Mid-Revolutionary War Years in Focus
The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777–1780. Rick Atkinson. Crown. 880 pages. $42
By Col. Cole Kingseed, U.S. Army retired
The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777–1780 is the long-anticipated second volume of Rick Atkinson’s American Revolution trilogy. Focusing on the War of Independence from the fall of Fort Ticonderoga, New York, in July 1777 to the capitulation of Charleston, South Carolina, to British forces on May 12, 1780, Atkinson weaves a riveting narrative of the battles, leaders and the ramifications of the French alliance. Meticulously researched and marvelously told, Atkinson’s easy prose provides a fuller picture of the middle years of the Revolution.
Atkinson is a Pulitzer Prize winner for history and journalism, and the author of books that include The Long Gray Line: The American Journey of West Point’s Class of 1966; the Liberation Trilogy—An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943; The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944; and The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944–1945; and the highly acclaimed The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777, the first volume of his Revolution Trilogy.
Atkinson divides his narrative into three parts. The first addresses British Lt. Gen. John Burgoyne’s 1777 abortive campaign that culminated in the surrender of his Canada Army to Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates at Saratoga, New York, on Oct. 17. Defying conventional wisdom, Atkinson takes umbrage with historians who allege that Gates was timid in confronting Burgoyne at the Battle of Freeman’s Farm on Sept. 19. Atkinson opines that Gates demonstrated prudence and skill in fortifying Bemis Heights, in positioning his Northern Army athwart the enemy’s rout to Albany, and in allocating firepower without risking the sort of flank attack that had undone Gen. George Washington at the Long Island and Brandywine battles.
In Part 2, Atkinson concentrates on the implications of the Continental Army-French alliance in February 1778 that turned a regional conflict in North America into a global war in which Great Britain sought to preserve its economic empire. As envoy Benjamin Franklin predicted, French King Louis XVI joined the fight against Britain. For the next two years, France provided America with war materiel, naval support and cash—6 million livres, plus the promise of another 8 million livres in loans.
Atkinson next addresses the struggle on the American frontier and against the Iroquois in Pennsylvania and New York. British Lt. Gov. Henry Hamilton set the stage for the British plan of “exciting up an alarm upon the frontiers” in an attempt “to divide the attention of the rebels.” George Rogers Clark thwarted Hamilton by capturing the king’s outposts of Vincennes and Kaskaskia in the Ohio Country in 1779.
Perhaps the most disturbing campaign of the war occurred in May 1779 when Congress authorized Washington to conduct military operations against the Iroquois Confederacy “in such a manner as you may think expedient.” The result of that campaign was best summed up by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in 1879 when he proclaimed, “Whenever men raise up their hands to oppose this great advancing tide of civilization, they must be swept aside—peacefully if possible, forcibly if we must.”
The most intriguing portion of Atkinson’s analysis is Washington’s evolution as a military commander as the war progressed. A man of limited military experience in 1775 had in five years become the unchallenged leader of a continental force holding the British Empire at bay. “In an era of great men,” Atkinson concludes, “he already was in the front rank.”
The final year of the war will witness Benedict Arnold’s treason and Washington’s ultimate triumph at Yorktown, Virginia. How the Continental Army, with the aid of France, achieves that victory will be the subject of Atkinson’s concluding volume. In the meantime, The Fate of The Day is a triumph of narrative history and cements Atkinson’s place among America’s finest popular historians.
Col. Cole Kingseed, U.S. Army retired, a former professor of history at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, is a writer and consultant. He holds a doctorate in history from Ohio State University.
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Draftee Tells His Story—and Our Story
Drafted. Rick Parker. Harry Abrams. 256 pages. $24.99
By Col. Steve Leonard, U.S. Army retired
Storytelling is part of our culture, both as human beings and as members of the profession of arms. We all have stories to tell—tales meant to convey a lesson, impart a bit of wisdom or just to entertain. We share these stories in formation, around conference room tables, in the motor pool or huddled around a heater on a cold night far from home. That’s just who we are.
Capturing these stories in print is something else altogether, often giving pause to our ambitions. We all know someone—and sometimes that someone is us—who has talked at length about publishing a memoir, but the grand visions never seem to bear fruit. They don’t have the time to write, finding a publisher is more work than they thought, or their stories just are not that interesting. They talk, they dream, they plan, but they never get around to putting pen to paper, and that is where it all ends.
