Odds are there isn’t a Civil War buff living who hasn’t seen a copy of this remarkable pencil sketch (above) by special artist Edwin Forbes, which Forbes labeled as “William J. Jackson, Sergt. Maj. 12th N.Y. Vol.—Sketched at Stoneman’s Switch, near Fredricksburg [sic], Va. Jan. 27th, 1863.” The young noncom has gazed back at us across the years from countless publications and exhibits. Rendered with camera-like honesty, it is arguably among the best drawings of a common soldier done during the Civil War. Writing about his work in general, Forbes assured viewers, “fidelity to fact is… the first thing to be aimed at.”

In fact, once Forbes completed his drawing of Jackson, the sketch went virtually unseen for more than 80 years. The drawing was among several hundred illustrations Forbes made while covering the Army of the Potomac for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper from the spring of 1862 to the fall of 1864. Approximately 150 of Forbes’ wartime sketches were engraved and printed in the illustrated newspaper during that period, although his drawing of Jackson was not among them.

After the war, Forbes retained most of his original illustrations. Many he reworked into more polished drawings; some into oil paintings. He fashioned scores of them into award-winning etchings. Many appeared in his books, Life Studies of the Great Army (1876) and Thirty Years After: An Artist’s Story of the Great War (1890). Again, the poignant sketch of the beardless sergeant major from the 12th New York Infantry was not included.

Following Forbes’ death in March 1895, his wife, Ida, maintained his portfolio of original artwork, where the Jackson sketch was catalogued, “Study of an Infantry Soldier — The Sergeant Major.” She eventually sold the entire collection for $25,000 to financier J.P. Morgan in January 1901. Eighteen years later, on the heels of World War I, Morgan’s estate donated the collection to the Library of Congress, its current home. The sketch of William Jackson remained out of the public eye for another quarter-century until it resurfaced during World War II, thanks to the efforts of a U.S. Army private.

Private Lincoln Kirstein, however, was not your ordinary ground-pounder. Born into wealth, the Harvard educated Kirstein was well-connected socially, channeling his “energy, intellect, and organizational skills to serve the art world.” By age 36, when he was inducted into the Army in early 1943, Kirstein had already published several books, co-founded The Harvard Society for Contemporary Art, and later, The School of American Ballet in New York City with renown Russian choreographer George Balanchine.

Following his basic training at Fort Dix, N.J., Kirstein was posted at Fort Belvoir, Va., charged with writing training manuals. “I am an old man,” he confided to a friend, “and find the going very hard.” To fill his idle hours, he conceived an idea to collect and document American solider-art. “[M]uch of their work is interesting,” Kirstein wrote, “and some of it is beautiful.” He soon expanded his survey to include “U.S. battle art through time.” His plans included a “large-scale exhibit and a book.”

Aided by some influential friends, including Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and then Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish, Kirstein gathered material from various sources, including the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and, of course, the Library of Congress. Thanks to his efforts, Forbes’ sketch of “Sergt. Maj. William J. Jackson” emerged from obscurity.

The efforts culminated in the exhibition of American Battle Art at the Library of Congress staged from July 4 through November 1, 1944. Three years later, the Library of Congress issued the book that Kirstein had envisioned. Titled An Album of American Battle Art, 1755-1918, the heavily illustrated volume “took its origin” largely from the wartime exhibit. Forbes’ portrait of William J. Jackson appeared in print for the first time, captioned “a solemn lad with his arm resting on his rifle…toughened by campaigning.”​

A Perilous Start

Jackson may have been “toughened” early in life. The son of Irish immigrants, he was born in New York City’s Greenwich Village on June 8, 1841, the first of four boys. His father, also named William, worked as a mason. The family grew in time, and moved from tenement to tenement, though always remained in proximity to Washington Square. The surrounding web of narrow streets flanked by a tumble of brick and framed dwellings and small businesses was an Irish enclave in the city’s 9th Ward facing the Hudson River.

It was a tough neighborhood. “Boys were primitive in those days,” wrote one of Jackson’s contemporaries. “They were like the old time warring clans. Every avenue was arrayed against the other.” Tensions bubbled within the city’s growing Irish immigrant population where clashes were common.

One notorious encounter erupted within a stone’s throw of Jackson’s home when he was 12. On July 4, 1853, streets echoed “the popping, fizzing, whirring and banging sounds” of fireworks as crowds of green-clad Irish revelers celebrated Independence Day. They ended up battling one another. “At one time several hundred men were…hurling stones and other missiles…” trumpeted The New York Herald next day. Platoons of policemen from nearby precincts aided by two fire companies “succeeded in subduing the riot…” Nearly 40 Irishmen were arrested, reported the Herald, “all of whom bore the strong evidences of an impression made on their heads by a contact against the policemen’s clubs.”

Battles of another kind rocked William’s world when civil war erupted on April 12, 1861. The 19-year-old left his parents and his job as a clerk a week later, on April 19, to enlist in the 12th Regiment New York State Militia, Company F. A recruiting office was just blocks from his home.

Tendered for immediate service by its commander, Colonel Daniel Butterfield, the regiment also included in its ranks the future Maj. Gen. Francis C. Barlow when it sailed from New York on April 21, bound for Washington, D.C. Though fully armed, the unit lacked enough uniforms to go around. Raw recruits like Jackson wore “their ordinary clothing with military belts and equipment,” giving them, by one account, a “guerrilla like,” appearance. Appearances changed when a new Chasseur uniform was issued to the regiment at Camp Anderson in Washington early in May 1861. The militiamen were also mustered into Federal service for three months while there, and received a “severe course of drilling.” Barlow was mustered in as a first lieutenant in Company F.

One of their Camp Anderson instructors also distinguished himself later in the war. Emory Upton, fresh from graduation at West Point, would achieve the rank of Brevet Maj. Gen., and eventually become superintendent of U.S. Military Academy. Upton found that tutoring the 12th New Yorkers was tiresome. “I do not complain,” he wrote, “when I think how much harder the poor privates have to work.”

Their crash course in soldiering quickly paid off. Before dawn May 24, the 12th New York led Union forces over Long Bridge to occupy Alexandria, Va., and fortify Arlington Heights in the wake of that state’s secession from the Union the day before. Jackson was among the first Union infantrymen to set foot on Rebel soil.

Jackson continued his trek through enemy country when the regiment joined Maj. Gen. Robert Patterson’s army at Martinsburg, Va., on July 7, 1861. The men patrolled and picketed environs of the Lower Shenandoah Valley until their expiration of service on August 2, when the unit returned to New York. Following a march down Broadway and Fifth Avenues on Monday August 5, the regiment formally mustered out at Washington Square, near Jackson’s home.

Quick Return to the Fray

Jackson’s homecoming was brief. He reenlisted October 1, 1861, and mustered into Federal service for three years, a member of Co. F, 12th New York Volunteer Infantry. Dubbed the “Onondaga” Regiment, its ranks had originally been filled with short term volunteers from near Syracuse and Elmira, N.Y., in May 1861. After the Union debacle at First Bull Run in July 1861, the regiment recruited around the state including in New York City where Jackson signed on. Perhaps showing potential from his recent militia service, William was immediately appointed sergeant.

Recruits ferried over the Hudson River from Manhattan to Jersey City, N.J., and boarded trains for the trip south to join the regiment then on duty in defenses outside Washington, D.C. Recalled another New York volunteer who made the trip about the time Jackson did, “the cars were crowded and the ride was slow, cold and tedious.”

From Washington, the novice soldiers crossed Chain Bridge over the Potomac River into Virginia. Union Army engineers had fortified the landscape to defend the Capital. “Every mile is a fort,” marveled Private Van Rensselaer Evringham, Co. I, 12th New York. “There is thousands of acres here that have been cut down & left on the ground to prevent the Rebels coming by surprise…it would take 50 years to bring everything back to its former state.”

The 12th New York, given the moniker “the durty dozen,” according to Evringham, joined scores of other raw regiments manning fortifications throughout the fall and winter 1861–62, while they trained for combat ahead. Jackson’s Co. F, with four other companies from the 12th garrisoned Fort Ramsay, located on the crest of Upton’s Hill, about a half mile east of Falls Church, Va. They also furnished a daily guard “to protect the guns in Fort Buffalo” nearby. The regiment’s remaining companies manned Fort Craig, and Fort Tillinghast. They occasionally traded shots with Rebel forces, “but to little effect,” wrote a New York diarist.

On March 21, 1862, Jackson and tent-mates were ordered off Upton’s Hill to Alexandria, Va. Next morning, boarding the transport John A. Warner to the strains of Dixie, they steamed down the Potomac River to Chesapeake Bay. In a letter to his parents, Private Homer Case, of Co. I, confided: “We did not know where we was a going.”

After two days aboard ship, Jackson and “the durty dozen” landed at Hampton, Va., embarked on Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s offensive to take the Confederate capital at Richmond. Hard marching through steaming pine thickets and swampy bottom lands on narrow, crowded, often rain-mired roads marked the campaign. Private Sid Anderson, Co. H, quipped of “mud clear up to the seat of our unmentionables.” While Private Evringham claimed, “Virginnie is 2/3 woods or swamps.”

Under Brig. Gen. Fitz John Porter’s command during the fruitless Union thrust up the Peninsula, the 12th New York saw action at the Siege of Yorktown, the battles of Gaines’s Mill and Malvern Hill, and numerous skirmishes in between. Afterward, the New Yorkers languished at Harrison’s Landing until mid-August when they trudged to Newport News. From here they traveled by steamer to Aquia Creek; then by railroad to Falmouth, and on by foot to join Maj. Gen. John Pope’s ill-fated Army of Virginia near Manassas, Va. “We marched thirteen days…with little rest,” wrote Private Robert Tilney, Co. F., “part of the time on half rations…”

At the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Onondagans engaged in bloody afternoon assaults on August 30, against Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s position astride the railroad cut. “We poured volley after volley into the concealed enemy,” recalled one New Yorker. Rebel return fire shredded the Union foot soldiers, “woefully thinning” their ranks. Nearly a third of the 12th New York became casualties.

Facing Lee’s army at Sharpsburg on September 17, Sergeant Jackson likely had mixed emotions while he and his regiment stood in reserve with Porter’s 5th Corps, mere spectators to the bloody Battle of Antietam. The Sharpsburg area remained Jackson’s home through the end of October 1862, when the regiment advanced via Snicker’s Gap and Warrenton, to the Rappahannock River where the Army of the Potomac arrayed opposite Fredericksburg. The boyish-looking sergeant would earn three more stripes during the ensuing battle.

