The National Tribune was the premier Union veterans’ newspaper of the post-Civil War era. Launched in 1877 by a New York veteran to help his comrades and sway Congress to pass better pension laws, a short time later the National Tribune began publishing firsthand accounts penned by the veterans themselves, and did so for decades thereafter. This rich, overlooked, and underused source of primary material offers a gold mine of eyewitness accounts of battles, strategy, tactics, camp life, and much more. From generals to privates, the paper printed articles and long serials on everything from major battles such as Gettysburg and Antietam, to arguments about which battery fired the shot that killed General Leonidas Polk, whether Grant’s army was surprised at Shiloh, and just about every topic in between. Unbeknownst to many, a number of Confederate accounts were also published in the paper.Decades in the making, Dr. Rick Sauers’ unique multi-volume reference work The National Tribune Civil War Index: A Guide to the Weekly Newspaper Dedicated to Civil War Veterans, 1877-1943 lists every article (1877-1943). The first two volumes are organized by author, his unit, title, and page/column location. The third volume—the main index—includes a subject, author, and unit guide, as well as a “Unit as Sources” index that lists articles that mention specific commands but are written by soldiers who were not members of that unit. As an added bonus, this reference guide includes the contents of both the National Tribune Scrapbook and the National Tribune Repository, two short-lived publications that included articles by veterans, and a listing of the major libraries that have National Tribune holdings.Thanks to Dr. Sauers, Civil War researchers and writers worldwide now have easy access to the valuable contents of this primary source material.

The National Tribune was the premier Union veterans’ newspaper of the post-Civil War era. Launched in 1877 by a New York veteran to help his comrades and sway Congress to pass better pension laws, a short time later the National Tribune began publishing firsthand accounts penned by the veterans themselves, and did so for decades thereafter. This rich, overlooked, and underused source of primary material offers a gold mine of eyewitness accounts of battles, strategy, tactics, camp life, and much more. From generals to privates, the paper printed articles and long serials on everything from major battles such as Gettysburg and Antietam, to arguments about which battery fired the shot that killed General Leonidas Polk, whether Grant’s army was surprised at Shiloh, and just about every topic in between. Unbeknownst to many, a number of Confederate accounts were also published in the paper.Decades in the making, Dr. Rick Sauers’ unique multi-volume reference work The National Tribune Civil War Index: A Guide to the Weekly Newspaper Dedicated to Civil War Veterans, 1877-1943 lists every article (1877-1943). The first two volumes are organized by author, his unit, title, and page/column location. The third volume—the main index—includes a subject, author, and unit guide, as well as a “Unit as Sources” index that lists articles that mention specific commands but are written by soldiers who were not members of that unit. As an added bonus, this reference guide includes the contents of both the National Tribune Scrapbook and the National Tribune Repository, two short-lived publications that included articles by veterans, and a listing of the major libraries that have National Tribune holdings.Thanks to Dr. Sauers, Civil War researchers and writers worldwide now have easy access to the valuable contents of this primary source material.

The 12th Virginia has an amazing history. John Wilkes Booth stood in the ranks of one of its future companies at John Brown’s hanging. The regiment refused to have Stonewall Jackson appointed its first colonel. Its men first saw combat in naval battles, including Hampton Roads and First Drewry’s Bluff, before embarrassing themselves at Seven Pines—their first land battle—just outside Richmond. Thereafter, the 12th’s record is one of hard-fighting from the Seven Days’ Battles all the way to Appomattox. Its remarkable story is told here in full for the first time in John Horn’s The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War: A History of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown’s Hanging to Appomattox, 1859-1865.The Virginians of the 12th found themselves in some of the most pivotal battles of the war under Generals William Mahone and later, David Weisiger. After distinguishing themselves at Second Manassas, they were hit hard at Crampton’s Gap in the South Mountain fighting and were only able to field 25 men three days later at Sharpsburg. Good service at Chancellorsville followed. Its Gettysburg performance, however, tied to General Mahone’s mysterious behavior there, remains controversial. The Virginians played a key role in Longstreet’s flank attack at the Wilderness as well as in his near-fatal wounding, launched a bayonet charge at Spotsylvania, and captured their first enemy flag. The regiment truly came into its own during the nine-month siege of Petersburg, where it fought in a host of bloody battles including the Crater, Jerusalem Plank Road, Globe Tavern, Second Reams Station, Burgess Mill, and Hatcher’s Run. Two days before the surrender at Appomattox the regiment fought in the rear guard action at Cumberland Church—General Lee’s final victory of the war.Horn’s definitive history is grounded in decades of archival research that uncovered scores of previously unused accounts. The result is a lively, driving, up-tempo regimental history that not only describes the unit’s marches and battles, but includes personal glimpses into the lives of the Virginians who made up the 12th regiment. Tables compare the 12th’s fighting prowess with friend and foe, and an appendix resolves the lingering controversy over the fate of the regiment’s last battle flag.With thirty-two original maps, numerous photos, diagrams, tables, and appendices, a glossary, and many explanatory footnotes, The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War will long be hailed as one of the finest regimental histories ever penned.

