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

"Downright Fighting": The Story of Cowpens
Thomas J. Fleming
The American Revolution finds its most decisive turn at a quiet cattle pasture in South Carolina, where a rugged, unorthodox commander outwits a brilliant but arrogant British officer in a masterclass of tactical warfare.

Pedal and Path: Across the Continent Awheel and Afoot
George B. (George Burton) Thayer
A veteran of the bicycle’s early years recounts a seven-month odyssey across a rapidly industrializing America, proving that a modest machine and a sturdy constitution could bridge the vast, rugged expanses of a continent.

The American Missionary
Various
This archival record offers an unfiltered look at the post-Civil War American missionary movement, capturing the period’s fervent idealism and its complex, often fraught, efforts to reshape a nation’s social and spiritual landscape.

The Monitor and the Merrimac
John Lorimer Worden
Two ironclad titans clash in a desperate naval struggle, forever changing the nature of maritime warfare while sealing their own tragic fates in the volatile waters of the American Civil War.

Report of Governor's Representatives for California at Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition Commission
California. Alaska-Yukon-Pacific exposition commission
A meticulous chronicle of California’s deliberate and triumphant effort to define its own identity before a national audience at the 1909 Seattle World’s Fair.

The American Red Cross Bulletin (Vol. IV, No. 1, January 1909)
American National Red Cross
This archival record captures the nascent efforts of the American Red Cross at the turn of the 20th century, documenting its transition from a wartime relic into a permanent, organized engine for domestic disaster relief.

The Iron Division, National Guard of Pennsylvania, in the World War: The authentic and comprehensive narrative of the gallant
H. G. (Harry George) Proctor
This account chronicles the 28th Division’s transition from Pennsylvania National Guardsmen into the "Iron Division," a front-line force that navigated the brutal realities of the First World War’s most decisive battles.

The Ohio River Trade, 1788-1830
Hazel Yearsley Shaw
The Ohio River served as the vital artery of early American expansion, transforming a vast, untamed wilderness into a bustling corridor of commerce and human migration. This study examines that rapid evolution from the late eighteenth century through 1830.

The United States of America, Part 1: 1783-1830
Edwin Erle Sparks
This history tracks the slow, often reluctant, transformation of the United States from a loose collection of sovereign entities into a unified, singular nation. It examines the tensions between local autonomy and central authority during the country’s first half-century.

A Summer in the Wilderness: embracing a canoe voyage up the Mississippi and around Lake Superior
Charles Lanman
A restless traveler seeks the soul of the American interior, navigating the Mississippi’s headwaters and the vast, untamed reaches of Lake Superior in a canoe.

Company G
A. R. (Albert Rowe) Barlow
The war is rarely remembered by the names of the generals, but rather by the mud on the boots, the letters from home, and the brothers who never came back from the field.

The American Child
Elizabeth McCracken
In the modern American home, the lines between elder and youth have blurred, creating a nation of "chums" where children and parents navigate life’s fundamental lessons as partners in discovery.

The American Missionary
Various
The American Missionary serves as a vital historical record of late nineteenth-century organizational outreach, capturing the intersection of religious fervor, social reform, and the practical demands of managing a large-scale American charitable institution.

The Fort Dearborn Massacre: Written in 1814 by Lieutenant Linai T. Helm, One of the Survivors, with Letters and Narratives of Contemporary Interest
Linai T. (Linai Taliaferro) Helm
The harrowing account of a frontier military catastrophe, this volume records the final days of Fort Dearborn in 1812 and the subsequent survival of its inhabitants amidst a brutal conflict.

The Ku Klux Klan
Annie Cooper Burton
This volume serves as a primary-source document and defense of the post-Civil War Ku Klux Klan, offering both a historical narrative and the organization’s original, secret governing constitution. It functions as an unabashed articulation of the Southern perspective on the Reconstruction era.

Tales of an Old Sea Port: A General Sketch of the History of Bristol, Rhode Island, Including, Incidentally, an Account of the Voyages of the Norsemen, So Far as They May Have Been Connected with Narragansett Bay: and Personal Narratives of Some Notable Voyages Accomplished by Sailors from the Mount Hope Lands
Wilfred Harold Munro
This historical account documents the adventurous spirit of Bristol, Rhode Island, tracing its evolution from colonial settlement to a hub of maritime daring and privateering. It captures the rugged, often ruthless, ambition that defined early American seafaring life.

The American Navy
French Ensor Chadwick
A nation born on the Atlantic seaboard learns early that sea power is not an luxury, but the baseline requirement of national survival.

The Great Conspiracy, Volume 1
John Alexander Logan
This dense historical account chronicles the systematic efforts of pro-slavery politicians to dismantle the American Union, tracing the origins of the Civil War from the earliest days of the Republic to the mid-1860s.

The Popham Colony
William Frederick Poole
A fierce dispute over forgotten soil reveals how easily local pride can twist historical evidence.

The Unconstitutionality of Slavery
Lysander Spooner
A rigorous legal argument asserting that the United States Constitution never granted authority for human bondage, but rather established a framework that inherently protects the liberty of every person.

Calvert and Penn: Or the Growth of Civil and Religious Liberty in America, as Disclosed in the Planting of Maryland and Pennsylvania
Brantz Mayer
Through a study of colonial charters and religious exile, a historical address charts how two distinct American colonies transformed isolated sanctuaries of tolerance into lasting foundations of civil freedom.

Canada and the States
Watkin, E. W. (Edward William), Sir
A seasoned railway executive records the frantic, transformative decades of North American expansion, offering a rare window into the boardroom politics that stitched a vast, fractured continent into a unified Dominion.

The Americans in the Great War
Unknown
A meticulous, road-by-road record of destruction and sacrifice, this guide captures the exact physical reality of the Western Front just as the artillery fell silent.

The Cumberland Road
Archer Butler Hulbert
Connecting the Atlantic seaboard to the expanding Western frontier, a single highway transformed early nineteenth-century America from a collection of isolated states into a unified nation.

The Demand and the Supply of Increased Efficiency in the Negro Ministry: The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 13
Jesse Edward Moorland
A vital appeal for educational reform, this 1909 address exposes the dangerous scarcity of highly trained Black clergy and outlines a bold strategy to revitalize community leadership.

The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D.: Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. Carefully Reported, and Compiled from the Written Statements of the Court and the Counsel
Unknown
A Northern physician visits Washington, D.C., carrying private botanical samples and anti-slavery pamphlets, only to find himself arrested, targeted by a mob, and tried for inciting a violent slave rebellion.

Perry's Saints
James Moses Nichols
A devoted Methodist minister leaves his pulpit to lead nine hundred recruits through four years of brutal coastal blockades, bloody assaults, and devastating attrition.

The American Missionary
Various
A single issue of an nineteenth-century missionary periodical captures a nation’s post-Civil War struggles through administrative logs, financial pleas, theological arguments, and personal field dispatches.

The Fathers of New England: A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths
Charles McLean Andrews
A handful of English Puritans cross a dangerous ocean to build a godly wilderness, only to spend the next century fighting each other, the native tribes, and the royal crown over how that holy experiment should run.

The Right of American Slavery
T. W. (True Worthy) Hoit
An urgent pro-slavery treatise from 1860 uses pseudo-philosophical logic to argue that human bondage is a benevolent, necessary force that preserves the American Republic from imminent collapse.

The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion
George P. (George Perkins) Bissell
A nine-month enlistment carries a northern regiment into the sweltering bayous of Louisiana, where raw recruits face disease, grueling marches, and bloody combat before returning home with their ranks forever thinned.