Book picks similar to
Stonewall by John J. Dwyer
historical-fiction
biography
civil-war
fiction
The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder
Daniel Stashower - 2006
One year later, a struggling writer named Edgar Allan Poe decided to take on the case-and sent his fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, to solve the baffling murder of Mary Rogers in "The Mystery of Marie Rog�t."
Rebel
Bernard Cornwell - 1993
To repay his generosity, he enlists in the Faulconer legion to fight against his home, the North, and against his abolitionist father. When the regiment joins up, ready to march into the ferocious battle at Buff Run, the men are prepared to start a war . . . but they aren't ready for how they—and the nation—will be forever changed by the oaths they have sworn for their beloved South.
Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia
Jessica James - 2008
Cast your eyes back to the noble and daring achievements of men who preferred death to dishonor, and showed the world how they valued the rights and liberties of their land...Set in Virginia during the volatile period of the Civil War, Shades of Gray chronicles the clash of a Confederatecavalry officer with a Union spy as they defend their beliefs, their country, and their honor.Though laced with historical detail, it is less about the clash of armies on the battlefield, as it is about the clash of loyaly and love with honor and conviction.
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
Candice Millard - 2011
Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back. But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what happened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in turmoil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his condition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet. Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history.
Varina
Charles Frazier - 2018
He instead pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy, placing Varina at the white-hot center of one of the darkest moments in American history—culpable regardless of her intentions. The Confederacy falling, her marriage in tatters, and the country divided, Varina and her children escape Richmond and travel south on their own, now fugitives with “bounties on their heads, an entire nation in pursuit.” Intimate in its detailed observations of one woman’s tragic life and epic in its scope and power, Varina is a novel of an American war and its aftermath. Ultimately, the book is a portrait of a woman who comes to realize that complicity carries consequences.
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
Tiya Miles - 2021
Soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the bag in spare yet haunting language—including Rose’s wish that “It be filled with my Love always.” Now, in this illuminating, deeply moving new book inspired by Rose’s gift to Ashley, historian Tiya Miles carefully unearths these women’s faint presence in archival records and draws on objects and art, to follow the paths of their lives—and the lives of so many women like them—in a singular and revelatory history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States.All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and of love passed down through generations of women against steep odds. It honors the creativity and fierce resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties even when official systems refused to do so.
Seen the Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Gettysburg
John Hough Jr. - 2009
• Brilliant characters: raised by their abolitionist father on martha’s Vineyard, eighteen-year-old Luke and sixteenyear- old Thomas Chandler volunteer for the union. They join the Army of the Potomac in Virginia and take part in the long march north in June, 1863, to intercept General Lee. Luke writes home to rose, their black Cape Verdean housekeeper, with whom he shares a secret that Thomas discovers on the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg. The truth enrages Thomas and causes a rift between the brothers. When the battle is over, only one will survive. • A classic in the making: Seen the Glory re-creates the Civil War experience as vividly as the classic novel The Killer Angels. The soldiers of the storied 20th massachusetts regiment, the sullen Southerners they march past, the hopeful freedmen and worried slaves, the terrified residents of Gettysburg, the battle-hardened Confederate soldiers are all rendered with brilliant realism and historical accuracy.
The Quartermaster: Montgomery C. Meigs, Lincoln's General, Master Builder of the Union Army
Robert O'Harrow - 2016
Meigs, who built the Union Army, was judged by Lincoln, Seward, and Stanton to be the indispensable architect of the Union victory. Civil War historian James McPherson calls Meigs “the unsung hero of northern victory.”Born to a well to do, connected family in 1816, Montgomery C. Meigs graduated from West Point as an engineer. He helped build America’s forts and served under Lt. Robert E. Lee to make navigation improvements on the Mississippi River. As a young man, he designed the Washington aqueducts in a city where people were dying from contaminated water. He built the spectacular wings and the massive dome of the brand new US Capitol. Introduced to President Lincoln by Secretary of State William Seward, Meigs became Lincoln’s Quartermaster. It was during the Civil War that Meigs became a national hero. He commanded Ulysses S. Grant’s base of supplies that made Union victories, including Gettysburg, possible. He sustained Sherman’s army in Georgia, and the March to the Sea. After the war, Meigs built Arlington Cemetery (on land that had been Robert E. Lee’s home). Robert O’Harrow Jr. brings Meigs alive in the commanding and intensely personal Quartermaster. We get to know this major military figure that Lincoln and his Cabinet and Generals called the key to victory and learn how he fed, clothed, and armed the Union Army using his ingenuity and devotion. O’Harrow tells the full dramatic story of this fierce, strong, honest, loyal, forward-thinking, major American figure.
