Wars have been fought over it, fortunes made and lost from it, empires risen and fallen over it, entire continents discovered seeking it, and people killed and enslaved to protect a treasure once considered to be more valuable than gold. Now sold seasonally with whipped cream.
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.