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South of Frederick, Maryland, on July 9th, 1864, Union Major General Lew Wallace assembled a scratch force to block Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Early’s corps moving toward Washington. Wallace’s men, including fresh militia and detachments from the veteran Sixth Corps, took up positions along the Monocacy River, knowing they were significantly outnumbered. The Confederates eventually outflanked and drove the
A story of a lopsided clash where earthworks, frontier rifles, and bad timing shattered a veteran British army and reshaped a young republic’s confidence.
The Spanish-American War brought United States forces into Cuba, and on July 1st, 1898, American troops attacked fortified Spanish positions at El Caney and along the San Juan Heights outside Santiago. At El Caney, infantry fought for hours to take a stone blockhouse and surrounding works, while other regiments prepared to advance on Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill.
Two days later, on July 3rd, 1898, the Spanish Caribbean Squadron attempted a breakout from Santiago’s harbor, hoping to escape the blockading United States Navy. As the Spanish cruisers and destroyers emerged, American battleships and armored cruisers moved to intercept, opening fire in a running engagement along the coast. Superior gunnery, armor, and speed allowed the United States ships to rake their opponents, d
In the spring of 1918, the American Expeditionary Forces were still gaining experience on the Western Front when German troops launched a major raid near the village of Seicheprey. On April 20th, 1918, storm troops attacked positions held by the 26th “Yankee” Division, made up largely of New England National Guard units. The German assault used heavy artillery preparation, infiltration tactics, and gas shells to knoc
As the spring campaigns of the American Civil War unfolded in 1862, Union forces pressed down the Virginia Peninsula toward Richmond. On May 31st, 1862, Confederate troops struck back near the crossroads of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks, launching a fierce assault against elements of the Union Army of the Potomac. Confusion in the swampy terrain and miscoordination among Confederate commanders blunted what might have bee
A story of a brutal island landing, a coral reef turned killing ground, and how one short battle rewrote amphibious warfare.
One year later to the week, the balance of power in the air over the Southwest Pacific had begun to shift. On March 2nd, 1943, United States Army Air Forces and Royal Australian Air Force units spotted a Japanese convoy attempting to move troops and supplies to the key base at Lae in New Guinea. Over the next two days, Allied medium bombers and attack aircraft used new low-level “skip bombing” techniques, roaring in
A story of a winter surprise offensive and exhausted American units holding the line under crushing odds.
Just two days after the Los Angeles scare, a very real crisis unfolded far across the Pacific. On February 27th, 1942, a mixed Allied naval force under Dutch command, including the United States heavy cruiser Houston, engaged a Japanese invasion convoy in the waters of the Java Sea.
On the northern Plains, the date June 25th, 1876 is inseparable from the shock that followed the destruction of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer’s battalion along the Little Bighorn River. Part of a larger campaign to push Lakota and Northern Cheyenne bands onto reservations, Custer’s Seventh Cavalry column advanced aggressively toward a large village whose size and fighting strength he underestimated.
By mid-1918, German armies in France had driven a dangerous salient across the Marne River, threatening Paris and hoping to win the war before American troops could arrive in strength. In the early hours of July 18th, French and American forces launched a coordinated counteroffensive, striking the exposed flanks of the German position near Soissons and along the Marne.
An air-sea clash where radar, training, and discipline turned a desperate carrier defense into a one-sided hammer blow that reshaped the Pacific war.
That same global war saw another crucial August fight half a world away on the island of Guadalcanal. United States Marines of the 1st Marine Division had seized a vital airstrip earlier in the month and were entrenching around it when a Japanese force under Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki was ordered to sweep them away.
Almost twenty years later, the United States tore itself apart in civil war, and May 5th, 1864 marked the beginning of a grim new phase. That day, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant pushed the Army of the Potomac south across the Rapidan River into a tangle of underbrush and second-growth forest known simply as the Wilderness. In that terrain, visibility collapsed, lines broke apart, and musket flashes set the woods
In the dark, humid hours before dawn on Okinawa, the American line around Kakazu Ridge was little more than a jagged string of foxholes and shattered stone. Technical Sergeant Beauford “Andy” Anderson and the men of his weapons platoon had spent the night listening to the island—distant artillery rumbled, mortars coughed, and now and then a Japanese flare turned the terraced fields silver for a heartbeat before dropp
In the early hours of May 12th, 1949, Soviet authorities lift the land and water blockade that has cut West Berlin off from surrounding territory for nearly a year. Since the previous summer, American and British aircrews have flown round-the-clock missions to deliver food, coal, and other essentials to the isolated city. The airlift becomes a massive logistical effort, with aircraft landing and taking off every few
In the early morning hours, Confederate batteries around Charleston harbor opened fire on Fort Sumter, a brick fortification held by a small United States Army garrison. The standoff over supplies and sovereignty that had simmered through the winter suddenly turned into open combat. For more than a day, shells and heated shot crashed into the fort’s walls and buildings, setting fires and forcing the defenders to husb