Jakes Takes

Every year on July 4^th Americans celebrate Independence Day. We remember how we threw off the yoke of oppression, and we honor those who gave their lives in defense of freedom. It is commonly forgotten, however, that there is another day of liberation for the citizens of one particular state. That day is March 2^nd. On that day in 1836, delegates at Washington-on-the-Brazos declared Texas independent from the despotic Mexican regime of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. This declaration gave new meaning to the fight raging outside of San Antonio de Bexar where two hundred men were defending a fort against several thousand Mexicans. One of those defenders was a legendary frontiersman from Louisiana. He had earned a reputation as a fighter, and now he put his skills to use defending liberty. His name was James “Jim” Bowie. This is the story of how he gave his life for Texas independence.

Long before his death at the Alamo, Jim Bowie had already made a name for himself. He was born in Logan County, Kentucky in April 1796 but spent his youth in Bushley Bayou, Louisiana. As a young boy, he hunted alligators, bears and other wildlife in the nearby swamps. His weapon of choice was a large modified butcher knife that carried his name. He left home in the late 1810s and joined the infamous pirate Jean Lafitte on Galveston Island. Later he worked as a land agent in Alexandria, Louisiana where he developed a fierce rivalry with Major Norris Wright, a political and business opponent. One afternoon in 1826 the two men met on a street when Wright fired his pistol at an unarmed Bowie. Enraged, Bowie charged Wright and would have beaten him to death if not for several nearby observers who separated the two. Jim swore he would never go unarmed again, so he fashioned a leather scabbard for his famous knife. The knife helped save him at the “Battle of the Sandbar” a year later.

On a Mississippi River sandbar just west of Natchez, Mississippi, Jim served as a witness to a duel between Samuel Wells and Dr. Thomas Maddox. As the men prepared to return home, Colonel Robert Crain, a friend of Maddox and Wright, took the opportunity to shoot Bowie, wounding him in the hip. Pushing himself up, Bowie unsheathed his knife and charged Crain who battered Bowie over the head with a pistol. Wright then rushed forward and stabbed Jim in the chest with his sword-cane. To everyone’s shock, Bowie grabbed hold of Wright and plunged his knife into his rival’s chest, disemboweling him. Jim stood up with Wright’s sword still dangling from his chest to confront two more Maddox supporters, Alfred Blanchard and his brother. The men raised their pistols and fired, one round striking Bowie in the hip again. Jim pulled his knife and sliced Blanchard across the forearm. As both men fled, Jim collapsed to the ground, and a surgeon removed the sword and staunched the blood flow. Word of Bowie’s fearlessness spread throughout Louisiana. It was a reputation he built on after arriving in Texas.

In 1828, after recovering from the wounds received at the Sandbar, Bowie decided to leave Louisiana and settle in Texas. He traveled past the Anglo settlements in the east to the village of San Antonio de Bexar, which was mostly populated by Mexicans. After gaining Mexican citizenship, he was given command of the town’s Ranger company and pursued renegade Indians across the plains. His most famous encounter came on December 2, 1831 when he and ten companions were searching for the lost silver mines of San Saba. Without warning, 164 Tawakoni, Waco, and Caddo Indians attacked them. The Indians set fire to the grass and forced Bowie and his men to withdraw into a nearby thicket where they built a barricade out of rocks. The small band fought for their lives. By late afternoon they were nearing the last of their ammunition and knew they could not hold out much longer. After talking, they decided to stand back to back and fire their remaining rounds. Then they would use their knives until the last man was killed. As night approached, however, the Indians miraculously withdrew and allowed the Texans to return to San Antonio. Yet again, Bowie had extricated himself from an impossible situation, and his already formidable reputation grew even larger and more widespread. It was natural, therefore, for Texans to turn to him for leadership when trouble with Mexico arose.

By late 1835 Bowie had become one of the central leaders of the rebellion. Coming to Texas in 1828 in search of opportunity, he was fully aware that his success depended on the favor of the Mexican government, and indeed, the government supported him when he had opened several prosperous wool mills. Initially, this knowledge kept Bowie from joining other Texans in clamoring for independence. By 1833 however, his sentiments began to change, and that year he served as a delegate to the Colonial Convention, petitioning the Mexican government for separate statehood. Those hopes were dashed when Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna ascended to the presidency and began to centralize authority in Mexico City. He abolished the state legislatures all across Mexico and arrested principal leaders, including Texan Stephen F. Austin. To resistance in any form, Santa Anna proved ruthless. When the citizens of Zacatecas province challenged him, Santa Anna responded by killing two thousand provincial soldiers and butchering many non-combatants. It was clear he would crush any rebellious activity. With the American Revolution only sixty years in the past, Bowie and others refused to live under what they saw as a new yoke of tyranny. They chose to fight. On October 5, 1835 a Mexican force approached the town of Gonzales in order to repossess the cannon given to the colonists for protection against Indians. One hundred fifty Texans stood against them with a flag defiantly daring them to “Come and Take It.” The Texans fired, and the Mexicans retreated to San Antonio. The Texas War of Independence had begun.

Determined to aid his fellow countrymen in their struggle for freedom, Bowie joined the Texan army outside San Antonio in late October to oust General Martin Perfecto de Cos’s army stationed in the town. The Texan commander, Stephen F. Austin, back in Texas after his release, knew what an asset Bowie could be and ordered him to lead patrols around the town and the forts surrounding it. On October 28^th Colonel Bowie and 92 men took up a defensive position near the mission Concepcion to oppose Cos’s 300 troops. The Mexicans marched to within 200 yards of Bowie’s position, but the terrain prevented the enemy’s muskets and cannons from coming to bear on the Texans. Cos ordered his men to attack, but they were easily repulsed. He ordered his men to retreat into the town. Bowie and the Texans followed them and began to besiege the garrison. In the weeks following, Bowie continued to patrol the countryside and on November 26^th attacked a Mexican column sent out by Cos to gather grass for the horses. In the ensuing battle known as the “Grass Fight,” the Texans captured 70 enemy horses, further diminishing Mexican hopes to outlast the Texans. In early December the Texans attacked San Antonio and, after fighting street by street, forced Cos to surrender. Bowie was not present, having been sent to join Sam Houston at Goliad, but he was determined to return to the city when word came that Santa Anna himself was leading an army to quash the rebellion.

In January 1836 Bowie and thirty men rode into San Antonio and occupied the Spanish mission known as the Alamo where 100 men still remained after the December fight. Houston had ordered him to destroy the mission-turned-fort and remove all the artillery. After surveying the fortress, however, Colonel Bowie decided he would “rather die in these ditches than give it up to the enemy.” Believing “the salvation of Texas depends in great measure on keeping Bexar out of the hands of the enemy,” he pleaded with the new provisional government for reinforcements. His cry was heard. William Barret Travis and David Crockett arrived with a number of soldiers in early February. Travis and Bowie shared command until Bowie suffered from a bad fall and a mysterious illness, likely pneumonia or typhoid fever, and was confined to a sick bed. He was lying there on February 23^rd when Santa Anna’s army reached the outskirts of San Antonio. Despite his confinement, Bowie dispatched his aide, Benito James, to seek surrender terms from Santa Anna. The Mexican general replied the Texans must surrender “at discretion.” Their fate would rest with Santa Anna, meaning they would likely be killed. The message was reinforced and made brutally clear by the red flag flying over the San Fernando church. The surrender demand was rejected with a cannon shot, and the next morning, February 24^th, the Mexicans began a bombardment of the fort. Over the next thirteen days, Bowie and his fellow defenders held out in hopes of receiving reinforcements. Only thirty-two men from Gonzales answered the call, however. No other reinforcements came. On the evening of March 5^th Travis gathered the men in the Alamo courtyard and told each man he had to choose between escaping or staying and dying. He drew a line in the sand and asked all who wished to stay to cross the line. As the men marched by, Jim asked to be carried over. Although Bowie and the others inside the Alamo were not aware that Texas had declared its independence, they had made their decision and now only had to wait for the final attack to come.

At 4:00 A.M. on March 6^th Mexican bugles played the “Deguello,” signifying no quarter would be given to the defenders. The columns of Mexican soldiers raced toward the fort as the Texans fired at them with Kentucky long rifles and shotguns. Within moments thousands of Mexicans were surging over the fort’s walls, killing William Travis in the process, and forcing the remaining defenders to fall back. Suddenly the gates of the fort were flung open and hundreds more Mexicans raced into the courtyard.   From the Long Barracks and the Chapel, Crockett and the other Texans continued to fire as the fighting switched to hand-to-hand combat. In his room Bowie lay on his sick bed listening to the sounds of battle outside. Suddenly a group of Mexicans burst in. According to some sources Bowie raised two pistols and fired as the Mexicans charged him. Then he grabbed his famous knife and started swinging. It is said he took several Mexicans with him to the grave. His body was later found and thrown onto a funeral pyre with Travis, Crockett and the other defenders, all physical evidence of their lives extinguished. His legend was not so easily destroyed.

James Bowie died as he had lived — with ferocity. He was never one to back down in the face of danger; rather, he confronted it head-on. Like the other Alamo defenders, Bowie determined to sell his life dearly rather than give in to tyranny. When he rode into the Alamo, he knew the risks and he knew the costs. He was willing to accept both in the cause of liberty. He would never know that the price he and his fellow defenders paid would not only buy freedom but would also inspire patriots across the generations with the rallying cry — “Remember the Alamo.”

One of the foundational beliefs of this country is that God has given every individual “certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” No government can rightfully deny these endowed privileges; in fact, the ultimate purpose of a government is to safe-guard these rights. It was this conviction that launched the American Revolution. The majority of American colonists saw themselves as Englishmen with all the attendant entitlements of liberty, but British leaders viewed them as second-class citizens, subjects lacking full protection of these privileges. One of the patriots outraged by this view was a lawyer from Massachusetts. He claimed that British law entitled all the King’s subjects to fair treatment. He was willing to put his life and reputation on the line to defend his beliefs. The greatest test came in 1770 when he was pitted against many of his friends and neighbors in a fight to ensure equal access to and justice under the law. His name was John Adams. This is the story of how he chose to defend the British soldiers who killed five colonists in the Boston Massacre.

John Adams’s early life was a testament to the ideal that America was the land of opportunity. He was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, in October 1735 to a farmer and part-time deacon. He took pride in the fact that he came from “a line of virtuous, independent New England farmers,” and he claimed he was as good as any wealthy merchant’s son in nearby Boston. He spent his early years working on the family farm but showed an aptitude for learning as well. He was educated at local schools where he gained an appreciation for the Roman orator Cicero and other literary works. From that time on, he always carried books on his journeys. At age fifteen he passed the entrance exam for Harvard College and left home for Cambridge. He proved adept at mathematics and science, but it was in the debate club that he found his true calling. He enthusiastically discussed the day’s issues with his classmates and ultimately decided to pursue a career as a lawyer. He graduated in 1755 and moved to Worcester, Massachusetts where he spent the next two years studying under attorney James Putnam and attending sessions at the local courthouse. When his studies were completed, he returned to Braintree and, after passing the bar, established a law office there. Despite losing his first case, his reputation rose as he rode around the country on behalf of clients and travelled to Boston at least once a week to argue cases there. During these trips, he paid close attention to attorney James Otis, who soon led Adams and other Bostonians on the road to revolution.

