Moving the US to a war footing before and during the Second World War was probably the largest industrial shift in American history. In rural Wisconsin, the largest munition factory in the world sprung up as if out of nowhere, just one of many military facilities the size of cities built to help meet the needs of a global war.
In August of 1918, as the armies of Europe neared exhaustion, American troops of the 28th “Keystone” division were thrown into a nearly forgotten battle that fully represented the horrors of the War to End All Wars.
Of the vaunted ironclad warships of the US Civil War perhaps the mightiest and most terrifying was the confederate ram Tennessee. On August 5, 1864, she would be put to the test in the largest naval engagement of the war, an engagement that defined the divided loyalties of the War of the Rebellion.