Forgotten Patriots | History, Christians, Families, Civil War, WW1, WW2, Revolutionary War, Conservatives

On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot outside the Washington Hilton Hotel when an assassin's bullet narrowly missed his heart.   Despite his injuries, Reagan's humor and courage reassured a worried nation saying to the doctors: “I hope you’re all Republicans.” To which the lead surgeon replied: “We’re all Republicans today, sir.”   Born in 1911 in Illinois, Reagan learned hard work t...

As British forces under General Charles Cornwallis weakly huddled at Yorktown in 1781, George Washington faced one final obstacle: the Continental Army had no money to pay troops or buy supplies.   Salvation came from Haym Salomon, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, financier, and patriot who secured the funds needed to sustain and feed the army.   Arriving in New York in 1772, Salomon embraced the A...

Ask yourself: What do the last 250 years look like without America?   Without the American example, kings still claim divine authority “from God.” Individual liberty is silenced in its infancy. In the twentieth century, it was the United States standing against fascism when much of the world capitulated. The satanic despots of the Nazi Party, proclaiming their Reich “would rule for a thousand year...

Threatening clouds hung low over Budapest, Hungary.   Soldiers shouted orders, dragging men, women, even children from their homes.   The icy wind cut through the thin clothing of the terrified Jewish families as they were forced toward the banks of the Danube River. There, in the gray dawn, the soldiers lined them up shoulder to shoulder.   “Shoes off!” Shouted the Nazi officer.   The people obey...

The Albemarle was a beast.   Protected by four-inch iron plating and sloped armor designed to deflect cannon fire, she seemed invincible.   Union shells bounced harmlessly off like pebbles. Destroying this ironclad was vital.   Traditional attacks had failed. So, Lt. Cushing proposed something bolder...   Under cover of darkness, he would sneak up to the vessel and blow a hole in her hull using th...

Before dawn the sound of jackboots thudded on the outside steps, then a fist pounded her door.   “Gestapo! Open up!”   Inside the humble Warsaw apartment, a young Polish woman stood very still.   Beneath her floorboards were forged documents. In a jar were hundreds of names of Jewish children smuggled out into different Christian homes under false identities.   If the Germans found that list, thos...

Gunfire ripped through the Georgia air. Smoke rolled low across the shattered battlefield of downed and dying men.   The wounded lay everywhere; blue and gray uniforms tangled together in mud and blood. Confederate reinforcements advanced. Battered Union troops pulled back.   Yet in the chaos, a lone female figure moved towards the danger instead of away from it.   She wore men’s trousers, hardly...

History proves that “You can’t have freedom without genuine morality.”   In 480 BC, the Persian Empire’s tyrant, King Xerxes I, launched a massive invasion of Greece intending to enslave the world.   Standing against Persia was King Leonidas and his famed 300 Spartans. The stakes: the freedom of Greece and by extension, greater Europe.   The Spartans held as long as possible before fighting to the...

For hours, General John Buford’s cavalry delayed wave after wave of the best troops the Confederates had, skillfully trading space for time, falling back stubbornly, but keeping to the critical heights.   Carbines cracked, artillery boomed, and horses flattened their ears in the chaos of battle.   One of the finest horsemen in the Union Army, John Buford rode calmly among his men, encouraging them...

At the beginning of World War I, a network of civilians in German occupied Belgium began hiding British and French soldiers and guiding them toward neutral Holland.   But they needed help. Someone they could trust.   Edith Cavell volunteered because that’s who she was.   Her nursing school in Brussels became more than a hospital. Secretly she hid British and French soldiers in her attic, cellar, a...

In August 1776, General George Washington’s army faced annihilation at the Battle of Long Island.   British General William Howe executed a brilliant flanking maneuver, trapping the inexperienced American forces against the East River.   The fate of the Revolution hung by a thread.   Standing in the path of thousands of advancing British and Hessian troops was the First Maryland Regiment, fewer th...

President and General Andrew Jackson was many things to many people.   Most of all he was a man of boundless energy who captured the presidency despite being the consummate Washington outsider.   He was one of history’s greatest generals, winning a victory at the Battle of New Orleans (against all odds) that most fail to realize likely saved the interior of the country from continued British encro...