By the dawn of the 1760s, John and his fellow Americans had come to see themselves as equal to any native Englishman. They had forged a new civilization out of a wilderness and had proudly turned that wilderness into the jewel of the British crown. They had fought and died for Britain in the French and Indian War and believed they had proven their worth. As the war ended, however, British leaders tightened their control rather than loosening it. They issued writs of assistance, or search warrants, allowing customs officials to search any building they wanted for smuggled goods, even private homes. In 1761, Adams and others rallied behind James Otis as he attacked these writs and declared them to be violations of an Englishman’s natural rights. Four years later, in 1765, Adams followed his idol’s example when he learned British authorities had passed the Stamp Act in an attempt to directly levy taxes on the colonists. Denouncing the legislation, he argued that “British liberties are not the grants of princes or parliaments…that many of our rights are inherent and essential, agreed on as maxims and established as preliminaries, even before Parliament existed.” He united with Otis and his cousin Sam Adams, who John described as “zealous and keen in the cause,” to persuade Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act. Parliament acceded in spring 1766, but it was not long before tempers were once again inflamed with deadly consequences.

Despite acquiescing to colonial demands, British authorities still refused to see the colonists as equal citizens. At the same time it repealed the Stamp Act, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act stipulating that it could legislate for the colonies “in all matters whatsoever.” Its members proved that determination a year later in June 1767 when they passed the Townsend Acts, a series of taxes on paper, tea, paint and glass, to the shock of the colonists. Informed of the Bostonians’ increasingly hostile opposition, Parliament attempted to crush the protests by dispatching a large body of troops to the city in October 1768. For the next year and a half, Adams watched his cousin Sam encourage the townsmen to openly defy the soldiers, sometimes even spitting on them and calling them “Bloody-backs” and “Lobsters,” in reference to their bright red uniforms. He watched fights break out in the city’s taverns and feared it would only get worse. He was right. On the cold, snowy night of March 5, 1770 a British soldier stood guard at the Customs House, the clearinghouse for the taxation effort, when a group of men and boys approached and began taunting him. The soldier insisted they move on, but the crowd refused. Suddenly the sound of church bells, the signal for fire, rang through the night. Within a matter of moments, dozens of people, most of them men from the ship docks, joined the crowd surrounding the lone soldier. The sentry cried out for reinforcements, and immediately eight soldiers armed with loaded muskets appeared at his side. The soldiers’ commander, Captain Thomas Preston, stood in front and pointed his sword toward the crowd. He ordered everyone to go home, but the crowd continued to shout insults and throw snowballs and stones. Then, perhaps in reaction to being knocked down, one soldier fired; the entire line followed suit. When the smoke cleared, five Bostonians lay dead.

John and his fellow patriots were stunned and incensed by the “massacre,” as his cousin Sam called it. The bloody incident was immortalized as the “Boston Massacre” through an engraving sketched by famed silversmith Paul Revere that portrayed British soldiers firing into a crowd of unarmed citizens. John shared the sentiments of both Sam and Revere and detested the presence of the soldiers as much as they did, but he sought a different way to combat the enemy. Just the year before he had defended four American sailors after they killed a British naval officer who tried to force them into the Royal Navy, and he had rejected a lucrative offer from the royal governor to become advocate general of the Court of Admiralty. A firm believer in the rule of law, John preferred to fight the British through legal means rather than the mob violence that Sam and the Sons of Liberty seemed to advocate. He desired peaceful and legal methods “to assert and maintain liberty and virtue, [and] to discourage and abolish tyranny and vice.” He feared the “massacre” had the potential to destroy the very liberty the patriots were seeking to implement. He would stand in defense of those principles, even if it meant doing the unthinkable.

As a lawyer, Adams maintained that every person was, by right, entitled to a fair trial and to representation by counsel. He would not allow Sam and the Sons of Liberty to try Captain Preston and his men in the court of public opinion and then lynch them. It was not long before he was asked to represent the soldiers in the trial that was soon to be held. He was told no one else was willing to take the case. It was obvious they were afraid of retribution by the mob. As he considered the offer, Adams knew he would be taking a huge risk. The decision had the potential to incur “a clamor and popular suspicions and prejudices.” His fellow citizens might be so disgusted with his perceived support of the soldiers they might seek to hurt him or destroy his home, much like they had done to Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson’s home during the Stamp Act crisis. Even if he escaped physically, his practice and reputation could suffer irreparable damage. Despite these likely repercussions, Adams knew he could not turn his back on these men. He believed this case, more than any other, would prove what kind of nation America was to be — whether a nation governed by public opinion or a nation governed by laws. For him, it was to be a nation of laws. With that thought in mind, John said he would take the case.

As he had expected, Adams faced scorn and ridicule for his decision, but he did not abandon his clients. There were claims he had been bribed to take the case, but the only money he took was the typical retainer demanded by lawyers. In preparation for trial, he questioned twenty-three witnesses who told him how the soldiers had been in fear of their lives that night. Angry Bostonians crowded the courtroom, and emotions ran high as Adams presented his defense of the men. The evidence proved enough for the jury, much to their credit, to hand down a verdict of not guilty on the basis of “reasonable doubt,” the first time the phrase was used, in the trial of Captain Preston. The soldiers were likewise let go, except for two who received an “M” brand on their thumbs for manslaughter. It was the closing argument Adams made, however, that was the highlight of the proceedings. He declared it was more important “that innocence should be protected than it is that guilt should be punished.” He then issued his famous statement that “facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictums of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” He later claimed his defense was “one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country.”

Adams’s defense of the soldiers marked him as a man who would always stand for liberty, and he continued to prove it. Over the next four years he became one of the colony’s foremost patriots, serving as a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses. There he became one of the loudest voices calling for American independence and was ultimately chosen as a member of the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. After that momentous service, he was chosen as an ambassador to France and Holland where he helped garner funds to support the Revolution. As the fighting drew to a close, he was chosen to attend the peace treaty deliberations in Paris. Once the treaty was signed, he served his country as the first American ambassador to Great Britain. He worked to build amicable relations between the two countries before leaving for home in the late 1780s. Upon his return, he was elected the first Vice President and along with President George Washington helped establish the new American government. In 1796 he was elected the second President of the United States. Despite a controversial tenure, he helped keep the fledgling country on the right track and, most crucially, kept America out of the war raging between Britain and France. He left public life in 1801 and returned home to Braintree where he took up farming once again. America’s stalwart defender of liberty died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

John Adams may not be the most celebrated of our founding fathers, but he was certainly a true champion of the country’s highest ideals. For him, this new land would be a country governed by the rule of law. No one would be unjustly denied his or her God-given rights of life and liberty. No mob, no king or aristocracy, nor any man-made institution would take away those rights. His courageous stand at the Boston Massacre trials served as a declaration for all time that in this new nation there would be liberty and justice for all.

Over the last two hundred years, the United States Military Academy at West Point has produced some of the country’s most outstanding leaders. The distinguished list of graduates includes such heroic figures as Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, George Patton and Douglas MacArthur. Each of them found their destiny was to lead men into battle. Perhaps no cadet achieved more fame, however, than an affable, young man from Kansas. He was raised to despise conquest, but he personally led the campaign that liberated an entire continent. His name was Dwight D. Eisenhower. This is the story of how West Point transformed him from a Kansas farm boy into the man who led the Allies to victory in World War II.

Despite coming from an unlikely pacifist background, Dwight Eisenhower early on showed an abundance of qualities that marked him as a military strategist. He was born in October 1890 in Denison, Texas but spent his youth in the bustling community of Abilene, Kansas. His God-fearing mother opposed war, but he still spent his time devouring books on military campaigns and, despite his mother’s forbidding, participating in mock combat with friends and neighbors reenacting famous battles of the 1898 Spanish-American War. Ike, as he was often called, bravely took the whippings his mother dealt out for such disobedience, but it was not the last time he refused to break under pressure. As a young boy, he contracted blood poisoning after badly scraping his knee, but he refused to let the doctor amputate his leg. By the time he entered high school, he was working at the local creamery tending to the furnaces. It was exhausting manual labor, and he learned to grab sleep whenever he could, a skill that served him well later in life. In his free time, he played poker with his friends and developed an affinity for calculating the odds and reading his opponents. Knowing another’s weaknesses allowed him to formulate appropriate strategies for victory. As a football player, he studied neighboring Salina’s trick play and concluded that by hurling his body at the right spot he could destroy their formation. Ike’s analytical mind and martial interests, coupled with his lack of money for college, naturally led him to consider attending one of the country’s service academies.

In the summer of 1910 Ike determined to gain admittance to either the U.S. Naval Academy or to the Military Academy at West Point. He discovered one of his best friends had been accepted to Annapolis, and the two enjoyed countless discussions about the academy. He was enthralled and infected with enthusiasm. Even though he knew his mother’s opposition to military service, Ike could think of nothing else but seeking an appointment. Despite her deeply held religious and moral beliefs, his mother remained supportive of him and encouraged him to go after it if he really wanted it. Over the next few months he threw himself into preparing for the entrance exam. He realized it would be a challenge, so he decided to better his chances by taking the exams for both the Naval Academy and for West Point. He passed both with flying colors — among the Kansas candidates he ranked first in the exam for Annapolis and second in the one for West Point. Only days later, however, he found out the age limit for Annapolis was twenty years old. He would be eight months too old by the time of admittance. He was informed though that the age limit for West Point was twenty-two. Soon after, the highest-ranked examinee failed his physical examination, and Ike was appointed in his stead. He kissed his mother good-bye and embarked on his quest for military glory on the bluffs above New York’s Hudson River.

No sooner had Eisenhower entered the hallowed halls of West Point than he began to lose his previously carefree nature. Until June 1911 he had determined to maintain a laid back attitude. He always had a big smile on his face and a mischievous spark in his eyes. That smile disappeared as he stepped off the West Point Special train car and surveyed the tall granite spires that rose around him. They seemed to envelope him and say that he would become as firm and unyielding to the military code as they. Feelings of uncertainty overpowered him, and for the first time, he began to lose his resolve to maintain his easygoing personality. His determination was further weakened when moments later he and his fellow classmates were confronted by the “Beast Detail,” upperclassmen who were responsible for training the new cadets. One cadet marched right up to Ike and ordered him to wipe his smile off his face. Ike instantly complied. He reminded himself he could outwardly comply while remaining nonchalant internally. His vow lasted until that evening when he stood on the parade ground, known as the “Plain,” and watched the entire Corps of Cadets march in front of him. Ike stared in awe at the long lines of cadets moving past in their crisp gray uniforms with their rifles held tightly at an angle and the bayonets sparkling in the late afternoon sun. It was a sight to behold. At that moment, he lost all sense of levity and adopted the gravity that this new challenge demanded. Then and there, he realized duty called him to raise his left hand and swear allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and to faithfully execute all orders given to him.

