Infinite Wisdom

"We knew ourselves one fair dame who drew the pay of Captain in the Dragoons, and was probably not much less fit for the service than some who, at that period, actually did duty, for no knowledge of any kind was demanded from the young officers."

La Triviata

• Brig. Gen. David E. Twiggs was unable to command his division during the fighting at Monterrey, Mexico, on September 23-24, 1846, because, believing it would reduce the chance of infection should he be wounded in the bowels, he had dosed himself liberally with a laxative and was suffering a serious case of the runs, though despite his non-participation in the fight, he received a brevet promotion to major general and was awarded swords of honor by Congress, the State of Georgia, and the city of Augusta therein.
• Officially designated "horizon blue," the color of the new uniforms introduced by the French Army in 1915 was immediately nicknamed "Joffre blue" by the troops, in tribute to their commander, Joseph Joffre.
• On December 26, 1779, a large British convoy sailed from New York bound for Charleston, only to run into severe storms, during which the transport Anna, carrying a Hessian regiment, was dismasted and drifted away, so that she was believed lost with all hands, until, seven weeks later, when her helpless hulk, ran ashore in Cornwall, England, amazingly with all souls still aboard, albeit cold, hungry, and frightened.
• An inscription dedicated by the legio I Minerva at Cologne during the Second Century commemorates the capture of fifty bears within a six-month period by the centurion Tarquitius Restutus Pisauro.
• The three senior-most British officers in the latter half of World War II, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Browne Cunningham, and Marshal of the Royal Air Force Charles Portal, were such avid anglers that their staffs often joked that when planning for meetings, fishing had to be "Item No. 1 on the Agenda."
• In the course of his life, Giuseppe Garibaldi personally rescued at least four people from drowning.
• Between July of 1776, when he commanded what was the largest American field army until the Civil War, in the vicinity of New York, and December of that year, on the eve of his brilliant Trenton-Princeton Campaign, forces under George Washington’s direct control fell from about 20,000 men to only about 4,000, mostly due to desertion.
• During the late nineteenth century, Russian infantry regiments bore a number, plus the name of their recruiting area, and that of their honorary commanding officer as well, so that a unit could formally bear the name "the 121^st War Minister Count Dmitry Milyutin Penzansky Infantry Regiment," though in practice it would be commonly known as the "Penzansky Regiment," for its home town.

More...