Artillery Battery Research Articles

Evaluation of the effectiveness of a firing battery in self-defense and protection in the area of firing positions using constructive simulation

The paper describes the results of an experiment based on the use of constructive simulation in the MASA SWORD environment to verify the ability of an artillery firing battery to provide self-defense and protection in the firing position area and to perform the firing task when different types of adversary attack the firing position area. The objective of the experiment is to verify the ability of the artillery battery to survive within the Artillery Reserved Areas/Artillery Maneuver Areas (ARA/AMA) while performing combat tasks and the necessity of allocating additional resources (equipment, personnel, material) to protect and defend the firing position area and the artillery firing unit assets operating within it. The experiment results are the initial basis for follow-on simulations that will assess the impact on the ability to accomplish an artillery battery operation’s planned and unplanned joint fire support tasks.

An Integrated Approach for Ammunition Depot Location Selection and Ammunition Distribution Network Design Based on P-Median and Vehicle Routing Problems

During the war, the safe provision of the required ammunition at the desired place and time can affect the fate of the war and even the country. Determining the number and locations of ammunition depots needed in the war is as important as planning their distribution. Ammunition supply has always been a force multiplier for military units. Although the timely delivery of ammunition to the unit is not sufficient for success on its own, it is an important factor. These two issues are directly related to each other. This study presents a two-stage methodology to solve the problems in question. In the first stage, it was decided which of the 3 different types of depots, whose establishment locations were known with the p-median model, would be opened, and the unit-depot assignments were determined. In the second stage, the distribution network design for the distribution of ammunition from the ammunition depot to the deployed artillery units was realized with the Capacity-Constrained Vehicle Routing Problem (CCVRP) model. This methodology was tested for a fictitious situation where the geographical location and numerical information of the depots and artillery batteries were generated generically. By solving the mathematical model in the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) program, it was determined which depot should distribute how many vehicles to which artillery batteries, and the results were presented visually.

Археологическое исследование памятников петровской эпохи на территории Волгоградской области

Introduction. This paper presents preliminary results of the first archaeological survey of the objects of the archaeological heritage “Petrov Val” and “Selimov Val of 1550.” The main purpose of the event has become the clarification of existing information regarding to the features of creation and operation of difficult hydraulic engineering structures such as “Selimov Val of 1550” or Johann Brekkel’s canal and “Petrov Val” or rather, the canal, which was built under the leadership of John Perry at the turn of the 17th – 18th centuries. Methods and materials. During the research, the attempt to discover the cultural layer of the 18th century was made using the help of archeological methods. Analysis. In the process of visual inspection of these objects, their significant damage was observed, which was inflicted during human economic activity. During the archeological exploration, open test pits were made to identify the cultural layer in the most promising places. While studying the site “Petrov Val”, the test pit was made on the territory located near the Ilovlya riverbed. During the survey of the object “Selimov Val of 1550”, one pit was made near the Cossack artillery battery, which can be dated to the beginning of the 18th century, the second was made in the place where, a small old working settlement of the builders of the Brekkel’s canal was located, according to the map from the atlas of Kruise (1704). Unfortunately, archaeological material was not found during the excavations. Results. During the visual inspection of the site “Selimov Val of 1550”, its beginning from the Ilovlya River and its continuation up to the settlement of Petrov Val, which had not been considered for forming the boundaries of this object before, were localized. According to the results of archaeological work, it has become clear that the name “Selimov Val of 1550” is wrong, because the surviving remains of this hydraulic engineering structure fully correspond to the description of the canal, which was laid by workers under the leadership of Johann Brekkel in the late 17th century.

