Big Books: 214 books

“There are three key reasons why James K. Polk deserves recognition as a significant and influential American president,” Polk biographer, Walter Borneman, wrote. “First, Polk accomplished the objectives of his presidential term as he defined them; second, he was the most decisive chief executive...

The cost of love and intrigue for real-life Scottish socialite and courtesan, Grace Dalrymple Elliott (1758–1823), was nearly a trip to the guillotine. Mistress to the Duc d'Orleans and in the center of Paris social life, Elliott was arrested and spent 18 months in prison, all the while expecting...

Tom Leforge was a legend in his time. Interpreter and scout, he lived among the Crow Indians, as a Crow, for decades. If not for a broken collar bone, Leforge would have been with the six Crow scouts that accompanied General George Armstrong Custer to the Little Bighorn. Instead, he watched from a...

Few Americans realize how many Native Americans served as scouts and guides for the U.S. Army during the Indian wars of the late 19th century. This is the true story of one battallion of Pawnees organized and led by the famous scouts, the North brothers. A scout's life was hard and often short but...

This edition is abridged and annotated with updated information.  A judge from Prussia. A French Texas Ranger. Emigrants from all over the U.S.  Their names and stories are mostly now forgotten but were recorded in this 1900 volume by Andrew Jackson Sowell. They were mostly young, hardy,...

With biographical information about the founders of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. W. B. Hartgrove was known for his early 20th-century "Journal of Negro History." This short volume is an article about African American soldiers during the fight for independence. "Most of...

More than one woman ventured alone to the great Alaskan north during the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Sarah Fell was one them. She did not find gold but nevertheless made a good living for herself through perseverance and resourcefulness. Lucky for us, she left us this volume full of stories,...

One of the most important Confederate generals, Joseph Wheeler fought initially in the Western campaigns. He was recognized for fighting well at Shiloh and Wheeler burned the bridges over the Tuscumbia River to cover the Confederate withdrawal at the Battle of Corinth. Starting Confederate service...

In exile in Canada immediately after the Civil War's conclusion, Jubal Early wrote his personal account of the final year of the war. Typically opinionated, sometimes funny, caustically critical of his opponents, Early nevertheless left an important contribution to the literature of the Civil War,...

Slow, deliberate, and highly successful in war, General George Thomas nevertheless has never received the accolades he deserves. He shunned self-promotion and even refused military promotion when he felt it was unjustified. But he saved a great Union army at Chickamauga and was highly-respected by...

Of Sheridan, Ulysses S. Grant said, “As a soldier, as a commander of troops, as a man capable of doing all that is possible with any number of men, there is no man living greater than Sheridan. He belongs to the very first rank of soldiers, not only of our country, but of the world. I rank Sheridan...

For four decades, Winfield Scott Hancock was a serving officer in the United States Army. In this affectionate memoir by his wife Almira, you learn many details and anecdotes from Hancock's life that appear no where else. Stationed in Los Angeles before the Civil War, southern friends like Armistead,...

"It is high time that dispute should cease as to the award due him who won the greatest battle of the war, upon which it turned, saving the nation's capital, and giving to the Rebellion a blow from which it never recovered...it remains for history to record that, from the beginning to the end of the...

General James Harrison Wilson, author of this biography, said of his subject, "JOHN A. RAWLINS, all things considered, was the most remarkable man I met during the Civil War..." That is a remarkable statement from one who served under McClellan and Grant, and was a cavalry leader in his own right....