Crowley County Combined Library

Lincoln at Cooper Union explores Lincoln's most influential and widely reported pre-presidential address—an extraordinary appeal by the western politician to the eastern elite that propelled him toward the Republican nomination for president. Delivered in New York in February 1860, the Cooper Union speech dispelled doubts about Lincoln's suitability for the presidency and reassured conservatives of his moderation while reaffirming his opposition...

In 1850s Kansas, two young families struggle with rattlesnakes, tornadoes, ice-storms, childbirth and morality in a war-torn land. A growing love between them, built over holiday ham and whiskey, is threatened as they are drawn into the territory's cycle of political violence. They must ultimately decide if they are friends or foes, and it isn't long before they all have blood on their hands. This novel asks how ordinary people cope with extraordinary...

Describes the life of the American statesman and political theorist who served as Vice President under John Quincy Adams and argued in favor of slavery and laid the groundwork for the South to secede the Union.

"In his masterpiece, Jefferson Davis, American, William J. Cooper, Jr., crafted a definitive biography and established himself as the foremost scholar on the Confederate president. Cooper narrows his focus considerably in Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era, training his eye specifically on Davis's participation in and influence on events central to the American Civil War. Nine self-contained essays address how Davis reacted to and dealt with a...

"The absorbing narrative of Frederick Douglass's heated struggle with President Andrew Johnson reveals a new perspective on Reconstruction's demise. When Andrew Johnson rose to the presidency after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, African Americans were optimistic that Johnson would pursue aggressive federal policies for Black equality. Just a year earlier, Johnson had cast himself as a "Moses" for the Black community. Frederick Douglass, the country's...

Follows the military and political career of the general who became the "Hero of Appomattox" and the eighteenth president of the United States.

Tells the story behind Abraham Lincoln's famous speech. Each spread provides information about the context, wording, and lasting effects of the document paired with interesting sidebars, questions to consider, and historical images.

By March 4, 1865, the Civil War had left intractable wounds on the nation. Tens of thousands crowded Washington's Capitol grounds that day to see Abraham Lincoln take the oath for a second term, and witness what was perhaps the greatest inaugural address in American history. Lincoln stunned the nation by arguing that both sides had been wrong, and that the war's unimaginable horrors might have been God's just verdict on the national sin of slavery. In...