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Showing posts with the label militaryhistory

I's with Custer and the 7th in ‘76 or ‘77

I's with Custer and the 7th in ‘76 or ‘77  Scalped at Little Big Horn by the Sioux And the pain and desperation of a once proud warrior nation This I know ‘cause I was riding with them too https://www.youtube.com/shared?ci=UMEJu19y214 Originally shared by Dirk Puehl 26 June 1876, #onthisday 140 years ago, the Battle of the Little Bighorn or Battle of the Greasy Grass to the Lakota finally ended after the death of Lt Colonel George Armstrong Custer on the previous day and the attacks on Benteen’s and Reno’s position finally ceased with the confederation of Lakota, Cherokee and Arapaho leaving the area. In the spring of 1876, the US Army was supposed to pin down the hostile Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho with a so-called “three-pronged approach”, eradicate any resistance and drive the survivors back to the reservations. The Great Sioux War had begun. And since all US Army commanders involved occupied themselves with how to catch the Injuns, expecting anything but a stiff resistance, th...

Just imagine Russel Crowe, ponytail blowing in the sea breeze...

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Just imagine Russel Crowe, ponytail blowing in the sea breeze... Originally shared by Dirk Puehl 6 May 1801, #onthisday 215 years ago, "el Diablo" Commander Thomas Cochrane's commerce raiding cruise in the Western Mediterranean reached its climax off Barcelona when his brig sloop HMS “Speedy” met with the Spanish xebec frigate “El Gamo”, dispatched to put a stop to Cochrane’s game. They didn’t call him “El Diablo” for nothing. But then, many of his brother officers and especially his superiors would have heartily agreed. The proud, outspoken, brilliant, daring, capricious and quite quixotic Scottish lord simply would not fit in. Even so, after war broke out in 1793 and Cochrane, aged 17, had joined the Royal Navy it took the maverick mariner five years anyhow to get court-martialled for insubordination and “flippancy” and earn the lasting enmity of many. He was given command of a man-of-war in 1800 none the less, or what passed for one, a cockleshell brig-sloop named HMS ...

#onthisday in 1781, off the Virginia Capes, the French Admiral Francois Joseph Paul, the Comte de Grasse with 24...

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Originally shared by Dirk Puehl #onthisday in 1781, off the Virginia Capes, the French Admiral Francois Joseph Paul, the Comte de Grasse with 24 ships of the line saw off a British squadron of 19 line-of-battle ships under Thomas Graves in a tactical more or less inconclusive engagement, known as the Battle of the Chesapeake, that proved to be the deathblow for British ambitions in the American War of Independence. De Grasse was not quite the naval military genius and his preparation for receiving the British squadron that might still have turned the tables for Cornwallis were, all in all, a bit ramshackle. Nonetheless, the concert between Washington’s and Rochambeau’s armies and de Grasse’s fleet, taking into account all the imponderables of 18th century long-range communication, made the setting of the stage and prelude of the battle one of the most brilliant strategic manoeuvres in naval history. And, tactical naval victory or not, de Grasse’s squadron did prevent the Royal Navy and...