Civil War Regiments

The regiment was the essential “building block” of Civil War armies. Assigned by states, most volunteer regiments were organized based on soldiers’ home residence and reflective of those local communities. Each branch of the army—infantry, artillery, and cavalry—formed into regiments with varying numbers of companies and overall strength. There were regular army regiments and units specially designated for African American troops. As the war dragged on, regimental strengths diminished dramatically. The Confederate Army tried to refill older units with conscripts and new recruits, while the Union created new regiments to replace depleted ones and later consolidated smaller ones. Neither side was entirely successful in restoring regiments to full authorized strength. Nonetheless, the regiment was more than a mode of organization—it was the prime source of identity and pride for volunteers and later veterans. While armies, divisions, and brigades were crucial to winning battles, and companies forged tight bonds of loyalty, it was the regiment to which most soldiers claimed a personal allegiance. Famed regiments like the 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment, the 1st Texas Infantry Regiment, and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment cited their battle honors and high casualty numbers as proof of their fighting prowess. After the war ended, veterans produced hundreds of regimental histories, recounting their battle service and seeking to claim a place in history. Although many historians dismiss these accounts as worthless for serious scholarly research, regimental histories offer rich firsthand accounts of the conflict. They also offer a vehicle for narrating the war in a form well familiar to the soldiers who experienced it.

ARMORIAL IMAGES ON PORTRAITS OF THE MILITARY ATAMAN OF THE DON ARMY D. E. EFREMOV AND FEATURES OF THE FORMATION OF THE SOUTHERN RUSSIAN NOBILITY IN THE 18th CENTURY. PART 2

The article examines the main heraldic concepts and categories that affect the controversial issues of the topic. Considerable attention is paid to the reasons and conditions for the origin and placement of heraldic and non-heraldic figures on the coat of arms of D.E. Efremov, the nature and content of the heraldic images and their symbolism are considered. The author traces the ideological and heraldic continuity between the family coats of arms of different generations of the Efremovs family, their influence on the formation of region-al noble heraldry. The article analyzes the process of formation of the Don nobility from the first highest awards to individuals to the formation of the ranks and awards of the social corporation of officials through seniority, and its transformation as a result of the policy of Emperor Paul I into the highest estate of the Russian Empire. The article examines the legal framework for the acquisition of the rights and privileges of the hereditary nobility by the Don elders, identifies common and emphasizes different processes from those in the Malorussian and Russian provinces. The article describes new phenomena in the military, political and social life of the Don army in connection with the awards of the ranks of the Russian regular army to the senior officers - this is the restriction of military (ordinary) law and the formation of subordination on the basis of imperial legislation, as well as the creation of a new social hierarchy and military management.

Food supply service of the Russian army in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763)

This article discusses the events of the Seven Years' War from the perspective of supplying the troops of the Russian army with food and adapting it to the European military campaign. An overview is given to the key battles of the Seven Years' War, reflecting the nutrition of troops and activity of certain individuals on maintaining military capability of the army. The author also touches upon the fate of A. V. Suvorov and the beginning of his service as a supply officer, which left an imprint on his future career. The article is based mostly on archival materials of the Russian State Archive of the Ancient Acts, as well as literary sources of scientific nature. The article describes the time of the dawn of the absolutist Russian State, being a powerful international force. The history of food service on the example of the Seven Years’ War of 1756– 1763 is dedicated to the history of food supply of the Russian army and population throughout the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), the main type of supply changed depending on the financial situation of the state. The history of food service in Russia is one of the most remarkable pages in military history. Food service, which established with the advent of the Russian regular army, has been one of the main vectors of activity of the military department for centuries.

