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On leap year eve of February 28, 1864, during the American Civil War (1861-1865), a large Union cavalry raid was launched on the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia by the infamous Union cavalry general, Hugh J. Kilpatrick (b.1836-1881). Dahlgren Attacks Confederate Homeguards, March 1, 1864 A force of almost 4000 blue jacketed cavalrymen attacked Richmond in and around the James River in an ultimately costly and failed raid which threatened the very heart of the Confederacy. This attack on Richmond can be termed the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid or Dahlgren’s Raid by military historians, the former in posthumous honor (or infamy) of the young cavalry officer, Colonel Ulric Dahlgren (b.1842-1864) whose 450 Union raiders nearly succeeded in penetrating Richmond. Known to modern historians as the Dahlgren Affair, this failed Union attempt to storm Richmond in order to free Union prisoners of war and to controversially assassinate Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his rebel cabin...

Part II, Great Anglo-Boer War, 1900-1902 The Second Anglo-Boer War, or Second Boer War of 1899-1902, brought the British Empire into conflict yet again with the Afrikaner-Boers, the European pioneers of South Africa , who sought independence from England for their brother-nations, the Orange Free State and Transvaal republics. Led by an aging Queen Victoria, Sir Alfred Milner, High Commissioner for South Africa, and Joseph Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary, and a slew of regular army generals, the British land forces looked to establish commonwealth control over the Boer republics, utterly rich in diamond and gold mines, the colonial importance of South Africa was paramount to  the military and political spheres in London  throughout the years leading up to conflict, 1896-1899. Remembered today as one of the last major colonial conflicts of the 19 th century, the Great Anglo-Boer War , named so rather heroically by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (b.1859-1930), left dead 22,000...

The influence of the American Civil War 1861-1865, on all three major aspects of tactical warfare in the 19 th century; land, naval, and logistical strategies, is one of the great studies in warfare from the 16 th -19 th centuries. In popular history and memory, the cavalry of both North and South, fighting from Pennsylvania, to farthest reaches of American territory in the West, have become and almost an unmatched icon of American military history from the period 1800-circa 1900. General Philip Sheridan rallying the Union Army at the Battle of Third Winchester (Opequon), a critical battle in the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1864, which helped Lincoln win re-election Cavalry played an integral role in the Civil War and in many of its battles though their role in pitched battles, on open terrain battlefields was relatively marginalized due to technological breakthroughs in weaponry, the horse soldiers’ role as irregular, raider, pillager, and guerrilla force was one of the most disti...

On this day in 1643 the Battle of Roundway Down was fought near Dervizes, Wiltshire England during the English Civil War, 1642-1651. Battle of Roundway Down, July 13, 1643 It is generally accepted that the battle at Roundway Down was a complete victory for the Royalists, apart of their campaign in the West of England during the early stages of the First English Civil War 1642-1645. The Royalist defeat of the Parliamentarian armies relived the siege of Devizes castle and signaled the downfall of Parliaments Western Association Armies. The previous weeks Battle of Lansdowne , July 5, 1643 saw heavy Royalist casualties and a grave injury suffered to the Royalist commander, Lord Ralph Hopton, who had led Royalist armies to a string of victories before being besieged at Devizes Castle by the Parliamentarians. The Battle of Roundway Down began around 3 o’clock in the afternoon when a combined force of Parliamentarian infantry, horse dragoons, and artillery met Lord Hopton’s and Lord Hen...