed—limitations on the effectiveness of Vietnamization because of language hurdles and lack of expertise on the part of the South Vietnamese to support modern combat operations. In an otherwise upbeat report on Vietnamization at the end of 1969, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird singled out the challenge posed by specialized training as a “serious concern.” “More English language instructors and more trained technicians to man military and civil communications systems are required,” he admitted. He added that there “were simply not enough qualified persons in the Vietnamese manpower pool to fill all the demands for technical skills.”

The bravery of the ARVN soldiers and their ability to shoot straight were necessary but not sufficient for battlefield success, as Gen. Abrams had perceived when first receiving his marching orders from Washington. As a nation-state, the Republic of Vietnam had major structural weaknesses to overcome before it could field a modern military establishment.

Anderson went directly from Vietnam in September 1970 to a classroom at the University of Virginia, where he later received a Ph.D. in history. After 45 years of teaching American foreign policy, he is now professor of history emeritus at California State University, Monterey Bay, and a former senior lecturer of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. His twelfth book was Vietnamization: Politics, Strategy, Legacy, published in 2019 by Rowman and Littlefield. 

This story appeared in the 2023 Autumn issue of Vietnam magazine.

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Nazi wives and lovers tended to be mediocre women. They were not especially gifted or brilliant. They were content to be used as tools for their partners’ purposes—and to make the most of their proximity to power. That might surprise you. You might have expected Nazi-advertised attributes like “blonde,” “athletic,” “Nordic,” or “motherhood” to have had something to do with why certain women ended up in relationships with Adolf Hitler and his inner circle.

While it’s true that several top Nazis tended to be partial to blondes, they chose female partners for reasons of exploitation rather than personal admiration. Hitler, for example, scorned marriage and children, instead preying on naive teenage girls he could dominate; one such relationship was with his half-niece Geli Raubal. 

In most cases, the exploitation was mutual. While the Third Reich touted the ideal of “noble” and “simple” housewives, reality shows the women who stood at the prow of the Third Reich were anything but. They were willing to court monstrosity for money and privilege. Some became sadistic: like Brigitte Frank, who wore furs stolen from displaced Jewish women, or Unity Mitford, who toured a Jewish family’s apartment she wanted to confiscate while the owners wept in front of her. 

Nazi propaganda made people forget that attributes like blondeness, athleticism and motherhood are ordinary. In a world where mediocrity became an ideal, women who otherwise stood no chance of success were able to transform themselves into goddesses, thriving in an atmosphere of cruelty, materialism and superficial glamor.

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Thanks to modern media, Joshua L. Chamberlain is remembered today for his bravery on Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg. He was much more than a Civil War hero, however. A new biopic by award-winning historian Ronald C. White examines the full breadth of the man who went from mild-mannered college professor to Medal of Honor recipient and one of the Union Army’s most respected generals. On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (Penguin Random House, 2023) offers a deep dive into Maine’s native son, who spoke nine languages, served as a four-term governor of Maine, was president of his alma mater Bowdoin College, and, yes, had a remarkable mustache. Chamberlain was the real deal: honorable, dutiful, religious, intellectual, compassionate and committed to the ideals of the Republic. America’s Civil War recently spoke with White about his new book and what he learned about the “Lion of Round Top.”

After writing about Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant, what drew you to Chamberlain?

I was speaking about Grant at the Jonathan Club in downtown Los Angeles and someone said, “What is your next book? And I said, “I’m not exactly sure. Do you have any ideas?” And suddenly this fellow literally leapt up in the back of the room and shouted out, “Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain!” Well, I didn’t really know that much about him, so I took it to my editor and publisher. We looked at the things that were already out there and realized there was a need for a full-scale biography—not simply Chamberlain at Little Round Top, which is very important, but an in-depth book. So that’s how it all started. 

What surprised you the most about him?

To me, it was the whole religious story. His father wants him to go to West Point, his mother wants him to be a minister or missionary, so he goes to Bangor Theological Seminary after Bowdoin College. At the end of those three years, Chamberlain receives three calls to Congregational churches in Maine and New Hampshire, but he offers an address at Bowdoin’s commencement. It is so successful they offer him a teaching position. In all other biographies, those three years at Bangor are literally erased. I mean, they were important for him. All the records of the seminary, which was founded in 1814, are at the Maine Historical Society. I realized that if I was going to devote two chapters to Chamberlain’s four years at Bowdoin College, I needed to devote at least one chapter to his three years at the Bangor Theological Seminary. I was able to find things that no one else had ever looked at before. This is part of his formation, part of his shaping, part of the values that he will carry forward. 

Chamberlain has a strong sense of duty and honor. Where does that come from?

As a professor at Bowdoin during the first year of the Civil War, he saw how many of his students volunteered, how many of them were captured, how many of them were killed. He watched as these 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds go off to war. Finally he comes to the conclusion that this war cannot simply be fought by boys. It has to be fought by men of his distinction and substance. He was 33 years of age with a wife and two young children, so no one would criticize him for not serving. Yet he decides he must do this. His sense of duty compels him to do it. 

When Chamberlain volunteers for the Army, he turns down his first commission. Why?

I love that. The governor of Maine said, “I’ll make you colonel.” He responds, “No, I don’t deserve that title. Make me lieutenant colonel. I’m not a military man, but I can learn.” That was terrific. It shows the humbleness of the man. 

What impact did his religious and educational background have on his service in the military?

People went off to the Civil War in those days with patriotic values and Christian values, both of which would be severely tested. They were not at all prepared for what they would encounter in the Civil War in terms of the suffering and death. His strong faith helped him get through a horrible war and gave him the strength to survive a wound that would impact his life for 50 years. 

How important was Chamberlain’s role at Little Round Top? 

It was a very important moment at the Battle of Gettysburg. Chamberlain never demeaned—he actually lifted up—the role of Union Colonel Strong Vincent. He gives him incredible credit. Vincent is the one who, before the battle begins, says, “You will hold this line.” The same with General Gouverneur Warren, who was the first to see that Little Round Top was in danger because it wasn’t defended. Years later, Chamberlain will become an important witness for Warren, who was trying to restore his rank after he had been relieved of command by General Phil Sheridan. There’s not just one person who needs to be remembered at Little Round Top. In 1889, Chamberlain is at a reunion of the 20th Maine. He acknowledges that many things had been claimed about that engagement. He said, “We’re all right. We’re all correct.” I thought that was really a statesman-like comment. Years later, there’s no point trying to argue who did or didn’t do that. “We are all right.” That, to me, is Chamberlain. 

When things were dire at Little Round Top, Chamberlain gives a one-word order.

He later said he didn’t have time to give some embroidered command. It was simply, “Bayonet.” That was understood by the men under his command. They were running low on ammunition and knew what they had to do. 

Little Round Top was Chamberlain’s first serious introduction to combat.

This is what surprised many people and why I use “Unlikely Hero” in the title of my book. You wouldn’t think of a mild-mannered college professor being willing and able to act with courage and be so daring in battle. When I was at West Point a few years ago, several members of the faculty told me they believe Chamberlain is an embodiment of what military leadership should be all about. My friend David Petraeus [retired U.S. Army general and former CIA director], who thinks Grant is the greatest general of all time, also thinks Chamberlain is a great, great military leader. So it’s not just me, someone writing a biography, but it’s military people themselves who are validating Chamberlain’s leadership. 

Chamberlain is given the nickname “Lion of Round Top.” Does he deserve it?

I think it is well deserved. He earned it. Chamberlain led by example. When the 20th Maine rushes down the hill with bayonets, Chamberlain is out front with them. He confronts an officer with a sword and a pistol [Lieutenant Robert H. Wicker, 15th Alabama] and he convinces him to surrender. That’s an amazing story. He was not afraid to face death. 

What happens to Chamberlain at Petersburg in June 1864?

He almost died at Petersburg. Chamberlain was shot through the hip and it caused severe internal damage. It was a horrible injury that would plague him for the rest of his life. He had several surgeries and suffered terrible pain and infections until the day he died. He never, never complained and never really talked about it. He earns the nickname Bloody Chamberlain that day. He suffered a terrible pelvic wound that probably would have killed another man, then he’s leading his troops again less than a year later. His mother says to him, “Have you not given enough of yourself? You’ve done more than enough. Let other people do it.” He answers, “No, I have yet to finish this job.” The record is not clear, but Chamberlain may have used a catheter for the rest of his life. With the Civil War, we often focus on amputations as a big thing. What I learned from several scholarly articles was that it was really these invisible wounds hidden from sight that were the most prevalent and the most terrible. They went on for the rest of your life. You never got rid of them. Chamberlain finally dies, ultimately from the infections from his wounds, in 1914. He is considered the last Civil War veteran to die from his injuries. 

This article first appeared in America’s Civil War magazine

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His wound likely caused incontinence, constant pain and maybe sexual dysfunction. How does he endure this?

Again, he never talks about it, but you have to imagine what this meant for his entire life, for 50 years after the Civil War. That’s a long, long time. I think his faith enables him to accept it. I was surprised to learn that several people would see him in pain and ask why he never talked about it. He was not the kind of man who would do that. Not at all. 

Chamberlain, a strong Unionist, did not believe in the Confederate cause. Yet he does something unusual during the surrender at Appomattox.

This, to me, was so much the essence of who Chamberlain is. He never accepted their cause, but he always applauded their courage by ordering his troops to salute the surrendering soldiers. This can be difficult for contemporary audiences who are revisiting Confederate monuments and wondering if Robert E. Lee was a traitor. I want to emphasize he never, ever accepted the cause of slavery or the cause of disuniting the Union, but he never gave up his compassion for the courage of these men. He could hold both of those views at the same time.I don’t think the salute was a planned thing. I would argue that like his actions at Little Round Top, this all ultimately grows out of his whole set of values. It’s understandable because this is who he was. His whole idea of wanting reconciliation with the South as just a part of his faith, his values, the formation of his life. 

Some historians claim Chamberlain embellished his Civil War record, but you don’t think so. Why?

I found confirmation for several of his claims. For example, John Brown Gordon, the Confederate general who surrendered at Appomattox. He and Chamberlain were really on the same page about what happened. That discovery was quite fascinating. Chamberlain was also accused of changing his speeches. After the war, he was reading all these regimental histories. When he got new information, he put that into his addresses. It says a lot about who he is. I think it is a great quality that he wanted to set the record straight. 

What do you want readers to take away from your book? How do you want them to remember Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain?

As a rediscovered hero of America who has the kind of values that we need to have in our society today. And what is the source of those values? It’s both his classical education and his Christian education. And I think he is a great example of what a person can do, even facing immense difficulty with his wounds for 50 years. He perseveres and becomes not simply the Civil War hero, but the governor of Maine, president of Bowdoin College, and one of the great speakers about the values of the American democracy in those decades after the Civil War. No one spoke more eloquently than Chamberlain about what it meant to be an American in the last part of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century. I wish we had people like him around today. Chamberlain had integrity and duty and loyalty. Those were the bedrock values in his life.

On Great Fields

The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
By Ronald C. White, Penguin Random House, 2023

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On the first day of the Allied offensive on the Somme River of northern France in July 1916 the British suffered 57,470 battle casualties, making it the bloodiest single day in that nation’s military history. Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, realized he must change tactics. Thus, he gave orders that all the newfangled tanks that had reached the Western Front be employed in a subsequent assault on German-held French villages dubbed the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. A dozen Allied infantry divisions and all 49 available tanks attacked the German front line that September 15. The tanks psychologically shattered the Germans, instilling in them a fear they termed “Panzer Angst” and prompting many to flee. Those who held their ground found that their most potent weapons—artillery shrapnel and machine guns—were useless against the lumbering armored beasts. In the first three days of fighting the British captured more than a mile of German-held territory.

Thanks for the British success was due in part to an unlikely early proponent of armored mechanized warfare—Winston Churchill.

That summer Churchill’s service as commander of the 6th Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers had come to an end. He’d been serving on the Western Front for the past six months after having taken a break from politics. The reason for that break was his undeniable link to the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in Turkey. As first lord of the Admiralty, Churchill had been among the chief advocates for opening another front in the Dardanelles. In the wake of the sub-
sequent military fiasco, Churchill temporarily left politics and resumed his previous commission as a British army officer. What he witnessed in the trenches refocused his attention on a technological innovation he’d championed in the Admiralty—an armored vehicle that could break the stalemate on the Western Front.

Winston Churchill’s service to Great Britain as a cigar-chomping, no-nonsense prime minister during World War II has been the subject of countless books, articles and films. Less well known is his service as a British army officer after his graduation from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. As a young cavalry officer he saw active duty in the far reaches of the empire, including Cuba, India and the Sudan. After having served some five years, he resigned his commission to pursue politics and was elected a member of Parliament in the House of Commons. While Churchill served primarily as a politician for the rest of his life, he never abandoned his interest or involvement in military matters.

In 1911, after a decade in public office, Churchill was appointed first lord of the Admiralty by Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith. Winston had always expressed a keen interest in naval matters, as a member of Parliament often pushing for increases in defense spending for the Royal Navy. As first lord he pushed for higher pay for naval staff, ramped up production of submarines and beefed up the nascent Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Churchill encouraged the navy to determine how aircraft might be used for military purposes, coined the term “seaplane” amid debate in the House of Commons and ordered 100 of the latter for naval use. His advancements were timely. Three years into his appointment as first lord Britain entered World War I.

With the onset of war Churchill grew increasingly obsessed with the Middle Eastern theater. Hoping to relieve Ottoman pressure on Allied Russia in the Caucasus, he proposed a combined naval expedition against Turkish gun emplacements in the Dardanelles. Churchill hoped a successful outcome there might enable the Allies to seize the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), force Turkey out of the war and allow British naval forces to transit the Bosporus Strait into the Black Sea. Churchill anticipated that Romania, a neutral nation bordering the Black Sea that harbored hostility for its Austro-Hungarian neighbor, would ultimately allow Allied troops to use its territory to open a southern front against Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Allied representatives signed off on Churchill’s ambitious plan, and in February 1915 an Anglo-French fleet dubbed the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force sailed to commence a naval bombardment of Turkish defenses in the Dardanelles. On March 18 the Allied fleet, comprising 18 battleships and an assortment of cruisers and destroyers, launched its main attack against Turkish defenses at the narrowest point of the Dardanelles, where the straits between Asia and Europe are only a mile wide. The British first ordered civilian-crewed minesweepers into the straits, which soon retreated under significant artillery fire from Ottoman shore emplacements, leaving the minefields largely intact. At the outset of the attack the French battleship Bouvet struck a mine, capsized and sank within minutes; just 75 of its crew of more than 700 survived. The British battlecruiser Inflexible and pre-dreadnought battleship Irresistible also struck mines. Inflexible was severely damaged and compelled to withdraw. Irresistible was lost, though most of its crew was rescued. Sent to Irresistible’s aid, the battleship Ocean was damaged by shellfire and then struck a mine, sinking soon after its crew abandoned ship. Also damaged by shellfire, the French battleships Suffren and Gaulois had to withdraw. With his combined fleet bloodied, Rear Adm. John de Robeck, the British commander, ordered a withdrawal.

Churchill and others in favor of opening a southern front remained determined. If the Turkish emplacements could not be silenced by naval gunfire, then a ground invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula would serve the purpose. The planned assault called for Allied forces to conduct amphibious landings and then attack the Ottoman forts from the landward side. Initiated on April 25, the landings targeted several beaches on the peninsula. The Allied assault was conducted primarily by British and Commonwealth soldiers, including Australian and New Zealand troops, but also included a French contingent.

Organized on short notice, the amphibious assault suffered from a dearth of intelligence regarding enemy defenses and lacked accurate maps. Seeking to overcome both shortfalls, planners turned to seaplanes from No. 3 Squadron of Churchill’s vaunted RNAS. Unopposed by the small Ottoman air force during the preparation phase, the squadron initially provided aerial reconnaissance. Once the invasion was under way, the planes conducted photographic reconnaissance, observed naval gunfire and reported on Turkish troop movements. The squadron also conducted a handful of bombing raids in support of Allied ground troops.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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One handicap Allied planners were unable to overcome was the fact Ottoman forces held the high ground in the interior beyond the beachheads. The Turks knew their own geography and had modern artillery and machine guns provided by their German allies. The campaign devolved into a stalemate, with the Allies unable to break out from the beachheads, and the Turks unable to overrun them. A rare Allied highlight of the campaign was that Churchill’s Royal Navy was able to interdict most enemy merchant shipping seeking to resupply Ottoman forces in Gallipoli. That alone might have ultimately forced Turkey to sue for peace. But the Allied situation at Gallipoli soon devolved after Bulgaria joined the Central Powers. In early October 1915 the latter opened a land route through Bulgaria, connecting Germany and the Ottoman empire and enabling the Germans to rearm the Turks with modern heavy artillery capable of devastating the Allied positions. Germany also supplied Turkey with the latest aircraft and experienced crews.

‘Darth’ Tanker

Actually harking back in appearance to medieval Japanese samurai armor, this 1916-issue leather British tanker’s helmet with mask was designed to protect its wearer from head injury. When leather proved too flimsy, British tankers switched back to the steel Brodie helmet.

Seeing no realistic way to turn the situation to their favor, the British Cabinet made the difficult decision to evacuate in early December 1915. While Churchill hadn’t been the sole proponent of the disastrous campaign, he’d been among its most vocal, thus many ministers of Parliament held him personally responsible. The following May the prime minister agreed under parliamentary pressure to form an all-party coalition government on the condition Churchill be removed from his Cabinet position.

Unceremoniously booted from his appointment as first lord of the Admiralty, Churchill took a break from politics and resumed frontline service as an army officer. In January 1916 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and given command of the 6th Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers. After training, the battalion deployed to a sector of the Belgian front. For more than three months they experienced continual shelling and sniping while preparing to meet the expected German spring offensive. As the Germans were focused on taking Verdun, Churchill’s sector remained relatively quiet. In May the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers were absorbed into the 15th Division. Churchill didn’t seek a new command in the division, instead securing permission to leave active duty and return to politics. But his military contributions were far from over, and the seeds of an earlier endeavor were about to bear fruit.

In 1914, when the war slipped into stalemated trench warfare, First Lord Churchill had fished about for solutions and came to believe an armored motorized vehicle of some sort was the answer. Seeking ownership of the technology on behalf of the Admiralty, he’d labeled such futuristic armored vehicles “landships.” Eventually conceding the technology was more appropriately an army initiative, Churchill transferred £70,000 (more than $8 million in today’s dollars) from the navy to the army to develop what became known as the tank.

The man most often credited with having invented the tank is Lt. Col. Ernest D. Swinton. Appointed at the outset of the war by Secretary of State for War Horatio Herbert, 1st Earl Kitchener, as the official British war correspondent on the Western Front, Swinton moved back and forth between France and England and to and from the front lines. Witnessing the death, destruction and deadlock of trench warfare, he initially conceived an armored variant of the American-made Holt caterpillar tractor. While Kitchener proved lukewarm over Swinton’s armored tractor, it resonated with First Lord of the Admiralty Churchill, who in February 1915 ordered formation of an exploratory Landship Committee, tasked with developing the technology.

Under Churchill’s ministry oversight were naval air squadrons based in Dunkirk, France. Perpetually at risk of enemy attack, the squadrons were ably defended by armored car squadrons. Thus, Churchill recognized the importance of and need for armored forces. He kept abreast of developments as the Landship Committee experimented with armored vehicle designs. The initial versions were essentially wheeled automobiles with bolted-on armor. However, it soon became clear wheeled variants could neither traverse trenches nor function properly in mud. Churchill’s Admiralty experimented with attaching bridging equipment to such vehicles, but the results proved disappointing. Swinton’s Holt caterpillar tractor proved far more promising. Offering greater grip and more weight-bearing surface, the tracked vehicle was just the ticket for crossing the no-man’s-land between trenches.

On June 30, 1915, Churchill arranged a demonstration of a prototype tractor’s ability to cross barbed-wire entanglements. A manufacturing company working on the project eventually produced the Killen-Strait armored tractor. Capped with the superstructure from a Delaunay-Belleville armored car, its tracks comprised an unbroken series of steel links connected by steel pinions. Churchill and David Lloyd George, then head of the Ministry of Munitions, were present for tests of the Killen-Strait. The promising results prompted Lloyd George to assume the responsibility for producing a steady supply of landships once the Royal Navy settled on a satisfactory design. For his part, Churchill was a total believer, convinced the new machine would enable Allied forces to readily traverse the muddy, shell-pocked landscape of the Western Front and smash enemy defenses.

Meanwhile, Swinton managed to persuade the newly formed Inventions Committee in the House of Commons to fund development of a small landship. He drew up target specifications for the new machine, including a maximum speed of 4 miles per hour on flat ground, the ability to perform a sharp turn at top speed, reversing capability, the ability to climb a 5-foot earthen bank and the ability to cross an 8-foot gap. Additionally, the vehicle was to accommodate 10 crewmen and be armed with two machine guns and a 2-pounder cannon. Though the landship was no longer under the purview of the Admiralty, Churchill went out of his way to write Asquith in praise of Swinton’s developments.

Under Swinton’s oversight, the prototype landship, nicknamed “Little Willie” had 12-foot-long track frames, weighed 16 tons and could carry a crew of three at a top speed of just over 2 miles per hour. Its speed over rough terrain, however, dropped considerably. Moreover, it was unable to traverse trenches more than a few feet wide. But while the initial trials proved disappointing, Swinton remained convinced a modified version would prove a breakthrough weapon.

Its manufacturers immediately began work on an improved tank. The resulting Mark I, nicknamed “Mother,” was twice as long as “Little Willie,” keeping the center of gravity low and helping its treads grip the ground. Sponsons were fitted to the sides to accommodate two 6-pounder naval guns. During initial trials in January 1916 the tank crossed a 9-foot-wide trench with a parapet more than 6 feet high.

With that, Swinton decided it was time to demonstrate the new tank to Britain’s leading political and military figures. Thus, on February 2, under conditions of utmost secrecy, Secretary of State for War Kitchener, Minister of Munitions Lloyd George and Chancellor of the Exchequer Reginald McKenna gathered with other key personnel to see the Mark I in action. Lord Kitchener remained unimpressed and skeptical of the tank’s potential contribution toward victory. Fortunately for the Allies, Lloyd George and McKenna, the two with oversight of the government purse strings, did recognize the Mark I’s potential and by April had placed orders for 150 tanks. Churchill was ecstatic.

Foreshadowing the German Wehrmacht’s Blitzkrieg tactics, Churchill believed the army should wait to field the Mark I until factories had rolled out 1,000 tanks and then employ the shock value of a combined armor assault to win a great battle. Though Field Marshal Haig harbored doubts about the value of tanks, the British Expeditionary Force commander did order all available Mark Is to assist during that summer’s Somme Offensive. Unfortunately for their advocates, many of the tanks broke down, and the British army was unable to hold on to its gains.

Truth be told, the tank’s debut was not as great a success as the British press reported it to be. Of the 59 tanks that had arrived in France, only 49 were in good working order. Of those, 17 broke down en route to their line of departure for the attack. It must be noted that Swinton had cautioned commanders to carefully choose fighting ground that corresponded with the tank’s powers and limitations. Had they followed his recommendations, the initial results would have been better. Regardless, the sight of the tanks created panic and had a profound effect on the morale of the German army.

For his part, Colonel John Frederick Charles “J.F.C.” Fuller, chief of the British Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps (later Tank Corps), was convinced his machines could win the war and persuaded Haig to ask the government for another 1,000 tanks. Churchill, who by then had returned home as a politician, did everything he could to endorse Haig’s request.

