Book picks similar to
A Vast Army of Women : Maine's Uncounted Forces in the American Civil War. by Lynda L. Sudlow
women-s-history
history
american-history
new-england
Constitution of the Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America - 1861
In its entirety...you have the CSA "Confederate States of America" Constitution.This is a must read.....imagine a young country that just learned all the things wrong with their country and its government....then makes their own.The CSA was ahead of its time in many respects...(never mind the whole slavery thing)....If you are a History buff or just doing research...get this...read it....it is outstanding.
Falling Into Battle
Andrew Wareham - 2020
Called to Captain Ironside’s cabin, they learn their fate. Three are made sublieutenant, the fourth is pushed out of the Navy, a failure.There was no tolerance in the Royal Navy for weaklings and incompetents who failed to master the basics. They were beaten for every infraction of the rules of seamanship, encouraging them to conform or to get out.Adams, born to the elite, is made sublieutenant and posted to Iron Duke, flagship of the Grand Fleet, and the latest and largest of superdreadnoughts.McDuff goes to Good Hope cruiser bound for the South Atlantic. An old ship, and he had hoped for better, but there were chances to specialise on an armoured cruiser.Sturton, able and slightly maverick, hoped to be sent to another battleship where he could become a gunnery specialist, but instead goes to Sheldrake, a destroyer joining the Mediterranean Fleet. Destroyers were wet, cold, and uncomfortable, but it could be the making of his career.Baker, the failure, had never fit in. He came from the wrong background and was ostracised aboard ship, left on his own to survive the best he could. Rejected by the Navy, he is forced to join the Territorial Army or be disowned by his rich, vulgar father. Nineteen years of age and dumped on the scrapheap.War comes in August and the four young men meet its challenges in surprising ways.
They Call It Pacific (Annotated): An Eye-Witness Story of Our War Against Japan from Bataan to the Solomons
Clark Lee - 1943
They Call It Pacific is an insightful account of events leading up to the war and beyond from an authority on Japanese-American affairs at the time. It is also a thrilling journal detailing Lee’s unbelievable real-time escape from the Philippine Islands with the help of the Filipino resistance. The book contains extensive accounts of the battle for the Philippines on Bataan and Corregidor, interviews with soldiers including General Douglas MacArthur, talks with Japanese prisoners, and descriptions of combat as the author accompanied Navy pilots such as Swede Larson on flights over Guadalcanal. This new edition of They Call It Pacific has been updated with footnotes and images from the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. *Includes original footnotes. *Includes photographs from World War 2.
Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War: Selected Writings and Speeches
Abraham Lincoln - 2000
Classics like the Kansas-Nebraska speech, the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, and the Gettysburg Address, along with less familiar writings — poignant letters to individual voters, notes to generals on military strategy, and stirring public speeches — show the development of Lincoln's thought on free labor, slavery, secession, the Civil War, and emancipation. Johnson provides historical context by weaving an engaging narrative around Lincoln’s own words, making this volume the most accessible collection of Lincoln’s writings available. Also included are 14 illustrations, relevant Civil War maps, a Lincoln chronology, reading questions, a bibliography, and an index.
The Blue and the Gray
John Leekley - 1982
War made them enemies.The Geysers and the Hales: one set of cousins sweated its living from the soil, the other from a small-town newspaper. One made its home in the South, the other -- only a few miles ride away -- in the North.The Geysers and the Hales were a family, bound by blood and faith and love, and a fierce indomitable pride that was the same on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Until a raging storm of controversy split the states, North and South. And the Geysers and the Hales discovered that -- until the nation stood united once again -- bonds of love and faith and family could have no meaning anymore.
The Whites of Their Eyes: Bunker Hill, the First American Army, and the Emergence of George Washington
Paul Lockhart - 2011
In the tradition of David McCullough’s 1776,Lockhart illuminates the Battle of Bunker Hill as a crucial event in thecreation of an American identity, dexterously interweaving the story of thispivotal pitched battle with two other momentous narratives: the creation ofAmerica’s first army, and the rise of the man who led it, George Washington.
Civil War Ghost Stories and Legends
Nancy Roberts - 1992
The accounts of gallantry and heroism have spread far and wide. Nancy Roberts grew up listening to her father's stories of the War Between the States and she trekked over many battle sites with him during her childhood.
