Little Bighorn. Custer was an ass and and egomaniac. He wasn’t just overwhelmed, he would have known he was overwhelmed before he made the idiot decisions he did. He must have realized his stupidity because anecdotal evidence said he committed suicide rather than die in battle.
Chalmette, a.k.a., the Battle of New Orleans. Spent two years there as an interpreter. I was part of a significant archeological dig that confirmed lots of anecdotal evidence and documented evidence (mostly British records). The American tactics were significant in achieving a victory that on paper should never have occurred. And it’s the most misunderstood battle in American history. Had the British been victorious, America as we know it today would not exist.
Batoche: A school trip to Batoche was de rigueur growing up in Saskatoon. I remember feeling kind of sad and looking at the bullet holes in the church.
Plains of Abraham: Went two years ago, I thought the signs were very informative. Had fun walking the trail.
Queenston Heights: Sometimes we drop by Queenston Heights park when we’re in the Niagara Falls area. There’s a nice trail around there, a monument to Britain’s First Nation allies, Brock’s Monument and some informative signs. There were a couple of historically dressed folks there one time, but I didn’t talk with them.
Lundy’s Lane: In Niagara Falls; I think there was just a short plaque to read. Wikipedia says there’s a museum nearby, but we didn’t go.
Fort York: I was there for a pow-wow once, but I haven’t visited the museum.
Little Bighorn: I was on a tour bus that stopped at the monument for 5 minutes to take pictures. Don’t remember much.
Did all the Revolutionary War/Civil War battlefields when I was a kid. Nothing stands out. But about 20 years ago I walked Little Bighorn. Fascinating place. You really need to walk the field - maps just don’t give you the scale or the feeling of the topography. You can look one way and see close by where the Last Stand happened, then turn around and you are looking at the ridge over which Gall led eleventy-million pissed-off braves. Only way to understand the battle.
How so? The way I heard it, the war was already over, the terms of the American surrender were already set. It’s just that the news hadn’t reached the combatants due to the limits of communication at the time. It was a completely useless battle that didn’t change anything. If things had gone differently, it still wouldn’t have changed anything.
The Treaty of Ghent was signed in December. The battle took place in January. General Pakenham was aware of treaty negotiations but was under orders to ignore the negotiations, including any outcome of those negotiations if he were to hear of them. Had the British won at New Orleans, the British were set to repudiate the treaty and press on because they knew America was in no real position to challenge.
The Americans were overrun on the west bank of the Mississippi River and they managed to spike their cannons. However, the British were successful in cleaning out the cannons and turning them to fire across the river and behind the American line when orders came that the battle was lost.
General Pakenham was killed in the battle, adding to British woes. The 93rd Highlanders were destroyed by the sole American 32 pounder. And there are stories that Pakenham overslept and arrived late to his own battle, and after death his body was pickled in a barrel for shipment back to England for burial (with unsuspecting British sailors thinking the barrel was wine tapped it to imbibe!).
Every city I have lived in and most I have visited has been a battlefield at some time in the last 90 years, be it in a civil or in a world war. None were better for that. Makes me sad to think of all that has been lost and destroyed, and all the people dead and wounded. Alas! Without those battles I would not exist, my mother would probably not have emigrated to Spain and would never have met my father.
Some people also seem to be under the impression that PTSD is a new phenomenon, but it’s just had a name put to it after thousands of years. My great grandfather fought in the Civil War, was captured, etc. He was never wounded, but did contract a serious lung infection which plagued him for the rest of his life. He eventually committed suicide some 45 years after the war ended.
Little Big Horn. Enjoyed it very much despite the heat.
Wandered around Captain Jack’s Stronghold for a few hours. Incredible place! I was just imagining a running gun battle there, and joked to my wife, “Jeez, look at this place! Even the French could have defended this!”. There were a couple old guys walking past and they must have overheard me because they busted up laughing.
Same for The Alamo!
Are you saying they didn’t use Alligators as cannons?
Some were intentional- the Alamo, Culloden, San Jacinto, New Orleans, Ft. Pulaski, but others were sort of incidental as part of other stuff I was doing- Galveston, Budapest, Mobile Bay, Vienna, Savannah, and Mission Concepcion. I was aware there had been battles there, and had looked carefully for evidence or just to get the lay of the land, so I could read up on it more later.
Most were pretty enjoyable as an amateur student of military history, but Culloden was just eerie. I haven’t been to a battlefield before or since that was so weird feeling.
Do you have a cite for this? And not just that there was an order to ignore (ongoing) negotiations (which are by definition not final), but to repudiate the treaty if the battle was won?
I used to live walking distance from the other big 1812 battle site Blandensberg. This one is a famous British victory (the ignominious retreat by US forces was known as the Blandensberg Races).
It’s a pleasant enough spot on the Anacostia river, with a lovely Riverwalk (you can take all the way to DC if you are feeling energetic) and a pedestrian bridge over the river. There are some informative markers with posters describing the battle. There are also some rather weird silhouette figures on Route 1 where it crosses the Anacostia river, with red figures and congreave rockets on one side with blue coated figures on the other.
I wouldn’t recommend making a special trip to see it (unless you are a particular War of 1812 buff if such a thing exists ), but if you find yourself in the suburbs east of DC and the weather is nice, it’s worth popping by.
I live near two important English battlefields; Towton (1461), the biggest battle in the Wars of the Roses, and Marston Moor (1644), a major English Civil War battle. Both fascinating and bloody battles.
At Towton the Lancastrians, defeated, escaped over a bridge of their own dead. At Marston Moor, the Royalists attacked the rear of a retreating army, which turned round (rather slowly) and eventually defeated them.
I was with a group that visited Gettysburg, led by a West Point grad who knew the history very well. Interesting place.
I live near Boston now. There’s a bike trail I’ve ridden a hundred times that follows the British advance through Lexington, and I’ve been to the Old North Bridge in Concord a few times. It felt a little odd when I moved here that towns I’d read about in history classes were modern bedroom communities. The battlefields are preserved, and a few blocks away in Lexington is a place I go to for burritos.
There’s a large monument and museum at Bunker Hill. I was just there last summer. Excellent diorama showing the positions and order of battle.
I went to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona memorial when I was young, but don’t remember it terribly well.
I’ve also been to the Reichstag in Berlin. I don’t remember anything there about the battle that took place. I read somewhere that there was some graffiti from Soviet troops that had been preserved, but I couldn’t find it.
All pretty significant sites, now that I think about it; beginning of the American Revolution, U.S. entry into WWII, and the end of WWII in Europe.
You beat me to this one. It’s been maybe 20 years but I remember something about hemp bales used as rolling shields on the battlefield, and there is an actual cannonball still stuck high up in a column on the front of the courthouse.
The research we did was in the early 1980s using official British military records, probably not available to just anyone. If you can find “The British at the Gates: The New Orleans Campaign in the War of 1812,” by Robin Reilly you might find more information. It’s the definitive guide to the battle.
We slept in a car next to the Reichstag when we went to see Roger Waters play The Wall after the wall came down. We wandered around the area of No Man’s Land and there were a bunch of empty buildings with bullet damage. When I went back 10 years later the area had Bugatti dealers and high end shops.
), but if you find yourself in the suburbs east of DC and the weather is nice, it’s worth popping by.