RECENT BACKWARD OF NATIONAL MILITARY NAVAL MEDICINE

Here is the contribution of K. N. Kostur in the development of national military naval medicine based on documentary data. K. N. Kostur was born on May 6, 1921 in the village of Kuzmin, Gorodok district of the Khmelnitsky region of the Ukrainian SSR. After graduating secondary school with ten years of study, he entered the Naval Medical School (NMS). He passed the first practice in August 1940 on the cruiser «Aurora», which was in Kronstadt. In late October 1941, after an early release from NMS, he was sent to the «Road of Life». The convoy of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet (RBBF), where he served, took the wounded, women and children out of besieged Leningrad. Konstantin Nikolaevich Kostur, being a senior medical assistant, was part of the Railway Artillery Battery of the 263rd Division of Railway Artillery of the 1st Guards Brigade of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. He participated in combat operations to break the blockade of Leningrad, liberate the islands in the Vyborg gulf, and also liberate the Baltic states and East Prussia. Several post-war years participated in the combat demining of the Finland gulf. Then — 5 years of study at the Naval Medical Academy (NMS), service on the cruiser «Maxim Gorky» as the head of the medical service, and also — 22 years of hard work in the 1st order of Lenin Naval Hospital of the Leningrad Naval Base. Here K. N. Kostur went from the young attending doctor to the head of the gastroenterological department and the lead therapist of the hospital. After the release to the reserve, Konstantin Nikolayevich until the last day was actively working as a therapist at the 285th Polyclinic of 1st order of Lenin Naval Hospital of the Leningrad Naval Base, assisting military personnel, members of their families, military retirees and civilians. Despite high positions and great administrative and medical work, K. N. Kostur conducted deep research studies on topical issues of naval therapy and gastroenterology, was actively engaged in inventive and rationalization activities.

CHARACTERIZATION OF HYDRODYNAMIC PROCESSES DRIVING TIDAL RIVER ISLAND SHORELINE CHANGE

Bird/Long Island is a dredge-spoil island located between the north and south channels near the inlet of the Savannah River at the border of Georgia and South Carolina. The island is in a tidally dominant environment and contains cultural and natural resources, including remnants of a Civil War era artillery battery. As a wetland mitigation bank, it is particularly important to the state of Georgia. However, these resources are under threat from documented and ongoing sea level rise, shoreline change (i.e., erosion and accretion) from natural and anthropogenic causes, and land subsidence. In addition to substantial tidal and freshwater flows, the island is subject to locally-generated wind waves primarily from northeast winds, as well as wake from the large container ships transiting to and from the Port of Savannah. A previous study examined the effects of wind and vessel-generated waves on shoreline retreat for the Fort Pulaski National Monument on nearby Cockspur Island (Houser, 2010). The study concluded that while the vessel-generated waves account for nearly 25% of the energy, the wind waves during storm events with increased water levels accounted for the majority of the marsh retreat. Although the proximity of this previous study site to Bird/Long Island is relevant, the different orientations of the islands and the narrowing of the channel create a different hydrodynamic environment. The present work uses field data to characterize the hydrodynamic processes affecting Bird/Long Island, which will improve modeling of its shoreline change.

AUTOMATION COMPLEX OF PERSPECTIVE SELF-PROPELLED ARTILLERY GUN FOR AIRBORNE TROOPS

Carried out the analysis of a current state of the automation means complex for the airborne troops artillery divisions. Considered assignment, structure of the automation means complex of perspective self-propelled artillery gun for the airborne troops, implemented in form of unified complex of program and technical means of control. Provided the basic functions executed by a perspective self-propelled artillery gun for the airborne troops from the point of view of ensuring automation crew commander’s activity by preparation and during the fight, ensuring internal crew communication, ensuring data transmission and radiophone transmission of crew with the control machine of self-propelled artillery battery’s commander. Considered lists of calculation, information and general-system tasks, implemented in software from structure of the unified complex of program and technical control means, for ensuring inclusion gun in the automated control contour of the airborne troops artillery divisions, also software’s visual interface for the perspective self-propelled guns commander.

Officer Libraries in the Artillery Directorate (the second half of the 19th — beginning of the 20th century): Quantitative Assessment and its Characteristic Features

For the first time in the domestic library science there is accomplished the counting of the Officer Libraries in the Artillery Directorate in the second half of the 19th — the beginning of the 20th century; there are identified the sources on the basis of which the counting was done. Quantification of the libraries in artillery, unlike the establishment of their number in the Corps of military engineers, army officer libraries and military schools, has its own characteristic features. They were caused by the organizational and staff structure (which included not only artillery units and military schools, but also arms, gunpowder, cartridge, capsular plants, artillery warehouses, and training bases with officer book collections at them), as well as specifics of service in the artillery (artillery batteries were located in dozens of kilometres from the brigade headquarters, where an officer library was located, and from remaining batteries of the brigade). The main sources in the calculation of the number of libraries were: “Reference book for the Russian officers…” (St. Petersburg., 1869, 1875); the articles about officer brigade and battery artillery libraries in the “Artillery Journal”, “The Military Collection”; the lists of artillery units and institutions which had to have subscription to “Artillery Journal”; the regulations on military educational institutions that were included in the Main Artillery Directorate and subordinate to the General Feldzeugmeister; the orders on military and artillery Directorates; instructions, provisions, rules of military meetings; catalogues of books and annexes to them; instructions for use of books, journals and newspapers from officer artillery libraries; the history of military units, institutions and military schools of the artillery Directorate, etc. The analysis of numerous different sources allows to assume that by the early 20th century the Artillery Directorate could have 150—200 officer libraries. The revealed data provide the opportunity to trace the dynamics of creation and development of library network in Artillery Directorate, to complement and refine the overall picture of the history of military librarianship in the Russian Empire.

