In his new book Duel in the Deep (Naval Institute Press), author David Sears tells a story that he subtitles “The Hunters, the Hunted, and a High Seas Fight to the Finish.” The central incident is the tale of an outmoded four-stack destroyer, the USS Borie, and its intense fight with the German U-405 on October 31, 1943, a “swashbuckling, no-holds-barred brawl of cannons, machine guns, small arms, and even knives and spent shell casings.” Sears builds up to that that epic struggle by outlining the ebbs and flows of the Battle of the Atlantic, when Germany’s submersible craft attempted to starve Britain into submission and keep the Allies reeling by sinking the ships carrying necessary food and supplies across the Atlantic. In a high-stakes game of technological cat and mouse, both sides attempted to gain the upper hand in the contest with advanced technology and, on the Allied side, intensive codebreaking work.

Sears, who served in the U.S. Navy aboard a destroyer himself, uses diaries, letters, and contemporary newspaper interviews to bring his story to life. In this interview with World War II editor Tom Huntington, Sears talks about his book.

No larger collection of artillery had ever been brought to a war’s battlefields in the Western Hemisphere before the Civil War. More than 200,000 men, trained and educated like no other subset of soldiers in this war of amateurs, handled and operated these big guns.

The story continues that the Civil War changed the standards, rules, and results of artillery use, advancing technological, tactical, and other norms forward from the Napoleonic wars, with their smoothbore guns and inaccurate round shot, toward a present and future determined by rifled guns that could be expected to hit their targets with regularity. Artillery would dominate from here on, and the side that figured out how to use it best would surely be victorious.

Not so fast, says Earl J. Hess. The professor emeritus of history at Lincoln Memorial University and author of 30 books on the Civil War argues in his 2022 study Civil War Field Artillery: Promise and Performance on the Battlefield that these advances were overrated in determining the war’s outcome as well as the proper place of its artillery on the timeline of military history.

Let’s get right to the heart of it: The Civil War is often considered the “first modern war.” You argue that it was mostly a traditional one. Please explain. 

Anyone who views the Civil War as the first modern war has a very hard case to prove. In my view it overwhelmingly was closer to warfare during the Napoleonic era 50 years before than to World War I 50 years later. A Napoleonic soldier would have been quite comfortable on a Civil War battlefield, while a Civil War soldier would have been stunned by the battlefield created by the Great War of 1914–18. 

In light of that, what were the differences between the artillery forces of previous wars and those of the Civil War? 

Civil War artillery saw only relatively slight improvement over that used in the Napoleonic era. The biggest difference was rifling, which applied to only about half the pieces used during the Civil War. Yet, because mostly of problems with igniting long-range ordnance and problems with seeing targets at great distances, there is no proof that rifled artillery produced any noticeable results on Civil War battlefields other than the odd long-range shot that hit its target because the gun crew happened to be particularly good. 

What were the main improvements over the past? 

Another difference between Civil War artillery and that of previous decades was adding heavier ordnance to the mix. Six-pounders were phased out during the first half of the Civil War in favor of 10-pounders and 12-pounders. Also, the trend was toward eliminating all decorations and handles on the artillery tube because they caused weak points that could not resist the stress of firing as well. Sleek-looking designs, heavier ordnance, and lighter pieces for easier moving around were the trends evident by the 1850s and 1860s. All this amounts to an improvement on the age-old system of artillery, but not a revolutionary break from it. 

What were the greatest disappointments of Civil War artillery? 

Probably the greatest disappointment was the failure of rifled pieces to prove their worth on the battlefield. Their limitations became apparent to many. That is why about half the pieces used by both sides during the war still were smoothbore. Many gunners were convinced they were at least as good as the new rifles, or better. 

How much did the improvements and disappointments have to do with winning and losing the war? 

Civil War artillery failed to achieve more than a supporting role to infantry. It did not come to dominate the battlefield as would happen along the Western Front during World War I. Even in static campaigns like that at Petersburg, and despite the heavy concentration of artillery pieces along the 35-mile-long trench system at Petersburg and Richmond, the guns failed to provide a campaign-winning edge for either side. That does not mean they were unimportant, by any means. They could and did on occasion elevate their role on the battlefield to something like a decisive edge under the right circumstances. One could argue that Union guns did so on January 2, 1863, at Stones River, and Confederate guns did so at the Hornet’s Nest at Shiloh, for example. But far more common was their accomplishment in helping infantry hold a position, a much less prominent, though important, role. 

One of the issues you cover in your book is the conflict over control of the artillery between the artillery itself and the infantry. How important was that, and how did it resolve? 

Artillery was a supporting arm of the infantry, and to a lesser extent of the cavalry. It did not have the ability to operate independently, always needing support from foot or mounted troops. That is one of the reasons army culture considered it best to vest infantry commanders with the authority to command artillery. Batteries were assigned to infantry brigades and were under the infantry brigade commander’s orders and relied on his infantry brigade staff for their supplies as well. 

Some artillery officers complained of this arrangement for several reasons. The most prominent one was that it inhibited the concentration of artillery on the battlefield and thus robbed it of its potential to play a decisive role in combat. But more importantly, they complained that infantry brigade staff simply did not know how to supply batteries very well. Another important reason for their complaint was that dispersing the batteries to infantry units greatly limited advancement for artillery officers, most of whom could look forward to holding nothing higher than a captaincy of a battery. 

While historians have widely accepted the opinion of artillery officers without question, I argue that their complaint has only limited validity. The complaint about the inability to concentrate the guns to play a prominent role on the battlefield does not hold water. The most visible concentrations of guns, at Shiloh and Stones River, took place in armies that practiced dispersion of batteries to infantry brigades. The system was flexible. If infantry officers wanted to, they had no difficulty concentrating batteries for a specific job on the battlefield.

There must have been something to their complaints…

Their complaints were quite valid when it came to administrative control, rather than battlefield control. They needed their own staff to supply the batteries and to constantly train the men. 

By the midpoint of the Civil War, the major field armies of both sides began to group field artillery into units of their own, called artillery brigades in some armies and artillery battalions in others. Between battles, these units were under the control of an artillery officer appointed to his position, and he was responsible for supply and training. But during a battle, control of those units reverted to infantry commanders at the division or corps levels. This was not everything the artillery officers wanted, but it was more than they ever had before in American military history. Moreover, it essentially was the system used during the 20th century wars as well.

In the Civil War this arrangement improved the administration and upkeep of the artillery force, but it did not noticeably improve its battlefield performance, which was as good early in the war as it was later in the conflict. Even though some infantry officers foolishly ordered the guns about even though they knew nothing about how to use them, an equal number were keen students of artillery practice and could use the guns well on the battlefield.

There was a third group of infantry officers who knew little if anything about how to use artillery but were wise enough to allow their battery commanders a completely free hand in operating under fire. In other words, there is not such a clear-cut difference between the dispersion policy of 1861–62 and the concentration policy of 1863–65.

How should we think of the Civil War as it occupies the space between Napoleonic warfare and World War I? 

I do not see the Civil War as a transitional conflict between the Napoleonic wars and World War I so much as a minor variation on the Napoleonic model. The things that made the Great War the first truly modern conflict were largely or wholly absent in the Civil War. If that is transition, then one could say there was a huge leap across a big chasm between 1865 and 1914, but an easy step back from 1861 to 1815.

this article first appeared in civil war times magazine

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Who says living in the past doesn’t pay? Doug Hansen has turned a youthful passion for old-world craftsmanship into an internationally renowned business still rooted on family land in Letcher, S.D. Hansen Wheel & Wagon Shop has restored and built wagons and stagecoaches for museums, theme parks, film and TV productions, collectors, reenactors and people who just plain like to travel by wagon. Working in new and old buildings—the shop’s finishing area is in a former railroad depot—the Hansen team has built wagons and camp gear for such popular productions as Dances With Wolves and 1883, as well as the forthcoming Kevin Costner film Horizons. Hansen has also worked on stagecoaches and wagons for Wells Fargo, Disney, Knotts Berry Farm and Budweiser’s signature Clydesdales. Word has certainly gotten out, as the shop’s history-minded customers include clients in France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Japan and Taiwan—anywhere people celebrate the heritage of fine craftsmanship. 

What inspired you to work on wagons? 

My family gets a lot of credit, because my dad had a nice shop, my mom had a leather shop, and we had horses. My mother is a saddlemaker. My grandfather was a teamster and had worked in his uncle’s blacksmith shop. I was intrigued with old-world craftsmanship as a kid. A wheel needed restoration, so I undertook that. Pretty soon my mother was buying buggies at antique auctions, and I restored them. All of a sudden my hobby got out of control, and I made it a business. We are building those vehicles I’m passionate about. 

Would you rather restore/rebuild or start from scratch? 

When doing restoration, you’re usually just cleaning up, profiling. But in a replication, you have to build everything, and there are specific hardwoods for different components. A spoke is hickory. A felloe [rim] is white oak. The hub is elm. A reach [bearing shaft] is hickory. All your panel wood is yellow poplar. One of the challenges is finding the stock. In today’s hardwood industry most stock is used for kitchen cabinets and furniture. It’s thinner stock. The wagon industry no longer exists, so the heavy stock and specific species are harder to find. We often find we have to custom saw and custom dry, and it’s a long-drawn-out process.

Building a replica is a lot like being a sculptor. You have to rely on your eye and your hand to recreate that. You are sculpting a horse-drawn vehicle, be it a buckboard or a stagecoach. You are sculpting thousands of components. That historical accuracy of the horse-drawn era is form over function. They have to look good. They have to work. 

What type of vehicle do you most like to restore?

The stagecoach is my passion. It is the most complex. The leather thoroughbraces, the pumpkin-shaped vehicle—it is a complex vehicle of industry and artistry. My aptitude is the mechanical, the engineering, and then the artsy side of it. I can easily comprehend the engineering, and I appreciate the design. Like any historical trade, it takes a certain amount of time to understand. You have to get it right historically. It’s not your design; you are replicating a period.  

How do you define your role?

I’m the visionary. I carry chalk in my pocket, and I draw pictures on the ground or a bench, then work with the actual sculptor, the craftsman. 

How do you find or train employees?

It’s not our equipment that builds wagons—we don’t have cookie cutters. It’s our craftsmen, their dedication, skill and passion. All of them have aptitude. Nobody comes aboard as a wainwright or a wheelwright. We bring them on, train them, immerse them in our world. We work as a team—wheelwright, wainwright, blacksmith, coach maker, painter, trimmer and ornamentor. We take wood, iron, pigments, textiles and leather, and poof! you have a vehicle. One day you roll it out, critique it and say, “What can we do better next time?” We strive to be as proficient as the men back in the 1800s. They had all the knowledge. We’re still uncovering lost knowledge. We will never fully understand the process. 

What historical insights have you gleaned?

There’s a difference between a historian who lives it and one who writes it. I can read about a vehicle, I can look at it, but I don’t understand it as much as when I build it and drive it. 

How do you differ from period Old West craftsmen? 

They were forward engineering to meet a need. We are reverse engineering. What we do is a little bit like archaeology. We need to uncover tidbits of information as well as the obstacles. America was built by the teamsters who had the fortitude, ingenuity and desire to get past obstacles. 

Have any projects left you wondering, Why did I agree to do this one?

Can of worms projects we didn’t mean to put that much money into. We try to figure out in advance, Will this be too complex? Then you open the can of worms. All things are obtainable, but not always obtainable by the budget. 

Do any projects stand out?

I enjoy doing conservation and restoration. We’ve learned so much from vehicles with historical content. Now we understand the design, textiles, leathers, pigments and the engineering specifics of the wood species. There’s so much information when you get a historic vehicle like the last stagecoach we worked on, from Annisquam, Ma. It’s like opening a volume of encyclopedias.

The best museum projects would have to be the Oregon Trail replicas we’ve built. It’s an obscure wagon. There were thousands of them, but the emigrants used them up like old trucks. Those are fun. We’ve built covered wagons for trail interpretive centers across the West. Other vehicles that come to mind are the stagecoaches. We’ve restored Wells Fargo coaches that had original content in them—signatures, dates. We even found an upholsterer’s tool. They’re all fascinating. 

this article first appeared in wild west magazine

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Monica Mohindra On July 27, 1953, the Korean War ended with an armistice but no official treaty, technically meaning a state of war still exists between the combatant nations. Among the multinational participants in that significant flare-up in the Cold War were nearly 7 million U.S. military service personnel, of whom more than 1 million are still living. The 70th anniversary of the armistice spurred the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project to redouble its efforts to record for posterity the memories of those participants while it still can. Military History recently interviewed Veterans History Project director Monica Mohindra about its collection, the pressure of time and ongoing initiatives to honor veterans of that “Forgotten War” and all other American conflicts.

What is the central mission of the Veterans History Project?

Our mission is to collect, preserve and make accessible the first-person remembrances of U.S. veterans who served from World War I through the more recent conflicts. We want all stories, not just those from the foxhole or the battlefronts, but from all veterans who served the United States in uniform. The idea, developed by Congress in October 2000, was to ensure we would all be able to hear directly from veterans about their lived experience, their service, their sacrifice and what they felt on a human scale about their participation in service and/or conflict.  

Is your recent emphasis on the ‘forgotten’ Korean War mainly due to the anniversary?

Correct. But there is so much to share from the history of the Korean War that is relevant. We’re also marking the 75th anniversary of the desegregation of the U.S. military, and researchers have been using our collections to understand, for instance, nurses’ perspectives on what it was like to serve in a desegregated military. Our collection speaks to what it was like prior to and after desegregation.  

To what extent do memories tied to both anniversaries overlap?

One of the real strengths of the Veterans History Project, and of oral history projects in general, is that one can pull generalized opinions from a multiplicity of voices. For example, there’s a story about a veteran named James Allen who “escaped” racially charged Florida to join the military. Serving in Korea in various administrative tasks, he experienced a taste of what life could be like under desegregation. When he returned to the United States, he moved back to Florida, the very place he’d escaped, to help veterans and advance such notions.  

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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You’re the spouse of a Navy veteran. Does that shape your perspective on history overall and the project you’ve taken up?

It absolutely adds another layer to the Veterans History Project and what it means on a human scale. This is personal. My husband’s experience, just like each veteran’s, is unique. He’s not ready to share his story—maybe not with me ever. His father, who also served, is not ready to share his story—maybe not with me, maybe not ever. Both of his grandfathers served. My grandfather served, too. So, I feel a personal imperative to help those veterans who are ready to share their stories.

It’s that seriousness of purpose, to create a private resource for future use, the Veterans History Project offers individuals around the country. We already have more than 115,000 such individual perspectives, and that gives us the opportunity to share the wealth of these collections.  

How does the project handle contributions?

Individuals may want to start by conversing with the veterans in their lives or by finding the collection of a veteran.  

To what use does the project put such memories?

People use the Veterans History Project—often online and sometimes in person here at the Folklife Center Reading Room—for a variety of reasons. More than 70 percent of our materials (letters, photographs, audio and video interviews, etc.) are digitized, and more than 3 million annual visitors come to the website. They’re using our materials for everything from school projects to enlivening curricula. Recently researchers have conducted postdoctoral research on desegregation during the Korean War. The project is also useful for beginning deeper conversations among friends and family members.

In this time of AI [artificial intelligence], the collection is a primary resource from those who had the lived experience. What did they hear? What did they see? How did they keep in touch with loved ones? These are the kind of questions we pose.  

What was unique about the Korean War experience?

Perhaps the extraordinary scope of injuries service members suffered because of the cold. Consider the Borinqueneers [65th U.S. Infantry Regiment], out of Puerto Rico, many of whom had never seen snow. On crossing the seas, they arrived in these extreme conditions, and it’s all so foreign. They received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2014, and we are fortunate to have memories from 20 Borinqueneers in our collection.  

