Download or read book Pecos Bill a Military Biography of William R Shafter written by Paul Howard Carlson and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Rufus Shafter (October 16, 1835 ? November 12, 1906) was a Union Army officer during the American Civil War who received America's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions at the Battle of Fair Oaks. Shafter also played a prominent part as a major general in the Spanish?American War. Fort Shafter, Hawaii, is named for him, as well as the city of Shafter, California and the ghost town of Shafter, Texas. He was nicknamed Pecos Bill.--Wikipedia.
Download or read book America s Heroes written by James H. Willbanks and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-03-11 with total page 829 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book features the stories of 200 heroic individuals awarded the Medal of Honor for their distinguished military service while fighting for their country, from the Civil War to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. America's Heroes: Medal of Honor Recipients from the Civil War to Afghanistan pays tribute to Americans who have demonstrated uncommon valor in the face of great danger. The Medal of Honor recipients featured in this book all acted heroically to earn this highly coveted award, many of them by risking—or sacrificing—their lives to save the lives of others. The stories of these individuals—chosen to reflect the wide diversity of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, branches of service, and conflicts of the recipients—will broaden readers' understanding and appreciation of the Medal of Honor and the distinguished Americans who have received it. In addition to the gripping stories of these heroic Americans, this unique encyclopedia includes an introduction that chronicles the evolution in the award's significance. The Medal of Honor has changed greatly over the last 150 years, not only in the design of the physical decoration itself, but also in terms of the qualifying criteria for the award's recipients.
Download or read book The Encyclopedia of North American Indian Wars 1607 1890 3 volumes written by Bloomsbury Publishing and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-09-19 with total page 1393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This encyclopedia provides a broad, in-depth, and multidisciplinary look at the causes and effects of warfare between whites and Native Americans, encompassing nearly three centuries of history. The Battle of the Wabash: the U.S. Army's single worst defeat at the hands of Native American forces. The Battle of Wounded Knee: an unfortunate, unplanned event that resulted in the deaths of more than 150 Lakota Sioux men, women, and children. These and other engagements between white settlers and Native Americans were events of profound historical significance, resulting in social, political, and cultural changes for both ethnic populations, the lasting effects of which are clearly seen today. The Encyclopedia of North American Indian Wars, 1607–1890: A Political, Social, and Military History provides comprehensive coverage of almost 300 years of North American Indian Wars. Beginning with the first Indian-settler conflicts that arose in the early 1600s, this three-volume work covers all noteworthy battles between whites and Native Americans through the Battle of Wounded Knee in December 1890. The book provides detailed biographies of military, social, religious, and political leaders and covers the social and cultural aspects of the Indian wars. Also supplied are essays on every major tribe, as well as all significant battles, skirmishes, and treaties.
Download or read book Texas written by Rupert N. Richardson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written in a narrative style, this comprehensive yet accessible survey of Texas history offers a balanced, scholarly presentation of all time periods and topics.From the beginning sections on geography and prehistoric people, to the concluding discussions on the start of the twenty-first century, this text successfully considers each era equally in terms of space and emphasis.
Download or read book Confederate Outlaw written by Brian D. McKnight and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2011-04-08 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the fall of 1865, the United States Army executed Confederate guerrilla Champ Ferguson for his role in murdering fifty-three loyal citizens of Kentucky and Tennessee during the Civil War. Long remembered as the most unforgiving and inglorious warrior of the Confederacy, Ferguson has often been dismissed by historians as a cold-blooded killer. In Confederate Outlaw: Champ Ferguson and the Civil War in Appalachia, biographer Brian D. McKnight demonstrates how such a simple judgment ignores the complexity of this legendary character. In his analysis, McKnight maintains that Ferguson fought the war on personal terms and with an Old Testament mentality regarding the righteousness of his cause. He believed that friends were friends and enemies were enemies -- no middle ground existed. As a result, he killed prewar comrades as well as longtime adversaries without regret, all the while knowing that he might one day face his own brother, who served as a Union scout. Ferguson's continued popularity demonstrates that his bloody legend did not die on the gallows. Widespread rumors endured of his last-minute escape from justice, and over time, the borderland terrorist emerged as a folk hero for many southerners. Numerous authors resurrected and romanticized his story for popular audiences, and even Hollywood used Ferguson's life to create the composite role played by Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales. McKnight's study deftly separates the myths from reality and weaves a thoughtful, captivating, and accurate portrait of the Confederacy's most celebrated guerrilla. An impeccably researched biography, Confederate Outlaw offers an abundance of insight into Ferguson's wartime motivations, actions, and tactics, and also describes borderland loyalties, guerrilla operations, and military retribution. McKnight concludes that Ferguson, and other irregular warriors operating during the Civil War, saw the conflict as far more of a personal battle than a political one.
