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    The first was that we were still alive. . . ."In 1967, death was the constant companion of the Marines of Hotel Company, 2/5, as they patrolled the paddy dikes, mud, and mountains of the Arizona Territory southwest of Da Nang. But John Culbertson and most of the rest of Hotel Company were the same lean, fighting Marines who had survived the carnage of Operation Tuscaloosa. Hotel's grunts walked over the enemy, not around him. In graphic terms, John Culbertson describes the daily, dangerous life of a soldier fighting in a country where the enemy was frequently indistinguishable from the allies, fought tenaciously, and thought nothing of using civilians as a shield. Though he was one of the top marksmen in 1st Marine Division Sniper School in Da Nang in March 1967--a class of just eighteen, chosen from the division's twenty thousand Marines--Culbertson knew that against the VC and the NVA, good training and experience could carry you just so far. But his company's mission was to find and engage the enemy, whatever the price. This riveting, bloody first-person account offers a stark testimony to the stuff U.S. Marines are made of.

    He did not claim he was God’s agent. Did he believe in God? Did he look for a sign when he was desperate? Did he follow the Divine Will? Many believers are not followers; many followers are not believers. Is he a believer or a follower or both?

    This best-selling title, designed to be either the primary anthology or textbook for the course, covers the Civil War's entire chronological span with a series of documents and essays.

    He was a kid, eighteen years old. Married, broke, flunking out of college-and about to become a father. The Marines seemed like a good way out. He figured the Nam couldn't be any worse than home. He was wrong.Publishers Weekly says "Chilling...It tells how a youngster from Portland, Oregon matured in the crucible of combat...The reader is given a sense of what it's like to fight an unseen enemy who might appear anytime, anywhere and start shooting from ambush." Karl Marlantes, New York Times best selling author of "Matterhorn" calls "A Field of Innocence", "Powerful ...and riveting."Tim O'Brien, New York Times best selling author of "The Things They Carried" says, "With its raw realism and heartbreaking honesty...one of the finest Vietnam memoirs."Kirkus Review says A Field of Innocence is "Exciting and Impressive."

    Lee, Stonewall Jackson assumed his nickname during the Battle of Bull Run in the Civil War. It is said that The Army of Northern Virginia never fully recovered from the loss of Stonewall's leadership when he was accidentally shot by one of his own men and died in 1863. Davis highlights Stonewall Jackson as a general who emphasized the importance of reliable information and early preparedness (he so believed in information that he had a personal mapmaker with him at all times) and details Jackson's many lessons in strategy and leadership.

    His profound and poetic speeches are famous around the world, evidence of the greatness of American’s most beloved leader. But did you know that the sixteenth president of the United States was also a backwoods hillbilly from America’s western frontier, with a Kentucky accent so thick you could cut it? Or that he liked wrestling matches, dirty jokes, and had a reputation for telling hilarious, R-rated stories that weren’t suitable for mixed company? From his childhood working as a virtual slave for an abusive father, to sailing a river raft to New Orleans, to the Illinois General Assembly, Congress, and the White House, the story of Abraham Lincoln’s life is the story of America. He mourned the deaths of almost everyone he loved, endured marriage to a wife whose mental health issues made her a domestic abuser, and lost more elections than he won. But Abraham Lincoln believed in one thing above all: that everyone deserved a fair shot at the American dream. Why did John Wilkes Booth really shoot Abraham Lincoln? The truth is as shocking now as it was in 1865.

    Yet the two have never been seriously compared at book length. Acclaimed historian Lewis Lehrman finds that Lincoln and Churchill led their wars in remarkably similar fashion, guided by fixed principles of honor, duty, and freedom. Gifted literary stylists, both also relied on the written and spoken word to steel their nation's hearts and give meaning to war's sacrifice. And though both unexpectedly left office near the end of their wars--Lincoln by the bullet, Churchill by the ballot--they had gained victory.

    As a result, snipers are regarded as the elite of their units and their skills command the ungrudging respect of their fellows - and the enemy. The Author is one such man who recently served a full tour of duty with 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. James describes the highs and lows of almost daily front line action experienced by our soldiers deployed on active service in arguably the most dangerous area of the world. As part of the Battle Groups crack Mobile Operations Group, Jamess mission was to liquidate as many Taliban as possible. The reader experiences sniper tactics and actions, whether in ambush or quick pre-planned strikes, amid the ever present lethal danger of IEDs. His book, the first to be written by a trained sniper in Afghanistan, reveals the psychological pressures and awesome life-and-death responsibility of his role and, in particular, the deadly cat-and-mouse games with the enemy snipers intent on their own kills. These involved the clinical killing of targets at ranges of 1,000 meters or greater. Sniper in Helmand is a thrilling action-packed, yet very human, account of both front line service in the intense Afghanistan war and first-hand sniper action. Andy McNab inspired James to join the army and has written a moving foreword.

    And in those three horrific days of sweltering heat and roaring cannon fire, the outcome was decided not only by acts of courage and strategic decisions but by the character of the players, complex relationships, and pure coincidence. What if a few key factors had gone another way?What if Robert E. Lee’s brilliant young cavalry commander Jeb Stewart had arrived earlier than the second day of battle? What if Pickett’s Charge had been swifter and stronger? What if the Army of the Potomac was commanded by the daring Winfield Hancock instead of the more cautious George Meade? Gettysburg fuses a chaotic clash of arms with a keen vision of how wars are fought and won–or lost. Most of all, this is a monumental, blow-by-blow reimagining of one of history’s most famous battles–the men who shaped it, the events it triggered, and the way it might have been.

