Images of America

Camp Forrest was a training, induction, and combatant prisoner-of-war (POW) facility located on the outskirts of Tullahoma, Tennessee.

It was a self-sustaining city where over 70,000 soldiers were stationed and approximately 12,000 civilians were employed throughout World War II. In 1942, the camp transitioned to an enemy alien internment camp and was one of the first civilian internment camps in the United States. By the middle of 1943, it had transitioned into a POW camp and housed primarily German and Italian prisoners. After the war ended, the base was decommissioned and dismantled in 1946. In 1951, the area was recommissioned and expanded into the US Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Complex. Few remains of this important World War II facility exist today; however, the images within provide a glimpse into the effects and realities of a global war on American soil.

There were over 75 raids and battles that took place in Maryland during the Civil War, including ""Bloody Antietam""--the bloodiest day in American military history.

As a border state between the North and South during the Civil War, Maryland's loyalties were strong for both sides. The first casualties of the war occurred during the Baltimore Riot of April 19, 1861, when members of the 6th Massachusetts Regiment were attacked by Confederate supporters while traversing through the city on their way to protect Washington, DC, from attack. Ten days later, Maryland chose not to secede from the Union by a vote of 53-13. On September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the Civil War took place at ""Bloody Antietam."" At the end of the day, nearly one in four men would be a casualty of the battle, making it the bloodiest day in American military history. There were over 75 skirmishes, raids, and major battles that took place in Maryland during the Civil War. Through vintage photographs, Maryland in the Civil War shares the state's rich military heritage.

The post's current size, more than 180,000 acres, has long made it recognized as one of the largest infantry bases in the world. Named for Gen. Henry L. Benning of Columbus, the installation has had a major impact on the economic and social life of nearby Columbus. Images of America: Fort Benning features vintage photographs and postcards, mostly from 1918 to 1978, showcasing the first 60 years of the base's 85-year history. Included are scenes of the temporary encampment on Macon Road and the early wooden encampment on the Main Post. The permanent buildup from the late 1920s to the early 1940s is shown in photographs of The Infantry School, the Officers' Club, Main Post Chapel, Doughboy Stadium, Gowdy Field, the Jump Towers, Lawson Field, the Cuartel Barracks, and the officers' quarters, as well as Riverside, the Commandant's Home, formerly the Bussey Plantation. Activities and events include military reviews, visits of presidents, and the National Infantry Museum's dedication. Generals who served there and are featured include Bradley, Eisenhower, Marshall, and Patton. This centennial edition features a new foreword by Don Sando, deputy to the commanding general.

The US Coast Guard Training Center at Cape May tells the story of the Center from Navy Section Base 9 to the only recruit training center in the US.

Commissioned as Navy Section Base 9 in 1917, the US Coast Guard Training Center at Cape May stands on the site of a former amusement park that bordered the Atlantic Ocean a few miles east of Cape May in southern New Jersey. Dirigibles, submarines, and minesweepers were based here during World War I. Because of its proximity to the ocean and Delaware Bay, the base was used by Coast Guard patrol boats and cutters to chase rumrunners during Prohibition in the 1920s. An airfield was established adjacent to the base in 1926, and in 1940, both combined to become Naval Air Station Cape May. The station protected the coast line from German U-boats during World War II. The Coast Guard took over the facility in 1946, and in 1948, the base became the only recruit training center in the country, today graduating more than 4,000 recruits per year.

Fort Morgan has stood sentry on the Gulf of Mexico for almost 200 years. This pictorial history illustrates the people and events that have shaped its history.

Following the War of 1812, the United States embarked upon a major building program to improve the nation's seacoast defenses. A project was begun on Mobile Bay that would take almost twelve years to complete, plagued by harsh conditions, a lack of resources, and financial burdens. The end result, completed and opened in March of 1834, was Fort Morgan. Fort Morgan has played many key roles in the nation's military. During the Civil War, Fort Morgan provided covering fire for blockade runners entering and leaving Mobile Bay. The fort fell into disrepair after the Civil War as military planners thought it had outlived its usefulness. Between 1895 and 1904, five modern reinforced concrete batteries rose from the sands. At the peak of operations between 1910 and 1918, more than one hundred structures dotted the Mobile Bay landscape. This unique pictorial retrospective explores the growth and change at Fort Morgan, allowing the reader a chance to step back in time to the days when our nation's military fortifications provided a sense of security and protection to every citizen. Included are images culled from the Fort Morgan Museum, the National Archives and Records, and private collections. These vintage photographs depict every aspect of the fort's history, from the damage caused by the Union siege guns to the days following World War II when the fort was temporarily turned into a resort, and from the Confederates who worked to strengthen Mobile's lower defense line to the devastation of the hurricanes in 1906 and 1916.