During his first years at the academy, Ike evolved from a naïve youth into a strong and capable man. He attended daily lessons on history, military engineering and other demanding subjects in in the tall granite buildings he saw the day he arrived. At the end of his first year, he stood near the top quarter of his class. He also garnered accolades as a feared Army halfback until he wrecked his knee and ended his playing career. His military bearing, however, needed attention, and he spent more than a few hours walking off demerits. Like all cadets, he was expected to live by the honor code that guided a cadet’s actions. Ike thoroughly embraced the concept of honor and, after a somewhat hesitant beginning, the disciplined regularity expected of each cadet. His personal code of conduct was so strong that on several occasions he reported himself in violation of regulations. For him, West Point’s attributes carried with them a spiritual significance. Whenever he spied the American flag flying above the administration building, he was filled with a deep and abiding love for his country and came to believe that God had intended for him to take the path he was on. As the months passed, he vowed he would remain true to West Point and all that it stood for.

Ike demonstrated how sacred the academy was to him when he returned home to Abilene at the end of his second year. On the train ride home, he sat bolt upright and made sure his gray uniform was neat and tidy, just as had been trained. He wore it whenever he walked around town, and he proudly spoke about life at “the Point.” One girl asked him what was so special about the place. He replied it was not “just a place where they teach you about war,” but rather it was a place that “gives you standards to go by. Duty, honor, country — those words have a tremendous meaning to us.” He spoke endearingly of his friends, including a cadet from Missouri named Omar Bradley. He told her he knew he could rely on each of them “because they live by those standards.” It was that pride that encouraged him to defend the academy against any perceived slights. Such a slight came one afternoon when an old friend told him how a muscular, young African-American had taken up professional boxing and declared he could whip anyone in town. Believing West Point’s honor was at stake, Eisenhower accepted the challenge. Only a few minutes into the fight, he delivered a punch to the left, then the right, and soon after, his opponent was carried out of the ring. No one questioned his abilities after that, and Eisenhower returned to West Point with the satisfaction of knowing the academy’s prestige remained intact.

When he arrived back at West Point, Ike felt strangely comfortable seeing the tall gray buildings and hearing the loud bugle calls summoning cadets to the parade ground. The place seemed as much home as the plains of Kansas did. He came to the realization he wanted to make a career out of the army, but he hoped there would be little chance of engaging in actual combat. He told his classmates he supported a strong military, but he believed “men are getting too civilized — too sensible to go out and massacre each other.” It was this hope, coupled with his understanding of history and his future role as an Army officer, that led him to closely monitor the rumblings of war in Europe as the summer of 1914 progressed. When war did erupt, he followed it purely as an intellectual exercise until the French, British and German armies bogged down in trenches across France. Then on May 7, 1915 a German submarine torpedoed the British passenger liner Lusitania and killed 1,198 people. News of the tragedy shocked Eisenhower. He came to believe war against such a barbarous enemy would be a righteous cause. He would defend his country and his way of life against those who sought to destroy it. A few weeks later, Dwight Eisenhower graduated 61^st in the Class of 1915, known to history as the “Class the Stars Fell On” for the many graduates who later became generals.

For the rest of his life, Dwight Eisenhower faithfully served his country, even if it sometimes meant doing his duty far from the front lines. Although he did not see action in World War I, Captain Eisenhower ensured American victory by training soldiers in the art of tank warfare. He later heard how many of his charges had led American forces to victory in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. After the war, he was transferred to the Panama Canal Zone to serve as chief of staff to General Fox Conner. His skillfulness and energy impressed Conner enough that he recommended Eisenhower attend the General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Ike did and graduated first in his class. During the 1930s, he served as chief of staff to General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines. He understood the approaching danger as Japan invaded China and Nazi Germany shattered the fragile peace in Europe. Cautions from Eisenhower and other military leaders went unheeded.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he reported to Washington, D.C. to join the War Plans department. His demeanor, knowledge and analytical proposals earned the respect of both American and British leaders. In particular, Chief of Staff General George Marshall recognized the unique leadership and diplomatic skills Ike possessed. In June 1942, General Marshall placed Eisenhower in command of the Allied invasion of North Africa. In that role, he directed operations against Germany’s Erwin Rommel while attempting to maintain harmony between America’s George Patton and Britain’s Bernard Montgomery, two equally vain yet capable battlefield commanders. After securing North Africa and Italy, Ike was named Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAFE) and ordered to invade Nazi-occupied Europe. After months of planning and coordination, the D-Day invasion (Operation Overlord) began on June 6, 1944 at Normandy in France. The bloody Allied advance continued nonstop for the next year until the German surrender on May 8, 1945. After the war General Eisenhower served as Army Chief of Staff, President of Columbia University, and the first Supreme Commander of NATO. In 1952, Dwight David Eisenhower, now a national hero and the most popular man in America, was elected 34^th President of the United States. He served two terms and helped guide America through the early years of the Cold War before finally retiring to a farm outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His love of country, commitment to service, and devotion to duty remained with him until his death in March 1969.

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point has as its motto “Duty, Honor, Country.” These high ideals form the foundation of a life dedicated to serving our country. No graduate of that venerable institute embodies those virtues more than the young man who arrived in 1911 from the plains of Kansas. Dwight Eisenhower’s transformation was made complete by his early and absolute commitment to these values. It is fitting, therefore, that his statue now stands on the grassy “Plain” above the bend in the Hudson River where he first pledged his life in defense of those principles.

In wartime, commanders must be able to handle attacks from the front or behind. Of those attacks from behind, not all are from the enemy; some are from “friendly fire.” And of those “friendly fire” incidents, not all are actually combat related; some, in fact, involve conflict of a more subtle nature. During the American Civil War, one of the South’s greatest generals faced challenges to his authority from those who wore the same uniform he did. Known for his unyielding character, both on the battlefield and off, he was not one to take such challenges lightly and determined to fight back with all his strength. His name was Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. This is the story of how he faced his fellow Confederates with the same ferocity he employed against the Yankees.

From the time he entered the military, Thomas Jackson was unbending when it came to the military way of life and its attendant regulations. That attitude began early. He was born in January 1824 in Clarksburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), and even as a teenager, he proved rigid in his sense of justice, once nearly cracking a man’s skull for refusing to pay for certain goods. At West Point he claimed a fellow cadet took his clean rifle and replaced it with a dirty one. Even worse, the cadet lied about it when he was confronted with the charge. Jackson stood firm in the conviction the cadet should be court-martialed and drummed out of the academy. The cadet was later dismissed. Later in Florida he leveled charges against his commanding officer for having an inappropriate relationship with a female servant. Not long after, he resigned and became a professor at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). He was so unalterably fixed in his way of seeing and doing things that he earned not only the nickname “Tom Fool” but also the enmity of many cadets for his harsh discipline. Any cadet who raised his ire did so at their peril. He had several of them court-martialed when they failed to respect his wishes as their instructor. It was this same refusal to back down that was soon to make Thomas Jackson a legend among the people of the South.

When war broke out in 1861, Jackson immediately came to the defense of “Old Virginia.” Within three months of joining the new Confederate army in April, Jackson’s stubbornness had turned him into one of the South’s favorite heroes. His first duty after leading the VMI cadets to Richmond was to assume command of the forces stationed at Harpers Ferry and to prepare proper defenses to repulse any Yankee attack. Shortly afterwards, he was promoted to brigadier general, given command of the First Virginia Brigade and immediately ordered to Manassas, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. He arrived at the battlefield on July 21^st and placed the brigade along the top of Henry House Hill. Some troops wondered if they would advance down the hill, but Jackson ordered the men to remain where they were. He saw Union troops climbing the hill but continued to stare with cold, unblinking blue eyes. From a nearby position, General Bernard Bee took heart from the sight and exclaimed to the faltering men around him, “There is Jackson standing like a stonewall!” No longer just Thomas Jackson, but the mighty Stonewall, the general told his men to give the enemy the bayonet and to “yell like furies.” Moments later his men did just that. The famous Rebel Yell would echo across countless battlefields over the next four years. Jackson’s charge started the Yankees running. They did not stop until they got back to Washington. He wanted to pursue the enemy, capture the capital and end the war, but his superiors disagreed. Word of his stand soon spread all over the Confederacy. His success at Manassas did not, however, necessarily mean all Confederate officers respected his talents.

In November 1861 Jackson was promoted to major general and sent to Winchester, Virginia with orders to protect the Shenandoah Valley, the “breadbasket of the Confederacy.” He took the Stonewall Brigade with him, but after studying the military situation, he concluded he needed more men. Jackson convinced Confederate Secretary of War Judah Benjamin to place Brigadier General William Loring and his forces under his command. Having served in the army since the 1830s, Loring was mortified at the thought of serving under a man he considered to be both capricious and foolish. He searched for any way to slow his becoming subordinate to “Tom Fool.” After much contemplation, he wrote Jackson and informed the general he needed at least two to three weeks to prepare his troops to march. Adding further to the delay was the fact that when he did start the advance he allowed it to proceed more like a crawl, with troops even being allowed to stop to consume Christmas eggnog along the way. By the time Loring and his troops arrived, General Jackson, also known as “Old Blue Light” now because of the intensity of his gaze, was convinced Loring would be a detriment to his campaign. His opinion only hardened after witnessing Loring’s performance on the march. Nevertheless, Loring’s soldiers remained part of the plan.

On New Year’s Day, January 1, 1862, Stonewall and his army set off for the small town of Bath, just to the north of Romney. He intended to seize the Union garrison before moving on to Romney. His own men marched with a bounce in their step while those under Loring slogged along and wished they were back in Winchester. Loring’s men only managed thirty-six miles in three days. To Jackson, who always expected more of his men than other commanders did of theirs, it wasn’t good enough. Even worse was the fact that Loring camped four miles away from the town. The next morning Jackson ordered Loring to attack immediately, but Loring protested that his soldiers were exhausted and instead moved in slowly. Despite Loring’s lack of initiative, the Yankees were driven out of Bath and across the Potomac River to Maryland. When Jackson immediately turned around and led his army over the snow-covered mountains to Romney, many of Loring’s soldiers came to consider Jackson a madman. Like his former cadets, they too began to mock him, calling him “Fool Tom,” a play on his earlier moniker. He might have been a madman, but he was certainly a madman the Yankees did not want to face. They abandoned Romney even before Jackson reached the town. With his objective accomplished, he arrived in the town on January 13^th. Almost immediately, he was yet again engaged in battle with Loring.

By the time Loring’s command reached Romney on January 16^th, both Loring and his top commander, Colonel William Taliaferro, a Mexican War veteran and former Virginia legislator, had had enough. They told Jackson they would go no farther. Jackson in turn told them to hold Romney while he returned to Winchester. Officers and men alike detested the order. They did not want to spend the winter in a pigsty, as they deemed Romney. They were convinced Jackson had punished them since they did not belong to his pet brigade. A number of Loring’s officers believed they had sufficient political connections to go over Jackson’s head and have his orders reversed by appealing directly to the civilian leadership. Loring himself drew up the petition decrying the place as “one of the most disagreeable and unfavorable that could well be imagined.” Eleven other officers signed it and added their own thoughts, Taliaferro stating his belief it was “suicidal to keep this command here.” Taliaferro carried the petition to Richmond where he personally met Confederate President Jefferson Davis and convinced him that Romney was too close to Union lines to leave a major force there. Davis agreed and sent a telegram to Jackson ordering him to recall Loring back to Winchester.

