The first comprehensive history of the state since the publication of Thomas D. Clark's landmark History of Kentucky over sixty years ago. A New History of Kentucky brings the Commonwealth to life, from Pikeville to the Purchase, from Covington to Corbin, this account reveals Kentucky's many faces and deep traditions. Lowell Harrison, professor emeritus of history at Western Kentucky University, is the author of many books, including George Rogers Clark and the War in the West, The Civil War in Kentucky, Kentucky's Road to Statehood, Lincoln of Kentucky, and Kentucky's Governors.
Alarmed by infringements upon American commerce during the Napoleonic Wars, Kentuckians were early proponents of war with Great Britain. As a frontier state, Kentucky feared exposure to raids by British troops and their Indian allies. And so, when President Madison finally obtained a declaration of war, patriotic Kentuckians rushed to arms. Kentucky's involvement in the agitation for war and in the war itself had political, social, and psychological consequences for the Commonwealth. In this compelling narrative, author James Wallace Hammack, Jr., traces those consequences and Kentucky's role in the developments of the war, which Kentuckians viewed as an effort to secure the American victory won in the Revolution.
James McPherson has emerged as one of America's finest historians. Battle Cry of Freedom, his Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times Book Review, called "history writing of the highest order." In that volume, McPherson gathered in the broad sweep of events, the political, social, and cultural forces at work during the Civil War era. Now, in Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, he offers a series of thoughtful and engaging essays on aspects of Lincoln and the war that have rarely been discussed in depth. McPherson again displays his keen insight and sterling prose as he examines several critical themes in American history. He looks closely at the President's role as Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces, showing how Lincoln forged a national military strategy for victory. He explores the importance of Lincoln's great rhetorical skills, uncovering how--through parables and figurative language--he was uniquely able to communicate both the purpose of the war and a new meaning of liberty to the people of the North. In another section, McPherson examines the Civil War as a Second American Revolution, describing how the Republican Congress elected in 1860 passed an astonishing blitz of new laws (rivaling the first hundred days of the New Deal), and how the war not only destroyed the social structure of the old South, but radically altered the balance of power in America, ending 70 years of Southern power in the national government. The Civil War was the single most transforming and defining experience in American history, and Abraham Lincoln remains the most important figure in the pantheon of our mythology. These graceful essays, written by one of America's leading historians, offer fresh and unusual perspectives on both.
Alarmed by infringements upon American commerce during the Napoleonic Wars, Kentuckians were early proponents of war with Great Britain. As a frontier state, Kentucky feared exposure to raids by British troops and their Indian allies. And so, when President Madison finally obtained a declaration of war, patriotic Kentuckians rushed to arms. Kentucky's involvement in the agitation for war and in the war itself had political, social, and psychological consequences for the Commonwealth. In this compelling narrative, author James Wallace Hammack, Jr., traces those consequences and Kentucky's role in the developments of the war, which Kentuckians viewed as an effort to secure the American victory won in the Revolution.
This panoramic account of 1776 chronicles the other revolutions unfolding that year across North America, far beyond the British colonies. In this unique history of 1776, Claudio Saunt looks beyond the familiar story of the thirteen colonies to explore the many other revolutions roiling the turbulent American continent. In that fateful year, the Spanish landed in San Francisco, the Russians pushed into Alaska to hunt valuable sea otters, and the Sioux discovered the Black Hills. Hailed by critics for challenging our conventional view of the birth of America, West of the Revolution “[coaxes] our vision away from the Atlantic seaboard” and “exposes a continent seething with peoples and purposes beyond Minutemen and Redcoats” (Wall Street Journal).
The Instant New York Times Besteller National Bestseller "[The] authors’ finest work to date." —Wall Street Journal The explosive true saga of the legendary figure Daniel Boone and the bloody struggle for America's frontier by two bestselling authors at the height of their writing power—Bob Drury and Tom Clavin. It is the mid-eighteenth century, and in the thirteen colonies founded by Great Britain, anxious colonists desperate to conquer and settle North America’s “First Frontier” beyond the Appalachian Mountains commence a series of bloody battles. These violent conflicts are waged against the Native American tribes whose lands they covet, the French, and the mother country itself in an American Revolution destined to reverberate around the world. This is the setting of Blood and Treasure, and the guide to this epic narrative is America’s first and arguably greatest pathfinder, Daniel Boone—not the coonskin cap-wearing caricature of popular culture but the flesh-and-blood frontiersman and Revolutionary War hero whose explorations into the forested frontier beyond the great mountains would become the stuff of legend. Now, thanks to painstaking research by two award-winning authors, the story of the brutal birth of the United States is told through the eyes of both the ordinary and larger-than-life men and women who witnessed it. This fast-paced and fiery narrative, fueled by contemporary diaries and journals, newspaper reports, and eyewitness accounts, is a stirring chronicle of the conflict over America’s “First Frontier” that places the reader at the center of this remarkable epoch and its gripping tales of courage and sacrifice.
" The embodiment of the American hero, the man of action, the pathfinder, Daniel Boone represents the great adventure of his age—the westward movement of the American people. Daniel Boone: An American Life brings together over thirty years of research in an extraordinary biography of the quintessential pioneer. Based on primary sources, the book depicts Boone through the eyes of those who knew him and within the historical contexts of his eighty-six years. The story of Daniel Boone offers new insights into the turbulent birth and growth of the nation and demonstrates why the frontier forms such a significant part of the American experience.
In 1780, during the Revolutionary War, Kentucky was invaded by 200 British and Canadian soldiers and 800 Native American warriors. They surrounded and compelled to surrender two small American settlements called Ruddell's Fort and Martin's Station. The people there were simply farmers with families. At Ruddell's Fort British Captain Henry Bird promised that settlers would be protected from the Indians and remain in the custody of the English. As soon as the gates opened in surrender, the Indians rushed in, killing some settlers and brutally seizing the rest as slaves, adoptees and prisoners. Every man, woman and child was claimed.All of the families from Ruddell's Fort and Martin's Station, amounting to about 400 people, were kidnapped by the British and Indians and forced on a 500-mile death march to the British stronghold at Fort Detroit. Short on food and driven at a relentless pace, the prisoners endured a reign of terror the entire journey. Family members were separated, not knowing what became of each other. Young and old who slowed the column were killed. Babies were thrown into the fire and to the wayside. Women drowned and were tomahawked. Shocked and dazed by the experience, the American settlers were held as prisoners of war for two and a half years. They were finally welcomed home by General George Washington at army headquarters in Newburgh, New York.This true story is told through the experience of the Mahan family, which traveled the Wilderness Road from Virginia to Martin's Station in an optimistic search for a new life. Instead they found death and imprisonment. All known names of the captives are listed in the book.
Rebels on the Border offers a remarkably compelling and significant study of the Civil War South's highly contested and bloodiest border states: Kentucky and Missouri. By far the most complex examination to date, the book sharply focuses on the "borderland" between the free North and the Confederate South. As a result, Rebels on the Border deepens and enhances understanding of the sectional conflict, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. After slaves in central Kentucky and Missouri gained their emancipation, author Aaron Astor contends, they transformed informal kin and social networks of resistance against slavery into more formalized processes of electoral participation and institution building. At the same time, white politics in Kentucky's Bluegrass and Missouri's Little Dixie underwent an electoral realignment in response to the racial and social revolution caused by the war and its aftermath. Black citizenship and voting rights provoked a violent white reaction and a cultural reinterpretation of white regional identity. After the war, the majority of wartime Unionists in the Bluegrass and Little Dixie joined former Confederate guerrillas in the Democratic Party in an effort to stifle the political ambitions of former slaves. Rebels on the Border is not simply a story of bitter political struggles, partisan guerrilla warfare, and racial violence. Like no other scholarly account of Kentucky and Missouri during the Civil War, it places these two crucial heartland states within the broad context of local, southern, and national politics.
A true American woodsman, Daniel Boone is remembered for his exploration of Kentucky and the establishment in 1775 of the "Boonesborough" settlement. This exciting book describes his legendary exploits as a trapper and soldier, his meetings with the Shawnee and Cherokee, and his lasting legacy in helping to build the 'Wilderness Road' - one of the most historic highways in America. Other topics include - his early life and Quaker upbringing - how he traveled and lived in the backwoods of America - the attack on the Boonesborough settlement - the French and Indian War - The effect of the Stamp Act Teacher's guide available.
