Sacrifice Of The Generals

From June 1775 to February 1781, during the American War of Independence, ten patriot generals died as a result of combat wounds. Their service and deaths spanned most of the warÆs duration and geographical expanse. The generals were a diverse group, with six born in America and four in Europe, three coming from professional military backgrounds, and the rest citizen-soldiers, mostly with limited military experience. As the colonists won their independence, the fallen generals became martyrs for the revolutionary ideals that would inspire later generations throughout the world. LibertyÆs Fallen Generals is the first book to analyze these key military leadersÆ service and the quality of their leadership in light of recent scholarship on the Revolutionary War. Each generalÆs profile provides background on military and political events leading to his emergence, assesses the general as a military leader in the war, and examines the campaign that culminated in his battle-related death. A compelling study in leadership and sacrifice, LibertyÆs Fallen Generals is essential reading for those interested in learning more about AmericaÆs earliest heroes.

It also includes a preface that contributes important contextual information on personnel organization and losses of the Soviet Army, essays containing extensive bibliographies, and a foreword by John Erickson, the foremost Western historian of the Soviet armed forces." "This unique research tool greatly increases our understanding of the Soviet Union's mighty World War II effort and related Stalinist politics during its greatest hour. Based on the latest declassified sources, Parrish combines into one volume crucial information that has been widely scattered among many different locations and difficult to access."--Jacket.

The 1941-1945 campaign on the Eastern front was the bloodiest in military history. The staggering number of Soviet casualties, much higher than German losses, continues to be a subject of debate and controversy. Exact figures are still unknown, but estimates range to nearly 30 million. Devoted to the losses among senior officers, this book provides evidence that unlike the masses of the Red Army, senior officers suffered proportionately fewer losses in the conflict than the Germans, but in Stalin they faced an enemy only slightly less deadly than combat. Based primarily on documents and archival material released during Glasnost, it provides biographical entries for officers above the rank of colonel who were killed in combat, died of natural causes, were taken prisoner, "repressed", or demoted in rank during Stalin's reign.

Born into a distinguished military family, Fitz John Porter (1822-1901) was educated at West Point and breveted for bravery in the war with Mexico. Already a well-respected officer at the outset of the Civil War, as a general in the Union army he became a favorite of George B. McClellan, who chose him to command the Fifth Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Porter and his troops fought heroically and well at Gaines's Mill and Malvern Hill. His devotion to the Union cause seemed unquestionable until fellow Union generals John Pope and Irvin McDowell blamed him for their own battlefield failures at Second Bull Run. As a confidant of the Democrat and limited-war proponent McClellan, Porter found himself targeted by Radical Republicans intent on turning the conflict to the cause of emancipation. He made the perfect scapegoat, and a court-martial packed with compliant officers dismissed him for disobedience of orders and misconduct before the enemy. Porter tenaciously pursued vindication after the war, and in 1879 an army commission finally reviewed his case, completely exonerating him. Obstinately partisan resistance from old Republican enemies still denied him even nominal reinstatement for six more years. This revealing new biography by William Marvel cuts through received wisdom to show Fitz John Porter as he was: a respected commander whose distinguished career was ruined by political machinations within Lincoln's administration. Marvel lifts the cloud that shadowed Porter over the last four decades of his life, exposing the spiteful Radical Republicans who refused to restore his rank long after his exoneration and never restored his benefits. Reexamining the relevant primary evidence from the full arc of Porter's life and career, Marvel offers significant insights into the intersections of politics, war, and memory.

The Sacrifice is a haunting depiction of one family and its often tragic attempts to come to terms with a new life in a new country. It is a moving, almost biblical story of a father possessed by his hope for his only son; of a son who rebels against his father’s ideals, yet sacrifices himself to preserve what his father most prizes; and of a grandson who must reconcile the flaws in his inheritance.

An investigation of the multiple meanings and functions of sacrifice in diverse religious texts and practices from the late Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods.

Award-winning historian Mike Walling captures the essence of the Arctic Convoys of World War II. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest offensive operation ever undertaken. Operation Barbarossa saw defeat after defeat heaped on the Soviet army. With Russia's forces left staggering under the strain and in desperate need of supplies, Britain and the United States launched an ambitious operation to resupply the Soviet Union using convoys sent through the Arctic. Their journey was punctuated by torpedo attacks in freezing conditions, Stuka dive bombers, naval gun fire, and weeks of total darkness in the Arctic winter, with ships disappearing below the waves weighed down by the ice and snow on their decks. Drawing on hundreds of oral histories from eyewitnesses and veterans of the convoys, plus original research into the Russian Navy archives at Murmansk, historian Michael G. Walling offers a fresh retelling of one of World War II's pivotal yet largely overlooked campaigns.

The present volume asks to which extent ancient practices and traditions of human sacrifice are reflected in medieval and modern Judeo-Christian times and also includes contributions concerned with the Ancient Near East and Ancient Greece.