Download or read book The Buffalo Soldiers written by Debra J. Sheffer Ph.D. and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This riveting narrative focuses on the Buffalo Soldiers, tracing the legacy of black military service and its social, economic, and political impact from the colonial era through the end of the 19th century. This fascinating saga follows the story of the Buffalo Soldiers as they participated in key events in America's history. Author Debra J. Sheffer discusses the impetus for the earliest black military service, how that service led to the creation of the Buffalo Soldiers, and how these menand one womancontinued to serve in the face of epic obstacles. The work celebrates their significant military contributions to the campaigns of the American frontier and other battles, their fighting experiences, and life on the plains. Starting with the American Revolution, the book traces the heroic journey of these legendary servicemen from the period when black Americans first sought full citizenship in exchange for military service to the integration of the military and the dissolution of all-black regiments. Several chapters highlight the special achievements of the 9th and 10th United States Cavalry and the 24th and 25th United States Infantry. The book also features the accomplishmentsboth of the unit and individualsof the Buffalo Soldiers in battle and beyond.
Download or read book Discovering Texas History written by Bruce A. Glasrud and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "'Discovering Texas History' is a historiographical reference book that will be invaluable to teachers, students, and researchers of Texas history. Chapter authors are familiar names in Texas history circles--a 'who's who' of high profile historians. Conceived as a follow-up to the award winning (but increasingly dated) 'A Guide the History of Texas' (1988), 'Discovering Texas History' focuses on the major trends in the study of Texas history since 1990. In part one, topical essays address significant historical themes, from race and gender to the arts and urban history. In part two, chronological essays cover the full span of Texas historiography from the Spanish era to the modern day. In each case, the goal is to analyze and summarize the subjects that have captured the attention of professional historians so that 'Discovering Texas History' will take its place as the standard work on the history of Texas history"--
Download or read book An Army for Empire written by Graham A. Cosmas and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In America's popular memory of the Spanish-American War, the all-volunteer Rough Riders won the war in spite of ossified civilian and regular army leadership. In this authoritative account, however, military historian Graham A. Cosmas reconstructs the planning and execution of Spanish-American War strategy from the perspective of those with the ultimate responsibility: the president, the secretary of war, the commanding general of the army, and the chief and commanders of the army's various bureaus and corps. Cosmas argues that the traditional view of the war is from the "bottom up" because, while headlines were being made about inadequate supplies, disease, and outdated weapons at ground level, the civilian and military figures at the highest ranks remained virtually silent about how and why they made their decisions. This volume, based on intensive research in documentary materials, including the personal papers of President William McKinley and Secretary of War Russell A. Alger, as well as the voluminous files of Adjutant General Henry Clark Corbin and the quartermaster general's offices, shows the day-to-day progress of the war as the highest-ranking officials saw it, digested it, and based subsequent decisions on it. Faced with budgetary pressure from Congress, political pressure from the states' National Guard units, and the president's shifting stand on objectives for the war, the army was indeed ill prepared for its sudden mobilization. Cosmas concludes that the army's leadership was forced into a difficult new position in 1898, one in which its own new ideas of management and organization coupled with the broad new scope of national political/military objectives failed to address the actual circumstances of the war. After the initial wartime blunders, however, the army solved enough of its problems to make the campaigns in Puerto Rico and the Philippines run more smoothly, though with less news value. As Cosmas shows, the Spanish-American War was a foretaste of the new century, prompting the formation of a modern staff and command system that would profoundly alter world history. This paperback edition of An Army for Empire incorporates the author's 1994 preface; additional illustrations; and expanded discussion of African American soldiers, the land engagements at San Juan Hill and El Caney, and the period between the August 1898 armistice and Secretary Alger's departure a year later.
