Don't Tread on Me: A 400-Year History of America at War, from Indian Fighting to Terrorist Hunting• Did America win its independence because British generals were too busy canoodling with their mistresses? • Should America have annexed Mexico—all of it—and Cuba too? • Did 1776 justify Southern secession in the nineteenth century? • Should Patton have been promoted over Eisenhower? • Did the U.S. military win—and Congress lose—the Vietnam War? • Was it right to depose Saddam Hussein—and is it wrong to worry about a possible Iraqi civil war? The answer to these questions is a resounding yes, says author H. W. Crocker III in this stirring and contrarian new book. In Don’t Tread on Me, Crocker unfolds four hundred years of American military history, revealing how Americans were born Indian fighters whose military prowess carved out first a continental and then a global empire—a Pax Americana that has been a benefit to the world. From the seventeenth century on, he argues, Americans have shown a jealous regard for their freedom—and have backed it up with an unheralded skill in small-unit combat operations, a tradition that includes Rogers’ Rangers, Merrill’s Marauders, and today’s Special Forces. He shows that Americans were born to the foam too, with a mastery of naval gunnery and tactics that allowed America’s Navy, even in its infancy, to defeat French and British warships and expand American commerce on the seas. Most of all, Crocker highlights the courage of the dogface infantry, the fighting leathernecks, and the daring sailors and airmen who have turned the tide of battle again and again. In Don’t Tread on Me, still forests are suddenly pierced by the Rebel Yell and a surge of grey. Teddy Roosevelt’s spectacles flash in the sunlight as he leads his Rough Riders charging up San Juan Hill. American doughboys rip into close-quarters combat against the Germans. Marines drive the Japanese out of their island fortresses using flamethrowers, grenades, and guts. GIs slug their way into Hitler’s Germany. The long twilight struggle against communism is fought in the snows of Korea and the steaming jungles of Vietnam. And today, U.S. Navy SEALs and U.S. Army Rangers battle Islamist terrorists in the bleak mountains of Afghanistan, just as their forebears fought Barbary pirates two hundred years ago. Fast-paced and riveting, Don’t Tread on Me is a bold look at the history of America at war. Also available as an eBook |
Contents
PROLOGUE The Summons of the Trumpet | 1 |
The Gentle Art of Scalping | 5 |
Wolfes Triumph and Pontiacs Rebellion | 22 |
Disperse Ye Rebels | 38 |
From 1776 to Valley Forge | 53 |
The World Turned Upside Down | 66 |
The Founders Foreign Entanglements | 75 |
Madisons Wars | 90 |
But Westward Look The Land Is Bright | 228 |
Half Devil and Half Child | 244 |
Come On You Sons of Bitches Do You Want to Live Forever? | 253 |
A World Made Safe for War | 270 |
Infamy | 287 |
The Great Crusade | 306 |
Another Marine Reporting for Duty Sir Ive Spent My Time in Hell | 320 |
Retreat HellWere Just Attacking in Another Direction | 337 |
The Guns of Old Hickory | 101 |
The Emerging Colossus | 116 |
Military Holiday in Mexico | 130 |
Wrecking the Furniture | 149 |
War Is Cruelty You Cannot Refine It | 165 |
War Means Fighting and Fighting Means Killing | 176 |
For Every Southern Boy Its Still Not Yet Two OClock on That July Afternoon in 1863 | 190 |
The Satisfaction That Proceeds from the Consciousness of Duty Faithfully Performed | 210 |
The Long Twilight Struggle | 358 |
America Resurgent | 381 |
EPILOGUE Go Tell the Spartans | 398 |
NOTES | 400 |
431 | |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 441 |
442 | |
Other editions - View all
Don't Tread on Me: A 400-Year History of America at War, from Indian ... H. W. Crocker Limited preview - 2024 |
Don't Tread on Me: A 400-Year History of America at War, from Indian ... H. W. Crocker No preview available - 2024 |
Common terms and phrases
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