United States Books

CHAPTER I BEGINNINGS AND CONDITIONS The Siege of Boston was the culmination of a series of events which will always be of importance in the history of America. From the beginning of the reign of George the Third, the people of the English colonies in the new world found themselves at variance with their monarch, and nowhere more so than in Massachusetts. Since the New England people were fitted by... 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...

PREFACE In the month of August, 1841, I attended an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket, at which it was my happiness to become acquainted with FREDERICK DOUGLASS, the writer of the following Narrative. He was a stranger to nearly every member of that body; but, having recently made his escape from the southern prison-house of bondage, and feeling his curiosity excited to ascertain the principles and... more...

THE CITY OF NEW YORK. The City of New York is the largest and most important in America. Its corporate limits embrace the whole of Manhattan Island, on which it is situated, and which is bounded by the Hudson, the East and Harlem rivers, and by Spuyten Duyvil creek, which last connects the Harlem with the Hudson. Being almost entirely surrounded by deep water, and lying within sight of the ocean, and... more...

CHAPTER I. Original Compromises between the North and the South embodied in the Constitution.—Early Dissatisfaction with National Boundaries. —Acquisition of Louisiana from France by President Jefferson.— Bonaparte's Action and Motive in ceding Louisiana.—State of Louisiana admitted to the Union against Opposition in the North.— Agitation of the Slavery Question in Connection with the... more...

PREFACE When I was a boy, some years before I obtained my appointment in the navy, I spent many of those happy hours that only childhood knows poring over the back numbers of a British service periodical, which began its career in 1828, with the title Colburn's United Service Magazine; under which name, save and except the Colburn, it still survives. Besides weightier matters, its early issues... more...

PREFACE. At the election of President and Vice President of the United States, and members of Congress, in November, 1872, Susan B. Anthony, and several other women, offered their votes to the inspectors of election, claiming the right to vote, as among the privileges and immunities secured to them as citizens by the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The inspectors, Jones,... more...

CHAPTER I THE NAVAL CAMPAIGN ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN1775-1776 Preponderant effect of Control of the Water upon the Struggle for American Independence Deducible then from Reason and from Experience Consequent Necessity to the Americans of a Counterpoise to British Navy This obtained through Burgoyne's Surrender The Surrender of Burgoyne traceable directly to the Naval Campaigns on Lake Champlain, 1775,... more...

PREFACE. The site now occupied by the two cities of New York and Brooklyn, and over which they continue to spread, is pre-eminently "Revolutionary soil." Very few of our historic places are more closely associated with the actual scenes of that struggle. As at Boston in 1775, so here in 1776, we had the war at our doors and all about us. In what is now the heart of Brooklyn Revolutionary... more...

CHAPTER I PATRICK HENRY The Last French War had cost England so much that at its close she was heavily in debt. “As England must now send to America a standing army of at least ten thousand men to protect the colonies against the Indians and other enemies,” the King, George III, reasoned, “it is only fair that the colonists should pay a part of the cost of supporting it.” The English... more...