Public interest in past wars gave rise to writings that may
be of interest not just to students of military history, but to our other
readers as well.
Our military history publications -- and many tend to
fit neatly into the local history category as well -- are listed below. We
invite you to examine our offerings.
As well, please visit our pages about
World War I -- "The Great War".
The centennial of this "war to end all wars" began in 2014, and the
United States officially entered the war in 1917. We have a number of World
War I-era publications, several of which are rare and difficult to locate -- in honor
of that event. Our publications related to
The Great War will be found on that
page. Click
HERE to go to our page about World War I.
A new subject here is the role of women spies during American conflicts.
It was suggested and the early implementation done by one of our interns, and we
recommend the page on that topic to you.
Please click
here to go to the Women Spies page.
Please
let us know if military history is an interest of yours. We prioritize our publications largely on what we
hear from people who visit our website.
Military History that is currently available:
Rose
Greenhow, in Pinkerton's Spy of the Rebellion
Our first offering in the Women Spies
Collection. The chapter concerns one Rose Greenhow, the famous Confederate spy in Washington
D.C. Please see our Women Spies
page for more information.
Provost Marshal of Charleston
The Letter Book of Colonel Alexander Haskell
Brown, Provost Marshal of Charleston
Edited with an Introduction by Robert G.
Carroon.
More information is
available about
this publication.
Fountain County, Indiana
Fountain County's Activities in the
World War
Compiled for the Fountain County Council of
Defense by Verna Glascock.
More information about
this publication is available.
If World War I is of interest to you,
please visit our pages about
World War I -- "The Great
War".
Jefferson County, New York, In the World War
Highlights include two lengthy lists: those from Jefferson County who
served, and those who died.
See our Jefferson County page for more
information.
If World War I is of interest to you,
please visit our pages about
World War I -- "The Great
War".
The 143rd Regiment, New York Volunteers,
Infantry
Originally published (1892) by Watchman Print,
Monticello, NY. More information about this publication
is available.
Civil War Centennial
Commemoration - Columbia County, NY - 1862 – 1962
This program for the Columbia County’s American Legion
Posts’ commemoration of the Civil War’s centennial (notably the 128th
Infantry Regiment, drawn from Columbia County) was a relatively modest
affairs, particularly when compared with other centennial activities in
the former Confederate states. The booklet provides a list of the
officers and men of the 128th, and a drawing and some
information about the Battle of Cedar Creek, in which the 128th
played an important role. Going forward, the document may be of
equal interest to those who had some connection with the American Legion in
Columbia County in the 1960, because the Legion posts in Columbia County are
enumerated, along with the names of those who organized the activity. See
our Columbia County page for
more information.
Cold Cheer at Camp Morton – Prisoners of War in the Civil War
Articles
from
The Century
Magazine,
Volumes 41 & 42 (1891).
Camp Morton, located in
Indianapolis, Indiana, was actually one of the better and more humane POW
facilities of the Civil War, contemporary historians tell us. Regardless,
by modern standards POWs were not treated well there, and in this set of
articles, we have an initial report by a former prisoner, John A. Wyeth, MD,
with an official rebuttal following in the next issue, with a rejoinder by
Dr. Wyeth. It’s interesting that this series of articles originally
appeared in 1891, more than 20 years after the war ended. See our
Indiana page for more information.
Convention Troops
in Connecticut
Some Revolutionary War history from the
Connecticut Quarterly (volume III - 1897). Of particular interest to
those studying the Norfolk CT area. Download 6+ pages, PDF format, $1.75.
Marking General
Herkimer’s Route to Oriskany
By Charlotte A. Pitcher (1912),
The colonists’ victory at the
Battle of Oriskany is viewed today as one of the pivotal battles of the
American Revolution. More than a century after that battle, a number of
hereditary, patriotic, and civit organizations in the Utica/Oriskany area
embarked on a project to mark the route taken by General Herkimer and his
troops to that engagement with a series of monuments. While sketching out
the actual route of the march in more detail than one usually finds in
accounts of the battle, the article also describes the efforts of the
sponsoring organizations to appropriately mark it and the celebrations that
accompanied the unveiling of the markers. More information is
available on our Herkimer County,
NY page.
