American Guerrillas: From the French and Indian Wars to Iraq and Afghanistan-How Americans Fight Unconventional Wars

by Thomas D. Mays

Overview

American Guerrillas is a compelling narrative history of how Americans have fought unconventional warfare from the French and Indian Wars and the Revolution through the anti-insurgent campaigns of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A timely volume, the author provides the reader with a concise and engaging story of how the American approach to guerrilla warfare has been molded and executed, and how these small scale engagements have been integral to the success of our nation’s larger battles. The conventional view of popular American military history has been focused upon large-scale conflicts. American Guerrillas will attract history buffs as it puts guerrilla warfare into the larger context.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493022298
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	04/03/2017
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Thomas D. Mays is a professor of American history at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. He came to HSU in 2003 after spending five years teaching history at Quincy University in Illinois. Raised in the Midwest and his family's traditional home in Virginia, he is retired from the military after serving 26 years on active duty and in the reserves. He holds a Ph.D. from TCU in Fort Worth, TX, an M.A. from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA, and a B.A. from Roanoke College in Salem, VA. Currently, he teaches early American history (colonial era through the Civil War) and American military history. His interests include the American Revolutionary and Civil War eras. He has three books and several articles in print.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Prologue xi

Chapter 1 "Now we have just cause to destroy them by all means possible" 1

Chapter 2 "No army can subsist in this country without rangers" 23

Chapter 3 "An unfair way of carrying on a war" 47

Chapter 4 "Tarleton's Quarter" 69

Chapter 5 "The Kentucky reinforcement, in whom so much reliance had been placed, ingloriously fled" 93

Chapter 6 "Swamp Fox Rangers" 113

Chapter 7 "I ain't killed but thirty-two men since this war commenced". 135

Chapter 8 "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux" 159

Chapter 9 "All I want to hear are booms from the Burma jungle" 183

Chapter 10 "Bamboo telegraph" 197

Chapter 11 "To kill them, you'll have to kill me first" 217

Conclusion 237

Notes 239

Index 253

About the Author 265