Ask most combat veterans to name the worst experience of their lives, and they’ll probably tell you it was war. But confusingly, if you ask them to choose the best experience of their life, they’ll usually say it was war, too. This is nearly impossible for someone who has not been in war to understand. Contrary to the steady stream of Wounded Warrior Foundation commercials on TV, combat veterans are not broken, and they are not victims. Pitying them belittles their experiences and misrepresents the challenges they face after military life. Combat veterans have experienced a spectrum of emotions whose breadth supersedes by a number you cannot imagine the emotional fluctuations of civilian life. That’s why it’s hard to care about normal things when you come back. Ask a combat veteran about this, it’s a common feeling. What is it about war that soldiers miss? This is a question that every civilian should try to understand. This is a moving and insightful book, weaving stories from the flight deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier off Syria to climbing a forbidden Himalayan pass into Tibet to explain one of the most everlasting of human pursuits – war. It’s also about coming home and confronting another kind of struggle, which we all share – the search for happiness. In this collection, Peterson writes of war from the perspective of both a combatant and a witness, taking the reader from combat missions over Afghanistan as an Air Force special operations pilot to the front lines against ISIS in Iraq, and the trenches and tank battles of the war in Ukraine. Interweaving his front-line reports with a narrative about his own transformation from a combat pilot to a war journalist, Peterson explores a timeless paradox – why does coming home from war feel like such a disappointment?

Scale plans in 1/35, 1/48, 1/72 and 1/76 scale of the famous FV 4201 Chieftain Main Battle Tank10 A3 size scale plans of the Chieftain versions.

This new photo album is number 19 in the MMPBooks/Stratus "Camera On" series it is the first to cover such a broad selection of both equipment and vehicles that all have one thing in common the battle against mud. It is estimated that nearly as many vehicles that were destroyed by enemy action were also lost to muddy conditionsThis book contains 140+ photographs of German equipment endeavoring to make its way through mud, sometimes with success and sometimes only with help. We show many of the recovery vehicles in operation and the harsh conditions they had to work in. This volume illustrates this battle as the soldiers viewed it as both their work environment and indeed where they had to live, not the highly polished and sanitized views of the official photographers.

Julius Caesar has been the inspiration to countless military commanders over the last two millennia. Born into an aristocratic family, his early military campaigns, part of his progression along the cursus honorum, included campaigning in the east, Spain and in the early Roman civil wars. His participation in the Gallic Wars is known mainly through the commentary on the wars that he wrote and published, along with his incursions into Britain. This concise history details his military life, and how it impacted with his political career, from his youth through the civil wars that resulted in his becoming the dictator of Rome, and his legacy.

Keith Nightingale’s accomplishments in both military and civilian life largely contribute to the excellence of Living and Breathing as a memoir of unusual depth as well as breadth. Uniquely adopting a third-person omniscient point of view, Nightingale eschews the “I” of memoir in favour of multiple perspectives and a larger historical vision that afford equal time and weight to ally and enemy alike. Examples of the many perspectives based on real-life characters include: Hu, a VC 'informant' whose false information led the Rangers straight into the jaws of a ferocious ambush; General Tanh, the COSVN commander; Major Nguyen Hiep, the 52d Ranger Commander; and Ranger POWs later returned by the North. Nightingale moreover offers the point of view of an American advisor to elite Vietnamese troops, a vital perspective regrettably underrepresented in the literature of Vietnam, including Burns’ documentary. Added to this are well-informed conjecture of enemy psychology; insight into the dedication and often misunderstood role of the elite Vietnamese Ranger forces; the intelligence acquired from debriefing captured Rangers, whose captors had told them that the entire battle had been a carefully staged attack planned by COSVN as part of a larger Total War strategy developed by the leadership of the North Vietnamese Army; and an eye-witness account by a gifted author who is a rare survivor of one of the most vicious – and heretofore forgotten – battles of the war.

