Welcome Letter
The Saber and Scroll Journal • Volume 9 , Number 3 • Winter 2020
As we close down the year 2020 , the year of COVID , we at The Saber and
Scroll Journal continue to try to put out the best possible in historical scholarship . There are hints of optimism that 2021 will be a far better year with vaccines and therapies to treat this awful pandemic . To ignite this optimism , The Saber and Scroll Journal presents an edition focusing on American military history from the Era of the Revolution to the contemporary War on Terror .
Any reader interested in American military history will find something to like in our current issue .
For the reader of the military aspects of the Revolutionary War , there are superb articles on the continued relevance of General George Washington , irregular warfare pioneer Nathaniel Greene , and the Continental Navy . Revolutionary War scholarship has been enjoying a resurgence in recent years , and these works add to the expanding historiography .
World War II is of course the most voluminous subject investigated by military historians , and this issue offers works on a variety of subjects . Our Managing Editor , in addition to his constant diligence in preparing this and other volumes , still managed to pen an article detailing the famous and tragic story of the Sullivan brothers and the USS Juneau . If interested in the European Theater of Operations , the subject of landing craft shortages and the impact of those shortages on Operation OVERLORD will pique your interest . Rounding out the World War II section of this issue is an article by this author , part one of a two-part series , on one of the forgotten Army infantry divisions of the war , the 32nd , and their toils on the island of New Guinea .
America ’ s most destructive conflict , the Civil War , also has a spot here . Can we all have a cup of coffee together ? That is the central theme of an article on the impact of coffee on the Union Army and its importance to group cohesion and task orientation . America ’ s need for coffee is not a phenomenon of only recent times .
The post-World War II era is not ignored . Our examination begins with a fine article on one of the Korean War ’ s famous battles at the Chosin Reservoir . We then examine the root causes of the conflict in Vietnam , which claimed the lives of 55,000 Americans and 2,000,000 Vietnamese . Finally , America ’ s longest war , the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan , rounds out our forum of military topics . From beginning to end , American military history is illustrated .
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We have also been quite busy reviewing five different books . This writer reviewed a recent work on General Ulysses Grant ’ s impact on the final outcome of the Civil War . Our other five reviews cover some of the smaller , less known American conflicts , such as the Quasi War with France during the 1790s , President Readoi : 10.18278 / sshj . 9.3.1