Until now, little has been known about Nathan "Shanks" Evans, a prominent and highly controversial Confederate general who served throughout the Civil War in several theaters of operations. Thankfully, because of a recently discovered cache of his personal papers--long rumored to exist but never before seen--it is now possible to present his fascinating Civil War odyssey largely in his own words. Shanks covers Evans's entire amazing career, from his brave stand with a brigade at the famous stone bridge at First Manassas to his controversial months in North and South Carolina, where his...

Between 1840 and 1860, America received more than four and a half million people from foreign countries as permanent residents, including a huge influx of newcomers from northern and western Europe, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans who became U.S. citizens with the annexation of Texas and the Mexican Cession, and a smaller number of Chinese immigrants. While some Americans sought to make immigration more difficult and to curtail the rights afforded to immigrants, Abraham Lincoln advocated for the rights of all classes of citizens. In this succinct study, Jason H. Silverman investigates...