A Nasty Little War

A Nasty Little War

Author: Anna Reid

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2024-02-06

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 154161965X

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The first comprehensive history of the failed Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War, a decisive turning point in the relationship between Russia and the West Overlapping with and overshadowed by the First World War, the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War was one of the most ambitious military ventures of the twentieth century. Launched in the summer of 1918, it drew in 180,000 troops from fifteen different countries in theaters ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic, and from Poland to the Pacific. Though little remembered today, its consequences stoked global political turmoil for decades to come. In A Nasty Little War, top Russia historian Anna Reid offers a sweeping and deeply researched account of the conflict. Initially launched to prevent Germany from exploiting the power vacuum in Eastern Europe left by the Russian Revolution, the Intervention morphed into a bid to destroy the Bolsheviks on the battlefield. But Allied armaments, supplies, and loans could not prevent Russia’s anti-Bolshevik armies from collapsing, and the Allies were forced to retreat in defeat. The humiliation sapped British imperial swagger, chastened American idealism, and stoked militarism and nationalism in France and Germany. Combining immersive storytelling with deep research, A Nasty Little War reveals how the Allied Intervention reshaped the West’s relations with Russia, and set a pattern for other interventions to come.


Book Synopsis A Nasty Little War by : Anna Reid

Download or read book A Nasty Little War written by Anna Reid and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2024-02-06 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive history of the failed Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War, a decisive turning point in the relationship between Russia and the West Overlapping with and overshadowed by the First World War, the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War was one of the most ambitious military ventures of the twentieth century. Launched in the summer of 1918, it drew in 180,000 troops from fifteen different countries in theaters ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic, and from Poland to the Pacific. Though little remembered today, its consequences stoked global political turmoil for decades to come. In A Nasty Little War, top Russia historian Anna Reid offers a sweeping and deeply researched account of the conflict. Initially launched to prevent Germany from exploiting the power vacuum in Eastern Europe left by the Russian Revolution, the Intervention morphed into a bid to destroy the Bolsheviks on the battlefield. But Allied armaments, supplies, and loans could not prevent Russia’s anti-Bolshevik armies from collapsing, and the Allies were forced to retreat in defeat. The humiliation sapped British imperial swagger, chastened American idealism, and stoked militarism and nationalism in France and Germany. Combining immersive storytelling with deep research, A Nasty Little War reveals how the Allied Intervention reshaped the West’s relations with Russia, and set a pattern for other interventions to come.

A Nasty Little War

A Nasty Little War

Author: Anna Reid

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2023-11-09

Total Pages: 506

ISBN-13: 1529326796

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'Brilliantly depicts a disastrous failure' Antony Beevor 'Witty and elegant . . . Excellent background to today's events' Anne Applebaum 'Britain's most forgotten war, brilliantly remembered' Simon Jenkins 'Vivid and remarkably timely' Martin Sixsmith From the bestselling author of Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine The extraordinary story of how the West tried to reverse the Russian Revolution. In the closing months of the First World War, Britain, America, France and Japan sent arms and 180,000 soldiers to Russia, with the aim of tipping the balance in her post-revolutionary Civil War. From Central Asia to the Arctic and from Poland to the Pacific, they joined anti-Bolshevik forces in trying to overthrow the new men in the Kremlin, in an astonishingly ambitious military adventure known as the Intervention. Fresh, in the case of the British, from the trenches, they found themselves in a mobile, multi-sided conflict as different as possible from the grim stasis of the Western Front. Criss-crossing the shattered Russian empire in trains, sleds and paddlesteamers, they bivouacked in snowbound cabins and Kirghiz yurts, torpedoed Red battleships from speedboats, improvised new currencies and the world's first air-dropped chemical weapons, got caught up in mass retreats and a typhus epidemic, organised several coups and at least one assassination. Taking tea with warlords and princesses, they also turned a blind eye to their Russian allies' numerous atrocities. Two years later they left again, filing glumly back onto their troopships as port after port fell to the Red Army. Later, American veterans compared the humiliation to Vietnam, and the politicians and generals responsible preferred to trivialise or forget. Drawing on previously unused diaries, letters and memoirs, A Nasty Little War brings an episode with echoes down the century since vividly to life.


