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History - American — page 21
1,087 public-domain history - american books, summarised. Page 21 of 23.

From Fort Henry to Corinth
M. F. (Manning Ferguson) Force
This military history chronicles the pivotal months of early 1862, documenting the strategic maneuvers and brutal engagements that shifted the American Civil War’s momentum toward the Union. It provides a methodical account of how the Western theater was transformed from a stalemate into a series of decisive…

The Call of the World
William E. (William Ellison) Doughty
The world is rapidly changing, and a new era of global connection demands a bold, unified response from the Christian laity to address spiritual and social needs on an unprecedented scale.

The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 17
Unknown
This collection serves as a panoramic window into the nineteenth century, gathering primary accounts and historical analysis to chronicle the pivotal shifts that forged the modern world.

The Struggle between President Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction
Charles E. (Charles Ernest) Chadsey
This historical study traces the profound constitutional and political collision between the American executive and legislative branches in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. It dissects how fundamentally different visions for reuniting a fractured nation led to the impeachment of a sitting president.

Americans All, Immigrants All
United States. Office of Education
America is a vast magnet that has pulled to its shores the dreams and labors of the world. This chronicle captures the story of a nation built by the shifting tides of human migration.

Burning of the Brooklyn Theatre: A thrilling personal experience! Brooklyn's horror. Wholesale holocaust at the Brooklyn, New York, Theatre, on the night of December 5th, 1876
Anonymous
The tragic 1876 fire at the Brooklyn Theatre claimed over three hundred lives, leaving a city in mourning and a nation searching for answers. This account chronicles the harrowing disaster, its aftermath, and the personal cost of a night turned to ash.

Child Labor in City Streets
Edward Nicholas Clopper
This investigative study exposes the often-ignored dangers lurking in the lives of children working on city streets, challenging the public to rethink its complicity in their exploitation. By documenting the pervasive physical and moral risks faced by newsboys, messengers, and street peddlers, the text serves as a…

History of the United States of America, Volume 2 (of 9)
Henry Adams
The delicate experiment of the early American republic faces its first true test of power, testing whether a government born of revolution can act like an empire without losing its soul.

My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field
Charles Carleton Coffin
The record of a war correspondent’s early experiences, these pages capture the chaos and moral clarity of the American Civil War’s opening campaigns through a firsthand witness to the frontline action.

The Bay State Monthly
Various
The records of the past offer a mirror to the present, revealing that the anxieties of governance, the growth of infrastructure, and the social habits of a people remain constant across the generations.

The Great Conspiracy, Volume 3
John Alexander Logan
This historical account examines the deep-seated political divisions and constitutional crises that culminated in the American Civil War. It argues that the conflict was a premeditated conspiracy against the integrity of the United States.

The North-West Passage by land: Being the narrative of an expedition from the Atlantic to the Pacific, undertaken with the view of exploring a route across the continent to British Columbia through British territory, by one of the northern passes in the Rocky Mountains
Milton, William Fitzwilliam, Viscount
The journey begins with an ambitious quest to chart a viable passage across the North American continent to British Columbia. It chronicles a grueling, multi-year expedition through untamed wilderness, shifting from the civilized comforts of the East to the raw, often perilous, frontier of the Rocky Mountains.

The Rural Life Problem of the United States: Notes of an Irish Observer
Plunkett, Horace Curzon, Sir
HOOK An Irish observer examines the dwindling vitality of American farm life, arguing that the nation’s future depends on a fundamental reconstruction of its rural social and economic fabric.

Guide to West Point, and the U.S. Military Academy
Edward C. (Edward Carlisle) Boynton
This comprehensive volume serves as a historical record and a practical manual for the United States Military Academy at West Point. It provides an immersive look at the site’s dual identity as a Revolutionary War fortification and a premier center for officer training.

