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3 weeks ago | 
warfarehistorynetwork.com | Eric Niderost
At a prearranged signal, Pickett’s division executed a “left oblique,” a complicated maneuver designed to maintain the link with Pettigrew’s men and prevent a fatal drift to the right. The Southerners halted under fire and changed direction, the whole operation being accomplished in two or three minutes. The Union troops watching across the way marveled at the Rebels’ coolness.
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Jan 20, 2025 | 
warfarehistorynetwork.com | Eric Niderost
By Eric NiderostNews that the Germans had been halted at the Marne River, a scant 30 miles from Paris, filled France and Britain with a sense of joy and relief. Since August 1914, a tidal wave of gray-clad soldiers had swept through Belgium and northern France like a juggernaut.
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Jan 19, 2025 | 
warfarehistorynetwork.com | Eric Niderost
By Eric NiderostMaurice Hermann, Count of Saxony and Marshal of France, swept the horizon with his telescope, his gaze occasionally pausing on the villages of Vlijtingen and Lauffeld in the distance. Better known to history as Maurice de Saxe, he was standing on the Heerderen Heights, a kind of natural amphitheater that should have given him an excellent view of the terrain just ahead. But, July 2, 1747, had begun with a clammy mist that shrouded the ground before giving way to a heavy rain.
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Jan 15, 2025 | 
warfarehistorynetwork.com | Eric Niderost
By Eric NiderostIt was around noon, June 19, 1940, when a small caravan of cars set out from Antibes in southern France en route to the Spanish border. Edward, Duke of Windsor was in one of the cars accompanied by his wife, the former American socialite Wallis Simpson.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
warfarehistorynetwork.com | Eric Niderost
By Eric NiderostMajor General Charles “Chuck” Yeager, United States Air force (Ret.), was one of a handful of people who could rightly claim the title “living legend.” He is best remembered as the first human being ever to break the sound barrier, a feat that some scientists claimed was impossible. Yeager achieved Mach 1 aboard the experimental Bell X-1, which he named Glamorous Glennis after his wife. The date was October 14, 1947, and his flight is considered a milestone in aerospace history.
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Aug 19, 2024 | 
warfarehistorynetwork.com | Eric Niderost
By Eric NiderostOn February 28, 1942, Governor Ralph Lawrence Carr of Colorado received a telegram from the White House. At that moment he was in his office, surrounded by staff, but routine business had to be put on hold while Carr quickly scanned the missive that came directly from the president of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt. The United States was at war, and no message coming from the nation’s chief executive could be taken lightly.
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Jul 26, 2024 | 
warfarehistorynetwork.com | Eric Niderost
By Eric NiderostQ: Could you give us a little personal background before we talk about your war experiences? SIMS: I was born on April 29, 1925, at Sheffield in Yorkshire. My father worked for a wholesale druggist called Burdalls of Sheffield, and moved to Brighton in Sussex to open new ground shortly before my birth. I had no career ambitions growing up, but had I stayed in Sheffield I would have probably ended up in a local steelworks.
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May 17, 2024 | 
warfarehistorynetwork.com | Eric Niderost
By Eric NiderostRobert Morris Peck was strolling the streets of Cincinnati one brisk November day when a yellow poster outside a boarding house caught his eye. After the bold headline “wanted,” he read: able-bodied, unmarried men between the ages of seventeen and forty-five to enlist as soldiers in the First Regiment, U.S. Cavalry. It was 1856, and the 17-year-old printer’s apprentice had a restless, peripatetic nature and an innate thirst for adventure.
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Feb 18, 2024 | 
warfarehistorynetwork.com | Eric Niderost
By Eric NiderostThe afternoon of May 30, 1942, found Clyde Sarah waiting for his girlfriend Ida on Estudillo Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in San Leandro, a small town just across the bay from San Francisco. She knew the address, so he couldn’t help wondering what was delaying her. It was Memorial Day, a time when Americans honored those who gave their lives defending the United States, and this year the event was particularly poignant.
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Jan 28, 2024 | 
warfarehistorynetwork.com | Eric Niderost
By Eric NiderostAgroup of insurgents, probably abolitionists fiercely dedicated to ending slavery, had seized the Federal Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry—that was the news Charles W. Welsh, Chief Clerk of the Navy Department, had for the officer in charge of the Marine Barracks at the Washington Navy Yard. At noon on Wednesday, October 17, 1859, the senior line officer present at that moment just happened to be First Lieutenant Isaac Greene.