Jackson’s regiment with Brig. Gen. Charles Griffin’s division occupied Stafford Heights when the Battle of Fredericksburg opened on December 13. They crossed the lower pontoon bridge in early afternoon, struggling through debris in Fredericksburg amid what one New Yorker described as “a shower of aimless bullets.” The regiment advanced to a shallow fold in the ground about 500 yards from Rebels posted at the stone wall on Marye’s Heights. “[T]his position,” reported brigade commander Colonel T.B.D. Stockton, “was much exposed to the cross-fire of the enemy’s guns…”

Stockton’s Brigade charged the stone wall just before sundown. The 12th New York missed the bugle signal to advance in the din of battle, though soon recovered, sweeping forward. They met a maelstrom of shot and shell “on both front and side,” wrote Stockton. The New Yorkers piled into the tangled mass of bluecoats already stalled at the foot of Marye’s Heights and went no farther. Ordered to hold their exposed position under enemy fire throughout the night Stockton’s men were bait for Rebel sharpshooters and artillery until relieved about 10 p.m. December 14. It was “all a person’s life is worth to go to or come from there,” wrote a newspaperman. Young Jackson suffered a gunshot wound to his left leg below the knee that day.

When Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside ordered his battered army back to its old camps north of the Rappahannock on December 16, Jackson returned as a sergeant major. He had been promoted the day before, likely to fill a vacancy caused by the battle.

Jackson saw little combat after the Battle of Fredericksburg. The 5th Corps wintered in a small metropolis of timber and canvas huts near Stoneman’s Switch, a supply depot along the railroad several miles north of Fredericksburg, where the 12th New York engaged in an “uneventful round of camp and picket duty.” It’s uncertain whether Jackson’s injured leg kept him from chores, or prevented him from joining Burnside’s inglorious “Mud March” in pitiless wind and rain storms January 20–24.

By January 27, however, the 21-year-old Jackson, with bayonetted rifle, his greatcoat tightly gathered at the waist, was able to stand still long enough for special artist Edwin Forbes to capture him on paper. The artist clearly shows that Jackson placed his weight on his right foot. No evidence has surfaced to indicate Jackson and Forbes knew each other, or ever met again after the drawing was completed, though Forbes remained in the area depicting numerous scenes around the Stoneman’s Switch camps that winter.

In late April 1863, the 12th New York was reduced to battalion-size when five “two-year companies” were mustered out of the army. Jackson and the remaining companies with the 5th Corps followed Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker to Chancellorsville, Va., in early May. During the battle there, the New Yorkers were employed “making rifle-pits and abatis” on the fringe of the fighting. “[I]n this position,” recalled a private in Company D, “we saw the fires in the woods which the artillery had kindled, and heard the cries of the wounded.”

Expiration of service further reduced ranks of the regiment after the Battle of Chancellorsville. Jackson and other “three-year” men were then consolidated in a two-company provost guard. The contingent moved with 5th Corps headquarters when the Army of the Potomac pursued Lee’s Rebels toward Pennsylvania. “Our troops had been on the march for many days,” wrote the Company D soldier, “bivouacking at night in the open air, and were dirty and travel-stained with the heat and sun of late June.” This ordeal ended abruptly for Jackson on June 30. On the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg, at a camp near Frederick, Md., Sgt. Maj. Jackson was granted an early discharge from the army “by reason of being rendered supernumerary…” (surplus due to the consolidation).

​​Battle With Postwar Bureaucracy

Jackson returned to New York City and married in 1865. Employed as a clerk/salesman, he and his wife, Maria, set up housekeeping in Brooklyn. Over time, they were blessed with three daughters. Elizabeth, their first child, born in 1866, suffered from an unspecified disability and likely remained homebound until her death in April 1891. Margaret, born in 1869, worked as a file clerk, remained single, and passed away in 1920. Ellen, or Nelly, Jackson, who was born in 1871, was also employed as a clerk, and unmarried. She lived well into the 20th Century, passing away in October 1945.

Outside his family and job, William Jackson had enrolled in the Old Guard Association of the Twelfth Regiment N.G.S.N.Y., and in “The Lafayette Fusileers,” antecedents of the units he served with during the war. The rigors of his army service eventually took a toll on Jackson’s health later in life.

At age 51, Jackson filed his first claim for an Invalid Pension in June 1892. The former sergeant major supplied a laundry list of disabilities on his application form: “[A]lmost constant superficial pain in right chest & some in legs…pain & violent beating in heart…weakness – can’t lift anything.” His “gunshot wound of left leg” was cited. In sum he was “Physically unable to earn a support by manual labor.” Military medical records also show Jackson had been treated for “Gonorrhoia” [sic] on November 13, 1861. (Perhaps the result from a visit to one of the hundreds of brothels around Washington, D.C., while his regiment was on garrisoned duty.)

Jackson’s claim was rejected, “on the ground of no pensionable disability…under Act of June 27, 1890.” It wasn’t until President Theodore Roosevelt had signed an Executive Order for Old Age Pensions declaring all veterans over the age of 62 to be eligible for a pension that Jackson was finally granted $6 per month beginning May 10, 1904.

The reward would be short-lived. On April 11, 1905, following Maria’s death that January, William J. Jackson died. He and his wife rest with their three daughters under a single headstone at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Flushing, N.Y.
​
​George Skoch, a longtime contributor, writes from Fairview Park, Ohio.

A historian with a brush and a palette, David Wright considers it his mission to depict America’s frontier era with precision. “We historical artists march to a different drummer,” explains Wright [davidwrightart.com] from his home studio in Gallatin, Tenn. “We tell a story. It’s our obligation to future generations to paint our subjects with as much accuracy as possible.”

Wright’s insistence on authenticity has found him riding Wyoming’s Wind River Range on horseback and hunting moose on Canada’s Aulneau Peninsula dressed in brain-tanned buckskins and bearing a frontiersman’s guns and accoutrements. “Such experiences enable me to see things from a much closer perspective than if I were just using past masters like Alfred Jacob Miller, George Catlin and Karl Bodmer as references,” he explains. “Landscapes, rifles, bead and quillwork or Indian tattoos—I want it all to be historically dead-on.” His quest draws him to museums and archives, while his home reference library is also extensive.

“The cliché ‘The more I learn, the less I know’ really is true,” he says. “As long as I am a student of history, I’ll never quit learning.”

Rosine, Ken.—the birthplace of Bill Monroe, the “Father of Bluegrass”—was a country hamlet when Wright was born there in 1942. Idyllic remembrances of flint ridges, cornfields and tobacco rows flood his memories. “My first interests were hunting and fishing and have been all my life.” Always he drew, aided by his mother’s creativity.

“Mom would lay a sheet of paper on her lap and draw,” Wright recalls, then she would take his hand and trace the sketches. At age 9 he won a local art show. After high school he took classes at a Nashville advertising school, then studied watercolor in Italy. The latter move, ironically, kindled his interest in the frontier when he spied a 1777 French musket for sale, bought it and fired it, the flintlock’s smoke and flash awakening latent nostalgia.

By 1962 Wright was back Stateside, drawing for the Nashville Banner and Nashville Tennessean until drafted into service in Vietnam. In 1964 and ’65 he flew more than 100 missions as the door gunner on Bell UH-1 Iroquois (aka “Huey”) helicopters. While in-country he sketched everyone from schoolchildren to Montagnard highlanders and soldiers—though never combat scenes. “Life changes your outlook on things,” the artist says.

On returning home, Wright resumed commercial artwork while freelancing on the side. He experienced another awakening when he joined the rugged fraternity of the American Mountain Men, further sparking his interest in the fur trade as he dressed the part and learned frontier skills.

“Utilizing the day’s firearms and tools gives me an edge in seeing what the lives of our frontier forebears were like,” he explains. “I know what it’s like to build a cabin, split rails, hunt with a flintlock and be freezing in buckskins. I know how wool feels in a snowstorm and how wet leather clings to you.”

Wright’s first mountain man portrait, for Gray Stone Press, sold out. Encouraged, he shifted his focus to portrayals of heroic frontier figures. By 1978 he was following his own muses and garnering national acclaim.

The Eiteljorg Museum, in Indianapolis, has devoted an expansive retrospective to Wright’s work and recognized him with several awards. The Booth Western Art Museum, in Cartersville, Ga., named him an artist of excellence. His art also hangs in Nashville’s Tennessee State Museum and the visitor center of Kentucky’s Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. The Hamilton Collection commissioned Wright to render a series of four collector plates depicting American Indian women. “It is pleasing to be accepted in such a widespread market,” says the artist.

Still, every season finds Wright in the woods, sometimes alone, sometimes with kindred spirits, reliving some footnote of frontier history to preserve in photos, sketches and mental images to inform his paintings. “Every day is a blessing,” says the artist turned mountain man. “Make the most of it.”

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Wild West magazine.

This Japanese kawari-kabuto, or individualized helmet, dating from the 17th century sports the shape of a crouching rabbit forged from a single piece of iron. The helmet’s ear guards are shaped like ocean waves.

Rabbits are commonly depicted with waves in Japanese art, particularly during the early Edo period in the 1600s. It is said that ocean whitecaps resembled white rabbits darting over the waters in the moonlight. A Noh play called Chikubushima which centers around a mystical island has a famous verse referring to a “moon rabbit” darting over the waters.

But why would a warrior want to go into battle wearing the image of a rabbit? Was it just about literature or culture?

Perhaps the symbol on this helmet is more directly related to battle. In another famous legend called “The Hare of Inaba,” a white rabbit outsmarts a group of predatory sea creatures by deceiving them and darting across them over the ocean, showing not only wisdom but strength and agility.

The warrior who chose this helmet may have wanted to express not only a sense of mystical power, but also cleverness and speed facing enemies. 

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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Donald L. Miller’s massive book Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany came out in 2007 and provided the basis for the new series on AppleTV+. In 2019 Aviation History had contributing editor Stephan Wilkinson look back at the then 12-year-old book in light of the announcement that HBO was going to turn it into a series. Now that the series has begun (but not on HBO), we thought it would be interesting to revisit a review of a book we had already agreed was a classic.

The epic of the Eighth Air Force during World War II is fertile ground thoroughly plowed by aviation historians. A search of Amazon’s e-shelves elicits nearly 200 such books, and several writers have made entire careers of covering the Mighty Eighth.

The best of them all is Donald Miller’s Masters of the Air. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg apparently agree, as they are basing their proposed 10-part HBO project, “The Mighty Eighth,” on this book. If—and that’s a big if—the miniseries comes to fruition, it will be the third in the trio that includes “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific.” No release date has been specified, and filming has not begun.