Recently, the last American fighter ace of the Korean War died. Are you concerned about the time constraints you face?

Yes. The weight of that actuarial reality was quite heavy on World War I veterans. We had the pleasure to work with Frank Buckles [see “Frank Buckles, 110, Last of the Doughboys,” by David Lauterborn, on HistoryNet.com] several times, and he became sort of an emblem of his cohort, if you will. That was a heavy weight on him, one that he did not shy from.

The burden now is on people like me, you, your readers, to make sure we do sit down with the veterans in our lives. We want people 15 and up to think about doing that.  

What about the memories of U.N. personnel from other nations who served in Korea?

The legislation for the Veterans History Project is very clear. It limits our mission to those who served the U.S. military in uniform. That does include commissioned officers of the U.S. Public Health Service, an often forgotten uniformed service. We cannot accept the collections of Allies who served alongside U.S. troops. However, we do collaborate with other organizations within our sphere. For instance, in cooperation with the Korean Library Association we held an adjunct activity at the Library of Congress, a two-day symposium.  

Do you accept contributions from Gold Star families?

We do. The legislation for the Veterans History Project was amended in 2016 with a new piece of legislation called the Gold Star Families Voices Act. Before that we accepted collections of certain deceased members, including photographs or a journal, diary or unpublished memoir that could capture the first-person perspective.

However, the 2016 legislation put a fine point on a definition for Gold Star families to contribute. Under the Gold Star Family Voices Act, those participating as either interviewers or interviewees must be 18 or older, as one is speaking about a situation that involves trauma. Our definition calls for collections of 10 or more photographs or 20 or more pages of letters or a journal or unpublished memoir. The other way to start a collection is to submit 30 or more minutes of audio or video interviews. This enables us to gain a full perspective of a veterans’ experience, whether they are living or deceased.  

Where can an interested veteran or family member get more information?

There is all sorts of information on our website [loc.gov/vets]. They should also feel free to come to our information center at the Library of Congress [101 Independence Ave. SW, Washington, D.C.], with extended hours on Thursdays until 8 p.m.

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

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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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Soon-to-be centenarian John G. (“Brad”) Bradley Jr. grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, where his dad patented a welding technique for assembling Royal Typewriter Company portable typewriters. During World II, as John Sr. redirected his expertise to weld steel frames for U.S. Army troop transport gliders, Brad became a U.S. Navy aviator. On May 5, 1945, just three days shy of V-E day, Bradley was piloting his Grumman Avenger torpedo-bomber on a training mission off the coast of Rhode Island when he spotted—and promptly reported—a German U-boat. Brad is still haunted by what followed.

What was growing up in Hartford like?  Were you an athlete? 

As a freshman at Bulk High [Morgan Gardner Bulkeley High School], I broke the school record in the mile in my second meet. They nicknamed me “Legs Bradley.” 

When and how did you join the Navy? 

In 1942. I was trying to become a V-5 Aviation Cadet. A sailor gave me the exam at the post office in Hartford. Those were pretty tough questions, but he said, “You passed everything fine.”  I waited, that was the summer of ’42. And then I received orders to go to 120 Broadway, the Equitable Life Building in New York City. And sitting behind the desk was a naval officer. He was from a family we knew. And he said, “How’s your mom and dad, your brother?” I about fell over. He told me, “We want you mentally and physically fit, but we have to have a good character as well. I don’t have to ask you much about your character.”

Is that when you were sworn in?

December 12, 1942. I learned later that future president George [H.W.] Bush was sworn in the 12th of December 1942 on Lower Broadway. There were only a dozen of us that day, so he must have been there. He and I were sworn in together, and I didn’t realize it.

When did you first get a chance to fly? 

After I went through pre-flight. In Texas I learned to fly the Taylorcraft, a little single-engine plane; instead of a stick to fly it, it was a wheel. Next I had to go to the naval air station north of Memphis. That’s when I flew the biplane [the N3N, nicknamed the “Yellow Peril” because of its paint scheme and its use by student pilots]. Oh, I love that plane. Flying came easy to me. I got my wings in October ’44. They sent me [next] to Pensacola to get checked out in the Texan, the SNJ. 

Then you qualified to fly the Avenger torpedo-bomber in Fort Lauderdale. 

A very forgiving airplane.

What was the next destination?

Norfolk, Virginia, assigned to a composite training squadron, VC-15. In May 1945, the Avenger component, maybe four or five TBFs, went up to the Naval Air Station in Quonset Point, Rhode Island.

Your plane had a regular crew.

Yeah, a radioman and a gunner. My radioman was from Philadelphia. The gunner was a boy from Atlanta. He was a nut, had tattoos on his chest. A tattoo over one nipple said “sour.” And the other one had a tattoo saying “sweet.”

But you didn’t fly with either of them on May 5.

One night after reaching Quonset we went to Providence. One of the guys knew the night watchman at a brewery there. He said: “Listen, if we promise not to make noise, the watchman will let us have free ale.” Clifford Brinson [another pilot’s radioman] didn’t drink, and I didn’t drink. At 3:30 in the morning, we finally took a cab back to Quonset Point. And when it came time for assignments, we were the only two not hungover. So, Brinson wound up as my crewman. Just he and I took off from Quonset. 

What was your mission?

We were going to be a “target” for submarines out of Groton, Connecticut. To train their lookouts to spot aircraft. But the weather was spotty. Scuddy, low clouds and patchy fog. So, our submarine blinkered: returning to port. We made a wide turn south of Westerly, Rhode Island, heading to Block Island. And Brinson said, “Mr. Bradley, I can’t believe there’s a submarine on the surface, just east of Montauk Point [Long Island].” It was about 10:15 a.m. when we spotted it. There was a navigation buoy southwest of Block Island. I estimated him doing about 10 knots heading for that buoy. But what were we gonna do? And I said, “Let’s hope he doesn’t see us. We don’t have anything but fuel in our tank. Let’s get back to Quonset.” 

What happened after you landed?

We went immediately to the base administration building. And there was a lieutenant commander who debriefed us in a separate room outside the base admiral’s office. He must have asked us the same questions over and over for about three hours. He kept running back and forth, back and forth to the admiral’s office. “You sure? You sure?”  And we said, “We know what we saw from what they taught us in the recognition courses.” Recognition of not just the enemy ships, but all foreign ships and planes.

It was foggy by the time they finished debriefing and we were excused. Since my hometown was Hartford, I drove back there and spent the night at my home.

Subsequent events indicate that the German U-boat you and Brinson spotted was U-853. About seven hours later, U-853 torpedoed and sank Black Point,a coal freighter, north of Block Island—the last U.S. merchant vessel sunk by a German U-boat. When did you first learn of it?     

That evening. I loved going dancing, so I went to the Knights of Columbus in downtown Hartford. And during intermission of the dance, I went outside. The Hartford Times newspaper building was right next door. And the newsboys were running out the front door with their newspapers. “Extra, extra, German submarine sinks coal vessel. 12 lives were lost.” I remember standing there and I shook my head. At first I said to myself, “Oh my God, there goes my Air Medal.” Then I realized, “This isn’t funny. 12 lives were lost.”

Hours after Black Point sank, U-853 was cornered and sunk by U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships. The sighting you made could possibly have changed history. After you returned to Quonset from Hartford, was there any feedback or follow-up on what you’d reported?

No, I was a youngster, 21 years old. And you’re always taking orders and you’re not much in command of anything. My God, if I were more senior or more mature, I would’ve really gone on after that.

this article first appeared in world war II magazine

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One of the nation’s foremost authorities on firepower and land warfare, Robert H. Scales retired from the Army in 2001 after more than three decades in uniform, much of it influenced by his service in Vietnam. A 1966 graduate of the United States Military Academy, Scales initially served in Germany before joining the 2nd Battalion, 319th Artillery in Vietnam. Scales commanded a howitzer battery in the battalion and earned a Silver Star in 1969. He would later lead artillery units in Korea, command the Field Artillery Center at Fort Sill, and serve as the Commandant of the U.S. Army War College.

Scales holds a doctorate in history from Duke University and has written a number of critically acclaimed books, including Firepower in Limited War, Certain Victory, and Yellow Smoke: The Future of Land Warfare for America’s Military. In an interview with Vietnam contributor Warren Wilkins, he discusses his experiences in Vietnam, the role of firepower in that conflict, and the defining characteristics of American war-making.

On the night of June 14, 1969, you were in command of a 105mm howitzer battery at Firebase Berchtesgaden, located on a hill on the eastern side of the A Shau Valley, when a force of approximately 100 North Vietnamese sappers attacked the base. You received a Silver Star for your actions during the battle. Tell us about that night.

My four guns and two 155mm howitzers were clustered together on this mountaintop. In May 1969, the NVA [North Vietnamese Army] attacked my sister battalion on Firebase Airborne. They destroyed guns, killed 13 soldiers, and completely eviscerated that unit. One month later, they attacked us. They attacked early in the morning, and the hole that I lived in was right on the edge of the perimeter. My battery was the first thing they attacked. The goddamn infantry that protected us had decided that they were going to be in charge of illumination. The key to defeating a night attack is illumination. So the infantry said that they would handle it, but I didn’t believe them. If you look at Berchtesgaden on Google, you will see this one lone gun at the very top of the firebase with the tube sticking up almost vertically. Well, that was my gun. I kept that gun at 1100 mils [milliradians], one-and-a-half second delay on an illumination round, pointed straight up.

We got involved in this horrendous fight, and I had to get to that gun because the infantry never fired a round of illumination. The first sergeant and I fought like hell to get to that damn gun. Finally we got to it, and I pulled the lanyard. When that illumination round went off, it changed the whole complexion of the battle. All of the sudden, the light went on and the troops started killing those guys. They [the NVA] were literally caught in the open. We fought like hell, beat them back, and killed a whole bunch of them. Our main mission as artillerymen was to shoot artillery, but an equally important mission for young gunners is to be able to defend your position. That was a lesson I learned.

Prior to the sapper attack, your battery had provided artillery support for the 101st Airborne Division during the battle for Hill 937, better known as “Hamburger Hill.” How did the employment of artillery in Vietnam compare to other American wars?

You can almost draw a graph, starting with the 25th Infantry Division at Guadalcanal, that traces the density of supporting fires dedicated to the maneuver mission up through the Pacific battles, the Battle of the Bulge and the push into Germany, and then forward to Korea. That graph or curve goes way up in terms of the ratio of firepower expended versus the maneuver forces employed. Entire ships full of ammunition were expended in 1951-52 to preserve American lives.

By the time we got to Vietnam, this idea of trading firepower for manpower really started to take hold. So when I was there, no infantry unit was allowed to maneuver outside the artillery fan. The infantry in Vietnam would literally maneuver by fire. Artillery was also used as a navigation aid, to recon by fire and clear the way as units moved through the jungle, and to fire defensive concentrations.

Speaking of “Hamburger Hill,” you’ve noted that your battery hammered that hill with thousands of 105mm rounds, air strikes blasted its slopes and summit, and yet the enemy continued to fight. Did this cause you to reconsider the efficacy of firepower on the battlefield?

When I was at Berchtesgaden, I was higher than Hamburger Hill and could look down on it through my scope. By the time our infantry had conducted their fifth or sixth assault, the top of that mountain was completely denuded. I would sit there with my scope, and we’d fire and fire and fire. If our troops got down, behind a log or something, we could shoot within 40 meters [of them] if we were very careful.

I would look through that scope, and as soon as we lifted our fires, I could see those little guys [the NVA] come out from those underground bunkers and take up positions and start shooting back. I remember saying to myself—and this has been kind of a thesis of all the books I’ve written about firepower—that firepower has a limitation. We saw this in the First World War when artillery was shocking to both sides early in the war. By 1917, there were images of the British “Tommy” [soldier] brewing tea in the middle of a barrage.

In the age of “imprecision”—before what we now call “precision” munitions—the primary impact of artillery was psychological and not physical. It’s what’s called the palliative effect of artillery. By the time I got to Vietnam [in 1968] the psychological effects of artillery had dropped off considerably, and the enemy was no longer as intimidated by our killing power as he was in 1965. Two things always amazed me about artillery—one is the enormous pyrotechnic effect of artillery going off over the enemy, and the other is the remarkably few enemy it actually kills.

So from my experience at Hamburger Hill, I learned that there is a crossover point in the use of artillery and firepower at which its ability to influence the maneuver battle diminishes considerably. If a soldier is warm and protected—in other words, if he’s down or better yet under cover—it takes an awful lot of rounds to kill him. And no matter how much artillery and firepower you pile onto that—again I’m talking about “dumb” artillery and “dumb” firepower—its ability to influence the battle diminishes with time. That was reinforced in Korea and Vietnam.

The U.S. military—particularly the Army—clearly favored firepower over maneuver in Vietnam. Was this emphasis on firepower unique to that conflict, or was it merely a reflection of what some have called the “American way of war”?

We do emphasize firepower, but the Russians do the same. Although the Russians are far more willing to sacrifice human lives than we are, they have a very similar doctrine…. In Vietnam it was a career ender if your maneuver force was caught outside the reach of your artillery. And that psychology continued all the way into Desert Storm. As late as Desert Storm, one of the cardinal tenets of the American way of war was to never exceed the limits of your artillery.

The American army was caught in a dilemma in Vietnam. We had reached the limit, before the point where we could achieve our maneuver objectives, when artillery was no longer all that helpful. So what do you do? Do you start expending more human lives to achieve your objectives because you are no longer protected by firepower? Or do you fall back under the protective arcs of your artillery and refuse to maneuver beyond that and give the enemy the advantage? And until the “precision” revolution in 1972, that’s sort of where we were.

In retrospect, do you believe that a firepower-first approach in Vietnam was justified, given the operating environment and the existing political climate, or do you agree with critics who argue that the military’s overreliance on heavy supporting fires undermined American pacification efforts and failed to address the true nature of the enemy threat?

I argue in my book [Firepower in Limited War] that in a counter-insurgency campaign, firepower has its limits. But I failed to mention the psychological impact of firepower on the civilian population and the deadening effect it has on the innocent. That is particularly important when you’re fighting a war seeking popular support. So the presence of innocents on the battlefield greatly diminishes your ability to apply overwhelming firepower. The second thing we learned in Vietnam was that, after a while, firepower becomes an inhibitor rather than a facilitator of your ability to maneuver. So the days of using light infantry as a find, fix, and finish force were greatly diminished because of its inability to move outside the arc of artillery.

The Army was on the horns of a dilemma. The center of gravity of the American military in Vietnam was dead Americans, and the NVA knew it. In World War II, Col. [Hiromichi] Yahara, who served with the Japanese army on Okinawa, wrote a series of missives in which he said, essentially, the only way you can beat America is to kill Americans. We lost in Vietnam not because we were not able to defeat the enemy in battle, or that we had too little or too much firepower, but because too many Americans died and we tired of it first, just as Ho Chi Minh predicted the French would do before us. The only way to save lives in the close fight in Vietnam was through the use of protective fires. But firepower became a millstone around our necks in terms of our ability to maneuver. It also had a debilitating effect on our ability to maintain the “hearts and minds” of the people.

So we reached a plateau in our use of firepower, beyond which we could not go, and for which we had no alternative by 1970. Anytime you put maneuver forces forward in close contact with the enemy, soldiers are going to die. Yet we got to a point by 1970-71 where, anytime an American soldier died, it would end up on the front page of the New York Times. So you have two choices to keep those soldiers safe: lock them in firebases and let the enemy run amok in the countryside and control the population, or put them out there under the protective umbrella of firepower but greatly limit their ability to maneuver. It was that juxtaposition between keeping soldiers safe—our vulnerable center of gravity—or being able to maneuver and control territory, and we were never able to reconcile that.

