American Military History

This is the original diary of the wife of Confederate General James Chesnut, Jr., who was an aide to President Jefferson Davis. It is a fascinating narrative of all the years of the American Civil War. It focuses on the daily lives and hardships of all who suffered through the war, from ordinary people to the Confederacy's generals and political elite. Mary Chesnut's prose has lost none of its provocative bite through the ages.

There exists, an indispensable subculture based within a 500-mile radius of the coastal South Atlantic states and Sea Islands. These culture bearers, who refer to themselves as the Gullah Geechee, or the “Gullah” for short, are the descendants and rightful heirs of the once-shackled slaves who resided in these parts. As the guardians and torch holders of the incredible legacy left behind by their persevering ancestors, the modern Gullah spare no effort in preserving the inherently unique customs and traditions, complete with their own creole tongue.

Virtually all Americans above a certain age hold strong opinions about Douglas MacArthur. They either worship him or despise him. Now, in this superb book, one of our most outstanding writers, after a meticulous three-year examination of the record, presents his startling insights about the man. The narrative is gripping, because the general's life was fascinating. It is moving, because he was a man of vision. It ends, finally, in tragedy, because his character, though majestic, was tragically flawed.

"A Southern View of the Invasion of the Southern States and War of 1861-65" is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Civil War, offering a compelling counterpoint to traditional historical interpretations. Ashe's work is essential listening for anyone seeking a nuanced and insightful perspective on this pivotal chapter in American history.

Late on the evening of October 16, 1859, John Brown and his band of 18 raiders descended on Harpers Ferry at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. In an ill-fated attempt to incite a slave insurrection, they seized the federal arsenal, took hostages, and retreated to a fire engine house. The raiders were routed, and several were captured. Soon after, they were tried, convicted, and hanged. Among Brown's raiders were five African Americans whose lives and deaths have long been overshadowed by their martyred leader and, even today, are little remembered.

Nothing Like It in the World is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise comes to life. The U.S. government pitted two companies - the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads - against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. As its peak the work force approached the size of Civil War armies, with as many as 15,000 workers on each line. The surveyors, the men who picked the route, lived off buffalo, deer, and antelope.

In 1783, with the signing of the Peace of Paris, the American Revolution was complete. And yet even as the newly independent United States secured peace with Great Britain, it found itself losing an escalating military conflict on its borderlands. The enemy was the indigenous people of the Ohio Valley, who rightly saw the new nation as a threat to their existence.

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was a world away from John Luckadoo’s hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. But when the Japanese attacked the American naval base on December 7, 1941, he didn’t hesitate to join the military. Trained as a pilot with the United States Air Force, Second Lieutenant Luckadoo was assigned to the 100th Bomb Group stationed in Thorpe Abbotts, England. Between June and October 1943, he flew B-17 Flying Fortresses over France and Germany on bombing runs devised to destroy the Nazi war machine.

The army does not want you to listen to this book. It does not want to advertise its detention system that coddles enemy fighters while putting American soldiers at risk. It does not want to reveal the new lawyered-up Pentagon war ethic that prosecutes US soldiers and marines while setting free spies who kill Americans. This very system ambushed Captain Roger Hill and his men.

Before 1862, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain had rarely left his home state of Maine, where he was a trained minister and mild-mannered professor at Bowdoin College. His colleagues were shocked when he volunteered for the Union army, but he was undeterred and later became known as one of the North’s greatest heroes: On the second day at Gettysburg, after running out of ammunition at Little Round Top, he ordered his men to wield their bayonets in a desperate charge down a rocky slope that routed the Confederate attackers.

At the time of his tragic death in February 2013, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the most accomplished sniper in U.S. military history, was finishing a remarkable book that retold American history through the lens of a hand-selected list of firearms. Kyle masterfully argues that guns have played a fascinating, indispensable, and often under-appreciated role in our national story. He carefully chose ten guns to help tell his story, ranging from the American long rifle to the modern M-16, and uses these guns as a platform for exploring American history.

Joseph Plumb Martin (1760-1850) was a soldier in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Martin participated in the Battles of Brooklyn, the White Plains and Monmouth, and the siege of Fort Mifflin, and the Battle of Monmouth. The Adventures of a Revolutionary Soldier relates the adventures of a young private serving his country under terrible conditions. There are engaging accounts of army life, adventures, dangers, and suffering during the years 1776-1783.

Salmon P. Chase is best remembered as a rival of Lincoln’s for the Republican nomination in 1860—but there would not have been a national Republican Party, and Lincoln could not have won the presidency, were it not for the groundwork Chase laid over the previous two decades. Starting in the early 1840s, long before Lincoln was speaking out against slavery, Chase was forming and leading antislavery parties. He represented fugitive slaves so often in his law practice that he was known as the attorney general for runaway negroes.

The period following the Civil War was one of the most controversial eras in American history. This comprehensive account of the period captures the drama of those turbulent years that played such an important role in shaping modern America.

The greatest of all Civil War campaigns, Gettysburg was the turning point of the turning point in our nation’s history. Volumes have been written about this momentous three-day battle, but recent histories have tended to focus on the particulars rather than the big picture: on the generals or on single days of battle—even on single charges—or on the daily lives of the soldiers. In Gettysburg Sears tells the whole story in a single volume.

Decision at Sea is a powerful and illuminating look at pivotal moments in the history of the Navy and of the United States. It is also a compelling study of the unchanging demands of leadership at sea, where commanders must make rapid decisions in the heat of battle with lives - and the fate of nations - hanging in the balance.

Romantic Times Reviews magazine says about Secrets and Sacrifices, "The research is meticulous, and a grand cast of characters leaps off the page. This is one for the keeper shelf." Charlie is a crack sharpshooter for the Twenty-Fifth Virginia infantry. But Charlie has secrets…big secrets that could lead to heartbreak or even death. The slowly starving South, lack of medical supplies, and desperate runaway slaves motivate Charlie and Daniel to take risks beyond their wildest imaginations. How could they possibly know that their paths would cross during the worst time in their lives and ...

The Last Battle concludes Leonard Wibberley’s epic saga of the Treegate family during the War of 1812… Manly Treegate has become captain of the brig Wild Duck in the young United States Navy. He has orders to seize any British shipping sighted in West Indian waters—and he does so with the help of his old friend Gubu, leader of a band of pirates. Among Manly’s crew is young Peter Treegate, who often chafes under the discipline of a captain who happens to be his older brother but who is also determined to follow the family tradition of service. Meanwhile, Major Peter Treegate, uncle ...

Though he barely escaped expulsion from West Point, John Bell Hood quickly rose through the ranks of the Confederate army. With bold leadership in the battles of Gaines' Mill and Antietam, Hood won favor with Confederate president Jefferson Davis. But his fortunes in war took a tragic turn when he assumed command of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. After the fall of Atlanta, Hood marched his troops north in an attempt to draw Union army general William T. Sherman from his devastating "March to the Sea." But the ploy proved ruinous for the South.

In a narrative that moves from Washington's headquarters on the Hudson River, to the wooded hillside in North Carolina where Nathanael Greene fought Lord Cornwallis to a vicious draw, to Lafayette's brilliant series of maneuvers across Tidewater Virginia, author Nathaniel Philbrick details the epic and suspenseful year through to its triumphant conclusion. A riveting and wide-ranging story, full of dramatic, unexpected turns, In the Hurricane's Eye reveals that the fate of the American Revolution depended, in the end, on Washington and the sea.