The Third Mrs. Galway
Deirdre Sinnott - 2021
By exposing the painful past she has created a beautiful, timely, and uplifting book with unforgettable characters who kept me guessing.--Donna Hylton, author of A Little Piece of Light: A Memoir of Hope, Prison, and a Life UnboundDeirdre Sinnott is an extraordinary writer whose eye misses nothing. This compelling story is a must read--and it couldn't be more timely.--David Black, award-winning journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and producerA fast-paced excursion into Utica, New York, in the mid-1830s, The Third Mrs. Galway captures the true-life antiabolition riots against the New York Anti-Slavery Society. With lively and enjoyable prose, Deirdre Sinnott brings the story of emancipation alive.--Paul Stewart, cofounder of the Underground Railroad History ProjectThe Third Mrs. Galway offers readers romance, adventure, and poignant family drama while also providing insight into the complexity of antislavery attitudes before the Civil War. This is a historical page-turner that both enlightens and entertains.--Barbara Weisberg, author of Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of SpiritualismWith historical accuracy, Deirdre Sinnott brings to life the surprising drama of freedom-seekers and slave-catchers in Oneida County. This book animates the history of the region and the larger Underground Railroad phenomenon in a way that street signs and public lectures cannot.--Jan DeAmicis, cochair of the Oneida County Freedom Trail CommissionThe Third Mrs. Galway reads like Balzac, with fear, desire, terror, and love intertwined in this gripping work of historical fiction. Deirdre Sinnott weaves the stories of a cross-section of 1835 Utica, New York, into an impressive and fascinating narrative that contemplates race, class, history, and the search for justice and humanity. ReadThe Third Mrs. Galway to be swept into the uncertain, violent time of 1830s New York and to see in new ways how that moment still affects our own.--Taylor M. Polites, author of The Rebel WifeIt's 1835 in Utica, New York, and newlywed Helen Galway discovers a frightening secret: two runaway slaves are hiding in the shack behind her husband's house. Suddenly, she is at the center of not only the era's greatest moral dilemma, but her own as well. Should she be a good wife and report the fugitives to her husband? Or will she defy convention and come to the aid of the least of her brethren?Within her home, Helen is haunted by the previous Mrs. Galway, recently deceased but still an oppressive presence. Her husband, injured by a drunken tumble off his horse, is assisted by a doctor of questionable ambitions who keeps a close eye on Helen. In charge of all things domestic is Maggie--formerly enslaved by the Galway family and freed when emancipation came to New York eight years earlier.At the same time, Utica is at the center of emancipation efforts as abolitionists arrive for the founding meeting of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society. Those who plead for an immediate end to enslavement are attacked by newspapers accusing them of being insurrectionists and traitors to the Constitution. Everyone faces dangerous choices as they navigate this intensely heated personal and political landscape.
A Call to Arms: The Civil War Adventures of Sarah Emma Edmonds, alias Private Frank Thompson
P.G. Nagle - 2014
Raised on a farm by a father who would have preferred a son, Emma can ride, shoot, and hunt as well as any man. She defies convention to become a soldier, an army nurse, even a spy. Dangers surround her, from enemy fire in battle to the risk of discovery by her friends, which would end in court-martial and disgrace. Always she seeks to reconcile the necessity of deception with her deeply-held values, but her greatest challenge arises when her friendship with a fellow-soldier becomes so close that she is tempted to confess the truth and risk everything for a chance at love. Based on the true adventures of Sarah Emma Edmonds, who served for two years in the 2nd Michigan Volunteers as Private Frank Thompson.
Fantastic Facts about the Oregon Trail
Michael Trinklein - 2012
Read all about these fantastic facts--and dozens of others--in this fun-to-read book.Did you know that some pioneers took a "shortcut" to Oregon that took them perilously close to Antarctica? Or that ferryboat operators on the Oregon Trail could earn nearly $2,000 per day? Or that many pioneers found ice in the middle of the blazing hot desert? It's all true! An entertaining read for young people or anyone interested in the great western journey.
The American Civil War: History in an Hour
Kat Smutz - 2011
Christmas Bells
Jennifer Chiaverini - 2015
The publication of Longfellow’s classic Revolutionary War poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” was less than a month hence, and the country’s grave political unrest weighed heavily on his mind. Yet with his beloved wife, Fanny, and their five adored children at his side, the delights of the season prevailed. In present-day Boston, a dedicated teacher in the Watertown public school system is stunned by somber holiday tidings. Sophia’s music program has been sacrificed to budget cuts, and she worries not only about her impending unemployment but also about the consequences to her underprivileged students. At the church where she volunteers as music director, Sophia tries to forget her cares as she leads the children’s choir in rehearsal for a Christmas Eve concert. Inspired to honor a local artist, Sophia has chosen a carol set to a poem by Longfellow, moved by the glorious words he penned one Christmas Day long ago, even as he suffered great loss.Christmas Bells chronicles the events of 1863, when the peace and contentment of Longfellow’s family circle was suddenly, tragically broken, cutting even deeper than the privations of wartime. Through the pain of profound loss and hardship, Longfellow’s patriotism never failed, nor did the power of his language. “Christmas Bells,” the poem he wrote that holiday, lives on, spoken as verse and sung as a hymn. Jennifer Chiaverini’s resonant and heartfelt novel for the season reminds us why we must continue to hear glad tidings, even as we are tested by strife. Reading Christmas Bells evokes the resplendent joy of a chorus of voices raised in reverent song.