Cane River
Lalita Tademy - 2001
They are women whose lives begin in slavery, who weather the Civil War, and who grapple with contradictions of emancipation, Jim Crow, and the pre-Civil Rights South. As she peels back layers of racial and cultural attitudes, Tademy paints a remarkable picture of rural Louisiana and the resilient spirit of one unforgettable family.There is Elisabeth, who bears both a proud legacy and the yoke of bondage... her youngest daughter, Suzette, who is the first to discover the promise-and heartbreak-of freedom... Suzette's strong-willed daughter Philomene, who uses a determination born of tragedy to reunite her family and gain unheard-of economic independence... and Emily, Philomene's spirited daughter, who fights to secure her children's just due and preserve their dignity and future.Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Cane River presents a slice of American history never before seen in such piercing and personal detail.
Lincoln
David Herbert Donald - 1995
Donald goes beyond biography, illuminating the gradual development of Lincoln’s character, chronicling his tremendous capacity for evolution and growth, thus illustrating what made it possible for a man so inexperienced and so unprepared for the presidency to become a great moral leader. In the most troubled of times, here was a man who led the country out of slavery and preserved a shattered Union—in short, one of the greatest presidents this country has ever seen.
Duel with the Devil: The True Story of How Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr Teamed Up to Take on America's First Sensational Murder Mystery
Paul Collins - 2013
Still our nation’s longest running “cold case,” the mystery of Elma Sands finally comes to a close with this book, which delivers the first substantial break in the case in over 200 years.In the closing days of 1799, the United States was still a young republic. Waging a fierce battle for its uncertain future were two political parties: the well-moneyed Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the populist Republicans, led by Aaron Burr. The two finest lawyers in New York, Burr and Hamilton were bitter rivals both in and out of the courtroom, and as the next election approached—with Manhattan likely to be the swing district on which the presidency would hinge—their animosity reached a crescendo. Central to their dispute was the Manhattan water supply, which Burr saw not just as an opportunity to help a city devastated by epidemics but as a chance to heal his battered finances.But everything changed when Elma Sands, a beautiful young Quaker woman, was found dead in Burr's newly constructed Manhattan Well. The horrific crime quickly gripped the nation, and before long accusations settled on one of Elma’s suitors, handsome young carpenter Levi Weeks. As the enraged city demanded a noose be draped around the accused murderer’s neck, the only question seemed to be whether Levi would make it to trial or be lynched first.The young man’s only hope was to hire a legal dream team. And thus it was that New York’s most bitter political rivals and greatest attorneys did the unthinkable—they teamed up.At once an absorbing legal thriller and an expertly crafted portrait of the United States in the time of the Founding Fathers, Duel with the Devil is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction.
The Captured
Scott Zesch - 2004
Traded to Comaches, he thrived in the rough, nomadic existence, quickly becoming one of the tribe's fiercest warriors. Forcibly returned to his parents after three years, Korn never adjusted to life in white society. He spent his last years in a cave, all but forgotten by his family.That is, until Scott Zesch stumbled over his own great-great-great uncle's grave. Determined to understand how such a "good boy" could have become "Indianized" so completely, Zesch travels across the west, digging through archives, speaking with Comanche elders, and tracking eight other child captives from the region with hauntingly similar experiences. With a historian's rigor and a novelist's eye, Zesch paints a vivid portrait of life on the Texas frontier, offering a rare account of captivity.
Chasing the Sun
Tracie Peterson - 2012
Though a marriage of convenience could ease her predicament, she determines to trust God for direction.Wounded soldier William Barnett returns to his home only to discover that his family's ranch has been seized. Though angry and bitter at this turn of events, he's surprised to discover that it is a beautiful young woman with amazing fortitude who is struggling to keep the place running.Hannah, desperate for help, and William, desperate to regain his family's land, form an uneasy truce. But nearby Comanche tribes, the arrival of Confederate soldiers, and a persistent suitor all threaten the growing attraction that builds between them. Will they be able to set aside their own dreams and embrace the promise of a future together?
My 21 Years in the White House
Alonzo Fields - 1960
Fields (1900-1994) began his employment at the White House in 1931, and kept a journal of his meetings with the presidents and their families; he would also meet important people like Winston Churchill, Princess Elizabeth of England, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller, presidential cabinet members, senators, representatives, and Supreme Court Justices. He would also witness presidential decision-making at critical times in American history -- the attack on Pearl Harbor, the death of Franklin Roosevelt, the desegregation of the military, and the outbreak of hostilities in Korea. As Fields often told his staff, “...remember that we are helping to make history. We have a small part ... but they can't do much here without us. They've got to eat, you know.” Included are sample menus prepared for visiting heads-of-state and foreign dignitaries.
Their Yesterdays
Harold Bell Wright - 1912
And it happened -- as such things often so happen -- that this man went back into his days that were gone. Again and again and again he went back. Even as every man, even as you and I, so this man went back into his Yesterdays. Then -- why then there was a woman. And it happened -- as such things sometimes so happen -- that this woman also went back into her days that were gone. Again and again and again she went back. Even as every woman, even as you and I, so this woman went back into her Yesterdays.From the introduction: Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw; Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite; Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age; Pleased with this bauble still, as that before; Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er."AN ESSAY ON MAN"--Pope.