The Wars of America--By Robert Leckie

[SHARK]

Greetings!

The Wars of America, by Robert Leckie; Copyright 1992, by Robert Leckie. New and updated edition published by Castle Books, 1998. 1281 pages. Hardcover.

This excellent book by Robert Leckie covers the following:

Part I: The Colonial Wars
Part II: The War of the Revolution
Part III: The War of 1812
Part IV: The War with Mexico
Part V: The Civil War
Part VI: Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War and the Phillipine Insurrection
Part VII: World War I
Part VIII: World War II
Part IX: The Korean War
Part X: World-wide Upheaval and the War in Vietnam
Part XI: 1981-1991: America Recoiling, Resurgent

Robert Leckie is a Marine veteran of World War II, and a fine scholar. He has written over thirty books. He writes very much for the layman, and is quite accessible for younger readers. I read one of his books on the Carrier War in The Pacific when I was in gradeschool. His writing style is simple, direct, and smooth, without being overly complex, or jargon-laden. He has a great gift in this, in that his writing is elegantly simple, and yet remains quite useful for the scholar. I personally think that if you can write a book that an average teenager, housewife, or warehouseman can read, and a scholar or professor can read, and both can find great joy and value in reading, then that is a masterful accomplishment of writing. Such is the writing of Mr. Robert Leckie. I highly recommend any of his books, but this book in particular.

The Wars of America provides an excellent one-volume work that covers every war that America has been involved in. In addition to learning about the particular battles that occured in the different wars, the reader also learns about the tactics and strategy involved, and the personalities and abilities of the commanders. In addition, Robert Leckie provides vivid accounts of the common soldier in battle, and an evocative picture of what kinds of struggles soldiers face in war. An altogether excellent book!

mmadsen! You have the book? How do you like it my friend?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[mmadsen]

Well, I was just posting about it in Mass Combat: Military Tactics Old and New!. Here's what I had to say there:

I've started reading The Wars of America, recommended quite highly by SHARK, and it's excellent! As the review from the Saturday Review (quoted on the back cover) says, "As military history, Mr. Leckie's volume has four cardinal virtues: compression, accuracy, color, and boldness in the delivery of judgements upon movements of men."

In addition to being compressed, accurate, colorful, and bold, it's also surprisingly applicable to D&D -- or at least the early chapters on the Colonial Wars are.

 

[grimwell]

I've been reading this one for almost a year. I read about one war/time period and then shelf it and read something light.

The writing style is elegant in it's simplicity. Anyone can read and understand it, and yet it's not mundane in an attempt to have a broad appeal. The details and information are well ordered and I have discovered many things that I just "did not know" before.

A great read if you have the time (or the ability to break it up like I've been doing).

 

[mmadsen]

For anyone lurking at home, if you'd like to read the first few pages -- and they're really good -- swing by Amazon; they're available on-line.

As I was saying before, certain passages are surprisingly applicable to D&D -- descriptions of raids on small settlements and forts, descriptions of savage tribes, bits of strategy and tactics, etc.

De-Indian-ize the names, and you have excellent Orc (or Pict) descriptions:

Known as the Five Nations -- Mohawk, Oneida, Onandaga, Cayuga, and Seneca -- they were the dread of surrounding tribes: killing, torturing, eating or enslaving them, while imposing upon some the humiliating ephithet of "women" or exacting from others a ruinous tribute.

Great stuff!

 

[mmadsen]

I've been reading this one for almost a year.

It is 1281 pages.

I read about one war/time period and then shelf it and read something light.

That's a great feature of the book. Think of it as an 11-volume compilation. Speaking of the 11 sections, I quickly realized how much US military history I barely know anything about. Most of us learn a bit about the Revolutionary War, a bit about the Civil War, a bit about WWI, and -- if only through movies -- quite a bit about WWII. And most of us know about Korea and Vietnam, perhaps through veterans in the family.