The Eighth’s bombing campaign has been called the Children’s Crusade, for the crews were made up of young men in their early 20s, even teenagers. The horrors they suffered are incomprehensible to anybody (like me) who hasn’t gone to war.

Some of the most gripping chapters of Miller’s book are those that describe the conditions into which bomber crews were thrust in 1943 and ’44, when B-17s and B-24s were sent into stratospheric winds and temperatures minimally understood by the aeromedical professionals of the time—ill-equipped flight surgeons whose resources dated back to the 1920s. Nor did the vaunted Norden bombsight come anywhere near living up to its PR-stoked reputation, and the minimally trained gunners who supposedly made their aircraft “flying fortresses” might just as well have been firing .50-caliber garden hoses.

Miller’s book is not without minor faults. He believes that contrails are created by an aircraft’s propellers and repeats the myth of the crushed ball-turret gunner who died when his B-17 had to land gear up—a tale traced back to famously creative reporter Andy Rooney. Most are irrelevant except to rivet-counters. The comprehensiveness and well-written grace of this book vastly outweigh them and simply make it plain that nobody knows everything.

In 1942, British authorities in Cairo arrested an Egyptian dance superstar for espionage. Her name was Hekmet Fahmi. Allegedly a nationalist with connections to Anwar el-Sadat, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and members of the Egyptian revolutionary Free Officers Movement, Fahmi had gained access to top secret intelligence from a well-informed British lover who worked at GCHQ and had passed this information to a pair of German spies who had managed to infiltrate Cairo.

At least, that was what Fahmi stood accused of. The espionage threat was credible enough for British authorities to put Egypt’s most famous dancer behind bars for more than two years. Her career would never recover. Yet Fahmi’s story remains a captivating part of World War II history, not only because of her alleged espionage but because of the talent that likely worked to her advantage as a spy: Egyptian cabaret belly dancing. 

An Elusive Art

Egyptian belly dance, known as raqs sharqi, has a history stretching back thousands of years. Ancient Egyptian temple reliefs from the days of the pharaohs contain strikingly similar imagery to modern Egyptian belly dancing, such as women dancing wearing hip scarves to the accompaniment of clarinets and drums. While belly dancing expressed itself in different forms over time, including group dancing and male dancing, female belly dancing proved the most enduring and popular incarnation of raqs sharqi. Historically seen as a desirable trait for wives, brides-to-be were taught the art of belly dancing so that they could dance for their husbands. Some women became professional dancers to entertain primarily male audiences. 

Belly dance is a highly disciplined dance style comparative to a sport. It is a full body exercise that requires dancers to move different muscle groups independently. Essential to Egyptian-style belly dance, a scarf worn around the hips accentuates isolated hip and waist movements and adds flair to performances. Aside from complex hip, waist and chest movements, the dance also incorporates fluid arm and finger movements. To gain the amount of flexibility, precision and rhythmic grace to belly dance successfully takes rigorous practice. Once the essential basic movements are mastered, a dancer may weave together endless combinations and improvisations to form complex choreography. The dance can be performed to any type of music and also be highly dramatized if desired. Special types of belly dance performances can include candle dances, sword dances, floor dancing (performed on one’s knees and sometimes bending backwards), and the ever-popular veil dances, all of which require finesse.

Appeal to Foreigners

Foreigners who visited Egypt were captivated by belly dance performances they witnessed. Although Western paintings and illustrations from the 19th century often portrayed “oriental dancers” with colorful garb and bare stomachs, religious convictions saw female belly dancers in Egypt cover up more over time. The essential hip scarves were still worn but bare waists became less common and dance movements became more restricted as time passed. 

Belly dance experienced a Renaissance in the 1920s thanks to the creative genius of Badia Masabni, popularly known as Madame Badia. Originally from Syria, Badia spoke five languages and traveled in many countries throughout the world. Drawing inspiration from French cabaret performances, Badia realized how to create an elegant and exciting new dance style fusing the best of Egyptian belly dance traditions with Western flair.

Cairo’s Favorite Casino

With innovation and entrepreneurial skills, Badia set up a nightclub in Cairo called the Casino Opera, also known as the Casino Badia: an exclusive venue that also functioned as a training school to teach her new style of dance to adventurous young local women. Egyptian cabaret style belly dance was born.

Badia revolutionized belly dance. She introduced sweeping changes to dance costume, modeling her dancers’ costumes on two-piece French cabaret outfits with decorative brassieres, short hip scarves, and plenty of sequins. The dancers performed in high heels and sometimes barefoot. Badia developed new signature moves in the dance; she also allowed the dancers a wider field of movement and mixed signature Egyptian techniques with Latin dance styles and ballet. Badia also upended music, blending Western orchestral instruments like violins, cello and accordion with Egyptian traditional instruments such as clarinets and tabla drums to create powerful and enchanting background music for performances. The results were fantastic. Badia’s new cabaret dance style became all the rage in Cairo and influenced other schools of dance. 

Cabarets offering belly dance performances became magnets for British troops garrisoned in Cairo both before and during World War II. Badia’s Casino Opera was one of the most popular hotspots. Egypt’s King Farouk was a patron as was Randolph Churchill and many other famous personages. Many British soldiers in Cairo were eager to enjoy the company of attractive Egyptian females in nightclubs as well as to drink and socialize. Cabarets like Badia’s Casino Opera in Cairo were great places to mix—and to spy.

During World War II, many Egyptians were sympathetic to the Germans due to a general dislike at living under a de facto British occupation. We will probably never know how many Egyptian women who gained access to influential military and government officials through nightclub entertainment passed information they learned to German intelligence operatives, spurred by a desire to further the cause of Egyptian independence.

Accused spy Hekmet Fahmi herself was trained at the Casino Opera and was one of Madame Badia’s star pupils. Badia herself was rumored to have engaged in espionage, although for whom she may have been spying remains a mystery.

What is clear is that the special dance style that Badia and her proteges wielded to enchant their audiences has had staying power. The Casino Opera debuted many famous Egyptian belly dancers and movie stars, such as Samia Gamal and Taheyya Kariokka,  icons of 1950s Egyptian cinema. These talented and graceful women remain an inspiration for practitioners of Egyptian cabaret belly dance, a style which spread from Cairo all over the world and remains popular today.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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Shields have existed for as long as warfare has. The function of a shield is to protect its wielder from bodily harm, such as from blunt weapons, edged weapons, polearms, projectiles and other dangers introduced in combat. Like warfare itself, shields evolved over time. Their shape and construction varied according to cultures, geography, the fighting style of their intended wielder, and the materials available for manufacture.

One common thread weaving the diverse history of shields together is that of symbolism. Archaeological evidence suggests that decorative designs have been applied to shields since prehistoric times. The Aztec created symbolic designs on shields, as did Aboriginal Australians and Zulu peoples.

Many times, decorative designs served a practical purpose: set color schemes, marks, or unit symbols served to identify warriors on the battlefield. However, shield symbolism often went beyond mere functionality to speak to an individual warrior’s ethos or to send a message to the enemy. 

Shields and Spiritual Beliefs

Spiritual motifs are common elements of shield symbolism. These were used to invoke protection or power, broadcast strength or ability, or both. For example, the shields of ancient Greek hoplites depicted monsters to frighten enemies, or entities who could bestow power, such as mythological creatures, deities or emblems of their gods.

Ancient Roman shields were red, the color of war and military might, and often bore lightning bolts to signify Jupiter, the king of the Roman gods and symbol of Roman supremacy. Roman shields sometimes displayed wreaths of laurel leaves to signify victory as well as symbols of importance to particular legions or units. In medieval times, shields of Christian knights bore religious symbols, such as the cross or fleur de lis. Symbols used on shields took on such importance in Western Europe and Great Britain that the shield can be credited with inspiring the art of heraldry.

A Unique Art Form

The simple, ancient tool of the shield is thus a wellspring of human expression. Decoding the the images on shields, and even their shapes and colors, can reveal interesting things about the fighters of ages past—what powers commanded their loyalties, what they valued, what they believed in, and what they were trying to communicate to others, whether on ceremonial occasions or in the thick of violence on the battlefield.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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The word “propaganda” evokes many images, few of them positive. We often think of propaganda as sinister attempts to brainwash a population into embracing authoritarian political systems, with posters typically part of the effort. History has shown that it’s indeed easy for propaganda to turn ugly—governments have long utilized it to indoctrinate a population to act in ways that it normally would not, and to demonize people and views. Nazi Germany’s vilification of Jews is an obvious example.

But propaganda is often more subtle and can often be attempts to simply inspire and promote the shared values and objectives of the community. Take Uncle Sam “wanting you” to defend America during World War I, Britain’s “Keep Calm” posters of the Second World War, and the strength behind the let’s-all-pitch-in message of Rosie the Riveter.

Propaganda from North And South

The ongoing conflicts in Southeast Asia—from the French Indochina wars beginning in the late 1940s through the U.S. withdrawal in 1975—was a classic case where winning over the population was half the battle. At its heart, the Vietnam War was a civil war.

Here are a series of posters, many quite rare, extolling the virtues of both the communist North and the democratic South—all efforts to win the hearts and minds of the people of Vietnam. Poster art had a long tradition in Vietnam. Because 80% of the population was still illiterate as of 1945, the power of imagery was critical in promoting viewpoints, conveying ideas, and inspiring people to action.

For the North, the artists’ message often tried appealing to the population’s sense of community and country, while also attempting to recruit solders for the fight. Meanwhile, the South tended to focus on rallying the population to fend off the wider specter of communist aggression—a focus encouraged by the United States. By 1969, the U.S. had produced more than 23 million propaganda posters and pamphlets for South Vietnam.

this article first appeared in vietnam magazine

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This story appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of Vietnam magazine.

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Even though it officially lasted 116 years, the Hundred Years War was really just part of a long-running rivalry over land, power and inheritance between England and France that one may say, allowing for interruptions, raged from the Norman invasion of 1066 to Emperor Napoleon’s downfall in 1815. In the course of multiple reigns, the Hundred Years War was, as with its predecessors, replete with major and minor players, including such national heroes as England’s Henry V and France’s Maid of Orleans.

One of the war’s most intriguing characters, however, was not exactly heroic… but then again, he did not really exist. Or did he? At least in part?

Enter Shakespeare

In 1597 William Shakespeare published Henry IV Part 1, and with it introduced a corpulent, boastful knight who when not performing feats of extreme self-preservation on the battlefield, where he states “the better part of valor is discretion,” is carousing on borrowed or stolen money at the Boar’s Head Inn. Such is the perverse charisma of this “villainous, abominable misleader of youth” that he spends much of the play leading the young Prince Hal down a primrose path of self-indulgent dissolution. In the sequel, Henry IV Part 2, the old king dies and Hal assumes not only the throne but the responsibilities that it requires—and in so doing, puts aside “childish things,” starting with Sir John Falstaff.

