United States War History

The American Indian Wars details the true plight of Native Americans during the American Indian Wars. It is a no-holds barred account of the tragedies that forever altered the lives of Native Americans. Go inside the brutal battles, see what happened, and discover the moment when humanity gave way to pure, unadulterated greed, savagery, and genocide.

When John Brown decided to raid the federal armory in Harper's Ferry as the starting point of his intended liberation effort in the South, some closest to him thought it was unnecessary and dangerous. Frederick Douglass, a pioneering abolitionist, refused Brown's invitation to join him in Virginia, believing that the raid on the armory was a suicide mission. Yet in front of Douglass, "Emperor" Shields Green, a fugitive from South Carolina, accepted John Brown's invitation. When the raid failed, Emperor was captured with the rest of Brown's surviving men and hanged on December 16, 1859.

At the end of World War I, the United States Army maintained a horse-mounted cavalry from a bygone era. From the end of World War I until well into World War II, senior leaders remained convinced that traditional cavalry units were useful in reconnaissance, and horses retained a leading role. Morton has examined myriad official records, personal papers, doctrine, and professional discourse from an era of intense debate about the future of the U.S. Cavalry. He has captured the emotion of the conflict that ultimately tore the branch apart.

Robert Stone was a singular American writer, a visionary whose award-winning novels - including Dog Soldiers, Outerbridge Reach, and Damascus Gate - earned him comparisons to literary lions ranging from Samuel Beckett to Ernest Hemingway to Graham Greene. Stone had an almost prophetic grasp of the spirit of his age, which he captured with crystalline clarity in each of his novels. Of course, he was also a sharp and brilliant observer of American life, and his nonfiction writing is revelatory.

Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with Wood's employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage. She remained enslaved throughout the Civil War, giving birth to a son in Mississippi and never forgetting who had put her in this position. By 1869, Wood had obtained her freedom for a second time and returned to Cincinnati, where she sued Ward for damages in 1870. Astonishingly, after eight years of litigation, Wood won her case: In 1878, a Federal jury awarded her $2,500.

Author William S. Kiser reshapes the history of the Southwest, underlining the role of the military not just in obtaining territory but in retaining it.

On April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. The "shot heard round the world" catapulted this sleepy New England town into the midst of revolutionary fervor, and Concord went on to become the intellectual capital of the new republic. In The Minutemen and Their World, Robert Gross has written a remarkably subtle and detailed reconstruction of the lives and community of this special place, and a compelling interpretation of the American Revolution as a social movement.

America in the antebellum years was a deeply troubled country, divided by partisan gridlock and ideological warfare. The Civil War that followed brought America to the brink of self-destruction. But it also created a new country from the ruins of the old one - bolder and stronger than ever. No event in the war was more destructive, or more important, than William Sherman's legendary march through Georgia - crippling the heart of the South's economy, freeing thousands of slaves, and marking the beginning of a new era.

On December 26, 1941, Secret Service Agent Harry E. Neal stood on a platform at Washington's Union Station, watching a train chug off into the dark and feeling at once relieved and inexorably anxious. These were dire times: As Hitler's armies plowed across Europe, seizing or destroying the continent's historic artifacts at will, Japan bristled to the East. The Axis was rapidly closing in. So FDR set about hiding the country's valuables.

In Lincoln's Last Speech, renowned historian and author Louis P. Masur offers insight into this critical address and its vision of a reconstructed United States. Coming two days after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox and a week after the fall of Richmond, Lincoln's speech was expected to be a victory oration. Instead he looked to the future, discussing how best to restore the seceded states to the national government and even endorsing limited black suffrage.

General Sherman's Christmas opens on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 24, 1864, one month before Christmas. Sherman was relentlessly pushing his troops across Georgia, reaching Savannah days before Christmas. His methodical encroachment of the city from all sides eventually convinced Confederate general W. J. Hardee to slip away in darkness across an improvised causeway toward South Carolina to the north.

This was the American Civil War for many who lived it, overwhelming and ultimately tragic, viewed through the eyes of a courageous youth and an unforgettable young woman.

Long relegated to a secondary position behind Gettysburg, Vicksburg has more recently earned consideration by historians as the truly decisive battle of the Civil War. Indeed, Vicksburg is fascinating on many levels. A focal point of both western armies, the Federal campaign of maneuver that finally isolated the Confederates in the city was masterful. The Navy’s contribution to the Federal victory was significant. The science of the fortifications and siege tactics are rich in detail.

At the dawn of the 19th century, the great powers of Western Europe treated the United States like a disobedient child. America's complaints were ignored, until President James Madison declared a second war on Great Britain. British forces would descend on the United States, but America rallied and survived. With stunning detail on land and naval battles, the role Native Americans played in the hostilities, and the larger backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, this is the story of the turning points of this strange conflict, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner".

La torre elevada narra la increíble historia de varios hombres cuyos destinos se entrecruzan y confluyen de forma dramática el 11 de septiembre de 2001. Con una precisión poco común, sustentada en más de quinientas entrevistas realizadas a lo largo de cinco años, nos describe el auge del fundamentalismo islámico, la creación de al-Qaeda y los errores cometidos por los confiados servicios de inteligencia que culminaron en el atentado de las Torres Gemelas.

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.

Listen to this audiobook to learn more about Major General William Farrar Smith, volunteer in the Civil War.

In late December 1776, the American War of Independence appeared to be on its last legs. General George Washington's continental forces had been reduced to a shadow of their former strength, and the British Army had chased them across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. Desperate times call for desperate measures, however, and George Washington responded to this crisis with astonishing audacity. On Christmas night 1776, he recrossed the Delaware as a nor'easter churned up the coast, burying his small detachment under howling sheets of snow and ice.

Called "the preeminent survey of American military history" by Russell F. Weigley, America's foremost military historian, For the Common Defense is an essential contribution to the field of military history. This third edition provides the most complete and current history of United States defense policy and military institutions and the conduct of America's wars. Without diminishing the value of its earlier editions, authors Allan R. Millett, Peter Maslowski, and William B. Feis provide a fresh perspective on the continuing issues that characterize national security policy.

When New Mexico became part of the United States, the territory contained 295 land grants, the largest of these being the Maxwell Land Grant. The size and boundaries of the grant were disputed, with some believing that much of the land was public domain. Settlers on this land were fought not only by the land grant owners but also by a group of corrupt politicians and lawyers— known as the Santa Fe Ring (most notably Thomas Catron and Stephen Elkins)—who tried to use the situation for personal profit and land acquisition.