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I miss these times for the most part

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Just another reason on Why I like Ike!!

“I consider it to be the duty of anyone who sees a flaw in the plan not to hesitate to say so. I have no sympathy with anyone who will not brook criticism. We are here to get the best possible results & you must make a really cooperative effort.” Eisenhower before D-Day.

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Some Red Hot Gospel there!

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Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?


Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated.

But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.

Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates. Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: “For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never told you a lot about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn’t fight just the British.

We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government!

Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn’t. So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It’s not much to ask for the price they paid. Remember: freedom is never free!

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Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad HUH! Leadership of the highest kind Real men This great Nation & Its People Well I thought it was neat!

WHEN TEDDY ROOSEVELT HAD WINSTON CHURCHILL TO DINNER

By LAWRENCE J. SISKIND

The lives of Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill overlapped, but they met in person only once — at a dinner in the Governor’s Mansion in Albany, New York on December 10, 1900. The 42-year old Roosevelt was about to relocate to Washington DC to assume his duties as Vice President. The 26-year old Churchill, who was visiting America to shore up his finances by a lecture tour, was about to take his seat in Parliament.

What happened at their dinner is unknown. But to the extent historians have noticed the dinner (which isn’t a large extent[i]), they have accepted the view, first attributed to Roosevelt’s daughter Alice, that the two men did not get along because they were so much alike.[ii] As Robert Pilpel, in his Churchill in America 1895 – 1961, put it: “It was a case of likes repelling.”[iii]

But was it?

We will never know for certain because the witnesses are not available for deposition. But based on the evidence, the “likes repelling” theory is unpersuasive. Something else, something deeper, was afoot.

Let’s review the record, starting with Winston Churchill’s reaction to the dinner.

His reaction was a case of the dog not barking. If one examines Churchill’s papers, one might conclude that the event never took place.  On December 21, 1900, eleven days after the dinner, he wrote a detailed letter to his mother, describing his American trip. The letter mentions his lectures, his earnings, and his many meetings with American luminaries. It mentions that he was “considerably impressed” by President McKinley. But as to Theodore Roosevelt, Churchill says nothing.[iv]

Subsequently, Churchill’s references to Roosevelt are very few and entirely benign. In December 1906, after an earthquake had destroyed Kingston, Jamaica, an American admiral landed armed soldiers to help clear the rubble.

Sir Alexander Swettenham, Governor of the island, issued a harsh letter condemning the move, and pointing out that the recent looting of a New York millionaire’s house would not have justified a British admiral landing armed soldiers to help the police. President Roosevelt complained to London about the ill-tempered letter, and Churchill, then the top assistant to the Colonial Secretary, supported Roosevelt, calling Swettenham “an ass … wrong on every point.”[v]

In December 1908, upon learning that the lame duck President was planning an African safari, Churchill sent Whitelaw Reid, the American ambassador in London, a copy of My African Journey, his account of  his own 1907 hunting exploits on that continent, with a request to forward it on to Roosevelt.[vi]

In April 1918, Churchill suggested enlisting Roosevelt as a plenipotentiary in a rather far-fetched and never implemented mission to persuade the Bolsheviks to bring Russia back into the war on the side of the Allies.[vii]

That is all there is regarding the impression Roosevelt made on Churchill. There is nothing to show that Churchill was repelled by Roosevelt.

When we investigate Churchill’s impression on Roosevelt, a very different picture emerges.

To start, Roosevelt’s papers show that the dinner was actually his idea. Roosevelt was eager to meet the young Englishman in person. On December 4, 1900, Major James Burton Pond, the manager of Churchill’s American lecture tour, had invited then Governor Roosevelt to attend Churchill’s upcoming New York City lecture and had even offered him a box in the theater. Pond’s transparent aim in inviting Roosevelt was to use his famous name to promote the Churchill event.

Roosevelt reasonably might have ignored the invitation, or dismissed it with a curt letter of regret. Instead, in his December 6 response, he first declined the invitation due to a scheduling conflict, then lobbied for a meeting:

I am really sorry as I am a great admirer of Mr. Churchill’s books, and should very much like to have a chance of meeting him socially. Is he now in New York? I should greatly like to have him take lunch or dinner with me if he is in Albany on Monday; or lunch if he is here Tuesday, of next week. Where shall I write him?[viii]

Major Pond had merely invited Roosevelt to attend a lecture. He had not suggested a personal meeting. But here was Roosevelt inviting Churchill to break bread with him in Albany, and offering no fewer than three possible time slots, each one a meal rather than  a perfunctory meet-and-greet office session. Roosevelt’s inquiry as to where he could write Churchill directly reveals his eagerness for a personal meeting.

But while Roosevelt very much wanted “a chance of meeting [Churchill] socially,” once he had that chance, he didn’t like what he saw.

