Books about Bloodiest from Amazon.com

In this book the reader enters a nonstop maelstrom of combat action, leaving he or she nearly breathless by the end. The human courage and carnage described in these pages resonates through the centuries, from Borodino to the Bulge, but the focus here is on the Vietnam War, and a unique unit formed to take part at its height.

The 199th Light Infantry Brigade was created from three U.S. infantry battalions of long lineage, as a fast reaction force for the U.S. to place in Indochina. As the book begins, in December 1967, the brigade has been in Vietnam for a year, and many of its battered 12-month men are returning home. This is timely, as the Communists seem to be in a lull, and the brigade commander, in order to whet his new soldiers to combat, requests a transfer to a more active sector, just above Saigon. Through January the battalions scour the sector, finding increasing enemy strength, NVA personel now mixed within Viet Cong units. But the enemy is lying low, and a truce has even been declared for the Vietnamese New Year, the holiday called Tet.

On January 30, 1968, the storm breaks loose, as Saigon and nearly every provincial capital in the country is overrun by VC and NVA, bursting in unexpected strength from their base camps. In these battles we learn the most intimate details of combat, as the Communists fight with rockets, mortars, Chinese claymores, mines, machine guns and AK-47s. The battles evolve into an enemy favoring the cloak of night, the jungle-both urban and natural-and subterranean fortifications, against U.S. forces favoring direct confrontational battle supported by air and artillery. When the lines are only 25 yards apart, however, there is little way to distinguish between the firepower or courage of the assailants and the defenders, or even who is who at any given moment, as both sides have the other in direct sight.

Many of the vividly described figures in this book do not make it to the end. The narrative is jarring, because even though the author was a company commander during these battles, he has based this work upon objective research including countless interviews with other soldiers of the 199th LIB. The result is that everything we once heard about Vietnam is laid bare in this book through actual experience, as U.S. troops go head-to-head at close-range against their counterparts, perhaps the most stubborn foe in our history.

Days of Valor covers the height of the Vietnam War, from the nervous period just before Tet, through the defeat of that offensive, to the highly underwritten yet equally bloody NVA counteroffensive launched in May 1968.

The book ends with a brief note about the 199th LIB being deactivated in spring 1870, furling its colors after suffering 753 dead and some 5,000 wounded. The brigade had only been a temporary creation, designed for one purpose. Though its heroism is now a matter of history, it should remain a source of pride for all Americans. This fascinating book will help to remind us..
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In 1629, the Dutch merchantman Batavia grounded on a desolate atoll near Western Australia. Of the 200 survivors, 115 were subsequently murdered, in coldest blood, by a group of the ship's sailors and their psychopathic leader, Jeronimus Corneliszoon. Batavia's Graveyard is Mike Dash's unnerving, measured account of the incident. The victims included children, babies, and pregnant women; the crimes took place over a period of several months. Though the killings make a substantial, chilling tale in themselves, Dash adroitly places the shocking spree in larger context with illuminating discussions of 17th century medical practices, religious heresy, global politics, and shipboard sociology and daily life. Additionally, he draws dozens of portraits of the participants in this ghastly drama, most fascinatingly that of Corneliszoon, who emerges as a grotesquely charismatic predecessor of the likes of Charles Manson and Ted Bundy. Batavia's Graveyard, a skillful melding of accessible scholarship and evenhanded narrative and of overview and telling detail, is a welcome achievement. --H. O'Billovitch.
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Assaye 1803.
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On 16 May 1811, the small town of Albuera was the setting for one of the Peninsular War's most bloody and desperate battles. A combined Spanish, British and Portuguese force of more than 30,000 men, under the command of Lord Beresford, stubbornly blocked the march of the French field marshal Soult, who was trying to reach the fortress of Badajoz, 12 miles north.

Beresford, who defended himself with his bare hands against a Polish lancer, was victorious, but at the cost of 6,000 Allied deaths and 7,000 French in just four hours. The battle is best known for the Fusilier Brigade's charge, made famous by Sir William Napier's melodramatic description, and because of the tenacity of the 57th Foot that earned them the 'Die Hards' nickname.

The battle has not been seriously studied since Sir Charles Oman and Sir John Fortescue's histories early in the 20th century - accounts which are incomplete and sometimes simply incorrect. This compelling new book fills this gap by using authentic primary sources to tell the story of the battle as completely as possible and dispels long-standing myths.

