Texas A & M University military history series ;

"Frank E. Vandiver's detailed research ... provide a vivid description of Stonewall's boyhood, West Point training, early career, years of teaching at the Virginia Military Institute, and Civil War campaigns. Here, too, are insights into Jackson's personal life and his deep religious feelings, which were so influential on his military thought and actions"--Jacket.

The first year of the Korean conflict was a dark and humiliating period for many of the troops who fought there. Against a backdrop of U.S. political indecision and reduced military capability, American soldiers fought a dedicated and numerically strong enemy force that was determined to overrun South Korea. One of these units, the segregated 24th Infantry Regiment, was made up of black soldiers, commanded for the most part by white officers. Lyle Rishell, an infantry platoon leader, led a black platoon of Able Company in that regiment. This book tells the dramatic, often frustrating, sometimes heroic story of that platoon in that first, fateful year of war. From detailed notes he made at the time, and from his memories of those days, Rishell reconstructs the deployment and tactics of his unit, its day-to-day actions and survival. The story that unfolds is one of honor, fear, fighting spirit, fierce combat, and the cries of wounded. men. The 24th Infantry Regiment has received bad press from many historians of the Korean conflict, who claim that the black soldiers and noncommissioned officers were undisciplined and even cowardly in battle. Rishell's moving account, based on his own experiences, describes his men as no better or worse than any other infantrymen in the first year in Korea. His troops fought well from July, 1950, to May, 1951, in nearly constant front-line action against the North Koreans and the Chinese Communists, despite a variety of significant fundamental obstacles, including the racial prejudice of much of their own army. It is a unique and compelling story of the relationship of a white officer and black soldiers before integration of the services and the civil rights legislation of the sixties. It is also an important corrective to a poorly understood aspect of one of America's most dismal conflicts. - Jacket flap.

Blood and Treasure tells the fascinating story of the Confederacy's ambitious plan to conquer the Southwestern territories of New Mexico and Arizona. Led by Lieutenant Colonel, and later Arizona governor, John R. Baylor and General H. H. Sibley, Texan soldiers trekked from San Antonio to Fort Bliss in El Paso, then northward up the Rio Grande, to Santa Fe. Fighting both Apaches and Federal troops, the half-trained, undisciplined army met success at the Battle of Val Verde and defeat at the Battle of Apache Canyon. Finally, the Texans won the Battle of Glorieta Pass, only to lose their supply train - and eventually the campaign. Pursued and demoralized, the Confederates abandoned their dream of empire and began a dispirited journey back to El Paso and San Antonio. . Using narratives of veterans of the campaign and official Confederate and Union documents, the author explains how this seemingly far-fetched fantasy of building a Confederate empire was an essential part of the Confederate strategy. Military historians will be challenged to modify traditional views of Confederate imperial ambitions. Generalists will be drawn into the fascinating saga of the soldiers' fears, despair, and struggles to survive.

Chronicles the life of Simon Bolivar, one of the most influential and enigmatic figures in Latin American history, focusing on his extensive military career.