Book Synopsis A Nasty Little War by : Anna Reid

Download or read book A Nasty Little War written by Anna Reid and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2023-11-09 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Brilliantly depicts a disastrous failure' Antony Beevor 'Witty and elegant . . . Excellent background to today's events' Anne Applebaum 'Britain's most forgotten war, brilliantly remembered' Simon Jenkins 'Vivid and remarkably timely' Martin Sixsmith From the bestselling author of Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine The extraordinary story of how the West tried to reverse the Russian Revolution. In the closing months of the First World War, Britain, America, France and Japan sent arms and 180,000 soldiers to Russia, with the aim of tipping the balance in her post-revolutionary Civil War. From Central Asia to the Arctic and from Poland to the Pacific, they joined anti-Bolshevik forces in trying to overthrow the new men in the Kremlin, in an astonishingly ambitious military adventure known as the Intervention. Fresh, in the case of the British, from the trenches, they found themselves in a mobile, multi-sided conflict as different as possible from the grim stasis of the Western Front. Criss-crossing the shattered Russian empire in trains, sleds and paddlesteamers, they bivouacked in snowbound cabins and Kirghiz yurts, torpedoed Red battleships from speedboats, improvised new currencies and the world's first air-dropped chemical weapons, got caught up in mass retreats and a typhus epidemic, organised several coups and at least one assassination. Taking tea with warlords and princesses, they also turned a blind eye to their Russian allies' numerous atrocities. Two years later they left again, filing glumly back onto their troopships as port after port fell to the Red Army. Later, American veterans compared the humiliation to Vietnam, and the politicians and generals responsible preferred to trivialise or forget. Drawing on previously unused diaries, letters and memoirs, A Nasty Little War brings an episode with echoes down the century since vividly to life.

A Nasty Little War

A Nasty Little War

Author: Michael F. Page

Publisher:

Published: 1979

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 9780709177449

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Book Synopsis A Nasty Little War by : Michael F. Page

Download or read book A Nasty Little War written by Michael F. Page and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

War Comes to Garmser

War Comes to Garmser

Author: Carter Malkasian

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 019997375X

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If you want to understand Afghanistan, writes Carter Malkasian, you need to understand what has happened on the ground, in the villages and countryside that were on the frontline. These small places are the heart of the war. Modeled on the classic Vietnam War book, War Comes to Long An, Malkasian's War Comes to Garmser promises to be a landmark account of the war in Afghanistan. The author, who spent nearly two years in Garmser, a community in war-torn Helmand province, tells the story of this one small place through the jihad, the rise and fall of Taliban regimes, and American and British surge. Based on his conversations with hundreds of Afghans, including government officials, tribal leaders, religious leaders, and over forty Taliban, and drawing on extensive primary source material, Malkasian takes readers into the world of the Afghans. Through their feuds, grievances, beliefs, and way of life, Malkasian shows how the people of Garmser have struggled for three decades through brutal wars and short-lived regimes. Beginning with the victorious but destabilizing jihad against the Soviets and the ensuing civil war, he explains how the Taliban movement formed; how, after being routed in 2001, they returned stronger than ever in 2006; and how Afghans, British, and Americans fought with them thereafter. Above all, he describes the lives of Afghans who endured and tried to build some kind of order out of war. While Americans and British came and went, Afghans carried on, year after year. Afghanistan started out as the good war, the war we fought for the right reasons. Now for many it seems a futile military endeavor, costly and unwinnable. War Comes to Garmser offers a fresh, original perspective on this war, one that will redefine how we look at Afghanistan and at modern war in general.