Tunnelling Companies Royal Engineers in World War II: excavation of bomb-proof facilities in France, Gibraltar, Malta and the UK

Abstract 170 Tunnelling Company Royal Engineers left England in January 1940 to excavate bomb-proof military headquarters in northern France. Expansion into companies 170, 171, 172 and 173 was delayed when the British Expeditionary Force was defeated and evacuated, but completed in England in July to excavate accommodation underground for regional headquarters and artillery batteries – mostly in Cretaceous chalk. Companies 178, 179 and 180 formed in England in May–June 1940, and 178 and 180 soon deployed to Gibraltar, joined by 170 in 1941 and successively by 1st and 2nd Tunnelling Companies Royal Canadian Engineers. They excavated a major complex of tunnels and chambers within Jurassic dolomitic limestone by October 1943 to help fortify the rocky peninsula, work completed by a single company (172) thereafter. Companies 183, 184 and 185 joined 179 in 1941 to emplace ‘Canadian pipe mines’ to inhibit the invasion of Britain. 173 served in Malta 1941–43, and 171 during 1943–45, excavating >50 bomb-proof facilities in Oligo-Miocene limestones, plus works to enhance the civilian water supply. By late 1943, all companies except 172 (Gibraltar) and 171 (Malta) were based in Britain. At least five were converted for general engineering use and no longer needed geological assistance.

The WWII German Heavy Artillery Battery AV 67 of Cleus Foz (Finistère-FR)

The reading of literature concerning the Atlantic Wall and of the previously published articles may have conveyed the concept that the German military structures of the Atlantic Wall were formed by Regelbauten (rule-built con-structions) (Rs). This concept is not totally wrong, but leads to neglect the im-portant role played by the verstärktenfeldmäΒigen Bauwerke (strengthened field constructions) (Vfs) normally included in said structures. The present article, concerning the visit of the site of the WW II German heavy artillery battery of Cleus Foz (Finistère-FR) and the discussion of its organization, show that the Vfs in this battery represented the majority of its bunkers, and in this way indicate how said concept should be corrected.

The WW II German Coastal Artillery Battery <i>H.K.B.</i>1274/<i>StP</i> C342 at Camaret sur Mer (Finistère—FR)

In previous articles dedicated to various German military structures of the Atlantic Wall in West Brittany, the preservation state and the organization of their components have been analyzed. The components have generally been found in a good preservation state without damages due to combats or bombardments. This is not the case of the components of the German coastal artillery battery HKB1274/StP C342 described in this article. The article shows also the organization of the battery, how it integrated pre-existing French military structures and how a massive allied air bombardment affected it.

Journey through the Defences of the Festung Saint-Malo (FR)-2

The Festung (Fortress) Saint-Malo was defended by about 500 German military structures constructed, in the period December 1941-June 1944, under the direction of the Organisation Todt. They diversify from simple tobrucks (Vf 58, Vf 61) up to the great bunkers of the Cite d’Alet. This article is a survey presenting some of them on the East side of the Festung, deemed of interest. Many of them remain visible and accessible and witness the confidence of the Germans in static military offensive and defensive structures. The Kullak artillery battery, the Pointe de la Varde support point, the Bastion de Saint Ideuc base, the Hopital des Rosais base have lost their military value and because of their obsolescence with respect to the modern military doctrines based on a rapid first strike and precision bombing, they will never recover a military one. Their bunkers remain silent witnesses of a recent tragic period in the life of Saint-Malo. On the contrary, the bunkers of the Les Ormeaux artillery battery and the cisterns of the Ville Besnard logistic base are well integrated in the urban context and support the actual exigencies of Saint-Malo.