Then along comes Rick Parker. His story, a “day-in-the-life” tale of a Vietnam-era draftee, is captured not only in words, but in images, too. Drafted is a remarkable graphic novel written and drawn by Parker, something that makes it even more personal to a reader.
An ordinary and unassertive teenager with a budding interest in art, Parker was the definition of unexceptional. He was not a star athlete, he did not serve on the student body, and he muddled his way through life drawing little to no attention to himself. But after flunking out of college after just one semester, Parker found himself in a disquieting new predicament: vulnerable to the draft.
And that is where Parker’s story becomes the stuff of legend.
At least, that is what a typical reader might expect. It does not. Instead, his story continues on a similar trajectory as the rest of his life. Parker is drafted, endures the standard basic training experience and discovers an outlet for his artistic talent: drawing portraits for his fellow draftees.
As his adventure continues, he digs a foxhole, cleans latrines and eventually buys a wristwatch. He never goes to war, never distinguishes himself through uncommon valor and returns to the civilian world—and college—after completing his term of service.
All this may seem mundane. It is.
But as a reader, I found myself turning every page of this remarkable, self-drawn graphic novel until I was finished.
Parker’s story is so routine that it makes for fascinating reading. We all share his experiences in some form or another, and the connections Parker draws are incredibly relatable and make for compelling reading.
Who can forget the first time they had to use the latrine in a World War II-era barracks? Who among us waxes nostalgic about the smell of a mess hall breakfast on a cold morning? And who remembers the sound of a drill sergeant pounding a trash can lid for morning wake-up call?
Drafted is not just Parker’s story. It is my story; it is your story; it is our story. And that makes it a story you will want to relive.
Col. Steve Leonard, U.S. Army retired, is a former senior Army strategist and faculty member at the University of Kansas School of Business. He created the webcomic Doctrine Man!! He pens a weekly column, Point of Departure. He is a member of the editorial review board of Military Strategy Magazine, an emeritus senior fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, New York, co-founder of the Military Writers Guild, co-founder of the national security blog Divergent Options and a member of the editorial review board of the Arthur D. Simons Center’s Interagency Journal.
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Driven to Serve, Soldier Puts Himself in Harm’s Way
Super Slick: Life and Death in a Huey Helicopter in Vietnam. Tom Feigel and Larry Weill. Stackpole Books. 288 pages. $29.95
By Command Sgt. Maj. Jimmie Spencer, U.S. Army retired
Super Slick: Life and Death in a Huey Helicopter in Vietnam is a quintessential page out of American history. Written by Larry Weill, this is Tom Feigel’s story about his year in Vietnam—but in a greater sense, it is the story of hundreds of thousands of young men during the Vietnam War era. High school graduation, followed by registration for the draft, was a way of life for a generation of American teenagers. The Vietnam War was on television nightly in many Americans’ living rooms. It was a window into the next phase of their life.
Feigel grew up in Webster, New York, during the Cold War era, and was blessed with a strong, supportive family. He was a high school athlete with a passion for working on cars. Both attributes would serve him well in Vietnam. His mother’s last words to him as he left home for induction into the Army were to keep his head down and “never volunteer for anything.”
After basic training, he was assigned to the aviation branch and underwent intensive aviation maintenance training. Instead of spending his time adding power to cars in his backyard, he would be responsible for keeping helicopters in top fighting condition in Vietnam.
Feigel arrived in South Vietnam’s Mekong Delta in 1969. He was then part of a maintenance crew responsible for 30 Huey helicopters. The iconic Bell UH-1 “Huey” helicopter was the workhorse of the Vietnam War. Inspired by lessons learned during the Korean War, it became an indispensable instrument of the Vietnam War. It delivered soldiers to the fight, provided much-needed resupplies of food and ammunition, and served as an “eye in the sky” by providing real-time information about enemy activity on the battlefield. And, when necessary, it evacuated the wounded from the fight. It was the infantryman’s best friend. No Vietnam veteran will ever forget the welcoming “whop, whop, whop” sound of a Huey approaching—an angel from above.
The helicopter crews flew daily missions in support of the South Vietnamese Army and, occasionally, the Navy SEALs stationed in their area of operation. Feigel quickly became dissatisfied with his stay-behind role in maintenance; he wanted to do something he felt was more meaningful. In complete disregard of his mother’s sage advice, he volunteered for the position of crew chief on the unit’s combat missions.