Meanwhile, Fuller and others refined tank operating procedures, and just over a year later, during the Cambrai Offensive, Haig ordered a massed tank attack at Artois. Launched at dawn on Nov. 20, 1917, without preparatory bombardment, the attack wholly surprised the Germans. Employing more than 400 tanks, elements of the British Third Army gained up to 5 miles that first day, an incredible amount of territory to be captured so rapidly on the stalemated Western Front. Churchill’s belief in the tank as a combat multiplier had been validated. The British army remembered his tireless efforts, and at the outset of World War II it named its primary infantry tank, the Mk IV, the Churchill.

Retired U.S. Marine Colonel John Miles writes and lectures on a range of historical topics. For further reading he recommends Thoughts and Adventures, by Winston S. Churchill; A Company of Tanks, by William Henry Lowe Watson; and Eyewitness and the Origin of the Tanks, by Ernest D. Swinton.

This story appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Military History magazine.

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On Aug. 22, 1945, a Miles Messenger aircraft carrying British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery dropped abruptly from the sky near Oldenburg, Germany as its engine cut out in midair. The plane had no chance of making it to the nearby airfield. It barely managed a crash landing. The pilot and a staff officer traveling in the plane were unharmed. Montgomery’s condition, however, was much more serious. Battered and bruised from the landing, he had also sustained two broken lumbar vertebrae. 

The excruciating pain of a broken back would have been enough to make anyone yell and curse aloud, stop for rest or demand immediate medical treatment—or probably all those things at once. But Montgomery’s thoughts were with the men of the 3rd Canadian Division, who were assembled and waiting for him to present valor medals and address them. He pulled himself together. As he had done so many times before, he buried his sense of self, put on a brave face as the indefatigable “Monty” and went to go see the troops. 

Montgomery was an extraordinarily self-disciplined man, but this quietly agonizing struggle at Oldenburg was one of his most amazing feats of self-control. With a fractured spine, he walked along as he normally would to review the Canadian troops. The lower back injuries he had just sustained would be life-changing and cause him problems for many years; in fact, he would never completely recover. Yet despite the suffering he must have felt walking, Montgomery managed to appear unflinchingly calm as he regarded these men, who had fought for him across Europe, including at the D-Day landings, at Caen, and the Battle of the Scheldt. Footage from the event shows him–albeit slowly, probably in acute physical pain–stepping forward to present a medal to each recipient. He spoke considerately to each man as he pinned their medals on, showing only the faintest trace of a wince. 

And he would have done more for them. He certainly tried. Montgomery was accustomed to make rousing speeches to troops he visited. The Canadians would get nothing less from him—or at least that was what he intended. Monty made his best effort at a speech to the officers, but shortly after he raised his voice to hail their achievements, his crash injuries finally got the best of him. He was forced to break off his speech and return to his headquarters—by plane, as he admitted he could not endure a long bumpy car journey. 

That Aug. 22 has not gone down as a day of distinction compared with anniversaries of Montgomery’s major battles in the annals of World War II history. However, the private battle Montgomery waged with himself that day was one of the finest examples of what made him a great military leader. 

A Global Military Leader

Montgomery’s critics have accused him of being self-serving and incompetent. They have typecast him as a timid, deskbound type of general who was persistently “frightened” of the enemy. Any military successes he made they minimize or attribute to others; any perceived failings or missteps they magnify out of proportion. Not content to assassinate his character as a soldier, his detractors have lampooned his short stature and sharp facial features, his accent, mannerisms, and practically anything else about him they could possibly think of over the course of decades. Montgomery has been savaged on both sides of the pond by an assortment of supercilious British writers and American commentators with a U.S.-biased axe to grind. When Montgomery died in March 1976, The New York Times published an obituary for him. They need not have bothered calling it an obituary. It was an attack on Montgomery: a derogatory satire that danced on his grave, containing inaccuracies and barbs unbecoming of a tribute to a deceased war hero and certainly unbecoming to one who had led all Allied ground forces, including Americans, on D-Day. Yet that is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of misrepresentations of Montgomery. 

Montgomery’s actions as a military leader tell a different story—that of an earnest and hardworking officer who subordinated his own interests to his sense of duty and discipline. His approach to leadership in war demonstrates that his rise to high command was built on real talent that he honed over a lifetime of dedication to his profession. Montgomery was not born into privilege nor did he enjoy any advantages in his career that sped him to the top.

It was by the merits of his deeds that Montgomery rose through the ranks and led armies to victories in battle. The troops he led to victory came from a variety of nations, making Montgomery a truly global military leader. The achievements he made were unprecedented and have not been equaled since. 

The man scorned as “timid” by some military contemporaries and a variety of historians was in fact distinguished for his great physical courage and charisma from an early age. Like many of history’s notable military commanders, Montgomery was indeed short and wiry, yet at the same time was a force to be reckoned with. As a young man, he was an aggressive and successful athlete who excelled at a wide variety of sports. He became a notorious scrapper during his time at the Royal Military College Sandhurst and was nearly expelled for rowdy brawling. As a junior officer he won awards for his skills at bayonet drills and marksmanship. He was first recognized for valor in combat with the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), which he earned for leading his men in hand-to-hand fighting in the trenches of World War I. Montgomery’s “conspicuous gallant leading” came early in the war—practically as soon as he could come to grips with an enemy force. On Oct. 13, 1914, then Lt. Montgomery rallied his men to storm German trenches with fixed bayonets, killing enemies and driving them out. 

After routing the enemy, Montgomery was shot by a sniper. The bullet pierced his lung. He fell in the open. A man of his platoon came to help him and managed to plug Montgomery’s wound to stop the bleeding. However, the enemy sniper watching was not finished. The German shot Monty’s rescuer through the head, then continued to aim at Montgomery after the body fell on him. Stuck beneath the body of the man who had saved his life, Montgomery felt the corpse jolt as it took several more bullets intended for him. The German sniper was determined to kill him. Another shot hit Monty in the knee. Yet he survived. His wound was by all accounts judged fatal and his condition was bleak. After he was taken by stretcher bearers to an advanced dressing station, a grave was dug for him. Physicians thought he was a lost cause and prepared for his imminent burial. 

As if defying the laws of nature, Montgomery clung to life. Evacuated to England for surgery and more advanced medical care, he made a full recovery—enough to go back to doing the military exercises he loved and engage in sports such as football and cross-country skiing. However, Montgomery by his own description was left with “half a tummy and one lung,” which caused him to get winded more easily and gave him trouble tolerating cigarette smoke around him. Some critics have treated Monty’s antipathy toward cigarette smoke as him being unnecessarily fussy. That is not the case. Inhaling cigarette smoke was actually a serious health issue for Montgomery. However, he did not form an anti-smoking attitude per say and enjoyed distributing cigarettes to his troops.

The Best Warrior He Could Be

Extremely intelligent and methodical, Montgomery set out to study everything he could about warfare and gain as much experience as possible in a variety of military roles. This flexibility and attention to detail served him well. While Montgomery is often portrayed as a misfit for his single-minded attention to his career, he showed dedication that is truly admirable for a professional soldier. His quest to immerse himself in his work was born of fierce determination to become the best warrior he could be. 

Most of history’s successful military leaders are those who pursue a spartan lifestyle and accustom themselves to discomforts and deprivations. Likewise, it was typical of Montgomery to seek no extra luxuries for himself. Throughout his life, he lived and worked among his troops. In his spare time during World War II, he visited factories to encourage civilian workers on the home front. He took short rest periods when he needed to and then got back to work. He was constantly active and seeking to make himself useful. 

Montgomery has often been mistaken for a Christian Puritan of sorts, an assumption not helped by the fact that he was brought up in an ecclesiastical family (his father was a bishop) and that he was known to quote the Bible during World War II. Yet Montgomery was no saint—and he knew it. He was a soldier’s soldier, who had become one precisely by rejecting the morose Christianity of his upbringing and going against the wishes of his family. He went to music halls as a young man; he bantered, took bets and swore; he sported tattoos and condoned prostitution. He wasn’t against his fellow soldiers indulging their vices, and many times was amused by their repartee about their exploits. But he demanded more from himself to reach his own aims.

“If you can’t command and control yourself, conquer yourself, you won’t be able to do this to other people,” he later said. “That’s the first thing I learned.”

Although Montgomery identified as a Christian, his views were often out of line with what the Church of England considered appropriate. He had a deep sense of faith, but it was a faith he practiced independently. His very public displays of religious piety and Bible quoting diminished in large part after World War II was won, indicating that he had emphasized these things in wartime for the sake of inspiring his men.

Motivating His Troops

One of the keys to Montgomery’s success as a military leader was his ability to motivate his troops. This sounds fairly simple to the uninitiated but takes talent to do. It’s not enough to win over a group of battle-hardened and cynical soldiers by showing up with a smile and making a speech. Soldiers are good judges of character and are not easily charmed by any new CO who comes on the scene. The loyalty of troops must be earned—and earning their respect and allegiance can be difficult, especially when the troops in question have endured immense hardships and losses. This was something that Montgomery understood well.

Because of his own experiences on the frontlines, he knew what it took to motivate men to fight. A winning strategy was not enough. The troops needed to be welded, willingly, into an energetic and effective “fighting machine,” as Monty liked to call it. To do so, Montgomery focused on building the men’s morale. “Morale is a mental rather than a physical quality, a determination to overcome obstacles, and instinct driving a man forward against his own desires,” according to Montgomery, who also wrote that morale consisted of “discipline, self-respect and confidence,” among other qualities. Morale was something he focused a great deal on and which paid dividends in terms of the effect its boost had on forces under his command. 

Taking On Rommel

Perhaps the most dramatic example of the transformative effect of Montgomery’s leadership on a military force occurred when he took command of the British Eighth Army in North Africa in 1942 following its series of defeats by German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The British had effectively been chased around in circles in the desert by Rommel to the point that the men were in awe of Rommel while making jokes about their own seemingly futile situation. Montgomery had no patience for it.

Although he was the first to appreciate the ironic humor of fellow British soldiers, he found the general atmosphere of stoic resignation to the nearby German menace unacceptable. After taking command, Montgomery electrified the Eighth Army with his hard-hitting and dynamic presence. Begrimed men who had been shuffling despondently through the desert were suddenly dashing around in a state of high alert, exercising constantly, and being told they were going to “hit Rommel for six” right out of Africa—which they did, true to their new commander’s word and thanks to his good leadership.

Talent at improving morale is not the sum total of Montgomery, although it’s possibly the only thing that faultfinders grudgingly give him credit for. He proved his abilities at organization in managing his staff and was good at delegating tasks to others—skills that other forceful personalities in military history have lacked. 

A Gifted Communicator

He was also a gifted communicator. Some detractors have criticized his forthright manner and at times blunt style of speaking; some have even gone so far as to suggest he had a developmental disorder which stunted his social abilities. This is not only an unkind suggestion but one that is patently false in view of Montgomery’s behavior and achievements. Montgomery was a highly effective communicator with a great deal of international experience. He spoke several different languages—Urdu, Hindustani and French—and had lived and worked among people of various nationalities in many different countries around the globe by the time World War II started. He worked deftly with his staff and junior commanders. He established a network of liaison officers to report back to him about what was going on among various units so that he could keep his “finger on the pulse” of his troops. 

He was well-organized, confident and concise—traits that can be found in many successful high-level executives as well as in efficient military leaders. Not everybody appreciated Montgomery’s conciseness or self-assurance. Like most soldiers, Montgomery could be sharp and gruff sometimes. However, he maintained a professional demeanor. He did not heckle or make abusive jokes about other Allied generals, even when he strongly disagreed with them. He treated his contemporaries with respect—which is more than some of them gave him. 

Positive Command Style

Montgomery was a tough man and formidable commander, but his approach to generalship wasn’t one of boot-stomping bravado. During World War II, a time period when various strongmen were aiming famous frowns and jaw-jutting glares at each other across the globe, Montgomery was the cheerful general. He smiled in most of his pictures and liked to be photographed appearing casual and friendly. If he had been more willing to scowl for the cameras or had posed brandishing a pair of pistols he might have had to endure less derision than posterity has accorded him. But scowling and saber-rattling were not part of Montgomery’s style.

Monty was a man who knew his own strengths and didn’t need to put on a show of them. Instead, he believed in leadership that brought out what was “positive and constructive” in other people. The soldiers and civilians of war-torn Britain had endured much hardship with grim fortitude, and Montgomery sought to uplift their spirits. His goal was to brighten their horizon and encourage them to believe in victory.

In a testament to his fair-mindedness, Montgomery would also attempt to wield a positive influence over the German civilians he oversaw in the British Zone of occupied Germany, writing in a 1945 address to them: “I will help you to eradicate idleness, boredom and fear of the future. Instead, I want to give you an objective, and hope for the future.” 

Imbued with a profound desire to preserve human life whenever possible, he was careful and meticulous in how he deployed his forces. Much is said of Montgomery’s ego, yet had he been more of a show-off and less of a strategist, he would have been more careless with his men’s lives. Although military history enthusiasts may find Montgomery’s methods less glamorous than those of other World War II commanders, the thoughtful approaches he utilized during that war are a testament to his sense of personal responsibility for the lives entrusted to him. “Success is vital,” he wrote, “but battles must be won with the least possible loss of life.”

He was true to those words. Being a butcher or a gambler on the battlefield is something he could never be accused of. He also routinely took measures to relieve his fatigued combat troops with fresh (but well-trained and appropriately chosen) reserves to avoid over-exhausting them. It was not always possible to replenish his manpower but he used opportunities as they came up; he did not leave troops in the lurch nor use them as cannon fodder. 

Visiting U.S. Troops

In response to his genuine concern for their wellbeing—which he manifested by constantly mingling with the regular soldiers and keeping attuned to their circumstances–Montgomery’s troops formed a close bond with him which was evident in battles across North Africa, Italy and Northwest Europe. Although Montgomery has often been accused of British bias and being indifferent to the concerns of Americans, he visited U.S. wounded in hospitals and made a point of personally introducing himself to every American combat unit he would command during the D-Day invasion.

There was not a single U.S. soldier who hit the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944 who had not set eyes on Montgomery in person and heard his voice. Montgomery wanted all soldiers he was entrusted to lead into combat to know that he took personal responsibility for them, regardless of nationality.

He was deeply affected by the sacrifices made by all Allied troops in World War II, and despite what some may claim, did not view himself as deserving of personal praise for what he viewed as their victories. His profound feelings of humility in this regard are perhaps best expressed in an address he made to officers from the 51st Highland Division after World War II. “I have never had an opportunity of saying this: during the course of the war it has fallen to my lot to receive from the nations taking part the highest decorations and orders that they can give, and when one wears them, one feels that they were really won by the officers and men,” said Montgomery. “They won them. I may wear them…but you, gentlemen, won them; and I say that straight from the heart.” 

He was reluctant to admit that he had received a hero’s welcome in postwar visits to Australia and New Zealand, instead writing in his memoirs: “I knew that the warmth of the greeting was not meant for me personally but for that which I represented…the bravery and devotion to duty of the men I had commanded.”

Putting Himself Last

Partially as a result of Montgomery’s optimistic approach to wartime publicity, people got to know him as the grinning, peppery character in the beret. He was good at putting on a bold face and meeting the needs of others, even if he was personally exhausted—or had a broken back. There was much more to him than what came across in the various publicity stills and speeches. Montgomery had a quiet sense of dignity. 

True to his ethos of putting duty first and himself last, Montgomery was probably the only Western Allied general who became a homeless veteran after the war. His home and belongings in Portsmouth had been destroyed by Luftwaffe bombing. During the war, he lived in caravans captured from German and Italian forces in Africa—one truck was his sleeping quarters and one was his office. Otherwise, he had nowhere to live. And it is telling that he made no effort to address that situation throughout the conflict. He made no attempt to secure a safe place to live while on leave or purchase any kind of home for himself. He worked. He fought. He was with his troops 100 percent. When he returned to Britain after the war, he lived in his trucks parked at a friend’s property for a period. He ended up purchasing an old mill to renovate as a home, which he furnished with donated materials he received from New Zealand, Canada and Australia, as the British government made minimal efforts to assist him in transitioning into postwar life. 

A Life Of Service

Although he had every right to retire after the war ended, Montgomery continued to dedicate himself to a life of public service. Even during the war he had been an active mentor to junior officers and had been involved in charity efforts. He accumulated an unbroken 50 years (1908-1958) of active military service before retiring. Even afterwards, he continued to be productive in monitoring international and military affairs, and writing books to make his analyses and experiences of use to others. “Individual happiness, cheerful loyal service, giving a helping hand to others, gaining the trust and confidence of those you deal with—it is those things that matter most, to mention only a few,” he wrote.

In a 1953 photograph taken around the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, Montgomery appears at the pinnacle of his career, wearing the hallowed robes of the Order of the Garter. Pinned discreetly at the front of his robes—slightly askew and against dress regulations—is a lone valor medal. It is his DSO: the first award he received for his bravery on Oct. 13, 1914, the day he barely escaped a sniper’s malice and was left struggling for life on a deserted battlefield. So many years later, he was alive, well and surrounded by magnificence. But one thing had not changed. He was still that same ordinary soldier. He knew it.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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Judas Maccabeus (190-160 bce)

The third of five sons born to Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, priest (cohen) of Modein—the others being Eleazar, Simon, John and Jonathan—the man more widely known by his Greek name was known in Hebrew as Yehuda HaMakab, or Judah the Hammer. Judas was a cohen in his own right and would have remained so had his Seleucid overlord, Antiochus IV Epiphanes (“God Manifest”), not sought to promote homogeneity in his multi-ethnic kingdom by imposing Hellenic culture and religion on all his subjects in 168 bce. That included installing images of Hellenic gods in the Second Temple of Jerusalem, provoking a revolt by Mattathias, his sons and other Jewish pietists. 

During this war for control over Judea, Judas came to the fore. After winning a string of victories, he led his makeshift army into Jerusalem on the 25th day in the Hebrew month of Kislev (approximately December), 164 bce. In the course of cleansing the Temple, tradition has it that there was only enough oil to light it for a single day, but it burned through eight nights until more oil was found. 

The fighting was far from over, however. Eleazar was killed in 161 and at Elasa in 160. Judas was outgeneraled by Bacchides and died fighting. His burial ended with a quotation from King David’s lament to King Saul: “How the mighty have fallen!” Jonathan and Simon subsequently died, leaving John the last Maccabee standing by 142 bce, when Judea finally won autonomy within the Seleucid kingdom and independence in 141.

Narses (c.ad 478-568)

The exact dates of Narses’ birth and death are uncertain, as is how he came to be castrated. What is known is that he was a Romanized Armenian who served as steward, chief treasurer and grand chamber of the court to the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I. 

He played a vital role in putting down the Nika riots on 532, but there is no evidence of military training leading to Justinian’s ordering him in 538 to Italy, where Count Flavius Belisarius, after having conquered the Vandals in North Africa in 533, was trying to wrest the Western Roman Empire from the Ostrogoths. Although Narses demonstrated a surprising grasp of command, he and Belisarius did not trust one another and Justinian recalled Narses. Working with minimal resources, Belisarius conduced a brilliant defense of Rome in 538, but in 541 Justinian, suspecting his loyalty, reassigned him to fight the Sassanians in Mesopotamia. Narses took Belisarius’ place in Italy and by June 551 was the supreme commander at age 73 with a string of victories. In 554 the undersized eunuch was feted to the first Triumph held in Rome in 150 years—and the last. On Nov. 14, 565, Justinian died and the new emperor, Justin II, recalled Narses to Constantinople in 567. Some accounts claim he died enroute in April 568, but others describe his death in peaceful retirement in 574 at what might have been age 96—itself an achievement in the treacherous cauldron of Byzantine politics. 

Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227)

Born to a Mongol chieftain of the Borjigin clan, Temujin was eight when his father died. Certainly he would have learned the standard Mongol mounted warrior repertoire, but his accomplishments had gone far beyond that by 1206, when a kurultai of his peers elected him their first khagan, under the name of Genghis Khan. Among the most intriguing mysteries surrounding his rise to power is how he learned, hands-on, to forge alliances, turn an unwieldy collection of steppe warriors into a vast, well-disciplined army capable of conquering continents and, while he was at it, create a political entity of unprecedented scope to administer his holdings, complete with a codified legal system—all conceived virtually from scratch.

Although the victims of his ruthless expansion of empire have been estimated as high as 17 million—one-fifth the earth’s population at the time—Genghis Khan conquered the largest contiguous land mass in history and laid the foundation for a meritocracy allowing universal religious tolerance, which in times of peace connected the western world by pan-Eurasian trade. All this was without precedent in the Mongol world, but it lasted a quarter of a millennium. Is it any wonder that, however controversial he is elsewhere, Genghis Khan is still at the top of Mongolia’s hierarchy of national heroes?

Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly (1559-1632)

Born in the Brabant in the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium), Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly attended Jesuit school in Cologne, but at age 15 enlisted as a soldier in the Spanish army against the Dutch in the Eighty Years War. In 1600 he served in a mercenary unit with the Holy Roman Empire fighting Ottoman forces in Hungary and Transylvania. It was not uncommon for professional soldiers to learn hands-on as they rose in the ranks in the 17th century, but Tilly was exceptional in that he ascended from private to field marshal in just five years. In 1610 Duke Maximilian I gave him command of the Catholic League. 

When the Thirty Years War broke out in Bohemia in 1618, Tilly’s victory at White Mountain in 1620 knocked Bohemia out of the conflict at almost the beginning. As other Protestant countries rose against the Empire, Tilly defeated each in turn, seeming to be invincible.

Tilly’s career began to tarnish when King Gustavus II Adolphus put the Thirty Years War through a new phase with his innovatively mobile Swedish army. After a 20-day siege, on May 20, 1631 Tilly’s forces stormed Magdeburg and for the first time he lost control over his troops, who butchered 20,000 of the city’s 25,000 population. On Sept. 17, Tilly confronted Gustavus at Breitenfeld and was convincingly outmaneuvered and beaten, suffering 27,000 casualties. Tilly scored a modest victory at Bamberg on March 9, 1632, but at Rain am Lech on April 15 he was struck in the thigh by an arquebus round and died of osteomyelitis in Ingolstadt on the 30th.

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)

When the English Civil War broke out, its most famous—and notorious—figure was known among the merchant community and had been a member of Parliament for his home county of Huntingdon in 1628-29 and 1640-42. His only military experience had been raising a cavalry troop in Cambridgeshire for the Parliamentarians, which arrived too late to participate in the opening battle at Edgehill on Oct. 23, 1642. Oliver Cromwell proved avid at learning from experience, most notably at Gainesborough on July 23, 1643, at which point he was a colonel. He was involved in redeveloping the Parliamentary forces into a “New Model Army,” which proved its worth in the pivotal battles of Marston Moor in July 1644 and Naseby on June 14, 1645. By 1652 Cromwell’s subsequent campaigns in Scotland and Ireland sealed his place among Britain’s most successful generals. If appraised by his own standard, however—“warts and all”—he is also remembered as a regicide (he was the third of 59 to sign King Charles I’s death warrant), the revolutionary who dissolved Parliament and made himself “Lord Protector,” i.e. dictator, and one of those oppressors the Irish still love to hate.