Download or read book U S Army on the Mexican Border A Historical Perspective written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This occasional paper is a concise overview of the history of the US Army's involvement along the Mexican border and offers a fundamental understanding of problems associated with such a mission. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the historic themes addressed disapproving public reaction, Mexican governmental instability, and insufficient US military personnel to effectively secure the expansive boundary are still prevalent today.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of the Spanish American War written by Donald H. Dyal and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1996-04-16 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreshadowing the twentieth-century experience, the Spanish American War was America's first modern foreign war. Catapulting the United States into an international world power, the war had lasting international implications. Besides America's acquisition of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Hawaii, and Guam, the war led the United States to take to the international stage, confronting Germany and Japan (foreshadowing the conflict of World War II), and creating a diplomatic bridge between Great Britain and the United States. For Spain, the 1898-1899 conflict was the death knell of empire, which led to a national crisis culminating in the Spanish Civil War. This volume provides easily accessible information on the naval and army operations, Spanish operations, and the political background to the military events, with an emphasis on future foreign affairs. The Spanish American War is seminal to an understanding of twentieth-century U.S. foreign relations—in Cuba, the Pacific, especially Japan, and with Great Britain. It is also central to an understanding of twentieth-century Spain. U.S. military history also requires an understanding of amphibious operations, naval and army reform, deployment command and control, and interservice cooperation as reflected in the Spanish American War. This book provides a quick reference to what was once called this splendid little war.
Download or read book The Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West written by Michael L. Tate and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2001-10-01 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reassessment of the military's role in developing the Western territories moves beyond combat stories and stereotypes to focus on more non-martial accomplishments such as exploration, gathering scientific data, and building towns.
Download or read book Americans at War 3 volumes written by James R. Arnold and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-05-18 with total page 1246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unprecedented compilation of eyewitness accounts records the thoughts and emotions of American soldiers spanning nearly 250 years of national history, from the American Revolution to the Afghanistan War. Understanding primary sources is essential to understanding warfare. This outstanding collection provides a diverse set of eyewitness accounts of Americans in combat throughout U.S. history. Offering riveting true stories, it includes accounts from participants in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Indian Wars, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and Philippine Insurrection, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, The Persian Gulf War, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War. Most eyewitness accounts of war currently available to the public are those of writers who enjoy higher military rank. Americans at War addresses this imbalance between officers' accounts and enlisted men's accounts by invoking oral history archives. Contextual essays and timelines allow the reader to place the accounts in time and place, while the entries themselves allow the reader to experience the thoughts and emotions of Americans who engaged in combat.
Download or read book The Buffalo Soldiers written by William H. Leckie and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2012-10-19 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1967, William H. Leckie’s The Buffalo Soldiers was the first book of its kind to recognize the importance of African American units in the conquest of the West. Decades later, with sales of more than 75,000 copies, The Buffalo Soldiers has become a classic. Now, in a newly revised edition, the authors have expanded the original research to explore more deeply the lives of buffalo soldiers in the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry Regiments. Written in accessible prose that includes a synthesis of recent scholarship, this edition delves further into the life of an African American soldier in the nineteenth century. It also explores the experiences of soldiers’ families at frontier posts. In a new epilogue, the authors summarize developments in the lives of buffalo soldiers after the Indian Wars and discuss contemporary efforts to memorialize them in film, art, and architecture.
