Best of
American-History

1962

Negroes with Guns


Robert Franklin Williams - 1962
    Frustrated and angered by violence condoned or abetted by the local authorities against blacks, the small community of Monroe, North Carolina, brought the issue of armed self-defense to the forefront of the civil rights movement. The single most important intellectual influence on Huey P. Newton, the founder of the Black Panther Party, Negroes with Guns is a classic story of a man who risked his life for democracy and freedom.

The Fetterman Massacre


Dee Brown - 1962
    Providing a vivid backdrop to the battle, Brown offers a portrait of Wyoming's Ft. Phil Kearney and the remarkable men who built and defended it. Based on a wealth of historical sources and sparked by Brown's narrative genius, "The Fetterman Massacre" is an essential look at one of the frontier's defining conflicts.

Plenty-coups: Chief of the Crows


Frank Bird Linderman - 1962
    Linderman, the well-known western writer who had befriended him. Plenty-coups is a classic account of the nomadic, spiritual, and warring life of Plains Indians before they were forced onto reservations. Plenty-coups tells of the great triumphs and struggles of his own life: his powerful medicine dreams, marriage, raiding and counting coups against the Lakotas, fighting alongside the U.S. Army, and the death of General Custer. This new edition allows readers to appreciate more fully the accomplishments and rich legacy of Plenty-coups. A previously unpublished essay by Linderman tells of his meeting and working with the chief. An introduction by Phenocia Bauerle and Barney Old Coyote Jr., both members of the Crow Nation, speaks to the enduring importance of Plenty-coups for the Crow people in the twenty-first century; an afterword by Timothy P. McCleary, also of the Crow Nation, highlights the pivotal role Plenty-coups played during the early reservation years after the buffalo had gone; an essay by Celeste River examines the special relationship between the old chief and Linderman; a map of Plenty-coups's world highlights places named in the story; a glossary of Crow words and concepts found in the story draws upon the latest orthographic standards and contemporary translation; and a photo gallery showcases both Plenty-coups at different stages of his life and unforgettable scenes of his world.

Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War


Edmund Wilson - 1962
    Grant, Ambrose Bierce, Mary Chesnut, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Oliver Wendell Holmes prove Wilson to be the consummate witness to the most eloquently recorded era in American history.

Taming the Nueces Strip: The Story of McNelly's Rangers


George Durham - 1962
    Thousands of raiders on horseback, some of them Anglo-Americans, regularly crossed the river from Mexico to pillage, murder, and rape. Their main objective? To steal cattle, which they herded back across the Rio Grande to sell. Honest citizens found it almost impossible to live in the Nueces Strip.In desperation, the governor of Texas called on an extraordinary man, Captain Leander M. McNelly, to take command of a Ranger company and stop these border bandits. One of McNelly's recruits for this task was George Durham, a Georgia farmboy in his teens when he joined the "Little McNellys," as the Captain's band called themselves. More than half a century later, it was George Durham, the last surviving "McNelly Ranger," who recounted the exciting tale of taming the Nueces Strip to San Antonio writer Clyde Wantland.In Durham's account, those long-ago days are brought vividly back to life. Once again the daring McNelly leads his courageous band across Southwest Texas to victories against incredible odds. With a boldness that overcame their dismayingly small number, the McNellys succeeded in bringing law and order to the untamed Nueces Strip—succeeded so well that they antagonized certain "upright" citizens who had been pocketing surreptitious dollars from the bandits' operations.

Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton


Edward L. Beach - 1962
    Beach, planned a routine shakedown cruise in the North Atlantic. Two weeks before the scheduled cruise, however, Beach was summoned to Washington and told of the immediate necessity to prove the reliability of the Rickover-conceived submarine. His new secret orders were to take the Triton around the world, entirely submerged the total distance. This is Beach's gripping firsthand account of what went on during the 36,000 nautical-mile voyage whose record for speed and endurance still stands today. It brings to life the many tense events in the historic journey: the malfunction of the essential fathometer that indicated the location of undersea mountains and shallow waters, the sudden agonizing illness of a senior petty officer, and the serious problems with the ship's main hydraulic oil system. Intensely dramatic, Beach's chronicle also describes the psychological stresses of the journey and some touching moments shared by the crew. A skillful story teller, he recounts the experience in such detail that readers feel they have been along for the ride of a lifetime.

Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850s


Don E. Fehrenbacher - 1962
    . . [The] paperback edition of Professor Fehrenbacher’s study, first published in 1962, of Lincoln in the 1850s is a welcome reminder of what can be achieved by a fresh and searching investigation of often-asked questions. . . . The book is lucidly and soberly written, and full of carefully considered argument. It is one more major contribution to the work of putting the slavery issue back where it has always belonged—at the very centre—of any discussion of the origins of the Civil War.”—Journal of American Studies“This is a brilliant book. With thorough research . . . and a fresh point of view, we have a study that will shape Lincoln scholarship for many years.”—The Journal of Southern History

The California Trail: An Epic with Many Heroes


George R. Stewart - 1962
    Without reliable maps or guides, they pushed ahead, retreated, detoured, split up, and regrouped, reaching their destination only at great cost of property and life. But they had found a trail, or cleared one, and by their mistakes had shown others how to take wagon trains across half a continent. By 1844 a great migration was in progress. Each successive party learned from those who went before where to cross rivers and mountains, when to rest, when to forge ahead, and how to find food and water. Increased experience was translated into better wagon designs, improved understanding of climate and terrain, and better-supplied and -organized caravans.George R. Stewart's California Trail describes the trail's year-by-year changes as weather conditions, new exploration, and the changing character of emigrants affected it. Successes and disasters (like the Donner party's fate) are presented in nearly personal detail. More than a history of the trail, this book tells how to travel it, what it felt like, what was feared and hoped for.