I Brygada Legionów Polskich nad Nidą w 1915 roku

After bloody fights on the territory of Galicia, the First Brigade of Polish Legions resume actions in the Kingom of Poland. Since the 3rd of March to the 10th of May 1915, it conducted positional fights, occupying the front line along the western bank of the Nida River opposite the city of Pińczów. At that time the First Brigade, commanded by Józef Piłsudski, operated within the Austrian First Army of general Victor Dankl. Using briefings and operational records of the First Brigade, the article discusses the issues concerning development of the unit. It presents the life on the frontlines: occupation of old and building of new fortifications, problems concerning service of the legionaries in the field of discipline, training, co-operation of commanders and subordinates, operation of weapons; various organizational and ordinal actions concerning equipment, armament, staffing of units, sanitary conditions and quartering, helping the local people work in the fields. There are collected materials to the history of operations of the First Brigade. The article presents the work of Officers Fund, to which belonged the officers nominated by Piłsudski, in the scope of paying out wages and other tasks. In that period there were formed two units of machine guns, a telephone unit, the artillery was developed and the V and VI battalion were united into the Third Infantry Regiment. The numerical force of the formation was increased. At the beginning of May 1915 it amounted to 5050 people. It was comprised of three infantry regiments, a cavalry unit, a sapper unit, two artillery batteries, three machine guns units, a sanitary unit and other service. Generally it was the time of preparations against offensive announced by the central states. As a result of breaking the front by the Austro-Hungarian and German armies in Gorlice, the Russian army began to retreat. On Nida it happened at night 10-11 of May 1915. There are three annexes attached to the article: the list of killed soldiers of the First Brigade at the time of fights on Nida River, officer staff in March 1915 and a presence state from 10th of May 1915. Despite the short stay of the legionaries in Ponidzie, it was significant to the development of division in military and ideological meaning. The soldiers were consolidated around goals assigned by Piłsudski and his collaborators. Their stay among local people resulted in recording themselves in the consciousness of local society. It was expressed in later years through commemorating of local society. It was expressed in later years through commemorating the places of fights of the First brigade Legions in cultural landscape of Kielce region.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the Fate of the Russian Navy in Finland, 11 April – 28 May 1918, based on Materials of the Central State Naval Archive

The article examines the situation that developed after the relocation of the Baltic Fleet from Helsingfors to Kronstandt and after the occupation of Helsingfors by German and Finnish troops. During this time, 283 small ships and vessels from the Russian Navy, various Russian military equipment and shoreline artillery batteries remained in Finland. To safeguard and evaculate these assets, the Soviet government created a naval task force in Finnish waters under the leadership of Rear-Admiral A.P. Zelenoi. The article draws on previously unexploited documents from Zelenoi's command, showing how the admiral preserved Russian ships and other naval assets from destruction by the Germans.

Analytical model of enemy's artillery battery engagement with account for timeliness of its detection

The article presents mathematical model of self-propelled artillery battery on fire position functioning with account for timeliness of its detection, description of its functioning is given by semi-Markov processes and system of linear integral equations. General formula for defining timeliness of fire engagement is obtained, design ratios on condition that target time on fire position is distributed by normal law, and time for engagement preparation by exponential rule are found. Calculation of effectiveness indicator of enemy’s self-propelled artillery battery damage level is done.

