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Look into the eyes of these soldiers and see the faces of those who dared to stare into the face of Death.

The Battle of Fredericksburg, fought December 11-15, 1862, is often remembered for the seemingly futile attacks by the Army of the Potomac against dug in Confederates on Marye's Heights. Less well understood is the fighting south of the heights on what has become known as Slaughter Pen Farm. In this work the images of thirty Union soldiers are published for the first time. They give a face and history to those men who struggled across that bloody landscape, as well as to those that charged up the slope of Marye's Heights into Confederate fire.

Authors Matthew Borders and Joseph Stahl introduce you to these men, their stories and their sacrifice on the bullet swept battlefield of Fredericksburg.

Visit a Louisiana landmark that tells a big piece of the American story.

Fort Jesup was founded two centuries ago, a bulwark on the youthful nation's western frontier. During its long run as a military post, it was visited by over one thousand soldiers and officers, many of whom would make a lasting impact on American history. The long list of luminaries includes Presidents Zachary Taylor and Ulysses S. Grant, over forty officers who would become Civil War generals, and two Surgeons General, one of whom would treat Abraham Lincoln after he was shot. Thousands of settlers also passed through on their way to Texas, using the fort as a waypoint on their journey. As citadel and stopping post, Fort Jesup played a critical role during the nation's formative years. Author Scott DeBose shares the sprawling story of this Louisiana icon.

A part of the Underground Railroad, read here of enslaved people and their stories of using Virginia's waterways to achieve freedom.

Enslaved Virginians sought freedom from the time they were first brought to the Jamestown colony in 1619. Acts of self-emancipation were aided by Virginia's waterways, which became part of the network of the Underground Railroad in the years before the Civil War. Watermen willing to help escaped slaves made eighteenth-century Norfolk a haven for freedom seekers. Famous nineteenth-century escapees like Shadrack Minkins and Henry Box Brown were aided by the Underground Railroad. Enslaved men like Henry Lewey, known as Bluebeard, aided freedom seekers as conductors, and black and white sympathizers acted as station masters. Historian Cassandra Newby-Alexander narrates the ways that enslaved people used Virginia's waterways to achieve humanity's dream of freedom.

A Presidential Love Story   

When a young officer newly graduated from West Point met the eldest daughter of a gruff Missouri slaveowner, farmer and land speculator, it was love at first sight. Ulysses Grant and Julia Dent courted at her family farm, White Haven, until he was called away to the Mexican-American War. Secretly engaged, Ulysses wrote tender letters to Julia between daring exploits in battle. Upon his return, they were married. Ulysses’s military career stagnated, and after a miserable period of separation while he was stationed on the West Coast, Ulysses resigned to join Julia at White Haven before his second stint during the Civil War. Authors Vicki and Jim Erwin relate the Grants’ early life, their courtship, their life in Missouri and how that life shaped their future.

One of the oldest counties in Arkansas, Clark County was established in 1818 as part of the Missouri Territory and named for Missouri governor William Clark, also of the Lewis and Clark expedition. 

The presence of the Caddo and Ouachita Rivers and its location on historical travel routes—the Southwest Trail, the Military Road, and the Bankhead Highway—contributed to settlement and economic development from a frontier town to today. Arkadelphia, the county seat since 1842, has been a center of higher education since the late 19th century, with two universities, Henderson State and Ouachita Baptist. Each year the two universities compete in the famed “Battle of the Ravine,” dating back to 1895, the only college football rivalry in the nation for which the visiting team walks to the game. In March 1997, much of Arkadelphia’s main business district and several residential districts were leveled by a devastating F-4 tornado. After the process of recovery and rebuilding, the city continues to flourish as the county’s center of government, commerce, medicine, and education. 

Dr. Lisa Speer is the university archivist and a professor at Ouachita Baptist University. Speer previously served as director of the Arkansas State Archives and state historian from 2013 to 2018. She also serves as vice president of the Clark County Museum board. The photographs featured in this volume came primarily from the archives at Henderson State University, Ouachita Baptist University, and the Clark County Museum.