After the dinner, on July 12, 1901, the now Vice President Roosevelt wrote to Hermann Speck von Sternburg, a family friend and German diplomat, who had spent time in India. The letter dealt mainly with military and international affairs. Roosevelt wrote: “I saw the Englishman, Winston Churchill here, and although he is not an attractive fellow, I was interested in some of the things he said.” [ix]

The “things” that interested Roosevelt were Churchill’s views on the fighting qualities of Gurka, Sikh, Punjabi, and Pathan regiments. The casual reference to Churchill’s unattractiveness was purely gratuitous and had nothing to do with the subject of the letter. But it set a tone. In subsequent letters, Roosevelt would miss no opportunity to denigrate Churchill, whether relevant to the correspondence or not.

On September 12, 1906, the now President Roosevelt wrote to Henry Cabot Lodge. Referencing Churchill’s recently published 2-volume biography of his father, Roosevelt commented: “I dislike the father and dislike the son, so I may be prejudiced.” He proceeded to describe both Churchills as “possess[ing] such levity, lack of sobriety, lack of permanent principle, and inordinate thirst for that cheap form of admiration which is given to notoriety, as to make them poor public servants.”[x]  (Lodge responded a few days later, admitting he had not read the biography, but adding that he considered the son “clever but conceited to a degree which it is hard to express either in words or figures.”[xi])

On October 25, 1906, Roosevelt wrote to John St. Loe Strachey, a British journalist and newspaper proprietor. Strachey had asked Roosevelt for his opinion of William Randolph Hearst. Roosevelt replied: “[I]t is a little difficult for me to give you an exact historic judgment about a man whom I so thoroly [sic] dislike and despise as I do Hearst.” He called Hearst “a man without any real principle.” Then, reverting to his favored object of invective, Roosevelt added: “But when I have said this, after all, I am not at all sure that I am saying much more of Hearst than could probably be said … about both Winston Churchill and his father, Lord Randolph.”[xii] Although the subject was Hearst, Roosevelt could not resist bringing up Churchill.

For Roosevelt, it wasn’t enough to express his distaste for Churchill himself. He also expressed his distaste for those who admired Churchill. On November 14, 1906, Roosevelt wrote to Lodge again, this time attacking Archibald Primrose, the fifth Earl of Rosebery. The former Prime Minister’s sin was praising Winston Churchill’s biography of his father as “remarkable.” Roosevelt indignantly referenced Rosebery’s “lack of sense or proportion.”[xiii]

On May 23, 1908, Roosevelt wrote to his son Theodore Jr., then a student at Harvard. Young Theodore had just read Churchill’s biography of Lord Randolph and wanted to know his father’s opinion. Roosevelt answered: “Yes, that is an interesting book of Winston Churchill’s about his father, but I can’t help feeling about both of them that the older one was a rather cheap character, and the younger one is a rather cheap character.” (Underlining in original.)[xiv]

On November 6, 1908, the lame duck President Roosevelt wrote to British historian George Otto Trevelyan about the recent election of his then friend (and later opponent) William Howard Taft to succeed him. After discussing his post-White House plans, Roosevelt turned to history and once again attacked Rosebery, this time for the way “he speaks of Winston Churchill’s clever, forceful, rather cheap and vulgar life of that clever, forceful, rather cheap and vulgar egoist, his father.”[xv]

In January 1909, when Roosevelt received Churchill’s gift of his African Journey, he was taken aback.  He admired the account but he didn’t like the author. So he dashed off a short thank you note to the donor (in which he expressed the hope that he “shall have as good luck as you had”),[xvi] and forwarded it to Ambassador Reid, with this cover: “I do not like Winston Churchill but I suppose I ought to write him. Will you send him the enclosed letter if it is all right?”[xvii]

Time did not moderate Roosevelt’s hostility.

September 10, 1909 found the former President at the foot of Mount Kenya, during the hunt in which he hoped to match Churchill’s luck. In a letter to Lodge and his wife, handwritten in pencil, Roosevelt described the American influence on British colonial reading habits. “Among the novels I see in the houses no English ones are more common than for instance, David Harum, or Winston Churchill’s – I mean, of course our Winston Churchill, Winston Churchill the gentleman.”[xviii] Roosevelt’s reference to “Winston Churchill the gentleman” was to the popular New Hampshire novelist, whose books were widely read and whose political career Roosevelt supported. The implication that the English Winston Churchill was not a gentleman is consistent with Roosevelt’s earlier references to Churchill as “unattractive” and “cheap.”

Following his African tour, Roosevelt traveled to Europe, where he met with a long parade of prominent royal, political, and intellectual figures. But the parade was not long enough to include Winston Churchill, who had been appointed Home Secretary in February 1910. On June 4, Roosevelt wrote to Lodge: “I have had a most amusing and interesting time here, but, literally there hasn’t been a five minutes free…. I have refused to meet Winston Churchill, being able to avoid causing any scandal by doing so.”[xix]

On October 1, 1911, Roosevelt reminisced about his African adventure in a long letter to Trevelyan. Discussing his visit to Khartoum, he described how the white settlers in British East Africa hoped that he would speak sympathetically about them when he traveled on to England. Then he added: “They had hoped much from Winston Churchill’s visit, but for various reasons most of them had disliked him ….”[xx] This of course was Roosevelt projecting his own enmity toward Churchill onto the local English community.

