The Battle Of Belleau Wood

By 1864 the Union troops were closing in on the Confederacy. Major ports and cities had been taken over. North Carolina and the port at Wilmington were becoming major targets for the Union army and in November, 1864 a plan was put into place to move Union troops for the first assault on Fort Fisher. In a letter written by Richard Delafield, general and chief engineer for the U.S. Army, Delafield discusses the plan for the destruction and the capture of Fort Fisher and Fort Caswell. Fort Caswell was located on Oak Island, south of Fort Fisher, but also protecting the entrance to the Cape Fear River. Delafield’s letter details the strategy for the destruction of Fort Fisher:

During the Civil War, the North and South fought hard for control over northwest Arkansas. On December 7, 1862, the Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi tangled with the Union Army of the Frontier at Prairie Grove located in Washington County, Arkansas. By nightfall, it was clear to the Confederates that “Missouri and northwest Arkansas would remain under Federal protection” (Teacher Guide 4). The battle at Prairie Grove was a brutal day of strategic warfare between the northern and southern armies that had great affect on the lives of the people living there.

The battle of Spotsylvania was a really bloody. The Union Army of the Potomac consisted of 100,000 soldiers led by generals Ulysses S. Grant and George Meade. The Confederate Army of Virginia was nearly half the size with only 52,000 soldiers. They were led by General Robert E. Lee. General Grant began the campaign in early May, marching his army into Virginia. The Confederates dug in and waited for the Union to attack. Grant's army attacked several times over the next few days. On May 12, Grant massed his soldiers for a major attack on the center of the Confederate line. They smashed through the line and split the Confederate Army down the middle. However, the Confederates didn't give up. They fought really hard and managed to hold off the

Fort Donelson, Tennessee, guarding the Cumberland River, became the site of the first major Confederate defeat in the Civil War. Victory at Donelson started Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant on his road to Appomattox and the White House. His cool judgment under pressure saved the day after the Confederates threatened to break his troop lines, yet errors by his opponents handed him a victory that he did not fully earn on his own.

In some ways the confederacy is more alive and active today than it was in the 1860s. Arguments over its symbols, its flags, its leaders, its memorials, and its legacy have been almost constant over the past several years. These battles are always about one thing, the meaning of the confederacy. This usually devolves into an “it’s about slavery, it’s about states’ rights” argument with neither side listening to the other, each side convinced that it is right. Nevertheless, the question remains: what did it mean to be a confederate during the Civil War? The men, women, and children who consider themselves confederates during the 1860s created a nation, believed so strongly that they fought and died to defend it, and then saw that nation disappear into nothing. How do you reconcile that lost? How do you justify the pain and suffering that your family endured for it all to be in vain? You do it through myth and legend; you do it with the hope that the idea of the confederacy lives on even though the nation itself does not, and in that regard it succeeded. The ideal and myth of the confederacy not only outlasted the confederacy itself, but transcended into the very essence of American culture as the Lost Cause.

The river was an important avenue of approach for the Union army to reach and gain control of Vicksburg. The Loess Bluffs bordering the Mississippi River provided excellent observation positions for Confederate artillery to fire upon any enemy approaching via the river. Ships were particularly vulnerable to their fire because of an oxbow north of the city’s waterfront where ships were forced to slow down to make the treacherous turn. The river approach afforded no opportunities for cover and concealment.

Even though the 13 colonies declared their independence from Great Britain on 4 of July 1776, they actually gained their freedom only after the decisive war, the Battle of Yorktown (Introduction.) Yorktown was established in 1691 to regulate trade and collect taxes. Due to its location surrounded by the York River which led into the Chesapeake Bay, Yorktown would soon develop into a center of commerce. Not only Yorktown fit for building wharves, storehouses, and docks which used to export and import goods from Great Britain, but it also suit for setting up a naval base by taking advantage of its surrounding of the York River and Chesapeake Bay area (The Role 4.)

June 29, 1863, the day before the most memorable battle in history took place. The Battle of Gettysburg would become the major outcome of the Civil War. What

The Battle of Belleau Wood is significant in Marine Corps history because it spawned its

The battle of Belleau Wood in World War I was a three-week long battle that was praised and criticized. After the battle, the French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau admitted that if it was not for the Americans, Paris would have been taken over by the Germans. On the other hand, the Third Army Commander Major General (MG) Joseph T. Dickman described the battle as a needless sacrifice and as magnificent fighting but not modern war. Even though the battle was criticized, Brigadier General (BG) James Guthrie Harbord from the 4th Brigade (BDE) U.S. Marine Corps was successful in winning the

The Civil War is a topic of many books and movies. Authors and historians alike have covered every aspect ranging from the strategies involved in specific battles to stories of the lives of the people living during this time period. The battle of Fort Fisher has been the subject of many books and papers. Authors, living in the time of the Civil War and from both sides of the political divide, have written about the conflict. Modern day writers continue to research battles fought; tactics used, as well as, views on slavery. The Civil War is very well documented.

Fort Donelson, Tennessee, was built on top of a hill near Dover, Tennessee, and just to the east of Fort Henry and Fort Heiman. The Fort looks over the Cumberland River guarding it from enemy advancement. The advancements and uproar began when Tennessee pulled out of the union. They wanted Kentucky to follow in their foot steps in order to give the south a higher boundary against the North. Once the North pushed through Kentucky, Grants next lead was to push through the Forts guarding Tennessee. This battle became the first major Confederate victory in the start up of our nation’s Civil War. The defeat at Donelson gave Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant the recognition he later earned in the White House when he became president.

”Forty-five years ago this fall, in November of 1965, a lone, under strength battalion of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) ventured where no force—not the French, not the South Vietnamese army, not the newly arrived American combat troops—had ever gone”(Galloway 1). The battle of la Drang was the first major battle fought in the Vietnam War between the soldiers (Cav Scouts) of the US Army and the enemy (the People’s Army of Vietnam) aka the PAVN / NVA of North Vietnam. This battle took place between the dates of 14November1865 and 18November1865 at two separate LZs. These landing zones (X-Ray and Albany) were located adjacent to each other to the west of the village of Plei Me in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. The landing zones were precisely at the footstep of the Chu Pong massif. Before the battle started, close to 1,100 Americans in total had died in the United States’ involvement in the fight between South Vietnam and North Vietnam. This U.S. airmobile (1st Calvary Division) offensive operation was codenamed Operation Silver Bayonet I aka the battle of la Drang.

“The Butte de Polygon” or The Battle of Polygon Wood by George Edmund Butler in 1920 depicts a soldier's parents who are standing over his shallow grave in No Man’s Land, which communicates the reality parents face when their child dies in war. It tells of the sadness the parents feel, knowing that their child more than likely had a painful death. The painting is extremely realistic in depicting No Man’s Land during World War One, shell holes everywhere, baren, with only the husks of what were once trees. The entire setting just reeks of death and sadness. It also tells of the futility of war, with it often ending in both sides losing many lives and gaining very little.

America entered the war in 1917 after Germany severed diplomatic ties with the United States. The sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 which took the lives of over 150 Americans and the sinking of the Sussex in 1916 also worked to alter the mindset of many Americans.