RICHARD WILBUR'S CAMBRIDGE YEARS, 1946–1954

1 R R I C H A R D W I L B U R ’ S C A M B R I D G E Y E A R S , 1 9 4 6 — 1 9 5 4 R O B E R T B A G G When most of the U.S. Army’s 36th Texans division shipped from Marseilles to Newport News in mid-October 1945, Sta√ Sergeant Richard Wilbur remained behind with the occupation forces in Germany. The army had transferred Wilbur, without explanation, from his post as code technician to the automatic weapons unit of an artillery battery – a position for which he was completely untrained and unqualified. This delay in his return home might have been a superior’s retaliation for twenty-one feisty columns Wilbur had published in The T-Patch, his division’s newspaper, one of which expressed bemusement that a major would wear riding boots and carry a crop and a pearl-handled revolver in the absence of horses or enemies. With happier abruptness, he was sent to Marseilles in midNovember to board a troop transport, and on the 29th he was honorably discharged from active duty at Camp Edison, New Jersey. That same evening he arrived at a Manhattan hotel, where his wife, Charlee, was waiting. When asked years later to name the hotel, he confidently remembered that it was the Plaza. Charlee corrected him. The hotel, near Times Square, charged by the hour, and she had brought her own bed linens; such accommodations 2 B A G G Y were all Charlee could book in a city swamped with returning G.I.s. Not surprisingly, Dick looked drained and pale to Charlee despite his relief and joy at being home – alive, intact, and in her arms. He was still thin, 160 pounds on his 6 foot 2 inch frame – though that was an improvement on the 153 he had weighed when reporting for active duty in 1943. When the couple arrived the next day at his parents’ home in North Caldwell, New Jersey, two-year-old Ellen was in the front yard, playing in the snow. Wilbur bent down to gently introduce himself to his daughter – he hadn’t seen her since the army granted him ‘‘compassionate leave’’ for a few days after her birth. Over the next six weeks in North Caldwell, he began to recover, not only from post-traumatic stress following eighteen months, exposure to explosives and the unrelenting demands of swiftly decoding crucial messages, but also from months of frustration at being kept in Germany when he’d been fully entitled to return home (he had accrued ninety-one demobilization points; eighty usually earned immediate discharge). Surrounded by understanding family and friends, and soon caught up in academic life, he recovered energy and composure. Wilbur’s transition from war to graduate study seemed e√ortless from the start. He was much better read in both literature and politics in 1946 than when he had graduated from Amherst in 1942. In the downtime between war’s mundane duties and its moments of terror, Wilbur would borrow from the Armed Services Library, which by 1945 o√ered troops over thirteen hundred titles, both classic and current. He browsed and often bought from bookstalls while on leave in Paris and London; Charlee regularly shipped him titles he requested by V-Mail. A volume with a selection of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poetry and notebooks made an immediate impact ; after acquiring it, Hopkinsesque compound words – ‘‘comicaldelicate ,’’ ‘‘priestgoat,’’ ‘‘muchtouched,’’ and ‘‘lightshifting’’ – appear in the poems he composed in all caps on his sigaba code machine. Wilbur’s indignant and impolitic commentaries on cultural and political flashpoints in the 36th Texans’ division newspaper – which had renewed with increased élan the aggressive journalism he practiced while editor of The Amherst Student – laid R I C H A R D W I L B U R ’ S C A M B R I D G E Y E A R S 3 R the groundwork for his vivid academic prose style at Harvard, as well as for his poetry. Both set him apart. Wilbur, Charlee, and Ellen arrived at 22 Plympton...

Th e ‘large towers’ of Roman Dobruja

The area of Dobruja has revealed, in most late fortresses, examples of rectangular towers remarkable both for their large dimensions and for their interior load-bearing structure represented by massive masonry pillars. Th e present study proposes for this particular type of defensive architecture the function of artillery battery. The implications that this hypothesis has on the conception of the local and zonal defensive system are examined. In the second part of the study a reconstruction proposition is made for this special type of defensive element.

ANGLO-SOUTH AFRICAN RELATIONS AND THE EREBUS SCHEME, 1936-1939

As a member of the Commonwealth, South Africa aligned its defence policy closely with that of Great Britain in the years between the two World Wars. Apart from taking responsibility for its own defence, the Union of South Africa was also expected, at its discretion, to support Britain in the case of a European war. By the mid-1930s South Africa faced a possible external threat as the aggressive, imperialist policies of Germany, Italy and Japan began to take shape. South African Defence Minister, Oswald Pirow, endeavoured to obtain 15-inch guns from Britain to bolster Cape Town’s defences against sea-raiders. Despite her strategic interest in safeguarding the Cape sea route, Britain’s own efforts at rearmament, however, made her unwilling to part with guns of that calibre. Instead, in June 1936, the British government agreed to lend the monitor HMS Erebus, carrying two 15-inch guns, to the Union of South Africa. Redesignated Erebus Heavy Battery, South African Garrison Artillery, it was to serve as a floating artillery battery in Cape Town harbour. Two detachments of South Africans were trained in Britain to man the Erebus, but war broke out before the Erebus could sail for the Cape. Some of the South African crew on the Erebus allegedly ‘refused duty’ and were put ashore. The Erebus scheme was subsequently cancelled and the South Africans sent home. The aim of this article is to determine the origins of the Erebus scheme and the reasons for its demise against the background of Anglo-South African relations immediately before and after the commencement of the Second World War. This entails an investigation of Anglo-South African relations both at interstate and popular level. The article outlines the birth of the scheme amidst the diverging views of the British Admiralty and the South African Minister for Defence, Oswald Pirow, on Cape Town’s defence needs. It highlights the political division in South African society over participation in a ‘British’ war on the eve of the Second World War and investigates the relationship between the South Africans and Britons on the Erebus. It concludes with a brief assessment of the role of the removal of some of the South African crew from the Erebus and the change of government in South Africa in the cancellation of the Erebus scheme.