Book Synopsis War Comes to Garmser by : Carter Malkasian

Download or read book War Comes to Garmser written by Carter Malkasian and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you want to understand Afghanistan, writes Carter Malkasian, you need to understand what has happened on the ground, in the villages and countryside that were on the frontline. These small places are the heart of the war. Modeled on the classic Vietnam War book, War Comes to Long An, Malkasian's War Comes to Garmser promises to be a landmark account of the war in Afghanistan. The author, who spent nearly two years in Garmser, a community in war-torn Helmand province, tells the story of this one small place through the jihad, the rise and fall of Taliban regimes, and American and British surge. Based on his conversations with hundreds of Afghans, including government officials, tribal leaders, religious leaders, and over forty Taliban, and drawing on extensive primary source material, Malkasian takes readers into the world of the Afghans. Through their feuds, grievances, beliefs, and way of life, Malkasian shows how the people of Garmser have struggled for three decades through brutal wars and short-lived regimes. Beginning with the victorious but destabilizing jihad against the Soviets and the ensuing civil war, he explains how the Taliban movement formed; how, after being routed in 2001, they returned stronger than ever in 2006; and how Afghans, British, and Americans fought with them thereafter. Above all, he describes the lives of Afghans who endured and tried to build some kind of order out of war. While Americans and British came and went, Afghans carried on, year after year. Afghanistan started out as the good war, the war we fought for the right reasons. Now for many it seems a futile military endeavor, costly and unwinnable. War Comes to Garmser offers a fresh, original perspective on this war, one that will redefine how we look at Afghanistan and at modern war in general.

A Dirty War

A Dirty War

Author: Анна Политковская

Publisher: Harvill Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13:

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The Chechen War was supposed to be over in 1996 after the first Yeltsin campaign, but in the summer of 1999, the new Putin government decided, in their own words, to 'do the job properly'. Before all the bodies of those who had died in the first campaign had been located or identified, many more thousands would be slaughtered in another round of fighting. The first account to be written by a Russian woman, A Dirty War is an edgy and intense study of a conflict that shows no sign of being resolved. Exasperated by the Russian government's attempt to manipulate media coverage of the war, journalist Anna Politkovskaya undertook to go to Chechnya, to make regular reports and keep events in the public eye. In a series of despatches from July 1999 to January 2001 she vividly describes the atrocities and abuses of war, whether it be the corruption endemic in post-Communist Russia, in particular the government and the military, or the spurious arguments and abominable behaviour of the Chechen authorities. In these courageous reports, Politkovskaya excoriates male stupidity and brutality on both sides of the conflict and interviews the civilians whose homes and communities have been laid waste, leaving them nowhere to live, and nothing and no one to believe in.


Book Synopsis A Dirty War by : Анна Политковская

Download or read book A Dirty War written by Анна Политковская and published by Harvill Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chechen War was supposed to be over in 1996 after the first Yeltsin campaign, but in the summer of 1999, the new Putin government decided, in their own words, to 'do the job properly'. Before all the bodies of those who had died in the first campaign had been located or identified, many more thousands would be slaughtered in another round of fighting. The first account to be written by a Russian woman, A Dirty War is an edgy and intense study of a conflict that shows no sign of being resolved. Exasperated by the Russian government's attempt to manipulate media coverage of the war, journalist Anna Politkovskaya undertook to go to Chechnya, to make regular reports and keep events in the public eye. In a series of despatches from July 1999 to January 2001 she vividly describes the atrocities and abuses of war, whether it be the corruption endemic in post-Communist Russia, in particular the government and the military, or the spurious arguments and abominable behaviour of the Chechen authorities. In these courageous reports, Politkovskaya excoriates male stupidity and brutality on both sides of the conflict and interviews the civilians whose homes and communities have been laid waste, leaving them nowhere to live, and nothing and no one to believe in.