The traditional role of the infantry has always been to close with and destroy the enemy. American infantry units in Vietnam, however, typically sought to find the enemy so that firepower could destroy him. Did this change in tactics occur organically within individual platoons and companies in the field, or was it mandated by some higher headquarters and then codified by formal regulations?

Actually, it was both. One of the amazing things about the American way of war—and we saw this in World War II, particularly as American soldiers became more literate and as the American army became more egalitarian—is that tactical innovation in the American army, beginning in North Africa, really came from the bottom up, not the top down. That’s different than the Russian army, which is ruled by norms driven by the general staff. The American soldier, when he learns something that will keep him alive, will embrace it and proliferate it very quickly. You build a firepower system around what the soldiers are telling you makes it most effective.

In his book Firepower in Limited War, Scales examines the advantages and limitations of firepower by analyzing its effects in several pivotal recent conflicts. The book was placed on the Marine Corps Commandant’s Reading List.

Part of the reason that we rely so heavily on the artillery was that the revolution at Fort Sill [home of U.S. field artillery] was such that we came up with by far the best artillery firepower system in the world. We just were never really able to embed it into the Army’s system until our experiences in North Africa taught us how to do it and how to provide close support. But we just hit the wall in terms of our ability to do that, because the enemy has a vote.

What did the Japanese do at Okinawa? What did the Chinese and North Koreans do? What did the NVA do? They learned how to effectively counter American firepower dominance by maneuvering outside of the [firepower] range fan, hugging maneuver units so that they couldn’t bring in heavy close supporting fires, using camouflage, and going to ground.

To reduce the destructive effects of American firepower, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese would frequently “hug” American infantry units in battle. How effective was that tactic?

It was very effective. I saw that firsthand. They were literally willing to die under our artillery fan to stay in their holes, frankly longer than we ever would, in order to continue to kill us. Remember, their purpose was not to hold ground. Their purpose was to kill us.

Gen. Vuong Thua Vu, former deputy chief of the North Vietnamese Army General Staff, characterized the American practice of generating contact with enemy troops and then calling in artillery and air strikes to destroy them as an “outmoded fighting method of a cowardly but aggressive army.” Similarly, some of our Australian and South Korean allies have suggested that the American infantryman, while certainly not “cowardly,” nevertheless relied too much on firepower. How did American soldiers and Marines perform in infantry combat?

For a drafted army and to some extent a [drafted] Marine Corps, they performed remarkably well. Whenever the U.S. Army got involved in what [retired Marine Corps general and former U.S. Secretary of Defense] Jim Mattis and I call “intimate killing,” they did it remarkably well, considering what was at stake. The critics have this wrong, because I suspect if you were South Korean, or Australian, or whomever and had that firepower available to you, you would fight precisely the same way. The problem is that you want to avoid intimate killing, and in that sense the American army had it right. But the limits of technology precluded the American army from avoiding intimate contact without the cost of logistics being so great that it was no longer effective.

So I have no problem whatsoever with the tactics that the American close combat forces used in Vietnam. My critique has always been with the firepower system that supported them. I have no problem whatsoever with finding, fixing, and finishing—the three words we used to describe Vietnam combat. I do have a problem with the technology that we used in our firepower system to do the finishing part. It was always inefficient, logistically burdensome, and reached a point of diminishing returns. What the “precision” revolution has allowed us to do is reverse that.

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

this article first appeared in vietnam magazine

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James M. Fenelon’s second book is “Angels Against the Sun: A WWII Saga of Grunts, Grit, and Brotherhood.” It tells the story of the 11th Airborne Division. Nicknamed the “Angels,” it was the only airborne division the United States sent to the Pacific Theater, but ironically it fought largely as infantry as it battled its way through the Philippines and participated in the bloody battle for Manila. Fenelon is a former paratrooper himself, have served for 12 years in the military, and he is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Airborne, Jumpmaster, and Pathfinder schools. His first book was “Four Hours of Fury,” an account of the U.S. 17th Airborne Division and its combat jump over the Rhine River in March 1945.

In this interview, Fenelon talks to World War II magazine editor Tom Huntington about “Angels Against the Sun.”

Growing up as the son of a history teacher in western Maryland, near Fort Frederick and Antietam National Battlefield, Danny Michael took a natural interest in history. But it was during an internship at the Frazier History Museum, in Louisville, Ken. (known for its firearms exhibit), while attending graduate school at the University of Louisville, that he experienced “a lightbulb moment that firearms history could be a career.” He joined the Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West as assistant curator in 2016 before being promoted to Robert W. Woodruff curator in 2020. Michael recently took time to speak with Wild West about the museum and some of his favorite firearms on display.

How did you get interested in firearms?

We had firearms in the family growing up, so they were always around to some degree. For a while an after-school hobby was target shooting a box or two of .22 through a Remington 572. I didn’t get into old guns until later, after shooting with a friend that had a collection of military rifles and then a graduation gift of a Mosin carbine.

How did the Cody Firearms Museum come to be?

I like to trace the roots of the CFM all the way to Oliver Winchester. He had a personal collection dating to at least 1871 and probably older. Eventually the Winchester company had a large refence collection, and by the 20th century it numbered in the thousands. In the late ’40s Winchester hired their first dedicated firearms curator and then later opened a museum at the factory in 1959. After a few years they decided it needed a non-factory home, and the Center of the West here in Cody was on the short list. They loaned the collection in 1976, and it was displayed as the Winchester Arms Museum until they donated it in 1988. That’s when it got its own wing of the center and opened in 1991.

At the time Bill Ruger was on the board and recognized that the collection wasn’t just about Winchester history, but about the full story of firearms. During a board meeting he colorfully offered $1 million on the spot to change the name to “anything but a firearms manufacturer.” Then we became the Cody Firearms Museum. Today naming rights are more than $1 million if anyone is interested.

For anyone who hasn’t visited in a few years, what has changed since the 2019 renovation?

Our goal with the renovation was to make firearms history more accessible to a broad audience. The prior installation was innovative for its day but starting to show its age. And it assumed a lot of knowledge on the part of the visitor—i.e., to know that a row of Winchesters is one of a kind, you have to know what a Winchester is, or the difference between an 1866 and 1873, or even what a rifle is.

So, for this installation we really tried to bring all our visitors up to speed on firearms terminology, basics and history. We also organized the galleries more thematically then solely chronologically or by manufacturer. We wanted to highlight not just the technical details but the stories that go along with them. Hopefully, now there is something for every knowledge level, including expert.

The museum has more than 7,000 firearms in its collection. How many are on display?

About 4,200 are on display right now. We rotate individual guns occasionally, especially if we get something new and exciting, like a Pedersen device, which we added to the military gallery last year.…We still have that new museum smell, since we’re only four years removed from the renovation, but we do have a dedicated rotating gallery we change out every 18 to 24 months. 

Most firearms enthusiasts recognize Winchester, Colt, Remington, etc. Are there other manufacturers in the collection that merit attention? 

Yes. Companies like Schuyler, Hartley & Graham, who sold a lot of brand names and surplus firearms to the West. Spencer stands out to me, since so many of its carbines went west, as does [Hugo] Borchardt. He is known for the [C-93 semiautomatic] pistol, but he spent the first half of his career working at companies like Winchester and Sharps.

Let’s talk about your favorites. What are some standout rifles?

The Burton light machine rifle. It is a Winchester prototype from about 1916 or ’17 that no one would know existed unless the physical one survived. For whatever reason, Winchester didn’t write much down about it except for some cards for ammo loadings—173 gr .345 bullet over ~18 grs of Dupont Bear powder for the reloaders reading this. The only other note is in an older inventory of the collection that claims the Army tested the gun in 1917. Which is all very odd, considering the rifle is a select-fire, intermediate cartridge gun with twin detachable mags. About 30 years ahead of its time.

Any special shotguns?

My favorite shotgun is a Henry-style lever-action Oliver Winchester had made in Paris in about 1866 while he was traveling in Europe. It has a Damascus barrel, a silver-plated magazine tube—though it has tarnished with age—a case-hardened receiver and aluminum side plates. At the time the cost of aluminum was higher than gold or platinum so it would have been a real showpiece. It’s about 16 gauge and in excellent condition, except for the silver tarnish. It’s also the only shotgun I know of based on the original Henry.

How about handguns?

The Winchester revolvers. Winchester developed several prototype revolvers in the 1870s meant to debut at the centennial world’s fair in Philadelphia. They never entered production, and there are 12 extant today. They have swing-out cylinders—oddly, they open to the right instead of left like most revolvers—and some have automatic ejectors. Really interesting project that never took off. A few years later they hired William Mason from Colt to make another revolver, while Colt started to make lever-action rifles—but Mason’s revolver is mechanically different, really a single-action Army.

What other items in the collection stand out?

The Winchester company archive. Along with the guns, Olin [Corp.] gave the museum the surviving company archive. So, we have documents that go all the way back to the New Haven Arms Co. in the 1860s. We get to learn a lot about the company’s history because of that. We also have the production ledgers, and many people know the museum from looking up their old Winchester. Nowadays we can also do lookups on Savage, Fox, Marlin, LC Smith and Ithacas. Another incredible non-gun is the Winchester stone that hung over the entrance to the company offices at the factory in New Haven. It’s also probably the heaviest artifact in the museum.

How do you set about researching firearms for collectors?

If someone wants to look up their old firearm, check out our records office. We have records from the previously mentioned manufacturers, but owners can find the specific model and date ranges we have available on the website. Those interested can submit an order form through the website or give us a call. There is a cost to get a letter, and the best deal is to become a [Buffalo Bill Center of the West] member. We generally have date of manufacture and original configuration data available, and, depending on make and time frame, we have customer information as well. The customer data is most common with Savage 99s and Ithacas.

Explain your History Unloaded podcast.

That was an idea [former curator] Ashley [Hlebinsky] and I started. We had the thought that we are always talking about the museum field and the artifacts at work, and these discussions might fit well as a podcast. So, we started one. We’ve recorded six seasons so far—one very long one during 2020, as we tried to keep posting for everyone working from home—and it’s mostly us talking about firearms history and the museum field. We’re planning for another season right now. It’s small, but we have fun recording them, and people keep listening.

Are there any items you’d like to add to the collection?

We do have a short list. I’d love to add a Jennings repeater to the collection. Jennings was a predecessor to the Winchester, and there are about eight variations, the rarest being the very first model, the Jennings repeater. They made maybe 12, and the only one I know of is in the Smithsonian. We have the other models and the later Smith-Jennings, so the repeater would be a great gap to fill. I also really want to add a Colt-made 1904 Maxim machine gun. There are photos of the Yellowstone garrison with them back when the Army managed the park prior to the creation of the [National Park Service]. The idea of being on tourist and ranger duty with a 1904-equipped machine gun squad is wild to me. 

What’s next for the museum?

You know we’ve really just gotten started with the renovation. We had a short year in 2019, a tough year in 2021, and the floods in the park hurt visitation for 2022. So, I’d love to have a solid season in the short term. But we’re planning for major storage upgrades to care for the artifacts, and we’re always looking at ways to update and improve the new galleries. Plus, one of these days I really want to do an exhibit of the Winchester Wingo [indoor wing shooting] machine. 

this article first appeared in wild west 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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If Cillian Murphy’s J. Robert Oppenheimer was the anti-hero of director Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves, portrayed by Matt Damon, is his equally controversial counterpart.

Tasked with staffing what would eventually become known as the Manhattan Project, Damon’s character is the dutiful Army servant given the dubious honor of presiding over a team of brilliant scientists who in no way conform to the military’s notions of hierarchy.

“The frustration [for] Groves — what he lived with as a military person — he suddenly finds himself in charge of a bunch of civilians who don’t really recognize the chain of command,” Damon told Military Times.

In a serious film about one of the most devastating weapons ever created, Damon manages to bring a bit of levity via the near-comical level of rigidity with which he portrays Groves.

“I would have played anything that Chris asked me to,” Damon said. “But Groves was really fun because I’d never quite had a role like that. Nobody liked him, which was really fun. And he didn’t care at all, he was just completely focused on what he was doing.”

Damon played off of Murphy’s character particularly well — creating a relationship between Groves and Oppenheimer that, despite tension, facilitates both individuals’ lofty aspirations to get ahead. Despite the arm’s length distance between the duo, the pairing ultimately results in a friendship based on mutual respect.

“They both appreciated each other — they helped each other fulfill each other’s ambitions,” Damon noted. “Each couldn’t have done it without the other. There was a lot of genuine affection there.”

Despite having vastly different backgrounds and personalities, both characters accomplish the unbelievable amid the constant push and pull between the military, which Groves represents, and the enterprising civilian so perfectly illustrated by Oppenheimer.

“[It’s] that tension between the military and the science community, just because the military is just completely obsessed with compartmentalization and secrecy,” Damon noted. “You’re talking about an existential threat to humankind, but the scientists are all about kind of keeping things open and learning from one another. They were philosophically totally opposed, and that led to this kind of natural tension between Groves and everybody else.”

Ultimately, in the film’s following of the development of the atomic bomb, Nolan, Damon noted, developed something more akin to a horror film or psychological thriller.

“I was terrified when I when I got to the last line of the script, and then seeing it in the film,” Damon said. “I’ve been kind of filled with dread.”

Artful anxiety is something that Damon attributes often to the genius of Nolan, who both wrote and directed the film.

“His movies do this really incredible thing where he’s always grappling with these big concepts, but they’re also very intimate,” Damon said. “He always wants to put interesting questions in front of his audience and let them ponder them, but at the same time, they’re not lectures or thought exercises. They’re very emotional movies and they’re very intimate and and so he’s always got these compelling characters.”

Originally published by Military Times, our sister publication.

With her book The Hello Girls and a follow-up documentary film, historian, commentator and author Elizabeth Cobbs set out to recognize the women who served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps’ Female Telephone Operators Unit during World War I. Members of the unit, many of whom worked Stateside as switchboard operators, maintained communications on the Western Front under spartan and sometimes hazardous conditions. Despite having served in uniform, however, the Hello Girls were denied veteran status. Though Congress remedied that in 1977, many of them had died by then. Recently lawmakers introduced legislation to formally honor the unit with the Congressional Gold Medal, presented for distinguished achievements that have had a major impact on American his-tory and culture. Past recipients include notable American warriors and military units. Cobbs recently spoke with Military History about her book and why the Hello Girls are deserving of recognition.

Who were the ‘Hello Girls’?

They were a group of 223 young women—some in their teens, most in their 20s and a few “old women” in their 30s—who volunteered at the request of the U.S. Army to go to France and run the telephone system. This was a daring thing. Most soldiers hadn’t even gone yet. These women were in logistics. The Army needed telephone operators over there before the majority of doughboys. They had to facilitate what was happening at the front, to get supplies, to get troops shipped here and there. Some served as long as two years. These women fielded 26 million calls for the Army in France. A handful traveled with General [John J.] Pershing during the big battles of Meuse-Argonne and Saint-Mihiel. Others served at the headquarters of the American First Army, which was close to the front but not in the war zone. They came from all over—from Washington state, down to Louisiana, up to Maine, even Canada. There were some French-Canadian women who volunteered and served with the U.S. Army.

Many served close to or on the front lines. Were any killed or wounded?

None were killed in action, but some did suffer permanent injuries, mostly from tuberculosis, which was common in northern France. Two died from the influenza pandemic, one on Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918.