Upon receiving the telegram on January 31, 1862, Jackson was flabbergasted not only at the order but also at his subordinates who had undermined his authority. It was apparent the politicians had outmaneuvered him, and it now appeared as if they were the ones dictating military strategy. Convinced that was no way to run an army, Jackson determined not to stand for it. He would force the issue with the politicians, both inside and outside the army, and settle the matter once and for all. He quickly pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote to Secretary of War Benjamin. With such interference, he said, “I cannot expect to be of much service in the field.” As a result, he would resign from the army. He sent a similar letter to Virginia Governor John Letcher. The arrival of the letters caused a firestorm to erupt in Richmond. Letcher denounced Loring and his officers and proclaimed such men were not worth losing one of the South’s greatest commanders. Likewise, Congressmen A. R. Boteler similarly sung the general’s praises. He undertook the arduous trip to Winchester where he pleaded with Jackson to remain in military service. The country could not spare him. Knowing all along he could not abandon Virginia in her hour of need, Jackson agreed to stay on, but he required assurances that he would not be bypassed again. Boteler guaranteed this and succeeded in getting his fellow Congressmen to enlarge Jackson’s authority as military commander. The first act Stonewall performed with his new powers was to court-martial Loring for neglect of duty. Before the trial began, however, Loring was transferred to the western theatre and his officers and men were dispersed among other units. To his credit, Taliaferro stayed on and served Jackson loyally until his transfer to North Carolina. The enemy from within thwarted at last, Stonewall Jackson had shown he would fight his adversaries no matter what uniform they wore. He had won the first engagement, but Jackson’s personality and single-mindedness did not always endear him to those around him. Problems with subordinates plagued him for the rest of his wartime service.

Even though a major nemesis was now gone, Stonewall Jackson remained committed to removing those he believed had disobeyed him. Only two months after Loring left, he ordered his old Stonewall Brigade, now commanded by General Richard Garnett, into battle at Kernstown, Virginia. As he rode to the front, he was disgusted to find that Garnett had withdrawn when his men ran out of ammunition. He believed Garnett should have stayed engaged and fought with bayonets and even, if need be, stones. Accordingly, he arrested Garnett and organized a court-martial, a personal shame Garnett carried with him until his death during Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. Not long after arresting Garnett, Jackson had an even more serious fight with his top subordinate, General A. P. Hill. As he led the Confederate invasion of Maryland in September 1862, Jackson discovered Hill had not followed his orders to allow ten-minute stops so the stragglers could catch up. He was infuriated and placed Hill under arrest. Hill was allowed to lead his men at the Battle of Antietam but always maintained thereafter he had been treated unfairly. All discord between the two men seemed to melt away at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863 as Hill tended to Jackson who lay mortally wounded by actual friendly fire. In those last days of semi-consciousness, Stonewall in turn showed his affection for his top general as he continually “conversed” with Hill, who was now being treated elsewhere for his own wounds. Perhaps it was meant for Hill and for all those with whom Jackson had battled when he gently uttered his final earthly words — “Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.” With his passing, the battles with friend and foe alike ended at last.

Thomas Jackson was undoubtedly one of the greatest battlefield generals in our long and glorious past. The nickname he earned at the Battle of First Manassas/Bull Run was well-earned. He was not only a “Stonewall” on the battlefield but also an unbending force against those he believed attacked from the rear on his own side. His rigid sense of right and wrong, duty and insubordination, loyalty and betrayal left little room for any gray area. Such an outlook and attitude might seem quaint or even close-minded to us today. However, it is that very quality of unyielding character in the face of friendly fire that inspires us in our own battles to stand “like a stonewall.”

It is commonly understood that the American Revolution effectively ended at Yorktown in October 1781. British General Lord Charles Cornwallis, trapped between the French navy and an army of American and French soldiers, had no choice but to surrender. What is not so commonly known, however, is that victory over the British would not have been possible without the contribution of one particular commander and his small army ten months earlier. A natural fighter and leader, he was at that point in the war one of George Washington’s top battlefield generals. He had been leading men into battle since the start of the Revolution and six years later helped win one of the war’s most decisive battles. His name was Daniel Morgan. This is the story of how he destroyed the British cavalry at the Battle of Cowpens.

By the time of the American Revolution, Daniel Morgan was already a legend among frontier Virginians. His was a tumultuous life. He was born in July 1736 in New Jersey to Welsh immigrants but left home at age seventeen after a vicious argument with his father. He settled in the small village of Winchester in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and found work as a teamster, which later earned him the nickname “the Old Wagoner.” With the start of the French and Indian War in 1755, and at the ripe old age of nineteen, he was impressed into the British army to haul supplies to Fort Cumberland, Maryland. There he argued with and hit a British officer. In response, he was sentenced to 500 lashes but later claimed he had received only 499. Soon after he joined a ranger company, and while on patrol, an Indian musket ball tore through his throat, dislodged several teeth and exited out his cheek, leaving a permanent scar. After the war, he returned to Winchester where he developed a reputation as a brawler, a wrestler, an athlete and the leader of a “gang” of local frontiersmen. In 1771 he was commissioned a captain in the local militia and led soldiers in Lord Dunmore’s War of 1774 against the Shawnee Indians. After hearing that the British had closed Boston harbor in response to the famed Tea Party, Morgan led his neighbors in pledging to help their “brethren in Boston” by any means necessary. He soon proved the truth of his words.

Upon joining the Continental Army, Morgan quickly won the respect of his fellow officers as he developed into one of America’s top tacticians. In July 1775 he raised a company of Virginia riflemen and marched over 600 miles to Boston in only three weeks. After being greeted by General Washington, he was attached to Colonel Benedict Arnold’s army preparing for the invasion of Canada. Arnold was at that time, of course, still completely loyal to the patriot cause. Marching beside Arnold, Morgan endured the arduous trek through the Maine wilderness before arriving outside the city of Quebec in December. In the ensuing battle he fought valiantly at the head of Arnold’s force after Arnold was wounded, but he was forced to surrender when surrounded by enemy troops. After being released from British captivity, he was promoted to colonel and placed in command of 500 elite light infantry. In September 1777 Colonel Morgan joined Generals Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold, to whom he always referred as “my old friend,” in opposing British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga, New York. On September 19^th he attacked British positions around Freeman’s Farm, killing or wounding all the British artillerymen and inflicting heavy losses on the 62^nd Regiment. On October 7^th, he led another attack on two redoubts on the British right flank, defended mostly by Germans, and along with Arnold succeeded in capturing them. By taking the positions, Morgan helped ensure Burgoyne was forced to surrender. With the threat in the North over, Morgan turned his attention to the British threat in the South.

Morgan rejoined Washington and the main American army in late 1777, but his prized corps of riflemen was soon disbanded. He yearned for an independent command once again, but when no opportunity arose, he went home on furlough. He was still there in May 1780 when he heard the British had captured Charleston, South Carolina and 5,000 American soldiers. Weeks later he received a summons from his old commander, Horatio Gates, who asked him to join the American Southern army. Sciatica prevented him from arriving until after the decisive Battle of Camden on August 16^th, where the Southern army was routed and virtually destroyed. When he did arrive, he found only about 1,200 troops without any artillery and only a few muskets, as most had been lost at Camden. Grateful to have a man he trusted, Gates ordered Morgan to assume command of a corps of light infantry and cavalry. Traversing the countryside, Morgan engaged small bands of Tory militia, but he was most desperate to find and engage the infamous Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton and his Tory Legion. Known as “Bloody Tarleton,” he may have been the most brutal officer in the British army, once massacring American soldiers as they tried to surrender. After the arrival of the new Southern commander, General Nathanael Greene, Morgan was finally given the chance to face the hated Tarleton in battle.

In late December 1780, Brigadier General Morgan was ordered to march his corps of infantry and cavalry into northern South Carolina. Throughout early January 1781 Morgan’s command attracted numerous South Carolina and Georgia militiamen. He contemplated raiding British-held Savannah, Georgia, but on January 14^th he received word Tarleton was advancing on his location and quickly decided to revise his plan. He had less than 1,000 men to combat Tarleton’s 1,100 mounted dragoons and elite infantry. By nightfall on January 15, 1781 he had withdrawn to a camp between the Broad and Pacolet Rivers. The next morning Morgan woke with the hope he could cross the Broad River to rougher terrain. As night approached, however, he was still too far away, but there was perfectly suitable terrain nearby to engage Tarleton. Called Cowpens, it was a wide pasture with two tree-covered ridgelines, a natural “pen” area for cattle to graze before going to market. Along the first ridge, he stationed his most experienced troops, Continentals along with Virginia and Georgia militiamen. He placed the South Carolina militia 150 yards down the slope and a group of skirmishers armed with rifles 150 yards in front of them. He deployed his cavalry commanded by William Washington, cousin to George, behind the ridge. He directed the skirmishers to fire at the advance of Tarleton’s column before falling back to join the South Carolinians. He told the South Carolinians to then deliver two volleys, trying to kill Tarleton’s officers. Afterwards, the militia would withdraw behind the American main line and wait in reserve. It was a bold plan. He hardly slept at all, thinking about what the morning would bring.

Just before 7:00 A.M. on January 17^th, Morgan received word that Tarleton’s force was only five miles away and coming on quick. He ordered the men into position and exhorted them to stand fast in the name of liberty. Moments later, he caught sight of the green uniforms of British dragoons followed by the red and white of the British infantry. He watched intently as Tarleton directed his dragoons to sweep away the skirmishers at the bottom of the ridge. The riflemen took careful aim and fired, dropping fifteen enemy soldiers. Stunned, the rest of the dragoons turned and galloped back to safety. Tarleton turned to his infantry and ordered them to clear a path. Ahead of them, other skirmishers waited and after firing several rounds raced to join the South Carolinians. The infantry gave chase. The militia waited until the British were in range and then, just as ordered, fired two volleys into the enemy’s faces. The British were momentarily staggered by the American response, but they immediately reformed their ranks, leveled their bayonets and prepared to charge. The militiamen knew they could not stop the charge, so they pulled back to the line of veterans.

Sensing victory, Tarleton ordered his dragoons to give chase and destroy the militia. Then, to the surprise of “Bloody Tarleton,” William Washington’s cavalry surged forward to drive them away. At the same time, Morgan raced forward to rally the militia shouting, “Old Morgan was never beaten.” He then turned his attention back to the front where Tarleton’s infantry was starting up the slope towards the veterans. The advance threatened the American right flank, and through a series of misinterpreted commands, the entire line of Continental infantry began to fall back. Morgan did not despair though. Even though his men seemed in disarray, he rode in front of them and ordered them to turn around and fire on the British soldiers who were now only ten to fifteen yards away. Only moments before the Redcoats had believed the day was theirs; now, they froze in disbelief. That was a mistake. No sooner had the smoke cleared than the veterans leveled their bayonets and charged the front while the militia attacked the left flank and Washington’s cavalry attacked the right. Many British soldiers threw down their muskets and raced for the rear. The Americans pursued, capturing artillery and large numbers of prisoners. In dismay Tarleton rallied his remaining dragoons and charged forward, but after a short and desperate fight with William Washington, he was forced to flee for his life. On the field behind him lay the remnants of his command. Surveying the field, Morgan was ecstatic at his accomplishment. Having lost only 72 men, he had secured one of the most decisive American victories of the war and destroyed the “flower” of the British Southern Army in the process.