The US Military Profession into the 21st Century

The US Military Profession into the 21st Century

Author: Sam Sarkesian

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-04-18

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1134244681

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This brand new edition of The US Military Profession into the Twenty-First Century re-examines the challenges faced by the military profession in the aftermath of the international terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. While many of the issues facing the military profession examined in the first edition remain, the 'new war' and international terrorism have compounded the challenges. The US military must respond to the changed domestic and strategic landscapes without diminishing its primary function—a function that now many see that goes beyond success on the battlefield. Not only has this complicated the problem of reconciling the military professional ethos and raison d’etre with civilian control in a democracy, it challenges traditional military professionalism. This book also studies the notion of a US military stretched thin and relying more heavily on the US Federal Reserves and National Guard. These developments make the US military profession increasingly linked to public attitudes and political perspectives. In sum, the challenge faced by the US military profession can be termed a dual dilemma. It must respond effectively to the twenty-first century strategic landscape while undergoing the revolution in military affairs and transformation. At the same time, the military profession must insure that it remains compatible with civilian cultures and the US political-social system without eroding its primary function. This is an invaluable book for all students with an interest in the US Military, and of strategic studies and military history in general.


Book Synopsis The US Military Profession into the 21st Century by : Sam Sarkesian

Download or read book The US Military Profession into the 21st Century written by Sam Sarkesian and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-04-18 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This brand new edition of The US Military Profession into the Twenty-First Century re-examines the challenges faced by the military profession in the aftermath of the international terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. While many of the issues facing the military profession examined in the first edition remain, the 'new war' and international terrorism have compounded the challenges. The US military must respond to the changed domestic and strategic landscapes without diminishing its primary function—a function that now many see that goes beyond success on the battlefield. Not only has this complicated the problem of reconciling the military professional ethos and raison d’etre with civilian control in a democracy, it challenges traditional military professionalism. This book also studies the notion of a US military stretched thin and relying more heavily on the US Federal Reserves and National Guard. These developments make the US military profession increasingly linked to public attitudes and political perspectives. In sum, the challenge faced by the US military profession can be termed a dual dilemma. It must respond effectively to the twenty-first century strategic landscape while undergoing the revolution in military affairs and transformation. At the same time, the military profession must insure that it remains compatible with civilian cultures and the US political-social system without eroding its primary function. This is an invaluable book for all students with an interest in the US Military, and of strategic studies and military history in general.

Civil War Blunders

Civil War Blunders

Author: Clint Johnson

Publisher: Blair

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13:

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There was little funny about a war in which 620,000 humans died. But it was finding humor amid devastation that kept Civil War soldiers marching toward the enemy. Union or Confederate, those in command proved adept at making mistakes. Many leaders were drunkards, couldn't speak English, didn't know a cannon's breech from its muzzle. Among the galleries of heroes were: Colonel Edward Baker, who told his Federals to follow the plume of his hat if they wanted to find war--and sent them over a cliff in a panicked retreat; General Felix Zollicoffer, who wore a white raincoat so opposing Federals could see him--but not his eyeglasses so he could see them; Thomas Selfridge of the Union navy, who "found two torpedoes and removed them by placing his vessel over them"; Colonel Alfred Rhett, a captured Southern blue blood whose fancy boots proved too small for every Union officer who coveted them; rum-drinking James Ledlie and dance-instructing Edward Ferrero, generals who kept each other company in a Union bombproof while their men faced slaughter. From Fort Sumter to Appomattox, Civil War Blunders traces the war according to its amusing, often deadly miscues. Lurking behind every significant action, as readers will discover, was someone with a red face. Clint Johnson is a native of Fish Branch, Florida, who has written eight books about the Civil War, as well as biographies and newspaper and magazine articles. He received his journalism degree from the University of Florida, and now lives in North Carolina.