Nathanael Greene (1742-1786)

Born in Warwick, Rhode Island, Nathanael Greene was running a mill when the American Revolution broke out, but he was an avid reader with—despite being a Quaker—a fascination with military science. That and his advocating the break with Britain led to his being expelled from his congregation, although he still regarded himself as a Quaker. When the battles of Lexington and Concord occurred, Greene’s only contribution was to form a militia unit, the Kentish Guard. On June 14, 1775 Greene met Maj. Gen. George Washington, the new commander of the Continental Army, in Boston, and the two became close friends. Serving as quartermaster-general, Greene distinguished himself in combat at Brandywine Creek, Valley Forge and Monmouth Court House. On Dec. 2, 1780 Washington sent Greene to Charlotte, N.C., where he reorganized the beaten Continental forces in the southern colonies and set out to retake them from British Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis’ army. Greene choreographed an artful campaign of fighting retreats, climaxing at Guilford Court House, N.C., on March 15, 1781. Although Cornwallis ended up holding the ground and technically winning the battle, the 633 casualties he suffered compelled him to disengage and retire to Virginia. While Cornwallis was trapped at Yorktown, Greene took the offensive, driving the last British in the South from Charleston, S.C. on Dec. 14, 1782. Before his death of heatstroke in Georgia on June 19, 1786, Greene summed up how he wore Cornwallis down: “We fight, get beat, rise and fight again.”

François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803)

The son of an educated slave on French-owned Saint-Domingue, François-Dominique Toussaint got some education of his own from Jesuit contacts while serving as a livestock handler, herder, coachman and steward until 1776, when he attained freedom. A slave revolt broke out between oppressed blacks and their white and mulatto overseers in August 1791. By 1793 he was leading rebels in a self-developed guerrilla force and had adopted the surname “Louverture” (“opening”). Later that year he and his followers helped a newly-Republican France fight off Spanish and British forces and was encouraged to learn that the French National Assembly ended slavery in May 1794. Over the following years Louverture displayed a remarkable grasp of civil leadership, restoring the economy in 1795 and overrunning Spanish San Domingo in January 1801, declaring the liberation of its white, black and mulatto population. In January 1802, however, Sainte-Domingue was invaded by a French army led by Maj. Gen. Charles Victoire Emmanuel Leclerc, brother-in-law of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, with orders to reinstate slavery on the island. Overwhelmed and losing followers, Louverture agreed to lay down his arms in May and retire to his plantation. Instead, Bonaparte ordered his arrest. He died in Fort-de-Joux in the Jura Mountains on April 7, 1803. 

Bonaparte’s treachery backfired. Leclerc died of yellow fever in November 1802. On May 18, 1803 Bonaparte made some quick cash for his European operations by approving American President Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, effectively writing off his ambitions in the New World. On Jan. 1, 1804 one of Louverture’s disciples, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, declared himself governor-general of Haiti, the world’s first black republic. 

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie (1762-1806)

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie was the issue of Alexandre Davy, Marquis de la Pailleterie, a minor French noble plantation owner in Jérémie, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), and one of his slaves, Marie-Céssette Dumas (whose surname Thomas-Alexandre adopted). The boy accompanied his father to France, where he could be free and get an education. In 1786, however, he enlisted in the French army’s 5th Dragoon Regiment (Queen). When the French Revolution broke out, he found numerous opportunities to show his military talents. On June 2, 1792 he was promoted to corporal, but over the next few years he was commissioned a lieutenant, then rose to lieutenant colonel and, in July 1793–the first person of African descent in history to attain the rank of brigadier general. Although not the most gifted strategist, he was exceptionally strong and reveled in leading by example. Among others, Dumas commanded the Army of the West in 1796 and the Army of Italy in 1796. On March 25, 1797, during a fighting retreat from Brixen and Botzen in the Tyrol, Dumas held the Brixen bridge against an Austrian cavalry squadron singlehanded. From 1798 to 1799 he served in Napoleon Bonaparte’s Army of the Orient. 

Retiring in 1802, Dumas died of stomach cancer in 1806. Undoubtedly his lifetime of adventure inspired his son, Alexandre Dumas Sr., to write adventure novels, such as The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask and The Count of Monte Cristo. His grandson, Alexandre Dumas Jr. also became an esteemed novelist and playwright, best known for La Dame aux Camélias.

Benjamin H. Grierson (1826-1911)

One of the iconic names in American Civil War cavalry had no military training and was afraid of horses. Born in Pittsburgh, Pa. on July 8, 1826, Benjamin Henry Grierson was nearly kicked to death by a horse at age eight and distrusted the beasts ever since. Educated in Ohio, he became a music teacher and shopkeeper in Illinois when war broke out and joined the U.S. Army at Cairo on May 8, 1861, as a volunteer aide to Brig. Gen. Benjamin M. Prentiss. On Oct. 24, however, Grierson was assigned to the 6th Illinois Cavalry and on March 26, 1862 his men elected him colonel.

Mastering his horse problem, Grierson led his troopers on raids and skirmishes throughout Tennessee and Mississippi. This climaxed with a diversionary raid in which Grierson led 1,700 troopers of the 6th and 7th Illinois and 2nd Iowa Cavalry regiments from La Grange, Tenn. on April 17, 1863 600 miles to Baton Rouge, La. on May 2. A step ahead of Confederate pursuers, Grierson’s raiders inflicted 100 casualties, took 500 prisoners, captured 3,000 arms and destroyed 50 to 60 railroad and telegraph lines. Of greatest strategic importance, the raid diverted a division’s worth of Confederate soldiers while Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant’s forces slipped south of the Mississippi fortress of Vicksburg, leading to its July 4 surrender. After the war, Grierson decided to make a career of Army service, spending most on the frontier, his commands including the 10th U.S. Cavalry Regiment (Colored). On April 5, 1890 he was given a rare promotion to brigadier general in the Regular Army, shortly before retiring on July 8 of that year. 

Vo Nguyen Giap (1911-2013)

The son of a well-to-do farmer who died in a French prison, Vo Nguyen Giap attended a Catholic lycée in Hue, joined the Indochinese Communist Party in 1931, gained a law degree in 1938 and worked as a history teacher while self-studying military history. In May 1940 he met Ho Chi Minh in China, where he learned tactics and strategy as practiced by Mao Zedong. By the end of World War II Giap was Minister of Defense for the communist-nationalist People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN). 

Between 1946 and 1954 Giap blended guerrilla and conventional warfare, winning some campaigns and suffering some stinging defeats but learning from experience. His decisive victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 shocked the Western powers, as did his success in wearing down U.S. forces between 1965 and 1973. Giap viewed himself as more soldier than politician, which may explain his being sidelined by North Vietnamese General Secretary Le Duan, whose “big battle” strategy prevailed over Giap’s during the 1968 Tet and 1972 Easter offensives, resulting in bloody tactical defeats. In the end, the PAVN prevailed over the American-backed Saigon government in 1975. In 1978 Giap oversaw an invasion of Kampuchea that toppled Pol Pot’s radical Maoist Khmer Rouge government. When the Chinese retaliated with a punitive expedition into Vietnam on Feb. 12, 1979, the PAVN’s stout defense convinced the invaders to withdraw on March 16. 

Although Vo Nguyen Giap is widely touted as one of the military geniuses of his century, much of his self-taught strategy and tactics could only have worked in Indochina’s unique conditions in the second half of the 20th century.

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The admiral was livid. José Prudencio Padilla, commander of the Gran Colombian fleet, read the surrender demand from his rival Spanish commander and glared at the officer who had delivered it. The rage in Padilla’s eyes told the messenger that, white flag or not, he would be lucky to survive the next few minutes. Frigate Lieutenant Pablo Llánez wisely kept his mouth shut. Padilla’s assembled staff officers did likewise. Padilla considered shredding the document and shooting the messenger. Instead, he sat down at a small table and began to write.

The Spanish commander who so enraged Padilla, Captain Ángel Laborde y Navarro, had written a message both saccharine and condescending. It concluded with an offer to transport the admiral and his men to territory controlled by Gran Colombia, provided he capitulate and turn over all his vessels and arms. Otherwise, Laborde would come for him. In his reply the admiral told the captain not to bother, for Padilla would come for Laborde. On July 24, 1823, the opposing commanders and their fleets did meet in a brackish strait leading to Lake Maracaibo in what today is the Republic of Venezuela.

Padilla may have assumed the condescending tone in Laborde’s demand stemmed at least in part from the captain’s personal disdain for the admiral. Padilla, after all, was not an Iberian Spaniard, nor even a Creole. Padilla was a pardo, a mulatto of Creole and African ancestry.

Born on March 17, 1774, in La Guajira, a coastal department in the Spanish Viceroyalty of New Granada, José Prudencio Padilla was the son of Andrés Padilla, a humble boatwright, and wife Lucía, a woman of African descent. At age 14 José went to sea with the Spanish navy, rising from cabin boy to boatswain. Captured by the British at the Oct. 21, 1805, Battle of Trafalgar, Padilla spent three years as a prisoner before being released to Spain. On his return home to New Granada he offered his services to the viceroyalty, a predecessor to Simón Bolívar’s visionary Gran Colombia, which included present-day Colombia, Venezuela, mainland Ecuador and Panama, as well as parts of Peru, Brazil and Guyana. By 1811 the young naval officer had joined El Libertador Bolívar’s Spanish American wars of independence. The latter’s vocal opposition to slavery in the emergent republics was doubtless a factor in Padilla’s decision.

In action off Tolú, Colombia, in 1814 Padilla, in command of a small vessel, captured a better-armed royalist corvette and its crew of 170. For his participation in subsequent naval battles, including actions off Venezuela at Los Frailes Archipelago in May 1816 and Carúpano a month later, Padilla was promoted to captain of a frigate. His stock with Bolívar continued to rise with each successive victory. Promoted to brigadier general in 1823, Padilla was given command of the Third Department of what would become the Gran Colombian navy. At the time Bolívar’s patriot forces were on the cusp of victory over royalists in the Venezuelan War of Independence.

Padilla’s royalist adversary, Ángel Laborde y Navarro, was everything the self-made patriot admiral was not. Born into nobility in Cádiz, Spain, on Aug. 2, 1772, Laborde had station, influence and wealth. He was studious and learned, having completed his formal education and begun his naval career as a midshipman by age 19. He saw extensive service during the 1807–14 Peninsular War, first with the Spanish-allied French and then against them when Napoléon installed brother Joseph on the Spanish throne, and Spaniards rose against his rule. Laborde later made two extended cruises to the Philippines, all the while steadily advancing in rank. In short, he was a highly educated professional sailor.

On June 24, 1821, Bolívar scored a decisive victory over royalists at the Battle of Carabobo. Believing the Spanish threat in Venezuela to be over and independence secure, he turned his attention to the south, leaving his native land in the hands of subordinates. But the remnants of the royalist army continued to fight, using both conventional and guerrilla tactics. In September 1822 Spanish forces under Francisco Tomás Morales, captain general of Venezuela, recaptured the port city of Maracaibo (capital of the present-day state of Zulia), on the western shore of the strait leading into the namesake lake. Recognizing the threat the Spanish occupation represented, patriot Generals José Antonio Paez, Rafael Urdaneta and Mariano Montilla marched their armies against Maracaibo but were driven back.

Lake Maracaibo is a tidal bay, or lagoon, connected to the Gulf of Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea beyond by a strait some 30 miles long and scarcely 3 miles wide at its broadest. At 99 miles long and 67 miles wide, the lake itself is slightly more than half the size of Lake Erie, with a maximum depth of 150 feet. Some 135 rivers flow into Lake Maracaibo, which is freshwater in the south and increasingly brackish to the north. While the waters of the lake are generally still, the current through the strait is swift and turbulent.

On the east side of the narrow channel linking the strait and the Gulf of Venezuela is a peninsula, or bar, on which sits Castillo San Carlos de la Barra, a fortress built to control entry into the lake and protect Maracaibo against pirates. Ironically, in 1666 French buccaneers briefly captured Castillo San Carlos, and three years later Welsh privateer Henry Morgan and his men also seized the fortress preparatory to a raid on the port cities of Maracaibo and Gibraltar.

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Maracaibo’s strategic importance was immense. All goods from the Andes and Colombia had to pass through the port. Any ship entering the strait from the sea would have to pass under the guns of Castillo San Carlos.

Control of the lake provided the Spanish with a beachhead, allowing the reestablishment of a military presence and resupply of their forces. Their position also flanked Bolívar’s forces, which Morales had pushed inland. If the Spanish could defeat the Gran Colombian armada, Venezuelan independence would be lost yet again. Were Padilla to prevail, however, he could deny Spanish-occupied Maracaibo reinforcements and resupply. Morales’ army would wither on the vine. Whoever commanded the strait controlled the lake and the fate of nascent Venezuela.

Padilla and General Montilla, the commander of patriot land forces, devised a plan to coordinate their efforts and prompt a maritime showdown, thus neutralizing royalist land forces. First, Montilla would attack Maracaibo and lure Morales away from the lake. With Spanish troops thus engaged, the strait would be lightly defended, allowing Padilla’s squadron to enter.

The subsequent battle for Lake Maracaibo was not a single cataclysmic clash but a series of fights—the patriot assault of Maracaibo, the seizure of Castillo San Carlos and its guns, a series of naval skirmishes and the final, decisive engagement.

On March 15, 1823, Padilla sailed north from Cartagena, Colombia, with his small fleet, arriving within sight of Castillo San Carlos on April 5. For several weeks the patriot fleet bided its time in the gulf as the admiral and his staff dithered and debated how best to proceed. Then came word that made their decision for them—Laborde’s Spanish fleet was preparing sail west to Maracaibo’s relief from Puerto Cabello, Venezuela. By then Morales was campaigning against Montilla’s patriot army some 50 miles away and had left Castillo San Carlos woefully underdefended. Padilla resolved to force the bar.

On May 8 the patriot fleet weighed anchor and headed south on a favorable wind. Despite their excellent luck in finding the channel open, four of Padilla’s largest vessels ran aground, shellfire from the fortress making short work of one of them. To refloat the other three, Padilla ordered their ballast and cannons thrown overboard.

While his ploy worked, Padilla realized the ships would be useless without armament. Perhaps taking a page from Captain Morgan, the admiral decided to raid ashore and strip both the port and the castillo of their guns for use on his ships. After sweeping up a Spanish squadron Morales had tasked with defending the lake, the patriot fleet arrived off Maracaibo on June 16. After a daylong bombardment to little effect, Padilla landed a force of 250 infantry and 50 dragoons who fought street by street and house to house until capturing the town and forcing the capitulation of Castillo San Carlos.

Returning to Maracaibo with a 2,500-man Spanish army on June 19—three days too late—Morales found the city looted by Gran Colombian forces and the castillo stripped of its guns and ammunition. After placing some of his own artillery in the fort, there was little for him to do but wait for Laborde.

Meanwhile, having rearmed his fleet with the captured guns, Padilla set about refitting and repairing his ships and training their motley crews for the coming fight.

More than a month had passed since word of Laborde’s imminent departure from Puerto Cabello. His delay was a credit to an unlikely foe. On May 1 a nine-ship Gran Colombian squadron under Commodore John Daniel Danels, an American citizen and Baltimore native, attacked Laborde’s fleet as it left port.

Forming a battle line, the patriot ships traded shots with the royalist fleet at pistol range for two hours. But Danels’ squadron was no match for Laborde’s superior fleet. The patriots lost 60 dead and wounded and 300 captured, including Danels, while the Spanish suffered only 17 wounded. Regardless, the engagement forced Laborde to divert his ships north to Curaçao to refit and repair the damage inflicted by Danels’ stubborn squadron.

Completing repairs in late June, Laborde set out from Curacao on July 4 with a frigate, three corvettes, a brig and some two dozen smaller vessels. Ten days later the Spanish fleet sailed past the guns of Castillo San Carlos into the strait off Maracaibo. En route a windstorm had damaged the rigging of several ships. Laborde would have preferred to make the necessary repairs, but heated exchanges with Morales forced his hand. It was better, the noble-born captain reasoned, to engage one’s enemy at a disadvantage than to be dishonored by claims of cowardice. On July 17 he sent the surrender demand that so enraged Padilla.

On July 22 Laborde, anticipating contact with the Gran Colombian fleet, formed a line of battle to protect Spanish ships stranded in the shallow waters of the strait. A patriot scouting party did appear but was easily repulsed.

The next day the Gran Colombian fleet suddenly hove into view and closed with the anchored Spanish fleet. A firefight ensued. The patriot ships briefly paralleled the royalist line before turning away and disengaging. Padilla was not yet ready for battle.

Sources differ on the relative strength of the combatant forces, those favoring the Gran Colombian side claiming the Spanish had the more powerful fleet, and vice versa. By most accounts the royalist ships outnumbered those of the patriots by 2-to-1. Sources also differ on the quality of the ships and their crews. Not surprising, Colombian and Venezuelan sources insist the Spanish fleet was far superior, while Spanish sources suggest Laborde’s fleet was in disrepair and manned by shopkeepers, merchants, fishermen and others with no training or experience in naval combat.

Anticipating Padilla would return the next day and believing the damage to some of his ships would make maneuver difficult if not impossible, Laborde ordered his fleet to remain at anchor off the western shore of the strait near Bella Vista, north of Maracaibo, forming a floating fortress. Most of Padilla’s squadron retired to Los Puertos de Altagracia, off the eastern shore of the strait, opposite Bella Vista, while a smaller force anchored farther north.

At dawn on July 24 Padilla ordered his captains to his flagship, the brig Independiente, and gave them final instructions. Not content with that, the admiral visited every ship in the fleet to personally encourage their respective crews.

While Padilla and Montilla had been able to find common ground in the face of a common enemy, Laborde and Morales had not. On several occasions the pair arranged to meet and form a plan, but each time Morales found some excuse to send a junior officer in his stead, thus insulting Laborde. Morales also demanded a decisive naval action despite Laborde’s advice to the contrary. Finally, though Laborde had resolved to assert his position regarding all matters naval, he ultimately swallowed his reservations and committed his fleet. He was simply unwilling to buck Morales, who as captain general of Venezuela was the representative of the Spanish Crown.

That morning Laborde instructed his gunners to carefully target their Gran Colombian counterparts. In the end, it mattered little. With no room or plans to maneuver, the Spanish could only wait for Padilla to make the first move.

Finally, at midafternoon on a favorable wind, Padilla ordered the patriot squadron to attack the royalist fleet head-on. Around 3 p.m. the Gran Colombian ships slipped in among the stationary Spanish vessels so closely that the bowsprits of several ships snapped off at contact. In the ferocious, close-quarters combat that followed, the Gran Colombian ships either destroyed or captured all the Spanish vessels but for three schooners that cut their anchor cables and fled for the shelter of the castillo. Laborde was aboard one of the schooners. Padilla had lost 44 men killed and 119 wounded to Laborde’s 473 killed and wounded and 437 captured. On August 20 Morales evacuated Maracaibo.

The Battle of Lake Maracaibo benefited the cause of Venezuelan independence more than Bolívar could have imagined. Without a fleet to resupply the Spanish forces at Maracaibo, Morales had no option but to capitulate, surrender all warships and installations, and retire to Cuba. Moreover, given the Gran Colombians’ decisive defeat of the Spanish at Lake Maracaibo, international recognition of Venezuela followed. Later that year both the United States and Britain recognized the republic. Not until 1845 did the Spanish government acknowledge Venezuelan independence.

Ironically, the results of the battle had opposite effects on the careers of the winning and losing commanders.

Despite his defeat, Laborde retained the confidence of the Spanish Crown and went on to a distinguished career. It helped that Captain General Morales admitted his error and agreed the captain had justly sought to protect his remaining assets and avoid pitched battle. Laborde served in positions of ever-increasing responsibility. Promoted to brigadier in 1825, he spent the next few years fighting pirates and supporting expeditions tasked with suppressing rebellions in Mexico and other parts of the decaying viceroyalty of New Spain. In 1832, by royal decree, he was appointed minister of the Spanish navy. By the time of his death in Havana from cholera that April the once-disgraced Laborde was much admired. Transported home to Cádiz, his remains were interred in the Pantheon of Illustrious Sailors of San Fernando.

Padilla, whose brilliant victory at Maracaibo assured Venezuelan independence, didn’t fare so well.

Racism had always hounded the dark-skinned admiral, who in his lifetime never received due regard from the largely Creole society he served. He also became enmeshed in the politics of the time, staunchly advocating the rights of the pardos. Despite safeguards in Gran Colombia’s republican constitution of 1821, Bolívar became increasingly authoritarian. Naively, Padilla took sides against his onetime champion in favor of Francisco de Paula Santander, Bolívar’s vice president, who actively solicited the support of the pardos. But the latter had no interest in alienating El Libertador. In 1828 Bolívar declared himself dictator, abolished the office of vice president, crushed the incipient rebellion and had Padilla arrested on a pretext. That September supporters of Santander hatched a plot to assassinate Bolívar, free Padilla and declare the latter their leader. During its botched execution the rebels murdered Padilla’s jailer, a cousin to the father of South American independence.

Though no evidence surfaced that Padilla had conspired to assassinate Bolívar or even knew of the plot, authorities sentenced the hero of Lake Maracaibo to death. He was executed by firing squad on the morning of October 2.

Despite being the ringleader of the rebellion, Santander, a Creole, was ultimately pardoned and exiled. Bolívar had to walk a thin line. Like most Creoles, he feared a revolution by pardos, yet he needed their support. After all, the rank and file of his army largely comprised pardos and Indians. Yet, perhaps calculating he needed the support of Creoles and their wealth more than the fealty of the pardos, Bolívar refused to pardon Padilla. Still, his execution must have bothered El Libertador, who had repeatedly stated his belief in the equality of all men. Indeed, he later expressed regret over the incident and his treatment of Padilla.

A few years after Padilla’s death the Colombian government formally recognized the disgraced admiral as a hero of the revolution and the founder of its navy. In 2000 the government in Caracas also declared Padilla a hero and symbolically interred him in the National Pantheon of Venezuela. Thus in death he finally achieved a measure of respect from those for whom he had fought.

Jerome Long is a former instructor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff Officers’ Course who taught classes on such topics as military intelligence, operational warfare and military history. For further reading he recommends The Venezuelan Navy in the War of Independence, by Hadelis Jiménez López, and Latin America’s Wars: The Age of the Caudillo, 1791–1899, by Robert L. Scheina.

This story appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Military History magazine.

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This story is an updated version of one published in the October 1994 issue of Military History.

A battleship Arms race

The Battle of the Philippine Sea, fought on June 19 and 20, 1944, left Japan with the bulk of its navy intact but no longer able to oppose the U.S. Navy on equal terms. More serious than the sinking of three aircraft carriers in that action was the virtual decimation of the airmen and aircraft of Japan’s carrier air groups. Even so, Japan still possessed some of the most powerful surface warships in the world. The question now was whether they could ever venture close enough to engage their American counterparts.

Then, on October 20, U.S. Army troops landed on the island of Leyte. General Douglas MacArthur was fulfilling his vow to the Philippines—and here a widespread maze of islands provided the Japanese fleet with a final opportunity to strike at the advancing Americans.

Devised by Admiral Soemu Toyoda and his Combined Fleet staff, Operation Sho-I “Victory 1”) was typically Japanese in its complexity. Essentially, three forces of battleships, cruisers and destroyers were to converge on the American landing site in Leyte Gulf, engaging and sinking any enemy ships on their way to shell the beachhead. The “First Diversionary Attack Force”—in reality, the main force—commanded by Vice Adm. Takeo Kurita, would come from the north, through San Bernardino Strait. Joining it from the south, via Surigao Strait, would be two smaller surface forces commanded by Vice Adms. Kiyohide Shima and Shoji Nishimura.

The fast aircraft carriers of Admiral William F. Halsey’s Third Fleet were to be lured away by a fourth Japanese force, commanded by Vice Adm. Jisaburo Ozawa and including the carriers Zuikaku, Zuiho, Chitose and Chiyoda, steaming off the northern Philippines. With only 118 aircraft between them, Ozawa’s carriers were not expected to achieve much, other than to lure Halsey’s Third Fleet away from Leyte, but its task was essentially sacrificial in nature. If the decoy planned worked, the American naval forces left around Leyte Gulf might be sufficiently weakened to be crushed between the two prongs of surface warships.