As news of Cowpens swept throughout the country, Morgan was celebrated as “the rising Hero in the South.” He was awarded a saber, a horse and accompanying accoutrements by the Virginia House of Delegates and was voted a gold medal by the Continental Congress for his “complete and important victory.” Both Nathanael Greene and South Carolina Governor John Rutledge sent congratulatory messages to Morgan, Greene proclaiming, “there are few Morgans to be found.” Thanks to Morgan’s victory, British General Lord Charles Cornwallis was forced to destroy his baggage train as he moved hurriedly through North Carolina. After his great victory, Morgan had to take temporary leave due to his sciatica, but he returned shortly thereafter when Cornwallis moved into Virginia. At one point Morgan almost came to blows with Tarleton again, but the British officer refused to be engaged a second time. He missed the British surrender at Yorktown, but Morgan was thrilled at the result nonetheless. Even after the war ended, he continued to prove his love of country by serving as a major general of militia during the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania and as a U.S. Representative from 1797-1799. The “Old Wagoner” and hero of Cowpens died on his sixty-sixth birthday in July 1802 and was buried in Winchester’s Mount Hebron Cemetery where today a monument stands in his honor.

Daniel Morgan, more than almost any other American commander, was responsible for bringing about the victory at Yorktown. His devastating defeat of Tarleton’s legion deprived General Cornwallis of his “eyes and ears” at a critical time in the Southern campaign. In such a state, the British commander could ill afford to strand his Southern army far from the supplies and support that lay to the north. He was forced into a tactical withdrawal. The situation ultimately led him to Yorktown and to defeat. Though it is the British surrender in October 1781 that we most often remember, the seeds of victory were actually sown at the Cowpens by one of our most pugnacious generals — the “Old Wagoner.”

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan’s top admiral, Isoruku Yamamoto said, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant.” He was soon proven right. No sooner had President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war than he ordered the U.S. military to deliver a blow directly against the Japanese homeland. Such a strike was both daring and risky, not to mention, at least at that point in the war, virtually impossible. There was only one man who was audacious enough to undertake such an operation He was one of America’s top aviators. More importantly, he was a fighter who believed you had to pick yourself up and push back at your opponent when he knocked you down. The man’s name was James “Jimmy” Doolittle. This is the story of how he took the fight to the enemy by leading American bombers in a raid over Tokyo.

From an early age, Jimmy Doolittle never seemed to stay down for long. He was born in December 1896 in Alameda, California but grew up in Nome, Alaska after his father joined the Klondike Gold Rush. As the smallest in his class, he was picked on and often provoked fights with his taller classmates. He continued the habit upon returning to Los Angeles until a trip to jail convinced him to give up such fights. He still fought recreationally, making a name for himself in the boxing arena, winning nearly all his matches, including the 1912 Pacific Coast amateur championship. He used the prize money for tuition at Los Angeles Junior College and later the University of California, Berkeley. It was at Berkeley that his boxing career effectively ended when a professional fighter named “Spider” Reilly soundly beat him. As a result, he turned his focus to obtaining a degree in engineering. His interest in the subject led him to see the value of the newly designed flying machine known as the airplane.

Within a few years of leaving Berkeley, Jimmy had risen from an obscure boxer to one of America’s top airmen. He entered the Army Air Service in 1917 as a second lieutenant and soon came to the attention of General “Billy” Mitchell, the foremost champion of air power. Mitchell asked Doolittle to join his staff and to serve as an assistant squadron commander during the famed sinking of the salvaged German battleship Ostfriesland in an air power demonstration in 1921. The next year, hoping to prove the long-range capabilities of aircraft, Doolittle became the first person to fly across the country in less than twenty-four hours, winning the Distinguished Flying Cross for the feat. Now a national celebrity, he was soon the army’s top test pilot, narrowly escaping death a number of times. His reputation continued to increase after he successfully performed the outside loop and became the first American to fly over the Andes from Santiago to Buenos Aires. Simultaneously he earned a master’s degree and doctorate in aeronautical engineering from MIT. He used these skills to develop instruments enabling pilots to fly “blind,” such as an artificial horizon to tell a pilot whether he was in level flight, a new altimeter to accurately measure altitude, and a radio-controlled beacon to guide planes to the runway. On September 24, 1929 he astounded the world by making the first solo flight relying only on instruments. The following year he joined the reserves as a major and went to work for the Shell Corporation developing 100-octane fuel and selling aircraft on behalf of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. In this capacity, he travelled around the world and came into contact with those who were soon to be his enemies.

Throughout the 1930s, Doolittle watched the rise of the Axis powers. In Japan and China he demonstrated the capabilities of aircraft to interested Japanese observers. In Germany he was disturbed to see “good-looking Dorniers and Junkers,” bombers recently developed by Hitler’s engineers. Many engines and airframes were better than any produced in America. He listened to many German officers talk openly about “war in Europe.” On his return to the U.S., he shared his experiences with Major General Henry “Hap” Arnold, head of the Army Air Force. A few months later Germany invaded Poland, and war began. In the summer of 1940 Arnold asked Doolittle to join his staff. He travelled to Britain where he observed Hurricanes and Spitfires filled with 100-octane fuel battle and bring down German fighters. Then on December 7, 1941, Japanese planes, possibly influenced by Doolittle’s demonstrations, attacked and destroyed most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. America was in World War II, and Jimmy Doolittle yearned to be unleashed.

A month after the “Day of Infamy” Doolittle was promoted to lieutenant colonel and was tasked with leading a strike on the heart of Japan. General “Hap” Arnold summoned him to headquarters and asked him what kind of plane could “take off in 500 feet, carry a payload of 2,000 pounds, and fly 2,000 miles.” It was an unheard of proposition, but Doolittle was unfazed. He brashly replied that a B-25 could do such a thing. Arnold agreed. He informed Doolittle that a score of bombers would take off from the deck of the new aircraft carrier Hornet, fly over the Japanese capitol of Tokyo, drop their bombs and land in China. Doolittle was to prepare the bombers and the pilots for the mission. Even as he agreed, the forty-five year-old Doolittle already knew the man he would choose to fly the lead plane — himself. He travelled to Florida’s Eglin Field and set to work figuring out how to get a bomber off the deck of an aircraft carrier built to launch fighters. He had to add fuel tanks to increase the bombers’ range while at the same time stripping the planes of all unnecessary weight except for light defensive armaments. When this was done, Doolittle and 140 officers and men of the 17^th Bombardment Group practiced taking off in less than 500 feet and flying at low-altitude. These skills required maximum performance by both aircraft and aircrew, but by the end of March, all was ready.

The mission was set for April 18, 1942. Doolittle and his men flew from Florida to San Francisco, California where they boarded the U.S.S. Hornet. On April 2^nd the Hornet set sail. Within moments a message was broadcast throughout the ship telling everyone, “This force is bound for Tokyo.” Cheers erupted from every throat. America had yearned for revenge for Pearl Harbor, and this was to be the first blow. Over the next fifteen days the ship steamed west as the pilots listened to Doolittle lecture on the raid’s targets and the Chinese landing fields. They also learned how to say “I am an American” in Chinese to identify themselves to friendly forces. On the night of April 17^th the bombers were fueled up and the bombs loaded. The raid would occur the next afternoon, or so everyone thought.

At 7:38 A.M. on April 18^th the Hornet was 700 miles from the Japanese coast when a scout plane reported a Japanese “fishing boat” straight ahead. American guns opened fire, but a radio operator reported the enemy vessel had just transmitted a message. They had been spotted. Doolittle immediately considered his options. They were 300 miles further away than originally planned and no additional fuel could be added. Mountainous waves and gale force winds pounded the aircraft carrier. Furthermore, he had planned to attack Tokyo at night, but now he would be arriving in open daylight when antiaircraft batteries could easily target him. Despite the risks, he knew he could not delay any longer or Japanese planes would be on top of the Hornet. He made his decision — they would attack now. Within seconds a message was sent out telling all pilots to board their planes. Doolittle climbed into the front seat of the lead bomber. He fired up the engines and roared down the deck, pulling the B-25 almost vertical before quickly leveling off and continuing his climb into the bright sunshine. His men dutifully followed him. The bombers soared over the crystal blue waters for five hours until they caught sight of the Japanese coast. They turned, and moments later they spied the snowcapped Mount Fuji rising above Japan’s capitol.

As they flew over the outskirts of Tokyo, Doolittle gave the signal, and the bombers dove down to skim the roofs of the houses on their way to their targets. Japanese civilians gazed up in amazement, many thinking for a brief moment these were their own planes. Surely no one would dare to attack them; at least, that is what their military leaders had assured them. Then Japanese officers ordered the antiaircraft guns to open fire, and the truth became clear — these were indeed Americans. From above, Doolittle spied the large munitions factory that was his target. The bomb bay doors opened, and four 500-pound incendiaries found their mark. His job done, he turned towards China, even as five Japanese fighters appeared on his tail. Doolittle weaved the bomber between two small hills and managed to lose his pursuers. In the meantime, he listened to his pilots report their own successes. In less than an hour ninety buildings were destroyed. As Doolittle neared the Chinese mainland, however, he realized his bomber was out of fuel. With little option, he crash-landed in a rice paddy before making his way to Chinese lines. Other crews were forced to do the same. Some were not so fortunate, crashing in China but being captured by Japanese soldiers. As the airmen trekked across China, word of their deeds preceded them, and they were hailed as heroes. Their success behind them, they began the arduous journey home.

As he made his way back to America, Doolittle was praised by all who met him. Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek presented him and his men with medals. (The Chinese leader actually had to give Doolittle a medal off the uniform of a Chinese general standing nearby since Jimmy had arrived late and his real medal had been given to his second-in-command.) In Washington, D.C. he was met with a rare but sincere smile from General George Marshall who promoted him to brigadier general. The two then visited the White House where Franklin Roosevelt awarded Doolittle the Congressional Medal of Honor. Realizing his talents were sorely needed, Marshall ordered him to Europe as the commander of Twelfth Air Force in North Africa, then as Fifteenth Air Force commander in Italy, and finally as the commander of the famed Eighth Air Force in England leading the Allied push into Germany. His brilliant execution of air operations resulted in promotion to major general and then lieutenant general. When the war in Europe was over, he went back to the Pacific to bomb Japanese cities once again.   On September 2, 1945 he took satisfaction in watching the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay, looking across at the very city he had attacked more than three years earlier. His military successes ensured the creation of a separate branch of service for the Air Force. Soon after, he retired from the military but continued to serve on boards for aviation corporations. Throughout his life he maintained a close relationship with his fellow Tokyo attackers, forever known as the “Doolittle raiders.” Starting in 1943, they held a reunion every year to commemorate their great achievement. In all Jimmy attended fifty such reunions before dying in September 1993 and being buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1941, Admiral Yamamoto could not have known the “sleeping giant” Japan had awakened would come in the small package of Jimmy Doolittle. His fighting spirit demonstrated it was not in Americans’ nature to accept defeat. In a military sense, the Doolittle Raid did not really hurt Japan, but the psychological blow was staggering. Just as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor caught the U.S. off guard, the Tokyo bombing was a complete surprise. The Japanese people had believed their homeland invulnerable. The punch the former boxer and his men delivered was right to the gut. The Doolittle Raiders had just taken the first step on the long road to victory. The “giant” was awake, and it would not rest until the enemy was vanquished.

