Akron Public Library

"Born a free man in New York State in 1808, Solomon Northup was kidnapped in Washington, D.C., in 1841. He spent the next twelve harrowing years of his life as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation. During this time he was frequently abused and often afraid for his life. After regaining his freedom in 1853, Northup decided to publish this gripping autobiographical account of his captivity. As an educated man, Northup was able to present an exceptionally...

This is a fascinating autobiography of Baby Doe Tabor, the second wife of pioneer Colorado businessman Horace Tabor, whose rags-to-riches and back to rags again story made her a well-known figure in her own day, and at one time hailed as the "best dressed woman in the West." It was during Baby Doe's final years of her life living in a shack on the site of the Matchless Mine, enduring great poverty, solitude, and repentance, that fellow Coloradan...

A masterful biography of the Civil War general and two-term president who saved the Union twice, on the battlefield and in the White House, holding the country together at two critical turning points in our history.

"Stephen Crane's immortal masterpiece about the nightmare of war was first published in 1895 and brought its young author immediate international fame. Set during the Civil War, it tells of the brutal disillusionment of a young recruit who had dreamed of the thrill and glory of war, only to find himself fleeing the horror of a battlefield. Shame over his cowardice drives him to seek to redeem himself by being wounded -- earning what he calls the "red...

"From the National Book Award-winning and best-selling author Timothy Egan comes the epic story of one of the most fascinating and colorful Irishman in nineteenth-century America. The Irish-American story, with all its twists and triumphs, is told through the improbable life of one man. A dashing young orator during the Great Famine of the 1840s, in which a million of his Irish countrymen died, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against...

"In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North....

"No novel could contain more dramatic events than the history of Cripple Creek."Wyoming Library Roundup "This is the fascinating story of the great Cripple Creek gold mines. But it is not told with fantasy: here are the plain facts of one of the most unbelievable incidents of our history, of a place in the Colorado mountains where a man threw his hat into the air, dug where it fell, and struck a rich vein of ore. . . . It is a fascinating...

Recounts the events of the pivotal Civil War battle of Gettysburg, offering a narrative of each moment of the campaign, the lives of officers and common soldiers on both sides, and the individual conflicts and skirmishes.

In the spring of 1862, many Americans still believed that the Civil War, "would be over by Christmas." The previous summer in Virginia, Bull Run, with nearly 5,000 casualties, had been shocking, but suddenly came word from a far away place in the wildernesses of Southwest Tennessee of an appalling battle costing 23,000 casualties, most of them during a single day. It was more than had resulted from the entire American Revolution. As author Winston...

"Born a tanner’s son in rugged Ohio in 1822 and battle-tested by the Mexican American War, Grant met his destiny on the bloody fields of the Civil War. His daring and resolve as a general gained the attention of President Lincoln, then desperate for bold leadership. Lincoln appointed Grant as Lieutenant General of the Union Army in March 1864. Within a year, Grant’s forces had seized Richmond and forced Robert E. Lee to surrender. Four years...