Frontier Partisans

I’m one of those people who starts the Spooky Season on September 1. It runs through Hogmanay, too. I love everything about it — the crispness in the air, the shift toward autumnal light, the lingering of Indian Summer... the pumpkin spice (judge me if you must, I care not). Most of all, I revel in the close proximity of Fennario, that American … [Read more...] about ‘This Does Not Bode Well…’

The early-modern military history channel SandRhoman History just dropped another video in their series on “Staggering Sieges” — this one focused around the Siege of Detroit during Pontiac’s War. I always enjoy their work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9heCNkIP9w * The Undiscovered Country, Paul Andrew Hutton’s magnum opus, is now available … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — Mozambique; Afghanistan; Northern Ireland & Mexico

“...In those parts it was wiser to travel ... well-armed and with a crew who all slept with one eye open and who understood each other like brothers.” — Captain Alonso de Contreras * I have never really given the Spaniards their due. Blame Anglophile tendencies. From tales of the Armada to Sir Henry Morgan’s exploits in Panama in 1671, up … [Read more...] about A Spanish Adventurer — The Wild Life Of Captain Alonso de Contreras — Part I

This is ... intriguing... A parable of Frontier Partisan warfare and revenge, set in an unnamed country, clearly in the early decades of the 20th Century.... Without Blood is based on an Italian novella, directed by Angelina Jolie, and stars Salma Hayek and Demián Bichir. Per the Toronto Film Festival: In a frontier landscape at the … [Read more...] about In A Frontier Landscape…

We’re getting a glimpse from Paramount of Season 2 of The Terminal List, set for release on Amazon on October 21. The season is built on the second book in the James Reece series, True Believer — one that I particularly enjoyed, not least because Reece spends some time on a game reserve in Mozambique with the Old Rhodesian Hastings family. … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — Mine Wars, Mighty Muskets, True Believer, Rumors Of War

Two British officers earned especially dark reputations during the American War of Independence. Thayendanegea — Joseph Brant — the Mohawk War Captain earned the name Monster Brant through his role in the brutal, bloody raids that devastated the Mohawk Valley and pushed the frontier back nearly to the Hudson River. In fact, Brant was far from … [Read more...] about Britain’s Hard Man — Banastre Tarleton At War

The fourth episode in the Frontier Partisans Podcast series on The American Revolution on the Frontier is up. You can listen to it here or on Spotify and most other podcast platforms. This episode covers the Sullivan Expedition of 1779, when General George Washington carved off four brigades of the Continental Army to form a punitive expedition … [Read more...] about The Sullivan Expedition

One of the most intense episodes during the Sullivan Expedition of 1779 occurred when a reconnaissance patrol of 27 men led by Lt. Thomas Boyd of the Rifle Corps engaged in a woodland firefight with a substantial force of Loyalist Rangers and Iroquois warriors deployed in an attempt to ambush the American advance toward the Seneca town of Genesse … [Read more...] about A Firefight In The Woods

If you’ve been waiting and wondering when you could get yourself the Canadian Rangers’ TK3 Arctic Rifle, wonder no more. You can get it in the States through Beretta. Cost you $2,259 plews though... Maybe when we secure that Urca de Lima gold, eh? * Nice segue into the piratical, eh? The reboot of the Assassins Creed: Black Flag game … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline – An Iconic Rifle; Pirate Shanties; The First Mountain Man