Although Falstaff does not appear in Henry V, his death is mentioned, heralding an essential final step in the new king’s maturity. Such was the popularity of this outrageous but amiable reprobate, however, that one of Shakespeare’s most avid fans, Queen Elizabeth I, allegedly (though not confirmed for certain) suggested that he turn him loose once more, this time in the realm of romantic farce, a request that the bard brought to the stage in 1602 as The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Although no knight of the Hundred Years War quite matched the girth or gall of Sir John Falstaff, the evolution of his name includes an intriguing element of reality. Initially, Shakespeare was going to name the character Sir John Oldcastle, who really existed as a leader of the Lollards, a proto-Protestant sect—and a friend of Prince Hal’s until even that proved insufficient to prevent his being burned at the stake on Dec. 14, 1417.

When one of Oldcastle’s descendants, Henry Brooke, 11th Earl Cobham, learned of Shakespeare’s latest play and its intended comic lead, he bitterly objected. Deciding, like his character, that “the better part of valor is discretion,” Shakespeare switched to another name from the era, only this time altering it somewhat—from Sir John Fastolf to Sir John Falstaff.

The rest was theatrical history… or was it? It turns out that Falstaff’s faux namesake had a cloud of disgrace hanging over his own head for more than a decade—and for Fastolf, it was no laughing matter.

The Real ‘Falstaff’

Sir John Fastolf was born on Nov. 6, 1380 in Caister Hall, Norfolk, to minor gentry. His father, also John Fastolf, died in 1383 and his mother, Mary Park, on May 2, 1406. Amid his education he claimed to have made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1392-93, and also served as squire to Sir Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. In 1401 he joined the retinue of King Henry IV’s second son, Thomas of Lancaster (later Duke of Clarence), with whom his first military duty was to keep the peace in the parts of Ireland ruled by the English. While there he met Millicent Tibetot, heiress of Robert, Lord Tiptoft, whose first husband, Sir Stephen Scrope, had died in 1408. At age 40, she was a dozen years Fastolf’s senior, but that did not stop their being wed on Jan. 13, 1409.

Whatever else Millicent had to offer, the marriage increased John’s assets five times over, with land holdings in Castle Combe and Bathampton in Wiltshire, Oxtenton in Gloucestershire and plots in Somerset and Yorkshire. He was entitled to 240 pounds per year, 100 of which he gave his wife but none to his stepson by her previous marriage, Stephen Scrope. John and Millicent had no children. To paraphrase The Taming of the Shrew, Fastolf had “wived it wealthfully,” a not uncommon factor in medieval weddings. In so doing, by funny coincidence, he handily achieved with one widow what his semi-namesake, Falstaff, failed to do with two in The Merry Wives of Windsor. 

In 1415 Fastolf sailed to northern France to take part in King Henry V’s invasion, under the direct command of John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford. A surviving warrant from the Exchequer dated June 18 noted payment due Fastolf and the 10 men-at-arms and 30 archers who came with him.

To Battle

On Aug. 18 he and his men were among the 2,300 men-at-arms and 9,000 archers under the Duke of Clarence, investing the Norman port of Harfleur. Although the ensuring siege featured a dozen large cannons—their first use by the English—Harfleur’s fortifications made it possible for a 100-man garrison under Jean, Sieur de’Estouteville to hold out long enough for 300 reinforcements to arrive under Raoul, Sieur de Gaucourt, who took charge of the defense.

The French stated that if their army did not come to their relief by Sept. 23, they would surrender. They capitulated a day earlier, leaving it to the paroled knights to collect their own ransom while townsfolk willing to swear fealty to King Henry were allowed to return home and others were ordered to depart.

The heaviest losses in the Siege of Harfleur were due to dysentery rather than combat. Many of Henry’s 5,000 casualties fell victim to the “bloody flux,” with at least 39 dead and 1,330 sent back to England to convalesce. Among its victims was Fastolf, who consequently was absent from the “band of brothers” who slaughtered the French at Agincourt on Oct. 25. He returned to Harfleur that winter, however, to help fend off a French attempt to retake the town. 

Fastolf’s fortunes rose significantly thereafter, when he was formally dubbed a knight in January 1416. In 1420 King Henry compelled the French to sign the Treaty of Troyes, naming him regent to King Charles VI, a deal sealed by his marriage to the king’s daughter, Catherine, while the king’s son, the dauphin Charles, was disinherited. In the wake of this event, Fastolf was made Master of the Household to the Duke of Bedford, governor of Maine and Anjou, and when the English occupied Paris in 1421, he was appointed “governor” of the Bastille.

Scotland had entered the conflict on France’s side in 1419, and on March 22, 1421, the French, bolstered by the Army of Scotland, won a major victory at Baugé, in which the Duke of Clarence was killed. Worse for the English, Henry V died of a sudden bout of illness on Aug. 31 that same year. That left the English crown sitting unsteadily on the 9-year-old head of Henry VI, with the Duke of Bedford serving as his regent. On Oct. 21, 1422, King Charles VI died and Dauphin Charles set out to regain his throne. The Hundred Years War resumed.

The Battle of the Herrings

Fastolf was in Bedford’s army at the Battle of Verneuil-sur-Avre on Aug. 17, 1424, in which the again-outnumbered English turned the tables on the French, Scots and Milanese mercenaries after a climactic 45-minute struggle on foot. For the loss of 1,600 Englishmen, 6,000 of the enemy were killed. Most of the dead were Scots, for whom the English declared no quarter, including John Stewart, Duke of Buchan, Archibald, Earl of Douglas, and Sir Alexander Buchanan, the last of whom had been credited with slaying Clarence at Baugé.

The 200 French nobles taken prisoner and then ransomed included Jean II, duc d’Alençon and Gilbert Motier, Maréchal de La Fayette. Touted at the time as a second Agincourt, Verneuil crippled the Army of Scotland for the rest of the war. On Feb.  5, 1426, Fastolf’s cumulative battlefield exploits reached an apex when he was made a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. A few years later, however, the veteran knight faced an unlikely nemesis in his most controversial battle.

On Oct. 12, 1428, the English invested the city of Orléans, opening more than six months of siege punctuated by numerous sallies, battles and supply attempts. One of the more prominent examples of the latter involved a convoy of 300 carts and wagons, carrying crossbow shafts, cannons, cannonballs and barrels of herring for the coming Lenten holiday. These departed Paris with a 1,600-man escort commanded by Fastolf. At the same time, Charles de Bourbon, comte de Clermont was leading a Franco-Scottish force he’d assembled to relieve Orléans while the commander of the city’s defenders, Jean de Dunois, led a force out to intercept the English convoy.

On Feb. 12, 1429, the two French forces met, totaling 4,000 men, and fell upon the convoy in a wide field at Rouvray-Sainte-Croix, about 10 miles north of Orléans. Fastolf ordered the wagons into a circular defensive laager. Clermont responded by deploying his cannons, which began inflicting casualties. At that point, the Scots’ leader, John Stewart of Darnley, ran too quickly out of patience and led a cavalry charge on the laager that forced the startled French to hold their fire rather than cannonade their allies. While the main French force hesitated, English bowmen rained arrows and crossbow bolts on the Scots. Then Fastolf unleashed his own cavalry, which overwhelmed the Scots, then lapped around the French flanks and rear, and drove them off in a disorganized rout. Darnley was among the 500 to 600 dead and Dunois was wounded.

Joan of Arc

Because of the special provisions Fastolf had been defending, his victory entered the history books as the Battle of the Herrings. On that same day, however, a teenage girl was trying to convince Robert de Baudricourt, the Dauphinois captain of Vaucouleurs, to let her confer with the Dauphin so that she could carry out her divinely ordained mission of saving France. She informed Baudricourt that the Dauphinois forces had just suffered a stinging defeat near Orléans, and that more would follow unless she was granted an audience with the Dauphin. Shortly after that, word arrived about the debacle at Rouvray and Baudricourt arranged the meeting that led to Joan of Arc taking a place alongside the hardened warriors defending Orléans—and contributing to the lifting of the siege on May 8, 1429. 

Whatever direct role she had in raising the siege of Orléans, “la Pucelle” (the maid) indisputably elevated French morale. As the English forces withdrew to garrisons in the Loire River region, the veteran knights surrounding her were keen to make the most of it while they could. Jean II, duc d’Alençon, ransomed from English captivity, set his eyes on the Loire bridges. On June 12, French forces stormed Jargeau and captured the bridge at Meung-sur-Loire.

On the 15th they besieged Beaugency. Fastolf left Paris with reinforcements, which reached Meung to join forces with some of Orléans’ besiegers, led by John, 1st Earl of Talbot, and Thomas, 7th Baron Scales. With a total of 3,100 men at their disposal on June 18, Talbot urged an immediate attack on the French at Beaugency, but Fastolf recommended more caution in the face of a much larger enemy army. The defenders were unaware of the relief force’s proximity, but learned that a Breton contingent under Arthur de Richemont had just joined the French besiegers. The discouraged garrison surrendered. 

Learning of Beaugency’s capitulation, Talbot agreed with Fastolf’s proposal that they withdraw to Paris. The French knew of the English presence, however, and being of no mind to call it a day, hastened off in pursuit, headed by a 180-knight vanguard under Etienne de Vignolles, nicknamed “La Hire” (the wrath), one of the first to accept Joan’s claims to divine inspiration. Close at hand were Jean de Xaintrailles, Antoine de Chabannes, Hugh Kennedy of Ardstinshar at the head of 800 Scots and the Maid herself. They caught up with their quarry near the village of Patay.

Fastolf’s Retreat

Since most of his army were archers, Talbot tried to engage the French using roughly the same tactics that had succeeded at Crécy in 1346 and at Agincourt in 1415, with most of his bowmen lined up behind a row of sharpened stakes. He also ordered 500 of them to take up ambush positions in the woods along the road. As they made their preparations, however, a stag ventured out in the field and one of the bowmen, thinking the French were still far away, gave a hunting cry.

The French vanguard was, in fact, close enough to hear that indiscreet call and, worse for the English, their archers had not yet fully deployed. Sending couriers to report the situation to the rest of their men-at-arms but not waiting for them to arrive, La Hire, Xaintrailles, Chabannes, Kennedy and Joan led a head-on charge that crashed into the English positions and exposed their flanks. Soon after that, 1,300 more mounted French men-at-arms advanced along a ridge south of the action, then deployed behind the English rear. As they began their charge, Fastolf led his contingent to join up with the mounted men-at-arms in the English vanguard, only to see them already quitting the field in disorder. Misinterpreting an order, his own men began to scatter, at which point he saw no alternative but to join them in retreat.  

