Books in Men-at-Arms series

The US Army during the Civil War was the largest the country had raised in its brief history; and it would remain the largest ever raised until World War I. In all, 2,772,408 men served in some branch or other of the US Army. This detailed work by Philip Katcher is a comprehensive guide to the uniforms, accoutrements, insignia and weapons of the Union Troops who fought the American Civil War (1861-1865), with a wealth of illustrations, including contemporary photographs and eight full page colour plates by Ron Volstad.

Once predicted to be 'the Middle East of the Year 2000', Central America and the Caribbean have long been a powder keg of revolutionary activity and guerilla warfare. The United States, with important strategic and economic interests in the region, has traditionally opted for a military solution toward the political upheaval, developing a range of responses, from direct military intervention to the training of tens of thousands of Latin-American soldiers in anti-guerilla warfare techniques. This text, enhanced by colour plates and numerous photographs, examines the history of the Central American Wars by country, from 1959 to 1989, detailing the organization and uniforms of the combatants.

When Queen Victoria acceded to the British throne in 1837, British troops had recently concluded a war in southern Africa against the Xhosa people, and the seeds were already sown for a clash with the Boers. When she died in January 1901 Britain was fighting the Boers in one of the longest and costliest of the imperial colonial wars. This book details the history of Britain's numerous conflicts with the people of southern Africa, namely the Xhosa, Basotho, Tswana and Boers. Numerous illustrations, including rare photographs and colour plates, detail the dress, weaponry and organization of Victoria's enemies in the late 19th century.

The tragic national epic of Polish history - its repeated foreign occupations, and its heroic but doomed rebellions - began in these late 18th-century wars. Under Poland's Saxon monarchy, Russia and Prussia constantly meddled in the affairs of the Kingdom, both exerting pressure, and subverting Polish parties to work in their favor. In 1768 a civil war broke out between pro-Russian 'Commonwealth' Poles and 'Confederate' patriots who opposed foreign intervention; Russia intervened directly, and the First Partition followed in 1772, handing large slices of Polish territory to the Kingdom's powerful neighbors Russia, Austria, and Prussia.Guerrilla resistance continued, and anti-Russian political moves were snuffed out by a second Russian invasion in 1792, which provoked an immediate Prussian invasion, too. Following a Second Partition between Russia and Prussia in 1793, Poland's national hero Thaddeus Kosciusko - who had formerly served under Washington in the American Revolution - led a national uprising against the invaders in April 1794. After remarkable victories against the odds at Raclawice and Warsaw, the patriots were finally defeated by the combined armies of Prussia and Russia at Maciejowice. This led to the Third Partition of 1795, between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, and Poland ceased to exist as a political nation.Featuring specially commissioned full-color illustrations, this is the epic story of Poland's doomed struggle to remain independent in the face of aggression from its neighbors in the late 18th century.

The British Army in Queen Victoria's reign fought a series of regional campaigns against various African groups with complex military traditions well-suited to their environment. In many instances, the outcome of the ensuing fighting was by no means one-sided. This book focuses on the large-scale wars in northern Africa in which British regular troops were engaged throughout the 19th century, including those in Abyssinia, Asante, Egypt and the Sudan. Containing a number of rare contemporary photographs and eight colour plates, the book charts the history of these campaigns and describes the African groups against which they were waged.

"The War between the States" is the term used for the American Civil War (1861-1865)throughout much of the South even today. Many on both sides – not just the South – felt that they were serving their states as much, if not more, than their central governments. Many of the states agreed; the state governments raising their own units, commissioning their officers, and supplying their men. Indeed, many of the units that fought the Civil War were supplied in large part by their own states rather than by the central government's quartermasters. Philip Katcher's fascinating text explores the uniforms of 32 states; from Alabama to Wisconsin.

By the time Queen Victoria came to the throne, India – some 1,600,000 square miles, ranging from soaring mountains to deserts and jungle swamps, populated by 400,000,000 people with a kaleidoscope of different cultures and religions – was firmly in the grip of a handful of British East India Company administrators, either ruling directly or through Indian nominees. However, the Company's search for a policy in western India embroiled it in a string of military campaigns, including one of the worst disasters ever to befall a British army. Ian Knight's fascinating text examines the absorbing, dramatic and brutal history of the Company's exploits against Victoria's Indian enemies.

Due to the spread of British strategic and commercial interests during the Victorian period, the British military was called upon to serve in theatres across the world. Some of the fighting was severe; it took nearly 30 years of intermittent warfare to suppress Maori opposition to settler expansion in New Zealand. In other areas it amounted to little more than skirmishing, as in Brooke's campaign against the pirates of Borneo and the Jamaican revolt of 1865. This book details these various 'small wars' and examines the qualities of the disparate peoples who opposed the spread of the British Empire.

At the time of the American Civil War (1861-1865), with two million men under arms, a US Army that in pre-war days had depended upon a minute number of technical troops now required virtually an army of specialists alone. Special sharpshooters were recruited for skirmishing duty; men whose wounds would have led to their discharge in the past now found themselves guarding important posts in the Veteran Reserve Corps; and large numbers of civilians found themselves in uniform as members of the Telegraph or Hospital Corps. Philip Katcher examines the organization and uniforms of the specialist troops who served in the armies of both sides.