Rivers Under Siege

Rivers under Siege is a wrenching firsthand account of how human interventions, often well intentioned, have wreaked havoc on West Tennessee's fragile wetlands. For more than a century, farmers and developers tried to tame the rivers as they became clogged with sand and debris, thereby increasing flooding. Building levees and changing the course of the rivers from meandering streams to straight-line channels, developers only made matters worse. Yet the response to failure was always to try to subdue nature, to dig even bigger channels and construct even more levees-an effort that reached its sorry culmination in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' massive West Tennessee Tributaries Project during the 1960s. As a result, the rivers' natural hydrology descended into chaos, devastating the plant and animal ecology of the region's wetlands. Crops and trees died from summer flooding, as much of the land turned into useless, stagnant swamps. The author was one of a small group of state waterfowl managers who saw it all happen, most sadly within the Obion-Forked Deer river system and at Reelfoot Lake. After much trial and error, Johnson and his colleagues in the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency began by the 1980s to abandon their old methods, resorting to management procedures more in line with the natural contours of the floodplains and the natural behavior of rivers. Preaching their new stewardship philosophy to anyone who might listen-their supervisors, duck hunters, conservationists, politicians, federal agencies-they were often ignored. The campaign dragged on for twenty years before an innovative and rational plan came from the Governor's Office and gained wide support. But then, too, that plan fell prey to politics, legal wrangling, self-interest, hardheadedness, and tradition. Yet, despite such heartbreaking setbacks, the author points to hopeful signs that West Tennessee's historic wetlands might yet be recovered for the benefit of all who use them and recognize their vital importance. Jim W. Johnson, now retired, was for many years a lands management biologist with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. He was responsible for the overall supervision and coordination of thirteen wildlife management areas and refuges, primarily for waterfowl, in northwest Tennessee.

Richmond became the capital of the Confederacy when Virginia joined the Southern cause, marking the city as a prime target for the Union army. General McClellan was the first Union leader to lay siege to Richmond, and that was just the beginning. The attractive and genteel city of Richmond would be transformed into a refugee camp, a scene of riots, and a city-sized hospital before the war was over. Making use of diaries, letters, and newspaper accounts from the era, Wright brings readers face to face with the men and women who fought for the city, endured starvation, observed Lee's defeats and Grant's progress, and witnessed the Confederacy's last days.

When an actor in a local play is attacked during a performance, Bruno must learn whether it was an accident, a crime of passion, or an assassination attempt with implications far beyond the small French village. The town of Sarlat is staging a reenactment of its liberation from the British in the Hundred Years War when the play’s French hero, Brice Kerquelin, is stabbed and feared fatally wounded. Is it an unfortunate prop malfunction—or something more sinister? The stricken man happens to be number two in the French intelligence service, in line for the top job. Bruno is tasked with the safety of the victim’s daughters, Claire and Nadia, as well as their father’s old Silicon Valley buddies, ostensibly in town for a reunion. One friend from Taiwan, a tycoon in chip fabrication, soon goes missing, and Bruno suspects there may be a link to the French government’s efforts to build a chip industry in Europe—something powerful forces in Russia and China are determined to scuttle. Wading through a tangle of rivalries and secrets, Bruno begins to parse fact from fiction—while also becoming embroiled in some romantic complications, and, of course, finding time to put together some splendid meals.

"Vauban under Siege" is the first systematic comparison of the theory of Vaubanian siegecraft with its reality, contrasting military engineering's pursuit of the efficient siege with generals' contradictory search for rapid conquest, purchased at the cost of additional lives.

This edited volume analyses siege warfare as a discrete type of military engagement, in the face of which civilians are particularly vulnerable. Siege warfare is a form of combat that has usually had devastating effects on civilian populations. From the near-contemporary Siege of Sarajevo to the real and mythical sieges of the ancient Mediterranean, this has been a recurring type of military engagement which, through bombardment, starvation, disease and massacre, places non-combatants at the heart of battle. To date, however, there has been little recognition of the effects of siege warfare on civilians. This edited volume addresses this gap. Using a distinctive regressive method, it begins with the present and works backwards, avoiding teleological interpretations that suggest the targeting of civilians in war is a modern phenomenon. Its contributors interrogate civilians’ roles during sieges, both as victims and active participants; the laws and customs of siege warfare; its place in historical memory, and the ways civilian survivors have dealt with trauma. Its scope and content ensure that the collection is essential reading for all those interested in the place of civilians in war. Chapter 2 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com

A revised and expanded tactical study General Grant’s Fourth Offensive during the American Civil War. The nine-month siege of Petersburg was the longest continuous operation of the American Civil War. A series of large-scale Union “offensives,” grand maneuvers that triggered some of the fiercest battles of the war, broke the monotony of static trench warfare. Grant’s Fourth Offensive, August 14–25, the longest and bloodiest operation of the campaign, is the subject of John Horn’s revised and updated Sesquicentennial edition of The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864. Frustrated by his inability to break through the Southern front, General Grant devised a two-punch combination strategy to sever the crucial Weldon Railroad and stretch General Lee’s lines. The plan called for Winfield Hancock’s II Corps (with X Corps) to move against Deep Bottom north of the James River to occupy Confederate attention while Warren’s V Corps, supported by elements of IX Corps, marched south and west below Petersburg toward Globe Tavern on the Weldon Railroad. The move triggered the battles of Second Deep Bottom, Globe Tavern, and Second Reams Station, bitter fighting that witnessed fierce Confederate counterattacks and additional Union operations against the railroad before Grant’s troops dug in and secured their hold on Globe Tavern. The result was nearly 15,000 killed, wounded, and missing, the severing of the railroad, and the jump-off point for what would be Grant’s Fifth Offensive in late September. Revised and updated for this special edition, Horn’s outstanding tactical battle study emphasizes the context and consequences of every action and is supported by numerous maps and grounded in hundreds of primary sources. Unlike many battle accounts, Horn puts Grant’s Fourth Offensive into its proper perspective not only in the context of the Petersburg Campaign and the war, but in the context of the history of warfare. “A superior piece of Civil War scholarship.” —Edwin C. Bearss, former Chief Historian of the National Park Service and award-winning author of The Petersburg Campaign: Volume 1, The Eastern Front Battles and Volume 2, The Western Front Battles “It’s great to have John Horn’s fine study of August 1864 combat actions (Richmond-Petersburg style) back in print; covering actions on both sides of the James River, with sections on Deep Bottom, Globe Tavern, and Reams Station. Utilizing manuscript and published sources, Horn untangles a complicated tale of plans gone awry and soldiers unexpectedly thrust into harm’s way. This new edition upgrades the maps and adds some fresh material. Good battle detail, solid analysis, and strong characterizations make this a welcome addition to the Petersburg bookshelf.” —Noah Andre Trudeau, author of The Last Citadel: Petersburg, June 1864–April 1865