Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Here are the two charismatic figures in their early years, in their roles as adversaries, and in their post-war lives.

    After spending several months in New York City, the family signed up for a journey to the Republic of Texas where they could homestead and eventually acquire 137 free acres for their efforts. Soon growing discontented with, not only the land, but also the management of the colony in which they had settled, the Horns decided to return to England. But, it was not to be. Attacked and captured by a party of Comanche Indians, Sarah Ann was faced with challenges and realities the like of which she never could have dreamed. Over a period of fifteen months of Comanche captivity, she and her captors rode endlessly across the Texas plains until finally she was purchased out of bondage and befriended by traders in New Mexico. This is the true story of a remarkable woman who endured an unimaginable amount of suffering and pain in her short lifetime.

    . . enlightening . . . A disturbing and illuminating tale.”—KIRKUS REVIEWSThe 1960s have come to a close—it’s 1972, and America is changing. So is Deidi’s world; she’s seven, and her family is moving. As she packs her room and unearths precious objects from her past, her thoughts begin to stray to the years before—to her first memories in 1968, and all that followed.From these reveries unfolds a story of terrible abuse and incredible survival. We see Deidi grow from a three-year-old whose understanding of the world is just beginning to form to a child whose courage, compassion, and sense of wonder persist despite every obstacle. Through her vivid recollections, the stark landscape of rural America, the political and social turmoil of the era, and the brutal power dynamics of adults come into sharp focus. Deidi’s story reveals the darkness roiling beneath the surface of American life and the way children are forced to confront it themselves, weaponless and alone. For Deidi, whose family continues to fall into deeper and darker cycles of sexual abuse and violence, survival is a matter of clinging desperately to the light in the world around her—no matter how dim it grows.By turns heartbreaking and stunningly beautiful, Little Girl Leaving is a reminder of the incredible power and fragility of a child’s spirit, and a call to action to protect it at all costs.  “Insightful, poignant, and riveting. I believe that everyone living with or around children should read this book.”—Judith Landau, MD, former president, International Family Therapy Association; senior Fulbright scholar; consultant to the UN and World Health Organization"Little Girl Leaving, Lisa Blume's debut novel, is sadly tragic but deeply moving and evocative."—Gabrielle Glaser, New York Times bestselling author, Her Best-Kept Secret; winner of the Award for Excellence in Journalism, American Psychoanalytic Association“An enthralling read, a brilliant read. You will never forget it.”—Mary Dispenza, educator, activist, and national distinguished principal; author, Split: A Child, a Priest, and the Catholic Church“A sensory barrage. A convincing and disturbing narrative. Most wonderful is how variously the child’s goodness of spirit tries to maintain itself. This is a page-turner.”—Sharon Solwitz, author, creative writing professor, Purdue University; winner, Carl Sandburg Prize, Doheny Award, The Center for Fiction“A must-read. A compelling story of a wise girl who tries to do good, no matter how painful and frightening life becomes, with the beauty of her essence always somehow enduring.”—Rocío Chang-Angulo, PsyD, co-director, Center for Trauma Recovery and Juvenile Justice; steering committee, National Child Traumatic Stress Network"Awake and alive to the unending beauty of the world juxtaposed with its secret horrors—an extraordinarily powerful punch to the heart.”—Katherine Ketcham, author, The Only Life I Could Save, A Memoir and Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption, with William Cope Moyers“As innovative as it is disturbing. The narrative captures elements of child abuse which, all too often, are lost or not understood by justice systems. A skillful portrayal.”—Raymond McMenamin, Shrieval Convener, Mental Health Tribunal for Scotland; former spokesperson, Law Society of Scotland’s vulnerable witness legislation“How does one turn the unfathomable into the believable without sounding vengefulor outrageous—in a voice, even, of great tenderness? This novel has done just that.”—Sally Anderson, editor-in-chief, Strategic News Service, FiReBooks, and FiReFilms

    Using her wit and charm, she never fails to get the scoop on the latest Union and Confederate activities. But when a rival paper reveals her true identity, accusations of treason fly. Despite her claims of loyalty to the Union, she is arrested as a spy and traitor.To Josephine’s surprise, she’s whisked away to the White House, where she learns that President Lincoln himself wishes to use her cunning and skill for a secret mission in New Orleans that could hasten the end of the war. For Josephine, though, this mission threatens to open old wounds and expose dangerous secrets. In the middle of the most violent conflict the country has ever seen, can one woman overcome the treacherous secrets of her past in order to secure her nation’s future?

    

    Bound in the publisher's original cloth over boards, spine stamped in gilt.

    Its features include a dramatic narrative packed with eyewitness accounts and hundreds of rare photographs, artifacts, and period illustrations. Evocative sidebars, detailed maps, and timelines add to the reference-ready quality of the text. From John Brown's raid to Reconstruction, Eyewitness to the Civil War presents a clear, comprehensive discussion that addresses every military, political, and social aspect of this crucial period. In-depth descriptions of campaigns and battles in all theaters of war are accompanied by a thorough evaluation of the nonmilitary elements of the struggle between North and South. In their own words, commanders and common soldiers in both armies tell of life on the battlefield and behind the lines, while letters from wives, mothers, and sisters provide a portrait of the home front. More than 375 historical photographs, portraits, and artifacts—many never before published—evoke the era's flavor; and detailed maps of terrain and troop movements make it easy to follow the strategies and tactics of Union and Confederate generals as they fought through four harsh years of war. Photoessays on topics ranging from the everyday lives of soldiers to the dramatic escapades of the cavalry lend a breathtaking you-are-there feeling, and an inclusive appendix adds even more detail to what is already a magnificently meticulous history.