OSSETIANS – CAVALIERS OF THE PERSIAN ORDER OF THE LION AND THE SUN

Актуальность исследования историко-культурных отношений народов Осетии и Ирана в наши дни во многом обусловлена историческим развитием взаимоотношений этих этносов на протяжении предшествующих веков и особенно активизировавшихся в XIX – начале XX вв. Основное внимание в работе уделено анализу опубликованных исторических источников и архивных материалов, в которых нашли отражение факты награждения персидским орденом Льва и Солнца представителей военной интеллигенции осетинского народа. Научная новизна работы заключается в выявлении максимально полной информации о фактах награждения персидским орденом Льва и Солнца представителей Осетии, принимавших участие в формировании основ иранской регулярной армии. Целью данной работы было синтезирование материалов, полученных из опубликованных исторических источников и архивных документов, касающихся награждения персидским орденом Льва и Солнца представителей Осетии – военнослужащих Российской императорской армии. Для достижения обозначенной цели нами использовались общенаучные методы анализа и синтеза: описательно-повествовательный, историко-биографический, историко-сравнительный, историко-типологический и сравнительно-исторический. В результате проведенного исследования делается следующий вывод: ряд представителей осетинской военной интеллигенции в XIX – начале XX вв. за заслуги на военном поприще был представлен к высокой награде Персидского государства – ордену Льва и Солнца. Это говорит не только о социально-политических отношениях, этнокультурных и экономических связях, складывавшихся в указанный хронологический период между представителями осетинского и иранского народов, но и об участии осетин в процессе становления регулярной армии Персидского государства. The relevance of the study of the historical and cultural relations of the peoples of Ossetia and Iran today is largely due to the historical development of the relationship of these ethnic groups during the previous centuries and especially intensified in the 19th – early 20th centuries. The main attention in the work is paid to the analysis of published historical sources and archival materials, which reflect the facts of awarding representatives of the military intelligentsia of the Ossetian people with the Persian Order of the Lion and the Sun. The scientific novelty of the work lies in revealing the most comprehensive information on the facts of awarding the Persian Order of the Lion and the Sun to the representatives of Ossetia who took part in the formation of the foundations of the Iranian regular army. The purpose of this work was to synthesize materials obtained from published historical sources and archival documents concerning the awarding of the Persian Order of the Lion and the Sun to the representatives of Ossetia – servicemen of the Russian Imperial Army. To achieve this goal, we used general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis: descriptive-narrative, historical-biographical, historical-comparative, historical-typological and comparative-historical. As a result of the study, the following conclusion is made: a number of representatives of the Ossetian military intelligentsia in the 19th – early 20th centuries for merits in the military field, were distinguished by the high award of the Persian state – the Order of the Lion and the Sun. This speaks not only of the socio-political relations, ethnocultural and economic ties that developed in the indicated chronological period between representatives of the Ossetian and Iranian peoples, but also of the contribution of Ossetians into the process of the formation of a regular army of the Persian state.

Before the Ink Dries

Peninsular War veterans often faced a difficult transition back into civilian society after the conflict, receiving inadequate pay and little official commemoration. This led to a common fear, expressed explicitly in their memoirs, that their stories had not been and would not be properly told. This chapter demonstrates that many soldiers-turned-authors deliberately used their autobiographies to take issue with the academic, historical record of the war. It reveals that, in Spain, the first official history of the Peninsular War was written by a group of veterans, who helped to choose the Spanish name for the conflict: la Guerra de la Independencia. It then shows how veterans’ memoirs contributed to the creation of distinct national narratives of the war in Spain, Britain, and France, examining different representations of the ‘Other’, depictions of the guerrilla war and its leaders, and praise or criticism for the regular army.

The actor of power in the conditions of modern warfare: David's strategy vs Goliath's strategy

This article is dedicated to solution of the crucial problems of the philosophy of war – the paradox of David and Goliath. The weaker, technically inferior side of military confrontation often defeats the stronger one, which is equipped with the latest technology by the world political actors. The author describes the heterogeneous and asymmetric nature of modern wars, which involve state and non-state actors, and combine regular and irregular combat practices. It is indicated that the mobile and flexible strategy of partisan war, which is more effective than the actions of regular army, is now being adopted by them. Therefore, if an irregular soldier, a partisan, in the conditions of classical inter-state war possessed the status of “unlawful combatant”, in modern wars, the soldiers of regular army must prove their superiority over the partisans. The scientific novelty of this research lies in determination of the two paradigms of warfare relevant to the current situation in the society, which correspond to the strategies of David and Goliath. The first is characteristic to high-tech societies, which have entered the post-heroic era losing imperative of sacrifice. The conclusion is made that the military activity of modern Goliaths is being transformed in accordance with transhumanistic and poshumanistic scenarios. The natural outcome of high-tech warfare of the future should become a post-human war waged by artificial intelligence. The response to high-tech challenges of the leading world political actors is the guerrilla warfare strategy of modern David, which is founded on the idea of sacrifice and willingness to take lethal risks, and debunks the key role of the factor of technological superiority in achieving victory.

