Reverend J. William Jones, a chaplain in Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and a witness to the significant religious activity within that army during the American Civil War, stated, But any history of that army which omits an account of the wonderful influence of religion upon it -- which fails to tell how the courage, discipline, and morale of the whole was influenced by the humble piety and evangelical zeal of many of its officers and men -- would be incomplete and unsatisfactory. His words summarize the general mood experienced by the soldiers of Lee's Army during the...

This report is about people living on an edge, an unstable edge of sand arcing into the North Atlantic at the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. They are dune dwellers, self-reliant mavericks choosing to live seasonally in fragile shacks perched on a ridge of barrier dunes above the sea. Here in winter, the empty shacks are exposed to battering northeast storms from the open ocean. From spring through fall when the shacks are used, they are bathed with reflected light from unrestricted horizons. The shacks float on what some dune dwellers call a "liquid earth," dunes that move, an unstable...

Because of the secrecy that enveloped the U.S. Office of Strategic Services in World War II, it surprises most people, including nearby residents, to learn that spies were trained in some of the National Parks-not just spies but guerrilla leaders, saboteurs, clandestine radio operators and others who would be infiltrated behind enemy lines. What are today known as Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland and Prince William Forest Park in Virginia played a vital role in the training of the operatives of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. Known by its initials, the OSS was a specially created...