The book also brings to life the human dimension of the story by using first-person recollections to describe experiences on and off the battlefield. The battle's drama is intensified by the circumstances of the fighting, which led to extremes of behavior ranging from incomprehensible valor to rank cowardice. The book balances the traditional Anglocentric bias by paying equal attention to Spanish, Portuguese, French, Polish and German soldiers who fought there..
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Antietam was one of the critical battles of the American Civil War. The fortunes of the South were riding high after the resounding victory at Second Manassas While Bragg and Kirby Smith invaded Kentucky, Lee's invasion of Maryland was intended to maintain the Southern offensive momentum and to win the recognition of the European powers. But his bold plan was compromised - and at the Antietam River the Army of Northern Virginia was fighting for its very life. This title examines the build-up to Hooker's attack, and details the famous clashes at Bloody Lane and Burnside Bridge..
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On a bitterly cold Palm Sunday, 29 March 1461, the army of King Edward IV met that of his Lancastrian enemies on a snow-covered battlefield south of the village of Towton in Yorkshire The struggle lasted all day in the longest and bloodiest battle of the Wars of the Roses. With the arrival of Yorkist reinforcements under the Duke of Norfolk, the Lancastrian line eventually broke and their troops fled, many being caught and slaughtered in the death trap known as ‘Bloody Meadow’. Christopher Gravett examines the campaign that marked the resurgence of the Yorkist cause and established Edward IV as king.
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The decade 1910-1920 was the bloodiest in the controversial history of one of the most famous law enforcement agencies in the world--the Texas Rangers Much of the bloodshed was along the thousand-mile Texas/Mexico border because these were the years of the Mexican Revolution.

Charles Harris III and Louis Sadler shed new light on this turbulent period by uncovering the clandestine role of Mexican President Venustiano Carranza in the border violence. They document two virtually unknown invasions of Texas by Mexican Army troops acting under Carranza's orders. Harris and Sadler suggest the notorious "Plan de San Diego," usually portrayed by historians as a plot hatched in South Texas, was actually spawned in Mexico by Carranza. This irredentist conspiracy, which called for the execution of all Anglo males sixteen and older and the establishment of a Hispanic republic, was designed to cause a race war between Hispanics and Anglos. One of Carranza's goals was to end the support being given by border residents to his rival Pancho Villa.

The "Plan de San Diego" caused the governor of Texas to order the Texas Rangers to wipe out the insurgency along the border. This resulted in an estimated 300 Hispanics being killed by the Rangers and others without benefit of judge and jury.

The Texas Rangers and the Mexican Revolution is the first Ranger history to utilize Mexican government archives and the voluminous declassified FBI records on the Mexican Revolution.

"There is no other book that focuses on the Texas Rangers in the period 1910-1920. This will be the standard book on the Rangers for this period and probably the most thoroughly researched book on the Rangers in any period."--Alwyn Barr, Professor of History, Texas Tech University

"Harris and Sadler provide the first definitive evaluation of the Texas Rangers and their activities during the first and most violent decade of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920. This is a really outstanding, important work"--William H. Beezley, Professor of Latin American History, University of Arizona.
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Graphic History- The Bloodiest Day.
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In July 1863 the bloodiest and most decisive battle of the Civil War was fought near the sleepy town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania While many books have been written about the landmark battle, When the Smoke Cleared at Gettysburg differs from the rest by detailing the horrific aftermath of the battle, detailing what it takes to put a town back together after two armies have fought through its streets and across the surrounding countryside. The small town of 2,400 inhabitants was faced with the enormous problem of burying more than 7,000 dead soldiers and caring for 20,000 wounded men who had been left behind by both armies. Fields that just days earlier contained crops and livestock were now littered with firearms, munitions, and swords, and nearly every building still standing was turned into a field hospital with mounds of amputated limbs left behind after the surgeons had completed their grizzly work.

This sort of information is often overlooked in the history books about the Civil War. Here are firsthand accounts of life in the town and on the battlefield in the days and months following the brutal fighting. Included are stories and vivid descriptions from soldiers, reporters, civilians, doctors, and nurses. Good Samaritans came to help the wounded and the dying, and profiteers and souvenir hunters were not far behind. Then came the politicians, followed by legions of families seeking the remains of their fallen sons.

When the Smoke Cleared at Gettysburg presents the heartbreaking human misery resulting from this battle and by the ongoing war wherever it went. From the backbreaking chore of clearing the battlefield of the wounded and dead to nursing the amputees, one can learn much of the battle by seeing what ordinary people who were pulled into the war did to survive and rebuild their lives..
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