He became one of four members of a team assigned to a transport Huey called Warrior 21, with the call sign Super Slick. His fellow crew members were the pilot, co-pilot and door gunner. What followed were nightly missions into enemy-infested territory, providing fire support to ground forces and receiving intense enemy small-arms fire in return. He routinely spent time between missions repairing bullet holes in the helicopter.
Feigel completed his tour and then, unlike more than 58,000 other American service members who paid the ultimate price in Vietnam, he returned home. Bearing both visible and invisible scars, he received the Purple Heart, the Air Medal and awards for valor for his selfless service to the nation.
Super Slick is both entertaining and educational. Beautifully written and at times filled with heart-stopping emotion, it provides the reader with a glimpse into America during the Vietnam War—an era that pitted neighbor against neighbor; an era we must not allow to happen again.
I believe it was Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman who, after the Civil War, famously said, “War … is hell.” As of this writing, nothing has changed.
Command Sgt. Maj. Jimmie Spencer, U.S. Army retired, held assignments with infantry, Special Forces and Ranger units during his 32 years of active military service. He is the former director of the Association of the U.S. Army’s NCO and Soldier Programs and is an AUSA senior fellow.
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Civil War Leaders First Tested in Mexico
The Mexican-American War Experiences of Twelve Civil War Generals. Edited by Timothy Johnson. Louisiana State University Press. 272 pages. $45
By Col. Kevin Farrell, U.S. Army retired
The war between the U.S. and Mexico from April 1846 until February 1848 is overshadowed in terms of scholarship and popular interest by the American Civil War, which followed 13 years later. This is understandable given the enormous scale of the latter conflict.
While the seminal influence of the Mexican-American War on many key leaders of the American Civil War is acknowledged, it has remained largely neglected in historical works dedicated to either conflict. A new book edited by Timothy Johnson helps fill this significant gap.
The Mexican-American War Experiences of Twelve Civil War Generals delivers just what its title suggests, profiling some of the most influential (and in some cases, infamous) leaders from the Union and Confederacy. Approximately 300 army officers in the Civil War attained the rank of brigadier general or higher. Of these, 137 who fought for the Union and 102 for the Confederacy had seen service in Mexico, a high percentage indeed.
The majority of Civil War generals also were graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, so historians naturally have focused on that mutual educational source. However, Johnson correctly observes that “Mexico was common ground for all of them … and it surely taught them lessons that would inform future decision making.” It is that common ground that serves as the unifying thread that shaped the battlefield leadership, strategy and even political understanding of six Union and six Confederate generals who led forces of corps strength or larger.
The dozen essays provide revealing insights. Ulysses Grant’s favorite veterans’ association was the Aztec Club, an organization he helped found following the Mexican-American War. The ability to use politics to advance Maj. Gen. Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker’s military career had been honed earlier, most especially in Mexico. On July 3, 1863, after nearly being killed by a Confederate cannonball at the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Union Army commander Maj. Gen. George Meade regaled his staff with a personal experience from the Battle of Palo Alto on May 8, 1846.
As essay contributor Cecily Zander wittily observes, Confederate Gen. “[Braxton] Bragg’s Civil War record could generously be described as abysmal,” but he emerged from the Mexican-American War with a national reputation that helped propel him to the highest ranks of the Confederacy, despite his incompetence. Legendary and eccentric Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s obsession with his health likely originated from his service in Mexico. For Confederate Gen. Joseph Johnston, service in Mexico was a turning point that “established his personal bravery and his ability to inspire and lead troops. … It also exposed a querulous tendency to bicker over issues of rank and … a stubborn unwillingness to let go of an issue when he was convinced he was in the right.”
This book is highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of the American Civil War, the Mexican-American War or the U.S. Army of the 19th century. Although there is some redundancy in the coverage of the Mexican-American War, this is a minor matter. A refreshing bonus is that the writing is readable and modern—the book does not suffer from stilted Victorian prose that infuses too much of Civil War scholarship.
Col. Kevin Farrell, U.S. Army retired, is the former chief of military history at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York. He commanded a combined arms battalion in Iraq. He has a doctorate in history from Columbia University, New York. His most recent book is The Military and the Monarchy: The Case and Career of the Duke of Cambridge in an Age of Reform.