Brigadier General John D. Imboden: Confederate Commander in the Shenandoah (review)

Reviewed by: Brigadier General John D. Imboden: Confederate Commander in the Shenandoah James A. Ramage Brigadier General John D. Imboden: Confederate Commander in the Shenandoah. By Spencer C. Tucker. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003. Pp. 372. $32.00.) Spencer Tucker provides the first critical biography of the life and career of Confederate general John D. Imboden, and it will likely endure as the standard study. The book identifies exaggeration and uncorroborated statements in Imboden's writing and separates fact from fiction. This was indeed a formidable task, given the fact that James I. Robertson and other historians have declared Imboden's postwar writing unreliable and almost worthless. Harold R. Woodward Jr., in [End Page 205] Defender of the Valley: Brigadier General John Daniel Imboden (Berryville, Va., 1996), the only previous biography, solved the dilemma by accepting Imboden's tales as truth. Tucker attacked the problem head on and discovered that Imboden exaggerated as well in his official reports and other writings during the war. However, with extensive research in primary and secondary sources, Tucker highlights Imboden's strengths and points out that he has not received proper credit for his contributions to the Confederate war effort. The most well known Imboden tale is his Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (1887–88), an account of Thomas J. Jackson's great B&O rolling-stock heist at Harper's Ferry in May 1861. Imboden was present, as captain of a Virginia artillery battery, but Tucker concludes that his story is "a bit bizarre" (40) and "there simply is no proof of the event having transpired" (41). At First Manassas, Imboden's battery contributed to Jackson's defense of Henry House Hill, and as commander of the First Virginia Partisan Rangers, Imboden scouted and guarded wagons for Jackson in the Valley Campaign. The other famous Imboden tale is that before the battle of Port Republic Jackson met with him in private and told him the details of his battle plan. Tucker found Imboden's claim "indeed strange" (88) in light of Jackson's policy of secrecy, and "probably not true" (89). As a partisan raider, Imboden displayed initiative, used hit and run, and avoided wasting his men in attacking stronger enemy forces. Robert E. Lee approved, promoted him to brigadier general, and incorporated his command into the regular cavalry. Imboden defended Lee's supply wagons on the retreat from Gettysburg, and Lee appointed him commander of the Valley District. In 1864 Imboden delayed Franz Sigel's advance up the Valley and gave time for Gen. John C. Breckinridge to bring up his men. However, Imboden stretched the truth when he claimed that he won the battle of New Market by pushing back the Union cavalry on the Confederate right. Tucker points out that actually Imboden's men were not involved in the fighting in any meaningful way. Nevertheless, Tucker shows that historians have given Imboden too little credit for holding the first line of defense in the battle of Lynchburg and stalling the Union attack long enough for Jubal Early to organize and win the battle. Tucker interprets that Imboden saved Lynchburg with this significant action. Weakened by typhoid fever, in December 1864 Imboden was relieved of duty in the Valley and placed in charge of prison camps that included Andersonville. Tucker shows that he was a capable administrator who did everything within his power and beyond to relieve the suffering in the camp. He conducted an unannounced inspection and took action to improve living conditions. He realized the situation was hopeless, and without approval from Richmond began paroling prisoners and having them taken to Union lines. Tucker's analysis contributes perspective to the problem of Andersonville, revealing just how unmanageable the situation was on the scene. [End Page 206] After the war, Imboden entered a career that was ahead of its time. Today we would call him the state director of economic development for Virginia. He had offices in Richmond and New York City and traveled to London and throughout the United States to promote development of Virginia's railroads, land, timber, and coal. He was successful and had his happiest moments promoting Virginia at expositions such as the...