The White House: An Historic Guide


White House Historical Association - 1962
    Describes the mansion's history, its architectural significance, and its contents.

Magnificent Destiny: A Novel About the Great Secret Adventure of Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston


Paul I. Wellman - 1962
    A great Wellman adventure story.

Stand Fast by Our Constitution


J. Reuben Clark Jr. - 1962
    

The River and the Wilderness


Don Robertson - 1962
    

Towards an American Army: Military Thought from Washington to Marshall


Russell F. Weigley - 1962
    Weigley here wrote a series of biographical essays on the development of American military thought. Starting with the American Revolution, Weigley covers George Washington and Alexander Hamilton; John C. Calhoun; Dennis Hart Mahan; Henry W. Halleck and George B. McClellan; William T. Sherman And Ulysses S. Grant; Emory Upton and his disciples; John A. Logan; John M. Schofield; R. M. Johnston; Leonard Wood; and ending with John McAuley Palmer and George C. Marshall.

The Quiet Canadian: The secret service story of Sir William Stephenson


H. Montgomery Hyde - 1962
    

Cross Fire: The Eight Years with Eisenhower


Ezra Taft Benson - 1962
    To all of them, my deep appreciation. I owe a special debt of gratitude to: Dr. Clarence J. ("Doc") Enzler, a long-time USDA employee of high competence and unqualified integrity, who did much of the basic research, arrangement of materials, gave detailed assistance in the style of presentation, and did some of the writing. My staff of loyal, devoted and dedicated public servants without whose united and unselfish service this book would have been impossible. Members of my family who gave helpful suggestions and endured demands on my time which lessened the hours with them. Sam Vaughan of Doubleday for encouragement, editorial help, and for seeing the project through publication. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who invited me, a stranger, into his Cabinet and who through eight difficult but rewarding years, offered his heroic and... well, that story follows.

Prohibition: The Era of Excess


Andrew Sinclair - 1962
    Andrew Sinclair's account was the first comprehensive study and it shows how this extraordinary experiment was the product of the age-old conflict of country against city, of the God-fearing farmer against the corrupt urban rich and the new immigrants with their imported religions and beer. Prohibition represented the last attempt of rural America to stem the tide of history that was transforming the country from an agricultural to an industrial nations. It stood for tradition and the old American way of life. Its defeat was tragedy as well as a comedy. The lessons of such an attempt at social control are relevant to all societies, old and new.'This is a definitive biography of an era; a social history, comprehensive, detailed, documented, and well written.' Arthur Weinberg, Chicago Tribune'Here is a work of real social history, at once scholarly and entertaining, thoughtful, penetrating and analytical.' John A. Garraty, The New Leader

Bravos of the West


John Myers Myers - 1962
    Appearing, exiting, and reappearing in this history are trappers, traders, prospectors, gunslingers, missionaries, soldiers, and scientists. Here they are shown trapping beaver, confronting bears, trading, and discovering natural wonders as they advance ever farther into the wilds. John Myers Myers begins with the struggle for Texas and follows the men and women who came West: the mountain men beyond the mouth of the Yellowstone, the emigrants to Oregon, the fortune hunters to California, the Mormons to Salt Lake, the stagecoaches, express ponies, and steam-engine trains through mountain passes and open country, and the outlaws to all of it. Playing their roles on this huge historical stage are Andrew Jackson, Davy Crockett, Hugh Glass, Jim Bowie, William Ashley, Mike Fink, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Thomas Hart Benton, Stephen Austin, Sam Houston, Peg-leg Smith, Mountain Lamb, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, Jack Swilling, Henry Plummer, Jack Coffee Hays, Deaf Smith, John Charles Frémont, Brigham Young, John Sutter, Sitting Bull, Cynthia Ann Parker, Joaquin Murrieta, and Wild Bill Hickok.

Thomas Jefferson and His Times, Vol. 3: Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty: Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty


Dumas Malone - 1962
    The University of Virginia Press is pleased to announce that the complete, illustrated six-volume biography is available for the first time in a handsome boxed set. Merrill Peterson, editor of the Library of America edition of Thomas Jefferson's writings, has contributed a new foreword to the Virginia edition.Author Biography: Dumas Malone, 1892-1986, spent thirty-eight years researching and writing Jefferson and His Time. In 1975 he received the Pulitzer Prize in history for the first five volumes. From 1923 to 1929 he taught at the University of Virginia; he left there to join the Dictionary of American Biography, bringing that work to completion as editor-in-chief. Subsequently, he served for seven years as director of the Harvard University Press. After serving on the faculties of Yale and Columbia, Malone retired to the University of Virginia in 1959 as the Jefferson Foundation Professor of History, a position he held until his retirement in 1962. He remained at the university as biographer-in-residence and finished his Jefferson biography at the University of Virginia, where it was begun.