The CANCELED -- Twilight Riders; The Charge of the 26th U.S. Cavalry and the Last Mounted Campaign in American History

by Peter F. Stevens

• ISBN13: 9781592289240
• ISBN10: 159228924X
• Format: Trade Book
• Publisher: Lyons Press
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

On January 16, 1942, the battered, exhausted men of the 26th U.S. Cavalry, of the Army's Philippine Scouts, climbed astride their horses. They flung themselves moments later against the blazing gun muzzles of Japanese tanks. It was the last mounted charge in America's annals and proved the climax of the 26th Cavalry's magnificent but doomed horseback campaign against the Imperial Japanese Army during the fall of the Philippines in 1941-42. Through recently declassified and unpublished documents, journals, diaries, interviews with dozens of the men who rode and fought in the last stand of the U.S. Cavalry, and an array of other firsthand sources, The Twilight Riders presents the full saga of the 26th for the first time, bringing the story to vivid and unforgettable life. The book reveals not only the valor of those cavalrymen, but also the way in which this American and Filipino "band of brothers" forged ties that transcended race and were forever cemented in blood, suffering, and pride. Courage, audacity, hardship, unrelenting action, equal parts tragedy and triumph, and a camaraderie that would survive the horrors of battle, the Bataan Death March, and Japanese prison camps--all of these comprise the legacy of the 26th Cavalry, The Twilight Riders.

Author Biography

Peter F. Stevens has written many pieces for military history magazines, along with articles on World War II for national publications such as VFW Magazine and numerous newspapers and regional magazines. He is the author of The Rogue's March: John Riley and the St. Patrick's Battalion in the Mexican-American War, 1846-48, which garnered high praise from such publications as Military History Quarterly and American Heritage Magazine; and also of The Voyage of the Catalpa.