A Brief Military History of Salisbury,
Connecticut
An
address by Malcolm D. Rudd (1911) from the historical collections of the
Salisbury Association. 30+ pages.
More information is available about this publication.
Salisbury
(CT) in War Time
A Memorial Day
1910 address by Thomas Lot Norton, with a list of Salisbury men who fought for
the Union. See our
Salisbury page for more information about this publication.
"Military" chapter from French's Gazetteer of the
State of New York (1860)
The remarkable thing about this short (3+ pages)
article is just how few words it took to describe New York's military establishment
on the eve of the Civil War. Within four years, this organization was to
have expanded exponentially. Download now in PDF format, $1.50
Montgomery County in the War of the Rebellion
from History of Montgomery County, by Washington Frothingham (1892).
Montgomery County, New York, was an active participant in the efforts to win
the Civil War, as this chapter shows. The number of regiments in which
Montgomery County citizens participated was indeed a large one. See
our Montgomery County page
for more information.
Provost
Marshal of Charleston, SC
This is the transcription of
the letter book of the Provost Marshal of Charleston, SC during the portion
of the Civil War when that city was under martial law.
See our South Carolina page.
The Civil War chapter from
Edgar C. Emerson's Jefferson County, New York (1898).
The chapter includes general material about attitudes toward the war in
Jefferson County, and lists units raised in the county, including officers
(commissioned and non-commissioned) as well as the history of each unit.
Please see our Jefferson County, NY
page for more information.
Albany County in the Civil War
from The Landmarks of Albany
County, New York by Amasa J. Parker (1897) This chapter of Parker’s
volume includes some of the history leading up to the Civil War and
material about those years and events following it. The chapter
includes units raised in Albany County,
their officers and NCOs, their casualties, and their campaigns.
See our Albany County page.
Schuylkill County, PA: 100th Anniversary
While this is a general history of the
county on its centennial, the county's contribution to the Union
during the Civil War was considerable and the few pages identifying the
units its men joined will be of interest to some. See our
Schuylkill
County, PA page for more information.
Military
History From The History of Hanover, Massachusetts, by Jedediah
Dwelley and John F. Simmons (1910)
The military history in this volume begins
with King Philip’s War (1675), and continues, in great detail, through all
of the conflicts that had been completed by 1910. It concludes with
what was called a “mimic war” – the Blue and Red War of 1909 – which
presumably would be closest to what military re-enactors do today, except in
terms of numbers: evidently more than 10,000 troops participated in these
war games. It seems refreshingly naïve given what befell the world
beginning only four years after the volume was published. See our
Massachusetts page for more information.
The War of the Rebellion chapters from History of Fayette County,
Pennsylvania, by Franklin Ellis (1882).
This county
history is detailed in its documentation of the county’s efforts in the
Civil War, as the chapters in this selection show. Chapter 17 is an account
of Fayette’s first companies, the 8th and 11th
Regiments, reserves. Chapter 18 covers the 85th Regiment and the
2nd Heavy Artillery. Chapter 19 details the 116th and
142nd Regiments. Chapter 20 covers the 14th Cavalry,
while Chapter 21 covers the 16th Cavalry. In all cases, rosters
of men from Fayette County are provided, along with casualty data, and in
something not often seen in county histories, mustering in dates even for
private soldiers. See our Pennsylvania page
for more information.
Connecticut’s Soldiery
From the Connecticut Quarterly, Volume III (1897).
The
article, written sufficient years after the end of the Civil War that first-hand
memories of Army life have faded for the most part, discusses the Connecticut
National Guard as 1900 and a century of new warfare looms. Charles W. Burpee
describes garrison life during “summer camp” in peacetime and provides a bit
of history of the Connecticut Militia, nee Trainband, as well as making a
case for the more serious nature of the Connecticut Guard at that point in
time. See our Connecticut page for
more information.
Torrington in Wartimes
from
Orcutt’s History of Torrington, Connecticut (1878).