Speculation about the practicality of Toyoda’s strategy has been debated ever since, but one factor, more than any others, make its innate futility clear. The U.S. Army had already landed and secured a beachhead on Leyte days before the naval operation was launched. Toyoda and his senior officers knew this, but to them it was beside the point. Unable to countenance watching Japan go down in defeat and surrender its high seas fleet the way the Germans had in 1919 and the Italians in 1943, Toyoda was willing to sacrifice his entire navy just to emblazon in history that it went down fighting.

Even by those parameters, Sho-I got off to a poor start. At midnight on October 23, Kurita’s main force was ambushed in. the narrow Palawan passage by two American submarines. Darter sank Kurita’s flagship, the heavy cruiser Atago, and badly damaged its sister ship, Takao, while Dace sank the cruiser Maya. Darter subsequently ran aground and had to be abandoned. Kurita transferred his flag to the giant battleship Yamato, but it had to be unsettling to lose three of his most powerful ships before even reaching the projected combat zone.

No turning back

On October 24, the U.S. Third Fleet’s alerted carriers launched their planes to go after Kurita’s ships, at the same time fighting off an attack by Vice Adm. Shigeru Fukudome’s Second Air Fleet, joined by most of Ozawa’s aircraft. The Americans lost one light carrier, Princeton, while Yamato’s sister, the battleship Musashi, sank after being hit by 15 torpedoes and 16 bombs. Off to the northeast Ozawa’s carriers, now down to a hopeless 29 aircraft, had still gone completely unnoticed.

Shaken, Kurita turned back, but at 6:15 p.m. he received a message from Admiral Toyoda in Japan: “With confidence in heavenly guidance the combined force will attack.” In essence, it was a chiding reminder to Kurita that retreat was not an option. He turned his force eastward again, unaware that his slim chances of success had taken an arbitrary turn for the better.

Just after 4 p.m., it seems, a scouting Curtiss SB2C Helldiver had spotted Ozawa’s force and reported it to Halsey. Convinced that Kurita’s beating in the Sibuyan Sea had eliminated him as a threat, Halsey took all three of his available carrier task groups and steamed north for Ozawa’s carriers—leaving the San Bernardino Strait almost completely unprotected.

What remained adjacent to the beachhead was the naval force delegated to provide direct support for MacArthur’s amphibious operations, the Seventh Fleet under Vice Adm. Thomas Cassin Kincaid. While it lacked any fleet carriers, the Seventh Fleet had 18 small escort carriers led by Rear Am. Thomas L. Sprague’s Task Group 77.4. Its main punch, however, was a sextet of dated but still powerful battleships, commanded by experienced admirals who knew how to make the most of them.

While Kurita vacillated to the north, two smaller approached Leyte Gulf from the south. The first and most powerful of them was Nishimura’s “Force C,” comprised of the World War I-vintage battleships Yamashiro and Fuso, heavy cruiser Mogami and destroyers Michishio, Asagumo, Yamagumo and Shigure. “Number Two Striking Force,” as the other unit was called, was commanded by Shima and consisted of the heavy cruisers Nachi and Ashigawa, light cruiser Abukuma and destroyers Shiranuhi, Kasumi, Ushio and Akebono.

A modern samurai?

In theory the two groups were to go up Surigao Strait and supplement the tremendous firepower of Kurita’s “Force A.” Several factors, however, would prevent their uniting. First, Nishimura was directly under Kurita’s command, whereas Shima, coming down from the Formosa, was answerable to another superior, Vice Adm. Gunichi Mikawa. Although given vague orders to “support and cooperate” with Nishimura, Shima made no serious attempt to join him, choosing instead to follow him at a distance of 30 to 50 miles. 

There were serious temperamental differences between the two admirals, though both were too professional for their mutual loathing to have any real bearing on their failure to combine their forces. Both had grave doubts as to their chances of success—Shima approached the mission with caution and expressed his misgivings; Nishimura was more the more reckless, rushing ahead to either victory or a fighting death worthy of a samurai. On a more practical level, Nishimura was anxious to reach Leyte Gulf before dawn, because he was convinced that his chances of outfighting his adversaries would be better at night—a forlorn hope, since by late 1943 the Americans had much-improved radar capability. 

Nishimura’s Force C was first spotted in the Sulu Sea by aircraft from carriers Enterprise and Franklin at 9:05 a.m. on October 24. The planes attacked at 9:18, scoring a bomb hit on Fuso’s fantail that destroyed its floatplanes, while another bomb knocked out the destroyer Shigure’s forward gun turret. Neither ship was slowed, however. At 11:55 a bomber from the U.S. Army’s Fifth Air Force found and reported Shima’s force. Admiral Kincaid now knew the enemy’s strength and his probable course. He delegated the job of dealing with the southern threat to the commander of his Fire Support Unit South, Rear Adm. Jesse E. Oldendorf. Flying his pennant aboard the heavy cruiser Louisville, Oldendorf had three battleships, Pennsylvania, California and Tennessee, at his disposal; they were joined by three more “big boys” from Rear Adm. George L. Weyler’s Fire Support Unit North, Mississippi, Maryland and West Virginia.

Under normal circumstances, Oldendorf’s battle group could pulverize both Japanese formations, but his ships had used up most of their ammunition during the shore bombardment. Oldendorf could not afford an extravagant display of firepower—not if he wished to avoid seeing his mighty battlewagons sunk by Nishimura’s antiques simply because they had no shells left. To make every shot count, he would need accurate information on the enemy’s route up Surigao Strait.

The vital role of intelligence-gathering was assigned to the Seventh Fleet’s patrol torpedo (PT) boats, under the overall command of Commander Selman S. Bowling. That night Bowling’s executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Robert A. Leeson, gathered the 39 boats then available, organized them into 13 three-boat sections, led them south through Mindanao Strait and dispersed them across the northern end of Surigao Strait.

The prospect of action was music to the ears of the PT boat crews. Their primary mission, however, was to lie low and report whatever they saw coming. As night fell they, rather than aircraft, became the eyes of the Seventh Fleet.        The weather deteriorated, with frequent rain squalls affecting visibility, by at 10:46 p.m. a section of PT boats lying off Bohol Island picked up something on their radars. Instead of immediately reporting their discovery, however, the PT boats advanced at 24 knots to attack. They were three miles from their intended targets—still beyond torpedo range—when Shigure, survivor of numerous night actions in the Solomon Islands, sighted them. Suddenly, the crack of big guns rent the night and the Battle of Surigao Strait was on.

The battle begins

With shells splashing all around them, the PT boats made smoke and zigzagged as they tried to close on the enemy. Suddenly Shigure’s searchlight fell on PT-152 and in seconds a Japanese shell set the craft afire and killed one of its gunners. PT-152’s skipper, Lieutenant junior grade Joseph Eddin, steered away, as did his two consorts. One of the latter, PT-130, was also hit, a round passing through it without exploding, but knocking out its radio. Once contact was broken off, PT-130 sped over to the next section of PT boats and relayed its contact report to PT-127, which radioed it to the PT- oat tender Wachaspreague. The news reached Oldendorf aboard the cruiser Louisville at 12:26 a.m. 

Meanwhile, more of the PT boats converged on the Japanese, engaging them with their 40mm cannons as well as their torpedoes. PT-151 and PT-146 each fired a torpedo at the heavy cruiser Mogami, but both missed. They and PT-190 then fled, pursued by destroyer Yamagumo.

Satisfied with the way things were going thus far, Nishimura reported to Kurita and Shima that he expected to pass Panoan Island at 1:30 and enter Leyte Gulf. “Several torpedo boats sighted,” he said, “but enemy situation otherwise unknown.”

At 2:05, as Nishimura’s force passed Camiguin Point and turned due north, Leeson’s flagship, PT-134, tried to attack but was driven off by intense gunfire. PT-490 tried to attack a destroyer at 2:07 but was hit. One of PT-493’s torpedoes hung on the rack and as it made smoke to cover PT-490’s retirement, it took three 4.7mm shells, possibly from battleship Yamashiro’s secondary battery; the hits killed two men and wounded five others, including its captain, Lt. jg Richard W. Brown, and his executive officer (XO). One of the shells also punched a hole in its hull, but Petty Officer Albert W. Brunelle, described by a shipmate as a “slight sissified-looking boy whom no one expected to be of any use in combat,” stuffed his like jacket in the hole and kept PT-493 afloat just long enough for the crew to run it onto the rocks off Panaon Island. (After wading ashore Brown and his crew were picked up the next morning by PT-491, but the high tide cast PT-493 adrift and it sank in deep water. Brunelle was later awarded the Navy Cross.)     

While the PT boats were faring poorly in their efforts to damage Nishimura’s ships, Oldendorf was deploying his force across the northern end of Surigao Strait in battle formation. On the right flank, off the coast of Leyte Island itself, lay destroyer squadron (Desron) 39 led by Captain Kenmore M. McManes aboard Hutchins, and included Bache, Daly, Beale,Killen and the Australian destroyer Arunta. Backing them up were three cruisers, the American Phoenix and Boise and the Australian Shropshire, along with three more U.S. destroyers, Clayton, Thorne and Welles. In the center was Captain Roland M. Smoot’s Desron 56, comprised of flagship Newcome, Richard P. Leary and Albert W. Grant. Immediately to his north was Destroyer Division (Desdiv) 112 under Captain Thomas F. Conley Jr. on Robinson and including Halford and Bryant. To the south were destroyers Heywood L. Edwards, Leutze and Bennion. Farther south, athwart the passage, was Captain Jesse G. Coward’s Desron 54, made up of his flagship Remey plus Melvin, McGowan, McDermut (flagship of Desdiv 108’s Commander Richard H. Phillips) and Monssen. Also waiting in the first American line, due north of Hibuson Island, lay Oldendorf’s flagship Louisville, along with heavy cruisers Portland and Minneapolis and the light cruisers Denver and Columbia. North of them were the destroyers Aulick, Cony and Sigourney. Last but by no means least, forming the backfield, were Oldendorf’s heavy hitters, the battleships Pennsylvania, California, Tennessee, Mississippi, Maryland and West Virginia.

american torpedoes honing in

The last PT boat attack ended at 2:13 a.m. off Sumilon Island. For the loss of three men dead and 20 wounded, the boats had scored no hits, but they had accomplished their primary mission—pinpointing and reporting the Japanese movement. At 2:25, Lieutenant Carl T. Gleason’s PT-327 spotted the enemy 10 miles away and reported the contact to Captain Coward. He in turn ordered Gleason to clear his PT-boat section out of the way, so that they destroyers could engage the enemy. At 3 a.m. Nishimura’s destroyer vanguard ran into Desron 54 and the main event was on. By 3:01, Coward’s “tin cans” had launched 27 torpedoes and begun a zigzagging retirement. Japanese searchlights pierced the night and shells straddled the Americans, but the shoreline blurred the more primitive radar of the Japanese, and no solid hits were scored.

At 3:09 McDermut and Monssen launched 20 more torpedoes from the west. The Japanese fired at those tormentors, too, but again their shells only managed to straddle the American destroyers. Then the American torpedoes began to strike home. One of Melvin’s “fish” ploughed into battleship Fuso’s No.1 turret and another struck it astern, flooding a boiler room and starting a fire. Even with its speed lowered to 12 knots, it developed a starboard list, and at 3:20 it turned south, doing 10 knots. Massive flooding continued and at 3:45 the ungainly battlewagon went down by the bow. Only about 10 of its 1,630 crewmen survived. Their testimony that their ship sank in one piece, not blown in two as per earlier claims, was confirmed decades later when Fuso’s still-intact remains were discovered.

As the torpedoes from Desdiv 108 commander Phillips’ two ships came at him, Nishimura made a half-hearted evasive turn that allowed his flagship to escape Fuso’s fate. One torpedo struck Yamashiro but failed to slow it down. His destroyers were less fortunate. Soon after taking a hit, Yamagumo blew up and sank. A second torpedo left Michishio dead in the water and another blew Asagumo’s bows off. All three hits came from McDermut in the most successful torpedo spread launched by a U.S. Navy destroyer. At 3:30 Nishimura signaled Kurita and Shima: “Enemy torpedo boats and destroyers on both sides of northern entrance to Surigao Strait. Two of our destroyers torpedoed and drifting. Yamashiro hit by one torpedo but fit for battle.” He then single-mindedly pressed on—straight into the waiting clutches of Desron 24.

Again, the Allies attacked in groups of three, Hutchins leading Daly and Bache to loose 15 torpedoes. Farther up the strait, Australian Commander Alfred E. Buchanan of Arunta led Killen and Beale for the second attack—bringing his trio into a closer, more effective range before sending a total of 14 torpedoes at Nishimura.   

Recognizing Yamashiro’s distinctive silhouette, Commander Howard G. Corey of the destroyer Killen ordered his torpedoes set to run at a shallower-than-usual depth, 22 feet, before launching his spread. Four of them detonated under the old battlewagon’s keel, breaking its back. While 5-inch shells pelted his crippled flagship, Nishimura issued a general order: “You are to proceed and attack all ships.” At that point, only heavy cruiser Mogami and destroyer Shigure were in any condition to do any proceeding or attacking, but they dutifully steamed on. Somehow Yamashiro’s crew managed to get their ship underway too, plodding on at 15 knots.

Having failed to score any torpedo hits, McManes of Desron 24 circled around Nishimura’s heavies and encountered the crippled destroyers Michishio and Asagumo, which he engaged with gunfire until Rear Adm. Russell S. Berkey, commanding the right flank of Allied cruisers aboard Phoenix, ordered Desron 24 to clear the area because the American battle line was about to commence firing. As his “tin cans” turned northward, McManes’ flagship Hutchins fired its last four torpedoes at Asagumo. They missed it but struck the drifting Michishio, which blew up and sank at 3:58.

Meanwhile, Nishimura’s dwindling Force C ran into Captain Smoot’s Desron 56, the central element of which attacked in two sections (Robinson, Halford and Bryant, followed by Heywood L. Edwards, Leutze and Bennion. After they launched their torpedoes and retired, Smoot, aboard Newcomb, led Richard P. Leary and Albert W. Grant against the enemy formation while the Japanese were turning from a northerly to a westerly course. Following their gun flashes, Smoot led his destroyers on a parallel course to the right of the Japanese and at 4:05 he fired torpedoes at a range of 6,300 yards. 

Smoot then had to retire—via one of two unhealthy escape routes. If he went northward, directly away from the Japanese, he would run afoul of the American battle line. Continuing west could take him clear of the American line of fire, but he would still be under enemy fire. Newcomb’s skipper, Commander Lawrence B. Cooke, recommended the northward option and Smoot concurred. As Newcomb and Leary turned north, a flurry of shells, Japanese and American, descended on them—Oldendorf’s “big boys” had finally entered the fight.

Standing rearmost in Oldendorf’s line, Admiral Weyler’s battleships had picked up what remained of the Nishimura’s force on their Mark 8 radars at 3:23. The range was 33,000 yards and Weyler held fire. At 3:31, when the Japanese came within 15,600 yards of his cruisers, Oldendorf signaled them to commence firing. Weyler’s battle line, then 22,800 yards from their targets, joined in two minutes later.

grant Falls

Yamashiro’s speed was down to 12 knots when Nishimura ran straight into the fiery, Wagnerian climax he seemed to have been seeking. At 3:52, as a deluge of heavy caliber shells fell on and around his flagship, he sent a final, pathetic message ordering Fuso—which, unknown to him, lay far behind, sinking—to join him at top speed.

Of the six American battleships, only one, Mississippi, had not been temporarily sunk or damaged in the Japanese carrier strike on Pearl Harbor, but their moment of revenge did not amount to much of a contest. West Virginia, leading the line, sent the most shells at its target—93 16-inch armor-piercing rounds. Tennessee, which had participated in 11 operations between its resurrection after Pearl and this action, fired 69 14-inch shells, while her sister, California, fired 63. The other three battlewagons, equipped with the older Mark 3 radar sets, had more trouble. Maryland’s resourceful gun crews ranged in on the splashes from the others and sent six salvoes—a total of 48 16-inch shells—at the Japanese. Pearl veteran Pennsylvania, unable to get a fix on a target, did not fire a shot. 

The U.S. Navy battleship USS West Virginia (BB-48) off the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Washington, July 2, 1944, following reconstruction (Naval History and Heritage Command).

Yamashiro, in contrast, had no fire control radar and was shooting at the only targets its crew could see—the destroyers and cruisers. None of its 14-inch shells came near Weyler’s battleships, nor did they even score any hits on a cruiser. Only one Allied ship felt its dying wrath: the unlucky destroyer Albert W. Grant.

As the third ship in Smoot’s Desron 56 column, Grant had launched half of its torpedo complement at 4:03. Then, at 4:07, it took a shell hit. Just as it was about to turn north, more shells struck it. Realizing his ship might be sunk, Grant’s skipper, Commander Terrell A. Nisewaner, ordered all its torpedoes loosed at the enemy.

Still the shells came—a total of seven 4.7-inchers from the flailing Yamashiro’s secondary battery and 11 6-inchers from the American cruiser Denver. A hit on the 40mm gun mount ignited ammunition and started a fire. An explosion on the starboard boat davit killed the ship’s doctor, Lieutenant Charles Akin Mathieu, along with five radiomen and almost the entire amidships repair party. All lights, telephone communications, radars and radios were put out of commission. Resorting to a blinker gun, Nisewaner signaled: “WE ARE DEAD IN THE WATER TOW NEEDED.” 

Within the stricken destroyer, First Class Pharmacist’s Mate W.H. Swain Jr. improvised a first-aid dressing station in the head and took on the tasks of physician and surgeon. The chief commissary steward, L.M. Holmes, set up a similar medical station in the wardroom, while sonarman J.C. O’Neill Jr. administered morphine and first aid to grievously wounded shipmates. On Holmes’ wardroom table, Radioman First Class William M. Selleck, who had had both of his legs blown off, uttered last words that none of his shipmates would ever forget: “There’s nothing you can do for me, fellows. Go ahead and do something for those others.”

A warrior’s death

Meanwhile, at 4:09, news of Grant’s situation reached Oldendorf’s flagship and word was relayed to the heavy warships to cease fire. Somehow, Grant stayed afloat. Somehow so did Yamashiro, which even managed to raise 15 knots as it turned hard left and retired southward. Ten minutes later, however, the cumulative punishment of shells and torpedoes caught up with the old dreadnought and Yamashiro capsized, taking all but a few of its crew with it. If Shoji Nishimura could not achieve victory, he gained the other alternative—a warrior’s death. 

Cruiser Mogami showed even greater endurance than Yamashiro. Set on fire by an avalanche of 5-inch shells from McManes’ destroyers, it turned south, made smoke and loosed a spread of torpedoes at 4:01. A minute later, an 8-inch salvo from Portland killed Mogami’s captain, his XO and all other officers on the bridge, while also hitting the engines and fireroom and bringing the ship to a dead halt.

At 4:13 Richard P. Leary reported torpedoes passing close by. Admiral Weyler, lying 11,000 yards north of the destroyer, prudently turned away, avoiding Mogami’s last deadly volley, but also taking his battleships out of the fight. Making the most of that reprieve, Mogami’s engineers managed to get it underway again, and it retired southward, joined by Shigure. Meanwhile. Passing through a rain squall, Admiral Shima’s Number Two Striking Force was ambushed at 3:15 off Panaon Island by PT-134, but its torpedoes missed.

At 3:20 Shima ordered a starboard turn so that one of his destroyers could stay clear of Panaon and raised speed to 26 knots. As he did so, however, the destroyer was spotted by Lt. jg Isodore M. Kovar and the crew of PT-137, who launched a torpedo at it. PT-137’s “fish” missed its intended target but, as luck would have it, ran right into the light cruiser Abukuma instead. Badly damaged with 30 crewmen dead and its speed reduced to 10 knots, Abukuma had to drop out of formation. For scoring the most notable success of the PT boats that night, Kovar was awarded the Navy Cross.

At 4:10, as Shima headed north at 28 knots with his two remaining cruisers and four destroyers, he encountered what seemed to be two battleships ablaze in the night—more likely the dying destroyers Asagumo and Michishio. At 4:24, having picked up two southbound ships on his radar screen, he ordered his cruisers to launch torpedoes; they fired erratic spreads of eight apiece. That done, Shima made a quick evaluation based on what little information he had. He recalled his destroyers, which had steamed ahead but still could “see” nothing beyond the smoke laid earlier by the American destroyers. He then sent out a radio dispatch to all Japanese units in the vicinity: “This force has concluded its attack and is retiring from the battle area to plan subsequent action.”

die trying

Just then Mogami emerged from the fog. Nachi’s Captain Enpei Kanooka ordered a change in course to 110 degrees, but he had underestimated Mogami’s speed (he thought it was virtually dead in the water) and the two cruisers collided at 4:30. 

Its stern damaged, Shima’s flagship slowed to 18 knots. That settled matters for Shima—he ordered his column to retire, joined by the battered Mogami and Shigure, both miraculously able to keep up in spite of their own damage. At 4:55, Lieutenant Gleason’s PT boats tried to pick off Shigure, but it fought them off, scoring a slightly damaging hit on PT-321.

At the northern end of the strait, Oldendorf learned of the Japanese withdrawal and commenced pursuit. As his flagship, Louisville, headed down the middle of the passageway, he ordered his flank ships to move south and sent a message to Admiral Kincaid: “Enemy cruisers and destroyers are retiring. Strongly recommend an air attack.” 

Not all of Oldendorf’s destroyers took part in the chase. Claxton found about 150 Japanese in the water off Bugho Point and lowered a motor whaleboat. Despite an officer who urged his men to avoid capture, three survivors were recovered, including a warrant officer who spoke English and confirmed that his ship, Yamashiro, had gone down. At 5:15, Newcomb and Leary went to assist Albert W. Grant, Newcomb putting its medical officer and two corpsmen aboard the crippled destroyer. At 5:20 Oldendorf’s ships caught up with the slow moving Mogami. Louisville, Portland and Denver immediately engaged it. Several direct hits rekindled Mogami’s fires and Odendorf moved on to seek other prey. Mogami was not quite finished, however, as Lt. jg Harley A. Thronson of PT-491 discovered at 6 a.m., when he found it limping south at 6 knots and tried to trail it—only to come under 8-inch fire that caused his boat to “leap right into the air.” Two torpedoes from PT-491 missed the cruiser, while PT-137 was driven off by its secondary guns. Mogami was not only still full of fight, but had sped up, Kovar reported, to 12 or 14 knots.

Another bellicose cripple was Asagumo, as proved when Cony and Sigourney caught up with it. Those destroyers were having a lively exchange of shellfire when cruisers Denver and Columbia arrived and settled the dispute with their 6-inch guns. A battle-scarred veteran of Java and Guadalcanal, Asagumo died game—its after turret spat defiance even when its decks were awash, and its gunners got off their last parting shot just as its stern went under at 7:21.

an unpredictable retreat

Before any further Japanese units would be overtaken, Oldendorf learned of a shocking new development. Advancing unhindered by Halsey’s Third Fleeet—which was pursuing Ozawa’s decoy carriers—Kurita’s main force had rounded San Bernardino Strait and was engaging the escort carriers, destroyers and destroyer escorts of Carrier Task Unit 77.4.3 (also known as Taffy 3) off Samar Island. Cancelling his pursuit of Shima and recalling all ships involved, Oldendorf and the weary sailors under his command prepared to oppose the new, more serious threat. But then the Battle of Leyte Gulf took one more unexpected turn.