The conditions of World War I were pretty difficult, especially related to the weather these women had to endure in fairly exposed accommodations. Some were under bombardment. Some were in buildings where artillery concussions blew out windows. Once, they were told to evacuate but wouldn’t leave until the soldiers had. These women worked around the clock, especially the supervisors. Chief Operator Grace Banker, who led the first unit, recorded in her diary at the start of an offensive, “I slept two hours today.” They were handling incredibly complex logistical problems near the front lines. They got no breaks; they worked seven days a week, 12-hour shifts for several months during the worst part of the American war effort. It was extremely stressful. Some were close enough to the front lines that their switchboards shook during bombardments.

Of course, these women crossed the ocean to get to Europe in the first place. This was a time when troopships were being sunk. All of these women knew about this, and they were constantly told to use their lifejackets as pillows and wear all of their clothes to bed in case they were torpedoed. It was scary.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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What kind of training did they receive?

They went through a very strict recruitment and training. They had to be bilingual in French and English, and many washed out because of that. In fact, 7,600 women applied for the first 100 positions. Many were cut for language reasons, others because they weren’t fast enough on the phone. Once selected, they were vetted extremely carefully, sometimes three and four times, by Army intelligence. These women were literally handling national secrets in the wires they connected. One woman was even pulled off a ship at the last minute, though she turned out to not be the German spy they feared she was.

Once selected, they were trained by AT&T [American Telephone and Telegraph] on the phone system. After that they were sent to New York City, where they were drilled and learned to salute on the rooftop of AT&T headquarters. Once they went to France, the women who were sent toward the front were trained in the use of gas masks and pistols. They wore uniforms and had dog tags; otherwise, they risked being executed as spies if captured. They were told again and again that their uniforms and dog tags were their protection as soldiers of the U.S. Army.

Many were bilingual. How important was that skill?

The first group of 100 female volunteers were all required to be absolutely fluent in French and English. They had these super strict tests, where they had to simultaneously translate and operate a telephone exchange, record everything correctly and communicate accurately under pressure. It’s hard for us to appreciate today how nerve-racking that could be. They were getting hundreds of calls an hour, all of them critically important, truly a matter of life and death. These women felt a great deal of responsibility. They were connecting all kinds of calls, such as between commanders and combat units in the field. There were times when they were even talking with French combat troops. The Army set up its own PBX [private branch exchange] telephone system for communications to and from the front. However, the women often had to connect with French lines and French toll operators. Back then, a toll call would be passed from operator to operator to operator. This was a problem for the American doughboys, who generally did not parlez-vous. Pershing realized he couldn’t get a call to go anywhere, so that’s when they realized they needed people who could do the job and communicate with the Allies at the same time.

Why were women selected as operators?

The Army found it took men 60 seconds on average to connect calls that women connected in 10 seconds. In wartime that was the difference between life and death—for an individual and sometimes for whole battalions. Women were adept at using this technology and had the ability to do it much faster and more reliably than men. They were tested on being able to place calls in two languages, write and convey messages, make life-and-death connections in an instant, all while maintaining their composure and decorum.

Banker received the Distinguished Service Medal. What did she do to earn such recognition?

Chief operator for the Signal Corps, Banker was a remarkable person who was devoted to the American cause during World War I. She led the first female contingent under very challenging and difficult circumstances. At one point she developed a severe allergic rash. A doctor told her she needed to have it taken care of, but she said she didn’t have time. There’s a photo of her in which she looked absolutely terrible. Grace served under the extraordinarily demanding conditions of the Battles of Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne and was recognized for courageous service. In World War I the U.S. Army awarded only 18 Distinguished Service Medals to Signal Corps officers, of whom 16,000 were eligible. All the honorees were listed by rank. She was listed as “Miss,” because she was a [single] woman.

Why did the War Department deny the ‘Hello Girls’ veteran status?

Their commanding officers begged and pleaded with the War Department to recognize these women who had served alongside them, some in very dire circumstances. Around 11,000 women served with the Navy and Marines during World War I, and every one of them got military benefits, including hospitalization for disabilities. They all served at home in the United States. Only the Army sent women across the ocean into harm’s way, and then denied them veteran status. It was so upsetting and maddening for these women. They were told it would lessen the importance of the meaning of “veteran” if they were to grant women this honor. The Army decided early in the war these women would be contract employees. However, they neither told the vast majority of women, nor gave them any to sign. In fact, women took the same soldier’s oath everybody else did. They wore uniforms but were unaware there was a distinction. Many of the women were flabbergasted when they arrived home and found out they weren’t veterans.

Congress finally recognized them as veterans in 1977. How did that come about?

Their recognition came on the same legislation as the WASPs [Women Airforce Service Pilots], introduced by Senator Barry Goldwater. Goldwater had also been a service pilot in World War II and couldn’t believe that women he’d served with, many who wore the same uniform as him, were not being given veteran benefits. At that time the women of World War I came forward and said, “What about us?” The legislation then covered both groups.

Why award the Hello Girls the Congressional Gold Medal after so many decades?

Because it’s a story that was lost. I’ve met so many women in the Army who’ve said they had no idea this is where their story began. Women today represent 15 percent of the armed forces. It’s a very brave act for any woman to join an organization in which she is going to be in the distinct minority and going against gender expectations. It’s important to say we value female veterans as much as we value male veterans. The Congressional Gold Medal would help all Americans better appreciate the women in our armed services. It would help us recognize that what the Hello Girls did was not only physically courageous, but morally courageous—challenging every social convention at the time in order to help our country. It took a very special person to do that. They performed a heroic service.

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

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In the spring of 1945, Wally King was a young lieutenant flying a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt over Germany. During King’s last combat mission, his plane was hit by flak and he bailed out over enemy territory. He survived the last few weeks of World War II in captivity but was able to return home, raise a family, and start a successful career as a CPA, eventually owning one of the largest accounting firms in Pittsburgh. Today, the 99-year-old veteran serves as a volunteer for the Meals on Wheels program, visiting shut-ins and the infirm near his home in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. The active almost-centenarian spoke with World War II about his military career.

How did you end up in the army?

I turned 18 and graduated high school in 1942 in my hometown in Ohio. I went to the recruiting office and said I wanted to be a pilot. He said, “Let me sign you up and then once you’re in the army, you can ask to go for pilot training.”

Well, I didn’t fall for that. So they told me to go to Cleveland to apply for pilot training. I was called up for active duty in January 1943 and went through basic training. 

I trained on P-40s in Tallahassee, Florida. Nice solid airplane, but certainly way behind other aircraft by that time. Then I shipped over to England in 1944 and went to Goxhill airfield on the North Sea to fly the P-51. Probably got about 30 hours in the air there. Then, after D-Day they flew us over to A-1 Airfield behind Utah Beach. I was assigned to the 363rd Fighter Group. 

A few days later, the army deactivated the unit because they needed more photo reconnaissance. We could stay with Mustangs that had cameras in their bellies or transfer to fighter groups, which is what we did. I went to Le Mans and joined the 513th Squadron of the 406th Fighter Group in the Ninth Air Force. The operations officer took me out to a P-47 Thunderbolt for a cockpit check and then told me to fly it. The next day I flew my first combat mission. 

How did the P-47 compare to the P-51?

The Thunderbolt was a totally different airplane than the Mustang. It was much easier to fly. The P-47 was also a better ground-support airplane. It was a very honest fighter that didn’t have any quirky habits and could take a lot of punishment. One time, we hit a German night fighter field. I was flying low and looked over to my wingman, who was going down this concrete runway. I could see this fire on the end of his propeller. He was grinding it on the concrete! About five inches of his blade was gone. I never really had any major damage on the missions that I flew, except for the last one. The P-47 was a durable, tough machine. 

You flew 75 missions during the war. What type of action did you experience?

Most of the time, we would fly along the battlefield and look for enemy vehicles. After the Falaise Gap [in mid-August 1944], the Germans were afraid to move because they would get strafed. We rarely saw vehicles on the road. Never saw many tanks. I did see a couple of Tigers, but we didn’t have anything that would damage them. If they were on a hard surface road, we would strafe the back of it and bounce the bullets up underneath to the fuel tanks. I did that once but can’t say it was effective.

Our targets were mostly marshaling yards, rail traffic, road bridges, and just cutting railroad lines. We’d send one plane down and drop bombs to blow the railroad tracks, then send another one a few miles away to do the same thing.

The most memorable mission was when the Ardennes Offensive began [on December 16, 1944]. Our group provided air cover during the Battle of the Bulge. We hadn’t flown for a week or more until the weather cleared a couple of days before Christmas. Our goal was to quiet the flak before air drops of supplies were made around Bastogne. We couldn’t see anything because of the snow cover, so we bombed, fired rockets, and strafed the woods. Once the C-47 Dakotas pushed out supplies, a whole army of ants appeared out of the white snow. These guys had been dug in and started dragging those supplies into town. 

What other missions did you fly?

Our squadron had the undesirable task of beating up flak before a parachute drop on the Rhine River near Wesel in March 1945. When we saw the line of transport planes coming, we went down to make a strafing pass. As I was coming up, the C-47s had already started dropping their people. A paratrooper went right over my wing! I thought, “This is suicide!” It looked like Dante’s Inferno. These C-47s were burning, they had engines out, paratroopers were being dropped in the river, gliders were crashing and, of course, the air was filled with flak. It looked to me like a colossal failure, but it wasn’t. They got pontoon bridges over the river and the tanks went across. 

Let’s talk about your last mission, which you were told would be your last.

They called for an eight-plane mission on April 18, 1945. I was leading the second flight. I said to the squadron commander, “This is my 75th mission. Don’t you think it’s time to quit?” He said, “Yeah. This is going to be your last mission.” Little did I know!

The army had reached the Elbe River and crossed over just south of Magdeburg. We were looking for targets of opportunity. On our way home, my wingman spotted a cannon on a railroad car and wanted to go after it. So we buzzed down to take a look.

I was pretty low but I wasn’t strafing. All of a sudden, there was a boom. I knew I had been hit in the engine by flak. Soon, fire was coming over the windshield. I looked down at my feet and saw the armor plate in front of the cockpit was melting. I said, “Time to go, Wally!” I was like a cork out of a bottle! The chute opened and I was upside down. I got myself upright and I heard this noise whizzing by. I thought it was bees. It was civilians shooting rifles! I started swaying to make myself a poor target. I drifted over this house into the backyard. I got down and could see the Elbe River. I thought maybe I could float downstream to an American bridge. I’d gone about 100 yards toward the river when this little boy tripped me. Then these guys showed up with rifles. I just put my hands up and surrendered. They took me into the house where a medic started working on me. I had burns on my face, a broken wrist, and a bad ankle.

Then two German soldiers came in. They smashed me across the side with their guns and knocked me off a stool I was sitting on. They hauled me out into the yard where the civilians started beating me. I’m pretty terrified. I am in the toughest situation of my life and I’ve never even thought about God. Once I said that, the most sublime peace settled over me. I felt God had come to take me home. That sense stayed with me for the two weeks I was a prisoner. Whatever happened to me was going to be all right.

The soldiers took me to a bunker, where this big, burly noncom was going to rearrange my teeth. A German officer just shoved him and started screaming. From what I could get, he was saying, “Would you like our pilots to be treated this way?”

It wasn’t long before a Mercedes staff car pulled up with two Wehrmacht officers. They brought me to a major, who looked like he had just walked off a movie set. There was all this destruction everywhere and he was dressed immaculately. He started asking me ques-tions and I answered name, rank, and serial number. Just then the door banged open and in comes a Luftwaffe major, who was also immaculately dressed. They started shouting at each other. I knew what it was about. The Wehrmacht had no authority to hold American airmen. He was supposed to turn me over to the Luftwaffe. 

So the Luftwaffe major took me to a dispensary where a medic starts working on me. He says, “You’re a lucky guy. The people in that village killed a bomber crew yesterday.” 

A few days later, we evacuated the building. They took me to a house near the Russian front where other Americans were being treated. I was there for nearly two weeks and had little food. There were several American patients, but most were unconscious. An American captain told me he wanted to take these guys to a bridgehead about 40 miles away because no one was caring for them. Somehow, he found a couple of ambulances with fuel. So off we went with a German doctor and these other German soldiers, who had surrendered since the war was all but over now.

We made it to this castle, which looked like something you’d see at Disneyland. A lady came down and handed us keys to the fruit cellar. She said if the Russians get close, we should destroy all the food. This German officer said, “The Russians are close enough. Let’s eat!” So they made this big meal, which was the first real food I had had in two weeks. Then I found a bed in the castle—the biggest I had ever seen in my life—and went to sleep.

The next day, we headed for the American lines. Because of the German soldiers, we avoided the SS since they would kill these men for surrendering. We left after dark with no lights. American soldiers on a Jeep with a .50-caliber machine gun found us and guided us the rest of the way. We kept stopping so they could drag anti-tank mines off the road. We finally got there and they took me to the medical tent. They cleaned me up and took care of my burns and injuries. The next day, I was flown out with other burn patients to a hospital in France. I was there for about eight weeks. They finally sent me home on a Liberty ship loaded with cargo, tanks, and halftracks.

You went back to Europe last year as part of a Normandy tour. What was that like? 

Delta flew us on a charter right to the beachhead—the first commercial airliner ever to land there. I wanted to find A-1, the first airstrip I landed at with the Mustang. I was near Sainte-Mère-Église, behind Utah Beach. My guide and I went to look for the airstrip. It was almost dark and we were about to give up when I spotted this monument. It said this was the site of A-1. I walked up this road that could have been the runway. I felt like I had been there before. It was a strange feeling standing on that spot where I had been 78 years ago.

You talk to groups about your experiences. What do you tell them?

I’m not a rah-rah-boy-we-won-the-war type of guy. I tell them that war is a nasty, dirty, evil business. There is nothing glamorous or glorious about war. I also tell them not all Germans were bad guys. That German doctor risked his own life for the Americans in his care. I wonder how many of those wounded guys would have made it if not for him. 

I’m troubled by the fact that the U.S. college students and the high school students know nothing about World War II. Contrast that with France. We visited a school there and they were so engaged. They knew their history and asked intelligent questions. The headmaster asked the last question: “What advice do you have for these students?” I said, “Put down your cell phones and love one another.”

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It is impossible to separate Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s legacy from Special Orders No. 191, Robert E. Lee’s so-called “Lost Orders” found by Union soldiers in a field near Frederick, Md., during the September 1862 Maryland Campaign. For the remainder of his life, McClellan was unable to negate the reigning argument that he had acted with undue hesitancy after learning of Lee’s campaign intentions on September 13, and despite Union triumphs at South Mountain and Antietam in the coming days, “Little Mac” allowed Lee’s battered army to escape back to Virginia, prolonging the war for another 2½ years. That belief has prevailed  for more than a century. Thankfully, a new study by Gene M. Thorp and Alexander B. Rossino (The Tale Untwisted, Savas Beatie) explores the controversy’s deepest roots, painting a compelling picture of what truly occurred in those critical weeks in the late summer of 1862.

As you point out in your book, debate about the “Lost Orders” typically alternates between the arguments put forward by authors Stephen Sears and Joseph Harsh. For those perhaps unfamiliar with Special Orders No. 191, can you provide more detail on what was at stake on September 13, 1862?

Gene Thorp – I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that the existence of the country was in the balance. Confederate forces on September 13 were advancing northward on a thousand-mile front, from Mississippi to Maryland. Confronting McClellan, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had decisively defeated Union troops two weeks earlier at the gates of Washington at the Second Battle of Manassas. The Confederates were now advancing through western Maryland virtually unopposed, with almost nothing to stop them from marching on to Baltimore or into Pennsylvania.

At the same time, the Union armies in the area were wrecked. Federal casualties had been tremendous, their supplies had been burned, and the soldiers were famished, one of whom summed up, “We had been starved till we were sick and brutish; we were chafed and raw from lice and rough clothing; we were foot sore and lame; there was hardly a man of us who was not afflicted with the diarrhoea.” Simultaneously, regiments of completely untrained Federal recruits poured into the capital from the other side, adding to the confusion.