During the mid-nineteenth century, when our country began to tear at the seams, the state of Massachusetts produced some of our most dedicated leaders. While her congressmen and senators defended the principles of liberty and equality in the halls of power, newspapermen and ordinary citizens launched a moral crusade to reform the nation and to bring freedom to all her people. Among those to join in the struggle was one of Boston’s favorite sons. He would eventually become one of our pre-eminent jurists, but in this fight he would, literally, take his position on the front lines. As an officer, he led his men into some of the fiercest battles of the American Civil War. His boldness may have even served in the deliverance of the one man indispensable to Union victory. This young officer’s name was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. This is the story of how his devotion to duty was proved time and again, both on the battlefield and off.

As he grew up, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. came to believe that slavery had to be ended by any means necessary. He was born in Boston in March 1841 at a time when the abolitionist movement was beginning to gain national attention. His father believed eradicating slavery was impossible under the current Constitution, but one of his closest friends, Ralph Waldo Emerson, did not. Since young Oliver spent a lot of time with “Uncle Waldo,” it was not long before he similarly embraced opposition to the South’s “peculiar institution.” Throughout the 1850s, he watched Emerson and his cousin, Wendell Phillips, rally their supporters to prevent fugitive slaves from being sent back south. After entering Harvard in 1857, his abolitionist sentiments increased so much he was unable to watch an African-American minstrel show. He supported Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election, and in January 1861 he offered to serve as a bodyguard to Emerson and Phillips when they attended an Anti-Slavery Society meeting. As Southern states began to secede from the Union, he realized the time had come for him to defend his principles. When the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter on April 12^th he determined to join “in the cause of the whole civilized world.”

Little did Holmes know how significant his service to the nation would be. Signing up for an enlistment of three years, he briefly served in the New England Guard’s Fourth Battalion before seeking a transfer to the battlefield. He was commissioned a first lieutenant in the 20^th Massachusetts, widely known as the “Harvard Regiment,” and assigned to Company A. After only a few weeks of training the young lieutenant received orders to march to Washington, D.C. The regiment then moved across the Potomac in mid-October to patrol the area around Leesburg, Virginia. On October 21^st, the command faced a Confederate brigade numbering four thousand men along a ridge known as Ball’s Bluff. Oliver and Company A were in the forefront and began to take heavy casualties. As the battle raged around him, Holmes was knocked to the ground when a spent rifle ball hit his stomach. He stumbled to his feet to urge his men on when suddenly two more enemy rounds slammed into his right chest, missing his heart and lungs by a fraction of an inch. He fell to the ground and for a moment thought he would die. Comrades rushed to his side and carried him down the embankment to a boat that transported him to a field hospital across the river. Doctors found both bullets had passed cleanly through his chest. He would survive to continue to his service to the Union.

He spent the winter at home convalescing before returning to the regiment as a newly promoted captain in command of Company G. After participating in George McClellan’s ill-fated Peninsula Campaign, he and the regiment received word of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s invasion of Maryland. On the morning of September 17, 1862 he faced the Confederate army along the quiet waters of Antietam Creek. In the early morning he watched as Union General Joseph Hooker’s I Corps attacked Stonewall Jackson’s Confederates in the infamous “Cornfield” and on the high ground around the Dunker Church. At 7:20 John Sedgwick’s 2^nd Division, II Corps, which included the 20^th Massachusetts, was ordered to provide relief by attacking enemy forces in the East Woods. The regiment charged into a blaze of artillery and musket fire on three sides, front, flank and rear. The soldiers found themselves trapped and helpless to escape slaughter. Standing at the head of his company, Holmes was shot through the neck by an enemy marksman. Fortunately, the bullet entered “at the rear passing straight through.” The young Bostonian collapsed to the ground where he began to bleed out. His comrades paid little attention as they desperately tried to escape the enemy’s trap. One officer finally noticed him and ordered him taken to a field hospital a short distance away. The Confederates almost captured him before he was transported behind the lines to Keedysville, Maryland. There his wound was cleaned and bandaged. Upon hearing of his son’s dire condition, his father journeyed south to the battle area, and after desperately searching for six days, collected Oliver and took him home to Boston. He had survived the bloodiest single day in American history, but no matter how serious his wound, he could not stay away from action for long.

Still committed to the Union cause, Holmes returned to the front after only six weeks. In mid-November 1862 he rejoined the regiment outside Fredericksburg, Virginia where he found many soldiers inflicted with dysentery. He too found himself “stretched out miserably sick” and unable to participate in the regiment’s charges against the Twenty-first Mississippi through the streets of Fredericksburg or in the futile charges up Marye’s Heights where his unit suffered devastating losses. In May 1863 he advanced with the regiment toward Chancellorsville when Confederate artillery opened fire and shrapnel struck him in the foot. He initially feared the foot would have to be amputated, but such fears were put to rest when the iron fragments were successfully removed. He was ordered home to Boston where he remained for the next eight months, missing the climactic Battle of Gettysburg. Rejoining the army in January 1864, he was transferred to the staff of General Horatio Wright. In this capacity he took part in the Battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House and Cold Harbor, where nine thousand Union soldiers fell in only three hours. Believing he had proven his dedication to the Union, he intended to go home when his enlistment ended in a few weeks, but he had one final duty to perform before he left the army.

In early July he and the rest of General Wright’s Sixth Corps were outside Petersburg, Virginia when they learned Confederate General Robert E. Lee had sent General Jubal Early to attack, and possibly capture, Washington, D.C. To counter this threat, Wright was ordered north with all possible speed. With Holmes by his side, he arrived late on July 11^th just as Early was about to attack. Holmes and his fellow soldiers wasted no time and raced through the streets to Fort Stevens on the outskirts of the city. The next morning Early ordered his men towards the fort. At the same time, Confederate sharpshooters began to pick off those soldiers on top of the ramparts. Union soldiers were responding when they noticed a tall man in a stovepipe hat arrive. President Abraham Lincoln had come to see the battle. He stepped onto the parapet and scanned the field in front of him. Several officers, including General Wright, saw that Lincoln presented a tempting target for the enemy and begged him to get down. The president refused. According to some sources, it was at this moment Holmes shouted at his commander-in-chief, “Get down, you damn fool, before you get shot.” Lincoln, finally seeing the folly of his action, smiled at the young officer and did as requested before replying, “Captain, I’m glad you know how to talk to a civilian.” Holmes immediately turned his attention back to the fight and watched as Union forces advanced against the Confederates. By nightfall it had become clear Washington could not be taken. With no other choice the Confederates chose to withdraw. Holmes joined the Union forces that pushed the Confederates back, securing the region around the capitol. With the war’s inevitable end in sight and feeling he had done his duty, Holmes decided to leave the army — now with the brevet, or temporary, rank of colonel.

Oliver Wendell Holmes’s service to the nation was, however, far from over when he took off his uniform in 1864. He soon embarked on a phenomenal law career. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1866, he established a law practice but found the time to co-edit the American Law Review, give a series of lectures on constitutional law, edit Chancellor Kent’s Commentaries and publish a well-received book on common law. These efforts brought him fame as “a disciple of the new school” of legal scholars. His reputation increased as he argued cases before the Federal Court of Admiralty and the U.S. Supreme Court. In December 1882 he was appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court as an associate justice and in 1899 to chief justice. He distinguished himself for his support of labor’s right to organize in Plant v. Woods. His dissent in Plant angered many, but it did not prevent him from being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Theodore Roosevelt in August 1902. Throughout his long career as an associate justice, he tried to distance himself from politics and to consider the long-term ramifications of a ruling. His articulate position on controversial cases earned him the title of “The Great Dissenter.” He urged his fellow justices to be “vigilant against attempts to check the expressions of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death.” For thirty years he heard and decided the most difficult legal issues confronting our country. His opinions were always well reasoned and coherent and are generally considered today as some of the best constitutional expositions in our high court’s archives. Although never securing the position of chief justice, Holmes maintained the respect of his colleagues and the nation until he retired in January 1932. A lifetime of service came to an end three years later in March 1935 when he was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.

Oliver Wendell Holmes was the embodiment of devotion to his country. In both war and peace he never strayed from that commitment. He understood that being an American required him to make personal sacrifices in the name of a greater good. He could have left the Union army after he was wounded at Ball’s Bluff or after Antietam, but he did not. He stayed the course. If he had not, it is conceivable Abraham Lincoln would have been killed at Fort Stevens. In every endeavor, Oliver Wendell Holmes did his duty — faithfully defending freedom through it all.

When many of us think of the American Revolution, we remember important battlefields in places like Massachusetts and Virginia. We picture colonial “minutemen” opposing British soldiers at Lexington and Concord or George Washington accepting the surrender of the British army at Yorktown. These battles occurred in the war’s eastern theatre, which was undoubtedly the main focus of the action, but there was also an important strategic battle being waged on the western front. The menace posed by the British and their Native American allies endangered the entire western flank of the country. The Continental Army officer charged with confronting this threat was John Sullivan. This is his story of taking the fight to the enemy and engaging in total war.

John Sullivan found himself a participant in the American Revolution in the typical way. Born in February 1740 in Somersworth, New Hampshire, he grew up to be a lawyer. He was friendly with Royal Governor John Wentworth, but his sympathies were, from the start, clearly with the patriots. He served in both New Hampshire’s First Provincial Congress and the First Continental Congress before returning to New Hampshire in December 1774 where he led a raid on Fort William and Mary and seized arms and ammunition. He had a mixed record of victory and defeat following the outbreak of war in April 1775. After being commissioned a brigadier general by the Second Continental Congress, he helped General George Washington expel the British from Boston. Then he had the dubious honor of commanding the American withdrawal in the wake of the ill-fated invasion of Canada. Promoted to major general, he rejoined the main American army in August 1776 and was placed in charge of the American army’s left flank on Long Island. During the British attack, he watched his troops flee just moments before he was captured. He spent the next few months as a prisoner, but he was released (by way of a prisoner exchange) in time to join Washington in attacking the garrisons at Trenton and Princeton, New Jersey. At the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, however, he was once again outflanked by the British and forced to withdraw. After surviving the winter at Valley Forge, he led an unsuccessful campaign against the British at Newport, Rhode Island. While he was licking his wounds, his eyes were drawn to another battle happening several hundred miles away.

Throughout 1778 the American Revolution spread from the eastern battlefields around New York City and Philadelphia to the western frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania. Native American tribes, particularly the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, understood what an American victory would mean for them. White encroachment onto their land would intensify as the nation expanded. As a result, several tribes from the Iroquois nation, most notably the Seneca and the Mohawk, chose to ally with the British in hopes such a possibility could be prevented. With the encouragement of British commanders, warriors under the command of Joseph Brant, an Anglicized Mohawk, joined John Butler’s Tory militiamen in attacking frontier farms and settlements. They stole livestock, including cattle, and other foodstuffs to supply themselves and simultaneously to deal a blow to the American army. The British allowed their allies a free hand in their operations. This ensured that sometimes Indians gave no quarter to their foes. The most graphic example came at Cherry Valley in New York where Seneca warriors massacred thirty-three civilians. Word of this atrocity spread throughout the region, and frontier inhabitants pleaded with Congress and Washington for relief. Since few Continental soldiers were in the region, a large expeditionary force had to be assembled. To command this army, Washington turned to “the most active of the Rebel Generals,” as a future opponent called him.

