Kategoria BISAC: Biography & Autobiography >> Historical

Julia Dent Grant wrote her reminiscences with the vivacity and charm she exhibited throughout her life, telling her story in the easy flow of an afternoon conversation with a close friend. Mrs. Grant was raised the pampered daughter of a Missouri planter, and she later remembered her girlhood as an idyll that she wished could have lasted.

Many of the anecdotes she relates give fascinating glimpses into a very troubled period of American history. A dramatic reminiscence recounts the night that Lincoln was assassinated. Mrs. Grant insisted that she and her husband turn down an...

This volume provides material that will allow a fresh evaluation of Grant's activities following Appomattox.

In April Grant commanded an army of more than 1,000,000 men maintained at enormous cost. Disbanding this army took priority. By mid-July, more than two-thirds of the volunteers had been mustered out.

Grant as peacemaker exerted his power to protect his former adversaries. He opposed prosecuting Southern military leaders, including Robert E. Lee and others who had been indicted for treason. The South had to accept defeat, but Grant was no believer in a Carthaginian...

Ulysses S. Grant as symbol became as important in peace as he had been in war. The nation rewarded Grant with the rank of full general, the first U.S. officer to hold the rank since George Washington.

Disliking politics, Grant sought to avoid the growing controversy over Reconstruction policy. Although he faced growing pressure to take a stand, he maintained public silence, firmly believing it wrong for an army officer "to take part in elections."

Grant also worked hard to reorganize the army to meet postwar needs. Increased friction between settlers and Indians, Fenian...

Although Ulysses S. Grant is best remembered as Civil War commander and as president, documents included here demonstrate his importance in the intervening years. Grant interpreted Reconstruction as the means to preserve battlefield victories. He avoided taking a public stand in the bitter dispute between President Andrew Johnson and Congress because he believed that military men served the country, not partisan interests. Nevertheless, he recognized that presidential Reconstruction had failed and privately supported passage of the First Reconstruction Act.

Grant's public silence on...

In spite of his public silence, Grant was caught in the dispute between Congress and President Andrew Johnson. His position became intolerable after Johnson publicly accused Grant of dishonesty.

The same sense of duty that sent Grant to war in 1861 gave him no alternative to accepting the Republican nomination. "I could back down without, as it seems to me, leaving the contest for power for the next four years between mere trading politicians, the elevation of whom, no matter which party won, would lose to us, largely, the results of the costly war which we have gone through." From...

In 1875 Robert Todd Lincoln caused his mother, Mary Todd Lincoln, to be committed to an insane asylum. Based on newly discovered manuscript materials, this book seeks to explain how and why.

In these documentsmarked by Robert Todd Lincoln as the "MTL Insanity File"exists the only definitive record of the tragic story of Mary Todd Lincoln s insanity trial. The book that results from these letters and documents addresses several areas of controversy in the life of the widow of Abraham Lincoln: the extent of her illness, the fairness of her trial, and the motives of those who had her...

In this revised edition of his earlier biography, Paul Simon provides an inspiring account of the life and work of Elijah Lovejoy, an avid abolitionist in the 1830s and the first martyr to freedom of the press in the United States.

Lovejoy was a native New Englander, the son of a Congregational minister. He came to the Midwest in 1827 in pursuit of a teaching career and succeeded in running his own school for two years in St. Louis. Teaching failed to challenge Lovejoy, however, so he bought a half interest in the "St." "Louis Times "and became its editor. In 1832, after experiencing a...

John Hill Brinton (18321907) met, observed, and commented on practically the entire hierarchy of the Union army; serving as medical director for Ulysses S. Grant, he came into contact with Philip H. Sheridan, John C. Fremont, Henry W. Halleck, William A. Hammond, D. C. Buell, John A. Rawlins, James Birdseye McPherson, C. F. Smith, John A. McClernand, William S. Rosecrans, and his first cousin George Brinton McClellan. John Y. Simon points out in his foreword that Brinton was one of the first to write about a relatively obscure Grant early in the war:

"Brinton found a quiet and...

A high-spirited idealist who craved excitement when he enlisted in the Eighth Illinois Volunteers for three months and reenlisted for three years, Charles W. Wills of Canton, Illinois, wrote frequently to his sister Mary Emily Wills and kept a diary of General William T. Sherman s campaigns during the last year of the war. In the beginning of his service, Wills could boast that his company refused to enlist "roughs." He reported that he and his comrades "drink no liquors and keep ourselves as cleanly as possible.... Almost all are reading or writing, and I defy anyone to find "75 "men...

From "All Anybody Ever Wanted of Me Was to Work... "

"Starting around 1950, people stopped raising chickens, milking cows, and raising hogs. They just buy it at the store, ready to eat. A lot buy a steer and have it processed in Dongola and put it in their freezer. What a difference Girls have got it so easy now. They don't even know what it was like to start out. And I guess my mother's life, when she started out, was as hard again as mine, because they had to make everything by hand. I don't know if it could get any easier for these girls. But they don't know what it was like, and...

Wheat Flour Messiah follows the career of Eric Jansson from his boyhood on a farm near Biskopskulla (Bishop s Hill) in Sweden until his murder in Illinois by a crazed follower in 1850. He was an untutored but brilliant charismatic leader, who by sheer insolence and self-confidence defied both the Swedish state church and the secular government and persuaded some twelve hundred of his wheat flour customers to throw in their lot with him. The essence of his teaching was that anyone who so desired could receive the grace of God in such rich measure that he would instantly be freed of...

"To tell my own story is to tell that of my famous husband, General John A. Logan," explains Mary S. Logan in the preface to her autobiography.

Married to John A. Logan for thirty-one years, Mary Logan shared in her distinguished husband s career as a prosecutor in southern Illinois, as a Civil War general, and as a senator from Illinois. She observed firsthand the extraordinary events before, during, and after the Civil War, and she knew personally those world leaders who held the power to shape history. After the death of her husband, she maintained her influence in Washington, D.C....

Ruth Draper (18841956) was an internationally famous monologist who charmed audiences around the world with her "cast of characters" in some sixty sketches. Using no scenery, no props, and only an occasional shawl or other wrap over a simple dress, she was able to people the stage with a great variety of characters and move her audiences to laughter and tears.

Besides the dramatic gift, she had a gift for friendship and kept up a lively and diverse correspondence during her extensive travels. Her warmth and generosity, her unspoiled pleasure in her triumphant career, are reflected in...

On 18 April 1861, assistant presidential secretary John Hay recorded in his diary the report of several women that "some young Virginian long haired swaggering chivalrous of course. . . and half a dozen others including a daredevil guerrilla from Richmond named Ficklin would do a thing within forty eight hours that would ring through the world."

The women feared that the Virginian planned either to assassinate or to capture the president. Calling this a "harrowing communication," Hay continued his entry: "They went away and I went to the bedside of the Chief "couche. "I told him the...