In just two weeks, with skill and determination, McClellan had cobbled together enough men and supplies to march a respectable army out of Washington to challenge Lee. Positive as the Army of the Potomac’s transition was, McClellan still needed some sort of break to give him a strategic advantage over Lee, for a defeat of the Federal army at this moment would leave the capital practically defenseless and vulnerable to capture.

Unknown to McClellan as he marched into Frederick the morning of September 13, that break was happening only a mile or so away. A soldier of his army had just stumbled upon a misplaced order from Lee which, although a few days old, revealed that the Rebel army had divided into five parts to surround and capture a Union garrison in Harpers Ferry that ran astride Lee’s planned supply route. When this order came to McClellan’s hands, a brief opportunity opened for him to strike a decisive blow against the rebellion. The question has become, did McClellan do everything that could be reasonably expected of him to capitalize on this find?

Alexander Rossino – In addition to the issues summarized by Gene, Lee had also set in motion a two-step plan to capture the Federal garrison at Harpers Ferry and then reassemble his army west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, known in Maryland as South Mountain, for a decisive clash with the pursuing Army of the Potomac. Outlining this plan in Special Orders No. 191, Lee intended to break the enemy, which he assumed was demoralized and disorganized after the rout at Second Manassas, as far from Washington, D.C., as possible. To Lee’s dismay in late August, he had been unable to pursue and eliminate the remnants of John Pope’s Union Army of Virginia when those men found refuge in the fortifications surrounding the capital city.Now, he hoped to achieve the decisive Napoleonic-style victory which had eluded him to that point. To that end, Lee set a trap for McClellan by planning to engage him on favorable ground along Beaver Creek five miles north of Boonsboro, Md. McClellan did not know this, of course, but he avoided it anyway by rapidly advancing from Frederick after reading the Lost Orders. This completely disrupted Lee’s plan, forcing him to fight costly battles at the South Mountain passes, and inflicting serious casualties on the Army of Northern Virginia when Lee was least prepared.

What inspired you to write this book? Was it more important to present a defense of McClellan’s response to the discovery of the Lost Orders or to provide a more thorough examination of their ultimate impact on the Maryland Campaign and the Battle of Antietam itself?

GT – The genesis of this book began back in 1999 when I started a detailed day-by-day atlas of the Antietam Campaign. When creating the base maps and plotting out the troop movements I was shocked by how little they reflected what I had previously read and seen in histories on the topic. One item in particular that stuck out to me was how much activity there was in the Union army the day Lee’s orders were found and delivered to McClellan. Everything mainstream I had read up to that point had given me the impression that the Union army was mostly stationary around Frederick the entire day while McClellan “dawdled.” When I read McClellan’s so-called “Trophies” telegram in context with all the other orders and movements I had plotted, a noon sending of the message no longer made sense. I thought the timestamp was wrong but wanted more evidence to prove it.

Fast forward a few years and I stumbled upon Maurice D’Aoust’s discovery of Lincoln’s copy of the same telegram, but the sent timestamp was midnight instead of noon. On September 7, 2012, I published the second of two op-ed pieces in The Washington Post, which argued that the Trophies telegram was actually sent at midnight and that McClellan did not delay in marching his troops after Lee. Noted author Stephen Sears took issue with my article, and a spirited public debate ensued between us, which I encourage your audience to read.

Many years later, Alex, who had written the book Six Days in September, approached me with an offer to team up and publish a detailed study based on the new research we had acquired about McClellan’s actions on September 13, the day he received Lee’s Lost Orders. We published the study in a digital-only format through Savas Beatie but in the end felt that our readers wanted more context.

With the support of Savas Beatie, this new expanded print version of the book does just that, but in the process, we needed also to broach other issues like McClellan’s supposed “case of the slows,” his role in the surrender of Union General Dixon Miles’ Harpers Ferry garrison, and the political undercurrents of the time. So, although the book is primarily to prove that McClellan acted appropriately after receiving the Lost Orders, it inevitably tackles many other misunderstandings and misinformation about the Antietam Campaign. More books from us will be forthcoming.

AR – Gene’s research told a story about these events that I had not read anywhere else. I had done my own digging into the subject of McClellan’s advance from Washington to Frederick and had begun to suspect that the received history was incorrect, but I had no idea just how incorrect it was until Gene and I began huddling on the subject. It became clear to me that we needed to publish something on the topic because the errors printed decades earlier still held sway.

Many observers are quick to point out what they believe McClellan did wrong in the Maryland Campaign. But under the circumstances he faced in assuming command as he did on September 2, what did he do right?

GT – In my opinion, McClellan did everything that could be expected of a commander placed in a similar situation. He had already gained the trust of his soldiers during the Peninsula Campaign, so when he resumed command after Pope’s decisive defeat at Second Manassas, his men were ready to follow him. To secure the capital, rebuild confidence, and resupply his men, McClellan quickly brought them into defensive positions around Washington they were familiar with.

Having anticipated that after Second Manassas that Lee would invade Maryland and try to attack the capital from the northwest where the defenses were weaker, McClellan proactively moved large numbers of Union troops (the 2nd, 12th, and a division of the 4th Corps) without any rest or resupply across the Potomac to cover those approaches to Washington. The moment McClellan suspected the bulk of Lee’s army was in Maryland, about September 6, he immediately moved another sizable force (the 1st, 6th, 9th, and a division of the 5th Corps) across the Potomac to join those already there, while at the same time he integrated raw and untrained regiments into the veteran commands. Immediately afterward, and without any delay, he pushed the troops he then commanded in the field out toward where he suspected Lee’s army was.

McClellan’s advance was so aggressive and efficient that by the time the Lost Orders came into his hands on September 13, his army was already close on Lee’s heels and able to strike such a powerful blow the next day at South Mountain that Lee’s army was forced to flee under the cover of darkness. Overall, McClellan’s acknowledged organizational skills never shined brighter than in the two weeks following Second Manassas.

AR – I’d like to turn the question on its head and ask, after reading our research, what did McClellan do wrong? We need to remember that the received narrative for more than a century has been written from the perspective of the Radical Republicans and Lincoln enthusiasts—men who loathed George McClellan. In other words, they proffered a biased and misleading perspective from the start. All we’re doing is correcting the record. Looking at the subject purely from the military perspective, the handed-down claims of McClellan’s timidity, slow marching, and overcautiousness up to September 15 fall flat. Whatever one thinks of his performance at Antietam [on September 17], it is difficult to ignore the success that Little Mac had until that date.

How great a factor was the Union army’s absence of cavalry for several days early in the campaign on McClellan’s fortunes? This seems a very much overlooked obstacle he faced.

GT – Few people seem to be aware that McClellan started the campaign almost entirely devoid of cavalry. Pope’s horsemen had been rendered useless for offensive and scouting operations after Second Manassas, while most of McClellan’s cavalry were still in transit from the [Virginia] Peninsula, being the last to be shipped of his army since horses required a considerable amount of room and special handling. Critics of McClellan should consider that his army had virtually no “eyes” for the first week of the Antietam Campaign and had to rely almost entirely on rumors from the front that came to Washington by telegraph while the lines remained open. You can imagine how this slowed McClellan’s initial advance when he had no way to scout ahead of his columns or locate the exact position of the Confederate front lines.

AR – I’ve come to think that the lack of Federal cavalry may have actually helped McClellan by lulling General Lee into a false sense of security. We need to remember that at the outset of the Maryland operation, Lee believed his army was “strong enough to detain the enemy upon the northern frontier until the approach of winter should render his advance into Virginia difficult, if not impracticable.” This means Lee assumed he could keep the enemy detained in Maryland and/or Pennsylvania until December. Federal cavalry not pressing [J.E.B.] Stuart in any real strength meant the cavalier reported only limited contact with the enemy. In other words, it was all quiet on the eastern front. Then, suddenly, Lee wrote to Jefferson Davis on September 8 that a strong column had begun making its way toward him. The weeks and months Lee thought he had to operate had vanished. He would need to fight again and much sooner than anticipated.

The criticism typically leveled at McClellan as having “the Slows” in his pursuit of Lee—citing marches only 6-8 miles per day as “clear” evidence of that—you stress in your book that it simply wasn’t true. Explain.

GT – The first question any objective reader needs to ask regarding this charge against McClellan is how do you calculate how many miles an army marched in a day? With any army, one part might be stationary to present a bold front to the enemy or hold a strategic point, while the other parts move aggressively in the rear and the flanks. Does one measure the distance marched for each column, then calculate the average between them all? What if each column is a different size? Are the average distances then also weighted by the number of men in each column? What about units that joined the army mid-campaign? How is their daily march counted into the whole?

The “six-miles-a-day” comment comes from [General-in-Chief] Henry Halleck, who apparently counted only the movements of McClellan’s center column consisting of the 2nd and 12th Corps on September 7–10, who marched slowly out of necessity to allow the rest of the army to cross the Potomac to come up on their flanks. Ignored are the severe marches of 32–41 miles previously made by that same column in the days after Second Manassas. Also ignored are the forced marches made by nine new regiments, about 8,000 men, who were assigned to the 2nd or 12th Corps on September 7 and rapidly marched 34 miles from Washington up the crowded Rockville Pike to catch their veteran brethren on the front. Additional “green” regiments made similar forced marches at different times during the campaign to catch the 1st, 4th, 6th, and 9th corps. Halleck also appears to have completely discounted the progress of [Generals] William Franklin’s and Ambrose Burnside’s Wings, who during the same time marched 33 to 41 miles from the Virginia side of the Potomac to positions on either flank of the center column.

Ultimately, the real question for historians is, did McClellan move fast enough? Considering the extreme logistical and morale issues he was handed; our research shows that he did.

AR – The claim is easily disproven slander. The evidence suggests that McClellan’s advance in earnest, beginning on September 8-9, took Lee by surprise. That news, along with word that the Federal garrison at Harpers Ferry remained in place, forced Lee to design Special Orders No. 191, and to get his army moving. Remember Lee’s statement about detaining the enemy on the northern frontier until winter? McClellan’s advance dispelled that delusion suddenly and decisively. Even before September 13, George McClellan moved more rapidly than Robert E. Lee found convenient.

Did McClellan, as the journalist William Swinton would claim, recklessly choose to ignore the fate of the Federal garrison at Harpers Ferry?

GT – Absolutely not. The garrison belonged to Maj. Gen. John E. Wool of the Middle Department’s 8th Corps and not to George McClellan. Wool, who also outranked McClellan, reported directly to Henry Halleck. The night before the Confederates crossed into Maryland, McClellan, in person with Secretary of State William Seward, went to Halleck’s room and requested him to either withdraw the garrison through Hagerstown to aid in covering the Cumberland Valley or fall back to Maryland Heights and hold its own to the last. Halleck responded that things were fine as they were and ushered McClellan out of his room, leaving the garrison in place.

It was not until September 11 that Halleck authorized McClellan to take command of the garrison, but by that time communication with it had been cut off. Prior to this point, McClellan had borne no responsibility, officially or otherwise, for the fate of Harpers Ferry, which is a fact that critics of the general have repeatedly ignored.

AR – McClellan fretted about the safety of the garrison before and after he was placed in command of it. He then designed his strikes on the South Mountain gaps to get William Franklin’s 6th Corps into Pleasant Valley and relieve Harpers Ferry as quickly as possible. It is easy to forget that McClellan’s main effort against Fox’s and Turner’s Gaps near Boonsboro were pinning actions. With Rebel forces held in place defending those gaps, Franklin could break through at Crampton’s Gap without worrying too much about the safety of his rear once he had gotten behind Rebel lines. McClellan could then reinforce Franklin with the 2nd or 12th Corps while maintaining the pressure on Lee’s men near Boonsboro. Lee, though, withdrew west overnight, ending the opportunity for McClellan to continue his assault the next day.

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Did McClellan realistically have an opportunity to prevent the fall of Harpers Ferry?

GT – If McClellan had been given the full support of his superiors and if Dixon Miles had put up any kind of competent resistance, then McClellan would then have had a reasonable chance to free the garrison there. The fact is, Halleck refused to allow McClellan any control over the garrison until after it was cut off and surrounded by Stonewall Jackson, while Miles, although he did occupy Maryland Heights, an almost impenetrable position, put up such an incompetent defense that he was driven off it.

The morning after Miles abandoned the heights, September 14, he succeeded in getting a message through to McClellan announcing that he could hold out for 48 more hours. However, only 24 hours later, with McClellan’s 6th Corps having just arrived at the northern base of Maryland Heights, Miles capitulated. Had Miles been able to maintain control of Maryland Heights, something Union commanders before and after the Antietam Campaign were easily able to do, the presence of the 6th Corps at its base on the morning of September 15 proves that McClellan could have lifted the siege.

AR – It would have been tricky, but I believe he could have done it if Miles had resisted for the full 48 hours he said he could on September 15. We don’t go into this in the book as such, but Lee withdrawing toward Sharpsburg created a conundrum for Little Mac because Elk Ridge separated his army into two parts. One of those parts faced Rebels under the command of Stonewall Jackson. The other faced Lee and James Longstreet west of the ridge.

Put yourself in Little Mac’s place for a moment. It is the early afternoon of September 15 and you are facing Lee on one flank and, potentially, Jackson on the other. It is not an enviable position. McClellan had the numbers, however, and could have pushed his army down Pleasant Valley to overwhelm the divisions of Lafayette McLaws and Richard Anderson. If he did that while beating back any attack launched by the weakened force under Lee, he could have relieved Harpers Ferry.

What was behind Dixon Miles’ decision not to reposition his force on Maryland Heights sooner, as had been recommended? You do write that Miles was out of communication with Halleck, at least, after September 11. Nevertheless…

GT – Miles did have troops on Maryland Heights, but not in a strong enough force to hold back the Confederate attack that eventually came after he was surrounded. It would appear Miles kept most of his forces in Harpers Ferry itself due to direct orders from his superior, General Wool, to that effect. When Halleck suggested to Wool on September 5 that he should order Miles to withdraw all of his force to Maryland Heights, Wool that same day ordered Miles by telegram to “be energetic and active, and defend all places to the last extremity. There must be no abandoning of a post, and shoot the first man that thinks of it, whether officer or soldier.”

Just to make sure his message was clear, Wool sent another telegram to Miles that same day: “You will not abandon Harper’s Ferry without defending it to the last extremity.” Miles, it would seem, was literally following orders. Nonetheless, Maryland Heights was the key to the defense of Harpers Ferry, and for whatever reason Miles did not make holding it a priority.

AR – This is a complicated issue that we do not cover in detail because it is out of the scope of our book. That said, I think it is too simple an approach to look at the terrain around Harpers Ferry and conclude based purely on topography that Maryland Heights is the most desirable place to relocate. The elevation of the position is not the only consideration. Other important factors must be thought about, including the critical availability of fresh water and rations. Neither of these things can be found in abundance on the heights.

Shifting the garrison meant marching 14,000 men, including thousands of horses, onto a piece of ground that is difficult in the extreme to navigate. Anyone who has been there can tell you the ground is rocky and broken. Where does Miles lodge these men? In addition, Miles faced the likelihood that as many as 2,000 contrabands would have accompanied his force to avoid capture. This raises the number of people on Maryland Heights to at least 16,000.

By comparison, the population of Frederick City at the time was only 8,000 people. I find it impossible to accept that establishing a city twice the size of Frederick on a barren peak with limited water resources, no food, and no shelter was a more viable defensive strategy than holding the lines around Harpers Ferry.