In one of naval history’s epic fighting retreats, Taffy 3 managed to fatally cripple three Japanese heavy cruisers, Suzuya, Chokai and Chikuma, at the cost of the escort carrier Gambier Bay, destroyers Hoel and Johnston and destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts. Their desperate courage and sacrifice should have done no more than slow Kurita’s advance, but a series of factors had undermined the Japanese admiral’s faith in his own impending victory. Just the day before, he had lost his original flagship and later had seen one of his most powerful battleships, Musashi, sunk by enemy aircraft. The fight now being put up by Taffy 3’s ships and planes caused him to exaggerate their size to fleet, rather than escort, proportions—a perception rendered no better by the fact that his replacement flagship, battleship Yamato, was driven out of the chase in the process of dodging a spread of destroyer torpedoes and was out of touch with the action thereafter. At 9:11 he ordered his ships to break off contact and to “rendezvous, my course north, speed 20.”

Kurita wanted to regroup, assess damage and decide whether to resume his drive into Leyte Gulf. While he was mulling over the matter, at 10:18 he received a radio dispatch from the destroyer Shigure updating him on the situation in Surigao Strait: “All ships except Shigure went down under gunfire and torpedo attack.” That not entirely precise message, together with Shima’s earlier report that he was retiring from the strait and a succession of messages picked up from the Americans, convinced Kurita that powerful naval units were converging on Leyte Gulf. Realizing that if he stormed into Leyte Gulf his force would end up trapped therein, Kurita decided to withdraw at 12:36 p.m.

The loss of more Japanese ships—including all four of Ozawa’s carriers off Cape Engano—was just the anticlimax to a battle already won by the Americans. And worse was still to come. On the morning of October 25, while the Battle of Leyte Gulf was being decided off Samar, aircraft from Rear Admiral Thomas Sprague’s escort carriers were searching for Shima’s retiring force and 17 Eastern Aircraft TMF-1 Avengers finally found it west of the Surigao Peninsula. At 9:10 they attacked the hapless Mogami and left it dead in the water once more—for the last time. Destroyer Akebono evacuated the cruiser’s gallant crew and sent it to the bottom with a torpedo at 12:30 p.m.

At 3 p.m. Shima’s force was subjected to another air attack in the Mindanao Sea, but got through it with only light damage to the destroyer Shiranuhi. Abukuma, its speed down to 9 knots, was in more serious trouble. Shima ordered destroyer Ushio to escort it to Datipan Harbor in Mindanao. Abukuma was still there at 10:06 on the morning of October 26, when the harbor was attacked by 44 North American B-25 Mitchells and Consolidated B-24 Liberators of the Fifth and Thirteenth air forces, operating from Noemfoor and Biak. They scored several hits on their secondary target and started fires that reached Abukuma’s torpedo room. The explosion that followed blew a large hole in the light cruiser, which sank southwest of Negros Island at 12:42.

Shima’s flagship, Nachi, became a last, belated fatality of the Battle of Surigao Strait. Taking shelter in Manila Bay, it was attacked and sunk there on November 5 by Avengers and Helldivers from the carrier Lexington.

“never give a sucker a chance”

In retrospect, it is easy to dismiss Surigao Strait as a relatively minor element of the epic Battle of Leyte Gulf. Its principal place in history has been a sentimental one—the fight in which the resurrected “ghosts of Pearl Harbor” returned to haunt the Japanese, as well as the last time a line of battleships would ever “cross the T” on an approaching enemy.

Even had they combined, the two Japanese units that entered the strait were outnumbered, outgunned and outmaneuvered. Although their crews performed with outstanding courage and ingenuity, the only competent judgment displayed by their commanders was Shima’s decision to withdraw. Their one chance had been the possibility that their American opponents would commit a major error. But aside from Denver’s and Columbia’s ill-chosen bombardment of Albert W. Grant, neither Jesse Oldendorf nor his subordinates made any serious mistakes that night. The overall performance of his destroyer units was brilliant, almost depriving the big-gun ships any targets. With the added benefit of superior intelligence, courtesy of his PT boats and radar, Oldendorf knew he would win and devoted himself to achieving that victory with minimal casualties. As he put it shortly after the battle: “My theory was that of the old-tie gambler: Never give a sucker a chance. If my opponent is foolish enough to come at me with an inferior force, I’m certainly not going to give him an even break.”

The result was truly a lopsided victory—two Japanese battleships, a cruiser and three destroyers sunk, along with thousands of Japanese casualties, all at the price of one PT boat, 39 American sailors and airmen killed, and 114 wounded. Nishimura and Shima may not have represented the greatest threat to the beachhead at Leyte, but their elimination was significant enough to the invading U.S. Army troops, who they would otherwise have been bombarding. It may be argued, too, that the greatest contribution that Surigao Strait made to the victory at Leyte Gulf was its effect on the uncertain mind of Admiral Kurita off Samar. 

For further reading: Leyte Gulf, by Mark E. Stille, Bryan Cooper’s PT Boats, Samuel Eliot Morison’s History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol.XII, Leyte; and Theodore Roscoe’s Tin Cans.                                                                                                                               

Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery is the most maligned general who served in World War II. Historians have labeled him arrogant and insufferable, heaping fuel onto the fire of their scorn by accusing him of military incompetence. A particular phrase attributed to Winston Churchill about him—one that has become trite due to its thoughtless repetition—refers to Montgomery as being “in defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable.” Those cavalier words are often used—unjustly—to sum up Montgomery’s entire legacy. 

Bernard Montgomery was, in fact, a brave and self-sacrificing man who deserves far more respect than most historians seem willing to give him. Montgomery could fairly be described as cocky, but the majority of history’s great battlefield commanders are. It is necessary for a good general to possess a certain combination of boldness, confidence and aggressiveness to be an effective leader in battle. A shrinking violet makes a poor general.

Not a Narcissist

One of the most common charges leveled at Montgomery is that he was a narcissist. He was definitely not. Nor was he a “psychopath,” as some on the Internet have disgracefully called him. A narcissist is a toxic, self-centered person; a psychopath is dishonest and callously shows no empathy for others.

That was not Monty. I actually think it is difficult to find a top World War II general who was more selfless in his actions or who showed more personal empathy for his troops than Montgomery. He devoted himself heart and soul to the Allied cause without seeking personal comfort or respite—despite the fact that he had lost his home and all of his worldly belongings to German bombing. He did not flinch from the fight nor try to make things easier for himself. He threw himself into battles wholeheartedly and projected that cheerful swagger, which many people continue to mistake for hubris, for the very deliberate purposes of rallying his troops against German forces and to combat Nazi propaganda.

His hands-on and compassionate care for the men of the British Eighth Army restored their waning energy and transformed them into a close-knit and effective fighting force he aptly referred to as a “family.”

Montgomery’s care for his men and rejuvenation of the Eighth Army’s morale—accomplished with genuine compassion and personal attention to others’ basic human needs—is something that neither a narcissist nor a psychopath could ever have achieved, and is an accomplishment that even his fiercest critics have not been able to dispute.

Honest despite Criticism

Bernard Montgomery did not have an easy life, and his courage in admitting to his imperfections and the difficulties he faced made him the target of much derision. It would have been easier for a public figure of his fame—especially in socially self-conscious Britain—to fabricate a happy childhood and be “more agreeable” altogether. Indeed Monty faced pressure from relatives to “keep up appearances.”

Yet Montgomery did not care about appearing awkward. He publicly rejected and criticized his Christian fundamentalist mother, with whom he cut ties. He candidly disagreed with other Allied commanders on matters of strategy during World War II; this was not backbiting, but divergences of opinion he aired openly and which he overcame with firm soldierly obedience. He was frank in his memoirs, yet tempered his criticisms with great magnanimity and fairness, and did not descend, as did several of his military contemporaries, to personal attacks.

Being true to and open about his beliefs was one of Monty’s greatest virtues.

Montgomery’s willingness to be disagreeable, to stand against the tide of public opinion and peer pressure, made him many enemies. It also makes him a true example of courage of conviction, and a model worth following.

Independent Yet Loyal

Montgomery was a strong, wild horse of a man who wouldn’t let anybody control him. If he truly believed in something, he wore his heart on his sleeve.

This sense of fierce independence commonly rears its head among the great Scots-Irish fighters of Northern Ireland, a region often called Ulster. Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne became a Special Forces legend because of that spirit. Field Marshal Alan Brooke was known to glare rebelliously back at Prime Minister Winston Churchill when inner principle demanded it.

“Stiff-necked Ulstermen,” grumbled Churchill of Brooke’s occasional cussedness, adding that “there’s no one worse to deal with than that!” However it is the individual greatness of these men—not only their great fearlessness and independence, but also their great and profound loyalty—that made all the difference to attaining victory.

Behind all the hype around the supposed intolerableness of Montgomery is the story of a simple and dedicated soldier who suffered and sacrificed much, complained little, and utterly spent all for the good of others. He was a warmhearted and brilliant man who never stopped trying to make a positive difference for his country, his troops and the world at large. His memory deserves to be honored.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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In December 1232 a.d., a single arrow changed the course of history. Loosed by a Buddhist monk, the missile struck down the leader of the second Mongol invasion of Korea. His death precipitated a lifting of the siege of Cheoin and subsequent Mongol withdrawal from Goryeo. Yet they wouldn’t be gone for long. The extended nightmare that characterized Mongol attempts to subdue the Korean kingdom was destined to continue for a generation.

The geopolitical environment of Northeast Asia in the early 13th century would be recognizable to us today. Multiple, militarized states in a relatively compact area shared diplomatic, military, and trade relations. However, the identity of the regional powerhouses at the time is different from our modern construct.  

China was divided. In 1127 a confederation of Jurchen tribes had seized control of northern China, later known as Manchuria. To their south, the Jurchen faced what remained of the Chinese Song Dynasty, known today as the Southern Song. The Jurchen proclaimed the establishment of a “Great Jin” Dynasty. Fighting with the Chinese continued until a line of unassailable fortified Song cities along the Huai River forced a stalemate. This resulted in a cessation of Jin-Song hostilities in 1138 and the formalization of a new border. 

Genghis Khan On the Rise

The war between the Jurchen and the Chinese couldn’t have come at a worse time. In 1206, far to their north, an aggressive and ambitious Mongol chieftain was declared Khagan, Emperor of the Mongols. Genghis Khan—whose name meant “Universal Ruler”—wasted no time in turning the energy of the newly-unified Mongol and allied steppe tribes toward external foes. 

Genghis Khan launched his invasion of the Jin Empire in 1211 and, by 1215, he’d taken the capital at Zhongdu (modern Beijing). Distracted by events further to the west, Genghis Khan left a force to keep the pressure on the Jin while he himself marched off to destroy the Qara Khitai (in central Asia north of the Indian subcontinent) in 1217. He then smashed the prosperous Khwarezmid Empire (a Muslim empire that included present-day Iran, Afghanistan and central Asia) in 1221.

Genghis Khan died in August 1227, leaving a massive empire in the hands of his very capable third son, Ogedai, who was formally recognized as khan in 1229. When Ogedai led an army back to Jin lands the following year, his veteran troops made short work of the remaining resistance. Aizong, the last Jin emperor, hanged himself to avoid capture, ending that dynasty in 1234. Having toppled the Jin Empire, the conquerors would soon turn their attention to the Song. 

Throughout this tumultuous period the Korean kingdom of Goryeo bided its time. Goryeo had been founded through military conquest in 918. A hereditary military aristocracy held significant, if declining, influence at court. Martial clout reached its peak in 1170 when the military usurped the king’s authority. The aristocracy established a dictatorship that would last a hundred years, ruling in the king’s name but holding near-absolute power.

Swords and Scholars

In keeping with the nature of its founding, Goryeo maintained the greatest military capability of any Korean polity until the 20th Century. Goryeo troops were, at the beginning of the 13th Century, highly trained, well-equipped, battle-hardened, and well-led by the military aristocracy.

The sword arm of Goryeo was augmented by a rising class of Confucian scholars who provided sage advice to the royal family and a well-educated pool of wily diplomats. This scholarly class found itself increasingly at odds with the established military aristocracy and dictatorship, though powerless to resist the dictator’s private army. The intellectuals waited patiently for an opportunity to challenge what they saw as an illegitimate usurpation of the throne.

Fissures aside, the Goryeo court wielded its key elements—the quill and the sword—with admirable dexterity. The kingdom exhibited phenomenal ability to rapidly concentrate and project coercive power. This approach facilitated a multi-pronged expedition against the Jurchen in 1107, which seized massive tracts of land from the semi-nomadic tribes. This campaign set the conditions for a pledge by the Jurchen Wanyan tribe—the same tribe that would establish the Jin Dynasty eight years later—not to encroach upon Goryeo territory.

The annals show Goryeo’s leaders recognized the Mongol storm on the horizon. A number of factors made it seem like a distant problem at first. Korean kingdoms had long fended off mounted Jurchen incursions along the border, launching their own attacks north when timing and local advantage were favorable. To the Goryeo the Mongols were nothing more than another group of barbarians on horseback.

Yet it was the handling of the Khitan Liao incursions of the 11th Century wherein the Goryeo playbook for dealing with the Mongols would be written. Throughout the course of three invasions in 993, 1010, and 1018, Goryeo’s armies fought viciously until conditions rendered further resistance undesirable.  The king would then sue for peace—ensuring any terms included the withdrawal of the invading force—buying time to reorganize for the next campaign before resuming the conflict. 

The best example of this Goryeo sword-and-quill tactic, an admirable early synthesis of military and diplomatic efforts, led to the Battle of Guiju during the third Khitan invasion in 1019, and the annihilation of a 100,000-strong Khitan army in the mountains of modern North Korea. Goryeo would employ this same strategy, with notable success, against the Mongols.

Korea, an Unlikely Contender

Given what we know of the Mongol conquests, it might appear unbelievable that the tiny Kingdom of Goryeo would even consider resisting. The khan’s armies subdued China, Khwarezm, and Persia before invading Russia and Eastern Europe. Goryeo, however, was fiercely protective of its independence and had successfully defended itself against innumerable invasions, generally punching well above its weight class.

Goryeo’s leaders long understood their greatest advantage lay in the peninsula’s geography. Broad rivers guarded the northern border. Fortified mountain ranges separated by disease-infested valleys loomed over the route to the capital at Kaeseong. That rugged terrain had swallowed up invading armies throughout Korea’s long history. There was no reason for King Gojong to think it wouldn’t continue to do so.

Regardless of the strength of the kingdom’s defenses—both natural and man-made—the court closely monitored burgeoning Mongol power. Goryeo also extended efforts to maintain an amicable relationship with the Mongols—Koreans and Mongols even joined forces in 1219 to destroy a pillaging army of Khitans which had crossed Goryeo’s northern border.

In 1224 the inevitable occurred. A Mongol envoy arrived at the Goryeo court in Kaeseong and demanded tribute. Goryeo’s military dictator at the time, Choe Woo, refused. The emissary departed. While enroute home, the envoy was killed by bandits. The Mongols labeled the unfortunate event treacherous, and it became a pretext for invasion. It was Goryeo’s turn to face the all-conquering armies of the Great Khan.

The Korean Peninsula is only about 760 kilometers (450 miles) from the Yalu River to Busan (formerly known as Pusan). Given that the Mongols were at that time fighting successfully as far away as the Persian Gulf and Russia, one might expect the subjugation of such a small nation to be simple. That turned out not to be the case. 

The First Invasion

The first invasion took place in August 1231 under the command of the Mongol general Saritai. This force crossed the Yalu and quickly moved south, overrunning the border town of Uiju. The Mongols then took the city of Anju but failed to breach the walls of Kuju, despite numerous attempts. Already tiring of siege warfare, Saritai bypassed the strongpoint, marching hard to the south and seizing the capital of Kaeseong. Goryeo sued for peace and accepted the installment of 72 Mongol administrative officials. Saritai, no doubt reveling in the accomplishment of his mission, turned the army north and in short order departed the kingdom.

In 1232, Choe Woo fortified Ganghwa Island, west of modern-day Seoul, stocked it with ample provisions, and ordered the construction of all the facilities required by a fully functioning royal court. The dictator then evacuated the entire Goryeo government to Ganghwa, eliciting instant suspicion among the Mongol administrators. With that move—taking advantage of Mongol maritime weakness—Choe set the conditions for a stubborn resistance.

Choe instructed the people to take refuge in the many fortresses scattered throughout the countryside. Once the population was safe, he had the Mongol administrators killed. When word reached Saritai, he turned his army southward again and began the second invasion of Goryeo in June 1232.

Saritai failed in a half-hearted attempt to reach Ganghwa Island—less than a mile off-shore—and commenced the siege of Cheoin near modern Yongin. It was there that the monk Kim Yun-hu, chosen by the locals to lead their defense, struck down Saritai with an arrow in December. His death caused the Mongol army to withdraw from Goryeo, ending the second invasion.

In July 1235, the Mongols returned. Frustrated by Goryeo’s willingness to retreat within city walls and high mountain fortresses, the invaders settled upon an age-old strategy: scorched earth. If the inhabitants wouldn’t defend their lands, they’d lose them. The new plan involved massive, roving bands of Mongol cavalry, burning and pillaging their way well south of the Han River.

On the rare occasion when the Mongols took a fortified site, they massacred the inhabitants. Yet civilian resistance remained strong behind stout fortifications. The Mongols suffered several setbacks as Korean forces trapped and annihilated isolated groups of marauders.

The Mongols Retreat

After years of wanton destruction punctuated by sporadic military engagement, Choe sued for peace in 1238. The Mongol demands included a requirement for the Goryeo court to return to Kaeseong and for a prince to be sent to the khan to live as hostage. Instead, Choe fooled the Mongols by sending an unrelated member of the royal family—an act which, discovered years later, enraged the invaders.

By 1247, the Mongols realized that the endless excuses Goryeo offered as to why the government had yet to return to Kaeseong were just that: excuses. Choe was not about to place the court back within striking range of Mongol forces. This led to a fourth invasion that July, carried out in much the same way as the previous one. 

The people fled to local fortifications and once again took up arms while the Mongols burned anything and everything they found, killing or enslaving those hapless enough to be caught outside the walls. This time, neither cities nor fortresses were successfully taken, and the campaign ended in 1249 after Mongol emperor Guyuk Khan, Ogedei’s eldest son, had passed away in April 1248, causing the army to return home.

With Mongke Khan’s ascension to leadership, the Mongols renewed their demands upon Goryeo in 1251. Receiving the by now familiar excuses, the Mongols invaded a fifth time in July 1253, ravaging the empty countryside. This time, however, Goryeo had lost its most intractable advocate for resisting the invaders. Choe Woo had abruptly died of an unspecified disease in December 1249, handing dictatorial powers to his son, Choe Hang.

Compared to his father, Choe Hang held much less control over the royal family, as the annals make clear King Gojong himself met with Mongol envoys to arrange a cease-fire in early 1254. The king agreed—once again—to move his court back to the mainland.

By summer that same year, the Mongols learned that not only were multiple high-ranking officials still resident on Gangwha, but that the king’s stepson hostage wasn’t even from the royal line. There were also rampant rumors that Goryeo officers who’d cooperated in any way with the Mongols had been executed. For the Mongols this was the last straw. They set out in July 1254 to punish Goryeo.

Famine

After so many years of constant warfare and pervasive destruction, famine gripped the kingdom. The people were reaching their breaking point. Civilians surrendered to the invaders in ever increasing numbers. This latest incursion introduced the most widespread havoc to date and resulted in more than 200,000 people taken as slaves. The Mongol army marched their captives north, ending the sixth invasion that December with no political resolution at all.

Growing frustrated with the situation, the Mongols again switched tactics. By this time they’d abducted a large number of Goryeo subjects and, in the same manner employed elsewhere, set out to find those with useful skill sets. Thus, in 1255 the Mongols launched seaborne raids along the coast in ships built by captured Korean craftsmen.

Intent upon taking Gangwha from the sea, intervention at the Mongol court by a Goryeo diplomat, Kim Su-gang, convinced Mongke Khan to cease the effort and recall his army. This ended the seventh invasion in June 1256 but, again, without any permanent resolution.

A much debated eighth invasion in 1257, played out almost the same way, with an impending assault on Gangwha interrupted by diplomacy and the khan’s recall of Mongol forces. However, Choe Hang died in May 1257, passing the mantle of dictatorship to his son, Choe Ui. The 25-year-old dictator held even less power than his father over the Goryeo monarch. Most decision-making appears to have been pried from his inexperienced hands.

In response to renewed hostilities in 1258, the king’s civil advisers—slowly gaining the upper hand over the military aristocracy—recommended sending the crown prince to the Mongols as a hostage, per the invading commander’s request. Unsatisfied with waiting for King Gojong to make his decision, the Mongols took Sinui and Changnin islands off the southwestern coast, their first amphibious successes. Still, a strong Goryeo fleet prevented the Mongols from making a proper run at Gangwha. Mongol coastal operations ceased with word that Mongke Khan had once more recalled the army. Goryeo diplomacy had once again purchased more time. The king’s Confucian advisers were intent to make the most of it.

A coup against the Choe family the next year resulted in the death of Choe Ui just two years into his dictatorship. This left Goryeo’s royal family with more authority than it had held in many years. Heeding the scholars’ advice, the king struck a peace treaty with the Mongols.

But time was not on Gojong’s side. He passed away in 1259, succeeded by his son Weonjong. Despite treaty obligations, it would be 11 years before the redoubtable fortifications protecting Gangwha Island would be torn down and the court returned to Kaeseong. Following the coup, the private army that had kept the Choe family in power for nearly 60 years fled the capital. Its leaders attempted to create their own state along the southern coast, unwilling to the very end to submit to Mongol rule. This elite force—fueled by an unquenchable need to resist Mongol domination—managed to hold out against repeated attacks for another 14 years. Their last stand took place on Jeju Island in 1273, where they were finally crushed—ironically, by a combined Goryeo-Mongol force.

Political Independence

Goryeo maintained its political independence, a true rarity among those peoples who dared to defy the will of the Great Khan. The terms of the treaty were relatively lenient—reflecting that the Mongols had been worn down after dispatching so many armies down the troublesome peninsula. However, Goryeo was required to pay an annual tribute and the king was forced to marry a Mongol princess, tying the royal families together. In this way, Goryeo received the status of a Mongol ally. The kingdom’s henceforth Confucian-trained rulers would take their alliance obligations seriously.

The first and most important reason for the difficulty the Mongols experienced in Korea was the geography of the peninsula. That preceding Korean dynasties and kingdoms had fortified every advantageous height or narrow defile from the Yalu River to the southern coast only magnified those natural defenses.

Topography didn’t turn out to be quite the obstacle to the Mongols that it had been for so many invading armies throughout history. This is most likely due to the speed with which Mongol forces pressed their advance. An army passing through at the speed of horses spends far less time in malaria-infested lowlands than one moving at the speed of infantry, thereby reducing its vulnerability. Whatever the cause, the annals fail to mention Mongol losses from disease and related attrition inflicted upon other historical invaders.

On the other hand, Goryeo fortresses, often constructed high above the surrounding lands and incorporating natural defenses, proved difficult for the Mongols to access, much less assault. Even with professional siege engineers brought from distant lands, siege equipment had to be hauled or pushed up steep slopes, under withering bow fire, just to reach the fortress walls. This was never easy. Many Mongol warriors lost their lives in fruitless sieges like the one at Sangju where 50 percent of the besiegers were reportedly slain before the siege was lifted.

The evacuation of the court to Gangwha proved genius. It removed a vulnerable pressure point as effectively as if the government had fled to the Moon. The Mongol inability to assault that small island, so tantalizingly close to the mainland, highlights a very real gap in an otherwise profoundly dominant military organization.

The Mongol difficulty in storming the mountain fortresses, or even reaching Goryeo’s offshore strongholds, helps explain why from the third invasion (1235) onward the steppe armies generally refrained from siege activities, concentrating instead on starving out an entire nation. The invaders would eventually try their hands at amphibious warfare, but that capability would never be something the Mongols would bring to maturity, relying instead upon the navies of subjects and allies.