How many of us know anything about the Colonial Wars (before the Revolution), the War of 1812 (beyond the name and the fact that Brits were pressing American sailors into their navy), the War with Mexico (beyond "Remember the Alamo!"), the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War and the Phillipine Insurrection. Do most Americans even know we controlled the Phillipines?

 

[mmadsen]

The writing style is elegant in it's simplicity. Anyone can read and understand it, and yet it's not mundane in an attempt to have a broad appeal.

It's compressed, accurate, colorful, and bold!

The details and information are well ordered and I have discovered many things that I just "did not know" before.

My favorite "I did not know that":

Even before the New World was colonized, the Spanish had revolutionized war by introducing an improved matchlock musket and fielding units of professional foot soldiers called infantry. (The name derives from the custom of adopting Spanish princes, or infantes, as the honorary colonels of various formations.)

 

[King_Stannis]

thank you SHARK! i'll be hunting this one down.

 

[OaxacanWarrior]

I just finished reading the first few pages on Amazon and there is a lot of good stuff for D&D in there. I can just see savage orc tribes instead of the native indians doing those things like murderous raids, torture, drinking the blood of fallen enemies, eating conquered foes, etc. Really cool stuff

 

[mmadsen]

I love the colorful anecdotes:

A few hours after dark they made out a flotilla of Iroquois war canoes approaching from the south. Both Indian bands exchanged war cries, and then the Iroquois landed on the same shore to erect a barricade of logs in preparation for the morning's fight.

I'm surprised the war bands exchanged just war cries. I certainly can't imagine a D&D party spotting the enemy, then setting up camp for the night -- fortified or not.

On that morning, Champlain and his fellow Frenchmen vested themselves in steel armor and seized the short, stubby matchlocks in their hands....After Champlain's savages went ashore, their steel-clad allies stealthily slipped from the canoes and followed behind.

Maybe the Armor Check for Breastplate shouldn't be so high? Anyway, I don't normally think of colonists in the Northeast as wearing armor -- that seems so much more Spanish Conquistador to me -- but it makes perfect sense against arrow- and tomahawk-wielding Indians.

Soon the Iroquois begain filing out of their makeshift fort. There were about 200 of them.

D&D definitely needs rules for "small" groups of a few hundred.

They also were "armored." Some carried shields of wood or hardened hide, or wore vests made of twigs bound by fiber....[Champlain wrote

I looked at them, and they looked at me. When i saw them getting ready to shoot their arrows at us, I levelled my arquebuse, which I had loaded with four balls, and aimed straight at one of the three chiefs. The shot brought down two, and wounded another. On this, our Indians set up such a yelling that one could not have heard a thunder-clap, and all the while the arrows flew thick on both sides. The Iroquois were greatly astonished and frightened to see two of their men killed so quickly, in spite of their arrow-proof armor. As I was reloading, on of my companions fired a shot from the woods, which so increased their astonishment that, seeing their chiefs dead, they abandoned the field and fled into the depth of the forest.

I think we can see the chief advantages of firearms right there: armor penetration and loud noise.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

In my own readings I have done some research on the Cherokee Tribe, which is an Indian Tribe of the Eastern Forests, in the region of Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Carolinas. The Cherokee are a "cousin" tribe to the Five Nations to the north. In common with them, the Cherokee warriors would have their war-paint put on by their sisters, as they prepared for battle. The sisters took great pride in dressing their brothers for war, and when the Cherokee warriors went off to fight their enemies, they were zealous and ferocious in battle. When they encountered especially brave and ferocious enemies, when such an opponent was killed, the Cherokee warrior would cut out the fallen champion's heart, right there on the spot, and eat it--raw. The heart was eaten as a sign of reverence and respect for the fallen enemy, who had demonstrated such ferocity and courage. In addition, the Cherokee warrior believed that eating the heart of a valiant enemy would mystically impart some of their courage to them.

Needless to say, when white settlers and soldiers encountered such on the battlefield, they were horrified at the bestial savagery that many of the tribes, like the Cherokee, displayed in battle.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK