Free summaries
History - American — page 35
1,672 public-domain history - american books, summarised. Page 35 of 35.

History of the 159th Regiment, N.Y.S.V
Edward Duffy
The march of a volunteer regiment unfolds across the map of a fractured nation, tracing the jagged intersection of personal sacrifice and national duty. This record chronicles the evolution of citizen-soldiers into battle-hardened veterans through the crucible of the Civil War.

History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: Beverly Ford
Daniel Oakey
The cavalry screen is drawn back, revealing a landscape of clashing sabers, shifting loyalties, and the raw, kinetic energy of a war-weary army finally finding its footing.

Civil Government for Common Schools: Prepared as a Manual for Public Instruction in the State of New York
Henry C. Northam
Henry C. Northam’s educational manual outlines the practical mechanics of civil government in New York State and the broader American federal system.

The Log of the Empire State
Geneve L. A. Shaffer
Steaming across the Pacific on a floating palace, a delegation of San Francisco business leaders embarks on a three-month diplomatic mission to explore the shifting economic and cultural landscapes of the Orient.

The promise of the bell
Agnes Repplier
The Liberty Bell’s resonant message of freedom serves as a bridge between the founding of a nation and the enduring human quest for a meaningful, shared life.

San Francisco and the Nicaragua Canal
William L. (William Lawrence) Merry
Building a trans-oceanic canal in Nicaragua represents a vital national necessity, promising to secure American military influence and revolutionize global commerce while fostering the rapid development of the Pacific Coast.

Welcome to the ransomed
Daniel Alexander Payne
This sermon, delivered in 1862, serves as a profound call to responsibility for newly emancipated African Americans in Washington, D.C. It bridges the gap between divine faith and civic duty during the American Civil War.

Who were the Pilgrims?
William T. (William Thomas) Davis
This historical account clarifies the complex religious origins of the Pilgrims, tracing their evolution from the English Reformation to the eventual establishment of the Plymouth Colony. It offers a meticulous look at the theological divides that shaped a nation.

Sometub's cruise on the C. & O. canal
John Pryor Cowan
Trailing behind mules on a homemade motorboat, two travelers trade the modern world for the slow rhythms of America’s oldest canal.

The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 59, December 23, 1897: A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls
Various
The world of 1897 is a volatile tapestry of shifting empires, colonial ambitions, and domestic transitions, captured here as the news of the hour for a young audience.

Ramsey & Carmick, contract.: Letter from the Postmaster General transmitting copy of a conditional mail contract
Various
This document captures the administrative death of a bold, ambitious plan to create a faster “national highway” for mail between the Atlantic and Pacific via a shortcut through the heart of Mexico.

Reply of the Philadelphia Brigade Association to the Foolish and Absurd Narrative of Lieutenant Frank A. Haskell
Philadelphia Brigade Association
This defensive polemic serves as a sharp, corrective retort from Civil War veterans, refuting a posthumous, widely publicized narrative that maligned their unit’s conduct during the Battle of Gettysburg.

The Third Day at Stone's River
G. C. Kniffin
The Battle of Stones River serves as a crucible of American resolve, where tactical miscalculations and desperate acts of valor converged to determine the fate of a nation. This account chronicles the harrowing final days of a struggle that tested the endurance of every soldier in the field.

Last Days of the Rebellion: The Second New York Cavalry (Harris' Light) at Appomattox Station and Appomattox Court House, April 8 and 9, 1865
Alanson M. Randol
A front-line account of the final maneuvers that severed the Confederate escape route, forcing the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox.

The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 51, October 28, 1897: A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls
Various
The world at the close of the nineteenth century feels both vast and increasingly connected, as distant political tremors and local innovations begin to reshape the daily lives of citizens everywhere.

History of Company K. 1st (Inft,) Penn'a Reserves
H. N. (Henry N.) Minnigh
The boys from Gettysburg who marched away in 1861 return here through the lens of one who led them, offering a rare, intimate view of the everyday life and eventual thinning of a single Civil War infantry company.

The American Missionary
Various
This monthly periodical offers a candid, firsthand window into the late 19th-century mission field, documenting the challenges and triumphs of educational work among formerly enslaved people, Native Americans, and Chinese immigrants.

The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 50, October 21, 1897: A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls
Various
This collection serves as a window into the global pulse of 1897, detailing shifting alliances, colonial unrest, and the rapid pace of technological innovation at the turn of the century.

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 Way to Abolish Slavery
Charles (Abolitionist) Stearns
A radical vision for dismantling the institution of chattel slavery through the immediate and total severance of the North from the South.

The American Missionary
Various
This collection of reports and correspondence chronicles the late-19th-century efforts of the American Missionary Association to establish schools and churches for marginalized populations across the United States.

The Story of the Raising and Organization of a Regiment of Volunteers in 1862: Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Commandery of the District of Columbia, War Papers 46
Ellis Spear
A candid, unvarnished look at how a thousand civilian "greenhorns" were hurriedly transformed into a disciplined combat regiment during the frantic months of the American Civil War.

A battery at close quarters
Henry M. (Henry Moore) Neil
A firsthand account of an artillery unit’s harrowing resilience, this narrative captures the visceral reality of fighting at point-blank range during two of the most desperate battles of the American Civil War.

The American Missionary
Various
This collection serves as a chronicle of 19th-century American missionary fervor, documenting the moral arguments, operational struggles, and grassroots fundraising that fueled efforts to educate and evangelize marginalized populations across the nation.

The Menace of Prohibition
Lulu Wightman
The American republic stands at a crossroads, where the siren call of moral reform threatens to dismantle the very foundations of individual liberty and self-governance. Vigilance is the only armor against the creeping tide of collective tyranny.

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Second Convention of Delegates from the Abolition Societies Established in Different Parts of the United States: Assembled at Philadelphia, on the seventh day of January
Unknown
These minutes document the formal gathering of the American abolitionist movement during its infancy, detailing the strategic debates and legislative efforts of early antislavery societies. Through rigorous record-keeping, these proceedings reveal how a network of state-level organizations attempted to coordinate a…

The Discards
Lucullus Virgil McWhorter
This polemical pamphlet serves as a fierce, primary-source denunciation of the systemic corruption and broken promises governing the Yakima Reservation in the early twentieth century. It exposes the harsh reality of life for those systematically disenfranchised by the Indian Bureau.

The Tree That Saved Connecticut
Henry Fisk Carlton
The Charter Oak remains one of American history’s most enduring symbols of defiance, a legend brought to vivid life through the intimate, immediate medium of a radio play.

Army of the Cumberland and the Battle of Stone's River
G. C. Kniffin
HOOK This account captures the harrowing intensity of the Battle of Stones River, where the Army of the Cumberland faced its ultimate test of endurance against the Confederate forces in the winter of 1862.

Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 130, vol. III, June 26, 1886
Various
The Victorian era was a time of boundless curiosity, where the grand geopolitical questions of maritime blockade sat comfortably alongside the latest breakthroughs in chemistry and the gritty realities of colonial life.

The Battle of Stone River
Henry Myron Kendall
The Battle of Stone River offers a precise, dispassionate examination of a pivotal Civil War engagement, analyzing how strategic blunders and mirrored plans nearly destroyed the Union’s foothold in Tennessee.

The Ancient Banner
Anonymous
This narrative poem traces the emergence of the Society of Friends, chronicling their commitment to an inward light and the severe persecution they endured to establish a faith defined by peace and conscience.

Sketch of the First Kentucky Brigade
George B. (George Baird) Hodge
Exiled from their homes and defying both state and federal authority, a small band of Kentuckians fights for a cause they believe defines their honor. This is the chronicle of their journey through the Civil War's crucible.

Governor Winthrop's Return to Boston: An Interview with a Great Character
George Washington Warren
Governor Winthrop returns to a transformed Boston in 1880, conversing with a local writer about two and a half centuries of growth, the permanence of the spirit, and the enduring legacy of early institutions.

The future of Brooklyn
Alfred Clark Chapin
Rapid municipal growth requires deliberate civic preparation, lest burgeoning populations outstrip the fundamental physical infrastructure necessary to sustain urban civilization.

Peonage
Lafayette M. Hershaw
Beneath the shadow of constitutional freedom, a vast system of coerced labor silently bound thousands of Black Americans to the soil long after the abolition of chattel slavery.

The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, November 4, 1897, No. 52: A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls
Various
The world turns on shifting tides of war, invention, and daily struggle, recorded week by week as history unfolds before our eyes.

Notes on a Tour Through the Western part of The State of New York
Anonymous
An anonymous Philadelphia traveler journeys through the burgeoning towns, grand canals, and untamed wilderness of western New York in 1829.

Roster of Company I, 24th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers
Charles Bean Amory
A meticulous military ledger records the names, ages, homes, and fates of ordinary volunteers who marched into the American Civil War.

Conduct of Sir William Howe
Israel Mauduit
A military commander’s failure to secure a decisive victory in the American Revolution becomes a scathing case study in professional inertia and missed strategic opportunity. This inquiry dissects a general’s lethargy with cold, forensic precision.