The Goryeo armed forces at the beginning of the Mongol invasions consisted of a large, centrally controlled army augmented by private armies made up of highly skilled professional soldiers under the command of the military aristocracy. These conventional forces, however, could not stand up to the Mongols in a set piece battle. No shame there, of course, as they found themselves in good company with armies as far away as China, Persia, and Poland.

Goryeo’s unique solution to the problem of losing field battles against the Mongols was to quit fighting those engagements. Both the central army and the private ones broke down into smaller, more maneuverable, “patrols” scattered across the kingdom. This distributed approach sought to stiffen local civilian resistance and, wherever possible, ambush separated or unwary Mongol bands. The approach proved successful for Goryeo. It helps explain why the most victorious military organization to that point in history found it so hard to decisively crush the tiny Korean state.

With the destruction of the military aristocracy, the inhabitants of Korean settlements came to understand they had to defend themselves—though their king would assist when and where he could. This development underpins the rapid rise and incredible effectiveness of Joseon Era guerrilla armies, which sprang into action following the Japanese invasion of 1592. Simply put, the populace was by then well-armed and conditioned to join the fight, a mindset borne out of necessity during the protracted Mongol assault on their homeland.

Diplomacy and War

Finally, Goryeo’s well-coordinated use of alternating diplomacy and warfare served it well. It provided breathing space when necessary and extended the resistance of an army and people that should have—from the Mongol perspective—quit fighting long before. This appears to have been an approach the invaders either didn’t truly understand or to which they couldn’t adapt. In the end, however, the Mongol solution proved every bit as Machiavellian as the diplomatic-military sword wielded by Goryeo. If the kingdom refused to come out and defend its fields, the Mongols determined there would be no fields, and thus, no food. Over time, this brutal, protracted assault on the citizenry was a war-winning strategy. In the end, Goryeo survived the Mongol tempest. Peace returned to the peninsula and the Pax Mongolia allowed reconstruction of the damage done. 

As well, when the last anti-Mongol forces were snuffed out in 1273, the scholarly class of bureaucrats found they had once and for all established dominion over the military aristocracy. From this point on, for better or worse, Korean kingdoms would be dominated by Confucian scholars.

Goryeo took to its new role in the order of Northeast Asia with gusto, obeying Kublai Khan’s command to facilitate the Mongol invasion of Japan. This led to a pair of attempts in 1274 and 1281, both of which failed in part due to the arrival of typhoons which scattered the first fleet and wrecked much of the second. By 1389, with pirates preying on the kingdom’s coastal communities, Goryeo executed a successful amphibious raid on Tsushima Island, burning several hundred pirate vessels and freeing more than 100 Koreans held captive there.These expeditions were, however, the last gasp of Goryeo’s military power.

The strength of the Korean military aristocracy was broken on the battlefield by the Mongols and at court by Confucian scholars. Those tough-as-nails military families—representing the traditional martial vitality of the Korean people—would be missed in future conflicts. The succeeding Kingdom of Joseon would pay dearly for their political emasculation.

Most importantly, the Kingdom of Goryeo—and the Korean people—survived a 40-year war of resistance against the fearsome Mongols. This was a result that several, much larger and stronger empires had failed to achieve and remains a point of national pride for Koreans today.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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Like it or not, war can sometimes be a fashion statement. Among the multivarious uniforms that distinguish one unit from another, senior officers may indulge in the privilege of distinguishing themselves with individual touches—to be identifiable to their own troops, though hopefully not to the enemy. History records Hannibal Barca going to battle dressed as a common soldier, less conspicuous to his Roman enemies but still recognizable to his men. During the Napoléonic wars the namesake French emperor, Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher and British Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, favored the casual route, confident they’d be recognized by the right people when it counted. For every such low profile, however, there were extroverts who, aided by singular flourishes, went the distance to be unmistakable to all.

This story appeared in the 2023 Autumn issue of Military History magazine.

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Major General John Pope’s actions with the Army of Virginia resonated far beyond the battlefields of August 1862. Often dismissed as a blustering incompetent who supposedly announced his headquarters would be “in the saddle,” he experienced ignominious defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run and then exile to the backwater of Minnesota. Few army commanders on either side inspired more scorn from contemporaries and subsequent historians. Yet Pope’s record in Virginia deserves serious attention as crucial to the shift from a restrained to a more all-encompassing style of war in the Eastern Theater. This shift, in turn, lessened the likelihood of a brokered peace that would restore the nation to anything resembling the prewar status quo.

Pope entered the Virginia theater at a pivotal moment. Orders creating his Army of Virginia on June 26, 1862, consolidated the commands of Maj. Gens. John C. Frémont, Nathaniel P. Banks, and Irvin McDowell, which had faced Maj. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. Charged with defending Washington, Pope also was “in the speediest manner [to] attack and overcome the rebel forces under Jackson and [Richard S.] Ewell, and render the most effective aid to relieve General [George B.] McClellan and capture Richmond.” Less than a week after issuance of these orders, McClellan’s unforced retreat following the Seven Days’ Battles changed everything, persuading Abraham Lincoln and the U.S. Congress that the war would continue much longer and require more drastic measures to crush the Confederate military resistance. Pope soon found himself a leading actor amid a tectonic shift in the nation’s war aims and policies.

McClellan’s failure escalated debates about emancipation, the limits of “civilized” warfare, and the relationship between armies and civilians and their property. Such controversial topics had arisen earlier in Missouri, where Frémont had tried to confiscate slaves owned by pro-Confederates, and anti-Union depredations by irregular forces had prompted discussions between Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck and the German-born scholar Francis Lieber. Prompted by his exchanges with Halleck, Lieber later in the war codified the rules of war in a document signed by President Lincoln and issued as General Orders No. 100 in April 1863. Controversy in Missouri, a secondary military arena, was one thing—controversy in Virginia, where the most famous armies campaigned in proximity to the rival capitals, proved more explosive.

Within three weeks of McClellan’s withdrawal from Richmond to Harrison’s Landing on the James River, both Congress and Abraham Lincoln acted regarding emancipation. The Second Confiscation Act of July 17, 1862, freed slaves held by Rebel owners, authorized seizure of property from several categories of individuals, and empowered the president “to employ as many persons of African descent as he may deem necessary and proper for the suppression of this rebellion.” Senator Charles Sumner, a Radical Republican from Massachusetts, observed that “the Bill of Confiscation & Liberation, which was at last passed, under pressure from our reverses at Richmond, is a practical Act of Emancipation.”

Four days earlier, according to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, the president discussed “the subject of emancipating the slaves by Proclamation in case the rebels did not cease to persist in their war on the govt’ and the Union, which he saw no evidence.” Lincoln believed “the reverses before Richmond, and the formidable power and dimensions of the insurrection which extended through all the Slave States…impelled the administration to adopt extraordinary measures to preserve the National existence.” At Cabinet meetings on July 21-22, 1862, Lincoln discussed emancipation and his intention to issue a proclamation.

These policies contrasted starkly with McClellan’s ideas. Shortly after the Battle of Malvern Hill, “Little Mac” offered the president a gratuitous tutorial about how to conduct the war. The United States should adhere to the “highest principles known to Christian Civilization,” insisted McClellan in what came to be called the “Harrison’s Landing letter.” The conflict “should not be, at all, a War upon population; but against armed forces and political organizations. Neither confiscation of property, political executions of persons, territorial organization of states or forcible abolition of slavery should be contemplated for a moment.”

On August 1, while still ensconced at Harrison’s Landing, McClellan wrote to General-in-Chief Halleck. “I believe that together we can save this unhappy country and bring this war to a comparatively early termination,” he stated, “the doubt in my mind is whether the selfish politicians will allow us to do so. I fear the results of the civil policy inaugurated by recent Acts of Congress and practically enunciated by General Pope in his series of orders to the Army of Virginia.”

New Orders

Pope issued three general orders between July 14 and 23 that drew on his prior experience in Missouri and signaled a sharp departure from McClellan’s conciliatory approach. The first, General Orders No. 5, instructed Union troops to “subsist upon the country in which their operations are carried on” without reimbursement to pro-Confederate owners. Next, General Orders No. 7 held people “throughout the area where the Army of Virginia campaigns” responsible for any damage to railroads, roads, and telegraph lines at the hands of “lawless bands of individuals not forming part of the organized forces of the enemy nor wearing the garb of soldiers.” Anyone connected to “such outrages, either during the act or at any time afterward, shall be shot, without awaiting civil processes.”

Finally, General Orders No. 11 instructed Union officers “immediately to arrest all disloyal male citizens within their lines or within their reach in rear of their respective stations.” Those who refused to take the oath of allegiance would be sent south beyond the pickets of the army and if subsequently found “within our lines or at any point in rear they will be considered spies, and subjected to the extreme rigor of military law.” Anyone who took the oath and later violated it “shall be shot, and his property seized and applied to the public use.”

Pope’s thinking aligned with political leaders seeking harsher treatment of Confederates and their property. Lieutenant Colonel David W. Strother, who served on Pope’s staff, and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase recorded impressions of the general in July. Although not an abolitionist, Pope told Strother “the war had necessarily given the death blow to slavery. Wherever the Union armies move, the old system of master and slave falls.” Describing Pope’s ideas as “clear and strong,” Strother added that his chief believed enslaved people “ought to be taken and used remorselessly whenever needed….They will not make soldiers but as laborers they might be extensively used.” Chase summarized Pope’s thinking about employing Black laborers in almost identical terms, while also observing that the new commander “expressed himself freely and decidedly in favor of the most vigorous measures in the prosecution of the war.”

Divided Opinion

Pope made no effort to disguise his low opinion of McClellan. “[H]e regarded it as necessary for the safety and success of his operations that there should be a change in the command of the Army of the Potomac,” noted Chase, because “Genl. McClellan’s incompetency and indisposition to active movements were so great….” Pope’s widely quoted message to the Army of Virginia on July 14, 1862, can best be read as a critique of McClellan’s type of warfare. “I have come to you from the West,” he began bluntly, “where we have always seen the backs of our enemies; from an army whose business it has been to seek the adversary and to beat him when he was found; whose policy has been attack and not defense.” In a direct slap at McClellan, Pope inveighed against a preoccupation with “‘taking strong positions and holding them,’ of ‘lines of retreat,’ and of ‘bases of supplies.’” Discard such ideas, he counseled, and instead “study the probable lines of retreat of our opponents, and leave our own to take care of themselves. Let us look before us, and not behind. Success and glory are in the advance, disaster and shame lurk in the rear.”

Many people in the loyal states responded favorably to Pope’s orders and attitude. William Swinton, a correspondent for The New York Times, believed Pope’s actions were popular in the loyal states. “[T]here is no doubt,” he wrote shortly after the war, “that the declaration of a more vigorous war-policy quite met the views of the mass of the people.” Representative quotations from newspapers in the summer of 1862 buttress Swinton’s view. In this vein, the Republican Chicago Tribune printed and endorsed the orders on July 22: “We like Gen. Pope and the way he falls to work in the Shenandoah . . . . [H]is orders have the right tone, and are based on the right principles of conducting the war. It has been severe enough upon loyal men; it is now proposed to render it unpleasing to the rebels.” 

Two New York papers took similar stances. The largely Democratic New York Herald claimed the “commonest complaint from our soldiers…has been, that while standing guard over rebel property they have been liable to be shot down by rebel bushwhackers.” The measures Pope learned in fighting guerrillas in Missouri “appear to be working very well among the same customers in Virginia.” The New-York Daily Tribune, a Republican sheet, made the same point with greater emphasis from a special correspondent near Warrenton. “I cannot describe too strongly the intensity of the feeling among the soldiers of this Virginia army,” he wrote, “—how clearly they see, and how strongly they feel that they are fighting in an enemy country. They needed to be convinced that their commanders and the Government also appreciated their situation, and they find in these orders the assurance they have sought.”

Michigan’s Lansing State Republican will have the final word here. Under the heading “New Life in the Army,” its editor cheered: “There is no longer to be that extreme carefulness of the rights, and tenderness at the feelings of rebels, but they are hereafter to be treated as rebels….General Pope intends to make clean work as he goes. This policy will give new life and vigor to the army, and to the people of the loyal States. This looks like putting down the rebellion. Hurrah for General Pope!”

Many Union soldiers echoed such opinions. A New Yorker deployed near Warrenton, Va., who complained that nothing “is more galling to a patriot and Union loving man than to be compelled to guard the property of his enemies,” celebrated Pope’s orders as “a very important step toward ending the war. Until the rebels are made to feel the severity of the war, but little permanent success will be won by our arms.” Lieutenant John Meade Gould of the 10th Maine Infantry praised Pope’s policies as overdue. “It is positively proven that an easy policy is a poor one,” he insisted from near Chester Gap, Va., “the natives laugh at us, jibe us, and when we are gone, pick up our stragglers and sick….WAR is a great and terrible game….Let the terror be with our enemies and not among ourselves.”

Disgust and Anger

McClellan’s loyalists, in contrast, lambasted Pope. They often opposed emancipation and tougher policies regarding Confederate civilians, while also bridling at what they deemed sneering allusions to the Army of the Potomac’s passivity. None vented more fulsomely than Brig. Gen. Marsena R. Patrick, who served as military governor of Fredericksburg in May–June 1862 and later led a brigade in the field. Pope’s orders “demoralized the Army,” the New Yorker noted in his diary on July 18, “& Satan has been let loose” among soldiers who pillaged at will. 

About a month later, Patrick pronounced himself “so utterly disgusted that I feel like resigning & letting the whole thing go—I am afraid of God’s Justice, for our Rulers & Commanders deserve his wrath & curse—” Lieutenant Charles Francis Adams Jr., whose family boasted two presidents and the current U.S. representative to Great Britain, spoke in Washington with members of McClellan’s and Halleck’s staffs and concluded “that Pope is a humbug and known to be so by those who put him in his present place.” “I still believe in McClellan,” affirmed Adams, “but I know that the nearest advisers of the President…distrust his earnestness in this war.”

Criticism emanated from within the Army of Virginia as well. Brig. Gen. Alpheus S. Williams castigated Pope after Second Bull Run: “It can with truth be said of him that he had not a friend in his command from the smallest drummer boy to the highest general officer. All hated him.” Reaching a hyperbolic crescendo, Williams spewed “that more insolence, superciliousness, ignorance, and pretentiousness were never combined in one man.” Lieutenant Robert Gould Shaw of the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, who like Williams served in Banks’ 2nd Corps, also took a scolding position. “Pope criticizes and abuses McClellan with a will,” he observed on August 3, “showing in a man in his position no better taste than appeared in his proclamation and some of his orders….He looks just what we have always understood he was,—a great blow-hard, with no lack of confidence in his own powers.”

George B. McClellan refused even to wish for Pope to succeed against the Rebels. “I have a strong idea that Pope will be thrashed during the coming week—& very badly whipped he will be & ought to be,” McClellan wrote on August 10 in language that flirted with disloyalty, “—such a villain as he is ought to bring defeat upon any cause that employs him.” Two days earlier, he had denounced Pope and the war’s new direction. “I will issue tomorrow an order giving my comments on Mr. Jno Pope,” he told his wife, “—I will strike square in the teeth of all his infamous orders & give directly the reverse instructions to my army—forbid all pillaging & stealing & take the highest Christian ground for the conduct of the war—let the Govt gainsay it if they dare.”

Confederate reactions underscored the powerful ramifications of Pope’s short tenure with the Army of Virginia. On July 22, the United States and the Confederacy agreed to a cartel stipulating “that all prisoners of war hereafter taken shall be discharged on parole till exchanged.” Nine days later, an indignant Jefferson Davis wrote to Lee regarding the “general order issued by Major General Pope on the 23rd of July.” Because of that directive, the Confederate government recognized “General Pope and his commissioned officers to be in the position…of robbers and murderers, and not that of public enemies entitled if captured to be considered as prisoners of war.” For the present, the Confederacy would forego retaliation against Pope’s enlisted soldiers and treat them as prisoners of war. Should the United States continue its “savage practices,” however, “we shall reluctantly be forced to the last resort of accepting war on the terms chosen by our foes, until the outraged voice of a common humanity forces respect for the recognized rules of war.”

On August 1, Davis instructed Robert E. Lee to seek details from the Union general-in-chief about “alleged murders committed on our citizens by officers of the U.S. Army”—including one in Missouri supposedly ordered by Pope. Lee was instructed to allow Halleck 15 days from receipt of the query to reply; failure to do so would set in motion “retributive or retaliatory measures which we shall adopt to put an end to the merciless atrocities which now characterize the war waged against us.”

The Confederate War Department issued General Orders No. 54 that same day. It quoted part of Pope’s General Orders No. 11 and another authored by Brig. Gen. Adolph von Steinwehr on July 13 to show that the United States had “determined to violate all the rules and usages of war and to convert the hostilities hitherto waged against armed forces into a campaign of robbery and murder against unarmed citizens and peaceful tillers of the soil….” If captured, Pope, von Steinwehr, and their subalterns would not be treated as the recent cartel mandated but held in “close confinement so long as the orders aforesaid shall continue in force and unrepealed by the competent military authorities of the United States….” Should the Federals murder any unarmed Confederate civilians under Pope’s orders, whether with or without trial, an equal number of U.S. officers held in custody would be hanged.

On August 18, Davis sent a message to the Confederate Congress accusing the United States of “Rapine and wanton destruction of private property, war upon noncombatants, murder of captives, bloody threats to avenge the death of an invading soldiery by the slaughter of unarmed citizens, [and] orders of banishment against peaceful farmers.”

That Pope did not enforce his orders on a grand scale made little difference. Perception rather than reality held sway, as is almost always the case, and Confederates reacted with a spasm of anger to the threats inherent in the orders and to specific instances of Federal arrests and confiscation. Meanwhile, the increased movement of enslaved refugees toward Pope’s lines inflamed fears of the consequences of emancipation. Confederates coalesced with an outraged sense of purpose, determined to resist a foe who threatened every aspect of their social and economic structures.

Newspapers across the Confederacy engaged in a carnival of outrage that instigated popular fury directed at Pope. Two examples illustrate this phenomenon. On July 24, the Richmond Daily Dispatch printed Pope’s three orders under the heading “GEN. POPE’S ARMY / VIRGINIA TO BE LAID WASTE.” In early August, this paper expressed a hope “to see this execrable villain and his lieutenant[s] expiate their crimes on the gallows.” In North Carolina, Winston’s Western Sentinel deprecated Pope and his “execrable order which exposes all sexes and ages to the severest cruelties of ruffian Yankee troops.” The editor further observed that “North Carolina has hitherto been exempt from the operations of these brutal military decrees . . . only because the minions of Lincoln in this State have not had the force at command to enforce their execution.”

Robert E. Lee joined countless Confederates who read the texts of Pope’s orders in newspapers. He related that his son Rob was “off with Jackson & I hope will catch Pope & his cousin Louis Marshall. I could forgive the latter for fighting against us, if he had not have joined such a miscreant as Pope.” Lee’s use of the word “miscreant” bears close attention. Its mid-19th century meanings, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, included “Misbelieving, heretical; unbelieving, infidel” and “A vile wretch; a villain, rascal.”

Others selected comparably harsh epithets for Pope and his troops. A Catholic priest with the 14th Louisiana Infantry deplored “Pope’s abolition robbers,” while a British-born soldier stated that “our men heartily hated him for his ruthless cruelty to the inhabitants of the country, and his extraordinary amount of vanity and bombast.” Colonel Josiah Gorgas, the Confederate chief of ordnance, called Pope the “morally worthless” author of “infamous orders holding citizens responsible for the shooting of his men by guerrillas, or rangers.”

Women left ample testimony about the impact of Pope’s orders, much of which alluded to what newspapers decried as the “uncivilized” and “savage” conduct of Union soldiers. For Lucy Buck, living near Front Royal, the reality of General Orders No. 11 exceeded her worst imaginings. “This is what I have all the time been dreading,” she wrote on July 26, “and now it had come in a more hideous shape than I had ever anticipated.” Neighbors agreed: “We met Mr. Hope and Mr. Hainie and the former had been weeping and seemed to be utterly bewildered by the shock. Oh how intensely I did hate the whole race of Yankees.”

A diarist from outside Virginia reflected the national interest in Pope and his orders. Kate Edmondston clipped the texts of General Orders No. 5 and No. 7 from a newspaper and pasted them in her journal. “Gen. Pope has issued an order…monstrous in its cruelty and contrary to the practices of all civilized warfare,” she commented with obvious anger, “but this is not civilized warfare, nor do our enemies show either the genius of Christianity or the spirit of Civilization.”

Anyone interested John Pope’s impact in Virginia must look beyond the battlefield. His inept tactical performance and defeat at Second Bull Run, however embarrassing, shaped Union military fortunes in only a transitory way. Campaigning in Maryland almost immediately seized the spotlight, relegating operations in July and August to a secondary position they hold to this day. The ratcheting up of animosities during those two months proved far more consequential.

Pope’s orders and conduct played a crucial role in this process, evident in the Eastern Theater and on the respective home fronts, which heralded a kind of war that could engulf untold noncombatants. Lincoln’s preliminary and final proclamations of emancipation, the sack of Fredericksburg by Union soldiers during the Fredericksburg campaign, and other episodes left little doubt that George B. McClellan’s sort of war had ended. The stakes had been raised, hatreds stoked, and the stage set for elemental social, cultural, and ideological disruptions.

this article first appeared in civil war times magazine

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Military history has given us some great teams of commanders and their chiefs of staff. Napoleon had Marshal Louis-Alexandre Berthier; Dwight D. Eisenhower had Walter Bedell Smith; and Bernard Law Montgomery had Francis Wilfred de Guingand. Fortunately for the Allies in World War II, Bedell Smith and de Guingand served not only in that same war, but also in the same theater starting in 1943. Together they forged a personal and professional partnership that was a vital element in the unprecedented success of the Grand Alliance. “Beetle” Smith is fairly well remembered today, but “Freddie” de Guingand remains largely forgotten outside of British circles.

He deserves better. The ultimate team player, de Guingand was the most-respected and best-liked British officer among the Americans. After the war Smith wrote of him: “General de Guingand is the best staff officer I have ever seen regardless of nationality… and I do not know of any man in whom I have more confidence and for whom I have greater affection.” In his book A Soldier’s Story, General Omar Bradley wrote of de Guingand’s “patience, modesty, and understanding which helped to forge the Allied armies into a single fighting machine. Somewhere in almost every critical Allied decision of the war in Europe, you will find the anonymous but masterful handiwork of this British soldier.” 

During the war, Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery wrote of de Guingand to General Sir Alan Brooke (later Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke), Britain’s Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS). He said, “I do not know what I should do without him as he is quite 1st class.” And after the war Montgomery wrote, “Anything I have been able to achieve during the late war could not have been done if he had not been at my side.” Unfortunately, Montgomery’s fine words all too often failed to live up to his treatment of his former chief of staff, especially after the war ended.

De Guingand was born  in Acton, west London, in 1900. His mother was from a family of Yorkshire bankers; his father was the son of a man who left France for England after the overthrow of King Louis Philippe in 1848. In 1918 Francis had planned to enter the Royal Navy as a midshipman, but he was medically rejected for color blindness. Instead, he entered the Royal Military College at Sandhurst as a gentleman cadet, where his French surname earned him the lifelong sobriquet of “Freddie.” (Despite his family’s Gallic background, he was never completely comfortable speaking French.) Although he was exceptionally bright, the fun-loving Freddie’s record at Sandhurst was less than impressive. 