A New Laboratory

This chapter discusses how the British-led counterinsurgency campaign in Dhofar, Oman, which ran from 1965 to 1976, provides support for the compellence theory. The sultan of Oman, Sa'id bin Taimur, faced a popular nationalist and Communist insurgency in its remote southwestern corner. His British backers pressed reforms on him, which he resisted, but he welcomed the buildup of his military. In a palace coup in 1970, the sultan's son replaced him and gained additional British and regional support for the campaign. Accommodations took place in the form of empowering warlords and others, including insurgent defectors and tribal leaders. The British-formed militias led by these men were better able to fight the insurgents and gain information from the populace than was the regular army. Ultimately, the British-led military, the Sultan's Armed Forces (SAF), defeated the insurgent threat by controlling civilians to cut the flow of resources to insurgents, physically blocking the flow of resources from the insurgents' safe haven across the border with Yemen, and controlling the populace in the guerrilla-ridden mountains. Limited political reforms such as construction of clinics followed the military's success against the insurgency rather than causing insurgent defeat.

The Traditional Ranks in the Petrine Epoch: Between Afterlife and Innovation

The ranks and awards of Russian service elites and nobility have been a historiographical issue since the eighteenth century. G. F. Miller reflected on the psychology of the Tsar’s subjects, who asked Peter the Great to keep some of the old ranks during the introduction of new ones and described two such cases. Soviet historians of the 1980s discovered several appointments to the old ranks made in the early eighteenth century and registered in archival documents. These curious cases were interpreted by researchers as isolated exceptions or the result of the inertia of old practices. The study of mass historical sources has since led to the discovery of more than 1100 cases of this kind and provided different contexts in which these awards were granted. It was previously thought that Tsar Peter ridiculed the old ranks, giving them only to his jesters. Modern research on Peter’s innovations leads to a different view. For example, the introduction of the Hungarian dress and beard shaving was carried out in several steps, with backtracking. There has also been some oversimplification of the comparative pairs of epithets, such as “Muscovite-Imperial”, “old-new”, “ and “boyars-nobility”, which reflects nothing but the didactic attitudes of historians themselves. This article demonstrates that there was no dearth of official awards or withdrawal of the Duma ranks until the 1710s, at least. The introduction of The Table of Ranks did not abolish the ranks of “courtiers” (tsaredvortsy), as the earlier Muscovite ranks were called, which became the basis of the nobility. Peter I introduced several innovations to the traditional service hierarchy. Before the beginning of the Great Northern War, hundreds of the Tsarina’s stol’niki and court servitors were transferred to the Muscovite ranks, following which the Zhiletsky List continued being replenished for some years afterwards. The drama of ranks was aggravated by the enhanced status of the regular army ranks, which were outside the Moskovsky Spisok (the hierarchy of traditional ranks). The course of events was accelerated by the Tsar’s intention to implement European analogues of court and civil titles. Nevertheless, the popularity of the traditional ranks outside the army remained high. According to many sources, the traditional ranks of Muscovy were kept in check and re-registered throughout Peter’s reign. The Tsar’s decrees raised the status of military service. He sometimes approved petitions for the Duma ranks by several of his subjects and had his unique way of indicating the prospects for advancement to other petitioners. The low-level Muscovite ranks within the traditional hierarchy proved to be more stable than previously assumed. Muscovite ranks were not included in The Table of Ranks because the only rank of mass appointments by the early 1720s was that of a d’iak.