United States Books

NONOWIT'S HOME Long before New Hampshire found its name, the deep river at its southeast was known as the Piscataqua by the Indians who could stem its strong currents, even in bark canoes. Perhaps it was because of the fresh spring close to its salty shores, some three miles from the sea, that the red men made their encampment on the spot that was later equally attractive to men of white skins.... more...

CHAPTER I THE ORDEAL OF THE CONFEDERATION It was characteristic of the people of the United States that once assured of their political independence they should face their economic future with buoyant expectations. As colonizers of a new world they were confident in their own strength. When once the shackles of the British mercantile system were shaken off, they did not doubt their ability to compete... more...

CHAPTER I. ORGANIZATION, AND MARCH TO NASHVILLE—ABOUT NASHVILLE. The Eighty-sixth Regiment of Illinois Volunteer Infantry was organized at Peoria in the latter part of August, 1862. David D. Irons was made Colonel; David W. Magee, Lieutenant-Colonel; J. S. Bean, Major, and J. E. Prescott, Adjutant. On the 26th of August the captains of the several companies drew lots for the letters of their... more...

James Monroe James Monroe was born April 28, 1758, in Westmoreland County, Va. He was the son of Spence Monroe and Elizabeth Jones, both natives of Virginia. When in his eighteenth year he enlisted as a private soldier in the Army to fight for independence; was in several battles, and was wounded in the engagement at Trenton; was promoted to the rank of captain of infantry. During 1777 and 1778 he... more...

INTRODUCTION. "The Story of Our Country" has been often told, but cannot be told too often. I have spared no effort to make the following pages interesting as well as truthful, and to present, in graphic language, a pen-picture of our nation's origin and progress. It is a story of events, and not a dry chronicle of official succession. It is an attempt to give some fresh color to facts... more...

CHAPTER I. COLONIAL ADVENTURERS IN LITTLE SHIPS 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... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. MY DEAR CHILDREN,—All of you who read this little book have doubtless heard more or less of slavery. You know it is the system by which a portion of our people hold their fellow-creatures as property, and doom them to perpetual servitude. It is a hateful and accursed institution, which God can not look upon but with abhorrence, and which no one of his children should for a... more...

This is the story of the Virginia Company and only indirectly of the Virginia colony. Those who seek an account of the early years at Jamestown should turn to another number in this same series. Here the focus belongs to the adventurers in England whose hopes gave shape to the settlement at Jamestown, and whose determination brought the colony through the many disappointments of its first years. In... more...

THE GREAT TORNADO. The Summer of 1877 has been remarkable in some localities for the severity of its storms. These, in several instances, have partaken of the character of tornadoes. Mt. Carmel, in Illinois, was nearly destroyed about the 20th of June last; Pensaukee, in Wisconsin, was nearly ruined on the 8th of July, and Pittston, in Massachusetts, suffered terribly from a tornado on the same day.... more...

INTRODUCTION The author of this book, my brother, died in a French military hospital of the effects of exposure in the last fierce fighting that broke the Prussian power over Christendom; fighting for which he had volunteered after being invalided home. Any notes I can jot down about him must necessarily seem jerky and incongruous; for in such a relation memory is a medley of generalisation and detail,... more...