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As he waited for Phil Sheridan at his headquarters tent, Army of the Potomac commander George G. Meade knew an argument with 'Little Phil' was inevitable. It was May 8,1864, [...]

As the war ended, Custer and his wife, Libbie, spent time in war-torn central Louisiana. It would be an alarming few months. The detritus of war was evident along the [...]

Cut off from his staff by daring Northern horsemen, Stonewall Jackson faced near-certain disaster. How did he escape? Sunday, June 8, 1862 dawned bright and cool in Virginias beautiful Shenandoah [...]

'Varus! Give me back my legions!' shouted the enraged Roman Emperor Augustus according to ancient Roman historian Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars. Augustus was raging against his losing commander in [...]

Fought on Sept. 17, 1631, the Battle of Breitenfeld was the first major Protestant victory of the Thirty Years' War. The epic clash pitted the opposing factions' most outstanding generals [...]

In celebrating Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan's triumph at the Battle of Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864, newspapers across the North enthusiastically conjectured that this latest in a series [...]

In January 1918, as U.S. participation in World War I neared its first anniversary, historian James G. Randall of the University of Illinois wrote perhaps the definitive article on Northern [...]

At sunset on March 9, 1945, Major General Curtis E. LeMay watched the first of more than 300 bombers lift off from Guam's crushed coral runway for a midnight strike [...]

In a war known for its provocative personalities, few could compete with Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler. An established antebellum politician, lawyer, and businessman, he gained fame during the conflict [...]

The Union Army's 17th Missouri Infantry arrived at Bridgeport, Ala., on the Tennessee River in late November 1863. Known as the Western Turner Rifles, they fought in Maj. Gen. Peter [...]

In describing Union Maj. Gen. Grenville Mellen Dodge to Ulysses S. Grant, his commander and friend, William Sherman usually kept it simple. 'Dodge is a brick,' he once wrote Grant--perhaps [...]

Major General Matthew B. Ridgway knew what he had to do. In less than a week--on September 9,1943--American and British troops would hit the beaches at Salerno, the Allies' first [...]

On December 31, 1862, the same day the much-bloodier Battle of Stones River raged to the east in Murfreesboro, Tenn., 1,800 Confederate cavalrymen under Nathan Bedford Forrest fought two Union [...]

General George S. Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885--December 21, 1945), Americas best-known World War II battle commander, was famously nicknamed 'Old Blood and Guts' for his aggressive and daring leadership [...]

Staff Sergeant Les Kness, 23, glanced at his buddy as their U.S. Army troop truck lurched and banged over the rugged terrain from the dusty airfield. Sergeant Les Cook, a [...]

In January 1861, the firing upon Fort Sumter and the Civil War's outbreak were still months away, but the war had already arrived in Pensacola, Fla. The strategic naval port [...]

After the Battle of the Wilderness on May 5-7, 1864, the Army of the Potomac tried to slip by General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Lee, however, was [...]

SITUATION: Famous as a leader in combat, Chesty Puller was a skillful pistol fighter as well. LESSON: Training, skill and the best equipment are enormously helpful. Perhaps most important, though, [...]

The journey of Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, from the deserts of remotest Darfur to a gilded mansion on the banks of the Nile in Khartoum, Sudan's embattled [...]

The war in Sudan is causing relief, fear and déjà vu in Juba, the capital of its southern neighbour. Relief because South Sudan, which seceded from Sudan in 2011, seems [...]

Each morning since April 15th, residents of Khartoum, Sudan's capital, have woken to the thunder of air strikes and the crackle of nearby gunfire. In just the first four days [...]

Southern fortunes turned on a dime in mid-1862. The first full year of the war had begun badly with several setbacks out West, and by June the Confederates faced a [...]

THE SKY SEEMED THE LIMIT FDR UNION GENERAL FITZ JDHN PORTER. THEN CAME END BULL RUN. Fitz John Porter's arrival at the U.S. Military Academy in 1841 gave him a [...]

Many fathers have complicated relationships with their sons. But when a family controls the state, personal matters become a national concern. Uganda's president, https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/01/16/yoweri-museveni-wins-ugandas-flawed-presidential-election , has long cultivated General Muhoozi [...]

ON FEBRUARY 11TH 2022, as Russia piled up men and armour along Ukraine's border, I listened as https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2023/01/16/who-is-valery-gerasimov-russias-latest-commander-in-ukraine , the Russian chief of the general staff, lied to Admiral Sir [...]

The battle began unexpectedly, in the middle of the night, on May 11, 1918. Polish general Jozef Haller had one day to live. Hallers Polish II Corps had spent the [...]

STRATCOM wants to be the glue that binds Britain's armed forces G ENERAL SIR Jim Hockenhull could not have anticipated a public profile when he entered the Intelligence Corps, one [...]

The Duke of Marlborough was a commander for the ages. For 10 campaigns during the War of the Spanish Succession, stretching from 1702 to 1711, he was never defeated on [...]

On March 27, 1777, King George III received Major General John Burgoyne at Saint James Palace, where, in a private audience, Burgoyne reviewed his audacious proposal to attack the rebellious [...]

DURING THE 1864 Overland Campaign, staff officer Theodore Lyman marveled at the skill of the Army of the Potomac's chief quartermaster Rufus Ingalls. 'How these huge trains are moved over [...]

'Custer was a fighting man, through and through, but wary and wily as brave. There was in him an indescribable somethingcall it caution, call it sagacity, call it real military [...]

A second coup in two years upends a democratic transition THE SCRIPT was all too familiar. First, Sudan awoke to find that Abdalla Hamdok, the prime minister appointed by protest [...]

Jean Napoleon Zerman was an enigmatic soldier of fortune, with an incredible knack for hairbreadth escapes. He spent a fair time in and out of prisons and evaded execution on [...]

Two Civil War words tend to bring everyone's blood to the boiling point: George McClellan. We love to bash McClellan, the Union Army's calculating and cautious, contentious and contemptible, conceited [...]

ALL CIVIL WAR BATTLES have their share of myths, but Gettysburg seems to be in a league of its own. One of the more enduring ones--one I heard frequently when [...]

James R. Chalmers was not satisfied. The Mississippian had enjoyed a long, successful life, making his name and fortune as a lawyer and a planter; as a vocal member of [...]

Spring 1862 had begun with such promise for the North. The 'Young Napoleon,' Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, had methodically organized and, by April, launched an 80-mile OT thrust by [...]

The summer of 1864 was in many ways the Confederacy's last gasp for survival. Ulysses S. Grant had gone east to take over-all command of the Union Army, but he [...]

THE 1862 MARYLAND CAMPAIGN had left the Army of Northern Virginia badly damaged. Now with thousands of stragglers, wounded, and sick scattered across the lower end of the Shenandoah Valley, [...]

ONE OF THE THINGS I'VE REALIZED when it comes to studying the war is that once a narrative becomes entrenched, it's difficult to get people to see it any other [...]

This commentary is in response to Jason W. Warren's article 'The Centurion Mindset and the Army's Strategic Tender Paradigm' published in the Autumn 2015 issue of Parameters (vol. 45, no. [...]