Caius is a man, men are mortal, and therefore Caius is a mortal.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Liberté, Liberté Chérie
"You must know him as the North River captain and know that it is only the exercise of his own judgment which was wanting to perfect his character."
Rewriting Reality: Lessons from Michael Pollan’s Psychedelic Journey
“My ego was suspended somewhere in space, and I saw my body lying dead on the sofa.”
Eternity Is Nearer Every Day
"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."
Honor and the Haunting: What Valiant Ambition Reveals About Us
"Let me die in this old uniform in which I fought my battles. May God forgive me for ever having put on another."
100th, From the Underground
“To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky
Maryland, My Maryland
Thy beaming sword shall never rust,Maryland!Remember Carroll's sacred trust,Remember Howard's warlike thrust,-And all thy slumberers with the just,Maryland! My Maryland! Michael and David dive into Patrick K. O'Donnell's Washington's Immortals: The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution. They trace the remarkable journey of the Maryland regulars—from the desperate... Continue Reading →
Ode to Lincoln
“The greatness of Napoleon, Caesar or Washington is moonlight by the sun of Lincoln. His example is universal and will last thousands of years. Washington was a typical American, Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country-bigger than all the Presidents put together”
The Struggle for the North
Montgomery's fate assisting me to sing! Where num'rous heroes met the angel Death. The laurel yet shall grace his bust; but, oh! America must wear sad cypress now. Nor strive to have her injuries redress'd. Oh had but Carleton suffer'd in his stead! Had half idolitrous Canadia bled!
The Whites of Their Eyes
“Don’t throw away a single shot, my brave fellows,” said Old Putnam, "don’t throw away a single shot, but take good aim; nor touch a trigger, till you can see the whites of their eyes.”
El Libertador
Tread, if you dare, on this stairway of Titans, this crown of earth, this unassailable battlement of the New World. From such heights will you command the unobstructed vista; and here, looking on earth and sky – admiring the brute force of terrestrial creation – you will say: Two eternities gaze upon me: the past and the yet-to-be; but this throne of nature, like its creator, is as enduring, as indestructible, as eternal, as the Universal Father.
Victory or Death
Shortly after eight o'clock on the morning of December 26, 1776, the Continental Army started its charge on the city. Three columns marched through thick snow with Washington personally leading the middle charge. As the soldiers pushed forward, artillery began to fire.
2024 Year End Review
Michael, David and Cal discuss their readings from 2024 and goals for 2025.
A. Lincoln
"If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I may seize the nearest stick and kill it. But if I found that snake in bed with my children that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide."
Ba’alzevuv
“Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill.. You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? I’m the reason why… things are what they are.”
The Lion of Little Round Top
As my year of studying the Civil War draws to a close, I wanted to share my thoughts on my favorite figure: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. My first encounter with Chamberlain was through a reference in Ken Burns' PBS documentary series. Although not a primary figure, his contributions and background immediately appealed to me. He was... Continue Reading →
Historical Fiction: The Civil War
"Buford's role in securing the high ground at Gettysburg was crucial. Bringing that to life on screen, especially in such a detailed and respectful manner, was a deeply moving experience"
That Devil Forrest
"He must be hunted down and killed if it costs 10,000 men and bankrupts the treasury.” -General Sherman
The Union Forever!
“The crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood.” -John Brown
Oh Captain! My Captain!
"The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, while follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring."
Rage, Achilles
This year I decided to fill in a gaping gap in my liberal arts knowledge of antiquity by committing to sitting down and reading one of the most influential works in the Western cannon – Homer’s Iliad. The Iliad is a collection of books in the style of a poem; it contains 24 books arranged... Continue Reading →
The Coming of the Lord: Civil War Podcast #3
"The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things. It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads." -Shelby Foote
His Terrible Swift Sword: Civil War Podcast #2
"It was imperative to strike before we were struck by this overwhelming force in a hand-to-hand fight, which we could not probably have withstood or survived. At that crisis, I ordered the bayonet. The word was enough. It ran like fire along the line, from man to man; and rose into a shout, with which they sprang forward upon the enemy, now not 30 yards away."
To Arms! Civil War Podcast #1
"Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees."
2023 Year Review
Michael, Cal and David discuss the books read over 2023.
You Cannot Get Away
"Boys, I may lead you into hell, but I'll get you out if you do exactly as I tell you to do. I'll never send you into a battle, I'll lead you. All I ask any man to do is follow me." -Leander McNelly
An Accidentally United Little Lump of Something
“The question without answering which one cannot live: Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?”