Book Synopsis Civil War Blunders by : Clint Johnson

Download or read book Civil War Blunders written by Clint Johnson and published by Blair. This book was released on 1997 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There was little funny about a war in which 620,000 humans died. But it was finding humor amid devastation that kept Civil War soldiers marching toward the enemy. Union or Confederate, those in command proved adept at making mistakes. Many leaders were drunkards, couldn't speak English, didn't know a cannon's breech from its muzzle. Among the galleries of heroes were: Colonel Edward Baker, who told his Federals to follow the plume of his hat if they wanted to find war--and sent them over a cliff in a panicked retreat; General Felix Zollicoffer, who wore a white raincoat so opposing Federals could see him--but not his eyeglasses so he could see them; Thomas Selfridge of the Union navy, who "found two torpedoes and removed them by placing his vessel over them"; Colonel Alfred Rhett, a captured Southern blue blood whose fancy boots proved too small for every Union officer who coveted them; rum-drinking James Ledlie and dance-instructing Edward Ferrero, generals who kept each other company in a Union bombproof while their men faced slaughter. From Fort Sumter to Appomattox, Civil War Blunders traces the war according to its amusing, often deadly miscues. Lurking behind every significant action, as readers will discover, was someone with a red face. Clint Johnson is a native of Fish Branch, Florida, who has written eight books about the Civil War, as well as biographies and newspaper and magazine articles. He received his journalism degree from the University of Florida, and now lives in North Carolina.

The Splendid Little War

The Splendid Little War

Author: Frank Freidel

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9781580800938

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Indeed it was splendid for the American public, but for the Rough Riders and other soldiers it was as grim, dirty, and bloody as any other war.


Book Synopsis The Splendid Little War by : Frank Freidel

Download or read book The Splendid Little War written by Frank Freidel and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indeed it was splendid for the American public, but for the Rough Riders and other soldiers it was as grim, dirty, and bloody as any other war.

Walt Whitman and the Civil War

Walt Whitman and the Civil War

Author: Ted Genoways

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-11-10

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0520943082

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Shortly after the third edition of Leaves of Grass was published, in 1860, Walt Whitman seemed to drop off the literary map, not to emerge again until his brother George was wounded at Fredericksburg two and a half years later. Past critics have tended to read this silence as evidence of Whitman's indifference to the Civil War during its critical early months. In this penetrating, original, and beautifully written book, Ted Genoways reconstructs those forgotten years—locating Whitman directly through unpublished letters and never-before-seen manuscripts, as well as mapping his associations through rare period newspapers and magazines in which he published. Genoways's account fills a major gap in Whitman's biography and debunks the myth that Whitman was unaffected by the country's march to war. Instead, Walt Whitman and the Civil War reveals the poet's active participation in the early Civil War period and elucidates his shock at the horrors of war months before his legendary journey to Fredericksburg, correcting in part the poet's famous assertion that the "real war will never get in the books."


Book Synopsis Walt Whitman and the Civil War by : Ted Genoways

Download or read book Walt Whitman and the Civil War written by Ted Genoways and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortly after the third edition of Leaves of Grass was published, in 1860, Walt Whitman seemed to drop off the literary map, not to emerge again until his brother George was wounded at Fredericksburg two and a half years later. Past critics have tended to read this silence as evidence of Whitman's indifference to the Civil War during its critical early months. In this penetrating, original, and beautifully written book, Ted Genoways reconstructs those forgotten years—locating Whitman directly through unpublished letters and never-before-seen manuscripts, as well as mapping his associations through rare period newspapers and magazines in which he published. Genoways's account fills a major gap in Whitman's biography and debunks the myth that Whitman was unaffected by the country's march to war. Instead, Walt Whitman and the Civil War reveals the poet's active participation in the early Civil War period and elucidates his shock at the horrors of war months before his legendary journey to Fredericksburg, correcting in part the poet's famous assertion that the "real war will never get in the books."

