Tag: Historical Literature

  • The Story of a Common Soldier (Army Life in the Civil War)
    $3.00

    Leander Stillwell was typical of thousands of Northern boys who answered President Lincoln’s call for volunteers. In January 1862, only a few months past his 18th birthday, and only after he and his father had sowed the wheat, gathered the corn and cut the winter firewood, Stillwell left his family’s log cabin in the Jersey County backwoods of western Illinois and enlisted in Company D of the 61st Illinois Infantry Regiment. For three and a half years he served in the Western theater of operations as a noncommissioned officer before being mustered out as a lieutenant in September 1865. His first—and biggest—battle, Shiloh, was the one he remembered most vividly. He also took part in skirmishes in Tennessee and Arkansas, as well as the Siege of Vicksburg. In The Story of a Common Soldier Stillwell tells of his Army experiences, as critic H. L. Mencken observed admiringly in a review, “in plain, straightforward American, naked and unashamed, without any of the customary strutting and bawling.” Small for his age and given to taking solitary walks in the woods beyond the picket lines, Stillwell was nevertheless an enthusiastic and obedient soldier. “Just a little mortifying,” was Stillwell’s reaction when his regiment missed two battles because it had been left to guard a town in Tennessee. But, he hastened to add, “the common soldier can only obey orders, and stay where he is put, and doubtless it was all for the best.”

    Buy Now
  • Soldier Life in the Army of Northern Virginia
    $2.50

    This is a downloadable copy of the book.
    About the book: This Civil War classic of soldiering in the ranks debunks all the romantic notions of war. Like his Northern counterpart, the Confederate soldier fought against bullets, starvation, miserable conditions, disease, and mental strain. But the experience was perhaps even worse for Johnny Reb because of the odds against him. Never as well equipped and provisioned as the Yankee, he nevertheless performed heroically.

    About the Author: Carlton McCarthy (1847–1936) was the mayor of Richmond Virginia from 1904 to 1908. Prior to this, he served as a soldier in the Confederate Army. He fought in local armies but was not formally enlisted private until 1864 in the Richmond Howitzers of the Army of Northern Virginia. He wrote a book about his four years of Civil War experience called Detailed Minutiae of Soldier Life in the Army of Northern Virginia 1861-1865.

    Buy Now
  • A Confederate Girl’s Diary
    $3.00

    This is a downloadable copy of the book.

    About the Author:  Sarah Morgan Dawson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on February 28, 1842 to Judge Thomas Gibbes Morgan and his second wife, Sarah Hunt Fowler Morgan. She spent her early childhood in New Orleans until Judge Morgan relocated the family to Baton Rouge in 1850. Although Sarah received less than a full year of formal schooling, she followed a serious course of study on her own. In addition to learning French, she read widely in English literature. References to her reading habits as well as allusions to various literary works appear in her diary, which she began during the Civil War.

    Buy Now
  • Army Life in a Black Regiment (CIVIL WAR)
    $3.00

    Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a Unitarian minister, was a fervent member of new England’s abolitionist movement, an active participant in the Underground Railroad, and part of a group that supplied material aid to John Brown before his ill-fated raid on Harpers Ferry. When the Civil War broke out, Higginson was commissioned as a colonel of the black troops training in the Sea Islands off the coast of the Carolinas.

    Shaped by American Romanticism and imbued with Higginson’s interest in both man and nature, Army Life in a Black Regiment ranges from detailed reports on daily life to a vivid description of the author’s near escape from cannon fire, to sketches that conjure up the beauty and mystery of the Sea Islands.

    Buy Now
  • Indian Stories Retold from St. Nicholas Magazine
    $2.00

    This is a downloadable copy of the book. ‘ Indian Stories’ is a mirror of Indian ideas, customs, and adventures.

    Buy Now
  • The Naval History of the United States (Vol 1)
    $2.50

    This is a downloadable copy of the book.
    About the book: From the era of pirates and the beginning of the navy to the events of 1776 and 1813

    About the Author:   Willis John Abbot (March 16, 1863 – May 19, 1934) was an American journalist, and a prolific author of war, army, navy, marine corps and merchant marine books.

    Buy Now
  • Daniel Boone – The Pioneer of Kentucky
    $2.50

    Daniel Boone is regarded as the first real American folk hero. Without his cunning bravery, settlement west of the Appalachians may not have been made possible for years. Boone’s Wilderness Road, which is still used today, helped bridge the Cumberland Gap, granting access to the state of Kentucky from Pennsylvania.

    Thanks to the writing of John S. C. Abbot, the life and genius of Boone can truly be appreciated through Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky. Find out just how Boone crafted his Wilderness Trail, what he did to make it happen, and how he overcame the struggles of life in late eighteenth century America.

    Buy Now