Biography & Autobiography Books

CHAPTER LI. Vice flourished luxuriantly during the hey-day of our "flush times." The saloons were overburdened with custom; so were the police courts, the gambling dens, the brothels and the jails—unfailing signs of high prosperity in a mining region—in any region for that matter. Is it not so? A crowded police court docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money plenty.... more...

Home from the War All of this universe known to me in the year 1864 was bounded by the wooded hills of a little Wisconsin coulee, and its center was the cottage in which my mother was living alone—my father was in the war. As I project myself back into that mystical age, half lights cover most of the valley. The road before our doorstone begins and ends in vague obscurity—and Granma Green's... more...

BATTLE OF DINWIDDIE COURT HOUSE—PICKETT REPULSED—REINFORCED BY THE FIFTH CORPS—BATTLE OF FIVE FORKS—TURNING THE CONFEDERATE LEFT—AN UNQUALIFIED SUCCESS—RELIEVING GENERAL WARREN—THE WARREN COURT OF INQUIRY—GENERAL SHERMAN'S OPINION. The night of March 30 Merritt, with Devin's division and Davies's brigade, was camped on the Five Forks road about two miles in front of... more...

IN PLACE OF PREFACE. Fortunate, indeed, is the reader who takes up a volume without preface; of which the persons are left to enact their own drama and the author does not come before the curtain, like the chorus of Greek tragedy, to speak for them. But, in printing the pages that follow, it may seem needful to ask that they be taken for what they are; simple sketches of the inner life of... more...

THE MEANING OF THE TANK CORPS TANKS! To the uninitiated—as were we in those days when we returned to the Somme, too late to see the tanks make their first dramatic entrance—the name conjures up a picture of an iron monster, breathing fire and exhaling bullets and shells, hurling itself against the enemy, unassailable by man and impervious to the most deadly engines of war; sublime, indeed, in its... more...

CHAPTER I. ANCESTRY—BIRTH—EARLY EDUCATION—A CLERK IN A GROCERY STORE—APPOINTMENT—MONROE SHOES—JOURNEY TO WEST POINT—HAZING —A FISTICUFF BATTLE—SUSPENDED—RETURNS TO CLERKSHIP—GRADUATION. My parents, John and Mary Sheridan, came to America in 1830, having been induced by the representations of my father's uncle, Thomas Gainor, then living in Albany, N. Y., to try their fortunes... more...

The author's account of his country, and their manners and customs—Administration of justice—Embrenche—Marriage ceremony, and public entertainments—Mode of living—Dress—Manufactures Buildings—Commerce—Agriculture—War and religion—Superstition of the natives—Funeral ceremonies of the priests or magicians—Curious mode of discovering poison—Some hints concerning the origin... more...

CHAPTER I From the Embarkation of the Convicts, to the Departure of the Ships from England. The marines and convicts having been previously embarked in the River, at Portsmouth, and Plymouth, the whole fleet destined for the expedition rendezvoused at the Mother Bank, on the 16th of March 1787, and remained there until the 13th of May following. In this period, excepting a slight appearance of... more...

PREFACE. Though this work was first published in 1830, it has never before been translated into English. Indeed, the volumes are almost out of print. When in Paris a few years ago the writer secured, with much difficulty, a copy, from which this translation has been made. Notes have been added by the translator, and illustrations by the publishers, which, it is believed, will enhance the interest of... more...

I. PRELIMINARY. It is over twenty years since the death of Washington Irving removed that personal presence which is always a powerful, and sometimes the sole, stimulus to the sale of an author's books, and which strongly affects the contemporary judgment of their merits. It is nearly a century since his birth, which was almost coeval with that of the Republic, for it took place the year the... more...