Forgotten Fighters and Unknown Exploits

More than twenty thousand Hispanic Americans served in the Civil War. When Cuban-born Loreta Janeta Velázquez’s husband would not allow her to join him on the battlefield, she assumed the role of First Lieutenant Harry T. Buford to be near him. Philip Bazaar, born in Chile, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his courageous exploits during the assault of Fort Fisher. The spying efforts of Floridian Maria Dolores “Lola” Sánchez and her two sisters led to a Union defeat at the Battle of Horse Landing. Union Admiral David Farragut, of Spanish descent, was not only the navy’s first admiral, but he was also the man who uttered the famous phrase, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”

Delving into the lives of these figures and more, A.J. Schenkman uncovers this often-overlooked aspect of Civil War history.

Authors Ryan Starrett and Josh Foreman uncover all-but-forgotten elements of Vicksburg history.

Vicksburg had an especially inauspicious start when its inhabitants were massacred by locals. The generation of the city’s official founding beheld vigilantes, duelists and an early incel roaming its streets. Citizens experienced the horrors of war: hunger, diarrhea and death. About 150 years later, their descendants hid in fear from a deranged killer on the loose. In between, the city overloaded a steamboat with recently released POWs and contributed to the greatest maritime disaster in U.S. history. In the midst of war and suffering, an intrepid group of religious sisters worked to educate and nurse their fellow people. An immigrant family from Germany established a bottling empire that made them the embodiment of the American dream. Join authors Josh Foreman and Ryan Starrett as they explore the land and people who make Vicksburg one of the South’s most visited and recognizable cities.

Lamar advertises itself as the city "where legends begin," and the city of four thousand lives up to that slogan. It was the place where frontier lawman Wyatt Earp first wore a star and where President Harry S Truman was born. When Truman successfully brought World War II to an end, the submarine fleets in the Atlantic and Pacific were commanded by Lamar High School graduates. Lamar's legends, however, are not limited to those who found fame after they left the city. Lamar was home to the longest-serving mayor in Missouri history, a legendary newspaperman, a football team that captured seven straight state championships and an infamous killer whose life was ended by a lynch mob. Author Randy Turner details these stories and much more.

Scientists and inventors who lived, worked or were educated in the Bluegrass State have made fundamental contributions to biology, chemistry, physics and technology. Biologist Thomas Hunt Morgan laid the foundation for modern genetics. Chemist William Lipscomb made important discoveries about the structure of molecules and chemical bonding. Astrophysicist J. Richard Gott is a leading expert on cosmology, general relativity and time travel. And inventor George Devol built the world's first programmable industrial robot. Kentucky scientists have also been awarded four Nobel Prizes. Science teacher Duane S. Nickell offers a glimpse into the lives of seventeen scientific heroes from Kentucky.

The free black community of Hinsonville sent its sons to serve the Union when called on. Author Dr. Cheryl Renée Gooch reveals the compelling stories of these brave men and their other Hinsonville comrades.

As members of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Volunteers, brothers Wesley, William and George Jay survived the bloody battle at Fort Wagner, South Carolina, memorialized in the film Glory. George W. Duffy and Stephen J. Ringgold were part of the only black regiment to lead President Lincoln's funeral procession in Washington. William B. Fitzgerald, Abraham Stout, Samuel H. Blake and Isaac A. Hollingsworth fought with troops who cornered Robert E. Lee's army, forcing surrender at Appomattox Court House.

Author and researcher Char McCargo Bah recounts the stories of the men and women buried in Alexandria's freedman's cemetery and the search for their descendants.

At the beginning of the Civil War, Federal troops secured Alexandria as Union territory. Former slaves, called contrabands, poured in to obtain protection from their former masters. Due to overcrowding, mortality rates were high. Authorities seized an undeveloped parcel of land on South Washington Street, and by March 1864, it had been opened as a cemetery for African Americans. Between 1864 and 1868, more than 1,700 contrabands and freedmen were buried there. For nearly eighty years, the cemetery lay undisturbed and was eventually forgotten. Rediscovered in 1996, it has now been preserved as a monument to the courage and sacrifice of those buried within.

Many of the unsung heroes of the Underground Railroad lived and worked in Washington, D.C.

Men and women, black and white, operatives and freedom seekers - all demonstrated courage, resourcefulness and initiative. Leonard Grimes, a free African American, was arrested for transporting enslaved people to freedom. John Dean, a white lawyer, used the District courts to test the legality of the Fugitive Slave Act. Anna Maria Weems dressed as a boy in order to escape to Canada. Enslaved people engineered escapes, individually and in groups, with and without the assistance of an organized network. Some ended up back in slavery or in jail, but some escaped to freedom. Anthropologist and author Jenny Masur tells their stories.