Takeda Katsuyori, Shingen's son, brought the same fearsome cavalry his father had used to break Ieyasu at Mikatagahara. Nobunaga answered it with roughly 3,000 arquebusiers arranged behind wooden palisades in rotating firing lines — while one rank fired, the next reloaded, so the volleys never stopped — supported by a river and marshy ground that funnelled the Takeda horsemen into the killing zone. Charge after charge broke against continuous gunfire. Most of the senior Takeda generals died on the field.
Usually cited as the battle that ended the supremacy of the mounted samurai in Japanese warfare, arrived at independently and at almost exactly the same moment Europe was learning the identical lesson at Nieuwpoort and would relearn it again at places like Rocroi. It broke the Takeda clan's military capacity for good — Katsuyori's forces never recovered, and Takeda territory fell to Nobunaga's alliance within seven years.
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When the British evacuated Philadelphia after France entered the war, Washington pursued. General Charles Lee ordered an inexplicable retreat just as battle was joined. Washington rode furiously to the front and, reportedly furious, relieved Lee on the spot and turned the retreat into a battle. The Continental Army fought the British regulars to a standstill in 100-degree heat — the professional army Valley Forge had created proved itself equal to the redcoats. Molly Pitcher legend originates here.
Monmouth was the last major battle in the North. The new French alliance shifted British strategy south, and Washington's army had proven it could fight on equal terms. General Lee was court-martialed and never held command again.
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