    Burnside; embarrassed Abraham Lincoln; and distinguished Robert E. Lee as one of the greatest military strategists of his era. Francis Augustin O'Reilly draws upon his intimate knowledge of the battlegrounds to discuss the unprecedented nature of Fredericksburg's warfare. Lauded for its vivid description, trenchant analysis, and meticulous research, his award-winning book makes for compulsive reading.

    From an initial policy of deliberate restraint, extending even to the active protection of Southerners' property and constitutional rights, Union armies gradually adopted measures that were expressly intended to demoralize Southern civilians and to ruin the Confederate economy. Yet the ultimate hard war policy was far from the indiscriminate fury of legend. Union policy makers promoted a program of directed severity, and Professor Grimsley demonstrates how and why it worked. This volume fits into an emerging interpretation of the Civil War that questions its status as a total war and instead emphasizes the survival of political logic and control even in the midst of a sweeping struggle for the nation's future: the primary goal of the Federal government remained the restoration of the Union, not the devastation of the South. Intertwined with a political logic, and sometimes indistinguishable from it, was also a deep sense of moral justice--a belief that, whatever the claims of military necessity, the innocent deserved some pity, and that even the guilty should suffer in rough proportion to the extent of their sins. Through comparisons with earlier European wars and through the testimony of Union soldiers and Southern civilians alike, Grimsley shows that Union soldiers exercised restraint even as they made war against the Confederate civilian population.

    In the span of several hours, there would be more loss of American life than in any other battle before or since, leaving one in four of the soldiers who took part either dead or wounded by the end of the day. Inside you will read about... ✓ Maryland, My Maryland… ✓ McClellan’s Army ✓ The Opening Gambit ✓ Harper’s Ferry ✓ Dunker Church & The Woods ✓ The Cornfield ✓ Bloody Lane And much more! What led to such a disastrous conclusion? And could something positive come from such an appalling massacre? The focus of the war was about to change. So too was how the American people viewed war as a whole.

     Launched in 1936 by Princess Marina, the Duchess of Kent, HMS Sheffield was the third of the Royal Navy’s ten Town-class cruisers. She marked a number of firsts: the first ship to be named for Sheffield, the first to have stainless steel fixtures instead of brass, and the first to carry operational RDF (Radio Direction Finding) equipment. Old Shiny, as she became affectionately known, was manufactured to the high standards of peacetime. Even hitting a mine was unable to render her inactive for long. Her crew simply manufactured a wooden patch, and saw her safely home. Achieving twelve honours over thirty years’ service, Old Shiny notably exchanged salvoes with the Bismarck, engaged Admiral Hipper and Lützow, and helped sink Scharnhorst. A more unusual deployment came in 1956, as HMS Sheffield was one of the ships loaned by the Admiralty for the Technicolor epic The Battle of the River Plate! Drawn from the experiences of the men who lived, fought and served on board, in HMS Sheffield Ronald Bassett paints an evocative and highly personal portrait of Old Shiny, and shows how she was more than just a warship. Praise for Ronald Bassett ‘One of the most impressive things I found about the book was that you got a real feel for the time and place. Scenes set in India or England felt different and I think that's a great achievement.’ – Library Thing ‘vividly described … the voyage as seen through the sleep-robbed eyes of matelots and officers alike’ – Daily Telegraph ‘A catalogue of horror’ – Eastern Daily Press ‘There is a degree of authenticity that makes the blood run cold’ – Cambridge News ‘Fast, vigorous action’ – Sheffield Morning Telegraph ‘Graphic tale of slave and convict ships… not for tender stomachs’ – Books and Bookmen Ronald Bassett (1924-1996) was born in Chelsea. During the Munich crisis, at age fourteen, he falsified enlistment papers to become a Rifleman of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps (60th Rifles). Following active service, he was exposed and discharged. In his records, his colonel noted, ‘A good soldier. I am sorry to lose him.’ Undismayed, he immediately entered the Royal Navy, in which he remained for fourteen years, serving in the Arctic, North Atlantic, Mediterranean, the Far East and, later, Korea. He died in Surrey.

    Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant had no significant military successes to his credit. He was barely clinging to his position within the Union Army-he had been officially charged with chronic drunkenness only days earlier, and his own troops despised him. His opponent was as untested as he was: an obscure lieutenant colonel named Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest was a slaveholder, Grant a closet abolitionist-but the two men held one thing in common: an unrelenting desire for victory at any cost. After ten days of horrific battle, Grant emerged victorious. He had earned himself the nickname “Unconditional Surrender” for his fierce prosecution of the campaign, and immediately became a hero of the Union Army. Forrest retreated, but he soon re-emerged as a fearsome war machine and guerrilla fighter. His reputation as a brilliant and innovative general survives to this day. But Grant had already changed the course of the Civil War. By opening the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers to the Union Army, he had split Dixie in two. The confederacy would never recover. A riveting account of the making of two great military leaders, and two battles that transformed America forever, Men of Fire is destined to become a classic work of military history.