History of the United States of America, Volume 8 (of 9)
Henry Adams
This volume chronicles the final, grueling stages of the War of 1812, capturing a young nation struggling to define its sovereignty amid military incompetence, financial ruin, and deep internal division. It is a masterwork of historical scrutiny that balances the chaos of the battlefield with the paralysis of the…

Shiloh National Military Park, Tennessee
Albert Dillahunty
Shiloh National Military Park serves as both a historical account of the 1862 battle and a practical guide for those walking the ground where the Western theater of the American Civil War was irrevocably changed.

The history of Company B, 311th Infantry in the World War
Unknown
A group of citizen-soldiers transforms from a collection of green recruits into a seasoned unit, documenting their journey through the brutal realities of the First World War.

The Postal System of the United States and the New York General Post Office
Thomas C. Jefferies
This account details the intricate machinery and human labor behind the early 20th-century American postal system, focusing on the colossal operations of the New York General Post Office.

The Siege of Boston
Allen French
The Revolutionary struggle for American independence finds its crucible in the streets and surrounding heights of a blockaded city. This account tracks the transformation of a political dispute into a full-scale military standoff.

A summer journey in the west
Eliza R. Steele
A thoughtful traveler documents a four-thousand-mile summer expedition across the American frontier, capturing the landscape and spirit of a young nation in transition.
American Thumb-prints: Mettle of Our Men and Women
Kate Stephens
The American character is a tapestry woven from fierce idealism, prairie pragmatism, and the lingering, often difficult, echoes of Puritan tradition. These essays explore the tensions between our democratic aspirations and the realities of our social and academic structures.

Battles of the Civil War
Thomas Elbert Vineyard
This volume serves as a concise, chronological survey of the most consequential engagements of the American Civil War. By focusing on the shifting fortunes of the battlefield, the text tracks the conflict from the initial mobilization at Bull Run to the final, exhausted surrender at Appomattox. It remains a stark,…

History of Liberia: Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science
J. H. T. (John Hanson Thomas) McPherson
This examination of the West African republic charts the intersection of nineteenth-century American social policy and the ambitious, fragile experiment of establishing a self-governing nation for free Black colonists.

Nullification, Secession, Webster's Argument, and the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions: Considered in Reference to the Constitution and Historically
Caleb William Loring
This work provides a rigorous legal and historical defense of the American Union, arguing that the Constitution established a permanent, sovereign nation rather than a revocable compact between independent states.

Reconstruction and the Constitution, 1866-1876
John William Burgess
A scholarly reassessment of the decade following the American Civil War, this work argues that the era’s political failures stemmed from a profound misunderstanding of constitutional law and the nature of the Union.

The Mirrors of Washington
Clinton W. (Clinton Wallace) Gilbert
The corridors of power are often inhabited by figures far smaller than their reputations suggest. This collection of portraits strips away the mythic veneer of early twentieth-century American statesmanship to reveal the human failings underneath.

A Flight in Spring: In the car Lucania from New York to the Pacific coast and back, during April and May, 1898
J. Harris (John Harris) Knowles
A journey across a continent, told as a private chronicle of camaraderie and discovery at the dawn of the American century.

Hydesville: The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism
Thomas Olman Todd
HOOK A simple wooden farmhouse in 1848 becomes the epicenter of a global movement when two young sisters discover they can communicate with an invisible, rapping presence.

St. Augustine, Florida's Colonial Capital
J. T. Van Campen
For over three centuries, a single sandy harbor on the Atlantic coast served as the violent, contested frontier of three global empires. It survived massacres, pirate raids, and sieges to become a quiet monument to American antiquity.

The First regiment Massachusetts heavy artillery, United States volunteers, in the Spanish-American war of 1898
James A. (James Albert) Frye
The First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery stands as a testament to the quiet, vital labor of coastal defense during a war defined by headlines from distant shores. It is an honest, meticulous chronicle of men who stood ready at home, watching for an enemy that never arrived.

The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4
Various
This collection serves as a historical repository of Massachusetts life in the late nineteenth century, blending biographical tributes, military chronicles, and regional lore into a singular portrait of New England character.

