The authors of the letters in this collection were my great-grandparents Captain John Reed Beatty (Union) and Laura Elizabeth Maxfield. He wrote nearly 150 wartime letters to his "Dearest Laura" while soldiering in the Western Theater during the Civil War.I am not yet aware of a larger collection of personal letters from the Civil War. By sheer numbers they naturally reflect more of daily life than battle. Unlike history books which jump timelines between battles, these letters pro...

The conversion of Lutz Löb and Jenny van Gelder from Judaism to Roman Catholicism dramatically changed the lives of the extended Löb family. This scientific-historical study traces the personal and spiritual journey of Lutz and Jenny from their baptisms in 1907 through the lives of their children. The story benefits from historical documents and pieces of oral history from the only one of their eight children who survived the Nazi era, Paula van Broekhoven-Löb. The abbess of Koningsoord Ab...

A fascinating history of women on America's western frontier by the #1 New York Times –bestselling author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee .Popular culture has taught us to picture the Old West as a land of men, whether it's the lone hero on horseback or crowds of card players in a rough-and-tumble saloon. But the taming of the frontier involved plenty of women, too—and this boo...

A biography of the two gifted Civil War commanders from a New York Times–bestselling author: "A great story . . . History at its best" ( Publishers Weekly).Their names are forever linked in the history of the Civil War, but Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant could not have been more dissimilar. Lee came from a world of Southern gentility and aristocratic privilege while Grant had coarser, more common roots in the Midwest. As a young officer trained...

Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for HistoryFrom the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award, a brilliant biography of Gen. George Armstrong Custer that radically changes our view of the man and his turbulent times.In this magisterial biography, T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer’s legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer’s historical caricature, revealing a v...

Not one, not two, but three Custer brothers died at the Little Bighorn—and so did their only sister's husband.Most do not realize that not one, not two, but three Custer brothers died with the 7th Cavalry at the hands of the Sioux and Cheyenne at Little Bighorn in 1876. So too did their nephew and the husband of their only sister. Less than half the immediate Custer family would survive the massacre. This is their story.This book is a must for all ...

The little-known true Civil War story of the Confederate soldiers who served in the Union Army by the #1 New York Times –bestselling author.Historian Dee Brown uncovers an exciting episode in American history: During the Civil War, a group of Confederate soldiers opted to assist the Union Army rather than endure the grim conditions of POW camps. Regiments containing former Confederates were not trusted to go into battle a...

A New York Times bestselling author's revealing account of General Robert E. Lee's life after Appomattox: "An American classic" ( Atlanta Journal-Constitution).After his surrender at Appomattox in 1865, Robert E. Lee, commanding general for the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War, lived only five more years. It was the great forgotten chapter of his remarkable life, during which Lee did more to bridge the divide between the ...

"A moving and illuminating portrait of Ulysses Grant's grace as the dying general faced possible ruin."—Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of His Truth Is Marching OnShortly after losing all of his wealth in a terrible 1884 swindle, Ulysses S. Grant learned he had terminal throat and mouth cancer. Destitute and dying, Grant began to write his memoirs to save his family from permanent financial ruin.As Grant continued his work, suffering inc...

In 1861, as President Lincoln called for volunteers to defend the Union, Thomas Christie wrote to his father, voicing desires shared by many an enlistee: "I do want to 'see the world,' to get out of the narrow circle in which I have always lived, to 'make a man of myself,' and to have it to say in days to come that I, too, had a part in this great struggle."As it turned out, Thomas had an excellent partner in his quest: his brother William. Both signed on with the First Minnesota L...

John F. Locke was a Confederate soldier in the 14th Tennessee, Company D, and served in the Army of Northern Viriginia throughout the American Civil War. This portion of the diary exposes the reader to the mind of John F. Locke and his experiences in 1861.

This definitive account of the final war between the US government and Florida's Seminole tribe "brings to life a conflict that is largely ignored" ( San Francisco Book Review).Spanning a period of over forty years (1817–1858), the three Seminole Wars were America's longest, costliest, and deadliest Indian wars, surpassing the more famous ones fought in the West. After an uneasy peace following the conclusion of the second Seminole War in 1842, a series of ...