Amateur Armies – Stephen M Cullen (1)

Post then went on to describe, at length, the warm welcome he and his fellow New York Volunteers received in the South, and noted that, in fact, Richmond had been preparing a great welcome for these US Volunteers, which, he said, included, ‘a delegation from the Confederate Veterans!’20 It was the consideration of the need for support in the states of the old Confederacy that also fed into the decision to appoint the former Confederate cavalry officer, ‘Fighting Joe’ Wheeler, to his old rank of Brigadier General, under Major General William Shafter, a Union veteran of the Civil War.

It was not just the high-profile figure of Wheeler who was now uniformed in blue, as President McKinley was highly sensitive to the need to gain the support of Southern Democrats: McKinley was careful to give Democrats, and especially Southern Democrats, a large proportion of the ranking military appointments. He did this for two reasons: First, he wanted to increase Southern support for his Administration and its politics; second, as the first war President since Appomattox, he wanted to demonstrate that sectional animosity was a thing of the past, that Blue and Gray now stood united against the national enemy.21 For politicians and patriots alike, it was to be a war of national unity in which the Volunteers, drawn from across American society, would represent the best of America manhood.

Training and equipping the Volunteers Between the sinking of the Maine and the first landings of US troops on Cuba, there was only four months during which men who rushed to volunteer were sifted, sorted and incorporated into those Volunteer and National Guard regiments that would be deployed, either at home or overseas. The larger part of those Volunteers had little, or no, previous military experience, and, even existing members of National Guard regiments had indifferent and irregular training.

The right of Stephen M. Cullen to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen & Sword Archaeology, Atlas, Aviation, Battleground, Discovery, Family History, History, Maritime, Military, Naval, Politics, Social History, Transport, True Crime, Claymore Press, Frontline Books, Praetorian Press, Seaforth Publishing and White Owl For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact PEN & SWORD BOOKS LTD 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk Or PEN AND SWORD BOOKS 1950 Lawrence Rd, Havertown, PA 19083, USA E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.penandswordbooks.com 1kitap1.com/en 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements From Wales to Cuba, 1797–1961 Fishguard, 1797: Militia, Fencibles, and Volunteers The War of 1812: War, Society and Politics – Militias in the United States and Canada, 1812–15 The Rifle Volunteers: The ‘Wonder of the Age’, the Victorian Amateur Soldier The Spanish-American War, Cuba 1898 Spain, 1936–39: Ideological War and Murder; Militias in the Spanish Civil War Cuba 1960–61: Defending the Revolution – From the Escambray Mountains to the Bay of Pigs Amateurs in the Age of the Professional Notes Bibliography For my grandson, Toby, a budding historian and writer.

1kitap1.com/en List of Illustrations 1. Grenadier of a Volunteer regiment, c.1805 2. ‘A Military Squabble about Dress’ 3. St George’s Volunteers charging down Bond Street 4. ‘Push on, brave York volunteers’ 5. The Battle of Châteauguay, 1813 6. Lieutenant Colonel Charles de Salaberry leads his volunteers and militiamen at Châteauguay 7. Lieutenant Colonel de Salaberry, victor of Châteauguay 8. The Victorian amateur soldier, Staffordshire Rifle Volunteers, c.1860 9. Officers of the 1st Aberdeenshire Rifles, 1881 10. Uniforms of the 1st Sutherland Volunteer Rifle Corps, 1860–1908 11.

Bicycle-mounted Volunteers in South Africa, 1899 12. Officers of the 1st US Volunteer Cavalry, ‘Rough Riders’, at Long Island before embarkation for the invasion of Cuba, 1898 13. 1st US Volunteer Cavalry at Las Gausimas 14. Captain Parker’s Gatling guns on Cuba 15. 71st New York Volunteers in quarantine in the USA after the Cuban campaign 16. The Spanish Falangist leader, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, inspects his blue-shirted militia before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War 17.

Republican militia besieging the Alcázar 18. Heroic portrayal of Falangist militia in July 1936 19. Weapons inspection for Castroist MNR militiamen 20. MNR militia in action, probably during the Bay of Pigs invasion 21.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 20fb3f874035925b
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 11,329,524 bytes (10.805 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9781526734433, 9781526734440, 9781526734457
• Pages: 284
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 422.37 minutes
• Total Words: 84,474
• Total Characters: 516,797
• Average Words per Page: 297.44
• Average Characters per Page: 1819.71

Most Frequent Words

militia (513), war (426), men (315), volunteers (299), army (249), volunteer (241), one (218), new (214), british (195), military (188), militias (185), spanish (181), force (178), first (173), two (161), french (141), also (140), american (137), ibid (135), movement (130), defence (129), forces (128), cuba (126), government (120), many (114), regular (107), castro (104), against (102), general (100), made (99), amateur (97), political (95), time (93), britain (92), mnr (92), officers (91), training (91), americans (90), little (89), part (88), spain (88), units (88), regulars (87), service (86), led (86), cuban (85), brigade (83), militiamen (82), fighting (81), small (80), civil (79), invasion (78), took (78), history (77), revolution (77), however (77), support (76), around (76), between (74), role (73), attack (73), three (73), field (71), soldiers (69), battle (68), bay (66), north (66), canada (65), guns (65), air (64), much (63), fire (63), london (63), artillery (62), armed (62), way (62), york (61), became (61), major (61), battalion (61), america (60), early (60), press (59), revolutionary (59), along (59), infantry (59), rifle (58), well (58), end (58), national (57), country (57), regime (57), pigs (56), republican (56), although (56), arms (55), days (55), soldier (54), regiments (54), troops (53).

PDF Download