It is hard to understand the true nature of the sacrifice of the Alamo in American and Texas history without looking at the life and service of one of its stalwart defenders.   His name, James Butler Bonham, truly one of the least known, yet most devoted soldiers who fought to the death defending the eleven women and nine children who were also in the Alamo that fateful day of March 6, 1836.   Lie...

Word spread through the town in minutes.   A young unknown woman had just challenged the famous marksman Frank Butler to a shooting contest. Frank was a shootist who had never lost a rifle match.   Facing him stood a shy young woman. She wore a plain, homespun dress and held an old, worn-out rifle.   Some in the crowd laughed out loud, mocking the girl.   But when the shooting began the laughter d...

In Middle Eastern lands, lands where my wife and I spent part of our lives, we watched humble shepherds, local herders running their sheep near our villa for the grass that grew there in the winter and spring months.   I talked with several. They were strong, but humble men. They had few, if any, resources to fall back on.   God was their protector. And they called upon Him regularly. And their ch...

The young soldier jerked upright on his cot, another wave of violent pain tore through him.   Outside, the distant thunder of artillery. But inside conditions were as lethal as the battlefield, more soldiers dying from infection and disease than from enemy bullets.   Again, the young soldier called out: “Please… someone…water.”   The soldier lay back. In his moment of hopelessness, the faint glow...

Sunlight poured through the windows of the crowded church as hundreds of Americans sat in uneasy silence. The Angel of Death hung over Boston.   For just off the American coastline, a massive French armada was rushing to attack them.   Warships. Troop transports. Thousands of soldiers bent on revenge, pillage, and plunder, to burn Boston to the ground.   Inside the Old South Meetinghouse, at the p...

Patrick could not forget his miraculous vision commanding him to return.   He could hear the voices of the Irish people pleading with him to bring them Christ’s word. But Patrick knew his former slave masters were without mercy.   They would kill him on sight.   He could have ignored the visions. Almost any other person in his circumstance would have.   Instead, he returned. But not with an army....

“Give me liberty or give me death!” So said Patrick Henry to a divided America, fearful of standing for independence.   But stand they did.   250 years ago this year, a small group of seemingly ordinary men did something extraordinary. They signed their names to the Declaration of Independence…risking everything!   “Their lives. Their fortunes. Their sacred honor.”   And they didn’t do it for fame...

In 1778, during the American Revolutionary War, Daniel Boone was captured by the Shawnee Indians.   Though a prisoner, he studied their language. When he learned of an impending attack on Boonesborough that was encouraged, supplied, and paid for by the British, he escaped the Shawnee village.   Running 160 miles in five days, he warned the settlement.   The siege that followed was one of Daniel Bo...

Private Audie Murphy, just over five feet tall and 17-years-old, would become the most decorated American soldier of World War II.   But his war record of unbelievable courage and fighting skill did not begin with the war. It began with family hardship and personal tragedy.   His courage came from a deeply personal place. He simply refused to abandon those who depended on him.   His list of battle...

The iron door slammed shut with a dull thud. The torchlight wavered as the Roman guards stepped back from the cell.   Inside, kneeling on cold stone was a man who was scourged, blood dripping from his torn back. Shackles bit into his wrists and ankles. He awaited the executioner’s heavy sword.   Issuing from the Emperor’s palace the “justice” of Rome—proud, powerful, pitiless—had determined the ma...

It’s hard to find an American frontiersman with greater skill than Kit Carson.   He left home as a young teen. By his early twenties, he was already a seasoned, well-known, mountain man. He spoke Ute, Shoshoni, Navajo, Apache, Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Paiute, as well as fluent in Spanish.   During the Mexican War, Carson famously snuck through enemy lines running 30 miles barefoot to get help....

On the day of their execution, Vibia and Felicity were led into the arena.   Vibia was forced to wear a pagan costume, one that a priestess-prostitute in the pagan temples would wear. She tore the pagan robes off her body declaring she had come freely in the name of her Lord and God.   Then, the gates were opened. An enraged, tormented cow charged them.   Vibia Perpetua, trying to protect Felicity...

Though wounded, Lieutenant Matt Urban forced himself to stand.   German machine-gun fire tore at the ground around him. His men were pinned down. A tank lurched forward in a grinding whine, its guns swiveling at them, hunting targets. Matt ignored the pain and the blood spreading on his side, snatching up a bazooka.   He dropped to one knee, sighted and fired. The rocket sizzled on its deadly path...