In March 1779 Washington sent word to General Sullivan that he was needed to lead an expedition “directed against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations of Indians.” He was instructed to march up the Susquehanna River into the heart of Seneca territory and drive the Indians away from the frontier, all the way back to Fort Niagara on the Canadian border if possible. He was further ordered “to make rather than receive attacks, attended with as much impetuousness, shouting, and noise as possible.” There were few limitations placed on his authority. With these orders in hand, he travelled to Easton, Pennsylvania where the expedition was assembling. He found six thousand regular soldiers divided among sixteen regiments, fifteen of infantry and one of artillery. This constituted nearly one-third of the entire Continental Army. In addition to these elite troops, he also had the services of scouts from the Oneida and Tuscarora tribes, two Iroquois tribes who chose to side with the Americans. Washington hoped for a spring offensive, but logistical concerns delayed the campaign until late July. Once under way, however, Sullivan rapidly marched his troops through Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Valley, never once trying to hide his ultimate objective — to absolutely demolish the Indian threat. He reached Tioga, now the town of Athens, Pennsylvania, at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chemung Rivers on August 11^th and began building Fort Sullivan. He left a small garrison inside to prevent its capture and began the final advance into Iroquois territory.

Two days after leaving Fort Sullivan, the army had its first taste of combat at the Battle of New Chemung. Sullivan heard reports of an Indian village to his front and dispatched a squad of soldiers to investigate. The soldiers reported back that Tory militiamen and Delaware warriors were inside the village. Deciding to attack immediately, Sullivan ordered one brigade to cut off the northern escape route while the other three brigades moved in from the west, south and east. The army arrived to find the camp abandoned, but sounds alerted them the enemy was not far away. One group charged forward into the face of enemy fire. Six soldiers were killed and nine more wounded. The rest of the command promptly spread out and maneuvered into a position to outflank the enemy. Firing from their new position, they inflicted serious losses and forced their opponents to withdraw. Sullivan congratulated his men on the victory, and then he ordered them back to the village to destroy it. It would only be the first encampment to suffer Sullivan’s wrath. As the smoke billowed behind them, he ordered the advance to continue north. He wanted to make sure the Iroquois knew there was nothing they could do to stop him. He outnumbered them nearly four to one. Still, his adversaries were determined to resist as best they could.

The Indians saw the only way to stop the advance was to engage the Americans in battle. The first tactic was utilizing ambushes, with small bodies of warriors hiding in the underbrush and sniping at soldiers on the edges of the column. Sullivan and his troops cautiously pushed forward. Meanwhile the main force of Indians and Tories built fortifications along Baldwin’s Creek, not far from the village of Newtown, site of present-day Elmira, New York. The plan called for an attack on Sullivan’s front, flank and rear in hopes of forcing the army to abandon their supply wagons. The battle began on the afternoon of August 29, 1779 when the two sides sighted each other. Musket shots rang out, and the Indians withdrew. Sensing a trap, the army inched along until they came within sight of the fortifications. Riflemen laid down a covering fire while other units formed up behind them. At the same time, three artillery pieces were positioned on a high knoll and began shelling the fortifications. Sullivan then ordered two brigades to attack the Indians’ left flank and rear. The brigades charged up the ridge with bayonets, only to be met with a volley of musketry. The soldiers were momentarily stunned but quickly regrouped and charged forward again, this time shattering the center of the line. In fear of being cut off, Iroquois and Delaware warriors fell back, leaving their Tory allies to hold off the Americans as long as they could before they too withdrew. The battle was a stunning victory for Sullivan and his army and virtually ended the military threat to the campaign.

Although there would be one more skirmish outside present-day Groveland, New York where the enemy enjoyed a small victory, the Battle of Newtown effectively destroyed the will of the Iroquois to deter Sullivan’s advance. The army marched straight into the heart of Iroquois country around Seneca Lake and then west to the Genesee River. Along the way, Sullivan and his men burned forty towns and destroyed 160,000 acres of corn and fruit trees. What was not destroyed was distributed among the troops to supplement their dwindling rations. By the time Sullivan arrived at the Genesee River and decided to turn back, he had spectacularly achieved his mandate from Washington. He had marched 255 miles into enemy territory and left it desolate. With no other option, the Indians sought the sanctuary of British-held Fort Niagara. Filled with pride, Sullivan marched back down the scorched valley to Tioga and on to Easton. With his arrival on October 15^th, the Iroquois campaign of 1779 was over.

The Indian campaign was John Sullivan’s last military command. The long months of fighting had worn him down, and he was soon forced to resign from the army. In the ensuing years, he served as a delegate in the Continental Congress, as New Hampshire’s attorney general, twice as governor, head of the state’s ratification convention for the Constitution, and New Hampshire’s U.S. district judge under President Washington. Throughout the remainder of his life and in each of these roles he kept watch over events on the frontier. He had the satisfaction of knowing his campaign had weakened the Iroquois’ strength sufficiently to force the British abandonment of their lands to the U.S. in the Treaty of Paris. He then watched other American commanders continue to utilize his tactics in their military operations against the Indians. These operations met with their ultimate success when General “Mad Anthony” Wayne defeated the Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. John Sullivan died in January 1795, content that America’s western frontier was finally secured.

Contrary to popular belief, the American Revolution was not confined to one geographic location. Continental soldiers had to face their opponents on battlefields far removed from the eastern seaboard. Those battlefields extended to the widespread backwoods of Pennsylvania and New York. British and American commanders alike sometimes regarded the frontier as a sideshow, but in reality it was of utmost strategic importance, particularly in light of future expansion. Had the British not been pushed out of the western region, the United States may have been confined to a narrow strip of land on the east coast. In a display of martial ability, General John Sullivan overpowered his enemies, marched with impunity from one end of Iroquois territory to the other, and laid waste to the enemy’s home country in one of the first examples of total war. It was the same concept of warfare practiced by Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman against the South in the Civil War and against the Central Plains Indians a few years after that. While not a pretty thought, it is the reality of war and the fastest way to end the slaughter. John Sullivan, American patriot and Indian fighter, was perhaps the first to fully understand and utilize the concept.

Throughout much of the twentieth century, starting even before World War II and intensifying in the Cold War years, the United States found itself engaged in an ideological struggle. The dual threats of fascism and communism (both springing from a belief that the state, not the individual, best determines the social compact) threatened to destroy the very foundation of the American way of life. It was not, however, just Germans and Russians who embraced these ideologies. They appealed to some Americans as well. Among those who bought into communist beliefs was a high-level official in the U.S. State Department. He was convinced communism was the answer to the world’s problems and was willing to do anything to advance his cause. His name was Alger Hiss. This is the story of how he sold out his country in the name of ideology.

Alger Hiss’ affiliation with communism began long before he became a spy for a foreign power. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland in November 1904 and grew up the son of middle-class parents. He often complained of being poor throughout his childhood, and when he got older he began to associate with those at the other end of the social spectrum, the wealthy and intelligent. He desired to be just like them, so he attended Johns Hopkins University. While there he adopted anti-business and pro-union views, due in part to his socialist economics professor Broadus Mitchell. He graduated in 1926 and enrolled in Harvard Law School. There he came under the influence of Felix Frankfurter, a future Supreme Court justice, and developed a friendship with Lee Pressman, a future member of America’s Communist Party. Thanks to both men, he found a home in Harvard’s small, liberal community. His political philosophy remained strong while he clerked for renowned Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. He went on to practice law in Boston and in New York City. Over time, he fortified his socialist convictions and heartily welcomed the big government programs of the New Deal.

As the U.S. sank deeper into the Depression, Alger Hiss came to believe capitalism was the real culprit for the nation’s ills. He told his wife Priscilla it was “discouraging to think that perhaps the panic of 1877 gave as vivid a lesson of capitalism as has today’s Depression and that such a warning was ignored.” He was adamant that capitalism had failed to protect America from harm and that a new system was needed. That new system was socialism. He supported the American Socialist Party and worked in the International Juridical Association (IJA) to create a new relationship between the national government and those minority groups suffering hardships. Like other liberals, he maintained the country could only be saved by radical measures, namely replacing the current free market system with bureaucratic fiats. He saw just the place to institute these “reforms” at the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal administration, which was designed to defend the “public interest.”

During his time in the AAA, Hiss began to openly assert his conviction that communism provided much-needed answers for America. He was convinced capitalism was unable to provide justice and equality. On the other hand, communism had the ability to create a society that respected trade unions and elevated the workers. Hiss and his fellows argued this ideology could potentially save the world from collapsing and ensure peace and collaboration among the nations. In essence, communism would produce a utopian society. In the dark days of the 1930s it was a dream easily sold to disillusioned Americans. Many people, including Hiss, saw the New Deal as a precursor to this ideal. There were many similarities between the two, so it was only natural Hiss steadfastly supported each policy Roosevelt proposed, including one to pack the Supreme Court with judges favorable to New Deal legislation. From these socialist beliefs it was an easy leap to embracing the soviet model emerging in Russia. The desire to bind the U.S. with the Soviet Union encouraged Hiss and other American communists to overlook the atrocities perpetrated by Joseph Stalin. To them, it was a necessary evil. So too was any action that would transform a capitalist country into a communist one. It was this belief that first encouraged Hiss to reach out to agents of the Soviet Union.

By 1934 Alger Hiss was a devoted communist and was searching for ways to import the revolution to America. He was not content to see America sliding gradually towards socialism. He needed to be more proactive. Fortunately, at least from his perspective, he had a way into America’s communist network. His old Harvard classmate, Lee Pressman, was a dues-paying member of the Communist Party. Pressman, it is thought, introduced Hiss to J. Peters, head of America’s Communist Party, who called Hiss “an exceptional Communist.” Peters knew Hiss would be a valuable asset, so he put Hiss in touch with Harold Ware, leader of a secret Communist organization that penetrated U.S. government offices on behalf of the Soviet military’s intelligence division, the GRU. Ware too realized Hiss could use his position to access sensitive information and placed him under the supervision of Whittaker Chambers. Hiss proved their trust was not misplaced when he became part of Senator Gerald Nye’s committee investigating U.S. arms manufacturing. Evidence later indicated Hiss stole documents, made copies of them and passed them up the chain of Soviet intelligence. His superiors were pleased, but they knew that simply stealing secrets was not enough.

As useful as Hiss was in gaining access to sensitive information, his Soviet masters realized it was even more critical to manipulate U.S. foreign policy. It was only through this method the Soviet Union could hope to draw the U.S. into its sphere of influence. In order to accomplish this, it was imperative Soviet agents hold key positions in the various departments. In 1936 Alger Hiss was assigned to the U.S. State Department. For the next three years he was an assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and charged with gathering intelligence on a possible war with Germany and Japan. At the end of each day he packed the documents in his briefcase and took them home to show to Chambers who passed them on to his GRU contact, Colonel Boris Bykov. After World War II erupted, Hiss was transferred to the Far East Department where he closely monitored the struggle between the Chinese Nationalists and Communists. He knew the Chinese Nationalists had the support of the American government, but he recognized the Communists were becoming a dominant force in the northern part of the country. He tried to get both sides to work together, but it seemed the Communists were more interested in seizing control of the country for themselves. Despite his apparent efforts to achieve conciliation, there was suspicion he attempted to “influence our Chinese policy and bring about the condemnation of [Nationalist leader] Chiang Kai-shek.” There were beginning to be reports that he was aiding the communist cause, but at the moment there were more pressing concerns. For now, America had to work with the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany and mold the postwar world, so it was decided to put those suspicions on hold and utilize Hiss’ talents to achieve that end.

