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In early March of 1862, attention in the Civil War was not only fixed on the great rivers but also on the rough Ozark terrain along the Missouri-Arkansas border. On March 7th, 1862, Union forces under General Samuel Curtis met a Confederate army led by Earl Van Dorn near Pea Ridge, in a battle that unfolded over two days in tangled woods and at crossroads such as Elkhorn Tavern.
As Union forces closed in on Atlanta during the summer of the Civil War, Confederate leadership underwent a dramatic change. General John Bell Hood replaced Joseph E. Johnston and immediately sought to seize the initiative with aggressive attacks. On July 20th, 1864, Hood hurled his troops against the Army of the Cumberland as it crossed Peachtree Creek north of the city, hoping to catch Union units strung out and vu
The September 1944 landing on Peleliu secured an airfield but opened a much longer struggle against a deeply fortified island. Marine and Army operations continued into November, making the battle more than the familiar story of its first beaches.
On April 6, 1865, Union infantry and cavalry struck separated portions of Lee’s retreating army. The fights at Hillsman Farm, Marshall’s Crossroads and Lockett Farm inflicted losses the Confederates could not readily replace and brought the campaign nearer its conclusion.
The June–July 1944 battle for Saipan joined Marine and Army divisions in a sustained advance across a populated island. Its outcome transformed American air operations while leaving a devastating military and civilian legacy.
In the Texas Revolution, a short, violent clash on the Gulf Coast plains decided the fate of a breakaway republic and, eventually, much of the American Southwest. On April 21st, 1836, General Sam Houston’s Texian army surprised the larger Mexican force of General Antonio López de Santa Anna near the San Jacinto River. Many of the Texian fighters were recent immigrants from the United States, bringing frontier militia
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.
During the early Civil War struggle for control of the South’s key ports, Union commanders targeted Charleston, South Carolina, both for its symbolic role in secession and its practical value as a harbor. On June 16th, 1862, Union forces launched a dawn assault on fortified Confederate positions at Secessionville, on James Island just outside the city. The terrain of marshes, creeks, and narrow causeways forced attac
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
At Pittsburg Landing along the Tennessee River, Confederate forces struck the encamped Union Army of the Tennessee in a surprise attack that opened one of the Civil War’s first truly massive battles. General Ulysses S. Grant’s troops had been gathering for an advance deeper into the Confederate heartland when General Albert Sidney Johnston launched a dawn assault.
After the Wilderness, the armies fought for roads, salients and supply routes around Spotsylvania. The Bloody Angle was the most remembered episode, but the battle also included Laurel Hill, Heth’s Salient and later attempts to turn or break the defenses.
A story of a brutal island landing, a coral reef turned killing ground, and how one short battle rewrote amphibious warfare.
A story of a winter surprise offensive and exhausted American units holding the line under crushing odds.
An unfolding story of carrier decks, radio reports, and long-range strikes that reshaped the Pacific war before the fleets ever met face to face.
Just three days later, another phase of the Guadalcanal campaign played out at sea. In the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, American carriers, including Enterprise and Saratoga, maneuvered against a Japanese task force seeking to reinforce and resupply their troops on the island. Aviators from both sides flew long-range searches and strikes in a complex pattern of blows and counterblows over the open ocean.
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.
In the Second World War, the Aleutian Islands campaign unfolded in harsh seas and fog, far from the better-known fronts of Europe and the central Pacific. On March 26th, 1943, an American cruiser-destroyer force under Rear Admiral Charles McMorris intercepted a Japanese convoy near the Komandorski Islands, northwest of the Aleutians. The enemy escort included heavier cruisers, giving the Japanese an advantage in guns
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.