"We knew ourselves one fair dame who drew the pay of Captain in the Dragoons, and was probably not much less fit for the service than some who, at that period, actually did duty, for no knowledge of any kind was demanded from the young officers."
|--||Sir Walter Scott,|
- Brig. Gen. David E. Twiggs was unable to command his
division during the fighting at Monterrey, Mexico, on September 23-24, 1846,
because, believing it would reduce the chance of infection should he be wounded
in the bowels, he had dosed himself liberally with a laxative and was suffering
a serious case of the runs, though despite his non-participation in the fight,
he received a brevet promotion to major general and was awarded swords of honor
by Congress, the State of Georgia, and the city of Augusta therein.
- Officially designated "horizon blue," the
color of the new uniforms introduced by the French Army in 1915 was immediately
nicknamed "Joffre blue" by the troops, in tribute to their commander,
- On December 26, 1779, a large British convoy sailed
from New York bound for Charleston, only to run into severe storms, during
which the transport Anna, carrying a Hessian
regiment, was dismasted and drifted away, so that she was believed lost with all
hands, until, seven weeks later, when her helpless hulk, ran ashore in
Cornwall, England, amazingly with all souls still aboard, albeit cold, hungry,
- An inscription dedicated by the legio I Minerva at Cologne during the Second Century commemorates
the capture of fifty bears within a six-month period by the centurion
Tarquitius Restutus Pisauro.
- The three senior-most British officers in the latter
half of World War II, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, Admiral of the Fleet Andrew
Browne Cunningham, and Marshal of the Royal Air Force Charles Portal, were such
avid anglers that their staffs often joked that when planning for meetings,
fishing had to be "Item No. 1 on the Agenda."
- In the course of his life, Giuseppe Garibaldi
personally rescued at least four people from drowning.
- Between July of 1776, when he commanded what was the
largest American field army until the Civil War, in the vicinity of New York,
and December of that year, on the eve of his brilliant Trenton-Princeton
Campaign, forces under George Washington’s direct control fell from about 20,000
men to only about 4,000, mostly due to desertion.
- During the late nineteenth century, Russian infantry
regiments bore a number, plus the name of their recruiting area, and that of
their honorary commanding officer as well, so that a unit could formally bear
the name "the 121st War Minister Count Dmitry Milyutin Penzansky Infantry Regiment,"
though in practice it would be commonly known as the "Penzansky
Regiment," for its home town.
of "Al Nofi's CIC" have appeared previously in Military Chronicles,
© 2005-2010 Military Chronicles (www.militarychronicles.com), used with permission, all rights reserved.