The Leatherworker in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg: Being an Account of the Nature of Leather, & of the Crafts Commonly Engaged in the Making & Using of It
Thomas K. Ford
Beyond the fairy-tale glass slipper lies a world of hide and grain, where the survival of a colony once hinged on the humble, relentless craft of the leatherworker.

The Old Glade (Forbes's) Road (Pennsylvania State Road)
Archer Butler Hulbert
A fragile, makeshift military trail through the dense Pennsylvania wilderness transformed from a desperate wartime gamble into the vital artery that opened the American West to expansion.

Tracts on the Sabbath
Unknown
This collection of religious arguments examines the historical and theological case for observing the seventh-day Sabbath. It challenges the conventional shift to the first day of the week, urging a return to what the authors term the "Bible Sabbath.

An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, Volume 1
Alexander Hewatt
This historical chronicle traces the arduous, often violent, early development of the southern American colonies. It provides a foundational look at how colonial society struggled to organize itself against a backdrop of geographical isolation, political turbulence, and religious strife.

Mountains and molehills
Frank Marryat
A traveler’s candid account of the California Gold Rush, where the true fortune is found in the relentless, gritty spirit of those who build a society from the ashes of disaster.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 50, December, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
This collection captures a pivotal moment in American intellectual history, offering a vibrant mosaic of wartime political discourse, travel memoir, literary criticism, and creative verse. It serves as a profound record of a nation mid-struggle.

The Church on the changing frontier
Helen Olive Belknap
This account documents the challenges of maintaining religious life on the American frontier, where vast landscapes and sparse populations transformed the traditional parish into a difficult, scattered mission.

Andrew Jackson's Hermitage
Mary French Caldwell
This chronicle traces the transformation of a Tennessee wilderness tract into a national landmark, centering on the domestic life and enduring legacy of a man shaped by his home.

Facing the chair
John Dos Passos
This is an urgent, searing examination of a miscarriage of justice, documenting how two men were condemned by a society terrified of their radical politics rather than by evidence of their guilt.

British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government, 1839-1854
J. L. (John Lyle) Morison
Self-government, not imperial force, bound mid-nineteenth-century Canada to the British Empire.

Deck and port
Walter Colton
A navy chaplain turns a three-year Pacific cruise into an astute travelogue, recording the weather, crew life, foreign ports, and the dramatic dawn of American California.

My Year of the War: Including an Account of Experiences with the Troops in France and the Record of a Visit to the Grand Fleet Which is Here Given for the First Time in its Complete Form
Frederick Palmer
Observers of history often find that reality surpasses the reach of fiction, especially when the world is plunged into the sudden, mechanical chaos of the First World War.

Pittsburgh
Charles W. (Charles William) Dahlinger
Charles W. Dahlinger reconstructs early Pittsburgh from an isolated river frontier into a bustling trade hub, detailing the colorful figures, partisan feuds, and civic growth that shaped the young city.

The Battle of Bunkers-Hill
H. H. (Hugh Henry) Brackenridge
On a sun-baked height above Boston, a handful of colonial militia faces the disciplined ranks of an empire, transforming a desperate defensive stand into a defining cry for political independence.

The Day of the Confederacy: A Chronicle of the Embattled South
Nathaniel W. (Nathaniel Wright) Stephenson
The fragile consensus that birthed a nation becomes its undoing as the internal pressures of a desperate war reveal the fatal cracks in a society built upon contradictions.

General Smith's Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States
Smith, Joseph, Jr.
A bold, sweeping vision for American renewal promises to heal a fractured country by abolishing slavery through federal purchase, restructuring national banking, and extending the borders of freedom across the continent.

The County: The "Dark Continent" of American Politics
Henry S. Gilbertson
A sweeping diagnosis of local governance, Henry S. Gilbertson’s study reveals the county as an unexamined labyrinth of administrative confusion, political patronage, and quiet institutional neglect.