Crowley County Combined Library

Excerpt: "The story of American ships and sailors is an epic of blue water which seems singularly remote, almost unreal, to the later generations. A people with a native genius for seafaring won and held a brilliant supremacy through two centuries and then forsook this heritage of theirs. The period of achievement was no more extraordinary than was its swift declension. A maritime race whose topsails flecked every ocean, whose captains courageous...

A brief biography of John Paul Jones stressing his naval career.

A brief biography stressing the personal and political turmoil in the career of the Civil War leader who became the eighteenth President.

The second day's fighting at Gettysburg--the assault of the Army of Northern Virginia against the Army of the Potomac on 2 July 1863--was probably the critical engagement of that decisive battle and, therefore, among the most significant actions of the Civil War. This text provides a definitive account of that second day's brutal combat. The author begins by introducing the men and units that were to do battle, analyzing the strategic intentions...

Richard McMurry compares the two largest Confederate armies, assessing why Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was more successful than the Army of Tennessee. His bold conclusion is that Lee's army was a better army--not just one with a better high command. "Sheds new light on how the South lost the Civil War.--American Historical Review"McMurry's mastery of the literature is impressive, and his clear and succinct writing style is a pleasure to read....

The battle of Belmont was the first battle in the western theater of the Civil War and, more importantly, the first battle of the war fought by Ulysses S. Grant. It set a pattern for warfare not only in the Mississippi Valley but at Fort Donelson and Shiloh as well. Grant's 7 November 1861 strike against the Southern forces at Belmont, in southeastern Missouri on the Mississippi River, made use of the newly outfitted Yankee timberclads and all the...

Tells why America abandoned its isolationism to participate in World War I, and its significance for America.

An account of America's war in Europe and in the Pacific, from Pearl Harbor to the Normandy invasion, and the Japanese surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri

Study of the Battle of Pea Ridge held in Northwestern Arkansas from March 6 to 8 1862, one of the earliest battles of the Civil War.

"Between February 1864 and April 1865, 41,000 Union prisoners of war were taken to the stockade at Anderson Station, Georgia, where nearly 13,000 - one-third of them - died. Most contemporary accounts placed the blame for the tragedy squarely on the shoulders of the Confederates who administered the prison or on a conspiracy of higher-ranking officials." "In this carefully researched and compelling revisionist account, William Marvel provides a comprehensive...