In 1944 Hiss was transferred to the Office of Special Political Affairs (OSPA) and aided in developing postwar plans for a world where the U.S. and Soviet Union would work together. The most integral part of this plan was the creation of the United Nations. He was the executive secretary at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference that outlined the makeup of the organization and later served as the secretary-general at the San Francisco Conference that completed the charter. After agreeing to be part of the organization, the Soviets let it be known they would support his selection as permanent secretary-general of the organization. He kept in close contact with his Soviet bosses during these deliberations without attracting undue attention from those in the State Department. He so impressed Franklin Roosevelt with his dedication that he was chosen to accompany the president as a chief assistant to the Yalta Conference in early 1945. He had a front-row seat as well as a key role in the discussions regarding Poland’s future and the division of Germany into military occupation zones. Historians now agree that Roosevelt, in poor health, yielded far too much to Stalin. For his part, Hiss hoped America’s willingness to accept Soviet demands at Yalta meant the dawn of a new day in international cooperation. Little did he know though that he would soon be called to answer for his acts of betrayal.

With the end of World War II and rising fears of the Soviet Union’s spreading tentacles, those in leadership positions began to focus on internal threats. Hiss was clearly on their radar. Despite being an active Soviet agent for years, Hiss maintained that he had never actually been a communist. Secretary of State James Byrnes and John Foster Dulles, future Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower, questioned him about his political philosophy, and each time he denied any connection to the Communist Party. While he remained faithful, at least privately, to his communist principles, he felt no such allegiance to his “comrades” in the cause. When summoned to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) to answer charges brought by his old friend and “handler,” Whittaker Chambers, Hiss not only denied spying for the Soviets but also denied knowing Chambers. He then carried through with a libel suit against Chambers when charges kept appearing in the public forum. As proceedings began in late 1948, Chambers disclosed the classified documents Hiss had previously stolen. The betrayal was now undeniable, but President Harry Truman and the Justice Department took no further action. The grand jury, however, did. Unable to convict him of espionage due to a three-year statute of limitations, Hiss was indicted on two counts of perjury: lying about turning over documents to Chambers and lying about meeting with Chambers when the transfer took place. The jury found him guilty and sentenced him to five years in prison. Until his death in November 1996, he spent the rest of his life claiming to be a victim of the hysteria that gripped America during the Cold War. It was an image that was largely disproven when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and files containing the names of espionage agents were opened.

Alger Hiss’ ideological beliefs led him to commit the greatest crime any person can ever commit. The evidence clearly shows that he worked with foreign agents while in government service, and he passed along information to America’s enemy. In an ideal world, he should have been tried and convicted of treason. Unfortunately, many people were deceived by the polished image he outwardly projected. They believed he was incapable of wrongdoing. It deceived so many that there are still some today who claim he was unjustly persecuted. Many of these no doubt share his ideology. As Americans, we believe that people have the freedom to hold the beliefs and ideologies that they will. There are even mechanisms in place to change things we disagree with. There is a line that cannot be crossed however. No matter our ideology, our allegiance must finally be to our constitution and our country.

Today instant communication is viewed as an essential part of life. We depend on cell phones and email to stay in contact with friends and family. There was no such thing prior to the nineteenth century, however. The only way to communicate was either by word of mouth or by letter. During the Industrial Revolution there was a Massachusetts painter who saw that America needed a faster way to send messages. He had little scientific training, but he did not allow that to stop him. His name was Samuel Morse. This is the story of how he launched the world into instantaneous communication with the development of the telegraph.

Unlike many scientific inventors, Samuel Morse’s path to innovation had surprising origins. He was born in late April 1791 in Charlestown, Massachusetts to a Calvinist pastor who raised his son to honor Calvinist virtues and to remember Puritan traditions, such as strictly observing the Sabbath. Throughout his life, Morse held tightly to his religious upbringing. He attended Philips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts and Yale College (now University) where his broad educational experience included several lectures on electricity. To his father’s shock, however, he became an artist. After studying in Britain, he returned to America where he married Lucretia Walker and started a family. He earned quite a reputation with his portraits of Presidents John Adams and James Monroe. Even as his art career took off, however, he never forgot his interest in scientific matters. He attended classes on electricity and electromagnetism at Columbia College in New York City. He even developed a knack for inventing by sketching out plans for a new type of pump and a machine to cut marble. Despite these successes, he was content to remain a painter until an unexpected tragedy turned his life upside down.

Samuel Morse had no way of knowing that it would be a communications delay that transformed him from a part-time inventor to a full-time one. In 1825 he was commissioned to paint a portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette, and he travelled to Washington, D.C. for the sitting. His wife was home in New Haven expecting the birth of their third child. In early February he received word via mail that his wife was dangerously ill. He left immediately to be by her side, but sadly, by the time he arrived, she was already dead and buried. His father and mother died less than two years later. In deep melancholy, Morse left for Europe in hopes of reestablishing his career. His works failed to garner much recognition, so he booked passage back to America. During the crossing he fell into conversation with geologist Charles Jackson and told him he wished there was a way for messages to be sent more quickly. This led the two to discuss the advances made in electrical communication. At one point Morse reportedly told Jackson, “I see no reason why intelligence [information] might not be instantaneously transmitted by electricity to any distance.” He knew European inventors were working on such a device, but he decided to create his own electrical communication system. He was so eager to start he did not wait for the ship to arrive in New York.

From his stateroom onboard ship, Morse was determined that his invention would send information much quicker than any other form of communication currently used. In France he had seen semaphore, flags waving in an alphabetical sequence, used to transmit messages across small distances. This technology would not work in a vast country like America. Thanks to Jackson though, Morse believed a circuit powered by an electromagnet could transmit signals across the country within moments. He imagined an electric circuit surrounded by cogwheels, dials and levers. He would insert information through an electromagnet at one end of the device and send it to an electromagnetic receiver on the other end via wires. Turning the circuit on and off would denote a full transmission. He had an initial draft finished by the time the ship docked. He raced home to gather components — wood, brass, wires and mercury — to complete the design. Over the next four years, he patiently constructed a series of models and practiced opening and closing the circuit. As he was undertaking these experiments, he realized there needed to be some form of notification for each transmission. He rigged the device to a bell or light that went off upon transmission, and as the models improved, he was notified by an audible click. The clicks now provided him with a way to develop a code for the device.

Even as he worked to perfect his mechanical design, Morse was hard at work developing a cipher to accompany the invention. He realized that information had to be sent in such a way that those using the device would understand the message. At first the code was simple. He tapped the device five times to represent the number five or three times followed by a space followed by four to represent the number thirty-four. He assigned each number to a corresponding letter or word and wrote it down in a codebook. Once he had completed this code, known everywhere now as Morse Code, he fashioned a moveable notched ruler with metal blanks. He then inserted the ruler into the device and used it to open and close the circuit in a set pattern utilizing the code. The message travelled through a wire and was received in the same pattern in which it was input. The pattern would be viewed as a series of dots and dashes, which the operator would translate using the code into an intelligible message. Ideally, this transfer of information would occur within moments of being sent. Morse called his invention telegraphy, or “distance-writing.” Before he could take his invention public, however, he had to prove that the device worked across great distances.

Morse’s experiment with the telegraph almost ended before it began. His invention barely had enough power to transmit across the room, let alone across the country. With the help of others, he added forty galvanic cups, acid-coated zinc and copper plates, creating a primitive battery which gave the signal sufficient strength to travel nearly a hundred extra feet. Then, knowing copper was the best conductor, he wrapped copper wires around the magnet that was inside the device. This addition added more than a thousand feet to the signal. He and his companions developed repeaters to amplify the signal and the signal was soon being passed over several miles. Unfortunately, Morse and his colleague Alfred Vail saw how greater distances caused a corresponding weakening in the signal. To correct this problem, Vail divided the electrical transmission into pieces and placed a magnetic transmitter at set distances along the circuit. The transmitter would be triggered when the signal reached the circuit’s receiver, at which time the transmitter would boost power before opening and closing the next circuit. Vail called this system “relays.” Thanks to this new innovation, messages could not only travel as fast as an operator wanted but as far as was needed. In the wake of this victory, Morse presented his invention to the U.S. Government.

On June 20, 1840 the U.S. Patent Office granted Morse the patent for the electric telegraph. He envisioned a nationwide system of communication, but he found little support for the idea in the halls of power. He informed Congress of his ability to send messages nearly ten miles and his belief “that we can achieve a similar result at any distance.” Perhaps remembering his own tragic experience, he proposed that the telegraph be connected to the Post Office so letters could be transmitted faster. Congress was not persuaded and denied him any official support. Morse remained undeterred and for four years defended his invention against his critics. Congress finally agreed to a demonstration, and he sent messages between committee rooms. Congress agreed to pay him $30,000 to set up a line between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland, a distance of forty-four miles. On Friday, May 24, 1844, Alfred Vail set his telegraph machine in a Baltimore railway station while Morse set his up in the U.S. Supreme Court, at that time located in the north wing of the Capitol building. Morse sat at the machine and typed out four simple, yet powerful, words — “What Hath God Wrought.” The successful demonstration opened the proverbial floodgates.

Samuel Morse spent the rest of his life helping to expand the telegraph throughout the world. By 1847 word of the telegraph had spread even as far as the Ottoman Empire, modern Turkey, where the ruling Sultan granted Morse a patent as well as financial compensation for the telegraph. It was not long before Morse’s invention had spread from Istanbul to Europe. Within ten years it had become the means for communication in every country. Many of these countries, including France and Russia, offered Morse financial rewards, just like Turkey had. Its greatest impact, however, was in America. Telegraph companies sprang up everywhere, and in October 1861 the East and West Coasts were joined when a message was sent from San Francisco to Washington. Morse watched these developments with pride, even as he faced threats from former associates. They charged that he took credit for their innovations. In 1853 the fight reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in O’Reilly v. Morse that he alone held the patent for the telegraph. He used his fortune and influence to engage in philanthropic activities, most notably helping to found Vassar College. He died in April 1872 of pneumonia, but by then his innovation had paved the way to the future.

Samuel Morse laid the groundwork for the instant communication we enjoy today. He understood traditional forms, like letters, no longer met the demands of a modernizing society. Timely information was as important as the content. Morse personally appreciated this all too well. His own tragic experience and the desire to keep others from suffering similarly are what led to the idea and motivation for the new technology. His was one of the most important inventions to come out of the Industrial Revolution. It was, in the truest sense, revolutionary and led directly to all the forms of instantaneous communication we find so indispensible today. Samuel Morse and the telegraph may seem insignificant in our twenty-first century world, but like an incredible accomplishment in the space program more than a hundred years later, his work truly was “a giant leap for mankind.”