American Courage, American Carnage: 7th Infantry Chronicles: The 7th Infantry Regiment's Combat Experience, 1812 Through World War II
The second volume, after The 7th Infantry Regiment: Combat in the Age of Terror (2008), of McManus’ fine history of one of the U.S Army’s most fabled regiments covers the first part of its distinguished history. Organized in 1811, the seventh gained its sobriquet, the Cotton Bailers, at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. During the nineteenth century, although it distinguished itself at Gettysburg, it mostly served garrison duty and in the Indian Wars. Its World War I experience justifies carnage in the title of this book, and then came World War II. In that conflict, the regiment’s path wound from North Africa to Hitler’s hideaway at Berchtesgaden by way of Sicily, Italy, and southern France. McManus has researched exhaustively but does not make the book exhausting, and he shows a fine hand in descriptions of infantry combat extending over more than a century and a quarter. Far better than average military history, this is for most American libraries. --Roland Green