“Too Sweet and Innocent for War”?

Based on anthropological fieldwork, this article studies the experience of two Dutch peacekeeping units: the “Grizzly” artillery battery that was deployed to Kosovo in 1999 (KFOR2) and the “Bulldog” infantry company that was deployed to Bosnia in 2000 (SFOR8). By examining the units’ experience from training through deployment, this article argues that the Dutch army is a threatened organization that suffers from a relatively low status in society. The army gains support mainly by performing peace missions, which soldiers perceive as “feminine” and therefore inappropriate. This article examines how Dutch soldiers train for peacekeeping missions and demonstrates that this training takes the shape of infantry combat exercises, a characteristic that negatively influences the soldiers’ level of satisfaction during deployments.

Life with the Mountain Feds: The Civil War Reminiscences of William McDowell, 1st Arkansas Cavalry

DURING THE CIVIL WAR, Arkansas contributed an estimated 60,000 soldiers to the Confederate States of America. Union sentiment remained strong in northwest Arkansas, however, and the state is also credited with sending approximately 10,000 men to the Federal army, constituting ten infantry regiments or battalions, four cavalry regiments, and two artillery batteries.1 The most famous of these unionist regiments was the 1st Arkansas Cavalry, an organization composed mostly of refugees from northwest Arkansas and southwest Missouri. Marcus LaRue Harrison, a thirty-two-year-old New Yorker and member of the 36th Illinois Infantry, was authorized to recruit the 1st Arkansas Cavalry in 1862. Commissioned a colonel, Harrison began organizing the regiment in June at Springfield, Missouri, and by October had raised the required twelve companies.2 During the unit's three-year existence, the Mountain Feds of the 1st Arkansas spent the majority of their time patrolling the region between Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Springfield as scouts for Federal forces.3 They also fought Confederate guerrilla bands and regular forces and actively protected pro-Union civilians. Despite being routed at the battle of Prairie Grove in December 1862, the troopers of the 1st Arkansas quickly recovered and, in the words of a recent historian of the guerrilla war in Arkansas, became the primary counter-guerrilla unit in the northern part of the state. 4 Yet, apart from scattered official reports and a few other contemporary pieces of evidence, little is recorded of the activities of the 1st Arkansas. Fortunately for historians, Priv. William E. McDowell, a member of Company G, penned his recollections of army life for a small Missouri newspaper, the Crane Chronicle, in 1915 and 1916. In his nine letters to the Chronicle, McDowell did not attempt to write a comprehensive unit history but instead recalled certain incidents during his service with Union forces, first as a member of the Stone County (Missouri) Home Guards in 1861 and then as part of the 1st Arkansas from 1862 until 1865. Despite the selective and inevitably retrospective nature of McDowell's recollections, his short newspaper contributions provide details about the experience of an ordinary soldier in Arkansas and help capture the unique character of the Civil War in southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas. One of twelve children, William E. McDowell was born on January 31, 1840, in Stone County, Missouri. His parents, Wiley and Margaret Williams McDowell, had moved to southwest Missouri from Kentucky in 1838. They began farming along Flat Creek, one mile northeast of the town of Cape Fair. In 1852, McDowell s mother died. Two years later, his father married a widow, Nancy Dennis, and moved to a farm near Galena. A staunch Democrat and well-known member of the community, Wiley lived on that farm until his death in 1875.5 As a young boy, McDowell worked on the family s Ozarks farms and in a sawmill. In spring 1861, with the sectional crisis gripping the nation, McDowell declared his loyalty to the Union by enlisting in Capt. William A. Carr's Company B, Stone County Home Guards. The company served in Stone and Barry Counties but disbanded on November 6, 1861. Many members of the Home Guards subsequently served in other Union organizations (one source even claimed that every man in the Stone County Home Guards enlisted in one of the other regiments that formed in northwest Arkansas and southwest Missouri). Given the close proximity of Stone County to Arkansas, many of its citizens joined the 1st Arkansas.6 By spring 1862, McDowell had returned to farming and planted a crop along the White River. He found it difficult to tend his crops, however, as he was constantly dodging bushwhackers. In fact, he was taken prisoner twice and temporarily held by the rebels. McDowell soon grew tired of this mixture of farming and warfare and decided to take up arms once again to defend the Union. …