United States Books

THE SOUTHWESTERN CAMPAIGN   The Southwest became prominent before the nation early in the war from the doubt existing as to the position of Missouri, which was saved by the energy and determination of Frank P. Blair and Colonel Nathaniel Lyon; the latter first capturing Camp Jackson, on May 10th, 1861. He then, picking up what force he could without waiting for them to be disciplined or drilled,... more...

INTRODUCTION THE established church in the United Netherlands was the Reformed Church. Its polity was that of Geneva or of Presbyterianism. The minister and ruling or lay elders of the local church formed its consistory, corresponding to the Scottish or American kirk session. The next higher power, administrative or judicial, resided in the classis, consisting of all the ministers in a given district... more...

PREFACE Forty-seven years have passed since this volume was first published; in that time a mass of source material has been made available to the historian and numerous books on early Virginia history have been published. But I believe that its main theses have not been shaken. The old belief that the Virginia aristocracy had its origin in a migration of Cavaliers after the defeat of the royalists in... more...

Chapter I. The Secession Movement The secession movement had three distinct stages. The first, beginning with the news that Lincoln was elected, closed with the news, sent broadcast over the South from Charleston, that Federal troops had taken possession of Fort Sumter on the night of the 28th of December. During this period the likelihood of secession was the topic of discussion in the lower South.... more...

CHAPTER I. ANCESTRY—BIRTH—BOYHOOD. My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral. Mathew Grant, the founder of the branch in America, of which I am a descendant, reached Dorchester, Massachusetts, in May, 1630. In 1635 he moved to what is now Windsor, Connecticut, and was the surveyor for that colony for more than forty years. He was also, for many... more...

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...

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...

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, eldest son of John Adams, second President, was born at Braintree, Mass., July 11, 1767. He enjoyed peculiar and rare advantages for education. In childhood he was instructed by his mother, a granddaughter of Colonel John Quincy, and a woman of superior talents. In 1778, when only 11 years old, he accompanied his father to... more...

1. REFERENCES BIBLIOGRAPHIES.—R. G. Thwaites, Colonies, §§ 39, 74, 90; notes to Joseph Story, Commentaries, §§ 1-197; notes to H. C. Lodge, Colonies, passim; notes to Justin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, V. chs. ii.-vi., Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 130-133. HISTORICAL MAPS.—R. G. Thwaites, Colonies, Maps Nos. 1 and 4 (EpochMaps, Nos. 1 and 4); G. P. Fisher Colonial Era, Maps Nos. 1... more...

CHAPTER 1 (1) Early Beginnings, to 1827 The customary chronology records the first American labor strike in 1741. In that year the New York bakers went out on strike. A closer analysis discloses, however, that this outbreak was a protest of master bakers against a municipal regulation of the price of bread, not a wage earners' strike against employers. The earliest genuine labor strike in America... more...