This gripping narrative is an in-depth study of the valiant men of General John Caldwell’s Union Division during the Gettysburg Campaign. Caldwell’s Division made a desperate stand against a tough and determined Confederate force in farmer George Rose's nearly 20-acre Wheatfield. Ready for harvest, the infamous Wheatfield would change hands nearly six times in the span of two hours of fighting on July 2, becoming a trampled, bloody, no-man's land for thousands of wounded soldiers. Smith examines the lives of the Union soldiers in the ranks—as well as leaders Cross, Kelly, Zook, Brooke, and Caldwell himself. From Colonel Edward Cross’s black bandana, to the famed Irish Brigade's charge on Stoney Hill, to a lone young man from Washington County whose grave is marked in stone nearby, James Smith’s Storming the Wheatfield goes deep into the lives the soldiers, evoking a personal connection with the troops. Smith painstakingly contacted nearly one hundred descendants of Caldwell's soldiers, producing one of the most extensively researched narratives to date.

This book describes the wartime experiences of Reverend David Railton, MC, who was a chaplain on the Western Front during WWI. As a chaplain, Railton supported soldiers in their worst moments, he buried the fallen, comforted the wounded, wrote to the families of the missing and killed, and helped the survivors to remember and mark the loss of their comrades so that they were able to move on and do their job. He was present at many battles, and received the Military Cross for rescuing an officer and two men under heavy fire on the Somme. It was Railton’s idea to bring home the body of a fallen comrade, whose identity was unknown, from the battlefields of Belgium and France to be buried in Westminster Abbey. Although suffering from what was obviously Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, after the war he carried out his duties as the vicar of Margate and took on many philanthropic works on behalf of the poor, especially supporting ex-servicemen who came home and had to deal with the aftermath of a terrible war and crippling unemployment.The story of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior has been told several times, including the part played by the Reverend David Railton, M.C. However, this book – based on hundreds of Railton's original letters, notes, and writings – is the first book to tell the story of the man himself and his flag, which he used as an altar cloth and shroud throughout the war, was consecrated a year after the burial of the Unknown Warrior, and now hangs in Westminster Abbey.

Countless books have examined the battle of Gettysburg, but the retreat of the armies to the Potomac River and beyond has not been as thoroughly covered. “Lee is Trapped, and Must be Taken”: Eleven Fateful Days after Gettysburg: July 4 to July 14, 1863, by Thomas J. Ryan and Richard R. Schaus goes a long way toward rectifying this oversight.This comprehensive study focuses on the immediate aftermath of the battle and addresses how Maj. Gen. George G. Meade organized and motivated his Army of the Potomac in response to President Abraham Lincoln’s mandate to bring about the “literal or substantial destruction” of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s retreating Army of Northern Virginia. As far as the president was concerned, if Meade aggressively pursued and confronted Lee before he could escape across the flooded Potomac River, “the rebellion would be over.”The long and bloody three-day battle exhausted both armies. Their respective commanders faced difficult tasks, including the rallying of their troops for more marching and fighting. Lee had to keep his army organized and motivated enough to conduct an orderly withdrawal away from the field. Meade faced the same organizational and motivational challenges, while assessing the condition of his victorious but heavily damaged army, to determine if it had sufficient strength to pursue and crush a still-dangerous enemy. Central to the respective commanders’ decisions was the information they received from their intelligence-gathering resources about the movements, intentions, and capability of the enemy. The eleven-day period after Gettysburg was a battle of wits to determine which commander better understood the information he received, and directed the movements of his army accordingly. Prepare for some surprising revelations.Woven into this account is the fate of thousands of Union prisoners who envisioned rescue to avoid incarceration in wretched Confederate prisons, and a characterization of how the Union and Confederate media portrayed the ongoing conflict for consumption on the home front.The authors utilized a host of primary sources to craft their study, including letters, memoirs, diaries, official reports, newspapers, and telegrams, and have threaded these intelligence gems in an exciting and fast-paced narrative that includes a significant amount of new information. “Lee is Trapped, and Must be Taken” is a sequel to Thomas Ryan’s Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign, the recipient of the Bachelder-Coddington Literary Award and Gettysburg Civil War Round Table Distinguished Book Award.