Victory in the Pacific
Description of the book (from publisher): Beginning with the Honolulu Conference, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with his Pacific theater commanders to plan the last phase of the campaign against Japan, Twilight of the Gods brings to life the harrowing last year of World War II in the Pacific, when the U.S. Navy won... Continue Reading →
Island Fighting
Japanese bomb hits USS Enterprise (CV-6) flight deck during Battle of Eastern Solomons (August 24th, 1942)
Pacific Blitz
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt on the morning after the Pearl Harbor attack
The Rising Red Tide: Fall of Berlin
Soviet soldier raises flag over Reichstag in May 1945
La Peste
The Plague, a novel published by Albert Camus in 1947, was my first introduction to a subset of existentialist thought popularized by Camus known as absurdism. While much of the content of absurdism was covered in the earlier post on The Stranger, I did want to begin this post by familiarizing the reader with a... Continue Reading →
Arnhem / Ardennes
“A Pint of Sweat Will Save a Gallon of Blood.” -General Patton
Overlord: Normandy Campaign
Michael and David discuss Antony Beevor's book, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy after visiting The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana together. Description of book: Renowned historian Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad and The Battle of Arnhem, and the man who "single-handedly transformed the reputation of military history" (The Guardian) presents the first major... Continue Reading →
Wild Frontier: My Journey Through the 1800s in 2022
"The West is a story. It's not a place. It's a story we tell ourselves about where we've been and where we're going." - Ken Burns
Not One Step Backwards
"Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege" is a gripping book that offers a detailed and nuanced understanding of one of the most important battles of the 20th century.
L’Étranger
"I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world."
Thucydides and Pericles: A Short Summary on Reason and War
Admittedly, I had only read a little of history and war before Michael and I began reading together. My first attempt at reading history “seriously” was Oswald Spengler’s two-volume set, Decline of the West. I mistakenly thought that history could be comprehended like a novel or short story. I was like a young boy who,... Continue Reading →
Caesar Comes to Gaul
"When the results of this year's campaign were reported in his dispatches, a thanksgiving of twenty days was celebrated in Rome."
Or
N.B. The first section of Kierkegaard’s 1843 publication, Either/Or, is covered in a prior post titled “A Fragment of Life”, dated 01/20/2023. We move now to the second, and by far more uplifting, portion of Kierkegaard’s first great work. The scene is set to progress from the aesthetic to the ethical stage when our pseudonymous... Continue Reading →
Dive Into the Depths
The Passenger / Stella Maris Discussion Michael and David discuss Cormac McCarthy's new books: The Passenger and Stella Maris. This will be the last McCarthy review for the foreseeable future. The Passenger description (from publisher): 1980, PASS CHRISTIAN, MISSISSIPPI: It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of his wet suit... Continue Reading →
A Fragment of Life
“To forget – all men want to do that… but forgetting is an art that must be practiced beforehand. Being able to forget depends always on how one remembers, but how one remembers depends always on how one experiences reality. The person who sticks fast in it with the momentum of hope will remember in a way that makes him unable to forget.”
Turning Pages II: A Review of Books from 2022
Cal and I discuss the books we took down in 2022 and reflect on our lives as our twenties draw to a close. We also discuss goals for 2023. Thank you to all who have supported us over the years, we look forward to another year and opportunity to learn. Cal Wilkerson and Michael McPhail... Continue Reading →
Omne Solum Forti Patria Est
In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River to the Rockies, over the mountains, down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, and back. Lewis and his partner, Captain William Clark, made the first map of the trans-Mississippi West, provided invaluable scientific data on the flora and fauna of the Louisiana Purchase territory, and established the American claim to Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
Time and Memory
“Can it be that there was something evil in the matter from which he made the universe? When he shaped this matter and fitted it to do his purpose, did he leave in it some part which he did not convert to good? But why should he have done this? Are we to believe that, although he is omnipotent, he had not the power to convert the whole of this matter to good and change it so that no evil remained in it? Why, indeed, did he will to make anything of it at all? Why did he not instead, by this same omnipotence, destroy it utterly and entirely? Could it have existed against his will? If it had existed from eternity, why did he allow it to exist in that state through the infinite ages of the past and then, after so long a time, decide to make something of it?
Carry the Fire
They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.
Et In Arcadia Ego
"It makes no difference what men think of war, he said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."
About Face Discussion
Whether he was fifteen years old or forty, David Hackworth devoted his life to the US Army and quickly became a living legend. However, he appeared on TV in 1971 to decry the doomed war effort in Vietnam. From Korea to Berlin and the Cuban missile crisis to Vietnam, Hackworth’s story is that of an exemplary patriot, played against the backdrop of the changing fortunes of America and the US military. This memoir is the stunning indictment of the Pentagon’s fundamental misunderstanding of the Vietnam conflict and of the bureaucracy of self-interest that fueled the war. With About Face, Hackworth has written what many Vietnam veterans have called the most important book of their generation and presents a vivid and powerful portrait of patriotism.
A Good Café: Hemingway in Paris
Paris in the 1920s sounded like such a picturesque place with cafés scattered around, the Luxembourg Garden, wine by the bottle, various writers such as Scott Fitzgerald making it their home at the time and the historical buildings in the backdrop created an ecosphere of creativity for the young Mr. Hemingway.
A Carlson Chrestomathy
If Carlson is a victim of his own success, or excess, he has penned something to remember what he thought it was and should be. He still gets to ask the questions. We still get to know the answers. Screened or not, for a subscription, or as advertised. To these truths, maybe it won’t matter, and if you need to know, maybe it won’t be the same tomorrow. If you want perspective, get out there, look around, and ask some questions—if you can. That’s all a journalist is supposed to do. And that’s all the news that’s fit to print.
Brains and Brawn 