Desperate Engagement

Desperate Engagement

Author: Marc Leepson

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2008-06-10

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780312382230

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Marc Leepson, critically acclaimed author of Flag: An American Biography, examines the Battle of Monocacy---a crucial and singular moment in the Civil War---with his trademark historical detail and enlivening voice The Battle of Monocacy, which took place four miles south of Frederick, Maryland on a blisteringly hot day in 1864, was a full-field engagement between some 12,000 battle-hardened Confederate troops led by the controversial Jubal Anderson Early, and some 5,800 Union troops, many of them untested in battle, under the mercurial Lew Wallace. When the fighting ended, Early had routed Wallace in the northernmost Confederate victory of the war. Two days later, on another brutally hot afternoon, the foul-mouthed, hard-drinking Early sat astride his horse outside the gates of Fort Stevens in the upper northwestern fringe of Washington, D.C. He was about to make one of the war's most fateful, portentous decisions: whether or not to order his men to invade the nation's capital. Once manned by tens of thousands of experienced troops, Washington's ring of forts and fortifications that day were in the hands of a ragtag collection of walking wounded Union soldiers, the Veteran Reserve Corps, along with what were known as hundred days' men---raw recruits who had joined the Union Army to serve as temporary, rear-echelon troops. It was with great shock, then, that the city received news of the impending rebel attack. With near panic filling the streets, Union leaders scrambled to coordinate a force of volunteers. But Early did not pull the trigger. With his men exhausted after the fight at Monocacy and the ensuing march, Early paused before attacking the feebly manned Fort Stevens, giving Union General Ulysses Grant just enough time to send thousands of veteran troops up from Richmond. In the battle that followed, Abraham Lincoln became the only sitting president in American history to come so close to military action that he was fired upon by the enemy. Historian Marc Leepson shows that had Early arrived in Washington one day earlier, the ensuing havoc easily could have brought about a different conclusion to the war. He uses a vast amount of primary material, including memoirs, official records, newspaper accounts, diary entries and eyewitness reports in a reader-friendly and engaging description of the events surrounding what became known as "the Battle That Saved Washington."


Book Synopsis Desperate Engagement by : Marc Leepson

Download or read book Desperate Engagement written by Marc Leepson and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-06-10 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marc Leepson, critically acclaimed author of Flag: An American Biography, examines the Battle of Monocacy---a crucial and singular moment in the Civil War---with his trademark historical detail and enlivening voice The Battle of Monocacy, which took place four miles south of Frederick, Maryland on a blisteringly hot day in 1864, was a full-field engagement between some 12,000 battle-hardened Confederate troops led by the controversial Jubal Anderson Early, and some 5,800 Union troops, many of them untested in battle, under the mercurial Lew Wallace. When the fighting ended, Early had routed Wallace in the northernmost Confederate victory of the war. Two days later, on another brutally hot afternoon, the foul-mouthed, hard-drinking Early sat astride his horse outside the gates of Fort Stevens in the upper northwestern fringe of Washington, D.C. He was about to make one of the war's most fateful, portentous decisions: whether or not to order his men to invade the nation's capital. Once manned by tens of thousands of experienced troops, Washington's ring of forts and fortifications that day were in the hands of a ragtag collection of walking wounded Union soldiers, the Veteran Reserve Corps, along with what were known as hundred days' men---raw recruits who had joined the Union Army to serve as temporary, rear-echelon troops. It was with great shock, then, that the city received news of the impending rebel attack. With near panic filling the streets, Union leaders scrambled to coordinate a force of volunteers. But Early did not pull the trigger. With his men exhausted after the fight at Monocacy and the ensuing march, Early paused before attacking the feebly manned Fort Stevens, giving Union General Ulysses Grant just enough time to send thousands of veteran troops up from Richmond. In the battle that followed, Abraham Lincoln became the only sitting president in American history to come so close to military action that he was fired upon by the enemy. Historian Marc Leepson shows that had Early arrived in Washington one day earlier, the ensuing havoc easily could have brought about a different conclusion to the war. He uses a vast amount of primary material, including memoirs, official records, newspaper accounts, diary entries and eyewitness reports in a reader-friendly and engaging description of the events surrounding what became known as "the Battle That Saved Washington."