The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War
Roy Morris Jr. - 2000
For nearly three years, Whitman immersed himself in the devastation of the Civil War, tending to thousands of wounded soldiers and recording his experience with an immediacy and compassion unequaled in wartime literature anywhere in the world. In The Better Angel, acclaimed biographer Roy Morris, Jr. gives us the fullest accounting of Whitman's profoundly transformative Civil War Years and an historically invaluable examination of the Union's treatment of its sick and wounded. Whitman was mired in depression as the war began, subsisting on journalistic hackwork, wasting his nights in New York's seedy bohemian underground, his great career as a poet apparently stalled. But when news came that his brother George had been wounded at Fredericksburg, Whitman rushed south to find him. Though his brother's injury was slight, Whitman was deeply affected by his first view of the war's casualties. He began visiting the camp's wounded and, almost by accident, found his calling for the duration of the war. Three years later, he emerged as the war's most unlikely hero, a living symbol of American democratic ideals of sharing and brotherhood. Instead of returning to Brooklyn as planned, Whitman continued to visit the wounded soldiers in the hospitals in and around the capital. He brought them ice cream, tobacco, brandy, books, magazines, pens and paper, wrote letters for those who were not able and offered to all the enormous healing influence of his sympathy and affection. Indeed, several soldiers claimed that Whitman had saved their lives. One noted that Whitman seemed to have what everybody wanted and added When this old heathen came and gave me a pipe and tobacco, it was about the most joyful moment of my life. Another wrote that There is many a soldier that never thinks of you but with emotions of the greatest gratitude. But if Whitman gave much to the soldiers, they in turn gave much to him. In witnessing their stoic suffering, in listening to their understated speech, and in being always in the presence of death, Whitman evolved the new and more direct poetic style that was to culminate in his masterpiece, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd. Brilliantly researched and beautifully written, The Better Angel explores a side of Whitman not fully examined before, one that greatly enriches our understanding of his later poetry. More than that, it gives us a vivid and unforgettable portrait of the other army--the legions of sick and wounded soldiers who are usually left in the shadowy background of Civil War history--seen here through the unflinching eyes of America's greatest poet.
Chasing Understanding in the Jungles of Vietnam: My Year as a Black Scarf
Douglas Beed - 2017
After two years of college he couldn't afford to continue so he was forced to relinquish his student deferment and enter the draft. He tried various strategies to get a non-combat job; nevertheless he ended up in the infantry and was assigned to Vietnam. The stories in this book depict the year Doug spent in Alpha Company where he spent days on patrols finding and killing North Vietnamese soldiers along the hundreds of miles of trails heading for the Saigon. These stories range from funny to tragic, from uplifting to extremely frustrating and from touching to horrifying. This book gives the reader a sense of life in the infantry in 1968 and 1969.
The Mule Soldiers
Blair Howard - 2014
Streight, at the head of a brigade of Federal infantry, set out on a 220-mile ride to destroy the Western and Atlantic Railroad at Rome, Georgia. The most fascinating thing about the raid is that Streight’s brigade of four infantry regiments, almost 1,800 soldiers, was mounted on mules, a huge problem in itself; few of his men had ever ridden a horse, let alone a mule. But not only did Streight have almost 1,600 stubborn and wily animals to contend with, he soon found himself being relentlessly pursued by the inimitable Confederate cavalry commander, General Nathan Bedford Forrest. The raid soon turned into a running battle between Streight’s raiders and Forrest's cavalry. For Streight, it was a long and tortuous journey across Northern Alabama. For Forrest, it was one defeat after another at the hands of the very “able” Abel Streight, even though he, Forrest, had the advantage of home territory and the sympathy and aid of the local populace. There are some wildly hilarious moments involving the mules and their new masters; or is it the other way around? There's plenty of action and suspense, and an unforgettable cast of characters, real and fictional, animal and human; some you will come to love, some... not so much. They say that truth is stranger than fiction. This amazing story proves the point, for the end of the story is”� well, unbelievable. The Mule Soldiers is the true story ”" fictionalized ”" of Colonel Abel Streight’s Raid into Northern Alabama that took place from 19 April to 3 May 1863. It is an enthralling and bittersweet story that will stay with you long after you have you have finished reading it.
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