Military History
The War Magician
I was well into David Fisher’s The War Magician: How an Illusionist Changed the Course of World War II before I realized that it was a novel based on a true story rather than a work of historical non-fiction. The confusion was mine. The cover clearly states that the story is “based on an extraordinary…
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“Farmerettes” Fed the Nation at War
In the fall of 1917, manpower was short in the fields of America. When the United States entered the Great War, millions of men had left farm work to join the army or do other war-related jobs. Even with farm labor wages skyrocketing, farmers faced difficulties hiring men to harvest the crops that were needed…
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The Wreck of the Sultana
On April 23, 1865, only a few weeks after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrender his troops to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, the steamship Sultana docked in Vicksburg. The Sultana was a 260-foot-long wooden steamboat—about two-thirds of the length of a football field and half as wide.* Built…
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