The rest of the battle amounted to a mopping-up operation for the French horsemen against little organized resistance. In the worst English defeat since Baugé in 1421, an estimated 2,500 were killed or captured, while the French only lost 100 (20 of whom were Scottish). The captured nobility included Talbot, Scales and Sir Thomas Rempston II, with only one knight of note escaping the debacle: Fastolf. Patay went down in history as Joan of Arc’s first victory in open battle. It also heralded a general French resurgence that led to the dauphin’s coronation as King Charles VII of France at Reims on July 17. For Sir John Fastolf, the engagement held different consequences.

Cowardice?

In 1431 another of Joan of Arc’s retinue, Jean Paton de Xaintrailles, was taken prisoner by Richard Beauchamp 13th Earl of Warwick, in a minor skirmish at Savignies. In 1433 a prisoner exchange returned Poton and Talbot to their respective armies. No sooner did Talbot return than he accused Fastolf of deserting him on the field at Patay. Fastolf, of course, hotly denied the charge, but by that time the Plantagenet aristocracy was starting to choose sides in regard to Henry VI’s fitness for the throne and as to who should succeed him.

Though nobody knew it at the time, the Hundred Years’ War for France was winding down and as the English soil was being furrowed for the War of the Roses, Fastolf found his protestations accepted by friends, such as Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and disbelieved by political enemies such as William de la Pole, 1st Earl of Suffolk. In between the Duke of Bedford accepted Talbot’s version of the battle but forgave Fastolf and continued to trust him.

The Order of the Garter conducted an enquiry on Fastolf and concluded that he had done his best at Patay, showing prudence rather than cowardice. Yet Suffolk and others persisted in questioning his honor and Fastolf spent over a decade defending himself. Such is the closest parallel history can find between Fastolf the tarnished warlord and Falstaff, Shakespeare’s unapologetic slacker. 

Fastolf lost a friend when Bedford died in 1435. He himself retired from military service in 1440. He lost a powerful enemy a decade later when the Earl of Suffolk was condemned in Parliament for maladministration and banished from England for five years, only to be intercepted in the Channel by his own enemies while enroute to Calais and beheaded on May 2, 1450. Fastolf himself subsequently was almost convicted of treason for his association with the Duke of York, who would later make a direct bid for the Crown. 

Where Fact Meets Fiction

While hostility grew within the Plantagenet family, England’s century-old effort in France officially ended when Talbot was defeated and killed at Castillon-sur-Dordogne, July 17, 1453. Less than two years later the eruption of hostilities at St. Albans on May 22, 1455, launched what amounted to civil war as the royal houses of Lancaster and York fell upon each other.

By then Fastolf’s ambitions were limited to keeping and administering his land holdings, which may explain his death on Nov. 5, 1459, at the exceptional old age of 78. His neighbor and close friend, John Paston, wrote the most detailed account of Fastolf, describing him in his last years as “an irascible, acquisitive old man, ruthless in his business dealings.” Buried at Saint Benet’s Abbey in the Broads, Norfolk, he bequeathed some of his possessions toward pious works, such as New Magdelen College at University of Oxford, but most went to Paston.

A unique aspect of Henry VI Part 1 is the appearance of both the real Fastolf and the fictional Falstaff—neither flattering. Despite the Order of the Garter’s decree, Shakespeare’s Fastolf appears as a cowardly antithesis to Talbot’s sometimes reckless bravery, deserting his comrade-in-arms not only at Patay, but at Rouen. The fictional Falstaff takes over from there for more serious frivolity. 

Another intriguing coincidence lies in the place where Prince Hal, Falstaff and their retinue of ne’er-do-wells spend their mostly leisure time. Among the properties that John Fastolf is said to have owned as part-time proprietor was a tavern in Southwark, London called the Boar’s Head Inn.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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The Wilson Novelty Company produced this “Wilson Walkie” U.S. Army soldier toy sometime between 1936 and 1949 at John Wilson’s small garage factory in Watsonville, Pa., along the Susquehanna River north of Harrisburg. Wilson started the company after he lost his carpenter’s job in 1935 at age 63.  

A penguin, nurse, clown, and Santa Claus were some of the many other models. Wilson’s popular toys supported a cottage industry and 80 full-time and 20 part-time workers during the Depression. Housewives, high school students, and unemployed male workers did piece work at home making clothing and parts for the dolls. At peak production, 10,000 dolls a day were completed!  

Wilson died in 1948. The company hung on for one more year until the toys took their final stroll down the production ramp.

This story appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of American History magazine.

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America is a nation built on distinct individualism as well as common values. This sense of diversity in unity is something reflected in a very physical sense in the war cemeteries and monuments maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), which in 2023 marked its 100^th year anniversary.

The commission maintains 26 cemeteries and 32 battlefield memorials across 17 countries around the globe. No two sites are the same. In fact, they are non-standard by design. In an aesthetic contrast with the war cemeteries maintained by other nations, ABMC cemeteries are designed to appear unique in every aspect of their architecture, layout and memorial artwork, yet uniting the fallen with common headstone styles.

“I think what our nation does is a statement about our people and what it means to be an American,” Charles K. Djou, ABMC Secretary, told Military History Quarterly in an interview. “Every single site has something amazing and beautiful.”

Despite its tradition of individualism, the ABMC has several important factors common to every memorial site. “Where people are buried is not distinguished by race, rank, color or creed. This is something we take pride in,” said Djou. “Black and white soldiers are buried side by side. Generals are buried side by side with privates. There will always be a flagpole flying the American flag and that will be the highest point in all of our cemeteries.”

One Hundred Years of History  

The ABMC originated in the wake of the First World War. It owes its name to the shared efforts of U.S. authorities to find fitting and respectful ways to preserve American war graves and battle monuments, which were then scattered across Europe and needed to be consolidated and maintained in a respectful manner.  

“During the course of the war, temporary burials were marked in a number of different ways. If people had time, sometimes they would construct a wooden cross or sometimes stick a rifle in the ground with a helmet on it,” explained Michael Knapp, ABMC’s Chief of Historical Services. “People who made it back to rear areas and hospitals were buried in temporary gravesites that were more established and those generally had wooden crosses or some sort of grave marker.”

As these cemeteries were consolidated, graves were temporarily marked with white wooden crosses, with the exception of Jewish soldiers whose graves were instead marked with a white wooden Star of David by request of the Jewish community. Although many people argued for headstones similar to those in Arlington National Cemetery today to serve as the permanent grave markers, the ABMC’s first chairman, Gen. John J. Pershing, insisted that the white crosses be preserved.

“Pershing was adamant that we keep the look similar to the look of the temporary headstones with white crosses row on row – almost taken verbatim from the words of John McCrae’s poem ‘In Flanders Fields,’” said Knapp.

Therefore all war dead, apart from those of Jewish faith, are buried with crosses regardless of their religious beliefs.  “The Latin Cross in the ABMC cemetery usage is considered symbolic rather than religious,” explained Knapp. “Although predominantly it’s a Christian symbol, it was not chosen specifically as such.”

In contrast to the war burial arrangements of other nations, the U.S. government allowed American families to choose whether their loved one was brought back to the United States for burial or whether he would be buried overseas. This was the case in both world wars, Knapp said, and all expenses were paid by the U.S. government regardless of the family’s choice.

Works of Art  

What sets each war cemetery apart is the artwork and conceptual design unique to each space. The ABMC consulted prominent architects and artists to propose designs for each war cemetery.

“You see a lot of variation,” said Knapp. “It’s fascinating because no two are alike. There is no standard blueprint. Even the physical layout of all the cemeteries is different. Every aspect of ours is different. It’s very unique. I don’t believe any other country does it that way.”

The art is particularly evident in the non-sectarian chapel found in each cemetery. This offers family members and visitors a quiet place to reflect. The design, architecture, and art inside also reflect different themes and images to honor the dead. 

“The art tends to be symbolic and allegorical,” said Knapp. For example, the Brittany American Cemetery in France is arranged to resemble the flaming sword within a shield which was the emblem of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). The ceiling of the chapel in at the Sicily-Rome Cemetery reflects the constellations at the precise moment that Allied troops landed in Anzio.

The Need to Reflect and Respect

What stands out most of all to Djou, however, are the sheer number of war dead in each location. Standing amid the vast armies of white crosses is an overpowering experience. “It takes your breath away honestly,” he said.

Many of the cemeteries and war memorials, particularly in Europe, are within easy reach of major cities and popular tourist locations. However, Djou expressed the view that not enough Americans are coming to pay their respects to the fallen despite having opportunities to do so.

“So many Americans will go to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower. They will go to Rome and see the Colosseum,” he said. “They don’t realize that the reason that you can visit those places is because of all of those thousands of young American service members who fought to free all these places.”

Djou encourages all Americans traveling abroad to stop at a war memorial or cemetery even briefly, to visit those lost in battle who never had the chance to go home. “So many of these sites are just a few minutes away and so many Americans don’t realize how close they are.”

The lyrics to America’s most famous marching song of the Civil War were written when their author was half-asleep and first sold to a magazine for the whopping sum of five dollars. Julia Ward Howe had been visiting Washington, D.C. in November 1861 with her husband Samuel when she witnessed Union soldiers singing a boisterous tune known as “John Brown’s Body,” then popular among abolitionists. A poet and staunch abolitionist herself, Howe wished she could write new lyrics to this rather strange ditty that the soldiers were so fond of singing. Yet nothing immediately came to mind.    

As in most moments of creative genius, the spark of brilliance happened when she was least expecting it. A groggy Howe had woken up too early one morning and was lying in bed thinking about nothing in particular when suddenly “the wished-for lines were arranging themselves in my brain,” she later wrote. Jumping out of bed, “saying to myself, I shall lose this if I don’t write it down immediately,” Howe scribbled down her lyrics and then went back to sleep. She could hardly have expected when she sold the poem to the Atlantic Monthly in 1862 that it would quite literally spread like wildfire and become the hands-down favorite marching song of all men who took up arms to fight for the Union.

Howe, a committed pacifist, was an unlikely military lyricist. Yet the words she came up with that bleary-eyed morning lit a fire in the hearts of all soldiers who heard it and excelled at getting troops riled up, such as: 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps:

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on. 