On October 5, 1911, in a letter to the playwright David Gray, Roosevelt described his experience as a special ambassador to the funeral of King Edward the previous year. “I dislike Winston Churchill and would not meet him,” he recounted, “but I was anxious to meet both Lloyd George and John Burns, and I took a real fancy to both of them.”[xxi]

On August 22, 1914, shortly after hostilities had erupted, Roosevelt wrote to Arthur Hamilton Lee, the British politician and soldier. Just as when he received Churchill’s African Journey, Roosevelt was in a bind. It was painful for Roosevelt to say anything positive about Churchill but the situation called for doing so.

Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, had had the foresight to mobilize the fleet before war broke out, much as Roosevelt himself had ordered Admiral Dewey to prepare to attack the Spanish Fleet on the eve of the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt, perhaps gritting his teeth, wrote: “I have never liked Winston Churchill, but in view of what you tell me as to his admirable conduct and nerve in mobilizing the fleet, I do wish that if it comes in your way you would extend to him my congratulations on his action.” To assure that his rare compliment did not gain publicity, he added: “It must be strictly confidential, of course.”[xxii]

The evidence, taken as a whole, contradicts the verdict of Alice Roosevelt and some historians that this was a case of “likes repelling.”

First, the “repelling” was completely one-sided. Theodore Roosevelt was thoroughly repelled by Winston Churchill. After the dinner, he seems to have been determined to make sure that everyone knew how much he disliked Churchill. But nothing suggests that Winston Churchill was repelled by Roosevelt. After the dinner, Churchill simply didn’t think about Roosevelt very much, and when he did think about him, he seems to have just assumed that all was well between them.[xxiii]

Second, Roosevelt and Churchill were hardly “likes.” Granted both were sportsmen born into upper class families, and both pursued political careers. But they were markedly different in age, experience, and family ties. Roosevelt grew up in a warm, loving home, raised by parents who adored him. Churchill was largely ignored by his parents; any warmth he received growing up came from his nanny, Mrs. Everest. Roosevelt favored athletic endeavors that involved close physical contact, such as boxing and wrestling. Churchill stayed a polo mallet’s length away from his competitors.

If this were not a case of “likes repelling,” then what accounts for Roosevelt’s hostility?

As his correspondence with Major Pond shows, Roosevelt was anxious to meet Churchill. When the 26-year old Churchill showed up for dinner, Roosevelt doubtless expected a certain degree of deference from the younger man.

For all his progressive political inclinations. Roosevelt was deeply conservative in his views on social propriety and decorum. If one were a gentleman, one behaved in a certain way. Roosevelt rode, worked, and endured hardships as well as the lowliest ranch hand in the Badlands of the Dakota Territory.

But it was understood that when he slept in his cabin, the ranch hands were to move their mattresses up to the loft because the “boss” had to have the downstairs to himself. Similarly, the neighboring ranchers were expected to address him as “Mr. Roosevelt,” even if they were wealthy enough to consider themselves his equal. Nobody called him “Roosevelt” and certainly no one called him “Teddy.”[xxiv]

But the brash young visitor had no time for such niceties. If Roosevelt was ruled by his views of social etiquette, Churchill was constrained by his views of his mortality. He believed he had only a short time to live. His father had died at the age 45. His father’s sisters died at the ages of 45 and 51, and their brother died at 48. Churchill did not expect to live much beyond the 42 years of his dinner host.[xxv]

Churchill was not inclined to defer to Roosevelt’s seniority because he did not expect to live long enough to enjoy such seniority of his own.

So one diner appeared that evening expecting deference, and the other diner arrived demanding equality. We can imagine a dinner conversation marred by the incongruity. Roosevelt is accustomed to dominating the conversation. But young Churchill believes he has just as much wisdom to impart, and refuses to yield the floor. Roosevelt wants to talk about his charge up the San Juan Heights. Churchill tries to cut him short so that he can orate on Omdurman. They both consider themselves experts on Indian affairs – although they have in mind Indians of different continents.

For Churchill, the evening’s give-and-take must have been great fun. He probably drank and talked a good deal, as was his wont. More likely than not, he left Albany happy with his performance, and confident that his merry self-assurance had made a positive impression on his older and more accomplished host. In the future, he would just assume that Roosevelt would welcome the chance to read his book on hunting. Why wouldn’t he? After all, they had had such a good time that night at dinner!

But for Roosevelt, the evening must have been one long infuriating ordeal. The brash younger Englishman did not behave as he was supposed to. Rather than conducting himself like a gentleman, he behaved like a showman. He spoke when he should have listened. He interrupted when he should have deferred. How cheap!  How conceited! How insufferable! He was not an attractive dinner guest and would never be welcome at his table again.

And so the two giants of history met for dinner and parted ways, each left with a different aftertaste.

Lawrence J. Siskind is of counsel at Coblenz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP in San Francisco, where he specializes in intellectual property law.


[i] Andrew Roberts, in Churchill: Walking with Destiny, devotes three sentences to the event and its aftermath. (p. 78) William Manchester gives it one half of one sentence in his Churchill biography The Last Lion. (p. 331)  The dinner does not even merit a mention in Edmund Morris’s The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.