As Gene notes, Miles did defend the heights, just not with enough men to keep the Confederates from capturing the place. Had he bolstered the size of the force, maybe he could have kept McLaws at bay for long enough, yet he did not. The proper thing for Miles to have done was retire north to Pennsylvania. But again, as Gene notes, General Wool forbid him from doing this, thereby sealing the garrison’s fate.

You provide considerable evidence as well as a timeline about the “12 M” controversy—disputing the commonly accepted claim that McClellan had wired Lincoln about discovery of the Lost Orders at noon September 13 as opposed to midnight that day. Why does this controversy continue to have legs?

GT – I don’t know, but that is one thing I’d like to see changed in my lifetime. Hopefully our book and interviews like this one will encourage people to read our study and objectively examine the facts themselves. I suspect that not enough people have yet seen the overwhelming evidence that proves the telegram was sent at midnight. As more and more people read the works of authors like Steven Stotelmyer, Scott Hartwig, Tom Clemens, and Maurice D’Aoust, who also advocate that the McClellan’s “Trophies” telegram was sent at midnight, I think the correction will finally get through. After all, if the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom, James McPherson, insists, “If I were writing my Antietam book today, I would follow their account,” then I think we are moving in the right direction.

AR – This problem has become entrenched in the structural history of the campaign, which is what keeps it in place. It certainly does not help that even the introductory film shown to visitors at the Antietam National Battlefield offers the traditional view of McClellan—although, to be fair, I think a new film is being made to update the history.

Entrenched premises are extremely difficult to dislodge. So many authors in the past simply accepted the noon “Trophies” telegram claim that they presented it as a received “fact.” When people new to the subject start reading on the campaign, they frequently go to the work of McClellan’s detractors first. There they encounter various aspects of the “McClellan Myth,” as I like to call it, including falsehoods such as the 12 noon “Trophies” telegram. These flawed hypotheses then become the basis of their understanding.

I’d like to add that there is a desperate need for a new single volume history of the Maryland Campaign. Two volume studies, such as that published by Scott Hartwig, are great for experts in the field, but few general readers are likely going to tackle hundreds upon hundreds of pages of footnoted text. A single volume history is more accessible to most readers.

From what you document in your book, McClellan was anything but docile both before and after the discovery of the Lost Orders in the orders he sent. Why is the incredible level of communication that he issued to his commanders and Washington so readily ignored in campaign histories?

GT – I would like to know that myself. The biggest culprit has probably been group think. Historians did not want to challenge the overwhelming narrative that McClellan could do nothing right. I suspect that another major issue has been access to primary materials.

Not long ago, the only way a person could get access to the Official Records, letters, diaries, regimental histories, and newspapers of the Civil War era was to locate the few facilities which held these collections and visit each in person. The good news is that technology has  changed access dramatically in the last two decades. An incredible amount of primary source material, including the McClellan papers, can now be accessed online by anyone whenever and wherever it is convenient to them, so our version of events can now be easily fact checked.

AR – Not all campaign histories ignore it. Scott Hartwig’s To Antietam Creek is a good example. It delves into the early days of the campaign and credits Little Mac more than other books had up to the time of its publication in 2012. This said, the book is also just shy of 800 pages long, so the length and depth of the information in it can be intimidating to the non-specialist. A shorter study such as The Tale Untwisted can really dial into the subject and make the argument for McClellan’s energy and efficiency in a clear and comprehensible manner to casual readers and experts alike. Sometimes, there is an advantage to brevity.

The Tale Untwisted

General George B. McClellan, the Maryland Campaign, and the Discovery of Lee’s Lost Orders
By Gene M. Thorp and Alexander B. Rossino, Savas Beatie, 2023

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McClellan sent a separate telegram to Halleck at 11 p.m. September 13. Tell us more about the significance of that telegram.

GT – At this moment in the campaign, Halleck retained almost as many men in the Washington defenses to guard the capital as McClellan had to fight Lee’s army. McClellan’s 11 p.m. telegram proves that he was aggressively advocating to pursue Lee with all the forces he could muster, while it was Halleck who was being overcautious. Unlike earlier in the campaign when McClellan considered Halleck’s concerns about the possibility of a Confederate attack on Washington, in his 11 p.m. telegram he doubled down on his offensive strategy by arguing the value of pushing his army with the maximum force available to meet the enemy at South Mountain.

McClellan also inadvertently verified that he had received Lee’s “Lost Orders” after noon when he informed Halleck in his 11 p.m. telegram that, “An order from General R.E. Lee…has accidentally come into my hands this evening”—where evening meant afternoon in 19th-century parlance.

AR – When viewed as part of the continuum of communications between McClellan and Washington on September 13, the 11 p.m. telegram is a key piece of evidence illustrating Little Mac’s industry during the day and his knowledge that evening. In it he pushed back against Halleck’s constant whining about the safety of the capital city (it was not in danger) and he assured the skittish general-in-chief that he had the entire enemy army in front of him. The 11 p.m. telegram also supports the fact that McClellan wrote his “Trophies” telegram to President Lincoln late that night, thus further dispelling the myth that the “12 M” on the document stood for noon and not midnight.

It seems clear the move to discredit McClellan’s response was politically motivated. Explain.

AR – Yes, the evidence shows this was the case. In late 1863 and into 1864, assaults on McClellan’s military record began appearing in Republican-leaning newspapers and pamphlets distributed by Radical Republican organizations. The attacks levied by William Swinton in particular “exposed” McClellan’s questionable (in Swinton’s opinion) record as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Most of this criticism focused on the conduct of the campaign on the James River peninsula outside Richmond, but it eventually also spilled over into a critique of McClellan’s command in Maryland. It certainly helped Swinton that Henry Halleck had uttered his “six-miles-per-day, slow marching” slander during the Harpers Ferry Military Commission hearings. In addition, that Commission unreasonably censured McClellan for not rescuing Colonel Dixon Miles’ garrison in time even though it ultimately laid blame for the surrender on Miles himself. This all became fodder for the partisan press, and they made the most of it.

An ugly personal element to all this also emerged. Swinton declared openly, unlike most of the disingenuous reporting we see today, that he specifically intended to dissect and expose McClellan’s character flaws to show why he should never be president. This is where the tendency originated to render personal judgments against Little Mac. Unfortunately, they have since come to color every aspect of McClellan’s command, whether it was in Virginia or Maryland.

Would this issue have ever attained the status it still has had McClellan not run for president in 1864?

GT – Perhaps not to such an extent. Great mistakes were made early in the war and the Lincoln administration wanted to draw attention away from them. These blunders included closing all the recruiting stations in April of 1862, just as the Union armies were beginning their first major advance across all fronts, and at the same time removing McClellan from the position of senior commander of all armies and not replacing him with anyone. This effectively left two lawyers with no real military experience—Stanton and Lincoln—responsible for all strategic operations until Halleck was appointed as general-in-chief three months later in July. By then, the damage had been done. An almost-unbroken six-month string of victories by the Union forces under McClellan during the fall and winter of 1861-62 was turned into an almost continuous series of defeats under Stanton, Lincoln, and Halleck until the Confederate advance was ultimately stopped after McClellan was returned to command in September 1862. Supporters of the Lincoln administration could not allow it to be seen as the source for these disasters, so blame for the reversals was directed at McClellan, even though the coordination of his movements and troop levels was tightly controlled by the administration.

Those blunders and how McClellan overcame them can be found in two op-ed pieces I wrote titled In defense of McClellan: A contrarian view, and In defense of McClellan at Antietam: A contrarian view for The Washington Post on March 2 and September 7, 2012, respectively.

AR – I doubt it. We point out, in fact, that from October 1862, when the Harpers Ferry Military Commission was meeting, until late 1863–early 1864, after McClellan had announced his presidential candidacy, nothing had been made of the Lost Orders. Knowledge of them was around, too. For example, newspapers had reported the orders’ discovery during the campaign itself. It is really only after McClellan declares his candidacy that criticism of his wartime record becomes the centerpiece of the Republican strategy to destroy McClellan’s reputation. That’s politics. We get it. Politics still cannot be allowed to stand in for history, insofar as the evidence provides insight into the truth. The fact of the matter is that most of the elements of the wartime smear campaign against candidate McClellan remain key components of his postwar reputation. That is not fair to the man whatever you may think of him.

Why were the defenses of McClellan after the war by Lee himself and later the Comte d’Paris so readily downplayed or ignored?

GT – I’ll let McClellan answer this question in his own words when he wrote in 1881, four years before his death, “…party feeling has run so high that the pathway for the truth has been well-nigh closed, and too many have preferred to accept blindly whatever was most agreeable to their prejudices, rather than to examine facts.”

AR – I tend to think that by those early postwar years—say, for the first decade after the war—very few people wanted to dwell on what had just occurred. A cataclysmic event, the war had ended with half of the nation in ruins, or at least economically devastated, and hundreds of thousands killed and wounded. A president also had been assassinated, which was a first in American history at that time. People simply wanted to focus on the future and westward expansion. It would take a few decades for veterans and others to start writing about the war in earnest. By that time, details such as those offered by Lee and the Comte d’Paris meant little. This is particularly the case because the war ended chattel slavery. McClellan and many of those around him had never wanted to abolish slavery, so what they represented probably seemed out of touch with the course of events. It proved easier to just forget the past and move on.

I’m not sure how you felt about Halleck before doing this study, but how much has your opinion changed?

GT – When I began the study, almost 25 years ago, I didn’t have much of an opinion about Halleck at all. I guess that’s because I didn’t fully realize how much control he had over operations during the Second Manassas and Antietam campaigns as McClellan’s boss.

My opinion of Halleck now is not very high. I’d argue that it was he who was the overcautious general and not McClellan. I also find Halleck worthy of censure because that instead of taking responsibility for his own failures, he unfairly shifted the blame for them to McClellan.

AR – I’ve never had a high opinion of “Old Brains,” and after doing this study my opinion of him is even lower. To think that Lincoln relied so heavily on someone like Halleck to make important strategic decisions is mind-boggling. The man was jumpier than a cat on hot bricks. It helps explain why Federal efforts in the first year of the war in the East failed so badly. I also learned recently that Halleck was a habitual user of opium at the time. This could explain some of his poor decision making, but I am not entirely certain on that score. Either way, Halleck should have been left to army-level command, as he himself wanted, and never been brought east to serve as general-in-chief.

Did you learn anything particularly shocking from this study?

GT – To prepare for this book, I’ve read every telegram, letter, diary, regimental history, newspaper, relevant sections of the Official Records, and other primary source I could find related to the Antietam Campaign to learn from those who were there exactly what they experienced. I’ve been shocked by how much of what they recorded has been left out of mainstream history books. But that’s something I think both Alex and I hope to change with The Tale Untwisted, and hopefully many more titles in the future.

AR – I agree with Gene about the shocking level of missing primary source material. Here is just one example. For more than 100 years we have been told, based on an error made by Jacob Cox, that McClellan sent his “Trophies” telegram to Lincoln at noon or “12 M” on September 13. Gene presents a slide during our live talks that contains 10 sources that show the 12th Corps did not arrive at its position outside of Frederick until around noon. Consequently, there is no way that McClellan could have written and sent his telegram at noon. The Lost Orders had not even been found until that time, much less sent to army headquarters. The sources Gene shows are all easily obtainable, especially now in the age of scanned documents on the Internet. 

Even 20 years ago, these sources—being unit histories and letters—would have been readily available at most research libraries. Why weren’t they used? They prove beyond a doubt that even without the “12 Midnight” copy of the “Trophies” telegram discovered by Maurice D’Aoust sufficient evidence existed to dispute the noontime accusation argued by Stephen Sears and others. Nevertheless, they ignored that evidence. The proper question to ask in this context is why.

Interview conducted by America’s Civil War Editor Christopher K. Howland.

The Daughters of the American Revolution Museum in Washington, D.C., houses an impressive collection of nearly 30,000 objects made and used prior to the Industrial Revolution. As the museum’s director and chief curator, Heidi Campbell-Shoaf oversees the museum staff, works with the National DAR organization that serves as the museum’s executive board and helps curate the collections that the museum exhibits in accordance with its current mission statement. “We want to use the lens of the different interpretations of home,” she says, “to inspire conversations about the American experience and encourage people to discover commonalities between different American life experiences.”

What is the history of the DAR Museum?

The museum was founded in 1890, at the same time the national organization of the Daughters of the American Revolution was crafted. The museum’s intent was to collect and preserve historical artifacts, many of which were donated by DAR members. The DAR is a lineage organization which requires a woman to have a direct descent from somebody who aided the American Revolution. Soon after the museum was founded, the collection shifted to focus less on artifacts that people would assume to be related to the Revolution—namely military items such as muskets, swords, powder horns, and uniforms—to objects that the Revolutionary generation had in their homes. From that point on, it has been a museum that collects and preserves and interprets objects used in American homes of the past.

Can you tell us about the history of the period rooms?

Some of them date all the way back to the initial building of the DAR Headquarters and Museum in Memorial Continental Hall in 1910. As the headquarters, Memorial Continental Hall was built with a lot of offices in the building. The DAR is organized very similar to our government, with a central executive, state organizations, and within those state organizations, local chapters. The state organizations donated money to help build Memorial Continental Hall and in return secured the right to put the state name on an office room. The period rooms today still have state affiliations because they started as the state sponsored office space. When the organization outgrew the first building and built an addition and moved offices there, those rooms became the period rooms, and the states would furnish them as historic interiors. In the late 1930s, all of the period rooms were moved under the control of the museum, and it’s been that way ever since. The museum maintains the rooms and interprets historic interiors from the 1600s through the 1930s in them. They’re furnished as bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, parlors, etc. Most museums have somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of their collections on display, but we have well beyond that because of the period rooms.

this article first appeared in American history magazine

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What do the gallery exhibits focus on?

The exhibits have a wide range of topics. Our curators have specialties to the collection they manage, care for, and develop, and they conduct original research and put together exhibitions. The topics are in part pulled from the curator’s expertise or research interest. But they all have some relationship to the American home. Our current exhibition is about portraiture and power in the American home and looking at these portraits that many of us see in museums. They are by and large painted for people to hang in their homes, so what does that say about the people who have the portrait painted, the people painting the portraits, the people seeing the portraits in the homes? What is that statement being made? It all circles back to the home in some way.

When you purchase something for the museum, how are you looking to expand the collections?

Each of our curators look at their collections, and have a statement of collecting for each different category. For example, fine art, glass, ceramics, etc. We look at the mission and we look at the collections and we say, ‘Do we have everything we need to tell particular stories?’ Of course, much of our collection has been donated to us over the years by DAR members. So that reflects much of the demographic of the DAR membership, which in the past, up until the 1970s, was primarily White, middle and upper class. The membership is becoming much more diverse, and we want to make sure that our collections reflect that and that we are not just interpreting the DAR homes of the past, but a broader interpretation of American homes. It’s all American homes. Not just those related to the American Revolution. That means we need to look at the collections and see where we have gaps in representation. For instance, a few years ago we purchased a sampler from California that was made by somebody of Mexican ancestry, and of course, early California was Mexico. We have purchased objects made by native Hawaiians. We’ve acquired objects made by African American people or that portray the picture of African American people. We look at what’s missing and we also look at what we have and determine whether it’s the best example of the object we can display. Is it displayable? Then we may decide we need to have a better example of something we already have.

What’s a favorite object of yours in the collection?

That’s a tough question! What’s amazing about the DAR Museum collections in general is that there are so many of the objects that have stories associated with them—family history, historic events at which this object was present. And many of the objects are amazing examples of historic craftsmanship. So, that’s a hard question. I could pick many things for different reasons. One example, there’s a painting in our current exhibition, it’s on the cover of our current exhibition catalog. She’s dressed in clothing from the 1810s. She’s holding a green parrot. It’s a fabulous painting I think, for a lot of different reasons. It’s well done. But, also, why do you choose to be painted with a parrot in your hand? You can tell she has money, because why else would she have a parrot? Dolley Madison had a parrot. The average person is not going to have a parrot. She also wears a tiara with gold and coral. The colors are fabulous.