It is said that the song moved President Abraham Lincoln to tears, and it became known as the anthem of the Union cause. Howe’s fiery and moralistic lyrics proved enduringly popular, and consequently the song has been invoked by all types of movements and groups. Martin Luther King quoted one of its verses in his notable 1968 “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech. Following his assassination only one day later, the song became an anthem of King’s church and of the Civil Rights movement.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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The landscape is lush with color, a riverside camp serene with its crackling fire and abundant provisions. In the foreground before his fur-laden canoe stands a trapper, rifle in hand, worry furrowing his brow as he looks downriver. The successful hunters and their resting dogs seem ready to settle into Camp on the Upper Missouri, but the scene also hints at an unknown future—and hidden violence.

The tension in artist Todd Connor’s work is indicative of the precipitous nature of the frontier West, and the depth Connor brings to the canvas reflects a lifetime spent looking below the surface.

Connor [ToddConnorStudio.com] finished his first plein air painting at age 12 while visiting an eastern Oklahoma lake named Tenkiller, a locale that fueled the Tulsa native’s enthusiasm for exploration. “Plein air helps me see value, color and atmosphere properly and adds authenticity to my studio work,” he explains. A year later Connor’s passions took him to new depths, quite literally. “I got certified as a diver at the age of 13 with my dad. We had spent most of my childhood at the lakes and around water. I think my fascination was being below the surface.” Both encounters with nature helped shape the artist’s subsequent life and career.

In 1987, at age 23, Connor signed up for a tour with the Navy that lasted four years. “After high school I got the bug to join the service, specifically the Special Forces,” he says. “A coworker of my dad’s happened to be an ex–Vietnam UDT [Underwater Demolition Team] guy, who recommended SEALs, since I loved the water so much.” After an honorable discharge from the SEALs, Connor spent time visiting historical sites and exploring natural landscapes that renewed his interest in plein air painting.

“I’ve done hundreds of outdoor landscape paintings on-site and a few in the studio,” the artist says, “but I always wanted to tell the story of the American West. That led to learning to draw figures and horses in earnest, especially after visiting the Museum of Western Art in Kerrville, Texas.”

A roster of talented artists helped him get started. “I’m grateful to have had the best of mentors in both drawing and painting,” Connor says. “My earliest was Ginzie Chancey, of Tulsa. Then, in Los Angeles, there was Steve Huston for drawing; Dan Pinkham, Dan McCaw and Donald Puttman for painting; and Gary Carter, [a member and past president of] the Cowboy Artists of America. He pointed me in the right direction for proper training by suggesting the ArtCenter College of Design, in Pasadena.”

Connor’s work often features strong female figures—mothers, daughters and sisters juxtaposed against stark vistas of rugged beauty. “Strong women evoke the primal,” he explains. “A mother protecting her nest applies to the survival of all life on the planet. In that period it was often a woman who came between the family and the threat of danger. Men weren’t always around. They were farming or out hunting for long periods of time.”

His painting The Gathering Storm, for example, depicts a young mother standing sentinel outside her sod house, infant child cradled in one hand, a double-barreled shotgun in the other. In Far From Anywhere a mother sits with her two daughters on the bench seat of their covered wagon. Shielding her eyes from the setting sun, the woman gazes over a vast open plain.

“The hardships and the teamwork it took to just stay alive is something our modern society seems to have lost touch with,” Connor says. “The family has been the foundation of humanity. I show it in the context of settling the frontier.”

In 2020 Connor moved to Fort Benton, Mont., one of the oldest settlements in the state, which served as inspiration for another of his favorite themes—the Lewis and Clark Expedition. “A fascinating story—an expedition going upriver with no motors through 2,000 miles of wilderness untouched by white men, not knowing what they would find or if they would return at all,” the artist says. “When I started painting for a living, it was coming up on the bicentennial of the expedition, and I did a series of paintings on the subject. In terms of complexity of story and number of figures and composition, it’s probably my most ambitious work to date.”

Connor had long been drawn to the history and beauty of the region. “I’d wanted to try living in old Montana since going there for 20 years to float the White Cliffs,” he says. “So many memories of being with my father and friends out there, and lots of plein air studies resulted from those trips over the years. We dressed up in 1800s costumes and created reference photos of trappers and traders, mountain men and their Indian counterparts with canoes, all against the stunning background of the cliffs and river. I’ve done many historical paintings from those shoots.”

From his 2,700-foot home studio Connor paints every day and often into the night, referencing a sketchbook loaded with ideas.

“I also do miniature paintings, which I sell from my website or at shows where I have a booth, like the [C.M.] Russell Museum auction. These small pieces give me perspective on deciding whether a larger version would be interesting.” When an idea makes the cut for further development, Connor employs models to bring the project to fruition.

Ironically, his success leaves him little time for his own works. “I am currently working on three commissions. I’m generally painting for show deadlines, the last one being the Briscoe Museum’s “Night of Artists” show. I like to be ahead with lots of ideas and options to choose from for any given exhibit, but the reality of the business is sometimes it’s pretty hard to keep up.”

Success also has its rewards. During a recent tenure as an artist in residence at Craig Barrett’s Triple Creek Ranch in Darby, Mont., Connor shared his love of painting with guests and squeezed in time for his own plein air work. 

“Painting on-site is a learning experience,” he says, “an essential activity for every painter to do now and again in their career, in order to stay fresh and growing in your craft.” 

this article first appeared in wild west magazine

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About one-fifth of military-age White men in the South perished during the war—a chilling statistic that reinforces the argument that steadfast devotion to the Confederate cause compelled these soldiers to continue fighting despite the relentless carnage. But before soldiers faced the clang of the battlefield, how did they decide to mobilize, and what part did Confederate law and culture play in promoting military service?

Initially, the cause of secession attracted fervent volunteers. Young men who had forged their convictions during the sectional crisis rushed with friends and neighbors to assert their martial fidelity, chanting songs about defense of home, political power, and slavery. But as 1861 drew to a close without a decisive repelling of Union forces, Confederate leaders looked ahead with uncertainty, as many thousands of volunteer enlistments were to expire by late spring. In December, the Confederate Congress enticed soldiers with a promise of furloughs and cash upon re-enlistment, but with only limited success.

Alongside formal legislative efforts to promote volunteer service, Confederate nationalists did their best to inculcate a spirit of sacrifice and duty in the public consciousness. That would include contributions on the literary front, as artists joined the push to convince the population the war was a defensive revolution and not a slaveholders’ rebellion.

At the forefront of this push was William Gilmore Simms, a novelist, editor, and planter from Charleston, S.C. Despite early opposition to the nullification movement, Simms had become increasingly sectional after 1833, even theorizing that slavery was a traditional and munificent institution. Aware the South had a reputation for lagging behind the North’s literary accomplishments, Simms sought to bolster the intellectual credibility of his section while defending its distinctions, including the sunny agricultural landscape and chivalric culture.

In late 1861, as the Confederate government debated the furlough and bounty system, Simms produced a poem in the Romantic style that exemplified the proper manner for a man of the South. The ballad’s protagonist, however, was no Lowcountry gentleman or plantation prince. Instead, Simms cast his vision of a noble soldier as a backwoods warrior, “The Mountain Partisan.”

My rifle, pouch, and knife!
My steed! And then we part!
One loving kiss, dear wife,
One press of heart to heart!
Cling to me yet awhile,
But stay the sob, the tear!
Smile—only try to smile—
And I go without a fear.

Our little cradled boy,
He sleeps—and in his sleep,
Smiles, with an angel joy,
Which tells thee not to weep, 
I’ll kneel beside, and kiss—
He will not wake the while, 
Thus dreaming of the bliss
That bids thee, too, to smile.

Think not, dear wife, I go,
With a light thought at my heart
’Tis a pang akin to woe,
That fills me as we part;
But when the wolf was heard
To howl around our lot,
Thou know’st, dear mother-bird,
I slew him on the spot!

Aye, panther, wolf, and bear,
Have perish’d ’neath my knife;
Why tremble, then, with fear,
When now I go, my wife?
Shall I not keep the peace,
That made our cottage dear;
And ’till these wolf-curs cease
Shall I be housing here?

One loving kiss, dear wife,
One press of heart to heart;
Then for the deadliest strife,
For freedom I depart!
I were of little worth,
Were these Yankee wolves left free
To ravage ’round our hearth,
And bring one grief to thee!

God’s blessing on thee, wife,
God’s blessing on the young:
Pray for me through the strife,
And teach our infant’s tongue.
Whatever haps in fight,
I shall be true to thee—
To the home of our delight—
To my people of the free!

Although we tend to associate “partisan” with political parties today, the term meant “irregular soldier” or “guerrilla” in the 19th century. Simms, who had begun building his literary bona fides with an 1835 novel The Partisan, hoped to connect Rebel soldiers with their Revolutionary War forebears, including South Carolina partisan heroes Francis Marion, Thomas Sumter, and Henry Lee III.

His 1861 poem joined a wider Confederate effort to make secession seem congruent with the American Revolution and not destructive of the union that struggle had created. Likewise, Simms rendered his volunteer as an idealistic pioneer, an equestrian rifleman on the edge of settlement—one who had slain wild animals to “keep the peace” and was ready, too, to slay Lincoln’s “wolf-curs.” In his absence, the partisan’s wife was to remain sturdy, all while tutoring his heir, maintaining the homestead, and offering protective prayers. Simms wanted to make the compelling national narrative of wilderness conquest and republican motherhood “Confederate,” not American.

When the poem appeared in Southern Literary Messenger in March 1862, it had a new title, “The Border Ranger,” part of a push by Simms to present irregular warfare in a wider national scope—beyond merely South Carolina.

To address the Army’s tumbling manpower levels, Congress passed a conscription law in early 1862 mandating service for most White men ages 18–35, and that April issued the Partisan Ranger Act, pulling independent guerrillas into the Confederate command structure in an effort to maximize the benefits of “partisan” warfare while tempering any of its infamous excesses through supervision by the formal military.

Yet what seemed rational for Simms’ archetypical “Border Ranger” would be harrowing for thousands of men and women on this new borderland of whirling violence. Indeed, the poem’s new title reads not only as an invocation of the frontier spirit, but as a plea for faithfulness from those on the Confederacy’s geographical margins. Partisan warfare on the border produced provocative heroes for the South (William Quantrill, John Singleton Mosby, etc.), but it also blurred into bushwhacking and spurred Union sympathizers to take up arms themselves. Southern Unionists, such as the bridge-burning Tennessee mountain men under David Fry, inflicted their share of partisan terror to preserve the United States.

The effort to inculcate a national feeling for the South by Simms, who died in 1870, did not alter the war’s outcome, but the literary story had just begun. As former Confederates endeavored to explain their subjugation, new myths of untainted chivalry in the coming decades would help to solidify the memory of an honorable cause and an honorable defeat.