[ii] Richard Langworth, Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt, Finest Hour 163, Summer 2015 (February 8, 2015).

[iii] Robert H. Pilpel, Churchill in America 1895 – 1961, p. 38.

[iv] The Churchill Archives, December 21, 1900 Letter from Winston Churchill to Jennie Churchill, CHAR 28/26/77-79.

[v] Richard Langworth, op. cit.

[vi] The Churchill Archives, December 8, 1908 Letter from Whitelaw Reid to Winston Churchill, CHAR 2/36/33.

[vii] Richard Langworth, op.cit.

[viii] The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. II, The Years of Preparation 1898 – 1900, p. 1454.

[ix] The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. III, The Square Deal 1901 – 1903, pp. 116 – 117.

[x] Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge 1884 – 1918, Vol. II, pp. 231 -232.

[xi] Id., at 232.

[xii] The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. V, The Big Stick 1905 – 1907, p. 468.

[xiii] Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge 1884 – 1918, Vol. II, pp. 260 -261.

[xiv] The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. VI, The Big Stick 1905 – 1907, p. 1034. A carbon copy of the letter is in the Theodore Roosevelt Collection in the Library of Congress in Washington DC. The staff kindly made the carbon copy available to the author. It shows the underlining.

[xv] Id., at p. 1329.

[xvi] The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. VI, The Big Stick 1905 – 1907, p. 1467.

[xvii] Id., at p. 1465.

[xviii] Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge 1884 – 1918, Vol. II, p. 349.

[xix] The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. VII, The Days of Armageddon 1909 – 1914, p. 87.

[xx] Id., at p. 350.

[xxi] Id., at p. 406.

[xxii] Id., at p. 810.

[xxiii] Churchill had a habit of forgetting people, and two of them were Roosevelts. On July 29, 1918, during World War I, Churchill met the Assistant Secretary of the US Navy, Franklin Roosevelt, at a dinner in London. Twenty-three years later, on August 9, 1941, during World War II, the two men met again in Placentia Bay near the shore of Newfoundland. Franklin Roosevelt noted that the two had met before during the Great War, and referred to it as one of his “treasured recollections.” Churchill admitted that the event “had slipped his memory.” Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking With Destiny, p. 673.Fortunately for the cause of Allied cooperation, this particular President Roosevelt was not as easily offended as the earlier one.

[xxiv] Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, p. 331.

[xxv] Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking With Destiny, p. 31.

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Teddy Roosevelt and the “Rough Riders” in Cuba

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Cavalry Arms Of The American Revolution Mounted troops on both sides of the American War of Independence relied on the sword, the pistol and the longarm to bring their enemies into submission. by DON TROIANI

Cavalry Arms

Despite its great length and considerable weight by modern standards, longarms such as this British Model 1756 Light Dragoon Carbine (above) were slung along with one or a pair of pistols like the Elliot’s Pattern of 1759 Light Dragoon example (top) and a sword by such horsemen as this British Light Dragoon of the 17th Regiment.

When well-trained and equipped, a determined light horseman of the American Revolution was a fearsome combined-arms foe. The adroitness of a British Light Dragoon using all of his arms is impressively described by an eyewitness: “ … In passing near a thicket he was fired at by some of the Provincials; he instantly pretended to fall from his horse, hanging with head down to the ground, which the Light-Horse do with great ease. The Americans, four in number, supposing him killed, ran from their cover to seize their booty; but when they came within a few yards of him, the Light-Dragoon in an instant recovered his saddle, and with his carbine shot the first of them dead, he then drew his pistol and dispatched the second, and immediately attacked the other two with his sword who surrendered themselves his prisoners … .”

Mounted units were utilized heavily during the American Revolution, although not in the numbers or the grand, decisive, massed charges seen on the plains of Europe. More often than not, light horsemen were used as scouts on raiding parties, for foraging operations and as messengers or escorts. The walled, fenced and wooded terrain rarely permitted major mounted operations on the battlefield; despite some decisive charges at Cowpens in South Carolina and Guilford Court House in North Carolina, even those actions employed relatively small numbers. Indeed, the British sent only two regiments of Light Dragoons to fight in the colonies: the 16th (Queen’s) and the 17th. The 16th was drafted in 1778 and later returned to England, the British deciding to place more reliance on newly raised Loyalist horse units, such as the British Legion (Tarleton’s), Queen’s Rangers, Diemar’s Hussars and many others. Late in the war, they raised the King’s American Dragoons into which many of the smaller Loyalist mounted units were assimilated, though eventually that well-appointed and fine regiment ultimately saw little service. The Hessians contributed a company of mounted Jaegers, and there was also a regiment of Brunswick Dragoons that served mostly on foot but was equipped with carbines and broadswords.

French Model 1770 Dragoon Musket, French Model 1773 Cavalry Musketoon

Horsemen Under Arms
The sword was always considered the primary weapon for regular light cavalry, and the troops were often admonished not to break the impetus of the full-tilt saber charge by stopping to fire their pistols or carbines.