America will be celebrating its 250th anniversary in 2026. What is the museum planning for its celebration?

We are planning programming as we get closer to the 250th. We are also planning an exhibition. People may be surprised to find out that we don’t have a lot of Revolutionary War–related objects in the collection. Because of the ongoing emphasis on objects that are found in the home, they aren’t by and large militaria. We’re looking at an exhibition focused on people who were writing about the Revolution, prior to the Revolution, and through the Revolution. We’re using some of the collection housed in the DAR Americana Collection, which is a collection of historic manuscripts and documents. We’re working to combine some of that collection with some three-dimensional items from the museum collection to create that exhibition. Leading up to that, we have an exhibition in 2025 that focuses on Black craftspeople and their fight for freedom and liberty and what that means for them, not just in the Revolutionary period but all the way through the 19th century, as well.

Do you find that visitors have different expectations of what the museum will hold or the stories it will tell?

I think so, yes. When people come to a museum like ours, they often want to find confirmation of their own interpretation of history. Sometimes they find that and sometimes they don’t. And when they don’t, that’s when education happens. We do have people who come with perceptions of what the DAR is as an organization, which has evolved since the one incident that people remember—in 1939 Marian Anderson was denied an opportunity to perform at the DAR Constitution Hall because of her race. That perception has stuck in people’s mind for decades, so they think they know what they will find when they come to the museum, but I think some of them are pleasantly surprised that we provide a wide lens onto American history.

This story appeared in the 2023 Summer issue of American History magazine.

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Howard Lambert was maybe 10 or 11 when, while riding his bike near his home in Culpeper, Va., he happened upon a group of Civil War cavalry reenactors engaged in a mock battle in the middle of a field. Lambert had some knowledge of the war living in Culpeper, a still-segregated community in the heart of central Virginia in the 1960s, but the reality of the moment had an immediate effect on him. The reenactors, dressed in both Confederate and Union uniforms, “had guns and were shooting at each other,” he recalled recently. “The smoke was real.”

It would be a watershed moment for Lambert, who recalls reading books about the nation’s eternal struggle that he had, as a teenager, checked out from a local library, as well as occasional glimpses through a car window of the Chancellorsville and Wilderness battlefields as his family drove toward Fredericksburg. He was likewise captivated by the respective Civil War miniseries “North and South” and “The Blue and the Gray,” and in the late 1980s turned a role as an extra in the Oscar-winning film “Glory” into a reenacting passion of his own.

Now in his late 60s, Lambert’s life continues to revolve around the war. In August 2022, he was named the first African American president of the Brandy Station Foundation, where he is extensively involved in the preservation and remembrance of one of the Civil War’s most important historical sites: Brandy Station—in particular the June 9, 1863, battle there, recognized as the Gettysburg Campaign’s opening clash.

The Civil War, you have said, is in your DNA. Why exactly?

I mean this both figuratively and literally. Born in Culpeper, I was exposed to Civil War history from a very early age. More than 100 battles, skirmishes, and incidents took place on Culpeper soil during the war. During my family’s travels, we would frequently pass by Civil War battlefields, including the Wilderness, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania, and Brandy Station. I always found them of great interest and was drawn to everything Civil War—“The Blue and the Gray” and “North and South,” for example, and whatever books that I could get to read.

But I also have a connection to a Civil War soldier. The brother of my great-great-grandfather, Lewis Turner, served. His name was Fielding Turner. He was born in Culpeper and served in the 20th New York [Infantry]. He returned there after the war.

You were the co-founder of the African American Heritage Alliance and founder of the Freedom Foundation, and now as president of the Brandy Station Foundation you have an incredible opportunity to help preserve the legacy of one of the war’s most important sites. Are you at all in awe of this responsibility?

Not at all. I believe that my many years of experience, both personally and professionally, has prepared me for this moment in time. I embrace each day and never lose sight of the fact that I do this for all men who served during the Civil War. I reflect on them each and every day. As is often said, “All gave some; same gave all.”

What is in the works for Brandy Station’s 160th anniversary in June?

The Foundation has a number of events planned. We are working with Culpeper Battlefield Tours to put on tours, reenactments, living history events, and guest speakers, including acclaimed author Gary W. Gallagher.

What other significant changes are taking place at the site?

My number one priority is the Graffiti House, which dates back to 1858. Both Union and Confederate soldiers stayed there and wrote on the walls. It is a real treasure of historic significance. We have plans to do repairs to the exterior and improve our visitor experience during tours of the interior. In addition, we are making improvements to the grounds.

As you say, the Graffiti House is such an important symbol of the history made at Brandy Station, yet the danger it might be lost to development and time without intervention remains a threat. What can the Foundation do to make sure that will never happen?

In the short term, we have plans to make improvements to the exterior and also make the tours more dynamic for our visitors through the use of electronic means. Of course, we also have to be aware of what’s happening in the community and the possible impact of that to the Graffiti House. It is important that our voice be heard and engaged in any situation which might potentially impact the Graffiti House and the surrounding area.

We have fostered a great relationship with our neighbors and elected officials and look forward to working with them on any future issues and concerns. In addition, as part of the Culpeper Battlefields State Park, we continue to look forward to working with the Commonwealth of Virginia on the best ways to maintain the Graffiti House and to enhance the overall experience our visitors receive. We are always looking for volunteers to help us in our mission. Volunteer help is so critical to our success.

Tell us about your deep friendship with Clark “Bud” Hall, who probably knows more about Brandy Station than anyone and, poignantly, is one of the original triumvirate behind the modern, still-thriving battlefield preservation movement.

I have known Bud for many years and consider him a friend and mentor. As you may know, Bud served in our Armed Forces and is a fellow graduate of American University. He is the first person, to my knowledge, to tell the story of U.S. Colored Troops in Culpeper and as part of the Overland Campaign. I have literally spent hours with Bud traveling to various Civil War sites in Culpeper. He once told me, “It is up to us to tell the story.” Those words served, in part, as my inspiration to form the Freedom Foundation of Virginia.

We first met many years ago at the site of the 1862 Battle of Ox Hill, Virginia, during a gathering to recognize two Union generals killed during the battle, Philip Kearny and Isaac Stevens, and the preservation of what is now a Fairfax County Park. I gave testimony before the Fairfax Board [of Supervisors] to preserve the site and was an early member of a group that today is known as the American Battlefield Trust [formerly the APCWS and the Civil War Trust].

I am still working with Bud on several projects and in bringing greater recognition to the USCTs.

this article first appeared in civil war times magazine

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What inspired you to become a reenactor? In your experience, how much has this “pasttime” changed from when you started to now?

It was the movie “Glory.” I had read an article in The Washington Post about the Battle of Antietam. In the article, the reporter interviewed Civil War expert Brian Pohanka. Brian mentioned in the article that he was involved in a project about the 54th Massachusetts and was recruiting African Americans to portray the historic regiment. I called Brian and joined the group and went off in early 1989 to be in the movie. The group of guys was mostly from the Washington, D.C., area and we decided to stay together after the movie. Over the years, we literally have done hundreds of events, including several more movies, living history events, reenactments, etc.

What has changed for me is that I have moved from living history events, reenactments, and such to starting or being part of other organizations, including Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield; the 23rd USCT; the Freedom Foundation of Virginia [as founder and president]; the John Brown Farm advisory board; and the Brandy Station Foundation, as a longtime member before I became president.

While working on “Glory,” could you tell it would have the incredible influence it has had in informing mass audiences of the contributions of Black soldiers to the Civil War?

Frankly, I did not at the time think it would have the lasting influence over the years. I was a communications major in college (radio, television, and film) and looked forward to the opportunity of being in a feature film. I knew that the story of the 54th would be compelling and should be told, but I never thought it would end with five Oscar nominations (it won three) and educate thousands of students on African Americans’ service during the war. Over the years, I have spoken countless times to organizations regarding the role of USCT soldiers during the war.

How much screen time did you manage? Can we find you in a freeze frame at some point?

I took part in three weeks of filming and was part of the James Island (Savannah, Ga.) and Fort Wagner (Jekyll Island) filming. I was in various scenes with the principal actors. If you did a freeze frame for a split second, I can barely be seen when Kevin Jarr says, “Give them hell 54th,” and when Matthew Broderick says before attacking Fort Wagner, “If this man should fall, who will pick up the flag and carry it forward?” It was an ensemble cast. Most of the screen time—rightfully so—was on Matthew, Morgan, Denzel, and the other up-and-coming actors.

I would also like to add, the movie won an Oscar for Best Sound. It was our group that was used for much of what was called the “Wild Track” of soldiers marching and such at the polo field at Jekyll Island. Russell Williams II, a fellow American University graduate, received his first Oscar for Best Sound—he later won another for the 1990 movie “Dances With Wolves.”

The contributions USCT soldiers made to the Wilderness Campaign often get downplayed or overlooked. How are you trying to change that?

I am a member of the 23rd USCT which, as you are aware, saw action in the Wilderness Campaign. Ed Gantt is the president of the 23rd and a member of the Freedom Foundation. The two groups work closely together supporting various events. In fact, for the first time, the 23rd USCT will be doing a living history event at the Graffiti House in early May. More Culpeper-born USCTs served in the 23rd than any other regiment during the Civil War: 12. We try to tell the story of the 23rd at every opportunity. The 23rd has a full calendar of events, and we are pleased to host them at the Graffiti House.

Madden’s Tavern, on May 8, 1864, was a tragic moment in Culpeper’s Civil War History. You led a drive to have a marker placed there—the Maddensville Historic Site—in 2021. Tell us more about that effort.

The project was years in the making. I have known the Madden family for many years. It was after reading the book “Seasons of War” by Dan Sutherland that I learned of the killing of USCTs near Madden’s Tavern. I later went to the Library of Virginia and looked at the actual diary of Byrd Charles Willis, 9th Virginia Cavalry, in which he writes about killing USCTs that May. I felt lead to bring recognition to this incident by putting up a memorial in their honor. I was able to work with the Madden family and later with the current owners [Crystal and George Tingler] to secure the land and create the memorial site. Of course, there were many other individuals who helped make it a reality. A marker to honor these individuals is scheduled to be in place by this Memorial Day.

Francis Whitebird hails from a long line of soldiers. His great-grandfather, grandfather and father all saw service in the U.S. Army dating back nearly 150 years. At the outset of the Vietnam War he honored that family legacy and the warrior tradition of the Rosebud Lakotas of South Dakota by enlisting. Whitebird endured 19 months of intense fighting as a combat medic in 1969 and ’70. After the war he graduated from Harvard, became a teacher, served in tribal government, received a presidential appointment to a national advisory committee and worked to preserve the Lakota language. He also raised two sons, Colin and Brendan, who carried on the family tradition by joining the Army and fighting in Iraq. At the 2022 National Memorial Day Concert in Washington, D.C., actors and co-hosts Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna honored Whitebird in person for his service. Military History recently sat down with the 80-year-old veteran to learn more about his experiences and legacy of service.

You didn’t set out to be a medic. How did that transpire?

Well, I volunteered for the infantry. After basic training they assigned me to Fort Sam Houston [in San Antonio, Texas], where there was a center to train all the medics. Wherever the Army is, of course, they have to have medical support, and so we wind up all over the place. I wound up with an infantry company as a combat medic.

When you’re assigned to an infantry company, you’re in charge of a platoon—about 40 men. In addition to wounds, you treat them for heat casualties, sores and other injuries. There’s something in Vietnam called elephant grass, and when you pass through it, it cuts into your arms. There’s other stuff like jungle rot and creeping crud. I don’t know their scientific names, but that’s what we called them. There’s also mosquitoes and leeches and whatnot.

Some men experienced malaria and sprains. Leg injuries were common, because we’d be up in the mountains, and people would twist their ankles. It’s a full-time job just to keep them healthy. Then you get into a firefight, and you have to drag them back, treat them and get them out of there.

You have to earn your Combat Medical Badge, just like the Combat Infantryman Badge. You have to serve at least two months in a jungle or get into four firefights, and then they give it to you. You earn it through longevity. I was assigned to the 196th Light Infantry Brigade as a platoon medic with Bravo Company for two months, then became company medic for Charlie Company, where I was in charge of three medics.

What was it like serving as a combat medic in Vietnam?

For the first nine months when I was the company medic for Charlie Company, we went through 27 medics. That was, like, one medic per platoon per month killed or wounded. When somebody starts yelling, “Medic!” they’re counting on you. I don’t know why we do it. I guess we’re young and foolish and don’t know any better.

I remember the Battle of Hiep Duc. The fourth longest battle in Vietnam, it went for 13 days. Infantry companies were being rotated in and out. We had lots of casualties. That was in August of 1969—same time as Woodstock. That battle followed Hamburger Hill. I always thought, Why didn’t they just pull us back and B-52 the place? Some general probably wanted to earn another star. Anyway, at that battle there was a guy named Rocky Bleier, who later played for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was wounded there. He has a great story about recovery and going into the NFL.

At Hiep Duc my company hit booby traps—they call them IEDs now. They were strung out along the top of the hill. We had 38 casualties, and my three medics went down. I collected all the morphine syrettes and started treating people. If one needed a shot of morphine, I gave him one and then just kept going. We were lucky there were no fatalities.

After the third booby trap went off, I called for the “Dustoff”—that’s what we called the medevac helicopter. I put on the guy who set off the booby traps—his name was Marty, and he was from Vermont. He was filled with wounds. I had already given him a shot of morphine. As I was putting him on the chopper, he looked at me and said, “Doc, I’ll see you back in the world,” and gave me a peace sign. He was just smiling, because the morphine had kicked in. I did meet him again, at a reunion in St. Louis in 1988. And he came over with his family and told them, “This is the guy who saved me.” That means a lot when somebody does that. When people thank me for saving their lives, I tell them, “I’m only one—there are nurses and doctors that take care of you too.” One of them said, “Yeah, but you’re the one who pulled me out of the line of fire.”

Tell us about your own experience of being wounded.

I was hit by shrapnel from an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade]. A large sliver hit my side, and it burned like hell. It came in so hot, it cauterized the wound. I used clamps to pull out the shrapnel and threw it away. There was a big firefight at the time. I was running toward somebody who was wounded when I got hit. So I just put on a piece of tape to keep the dirt out and kept on going. Other people needed my help.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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How did you deal with fear when helping the wounded amid a firefight?

Adrenaline kicks in. It takes over, and you don’t have that fear. You do what you’re trained to do—go in there and get the guy out. I didn’t think about fear; I just thought about saving the guy. After the firefight adrenaline is still in your body. Sometimes, you’re just shaking from it. You think, Holy crap! I survived that! Then you go on to the next battle.

Of course, there’s always the possibility you could get killed. When I was in jungle training, this instructor said that in a firefight the longevity of an officer, RTO [radio telephone operator] or medic is about 90 seconds. I thought, Oh, no, I’m dead.

You must have been under incredible stress. How did you handle it?

Well, there’s only so much you can take. In that humidity and heat you could smell human blood. It gets on your hands, on your jungle fatigues. You don’t go back and take a shower. I think the longest we stayed in the jungle was 69 days. You just need to go day by day and survive. Don’t worry about the future.

One of the loneliest times was radio watch. Every half hour the men had to check in with a squelch on their radios so we knew they were awake. You’re lying there in between check-ins, and you think about home. You think about different things and how you should have done them. Some of the people were married, and some had girlfriends. Of course they think about them. There was nothing to do.