West Virginia in the Civil War chronicles the role West Virginians played in the Civil War through the use of vintage photograph

West Virginia, ""Child of the Storm,"" was the only state formed as a result of the Civil War. West Virginia witnessed battles, engagements, and guerrilla actions during the four years of the Civil War. The struggle between eastern and western Virginia over voting rights, taxation, and economic development can be traced back to the formation of the Republic. John Brown's 1859 raid on the United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry played a major role in the Civil War, which started in western Virginia with the destruction of Baltimore & Ohio Railroad property. When Virginia voted to secede and join the slave-holding Confederacy, the counties of western Virginia formed the pro-Union government known as the Restored Government of Virginia in Wheeling. West Virginia in the Civil War chronicles the role West Virginians played in the Civil War through the use of vintage photographs.

Images of America: Barksdale Air Force Base covers the history of the base from 1924 to the present with over 200 moving black-and-white photographs, many that have never been published before. This vivid history of United States military aviation includes everything from World War II to the Korean War, from the skies over Vietnam to alerts in the Cold War, from the sands of the Persian Gulf to the mountains of Kosovo, and on into the present-day War on Terrorism.

Join Mark D. Hanson as he chronicles the long-standing and cohesive relationship between the farming town of Rantoul and the Chanute Air Force base.

Rantoul and the former Chanute Air Force Base are inseparably intertwined as primary players in a single historical narrative. Rantoul was first founded as an agriculturally based community in 1848 near an area known as Mink Grove. The settlement boomed with the coming of the Illinois Central Railroad in 1854; a railroad championed by the town's namesake, Robert Rantoul Jr. Disaster followed in 1899 and again in 1901 with devastating fires. Then, in 1917, a U.S. Army flying field was built on the outskirts of Rantoul. Named after the aviation pioneer Octave Chanute, Chanute Field, later Chanute Air Force Base, became a premier technical training facility. A mutually beneficial relationship quickly developed between these civilian and military establishments that would last for over 75 years. Chanute Air Force Base closed in 1993, ushering in yet another new era for the village of Rantoul.

Explore Florida's everglades, its history, the native tribes that called it home, and the fight to preserve the grassy wetlands documented through a collection of images.

The Everglades once blanketed a quarter of Florida. Stretching from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay, its saw grass prairies, mangrove swamps, and hammocks were home to a profusion of animals, plants, and prehistoric Native Americans, as well as Seminoles, Miccosukees, and Gladesmen of historic times. In 1904, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward ran for Florida governor with the political platform of creating farmland by dredging the Everglades and spilling its water into the ocean. By 1914, this spectacular natural feature was on the verge of destruction, and environmentalist May Mann Jennings led a grassroots movement to preserve Royal Palm Hammock. In the 1930s, Ernest Coe and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas fought to preserve a larger area, culminating in the creation of Everglades National Park in 1947.

Pres. George Washington authorized Springfield Armory to begin manufacturing small arms for the US military in 1794.

Over nearly two centuries until its closure in 1968, the government armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, became legendary, not only for the arms provided to soldiers during conflicts such as the War of 1812, the Civil War, and World War II, but also for the way in which those arms were crafted. The drive to produce firearms of high quality and quantity for the nation's military created a need to improve manufacturing methods and machinery. Armory advancements, such as the interchangeability of parts, helped lay the groundwork of the American Industrial Revolution. Because of these efforts, Springfield Armory is recognized not only as a first-rate government arms manufacturer, but also as a hub of industry, attracting thousands of skilled men and women from around the world.

Kelly Pucci explores the dark history of this historic prison, located only three miles from the Chicago Loop, that was used as a POW facility during the Civil War.

Thousands of Confederate soldiers died in Chicago during the Civil War, not from battle wounds, but from disease, starvation, and torture as POWs in a military prison three miles from the Chicago Loop. Initially treated as a curiosity, attitudes changed when newspapers reported the deaths of Union soldiers on southern battlefields. As the prison population swelled, deadly diseases--smallpox, dysentery, and pneumonia--quickly spread through Camp Douglas. Starving prisoners caught stealing from garbage dumps were tortured or shot. Fearing a prisoner revolt, a military official declared martial law in Chicago, and civilians, including a Chicago mayor and his family, were arrested, tried, and sentenced by a military court. At the end of the Civil War, Camp Douglas closed, its buildings were demolished, and records were lost or destroyed. The exact number of dead is unknown; however, 6,000 Confederate soldiers incarcerated at Camp Douglas are buried among mayors and gangsters in a South Side cemetery. Camp Douglas: Chicago's Civil War Prison explores a long-forgotten chapter of American history, clouded in mystery and largely forgotten.