Pistols, however, were widely used and proved invaluable during close-quarters fighting. Generally, they were mounted across the pommel of the saddle with leather or bearskin flaps to keep them secure and dry and were instantly available to the rider. One of the most famous cavalry engagements of the war occurred at Cowpens. Near the end of the battle, renowned American cavalryman Col. William Washington, in a melee with British and Loyalist cavalry, found himself cornered with a broken sword. A British officer made a thrust at Washington when, “ … a boy, a waiter, who had not the strength to wield his sword, drew his pistol and shot and wounded this officer. Which disabled him … .” Moments later, Washington’s horse was killed by a pistol shot from another British trooper.

Loyalist Hussar of the Queen's Rangers

A Loyalist Hussar of the Queen’s Rangers armed with a Potter saber.

Not all pistols were carried in saddle holsters, as an account of one of Maj. John Graves Simcoe’s men with a Stockbridge Indian shows. “ … French, an active youth struck at an indian, but missed his blow: the man dragged him from his horse, and was searching for a knife to stab him, when, loosening French’s hand, he luckily drew out a pocket pistol, and shot the indian thru the head … .”

Good pistols were often in short supply on both sides. When Simcoe formed the small Hussar troop for his Loyalist Queen’s Rangers, he stated: “[T]he mounted men, termed Huzzars, were armed with a sword and such pistols as could bought or taken from the enemy … .” indicating that the British had none on hand to supply him with.

As a rule, a regular light horse trooper ideally carried a carbine in addition to a sword and one or two pistols mounted in saddle holsters. His carbine was slung from a broad leather sling over the shoulder and could quickly be brought up to firing position and then dropped down without loss after the shot. Some units, however, dispensed with the carbines altogether or could not get them. Even certain Loyalist mounted contingents were destitute of carbines and had to make do with shortened muskets. In August of 1781, The King’s “Carolina” Rangers Troop of Light Dragoons were issued “10 French Muskets cut short” and “45 British Muskets, cut short.”

Mounted irregulars and militia were armed with a hodgepodge of everything when it came to firearms. Infantry muskets, hunting guns and even rifles were in use by mounted men. A Patriot company of 56 mounted men raised in North Carolina during 1781 could only report having 15 pistols between them but were completely equipped with rifles, which were slung under the right arm with the muzzle in a leather socket attached to the stirrup. The pistol-armed recruits carried them hanging from a belted leather strap on the left side so as to be able to carry them when fighting dismounted. With rifles and sabers, these men were more on the order of what Europeans would term dragoons.

American trooper of Von Heer's Provost Light Dragoons

An American trooper of Von Heer’s Provost Light Dragoons, circa 1780-1781, equipped with a French Model 1763 pistol.

Cavalry In Action
A British officer aptly described the mounted Patriot militia in the South, “ … The crackers and militia in those parts of America are all mounted on horse-back … . When they chuse to fight, they dismount, and fasten their horses to the fences and rails; but if not very confident in the superiority of their numbers, they remain on horseback, give their fire, and retreat, which renders it useless to attack them without cavalry … .” One of accomplished partisan leader Francis Marion’s men wrote, ”from our prisoners in the late action, we got completely armed; a couple of English muskets, with bayonets and cartouche-boxes, to each of us … ,” and later on, “we got eighty-four stand of arms, chiefly English muskets and bayonets … .” On another occasion, when Marion’s horsemen were being pursued by some British Light Dragoons, “Scorning to fly from such a handful, some of my more resolute fellows, thirteen in number, faced about and very deliberately taking their aim at the enemy as they came up, gave them a spanker, which killed upwards of half their number … .”

The Loyalists fighting with the British were not much different. In 1782, Loyalist Benjamin Thompson commented on two troops of Tory South Carolina militia cavalry (which he called “Hussars”) commanded by Cunningham and Young. “The principal objects of the expedition were to practice the Cavalry in marching in Regular order in the Enemy’s Country, and to accustom them to act with the mounted militia, who will be very useful in covering our flanks. They are all armed with rifles as well as Swords, and are perhaps the best marksmen in the world for shooting on horse back … .” Being generally less adept or unfurnished with the saber, mounted irregulars on both sides often relied on firing their longarms from the saddle.

North Carolina Rifle Dragoon

A North Carolina Rifle Dragoon, circa 1780-1781, armed with a longrifle and a locally made, blacksmith-forged cavalry saber.

Equipping The Continental Cavalry
Arms of every sort were always wanting for the mounted arm of the Continental Cavalry. In 1777, Congress authorized four regular regiments of Light Dragoons, which rarely fielded more than 150 mounted personnel each. All four served throughout the entire war with detachments present in most the major campaigns. The 3rd Regiment commanded by Lt. Col. William Washington saw the most extensive service in the south and compiled a superb battle record. Supplementing these regiments were additional troops of light horse in mixed foot and horse legions, such as Armand’s, Lee’s and Pulaski’s. Acquiring appropriate cavalry firearms was even more of a problem for the Patriot forces.