Fighter aircraft were developed by during World War I at an unprecedented rate, as nascent air forces sought to achieve and maintain air supremacy. German manufacturers innovated at top speed, while constantly scrutinizing the development of new enemy aircraft. The Germans also utilized the concept of systematic production or modular engineering during the war—Fokker capitalized on this aspect with all his aircraft built in a similar fashion—wooden wings with welded steel fuselages. This meant that they could be disassembled or reassembled quickly in the field—unlike many Allied aircraft. Pfalz and Albatros were the first to realize the importance of a streamlined fuselage—the precursor to all that would follow. Both of these companies built semi-monocoque fuselages using plywood to develop semi-stressed skin—the Allies had nothing like this. The Germans also perfect powerful inline engines, as exemplified by the Albatros fighters. These engines did not have the gyroscopic effect of the rotary engines and as such were easier and more stable to fly. Fokker was slow to give up his rotary engines but once he did, the result was the iconic Fokker D VII—years ahead of its time and the only aircraft specifically mentioned in the Treaty of Versailles that Germany could not build after the war. German Fighter Aircraft in World War I explores how German fighter aircraft were developed during the war, the innovations and trials that made the Fokker D VII possible, and the different makes and types of aircraft. Using unpublished images including photographs of surviving aircraft, archive images, and models and replicas, it shows details of aircraft that were kept top secret during the war. Extensively illustrated with 140 photos and ten color profiles, this is will be essential reading for all WWI aviation enthusiasts and modellers.

At the beginning of 1942, the Tirpitz, the heaviest battleship ever built by a European navy was on the cusp of breaking out into the north Atlantic. The prospect of a huge German battleship patrolling the Atlantic posed a grave threat to the convoys that served as the lifeline for an embattled Britain. After attempted bombing raids failed, a new and far more daring plan was created; to ram a battleship loaded with explosives into St. Nazaire, the only dry dock capable of supporting this unstoppable juggernaut. This volume in the Casemate Illustrated series gives a clear overview of the planning and execution of the raid and its aftermath, accompanied by 125 photographs and images, including colour profiles and maps.

This profusely illustrated photo album includes over 120 previously unseen pictures of the Kaiserliche Eisenbahn-Bau Kompanie unit, which operated during early stages of WW1 in the Western Galicia, now southern Poland.

This profusely illustrated photo album includes over 120 previously unseen pictures of the Kaiserliche Eisenbahn-Bau Kompanie unit, which operated during early stages of WW1 in the Western Galicia, now southern Poland.

4 juin 1944, 18h30, sud de l'Angleterre. Des officiers de liaison montent à bord de vingt-deux bâtiments français. Enfermés avec les commandants, ils leur remettent une grande enveloppe cachetée. Dès le départ des Anglais, les « pachas » découvrent leurmission dans l'opération « Neptune » (nom de code donné au débarquement des troupes alliées en Normandie). Les équipages sont réunis. Les hommes découvrent qu'ils seront les premiers Français à contribuer au débarquement. Beaucoup parmi ces marins venus de France qui vont participer à la plus vaste opération navale de tous les temps ont rejoint de Gaulle en Grande-Bretagne. En revanche certains, à commencer par leur chef l'Amiral Jaujard, sont plus réticents à l'égard du général. C'est l'histoire de ces bateaux et de ces hommes qui forme le coeur du livre. Parmi eux, Querville avec son sous-marin la Junon qui a débarqué en Norvège un commando chargé de faire sauter une usine d'eau lourde; ou Levasseur avec l'Aconit qui a coulé deux U-Boote en douze heures. La participation des marins français est rarement, voire jamais, évoquée lorsqu'on célèbre les anniversaires du débarquement en Normandie. Il n'est que temps de réparer l'injustice faite à ces hommes, à leurs bâtiments et à la Marine Nationale.