Big Byte Books: 141 books

Almost more remarkable than having survived the horrors of the Confederate prison at Andersonville is the fact that Melvin Grigsby could 33 years later pen this often hilarious recounting of his experiences in the American Civil War. He does not shy away from descriptions of life as it was in Andersonville....

In the 21st Century, America's first president seems as frozen in time as his marble busts. What was it that made George Washington first in the hearts of his contemporaries. Here in the diaries from the last years of his life, you get a glimpse at Washington, the man. He was a plantation owner,...

Leo Tolstoy's fascinating classic treatise on art is as relevant today as it was over one hundred years ago. Highly-readable, often witty, anyone with an interest in the nature of art and its connection to what it is to be human will find this book a treat. For the first time, this long out-of-print...

General Randolph B Marcy’s 1859 book, "The Prairie Traveler" is considered one of the most important guides that made possible the great Western overland migration of United States settlers in the last half of the 19th century. This later book, "Thirty Years of Army Life" is full of Marcy's keen...

Though written during her exile in England, from which she would not return until her death, Asia Booth Clarke's memoir of her famous brother was not published until 1938. She had given the "locked book" to a friend for keeping "to publish sometime if he sees fit." The friend did not see fit to publish...

She knew everyone and everyone knew her. A wealthy belle, married to prominent legislator, Clement Clay, she became one of Washington, D.C.'s great hostesses.  This is as witty, gossipy, fashionable, and gritty a tale of antebellum Washington as you'll ever read. As her biographical researcher...

James Lane left a lasting impression on Kansas and American politics of the 1850s and 1860s. As a partisan during the violent years of Bleeding Kansas before the American Civil War, he was an ardent opponent of slavery and a proponent of Kansas statehood as a free state. He was one of the first senators...

"Bless my wife! I will never meet a woman that I will love as I love her." So said Friday Jones in the midst of trying desperately to keep his enslaved family together. In this true account of slavery in America, Jones relates the many ways he resisted his masters, bargained with them, and fought...

A GIANT AMONG ADVENTURERS AND EXPLORERS Among the noted explorers and adventurers of the great age of discovery, few can compare with the Great Belzoni. No study of the modern exploration of ancient Egypt is complete without his extraordinary work. Once a circus strongman, trained...

Famed mountain man and scout, Kit Carson, and The Pathfinder, John C. Fremont made three incredible explorations together to the western United States. The first was in 1842 with the second in the following year. The last was in 1845. Both were hugely successful and helped touch off a wave of emigration...

Can you truly visualize today what it meant to cross America's Great Plains in the mid-19th century? It was a wondrous, perilous, oftentimes fatal journey without assurance of a successful life at the other end. Yet tens of thousands made the journey and lucky for us, many set aside modesty, often...

One of the most dramatic heroine's of the American Civil War, Pauline Cushman acted as a Union spy and scout while behind enemy lines in the South. She was eventually captured, brought before General Nathan Bedford Forest, and sent to General Bragg for prosecution. She was found guilty and sentenced...

Abraham Lincoln brought together one of the most remarkable Cabinet's in presidential history. Among them was Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and his successor, Andrew Johnson. Welles describes his role and that of many other prominent men of his day in this fascinating...

As the regimental surgeon for the Eighth Cavalry during the American Civil War, Dr. Abner Hard saw it all. His troops were at Manassas, Gettysburg, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Boonesboro, Brandy Station, Fredericksburg, and more. When the bullets stopped, Dr. Hard took upon himself the task of documenting...