Washington wrote:

Head Quarters, Valley fit out,April 29, 1778.
“Dear Sir: I received yours of the 21st. instant. I am as much at a loss as you can possibly be how to procure Arms for the Cavalry, there are 107 Carbines in Camp but no Swords or Pistols of any consequence. General Knox informs me, that the 1100 Carbines which came in to the Eastward and were said to be fit for Horsemen were only a lighter kind of Musket. I believe Cols. Baylor and Bland have procured Swords from Hunter’s Manufactory in Virginia, but I do not think it will be possible to get a sufficient Number of Pistols, except they are imported on purpose … ” and “By a letter from Colo. Moylan a few days ago, I find that his Regiment and Sheldon’s will want Arms, swords and pistols in particular, and as they are not to be obtained to the Northward, I beg you will engage all that you possibly can from Hunter.”

In November of 1778, a supply of 1,500 pairs of pistols, 250 carbines and six chests of sabers arrived from France, but this may have proved to be only a temporary fix, and a lack of everything dogged the cavalry throughout the war.

British Light Dragoon Saber

British Light Dragoon Saber


The Cavalry Saber

Any discussion of cavalry arms must at least touch on the most essential weapon of the horseman: his sword. Before 1788, the British had no universal patterns, each regiment choosing the style it favored. Sabers for the Loyalist Horse (sturdy but crude copies of the British sabers) were produced by James Potter in occupied New York City, and so many fell into the hands of the Patriots that Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee could boast the men of his unit were fully equipped with them. Massive broadswords of the Brunswick Dragoons surrendered at Saratoga in 1777 were issued to the 2nd Continental Light Dragoons who liked the beefy, iron-mounted wooden scabbards. James Hunter at the Rappahannock Forge in Virginia also produced an iron-mounted saber based on a captured British specimen. A number of brass-hilted sabers from France supplied to Virginia also helped to supplement the other sources.

Brunswick Dragoon Sword, James Potter-Made Loyalist Saber, American Rappahannock Forge Saber

Cavalry Pistols & Carbines
While many other varieties of arms may have been used, due to a lack of space, only the principal types will be discussed here. The primary British pistols were the Elliot’s Pattern (with a 9″ barrel) and possibly some of the Royal Foresters Pattern. Specimens of the Elliot marked to both the 16th and 17th regiments have been found, and the American-made Rappahannock Forge pistol is a very close copy of it.

Modest numbers of French military pistols were also available to the Colonial forces, and these were primarily the 1733, 1763/66 and possibly some of 1777 patterns. Some more rudimentary local gunsmith products were also put into service but probably constituted a fraction of the various types used. Officers often carried much higher-quality pistols, sometimes silver-mounted, which they either purchased with their own funds or obtained through capture.

French Model 1733 Pistol, French Model 1763 Pistol, American Rappahannock Forge Pistol, American-Made "Bailey" Pistol

The Continental Dragoons used what carbines they could get, whether through captures from the British, locally made arms or a few supplied by the French. There is at least one Model 1733 French Carbine branded “United States,” and parts of the 1766/70 Model Dragoon Fusil have also been excavated in American campsites. Small numbers of pistols were also produced, the most notable being those made at the Hunter Works at Rappahannock Forge in Virginia.

While not employed in the same numbers or a manner typical of traditional 18th-century warfare, cavalry played important roles on both sides of the American Revolution. Many prominent personalities of the war served in cavalry units, such as Banastre Tarleton of the 16th Light Dragoons, later commander the Loyalist British Legion, who famously captured Gen. Charles Lee in December of 1776. Major Benjamin Tallmadge of the 2nd Continental Light Dragoons became Gen. George Washington’s trusted spymaster, and his unit earned the nickname of “Washington’s Eyes” due to their intelligence-gathering activities. “Light Horse Harry” Lee became one of the most famous cavalrymen in the Continental Army, heading up his own Lee’s Legion to great success throughout the war. A look at the American Revolution is incomplete without understanding the horsemen who fought it and the arms they carried.

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Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad This great Nation & Its People

Go & have a Great 4th of July as it has been paid for already!

Samuel Whittemore was an American farmer and soldier. He was 78 years old when he became the oldest known colonial combatant in the American Revolutionary War.

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This great Nation & Its People You have to be kidding, right!?!

But what a group of 55!

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Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad I am so grateful!! Leadership of the highest kind Manly Stuff One Hell of a Good Fight Real men Soldiering The Green Machine This great Nation & Its People War Well I thought it was neat!

Pat Tillman: Portrait of an American Hero by WILL DABBS

Behold the face of the real Captain America. Pat Tillman was a genuine hero.

Politicians refer to themselves as public servants. Swamp creatures like Joe Biden will extol their many decades of employment in Washington DC as though they had been some kind of galley slave toiling away on an Athenian man o’ war. I have actually met a couple of those guys. Their idea of selfless service does not quite match my own.

I wouldn’t pee on these guys if they were on fire.

American legislators spend money like drunken sailors. Actually, that’s not true. Drunken sailors couldn’t even begin to burn cash in as profligate a manner as might your typical freshman congressman. They’ve raised wasting money to an art form.

