United States Books

PREFACE The purpose of this volume is to show the action and reaction of the most important social, economic, political, and personal forces that have entered into the make-up of the United States as a nation. The primary assumption of the author is that the people of this country did not compose a nation until after the close of the Civil War in 1865. Of scarcely less importance is the fact that 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...

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...

CHAPTER I. TALKING OF MICHIGAN. My father was born in 1793, and my mother in 1802, in Putnam County, State of New York. Their names were John and Melinda Nowlin. Mother's maiden name was Light. My father owned a small farm of twenty-five acres, in the town of Kent, Putnam County, New York, about sixty miles from New York City. We had plenty of fruit, apples, pears, quinces and so forth, also a... more...

CHAPTER Mackinaw and its surroundings — Indian legends — Hiawatha — Ottawas and Ojibwas — Paw-pau-ke-wis — San-ge-man — Kau-be-man — An Indian custom — Dedication to the spirits — Au-se-gum-ugs — Exploits of San-ge-man — Point Ignatius — Magic lance — Council of Peace — Conquests of San-ge-man. Mackinaw, with its surroundings, has an interesting and romantic history, going... more...

It is currently reported that the late King Edward once said, "We are all Socialists, now": and if the term "Socialism" meant to-day what His Majesty probably meant by it, many of us could truthfully make a similar statement. Without any doubt, we could do so if we attached to the term the meaning which it had when it was first invented. It came into use in the thirties of the last... more...

INTRODUCTORY.—“Our Mississippi, rolling proudly on,Would sweep them from its path, or swallow up,Like Aaron's rod, those streams of fame and song.”Mrs. Hale. The valley of a river like the channel of a man's career, does not always bear proportion to the magnitude or volume of the current, which flows through it. Mountains, forests, deserts, physical barriers to the former—and the... more...

INTRODUCTORY This list of Arkansas governors and United States senators, with brief biographies of each person who has served in these offices, is intended to benefit students and others who have expressed interest in a published summary of such information. We have omitted the dozens of "acting governors," including some who served for substantial periods of time, as well as senators who held... more...

At the close of the spring term of the Circuit Court of Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, in May, 1861, Judge Wm. S. Mudd announced from the bench that Mr. Harvey H. Cribbs would resign the office of Sheriff of the County for the purpose of volunteering into the Army of the Confederate States and would place on the desk of the Clerk of the Court an agreement so to volunteer signed by himself, and invited all... more...

Chapter 1. Introductory These pages record some of the adventures of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first slave regiment mustered into the service of the United States during the late civil war. It was, indeed, the first colored regiment of any kind so mustered, except a portion of the troops raised by Major-General Butler at New Orleans. These scarcely belonged to the same class, however,... more...