Download or read book Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan written by Peggy Samuels and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Termed a "Southern gothic musical," Ghost Brothers of Darkland County was scripted by novelist Stephen King with the music coming from maverick heartland rocker John Mellencamp, a collaboration a bit left-field for both artists. This set includes Mellencamp's songs interspersed with key dialogue from King's libretto, and while the story might be too complex -- essentially, it's the tale of two brothers involved in a murder/suicide whose ghosts haunt an isolated cabin and whose tragic deeds and consequent fate seems about to be repeated by their living nephews -- to be truly appreciated in single-disc form like this, so it's Mellencamp's songs, sung by the likes of Elvis Costello, Neko Case, Sheryl Crow, Dave and Phil Alvin (real-life brothers whose estrangement with each other ended while working on this project), Taj Mahal, Ryan Bingham, Clyde Mulroney, Rosanne Cash, and Kris Kristofferson (Mellencamp only sings on one song here, the summing-it-up last track "Truth") that are really left to carry things. They certainly work as songs, and may well be among the best Mellencamp has ever written, while the overall sound of the whole musical suite, crafted by T-Bone Burnett, is kind of like a sparse and shined-up version of a late-period Tom Waits album, due in part to the presence of multi-instrumentalist Marc Ribot on most of the tracks, and the tight, spare rhythm section of Jay Bellerose on drums and David Piltch on bass. The performances? Elvis Costello sounds gleeful and sinful on "That's Me" (identity and fulfillment are key themes of Ghost Brothers of Darkland Country, that and history's tendency to repeat itself), Neko Case is sassy and sure on "That's Who I Am," Kris Kristofferson sounds old, wise, and weary on "How Many Days," Taj Mahal rages through "Tear This Cabin Down," and Sheryl Crow is confident and cocky on "Jukin'," while Rosanne Cash turns in a delicately worn and wise reading of "You Don't Know Me," and for a story that spans decades and generations, it's obvious that everyone is singing about who they are, who they ought to be, and who they ended up becoming. It's difficult to say how good this musical is just from the songs and pieces of dialogue presented here, but the songs have a weary, inevitable flow to them, as if fate forced them into a dark room with little light or air or chance of redemption. Redemption comes with acceptance of who one is, the songs and story here seem to say, and only then can the real truth about what has happened to anyone really be revealed. It's a ghost story, after all. ~ Steve Leggett
Download or read book Too Great a Burden to Bear written by Christopher B. Bean and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Reconstruction Era historical study of the Freedman’s Bureau in Texas offers a personal view of the lives, struggles and misconceptions of its agents. Formed at the close of the Civil War to provide assistance to formerly enslaved people, the Freedmen’s Bureau became the epicenter of the debate about Reconstruction. Though its agents in Texas were vitally important, historians have only recently begun to focus on their operations. Specifically addressing the historiographical debates concerning the character of the Bureau and its sub-assistant commissioners (SACs), Too Great a Burden to Bear sheds new light on the work and reputation of these agents. Focusing on the agents on a personal level, author Christopher B. Bean reveals the type of man Bureau officials believed qualified to oversee the Freedpeople’s transition to freedom. This work shows that each agent, moved by his sense of fairness and ideas of citizenship, gender, and labor, represented the agency’s policy in his subdistrict. These men further ensured the Freedpeople’s right to an education and right of mobility, rights fiercely contested by many in the South.
Download or read book Defender of the Gate written by Erwin N. Thompson and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fanny Dunbar Corbusier written by Fanny Dunbar Corbusier and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born in Baltimore in 1838, Fanny Dunbar grew up in Louisiana to a family who survived the hardships of the Civil War. An intelligent, sensitive woman, Fanny experienced a radical life change when she met William Henry Corbusier, a Yankee officer and army surgeon. Her memoir recounts their subsequent forty-eight year marriage. The events of Fanny’s life are sometimes amusing but more often dramatic. The Corbusiers moved frequently, but Fanny made moving an art form, often selling all the family possessions to avoid high shipping rates. She learned to cope with primitive living conditions and harsh climates. She raised five sons at posts with no schools. But Fanny took her job as a mother seriously, providing her sons with a broad education and a nurturing home. Corbusier’s long life and her husband’s thirty-nine-year career in the army (recounted in his memoir Soldier, Surgeon, Scholar) allow the reader to experience the period between the Civil War and World War I in totality, including her exceptional memories of the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection. As the recollections of two people whose lives played out against a world panorama, Fanny and William’s memoirs together provide a rare opportunity to examine events of frontier military life from both male and female perspectives. "Mrs. Corbusier writes from the unique perspective of a surgeon’s wife, and we have a picture not only of an army wife, but of an army wife who saw many different aspects of frontier military life and frontier life in general."—Charles M. Robinson, author of General Crook and the Western Frontier and A Good Year to Die: The Story of the Great Sioux War "Of the memoirs penned by wives of nineteenth-century army officers, this is among the best and most detailed. The woman’s perspective of events that transpired in the Indian-fighting army is a much needed counterbalance to the male-dominated histories of these same events."—Darlis Miller, author of Mary Hallock Foote: Author-Illustrator of the American West Fanny Dunbar Corbusier was the career army wife of officer-surgeon William Henry Corbusier. Patricia Y. Stallard, retired federal civil servant and education specialist with the United States Navy Recruiting Command, is the author of Glittering Misery: Dependents of the Indian Fighting Army, published by the University of Oklahoma Press.