Hanging with a group of US Congressmen for a week back in the 1990s soured me on the American political system forever.

You think I’m kidding. Back when I was a soldier I spent a week as a local liaison officer for a group of congressmen on a fact-finding mission after the First Gulf War. It was amazing just watching them eat. They’d go to the nicest restaurant in town and order one of anything they might be curious about. Then they swapped plates around so everybody got a taste. One of my several duties was to scurry back and forth to the Officers’ Club cashing $500 government traveler’s checks to pay for it all. It was surreal.

I willingly voted for both of these people. However, I don’t trust anybody in Washington DC. If you weren’t broken before you got there, you were after you’ve been there a while.

Everybody in DC has sold their soul to somebody. I’ll champion the folks on my side of the aisle in the vain hope that they might someday just leave me the heck alone, but they are all irredeemably corrupt. The system perpetuates itself. It will never get better.

This is Pat and Kevin Tillman. They were both real public servants.

On May 31, 2002, Pat Tillman and his brother Kevin walked into a local recruiting office and enlisted in the US Army. Pat walked away from a $3.6 million professional football contract and Lord knows what else so he could serve his country in the immediate aftermath of 911. Pat Tillman’s story is that of a conflicted man and a horribly flawed system. However, his is a tale of epic sacrifice and genuine selfless service.

Origin Story

Pat Tillman excelled at everything he touched.

Pat Tillman was the eldest of three sons born to Patrick and Mary Tillman in Fremont, California. By NFL standards, Tillman was not a terribly big man. He stood 5’11” and weighed 202 pounds when dressed out as a safety for the Arizona Cardinals. Pat personified the axiom, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

That is one seriously intense guidon bearer.

In high school Tillman preferred baseball, but he failed to make the team as a freshman. At that point, he turned his attention to the gridiron. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, Pat was powerfully close to his friends and family. He married his childhood sweetheart just before he enlisted in the Army. He and his brother Kevin enlisted together, trained together, and were eventually both assigned to the 2d Ranger Battalion based at Fort Lewis, Washington.

Pat Tillman really came into his own as a college football player.

Pat Tillman attended Arizona State University on a football scholarship and excelled as a linebacker. An exceptionally deep young man, Tillman was well read and made good grades. He maintained a 3.85 GPA in marketing and graduated in 3.5 years despite the rigors of starting on his college football team.

Pat Tillman had everything the world could offer, yet he gave it all up to serve his country.

Pat thrived in the NFL. Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman named Tillman to the 2000 NFL All-Pro team based upon his stellar performance as a defensive player. He turned down a $9 million offer to move to the St. Louis Rams out of loyalty to his Arizona team.

Once he completed his 2001 NFL contract Pat Tillman enlisted in the US Army.

Eight months after the 911 attacks and with the remainder of his 15 games completed from his 2001 contract, Pat Tillman left $3.6 million on the table to go to Army basic training alongside his brother. Pat’s brother Kevin gave up a burgeoning career in minor league baseball for the same path. These two men put their love of country ahead of the sorts of things the rest of us would just about kill for.

There’s really no telling how far Pat Tillman might have gone in life.

Appreciate the details here. I’m a happily married hetero man, and even I admit that Pat Tillman was an exceptionally good-looking guy. Intelligent, articulate, and well-educated, Tillman had the world by the tail. Once his time in the NFL was complete Pat Tillman could have easily parlayed his gifts and experiences into a career on television or in Hollywood. Instead, he opted for the Ranger Regiment.

The Rangers have an undeniably sexy cool mission. However, life in a Ranger Battalion is unimaginably grueling. The Ranger Regiment is the only unit in the Army to have been deployed continuously throughout the Global War on Terror.

I was an Army aviator, but I worked with those guys on occasion. Theirs was an absolutely miserable life. Junior enlisted soldiers don’t get paid beans, and the optempo in the Ranger Battalions is utterly grueling. In less than two years on active duty, Pat Tillman completed basic training and AIT as well as the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program. He was deployed to Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom in September of 2003 after which he attended Ranger School at Fort Benning. Once a fully tabbed Ranger, he returned to Second Bat at Lewis and deployed to Afghanistan where he was based at FOB Salerno.

It’s easy to sit back in the comfort of our living rooms and lose track of exactly what this stuff costs.

Up until this point, Pat Tillman was the US Army’s poster child. An American superhero with a face right out of central casting, Tillman’s story could not have been any more compelling had it been drafted by an action novelist. Then Something Truly Horrible happened.

The Incident

Combat is not the clean sanitary thing Call of Duty might have us believe. The reality is vicious, messy, and sad.

Combat is an ugly, filthy, chaotic thing. It is seldom as tidy or predictable as the movies and sand table exercises depict it to be. On April 22, 2004, the fog of war claimed a genuine American hero.

Even today nobody really knows exactly what happened to Pat Tillman’s mounted patrol.

On a forgotten road leading from the Afghan village of Sperah about 40 klicks outside of Khost, Pat Tillman’s small HUMVEE-mounted patrol ran into trouble. Their mission that day was to retrieve a disabled HUMVEE. This tale is made all the more tragic in that we abandoned tens of thousands of these vehicles when we fled Afghanistan recently. The details are fiercely debated to this day, but here is the official description.