    How near the South came to victory is clearly set forth in these pages. The author vividly conveys the background of the crucial b attle of the Civil War so that the reader can fully appreciate its unfolding.

    Lee. of photos.

    Britain was dependent on the South for cotton, and in turn the Confederacy relied almost exclusively on Britain for guns, bullets, and ships. The Union sought to block any diplomacy between the two and consistently teetered on the brink of war with Britain. For four years the complex web of relationships between the countries led to defeats and victories both minute and history-making. In A World on Fire, Amanda Foreman examines the fraught relations from multiple angles while she introduces characters both humble and grand, bringing them to vivid life over the course of her sweeping and brilliant narrative.Between 1861 and 1865, thousands of British citizens volunteered for service on both sides of the Civil War. From the first cannon blasts on Fort Sumter to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, they served as officers and infantrymen, sailors and nurses, blockade runners and spies. Through personal letters, diaries, and journals, Foreman has woven together their experiences to form a panoramic yet intimate view of the war on the front lines, in the prison camps, and in the great cities of both the Union and the Confederacy. Through the eyes of these brave volunteers we see the details of the struggle for life and the great and powerful forces that threatened to demolish a nation.In the drawing rooms of London and the offices of Washington, on muddy fields and aboard packed ships, Foreman reveals the decisions made, the beliefs held and contested, and the personal triumphs and sacrifices that ultimately led to the reunification of America. A World on Fire is a complex and groundbreaking work that will surely cement Amanda Foreman’s position as one of the most influential historians of our time.

    W. Brands, a masterful biography of the Civil War general and two-term president who saved the Union twice, on the battlefield and in the White House, holding the country together at two critical turning points in our history.Ulysses Grant rose from obscurity to discover he had a genius for battle, and he propelled the Union to victory in the Civil War. After Abraham Lincoln's assassination and the disastrous brief presidency of Andrew Johnson, America turned to Grant again to unite the country, this time as president. In Brands's sweeping, majestic full biography, Grant emerges as a heroic figure who was fearlessly on the side of right. He was a beloved commander in the field but willing to make the troop sacrifices necessary to win the war, even in the face of storms of criticism. He worked valiantly to protect the rights of freedmen in the South; Brands calls him the last presidential defender of black civil rights for nearly a century. He played it straight with the American Indians, allowing them to shape their own fate even as the realities of Manifest Destiny meant the end of their way of life.  He was an enormously popular president whose memoirs were a huge bestseller; yet within decades of his death his reputation was in tatters, the victim of Southerners who resented his policies on Reconstruction. In this page-turning biography, Brands now reconsiders Grant's legacy and provides a compelling and intimate portrait of a man who saved the Union on the battlefield and consolidated that victory as a resolute and principled political leader.

    Vann Woodward won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for History, drawn from the diaries of a Southern aristocrat, records the disintegration and final destruction of the Confederacy.

    It was along the James that British and Native American cultures collided and, in a twisted paradox, the seeds of democracy and slavery were sown side by side. The culture crafted by Virginia's learned aristocrats, merchants, farmers, and frontiersmen gave voice to the cause of the American Revolution and provided a vision for the fledgling independent nation's future. Over the course of the United States' first century, the James River bore witness to the irreconcilable contradiction of a slave-holding nation dedicated to liberty and equality for all. When that intractable conflict ignited civil war, the James River served as a critical backdrop for the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history. As he guides readers through this exciting historical narrative, Deans gives life to a dynamic cast of characters including the familiar Powhatan, John Smith, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Benedict Arnold, and Robert E. Lee, as well as those who have largely escaped historical notoriety. The River Where America Began takes readers on a journey along the James River from the earliest days of civilization nearly 15,000 years ago through the troubled English settlement at Jamestown and finishes with Lincoln's tour of the defeated capital of Richmond in 1865. Deans traces the historical course of a river whose contributions to American life are both immeasurable and unique. This innovative history invites us all to look into these restless waters in a way that connects us to our past and reminds us of who we are as Americans.

    Chadwick is especially adept at retelling the intense emotions of this critical time, particularly especially in recounting abolitionist opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act and Jefferson Davis's passionate defense of this institution. For readers seeking to understand how individuals are agents of historical change will find Chadwick's account of the failed leadership of President James Buchanan, especially compelling.-G. Kurt Piehler, author of "Remembering War the American Way" and Associate Professor of History, The University of Tennessee1858 explores the events and personalities of the year that would send the America's North and South on a collision course culminating in the slaughter of 630,000 of the nation's young men, a greater number than died in any other American conflict. The record of that year is told in seven separate stories, each participant, though unaware, is linked to the oncoming tragedy by the central, though ineffective, figure of that time, the man in the White House, President James Buchanan. The seven figures who suddenly leap onto history's stage and shape the great moments to come are: Jefferson Davis, who lived a life out of a Romantic novel, and who almost died from herpes simplex of the eye; the disgruntled Col. Robert E. Lee, who had to decide whether he would stay in the military or return to Virginia to run his family's plantation; William Tecumseh Sherman, one of the great Union generals, who had been reduced to running a roadside food stand in Kansas; the uprising of eight abolitionists in Oberlin, Ohio, who freed a slave apprehended by slave catchers, and set off a fiery debate across America; a dramatic speech by New York Senator William Seward in Rochester, which foreshadowed the civil war and which seemed to solidify his hold on the 1860 Republican Presidential nomination; John Brown's raid on a plantation