This section from that book – Chapter 18,
Wartimes – covers the American Revolution and the Civil War, and has added
material about the efforts on the home front, as well as on special topics
such as women in the wars. Not confined to lists of muster rolls (although
these are included) it is useful for anyone with an interest in either of
these wars and their impact in rural New England. See our
Torrington page for more
information.
Annals of Augusta County, VA
(1902)
While not properly military history, the
expanse of Augusta County saw extensive involvement in conflicts:
Indian Wars, the War of 1812 (less so), and the War of Secession (known in
our part of the world as the Civil War). There is plenty of military
history to be found in this volume, and much of it is written from the
perspective of a land where the battles were fought and blood shed.
Please see our Virginia page for more
information.
Patience Wright, America's First Female International Spy
An article about Patience Wright, an international spy on the side of the
United States, during the Revolutionary War.
The article appears in
The
Lure of the Litchfield Hills - Volume XX, no. 3, Winter 1960.
See our Litchfield County CT page
for more information on downloading the entire issue.
Andrustown – A Page from Herkimer County’s
Past
by Dr. Grace M. Norris.
(1911) Herkimer County Historical Society
Papers, Volume IV.
The demise of the tiny community of Andrustown in a massacre during
the Revolutionary War. Civilian massacres are part of the collateral damage
of wartimes even when they are not part of the military strategy. Here
is the story of an example of such an episode. See our
Herkimer
County page for more information.
The Tories of Connecticut
from the Connecticut Quarterly, Volume IV (1898). It did not take
much to be considered a Tory during the times of the American Revolution
-- being committed to maintaining the status quo was really the only
requirement to be categorized as such. As a consequence, Connecticut
had many, many people who fell in this category. This article
provides background information about Connecticut's Tories and what it
meant to be one. See our
Connecticut Miscellany pages
for more information.
In our collection, major projects not yet
scheduled for publication:
The Story of the Great War
This five volume set, by Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis
Trevelyan Miller, was published by P. F. Collier & Son in 1916.
Approximately 3500 pages in length, it covers only the then-current perceptions
about the run-up to the war, and the first two years of actual hostilities.
It is of particular interest for several reasons: (1) the viewpoint did
not yet reflect a United States eager to be involved, (2) it was not yet certain
how the war would come out, and (3) the details presented are not viewed through
the lens of history -- they are the then-current perception of the situation.
Uncommonly for books of that era, there are abundant photographs, including many
that are not in the usual compendiums of World War I history. If this is
of interest to you, please let us know so we can prioritize it.
-o0o-
We've just acquired a copy of Columbia County in the World War.
It's a 958 page compendium of the effort
Columbia County, New York, made during
World War I and includes several hundred pages of short articles about
Columbia County people who served in the armed forces during that
conflict, most with photographs. Many counties around the nation
produced books documenting their efforts during that war, but this is
the most ambitious effort we've encountered to date. We know that
the information in it will be of great value to anyone with an interest
in any of the hundreds of people who served. We're thinking that
this will become a series of downloads. Come back for more
information!
-o0o-
Philadelphia in the World War: 1914 - 1919
A new acquisition for us. 785
pages covering just about every aspect of the involvement of Philadelphia, PA in
the First World War that we can think of. It appears on first look to be
very thorough and well researched and produced. Almost certainly it will
be a series of downloads. Let us know if this -- or if some aspect of this
-- is of interest to you so we can prioritize it.
-o0o-
Our War with Spain and Cuba's War for
Freedom, by Gonzalo de Quesada. (1898) (602 pages)
If one wants to get a flavor of the arguments for
the Spanish-American War, this book is a useful place to begin. The last
paragraph of the introduction summarizes it:
The United States did
not wage war with Spain for revenge, for that is unchristian; not to
relieve the starving, for relief had been sent them. We came
to put an end to a government whose whole history had been one of
oppression, and whose whole course had become intolerable. |
Be
sure to let us know if this is of interest to you. We think that there is
no substitute for reading contemporaneous material to get a flavor for the way
nations are encouraged to support wars. This one is a classic, in our
opinion. |