At 6 feet 7 inches, Jacob "Shorty" Manch was the tallest of Jimmy Doolittle's fliers and also one of the most colorful. This biography details his life as a rambunctious kid growing up in Staunton, Virginia, his pranks in military academies and his incredible adventure as a member of the group who launched the first bombing raid on Tokyo.

Manch died a hero, also, and his sacrifice over the skies of Las Vegas is explored in print here for the first time. Illustrated with many never-before-published photographs.

A Long-Lost World War I Narrative "Once A Marine" is the true story of the life of a private in the U.S. Marines on the battlefields of Northern France during the First World War. The author, Levi E. Hemrick, did not set down his narrative until nearly 50 years after the somber, bloody, exhausting and at times hilarious event he describes. Blessed with the vivid, selective memory of an artist and a half century of gestation, Hemrick penned a memoir that was a skillfully blended admixture of prosaic fact and deeply pondered comment. The day-by-day incidents of almost forgotten battles are...

Bivouac of the Dead On September 18, 1937 - 75 years after the bloodbath at Sharpsburg (Antietam) - the people of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, dedicated a lovingly fashioned monument to Confederate soldiers from the area. The Memorial to Confederate Soldiers was installed in historic Elmwood Cemetery and today remains a treasured part of the area's history and legacy.

The booklet that was privately printed and distributed to participants and attendees of the 1937 cemetery has been out of circulation for many years. It has been reproduced in its entirety here for the first time. With a...

The Ultimate Big Book of Staunton, Virginia Historic Tales This anthology of previously unpublished stories from historic Staunton, Virginia contains a whopping 87 chapters, dozens of images and 70,000 words - all calculated to delight and inform the Virginia history afficionado. Staunton historian Charles Culbertson has assembled a vast array of tales from Staunton's past and has arranged them in chronological order from the Revolutionary War period to the mid 1960s. Forgotten Virginia History Brought to Life Did you know about the theater started in Staunton by British captives during the...

In print here for the first time since 1855 are the rules and regulations that dictated life at one of the first mental institutions in the United States - Western Lunatic Asylum in Staunton, Virginia. Founded in 1828, the asylum marked a revolution in the treatment of the mentally ill, supplanting barbarity with enlightened approaches that would set the institution apart from all others. These bylaws regulated the actions of everyone who worked at the asylum, from the board of directors down to the lowliest servant. Accompanied by the 1855 Code of Virginia regarding the management of the...

In American literature there is perhaps no more rustic paradise, complete with the joys of simple, wholesome farm living, than the Connecticut farm in Albert Bigelow Paine's "Dwellers in Arcady." Since it was first published in 1919, "Dwellers" has charmed, soothed and delighted generations of readers who sought respite from the madness and violence of modern life.

With a new foreword and the restored illustrations of the great Thomas Fogarty, this edition of "Dwellers in Arcady," like its predecessors, will carry you back to a gentler, sweeter, long-vanished world we shall never see...

This is the heartwarming story of Queen Elizabeth Miller, the daughter of former slaves who rescued abandoned, abused children and gave them a home in the Staunton, Virginia orphanage she and her husband, William, had created.

In 1955, shortly before her death, Miller was interviewed by Audrey Blackford, who presents those interviews here, in this inspiring account of a woman whose capacity for love was boundless.

This revised edition of the 1961 original features a new foreword by Charles Culbertson and a section of photographs.

While Charles Culbertson is best known for his books about historic Staunton, Virginia, he has, over the years, published articles and opinion pieces on a variety of topics - such as the famous people he has killed, the writer's curse, and his quest to buy Errol Flynn's sword at a Christie's auction. These and twenty-one other musings - both serious and not so serious - are presented in "Purely for Pleasure," Mr. Culbertson's first collection of writings not strictly of a historical nature. History is here, however, in the form of four emotionally moving pieces about World War II, including...