 Commissioned into the West Yorkshire Regiment in December 1919, de Guingand served briefly in India and then in Ireland during the Irish War of Independence. In 1924 he was posted to his regiment’s depot in York, where he met Major Bernard Montgomery, who was then a general staff officer assigned to the 49th (West Riding) Division. As bachelor officers, they both lived in the same mess, shared common enthusiasms for golf and bridge, and become fast friends. It was an odd-couple relationship on several levels. Montgomery was 13 years older than de Guingand, and was austere, arrogant, blunt, and utterly lacking in diplomacy and tact. De Guingand had a buoyant and charming personality, and was passionate about wine, women, and gambling. Nonetheless, Montgomery, recognizing de Guingand’s intellect and the value of his organizational and diplomatic skills, became his mentor.

With Montgomery’s endorsement, de Guingand was accepted at the highly competitive Staff College at Camberley, graduating in 1935. In 1939 he was assigned as the military aide to Leslie Hore-Belisha, Britain’s reformist but controversial secretary of state for war. While serving as Hore-Belisha’s close confidant, de Guingand honed his negotiating and diplomatic skills as he dealt personally with most of the senior officers in the British Army. A month after Hore-Belisha was fired from the War Office in January 1940, de Guingand was posted as an instructor to the Middle East Command’s new staff college at Haifa in Palestine. The commandant of the college was Brigadier Eric Dorman-Smith, who had been one of de Guingand’s instructors at Camberley. De Guingand quickly became the chief instructor of the college. 

That December he was reassigned to the Middle East Command’s Joint Planning Staff in Cairo. Now a major-general, Dorman-Smith had become the Middle East Command’s Deputy Chief of the General Staff, and he recommended de Guingand for the post of Director of Military Intelligence, Middle East, with the rank of brigadier. Although he had no previous training or experience in the intelligence field, de Guingand proved very skillful at the job. He used the famous Long Range Desert Group to analyze the many differing reports that came in from various sources. When the intelligence indicated that Axis troops under Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel were massing to attack at Gazala in Libya in May 1942, de Guingand was able to issue an advanced warning. He also correctly forecast the Axis capture of Tobruk in June 1942. That July, after the First Battle of El Alamein (also known as the Battle of Ruweisat Ridge), de Guingand was reassigned as the Eighth Army’s Brigadier, General Staff (Operations). 

When Montgomery assumed command of the Eighth Army the following month, he broke with British military tradition by completely but unofficially changing the organization of his staff. Without seeking approval from London, he consolidated responsibility by making his chief of staff his primary adviser and the absolute master of all staff work, much as the Americans and French did, instead of separating it across three different branches (the general staff for planning, operations, and intelligence; the adjutant general’s staff for personnel and administration; and the quartermaster general’s staff for supply and transportation). As Montgomery wrote in his post-war memoirs: “The magnitude of the task in front of me was beginning to be apparent. I must have someone to help me, a man with a quick and clear brain, who would accept responsibility, and who would work out the details and leave me free to concentrate on the major issues—in fact, a Chief of Staff who could handle all the details and the intricate staff side of the business and leave me free to command…. Before we arrived at Eighth Army HQ I had decided that de Guingand was the man; I would make him chief of staff with full powers and together we would do the job…. I never regretted the decision.”

Freddie de Guingand thus became the British Army’s first modern, comprehensive chief of staff. Montgomery made his intentions crystal clear when he told his assembled senior officers, “I want to tell you that I work on the Chief-of-Staff system. I have nominated Brigadier de Guingand as Chief-of-Staff Eighth Army. I will issue orders through him. Whatever he says will be taken as coming from me and will be acted on at once.” Thus, once Montgomery made his decisions, he left de Guingand with a free hand to manage the staff to work out all the details necessary to execute the commander’s intent. De Guingand functioned in all but name as Montgomery’s deputy commander. 

Once Montgomery assumed command,  he started strengthening the British defences on Alam el Halfa ridge in Egypt. He also pulled the Eighth Army’s main command post to Borg el Arab on the Mediterranean coast from its location on Ruweisat Ridge. There the Eighth Army co-located with the headquarters of the Western Desert Air Force, commanded by Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham. One of the RAF’s most brilliant tactical air commanders, Coningham had a highly competitive personality that clashed with Montgomery’s. De Guingand quickly became the primary operations coordinator between the RAF and the Eighth Army. The synchronization of close air support for Montgomery’s ground forces remained one of de Guingand’s key responsibilities for the remainder of the war.

Rommel attacked at Alam el Halfa on August 30. When the British defences held, the Axis finally lost the initiative in Africa. De Guingand recommended an immediate counterattack, but Montgomery decided to reconstitute his forces in preparation for a set-piece break-out battle.

De Guingand’s usual practice was to operate from the main command post, while Montgomery directed the battle from a forward tactical command post—“Tac CP”—with his chief of staff making daily visits to Montgomery. Just before the British started their breakout at El Alamein on October 23, de Guingand established a forward satellite of the Main CP on the coast close to Montgomery’s Tac CP and the CPs of the two attacking corps. 

By the early hours of October 25, reports indicated that the southern arm of the British attack was faltering. After assessing the situation, de Guingand concluded that the situation was reaching a crisis that only the army commander could resolve. He asked the commanders of X and XXX Corps to meet him at the Tac CP at 3:30 a.m. He then drove to the Tac CP, woke Montgomery, and briefed him on the situation. After the meeting with the corps commanders, Montgomery agreed with his chief of staff’s recommendation to suspend the attack along the southern corridor and to shift the effort to the northern thrust. That, however, required de Guingand to make a complete revision of the battle plan on the fly. He later received the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for his role at El Alamein. 

After El Alamein, Rommel withdrew 1,300 miles westward along the Mediterranean coast of Africa, eventually linking up with Axis forces in Tunisia. Montgomery followed in what can only be termed a “slack pursuit.” On March 29, 1943, the Eighth Army breached the Mareth Line in southern Tunisia, bringing it under control of General Sir Harold Alexander’s 18th Army Group. The Allied theatre commander was General Dwight D. Eisenhower, with whom Montgomery already had a strained relationship. When they met for the first time in England at the end of May 1942, Montgomery had brusquely told Eisenhower to put out his cigarette. “I don’t permit smoking in my office,” he said. Ike complied but was quietly furious. Montgomery later told de Guingand his impression of Eisenhower: “Nice chap. No soldier.” However, when de Guingand and Walter Bedell Smith met for the first time, they hit it off immediately, and the relationship would help de Guingand navigate the contentious Eisenhower-Montgomery relationship for the rest of the war.

In mid-April Montgomery sent de Guingand, now promoted to the temporary wartime rank of major-general, to Cairo as his deputy to take over the planning for Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. Several days later, while flying back to Algiers for a planning conference, de Guingand’s plane crashed at El Adem in Libya and he was forced to spend several weeks in the hospital with a concussion and multiple fractures. Nonetheless, he was back in action on July 10, sorting out landing operation problems in Sicily. 

In late 1943 Eisenhower and Montgomery both relinquished their commands in the Mediterranean and transferred to London to assume their new positions for the invasion of Europe—Operation Overlord. Eisenhower was Supreme Allied Commander, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), and Montgomery became commander of the 21st Army Group, and also overall commander of land forces during initial operations in Normandy. Both of their chiefs of staff came with them. Bedell Smith and de Guingand continued to build on the solid professional relationship they already had established. De Guingand retained his temporary wartime rank of major-general, although the position was really authorized for a lieutenant-general. Montgomery asked him to accept the lower rank on the odd rationale that many of the brigadiers assigned to the staff would then push for promotions to major-general. De Guingand acquiesced to his boss’s wishes, but that would come back to haunt him in just a few years. 

The staff of Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Morgan, the designated chief of staff to the Supreme Allied Commander, had already done a great amount of detail work on the invasion plan, but when Beetle and Freddie got their first look at the plan in January 1944, they quickly recognized that the invasion sector was too narrow and the assigned troops too few. Together, they briefed Montgomery, who agreed with them immediately. Then they convinced Eisenhower, who finally persuaded the Combined Chiefs of Staff to allocate more forces. From that point on they had only 22 weeks to re-work the basic plan and all the detail work to support it. Montgomery, as usual, gave de Guingand a free hand. 

Once the Allies landed in France on D-Day, the friction between Eisenhower and Montgomery only grew worse. But it was not only Americans that Montgomery alienated. Many of his fellow British senior officers also considered him insufferable, especially Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, Eisenhower’s Deputy Supreme Commander at SHAEF. De Guingand increasingly found himself intervening with his fellow countrymen on Montgomery’s behalf. More and more Montgomery refused to participate in meetings at SHAEF headquarters, sending de Guingand as his representative instead. Although de Guingand always supported his boss’s positions on operational matters, he also managed to serve as an effective peacemaker and intermediary. 

The running Ike-Monty feud took a turn for the worse on September 1, 1944, when Eisenhower assumed the role of combined ground forces commander. Montgomery, who believed he should retain that position, took it personally and continued to agitate for the role until the end of the war. Another source of friction was Ike’s strategy of attacking Germany across a broad front; Montgomery insisted they should put all the Allied weight into a single rapier-like thrust into northern Germany—commanded by himself, of course. At one point, Eisenhower partially gave in, authorizing Montgomery to launch Operation Market Garden in September 1944 to push through the Netherlands into Germany and seize the Rhine bridges. De Guingand, however, had serious reservations about the operation and tried to convince Montgomery that the Germans would almost certainly be able to defeat it. Montgomery dismissed the concerns, but subsequent events proved de Guingand all too right when the Germans blocked the British advance at the Rhine.

The final crisis between Ike and Monty came in late December 1944, during Germany’s offensive in the Ardennes, the Battle of the Bulge. True to form, Montgomery refused to attend Eisenhower’s senior leaders’ emergency meeting at Verdun on December 19, 1944. Tedder, Omar Bradley, Third Army commander George S. Patton, Bedell Smith, and 6th Army Group commander Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers were all there. Montgomery sent de Guingand. Eisenhower made the correct decision to place U.S. First and Ninth Armies temporarily under the operational control of Montgomery’s 21st Army Group to fight the German penetration north of the Bulge shoulder. Montgomery, however, became openly very critical of American performance during the battle. The British press echoed the criticisms, suggesting that Montgomery had “saved the bacon” for the Americans, and demanding that Monty be made overall land forces commander for the rest of the war. 

That was the final straw for Eisenhower. On December 30 Ike decided to tell British prime minister Winston Churchill and the Combined Chiefs of Staff that either he or Montgomery had to go. When de Guingand saw the draft of Eisenhower’s letter, he had no doubt which way the decision would fall. But he persuaded Eisenhower to postpone sending the letter until he could talk to Montgomery. At first, Montgomery refused to accept the seriousness of the situation, believing that there was no other British general who could replace him. He was shocked when de Guingand told him that Eisenhower was prepared to recommend Sir Harold Alexander, now a field marshal, as the replacement. 

Montgomery finally understood the gravity of his position. He asked de Guingand to draft an abject letter of apology to Eisenhower in an effort to defuse the situation. A very uncharacteristically humble-sounding Montgomery wrote, “Have seen Freddie and understand you are greatly worried by many considerations in these difficult days.” And, “Whatever your decision may be, you can rely upon me one hundred percent to make it work.” He signed the letter, “Your very devoted subordinate, Monty.” It worked. Eisenhower was mollified. But of course, after the war and to the end of his life Montgomery never missed an opportunity to snipe at Ike.

In 1946 MONTGOMERY was selected to succeed Alanbrooke as CIGS, the professional head of the British Army. Monty had already told de Guingand that he wanted him as his vice chief, and he arranged his assignment as Director of Military Intelligence at the War Office in London as a preparatory position. At the last minute, however, the outgoing Alanbrooke raised objections, citing de Guingand’s health as the reason. Almost as soon as he took office, Montgomery summarily told de Guingand, “I’ve decided not to have you for my Vice.” Stunned, de Guingand asked why, Montgomery callously answered, “Because it would not do me any good.” End of discussion. 

De Guingand realized he no longer had a role in the British Army. His only option was to retire, but he was still only a temporary wartime major-general. He could not afford to retire at his substantive rank of colonel. De Guingand appealed to his old boss for help, but Montgomery declined to get involved in what he considered a petty administrative detail far beneath the level of a great commander. Bedell Smith, however, was outraged by de Guingand’s situation and he brought it to Ike’s attention. After Eisenhower intervened personally at the highest levels of the British government, de Guingand finally received promotion to the substantive rank of major-general on September 10, 1946. He retired five months later. 

The United States recognized de Giungand’s value. In April 1945 the U.S. awarded him the Legion of Merit in the degree of Commander, and in January 1948 the U.S. Army presented him with the Distinguished Service Medal. After the war de Guingand became a successful businessman in South Africa. But as Montgomery’s vitriolic pot shots at Eisenhower continued throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, de Guingand increasingly leaned toward sympathizing with Ike, who cited him no fewer than 15 times in the endnotes of his 1948 book, Crusade in Europe. That book infuriated Montgomery, which naturally increased the growing separation between de Guingand and his former boss. Nonetheless, de Guingand was one of the eight official pallbearers at Montgomery’s state funeral on April 1, 1976.

Sir Francis Wilfred de Guingand died at Cannes, France, on June 29, 1979. His place in the history of World War II is best summed up by what Eisenhower wrote in Crusade in Europe about the chief of staff of the 21st Army Group: “He was Major-General Francis de Guingand, ‘Freddy’ to all his associates in SHAEF and in other high headquarters. He lived the code of the Allies and his tremendous capacity, ability, and energy were devoted to the co-ordination of plan and detail that was absolutely essential to victory.”

this article first appeared in world war II magazine

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In 2002, I ventured to Culpeper, Va., to satisfy a particular quest of mine: to explore the route that Brig. Gen. Evander Law’s Alabama Brigade, in Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood’s Division, undertook from Raccoon Ford to Gettysburg in June 1863. Hood’s command was present at the massive cavalry reviews that Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, the Army of Northern Virginia Cavalry Corps’ commander, conducted in the vicinity of Brandy Station on June 5 and 8.

Leaving the crass commercial sprawl of the I-95 corridor and Spotsylvania County, I traveled west on Virginia State Route 3 to the vast open space of Culpeper County. Since first visiting Culpeper in the early 1990s, I could not help but feel the county seat was a somewhat odd place, suffering perhaps from an identity crisis or cultural amnesia. It appeared to be a town lost in time, not knowing how to, or not interested in, capitalizing on heritage tourism. Although Culpeper was not unique, the song remained the same in many historic towns in Virginia and beyond. But Culpeper had been so significant in the war.

The town and surrounding area held a wealth of history that had not been tastefully capitalized on. Perhaps it was lofty idealism on my part, sprinkled with unreasonable economic considerations.

The architecture of Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill’s hometown was impressive and hopefully a future anchor for downtown redevelopment. One could see the potential of investing in history, especially in the wake of Ken Burns’ pop-culture phenomenon, The Civil War.

Just north and east of Culpeper is the battlefield of Brandy Station—known as the largest cavalry battle in the war (though folks heavily interested in the 1864 cavalry battle at Trevilian Station, Va., might argue otherwise). Of course, as many know, Brandy Station has the often-common layers of Civil War history—from Maj. Gen. John Pope’s 1862 Federal occupation to the massive 1863 battles, to the grand encampment of the Army of the Potomac, to nearby Kelly’s Ford, Rappahannock Station, Cedar Mountain, and so on. It is indeed a target-rich environment, as all these sites are within a few miles of each other.

Many modern preservation battles have been fought here as well. In the past 40 years, the county has been on the front-line of the see-saw preservation saga. Because Culpeper is located on the U.S. Route 29 highway—which provides a corridor for quicker ingress and egress, thus accommodating the growing Washington, D.C., regional commuting population movement in that direction—developers have long salivated over exploiting the area. Traditionally, many members of the Culpeper Board of Supervisors have not exactly gone out of their way to care for their historic pearl, as their voting records will attest.

Despite the constant development hurdles, much property has been protected through the yeoman service of long-term Culpeper–Brandy Station advocate Clark “Bud” Hall. The founder of the Brandy Station Foundation has fought much for the battlefield land around Culpeper —from thwarting a proposed Formula 1 racetrack in the mid-1990s to efforts by Southern California land developers looking to exploit and radically change the area.

Until 1987, not a single acre of Brandy Station had been saved. Since then, the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites (APCWS), which became the Civil War Trust (now the American Battlefield Trust), and others have saved 1,872 acres of the Brandy Station battlefield, including Fleetwood Hill, the site of J.E.B. Stuart’s headquarters and the epicenter of the battle. Because the battle was so massive, and substantially a cavalry fight, it covers a lot of ground—more than 10,000 acres.

The Brandy Station preservation issue begs reoccurring questions: How much land needs to be saved? Why should it be saved? How does one quantify preservation? Who benefits from it? Time is dwindling to save this vast historic and natural area from the advancing Washington, D.C., commuter traffic and population. The area is indeed fragile.

On my 2002 trip to Culpeper, many of the historic sites were threatened, and I was concerned I perhaps would never get to see them. Yet my schedule dictated a fast pace, negating extensive exploration—always a big draw when traveling into history in the Old Dominion. My focus this time was on Law’s Yellowhammer Brigade in June 1863 at Brandy Station.

A Massive Mounted Force

Law’s Brigade camped with John Bell Hood’s Division southeast of Culpeper, near Pony Mountain and paralleling the Fredericksburg Pike (modern-day Virginia Route 3), from June 5 through June 15.

A soldier in Hood’s Division wrote of the town: “Once more we stand with shattered walls of Culpeper, and again our line of operations points onward to the Potomac….Shaken by the shock of twenty battles, mutilated by four barbaric invasions, her sanctuaries defiled, devastated by pestilence and famine and the citizens driven from their hearths depending on God alone for food….”

In early June 1863, J.E.B. Stuart had assembled a force of 10,000 troopers around Culpeper. The size of a mounted force that large made me wonder about the forage and logistics of the horse and mule element of Lee’s army; it was a part of military strategy of which I often feel ignorant.

Peter Wellington Alexander, the popular partisan reporter from The Savannah Republican newspaper, would write about forage and logistics of equestrian sustenance while at Culpeper: 

“The number of horses [and mules] in this army, including the cavalry, artillery, quartermaster’s department, and field and staff, is not far from 35,000….To supply these horses with the usual rations of corn and hay, would require 7,500 bushels or 420,000 pounds of the former and 490,000 pounds of the latter, per day. The labor and expense of supplying so large a quantity of forage are necessarily very heavy.

“Fortunately for us, as well as for the horses, neither army has occupied this part of the State since last fall, and consequently the supply of grass, clover and timothy is abundant, otherwise it would be impossible to subsist so many animals with our limited wagon and railroad transportation, and at a time of so much scarcity as the present. You will be surprised to hear, therefore, that the horses receive no hay at all, and very seldom and fodder, and only one third the usual ration of corn. And yet I have never seen them in better condition.

“It is reported that the grazing in the counties between the Rappahannock and the Upper Potomac is equally as good as it is in this vicinity. Many of the farms have been abandoned, and much of the fencing destroyed, but it is believed that the supply of grass, though not as abundant as in times of peace, is ample for our wants, should the army advance. The farmers are allowed ten cents per day for the grazing of each horse, which would make the total cost of grazing 35,000 horses, $3,500 per day.”

That account underlines the logic of necessity for Lee to move his army to another region to survive. I have often overshadowed the Confederate desire for supplies as a major reason for their movement north in 1863; however, the mathematical logic illustrated by Alexander’s account partially illuminates the hard realities of supply and logistics.

On June 5, and three days later, Stuart conducted massive cavalry reviews near Culpeper. Hood’s Division attended both events; General Robert E. Lee attended the latter.

A Southern soldier-reporter in Hood’s Division said of the June 5 equestrian spectacle: “It was an imposing sight. One hundred and forty-four companies passed in review in the most splendid order. I counted twenty-six stands of colors, exclusive of those belonging to Stuart’s horse-artillery. After the review there was a sham fight, in which the artillery fired over one hundred and sixty rounds, and the cavalry made several brilliant charges. The horses were generally good, and everything indicated a good degree of discipline. Many ladies, blooming in health and beauty, were present. Gen. Hood marched his whole division out to witness the review.”

Such accounts always spur my imagination and whet my appetite to travel back in time. It is hard to fathom what 10,000 cavalrymen would look like thundering ahead. To what can we truly compare the sound of 40,000 charging hooves?

“On the 8th of June General Lee ordered a review of the whole of General Stuart’s Corps,” recalled Robert T. Cole, the 4th Alabama’s adjutant. “The 4th…was present and witnessed the grandest and most spectacular display of the largest body of cavalry they had ever seen massed on one field. General Stuart was in all his glory. Mr. Davis, his cabinet, and a large number of ladies from Richmond and the surrounding country were among the spectators.”

Wrote one of Hood’s infantrymen: “Yesterday we had a great review. Thousands of cavalry and infantry were upon the ground. The infantry rested on their arms and the cavalry pranced and maneuvered over the field to the delight of about 500 young and thoughtless beauties. The cavalry looked fine with the Prince of showy men at their head, dressed with gold and yellow trappings glistening on the plain grey surface like fire-flies on a darkening night. They were essentially a collection of pretty men, dressed in their best, while the poor, tattered, worn and tired infantry received not one smile from the light-hearted beauties who were out on that day….The cavalry parade was a beautiful sight, but I have no patience for such tomfooleries.”

I could relate somewhat to that soldier’s words; in my reenacting days, the grimy, hardcore, authentic types rarely got the attention of the fairer sex—but the cavalry did, especially if they wore “glittery” things.

“A Sham Battle”

Alexander, usually writing under the acronym “PWA”, was a notorious Stuart critic. On June 8 he penned an article that would appear in the June 15 Savannah Republican, declaring: “Gen. Stuart has assembled a heavy cavalry force here….Some of the ladies adorned him and his horse with flowers, and in this condition he presented himself to General Lee, who, it is reported, having surveyed him from head to foot, quietly remarked: ‘Do you know General, that Burnside left Washington in like trim for the first battle of Manassas. I hope your fate may not be like his.’ Unfortunately, Stuart was too much occupied with his flowers to take the hint.”

That evening, observed Cole, “General Stuart entertained his visitors with a sham battle. To several members of the 4th Alabama there was only one thing to mar the occasion—the absence of the dashing Alabama artillerist of Stuart’s Horse Artillery, John Pelham, who was killed leading a cavalry charge [at Kelly’s Ford] only a few miles from where we then were, on the 17th of March 1863.”

Continued Cole: “That night the little village of Culpeper was filled to overflowing with beautiful women and brave men, where a dance…inaugurated by the cavalry continued until long after we infantry had retired…”

Early the next morning, true fighting broke out at Brandy Station, although Hood’s Division was held back in a concealed support position near Pony Mountain. Although the Federal horsemen were repelled after a hard-fought clash, Lee’s troop concentration at Culpeper had been revealed. Wrote Alexander: “Lee’s flank movement, like a coal of fire on the terrapin’s back, has had the effect to put [Hooker’s Army of the Potomac] in motion….”

The Gettysburg Campaign had begun.

Visiting Culpeper last October, I was struck by the new sense of community building with a historic bent. As I drove by the nearby fields of Brandy Station, it felt good to know much is now protected and that a new state park incorporating neighboring Brandy Station and Cedar Mountain is being developed. It’s the kind of development I love to see. I thought of Bud Hall, whose incredible efforts over the years have helped bring this park to fruition. Without him, so much would have been lost, denying me and others the opportunity to easily imagine the historic events that had transpired there, such as those glamorous Confederate cavalry reviews of June 5 and 8. 

