This was largely because the Confederate
States of America enjoyed a wealth of military
talent. John C. Breckinridge, a former vice
president, and John B. Gordon, a former
lawyer, lacked formal training yet proved
themselves first-rate divisional and corps com-
manders. Their success underscored that the
American reliance on amateur “citizen sol-
diers” could produce outstanding military
leaders. Still, the Confederates also employed
blackguards like William C. Quantrill and
“Bloody Bill” Anderson, who spread a trail of
murder and mayhem throughout Missouri. Be-
tween the two extremes fall men like John Im-
boden, Turner Ashby, and James J. Pettigrew,
fine commanders who distinguished them-
selves in minor theaters. But regardless of
how one feels about the politics and policies
of the Confederacy, the honor, gallantry, and
sacrifice of its soldiers are beyond dispute.
Having consolidated its hold on North
America, the bustling young republic began
expanding its interests—and grasp—toward
its neighbors to the south. The Mexican
forces under Santa Anna fought bravely but in
vain trying to stem an Anglo invasion and the
loss of nearly half their domain. Similarly,
Spanish admirals like Cervera and Montojo
fulfilled their sense of honor by losing two
dramatic, lopsided engagements against more
modern American fleets. In a similar sense,
the peasant uprisings of Mexico and
Nicaragua produced wily opponents like Pan-
cho Villa and Augusto Sandino. They could
not tackle American forces head-on in the
conventional sense, so they resorted to clas-
sic guerrilla warfare. Curiously, these two
men—who had gained international celebrity
by thwarting the Yankees—died at the hands
of fellow countrymen.
Victory in the Spanish-American War of
1898 subsequently catapulted the United
States to the front of the world stage, and
with it came entanglement in European af-
fairs. American entry into World War I found
U.S. forces encountering German troops for
the first time since the Hessians during the
Revolution. The kaiser’s army may have been
on its last legs in 1918, but under the capable
leadership of generals like Max von Gallwitz,
it made the amateurish and enthusiastic new-
comers pay heavily for their victory. Two
decades later, the German Wehrmacht of
World War II made even greater technical and
tactical strides and championed a new form
of warfare—the blitzkrieg—with legendary
efficiency. In their first brush with the enemy,
U.S. forces suffered disastrously at the hands
of Erwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox,” but they
rebounded and within four month captured
the entire Panzer Armee Afrika. By 1944, the
U.S. Army proved capable of meeting the su-
perbly trained and equipped divisions of
Kluge, Balck, and Blaskowitz on equal terms.
They also felt the sting of merciless fighting
forces such as Hitler’s dreaded Waffen-SS, as
well as men like Peiper and Dietrich, who
committed atrocities as a matter of course.
All fought with desperate courage but were fi-
nally vanquished.
With the acquisition of the Pacific Coast in
1848, the United States increased its trade
contacts—and ambitions—in the Far East.
Victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898
resulted in the acquisition of the Philip-
pines—and American’s first guerrilla war in
Asia. Emilio Aguinaldo was finally defeated
after many months, but he demonstrated that
land war in the Far East was no simple task.
The Boxer Rebellion was also a warning that
Chinese armies, well-trained and motivated,
could be dangerous to tackle. Within four
decades, the United States became engaged
with the fanatically brave but brutal forces of
Imperial Japan. For many months into the Pa-
cific War, the Japanese army, navy, and air
forces seemed unstoppable and driven mind-
lessly—or so it seemed to Western ob-
servers—by the ancient samurai code of vic-
tory or death. But in time the imperial enemy
proved less than invincible, and Admiral Ya-
mamoto met his fate during an aerial ambush
by U.S. warplanes. This was the result of
American breakthroughs in decoding en-xi
PREFACE ANDACKNOWLEDGMENTS