The worst times were when guys got a “Dear John” letter. Their minds weren’t right. In the next firefight they wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. We called it the “John Wayne syndrome.” It didn’t happen very often, but it happened. So, to get away from that, we’d send them to the rear, get them drunk a couple of days, and they’d come back feeling better.

Describe your Lakota family’s time-honored warrior tradition.

One of my great-grandfathers was an Indian scout for Company E of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry, and I have an uncle who was a World War I vet with the infantry. We [Lakotas of the Rosebud Indian Reservation] had, I think, 200 people serving in World War I when probably fewer than 5,000 people lived on the reservation. My uncle was with the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia.

In World War II my dad was a Lakota code talker. He took an oath that he could not tell anyone about it. Not like the Navajos in the Pacific. After World War II [the Navajo code talkers] were beating their chests and jumping up and down. There were about 30 tribes involved as code talkers in Europe then, and they all took an oath they could not tell anyone, because the United States might go to war with Russia.

Code talking started in World War I. There were zero Navajo code talkers and about 40 Lakota code talkers then. There was even a team of code talkers in Korea. They never talked about it until 1968, when they lifted the ban. My dad told me then he was a code talker.

What was it like to receive public recognition at the 2022 National Memorial Day Concert?

To tell you the truth, I thought I was going to be among a whole bunch. I didn’t know I was one of two people being honored. I knew I was into something when they put us in the front row. My good friend from Vietnam, Paul Critchlow, was with me. He’s from Omaha, Neb., and was a paratrooper pathfinder.

How did Vietnam change your life?

Change came very slowly. First of all, I had to deal with PTSD, which I did by running 5 miles a day. Then I went to Harvard for four years. It didn’t really sink in, though, until I attended a “rap group” at the VA. It was for combat people, and it was the first time I told stories about my combat experience to anyone. That really helped. The other thing that was helpful was something English speakers call a sweat lodge. It really should be called a prayer lodge, because that’s what you do. It cleanses your body but also cleanses your mind. Praying is primary, sweating secondary. When we started doing these prayer lodges, a lot of the combat people started coming in and getting better. You’ve got to let the stories out. I keep telling my kids, “Tell your story.”

Do you ever wonder how you survived Vietnam and so many other challenges?

You know, I’m a cancer survivor for 19 years—probably got it from Agent Orange—and, well, I’m doing okay. I’m still aboveground!

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

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S.C. Gwynne’s latest book, “His Majesty’s Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World’s Largest Flying Machine,” details the story of the British airship R101, which crashed and burned in France on October 5, 1930, killing all but six of the 54 people onboard. Gwynne, whose other books include “Rebel Yell” and “Empire of the Summer Moon,” tells not just the story of the R101, but also at the problematic history of rigid dirigibles. Like the Hindenburg, which would go down in flames less than seven years later, the R101 got its lift from flammable hydrogen, which was contained inside enormous, 10-story-tall gasbags made out of cow intestines. Known as “goldbeater’s skins,” the intestines reached the airship factory in five-gallon buckets from Argentina, and then women workers stretched them flat, scraped them, and glued them to a lining of thin cotton fabric. Gwynne says the R101 used the intestines from half a million cows. In this interview with Aviation History editor Tom Huntington, Gwynne explains that rather surprising fact and talks about much more.

His Majesty’s Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World’s Largest Flying Machine 

by S.C. Gwynne, Scribner, May 2, 2023

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Michael Dante, 91, appeared in nearly 200 big- and small-screen productions. Western film buffs would recall him best from such movies as Westbound (1959), with Randolph Scott; Apache Rifles (1964) and Arizona Raiders (1965), both with Audie Murphy; and as the title Blackfoot chief in Winterhawk (1975). Born Ralph Vitti (Dante picked his professional name after signing with Warner Bros.) in Stamford, Conn., in 1931, he started acting in fourth grade and majored in drama at the University of Miami. Before moving to Hollywood, he played professional baseball in the Boston Braves and Washington Senators organizations. Nursing a shoulder injury, he took a screen test arranged by big band legend Tommy Dorsey and left pro ball. From 1994–2008 he hosted the radio series The Michael Dante Classic Celebrity Talk Show, out of Palm Beach, Calif. Dante has since turned to writing both nonfiction and fiction, including the autobiography Michael Dante: From Hollywood to Michael Dante Way (2013); My Classic Radio Interviews With the Stars: Vol. 1 (2021), co-authored by wife Mary Jane Dante; and such novels and novellas as the post–Civil War Six Rode Home (2018); the Western sequel Winterhawk’s Land (2017) and the redemption tale Macabe’s Journey (2022), all from BearManor Media. Dante [michaeldanteway.com] recently took time to speak with Wild West about his various careers.

What real-life Westerner would you most like to have played on-screen?

Jesse James. He was a colorful character, very deceptive and knew the territory and despised the railroad. I wanted to make him a colorful character. He was a great horseman, and he and his brother were a team, and his gang was a family. He began to get a little too aggressive, which led to his demise. I made notes about his character, but I never got a chance to play him.

What was it like to play Crazy Horse on the 1967 TV series Custer?

I had read a great deal about him and had tremendous respect and love for native Americans. He was my favorite because he was a visionary and a militarist, a deep thinker, had a high element of a spiritual side. That was the kind of man I am. I could make a wonderful marriage to this character and do something exciting and interesting and show to the American audience what kind of man and leader he was.

But [producer David Weisbart] passed away after the seventh show, died of a heart attack on the golf course, and we were knocked off the air because of political correctness. Custer became a very bad name, unfortunately, so we were off after 17 shows. So I never really got a chance to share with the audience what I eventually was going to contribute to the character and the story.

What are some favorite memories from your days playing pro baseball?

I was underage but signed to a pro contract with a $6,000 bonus. When I received that bonus, the first thing I did was buy our family a brand-new four-door Buick—whitewall tires, radio and heater. It was a beautiful sedan.

Number two was, without a doubt, putting on the major league uniform. The Washington Senators invited me to spring training in 1955 in Orlando, Fla., and the first moment I put on the uniform, I sat by my locker, turned my back on everyone and just shed tears.

Who was your favorite ballplayer and what movies did you like as a boy? 

Joe DiMaggio. The Westerns.

We loved Westerns and the Dead End Kids. We didn’t have any money, but theaters had exit doors. After the first running of the movie and the serials, they would open the side doors. Everybody would exit out of the side instead of going out the front. We used to sneak in!

If we had a nickel, we’d buy a Baby Ruth or a Mounds, and that would be lunch or early dinner, because we’d stay and watch two shows. I had a great love for Buck Jones, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Ken Maynard, John Wayne and all the great stars that did Westerns in those days. We’d sit there and idolize all of them and wanted to be just like them.

When we played cowboys and Indians, I was the only one who’d play the Indian. We drilled a hole in the top of a broomstick and pulled a string through like reins, put a pad in the middle of the broomstick, and that would be our horse. And we’d chase with a cap gun. “Bang, bang! you’re dead. I got you.” That was the beginning of my love of sports, my love of movies and my love of Westerns.

What was it like working with directors Budd Boetticher and Sam Fuller?

The best. Budd Boetticher gave me my first opportunity to star in a motion picture, and that was Westbound. I was under contract to Warner Bros., making $275 a week, which was fine.

I told Budd I had an idea about my character [a one-armed Army veteran] using a Winchester. I picked up the script and went to props and took home the Winchester. Over the weekend I learned to crank it with one hand. It wasn’t written [in the script]. When I showed Monday, Budd said that was beautiful. That was my contribution. 

In first scene that day Randolph Scott was to teach me you can do a lot of things with one hand and one arm. So, in the story he had to teach me how to crank that Winchester. Unfortunately—and with all due respect, as he was a wonderful man and actor—he was not as coordinated as I was. He couldn’t do it. I took all day long—36 takes! At that point Scott’s hands were bleeding. They put tape on them, kept doing it, and he kept fumbling. Finally, he got it.

Budd was a great storyteller. He had a knack of telling stories on the set to keep everybody entertained. He had a great sense of humor.

Sammy Fuller was another wonderful director to work with. We did the provocative Naked Kiss [1964 neo-noir]. He was so innovative. Every day he had something new. One morning Sammy came in at 7 and said, “Michael, I’ve got something today that you’re gonna love. You’re going to shoot your own close-up.” He put a 2-by-6 on the dolly below the lens, and I pressed my shoulders up against that 2-by-6. You can’t go left, you can’t go right—you have to stay perfectly still while your shoulders are slowly pushing that camera on the dolly. Normally I don’t go to see rushes, but I saw the close-up and couldn’t believe how perfect it was. I filled the whole screen. And I did it—I filmed my own close-up.

How was it to co-star in Westerns with Audie Murphy and Randolph Scott?

When I was sitting in the Strand and Palace theaters [as a teen] in Stamford, Conn., they ran newsreels, and one day there was Audie Murphy receiving the Medal of Honor. We were tough kids, good athletes, great competitors, and here he was, our No. 1 hero, and he was not much older than we were. To think one day I’d be co-starring in Apache Rifles and Arizona Raiders with Audie Murphy, whom I idolized off- and on-screen. A lot of people don’t know he wrote poetry and lyrics. He had a great sense of humor, always on time, always knew his dialogue.

Randolph Scott was a perfect gentleman and a great businessman. He was also a great horseman. He could come in cantering and just slip off the horse and be in stride and tie the reins to the post in one motion.

How good a horseman did you become?

I was very good. I learned to ride when I was growing up. There was a buddy of mine, our best pitcher, but he liked to ride horses. He worked at the stable. He was currying a horse and doing his duties with hay and manure in the corrals. “I’ll teach you how to ride,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun, but you’ll have to clean the stalls, wipe down the horse when you’re done.” The owners liked me as I progressed, and I got to be pretty good. It’s like riding a bike—you don’t forget. So I was able to take that with me when I worked on my first Western in Hollywood. I got better as I got along.

You passed up a chance to co-star in TV’s The Untouchables. Why?

I was to be the star in 13 episodes, and Robert Stack was to be the star in 13 episodes. We’d alternate. Producer Quinn Martin offered me everything. I said I want to do films, signed a contract [with 20th Century Fox] and did Seven Thieves[with Edward G. Robinson and Rod Steiger]. Unfortunately, [Fox] was bankrupt and couldn’t distribute the picture when finished. It had one picture doing well in New York called Journey to the Center of the Earth, so it put the money into distribution of that film and didn’t have money for Seven Thieves. Ours was an art piece. It was commercial exploitation.

I’d turned down several series. As a matter of fact, I turned down The High Chaparral [1967–71]. After I guest-starred in a Bonanza episode called “The Brass Box,” executive producer David Dortort said, “I’d like you to do a series for me.”

 “OK, what do you have in mind?”

“We’re doing a series called High Chaparral. Cameron Mitchell is starring in it, and I want you to play Manolito. He’s Hispanic.” 

“David,” I said, “I don’t want to pigeonhole my career being a Latin actor because I played Ortega in ‘The Brass Box.’…I just don’t want to typecast myself.” [Henry Darrow landed the Manolito role.]

How did The Michael Dante Classic Celebrity Talk Show come about?

After filming Winterhawk and The Farmer [1977], I was doing some publicity in Palm Springs, Calif. I did a radio show (KXJ at the time), and the interviewer said, “Would you be interested in doing a radio show?”

“I don’t know anything about radio.”

 “I’ll teach you,” he said.

He signed me to a contract for 13 shows. The first couple of shows I was terrible. I went overtime on the commercial. I got in or out too late. But I began to learn what I was doing. At the end of 13 shows he said, “I want to sign you to 13 more.”

“What I’ll do,” I said, “is pay you for the airtime, and I’ll get sponsors for my own show.”

“Wow, you learn fast,” he said.

That was the beginning. That went on for 12 years, and I eventually moved to Palm Springs. Mary Jane became my radio operator and sound editor, and we were a dream team. We had hour-long interviews with all these people.

We didn’t make any money when we did the shows, but we paid our bills.

this article first appeared in wild west magazine

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What made you turn to writing?

It evolved. I didn’t realize I was pursuing the career of my life by treating it as an artform. It gave me encouragement from my acting experience, what I was reading, and I took notes. So I put these thoughts down on paper and thought maybe someday I’d be fortunate to write these stories, or a book or novella or screenplay, or a combination of all these things.

During my radio show and then COVID I had an ample amount of time to put these words and thoughts together and see what came out.

Which appeals to you more—fiction or nonfiction?

I enjoyed my autobiography immensely, of course. But I’d have to say writing fiction from the synopses and treatments I’d written many years ago. My fans have encouraged me along the way. My wife said I write well. So, I plunged in. So far so good.

On what did you base your post–Civil War novella Six Rode Home?

What inspired me to write that was reading about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and all the veterans’ ordeals—suicide, divorce, depression—when they came home. Since the beginning of time veterans have gone through this. The only things that have changed are the locations and the names.

What has been the key to your success as a ballplayer, actor, radio show host, writer?

Discipline. You can have all the talent in the world, but if you have no discipline, you’re not worth a nickel.

People think discipline is reprimand, punishment. Discipline is love. Discipline guides you. It’s something God gave you. It’s your baby. You create it from start to scratch, beginning to end, and that comes from hard work, reading a lot and listening. 

Listening is key. What radio taught me was so important. I wished I had learned it in my 20s. Radio talk shows are not about talking but about listening. 

Preparation is also important as a radio show host, as an actor, as a ballplayer. The answers come when you do your homework. You prepare. You have a game plan. And that’s what I always had—discipline and a game plan. 

Have no fear of making mistakes. Explore. As an actor you explore. You don’t know where writing is going to take you, so go with it. Be daring. Be opportunistic. Go where you’d like to go. Also read as much as you can and watch other pros work, how they get to their objectives, what makes them successful.

What’s next for you?

My next book, Listen to the Rain, a contemporary novel.

If you were interviewing Michael Dante, what would you ask?

I would ask, “Why did you refuse a number of film and TV series?”

I did what I wanted to do. I did it my way, and I did it well. I could have been the star of The Untouchables. I didn’t realize at the time that exposure was the most important factor if an actor wanted to become independent and get to do the things he wanted to do. You have to have the exposure for people to recognize you and your work. You have to do 10 to 15 films before you get the recognition I would have gotten overnight in The Untouchables. Millions and millions of people would have seen me. I didn’t realize that at the time.

Regrets?

No. I was young. My lifestyle may have changed. I may not have met my wonderful wife, Mary Jane, who is my team.…I may not have ever met you. All things happen for a reason. It’s been a wonderful ride, and I’m still active and blessed by divine guidance. 

Michael Dante: From Hollywood to Michael Dante Way

By Michael Dante, 2013

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With To the End of the Earth: The US Army and the Downfall of Japan, 1945, John C. McManus completes his trilogy about the Army’s role in the Pacific War. The previous books were Fire and Fortitude, which covered the period from the attack on Pearl Harbor through 1943, and Island Infernos, which covered 1944. The final volume looks at the final calendar year of the war and includes the battles for Manila and Okinawa and the Japanese surrender. “What sets his work apart is the depth of his research coupled with his extraordinary writing skills and his eye for details,” wrote James M. Scott in his review of McManus’s book in World War II. “McManus digs deep into primary source materials, from after-action reports to the individual letters and diaries penned by soldiers. The result is a kaleidoscopic view of the war, from the commanders back in headquarters down to the individual infantrymen huddled in foxholes.”

John C. McManus is a professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Here, in an interview with World War II editor Tom Huntington, he talks about To the End of the Earth.

To the End of the Earth: The US Army and the Downfall of Japan, 1945

by John C. McManus, Dutton Caliber, May 2, 2023

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