This article first appeared in America’s Civil War magazine

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The first volume of D. Scott Hartwig’s two-part chronicle of the September 1862 Maryland Campaign, To Antietam Creek, was published in October 2012. With Hartwig’s long-awaited second volume — “I Dread the Thought of the Place”: The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign — now out, one might forgive the accomplished Civil War historian a respite of some sort. The September 17, 1862, clash between Robert E. Lee’s and George B. McClellan’s armies at Sharpsburg, Md., remains America’s bloodiest single day, and Hartwig provides here a remarkably intense, blow-by-blow study of a battle that produced more than 23,000 total casualties and forever changed the divided nation’s future. He recently sat down with Civil War Times for an exclusive discussion of his landmark study.  

You of course established yourself as supervisory park historian at Gettysburg National Military Park? What was your inspiration for such a full-fledged study of the Maryland Campaign?

Several reasons. I never forgot Bruce Catton’s treatment of Antietam in Mr. Lincoln’s Army, and the battle had long intrigued me. When I became interested in writing this, there were only two real books on the battle/campaign, Francis Palfrey’s The Antietam and Fredericksburg and Jim Murfin’s A Gleam of Bayonets. Compared to Gettysburg, for such a major battle, Antietam was very lightly covered. That has since changed, but when I first started it was true.

With the second volume now out, any feelings of relief? How would you assess the entire project? How great a learning experience was it for you?

Relieved, yes, since it was a tremendous amount of work, but I also miss it. I enjoyed every day I worked on this book: one, because I enjoy the process of writing and creating something, and two, I learned something I didn’t know in every chapter I wrote. When you really get into the weeds of a historic event as I did with this project, you come to know the participants well and bringing their stories to life is in many respects the life blood of this book.

One of my goals was to write a book that a veteran of the battle might agree was an honest account. I had no agenda to write a book that was going to make sensational claims, I just wanted to tell the whole story, from Lincoln, McClellan, and Lee to the private soldier or a wife at home who learns her husband died at Antietam. I wanted this book to tell the whole story of Antietam, from the battle through its aftermath.

The research involved in crafting this chronicle seems to have extended to a level probably never before attempted by fellow historians. How surprised were you by some of the revelations that you uncovered?

I think much credit for the broad story I was able to reveal in this book goes to the publisher, Johns Hopkins University Press, who let me tell that story, even when it extended to more than 900 pages! What I wanted to create was a book that someone who had never read a Civil War book could enjoy and that someone who was steeped in the Antietam story could as well. So, it was important with each chapter not to get too bogged down in details but also to not simplify it so the richness of the story was diminished. It was also important to keep the focus on the people who lived this event, which I think ultimately is what most readers identify with when they read history. I was fortunate that Antietam was well-documented by those people.

For example?

There were plenty of revelations. All Civil War battles have narratives, often shaped during the late 19th century by former Union and Confederate officers writing for Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Confederate Veteran, etc. Secondary historians frequently reinforced these narratives, some of which simply are not true, because they had relied on the primary published accounts of participants who often had an agenda.

One example I encountered was the narrative that the Army of Northern Virginia was this hardcore, outnumbered, shoeless band that fought the overwhelming juggernaut of the Army of the Potomac to a standstill. The Army of Northern Virginia did indeed fight extremely well at Sharpsburg, but the reason the army was so small was because thousands of soldiers were absent from the ranks, as the Confederate logistical system had utterly broken down, which in turn broke the soldiers down because they lacked adequate food, shelter, and clothing.

This fatigue impacted the army’s staying power during the battle. By the battle’s close, 21 of the army’s 39 infantry brigades had been rendered essentially combat ineffective. This was a level of damage the army would not experience again until the spring of 1865.

Give us an objective assessment of the command performances of both McClellan and Lee during the battle?

Lee performed extremely well. He had an excellent sense of when to move his very limited reserves and where, and he was willing to accept risk in these movements. The result was that at almost every point of major combat on the field Confederate numbers were near on par with Union strength. He also made effective use of his artillery, which saved the center after the Sunken Lane line was broken. Critics of Lee, however, can make the argument that he seemed oblivious to the physical condition of his army and took an enormous risk for minimal gain — because of the condition of his army — by offering battle at Sharpsburg.

McClellan’s performance is mixed. He did not do as badly as his detractors would have us believe and did not perform as well as his defenders claim. To understand how McClellan fights the battle, you must realize that he believed the Confederate army outnumbered him and took a great risk in initiating the offensive against it. His decisions make sense when you realize this.

In your opinion, where was the battle truly won or lost?

Tactically, Antietam was a drawn battle, but operationally McClellan won because he achieved his operational goal of driving the Rebel army out of Maryland. Lincoln made Antietam a strategic victory when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

If I were to point to a specific moment of the battle that was a crucial turning point, it would be Maj. Gen. Edwin Sumner’s disastrous decision-making. His mismanagement of John Sedgwick’s division resulted in the destruction of that fine division, which greatly shook Sumner and caused him to lose his command perspective and imagine that the entire Union right flank was shaken and imperiled. This, in turn, fed into McClellan’s fears of a major enemy counterattack and led him to send his most important reserve, the 6th Corps, to reinforce the army’s right. Had he sent them to reinforce the breakthrough at the Sunken Lane, or Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside in his assault on the Confederate right, that might have proved decisive.

Tell us more about Maj. Gen. Joseph K.F. Mansfield — his role in the battle, his death, and its impact on the battle itself.

Mansfield had been a soldier for 40 years at Antietam, but he was an engineer and staff officer with relatively little experience commanding troops when he was assigned to command the 12th Corps. He took command on September 15 and made an immediate impact. His soldiers quickly detected he cared about their welfare. But on the morning of the battle, he insisted that all the regiments of his corps advance to the front in a formation known as “column of companies” or “double column of companies.” Imagine each regiment looked something like a Greek phalanx. It was an effective formation for command and control but not if the unit might be exposed to artillery fire. Brigadier General Alpheus Williams, Mansfield’s second in command, begged to be allowed to deploy the regiments into line of battle, but Mansfield stubbornly refused because he believed the numerous new regiments in his corps would run away.

Mansfield also fumbled the initial deployment of the corps, largely through his inexperience. Very early in the fight, he observed the 10th Maine firing on someone in the East Woods and, believing they were firing on friendly troops, rode in front of the regiment to get it to cease fire. Maine officers and men pointed to Rebels in the woods they were firing at. Mansfield was shot and mortally wounded. One of the first things Alpheus Williams did upon taking command in place of Mansfield was to deploy the regiments of the corps.

As a side note, there was controversy after the war on whether Mansfield was mortally wounded in front of the 10th Maine or 125th Pennsylvania, but the evidence is overwhelming that it was in front of the 10th Maine.

Did your research provide you with new opinions of any of the lesser-known commanders on either side?

Part of what I enjoyed in writing this book was telling the story of lesser-known officers, some of whom failed utterly and others who distinguished themselves but received little credit. William Robbins, the senior captain of the 4th Alabama, was one. He did a superb job defending the East Woods after his regiment, along with the 5th Texas and part of the 21st Georgia, captured it during John Bell Hood’s counterattack. Neither Hood nor Law ever understood what Robbins did, so he received no mention in their after-action reports.

Another officer was Captain Hiram Dryer, commanding the 4th U.S. Infantry. Dryer was the senior officer of the Regular Army battalions that were sent across Antietam Creek to support the Union horse artillery batteries that crossed at the Middle Bridge. Employing excellent tactics that the Regulars excelled in — fighting as skirmishers — he cleared nearly all the Confederate forces on the northern end of Cemetery Hill and almost certainly would have secured the position had he not be recalled by General George Sykes, who was angry that Dryer had exceeded his orders, and was fearful the Rebels had large forces arrayed behind the hill, which they did not.

You give General Robert Rodes notable credit for helping establish the Confederate defense in the Sunken Lane.

Rodes had been ordered to join the brigades of D.H. Hill’s Division sent to reinforce the Confederate left. But he observed that those brigades had been defeated and badly broken and recognized that the Sunken Lane offered the only real defensive position in the Confederate center if the enemy attack extended in that direction. D.H. Hill and George B. Anderson also recognized this, which is why a defensive line was formed here.

You must be satisfied that your book’s format allowed inclusion of countless intriguing anecdotes that likely would be excluded from shorter studies.

Yes, I am very grateful that Hopkins gave me the flexibility to tell these stories. In some sense, they are the heart of the book — the common person placed in extraordinary circumstances. Some are heroes, for others their courage utterly fails them, and most simply are trying to survive and cope with an incredibly frightening, shocking experience.

Union Brig. Gen. John Caldwell later received credit for his leadership at Gettysburg but was highly criticized for his “erratic” performance at Antietam while commanding the 1st Brigade in Israel Richardson’s 1st Division in Sumner’s 2nd Corps.

Not all generals or soldiers were consistent in their performances on the battlefield. They were human, after all. For some it was the stress of command that might erode performance; others, like Gouverneur K. Warren in 1864, may have suffered from depression or a bipolar personality, which incessant combat and stress made worse. In Caldwell’s case, we simply do not know what happened. He performed poorly at Antietam, exercising little command over his brigade, and being seen well to the rear of his troops, and nearly being dismissed from the service. But then he performed very well at Gettysburg handling the 1st Division in a difficult counterattack there.

There clearly was some doubt about him, though, which explains why he was relieved of command in the Army of the Potomac’s reorganization in the spring of 1864. Winfield Hancock wrote to Meade at the time that he did not believe that Caldwell had the capability to command a division in the upcoming campaign. Perhaps Hancock was unfair, but he knew well what would be expected of his commanders in the coming months.

How monumental a setback was the loss of Israel Richardson for the Union Army, both in the battle and the war?

It was significant. Richardson was a tough and aggressive fighter, an upfront type of soldier who had the loyalty and devotion of his troops. However, without artillery support it is hard to imagine what he could have done to crack open Lee’s center. Lee had massed significant artillery along Reel Ridge, which could maul any infantry advance beyond the Sunken Lane. Unless Richardson could have been reinforced with several rifled batteries that could have engaged the Confederate artillery, there was not much his infantry could do to exploit the capture of the Sunken Lane. It was a Union command failure to not perceive the opportunity here and send Richardson the resources he needed. He managed to get only a single battery of smoothbores, which lacked the range to reach the Southern guns, and he was mortally wounded trying to direct their fire.

Meanwhile, Sumner had massed so much artillery on the Union right — including all the divisional artillery of French and Richardson — that there were rifled batteries sitting in reserve. This was a case where army headquarters should have intervened to move the guns that could help Richardson, but they were more concerned about the potential of a major Confederate attack against the right and hesitated to weaken the artillery there in any manner.

Did McClellan and Porter mishandle the significance of the Middle Bridge in their battle plan?

I do not think so. The Middle Bridge was never a point at which McClellan contemplated anything more than a demonstration, the reason being the ground west of the creek when you get past Newcomer Ridge was completely exposed to the Confederate guns on Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge. What McClellan and Porter fumbled was the unforeseen opportunity that Captain Hiram Dryer’s advance with the U.S. Regular infantry created. Both were concerned the Rebels might have large forces in rear of the hill and ridge, but Porter was also concerned about a lack of support on the right from the 2nd Corps. George Sykes, who commanded the division including the regulars, was deeply worried about a large enemy force concealed in Sharpsburg and was the one who ordered Dryer to cease his advance and withdraw. Porter did eventually sense an opportunity was at hand, but by the time he considered reinforcing the Regulars across the creek, Sykes had already ordered their withdrawal.

A crucial element of success in battle is to sense when and where opportunities exist and to seize them quickly. It is not easy to do because of many factors — confusion, smoke, terrain — but the most successful commanders in history have had a knack for grasping these moments.

You note that the Union attackers at the Rohrback Bridge rarely receive deserved credit. Explain.

The narrative that has developed around the effort to capture the bridge is that all the attempts were futile and exposed Burnside as a fool who could not conceive anything but a frontal assault. But Burnside did not want to make a frontal assault, hoping to outflank the bridge’s defenders, yet circumstances that are too involved to go into here forced him to attack the bridge head-on.

When you examine each assault from the tactics of infantry at the time, the weapons they have, and the situation, they make sense. The infantry commanders were not stupid, but it was an extremely difficult position to assault both because of the terrain and because Henry Benning had set up an excellent defense. Tremendous courage was displayed in each attack, which is often forgotten in the desire to condemn Burnside, and the final effort carried the bridge.

What is often left out of the successful final attack is that Hugh Ewing’s Ohio brigade had crossed the creek at a ford below the bridge and threatened to roll up Benning’s right flank at the bridge. This greatly helped the 51st New York and 51st Pennsylvania.

‘I Dread the Thought of the Place’

The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign

By D. Scott Hartwig, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023

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It seems surprising, as you note, that the participants in A.P. Hill’s march from Harpers Ferry to Sharpsburg had little to say about their legendary march that day. Explain.

Hill’s men had made more difficult marches in the campaign and in the Second Manassas Campaign, so they may not have seen this one as all that significant. Legend has us imagining that Hill’s men made this march at nearly a jog, which was not the case. They covered about 2½ mph, which is good for an entire infantry division but not remarkable. What made the march difficult was that it was warm and Hill only made a few brief halts to rest the men.

Hill had to balance reaching the field as quickly as possible but with as many of his men as he could. Had he driven his men — as the legend implies he did — at something like 3 mph without halts, he would have lost hundreds of men to straggling. So he settled on a compromise. He marched quickly, but not so quickly that he broke his men down, and ordered less halts than was customary — typically units marched 50 minutes and rested 10 — but enough to give his men just enough rest that most endured the march.

Even with this, Hill had several hundred men break down and straggle during the march, but it was not enough to impair the striking power of the division.

Controversy remains on the decision by McClellan not to renew the Union attack on September 18. Was it the right choice?

I do not think so, but with that said, I also do not think the army was in a condition for a general attack along the line. William B. Franklin, the 6th Corps commander, had come up with a good plan to assault and capture Nicodemus Heights, which he believed — I think correctly – would render the Confederate position in the West Woods untenable. It was the best point along the Union front to attack. The Federals had the fresh 6th Corps in position with overwhelming artillery support. A successful attack would not have destroyed Lee’s army, but it might have inflicted further damage on that army which had been hurt badly on September 17, or hastened its retreat to Virginia. But as I mentioned earlier when you understand that McClellan believed he faced superior numbers, his decision to not attack on the 18th makes sense. He wanted the reinforcements of Darius Couch’s and Humphreys’ divisions before he attacked again. If he had a better estimate of enemy strength, he might have carried out Franklin’s plan, but one of McClellan’s great failings as a commander was to never assemble accurate intelligence on enemy strength and capabilities.

The tactical triumph at Antietam, as you note, provided Lincoln the opportunity to address slavery as a war aim. From reading various accounts and correspondence, did you get the impression the common soldier and commanders in the Army of the Potomac shared the president’s enthusiasm?

I found opinions in the army were divided along political lines. Most Democrats opposed the Emancipation Proclamation, while Republicans supported it. However, I also found that although most Democrats were against Emancipation as a war policy, the proclamation did not diminish their determination to defeat the Rebels. There were also soldiers who had not formed a decisive opinion about Emancipation yet and took a wait and see attitude.

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The pages of the great Roman historians—Livy, Tacitus, Sallust—are replete with stories of the triumphs and foibles of the commanders of the legions. But seldom are common soldiers mentioned by name. Spurius Ligustinus is an exception. A legionary of the Roman Republic, Ligustinus served in five major wars and several smaller campaigns during his 32-year military career (200–168 bc). Over the years he received an extraordinary six Civic Crowns—the Roman equivalent of a Medal of Honor—conferred for having saved the lives of fellow citizens in battle. He also received 34 armillae and torques, gold or silver armbands and neck rings awarded to recognize other acts of valor in battle.

Five times during his career Ligustinus held the rank of primus pilus, or first centurion, of a legion. Centurions were the junior and mid-ranking officers of the Roman armies. Unlike senior legates and tribunes, who mostly came from higher social orders, centurions generally came from the plebeian general populace and rose through the ranks. The centurion commanded a sub-unit called a century, which by Ligustinus’ day had been reduced from 100 to around 80 men.

As they led their troops by example from the front, centurions experienced high casualty rates. Transverse horse-hair crests atop their helmets made them easy to identify in battle. The primus pilus commanded the first century of a legion’s rightmost cohort. He was the ninth senior ranking officer in a legion, directly behind the commanding legate, the six military tribunes and the camp prefect. The primus pilus was the only centurion who sat in the legion’s war councils.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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Ligustinus was born into a poor family of Sabine origin. Enlisting in the Roman army in 200 bc, he served in the Second Macedonian War (200–197 bc). By his third year of service he’d been promoted to the centurion ranks. He next fought against the Lusitanians (194 bc) in Hispania (the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula), where he first attained the rank of primus pilus. He subsequently served in the Aetolian War (191–189 bc), in Greece, and the First Celtiberian War (181–179 bc), in Hispania.

By the outset of the Third Macedonian War (171–168 bc) Ligustinus was over age 50, living on a half acre of land and had eight children. When the Senate authorized the raising of two additional legions to send to Macedonia, Ligustinus volunteered once again, as did more veteran centurions than there were available slots. Twenty-three former first centurions, including Ligustinus, were assigned to the ranks. They protested the demotion and appealed to the tribunes of the plebs. During the subsequent public hearing Ligustinus requested and was granted permission to address the assembly.

“As long as anyone who is enrolling armies considers me fit for service,” said Ligustinus, according to Livy, “I will never beg off. Of what rank the military tribunes think me worthy is for them to decide; I shall see to it that no one in the army surpasses me in bravery.” He then told his fellow protesting first centurions to “think every post honorable in which you will be defending the state.”

When Ligustinus finished speaking, Consul Publius Licinius Crassus brought him before the Senate, whose members gave the centurion a vote of thanks for his past service. The military tribunes then appointed Ligustinus primus pilus of the 1st Legion, his fifth assignment in that rank. Withdrawing their protests, the other former first centurions accepted assignments in the ranks—though many, no doubt, moved up quickly.

This story appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Military History magazine.

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A handsome stone church, nestled in the intersection of Fairfax and South Washington streets, embodies the central history of this “little city” in Northern Virginia. Established in the early 1730s as a member of the official Church of England, the then-wood church became known as the one “near the falls” of the Potomac River, and soon thereafter as “The Falls Church,” a name adopted by the community that developed around it and the city itself when it was incorporated in the 20th century. George Washington was an early vestry member and participated in the decision-making that led to the building of the current, Georgian-style stone structure with Palladian windows, completed in 1769.

Located just six miles from Washington, D.C., and settled by many northern colonists, the city’s population was divided in 1861 over secession and many left town when the state of Virginia ultimately voted in favor of it. Confederates occupied the town and the church until silently withdrawing in September 1861 to Centreville, Va. By 1862, the Federals had moved in to occupy the town, the neighboring high grounds at Munson’s and Upton’s Hills, and the church, which was used as a hospital and later a stable.

Confederate Ranger Colonel John S. Mosby reigned terror over the city, conducting raids of it throughout the summer and fall of 1864. In October, his men shot and killed Frank Brooks, a Black member of the highly unusual interracial Falls Church Home Guard, and kidnapped and later killed abolitionist John Read, who is buried in the Falls Church Cemetery. A visit to the church and its cemetery are a must for history enthusiasts on any tour of Falls Church. A half dozen Civil War Trails signs lay mostly within walking distance and will bring you along the city’s journey from sleepy colonial town, through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and to its reemergence as a metropolitan provision for the capital of the United States.

Written in Stone
115 E. Fairfax St.

Several memorial stones lay within the Falls Church Episcopal Church Cemetery to commemorate its history, especially during the Civil War. The New York Memorial Stone commemorates New York soldiers buried in the churchyard, including many who died while camped at nearby Upton’s Hill. Some of their remains have been removed to Arlington National Cemetery or family plots. A separate memorial stone in the graveyard commemorates Union soldiers buried here and another commemorates Confederate soldiers buried here, including several unknown. Two poignant markers lay at the head of the walkway leading to the church, including one for James Wren, who designed the church and one “with gratitude and repentance” to honor “the enslaved people whose skills and labor helped build The Falls Church.”

Fort Taylor Park
15 N. Roosevelt St.

On June 22, 1861, Thaddeus Lowe and 15 men arrived here, at the site of Taylor’s Tavern, with his balloon Enterprise. Earlier that day, Lowe and his team had inflated it at the Washington Gas Works. Over the next three days, Lowe made several tethered ascents, the first aerial reconnaissance in American military history. Over a 34-day period that summer, Lowe made 23 flights from nearby Fort Corcoran and Ball’s Cross Roads (present-day Ballston). These ascents drew the first rifled artillery fire at a balloon from Confederate positions.

Galloway Methodist Church Cemetery
306 Annandale Rd.

In 1867, African Americans built Galloway United Methodist Church and established the historic cemetery here. According to local tradition, before and during the Civil War, enslaved people on the Dulany plantation secretly worshiped in the grove of trees at the center of the cemetery. Those buried here include Harriet and George Brice and Charles Lee, a free man of color, who served in the 10th USCI. A large grave marker notes the burial site of Eliza Hicks Henderson, who escaped bondage after the Battle of Vicksburg in 1863, and walked from Vicksburg to Washington, D.C., to rejoin her family. She concealed her young son, William Henderson, in a trunk.

Cherry Hill Farmhouse 312 Park Ave.

Although soldiers repeatedly overran and raided Cherry Hill Farm during the Civil War, this circa 1845 farmhouse and the 1856 barn behind it survived almost intact. William Blaisdell of Massachusetts paid $4,000 for the 66-acre property in 1856. The migration of Northerners to this area resulted in a populace of mixed loyalties on the eve of the Civil War. Blaisdell and 25 others in the Falls Church District voted against secession in the statewide referendum held on May 23, 1861, while 44 voted in favor. The Blaisdells, like most families in town, felt the effects of both Confederate and Union occupation. Cherry Hill offers free tours of the farmhouse Saturday mornings, April through October, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Private tours can also be scheduled year round. cherryhillfallschurch.org

Northside Social
205 Park Ave.

The original house here, “Cloverdale” has late–18th century roots and once faced the Leesburg & Alexandria Turnpike. It saw its fair share of marauding armies during the Civil War, and by the 20th century the building was home to the American Legion Post 225. After years of neglect, instead of demolition, the structure was adaptively reused into the restaurant and cafe it is today. If you are lucky you can catch one of their afternoon tea events. www.northsidesocialva.com/location/falls-church

This article first appeared in America’s Civil War magazine

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The Texas Civil War Museum in Fort Worth, one of the country’s largest such facilities, will close its doors on December 30. After 16 years of operation, Texas oilman Ray Richey and his wife, Judy, have decided to retire. “It was a hobby that got out of hand,” Richey professed in 2006 when he opened the 15,000-square-foot facility to house his extensive personal artifact collection.

Touted as the largest Civil War Museum west of the Mississippi River, the building has more than 5,000 artifacts on display, valued at $15 million–$20 million. Included are Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s presentation sword, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s saber and personal battle flag, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler’s dress uniform, and Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan’s saber and saddle blanket. The country’s second largest Civil War gun collection is also on display.

The north wall of the exhibit hall features Union artifacts, the south wall Confederate. In addition to the Civil War artifacts, Victorian-era dresses are featured, including one worn by Lady Randolph Spencer Churchill, Winston Churchill’s mother.

The Richey collection will be auctioned off by The Horse Soldier Auctions in Gettysburg, Pa. The Civil War artifacts of the Texas United Daughters of the Confederacy—also displayed at the museum—will be stored at another location, with portions to be occasionally loaned to other museums.

“What a great gift Ray and Judy provided,” says Texas historian Don Frazier. “Ray had an eye for antiques. There’s not another collection like it. It’s the end of an era.” 

This article first appeared in America’s Civil War magazine

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