History Books

AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. [Sidenote: Geology and Archaeology.] The sciences of geology and archaeology, working side by side, have made a wonderful progress in the past half a century. The one, seeking for the history and transformations of the physical earth, and the other, aiming to discover the antiquity, differences of race, and social and ethnical development of man, have obtained results which we... more...

While my mother was a servant in Glasgow she married a soldier. I have only a faint remembrance of my father, of a tall man in a red coat coming to see us in the afternoons and tossing me up and down to the ceiling. I was in my fourth year when his regiment was hurried to Belgium to fight Bonaparte. One day there rose a shouting in the streets, it was news of a great victory, the battle of Waterloo. At... more...

PREFACE. In deference to the judgment of two or three literary friends, I have entitled this, my first attempt at authorship, "The Narrative of a Blockade-runner." They do not agree with Shakspeare that "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," to the reading public; nor that it is always advisable to call a thing by its proper name. It will be seen, however, by any reader who... more...

INTRODUCTION This is the first-hand story of what was done and seen and felt on each side in the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac. The actual experiences on both vessels are pictured, in one case by the commander of the Monitor, then a lieutenant, and the next in rank, Lieutenant Greene, and in the other by Chief-Engineer Ramsay of the Merrimac. Clearly such a record of personal experiences has a... more...

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. The conflict known in America as the French and Indian War, and in Europe as the Seven Years' War, originated in disputes between the French and English colonists, in the New World, concerning territorial limits. For a century the colonies of the two nations had been gradually expanding and increasing in importance. The English, more than a million in number, occupied the... more...

Our defeat of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War was conclusive; though "we" in that case included France, without whose aid the patriots must have been defeated. It is not so easy to discover a fund of military glory in the War of 1812. That was a great war year. Within a few days of the declaration of war by the United States against Great Britain, Napoleon's Grand Army of over... more...

CHAPTER I. REVOLUTIONARY TRADITIONS. Middle Georgia—Colonel David Love—His Widow—Governor Dunmore— Colonel Tarleton—Bill Cunningham—Colonel Fannin—My Grandmother's Bible—Solomon's Maxim Applied—Robertus Love—The Indian Warrior— Dragon Canoe—A Buxom Lass—General Gates—Marion—Mason L. Weems— Washington—"Billy Crafford." My earliest memories are... more...

The nearer the Chevalier de Grammont approached the court of France, the more did he regret his absence from that of England. A thousand different thoughts occupied his mind upon the journey: Sometimes he reflected upon the joy and satisfaction his friends and relations would experience upon his return; sometimes upon the congratulations and embraces of those who, being neither the one nor the other,... more...

OTHER LOVE INTRIGUES AT THE ENGLISH COURT. The conversation before related was agreeable only to Miss Hobart; for if Miss Temple was entertained with its commencement, she was so much the more irritated by its conclusion this indignation was succeeded by the curiosity of knowing the reason why, if Sidney had a real esteem for her, she should not be allowed to pay some attention to him. As soon as they... more...

VARIOUS LOVE INTRIGUES AT THE ENGLISH COURT. Every man who believes that his honour depends upon that of his wife is a fool who torments himself, and drives her to despair; but he who, being naturally jealous, has the additional misfortune of loving his wife, and who expects that she should only live for him; is a perfect madman, whom the torments of hell have actually taken hold of in this world, and... more...