Pat and his fellow Rangers moved on foot to support the element they thought was in contact.

Tillman was in the lead vehicle designated Serial 1. Serial 1 passed through a mountainous pass and was roughly one kilometer ahead of Serial 2, the following HUMVEE. At that point, Serial 2 was purportedly engaged by hostile forces.

It was chaotic, and the situation was confusing. The end result was a tragedy.

Upon hearing of the ambush, the Rangers in Serial 1 dismounted and made their way on foot back toward an overwatch position where they could provide supporting fires for Serial 2. In the resulting chaos, the Rangers of Serial 2 lost touch with the specific location of the lead Rangers. In the violent exchange of fire that followed Tillman’s Platoon Leader and his RTO (Radio Telephone Operator) were wounded. An allied member of the Afghan Militia Force was killed. Pat Tillman caught three 5.56mm rounds from an M249 SAW to the face from a range of 10 meters and died instantly.

The Weapon

The original FN Minimi was a fairly revolutionary weapon.

First introduced in 1984, the Belgian-designed M249 Squad Automatic Weapon was an Americanized version of the FN Minimi. An open-bolt, gas-operated design, the M249 was conceived to provide the Infantry squad with a portable source of high-volume, belt-fed automatic fire. The M249 has seen action in every major military engagement since the US invasion of Panama in 1989.

In its most evolved state, the M249 is a mature and effective combat weapon.

The M249 weighs 17 pounds empty and 22 pounds with a basic load of 200 linked rounds. The weapon fires from an open bolt and features a quick-change barrel system. The gun will feed on either disintegrating linked belts or standard STANAG M4 magazines. In my experience, the magazine feed system was never terribly reliable.

This Ranger is wielding a Mk 46 in an overwatch position.

USSOCOM adopted a lighter, more streamlined version of the M249 titled the Mk46 for use with special operations forces. The M4 magazine well, vehicle mounting lugs, and barrel change handle were all removed on the Mk 46 to save weight. The USMC has aggressively supplemented their rifle squads with the HK M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle in lieu of many of their SAWs. These weapons are currently issued at a ratio of 27 IARs and 6 SAWs per rifle company. The Next Generation Squad Weapon-Automatic Rifle program is tasked with finding a suitable replacement for the aging M249’s in the Army inventory.

The Rest of the Story

The sordid circumstances surrounding his death sullied the story that the Army wanted told.

What happened next was a blight on the US Army. To have Pat Tillman, the real live Captain America killed due to friendly fire in a botched combat operation was not the story the Army wanted pushed. As a result, several senior Army officers moved to massage the narrative and outright suppress the story to both the media and the Tillman family. The end result was an absolutely ghastly mess.

Pat Tillman earned a posthumous Silver Star for his actions in Afghanistan. He has been rightfully revered as an American hero.

There were allegations that Tillman, by now disillusioned with the war in Iraq, was about to offer an interview with controversial activist Noam Chomsky upon his return from his Afghanistan deployment that would be critical of the Bush Administration.

As Tillman’s death occurred in a crucial time leading up to the 2004 Presidential elections conspiracy theorists even proposed that he had been intentionally murdered. However, interviews with his fellow Rangers verified that Tillman was a popular and selfless member of the team. In the final analysis, it all seems to have been a truly horrible mistake. After several investigations undertaken by the military, three mid-level Army leaders purportedly received administrative punishment as a result.

The bond among these guys in combat is as strong as it gets.

A word on the conspiracies. Soldiers don’t fight for mom, apple pie, and America. They fight for each other. There’s just no way you could get a Ranger to intentionally shoot another Ranger to protect the reputation of a sitting President. This was simply a horrible accident.

Pat Tillman gave his life for his country at age 27.

The sordid circumstances surrounding the death of Pat Tillman in no way diminish the truly breathtaking scope of the man’s patriotism and sacrifice. Tillman was an avowed atheist throughout his life. After his funeral, his youngest brother Richard asserted, “Just make no mistake, he’d want me to say this: He’s not with God, he’s f&%ing dead, he’s not religious.” Richard added, “Thanks for your thoughts, but he’s f&%in’ dead.” It was an undeniably strange end for a genuine American hero.

Marie Tillman has gone on to a remarkable life of service after the death of her husband.

Soldiers in combat will often pen a “just in case” letter to be opened in the event of their death. Pat’s note to his wife Marie said, “Through the years I’ve asked a great deal of you, therefore it should surprise you little that I have another favor to ask. I ask that you live.”

Marie Tillman has ably continued her husband’s legacy of selflessness.

And live she did. Marie Tillman today is Chairman and Co-Founder of The Pat Tillman Foundation. This non-profit works to “unite and empower remarkable military service members, veterans, and spouses as the next generation of public and private sector leaders committed to service beyond self.” The Foundation has sponsored 635 Tillman Scholars and invested some $18 million in philanthropy. Marie has since remarried and is the mother of five children.