Literary works present a challenge for those who love history. Parsing an author’s intentions, the context of the time, the allusions and hidden references, and the representation of the truth can seem daunting. But such literary endeavors also offer an opportunity to scrutinize how contemporaries painted their beliefs and assumptions. 

This article first appeared in America’s Civil War magazine

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In the first years of the 20th century, despite the humiliating constraints of social segregation, thousands of African Americans made a living in show business. In Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Manhattan’s Harlem, there were top-tier vaudeville houses that headlined Black acts for Black audiences, and the Theaters Owners Booking Association signed up Black acts for almost 100 smaller venues around the country that catered to Black audiences. There were night spots like the Cotton Club in Harlem that for White audiences mounted lavish all-Black musical revues and Harlem theaters for full-scale Black musicals.

But the pinnacle was Broadway. As early as 1900, there were all-Black musicals there, but the concept really took off after the Eubie Blake–Nobel Sissle musical Shuffle Along opened in 1921 and ran an astonishing 504 performances. Producers sensed that the high stepping and raucous humor associated with Black performers were a money maker, and over the next decade 22 more all-Black shows opened on Broadway. These shows slotted the Black performers into stereotypical roles of shuffling gait and slurred speech, but they also opened the door for dozens of performers to have lifelong careers that eventually allowed them more dignity.

The money woes of the Great Depression of the 1930s made it tough to find backers for any Broadway shows, and the Shuffle Along type minstrelsy all-Black show virtually disappeared. But by then, two important corners had been turned: top-billed performers such as Paul Robson and Ethel Waters had moved out of the racial show business ghetto to earn star billing in otherwise White shows, and the classic American operas Porgy and Bess and Four Saints in Three Acts had opened on Broadway, giving African Americans roles as complex three-dimensional human beings.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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This story appeared in the 2023 Autumn issue of American History magazine.

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Director John Ford went on inactive status from the navy in 1944 to film an adaptation of They Were Expendable, William Lindsay White’s book about PT boats during the opening months of the war in the Philippines. The movie starred Robert Montgomery, who had joined the navy after Pearl Harbor and, like the character he plays, commanded a PT boat. John Wayne, who had not served in the war, was billed second. Back on a film set, Ford remained the same cantankerous needler he had been before the war and he zeroed in on “Duke” Wayne, one of his favorite targets. In Print the Legend, his Ford biography, author Scott Eyman relates how Montgomery watched the director rake Wayne over the coals. “Can’t you manage a salute that at least looks like you’ve been in the service?” Ford asked in front of the cast and crew. Eyman related what happened next. “Finally, Robert Montgomery walked over, placed his hands on both sides of the director’s chair and said, ‘Don’t ever talk to Duke like that. You ought to be ashamed.’ The set fell silent. A break was ordered, and Ford ended up in tears.”

Despite the turmoil on set, They Were Expendable ended up being one of Ford’s finest films, a melancholic love letter to PT boats and to the navy in general. 

When the film opens in Manila on the eve of war in 1941, Lieutenant John “Brick” Brickley (Montgomery) wants to demonstrate the potential of the PT boats he commands. His admiral is dismissive (“In wartime, I prefer something more substantial,” he says). So is his second in command, Lt. (j.g.) Rusty Ryan (Wayne). Rusty wants a transfer to destroyers. 

Then the war comes. 

In one early scene, Rusty receives a finger wound that becomes infected and Brick orders him to the hospital on Corregidor. There he strikes up a brief romance with nurse Sandy Davyss (Donna Reed). Like everything else in the movie, the romance is realistic and understated. Rusty invites Sandy for dinner at the hut serving as the officers’ club, where sailors hidden in the crawl space beneath the building serenade them. It’s a touching scene, but Ford understands that romance is impossible under these conditions. The last time the two speak is over a field telephone as Rusty prepares to depart on a mission and Sandy remains on Corregidor as the Japanese move closer. The conversation gets cut off abruptly when higher-ups commandeer the line. Rusty—and the audience—never learn Sandy’s fate. 

Ford uses his own naval experience to create a sense of authenticity. There’s no place for cinematic heroics. Earlier in the film, as Brick chafes at the limited role his boats have been given, the admiral compares the situation to a baseball game. If the manager tells you to hit a sacrifice bunt, that’s what you do. “You and I are professionals,” he says. At the end, when Rusty decides to give up his seat on the last plane out to Australia so he can join the guerrilla fight against the Japanese, Brick calmly reminds him that they have their orders. Rusty sits back down. 

Brick’s PT boats do see combat and those who like watching these speedy plywood craft in action will enjoy those sequences. They also get one vital mission when they spirit “the General” out of the war zone so he can continue the fight from Australia. Although the General remains nameless, audiences certainly recognized him as Douglas MacArthur. In real life, John D. Bulkeley, the Medal of Honor recipient on whom Montgomery’s character is based, did transport MacArthur and his family south to safety on Mindanao, where B-17s then flew them to Australia. 

One of the movie’s greatest strengths is its eye for detail—when Brickley grabs a pair of scissors to estimate the distance on map; the terrified faces of wounded soldiers on Corregidor as Japanese bombs fall; the cook’s instructions to use a pinch of salt in the pancake batter; the way Sandy brushes her hair and puts on a string of pearls before sitting down to dinner with the officers; the fact that Rusty demands aviation fuel (PT boats used Packard engines adapted from airplanes). It is also beautifully filmed, with haunting shots of the shadowy and wet tunnels of Corregidor and some pulse-pounding sequences of PT boats dodging shell bursts. 

They Were Expendable turned out to be one of John Ford’s best films, but it was not a huge box office success when it was released at the end of 1945. It is a war movie in a minor key—subdued and somewhat melancholy. It matches the film’s subject matter: the American experience in the Philippines at the start of the war did not go well, either. No doubt, audiences who had just seen the terrible war come to an end were not eager to relive its grim early days, no matter how beautifully photographed.

this article first appeared in world war II magazine

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Thirty-two-year-old Cyrus Walker isn’t your typical Western artist. For one thing, he draws his inspiration from the classic comic books of the 1940s and ’50s. For another, he was born and raised in small-town Vermont—“Nothing but dairy cows and green mountains,” he recalls. And though he majored in graphic design and marketing at Montana State University, for a while he seriously considered pursuing life as a “ski bum.”

But for the past six years Walker [cyruswalkerart.com] has been tinkering with a fresh take on old subjects—namely, vibrant acrylic/oils inspired by the mythical West. Call it a 21st century reimagining of a Beadle and Adams half-dime novel or a 1950s Dell comic book. The artist himself describes his work as “a split between the reality of Western culture and the more fictional narrative quality of the Western genre. I find that paradox to be incredibly interesting to focus on and wrap your mind around.”

Comic books and films may have been Walker’s introduction to the West, but the West wasn’t what drew Walker to Montana. He was attending a liberal arts school in rural Maine but wanted something more traditional—“that experience of walking around a real campus,” he says. “I wanted more of an urban experience. I find it interesting that I moved to Bozeman, Mont., for an urban experience.” The city had a population of slightly more than 37,000 when he arrived in 2010, but Walker had never lived in a town that big. “It seemed huge,” he says. “Walking around campus, and all the big brick buildings, and all the people—I was overwhelmed. That was exactly what I was looking for.”

He took breaks from college to work so he could pay his tuition. One ultimately transformative job placed him in a Bozeman antique store, which required him to seek objects at estate sales, old ranches and the like. That turned him on to collecting old books, the illustrations in which grabbed his imagination.

“My studio,” he says, “is pretty much set up like that antique store.”

He also met his wife, Whitney, in Bozeman.

After graduation Walker first worked as a graphic designer, then turned to creating rodeo posters on the urging of Bob Coronato, a Wyoming-based Western artist known for such work. “Go for it, kid,” Bob told Cyrus. “Just make them your own.”

Walker’s first poster was for the World Famous Miles City (Montana) Bucking Horse Sale. “That was my first touch of really fine art,” he says, “sort of a bridge between fine art and design. But it also allowed me to take a really good look at the Western genre.” He was particularly struck at how tourists from back East would buy brand-new boots and cowboy hats just to wear to a rodeo.

“When someone says, ‘Western movie,’ or, ‘Western theme,’ your brain automatically goes to the more Hollywood aspect of the genre,” Walker says. “But that’s not entirely true of the culture itself. My brother-in-law has a ranch outside of Miles City, and I see how they live, and it’s nothing even close to what you see in the movies. They’re just normal folks.”

Regardless, that “idea of the West” began to percolate, and Walker started painting his signature mythical images, trying to capture “that break point, right before or right after something happened—something that you’d see in a movie or in real life. Right before the rider falls off. Right before the calf gets his nuts nipped. That kind of scene.”

The Walkers moved to Helena in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, “when studio space was impossible to find, and everyone was working at home.” Knowing how messy he could be while painting, Cyrus “unfinished” their basement. “I took all the carpet out, removed everything that I could.”

Walker typically works on a weekly schedule. On Mondays he’ll work on sketches and cut lumber to stretch canvas. Tuesdays he’ll start painting, taking breaks from the easel to build more canvases and start more sketches. He’s usually able to finish one 56-by-35-inch painting (his go-to size) a week, “sometimes more, if I feel like losing sleep.”

When not painting or prepping, Walker is often out hiking, camping and photographing landscapes for research. He also remains a hunter-gatherer of the genre. “I’m always collecting old books and comic books and stashing them away,” he admits. 

Western art and history still fascinate him.

“Partly why I found it so interesting to focus on it is that it’s location-based and vision-based,” he says. “There’s no time period for Western art—not like the Baroque, Renaissance, Victorian periods—even though it dates back to the 1800s or even earlier when European artists were coming over to the United States.”

Walker is also fascinated by the public works art projects of the Works Progress Administration, which between 1935 and ’43 hired hundreds of artists to create thousands of paintings, murals and sculptures in such municipal buildings as post offices, courthouses, schools, hospitals and train depots. “They were meant to inspire and bolster and empower the people of the United States, who were going through some really rough times,” Walker says. “That was probably where the genre officially split from reality because…the government paid artists to make up scenes especially compelling and fictional in narrative.” Instead of painting what they had lived or witnessed, as Charles M. Russell did during his early years, these artists, notes Walker, were “remembering something or were taken by some fantastic scene they had in their minds.”

