Featured battle : Yorktown

Part of American Civil War

Date : 04 April 1862 - 04 May 1862

Although technically a victory for the Union, the Seige of Yorktown was in fact a huge embarassment. McClellan approached the 10 miles of defences extending across the peninsula with around 90,000 men, and sent 55,000 forward to engage but hesitated when he saw the strength of the entrenchment. In fact the trenches were manned by around 13,000 Confederate defenders under John B Magruder, but so effective were they in making the noise of a larger force, moving around behind the defences, and presenting tree trunks as fake artillery, McClellan was persuaded that a much larger force faced him, and so began preparations for a formal seige. Johnston arrived soon after with around 45,000 men to bolster the Southern force but knew the line couldn't be held against heavy bombardment so withdrew all forces back towards Richmond during the night of May 3rd/4th before the Union guns had had a chance to fire. McC;lellan had been delayed for a month by a force less than a fifth of his size.

Yangtze Showdown. China and the ordeal of HMS Amethyst

Brian Izzard
Cover to cover a really good read. This is the story of the Yangtze incident in the round, the military and political machinations prior to, during and after the event. If you know the gung-ho 1957 film with hero Richard Todd then prepared to be shocked by the truth. There are action heroes a plenty but there are also ‘politicos’ who are anything but heroes.
The first sentence of the book is ‘A couple of shells whistled overhead and a group of sailors on board HMS Amethyst came to the same conclusion “They couldn’t hit a barn door”. The story goes on with the same engaging vitality. As for the Chinese hitting barn doors I remember newspaper photographs at the time rechristening HMS Amethyst as HMS Pepperpot.
Supporting the text are two useful maps and an informative set of photographs. Also the set of five appendices complete the information given in the story.
Well researched and beautifully written this book will be informative to military buffs and students of cold war politics. But more than those people we highly recommended it to the much wider audience of anyone who enjoy a good read.

Seaforth Publishing, 2020