On June 11, 1846, A. C. Pickett was ready to embark from Mobile, Alabama, with other recruits on the greatest adventure of their young lives. The native Alabamian spent the next twelve months recordin
In December 1846, John Jacob Oswandel—or Jake as he was often called—enlisted in the Monroe Guards, which later became Company C of the First Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment. Thus bega
The USS Carondelet had a revolutionary ship design and was the most active of all the Union's Civil War river ironclads. From Fort Henry through the siege of Vicksburg and from the Red River campaign
The genial but troubled New Englander whose single-minded partisan loyalties inflamed the nation's simmering battle over slavery Charming and handsome, Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire was drafted to
John C. Breckinridge rose to prominence during one of the most turbulent times in our nation's history. Widely respected, even by his enemies, for his dedication to moderate liberalism, Breckinridge's
When James K. Polk was elected president in 1844, the United States was locked in a bitter diplomatic struggle with Britain over the rich lands of the Oregon Territory, which included what is now Was
George B. McClellan was a second lieutenant in the formation of combat engineers that accompanied Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott's army of invasion during the Mexican War (1846 -- 1848). His diary and corre
Here is the first fully annotated edition of a landmark in early African American literature--Eliza Potter's 1859 autobiography, A Hairdresser's Experience in High Life. Potter was a freeborn black wo
Roberts (history, Western Illinois U.) argues that the spate of popular revolutions across Europe in 1848 had a profound impact on how Americans at the time thought about revolution, democracy, foreig
"Alone among American Presidents, it is possible to imagine Lincoln, grown up in a different milieu, becoming a distinguished writer of a not merely political kind."--Edmund WilsonRanging from finely
A war that started under questionable pretexts. A president who is convinced of his country’s might and right. A military and political stalemate with United States troops occupying a foreign land aga
Crisis of the House Divided is the standard historiography of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Harry Jaffa provides the definitive analysis of the political principles that guided Lincoln from his reentry
In 1847, war broke out between the United States and the young Mexican republic, a conflict that saw Mexico lose half of its territory to its northern neighbor. By examining this painful history, the
Released in conjunction with the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birthday, The Rivalry recreates the fiery face-off between the rising Illinois legislator Abraham Lincoln and incumbent Senator Stephen
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln was known as a successful Illinois lawyer who had achieved some prominence in state politics as a leader in the new Republican Party. Two years later, he was elected presiden
In the past, editions of the Lincoln-Douglas debates have been based on the conflicting "verbatim" accounts that appeared in various partisan newspapers of the day--especially those from two Chicago p
Major Henshaw, a dutiful regimental officer in the American invasion of Mexico, was one of only a handful of eyewitnesses to describe the two major theaters of that war. His recollections incl
The rough-hewn general who rose to the nation’s highest office, and whose presidency witnessed the first political skirmishes that would lead to the Civil WarZachary Taylor was a soldier’