His deep dive into Western mythology keeps Walker busy. “I think I’ve finally gotten to the point in my life where painting is all I truly want to be doing and what I get the most satisfaction by doing,” he says, “drawing attention to that strange sort of phenomena that happens when people think of Western things.” 

this article first appeared in wild west magazine

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A large group of forgotten combatants stare out at us every day from the annals of war history. They are visible to us in everything from ancient stone reliefs to elegant oil paintings to scratched early black-and-white photos; they regularly appear in statuary alongside famous war leaders, and they have taken part in too many historical battles to name. They are horses, and many avid military history enthusiasts usually don’t give much pause to think about them. This is because horses are animals and, as such, are often taken for granted.

Considered within conflict history, horses have often been viewed as little more than vehicles or baggage conveyors for warriors of the past. Yet horses were warriors in their own right.

In addition to bearing the stresses of combat, horses have also borne another burden alongside soldiers of yore—armor.

In medieval and Renaissance Europe, horses were essential for battle as well as tournament sports like jousting. A complete set of horse armor could weigh between 40 to 90 pounds—and that’s not even counting the added weight of the rider.

Most horses selected for battle or tournament challenges were robust breeds—the four-legged equivalent of tanks. Breeds capable of charging into combat wearing armor were known as destriers, coursers and rounceys. As with humans, armor for a horse was not always intended for merely protective functions, but could also be ceremonial and an indicator of its owner’s status in society.

While body armor for horses varied according to the riders’ culture, traditions and available materials, a universal and common element of horse armor across the globe tended to be the chanfron (also called shaffron or chamfron), head and facial armor which might fairly be called a “horse helmet.” The following is a roundup of some unusual examples of chanfrons and other elements of horse armor from around the world.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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In 1858, Abraham Lincoln casually and unknowingly created a time capsule of his contemporary mindset on both slavery and race relations—not hidden in a cornerstone but taking the form of a 3.25- by 5.78-inch black campaign notebook shared with Capt. James N. Brown, a longtime friend and fellow campaigner.

It was the waning days of Lincoln’s senatorial campaign against Stephen A. Douglas and Brown was running for Illinois state legislature, partly at Lincoln’s encouragement. Brown, however, was assailed for his ties to Lincoln. Virulent opponents said that Lincoln—and therefore Brown, by association—supported and wanted to bring about social and political Negro equality.

Brown beseeched Lincoln for a clear statement on that Negro equality, what Brown referred to as the “paramount issue” of the day. Lincoln acceded, annotating what he called a “scrapbook” with news clips of his speeches on the subject, and a definitive 8-page letter, transcribed here.

Brown used the notebook from Lincoln during his campaign’s waning days. It didn’t help. He lost the election.

The scrapbook was cherished by Brown and, after his 1868 death, by his sons William and Benjamin. Eventually they sold it to New York rare-book dealer George D. Smith, who found a customer in Philadelphia Lincoln collector William H. Lambert, who believed Lincoln’s words warranted wider distribution and published a version of the notebook in 1901 as Abraham Lincoln: His Book: A Facsimile Reproduction of the Original with an Explanatory Note by J. McCan Davis.

After Lambert’s death the ‘scrapbook’ was auctioned in 1914; and purchased for Henry E. Huntington’s San Marino, California library.

In his career Ross E. Heller, holder of a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Oregon, has been a journalist, U.S. Senatorial press secretary, lobbyist, association executive, entrepreneur, newspaper publisher and now, editor/author. Researching this book, he is also discoverer of new facts of America’s most-storied life; a life about which no one could imagine anything new could ever be found.

This article is an excerpt from By Abraham Lincoln: His 1858 Time Capsule, edited by Ross E. Heller and published by CustomNEWS, Seaside Books.

this article first appeared in American history magazine

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This story appeared in the 2023 Summer issue of American History magazine.

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Whatever subject or scene Rick Kennington paints—American Indians in the saddle or in camp, contemporary or Old West cowboys at work—his blend of techniques lends his works a life of their own. But that wasn’t always the case.

“I used to paint thin with many layers,” recalls the artist [rickkennington.com] from his home studio in North Salt Lake, Utah. 

His mentors told him to use more paint—and when one’s mentors include such masters in their own right as Grant Redden, Jason Rich, Chad Poppleton and Charles Dayton, one listens.

“I was instructed to purchase the larger tubes of paint to encourage me to have heavier loads of paint on my pallet and to have the stiffer bristle brushes to help gather heavy loads,” Kennington explains. “Over time I became fascinated with paintings that have a high paint quality—meaning, the paint and texture have aesthetic appeal. 

“It’s amazing at times to remember how different my mindset was 20 years ago,” he says. “I thought I had a good handle on painting. However, the more I learn and study, the more I realize I have much further to go. I enjoy seeing how my work has evolved and progressed over the years.”

That progression began in boyhood when he watched his older sister draw and sketch and tried to match her skills. His parents fostered their son’s budding interest with gifts of drawing pads, pencils and instructional art books. Family trips to Jackson, Wyo., stirred Kennington’s love of Western subjects.

“I remember walking into the Legacy Gallery, which is no longer there, and being blown away by all the paintings from the best contemporary artists…artists such as Bill Anton, Clyde Aspevig, Tom Browning and Jason Rich,” he recalls. “I wondered how amazing it would be to have my artwork hanging on the walls in a gallery like that.” 

Thus inspired, Kennington worked hard and earned an art scholarship to Salt Lake Community College. He later transferred to the University of Utah, where he attended workshops, learned from established artists and gradually shed bad habits.

“I remember asking one of my mentors, ‘How do I get my work in a gallery?’” he recalls. “After a thoughtful pause came the sincere reply, ‘Become so good at painting that they can’t ignore you.’ I took that to heart and continued to improve my skills.”

His focus on the West came naturally.

“I come from deep-rooted Western pioneer stock,” he says. “In the late 1800s my great-great-grandfather William Henry Kennington settled Star Valley, Wyo., where he raised his family. This is where my lineage comes from.”

The artist spends most of his time in the studio, though he paints plein air a few times a year. “Painting outdoors is more of a break for me,” he says.

But Kennington doesn’t feel constrained working indoors.

“As an artist, I don’t feel I have a stringent routine other than trying to get in as much painting as I can,” he says. “I do have to say, one of my routines is to constantly clean up. I am not a neat and tidy artist. I don’t know how, but I tend to get paint all over the place. I constantly go through new clothing, and I am always cleaning up paint left by me all throughout the house.…My wife is amazing.”

As models he often uses friends on horseback, but he’s also taken photographs on professional artist rides in South Dakota. Kennington uses such photos as a reference point. “Much of my painting—such as value, color and compositions—are created outside of the photo,” he explains. “Much of this comes from years spent painting outdoors, studying other great artwork and a whole lot of practice.

“There’s a lot that goes into creating a painting. I enjoy putting in the practice and research of creating art. I spend a lot of time on thumbnail sketches, working out designs and layouts of ideas floating around in my head. I’ll use photo references to help with sketches. But I mostly try to make sure the design and problems with the photos can be worked out as I practice with the sketches. It can take multiple sketches and hours of study before I develop a design I can live with. I then use this knowledge to place paint on the canvas.”    

Kennington is certainly keeping busy, enjoying his career as well as his family. Though his sons are gifted artists, they are interested in other things. “I’m glad each is his own person,” the artist says. “My family puts up with me well. I am so grateful for their support.”

Kennington aspires to create historically accurate paintings of the five American Indian nations of Utah. “There is a lot of history and story that needs to be told,” he says. “I’ve always loved learning about native American history, specifically about the Utah nations. I am fascinated with their culture. They are beautiful people, and I hope my artwork represents them in the best light.”

Meanwhile, he’s still learning the craft.

“If I continually learn and practice, I will continue to elevate my work,” he says. “The struggle of becoming a better artist is part of the satisfaction art brings. I don’t know if I will ever ‘make it’ as an artist, because I feel I am a continual student, striving for the next level.

“I enjoy paintings that look like paintings,” the artist says of his more recent work. “I aim for accuracy in drawing, value and color. But I enjoy using thick paint and challenging myself with a looser, or Impressionist, approach. I try to give the viewer an emotion driven from other aspects that can’t be provided by a photo.”Kennington’s commitment to the West remains as firm as his commitment to his craft. “Growing up in the West and being outdoors is a major part of my life,” he says. “I’ve enjoyed growing up around horses, ranches and the Western landscape. Much of the Western ranches and landscapes have been lost with new development, especially in Utah. I feel art is a way to help preserve and maintain the history and culture of the West.” 

this article first appeared in wild west magazine

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There has been no shortage of literature about the North Vietnamese Army’s final advance on Saigon and the many and varied means by which the last withdrawing Americans got various South Vietnamese out of town before the Presidential Palace sprouted the gold star on a red and blue field of the Viet Cong (soon to be permanently replaced by the gold star on red of a united Socialist Republic of Vietnam). Each is about as personal as every participant’s story. Ralph White’s memoir Getting Out of Saigon is no exception—which is to say that it’s its own sort of exceptional.

White was an employee at Chase Manhattan Bank’s Bangkok branch when higher-ups gave him a special assignment in April 1975: Keep Chase’s Saigon branch open as long as possible and, if (well, when really) the communists prevailed, get out with all the senior staff he could. White had been in Vietnam before, in 1971, but his principal assets for this assignment were that he was young (27), competent, single, and most of all expendable. Fortunately for him, he also seems to have been open minded, resourceful and, when it came to sorting out the right people to assist him from among what he called “delusionals,” “pilgrims,” and “realists,” he was a quick study.

While the American ambassador to South Vietnam and chief “delusional” Graham Martin clung to the illusion that Saigon could never fall to the communists—who were a few days’ march away—White got a different perspective from the brother of a teenaged prostitute who greatly appreciated his efforts to get her out of the country and into a better life. Her brother happened to be a Viet Cong and he gave White all the help he could as well as a summation of the “bloodbath” to come: “Not happening. They just want us to leave. They want their country back. As far as they’re concerned their choices have narrowed to capitalist occupation or communist independence. This day has been inevitable since President Truman turned down Uncle Ho’s pleas for help against the French.”

Even with that cold comfort, White faced obstacles aplenty on his own side when he took it upon himself to get all the Vietnamese Chase employees out of the country—a challenge that came down to knowing the right “realists” and finding the right vehicles for passage by water or air (both, as it turned out). In the course of an intriguing tale worthy of Graham Greene—which White fully realized he was now living—the author learned as he went and got by with a little help from his friends. While admitting that he took some artistic license with the dialogue, White adds that, “The events related herein are entirely true.” What emerges from his memory is a bona fide page-turner. —Jon Guttman

Getting Out of Saigon: How a 27-Year-Old American Banker Saved 113 Vietnamese Civilians

by Ralph White.Simon & Schuster, 2023, $28.99

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This book review appeared in the 2023 Summer issue of Vietnam magazine.

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